Free Malevolent by David Searls Page B

sides.
    He sighed. Last chance to turn back. “The police aren’t real sure there was a crime committed. Witness statements and hospital reports aren’t in line with what she’s saying.”
    There. He’d just aligned himself with a rape suspect with a penchant for lying. The proverbial person of interest . While his mind gnawed at the ramifications from every nasty angle, the four young people filed silently out of the curtained room and slid a DVD case and a membership card toward the cash register.
    Tim caught a look from one of the girls, a slim brunette in college sweatshirt and shorts. What’re you doing in a place like this? the look said. Tim smiled and she broke eye contact. The girl’s upper lip turned up slightly in an unconscious gesture of distaste.
    His cue to leave.
     
     
    One more stop before home. It was already too late in the evening—too early in the morning, actually—to avoid the wrath of Patty, so no reason not to postpone the inevitable.
    Yellow light glowed dimly through the small window next to the front door. The knob turned easily. His tentative footsteps echoed sharply in the silence. Like churches everywhere, its interior held the smoky spice ambience of incense and the varnished wood scent of solid age.
    He stepped through the wide doorway to the left of the vestibule and lowered himself into a hardwood pew that groaned invitingly under his weight.
    He’d gone a handful of times to Catholic mass with Patty and her family and had marveled at the medieval humiliation of its kneelers. There were none of those devices in this church, no need to prostrate himself before any god. In fact, Tim found that he could easily immerse himself in the Utica Lane Church of Redemption without a moment’s belief in the ancient religion for which it stood.
    He sat inhaling the secure solitude while the minutes ticked like the plumbing.

Chapter Twelve
    “What do you mean, you were at church?” she asked him quietly.
    He let his clothing drop to a pile in the middle of the floor, as usual. Somehow that pile would magically disappear in the morning. Clad only in boxer shorts, he slipped between the sheets and said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
    “At church,” she repeated, prodding him with his initial statement. Perhaps he’d care to amend it.
    As Tim turned away, she saw a hint of dawn creeping through the window glass beyond him. “What did you really do, Tim?”
    She could hear him breathing, could almost hear him contemplating more lies.
    “I was at Charlotte’s, of course. Come on, Patty. You know that.”
    She waited for more, but got only the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing. If she didn’t press on, he’d soon be asleep. “I won’t have you lying to me again,” she said, voice firm but even. Tough, but fair.
    She felt him burrowing in deeper. As if from the bowels of a cave, he said, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s too late to fight.”
    Yes, it was rapidly getting too late. The fact screamed at her that there wasn’t a single point where their bodies joined on the mattress. Patty tried to recall the last time they’d made love. Not that she’d been missing it lately. But for the record, it had probably been a week ago Saturday. She’d stopped in at the Beer Belly while he worked and the free beer had induced a little artificial heat in both of them. Or maybe, she thought bitterly, the turn-on had been a result of catching him in a rare act of moneymaking.
    “Did you hear me, Tim? I won’t go through it again. I just won’t.”
    He bounced an arm off the mattress. “Patty, I’m not seeing anyone. I told you. I went to that little church on Utica Lane after work. I stopped in because I wasn’t sleepy yet and it was about the only place in town still open. I sat there for awhile and dozed off. End of story.”
    And an odd story it was.
    Patty quietly sniffed the air and came up with beer, perfume and even a trace of smoke, despite the fact