Deadly Blessings (27 page)

I heard a short laugh over the phone, which
could have meant nothing, but felt liked condescension. “Lunch.
What a delightful idea, Alexandrine.”

Odd, how he emphasized my name just
then.

We arranged to meet at one o’ clock the
following afternoon at the same neighborhood diner where I’d met
Dan. My idea. Might as well just have one place for all the
screwed-up meetings; better than sharing the wealth.

* * * * *

I stood in Will’s door early Saturday
morning, “Hey,” I said.

Other than the two of us, and Bass in his
office down the hall, the place was quiet. The rest of the staff
had the weekend off, like normal folks, but we’d agreed to meet
this morning, to keep the momentum going on this story.

“
Alex,” he answered, with a
pleasant lilt to his tone.

The cleaning crew hadn’t made it here, yet,
but I refrained from commenting on the pervasive smoke smell. If an
item didn’t affect Bass personally, he didn’t attach much weight to
it, and situations such as this one could go on indefinitely unless
Will pushed it. I might throw out the hint that he engage a
cleaning crew himself and bill the station for it on an expense
account, but that would have to wait. I had other things on my
mind.

“
Were you able to reach
Lisa?”

He answered me with a look.

“
And?” I asked.

“
She’s something else, that
one. Prostitution with the personal touch.”

“
What do you mean?” I was
about to take a seat in front of his desk when he stood
up.

“
Tell you what,” he said.
“I was thinking about grabbing a cup of coffee downstairs. You want
to join me? I’ll bring you up to speed.”

The Emperor’s Roost, downstairs, was a
throwback to a time before I even toddled around my parents’ coffee
tables. Dark, with sooty pictures of Napoleon in various battle
poses decorating the cheap paneled walls, it had crescent-shaped
seating arranged in semi-circles around a bar and along the
perimeter. We chose a scuffed-white booth far from the two boozers
hunched over the bar, drinking their early lunch. The place did a
great business during the week, especially when the weather was
either too hot, too cold, or too wet, which in Chicago is nearly
every day. Eating here at The Roost, as cheerless as it was, was
often preferable to braving the elements. Today being a Saturday,
the place was desolate and the dinginess overwhelming.

Our waitress, a redhead who looked like she
could be an advertisement for Lisa Knowles’ organization,
swish-swished over to us. The sound, I realized, came from her
large support-hosed thighs rubbing together as she walked. She
wrinkled her nose when we told her we were there for coffee only.
“Fine,” she said, turning her back to us and returning moments
later to fill our upturned mugs.

Will and I added cream to our coffee as she
left. He stirred, I didn’t. I preferred to let the light brown
clouds take over in their slow-motion ballet. Holding the cup close
to my lips, I blew a short puff of air downward to facilitate the
process. Wisps of steam curled above the cup and I looked over the
rim to see him watching me. “You first,” he said.

I gave him a quizzical look.

“
Something’s happened.
Something’s on your mind,” he said.

My look shifted to one of disbelief. “How
the heck could you know that?”

He put his hands out. “It’s a gift.”

I took a sip of the coffee, enjoying its
warmth and aroma and the comforting way it eased down my throat,
savoring the pleasure of the moment before I shot him a wry smile.
“My house was broken into yesterday.”

“
What?” he asked, his cup
returning to its saucer with a clatter. “Are you okay? What did
they take?”

“
I’m fine, actually. And
believe it or not, not a darn thing was taken.”

“
You reported
it?”

“
Right away. And,” I said,
forestalling his next question, “I got all my locks upgraded. Right
now my house is so well-protected, you’d need to detonate
explosives to get in without a key.”

“
Nothing
taken?”

“
Not a thing.”

“
That doesn’t make sense,”
he said.

“
The police think that I
might have frightened them away as I came in through the back. It’s
a possibility.”

“
You don’t sound
convinced.”

“
I guess I’m not.” I held
off while the waitress came by to refresh our coffee. “Why go to
all that trouble to break in and not take anything? Think about it.
My house is small. Really small. The television and DVD player are
right there as you walk in. Even if they heard me coming, they
could have yanked them both out in a matter of seconds.”

“
You think the break in has
something to do with your story?”

I shrugged. “What purpose would breaking in
to my house serve?”

“
Scare you off?”

“
Maybe.” I took a long sip
of the coffee. “The police said that maybe the thief was searching
for something in particular, but didn’t find it. But, what could I
have that anyone would want? And like I said, nothing’s
missing.”

We were both silent for a long time.
Forty-year old springs beneath my white vinyl seat were straining
to escape, and I shifted to find a comfortable pose. “So? You
talked to Lisa Knowles …”

“
Quite the
businesswoman.”

“
Are you on?”

His jaw tightened a bit as he nodded.
“Tonight, at ten.”

“
Bass arranging
everything?”

“
As we speak.”

I let my mind wander a bit. Bass would be
working as liaison between our investigative department and the
media group. The administration liked to keep abreast of undercover
operations. Bass, as manager, had the authority to request
technical support. Of course, that meant he had to come along for
the ride, too.

“
So,”
William said, apropos of nothing, “you’re good friends with some of
the people over at
Up Close
Issues
?”

Now that was a peculiar question. Other than
Dan, and his boss, Roy, I knew perhaps three or four people at that
station well enough to say hello, but that was about it.

“
Not particularly,
why?”

William seemed a bit unsettled as he took a
drink of his coffee. Putting it back down, he shrugged. “Oh,
nothing. It’s just that … ah … nothing.”

“
You can’t do that to me,”
I said, half-laughing, half-annoyed. “If it’s nothing, then it’s no
big deal to tell me. … So, tell me.”

“
Okay. Dan
Starck.”

“
What about
him?”

“
I heard that you and Dan
were an item …” He let the sentence hang.

“
Not any more,” I said.
“Why?”

Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed
pleased by my answer. Still the question felt odd, more inquisitive
than conversational.

He shrugged, as if unsure. “I was in the
parking garage, earlier. I stayed sitting in my car, listening to
the end of one of my favorite songs and I saw somebody hanging
around there.”

Just then Bass walked in, looking wild-eyed
with worry as he scanned the restaurant’s interior till he spotted
us.

“
You’re here,” he said
unnecessarily, but with obvious relief.

William’s face changed in a way that made me
realize that whatever he’d been about to tell me wasn’t something
he cared to share in front of Bass. So before he had a chance to
sit down, I suggested, “Why don’t you let the waitress know you’re
joining us.”

He gave a thoughtful nod, “Good idea.”

I turned back toward William.

He shrugged, but spoke quickly. “It was Dan.
I’ve met him a few times, so I knew what he looked like, and I’d
heard that you and he …” He let the sentence trail off. Again.

It took me a second to get what he was
implying. I fixed him with a hard stare.

William looked down into his coffee cup,
then continued with another shrug, this one apologetic. “I followed
him. I figured he was meeting somebody, and at first I wondered if
it might be you.”

“
Well, it
wasn’t.”

Bass gestured toward the washroom. I nodded,
then turned back toward William. “Sorry, go ahead.”

He nodded. “I was afraid to get too close,
in case he saw me. He got into a car with somebody. I couldn’t get
near enough to see who.”

“
What kind of car?” I
asked.

William gave me a peculiar look at the
question, and it dawned on me that I probably sounded like a
jilted, jealous lover, scrounging for scraps of information. I put
my hands out. “You’ve got me curious now. I don’t see why he’d have
any business in our garage,” I offered, by way of explanation.
“Anyway, I met his girlfriend. She doesn’t work here.”

“
Hint,” I wanted to
say—that was a hint to let you know I’m not pining after the
fellow.

Instead, I took another sip of coffee while
William continued.

“
I didn’t notice the type
of car. Navy blue, I think.”

“
My car’s
white.”

He acknowledged that piece of information
with a nod. “I waited a few more minutes, then started to feel
foolish. So I came up to the office.”

William drained his coffee cup. Buying
himself time, I suspected.

His eyes met mine just as he placed the cup
down onto the saucer with a little clink.

A momentary thought that Dan might have been
there to spy on me flashed through my mind. But that couldn’t be
it. But the fact that William had been curious enough to find out
if Dan and I were an item made me smile.

Bass emerged, rubbing his hands together as
the men’s room door swung shut, blocking out the whirring of the
hand dryer. As he made his way toward us, I turned to William. “You
sure you’re okay with this operation tonight?”

He averted his gaze. “I can handle it.”

I touched his hand across the table, a move
that didn’t quite startle, but seemed to grab his attention. “I
appreciate this, you know.”

He smiled, but I knew it was for my benefit.
My heart gave a little lurch of unease as he shook his head. “Don’t
you worry about me.”

* * * * *

Back in my office I sorted through e-mails
and went over the detail Bass had provided regarding the evening’s
plans. Peppering his conversation with words like “reconnaissance”
and “stake-out,” he gave us the scoop. As William headed for the
pre-arranged hotel room tonight, Bass and I would reconnoiter
nearby to watch. Jeff, one of our premiere technicians, volunteered
for the after-hours escapade. His wife was out of town and he
wanted the overtime. One of our older techs, he had to be over
forty, but no one had a handle on the state-of-the-art video
equipment like he did. Bass was pulling out all the stops on this
one and for a moment I worried about something pulling the plug
before this story came to fruition. Jitters.

Alone now, I called up a file I’d created
and password protected, just in case Feudin’ Fenton ever got his
greasy paws on my computer. To keep life simple for me, I used only
three passwords for all my documents. One for business, one for
personal, one for really, really personal. Made it easy to
remember, but if any of them ever got out, my life would literally
be an open book.

I wore comfortable clothes today, since it
was the weekend. Jeans, T-shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt I
periodically took off and put back on, as I moved from place to
place and the ambient temperature changed. I rubbed my hands on my
legs, thinking, thinking.

I wanted to record everything that happened
so far. And within forty-five minutes or so I had a decent
rendition of the events that had transpired, up to the minute. A
quick glance at the empty hub unnerved me. The only sounds were the
refrigeration compressor on the water cooler and the lonely whoosh
of warm air coming through the large vents overhead.

Passwords were hard to break, and if
something should happen to me …

Rotten thought. I pushed it out of my head
at once. But still.

Finished, I dragged my coat on as I made my
way through the darkened hub and to the glass front doors. I
supposed it wouldn’t hurt to let William know about my meeting with
Father Bruno. And while I was there I could clue him in on my
business password, just in case. I trusted him.

Turning back, I headed for his office,
convincing myself that this was the right course of action. Sheesh.
Not that I had a death wish or anything, but as long as someone
else was in on it, it wouldn’t be needed. That’s the way jinxes
worked, I told myself. The way to break them.

I came around to his open door and realized
he’d gone home. Turning back, I leaned against the adjacent wall,
and shook my head. The super-quiet was getting to me. And it was
nearing my meeting with Father Bruno time. I had to go.

* * * * *

“
Alexandrine!”

He greeted me with the effusiveness of a
long-lost friend, and I felt my body tense when his beefy hands
grasped my upper arms. If he’d been about to pull me into a hug,
he’d apparently gotten my “back-off” message because he let go
almost immediately after I froze in place.

There was a younger hostess today, and
several teenage waitresses. With weekend business brisker than that
of late night; I supposed they could afford a bigger staff. I felt
a little thrill of victory when I beat Bruno to answer her
question, “Smoking or Non?”