by K. T. Tomb
“Why, what happened?” Mike asked.
“Mike… Sheila’s… Sheila’s dead. Somebody… somebody shot her…” Rick broke down.
“Erin… Erin too…” Mike said, finally losing his self-control. The two men sat in waiting chairs, each left the other to his grief, as their silent tears streamed down their faces.
Chapter Fifteen
The dessert was exquisite, but it was the strawberries that hit the home run.
They were expertly dipped, the chocolate coating stuck to the fruit perfectly, and did not break off in chunks when I bit into it. The plate came with six strawberries, and I planned on eating all three of mine. Slowly, and savoring every bite.
Sara did the same thing, making gestures that even a blind man couldn’t miss as she teased me with the strawberries. She ran her tongue over the tip of the fruit and pursed her lips around each one, lightly sucking it in as she bit down. The gesture was charged with sexuality and I found myself wanting her more and more each excruciating minute. She knew it, and I knew she knew it. She won the tease-you-with-dessert round, that was for sure. The look on her face was one I knew well: underneath her dress, she was sopping. I could not wait to get her back to… well… anywhere private.
Finally, we finished eating and I called for the check. As the waiter came over to take the bill, I put my black AmEx in the spot for the credit card at the top of the leather-bound book and asked him,
“Please, could you have the hostess call us a cab? It’s not a far ride. Just back up the road here to the hotel.”
“Oui, monsieur,” the waiter responded. He knew that there was no need to ask if he should call a second cab for the lady. Everyone who cared to look in this restaurant knew that she was going wherever I was. The surprising thing was that I would go wherever she wanted if she asked. That didn’t happen to me. All of a sudden I felt as if I was back in high school, without the complete lack of confidence. I knew what I was doing, and this was a woman who deserved to have her mind blown. That’s what I would do. We stood up, and walked toward the front of the restaurant, and the whole way I made innocent moves to let her know where I was—I did things like brushing my arm against hers, or I would let my hand swing, and graze the small of her back.
A short while later we got into the cab. I did not give her the option of sitting against the far door, and I pulled her close. I told her she looked cold, so I draped my suit-coat over her, and immediately began teasing her with my fingers. I ran them up and down the inside of her thigh, lightly grabbing, sometimes applying pressure, but never once did I succumb to touching what I knew she wanted to be touched. It seemed like a thirty-second ride, and we were back to the hotel. It only took a couple of minutes to get there, and despite the fact that she was leaking onto the back seat of the cab because she was so wet, she had the discretion not to jump me right in the back seat. He dropped us off at the hotel, and on our way in, she grabbed my hand, did not say a word, and put my fingers in her mouth. I almost lost it. I fumbled with the electronic key for a moment, and then in minutes we were at the entrance to my room. I opened the door, and watched excitedly as she, with excruciating slowness eased past me into the dimly lit room, and with collected excitement, placed her bag on a chair and with a quarter turn, looked back at me and said, “Well, aren’t you going to join me in here? I need your help with the zipper on this dress.”
So I joined her, and the sight that was before me when I unzipped that dress and tore it away from her body was a sight I will never, for as long as I live, forget.
There were moments in life that were so outside of our daily routine; that were so beyond what we expect from life that we store them away. For me, these moments were particularly important. I did not get to pick and choose my clients. Some of them were not the body type I would choose in a partner. However, that was not what I do. I was hired to do a very specific job, regardless of my personal preferences or prejudices. Those moments in life that were like being hit by a ninety mile an hour fastball left an impression. They startled you, and they were momentary pain and pleasure rolled into one and those once-in-a-lifetime experiences were what helped me through the not-so-pleasant clients. This was one of the moments. Every line of her body was tense with sexual energy. She may have—with other people, or by herself—enjoyed being dominated. This time, I had clearly pushed her beyond—well beyond—that. And I knew I was in trouble.
I was in trouble from the very start, from the dress that fell away from what can only be described as the perfect feminine form, her breasts high against her chest, enough slope to reveal the collarbone and graceful neck of a dancer. Her abs were clear, easy to make out, but they weren’t chiseled. In fact, they added to the sense of soft, graceful power she was exuding.
She walked over to the bed, and stripped my tie off my neck, and I knew I was in deep shit. For me… a guy who goes six-foot-three, two thirty and all of it in my shoulders, arms and legs, there is nothing sexier than a woman taking advantage of me. She secured my hands above my head, to the headboard, and slowly climbed on top of me, teasing me with her hands, her fingers, her mouth. Her lips were soft as they kissed their way up and down my body. Her nails traced their way up and through my own abs, leaving them feeling like someone had traced them with a sharp, hot knife. My skin was on fire.
I knew that as deep as this pile of shit was, I would find my way all the way to the bottom. I didn’t care at that point. At that moment, every sensible thought was eradicated from my head.
Chapter Sixteen
“Sir—Mike—could you please come with me?” the young female officer said to the man sitting on the left.
“What about Rick? Where’s he going?” Mike asked.
“The detectives working your cases will interview you each separately, sir,” she replied.
Mike could tell that she had been trying to be compassionate, but he was not buying it. She clearly saw plenty of these cases, and it had hardened her to the situation. He found it hard and, at the same time, easy to believe. He understood that they lived in an area where crime was common. He also knew that in his—and Rick’s for that matter—neighborhoods, crime was at an all-time low. That’s why he was having such a hard time understanding this officer’s complete lack of compassion.
Everybody complains about the police effort around here. I s’ppose I should just be grateful that they care enough to have even connected these killings. At least Rick and I might get some… if not peace, then at least some closure. It won’t be justice, though. Not unless I put the fucker who did this in the ground. And I plan on finding him, and burying him.
“Yeah, fine,” Mike said to her. He got up, put a hand on Rick’s shoulder.
“It’ll be okay, Rick,” he said. “We’ll get outta here, and we’ll figure out what to do from there.”
“Yeah bud, I’ll see you soon,” Rick answered. “Hey, where’s Duke right now?”
“Doggy Style.. He’ll be alright for a bit,” Mike answered, touched that at a time like that his friend could think to ask after his dog.
“Well, maybe once we’re done here we can figure out a place to stay? I don’t like the idea of going back to… to… the house and sleeping… where it… you know?”
“Yeah,” Mike answered. “I know. I don’t like the thought either.”
The room had a cold feeling to it. Not just the temperature, but the gray steel desk and chairs are the only things in it. The linoleum tile was old, even if well cared for. There were stains that even the highest-powered cleaning machines could not remove. The mirror or rather the one-way window, reflected the harsh fluorescent light, adding to the oppressive, cold feeling. Mike shivered and wrapped his arms around himself.
“So, Mr. Mancini?” the detective asked. “Would you care to have a seat?”
“Yeah, sure.” But Mike made no move to sit.
“I’m Detective Strong,” the man in the dark coat and white shirt said. “I know things must be extremely difficult for y
ou right now and I don’t want to make it all any harder, okay?”
“Okay,” Mike responded in a voice that clearly stated that he was already cooperating and wouldn’t be a pain if the detective decided to take off his kid gloves. Mike considered himself a man. He expected to be treated as one and he would not respect a person who treated him otherwise. How could he?
“Now,” Detective Strong started off, “can you tell me about your whereabouts for the last couple of days?”
“Yeah, sure… I was down south—way south—duck hunting on the coast. There are a couple counties that have late seasons on ducks so we go out every year at the end. It’s our last big trip of the year,” Mike answered.
“Okay. And when you say ‘our,’ who are you referring to?” Strong asked.
“Well, there’s a core group of us that go every year. Zack Leib, Jason Corthals, Jack Creghis and Rick Uplandsson.”
“Did all of those people go on the trip this weekend?”
“Yeah—everyone was there,” Mike replied. “No one misses man-land. That’s what we call it. Just us, the dogs, the birds. No wives, girlfriends… mistresses.” He chuckled. “Not that any of us have one of those anyway. We ain’t the lookers we used to be. What’s this got to do with my wife’s death? None of those guys would do something like this—not a chance. They’ve been my best friends for about as long as I can remember.”
“That’s fine. I just need to know so that we can verify what you tell us.”
“You gotta be shitting me,” Mike almost whispered. “There’s not a chance I would ever do something like this to Erin. I love her. We were gonna start trying for… for a family.”
Mike’s rage was growing. It was clear to the detective as well.
“Sir. Mr. Mancini. I completely understand that these questions can be…upsetting…but please, the sooner I ask them, the sooner you can be on your way, alright?”
“Alright, yeah, fine,” Mike said. He would put up with this bullshit for as long as he could—as long as it took. He decided to try and calm down. Maybe they have a lead already. Maybe I can get him to tell me who they’re lookin’ at, he thought to himself.
“Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt Erin? Anyone who might want to hurt you?”
“Not a chance,” Mike fired back. “She is—was, I guess—an R.N. Everybody loved her. She was… incredible… with her patients. How… how should I refer to her? I mean… what… what do other people… ya know? She… she’s still here with me? Like… I feel like when I leave… I’ll leave and go home to her?”
“Whatever you’re comfortable referring to her as. Anyone from sometime in her past, maybe? An old school rival? An old girlfriend of yours? Anything like that?”
“No,” Mike replied, thinking that the detective did not even make an effort to answer his question. “I made a point of staying away from women like that my whole life. Erin’s a saint, and no one had any reason to hurt her at all.”
“I don’t have many more questions, so let’s just get through them, alright?” Detective Strong replied.
Mike wondered if Rick was going through the same type of bullshit in a similar bullshit room. The detective finished asking his questions, and Mike exited the interrogation room. Rick was done a short while later, and they met up in the entrance hall. They chatted for a while, trying to figure out what to do. Both men were carrying an impossibly heavy burden of grief; the shared experience of losing their wives allowed them to find in one another the strength that, alone, neither men could muster. Perhaps this is what friendship really is: finding the strength to shoulder our burdens through the strength of those closest to us, Mike thought to himself.
“I’m going to run home and grab some things,” Mike said. “Then I was thinking that the best thing to do was to head over to my parents’ condo. It’s not far from the house and not far from here either. I think I’m going to stay there for a while, at the very least until they’re done with their crime scene stuff and the place has been cleaned. The condo’s big enough for the two of us; two stories, two bedrooms, two full baths. If you want, you can crash there with me for a while. Might be nice to have some company.”
He was rambling. Mike always rambled when he was in a difficult situation.
“I think I’m gonna take you up on that,” Rick replied. “I’ll see ya soon. Text me the address?”
“Will do.”
***
We laid on the bed, side by side, looking up at the ceiling, panting.
A slight sheen of sweat covered our skin. Her thick, soft hair splayed across my chest and it was slightly damp, droplets of sweat clinging to the back of her neck. I blew lightly across it, watching her hairs stand on end; watching her almost shiver. The muscles in her neck flexed slightly in response, and it delighted me.
I couldn’t remember the last time I felt that alive after sleeping with a woman.
I could hear Sara’s breathing next to me. It was the shallow panting, almost a mewling, of a woman who wasn’t yet satisfied. She sat up, the sheets falling away from her breasts, leaving her top half completely uncovered to the world. I reached a lazy hand up and around her shoulders, cupping the back of her head, wrapping strands of her thick, silken hair around my fingers and slowly used them to raise my lips to hers, where I held myself back from her, breathing in her breath as she breathed in mine, teasing her with the idea, the potential of our lips meeting. I slowly ran my tongue up and down her neck, tasting the sweat from our previous love-making. I raise my other hand and began teasing her, lightly caressing her exposed breast, fingertips grazing, pinching, scratching at her nipple, until it was erect and hard. I lowered my face to her breast and swirled my tongue around her nipple, feeling every bump, every wrinkle of her skin. She responded almost immediately, and got all the way out of bed, pulling me with her and into the shower. I followed closely behind her, and I could feel on my leg where she had been straddling me a damp spot. It was startling to me to find that I was as excited as I was, as ready to go again. The water was cold at first, giving us both goosebumps. Then it started to run hot, and we lost ourselves in the steam and each other.
Chapter Seventeen
“Holy shit, Strong,” Detective Hoya said to his partner.
“No kidding,” Strong replied.
His partner snorted, unamused.
“This is a bad one,” he answered slowly. “There’s gotta be a connection, but damn if I can see it.”
“Hoya, the connection is right in front of you. The two men are friends, the women are friends. According to both husbands, they were more like sisters. Completely inseparable. That’s our connection: the women, the husbands. It’s a tightly knit group we’re dealing with, clearly. If there is a connection, it’s between those two women. There’s something we’re missing, but the connection isn’t it. The only thing I can think of is that a couple burglaries went bad, but that just doesn’t fit. And I quite honestly feel like an idiot for even mentioning that, because we both know that that is not what happened.”
“No, it doesn’t fit, man,” Hoya replied, “And I was going to give you shit about even mentioning that, but since you gave yourself shit, I suppose I’ll let it slide. There’re way too many similarities—the nighties, the poses, the way both women weren’t awake when they were shot—”
“Wait, how do you know that?” Strong asked.
“Because,” Hoya smiled grimly, “I can read a tox screen.”
“I hate those damn things and you know it. Just tell me what you figured out and quit givin’ me shit.”
“Fine,” his partner said somewhat smugly. “Both women had elevated BACs. Both women were drinking, and neither of their cars was at the residence at the time they were discovered, so we know that they didn’t drive home. The other thing is this—and this is just a hunch based on one other thing—neither woman had a raised amount of adrenaline in their blood.”
“What does that mean? And did we put a BOLO out on those cars
? Maybe that’ll give us a place to start rebuilding their timelines from the past night or two.”
“Yes, the alerts are out. We should have a location soon. And adrenaline—even trace amounts—would indicate that they were awake when they were shot. If you hear a bunch of strange noises at night, enough to wake you up, do you come out of sleep groggy, or d’you jump out bed, heart racing?”
“More often than not, the second one. There’re people out there who want people like me—like us—dead, simply because of what we do,” Strong said slowly. “Not to mention people that we put away. I know I’ve got a list out there that I keep an eye on, make sure I know where they’re at. There’s no chance that I’m going to sleep not knowing.”
“Right,” Hoya continued. “I’ve got that list too,” he said to comfort his partner. He was starting to get wound up as they teased out their theory on what could have happened. “So, if you’re a housewife, home alone, and not expecting your husband back till the next day, you ain’t slowly comin’ out of a drunken sleep. You’re sitting bolt upright, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. So, adrenaline would indicate that something happened, startled them out of sleep. Adrenaline is the chemical that gives us our fight-or-flight instinct you know?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Not to mention,” Strong added, “not a single defensive wound or sign of a struggle. Where are we on the crime scene evidence processing?”
“I’m not sure. What are you thinking?” Hoya asked.
“What I want to know, and I want to know it now, is if there was any sign of forced entry? Anything at all? Did we check all the doors and windows? Think about it: whoever posed these women… they were like that for a reason, right? So what if the killer knew something that the two of them had in common, that no one else knew about?”
“Good thought. What if whatever that secret is… what if that’s what backfired? Let’s take a look at that evidence.” Hoya got out of his chair and shouted for one of the paperwork clerks. “Listen,” he started as he scanned the young woman’s name tag, “Verona, please go down to evidence. We want the crime scene reports for the Mancini and Uplandsson cases. Right now,” he added as she gave him a puzzled look.
