Death Notice

by Lolli Powell

  He stopped himself and stepped back. Pulling the zipper the rest of the way down, he slowly removed the jumpsuit from her shoulders, letting it drop to her waist. Under it, she wore a beige teddy. He lowered his mouth and nipped one erect nipple through the lacy fabric, then pulled it into his mouth, sucking and stroking it with his tongue.

  The lace barrier maddened her, and she pulled his lips from her with some effort and nearly tore the teddy as she bared her breasts. He groaned and returned his lips to her nipple, one hand stroking the other breast, the other hand kneading her bottom. Her fingers twisted in his hair, she clung to him, gasping and moaning at the pleasure he brought her.

  He moved from one nipple to the other, taking his time, then slid one hand between her legs, pressing against her through the jumpsuit. The last vestige of reason and control left her, and she rode his hand, shamelessly undulating against it, conscious only of her need. It seemed only seconds had passed when the tingling pulsation started in her center and spread through her, growing in intensity till it peaked, and she nearly screamed in her release.

  She knew her legs would not support her, and she held on to his strong shoulders like a drowning woman to a life raft. He slipped her jumpsuit and teddy over her hips. They fell to the floor, and she kicked them to the side. The edge of the Formica countertop was cool against her bottom, and she shivered, goose bumps breaking out on her skin.

  His mouth claimed hers again, his tongue probing and stroking, while his hands lovingly caressed her bare skin, one hand finally returning to her center, a finger slipping into her moistness, driving her mad. She fumbled with his zipper. It stretched so tightly over his bulging hardness that at first she was unable to force the pull down. She persisted and slid his jeans down, then his underwear, freeing him. She felt his own dampness as she took him in her hand, pleased to find he was a Goldilocks man—not too small, not too big, but just right.

  He groaned, stepped out of his loafers, and kicked his jeans and underwear away as they dropped to the floor. She started to pull him back to her, but he held up a hand.

  “Wait.”

  It came out breathless, as if it was an effort to do what he was telling her to do. He picked his jeans up, pulled a foil packet from the rear pocket, and dropped the jeans back on the floor. It took him only seconds to sheath himself. Clasping her waist with both hands, he lifted her easily onto the edge of the counter, his lips never leaving hers. Still holding him she wrapped her legs around his waist, and pulled him to her, guiding him into her center.

  He slid into her, filling her, and she was sure she had never in her life felt such pleasure. As he began to move within her, she pulled her mouth from his and looked into his blue eyes, seeing her own pleasure mirrored in his. He stroked her hair away from her face as he continued to move slowly and deeply within her.

  “I wanted this since I laid eyes on you,” he whispered, and she nodded, unable to speak.

  He began to move faster inside her, his own need undermining his control. Her body responded violently, and she clung to him, gasping and moaning, as wave after wave of pleasure and release swept over her. He thrust hard once, then again, his whole body stiffening, his fingers digging into her arms, and moaned her name.

  She threw her arms around him and pulled him close, her chin resting on his broad shoulder. He hugged her tightly, his hands stroking her back and hair, as the stiffness subsided from his body. As he slipped from her, he pulled back and glanced down.

  “This is only a temporary separation,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up in that adorable way he had. “I promise you that.”

  “I certainly hope so.” She kissed the corners of his mouth the way she’d wanted to for days now. “I do have one question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What do you think Martha Stewart would say about what we just did on my kitchen counter?”

  He burst out laughing, leaning his forehead against hers while he chuckled. When he looked up again, his blue eyes were warm.

  “I didn’t expect to find you, Jen,” he said. “Now that I have, I might not let you go.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.” He shook his head, a look of wonder on his face. “I swear, when I looked up and saw you the other day, I could have sworn the earth moved.”

  “Oh, come on, Anderson.” She poked a finger in his abdomen. “Next you’re going to tell me you saw stars and heard angels sing.”

  “I thought you ladies liked that mushy stuff,” he said, feigning hurt. “Does this mean I don’t have to buy you flowers and candy either?”

  “Don’t get carried away,” she murmured, nibbling his lower lip.

  “Now that’s nice,” he whispered. He took her hand and guided it to his manhood. She felt it beginning to stir in her fingers. “I think the earth is starting to move again.”

  “You’re terrible!” She slapped at him playfully and slid off the counter. “I need food before we move worlds again.”

  “I’ve got an idea.” He scooped up the bucket of chicken and the bag of Chinese. “Let’s have dinner in bed.”

  “Why not?” she said. “Considering what we just did in the kitchen, I think it’s only right.”

  They stretched across Jen’s queen size bed, the food containers between them on the mattress.

  “I’m starved!” Jen bit off a piece of the drumstick she’d pulled from the bucket. A morsel of chicken fell onto her left breast.

  “So am I.” Will leaned over and licked the chicken off her, then ran his tongue around her nipple, leaving it shiny with chicken grease.

  “You want some fried rice?” Jen dipped a plastic spoon into the container.

  “I’d love some.”

  “Good.” She rolled onto her back, dropping a spoonful into the hollow between her breasts. “Come and get it.”

  He did. Then she dropped some in the hollow at the base of his throat and ate from there, moving down to suck on his nipples when she was done. When it was his turn, he laid a trail of chicken pieces from her breasts to her pubic hair, licking and sucking as he ate, then continued on downward. She felt herself becoming wet with his saliva and the chicken grease and her own fluids.

  They never made it to the next course until much later.

  ***

  The man who used to be Arthur Kelty sat in his car in the parking lot for a long time, staring up at the window. He could guess what they were doing, and disgust mingled with his hatred for the FBI agent. It would be a pleasure killing him, but it would add to the pleasure to make him suffer first. The best way to make a person suffer, as Artie well knew, was to kill someone that person loved. That would be a pleasure, too.

  But he would do it right. Dillon had signed her death warrant by rutting with the agent, and he would use her to snare the man himself. Then he would force his nemesis to watch while he prepared her for the kill and took his time slaughtering her.

  Father had always said that he enjoyed having him along to watch the kills, that an appreciative audience increased the thrill. He smiled. He doubted that Will Anderson would be very appreciative, but that might make the kick that much greater.

  CHAPTER 36

  Only a hint of daylight showed through the window when Jen woke Saturday morning. Will was still sleeping soundly beside her, snoring lightly. He looked so innocent. She always marveled at the little boy look that men took when they were asleep. But last night, when he was awake, he sure hadn’t looked or acted like a little boy!

  Slipping out of bed, she dressed in jogging shorts, a T-shirt, and her socks and running shoes. She didn’t want to wake Will just yet, so she moved quietly. She wanted to be alone for a little while to clear her head and think, and running was the one sure way she knew to do it.

  Before leaving, she scribbled a message on the chalkboard that hung on the kitchen wall. The morning was cool but not unpleasantly so, and she slipped into an easy, unhurried pace. For the first half mile or so, she dwelt only on he
r running and the morning, enjoying the feel of exercise after a week without it.

  Well, she silently amended, I have had some exercise. All of it last night. In fact, I think I trained for the sexual Olympics.

  A delicious feeling of contentment washed through her. The consummation of the attraction they’d been feeling for one another had ranged from wildly passionate coupling to sexual playfulness filled with laughter to tender and soulful lovemaking, each aspect of their union as satisfying as the next.

  She cut through a hedgerow into a park near her apartment. A paved jogging trail circled the two-mile perimeter. Jen seldom ran it, doing most of her mileage on the streets, but she was still a little spooked about street jogging after seeing the hit-and-run.

  She would have to call the hospital when she got back to the apartment and check on the condition of the sixteen-year-old girl. She’d been improving the afternoon before, improving while the victim was dying, but she hadn’t been out of the woods yet.

  She passed an older couple walking their Pomeranian and exchanged good-morning greetings with them. Their cheeks were rosy with the morning air. They probably resided at the apartment house for seniors at the south edge of the park and walked here every morning. She wondered if they’d ever had to deal with murder or other senseless violence, hoping they hadn’t and never would.

  She allowed herself to wonder for a moment if she and Will would be walking a dog together in their golden years. He’d be a handsome old man, she was sure—tall and erect, probably with thick, slate gray hair. She smiled at herself. After last night, the thought didn’t seem farfetched, but she’d never admit having it to anyone. It was just a fantasy that the nineteen-year-old girl who lived in her mind would have.

  Her body was fully awake now, her blood flowing fast and her feet beating out a steady rhythm on the blacktop. She had almost completed one lap of the trail and decided to go another before heading home.

  She heard a car horn blare on the street outside the park and remembered Trish running across the intersection, forgetting to look both ways, concerned only with the broken man on the sidewalk. Had she been thinking of him when she unlocked her front door that night? Is that why the killer had been able to overcome her so easily?

  Jen knew she was often oblivious to her own safety. It was being a cop that did it. If a person was successful in law enforcement, that person didn’t run from anything or anybody but stood and fought and sincerely believed nothing could touch him or her. It was a con job, of course, designed to keep the fear at bay, but it was a necessary con job.

  She remembered her own bravado of a few nights before when she had thought it would serve the killer right if he picked on someone like her and met her friend, Mr. Smith and Wesson. Well, Trish had also had a friend named Mr. Smith and Wesson, but it hadn’t done her much good.

  It was fully daylight now, and the park had filled with joggers and walkers. It was going to be a clear, sunny day. As she passed the halfway point of her last lap of the trail, her thoughts swung back to Trish and the other victims and the perpetual question—what was the common denominator?

  She began going over the facts in her mind. Number one: BodyFit. Carla and Vicki had been regular members. Judy had visited once, but Trish had never been there.

  Number two: The Factory. Judy was a regular, Vicki and Trish had gone there occasionally, but they had been unable to confirm that Carla had ever set foot inside the place.

  Number three: the mailman. Carter Holiday seemed like a nice guy, but so did a lot of serial killers—at least according to what she’d read about them. Holiday had been Carla’s regular mailman and had delivered to Vicki on the day she was found. He had been behind Trish and her the night of Trish’s murder. But as far as they knew, he had no connection to Judy Sams.

  She thought for a minute and decided to add Steve Cochran to the list. He had dated Vicki and had reacted oddly to Carla’s picture. If nothing else, he was a member of BodyFit and could therefore be expected to have had some contact with Carla. Maybe Judy, too, on her one visit there. But he’d had no connection to Trish that anyone was aware of, although, since he worked for the city, he could have seen Trish. Occasionally the police were called to homes for whatever reason and found conditions that warranted calling the Health Department, so he could have even been on calls with her.

  Jen suddenly remembered Al’s admonishment the day of Cochran’s interview. He had begged her not to antagonize the men the way she had Cochran. She also remembered Cochran’s hostility and threatening manner. Could he have followed them because of her?

  She shook her head, uneasy with the thought. It didn’t hold up to logic. After all, if he followed them because he was angry with her, then why not come after her?

  She was approaching her starting point again and felt herself tiring. She was getting out of shape. Four miles never used to tire her, and she still had to get home. Of course, she thought, smiling, after last night, I should be thankful I can still walk.

  Her mind returned to the cases. There were other connections so obvious no one bothered mentioning them. The most obvious was the fact that the victims were all female. She’d read of cases where the victims bore a similar physical resemblance to one another, but that didn’t apply here. Another similarity was the fact that all lived alone. No one had made much of this, assuming it was simply a matter of convenience for the killer.

  She slipped through the opening in the hedge and huffed up the sidewalk, her thighs burning. Okay, she thought, what else did they have in common? They were all divorced females, living alone. They were all white, and all were in their twenties.

  She stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk. Divorced! All four victims were divorced. What’s more, they had all been divorced at about the same time. Was that a coincidence? If it was, it was at least a coincidence that included all four victims.

  Jen remembered a time when most newspapers printed divorce announcements, but nowadays that information was available online, so most had stopped wasting ink and paper by printing them. An exception was a local free paper called The Eye. She’d picked it up a couple of times after its initial appearance in town and been disgusted by its sensationalism. It only printed stories that appealed to people who enjoyed mean gossip or did its best to slant them that way. The money was made from the ads, which also slanted toward the more tawdry—strip clubs, a Hustler store, impotence cures of questionable validity. Every Thursday the boxes were filled with the latest edition, and sadly, the boxes were usually empty by the next day.

  One of The Eye’s more popular features was the court news. If you wanted to know if your neighbor had been caught drunk driving, urinating in public, or worse, The Eye would tell you. They would also tell you if your neighbor had been sued for divorce and would remind you of that fact when the divorce was actually granted. The announcements weren’t printed every week but saved until there were enough to bother printing. Judy, Carla, Vicki, and Trish had all been divorced within a two- or three-week period. Had their notices been in the same edition? She began running again, ignoring her fatigue, anxious to get back to the apartment and try the idea out on Will.

  He was still asleep, his snoring louder than when she had left. He snores, she thought, first mark in the minus column for him. Letting her eyes roam over his parts that weren’t covered by the blankets, she decided she might be able to put up with a little noise.

  She took her robe and slippers and tiptoed out of the room. She showered and shampooed in the hall bath, covered her body with perfumed lotion, dried her hair, then fluffed out the curls with a pick. No makeup, but not too scary, she thought, looking in the mirror. I guess he’ll be able to stand the shock of waking up to me.

  He was more than able to stand it as he proved when she kissed him awake. He groaned, opened his eyes, and reached for her, pulling her onto the bed, his hardness pushing at her through her robe. She kissed him back and decided she didn’t have to tell him her idea for a few
more minutes.

  “I think you’re trying to kill me,” she said afterwards, as she snuggled into the crook of his arm.

  “Can’t take the pressure, huh?” He kissed the top of her head.

  “Oh, now wait just a minute! I’ll have you know I jogged five miles this morning while you were still snoring!”

  “You jogged five miles? After last night?” He groaned. “And I thought women were supposed to be the weaker sex.”

  “Will, I think I might have come up with the common denominator.”

  She rose up on her elbow and looked at him. Discussing murder within minutes after making love might be a mood killer, but she couldn’t wait any longer to try her idea out on him. She told him her theory. By the time she was done, Will was sitting on the edge of the bed, reaching for his robe.

  “I think it’s the best idea we’ve got,” he said. “Let me get cleaned up, and we’ll go check it out.”

  Jen scrambled eggs and fixed toast and coffee while Will showered. They ate quickly, and Will called Lonnie while Jen dressed and put on makeup.

  “He’s interested,” Will said when she came back into the living room. “He’s calling Al. They’ll meet us at the building.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Lonnie was in his office when they arrived. He told them Al was stopping at the paper to get back issues containing the divorce notices of the four victims.

  “It may mean nothing, Lonnie,” Jen protested, taken aback by his enthusiasm.

  “Maybe not. But at least it’s the first decent sounding idea we’ve had.”

  He leaned back in his chair, half-smiling. It was Saturday morning, the two of them were together, and Will had called Lonnie to pass on her idea. Lonnie didn’t have to be a detective to figure out the scenario.

  “You two are sure gung-ho,” he said, smirking. “Starting work so early on a weekend.”

  “With a partner like Jen, a man can get very motivated.” The corners of Will’s mouth curled up as he looked at her tenderly.