Black Widow (12 page)

Restless, she drove out to the east end of town, past Wanita Crumley’s little ranch house, but the place was dark, the driveway empty. She turned her car around at the end of Judge McAllister’s driveway and headed home, drowning in disappointment. She’d been in town for ten days, and so far, she was no closer to solving Michael’s murder than she’d been the day she arrived. Kathryn clenched her fists in frustration and banged them against the steering wheel.

Elvis looked at her with mild curiosity. With a sigh, she reached out to rub behind his ear. “It’s all right, partner,” she said. “When we get home, you’ll get an extra doggie biscuit for being so patient.”

Drawn like the proverbial moth to the flame, she drove past DiSalvo’s house again. This time, the Blazer sat in the yard, and upstairs, in Caroline Belmont’s apartment, several lights were on. But DiSalvo’s apartment remained dark, illuminated only by the flickering light of the television.

Her own little house was cozy and welcoming. She double-checked the locks, gave Elvis his promised doggie biscuits, then stripped off her clothes and climbed into the shower.

The hot water rejuvenated her, and as it trickled down her body, she wondered what could have happened to Wanita. Perhaps it had all been a ruse. Maybe the woman had never really known anything. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that somebody might have used Wanita to lure her out to a place where she’d be vulnerable and highly unlikely to garner protection from Elba’s finest.

Cursing, she shut off the water and briskly dried off with a thick towel. She put on her terrycloth robe and tied it around her waist, then brushed her hair with quick, angry strokes. Tossing the brush on the counter, she headed barefoot down the hall to get a drink before she went to bed.

She was pouring herself a glass of iced tea when she heard the muted purr of an automobile crawling down the street. It turned into her driveway, and her heart rate took a sharp jump. The driver turned out the lights and sat there with the engine idling, and she had her hand on the phone to call the police when she recognized the sound as DiSalvo’s Blazer.

She went limp with a combination of relief and fury. It was past ten-thirty. How dare he frighten her like that? What kind of idiot would sit there in her driveway with the engine running, instead of shutting off the truck and coming inside?

She strode to the front door, undid the locks, and flung it open. Barefoot, she marched across the grass and stopped at his open window. “What the hell are you doing?” she said.

He just looked at her. “I wish to Christ I knew,” he said.

She folded her arms over her breasts. “A civilized person would come to the door.”

“Nobody ever accused me of being civilized.”

“Well? Are you coming in or not? Because I’m going back inside, and I’m locking that door behind me. And once it’s locked, nobody gets in. Not you, not Jesus Christ Almighty. So it’s up to you.”

Without another word, she turned and marched back across the grass.

Behind her, the Blazer’s door screeked open. She stomped up onto the porch and into the house, past Elvis, who stood with ears pricked, his watchful gaze following DiSalvo’s approach. Kathryn picked up her glass of iced tea and took a long, slow swallow, then set it down and leaned against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed.

“Hey, dog. How goes the battle?”

Elvis sniffed DiSalvo’s outstretched hand and wiggled his rump. Nick stood fiddling with the lock on the door while she tapped a foot in impatience. “You have precisely five minutes,” she said, “to tell me why you’re here. And then I’m booting your ass out the door.”

He looked at her with those melted-chocolate eyes. “You’re a hard woman, Kathryn McAllister. Did prison do that to you?”

“Five minutes, DiSalvo. You’re wasting time.”

He moved slowly toward her, so slowly that her heart rate, already too rapid, doubled. He stopped a half-inch away from her, so close his body heat tangled with hers and battled for supremacy. She tried to back away, but the counter held her fast. With his gaze locked on hers, he picked up her glass of iced tea and downed it in a single long draught. She watched in fascination as his Adam’s apple moved up and down. He set down the empty glass and rested his hands on the counter, one on either side of her. “I came here tonight,” he said, “to find out just what it is that’s going on between us.”

She wet her lips. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing’s going on between us.”

“The hell it isn’t! Because of you, I’ve been running around for the last ten days with my head up my ass. Before you showed up, my life was simple. Uncomplicated. Boring as hell.
And I liked it that way!”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

He towered over her, so close she could feel him, could taste him, was inhaling him with every breath. “It’s damn personal,” he said.

She thrust her chin forward. “Are you trying to intimidate me, DiSalvo?”

Impossible as it seemed, he moved closer. “Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

“It’s working,” she said, wondering if that was really a tremble she heard in her own voice.

“I don’t want you,” he said, leaning over her, forcing her to bend backward over the sink. “Do you hear me?”

“I hear you. But maybe we should record it. For posterity.”

“You’re nothing but trouble, do you understand? You’re a goddamn pain in the ass, and
I don’t want you!”

She had a microsecond to wonder how long she’d been clinging with both fists to his cotton shirt before his mouth came down on hers and she disintegrated. Heat, raging, roaring, sucked all the oxygen from her lungs. Her hands twisted and tangled involuntarily, destroying the material of his shirt as his kiss destroyed her, their tongues fighting a sinuous and glorious battle at the molten center of the universe. She’d waited ten days for him, a lifetime, and now she wanted all of him. She tugged at the shirt, yanked it free from his belt, sought the hot, damp flesh beneath. His stomach was rock-hard, his chest a forest of crisp hair that she explored with frantic and curious fingers.

His mouth left hers, and she gasped for air. Hands tangled in her hair, he tugged her head back, baring her neck to him, and ran his tongue down the long column of flesh to the vee of her robe. “Nick,” she gasped as he continued along the curve of one breast. Her fingers fumbled clumsily with his belt buckle. She found the thick swelling beneath his zipper and stroked it. He groaned and drove his hips hard against hers. Trembling, she arched against him, cradled him, her hips restless in their desire to find that remembered rhythm.

And his pager went off.

They both froze. He raised his head to look at her, and his eyes were wild. Cursing violently, he released her to turn off the incessant shrilling of the pager. Running a hand through his hair, he picked up the telephone and viciously punched in a series of numbers. “DiSalvo,” he barked.

Her stomach was still somewhere in the vicinity of her tonsils, her body aflame, her breath coming in hard, racking gasps.
“What?”
he said. Then, “Jesus Christ al-fucking-mighty.”

It was amazing to watch, his instantaneous transformation from man to cop. He began frantically checking his pockets for a pen and paper. She produced one from the kitchen drawer and he took it without speaking and began writing. “Yeah. Uh huh. Where? Yeah. Have you called the coroner yet? Good. Give me fifteen minutes. I have to make a couple of calls first.”

He hung up the phone. With his back to her, he unzipped his pants, tucked in his shirt, and zipped them back up. Buckled the belt she’d unbuckled just moments earlier. “Nick?” she said.

When he turned back around, his face was blank, emotionless, professional. The face of a stranger. “Two kids out coon hunting just found Wanita Crumley’s body in a cornfield,” he said. “Somebody put a bullet in the back of her head.”

The cold was like being dunked into a vat of ice water. She began trembling violently. “Oh, God,” she said. ‘Oh god oh god oh god.”

He grasped her by both arms and shook her. “Stop it!” he said. “Don’t you dare to go to pieces on me now!”

“It’s my fault!” she said. “It’s because of me. She called me yesterday and said she had some information for me about Michael’s murder. We were supposed to meet tonight out at the lake. She never showed up. Christ, DiSalvo, somebody killed her because of me!”

He closed both eyes. “When are you going to listen to me?” he said violently. “You have to stop playing detective! That’s my job!”

“She had little kids, Nick.”

“She was a stupid woman who got mixed up in something she had no business being mixed up in, and she paid for it with her life.” His voice softened. “It’s not your fault.”

Kathryn closed her eyes and sighed. “I know,” she said softly.

He brushed the back of his knuckles against her cheek. “You okay?”

“I’ve been better.”

He drew her into his arms, and she lay her head against his chest. Still holding her, he dialed the phone. “Caroline,” he said, “it’s Nick. Look, I have an emergency. I don’t know how long I’ll be. It could be all night. Do you think you could go downstairs and stay with Janine? Thanks, kid, you’re a peach.”

He broke the connection and dialed again. She clung to him, soothed by the steady beating of his heart. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said, “it’s Daddy. I just got an emergency call. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get home, so I called Caroline and asked her to come down and stay with you tonight. I’m really sorry. Yeah. Yeah, I love you, too, baby.”

He hung up the phone, released her, and began moving toward the door. “You’re to lock your doors,” he said, digging in his pocket for his car keys, “and keep ‘em locked. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Still moving, still not looking at her, he said, “You don’t open the damn door for anybody but me. I don’t care if it’s your freaking grandmother. Only me. Understand?”

“Only you,” she said.

He paused, hand on the doorknob, to look at her. “You see anything suspicious, I’m talking a goddamn squirrel running across your lawn, you call and have me paged.”

She nodded silently. He opened the door and stepped through it. “Nick,” she said.

He paused, looked back at her. “Be careful,” she said.

He came back through the door, swept her into his arms, and kissed her hard and long. “I’ll come back,” he said, “afterward. If that’s what you want.”

Her fingers tightened on his shirt sleeve. “Yes,” she said. “Come back.”

He kissed her again, gently this time. “Lock the door behind me,” he said.

And he was gone.

Both of Elba’s police cruisers were at the scene, as well as the county ambulance and the coroner’s private vehicle, all of them with lights flashing. He pulled up behind the coroner, left his blue dash light running, and climbed out of his vehicle.

He passed a group of wide-eyed gawkers, nodded to a couple of pasty-faced teenage boys accompanied by a brace of hunting dogs that were surprisingly silent. He stepped over the crime scene tape that Bucky had put up and edged closer to where the county coroner, David Ellsworth, still in his flannel pajamas and robe, was hunched over the body. “Doc,” he said.

“DiSalvo,” Ellsworth acknowledged.

Nick looked up at the sky. Above his head, the Milky Way was clearly visible. “Nice night for a murder,” he said pleasantly.

“I was all settled down in my easy chair,” Ellsworth said, “getting ready to watch
Casablanca
on one of those fancy satellite stations. They don’t make movies like that anymore.”

“Nope.” Nick knelt in the red Carolina soil and examined the body. Wanita was lying on her face, her hands tied behind her back, a single neat little hole drilled in the back of her head. “Thirty-eight,” he said, and Ellsworth grunted. “Hands tied together behind her back,” he observed, more to himself than to anyone else. “Single bullet wound to the back of the head. Execution style. Somebody wanted to teach her a lesson.”

“That would be my guess.”

“Any estimate yet on the time of death?”

“Two, three hours, tops. Probably closer to three. Rigor mortis is already advancing quite nicely.”

“Not much blood.”

“Mmn. My guess is he did her somewhere else, then dumped her here.”

“He?”

Doc Ellsworth smiled. “Wanita’s no lightweight. It would take a strong man to heft her all the way out here and dump her in the middle of this cornfield.”

“Official cause of death?”

“We’ll save that for the autopsy. Preliminary cause of death, single bullet wound to the head, most likely a .38 caliber. Now can I go home?”

“Thanks, Doc.” Nick patted the older man on the shoulder and went in search of Bucky.

He found him stringing out more yellow crime scene tape. “Anything?” he asked his second-in-command. “Tire tracks, footprints, a piece of fucking lint someplace it doesn’t belong?”

“We got a couple of good footprints, but they’ll most likely match up to the boots the kids are wearing. They were all over the crime scene. And the dogs, too.”

“Peachy.” He looked past Bucky to where Officer Earl Martin was being reamed out by an older gentleman in faded jeans and a torn tee shirt. “Who’s the old guy giving Earl the business?”