KNOCK ME OFF MY FEET

  "Good. Tinley's a good guy."

  "You going to keep doing the night shift?"

  "As long as it's needed," Quinn said.

  Stanny-O started snickering. "Can I just tell you what a privilege it is to know a man such as yourself—a man who can make that kind of personal sacrifice for the well-being of our fair city?"

  "Blow me, Stan. Besides, you're on duty tonight until I get through with practice—probably ten-thirty or so."

  "Yeah, I know. So, what's the deal—is she running around the apartment in one of those little Victoria's Secret French maid outfits or something? I mean, I think I need to be prepared."

  "Sorry, no. She sleeps in old soccer jerseys."

  Stanny-O let go with a long and low whistle. "And I bet they don't got a number five on the back, no matter what you say."

  Quinn looked up from the files, and for the first time that morning he felt himself smile. "You know what, Stan-My-Man? You're absolutely right—it's the number ten."

  Stanny-O winked. "Told you."

  * * *

  Officer Rick Tinley was nice enough. He was about forty-five, soft-spoken, and had already shown her pictures of his three kids. But the idea of a policeman following her around made Audie terribly uneasy. Wasn't it supposed to have the opposite effect?

  Audie was third in line at the coffee shop and kept glancing back at the officer as he leaned against the wall, nodding like one of those stupid wobbly-necked dogs in the back of a rusted-out car.

  Good grief, she was bitchy this morning. Maybe once she got some caffeine in her system she'd mellow out. She rooted through her bag for some cash.

  Tinley said he was on a diet and just wanted a medium house blend with skim milk, but Audie knew that only the big guns could handle her foul mood this morning. She scanned the menu on the wall until she saw the promise of deliverance—the double espresso mocha freeze grande.

  She sighed. No, it wasn't hot sex with Quinn, but it was cold chocolate with whipped cream, and for now, it would have to do.

  She was weighing the advantages of a carrot muffin over her usual cranberry biscotti when the man at the front of the line turned around with his order. It was Tim Burke.

  "Well, good morning, Audie. What a pleasure this is!"

  Revulsion slammed into her at the sight of him, and a chill traveled up her back. Rick Tinley instantly appeared at her elbow.

  At that moment, Audie felt trapped. She imagined how good it would feel just to scream at both of them to back off!

  She saw the amusement flash through Tim's eyes as he smiled. "I'm glad to see that you're safe and sound. Bye now."

  With a polite nod to the officer, Tim walked out onto Chicago Avenue

  , instantly disappearing into the morning crowds.

  "This is nowhere near City Hall," Tinley said with disgust. "What's he doin' up here?"

  Audie felt her heart pound and her stomach knot. With what she now knew about Tim, she couldn't bear to look at him! Was he following her? Was he dangerous?

  The good part was that if Tim was threatening her, then Drew wasn't. That was a relief, right? So why didn't she feel relieved?

  "He lives around here," Audie offered, still staring out the front windows.

  "I'll let the detectives know about this little coincidence."

  Just then, Audie realized she was glad Tinley was at her side.

  She moved to the front of the line with a sigh and began to order. "Good morning. I need one medium house blend with skim only please, plus one banana nut muffin, one chocolate chip biscotti, and a double espresso mocha freeze grande. Oh—and if you could dump a big mound of those little chocolate shaving things on top of the whipped cream I'd really appreciate it."

  To his credit, Rick Tinley said nothing. But his shoulders were shaking in silent laughter.

  * * *

  "Like I said on the phone, I don't got a crystal ball, Oleskiewicz." Detective Ted Kerr stood up from his seat at the conference table and stretched his hands toward the ceiling. "Unless you got one laying around in your fancy new office here that we can borrow."

  Stanny-O shot Quinn an amused glance and slapped the files closed. He stacked them in the center of the table.

  "And if you recall, Helen Adams was one of eight hundred and seventy-six homicides in the City of Chicago last year," Kerr added, leaning his hands on the back of the chair. "We did what we could, then moved on to something that stood a chance in hell of getting solved. You know the drill."

  They knew it well, Quinn thought. Just like they knew that Helen Adams's file had already spent several months languishing in the cold-cases unit, where it had plenty of company.

  "Like we told you on the phone, we didn't have shit on Homicide Helen." McAffee smiled, enjoying his own turn of phrase. "None of our street weasels knew a thing about it—just your basic wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time mystery—and public figure or not, we had to eat that case for lunch, despite all those god-awful editorials in the Banner."

  Quinn sighed. It was true that Helen Adams had made the quintessential easy target—an older lady, alone, at night.

  He and Stanny-O had practically memorized these files by now, but they wanted this chance to meet face-to-face with the detectives who'd handled it, and so far, Quinn had no complaints with how they'd done their jobs.

  The first cops on the scene had found Helen Adams sprawled out in an alley behind a warehouse on the Near West Side, barely alive. Robbery was the likely motive. Her purse had been ripped from her arm, and the bag and its contents were strewn on the asphalt around her. Any cash she'd carried was gone.

  Her car keys were missing. A watch had been ripped from her wrist. Pierced earrings had been pulled from her earlobes and the little fourteen-karat gold clasps were found a few feet away on the concrete. Her Porsche was found the next day, parked along the Chicago River near the Merchandise Mart.

  Autopsy results eventually showed blunt trauma to the back and side of the skull with what appeared to be pressure-treated wood. But the weapon was never recovered. There were no witnesses. No significant evidence was extracted from the car.

  There were a few things that bothered Quinn about this case, however, besides the fact that the victim was Audie's mother.

  First off, what the hell was a sixty-two-year-old woman doing in that neighborhood at night? The file said that earlier in the evening Helen Adams had had dinner with Banner CEO Malcolm Milton at Spago's on the Near North Side, and a number of witnesses saw them leave separately. But the security camera at Lakeside Pointe never recorded Helen arriving home that night.

  So what had happened after the tiramisu and before the trauma unit? How did she get from point A to point B?

  The four detectives had already discussed Quinn's main concern—a cell phone call Helen received a little after ten on her way home. It was the only loose end he could find in McAffee and Kerr's investigation.

  They'd traced it to a pay phone near Lincoln and Fullerton, but it lasted just seconds and may have been a wrong number. They found no witnesses who recalled seeing anyone in the booth at that time. It was a dead end—and it bugged him.

  Everything at the crime scene indicated she'd been attacked where she lay, and the Porsche was found without a scratch on it, not stolen or stripped, the keys in the ignition. Did the offender drive it there after attacking her? Did Helen leave the car there and drive off with the offender to the scene of the crime?

  There were no self-defense wounds on Helen Adams—no marks on her palms or forearms and no material under her fingernails that would suggest she fought against anyone. That meant she went to that parking lot willingly and was surprised by the attack.

  So what was she up to? Did someone set a trap for her? Who would want her dead?

  Quinn knew they might never get the answers to these questions, because Helen Adams hadn't regained consciousness long enough to talk about the events of that night. The files said she managed a few words to her daughter on the way to
surgery, then died.

  Whatever those words were, they'd been enough to convince Audie that she owed her mother, big-time. One last guilt trip for the road, apparently.

  Quinn sighed, twisting his own mother's claddagh ring around his left pinkie finger, thinking, thinking…

  "Aside from the phone call, do you know what else really bothers me about this?" Quinn looked up at Kerr and McAffee, thinking out loud.

  "I have a feeling you're going to tell us," Kerr said, returning to his chair.

  "Yeah. I am." Quinn reached for the files again and gazed at the color postmortem photographs. "She was hit in the face. Not the first time, the second time." He ran his finger along the image of Helen Adams's brutalized cheek.

  "First one to the back of the head—she's down. But that's not enough. Then one to the side of the face. Why? Wasn't her purse already on the ground? Why the extra hit?"

  "And to the face," Stanny-O added. "Muggers don't usually go for the face."

  "Exactly," Quinn said, turning to his partner with appreciation. "It's too personal. There's too much anger there for a random mugging, especially of an older female."

  "What are you guys after?" Kerr rolled an unlit cigarette through his fingers like a miniature baton. "You saw the case files. We must have talked to half the city looking for someone with a grudge against that old bat."

  Quinn grunted a little. What had Audie said the other day about her fame? "They love Homey Helen. They don't love me."

  This homicide case may very well be about Helen Adams the person, not Helen Adams the public figure or Helen Adams the random mark.

  As he'd wondered many times before, could the same person hate the mother and the daughter?

  "But Andrew Adams was at the yacht club all night," Stanny-O said out loud, as if following Quinn's silent reasoning. "And there were about two hundred people to back him up on that, right?" He looked to the other detectives.

  "Right," McAffee said. "And everybody else we talked to had an alibi as well, including Malcolm Milton, your girl Autumn, and the business partner, Marjorie Stoddard—about fifty people saw her at a dog obedience class that night."

  "Which brings us exactly to slit, like we said." Kerr inserted the unlit cigarette between his lips and let it dangle there as he talked. "Which is exactly what you seem to have on your case, too. Which is why you're grabbing at straws trying to find a connection with her mother's case. But Helen Adams never received threats as far as we found."

  "Nope. She didn't," Quinn said. "One of the first things we did was run an FBI database search for similar threats, and there wasn't anything, anywhere."

  "DNA?" McAffee asked.

  Stanny-O grunted. "Stamps were the peel-off kind. Water was used to seal the envelopes, not saliva. We got nothing."

  "Fingerprints?" Kerr asked.

  "Nothing we can't explain."

  They all turned their heads toward the tapping sound on the glass wall of the conference room, to see Commander Barry Connelly pointing at Quinn, then crooking his finger. Quinn excused himself.

  "Hey, Quinn?" Kerr called to him before he reached the door. "Sorry we couldn't be of more help on this."

  "Yeah. Me, too."

  * * *

  Quinn had barely opened the door before Connelly started talking. "We got a little problem."

  As they walked together through the squad room, Quinn released a sigh of resignation. He'd been expecting this—Timmy Burke had no doubt made those phone calls he'd mentioned and slimed up the gears of Chicago politics. But Quinn knew Commander Connelly and knew he didn't bend over for anyone, not even vice mayors.

  "Have a seat." The commander shut his office door and walked around his desk, then locked his ice-blue eyes on Quinn's. "Damn it, Stacey. What did you have to go piss off Timmy Burke for?"

  "I told you. He's a suspect in the Homey Helen threats."

  "Says who?"

  "Says me."

  Connelly nodded slowly and eased down into his chair. "And this is based on hard evidence, I'm assuming."

  "Circumstantial at the moment. A gut feeling."

  Connelly began shaking his head. "Your gut can't be trusted when it comes to Burke, and you know it, boy-o. I'm telling you to leave the good vice mayor alone or life's going to get real unpleasant for you, real quick."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning I'll have to yank you off the case and run all over town kissing ass trying to keep you working out of my station house. And you know how downright disagreeable I get when I have to kiss ass."

  Quinn smiled at Connelly. He knew that. Not only was Barry Connelly commander at District 18, he was also Quinn's commander in the Chicago Garda Pipe and Drum Band, one of Jamie's oldest and dearest friends, and Quinn's godfather.

  "Don't worry about Timmy Burke," Quinn said, waving his hand dismissively and standing.

  "I'm not worried about him, you stubborn Mick. I'm worried about you, so sit down while I'm talking to you."

  Quinn stopped in his tracks to see Connelly scowling at him beneath bushy white eyebrows. He obeyed orders and sat.

  "Now listen up, Stacey. You do a damn fine job, but you're walking a fine line here, and you need to watch your back."

  Quinn listened quietly.

  "Burke's been saying things. He says you're sleeping with Miss Adams, and—"

  Quinn's protest didn't even make it out before Connelly stopped him with a big outstretched palm and a frown. "And if you are, you're off the case. Now you can talk."

  "He's lying, as usual. I'm not sleeping with her."

  Connelly's eyes narrowed above flushed cheeks.

  "But it's not because of lack of trying on my part."

  The commander snorted with laughter. "Yeah, well, keep me posted if the lovely lady succumbs to your charms and all, 'cause then I'll have to take you off the case. You know I wouldn't care except that with this being a high-profile victim and with Tim Burke involved—Christ Almighty, Stacey—there can't be a hint of conflict of interest anywhere. Burke's making a hell of a lot of noise. Are we understanding each other?"

  "Sure."

  "Now." Connelly squeezed the bridge of his nose between a thumb and index finger. "What the hell are you and the Chocolate Moose doing with this investigation? You two usually make quick work of these celebrity chasers. I've asked you to focus on the case almost exclusively, but it's been weeks. What's the holdup?"

  "We've narrowed the field," Quinn said, leaning forward. "As far as motive and opportunity go, Burke looks like the best bet right now, along with Miss Adams's brother."

  Connelly's eyes mellowed a bit and he leaned back in his chair. "OK. You get exactly one minute to tell me about Burke. Let's start with motive."

  "Your standard jilted lover," Quinn said. "It's been over a year since they dated, but he calls her several times a week, sends flowers, follows her to her book signings, and comes to her apartment uninvited. He told me he's in love with her and she just needs some convincing, but Miss Adams thinks Timmy is scum."

  Connelly closed his eyes. "And you're helping her reach that conclusion?"

  "I just filled in some holes for her. She's smart. She figured that one out all on her own, Commander."

  "And you're sure about the calls and the flowers and the visits?"

  "Yep. I got the florist records this morning—forty-two deliveries since they broke up last spring. I've seen the phone records from her office, and the ones from her home are coming this afternoon. He's on the security video from her building, right there pounding on her door. So it's not like I'm up the guy's butt for no reason—he's a suspect. A real suspect. I'm just doing my job."

  "But nothing else on him?"

  "No. No prints. No match from his work printer. He claims he doesn't have a printer at home and I don't think we've got enough for a search warrant yet, unfortunately."

  "You're right. Now tell me about the brother."

  Quinn rubbed his chin. "Andrew Adams is a thirty-something slacker who's
lost a shitload of the family fortune to three ex-wives and a string of bad day trades. He's got debts, but he's not desperate. Lives alone. Drinks too much. No drugs except for a juvy marijuana bust. And no gambling that we can see."

  "You've lost me, Stace. I don't see a motive here."

  Quinn laughed bitterly. "Yeah, well, we're still working on that. See, the way the original Homey Helen left it, if Audie—Miss Adams—decides to quit the column, Drew gets first dibs on it. If he doesn't want the job, they can sell the rights and split the profit. Right now, Homey Helen Enterprises looks like it's worth about twenty-four million dollars."

  "That would pay for a hell of a lot of day trades."

  "And maybe another wife or two." Quinn smiled. "But here's the problem with that motive: He and his sister aren't close, but he knows she doesn't even like the column and would jump for joy to give it to him or sell it. So why threaten her? Plus, his computer doesn't match and his prints aren't on anything. And when we interviewed him, I didn't get any feeling he was a particularly bad guy—just a rich jerk."

  "So you've got close to nothing."

  "The letters are coming more often, and our guy says he's ready to move. We've got Miss Adams covered twenty-four/seven. It won't be long."

  Commander Connelly grunted. "Like I told you from the beginning, the last thing the City of Chicago wants is two Homey Helens dying under our watch. The big shots at the Banner got wind of this and they're breathing down the mayor's neck. I've set you two loose and I expect you to take care of it."

  "I understand."

  "Any connections with her mother's case?"

  Quinn shrugged. "Again, Burke is a possibility. Apparently Helen Adams didn't like the idea of a Catholic boy dating her daughter. But Tim was never interviewed in connection with her death."

  Both Quinn and Connelly arched their eyebrows and stared at each other. "That's not much," Connelly said.

  "But it's something, and it's more than what we've got on the brother, or anyone else for that matter."

  Connelly frowned.

  "Stan and I are going to keep looking for connections."