Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

She turned on Mendez. “Aren’t you going to do something?”

Mendez was the picture of disinterest, so unconcerned with her needs he couldn’t be bothered to raise more than one shoulder to shrug. “He outranks me.”

“I’m calling my husband,” she announced, storming down the hall to a beautiful study with two desks and white bookshelves that climbed to the ceiling.

“So you do know where he is,” Vince said.

She glared at him as she snatched up the receiver of the phone. “He has a cellular telephone in his car.”

“Really? What for? So he can be available for all those urgent emergency teeth cleanings?” Vince asked. “That’s an extravagant toy-”

“So what?” she snapped back at him, punching numbers.

“So he works all day in an office ten minutes away from here. Why does he need a cellular telephone? You’re telling us he rarely leaves the house if he’s not working. When is he not at your beck and call?”

“But he’s not here now,” Mendez pointed out.

“True,” Vince said. “But I doubt he and his cronies are playing cards in his car, and why would he lug that phone into his card game with him? You have to carry the damn things around in a suitcase.”

“Doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Mendez agreed. “Unless he’s just that whipped.”

“Is that it?” Vince asked, depressing the plunger on the phone and disconnecting her call. “Do you have your husband that cowed, Mrs. Crane?”

She was so angry now there were tears in her eyes and her mouth was quivering as she tried to hold back the vitriol she wanted to spew at him. She made a strangled gurgling sound in her throat.

“Because that kind of domineering, controlling behavior can create some pretty nasty recoil on the other end of a relationship,” Vince said.

“Edmund Kemper,” Mendez offered.

Vince nodded. To Janet Crane he said, “Edmund Kemper endured so many years of domination by his mother, he ended up murdering college coeds and cutting their heads off to relieve his psychological pressure.”

“My husband is NOT a MURDERER!” she screamed.

“You’re that sure?” Vince asked quietly. “He was the last person to see Karly Vickers the day she disappeared. He knew Lisa Warwick from the Thomas Center. And it turns out he was arrested in Oxnard for soliciting Julie Paulson for sex. Those women are all dead or missing.”

Janet Crane slammed the receiver down on the phone and stood absolutely rigid beside the desk. “You’re lying. My husband is a pillar of this community. He is well respected. He is admired. He is the perfect husband and father.”

“Is he?” Vince said. “Because down in Ventura County he’s just another john that comes to Oxnard to fuck hookers.”

“That’s outrageous! How dare you say that!”

“And if I opened one of his desk drawers here and showed you newspaper clippings from all three of these cases, what would you say then, Mrs. Crane?”

“Get out of my house,” she said. “Get out of my house or I’m calling our attorney.”

Vince exchanged a look with Mendez.

“You’d better be on good terms with that attorney,” Vince said. “You never know how soon you might need his services.”

He let the silence between them hang for a moment. She was breathing hard, starting to hyperventilate. Even clenched into fists at her side, her hands were shaking. Good.

“Think about that, Mrs. Crane,” he said quietly. “Every time he’s out of your sight. Every time he doesn’t answer that cellular telephone. Every minute he doesn’t have to listen to you harping and harping and harping. Where is he? Every time he brings you a little gift of jewelry, where did he get it? Every time he goes out to be a part of the search for Karly Vickers or man the phones on the hotline. Why is he really doing that?”

She said nothing, just continued to stare at him, glassy-eyed and trembling with rage.

“One more thing,” Vince said, taking a step toward her, and then another. He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “If I hear you’re trying to take your son out of Anne Navarre’s class, or that you’re going to sue her, or that you accosted her on the street, you’ll answer to me, Mrs. Crane.

“All I have to do is make one hint to a reporter that you know something you shouldn’t about that murder victim in the park, or that your husband has a predilection for prostitutes, and all that status you prize so highly comes tumbling down,” he said.

“You’re threatening me?”

“No,” he said, taking another step into her personal space, leaning toward her so that she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. “I’m telling you how it is. I’m the big dog in this fight, Janet . Don’t piss on my fences.”

He didn’t wait for a reaction from her. He had accomplished exactly what he had set out to do. How she reacted now was irrelevant. He turned his back on her and walked out.

He didn’t realize how hot he’d gotten until he stepped out into the cold. He was sweating and breathing hard. He felt more than a little primitive. The male of the species defending his mate, testosterone running like a flood through his veins. His pulse pounded in his head, and he worried for a second he might have a stroke.

Jesus H.

When they reached the car, Mendez opened his door and paused to look across the roof at him.

“Man, just so you know,” he said. “I am NEVER getting on your bad side.”

Vince forced half a grin. “Like we say in Chicago: She had it coming.”

As Detective Mendez and the other man went out the door, Tommy scurried back up the stairs-just far enough to be out of sight. His heart was beating so fast he thought it might burst and send blood gushing everywhere.

His mother would be mad at him then for getting blood all over her carpet. Everything about their house belonged to her.

Don’t get blood on my carpets.

Don’t spill juice on my clean floor.

Don’t get dirt on my sofa.

A lot of the time he felt like he and his dad didn’t belong there at all.

He sat now on the stairs just out of reach of the light from below. He was shaking and scared and mad all at once. He had so many crazy, mixed-up feelings tumbling around inside of him he thought he might throw up again.

This had been the worst night of his life. Worse even than finding the dead lady, though he couldn’t help thinking if he hadn’t fallen on the dead lady none of the rest of this would be happening.

His mother had exploded over Miss Navarre asking him questions. Miss Navarre was no friend to him, his mother had told him. She was a lot of bad names Tommy would have gotten his mouth washed out with soap for using.

And he was in trouble too-for answering Miss Navarre. But what else was he supposed to do? She was his teacher and she asked him a question. And why was it such a bad question anyway?

Because Miss Navarre was practically accusing his dad of being a serial killer.

Tommy didn’t believe that, but what if she was? Then he would feel like Miss Navarre had betrayed him. That idea hurt him like getting cut with a knife.

He wished he could talk to Miss Navarre now. She was smart and caring, and usually knew what to do. She kept telling him she wanted to help him, that if he needed to talk about anything, anything at all, he should call her.

He wanted to call.

He was scared to call.

She had said to call. Anytime.

He thought of all the times this week Miss Navarre had been there for him, to help him, to comfort him. And even though he was kind of in love with her, he knew the way she treated him was more like if she was his mother.