Kisscut

"I can't get out of going to Alabama or I'd do this myself."

"Sure," she said, wondering why he kept making excuses. Technically, he was in charge. Besides, it wasn't like there was much Jeffrey could do on the case right now. Unless Mark pointed the finger at someone, they didn't have very much to go on.

He said, "I also want you to interview Fine as soon as possible." He looked at his watch. "Tomorrow morning. Take Frank with you for that one, not Brad."

She repeated, "Okay."

"You said you know him, the preacher," Jeffrey began, putting the car into reverse. "You think he's got this in him?"

"This?" Lena said, then remembered why they were here. "No," she answered. "He's not a bad guy. I just don't get along with him is all."

Jeffrey gave her a look that said she didn't seem to get along with anybody.

Lena offered, "Actually, I've kind of got an appointment with him tomorrow evening."

"An appointment?"

Lena looked at the dashboard. "Like you said before. What you wanted me to do," she prompted, but he did not pick up on it. 'Talk to somebody," she supplied.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't be the one to-"

"No," she insisted. "I want to do it." She tried to smile, but it felt fake, even to her. "It'll surprise him, right? Thinking that I'm there for a session or whatever, but turning it around and asking him about Je

Jeffrey frowned as he turned the car out of the parking lot. "I'm not sure I like that."

"You always said that the best time to interview somebody is when you catch him off guard," she reminded him, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. "Besides, Hank set it up. It's not like I would talk to him about…" Lena looked for a word, but could not find one. "I wouldn't talk to him, okay? He's a freak. I don't trust him."

"Why?"

"I just don't," she said. "I just have a feeling about him."

"But you don't think he did this?"

She shrugged, trying to find a way to backpedal. How could she explain to Jeffrey that the main reason she did not like Dave Fine, did not trust him, was that he was a pastor? Jeffrey was being just as stupid about it as Hank. How anyone could not make the co

She said, "I du

The lie seemed to swing Jeffrey. "Okay. But, take Frank with you."

"Sure."

"This isn't an interrogation. We're just trying to find out if he knows anything. Don't go in there and piss him off for no good reason."

"I know."

"And set something else up," he said. "Something with somebody else." He paused. "That was a condition, Lena. The only reason I let you come back so early was because you promised you would talk to somebody about what happened."

"Yeah," she nodded. "I'll set something up with somebody else, first thing."

He stared at her, as if he could figure her out just from looking.

She tried to sound casual as she changed the subject, asking, "She okay? Your mom, I mean."

"Yeah," he answered. "Are you all right?"

She tried not to sound glib. "I'm fine."

"That thing with Sara-"

"I'm fine," she reassured him, using a tone that would have shut up Hank in two seconds fiat.

Jeffrey, of course, was not Hank Norton. He persisted, "You're sure?"

"Yeah." Then, to prove it, she asked, "What was that thing in the interview? Dr. Linton sounded surprised when the mother mentioned Lacey Patterson."

"She was a patient of Sara's at the clinic," Jeffrey told her. Then, almost to himself, he said, "You know how Sara feels about her kids."

Lena didn't, and she looked down at the file, not answering him. Mark Patterson's name was on the tab, and she flipped it open to see what he had been up to. The top sheet had his vitals on it, including his address. "They live in Morningside?" she asked, referring to a shady part of Madison.

"I'm thinking it's that trailer park. The one with the green awning over the sign?"

"The Kudzu Arms," Lena supplied. She and Brad had been called out to the Kudzu on several occasions over the course of the last few months. The hotter the weather, the hotter the tempers.

"Anyway," Jeffrey said, moving things along. "What's he got on his sheet?"

Lena thumbed through the pages. "Two B and Es when he was ten, both of them at the Kudzu Arms. Most recently, he beat up his sister pretty bad. His father called us out, we got there, they wouldn't press charges." She stopped reading, providing, " 'We' means Deacon and Percy," she supplied, referring to two beat cops. "They pulled this one, not me and Brad."

Jeffrey scratched his chin, seeming to think this through. "I don't even remember when it happened."

"Just after Thanksgiving," Lena told him. "Then, around Christmas time, Deacon and Percy were called back. It was the father again, and he asked for them specifically." She skimmed the report Deacon had written. "This time, charges were filed. They took him down to the pokey for a couple of days, Mark was supposed to take some anger management classes in exchange for time served." She snorted a laugh. "Buddy Conford was his lawyer."

"Buddy's not that bad," Jeffrey said.

Lena closed the file, giving him an incredulous look. "He's a whore. He puts addicts and murderers back on the streets."

"He's doing his job, just like we are."

"His job screws our job," Lena insisted.

Jeffrey shook his head. "He's gu

Lena snorted a laugh. "He's working for Dottie Weaver?"

"The city," he told her. "I guess he's doing it as a favor to the mayor." Jeffrey shrugged. "Anyway, work it out with him. Tell him what happened."

"It was a clean shot," Lena told him, because if there was one truth in her life right now, it was that Jeffrey had taken the only option given to him. She said, "Brad will say the same thing."

Jeffrey was quiet, and he seemed to drop the subject, but after a few minutes he pulled the car over to the side of the road. Lena felt a sense of déjà vu, and her stomach lurched as she thought about being in the car with Hank that morning, and how she had embarrassed herself. There was no question in her mind now that Lena would not have the same problem with Jeffrey. She could be stronger around Jeffrey because he did not see her the way that Hank did. Hank still thought of Lena as a teenage girl because that was the only way he had ever really known her.

Lena waited as Jeffrey put the car in park and turned toward her. She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, and thought she might be in trouble or something.

"Between you and me…" Jeffrey said, then stopped. He waited until she looked him in the eye and repeated himself. "Between you and me," he said.

"Yeah," Lena nodded, not liking the serious tone in his voice. Her stomach sank in her gut as she realized he was going to say something about Sara.

He surprised her, saying instead, "The shot."

She nodded for him to continue.

"With Weaver," he said, as if he needed to narrow it down. She could see how upset he was. For the first time, she understood what it meant to read someone like a book. She saw the kind of pain in his eyes that she would never expect to see in Jeffrey Tolliver.

"Tell me the truth," he said, a begging quality to his voice. "You were there. You saw what happened."

"I did," she agreed, feeling a startling need coming off of him.

"Tell me," he said, begging more openly this time. Lena felt a kind of rush from his desperation. Jeffrey needed something from her. Jeffrey Tolliver, who had seen her naked, nailed down to the floor, bruised and bleeding, needed something from Lena.