When the first tool-using homo sapiens finished sharpening the flint on his first spear and went out with his buddies to find a woolly mammoth to bring home for dinner, Melissa thought with some asperity as the Germania Building’s elevator carried her creakingly upward, his mate undoubtedly had to come running out of the cave after him grunting, “Honey, you forgot something!”
“Hi,” she panted to Kristina Mueller as she reached the reception area for Kuchinski’s office. “Is my husband here?”
“No,” the receptionist said. “He and the world’s greatest trial lawyer are out playing Paul Drake.”
“Nuts,” Melissa said. “He has to drive to Wausau this afternoon to meet with a potential client tomorrow. The only shirt he packed has French cuffs, and he forgot his cufflinks.”
“There’s the elevator,” Mueller said, cocking her ear toward the door. “Five to three that’s the two of them returning now.”
Rep and Kuchinski strolled in a mere three minutes later.
“These might come in handy,” Melissa said, handing a palm-sized velveteen box to her husband.
“Oops,” Rep said.
“Productive morning?” Melissa asked then, in the exaggeratedly patient, men-will-be-boys tone that wives learn early in successful marriages.
“In an addition-by-subtraction sense,” Rep said, handing her his notes from last night’s napkin with two names and addresses crossed out.
“How did you eliminate these two?”
“Well,” Kuchinski said, “one is sixty-five years old and works in a wheelchair. The other weighs about three hundred fifty pounds. I can’t see either of them burglarizing Sue Key’s flat.”
“Suppose one of the guys you saw had been twenty-four and in peak physical condition?” Melissa asked. “What would that have proven?”
“Nothing,” Rep admitted. “It would have focused follow-up inquiries.”
“Which I hope you’ll be entrusting to professionals,” Melissa said.
“Pros like facts, and right now we don’t have many,” Kuchinski said. “Before we can delegate chores to anyone we need to come up with a couple.”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t be flippant,” Melissa said, turning toward Rep. “The Sable is parked at a meter outside. Would you like me to just take a cab back to the apartment so that you can get on your way?”
“That would actually be quite wonderful, if you really don’t mind. This morning’s little excursion took longer than I expected, and I’d like to reach Wausau before it gets too dark.”
The phone rang. Mueller answered it and almost immediately handed it to Kuchinski. After a quick and agitated phone conversation he spun around and headed for the door.
“Judge Pastor’s court, maybe for twenty minutes and maybe for the rest of the day,” he said to Mueller. “Some outta-town lawyer is trying to ambush my only corporate client with an ex parte restraining order motion, and Judge Pastor apparently needs some help kicking his butt.”
“Wait,” Rep called. “My bag is still in your trunk.”
After a quick kiss he hustled after Kuchinski. They had disappeared before Melissa noticed that she was still holding the note he’d shown her.
“The great thing about being male in America,” Mueller said, shaking her head, “is that you never really have to grow up.”
“Mmm,” Melissa said ambiguously.
Two minutes before, she had been squirming to get on her way. Now, though, she lingered in the reception area, gazing thoughtfully at the door. Rep definitely had his boyish side. He could sit playing chess against the computer until fifteen minutes before it was time to leave for a party, then jump up, shave at the same time he was knotting his tie, and not see anything wrong with it. He could sink to the couch at eleven p.m. when True Grit or McClintock! was starting on TCM, knowing that he had to be up at seven the next morning, swearing that he was just going to watch the opening scenes, and then crawl into bed at one-thirty.
But Rep didn’t go off on mindless frolics the day before a major client-hunting expedition. If he’d spent this crisp, sunny morning riding around a city he barely knew looking for potentially unpleasant people, it was because Kuchinski was right. They’d have to produce some hard data before they could expect the cops to take the invasion of Key’s apartment seriously.
Melissa opened her purse to stash the note. Her eyes fell on the three sample packs of cigarettes that Cantwell had distributed last night. Melissa had kept them to save for a colleague at UWM. She thought she detected a complicit glint winking at her from their cellophane wraps. Impulsively, she grabbed one. Fumbling with unpracticed fingers, she slit the cellophane, opened the flip-top, and extracted a cigarette. Without being asked, Mueller tossed her a Bic.
Melissa had to fuss with the lighter for half a minute before she could coax a flame from it. She raised the cigarette tentatively to her lips and awkwardly lit it. Thought she was going to cough but didn’t. Backed up and shook her head, as if to help the wisp of smoke she’d inhaled dribble out. Strolled a few steps away from the desk, tried another mini-puff, and felt dizzy for a second or two. Then her head cleared.
“You don’t look like you’re enjoying that very much,” Mueller said.
“I never really did,” Melissa said.
“How long ago did you quit?”
“I barely even started. I smoked for about two months my junior year in high school, and I don’t think I got through five packs. That was it.”
“My sister was the same way. Smoking turned her off right away.”
“It didn’t turn me off, exactly,” Melissa said around a third half-hearted puff. “At first, in fact, the sheer depravity of such wicked decadence was thrilling all by itself. And even after the forbidden fruit stuff wore off, I didn’t find smoking disgusting or repulsive. One day I just realized, ‘You know, I’m not getting this. I know it’s supposed to be really fun, but it’s just not doing all that much for me.’ So I stopped.”
“You’re a lucky young woman,” Mueller said in a tone of maternal admonition. “Anyone who dodges the smoking bullet at sixteen and then takes it up in her thirties ought to have someone go upside her head.”
“I’m definitely not taking it up,” Melissa said. She raised the cigarette again and this time managed a serious drag, followed by a reasonably competent exhalation.
“What are you doing, then?”
Melissa glanced again at the note Rep had left.
“Practicing,” she said.
She was still practicing when a uniformed Milwaukee police officer turned away from a guard at the security desk in the building’s lobby and strode toward Rep and Kuchinski. Rep noticed that the guard was pointing in their direction.
“You been letting your parking tickets pile up, boy?” Kuchinski asked.
“I don’t think that’s it,” Rep said.
It wasn’t.
“Do either of you know whose card this is?” the officer asked, showing them a somewhat dog-eared business card.
“Mine,” Rep said.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d come with me right away, sir,” the officer said. “It’s very important.”