Chapter 11 #2
He grinned. “Yeah, we can afford it. Though the baby might have to go to a state school instead of the Ivy Leagues.”
I laughed and felt the relief travel through me. “I guess it worked out okay for the two of us.” Then I paused and said, “But seriously. I am not having anything to do with weddings. I’ll take the dead and the grieving all day long. Keep those people out of my funeral home.”
Jack laughed and pulled out his phone. “I’ll call the Realtor and get the ball rolling. I’ll get her to open it up for us so you can go through and get an idea of what you need.”
“After doing that autopsy yesterday, what I need is ventilation and drains.”
“Good thing you married me for my money,” Jack said.
“Don’t forget the sex.”
Sheri Downs lived in the Boleyn Court condos on the Towne Square, which put her about a two-minute walk from the sheriff’s office. Jack parked in his designated spot and we crossed the square on foot.
It was already busy for a July morning—courthouse workers cutting across the grass, a line out the door of Lady Jane’s, a couple of attorneys in suits walking fast with coffee cups.
The courthouse itself rose up in the center of everything, three stories of carved Gothic stone gone dark with age, gargoyles crouched at every corner like they were waiting for something to go wrong.
Jack nodded at a deputy he knew on the steps without breaking stride.
Boleyn Court Condos occupied the corner above Lady Jane’s—dark timber framing against cream stucco, steeply pitched rooflines, leaded glass in the upper windows.
Tudor in style. The residential entrance was around back through a gated courtyard.
A woman in scrubs was on her way out and held the gate without being asked.
The courtyard was small and tidy, red geraniums going leggy in the July heat.
A gray cat sat on the second stair and didn’t move when we came through.
We went up to the second floor and rang the bell. The cat had followed us and sat on the banister, its yellow eyes focused on Jack.
“Creepy,” I said and the cat hissed and ran away.
The door opened and a good-looking man in his mid-thirties answered. He had the muscles of a bodybuilder and he’d managed to shove them into a dress shirt and gray slacks.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Jack showed his badge. “I’m Sheriff Lawson and this is Dr. Graves. We’re looking for Sheri Downs. Is she here?”
“Sure,” the guy said. “She’s getting ready to go to work. Come on in. Is everything okay? No one died, did they? Do I need to call into work?”
“No, nothing like that,” Jack said. “We’re working another case and just need to ask some questions.”
“Oh,” he said, and then yelled, “Sheri, there are cops here to see you.”
“What?” a woman’s voice called out from somewhere in the back. Then it came closer. “Did you say cops?”
Sheri Downs appeared in the doorway of the bedroom dressed in black leggings and a sports bra. She had the defined musculature of someone who was doing significantly more than Pilates.
She also fit the profile of Wade’s love interests. Long dark hair that came to mid-waist, framing a heart-shaped face. Dark, hooded eyes and full lips.
“What’s going on?” she asked. Then she gasped. “Did someone die? Is my dad okay?”
“Your dad is fine,” Jack reassured her. “We’re here about Wade Rivers.”
“Oh,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Did he get arrested for being a creep? He deserves whatever he gets.”
“He was murdered,” Jack said.
She stared at him in shock and then blew out a breath. “Well, I can’t say I’m sorry.”
“Geez, Sheri,” the guy said. “The guy is dead.”
“I’m not going to be a hypocrite. He was a horrible human being. When you live the kind of life he did and piss the wrong people off, sometimes these things happen. I’m just saying I’m not surprised he’s dead.”
“That’s what we want to talk to you about,” Jack said.
“Sure, but I’ve got to leave for work soon,” she said. “Just so you know.”
“Do you need me to stay?” the guy asked. Then he turned to us. “Sorry, I’m Dean Hasker. Sheri’s boyfriend.”
“No,” she said. “You’ve got a meeting, and I’m sure this won’t take long. I haven’t seen Wade in over a year.”
Dean kissed her goodbye and left the condo.
“Have a seat,” she said. “Like I said, I’ve got clients soon so I can’t stay long.”
“Are you still teaching Pilates?” I asked.
“No, I’m doing personal training,” she said. “It’s what I really love, and Titan Fitness lets me train and have as many clients as I want through their membership program.”
“That’s a great gym,” Jack said, taking a seat on the couch. “Within walking distance from here.”
“Another reason I love it.” She sat in the chair across from us. “So what do you need from me?”
“Tell us about your relationship with Wade,” Jack said.
“We dated for a couple of months about a year ago.” She paused, seeming to weigh how much to say.
“He was charming. Polite. Drop-dead sexy. He made me feel like the most interesting person in the room. He’d find reasons to work alongside me, stay late, talk shop after everyone had gone home.
He remembered things I mentioned in passing and brought them back up days later.
It felt like being seen by someone who really paid attention.
Opened doors for me, never looked at his phone while we were talking.
The chemistry was off the charts. Just being in the same space with him made it hard to suck in oxygen, and the flirting got more intense.
He made me feel important. That alone was enough for me to be interested.
Men don’t really do those things anymore. ”
She toyed with the ends of her hair. “Then he asked me to dinner. Came here to pick me up. I’d bought a new dress, and was already thinking about what a future would look like.
” Her smile was sad. “He knocked on the door, and as soon as I opened it I had a brief thought that things could go bad. But I ignored the thought. We never made it to dinner. We didn’t surface for two days.
“Once sex was introduced to the equation things accelerated quickly. It was a haze of lust. That’s really the only way to describe it.
He was insatiable. Like three or four times a day.
It had a compulsive quality, like he had to have sex like he had to breathe.
There was a darkness underneath it that I kept telling myself was passion.
” She shook her head. “Then I started questioning myself, wondering if I was enough for him. Wondering if I satisfied him or pleased him in bed. I was a mess by the end of it.”
“Did you know he was using steroids?” I asked.
“I figured it out before too long,” she said.
“He was a fanatic about his body. Totally obsessed with how he looked. I figured that was contributing to his sex drive. I asked him why he was taking them and he didn’t deny it.
He told me he’d been in some kind of accident and his muscles had atrophied, so he’d been taking them to help build them back. ”
“You know where he got it?” he asked.