Free Reunion by Sharon Sala Page A

breaking heart sounded when it finally gave way.

Five
    A summer day in Oklahoma after a night of rain was nothing short of pure misery. The humidity was off the scale and did nothing for hairdos and clothes but cause them to wilt, except for the unfortunate few who had the kind of hair that went into a revolt, curling into unbelievable tangles and snarls.
    Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Kirby Summers suffered neither of the problems with regards to his hair. It was too sparse and straight to go limp or tangle. However, the same couldn’t be said of his suit. It was too hot for the weather. Right now, he would have willingly traded it for a pair of cutoffs and his favorite T-shirt—the old ragged one that had once been black but was now faded to a sick, foggy gray. Most of the Grateful Dead’s logo had long since washed away, but the memories that came with it were still firm in his mind. He’d lost his virginity wearing that shirt.
    As he turned onto Sooner Road and headed toward the crime scene, he thought of that shirt and grinned. He would always have a fondness for women named Shirley.
    As for his suit, it clung persistently to his skin, outlining all too vividly his lack of bulk. Kirby Summers wasn’t slim. He was out-and-out skinny. His balding head and high, wide forehead gave him a Tweety Bird look to which he’d long been resigned. At first glance, he was the epitome of a nerd, until you looked in his eyes. They were a soft, chocolate brown, sharp with intelligence, sparkling with wit. The true measure of the man.
    He pulled into Johnson Park. When he killed the engine, his expression was somewhere between pissed and resigned. Pissed because his vacation had been canceled, and resigned because it was part of his job. As he got out of his car and began walking toward the investigation in progress at the back of the park, he couldn’t help thinking that, but for the warped brain of some serial killer who’d decided to run amok, he would be in the Colorado Mountains right now, enjoying cool breezes and lots of fishing.
    He’d planned this vacation for more than three years, envisioning himself coming back with a trophy fish. His buddies had kidded him, saying he was leaving the city just to get himself laid. Kirby had let most of their crap slide off his shoulders, not because he was averse to arguing, but because it was too close to the truth to ignore. He stepped aside to avoid a large pile of dog poop and found himself shoe-deep in mud.
    “Shit,” he muttered, and then grinned at his own wit. Yes, it was shit. Shit on the ground. Shit that his vacation had been canceled. Then he remembered why he was here and sighed. And serious shit for the man who’d been murdered.
    He flashed his badge at a uniformed officer standing beside the crime scene tape that had been strung about the area. When the officer lifted the tape, Kirby ducked and passed under.
    “Morning, sir,” the cop said.
    Kirby nodded and kept on walking, keeping a careful eye out for further mud and shit.
    The medical examiner was in the midst of his examination when a uniformed officer nudged Detective Ray Bush’s elbow.
    “Hey, Bush. Isn’t that Kirby Summers?”
    Relief settled on Ray Bush’s shoulders as he looked up. He’d been expecting the OSBI agent all morning. As a homicide detective for the Oklahoma City Police Department, Bush had been assigned to a case a few days ago involving a murdered prostitute. Being a Reno Street hooker was not an occupation that lent itself to old age, and the fact that the woman had turned up dead was tragic, but not necessarily out of the ordinary. The only thing unusual about the crime scene had been a long-stemmed rose left on her body. The fact that the thorns were missing had been odd, but not anything remarkable.
    And that had been the general consensus until this morning, when a second body had turned up with a similar signature. Another dead body with another thornless,