Murder Deja Vu

everything blurred under the weight of his situation. A couple of cars were parked nearby, but he didn’t see anyone. Steve was as slim and athletic looking as he was in college. His light brown hair brushed his shirt collar and framed a spare, angular face.
    Steve studied him. “I wouldn’t have recognized you if your picture hadn’t been all over the front pages of the newspaper, and if I didn’t know you were coming. You don’t look the same, but you look good.”
    “Mark called you?”
    “Yeah. He felt me out first before he told me. He said he almost had to gag his wife. She wanted to call the cops.”
    “That was clear when I was there.”
    “Do you know what you’re doing?”
    “Other than possibly getting people like yourself in trouble if anyone finds out? Probably not. If I had any faith in the law, I’d turn myself in. But I have a hard time believing the law is on my side. I can’t go back to prison.” Reece caught Yarrow squinting at him, making him uneasy.
    “I’m not even going to ask if you did it. If I were guilty, I’d have headed straight for the border. I assume you would have too. I never thought you killed Karen. None of us did, and we made ourselves clear during the trial.”
    Reece glanced at Steve. “Yes, you did, and I always appreciated that. Until these latest murders, I’d been trying to put that ugly chapter of my life behind me and build another one. Someone doesn’t want me to.” Reece stared at Steve. “I came here to see if it was you.”
    “Taking an awful chance.”
    Reece shrugged. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”
    “So you know, I didn’t kill her.”
    Wouldn’t Reece say the same thing if he were guilty? Considering the consequences, who would admit guilt? But the vet could have called the police, knowing Reece was on his way. Steve punched a number into a high-tech cell phone. Reece held his breath.
    “Gina, I’m going to be late this morning. Tell Randy, will you? And tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can.…Yes, I know my car’s there. I’m with a friend.…Thanks.” He punched off the phone.
    “Am I safe here?” Reece asked.
    “Keep your glasses and hat on. No one’s around. I’m a member of the club. If anyone comes over, I’ll say you’re thinking of joining. They’ll leave us alone.”
    Reece felt a current of anxiety shoot through him and he tensed, expecting some twist in the scenario. The cops surrounding him so Steve wouldn’t involve his practice. Steve pulling a gun. Could he ever trust anyone? Would he fight or go quietly?
    “That leaves Jordan.” Reece turned toward Steve. He’d learned to read body language out of self-preservation and didn’t see anything threatening. Relaxing, he said, “You knew him better than I did. In fact, I really didn’t know him at all. You were all more Carl’s friends.”
    “I haven’t seen Jordan in years. When we graduated vet school, I thought we’d go into practice together, but something happened in his last year of school. He changed, withdrew. He reneged on our plans and never said why other than he had personal issues. It’s not like we had a falling out either. I called him a few times to get together, find out what he was doing, but he always gave some lame excuse why he couldn’t. After a while, I stopped calling, and we lost touch. I wondered if he had depression problems or something.”
    Or guilt over killing a woman?
    “What was his connection to Karen?”
    “He slept with her once to my knowledge. If he had more going with her, I didn’t know about it. Jordan and Mark never had trouble getting women.”
    “Yet you slept with her too, didn’t you?”
    Steve smiled. Reece thought he smiled more to himself than to Reece.
    “I knew you were an item, but I slept with her for a reason. Once. During my conflict about my sexual identity.”
    Reece looked at him. “You’re gay?”
    Steve nodded. “Yes. My business partner is my life partner. Ten years now. I often wondered if Jordan figured it out and that was why he decided not to go into a practice with me. Anyway, Karen was the one who told me.”
    “Huh? Told you what?”
    “That I wasn’t into women. Until that time, I suspected, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. If anyone knew about men, it was Karen.”
    “Jesus, what a jerk I was. If only I’d known what everyone else knew about her, I’d be building houses in Portland right now, with Carl.”
    “Right, Carl.” Steve hesitated.