Swift Justice (14 page)

“Oh, no,” Gigi moaned. Instinctively, she started across
the street after her puppy. She had nearly reached the sidewalk when the screech of brakes brought her head around, just seconds before the motorcycle’s front wheel struck her hip. She fell.

I skidded the Subaru to a stop on Primrose Lane, two blocks from where an ambulance, a fire truck, and more cop cars than I could count enlivened the night with the red and blue swirls from their lights strobing the seedy neighborhood. Radios crackled, men shouted, and several dogs barked, objecting to the sirens and commotion. EMTs tended someone on a gurney near a motorcycle on its side. Good God, what had Gigi done now? I hadn’t understood one word in ten of her hysterical cell phone call. This was a hundred times worse than the Buff Burgers debacle, although I didn’t see any flames. I hurried toward the activity, noting the presence of a hazmat team in their safety suits. They moved like moonwalkers from the street to the small yellow house that was the center of all the action. As I drew closer, I realized the figure on the gurney was Gigi and the EMT was splinting her arm.

I saw the moment when she spotted me because her face blanched. “Oh, Charlie, I’m so sorry. I know you told me rule number one is not to get spotted, but I couldn’t help it. Nolan got away from me and ran into the yard and then I got hit by the motorcycle and the driver banged on the door and got the people inside to call 911 and then the ambulance and the police and everybody came and—”

“Slow down, Gigi,” I said, crouching beside the gurney and gently pushing her back. “Are you okay?”

“She’s got a broken arm, ma’am,” the EMT, a young woman with her brown hair in a ponytail, told me. “I gave her something for the pain, but we need to get it cast. We’ll be on our way if—”

“I can’t go without Nolan!”

“Who’s Nolan?” Had she brought her son on the stakeout? I looked around but didn’t spot any likely contenders.

“My Shih Tzu.”

“Shit what?” asked the cop hovering nearby, pad in hand, ready to take her statement. Just my luck—it was Officer Venetti, witness to the Buff Burgers incident.

“Sheet zoo. It’s a dog,” Gigi said. “His name is Nolan and he’s white with black patches and—”

“Would this critter belong to you?” asked another voice I recognized.

I turned to see Montgomery striding toward us, cradling a bundle of fur that was enthusiastically licking his chin.

“Nolan!” Tears leaked from Gigi’s eyes.

Montgomery leaned down to place the animal in Gigi’s arms, and it sat on her chest, looking up at us from under a fringe of white fur. She hugged it tightly with her good arm, crooning, “You are a bad, bad puppy.”

“Rorf,” the dog agreed happily, content to be crushed against Gigi’s ample chest.

I drew Montgomery aside. “What are you doing here? Please tell me she’s not involved in a homicide.”

He smiled the lazy smile that always turned my insides to mush. “Nope. But I was at work early when the word came down we had a 911 call from 327 East Primrose Lane. The narco guys’ve had their eye on this house for months but
couldn’t get probable cause to bust the dealers who hang here. Apparently a scumbag hoping to score”—he jerked his head in the direction of a scared-looking teen handcuffed in the back of a patrol car—“ran down Ms. Goldman and panicked. He says he ran into the house, grabbed up a phone, and dialed 911 before someone ripped the phone out of the wall. The emergency operator said the call was cut off before anyone said anything, but procedure is to assume someone’s in trouble, so we rolled. You’d’ve thought it was Christmas when the narco team and the SWAT guys got the word.” He grinned, looking dangerous in a Kevlar vest with his weapon secured at his hip. “I came along for the ride. It’s been months since I saw any real action.”

Ooh, boy, if that didn’t sound like my fighter-pilot ex . . . “So, did you get the perps?”

He shook his head. “They did a runner, but Ms. Goldman has a camera full of photos of their customers, so I don’t think it’ll be long before we round them up. And we’ve shut down a meth lab that put this whole block in danger. The department will probably want to give her a citation. What was she doing staking out this place, anyway?”

Good question. I crossed to Gigi, her face woozy with drugs and the joy of having recovered her dog. “Do you still have the paper I gave you with the target’s address?”

She nodded, taking three tries to slip her hand into her pocket and come up with the paper. “Here. Sorry I couldn’t get Cheryl in the photos.”

I read the slip and rolled my eyes. “This says 327
West
Primrose Lane. We’re on
East
Primrose Lane.” I held it out for her to see.

“Oops.” Her eyes didn’t focus properly, drifting up to Montgomery, who had come up behind me in time to hear our last exchange. I wanted to smack the shit-eating grin off his face. “Is he your boyfriend?” Gigi asked, her eyes going from him to me and a loopy smile decorating her face.

“Hell, no,” I said, at the same time Montgomery said, “As soon as she stops fighting her attraction to me.” The wicked glint in his eyes sent shivers down my spine, but I ignored them.

Officer Venetti turned his laugh into a cough, Gigi giggled, and I glared. “When hell freezes—”

“The dog can’t come,” the EMT said, preparing to slide Gigi’s litter into the ambulance with the help of her partner.

Her giggles turned to consternation. “What will I do—”

I held out my arms with a martyrlike air, and she scooted the mop-dog to me. “Go on, Nolan. You’ll like her.”

Nolan looked unconvinced, casting me a suspicious look from under his shaggy fringe, but allowed me to pick him up. “I’ll take him over to your house, Gigi, and let your kids know what’s up.”

A soft snore was my only response, and I realized the drugs had knocked her out. The EMTs secured the door, and Nolan and I watched as they drove off.

“Breakfast?” Montgomery asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. I looked to the east to see the first faintest hint of pink staining the sky.

“Might as well since I’m up,” I said ungraciously. “Let me get rid of this furball and I’ll meet you. Where?”

“I make a mean omelet,” he hinted, his hand sliding from my shoulder down to my waist.

Nolan growled and I laughed, brushing off Montgomery’s hand. “Denny’s it is, then.”

(Saturday)

Over two fried eggs, toast, and a Pepsi, I told Montgomery about my visit to Elizabeth’s apartment. He was annoyed by the news of Truman’s entrepreneurial activities and accepted my information about Elizabeth’s e-mails without comment. “I’ll forward them all to you,” I said, mopping up egg yolk with a toast triangle.

He waved away my offer with a sausage bit speared on his fork. “Stu, our computer forensics guy, got it all. He’s been tracking her Web history—apparently she likes some teen idol named Zac Efron—and going after court orders to get the real names of the people behind the e-mail aliases. That’s an uphill battle, though, and it’s unlikely we’ll get access, not without being able to tell a judge it’s key to a murder investigation.”

“What about the blood in the hamper?”

“Spotted that, did you?” He eyed me with something close to approval. “She gave birth in the apartment.”

My mind conjured what must have been in the clothes bin, and I pushed my plate away. “Poor girl.”

“At least it explains why there are no records of the birth,” Montgomery said. Unfazed by the topic, he squirted ketchup onto a pile of hash browns and dug in. Cutlery clattered into a plastic tub as a teen bussed the table behind us, and the sound of an argument leaked out of the kitchen when a server
shouldered through the swinging door. The closing door cut it off. The omnipresent odor of coffee grew stronger as our waitress came by and refilled Montgomery’s cup. I rattled the ice in my Pepsi glass, but she didn’t take the hint.

Sated, Montgomery leaned back, his arms stretched atop the booth’s padded back, and said, “So, where did you find your new operative? She seems a bit inexperienced, or plain dumb. She’s lucky the guys running that meth lab didn’t spot her and rough her up. One of the customers we picked up told us he noticed the ‘fat granny in the Hummer,’ but figured she was just spying on her husband or something. He knew she wasn’t a cop.”

“Well, that’s a blessing of sorts,” I said dubiously, then told him about Gigi Goldman’s descent into my life and business. “I’m stuck with her,” I concluded, “unless I can persuade her to leave.”

A knowing smile stretched across his handsome face. “Ah, the penny drops. You sent her on that surveillance hoping she’d screw up, didn’t you?”

It sounded mean when he put it like that. I fiddled with my straw and tried to catch the waitress’s eye so I wouldn’t have to look at Montgomery. “No! Not exactly. I just hoped she’d be so bored she’d decide to take up hairdressing again. I never meant for her to be in danger. I felt really guilty having to tell her daughter she was in the hospital.”

The pixie-sized girl with the long blond hair had stared at me, automatically reaching out for Nolan when I handed him over. She had Gigi’s blue eyes. It had taken me ten minutes of pounding on the door to summon her from sleep and several more to get my message across.

“She’s what?”

“She broke her arm in a collision with a motorcycle. She’s going to be fine, just needs a cast. Do you need me to drive you to the hospital?”

“How will I get to the competition?” the girl asked, an annoyed pucker gathering between her brows. “Mom knows I have to be at the World Arena at seven. What time is it?”

“Six,” I said.

“Shit, she was supposed to wake me at five thirty. How am I supposed to get my hair and makeup done?” She ran a hand through her blond mane. “This is just typical,” she muttered under her breath.

“I suppose I could drive you,” I offered reluctantly. I wasn’t anxious to spend five minutes with this surly, ungrateful teen, but I felt I owed Gigi something for putting her in the line of fire.

She ignored me. “Dexter! Deeex-ter!” she hollered over her shoulder. “Get up. Mom’s flaked out. You need to drive me to the skating competition.”

I resisted the urge to teach Gigi’s daughter a few manners and turned away as the girl pounded up the wide stairs leading from the slate-tiled entryway to the upper levels without even closing the door, much less a “good-bye” or a “thank you.” Why did people have children? They kept you up all night and ruined your wardrobe with drool and spit-up, then grew into teenagers who despised you and ridiculed your every word and idea. Maybe there was a year or two, after kids were done with the spewing formula and filling diapers stage, and before they reached the demonic possession age, when they were polite, affectionate, and fun to be around?

I asked Montgomery, but he held up his hands to ward off the question. “Don’t ask me, I don’t have kids.”

“Do you want any?” I asked, curiosity overcoming good sense.

The corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile and his eyes warmed. “Maybe with the right woman. I’m taking applications . . . interested?”

I rolled my eyes and scooted out of the booth. “In your dreams.” I dropped money on the table to cover my breakfast and walked off without a backward glance.

Elizabeth Sprouse’s funeral was next on my agenda, but I needed to change first. The jeans and green hoodie I’d thrown on when Gigi called at three o’clock wouldn’t cut it for a funeral. There were few things I missed about the air force, but the uniform was one of them. You always knew exactly what to wear to any function. Scrambling over an obstacle course—battle dress uniform. Funeral—service dress. Formal party—mess dress. If you couldn’t figure it out for yourself, someone would tell you which uniform to wear. I wasted far too much time now that I was a civilian on deciding what to wear, and all I was aiming for most of the time was clean and appropriate. Decently attired in a black linen skirt that fell straight to my ankles and a matching short-sleeved jacket with white piping, I drove to the Church of Jesus Christ the Righteous on Earth, where Elizabeth’s stepfather would conduct her funeral service.