Deadly Force (3 page)

“What did she say?”

“She started laughing hysterically, and said that
wasn’t nearly enough. That she couldn’t have any kind of life on that kind of money. Then she pointed the gun at us, said she was going to have to kill us after all, and I knew she meant it.”

“But Nadine shot her first?”

“Yes. I just sat there and waited to die. Nadine, thankfully, wasn’t quite so willing to give up. Her backpack was wedged between the two seat cushions. When the woman
was ranting, she somehow managed to reach into it, pull out a gun and shoot her.”

“And you said earlier that you had no idea that she had a gun.”

She shook her head. “No. She had mentioned something about a woman getting attacked in the parking lot at her work and that she was thinking about getting a gun. I didn’t realize that she’d followed through on it. I’ve never been all that crazy
about guns, but call me a hypocrite because right now, I’m pretty darn glad she had it.”

Sam smiled. He glanced through the pages of his notebook again before looking up. “And neither of you ever met this woman before?”

“No.”

Sam rubbed his jaw. “Not through your jobs? Not some night at a bar?”

“No.” She pushed her empty soda container to the center of the table. “She was a
stranger. I don’t even know her name and now she’s dead.”

“Her name is Sandy Bird. Ring a bell?”

“Sandy Bird,” Claire repeated. She let the name roll around in her head but it didn’t bump into anything familiar. “How do you know that’s her name?” she asked. “That’s pretty fast police work.”

He shrugged, letting her know that her grudging admission hadn’t been lost on him. “It wasn’t
all that tough. She didn’t have a purse or a wallet on her, but she did have a set of keys in her pocket. When you were talking to the others, I walked outside, pointed the electric door opener at several cars, and sure enough, the lights on the green Toyota Camry started blinking. Her purse was in the trunk and when I matched up the license picture with uh...her face, I knew it was her.”

“She doesn’t have all that much of a face left,” Claire said, swallowing hard.

“A family member will need to make a positive ID down at the morgue. My partner, Cruz Montoya, is helping the coroner chase that down right now.” Sam pulled his straw out of his empty container and started tapping it on the table. “I understand your apartment was burglarized just a few weeks ago. Do you think this
has anything to do with that?”

“I have no idea.”

He bent his straw double, then again, until it was a hard ball of plastic. He relaxed his hold and it sprang apart. Then he started folding again. “How long have you known Nadine?”

“Forever. We went to grade school together. We’d been planning this move to Chicago all through college. We both took jobs in Omaha after graduation. I
needed some work experience before advertising agencies in Chicago would consider me. When I got the job at Alexander and Pope, she applied for nursing positions. She got one at Melrey.” Claire scooted to the edge of the booth. “Look, if there aren’t any more questions, I’d like to go.”

“Your apartment is a crime scene. You can’t stay there.”

Right now, she didn’t ever want to see her
apartment again. “I know. I can’t even have it cleaned up until I get the okay. Fortunately, one of the officers gave me a business card. He said they’d do a good job.”

Sam shook his head. “They aren’t supposed to do that. Just so you know, it’s probably his cousin.”

She shrugged. She couldn’t care less. Their landlord had been one of the hundred people who’d flooded the apartment. He’d
told them it was their responsibility to get the apartment cleaned and repainted. She and Nadine had agreed the couch was simply getting thrown out.

“So where are you two planning to stay?” he prompted.

“I’m staying at a hotel.” At the cheapest one she could find. Her credit card balances were mounting. “Nadine’s going home for a week or two. She worked it out with her supervisor.”

“I’m not crazy about her leaving right now,” Sam said. “I might have more questions for her.”

“I have her cell number, her mother’s cell and her parents’ home number.” Claire slid her purse strap onto her shoulder. It wasn’t going to be Sam Vernelli’s worry. She was making that call at eight o’clock Monday morning.

He pointed to his card that was still clenched in her fingers. “My
work number is on that card. Let me give you my cell, in the event that you think of something else or if you...need anything.”

“Do you give your personal cell number to all your crime victims?” she asked.

“You’re not just anybody. You’re Tessa’s—”

“Little sister.” She squared her shoulders. “I don’t think either one of us can forget that.” She squatted and reached for the handle
of the black duffel bag that she’d stuffed under the table. “Good night, Detective Vernelli.”

“I’ll drive you to your hotel.”

She shook her head.

He looked as if he wanted to spit nails. “Fine. I’ll get you a cab.”

She held up a finger. “Detective Vernelli, I am grateful for your assistance today. To say I wasn’t would be lying. But you and I both know that nothing good can
come out of our having anything to do with one another. So, don’t call me a cab. Don’t call me period.”

Chapter Three

Sam dialed Cruz’s cell as he walked to his car. When Cruz answered, Sam asked, “Hey, can you talk?”

“Yeah,” his partner said. “It’s just me and a couple cheeseburgers sitting in my car. I thought you and Claire were grabbing a bite.”

“Yeah, well, she eats fast. So what do we know about Sandy Bird?”

“She’s got two kids, ten-year-old twins. She’s the
president of the Arlington Heights Parent-Teacher Organization.”

“None of that makes any sense. What would she be doing breaking into an apartment on Maple? Is she married?”

“Yes. For the last ten years. To Fletcher Bird. He’s a pharmacist, works in the Loop.”

“What’s your read on him?” Sam asked.

“He’s shook, doesn’t know what to tell his kids. Said that he had no idea why
his wife would have been in Claire’s apartment. The names Claire Fontaine and Nadine Myer didn’t mean anything to him.”

Sam closed his eyes. Nothing was ever easy. “Okay. You want to start the process for us to check the phone and computer records?”

“Request is already in. He and his wife both had a cell and a home phone. PCs at home and his office. Claire has a laptop and she and Nadine
each have a cell and one landline. You know, this used to be easier before everyone needed to be connected 24/7.”

“I know.” Sam wondered if Claire had any idea that her privacy was about to be compromised. “I had The Weasel snap pictures of both Nadine and Claire. I don’t want to push the husband too hard when he’s got his hands full of funeral arrangements, but I think we need to see if
he recognizes either of them.”

“Maybe she just picked today to go off the deep end,” Cruz suggested. “Maybe her husband’s name finally drove her over the edge. By the way, I pulled the full robbery report. I was going to call you but I didn’t know if you’d want to be interrupted.” His tone was full of suggestion.

Sam started his car and pulled out into the heavy traffic. “I told you,
she’s Tessa’s sister.” Cruz and his boss were the only two in the department who knew the story. “We grabbed a bite to eat and she’s on her way to a hotel.” No need to add that she’d done it without a backward glance in his direction.

“She’s a beautiful woman. Nobody was questioning why you decided to leap tall buildings to save her.”

Sam sighed. “I was doing my job, Cruz.”

“Half
the guys trooping through her apartment today plan to ask her out. The other half are either gay or too afraid she’ll shut them down and they’ll never recover from the pain.”

“That’s ridiculous. She’s only twenty-four.”

“Last time I checked that was six years past legal.”

Sam switched lanes quickly and horns blared in response. Yeah, so what that he’d noticed that she looked really
good in her black leggings and long sweater that was snug in just the right places? He was human, wasn’t he?

Debatable. At least from Claire’s perspective. She’d made it pretty clear that she wasn’t impressed and no doubt would make her call first thing Monday morning.

The case would be reassigned and he’d be out from under this rock. Good.

* * *

O
N
S
UNDAY
MORNING
, Cruz bumped
his leg against Sam’s desk, carrying a stack of manila folders, two large coffees and a white sack. Sam reached for the coffees and Cruz dropped the folders on the desk. “So much for Sunday being the day of rest,” Cruz said. Then he opened the sack and pulled out some kind of egg and sausage thing on a biscuit with cheese dripping over the side.

“You used to eat cereal and bananas in the
mornings,” Sam said.

“That’s what Meg liked for breakfast.”

He could let it pass. He probably should. “Here’s a news flash, Cruz. It’s your arteries that are getting clogged. When you eat that stuff, you’re not hurting her.”

Cruz pulled a file from the stack. “Practice your amateur psychology on somebody else,” he said. He flipped the file onto Sam’s desk. “The report on the robbery
at Claire’s apartment is on top.”

Sam opened the file and skimmed over the information. When he got to the list of items taken, he slowed down. One flat-screen television. Three necklaces. One ring. Approximately ten pairs of panties. He raised his gaze and looked at Cruz. “Did you read this?”

Cruz nodded. “I don’t remember Claire mentioning the panties yesterday.”

Sam shook his
head. “No. I’m pretty sure Sandy Bird and Claire wouldn’t wear the same size.”

“You’re right. I called the morgue this morning and they checked her personal items. White cotton, size eight. Claire’s were a size five. And truthfully, Claire doesn’t look like a white cotton girl to me.”

Neither one of them had any business thinking about Claire’s underwear. “Did they get any prints from
Claire’s apartment?”

“There was one set of prints that didn’t belong to Nadine or Claire. They aren’t Sandy’s either. So, A, if Sandy was the thief, she was careful and wore her gloves like a good girl. Or B, the prints belong to the thief, but he’s a new thief with no record. Or C, the prints belong to some jerk they had over for beers one night who had nothing to do with the robbery. Basically,
we don’t know squat, except that the thief likes women’s underwear.”

The thought of some sick idiot running his hands over Claire’s stolen panties made Sam think his coffee might make a return appearance. He swallowed hard and focused.

“Eat fast. We need to go talk to Sandy Bird’s neighbors. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to the people who work at the drugstore by early afternoon.”

A half hour later, they were walking down Sandy and Fletcher Bird’s street. It was edged with trees, just blocks away from the train line that ran through downtown Arlington Heights. The houses were two-stories, there was an abundance of swing sets and the neighbors were naturally curious.

They had known Sandy and liked her. At the third house, the one directly across the street, Sam and Cruz
heard something interesting from the thirty-something woman who answered the door with a toddler on her hip.

“Sandy and I used to go to the gambling boat. It was a quick twenty-minute drive. And the buffet was delicious.”

Sam almost laughed. Of course. The slot machines had nothing to do with it.

“How often did you go?” Cruz asked.

“Once a month, maybe. We’d get a sitter for
the kids. It was fun.”

And probably pretty harmless unless she was losing big. “What’s the most you ever saw her lose?”

The woman shrugged. “Maybe a hundred dollars.”

A hundred bucks a month? Didn’t seem like much of a gambling problem. But Sam recalled what Claire had told him.
She wanted to know how much money we had.

“Do you think she ever went by herself or with another
neighbor?”

“I don’t think so. She was pretty busy with her kids. Fletcher worked a lot of hours and was gone a lot.”

They thanked her for the information and left. Three houses later, the consensus was that Sandy Bird was a good mom, a willing volunteer and a poor golfer. None of that helped them understand why she’d stormed her way into a stranger’s apartment and started shooting up
the place. They did not go to see Fletcher Bird. His car was in the driveway, but they kept their distance out of respect. There’d be time to talk with him later.

They headed back downtown, toward the South Loop. Because it was Sunday, and the office buildings were mostly empty, they had no trouble finding a place to park right in front of the drugstore.

They flashed pictures of Nadine
and Claire. All three of the clerks, all women in their forties or fifties, shook their heads.
Pretty girl,
said one woman, pointing to Claire’s picture.

Flat-out beautiful, really, Sam thought. Voluptuous. Not stick-skinny like so many women aspired to be. A man wouldn’t lose her in the sheets.

He stopped walking so suddenly that Cruz almost ran into the back of him.

“What?” Cruz
asked.

“Nothing.” He waved a hand. “Let’s go.”

What the hell was he doing thinking about Claire Fontaine wrapped up in nothing but a silk sheet?

* * *

O
N
M
ONDAY
MORNING
, before Claire had a chance to stuff her purse in her desk drawer, Victor’s secretary was knocking on their cubicles, letting the creative staff know that Victor wanted to see them—post haste.

The buzz
immediately started. Finalists for the Chicago Advertising Association’s Design of the Year contest were supposed to be announced today. Victor was the contact for all the entries. Was it possible that one of them had been nominated as a finalist?

“What’s this about?” she heard Pete Mission ask.

Juanita, who, just the week before, had roared past sixty without blinking an eye, sighed.
“Who knows? For having a degree in communications, he doesn’t share much. All I know is that he’s been pacing around his office like a little kid waiting for Christmas.”

Claire and the others took the elevator from the seventh floor to the ninth floor, where all the executives had corner offices. One by one, they filed into the conference room and took their respective chairs. There were
no name plates or assigned seats, but still, everybody had a spot. And if somebody tried to shake things up by taking a different chair, no one was very happy. Several had brought work with them. Others were just content to let their brains relax. They were prepared to wait. Victor hadn’t started a staff meeting on time since the beginning of staff meetings. There had been lots of jokes that he couldn’t
actually tell time.

They almost fell over when Victor arrived within minutes. His cheeks were pink and his small eyes were bright. He was smiling. It was the first time Claire had ever seen him happy.

He didn’t waste any time. “We were notified this morning that two of our entries are finalists in this year’s contest.”

Two.
Wow. The competition was incredible. If an agency had one
finalist, they were generally ecstatic. Even the more nonchalant staff members were sitting up straight in their chairs.

“I’m delighted to share that both Pete Mission and Claire Fontaine will be competing for this year’s grand prize.”

Oh, my God. She’d only been at Alexander and Pope two weeks when the memo went around, encouraging everyone on the creative staff to get their entry completed
and submitted. She’d reviewed the guidelines and worked like a crazy person to develop something.

Hannah stood up and pumped her arm in the air. “Two. Amazing. Congratulations, Pete and Claire.”

Everyone clapped and cheered. At least Claire thought it was clapping and cheering. Maybe it was just her heart clanging in her chest. She made eye contact with Pete. Even he looked stunned.

Victor held up his index finger, attempting to bring order to the room. “Their designs will compete against the other four finalists. The committee will announce the winners exactly one week from today at the awards dinner. This is big, people, really big.”

As they filed out of the room, there were more private congratulations. Claire looked for Pete to offer her congratulations to him,
but he was gone.

“Where’s Pete?” she asked Hannah.

The woman shrugged. “Probably out arranging for a tux and a limo. He’s entered for ten years straight and this is the first time he’s been a finalist.”

Ten minutes later, Hannah was still hanging over the cubical wall that Claire shared with her. She was speculating on what Claire should wear to the awards dinner. Claire’s telephone
rang and she reached for it, grateful for the interruption. Hannah smiled at her, before her face disappeared from view.

“Claire Fontaine.”

“Hi, it’s Sam Vernelli.”

Like she wouldn’t have recognized his voice.
She cupped her hand around her phone, attempting to create some privacy. Hannah out of sight didn’t necessarily mean Hannah out of hearing. “Detective?” she said, her voice
low.

“How’s it going?” Sam asked.

“I just...” She stopped. She couldn’t tell him about the contest, about how absolutely psyched she was about being a finalist. That was something you told a friend, a confidant. He was neither.

“You just what?” he prompted.

“Nothing. What can I do for you?” she asked, her tone purposefully brisk, businesslike.

“I wanted you to know that
we’re releasing the scene. You can get your apartment cleaned up.”

She pictured the splattered wall and swallowed hard, suddenly glad that she’d skipped breakfast. “I’ll call the painter now. Maybe I can have him meet me there tonight.” She really didn’t want to return to her apartment, but unless she planned on living indefinitely in a hotel, she needed to do it. She needed to put the ghosts
behind her.

All night, she’d tossed and turned, wondering about the woman, reliving every word she’d said. At about two, she’d given up all pretense of sleeping, booted up her laptop and forced herself to work on upcoming proposals.

The work was bad and would need to be redone, but it beat dreaming about dead women and blood-spattered walls any day. She kept thinking about the woman’s
family. “Did you talk with Mr. Bird?”

“Briefly and only on the phone. He’s busy planning a funeral. I gather that he’s pretty worried about how his boys are going to handle this—they’re just ten.”

Three years younger than she’d been when she’d faced death for the first time. She’d lost her sister before she’d ever really known her.

When Tessa had left Nebraska at eighteen to go
to college in Chicago, Claire had been in fifth grade. She’d been more interested in computer games and birthday parties than in establishing a relationship with her sister.

She barely remembered the funeral. It had been a crazy couple of days. People in and out, calls to and from the police in Chicago, trips back and forth to the airport to pick up relatives. Death was a noisy affair.

Then, when all the people had left, the house had gotten quiet, very quiet. She’d been too young to understand it then. It was only later that she realized that everyone had been drowning in grief. Tessa’s death had stripped the sunshine out of their lives, leaving behind a cold, unforgiving torrent of rain.