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Authors: Maryjanice Davidson

Tags: #Cadence Jones#2

Yours, Mine, and Ours (7 page)

BOOK: Yours, Mine, and Ours
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“Riiiight.” Emma Jan nodded. “I
heard
about you.” She looked at me with bright dark eyes, like a sparrow. A sparrow with a .45 single-action riding on her left hip. “Uh, is there anything I should try to avoid doing or saying so I don’t have to deal with the crazy one?”

I just looked at her.
This
weirdo wanted to know how to avoid
my
craziness?

Meanwhile, George was happily in mid-rant. “Are you fucking kidding? Like there’s a list? You think if we knew
that
we’d provoke her,
ever
?”

“You used to like Adrienne,” I pointed out mildly. In fact, I always thought it was odd (and proof of
his
craziness) that he loved playing
Halo
with her. And she occasionally cooked him omelets. Some were even glass-free.

“I still do, when she’s not using my head for a soccer ball. I had to get a crown fixed last time!” He hooked his finger and stuck it in his mouth, pulling his right cheek back. “Ee? At un air.”

“Please stop showing me your teeth.” Gross. And his health benefits were excellent; I don’t know what he was complaining (so much) about. About the only government agency that had better bennies was the NYPD. “And we can go in just another minute. I’m expecting—”

“Hey, gorgeous!”

The three of us looked; I could already feel the smile blooming on my face, chasing away my yucky mood. Patrick Flannery had come to pay me a visit. And … yes! He was carrying a cake box!

He practically galloped up to me; I was always surprised at how quickly he could move for such a big man … six foot three, two-twenty, and none of it was fat. Amazing, given what he ate. The man practically drank cake batter.

“Great.” George threw his hands in the air. “It’s goddamned Little Debbie.”

“Shush,” I said, and then the breath whooshed out of my lungs as Patrick hugged me so hard he pulled me off my feet. Gaaaah! “Agh, stop, you’re gonna crack my short ribs.”

“Oh, please.” He set me down, smiling. Like a love-struck idiot, I grinned back. The force of his extreme good looks was more intense than the hug. He had dark red hair, like cherry Coke with real cherry juice, and chocolate truffle–colored eyes. (That was a lot of food imagery … I shouldn’t have skipped breakfast.)

Despite the December weather, he was dressed in khaki knee-length shorts (his favorite brand—he had at least six pairs) and a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled back, showing the dark reddish hair shading his heavily muscled forearms. (You wouldn’t believe what an intense upper-body workout baking for a living was.) He wore shorts all year around. I thought it was impractical (Minnesota winters!) but who was I to judge someone else’s strange habits?

I knew he’d looked at me carefully as he approached: he needed to figure out which one of us was driving the body. He’d gotten really good at reading our expressions and body language. He was better at it after three months than some co-workers I’d known for years.

He didn’t run up and hug me without a careful look anymore.

“Hey, Cadence. We on for tonight?” he asked, handing me the box. I didn’t have to look to know he’d made me a coconut cream pie. I had become very popular at work once I started bringing his home-baked treats to the office.

Coconut cream was a safe enough choice: it was my favorite, Shiro didn’t hate it (her fave was baby turtle bread from Kyoto), and Adrienne wouldn’t eat it as her favorite dessert was sirloin steak, but she
did
like to channel her inner Three Stooges and
throw
coconut pie. So it was all good. I guess.

I was so busy remembering how hard it had been to get coconut pie out of my washing machine that I realized I hadn’t answered him. “Should be,” I sort-of promised. “I’m sorry we haven’t had a lot of time together lately.” I was, too. Except when I wasn’t.

He reached out, put his finger under my chin, and gently tipped my head up. “You’re worth waiting for. All of you.”

I started to melt. I could actually feel the muscles in my legs go all rubbery. I guess clichés became clichés for a reason, because melting was the perfect word to describe me. I was becoming a
beurre blanc
! No, wait, that had vinegar in it …
beurre noisette
? Drat it to dratdom; Shiro was the one who was fluent in French. I’d taken Spanish.

Regardless, soon I’d just be a puddle in an empty shirt, jacket, and slacks. They’d only be able to identify the puddle that was me by my federal ID. (Ooooh, I love accidental rhyming!) Meanwhile, best of all, he was still there. He was still touching me. Even better,
I
was still there. “Patrick, you’re the best.”

He leaned closer. “That’s true. God, you look gorgeous today. Every day.”

“You always say that.”

“It’s always true.” His mouth was very close now, and I was glad. The whole world had sort of tipped away from us. It was scary and exhilarating at once.

“Gimmee!” George “I will always kill the mood” Pinkman said, then snatched the box out of my hands. “Awww, Little Debbie, you shouldn’t have.”

“Tell me,” he replied grimly, giving my partner a level stare. “Despisement” would not be too strong a word to describe how he felt about George. Nor would “loathe,” “detest,” and (not “or”) “abhor.” George could usually charm females (and female sociopaths could almost always charm males), but could almost never fool a man. He sure hadn’t fooled Patrick, who followed up his glare with: “Shouldn’t you be stomping puppies or whatever it is you do when you’re not torturing my girlfriend?”

George laughed. “Oh, Little Debbie, you’re so cute! You have
no
idea what torture is.”

“Hi,” Emma Jan said, sticking out her hand. I was startled; I’d forgotten she was there, but now was glad. The atmosphere had gone from loving to murderous in about half a second. “I’m Emma Jan and I collect unusual deaths.”

There was a short silence while Patrick digested that, followed by, “Nice to meet you?” he guessed.

“New girl,” George said by needless explanation.

“Patrick Flannery.” He shook her hand. Since he knew about BOFFO, I could tell he was trying to guess what her superpower was. (That was how Michaela occasionally referred to our, um, special psychotically-based talents.) He wasn’t rude enough to ask, at least not where she would hear him. “You sound just like Paula Deen.”

“So I hear.”

“I hope you like it here. But I’ll get out of your way. I’m sure you’ve got evil to crush and stuff.” He turned to me. “Tonight?”

“Yep.”

He bent and brushed a kiss on my cheek. In that moment, all thoughts of the good Dr. Gallo fled my overtaxed brain.

(
I wonder how Dr. Gallo kisses?
)

Now where in heckfire did
that
come from? I must be sleep-deprived. It was the only explanation.

Patrick smoothed my bangs away from my eyes, then tenderly whispered, “Don’t let your asshole partner have even one crumb.”

“Aw. That was so sweet.”

“’Bye!” George was clutching the cake box like a mama cat hung on to one of her kittens. You could practically hear him hissing
my own, myyyyyy precious.
“No, really. ’
Bye
! Hope you don’t fall down the stairs and land on your face, or accidentally get your shirt caught in a tractor engine and spend the next year growing back all the skin on your chest.”

Patrick headed toward the elevators, muttering. I caught “asshole” and “shithead” and something that sounded like “mucker.” Oh. Wait. It wasn’t “mucker.”

“How long have you two been partners?” Emma Jan asked. I understood her surprise. There was a bet going around the office about when one of us would snap and beat the other to death. If I killed George in September of next year, I’d win almost eight hundred bucks. And if he had killed me last month … well, let’s just say he wouldn’t have had to borrow lunch money twice last week.

“An eternity,” he sighed, opening the box. “Ohhhh, baby! Where you been all my life?” He heaved the pie plate out of the box. The coconut custard was piled high with fluffy meringue, and had been sprinkled with toasted coconut. The shortbread crust looked like tender, buttery perfection. “Now I remember why you keep Little Debbie around in the first place—besides, I can assume, his big dick.”

“He bakes?” Emma Jan guessed while I felt my face go red to my eyebrows.

“You must be a trained investigator for the federal government,” I teased. Patrick was actually the head of a baking empire, his pies and cakes sold in supermarkets across the country. George’s nasty “Little Debbie” nickname was vintage Pinkman: it was meanly funny, with more than a smidgen of accuracy.

“Cancel my lunch plans, I’m eating your pie. Oh, awesome. I can’t believe I got to say that to your face after all this time.”

“I’ve got three words for you, George,” I said sweetly.

“Merry Christmas, baby?” he guessed, sticking a finger into the delicate meringue and scooping some up for a taste. “I want you? What a stud? Please bang me? Little Debbie blows?”

“Splenda Sugar Blend.”

“What? Fuck!” He shook his finger like it had burst into flames and he was trying to wave it out. “Get it off, get it
off
, get it off off
off
!” Then he thrust the pie at me and sprinted toward the men’s room.

After a long, thoughtful moment, Emma Jan said, “It’s really weird around here. Are there forks?”

 

 

chapter twenty

 

After George had
finished sterilizing his hand (I’d never seen someone go through two bottles of Purell in less than three minutes) and screaming curses at me, Emma Jan, the absent Patrick, the pie, Johnson & Johnson (the company that made Splenda), the absent Patrick, Shiro, Adrienne, the absent Patrick, coconut, meringue, and Splenda, we were able to hit the road.

While we headed to the suspect
du jour
’s house, I took another look at his file.

Joseph Behrman was a long shot, but he had known the latest JBJ victim, had a criminal record including assaults on teenage boys, and was vague about his whereabouts the night of the murder.

George drove. Emma Jan huddled in the backseat, averting her eyes from the rearview mirror. I pretended she wasn’t doing that, kept my mouth shut, and re-read his file.

 

Sentence: Ten years, criminal assault

Inmate name: Joseph Aaron Behrman

Sex: Male

DOB: 12/20/1975

Ethnicity: White

Identifying marks: Swastika, left bicep. 88, right bicep. 88, left shoulder blade.

Custody status: Parolee

Releasing facility: Stillwater Penitentiary

Date received: August 17, 2001

Date paroled: January 5, 2008

Crime, Description: Criminal assault. Tampering with a witness. Burglary in the first degree.

Minimum sentence: 6 years

Maximum sentence: 6 years

He looked good on paper (actually like a routine scumsucker), but I had my doubts. He was a little old to have nothing but agg assault and the like on the books, and I didn’t think he’d began secretly killing teenagers practically the day he was paroled.

He also wasn’t exceptionally bright; testing had revealed an IQ of 109. Not that serial killers had to have good IQs like, say, Bundy. But it sure helped.

Behrman was also a misandrist, and he
had
hurt boys in his past. So we’d go talk to him, more to eliminate him than anything else. It was also a good way to see Emma Jan in action when (probably) our lives weren’t at stake.

I was glad for the chance; she made me nervous. And I was worried about the rearview mirror. George wasn’t. He was always up for excitement.

“Aw,” George said as we swung into the small trailer park. We had just pulled off Highway 149 outside West St. Paul, after passing a few strip malls. George had cruelly refused to stop for a Frappuccino, so we were actually a couple of minutes early.

There was not a heron in sight in the Heron Estates. Only a small, slumped group of mobile homes, no more than two dozen, in various shades of blue and white, green and white, and yellow and white.

Typical of every trailer park I had ever seen, some of the residents appeared to be indifferent slobs who forgot they parked their cars on the lawn. These same people painted their homes about every forty years, and mowed their sad, straggly grass every ten. The gravel roads and general lack of vegetation always made it look like it’d be ninety degrees outside, even in December. You could pretty much smell the despair, and hear the soundtrack from the movie
Bastard Out of Carolina.

The other group took meticulous, almost fanatical care of their property. They painted every other year; they grew tons of flowers. They mowed obsessively. Their homes looked like mini-estates, and all the stranger because usually the one across the gravel drive looked condemned.

BOOK: Yours, Mine, and Ours
13.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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