Last to Know: A Novel(38)

You see, I never had a “family.” I was always the outsider. All my life I never counted. The thing that makes a child a bully is what made me a killer, that instinct to go for the weak spot, the chink in the armor. At first you do it to save yourself from those bullies, those killers-in-the-making, then you become them. It’s that simple.

And you start to like it. You enjoy it. It’s the ultimate power.

First though, you have to get yourself into the power position. I never had trouble with that so of course it made my life easier, and I always got what I wanted. Which was? As well as the power, you could add money to the list. With power and money you can have anything you want, people will rush to do your bidding. Even without a lot of money I managed to charm, wheedle, frighten, if you will, people into doing my bidding. Sounds old-fashioned, in this fast electronic world we live in, but let me tell you when it gets down to it basics are just basics. Same old same it’s always been. Fear. Power. Money. Sex. Life. Death.

Being attractive and knowing how to use sex is part of the deal, part of learning the trade of a novice killer. You have to want the pleasure of killing more than the pleasure of the sex, or it won’t work. You’ll get involved and then where would you be? Broke and alone, I’d bet on that.





26


Jemima and Harry sat, side by side, on a plastic banquette in a dim little local bar and grill where he was obviously well known, since they’d greeted him by name. Harry had a bottle of Perrier in front of him, Jemima a vodka martini. She felt badly now about ordering liquor when he was not drinking, but she’d thought she would look foolish changing at the last minute. True to his name, the dog squeezed under the small table leaving his rear end sticking out under Jemima’s feet. She decided she’d better not move or he would have her ankle.

“He doesn’t bite,” Harry said.

She turned her head to look at him. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

“It’s what everybody thinks when they first meet Squeeze. Truth is he’s a softy. Unless he’s provoked of course.”

Jemima surely hoped she didn’t provoke him. “Well,” she said, suddenly not certain she had got her facts about the Havnels right. Online information was not always to be trusted. “How do you know the burned woman was Lacey Havnel?” she asked.

“We don’t, not for sure, until we trace the dental records.”

“What about the daughter?”

Harry raised his brows. “I don’t know that I should be discussing this with you.”

“What if I told you Lacey Havnel died ten years ago and that she had no children. That there was no daughter.”

There was the slightest pause before Harry said, “And how, exactly, would you know that?”

“You mean, if the police don’t know, how do I?” Jemima shrugged. “I don’t, not for sure, only what I found online. It’s quite simple you know, you can access almost anyone you want, get their personal information, know about their private lives, their past as well as their present.”

Harry stared intently at her. “And why would you want to know that?”

Jemima shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Okay, truth is, I was thinking about you, which led me to think about the fire at the lake and the burned woman and the poor young daughter … I was just wondering.” She let her words hang in the air. “I mean, like, I thought it would help.”

“Jemima,” Harry said, sighing, “you get under my skin, y’know that? And I’m asking myself why the f*ck—excuse me—why I didn’t think of that? Or why Rossetti didn’t think of that? Or anyone else for that matter.”

“Why would you?” Jemima said practically. “I mean it’s only that I’m a computer freak and have a terminal case of curiosity.”

“Nosiness.”

“That would be about right.”

Harry swigged his Perrier. She sipped her martini. Under the table the dog rested his big head on her foot. Justin Timberlake was singing something in the background. She glanced sideways at Harry again. He was staring straight in front of him, at nothing—or at his inner thoughts anyway. Certainly nothing to do with her. She heard his phone buzz. He took it from the pocket of his jacket.

“Rossetti,” he answered.

Jemima tried hard to appear as though she were not listening. She looked down at the dog instead of at Harry. Squeeze looked steadily back up at her. She could swear the goddamn dog knew what she was thinking. It was unnerving. Anyway, what was she thinking? Only that she—Jemima Puddleduck—had told the big detective something he had not known, something he had not “detected.”

“I’ll meet you at the lake house,” Harry was saying, already on his feet. The dog was up in an instant, next to him. “Sorry, gotta go, something came up,” he said to Jemima. He waved goodnight to the guy behind the bar, and, with his hand on Jemima’s back, walked her quickly outside, where he turned to look at her.

Jemima hoped the harsh light from the flickering bar sign had not changed her skin to green and her hair orange.

“Come on,” Harry said abruptly, his mind obviously elsewhere. “I’ll take you home.”

It was, Jemima decidedly gloomily, a dud end to a dud date. Though of course it had not really been a date anyway.