Sunday, February 21, 8:25 p.m.
Noah placed his mini recorder on Sarah Dwyer’s coffee table. “So I don’t have to take notes,” he said when she eyed the recorder. “How well did you know Martha?”
“I’d see her occasionally in the laundry room. We weren’t friends.”
“But you gave her a key to your apartment, so you must have trusted her.”
“She was a lady in my building,” Dwyer said impatiently. “Sometimes we talked.”
Noah watched her wring her hands. “You seem agitated, ma’am.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I just flew in from Hong Kong and haven’t slept in twenty-four hours.” She pointed to a small hothouse on her dining room table. “I get home, find my prize orchids dead, and my neighbor deader. And you have the nerve to accuse me?”
“No one’s accusing you.” Jetlag and shock could account for her nerves, and fury over dead orchids could have sent her up a fire escape. “What did Martha do?”
“She was a computer consultant. I’m pretty sure she worked out of her apartment.”
Noah thought about the empty desk. No papers, no CDs. Only the computer. Odd that a consultant who’d worked out of her home would have no evidence of work.
“In any of your conversations, did she seem depressed or afraid?”
“No. Usually we talked about how much we hated Mrs. Kobrecki. She’s the building manager. Kobrecki and Martha did not get along.”
He’d paged Mrs. Kobrecki several times, with no returned call. “Why not?”
“Kobrecki said Martha was a pig. Martha took exception. That’s all I know. If you want more, you’ll need to talk to Mrs. Kobrecki.” She grimaced. “Or her grandson.”
“Why don’t you like her grandson?” Noah asked.
“He’s a creep. Once I caught him taking my lingerie out of the dryer and sniffing it. I made sure never to do laundry at night again. He only seems to come around at night.”
“What’s his name?”
“Taylor Kobrecki. Why?”
“Just gathering the facts, ma’am. Do you know Martha’s next of kin?”
“Her mom. She’s in a nursing home, in St. Paul.”
Noah stood, giving her his card. “Thanks. If you remember anything, please call me.”
“What is this?” she asked suspiciously. “Did Martha kill herself?” Noah smiled vaguely. “We’re just following procedure, Miss Dwyer.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “I’ll have my gun loaded and next to my bed tonight.”
“Anything?” Jack asked, meeting him as he left Dwyer’s apartment.
“Maybe. You?”
“Bupkiss. You get a next of kin?”
“Nursing home, St. Paul. You get any calls back from the building manager?”
“Nope. I couldn’t find any tenants who seemed to care for her.”
“She has a grandson.” Noah’s brows went up. “Panty fetish.” “Interesting. I wonder if Mr. Panty Fetish has a record.”
“I’ll run the grandson, you find the mom. Call and I’ll meet you at the nursing home.”
“What about Gus Dixon’s case reports?”
“Records said they’d have everything pulled when we got back to the station.”
Jack checked his watch with a sigh. “No dessert for me tonight.” Noah gritted his teeth. “You get too much dessert, partner.”
Jack snorted. “This from the man who hasn’t had dessert in how long?”
Noah shook his head. Everyone saw that Jack was a train wreck. Everyone but Jack. “Just find Brisbane’s mother. I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll call Abbott,” Jack said, “and give him a heads up.”
Abbott was their boss. “I already did, while you were having your ‘quickie dessert.’ ” Jack’s eyes flashed, his lie called out. “And no, I didn’t tell him you weren’t there.”
Jack let out a careful breath. “I owe you one.”
Noah met Jack’s eyes, held them. “Don’t make me sorry, Jack. Please.”
Jack looked away. “I’ll call you when I find Brisbane’s mother.”
Sunday, February 21, 8:45 p.m.
The crowd was cheering at the largest of Sal’s flat-screen TVs. It was college hoops and home team star Tom Hunter had the ball. Not much more needed to be said.
Eve watched her oldest friend fly across the screen, dropping the ball through the hoop like it was nothing. A cheer shook the room and Eve rocked back on her heels.
“Yes,” she whispered, then jumped when a stream of cold beer ran up her sleeve. She jerked the overflowing pitcher out from under the tap and shook her sleeve with a grimace. Careless. She’d have to let it dry, as there was no time to change.
Tonight’s other bartender hadn’t shown. The line at the bar had been unending, but so far, no one was complaining. As long as the home team kept winning, that shouldn’t change. As long as the team kept passing to Tom Hunter, winning was assured.
“Your friend’s got a real gift,” Sal said behind her, quiet approval in his voice.
Eve jumped. For a man with a bad leg, Sal moved with surprising stealth. Then again, the bar was so noisy that she couldn’t hear herself think. Tonight, that was good.
“I know,” she said. She’d known Tom was gifted the first time she’d seen him play on a crumbling blacktop in a poor Chicago neighborhood. She’d been fourteen, Tom ten, both older than their years. She’d been a runaway, and in a different way, so had he.
They’d become friends, raised under the sheltering wings of three amazing Chicago women who had become Eve’s family. But her bond with Tom went far deeper.
Tom was one of the few who truly understood Eve’s nightmares, because the same monster haunted his. Both of them bore scars inflicted by Tom’s biological father, Rob Winters. But now they were both past all that. Reinvented.
Tom was the reason she was here, in Minneapolis. When he’d been awarded a basketball scholarship to one of the country’s top schools, he’d challenged her to come with him, to take her life back. To come out of the dark and start anew.
And she had. Now Tom was on his way to becoming a basketball legend, like his adopted father, Max Hunter. And I’m finally out of the darkness and into the light. “Tom makes it look easy,” she said. “Size fourteen feet should not be able to move like that.”
“I’m not talking about his game,” Sal said. “I’m talking about his talk to Josie’s kids.”
Eve glanced up at him, puzzled. Sal’s wife, Josie, was a high school guidance counselor in one of Minneapolis’s tougher neighborhoods. “When was this?”
“Last week. He said he planned to go to all the high schools, to tell kids to stay in school. Promised Josie’s kids he’d be back to play a game with their team, for the ones that stuck it out. The kids are still talking about him,” he said and Eve smiled, touched.
“It’s like Tom to do something like that without bragging. He comes from good stock.”
Sal lightly knocked his shoulder against hers. “You come from the same place.”
“Not exactly.” Tom’s mother, Caroline, was one of the amazing women who’d raised her. Eve had no idea where her own mother was, doubted she was still alive. “But I’ve been lucky enough to be taken in by good folks everywhere I go.”
She finished filling a second pitcher, lifting both into the customer’s hands. She’d stopped gritting her teeth against the pain. It was a constant throb now, but she thought she’d been hiding it pretty well. Until Sal nudged her aside.
“Ice your hand,” he said, then shot down her protest with a warning look. “Do it.”
“Yes, sir,” she said meekly and filled a bag with ice, wincing as she placed it on her hand. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Rich was supposed to be on with me tonight.”
“He called in sick.” Sal’s hands made quick work of the waiting orders. “Why are you here? Callie was on tonight.”
“She had a date.” Who’d finally shown up with a dozen roses and a story of a client who’d gotten himself arrested in an afternoon hockey brawl.
Sal frowned. “You worked every day last week.”
“I need the money. The leak in my roof is worse,” she said, but he shook his head.
“No, you need to go out on your own dates. You’re too pretty to hide in this bar.”