Cold Judgment (5 page)

CHAPTER 7

“Damn machine's broken again!” Curtis Holt turned to Mac in disgust. “Every time I want a cup of coffee, the damn machine breaks down.”

Mac grinned and unfolded his big frame from the city-issue steel chair. Curt was one of the finest detectives on the force, but he had a real problem with mechanical things. The coffee machine hummed defiantly in the corner of the squad room while Curt stared at it balefully.

“Watch me, Curt.” Mac approached the machine straight on, swaggering a little. The fingers of his right hand brushed lightly against his service holster.

“This is the police,” he announced in a steely voice. “Hand over that coffee you owe the sergeant or you're under arrest.”

Curt laughed as Mac rapped the machine with a nightstick. Then his eyes widened in awe as the paper cup dropped into the tray and coffee poured out. “Son of a bitch!” he breathed. “How did you do that, Mac?”

“You got to show it who's boss,” Mac explained sagely. He slid open the little plastic door and handed the cup to Curt. “It'd help if you watched a few more John Wayne movies.”

“There's a homicide on the Nicollet Avenue bridge.” Desk Sergeant Reinert stuck his head in the door. “It's yours, Curt. You wanna drop him off on your way home, Mac?”

“Sure.” Mac picked up his file folders and grabbed his coat. “Come on, Curt. I'll keep you company for a couple of minutes.”

Both men were tense as Mac turned on Seventh and parked behind the black and whites lined up at the curb. The connecting bridges were the chief's idea, his pet project to cut down on street crime. Now the expanded Skyway System was the scene of a homicide. Murder in the heart of the downtown shopping area would be bad for business. There would be plenty of pressure from the City Fathers to clean up this case in a hurry.

Mac and Curt flashed their badges and pushed their way past the officers at the entrance. They took the stairs to the second floor and stopped at the landing to make way for the police photographer on his way back to the station.

The bridge was a sea of blue uniforms, metal gleaming under the bright fluorescent lights. An area in the middle had been cordoned off and the victim's body lay in the center of the area, covered with a sheet.

Mac stood to the side as Curt introduced himself to the officer in charge. He reached for the sheet and flipped it down. It was the body of a man in his early forties, dressed in jogging shorts. Mac gasped when he saw the man's face.

“Gunshot wound to the head.” Curt nodded and the assistant coroner moved to cover the body again. “Looks like a small caliber from the entrance wound. No ID on the body. They're working on it now.”

Mac swallowed hard. His voice sounded flat when he finally spoke. “The victim's name is Jerry Feldman. He's a dentist. I knew him.”

Curt glanced at him sharply and then turned to the officer in charge. “Notify the relatives and then let the press in. We'll write it up as a routine mugging for now.”

Mac nodded. Curt hadn't missed the fact that Jerry's expensive jogger's watch was still on his wrist. An accomplished thief would have taken it. Both Mac and Curt knew this was no ordinary mugging, but there was no sense in speculating at the scene. The real investigation would come later, after the press had left.

The reporters were arriving now and Mac knew he should leave. He had known the victim. The department had strict rules about emotional involvement in cases like this. He was just heading for the doorway when he saw Debra.

She was impeccably dressed in gray slacks with a dark blue blazer, camera bag slung smartly over her shoulder. She pulled out her camera and took several shots. Even though she looked every inch a professional, Mac had the feeling she had to force herself to focus on the white-sheeted body. By now Debra knew who was under the sheet. Her hands trembled as she interviewed the officer in charge.

Mac made his way to her after she had finished. “Debra? Are you all right?”

He took her arm and she flinched. Then she looked up at him and swayed slightly.

“Oh, Mac!”

Her voice was shaking and grateful. Mac patted her arm and she did not pull away this time. She no longer looked cold and unapproachable. She looked scared, and he stayed by her side like a shadow as she took the rest of her pictures and called the story in.

“Do you need a ride to the paper?” Mac opened the door for her and they stepped out into the storm.

“Yes, please!” Debra pulled her collar up and slipped on her gloves. “I was going to call a cab, but I'd rather ride with you. I just have to drop off this film.”

It took only a moment to drop the film at the lab. Debra seemed to be just fine as she gave instructions to the technician. Several people called out greetings to her as they walked down the corridor and left the building. Mac began to think he was wrong. Perhaps Debra didn't need him after all.

They stood in the parking lot outside the
Tribune
building. Blowing snow whipped at her hair and ice crystals stuck and glistened on her long, dark eyelashes. Her car keys were in her hand, but she was shaking too hard to unlock the door.

“I . . . I don't want to go home alone, Mac. Could we have a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.” Mac felt a surge of compassion as he led her to his car. She was in no condition to drive. Debra had used the last of her courage to finish her story and now she was exhausted and frightened.

She started to cry the moment he drove from the lot, huge wracking sobs that she tried to hide by turning her face to the passenger window. It hurt him to see her so vulnerable, but he didn't know how to help her.

“I'm taking you to my house, Debra.” The moment the words were spoken, he knew it was the right thing to do. In a brightly lit coffee shop, the waitress and customers would stare at them curiously.

Debra made no protest. She just nodded shakily. She was still crying, twenty minutes later, when he pulled into his garage, helped her from the car, and led her into the house. He got her settled on the couch in the living room and went to make coffee.

Debra heard the water run in the kitchen. A cupboard door opened and closed again. She sat there for several moments, her mind blank with shock, and then she began to smell the coffee. Mac was making real coffee. She used instant at home and it never smelled this good. It would be nice to have a cup of real coffee.

A part of her mind was separate, recognizing the small homey sounds he made in the kitchen and cataloging them. A floorboard squeaked. There was a clatter as he got out the coffee mugs. She had to stop crying before he came back.

Debra wiped her eyes with the small lace handkerchief she kept in her purse. The tears would not stop. The harder she struggled for control, the faster the tears fell. She had cried like this only once before, the night her baby had died. And the tears had stopped only when she'd done that awful thing, when she'd kidnapped another woman's baby to take the place of her own.

“It's all right, Debra. Cry it all out.”

She had not heard him come back from the kitchen and she trembled in the hot, heavy circle of his arms. This was not right. He shouldn't be holding her this way. But she needed someone so badly, someone to hold her and brush back her hair and take the tears she had shed and turn them into the comfort she craved.

Debra crept, defeated, farther into his arms. The top of her head fit precisely under his chin. She was like a small, hurt sparrow. Too tight an embrace would crush her. All her defenses had crumbled and she was naked in her need.

The tears stopped falling at last. Debra shivered as she left his arms. She dabbed at her eyes with her useless handkerchief and pretended great interest in the snow falling outside the window. He had been so kind, holding her while she cried like a baby. He probably thought she was a basket case. She was too humiliated to even look at him now.

“Debbie?”

She turned in surprise. No one had called her that for so long. She was Debra, the professional woman. The nickname made her feel like a child again, eyes red from tears, handkerchief wadded in a soggy ball in her hand.

He was holding out a giant box of Kleenex. Debra stared at it uncertainly.

“I've got two more boxes in the closet. If you go through them, there's a Seven-Eleven on the next block.”

A laugh bubbled up through her deep embarrassment. She pulled out a Kleenex and wiped her face. “I'm sorry, Mac. I . . . I guess tonight was just too much for me.”

Mac handed her a cup of steaming coffee. “Drink this and you'll feel better. I'll make a fire. That'll cheer you up.”

For the first time since she'd entered the house, Debra looked around her. She was in a comfortable room, heavily masculine, with walls of books and softball trophies. A Remington print hung over the fireplace, and a television and stereo were built into a cabinet facing the couch. The room was cluttered, but it was a pleasing clutter that added to the room's character. It was a place to hide in, a retreat from a threatening world.

Mac turned from the fireplace to look at her. There was color in her cheeks now, and she had taken the time to straighten her hair. She smiled at him tentatively as he joined her on the couch.

“I'm sorry, Mac.” She seemed to think she owed him an apology. “Everyone's dying and I guess I was scared. First Dr. Elias left and then Doug was killed. And now Jerry! Our whole group's dying, one by one!”

“Everyone's not dying.” Mac took her hands and pressed them tightly. “It just seems that way. Sometimes horrible coincidences happen in real life.”

His words of reassurance sounded hollow to him, but she didn't seem to notice. Unwittingly, Debra had put her finger on the pulse of his own doubt. He was a cop, trained to be suspicious of coincidence. Two deaths out of a group of eight was statistically unusual. Mac's instincts warned him of danger. Jerry's murder could be a vengeance killing. Everyone in the group had blamed him for Doug's death.

An uneasy silence fell between them. Mac realized he was still holding her hands and he wasn't sure what to do next. Debra made no move, either. They sat there barely breathing, pretending to be comfortable, as the tension grew.

It was a precarious situation, on the brink of something fearful and new. It reminded Mac of an awkward first date. They were both locked into motionless silence, not willing to risk anything that would endanger their tentative intimacy.

At last Mac moved. “Debbie? This is crazy.”

“‘Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.'”

The quote came out before she had time to think. Debra's face flamed with heat. Now she'd have to tell him how she and her college roommate used to trade movie dialogue back and forth to try to stump each other. It was a childish game.

She had just opened her mouth to explain when Mac threw back his head and laughed. “Cary Grant.
Arsenic and Old Lace
. Nineteen forty-four.”

Debra laughed with him. He knew! Suddenly everything was ordinary and familiar again. He still held her hands, but now it felt right. It was such a relief to laugh!

“I didn't know you were an old-movie buff!” Debra smiled. Perhaps it wasn't such a silly game, after all. “I watch the late show on Channel Eleven almost every night. I'll bet I've seen the beginning of
Arsenic and Old Lace
twenty times, but I always fall asleep before the end.”

Mac began to grin. “We'll have to do something about that, right now. I just happen to have it that movie. How about watching it with me, all the way through?”

“Yes.” She jumped at the idea. Watching a movie would be the perfect way to escape the reality of this awful night.

“Come and help me make popcorn.” Mac pulled her to her feet. “Could you be persuaded to have a drink, dear? Maybe just a tiny triple?”

Debra thought for a minute. Then she laughed and followed him into the kitchen. “Bea Arthur.
Mame
. Nineteen seventy-four.”

 

 

It was long past midnight when Debra opened her eyes. There was an afghan tucked snugly around her and her head was pillowed in Mac's lap. John Wayne's voice growled from the television. It was the second reel of
True Grit
.

“You missed the end again.”

Debra turned her head to look at him. He was smiling and there was something new in his eyes. Love. The thought flowed like warm honey through her sleepy body and lay half formed at the edge of her consciousness. She felt safe and cherished.

“Come on, Debbie. Let's go to bed.”

His words jarred her and she sat up, alarmed. The illusion of intimacy was shattered.

“I . . . I have to go home, Mac.”

He heard the panic in her voice and he drew her close as she struggled to rise.

“Debbie. Don't think. You're here, safe with me. Just relax and let me carry you to bed. I'll sleep out here on the couch.”

It was better then. She remembered that he was Mac, her friend. Mac would never hurt her. He wasn't like the others, the men who'd tried to lure her into their beds for sex. She lifted her arms and locked them around his neck, trusting him to carry her down the hall to his bed. She was safe with Mac.

He tucked her in like a precious child, stroking her hair until she was nearly asleep again. But when he attempted to leave her there in the big, lonely bed, she clung to him.

“Please, Mac. Don't leave me alone.”

He reached out to fold down the covers and slid in beside her. Then her arms were around his neck again as if they'd never left.