Murder! (Parker & Knight Book 1) (7 page)

“I hear you, so where to next?”

***

T
hey finished out the day by filing reports and Parker walked through his front door before six p.m.

Parker lived in a three bedroom home on a street near the new mall. The house was up for sale because part of the divorce settlement stated that the home’s equity be divided equally between Parker and Rachel, however, he had avoided the alimony trap because Rachel had abandoned the marriage.

Parker liked the house a great deal and hated to leave it, especially since he had turned the basement into a workshop for his carpentry and woodworking hobbies.

After showering and changing clothes, he grabbed a beer, went back by the front door, and looked over the mail. Lying on the table beside the bills was a copy of his divorce papers, something he had yet to sign.

He left the mail unopened and walked into the living room, where he plopped onto the sofa and drank his beer while thinking about Rachel.

Timothy Hearn had left his wife for her, and now left Rachel for yet another woman, but he felt no joy in knowing that she had been treated the same way in which she had treated him.

He still loved Rachel, and seeing her the day before and not being able to touch her was hard, because all he ever wanted to do from the moment he first saw her was to take her in his arms and never let go.

He sat brooding on the sofa until the room grew dark. When he stood, he realized that he was hungry, but then remembered that he had eaten the last of the Chinese food the night before. He considered ordering a pizza, but then decided to go out to eat. After strapping a holstered .22 to his ankle, he headed out.

He had intended to drive to the diner, but wound up heading toward
Taggart’s
and Heather Jones. When he got to the turn that would take him there, he drove past, while chastising himself mentally.

Stupid Parker! The girl was only being nice because she wants you to find her friend’s killer. She doesn’t need some middle-aged cop hitting on her, and besides, she’s part of an active case.

An hour later, he found himself entering Philadelphia. Twenty minutes after that he was sitting at the bar of one of Philly’s more notorious pick-up joints, where women drank for free and men were on the prowl.

Parker ordered a whiskey and then swiveled around on his stool to take it all in. It was a Thursday night, but it was still summer, and the bar was becoming crowded. There were several groups of females sitting at tables together, and they were all slightly intoxicated and scantily dressed.

One of them, a blonde in a halter top smiled at Parker, then whispered to the girl at her side. When the other girl looked Parker’s way, she also sent him a smile, and then the two of them stood and walked over to him.

The blonde’s friend was Hispanic, and her black curls hung about her pretty face like a mane.

When they reached Parker, they stood on either side of him and he watched their eyes flow over him.

“You’re new here,” said the first girl, the blonde, and up close, Parker saw that they were just that, girls, despite the fact that they were in their twenties.

“He’s a cop,” said the second girl, and Parker sighed inwardly. No, he never would have lasted undercover.

“Yes, I’m a cop, but I just stopped in for a drink,” Parker said, and then the three of them exchanged names.

They were Cindy and Leda, and Parker knew that he had seen many more years then either of them, but they were very nice, very sexy, and he had not been with a woman since his wife left him.

Leda soon drifted away to the dance floor and Parker and Cindy kept talking, and as they talked, she moved between his parted legs and touched him on the cheek, then on the chest, caressing him. After the second kiss, Cindy took him by the hand and led him outside to the parking lot.

“Which car is yours?” She said, and then squealed with delight when she spotted the Mustang.

Once in the car, Cindy asked him where he lived and when he told her, she said that it was too far to drive and that they couldn’t go to her place, because her other roommate had it for the night.

Parker was about to suggest a motel when Cindy removed her top.

“Do you have a condom?” Cindy asked.

“No,”

“That’s all right, I always carry some.”

She brought one out from her purse and handed it to Parker.

“Here?” Parker said.

“Why not?” She replied, and he felt her hands working at his belt.

Part of his mind, the cop part was screaming at him to stop things before they went too far. It even warned of danger, and told him that the girl was just a distraction and that once his pants were undone and he was exposed and helpless, that the car door would be wrenched open and a gun would be aimed his way, and his wallet taken.

He knew such things happened, had investigated them and thought their male victims a special sort of fool, but if it was the girl’s true intent to rob him than he would be robbed, because as her hands took hold of him he knew he was too far gone.

However, Cindy had no partner, had no other desire than the one that slackened her beautiful face, and caused her to sit astride Parker. She was so petite that she fit between Parker and the steering wheel easily, and as she began moving herself slowly up and down, Parker nuzzled her warm, soft, perfumed neck and forgot the pain of his wife’s betrayal, forgot the eyes of the dead, and the ache of loneliness, and just gave himself over to pleasure.

When the inevitable end came, Cindy shuddered against him and settled limply into his arms, but mere moments later, she eased off of him and reached for her top.

“Jesus, but that was good, Rick,”

Parker chuckled. “It had been a while for me.”

Cindy kissed him and opened her door.

“I have to get back inside, I’m crashing at my friend Chloe’s and I don’t want her to leave without me, see ya around.”

And with those words, she was gone.

Parker cleared a spot on the foggy glass of his windshield and watched her weave between the cars as she headed back inside the bar. He felt like he should call to her, but what was there to say?

They weren’t going to have a relationship. Their relationship, what it was and all it ever would be had just taken place, and the only thing she had ever wanted from him was kindness and casual sex, and her desire matched his own.

Parker straightened himself up, started the car, and headed home, feeling a little older and a little sadder than when he left it.

P
arker entered the squad room on Friday morning and saw Jo walking towards him holding a coffee.

“Cream and sugar, right?”

“Yes, and thanks,”

Parker took a sip and felt the warm liquid energize him. He hadn’t fallen asleep until nearly two, and then hit the snooze alarm until there was just enough time to shower and shave.

“Steve Grace’s girlfriend is coming in this morning,” Jo said. “Although, I’m not sure if she has anything to add to the case,”

“I know, she told me on the phone that she’d never even met Tiffany, but I wanted to see her in person, to see if she has scratches on her arms or face.”

“The coroner’s report says that there was no flesh under her fingernails, but she might have punched her attacker, so yeah, we might as well get a look at her and check for a black eye.”

They got their look about an hour later and there wasn’t a mark on her. A uniformed officer escorted Steve Grace’s girlfriend, Susan May, to their desks.

May was in her early-forties and was a saleswoman for an office supply manufacturer.

She was dressed in a conservative pantsuit that was too tight, and her brown eyes were large behind her thick glasses. She had nothing of value to add to the case, but assured them that Steve Grace was with her and her eleven-year-old daughter at the time of the murder. Parker and Jo took down her statement, thanked her for her time, and walked her to the elevator.

When the doors slid closed, Jo let out a soft whistle.

“That Steve Grace must have mother issues; his girlfriend’s even older than Mandy Kent.”

Parker said nothing, but just stood there unmoving, as his mind began to race.

“Rick?”

Parker didn’t answer, but just kept staring out at nothing.

Jo touched his arm.

“Hey Rick, you all right?”

Parker nodded, as a sick feeling came upon him.

“Jo, I think we’ve had this case all wrong.”

“What do you mean? Are you talking about Susan May?”

He nodded again, and then mashed the button on the elevator.

“Yeah, I think she’s the key to this whole case, and if I’m right, it’s more twisted than we thought.”

The elevator came, and they went after Susan May as Parker told Jo his theory.

***

F
ive hours later.

––––––––

T
he Kents and their daughter Allie were inside Chief Howard’s office with Parker and Jo. There was also a psychiatrist present, a woman named Dr. Price and Parker hoped that her presence would turn the tide and bring the awful truth to light.

Parker began with a sad sigh,

“We know who really killed Tiffany Grace.”

Alex Kent released his own sigh.

“Thank God, who was it?”

“It was Allie, Mr. Kent; your daughter killed Tiffany Grace,”

The Kents both exclaimed loud protests at the accusation, but twelve-year-old Allie hung her head and began weeping.

Dr. Price moved beside the girl just as her mother took her hand.

“Allie,” Dr. Price said. “Honey, we know it must have been an accident, a mistake and... we know about you and Steve.”

“Steve? Steve Grace? What about him?” Mandy Kent said.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Kent,” Dr. Price said, “But Steve Grace has been molesting your daughter.”

“What?” Mandy shouted, as her husband looked stricken with shock.

Allie said something then, but it was whispered and lost amid her sniffles.

“What did you say, baby?” Mandy asked.

“I said Stevie isn’t molesting me, he loves me, and I love him too.”

Mandy let out a wail as her husband began crying his own tears.

Parker walked over and looked the wounded child in the eyes.

“Honey, please tell us what happened with Tiffany.”

Allie shrugged.

“She was gonna tell. She was gonna make it so we couldn’t see each other again.”

Alex Kent pointed a finger at his daughter.

“Don’t say another word! They’ll put you in jail, baby.”

Allie shrugged again,

“They know, Daddy, they already know,”

Parker lowered himself onto his haunches and spoke softly to the child.

“Why did you stab Tiffany, to stop her from telling?”

Allie shook her head, her eyes wide and pleading.

“I didn’t mean it. I swear. I was at Becca’s house and realized that I’d left my phone on the table by the front door, so I cut through the back yards to go get it while Becca went to the bathroom again. Becca was going a lot because something she ate at lunch bothered her stomach.”

Parker nodded. When he realized what must have happened, they checked more deeply into the girl’s alibi and discovered that her friend Becca lived just on the other side of the block, barely a minute’s walk away if you went through the yards and squeezed through the hedges, and Becca confirmed that she and Allie had been apart several times.

“Tiffany was just getting out of her car, and when she saw me, she followed me inside the house. Then, she started asking me about Stevie, about me and Stevie, and when I admitted it, she looked so sad, so sad, and then she picked me up and hugged me. I was already holding the letter opener, because I was playing with it as we talked, but I forgot I had it, and when she said that she would tell Mom about Stevie... I started hitting her.”

“But you were holding the letter opener, and instead of hitting her, you stab her,”

“Yeah, and then she dropped me and, and she had this really weird look on her face, but then she fell down, and the blood came, but not much, not really, but she wouldn’t wake up, she wouldn’t wake up.”

Dr. Price caught Parker’s eye and he took her meaning and backed away.

Other than the sound of the Kent family’s crying, the room was silent.

Chief Howard broke the silence and asked Dr. Price to escort Allie to the hospital, where she would be examined. When Kent tried to join his wife and daughter, Mandy gave him such a withering look that he fell back into his seat.

“I’ll come by later,” he mumbled.

Parker sat on a corner of the desk and spoke to him.

“Mr. Kent, your charges are being dropped, and as for your daughter, well, there will be time to decide that after she’s been evaluated by Dr. Price.”

Kent wiped away his tears.

“What about Steve Grace? I swear to you, if I see him I’ll kill him.”

“Mr. Grace has been arrested and charged with several counts.”

“For what he did to my daughter?”

“Yes, and there are other girls, his girlfriend’s daughter for one, and a former neighbor back in Ohio. It seems Mr. Grace made a habit of ingratiating himself with middle-aged women as a means of getting near their daughters. Once I’d met his girlfriend, a woman in her forties, I began to suspect that he might be using her to get near her daughter, and when confronted by her mother, the girl told of her molestation.”

“Middle-aged women, women like Mandy, and I was so busy trying to screw his sister that I wasn’t looking out for my Allie. Oh God, this is all our fault, oh my poor baby.”

“We now believe that Tiffany either knew or suspected what her brother was, and that by babysitting Allie, she was actually hoping to protect her. It’s my guess that when Steve Grace went to your home the other night, he wasn’t there to see your wife, but your daughter.”

A uniformed cop was passing by and the chief waved him into the office.

“Simmons, please escort Mr. Kent to his car, or do you need a taxi Mr. Kent?”

“No, I... I have my car. Mandy and I came separately...apart.”

Kent rose to join the officer, but turned and stared back at Parker.