Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries Box Set, Nanci Rathbun [shoe dog free ebook txt] 📗

It smells dank and sweaty, despite Rick’s best efforts to clean and spray. There aren’t a lot of women at Rick’s, but those of us who do frequent the joint are serious.

I changed into sweats and a tee shirt, and walked out into the gym. A kickboxing class, newly added to the roster to attract more women, was underway on the mats. Ignoring them, I warmed up on the treadmill and then took out some of my hostility toward life on the bag. Left, right. Uppercut. Cross. Bob and weave, dance and jab. I kept at it for about twenty minutes, until I was exhausted and soaking wet.

The kickboxing class was just ending and the participants were milling around, talking and kidding with each other. I sure hoped they knew that none of that fancy crap would save their butts in a real encounter with a bad guy. A woman’s upper body strength is about sixty percent of a man’s, so in a fight, there’s only one way a woman can win—disable him quickly and run.

As I looked around for Rick to help me off with the gloves, I saw Iggy talking to another man, whose back was to me. I waved my gloved hand in a greeting, and he smiled and walked over to me. “Hey, Angie. How’s things?”

“They’ve been better, Iggy. But then, they’ve been worse, too.” I raised my hands and he pulled off the gloves. “Thanks,” I said.

“No prob.” He turned and called to the man he’d been talking with. “Wukowski, look who’s here.”

Shocked, I stared as Wukowski turned and walked over. He was dressed like me, in sweats and a tee shirt, but in his case, he wasn’t dripping with sweat. I felt at a definite disadvantage as he approached, my five-foot-three dwarfed by his six-foot-something. “Ms. Bonaparte,” he greeted me formally.

“Detective Wukowski,” I just as formally responded. I could stand on my dignity, too, even if I didn’t feel especially dignified at the moment.

Iggy just shook his head and rolled his eyes. “When are you two gonna get over it and act like human beings to each other?” he asked. But he pronounced it ‘human beans.’ I had to smile. Either Wukowski heard what I did, or he took my smile as a sign of agreement with Iggy’s pronouncement, because he smiled, too.

It transformed the man. An absolute metamorphosis. From rod-up-the-rear, Joe Friday, ‘just the facts’ ice-man to crinkly-eyed, genuine human being, good-looking in a Dana Andrews tough-guy way. I stared. I looked him up and down. I appreciated his face and body for the first time. I started to blush, and hoped they would put it down to post-exercise blood flow.

Wukowski spoke first. “Yeah, well, maybe you’re right, Iggy.” He looked at me. “You a member?”

I nodded, unsure if my voice would squeak and betray me. The silence was like a fourth person in the conversation. Iggy, bless him, seemed to sense our discomfort. “How about we shower and get a cuppa coffee? Maybe kick the Morano case around a little?” Wukowski tensed and started to speak, but Iggy grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the men’s locker room. “Fifteen minutes, okay, Angie? At least you don’t need to mess with your hair. My wife, she takes an hour, just on her hair.” He shook his head in wonderment at women in general and his wife in particular, and continued talking as they moved away.

Rick ambled by me and tapped the gloves that I still held in my hands. “All done, Angie?”

I nodded, assessing Wukowski from the rear until he and Iggy disappeared into the locker room. Bulky, but not fat. Substantial. The way I like men to look. “Cherce,” as Spencer Tracy once remarked of Katherine Hepburn. Damn it, this was not a complication I needed.

“Angie? You okay?” Rick stood before me, his face searching mine carefully for signs of distress.

“Sorry, Rick. Yeah, I’m okay. Just trying to figure out how to approach Wukowski. We’re working a case from different sides.”

He nodded, and motioned me over to a quiet corner of the room. “You know about Wukowski? About him and his partner, Liz White?”

Liz White. The name suddenly exploded in my head. “The policewoman who was ambushed and killed?” Two years ago, the story had captured headlines for weeks. She and her partner were investigating a homicide involving a drug dealer, when she suddenly disappeared. The police chief shut the city down, searching for her. Finally, seven days after her disappearance, someone dumped her body under a freeway overpass. In a plastic trash bag. Tortured. Mutilated. With a note purported to taunt her partner and the squad, a note which was never made public. I remember the newspaper photo of her partner, in dress uniform, ramrod straight, stone-faced, hand to forehead as the rifle salute pierced the air at her funeral. So that was Wukowski.

Rick continued. “I never saw a guy so shook. It changed him completely. For weeks, he’d show up here and hit the heavy bag until I thought he’d drop. The other cops, they talked about how he’d spend all night watching the houses where the deals went down, trying to find out who killed her. How he refused to take on another woman partner. How he and his wife split up. Then, about four months ago, he started looking normal again. Put some weight back on. Started to smile and kid around a little.”

“Any idea what caused the turnaround?” I asked.

“No clue. All I’m saying is, the Liz White killing hit him hard, where it hurts. He’s doing better, but I don’t think he’s really over it.” He paused. “The thing is, I like him, Angie. And I like you. I don’t want to see you take the brunt of his hurt.”

“Thanks, Rick. You’re a good guy.” I gave him a big hug and hit the showers, where I cooled off and contemplated my approach to Iggy and Wukowski. They didn’t want to have coffee with me