Sticky Fingers (25 page)

The upstairs hall was little more than a landing with three rooms radiating from it. I followed the light shining from the room on my right.

And found him on the bed.

One bullet had hit him in the shoulder. But blood also gushed from a head wound.

I wrestled the towel from around his hips and pressed it to the side of his head.

Bug must have run around the house too, because he came into the room a half a minute later, breathing hard.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

The shooter had waited just outside the door, I guessed. Shot Mitchell twice as he came out of the bathroom. The momentum of the shots had propelled him onto the bed.

Mitchell’s eyes fluttered. His breathing was shallow and uneven.

Bug still had his phone to his ear. He spoke curtly to the dispatcher, demanding an ambulance.

I kept steady pressure on the side of Mitchell’s head, but the blood was already everywhere. I tried not to think about it and took an inventory of his room. It was tidy except for Mitchell’s clothes and shoes on the floor. His wallet lay on the dresser. The walls were covered with photos of his daughter—skating, smiling in her sparkly costumes, proudly holding up her trophies.

Bug spun toward the closet and kicked the door wide, weapon ready. “The guy could still be here in the house, Rox.”

“He’s not here,” I said. “I followed somebody down the backyard, into the woods.”

Bug stowed his gun, turned on the overhead light, and came over to the bed. “Don’t die on us, Mitch. Don’t die.”

I don’t remember what Bug and I said to each other after that, and Mitch didn’t do anything but gurgle. The ambulance showed up fast—that’s the suburbs for you—and Bug went downstairs to let them in. When the paramedics took over, Bug grabbed my arm.

“Show me where the shooter went.”

We ran down the stairs together and I led the way across the deck, down the outside steps, to the edge of the woods. Outside, the wind had kicked up. Or else I was cold from shock.

“There.” I pointed into the trees. “Whoever it was took off down through that gulley. I could hear him, couldn’t see exactly where he went.”

“There must be another road down that way. Maybe a different neighborhood.”

At that moment, a suburban squad car came down the driveway, bubblegum light sending a whirl of red flashes against the trees and nearby houses. Bug turned from me and went up to meet it, pulling out his shield to show the patrol officer.

I stayed at the edge of the trees. The quiet neighborhood had already noticed the ambulance and the police car. Curious people were poking their heads out of the nearby houses. It was different here. In the city, neighbors would stay indoors until they knew it was safe. But in the burbs, people were more trusting.

Perhaps more observant, too. Maybe somebody had seen the shooter arrive. Had noticed him slip inside through the sliding door to try ending the life of a devoted father.

The patrol car backed up the driveway, going fast. The officer threw the car into gear and roared off up the street.

Bug returned to me. “Local cop says there’s another housing development below this one. He’s going down now to look for your shooter. But the street empties out onto a local road and goes straight up to the turnpike.”

“So the shooter planned a quick escape.”

“Looks that way. You all right?”

I didn’t bother to answer.

He pulled a flashlight from inside his coat. He shone it up at the house, then down the yard, systematically casting the light from side to side, looking for footprints in the skiff of snow on the grass.

Simultaneously, we both saw a small black item on the ground. Together, we walked closer, and Bug crouched down for a closer look. He put the light directly onto it—a glove.

I recognized it at once.

I must have made a sound, because Bug looked up at me. “Recognize this?”

“Yes. It’s mine.”

He picked it up and started to hand it to me.

I took a step back. “No. I lost that glove. Yesterday or maybe sometime today, I can’t remember when. Give me a second.”

“Wait, so–?”

“So the shooter left it here.”

“Left it? Or planted it? You mean—? The shooter knows you? Is trying to implicate you?”

I met Bug’s gaze for a second, but sank down to sit in the snow. My hands were smeared with something dark and sticky, and I tried not to think about what it was. Upstairs, Mitchell was still alive, but barely. And whoever shot him had left my glove here to be found by the police.

Bug put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

19

Around one in the morning they reluctantly turned me loose, and I staggered over to my truck. I sat behind the wheel, breathing raggedly for several minutes before I could work up the guts to turn on the engine. I’d had a close call with someone who had shot Mitch Mitchell. I gotta admit, I was spooked.

And keyed up. I drove into the city, listening to Dooce sing about heartbreak. But this time I didn’t sing along. What he didn’t know about heartbreak could fill an ocean. My head was full of images I wished I could erase. Clarice dead in a carpet. Mitchell bleeding out on his bed.

I should have been crying for Sugar—a kid who might be an orphan by now. But I couldn’t. Instead, I felt a boiling rage start bubbling inside. White heat so searing I couldn’t think straight. I needed something to stop it. If Gino had showed up in my headlights just then, I’d probably have beaten him senseless.

On autopilot, I cruised past a couple of bars, thinking I might slip inside. Get a drink. Cool down a little. Make my brain stop whirling.

Wangdoodles on the South Side would be a good bet, I thought. Nobody knew me there. I parked on Carson Street and walked two blocks before turning up the alley, jingling my keys in one hand. I passed a couple of college hangouts on the way, but tonight I didn’t feel like getting puked on.

Wangdoodles catered to firefighters and cops, I realized as I stepped inside. I remembered I’d been in the place before—a few years ago. It was a dark, sour-smelling honeycomb of rooms radiating from a central bar tended by a string of bored women who wore red T-shirts with the bar’s suggestive logo printed on the front.

I recognized the faces of two guys at the first table. They were vaguely familiar to me, so I walked on by. I didn’t want to talk to anybody I knew. I really didn’t want to talk at all.

At the bar, three single men sat looking up at a TV screen playing football highlights, all nursing drinks. Two looked too drunk to function, but the third guy would do. Big shoulders, a day’s worth of beard, clean jeans. He wasn’t bad. I slid onto the stool next to him and signaled the girl behind the bar for a draft. Her nametag said
EDIE
.

“Hey,” I said to the guy next to me. “Do I know you?”

Surprised, he turned and looked me over.

Before he could respond, though, the two guys from the first table strolled up, drinks in hand. One was tall and whippy, his pal shorter and built like a weightlifter.

The weightlifter said, “Hey, buddy, be careful. This broad can hurt you.”

I spun on the stool. “What’s the matter, fellas? Your feelings get wounded?”

They looked at each other and laughed. The taller one said, “No, we just were thinking you might want to party again.”

Okay, I knew their faces, and I was pretty sure I’d had a brief booty call with both of them before. The tall one made me think of a time in a no-tell motel somewhere, but I wasn’t sure. The weightlifter—he didn’t ring any bells, but that didn’t mean anything. In my bad-girl days, I could have done something with him without looking at his face much.

The weightlifter leaned close, beer on his breath. “What about both of us this time, baby?” he said. “My place is a couple of blocks from here, on the Slopes. I could really use a BJ, and Stevie here likes to watch. Gets him hot. Then you could do whatever you want with him. What do you say?”

The guy on the stool said, “I wouldn’t mind watching first, either. But I got to get home to babysit my kid. My girlfriend goes to work in a couple of hours.”

First of all, I don’t do group events. You put multiple partners in the room, and it starts being all about performance and stops being about me getting my needs met.

But suddenly with all three of them looking at me like I was a strip steak, I heard Adasha’s voice in my head.

“Understand why you’re doing it,” she said.

The weightlifter touched me, rubbing my arm up and down with his knuckles. “C’mon, baby. If not you, we’re gonna have to go with Edie.”

Edie came back with my draft. She set it on the bar and smiled widely.

She was missing her front teeth.

All of a sudden, I had the shakes. I pulled a few bills from my hip pocket and tossed them on the bar for the beer.

“I’m not your baby,” I said.

And I couldn’t get out of Wangdoodles fast enough.

I got back into the truck and tried to find my way home. I made a wrong turn, though, and got lost. Down by the Monongahela River, I gave myself a mental head slap.

“C’mon, Roxy,” I said aloud. “Man up.”

I liked to be in charge. The one with the power. The whole idea of losing control messed with my head so much I felt dizzy. I needed to crash at my own place tonight, not Loretta’s house. I needed to be alone. To think some things through.

I’d given my door key to Flynn—when? Yesterday? This morning? But fortunately, I kept a spare in the truck. I rummaged it out of the glove compartment and let myself into the silent house. I kicked off my boots inside the front door and headed for the kitchen.

In the fridge, there was beer, but also a quart of skim milk with a past-due date stamped on the carton. It didn’t taste bad yet. I drank half of it and padded upstairs to get some sleep.

I flipped on the light and nearly hit the ceiling when Flynn rolled over in the bed.

“Jesus!”

He sat up slowly and squinted at me. “I thought maybe you were staying at Loretta’s.”

I sagged against the doorjamb and pressed my hand over my heart to keep it from jumping out of my chest. “What the hell cat dragged you in here?”

He rubbed his face. “I’m still dodging a bunch of people.”

“You couldn’t hide in your own home?”

“No.” He stretched across the bed and grabbed my alarm clock. “What time is it?”

“Late. You can’t stay here, Flynn. You hear me?”

“It’s two in the morning.” He set the clock down and flopped back against the pillows. “I’ll be out of here at five to go to the market, I promise. I just need a little more sleep.”

“Five o’clock isn’t soon enough. I need to be alone.”

I saw he’d dropped his jeans and pullover on the floor and kicked off his shoes. In the bed, he wore a T-shirt, and God only knew what else was under the sheets. He hadn’t shaved in a while.

Flynn opened one eye and gave me a dour look. “Three hours. You can put up with me for three hours.”

I stayed leaning against the door and tried to muster some gruffness. “Isn’t Marla waiting for you?”

He shook his head. “She thinks I’m staying at my brother’s place.”

His brother had three little kids who all needed Ritalin, plus several hysterical little dogs and a wife who’d been in the army and did a lot of shouting. They lived in a big, crowded house in a tough neighborhood with the laughable name of Friendship. Anyone who knew anything about Flynn would bet big money he’d rather eat nails than stay at that house of madness.

If Marla thought he was there, she didn’t know him as well as I’d assumed.

He gave a huge yawn. “You wouldn’t believe the craziness about this damn soup. It’s like I invented caviar or foie gras or something. And since Julio did all the prep work, they’re hounding him now, too. He practically had a panic attack this afternoon.”

“Who’s hounding him?”

“
Food
magazine. Dooce’s people. The restaurant writers. And Dooce’s sidekick, that Jeremy guy, who actually made another threat. Julio could have cut him with a knife, but instead he took a powder to get away from it all. Never showed up for the evening service.”

“All because your soup is so delicious?”

“Crazy, right? So I came over here, left my truck a few blocks away, and sneaked in for a few hours of sleep.” He looked at me at last, and his attention sharpened. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” I said automatically. Then, shakier, “Everything.”

“Sage?” He sat up straight in the bed.

“No, no, she’s fine. As far as I know, that is. No, it’s—”

He swung his long legs over the side of the bed. He was still wearing his boxers, thank God. He reached for me. “Jesus, Roxy, sit down before you fall down.”

I was shaking like a leaf in a tornado. In my own bedroom, I suddenly saw Mitch hanging on to life by a thread. That, and the guys in the bar who’d wanted me like I was a hooker.

Flynn took my hand and pulled me to sit on the edge of the bed. “What’s going on?”

After a couple of false starts, I told him about Mitchell. About getting shot at myself. I skipped the part about the bar. He didn’t need to know what I’d almost done.

He had a gentle arm around my shoulders by the time I finished the whole story.

Flynn swore softly. “You okay now? Not hurt, right? Just shaken up?”

“I’m okay,” I said, surprised to hear my voice tremble.

He hugged me to him, side by side. “What are you doing, anyway, poking around in that murder?”

“I don’t know. I hated Clarice back in the day. But—her kids.” I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my sweatshirt. “I know it’s nuts. For me to care about her kids.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“They don’t deserve what’s happened.”

“You’re right.”

“It’s unfair they’re going to have to pay the price.”

“It is,” Flynn agreed softly. “You know all about that, don’t you?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“It isn’t?”

I pulled away from him.

Flynn stayed quiet and let me get to my feet.

I was soon pacing the room. “Of course it isn’t. They’re innocent, caught in a mess they didn’t make. I got over what happened to me a long time ago.”