of pie, dunes of meringue quivering above lemon filling. From the first bite, Ann forgot her purpose in being here. This pie was manna, the tart and sweet melting into a paean on her tongue.
Her husband ate his piece, grunted and pushed the empty plate aside. It was no wonder that Mary seemed so pleased at Ann’s heartfelt compliments.
“I made two. I’ll send you home with some. No, don’t argue,” she insisted, when Ann opened her mouth to make a polite if feeble protest.
“Ann’s here to talk business,” Reggie said brusquely. “We’ll take our coffee into the living room.”
Leaving Mary clearing off the table, Ann followed her dad’s partner to the front room, dominated by his and hers recliners and a big-screen television set. He sat in his recliner and waited while she took his wife’s. Ann found the effect rather strange. With both pointed at the TV, she had to turn her head to see him. She set her coffee cup to one side and saw that he’d brought a new can of beer instead.
“I remember hearing you talk about the accident once you were back at work,” she began. “But the details didn’t stick.”
Popping the top off the beer, he said, “I’ve got a ’71 ’Vette out in the garage. Been restoring it for a while.”
That day, he explained, he’d jacked it up so he could roll under it to perform some task that went right over Ann’s head. To her father’s disgust, she had never become fascinated by the workings of a combustion engine. Car talk, a staple of poker games with his friends, had bored her so completely she hadn’t even pretended to share his interest to please him.
“I was under the car when I heard footsteps coming into the garage.”
“From the street?” she interrupted.
“Right. Thought for a minute it was Mary and I wondered why she hadn’t come through the kitchen door, but she might have been out gossiping with a neighbor. I asked her what she wanted. Didn’t get an answer.”
“So this person was standing where your feet would have been sticking out from under the Corvette.”
He shook his head before she finished sketching the scene aloud. “No. See, that was a strange thing. Whoever it was went to the other side of the car. I tried to twist my head to see the feet, but I couldn’t. Whoever it was must have been behind the wheel. But I realized the footsteps hadn’t sounded like a woman’s. They were heavier than that. So then I started thinking, maybe it was Hank from two doors down. He likes to see how I’m coming. So I said, ‘Hank, that you?’”
She nodded, watching his face to judge whether he was telling the truth and nothing but. So far, she saw only outrage and residual fear.
“That’s when the car moved just a little. Scared the bejesus out of me, I can tell you!” His face flushed as he remembered. “‘Hey!’ I yelled. Something like that. Then I felt it rocking above me. I tried to shoot out from under there, but I didn’t want to use the under-carriage to move myself in case my push helped the bastard knock the ’Vette off the jacks. I was probably swearing.” He took a gulp of beer. The hand that set the can down might have had a tremor. “I didn’t make it. Turned out Mary was at the grocery store and I’d forgotten. She found me when she got home.”
Ann nodded. “You never did see feet, and the person didn’t say anything.”
“Not a word.” He shook his head. “Nobody believed that someone pushed the goddamn car off the blocks. They figured I was a dumb-ass who didn’t know how to jack up a car.” He glared at her as if she’d expressed that exact opinion. “But let me tell you, little girl, I’ve been working on cars since I was a kid. I know what happened.”
She wanted him to lay it out in blunt words. “What did happen?”
“Somebody tried to kill me.” His voice grated. “And they damn near succeeded.”
“Pretty unusual way to commit murder.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Somebody happening to wander by, seeing you in a vulnerable spot.”
He didn’t like doubt. “The scum watched for his chance, that’s all.”
“You have any ideas at all about who might want to kill you?”
He snorted at her naiveté. “I’ve been a cop for thirty-two years! I’ve put away my share of slugs. They’d probably all raise a glass if they heard I was dead.”
“Okay. Let me put it another way. Who would want you, Leroy Pearce and my dad all dead?”
He stared at her, a man who downed too many beers every night but was still a cop, could still draw a line from A to B to C. Reggie Roarke breathed a word as ugly as his nose.
“You’re thinking he murdered two of us and tried to kill me.”
Ann studied his expression of bafflement, anger, fear and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something that interested her because it was secretive.
“And I’m thinking he might not be done. Someone else might be on his list. Depending on why he’s mad. Also…” Ann paused to be sure she had his full attention. “I’m thinking he failed to kill you, which means he’ll be back.”
Aluminum crackled and tore as he crushed his empty beer can in his meaty fist. In a hard voice, he said, “And I’m thinking I’m done talking until you tell me what you know.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“SO, WHAT DID you tell Roarke?” Diaz asked.
Today’s lunch consisted of burgers, fries and milk shakes. Deserted when the two cops came in, the burger joint had filled like magic at noon. Empty booths on each side of theirs were now occupied by a pair of mothers with whiny toddlers and a morose teenager dressed in black and wearing a spiked dog collar around his neck.
In answer, Ann said, “Not much.” She bit one end off a fry.
Her partner grunted in amusement. “In other words, you told him the truth.”
“I was a little evasive. As if I knew more than I was saying.”
Although he’d been about to slurp strawberry milk shake through a straw, Diaz lifted his head and frowned. “Was that smart?”
Surprised, she set down her fries. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Let me ask this—why weren’t you straight with Reggie?”
While she tried to find words to describe her unsettling feeling that her father’s old friend had been hiding something, Ann watched the teenage boy in the next booth unwrap his second bacon cheeseburger. His world-weariness appeared not to be inhibiting his appetite.
“I don’t know,” she said after a minute. “There was something about the way Reggie got suspicious. As if…”
When she didn’t finish, Diaz did. “As if he wondered whether you might be working with Internal Affairs.”
“Yeah. He gave me this once-over, and I knew he was looking for a wire.” She’d actually been afraid for a minute, until she remembered that Mary was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and wrapping pie in plastic for Ann to take home.
Diaz balled up a wrapper. “If you asked me a few questions about who might hate me, I wouldn’t get antsy. Because I’m not hiding anything.”
“You think Roarke is.”
He raised his brows. “Isn’t that why you went to talk to him?”
She narrowed her eyes, not liking where he was going. “Maybe.”
“If the two deaths weren’t accidents, if somebody tried to kill Roarke and all three of these incidents are linked, odds are these aren’t random attacks on cops.”
“They could be.” She scowled at him.