The Chilling Spree (28 page)

“I’ve never actually seen your legs
before.”  He ducked his head immediately, but I caught him
peeking almost as quickly as he averted his gaze.

“Please don’t start with the Hindu cow thing
again.”  While I have steadily been putting on the weight I
lost while suffering from immobility, depression and the cusp of
narcotic addiction from October to just about three weeks ago, my
muscle mass is nowhere near what I expect it to become again.

“It was the farthest thing from my mind,”
his low purr sent a thrill straight through my gut.

I squelched it.  Not supposed to get
those feelings from anybody but Johnny.  The mere invocation
of his name in my gray matter sent a thrill of another kind
swirling in the pit of my stomach. 

Johnny.  He’ll be at the funeral
today.  Even the single night he spent with me after the
injury, he hadn’t actually seen a whole lot of skin, since I favor
the worn sweat suit for sleepwear.  Would it trigger
memories? 

“You’re zoning out again.”

“Hmm,” I nodded.  “Sorry.  I think
Johnny left the wheelchair in the back of the Expedition when we
brought you home yesterday.”

“Forget it, Helen.  I am not rolling
into my partner’s funeral in a wheelchair.  I’m going to stand
and honor him with everybody else.  No argument.  This is
how it’s gonna play.”

I held up my hands in a defensive
gesture.  “Don’t whine if you’re miserable by the time we get
home.  I’ve got a feeling this thing is gonna be standing room
only.”

It was the wrong thing to say. 
Devlin’s mood shifted in a decidedly withdrawn direction the closer
we got to Saint Angelo’s Cathedral downtown.  The streets and
parking structure were packed with vehicles. 

“Jesus,” I muttered under my breath. 
Who the hell was guarding the store if every cop in Bay County
turned out for Ned’s funeral service? 
Hey all you
criminals we haven’t scared straight or arrested, here’s your green
light to commit crime
.  Everyone knows that there is no
such thing as brevity in Catholic services. 

“Dev, this may offend you, but bear in mind
that it’s icy as shit out here this morning, and I don’t own
sensible shoes.”

He glanced at me.  “And?” 
Wary.  Suspicious.

I pointed toward the handicapped spaces
front and center at the base of the spire-like stairs up to the
church.  “They gave us a temporary permit.”  My fingers
already fumbled for the center console where the offensive tag had
been secreted when we left the hospital.

Devlin groaned.  “So you’re forcing
this on me with guilt because you don’t own shoes that aren’t
sexy.”

“Don’t go there, brother.”

It tugged a tiny grin to his lips – until
the Expedition slid to a halt, front right wheel bumping the
curb.  Then the levity sucked out of my car leaving anxiety in
the resulting vacuum.  Silence and grief prickled my skin.

I reached for Devlin’s arm.  “Hey
...”

“I can’t do this, Helen.  I can’t walk
in there and feel all those eyes on me, accusing me of something I
wish had been different too.”

“They don’t wish you had died instead of
Ned,” I spoke the words with deep conviction.  “Devlin, please
don’t believe that.”  Still, deep in my heart, I suspected
that one of his detective brethren
did
hold that belief and
lacked a propriety social filter that would enable him to keep his
nasty remarks to himself.

I didn’t wear my sidearm to the
funeral.  Speaking of God,
thank God
, because I had no
doubt that I wouldn’t be able to control the urge to empty the clip
of my Glock into Tony Briscoe’s fat belly if he hurt my friend, my
ally.

“They’re staring, and we’re not even out of
the car.”

My fingers gripped Dev’s forearm. 
“This is precisely what happens when you befriend the pariah of law
enforcement, honey.  It’s not you they resent, it’s me,
because Johnny got hurt and it was absolutely my fault.” 
Also, Tony Briscoe had a big mouth.  I wondered idly if Maya
might let me borrow the suture gun she used to close the sternums
of bodies that rolled through the morgue.  I could use it on
his jaw. That might shut him up.

“These guys adore you.  Well, all but
one,” Devlin said.  “And nobody was listening to his ranting
after Orion got hurt, Helen.  Nobody made Johnny rush in after
you.  We all got that.  Why do you think Ned thought you
ought to consider moving on and forgetting about Johnny?”

“Because you were his partner, and he knew
you have a massive crush on me.”  Teasing.  Not a good
plan.

Dev turned sad eyes on me.  “Yeah,
Helen.  He knew.  But he also realized that Briscoe had
Johnny’s ear harder than anybody else, even his so-called best
friend.”

“Had,” I whispered.  I didn’t want to
believe that was still the case.  “Dev, he was our friend, our
colleague.  Ned had our backs every way imaginable.  We
owe it to his memory to put aside whatever anxiety we share right
now, to walk in there, honor him and leave our baggage at the
door.  This isn’t about what anybody thinks of us.  This
is because we loved and respected him.”

“What if his family –?”

“Are you kidding?”

“I know,” Dev rasped.  “Ned wouldn’t be
surrounded by anything less that what he was.”

“Let’s do this.  The longer we wait,
the harder it’ll be to walk up those steps.  Plus, if they
start without us, it’ll cause a scene if we stroll in late.”

He gave a stoic stare at the church. 
“You’ve got my back, I’ve got yours.  Right?”

“Forever, Dev.”

“All right.  Let’s do this.”

“Wait for me.  I don’t want to fall on
my butt in a skirt.”

He grinned again.  “Now we have the
real reason you felt handicapped parking was necessary. 
You’re impaired by gender specific clothes.”

“Pretty much,” I grumbled.  “I don’t
know why Shelly insisted on skirts, but that’s all they gave
me.”

Dev waited for me on the salt sprinkled
sidewalk.  I clutched his arm and let him lead the way to the
front doors of the imposing religious edifice.  “I hate
churches.”  Each step upward reminded me how much and
why.  “I haven’t been inside one since my mother died.”

“Catholic?”

“No,” I said.  “Sort of a nutty
fundamentalist one like Crevan’s.”

“What did you do for the ex’s funeral? 
Or am I wrong thinking you went to his service at all?”

“Secular, graveside only.  It was me
and a bunch of FBI agents who I think wanted to make sure he was
really dead.”  And serve me with a search warrant for our
townhouse, but Devlin didn’t need that sordid tale.  God
knows, it might’ve given him pause before he could dismiss more of
Briscoe’s ranting about the homicidal expression he glimpsed.

“What was that like?” Dev reached for the
large wrought iron handle on the megalithic door and tugged.

“Blessedly brief,” I said.  If people
skipped all the happily ever after in the clouds nonsense, funerals
were generally no-nonsense affairs.  Since none of Rick’s
criminal cronies were inclined to keep company with me and the
bureau, there were no heartfelt eulogies offered on that rainy
spring day either.

“Ours aren’t terribly long,” Dev yanked the
door open and winced.

“We should’ve brought the wheelchair, and
why am I not surprised that you’re one of the abundantly prominent
Catholic residents in this city?”

“My mama raised me right,” Dev forced the
pain out of his eyes but still guarded his still healing
abdomen.

An usher met us at the door, some desk
sergeant I vaguely recognized from Downey Division. 
“Detectives Eriksson and Mackenzie, the family has requested that
you be seated with them in the front of the cathedral.”

I glanced up at Devlin.  His eyes had
immediately stained red.  Moisture leaked into the swarthy
creases at the edges. 

“Thank you, sergeant.”  I offered my
other arm to our official escort through the packed
cathedral. 

Ned’s wives, both former and current,
children and step children sat in the front row.  Nancy, his
third and current wife rose immediately and gripped Devlin’s
hands.  She leaned close, kissed his cheek and murmured
something I couldn’t hear.  It was a punch in the gut,
whatever she said.  One tear streaked down Devlin’s
cheek.  He nodded and hugged her.

“I’m so sorry, Nancy.  I wish to God
this hadn’t happened.”

“He loved you, Devlin.  Don’t doubt for
a minute how much you meant to him.  In all these years, I’ve
never known Ned to take to a partner as fast as he did you.”

She turned to me.  “Detective
Eriksson.”

The hug from someone I’d heard plenty about
but never met was unexpected.  She whispered in my ear.

“Look after him.  Ned would want
that.”

“I will.”

“And solve this case… for Ned.  The job
meant so much to him.”

“We’ll do our best.” 

Years ago, I learned the hard way that
promises to solve crimes were almost a jinx to cops. 
Never
make a promise unless you’re absolutely sure you can deliver,
Sprout.
  Dad’s words drifted back to me, the proverbial
lifesaver tossed before I could drown without his wisdom to guide
me.  Of course he hadn’t spoken in the context of this job and
making unfulfillable promises. 

My mind drifted back to the promise I made
Johnny in the wee hours this morning.  Could I deliver? 
In the heat of the moment, I believed my promise was true and from
the heart.  Unfortunately, in my world, even the foggy
dullness of Darkwater Bay daylight brought with it cold reason, and
there is an absolute disconnect between the heart and the mind.

I took my seat beside Devlin.  He
clutched my hand in a death grip that I was pretty sure somehow
stifled the tears he struggled to suppress.  The priest or
cardinal or whatever the heavily  robed officiant droned on
for a good fifteen minutes before I figured I’d need my fingers
amputated from blood loss in the tight vice Devlin inflicted. 
I wiggled my fingers slightly, and he relaxed.

The service was nothing like the one for my
mother.  The priest knew Ned well, spoke of his kindness, his
dedication to his family, extended though it was, his honor as a
police officer who believed in standing up for the cause of
right.  The sermon wasn’t heavy on theology.  Instead,
the priest read the beatitudes and offered prayers and assurances
to the living that Ned had truly inherited the kingdom of God,
without a glimmer of doubt.

Still, my mind wandered away from the words
that offered comfort to everyone but me.  My eyes drifted
inconspicuously around.  I wondered where Johnny was sitting,
why I hadn’t noticed him when we were escorted to the front of the
massive sanctuary.  Was that what Catholics even called the
hub of their worship space?  I had no clue.

Johnny could’ve been right behind me for all
I knew.  I figured that it would be bad form to start
rubbernecking in the middle of my friend and colleague’s funeral
and controlled the urge.  The sensation of judging eyes on my
back was blessedly absent.  It got me thinking about both Dev
and my assumptions where the influence of Tony Briscoe was
concerned.  Did anybody listen to him?  Were all the cops
in Darkwater Bay as prone to salacious small talk and gossip as I
once believed? 

Devlin nudged me with his elbow. 
People were standing.

“Is it over?” I whispered.

The corners of his mouth twitched. 
“Prayers,” he replied.

“Oh.”

“Shh.”

Everyone around me bowed heads and closed
their eyes. 
Ah-ha.  My moment of unguarded survey has
arrived.  If they’re all praying, I can find Johnny.

My head twisted for half an instant until my
eyes locked with those of Tony Briscoe, three rows back on the
opposite side of the sanctuary with the rest of the detective squad
from Downey Division.  His eyebrows lifted.

I wanted to smack him in the head. 
Don’t look down at me for gawking around when the devout Catholics
are supposed to close their eyes. 

Eyes averted, I focused on the priest. 
He recited something that sounded rehearsed and utterly canonical
while voices around and beside me responded at some sort of
ordained interval with a lot of automatic stuff akin to
agreement.  My brain shrugged.  How did this help?

My musings were interrupted by the end of
the service.  Nancy turned to Devlin.

“If you’re not up for the graveside service
–”

My brain groaned this time.  The sleet
had stopped, but it was colder than the Arctic outside this
morning.  Screw Devlin and his post-op weakness.  I felt
every bit the Hindu cow with my scrawny legs exposed and
unprotected.

“Nancy, when Ned is honored, I’ll be there,”
he said.  “No question about it.  I’m fine, and you
shouldn’t worry about me.  At all.”

Great.  More chanting and magical
thinking over the hole in the ground.  Of all the modern
funerary rites to which I’d been subjected, somehow that one was
the most unsettling for me.  It was completely irrational, but
the sensation of suffocation summoned a nightmarish panic in my
head that didn’t abate every time the image was conjured, since the
first time I witnessed it.  I wasn’t even particularly sorry
to be putting my mother’s body into this so called final
rest.  Burial was just creepy.

Ned’s was the first funeral I’d attended
where the individual was someone I missed already.  I felt the
tug of Devlin’s hand.  It was time to go.  Yeah, let’s
honor someone we loved by putting him in a box, and then lowering
it six feet under ground.  That sounds real respectful to
me.

“Helen.”

“Sorry,” I muttered.

He leaned close and murmured into my
ear.  “Is it my imagination, or are you dragging your feet all
of a sudden?”

I thought of the dark, moist soil, the
gaping wound waiting to receive our friend into its gullet. 
“I hate this part.”