Close Encounters (31 page)

“Bet she can’t say the same about you. Not after tonight.”

“Your presence doesn’t require an explanation.” Lee cast a surreptitious glance at the closed bedroom door.

“What kind of game were you playing on the floor?”

Lee stared at her patiently. “If you have everything—”

“Oh, I’m not going to stay,” she said. “But I am curious about what’s going to happen next…”

Carol began to dress as fast as she could. She had no intention of hanging around until Lee bothered to come to her. It was humiliating enough that one of his girlfriends had keys to his apartment and had walked in on them as if she had a right to. But worse yet was Karen’s snide question about whether Carol was part of one of Lee’s cases. She suddenly felt compromised in a way that hurt far more than if she and Lee had just been having an affair. She had never thought of their relationship in that way anyhow.

She guessed that Karen what’s-her-name wasn’t in love with Lee, didn’t have any deep feelings for him, but the territorial display of a few minutes ago had pitted the two women against each other, with him in the middle. Carol was not about to be lured into a catfight with Lee’s former lover.

Carol pulled her sweater over her head and tugged on her jeans. On her hands and knees, she ran a hand under the edge of the bed until she found her other sock. She sat on the floor, thrusting her feet into the socks and then into her boots. She hastily combed her hair with her fingers and looked around for her bag. It was still by the front door of the apartment, along with her coat and gloves.

Carol squeezed her eyes shut and tried to banish the memory of Lee’s thoughtful eyes, his uncommon concern. The way they made love together. It made her almost ill to think she might have misjudged him. She took a deep breath, opened the bedroom door and stepped back into the living room. Lee had the blanket draped loosely over his shoulders as he spoke in harsh tones to Karen. But Carol didn’t care what they were talking about.

Lee was disappointed to see that Carol was completely dressed. She looked at him and Karen only briefly, her face expressionless as she headed for the door and her coat. Karen watched, her smile knowing.

“Don’t leave because of me,” Karen said.

“You flatter yourself,” Carol said in an almost kindly voice. “You’re too young for me to take you seriously.”

“Carol—” Lee began, moving to place himself between her and Karen. He grabbed her arm, forcing her to look directly at him. “I didn’t know she was coming.”

She almost faltered at the frustration she read so clearly in his gaze. “I know. I believe you.” She twisted her arm free.

“Then don’t go. I don’t want you to go. I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt, Carol.”

She picked up her tote bag and nodded. “Yes, I agree with that, too. Just not from me. I don’t owe you anything after what I’ve been through.”

“Will you at least wait until I get dressed? I’ll take you home.”

“I can give her a lift,” Karen offered with startling affability. “I have someone waiting for me downstairs.”

“No, thanks,” Carol said flatly. “I’ll manage.” She reached for the door.

Lee stood watching helplessly as Carol walked swiftly toward the elevator. It struck him as cruel and ironic that after so many false starts and dead ends, just when he was beginning to get the hang of loving someone again, he was going to lose her.

Barbara was surprised when her cellular rang instead of the desk phone.

“Detective Peña.”

“So, you just gonna drop me and act like you don’t know me, right?”

Barbara jumped imperceptibly, recognizing Mario’s cold voice. Her gaze swept quickly around the room, but her colleagues were engaged in their own work and were paying no attention to her conversation.

“How… how can I help you?” she asked in an officious tone.

“I want to talk.”

“Is this about the complaint you filed last week?” she asked. She got up from the table where she’d been working on reports and headed out the door and across the hall to another office. “Let me check my desk.”

She entered Lee’s office, which she’d often used with his knowledge and permission. He’d been down at headquarters all morning. She closed the office door and stood with her back to it. “What do you want?” she demanded, her voice tight and angry.

Mario cackled. “You want me to say it over the phone?” He quickly became serious. “What I want is for you
pigs
to get off my case. You’re fucking me up with Willey, man!”

“If you’re having trouble with Earl Willey, that’s your problem, Mario. And it’s your own fault. You could have had it easy, but you got greedy.”

Barbara closed her eyes as she listened to the expletives spewing from Mario’s mouth. “You better find some way to convince him and the newspapers that I ain’t had nothing to do with shooting that woman. I ain’t taking the fall for nobody.”

“Now why would we want to do that?” Barbara asked snidely.

In the background she could hear what sounded like Mario kicking metal.

“’Cause if
you
don’t do something to take the heat off me, I’m gonna have to make a call and tell your department about you fucking a known felon,
Detective.
”

“It’s your word against mine. Like you said, you’re a known felon. You’ve been making it with a cop. You’re going to be in worse shit with Willey. Go on, Mario, take your best shot. Way I look at it, I don’t have to do a damn thing. Just sit back and let Willey deal with you. You heard about Julio, right? He made somebody real mad.”

“You think you got me, don’t you?” Mario said through clenched teeth.

“As a matter of fact, yeah—I think I got you.”

“Bitch! I’ll fuckin’
kill
you!”

Barbara felt as though a fist had punched her in the chest. She knew she shouldn’t have deliberately riled him. But she wanted to remind him that she was still in charge. And she wanted to convince herself that she hadn’t risked everything for a little action on the side.

“No, even you aren’t that stupid,” Barbara said scathingly. “Anyway, I cut my own deal. I already told some people here about you and me. You come anywhere near me… who knows what could happen.”

“All right, you think you so bad… well, listen to this! I’ll take care of it myself. Lot of other folks could end up like Julio, know what I’m sayin’? If I’m going to do the time, then I might as well do the crime. I ain’t lettin’ nobody take me out.”

Barbara blinked rapidly, her stomach knotting tighter. “What do you mean? Mario?
Mario?
”

He’d already disconnected.

Lee tapped on the door and opened it without waiting for a response. He’d been instructed to come right in when he arrived. But it wasn’t actually until Captain Jessup regarded him closely over the top of his half-frame reading glasses that Lee sensed the discussion might be serious.

“Captain.” Lee nodded, trying to tell from the man’s expression what was going on. But Jessup was too smart to be so accommodating.

“Have a seat, Lee,” the captain advised. He calmly rocked in his high-backed executive chair as he gave his attention to a memo in front of him.

Lee did as he was told. And waited.

The original joke circulating around the precinct when Jessup first became captain was that he was too small to fill the chair. Meaning more than just physical size, of course. Also, that he was so black that if it wasn’t for the white of his pristine CEO-type shirts, you’d miss him sitting there.

Everyone agreed the joke had died an almost instantaneous death. As a commanding officer Jessup had gained respect by being tough but fair. All that came back to Lee now, as he wondered whether he was going to be on the receiving end of either trait. Jessup’s tough side or his fair side.

Jessup finally looked up at him. “I want a straight answer, Lee. Yes or no will do fine, and we’ll take it from there.”

“All right. What’s the question?”

“I have what seems to be reliable information that you’re personally involved with Carol Taggart, the woman who was shot during the buy-and-bust sting. You understand what I mean by ‘personally involved’? That you’re sleeping with her.”

Lee’s gut tightened in anger. That was blunt enough. His personal business was about to become public knowledge, and by whose actions? It was frustrating that he might not be able to make anyone see that there
was
no simple yes or no response. Most of all, he felt a sudden need to protect Carol. To shield her from the exposure and judgment that were sure to get the story all wrong anyway. He was responsible for the truth.

It never entered Lee’s mind to deny his relationship with her. Despite Carol’s having walked out of his apartment yesterday, and her refusal to return any of his calls since then, he never thought for a moment that their relationship was finished.

“Yes, I’m involved with her,” Lee confirmed, looking squarely at the captain.

Jessup took off his reading glasses and tossed them in exasperation onto his desk. He clasped his hands and settled back in his chair. “Goddamn it, Lee. I don’t get it. You’re too smart for this. You might as well have strung dynamite across the entrance of the precinct and stood holding the match. How could you have let it happen? Do you have any idea what this means?”

In truth, it was beginning to occur to Lee that now was as good a time as any to confront the truth about what had begun to feel like a double life, to figure out how to reconcile the two.

“It was on my own time, Captain,” he said. “And I happen to like Carol Taggart a lot.”

“Obviously,” Jessup said dryly.

“I’m serious,” Lee said firmly. He wasn’t going to back down.

Jessup spread his hands. “As far as we’ve been able to tell, Lee, you’re probably responsible for shooting the woman.”

“I know that. It’s what initially drew us together. The relationship took off from there. I didn’t plan it. But I didn’t do anything to stop it either.”

“So you’re telling me that you’ve ignored police protocol, not to mention every ethical consideration, and put your ass in a sling in order to conduct a covert affair with a civilian who is part of an ongoing investigation?”

Lee nodded. “Correct.”

“A civilian who is an African American, I might add.”

Lee narrowed his gaze. “Your point?”

“Don’t be naive,” the captain said impatiently. “The press will be all over us.”

“Did you ever consider that if the department had come out right from the beginning and acknowledged that a mistake had been made, and that I seriously hurt an innocent bystander, everything might be different?”

Jessup jabbed the air with a finger. “Who made you a fucking white knight, Lieutenant?”

Lee shook his head. Carol had asked him the same thing. “Not a white knight, Greg,” Lee said calmly. “An honest cop, I hope. A decent human being. And I intend to stay one.” He stood up and paced in front of the captain’s desk before sighing and facing him again. “Look—I wasn’t deliberately trying to make the department or myself look bad. I went to see her without anyone here knowing…”

“Jesus Christ,” Jessup muttered.

“But I felt that someone had to apologize for what had happened to her. We nearly killed her.
I
nearly killed her.”

“We don’t know that absolutely. We may never know,” the captain countered.

“I know. I was there,” Lee said quietly.

“So you’re saying you got to know her because of what? Guilt?”

“If that had been all it was, Carol Taggart would have seen through me in a heartbeat. I believe the attraction is mutual.”

“And you’re willing to bet your career on it?”

“I don’t think I have a choice, Greg. It’s a matter of doing the right thing.”

“That’s very liberal of you,” Jessup said sarcastically.

“Is it?”

Jessup sighed and picked up his glasses, tapping them against the memo in front of him. “Okay—I’m willing to accept that you really feel something for this woman. We’ve still got a big problem. You know I protect my people. But I have to think about what’s best for the department.”

“I understand that.”

The captain’s dark face took on the expression of a Baptist minister about to deliver a sermon. “You have a lot of guts.”

Lee’s raised his brows. “You think so?”

Jessup sat forward abruptly and picked up the paper, squinting at it as if he wished the damn thing would disappear. “I do. And you’re going to need them.”

“Mind if I ask how you heard about me and Carol Taggart?” Lee asked.

“Sorry, Lee. I can’t tell you that. But I will say it was an external source.”

Lee nodded. He was relieved that it hadn’t been Barbara, as he’d immediately suspected. “So what happens now?”

“I don’t have a choice. I’m going to have to pull you off active duty until some decision can be made. I have to take the matter to headquarters. But I promise to use your past record to work up some support. You know that there are those in the higher ranks who would just as soon see your ass fry over this ’cause Carol Taggart is black. I hope you’ve considered how other people are likely to treat you, especially if the word gets out—and we both know it will.”

“Frankly, I don’t care what anyone else thinks. What about my team?”

“You’ve worked closely with Detective Peña for a couple of years. I assume you trust her ability to take charge in your absence.”

“To a degree,” Lee said uneasily.

“Well, that’s all we’re talking about. To a degree. Temporarily. Until we work this through. And we’ll try to keep the press from sniffing it out.”

“I appreciate your support, Greg.”

“You think that’s what I’m doing?” Jessup scoffed, regarding Lee thoughtfully. “Don’t kid yourself, Lee. If it comes down to you or the department, I’ll have to put a lot of distance between you and me. Another thing—you’re not to have any further contact with this woman. Is that clear?”

“What’s happening between me and Carol Taggart is personal.”

“Not anymore it isn’t. You can’t have it both ways, Lee. You’re either a cop on this case or you’re not.”

Lee sat helpless, straining to object but knowing he had no ground to stand on.