Murder on Lovers' Lane (Brody and Hannigan Mysteries) (7 page)

Her expression softened.  "I can't screw this up with you, Brody.  You're the best partner I've ever had, and I don't want to lose you."

He couldn't imagine not having Hannigan as his partner.  The image wouldn't even come to mind.  He started to reach across the seat, intending to touch her hand, but the warning light in her eyes stopped him.  He dropped his hand to his side.  "I don't want to lose you, either."

"So we're agreed."

He nodded, knowing that he should feel relieved.  As usual, Hannigan's practical mind and good sense had snatched his ass out of a fire that could have destroyed them both.

But as she drove out of Magnolia Park and headed back into the city, he couldn't shake the suspicion that they'd just made the stupidest decision of their lives.

Brody's apartment was in the vibrant center of town, a loft above an old warehouse transformed a few years earlier into a thriving bakery.  Hannigan didn't see how her partner could withstand the glorious smell of breads, cakes and pastries baking twenty-four hours a day.  If she lived in his apartment, she'd have gained fifty pounds by now and probably earned a dozen citations for breaking and entering and petty theft.

Brody turned to Hannigan, his expression serious.  "I agree we can't risk ruining our partnership," he said, his expression utterly smoldering.  "But I'm not going to lie and say I regret what we did tonight.  I don't."  He stepped out of the car and closed the door but didn't move away from the curb.

Hannigan's heart thudded heavily in the center of her chest.  What was he waiting for?  For her to change her mind?

She gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles going white. 
Just drive away, Hannigan.  You know it's the smart thing, and you do the smart thing.  That's your role in the partnership.

Her hands began to ache.  She slanted a look toward the window and saw Brody was still there, only his torso visible through the window.  His arms lay apparently relaxed against his side, but she saw the twitch of his wrist muscles as his hands clenched into fists.

Go, Hannigan.  Go and don't look back.

She dropped her right hand to the key in the ignition.  Her gaze still on Brody's twitching wrists, she started the car.  His hands jerked but otherwise he didn't move.

Put the car in gear.  Check your mirrors.

She dragged her gaze from Brody and checked for traffic in her side mirror.  The street was clear.  Nothing stopping her from leaving.

Nothing but her own foolish heart.

She pulled the Impala into traffic, struggling against the urge to cry. 

Rosedale Drive was only five minutes away from Brody's loft, but the difference between the vibrant bustle of Brody's neighborhood and her own quiet residential street was stark.  Two different worlds. 

Two different lives.

Trying to join those lives, outside of the careful confines of their work relationship, would surely be a tragic failure.  Wouldn't it?

She parked the Impala and trudged up the walk to her door.  She had just inserted the key in the lock when she heard a footstep behind her.

Her hand went to her back before she remembered she wasn't wearing a holster.  Her Smith & Wesson was in her purse.  She swung around anyway, ready to fight.  But the mild-mannered man standing on the footpath at the bottom of her porch steps looked about as threatening as a bunny.

"Dean Silor."

He looked apologetic.  "I'm sorry—I suppose it's very late, but I had a thought about your investigation and, as they say, if you sleep on an inspiration, you may wake to find it has escaped without a trace."

"I should call my partner for this—"
Any excuse will do....

"It's not so dramatic a thought as that," Silor said with another sheepish smile.  "I suppose I could have written it down and waited for morning, but it came to me in my office, and your enrollment papers were right there."

Which explained how he knew her home address.  "I should at least call him."  The eagerness in her voice sounded utterly pathetic.  It was almost a relief when the dean shook his head.

"Hear me out first," he suggested.  "If it sounds like nonsense, then I'll have embarrassed myself in front of only you and not your partner as well."

"All right."  She let them both into her house and led him through the small foyer into the cozy living room.  She'd decorated sparingly, mostly with mismatched but well-made mission-style furniture she'd found during searches at yard sales, flea markets and thrift stores.  Brody had once told her that for a pragmatist, she had the soul of an artist.  "More Wyeth than Pollack," he'd elaborated with a smile.  "A good thing when it comes to furniture."

His favorite piece was the rocker, built of sturdy wood slats and leather cushions.  She took the rocker herself, trying not to examine the choice too closely, and waved Silor toward the sofa nearby.  "Have a seat."

He didn't ask her to call him by his first name.  Formal to the hilt.  He sat rather primly on the sofa and smiled at her again.  "Lovely home."

"Thank you."  She tried not to appear impatient.  "Would you like something to drink?  I believe I have some iced tea, and water of course—"

"No thank you."  Dr. Silor folded his hands together.  "I found myself intrigued by our meeting Monday.  How do the police approach a case where there's little physical evidence?" 

She could tell it was a rhetorical question, and she found herself curious how he'd answer it.  People had many peculiar notions about how detectives worked, few realizing the man-hours spent interviewing anyone and everyone who might have a motive, canvassing whole neighborhoods in search of that one elusive witness who might have seen the one person or thing that could break a case open.

He was right about one thing:  there was an alarming lack of evidence in the Lovers' Lane murders.  The killer appeared patient, waiting for the right time to strike.  No impulse murders for him, not in the technical sense of the word.  He might be driven by his emotions, but he had enough control to bide his time and pick his moments.

"The people killed have all been in Dr. Flanders' class," Dr. Silor began.

"Yes," she said, thinking of Brody's theory.

"You're aware, I assume, of Dr. Flanders' appeal to students."  Silor smiled bleakly.  "Even the highest-minded among us cannot fail to see she is a comely woman."

Hannigan hid a smile, amused by his choice of adjectives.  "Certainly."

"She has a frank and earthy sense of the subject matter."

Meaning she had no compunctions about discussing sex with her students, all of whom were over the age of eighteen and many of whom had probably experienced sex already.  "She has," Hannigan agreed.  "And you think this has some bearing on the killer's motive?"

"I think it has something to do with how many students cut the course to practice a little carnality of their own," Dr. Silor said, prim once again. 

"Why read it when you can live it?"  She tried very hard not to think about Brody's hard, hot body stretched out over her own or his hungry mouth slanted over hers, making demands her body yearned to fulfill.

"I suppose you think my attitude old fashioned."

"I think pleasure has a place as well as work," she said, adding bleakly, "But not at the same time."

"Indeed."  His eyes narrowed slightly.  "Their parents pay a great deal of money for the privilege of their attending courses at the university."

She didn't correct him by pointing out he was a community college dean rather than the head of a university department.  "I imagine some students spend their own hard-earned money as well," she added, thinking of Alvin Morehead, the janitor with a thirst for learning and, apparently, an itch he was willing to pay to have scratched.

"Ah, poor Mr. Morehead," Dr. Silor said.  "Sad case.  A young man from unfortunate circumstances, nevertheless determined to better himself.  It's a shame, really, that it had to happen to him."

An odd tone in Dr. Silor's voice touched off a tingle in the base of Hannigan's spine.  Brody called it her sixth sense, which she didn't believe in.  She called it her cop's nerve, which really didn't make any more sense, empirically, but it sounded less like hokum.

Either way, sixth sense or cop's nerve, it was jangling like a son of a bitch.  Unfortunately, she'd left her purse on the table across the room, and in it, her Smith & Wesson M&P compact .40.  The little black pistol was deadly, but only if she had it in her hand.

She pushed to her feet, trying not to appear in a hurry.  "Are you sure you wouldn't like some tea?" she asked, moving toward the table in a pretense to be heading toward the kitchen instead.  She reached for her purse—casually, as if in passing—but froze when she heard a soft click.

"Please don't do that, Detective." 

Slowly she lifted her hands, shoulder high, and turned to face Dean Silor.  Gripped solidly between steady hands, he held a snub-nosed revolver.

It would fire .38 caliber rounds, she knew.  The striation on the bullets would match the handful of bullets they'd recovered from the Lovers' Lane murder scenes.

Congratulations, Hannigan
, she thought as fear and anger rose in twin storms in the center of her chest. 
You've solved the Lovers' Lane murder."

Now how are you going to live to tell the tale?

Chapter Six

The loft was never truly quiet.  Traffic in downtown Weatherford wasn't a steady stream after 10:00 p.m., but it never went away, thanks to overnight shift work in the nearby warehouse district, late-closing bars and early morning deliveries to restaurants and shops along the downtown strip.

Brody had lived in the loft since he returned to Alabama nearly a decade ago.  He was used to the noise, the constant light that seeped through even the heaviest of curtains.  Something of a night owl himself, thanks to occasional bouts of insomnia, he'd considered the inconveniences a trade-off for the sake of living right in the beating heart of the city.  And sometimes, they blended together into a soporific white noise that helped him fall asleep when slumber was hard to find.

But not tonight.  Tonight, the noises conspired to remind him of his partner, despite his dogged determination to put her out of his head.

The smell of bread wafting up from the bakery reminded him that she loved the croissants he brought her now and then as a treat.  Oh, sure, she accused him of trying to make her fat and diabetic, but that was just Hannigan's way of saying thank you without coming across as smarmy or soft.

The rattle of a car engine dying across the street reminded him of that junky old Dodge Dart she'd been driving when they first met.  It had probably been on its last legs when she'd bought it, and she'd driven it almost eight more years before it died right in the middle of rush hour two years ago.  The curses and gestures they'd collected while waiting for the tow truck had been varied and colorful.

He lay on his back, stretched out on the sofa, and stared up at the play of lights on the ceiling high above.  He was still fully clothed despite having been home for nearly an hour. 

You're not planning to go back out tonight, are you?
  He knew the thoughts were his own, but he heard them in Hannigan's dry, skeptical tone.

"What's it to you?" he asked aloud, his voice echoing in the cavernous loft.

He pushed up to a sitting position, his gaze falling on the cell phone lying on the coffee table in front of him.  It had gone into sleep mode long ago, but one touch would bring it back to life.  A second touch would hit the speed dial for her cell phone, and then maybe he'd hear her voice one more time tonight.

"You are pathetic," he grumbled aloud.

He reached for the file folder sitting on the coffee table and pulled the chain on the floor lamp beside the sofa, spreading a golden glow of light around him.  In the folder were all the notes he'd made during the early days of their investigation, trying to figure out what sort of mind would conceive of shooting passionate young lovers where they sat.

Sexual obsession, definitely, possibly expressed as repression.  It was one reason he'd glommed onto Alvin Morehead so quickly—during their investigation of him as a person of interest, more than one neighbor had mentioned he was a socially-inept loner, whose interactions with women often left him tongue-tied and nervous.

Someone connected to Weatherford Community College, because so far at least one of each pair of victims had been a student at the college.  Someone who could come and go at will during the evening hours.  Someone with a vehicle.

Which covered just about everyone who attended the college, Brody thought bleakly.

Tamping down his growing frustration, he picked up the collage Hannigan had put together.  There were no obvious social misfits in the class, now that poor Alvin Morehead was no longer among them.  Of course, looks could be deceiving.

Still, he'd watched the interactions in the classroom during Dr. Flanders' lecture on the rather titillating subject of erotic literature versus puritan literature.  Several of the male students had used the topic as an excuse to flirt with the pretty young co-eds in class.   None of them had seemed embarrassed or disapproving of the subject matter.  He'd observed them all carefully with his profile firmly in mind.

So either someone was covering his repression pretty well—or the killer wasn't in Dr. Flanders' Introduction to American Literature class at all.

Which left who?  Another maintenance worker at the college?  A clerical worker?  Another member of the faculty? 

Sexual obsession could also be expressed overtly, which brought him back to Dr. Sydney Flanders.  He and Hannigan had been leaning toward a male assailant because all the bodies had been moved after death.  The killer posed the bodies by draping the victims out of the car, their heads lying on the ground outside the open car doors.

But dragging a body halfway out of a car wasn't impossible for a female.  And Dr. Flanders was a tall, fit woman.  Her assistant might be as well, for all they knew.