For You (The 'Burg #1)(37)

“What?”

If we’d used the word back then, Loren Smithfield would have been known as a player. He was tall, dark blond with a bit of rust to his hair, good build but not an athlete.

No, Lore was the school flirt and definitely the school horn dog.

I had no idea how many girls he nailed. I just knew he nailed Jessie in her senior year of high school after sweet-talking her for the first three. She finally went out on a date with him and on date three, he got in her pants and took her virginity.

There was no date four and Jessie was heartbroken and humiliated even though she tried to hide it.

Loren tried to nail Meems, he tried to nail me, hell, he tried to nail everybody.

He sat beside me in that Geometry class and he flirted with me outrageously, not something many boys did seeing as they all knew about Colt and me and seeing as, if Colt ever found out, everyone knew he’d mess them up. Loren flirted with me all through school, especially during that class and in our junior year when he sat beside me in Psych.

He was smart, really smart, got good grades but it was more. He was what my Dad would call sharp. He was a quick thinker, good with words, thought things through three times as fast as anyone else which made him an excellent flirt.

He had great handwriting and signed his name cool and weird. Creative. Taking his time, even at the top of tests, putting these rock ‘n’ roll flourishes on it that I always thought were super hip even though he always made me feel a bit funny.

“Loren Smithfield,” I repeated to Colt.

“Feb, Lore doesn’t fit the profile.”

No, it was more that Colt didn’t want him to. Lore was a drinking buddy of Colt and Morrie’s. He didn’t come in regular, say, every night, but he was in J&J’s often enough, a few times a month and when he was he was sitting beside Colt at the end of the bar, Morrie in front of them, all of them engaged in man conversation, some nods, some knowing grins, sometimes low, rough laughter.

“He sat beside me in Geometry class. He flirted with me all through school. He nailed everything that moved.”

There was a hesitation then Colt said, “Lore’s been married three times, three kids, two with the first wife, one with the last. He works for his Dad’s construction firm and he drives a Ford F160.”

“So?”

“February, this guy we’re after, he’s got a desk job. Lore works with his hands. And this guy probably can’t get it up, not unless he’s doin’ somethin’ sick. Lore made those kids the old fashioned way, not through a test tube. And you think Lore would be as successful as he is if he’s into sick shit?”

I knew what Colt was saying. Lore had three wives because Lore had not changed. He still nailed everything that moved. He didn’t search for his pieces out of town but did his thing right under everyone’s noses. His wives, eventually getting sick of it, kicked his ass out.

I’d been around, I knew there were folks out there who liked their kink and sometimes that kink could get dirty and even creepy. But I didn’t figure in this ‘burg, which happened to be placed smack in the middle of the Bible Belt, that there would be that much choice of women who’d put up with dirty, creepy kink.

“And the witnesses saw a silver sedan exiting the alley, not a Ford F160,” Colt continued.

“Loren isn’t stupid, Colt. If he drove a woman into an alley in the morning hours in order to kill her, he wouldn’t use his own truck. He’d rent a car.”

“There somethin’ I don’t know about you and Lore?”

Colt’s voice had turned funny – harder, abrasive, he was pissed about more than me pointing the finger at his buddy Lore.

But I had other things to worry about.

I couldn’t say I liked Lore, I couldn’t say I disliked him. He was a good guy mostly, funny, interesting. Still, I avoided him, for different reasons than I avoided Colt. Loren was persistent and I didn’t want to give him the inkling he had a way in because if he had it, he’d never let it go.

This wasn’t easy for me, pointing a finger at someone, even a jerk which Loren definitely was. But we were talking murder.

“No, there’s nothin’ you don’t know.”

“Don’t keep shit from me, Feb, not with this.” His voice was still pissed, actually now it was more pissed.

“You think this is easy for me? Lore’s got kids. Jessie slept with him in high school. Turns out it’s him, Jessie’d be creeped out for years. Those kids –”

Colt interrupted me. “That all you got?”

I pulled my hair away from my face, holding at the back and stayed quiet.

Then I let my hair go and repeated softly, “This isn’t easy for me, Colt. It’s not only not easy, I don’t like it,” I paused and swallowed before I finished, “not at all.”

We were both quiet then.

Colt broke the silence and he didn’t sound pissed anymore. “Go back over the list, Feb. There are three men on that list still in town or close to town who fit the profile. And they have silver cars.”

I was a little surprised he knew that much and was that thorough. He knew what he was asking me to do that morning, he knew exactly.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Not sayin’, just look at the list.”

“I thought you weren’t working this case?”