Kiss of Evil (22 page)

Rebecca offers a compassionate smile and touches the back of his hand. “Do you have a picture of your daughter?”

“What do
you
think?” Paris retrieves his wallet, takes out an old snapshot of Beth and Missy. Beth’s hair is long; Missy is in a two-piece bathing suit, wearing orange sunglasses and a floppy yellow sunbonnet, brim up. “It’s a few years ago.”

“She’s
such
a little doll.”

“All that heaven will allow,” Paris says. He returns the picture to his wallet, spins his cup idly for a few moments. “So, do you mind if I ask you another really personal question?”

“Oh, why stop now?”

“What the hell do women want?”

Rebecca laughs. “That’s
easy
. I can’t believe you don’t know this one by now.”

“It’s on a very long list.”

“Women want three things in a man, Jack. One, strong hands.”

“Okay.”

“Two, soft heart.”

“I see,” Paris replies. “And third?”

“Fast horse.”

It is Paris’s turn to laugh. “Well, I have two covered.”

“Oh yeah? Which two?”

“The two that don’t involve gravity or inertia.”

For Paris, the next twenty minutes are a warm, pleasant blur. The conversation is all over the map. Rebecca shares his interest in film, especially cop movies, especially Al
Pacino
cop movies. They agree that the grocery store scene in
Sea of Love
is about as sexy as it gets. Rebecca seems to share some of his core political beliefs. Rebecca has dimples.

They leave Starbucks and drive the short distance to Rebecca’s apartment building. Paris doesn’t remember any of it. They sit at the curb, headlights off, heater on low.

“Thanks for the ride,” she says.

“You are more than welcome.”

“I’m glad we met. I feel like I have a new friend.”

“Me too.”

“It kind of made my Christmas Eve.”

She really has no idea, Paris thinks. “Mine, too,” he says. “And thanks for the espresso.”

“Sure.”

They contemplate each other for a few moments, afield in that place where men and women sometimes find themselves after a little harmless flirting, after a brief encounter dusted with the casual flattery, the occasional touch, the silent sexual nearness.

Mercifully, Rebecca moves first. She leans over, kisses Paris on the cheek, and says:

“Merry Christmas, Jack.”

34

Christmas morning breaks silently over Lake Erie; milk-glass sunlight struggles first through thick lavender clouds, then splays like a wash of yellow tempera along the ragged shoreline that stretches from Ashtabula to Toledo.

At ten-thirty, as per their arrangement, Paris is sitting in Beth’s kitchen, watching her make breakfast. Melissa is in her room, trying on her new Christmas clothes. And blasting some God-awful music.

“So,” he begins, trying, and failing, to sound conversational. “You guys got plans for New Year’s Eve?” He used the word
guys
, hoping Beth and Melissa were going to do something together, thereby indicating that Beth did not have a date.

“Missy is going over to Tina Manno’s house. I guess Jessica’s mother is putting on a pretty big spread for the kids. I heard she was even hiring a rock band.”

“Wow,” Paris says, stoking a tiny ember of hope in his heart. “That sounds like fun.”

“You can actually
say
that after watching that group the other night?”

Paris laughs as Beth places a plate of eggs, home fries, and toast in front of him. He takes a bite of toast, remains silent for the moment. But the next question is in his eyes. There is no need to say it out loud. Beth puts down the butter knife. “I have a date, Jack.”

The words ping around his heart for a moment or two, leaving welts. “Oh, okay. Anyone I know?” He tries to float it as a small joke, but it sinks.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you torture yourself?”

“It’s not torture. It’s . . . conversation, that’s all.”

“
Okay
,” Beth says.

Paris furrows onward, heart first. “Somebody from work?”

“Nope. I met him on the Internet, actually.”

“
What?
” Paris drops his fork.

“You asked, right?”

“You’re
kidding
.”

“Jack, you want to know where I met him? I met him on eharmony, an online Christian dating service, okay? Is that safe enough?”

Paris throws his hands skyward. “Safe? Are you
nuts
? Do you want to know how many people I’ve locked up who’ve gone to church every Sunday of their lives?”

“How many?” Beth asks with a smile, one that Paris knows she uses when she is trying to break the tension in what will certainly become an argument. An argument they are no longer authorized to have. It works.

“A
lot
,” Paris says. “It’s just that—”

“It’s just that you love your daughter very much and you want the very best for her.”

Paris would add Beth to that list, but doesn’t. “Well, yeah.
That
. But I—”

“And that is why Melissa adores her father,” Beth says. “She knows.”

Knockout punch. Paris doesn’t even bother getting off the emotional canvas. “Okay. Just be careful, all right?”

Beth salutes him, then gives him a hug. “Missy loved her present from you, by the way. She thought it was cool.”

He had returned the perfume and gotten her a gift certificate to Abercrombie & Fitch, hoping it was still in the realm of cool for girls his daughter’s age.

Beth leaves the room for a moment, then returns, a gift-wrapped shirt box in hand. Missy’s gift to him. He takes the box, opens it. There, inside, is a white Calvin Klein dress shirt, spread collar. A very nice tie as well, clearly his weakest suit when picking out dress clothes.

But, also in the box, is a smaller box, something that looks like a jewelry case. Paris glances at Beth, knowing that she broke the rules. The shirt may be from Missy, but whatever is in the leatherette jewelry box is from Beth.

“No fair,” Paris says. “I thought we had an agreement.”

“Just open it, Jack. You’ll understand.”

“But we
agreed
,” Paris says, feeling like an idiot for not having the brains to have brought a contingency present for Beth in case this happened.

“I know,” Beth says. “But if you’d just open it, you’d understand.”

Paris opens the small, square jewelry box to find a pair of beautiful silver cuff links.

Beth says: “It’s a French cuff shirt. Completely useless without cuff links, right?”

After an early dinner at his mother’s—the usual belt-loosening holiday spread that includes a
primi piatti
of homemade gnocchi, followed by a main course of roast capon, followed by warm hazelnut biscotti—Paris spends the remainder of the day reading the
Web Cam for Dummies
book Carla had given him, addressing it in a manner in which he addresses most technical material, that being with one perfectly glazed eye. At eleven, with the book tented over his eyes, he falls asleep on the living room couch.

Usually, whenever he pays a visit to his ex-wife’s apartment, he has the standard dream about Beth, one where she spends a pleasant day with him, laughing and touching and hugging, only to say good-bye forever at the end, breaking his heart anew every morning. But this time he doesn’t dream about his ex-wife and their long-cooled love affair.

This night he dreams about a beautiful young woman with burnished bronze hair.

35

The day after Christmas in most major cities brings a brief respite in violent crimes. If people are going to kill each other around the holidays they seem to get their licks in on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Or they wait until New Year’s Eve.

At noon, on December 26, the halls of the sixth floor at the Justice Center are quiet.

Paris and Carla Davis are meeting with Greg Ebersole in Greg’s office. Greg looks like a beaten man. The benefit for Max Ebersole had gone well, but not as well as Greg had hoped, Paris had learned. It is the holidays, they all said, a reassuring hand on Greg’s shoulder. A lot of people are out of town. A lot of people are simply tapped out. Paris considers the possibility that Greg had not been to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time since leaving the Caprice that night.

Greg says: “I’ve got a sketch coming this afternoon. Composite of a woman that Willis Walker was seen with at the bar at Vernelle’s on the night he was killed. White woman.”

Paris and Carla exchange a glance. “White woman? Anybody recognize her from before?” Carla asks.

“No,” Greg says. “And they all say that they would remember. The men anyway. They said she was all that
and
a bag of chips, you know?”

Carla laughs. “You say that pretty good for such a doughboy, Greg.”

Greg goes red.

“Get us copies the minute you see them,” Paris says.

“You got it.”

Greg stands, puts on his coat.

“Where are you off to?” Carla asks.

“Gonna interview the night clerk at the Dream-A-Dream again. He was three sheets to the wind the first time I talked to him. He’s on days now. Maybe he hasn’t started drinking yet and I’ll get a straight answer from him. If you see me back here in an hour dragging a screaming and kicking redneck by the hair, you’ll know it didn’t go well.”

“How’s Max?” Carla asks.

“Max is good, Carla. Max is tough.”

“If I don’t see you later, tell him I said hi.”

“I sure will. See you guys.”

“Careful,” Carla says.

“Always,” Greg replies and takes his leave.

Paris and Carla exchange a different kind of look now, one laden with concern for a fellow officer who might be on the very edge of the very edge, a precipice that can lead to many places, all bad. Paris asks: “What did you get this morning?”

Carla says: “I visited Fayette Martin’s Internet service provider. OhioNet Services on Buckeye. Got a fix on where she went online the day she was killed.”

“Where’d she go?”

“She logged on three times, went three different places on the Web,” Carla says. “But I think we need to be concerned with only one of them.”

“Which one?”

“The site is called CyberGents. I’ve traced the ownership to an address in University Heights. The website is run by a company called NeTrix, Inc.”

“What is CyberGents exactly?”

“Like I said, if there was a live, pay-per-view videoconferencing site devoted to straight females, I’d find it. This is one. And it’s local. As soon as the street address came I up, I knew I’d been right about these people.”

“What do you mean? What people?”

“I’ve been working this pleasant group of folks for six months. I knew there was
something
beyond the usual swapping. I think I can get us an invite.”

“An invite?”

“It’s a group of east-side swingers.”

“So, you’re saying that Fayette Martin may have called in online to this CyberGents in University Heights?”

“I
know
she did.”

“And that they have men there who do things online?”

“Yep.”

“In
University Heights
?”

“Well, they may not be right there at the house in University Heights. The men could be anywhere. But someone has to clear the credit-card transactions. Someone has to set up the session with the performers, either by phone or by e-mail. Unless they’re routing the calls elsewhere, I’d bet that they do it there.”

“So how do we get in?”

“Well, I know for a fact that they meet three times a month for parties. They’re having one tonight.”

“What kind of parties?”

“Hard to say exactly what goes on there,” Carla replies. “But I think I can get us in.”

“How are you going to do that?” Paris asks.

Carla lowers her head, then raises her eyes. “Are you serious?”

At two-thirty, Paris walks to the Cleveland Public Library at Superior Avenue and East Fourth Street. He had reserved another book about Santeria in the United States, as well as one about ritual murder in the inner city.

As he rounds the corner of the BP Building he stops. Rebecca D’Angelo is standing right in front of him, looking into the window at a holiday display. She has her back to him, but she looks just as he remembers. She is wearing a navy blue wool coat, knee-high boots. Paris is just about to tap her on the shoulder when it appears as if she sees him reflected in the window. She turns abruptly around.

It is not Rebecca.

“Sorry,” Paris says. “I thought you were a friend of mine.”

The woman glares at him, then makes a rather quick retreat down Superior Avenue, toward Public Square, turning twice more to look at him.

Paris shakes his head. He jaywalks to the library entrance.

He is halfway across the underground lot at the Justice Center when he hears a man call his name from the shadows. It is Hank Szabo, the front-desk attendant from the VA nursing home on East Twenty-third Street.

“Mr. Szabo,” Paris says. “What brings you down to the Justice Center?”

“Not sure, really.” Hank steps forward, into the fluorescent light. He is wearing a beat-up old pea coat, a nubby watch cap. “I was just coming up to see you.”

“What about?”

Hank lowers his voice. “I’m not sure if this means anything at all. But Demetrius did something.”

“Did something?”

“Yeah. Well, something kind of out of the ordinary for him.”

“And what was that, Mr. Szabo?”

“He did this right after you left. And call me Hank, okay?”

Hank shows Paris a two-year-old copy of
Time
magazine.

“And what is
this
exactly?”