“What about your coworkers? Do you like them?”
“Most.”
“How about your partner, Patty? I hear she’s quite the looker.”
That caught Stallings by surprise. What the fuck? If the preacher thought that, he must have gotten it from Maria. Stallings steadied himself and said, “She’s a great cop.” He felt the urge to punch this prick rise in him. A shot to his giant noggin would knock him off his perch.
The preacher’s instincts told him it was time to move on to another couple. All Stallings could do was turn and stare at Maria.
Patty Levine reached down and took Ken’s hand as they strolled west along the St. Johns River in front of Jacksonville Landing. It seemed natural the way he interlocked his fingers in hers. Neither said anything as they passed other couples out on a walk. It was still relatively early and the dinner crowd was pouring out of all the restaurants in the big tourist mall.
After a few minutes Ken asked, “What are you thinking about?”
She didn’t know. For the first time she could remember she wasn’t thinking about some horrible crime from work or worried about a personal problem. She blurted out, “How nice this is.”
He stopped, took her arms in his hands, and was about to lean down when Patty noticed a couple approaching from the right. Her eyes darted that way out of instinct and it stopped Ken in his tracks. Then Patty saw who it was and stepped away from Ken as she turned. What were the chances?
Patty threw on a forced smile and said, “What are you guys doing down here?”
NINE
The room was a gray haze of marijuana smoke when Lynn stepped out of the bathroom. She’d considered taking off her top to keep Connor interested in the scam, but then thought she’d rather avoid it altogether and just hoped he’d sunk deeper and deeper into a drug-induced coma. To her surprise, when she stepped through the cluttered living room and into his bedroom, he was sitting upright and puffing on the giant bong she’d noticed earlier. What the hell? Had life in a fraternity made him build up immunity to all drugs and alcohol? By her reckoning he had ingested four sleeping pills, two ecstasy tablets, a couple generic prescription-strength painkillers, six shots of tequila, a few beers, and now this pot. She hated to abandon her plan to make this death look like an accident, but she did have a knife in her purse if she had to use it. She was not leaving this apartment while Connor Tate was still breathing.
She sat down next to him on the edge of the bed. He automatically handed her the bong, which she politely refused. When she saw his eyes, Lynn realized how far gone he really was. His eyes didn’t focus in any way and his pupils looked like giant hollow black caves. They were something out of a nightmare.
Connor slurred, “What’s your name again?”
Instead of answering, she patted him on the shoulder, then guided him down onto the bed and made him comfortable with a pillow fluffed around his giant head. She rubbed his forehead, trying to get him to calm down and let the drugs kick in.
He mumbled, “That’s nice.”
She had learned not to listen to these arrogant frat pricks. If she did, she’d back out of every one of the murders. But in this case he did sound like a lost eight-year-old boy, and she wondered if she’d have the nerve to stick the knife in his throat if the drugs didn’t work. Her purse was at the foot of the bed and she leaned across Connor’s feet to look into it and grabbed the four-inch folding Buck knife one of the loading dock workers at Thomas Supply had given her. She took it in her left hand and sat back up to continue to rub Connor’s head.
Just as she thought he was drifting off, he said, “When you’re done with my head, play with my dick.”
There it was. That’s the kind of conversation she’d expected to have with this immature brat. She smiled and said, “Just relax for a few minutes and we’ll see what happens.” She heard a satisfied moan and could feel him relax under her touch. She looked over at her left hand and the knife that was still closed. It would be messy, suspicious, and dangerous, but she was starting to think she had no choice. She reached across and fumbled with the blade until it opened. Connor turned his head slightly, his eyes opened but unfocused.
He mumbled something three times before Lynn realized he was saying, “What do you got there?”
Her stomach tightened and she took a very deep breath. Her yoga instructor would be very proud of her. The knife was open and seated in her right hand as she looked over at Connor, his head lulled in the opposite direction. His entire neck was exposed and she could see a blue vein running down it like a river marked on a map. She had to wonder if it was a sign. She didn’t much believe in omens, but this seemed awfully obvious.
Her hand tightened on the knife as she built her courage.
Then she heard something that made her pause.
Patty was nearly speechless as she regained her composure and scooted back to Ken. She didn’t want him to feel awkward with people he had never met.
Patty smiled and said, “Ken, this is John Stallings and his-” She wasn’t sure what to say. Then she blurted, “Maria.” She watched as Stallings shook Ken’s hand and looked him in the eye. In that instant, with a feeling of pride blossoming inside, Patty realized how much John’s approval meant to her. He was her authority figure. He was so much more than just a partner. But the look on Maria’s face was harder to read. She looked antsy and uncomfortable, not able to hold Patty’s gaze.
Stallings said, “Where did you two meet?”
Patty sensed something odd about him as well as Maria. He stayed close to Maria, away from Patty. His body language was not the usual confident, busy John Stallings. She wondered if the lull in cases had affected him by throwing off his normal rhythms. Maybe he needed the stress and thrived on the chaos.
Stallings said, “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Where did you two meet?”
Patty said, “In the park by my house. Ken’s a runner too.”
Maria now looked like she was appraising the couple. Still she remained silent.
Patty said, “I’m surprised to run into you two out here.”
“We were at a. .” He paused, then said, “gathering. I suggested we take a walk. I’ve only been over here on business. At least in the last ten years. Wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
“Did you eat at the Landing?”
“No, we thought we’d get some dessert or something. The only place we saw was Sal’s Smoothie Shack up the street.”
Patty just said, “Oh.” She knew Stallings was thinking the same thing about Sal’s. They had worked on a homicide where one of the victims, a bright girl named Lexie, was an employee of Sal’s and met her killer there late one Friday night. There were places that gave her the willies like that all over the city.
Patty sensed it was time to move on and let the Stallingses go about their business. John Stallings gave her an abrupt nod good night, never moving from Maria’s side. She wondered what she had interrupted as she took Ken’s hand and led him on down the river walkway.
Lynn lay on the bed next to the long, silent form of Connor Tate. His snoring had caused her to wait before plunging the knife into his exposed neck. It seemed to have worked out well. She had waited patiently until she hadn’t heard another sound for more than five minutes. She’d been comfortable as she lay with the knife still open in her right hand resting across her stomach. If he had showed any signs of consciousness she had been prepared to drive the knife down with tremendous force. But over the past forty-five minutes, Connor had gone from a light snore to a wheeze, to now nothing at all.
Lynn checked his pulse and thought she’d felt a slight beat so she decided to wait a few more minutes. She looked down at Connor’s exposed, muscular legs, his defined abs under his hiked-up shirt, and the childlike expression on his handsome face. It didn’t make her feel guilty. If anything this was fitting, if not very satisfying.
