Cuts Like a Knife: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 1) (24 page)

Crud. I don’t know anything about being a sponsor. Is there a curriculum? Do you get a certificate? Why haven’t I taken the time to find this out? I’ve just read the participant literature. I’ve always thought of myself as a good cop. No, a great cop. I grew up in a cop’s home. And Dad was the best. He never cut corners. He got along with his colleagues. He closed more than his share of cases. I’m not sure he’d approve of the situation I’m in right now.

Jonathan takes my right hand in both of his and I glance up at him in surprise. Is he hitting on me? At least I hope it looks like surprise rather than attack mode. It’s all I can do to let him speak, because what I really want to do is put a knee in his groin, push his left hand into his body and then to the outside, duck under, and wrench that thing three-quarters of the way up his back so I can start asking questions. Hard questions. Is that a sign of anger?

I’m creeped out, but let him hold my hand another second.

“I don’t want to be inappropriate,” he says, less than a foot from my face. The mint has worn off. Maybe I should blow on his face and ask questions when he regains consciousness. “But I’m wondering if we could go out and grab a cup of coffee. And I mean a good cup of coffee. Maybe some dessert. That’s all. I’d love to talk with you some more tonight. Spend a little time getting to know you.”

Seriously? I’ve gone months without being asked out on a date. I now have a testosterone-filled junior combat instructor, a major in the FBI, a devoted sort-of boyfriend who is fascinated with Amish culture, and a possible serial killer suspect all asking to spend time with me in less than twelve hours. Some girls have all the luck. I pull my hand away and turn to where the powdered creamer is. I like real half-and-half and never use the fake stuff. I shake some of it into the center of the black sludge, trying to look natural. I watch my hands closely to make sure they’re not shaking. I’m good at action. I’m lousy at inaction. I stir the clotted mess until there are only a few clumps left.

“Jonathan . . .”

“Yeah?” he responds hopefully.

“I just don’t go out with guys when I don’t even know their last name. And . . .”

“Yeah?”

He looks and sounds a bit deflated, but interestingly, he doesn’t offer even a Smith or Jones for a last name.

“Well, there’s someone else.”

Am I using Dell again? Or is it Major Reynolds? I know it’s not Timmy.

“I didn’t think a coffee invitation was asking you out on a date,” he says. He looks miffed. Patricia and Jack walk over. They’re looking at us cautiously. They sense something isn’t right.

After some awkward chitchat, Patricia and I head for the exit. Jack stays back and talks to the last few stragglers. Jonathan is right behind us to make sure we get to our cars safely, he gallantly says. I figure there’s no way Jeff ’s mechanic friend could replace a starter in less than two hours, but I’m hoping. I find myself craving the safety of my own, old, trusty Mazda.

We walk out of Saint Bart’s into a glorious dusky Chicago spring evening. Jeff is leaning against his Mercedes with a proud expression on his face. It’s a sparkling blue onyx Mercedes 500SE. He nods to it with a smile and tosses the keys to me. Now that’s what I call a loaner. I think maybe I want to be Patricia’s sponsor and chide myself for being bought so easily.

Then the world turns upside down.

I am literally picked up off my feet. I look to my left and Patricia is pulled to the side in an orchestrated takedown starring athletic men in black body suits and hoods. Jeff ’s smile is replaced by a look of utter shock. An agent firmly moves him around to the other side of his car with an armlock maneuver. I want to call out to Jeff that resistance is futile, if he has any impulses to fight back. The hold is designed to break your elbow if you struggle. But things are happening too fast to shout anything.

Two more men put Jonathan facedown on the ground. He is kicking and squirming and trying to yell. It ain’t going to happen, Jonathan; just relax.

I hear Patricia scream my name.

• • •

I am in the back of a black Chevrolet Suburban heading downtown toward the State Building in less than thirty seconds of my exit from Saint Bart’s.

Patricia, what have I done? I am so sorry. And I connected with you, too. We do have a bond.

Dear God, please, please help me sort out this mess.

35

IT’S TWO IN the morning. We are in a conference room on the first floor of CPD’s Third Precinct—this is Martinez and Blackshear’s normal haunt. I am present to foster cooperation. The only problem is Patricia won’t look at me at all and Jeff won’t stop staring at me with anger and loathing. I am wondering if this means I don’t get to drive the loaner Mercedes. The question of whether I’m a suitable AA sponsor has now been answered. Emphatically.

A bureaucrat is explaining why it is in their best interest to sign nondisclosure and nonliability forms. I didn’t know Jeff was a lawyer. Patricia never mentioned it. Of course a week ago Patricia was still Bethany in my mind. Jeff ’s not inclined to sign nor let her sign any forms without his attorney present. I wonder why he can’t just read the words and be his own attorney. Apparently, that’s not how it works. His specialty is M&A, an acronym which everyone present seems to recognize, except me. Murder and Arguments? Malfeasance and Animosity? Misogyny and Apprehension?

I discreetly google M&A on my BlackBerry, hoping nothing naughty comes up. Mergers and Acquisitions. Big business and high-finance stuff. Okay, still out of my league. But I guess if I can understand some of Dell’s supply-chain management business and Reynolds’ non-isolated event stream mumbo jumbo, I can at least comprehend some of the basics of this.

“I’m not signing. What I am going to do is file a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department—and a certain officer who set up me and my wife to be part of a dangerous operation.”

The bureaucrat continues to speak in low tones. My guess is his response and volume are part of his training in a situation like this. Do nothing to stir emotions. Seek to be conciliatory. Appeal to the complainant’s sense of duty and honor. He is laying praise for their poise and valor on a little too thick, I think. Problem is, I think Jeff has had the same training and he’s not buying it. After mentioning the lawsuit, he shuts down.

I feel trapped in the conference room. I want to talk to Patricia and explain that I really do like her and that I had no idea a takedown was going to go down. I would never have endangered her and Jeff. Plus, I want to get down to the basement where the action is with Jonathan. Who’s questioning him? Is he the Cutter Shark? How many awards will the mayor be giving me?

• • •

I’m hoofing it down a hall that is about as long as a city block. I was raised right, so I don’t run inside. But I’m moving fast enough to get a tryout in Olympic speed walking. There are small signs over each door that are perpendicular to the wall with numbers on them. Jonathan is being interviewed in thirty-two, which happens to be the last door on the right. I am almost out of breath when I get there. I reach for the handle but the door opens first.

Don and Martinez step into the hallway. They look tired. I raise my eyebrows in question. Each shakes his head no and starts down the hallway from the direction I just came from. I reach for the handle again, but Don calls over his shoulder.

“I’d just let things be tonight. Come on. We’ll get something to eat.”

• • •

“I don’t know who was madder, Zaworski or Reynolds,” Martinez is saying, crumbs from a piece of apple pie in his goatee. Should I tell him?

“At least he was guilty of something,” Don says.

“Just the wrong things,” Martinez continues. “Not what we were hoping for.”

Jonathan. Last name is Abernathy. First name is Andrew. Good old AA attending AA under an alias. He’s married with three children. He has worked as a broker for the same company at the Chicago Board of Trade for the past eleven years. No degree from Northwestern. He does have a math education degree from the University of Illinois Chicago campus, which he parlayed into a job as junior trader.

There were nine grams of cocaine in his car. No previous convictions, but two arrests for solicitation of prostitutes. He basically admitted to liking the combination of drugs and adultery and lying about his marital status—but not murdering women in Chicago and other parts of the country.

Zaworski has already decided to cut him loose and not charge him in exchange for his signature on the nondisclosure and nonliability forms. Abernathy is more than elated to accept the tradeoff. He keeps a studio apartment downtown and is only home in a rural community south of Lincolnwood on weekends. He wants to keep his weeknight habits a secret from the missus, so all in all, he has a scrape on his right cheek, but feels none the worse for the added excitement.

“So that lawyer guy isn’t going to sign?” Martinez asks me for the tenth time.

“Didn’t look like it when they left,” I answer. Again.

“Oh man, the captain is going to be mad, mad, mad.”

“At me, me, me, me,” I respond. Again.

• • •

After four chirps the voicemail comes up.

“This is Patricia. Leave me a message and as long as this isn’t someone selling something, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Ciao!” I hang up, my unspoken apology strangling me. Heck yes, I feel bad. But I’m starting to get mad. What did I do wrong? Yes, I attended AA meetings under false pretense, but I don’t think any ethicist is going to judge me for doing my job, which just happens to be in service to my community.

Okay, I shouldn’t have gotten involved on the level I did with Patricia. But I did. So sue me. I guess they are. I should be more worried, but what are they going to get? My Miata? My jazz and ’80s CD collection? My savings bond?

Patricia’s situation and circumstances were outside my assignment and expertise. But she was an absolute mess the night I went with her to her house to talk with her and Jeff. Do you have to be a PhD in psychology to help someone? Isn’t peer-to-peer conversation sometimes the best medicine in life? Isn’t that the lesson of AA? I feel embarrassed now, but I actually prayed with her and Jeff at the end of the meeting. I don’t usually wear my religion on my sleeve, but God knows I’ve been around church and Jimmy and Kaylen enough to have a little idea on a few things to say to someone who’s got troubles.

I wonder what Reynolds, Van Guten, Zaworski, Blackshear, Don—and seemingly everyone else in the universe—would say about that. Who cares.

Scalia—Big Tony—had a phrase he would say when he was partnered with my dad. It feels appropriate right now. “No good deed goes unpunished.” Seems to be a thread in my thought life.

I hit the green button twice to redial. I’ll leave her a message.

36

IT IS POURING down rain and I’m standing in a puddle up to my ankles. I can feel mud squishing inside my soccer shoes. I think the ooze has worked inside my socks and between my toes. It actually feels kind of good. April showers are supposed to give way to May’s flowers. May decided to outdo April in the showers department for my Snowflakes’ last game of the season.

We’re trying for win number three and are playing the team with the best record for the season—coached by Attila the Hun, of course. Rematch time. Bring it on.

The rain has not dampened the spirits of the girls; in fact, they’re more energetic than I’ve seen them all season.

They are soaked and muddy to the point that it is hard to tell the two teams apart. Before the game even started Kendra discovered that you could run at one particularly big puddle near midfield, dive forward, and slide on your belly for about fifteen feet—nature’s own Slip ’n Slide. Attila didn’t like it much when his girls joined in. The girls were not to be denied their fun, however. Pretty soon players from both teams were sliding past each other screeching and giggling. I winced a couple times for fear of a head-on collision—when it crossed my mind that Attila was telling his girls to aim for mine.

Sometimes you just have to admit you are a tad bit crazy—and I do.

The parents, huddled under umbrellas, were glum twenty minutes before the game, but the midfield entertainment soon had everyone laughing and the video cameras came out in force.

The referees, a father-and-son team, came three minutes before game time and asked if we wanted to cancel and call it a tie. Before Attila and I could respond, the girls jumped up and down yelling, “We wanna plaaaaaay!”

Attila and I shake our heads and laugh.

The father ref, looking stoic with mud splatters from head to toe, said, “Let’s get moving, then.” He suggested a shortened halftime, though. That way we could all go home and dry off. His kid, probably thirteen or so, and I’m guessing thrilled that he is still going to get his ten-dollar fee as a line judge—been there and done that at his age—looks at Attila and me and says, “It’s cool when old people are still crazy.”

I know he meant it as a compliment, but I’m not sure I like being lumped in with Attila—and especially not old people. I’m not thirty yet.

The first half ended up in a 3-3 tie. If we were scoring this on the basis of mud wrestling, we might actually have had a slight lead. When the ball hits the biggest puddle, sometimes it plops and just sits there. Other times it skips like a hard-rubber crazy ball. They got their second goal off a cheap bounce.