Read Online Breach of Duty (9780061739637) by Judith A. Jance - Free Book Online Page A

posters on the wall—was chilies of one kind or another. Bottles of chili sauce lined what was left of a carved oak bar. I couldn’t tell from looking at them if they were there for sale or decoration or if they were simply optional condiments to be added to individual servings the way ordinary people might pile on needless salt and pepper.
    Back in the booth, Sue and I ordered lunch. While waiting for our food, I wanted to discuss the case, but Sue, staring off into space through an isolating haze of cigarette smoke, still seemed disinclined to talk. I contented myself with watching the goings-on in the kitchen while she puffed through one cigarette and then another. The chef was a butt-sprung disreputable-looking wreck of a guy with a stubbly growth of beard and a silver front tooth. He looked like an old salt to me, a guy likely to have a ship sailing the briny sea tattooed on his chest. I wondered if he hadn’t blown into town right along with other folks from the home port.
    It soon became apparent why the smoking section was located next to the kitchen. That was where the help—from chef to dishwasher—came on their breaks to grab a smoke right along with the customers.
    The food when it arrived at the booth—Sue’s red beans and rice and my barbecued ribs—was amazingly good. Hot and spicy, from the jalapeño-laced corn salad to the mouth-and-eye-watering, sauce-slathered ribs themselves. Suddenly famished, I mowed into my lunch without noticing Sue was barely touching hers. I was busily mopping barbecue sauce off my fingers and face when I realized she had pushed her still-full dish to one side and was smoking once again.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with your food?” I asked. “Don’t you like it?”
    â€œHe kicked me,” she said.
    Two booths away a little kid in a high chair set up an ear-splitting howl making it almost impossible to hear.
    â€œHe who?” I asked, feeling as though I had somehow blundered into a conversation that was already in progress.
    â€œRichie,” she answered in a barely audible whisper. Fortunately, someone stifled the noisy kid enough so I could make out what she was saying. “I was pregnant with Chris at the time. Richie kicked me in the stomach so hard that my water broke. I was only seven months along. We almost didn’t make it, Chris and I. For years I was petrified that he’d suffered some kind of long-term damage—that he’d be retarded or something. But he isn’t. He’s fine.”
    She finished in an offhand kind of way, ducking her head to grind the stub of her latest cigarette into the ashtray. She turned away, but not before I caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes. Detective Danielson is tough. We’ve done horrendous crime scenes together without her ever turning a hair. Six months into our partnership, tears were something new.
    â€œChris may be fine,” I said. “But you’re not. What’s going on?”
    â€œI don’t know.” She shook her head. “It’s like living through a flashback. Maybe it’s that handy old fall guy, post-traumatic stress syndrome, but just the idea of him being back in town is driving me crazy. I barely slept last night. That’s probably what’s really wrong with me,” she added sheepishly, “lack of sleep.”
    I suspected the problem went deeper than missing a few zzzs. It also explained why she’d never talked much about either her marriage or divorce. “Is that why you split?” I asked. “Because he beat you up?”
    She nodded. “He had threatened me before, but that was the first time he ever turned really violent. I underwent an emergency cesarean and was in the hospital for three days. That gave me plenty of time to think. I wondered if he’d do that to me—if he’d endanger our unborn baby’s life like that—what might he do to Jared. Back then I was