The Deepest Cut (12 page)

Kissick was a history buff and read voraciously. He had a bachelor’s degree while Vining had barely skated through high school. She had the smarts to do better, but a college education had been the furthest thing from her mind then. All she’d wanted to do was marry Wes, her high school sweetheart, flee her mother’s home and lifestyle, raise a family, and build a
different
life than the one in which she’d been raised. She’d accomplished that. It had been great for nearly four years, until it all went to hell when Wes abandoned her and Emily when the girl was just two.

Kissick said, “I wonder when Pearl left the mainland. The Chinese have eased their emigration policies, but years ago, it was tough to get out of the country. You had to pay somebody to smuggle you out, like
the coyotes that bring people across the border from Mexico into the U.S. She or her family would have had to pay plenty.”

“She told us she’s lived in the U.S. for eighteen years.”

Kissick looked at Lincoln Kennedy’s DMV report. “The son is seventeen, like she said. I wonder if Pearl was pregnant when she came to the States. She married?”

“I haven’t searched all the databases yet, but she wasn’t wearing a ring last night.” Vining hiked a shoulder. “Guess I could just ask her.”

She gave him a wry smile. “See what you’re going to miss by heading off to Montaña de Oro? I’m sure Madame Zhang would much prefer talking to you than me, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.”

“We both have a bad guy to track down.”

“True, but you get to pursue a cagey, smart, serial killer of female police officers who’s eluded capture for years and I get to find out who put a bullet in the head of a lifelong, gang-banging, drug-dealing, girlfriend-beating ex-con who finally got what was coming to him.”

It came out sounding more vitriolic than she’d intended.

After leaving the police garage, she turned left onto Ramona and stopped at the intersection with Garfield. “You want to go to Conrad’s?” When he didn’t respond, she turned to see him studying her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

She thought she detected pity in his eyes and it enraged her even more. “Don’t get all high-and-mighty on me. You think the same thing about Scrappy Espinoza, whether you’ll admit it or not.”

“Nan, relax.”

“Easy for you to say.” She grabbed her sunglasses from the sun visor. “Conrad’s.” She turned left.

“You’re right, Nan. It is easy for me to say. This saga is taking a toll on you.”

“Saga? You mean my life?”

“Come on, Nan. We’re friends. I don’t like seeing you so upset.” He put his hand on her knee.

She pinched the bridge of her nose beneath her sunglasses. She was getting a headache.

“Everything that’s happened … It’s changed you, Nan.”

“Ya think?” She waved at a passing patrol car, smiling stiffly at the two officers inside. “Can’t you see the way people look at me? I feel eyes on me all the time.”

By his expression, Vining knew she was proving his point. She
was
losing it. At the end of the block, Walnut Street, she turned the vehicle right.

“Nan, what’s happened to you would make the best of us—”

She cut him off. “What, Jim? Unhinged? Is that what this little talk is about?”

He sighed. “If you would let me finish. It would be a challenge for anyone to overcome.”

She entered the diner’s large parking lot. Big office buildings had sprung up all around it. Pasadena’s old-style restaurants with their sprawling parking lots were being gobbled up by land-lusting developers. With the graying of the restaurants’ clientele, the owners were reluctantly selling out. So far, Conrad’s had held on to its corner.

She cut the engine, and had started to get out of the car when he stopped her with a hand on her arm. She looked at his hand as though affronted, but he didn’t release her.

“Jim … I don’t know what you want from me. No, that’s not correct. I
do
know what you want from me. You want to know why I stole Nitro’s necklace. Why it was so important for me to possess that I took a huge risk to get it. You want to know all the evidence I’ve gathered and all my theories about T. B. Mann and his victims. You know what? I’m going to tell you.”

She knew it would come to this and had already sorted out what she would tell him and what she would hold back. He might be the lead investigator on record, but she would stay in charge. Her blood had been spilled. It was her right to distribute the results of her hard work any way she saw fit.

She tried to pull from his grasp, but he wouldn’t let go. She tensed the muscles in her arm and pressed her lips together. She pulled harder. He held tighter.

“Nan …” The look in his eyes made her catch her breath. He had something to say and she sensed he was struggling to find the right words.

She couldn’t. Not now. Not there. “Jim, please …”

He released her and she bolted from the car. He grabbed his manila file folder and followed her into the rear entrance, where a sign over the door said
LOUNGE ENTRANCE.
They walked through what used to be a dark cocktail lounge, lined with tufted semicircular booths, built in the days when businessmen had a snort before heading home to the little woman, battle-ax, ball-and-chain, or better half. Now the room was used for general dining, with not a cocktail in sight.

The former lounge was separated from the main restaurant by a panel that shielded an open doorway. They went around it and entered a large, sunny room where the walls were decorated with framed prints of sailing ships done in watercolor.

Vining asked the hostess, who looked the same vintage as the diner, for a booth in the back. Even though the police station was a few blocks away and officers often ate there, other diners looked at them, especially her. The focus of their attention was always the same. First they looked at her face, and then their eyes dropped to the gun and badge on her belt, then back to her face, with a decidedly different attitude.

When they had barely sat, a young waitress appeared to take their drink order. The servers all wore white shirts tucked into black pants, and red neckties.

Kissick glanced up from perusing the menu to order coffee.

Vining didn’t pick up her menu. “I’m just having coffee.”

When the waitress had left, Kissick said, “Why don’t you order something? You’re going to have a long day.”

“I ate before I came in.” She’d only had a banana and that half doughnut, but she’d lost her appetite.

“Did you? Emily spent the night at her friend’s house. I know you don’t bother to fix food when she’s not around.”

“Jim, I’ve taken care of myself and Emily for many years.”

He gave her that same look that had set her off before. This time she let it go.

The waitress returned with the coffees.

Kissick said, “I’ll have an egg-white omelet with vegetables and no cheese, fruit instead of hash browns, and whole-wheat toast, dry.” He closed his menu, picked up Vining’s from the table, and handed both of
them to the waitress. “The lady will have a Denver omelet with fruit and whole-wheat toast.”

Vining looked up from stirring her coffee and saw the concern in his face. She couldn’t stay mad. “Thanks. An omelet does sound good after all. You remembered that Denver omelets are my favorite.”

He folded his hands on the table and leaned toward her. “Of course I remembered. Nan, I think about you all the time.”

It was a sweet thing to say. Her head knew it was terrific that he was devoting his full energies to the T B. Mann case. Her heart was having a hard time getting with the program. He
was
her friend. She managed a smile over the top of her coffee cup.

In response, he further softened his tone and began to unload things that had been troubling him. “I’m worried about you. You’ve lost weight. I bet you’ve lost ten pounds and you didn’t have it to lose.”

She shrugged. “I never weigh myself.” She had noticed that her clothes were fitting looser.

He leaned closer. His lanky frame was now more than halfway across the table. She reflected that if they were a normal couple, he would have taken her hands, but there was little normal about them.

“Nan, you’ve always brought intensity and focus to your work, but lately you seem … haunted. The recent big cases we’ve worked are enough to take a toll on anyone. I’ve felt the strain. On top of that, you’ve had all this other stuff to deal with. Nitro and his drawings. The psycho bastard who attacked you and his notes and bloody shirt. I’m only telling you this because I’m worried about you.”

Everything he’d said was true. Lately, she didn’t like what she saw when she looked in the mirror. Dark circles beneath her eyes. Sallow complexion. To compensate, she put on extra makeup and avoided mirrors.

“Nan, something is weighing on you so heavily. You’re never completely present. Even when it’s just us, in our private moments, I feel like there’s an elephant in the room.”

She was not immune to his genuine concern about her. She let her guard down a little. She took in a deep breath and slowly let it out, feeling her shoulders relax and her back ease from its rigid pose and melt into the booth.

“Nan, it’s keeping us from being truly together. From fulfilling what I know is tremendous promise for a life together. When I found out that you stole Nitro’s necklace, it was an eye-opener. I thought, my God, she values her pursuit of the creep who attacked her, her obsession— whatever you want to call it— more than she values me.”

He’s right.
It was no surprise to her.
Until death do we part.

He slid his right hand toward her, palm-up, shoving out of the way the chrome napkin holder, salt and pepper shakers, and a steel basket stacked with packages of jam.

She set the coffee cup she’d been clutching between both hands on the saucer and placed her palm atop his. He closed his fingers around it.

“Nan, I love you.”

That was the second time he’d uttered those three little words. The first time had been when they’d dated two years ago. Her response had been to end the relationship. He’d just put his heart on the table again.

Before she was aware of it, a tear sprang into the corner of her eye and slid down her face. It was soon followed by another and another. She pulled her hand from his, snatched paper napkins from the holder, and held them against her eyes.

The waitress appeared, plates lining an outstretched arm. She didn’t seem to notice the drama being played out at the table as she recited the orders while setting down the plates. “Can I get anything else for you? I’ll come back with some coffee.”

Nan had stanched the flow of tears. She looked at his good, strong face. They were right for each other. She’d known it two years ago. She’d known it during the lonely years in between. It was time to come clean, about everything.

“I love you, too, Jim. I really do.” After she said the words, she felt something inside her snap. A chip might have even fallen out, a tiny porcelain sliver. She had put a crack in T B. Mann’s stranglehold on her life.

His eyes brightened. He flashed a broad smile, then brought it under control. “I just … I didn’t know what to think. I tell you I love you and you start to cry.”

“Just a lot of stuff bottled up.”

A realization hit her with the force of a sunbeam. Her crafty plan to tell him barely half the truth of what she’d learned about T. B. Mann was so wrong. She would tell him everything she’d done. She’d reveal everything she was. It was time for the secrets to end.

“Jim, I felt I had to do certain things to learn about his victims and to get closer to him. To T. B. Mann. Things I couldn’t tell you because if I did, you’d be complicit, too. Yes, I’m obsessed with him. I think about him all the time. About trapping him. Killing him.”

“Nan, I won’t let anything happen to you or Emily. You’re not alone anymore.”

“Thank you for putting up with this. With me.”

“Just doing my job, ma’am.” He jokingly saluted.

The aroma of the food made her realize that she was hungry. The food looked great. She picked up her fork and dug in.

TWELVE

A
FTER THE WAITRESS HAD CLEARED THEIR PLATES AND TOPPED
off their coffee cups, Vining began her confession.

“Jim, you’ve got to promise me two things. One: No judgment.”

He considered that, and then replied, “Okay.”

“Two: Whatever I tell you has to stay with you.”

He didn’t need to think that over. “I can’t make a blanket promise like that. I could care less that you stole that Froot Loop Nitro’s necklace, but what else did you do? How bad does it get?”

“Not that bad.” She became defensive and fibbed. “I just …
bent
the rules. I couldn’t take the chance of evidence disappearing. I was afraid that T. B. Mann would retrace his steps and do a better job of covering his tracks. That look on your face …”

He rubbed his hand across his mouth, as if subconsciously forcing an attitude change.

She took a breath. “All I did was this. I told a white lie to you and Sarge so I could make a quick trip to Tucson.”

“Tucson?”

“A quick turnaround, one afternoon coming back that evening. We were working that double homicide and you went to the desert by yourself.”

He nodded, remembering. “Why Tucson?”

“Well, before I get to that …” It was time to drop the other shoe. “While I was in Tucson, I came into possession of another necklace.”

“Came into possession.” A dimple formed between his cheekbone and jaw.

“Yes.” There was no need for him to know the tawdry details.

“What is the significance of these necklaces? Does your bad guy give his victims necklaces?” He frowned as a realization dawned on him. “They look like the one Nitro had. That’s why you think Nitro is connected to your bad guy. His drawings weren’t what made you so worked up, it was his necklace. That’s why you took it.”

“Yes to everything.”

“So what’s the Tucson connection?”

“Can I see Nitro’s drawings?”

From the file folder, he took them out and handed them to her.