Janice Johnson - Revelations

Ann nodded. “You never did see feet, and the person didn’t say anything.”

“Not a word.” He shook his head. “Nobody believed that someone pushed the goddamn car off the blocks. They figured I was a dumb-ass who didn’t know how to jack up a car.” He glared at her as if she’d expressed that exact opinion. “But let me tell you, little girl, I’ve been working on cars since I was a kid. I know what happened.”

She wanted him to lay it out in blunt words. “What did happen?”

“Somebody tried to kill me.” His voice grated. “And they damn near succeeded.”

“Pretty unusual way to commit murder.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Somebody happening to wander by, seeing you in a vulnerable spot.”

He didn’t like doubt. “The scum watched for his chance, that’s all.”

“You have any ideas at all about who might want to kill you?”

He snorted at her naiveté. “I’ve been a cop for thirty-two years! I’ve put away my share of slugs. They’d probably all raise a glass if they heard I was dead.”

“Okay. Let me put it another way. Who would want you, Leroy Pearce and my dad all dead?”

He stared at her, a man who downed too many beers every night but was still a cop, could still draw a line from A to B to C. Reggie Roarke breathed a word as ugly as his nose.

“You’re thinking he murdered two of us and tried to kill me.”

Ann studied his expression of bafflement, anger, fear and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something that interested her because it was secretive.

“And I’m thinking he might not be done. Someone else might be on his list. Depending on why he’s mad. Also…” Ann paused to be sure she had his full attention. “I’m thinking he failed to kill you, which means he’ll be back.”

Aluminum crackled and tore as he crushed his empty beer can in his meaty fist. In a hard voice, he said, “And I’m thinking I’m done talking until you tell me what you know.”

“SO, WHAT DID you tell Roarke?” Diaz asked.

Today’s lunch consisted of burgers, fries and milk shakes. Deserted when the two cops came in, the burger joint had filled like magic at noon. Empty booths on each side of theirs were now occupied by a pair of mothers with whiny toddlers and a morose teenager dressed in black and wearing a spiked dog collar around his neck.

In answer, Ann said, “Not much.” She bit one end off a fry.

Her partner grunted in amusement. “In other words, you told him the truth.”

“I was a little evasive. As if I knew more than I was saying.”

Although he’d been about to slurp strawberry milk shake through a straw, Diaz lifted his head and frowned. “Was that smart?”

Surprised, she set down her fries. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Let me ask this—why weren’t you straight with Reggie?”

While she tried to find words to describe her unsettling feeling that her father’s old friend had been hiding something, Ann watched the teenage boy in the next booth unwrap his second bacon cheeseburger. His world-weariness appeared not to be inhibiting his appetite.

“I don’t know,” she said after a minute. “There was something about the way Reggie got suspicious. As if…”

When she didn’t finish, Diaz did. “As if he wondered whether you might be working with Internal Affairs.”

“Yeah. He gave me this once-over, and I knew he was looking for a wire.” She’d actually been afraid for a minute, until she remembered that Mary was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and wrapping pie in plastic for Ann to take home.

Diaz balled up a wrapper. “If you asked me a few questions about who might hate me, I wouldn’t get antsy. Because I’m not hiding anything.”

“You think Roarke is.”

He raised his brows. “Isn’t that why you went to talk to him?”

She narrowed her eyes, not liking where he was going. “Maybe.”

“If the two deaths weren’t accidents, if somebody tried to kill Roarke and all three of these incidents are linked, odds are these aren’t random attacks on cops.”

“They could be.” She scowled at him.

As relentless as an oncoming freight train, Diaz said, “If I’d been killed, and Pearce and…oh, hell, say, Dennis Fassett had been attacked, that might suggest random.” Fassett was a fresh-faced recruit who had puked at the sight of the bloodbath in front of the biker bar last week. “Random doesn’t hit three cops who’ve known each other and worked together for twenty-five years.”

She knew he was right, but she hated what he was suggesting. “Dad wasn’t dirty.”

“Didn’t say he was.”

One of the toddlers in the next booth lost patience and started to wail. Voice sharp, the kid’s mother tried to quiet him. When she didn’t succeed, the two women, still gossiping over the sobs, collected their garbage, bundled their children in parkas and gloves and hats with earflaps as if this was Juneau in January, and finally left. The kid’s face was turning purple as he screamed all the way to the door.

Ann muttered, “Talk about an argument for abstinence. They should borrow that kid as an object lesson for sex-ed classes at the high school.”

Diaz laughed, real amusement crinkling the skin beside his eyes. “I take it your biological clock isn’t ticking.”

She didn’t even know if she had one. She was still trying to figure out how girls got guys to ask them to the prom.

“Not if it means taking one of those home from the hospital.”

“They have their moments, you know.” His smile had changed, become tender.

Ann’s heart felt too big for her chest. Surreptitiously, she pressed her rib cage.

“Kids let you see the world fresh, through their eyes. When your baby smiles the first time, just for you, or you hear this giggle of pure glee, or you see understanding dawn on your little girl’s face…” He hunched his shoulders suddenly, as if embarrassed.

Damn it, her sinuses burned. She concentrated on her milk shake to hide emotions that embarrassed her.

Had her father felt that way about her, at least in the beginning? Had her first smile filled him with tenderness? Things had gone wrong, but she’d like to think he had loved her.

And Diaz… Why in heck did she turn to mush just because his eyes softened every time he mentioned his kids? Yeah, okay. It was a nice quality in a man. She was starting to think his ex-wife was an idiot. But she was not looking for a husband. Even if she had been, Juan Diaz wouldn’t be on her list. So she really, really needed to stop with the knees-buckling, heart-swelling thing.

“Yeah, maybe someday,” she mumbled.

He was looking at her in a way that made her shift on the hard plastic seat. “I’ll bet you were a tomboy. I can see you. Baseball cap turned backward, sneakers, knees ripped out on your jeans. Not taking any crap from the boys.”

He was right on, but she’d been like that because somehow, some way, she’d always known Daddy didn’t really want a little girl. He wanted a little boy.

Until she’d turned sixteen and suddenly in his eyes she was supposed to be a girl—she sure as hell was never going to measure up as a son. Why wasn’t she a beauty he could brag about to his friends? He’d have liked to make jokes about fighting off the boys, but it was painfully obvious to him and Ann both that no boys were interested. And she was still struggling to be that little girl in ripped jeans who didn’t take any crap from the boys.

“Got it in one.” She wadded up her garbage even though she hadn’t finished her fries. “Can we go?”

Something flickered in Diaz’s dark brown eyes, but he only nodded. “I’m done.”