Dying to Know (10 page)

She jolted up, blushed, and swiped a strand of hair from her

eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong, Angela?”

“You won’t understand. You think I imagined what happened

at Ernie’s. You’ll never believe this.”

“I always have an open mind.”

“It’s Tuck.” She stood up and went to the sink. “He’s here—

with us now. I can feel him.”

“Oh, shit. Don’t start that.”

“Yes, listen. I can feel him. Don’t you?”

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“No.” He went to her, put his arm around her, and kissed her

forehead. “Angela, I know you want to believe he’s here. But, he’s not. Sometimes I get this buzzing sound—even hear things—and

I want to believe it’s him. It’s not. It’s just guilt.”

Guilt? “Ah, partner, what does that mean?”

Angel lowered her eyes. “No, Bear. No guilt. You promised

me. Let it go.”

“It’s my fault. I never should have let this happen.”

This? What “this?”

“Bear,” she slipped from his arm. “I can feel him. I’m tel ing

you the truth.”

He looked down at the floor, shaking his head. “Angela, I can’t

do this. He’s dead. I’m going for a walk. I have to get away from

it.”

“Bear, wait …”

It was too late. He disappeared into the hal . The front door

opened and closed.

“Damn you, Bear.” Angel dropped back down onto her chair

and buried her face in her hands. “Damn you.”

I was helpless to console her but I tried anyway. I stroked her

hair and tried to reach her with a fingertip caressing her cheek.

After several minutes, she wiped tears from her face and a hand

went to her cheek. It lingered there as though responding to my

affection.

“Oh, Tuck. I want to believe. I’m sorry this happened. I wish I

could change it al .”

“I know, Angel.” If only she could hear me. But, deep down, I

knew she couldn’t.

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“Damn him.” She dug into her jean’s pocket and withdrew her

cell phone. She hit speed dial 2—Bear’s number—and sighed

when it went right to voicemail. “Please, Bear. Try and under-

stand …”

A hungry rush of anxiety gripped me. It was …

“No—get down. Down!”

Hercule erupted into a deafening bark. He lunged across the

room and drove Angel out of her chair just as two shots shattered

the kitchen window. He pinned her to the floor, shielding her be-

neath him. A steady, deathly warning reverberated through

clinched teeth.

“Stay boy,” I yelled.

“Angela?” Bear crashed through the front door and down the

hal . He burst into the kitchen with gun drawn. “You all right?”

“I, I … yes.”

“Stay here. Call 911.” He disappeared out the kitchen door

into the backyard darkness.

Without thinking, I was in the backyard, standing in the

darkness, looking for Bear. I turned in circles and searched. I felt nothing—no presences, no fear, no danger.

I caught up with him in front of the house. He was standing

near a bush beside our front gate. He looked up the street where

a streetlight bathed parked cars and the street disappeared over a knol . Several times, he threw a look over his shoulder toward

the house, then moved into the street and began a slow advance

toward town. When he reached the cone of light arcing down

from the streetlamp at the corner, he stopped crouching and

stood upright, heaving a breath.

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No shots rang out. No shooter ran for an escape.

A block ahead of us, I heard shuffling feet and the sound of a

barking dog.

“Easy, Bear. Take a breath. Someone’s up ahead but it could be

anyone. Don’t drop your guard now.”

He hesitated, looked back to the house, and then continued

up the block. At the next corner, he stopped behind a parked

pickup and rested. He started to move forward again, edging out

from behind the truck.

“Bear, wait. I’ll check ahead.”

He stopped and backed into the shadows. I don’t know if he

heard me, or that buzzing in his head made him think twice of

the danger, but either way, he stayed put.

I left him and ran up the street, dodging behind parked cars

until I realized how silly it was. No bullet could hurt me nor

could any shooter see me. I sprinted to the corner and was about

to jog farther when a faint voice jingled in my head—not one,

but two.

What I saw across the street began a new chapter in my dead-

detective saga.

Two young girls stood beneath a tal , broad oak tree near the

opposite corner. They were outside the cone of two streetlamps

on the hazy periphery of their light. I could see them—almost.

They were out of focus and little more than silhouettes with

vague hints of detail. And they were … they were waving to me.

Me
. I didn’t know what to do. So, like any warm-blooded man when pretty girls beckoned, I waved back.

At least it wasn’t two guys digging holes in my foyer.

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The girls gained focus and coalesced into dim figures just

light enough to see. They exchanged words, laughing and cajol-

ing each other. One of them beckoned me to join them but I

didn’t move—I couldn’t. My legs were frozen in place like a fresh-

man at his first dance.

The girl beckoned me again. She was pretty—of that I was

sure. She seemed young, not a teenager but not yet a woman. Her

companion was pretty, too, and shared her youth. Their images

were incomplete, unclear—photographs still developing.

Who were they? What did they want with me?

I managed to walk to the curb and stopped twenty feet away

trying to see them clearer in the streetlight. Something was pul -

ing me again; willing me to join them. I had to go—to talk to

them. They were like me—bound here for some unknown rea-

son. Yet every instinct said they had been here for much longer.

They were in my world or I was in theirs.

I had to talk to them.

As I took that first step forward, they waved and faded. I

heard the jingle of youthful giggles and they were gone.

A shiver ran through me. Can a ghost be haunted?

I returned my focus on Bear. He was behind me, somewhere

back down the street in the dark. The girls sidetracked me and

now, the shooter could be anywhere.

I jogged down the block in time to see Bear walking down the

middle of the street, gun holstered, strolling casual y back toward my house. He seemed oblivious to the possible danger that could

be waiting nearby. He was muttering to himself.

His cavalier attitude made me mad as hel .

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Someone shot at Angel—tried to kill her. The shooter, unlike

the two young wraiths, was bone and muscle, and very, very dan-

gerous. For the second time, someone violated our home. And

for the second time, I was helpless to stop them.

A disturbing thought pushed through my emotions and set-

tled into the detective part of my brain. There were three com-

mon elements each time someone came to my home to kil . The

answer, I feared, was secreted among them.

Angel, Bear, and me.

I didn’t have any secrets, did they?

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fifteen

The crime technicians finished their work just after mid-

night. Their hunt for bullet fragments and shell casings started at the house and finished in the yard. Much to my displeasure,

Spence and Clemens arrived at ten. Of course, it took more than

two hours to complete their endless and mindless questions.

Most of Angel’s answers were, “I don’t know, I didn’t see any-

thing,” and “How would I know, I didn’t see anything.”

Bear’s answers were not as polite.

When they left, I followed Clemens down the front sidewalk.

Spence was there, talking with a uniformed cop assigned to

guard the house for the night.

Spence said, “Yeah, you have to stay the night. It’s all bul shit, ya’ know. My money says the only one shooting up the place was

him.”

Him? The little turd thought Bear shot at Angel.

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“Come on Mike, what are you saying?” Clemens leaned on

their car, eyeing the uniformed cop beside Spence. “You think

Bear did this?”

“Maybe,” Spence said. “Maybe he’s trying to make Tuck’s mur-

der look more convincing. You know, get the heat off him and

Angela.”

“No way,” Clemens waved the uniformed cop away. “Bear’s

straight—least I think so. What makes you think someone didn’t

come back for something?”

“What makes you think they did? Angela didn’t see any-

thing—just the shots. Bear claims he only heard the shots. Neigh-

bors saw him heading up the street with a gun. Maybe Bear did

the shooting to make it look like a stalker.”

“Oh, come on Mikey. That’s a lot of maybes.” Clemens made

some notes in his pad. “Why go through all that?”

“Why do you think? Dr. Angela Tucker is smart, gorgeous,

and has money. The oldest motive in the world. Sex and money.”

“Bear?”

“Bear.”

“No way.” Clemens scribbled in his pad before he changed the

topic. “He was pissed about her computer. Was it you? I never

touched it, I swear.”

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Nope.” Spence’s face lit up in a big smile. “But he sure is wor-

ried about it, isn’t he? Maybe we should take a look.”

“Ah, shit. Come on, Mikey. Lighten up on them.”

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Clemens was a good guy, deep down, but handicapped by

Spence. The problem was that Spence was the senior detective

and that meant Cal Clemens had to follow his lead—even if that

were over a cliff.

“Cal,” I said. “Bear’s innocent. Angel is innocent. Spence is

full of shit. Jesus, man, you have to know that.”

Spence climbed into their cruiser and started the engine. Cle-

mens stood there, leaning against the fender watching the house.

The last thing he did before climbing in beside Spence was to rip

the notes from his pad and shred them into confetti.

“Not Bear,” he whispered and tossed the papers into the

street.



Angel watched from the front door as the detectives drove away. I

followed her to the kitchen where Bear was pouring coffee. For a

man who just survived a shooting, he didn’t look fazed. But then

again, it took a lot to faze him.

“I don’t like those two,” Angel said. “I don’t like their ques-

tions, either.”

“Relax. They will never solve this. I’ll take care of it.”

I slipped onto the chair next to Angel and touched her hand

again. “Ask Bear about your computer. Ask him about the file in

the den.”

She sat very stil , barely breathing, watching her coffee cup.

“Bear, I hear him again.”

“Don’t start that—Jesus.”

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I leaned over, whispered into Angel’s ear, and touched the

side of her cheek. On cue, she said, “Oh, don’t forget that file Sutter wants. The one in the bookcase.”

“What did you say?”

“The file.”

“Oh, shit, Angela.” Bear’s face twisted as if he bit into some-

thing sour. “How do you know that?”

“I don’t know, Bear. I don’t know … never mind, I’ll get it.”

Angel disappeared down the hal . When she returned, she was

carrying the file. “Here. I found it earlier in the bookshelf. You hid it there. Why?”

“How’d you know?” He took the file in one hand and her

shoulder with the other. “Shit, Angela, I just, wel , I wanted to see it before anyone else.”

She cocked her head. “But why?”

“Just because. You know, in case there’s a good lead. I want it

before Spence gets his paws on it.” Angel was thinking about that

when Bear changed gears. “Do you have anything else of Tuck’s I

should take?”

She shook her head and when she took his hand, a twinge of

jealousy stung me.

Bear was somehow different from the man I’d known for

years as my best friend and partner. He was hard—harder than I

remembered—and suddenly detached from my murder. People

react differently to pain and loss, but if it were the other way

around, I’d be kicking in doors al over town hunting his kil er.

Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the stress. Maybe it was

something else.

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Maybe.

“You don’t need to watch over me tonight,” Angel said. “Cap-

tain Sutter has that deputy outside. I’ll be fine.”

Bear looked at his watch. “Okay, I’m heading out. I’ll check in

with the Cap first.” He pulled out his cell phone and punched a

key. “I have messages. Let me check.”

“One’s from me …”

“What the?” The phone skidded across the table as Bear shuf-

fled back, colliding with the sink. “Jeez, no way. No …”

“What is it?” Angel asked. “Who called?”

He tapped the air with his finger and pointed at the phone.

“Your voicemail.”

“What about it?” Angel picked up the phone, hit the speaker

button, and replayed the message. “…
Please try and under-

stand
…” Angel’s voice was clear but it was not what made her replay the message three times. Then she cried—happy tears—as

a smile blossomed on her face. Suddenly, without hesitation, she

believed. Bear, however, shook his head and muttered guttural

denials as he replayed the last words.

It was all captured on the message. All of it. There were Her-

cule’s frantic bark and the two gunshots. Even before that—be-