Chasing a Blond Moon(57)

“I didn’t have Kasseri,” Nantz said apologetically. “I used Asiago and I didn’t have time to pick up fresh pane.”

“This is great,” Service said with his mouth full. It hurt to try to eat.

She sipped the wine. “Nice.”

Walter came downstairs sniffing. “I’m hungry.”

“Pasta in the kitchen,” Nantz said.

“Do I get wine?” he asked. “Sheba always let me have a glass of wine.”

“No,” Service said.

“I figured you’d say that,” Walter mumbled, going back upstairs.

“He’s always pushing,” Service said.

“You didn’t when you were that age?”

“If I had, I’d have looked like I do now.”

“I pushed my parents all the time, especially my dad,” Nantz confessed.

“Look how you turned out,” Service said.

She smiled. “Not too shabby, hey?”

He nodded and pushed his bowl aside. Half the ravioli was still there.

“You’re hurting,” she said. “It always shows in your appetite.”

“The swelling makes it hard to chew.”

She put her hand on his leg. “It will go away.”

She shook her head with worry and took a swig of wine. “What did the captain want?”

“He brought me some stuff I asked for.”

“He was here quite a while.”

He had made a promise to the captain and, given what his boss had confided and Nantz’s closeness to Senator Timms, he couldn’t tell her. “It was just work stuff, and he thinks I should take a few more days off.”

“Will you?”

“I can’t sit round on my keester all day, babe.”

“You’re holding back on what you and the captain talked about.”

“He said it was just between us.”

“So if Lori says something is just between her and me, I shouldn’t tell you?”

“A promise is a promise,” he said, wondering what the senator had told her.

“I thought we were always going to tell each other everything.”

“Mar.”

“I know, I know, but I’m dying to tell you something and I can’t.”

“Maybe there’ll be times when we have to accept a delay in telling each other things,” he said.

Nantz laughed. “God,” she said. “Lori is right. You have the instincts of a politician and don’t even recognize it.”

“She doesn’t know me.”

“I think she knows you better than you realize. Don’t be fooled by her appearance, Grady. She’s sharp and she thinks, quote, Grady is underutilized, end quote.”

He leaned over and kissed her. The captain might be right about Timms, he decided.

“Is that a dismissal?”

“I really have to work.”

“You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I am resting.”

“Okay, spoilsport.” She collected the wine bottle, bowls, forks, and glasses and went upstairs.

Newf padded down the stairs, came over to the table and lay down underneath.

“What’re you?” he asked the dog. “Second shift guard?”

The dog wagged her tail.





14

Service heard the telephone ring and ignored it.

“I need to get back to school tomorrow,” Walter told his father.

“My truck’s in Crystal Falls,” Service said. “Nantz can drop us there in the morning and I’ll run you up to Houghton.”

“How come you call her Nantz?” Walter asked.

Service had never thought about it. “Habit, I guess.”

Walter nodded and paused. It seemed to Service that he had more on his mind, but the boy went upstairs and Service heard the TV come on.

He put his feet up and tried to think. Violets who committed crimes always left trails and wakes; sooner or later you picked up a strand, and if you were lucky, it let you make the case. All cases had this in common—threads. But habitual criminals were generally more careful than the impulsives. The trick was to find the threads you needed and stick with them. In the Pung case, he still felt blind. He liked Pyykkonen, though her behavior with Wayno Ficorelli had taken him by surprise and made him wonder if she was also impulsive on the job. If so, she’d be jumping from this to that without making progress, letting velocity substitute for direction. Again he wondered about her dismissal from Lansing.

“You look unhappy,” Nantz said from the stairs. “That was Lori on the phone.”

“Just thinking,” he said. The homicide was Pyykkonen’s and the shit belonged to Gus and him. But if she didn’t get off her ass and start picking up some of her threads, neither case was going anywhere. He hated being dependent on others, but as a detective this was becoming the rule rather than the exception. Did the captain understand that? The more he thought about it, the more irritated he got. “What did the senator want?”