Lie Catchers (20 page)

“I’ll go change,” she said, quietly. “Then I think we should eat something. This morning’s been…I’m…”

Parker shrugged off his raincoat, grabbed her and held her tight. “It’s okay, Liv. It’s been a helluva four hours. You’re tired, sad, and confused.”

She nodded, bouncing her chin on his clavicle, comforted by the feeling of bone on bone. Solidity was what she needed. “I’ve known Tilly all my life. Same with Ev. My age, my class, in our little group of high school grads. Both of them struggled with integrity issues, granted, but their deaths sadden me and frighten me at the same time.” He held her a little tighter. “I don’t know why you think I’m next and I’m not sure I want to hear your reasons.” She pulled back. “I’m getting you wet, Parker. I’ll go change. You want to make us some coffee?”

When he let her go, he was smiling. “The Norwegian hostess kicks in. A smorgasbord for lunch?”

Liv laughed, the sound surprising her.
Tilly’s dead, my date thing is out there and I can laugh?
She touched his cheek. “Thanks.”

Once she’d shut her bedroom door behind her, she took off her wet clothes, dried her wet hair, brushed it, and wiped errant mascara from under her eyes. To compliment jeans and a simple, fitted white pullover, she poked big gold hoop earrings into her earlobes, and called the job done.

When she entered the kitchen, Parker looked at his watch. “November 17th, gold hoops, apartment with Parker. Downpour.”

“The afternoon Tilly died. A day I’ll never forget.”

He squeezed her hand. “You keep track of all events, sad, happy and in between. An amazing ability, Liv. It makes life hard for you, I’m sure, but I’ll bet you appreciate the order.”

“Mother calls it irritating.”

“Which is why you’ve kept it undercover for so long.”

Liv hitched a shoulder. “It was hard to fit in.”

“I can well imagine. But God, could you ever ace tests!”

She smiled. “You’d think. It’s dates surrounding my life that are easy for me to recall. I have as much trouble as you do remembering events for other people’s histories.”

Parker handed her a mug of coffee, opened the refrigerator door and started handing meats, cheeses, mayonnaise and mustard to Liv. Adding bread and a tomato to the mélange, she said, “Construct as you wish. I’ll nibble on meat and cheese.” She pointed to three small jars. “My Mom’s homemade watermelon rind pickles, bread and butter pickles and dills. You want some herring?”

He made a face and constructed two open-faced sandwiches, while Liv answered his questions about Tuck’s comings and goings. He consulted her printout of chronological dates as he ate.

Chomping down on a dill pickle, he said, “Tell me about you and your dates. How it all works in your brain.”

Liv held a can of Coke, concentrating on not squeezing the can, so intense were her feelings. Though her inclination was to look away from Parker as she told her story, she made herself watch carefully for his reactions.
The truth might set me free, but it will probably send this nice man running.

“When I was about five years old, I liked dressing up, wearing my mom’s junk jewelry, clip-on earrings, necklaces and all. Early on, I dithered over selecting the color and texture of my jewelry so it would complement the clothes that I wore. I got some nice feedback for this grown-up, orderly behavior from my family and friends. Though I can’t remember how many ‘Oh, isn’t she cute,’ and ‘Oh, isn’t she smart’ compliments people sent my way, my favorite uncle got the biggest kick out of my unusual hobby. For my sixth birthday, his gift was a jewelry set, complete with earrings, a ring, bracelet and necklace. Amber stones, delicate in size. I loved his present, but I realized the baubles looked better with certain clothes versus others. As soon as I matched the right clothes with the perfect jewelry, I felt good about what I saw in the mirror and happy with myself when I went out in public. People praised me for the care I took with my ‘look,’ and that pleased me and somehow tied what I accomplished each day with how I was dressed.” She shook her head. “It was a gradual process, building sets of jewelry to match my clothes and aligning dates/events to when I wore them. I’m not sure why and when I added a weather report for the day.”

“Lots of people recall memories via inanimate objects.”

Taking a swallow of Coke, Liv leaned against the kitchen counter. “I’ve studied savantism, Parker. Savant comes from the French,
savoir.
I’m a person of learning. In my case, I learned to love order.” She gave him a wry smile. “Some quirk in my brain triggers my life history according to the jewelry and clothing I wear.” Liv cradled a watermelon pickle in a napkin and beckoned Parker to her bedroom. When he raised his eyebrows, she said, “It’s not what you think.” She entered a code to a pad beside the doorjamb, opened the door and flipped on overhead halogens.

Parker swallowed with an audible gulp. “You call this a closet?”

“I added the space of my walk-in closet to an old laundry room. Made the renovators put in a skylight, too.”

“It’s the size of a small bedroom. A little couch, pictures on the wall, a full-length mirror. Wow.”

His attention turned to a wall of planks with finger holes in them. “What’s this?”

Liv pulled on one of the planks, showing how the narrow, vertical, two-sided drawers slid out from the wall. Each held jewelry, pinned securely to cork board. “Green sets on this side.” She pivoted the hinged drawer so he could see what occupied the opposite cork wall. “Red here.” Quickly, she opened six more drawers: “Blue, white, purples and pinks, yellow, black; two sides of gold, two sides of silver and a double-sided array of multicolor stuff, including my amber set.”

After an appreciative whistle, he said, “Amazing. Not so much a vault as a precious filing cabinet, carefully ordered.” He surveyed the opposite side of the small room, clothes hung by type and color; shoes in cubbyholes organized by heel height and color. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

She shrugged. “Simplifies my life and helps me remember things. I don’t know…something in me needs to recall events of my life exactly. I draw comfort by pinpointing dates, events and what I wore.”

Parker leaned against the closet doorjamb. “Who’s seen this?”

“No one. I bought all this shelving on line and put it in myself.”

“I remember my mom’s pile of jewelry in her padded case.”

Liv made a face. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“I watched her try to extricate a necklace or a bracelet from the mess many a time.”

“Chaos. I’d get physically ill.”

“Why are you showing this to me? Today?”

“Good question.” She rested her head against a jewelry drawer and closed her eyes. In exacting color, she recalled every date she’d been with Parker, a picture of her clothing and accessories accompanying each square in her mind’s datebook. Liv opened her eyes. “You don’t argue over things you aren’t sure of. That’s unusual in a man.” She fingered her gold hoop earring. “I heard you say to Jenny that your memory is flawed, like hers is.”

Parker nodded, then reached out and drew a thumb over Liv’s forehead. When she let out a sigh, he said, “Go on.”

“I’d gotten used to keeping dates to myself. If a controversy over a day and month comes up when I’m with other people, I’d do the ‘La, la, la’ thing and step out of the conversation. Until I made that chart for you about the people at the
Fiskeboller
event, I hadn’t allowed myself to think about dates as a way of discovering things or settling things.”

Turning her back on him, she began to refold scarves. “Your letter, when you implied I was hiding details that might help solve Ev’s murder? That hurt. I couldn’t imagine that my knowledge, holding it back, that is, would harm people.”

He cupped her shoulders and caressed her neck, seeming to understand she couldn’t go on without his touch. Fortified by a deep breath, she said, “A few dates rattled around in my head related to Ev’s drowning, but with Tilly’s death, my brain fairly burst with things I knew about her. My dates were sort of damned-up until the second of my old classmates died…were killed.”

“Why do you feel guilty, Liv?”

“Because I was self-serving. I had to fit into this town to get my salmon oil production going. Idiot savants not welcome. My mom. I have to build up the business for my mom, so she can retire, get new knees. Relax, finally. This town won’t give money to a weirdo.”

Parker pulled her into his arms and she allowed herself another round of resting her forehead against his clavicle.

He kissed the top of her head. “Liv?”

“Hm?” she asked, spent by her unburdening, but well aware of the rising temperature of her body and the natural way she settled in against his arousal.

“Remember, I’ve got your number. Have since the beginning.”

Her mind flew to the eagle feather necklace she’d worn the day he saw through her flirting. The day she realized she had no control over her attraction to him.

Kissing her eyes, he said, “You and I have things to settle.” Parker palmed her ass and drew her closer to his groin. “Jesus,” he said. “Do we ever.” He pressed into her against the closet wall, and kissed her, a melding so deep and intense that she stopped breathing altogether. The effect was smooth, seamless and dreamy until his eyes widened and he groaned. “Ah, shit. Burn.” He banged his forehead against the closet wall, the reverberation causing her head to bounce. “Later,” he growled, pulling away from her and breathing hard. Several silent moments passed. In a clipped tone he asked, “Did you say you have a relative in Seattle?”

She put her hands to her lips, swollen from the kiss, reminding herself of what had just happened between them. “What?”

“You’ve got family in Seattle. You said so. I need you to take the plane out of here this afternoon and stay with them.”

“What are you—?”

“No one gets tipped off about your knowledge of dates.”

“But—”

“Your list is fucked. I tell Ivor, Nilson, and my boss.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Deadly. Barber or whoever the killer is in Petersburg…they find out you’ve got the facts on them, you’ll be next on the slab.”

“But I could help. I—”

“We stick to the ruse about our antagonism.”

“After this?” she asked, brushing the front of his jeans.

“You think I’d let you bait this person by laying out to the whole town what you know? Christ, Liv, you have no idea how vulnerable you’d be.” He grabbed her and hugged her so tightly she stopped breathing again. “Leave Petersburg, please.”

What did he mean by ‘Burn’? She grabbed her watermelon pickle, now one with the napkin, and stepped out of her closet. In the kitchen, she washed paper off the pickle and bit half of it off. Sweet, with hints of bayleaf, mustard seed, pepper and salt. Fortifying for what she had to do next.

Closets. What a concept. She’d come out of the closet by showing Parker what was
in
her closet. The top-off, she’d almost had a round of hot sex in her closet, sizzling until he said ‘burn.’ She finished the pickle, waiting for Parker to show up.

The puzzled expression on his face was an emotion she hadn’t expected, so her question came out softly. “Burn?”

Stopping short at the entrance of her kitchen, he went from puzzled to stunned. “Did I say her name?”

“A woman’s name?”

“Christ, I’m sorry.”

Liv waved her hand. “Tell me.” She pointed to a chair in the living room. “Now.” Dropping into the chair facing him, she added, “Please.”

Parker sat on the end of the chair, jammed his elbows on his legs and cradled his jaw with his hands. “She was my girlfriend starting from about three years ago. We worked together on a CIA sting, following Pakistani money into the hands of Al Qaeda. My department was assigned to find out where the money was coming from and to whom. The rest is classified, Liv. That’s all I can say.”

“Fine. What happened to ‘Burn’?”

“I helped this team of six agents, including Bernadette, to find a spot where they could listen in on the transactions, mostly landline stuff.”

“Don’t we use satellites for all those communications?”

“Not if you’re a fundamentalist cell that uses 1950 technology.”

“Understood. You sent Bernadette and five other agents to a site.”

“On the Pakistani border.”

“You picked a good spot, I’m sure.” Liv leaned forward, worried for Parker and all six agents.

“A Jordanian we trusted leaked the location. Pakistanis killed all of them in their sleep. We saw the slaughter on satellite.”

With tears in her eyes and hands on his knees, Liv said, “Oh, God, Parker. I’m so sorry.”

He looked at her hard. “Lesson: If I don’t mix pleasure with business, my girlfriends stay out of the line of fire.”

Her eyes on the floor, Liv said, “Oh.”

“Please leave Petersburg until I can get this case under control.”

“I can’t leave.”

With a sigh, Parker said, “I need you to go.”

“And I must stay for too many reasons.”

“Mine trumps all of yours: to save your life.”

“I’m not a coward, Parker. Neither was Bernadette. Would Bern have dropped out of the listening post assignment if you’d asked her to?”

Parker said nothing.

“She wouldn’t have.”

“Bernadette was a professional, a CIA agent with years of experience.”

“This is my town.”

“Populated with killers who don’t like what you know.”

“I understand more about Petersburg’s citizens than you do.”

“Oh really? You, the self-proclaimed recluse, writer with an alias, and fake friends. You said you don’t fit here.”

“You need me. I’m not leaving.”

“Please.”

Tears came to Liv’s eyes and she blinked them away. “I’ll always be Bernadette to you if you don’t get past the guilt.” Liv’s stomach clenched. “My leaving won’t help
you
, Parker.”

Parker clasped his hands, head down. “You’ve already been shot at and wounded, Liv, because of me. If you should get hurt again, or God forbid, die as a result of this mess, I could never forgive myself. Never.”

“Bring your gun, Mom. And call Chet to join us. We’re going target practicing.” Liv shut her cell phone and inclined her head in Parker’s direction. “You’ve got stuff to do and so do I. Your dad will shoot with us at the practice range and I’ll continue to keep him with me when I’m out and about.” She rose, walked to the hall closet and reached to the top shelf, extracting a gun and a box of bullets.