Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (74 page)

But you had to count your drinks at Finnigan’s. You could
literally
bump into the commissioner here.

Above the bar was a banner proclaiming:
BEST WISHES SERGEANT O’BRIEN!
Jessica stopped upstairs, got her pleasantries out of the way. She came back down to the first floor. It was noisier down there, but right now she wanted the quiet anonymity of a boisterous cop bar. She had just turned the corner into the main room when her cell phone rang. It was Terry Cahill. Although it was hard to hear, she did pick up that he was taking a rain check on their drink. He said he had tailed Adam Kaslov to a bar in North Philly, and had then gotten a call from his ASAC. There was a bank robbery in Lower Merion, and they needed him at the scene. He had to shut down the surveillance.

Stood up by a fed,
Jessica thought.

She needed new perfume.

Jessica made her way to the bar. The place was wall-to-wall blue. Officer Mark Underwood was sitting at the front bar with two young guys, early twenties, both of whom had the buzz cuts and bad-boy posture that fairly screamed
rookie cop.
Probies even
sat
tough. You could smell the testosterone.

Underwood waved her over. “Hey, you made it.” He gestured to the two guys next to him. “Two of my charges. Officers Dave Nihiser and Jacob Martinez.”

Jessica let it sink in. A cop she had helped train was already training new officers. Where had the time gone? She shook hands with the two young men. When they found out she was in Homicide, they looked at her with a great deal of respect.

“Tell ’em who your partner is,” Underwood said to Jessica.

“Kevin Byrne,” she replied.

Now the young men looked at her with awe. Byrne’s street rep was that big.

“I secured a crime scene for him and his partner in South Philly a couple of years ago,” Underwood said with a chest full of pride.

The two probies mugged and nodded, as if Underwood had said he once caught for Steve Carlton.

The bartender brought Underwood’s drink. He and Jessica clinked glasses, sipped, settled in. It was a different surrounding for the two of them, far from the days when she was his mentor on the streets of South Philly. The big-screen TV in the front of the bar was showing a Phillies game. Somebody got a hit. The bar roared. Finnigan’s was nothing if it wasn’t loud.

“You know, I grew up not too far from here,” he said. “My grandparents had a candy store.”

“A candy store?”

Underwood smiled. “Yeah. You know the phrase ‘like a kid in a candy store’? I was that kid.”

“That must have been fun.”

Underwood sipped his drink, shook his head. “It was until I OD’d on circus peanuts. Remember circus peanuts?”

“
Oh
yeah,” Jessica said, recalling well the spongy, sickeningly sweet, peanut-shaped candies.

“I got sent to my room once, right?”

“You were a bad boy?”

“Believe it or not. So just to get back at my grandmother I stole a huge bag of banana-flavored circus peanuts—and by huge I mean
wholesale
huge. Maybe twenty pounds. We used to put them in the glass canisters up front and sell them individually.”

“Don’t tell me you ate the whole thing.”

Underwood nodded. “Just about. Ended up getting my stomach pumped. I haven’t been able to look at a circus peanut since. Or a banana for that matter.”

Jessica glanced across the bar. A pair of pretty college girls in halter tops were eyeing Mark, whispering, giggling. He was a good-looking young man. “So how come you’re not married, Mark?” Jessica vaguely remembered a moon-faced girl hanging around back in the day.

“Got close once,” he said.

“What happened?”

He shrugged, sipped his drink, hesitated. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. “Life happened,” he finally said. “The job happened.”

Jessica knew what he meant. She’d had a few semi-serious relationships before becoming a cop. All of them fell by the wayside when she entered the academy. Afterward, she found that the only people who understood what she did every day were other cops.

Officer Nihiser tapped his watch, drained his drink, stood.

“We’ve got to run,” Mark said. “We’re on last out and we’ve got to get some food in us.”

“And this was just getting good,” Jessica said.

Underwood stood, took out his wallet, pulled out a few bills, handed them to the barmaid. He put his wallet down on the bar. It fell open. Jessica glanced at his ID.

VANDEMARK E. UNDERWOOD.

He caught her looking, scooped up his wallet. But it was too late.

“Vandemark?” Jessica asked.

Underwood looked around quickly. He pocketed his billfold in a flash. “Name your price,” he said.

Jessica laughed. She watched Mark Underwood leave. He held the door for an older couple on his way out.

As she toyed with the ice cubes in her glass, she observed the ebb and flow of the pub. She watched cops stroll in, stroll out. She waved to Angelo Turco from the Third. Angelo had a beautiful tenor voice, sang at all the police benefit functions, many of the officers’ weddings. With a little training he could have been Philadelphia’s answer to Andrea Bocelli. He even opened a Phillies game once.

She saw Cass James, a secretary and all-around sister confessor from Central. Jessica could only imagine how many secrets Cass James held, and what kind of Christmas presents she must get. Jessica had never seen Cass actually pay for a drink.

Cops.

Her father was right. All her friends were on the force. So what was she supposed to do about it? Join the Y? Take a macramé class? Learn to ski?

She finished her drink and was just about to gather her things to leave when she sensed someone sitting down next to her, on the very next stool to her right. Seeing as there were three stools open on either side of her, it could only mean one thing. She felt herself tense up. But why? She knew why. She’d been out of the dating pool for so long, the mere thought of fielding an advance, fueled by a few scotches, scared the hell out of her, as much for what she might not do as for what she might. She’d gotten married for many reasons, and this was one of them. The bar scene, and all its attendant games, never appealed to her much. And now that she was thirty—and the possibility of divorce loomed on the horizon—it terrified her more than it ever had before.

The figure next to her lurked closer, closer. She could feel warm breath on her face. The nearness demanded her attention.

“Can I buy you a drink?” the shadow asked.

She looked over. Caramel eyes, dark wavy hair, a two-day scruff. He had broad shoulders, a small cleft in his chin, long eyelashes. He wore a tight black T-shirt and faded Levi’s. Just to make matters worse, he was wearing Acqua di Gio by Armani.

Shit.

Just her type.

“I was just about to leave,” she said. “Thanks anyway.”

“One drink. I promise.”

She almost laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because with guys like you it’s never one drink.”

He feigned heartbreak. It made him even cuter. “Guys like me?”

Now she did laugh. “Oh, and now you’re going to tell me I’ve never met anyone quite like you, right?”

He didn’t answer her right away. Instead, he looked from her eyes, down to her lips, back to her eyes.

Stop it.

“Oh, I’ll bet you’ve met a lot of guys like me,” he said with a sly grin. It was the kind of smile that said he was in complete control.

“Why do you say that?”

He sipped his drink, paused, played the moment out. “Well, for one thing, you’re a very beautiful woman.”

Here we go,
Jessica thought.
Bartender, get me a long-handled shovel.
“And two?”

“Well, two should be obvious.”

“Not to me.”

“Two is that you are clearly out of my league.”

Ah,
Jessica thought. The humility pitch. Self-deprecating, handsome, polite. Bedroom eyes. She was absolutely certain that this combo had gotten scads of women into the sack. “And yet you still came over and sat next to me.”

“Life is short,” he said with a shrug. He crossed his arms, flexing his muscular forearms. Not that Jessica was looking or anything. “When that guy left, I figured it was now or never. I figured that, if I didn’t at least try, I would never be able to live with myself.”

“How do you know he’s not my boyfriend?”

He shook his head. “Not your type.”

Cocky bastard.
“And I’ll bet you know exactly what my type is, right?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Have a drink with me. I’ll explain it to you.”

Jessica cruised his shoulders, his broad chest. The gold crucifix on the chain around his neck winked in the bar lights.

Go home, Jess.

“Maybe some other time.”

“There is no time like now,” he said. The sincerity in his voice dripped. “Life is so unpredictable. Anything could happen.”

“For instance,” she said, wondering why she was prolonging this, deep in denial about the fact that she already
knew
why.

“Well, for instance, you could walk out of here and a stranger with far more nefarious intentions could do you terrible bodily harm.”

“I see.”

“Or you might step into the middle of an armed robbery in progress and be taken hostage.”

Jessica wanted to take out her Glock, lay it on the bar, and tell him she could probably deal with that scenario. Instead, she just said: “Uh-huh.”

“Or a bus might jump the curb, or a grand piano might fall from the sky, or you might—”

“—get buried under an avalanche of bullshit?”

He smiled. “Exactly.”

He
was
cute. She had to give him that. “Look, I’m really flattered, but I’m a married woman.”

He drained his drink, spread his hands in surrender. “He’s a very lucky man.”

Jessica smiled, dropped a twenty on the bar. “I’ll tell him.”

She slid off her stool, walked to the door, using all the determination in her arsenal not to turn around and look. Her undercover training paid off sometimes. But that didn’t mean she didn’t work her walk for all it was worth.

She pushed open the heavy front door. The city was a blast furnace. She walked out of Finnigan’s, around the corner, down Third Street, keys in hand. The temperature hadn’t dropped more than a degree or two in the last few hours. Her blouse stuck to her back like a damp washcloth.

By the time she reached her car she heard the footsteps behind her and knew who it was. She turned. She was right. His swagger was as brash as his routine.

Nefarious stranger, indeed.

She stood, her back to her car, waiting for the next clever line, the next macho come-on designed to knock down her walls.

Instead, he did not say a word. Before she knew it he had her pinned against the car, his tongue in her mouth. His body was hard; his hands strong. She dropped her purse, her keys, her defenses. She kissed him back as he lifted her into the air. She wrapped her legs around his lean hips. He made her weak. He took her will.

She let him.

It was one of the reasons she married him in the first place.

31

T
HE SUPER LET
him in just before midnight. The apartment was stifling and oppressive and quiet. The walls still held the echoes of their passion.

Byrne had driven Center City looking for Victoria, visiting all the places he thought she might be, all the places she might not, coming up empty. On the other hand, he didn’t really expect to find her sitting in some bar, totally unaware of the time, a graveyard of empties in front of her. It was unlike Victoria not to call him if she couldn’t make their appointment.

The apartment was just as he had left it earlier that morning: their breakfast dishes still in the sink, the bedclothes still in the shape of their bodies.

Although he felt like a prowler, Byrne stepped into the bedroom, opened the top drawer in Victoria’s dresser. The brochure of her life stared back: a small box of earrings, a clear plastic envelope with ticket stubs of touring Broadway shows, a selection of drugstore reading glasses in a variety of frames. There was also an assortment of greeting cards. He took one out of the envelope. It was a birthday card of the sentimental stripe, this one with a glossy fall harvest scene at dusk on the cover. Was Victoria’s birthday in autumn? Byrne wondered. There was so much he didn’t know about her. He opened the card to find a long message scrawled on the left-hand side, a long message written in Swedish. A few bits of glitter fell to the floor.

He slipped the card back into the envelope, glanced at the postmark.
BROOKLYN, NY
. Did Victoria have family in New York? He felt like a stranger. He had shared her bed, and felt like an onlooker into her life.

He opened her lingerie drawer. The scent of lavender sachet floated up, filling him with both dread and desire. The drawer was full of what looked like very expensive-looking camisoles and slips and hosiery. He knew that Victoria was very sensitive about her outward appearance, despite the tough-girl posturing. Beneath her clothes, though, it seemed she spared no expense to make herself feel beautiful.

He closed the drawer, feeling a little ashamed. He really did not know what he was looking for. Perhaps he wanted to see another segment of her life, a piece of the riddle that might immediately explain why she had not come to meet him. Perhaps he was waiting for a flash of prescience, a vision that might point him in the right direction. But there was none. There was no violent memory in the folds of these fabrics.

Besides, even if he were able to mine this area, it would not explain the Snow White figurine. He knew where that had come from. In his heart he knew what had happened to her.

Another drawer, this one filled with socks and sweatshirts and T-shirts. No clues there. He closed all the drawers, gave a hurried glance through her nightstands.

Nothing.

He left a note on Victoria’s dining room table, then drove home, wrestling with the idea of calling in a missing-person report. But what would he say? A woman in her thirties didn’t show up for a date? No one had seen her in four or five hours?