Hard Case Crime: Deadly Beloved (2 page)

I smiled a little and gave them privacy they hadn’t requested by casting my eyes back out on the gentle rolling water with its diamond-like glimmer.

Then, as if a switch had been thrown, the world turned shades of blue and gray, and a wind began to blow, kicking up choppy waves. My hair started to whip and a sudden, troubling chill enveloped me, encasing me in goose pimples. I looked around for my own towel, but there wasn’t one, and wound up hugging my legs to myself, a shivering oversized fetus.

But when I glanced over at the boy building that sprawling castle, he didn’t seem to notice the wind and cold; even his sand-color hair remained unruffled, though the blue of fast-moving clouds shadowed him.

And that honeymoon couple didn’t seem to notice the rapid weather shift either, stretched on their backs on their towels, eyes closed, sunning under a sunless sky that stained them blue-gray—they might have been corpses laid out on morgue slabs, so oblivious were they.

My teeth chattered and my eyes returned to the rolling, choppy water, where emerged from the unruly waves a man in a black wet suit and full, masked scuba gear, including black flippers.

I studied him, squinting as if the sun were still glaring.

And then I saw it, in sharp focus: in his hands, a spear gun...

...which he raised and aimed at me.

I reared back, as he fired.

Dodging, I felt as much as heard the spear sink into the sand beside me and quiver there like a small tree shaken by the wind. I fumbled at my little pile of possessions—sun tan oil, a paperback, my purse....

The masked man in the skin of black rubber advanced, a terrible grin on the piece of his face beneath the mask, the flippers no impediment to his progress, his spear gun reloaded somehow, and he fired again.

As another spear thunked into nearby sand, I whipped the nine millimeter automatic from my purse and fired, three times, three small explosions that provided the dark sky with the thunder it called for.

All three shots hit him in the torso, tearing the rubber suit and making little red blossoms, one over his heart, shaking him like a naughty child...

...and yet he still kept coming.

And that damn spear gun was poised to shoot again.

Scrambling to my feet, I let go with four more rounds, four more thunder-cracks that tore holes in the afternoon and that rubber suit, and blood spurted in shimmering scarlet ribbons and yet still he came, the goddamn black-rubber Frankenstein monster, and I was moving backward, all but stumbling, still shooting, but soon the gun’s thunder-cracks had been replaced by the clicks on an empty chamber, and the sand made my retreat impossibly slow, and I felt hysteria come over me in a wave but I would be damned if I’d scream, and I was raising the empty weapon to club the son of a bitch when finally he tottered and collapsed in a pile of flesh and blood and rubber at my bare feet.

I looked down at him for the longest time before kneeling and taking in the bloody exit wounds of my multiple shots, any one of which should have dropped him, and I unceremoniously flipped the body over.

Reaching for the mask, my hand began to tremble. For some reason, I hesitated.

Then I sneered at the corpse, and ripped the damn thing off.

And the face under the mask was as handsome in its battered way as it was familiar, because it was my husband’s face, Mike Tree’s face....

“What the hell do you make of that, Doc?” I asked.

The psychiatrist’s office was dim, curtains in the anonymously male dark-wood-paneled office shutting out the late afternoon sun. Trimly bearded, balding, fifty-something, Dr. Cassel wore an impeccably tailored gray suit with a darker gray tie as he sat in a comfortable black leather chair beside his desk.

“Sometimes, Ms. Tree,” he said gently, “a spear is just a spear.”

I was nearby on a reclining chair, with him at my side. The chair was leaned so far back I might have been at a dentist, not a shrink. Of course this was almost the clichéd couch that most head doctors have long since abandoned, though mine—whom I’d been seeing for over a year, since my husband’s death—was Old School enough to keep me comfortable and looking not into his eyes but into my memories and my troubles.

And I had plenty of both.

I was in brown slacks and a tan short-sleeved cashmere sweater—outside this office, a very crisp autumn in Chicago was in full sway. I’m five ten and one hundred forty-five pounds (I’d been ten pounds lighter in my dream) but have had few complaints about their distribution.

The doctor, by the way, was taking notes in a spiral pad—though he recorded the sessions, he was Old School about that, too, and the scratch of pen against paper provided a soft if percussive accompaniment.

“Why,” I asked, “would I dream I was attacked by my own husband?”

“Late husband.”

I gave up half a smile. “That hasn’t slipped my mind, Doctor....And why would I
kill
him?”

“He was a threat in the context of the dream.”

I shook my head. “No, a spear gun was the threat. Mike was the punchline.”

I could hear him shift in the leather chair. “Let’s start with the other elements—the child on the beach.”

“The kid Mike and I never had. Next.”

“The happy couple on the beach might well represent—”

“The happiness that was denied me. Denied us. Fine. But goddamn it, Doc, killing the guy I
love
...”

“Note the present tense.”

“You can still love dead people.”

“You can also resent them. ‘Killing’ your husband in your imagination is not an atypical response, Ms. Tree—feelings of abandonment experienced by those who lose a loved one—”

“Yeah, yeah, but why would
Mike
attack
me?
Even in my imagination?”

“...Perhaps you were attacking yourself.”

“Myself?”

He shifted in the chair again. “There’s that odd coincidence that you and your late husband shared not just a last name, but a first one—both named ‘Michael.’ Two Michael Trees.”

“Two Michael Trees is right....”

My policeman father had wanted a boy and got me instead. And Michelle wasn’t good enough for him: Michael it was. Pop had justified it by saying Michael was the first name of the lead actress on
The Waltons,
wasn’t it? But I knew better. We weren’t the Waltons.

“Ms. Tree?”

“It’s a possibility,” I granted.

“Do you feel in any way ‘attacked’ by your husband? Abandonment issues aside, did he keep...secrets, perhaps, that you learned only after his death?”

I gave him a sideways glance. “You’re good, Doc—haven’t even got to that yet. So much to tell you, since our last session....”

The smile in the trim beard was forgiving, as were the soft gray eyes in the angularly handsome face. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “After all, you’ve missed the last two.”

“I know, I know.”

He shrugged. “Well, you’re my last scheduled appointment this afternoon. We can go over. No problem.”

Right. But we wouldn’t go off the clock, would we?

I turned away from him and into my memories. “There’s a lot to tell, Doc. Things I didn’t witness—things I learned later.”

“That’s all right. Tell it all.”

“Even if I wasn’t there for it?”

“Even then....You live an eventful life, Ms. Tree. But I hope you’ve managed to stay well-grounded. In the year since your husband’s death—”

“Murder.”

“...Murder. In that time, we’ve accomplished so much.”

“ ‘Examine the past, understand it, then leave it behind...and move on.’ Great advice, Doctor. But as a detective I spend at least as much time in the past as in the present.”

“The nature of your business.”

“And yours.”

“And mine. Go ahead, Ms. Tree. Start wherever you like.”

“We’ll make it last week. That’s not really the beginning, Doc...more like the middle.” I glanced sideways at him. “I’m going to be jumping around some. Think you can keep up?”

“I think so.”

“Didn’t mean to patronize you, Doc. It’s just—you may have heard your share of wild things in this office in your time. But I’ll bet you double or nothing your bill that this is going to top ‘em all.”

“Ms. Tree, I believe you.”

“No bet?”

“No bet. Please. Begin.”

A year ago or so—about a month before his death—my husband Mike had moved the Tree Agency into new, nice, modern digs in a venerable, recently remodeled high-rise on Michigan Avenue that meant even our relatively modest space required a monthly king’s ransom.

This was probably what had my young partner, Dan Green, upset with me.

End of the workday, almost six, we both stepped out of our respective offices, which were side by side. He tagged along as I headed out, moving down the aisle between vacant cubicles, four on either side. Their inhabitants hadn’t gone home for the day—they didn’t have inhabitants.

Dan was edging up on thirty, blond and boyish with a wispy mustache that he thought made him look older (it didn’t) but only served to suggest he was gay (he wasn’t). He wore a brown-and-white pinstripe shirt, tan khakis, brown Italian loafers, and a look of consternation. I was in a gray wool Ralph Lauren blazer, cream-color silk blouse and black slacks and ankle boots, pretending not to notice how worked up he was.

“Look, Ms. Tree,” he was saying in his earnest second tenor, “we gotta make some changes. We’re stuck in the mud here and our wheels aren’t even turnin’.”

“Nicely put,” I said, making him work to keep up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but nicely put.”

He gestured to a nearby empty cubicle. “Look at these chairs with no asses in ‘em! You know what the boss had in mind—expansion! And what have you done about it? Nothing!”

I stopped abruptly, which threw Dan a little, as he kept going for a second, before backing up to face me and regain his composure.

My arms were folded, my head tilted, just a little, my eyes not blinking. “Current caseload is easily covered by our staff of three. If anything, we should be seeking smaller quarters...and
I’m
the boss.”

He huffed a sigh. “Our ‘staff of three’ includes Bea, who’s just a glorified goddamn receptionist!...No offense, Bea.”

Bea, up at her reception desk, a sexy sentry in a V-neck blue-and-white polka-dot dress, glanced back at us with a blank expression that spoke volumes. “None taken.”

About twenty-six, Asian, and as cute as a box of kittens, Bea Vang had formerly been on the Chicago PD, four years, and was now a licensed private investigator herself.

Dan gave Bea a strained smile, then returned his gaze to me, frowning. “When you took over after Mike’s murder? No P.I. in this town ever got better media than you did. No P.I.
anywhere
ever did. And the agency got a boost.”

“Yeah,” I said dryly. “Great career move on my husband’s part.”

“All I’m saying is, we need to step up our staff. We haven’t even replaced Roger yet.”

“Haven’t needed to.”

“No, because we haven’t done what Mike intended, maximize what we’re up to. But all you wanna take on are lost causes and unsolved murder cases.”

I shrugged. “Media loves it.”

“Well, I don’t. Particularly since we aren’t taking advantage of any of this good publicity. We need paying cases, Ms. Tree, and more of ‘em. Domestics are the bread and butter of any—”

I shook my head. “No divorce work. It’s undignified.”

“So is standing in the government cheese line!... You know how we ought to fill Roger Freemont’s old office?”

“No. How.”

“With Roger Freemont. You need to call him.”

“
That
prick?” I started walking again. “Not in this lifetime.”

He tagged along. “He was Mike’s partner, too.”

“The bastard quit. When we needed him most.”

Dan’s hand found my arm—not roughly, but enough to stop me. I gave him a look, which should have withered him, but didn’t.

“Kiss and make up with him, boss.” He let go of my arm but his eyes held onto mine. “We can
use
Roger—he has smarts and contacts and can generate business.”

I drew in a breath. I let it out.

Dan sighed. “Just think about it, okay?...Anything else for me today?”

“No.”

“Okay then. See you tomorrow.”

He stopped by the door to get his dark-brown leather jacket from the closet, slipped it on and took one last look back my way and repeated, “Just think about it,” and went out.

I was next to Bea at her reception desk now. “What do you think? Is he right?”

Her big brown eyes gazed up at me. “Yeah, he is.”

“Really?”

“I
am
pretty much a glorified receptionist....Why do I have a license-to-carry again?”

I didn’t answer her, thoughts generated by Dan’s complaints leaving no room for hers.

So she gave it up, asking, “You want your messages? A couple of people have been trying pretty hard to get you.”

“They’ll keep till tomorrow. Night, Bea.”

“Good night, Ms. Tree.”

I took my dark blue trenchcoat from the closet and, juggling with my purse, slipped it on and slipped on out.

I’d barely exited when I all but bumped into Bernie Levine, our attorney, a dark-haired, sharp-eyed little man in a tailored black suit and a silver silk tie, a combo that hadn’t cost him any more than our monthly office rent.

“Ms. Tree! Thank God I caught you.”

Normally Bernie is so low-key and self-composed as to be invisible. But right now he was on edge—that was plain in his expression of wild-eyed relief.