Stone Cold (17 page)

‘You’re doing a better job,’ Griffin said with a shrug.

‘But it’s not my job,’ Maietta pointed out. ‘It’s Stone’s. You need to figure out whether what she’s telling you is getting you riled up because it’s true and you just don’t want to hear it.’

Griffin’s jaw tightened and he shook his head.

‘She’s just another shrink who thinks that she can lecture families when she doesn’t even have one.’

Jane raised an eyebrow. ‘Well you do have one Griffin and right now you’re losing it, so whatever you’ve been doing up until now hasn’t worked.’

‘Angela walked out on me.’

Griffin’s abrupt and unexpected statement caught Maietta unawares. She took a moment to digest what he had said.

‘I’m sorry,’ was all that she could manage in response.

‘Yeah, me too.’

‘She comin’ back?’ Griffin shrugged, and Maietta shook her head.

‘You wanna talk about it?’

‘Not so much. I don’t even know how it happened.’

‘I guess we don’t really know people until they’re forced to reveal how they really feel.’

Griffin looked at her. ‘Are you talking about me or Angela?’

‘Maybe both. It’s what Stone’s trying to get through to you. You don’t tell people stuff, how the hell can they help you?’

‘Who says I want any help?’

‘You think that Angela did?’

Griffin flicked his cigarette away and exhaled noisily. ‘The hell with it all.’

Griffin stormed away toward his car.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Anywhere but here. I’m suspended, right? I can do what I like.’

Griffin got into his car, fired up the engine and pulled out of the lot and away down the street.

The precinct seemed quiet as Maietta walked back inside in the aftermath of Griffin’s temper. He had a reputation for it. Maietta sat down at her desk and stared out of a window, wondering whether or not she was about to do the right thing.

Trust was everything in law–enforcement. For cops, detectives, attorneys, judges: those for whom upholding the law was a job were themselves required to be the pillars and the foundations of that law. A betrayal of that trust, of any kind, was the rot that could bring the whole house tumbling down.

The world ain’t built for you to like, honey,
her dad used to tell her back in the day. Immigrants always had it tougher, even when sheltered in their own communities. Hard knocks and tough breaks were a way of life for Maietta, but this wasn’t the usual run–of–the–mill disappointment, like a missed grade at college or a dumb–ass mistake on the job. No, this was something that she had to do and the aftermath might be with her for the rest of her career.

She turned the problem over in her mind for a few more moments and then stood up and strode to Captain Olsen’s office door. Maietta hesitated, wondering if this really was something she shouldn’t just drop for now.

‘What is it, Jane?’ Captain Olsen asked. ‘Or do you just want to stand there and fantasise about me?’

Maietta cursed herself and opened the captain’s office door, striding in and closing it behind her.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ she said.

‘What the hell’s that?’ Olsen asked her, raising his eyebrows. ‘Last I heard, Jane Maietta hasn’t apologised to anybody since 1986. What gives?’

‘Got something on my mind.’

‘No shit.’ Olsen gestured to a chair. ‘Park your ass and unload.’

Maietta slumped into the chair and stared at Olsen. ‘It’s a difficult one.’

‘You going to propose to me, Maietta?’

Maietta let out a long sigh. ‘I think Griffin might be looking to skip town.’

Olsen’s studied humour slipped and his enormous moustache twitched. ‘You might want to elaborate on that, detective.’

Maietta nodded. Having said one thing, she may as well say it all. ‘His wife walked out on him.’

‘Hardly a chapter of Revelations, detective. Get to the point.’

‘He’s depressed, angry and confused. Last I spoke to him just now he sounded like he didn’t really want to be on the job anymore.’

Olsen raised an eyebrow. ‘You gonna keep tugging my fly or are you going to get those lips working? Spit it out.’

‘I think he’s off the wagon again.’

‘And?’

‘He needs help,’ Maietta said. ‘I can’t be with him when he’s suspended, and I don’t know what he’ll go and do without the job to keep him occupied.’

‘I’m not following.’

‘Only because you don’t want to,’ Maietta said.

Olsen’s icy eyes fixed like lasers onto Maietta’s. ‘Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?’

‘I want a tail on Griffin,’ Maietta said finally. ‘Even if it’s me. He’s not himself and I don’t know how far he’ll take this.’

‘I don’t know,’ Olsen said. ‘You really think Griffin’s likely to take his own life and…?’

‘You any idea how many vets have offed themselves after returning home from war zones?’ Maietta cut across Olsen.

Olsen rubbed his temples. ‘It’s a long shot Maietta and frankly it makes no sense at all. Griffin’s been through hell lately but he’s straight as an arrow.’

‘Everybody has their limit, sir,’ Maietta said. ‘Maybe Scott’s reached his, and now he’s been trying too damned hard to pin the abduction case on Dale McKenzie. He even pulled out some cold cases and tried to put McKenzie in the frame for ‘em.’

Olsen’s moustache twitched from side to side.

‘I can’t do anything about this, Jane,’ he said finally. ‘It’s circumstantial. The only way you’ll get anything on him is if you…’

‘Follow him myself,’ Maietta agreed. ‘That was what I was going to do, but you saw how he went for Stone earlier. He’s on the edge, captain, and if he sniffs me out while I’m tailing him into God–knows–where and he was in a bad enough mood…’

Maietta let the suggestion hang in the office between them for several long and silent moments.

‘You’ve been his partner for three years,’ Olsen said to her. ‘Surely you’ve figured out by now whether he would do something like that?’

Maietta shook her head.

‘If there’s one thing that this job has taught me, sir, it’s that no matter how well you think you know somebody, you don’t know ‘em at all. I read about some psychologist once, who said that all patients lie because there is one thing people fear above all others, one thing that will drive them to unbelievable acts.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The fear of other people learning what they’re
really
like,’ Maietta said. ‘Of seeing their innermost thoughts, their most deprived fantasies or most bizarre fetishes.’

‘Christ, Maietta,’ Olsen muttered. ‘You’re giving me wood here.’

‘It’s your corner,’ Maietta said as she stood.

‘You still going to follow him?’

‘If I have to, yes. You good to sign off on it, officially?’

Olsen nodded. ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t get to carry again on duty even if Stone clears him, but there’s nothing that I can do about it outside of the department, Maietta, you understand? He’s an ex–soldier. He’s bound to have a piece in a drawer somewhere at home.’

‘That’s what worries me,’ Maietta said.

She made for the office door when the captain called after her.

‘You know this could all be a scam, right? Maybe Sheila McKenzie’s pulling the wool over all our eyes?’

Maietta opened the door. ‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘Somebody’s definitely screwing with us, and when I find out who I’ll knuckle them myself.’

***

23

‘You did
what
in the middle of a restaurant?!’

Ally’s voice broke out loudly enough for several people in the café to look up.

‘Quietly,’ Kathryn hissed. ‘It’s not like I want this to be on live television.’

‘Noooo,’ Abby chided. ‘Of course not. You just want it to be in front of the entire city.’

The café was only half full, businessmen and women on their lunch breaks at scattered tables, gossiping about colleagues and texting on their cell phones as they did so. Kathryn had never much liked that sort of office feel about lunchtimes in town, as though working for some crummy business that nobody cared about was the central feature of people’s lives. The office affair, whispers over the fax machine or the water–cooler, people being nice to their colleagues with strained smiles and soft voices even though they hated each other with a passion.

Kind of like living with Stephen, she realised.

‘So, come on then, spill it all,’ Ally insisted with a beckoning wave of her hand. ‘Leave no details unspoken.’

Kathryn related the rest of the previous evening with Stephen at the restaurant, and of how on a final and deeply vicious impulse she had a young girl photograph her together with Stephen. She had then asked the staff at the restaurant to frame the picture for them and place it on the wall until Stephen made good on his proposal.

Ally listened in stunned silence, not something that Kathryn witnessed very often, before she finally replied.

‘I feel certain that I speak for all womankind when I say that you should be knighted, handed an Oscar and awarded the Nobel Prize for Outstanding Bitch.’

Kathryn nearly choked on a slice of cucumber. ‘He started it, remember?’

‘Sure he did,’ Ally agreed, ‘and it’s coming back to bite him in the ass, but I don’t see where you can go from here. There’s not much you can do to top your last performance.’

Kathryn peered at Ally over a sandwich as she smiled. ‘You sure about that?’

‘Oh do tell right this instant or I swear I’ll call the police.’

‘That’s blackmail.’

‘And last night’s set–up of Stephen wasn’t?’ Ally grinned as she sipped a sparkling drink. ‘I never knew you had it in you, Kathy.’

‘Nor did I.’

‘You have unleashed the wrath of your inner bitch my friend, and lo has it struck the mighty Stephen down.’ Ally bit into her sandwich. ‘So, what’s next? A public flogging?’

‘I’m going to check out the other woman’s house.’

Ally’s mouthful of sandwich nearly blasted across the restaurant as she fought to control herself. She managed to swallow her food, tears swimming in her eyes. ‘Oh sweet Jesus, I think I might have peed myself. They have a house together? And
how
are you going to get into their house?’

Kathryn giggled. ‘Stephen keeps a key in the apartment. He’s such a douchebag, probably thought that I wouldn’t notice it with all the others on his key ring. I had a copy made and will make my way up there when he’s away with work.’

‘What about the other woman?’ Ally asked seriously. ‘What if you get seen?’

‘I’ll pick my moment,’ Kathryn said, picking at her food with a fork. ‘There’s no real rush.’

‘No real rush?’ Ally echoed. ‘Where is all this coming from? One moment you’re the shy and retiring college student, now you’re a psychological terminator with no soul.’

‘I’m not
that
bad.’

‘Miss Stone,’ Ally announced, ‘in the history of bad–ass women you are among the
baddest
and
assy–ist
I’ve ever encountered. You’re making Boadicea look like Mother Theresa.’

‘Boadicea fought for a cause she believed in.’

‘So did Mother Theresa,’ Ally agreed. ‘But she didn’t cut men down by the hundred with a giant sword and then put their villages to flame.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Are you sure this admittedly wonderful plan of yours is going to actually work?’

‘It is working,’ Kathryn replied. ‘He asked me to marry him.’

‘Under duress,’ Ally reminded her. ‘It’s the man you want, right? Not a piece of paper and a shared husband. What good is it if he’s with the both of you?’

Kathryn thought for a moment. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I need to get him away from all of this for a bit. The tickets I already bought didn’t go down well.’

‘What, a dirty weekend instead?’ Ally smirked. ‘How naughty.’

‘Maybe. If I can time it to be as inconvenient as possible for Stephen it’ll put him under more pressure and keep him away from
her
.’

‘And what will you do on this dirty weekend?’ Ally hazarded. ‘Force him to confess? Oooh, you could tie him up and
then
force him to confess!’

‘Ally,’ Kathryn chided. ‘I’m being serious.’

‘So am I! You’d be amazed what a man will agree to do when you’re rubbing a cheese grater up and down his…’

‘Will you cut it out?!’ Kathryn snapped, and then peered at Ally. ‘Really? A cheese grater?’

Ally nodded as though it was nothing, but then she leaned in conspiratorially. ‘The big deal was that he actually asked me to do it.’

‘The big deal is that you obeyed,’ Kathryn murmured in reply. ‘Although the idea of slicing Stephen’s most valuable asset does have some appeal.’

Ally smiled, her joviality fading. ‘This isn’t about hurting him, only punishing him and ultimately winning him back, right? You want something left to play with afterward.’

‘I suppose.’

‘So, when are you going to quit this charade and spill the beans? You run it too long he’ll figure it out. He’s not an idiot.’

‘I’ll come clean in the end,’ Kathryn promised. ‘The question is whether he will first.’

‘He could have been with this other woman for a while, I figure, but I doubt they’re married. People don’t generally get hitched overnight.’

‘You married a guy in Vegas once,’ Kathryn reminded her friend.

‘We were drunk,’ Ally replied, ‘and we were drunk for the next six years too. We only got divorced when we sobered up.’

The thought of drinking and divorces made Kathryn suddenly think of Griffin. His life was spiralling out of control.

‘What?’ Ally was looking at her with a concerned expression.

‘Just reminded me of something at work,’ Kathryn said. ‘A client of mine.’

‘Do tell,’ Ally said.

‘It’s
work
, client confidentiality and all that.’

‘So, you can hint and you can allude, can you not?’

Oh, I can
allude
, can I?’ Kathryn mimicked her. ‘You’re so
bloody
posh, you know.’

‘Shpill it Shtone,’ Ally threatened in what sounded like a mock–Chicago accent, ‘or I’ll shing like a canary.’

Kathryn shrugged. ‘Let’s just say he’s a decorated veteran going through a particularly hard time.’