Deke pulled his phone from his back pocket and scrolled to Dixie’s driver’s license picture. He held it up and watched as Rehnquist studied the picture, frowned and raised an eyebrow as if seeing the face for the first time. With the authority of a practiced liar said, “I do not know her.”
“That so?” Deke didn’t like games, but if Rehnquist wanted to play, he’d oblige. He casually scrolled to the brutally disfigured image taken in the medical examiner’s office and held it close to his vest like a gambler with a winning card. “How did you know her?”
“I just said I didn’t.”
“Did you know this gal?” Deke turned his phone around.
Rehnquist looked at the picture, paled, and turned away. “Jesus.”
“Not nice, is it? Someone wanted to erase Dixie’s identity.”
Rehnquist slid his hands into his pockets. “I didn’t do that to her.”
“Did you know her? And please do not lie to me again. I’m working on no sleep and as my partner will tell you, I’m difficult when I’m sleep-deprived.”
He swallowed as if bile rose up his throat. “Okay, I did know her. We met at a party.”
Reaching the truth one baby step at a time. “What can you tell me about her?”
“Not much. Other than she was pretty. I remember she wore red.”
Another lie. Another giant step back. “Why was she calling you?”
“She was ambitious. She had talent and she had drive. I admired both. I see talent. I see drive. I don’t always see both together.”
“So your relationship was strictly professional?”
“Absolutely.”
KC arched his shoulders as if he’d awoken from a long slumber. “You weren’t sleeping with her? Because I can tell you, if she made an offer to me, I’d be hard-pressed to say no.”
Color rose up in Rehnquist’s face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
KC laughed as if chatting at the hunting lodge with an old friend. “You were sleeping with her. I hear it in your high and defensive voice.” He looked at Deke. “But I’ll give him credit; that hint of outrage and shock was a nice touch.”
Deke folded his arms and studied Rehnquist. “Never sells me on a lie.”
“Really?” KC shook his head. “There was a time I’d have fallen for it but not anymore.”
Deke met the man’s gaze. “You lying about sleeping with Dixie Simmons?”
“Maybe I better call my lawyer.” Rehnquist moved toward his desk and reached for the sleek black phone. “I don’t have any more to say.”
“Shit,” KC said. “I hate it when I ask a simple question and I get attitude. Hell, it’s a simple yes or no question.”
Rehnquist tapped an agitated finger on his desk. “You two are trying to trap me.”
“So you didn’t sleep with her or you didn’t kill her?” Deke asked.
“Neither!”
Every bit of Deke demanded he haul the guy to jail, but he’d play one more round. “Frankly, I don’t care who you sleep with, Mr. Rehnquist. I don’t. I’ve no interest in telling your wife or your girlfriend or whomever that you and Dixie were sleeping together.” That wasn’t totally true. He’d do both if it meant solving the case. “But I need to have the basics of Dixie’s life so I can find her killer.”
“If you are hiding an affair, what else are you hiding?” KC asked.
Beads of sweat plastered wisps of blond hair to his tanned forehead. “I never said I was hiding an affair.”
KC hooked his thumbs behind his thick brown belt. “One lie always makes me wonder what else they are hiding. I suppose now we’ll be getting a search warrant for his office, house, and even his car.”
Deke’s gaze bore into Rehnquist. “Imagine what we will find when we search his residence.”
Rehnquist fisted his fingers as his face flushed. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise,” Deke said. “I’m willing to work with you on keeping your secrets as long as you work with me. But if you keep pushing, we’ll take this all up to the next level. Won’t be pretty or easy, and I’d just as soon not have to fuss. But I’ll do it.”
Rehnquist drummed his fingers on the phone’s receiver and then curled them into a tight fist before drawing back. “I’d been sleeping with Dixie for about two months. We had no formal arrangement but we met for sex often. She was one of those gals who was fun to hook up with initially but she had a lot of emotional stuff that was tiring. She craved attention. It’s what made her good on stage. She all but fed off the energy of the crowd and when she was jazzed she was hot in bed. But after a while her neediness had me avoiding her calls.”
“Then in the last ten days?”
“I finally took her call a couple of days ago because she threatened to show up at the office and strip off all her clothes.”
KC arched a brow as if the image flickered across his mind.
“I can’t have that kind of bad publicity. We are like a lot of businesses these days. We’re struggling and can’t afford any trouble. I took her call and talked to her and told her what she wanted to hear.”
“What did she want to hear?”
He sighed. “The usual. She was pretty. She was smart and I was hot for her. The same kind of crap chicks eat up.”
KC scribbled notes. “When is the last time you saw her?”
“Two weeks ago. And that is the truth. We did talk on the phone but I haven’t seen her since September.”
Deke held up the mangled image of Dixie. “Who would do this to her?”
Rehnquist’s gaze skirted away as if running to hide. “Holy shit. Don’t show that to me again. I don’t know who would do that to her. Shit!”
Torn flesh and blood quickly grew grotesque when the heart stopped pumping blood and life. “The person who did this was angry.”
“Detective Morgan is right.” KC pulled gum from his pocket and slowly unwrapped it. “Dixie’s killer wasn’t satisfied with killing her. He went out of his way to strip away all her beauty and humanity.”
Rehnquist moistened his lips as if struggling to keep his stomach from upending. “I could never have done that to her.”
He’d seen killers get sick at the sight of their work. In the heat of murder, the brain’s morality values clicked off and urges turned primal and animalistic. After the fact, when the adrenaline cleared and conscious thought returned, regret and disgust reappeared. “You sure about that?”
Rehnquist’s eyes widened as he shook his head. “I’m no saint, Detective. No saint at all, but I never would have done that to Dixie. For Christ’s sake we were lovers.”
And lovers killed lovers all the time. “Are you married?”
His spine stiffened. “Yes.”
“Did your wife know about Dixie?” KC asked.
“No! I’m careful to leave the office behind me.”
“Whoever killed Dixie was angry. Very angry. Could have been the work of a jealous woman.”
“Judi is a gentle soft soul. She’d never hurt anyone.” He hesitated. “Once she did find evidence of my playtime. She confronted me, but she was rational and calm.”
“Maybe she ran out of calm,” Deke said. “We all have violence in us, it’s just a matter of dialing up the right combination.”