Frozen Stiff

a few seconds, before I take the call.

“Hello?”

“Mattie, it’s me.”

“Hey, what’s up?”

“That’s what I need to be asking you. There’re a bunch of cops swarming around Minniver’s house, so I’m guessing you found something on the autopsy.”

“Yes, we did. We just finished up. In fact, I was about to call you,” I lie. I head back to the library and shut myself inside, glancing around to make sure no one is close by to overhear me.

“So what did you find?” Hurley prods. I hesitate just long enough for him to deduce that the news isn’t good. “Damn, it’s something bad, isn’t it? Is it something else that points to me?” He sounds both worried and angry. “It is, isn’t it? Come on, tell me, Mattie. I need to know what the hell I’m dealing with here. Give it to me, would ya?”

“I will if you’ll stop fretting for a moment,” I manage when he pauses long enough to take a breath.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “It’s just that I feel like I’m operating in a vacuum here. You’re the only person I can talk to right now.”

The faint hint of desperation in his voice leaves me feeling guilty for doubting him. Even though I have no idea where in his house he is, or even if he’s in his house, in my mind’s eye I see him pacing back and forth in his kitchen, running his fingers through that thick shock of blue-black hair, worry creases crinkling the corners of his eyes. And rather than feeling empathy for the man, I find myself turned on. The idea of Hurley rendered helpless and vulnerable is oddly stimulating. After shaking off my mental images and cursing the fact that my libido seems to surge like a tsunami whenever Hurley’s involved, I drop my informational bomb.

“It isn’t confirmed yet but it looks like Harold Minniver was poisoned.”

“Poisoned? That’s typically pretty personal.” Echoes of Bob Richmond. “What was he poisoned with?”

I feel an odd reluctance to say anything, as if the answer is a piece of spinach stuck in Hurley’s teeth, or a booger hanging from his nose. “We think it was cyanide.”

A long silence stretches between us and though I’m tempted to break it, I wait, curious to see what Hurley will say next.

“Shit,” he says finally. He sounds sad, dejected, and defeated. “That’s not good. I have a supply of potassium cyanide in my garage. I use it in my metalwork.”

I squeeze my eyes closed and wince. Only now do I realize how much I was hoping to hear him say he didn’t have any of the stuff.

“Mattie, are you still there?”

I open my eyes. “I’m here. Sorry, I was just thinking things through.”

“It’s all rather damning, isn’t it?”

“It is, and there’s more,” I say, reaching a potentially disastrous decision. I tell him about the hair we found in Callie’s wound, the one I took from his bathroom, and my subsequent examination of the two. When I’m finished talking, the line between us crackles with an awkward silence. Only because I can hear him breathing do I know he hasn’t hung up on me.

“You’re angry with me,” I say, fearing he’ll hate the fact that I did the hair comparison behind his back.

“On the contrary, I’m impressed. You need to have an open mind and be unbiased in things like this. But I am a little bothered by the fact that you didn’t tell me what you were doing ahead of time. I would have gladly provided you with a hair sample to compare if you’d asked for one. The fact that you didn’t makes me think you don’t trust me.”

His comment irritates me. “Well, the evidence against you is rather damning,” I snap. “And I haven’t known you all that long, Hurley. You’re asking me to put my reputation and my job on the line for you and I need to be sure I’m making the right decision. If you don’t like the way I’m doing things, feel free to enlist someone else.”

“No, wait,” he says quickly, sounding panicked. “I’m sorry, and you’re right. It’s not fair to ask you to trust me based on my word alone.” He pauses and curses under his breath. “Please, I . . . I need you, Mattie.”

His plea melts my lingering resistance, which to be honest wasn’t much to begin with. Even though the evidence all seems to point toward him, my gut still tells me he’s innocent. And I’ve learned to trust my gut for the most part, at least when it comes to matters not of the heart. Problem is, Hurley sort of overlaps the professional and romantic parts of my life.

“Fine,” I tell him. “I’ll help you. Where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know.” I can hear the exasperation in his voice. “I realize things don’t look very good for me but I swear to you, I had nothing to do with Harold’s death or Callie’s. But it’s becoming clear to me that someone wants it to look like I did.”

“Okay, so who would do something like that?”

“My best guess is it’s someone who wants to see me suffer, someone who’s bearing a serious grudge against me.”

“Very serious,” I say. “I mean, this goes way beyond your typical payback.”

“I’ve been a cop for a long time. I’ve made a few enemies.”

“Any idea which one this might be?”

He lets out a heavy sigh. “The only one I can think of who hates me that much is Quinton Dilles, the asshole who cost me my job in Chicago. His wife was murdered and when I caught the case, I fingered him for it early on. But my efforts to prove it pissed him off and the guy is very rich and very well connected. He complained to some very important people about the way I was harassing him and the next thing I know, I’m given the option of taking a position investigating computer crimes, or quitting. So I quit and a month or so later, the new detective on the case dug up some very incriminating evidence and Dilles was arrested. His trial ended last month.”

“What was the outcome?”

“Dilles was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He’s in the Stateville Correctional Center down by Joliet.”

“So you weren’t the one who actually arrested him?”

“No, but Dilles has made it clear that he blames me for shining the spotlight on him in the first place. To be honest, I think the guy believed he was going to be acquitted. He’s always had a privileged, I’m-special-and- nothing-can-touch-me attitude because of his wealth and position in the community. So I’m sure his conviction and sentence came as something of a surprise to him.”

“Were you there? At the trial, I mean?”

“Not the whole thing, but I was there for the verdict and I have to admit it felt redeeming to see that bastard put behind bars.”

“I’m sure it did. But if Dilles is in prison, he can’t be the one out there trying to frame you.”

“No, not him directly anyway. But the man does have some powerful resources and money at his disposal. It wouldn’t be that hard for him to hire someone on the outside to do his dirty work.”

“It might be worth looking into.”

“It’s a long shot, but yes, I suppose it would. Listen, I’m going to take a few personal days from work. I’ll tell them I need to have some medical tests done. Richmond can take up the slack and that will free me up to do some investigating on my own. There are some people I want to see but I’d like you to function as my front man and do most of the actual talking. It will seem less official that way and besides, you have a knack for getting things out of people. For some reason they open up to you.”

“Hey, what can I say? I’m charming.”

“Hmm, yes, you are,” he says.

The subtle shift in his tone makes something in my nether regions shift. A montage of mildly X-rated images flits through my mind with me and Hurley as the stars.

“Can you get off call tomorrow?” Hurley asks. “I’d like you to go down to Chicago with me to talk to Callie’s family and coworkers, to see what we can find out.”

Mention of the stunningly beautiful woman Hurley used to date quashes my mental pornado. “I’ll have to talk to Izzy,” I tell him. “But I don’t think it will be a problem given the hours I’ve put in this weekend.”

“Good. Let’s plan to meet at the Milwaukee airport tomorrow morning at nine.”