Picture Me Dead

by Heather Graham

  Nick led the way behind the bar, through the office and into the living room. Dim night-lights cast the room in soft shadow.

  “Was something wrong at the boat?” Nick asked.

  “No, not really.”

  “Okay, well, just give me a minute,” Nick said. He wasn’t the type to pry, even if a few questions were warranted.

  “I just had a feeling someone had been on the Gwendolyn,” Jake offered. “I could have sworn I locked her when I left, but the door was open when I got back. There’s nothing gone—I may be imagining that someone was there. Hell, maybe I thought I locked it and didn’t.” His tone made it clear that he didn’t believe that. “Since I could see the lights from the bar and knew you were still up, I thought I’d ask about the key.”

  “No problem. And hey, if you’re uncomfortable about my having it…”

  “I’m not. I appreciate your having it for workmen, deliveries, whatever. I’d just kind of like to make sure it’s here.”

  “I’m sure it is. The house is off-limits to customers, you know. But you’re right, it can’t hurt to check. Hey, help yourself, if you want a drink, coffee, whatever. You know where the kitchen is.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nick disappeared down a hall to the right.

  Ashley’s sleep was troubled by dreams. Stuart was in them, talking to her, walking around in his white briefs as if it were completely normal. As if they had become the new office attire.

  Stuart faded….

  Dilessio was back in her dreams. He wasn’t even wearing briefs. She kept trying to meet his eyes, rather than looking down, pretending that there was nothing abnormal about him walking around naked. She was with him, topside on his houseboat, telling him just how graphic cable was these days.

  She awoke suddenly, feeling drenched and chilled at the same time. The dream images faded, and she sat up in her bed, trying to discern what had awakened her.

  It was late. There was no muted noise from the bar. The television was showing yet another episode of I Love Lucy.

  She stood, stretched, and wondered what could have bothered her. Walking to one of the two windows that flanked the door to the docks, she looked out. The docks themselves were empty, the boats rocking gently in their slips.

  Still uneasy, Ashley walked silently in her bare feet to the door that led to the house. She opened the door and listened. Nothing.

  The bar had closed. Nick had probably gone on in to bed.

  Nothing…and then…

  A noise. Just a noise. Something shifting…somewhere in the house.

  She went into the living room. Nick never left the place in total darkness, so dim night-lights cast eerie shadows over the room.

  The mounted fish seemed to glare at her, furious at being out of the water, stuffed and hanging on a wall.

  She’d lived here a long time. The fish had never seemed to be a menace before.

  Again…that noise…

  And it was coming from the kitchen. She walked swiftly and silently through the house to the kitchen, dropping low behind the counter, listening again. It could be Nick, of course. Or Sharon. But why would they walk so stealthily through their own house?

  She moved along behind the counter, toward the end, from where she could get a full view of the room.

  Too late she realized that someone, moving as silently as she, had come up behind her. A scream rose in her throat as rough arms suddenly grabbed her around her waist.

  “Who the hell are you, and what the fuck are you doing?”

  She tried to spin and fight, lost her balance and fell. The figure came down heavily on top of her. The oversized T-shirt in which she had been sleeping rucked up between them.

  Before she could even struggle, the kitchen was suddenly flooded with light.

  “What the hell…?”

  It was Nick speaking. And she was staring up into the tense features of their newest neighbor and the star of her recent dream: Detective Jake Dilessio.

  To her pleasure, he looked as awkward as she felt. For a moment they were caught there, almost in an embrace.

  Then he quickly scrambled up, offering her a hand.

  He wasn’t naked, but it was close enough. Just those cutoffs. And in their brief moments on the floor together, they had made a contact she could still feel. She seemed to be burning from her flushed features to her toes. But then again, despite his tan, he had taken on a more crimson hue, as well.

  “I thought someone was sneaking through the house,” he said.

  “Ditto,” she murmured, still meeting his eyes.

  “Didn’t occur to either one of you just to call out, huh?” Nick said.

  “Well, if someone were actually sneaking around the house…” Ashley began.

  “You were doing exactly that,” Jake told Ashley with a grin.

  “I live here!” she reminded him. “What were you doing in here?”

  “He was with me,” Nick said.

  “He was in the kitchen—you weren’t,” Ashley pointed out.

  “He told me to help myself to something to drink,” Jake informed her. “I was getting a glass of iced tea.”

  “Cops,” Nick said with a sigh. “Everything has to be a big mystery.” He shook his head, as if perplexed by a different species. “Let’s put the kettle on. Hot tea might be good now. Decaf for me, since I do intend to sleep sometime tonight.”

  He walked around to the stove. Ashley and Jake were left standing almost on top of one another. Ashley backed off a little. She wished suddenly she slept in something a little more…dignified. Her T-shirt advertised a rock band from the last concert she’d been to and didn’t even fall to mid-thigh.

  “I should get a robe,” she murmured.

  “Listen, Nick, I’ll just get back to the Gwendolyn,” Jake said. “If you’ve checked on that little matter for me?”

  “I did.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and produced a key. “It was right where it should have been.”

  Frowning, Ashley stared at Jake. Apparently he didn’t feel he needed to give her an explanation.

  “Are there any others out there?” Nick asked.

  “No,” Jake said, then hesitated. “Actually…yes. I hadn’t thought about it in…a long time. I’d forgotten. But yes, you’re right. There is another one out there.”

  He looked grim. Not the kind of guy you would want to mess with.

  “Hey, Ash, grab some mugs, will you?” Nick said.

  She walked around the counter and opened the cabinet. As she did so, Sharon walked into the kitchen, yawning, stretching. She was in a long, midnight-blue silk gown and robe. She had no makeup on, her hair was tousled, and she looked like a million bucks. Ashley knew her own hair was snarled around her face. And her T-shirt was…a T-shirt.

  “We having a party in here?” Sharon inquired, smiling but obviously a little confused.

  “Just tea,” Nick told her. He kissed her on the forehead. “Sorry we woke you. Cops. Everything is a drama, you know.”

  “Cops? Did we have a problem?” she asked.

  “No, a lack of communication,” Nick said, smiling. “And now we’re all awake. Like I said, sorry.”

  “It’s okay, I don’t have to be anywhere until eleven. But, Ashley,” she said, concern on her features. “You have to be in class at seven.”

  “Oh, she’s all right. She told me she’s still young enough to go without sleep,” Nick informed her cheerfully. “Hey, we’re in good shape, Sharon. We have Miami-Dade’s finest stalking one another in our kitchen.”

  The kettle began to whistle.

  “I’ll get milk and sugar,” Sharon offered. “There’s hot chocolate, too, if anyone would rather have that. Jake, would you like herbal tea?”

  “No, thank you. I’m just going to head back.”

  “The water’s boiled, and we’re all here,” Sharon said.

  “Just tea then, thank you, regular tea.”

  “Okay, one black tea. Ashley, here you g
o, and the sugar and milk. She takes loads of both,” Sharon told Jake, smiling.

  “Two cops,” Nick murmured, getting his own cup. “We’re lucky you two didn’t shoot each other!”

  “Hey, speaking of business,” Sharon said. “Jake, it was nice of you to go to the hospital tonight. That was your partner who picked you up earlier, right? Marty?”

  “He comes in and talks to Sandy now and then. Sandy loves to keep up on what’s going on in his city.”

  “Sandy is a bright old guy.”

  “Is there anything you can do to help Ashley’s friend?” Sharon asked anxiously.

  “I can ask a few questions, find out how the investigation is going,” Jake told her. “But it’s not my case, not even my area.”

  “Still, it’s nice of you to help,” Sharon said, then stretched and yawned and looked at Nick affectionately. “Busy night, huh? Oh, Ashley, a few friends of yours came by, too.”

  Ashley frowned, remembering that she should have called Karen and Jan, and brought them up to date on Stuart’s situation. But would they have come by Nick’s?

  “From the academy,” Sharon said.

  “No, the one kid is already a cop,” Nick corrected her. “What’s his name? Len Green, I think. Officer Green. He was here with that really big, good-looking black fellow, Arne.”

  “Did they want anything?” Ashley asked.

  “Hamburgers,” Nick said.

  “Nick, I meant—”

  “They asked for you,” Sharon said, smiling. “I guess they were just hungry, and figured they might be able to get a bite to eat and pay a social call at the same time. Anyway, I explained that you’d gone to the hospital to see a friend.”

  “Thanks. Well, if they needed anything, I’ll see them tomorrow. Arne, at least. I don’t see Len Green every day—he works down south. But if there was anything important, Arne will tell me.”

  “Nice guys,” Sharon commented. “They spent some time talking with Sandy, too. He seemed to enjoy them.”

  “Good,” Ashley murmured, feeling a little uncomfortable that Jake was listening to the conversation. It was such a casual conversation, surely it couldn’t matter. She still felt uncomfortable.

  He set down his empty cup. “Thanks for the tea, and sorry for the disruption,” he said. “Good night, all. I’ll let everyone get some sleep.” He started out the side door, then turned back. Ashley thought he might be about to apologize for tackling her. He wasn’t. “I will see what I can find out about your friend’s case,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  He exited, and Nick rose to secure the door.

  “I guess I’d better go and get what sleep I can,” Ashley murmured.

  “Of course. Good night, dear,” Sharon said.

  Ashley blew Nick a kiss and started back through the house. She should have been exhausted, but she felt wired instead, and found herself wondering why Nick had brought Jake into the house at that hour of the night. Neither of them had explained.

  Her television was still on, and Lucy and Ethel were at it again.

  She plunged into bed, then rose and went back to the window to the right of the door. Pulling back the drapes, she looked out.

  Detective Dilessio was standing on the deck of his houseboat again, hands on his hips, studying the bar.

  Why?

  She watched him for a few moments, once again noticing the way the moonlight fell on him. She gritted her teeth and gave herself a mental shake. He was the last man on earth to whom she should feel the slightest attraction.

  But she did. It wasn’t physically possible, but she could still feel where his body had been against hers in those few moments when they had been locked in a fierce embrace on the kitchen floor.

  She had always been the practical one among her friends. If it isn’t good for you, don’t do it. Don’t take a puff of a cigarette. Why start, when you know it’s bad? Don’t take a chance on a guy you know is bad news. If you don’t start…

  She wasn’t starting anything. She went back to bed and stared at the television. Once again, she eventually drifted back to sleep.

  Not even sleep could help her over-exhaustion. She started dreaming again, knowing she was dreaming….

  She was there again, on his houseboat. They were discussing white briefs, though once again he wasn’t wearing any. She kept trying to look into his eyes, to keep her gaze from dropping downward….

  She wanted to talk to him about something very important, but she couldn’t remember what it was, because she couldn’t keep her eyes on his.

  The alarm rang. She was jerked out of the dream, still painfully aware of it, the vision of him clear in her mind.

  She bolted upright, miserable, feeling as if she’d never gone to sleep. Shit!

  She just knew it was going to be a wretched day.

  CHAPTER 9

  The room wasn’t small, but it felt confining. Stifling. There was a brown table. The walls were a sanitarium green—two different shades of sanitarium green. There was nothing in the room other than the table and two chairs.

  Peter Bordon sat in one, staring across the table at Jake, who sat in the other. A guard was right outside the door. Jake didn’t think he’d be crying out for backup—Bordon wasn’t impressive in any physical sense. He was about five feet ten inches tall, and no more than a hundred and eighty. He was tight and compact, but not in any way heavily muscled.

  Even now, so many years later, he had that strange power in his eyes. Scary, in a way. Very creepy. He had smiled with secretive amusement when he first saw Jake, and the guard had promised he would be just outside the door.

  “Guess he doesn’t know you once beat the shit out of me,” Bordon said.

  “I didn’t beat the shit out of you,” Jake countered.

  Bordon inclined his head to the side, shrugging off the comment. “Sorry, you were strangling me, I think.”

  “You look alive and well to me.”

  “I am well. Very well, thanks.”

  Only a few hints of gray teased at his light brown hair. Those strange eyes were hazel, and it often seemed as if Bordon could lighten and darken them at will. He had an ability to focus on a person that was almost hypnotic. His voice was low, but full. He was soft-spoken, but there was a strength in his tone that could cover tremendous distance.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t call you Jake? Is that too personal? Me, using your first name? I should be calling you Detective Dilessio. But then, I feel that I came to know you so well. I know you’d be pleased if I was dying of a slow and painful disease, choking daily on my own vomit. There’s so much anger and hatred in your heart. But I forgive you.”

  “Fuck your forgiveness,” Jake said, then gritted his teeth. Bordon was baiting him, a talent of his. Jake swore then that he wasn’t going to rise to that bait again.

  He reached into his jacket and drew out one of the crime scene photos of the dead girl, sliding it in front of Bordon. “How’d she die, Peter? And why?”

  Bordon looked dispassionately at the photograph, then met Jake’s eyes again. He slowly made the sign of the cross. “Obviously, Detective, she was murdered or you wouldn’t be here. Why, I don’t know. I will pray for her soul, though.”

  “Peter, her throat was slit and her ears were slashed. The tips of her fingers were cut away. She died in agony. Just like those women who died five years ago.”

  “I never killed anyone.”

  “You ordered the killings.”

  “No, Detective, you’re wrong. I would never order one human being to take the life of another.”

  Jake shook his head. “We might not have had proof, but everyone knows you conspired to commit murder.”

  “Perhaps I was angry with the women who died…or perhaps I didn’t particularly like them, and though, in my deep belief, I would try not to let my feelings show, perhaps others saw my disappointment in the women, and therefore…they died.”

  Jake leaned forward. “Papa Pierre. That’s what they call
ed you. The foolish and the lost gathered around you, hanging on your every word, your sermons or the bliss of immortality for those who learned the true Word during their time on earth. For those who gave their all to the church—your church—and themselves—all of themselves, of course—over to you.”

  Bordon grinned, suddenly down to earth, the practiced hypnotic quality of his eyes and voice gone. “I fleeced a few people. I was guilty of fraud and income tax evasion. I’m serving my time. And yes, I had sex with a few women. All right. Lots of women. Lots of beautiful women. Jealous, Jake? You don’t have to be, you know. You reek of testosterone. Women must practically reach out to grab you when you walk by. So don’t begrudge me a little carnal amusement, Jake. We both know that there’s no law against consensual sex between adults.”

  Jake sat back. Bordon hadn’t changed a hair. He was calm and serene through every word, every lie, he spoke. He met Bordon’s stare and waited a long moment. “What happened to Nancy?” he demanded, his voice as soft, as deadly, as Bordon’s could ever be.

  Bordon stared at him, shaking his head. “Jake, Jake, Jake. You’re like a tired-out old record player. She was your partner, but she didn’t come with you when you came out to harass me. I knew about her, though. She was a computer whiz, right? And at the trial, it came out that she was the one who suggested investigating me for crimes other than murder. But I don’t know what happened to her. I know they found her in her car in a canal, but that’s all I know. Seriously, Jake, get a grip on yourself. I’m a smart man. I can read between the lines. I know what was going on with your partner. Hell, I made a business out of knowing what people’s weaknesses were. You come up here, the determined, compassionate cop, afraid that this new victim is just the first of more to come…but you don’t really give a rat’s ass about that girl, do you? After all this time, you still want to wrap your fingers around my neck and kill me, because maybe that will let you believe that your lover didn’t kill herself because she was miserable, between her two-timing husband and you.”

  This time, Jake held his temper. “Nancy didn’t kill herself, Bordon. She was my partner, not my lover, but that’s really not the point. She was a strong woman, and she wouldn’t have killed herself over me, her husband or any other man. She was murdered. And no matter what you say, I believe you ordered her murder, because she knew something. What was it that she knew, Peter? Whatever it was, it is the key to what is happening now. You and I both know it.”