Free The Dog Killer of Utica by Frank Lentricchia

and I meet to put our heads together as an investigating team and not necessarily for any other reason.” It flashes through Conte’s desperate mind that she could have proposed that they meet at The Florentine or The Chesterfield, they didn’t have to meet here, unless … so why would she need to meet here in order to team up with me? …
    “Even though,” she says, “we have no evidence, we assume with confidence,” following her into the bedroom, “that the shooter who tried to kill Bobby and the one who killed the dog are one and the same person.”
    In the bedroom, tight quarters, watching her take off her clothes, he says, “Your theory of the case”—panties and bra, God let her change those too—athletically fit, beautiful by anyone’s definition—“sure, it’s a good theory, Catherine, of course it is, probably it’ll turn out to be the correct theory, I’d bet on it, sure, please take your panties off now.”
    “No.”
    From behind her, slips his hand inside the front of her panties. She freezes. She leans back into him.
    “Nevertheless, Catherine, where’s the hard evidence, putting this aside,” touching his crotch.
    She removes his moistened hand.
    “Don is driving me down to Troy to talk to the lead detective on the case and—”
    “Don off today?”
    “No, but the all-too-kind Chief tells him he sympathizes how our feelings for Bobby—”
    “All-too-kind.”
    “He tells Don do whatever to help.”
    Conte asks her in what sense they’re a team, because what can he do, really, aside from “taking photos of cheating spouses in flagrante? A guy going down on his wife’s best friend. For example.”
    Pulling on her form-fitting black leather pants, smoothing, stroking the wrinkles on her thigh, she says, “Let me elaborate the theory you’re so high on.”
    “Hard on.”
    “Forget it, Eliot. The shootings. In Troy. They’re tied to the murder of the Mafia hitter you described yesterday. I don’t know how they’re tied, but when I return tonight we’re going over your story with a fine-tooth comb because—”
    “Go over my story? My
story
? As if I’m a suspect of some kind?”
    “As if you’re a suspect of some kind. Yes.”
    “How nice, Catherine. In the meanwhile, Don is out there waiting and we could—”
    Her blouse yet unbuttoned, small firm breasts big enough to (not quite) fit in your mouth, she says, “No. I’d like to, more than you might guess. No.”
    At the door, he stops her with, “What did you mean by ‘not necessarily’?”
    “Huh? What?”
    “You said, ‘not necessarily for any other reason.’ Not necessarily means something else is not out of the question, doesn’t it?”
    “Forget the words, Eliot. You think too much about words. Because this is not about reading Melville. Even less about us having sex. This is about grooves and striations on bullets. This is about latent prints and indentations on shell casings. Think about a partial plate I.D. that places the vehicle in question maybe in Utica. These are the necessary things. Not us. Maybe never us.”
    He watches her go down the steps to the Wrangler, get in, do a fist bump with Belmonte, as Angel Moreno comes into view carrying a shovel to Conte’s driveway. The crews had been at it all night and all day. The streets are in decent shape, the temperature at midafternoon has risen to the midforties and the worst December storm in fifty years is in retreat. The forecast for tomorrow: low sixties. Soon, the worst slush in fifty years. The promise of springlike weather triggers Conte’s desire for his vegetable garden, buried under twenty-seven inches of snow.
    Cruz and Belmont drive off down Wetmore. She doesn’t look back—not even a wave. Conte goes out to Angel who tells him he’ll dig out his car, because “Jefe needs wheels in his loneliness” and Conte replies, “If you wish, Angel, but I won’t need my car. I’m taking a long walk alone. Alone is not the same as lonely,