Deadly Beloved

“Right. But a patient on medication, stabilized for years? Why would the voices in her head start striking up conversations now?”

“Was she still on her meds?”

“Yes! That’s my understanding, at least. Ms. Tree, you’ve got to help me.”

“No, Bernie.”

He looked crestfallen. “No?”

I stood. “I’ve got to help her.”

THREE

In the lower level, which is to say basement, of police headquarters on South State Street, I found Lt. Rafe Valer in one of the eight cubicles on the firing range.

Black, in his early thirties, Rafe—in a yellow shirt and a copper-color tie slung out of the way—was so angularly handsome he didn’t look ridiculous in those black-padded earmuffs and the wraparound sunglass-style eye protection. How I looked in the same gear—required of all who set foot on the range—I couldn’t tell you.

I was standing behind Rafe, with a great view as he fired off six rounds from his .38 Police Special, and earmuffs or not, those ringing reports got my attention. The cartoon perp twenty-five yards away had a cluster of shots on his heart.

Rafe half-turned, reloading, and noticed me. He nodded and almost smiled.

“I’ve seen better,” I said.

“That’s why I come in evenings,” he said, in his mellow radio announcer’s baritone, “when this place is a ghost town.”

“Does it help?”

“Does what help?”

I nodded toward the target. “That it’s a white guy.”

He chuckled, snapped the cylinder shut on the reloaded weapon and said, casually, “You’re evil.”

“If so,” I said, sidling up to him, “why do I rate the special privileges?”

“Like what? Civilian access to the firing range?”

I folded my arms and gazed up at him with one eyebrow arched. “Like paving the way for me seeing Marcy Addwatter when the smoke from her handgun’s barely cleared.”

“Actually,” he said lightly, “those were smokeless rounds.”

“Rafe....”

He gave me a serious look. The half-lidded eyes behind the protective glasses were as dark as burnished mahogany. “I don’t like to be manipulated.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning this Addwatter case is too damn pat.” He shook his head, lifted his shoulders. “This is a woman with mental problems, kept under control, by medication, for years...who suddenly flies off the handle? Why?”

I shrugged. “Hubby’s chubbies?”

The dark-brown eyes narrowed. “Did Bernie Levine tell you about the prior incidents?”

“What prior incidents?”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ ” Rafe let some air out. His free hand rested on his hip. “Back when Rich Addwatter was catting around, his wife took a potshot at him on one occasion, and on another, her aim improving, put him in the hospital with a bullet in the upper arm.”

“Is that all?”

“Actually, no. She also clobbered him, once, with a glass ashtray.”

“By that do you mean, clobbered him once, or once upon a time clobbered him?”

“Both apply. And it’s no joke—left him a scar. Gave the poor bastard migraines.”

I shrugged again. “It’s a joke compared to getting shot and killed with a ‘date’ in a sleazy motel room. And, anyway, he’s probably over his headaches now.”

“Some headaches,” Rafe said, as he stared me down, “hang on after you’d figure they wouldn’t.”

I ignored that. “So these past ‘incidents,’ even though she’s been medically stabilized ever since, make her the perfect perp.”

He nodded but he didn’t look happy about it.

“And from Homicide’s point of view, this is a closed case?”

“It should be. It really should. But I swear, Michael—somebody set that poor woman in motion...then expected us to buy it at face value.”

“On the surface, this one’s about as open-and-shut as they come.”

“That’s what bothers me—it’s all surface...but such a perfect surface, we won’t need to dig.”

“And that’s why you’re helping Bernie Levine out, and getting me free passes to the visitor’s room at lock- up.”

He said nothing, but that might have been a smile.

I held my hand out. “May I?”

He shook his head, but put the .38 in my hand and said, “Be my guest. You want a fresh target?”

“No. You left plenty to play with.”

“I’m anxious to see what you can do. After all, you said you’d seen better....”

“Back off and let a woman in.”

Rafe stepped out of the cubicle and I took his place and assumed the proper stance.

I took half a second to aim before my six shots blurred into one roar, and twenty-five feet down, the little puckers in the paper clustered even tighter than Rafe’s had, only mine were centered on the cartoon perp’s forehead.

My smile was smug, I admit it, when I returned the empty weapon to Rafe’s outstretched hand. Cordite smell hung in the air like a curtain that had dropped after my performance.

He was grinning again, shaking his head a little, clearly impressed. He emptied the spent shells from the .38’s cylinder into a waist-high tray at the shooter’s station; the shells made a brittle rainfall.

Then his expression turned innocent. “Does it help?”

I just looked at him.

He nodded toward the head-shredded target down there. “That it’s a guy?”

I rewarded him with a little laugh, then asked, “What do you know about this case that I don’t, Rafe? Come on. Spill.”

He was looking past me, toward the target, reflective suddenly. “You know, Michael, I’m not surprised you quit the force. You really were wasted in Records.”

“That was where you met your husband,” the doctor said.

“That’s right. Records. Mike Tree was a lieutenant with Homicide, and me? I was a glorified clerk. My father had been a career cop, most decorations in the history of the department, and thus far in my so- called career, I’d been a damn drudge, a grunt in Records, a uniformed policewoman copying information from official forms into a computer file.”

“So you quit.”

“No, doc, Rafe was wrong: I didn’t quit, not exactly.”

“But you did quit...”

“I resigned.”

“Odd distinction.”

I sighed. “Okay. Let’s just say, quitting hadn’t been my idea.”

He shifted in the chair and the leather squeaked. “Please explain.”

Mike Tree was just this big fullback-looking guy with a military crewcut and gentle blue-green eyes and an unforgiving square jaw and the kind of battered good looks that some women find sexy. Unfortunately, I was one of them.

He was legendary around the department as one of the toughest cops in town, though it was the kind of tough that people usually tagged “but fair” after. He flirted with every woman on the department, whether cute or