Every Breath You Take: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 2) (27 page)

Too innocently to understand and tell.

“I’ll tell you a little bit about it later,” I tell her with a hug.

“Me too!” James declares.

“Inside voice,” Kaylen says to him.

That gives Jimmy opportunity to change the direction of the conversation.

“How about the Bears? Still undefeated. Can’t believe they beat San Francisco in San Francisco last week.”

Jimmy doesn’t know squat about sports, but he is Chicago-born and bred. When in doubt and there’s a pregnant pause in the air, all you have to say is, “How’s ‘bout ‘da Bears or ‘dem Cubbies?” and the world is set to right. Doesn’t matter if they are winning or losing. They are yours. You are theirs. I think Chicago is unique in that we are just as happy losing as winning. Either way we have something to talk about other than taxes and murder. That’s not such a bad thing.

My media star sister, Klarissa, has a good heart. Doesn’t mean Keshan’s mother has crossed her mind or will ever be the lead story on a WCI-TV’s news report. The media has dealt with the story politically and sensationally—but no one has touched the reality of a grieving mother.

Durham was despicable. Immoral. Amoral. Cruel. Unfeeling. Boring except for his money and outrageous lifestyle. But he’s still a feature on the news every night.

• • •

“You okay, Little Sis?” Kaylen asks.

I’m getting ready to hop in my 15-year-old Mazda Miata.

“I’m okay.”

“You don’t look okay,” she says.

Klarissa left thirty minutes ago. She’s on air tonight. Mom just left to head back for church. It’s missionary night and she’s our church’s missionary president. That means I’m supposed to be there at 6:00 to hear a doctor who works in an AIDS clinic in Zimbabwe. I know that’s important and I should be there to support him—and Mom. I just want to stay home and do a mind and soul-cleaning workout. My apartment could use some cleaning too. I didn’t have time or motivation to vacuum or dust all week. I could clean, put a load in the washer, then run the steps at the Van Buren High School football stadium.

“I’m okay.”

Even as I numbly say the words I hear Keshan’s mother’s screech. I feel her fingernails dig into my shoulders. I see her face. Confusion. Rage. Abject sorrow. Back to rage and sorrow again. Then emptiness.

“I’m okay, Kaylen. It’s just what I said, a little kid got killed. Murdered. It’s not so easy to put this one out of mind. Don’t ask me how I’m doing again. Just give me a hug.”

She gives me the best hug she can manage in her current condition. I’m no expert, but I bet she has put on thirty-five pounds and is carrying a nine-plus-pound baby. Maybe another soccer player for Aunt Kristen. I’m the one who usually pulls away from contact. But I squeeze her as hard as I dare with what she has situated between us.

“I’m gonna roll,” I say.

“You coming tonight? It’ll be good.”

“I can’t do it, Kaylen. Cover for me with Mom if you can.”

“No problem,” she laughs as she bends over and hugs my neck one more time.

Maybe having the convertible top down will blow the funk I’m in away. But it’s there the whole drive home. I got some dust in my eyes and they teared up a little. But I don’t cry.

Austin comes to mind. No callback all week. He’s decided to move on. I really don’t know him that well anyway, so it doesn’t bother me.

Well maybe a little.

• • •

If I had known Penny’s car was on the video, I wouldn’t worked so hard to hold it up. Talk about good fortune, this takes the cake. She’s not sure she wants to meet with me. Good. I don’t need to meet her anymore.

41

IT’S 9:00 AND we’re halfway through fall, but it’s raining like an April shower. No running the stadium steps. Didn’t feel like driving over to the 24/7 fitness center where I have a membership either. But I wanted a good workout.

I’ve got Journey’s
Greatest Hits
album on too loud. The old guy that lives below me will hit his ceiling with a broomstick if I’m interrupting whatever it is he does, but I need some energy music and will risk it. I’ve done fifty lunges with a thirty-pound barbell in each hand. I held a face-down plank for five minutes, long enough to hear all five minutes and two seconds of “Who’s Crying Now.” I can go longer but let’s face it, planks are boring. And the song was over.

I grabbed two twelve-pound weighted gloves and punched air for five minutes and twenty-six seconds. My arms complain the whole last minute of “Separate Ways.” I move to the light jump rope for both “Lights” and “Lovin,’ Touchin,’ Squeezin.’” Big hits but not my favorite Journey songs.

Steve Perry is almost done singing “Open Arms”—I always thought it was a little sappy but hard not to sing along with—and I’m counting out the pushups. I’m determined to hit fifty. I ran through the first twenty-five fast and easy. The next ten are slow and hard. Now my arms are shaking as I count forty-one.

I hear a knock on my apartment door. That’s strange. I next-to-never have company. Most of my socializing centers around family and church, so I have a steady stream of invites but don’t do a lot of inviting and entertaining.

I’m not going to admit I wasn’t going to make it to fifty as I stand up from my exercise mat. I have on compression shorts and a sports bra. My hair is pulled back in a ponytail. I am soaked in sweat. Not sure I want to see anyone or be seen by anyone. All I want to do tonight is take a thirty-minute shower and watch some TV or read a book.

I twist the volume novel to low, pad past my eating area and the opening to my kitchen and down my short entrance hall to the front door. The security chain is on. I look out the peephole. It’s Barbara Ferguson. She looks like a drowned rat. Not as bad as me, but bad for her.

I slide the chain, turn the dead bolt, and open the door. We just look at each other for a couple of seconds.

“You going to invite me in?”

“Wasn’t planning to.”

Her eyes narrow and she cocks her head. I laugh.

“Come on in and look around while I get a shower. Not quite as nice as your place.”

She doesn’t bother to disagree.

• • •

I’ve got a towel wrapped around my hair. I have on an NIU sweatshirt and some comfy plaid flannel pajama bottoms. Bobbie is sitting on my couch sipping a cup of hot chocolate.

“You got anything stronger I can put in here?” she asks.

“Nope.”

“I suspected not,” she says. “So this is
Chez
Kristen?’

“Impressive, huh?”

“Not exactly the word that came to mind.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“No offense meant.”

“You sure?” I ask.

“Positive. I like it. It suits you. Austere. Simple. But the quality looks good.”

“Single white female with not too many expenses. So I’ve spent a little on my furniture.”

“But not on your TV,” she says with a laugh. “Anyone tell you about hi-definition and flat screen technology?”

“Yeah, it’s a monstrosity,” I respond. “But it’s got sentimental value, even if the picture isn’t crystal clear.”

I brought it over from the basement of my parents’ house. It was what Dad watched in his man cave, which was a beat-up desk and couch on a tattered green piece of carpet in the basement.

“But you didn’t come over to look at my style sense. And I know you probably missed me since I got busted on my date with Derrick, but I thought you might hold out another week. What’s up Bobbie?”

She looks at me then closes her eyes. Her lips open to speak, then close again.

My partner claims that no one can do the awkward pause as well as me. It’s a great interview technique. Stumble around and look down at your notes like you’ve forgotten what you were going to say. People are helpful so they say things they wouldn’t normally say to fill in the awkward space you’ve created. I doubt it would work on Bobbie, but there’s a time to nudge and push the conversation along. There are also times you let it move on its own pace. This is that time.

I can hear the Seth Thomas antique wind-up clock on my dresser in the next room tick-tocking away. My kitchen sink has a drip if I don’t push the lever down just right. I obviously didn’t push it down just right. The fragrance from my green tea tree shampoo permeates the room.

Bobbie finally looks up.

“There’s something I should have told you.”

“Okay,” I say insightfully.

“Your captain okay?”

She’s stalling.

“As of last Sunday he’s doing much better.”

Another pause. Long enough that I take her cup and pour more hot chocolate in it. I fill my mug up with coffee. I walk over to my stereo system—about the same vintage as my TV—and click the source button until it is on the CD player. I have an old Warren Hill album in the first slot. Great tenor sax player. I saw him in concert on campus when I was at Northern Illinois. Not sure what happened to him.
Truth
is one of his first albums and my favorite. The first song is “Tell Me Your Secrets.” That’s a nice coincidence. I set the volume low.

C’mon Bobbie. I’m tired. Tell me your secrets.

A tear runs down her cheek as she starts to speak.

• • •

“You don’t sound like yourself tonight.”

“Because we’re not fighting?”

“Maybe,” Reynolds says with a chuckle. “I’ve usually defended my every word, action, and attitude by this point in the conversation. When you’re on a roll my honor and manhood has been called into question as well.”

“Am I that bad?”

“I find you delightful.”

“Thank you. But that’s not what I asked.”

“You’re complex.”

That’s what Derrick said.

“I think I’m simple. Life is complex.”

“It does take some twists and turns,” he said.

He called about five minutes after Bobbie left, which was after 11:00. He just got back in the country he told me. I nudged him for his whereabouts but he wasn’t biting. We talked an hour. Maybe a record phone conversation for me.

I’m exhausted but I set my alarm half an hour early so I can write up the report on my talk with Bobbie before everyone else arrives at the office.

Unbelievable. I’m still speechless.

42

“NO WAY. UNBELIEVABLE. Tell me you’re making this up,” Sergeant Konkade says.

“
¿
Qué clase de madre le haría eso a su hija?”
Martinez adds.

We’re back in the conference room. The usual suspects. Blackshear and Konkade, Randall and Martinez, Squires and Conner. Zaworski is on the speaker phone. He doesn’t sound like the captain I know. I fear someone has kidnapped him. The kidnapper must have a gun pointed at him and has given him orders to be very polite and never interrupt my rambling train of thought. Konkade called him to let him know the new development and he insisted on participating. He said he is feeling a lot better. Doesn’t sound like it to me.

“So Barbara employed her own daughter as an escort?” Zaworski asks.

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” I answer. “She didn’t know Penny was her daughter when she first met her. But in a word, yes.”

“That changes things. I personally presented terms of agreement to her. Her not mentioning that one of her workers was her daughter is covered in the full disclosure clause. That’s material to the contract.”

He sounds tired.

“Conner?” Zaworski asks.

“Yes sir?”

“How do you do it?’

Uh oh.

“Do what sir?”

“How do you get the people that open up to you to open up to you? There’s been days when I almost put you and Shelly in time-out because you two couldn’t play nice together. You push people away from you—and I’m not criticizing you on that, it’s not a bad habit for a detective—but then serial killers, raging alcoholics, and madames can’t help but tell you every last secret they have.”

Now the captain is accusing me of pushing people away? Mr. Congeniality? And I don’t remember our serial killer telling me any secrets.

“Sir, I thought you said that the word ‘madame’ is off limits.”

He laughs at that. “Sorry, Conner, I shouldn’t have said what I just said. Blame it on the painkillers. If the cancer doesn’t kill me, the treatments will. If that doesn’t work, the painkillers will finish me off. Oxycodone is kicking my tail.”

“I’m glad you are sounding so much better, sir.”

“Yeah, right. You said it’s more complicated than a simple yes. I may not have the energy to hear how. And you all seem to have this under control—good work, Blackshear—so I’m not getting involved any further. But humor me and give me a quick summary of how it’s complicated. And I mean quick, Conner. I’m fading fast.”

I sigh. How do I condense this down?

“Bobbie got pregnant, was going to have an abortion, changed her mind, put the baby up for adoption, used the proceeds to start her business, and tried to never think about her little girl again.”