Murder and Mayhem (21 page)

Nicola looked up from the book she was reading when
Danny walked into the room; his clothes were soaked through, his hair dripping
water.

“Oh my God, Danny, what happened?”

“I got caught in a sudden downpour. You would not
believe it. Out of the blue the rain came bucketing down, and then it stopped
just as suddenly as it started.”

Nicola slipped out of bed and grabbed a pair of jeans
off the back of the chair. “Why don’t you jump under the shower while I’ll take
your wet clothes to the laundry room and run them through the dryer?”

“Don’t worry about it, Nic. I’ll just wring them out
and throw them over the top of the shower to dry overnight. If they’re still
damp in the morning, I’ll lay them across the back seat of the SUV to dry out.
I’ve got other clothes I can wear and I can always buy more if I need to.”

Danny lightly toweled off and dropped the towel on the
bathroom floor. When he entered the room, his naked body glistened with light
beads of water that clung to his skin. His damp hair fell in ringlets across
his forehead and along the nape of his neck.

He walked over to the bed and as he grabbed hold of
the sheet and tossed it aside, Nicola’s hair fell around her face in a shower
of brass and gold. She tossed her head back and gave him a seductive smile.

Danny’s eyes traveled over the contours of her body
taking in every curve and crest, from her mound of Venus, up over the slight
rise of her tummy, the gentle curve of her hips. His eyes stopped on her milky white
breast and watched the nipples harden and become tiny rosebuds, then rose up
her throat to her lips and her eyes. As they held each other’s gaze neither
spoke, neither moved. The only sound in the room was the sound of their
breathing; and the gentle sigh of the wind as it ghosted through flimsy white
curtains on the partially open window.

Nicola ran her tongue over her lips and swallowed hard
as Danny climbed onto the bed and hung suspended above her. Water dripped from
his hair onto her face and pooled in the hollow at the base of her throat. He
leaned down and licked it, like licking an ice cream.

The erotic sensation of his tongue on her skin sent
shivers of pleasure coursing through her body.

Taking his weight on his elbows, he eased himself down
and thrust gently between her slightly parted thighs where he found that soft,
warm place that held a woman’s mystery. Stunned by the sensation that coursed
through his body, he looked into fiery green eyes filled with love and desire
as she laid bare her soul to him.

“Oh my God, Nic, what is happening to us?” He wanted
to possess her like no other woman he had known before. His mouth came down on
hers in a passion so intense his body stopped moving.

As Nicola wound her legs around him, cradling his body
in her hips, Danny cupped a hand under her buttocks and raised her up. He could
feel the beat of her heart against his chest as they moved slowly at first,
their bodies in tune with each other, but as their passion increased so did the
rhythm.. Harder, faster, pressing against each other, their breathing coming in
short sharp gasps, their bodies wet with exertion.

Suddenly Danny arched his back and groaned. His body
shuddered, his breathing, heavy and ragged. Nicola cried out as the intense
climax coursed through her body and took her to a place where the rest of the
world slipped away, and nothing else mattered.

* * *

Danny gathered her into the curve of his body. Nicola
lay with her head on his chest and listened to the gentle rhythm of his heart
beating and the slow, steady sound of his breathing. Comforted by the touch of
his hand as he stroked her hair, she sighed contentedly and drifted off to
sleep.

Danny watched the rise and fall of her chest as her
breathing settled into a pattern. He was beginning to realize that Nicola was
unlike any woman he had known before. She was warm, she was caring, she was
sexy and she was fun to be with–and he liked the feel of her body as it nestled
into his. A perfect fit.

Danny put his lips against her hair and whispered
softly, “I love you, Nicola Madison.”

TWENTY

When we walked into the room we saw Louanna and
Chartreuse engaged in conversation with the woman sitting next to Chartreuse.
As we got closer, I noticed a smattering of colored sprinkles clinging to
Louanna’s top lip, and on the front of Chartreuse’s hospital gown.

“Hi girls, how are you both doing, today?” I asked.

“Hi Bee, we’s bin doin’ real good,” Louanna said with
a bob of the head.

“And you, Chartreuse. Are you feeling all right? We
missed you girls yesterday,” Rosie said.

“Oh, that’s ‘cause they moved my time a-gin, Hon,”
Chartreuse said.

Louanna waved her hand in the
air dismissively. “But I toll ‘em we wanted to be on this time ‘cause our
friends are here. So they moved us back a-gin,’ she said obviously proud of her
small victory over the usually unbending establishment. Many have tried–few
succeeded.

“Way to go, Louanna.” When I gave her a high five I
couldn’t help notice her nails.

“Hey, did you girls get your nails done, again? They
look real good.” I tried not to focus on the bright patterns lest they give me
a migraine of flashing lights and colored auroras; a bit like an LSD high–or so
I’ve been told. But I have never taken drugs. Let me re-phrase that. As that
famous orator, Bill Clinton, once said, I did not inhale.

The two women waved their hands in the air wanting to
give us the full effect of the artwork.

“Whachoo think of the color?” Chartreuse asked.

“Oh, I think the color is great. Was it that little
Korean girl who did them?”

Louanna jumped to her feet. “Ko-re-han! She haint no
Ko-re-han–she Chinese.”

Chartreuse jumped up so fast she almost knocked me
flying. “I tol’ you before, Louanna that girl haint no Chinese. She Jap’nese!”

Rosie decided now would be a good time to beat a hasty
retreat. “See you girls later,” I said as she grabbed hold of my arm and
steered me to a couple of empty chairs, at the back of the room, next to her
friend.

“Hi Linda,” Rosie said as she dropped her bag on the
chair and headed to the change room.

“Hey there, Linda. What’s happening girlfriend?” I
said.

Linda tossed out a glance from under her brow, mumbled
a greeting and started to pick at a loose piece of skin on her thumb.

“What are you reading?” I asked, trying to engage her
in everyday conversation like normal people do.

“A magazine,” she said–and breathed a heavy sigh.

“Well, yes. I can see that. But what is the magazine
about?” I suspect Linda only reads books with pictures–and lots of white
spaces.

Linda shuffled uncomfortably in the chair. Her eyes
seemed to glaze over.

“It’s upside down,” I said.

“Huh?”

“The magazine. It’s upside down.”

Linda’s face turned red. She
flipped it around and hid behind the shiny covers.

When she returned, Rosie noticed Linda’s head was
buried behind the pages of the magazine. She raised her eyebrows in a question
mark.

I shrugged in a don’t-ask-me-fashion, handed her my
bag and stood up to leave.

“Excuse me, ladies, but I should not have had that
last cuppa,” I said and headed for the restroom.

“Oh don’t hurry back on my account,” Rosie called
after me, turned to Linda and said,“ I hate to tell you, Linda but I’m afraid
she’s been at it again.”

The magazine slipped from her finger onto the floor
the glossy pages fell open to a double-paged photograph of Freddie Mercury in
full make-up wearing a skin-tight spandex bodysuit. Rumor has it the fire
department had to cut him out of it after a concert. Fact or fiction–I’ll let
you be the judge.

“Y... you um... means... she’s k… killed s... someone
else?” Linda stammered.

Rosie picked the magazine up off
the floor and handed it to Linda. “Not only that, now there’s the sex.”

“S... sex?”

“I swear to you, Linda, since my sister has taken up
serial killing, her sexual appetite has grown. You should hear it.” Rosie
noticed the woman on the other side of Linda lean in close.

“Hear it?” Linda squawked. “Hear it!” she spluttered.
There was a sharp intake of breath from the other woman who sensed something
momentous was taking place, and hiked her chair closer.

“Since my sister started killing people, her
imagination knows no bounds.”

Both women’s mouths fell open. They looked like a
couple of guppies gulping for air; their eyes saucers-like, shocked expression
in tandem with each other.

“The way she describes the sex makes you want to join
in. You should ask her about it sometime,” Rosie added, shaking her head.

“You mean l… l... like in a… a... th… three… some,”
Linda spluttered, drool seeping out the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away
with the back of her had.

“Or possibly a foursome.” Rosie looked pointedly at
the woman on the other side of Linda. The skin on the pale-faced woman turned a
bright red and she ducked behind the dog-eared pages of an old National
Geographic Magazine with Richard Nixon on the cover.

When Rosie saw me coming towards her she nudged Linda
and said, “Go on, Linda, ask her.”

“Ask who what?” I said as I lifted my bag off the
chair and settled my backside down on the hard plastic.

“I was just telling Linda about the sex.”

“I’m surprised you said anything about it at all,
you’re usually such a prude.”

“I am not!”

“Are too,” I said with the petulant ring of old
childhood grievances.

Suddenly everyone was quiet as a familiar voice echoed
around the room. “Mrs. Albertson!”

When the doors to the treatment room closed with a
resounding thump, I looked over at Linda and shook my head.

“I swear I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately.
She’s usually such a prude.” I gathered Rosie’s things up… and swapped seats.
“Lucky for you I’ve got my laptop with me. Would you like me to read what I
have written so far?” When I picked up my laptop I noticed the gray-haired
woman on the other side of Linda shuffle her chair closer.

“Y... you w... wrote it all d... down?” Linda
stammered.

“Of course I’ve written it down. How else am I going
to remember? These old brain cells aren’t what they used to be.” While I waited
for the computer to power up I leaned in and whispered loud enough for the
woman on the other side of Linda to hear what I said. “If you like I can tell
you what I did with the body, but you’ve got to promise you won’t tell Rosie. I
want to surprise her.”

Linda’s eyes had the startled expression of someone
who’d had one facelift too many. “Y... you’ve w... written it d... down?” Linda
spluttered.

“Well of course I wrote it down. As I said before, the
old gray matter is not what it used to be. If I don’t write it down I’ll forget
where I put it.”

“P... p... put it?”

“When you kill so many people you have to write it all
down otherwise you’ll forget what you did with who… or is it whom? I can never
remember the correct syntax,” I said and focused on the screen while I waited
for my laptop to boot up.

I heard the feet of the chair beside me scrape on the
linoleum floor. When I looked up Linda was nowhere in sight.

*****

The sign on the side of the road welcomed them to the
town of Saugerties.

“Isn’t this where Bob Dylan used to live?”

Danny nodded. “I think Saugerties was also the place
where the members of The Band lived at one time. I’m sure I read somewhere that
they recorded a couple of albums in a house somewhere around here called the
Big Pink.”

“What Band?” Nicola asked distractedly as she watched
a couple of aging hippies stroll down the sidewalk stuck in a time warp of
flowing skirts, silver bangles and long flowing hair, with flowers in it. If
you’re going to San Francisco …

“You know–The Band.”

Nicola looked at Danny thinking she must have missed
something. “What band is that?”

“The Band.”

“Yes, but which band? What was it called?”

Danny laughed. “Oh-oh, this sounds like a rerun of the
‘Who’s on First’, routine”

“What?”

“No. What’s on second....”  Danny knew all the
dialogue–the old movie was a favorite.