Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries Box Set by Nanci Rathbun (surface ebook reader TXT) 📗

midst of the city, less than five miles from my condo, was horrifying. I spent a few restless nights during the heyday of the Dahmer arrest and trial.

“First of all,” I answered his challenge, “I don’t know if Dahmer was sincere in his jailhouse conversion or not. Either way, I’m not in a position to judge the outcome. A friend of mine is fond of saying, ‘Don’t try the case if you’re not on the jury.’ Well, we’re not on the jury, thank God. I guess if I meet Jeffrey Dahmer in heaven, it will be because we both belong there.” I saw a look in his eyes. “You think I’m too soft, don’t you?”

“Maybe. But then again, maybe I’m too hard. All I know is that when the chips are down, you have to be able to do the hard things, and I worry that a woman’s natural instincts for life are against her if deadly force is needed. When you don’t have time to stop and think, to reason it out. When you have to act and consider the consequences later.” A haunted, sad look passed over his face, followed quickly by his usual mask.

“Is that what you think happened to Liz? She hesitated when she should have shot?”

“Until we find the scum that killed her, we’ll never know.” He signaled to the waitress for more coffee. “This isn’t something I usually talk about, Angie.” He was telling me to back off.

I wasn’t taking the hint. “Maybe you need to. It was a pretty awful thing to go through, more than you should have to handle on your own. Probably more than a person can handle on his own.”

“So I should spill my guts to some department shrink, who’ll write me up as unfit for duty?”

“There are private resources. And it might make you more fit, not less.”

“I don’t know how we got into all this talk about me. I really wanted to talk about you, about your involvement in the Belloni investigation.”

“Yes?”

“Look, you won’t like this, but I have to say it. This isn’t a job for a private investigator or a woman. It’s a job for the police. It’s murder, for Christ’s sake, murder! What if you do get lucky? What if your investigative skills uncover something that someone doesn’t want known? He’s already killed once, killing again will be easier than the first time. You won’t be able to talk your way out, Angie, you’ll either kill or be killed. Are you ready for that?”

“I guess I should be flattered that you think so highly of my investigative skills, Wukowski. But I don’t understand why you think I’d put myself in danger. I’m just collecting data, I’m not going down a dark alley at midnight.”

“Those two notes say otherwise. They say that someone is worried about what you’ll find out. They say that you’re standing in the entrance to the alley. Give it up, Angie. Let Bart Matthews take whatever you have and make a case that Tony wasn’t the only one with a motive. Our evidence isn’t good enough to convict. He’ll get off.”

“And his wife and kids will spend their whole lives as the family of the guy who got off for murdering Elisa Morano. Being stared at and whispered about. Hearing taunts on the playground. I heard them as a kid, Wukowski—Mafia princess—and my dad was never arraigned for murder.”

He slammed his palms on the table, making the dishes rattle and jump, and shouted, “You’d be alive, damn it! Isn’t your life worth it?”

The other diners, the wait staff, the busboys all stopped dead in their tracks. Conversations stalled as everyone in the room turned to look at us. The hostess signaled to the kitchen, and George, the owner, bustled over. “What? What? You gotta problem? The food? The waitress?” he asked in his Greek-American syntax.

Wukowski raised his hands, palms forward, and started to apologize. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to create a scene. We were having a disagreement, that’s all. I lost my temper. I’m sorry. We’re leaving.”

George pocketed the check. “It’s on me. No arguments.” I gathered my purse and briefcase while Wukowski left a hefty tip on the table. As I walked out, embarrassed by the attention and longing to get to the car, I heard George pull Wukowski aside. “Women, they can be very irritating, no? But it does no good to lose your temper. You are the man, you must be in control of yourself. No?”

I smiled all the way to the car.

We drove in silence back to Ed’s Tap, where Wukowski had left his Jeep.

“I’ll see you at the funeral tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes.” As he started to extract himself from the Miata, I put a hand on his arm. “And thanks, Wukowski, for caring.” For a moment, I thought he was going to say something more, but he just waved and got into the Jeep.

I drove home and parked in my spot underground, feeling slightly uneasy as I walked up the parking garage stairs to the lobby. I thought about Wukowski’s challenge. What would I do if confronted by a murderous killer? Would I be able to respond with deadly force? I didn’t know.

Chapter 20

Value is the most invincible and impalpable of ghosts, and comes and goes unthought of while the visible and dense matter remains as it was.

—W. Stanley Jevons

The alarm clock woke me from a horrendous dream, in which I was making love with my ex-husband and, worse, enjoying it. God, I thought, how hard up do you have to be to dream about being in bed with Bozo? Even my morning run didn’t help expunge the memory of that dream. As I pounded the pavement, I thought about my love life, or lack thereof. I hadn’t been exactly celibate since my divorce, but neither had I been profligate. I mentally ticked off on one hand the men I’d been with. Being choosy meant that I sometimes went a while between men. Was