Kisscut

  Joe said, “Hey, man,” and the door squeaked open.

  “Who’s this?” a man asked. Jeffrey strained to place the voice. The only thing he was certain of was that it did not belong to Dottie Weaver.

  “Friend of mine,” Joe said. “He likes little girls.”

  “Little, little girls,” Nick chimed in. “Know what I mean, hoss?”

  “Let’s just get this over with,” the man said in a terse voice. “I got the van pulled up on the side of the building. Let’s go.”

  Jeffrey waited until they had left the room before walking out of the bathroom. He kept playing the man’s voice in his mind, trying to place it, but no epiphany came. What did come was more sweat, and Jeffrey loosened the belt on his vest, wishing he hadn’t worn it. Sara had asked him to, though, and he had told her that he would. Maybe if she had considered that he might pass out from heat exhaustion, she would not have insisted.

  The door was too dirty to lean against, so Jeffrey just stood beside it, sweating his ass off, waiting for Nick to give him the all-clear. To make the case stick, they had to get delivery, and that meant making sure the truck outside was filled with magazines.

  To pass the time, Jeffrey counted to a slow one hundred in his head. He was around sixty-five when he heard Nick yelling, “Get down! Get down!”

  Jeffrey pushed the door open, his weapon drawn. Nick had already taken down the suspect, and a lanky looking man in a black suit was face-down on the ground with his hands on the back of his head.

  “Don’t move, you perverted motherfucker,” Nick told him, frisking for weapons. “Am I gonna find anything that’ll cut me?” he asked.

  The man mumbled something, and Nick kicked him. “Am I?” he repeated.

  A firm “No” came this time.

  There were three other GBI agents covering the perp, so Jeffrey tucked his gun back into his holster as he walked toward the scene.

  Nick was still so pumped full of adrenaline from the arrest that when he spoke to Jeffrey he was still yelling. “This your man?” he asked. “This the scumbag motherfucker?”

  Jeffrey could tell from the back that it wasn’t Teddy Patterson, never mind the fact that Teddy would have had to have been Superman to get from Grant to Augusta this fast.

  “Turn him over,” Jeffrey said, resting his hand on the butt of his gun.

  Nick grabbed the guy by his cuffed hands and yanked him around so hard that Jeffrey thought he heard the man’s shoulder popping.

  “Hold on,” the man yelled. He gave Nick a dirty look, and started to give one to Jeffrey before recognition came. All the color drained from the man’s face, and his lips parted slightly in surprise.

  Jeffrey imagined he looked just as shocked.

  Nick asked, “I guess you know him?”

  Jeffrey couldn’t find his voice. He cleared his throat a couple of times before he could tell Nick, “His name is Dave Fine.”

  18

  BROCK’S FUNERAL HOME was housed in one of the oldest houses in Grant. The man who had been in charge of the railroad maintenance depot had built the Victorian castle, complete with turrets, before his bosses in Atlanta thought to question where he was getting all the money to build such a prestigious home. John Brock had purchased the house at auction for a ridiculously low sum and started a funeral home out of the first floor and basement shortly after. The family lived above the business, and Dan Brock had suffered endless taunts from other kids, starting when the bus picked him up in front of the house every morning and only ending at the end of the day when he was dropped off. Brock had learned to fight back at an early age, and threatened to touch them all with his dead-man hands if they did not leave him alone. All of them but Sara, that is. She had never been part of the boisterous crowd, and spent most of the ride studying for class. Dan usually shared a seat with Sara on the bus, because everyone else was too scared he would give them cooties.

  Inside the funeral home, the first floor of the house was decorated with rich velvet curtains and heavy green carpeting. Chandeliers dating back to the early 1900s hung at opposite ends of the long hall that divided the house. Long benches were against the wall, interspersed with tables containing boxes of Kleenex and trays with water pitchers and fresh glasses. Two large viewing rooms were at the front of the hall, with a smaller one in back, opposite the casket showroom. The house’s original kitchen served as an office. Sara stood outside the heavy oak door in front of the office, giving it two soft knocks. When no one answered, she opened the door and peered in. Audra Brock, Dan’s mother, had her head down on the desk. Sara listened quietly, picking out the older woman’s muffled snores. A plate of half-finished barbecue was by Audra’s arm, and Sara assumed the old woman was taking an after-lunch nap.

  Sara had attended many viewings at Brock’s, and she was familiar enough with the layout to find her way to the basement, where the embalming room was. She held on to the railing lining the narrow stairway, stepping carefully on the bare wooden steps. A long time ago Sara had slipped on these stairs and it had taken her bruised tailbone three weeks to heal.

  At the bottom of the steps, she took a left, going past the casket storage room and into a large open space that served as the embalming area. A pump had been turned on, and Sara could feel the noise vibrating through the walls. Dan Brock sat by the body of Grace Patterson, reading a newspaper as the embalming machine removed her blood and replaced it with chemicals.

  Sara said, “Dan,” to get his attention.

  Brock jumped, dropping his newspaper. “Oh, me,” he laughed. “I thought that came from her.”

  “I know the feeling,” she told him, because despite the fact that she had worked for the county going on ten years, Sara still got spooked sometimes late at night when she was alone in the morgue.

  He stood from the chair and offered her his hand. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Dr. Linton?”

  Sara took his hand, wrapping it in both of her own. “I’ve got a really strange request,” she began. “And you may throw me out for asking.”

  He cocked his head, giving her a puzzled look. “I can’t imagine anything you could say that would make me do that, Sara.”

  “Well,” she said, still holding onto his hand. “Let me ask you, then you can decide.”

  THE clinic was humming with activity when Sara opened the back door. She walked to the nurses’ station, and without even saying hello asked Nelly, “Has Jeffrey called?”

  Nelly gave a tight smile. “And how was your lunch, Dr. Linton?”

  “I had to postpone,” Sara told her, leaving out why. Nelly had made it clear that she wasn’t exactly comfortable with the work Sara did at the morgue.

  Sara asked, “Has he called?”

  Nelly shook her head. “I did hear something about Dottie Weaver, though.”

  Sara raised an eyebrow. “What, exactly?”

  Nelly lowered her voice. “Deanie Phillips lives next door to her,” she said. “She heard a loud boom yesterday and walked over to see what was happening.”

  “What was happening?”

  “Well,” Nelly said, leaning her elbows on the counter. “According to Deanie, she heard some of the cops talking about Dottie being involved in something to do with Lacey Patterson’s disappearance.”

  Sara tried not to groan. Despite the fact that she had lived in Grant almost all of her life, Sara was still amazed at how fast gossip got around town. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Sara told Nelly, though the fact that the gossip was closer to the truth than not was a little startling. There was no telling what the town would do when they found out that Dottie Weaver was really Wanda Jennings. Sara was having a hard time reconciling that fact herself, not to mention that her exam at the funeral home pointed to the fact that Grace Patterson had recently given birth to a child.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Nelly said, a coy smile at her lips. She could read Sara almost as well as Cathy Linton could.

  “Anyone call while I was out?”

&
nbsp; “You’ve got three achy-grumpies,” Nelly said, handing her the messages.

  Sara glanced through them, asking, “When’s my next appointment?”

  “The Jordans in about five minutes,” Nelly said. “They’re scheduled for one-thirty, but you know Gillian’s always late.”

  Sara looked at her watch, wondering why Jeffrey had not called. Surely it didn’t take as long as an hour to process Teddy Patterson, especially considering it was still technically Nick’s case. For just a second, she thought about calling him, but then reconsidered. Jeffrey probably would not appreciate her checking up on him, even if she had a good reason.

  “I’m gonna grab a Coke,” she told Nelly. “I’ll be right back.”

  Sara looked at her watch again as she walked down the hallway. She did the math in her head, thinking Jeffrey should not take longer than an hour to get back to Grant.

  She walked into exam room seven and flipped on the lights. Over the past ten years, they had used this room for storage, and it looked like it. Rows of shelves ran the length of the room like bookshelves in a library. Sara could not even remember half the things that were in here.

  She opened the refrigerator and let out a curse when she saw that all the Diet Cokes were gone. “Elliot,” she muttered, because he was always stealing things from the fridge. She opened the freezer and was not too surprised to see that her Dove Bars and a couple of frozen dinners were gone. Well, not technically gone. With his usual sensitivity, Elliot had thought to leave the empty boxes and wrappers in the freezer.

  “I’m gonna kill him,” she said, slamming the fridge shut.

  Sara walked up the hallway, feeling all the anger that had been welling up for the last week coming to a head. She stopped herself outside her office, thinking it wasn’t fair to Elliot to let him take the brunt of this, even if he was a Dove-Bar-stealing ferret.

  “Give me a minute,” she said, holding up her hand to Nelly, who was approaching with an armful of charts.

  Sara walked into her office and slid the door closed behind her. She looked around the small room, taking in all the pictures stuck on the wall, until she got to Lacey Patterson’s. The photo had been taken a few years ago, and the girl’s hair was shorter than Sara remembered. Compared to the school picture in the missing-person flier, Lacey could be a different girl. That was the thing with children at this age—in couple of years, there was no telling what she would look like. She could put on weight or lose weight. Her hair might get darker or lighter. Her cheek-bones might become pronounced, her jaw softer. Dottie Weaver, or whoever she was, had this huge advantage going for her: Lacey would grow up. Of course, after a certain amount of time, this would become a liability for someone in the business of exploiting young children. What would happen to Lacey when she was too old for the game? Would she end up like her mother, abusing other children? Would she find a way to get out from Dottie’s clutches?

  “Dr. Linton?” Nelly knocked on the door. “Chief’s on line four.”

  Sara leaned over her desk, snatching up the phone. “Jeff?” she asked, aware of the hope in her voice.

  “We haven’t found her,” he said, sounding defeated.

  Sara tried to hide her disappointment. The more time that passed the less likely they would be to find the girl. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” she said. “Did Teddy come without a fight?”

  “It wasn’t Teddy,” he said, then told her who it was.

  Sara was sure she had heard wrong. “The preacher?”

  “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said, hanging up the phone.

  Sara looked around the office. She found pictures of Dave Fine’s two kids to the left of Lacey’s, then let her eyes travel over the others: girls who had been in the church choir Dave helped out with, or who had been coached by him on the softball team. There was no telling how many kids Dave Fine had been trusted with, and no telling how many kids there were whose trust he had betrayed.

  19

  DAVE FINE had asked for a Bible, and the preacher rested his right hand on top of the book as he stared blankly at Nick Shelton. He seemed almost perplexed as to why he was here.

  “I love children,” Fine said. “I’ve always loved children.”

  Nick leaned back in his chair, balancing it on the back legs. “Sure you do, Preacher.”

  Jeffrey kept his mouth closed, because Dave Fine was Nick’s collar. His fists were itching to do some real damage to the preacher, and there was a buzzing in the back of Jeffrey’s mind, telling him that Dottie was still out there, doing God only knows what to Lacey Patterson, and the asshole pervert across the table from him was one of the people who had helped her get away.

  “Well,” Nick said, holding his arms out in a big shrug. “Tell me your story.”

  Fine stared at the Bible, as if he felt he could get strength from the book. His hands were sweating, and Jeffrey could see a darker streak on the black cover where perspiration had rubbed off his palm.

  “I’ve worked at the church for going on fifteen years,” Fine said. “I grew up in Grant. I was baptized in that very chapel.”

  Nick bounced the chair slightly, waiting him out.

  “I married my wife there,” he continued. “I baptized my two little boys there.”

  Silence filled the room, and Jeffrey let himself look at Dave Fine. He was the type of man who served as a living example of the phrase “pillar of his community.” Fine volunteered with the seniors’ program down at the Y, delivering meals to the elderly every weekend. His children played softball on the peewee league, and Fine coached the girls’ team.

  Jeffrey loosened his collar, thinking about all the young girls Fine came in contact with on a daily basis. His fists clenched again.

  “I never touched any of them,” Fine said, as if he could read Jeffrey’s mind. “I know it’s wrong. I know that.” He ran his thumb along the spine of the Bible. “I prayed for strength, and God gave it to me.”

  Nick crossed his arms, and Jeffrey could sense that this was getting to the other man. Nick wasn’t overtly religious, but Jeffrey knew that he attended church every Sunday. One of the clunky gold charms around his neck was a cross with a diamond embedded at the center.

  “I never touched my children,” Fine insisted. “I never hurt my boys.”

  Nick said, “You understand we can’t take your word for that.”

  Fine seemed shocked that someone would not trust him. “I would never touch my sons,” he said. “I would never do that.”

  “We know you’re not into little boys,” Nick told him. “But, you gotta understand, Preacher, we gotta check it out.”

  Fine stared at the Bible. “I would never have acted on my feelings if she hadn’t approached me.”

  “Dottie Weaver?” Nick clarified.

  “Jenny was such a sweet child. She had a light in her. A true light that God put there.” Fine’s lips curved up in a smile. “She sang like an angel. She really did. You could hear God coming through her voice.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “I bet you could.”

  Fine gave him a sharp look, as if he deserved more respect than this. The man seemed not to realize that he was in a police station, about to be sent to jail for a long time.

  Jeffrey said, “How did Dottie approach you?”

  Fine seemed relieved that Jeffrey was taking over. “She didn’t exactly approach me so much as lure me,” he said. “Adam never thought to eat of the forbidden fruit until Eve tempted him.”

  Nick said, “Seems to me Adam’s snake had something to do with that.”

  Fine frowned. “It wasn’t like that. It was never about sex for me.”

  “But, you did have sex with her,” Nick said.

  Fine chewed his lip. “Not at first,” he said. “I just wanted to spend some time with her.” He paused, and took a deep breath. “Dottie let me take her to the movies, and sometimes we would go into Macon to get her some clothes.” He looked up at Jeffrey and Nick,
obviously needing their approval. “Her father had abandoned her,” he told them. “I was just trying to fill in, to make her feel loved and wanted.”

  Nick was silent, but Jeffrey could see the muscles in his arms tense.

  “I just wanted to nurture her, to give her some guidance.”

  “Did you?” Nick asked, not bothering to hide his hostility.

  “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not like that, it’s not like that at all.”

  Jeffrey tried to remain calm, asking, “What’s it like?”

  “It’s like…”—Fine made a wide gesture with his hands—“it’s about love. It’s about listening to children, and trying to understand their wants and their needs.”

  “Did she want sex from you?” Nick asked.

  Fine dropped his hands. “I never would have touched her that way. I was content just to have her company.”

  Jeffrey asked, “What changed that?”

  “Dottie.” He spit the word out of his mouth as if it was poison. “I had always thought about it, always. Not with Jenny, but with other girls. Some girls that I saw just around town.” He blinked his eyes several times, and Jeffrey was struck by how easily these men cried for themselves. They never seemed to cry for the children they hurt.

  Fine said, “But I’ve always been content with my fantasies. That’s always been enough for me.” His voice rose. “I’m a happily married man,” he told them. “I love my wife and my sons.”

  “Sure you do,” Nick said, the flippant tone back.

  Fine shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

  Jeffrey leaned over the table. “Explain it to me, Dave. I want to understand.”

  “She was such a smart girl, and so well-spoken.” He picked up the Bible. “She read the Book with me. We prayed. We understood each other.”

  Jeffrey glanced at the Bible. While at some level Jeffrey had always believed in the presence of good and evil, he had never really attached a biblical significance to it. Seeing Dave Fine’s hand on the Bible, hearing his tale of seducing Jenny Weaver through prayer, struck him as the highest form of blasphemy.