Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

“Fair enough,” Vince said. “But would you do me a favor? Would you ask Tommy about last Thursday night? Was his dad home or did he go out that night?”

The idea was leaving a bad taste in her mouth. He could see her resistance rising.

“They’re easy questions, and they probably have easy answers,” he said. “I just think it’s better if they come from you. He doesn’t need an FBI agent scaring him, asking him questions about his dad. He trusts you.”

She arched a brow. “So I should manipulate him?”

“I’m not asking you to manipulate him. Ask him a couple of questions for me. That’s all.”

“Why don’t you ask Mrs. Crane?”

“The Queen of Hearts?” he tossed her own description back at her. “Wives have ulterior motives. Kids don’t.”

She thought about it for minute, giving him the I-don’t-quite-trust-you eye. She had a shield like a Spartan warrior, this one, and she might guard herself with it, or she might smack him in the head with it if that seemed the more prudent thing to do.

“I’m not asking you to steal trade secrets,” Vince said, scooping up some ziti. “Just to ask a little boy where his dad was last Thursday night.”

“I guess I could do that,” she said reluctantly.

“What do you know about the Morgan family?” he asked.

“They’re nice people. The dad-Steve-is an attorney. Sara sometimes teaches art classes for the community education program. She’s mostly a stay-at-home mom. They have the one child-Wendy.”

“Good marriage?”

She shrugged. “As far as I know. Don’t tell me Steve Morgan is a suspect.”

“He was a friend of Lisa Warwick. We have to check him out. It’s just routine. You could probably get a feeling from the girl if something was off at home, right?”

“And what do I get for interrogating my students?” she asked, surprising him.

“I’ll talk to your principal,” he offered. “Recommend that he set up some tutoring sessions for Dennis Farman. Maybe the boy could come to school for a couple of hours a day, as long he isn’t allowed in the classroom or on the playground. That way you can maintain some contact with him. How does that sound?”

“I would appreciate your support in that.”

Quid pro quo, Vince thought. Maybe she would find out something useful, or maybe nothing would come of it… except another dinner… or two…

He reached his hand across the table and she met it with hers. Her hand was small and soft, but strong, like a woman who knew what she wanted. He liked that.

“Deal?” he asked.

“Deal.”

He insisted on walking Anne to her car, and she put up little resistance. With a possible serial killer on the loose, it was no time for women to be turning down extra safety measures.

He put her in her sporty little red Volkswagen and leaned down into the open window.

“Lock your doors and don’t stop for anybody,” he instructed.

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t call me ‘sir.’ You’ll make me think I’m too old.”

“Too old for what?” she asked with that little Mona Lisa half-smile and a sparkle in her eye.

With no thought process involved, he leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

“For that,” he murmured.

Damn bullet.

She didn’t slap him. That was a good first step.

“Thanks for your help, Anne,” he said.

She was still trying to process the kiss in her analytical little brain.

“Thanks for the ziti,” she said.

He watched her drive away into the night, not quite daring to let his hopes go where they wanted. Then he walked across the street and down the alley to the back of Peter Crane’s office.

Anne poured herself a glass of wine and went to stand on the back porch, just outside the open kitchen door. She thought of Vince’s warning to be careful. There was a killer prowling the streets. But her yard was fenced, and the moon was bright, and she wanted just a few minutes to overthink the evening before she went to bed.

She touched her upper lip, still feeling the brush and tickle of his mustache as he kissed her. She tried to remember the last time she’d been kissed.

Not only did she not have dating life, truth to tell, she was avoiding having a dating life. The men in her social circle weren’t men, they were overgrown frat boys who still played video games. The second ring of her social circle was made up of the parents of her students, most of whom were married, not many happily. From her own perspective as a child, she had seen the ideal of being married with children was not all it was cracked up to be. And so she had never been in a hurry to go there.

But she had to admit there was something about Vince Leone that attracted her, beyond his looks. He was strong, intelligent, knew his mind. He saw something he wanted, and he took it.

Too bad he wouldn’t be sticking around. He would finish his work here and go back to Virginia, to another round of heinous crime.

She couldn’t imagine constantly being immersed in a world of death and evil. Three days of it had been enough for her.

Even as she took a sip of the warm, full-bodied cabernet, she shivered at the idea that evil was not that far away, roaming the streets like a wolf hunting for prey. She thought back to what she had been doing Monday night-grading papers, going over lesson plans, listening to a Phil Collins album-while someone had been torturing and killing Lisa Warwick. She had been sleeping soundly while the killer buried her body in the park, leaving her head aboveground with the idea that someone would see her and be shocked and horrified.

As she stood there on her porch, he was out there with another victim. Things were happening that she would never want to imagine.

She shivered again and goose bumps ran over her in a stampede. She stared out to the darkness beyond her yard and felt as if he might be right there, watching her, the division between her world and his only as thick as the width of her lawn.

She turned then and went into the house, locking the door behind her… never aware of the figure standing just out of reach of the moonlight, watching her go.

“So, Gordon,” Mendez said, sitting down across from Gordon Sells at the little table in the interview room.

Sells scowled at him. “I didn’t say you could call me that.”

“I didn’t ask,” Mendez said flatly, looking down at the papers he had brought into the room with him. “So, Gordon, you’ve got yourself a record. You’re a pedophile.”

“I am not.”

“A jury decided you are.”

“Them girls lied. I didn’t do nothing to them.”

“Except expose yourself, fondle yourself, put your hand down their pants-”

“I never did that.”

“And you didn’t have a collection of kiddie porn stashed in your house either, I suppose. It says here you had a hundred thirty-one pages of photographs of minor girls in various states of undress.”

“From the JC Penney catalog!” Sells shouted. “Them were things I was gonna order for my nieces for Christmas presents.”

“And the twenty-seven photographs of minor girls engaging in sexual activity with an adult. Whose Christmas present was that collection?”

Agitated, Sells got up out of his chair and started to walk toward the door. Mendez rose, blocking him.

“Stay on your side of the table, Gordon. And have a seat. We’re going to be here for a long time.”

He turned to another page in what was supposed to be a thick file on the life and times of Gordon Sells. In reality he had one sheet on Sells. The rest of the file was from an assault case he had closed three months prior.

“You were a guest of the California State Department of Correction for twelve years up in Wasco.” Mendez looked up at him, just this side of amused. “I bet that was fun. There’s nothing cons like better than raping a child rapist. Or maybe you liked that.”