Dream Man

After this was over, he would devote all of his attention to her, but right now he couldn’t, and she knew it. Right away he had sensed a slight distance that hadn’t been there when he’d left. She kept rebuilding that damn wall of reserve, as if she couldn’t quite trust herself to let go, or trust him to catch her if she did. He would let her reform him from the ground up if it would make her feel more secure with him.

Marlie was a solitary creature who didn’t easily share either her space or her time. He had carefully spent the evening not crowding her too much, but all the same establishing a tone of normalcy to his presence. They had done very ordinary things—cooked dinner, cleaned the kitchen, watched television—just as if they had been together for months instead of one stressful weekend. It had worked; she had relaxed more and more as the evening wore on. And when they had gone to bed and he had begun making love to her, the reserve had completely vanished. He didn’t know if it was permanently gone; probably not. But he would deal with each reappearance as it happened, and in the meantime insinuate himself ever more deeply into the everyday fabric of her life. Besides, he had enjoyed it when she had made several acerbic remarks about his clothes. She had been too subdued and vulnerable for the past two days, and he had been delighted to see her return to her normal, sharp-tongued spirits.

Still shaking his head at Marlie’s evident loss of common sense, Bonness gestured for Freddie and Worley to come over. When everyone was grouped together, they decided their course of action for the day. Freddie and Worley were going to talk to the people Jackie Sheets had worked with, including Liz Cline again, for she would be calmer now and might remember something else. They arranged to get copies of the canceled checks of both victims. Dane and Trammell went to the Hairport to talk to Jackie Sheets’s hair stylist.

The Hairport was situated in a small, renovated house. There was none of the pink neon and purple-and-black decor so beloved by the trendier salons where all the clients came out looking as if they’d stuck their finger into a light socket. But there were real ferns (Dane knew because Trammell stuck his finger into the dirt to check), and comfortable waiting chairs, as well as a truly impressive selection of magazines, stacked in rickety towers on every available flat surface. There were several women in the salon, in various stages of tonsorial improvement. A sharp chemical smell hung in the air, with an undertone of hairspray and nail polish.

The Kathy who cut Ms. Sheets’s hair was Kathleen McCrory, who looked as Irish as her name. She had sandy red hair that feathered around her face, a very fair complexion, and round blue eyes that widened even more when Dane and Trammell introduced themselves. She led them back to the tiny break room the stylists used, poured them each a cup of coffee, and offered them their choice of any of the varied snacks piled on the small table. They accepted the coffee, but turned down the Bugles and Twinkies.

Kathleen was a cheerful, self-confident young woman. Trammell began to ask her about Jackie Sheets, and Dane settled back to enjoy his coffee, which was pretty good. He watched Kathleen lightly flirt with Trammell, and his partner lightly flirt in return, all the while asking questions. Kathleen did stop flirting when he told her that Jackie Sheets had been killed, and her big blue eyes slowly filled with tears. She looked back and forth between Dane and Trammell, as if wanting one of them to say it was a joke. Her lips began trembling. “I—I haven’t watched the news this weekend,” she said, and swallowed hard. “My boyfriend and I went to Daytona.”

Dane reached across the small table and covered her hand with his. She clutched his fingers, and clung tightly to him until she had fought off the tears. She gave him a small, watery, apologetic smile as she began groping for a tissue to wipe her eyes.

Yes, she had cut Jackie’s hair about every three weeks. Jackie had gorgeous hair, thick and silky, with a lot of body. She could do anything she wanted with it. Trammell gently interrupted the hair analysis to get her back on track. No, Jackie hadn’t mentioned seeing anyone for quite a while now. No, Kathleen couldn’t remember anyone named Vinick.

Did she have any male customers? Sure. There were quite a few. Had Jackie spoken to any of them, gotten acquainted? Not that Kathleen could remember.

Another dead end, Dane thought. He was getting damn tired of them.

Tuesday was more of the same dead ends. A comparison of canceled checks and credit card receipts revealed that the Vinicks and Jackie Sheets had shopped at some of the same department stores, which told them exactly nothing. Dane imagined that almost everyone in Orlando had been in at least one of those stores at one time or another. Still, it was the only link they had come up with, so he doggedly pursued it, comparing dates to see if maybe they had been in any store at the same time.

Jackie Sheets had had several department store credit cards, but Nadine Vinick hadn’t had any, usually paying for her purchases by check or charging the expense to their one credit card, a MasterCard, when she didn’t have the ready funds. But Mrs. Vinick had been very frugal, and had used the card only twice in the past year. Mostly the Vinicks had operated in a pay-as-you-go household, while Jackie Sheets had regularly made charges on her cards and paid in monthly installments, always living slightly above her means. Most of her purchases had been clothes, from the best stores in the city.

Their life-styles had been different. The Vinicks had been blue-collar, and Nadine’s greatest interest had been cooking. Jackie Sheets had been white-collar, a woman who had loved clothes and made an effort to always look her best. But somewhere, somehow, the two women, as different as they were, had had the bad luck to attract the attention of the same man. But where, and how?