Memory of Murder

on her neck, but before any of that could fully register in her consciousness, he took his mouth away from hers, exhaled sharply and wrapped both arms around her and pulled her close. He held her that way, as if they’d both just come through a terrifying moment together, and she felt his heart thumping against her chest and realized her arms had gone around him, and that she didn’t want to let him go. He held her for a long time, and it seemed to her he didn’t want to let her go, either.

But he did. He drew back with a soft laugh of apology, and a breathy, “Well…”

She drew back, too, and managed to laugh, a little. “Um…” she said, and then, “yeah.”

“So…okay, then. I’ll call you.” He got in his car, closed the door, started up the motor and drove away.

Unsteadily, she walked to her car, paused to wave at the house, knowing that behind those silent windows her dad would be watching. She got in, started up the motor, and drove away, following the route back to her office on autopilot, while somewhere in the back of her mind a voice, like a little yippy dog, was barking, Wait! Wait! What just happened? Are you just going to ignore it? Hey!

In firm and determined voice, she answered herself: I can’t think about this now. I…will…not… think…about it.

The Homicide Unit was enjoying a relatively calm period, in the wake of the flare-up of gang violence the previous week. Alan spent Monday afternoon following up leads in a couple of open cases and trying not to think about the very large dollhouse sitting in the back of his SUV. And having considerably better luck with that than not thinking about the woman who’d put it there. And particularly about what had happened right after they’d put it there.

So, what, exactly, did happen? You kissed her-big deal. You’ve kissed her before, a couple of times-so what? It was part of the cover story. Part of the job.

Yeah, true…but it wasn’t even the kissing that bothered him so much, as what had happened after that. Kissing her had been necessary, maybe, for their cover, but not the holding. He didn’t even know where it had come from, that sudden need to hold her. And then, to find it so hard to let her go… and hours later to still be feeling the shape of her in his arms, her warm body melting into his, her heart thumping against his ribs, her hair sleek and soft on his cheek. To find it so hard to stop thinking about how good it had felt, and how sweet she smelled…

He told himself it was only his libido talking, that it had just been too long since he’d enjoyed the company of a warm and willing woman. Except that, when he thought about calling up one of several ladies he knew would be more than happy to fill his need for female companionship, no strings attached, he found the idea somewhat less than appealing. Not worth the effort.

With the leads on his open homicides exhausted, he got himself a prepackaged ham and cheese sub and some fairly decent coffee from the cafeteria and went back to his desk. Day shift was just signing off, so he spent some time waving off several invitations to join the usual crowd at the usual after-shift watering hole before settling down to his search. He started looking in the Chicago area, figuring that was where Richard Merrill had supposedly gone to college following the demise of his alleged hometown, so it was as good a haystack to start with as any other. He found a couple of cold homicides involving male gunshot victims of roughly the right age range whose bodies had been found in bodies of water-one river, one Lake Michigan-that might bear further investigation. He’d also discovered that records from the 1960s weren’t that easy to access. He shut down his computer somewhere around ten o’clock, talked himself out of calling Lindsey to tell her what he’d found-or hadn’t found-and went home to bed.

On Tuesday, Alan’s partner, Carl Taketa, returned from a two-week leave of absence, during which he and his long-time girlfriend, Alicia Alvarez from the Crime Prevention and Education department, had made a brief stop at city hall to tie the knot-without advance notice to anyone in homicide, except the captain, of course. After which they’d hopped a plane to Cancun for their honeymoon. Having spent a mostly sleepless night trying not to think about Lindsey Merrill naked and sharing his bed, Alan was pretty sour on the subject of weddings, honeymoons and happily-ever-afters in general. He gave Carl about five minutes to enjoy the good-natured ribbing, congratulations and back-slappings from other members of the unit before hustling him off to a shooting at a convenience store out in the North Park district.

“Hear you had some excitement while I was gone,” Carl said as they were en route to the scene.

Alan was driving-at a sedate pace, since the victim, a would-be robber, wasn’t going anywhere, and the shooter, the elderly Vietnamese owner of the convenience store, was reportedly sitting quietly in the company of uniformed officers and it didn’t seem likely he’d be going anywhere, either.

“Yeah,” he said, and for a moment had to think what excitement his partner was referring to. “A bit.”

He could feel Taketa looking at him. After a moment, Carl shifted awkwardly and said, “Sorry about not telling you. About getting married, you know? It was the way Alicia wanted it. Not a lot of fuss. You know if we’d had the big deal, you’d have been my best man.”

“No, no, that’s okay, I understand.” To be truthful, Alan hadn’t even thought about that aspect of his partner’s elopement, and in retrospect could only feel profound relief he’d managed to escape the whole best man, bachelor party, reception-toast thing. He threw him a glance and then added dryly, “I’d just like to know how you managed to keep it a secret, the way news travels in the house.”

“I’m kind of surprised about that myself.” Again, Alan felt the man’s eyes on him, and after a moment Taketa said, “Speaking of news, word is you caught yourself a cold case.”

Alan snorted. “Possible cold case. You been talking to the captain?”

Carl grinned. “He mighta mentioned it. So, this woman who brought you the story. She’s hot, right?” Hot? The term took Alan by surprise. He tried now to think if it suited Lindsey Merrill, and decided, to his own puzzlement, that it didn’t, no more than “babe” and “hon” did. Not that she wasn’t attractive-of course she was. Her body-fit and trim, but soft and round where it needed to be-certainly qualified as “hot,” though the way she carried herself was in no way overtly sexy. Except for those Hollywood eyes, her features were unremarkable, but when he thought about how her mouth had felt against his…well. Best not think about that just now. Although…she did have nice skin… Her hair? That, too, although attractively cut and styled, wasn’t exactly the kind of mane poets rhapsodized about.

No, taken as a whole, Lindsey had too much class-or something-to be thought of as “hot.” In fact, the woman seemed to defy his every attempt to label or categorize her. That, in itself, was suggestive of something, although he couldn’t define that, either.

Unable to come up with a reply to Carl’s question, he settled for, “Okay, tell me how that’s relevant.”

“Hah. Woman comes to you, tells you her mother-who has Alzheimer’s, mind you-now believes her husband killed her real husband and tried to kill her. But she doesn’t know when or where this happened. And you take on the case. Way I see it, the woman has to be a hottie.”

Alan muttered a frustrated and sibilant obscenity under his breath.

“Okay, tell me you’d have paid any attention to the woman’s story if she’d been old or ugly.”

Alan snorted again but didn’t bother to reply.

“Hey,” Carl said with a shrug as he turned in his seat to face front again, “doesn’t matter. I’m your partner, you know I’ll help any way I can. We get this shooting wrapped up, run it all by me. Maybe we can come up with something.”

Alan shot him a look. He felt genuinely grateful, and was thinking how glad he was to have Carl back riding shotgun again. But it wasn’t the kind of thing he was inclined to voice out loud, so he didn’t.

After a long pause, Carl said, “Speaking of hotties, you given any thought to…you know. Getting back on the horse?”

Jolted, Alan flashed Carl another look and tried to make light of it. “So, what is this, you take the plunge, now you want to pull everybody into the pool along with you? Misery loves company, is that it?”

“More like happiness does.” Carl sounded dead serious. “No, I mean it, man. There’s no better way to live than a good marriage.”

“And no worse way than a bad one,” Alan said dryly. “Been there…done that.”

Carl shrugged. “So, you’ve learned a thing or two, you’ll get it right next time.”

“You know the odds are against that, right? For cops, especially? You and Alicia-at least she’s on the job, too, so she knows what she’s getting into.”