“The third time some dickhead spit his gum into my hair through the wire cage in the squad car, I hacked it off. It was so much easier, I never went back.”
“Seems even darker short.”
“My hair’s the same color it always was.”
Dark brown with a twinkle of red—mahogany in certain lights. My skin was also darker than the average Caucasian. I was part something else, but what that could be was anyone’s guess. My blue eyes were as much a mystery as the rest of me.
“What happened at Ruthie’s?” I asked.
“According to your cop pals, I killed her.” He stared at me for several seconds. “You seem to think I did too.”
“You wouldn’t.”
His brows lifted. “Such faith. I’m touched.”
“I’m the only friend you’ve got right now, Sanducci. Don’t piss me off.”
“i doubt I’ll be able to manage that,” he muttered.
“Just tell me what happened. Why would you and Ruthie argue? Who came to the house? Who killed her? And how could they if you were there?”
Jimmy would fight for Ruthie. He’d die for her. So then why was he here and she wasn’t?
“Lizzy.” He sighed. “There are things going down you don’t understand.”
There always were. Despite having “the sight,” as Ruthie said, I was a bit slow on the uptake when it came to people. I’d certainly been a dimwit when it came to Jimmy.
I’d believed in him, in us; then I’d seen him screwing someone else only hours after he’d screwed me. At the time, I’d thought we’d been making love. At the time, I’d thought what we had was love. But when I touched him, I’d learned differently.
“I don’t trust you,” I said.
“You believe I’d kill someone?”
“You have been known to stick sharp implements into people who annoy you.”
He scowled. “I haven’t stuck one into you yet.”
“No, but I’m sure you’ve dreamed about it.”
His lips turned upward. “When I dream of you, I don’t dream of knives. More like whips, chains, some rope, a little whipped cream.”
“Funny, when I dream of you I do dream of knives.”
His half-smile faded. “The cops told you Ruthie died from a knife wound?”
“I thought you were listening at the door.”
“I only heard snatches. Good door.”
“They said they found a knife and from the description, it’s yours. Combined with your fingerprints on everything and the screaming match you had with Ruthie, you’ve landed at the top of their most-wanted list.”
“I hope you didn’t tell them about my childhood fascination with sharp, shiny things.”
“They seemed to already know.”
He muttered several curses that would have singed the ears off most people, but not me. I’d heard every one of them before my fifth birthday.
“Maybe you should turn yourself in—” I began.
“No.”
The word was clipped and just a little desperate. Jimmy never had gotten over the time he’d spent in jail as a kid. I couldn’t really blame him. Still—
“If you didn’t do it—”
“I’m going to have a hard time proving that, considering the knife.” His head tilted, as if he’d heard something far away. Before I knew what he meant to do, he crossed the room and slipped out.
I followed, reaching the door only seconds after it closed. But when I opened it, the hall was deserted.
“How does he do that?” I muttered.
The guy should be in covert operations the way he went Houdini at the drop-of a hat. I suspect being raised the way we were—basically raising ourselves until Rurhie—had made both Jimmy and 1 adept at disappearing.
Even in a crowd, I knew how to become invisible. And while Jimmy had made an art out of garnering attention for himself and his work, I doubted he’d ever lost the talent for avoiding attention when such avoidance was the best course of action.
“What are you doing out of bed?”
A nurse had appeared almost as mysteriously as Jimmy had disappeared. She shooed me inside and tried to hustle me back to bed.
“Did you see anyone leave my room just now?” I asked.
“The detectives.”
“After that?”
She shook her head, distracted by a call button dinging down the hall. I couldn’t take what she’d seen or not seen as gospel. She had other things to worry about be-sides me and my visitors. Although she didn’t have me for long.
The doctors could find nothing wrong with me, and though they weren’t wild about my leaving, they couldn’t stop me.
Within the hour, I’d checked out and headed for home.
Chapter 4
Friedenberg was a yuppie paradise. Located directly north of Milwaukee, the village had once been the oldest German community in the county, which was why we were overrun with Lutheran churches built of stone.
For centuries the area surrounding the place held nothing but cows; then the city got dangerous and those with money went north.