House of Skin (27 page)

Daryl Applegate sat staring at her.

“You can sit down,” he said.

Julia opened her mouth uncertainly.

“I said sit down.”

Reluctantly, she did.

He sat rocking in her mother’s chair. She felt her anger return.

“You have no right to be here, badge or not. Where’s Sheriff Barlow?”

“Home. Or he might have gone over to Redman’s after the fireworks.”
 

“Who do you think you are, breaking in here?”

“Cut the crap, Julia.”

She laughed once, harshly. Then she stood and walked over to the phone.

“You wiped your prints off Brand’s car.”

She stopped, depressed the receiver.

“What are you talking about?”
 

“What I’m talking about is that bullshit story you told Barlow at the library. I know you were in Brand’s car the night of his death.”

“Sheriff Barlow said Brand might still be alive.”

Applegate snickered softly and shook his head. “Barlow might think that but we know better, don’t we?”

She tried to brush it off. “I don’t know wh—”

“Like I said,” he interrupted, “let’s cut the crap, alright?”

She watched him. In the dim glow of the lamp his eyes looked black.

Applegate stared at her breasts. The deputy’s belly sagged over his belt, a hint of hairy white skin peeking out at her from between buttons. He rocked slowly in the wooden chair, serene, his hat brim bobbing up and down.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“How about you tell me what you got planted in your garden.”

“Nothing yet.”

“Tomatoes?”

“Not this year.”

“Cukes?”
 

“No.”

“My grandma always plants cukes. Makes them into this creamy salad stuff. Tastes great with corn on the cob. What else you got in there?”

“I told you nothing.”
 

“What about dead lawyers?”

Julia met his stare. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t care for the accusation, either.”

“You shouldn’t have killed him, you don’t care for the accusation.”

The way the chair groaned when he rocked in it, she was afraid his fat ass would bust through the wood.

“Come on, Julia. Help me out here.” It was the first time he’d spoken her name. She didn’t care for it.

“Other than the fact that I’m innocent, don’t you need a search warrant to break in here?”

“Door was unlocked.”
 

“You know what I mean, damn it. I have rights.”

He stopped rocking. “You really want me to get a search warrant? Tell Sheriff Barlow about this?”

Her lips thinned but her eyes held his.

“Maybe I won’t tell Barlow what I find out there,” Applegate said, nodding toward the backyard. “Maybe I don’t give a shit about some hot shot from the city. Maybe that lawyer got what was coming to him.”

She allowed herself a smile. A small one.

Applegate smiled too. “So. Are we gonna be friendly about this?”
 

Julia crossed her legs. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about, Deputy, but you’re welcome to stay for some coffee if you’d like. I was just about to brew some.”

“Sure you were,” he said. “That’s fine then. I’d love a cup of coffee. Haven’t had one since breakfast.”

He followed her into the kitchen. She could feel his eyes on her ass. Underneath, her panties were soaked through with rain, uncomfortable in the muggy kitchen.

She rounded the table, her fingernails skating over the Byron collection she’d been reading, and glanced back at him. He’d taken off his hat, revealing a dented pelt of thick black hair, the kind that rejected water completely, made it bead and run off like canvas. Julia set the coffee to brew.

She made to excuse herself as Applegate sat down, but before she made it past him, he barred her way with a long arm. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“I’m going to change clothes. Where do you think I’m going to go?”

“To get your gun maybe.”

“I don’t have one.”

He eyed her, thinking. Then, he grinned magnanimously. “Okay, then. You want to slip into something more comfortable, I’ll let you.”

She moved past him and disappeared up the stairs.

When she returned in her white sports bra and her low rise gray running shorts, Applegate was sitting at the table, scowling over one of her books,
Mansfield Park
. When he looked up, his face reddened. His eyes flitted from her bare stomach to her breasts.

“Enjoying the book?” she asked. As she poured the coffee, she could feel him staring.

“It’s real nice.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

Setting down the cups, she sat across from him. He put the book down and sipped at his coffee. Other than the sound of his stertorous breathing, the house was silent.

“Cream?” she asked.

He set the mug down and examined it. “How’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“How’d you do it?” he repeated, still watching the mug.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

He looked at her then, but before long his eyes sank to her cleavage. She had an urge to cover herself but instead allowed her shoulders to glide back and touch the chair, felt her breasts push against the stretchy material.

“Let’s try this another way,” he said to her tits. “
Why
did you do it?”

Her thumb went up and down the handle of her cup, her eyes willing his to meet hers.

“He try something on you? Make you act in self-defense? If he did, you’re not gonna get in trouble for it.”

She spoke slowly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, why you’re here, or what you want from me. If you don’t have any more questions, I’m going for a run.”

He met her eyes. “You do, you’ll regret it.”
 

She stared at him, waited for him to look away first.

He did. “Damn it,” he said. He leaned back in his chair, licked his lips. “Come here.”

Her shoulders leaned against the seatback, her breasts teasing him.

“Now, Goddammit,” he said.

She set her cup on the table and stood. The kitchen was too warm. Sweat glistened on her bare stomach. She moved around the table and stood next to him. The front legs of his chair hung a foot off the ground, the back of his seat resting on the edge of the counter.

Applegate motioned her closer.

She took another step, her hip brushing his shoulder.

Applegate scratched his matted hair, licked his lips. He reached out with a tremulous hand. His large fingers touched her stomach just above the navel. She watched his fingers pressing her dark skin, the fine blond hair on her stomach tickling at his touch. His mouth was open, his breathing very loud in the kitchen. The withering odor boiling out of his mouth made her gorge clench, but she did her best not to show it. He traced an index finger along the muscle over her hip, toward her abdomen. When his finger reached her waistband, it glided there, back and forth, pushing down the elastic band of her shorts, probing lower.

His eyes came up as the sizzling coffee pot swung toward his face. An arm flew up and blocked her wrist, the burning pot spinning loose and shattering against the cabinet behind him. Steaming jets of coffee scalded the back of his neck. Hissing, he caught her wrist, twisted it savagely, while his other hand gripped his blistered neck. With her free hand Julia raked his cheekbone, four deep trenches blooming in his flesh. He screamed and twisted her arm. She felt a wrist bone crack. Desperately, she kicked at the back legs of his chair and felt him release her as the chair started to fall.

Before he could prevent it, the chair toppled backward, the base of his skull smashing the hard counter edge. His body followed, landing in a heap.

She kicked at his face. He surprised her by dodging and snagging her other foot. He pulled it toward him. Both her legs went airborne, the hard wooden floor rising up to meet her back. Her head followed, whacking the floor with a sick thud.

Dazed, she saw him gaining his feet and reaching toward her. Feebly, she batted at his hand. He slapped her hand aside, stepped on her injured wrist. She cried out. He dropped a knee into her ribs and let his weight follow, laughing at her agonized cry.

“Innocent, huh?” He seized a handful of her hair. “Then why’d you attack me? Trying to kill me too?
Fucking cunt!
” he roared, jerking her head up and slamming it on the floor. She lay semi-conscious, a thin rill of blood trickling out of one nostril.

Daryl wrestled her onto his shoulder and carried her into the backyard. By the time they reached the garden he was ready to faint. He dropped her on the moist garden bed.

She landed with a thump. She rocked over on her side, trying to regain her feet. She reminded him of a turtle rolled over on its shell. He measured, reared and planted a kick in her kidneys. She moaned and bent backward, holding her lower back.

“Think you can get away, huh?” Daryl reached down and grabbed the shovel lying in the grass. She was on her back, face squeezed tight in agony, her arm pinned beneath her holding her side. He’d gotten her good.

“What’s wrong, honey? You got a pain?” He straddled her, brought the edge of the shovel up, cupped her chin with the blade. She cried out as he pressed the dirty shovel tip into her throat. She tried to lift her chin to get away from the pressing tip, but he followed her, kept the steel point pressed in her flesh.

He felt her kick at him, aiming for his balls, but she was too weak and had a bad angle. She kicked the underside of his buttocks instead. He pulled the shovel away, raised one of his size fourteens and stomped her in the belly.

Daryl grinned. The bitch deserved it. Raking him with those goddamn Freddy Krueger fingernails, dousing the back of his neck with scalding coffee. He touched his neck and grimaced. The raised blisters back there hurt like a motherfucker.

She was curled up like a pillbug and retching. He dropped down next to her, cradled the back of her head. She writhed away, so he snatched a handful of her hair and drew her face to his. “It’s just you and me now,” he said. “No one’s gonna stop me from doing what I want, least of all you.”

Crying now, she batted weakly at his face. He headbutted her, saw her dazed expression and felt his cock growing hard. With both hands he grabbed ahold of her long hair and kissed her. She struggled beneath him, but he only mashed his face harder, his tongue out and squirming to get between her closed lips. She bucked beneath him, battered his shoulders and neck, but he wouldn’t let go. He let one hand drop to her breasts, squeezing them, kneading, his other hand slide lower, down over her slick tummy and work its way under her waistband. She thrashed beneath him, and just when his fingertips found her pubic hair, he felt a screaming pain in his right ear, knew she’d sunk a fingernail in there, through his fucking eardrum.

He yelped and rolled onto his back, his legs bicycling in the air, running through the agony. Daryl howled, felt tears stinging his cheeks.

He remembered himself after a time and sat up, one hand holding in the ganglia oozing through his fingers.

The bitch was crawling away.

He scrambled over and grabbed the shovel. As he got to his feet he saw what bad shape she was in. She’d made it only a few feet from the garden. He followed her, but his balance threatened to betray him. The bitch and her goddamn fingernails had screwed up his equilibrium, but he still had the upper hand. He had to do it quick, before his spinning brain pitched him over onto the wet grass. He stood above her, feet straddling her back.

Daryl lifted the shovel over his shoulder, brought it down hard, flat end clanging dully on her skull. Her body flopped on the grass, went still.

He stared at her long shiny body, face down, curvy and limp and silhouetted by the moon.

He wondered how he’d explain this to Sam.

Knowing she was out for a while, maybe for good, but still wanting to keep an eye on her while he dug, he reached down and grabbed the waistband of her shorty shorts. He felt the silk of her panties on his fingertips, lifted, meaning for her body to come with it, but instead of lifting her off the ground, her shorts and underwear slid off her hips, revealing her beautiful round ass.

He dropped her, panting. He stared at her glistening buttocks, pallid and full in the moonlight.

He wiped his mouth. There would be time for that later, after he dug up Brand’s body. Not bothering to pull her shorts up, he lifted her feet and dragged her like that until she was lying next to the garden. He eyeballed her exposed rump, imagined how it would be, her out cold, him violating her however he chose, for hours. He could incorporate it into his story later on. How she’d called him, asked him to come out to her place.
I knew it was wrong, Sam, but she was so pretty and so aggressive. It was after we’d already had sex that she confessed to me about Brand, thinking I wouldn’t tell on her. When I came out here to see if her story was true she attacked me with those scimitar nails of hers. She slashed my face and probably cost me my hearing in one ear. It was self-defense then, and even though I didn’t want to hurt her, I had to, to save myself and to get justice for Brand’s wife and kids.