The Uninvited Read online

  810 La Paloma.

  Two nights ago was the last he’d seen of Garrett Stiller after their weekly poker game. Him, Fred, Bernie, and Hoosier, whose real name was William Tucker, recently retired from Omaha, Nebraska. But, now, no more Garrett.

  Moses made his way through the back yards and up against the rear of Garrett’s home. It looked as he’d last seen it. Banner headed for the screened-in window in the back of the manufactured house. Garrett had loved the active, balmy breezes of south Florida, which was why he moved here in the first place. Didn’t have that up in the Big Apple, that Big Rotten Apple, he used to say when he talked about the more crappier aspects of the job. New York had a lot going for it, but he’d just seen too much of its asshole and armpits and had to move somewhere he knew nothing about.

  Banner felt another pin prick, and again swiped at his legs, but continued to weave his way between the grapefruit and orange trees he and Garrett had planted. He came around to the screened-in window and found it open, propped that way with one of those cheap, collapsible screens. He removed the screen and crawled in.

  Garrett had been an interesting gent. In his late-sixties, he’d been born and bred in NYC, and had started his career by walking a beat. He’d risen to the rank of Lieutenant after many harrowing cop adventures, but, after having been shot in the hip while assisting another officer, he’d figured enough was enough, and retired. His retirement interests had been pretty basic: beer, babes (he’d married twice, but had long-since divorced both), and poker. The occasional trip—but never outside the country, except for a stint in the Army and Vietnam. Not even Canada or Mexico. For some reason, he never quite answered to anyone’s satisfaction including his own, Garrett had an aversion to most things foreign—except for certain pieces of Oriental art. Yes, at times, Garrett was an odd bird. This, he admitted, even baffled the hell out of him. Except for Vietnam, Garrett’d never been to anything remotely Asian, never had any interest to, but for some ungodly reason found himself collecting certain objects d’art that struck a chord in him, and they usually involved warriors or battle. He said there was something about the “way of the warrior” that he loved to emulate in his own life. He used to joke about the possibility of having lived another life as a Samurai, perhaps a ronin (of course).

  Banner surveyed the bedroom. Everything was certainly all still there... including those Jap vases depicting horses trampling enemies to death, or the swordplay bestowed upon soon-to-be-headless foe, or pikes at the ready preparing for charges across ancient fields. Of course, as he continued to survey the bedroom, Banner also noticed the blood-spattered floor, walls, and ceiling. The other pieces of broken and destroyed artwork. The viciously torn apart bed. The overturned nightstands and lamps. Fractured bedposts. The smell of death. Oh, yeah, there had been one helluva fight in here, but in the end, Garrett had been the one at the end of those pikes, blades, or hooves, hadn’t he?

  Banner stared at a vase Garrett had made a point in showing to him. He’d been mildly amused by it. It was of a ronin warrior (Garrett liked to think), taking care of business. Garrett had told him that this piece particularly grabbed him, because he’d had dreams of this scene throughout his life. When he’d seen it at a pawn shop, his blood froze, and he felt as if he were standing not only in the present, but also on the depicted battlefield. He simply had to have it.

  But, in the end, all of Garrett’s “way of the warrior” hadn’t been able to save him when he needed it most, had it? About the only saving grace, in all this, if Banner knew his friend, was that he was probably wherever he was, thinking, you know, at least I died a warrior’s death. I died... in battle.

  5

  As Kacey lay in that hotel bed, head still pounding, arms loosely wrapped around Sheila—who also had her arms wrapped around her, but much more passionately—she wondered, how the hell had they found themselves kissing?

  Sheila was a wonderful kisser, lips soft, supple, and hungry—and she managed to maintain quite the effort of restraint. If Kacey kept her eyes closed and didn’t think about who she was kissing, it didn’t seem all that bad... did it really bother her she was kissing a woman? Was that such an evil thing? Apparently not, but her spinning head only spun more when she tried to wrap her arms around that. She did find, however, that when she relaxed and just went along with the flow of things, things felt, well... great. Exciting. Here she was, wife and mother, had just left her family, and was holed up in a nondescript hotel room near an airport in the dead of night, in bed with, not another man—but a woman. A woman full of passion and desire... something she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

  And how had she found herself here in the first place?

  All the world was still a haze, but the excitement of this new experience seemed to take some of the sting out of her predicament—the fact that she had had just a little too much to drink and hurt inside like a jackhammer had been mercilessly taken to her heart... well, things suddenly seemed a lot less urgent. Sheila’s tenderness and passion were salve to her soul.

  And she really was a great kisser.

  Kacey allowed herself to be consumed within Sheila’s passion, which, she could tell, was increasing like a smoldering fire in a stiff breeze. She took in the subtle sound of Sheila’s mouth as it gently worked and explored hers. The sound of her own excited and panting breaths, the feel of her warm, flushed skin against hers. How Sheila ran her hands along her body... how she simply drank in all that was Kacey Miller. How Sheila was now atop her, sexy, pantyhosed legs straddling her, business heels deposited on the floor beside the bed—one upright, the other knocked over...

  Kacey looked into Sheila’s eyes. The restrained passion that bore back into her (and this was hard to admit to herself) excited her. Kacey was being a bad, bad girl, and she knew it, and admitting this to herself only further excited her. She’d never done anything remotely like this before and began to wonder—why the hell not? If all lesbians were like Sheila, she might be able to get into this from time to time...

  Kacey closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, sucking Sheila’s breath from her mouth. Boy, there was just something about her...

  “Did you like that?” Sheila whispered, moist lips glistening in the low light, dark eyes passionate and burning from behind loosened tresses.

  To Kacey’s inebriated surprise she replied a lazily drawn out, “Yesss....”

  Sheila smiled, began slowly undoing Kacey’s blouse—to which Kacey did not object, her chest rising and falling nervously beneath Sheila’s busy (if slightly nervous?) fingers. Sheila, her dark hair cascading about her face, slowly, deliberately, undid Kacey’s brassiere, removed it, and Kacey heard her sigh unlike any she’d ever heard before, because it came from a woman strained with passion and desire. A woman’s passionate desire for her. One who’d just removed her brassiere and was contemplative of what now lay exposed.

  Kacey swam in a mixture of confusion and excitement as Sheila gently and lovingly kissed and teased Kacey’s exposed flesh. Kacey, gritting her teeth, grew dizzy. This felt different to her. She moaned, not quietly but loudly, and spread apart her legs. She pulled Sheila into her, forcing their bodies together. Sheila wove her hands around and inside the back of Kacey’s opened blouse, and when she opened wide on an exposed breast Kacey never protested. When Sheila’d lifted her trembling body off the bed and made love with her now highly sensitized nipples... Kacey never objected. But when Sheila made her way down her stomach to make a play for... deep south... well, that’s when Kacey saw Mark and Emily. That’s when Mark flooded her mind... of the last time he’d been down there... of their daughter... still back in Wilmington... of their wedding day... the day they met... of making love with a man... her husband. And when Shelia began to unzip Kacey, Kacey, torn between her urgency to fulfill a growing and recently unfulfilled need, and the images of her family and what she was presently doing, reached down and gently removed Sheila’s hand.

  “No,” she whispered firmly.

  W
ithout missing a beat, Sheila quietly worked her way back up Kacey’s flexing and heaving and clenching body. Then she lifted her mouth from Kacey’s warm, inviting, flesh, and carefully repositioned herself over Kacey’s pelvis. Holding her gaze, Sheila began removing her own blouse.

  “What are you doing?” Kacey whispered nervously, breathlessly.

  Sheila eyed her with unnerving hunger, undoing her own brassiere but stopping at her skirt. “You have such a beautiful body,” she whispered.

  Kacey found herself strangely—uncomfortably so—excited at seeing Sheila’s own nakedness atop her. Seeing Sheila’s own well-formed and firm though not large breasts. The position of her legs straddling her, and how her skirt fell upon not only Sheila’s legs, but upon her own body, as well. And when Sheila slowly came back down to Kacey’s lips and they both wrapped their arms around each other in the most passionate kiss she’d had in a long, long, time, Sheila’s naked, warm skin pressed into her own exposed, flushed, and quite warm flesh, Kacey gave in to the passion without guilt, without holding anything back, and without any thought given to tomorrow...

  Chapter Eight

  1

  Kacey lay on her apartment’s couch staring at the ceiling, newspaper cast on the floor beside her.

  Did making out with a woman a lesbian make?

  The question had haunted her ever since Sheila. Her “experience” with her had been—well, there was no lying to herself—extraordinary. No matter what Kacey may have thought about kissing women before her, she had done a complete one-eighty since. Sheila had left her her number (no last names, that had been the unspoken rule), but Kacey had left her with nothing—except for one really good, absolutely crazy one-night stand. Well, actually, it had just been more of a make-out session, since Kacey hadn’t allowed anything else to advance, but Kacey had never called her, thanked her, nor did whatever it was you were supposed to do after your first lesbian encounter. And after having left Sheila, Kacey had tried “it” once again, yes she had tried to relive the experience to see if there really had been anything to doing it with your own kind. She’d done it again only once, in California, but it just hadn’t been the same. There had been no (and she found this strangely curious when she actually clarified her feelings on the matter)... spark. Kacey had even touched herself to Sheila’s memories, which still brought on intense orgasms, but when she tried it with other women... it just wasn’t happening. It was nothing short of embarrassing—even if only she knew.

  But, still, she had done it with Sheila. So, what had it meant?

  Did it have to mean anything?

  Again: Did making out with a woman a lesbian make?

  Kacey didn’t think so, but had done no real research into the matter. Did feelings, honest feelings, need research? How could she return to her husband and family—if she were ever to do so—without resolving what had happened in that hotel room?

  And this said nothing about why she’d left Mark and Emily in the first place.

  But every time she got up and looked at herself in a mirror, or passed a store window, she couldn’t bring herself to look directly into her own eyes for any length of time. She’d left her family. Made out with another woman. Left her three-month-old daughter, her husband of almost two years. Left the clothes in the dryer and told them she’d gone out for a run.

  A frigging run.

  Who does something like that?

  No one, that’s who, and that’s what kept her from leaving her Florida apartment and heading north. Emily would be fifteen months, now. How would her leaving have affected her—how would her return? Would it do more harm than good? Was there even a chance of reconciliation, and would Mark even acknowledge her existence?

  Kacey closed her eyes. She’d really screwed things up this time, perhaps irreparably—

  The phone rang. Kacey wiped her eyes. Answered it.

  “Kacey?”

  “Yes?” Kacey cleared her throat.

  “This is Connie—Connie Belleview, from the Gazette?”

  “Hi, Connie.”

  “There’s been another murder—”

  “No—”

  “You may want to sit down.” Connie paused. “It’s Jack and Hedda.”

  “Oh, no—no-no-no—”

  “I’m so sorry. Authorities found them this morning on the Interstate. Exit 191.”

  “Oh, dear God, this can’t be... how’d... how’d it happen—are you sure?”

  Kacey collapsed to the floor.

  “Details are sketchy, but I want you on this. There was some kind of roadside altercation. The guy who killed them took his own life.”

  “My God....”

  “Look, this is pretty hot, and, well, it’s your follow-up. Want it?”

  “Of course.”

  Kacey was amazed at how calm she was able to portray herself. Guess it came from leaving your family and having lesbian sex.

  “You got it. Get me some news by ten this morning, okay?”

  “Ten. Sure. Thanks.”

  “Kacey?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m so sorry. Sometimes... sometimes bad things just happen to good people.”

  2

  Kacey, hair tossed about in the early morning Floridian breeze, had parked beneath I-75’s Exit 191 overpass, on the shoulder of U.S. 41. She knelt before the still marked and stained grease spot that was where the suspect had taken his concrete digger. She looked up to the overpass, contemplating what it must have taken to take that leap... then back down to the spot before her.

  Somebody had died here.

  Hit the concrete with the full force of their body from a height of what had to be at least thirty or forty feet. But, nothing stood out to her, not that she’d necessarily know what would or wouldn’t. Her journalistic and investigative experience consisted of six-year-old academic college courses, a lucky break yesterday morning, and television cop shows. As she got back to her feet, she stared into the hazy treetops, and wondered, good Lord, what in hell was she doing here? This was the big time, Missy, people actually lost their lives out here, and back in your comfy apartment you’d just thrown together a pile of words telling others about it. You just happened to be roadside, because you couldn’t sleep and had been up listening to a cheap scanner. You were in the right place at the right time, was all—you was damned lucky, seester—and now you gotta prove yourself. Produce on demand... to a timeline, an editor—the public. Would have others constantly and mercilessly peering over your shoulder. Judging you.

  Could she find a lead?

  Follow it up—write it up—this time with the whole state of Florida watching, perhaps the whole U.S. of A.?

  This was big news... murder on this scale, except for wars—had it ever happened before? She was the nation’s front line, and that was the unnerving truth of it all. It made questions like did making out with a woman a lesbian make? childishly trivial.

  But, still... where was Sheila, and what was she doing right now?

  “Hey!” a voice called on down from the overpass above, “can I help you?”

  Kacey looked up to see a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper peering down at her. She shouted back over the din of passing traffic.

  “I’m Kacey Miller—from,” she said, fumbling for her press badge and holding it up to the trooper in the balmy Floridian breeze, “from the Gazette Harbor—I mean, the Sunset Harbor Gazette! Can I ask you a few questions?”

  The trooper paused, looked around, then shouted back, “Come on up.” Left the guardrail.

  Not quite expecting his reaction, Kacey flinched.

  “Thank you!”

  * * *

  Kacey began her way up the same embankment, the same route the killer must also have taken. After several minutes of struggling up the steep, grassy slope, she found an outstretched hand of a sergeant in the Florida Highway Patrol awaiting her.

  By the time Kacey arrived at I-75’s Exit 191 overpass, most everything had been picked clean by investigators. All
that remained were tiny chunks of broken windshield safety glass, miscellaneous shards of metal, and some pieces of black-and-yellow tape caught around guardrail posts, flapping in the breeze. Up the Interstate a couple hundred feet, however, were the still-flashing lights of state patrol vehicles where troopers continued to mop up the spoils of the multiple-car pileup that had resulted from the Freightliner’s stunning capture of Mrs. Hedda Hocker’s frail, osteoporotic body. Traffic continued at a slowed and measured pace through this stretch of roadway.

  “You know,” the sergeant said, dryly, reaching out to her, “you could’ve driven.” Smiling, the trooper indicated behind her to the on-ramp.

  Kacey looked.

  “But, that’s against traffic—”

  “I think I could have bent the rules a little for a member of the press. What can I do for you, Miss Sunset Harbor Gazette? Sergeant Gil Parker.”

  They shook hands.

  “Is there anything you can tell me about the crime scene?”

  “Well, it appears—”

  “Mind if I tape?”

  “Yes, actually, I do.”

  Kacey nodded, stuffing the recorder back into her bag and resorting to “old school”: notepad and pen.

  “It appears the suspect negotiated the same embankment as you, up onto the shoulder, here,” he said, directing to a section of embankment, “and the Hockers stopped, perhaps thinking they were providing roadside assistance. For whatever reason the suspect attacked, which caused the massive traffic foul up we’re still managing.”

  “How’d the traffic get so messed up?”

  “Witnesses saw the suspect throw Mrs. Hocker out into traffic.”

  Kacey had fully meant to respond to the officer’s comment, but the words had gotten chocked off by a huge knot in her throat.