Dirty Martini

CHAPTER 1

Three Days Later

“IS THAT A REAL GUN?”

The little girl probably wasn’t much older than five, but I’m not good with children’s ages. She pointed at my shoulder holster, visible as I leaned into my shopping cart to hand a bag of apples to the cashier.

“Yes, it is. I’m a cop.”

“You’re a girl.”

“I am. So are you.”

The child frowned. “I know that.”

I looked around for her mother, but didn’t see anyone nearby who fit the profile.

“Where’s Mommy?” I asked her.

She gave me a very serious face. “Over by the coffee.”

“Let’s go find her.”

I told the teenaged cashier I’d be a moment. He shrugged. The little girl held out her hand. I took it, surprised by how small it felt. When was the last time I’d held a child’s hand?

“Did you ever shoot anyone?” she asked.

From the mouths of babes.

“Only criminals.”

“Did they die?”

“No. I’ve been lucky.”

Her eyebrows crunched up, and she pursed her tiny lips.

“Criminals are bad people.”

“Yes, they are.”

“Shouldn’t they die?”

“Every life is important,” I said. “Even the lives of bad people.”

A woman, thirties, rushed out into the main aisle and searched left, then right, locking onto the girl.

“Melinda! What did I tell you about wandering off!”

She was on us in three steps. Melinda released my hand and pointed at me.

“I’m okay, Mommy. She’s got a gun.”

The mother looked at me and turned a shade of white appropriate for snowmen. I dug into my pocket for my badge case.

“Lieutenant Jack Daniels.” I showed her the gold star and my ID. “You’ve got a cute daughter.”

Her face went from fraught to relieved. “Thanks. Sometimes I think she needs a leash. Do you have kids?”

“No.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. I watched her puzzle out what to say next.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” I said in my cop voice. Then I went back to my groceries. An elderly man, who’d gotten into the checkout line behind me, gave me a look I usually received from felons I’d busted.

“It’s about goddamn time,” he said.

“Police business,” I told him, flashing my star again. Then I made a show of looking into his cart. “Sir, this lane is for ten items or less. I’m counting thirteen items in your cart, including that hemorrhoid cream. And while hemorrhoids might give you a reason to be nasty, they don’t give you a reason to be in this lane.”

He scowled, used a five-letter word to express his opinion of people with two X chromosomes, and then wheeled his cart away.

Chicago. My kind of town.

I really missed living here.

Shopping in the suburbs was cheaper, less crowded, closer to home, and no one ever called me names. I tried it once, at a three-hundred-thousand-square-foot supermarket that sold forty-seven different varieties of potatoes and had carts with little video monitors that broadcast commercials and spit out coupons. Never again.

You can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the girl.

I finished paying for my ten items or less and then left the grocery store. The weather hung in the mid-sixties, cloudy, cool for June. My car, an aging Chevy Nova that didn’t befit a woman of my stature or my style, was parked just up the street, next to a fire hydrant. I stuck my bags in the trunk, took a big gulp of wonderfully smoggy city air, and then started the beast and headed for the Eisenhower to battle rush hour traffic.

“Four more dead, bringing the death toll up to nine. Hundreds more botulism cases have been confirmed, and a city-wide panic has…”

I switched the radio station to an oldies channel, and let Roger Daltrey serenade me through the stop-and-go.

It took an hour to get to the house. It never took less.

By my rough calculation, I was averaging ten hours a week driving to and from work, so if I retired in ten years, I will have wasted over five thousand hours-two hundred days-in the car.

But, on the bright side, I had a big backyard that demanded to be mowed, trees that needed trimming, a clothes dryer in need of repair, a hole in the driveway, mice in the attic, a loose railing on the stairs, water damage in the basement, and flaking paint in the bedroom.

Lately, my sexual fantasies revolved around once again having a landlord. Looks, age, and hygiene didn’t matter, as long as he had a tool belt and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it.”

Being a homeowner sucked. Though officially, I wasn’t a homeowner. Chicago cops were required to live within the city limits, so the house was in my mother’s name. While far from feeble, Mom had recently had some medical problems, and we decided that it would be best if she moved in with me. She agreed, but insisted we buy a house in the suburbs. “Where it is less hectic,” she’d said.

As far as the city knew, I still had my apartment in Wrigleyville. A dangerous game to play, but I wasn’t the first cop to play it.

I exited the expressway onto Elmhurst Road, drove past several tiny strip malls-or perhaps it was one giant strip mall-and turned down a side street festooned with eighty-year-old oak and elm trees. There weren’t any streetlights, and the cloudy day and abundant foliage made it look like dusk, even though dusk was an hour away. I pulled into the driveway, pressed the garage door opener, pressed it again, pressed it one more time, said some bad words, then got out of the car.

The suburbs smelled different from the city. Woodsy. Secluded. Clean and safe.

I hated the suburbs.

I lugged the groceries to the front door, set them on the porch, reached for my keys, and froze.

The new door I recently had installed-a security door made of reinforced aluminum with the pick-proof dead bolt that I always made sure was locked tight-was yawning wide open.