In Bed With the Badge (7 page)

They understood each other. Sort of. She nodded her head and looked straight ahead again. “Good.”

“Anything else you need to say that you want to issue a disclaimer for afterward?” he asked.

“No.” Shifting in her seat, the seat belt biting into her shoulder, she looked at Wyatt and said, “but I do have a question.”

This time, he had to stop. There wasn’t enough time to race through the amber light. He pressed down on the brake and then met her gaze.

“Shoot.”

“Is this robbery really like the other case you have? I haven’t had a chance to look at the file yet and thought you could give me a thumbnail sketch.”

He nodded. He had no problem with that. He wasn’t one of those people who felt everyone had to plow their own row. Sharing often sped things along.

“No forced entry. People are in the house, asleep,” he recited. There had been four people in the house rather than just a married couple, but the basic facts
were the same. “The robbers tie them up, then use chloroform on them so that they can escape without worrying about the police being summoned immediately. The garlic, though, is new,” he allowed, shifting his foot back onto the accelerator.

She nodded. “You might consider going back to the first victims and asking about that detail.”

“Why?” He saw no reason for something so trivial. “The robber probably ate something for dinner that had garlic in it. Even if he does that on a regular basis, it’s not exactly something we can use.”

“No, but what if it isn’t because of something he eats?” she suggested. She saw she had his attention and went on. “Maybe when he sweats, he smells like garlic. I knew a kid in elementary school who was like that,” she told him. It had been years since she’d thought of Joel Mayfield. “The kids made fun of him all the time. The sad thing was, the more fun they made of him, the worse it got.”

He’d never been one to be singled out and picked on, nor had he ever picked on anyone, not even to be part of a group. Ever for the underdog, he hated people who did that.

“What happened to him?” he asked.

She thought a minute, then remembered. “His parents moved when he was ten.” After that, she never heard about him again. No one she knew even wanted to stay in touch with Joel. “By now, he’s either some wealthy millionaire, obsessively working his way into a fortune to show up all those kids who tormented him. Or he’s a serial killer.”

He nodded, understanding her reasoning. It was always people on the fringe of society that surprised the rest of the people. “For everyone’s sake, I hope it’s the former.”

“Yeah.” And then, remembering, Riley glanced at her watch. She took out her cell phone.

“Who are you calling?” he asked, making a right at the end of the next block.

She didn’t answer him. The phone on the other end of the line was already ringing. “Hi, it’s just me, Riley. I’m calling to check how everything’s going. Uh-huh. Terrific. You know where to find me if you need to. Thanks. ’Bye.” Closing the cell phone, she leaned slightly to the left to tuck it back into her pocket. She looked at him and smiled. “By the way, your daughter’s doing fine.”

His daughter.

God, he’d forgotten about her again. How long was it going to take for him to get used to the idea of having a child? Of being a parent? He had no answer for that.

“My daughter,” he said out loud. “Do you have any idea how odd that sounds?”

“Probably as odd as having a dad seems to her,” she speculated. “The only difference is Lisa will probably adjust to the concept very quickly. The same can’t be said for you.”

He spared her a glance, then took another right. He didn’t like being typecast this way, even if there was more than a grain of truth in what she said.

“Just what makes you so certain you know me so well?” After all, they hadn’t really seen each other since the academy.

“I don’t,” she admitted. “It’s just a calculated guess on my part because you’re a grown-up compared to her not being one. Kids are the resilient ones in this setup.” She scanned the area. This didn’t look familiar to her. “We on our way back to the precinct?”

“Nope.”

Was he going to make her drag it out of him? “Then where?”

Obviously, the answer was yes. “Since you think you know me so well, you tell me.”

She shook her head. She didn’t like games. “You’re losing the points you just gained.”

“And what points would those be?”

“The points you got for sticking up for Mrs. Wilson when her husband started coming down on her.”

That was business as usual for him. Realizing that the SUV in front of him was stalled, he swerved around it at the last minute.

“The woman had just been through a lot and she didn’t need him needling her on top of it.” He slanted a glance in her direction. “And that got me points?”

“Yeah, but don’t let it go to your head,” she warned. “And by the way, we’re going to see the construction guy from the business card, right?”

He laughed. “Give the little lady a prize.”

“I warned you about that ‘little lady’ stuff,” she reminded him. “Okay, you’re officially back to zero.”

Sam laughed. He had to admit he was getting a kick out of this exchange. “Didn’t take me long, did it?”

“No,” she agreed, “it didn’t.”

And then, because she couldn’t help herself, she laughed, as well. Maybe this being partnered with Wyatt wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

At least not in the short run.

T
he trip to C&R Construction turned out to be an exercise in futility. It was located clear across town in a tiny, broom-closet-sized suite that was part of a labyrinth-like, single-story industrial development.

The man who owned the company—and both of the initials, it turned out—had what he claimed was an airtight alibi for the time of the robbery. He’d been busy cheating on his wife with his mistress, a woman he’d been seeing for the last ten months. Since he spent the better part of half an hour trying to convince them jointly and then separately to make use of his professional skills, this little nugget of information took almost an hour and the threat of going to the precinct for interrogation before Calvin Richmond finally sur
rendered the alibi, along with his mistress’s name, number and address.

“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” Sam said, pocketing Richmond’s note, “but we need to verify everything. You know how it is.” His smile never wavered as he went on to ask, “What about your men?”

Richmond blinked, his dark eyebrows drawing together in consternation. “What men?”

“The ones who work for you,” he replied patiently.

Richmond blew out a short breath. “Hell if I know,” he grumbled.

“Where are they?” Sam asked, enunciating each word deliberately.

“Again, hell if I know,” Richmond repeated, this time more defiantly.

It wasn’t hard for Riley to read between the lines. “You use illegals, don’t you?”

“I spread opportunity around,” Richmond countered, daring her to prove anything.

“And these ‘spreadees,’ they have names?” Riley prodded.

Richmond raised and lowered his sloping shoulders. “They’re all just willing hands to me.”

Wyatt exchanged looks with her. “In other words, they’re gone?” he asked.

Richmond allowed a note of exasperation to enter his voice, as if he was the victim here. “In any words, they’re gone. Haven’t you heard?” he asked, copping an attitude. “The economy’s in a slump. People don’t care about getting things upgraded if they’re worried about
making mortgage payments.” His frustration slipped out. “Everyone’s tightening their belts. What I do is considered nonessential.” Holding up his thumb and forefinger, he created a tiny space between the two. “Right now, I’m this far away from declaring bankruptcy.”

All the more reason to think that the man was behind the home invasions. “You sound like a desperate man,” Riley observed, her eyes never leaving his.

Richmond opened his mouth to make a retort, then closed it abruptly.

Fear mingled with self-righteous indignation in his voice. “Hey, I know where you’re going with this. Well, you’re wrong,” he declared. “I might be desperate, but not enough to break into anyone’s house. That’s illegal.”

Wyatt moved to Richmond’s other side. He and Riley now bracketed the man. “So is having people without green cards or social security numbers working for you.”

“Yeah,” Richmond reluctantly admitted, his small brown eyes shifting back and forth between the two detectives bedeviling him, “but I draw the line against
real
illegal stuff.”

They weren’t going to get any further here today, Wyatt thought. Two steps had him at the door. “We’ll check out your alibi,” he promised the construction company owner.

Riley lingered at the man’s desk for a moment longer. “And don’t try calling your girlfriend to make sure she backs you up. If you do, I promise you, we’ll know,” she warned ominously.

They walked out of the claustrophobic suite with Richmond, no doubt, nervously staring after them.

Wyatt waited until they were across the parking lot before saying, “Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got a way of unsettling a guy?”

Riley allowed a self-satisfied grin to curve her mouth. “Might have come up once or twice,” she allowed, waiting for Wyatt to unlock the vehicle’s doors.

Then they drove to see Richmond’s girlfriend.

Thirty minutes later, after talking with Elaine Starling, a woman whose voice sounded as if she had a daily diet of helium, they got back into Wyatt’s car. Elaine had verified Richmond’s alibi. Of course, Riley speculated, since both robbers had been dressed in black from head to toe, the woman could have actually been Richmond’s accomplice. And even if he was innocent, that still didn’t rule out the men he’d had working for him on the Wilsons’ bathrooms.

For now, they weren’t going to get any further. Sitting back in her seat, Riley waited for her partner to start up the car again, but he paused.

When she looked at him quizzically, he said, “We’re off the clock.”

She glanced at her watch. “So we are.”

Tired, frustrated, Wyatt rotated his shoulders. It didn’t lessen the stranglehold tension had on them. “You want to go to Malone’s for a drink?”

Malone’s was the favorite gathering place for the Aurora detectives. At this point, it was almost a family place, except just a bit edgier.

“I’d like that,” she admitted. “But you’ve got a kid
to pick up.” She saw by the expression that entered Wyatt’s eyes that she’d nudged his memory again. “You forgot again, didn’t you?”

There was no point in denying it. He blew out an annoyed breath. “That’s three times today. I really suck at this parenting thing, don’t I?”

Was he expecting sympathy or agreement? She couldn’t tell. She could only say what was on her mind. “It’s just the first day, Wyatt. Cut yourself a little slack. You’ll get better at it,” she assured him with conviction. “Drop me off at the precinct so I can get my car,” she requested. “I’ll do the paperwork for today and you can go pick up your daughter.”

“Aren’t you coming, too?” he asked in a voice that wasn’t nearly as authoritative as it had been when they were questioning Richmond.

“You don’t need me to pick up your daughter. Brenda knows what you look like.”

“I wasn’t thinking of Brenda.” He wanted her for backup. The way he saw it, this was not unlike a dangerous confrontation that could go either way.

She looked at him, surprised. “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

He could have bluffed, pretended that he didn’t know what she was talking about. But Sam didn’t see the point in pretending. “Petrified.”

“She’s only a little girl,” Riley reminded him, her voice softening as sympathy wove through her. She remembered him asking her for help even as they left Lisa with Brenda this morning. The look on his face
made her laugh. “Maybe I should rent
Sorrowful Jones
for you,” she suggested whimsically.

Sam started the car and didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “What?”

“It’s an old Bob Hope movie my mom and I used to watch,” she told him, then went on to give him a synopsis of the simplistic plot. “A gambler leaves his little girl with a bookie as a marker in lieu of payment, promising to return right away. But something happens and he doesn’t come back for her. Sorrowful is a stingy bachelor who hasn’t dealt with anyone under the age of eighteen for years. He’s left to figure out how to take care of the little girl until her father comes again.”

He stared at her as if she’d just lost her mind. “You’re kidding me.”

Riley moved her head back and forth, her straight blond hair swinging softly to underscore the movement. “Things were a lot simpler back in the early fifties. Or maybe the movie took place in the forties,” she told him. “I just remember there was a happy ending.”

Then this was actually a movie? Someone had actually watched this? Had she? “Where do you get this stuff?”

“I told you, my mom turned me on to the classic movie channel. I like the movie,” she answered with a trace of defensiveness. Straightening, she looked at Wyatt, and her defensiveness melted. “You’ll be fine,” she assured him.

“I’ll be better if you come with me,” he emphasized. “Lisa likes you. She’d feel less alienated if you’re there, too.”

That was when she remembered that she’d promised Lisa to come back. It wasn’t in her to refuse a child. “You’re playing dirty,” she accused.

“No argument,” he admitted freely, speeding up a little as the traffic opened up. “I’m playing any way I can to get you to say yes.”

Riley was glad that there was no one to overhear them right now because, taken out of context, it could be misconstrued as a very loaded statement. This was how rumors got started.

“Okay,” she relented, “but you do the report tomorrow.”

“Done.”

“We still need to stop at the precinct,” she went on, “so I can pick up my own car.” A skeptical look came over his face. She read it correctly. “Don’t trust me?” She didn’t bother waiting for him to answer. “Somebody actually take off on you?”

He thought of Andrea. And of his mother. “Yeah.” The single word was expelled as if it had been clogging his lungs, keeping him from breathing.

Riley stared at him. She found that almost impossible to believe. She could see him walking away from a relationship, or what appeared to be the start of a relationship. She couldn’t see a woman suddenly declaring that she was leaving him. Moreover, she couldn’t even see a woman quietly slipping away. The man was mind-stoppingly handsome. But then, by his admission, Lisa’s mother had left him. “Who?” she prodded.

Wyatt’s face darkened. “That’s not up for discussion.”

Ordinarily, she retreated, letting people have their secrets. But in a way, this involved her. She needed to know. “It is now. Who walked out on you?” When he said nothing, she asked. “Lisa’s mother?”

He stared straight ahead at the road, driving. “I already told you about that.”

Riley studied his rigid profile. “But that’s not who you were thinking of, was it?”

She was like a bulldog with a bone. Or a pit bull. “Ever think of using your powers for good instead of evil, McIntyre?”

“All the time,” she deadpanned, then quipped, “Evil’s more fun.” For now, she let him keep his secret. “Okay, we’re wasting time. Let’s table this for now. But in case you think you’re off the hook here, you’re not,” she assured him. “You owe me an answer.” There was no room for argument in her voice.

All Sam really cared about was that she backed off. Since she had, he could pretend to go along with what she was saying. “Okay.”

“And I’m going to collect.” Riley sighed. “I’m serious, Wyatt.”

Sam slanted a look in her direction. “It never occurred to me that you weren’t.”

“You know you need to take at least part of tomorrow off, don’t you?” she asked just as they were approaching the precinct.

“Why?”

For an intelligent man, he was a babe in the woods when it came to his responsibilities toward his daughter.
“Because Lisa belongs in school and you need to enroll her. The sooner the better.”

His only response was to groan.

“She was an absolute dream,” Brenda told them less than half an hour later when they came to pick up the little girl. “Unlike my own children,” she added, giving the two in question as stern a look as she could. They appeared properly subdued, an act that would likely last ten minutes. “Any time you need someone to look after her,” she told Sam, “just give me a call.”

“How do you feel about a permanent assignment?” Riley asked. “After school each day.”

Brenda responded exactly the way Riley thought she would. “Sure, no problem. What elementary school does she attend?”

Sam was about to say that he needed to enroll the little girl when Lisa spoke up without warning. “St. Theresa’s.”

All three of the adults exchanged glances. “I can look it up,” Riley volunteered, addressing Wyatt.

The next moment, the need for that was negated as Lisa rattled off the address. It turned out to be a local one, less than two miles away from where Sam lived. Which meant that the daughter he didn’t know about had been close all this time. It was a small, small world, he concluded.

Riley ran her hand along Lisa’s hair. “At least there won’t be a problem with enrolling her quickly somewhere,” she pointed out. “One problem down.”

“And a thousand to go,” Sam murmured under his breath.

To his surprise, Lisa turned around and looked up at him. “There aren’t a thousand problems,” she said with conviction.

Riley slipped her arm around the little girl’s shoulders. “You’re absolutely right. Your dad just likes to exaggerate sometimes. It helps him focus.”

“What’s he focusing on?”

“On what’s important.” Riley looked up at Wyatt. “Isn’t that right, ‘Dad’?” she asked pointedly, her expression telling him that she expected him to agree.

Feeling somewhat overwhelmed, Sam lost track of what she was talking about. He figured it was safe if he just shrugged his shoulders and went along with it.

“If you say so, it must be true.” Before leaving, he stopped to say one last thing to Riley’s stepsister-in-law. “Thanks a lot for taking Lisa on such short notice.” He took out his wallet. Opening it, he drew out all the bills he had. “Look, I’m really,
really
new at this kind of thing, so I have no idea. What’s the going rate for watching kids?”

Brenda shook her head, pushing his hand back toward him. “Put your money away, Detective. We’ll talk about this some other time,” she promised. And then she winked just before shutting the door.

The response surprised him a little. He tucked the bills into his wallet, then put the wallet into his back pocket.

“Your stepsister-in-law just winked at me,” he told Riley as he quickly lengthened his stride to catch up. They reached the curb where both their vehicles were parked.

“That’s just Brenda’s way of saying she likes you.” It had taken her a little getting used to, but Riley kept that to herself. She unlocked the door on the driver’s side of her car, then tossed her purse onto the passenger seat. “She’s one in a million.”

Lisa moved closer to her. “May I go with you?” she asked suddenly.

Was that relief Riley saw in Wyatt’s eyes? He was probably not looking forward to sharing the ride home with the little girl. Conversations with a six-year-old were probably unfamiliar to him, she guessed. Still, he had to learn. He was the only parent Lisa had left.

“Don’t you want to ride with your dad?” Riley asked as tactfully as she could.