I returned my attention to Chic. “You obviously aren’t buying into this. Why?”
But I didn’t get a straight answer from Captain Steele until ninety minutes or so later, at my apartment, without Rafe Valer around.
“It’s bad police science,” Chic said. “No offense to Rafe, who is a hell of a detective, but you don’t start with a theory. You develop a theory from evidence... and there isn’t any.”
*
“At your...apartment, Ms. Tree?”
“Uh, yes, Doctor. That’s what I haven’t told you. Over these last few months, I should have been more forthcoming about this.”
“About what exactly?”
As we spoke, Chic was sitting on the edge of my bed in his boxer shorts, getting a cigarette going. He had a nice tan, or what was left of it from our week on Maui, and he was clean and smooth, not like Mike, who’d had hair not just on his chest but his back, a burly bear, whereas his former partner on the PD had a cat-like sleekness.
I was on the bed next to him, sitting up with a pillow behind me. I was wearing a little black nightie, the wispy kind that doesn’t need to come off to accomplish what we’d just done not so long ago.
“And this ‘Event Planner’ idea,” I said, “it’s a notion Rafe came up with himself?”
“Yeah.”
Chic stood. He crossed to a nearby chair where his clothes were draped and began to put them on. He moved with easy grace and confidence, completely unselfconscious.
“In the past five years,” he said, stepping into his trousers, “there have indeed been seven or eight deaths, linked in one way or another to the Muertas.”
“Linked?”
He shook his head. “Not in that way, Michael—these are deaths that have benefited the Muertas...but don’t lead back to them.”
“Oh. Like Richard Addwatter’s wife hearing voices and killing her philandering husband? When the Muertas are Addwatter Accounting clients?”
Chic’s chin came up. “Rafe’s working that? The Addwatter killing?”
I nodded. “And so am I. And I can buy the theory that somebody manipulated this poor woman into—”
“Michael.” He was buttoning his shirt now. “Listen to yourself—you’re buying into a theory and you don’t have a shred of evidence. Investigate, then build your damn premise.”
I watched him as he continued dressing. Finally I asked, “Why do you call me ‘Michael’ only in the bedroom?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Professional respect, I suppose.”
“Why? We don’t work together. What’s with the ‘Ms. Tree’ this, ‘Ms. Tree’ that?”
He frowned in confusion. “I thought you preferred ‘Ms.’ to—”
“That’s not what I mean,” I said, “and you know it.”
He was seated on the edge of the chair pulling on his socks now. His face was a study in awkward embarrassment, a rarity for this graceful, self-confident man. “I guess I just don’t wanna...I don’t know....You think Rafe knows?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. He made an excuse to leave us alone tonight, didn’t he?...It has been a year.”
He was dressed now, and came back over to the bed and sat on its edge, swiveled my way. “I just....How will it look? Your husband’s old partner, his best friend, his best man...shacked up with—”
My eyes widened. “Shacked up? Is that what we’re doing? That would suggest you ever spent the night here.”
“Michael....”
“Look, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what people say. You were there for me, when I really, really needed you.”
I leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. A little kiss but warm. Wet.
“Yeah,” he said breathlessly, “and how many people would say I was just a goddamned vulture, waiting there to swoop in and take advantage of my partner’s wife’s, you know, vulnerability.”
I laughed a little. “Vulnerability? Are you kidding? Who is it that knows me and thinks I’m vulnerable, anyway? What fool are we talking about?”
He smiled shyly. His smile only got shy in the bedroom, by the way.
“And as for what people think?” I said. “Screw them. Screw people. Screw what they say.”
I leaned forward and nibbled at his ear.
“For that matter,” I whispered, “screw me.”
His laugh was barely audible. “Hey, my name may be Steele, but I ain’t made of it.”
I slipped my hand down until it got to its destination.
“Based on the evidence,” I said, “speaking strictly police science? I’m building a theory otherwise....”
FIVE
The doctor was writing on his pad now, quickly—but I could feel his eyes on me.
“Good,” Dr. Cassel said. “This is healthy—your urge to come forward, into the light, with your relationship.”
“After Chic left, I got to thinking....”
“About accepting responsibility...and consequences.”
“No, that wasn’t what I was thinking about.”
“Oh?”
“I was mulling this crazy idea of Rafe’s...an Event Planner...Death Planner...some caterer of murder. Far-fetched as it sounded, it got me thinking, really thinking.”
“Thinking about what?”
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slow.
“About an ‘event,’ ” I said, “in my own life...that might have been planned....”
The motel near the airport seemed retro at a glance, with its ’50s deco neon sign and squared, one-story U of rooms making a courtyard around a swimming pool covered for the winter. But really it was just old.
This was December, cold, but not yet snowy. Judging by the cars in the lot on this late evening, the motel was at about fifty percent capacity.
The kind of honeymoons that happened here were usually not attached to actual weddings and seldom required spending the night.
And yet that was where my new husband Mike Tree had arranged for us to spend the first night of our marriage. He explained it by saying he wanted to be near the airport, as if his apartment—our apartment, now—on the North Side was a world away from O’Hare.
Not that I was questioning this decision, still a little high on wedding reception champagne, as Mike pulled his red Jaguar into the lot, the pricey vehicle adorned with soap-scrawled just married wishes (he’d stopped to remove the shoes and tin cans from the tail).
He was stone sober where I was giggly, but even without the bubbly I’d have had an awkward time of it, climbing from the sports car in my wedding gown. Mike helped me out, then got two small bags from a trunk heavily loaded with suitcases. We were headed for a week in Nassau, leaving at five AM.
I carried my bag and he carried his, arm in arm as we made our way to the motel room door, where he set his bag down and removed the bag from my hand and set it down, too, then gave me a look that consisted of his mouth hiking at left and an eyebrow arching at right.
“What?” I asked.
He held his arms out, palms up.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I said, and laughed.
“So I’m a traditional slob,” he said. “Sue me. Come on....”
Laughing some more, I consented to this nonsense, cooperating as he lifted me up into his arms.
What followed was worthy of a silent comedy as he held me like a load of laundry while trying to maneuver with the key in his right hand, getting the door unlocked despite his satin-wrapped cargo.