had died at forty-one of breast cancer. Having shared a spouse's untimely death had drawn Muriel and him together. The relationship sparked, but it was off-and-on, which was how it always seemed to go with Muriel and men. Lately, though, they'd been gathering momentum. With both daughters in college now, Talmadge was tired of being alone. And she enjoyed the force field around him -epical events always seemed to be at hand when you were with Talmadge.
"You're really going to marry Talmadge Lorman?"
"We're not getting married. I told you I had a feeling this might, maybe, could, perhaps, probably-not lead to something. It's a million miles from that right now. I just wanted to give you the heads-up about why I won't come running when you whistle."
"Whistle?"
Perhaps it was the conversation, which seemed weird on both ends, but she felt a fugue state grip her, as if she were hovering over the scene, outside the person of Muriel. Often in the last few years she'd had moments like this, where the real and true Muriel seemed to be there but undetectable, a tiny kernel of something that existed but had no visible form. She'd been the usual pain-in-the-rear teenager, who thought the entire world was a fraud, and in some ways she'd never gotten over that. She knew that everybody was in it for themselves. That's what had drawn her to the law-she relished the aspect of the advocate's role that required her to rip though everyone's poses. Yet the same convictions made it hard to cross the breach with anybody else.
That was what seemed to bring Larry back time and again on the merry-go-round-she knew him. He was smart-smarter than nice - and she enjoyed his jaundiced humor, and his equally sure sense of her. He was a big man, Polish and German in terms of his background, with innocent blue eyes, a big, round face, and blondish hair he was starting to lose. Masculine, you'd say, rather than handsome, but full of primal appeal. Playing around with him was the kind of screwball whim that marked her earlier years, when she thought it was a riot to be the wild child. But he was married-and a cop to the core. Now she told herself again what she'd told him-she had to move on.
She looked down the street to be certain they were unobserved, and took hold of one button on his shirt, a loose acetate number he wore under a poplin sport coat. She gave it a final familiar tug, a request, at close quarters, for mercy. Then she started her car. The engine turned over, and her heart picked up when she remembered the case.
Chapter 5
october 3, 1991
Running Lead s o n his way to DuSable Field to ask more questions about Luisa Re- mardi, Larry stopped off in the Point to see a house. About ten years ago, right after he'd worked the murder of a real estate broker, Larry got into rehabbing, turning over a property every eighteen months or so for a pretty good dollar. When he was younger, he'd regarded law enforcement as a way station. He loved the work, but until he dropped out of law school and accepted the Force as Kismet, he'd envisioned some higher destiny for himself among the power elite. These days, whatever visions of stature he retained rested on real estate.
On a mild fall afternoon, Larry pondered the house, which a broker had tipped him would be listed later this week. The Point, long a sanctuary for Kindle County's small African-American middle class, had begun attracting singles and young families of all races looking for better deals on houses close to Center City. This place, a big Victorian, was a Yuppie magnet if ever there was one. It had been split into apartments, but many of the original features remained intact, including the square widow's walks surrounding the belfries on each end, and the original spear-topped cast-iron fence in which yellow leaves were now trapped in soft heaps.
There was also a great sunny corner out front where he could bed zinnias, nasturtiums, dahlias, gladioli, marigolds, and mums, so there'd be
"You're really going to marry Talmadge Lorman?"
"We're not getting married. I told you I had a feeling this might, maybe, could, perhaps, probably-not lead to something. It's a million miles from that right now. I just wanted to give you the heads-up about why I won't come running when you whistle."
"Whistle?"
Perhaps it was the conversation, which seemed weird on both ends, but she felt a fugue state grip her, as if she were hovering over the scene, outside the person of Muriel. Often in the last few years she'd had moments like this, where the real and true Muriel seemed to be there but undetectable, a tiny kernel of something that existed but had no visible form. She'd been the usual pain-in-the-rear teenager, who thought the entire world was a fraud, and in some ways she'd never gotten over that. She knew that everybody was in it for themselves. That's what had drawn her to the law-she relished the aspect of the advocate's role that required her to rip though everyone's poses. Yet the same convictions made it hard to cross the breach with anybody else.
That was what seemed to bring Larry back time and again on the merry-go-round-she knew him. He was smart-smarter than nice - and she enjoyed his jaundiced humor, and his equally sure sense of her. He was a big man, Polish and German in terms of his background, with innocent blue eyes, a big, round face, and blondish hair he was starting to lose. Masculine, you'd say, rather than handsome, but full of primal appeal. Playing around with him was the kind of screwball whim that marked her earlier years, when she thought it was a riot to be the wild child. But he was married-and a cop to the core. Now she told herself again what she'd told him-she had to move on.
She looked down the street to be certain they were unobserved, and took hold of one button on his shirt, a loose acetate number he wore under a poplin sport coat. She gave it a final familiar tug, a request, at close quarters, for mercy. Then she started her car. The engine turned over, and her heart picked up when she remembered the case.
Chapter 5
october 3, 1991
Running Lead s o n his way to DuSable Field to ask more questions about Luisa Re- mardi, Larry stopped off in the Point to see a house. About ten years ago, right after he'd worked the murder of a real estate broker, Larry got into rehabbing, turning over a property every eighteen months or so for a pretty good dollar. When he was younger, he'd regarded law enforcement as a way station. He loved the work, but until he dropped out of law school and accepted the Force as Kismet, he'd envisioned some higher destiny for himself among the power elite. These days, whatever visions of stature he retained rested on real estate.
On a mild fall afternoon, Larry pondered the house, which a broker had tipped him would be listed later this week. The Point, long a sanctuary for Kindle County's small African-American middle class, had begun attracting singles and young families of all races looking for better deals on houses close to Center City. This place, a big Victorian, was a Yuppie magnet if ever there was one. It had been split into apartments, but many of the original features remained intact, including the square widow's walks surrounding the belfries on each end, and the original spear-topped cast-iron fence in which yellow leaves were now trapped in soft heaps.
There was also a great sunny corner out front where he could bed zinnias, nasturtiums, dahlias, gladioli, marigolds, and mums, so there'd be
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