He just hoped she didn't contract a sexually transmitted disease.
The public-service announcements on TV warned against relationships such as theirs, but, hell, his odds for getting whacked by a drug dealer he had set up were far greater than his dying of AIDS.
He slid in beside her and was grateful that she didn't stir. He didn't want a scene. Not after everything he'd been through tonight, including a couple hours in jail. What a freaking zoo!
He'd been locked in a cell with two redneck brothers covered in homemade tattoos, who'd opened up a third brother's scalp with a can opener during a family dispute. Their other cell mate was a transvestite who cowered in the corner and wept in fear of the abusive rednecks.
He'd cried so hard over their insults that his fake eyelashes had come unglued, and that had brought on another crying jag, which had prompted more shouted invectives.
Raymond never had been a good sleeper, but tonight he found it particularly difficult to relax and shut off his skittering thoughts.
After a while, he sat up, thinking that a joint might help relax him.
He reached across his sleeping girlfriend and switched on the nightstand lamp.
What he saw barely registered before he sensed movement behind him.
Raymond Hahn died with a silent scream on his lips.
Burke knew something was up the moment he reported for work. The men lurking around the coffee machine mumbled good mornings as he approached, but no one made eye contact, and by the time he had poured his coffee, they had scattered.
At his desk, he shrugged off his jacket but hadn't even had time to hang it on the coatrack when Pat opened the door to his office and called him in. Burke left his jacket on his desk but carried his coffee with him."What's going on?"
Pat closed the door to give them privacy."Sit down."
"I don't want to sit down. I want to know what the hell's going on."
"Raymond Hahn is dead."
Burke sat down.
"He and his girlfriend were found in their bed this morning."
Burke took a sip of coffee."Am I to assume he didn't die of accidental or natural causes?"
"They were murdered."
Pat went on to explain that the woman worked as a teller at a branch bank. She clocked in by six-thirty in order to open up the drive-through window at seven. When she didn't show up and hadn't called in sick, a co-worker went to check, expecting to find her hungover or stoned.
She'd failed one random drug test, but had been given another chance on the promise she would get counseling for substance abuse. The co-worker found the apartment door unlocked. She went inside.
"It was ... a mess." "Don't spare me the details," Burke said irritably."I'm not going to faint."
"Well, the woman from the bank did. The girl sustained several stab wounds. Initial coroner's report is that only one of those wounds could have been fatal. The killer took his time and enjoyed killing her.
It appears she'd also been sodomized, but whether before or after she died hasn't yet been established. Hahn was luckier, if you could call it that. He had only one wound in the side of his neck, but it was well placed. The killer knew where to stick him for a quick and silent kill."
Burke left his chair, took his coffee with him to the third-story window, and stared out of it while sipping coffee from his personal mug, which was decorated with multicolored sea horses. Barbara had bought the souvenir mug on a rare vacation to Florida. He didn't remember how long ago that had been. Eons. At least it seemed that long ago. He could no longer imagine doing something as carefree as going on a trip to the beach and shopping for silly souvenirs. Any frivolity in his life had died the night he shot and killed Kev Stuart.
"Clues?"
"The crime unit is on it, but so far it looks clean. Something might turn up in autopsy. The girl's rectum and vagina were bruised and abraded. But there wasn't visible semen on her."
The lab was wasting their time and manpower. There wouldn't be any evidence. Bardo liked knives, and this sounded like his kind of hit.
His favorite pastime was rough sex, but even in the heat of his sordid passion, he would have been careful to use a condom. He was too smart to leave a DNA fingerprint behind, although they might get lucky and find a tissue or hair sample.
Burke had sent Hahn to jail last night. Had the undercover officer been wallowing in the drunk tank while his girlfriend was being raped and killed by Bardo? Had he come home and caught them together?
"Signs of struggle?"
"None," Pat replied."I can't figure how he managed to kill both of them. Did he ice Hahn, then terrorize the girl before killing her?"
"Maybe. Or ..." Burke thought about it."Or he did the girl first, then waited in the apartment until Hahn got home."
Pat frowned doubtfully."Hahn was undressed and in bed when he got hit."
"Hahn was late coming in. The killer hid until poor Ray was in bed.
He probably got into bed without turning on the light. I do it all the time when I don't want to wake up Barbara. Hahn didn't see that his girlfriend was dead. He didn't see the blood or realize that anything was wrong." Burke gripped the coffee mug tighter."That sounds like him."
"Who?"
"Bardo. Bardo would have thought it was funny that his victim locked him in instead of out."
'"Why would you think it was Bardo?"
"We arrested Hahn and Sachel. Duvall shows up here in the middle of the night. We know that Sachel is on Duvall's secret payroll. Bardo is his hired gun. Our undercover man gets hit. Figure it out. It can't be a coincidence."
'"Of course it can!" Pat exclaimed. Burke came around to face him, but Pat continued before he could say anything."You know as well as I do that Hahn was a junkie. It appears the woman was too. The hit could have been over a drug deal gone south. It could have been a love triangle. It could have been " '"That Duvall knew Ray was ours and wanted to put him out of commission, while at the same time teaching us a sound lesson."
"All right, it could," Pat conceded, coming to his feet."But I don't want you to take this personally. Like it only happened to you.
The whole division will feel shitty about it. We're a team, Burke.
We've got to work together. We can't let a few setbacks send us spinning out of control. We must continue to work methodically."
This managerial bullshit speech was uncharacteristic of Doug. He usually reserved the textbook pep talks for when he addressed the entire group. In private, he and Burke were more candid with each other.
"What else?" Burke asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean there's more, isn't there? What is it you're dreading to tell me?"
Pat rubbed the back of his neck. He was a slender man, with a high, smooth forehead and a receding hairline. This morning, he seemed years older than he was."You're too smart for your own good."
"Yeah, I get that all the time," Burke said impatiently."What?"
"Sachel declined our deal."
"Give me fifteen minutes with him." "It won't do any good, Burke. He turned it down before we even laid out the terms. He left absolutely no room for negotiation."
"He's going to risk a trial?"
'"No, he's going to enter a guilty plea. To all charges."
"Son of a bitch," Burke swore."Duvall got to him."
"That would be my guess, yeah."
"Jesus, is the guy immortal?" He barked a caustic laugh."He beats us at every turn."
"Duvall doesn't play fair. We abide by the rules."
Burke gnawed the inside of his jaw, muttering, "Maybe it's time we didn't."
"Come again?"
"Nothing. Say, Doug, I gotta get out of here."
"Burke " "Catch you later."
He slammed the door behind him, grabbed his jacket as he sailed past his desk, and headed for the exit, nearly colliding with Mac McCuen.
"Hey, Basile. I've been looking everywhere for you. We need to talk."
"Not now." He wasn't in the mood for McCuen. Right now he couldn't stomach McCuen's unflagging optimism and irritating, inexhaustible energy. Without even slowing down, he said, "Later, Mac."
"Hello, Burke. Come in." Nancy Stuart motioned him inside her suburban house.
After hearing about Hahn and Sachel, it was masochistic to come here today. But after driving around for hours, stewing and cursing, Burke didn't know what else to do with himself. He was supposed to be taking the week off anyway, so why not piss away the whole day?
The Stuarts' house was a brick structure with painted wood trim.
The lawn wasn't as well kept as it had been when Kev was alive. He had enjoyed yard work and boasted that his Saint Augustine was the greenest grass on the block. Burke noticed that a shutter on one of the front windows was sagging. The entry-hall rug needed shampooing, and one of the lightbulbs in the vaulted ceiling had burned out. One day soon, he needed to spend a day off helping Nancy with some maintenance and repairs.
"Come on back into the kitchen," she said over her shoulder as she led him down the central hall."I've started supper. We're eating early.
It's open house at school tonight. Would you like something to drink?"
"Coffee, if you've got it."
"Do you mind instant?"
He did, but he shook his head. The kitchen was cluttered and homey.
Hanging in a prominent spot was a calendar marking carpool days, dental appointments, and the open house at school tonight. Reminder notes and class pictures of the two boys were stuck to the refrigerator with magnets shaped like ketchup bottles and mustard jars. A cookie jar in the shape of a teddy bear smiled at him from the countertop.
Following his gaze to it, Nancy offered him some."They're store bought. I don't bake much anymore." "No thanks," he said."The coffee's fine."
She returned to her mixing bowl where she was crumbling saltine crackers into ground beef. Chopped green peppers and onion were waiting to be added along with a can of tomato sauce."Meat loaf?" he asked.
"How'd you know?"
"My mom made it often enough."
"Your mom?" She looked at him with puzzlement."You know, Burke, I think that's the first time I've ever heard you mention your family.
In all the years I've known you."
He shrugged."I worried about reprisals, you know, that sort of thing.
So I purposefully don't talk much about them. Anyway, it's not much of a family anymore. My dad worked for the railroad. When I was in third grade, he got crushed between an engine and a freight car. So my mom was a working single parent before it came into vogue. She was a telephone company employee until she died of cancer a few years ago.
"Now it's just me and my kid brother. He lives in Shreveport. Has a wife, a couple of kids." He smiled wryly."Mom must've known three dozen ways to stretch a pound of ground meat."
"I can identify."
"How are the boys?"
"Fine."
He sipped the coffee, which tasted worse than expected."Are they doing okay at school?"
"The last report cards were good."
"Besides grades."
Knowing that he was referring to their psychological well-being, she hesitated."They're okay. Considering."
"Well. That's good." He toyed with the salt and pepper shakers on the table, placing them side by side, separating them, pushing them back together."It's been warm lately."
"I'd like to think that means the end of winter. But we still might get a freeze."
"Yeah. As late as March."
Lately, this lame attempt at conversation seemed the best they could do. They avoided talking about anything substantive or important.
Which was strange since the roughest times were behind them.
He'd been the one to bring her the news of Kev's death. Doug Pat had volunteered to carry out the unpleasant task, but Burke had insisted that the responsibility fell to him. He'd been there to support Nancy when she collapsed after hearing the news, and he'd remained a fixture at her side throughout the funeral procedure.
In the ensuing weeks and months, he had helped her sort through insurance papers, file for the inadequate pension she received from the N.O.P.D, set up her own credit and bank accounts, and make other necessary budgetary adjustments.
Responding to a phone call from her, he'd come over the day she cleared out Kev's closet. She offered Burke some of his better clothes, and he'd accepted them. Then he'd dropped them into a Goodwill receptacle on his way home. He couldn't have worn them.
In the fall, he'd checked the furnace and changed the filters for her.
At Christmas, he'd set up the tree and helped her decorate it. Kev had been dead almost a year, but Burke still felt compelled to come by every couple of weeks to lend his widow whatever assistance she might need.
Trouble was, it was becoming harder to find things to talk about.
With the passage of time, their conversations had become more strained, not less so. Burke avoided talking about anything relating to the police department and the personnel Nancy knew. Since his work was the most vital component of his life, he found himself searching for something besides the weather and the boys' health to fill the increasing stretches of silence.
She always received him graciously, but she had changed, subtly but undeniably. She was more reserved now than she'd been when Kev was alive. They'd shared some rollicking laughs. She could tease and put you down as well as one of the guys. Burke supposed it was easy for a woman to joke with her husband's friend when her husband was there, laughing along with her. It wasn't so easy when he was dead.
They had spent a lot of time speculating on the outcome of Bardo's trial. Now that it was over, now that the final chapter on that dark episode in their lives had been written, what was there for them to talk about?
"Uh ..."