Forever Mine (2 page)

For a moment, the female voice startled her, even though Allie was aware women served on the San Francisco force. One had even gifted her with a speeding ticket the year before for driving seven crummy miles over the speed limit. Still, she’d expected to hear a gruffer tone emerge from the other end of the line. She kept her eyes on the black sedan and its occupant as she gave Sgt. Malloy a rundown of her suspicions.

“I’ll need your name and address.” The sergeant’s mechanical tone seemed to imply she’d already dealt with too many frazzled citizens. Yet the clock hadn’t even struck noon.

While Allie complied, she leaned back against her office desk and stared out the front window. The morning fog had finally dissipated, allowing the early June sun to shed pale light. A muted sparkle turned the ocean’s surface, visible through a break in the sand dunes beyond, from leaden gray to polished pewter. Seagulls swooped above the dunes and squawked in concert with the traffic, streaming by on the Great Highway. Intermittently covered in sand blowing onto the roadway from the beach, the southbound lanes had reopened just three days ago after being cleared by a city crew.

“I’ll have to put you on hold. Don’t hang up.”

The line clicked once then silence. The dead air lasted long enough for Allie to suspect the sergeant might have cut her off. Maybe, for reassurance, the SFPD should invest in a little Muzak. Or a message indicating there was a long line of calls ahead of hers but all complaints were important. Or, maybe, she should hang up and try again later.

Allie shifted against the edge of her desk, a reproduction of an off-white antique French occasional table, and sipped from her water bottle. The year before, she’d installed a mini refrigerator in the rear room of her house. Formerly the kitchen, she now stored fabric and other necessary fashion accessories there. The room also served as a work place where she created patterns from her sketches and cut material. Each morning and afternoon she took a quick water or juice break, and it was during those breaks when the men who occupied the dusty car came to her attention.

She checked her watch. She’d been on hold for over two minutes and was about to disconnect, when the driver’s door opened and a man slid from the suspicious sedan. Being in the fashion business, she had a good eye for measurements and estimated his height at an inch or two over six feet. It put him in perfect alignment with the long arms extending from his broad shoulders. He headed toward Allie’s house, a cell phone clamped to his ear. He stopped at the bottom of her front steps and gazed directly up at her.

“Sgt. Malloy!” Allie liked to believe she didn’t freak out easily. Still, her shriek probably reverberated clear across five lanes of traffic to Ocean Beach.

It seemed to have no effect on the man. He continued talking on his cell while he stared up at her through dark, impatient eyes. Then he climbed halfway up the steps and glared at her through the side window of her office.

“Ms. Nash?” The sergeant came back on the line.

“The man I reported is almost at my front door.” Allie spoke through clenched teeth.

“Don’t worry. It’s okay.”

“Not from where I stand.”

Allie’s grip on her phone tightened. The man snapped his iPhone shut and slid it into a side pocket of his brown tweed jacket. Then he opened his coat and brushed aside a lapel enough to expose the impressive set of muscles he packed under a black T-shirt. A gun, in a leather holster, nestled beneath his left armpit. He reached inside his coat.

“It’s time to worry.” Allie’s heart pumped out a flurry of beats, and she back peddled—as quickly as her flip-flops allowed—out of the line of fire should one occur.

“No, no.” Sgt. Malloy’s crisp tone came over the line. “He’s one of us. You can let him in.”

A cop?

Allie hesitated a moment then expelled the huge lungful of air trapped inside her. She eased forward enough to gain a slanted view through the side window. A wallet-sized black leather folder was pressed to the glass. What resembled a policeman’s gold shield anchored one side, ID the other.

What had brought a cop to her front door?

Her heart gave an extra jerk. A natural reaction, since police presence usually heralded trouble. Sometimes even for an innocent bystander. A recent article in the
Chronicle
reported on a man released from prison after twenty-five years of incarceration for a crime he hadn’t committed. With that in mind, she took her time reentering her office.

A sharp tap on her window further unsettled her nerves.

“Open the door.”

He had a deep masculine voice to go with his police issue shoulders. Maybe in some circumstances, a spark of friendship lit his eyes. Now, the glare in them made her cringe.

“Ms. Nash? Is Detective Sutter inside your house yet? If so, let me speak to him,” Sgt. Malloy said.

“No. I mean, he isn’t inside.”

“Then let him in.” The sergeant’s exasperated tone said her patience had fizzled along with Detective Sutter’s. “Remain on the line if it will make you feel better.”

Feel better? Was the sergeant joking? Did an average, law-abiding citizen ever feel comfortable in the presence of the law? Right now, the cop at her window made her nerves jangle. Still, this was no time to stonewall when only a single pane of glass separated her from a distinctly irate policeman.

Allie deposited her water bottle on her desk then moved to the front door and disengaged the dead bolt. The moment she opened the door, the detective pushed past her, retrieved his phone from his pocket and spoke into it. While he talked, presumably to Sgt. Malloy, he sidestepped around Allie’s desk and glanced out the front window.

“Yeah…yeah. I almost had to use a battering ram to gain entry.” After a moment’s silence he said, “Okay. Right. Sure. No, don’t worry. She’s not going anywhere.” He snapped shut his phone, pried hers from her hand and disconnected it.

“You know, it’s a misdemeanor to disobey a police officer.”

He stood so close Allie could inhale his aftershave, something mildly pungent with a hint of rose water. The pleasant scent seemed to clash with the no-nonsense authority oozing from every one of his pores. “If I’d known you were a policeman…”

“Yeah, what?”

She didn’t understand the “what” question, so she remained silent.

“You tell anyone else about the stakeout?” The detective’s eyes shifted from her to the street where the black sedan hugged the curb.

“Stakeout?” Allie’s face crinkled into a frown.

He turned back toward her. His eyes drew and held hers. “As in there were policemen parked outside.” His measured tone spoke to his annoyance.

Allie swallowed hard, sensing she’d probably racked up another misdemeanor or worse. She waffled about disclosing her fears to the head safety patrol person then thought better of it. Lying to a cop was liable to earn a trip to the local police station.

“I left a message with one of the neighbors alerting him to the possibility
someone
might be up to no good.” She informed Sutter about the robbery and how it had sparked the neighborhood patrol and their diligence in keeping the area safe from crime. “I had no idea you were a policeman.”

The detective groaned. “That’s great.”

The intensity in his eyes warned her she had symbolically stepped into something warm, squishy and in immediate need of disposal. And she’d thought the one-hundred-and-ninety-dollar speeding ticket—along with the cost of the traffic school she’d had to attend in order to expunge it from her record—was the worst that could happen to her vis-à-vis the SFPD.

“Why were you…on a stakeout?”

His brow knit, which pulled his face into a “You have no idea the trouble you caused” frown. Instead of answering her question, he said, “You blew Plan A, which won’t make the lieutenant happy. Now, we’ll probably have to move to plan B. I can almost guarantee it’s going to put a major crimp in your dreams at night.”

“What are you talking about?” Allie wasn’t easily intimidated, like when some bozo tried to cut in front of her on the movie line or when a gonzo SUV tailgated her on the freeway. Well, maybe a little bit when she was tailgated, considering she drove a Honda Fit, which a gigantic SUV could swallow in one hiccup. It was different with cops. They were born intimidating.

She tried to draw herself up to her full five-foot-eight inch height. Today, along with a red T-shirt and navy cut-offs, she wore comfortable leather thongs. The footwear added another half inch. Still the top of her head only came up to the detective’s jaw. If he ever dialed down the authority, his features would easily put him on most women’s top-ten list: strong facial structure, thick medium dark hair, clear brown eyes and a mouth so sinful it could kick the seven deadly ones so far out of the ballpark they’d wind up looking like virtues.

“What’s plan B?” Her voice quivered at the thought of threatened nightmares.

“Like I said, count on it bringing you a truckload of inconvenience.” The detective’s frown eased, but his eyes said if he had his way he’d cuff her and perp-walk her right out the front door and over to Taraval Station.

He used his cell and made a call to someone he addressed as Thompson. He went on to say he was inside the house—presumably hers—and to meet him there. Less than a minute after he put away his phone, it rang. He moved away from Allie to take the call. He nodded a lot and said “yeah” and “okay” several times. Then he ratted on her informing a neighbor about the stakeout and how they would have to plug the leak, pronto, before it spread, which most likely it already had. He ended the call and took up a position at the window.

While he stared outside, Allie studied his back. His jacket stretched over broad shoulders and advertised he’d have no trouble apprehending bad guys as well as innocent women. She decided she had better take Detective Sutter and whatever had brought him to her door a lot more seriously.

A few minutes later, the front door opened and a man entered the house. He carried a paper sack with the logo of a national coffee brand and set the bag on Allie’s desk. Allie recognized him as the guy who’d parked on her street with Detective Sutter on at least two occasions. Sutter introduced him as his partner Detective Thompson. In contrast to Sutter, whose hair edged toward his jacket collar in a kind of renegade cop look, what little fair hair Thompson possessed was clipped short. Thompson’s gray suit hung on a rangy frame and cried out for a professional pressing. She guessed his age at close to forty, which would make him probably a half decade older than Sutter.

Thompson nodded but didn’t proffer a hand. She immediately pegged Sutter as the alpha dog.

Sutter had just finished explaining to his partner that the stakeout had been compromised when a third man entered the house. He wore his grey hair clipped short, had about two inches on Sutter and Thompson and carried at least thirty extra pounds. His navy chalk-striped suit was impeccable. Allie made her living with fabric, so she knew the suit cost at least four hundred at a Macy’s fifty-percent-off sale.

“Lt. Chase.”

He offered Allie his hand and gave hers a firm squeeze.

Allie knew almost nothing about police procedure, nor had she ever had a desire to learn. The little she had picked up came from television shows like
Law & Order
and its numerous spinoffs, which she watched on a hit or miss basis. Detectives worked in pairs and were responsible to a superior, usually a lieutenant, one of whom now stood in her office. He released her hand, and she clasped both of hers and held them tight against her chest. Her brow creased and shot painful darts through her forehead.

“What is this about?”

It must be something very important to require a law enforcement posse to show up.
Whatever the reason, they had obviously mistaken her for someone else. A thought flashed through her mind.
Twenty-five years behind bars for a crime the man hadn’t committed.

“Ms. Nash…” The lieutenant paused and appeared to gather his thoughts. “There’s nothing to alarm you. You’re not in any danger.”

Well certainly not while surrounded by three policemen.

Detective Sutter wandered into her center room. It held two industrial-sized sewing machines, a pair of straight-back chairs and the two body forms to which Allie fit garments. She held her breath as he brushed against the form draped in beaded, black satin. She planned to show the gown at the Designorama fashion competition. She’d entered it two months ago and had advanced to semi-finalist, which was the reason she’d put her bridal gown business on hold. The figure wobbled on the circular stand supporting the metal rod embedded in the molded body.

“Please don’t touch anything in there,” she called.

Sutter ignored her.

“Ms. Nash,” Lt. Chase began again. “Some police procedures call for certain actions. In this case, a stakeout of your house was warranted. It’s extremely rare for a civilian to notice, and it poses a problem, especially since you alerted your neighbor.”

“I don’t understand how I caused a problem for the police. What made a stakeout necessary?” Allie had converted the three, ground floor rooms of her home into working areas for her fashion business. She tracked Sutter with her eyes. He’d moved into the back room and browsed among the built-in shelves. Most of them held dozens of plastic-covered bolts of fabric. Several small drawers of an old printer’s chest, containing beads, sequins, buttons, garment fasteners, zippers and thread stood open. Detective Thompson had taken up a position by the front window, which provided an unimpeded view of most of the street.

“Ms. Nash, how well do you know Jimmy Rix?”

“Jimmy? Is that what this is about?”

Chase nodded. “It is, in part.”

“Uh…I knew him fairly well. He used to live next door.” Allie went on to explain about Jimmy’s dysfunctional household and about the parents’ acrimonious divorce four years ago when Jimmy was seventeen.

“Jimmy was a handful growing up, a mischievous kid. One time, I caught him shooting a BB gun up into the trees at the birds. I told his mother, but she didn’t seem concerned. I spoke to Jimmy as well, and I suppose it had some effect. At least, I never saw the gun again.”