Unlucky 13(29)

Cindy picked at her lasagna, and she asked Joe the kinds of questions that come easily to a reporter. She even asked follow-up questions. I continued to feel that something was bothering her, though—and she didn’t care to discuss it in front of Joe.

Whatever was stuck in her shoe, she softened it with a couple of glasses of wine, then turned down coffee and dessert in favor of a third glass, effectively killing the bottle. About then, Joe said he had some calls to make. He kissed the top of Cindy’s curly-haired head and left the room.

I said to Cindy in my best film noir cop growl, “Okay, sister. Start talking.”





CHAPTER 36


CINDY CAREFULLY SET her wineglass down on the coffee table, kicked off her ballet flats, and curled up in a corner of the couch. I sat across from her in Joe’s big leather chair.

“What’s going on?” I asked her.

“You’re going to kill me,” said Cindy, “but I wish you wouldn’t.”

I read her face and saw something that looked like guilt in her eyes. I felt a stinging shock of alarm. What the hell could Cindy have done to tick me off?

I said, “Only one way to find out.”

And then she told me.

“When you said Morales had been seen in Wisconsin? In a town near Lake Michigan? I tracked her there.”

“You’re joking. You didn’t do that, Cindy.”

“Randy Fish’s father had a house on the lake that still belongs to his estate. I thought Morales might be there. I brought cops with me when I went. I wanted to be in on the takedown and write about her, you know. Get an exclusive. But—she was already gone.”

“You took something I said to you as a friend—”

“I know, I know. But you weren’t working the case, Lindsay. She was in Wisconsin. Not on your patch.”

“And so you went out on this, this story, using my private information without asking me? Do you realize how that could come back on me?”

Cindy picked up her glass, drained it, and said, “You know, I figured I’d turn the information over to you and Richie and you’d nail her and she would be prosecuted here and we’d all win. Look, I don’t blame you for whatever you think of me. I was wrong. I’m really sorry. Thanks for dinner, Linds.”

She put down her glass and toed around for her shoes. I didn’t think Cindy was actually steady enough to make it through the front door. And there was no way she could drive.

“I’m not going to beg you, Cindy. But if you don’t spit it out, I will come over there and smother you with a throw pillow.”

She laughed and said, “Please don’t hurt me.”

“We’ll see.”

She grinned, sat back on the couch, and said, “Okay. So when we got to the house, Morales was gone. But she had wired the house with explosives. Yeah! To blow up. I have that on excellent authority.”

“How do you know it was Morales who did that?”

“Off the record—her prints were found under a layer of dust. Anyway, the FBI is watching the house. Hoping she’ll go back to it so they can nail her. Personally? What do I think? I think she’s out of that house for good.”

“Because?”

Cindy took a deep breath and let it out as a long sigh.

“Earlier this week, a female fitting Mackie’s description robbed a bank in Chicago. She killed two people—a guard and a bystander. I just flew out there and talked to two customers who had fled before the cops locked them down. The way they described her, Linds, get this: five foot six to five foot eight. Athletic. Could be Hispanic.”

I said, “That’s a description? I call that a vague generality that could fit too many people to be useful at all. But listen, Cindy. Please look at me. Let’s say you’re actually onto Morales. Thank God you didn’t confront her. Are you kidding me? She’s on the FBI’s top-ten most-wanted list. Number five. You know better than almost anyone how dangerous she is.”

Cindy said, “I’m a crime journalist, Linds. A damned good one, as it turns out.”

That was indisputable. Cindy had helped me solve more than one case with her doggedness, and she had some kind of intuition that couldn’t be put down to luck. She had told me once that she was one killer story short of national acclaim. I understood what Morales meant to her.

But that didn’t mean she should be trying to get close to her. I nodded my head in agreement and said, “I know how good you are. I know.”

Cindy said, “So—may I have some coffee now? I’m not done telling you what’s going on.”





CHAPTER 37


I KEPT MY eyes on Cindy while I brewed the coffee. She was tapping on her phone, looking as distracted as she had seemed over dinner.