Deeper Than the Dead

by Tami Hoag

  “This too shall pass,” Vince said. “These cases will be solved and closed. There are still more good guys than bad guys.”

  She smiled to herself, not a happy smile, as she turned the stem of her glass back and forth between her fingers. The wine swirled gracefully against the sides of the glass, glowing like liquefied rubies in the amber light.

  “I said that to Tommy today: This too shall pass.”

  Vince shifted a little closer to her. Close enough that he could rest his hand on her shoulder in a reassuring touch. “You’ll get him back, Anne. He doesn’t have a lot of stability in his family life with that piece of work for a mother. He needs you.”

  She nodded, but didn’t look convinced. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore or the emotions would come back, and she had no doubt had it with feeling upset and vulnerable. She was a person who kept her emotions as neat and tidy as she kept her house, he suspected. And she probably did that because she hadn’t had total stability in her own life as a child. That explained her emotional tie to Tommy Crane. She looked at the little boy through the eyes of the little girl she had been.

  The idea of her as a lonely little girl made him want to scoop her up in his arms and hold her close, make her feel safe.

  She looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “So tell me about you. All I know is you work for the FBI, and you’re on the fresh side.”

  He smiled. “Me? I’m an old cop from Chicago. I come from a big, loud Italian family. I have an ex-wife and two daughters—Amy and Emily.”

  “How old?”

  “Fifteen and seventeen.” He leaned a little closer, like he was going to tell her a secret. “And I’m forty-eight, and it doesn’t matter.”

  Even in the soft porch light, he could see her blush and smile nervously. “And I’m twenty-eight, and I met you yesterday.”

  “Yes. And tomorrow, either one of us could be hit by a bus. Life is unpredictable, honey. We should live every day like it might be our last.”

  As if he needed a reminder of the truth of that statement, a small explosion took place in his brain, like an electrical circuit shorting out spectacularly. His breath caught in his throat and he had to bend over and put his head in his hands.

  Anne was beside him instantly, her hand on his back. “Are you all right? Vince? What is it?”

  “Headache,” he said tightly. “Wow.”

  “Is there something I can do? An ice pack? Aspirin?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He breathed slowly and shallowly through his mouth, willing off the nausea that was sure to come, and the next wave of pain that was sure to come after that. Damn bullet. Damn bad timing.

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “Just give me a minute,” he said, rubbing his fingers back through his hair, massaging his scalp in an attempt to relieve some of the tension.

  “Is it a migraine?” Anne asked anxiously. “You shouldn’t be drinking red wine.”

  “It’s a bullet,” he said, relaxing as the pain ebbed away. A wave of weakness washed over him in its wake. He leaned back against the cushions and turned his head to look at her.

  She looked confused. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s a bullet,” he repeated. “Last winter I became a crime statistic. A junkie trying to rob me, shot me in the head.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Most of the bullet is still in there. Lucky for me I never used that part of my brain anyway.”

  “You have a bullet in your head,” she said, as if hearing it from her own lips would somehow help her make sense of it. “How can that be? Shouldn’t you be dead?”

  “Yep. I should be,” he said. “But I’m not. Instead, I’m just a guy with a headache, and I get to go on living.”

  “They can’t take it out?”

  “Not without turning me into a drooling vegetable.”

  “But what will happen with it in there?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. There aren’t a lot of cases to study, as you might imagine. So far the worst side effect is the pain. It comes and goes. It’s nothing I can’t handle. The point is I should have died that night.

  “I have a very different perspective on life now. Now, I look around me, I see what I want, I’m going to make it happen. There is no someday. We have here, now.

  “I spent a lot of years buried in my career—not that I don’t love it—but I put off a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have, assuming there would be time for it later. I regret that,” he admitted. “I lost my marriage. I know my daughters like I’m a distant uncle, not their father.

  “I won’t live like that anymore. You shouldn’t either,” he said. “You’ve got twenty years on me. You can skip a lot of mistakes.”

  She sat facing him, one leg curled up on the sofa, the other foot on the floor. She had put on a thick sweater to ward off the chill of the evening. She wrapped it around herself now as she met his gaze, her dark eyes full of sadness.

  “My mother was forty-six when she died,” she said quietly. “I never thought she would be gone so soon. I always assumed my father would go before her, and I would have her all to myself for a long, long time . . . I always believed she would be there for my wedding, for my children, for me . . . And then she was gone. Just like that.”

  “Life is what happens while we’re making other plans,” Vince said.

  Even from a distance, he could feel the ache in her heart. He reached out for her and whispered, “Come here.”

  She came to him deliberately. Coming to him, not running from her feelings. Vince took her in his arms and lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her to offer comfort, to distract her from sad memories, to fill a lonely corner of her heart.

  He kissed her slowly, deeply, savoring the taste of wine on her tongue, drinking in the feeling of her body against his. She melted into him, surrendered willingly, accepted what he had to give her, and gave back in return.

  Gradually comfort gave way to desire, distraction to sharp focus and keen awareness.

  Vince stroked her hair back from her face, his big hand taking in the delicate lines of her cheek, her jaw, her throat. Her breath shuddered softly as his lips followed the same path.

  Her sweater fell open and his fingers found the buttons of her blouse, loosing them one by one. She gasped as his hand cupped her breast and his thumb brushed across the nipple, and gasped again as he closed his lips around the tight bud of flesh.

  Anne lifted her hips to let him draw down her jeans and moaned his name as he gently opened her legs, settled his mouth against her, and kissed deeply the most feminine part of her. Her hands tangled in his hair, holding him to her, then tugging him back up to share the taste of her on his lips.

  Vince shed his jacket, his gun, his clothes, never separating from her for more than a few seconds. He wanted nothing between them but flesh and desire. And when he came to her, naked, she reached out and closed her hand around him, and he thought he might die on the spot.

  They made love by turns both slowly and urgently; without words, but in full communication in a language of gasps and groans and eyes locked on each other. Their bodies moved together, arched against each other, tangled and tugged and stroked. She was tight and hot and wet around him. He pushed deep, deep inside her, and they went over the edge together, reality giving way to bliss.

  Afterward, they lay tangled together, sweating, panting, communicating entirely with tender looks and soft smiles and sweet kisses. Vince had worried Anne might now recall they hadn’t known each other two days ago, and would retreat into regret, but she didn’t. He certainly didn’t.

  Maybe the bullet made him impulsive. Maybe a year ago he wouldn’t have pressed her so hard, so soon. But he sure as hell didn’t regret it. He hadn’t felt anything so satisfying and right in a long time.

  Her hair was damp against her cheek. He brushed it back and kissed her softly. She brought her hand up and touched his face. Her small foot slowly rubbed up and down the back of
his calf.

  “That was highly improper of you,” she whispered, eyes sparkling. They shared a soft chuckle and a softer kiss.

  “You’re so beautiful, Anne,” he whispered. “So special.”

  He drew breath to say something more, but the sound of his pager bleating broke the spell.

  Swearing under his breath, he reached over the side of the sofa to grab his jacket. Pulling the pager out of the pocket, he hit the display button and swore again.

  “Mendez.” He looked down at Anne and sighed. “I’m sorry, honey. I have to take this.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not,” he growled. “I want to hold you all night long. I want to make love to you again . . . and again.”

  She smiled at him in a way that was knowing and sexy and absolutely female, and he felt himself getting heavy and hot.

  The pager trilled again.

  “Duty calls,” she said.

  “Can I use your phone?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  Reluctantly, he got up off the sofa and pulled on his clothes. Anne sat up and drew her heavy sweater around herself, curling her bare legs beneath her. She tucked her hair behind her ear and gave him that little half smile that quickened his heart a beat. He contemplated throwing his pager into the neighbor’s yard when it went off a third time.

  He went into the kitchen, found the phone, and dialed Mendez back.

  “What?” he said impatiently by way of a greeting.

  “Did I interrupt something?”

  “This had better be good.”

  “It’s good,” Mendez promised. “I just got a Telex from Oxnard PD. Julie Paulson’s last arrest for prostitution happened in a vice sweep. Guess who else got caught in the net?”

  “Who?”

  “Peter Crane.”

  47

  He watched from the oleander bushes to one side of the backyard. From his angle he was able to see right onto the back porch. He was able to see where they sat down. He was able to see everything.

  He watched them kiss. He watched the man take her pants off, watched him go down between her legs to eat her pussy. He watched the man take his clothes off, get on top of her, and fuck her.

  She let him. She let him do all of that. And she liked it. He could hear the sounds she made.

  She was supposed to be perfect. The perfect teacher. The perfect example. The perfect woman. But she was just another whore . . .

  48

  “Someone has some ’splainin’ to do,” Mendez said as Vince got into the car.

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t want to be in Dr. Crane’s shoes.”

  Mendez gave him a look. “I wasn’t talking about the dentist.”

  Leone scowled a bit and made no eye contact. He had the grace to look a little embarrassed at least.

  “Just how did you end up here with no car?” he asked, pulling away from the curb in front of Anne Navarre’s home. “And why did it take three pages before you called me back?”

  “I saw Miss Navarre home from the vigil downtown, and none of your goddamn business,” Vince answered, a big self-satisfied grin splitting his face.

  Mendez groaned. “I don’t want to know.”

  “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, junior.”

  “You just did,” Mendez groused. Damn, the man moved fast. He had homed in on Anne Navarre like a fucking heat-seeking missile. And she had clearly welcomed him. “You’re a dog.”

  “No,” he said, dead serious. His expression held a hint of warning. “No.”

  Mendez raised his eyebrows. “Okay.”

  “Tell me about the dentist.”

  “So the Telex came in, then I called Oxnard PD and talked to one of the detectives there. They were running a series of sweeps for drugs and prostitution. This would have been fall eighty-three. Nothing fancy, just normal street sweeps. Round ’em up and herd ’em into the paddy wagon kind of thing.”

  “Did they put Crane with Julie Paulson?”

  “Interestingly, no. But Crane was among the johns, and Paulson was one of the hookers. He sat in the clink overnight, posted bond in the morning. He showed up for his court date later on, pled no contest, and paid his fine.”

  “The detective remembered him?”

  “In that Crane was the only one who wasn’t whining and crying and trying to get out of it when they busted him.”

  “It wasn’t his first time then.”

  “I’ve requested his record. We’ll see.”

  “How big was this bust?”

  “Twenty-five arrests. There was some kind of festival going on. I guess they get up to some mischief down in Oxnard. Who knew?”

  “How far is that from here?”

  “Thirty-five, forty minutes, depending on traffic on the 101.”

  “It’s not in your jurisdiction.”

  “No. It’s Ventura County.”

  “And that bust was how long before the Paulson murder?”

  “Seven months. Then Paulson showed up at the Thomas Center about six weeks before her death. She washed out of the program pretty quickly, which is why it’s taken us this long to find out she was ever there.”

  “Crane goes to another county to have his fun,” Vince speculated. “It won’t make the papers here if he gets caught. He’s just another john in Oxnard. Then the hooker shows up here. At the Thomas Center, no less.”

  “Blackmail?” Mendez suggested.

  “Maybe. Or maybe Ventura County should be going back through their missing persons reports and unsolved homicides. The second homicide was in another jurisdiction too, right?”

  “Yeah. To the east of here.”

  They pulled up in the Cranes’ driveway. There were no cars parked in the driveway, but lights were on in the downstairs windows. Someone was home.

  “Hicks called a while ago and asked for Dr. Crane,” he said. “Janet Crane said he wasn’t home and she isn’t expecting him until late.”

  “That’s all right,” Vince said, getting out of the car. “That’s fine, actually. I have a thing or two to say to Mrs. Crane.”

  “Should I call you an ambulance now or wait?” Mendez asked.

  “Don’t worry about it, kid. Let me show you how to handle Janet Crane.”

  “Better you than me,” Mendez said as they started up the sidewalk.

  “Walk up right behind me,” Vince instructed. “I don’t want her to see you when she opens the door. After that, just follow my lead.”

  Vince went to the Crane’s front door and rang the bell. Beautiful home. Mr. and Mrs. California lived here. The perfect couple with the perfect home and perfect jobs and a perfect child; perfect tans and perfect white smiles. A pretty facade. The thing Vince had learned over the years was that a lot of not-so-perfect things often lived behind a beautiful exterior.

  Janet Crane peeked out the sidelight, her face switching from annoyed to overjoyed in the blink of an eye. Welcome to the borderline personality disorder, Vince thought.

  “Mr. Leone!” she said, opening the door. She was a little confused, an emotion that didn’t sit well with her. How did he know where she lived? Why would he come by at such a late hour? “What a surprise!”

  Vince smiled the big smile. “Mrs. Crane, sorry to bother you so late, but we have some questions for you.”

  “We?”

  He stepped to the side enough that she could see Mendez behind him. Now she smelled a rat, and the nice smile hardened.

  “Detective.” Her gaze darted back and forth between them. “What’s this about?”

  “Well, I have a small confession to make,” Vince began amiably. “It would probably be better if we came inside and sat down for this. You don’t want your neighbors looking out and seeing a couple of guys on your doorstep at eleven o’clock at night.”

  She hesitated just enough to let him move toward her, then automatically stepped back, and he easily stepped into the foyer. Mendez stepped in behind him.

  She had changed out of he
r red power suit into a pink jogging suit, but the makeup was still in place and the black hair was still starched stiff.

  “I’m a little confused, Mr. Leone. Why would you feel the need to bring a detective with you to my home?”

  Vince played contrite, ducking his head. “That’s where the confession comes in. I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely forthcoming with you earlier today.”

  She was working up to disliking him now. She wouldn’t take kindly to being played.

  “I’m not really just visiting,” he admitted. “I’m here on business.”

  He pulled out his ID and held it up for her to see. She peered at it, her face frozen carefully blank.

  “I’m with the FBI,” he said. “I’m here helping out with the investigation.”

  “What could you possibly want with me?” she asked, crossing her arms tightly against herself.

  “We just have a few questions,” he assured her.

  “About what?”

  “Is your husband home, ma’am?” Mendez asked.

  “Not at the moment. Why?”

  “Do you know where he is by any chance? We have a couple of questions for him as well.”

  “He’s playing cards. Friday is his night to play cards.”

  Lie, Vince decided from her body language and the way she repeated the statement as if to confirm that it sounded good.

  “Who does he play cards with?” Mendez asked, pen poised over his notebook.

  “Friends. Men he plays golf with. I don’t know them.”

  Vince arched a brow. “You don’t know your husband’s friends?”

  “Not all of them,” she said defensively. “I don’t play cards, and I certainly don’t have the time to play golf. Those are Peter’s hobbies and Peter’s friends.”

  “You must have met them, at least,” he said. “Don’t they ever come here to play cards? You don’t stick around to serve them snacks?”

  She was getting her back up now. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “I’m not a barmaid or a waitress. I make a point of not being here when Peter entertains his male friends.”