Deadly Beloved

Her eyes widened, just a little. “Then I was...used.”

“You were used. Manipulated.” I sat forward and held her eyes with mine. “But you will get your life back, Marcy.”

“No I won’t,” she said.

With an awful casualness.

For several long moments, I just sat staring at the impassive face. The drugs she was on now, correct as they were, did provide a certain Zen-like state of calm, but it was every bit as artificial as the voices she’d once heard.

“Don’t think...” she began. She sighed. Composed herself. “Don’t think I’m not grateful, Michael. I’m very grateful...but Richard is still dead. And I still killed him...Richard, and some...some poor unfortunate woman who never did a single thing to me....”

Then Marcy hung up the phone, forced a small terrible smile, nodded to me and to Bernie—the protectors who could free her from the legal system but not her own judgment—and turned herself over to the attending policewoman, to be escorted out and back to her cell.

Just outside the door, in the corridor, Bernie and I paused for a moment.

The wind out of his sails now, the attorney said, “You know, Ms. Tree—no matter how hard we try... how much good we do...in our business, happy endings are goddamned hard to come by.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Closure has its place, Bernie,” I said. “It helps heal...but there’s always some scarring.”

He nodded.

“And if you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I have some closure of my own to take care of.”

That night, at the apartment that was now mine but had once been Mike’s, I sat up in bed, pillows propped behind me. I wore the top of a pair of black silk men’s pajamas, blankets down around my thighs but the sheet coming up fairly high.

Sheer curtains let the lights of the city in and the traffic pulse broken by the occasional siren let you know the world was still out there. But the only light on in the bedroom was the muted one on the nightstand on the side of the double bed that was reserved for the likes of Chic Steele.

Who had just arrived—both our evenings had gotten away from us, and neither of us had felt like meeting for a late bite. So when Chic suggested he stop over and “cut straight to dessert,” I didn’t argue.

Even at the end of the day Chic Steele looked crisp and sharp—I’d always secretly hated him a little for that. I’ve never known a professional woman who didn’t wilt by the end of a long business day, and that certain men could pull off perpetual freshness was an annoyance and, somehow, an insult.

His gray suit was an Armani and he was just getting started in stripping down, loosening the darker gray silk tie.

He said, “And the word on Roger’s good?”

“Very good,” I said. “Slug went in and out—nothing vital hit. I told him he was lucky they tried for his heart, since he doesn’t have one.”

“Ha,” Chic said, arranging his suitcoat over the back of the nearby chair. His shoulder holster with the .38 Police Special was brown and didn’t quite go with the blue-gray shirt.

“It was blood loss,” I went on, “that put Roger in that hospital room.”

Chic slipped off the shoulder holster and slung it over the chair. He shot me a thoughtful frown. “What d’you make of that Salvadoran hit woman?”

I shrugged. “You’re the OCU guy—what do you make of her?”

He was unbuttoning his shirt cuffs now. “Never heard of the woman, but there’s a lot of players on that team.”

“What about the feds?”

Now he was unbuttoning the shirt, nodding. “There was a federal package on Ms. Marquez, which I’m having shipped electronically to Rafe, once some red tape is cut and a few i’s are dotted and t’s crossed.... Those p.j.’s new?”

“Old,” I said, gesturing to the black silk men’s pajamas. “Mike’s.”

His shirt was untucked and he was getting out of it. “Well, he’d have been proud of you today, Michael.”

“Really think so?”

“Sure.” He draped the shirt over a chair arm. “Only, what the hell’s a California Latin gang’s connection to a Chicago Loop accounting firm, d’you suppose?”

“I’m not sure there is one.”

“Oh?” He pulled his t-shirt off, revealing a well-tanned torso and admirable abs. Abs of Steele, I’d kidded him, more than once.

I said, “Roger wasn’t even working the Addwatter case.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to me, getting his shoes off—Italian loafers. “Really? I figured you’d pulled him in, and turned him loose on—”

“But there is a connection.”

He was shaking his head, tugging off his socks now. “First you say there isn’t one, then you say—”

“A Muerta connection.”

He got onto his bare feet and turned to face me. “Michael, my people’ve been looking for a link between these new ethnic factions and the old Muerta mob for months...hell, over a year.”

“Not surprising,” I said. “You’re in a perfect position, after all.”

He was removing his belt. “Perfect position to do what?”

He tossed the belt on the chair.

“Cover up,” I said with a tiny shrug. “Misdirect. Head your people down blind alleys.”

He unzipped.

“What, Michael, are you kidding?”

He stepped out of his pants, change and keys jingling, and folded them over the chair.

I didn’t answer his question. Not directly.

I said, “Thing is...Mike kept things from me.”

He was in only his boxers now. Pale blue with white trim, including the fly.

“I was his partner,” Chic said with a shrug of his muscular shoulders. “He kept things from me, too.”

He got out of the boxers, exposing the untanned white skin, tossing the shorts on the chair and climbing under the covers with me.

“Oh, I know,” I said. “Like the real reason he left the department.”

We were side by side in bed now. He propped up his pillows and settled in, comfy, then positioned himself to gaze at me.

Pillow talk.

“I know the real reason,” he said. “To open his own agency. He’d been dreaming and planning for years.”

I nodded. “Sure, that was part of it. But it also gave Mike a safe base of operations. Safer, anyway.”

Chic shook his head a little. “Afraid I’m not following.”

“Oh sure you are. Mike and Roger both quit the force, at the same time, to go private. But their agenda included continuing a certain ongoing investigation—one that couldn’t be safely conducted within the department.”

He squinted at me, like I’d just gone badly out of focus. “What investigation?”

“Police corruption,” I said, matter of fact. “PD ties to organized crime.”

His forehead tightened. So did his voice. “You can’t be serious—I helped Mike put Muerta away!”

“Right. You put Old Man Muerta away, and within months, he dies. Terminal illness. Setting the stage for Dominique to take over, the good daughter who wanted to go strictly legitimate, right?”

His smirk was dismissive. “We’ve found nothing indicating otherwise.”

“Not with you in charge of the OCU they haven’t!” I let nastiness into my smile, finally, and my tone. “The only thing I’m unsure about is whether Mike knew about you....”

He shifted, propped by an elbow. He gave me a hard, sincere gaze. “Nothing to