“Reheema!” Vicki called out, making a mitten megaphone. Reheema looked over at the sound, but couldn’t see a very short AUSA among the revelers. “It’s me!”
A few neighbors looked over curiously, but most clustered around a TV reporter, watching the interview and making funny faces in the background. The TV reporter was the only other white face in the crowd, and he held a bubble microphone in front of a mother cradling a bundled-up toddler on her hip. The mother said into the mike: “This is a celebration of the families who live in Devil’s Corner! We’re takin’ back our neighborhood! We shut down the store on Cater Street and we’re gonna make damn sure it don’t come back!”
The TV reporter looked a little nervous, the neighbors cheered, and Vicki threaded her way to the knit cap.
“Come ’ere, girl!” Reheema shouted above the din, smiling broadly when she recognized her. “What’re you doin’ here!”
“I missed you!” Vicki shouted back, and they made their way to the fringe of the crowd, where it was quieter.
Reheema beamed. “Check it! What do you think of our party?”
“It’s great! What’s going on?”
“We tore down the wall on Cater, threw out the trash, and cleaned out the hole. And we got teams signed up for a neighborhood watch.” Reheema waved at someone who had been calling her name. “Gonna walk around. Wear orange safety belts, like in grade school.”
“For real?”
“Believe it! It’s a party!”
“Ding, dong, the witch is dead!”
Reheema blinked. “Say what?”
“White culture thing.”
Reheema smiled. “Whatever, isn’t it great? I never met these people, now they’re all coming out, meetin’ each other. Organized. Together. And guess what, I’m block captain!”
Vicki saluted.
Reheema laughed. “I gotta give you the credit. I’m not gonna sell this house. I bought and paid for it, and my mother lived here. I belong here. And I started to figure, why does this Harvard girl care more about where I live than I do?”
Vicki smiled, touched.
“When they had that press conference today, all those suits, and then you, I said to myself, All right, let’s see if we can keep it clean here, on our own. So I went door to door and they all took it up.” Reheema grinned. “They were just scared, is all.”
Vicki looked around, happily. “Well, they’re not anymore.”
Reheema eyed the crowd, too. “No, they’re drunk!”
They both laughed, and if they’d been girly girls, they would have hugged. But that wasn’t happening, and the stars weren’t diamonds, either.
Vicki said, “I wanted you to know I appreciated your help, all last week, and with that kid. I never could have caught him. You were so brave, and you can run!”
Reheema shook it off. “I owe you, too. You gave me back my house.”
“I didn’t forget about your mom.”
“I knew you wouldn’t.”
“Good.” Vicki liked the sound of that. It was trust, which was even better than a hug. “Tomorrow morning, at nine?”
“Ha! You got a plan?”
“What do you think?”
And they slapped five. Black glove against red mitten.
FORTY
Saturday morning, Vicki and Dan got up early, showered, dressed, and went down to the kitchen together, making coffee more silently than usual. Vicki worried that something was wrong. First, Dan hadn’t wanted to make love when they woke up, but she tried not to let that bother her. Maybe he was the one man on the planet who didn’t automatically want to make love in the morning. Second, when Dan brushed against her elbow on his way to the coffeemaker, he said, “Excuse me.” Vicki tried not to give that much weight, though she was losing that battle, too. Loss of libido and good manners were sure signs that a couple was circling the toilet.
“Are we breaking up?” Vicki asked, turned suddenly from the sink.
“What? No. Of course not.” Dan’s brow furrowed, and he looked at her like she was crazy.
“I’m not crazy.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Oh. “Last night you said we might break up, because of your promotion.”
“No I didn’t.” Dan hit the Brew button. “I said I was worried about how our being a couple would affect work, and vice versa, but that doesn’t mean we’re breaking up.”
Vicki blanched. “It sounds like it does.”
“Well, I didn’t mean it that way.” Dan smiled. The coffee began its happy gurgling, and he came over and gave her a hug. He was wearing Vicki’s favorite baggy jeans and navy crewneck, and even that didn’t cheer her up. “How about we go on a date tonight? A real date, go out and celebrate?”
“Celebrate what?” Vicki whined, and enjoyed it. Nobody could whine like a suburban girl.
“Celebrate that the good guys won, and, in this case, they happen to be in love with each other.”
“Okay.”
“Good.” Dan gave Vicki a quick kiss, which she worried was too wife-y and not girlfriend-y enough, then he patted her on the butt, which was downright quarterback-y. “Now we gotta get to work.”
Go, team! “We do?” Vicki checked her watch. 7:38. She was supposed to meet Reheema at nine.
“Yeah, we do. We executed a coupla warrants yesterday, if you remember.” Dan laughed softly as he opened the dishwasher, grabbed their Harvard and Elvis mugs, and set them on the counter. “We have to start preparing for the grand jury hearings. We’ll need scripts for cross-examination, for witnesses, subpoenas prepared, you know this drill.” Dan’s cell phone started ringing in its belt holster, and he twisted it upward to read the display. “Unknown number, that’s the press. I told Strauss I’d be in at nine.”
Great minds. “Uh, well, I was going to meet Reheema this morning.”
“Your friend from last night.” Dan’s face lengthened under his fresh shave. “What trouble did you two get into, anyway?”
“None, we just said hi.” Vicki cheered up. “They were actually having a party in the neighborhood, and they’re gonna keep the crack out. We actually helped them. That neighborhood will survive now, and Reheema’s organizing it.”
“Is that the truth?” Dan lifted an eyebrow, and Vicki made a decision.
“I’m not going to lie to you anymore. That’s all we did. But we still don’t know who killed her mother or why she was set up for the straw purchase, and I want to help her with that.”
“Oh, you do.”
“I was wondering what you thought, too, about something else. Can you listen without freaking out?” Vicki didn’t wait for an answer. She had told him last night that she’d taken Toner’s record from his briefcase, but she hadn’t mentioned she’d taken the HIDTA charts of Ray James, too. Time to come clean. “I’d love to have my sounding board back.”
“Go right ahead,” Dan said, pouring them coffee, so Vicki accepted her mug and filled him in about her taking James’s records and tracing her cell phone to Albertus. Dan wasn’t smiling when she was finished. “So it’s hired killers, now.”
“Even I think I might be in over my head.”
“But you’re not gonna stop, are you?”
“Dan, Reheema ran down that kid for me, and he could have been armed, for all she knew. I owe her.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Then it’s the right thing to do.” Vicki couldn’t believe his stubbornness. “Even a crack addict is somebody’s mother. This one was Reheema’s. She deserves justice as much as Morty does, isn’t that the point? Equal justice under the law?” Chief?
“Okay. You want my help?” Dan set his mug on the tile counter, with a ceramic clank. “Let’s make a deal.”
“What?” Vicki smelled another fake Vuitton.
“Let me handle it. I’ll ask Strauss to make a phone call and get the Bristow homicide a top priority for the Philly cops. VIP treatment. They’ll have time, now that the Toys ‘R’ Us case is clea
red. I also give him a heads-up, off the record, about Bethave and her son. See if he can get a patrol car on their block, keeping an eye out.”
“Great!” Vicki felt better already, and Dan was already smiling at her the way he used to. Yesterday.
“In return, you and Reheema don’t investigate hired killers. This really is a matter for the cops. You’ve done great legwork, but it’s too risky to go further. Deal?”
“Deal.” Vicki nodded. “Only one loose end. I still don’t know why Shayla Jackson set Reheema up for the straw purchase. None of the busts yesterday explain that at all. I don’t even know how Jackson knew Reheema.”
“What’s the difference, Vick?” Dan asked, with a weary smile. “Reheema is fine now, and the guy who killed your CI is in custody. No harm, no foul.”
Vicki almost laughed. “Except that Reheema lost almost a year of her life in jail.”
“If she had told us she had given the guns to her mother, she probably wouldn’t have been charged.”
“But her mother would have been. It’s still a loose end.”
“Life is full of loose ends. You can’t know everything, babe.” Dan smiled. “Now. You coming to work with me?”
“Not yet. I have something to do this morning.”
“Not with Reheema?”
“Yes.”
Dan laughed. “What now?”
Vicki told him, but she wasn’t asking permission.
And, in the end, it wasn’t given.
An hour later, the morning sun was climbing the clouds in the sky and Vicki was back driving the Cabrio, supplied with fresh coffee and newspapers. She’d have to return her rental fleet, but that was low priority today. Stopped in traffic, she read the newspaper headlines. TOYS “R” US GUNMAN IN FEDERAL CUSTODY, announced a banner on the Philadelphia Inquirer, while the local tab went with KID KILLER KAUGHT. Both papers had a short sidebar and bio on Morty, including a photo and quotes by Strauss. Neither newspaper had a sidebar on Shayla Jackson.
Vicki glanced up but traffic was still stalled, so she went back to reading. Both papers covered the stories every which way, including sidebars on the ATF SWAT team methods, new security measures in shopping malls, use of surveillance security cameras, and the crack cocaine trade. She paged to the Inquirer op-ed, where an editorial entitled IGNORED AT OUR PERIL emphasized the connection between the crack cocaine trade and random violence at toy stores. Vicki counted that as progress.
The traffic freed up, and she took off, and in no time entered Devil’s Corner and turned onto Lincoln Street. The sawhorses were gone, but crushed paper cups, soiled napkins, and beer cans littered the street, and they were being picked up by a small cadre of neighbors carrying black trash bags. Reheema, in her pea coat, was one of the hardy few, and she dumped her Hefty bag in a can and waved good-bye to her neighbors when she spotted the Cabrio.
Vicki pulled up at the curb, leaned over, and opened the passenger door for Reheema, who looked like a new woman. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, gold studs made bright dots in her ears, and a light swipe of pink gloss gave her full lips a shine.
“Wow, you look great!” Vicki said.
“No more disguises, thank God.” Reheema folded herself into the passenger seat, and almost immediately the Cabrio interior filled with a lavender fragrance.
“You even smell great. I have a girl crush.”
“I showered!” Reheema smiled. “I got heat, electric, and water.”
“Party! We so love our utilities.”
“We so do!”
“In fact, how about I buy the Intrepid, and you can pay me back when you get a job.” Vicki felt flush, now that she had her job back. “Or you can have the Sunbird. I’m your vehicle, baby.”
“I’ll think about it, thanks a lot.” Reheema grinned. “Now, where we goin’?”
“First, let me tell you what’s going on with your mother’s case.” Vicki hit the gas and pulled away as she filled her in about the deal with Dan. Reheema nodded, listening with her head slightly inclined.
“So Dan the Man is gonna pull some strings?”
“He’ll get the case VIP treatment, he said.”
“We’ll see what he comes up with, for the time being. I want to know who killed her.”
“Of course,” Vicki said, praying that Dan came through. “If the cops pick up this hired killer, that frees us to try to figure out why Jackson set you up.”
“Wonder if they’re connected.”
Vicki looked over and almost ran the red light. “Think out loud.”
“What?”
“Tell me what you’re thinking. Maybe we can figure it out together. I do it all the time.”
“I never do.”
Vicki smiled. “Go ahead. Try.”
Reheema paused. “Okay, well, it’s just that Jackson framed me, about a year ago, and then somebody killed my mother. It’s like a puzzle, and if you just look at that one piece, it kinda makes you think somebody doesn’t like the Bristows.”
Vicki blinked. “True. Any ideas?”
“If my dad weren’t dead already, I woulda thought of him, first.”
Vicki kept her own counsel. It made her family issues look like comic relief. “Any other relatives?”
“No, just her and me, long as I can remember. I had an uncle but he’s gone, too.”
“What about that boyfriend you mentioned?”
“Gone and married.”
“I’d wonder about the FDC, but the timing’s wrong, you were set up before.”
“I got no enemies.”
“Hard to believe,” Vicki said, and they laughed, now that they were friends. Almost.
“Think they’re connected?”
“Possibly.” Vicki was kicking herself. She should have thought of that herself, but she had been so focused on Morty. “It doesn’t change what we have to do. Let’s let the cops work from that end and we’ll work from ours. If we meet in the middle, we still win.”
Reheema nodded. “So, what’s the plan?”
“We canvass the neighborhood.”
“Which means what?”
“Well, our problem is that we don’t know why Jackson set you up. We have to learn more about Jackson and figure out her connection to you. So we ask her neighbors. Cops do it all the time after a murder. It’s only because this time they had an eyewitness — me — it wasn’t so necessary. Or if they did it, I don’t know.”
“What about what you thought before, that maybe Jackson was jealous of me? That Browning and her saw me and so she set me up.”
“That’s one of the reasons I want to find her friend Mar, who her mother told me about. Mar could tell us if Browning even knew you.” Vicki remembered that missing file of grand jury testimony. “Without support, it’s farfetched.”
Reheema fell quiet as the Cabrio wound its way through traffic, and so did Vicki, until a thought struck her:
“What if you’re in danger now, Reheema?”
“What?”
“What if whoever was hired to kill your mom intended to kill you, too?” Vicki’s fingers squeezed the steering wheel, as the possibility began to dawn on her. “I mean, you were supposed to be released from the FDC earlier that day, and the paperwork got held up. Maybe you were the real target, and your mom was just there. Or they meant to get you both.” Vicki locked eyes with Reheema and they both knew it wasn’t that crazy. “Whoa.”
“Yeah.” Reheema winced as Vicki dodged a SEPTA bus passing on her left. “But who would know I was being released? Had to be somebody at your office.”
“What?”
“Think about it. If that’s true, the only people who knew I was being let out of the FDC were the people in your office, whoever they are. Or the Philly cops, or the ATF guys. Did any of them know?”
Vicki scoffed. “Then that’s not what happened. Forget it. That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Reheema lifted an eyebrow.
“Of course it is. But it is possibl
e that you’re in danger, so it’s all the more reason we have to learn more about Jackson. Her mother told me that Jackson had decided to change her life and was going to move. We know she was packing.” Vicki toted it up. “I think she broke up with Browning and wasn’t dating anyone.”
“Okay. So?”
“None of us lives in this life alone. She had a friend. Mar.” Vicki was thinking out loud, too, and it was nice to have someone else as a sounding board. Maybe that was the Almost Friend part. “Did she go to a gym? Did she go to a doctor? She was pregnant, so she’d need prenatal check-ups. Who’s her doctor?”
“Okay, so we go to the houses and we ask questions.”
“Right.” Vicki took a left turn, and Reheema frowned.
“You’re lost, aren’t you?”
Vicki nodded. “Don’t start with the Harvard stuff again.”
“Did I say anything?”
FORTY-ONE
An hour later, Vicki parked the Cabrio, grabbed her bag and the newspaper, and they walked together in the cold sun to Jackson’s house, a two-story brick semidetached. The crime scene tape was gone, though a shred of yellow strip flapped in the bitter wind. Vicki felt herself shudder at the sight. Coming back to where Morty had been killed was easier in theory than in practice. Somehow, having his killer in custody didn’t ease the pain.
She and Reheema walked up the concrete front steps of the row house attached to Shayla Jackson’s and knocked on the front door. The door opened, an older man answered, and Vicki stepped forward. “Sir, my name is Vicki Allegretti, and I’m trying to learn a little about your neighbor, Ms. Jackson, who was killed the other day.”
“Didn’t know her,” the man answered, and slammed the door shut.
“Nice technique,” Reheema said, and Vicki smiled as they went down the front walk and to the next house.
Vicki knocked on the door, and an older woman answered, so she introduced herself and said, “I’d like to ask you a few questions about your neighbor, Ms. Jackson, who was killed the other day. It won’t take long.”