I got into my car, pulled out Amy Larkin’s business card, and punched her cell number into my keypad.
I paused without hitting the CALL button. Elmore stood in the window of his store, watching me. If I dived into the search for Krista Larkin, where would it lead? If Charlie Ziegler was guilty of some terrible crime, just what would my culpability be? Maybe Ziegler pushed her off a cliff, but I’m the guy who drove her up the mountain.
Damn, a mirror can be a lethal weapon, and self-knowledge a poisoned pill. I had been a self-centered and egotistical jock with all the trappings of stunted male adolescence. Back then, I had yet to develop the empathy for others that marks the passage into manhood.
The defense lawyer inside of me said I wasn’t the proximate cause of Krista’s descent. But why the hell hadn’t I sized up the situation, grabbed Ziegler by the lapels of his suede jacket, and tossed him halfway across the street? I could have taken Krista to Social Services or a girlfriend’s place or put her on a plane back home. Instead, I gift-wrapped her and delivered her to Charlie Ziegler.
There’s a difference between criminal guilt and moral culpability. Sure, I was off the hook in any court of law for whatever happened to Krista Larkin. But while I could not be criminally prosecuted, I could suffer self-imposed shame.
I should have helped her.
But we don’t get do-overs.
Or do we?
I hit the CALL button. “You were wrong,” I told Amy, when she answered.
“About what?”
“You said I wouldn’t call.”
“What do you want, Lassiter?” Her no-nonsense, no-bullshit tone.
“I have a lead on a guy Krista was involved with.”
“
“I told you about that night. Nothing happened.” Trying hard to sound truthful.
“And I told you I didn’t believe you.”
“I’m hoping, in time, you’ll start to trust me.”
“In
“Just hear me out.”
“Give me the name you supposedly came up with.”
“I can do more than that. I can help you find out what happened to Krista.”
“Jake Lassiter,
“I made a mistake. I want to make it right.”
“Get over it. This isn’t about you and your redemption.”
“You’re playing an away game, Amy. This is my town.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I have street savvy. Experience. Contacts.”
The concept seemed ludicrous to her.
“The State Attorney is a friend of mine.”
“So what?”
“I can get you official help.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Let’s have dinner and talk about it,” I suggested.
“I’m not hungry.”
“One drink, then.”
“Not thirsty, either.”
“C’mon. Let me lay out a plan. If you don’t like it, I’ll back off. Deal?”
“Give me the name of the man Krista was mixed up with, and I’ll think about it.”
“Nope.”
“You’re a real bastard, Lassiter.”
“Yeah, but I’m your bastard. You might not like me, Amy Larkin. Hell, you might even hate me. But the truth is, you need me.”
She let out a long, whistling sigh and said, “Where do we meet?”
8 The Taste of Wet Steel
Amy Larkin had been sitting on the motel room bed, cleaning a pistol when Lassiter called. Now she hung up the phone and pushed the brush through the barrel of the gun, scrubbing out wet streaks of lead.
Her father’s gun. A Sig Sauer.380 that fit her hand comfortably. She’d never known he owned a weapon until he ended his life just six weeks earlier. One shot to the temple, with this very gun.
It was the beginning of this whirlwind. When she found the photo with her father’s angry scribble on the back.
How Amy hated the self-righteous bastard. He had been so much happier believing sin-not the dysfunctional Larkin family-destroyed Krista. God, how Amy missed her sister. There had been an emptiness inside her from the day Krista left.
Oh, the damage our parents can inflict. When she was still a teenager, Amy’s father had berated her.
No, she wouldn’t do that. There was a better way to put distance between herself and her screwed-up family. As a child, she kept her parents hidden from her friends. Mom praying in tongues, Dad withdrawn into his silent world. Amy threw herself into schoolwork. She studied hard, paid her own way through Ohio State, and became a solid citizen with a 9-to-5 job and a 401k.
Whatever neuroses had been implanted at home, she’d buried inside. The anxiety, the sense of dread, all sealed tight beneath her polished exterior.
Why, then, was she unable to shake her mother’s teachings? Why, when all logic told her that her mother’s faith stemmed from ancient superstitions-not the word of God-did she still pray for the divine healing promised by the Holy Ghost? The contradictions chiseled away at her.
She jammed the brush through the barrel of the Sig Sauer, her thoughts turning to Lassiter. In just a few hours, he claimed to have found a lead.
Was he telling the truth? Or was he just coming up with a sideshow, some distraction to protect himself or someone else? An old teammate, maybe.
At first, she had thought Lassiter was just another man-beast, like so many she had known. Hiding their fangs behind toothy grins, oiling their way into women’s beds.
She had no proof that he had harmed Krista. But her instincts told her he had lied about that night at the strip club. He knew more about Krista than he was telling. Could he have killed her?
She squeezed her eyes shut, imagined herself pistol-whipping Lassiter, demanding the truth, threatening to blow his brains out. Would he talk? Revenge fantasies, her shrink had told her, were unhealthy. Yeah, well so is losing your sister.
Amy placed a white patch on the end of the push rod, dipped it in solvent, and cleaned the barrel of powder residue. She imagined it was the very residue of the bullet that entered her father’s brain. Next, she dripped oil on a
