Shake Down Dead (12 page)

Decker took a pair of gloves from his
pocket and handed them to me. “I think she was going to blackmail
me and the others on the list. I think the names with numbers next
to the dollar signs might be people she’s already
contacted.”

“Did she contact you?”

“Hell, no! I didn’t even know
her.”

“Then why would she have your name on
her list?

“I think it’s about Chicago, and why I
moved here.”

I waited for him to continue while he
sat there leaning over, looking at the floor and wringing his
hands. Finally, I said softly, “Do you want to tell me about
it?”

“No, I don’t want to, but I guess you
have a right to know.”

He ran his hands through his hair and
began telling me what had happened in Chicago that eventually
brought him to Hermann, Minnesota.

“When I was a detective with the Cook
County Sheriff’s Department, my partner and I worked under cover
for almost a year putting together a case against the leader of one
of the major gangs in the county.

“I couldn’t go near my home so I found
cafes and other places around the city to meet my wife and infant
son whenever I could. I just wanted to keep my family safe. You
know, I didn’t want some gang-banger finding out that I had a wife
and kid.

I nodded when he looked at me, but
decided not to say anything. He grabbed my gloved hand, looked down
at his feet and continued.

“Victoria wanted me to leave the police
department. Like many other cops’ wives, she didn’t understand that
being a cop is more than a job. Sister Bernie is the only person
not on the force that understands. It’s like a calling. This one
case took over my life and, I’m afraid, it was ruining my
marriage.”

Decker dropped my hand, stood up and
began to pace the small porch. “One day she insisted we meet. I
didn’t have time to set up the usual secure location, but she
insisted that we meet that afternoon. I found a coffee shop in a
south suburb. She hadn’t brought the baby. She was there to give me
an ultimatum. Choose her and the baby or the job. I tried to reason
with her, but she said she figured that I had made my choice. She
walked out and the next thing I knew I was being served with
divorce papers. Then I did the stupidest thing I ever did in my
life. I went to our house to beg her not to leave me. I told her
I’d quit the job when this case was closed and I’d find a
nine-to-five job and be home every night.

“It took almost losing my family to
open my eyes to what was most important in my life. She forgave me
and I spent the night with her, playing with my son for the first
time in weeks.”

“I went back to the apartment I shared
with my partner the next day. I told my partner about my decision
to leave the department when we closed the case we had worked so
hard on for the past eight months. We were going over our notes
trying to figure out how soon we could bust the gang bangers when
my cell phone rang. It was my supervisor, the Deputy Chief of
Detectives.

“He ordered me to come in on the
double. I figured that someone had made us and the case might be in
jeopardy. We hightailed it down to our precinct. When I got there,
I knew something was terribly wrong. The chief wasn’t alone. The
police chaplain and a woman I didn’t know were there alongside
him.” His voice broke and he sat down again swallowing and trying
to get control. He put his arms around me and his head on my
shoulder.

He was crying when he sat up again and
continued. He took a deep breath and again ran his hands through
his hair. “My wife and son were dead. At first, I thought they had
gotten into a car accident. Then the chief told me that they were
killed by the gang I was investigating.” His eyes glistened with
tears when he looked at me.

“It was all my fault. They followed me
to my house. I still can’t believe I was so stupid. I knew
better.”

“That must have been horrible for you.
Is that why you quit and came up here?”

“No, I went on leave and buried my
family. Three months later, I went after the goons who killed
Victoria and Junior. I found the creeps who usually did this kind
of dirty work for their boss. I put them both in the hospital.
Three days later the gang leader was found dead under the “El” on
Roosevelt Road and Wabash Ave. That case is still open.

“My superiors decided that maybe I
should resign and start over somewhere else. The deputy chief knew
Jacobs from a conference they attended in St. Louis so he gave
Jacobs a call. And here I am.”

“Oh, Jerry, I’m so sorry for you.” I
reached over and hugged him. Again, I could feel his tears on my
shoulder. We stayed that way for a while, and then Decker pulled
away and wiped his eyes. I didn’t ask who had killed the gang
leader. I didn’t want to know.

“I’ve wanted to tell you about it for
some time now, since we’ve gotten so close. The time just never
seemed right. I think Whitney might have found out about it. That’s
probably why my name was on the list. I think she was getting ready
to blackmail me. And I think she has already hit up several people
for money.”

“Do you know who those people are?” I
asked.

“Yeah, sort of. When I found the list,
I copied it before I gave it to Jacobs. Once he saw my name, I knew
I’d be off the case. He put me in for personal leave, just to keep
me out of it without anyone knowing why. He’s a damn decent
guy.”

“Yes, he is. Thank goodness he knows
the story and you didn’t have to go through it all with him. Do you
think you’re a suspect?”

Decker’s head jerked back as if he had
been slapped. “No way! Jacobs knows I’d never do anything like
that. I think.”

“Of course not,” I said, thinking that
Jacobs was way too professional to drop a suspect without evidence
that the suspect was innocent. “Okay, then, let’s get to
work.”

I dug around in my purse and came up
with my little notebook. “Whose names were on that
list?”

Decker looked at my spiral notebook,
grinned. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out an
identical one, except his had a blue cover and mine was
red.

Decker showed me his list. I copied it
into my notebook. “Here,” he said, “This is exactly how Whitney
wrote it.”

g.cop pics $$$

dkr chi

jacsn lv chd 10$$$

l.vet aff $

oz bby $$

d.yng thf

“This looks sort of weird,” I said.
“Are you sure it’s a list? It looks like it’s in code.”

Decker took the paper from my hand.
“It’s sort of a code. Mostly she just left out some vowels. See,
dkr, that’s me,” he said, pointing. “Chi is Chicago. I’m not sure
how much each dollar sign represents, but I don’t have any money,
other than a small savings account and my retirement. She must not
know how little county cops are paid. Not that I’d have ever given
her any money.”

“Jerry,” I asked, “What would you have
done if she had asked you for money?”

“I don’t know, probably run her in. She
really didn’t have anything legal on me, just rumors. I’d have been
embarrassed but I wouldn’t have paid her off, that’s for
sure.”

17

We both looked over the list. I
wondered if Decker would have paid her off or not. Maybe he hadn’t
been charged with anything and there obviously wasn’t any evidence
that he had done anything to the drug dealer who had killed his
wife and child. Could it have been more than embarrassing? He had
already lost one job because of it.

“We need to figure out who all of these
people are,” Decker said. “One of them could be Whitney’s
killer.”

“I think this one is Olivia Zimmerman,”
I said, pointing to the OZ on the list. “She hung around with
Whitney in high school. There were four girls that were together in
a lot of pictures in the yearbook.”

Decker looked at me and gave me that
cute half-smile of his. “Well, haven’t you been the busy little
bee?”

I could feel the warmth rising from my
neck to my forehead. “Gee, Jerry, you know how curious I am. I was
checking out her friends when she was missing to see if I could
find her.”

“You just couldn’t wait to stick your
nose into a police investigation, could you?”

“Hey, Decker, hold on. We’re on the
same team this time! Besides, it wasn’t a police investigation. You
guys didn’t even think she was missing until she turned up in my
car.”

“Okay, I guess you’re right.” Decker
squeezed my hand and giving me his most serious cop look, he said,
“The person who killed Whitney is dangerous, Jennifer. Please work
with me and be careful. We can figure this out together so, don’t
go running off on your own. There is someone out there with a
secret they are willing to kill to keep.”

He looked so serious; I nodded my head
and promised to be careful. I had been looking at this as a puzzle
to be solved, not thinking that I could actually be in danger if I
got too close.

“This one is obviously Charlie
Jackson,” Decker said, pointing to “jacsn,” the third name on the
list. The “lv chd” could mean love child. Do you know about any
kids he has?”

“I do. He has three boys. One from his
first wife and two from the second.”

“How many times has he been
married?”

“Just twice, and he’s not married to
anyone right now. Maybe he has another kid out there somewhere.
Heck, all the girls were after him when we were teenagers.
Remember, he was our own hometown rock star.”

Decker made some sort of snorting
sound. I’d heard it many times before, usually from teenage boys
when I was in high school.

“Okay, how do you want to divide up the
list?” I asked.

“I don’t think we need to talk to the
people on the list right now. Jacob’s and his men will be all over
them. I’m sure he won’t have any trouble figuring out who they
are.”

“Then what can we do?” I
asked.

Decker looked down at the list again
and said, “We need to talk to people who know them. People who will
be willing to tell us about them.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “One of the
girls who went to the prom with Whitney and her friends is Pamela
Frey. She’s Whitney’s cousin.”

“How do you know that?”

“Bernie told me.” I said.

Decker’s head jerked up. “You talked to
Sr. Bernadine?”

“Of course I did. She asked me to look
into it and see what I could find to clear Harold. She’s really
worried about him.”

“Sister Bernadine is complicit in
getting you involved in another murder investigation?”

“She appreciates my detecting skills,”
I said. “Which is something you should do, since we’ll be working
together?”

“Okay, fine. Just remember what I said.
This is not a game!”

“Okay, I get it. So, what about the
other names on the list? Do you think ‘l.vet’ could be Lisa Vetter?
Is the name crossed off because Whitney got money from her?” I
asked, trying to change the subject.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Decker
smirked at me. “You’ve had a thing about her since last
summer.”

“I don’t have ‘a thing’ about anyone. I
just think it’s unfair for her to blame me because her husband was
questioned by the police.”

“Right,” Decker said. “Didn’t you go to
school with them?”

“Just Randy. He was all head over heels
for Bernie until she went to the convent. Even then he tried to
prevent her from leaving.”

“When did he meet Lisa?”

“Not long after he started the auto
mechanics course at Hermann Community College. Lisa was in the
nursing program. She’s a little older than him and was a nursing
assistant for a few years after high school. Then she decided to
get her RN.”

“It looks like someone had an affair.”
Decker pointed to the af after Lisa’s name—if it was Lisa’s name.
“Maybe the person did pay up.”

I thought about that. “I don’t know.
Lisa seems so protective of Randy. I can’t imagine she’d cheat on
him.”

“Why don’t you see what you can find
out? Stick that pretty nose of yours in the air and see what you
come up with.” Decker tweaked my nose, which I hate. I slapped his
hand away and pretty soon we were wrestling around and then we were
kissing. We moved indoors from the front porch. No reason to give
the neighbors a free show.

18

Wednesday morning I woke to the smell
of fresh coffee. Pulling on my robe, I hurried out to the kitchen.
In my little cottage, the kitchen was the area at the south end of
the “great room.” My home was so small that it was more like a
“good room.”

“Hey, where’s breakfast?” I
asked.

Decker was leaning against the sink
with my biggest coffee mug in his hand. His biceps rippled under
his white t-shirt as he raised his cup to take a sip. “You don’t
have any food here to make a breakfast.”

“Darn, I was looking forward to one of
your terrific omelets.”