The Red Hot Fix (13 page)

“Guys like him live for the glory,” Mort said. “He’s wondering what hit him.”

“Gardener was beyond brilliant last night,” Robbie said. “I don’t know why Wilkerson’s been sitting on him all season.”

Mort spread peanut butter on a slice of toast. “He’s got an expensive gun in LionEl. I imagine he’d rather go with the tried and true than risk a rookie.”

Robbie nodded. Mort studied his son as Robbie went back to the sports page. He finished his toast and took a risk.

“What’s up with you and Claire?”

“I told you, Dad. Her mom’s celebrating her fifty-fifth birthday. Claire took the girls to France for a month.” Robbie kept his eyes down.

“You’ve been here a week and haven’t called her once.” Mort pulled the sports section away. “And I don’t think she’s called you. That’s not like you guys.”

Robbie sighed and leaned back. “We need a little break. Things have been crazy this past year. Three columns a week at the paper. This book tour.” He ran a hand across his stubbled chin. “Claire’s forced to manage the house and the kids pretty much on her own. And then there’s the money.”

“You told me
The Fixer
’s selling well.”

“It’s selling great. Who knew having extra money, a lot of extra money, would be as much of a hassle as not having enough? She wants to splurge on a house in France. Keep the girls close to their roots.” Robbie shook his head. “But I don’t know if I have another book in
me. There’s no telling how long this cash train is going to roll. I want to make sure the girls’ education is taken care of and our retirement is set. We’re locking horns every ten seconds.”

Mort remembered the barn burners he and Edie had when they were first married. He couldn’t recall a reason for a single fight, but, man, they had them. They moved past it, though. The last decade of their marriage had been calm and wonderfully predictable, with Allie’s disappearance the only bone of contention between them.

“You’re a long way from needing to retire, Robbie. And you’re writing success is just beginning.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I know talent when I see it,” Mort said. “So, you decided to take advantage of my serial killer to get away from your wife?”

Robbie’s face turned the same crimson it had the time Mort took a basket of laundry to the basement and found his seventeen-year-old son lying on that old plaid sofa with his hand up his sixteen-year-old girlfriend’s sweater. “You gonna tell me what’s going on?” He nodded toward the door leading to the garage. “Or do I have to grab my sledgehammer and beat it out of you?”

Robbie tried to smile. Mort leaned back and waited for him to speak.

“These are the times it sucks having a detective for a dad,” he finally said.

“Listen to a man who’s loved and lost, Robbie. It’s tough to fix a relationship. But it’s easier to fix one than it is to replace one. You and Claire are a fit. Your mom and I knew it the first time you brought her home. You’re building a life with those girls.”

Tears came to Robbie’s eyes.

“Tough patches are par for the course when you’re in for the long haul. Money’s nothing. If it causes rough water, get somebody to manage it. Take the girls and Claire with you once in a while. As for the house in France? It’s none of my business, but I’m with Claire. My granddaughters have a French mother. I don’t want them to lose that heritage any more than I want them to forget being American is more than hot dogs on the Fourth of July.”

Robbie offered a weak smile. “Since when did you become such a flag waver?”

“Since you gave me grandchildren. Changes your perspective.”

They sat in silence. Mort kept his eyes on Robbie while his son stared into his orange juice.

“So now what?” Robbie finally asked.

Mort rubbed the back of his neck. “I solve murders. I don’t have clue one about women. Maybe that’s why I’m not zeroing in on Trixie. Hell, maybe that’s why Allie’s not home. Go call your wife. Tell her you miss her. You love her. That there’s nothing the two of you can’t solve.” He paused. “And my hunch is sooner’s better than later.”

Robbie looked at the clock and Mort knew he was calculating the time in Paris. “Mind if I go upstairs?”

“Not at all. Send your ladies a kiss for me, okay?”

Robbie stood. “Will do.” He took three steps, turned, and called back over his shoulder, “Still saving my ass after all these years.”

“My number one job.” Mort finished his coffee and hoped Edie was proud of the way he’d handled that. He cleaned up the breakfast dishes and went upstairs to take a shower. Thirty minutes later he passed Robbie’s room and heard his son’s gentle voice still on the phone. Mort bounded down the stairs in time to see the mailman coming up the front steps. He opened the door to the damp April air.

“Hey, Tom.” Mort reached out to accept the small stack of mail. “Staying dry?”

Tom Drennen had been a neighborhood fixture for over fifteen years. They shared a few comments about the weather and the Wings before he continued his rounds. Mort closed the door, carried the mail into the kitchen, and sorted the bills from what needed to go into the recycle bin. A blue envelope hand-addressed in heavy black ink stumped him. There was no return address, but the postmark was from downtown. He flipped it over and saw a woman’s lip print sealing the delivery with a kiss. Mort slid a finger across an edge. A strong aroma accompanied the card inside. A black-and-white photo of Jimmy Cagney in all his gangster glory decorated the front. Mort opened it and a cascade of jagged white crystals spilled onto his kitchen counter and floor.

Like they say in the movies: “Come and get me, Copper.”

Mort’s entire body clenched. There was no signature, but he didn’t need one. He glanced upstairs on instinct, assuring himself Robbie was safe. He pulled a plastic storage bag from the pantry. He used two sheets of paper to scoop as many of the crystals as he could and sealed them and the card inside. Mort wasn’t worried about the crystals being ricin or anthrax. After working Trixie’s murder sites for the past four months, he knew exactly what they were.

She’d sent him mothballs.

Robbie came down the stairs as Mort tossed the plastic bag in his briefcase. “So, what’d I miss?” he asked.

Lydia and Maizie sat on the bench overlooking Langley harbor, two friends sharing the day. Lydia supposed most well-intentioned adults would be worried about the young girl’s near-immediate bonding. Maizie had offered a child’s defense when Lydia first approached her in the library and had been staggered when Lydia came to her defense in the face of Tommy and Adam’s bullying. But kind words spoken in a soft tone, accompanied by cocoa and brownies for a starving tummy, worked miracles in kids aching with the hunger of neglect.

Just ask any pimp.

“What’s doing at school?” Lydia kept her tone breezy. There was no need for Maizie to know George had filled her in or that the boys had given her the inside scoop.

“I’m not allowed.” Maizie nibbled on the tuna salad sandwich Lydia had packed for them. “Pa says it’ll poison my mind.”

“You believe that?”

Maizie stared off at the sailboats. She rested her hands on the library books she’d selected before they took their lunch break. Lydia had suggested her own favorite childhood book.
Madeline and the Bad Hat
was on top of Maizie’s stack and Lydia promised her a long discussion once she was finished.

“What do you do for friends if you don’t have school?”

Maizie was silent for several moments. “Those two boys been kinda nice to me since you scared ’em off. I don’t see them much. Some of the people who come to the meetings bring their kids.”

Lydia pushed. “But you’re not like them, are you?”

Maizie lost interest in her sandwich. “Why do you ask me this stuff?” She didn’t sound guarded. Just curious.

Lydia laughed. “It’s in my nature, I suppose. I’m a psychologist.”

“What’s that?”

Lydia let her jaw drop. “You don’t know what a psychologist is?” She dialed up the mock chagrin. “Well, I guess I’m not as important as I’ve always thought myself to be.”

Maizie smiled and any dirt on her face became irrelevant. She was lovely. Small, innocent, and enchanting.

“Sometimes things happen to people.” Lydia set her tone to benevolent teacher. “Sometimes we do things, sometimes things are done to us.”

Maizie’s smile disappeared.

“Sometimes those things are so big they hurt,” Lydia said. “On the inside.”

“Like it breaks your heart?” Maizie whispered.

Lydia swallowed hard. “Yes. And sometimes your heart is so broken you don’t know what to do. So you go to someone specially trained in fixing things like that.”

Maizie didn’t move.

“That’s what psychologists do. We listen and try to help.”

“But sometimes nobody can help, right?” Maizie asked.

“What makes you think that?” Lydia knew full well the feeling that a life was so shattered there was no way out.

Maizie shrugged.

Lydia fought her instinct to reach out and hold this child. To carry her to her car and drive her to a safe place. “Lots of things can be fixed, even if we don’t think so at first. You just have to know where to turn.” Lydia read Maizie’s face. The broken child didn’t believe it. “Let me ask you something.”

“You been askin’ me stuff all day.” Maizie shifted on the bench to sit cross-legged facing Lydia.

“I guess I have. Maybe I find you mesmerizing.”

“What’s
mesmerizing
?” Maizie took a cookie from the lunch sack and snapped off a bite.

“Mesmerizing means fascinating, intriguing … like I’m so interested in you I want to know all about you.”

Maizie considered this while she chewed. “I’m only seven. What could be so mezzerizing about me?”

Lydia took a cookie for herself. “For one thing, I don’t know many seven-year-olds who read fashion magazines. Not even one. You’re the first kid I’ve ever met who knows what
Vogue
is. How’d that come about?”

Maizie focused her attention on her cookie as she turned it over and over in her hands.

“Do you like the pretty clothes or the fancy places?” Lydia kept her voice soft and waited for an answer.

“I like the ladies,” Maizie whispered. “ ’Specially some.”

“Which ones?”

Maizie kept her head down. “The ones with the long hair. Like my mama.”

Lydia kept quiet and let Maizie have her memory. “Your mother must be very beautiful,” she said.

Maizie looked up. A soft glistening moistened her eyes. “She’s the most beautiful woman in the world. Lots prettier than those ladies in the magazines. She’da made those dresses look
great, I’ll tell you that.”

Lydia nodded. She couldn’t let Maizie know her mother was the subject of small-town gossip, but she needed to learn more. “Do you ever show your mom the pictures in the magazines?”

Maizie dropped her head again. “Can’t. She ran off.”

“Oh.” Lydia tucked her arms around herself. “Where’d she go?”

Maizie shook her head. “Pa says she got sick of me. Got tired of being my mom. One night she tucked me in and sang me a song. The next morning she was gone. Pa says I can forget about her comin’ back. Says when women run off, they’re gone for good.” She lifted her tear-stained face. “She didn’t even say goodbye. Pa used to be so mean to her, but she never left him. What I do, Lydia? What I do to run her off?”

Maizie sagged against Lydia’s arm and sobbed. Lydia tensed, unsure of her next move. A long-ago ache rumbled. She knew the bewilderment of a child accepting full responsibility for an adult’s failing. She realized Maizie needed the same thing she’d needed all those years ago. Back before she was Lydia … or The Fixer … back when she was little Peggy Denise Simmons. She’d been abandoned to fend for herself against unspeakable depravity. She lifted her arm and pulled the crying girl close. She dropped her face into her hair and nuzzled. She rocked and cooed. “It wasn’t your fault, Maizie. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I coulda been better,” Maizie sobbed. “I never wanted her to go. Not ever or even once.”

Lydia’s throat tightened. “I know you didn’t, sweetie.” She pulled the girl’s scraped and dirty legs across her lap and kept rocking. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Mort shoved his chair back from his desk, held his cell phone to his ear, and reached for his keys. “Is she on a quota?”

“Micki’s on her way with a forensic team,” Jimmy said. “I’m about two minutes out. Uniforms are there now.”

Mort stormed down the hall. Officers, administrators, lawyers, and perps stepped aside like he was radioactive. “I’ll be there in ten. I suppose it’s too much to hope we’ll beat the press.”

Jimmy grunted an exasperated huff. “Scanners. They’ll meet us there, I’m sure.”

Eight minutes later Mort pulled his Subaru into the lot of a twelve-unit motel on Spokane Street, less than six blocks from the Port of Seattle. He maneuvered past marked cruisers, curious passersby, two news trucks, and at least a dozen reporters. He nodded to the two uniforms blocking the entrance to the crime scene and saw Bruiser sitting at attention in the hallway outside unit 11. The dog offered his paw and Mort gave him a shake, pleased for a bit of normalcy in stark contrast to the depravity waiting for him inside. Jimmy stood over the naked body kneeling on mothball crystals. The red kiss print on his forehead verified Trixie had hit again.

“Micki.” Mort saw her on the other side of the room, coordinating with three technicians. “You’re lead here until I say differently.” She nodded, glanced around to make sure everyone had heard Mort’s order, and returned to her work. “Jimmy?”

DeVilla closed his notebook and followed Mort into the hall. Bruiser fell in behind as the two men searched for a quiet place to talk. They settled for what the motel’s brochures touted as a children’s play area, but was actually nothing more than a splintered picnic table barely defying gravity in a patch of weed-choked concrete just behind the main office. Jimmy sat and Bruiser settled in next to him. Mort kicked rusted soda cans and takeout containers as he paced a tight circle.