Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (100 best novels of all time txt) 📗

flatterer, I see. Last time you said I wasn’t old enough to be a grandmother when I am. I’m a year older than Peter.”

“But you look ten years younger,” I said. “No wrinkles, no gray hair, smooth skin.”

Phoenix elbowed me. “Quit trying so hard. She already likes you.”

“I do,” Betty said. “But honey-talk me all you want. It’ll keep me in good spirits until I qualify for social security.”

“Pete’s a lucky guy,” I said.

“Not a lot of honey in his words but he’s a good man.” Betty glanced back at him. “We’ve come so far in the past few months, talking and planning. We still have a lot to do, but this is a new beginning for us. In July, I’ll visit my grandchildren in San Francisco while Peter gets his parents moved into a Canterbury Woods apartment and puts their old house on the market. When I get back we’ll start looking for a small place together. Then in August…” She clasped her hands and offered us a smile brimming with delight.

“What?” Phoenix said.

“Our first annual dream trip! We’re taking a cruise to Alaska. The Inside Passage.”

“Definitely a dream trip,” I said.

“I hear it’s beautiful there,” Phoenix added.

“With a shade of blue in the ice you can’t see anywhere else. I went once before with my son and his family.” Betty sighed dreamily. “This time, no babysitting. I look forward to lounging in the hot tub on deck with an appletini in my hand, watching a glacier calve.”

“Glacier calving sounds pretty racy to me,” I said, appreciating a side of Betty I hadn’t seen before. “But I’d pay real money to see Pete slip into a hot tub.”

“He doesn’t have to join me there, where it’s warm and the massage jets make you tingle all over.” She arched her eyebrows. “If he wants to stay in dry dock, he’s on his own.”

I bit back a smile as Phoenix’s eyes widened. This was a new Betty for her too.

I looked past Betty at the five men gathered around Pete, all cops. Three wore plainclothes—one in a sports jacket and slacks, another in a military-style jacket and jeans, and the last in a blue sweater over khakis. The remaining two were in uniform—one in a standard patrol outfit and the other a VIP in full dress regalia with four stars on each shoulder epaulet. Though I could see only his back, I recognized Commissioner Cochrane’s wavy silver mane.

I turned back to Betty. “How’s he doing with all the attention?”

“You know how shy he is,” she said. “He’s embarrassed and just wants it all to end. We’ve only been here fifteen minutes.” She rolled her eyes. “Best of all, though, his parents are at a corner table, where they get to see everybody fussing over their disappointing son.” She smiled, pleased to have gained a stronger footing in his life.

At the doorway, as we waited to shake Pete’s hand, I scanned the room. Most of the fifty or so people there were cops, both unis and detectives. I knew nine or ten, including Chalmers and Piñero, and noticed Moss and McKelvey, the officers who had arrested Joey Snell. A handful of spouses were present also. I recognized two.

I spotted Eileen Becker first. Some years ago she had persuaded me to violate my personal rule against matrimonial work. She already knew her husband Gordy, who worked out of E-District, was having an affair. She knew the name of the woman he saw two nights a week and for whom he planned to leave her. What she needed from me was evidence the woman was cheating on him. Now middle-aged Eileen, laughing and clad in a festive spring dress, was seated at a round table for ten. Wearing a black sports jacket with brass buttons, Gordy Becker had one arm draped over the back of his wife’s chair. I had never met Becker. Assuming Eileen never told him where she got the photos and audio recordings that linked Lila Carson to two other men, I expected no introduction tonight.

The other spouse was Bianca Dawkins, an elegant copper-skinned woman who managed Hunnicutt Jewelers in the Walden Galleria. I had met her while investigating the disappearance of her best friend, Keisha Simpkins. Bianca’s wife, Sergeant Jennifer Spina, had helped me protect Keisha from drug dealers who wanted her dead and had kept my name out of the paper after the case’s violent ending—another moment I was grateful Eli Aronson knew nothing about. The only cop on the scene that night, the coolly professional Jen had earned a detective shield. Now I saw them near the buffet table. Bianca was in a stylish black dress and wore a necklace that glittered across the room. Unadorned, the dark-haired Jen wore a tan jacket large enough to cover the Glock on her hip. I had come to know and like them as a couple who complemented each other in the countless subtle ways that suggested a strong bond. They had not yet looked my way, but I knew I would speak with them before the evening ended.

“Glad you guys made it,” Pete said when we reached him. I shook his hand.

“You’re the one who made it,” Phoenix said, hugging him. “The real American lottery is retirement. Not everybody gets to cash in. Now you both do at the same time.”

Betty slipped her arm into Phoenix’s, forming a tableau of contrasts—Phoenix a head taller, her black hair longer and fuller, the black of her dress starker beside the green of Betty’s. “Honey, I’m gonna take Phoenix to claim a spot near the head table while you talk to Gideon.”

“How’s your godfather?” Pete asked when Phoenix and Betty moved off.

“Coming along,” I said. “But we can talk later. There are people in line behind me.”

Pete glanced over my shoulder. “One of the guys back there used to call me Charlie Chan,” he whispered. “Swanson can wait, and so can the asshole behind him. He used to call me Mr. Moto. Illiterate,