The Lawman And The Lady

Chapter 3

Seated at Maggie’s dining-room table, Josh turned another page of the big book in front of him, carefully studying each face before going on to the next as Nick and Tate watched. “These guys look really mean,” he said. “Did they all do bad things like the man who beat up Maggie?”

“Pretty much,” Nick answered, not wanting to frighten the boy, but also not wanting to lie. “Most of them weren’t happy to have their picture taken so they look kind of angry.”

“It’s important that you pick the right one, if he’s in there, Josh, so look really hard,” Tate instructed.

“I know, Mom.” He turned the next page.

“I sure appreciate you doing this for us, Josh,” Nick told the boy, knowing that praise went a long way toward gaining cooperation, though he was curious as to why Josh had suddenly had a change of heart.

The boy looked up, in his eyes a question, uncertain whether he should ask. But Nick was a cool guy so he decided to chance it. “Were you just a tiny bit scared yesterday when you were up on that window ledge with that guy?”

He was a serious boy, Nick thought, comparing Josh to his far more carefree nephews. The kid didn’t laugh much or even smile often. What had made him like that? he wondered. “Not a tiny bit, Josh. I was scared a lot. But everyone has to do scary things sometimes in order to help someone. I’ll bet you’ve done a few yourself.”

“Once I climbed Mrs. Stone’s tree next door to get her kitten down when he got himself stuck up there, but it was only two branches up.”

“Even two branches up would have meant quite a fall, for you and the kitten. But you did it even though you were scared. And I’ll bet you felt good afterward.”

“Did you feel good afterward yesterday?”

Nick drew in a breath, remembering that kids never let up. “Yeah, I was glad the baby was safe and relieved that we didn’t fall. But I felt bad for that whole family. They’ve got a lot of problems to work out.” More than he could explain to a seven-year-old.

He chanced a quick look at Tate and saw a look of approval on her face. And something else. A contemplative look, as if she were trying to figure him out. Well, Nick thought, at least he had her thinking. Progress. Maybe.

“Sweetie, you’d better get back to the pictures. You’ve got one more whole book to go.” He’d already looked through two large mug shot books and not spotted the man. Tate was proud of her son’s desire to help, but she wondered how a fleeting glance at a park and another from a two-story window of a man wearing sunglasses would stay in Josh’s memory bank. She hated to disappoint both of them, Josh who was trying so hard and Nick who’d lugged the heavy books over in the hope they’d get a break.

“What happens if he doesn’t pick him out?” she asked Nick.

He shrugged. “Back to square one. This is just one avenue for us to try. It could be the guy’s never been arrested so we wouldn’t have his picture on file. He could even be from out of state.” Nick’s steady gaze trapped her eyes. “Or maybe someone else hired him.” He let the thought hang there between them.

Tate averted her eyes. “I suppose anything’s possible.” She rose and walked through the arch into the living room where Maggie was lightly dozing on the couch to check on her. Actually she’d left the table more to get away from Nick’s intense look than because she felt Maggie needed her.

The older woman’s eyes opened slowly and focused on Tate. “Did Josh find the man?”

“Not yet,” Tate answered, straightening her pillows a fraction.

“I only wish he’d have pointed him out to me that day in the park. Maybe I’d remember his features. Four eyes are better than two, you know.” Wincing, she shifted the cast on her right arm to a more comfortable position.

“Not to worry. Nick will locate him sooner or later. Want some more tea?”

“Yes, dear, that would be nice.”

Tate went to the kitchen, passing through the dining room as Nick closed the third book and opened the final one in front of Josh. Turning slightly, Nick studied Tate.

She’d changed clothes after picking up Maggie from the hospital since the temperature was already in the nineties, not unusual for late May in Tucson. She wore a loose mannish shirt with sleeves rolled up over a white knit top and denim shorts that showed off her shapely legs. She wasn’t very tall, five-five or six, which at his height of six-three made him over a head taller. Yet she held herself so erect that she appeared taller. He noticed that she’d gathered her wild reddish hair at her neck and reined it in with a gold clip. Nick’s hands itched to run his fingers through the thick waves and watch it fall to her shoulders.

Knowing full well that she didn’t need him to make a pot of tea, he meandered into the kitchen anyhow. “Need some help?”

Lost in thought, Tate was momentarily startled to find him at her elbow. “Oh. Thanks, but I can manage.” Turning the kettle on, she saw he wasn’t going to leave, so she waved a hand toward Josh. “No luck yet and that’s the last book. I feel badly that we dragged you over here, wasting your time.”

“You’re not wasting my time. Police work is a slow process, not like in the movies or on TV where a witness sits down and spots the suspect on page two. I’ve learned to be a patient man.”

Tate rinsed the pot and selected two tea bags. Maggie liked hot tea even in the summer. “I think I’ll make some iced tea as well.” She reached for the tall pitcher on the top shelf, but even on her tiptoes, couldn’t quite make it.

“Here, let me.” Nick moved closer to the cupboard and reached up, effectively hemming Tate in between himself and the counter. As he handed her the pitcher, their gazes locked. Just that quickly, he saw that unmistakable male-female awareness leap into her dark green eyes. He didn’t move, scarcely breathed as both their hands encircled the pitcher. He wasn’t even touching her, yet his senses were acutely tuned to her. Fleetingly, her face registered confusion and an almost heartbreaking need before she deliberately stepped back and looked away.

“Tate, I…” Nick wanted to say something, to acknowledge the moment, the connection, if only in some small way.

Her back to him, she shook her head. “Please, don’t.”

“Why not?” he asked, genuinely curious. He’d known a lot of women and was well aware that that indefinable connection didn’t happen often. Hell, it scarcely happened at all. He also knew she’d felt it, too.

But just then, his beeper went off and Tate was saved from answering, from being confronted. Shaken yet relieved, she pointed to the desk through the arch. “Phone’s over there.”

Frowning as he recognized the number of the precinct dispatcher, he left the room. In moments, he hung up and turned back to Tate who was just closing the last mug shot book. “Not there, either?” he asked Josh. The boy shook his head.

Nick gathered up the books. “Thanks for trying.” He looked into the boy’s eyes, again thinking how much Josh reminded him of his mother, although he must have gotten his blond hair from his father. “If you ever see that man again, don’t go up to him or talk with him, but study his face very closely. And let me know right away if he shows up here, okay?” He watched the boy solemnly nod, then turned to Tate. “That goes for you and Maggie, too.”

Tate remembered the black car parked outside the other night and wanted in the worst way to tell Nick about it. But what good would that do? It would only open a can of worms she was unwilling to face. Even when she’d been confronted by the man Nick was looking for years ago, she hadn’t seen his features, either, for he’d worn a ski mask then, too.

The woman should never play poker, Nick thought as he caught her evasive look. Why wouldn’t she trust him? “I’ve got to go out on a call.”

“Another rescue?” Josh wanted to know.

Nick smiled at the boy and ruffled his hair. “Nothing so dramatic. At least, I hope not.” The call, unfortunately, was about a woman who’d been raped in the rest room of a supermarket. He was to meet his partner at the scene.

Hurriedly he said goodbye to Maggie and Josh as Tate followed him out onto the porch. “Are you going back to work tomorrow?” he asked her, wondering who would care for an incapacitated older woman and a young boy. Still, she had a job to protect.

“I’ve asked for a few days off, till Maggie’s better. And I’ve got to find some kind of summer program to enroll Josh in.” One that had iron-clad security.

Nick hadn’t forgotten that the creep who’d invaded Maggie’s house had been asking about the boy’s whereabouts. This whole incident somehow involved Josh, which led him inevitably to consider the father as a suspect. “Tate, I have to ask you. Is it possible that the break-in has something to do with Josh’s father?”

Tate stiffened, her features tightening. “I haven’t seen him in years. He didn’t even know I was pregnant.” Which was the truth, as far as it went. “I…I’ve got to go in.”

He knew he should have left by now, that he was needed at another crime scene, but he had one more point to make. He switched the heavy books under one arm and gently touched her hand. “Tate, I’m not the enemy. I want to help you.”

She felt the heat, from his touch, from his words. Tears leaped to her eyes, wanting badly to fall. But she couldn’t afford the luxury, nor could she let this kind man know her feelings. “I know,” she whispered, then quickly went inside.

All the way to his car, Nick swore inventively. Around the precinct, he was known as the great communicator. More often than not, he could get suspects to open up to him, to instinctively trust him. Yet here, with this woman who’d somehow gotten under his skin, he couldn’t get her to drop her guard, one he was certain she’d had in place for years.

Tossing the mug books on the back seat, Nick got behind the wheel. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, he reminded himself. He’d get Tate Monroe to trust him if it was the last thing he ever did, he vowed as he pulled away from the curb.

Nick left the interrogation room and stepped into the viewing room where the two-way mirror allowed others to observe and listen to a suspect or witness being questioned. He and Lou had just done their good-cop-bad-cop routine with Ronda Philips, the woman claiming she’d been raped in an eastside supermarket rest room by a burly man with long hair and a chipped front tooth wearing an oil-stained T-shirt and carrying a big knife. Nick let out a ragged breath as he watched the woman he’d just left rummaging through her purse. “What do you think, Lieutenant?”

“I want to hear what you guys think,” Harris told his two detectives.

Lou Patrick shrugged. “I think she’s on the up-and-up. Nurse at the hospital said she had knife cuts along her inner thighs, both shoulders and two nicks on her breasts. The bruise on her cheek could have come from a punch to the face when she resisted him. Only thing is, the rape counselor said she had one major concern, that Mrs. Philips kept asking for her husband throughout the exam whereas most rape victims are frightened and ashamed at first and want nothing to do with their husbands for a while. But that’s not a hard and fast rule.”

The lieutenant toyed with his paisley suspenders and nodded. “What about you, Nick?”

“I think she made the whole thing up. The doctor who examined her said there was no bruising. And, like Lou said, she keeps asking where her husband is, how’s he taking all this, when can she go home with him. Not the usual reaction.”

“Lou, you were first on the scene. Did anyone in the store mention seeing a guy like she described?”

Lou shook his head. “Nada. That supermarket’s in an affluent neighborhood. You’d think a grease monkey like she described would stand out, that someone else would have spotted him and wondered what he was up to.”

“How about the husband?” Harris asked.

“We talked with him while she was being examined at the hospital,” Nick answered. “He seemed more angry than upset. Blames himself for leaving her alone so much because he works long hours as a new attorney at a big firm. Just last week, they’d planned to take a trip, but a case he was on caused them to have to cancel. Ronda didn’t take it well, crying a lot, brooding.”

“Yeah, he swore to us he was going to cut back, to spend more time with her,” Lou interjected. “I just can’t figure what she’s got to gain by faking a rape.”

“How about sympathy and more attention from the husband?” Nick volunteered.

“We’ve got to follow through even if her story’s suspicious,” Harris told them. “Send her home with her husband and put out a description of the rapist.” He walked out of the viewing room ahead of his detectives. “But don’t let’s drop this. Wait a few days, then call her in again, just to clear up some points. Put on a little pressure. If she’s faking, maybe she’ll break down.”

“Right.” Nick strolled back to his desk, his mind already back on what he’d been doing when they’d brought the rape victim in. Sitting down at his desk, he booted up his computer.

“Hey, Nick, you mind if I take off a coupla hours?” Lou asked. “We’re not up for a while, fourth in line actually, and our shift’s over in an hour. I’ll have my cell with me. My son’s first Little League game’s today.”

“No problem. Have fun.” Nick went to work on a fishing expedition, keying in various lead words, hoping to learn a thing or two. More than one way to get information if the lady refuses to confide in him, he’d decided. Tate Monroe was a mystery he was determined to solve.

He wasn’t an expert on the computer, nor could he surf the Internet or the police information network as expertly as some, but he usually could find what he needed. Strictly speaking, the data he was seeking had little to do with the home invasion of Maggie Davis and a great deal to do with his curiosity and interest in Tate Monroe. Okay, so there was no use hiding the truth from himself. He was intrigued by the woman and wanted to know everything he could about her.

As he scrolled through choices, highlighting a few, he began to make headway. Tate had been born twenty-nine years ago to Dennis and Rita Monroe in Tucson. The father, who’d died last year at sixty-nine, had been a tailor at an upscale men’s store, yet he’d earned only about thirty thousand in his best year. That meant her father had been about forty when she’d been born, nearly twenty years older than his wife, Rita, who seemed to have vanished off the data base. Nothing on her since way back when Tate was quite young. She also had a brother, Steve, two years younger, a career navy man, currently an instructor at the navy base in San Diego.

So much for family. He punched in more facts he knew in order to get facts he didn’t know. Tate had entered the University of Arizona at eighteen and graduated at twenty-two with a Fine Arts degree in Literature. The bookcase at Maggie’s had been stuffed to overflowing and he had a feeling most of the books were Tate’s. Her social security number, from the information sheet she’d filled out for the officer on the scene, revealed that she’d never made much money, mostly due to a sporadic work schedule. Not one year since graduation had she worked the full twelve months. Why? Nick wondered. Because of her son? He’s been through a great deal in his short life, Tate had said about Josh at the hospital. What had she meant?

He tapped into Brennan’s Book Emporium site, employee information, and found Tate had been working there, on and off, since a part-time job during high school. Currently she was listed as manager of their eastside store; district manager was Judith Dunn, and Tate’s assistant was Dave Anderson. She’d lived for a while in an apartment on State Street. There was a gap five years ago where she’d taken a leave for nearly two full years, returned to live at Maggie’s address, then left again, returning only four months ago. That was about the time her father had died.

Nick glanced around the bull pen and saw he was almost alone, so he continued his clandestine search. Strictly speaking, he’d wandered off Maggie’s case and moved into personal information on Tate Monroe. Checking records on births and deaths again, he found that Josh had been born on March 1 seven years ago. A home birth, taking Tate’s last name, father listed as unknown. That he seriously doubted.

Just for the hell of it, he checked her status with the police department and found a record of an assault two years ago, a man who’d invaded her apartment and attacked her. The police report said she’d had numerous bruises and contusions, a black eye and a cracked rib. The assailant, described as “tall, husky, with a long, black ponytail” had never been apprehended.

There was that description again.

Nick sat back in his chair, his mind busily considering possibilities. A coincidence that recently both Maggie and Josh and a while back Tate had encountered the big guy with the ponytail? Highly doubtful. If the man was one and the same, why wasn’t Tate able to give them a description, if he’d been in her apartment? Tate had endured a beating similar to Maggie’s and mostly likely dished out by the same thug. Why wouldn’t she have mentioned this to Nick since it could hardly be labeled irrelevant? Did she know the man and was, for reasons unknown, trying to protect him? Josh was blond so it seemed unlikely his father would have black hair. Who was this ponytailed character?

Hands behind his head, Nick narrowed his eyes. Tate didn’t strike him as the type who’d stand still for a beating. Unless she had a very good reason. And where had her son been that night? Not a mention of a child in the report. The officer in charge had written that he’d advised Tate to get an order of protection, but there was no record of one being issued. Yet shortly after that, she’d taken a leave of absence from Brennan’s and disappeared with her son. Curiouser and curiouser.

Where had she gone for nearly two years? An intensified search could find no trace of her. No job record, no medical reports, no address nor phone numbers available. Had she stayed with one of those roommates she put such store in? Something to check out since both were well off financially. Or did she have relatives somewhere who’d put her up along with Josh? No mention of any other Monroes related to her father. Could she have looked up her mother and gone to her?

Nick straightened, realizing that in getting some answers, he’d also brought up more questions. He checked his watch and saw that he was off the clock in twenty minutes. Maybe he’d run over to Brennan’s and see if Tate’s co-workers were inclined to discuss their manager with him. He’d have to be careful, though. If Tate found out, she wouldn’t be pleased.