Unmarked Man

by Darlene Scalera

  She pushed open the door, the air conditioner in the window blowing full blast, causing her to step back. So cold. The room’s muted light softened the other woman’s silhouette. Her shoulders hunched, her fingers clawed at her cheeks, her bellows simmered into hiccuping sobs. Eddie lay stretched out on the bed, his hands folded across his bare chest in a rare posture of patience. The covers were loosely arranged across his belly’s full rise. He might have been waiting, anticipating his mistress and the delights of night. A bullet hole in his forehead had come first.

  The mistress turned, saw Cissy. Her scream was enough to wake the dead. Cissy glanced at Eddie. Hadn’t worked.

  Cissy held up her hands to show no harm.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” The mistress backed away, her hands patting the air behind her, flailing for something heavy, solid, a suitable skull-cracker.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The classic “a good defense is a good offense.”

  “Better yet.” She nodded toward Eddie. “What the hell happened to him?”

  “The man’s dead. Have a little respect.”

  Cissy looked down at the body. She examined her feelings as she examined the dead man. She thought of the rocky past, her missing mother, the man she’d believed responsible now turning up dead before a jury could hang him. No justice in this big, bad world.

  She’d never wish Eddie dead. It’s just there had been too many times she hadn’t wished him alive. She looked at the other woman, meant in the most literal of terms. The woman glared back at her. She was at that meanest of ages when there was only enough prettiness left in the face to remember what used to be. The rest was yearning flesh, skin that caught her tears and caked her makeup into its folds.

  “I’ll go call the police.” Cissy meant Nick.

  As she turned toward the stairs, she glanced out the window and saw a dark sedan pull up. Nick had found her. Unchecked relief came, so rich it would make her do and say crazy things if she wasn’t careful.

  “Detective Nick Fiore just pulled in.”

  The other woman didn’t seem to hear her. She was looking at Eddie. Her breath caught in a hiccup. Her eyes were puffy. Enough makeup had been washed into the cracks in her face to make Cissy believe she’d really cared about Fat Eddie.

  “I’ll go and let the detective in.”

  The woman stared at Eddie and sighed. The loose skin on her upper arms jiggled.

  “Did you want to stay up here with…him?” Cissy asked lamely.

  The woman looked at Cissy with black-mascara smeared eyes. She really was a mess. Corpses could do that to a person.

  “Thank you. I’m Rogina. Rogina Krauss.”

  “I know who you are.”

  The woman’s eyes were the eyes of the street. “I know who you are, too.”

  As long as they understood each other. Cissy headed out the room to face Nick.

  “SAINT-SAULT, Lester, the bartender at the Golden Cue, Eddie. What’s the connection?” Most men paced as they thought out loud. Nick didn’t pace. He didn’t even prop one foot on the kitchen chair or twist it around with one hand and straddle it. A little disappointing on that last one. One thickly muscled arm crossed over the other and his body made a slight curve against the counter. That was it. Nick leaned. That was all that was necessary. Toughness wasn’t an act with him. It just was.

  “Bullet holes.” Nick’s question had been rhetorical but Cissy had felt the compulsion to answer. She needed more than a lean to look tough—more like an Uzi, but what she lacked in size and strength, she made up for with attitude. It generally worked.

  “And you.”

  He didn’t even point an accusing finger. So much for brute force that under other circumstances might have been the beginning of a good sexual daydream…or a porno film.

  “I’m under suspicion big-time, aren’t I?”

  “Everybody’s under suspicion.”

  She didn’t know if he was playing with her or not, purposefully keeping it light. He’d insisted on sitting in while the police had played twenty questions with her as well as Rogina down the hall. Rogina hadn’t given them any answers. Said Eddie had picked her up, brought her to the house for fun and games. She’d used his car to run back into town to meet a girlfriend, have a drink. She came home about two hours later and found Eddie. Claimed she knew nothing about Cissy’s mom’s disappearance except the story Eddie had fed her. Yes, she had been pressuring Eddie to divorce his wife. He’d told her things weren’t that simple.

  Yeah, this was a community property state, Cissy had thought. Half the house, half the business. Still if Eddie had told her mother he wanted a divorce, he probably hadn’t expected a fight. Why should he? Louisa had never fought back before. Oh, Mama.

  Cissy tried for the same tidy alibi as Rogina. She said she’d heard Eddie had filed for divorce, went to the house to talk to him. She’d been angry, yes, she admitted in response to the officer’s questions. The house was dark when she got there. She thought no one was home. Decided to take a look around. Even to her own ears, it sounded flimsy. To cops that had heard more lies than ladies’ night in a singles bar, it put her at the top of the suspect list. But with no evidence linking her to Eddie’s death, plus one of their own taking her home, the cops could only promise they’d be keeping an eye on her.

  Nick, too, had been watching her closely since he’d arrived on the scene. Once she had glimpsed worry in his eyes and realized it was concern, not suspicion, that was responsible for his attention. Four bodies in three days. Her mother and sister still missing. Behind his scrutiny he was waiting for her to crack. He should know better. Still, she appreciated the thought. Made her feel too tender toward him. She’d come out of this thing one way or another. Barely intact, perhaps, but she’d survive.

  He gave her another one of those killer perusals. She could have been on suicide watch. Too late. She’d already slept with him. And wanted to again. Pure suicide.

  “You don’t think I killed Eddie?”

  “No, but my perspective has been skewered.”

  “That’s your way of telling me you’re madly in love with me, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t even blanch. He was tougher than she thought.

  “Your first day back, someone tries to scare you out of town—”

  “It wasn’t Lester. At the funeral, his mother said he never rode the bike. It was left to him by his brother who died a few years ago. He kept it around for sentimental reasons.”

  “I knew that from her interview.”

  “You got any more secrets, Fiore?”

  He smiled and scored an easy one. Attitude couldn’t hold a cannoli to raw sexuality.

  “Lester would have taken the Hyundai to take me out.”

  He shifted to the opposite side, smiled as if he knew she was having a sexual fantasy about him right now. Heck, just having him three feet in front of her was enough to get the juices cranking.

  “So it wasn’t Lester on the bike. Just in my motel room.” Back to business.

  “Scare tactic. Somebody wants you out of the way.”

  “They also wanted Lester, Saint-Sault, Chandler and now Eddie out of the way.”

  “No, whoever it is, if he wanted you dead, you’ve given him ample opportunity. Someone wants to scare you, not kill you.”

  “That’s a comfort.”

  “Your mother and sister are missing. Someone decides you shouldn’t be in town either. You go looking for Lester. He winds up dead in your motel room. You go talk to Chandler at the Golden Cue. He winds up in the Dumpster. You go snooping around Eddie’s. He’s dead in bed.”

  She giggled. Nick’s gaze was on her. It was two in the morning. She’d cleaned out the entire supply of jujube fruits in the station house’s vending machine. Several cups of cop coffee guaranteed she might not sleep until the next century. She’d been questioned about a dead body for the third time in two days. Nick was right to watch her closely. Gallows humor w
as the only thing that stood between her and the scream that wouldn’t stop.

  “What about Saint-Sault? He was in that trunk before I came to town. You can’t blame that one on me.”

  “I’m not blaming anything on you. I’m looking for connections here.”

  “I was so sure Eddie was the one responsible for Mama and Jo Jo’s disappearance.”

  “He very well could have been, but whatever happened, it’s more complicated than a spat between a husband and wife. Too many people involved. Lester, I think he got in over his head—”

  Cissy’s synapses started snapping with that last statement. “What about Lester’s hairpiece?”

  Nick stared at her.

  “Don’t you think it’s strange no one can find it?”

  “Only you. Four people are dead because of a hairpiece?” A corner of his mouth quirked.

  “No. I’m just saying…” She really didn’t know what she was saying. It was late and the world had stopped making sense several days ago.

  Nick shifted, sending her equilibrium spiraling. “Then there’s Jo Jo,” he said.

  “What about her?”

  “Like you said at the station, she was Saint-Sault’s girlfriend, used to meet Lester at the Golden Cue, chatted it up with Chandler. Whatever’s going on, she’s involved.”

  “But what about my mother? What’s she got to do with this?”

  Nick shook his head. “I don’t know if we’ll get that answer until we find her.”

  She knew every hour that passed, every corpse found put the possibility of her mother and sister being alive at greater odds.

  “That’s all I’ve been trying to do,” she told him.

  “Me, too, Cissy.”

  “What about Stevie the Sledgehammer?”

  “We’re still looking. He’s connected but no one’s talking yet.”

  Connections. Deeds had them. So did the cops. She needed them, too. She thought of Tommy Marcus.

  “You’ve got a gleam in your eye, Spagnola.”

  Damn cops and their observational powers. “Maybe I’m hot for your bod—”

  “No ‘maybe’ about it.” He smiled quickly before his face turned stern again. “We’ve got too many bodies piling up for you to be playing Dick Tracy.”

  He was right. What he didn’t understand and what she’d never admit was she’d racked up too many failures in the past fifteen years. If she failed now, the consequences would be absolute.

  “Don’t get gentle with me now,” she told him, dead serious. “It’ll put me over the edge.”

  “C’mon, you need some sleep.” He moved toward her with the grace of a man in control. He took her hand, pulled her up to him and kissed her with a sweetness that stung. He led her to the bedroom door, took her in a strong embrace that tested everything Cissy believed about their relationship.

  “Hey,” she murmured against the hard rock of his chest, struggling for survival even as her hands found his wide shoulders and held on too tight. “I thought you said I should sleep.”

  “You will…”

  He smiled. So did she.

  “Eventually.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  She woke with his body wrapped around hers and, for the first five minutes of the new day, she wasn’t afraid. Then reality reared its pointy head. She rolled away from Nick’s heat. When he woke, she was propped on one elbow, studying him.

  “You snore in your sleep,” she told him.

  “You drool.”

  She smiled. He smiled back. That’s how things had always been between them. Simple.

  He got up in one smooth, swift motion, one of those people who woke instantly.

  “What’s on your agenda today?” he called from the bathroom.

  She stretched under the sheets. “The usual. Have a little breakfast, read the paper, catch a killer.”

  He came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist and a warning in his eyes. “Why don’t you give my sister a call? Catch up on old times?”

  “Nice try.”

  “I promised you I’d find your mother and Jo Jo, Cissy. Crime lab is going over the evidence found at the scenes. I’m going to rattle a few doors today, see what I can find. There’s nothing you can do.”

  She had actually been feeling amorous until that last line. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. “You never learn, do you, Fiore?” She headed past him into the bathroom.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “What?” She craned her neck over her shoulder.

  “This.” Nick squatted, traced a finger down the back of her calf to the small hollow of her ankle, short-circuiting her efforts to be annoyed with him.

  She looked down. The small bandage had come off while she slept. “It’s a tattoo,” she snapped. “They’re very fashionable nowadays.”

  “What’s it supposed to be?” His finger drew a large circle around the image.

  “It’s the ancient Chinese symbol for ‘long life.’”

  His low laughter came from behind her. His finger circled the image again and again, then moved back up, tracing the curve of her calf, skimming the length of her thigh, reaching between her legs, finding her moist and warm, the intimate folds of her body parting to wrap around his finger in invitation. Then his hands held her hips. His lips, his tongue found the swell of her backside. A sexual heat shot through her, damning her. The fine skin across her chest flushed pale rose. When he turned her, she feared her legs would weaken, her body buckle, but his hands held her. Her support. Her strength. He nuzzled her, found her hot and moist. Lying would not save her now. A whimper released as he suckled her. She did not know for what she pleaded. She took his head in her hands while his tongue swirled for long seconds. The swell inside her mounted, gathering layer on layer, spreading so that she grabbed his shoulders and her thighs trembled. The death she had seen the past two days filled her. She cried out, the violence inside her now. Her head snapped back. Her body arched. Her nails dug into the firm flesh of Nick’s shoulders.

  He eased away slowly as if regretting leaving. His hands stayed curved to her hips. She drew him up to her, placed her mouth on his, tasting him, tasting herself. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled him closer, not caring that she clung too tight. Death could make you do crazy things like that.

  His hands cupped her buttocks, lifting her so her legs wrapped around his hips. Her back braced the wall. Their bodies joined, her hips splaying wider from the force of him, opening, asking him to fill her until all she would know was him. He thrust deeper, harder. Her muscles clenched around him. Air rushed from her chest. She opened her mouth in release only to have him cover it. She sounded her pleasure inside him.

  After, they stood, his weight warm on her, she flat to the wall, any bold victory brief. He kissed her once more, hard and intent, but there was tenderness in the hand he curved to her cheek.

  The kiss ended. “Thank you,” she told him.

  Hardness settled behind his eyes, betraying the desire that still took his features. “Don’t thank me. I’m not a kind guy.”

  They’d both played the act so long, the lines rolled off their tongues easily. “I’m not thanking you for your kindness.”

  He stared down at her as if he’d finally met his match and wasn’t happy about it. She flattened her hands on his chest and pushed him away. He smiled, grateful.

  “You’re a freaking cream puff, Fiore.” She walked into the bedroom.

  He showered, dressed, met her in the kitchen where she’d started the coffee. She got up to fill her cup as he came in. She’d thrown on one of his button-down shirts and nothing else, just to see him squirm. She wasn’t disappointed.

  He filled a coffee cup and sat down. “You going to behave yourself today?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you’ll do as you damn well please.”

  She clinked her coffee cup to his.

  “Cissy.”

  He looked
too serious. She was good with comebacks and hanging tough, hot, sweaty sex and long moments entwined. But seriousness, at least with Nick, was something else. She wasn’t sure how to handle it. In fact, the entire scenario, him dressed for work, she making coffee, sharing a cup together as the day began, was a little too Ozzie and Harriet for her. She and Nick didn’t do that shtick. So far, she’d avoided trying to figure out what was happening here between them. She’d had murder and missing family members to occupy her. But dressed in his shirt, the scent and strength of him flagrantly surrounding her, and him across the table looking solemn as if someone had just died. Which someone had, of course, but—

  The phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. Nick got up and answered it. “She’s right here.” He handed the phone to her.

  She took it with a questioning look.

  “Tommy Marcus,” he told her.

  “Hello, Tommy.” She’d left a message with his service last night for him to call her in the morning. She was ready to take him up on his offer to help.

  “Cissy, I got your message. I also just heard about your father on the morning news.”

  “Stepfather.” She was being petty, but death had done little to temper her feelings about Eddie.

  “Yes, right. Do the police have any ideas how this could have happened? Or why?”

  “They’re investigating now.” She watched Nick go into the other room.

  “Awful. Any word on your mother, your sister?”

  “No, not yet, but it’s only been two days.”

  “Yes, of course.” Tommy reassured her, masking any doubt.

  “Listen,” he said, “what can I do? How can I help? You probably want to postpone the funeral or at least the burial until your mother returns.”