Forever Mine (6 page)

He headed for the stairs with Allie close behind. Once on the lower floor, he stopped in the middle room and again took care not to plow into one of the body forms.

“Okay. We’ve about covered everything. Tomorrow I’ll check out the gates, especially the one you said opens onto the alley. Thompson and I will each need a key for that one. We’ll also need a key to the front and rear doors. The locksmith will make copies for us. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.”

“I’m sure you will.” Then a thought struck her. She would have Detective Sutter under foot all evening until midnight for only God knew how many nights. “What do you plan to do for dinner while you’re on duty?”

“Oh, yeah.” He hesitated for a moment. “I guess I’ll bring something over with me. Later tonight, just this once, I’ll call for a pizza. You like pizza?” Once again his cheek creased enough to display the dimple.

Allie loved pizza, but no way was she sharing food—or anything else—with her new quasi-roommate.

“I have leftovers from yesterday.”

She stepped around him and removed a white satin-and-lace gown from the second body form. Once finished, the garment would constitute the required bridal dress she’d show at Designorama. It was best not to leave anything so fragile and irreplaceable anywhere near the detective, especially if he roamed through the house devouring pizza. Maybe he’d better stick to the kitchen at dinnertime. Not when she was in there, though. They’d have to work out a schedule.

Right then, she wanted to pretend she’d never picked up the phone when Jimmy called, had never sent him a hundred bucks and had never ever learned to practice good citizenship.

Chapter Five

Ben awoke Saturday morning with a stiff back and even stiffer neck from spending most of his Thursday and Friday shifts hunkered down in an armchair, designed for looks and no support. Every few hours during his shifts he’d wandered downstairs, mostly to get the blood circulating in his legs and butt but partly to check on Ms. Nash—Allie. One dumb mistake on her part and his thirteen-year career with the SFPD could freefall over a cliff.

The few times he’d strayed into one of her workrooms had earned him the fish eye. Otherwise, she’d ignored him. Most of the time, she’d fiddled with the fabric draped over the breasts and hips of a chopped-off-at-the-knees fake body. He hadn’t been in the room five seconds when she’d directed him not to touch anything.

At least when he arrived for duty the day before, she’d showed a little humanity and allowed him to stow his dinner—a double-long stuffed with four kinds of lunch meat—and a six-pack of caffeine-laced Coke in her refrigerator. A survey of the appliance told him enough to figure out she was a fruit freak. Apples, pears, oranges and cartons of berries crowded out some of the other stuff: mostly containers of organic juices and milk. Squeezed in among the fruit was a compact white square, labeled “soy.” It reminded him of something he once saw floating in a jar of formaldehyde at the coroner’s lab. A bunch of green stuff occupied the two lower bins.

He’d asked if she was a vegetarian. She’d said yes, although she sometimes ate fish and chicken and meat on special occasions. The kind of diet he’d never describe as vegetarian. They’d argued the point back and forth, until she announced it was time for her lunch and she’d appreciate some privacy. He left her alone in the kitchen and ambled down the hall for another session in the back-wrenching chair.

The best part of Friday was Thompson got stuck with the locksmith, who made additional house keys and secured the fence door. Also, he’d dealt with the technician, who put the trace on the phone. According to Thompson, Allie had been very accommodating and had offered the guys juice and water. When he pulled his twelve-hour shift, she didn’t offer him squat.

Thoughts of activating the snooze alarm on his bedside clock and grabbing another ten flicked through his mind. Instead, he groaned and rolled over onto his back. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the morning light creeping in along the edges of the night shade. He sucked air into his lungs and put off addressing the multiple aches stabbing at his muscles. Long and odd hours came with the job, but noon to midnight, ninety percent of the time sitting hunched in a spine-crunching chair? Torture akin to running a mile uphill with a sack full of rocks lashed to his back. Come to think of it, he’d take the rock sack in a heartbeat. From now on, a duty call in the middle of dinner would seem like the upside of police work.

Moments like this made him wonder why he hadn’t followed his father’s advice and chosen law school over the Police Academy. While the law in its many aspects had always fascinated him, lawyering never lit his fuse. Carrying a badge, being on the front lines was what steered him toward becoming a cop. Cops and robbers. The game he’d played as a kid had become a reality, and he guarded its importance in his life like a miser guards his gold. He accepted the stakeouts. They came with the job, but babysitting a woman, who only grudgingly offered him her cooperation, was another matter altogether.

He yawned, sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. An invisible finger poked at the soft spot at the base of his skull. Although not much of a drinker, when he rolled into his apartment at twenty minutes past midnight, he’d downed the last two beers chilling in his refrigerator in quick succession. Far from putting him in the mood for sleep, he’d spent the next two hours in yet another chair, albeit one that offered more comfort than Ms. Nash’s had. He’d thought about cracking open one of the crime novels, a birthday gift from his sister, that had gathered dust since February. Instead, he watched an old black-and-white movie in which aliens swooped in on a mother ship and went about the business of inhabiting human bodies.

He hauled himself off the mattress, groaned, and headed into the bathroom for a hot shower. Five minutes and it barely alleviated the kink in his neck. Painful darts still jabbed his spine. Maybe after the case wound down, he’d visit a chiropractor. He’d have to check his insurance coverage. One thing was certain, he sure as hell wasn’t going to walk around in a neck brace.

Back in the bedroom, he rummaged around in the walk-in closet until he found his last pair of clean, pressed khakis. One reason he rented the apartment, which occupied the second-floor rear of a six-unit building in the Upper Haight, was the sizeable closet. Not that he possessed a lot of clothes. Far from it. He had no time to shop and less interest. A good-sized closet was necessary to store his bicycle, which, lately, he’d had zero enthusiasm to ride. Dust had settled on the weightlifting equipment stored in the closet. No great loss. He barely had the energy to work out. On a whim, he’d bought the weights when it became obvious he wouldn’t get any advantage from his gym membership because he couldn’t fit workouts into his schedule. The fishing gear his sister had bought him last Christmas, in hopes he’d keep his promises to take their father to the lake to reel in a few, also lay unused.

It was a sad but common song—the cop whose job becomes his life. Cue the violins.

He pulled a chocolate brown T-shirt over his head, walked into the kitchen and grabbed his brown tweed jacket off the back of a chair. Then he headed for his police-issue vehicle.

Twenty-five minutes later, he pulled up in front of his sister’s house in the Richmond District. The two-story homes on either side of the street were attached, which accounted for the many curb-cuts that severely limited street parking. As usual, every spot, legal or otherwise, was occupied. Good thing her house sat above a garage.

He pulled onto the sidewalk and nosed the sedan to within inches of the closed overhanging door. He eased off the driver’s seat like a man twice his age and groaned as he climbed the dozen steps to the front entry. On the way, he swallowed his guilt over his many broken promises to visit the closest members of his family, not only those close in blood but also by geography. His aunts, uncles and cousins had long ago abandoned the city for the suburbs. Lately, with his workload, his only connection to them had been at weddings and funerals. When he’d awakened that morning and considered what faced him on his noon-to-midnight shift, he figured he could use a dose of “normal” today.

He gave the bell his usual three rings before finally inserting his key into the lock and going inside. His father, Martin, a former SFPD police captain, lived with Ben’s sister, her husband and daughter ever since Ben’s mother had died two years before. Retired from the force for fifteen years, Martin still kept a gun stowed in a shoebox on the top shelf of his closet. Since he wasn’t as mentally sharp these days, Ben had devised the three-ring signal as a precaution against a bullet whizzing past his head in case his father mistook him for an intruder.

He found his sister in the kitchen, filling an electric coffeemaker with water. She turned and gave him a nod. Buddy, his sister’s dog offered a friendly bark from his station near the round, oak table. Breakfast smells—eggs, toast, bacon—wafted in the air. A radio on the countertop spewed background noise—a newsman reporting on a local mishap that had caused a four-alarm fire in a Mission District commercial building. Ben tuned it out.

Weak morning sun broke through a window above the sink where three, small pink-blossomed plants and assorted knickknacks—mostly of the canine and feline variety—crowded the sill. The room held warmth and a cozy, lived-in vibe, unlike the sterile apartment where he did little more than sleep.

His niece, Beth Ann, slumped in a chair at the cluttered table, surrounded by dishes, an overflowing fruit bowl and the daily newspaper. The kid wore pajamas and a pink bathrobe and held an iPhone glued to one hand. Her long, dark blonde hair hung limply around her face. Usually energetic, she appeared listless.

Ben kissed his sister on the cheek then turned his attention to Beth Ann.

“How’s the princess this morning?”

She shrugged, her answer to most questions.

“Have a hot date last night?” He tousled her hair.

“I’m twelve years old, in case you forgot. Mom says I can’t date until I’m mature enough to think of marriage.” She glanced up at him through half-closed china blue eyes, a carbon-copy of her mother’s.

“Or at least an engagement,” Janice chimed in. “Kids grow up way too fast these days and that can cause nothing but trouble.”

Beth Ann moaned and rolled her eyes.

“Mom, let up, will you?” She picked at a small mound of scrambled eggs, which Ben knew came from an Eggbeaters carton.

“Well, it’s true. Sometimes, I have to wonder who’s parenting these days,” Janice said.”

“You are, Mom. You never let me wear lipstick and hang out at the mall like a lot of the girls in my class.”

Janice opened a drawer and withdrew a knife and fork. “Your time is better spent reading a book. You can hang out at the library.”

Ben dropped into a chair opposite his niece. He must still be half-asleep. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have teased Beth Ann about dating. She was an A student and never caused her parents trouble. He usually steered away from any subjects he thought might bring out his sister’s prickly side.

He picked a safer subject. “How’s school?”

She shrugged. Then, while her mother scrambled more eggs, she whispered, “There’s a cute boy in my class. He sits across the aisle from me. I think he likes me.”

Ben wasn’t sure how to handle the boy situation, or even if he should, so he just nodded. With his love life MIA, he wasn’t about to offer any advice.

His sister set a plate of cholesterol-free eggs, two slices of wheat toast, brushed with fake butter, and three strips of turkey bacon in front of him. She poured him a mug of coffee then carried hers to the table and eased her slender frame onto a chair.

“How about coming over for dinner Saturday night? Tom bought a new barbeque and is itching to use it.”

He figured the itch meant his brother-in-law needed an infusion of red meat, which rarely appeared on his table. Janice was heavily invested in healthy eating, favoring lots of fish, chicken, veggies and fruit. Kind of like the so-called diet adhered to by Ms. Nash. Last time he’d dropped over, his sister had talked Tom into barbequing a whole salmon. Ben had done the best he could with it but mostly pushed it around on his plate. He rarely ate fish unless it was drenched in batter, deep fried and came with a well-salted pile of greasy fries.

“Can’t make it. Sorry.”

“Oh?” His sister’s facial expression warned she was about to pry into his private life. “How come Saturday’s no good?”

“I’m tied up.”

If he kept it vague, he wouldn’t have to mention he’d pulled guard duty. Any such reference would almost certainly necessitate mentioning Allie Nash. A subject geared to instantly prick his sister’s interest.

“Beth Ann, why don’t you find out what’s keeping Grandpa?” Janice glanced in the direction of the upper floor. “I’m sure I heard him walking around. Tell him his breakfast is almost ready.”

“Sure, Mom.” Beth Ann pushed away from the table.

As soon as she cleared the doorway, Janice angled closer to Ben. “Although my daughter is way too young to date, her uncle doesn’t share the same restriction. Tell me you’re not available Saturday because you’ve met someone.”

He shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth and took his time chewing. There was no heading off his sister. He loved her, but ever since his engagement to Danielle had detoured into a dumpster, Janice had become relentless in her pursuit to see him attached to another woman. Four years older, she felt it her right if not her duty.

“My unavailability is related to work.”

“Then how about Sunday? I’m sure Tom will agree to put off the barbeque for another day.”

“I can’t then, either.”

She gave him a sorrowful glance. “Is work all you do anymore? It’s been almost a year, more than enough time to get beyond what happened with Danielle.”

He gulped down some coffee. “I’m way past it. You’re the one who won’t let the issue go.”