“Here we are. Mike Dean. A mention in the paper that he’d been sentenced...oh look. Three to five years. A plea bargain. Yeah, forgery, just like Frank said.”
“What’s this one?” Max pointed at a link lower on the screen from a federal site.
“Umm...let’s see...oh wow. Charges of aggravated assault dismissed.” She narrowed her eyes and read the public report of an incident at the Federal Penitentiary. “Michael S. Dean was cleared of the charge of aggravated assault when another inmate came forward with an eyewitness account of the incident. Dean’s sentence will not be affected by this matter. He is currently scheduled for release on...”
“Hmm. Tough customer.” The words echoed Peta’s own thoughts.
“Yes, absolutely. Tough enough to kill Sandra, do you think?”
“If she pissed him off, yeah. I wouldn’t doubt it,” said Max thoughtfully. “Why don’t you put those nimble fingers of yours to good use? Check out Mr. Cary Stiles?”
She snickered. “For what? Arrogant handsomeness?”
“You think he’s handsome?” His head jerked.
“Of course. He works hard at it too. Doesn’t mean I like him for it.”
“He’s not gorgeous, huh?”
“I knew I wasn’t going to live that down.” She sighed and typed in the name. Another couple of searches later, and she’d reduced the links to those related to their Cary Stiles, not Cary Stiles the landscape gardener from Florida, or Stiles Cary, the well-known porn star.
“Here we go,” muttered Peta. “Owner of Cary’s Cafés. Recently awarded local Businessman of the Year...yeah...yeah...” She scrolled down the screen. “Hmm.”
“Hmm?” He leaned over her shoulder.
“Hmm, as in apparently Cary had a hard time getting a couple of permits here. Look...” She pointed at the Town Meeting rosters she’d located. “He wanted a certain building that wasn’t zoned for restaurant operation. But look, see here? The matter was suddenly settled. In Cary’s favor too.”
“Bet that cost him a pretty penny.” His tone was thoughtful.
“Good God.” Peta straightened in Max’s arms. “I don’t believe it.”
“What?”
“This photo. Café and Capo. Hell of a caption.”
They both stared at the grainy image on the tabloid website.
She read on. “Seen enjoying each other’s company at the local Eagle Feather Casino last night were noted restaurateur Cary Stiles and Mario Vincenzo, both of whom were trying their luck at the baccarat tables. An unusual pairing, since Mr. Vincenzo is currently the target of a federal racketeering task force investigation. Perhaps Mr. Stiles was looking for some new recipes for ‘Capo-ccino’ to add to his menu?”
“Wow,” said Max.
“Wow, indeed.” She closed the screen and leaned back against his chest. “So where does this leave us?”
“Cuddling in Struthers’ chair?”
“Quite.” She tried to focus, but it was damned hard when he kept brushing against her ear like that.
She sighed. “Okay. So we have Mike Dean, who seems quite capable of murder, and is the most likely suspect. And of course we know that the murderer is never the most likely suspect, right?”
“Right.” He bit her neck and licked the small mark.
“Ooooh,” she groaned. “Max, cut it out. Let me think here.”
It was his turn to sigh. “You’re no fun.”
“Hmph. You didn’t think that an hour ago.” She turned and smiled at him.
He pressed a quick kiss on her lips, making her dizzy. “That’s right. But you’re like Chinese food. An hour later and I’m hungry again.”
She glanced at her watch. “Look, give us a little longer and then we’ll go home, all right?”
He shifted slightly beneath her thighs. “I guess I can survive. But if I die from unrequited lust, it’s all your fault.”
She hesitated. “I—I could ‘requite’ it, if you want...”
Max bit his lip. “I know, honey. I know. But I’d rather wait until the requiting can take place in slightly more romantic surroundings.”
“You would?”
“Well, no. Yes. Hell, I want to fuck you, sweetheart. For hours. I want to be inside you so bad I’m hurting with it. I don’t see a comfortable place around here, and although I’m so ready I could take you right here and now, it wouldn’t be enough.” He licked her earlobe. “For either of us.”
She swallowed, held captive by the heat she saw in his eyes. She wanted the same thing too. Her body ached at his words, and her mind swam from the images he’d conjured up.
“Oh Max,” she sighed, and kissed him.
He kissed her back. Their lips met and moved and searched and each found what the other was looking for. The heat and the taste and the sensation that told them both something special was happening.
Stunned, they drew apart.
Max watched Peta’s eyes as she opened them and met his gaze. He knew he probably looked the same. Like a deer caught in the headlights.
He cleared his throat awkwardly, unsure of himself for the first time he could remember.
She shifted on his lap, and drew in a deep breath before turning back to the screen. “Well, uh, I suppose we should turn this off for Struthers.”
“Wait up a minute.” A few words had caught his eye. “What’s this?”
She clicked around. “It’s Struthers’ request list. You know, if someone comes in and wants to reserve a book? Or get one from the Library Net?”
“Got it. Check this out...” He pointed at one particular entry.
“Hmm.” She struggled with the unfamiliar program. “Got it. Here it is. Oh, this is interesting...”
She leaned forward, brushing Max’s arm with her breast. He struggled manfully with himself, torn between the urge to cup it or read what was on the screen. His curiosity got the better of him, however, and he followed the cursor as she traced various links.
“The King James Bible. Someone’s been doing some research into antique books.” She clicked some more. “Edward Sharp. He’s been requesting reference material on the ‘he’ Bible.”
“Bibles are gender-specific?”
Max was puzzled. In his experience, books were pretty much sexless. Excluding Playboy, of course, which didn’t really class as a book. Unless one made it past the centerfold to read the articles.
“No, but this one is special. The first King James Bibles were printed—if you want to call it that—in 1611 or so.”
He watched Peta slip into lecture-mode. Her eyes were intense and focused, and he was charmed as she reeled off facts and figures. This was, indeed, one very bright lady he was cuddling.
He backed off a little from his thoughts, wondering why they were making him slightly uncomfortable. Not from the obvious reason, either. His fascination went far deeper than his cock. It went to places untouched by a woman’s hands. Places that he never realized were so sensitive. Emma Hansell had sparked a couple of them to life, but Peta seemed to have set a huge blaze going.
He wasn’t too sure if he liked it or not.
“It was bound in leather...” Her voice pulled him back from his contemplations and he struggled to follow her narrative.
“About sixteen inches across by ten inches or so, and it was called the ‘he’ Bible because of a misprint in the first fifty copies. Oh, look...there’s a photo of one of them.”
Peta pointed and sure enough, the page from the Old Testament that had been scanned into the website featured a glaring error in Ruth, chapter three, verse fifteen. Highlighted, of course, for those whose biblical knowledge didn’t include a familiarity with the Book of Ruth.
People like Max.
“Instead of saying she went into the citie, the original had been printed to read he went into the citie. The error was found and corrected,” continued Peta, “and another one hundred and fifty were printed with the right word. Those are known as the ‘she’ Bible.”
“Log
ical. Flawlessly logical.”
“Thank you Mr. Spock.” She clicked on, ignoring him. “The estimated worth of the ‘he’ Bible is in the range of one to two hundred thousand dollars. In a recent auction at Sotheby’s, one sold for over four hundred thousand dollars. Wow.”
“Wow is right. That’s a whole lot of cold hard cash for one book.”
“Yes, but think how rare they are. Only fifty known copies in existence. Printed in the time of King James, for God’s sake. I know you Colonials think that anything that happened before 1776 is ancient history, but in fact, life was raring along quite nicely long before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth. King James followed Elizabeth the First, and was the first monarch to unite both England and Scotland under one flag—“
“Er, thank you, Miss Matthews. Will there be a quiz later?”
“Max?”
“Yes?”
“Sod off.”
Correctly interpreting this to be the British version of “fuck you”, he subsided, and considered the information they’d uncovered. “So Edward Sharp has a fascination with old books, does he?”
Peta wrinkled her nose. “Apparently so. He’s certainly asked Struthers to dig up plenty of reference material. It would seem that several copies made their way across the Atlantic too...here’s one for sale at an American Collector’s site...hmm...it’s a steal at a hundred and sixty-five thou.”
He grimaced. Peta’s definition of a “steal” differed from his. For that kind of money he could pick up a really smart little Ferrari. Or a nice house, come to think of it.
Now why should he think of that?
“Oh, and for the modest sum of three hundred dollars or so, you can buy an actual page from a 1611 Bible. Now that’s nice...”
Max grinned. When shopping on the Internet, most women would be rooting through pages of over-priced lingerie. But not his Peta. She was slobbering over some ratty old paper from four hundred years ago.
She was one special woman.
And the realization scared the crap out of him.
He reached over and shut down the system. “Let’s go home,” he said.
Peta slid from his lap as he stood, and their eyes met. The gray turned stormy as his hand held her close.
“Forget the books, forget the suspects and the hell with motives. Let’s just go home.”
She licked her lips. “Okay.”
Chapter Eighteen
“I got your message.” The air was cold around him, sleet falling hard now, making the earth slippery and gray and turning the remaining snow into ugly piles of discolored slush. It was nearly dark.
“Yeah. So I see.”
He swallowed his distaste for this practically subhuman man. If only his brains matched his muscles. “So what did you want?”
“I want to know what you talked to Sandra about.”
He feigned ignorance. “I’m sorry? I don’t know what you mean?”
“Yeah you do. Don’t fuck with me.” Mike Dean came nearer. “You were after something. She told me.”’
“She did?” Well, damn it to hell. This certainly threw a wrinkle into his carefully laid plans. Fortunately, he’d come prepared.
“Yeah. She did. Told me you were after a box or something. A special kind of box.” Dean circled him.
“Oh that box.” He took comfort from the feel of the knife handle in his pocket.
“Yeah. That box. Seems you wanted it pretty bad too. So I’m figuring...”
Good God. Dean was actually thinking. This must be a first.
“I’m figuring it’s gotta be pretty valuable. If you wanted it bad enough to fuck Sandra for it.”
“Perhaps I just wanted to—er—fuck Sandra, as you so eloquently put it?”
Dean laughed. “Nah, she ain’t your type. She likes it rough. Far rougher than you could manage.”
A haze of anger filled his mind, and his bile rose. What an arrogant and ignorant prick this man was. He deserved everything he got.
“Now if you was to tell me what you’re looking for, perhaps I could help. And then perhaps we could split it. Or...” Dean let his voice trail off suggestively.
“Or what? You’ll practice some of the delightful tricks inmates pick up behind those high walls, I suppose?”
“Yeah. I could always see how you like it up the ass. Or I might just drop a few words in some official ears. Like the ones that have a hat between them. A cop hat.”
“I see. This would be a...what’s the word...a shakedown, right?”
“Got it in one.”
“No.” His anger flooded him and strengthened him. If Dean thought he would ever, ever share what was rightfully his, then Dean was stupider than he looked. Which would be hard. He suppressed a chuckle. Once again someone was underestimating him.
“No?”
“Correct. The answer is no. Not only won’t I even consider sharing with someone who has to pick his knuckles up off the ground to scratch his knees, but I refuse to be intimidated or scared by your threats. What I want is none of your business. And it will stay that way.”
Dean’s face tightened into lines of anger. “Gonna take the consequences, then, are ya?” Dean neared him, menacingly, fists clenched. “Perhaps I can change your tune.”
“I doubt it, you incompetent fool. I’ve come too far and waited too long to let someone like you get in my way...”
His hand flew up from his pocket and the knife caught Mike Dean by surprise. He staggered as the vicious blade sliced through his jacket and into his chest without stopping.
Dean gasped and coughed, looking down as the blood seeped slowly from the wound.
“You fucker,” he grunted. “You dirty little motherfucker. I never figured you for this kind of shit...”
“That’s probably a big part of your problem.” He twisted the knife, driving it even higher into Dean’s ribcage and pushing him backwards towards the tarpaulin spread on the ground behind him. “You don’t figure all the odds, Mike. You’re too stupid to live, as they say.”
Dean’s eyes glazed and he stumbled, gasping another hoarse cough as his falling weight wrenched the knife through his organs. He collapsed.
The blue tarp contrasted quite nicely with the snow, and the blood on Dean’s clothing provided a rather impressionistic splash of color.
The killer sighed, sparing but a moment to appreciate the collage. It was damned annoying. Now he had to dispose of the body. Again.
Chapter Nineteen
“This is some weird kind of ritual, isn’t it?”
Max’s question brought a smile to Peta’s face as she concentrated on what she was doing. “Absolutely. Miss one step and you’re in big trouble.”
He grunted from his position as observer, seated at the kitchen table.
She continued. “Now after you’ve put the boiling water in the pot, you swirl it around, like this.” She swirled. “Then you dump it out, like so.” The water was dumped.
Max sighed.
“Now, the pot is nice and warm, so we can begin. Here’s the tea—“ She showed him the contents of the elegantly decorated tin she’d pulled from a cabinet.
“That’s not tea. No bag. Tea comes in bags.”
She chuckled to herself. He was so...so American at times. “No it doesn’t. Be quiet and watch. Making a good cuppa is a very valuable skill. One spoonful per person and one for the pot.” She carefully measured three spoons of loose tealeaves into the nicely warmed pot. “And then, making sure the water is boiling, we pour it in.”
Carefully removing the kettle from the stove, she filled the pot with boiling water. Then put the top back on and carefully brought it to the table, setting it in front of Max with a smug grin.
“There.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do we get naked now, and dance around the table? Wait for the next full moon and bury it beneath a rowan tree?”
Peta chuckled. “No more paranormals for you, I think.” She sat down, making sure the cups, the milk and the sugar
were all within reach. “No, no chanting or burying. We let it steep.”
“For how long?”
“Until it’s ready.”
“Ah.” He sighed again, but she caught the hint of humor in his eyes. She snuggled a quilted cover over the pot.
“What’s that?” asked Max curiously.
“A tea cozy.”
“Tea what?”
“Tea cozy. It keeps the heat in the pot while the tea steeps. Very important.”
“Uh huh.” He shook his head. “You ever hear the term obsessive-compulsive?”
“Honestly, Max. Once you’ve had tea made like this, you’ll never go back to bags again.”
“Right.” His expression gave him away. One hundred percent skeptic.
She toyed with her spoon. “So who do you think did it? Any theories?”
“It’s bugging you, isn’t it?”
“And it’s not bugging you?”
He ran his hands through his hair and stared absently at the teapot, cozy and all. “Well, yeah, I must admit I’d like to know who’s behind it. Such a savage murder. It screams out passion and hatred, and maybe insanity, I don’t know.”
She looked at him. Her heart quivered as she noted his rumpled hair, and the thoughtful look in his eyes. His shoulders were so strong, and yet his hands could be so gentle. And his mouth...well, she blushed just thinking about what his mouth could do to her body.
“Perhaps it was someone she met at the bar? A stranger? A date she picked up...or just some guy she took off with and let him get a bit too rough?”
“What?” Peta summoned her mind back from delightful sensual areas of exploration and tried to focus.
“Sandra’s killer. If there was any kind of motive I’d be a lot happier.”
“So would the police most probably.”
“Money is a good motive, you know. And we’ve found out that Cary Stiles might well be in debt to some rather unforgiving gentlemen with multisyllabic continental names...”
Nodding in agreement, she stood. “Bickies with our tea, I think,” she said. “Go on, Max, I’m listening. Dr. Watson to your Holmes.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Elementary, dear Watson,” she quipped.
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