Dead Wrong (5 page)

Her description brought an odd picture to his mind, and he chuckled. “Pretty sure Tommy would deck me if I tried.”

“Exactly.”

“So you’re saying thank you, but you really mean back off.”

“No... I mean...” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I appreciate the thought that you would want to protect me, but after years of having to prove myself as a cop just because I’m a woman, it just sits wrong with me. Now it’s the same with my brothers. They think anything dangerous has to be done by a man.” She looked down at her hands. “It’s like none of you really trust women to have your back.”

“It was just an instinct, Kat. I didn’t think about it. I just acted.” He gave her a long look. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t trust you or your abilities. Tommy tells me you were a great cop. If you were still on the force, I’d partner with you without a second thought.”

She didn’t say anything. He looked at her and smiled again. “Are we okay?”

“Yes.”

“Speaking of your brothers...” He paused when her shoulders went up. She was going to shut him down. Still he had to try. “Perhaps it’s time we bring them in on this.”

“Not an option.” That protective look from earlier when they’d talked about the fear of loved ones getting hurt claimed her face.

“This isn’t about you not wanting them to think you screwed up anymore, is it? You don’t want to put them in harm’s way.”

“No, I don’t, and I hope you’ll respect my decision to keep it that way.”

He wasn’t sure how to answer. He didn’t need to bring them in on the case right now, but if things escalated, he wanted to keep that option open.

“Mitch,” she said. “Promise me you won’t talk to them without asking me first.”

“I’ll leave them out it for now,” he answered, and hoped the danger wouldn’t reach the point where he’d feel compelled to go against her wishes.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it and looked out the window. He turned into the salvage yard and pulled up to a ramshackle office building. He reached for his slicker, but the rain hitting the windshield had all but stopped so he left it behind, as did Kat.

“Help you?” An older man with a lip full of chewing tobacco came outside and eyed them suspiciously.

Mitch flashed his badge and the suspicion turned antagonistic.

Kat stepped forward. “Hi. I’m Kat Justice. You must be Mr. Wissler.” Her tone was smooth and sultry.

“I am.” He let his eyes roam from her head to toe.

Mitch hated how the man leered at her, but the only sign that she minded was a flicker of her eyes. If he hadn’t been watching closely he would’ve missed that entirely.

“We talked on the phone a few hours ago. I’m looking for the Bodig wreck.” She ended with a practiced smile.

Wissler returned it, revealing stained teeth coated with a black liquid. Mitch wanted to shudder at the sight, but Kat simply put her hand on her hip and kept smiling at the guy.

Mitch wasn’t sure if he was irritated at her for going all soft and womanly when she’d just lectured him on treating her differently or if he was impressed at how effectively she was working this guy.

“I’m sorry it took us so long to get here. Car trouble.” Another smile. “Are we too late?”

“Nah. It’s back this way.” He lumbered off and a mangy black dog got up and followed.

“Don’t say it,” Kat whispered.

“Say what?”

“That I just destroyed any point I was trying to make in the car.” She gave him an impish smile, and he couldn’t help but grin back at her.

They traveled down several narrow aisles toward the back of the yard, his steps lighter from her smile. Something he didn’t care to ponder.

Mounds of scrap metal and cars perched precariously at odd angles as if a tornado had come through and tossed them into a heap. A thick coat of rust claimed every item, some were nearly covered in it.

“Here it is.” The man pointed at a burned-out shell of a car sitting at the end of a row. “2010 Honda Accord.”

“You’re sure this is it?” Mitch asked.

Wissler scowled at him then looked at Kat. “I’m positive this is Bodig’s car. Only one we’ve ever had that was torched this bad.”

Mitch circled the car, and Kat joined him at the trunk. His eyes met hers. He could tell she was thinking the same thing. A few hours ago, this could’ve been their car and they may not have escaped. The thought of Kat trapped in a fiery wreck turned Mitch’s stomach and redoubled his resolve to solve this case.

He squatted and ran a hand over the rear panel. He could feel raised chips of paint, maybe left from another vehicle colliding with this one, but they’d long lost their color.

“You see this?” he said, keeping his voice low.

Kat bent down, and he caught a whiff of the same vanilla scent that had nearly distracted him during the shoot-out. He took her fingers and ran them over the spot.

“Are you thinking this is paint from a collision?” she asked.

“I’m not positive, but we’re not certain why Bodig ran off the road, so it’s worth taking a further look to see if there was another vehicle involved in his accident.”

She smiled at him. “Guess we’ll be calling the crime lab to pick up another vehicle.”

“Hopefully this paint will match the chips left on my car and in a few days, a killer will be behind bars.” Mitch stood. “I’ll call this in. How about telling Bubba there what we’re planning?”

Mitch made the call and watched Kat charm the man as he followed them up to the front. Wissler got a phone call and headed into the building, seeming very reluctant to part with Kat.

A feeling Mitch understood. She was so cute it’d be hard to ignore the softly curling hair, big doelike eyes and a smile—when she used it—that could make his knees weak.

“You ready to go?” he asked after he’d arranged to have the car towed.

She nodded and they headed for the rental.

Once seated, he waited for her to click her seat belt in place. As she bent toward the buckle, her hair fell away, and he spotted a fresh gash running from her ear to her eye along the line of her bruise from last night. Before thinking, he gently lifted her hair out of the way to get a better look.

She jerked back from his touch, and he let his hand fall. She didn’t want him to touch her. He shouldn’t touch her. But it bothered him all the same. More than he cared to admit. “That happen when I tackled you?”

“Yes, but it’s no big deal.”

Angry with himself for hurting her, angry with her for pulling away, he cranked the ignition. “The first thing we’ll do when we hit town is have a doctor take a look at that cut and your nose.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It’s what I want to do, so humor me.”

“I’d rather not waste the time.”

“Too bad.”

She crossed her arms. “Argh. I hate how bossy you are.”

“You better get used to it. I’m not likely to change real soon.” He instantly regretted his rude behavior, but the way she pulled away from him as if he had the plague when all he wanted to do was tunnel his fingers into her hair and kiss her made him mad. And that made him even madder.

Why was he getting mad over a little thing like her not wanting him to touch her when the last thing he wanted was a relationship? Especially not a relationship with a woman who’d already proved when push came to shove she’d act just like Lori, running into the line of fire to save others. He couldn’t live with that hanging over his head. It didn’t end well. Most of the time it ended catastrophically. He’d already experienced enough tragedy in his life that he wasn’t foolish enough to go looking for more.

If only he could remember that the next time he looked into Kat’s eyes and all of his resolve melted away.

FIVE

K
at held the ice pack on her nose that the urgent care doctor had given her and stared out the car window. The sun had set while he poked and prodded her face, and the darkness added to her grumpy mood. And so did Mitch’s lack of apology for going all caveman on her, thumping his chest and telling her what to do like her dad had done with her mom.

If he’d listened to her at all when she’d told him about her issue with men trying to take charge on the job, he would surely have apologized. Either he didn’t think he’d been rude or he didn’t really listen to her before. Both options left her irritated.

She studied him, all dark and brooding in the dim lighting as he concentrated on easing through heavy traffic. They were on their way to his place. His decision, of course. Everything had to be by his rules. She got that they couldn’t go to the office because she shouldn’t be helping with this case, but they could meet Tommy elsewhere.

She’d object, but what could she say? She couldn’t tell him she didn’t need to see where he lived—see his things, his life—and think about him as a person instead of a fellow investigator. She’d had enough personal contact when he’d held and protected her earlier. Now, even despite his failure to apologize, she still wanted more and that just couldn’t happen.

He glanced at her and caught her staring. She didn’t look away.

“Your nose broken?” Those were the first words he’d spoken since dropping her off at the clinic.

“No.”

“That’s good then.”

“Yeah.”

“And the cut didn’t need stitches I see.”

She lowered the ice to see him better. “This your way of saying you’re sorry for being so bossy earlier?”

“Kind of.”

She watched him and waited for him to go on.

“Look,” he said, clicking on the blinker, “I
am
sorry for getting mad and being a jerk. But—and I hope you’ll remember this—I’ll never apologize for doing what I think is best for you.”

“And why will I need to remember that?”

He turned onto a street in an older Portland neighborhood undergoing revitalization. “Something tells me we’re going to have this discussion again before the day is over.”

“Could you be any more cryptic?”

He laughed. “I could try.”

She was still miffed at him, but she couldn’t help but smile at his sudden good mood so she looked out the window to hide it.

His phone rang from a dashboard holder.

“Hello,” Mitch answered.

“Mitchy, it’s me.” A pitiful woman’s voice came over the speaker. “How are you?”

“Angie?”

“Yeah. Don’t you know your own sister’s voice anymore?”

“It’s been a long time.” His voice held that iron tone of earlier. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to see how you are.”

“If you’re calling, Angie, you want something. What is it?”

“Why are you being so mean?” She started crying.

He sighed and Kat could see the raw pain on his face. “I’m not trying to be mean, honey. I just can’t enable your addiction anymore. You know that.”

“Fine.” Silence followed.

“Angie?” he asked. “Angie?” He waited. “Great. Hang up on me.” He tapped the end button and glanced at Kat. “My sister. Angie. Homeless drug addict.” He said it so matter-of-factly that it broke Kat’s heart. If she didn’t see the genuine distress on his face, she would think he was an uncaring man.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“The only thing Angie needs is rehab and she refuses to go.” He sounded so defeated. So hurt. And so closed.

He pulled into the narrow driveway of a small home and killed the engine. The light mounted by the back door gave off a warming glow and highlighted Tommy’s Jeep sitting at the back of the drive.

Kat eased out of the car but Mitch didn’t follow. She looked back. He sat with his forehead on the steering wheel. She knew this kind of pain. The kind brought on by someone you love slowly killing themself. She ought to know, she’d cried herself to sleep too many nights to count after seeing the same thing in her dad. The only difference was he took her mom with him to the grave.

She went around the car and opened Mitch’s door. “What can I do?”

He lifted his head and shook it before climbing out. As the misery in his gaze washed over her, she didn’t think twice, but slipped her arms around him and hugged. He was solid and strong, yet now she knew how vulnerable he was, too, so she offered a silent prayer for him and Angie.

Mitch settled his chin on her head and tightened the strong arms circling her. The warmth of his body and the even thumping of his chest kept the chilly air at bay. She felt safe. Like when her brothers hugged her, but there was more. A deep yearning to know everything about this man. To take a chance. To go beyond the superficial and find out what kind of person he really was.

She leaned back and looked up at him. He wasn’t just a good-looking man. He was deep and caring. Loving...when he let himself be.

He lifted his hand and ran it gently over her hair, before letting it slide down her arm to twine with her fingers. “You’re getting wet. We should go inside.” He smiled softly and gave a gentle tug.

She didn’t want the moment to pass, but it was dangerous to her heart to stay like this so she let him pull her through the drizzle into a small kitchen in disarray. He dropped her hand and she stopped to catch her breath from running—maybe from the way she’d responded to the hug—to look around the room.

Cabinet doors were missing and rough plywood served as his countertop. The wood floor was a checkerboard of patches and tools were discarded as if left where he’d last used them.

“I’m remodeling,” he said and kept walking. “Watch your step.” He slipped through a wall of thick plastic hanging from the ceiling. He didn’t seem the least bit aware of her emotions. A good thing. Right?

On the other side of the makeshift wall, a dog barked excitedly and jumped up to greet Mitch as he held the plastic aside for her.

“About time,” she heard Tommy say.

She carefully stepped over a hole running the length of the room where a wall had obviously once stood.

Before she could get a good look at the room, Tommy walked up to her and lifted her chin. “Nice shiner, Justice.”

“I could give you a matching one, if you want.”

He laughed then pulled her in for a hug. “Glad to see you’re alive and kicking, partner.”

“Glad to be alive,” she replied and was surprised how the reference to her as his partner put a tremor in her voice.

“If you two are done making nice, we have work to do,” Mitch muttered.

“What’s wrong with him?” Tommy let her go and stepped back.

“You’ll have to ask him. He’s been a grump all afternoon.” She tried to sound lighthearted when she knew he really was upset about his sister.

“That true, Elliot?”

“Work. We have work to do.” He went to the far end of the great room where he straddled a chair by a contemporary teak table. His dog trotted after him. Kat couldn’t identify a breed. Most likely a pound puppy.

She slowly followed, admiring Mitch’s taste in furnishings. She’d expected the usual black leather and massive TV typical of bachelors, but found a tailored sectional in a dark brown and a modest-size flat screen on the wall above a glass-tiled fireplace surround.

Tommy dropped a folder on the table and took a seat at the far end. She slipped into a chair between the two of them and the dog came over to sniff her.

“What’s your dog’s name?” she asked.

Tommy started laughing. “Her name is Princess. A cop with a dog named Princess. I can just see the look on a date’s face if he ever brought one home and introduced them.”

“She had that name when I adopted her from the shelter.” Mitch’s tone was low but held no warning.

“I think it’s sweet.” She ruffled Princess’s ears.

“Yeah, you’re such a bleeding heart, you would.” Tommy laughed.

“One of us had to have compassion on the job.” She wrinkled her nose at her partner. Former partner, she reminded herself. The tough as nails, self-made man was with Mitch now. Mitch was now the kinder, gentler person on the team. She’d seen his heart. His caring. A stark contrast to Tommy’s abrasive personality. They made a good team just as she and Tommy had.

“So bring us up to speed,” Mitch commanded in his usual forthright tone, moving them back to their reason for being there.

Tommy didn’t seem to balk at Mitch’s bossiness but looked at her. “I put a rush on the DNA from your fingernail scrapings, but with the way things are always backlogged at O.S.P. a rush could still take days to process.” The Oregon State Police Crime Lab was constrained by budget restrictions so they had to triage requests. “I also included a cigarette butt found near the van and there were several good fingerprints lifted at Nancy Bodig’s house.”

“Not likely our killer’s, though,” Kat said as Princess circled and lay down by her feet. “He wore gloves.”

“Were any prints from unknown individuals?” Mitch asked.

“There were two good latents that didn’t belong to Kat, Nancy or Nathan Bodig. We ran those through A.F.I.S. No hits.” The Automated Fingerprint Identification System database held prints for convicted felons and civil servants.

“So our forensic evidence is limited to the DNA, two prints, the paint transfer and a few digits of a license plate,” Kat recapped.

Mitch turned to Tommy. “Tell me you have something else for us ’cause that’s not a whole lot to go on.”

“I spent the day tracking down illegal sources for propofol. Thankfully the network for black market pharmaceuticals isn’t as large as recreational drugs.”

“So you have some promising leads, then?” Kat asked.

Tommy nodded. “I’ll run them down tomorrow.”

The doorbell rang and Princess popped up, but didn’t bark.

“I ordered Chinese.” Tommy didn’t move to answer the door.

“Let me guess,” Mitch said, standing. “Since we’re at my house, I’m buying.”

“Well, if you’re offering, go for it.” Tommy laughed and tugged Kat to her feet. “C’mon, Justice. Help me get plates and silverware from the hole in the wall he calls a kitchen.” He crossed the room and stopped at the plastic wall. “Hold this open so I don’t contaminate things with drywall dust.”

She grabbed the plastic, feeling the gritty residue linger on her fingers. “Mitch told me Nancy’s parents met you at the morgue this morning.”

“Sad thing losing both their kids like that.” He retrieved plates from an airtight storage container on the counter.

“I’d like to talk to them. Can I get their contact info?”

“I’ll email it to you.” He dug out silverware and piled it on top of the plates.

She heard the front door close and the rich aroma of spices trailed Mitch into the dining room, making her stomach rumble.

“Man, Justice.” Tommy looked at her as he grabbed sodas from the refrigerator. “Didn’t he feed you today?”

“We didn’t have time.”

“There’s always time to eat.”

“We had that little incident that kept us busy. Then we went to the salvage yard and after that, Mitch insisted I see a doctor about my nose.”

“And you went?”

“Yeah.”

He grabbed the plates and stared at her. “You, Kat Justice, went to see a doctor for a bump on the nose?”

“Mitch didn’t take no for an answer.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Well, well, well.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He balanced everything in his hands and headed her way. “It means that my little Kitty Kat is still interested in Mitch Elliot.”

“What? Where’d you get that idea? I only did it because he’d have sat there staring at me until I went in.”

“Uh-huh, keep telling yourself that, Kat.” He walked past her, and she turned to see Mitch staring at them.

His smug little smile said he’d clearly heard the conversation. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t smug, but soft and adorable and almost irresistible, compelling her to return it with one of her own. His smile spread and if she was right, she saw in his eyes everything she’d hoped to see when she’d confessed her crush. Interest. Big, bold and unsettling.

She wasn’t going there. Couldn’t go there with a man who proved his penchant for being in charge just like her dad. She forcibly dragged her gaze away and followed Tommy back to the dining room. She’d resist Mitch Elliot now and she could only hope she’d find the resolve to resist him later and forget all about the way that lopsided grin made her heart beat faster.

* * *

After they finished eating, Mitch sat back to watch Kat hash out investigative details with Tommy. Between bites of Kung Pao chicken, he’d brought them up to speed on Nancy’s background check. An accountant, she’d worked from home with a long and dedicated client list, and she appeared to have been an upright citizen in every way.

Not that Mitch actually caught all of the details. Instead, he kept replaying the conversation he’d overheard in the kitchen. He couldn’t stop wondering if Tommy was right when he’d said Kat was still interested in him. He couldn’t see how agreeing to go to a doctor in any way indicated her interest. But Tommy knew her better than anyone could, and he’d said that was what it meant.

Like any of it mattered. Nothing had changed. He may still want to go out with her as he had back in her rookie days and it was flattering that she might return the feelings, but he wouldn’t do anything about it.

Unless of course he could guarantee that something bad wouldn’t happen to her. But that wasn’t something anyone but God could guarantee and despite Kat’s insistence that God was watching over them, Mitch still wasn’t certain.

“You want to weigh in on this one, Elliot, or are you gonna stare at Kat all night?” Tommy asked before giving him a wry smile.

Mitch thought to deny that he was staring but he’d been caught red-handed. “Weigh in on what?”

“We were discussing how Nancy checks out clean as a whistle. And I said she seems to be a dead end and we should keep working the brother angle. Like seeing if any of his clients or coworkers held a grudge.”

“I agree we should keep after the brother’s so-called accident, but I also think we should investigate Nancy’s clients, too. As an accountant, she would have access to a lot of money and there’s no better motive for murder than money. Plus no one is as clean as you say Nancy is.”