Free Sixkill by Robert B. Parker Page A

wait for that, Z. The girls in my sorority used to call me Sister Squaw. They were jealous. Now they won't call me that. But they'll laugh behind my back. Last year's homecoming queen. This year's joke."
    "You don't love me," Zebulon said.
    Lucy looked at him silently for a moment. She seemed as if she might cry. But she didn't.
    Instead, she said, "Not enough."

22

    I WAS WITH Z. We were confronting the heavy bag in Henry Cimoli's boxing room. Both of us wore light speed-bag gloves.
    "You're hitting it with your arms," I said.
    He was stripped to the waist, the sweat glistening on his body.
    "You get your power from your legs," I said, "and from your stomach and waist. Watch me. . . . You keep him off you with a left jab, say."
    I demonstrated.
    "Then, I'm exaggerating the movement and slowing it down so you can see it . . . In a crouch, like so, feet solid under you, and you lead with your right hip a little, that twists your body a little at the waist, and you torque the right cross around behind the hip, as your body unwinds, and all of you, once you got it mastered, explodes into the punch."
    I hit the bag, very hard. Z nodded.
    "If I can remember," he said.
    "You don't remember," I said. "You do it until it becomes muscle memory. Like riding a bicycle."
    "Crees don't ride bicycles," he said, and went into his boxing stance. He put a sharp jab on the bag that made it jump, then led a bit too much with his right hip and delivered a right cross, hard into the heavy bag.
    "Good," I said. "Coupla thousand more reps, it'll be as natural as breathing."
    "Almost there," Z said, and hit the bag again.
    "Gimme ten more," I said.
    Which he did. When he stopped, he was puffing but not a lot. I nodded at the stool near the ring, and Z went and sat.
    "You doing your intervals?" I said.
    "Four times a week," he said.
    "How's that going?"
    "I'm up to fifteen intervals," he said.
    "We can do some intervals on the heavy bag, too," I said.
    "Hit it fast and slow?" Z said.
    "There's a couple of approaches," I said. "You been spending time with Henry?"
    "Yeah."
    "Can't hurt," I said.
    "Not drinking much, either," Z said.
    "No harm to that," I said.

23

    DAWN'S FRIEND CHRISTINE gave me the names of several men who had dated Dawn. The first two I talked with said they'd been out with her only once. One of them said she was too needy. The other one said she was kind of boring. Neither seemed eager to be associated with a murder inquiry. The third dater's name was Marc Perry. I met him on a construction site, where he was working as a carpenter. He had dated her in high school, and he was more interesting.
    "You been doing this since high school?" I said.
    "Naw, went to Brown," he said.
    "Graduate?" I said.
    "BA in psych," he said. "Maybe I'll go to grad school in a while, I don't know. At the moment, I'm sort of looking around, and while I'm looking around, I kind of like this work."
    "Yeah," I said. "I would, too. Tell me about Dawn Lopata."
    "That guy really kill her?" he said.
    "Something did, don't know if it was him," I said.
    "Too bad," he said. "She was an okay kid."
    "You liked her?"
    "Sure," Perry said.
    "One of the other guys I talked with said she was needy," I said.
    "Yeah," Perry said. "Yeah, I guess she probably was."
    "How so?" I said.
    "You know, she was always afraid she didn't measure up. Like she always seemed worried that you were just there to bang her."
    "She was sexually available?"
    "Aren't they all."
    "I've always hoped so," I said. "Passive or aggressive?"
    "Hey," he said. "Were you a psych major, too?"
    "I'm best friends with one," I said. "Was she one of those women who sort of submit, or did she seek?"
    "Funny thing is," he said, "she was both. She seemed eager, and she was very interested in whatever sexual contrivance you could, ah, come up with."
    "Positions?" I said. "Sex aids?"
    "Yeah, whatever you might know that she hadn't tried."
    "And the passive part?" I said.
    "Once you were, like, in the saddle, or