Cold Blue Midnight

'You seem eager to give it to me.'

'I'm not in the business of painting pretty pictures, Mitch. You came up here to find out how the Eric Brooks case was doing so I'm going to tell you how it's doing.'

'Fair enough.'

'Your friend Jill Coffey is starting to look awfully good for this.'

Mitch began to say something but Sievers raised his hand. 'I like you, Mitch. Believe me, I don't take any pleasure in telling you that your friend may be involved in a murder.'

'She didn't kill him.'

Lieutenant Sievers sat back. Shook his head. 'Mitch, this is an ongoing homicide investigation. I don't have to tell you that I don't want you interfering. Anyway, I can't afford to spare youyou've got to stay on the Allbright case sixteen hours a day.'

'I'm not interfering, Lieutenant, I'm just trying to help you get to know Jill the same way I do.'

'And she couldn't possibly kill anybody?'

'Right. Except maybe in self-defense.'

'Remember the Sister Rosemary case?'

'Oh God, Lieutenant, you always roll that one out.'

'You remember it or not?'

'Yes, I remember the Sister Rosemary case.'

'A nun for thirty-five years. A damned good one, too. When she wasn't working with orphans, she was helping feed the homeless. Who could ask for a better human being than that?'

'I know the punchline, Lieutenant.'

But the Lieutenant would not be rushed through the story. 'But one day we find this eighteen-year-old kid dead in the alley behind the school where Sister Rosemary teaches. And we find out that Sister Rosemary had just had a terrible argument with this kid because he wouldn't marry the nice little Catholic girl he'd just knocked up. Hit over the head with a brick, from behind. Skull crushed. And I say to my detectivesgrown men who've had a lot of training and should be able to keep an open mind about thingsI say, "Men, I kind've like this nun for the killer." And you know what my detectives said to me?'

Mitch grumpily played along. 'They said that a sweet old nun couldn't possibly pick up a brick and crush somebody's skull like that.'

'That's exactly what they said. Oh, and they said one other thing, too. They said: "Lieutenant, you always pick the first suspect you find. That's your fatal flaw, Lieutenant, always picking the first suspect." And you know what I told them?'

'You told them about your conviction rate.'

'Exactly, Mitch. I told them about my conviction rate. And what is that rate?'

'Over eighty per cent.'

'Wrong. These days, it's over eighty-five.'

'She didn't do it, Lieutenant.'

'Weren't you working for me back in the days of Sister Rosemary?'

'You know I was.'

'And weren't you one of the detectives who insisted that a sweet little old nun like Sister Rosemary couldn't possibly have'

'She didn't do it, Lieutenant.'

'She certainly did, Mitch. In fact, she confessed.'

'Sister Rosemary confessed. Not Jill Coffey.'

'But Jill's going to confess, Mitch. Because I honestly believe that she's the killer.'

'There's no proof.'

Lieutenant Sievers opened the wide center drawer of his desk and took out three pages of a report. He dropped the report directly in front of Mitch.

'I need to go empty my bladder. You read through that while I'm gone.'

The Lieutenant was back in four minutes.

'You read it?' he said, sitting down again.

'Yes.'

'Would you say that was incriminatingher blood-soaked blouse and skirt found in a dumpster in the alley next to her place?'

'She didn't do it.'

'You ask me for evidence, I show you evidence, and all you can say is, "She didn't do it." Mitch, you've got to be a pro here. This is a murder investigation. We have to find out what happened and we can't let personal matters get in the way.'

The Lieutenant sat back, steepled his fingers. 'There's one more thing.'

'What?'

'The murder weapon.'

'Which is?'

'Which is a pair of scissors.'

'You found them at the scene?'

The Lieutenant nodded. 'Lots of prints on them, Mitch. Lots. I'm asking her to come in this afternoon to be printed.'

'You called her yet?'

'Not yet. But I will in the next half hour or so.'

'She'll be scared.'

'She can bring her lawyer if she wants to.'

'You sound as if you plan to charge her.'

'It's crossed my mind.'

'She didn't kill him.'

'I believe you told me that already.'

Mitch stood up. He felt a kind of panic, wanted to burst from this office, go for a long fast walk, or maybe even a run. He saw what was shaping up heresaw what was ahead for Jilland he feared for her.

'I'd like to call you late this afternoon,' he said.

'About the fingerprints?'

'Yes.'

Lieutenant Sievers smiled sadly. 'I guess I could handle that all right.'

He stood up and came around the desk and put his hand on Mitch's shoulder. He was not a physical man, the Lieutenant, and so the gesture startled Mitch.

'I'm sorry, Mitch.'

'Thanks.'

'Maybe this'll have a happy ending yet.'

Now it was Mitch's turn to smile sadly. 'I sure hope so, Lieutenant. I sure hope so.'

Sievers nodded and slid his arm around Mitch's shoulder, walking the younger man out of the room. 'Just hang in there, Mitch. See how it goes.'

'Thanks. I appreciate it.'

He left.

CHAPTER 48

This was the sort of day on which Marcy wanted to stay home in her little two-room apartment, clad only in her faded old red bathrobe. Watch the Sci-Fi Channel (they were doing a 'Salute to Mutant Rodents' this week, including her all-time favorite 'Them', about these giant spiders), eat a little Orville Redenbacher Gourmet-Style popcorn, and wriggle her toes inside the bunny slippers (with bushy tails yet) she'd gotten for Christmas six years ago, and that still fit her.

These were her thoughts on waking. Unfortunately, Marcy had a hell of a lot to do today so, as usual, she hurried through her shower, hurried through her makeup and hair-brushing, and then set off for Hardee's in the massive black Ford pick-up truck, complete with glas-pak mufflers you could hear from a block away, that she'd borrowed from the used car lot down the street. She'd run down a few deadbeat customers for them (the car lot floated its own paper, meaning that they carried their own loans) and the owner was properly appreciative (plus he was always hitting on Marcy and probably figured loaning her the truck would bring him closer to her boudoir).

After breakfast, she drove the huge roaring beast of a truck over to a Volvo dealership on Dempster, where she asked one of the men on the floor if they had a brochure that showed various Volvo models for the last five, six years. The guy obviously thought this was kind of a weird request, but went along with it anyway. He left Marcy in his tiny cubbyhole of an office to look through brochures from the past eight years. The blue Volvo that had been at Jill's last night was a model from three years ago. She wrote it all down, thanked the salesman and left.

Her next stop was a computer outlet on West Belmont. On the way there, another truck pulled up alongside her. The driver, a guy who was doing his best to look like a pirate of the scurviest kind, right down to this really twinky eye-patch, obviously decided that here was some cute little chick with her big brother's wheels for the day. He was going to show her how to handle one of these babies. He ogled Marcy and then revved his engine.

Marcy blew him away. By the time the pirate was done peacocking around, the light had changed and Marcy was already through the intersection.

What a dip that guy was.

In the computer place, Marcy asked for a man named Jose and moments later a handsome Latino man appeared. He was in his forties, trim, wearing an inexpensive dark suit that gave him a funereal air contradicted by his merry dark eyes.