Red Silk Scarf (15 page)

           
Children were
innocent, carefree, happy little creatures, Patrick mused.
 
If nothing else, doing their job not only
protected them but also, made the hell they went through each night bearable.

Turning
his glance on his partner sunbathing with his eyes closed, Patrick would never
understand why Mark jeopardized his treasures on a nightly basis.
 
If Margie and the kids were his, even the
house as run down, as it was he’d . . . It did no good to dwell on such
nonsense.
 
They were things he'd never
have, the reason he spent most of his time at his friends home.
 
A sanctuary where he felt loved, wanted,
needed, most importantly, part of a family.
 
Glancing at the children he recalled, his youth, his home life similar,
and his relationship with his dad, like his with the children.
 
Hastily he choked back tears leaping from out
of nowhere. Damn you dad, why?

 
          
It was Patrick's head leaning back now, eyes closed when
Mark spoke.
 
“I don't understand myself,”
his words raspy as if reading Patrick's thoughts.
 
“Margie is the best thing that ever happened
to me.
 
And the kids are what make my
heart beat.”
 
The same rush of tears came
to Mark's eyes.
  

           
Patrick
couldn’t bear to look at Mark; it was enough sensing his sadness.
  
His hand finding Mark’s forearm gave it an
understanding lingering squeeze.
 
There
was no need to say a word.
 
Though they
would never be able to understand, or help the other, they shared something
intangible that made them brothers in the truest sense of the word.
 

           
As his fear
for the safety of Margie and kids became a familiar dark cloud hovering
overhead, trembling claimed Patrick.
 
One
day Margie would learn about Mark's sinful habits.
 
She'd leave, of course, any woman in her
right mind would.
 
She was everything
good and kind, everything he could ever want in a woman and gave up ever
finding.
 
The reason why Mark’s screwing
around was slowly eating away his insides.
 
If ever he had a woman like Margie in his bed, he'd stay there forever.

Uneasiness
claimed Patrick.
 
The nature of their job
lowered their odds of survival on a daily basis, and he prayed every day that
his best friend wouldn’t be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 
Although he feared, he wouldn’t be able to
protect him somehow he had to; for Patrick knew all too well what losing a
father did to kids.

           
Brooding,
Patrick was doing it again, a perpetual state recently.
 
He was not at all the man Mark met two years
ago, and he didn’t know what to do or say.
 
The blame was his for encouraging drugs and prostitutes.
 
Now realizing how much they’d changed
Patrick’s life, he was suddenly conscious of the deteriorated state of his
own.
 
Patrick adored Margie and the
kid’s, hell it was more than that he loved them.
 
All Patrick had to do was tell Margie, but he
didn't.
 
Now there were five
murders.
    
 
 

           
“Come on
everyone, dinners ready,” Margie sprightly, announced her voice like music to
every ones ears.
 
Naturally Patrick
stayed, always did, happily washing grubby hands and faces, fixing plates,
pouring milk, and encouraging the children to pray before eating like he'd
never eaten before.

           
However
difficult it was throughout dinner to watch the visual conversation between
Mark and Margie, when they quietly disappeared, Patrick never said a word.
 
Marching the kids into the living room, he
played childish games thankful that they were too young to understand the
noises coming from the upstairs bedroom.
 
Patrick couldn’t help but wonder if Mark was dumb enough to get Margie
pregnant again when he wasn’t a father to the three he had.

           
“I'm going to
get those little buns,” Patrick threatened as Holly scrambled from the tub for
the third time.
 
“Stop that, you
two.
 
You need to learn to share,” he
upbraided Brad and Matthew who were splashing water everywhere while fighting
over the same toy.
 
Regardless of his
perpetual exhausted state, Patrick loved bathing and preparing the children for
bed, a time when Mark showered and dressed for work and Margie did the usual
kitchen chores.

Polished
from head to foot, the children were jumping on the bed when Margie met Patrick
in the doorway.
 
If there was ever any
doubt of attraction, eliminated it was when their eyes clicked.
 
Still, each held tight to their
feelings.
 

Beautiful,
Margie was, with gold, sweat-drenched sprigs scattered about her face, a woman
who never found the time for makeup or perfume, who never needed to, who smelled
of cooking, and sex.
 
A woman, whose
curves transformed a meager dress into the most provocative attire?
  
The sexiest woman Patrick ever knew, other
than . . . Cassidy.
  

           
God, he was
so horny there was no stopping himself from moving closer.
 
So did Margie.
  
A closeness that brought Patrick's hands to
her face, his thumb's to her cheeks as his fingers curled around her neck.
 
Hands capable of melting any woman like butter
beneath the touch.

“Kiss
mommy, Unkie Patrick,” Holly giggled.
  

“Yuk,”
the boys gagged.
 

           
However lost
in wild imaginings of Margie beneath him, instead Patrick pecked her nose.
 
His hands fell away.

           
“Damn good
thing it was just her nose,” Mark said in passing.
 
“Come on man, we'll be late.”
 

           
Watching the
two, loves of her life walk away brought Margie's back hard against the door
jam.
 
She would have given into the tears
charging her blue eyes if not for the children.
 
Oh, not because Patrick was so tender, so loving, so attentive to her
and the children, or because she saw in Patrick everything she admired,
everything her husband was not, and would never be, but Mark never kissed her
goodbye.
  

CHAPTER
12

One week vanished; long hours
diligently spent seeking answers to an array of questions.
 
The wear and tear on Cassidy’s body and
nerves, contrary to the exuberance, making her wonder how much longer she could
cope.
 
Each piece of the puzzle only
added to the complexity, along with taking a further toll on her emotions.

Only one of Ben’s prostitutes
acknowledged her.
 
Not considered by
Cassidy as beautiful, Gretchen’s features were attractive enough, slender, and
sleek as a panther her black body had mastered the moves that made her very
popular with clients.
 
Twice she invited
Cassidy to her apartment, the first visit not as friendly or informative as the
last.
 

However, disappointed Cassidy
was, she had to admit she wasn’t surprised to learn that Sullivan and Mark were
frequent clients of Gretchen’s.
 
Such was
not the case when finding out that Ben was her favorite.
 
A sting that threatened to become full-blown
hives when told his women routinely shared his bed, an expected part of payment
that was far from a tough trick, Gretchen bragged.
 
So crazy were the girls over Ben, they
quarreled continually, she added, while casually applying purple nail polish,
volunteered information that snatched Cassidy from dreadful reflections.
 

No matter how desperately
Cassidy clung to the belief that Ben was only keeping up appearances, deep down
she knew better.
 
Aides would have been a
cruel reality that would have scared her beyond reason if he had not been so
careful, and even in haste provided protection.
 

Sleek as a feline, Gretchen was
sprawled on a threadbare chair, perfect for the apartment, a dinky, unkempt
mixture of Salvation Army this and that.
 
Nothing color coordinated, no rhyme or reason to the decor, no
organization.
 
Polish now dry; she began
twisting her long locks into weird concoctions, spraying each creation to
insure her occupation wouldn’t threaten a single strand, a time when Cassidy
became lost in troublesome thoughts of Ben.

Gretchen suddenly breaking the
silence startled Cassidy.
 
“Ben’s crazy
about you, isn’t he? “

Cassidy’s eyes flashed wide,
“What,” she practically shrieked.

“Nonsense girl, don’t act like
you don’t know,” Gretchen chuckled, splashing on a palm full of cheap cologne
that dribbled down her silicone breasts.
 
“Lordy, one romp in the sack and you done in his old heart but good.
 
What you got girl that I don’t,” she asked
with an exaggerated quizzical lift of a brow.
 
“Don’t understand, a skinny white ass girl like you who knows nothing
about jiving, but then I don’t pretend to understand pricks, I just enjoy
them.”

Obviously, Cassidy’s face was a
mass of color, for perspiration beads responded to the heat.
 
Lurching to her feet, she moved about, did
stupid little things to alleviate embarrassment.

“Good Lord, girl, can’t believe
you do what you do if you get so embarrassed over male anatomy.
 
Guess that’s what turns those white bucks on,
huh?”

Opening a small drawer,
plucking a bag of cocaine, Gretchen carefully prepared it then sniffed like an
expert.
 
“Want some, pumpkin,” she
goaded. “Makes doing what we do more enjoyable.
 
Just ask Benny boy he’ll give you some for nothing if you’re good in the
sack, but you already know that, don’t you?”

Charging from the apartment may
have helped, screaming, hitting something, anything to release her
despair.
 
In its place, Cassidy plunked
down on a stuffed stool trying with every surviving faculty to believe Ben
innocent.
 
Wishful thoughts that lasted
only a few moments before deciding her suspicions were right the one time she
wanted so much to be wrong.
 

Cassidy’s attention swished
back to Gretchen and her black leather shorts, much shorter than Cassidy’s that
snugly hugged her body making Cassidy wonder how long it took to remove
them.
 
Her top, nothing more than a
leather bra, boots knee high.
 
She was
applying dark purple lipstick when Cassidy spotted something red spilling from
an opened drawer.

“Like it, Whitie?”
 
One quick flick of the wrist retrieved the
scarf that Gretchen artfully wrapped snugly around Cassidy’s neck tugging,
pulling.
  

With tears blurring her vision,
Cassidy struggled for breath, coughed, almost lost consciousness responses that
were nothing more than a wild imagination out of control.
 

“There, just the color your
outfit needed.
 
God, you white chicks
look sick.
 
At least you do right
now.
 
Did I scare ya?
 
Huh?
 
Just a little,” Gretchen gloated.

Cassidy found Gretchen’s swirling
laughter far from funny.
 
It required a
lot of self-control to keep from slapping her silly.
 
If the fool only knew, she’d be on the floor
in a second if Cassidy felt threatened in the least that is if her mind was
under control.

Now, all that registered was
the possibility that everyone might be suspecting the wrong gender.
 
Why not a woman, maybe a woman made powerful
when strung out on drugs or in a jealous rage over another woman, someone who
used artificial means of raping her prey, logical, considering they recovered
no semen from any of the victims.
 
Then
again maybe the killer used condoms, just like . . . Ben.
  
Cassidy’s hands flying to her throat to ease
the constriction clung to the silk finery.
 
Where did the scarf come from?
 

As if reading her mind, “I
don’t scare easily, you know.
 
If I did,
I would have gotten rid of that thing a long time ago, but I can’t.
 
As ridiculous as it seems, it means something
to me.
 
Though I will not wear it, you
can as long as you promise to give it back.
 
I’m surprised you didn’t wear yours; it goes good with that black and
white outfit. “