The Woman Who Wasn't There

She took immediate exception at his light tone, thinking it a dig against Jorge. She didn’t like an outsider making fun of the man.

Her answer was crisp, putting distance between them. “Jorge took down the door. For all intents and purposes, we came in together.” She nodded toward the body on the rug. “We found him like this.”

Troy nodded thoughtfully. “And why were you looking for him?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kara make her way over to the crime scene investigator. She was going to get the man’s take on the evidence he’d discovered and processed so far.

Despite coming from two very different places in life, and Kara’s obvious initial preconceived notions about how he had risen up so quickly through the ranks, they worked well together. Divide and conquer was the way they approached a case. So far, neither one of them had any real complaints about the other. Aside from a very short sizing-up period, there’d been no attempt to establish territory, no squabbling about which of them was to be the top dog. They operated as a team.

“Standard procedure,” Adrian told him, cutting in. It was obvious to Troy that the taller of the two men was feeling somewhat protective of the woman. “We were conducting an early morning raid.” When Troy looked at him for further elaboration, he added, “Just to make sure his i’s were dotted and his t’s were crossed.”

Troy frowned, eyeing the pathetic shell of a man on the floor. “I don’t know about his i’s and his t’s, but I’ve got a hunch he wasn’t looking to get a bullet in his head.”

After taking plastic gloves out of his pocket, Troy put them on, then squatted down beside the body. Very gently he lifted the victim’s head. He examined the point of entry, then looked to see if there was an exit wound. There wasn’t.

“A bullet he seems to be hanging on to.” More for the medical examiner to do, he thought as he placed Clyde’s head back down in the position he’d found it. Behind him he heard a sharp intake of breath.

“I’m not through in here, yet,” CSI Sam Connor said waspishly. By his expression, it was evident Sam thought of the body as his property.

On his feet again, Troy raised his gloved hands in the air, silently showing the man that he was no longer touching the body. Because he’d gotten what appeared to be a drop of blood on one of the gloves, Troy stripped them off and rolled the tainted one inside of the second glove before putting both in his pocket.

“How about you?” He directed the question and his eyes back to the woman from the county. “Are you through here yet, Officer…” Troy paused, reading the neat little letters affixed over the woman’s breast pocket. He lingered, longer than he should have, taking in the very enticing, very inviting swell of her full chest before raising his eyes to her face. “D’Angelo,” he concluded.

Delene glanced at the man whose lifeless body was now surrounded by a chalk outline. Pity tugged at her heart. In the final analysis, she felt sorry for the dead man she’d interacted with a handful of times. Clyde had been a lower-life form, but he’d still been a human being, and as such, didn’t deserve to be so casually eliminated. She doubted if his executioner had even given his death so much as a passing thought.

If he’d been killed by whom she thought he’d been killed, it was in part her fault. But mostly Clyde’s.

She nodded in reply to the detective’s question. “He’s way past caring about anything we might find in the motel room that might be in violation of his probation.”

Was that emotion he heard in her voice? Her expression remained steely. Troy decided he’d imagined the trace of sorrow. He shook his head as he looked at the victim. There appeared to be no signs of struggle. The messy room seemed to be just that, a messy room. Probably never even knew what hit him, Troy thought.

“Really must have ticked someone off,” he commented, then looked at the probation officers, his glance sweeping over all three. “Any ideas?”

The question surprised Delene. All the detectives she’d ever come across in this job acted as if they’d been first in line when brains had been handed out and everyone else had been a distant second, if not third or fourth. They rarely asked for opinions, preferring to come up with their own.

Slipping her hands into her back pockets, she thought of the daughter Clyde had once admitted to her that he’d fathered. The girl, Rachel, was about four or five now. She deserved to know that her father was gone. Trouble was, Delene had no idea how to find the girl and her mother.

“You might think about sending someone to question Miguel Mendoza,” she finally told the detective.

Troy raised his eyebrows at the familiar name. “The Miguel Mendoza?”

When the woman nodded, saying nothing further, Troy asked, “Why?” He’d assumed the dead man was just a junkie. There were track marks on his arms. To say that Mendoza might have a hand in it meant that the victim hadn’t just been on the receiving end of drugs, he’d been pushing them, as well. “This guy caught skimming?”

The moment he said it, the suggestion seemed ludicrous. Troy looked around at the dead man’s living conditions. Fast-food wrappers littered various corners of the room, clothes beyond dirty discarded beside them. If the dead man had been keeping some of the money he made pushing drugs, he had to have used it to buy more drugs for himself. It had certainly not been used to better his lifestyle.

Delene paused before answering. The police detective with the broad shoulders and his much shorter partner seemed perfectly capable of doing their own legwork, chasing down their own leads. But she saw no harm in sharing information. Clyde’s deal with the D.A. would come out soon enough, even if her part wouldn’t. She doubted if the D.A. had noted down that she had been the one to ultimately convince Clyde to turn a corner and try to make something of himself for his daughter’s sake. She felt it was part of her job, to help rehabilitate those who had a spark of potential for leading an honest life.

Delene glanced up at the detective with the engaging smile. He hadn’t just dismissed her and her team as being annoying and in the way. He’d spoken to her, to them, as if they were all on the same side. So for the moment she would be.

“Clyde was going to testify against Mendoza in court.”

“Clyde?” Troy looked at the inert body, trying to picture the man responding to the name. He didn’t look like a Clyde. He didn’t look very much like anything at all. Except dead.

“Clyde Petrie,” Delene provided. “He was involved with drugs since he was fourteen. At seventeen he dropped out of school, thought he’d make a better living for himself by pushing drugs instead of doing something that his high school diploma might land him. He was picked up twice for dealing. Managed to elude jail both times. Second time landed him on probation. It made him feel lucky.”

Which had been Clyde’s downfall, she thought. Thinking herself lucky had been hers, as well. She’d thought herself lucky to have caught Russell’s eye. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

“Third time was the charm for the county. This time the judge wasn’t going to let him slide,” she continued. “He was going to get sent away for the maximum.”

“But he got another stab at probation,” Troy guessed, from her presence. “Why?” And then, before the woman or her companions could answer, he remembered what she’d said at the beginning. “Because he made a deal to give evidence against Mendoza in open court.”

“You’re quick.”

There was no missing the sarcasm in the woman’s voice. But Troy played it straight. He glanced in Kara’s direction. His partner had just looked up and their eyes met. “Rubs off from the company I keep.”

He was rewarded with a wide grin and a chuckle, both from Kara. His brothers had taught him that it never hurt to have your partner in a good mood.

Delene drew her own conclusions from the quick exchange between the duo. The detectives were sleeping together, she guessed. She never knew a good-looking man who didn’t try to take advantage of his looks. The homely ones took a little longer to come up for their turn at bat. But they always came.

She frowned. “Whatever.”

Already she was trying to distance herself from the scene. From the man who lay dead on the floor. She wished she could view the individuals she dealt with as just case files, the way Jorge did. He’d told her she’d be a lot better off that way, and she didn’t doubt it. But detaching herself would also mean surrendering the last bit of humanity she still possessed.

“Might be off base entirely,” Delene continued. “But you might find that Mendoza’s worth a look.”

And so was she, Troy thought. A look, a gaze, an out-and-out, clock-stopping stare. The longer he looked at her face, the more flawless it seemed.

And the more out of place the woman appeared at the scene.

What was her story? he wondered. What was she doing, banging on motel doors before dawn, trying to raise the dead and defiant, not to mention the dregs of society? Without her uniform, she belonged in a pure, pristine setting.

Especially without her uniform on, he thought, doing his best to suppress the smile that fought to curve his mouth.

“Mendoza. Absolutely,” he agreed, realizing that he had been staring. He cleared his throat, as if that would erase the awkward moment. “Where can I get in touch with you?” When she didn’t answer, he added, “If I have more questions?”

“Probation office.” The answer came from the armored tank at her side as the man put his bulk in between his petite team leader and the tall detective. Almost grudgingly, Jorge offered up a cream-colored business card with the probation department’s main office’s phone number. The small card appeared that much smaller when contrasted against his wide, powerful, deeply tanned hand.

Troy took the card, raising his eyes to the woman’s beefy protector. One side of his mouth lifted in a lopsided, amused smile. He’d had no idea that guardian angels came in the extralarge size. “Thanks, Jorge.”

Jorge’s expression never changed, never softened. “Officer O’Reilly,” he corrected. “Or Agent O’Reilly, if you prefer.”

So much for law enforcement being one big, happy family, Troy thought.

“And for the record, I’m Adrian Jones,” the tall man told him.

Jorge and Adrian, Cinderella’s two ugly stepsisters, Troy couldn’t help labeling them as the two men flanked—and all but towered over—the delicate blonde. Except that in this case, Cinderella’s stepsisters were highly protective of her.

“We’d better get going,” Delene said to the two men with her.