David Baldacci - Hour Game

"You kept your maiden name?" said Michelle.

"I don't have any brothers," Lulu replied. "My sisters took their husbands' names. I just wanted to keep the Oxleys around at least so long as I'm alive."

"You work at the Aphrodisiac, don't you?" asked King.

She looked a little startled. "That's right, how'd you know?" She suddenly smiled. "Don't tell me you been there."

King smiled back. "Once. Years ago."

"When I first went to work there, it was more a whorehouse than anything else. It was called the Love Shack back then, you know, after the B-52's song. But I saw a lot more potential than that. Over the years we've turned it into a nice club. Okay, we still have the dancers and stuff, but that's only in one section, the original part of the place. Junior did a lot of the new construction work. You should see some of the millwork in there now, wood columns, nice moldings, classy drapes and wallpaper. We got a real nice restaurant, with linen and china, a billiards room and a place to play cards, a movie theater and a first-class bar with a special ventilated place so the men can smoke cigars; and we just started a club for local businesspeople. You know, a place to come and network. We got Internet access, a business center. Revenue up eighty-six percent over last year, and last year was the best year we'd had in the last ten. And I've been pushing to change the name to something a little more…"

"Tasteful?" said Michelle.

"Yeah," said Lulu. "I own a piece of the place, so that's me and Junior's retirement. I want it to be as profitable as possible. I got the costs in line, manageable debt levels and strong cash flow with little direct competition, and our target demographic is golden: male high income earners who don't care how much they spend. You should see our EBITDA level compared to what it was."

"You sound like quite the businesswoman," said Michelle.

"Didn't start out that way. I didn't even finish high school. My daddy had an aneurysm when I was only sixteen. Dropped out to help nurse him. Guess I wasn't much of a nurse; he died anyway. But then I married Junior, went back and got my GED and took business courses at the community college. I started working at the Love Shack part-time. As a waitress," she added quickly. "I don't have the necessary physical equipment to be one of the dancers. Worked my way up, learned the business, and there you are."

"And one of your dancers was just killed," said King.

Lulu stiffened. "How'd you know about that?"

"We're sort of informal consultants to Chief Williams," explained King.

"She was one of our former dancers," corrected Lulu.

"Did you know her?" asked Michelle.

"Not really. We got lots of dancers come through. Most don't stay all that long, nature of the business. And we play it by the rules. We don't allow anything but the dancing. We're not looking to lose our license to operate because some girl wants to make some cash on the side by spreading her legs."

"Did Rhonda Tyler want to do that? Is that why she left?" asked Michelle.

"I already told the police all this. Is there some reason I got to tell you too?"

"No reason at all," said King.

"Good, 'cause I got enough on my mind without worrying why some gal got herself killed."

"I doubt she intended that to happen," said Michelle.

"Honey," said Lulu, "I been in this business long enough and seen enough that nothing-and I mean nothing-would surprise me anymore."

"I was thinking the same thing," said King.

As they drove off, Lulu watched them and then went inside the trailer.

Michelle eyed her movements in the side mirror. "She says she didn't really know the woman, and yet she was able to ID her off an artist's composite sketch, and she knew about the crotch tattoo? Come on, I'd call that a little inconsistent."

"Could be," said King.

"And while Junior may be too dumb to know what to do with bearer bonds and jewelry, I think his wife is plenty sharp enough to sell that stuff and make some decent returns."

"If that turns out to be correct, our client is guilty."

Michelle shrugged. "Those are the breaks sometimes. What next?"

"We track down who installed those secret drawers in the Battles' closets. We check out the alibis of Junior's friends, and we fill in Harry on what we've done so far."

"And we wait for the next murder to happen," added Michelle, sighing.

DIANE HINSON LEFT HER DOWNTOWN law firm as she nearly always did, at seven in the evening. She climbed into her late-model Chrysler Sebring and drove off. She picked up some carry-out dinner at a local restaurant, drove to her gated community, waved to the elderly guard inside-who carried no weapon and could have been easily overpowered by a couple of husky twelve-year-olds-and proceeded to her townhouse situated at the end of a pipestem street.

Things had been going well for Hinson this year. A newly minted partner at Goodrich, Browder and Knight, Wrightsburg's second largest law firm, she'd finally met a man she thought might be the one, a six-foot-three accountant four years her junior who liked to white-water raft and could beat her occasionally on the tennis court. She felt that any day he might pop the question, and her answer would be an immediate yes. She'd also brought a new client into the firm with billings well into the six figures that would add significantly to her personal income. She was thinking of moving into a single-family house. To do so with a ring on her finger and a husband to grow old with would be a dream come true for the thirty-three-year-old lawyer.

She parked her car in her garage and went inside. She placed her dinner in the microwave, changed into her running clothes and headed out. Three miles and a little over twenty minutes later she arrived back a little sweaty but barely short of breath. A decent middle-distance runner in college and dedicated amateur tennis player, she'd kept in excellent shape over the years.

She showered, ate her meal, caught a TV show she'd been looking forward to seeing, and received a phone call from her accountant beau, who was in Houston on a corporate audit. After some breathy promises of truly memorable sex once he returned home, she hung up, watched the late news, noted it was nearly midnight and turned off the TV. She stripped down to her panties in the bathroom, pulled on a long T-shirt she kept hanging on the door there and headed to bed.

She sensed the presence behind her, but before she could scream, the gloved hand closed around her neck, cutting off her wind and with it her voice. A very strong arm encircled her body, pinning both her limbs to her sides. Stunned, Hinson found herself being shoved facedown on the floor, unable to move or scream as a gag was placed in her mouth and her hands bound behind her with telephone cord.

As a criminal lawyer she'd defended accused rapists, getting some men off who should have gone to jail. She'd considered those professional victories. Lying facedown on the floor with a crushing weight on top of her, she steeled herself to be raped. With suffocating dread she knew that at any moment her underwear would be pulled down and the humiliating and painful violation would commence. Nauseous with fear, she told herself not to resist, let him have his way, and possibly she would survive this. She hadn't seen his face. She couldn't possibly identify him. He would have no reason to kill her. "Please," she tried to say through the gag, "don't hurt me."

Her plea went unheeded.

The knife plunged into her back, grazed the left side of her heart, was pulled free and plunged in again, tearing a two-inch gash in her left lung and slicing into her aorta on the way out. By the time it was over, a dozen wounds mottled her back. However, Diane Hinson was dead by the fourth.