Knock Me Off My Feet

Chapter 8

"Get the hell away from me with those things!"

Stanny-O backed off, returning the Frango Mints to his upper right desk drawer, eyeing his partner warily.

"All you had to do was say 'No thanks.'"

Quinn looked up at him, stupefied. "No thanks? I've been telling you 'No thanks' for four fuckin' years, and apparently you haven't heard it a single goddamned time because every day-every day, Stan-you ask me if I want a mint and the answer is no, I don't want a mint. I don't like 'em and I never fuckin' will."

"Jeez, Quinn." Stanny-O shoved his hands in his pockets and stared hard at his partner. "Are you hammered?"

"What?"

"Well, excuse me, but you don't usually ramble on like this unless you've been drinking."

Quinn closed his eyes and said softly, "Of course I'm not drinking." Then his eyes flew wide and in a much louder voice he added: "But I'm gonna start slamming heads if you ask me one more time if I want a Frango-fucking-Mint!"

Stanny-O began to nod slowly and smoothed his fingertips along his goatee, letting the understanding settle over him. He sauntered over to Quinn's desk, taking a wide, cautious berth before he plopped down on the edge.

"Not getting any, eh, buddy?"

Quinn turned to him and glared.

"I take it she don't want to go there."

Quinn ignored him.

"She's a beautiful woman. Hell, she's fun, too, just wonderful. I think I'm in love with her myself." Stanny-O began chuckling. "Want some coffee?" He walked across the room to the coffee island and came back with two Styrofoam cups.

"You know, Quinn, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven the night Audie and me went for pizza after one of her games. There she was, sitting across from yours truly, easily the prettiest woman in the place-even in her uniform with her hair up all messy the way she wears it-and she had me laughing so hard at one point, telling me stories about what a crazy mo-fo Darren Billings was, I thought I was going to choke to death. I haven't laughed that hard with a woman in I don't know how long."

Stanny-O sighed. "Did she ever tell you about dating Billings, Quinn? Did she ever tell you what he used to do at the Popeye's drive-through?"

Still no reaction.

"Oh, well." He shrugged. "I'm sorry she's making you nuts."

Quinn grunted.

"I think she's perfect for you. I really do. And I know it must be really hard to be close to gettin' some but not really gettin' any, if you get what I mean. It's gotta be tough, buddy."

"Are you done yet, Stan?"

"No, I'm not done, Stacey. You're going to tell me what's going on."

"No, I'm not."

"Sure you are. You're my partner and this is our case and she's our responsibility. So you're going to tell me what's going on."

Quinn closed his eyes and wrestled with the fact that he was close to having a heart-to-heart with Stanley Oleskiewicz. He trusted the guy with his life every day, true enough, and knew he was in good hands-but his ego?

"She's driving me completely crazy."

"What's she doin'?"

"Being Audie."

"I hear you."

"Being goofy and disorganized and sexy and tenderhearted. Being unable to tell a lie without falling over her own two feet. Being vulnerable." Quinn looked up to Stanny-O and frowned. "Did you request the Helen Adams files again?"

"Yeah. I got 'em. Kerr and McAffee should be here any minute." Stanny-O gave his partner a solid pat on the shoulder before he went back to his chair. "Rick Tinley's the uniform assigned to her until five," he said, tossing a stack of files to Quinn.

"Good. Tinley's a good guy."

"You going to keep doing the night shift?"

"As long as it's needed," Quinn said.

Stanny-O started snickering. "Can I just tell you what a privilege it is to know a man such as yourself-a man who can make that kind of personal sacrifice for the well-being of our fair city?"

"Blow me, Stan. Besides, you're on duty tonight until I get through with practice-probably ten-thirty or so."

"Yeah, I know. So, what's the deal-is she running around the apartment in one of those little Victoria 's Secret French maid outfits or something? I mean, I think I need to be prepared."

"Sorry, no. She sleeps in old soccer jerseys."

Stanny-O let go with a long and low whistle. "And I bet they don't got a number five on the back, no matter what you say."

Quinn looked up from the files, and for the first time that morning he felt himself smile. "You know what, Stan-My-Man? You're absolutely right-it's the number ten."

Stanny-O winked. "Told you."

Officer Rick Tinley was nice enough. He was about forty-five, soft-spoken, and had already shown her pictures of his three kids. But the idea of a policeman following her around made Audie terribly uneasy. Wasn't it supposed to have the opposite effect?

Audie was third in line at the coffee shop and kept glancing back at the officer as he leaned against the wall, nodding like one of those stupid wobbly-necked dogs in the back of a rusted-out car.

Good grief, she was bitchy this morning. Maybe once she got some caffeine in her system she'd mellow out. She rooted through her bag for some cash.

Tinley said he was on a diet and just wanted a medium house blend with skim milk, but Audie knew that only the big guns could handle her foul mood this morning. She scanned the menu on the wall until she saw the promise of deliverance-the double espresso mocha freeze grande.

She sighed. No, it wasn't hot sex with Quinn, but it was cold chocolate with whipped cream, and for now, it would have to do.

She was weighing the advantages of a carrot muffin over her usual cranberry biscotti when the man at the front of the line turned around with his order. It was Tim Burke.

"Well, good morning, Audie. What a pleasure this is!"

Revulsion slammed into her at the sight of him, and a chill traveled up her back. Rick Tinley instantly appeared at her elbow.

At that moment, Audie felt trapped. She imagined how good it would feel just to scream at both of them to back off!

She saw the amusement flash through Tim's eyes as he smiled. "I'm glad to see that you're safe and sound. Bye now."

With a polite nod to the officer, Tim walked out onto Chicago Avenue, instantly disappearing into the morning crowds.

"This is nowhere near City Hall," Tinley said with disgust. "What's he doin' up here?"

Audie felt her heart pound and her stomach knot. With what she now knew about Tim, she couldn't bear to look at him! Was he following her? Was he dangerous?

The good part was that if Tim was threatening her, then Drew wasn't. That was a relief, right? So why didn't she feel relieved?

"He lives around here," Audie offered, still staring out the front windows.

"I'll let the detectives know about this little coincidence."

Just then, Audie realized she was glad Tinley was at her side.

She moved to the front of the line with a sigh and began to order. "Good morning. I need one medium house blend with skim only please, plus one banana nut muffin, one chocolate chip biscotti, and a double espresso mocha freeze grande. Oh-and if you could dump a big mound of those little chocolate shaving things on top of the whipped cream I'd really appreciate it."

To his credit, Rick Tinley said nothing. But his shoulders were shaking in silent laughter.

"Like I said on the phone, I don't got a crystal ball, Oleskiewicz." Detective Ted Kerr stood up from his seat at the conference table and stretched his hands toward the ceiling. "Unless you got one laying around in your fancy new office here that we can borrow."

Stanny-O shot Quinn an amused glance and slapped the files closed. He stacked them in the center of the table.

"And if you recall, Helen Adams was one of eight hundred and seventy-six homicides in the City of Chicago last year," Kerr added, leaning his hands on the back of the chair. "We did what we could, then moved on to something that stood a chance in hell of getting solved. You know the drill."

They knew it well, Quinn thought. Just like they knew that Helen Adams's file had already spent several months languishing in the cold-cases unit, where it had plenty of company.

"Like we told you on the phone, we didn't have shit on Homicide Helen." McAffee smiled, enjoying his own turn of phrase. "None of our street weasels knew a thing about it-just your basic wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time mystery-and public figure or not, we had to eat that case for lunch, despite all those god-awful editorials in the Banner."

Quinn sighed. It was true that Helen Adams had made the quintessential easy target-an older lady, alone, at night.

He and Stanny-O had practically memorized these files by now, but they wanted this chance to meet face-to-face with the detectives who'd handled it, and so far, Quinn had no complaints with how they'd done their jobs.

The first cops on the scene had found Helen Adams sprawled out in an alley behind a warehouse on the Near West Side, barely alive. Robbery was the likely motive. Her purse had been ripped from her arm, and the bag and its contents were strewn on the asphalt around her. Any cash she'd carried was gone.

Her car keys were missing. A watch had been ripped from her wrist. Pierced earrings had been pulled from her earlobes and the little fourteen-karat gold clasps were found a few feet away on the concrete. Her Porsche was found the next day, parked along the Chicago River near the Merchandise Mart.

Autopsy results eventually showed blunt trauma to the back and side of the skull with what appeared to be pressure-treated wood. But the weapon was never recovered. There were no witnesses. No significant evidence was extracted from the car.

There were a few things that bothered Quinn about this case, however, besides the fact that the victim was Audie's mother.

First off, what the hell was a sixty-two-year-old woman doing in that neighborhood at night? The file said that earlier in the evening Helen Adams had had dinner with Banner CEO Malcolm Milton at Spago's on the Near North Side, and a number of witnesses saw them leave separately. But the security camera at Lakeside Pointe never recorded Helen arriving home that night.

So what had happened after the tiramisu and before the trauma unit? How did she get from point A to point B?

The four detectives had already discussed Quinn's main concern-a cell phone call Helen received a little after ten on her way home. It was the only loose end he could find in McAffee and Kerr's investigation.

They'd traced it to a pay phone near Lincoln and Fullerton, but it lasted just seconds and may have been a wrong number. They found no witnesses who recalled seeing anyone in the booth at that time. It was a dead end-and it bugged him.

Everything at the crime scene indicated she'd been attacked where she lay, and the Porsche was found without a scratch on it, not stolen or stripped, the keys in the ignition. Did the offender drive it there after attacking her? Did Helen leave the car there and drive off with the offender to the scene of the crime?

There were no self-defense wounds on Helen Adams-no marks on her palms or forearms and no material under her fingernails that would suggest she fought against anyone. That meant she went to that parking lot willingly and was surprised by the attack.

So what was she up to? Did someone set a trap for her? Who would want her dead?

Quinn knew they might never get the answers to these questions, because Helen Adams hadn't regained consciousness long enough to talk about the events of that night. The files said she managed a few words to her daughter on the way to surgery, then died.

Whatever those words were, they'd been enough to convince Audie that she owed her mother, big-time. One last guilt trip for the road, apparently.

Quinn sighed, twisting his own mother's claddagh ring around his left pinkie finger, thinking, thinking…

"Aside from the phone call, do you know what else really bothers me about this?" Quinn looked up at Kerr and McAffee, thinking out loud.

"I have a feeling you're going to tell us," Kerr said, returning to his chair.

"Yeah. I am." Quinn reached for the files again and gazed at the color postmortem photographs. "She was hit in the face. Not the first time, the second time." He ran his finger along the image of Helen Adams's brutalized cheek.

"First one to the back of the head-she's down. But that's not enough. Then one to the side of the face. Why? Wasn't her purse already on the ground? Why the extra hit?"

"And to the face," Stanny-O added. "Muggers don't usually go for the face."

"Exactly," Quinn said, turning to his partner with appreciation. "It's too personal. There's too much anger there for a random mugging, especially of an older female."

"What are you guys after?" Kerr rolled an unlit cigarette through his fingers like a miniature baton. "You saw the case files. We must have talked to half the city looking for someone with a grudge against that old bat."

Quinn grunted a little. What had Audie said the other day about her fame? "They love Homey Helen. They don't love me."

This homicide case may very well be about Helen Adams the person, not Helen Adams the public figure or Helen Adams the random mark.

As he'd wondered many times before, could the same person hate the mother and the daughter?

"But Andrew Adams was at the yacht club all night," Stanny-O said out loud, as if following Quinn's silent reasoning. "And there were about two hundred people to back him up on that, right?" He looked to the other detectives.

"Right," McAffee said. "And everybody else we talked to had an alibi as well, including Malcolm Milton, your girl Autumn, and the business partner, Marjorie Stoddard-about fifty people saw her at a dog obedience class that night."

"Which brings us exactly to slit, like we said." Kerr inserted the unlit cigarette between his lips and let it dangle there as he talked. "Which is exactly what you seem to have on your case, too. Which is why you're grabbing at straws trying to find a connection with her mother's case. But Helen Adams never received threats as far as we found."

"Nope. She didn't," Quinn said. "One of the first things we did was run an FBI database search for similar threats, and there wasn't anything, anywhere."

"DNA?" McAffee asked.

Stanny-O grunted. "Stamps were the peel-off kind. Water was used to seal the envelopes, not saliva. We got nothing."

"Fingerprints?" Kerr asked.

"Nothing we can't explain."

They all turned their heads toward the tapping sound on the glass wall of the conference room, to see Commander Barry Connelly pointing at Quinn, then crooking his finger. Quinn excused himself.

"Hey, Quinn?" Kerr called to him before he reached the door. "Sorry we couldn't be of more help on this."

"Yeah. Me, too."

Quinn had barely opened the door before Connelly started talking. "We got a little problem."

As they walked together through the squad room, Quinn released a sigh of resignation. He'd been expecting this-Timmy Burke had no doubt made those phone calls he'd mentioned and slimed up the gears of Chicago politics. But Quinn knew Commander Connelly and knew he didn't bend over for anyone, not even vice mayors.

"Have a seat." The commander shut his office door and walked around his desk, then locked his ice-blue eyes on Quinn's. "Damn it, Stacey. What did you have to go piss off Timmy Burke for?"

"I told you. He's a suspect in the Homey Helen threats."

"Says who?"

"Says me."

Connelly nodded slowly and eased down into his chair. "And this is based on hard evidence, I'm assuming."

"Circumstantial at the moment. A gut feeling."

Connelly began shaking his head. "Your gut can't be trusted when it comes to Burke, and you know it, boy-o. I'm telling you to leave the good vice mayor alone or life's going to get real unpleasant for you, real quick."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I'll have to yank you off the case and run all over town kissing ass trying to keep you working out of my station house. And you know how downright disagreeable I get when I have to kiss ass."

Quinn smiled at Connelly. He knew that. Not only was Barry Connelly commander at District 18, he was also Quinn's commander in the Chicago Garda Pipe and Drum Band, one of Jamie's oldest and dearest friends, and Quinn's godfather.

"Don't worry about Timmy Burke," Quinn said, waving his hand dismissively and standing.

"I'm not worried about him, you stubborn Mick. I'm worried about you, so sit down while I'm talking to you."

Quinn stopped in his tracks to see Connelly scowling at him beneath bushy white eyebrows. He obeyed orders and sat.

"Now listen up, Stacey. You do a damn fine job, but you're walking a fine line here, and you need to watch your back."

Quinn listened quietly.

"Burke's been saying things. He says you're sleeping with Miss Adams, and-"

Quinn's protest didn't even make it out before Connelly stopped him with a big outstretched palm and a frown. "And if you are, you're off the case. Now you can talk."

"He's lying, as usual. I'm not sleeping with her."

Connelly's eyes narrowed above flushed cheeks.

"But it's not because of lack of trying on my part."

The commander snorted with laughter. "Yeah, well, keep me posted if the lovely lady succumbs to your charms and all, 'cause then I'll have to take you off the case. You know I wouldn't care except that with this being a high-profile victim and with Tim Burke involved-Christ Almighty, Stacey-there can't be a hint of conflict ofinterest anywhere. Burke's making a hell of a lot of noise. Are we understanding each other?"

"Sure."

"Now." Connelly squeezed the bridge of his nose between a thumb and index finger. "What the hell are you and the Chocolate Moose doing with this investigation? You two usually make quick work of these celebrity chasers. I've asked you to focus on the case almost exclusively, but it's been weeks. What's the holdup?"

"We've narrowed the field," Quinn said, leaning forward. "As far as motive and opportunity go, Burke looks like the best bet right now, along with Miss Adams's brother."

Connelly's eyes mellowed a bit and he leaned back in his chair. "OK. You get exactly one minute to tell me about Burke. Let's start with motive."

"Your standard jilted lover," Quinn said. "It's been over a year since they dated, but he calls her several times a week, sends flowers, follows her to her book signings, and comes to her apartment uninvited. He told me he's in love with her and she just needs some convincing, but Miss Adams thinks Timmy is scum."

Connelly closed his eyes. "And you're helping her reach that conclusion?"

"I just filled in some holes for her. She's smart. She figured that one out all on her own, Commander."

"And you're sure about the calls and the flowers and the visits?"

"Yep. I got the florist records this morning-forty-two deliveries since they broke up last spring. I've seen the phone records from her office, and the ones from her home are coming this afternoon. He's on the security video from her building, right there pounding on her door. So it's not like I'm up the guy's butt for no reason-he's a suspect. A real suspect. I'm just doing my job."

"But nothing else on him?"

"No. No prints. No match from his work printer. He claims he doesn't have a printer at home and I don't think we've got enough for a search warrant yet, unfortunately."

"You're right. Now tell me about the brother."

Quinn rubbed his chin. "Andrew Adams is a thirty-something slacker who's lost a shitload of the family fortune to three ex-wives and a string of bad day trades. He's got debts, but he's not desperate. Lives alone. Drinks too much. No drugs except for a juvy marijuana bust. And no gambling that we can see."

"You've lost me, Stace. I don't see a motive here."

Quinn laughed bitterly. "Yeah, well, we're still working on that. See, the way the original Homey Helen left it, if Audie-Miss Adams-decides to quit the column, Drew gets first dibs on it. If he doesn't want the job, they can sell the rights and split the profit. Right now, Homey Helen Enterprises looks like it's worth about twenty-four million dollars."

"That would pay for a hell of a lot of day trades."

"And maybe another wife or two." Quinn smiled. "But here's the problem with that motive: He and his sister aren't close, but he knows she doesn't even like the column and would jump for joy to give it to him or sell it. So why threaten her? Plus, his computer doesn't match and his prints aren't on anything. And when we interviewed him, I didn't get any feeling he was a particularly bad guy-just a rich jerk."

"So you've got close to nothing."

"The letters are coming more often, and our guy says he's ready to move. We've got Miss Adams covered twenty-four/seven. It won't be long."

Commander Connelly grunted. "Like I told you from the beginning, the last thing the City of Chicago wants is two Homey Helens dying under our watch. The big shots at the Banner got wind of this and they're breathing down the mayor's neck. I've set you two loose and I expect you to take care of it."

"I understand."

"Any connections with her mother's case?"

Quinn shrugged. "Again, Burke is a possibility. Apparently Helen Adams didn't like the idea of a Catholic boy dating her daughter. But Tim was never interviewed in connection with her death."

Both Quinn and Connelly arched their eyebrows and stared at each other. "That's not much," Connelly said.

"But it's something, and it's more than what we've got on the brother, or anyone else for that matter."

Connelly frowned.

"Stan and I are going to keep looking for connections."

Connelly nodded. "Just don't go bothering Timmy Burke again without giving me a heads-up, understand?"

"Got it."

"And keep your drawers on."

"Yes, sir."

"And see you at practice tonight."

"I'll be there."

In the evenings after Mrs. Splawinski caught the El for home, Drew thought it got far too quiet in the Sheridan Road house.

Not that he missed his wife-any of them, for that matter. In fact, he recalled quite well that while they were with him, he simply couldn't wait for them to leave.

Drew knew he was funny that way-he didn't necessarily like being alone, but he didn't know how to deal with people who claimed they cared for him, even loved him.

Well, Lord, with his childhood it was no wonder. His sister was the same way, God love her.

Drew made himself another drink, this time with double lime. He needed the vitamin C. He knew a man could not live on Tanqueray and tonic water alone, though he'd certainly been giving it his best college try.

He took the drink to the window and stared out.

He hoped to God that Audie had rebounded from the momentary loss of sanity that made her throw herself at that Chicago cop. Drew shuddered, remembering them down there on the dock under the lights, going at each other like hormonal eighth-graders.

How vile.

But that was several days ago, and he knew all too well that an Adams love affair could hit the wall and burst into flame in that amount of time.

His guess was that Audie had already been scared off by the street thug's ardor and had demanded another detective on the case. That would be like her.

Drew turned away from the windows and returned to the computer desk. He placed the drink near the mouse pad, within easy reach.

He had no idea why he'd started writing these diatribes. Perhaps it was just the right time. Perhaps he simply couldn't keep all the garbage inside anymore.

Sometimes he surprised himself with the quality of his writing. He knew he had a wicked sense of humor-he could bring the yacht clubbers to tears with his cutting commentary on modern life and human foibles. In fact, his sense of humor was perhaps his only redeeming personality trait. Thank God he was finally doing something constructive with his talents.

Drew took a nice long drink and created a new document file on the computer screen.

The most important thing to keep in mind was that she would eventually read this, and it had to be so good that it would shock her, devastate her, terrify her. God, he hated her.

Honestly, he wished she were dead.