Kisscut

"It's in place," Nick told him. "As soon as I know something, you'll know something."

Jeffrey's phone vibrated at his side, and he clipped it off his belt. "Yeah?"

"Hey," Frank said. "Patterson's been in his trailer since his wife died this morning."

Jeffrey felt the tension drain from his body. Maybe Patterson had canceled the meeting. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," Frank bristled. "He didn't even go to the hospital to see his kid."

"All right," Jeffrey said. He snapped the phone shut and reported the news to Nick.

"Maybe we'll be seeing Dottie?" Nick suggested. "Patterson's no fool. He knows he's being watched."

As if on cue, two knocks came at the door, followed by a pause, then another knock.

Jeffrey slipped into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly open so as not to draw attention to it. He grimaced at the smell in the tiny room, which probably had not been ventilated since the Nixon administration.

Joe said, "Hey, man," and the door squeaked open.

"Who's this?" a man asked. Jeffrey strained to place the voice. The only thing he was certain of was that it did not belong to Dottie Weaver.

"Friend of mine," Joe said. "He likes little girls."

"Little, little girls," Nick chimed in. "Know what I mean, hoss?"

"Let's just get this over with," the man said in a terse voice. "I got the van pulled up on the side of the building. Let's go."

Jeffrey waited until they had left the room before walking out of the bathroom. He kept playing the man's voice in his mind, trying to place it, but no epiphany came. What did come was more sweat, and Jeffrey loosened the belt on his vest, wishing he hadn't worn it. Sara had asked him to.

though, and he had told her that he would. Maybe if she had considered that he might pass out from heat exhaustion, she would not have insisted.

The door was too dirty to lean against, so Jeffrey just stood beside it, sweating his ass off, waiting for Nick to give him the all-clear. To make the case stick, they had to get delivery, and that meant making sure the truck outside was filled with magazines.

To pass the time, Jeffrey counted to a slow one hundred in his head. He was around sixty-five when he heard Nick yelling, "Get down! Get down!"

Jeffrey pushed the door open, his weapon drawn. Nick had already taken down the suspect, and a lanky looking man in a black suit was facedown on the ground with his hands on the back of his head.

"Don't move, you perverted motherfucker," Nick told him, frisking for weapons. "Am I go

The man mumbled something, and Nick kicked him. "Am I?" he repeated.

A firm "No" came this time.

There were three other GBI agents covering the perp, so Jeffrey tucked his gun back into his holster as he walked toward the scene.

Nick was still so pumped full of adrenaline from the arrest that when he spoke to Jeffrey he was still yelling. "This your man?" he asked. "This the scumbag motherfucker?"

Jeffrey could tell from the back that it wasn't Teddy Patterson, never mind the fact that Teddy would have had to have been Superman to get from Grant to Augusta this fast.

"Turn him over," Jeffrey said, resting his hand on the butt of his gun.

Nick grabbed the guy by his cuffed hands and yanked him around so hard that Jeffrey thought he heard the man's shoulder popping.

"Hold on," the man yelled. He gave Nick a dirty look, and started to give one to Jeffrey before recognition came. All the color drained from the man's face, and his lips parted slightly in surprise.

Jeffrey imagined he looked just as shocked.

Nick asked, "I guess you know him?"

Jeffrey couldn't find his voice. He cleared his throat a couple of times before he could tell Nick, "His name is Dave Fine."

Chapter Eighteen

Brock's Funeral Home was housed in one of the oldest houses in Grant. The man who had been in charge of the railroad maintenance depot had built the Victorian castle, complete with turrets, before his bosses in Atlanta thought to question where he was getting all the money to build such a prestigious home. John Brock had purchased the house at auction for a ridiculously low sum and started a funeral home out of the first floor and basement shortly after. The family lived above the business, and Dan Brock had suffered endless taunts from other kids, starting when the bus picked him up in front of the house every morning and only ending at the end of the day when he was dropped off. Brock had learned to fight back at an early age, and threatened to touch them all with his dead-man hands if they did not leave him alone. All of them but Sara, that is. She had never been part of the boisterous crowd, and spent most of the ride studying for class. Dan usually shared a seat with Sara on the bus, because everyone else was too scared he would give them cooties.

Inside the funeral home, the first floor of the house was decorated with rich velvet curtains and heavy green carpeting. Chandeliers dating back to the early 1900s hung at opposite ends of the long hall that divided the house. Long benches were against the wall, interspersed with tables containing boxes of Kleenex and trays with water pitchers and fresh glasses. Two large viewing rooms were at the front of the hall, with a smaller one in back, opposite the casket showroom. The house's original kitchen served as an office. Sara stood outside the heavy oak door in front of the office, giving it two soft knocks. When no one answered, she opened the door and peered in. Audra Brock, Dan's mother, had her head down on the desk. Sara listened quietly, picking out the older woman's muffled snores. A plate of half-finished barbecue was by Audra's arm, and Sara assumed the old woman was taking an after-lunch nap.

Sara had attended many viewings at Brock's, and she was familiar enough with the layout to find her way to the basement, where the embalming room was. She held on to the railing lining the narrow stairway, stepping carefully on the bare wooden steps. A long time ago Sara had slipped on these stairs and it had taken her bruised tailbone three weeks to heal.

At the bottom of the steps, she took a left, going past the casket storage room and into a large open space that served as the embalming area. A pump had been turned on, and Sara could feel the noise vibrating through the walls. Dan Brock sat by the body of Grace Patterson, reading a newspaper as the embalming machine removed her blood and replaced it with chemicals.

Sara said, "Dan," to get his attention.

Brock jumped, dropping his newspaper. "Oh, me," he laughed. "I thought that came from her."

"I know the feeling," she told him, because despite the fact that she had worked for the county going on ten years, Sara still got spooked sometimes late at night when she was alone in the morgue.

He stood from the chair and offered her his hand. "To what do I owe this pleasure. Dr. Linton?"

Sara took his hand, wrapping it in both of her own. "I've got a really strange request," she began. "And you may throw me out for asking."

He cocked his head, giving her a puzzled look. "I can't imagine anything you could say that would make me do that, Sara."

"Well," she said, still holding onto his hand. "Let me ask you, then you can decide."

The clinic was humming with activity when Sara opened the back door. She walked to the nurses' station, and without even saying hello asked Nelly, "Has Jeffrey called?"

Nelly gave a tight smile. "And how was your lunch, Dr. Linton?"

"I had to postpone," Sara told her, leaving out why. Nelly had made it clear that she wasn't exactly comfortable with the work Sara did at the morgue.

Sara asked, "Has he called?"

Nelly shook her head. "I did hear something about Dot-tie Weaver, though."