by Liliana Hart
I peeled off the latex gloves and took off the trash bad I’d used to protect my clothes. My skin could breathe again and I rolled up all the soiled material and dumped it in another trash bag, tying it up tight. And then I stood in front of one of the fans and held my shirt out away from my skin.
“Maybe he was wearing all black.”
“Maybe. But we’re not talking about a little blood. We’re talking arterial blood. He would’ve been saturated. I’m surprised we didn’t find more blood farther down the path to the road.”
I backed up from the fan and went to stand in front of Jack. “If I’m stabbing you in the chest I’m going to give the initial strike, and then I’m going to put my entire weight behind it. Especially as a woman.”
“So a woman could’ve done the job?”
“Sure, but you and I both know the knife isn’t a particularly favorite method of killing by women. So the percentage is small. But it exists.”
I demonstrated by making a fist and striking Jack in the middle of his chest. And then I used my other hand and my body to push against him. My entire front was pressed against him with the effort to show how much force would be needed to push the knife into the heart.
“See. The killer would’ve been covered in blood. Even the neck and face if he was shorter than Leon.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Jack said. “I always enjoy it when we do the reenactments. But you don’t smell all that great right now, so maybe we can go through the motions from a distance.”
I rolled my eyes and gave him a middle finger.
“Ooh, that’s a very romantic proposition. I’m happy to accommodate you after a shower.”
My elbow connected with his gut and he groaned dramatically. And then he smacked me on the behind.
“You’re pushing it, mister. I’m tired, grumpy, smelly, and hungry.”
“And yet, I’m still proud to call you my wife.”
“Have you been drinking while I’ve been doing an autopsy? Because you have entirely too much energy considering the day we’ve had.”
“I’m punch drunk and running on fumes. Lets lock up and head back to the cabana. There’s chocolate cake and champagne in the fridge.”
“That’s a dinner I can get behind.” I went back into the cell and made sure everything was as clean as I could get it. I’d used the hose attached to the wall to clean the floors, but if I was Joe, I’d power wash the whole thing with bleach before I put anyone in there.
“I don’t like the idea of leaving the body in here like this. There’s got to be a better way to lock him up safely.”
“I’ve already tried Joe’s number. It went straight to voicemail. I can’t imagine what he could possibly be doing.”
“Or who. It’s such a mystery,” I said dryly. “We’ve got evidence and a body, and no place to lock them up tight. A half-hearted kick to the door and someone could be in here in a heartbeat and steal the body.”
“Joe doesn’t seem particularly worried about theft.”
“Joe doesn’t seem particularly worried about anything that’s not contained in the space between Camille’s thighs.”
Jack snorted out a laugh. “We’ll lock the cell just to be safe and take the evidence with us. Once Joe joins the land of the living again we’ll hand everything over. Knowing Carver, we’re going to have a late night ahead of us.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re having cake and champagne. That’s brain food.”
I got a whiff of myself and grimaced. Standing over a dead body for the last couple of hours without proper ventilation, combined with the fact that I’d run out of sweat from dehydration about an hour ago, and I could barely stand to be in the same room with myself.
I locked the cell door and Jack gathered up the electronics, the bags of evidence, and the statements from witnesses, and put them in a box. I closed the windows and shut off the lights and we locked the door behind us. It was then we both realized we didn’t have a car and would have to walk back to the cabana. Fortunately, the island was only a couple miles in either direction, so we didn’t have far to go.
“There is a silver lining to all this,” Jack said, as we started toward the beach to walk the shoreline.
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“I’ve officially had enough time to recuperate and can now have sex again.”
I stopped in my tracks and Jack went a few steps ahead before he realized I was no longer beside him.
“What?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder.
“I’ve spent the last two hours hunched over a body and I smell of things that no living person should smell of. And you want to have sex?”
“You’ll be good as new once you shower. Twice.”
I narrowed my eyes and started walking again, a little faster this time. “If by sex you mean you giving me a full body massage and letting me sleep for a couple of hours, then yes, I’ve recuperated enough to have sex too.”
Jack hefted the box under one arm and then took my hand. “Look at you, already making excuses for why you can’t have sex. And you thought you weren’t going to be any good at marriage.” He squeezed my hand and then nudged me playfully.
“Shut up,” I said. “And maybe ask me again after the cake. Cake fixes a lot of things.”
Chapter Eight
Jack had been right. It had taken two shampooing’s and scrubbings before I was able to stand myself, though the second one might have been more for Jack’s benefit.
He’d brought me a piece of cake and a glass of champagne to eat in the shower. Jack had grown up wealthy—the son of a tobacco farmer—and I’d always imagined that this was how the other half lived—eating chocolate cake in the shower and having a man who looked like my husband pouring cold champagne over my very heated skin.
“The cleaning lady is going to be really confused,” I said a little while later. “It’s probably not often she has to clean crumbs out of the drain.”
“Think of it as we’re bringing a little excitement to an otherwise monotonous job.”
I dried off quickly and ran my fingers through my damp hair, and then I walked naked into the bedroom and fell back on the bed under the ceiling fan.
“This is one of those times that’s really confusing to a man,” Jack said, coming in behind me.
I took a moment to look my fill. I was a lucky, lucky woman. Not only for the fact that he was just about the most perfect example of the male species I’d ever seen, but the fact that underneath the sarcasm and the need to play the occasional practical joke, he had the most giving and loving heart of anyone I’d ever known. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve that kind of loyalty or love, but I was grateful every day.
“What’s confusing?” I asked, much less interested in his thought processes than I was in the towel hanging precariously from his hips.
“It’s one of those times where a normal man would wonder if a woman was laying naked on the bed because she was trying to seduce him, or because she was trying to cool off. Fortunately, I’m not a normal man.”
“Praise Jesus for that. So what conclusion did you come to? Am I trying to seduce you or cool off?”
“First of all, you seduce me with every breath you take.”
I snorted out a laugh and he grinned, dropping the towel.
“Well now, I can see you were telling the truth and you have, in fact, recuperated.”
He grabbed my ankles and pulled me toward the edge of the bed. “Stop trying to distract me, woman. I was in the middle of telling you the conclusion of my hypothesis.”
“I apologize. Carry on.”
“Thank you.” He cleared his throat and said, “Second of all, I know you well enough to know that you’re too lazy to dig out pajamas from the suitcase, so you’ve just decided to go naked until I either dig them out for you or give you one of my shirts to wear.”
“I don’t like being pigeonholed like that,” I said primly. “There could be any number of reasons for m
y nakedness.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, pushing my knees apart with his hands and crawling between my thighs. “Like what?”
My breath hitched as he came down on top of me, taking a nipple between his teeth. My hands grasped his biceps and my legs twined around his hips. “What was the question?” I asked.
He laughed and then slid deep inside of me. “I’ll tell you later.”
*
Jack’s cell phone rang and my eyes opened slowly. I was completely disoriented and so tired I couldn’t remember where I was. But I recognized Jack’s arms around me, and held a little tighter as the phone continued to ring. We’d fallen asleep on top of the covers and I’d finally started to cool off.
“You’re phone is ringing,” I muttered against his neck.
“I know. It’s Carver.”
Jack rolled us so I lay on top of him and he could reach his phone on the nightstand.
“Lawson,” he said and then after a second, “Hold on and let me put it on speaker so Jaye can hear.”
Jack hit the speakerphone button and then set it back down on the nightstand.
“Y’all are not freaking going to believe this one,” Carver said. “I don’t know how you do it. It’s like you’re magnets for the most bizarre crimes of the century.”
“Jesus, Carver. It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I wake you? Because I’m just sitting here holding a colicky baby and getting information on one of the most hated men in history. But it’s cool. I’ll call back in the morning.”
“Hello, drama,” I said, snuggling against Jack’s chest.
“I heard that,” Carver whispered. “If I wasn’t holding this child I’ve finally managed to get to sleep after hours of walking the floor I’d give you a piece of my mind.”
“A piece of your mind?” Jack asked, his chest rumbling with laughter beneath my cheek. “Did we time travel to 1955? What did you pick up that’s so earth shattering?”
“Leon Stein is none other than Friedrich Josef Durst of the Third Reich.”
“Excuse me?” Jack asked. He sat up and I came up with him.
I was really wishing I’d dug my pajamas out of the suitcase because I was freezing. Jack had already rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of shorts, and he tossed a T-shirt at me so it hit me square in the chest.
“I’ve never heard of Friedrich Durst,” I said. “Should I have?”
“Not unless you’ve studied Hitler’s henchmen. Durst was a commander of multiple concentration camps, and he’s to this day still considered a Nazi War Criminal. According to his file, he alone was responsible for the deaths of more than half a million men, women, and children. He fancied himself a doctor and experimented on those who caught his eye—mostly young girls from the age of fifteen to twenty. I’ll spare you the details and send it to you in an email. I’ll just say it makes my stomach turn, which is saying something considering I’ve seen about everything there is to see in this job.”
“That seems like a good motive for killing someone,” I said. “Maybe Leon’s old identity wasn’t as well hidden as he thought it was.”
“Possibly. Or maybe the motive has more to do with the ten million dollar price on his head, payable until his hundredth birthday. Dead or alive.”
“Jesus,” Jack said. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“I wish I was. And let me tell you something else. The minute those fingerprints went into the system things lit up like the Fourth of July. I hadn’t expected that kind of response, so I didn’t have it protected. Every agency in the world knows those are Friedrich Durst’s fingerprints. You’d best prepare yourself for the shit storm.”
“Hell. How long do you think we have before we’re descended upon?”
“You’ve probably got twenty-four hours, and that’s being generous. If you’re going to find out who killed Durst then your window of opportunity is very small.”
“What do you mean if we find out who killed Durst?” Jack asked.
“Come on, man. You think anyone is going to convict someone for killing a man like Durst? They’ll be considered a hero.”
“That’s not for us to decide,” Jack said, stiffly. “Murder is murder.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from saying anything. The thing about Jack was that he believed in the system. He believed in right and wrong. And he believed that two wrongs didn’t necessarily make something right. By Jack’s way of thinking, a man like Durst might deserve to die, but the man who killed him shouldn’t be lauded as a hero. He was still a murderer.
My conscience wasn’t quite as honorable as Jack’s. I had a tendency to bend the line for justice every now and again. I believed in shades of gray and that sometimes people got the justice they deserved. Justice that a court of law couldn’t always deliver. Which was why I was keeping my mouth shut. A honeymoon probably wasn’t the best place for an argument on ethics.
“Settle down, cowboy,” Carver said. “I know you well. Go do what you do. I’m just telling you to expect company, and that not everyone is going to thank you for what you’re doing.”
“They asked for help. That’s all I can do. What did you find out about Father Fernando?”
“He was born on the mainland. Led a very sheltered life. Was raised by his mother after his father was killed in a boating accident. He entered the priesthood at twenty and has been at his current church just over twenty years. He seems to be your every day, garden-variety priest. No skeletons in the closet that I could find. Now the other one, Father DeCosta, is a different story. He’s got a sealed juvie record.”
My brows rose at that. “I don’t supposed he’s handy with a knife?”
“Nope, at least not that he got caught with. Armed robbery and assault for the good Father. Grew up in a rough area. Single parent household. But looks like one of the local priests took an interest in him and got him straight.”
“What about Xavier?”
“He’s scared of his own shadow. I almost fell asleep reading his file. He might be the most boring person on the face of the planet. Not even a smudge on his record.”
“That at least gives us something to go on tomorrow,” Jack said. “Someone is lying.”
“After I found out who Stein really was it wasn’t too difficult to find your murder weapon. It’s an officer’s dagger carried by all of Hitler’s closest advisors. He had them especially made in1937, and the engraving on the blade says Arbeit Adelt, which translates to Work Ennobles. It was a shout out to the Reich Labor Service and all it stood for. They’re a collector’s item and sell for around three thousand dollars each if in good shape.”
“I appreciate the help, Carver.”
“I’d tell you any time, but you pretty much already do that. And all kidding aside, be careful out there. If someone thinks you two are going to get in the way of a ten million dollar pay day then you might be next on the list for a knife in the heart. I’d hate to see that happen to the Doc, especially since I’m probably next in line to marry her if anything happens to you.”
“I’m sure your wife would appreciate that, Carver,” I said.
“Hey, she watches Sister Wives. She’s very open-minded.”
“She’d have to be to be married to you.”
“That’s hurtful, Doc. Damned hurtful.”
“Go put your baby to bed and get some sleep,” Jack told him. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
Carver sighed. “I bet the two of you are going to have way more fun going to bed than I am. But in seventeen years and ten months my wife and I will have our lives back and we’ll be able to have hot sex again.”
“Unless she’s pregnant again,” Jack said.
“If I was nearby I’d punch you right in the face for saying that. Oh, by the way, the way the body was buried could be coincidence, but did you know Saint Michael was considered the patron saint of Jews?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Jack said.
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Carver hung up and I shook my head. Dealing with Ben was like dealing with an energetic toddler. He was fun in small doses, but I was always exhausted by the time he left.
“There’s nothing new that won’t still be waiting for us in the morning. We might as well try to get some sleep.”
I didn’t need to be told twice, so I crawled under the covers and waited for Jack to join me, and then I snuggled against him as he wrapped his arm around me. It wasn’t long before I felt myself drift to sleep, but I knew that Jack lay wide awake. I could practically hear the worry. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make myself stay awake long enough to ask him what was wrong.
Chapter Nine
Joe had been wrong about the storm coming in mid-afternoon. By the time we woke up the next morning it was like a monsoon. The wind howled against the thin walls of the cabana and the rain was horizontal. The waves, which had been peaceful the day before, raged, slapping against the shoreline.
The phones were out, and we waited until after ten, hoping the rain would let up. But it was obvious from the roiling gray clouds that the storm would be around for a while. So we had no choice but to put on rain jackets and run out to the 4x4 we’d rented. I had the box of evidence shoved under my jacket, and I slid on the rocks, catching myself as I hit the side of the car.
Jack had been quiet for most of the morning, and I knew he was thinking things through in his head. He had an ability to put pieces of the puzzle together like no one I’d ever seen before. There was something in his expression that had me worried. Whatever was rattling around in his brain wasn’t the conclusion he wanted.
We passed the police station and I looked at him curiously. “Where are we going?”
“I figured it’s probably a good time to visit Maria Stein. Ben’s right. Our time here is limited. If we don’t find Stein’s killer now we won’t ever find him.”
I looked at him and asked seriously, “Does it really matter?”
He turned his head from the road and looked at me and his fists tightened on the wheel. And then he relaxed and looked back at the road. The wipers swished back and forth, but they couldn’t go fast enough to make things more visible. We could barely see past the hood of the car.
