A Man to Die for (26 page)

“Well, she been wired all night.”

Poppi looked from Marva to Casey and back again. “Wired.”

Marva just nodded. “I think she and Hunsacker had sex in the work lane with everybody watching. Problem is,” she added, resettling her purse to leave, “I’m not sure which one was on top.” And without so much as a good-bye, she walked on out.

Poppi turned back from considering the door as it swished shut and pulled her car keys from the depths of her skirt pocket. “Time to go, Casey.”

Casey grinned again, anxious to test her newfound determination on the only other person who would understand it. “That’s what I figured, Poppi.”

The air outside was heavy and metallic-smelling. A sickly orange full moon topped the trees. It was still too hot. The city shouldn’t have felt this stale until August. Early summer was a time of upheaval in St. Louis, different weather fronts slamming into each other with the force of football lines right over the Mississippi Valley. The trees should be dancing with wind, and clouds should be boiling over the southwest horizon. Instead it waited, thick and uncertain and distasteful, sapping energy and straining patience.

Tonight Poppi drove her old Volvo. Discreet blue and well broken in, it waited out on the ER parking lot. The two women reached it in silence, both comfortable enough with their ritual of confession that they knew how it would unfurl.

The radio spilled out old Santana. The seats smelled like sandalwood. In the back seat, gardening tools vied for space with a case of jeweler’s tools. The Miraculous Medal Helen had given Poppi swung from the rearview mirror and there was probably a lid of grass in the glove compartment.

“Straight home?” Poppi asked, slipping the car into gear.

“I don’t care,” Casey agreed, settling back into the leather seat like a child into the care of a nanny. She was comfortable. She was protected. This was where she’d made her major decisions in her life, not in front of a priest or within the stiff formality of her living room, but in the succession of front seats Poppi had owned. It was where Casey had smoked her first joint. Where she’d discussed politics and love and the loss of her virginity.

Poppi had rescued her from that apartment in Creve Coeur and helped her ship home her furniture from Ed’s house. She’d been there for every major event in Casey’s life since Casey had been thirteen.

“I came to a realization about Hunsacker tonight,” Casey said without preamble. The car’s air-conditioning belched a couple of times and struggled against the heat.

Poppi didn’t even bother to look over as she slowed at the end of the emergency drive and waited to turn into traffic. “You finally got his shoes off?”

Casey grinned. “It’d be easier to get his pants off. This is bigger.”

Poppi made a funny little choking sound.

Casey waved her off. “You know what I mean. Hunsacker’s been spreading rumors around about me. He’s told everybody I’ve been sleeping with him. He evidently told the people at Mother Mary that he’d broken off the relationship, and that that was why I’d ratted on him. He told somebody at Izzy’s that we were still sleeping together.”

Casey heard the hiss of intaken breath. They pulled up to the stoplight and waited, the light washing Poppi in red.

“Remind you of something?” Casey prodded, already knowing her answer.

Poppi looked over, her eyes hot with remembered fury. They glinted like dark rubies in the light. “Only the last time you were stealing money and seducing young boys.”

It still hurt. Deep down, right where all those other old hurts lived, tangled in the mass of threats and deceptions that had been the hallmark of that relationship.

“He came up to me,” Casey admitted, that strange headiness returning to battle with the old wounds. “Right there in front of everyone, to forgive me for hurting him.”

Silence now. Poppi was waiting. The light changed and they followed the traffic onto the highway.

Casey sat up then, turned in her seat to face her friend. “It was like I was two places at once,” she admitted. “Hunsacker would say something and I’d hear another voice echoing what he said, except…in a different way.”

“What other voice?” Poppi asked, even though she knew better than anyone.

Casey fought down the instinctive panic, knowing of course that just the mention of his name wouldn’t bring him back in the door. Gut deep afraid just the same. Which was why she couldn’t let Hunsacker win this time. She couldn’t live with herself if she failed again.

“Frank,” she said, and braced herself. But no wind blew, no hellish chorus wailed in protest. No handsome, charming, vicious man would knock on her door.

“I’m going to purge him once and for all,” she promised, turning forward once again. “I realized it when I found I had the guts to shake Hunsacker’s hand.”

That surprised Poppi more than anything. “You shook his hand?”

Casey couldn’t help a new grin, a touch of triumph in her voice. “And I was the one who was on top.”

Poppi just shook her head, wondering.

For the next few miles, she kept her attention on her driving. It was after eleven, and more than one of the cars sharing the highway with her didn’t seem to find the lane markings that easy to follow. Casey was busy remembering the look in Hunsacker’s eyes when he’d realized she’d just called his hand. She smiled with satisfaction that she’d been able to match his grip, his silence, his smile. It was a long way from sobbing and pleading.

Maybe this was the justice she wanted. Nothing more than the chance to stand up to Frank in the only way she could, by using Hunsacker as a surrogate. Maybe all she wanted was evens.

Poppi didn’t speak again until the car sat silent in Casey’s driveway. “Do you really think this is going to make it all better?” she asked quietly.

Casey looked over to try to discern an opinion in Poppi’s eyes. The soft wash of outside light illuminated her white Ralph Lauren blouse and glinted against the gold hoops in her ears, but never reached the upper half of her face.

“What do you mean?”

Poppi shrugged, still faceless in the dark. “I don’t know. I’m still not getting good vibes from this. Like you’re counting too much on this solving everything you ran away from. The only thing this should solve is who murdered Evelyn.”

Casey stiffened, hearing Poppi’s opinion for the first time. “Ran away?” she demanded. “I didn’t run away. I fled for my life.”

Poppi shook her head. “That was different. You haven’t dealt with it, Casey. You just pretended it never happened. You’ve been doing it for seven years, first with Ed and then by sheer force of will.”

Casey yanked open her door and stepped back out into the night. “How the hell could I pretend it never happened?” she demanded, slamming the door without caring if Poppi heard the rest of the statement. “I can still see the scars every time I take off my shirt.”

Behind her the other door shut, a softer sound, and Poppi followed up the driveway. “Tonight was the first time in seven years you’ve mentioned the man’s name. You haven’t talked about him since you left.”

Casey stomped up the steps to the back porch and threw open the door. “I talked about it with Ed, and all it got me was another disaster. Thanks, I like it this way much better. The minute I beat Hunsacker, my ghosts will all disappear.”

Helen was up. Casey stifled a groan. She’d felt so good no more than fifteen minutes ago, full with her revelation, her sense of achievement. Now, in a period of minutes, Poppi had done her best to burst her fragile balloon, and Helen waited to drag the rest back to the ground.

It was worse than she thought. Her mother wasn’t just up, she was on her knees in the living room. Heaving a sigh of capitulation, Casey dropped her stuff on the kitchen table and walked on into the living room. Poppi followed as far as the kitchen.

“Mom?” Casey called, stalling. The lights were off, only a couple of votive candles flickering on the TV. They cast an eerie, flickering glow over the watching faces on the wall. Casey had the most irrational feeling she’d interrupted a conversation. “What are you doing?”

“I need to confess,” her mother whispered, never taking her eyes from the focus of her meditation.

Fighting back another sigh, Casey sat on the couch. “What for now?”

“Pride. Selfishness. Calumny.”

Calumny. Well, that was certainly a new one on the list. Wherever she was getting her guilt fodder, at least it was building a better vocabulary. It was a cinch she wasn’t getting her messages from
Wheel of Fortune
. Maybe Ted Koppel.

Casey wondered what the penance was for calumny. “Isn’t this a job for the chapel?”

Helen didn’t look away from her mission. Hands folded like a first communicant, she lifted her face to the cobwebs at the corner of the ceiling. Casey guessed that was where the angel band massed for things like this.

“Father’s coming,” her mother informed her. “He called.”

“What?” Casey instinctively checked her watch. “You mean the father who was here?”

“Sgt. Loyola.”

Casey thought to correct her mother yet again, but decided she liked the analogy. “When did he call?”

“Right after he accused me.”

Casey gave in to a little shake of the head. It wouldn’t clear Helen’s head, but it might help hers a little. “Who accused you? Father Rock?”

“Mick.”

Well, at least she was consistent. Mick had been accusing her for over twenty years now. Why should he stop tonight? Casey caught herself looking into the cobwebs as well. Maybe it was her father caught up there with the flies and mosquitoes. But, of course, she wasn’t privileged to visions. Not enough guilt, she guessed.

“Did he say when he was coming by?” Casey asked.

“When you were off work. I’m preparing.”

“No,” Casey countered, getting to her feet. “You’re not. He’s not doing confessions anymore, remember?”

When Casey slid a hand under Helen’s arm to help her up, Helen finally looked over. She really did look as if it had been a hard night at the hairshirt. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wet, her hands shaking when she pulled them apart. Casey’s voice instinctively softened.

“It’s time for bed, Mom. We’ll go see Father Donnelly in the morning, okay?”

Helen searched Casey’s face, as if expecting some revelation there, maybe a reprieve. She seemed to sink within herself. “I shouldn’t have expected it, should I?”

Casey hated that too-familiar ache her mother’s despair set up in her own chest. “What, Mom?”

Tears spilled over. “Another chance. Benny’s not coming back, is he?”

The truth? No, Benny wasn’t coming back. Benny was as far away as money and circumstance allowed. He was dead or wasted or shuffling along the back halls of Grand Central Station with all the other homeless.

“You’ll see him, Mom,” she lied, reaching up to tuck a displaced strand of lank brown hair back up under the bandanna. “Once he works out his problems.”

Impotence again, the memory of holding on to Benny as he’d run the last time, clutching at his arm, his hand, his memory to call him home. Knowing there was no way to stop him, no way to help him. Marva would have said he wasn’t as strong as Casey. Casey wouldn’t know. She hadn’t seen him in nine years.

The scrape of Helen’s feet on the stairs followed Casey into the kitchen where Poppi held out a can of beer for her. She accepted it without a word and drained a third in her first gulp.

“Say one word about ghosts,” she threatened blackly, setting her can down to shuck her lab coat and shoes, “and I’ll tell Scanlon where you hide your stash.”

Poppi’s smile was enigmatic. “We’re the most frustrated by the traits in others that we recognize in ourselves.”

One foot balanced on a chair, her fingers tangled in shoelaces, Casey offered her friend a particularly black scowl. “If you’re insinuating that I’m leaning a little too far toward religious fanaticism, I think you need to get a new prescription for those rose-colored glasses of yours.”

“If I could use the word
ghosts
,” Poppi offered, sliding into the other chair, “I would remind you that not all ghosts are people. Some are actions we regret. Attitudes. Maybe an incomprehensible passivity.” She caught the look of warning in Casey’s eyes and leaned back in her chair. “But, of course, I can’t use…that word.”

“My only ghosts,” Casey insisted, even though she knew damn well that both of them knew better, “are two cases of incomprehensible bad taste. But I’m past that now. At least I will be once I’ve made amends for five old broken bones and a plastic surgery bill that almost broke Ed’s bank balance.”

Poppi was saved from answering by the front door chime. Casey slid off her other shoe and straightened, not sure whether she wanted to answer the door or not. It seemed lately that the good news never lasted as long as the bad news. Unless, of course, Scanlon just wanted to drop by to let her be the first to know that Hunsacker had just been caught red-handed and admitted to the rest.

Casey padded through the hallway. She could see Scanlon silhouetted through the beveled glass in the front door, his head down a little, as if thinking, his shadow a little hunched. When she opened the door, she saw why. And thoughts of miraculous resolutions disappeared like candle smoke.

JACK COULD GUESS
what kind of day Casey had had just by the look on her face. He lifted the six-pack he had in his right hand. “I couldn’t face another glass of iced tea.”

There were six folders tucked beneath his arm. He was stale and tired. His clothes smelled like cigarette smoke, and his stomach sloshed in coffee. And that was feeling better.

He’d been looking forward to coming over here tonight. After the day he’d had, he needed a little dose of Casey’s pugnacious pragmatism. He needed an innocuous surprise or two.

The porch light sapped the color from her face and glinted in the tumble of her dark red hair. She was in her uniform and stocking feet, and she stood as if she were waiting to read a surprise telegram. Jack found himself smiling.

She smiled back as she showed him in. “I never turn down a man bearing a bribe. You’re wearing your short brim. It’s very cool.”

“Stingy brim,” he corrected automatically as he stepped past. He hadn’t even remembered putting it on. He’d worn it today on a couple of calls, the first time in quite a few months. Instinct must have taken over when he’d pulled up to the house.

“Since you’re in official homicide uniform,” Casey said. “I can assume this is business?”

“I have some things I’d like you to look at,” Jack admitted, and then stepped farther inside.

It was hard to miss the votive lights on the TV.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked, attention on the flicker of red along the wall with all the secondhand cousins.

Casey turned to follow his line of vision and her face seemed to wilt in guilty surprise. “Sorry,” she apologized with a distracted wave of her hand as she shut the door behind him. “You just missed the reconciliation service.”

“Yours?”

She didn’t seem to think that was funny. “Don’t be silly.” All the same, she deserted him to blow out the candles and flip on a few lights. “I refuse to repent for anything. Just ask my mother. Or my administrator.”

“Sounds like the pressure’s heating up.” Even before he had his hat off, Jack was wishing he could take his jacket off with it. It was too hot and sticky tonight to be official. Besides, from the sounds of it, tonight was going to be equal parts business and commiseration.

“It’s just hit slow boil,” Casey assured him. “I got my first official reprimand today.”

He’d been right. By the look on her face, her reaction had been equal parts outrage, frustration, and provocation. Not that he was surprised. If she dealt with her supervisors the way she dealt with everything else he’d seen, he was surprised she still had a job. Which was why he’d been looking forward to seeing her tonight.

“You tell me your story,” he offered wryly, “and I’ll tell you mine.”

Casey came to a stop, struggling for humor. “You, too?”

Jack offered a smile to negate the tenuous position the day had left both of them in. “And that was before the evening news. I can’t wait for tomorrow.”

“News?” she demanded. “What news?”

“They found out that Franklin down in Jefferson County was interested in Hunsacker, too. In fact, I got him to share some of his stuff with me so I can have you look at it.”

She brightened. “He thinks Hunsacker’s involved?”

“No. He just can’t figure out how anybody else is. His prime suspect went home with one of the other lounge lizards that night, in full sight of her whole flock of kids.”

Casey nodded, excitement struggling back through the weariness. “In that case, there’s better light in the kitchen.” She had pushed open the swinging door into an island of fluorescent and gingham when she added an afterthought. “And Poppi.”

Jack assumed that Poppi was the blond. Upscale, upper middle class, in the Webster uniform of designer imprints, she was seated cross-legged on the kitchen counter with a kind of feline watchfulness to her. Jack’s instincts told him she was about as run-of-the-mill as her friend.

She cemented her impression with her greeting. “Your vibes could use a little work.”

Now he recognized her. Alice in Wonderland after the tea party. Just about what he’d figure to find perched in this house. He was surprised at his own disappointment. He’d deliberately shown up now to exclude audiences. The commiseration, he suddenly realized, wasn’t all supposed to be Casey’s.

“He’s already met Helen,” Casey greeted her friend with a scowl as Jack dropped his supplies on the table. “Too much local color can cause permanent brain damage.”

“Hey, I’m not the one dressed like Frank Sinatra in
Guys and Dolls
,” she answered equably, then smiled at Jack. “Nice to meet you.”

Casey stole two beers from Jack’s package and passed one to her friend on the counter. “Sgt. Jack Scanlon, St. Louis City Homicide,” she introduced with a flourish of her unopened can. “Poppi Henderson…” The can drooped a moment as she evidently searched for an appropriate title.

Poppi jumped right in. “Mother confessor and chronic accomplice,” she offered with a pleased little dip of her head. “You have to be the mysterious priest Mrs. McDonough keeps wanting to unburden herself to. Great hat.”

Tonight Jack didn’t feel so uncomfortable pulling his tie loose. He gave it a tug and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt to give him a little swallowing room. “Thanks.”

Funny, he hadn’t really thought about that hat for years. It had just been a part of the job, like handcuffs and guns. But he’d thought about it today. He’d thought about that day he’d gone down to Levine’s to order it, his official mark of rank. His rite of passage into homicide. Even after all the ritual he’d participated in over the years, it had still meant something to him. He guessed tradition never meant as much unless it was threatened.

He palmed it off and set it down before pulling out a beer for himself. Then he walked the rest over to the refrigerator.

“This looks like the cue to get down to work,” Poppi decided, hopping off the counter. “Unless we’re going back to the Rose, I doubt I’ll be of much help.”

“Just paperwork,” Jack assured her, thinking of his jacket again and pulling out a chair without doing anything about it.

Poppi scowled as if he’d said self-immolation. “Thank you, I think I’ve served my penance for tonight. Besides, all this talk of the Captain Crunch murders depresses me.”

Jack settled into his chair, his attention ostensibly on the work he’d brought. He didn’t miss the meaningful look that passed between the two women.

“Then you’ll be walking tomorrow,” Poppi said, standing by the door, beer still in hand.

Casey nodded, her smile too frustrated to be grateful. “Yeah, thanks again, Poppi. I’ll talk to you.”

“Oh, yeah,” Poppi answered, turning to go. “I’m sure you will.”

She almost made it all the way out. Casey had already made it over to her chair and pulled it out, rubbing at her temple with the can of beer. She didn’t notice that Poppi paused as she opened the screen door. Jack did.

“And, Casey,” Poppi suddenly said, her gaze out to the night, her expression curiously amused. “Stop playing footsies with the bad guy. It isn’t doing much for your vibes, either.”

The chair screeched at the convulsive movement. Casey whirled for a fight. Before she could say anything, her friend was out the door.

Jack forgot his files. His gut had just caught fire again. Casey’s friend had delivered that message deliberately, had thought enough of the problem that she’d wanted Jack to know about it. Maybe he’d been wrong about those surprises. There wasn’t a damn thing that was innocuous about Casey McDonough.

“Sounds like this is something I need to know about,” he offered quietly, suppressing the urge just to shake her and be done with it.

She faced off with him, her eyes much too brittle to be rebellious. Determined, daring, with just a hint of triumph that made Jack really nervous.

“It all began with the affair I’ve been having with Hunsacker, she said blithely, plopping into her seat and popping the top on her beer. “And how jealous I’ve been since he dumped me. By the way, you should probably watch your back, too. If there’s one thing I should have remembered, it’s how much people like Hunsacker enjoy a good reputation bashing.”

One of Jack’s better traits as a Jesuit had been his ability to see right through a person’s most elaborate defenses. It hadn’t hurt him any as a cop, either, but it had sure made the job harder to leave at the office.

Casey’s defenses weren’t in the least complicated. She’d constructed a shell, a tough-kid facade over the little girl who still peeked out on occasion. The problem was, of course, as deftly as she’d crafted her defenses, when they slipped, the view inside was heartbreaking.

Jack wondered what that other man had been like. He didn’t have to imagine what the guy had done to her. He saw it every day in his job; he heard it as sharp as shattered glass every time Casey tried to bluster by it. What had made Jack such a lousy Jesuit was that he would have loved the chance to have that son of a bitch on his knees with a gun shoved in his mouth to see just how he liked it.

This was all getting too complicated. He caught himself wanting to reach over to her and do something about the raw disillusionment in her eyes, and he knew damn well just what that would do for him. The job was the job and relationships were something else he’d walked away, from. It didn’t deaden the fire any.

“I take it everybody believed him,” he said instead, pulling a pen from his pocket rather than rub at the new gnawing under his ribs.

She made taking a sip of beer seem a value judgment. “Nothing sells like a hot rumor.” She allowed just a little bitter amazement in her expression. “Funny thing is, it’s the vindictive bitch story all over again. You’d think that people could at least come up with something unique.”

“I’m afraid it still works.”

“Oldest rumor in the world, huh?” she countered with a flash of humor. “You’re right. Adam probably said Eve fed him the apple because he wasn’t paying enough attention to her.” And that quickly her expression changed, and the triumph was back, the tentative defiance. It was obvious she didn’t figure Jack would be thrilled with her next news. He didn’t even notice himself lean back into interrogation position.

“Anyway,” she continued, casting for her thoughts in the vicinity of her beer can. “Just about the same time I found out about the rumor business, who should show up on the work lane himself, but Hunsacker. He walked right up to me and forgave me for hurting him.”

“Well,” Jack said evenly, “you didn’t stab him with a scalpel. I would have known by now.”

She grinned, the triumph clear.

“I shook his hand,” she said. “It was the weirdest thing. Everybody thought he was being great and I was being humble. But the two of us really knew what was going on. He was trying to torture me, and I wouldn’t let him.” That brought her right back to her feet, rigid and righteous. “I wouldn’t let him.”

And Jack had thought he couldn’t feel worse. She’d taken this whole thing to a different level. They didn’t just have cops and robbers anymore, good guys and bad guys. They had failure and success. Sacrifice and redemption. They had penance for two different sets of sins.

“I’m hungry,” Casey announced, whipping around for the refrigerator. “Want, something?”

Maalox, he thought. “No, thanks.”

There was a pile of information to wade through and a new shift to start in less than seven hours. There was an unhappy mayor and a livid captain to deal with, and an avaricious news community to skirt. There was a psychopath out there murdering women just because they annoyed him, and the biggest annoyance was standing across from Jack perusing the contents of her refrigerator. And she’d just dug her nails in deeper. She’d dared Hunsacker to stop her.

This deserved another beer.

Casey was probably deliberately ignoring the scrape of Jack’s chair across the floor as he got to his feet. He made sure she wouldn’t ignore his message when he reached past her into the refrigerator.

“Let’s forget the data we have on the other murders,” he suggested.

She refused to turn from her consideration of the refrigerator. “Why?”

Pulling out a beer, Jack afforded Casey a consideration of his own. “If we hurry, we can record all your suspicions so that when you’re murdered, we won’t have any choice but call out the Major Case Squad. It’ll solve all our problems.”

Jack didn’t wait for an answer. Battling a flush of angry frustration, he popped the can and wandered on over to where the window looked out on the heavy black night.

“I told you,” she challenged behind him. “Without me there wouldn’t be a game.”

He refused to face her. “Without you there wouldn’t be a thorn in my side. Or Jefferson County’s or East St. Louis’s or O’Fallon’s. Even a psychopath knows when the game isn’t worth it anymore.”

Jack hoped he’d hit the target. The last thing he needed on his battered conscience was the life of a pain-in-the-ass trauma nurse. The last thing his schedule needed was babysitting a feisty redhead with a knack for trouble and, evidently, no sense of caution. The last thing his ulcer needed was the realization that he was becoming too damn fond of those sharp, sad blue eyes to let some psychopath turn them into rat bait.

“I’ll be careful,” she promised, as if her mother had just told her not to climb a tree. Jack couldn’t help but offer a cynical smile out to the darkness where no one would see. Well, that made it all better.

“Stay away from him,” he demanded to her vague reflection in the window.

The ghost scowled back at him. “You sound like a jealous husband.”

Jack’s answering smile was wry. “Jealousy is probably the one thing I was never accused of.”

It took her a moment to respond. “You
have
had a busy life. Sorry.”

Jack shrugged. “Not everyone finds me charming and understanding.”

“Imagine that.”

Their gazes met in the glass, hazy and indistinct as if neither were quite real. Jack saw frustration, felt the same. He saw confusion, anger, vulnerability, and hoped he was better at hiding his own. He took another slug of beer and wished fervently he’d just thrown that damn newspaper clipping back into the trash can without thinking about it. Now it was too late. That vague set of blue eyes glaring back at him from the window had managed to steal whatever peace of mind he’d had left. And he knew damn well what kind of chance he had of getting it back.