Take a Chance On Me

Chapter 4 The Love I Lost

The Volga. The Volga. The Russian river that empties into the Caspian Seais the Volga, you total flat-liner.

"The Danube?"

Augh!

"I'm sorry. That answer is incorrect. The question now goes to number forty-seven for the grand prize. Would you like me to repeat the-"

Leelee jumped from her folding chair and headed toward the microphone before the man had to waste any more of everyone's time. "The answer is the Volga River," she said softly, then returned to her seat.

As the last remaining geography bee contestant on stage. Leelee gazed out into the audience and tried to look ecstatic. Beckett was on his feet whistling like he did for all her correct answers, unfortunately. Emma clapped and smiled that great big smile of hers.

Leelee sighed. Maybe she should have intentionally missed that no-brainer question just to add a little excitement to this godforsaken stretch of nothingness they called Carroll County, Maryland, where the most thrilling thing she'd seen in a year was the girl fight at the tractor pull last night. Those lovely ladies had more tattoos per square inch of flesh than teeth in their heads. Plus, she'd enjoyed the interesting colloquialisms, like when the skinny one called the big one an "ass-faced heifer."

God, she missed L.A.! God, she missed her friends and the smog and the noise and the variety of people and the energy that made her feel connected to something special.

God, she missed her mom. Craziness and all.

Leelee caught Emma's eyes and couldn't help but smile as her maternal figure gave a little wave and winked at her. Emma was cool-maybe the coolest woman Leelee had ever known. She was smart and pretty and responsible and had her own business and it was so awesome that she'd finally gotten rid of lame-o Aaron!

But why did Emma have to live here? Why couldn't they move somewhere halfway decent like Baltimore or D.C., even? For some reason, Emma had it in her head that this was where Leelee belonged, because it was where her mother was raised.

Like growing up here made Rebecca Weaverton a great person or something? Like that happened?

She looked down at Emma and Beckett and the most bizarre thing occurred to her: She was looking at her family. Well, her family in the way that Velveeta was cheese and AstroTurf was grass, but the only family she had now. The truth of that made her throat close up and her stomach flip.

"Number forty-seven, that is the correct answer! Congratulations!" Leelee heard the judge's voice get all excited and she knew she was going to have to stand. "This year's Carroll County Middle School Geography Bee Challenge Cup goes to Elizabeth Weaverton, a twelve-year-old from South Carroll Middle! Congratulations, Elizabeth!"

She rose to a sputtering of applause-hey, she knew the parents in the audience weren't exactly thrilled that she'd made their offspring look like total retards. She accepted the lovely plastic marbleized trophy topped with a fake brass globe and thought about what a joke she was. She was too skinny and too smart and had seen way too much of the real world for any of the hayseeds around here to like her. They thought she was a mutant.

God, she hated it here.

Leelee plastered a smile on her face and waved stiffly as a yellow polyester sash came down over her head and a grocery-store bouquet of flowers appeared in her free hand. She stood patiently while a few pictures were taken, noticing how through it all Emma and Beckett never took their eyes from her.

"Thata girl, Lee!" Beckett hollered as she descended the stage steps.

"Congratulations, sweetie!" Emma threw her arms around Leelee and squeezed, and Leelee closed her eyes and let herself float in Emma's embrace. She always smelled wholesome, down-to-earth, like baby powder and sunflowers-something too simple and too real to be found in any Rodeo Drive boutique.

"Not much of a challenge for you, eh, kid?"

"I guess not." Leelee shrugged and looked up into Emma's pretty blue eyes. Her mother had had brown eyes, but lately that was about the only thing Leelee could still remember about her. She couldn't feel the exact pressure of her mom's touch, or recall the smell of her hair. It had only been a year and it was fading away. How long would it be before she'd remember nothing at all?

It was Beckett's turn to hug her. "We were thinking of heading over to the Waffle House to get us some lunch. Wha'dya say?"

"That totally rocks, Beck."

Leelee never cried-God knows Becca had always produced enough melodrama for several households, so why bother? She didn't cry the time they got evicted from the best apartment they ever managed to get. Not when she had to transfer schools three times in fifth grade. Not when her mom got herself killed riding in some second-rate TV actor's car.

Leelee didn't even cry the day she got her butt dragged cross-country to live here in Soybean World.

What would crying accomplish? What had it ever accomplished for her mom? Nothing, that's what.

So it was a total shock to realize that she'd apparently picked right then to start. What was so overwhelming about walking out of the community college auditorium between Emma and Beckett, holding her trophy, heading out to the Waffle House?

The food there wasn't that bad.

So why cry now?

It felt weird the way the water trickled hot down her cheeks. She could taste her own tears as they pooled in the corner of her mouth-saltier than she imagined, like the Pacific Ocean off Malibu.

The real bad part was now that it had started, she was pretty sure it was never going to stop. Her knees felt shaky and her stomach felt heavy, like it had fallen too low in her belly. She thought she might choke. Or hurl. All she knew was she had to get away. Get away from everyone, everything…

The next thing she knew she was in the middle of the parking lot, on her hands and knees, feeling the burn and sting of gravel under her palms and the skin of her knees. She was shaking. She couldn't stop sobbing. She'd dropped the trophy and it lay broken a few feet in front of her. The ugly flowers were spilled in an arc around her.

Then she heard a high-pitched scream-several long seconds of piercing sound coming out of her that she hadn't even known she could produce. Somewhere in the back of her head she knew it was the sound of not being able to stuff it down anymore.

"Oh, sweetie… " Leelee felt Emma's arms go around her and lift her to her feet. She gave in. She let Emma protect her, hide her, stroke her hair and mumble soft words that she couldn't really hear because of the buzzing in her own ears. Then Leelee sensed that Emma was leading her to the Montero, getting her buckled in the back seat and sitting next to her.

Leelee sobbed and sobbed as Beckett drove them home. After what seemed like forever, she looked up into Emma's face and was greeted with a handful of Kleenex and a smile she couldn't quite read.

"I'm sorry for acting like a complete diva." She wiped off her face and blew her nose.

"Oh, honey, there's nothing to be sorry about."

"I don't know what happened."

"I do."

Leelee took a quick gulp of air and shook her head.

"You're bleeding, Lee."

She brushed off her knees with annoyance. Her stomach hurt something fierce but she tried not to cry anymore. "It's okay. It's nothing. Just a scrape."

She felt Emma's fingers come under her chin and lift up her face. "Not there, sweetheart." Emma's voice was low enough that Beckett wouldn't hear. "You've just started your period."

Thomas could feel the caffeine kicking his brain into overdrive, yet it wasn't quite enough to burn off the fog of the all-nighter. And no amount of coffee would ever mask the truth that he'd behaved like a complete jerk.

He'd been such a jerk to Emma Jenkins.

And she didn't deserve it. That was the hell of it-she didn't deserve to be hurt. In fact, she may have been the first legitimately decent, nice-even special-person Thomas had met in a very long time.

And he'd been an idiot. A jerk. An ass.

Thomas sat at the conference table and watched the rest of the team straggle in. He could hear Stephano out in the hallway, his machine-gun laugh ricocheting down the uncarpeted hallways of the second floor of the Maryland State Police Headquarters. Paulie Fletcher was already at the other end of the table, clutching a cell phone to his cheek, apologizing profusely to his wife.

Thomas knew these Saturday morning get-togethers interfered with ballet recitals, peewee football games, and lawn mowing duties. He grinned to himself with smug satisfaction-as the only unmarried member of the team, he never had to worry about someone else crimping his style, making demands on his time. Not him.

Besides, they only had to suffer through these meetings a few times a year-before quarterly report deadlines and whenever there was a sudden spurt of new cases. September was often one of those times. It made sense, in a sick sort of way. The summer was officially over. People weren't distracted by barbecues, vacations, and weekends down at the ocean. It was a good time to start taking care of those bothersome loose ends they'd been putting off-like murdering friends and family.

Thomas looked up as Regina Massey strolled in, the homicide detective assigned to the Scott Slick case. Regina was a fifty-something grandmother who didn't look-or act-her age. What she looked and acted like was the movie star Pam Grier-all sexy, street-smart, black alpha female. Reg didn't take shit from anybody. That's how she'd made it in a predominantly white-male line of work.

That's why Thomas liked her.

She winked at him. "Hey, hot stuff. Wild date last night? Looks like you need a nap."

Thomas rolled his eyes. She'd been giving him a hard time for more than a decade, first when he was with the Baltimore County State 's Attorney's office and then with the task force. It was part of their routine.

He took a steaming sip from his Styrofoam coffee cup and watched Regina get settled in the chair next to him, smoothing down her silk trousers and adjusting the belt at her trim waist. She sent him a flirty smile, her dark eyes flashing.

Thomas shook his head. "I'm putting the finishing touches on my sexual harassment complaint against you, Reg. I should have it filed this week."

She hooted with laughter. "Oooh, Tommy honey, you know I get all tingly when you use my name and the word sexual in the same sentence."

He glared at her-if anyone else had called him that, they'd be in pain now.

"Watch it, Reg." Chick Abels dropped his stack of files on the table with a thud. "He's got nothing against hitting women-remember the Amelia Pilcher case?"

"Sure do." She was still grinning. "Three years for trying to make sure her church choir director never sang again."

"I elbowed her in self-defense," Thomas growled. "She was going for my eyes with a paper clip."

Regina sighed dreamily. "You've always had a way with the ladies, Tommy."

Within minutes, all members of the Maryland Murder for Hire Task Force were gathered around the conference table, Captain Vince Stephano at the far end. The head of the Maryland State Police special operations division unceremoniously tossed a white bakery bag into the center of the table.

"Help yourself to some bagels," he said, and the grins spread around the table like a contagion. Thomas long ago learned this was how the captain apologized for bringing everyone in on a weekend-by providing a selection of the world's worst bagels-dense, inflexible O-shaped objects not fit for human consumption.

As Paulie often pointed out behind Stephano's back, it wasn't really the captain's fault-God never meant for Italians to shop for bagels.

"All right, people, we've got a lot of territory to cover and it's a beautiful Indian summer day and I know we all want out of here so let's get to it."

"You mean a Native American summer day," Manny Chaudury said.

"My apologies to your motherland," Stephano said. "And as you can see we have the pleasure of Lieutenant Regina Massey's company this morning. The lieutenant will be updating us on the Slick homicide." Stephano abruptly swung his gaze toward Thomas and smiled. "But first I gotta know-how's your special friend this morning, Tobin?"

Regina 's head snapped around. Everyone else began to chuckle.

"Did she recover?" Stephano asked way too nicely. "She sure was a pretty little bald thing."

"The thing is a he and he's fine." Thomas saw Regina 's eyes fly wide in shock. "It's a dog," he muttered.

Regina 's mouth fell open. "You got yourself a bald dog, honey?"

"No. Yes. Sort of." It suddenly occurred to Thomas that this could be the break he was looking for- Regina was good with living things. She'd given birth to two kids and they were still alive, as far as he knew. So maybe she'd take Hairy. "You want it?"

She frowned. "What kind is it?"

"The real ugly kind," Paulie whispered, and the whole table cracked up.

"It's a hairless toy breed," Thomas muttered, dropping his gaze to the fascinating scarred wood of the table. "Scott Slick's dog."

The room went utterly silent. Stephano cleared his throat. "You didn't tell me you took Slick's dog to your place. Why didn't you tell me that thing was Slick's dog?"

"You never asked," Thomas said. "I waited for somebody to claim him, but as we found out, Slick didn't have anybody."

"So how did you end up with it?" Stephano asked, staring at Thomas in disbelief.

Thomas shrugged and nodded to Regina. "Once you guys showed up and the evidence techs got there, you said you wanted him out of the apartment."

Regina nodded. "I sure did-he'd already contaminated the crime scene something fierce."

"He wouldn't leave Slick's side and I kind of felt bad for him. So I took him home with me."

The silence was deafening. All eyes were on Thomas, and he felt like the featured attraction in a circus freak show. He looked from face to face. "What? What's the big deal?"

Stephano cleared his throat. "It's just… well… that was kinda nice of you, Tobin, that's all. It was a nice thing to do."

Regina 's hand brushed his. "I didn't know you kept him, Thomas. That's very sweet."

"Whatever," Thomas muttered, horrified by the compliments.

"Maybe we wouldn't have given you so much shit last night if we'd known the thing was Slick's," Chick said. "I mean, who would have thought Slick would have a dog like that?"

"Who would have thought Slick was gay?" Paulie chimed in.

"True enough," Stephano said. "So, Lieutenant, care to bring us up to speed?"

"My pleasure." She opened up the manila folder in front of her. "At this point, we're thinking Slick had another residence somewhere. We're operating under the assumption that he had an alias we don't yet know about."

Her eyes met Thomas's, giving him a chance to chime in. He did.

"Slick was actively running a bookmaking operation and we all knew it. There-it's on the table." Thomas looked at Stephano, and the captain nodded for him to continue. "As supervisor for this task force, I made the decision to keep working with him even with that knowledge. His information was just too good, and I wanted to keep it coming. I take responsibility for sidestepping regulations on that."

Nobody said anything.

"But it looks like Slick was doing a few other things I didn't know about. The apartment I'd been to a couple times and I thought was his home was… well, it probably wasn't his primary residence. It was like a hotel room. It didn't look very lived in."

"Some gentlemen like to keep a clean house," Paulie offered.

"You ought to know," Manny said.

Regina shook her head, disgusted. "You boys are the biggest bunch of homophobes I've ever seen in my life. If you all weren't so insecure about your own sexual orientation you wouldn't have to-"

"Bite me, Reg," Paulie said.

"Enough!" Stephano smacked his palm on the table. "God, people! I want to get out of here, so let them finish. What else have you got, Reg?"

Thomas sighed, rubbed both hands over his tired face, and let his thoughts wander back to Slick. He'd met him about twelve years before, his rookie year with the state's attorney's office. Slick got busted for bookmaking but worked off charges by becoming an informant for a variety of cases. One of them was the first murder-for-hire Thomas ever handled.

A few months later, Slick came to Thomas on his own with another possible murder solicitation. Then another. And pretty soon, Thomas realized that Slick was the best informant he'd ever worked with, and pretended not to notice that his informant-who was supposed to stay on the good side of the law-had turned a little sideline into a thriving business.

He'd seen Slick in action many times over the years. He treated each of his customers like royalty, listened to their lame excuses and blatant lies like it was the most fascinating shit he'd ever heard, and gave people every opportunity to set things right with him. The result was that Slick had customers throwing money at him year-round, even desperation bets in baseball season, and made more tax-free income than he knew what to do with.

As Slick often explained with a smile on his face, guys who bet money on sports lost that money. Not with every bet, but at the end of the season or the year, they'd lost a ton of money. And it became his.

Like taking candy from a baby, he used to say.

They developed an understanding. Thomas would do what he could to keep the cops off Slick's back-no promises-and in exchange, Slick would tell Thomas what he heard in the course of doing business, and for some reason, people tended to confide in Scott Slick when life got ugly.

He had a nice, open face. He listened. He smiled. Then he ratted on them.

One of his customers asked Slick to find someone to whack his law partner. A waitress asked him to find someone to pull the plug on her comatose husband. A junior high school basketball coach up to his eyebrows in gambling debt wanted to collect on his own teenage daughter's life insurance policy. It seemed people believed Slick had connections.

He did-connections to Thomas and the Maryland State Police.

In the years of their partnership, Slick's tips were consistently on the mark-almost all had resulted in felony murder solicitation charges that ended in guilty pleas or trial. And Thomas liked the guy.

But when Slick came to him in July and said he planned to close up shop and wanted out of their arrangement, Thomas wouldn't let him do it. He listened to Slick tell him his customers were getting more unreliable and collection was becoming a real pain in the ass. He told Thomas he had enough cash now to last him three lifetimes, and it was time to cut his losses and relax.

But Thomas talked to him-okay, maybe threatened him a little, with Stephano's blessing-until Slick agreed to keep the operation going through the college football season. Then bam-a week later Slick was lying on his kitchen floor with his head bashed in, little doggie footprints of blood all around his body.

As Thomas had stood there looking down at what used to be Slick, he wondered if his informant had known he was in danger, and that's why he wanted out. If that was the case, then it was Thomas's fault Slick was dead.

And now that he was gone, Thomas realized Slick hadn't just bullshitted his clients or the poor SOBs who came to him for help-he'd been lying to Thomas, too.

Thomas never once suspected Slick was gay. He never doubted that the apartment he'd visited was his home. He never knew he had a weird little dog.

Did everybody have to be a liar? Did everybody have to pretend to be something they weren't?

Thomas was only half listening to Reg review the case. He'd been unofficially helping out with the investigation all along. It was the least Thomas could do for Slick, who, thanks to him, was now the main entrée at the worm buffet.

"Cause of death was blunt trauma to the head, inflicted by impact with the left front corner of the base of a KitchenAid blender," Regina read from the file. "The blender was found next to the victim's body on the kitchen floor, still plugged in, its engine burned out. The victim's skull was crushed above the left temple, under the rim of a cap. Bone fragments in the brain tissue. Massive hemorrhaging, lots of external bleeding."

"I wonder whether the blender was set on chop or liquefy?" Chick asked.

Thomas threw him a severe look but Reg continued unfazed. "Frappé," she said. "And the apartment showed no signs of forced entry. The lock wasn't picked. So it may be that Slick knew his attacker and let him in."

"Usually do," Manny muttered.

"Prints were found all over the blender and the counter-top but they came up unknown. Traces of skin and hair found under Slick's fingernails, signs of struggle. DNA analysis is pending. There was a variety of shoeprints found in the plush carpet in the living room, some Thomas's-he was first on the scene-some matching the shoes on Slick's feet at the time of death, others not. They pulled one intact print of a male Reebok running shoe, size ten, a model stocked at nearly every mall in America this year. The rest were a jumble."

"What's the backlog for DNA testing these days?" Stephano asked, taking a few notes.

"At least six weeks for a case without a suspect." And before anyone could say anything Reg shook her head. "I know. It's the worst it's ever been, but there's nothing I can do. Believe me, I'm in limbo on a bunch of cases just waiting for the lab to come through for me."

"So what's this about another residence?" Stephano asked.

Thomas looked up. "There were only three changes of clothes in Slick's closet, right, Reg?"

"Mmm-mmm." Regina skimmed the file. "An overnight toiletry bag in the bathroom along with a few dog care supplies. A bare minimum of food in the cabinets and refrigerator. No magazine subs, no newspaper delivery, junk mail only, no phone or Internet service. Utilities were under his name. But-" She looked up with a grin. "There was an unopened economy pack of condoms in the bedside table, a lovely assortment of gay erotica, and a state-of-the-art entertainment center. Lots of CDs, too."

"All of them disco," Thomas said under his breath. "What a waste of perfectly good technology."

"So we're thinking it was his love shack," Regina said. "So if his murder wasn't related to his work with you guys, it may have been a lovers' spat."

"Where's that taking you?" Stephano asked.

"We've been digging around the Baltimore and Washington gay communities, trying to figure out how Slick fit into the scene, what kind of relationships he had."

"And what have you got?"

"Not much at this point, but we're still looking. If Slick went to the clubs, nobody's saying. If he had any significant others, they're being real discreet."

"My God," Chick said. "Can you imagine how many customers he would have lost if it got out that he was light in the loafers?"

"He'd have lost 'em all," Thomas said, watching Regina close the file. And then he wondered to himself if that's why Slick had really wanted out-so that he could finally stop pretending.

Regina left the meeting at that point and Thomas took over. He reviewed the cases coming to trial, the pending indictments, and the list of possible new cases.

Stephano turned to Thomas. "And where do we stand with our man Leo Vasilich?"

The men around the table gave a collective sigh.

"The judge is supposed to have her decision tomorrow on the motion to suppress, but Manny and I went by the book and there's no way they're going to get that surveillance tape thrown out. I'm afraid our friend Leo is fucked."

"The man was just not using his head," Manny said.

"Sure he was-the smaller one," Chick said.

"There but for the grace of God go I," Paulie sighed.

Thomas laughed at that. "Oh, yeah? You're a self-made multimillionaire immigrant who married a beauty pageant queen turned con artist, too?"

Paulie blew out air. "You know what I mean, man. You just never know with women-none of us ever really know."

"My wife wouldn't embezzle from me and give it to her lover. I trust her completely," Manny said.

"You have nothing to embezzle, my friend," Chick pointed out.

"Still, I trust her."

"Leo trusted his wife and she cleaned him out," Chick said. "I don't blame him for wanting to kill her."

Thomas shook his head. "See, Chick, it's all right to be so angry that you want to kill someone. The crime is when you decide to go ahead and do it-or in Leo's case, hire someone to do it. That's kind of the whole gist of our line of work."

Chick smiled. "Oh. Now you tell me."

At Stephano's urging, Thomas wrapped up the meeting by making assignments for the weeks to come. He divided up the background research, assigned undercover backup positions, and reviewed electronic surveillance equipment needs for each new campaign. It was going to be a busy couple of weeks.

Driving home, Thomas realized he had a deposition on Monday and needed to stop at the dry cleaners to pick up his suits. It sometimes amused him that he had to plan his wardrobe ahead of time. There were days he'd appear in court in the morning and have to show up at a biker bar to meet a guy for a beer after work-and that required black leather. Other nights called for his cheap sports jacket and polyester slacks, and still others called for jeans, a flannel shirt, and a Jeff Gordon ball cap.

He never went overboard with his undercover wardrobe, but he was aware that a man his size needed to do whatever he could to blend in.

Thomas sighed as he pulled out of the dry cleaners. He couldn't put it off any longer. What choice did he have, seeing that Hairy had peed all over his car that morning?

He took a stabilizing breath and grabbed a parking spot in front of the CYS drugstore. He told himself he could do this. He was an adult, an officer of the court who worked with violent criminals on a daily basis. He could certainly summon the courage to purchase maxi pads.

He entered the front door like any normal customer and began scanning the aisles. He saw the sign hanging there as big as anything-Feminine Hygiene and Family Planning. Bingo. He'd hit the motherlode. Two, three minutes tops and he'd have those pups in a plastic bag and be outs there.

Thomas strode down the aisle-and stopped. He stood before the shelves in a state of awe. Just how many different types of pads and tampons did the female race require? Dear God. Then his eye strayed toward the array of products apparently necessary for the proper functioning of the female reproductive system-douches, yeast infection creams, anti-itching ointments, personal lubricants, pregnancy tests, spermicides. His heart began to race. He struggled to keep his focus.

Thomas scanned row after row. What should he buy? Wings or no wings? Heavy flow or light days? Curved edges or straight? He tried to imagine which of these pads would work best inside a tube sock tied around the tiny waist of a six-pound neutered male mutant dog, but was drawing a blank.

He felt like he might need a hit off the oxygen canister he'd spied in the front window.

"Is there something I can help you find, dude?"

Thomas turned around to see a teenage stock boy staring at him with a smirk. He was leaning one elbow on a doily full of even more feminine hygiene products-cartons and cartons of them!

"Your girlfriend send you on an errand?"

Thomas gave the kid a smile that positively dripped with courtesy, then said, "At least I got a girlfriend, punk ass." He turned back to the wall of paper products and removed the first thing he saw. At the cash register, he realized he'd selected a forty-eight-count box of extra long pads for nighttime flow.

They'd be perfect. They'd have to be. Because he was never going to do that again.

Ever.