Kisscut

by Karin Slaughter

  Nick said, “Okay, you prayed with her. What happened to change that?”

  Fine set the book back on the table. “Dottie changed that,” he said. “She called me in the middle of the night.”

  “When was this?”

  “Around Thanksgiving,” he said. “This past Thanksgiving.”

  “Then what?” Jeffrey asked, thinking the bastard was probably lying.

  “I went to her house, because she said that Jenny wasn’t doing well. She said she was upset, and that she needed to talk to me.” His eyes filled with tears again. “I was her friend. I couldn’t ignore a plea for help.”

  Jeffrey nodded for him to continue, trying to block the image that came to his mind of Sara pointing out the pelvic fracture in Jenny Weaver’s X ray. The girl had been brutally raped. Dave Fine could have been the man who did it.

  Dave cleared his throat. “I had never really been inside the house before. Jenny always waited for me on the front steps.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “When I got there, Dottie led me upstairs. Upstairs to Jenny’s room.”

  Fine fell silent, and neither Jeffrey nor Nick prompted him to continue. After what seemed like a long while, he picked back up where he had left off.

  “We did things,” he said, his voice low. “I’m ashamed to say that we did things.”

  “You did things,” Jeffrey told him, wanting to make that point.

  “Yes,” Fine agreed. “I did things.”

  “Did the acts only take place in Jenny’s room?” Jeffrey asked, thinking that this would explain why Dottie would risk not stripping Jenny’s room. The only evidence they found would point back to Dave Fine.

  “Yes.” He swallowed hard. “Only in her room.”

  The men were silent as Fine seemed to get his thoughts together. He was certainly good at painting himself as a helpless victim. A thirteen-year-old girl might have bought his act, but the more excuses Fine made for his actions, the more Jeffrey wanted to kill him.

  Finally, Fine said, “Dottie took pictures. I didn’t know until later.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “She brought them to the church the next day, and threatened to expose me if I didn’t do what she said.”

  “What did she want you to do?”

  “Make those deliveries,” he said. “I used the church van.” He put his hand over his mouth. “God forgive me, I used the church van.”

  Jeffrey crossed his arms, willing himself to calm down. Nick Shelton was so angry there was almost a heat coming off of him. How this sick fuck could cry for himself was beyond him. Dave Fine felt sorrier for himself than he did for the kid he raped.

  Jeffrey asked, “Where’s Dottie now?”

  “I have no idea,” Fine said, tapping his palm on the Bible for emphasis. “That’s the God’s truth.”

  “When did you see her last?” Jeffrey asked, knowing he could not trust the answer.

  “Monday. She had Mark at the house. They stripped everything. They painted the walls, they moved the printing press.”

  “Where did they move it to?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and he seemed to be telling the truth. “They put it in a truck, an unmarked truck.”

  “And then?”

  “She told me that I still had to make this last delivery or she would send the pictures to the police station.”

  “What about Lacey Patterson?”

  Jeffrey wasn’t sure whether or not something registered in Fine’s eyes. The man said, “I have no idea. Dottie wouldn’t tell me something like that. I wasn’t involved in that end of things. I only did what she said to protect my family. Our lives.”

  Jeffrey crossed his arms, asking, “When did you get the magazines?”

  “That night,” he answered. “I put them in the basement of the church until this morning.”

  “You already knew about the meeting in Augusta?”

  “No,” he shook his head, vehement. “She called me last night. It sounded like she was on a cell phone.”

  “You said the last time you saw her was Monday,” Jeffrey reminded him.

  “It was the last time,” Fine countered. “You said the last time I saw her, not the last time I spoke with her.”

  Jeffrey let this pass. “What did she say?”

  “She told me about the hotel, when to meet Joe, what the code word was for the next pickup.” Fine paused. “She said she was still around, watching me.”

  “Do you believe that?” Nick asked. “You think she’s still in town?”

  Fine shrugged. “She’s capable of anything,” he said.

  “Capable of what, for instance?” Jeffrey asked. When Fine did not answer, he asked, “What do you think she’s going to do to Lacey Patterson?”

  Fine looked away. “I don’t know what she does. I was only involved with Jenny.”

  Jeffrey stared at the other man, trying to understand him. Fine was so good at justifying his actions, he could probably pass a lie detector test. Jeffrey seriously doubted the man even believed what he had done to Jenny Weaver was wrong.

  Fine volunteered, “I know Dottie needs money. She told me she had to wait around for the next payoff.” His voice rose as he tried to defend himself. “I was being blackmailed. I had no choice.”

  Jeffrey ignored the excuse, instead thinking about Dottie’s post office box in Atlanta. Dottie had no way of knowing that they knew about the drop. She would think she was safe. They might have a chance of catching her before she had time to rape another kid, or sell off Lacey Patterson.

  “So,” Nick said. “You packed the magazines in the church van this morning and toddled on over to Augusta?”

  “I had a bad feeling about it,” he said, picking at the pages of the Bible. “I guess I wanted to get caught. I couldn’t go on with this hanging over me.”

  Jeffrey said, “Mark felt the same way.”

  Fine snorted. “Mark,” he said, as if he were talking about the devil himself.

  Nick exchanged a glance with Jeffrey.

  “You know why Jenny wanted to shoot him?” Fine asked them, a slight grimace on his face. “Because he was going to end up doing the same thing.”

  “Doing what?”

  “He enjoyed it,” Fine told them. “Mark didn’t have any qualms about what he was doing.”

  “And you did?” Nick shot back.

  Fine ignored the question.

  “You’re saying Mark liked posing for the pictures?” Jeffrey asked, and in his mind he saw Mark’s pained expression in the magazines they had found. This was not the face of a kid who was enjoying himself.

  “He didn’t just like it. He wanted to do it.” Fine tapped his finger on the table. “If you ask me, it was just a matter of time before he started in on his sister. Jenny knew that. As cruel as that family was to her, she knew what Mark had become. She knew he would end up abusing Lacey.” He sniffed, as if holding back tears. “Jenny was trying to protect Lacey from that animal.”

  “You have proof of this?” Jeffrey demanded.

  “Grace had him in the game since he was six,” Fine told them. “It was only a matter of time. Jenny knew this.”

  “You have no way of knowing what Mark would’ve ended up doing,” Jeffrey said. “If every kid who was raped by some freak like you grew up to molest children—”

  Fine interrupted him. “You don’t know Mark very well, Chief Tolliver. Trust me, he would’ve been hurting kids, just like his mother.” He shook his head, giving a snort. “He learned from the master.”

  Jeffrey countered, “He was just a kid himself.”

  Fine held up his finger, as if he was making a good point. “He was a grown man. He could’ve stopped.”

  Nick barked, “So could you.”

  The comment cut, and Fine showed it by looking down at the Bible, his lips pursed in a classic pout, like he had been falsely accused.

  The room was quiet as they all seemed to take a deep breath.

  Jeffrey tried to keep his tone even, askin
g, “Did you tell Jenny your theory about Mark? Is that why she wanted to shoot him?”

  Fine stared at the Bible.

  Jeffrey took his silence as a confirmation. “What else did Dottie have you do?”

  “Just the deliveries.”

  “No, before that.”

  “She made me come over when she was taking the pictures,” he said. “I didn’t want to, but she held my life in her hands.” He held out his hands to illustrate the point. “If those pictures ever got out,” he said, “it would have ruined me. My wife, my children…” Tears welled into his eyes. “I have responsibilities.”

  “You posed for more pictures?” Jeffrey asked, wondering at anyone who could be so stupid. Or, maybe he wasn’t stupid, maybe he enjoyed it.

  Fine nodded. “I didn’t want to. She…”—he looked for the right word—“she liked to humiliate people. She got something out of that.”

  “How did she humiliate you?”

  “She knew I didn’t like boys, and she made me do things.”

  “Things with Mark Patterson?”

  He gave a tight nod, and for the first time, he actually showed shame. “What Jenny and I had was…special. I know you don’t understand that, but there was something between us. Something that bonded us.” He put his hand over his eyes. “She was my first. I loved her so much.”

  Jeffrey cut him off. “Shut up about that part of it, Dave, or I swear to God I’ll beat the ever loving shit out of you.”

  Fine looked up, and he seemed hurt that they did not understand.

  Jeffrey said, “Why did you stop? With Jenny, I mean. What stopped the sexual contact?”

  “She rejected me,” he told them, tears welling into his eyes. “She said she didn’t want anything more to do with me.” He sniffed loudly. “After the pictures…I don’t know. It was as if Dottie was proving something to Jenny, my showing up that night.”

  “Proving you were all alike,” Jeffrey provided, thinking this was just the kind of thing a woman like Dottie Weaver would do.

  “That’s not true,” Fine insisted. “I loved Jenny. I cared about her deeply.”

  “That’s why you tried to visit her after the church retreat?”

  “She looked sick,” Fine told them. “I didn’t know what was wrong with her and Dottie wouldn’t let me near her. I even posed for more of her pictures just to get into the house, just to see if Jenny was all right, but Grace kept her at the trailer when I was there.”

  Jeffrey clenched his teeth together knowing Fine had willingly gone to Dottie’s so he could molest more children. The fact that Fine truly believed he loved Jenny Weaver was just as obvious as the fact that there was something seriously wrong with his mind.

  Nick asked, “What about Grace Patterson? What was her involvement in this?”

  Fine scowled at the name. “She was worse than Dottie. She was disgusting.”

  “How so?”

  “The things she came up with,” he said, his voice coarse. “May she rot in hell for her sins.”

  Jeffrey did not point out the obvious. “Dottie and Grace were together on this?”

  He nodded. “Grace directed most of the photo shoots. Dottie took care of the business end of things.” He waited a beat. “All the poses were Grace’s idea. She liked to get in on them, touch some of the children. The more sadistic it could be the better.”

  “Dottie never did this, too?”

  “She knew how to make the ones that looked real. The romantic ones. Dottie worked the softer stuff and Grace worked the hard core.” He licked his lips nervously, as if by default the women were more guilty than he was. “They knew each other from way back.”

  “They told you this?”

  “No,” he said. “Jenny did. Jenny said that she and her mother moved around a lot. Wherever they went, Grace would visit them at least once a month.”

  Jeffrey asked, “What about Teddy Patterson?”

  Fine shook his head. “He would have killed us all if he had known.”

  Nick showed his surprise. “He didn’t know?”

  “Of course not,” Fine snapped. “We never did anything unless he was out of town on business. He drove a truck.”

  Nick sounded as skeptical as Jeffrey felt. “He never delivered any of the magazines?”

  “Grace kept him out of it,” Fine said. “He wasn’t that kind of man.”

  “What kind of man is that?” Nick asked.

  Fine stared at the Bible again. “A man like me, I guess. A man who would be with children.”

  “A man who would hurt children,” Nick corrected.

  “I didn’t hurt her.”

  “You didn’t?” Jeffrey asked, leaning across the table. “You wanna tell me how a thirteen-year-old girl gets a pelvic fracture?”

  “There were other men she was with,” Fine countered, yet he did not seem surprised by the information.

  “Other men who weren’t gentle like you?” Jeffrey goaded.

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Really?” Jeffrey said, incredulous. “How big are you, Dave? You want me to look up in Jenny’s autopsy records how much smaller she is than you?”

  Fine cleared his throat, but he did not answer. He took the Bible off the table and held it to his chest. Jeffrey stared at the man, thinking there was something he was missing. He saw it then—the wedding ring on Dave’s left hand. His mind flashed on the image he had seen earlier in the magazine: the hand firmly behind Jenny Weaver’s head, pushing her down so that she gagged on him.

  “You son of a bitch,” Jeffrey said, lunging across the table. His knee caught the edge, but he didn’t care as his hands wrapped around the Bible.

  “Jeffrey,” Nick yelled, halfheartedly trying to pull Jeffrey back.

  Jeffrey let the anger take hold of him, saying, “You sick son of a bitch,” as he ripped the Bible from the preacher’s hands. Fine had been holding on so tightly that he fell back in his chair. “I saw the pictures, asshole. I saw what you did to her. I saw how you raped her.”

  Jeffrey stood, looking at him over the table. “You don’t deserve this,” he said, indicating the Book. “What you did to those kids…what you did to her…”

  “It was just Jenny,” Fine insisted, sitting up.

  Jeffrey started to go around the table, then stopped himself, thinking Fine wasn’t worth it.

  Fine repeated, “It was just Jenny.”

  “You left your fucking wedding ring on in those pictures,” Jeffrey told him, putting the Bible down. “I saw it in at least ten different pictures with ten different kids.” He walked around the table, groaning at the pain in his knee. “You fucking idiot.”

  “You can’t talk to me that way,” Fine snapped.

  Jeffrey grabbed his arm, yanking him up off the floor. “You’d better be glad I’m talking and not beating the shit out of you.”

  “This is police brutality,” Fine said, brushing off his pants. “I want a lawyer.”

  Jeffrey said, “Buddy Conford wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”

  “I’ve got someone else,” Dave said, tucking his shirt into his pants. “Someone from Atlanta.”

  Nick provided, “Someone who defends perverts like him all the time. Probably takes his fee in pictures.”

  Fine smiled, and for the first time, he appeared to be on the outside what he was on the inside. “Or little girls.”

  Jeffrey felt his shoulders tighten, and the animal desire to rip Fine’s throat out was only quelled by the possibility that Fine knew more than he was saying.

  “You’re going to jail,” Jeffrey told the preacher. “You know what they do to people like you in jail?”

  “Right,” Fine said. “I watch television. I know you’re just talking crap.”

  “Crap?” Nick said. “You mean that bloody stuff you’re gonna find in your underwear every morning?”

  Fine had the gall to look smug. “I don’t think I’m going to jail.”

  Nick asked, “What mak
es you think that?”

  “I’ve got a bargaining chip,” Fine said, smiling.

  “What bargaining chip,” Jeffrey shot back, trying not to sound eager. If Fine thought he had power here he would never tell them what he knew.

  “Let’s just wait for my lawyer to get here,” Fine said, holding out his hands to be cuffed. “I don’t have anything to say without my lawyer.”

  “Think about that in general lockup,” Jeffrey said, pulling out his handcuffs.

  “Goodness me,” Nick breathed. “General lockup.”

  “What’s that?” Fine asked, something close to panic in his voice.

  Jeffrey tightened the cuffs on Fine’s wrists. “Just jail.”

  “Funny thing about jail, though,” Nick began. “Lots of fellas in there had someone just like you in their lives when they were growing up.”

  Fine turned around. “What does that mean?”

  Jeffrey smiled, turning Fine toward the door. “Means while you’re waiting for your fancy lawyer to drive here all the way from Atlanta, you’ll have plenty of time to explain to your fellow inmates how it’s all about love.”

  “Wait a minute.” Fine stood where he was, even as Jeffrey tried to push him. “I’ll have my own cell,” he said as if he was certain this would happen.

  “No you won’t, you sick fuck,” Jeffrey said, pushing him so hard that Nick had to catch him before he fell.

  “It’s the law,” Fine insisted. “You can’t put me in with other inmates.”

  “I can do whatever I want,” Jeffrey told him.

  “Wait a minute,” Fine repeated, his voice shrill and panicked. “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Jeffrey asked, grabbing the preacher by the collar and forcing him out of the room.

  “No,” Fine said, reaching for the door but missing. His fingernails trailed across the wood as he grabbed for anything to hold on to.

  “You got something to tell me, Dave?” Jeffrey asked, pushing him down the hall.

  “Help me,” Fine said, reaching for a patrolman who happened to be coming out of the bathroom. The cop looked at Fine, then Jeffrey, then walked on as if he hadn’t seen anything.