“How odd that you can say you and Lulu didn’t share intimacies when you were lovers. I can’t think of anything more intimate than that.”
After a long pause, he replied, “Lulu and I had sex. We didn’t make love. We didn’t love each other. Sometimes sex isn’t all that intimate.”
Have you ever loved a woman? she wanted to ask, but didn’t. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, I do.” A fluttering sensation swept through her stomach.
“If we ever had sex, it would be intimate,” he said, his voice low and deep. Seductive.
Sensual heat flushed her body, from head to toe. Feminine moisture gathered between her thighs. “Please, don’t…”
“Should I apologize for wanting you?”
“No. But I can’t…we can’t. You told me yourself that you want me the way you’ve wanted countless other women.”
“I lied. I’ve never wanted another woman the way I want you.”
Her accelerated heartbeat drummed in her ears. The muscles in her belly tightened. “You told me that you’d wind up breaking my heart.”
Deny that, too, she pleaded silently. Tell me that you’d never hurt me, never break my heart. Swear to me that I can trust you.
He didn’t say a word.
“Quinn?”
“After the funeral, after you’ve done what you need to do there, come back to Memphis.”
“I’ll think about it. But I have to go now.”
“I’ll be thinking about you today.”
And I’ll be thinking about you, too, wishing you were here.
“Good-bye, Quinn.” She hung up the phone before she said something she would regret, before she made a promise she shouldn’t.
Afternoon sunlight, warm and pure, shimmered across the white casket and sparkled against the heavy gold trim. A gentle, barely there springtime breeze whispered through the treetops and caressed bare skin. The aroma of freshly shoveled earth, piled high on the far side of the grave mingled with the scent of newly mowed grass. As Dr. Porter, the Presbyterian minister, quoted scripture at the end of his brief graveside speech, Annabelle glanced at Uncle Louis, who sat on her right side. He looked very old, very weak and unbearably sad. To his credit, Wythe stood behind his father, his hands resting protectively on Louis’s shoulders. He’d been a good son today, ever mindful of his father’s poor health and delicate emotional state. Although she despised her cousin with a passion, she forced herself to pretend that, only for today, he was the man he should have been instead of the man he was. When giving Lulu’s eulogy, she had done the same. Both of Uncle Louis’s children had turned out badly, the younger’s fate sealed by the actions of the elder. Lulu could be forgiven. Wythe could not.
After Dr. Porter ended with a prayer, the bagpiper played “Amazing Grace” and the small crowd gathered at the family cemetery began to disperse, most of them preparing to go on up to the house. Last night’s visitation at the mansion and today’s funeral at the downtown Austinville church had been public affairs, a chance for one and all to pay homage and say good-bye to Lulu. The graveside service had been a private affair, for close friends and family only. And it would be those few who would return to the house this afternoon to share their grief.
When leaving the church over an hour ago, Annabelle had seen Sergeant George in the crowd outside and had gone over to thank him for driving in from Memphis for the funeral. He’d been sympathetic and caring, offering to do anything he could for her. She’d found herself inviting him to come to the cemetery for the burial. It wasn’t that she had actually wanted Chad George at her side today, but he had been there, available and willing. Whereas the man she truly wanted—here today and in every way a woman can want a man—couldn’t be with her, even though he wanted to be.
When she rose from her seat, she helped Wythe get Uncle Louis to his feet. With the two of them flanking him, they walked him to the limousine and placed him in the backseat. Then she turned to Chad, who stood off to the side of the others, obviously waiting for her.
“Come back to the house with me,” she said.
“Are you sure you want me there?” he asked.
“I’m sure. If I didn’t want you to stay with me this afternoon, I wouldn’t have invited you.” She held out her hand.
Chad grasped her hand gently. “You know I’d do anything for you, Annabelle. Anything at all.”
She smiled at him. “Be my friend today. My caring, supportive friend.”
“It would be my honor.”
When they walked over to her Cadillac, he offered to drive and she readily tossed him the keys. It felt good to turn over even this small, insignificant job to someone else. Someone she could count on without reservations.
Chad was the type of man who should appeal to her. In some ways, he reminded her of Chris. Boyishly handsome. Almost too pretty to be masculine and yet all man. And Chad was a police detective, the nephew of a congressman. From a good family would be her guess. Not wealthy by Vanderley standards, but respectable. She could trust Chad. He wouldn’t lie to her. And he wouldn’t break her heart if she had an affair with him.
He wouldn’t break your heart because you don’t love him. You like him. You respect him because of his profession. And you wish you could feel for him what you feel for Quinn. But you don’t.
No, I don’t, but maybe I could if I tried.
After attending to both of his employer’s guests, Sanders handed Griffin a glass of bourbon. Quinn swirled the liquor around inside the glass, then lifted it to his lips and sipped. Perfection. Of course, he had expected Griffin Powell would serve only the best. Powell possessed a sophisticated polish that went beyond the surface, whereas Quinn’s was simply a thin veneer that barely disguised the roughneck beneath. Quinn wasn’t a connoisseur of fine wines or distinguished hard liquor. When he drank liquor of any kind, except for social occasions, he usually drank beer, but for the most part he preferred iced tea. Maybe having a mother who fell into a whiskey bottle when he was a small kid, and never managed to drag herself out of it had turned Quinn against booze at an early age. Sheila Cortez, God rest her soul, had never met a bottle of whiskey she didn’t like. But whiskey had sure enough hated her. It had aged her before her time, ruined her health and eventually helped kill her.
“I’ve ordered room service for dinner,” Griffin said. “I took the liberty of ordering for all of us. If you don’t mind, Sanders will join us.”
“Fine with me,” Quinn said. His gut instincts told him that there was more than an employer/employee relationship between Powell and Sanders.
“Certainly,” Judd Walker added.
“But business before the pleasure of a good meal.” Griffin set his bourbon glass on the desk, then picked up a piece of standard eight-by-eleven paper. “I just received information this afternoon that strengthens my theory that someone is murdering Quinn’s lovers.”
Quinn’s gut tightened. “Please tell me that another of my former lovers wasn’t killed.”
“Do you remember Carla Millican?” Griffin asked.
“Carla’s an interior designer,” Quinn said. “We met late last summer at a party given by a mutual friend, someone whose apartment she’d decorated.”
“Did you know that Carla was murdered four months ago?”
Nausea churned in Quinn’s stomach. His pulse rate increased, creating a buzzing hum inside his head. “No, I had no idea.”
“You two had an affair.” Griffin probed Quinn’s face, focusing on his eyes.
What was he trying to do—figure out whether of not he can trust me to tell him the truth? Is he searching for a sign that will tell him I wouldn’t lie to him?
“If Carla was murdered in Houston four months ago, I’d have read about it in the newspaper and I don’t remember—”
“She had moved to Dallas two months before her death.”
“Was her killer caught?” Judd asked.
Griffin shook his head.
; “Was her killer’s MO the same as the person who killed Lulu Vanderley and Kendall Wells?” Judd asked.
“Yes. Carla was smothered. And her right index finger was cut off.”
“Goddamn!” Quinn set his glass on the coffee table, then bounded up off the sofa. “I can’t believe this.” Suddenly something hit him, a memory flashing through his mind. “I was in Dallas four months ago. Briefly. I flew there one day and back to Houston the next.”
“You flew in on November twentieth and back to Houston on the twenty-first,” Griffin said. “You were called in as a consultant. An old law school buddy was trying a big case and he wanted to pick your brain.”
“Don’t tell me—Carla was murdered on November twentieth.”
“You got it. She was murdered while you were there in Dallas. Do you happen to remember what you were doing between ten P.M. and one A.M. that night?”
“I was in my hotel room, asleep.”
“Can you prove it?” Judd and Griffin asked practically simultaneously.
“No, damn it, I can’t prove it. I was alone.”
“Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to frame you,” Judd said. “Unless you’re Jekyll and Hyde and are murdering these women without one part of your personality knowing what the other is doing.”
“Don’t joke about something like this,” Quinn told his lawyer.
God, did I have one of those peculiar blackout spells while I was Dallas? Think, damn it, think. Try to remember.
The first odd sleepy spell hit me in New Orleans nearly a year ago. Did the second one occur in Dallas? Yes. Oh, God, yes, it did. And both times a woman was murdered. Just like here in Memphis when Lulu and Kendall were killed. Is it possible that I actually killed those women? No. No way in hell. I’m not a murderer. I had no reason to kill Joy or Carla or Lulu or Kendall.
“Four women with whom you’ve had affairs are dead,” Griffin said. “All four murdered in the same way—smothered. And each woman had her right index finger cut off. I’d say we have a serial killer on our hands.”
“A serial killer who is somehow connected to Quinn,” Judd added.
Anger combined with guilt built up within Quinn. Rage screamed inside him. He stomped across the room, adrenaline surging through his body. He wanted to lash out, hit something, rip something apart with his bare hands.
“Take some deep breaths and calm down,” Griffin advised. “You’re about to blow a gasket and that’s not going to help you.”
“Someone has killed four of my lovers and made sure I was in a position to be blamed for each one. How the hell can you expect me to calm down? Four women are dead because of me.”
“Griffin’s right. You need to control that temper of yours or it’s going to wind up hurting you,” Judd said, and his lawyer’s cool and collected demeanor enraged Quinn all the more. “If some psycho has targeted women you’ve had affairs with, that’s not your fault. If you’re his real target, then why didn’t he just come after you?”
Halting in midpacing, Quinn glared at Judd. “What?”
“Whoever killed these women apparently doesn’t want you dead, at least not yet. He wants you to suffer,” Griffin told Quinn. “He wants you to realize what he’s done and feel guilty and remorseful, just as you’re doing now.”
Judd said, “It’s possible that his plan all along was to frame you for these murders. He’s gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure you didn’t have an alibi for when any of these murders took place.”
What if he also went to a lot of trouble to make sure I blacked out, that I couldn’t account for a couple of hours of my time when each murder occurred? Maybe my peculiar sleepy spells were orchestrated by someone else. But how? By whom? The only people close enough to him, who could have slipped him a mickey, were Marcy, Aaron and Jace, three people he trusted implicitly. Besides they hadn’t been in New Orleans or in Dallas with him. Or could one of them have followed him? No, God no!
“I’ll have to inform Annabelle Vanderley,” Griffin said. “You realize that, don’t you?”
“What?” Quinn had been only halfway listening. Tell Annabelle, is that what Griffin had said? “Yeah, I know. We’ll have to tell Annabelle and the police.”
“They might not buy my theory,” Griffin said. “The police might see this as evidence that you’re the serial killer. But it’s better for you if we tell them before they unearth the facts about Joy Ellis and Carla Millican themselves.”
“And you think that’s likely to happen?” Quinn asked.
Griffin nodded. “Jim Norton is a damn good detective. My guess is that he’ll keep digging until he finds out everything he can about you and anyone he suspects might have killed Lulu Vanderley.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Quinn took those deep breaths Griffin had suggested, then said, “I need to talk to Judd alone. Do you mind?”
Griffin shook his head. “Client/attorney privileged information?”
“Right.”
Griffin left the lounge area without any further comment. As soon as he closed the bedroom door behind him, Quinn sat down across from Judd Walker and looked him square in the eyes.
“Almost a year ago, when I was in New Orleans, I had an odd sleepy spell. I didn’t think much about it at the time. I thought I’d been drinking too much, something I seldom do, and maybe exhausting myself with a certain lady. Joy Ellis. I remember getting really sleepy all of a sudden, tired and lethargic. I fell asleep in my hotel room and woke up a couple of hours later with a headache.”
When Judd opened his mouth to speak, possibly to ask a question, Quinn made a wait-I’m-not-finished hand gesture. Judd nodded.
“I’d pretty much forgotten about it when it happened again months later. In Dallas. The same night Griffin just told us that Carla was murdered.”
“Let me guess,” Judd said. “You had the same kind of sleepy spells on the night Lulu was killed and again when Kendall was murdered.”
“Yes. I had to pull off the side of the road for a nap on my way from Nashville the night Lulu died. And then on my way to Kendall’s this past Monday evening, the same thing happened. I left the highway, pulled into a parking lot and went to sleep.”
“Why haven’t you seen a doctor about these sleepy spells?”
“Because until recently, I’d had only two. And they’d been months apart. After the two I’ve had here in Memphis, I started thinking maybe there was something physically wrong with me and I’d planned to see a doctor when I went back to Houston.”
“You’re well aware of how the police might interpret this information.”
“If they believed me, they’d think I was crazy and that when I thought I was sleeping, I wasn’t, but instead was out there killing those women. They’ll think I smothered four of my lovers.”
“Is it possible that you did kill them?” Judd asked.
“No! No, I couldn’t have. I had no reason to kill them.”
Chapter 20
Jim Norton glanced down at the folders on his desk containing info on the two murder cases the department was working on at present. Being the lead detective on both cases, since it was assumed they were definitely connected and more than likely committed by the same person, the responsibility weighed heavily on his shoulders. While Chad was off trying to score brownie points with Annabelle Vanderley, Jim had been left to do the work. When Chad had told him this morning that he was taking off to Mississippi for Lulu’s funeral, he’d wanted to ask him why. But he knew why. The guy actually thought he still had a chance with Ms. Vanderley. Talk about being overly confident. But Jim had decided there was little use in trying to talk sense to his partner. It was only a matter of time before the lady herself burst his bubble. He probably thought that when Cortez was arrested for Lulu’s and Kendall’s murders, Annabelle would need a shoulder to cry on. Chad was counting on those DNA results proving Cortez had fathered Lulu’s baby.
Jim looked over the DNA results, which had just come in less than an ho
ur ago, once again, just to make sure he hadn’t misread the notation from the lab. Son of a bitch! It took all kinds, didn’t it? In his line of work, he’d run across every type of scumbag walking the face of the earth and supposed he was somewhat jaded. Although little surprised him, some things still made him sick to his stomach. Like these test results.
He’d wait until Chad got back from Austinville to share the information with him. He was going to be pissed enough as it was. Maybe he should just tell Chad the results would be in first thing tomorrow, after all, it was past six already, and it was highly unlikely they could round up all the major players before morning.
“You planning on spending the night here, Norton?” Lieutenant Ed Palmer, an old pro like himself, slipped into his jacket as he walked past Jim’s cubicle.
Jim shook his head. “Nah, I’m heading out in a few minutes. I’m going over to my ex-wife’s to see my kid. He called me and invited me for supper.”
“Watch out,” Ed said. “When an ex-wife starts cooking for you, she’s either wanting to ask for more alimony and child support or she’s looking to reconcile.”
“Knowing Mary Lee the way I do, I’d say it’s definitely the former. And I doubt she’s done any cooking. She probably ordered pizza or went by KFC.”
Ed guffawed. “If you ever get to hankering for some home cooking, come home with me. Betty Jean feeds me too well.” Ed patted his round belly.
Jim sat there for several minutes after Ed left, his mind absorbed in thoughts of what he’d expected his life would be like and what it actually was. He was one of those old-fashioned guys who’d thought he’d have a stay-at-home wife, the kind his mother had been. Divorce hadn’t been a word in his vocabulary. If things had been different…if Mary Lee had been different…if he had been different.
Damn it, don’t look back. No use torturing yourself.
He picked up the phone and dialed Chad’s cell number. He let it ring repeatedly. No answer. He’d try Chad later, on his drive over to Mary Lee’s.
“Hey, Norton,” Sandra Holmes, one of two female detectives on the force paused at his cubicle. “How’s it going?”
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