The Crush Read online

  “Not even nutty. Irresponsible, maybe.”

  Wick’s easy smile congealed.

  Noticing, Oren said, “Go ahead and get pissed. I don’t care. You need to hear it.”

  “Well, fine. Thank you. Now I’ve heard it. How’re Grace and the girls?”

  “Steph made cheerleader. Laura started her periods.”

  “Congratulations or condolences?”

  “For which?”

  “Both.”

  Oren smiled. “I’ll accept either. Grace said to give you a kiss from her.” Looking at Wick’s stubble, he added, “I’ll pass if you don’t mind.”

  “I’d rather you did. But give her a kiss from me.”

  “Happy to oblige.”

  For several minutes they sipped their beers and watched the colors of the sunset deepen. Neither broke the silence, yet each was mindful of it, mindful of all that was going unsaid.

  Eventually Oren spoke. “Wick…”

  “Not interested.”

  “How do you know until you’ve heard me out?”

  “Why would you want to ruin a perfectly beautiful sunset? To say nothing of a good Jamaican beer.”

  Wick’s lunge from the glider caused it to rock crazily and noisily before it resettled. Standing at the edge of the weathered deck, tanned toes curling over the edge of it, he tilted back his beer and finished it in one long swallow, then tossed the empty bottle into the fifty-gallon oil drum that served as his garbage can. The clatter spooked a couple of gulls who’d been scavenging on the hard-packed sand. Wick envied their ability to take flight.

  He and Oren had a history that dated back many years, to even before Wick had joined the Fort Worth Police Department. Oren was older by several years, and Wick conceded that he was definitely the wiser. He had a stable temperament, which often had defused Wick’s more volatile one. Oren’s approach was methodical. Wick’s was impulsive. Oren was devoted to his wife and children. Wick was a bachelor who Oren claimed had the sexual proclivities of an alley cat.

  In spite of these differences, and possibly because of them, Wick Threadgill and Oren Wesley had made excellent partners. They had been one of the few biracial partnerships on the FWPD. Together they had shared dangerous situations, countless laughs, a few triumphs, several disappointments—and a heartache from which neither would ever fully recover.

  When Oren had called last night after months of separation, Wick was glad to hear from him. He had hoped that Oren was coming to talk over old times, better times. That hope was dashed the moment Oren arrived and got out of his car. It was a polished pair of wing tips, not flip-flops or sneakers, that had made deep impressions in the Galveston sand. Oren wasn’t dressed for fishing or beachcombing, not even for kicking back here on the deck with an Astros game on the radio and cold beer in the fridge.

  He had arrived dressed for business. Buttoned down and belted up, bureaucracy personified. Even as they shook hands Wick had recognized his friend’s game face and knew with certainty and disappointment that this was not a social visit.

  He was equally certain that whatever it was that Oren had come to say, he didn’t want to hear it.

  “You weren’t fired, Wick.”

  “No, I’m taking an ‘indefinite leave of absence.’ ”

  “That was your choice.”

  “Under duress.”

  “You needed time to cool off and get it together.”

  “Why didn’t the suits just fire me? Make it easier on everybody?”

  “They’re smarter than you are.”

  Wick came around. “Is that right?”

  “They know, everybody who knows you knows, that you were born for this kinda work.”

  “This kinda work?” He snorted. “Shoveling shit, you mean? If I cleaned out stables for a living, I wouldn’t have to do as much of it as I did in the FWPD.”

  “Most of that shit you brought on yourself.”

  Wick snapped the rubber band he habitually wore around his wrist. He disliked being reminded of that time and of the case that had caused him to criticize his superiors vociferously about the inefficiency of the justice system in general and the FWPD in particular. “They let that gangbanger cop a plea.”

  “Because they couldn’t get him for murder, Wick. They knew it and the DA knew it. He’s in for six.”

  “He’ll be out in less than two. And he’ll do it again. Somebody else will die. You can count on it. And all because our department and the DA’s office went limp-dick when it came to a violation of the little shit’s rights.”

  “Because you used brute force when you arrested him.” Lowering his voice, Oren added, “But your problem with the department wasn’t about that case and you know it.”

  “Oren,” Wick said threateningly.

  “The mistake that—”

  “Fuck this,” Wick muttered. He crossed the deck in two long strides. The screen door slapped shut behind him.

  Oren followed him back into the kitchen. “I didn’t come to rehash all that.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “Will you stop stomping around for a minute and let me talk to you? You’ll want to see this.”

  “Wrong. What I want is another beer.” He removed one from the refrigerator and pried off the top with a bottle opener. He left the metal cap where it landed on the wavy linoleum floor.

  Oren retrieved a folder he’d brought with him and extended it to Wick, who ignored it. But his retreat out the back door was halted when his bare foot came down hard on the sharp teeth of the bottle cap. Cursing, he kicked the offender across the floor and dropped down into one of the chrome-legged dining chairs. The shrimp shells were beginning to stink.

  He propped his foot on his opposite knee and appraised the damage. There was a deep impression of the bottle cap on the ball of his foot, but it hadn’t broken the skin.

  Showing no sympathy whatsoever, Oren sat down across from him. “Officially I’m not here. Understood? This is a complex situation. It has to be handled delicately.”

  “Something wrong with your hearing, Oren?”

  “I know you’ll be as intrigued as I am.”

  “Don’t forget to pick up your jacket on your way out.”

  Oren removed several eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs from the folder. He held one up so that Wick couldn’t avoid looking at it. After a moment, he showed him another.

  Wick stared at the photo, then met Oren’s eyes above it. “Did they get any shots of her with her clothes on?”

  “You know Thigpen. He took these for grins.”

  Wick snorted acknowledgment of the mentioned detective.

  “In Thigpen’s defense, our stakeout house gives us a clear view into her bedroom.”

  “Still no excuse for these. Unless she’s an exhibitionist and knew she was being watched.”

  “She isn’t and she doesn’t.”

  “What’s her story?”

  Oren grinned. “You’re dying to know, aren’t you?”

  When Wick had surrendered his badge a little more than a year earlier, he had turned his back not only on his police career, but on the whole criminal justice system. To him it was like a cumbersome vehicle stuck in the mud. It spun its big wheels and made a lot of aggressive noise—freedom, justice, and the American way—but it got nowhere.

  Law enforcement personnel had been robbed of their motivation by bureaucrats and politicians who quaked at the thought of public disapproval. Consequently the whole concept of justice was mired in futility.

  And if you were the poor dumb schmuck who believed in it, who got behind it, put your shoulder to it, and pushed with all your might to set the gears in motion, to catch the bad guys and see them punished for their crimes, all you got in return was mud slung in your face.

  But, in spite of himself, Wick’s natural curiosity kicked in. Oren hadn’t shown him these pictures for prurient purposes. Oren wasn’t a Neanderthal like Thigpen and had better things to do with his time than to gawk at photogr
aphs of half-naked women. Besides, Grace would throttle him if he did.

  No, Oren had a reason for driving all the way from Fort Worth to Galveston and, in spite of himself, Wick wanted to know what it was. He was intrigued, just as Oren—damn him—had guessed he would be.

  He reached for the remainder of the photographs and shuffled through them quickly, then more slowly, studying each one. The woman had been photographed in the driver’s seat of a late-model Jeep wagon; walking across what appeared to be a large parking lot; inside her kitchen and her bedroom, blissfully unaware that her privacy was being invaded by binoculars and telephoto lenses in the hands of a slob like Thigpen.

  Most of the bedroom shots were grainy and slightly out of focus. But clear enough. “What’s her alleged crime? Interstate transportation of stolen Victoria’s Secret merchandise?”

  “Uh-huh,” Oren said, shaking his head. “That’s all you get until you agree to go back with me.”

  Wick tossed the photographs in Oren’s general direction. “Then you made the drive for nothing.” He tugged again at the rubber band on his wrist, painfully popping it against his skin.

  “You’ll want to be in on this one, Wick.”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “I’m not asking for a long-term commitment, or a return to the department. Just this one case.”

  “Still no.”

  “I need your help.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Is that your final answer?”

  Wick picked up his fresh beer, took a large swallow, then belched loudly.

  Despite the smelly shrimp shells, Oren leaned forward across the table. “It’s a murder case. Made the news.”

  “I don’t watch the news or read the papers.”

  “Must not. Because if you had, you’d have sped straight to Fort Worth and saved me this trip.”

  Wick couldn’t stop himself from asking “Why’s that?”

  “Popular doctor gets popped in the parking lot of Tarrant General.”

  “Catchy, Oren. Are you quoting the headline?”

  “Nope. I’m giving you the sum total of what we know about this homicide. The crime is five days old and that’s all we’ve got.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “The perp did the killing within yards of a potential eyewitness but wasn’t seen. Wasn’t heard. As silent as vapor. Invisible. And he didn’t leave a trace, Wick.” Oren lowered his voice to a whisper. “Not a fucking trace.”

  Wick searched his former partner’s dark eyes. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. “Lozada?”

  Settling back in his chair, Oren smiled complacently.

  Chapter 2

  Dr. Rennie Newton stepped off the elevator and approached the central nurses’ station. The nurse at the desk, who was usually talkative, was noticeably subdued. “Good evening, Dr. Newton.”

  “Hello.”

  The nurse took in the black dress under Rennie’s lab coat. “The funeral today?”

  Rennie nodded. “I didn’t take time to change afterward.”

  “Was it a nice service?”

  “Well, as funerals go, yes. There was a large turnout.”

  “Dr. Howell was so well liked. And he’d just gotten that promotion. It’s too awful.”

  “I agree. Awful.”

  The nurse’s eyes filled with tears. “We—everybody on this floor—we saw him nearly every day. We can’t believe it.”

  Nor could Rennie. Five days ago her colleague Lee Howell had died. Given his age, a sudden death from cardiac arrest or an accident would have been hard to accept. But Lee had been murdered in cold blood. Everyone who knew him was still reeling from the shock of his death as well as from the violent way he’d died. She almost expected him to pop out from behind a door and cry “Just kidding!”

  But his murder wasn’t one of the lousy practical jokes for which Lee Howell was famous. She had seen his sealed, flower-banked coffin at the church altar this morning. She had heard the emotional eulogies delivered by family members and friends. She had seen Myrna and his son weeping inconsolably in the front pew, making his death and the permanence of it jarringly real and even more difficult to accept.

  “It will take time for all of us to absorb the shock,” Rennie said in a tone both quiet and conclusive.

  But the nurse wasn’t ready to let the subject drop. “I heard the police had questioned everybody who was at Dr. Howell’s party that night.”

  Rennie studied the patient charts that had been passed to her during the conversation and didn’t address the implied question underlying the nurse’s statement.

  “Dr. Howell was always joking, wasn’t he?” The nurse giggled as though remembering something funny. “And you and he fought like cats and dogs.”

  “We didn’t fight,” Rennie said, correcting her. “Occasionally we quarreled. There’s a difference.”

  “I remember some of those quarrels getting pretty rowdy.”

  “We made good sparring partners,” she said, smiling sadly.

  She had performed two operations that morning before the funeral. Considering the circumstances, she could have justified rescheduling today’s surgeries and closing her office this afternoon. But she was already in a time crunch due to a recent, unavoidable ten-day absence from the hospital, which had proved to be an awful inconvenience to her and her patients.

  Taking another day off so soon after her return would have been unfair to those patients whose surgeries had been postponed once already. It would have placed her further behind and created yet another logjam in her scrupulously organized calendar. So she had elected to perform the operations and keep the appointments in her office. Lee would have understood.

  Seeing the post-op patients was her last official duty of this long, emotionally draining, exhausting day, and she was ready to put an end to it. Closing the topic of her colleague’s demise and funeral, she inquired about Mr. Tolar, whose esophageal hernia she had repaired that morning.

  “Still groggy, but he’s doing very well.”

  Taking the charts with her, Rennie entered the surgical recovery room. Mrs. Tolar was taking advantage of the five-minute visitation period that was permitted a family member once each hour. Rennie joined her at the patient’s bedside. “Hello, Mrs. Tolar. I hear he’s still sleepy.”

  “During my last visit he came awake long enough to ask me the time.”

  “A common question. The light in here never changes. It’s disorienting.”

  The woman touched her husband’s cheek. “He’s sleeping through this visit.”

  “That’s the best thing for him. No surprises on his chart,” Rennie told her as she scanned the information. “Blood pressure is good.” She closed the metal cover on the chart. “In a couple of weeks he’ll feel like a new man. No more sleeping at a slant.”

  She noticed how dubiously the woman was gazing at her husband and added, “He’s doing great, Mrs. Tolar. Everyone looks a little ragged fresh out of surgery. He’ll look a thousand percent better tomorrow, although he’ll be so grumpy and sore you’ll wish he was anesthetized again.”

  “Grumpiness I can take, so long as he’s not suffering anymore.” Turning to Rennie, she lowered her voice to a confidential pitch. “I guess it’s okay to tell you this now.”

  Rennie tilted her head inquisitively.

  “He was skeptical when his internist referred him to you. He didn’t know what to make of a lady surgeon.”

  Rennie laughed softly. “I hope I earned his confidence.”

  “Oh, you did. On the very first visit to your office you had him convinced you knew your stuff.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that.”

  “Although he said you were too pretty to be hiding behind a surgeon’s mask.”

  “When he wakes up, I must remember to thank him.”

  The two women exchanged smiles, then Mrs. Tolar’s expression turned somber. “I heard about Dr. Howell. Did you know him well?”

  “Very
well. We’d been colleagues for several years. I considered him a friend.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you. He’ll be missed.” Not wishing to have another conversation about the funeral, she returned the topic to the patient. “He’s so out of it he won’t really know whether or not you’re here tonight, Mrs. Tolar. Try to get some rest while you can. Save your energy for when you take him home.”

  “One more visit, then I’ll be leaving.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Rennie moved to her next patient. No one was standing vigil at her bedside. The elderly woman was a charity case. She resided in a state-funded nursing facility. According to her patient history she had no family beyond one brother who lived in Alaska. The septuagenarian was doing well, but even after reviewing her vitals Rennie stayed with her.

  She believed that charity went beyond waiving her fee. In fact, waiving her fee was the least of it. She held the woman’s hand and stroked her forehead, hoping that on a subconscious level her elderly patient was comforted by her presence, her touch. Eventually, convinced that the small amount of time she’d given the woman would make a difference, she left her to the nurses’ care.

  “I’m not on call tonight,” she told the nurse at the desk as she returned the charts. “But page me if either of these patients takes a downward turn.”

  “Certainly, Dr. Newton. Have you had dinner?”

  “Why?”

  “Pardon me for saying so, but you look done in.”

  She smiled wanly. “It’s been a long day. And a very sad one.”

  “I recommend a cheeseburger, double fries, a glass of wine, and a bubble bath.”

  “If I can keep my eyes open that long.”

  She said her good night and made her way toward the elevator. As she waited for it, she ground both fists into the small of her back and stretched. Being away, and for a reason not of her own making, had cost her more than time and inconvenience. Her pacing was still off. She wasn’t yet back into the rhythm of the hospital. It wasn’t always a regular rhythm, but at least it was a familiar one.

  And just as she was beginning to get back into the swing of things, Lee Howell had been murdered on the parking lot she traversed each time she came to the hospital.