Deadly Beloved

a great face on this business, grieving widow stepping in for her murdered husband.”

Roger, astounded, stared at the younger detective. “Is that all it is to you, Danny? Business?”

Dan shrugged. “You’re the one talking partners and percentages, Roge.”

I said, “Dan’s correct, Roger—I do hold fifty percent of this agency. You want me to buy you out, I’ll make the arrangements.”

His face stone, Roger said, “Do it then.”

I leaned forward and tried to take anything adversarial out of my tone and my expression. “Roger, I’m not asking you to leave.”

He grunted and his sneer was full-blown now. “And I’m not asking your goddamn permission. I’m senior partner here.”

Dan was giving Roger an offended sideways look. “We all started the same day, Roge.”

Roger, clearly disappointed in his young partner, leaned toward him and said, “Age and experience matter, Danny boy. Ought to, anyway.” Then his gaze swung to me. “If you vacate that chair, and turn it over to me...Miz Tree...then, well, no hard feelings.”

Coolly, I said, “The name on the door is Michael Tree.”

He snorted a laugh. “Real cute.”

He rose.

And said, “I got no desire to work for a glorified meter maid....” He paused on the way out to say, “You’ll hear from my attorney.”

He slammed the door.

Dan gave me a half-smile as he said, “Well, Roger can be kind of a prick sometimes.”

“Didn’t notice,” I said.

Then Dan’s expression turned serious as he said, “Still, that’s a bad loss, Ms. Tree. A lot of experience and knowledge just walked out that door. He’s a better a detective than either of us.”

“Point’s moot,” I said. “He doesn’t work here anymore.”

“Something about that little scene nagged at me, Doc.”

“How so?”

“True, I’d never really gotten along all that great with Roger, but this...this seemed over the top.”

“In what way?”

“It just seemed...calculated. Even staged. I mean, looking back on it, the whole...’I’m not working for a woman’ chauvinist pig routine...I just couldn’t buy it.”

“Is that why, on the Addwatter matter, you gave in to Mr. Green, and said you would at least talk to Mr. Freemont about this particular case?”

“Yes. For a whole year, it had been bothering me, and I felt I should’ve confronted Freemont about these feelings a long time ago. Going to see him was overdue.”

The Axminster Building on Van Buren was a survivor, many of its era having been long since demolished.

The floor I walked down—past offices of wood-framed pebbled glass, my heels echoing like gunshots off black-and-white speckled marble—reminded me of everything from childhood visits to dentists and doctors to adult calls on insurance agencies and travel bureaus. Only one out of perhaps four offices was filled here on the seventh floor, so the building was in its death throes, the wrecker ball’s shadow looming.

The frosted glass said:

SUITE 714

FREEMONT INVESTIGATIONS ROGER FREEMONT, PRES. APPOINTMENT ONLY

I wasn’t down in his book, but what the hell—he probably wouldn’t have agreed to see me, anyway. I went on in.

Roger Freemont, in rolled-up shirtsleeves and loosened tie, looked up from paperwork to glare at me from behind his dark-rimmed glasses. “What part of ‘appointment only’ don’t you understand?”

Ah, a year passes with Roger and yet it’s as if no time at all has gone by....

I shut the door. “Thought you might make an exception, and see me without an appointment. For old times’ sake.”

“Would it kill you to knock? This isn’t much, but it is my office.”

He was right—it wasn’t much. This was a single room, not terribly big, no reception area—hell, no receptionist—just broad-shouldered Roger at a big battered wooden desk, wooden file cabinets lined up St. Valentine’s Day Massacre-style on the opposite wall, and several hardback client chairs under a high ceiling that was home to a shut-off ceiling fan and peeling paint.

The only sign that this was not a P.I.’s office in a 1940s film noir was the laptop computer on the scarred desk.

“Actually, I do apologize for bursting in on you,” I said, meaning it, moving toward one of the two client chairs opposite him. “I expected an outer office...a receptionist....”

“It’s a one-man agency, Mrs. Tree,” he said crisply. “Just the essentials.”

I stood next to one of the chairs, but didn’t seat myself. I tried out a smile. “Shouldn’t the essentials include a shapely secretary and a bottle of whiskey in the bottom desk drawer?...And it’s ‘Ms.’ Tree, remember.”

“I remember,” he said, his eyes cold and unblinking. He had the look of a high school science teacher who coached football on the side. “What do you want? I’m a busy guy.”

“Mind if I sit?” I said, and sat. “Thanks.”

“Always a pleasure,” he said dryly.

I crossed my legs, supported my purse in my lap, gloves still on—didn’t want him to think I was settling in for the afternoon. But only the literal gloves stayed on. “You know, Roger, you’ve always been kind of a prick.”

He pursed his lips and he wasn’t throwing a kiss. “You can’t imagine how hearing you say that devastates me.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and smiled again. “But not as big a prick as this....Not the raging asshole who quit me right when I needed him most.”

That hit home.

A corner of his mouth twitched and, behind the lenses, the eyes finally blinked, and blinked some more. Suddenly he was ill at ease.

Good.

“Look,” he began, “I, uh, I really am busy. What the hell do you want, anyway?”

I leaned forward. “How much do I need to fill you in? Has Rafe ever shared his theory about this so-called Event Planner with you?”

Roger shrugged. “What if he has.”

“You do know that Dan and I are working the Addwatter case.”

“Sure. It’s been all over the media.” Another shrug. “Looks pretty open and shut. Whacko wife snuffs hubby and his hobby.”

“Right,” I said, nodding. “That’s how it looks. But Dan and I think what happened with Marcy Addwatter is one of those ‘events.’ ”

He drew in a breath. Let it out.

Then he admitted, “Has all the earmarks.”

“So does a certain other case.”

“What certain other case?”

“Mike’s murder.”

He tasted his tongue. “Is, uh, that what Rafe says?”

I shifted, re-crossing my legs. “Rafe says the cops aren’t interested in solved cases. And he’s been good enough to hand eight files over to me. And to Dan. You remember Dan.”

“I remember Dan.”

“He could use your help. I could use your help.... Are you getting this, Roger? We