Every Kind of Wicked. Lisa Black

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      Chapter 2

      They exited the cemetery at the west end, across from the baseball stadium, now as frigid and vacated as the gravesites, and did a U-turn onto the short, brick-paved Erie Court. Conscious of their coworkers on the other side of the stone wall, they kept their voices low.

      “What’s up?” Jack asked. He didn’t worry that Riley would find their tête-à-tête suspicious; he and Maggie had let everyone believe they were sleeping together. They weren’t, of course, but it provided a handy explanation for these occasional conferences. And Maggie had thought it might discourage the interest of her ex-husband, another homicide detective named—

      “Rick.”

      “He hassling you?” Rick Gardiner wasn’t the most even-tempered guy.

      “No, but I think he’s planning to hassle you.”

      They emerged onto East 14th. She turned left and he followed.

      “He stopped by to see me this morning, supposedly to pick up a fingerprint report on a case of his, which of course he didn’t need because we always send copies over to your unit as soon as they’re ready. Then he told me a funny story about one of those phone scammers calling and pretending to be his grandson needing money for bail—”

      “He has a grandson?”

      “Of course not. Even if we’d had children, their kids wouldn’t be old enough to get arrested, so that insulted him more than the loss of his credit card information would have. But then he started asking about you. Where you grew up, where you became a cop.”

      “And what did you tell him?”

      “The truth: I have no idea. You’re not exactly chatty.”

      Strictly true. And even if he were, no chance arose for a heart-to-heart chat about his past since they weren’t really dating. Even if they were dating, Jack thought, Maggie already knew more of his prior activities than she wanted to. Way more.

      “He’s going to Chicago.”

      Jack stepped off the curb, nearly into the path of a tractor-trailer so large, it seemed to brush the lowest prisms of the chandelier demarking Playhouse Square. Maggie grabbed his arm, saving him from death by Peterbilt.

      “He said there were similar vigilante-type murders of scumbags there.” Similar to the men he had killed in Cleveland, she meant. She hadn’t let go of his arm, maintained one steady pull until he faced her. “Were there?”

      He hesitated, but lying to her would not help anything, and nodded.

      This couldn’t be news to her, but still her shoulders slumped in worry.

      The light changed and they stepped into the crosswalk, and she tried to rally. “He did add that it’s hard to conclude anything from that, given the number of murders in Chicago. However—he said he might go on to Minneapolis.”

      Theater marquees provided spotty shelter from the still-falling snow as they passed beneath. “The vigilante case was reassigned to me.” That should have kept Rick Gardiner away from Jack’s handiwork.

      “This trip isn’t official. It’s all on his own. I don’t think I need to describe how rare it is that Rick does anything on his own.”

      Jack agreed. Maggie’s ex would never be known as a go-getter. Not for the first time, he wondered what had ever attracted her to the man in the first place, but stopped himself—not the issue here. What Rick Gardiner might uncover from Jack’s old stomping grounds, that was the issue.

      His reluctant, erstwhile, accidental partner in crime could no longer contain her anxiety. “What are you going to do? What’s he going to find, Jack?”

      “Calm down,” he said—two words one should never say to a woman. He regretted them immediately.

      “I am perfectly calm!” Except she wasn’t, and several other people also waiting for the light at East 18th didn’t think so either as they turned at her sharp tone, their glances then sliding away to give them as much privacy as could be afforded on a busy city street.

      Jack, wisely and promptly, backpedaled. “Yes, okay. Let him go. He won’t find anything.”

      “You’re sure? He asked if I had a photo of you. Not in so many words, I mean. As he pretended to be chatting, he asked why we didn’t have any selfies on Facebook or something. Since I haven’t posted on Facebook since my niece’s birthday last year, that seemed like a stupid comment . . . until I figured out what he was after.” The light changed. The people around them moved and Maggie continued to talk as if she couldn’t help herself, a measure of her agitation. Jack knew that. Maggie represented a walking time bomb, one that could detonate the cover life he’d built for himself in this city. If one more straw of guilt broke the back of her conscience . . . yes, he might wind up in jail, but more likely he’d simply move on. Maggie would at least give him a heads-up before confessing. Wouldn’t she?

      She might figure he had already overstayed his welcome. The person he had followed to Cleveland in order to destroy had been destroyed. He and Maggie had agreed that waiting six months should allow him to leave without causing suspicion. But it had been eight months, and here he remained.

      She was saying, “Obviously he’s trying to come up with a picture of you to take with him. He got called away to an overdose, but that’s what he was angling around to. Rick was always a lousy actor. I figured out he was cheating on me, like, two days after he started—”

      “He did?” Why the hell—

      She waved that away with a gloved hand and no hitch in her stride. “Long story. What can he do if he visits those police departments?”

      Cue the knee-jerk reaction. “Nothing. It will be fine.”

      “Are you sure?”

      Somewhat sure. Chicago had a huge force, and he had used a different name there. First Rick would have to weasel Jack’s ID photo out of Cleveland’s human resources unit, then happen to show his picture to the very few guys in Chicago who might actually remember him. On top of that, cops don’t care for people outside their agency asking about their guys, even if those people were also cops. And Chicago had been slammed in the news for several years, so they would be doubly reticent to speak ill of anyone who might have once worn their uniform. Yes, he doubted Rick would find anything to connect Jack to the city at СКАЧАТЬ