Cuts Like a Knife: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 1) (14 page)

James is persistent today, so I suggest to him, “How about after we have dessert, okay, kiddo?”

He shakes his head vigorously and spoons a large dollop of mashed potatoes into his mouth. He’s my kind of guy.

“Can I see it, too?” Kendra asks.

“You bet,” I answer. “And if we’re real careful we can take all the ammo out and I’ll even let you hold it.”

“Me too!” James calls through a mouth filled with mashed potatoes.

“James, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Jimmy instructs.

“Is it good to introduce four-year-olds to hand guns?” Klarissa asks with disdain. “Isn’t that how violence gets started?”

“Guns, TV, and milk,” I answer. “Seems to be a pattern or as I like to put it, a non-isolated event stream. You’ve got to talk to your station manager again. Have you seen some of the stuff they’re showing during prime-time family hours?”

“Funny,” she answers sarcastically. “But what kids watch is up to parents—and playing with handguns should be, too. We have enough violence in this world.”

“Hey, us cops don’t start violence, we just end it,” I answer smartly. “And if Jimmy and Kaylen want to tell the kids they can’t look at a Beretta 9mm, I will keep it holstered.”

Nice move, I say to myself. Deflect and parry her attack. She rolls her eyes and carefully brings her fork within an inch of her lips with the smallest bite of salmon filet I have ever seen in my life, or at least since the last time I watched her eat. I watch as she opens her mouth and then thinks better of choking herself on a gram of fish. She closes her mouth and lowers her fork back to her plate. Now I roll my eyes. I’ve cut a decent-sized bite from what’s left of the chicken breast I was able to nab—the largest on the serving platter, I would add—but bypass it and spear the bigger portion and stuff it in my mouth. No seafood for me today. I’m starved. Fighting crime builds up an appetite.

“Mmmm,” I moan noisily, my eyes locked on Klarissa, who looks like she might get sick. I smile and laugh under my breath.

“So, Dell, you still enjoying our fair city? Work going okay?” Jimmy asks. I’m a little disappointed that my little melodrama with Klarissa is being ignored by everyone at the table. And that Kaylen did an end-run and invited Dell over without me knowing about it. If I’m going to get this ended completely, I am going to have to get some cooperation from my family.

“Actually, I’m loving it here,” Dell answers. “Work couldn’t be any better, which means the company I’m consulting for has tons of problems, and that means job security for the foreseeable future. I’d rather not move again.”

“What are some of the places you’ve lived, Dell?” my mom asks.

“Better question may be where
haven’t
I lived,” he answers with a smile. “Not having family, I’ve enjoyed taking in different areas of the country, and honestly, I’ve found something I like in every place I’ve lived. But I’ve spent more time in Colorado than anywhere else, and that’s where I keep a permanent address. Some day you folks need to come see it. It’s beautiful.” My non-boyfriend is inviting my family to his place again. What is wrong with this picture?

“So at some point you’ll lay down roots in Colorado and stay there, you think?” Jimmy asks.

Where the heck is he going with that question? Maybe he aims to find out what kind of dowry the family might expect to pay out if Dell wants me for a bride.

“I think about it all the time,” he answers. “I may just be a victim of circumstances. After college I worked two years in Denver with a company that ended up going Chapter 11. The economy there was miserable at the time, so I took a contract job in Albuquerque. I made more money doing contract work, so when that gig was up after a year, I took a couple months off to roam the country a little, and then signed up to do a project in Phoenix. I think Portland was next. Then it was Atlanta. I stayed there a year after my contract was finished and got my MBA at Emory. There was work waiting for me in Colorado Springs, so I printed a business card with a phone number and email address and kept moving around. I was in La Jolla before landing here in Chicago. The only thing I’ve done to lay down roots is to build that little home outside Durango. The problem with that is I’ve only been in it myself for about three months total.”

I’m impressed and a little embarrassed. Am I so self-absorbed that after six months of knowing him, my family now knows as much about his history as I do? He’s glanced my way a couple times. I think this is when a real girlfriend, a good girlfriend, would jump in with an encouraging comment. I’m neither so I say nothing.

“So the house just sits there?” my mom, ever the pragmatist, asks.

“I’ve got a real estate firm that leases it out, so it doesn’t sit that much,” Dell answers. “The two problems are that I always forget to reserve time for myself during ski season.”

He takes a drink of iced tea.

“What’s the other problem?” Klarissa asks.

“Well, with renting the place out and having strangers living there all the time, I’ve never figured out how I’d like to decorate it to suit my own tastes. As a result, I’m not even sure what they are. My tastes, that is. So my little cabin looks like a million other vacation homes. When I do spend time there it feels an awful lot like a hotel. It could use a woman’s touch.”

He smiles and looks at me. Surprised, I frown, shake my head, and roll my eyes. Klarissa looks at me triumphantly and smiles. Thank God for Mom. She’s relentless. She could work with Tom Gray in Internal Affairs.

“Well I hope that you feel at home here,” she says, not about to let him swoop me off to the Wild West . . . yet. “Chicago’s not such a bad place to live if you don’t mind cold winters.”

“You all are way too kind to me,” he answers. “I’ve never been treated better. I always find a church as soon as I hit a new town, but I’ve never had so many fabulous home-cooked meals. I actually have to go to the gym an extra day every week just to keep the weight off.” Mom beams. So does Kaylen. Jimmy looks very pleased, too. James is busy shoveling the last of his mashed potatos into his mouth so he can get to apple cobbler—and my Beretta. Klarissa smirks at me. She is enjoying how uncomfortable I feel way too much. I’ve had enough and am suddenly ready to show young James my gun—dessert can wait.

Before I can get up and make my escape Kendra says for the table to hear, “You never asked how I did in the soccer game, Aunt Kristen.”

“I’m sorry,” I say with enthusiasm, relieved to have a change in the conversation. “How did my star Snowflake do?”

“Two goals.”

“I had a hundred,” James yells.

“James, stop interrupting,” Jimmy says sternly. James gives his apple cobbler a pouty look—and then devours another bite.

“Very cool,” I say. “And how did the rest of the Snowflakes do?”

“We won!”

“Way cool. Mrs. Kimberly must have been a good coach,” I say, not believing my own words.

“She didn’t coach,” Kendra chirps. “Tiffany’s dad did.”

Really? No way! I’m coach!

I look up at Kaylen but she is suddenly studying one of her fingernails.

• • •

I show James and Kendra my gun. I remove the magazine and double-check that no bullets are in the chamber, of course. I give a perfunctory lecture on handgun safety and let both of them hold and aim it. I put the magazine back in, holster it, and wander from the game room where James is pretending to shoot bad guys with a candlestick. I push the door to the kitchen open and look over the counter into the living room. Jimmy and Dell are watching the Cubs contentedly and talking in low tones without feeling any need for eye contact. Dell is filling out a scorecard just like Dad used to do. I have no problem with that at a game, but it seems weird when you’re watching it on TV. Of course, he has a diversified portfolio and I have a single savings bond.

Klarissa is closing her purse and getting ready to leave. She gives Kaylen and Mom long, warm hugs. I get a quick, mostly one-arm embrace and a quick peck on the cheek. I really do have to get checked for leprosy or body odor. Kaylen walks her to the door and it’s just Mom and me in the kitchen.

“So when are you and Klarissa going to stop fighting and start getting along?” she asks.

“Mom, we’re not fighting any more than we ever have. It’s just how we communicate with each other.”

“Then it’s time you two start communicating better. You’re like teenagers fighting over a boy.”

“Well, if that’s what this is all about, she wins. She can have the boy.”

“What’s wrong with Dell?” Mom asks with a sincerely hurt expression. “I like him.”

“I know you do. I do, too,” I retort. “Doesn’t mean I have to marry him does it?” There’s challenge in my voice.

“You’re thirty, so don’t you think you should start thinking about marriage? You make it sound like settling down, getting married, and having kids is something bad. You can’t keep people at arm’s length forever, you know.”

Ouch.
Not sure what hurts worse. Mom thinking I don’t want to be close to anybody or the reference to thirty. I’m not thirty yet.

I say my goodbyes and head out to my car. Jimmy and Dell are engrossed in conversation about the rookie right hander that just got called up from Des Moines and barely notice my exit. Good. I need an easy escape from Dell. I’ve got the incident notebooks at home so I’m not going to stop by the office. I push in the clutch and turn the ignition. It grinds but doesn’t start. Jimmy and Kaylen live on a flat street. Great. What now?

I end up slinking back up the sidewalk to ask for help. I get back in the driver’s seat. How embarrassing. Jimmy and Dell get behind the car and push me into the street and get me rolling. I can hear them laughing. I make sure the car has enough momentum, pop the clutch, and wonder for a second if the engine is going to turn over as it pitches and sputters. It roars to life and I’m out of there. Tomorrow for sure. I’ve got to get the starter replaced.

But my mind’s on the crime scene, not my car, all the way home.

• • •

After three solid hours of reading non-isolated event stream notebooks, I jog over to the high school football stadium a mile from my house, intent on running up and down the stairs of every aisle. My surgically enhanced knee will protest, but I’ve got to do something to clear my mind. It’s a jumble of Dell getting a family invite despite having done a revenge date two weeks earlier; Tiffany’s dad coaching
my
Snowflakes and winning; Tom Gray from IA grilling me and invoking my dad’s name before he left; and a bad man killing independent, successful, attractive women in my city and my desire to stop it.

It is a cool, pleasant, early spring evening that’s already dropped into the upper sixties, but I sweat like it’s an August boot camp in southern Georgia. My mind starts to clear and my spirit lightens just a little, but I can’t help thinking about the latest victim, Candace Rucker.

20

CANDACE RUCKER’S APARTMENT was as gruesome as we knew it would be. No one demurred when offered cotton swabs with a drop of ammonia at the door. The smell was still overpowering. Same MO. He—I’m not arguing that we need to be thinking it’s a woman anymore—did his work and then left with the heat turned up full blast.

With a violated body nearly floating in a pond of blood, there were tons of forensic evidence. The problem is that though all of the evidence points us to a particular person, it doesn’t help us find him. It simply confirms a profile and provides us with everything we need to convict him if we ever get him in our hands. I kept my focus and took copious notes like a good soldier. But the only thing we really learned was that it was the same person doing almost exactly the same thing that Virgil has already alerted us was going to happen in our city. He is careful. Precise. Sick. And good at hiding.

Candace Rucker, thirty-two years of age, a junior member of a major Chicago law firm, divorced, no kids, and no live-in, is dead.

• • •

“So, did you have a good weekend?” Don asks as we slide into a diner booth for some breakfast.

We spent most of Saturday at the Rucker crime scene, so it would be more accurate to ask if Sunday was good.

“So-so.”

“Your girls win?”

“Yep.”

“Nice. Isn’t that like the first win of the season?”

“Second.”

“Cool.”

“We’ve only got one more regular-season game. Who knows, maybe we’ll get win number three.”

“There’s the Vince Lombardi we all know and love. So how’d Sunday dinner go? Dell back in the picture?”

I cock my head and look at Don across a Formica tabletop, a cup of steaming diner coffee in my hand and almost to my lips. I want to see if he is giving me a hard time or just being a nice, normal human being who is interested in other human beings.

“Sunday dinner was nice. Yes, Dell was there.”

“So you two are back together?”

“Not in my book, which made his presence awkward. He acted like nothing had happened. I guess that puts all the awkwardness on me.”

“No surprise there.” He laughs. “So, if you feel awkward being with him, why did you invite him over in the first place?”