Joanna Wayne - Justice for All

They fell silent when the waitress brought the food. But not talking was not necessarily a good thing when he was sitting across a small table from Callie, Max acknowledged. It left him too much time to notice the delicate softness of her hands as she forked bites of salad to her full, pink lips. Too much time to admire the way her breasts pushed against the fabric of her blouse. Too much time to remember the way her body had felt pressed against his.

“What do we do, Max?”

The question flustered him for a second before he realized she wasn’t reading his mind and referring to the incriminating thoughts he was entertaining. “You’ve done your part. It’s up to me to try to make sense of it all.”

“I don’t think I have done my part.”

He didn’t like the sound of that or the look in her eyes right now. “I appreciate the heads-up on this, Callie, but don’t even think about getting involved in the investigation.”

“Why not? I was standing a few feet away from Bernie when he collapsed. And the hostess is a friend of mine.”

“If the Avenger is involved in this, and I’m not even suggesting that he is, we’re talking about a man who’s killed at least four people and tried to kill Bernie. He’s smart and he’s dangerous.”

“And needs to be stopped.”

“Right. By the cops. Not by beautiful doctors with no experience in law enforcement.”

“I wasn’t planning to start carrying a gun and beating the bushes for the killer.”

“Good. Don’t talk to Mary about this, either, or anyone else who was at the party.”

As he dipped a French fry into a pool of ketchup, it struck Max that this was the first time he’d had lunch with a woman other than the cops on his force in longer than he cared to remember. And he was sitting here giving orders and talking about murder. “I say we drop the subject,” he suggested. “It’s bad for the digestive system.”

“Okay, but I still think I could help with the investigation.”

They stopped talking until they finished eating. “So,” Callie said, dabbing the napkin to the corner of her lips, “what does the chief of police do for fun on gorgeous Saturday afternoons?”

“Does doing the laundry count as fun?”

She groaned. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“Of course. That’s just the warm-up. It’s stopping at the market for TV dinners that really gets my juices pumping. And let me guess. What does the chief of staff at Courage Bay Hospital do? Loll away her hours at the yacht club? Go sailing? Shop for dresses like that sexy little number you had on last night?”

“I’m sailing with friends this afternoon, but every other Saturday I volunteer at the Keller Center. It’s a facility that provides housing and medical care for indigent women in their last trimester of pregnancy. Not really what I’d classify as fun, but extremely satisfying.”

Her involvement in the center surprised him, though he didn’t know why it should. One of the things that had driven her and his cousin apart had been the fact that she chose to work at a clinic in a low income area after completing her residency instead of accepting a very lucrative and prestigious position with a doctor in private practice in Beverly Hills.

The silence grew awkward. It was one of the few times Max envied guys who could make meaningless small talk. Start him on any murder he’d ever investigated and he could talk your ear off. Football, basketball, baseball. Hit him with any of those and he could jump right in. But ask for small talk with a woman and he’d trip right over his tongue.

The waitress stopped by and offered coffee or dessert, but Callie refused both. She was ready to go. Who could blame her? Max pulled a few bills from his money clip and slipped them under the ticket, then stood up to leave.

Callie took a phone call on the drive back and spent the entire trip discussing a cancer patient whose insurance company didn’t want to pay for an experimental drug the physician in charge wanted to use. She broke the connection as he pulled into the circular driveway in front of the hospital.

“I enjoyed lunch, Max. We should do it more often.”

“Sounds good.”

The smile she gave him ricocheted around inside him like one of those balls in a lottery draw.

“You take care,” Max said, anxious to be off and have his reawakened emotions fade back into oblivion. A chief of police didn’t need emotions. Just brains and guts.

“I hope I helped.” She hesitated as if she wanted to say more, then opened the door and climbed out. One last wave and she was gone. Max started the engine and took a deep breath, ready to feel the relief seep into his mind.

It didn’t.

At the end of the driveway he turned left and headed down to headquarters. He didn’t know if Bernie was one of the Avenger’s victims or not, but four others were. And if he didn’t find the guy and get him off the streets soon, there would be a fifth. It was only a matter of time.

BERNIE LEFT THE HOSPITAL Sunday afternoon. He didn’t need a specialist to tell him his heart was pumping. Didn’t need anyone to tell him that someone had tried to kill him Friday night, either.

Nothing surprising in that. There were lots of people who’d be glad to see him turn up dead. He just hadn’t expected them to be attending a society function in Courage Bay. He’d have to start watching his back every minute, no longer just when he was on his L.A. turf.

He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and stepped onto his back deck. The view of the Pacific Ocean was breathtaking, worth every penny of the exorbitant price of the house. More than his mother had made in a lifetime of backbreaking work cleaning other women’s houses.

She’d even died in one, mopping someone else’s dirty floors. The hurt dug into him, felt like a buzzard’s claws piercing his heart. He’d thought if he made enough money, if he insinuated himself into the lives of wealthy people like the ones who’d once hired his mother to clean their houses, he’d vindicate her suffering and eradicate the pain.

One day it might, but it hadn’t happened yet.

He walked across his yard, stepped out the gate of his security fence and headed toward the edge of the steep precipice. Using his hand to shade his eyes from the sun, he looked down at the churning waves beating against the outcropping of jagged rocks.

A flash of heat and pain hit the back of his head. That was the last thing he was aware of as he toppled over the edge of the cliff and plunged to the rocks below.

IT WAS A HELL OF A TIME for his chief of detectives to be attending a terrorist training session with the CIA in Washington D.C., Max decided as he drove away from the scene of Courage Bay’s latest murder. Not only was Adam Guthrie out of town, but Flint Mauro, his new assistant chief, was still on his honeymoon. Either of them would have been perfect to head up the latest murder investigation.

Who was he kidding? As much as he’d like to have Adam and Flint around to team up with, Max had no intention of taking just a supervisory role with this case. This latest murder might be connected to the Avenger, and that was more than he could stomach.

The Avenger’s days were numbered. It was no idle threat. Not even a warning. It was just plain fact.

The TV newsmen were waiting when Max skidded to a stop in his private parking spot at police headquarters. The whole lot were insatiable vultures, but he didn’t doubt for a second that he’d be just as persistent were he a newsman instead of a cop. He just never understood how bad news traveled so fast.

The cameras started popping the second he stepped out of his car. Someone stuck a microphone in his face.