by Frank Zafiro
“Who are you?”
“What’s going on?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“A crime scene,” he said. “How’d you get past the outer perimeter tape?”
“Is she dead?”
“Are you family?”
That answered the question. I sagged and shook my head.
“Then who are you?”
“He’s Stefan Kopriva,” a voice came from behind him.
I looked up to see Officer Rick Hunter approaching. I glanced down at his sleeve and saw sergeant’s stripes. That didn’t surprise me.
“You’ve never heard of Kopriva?” Hunter asked the officer, who shook his head no.
I gave Hunter a neutral nod, hoping to cut him off. He ignored me.
“Kopriva was a folk hero for a little while, back in the early nineties. Had a little shootout with a robber. Oh, and he let a cop and a little girl die.”
“Rick—”
“My name’s Sergeant Hunter,” he said coldly. “And you are about to be under arrest for violating a crime scene.”
“I just want to know—”
“McClaren,” Hunter said. “Get him out of here.”
The black officer grabbed my right arm at the wrist and the elbow. He had a grip as strong as Richard’s.
“—if she’s dead,” I finished.
“Hold it,” Hunter ordered.
McClaren stopped.
“You know something about this situation, Kopriva?” Hunter asked me.
I almost laughed at his choice of words. “Pound sand, Sergeant.”
Hunter scowled. “Get him out of here.”
McClaren walked me to the edge of the perimeter and released me. “If you come back inside, I’ll have to arrest you for obstructing an investigation, sir.”
“I won’t. Tell me something, though.”
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Just tell me how she was killed. That’s all.”
McClaren stared at me, then said, “It was suicide. She took some pills.”
I sat in the darkness of my apartment, staring up at the ceiling. A ray of light from the streetlight outside cut a large swath through the center of the room, and I stared at the yellowish tint and ran things back and forth through my head. I asked the hows and the whys and in the end, I decided I was trying too hard to make the thing too complicated. It was never anything more than it seemed to be just below the surface. All you had to do was follow the money.
Of course, I didn’t have any proof.
And then I knew what I had to do.
Phillipe Richard came out of the dressing room and into the hallway. Sweat matted his hair and rolled down the sides of his face. It was in between periods of the Flyers game versus Nelson. Richard had a goal and fight in the first period.
“I will get some fine for this,” he told me, wiping his sleeve across his forehead. “Coming out of the locker room.”
“You should get prison,” I told him.
“For what?” His expression was one of surprise, but irritation rimmed his eyes.
“You killed Aaron Stoll,” I said. “You poisoned him for his wife. Or the money, I don’t know which.”
“You’re crazy.”
“It’s true. We both know it. And when it turned out that he didn’t have any money left, things got rough between the two of you. That’s why you broke up.”
“I broke it off with her because I was traded here,” he insisted.
“And then she followed you here.”
“Yes, and blackmailed me.”
“Over the pregnancy?”
“Yes, of course. What else?”
“I think she blackmailed you over your part in killing her husband,” I told him. “I think she held onto some evidence and rather than pay her off, you made it look like she—”
He lashed out then, his huge fist catching me on the chin. I flew back into the wall and crumpled to the floor.
“You’re some kind of smart guy, huh?”
I shook my head to clear it. Warm blood flowed over my lip and down my chin.
“Well, let me tell you something, smart guy. You better shut up and stay away from me or I will kill you. Do you understand?”
“Will you do it with sleeping pills, Phillipe?” I asked.
He snatched me up with his left hand and punched me again with his right. The world tilted on its axis and there was a shuddering, strobing of light.
“Shut up!” he said.
“You killed her,” I said wetly. “You killed them both.”
He brought his face close to mine. “Yes,” he hissed softly, “but so what? You can’t prove anything. And if you get in my way, I will kill you, too.”
I gave a sputtering laugh, sending a light spray of blood into his face. He recoiled and shoved me backward into the wall.
“Disgusting slime,” he said, wiping his face with his sleeve.
“Tell me one more thing,” I said.
“Shut up.”
“Whose baby was it? Was it his or was it yours?”
There was no reaction in his eyes. “Who cares?” he said.
At that point, an assistant coach stepped out of the locker room. He saw me against the wall and gave Richard a quizzical look. Richard shook his head and the coach shrugged.
“Time to go,” he told Richard.
The players filed out of the locker room. Some were too focused to notice my presence. Others glanced at me curiously. I met and held those glances, hoping they remembered my face. Richard tapped gloves with each player as they filed past, studiously ignoring me. When the last player walked by, Richard fell in behind them, never giving me a backward glance.
The crowd cheered as the hometown boys took the ice. When Richard strode out of the tunnel, the cheers doubled.
The crowd loved him.
“You’re no Lancelot,” I wheezed and spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground.
With a slow effort, I rose, my body aching. I wiped the blood off my chin and reached into my jacket pocket. The small mini-recorder was still running. I stopped it, rewound it and listened. Richard’s hissing, deadly voice made me shudder. Then it made me smile.
Limping, I made my way out of the arena.
Beaten By Anger
In the darkness of his cell, Phillipe Richard crouched on his haunches and put his back against the wall. The block guard called lights out an hour ago, but Richard couldn’t sleep. He hardly ever could.
In prison, most men couldn’t sleep out of fear.
For Richard, it was a simmering anger that kept him up. Just as soon as he’d start to fade into sleep, images popped in his mind. Almost always, it was that little punk Stefan Kopriva. Le fils de pute! Richard saw him over and over, how he tricked a confession from him outside the locker room. Then testifying against him in court. Playing his little tape recording. So smug.
Richard knew he would see Kopriva again.
He wouldn’t be in here much longer.
The lawyer was good and the judge sympathetic, but most of it was simply because he was Phillipe Richard, hockey player. Grand-nephew of Maurice Richard, the Rocket, but he played like Dave “The Hammer” Shultz. On his way to the NHL on the power of his fists before that little piece of merde—
Richard stood, drew a long, deep breath and let it out.
He’d accepted a plea bargain. Three year sentence for manslaughter instead of second degree murder. He had twenty-two months left, counting good behavior.
His cell-mate slept peacefully on the top bunk. Richard stared at him malevolently, jealous of his repose. Todd’s quiet breath filled the cell. The dainty outline of his chin, nose and mouth made Richard grind his teeth. They reminded him of Kopriva.
Mon Dieu, he should not have to stare at that.
He reached out and nudged Todd. The smaller man could roll over and face the wall. If Richard could not sleep, at least he didn’t have to be reminded of Kopriva constantly.
Todd stirred awake
and saw the hulking Richard looming over him. His eyes widened in panic.
“No, please! I—”
“Roll over.”
“Don’t hurt me,” Todd whimpered. “I’ll…I’ll do what you want.”
Richard’s lip curled in disgust. “Relax. I am no pédé. I just want you to—”
“Please,” he pleaded.
Richard clenched his jaw. He was Phillipe Richard, hockey player. Enforcer. He wasn’t some kind of pervert. He loved women only, not—
“Just don’t hurt me,” Todd said.
Anger flared up in Richard. He reached out and grabbed Todd by the shoulder and jerked him up right.
Todd screamed.
Richard whipped a huge fist into Todd’s face. He felt the cheekbone snap beneath his knuckles.
Todd screeched and thrashed on the bunk. Animal rage flooded Richard and he pumped his fist into Todd’s head like a trip-hammer. He felt like he was on the ice again, gloves and sticks discarded, in the heat of battle. Kopriva’s face flashed before him and he unleashed his hatred into each blow.
Light flooded the block. Richard punched.
Buzzers. Clanging metal. Cries of men.
His fists were wet. And red.
A jolt went through him and his body went rigid. He collapsed to the ground to the clacking, zapping sound of electric current. He couldn’t move.
The current released him. A mass of bodies descended on him, pinning him to the ground. Someone ratcheted handcuffs onto his wrists.
“Oh, Jesus,” someone else muttered.
One of the guards stood him up. Zimmerman. His eyes were round with wonder.
“Why’d you do it?” he asked Richard.
Richard glanced at the still form on the top bunk.
“Jesus, Richard,” Zimmerman said. “You were out of here in twenty-three months.”
“Twenty-two,” Richard murmured, staring at Todd’s collapsed face.
“Well, you’ll do life now.”
Phillipe Richard didn’t answer.
Cassie
I was paying bills when the tentative knock came at my door. I wasn’t sure if it’d been mine or a neighbor’s until the second series of taps. I eased the door open and peered through the crack.
Cassie.
She wore a loose T-shirt that hung a couple of inches above the waistband of her faded jeans. Her navel peeked out beneath the white cotton. Her eyes were cautious, but when she saw me, a hesitant smile touched her mouth. The slightly crooked tooth at the edge of her smile glinted at me.
A strange rush of emotions washed over me. Desire. Curiosity. Shame, because of recent events.
“Stef,” she whispered.
I motioned her inside and closed the door.
What could I say to her? I’d just spent fifteen days in jail on a gun charge and had my name dragged through the streets like Hector in the dust behind Achilles on his triumphant lap around Troy.
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
I nodded.
“Is it true? What the newspaper wrote about you?”
“No,” I answered automatically. I hadn’t read the newspaper, but experience told me it wouldn’t be accurate.
“I…I didn’t think so.”
We stood still for a tense, awkward moment. The weight of unrealized, brooding desire all those long months hung between us. I motioned toward my kitchen. “Can I get you—”
She stepped into me, catching me on the mouth in mid-sentence. Her lips were warm and soft. After a moment’s surprise, I returned her kiss. Body heat radiated from her as she pressed into me. Her tongue found mine, chased it. Caught it.
I reached around her, pressing my hand into the small of her back. She clutched at my shoulders and pulled me tighter. My surprise faded, replaced by an erection that came on so suddenly that it hurt.
A first kiss is always magical, whether surrounded by romance or awash in passion. Her lips and tongue sent zinging thrills out to the ends of my hands and feet. All sound in the room faded. My whole world became Cassie. Her warmth. Her electric touch. The scent of her excitement and light perfume rising in waves off of her body.
We struggled out of our shirts, breaking off from kissing for just the barest of moments. I reached out for her breasts. She gasped. Pants and underclothes were stripped away, I barely remembered how. We staggered back into the table. I swept the bills and my checkbook aside and sent them clattering onto the floor. I lifted her onto the edge of the table. She moaned into my mouth.
I entered her in one deep thrust and groaned at the sensation of her wet warmth and she answered me with a long sigh. Her heels dug into the back of my thighs, pulled me deeper, forcing her hips forward to meet my thrust. Our mouths mimicked the connection below, hot, wet, urgent.
I felt pressure building and willed it down, but it had been too long. Too long since I’d known a woman. Too long that I’d wanted her.
I broke away from her mouth. Her moans turned to gasps. Every stroke, I went as deep as I could and held for half a beat.
I kissed her neck. Her head lolled back. She dug her fingers into my upper back, pulling me ever tighter.
The familiar ache began to build. Two strokes later, the ache became ecstasy and washed over me. I let out a guttural cry and thrust into her. She matched my movement. For a long moment, we froze, bodies tense and rigid and pressed together. Ribbons of warmth flooded out of me and into her.
We held that position for a lifetime.
Afterward, we moved to the bed. She nestled her head onto my chest and draped her leg over mine. The sweet, pungent aroma of our sex hung in the air. Sound returned to my world. The ticking of a clock. A distant car horn. Muffled voices in an upstairs apartment.
Neither of us said a word. I was afraid to break the spell. I knew the first words after this were important ones, but I didn’t know what they should be.
“I didn’t believe them,” she finally whispered.
She meant the newspaper. I’m sure they’d had a field day with me. Arrested with a fourteen year old runaway in my car, outside the house of an admitted pornographer. No doubt the implications were lurid, but the truth was that I’d found the girl as a favor to her father. I was getting her out of there. And even though Detective Jack Stone hated my guts, he couldn’t twist the truth into anything but what it was. The newspaper could, though.
I stroked the long braid of her hair. “They wanted to sell papers.”
We fell silent again and eventually, to sleep.
When I woke, she was gone.
I haunted the Rocket Bakery, even after I learned she didn’t work there anymore. I kept hoping somehow that she’d change her mind and come back to her old job. To me.
The summer passed, hot and slow.
Fall came. Hockey season started. I took a job helping a player named Phillipe Richard. Huge mistake. After that, I quit going to games at the arena.
Instead, I thought about her all the time.
Thanksgiving came. Christmas approached. A subpoena arrived for me to testify in the Richard case in January. I taped it to the fridge.
Three days before Christmas, I heard it again. That same tentative knock. This time I knew it at the first tap. I pulled the door open. She stood there with puffy, red eyes. She’d cut her hair short.
We stood silently, staring at each other. I tried to think of the right words, but before I could, she burst into tears.
“I didn’t know who else to go to,” she sobbed and fell into me.
I held her close, standing in my doorway while she cried. Once her sobs lessened, I swung the door shut and guided her to my kitchen table.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her as we sat down. A jumble of different emotions screamed at me. I wanted to help her with whatever made her so upset. To know why she came to me eight months ago like she did and why she left just as suddenly. And what was it I really felt for her? Lust, or something more? Had it ever been anything more?
She wiped at her ey
es. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
She shook her head. “I am. I’m sorry I came here like this. And for leaving before, without saying anything.”
I didn’t know how to answer that. Instead, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m in some trouble.”
“I gathered.”
She met my eye. I thought I saw a flicker of the passion that had flowed out of them eight months ago. “I’m sorry I left. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You could have stayed, that’s what else.”
“You’re right.” She bit her lip. “I was just scared.”
“Of what?”
She sighed. “Everything. You and me, just getting started. What the paper wrote about you. A new job.”
I ignored the first item on her list. “The paper lies. What new job?”
“A nursing job. I graduated from school while you were…”
“In jail,” I finished for her.
She nodded. “Yeah. I got a job offer in Seattle, but I didn’t want to leave without seeing you. Then I came over and we…well, it was all just too much.”
“That’s where you’ve been? Seattle?”
“Uh-huh.” Her eyes brightened slightly. “It’s a good job.”
“Better than schlepping coffee, I imagine.”
She smiled. “That wasn’t so bad. Some of the time, it was even pretty good.”
I swallowed. I wanted to tell her how much I’d missed her, even though I couldn’t say why. I couldn’t even explain it to myself. I wanted to ask her to leave her job in Seattle or let me leave River City and go with her. I wanted everything.
This time it was me that leaned into her. Instead of raging with passion, our kiss was slow and sweet. Careful. I touched her tongue with mine with a gentle hesitation. Her hand brushed my cheek, then cupped behind my neck and pulled me deeper into the kiss.
Neither of us moved with any great speed. Steadily, though, I pulled her to me. She straddled me in the chair, pulled my face into her chest. My hardness strained against the denim of my Levi’s as she rocked slowly atop me. Her small breasts pressed into my face. I reached up and caressed them with both hands. A low moan escaped her throat.