by Sandra Brown
“But if that’s his only quirk, I ain’t complainin’,” Gus told them. “Ax me, he’s the ideal guest. Always leaves the cabin in good condition, turns out the lights, puts his garbage in the cans so the bears and coons cain’t get to it. And on the day he checks out, he’s out by noon. Yessir, he follows the rules, all right.”
“That’s an impressive stag, Mr. Elmer,” Begley remarked, pointing to the stuffed head mounted on the rock wall above the fireplace. “Was that your kill?”
It was a tactic Begley was famous for. During an interrogation, he would periodically toss out an unrelated comment. He said it served to keep answers spontaneous. By suddenly switching subjects, he kept the person he was questioning from anticipating what he was going to ask next and mentally formulating an answer. It was a means of getting an unfiltered response to a pertinent question.
“Has Mr. Tierney ever talked to you about women?”
Elmer, who’d been admiring his hunting trophy, whipped his head around and looked at Begley quizzically. “Women?”
“Wives, ex-wives, girlfriends, lovers?” Lowering his voice, he added, “Did he ever make reference to his sex life?”
The old man chuckled. “Not that I recall, and I think I’d recall that. I axed him once if his missus would be joining him, and he told me no, on account of he was divorced.”
“Do you think he’s straight?”
The old man’s mouth dropped open, affording them an unappetizing view into the toothless maw. “You tellin’ me he’s a queer? Him?”
“We have no reason to think he’s homosexual,” Begley replied. “But it seems a little strange that a single, good-looking guy like him never mentioned the fairer sex to you.”
Again, Hoot was impressed. Begley was probing Gus Elmer’s memory without appearing to. He’d counted on Elmer being a homophobe. A man like him wouldn’t want his regular lodger, with whom he’d become friendly, to be anything other than a man’s man, hetero to the marrow. So if Tierney had ever introduced a woman’s name into a conversation, the old man would now be racking his brain to remember it.
While he was concentrating, his grubby little finger plunged into the tuft of hair sprouting from his ear and began mining it for wax. “Now that I think on it, he did say to me the other mornin’ somethin’ ’bout that last girl who’s gone missing.”
“Mind if I pour myself another cup?” Without waiting for an answer, Begley got up and went to the coffeemaker on a table across the room.
“He came here to the office to pick up an issue of the Call and was reading the front page. I said, ‘Ax me, seems like this town’s cursed with some kinda nutcase.’ He said he sympathized with the girl’s folks. What they’re goin’ through and all.”
Begley returned to his rocking chair, blowing on his coffee to cool it. “This is excellent coffee, Mr. Elmer. Special Agent Wise, make a note of the brand, please.”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to take some back to Charlotte with me for Mrs. Begley. That’s all Mr. Tierney said about the girl?” he asked Elmer.
“Uh, let’s see,” the old man said, trying to keep up. “Uh, no. He remarked he’d seen her just a day or so before she disappeared.”
“Did he say where?” Hoot asked.
“In the store where he buys his gear. Said he’d stopped in there to get a new pair of socks and she rung ’em up for him.”
“What time was that?”
“That he was in the store? Didn’t say. He folded the newspaper, picked up a map, and said he was going hiking up on the peak. I warned him not to let a bear get him. He laughed and said he’d try not to let that happen, and anyway weren’t they hibernating this time o’ year? Bought a couple o’ them granola bars outta the machine yonder and left.”
“Has he ever talked about any of the other missing women?”
“Naw. Cain’t say as I recall—” Suddenly Elmer stopped. He gave Begley a shrewd look, then shifted his rheumy gaze to Hoot, who tried to keep his expression impassive. When Elmer looked back at Begley, he swallowed hard. Hoot could only hope he’d spat out most of his tobacco first. “Y’all thinkin’ Mr. Tierney’s the one snatching those women?”
“Not at all. We just want to talk to him so we can cross him off our list of possibilities.”
Begley had shown more emotion when talking about the Book of Jeremiah, but Gus Elmer wasn’t fooled by his nonchalance. He shook his head, sweeping his chest with his dingy beard. “He’s the last person I’d’ve thought would’ve did any meanness like that.”
Hoot leaned forward, asking, “Have you ever heard him make any derogatory remarks about women?”
“Derog . . . de . . . what?”
“Negative or unflattering comments.”
“Oh. ’Bout women, you say?”
“Either about women in general or about a particular woman?” Hoot asked.
“Naw, I done told you, the only time he said anything ’bout—” He paused, reached for an empty Dr Pepper can, and spat into it. “Hold on. Just a minute now. I just thought on somethin’.” He closed his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, it’s comin’ back to me. It was last fall. I remember, ’cause we was sitting together on the deck out yonder admiring the foliage. He axed did I want to share a drink, and I said sure. Just to take the chill off the evenin’ air, you understand. And somehow we got off on Dutch Burton.”
“The chief of police?” Hoot asked, showing surprise.
“Yep, yep. Dutch hadn’t been chief long, only a month or so, and me and Mr. Tierney was talkin’ ’bout how he’d bit off an awful big bite what with the missing women and all.”
“What did he say about that specifically?”
“Nothing. Just that.” He spat into the can again, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and grinned at them. “Ax me, he was more interested in Dutch’s wife. Ex-wife now.”
Begley glanced at Hoot as though to make sure he was paying attention. “What about her?”
“Seems Mr. Tierney had met her back during the summer.” Gus Elmer’s grin widened with what appeared to be relief. “Matter of fact, I can say for sure he ain’t no fag. Ax me, he seemed right taken with Dutch’s former missus.”
Begley stopped his idle rocking. “Taken with her?”
The old man gave a phlegmy laugh. “Moony eyed, smitten, horny, whatever you want to call it.”
CHAPTER
14
LILLY WOKE UP COLD. IT TOOK A MOMENT FOR her to remember where she was and why. Fully clothed, she lay beneath a triple layer of blankets with her knees pulled up nearly to her chest. The bone-chilling cold had penetrated all the layers.
She lay facing the fireplace, but it was no longer giving off heat. The embers that had been smoldering when Tierney turned out the lights had long since turned to ash. She tipped the blanket down, away from her face, and exhaled through her mouth. Her breath formed a cloud.
The propane tank must have emptied during the night. The fireplace would be their only source of heat now. She should get up and stack the firewood in the grate, get the kindling going. Moving around would help her warm up. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave this cocoon of relative warmth.
The room was still dark, with only dull, gray light limning the edges of the drapes. The wind was as strong as it had been the night before. Every now and then an ice-encrusted tree limb would knock heavily against the roof. If ever there was a perfect day for snuggling, this was it.
Perhaps she should have accepted Tierney’s proposal. If she had, she might not be shivering with cold now.
But no, she’d made the right decision. That much togetherness would have changed the tenor of their isolation and complicated the situation tenfold. It had been complicated enough by a mere kiss.
Mere kiss? Hardly.
It had been breathtaking but brief. Tierney had released her immediately. Turning his back to her, he’d continued their conversation as though the kiss had never happened. He said that it was probably safe for him t
o sleep, since it had been several hours since he’d suffered the concussion.
Trying to appear as blasé as he, she had agreed.
He urged her again to eat something, but she said she wasn’t hungry, and he said he wasn’t hungry either.
He’d offered her first use of the bathroom. While she was in there, he’d dragged the mattress off the bed and into the living room. She’d chided him for not waiting on her to help him, and he’d said she had no business struggling with a mattress when the exertion could bring on an asthma attack. She’d reminded him that he had a brain concussion and shouldn’t be exerting himself either. But it was done, so the argument ended there.
By the time he came out of the bathroom, she was huddled beneath her share of the blankets. He switched off the lights and stretched out on one of the sofas. He asked if she was warm enough and offered her one of his blankets, but she declined it, saying she was fine, thanks.
He was restless. It took him a while to settle. She asked him if his head was hurting, and he said it wasn’t too bad. She asked if he wanted her to check it for him, apply more antiseptic and new bandage strips, and he said no thanks, he had checked it while he was in the bathroom. She wondered how he’d managed to see the back of his head when there was only one mirror, but she didn’t pursue it.
He mentioned that although he was bruised as hell, he hadn’t noticed any signs of internal bleeding, and she’d responded with an inane understatement like “That’s good.” His unintelligible grunt of agreement had signaled an end to their dialogue.
It took her at least an hour to fall asleep, and she was fairly certain that he was still awake when she finally drifted off. During that time between lights out and when she’d fallen asleep, she’d lain stiff and silent and . . . what? Expectant?
After the kiss, the tension between them had been thick enough to cut with a knife. Their conversation became stilted. They avoided making eye contact. They were overly polite toward one another.
Ignoring the kiss had made it all the more meaningful. If they’d joked about it, said something like “Whew, at least that’s out of the way. Now that our curiosity has been satisfied, we can relax and get on with the business of surviving,” the kiss would have been more easily dismissed.
Instead, they’d pretended it hadn’t happened. Neither knew how the other felt about it. Consequently, because each was afraid of bungling, of doing or saying something that would upset a tenuous balance, it went unacknowledged.
And yet, after all their clumsy parrying and phony indifference to the kiss, she halfway expected him to mutter something like “This is bullshit,” leave the sofa, and join her on the mattress beneath the blankets. Because it hadn’t been a mere kiss. It had been a prelude.
“I’m not that nice,” he’d said.
A heartbeat later he was holding her face between his strong hands, which she had been admiring all evening, and pressing his mouth upon hers. He hadn’t hesitated or asked permission. Apologetic or tentative? Not in the least. From the moment their lips touched, his were hungry and demanding.
He flipped open her coat and reached inside. His arms went around her, and dipping his knees slightly, he drew her up and into him. He splayed his hand over the small of her back and held her flush against him in a way that said, without equivocation, I want you.
A warm, fluid tide of desire spread through her belly and thighs. It had felt great to experience again that rush of sensation that no potable or drug could replicate. There was no other buzz like it, nothing to compare with the intoxicating tingle of sexual excitement.
It had been years. Certainly not since Amy had died, when neither she nor Dutch had had the emotional resources to make good sex. They’d tried, but it became so difficult to pretend enthusiasm for it, she hadn’t even attempted to fake orgasms.
Her lack of response was a further blow to his self-esteem, which was already foundering. He’d sought to restore his ego by having a series of affairs. Those she could almost forgive. He’d gone to other women for what she was no longer able to give.
What she couldn’t forgive were the affairs he’d had before Amy was even conceived.
It had taken her a long time to understand why Dutch had slept with other women during those early years of the marriage, when their sex life was still so active and good. But she had come to realize that he required constant reassurance. In bed, certainly. Even more so out of it. She also came to realize how exhausting it was to provide that reassurance on a nonstop basis. No amount of bolstering was ever sufficient.
They had met at a black-tie fund-raising event for the Atlanta PD’s favorite charity. Riding a wave of recent publicity for solving a multiple homicide case, Dutch was the department’s poster boy and had been asked to speak at the banquet.
At the podium, he was handsome, charming, and eloquent. He was a dazzling package: former college football star turned crime-solving hero. His speech had prompted the glitterati in attendance to be generous with their contributions and also had prompted Lilly to approach him afterward and introduce herself. By the end of the evening, they’d made a dinner date.
Within six months they were married, and for a year life couldn’t have been better. They both worked hard in pursuit of their careers, but they also played hard and loved hard. They bought the cabin and retreated to it on weekends; sometimes they never left the bedroom.
During those times, he’d brought his self-confidence into their bed. It showed in the way he made love. He was a sensitive and generous partner, an ardent and considerate lover, a supportive husband.
Then the quarrels began, arising out of his resentment of her earning capacity, which far exceeded his. She argued that it didn’t matter who made the most money, that he’d chosen a public service career, where the toughest jobs went underpaid and mostly unappreciated.
She was speaking the truth. He heard only rationalizations for his perceived failure. He feared he would never reach the same level of achievement in the police department that she would at the magazine.
Over time his obsession with failure became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Simultaneously, Lilly’s star was rising. Her success continued to chip away at his pride. He sought to repair it with women who regarded him as the dashing hero he wanted desperately to be.
Each time Lilly confronted him with his cheating, he expressed deep remorse, claimed his affairs were nothing more than meaningless flings. But they weren’t meaningless to Lilly, who eventually threatened to leave him. Dutch declared that if she left him he would die, swore to her that he would remain faithful, told her he loved her, and begged her to forgive him. She did—because she was pregnant with Amy.
The promise of a child reinforced the marriage. But only until Amy was born. During Lilly’s postpartum months, Dutch began seeing a policewoman. When Lilly accused him of what she knew for fact, he denied it and blamed her suspicion on fatigue, depression, lactation, and unstable hormones. His ridicule had offended her more than his transparent lies.
In the midst of this marital battleground, Amy created a neutral zone in which they could coexist. She generated enough love to make things seem almost normal. Their shared joy over the child helped them forget past disagreements. They avoided the issues that caused friction. They weren’t exactly happy, but they were stable.
Then Amy died. The weakened underpinnings of the marriage rapidly crumpled under the weight of their grief. Their relationship became increasingly bad until Lilly didn’t think it could get any worse.
And then it did.
Now, recalling the incident that, for her, had been the deathblow to the marriage, Lilly shuddered and instinctively pulled her knees closer to her chest, burrowing her head deeper into the pillow.
However, after a few seconds she reminded herself that her marriage was history. She didn’t even have to think about it anymore. Yesterday had marked her emancipation from Dutch. No longer shackled to him legally or emotionally, she could look strictly forward.
She had been attracted the moment he smiled at her from his seat on that creaky, rusty bus. Over the course of that day on the river, she’d grown to like everything about him. His looks, certainly. What wasn’t to like? But she also liked him, his intelligence, the ease with which he could converse on any subject.
Others in the group that day had also been attracted to him. The college girls had made no secret of their infatuation. But even the blowhard, who at first had seemed resentful of Tierney’s superior kayaking skill, was asking him for pointers by the end of the day. With no apparent effort, Tierney drew people. No one was a stranger to him.
Yet he remained a stranger.
He befriended people by inviting them to talk about themselves, but he revealed nothing of himself. Was it that paradox that made him mysterious and seductive?
It startled her even to think the word seductive, because of its sinister overtones. But she couldn’t think of a better word to describe Tierney’s magnetism. On the two occasions she’d been with him she had responded to that indefinable quality to a degree that was disquieting.
Since their first hello they’d been moving toward last night’s kiss. Separately but unquestionably. So when he kissed her, it had seemed like an inevitability that had simply been postponed for a few months.
The kiss had been worth the wait. She had vivid recollections of his thumbs pressing against her cheekbones as he tilted her face up to his, of his breath against her lips, of his tongue sliding evocatively into her mouth. Thinking about it now caused a purl of desire deep within her.