“Someone lie to you?”
“You.” I sat up to look him square on, feeling angry and confused. “I know you lie to me all the time about things you’ve done on the job-you pretty things up so I won’t judge you.”
“That isn’t lying. If you haven’t been on the streets, there’s no way you can understand what goes down.”
“Maybe,” I said. I had backed up from him, out of his zone of magnetism. I tried to, anyway. As mad as I was, I still wanted to hold him. Realizing that made me even angrier. “Maybe not. Right now I need you to tell me the truth. The names of the little girl witnesses? They wouldn’t be LaShonda DeBevis and Hanna Rhodes, would they?”
He sighed.
“You’re using me again, Mike. I don’t like the way that feels.”
“Me, too.”
“You better explain.”
He sat naked in front of me, looking shamed. And gorgeous. I think that if he hadn’t been naked I would have been a whole lot angrier. Mike doesn’t leave himself vulnerable, ever. If he could sit there completely exposed, then he felt safe with me. That is, whatever he’d done wasn’t so bad it would make me turn on him.
“Just spill it, Mike,” I said, sitting cross-legged in front of him, our knees touching.
“I’m under orders,” he said. “I can’t talk to anyone who was involved in the case.”
I nodded. “The department is reinvestigating for you, but you can’t play.”
“Not exactly reinvestigating. The department is going over procedure, making sure we did things right the first time. That’s all. But I want more. The D.A. and this asshole evangelical private eye, Leroy Burgess, are trying to get a convicted murderer out of prison on a technicality. The city doesn’t give a shit if he gets out, as long as we don’t come off looking too bad. Doesn’t anyone but me care that he’s guilty?”
“You want me to talk to the witnesses?”
“In the course of this project you have going, if you were to talk to them, that would be good.”
“What is it you want me to find out from them?”
“Just if the girls are okay. If you can find them and they’re okay, that’s enough for me.”
“No message?”
“No. Except maybe watch out. The D.A. said he has new affidavits from them saying they were coerced all those years ago. If they were ever coerced, it was when they signed those new affidavits. This whole thing really stinks, Mag. I worry that LaShonda and Hanna might be in some trouble.”
“I’ll do what I can. Just don’t lie to me anymore.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You already said that.”
“I don’t know what else to say. Problem is, I’m used to taking care of my own problems. I’m not good at asking for help, but I can’t get inside alone this time. Since you were in the neighborhood, I hoped maybe you’d knock on a few doors for me.”
“You have to say, please Maggie, give me a hand.”
“I just did.”
“You’re some tough guy, Flint,” I said, softened by his anguish. “You’ve got skin like a baby, but you’re some tough guy.”
He tried to get up an attitude. “I don’t have skin like a baby.”
“Yes you do,” I said, nuzzling his abdomen. “And dimples on your vanilla ice cream butt.”
“Ass,” he said, breaking into a smile, getting hard again. “And no, I don’t.”
But he does.
Chapter 9
The telephone rang deep in the small hours of the night. Startled out of my sleep, I made a quick accounting of my near and dear as I rose to the surface of wakefulness: Michael and Casey were both safely tucked into bed, Mike was wrapped around me. Panic abated.
Mike reached through the dark and picked up the phone, muttered something, then tapped me with the receiver.
“It’s for you,” he said, and fell face down into his pillow.
I managed, “Hello?” expecting to hear my mother or father with dire news.
“Miss MacGowen? It’s me, Etta Harkness. You ax me to tell you if I know anything about Hanna Rhodes?”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Hanna just got herself shot. Up on Hunnerd-twelve. Baby Boy say she still lyin’ up there on the sidewalk. The ambulance only just got there.”
“Where is this?”
“Hunnerd-twelve and Wilmington.”
“Is she badly hurt?”
Etta coughed. “She dead.”
I was awake, but I felt disoriented, still unaccustomed to waking up in Mike’s bedroom. I reached over and gave his shoulder a nudge. “Etta says Hanna Rhodes is dead.”
Mike took the phone from me and grilled Etta for a few minutes. He said good-bye and turned on the light to dial Southeast Division. He asked for the sergeant on duty and grilled him, too. When he finally hung up, he sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall.
“What happened?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Don’t know. Southeast only got the shooting call twenty minutes ago.”
I slipped out of the warm bed and shuffled, yawning, toward the closet.
“Going somewhere?” Mike asked.
“Down to 112th Street and Wilmington. I never got a chance to interview Hanna. Now it’s too late.”
He had that deep crease between his brows. “Is Guido going with you?”
“You aren’t coming?” I stopped and looked up at him dumbly.
“I can’t go. I want to, but I can’t. Department orders.”
“And you aren’t going to argue about me going?”
“Would it do any good?”
The answer was no, but I still wanted some argument. Even with Guido, I doubted I would feel safe about going back into Southeast. I was going, but I wanted Mike with me. I said, “What does this mean, you’re tired of me and sending me down there is easier than hiring a hit man?”
“I’ll never get tired of you, baby.” He hugged me as a matter of punctuation. “I’m hiring Guido to go with you. And don’t worry, I’ll have Southeast Division watching for you.”
“You call Guido. He loves to roll out in the middle of the night.”
When I came back from the bathroom, more or less dressed and alert, Mike was lifting a hard leather gun case from the top shelf of the closet. He unlocked it and took out a little.38 with a two-inch barrel and the hammer filed off. He inspected it, loaded five rounds into the cylinder, and offered it to me.
I wouldn’t accept it. “I’m not licensed to carry, and that filed-off hammer is strictly illegal.”
“If you get into a position where you have to use this baby, the legality of it will be the last thing we worry about. It’s powerful, and you know how to use it. I filed off the hammer when I was working undercover so I could conceal it and still pull it out without snagging on everything. It’s the best thing for you to carry.” He pulled up the back of my shirt and tucked the little revolver into my belt, with the barrel lying along my spine.
He kept talking as if I was embarking on some expedition into the war zone. “Guido’s on his way over. You’re going to take my car because it has a phone. When you get to the scene, pull in among the black and whites as close as you can. And don’t go anywhere on your own. Don’t stop for coffee, don’t walk off looking for a bathroom. Stay in tight at all times. Got it? Stay tight.”
“My God, you’re bossy,” I said, adjusting the revolver in my belt. “I can take care of myself.”
“And another thing,” he said.
“Shut up, Mike.”
“Get me a camera shot of everyone there. Try to get cars, too.”
I smiled, looking at the misery on his face. “I know you’re being so agreeable about me going only because it’s next best to you going yourself. Right now, though, cupcake, it’s time for you to back off. You have to trust me. I’ll try not to get blown away. I’ll find out everything I can. In the meantime, don’t work yourself into a coronary.”
He pulled me against him. “You’re such a smartass.”