Brazen Virtue

Roxanne.”
    She was three times his size, but awkward. She struck out again, bruising his chest, but he didn’t even feel the blow. She was screaming at him now, in real terror. Her heart, too weak to support the burden of her body, began to hammer and skip. Her face turned beet red when he hit her.
    “You’re going to like it,” he told her again when she fell back against the pillows. In reflex, she threw up her hands to protect her face from another blow. “You’re never going to experience anything like this ever again.”
    “Don’t hurt me.” Tears squeezed out of her eyes and ran lines through her makeup. Her breath began to rattle as he jerked her hands toward the bedspread and bound them with rope.
    “This is the way you like it. I remember. I heard you say.” He plunged into her, grinning like a maniac. “I want you to like it, Roxanne. I want it to be the best.”
    She was crying loudly, big, shuddering sobs that shook her body and brought him a dizzying kind of pleasure as he rocked on her. He felt it build, climb, soar. And knew it was time.
    Smiling down at her, his eyes half-closed, he wrapped the phone cord around her neck and pulled.

    ♦  ♦  ♦
    E D GROPED FOR THE phone on the first ring and came fully awake by the second. Across the room, David Letterman was entertaining his late-night audience. Ed flexed the arm that had fallen asleep, focused on the television screen, and cleared his throat.
    “Yeah. Jackson.”
    “Put your pants on, partner. We’ve got a body.”
    “Where?”
    “On Wisconsin Avenue. I’ll pick you up.” Ben listened a minute. “If you had a woman, you wouldn’t fall asleep watching Letterman.”
    Ed hung up on him and went into the bathroom to soak his head in cold water.
    Fifteen minutes later, he was sitting in the passenger seat of Ben’s car. “I knew it was too good to be true.” Ben bit off the end of a Hershey bar. “It’s been a week since we got a call in the middle of the night.”
    “Who called it in?”
    “Couple of uniforms. They got a call that there was trouble, first-floor apartment, woman living alone. Checked it out and found some glass broken and a window open. When they went in, they found her. She won’t be living alone anymore.”
    “Robbery?”
    “Don’t know. They didn’t give me any more. Cop that called it in was a rookie. Desk said he was busy trying to hold down his coffee break. Look, before I forget, Tess says you’ve been ignoring her. Why don’t you come by for a drink or something? Bring the writer.”
    Ed cast Ben a mild look. “Does Tess want to see me or the writer?”

    “Both.” Ben grinned and swallowed the last of the chocolate. “You know she’s crazy about you. If I hadn’t been so much better-looking than you, you might have had a shot. This is it. Looks like these guys want to make sure everybody in the neighborhood knows there’s a body around.”
    He pulled over to the curb behind two black and whites. The lights turned and blinked on the roofs while the car radios sent out bursts of noise. Ben nodded to the first uniform as he stepped onto the sidewalk.
    “Apartment 101, sir. Apparently the perpetrator broke in through a living room window. Victim was in bed. First officers on the scene are inside.”
    “Forensics?”
    “On their way, sir.”
    Ben judged the uniform to be twenty-two at the most. They were getting younger every year. With Ed right behind him he walked into the building and into 101. Two cops stood in the living room, one of them popping a piece of gum, the other sweating.
    “Detectives Jackson and Paris,” Ed said mildly. “Get some air.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You remember your first one?” Ben asked Ed as they moved toward the bedroom.
    “Yeah. As soon as I was off duty I got drunk.” Ed didn’t pose the question to Ben. He was already aware that the first body his partner had faced had been that of his own brother.
    They stepped into the bedroom, looked at Mary, then at each other. “Shit,” was all Ben said.
    “Looks like we’ve got another serial killer on our hands. Captain’s going to be pissed.”
    E D WAS RIGHT.

    At eight o’clock the following morning, both detectives were in Captain Harris’s office. Their superior sat at his desk studying their reports from behind new and detested reading glasses. The diet he was on had taken off five pounds and soured his disposition. He drummed the fingers of one hand monotonously against the desk.
    Ben