Kisscut (32 page)

"You posed for more pictures?" Jeffrey asked, wondering at anyone who could be so stupid. Or, maybe he wasn't stupid, maybe he enjoyed it.

Fine nodded. "I didn't want to. She…"-he looked for the right word-"she liked to humiliate people. She got something out of that."

"How did she humiliate you?"

"She knew I didn't like boys, and she made me do things."

"Things with Mark Patterson?"

He gave a tight nod, and for the first time, he actually showed shame. "What Jenny and I had was… special. I know you don't understand that, but there was something between us. Something that bonded us." He put his hand over his eyes. "She was my first. I loved her so much."

Jeffrey cut him off. "Shut up about that part of it, Dave, or I swear to God I'll beat the ever loving shit out of you."

Fine looked up, and he seemed hurt that they did not understand.

Jeffrey said, "Why did you stop? With Jenny, I mean. What stopped the sexual contact?"

"She rejected me," he told them, tears welling into his eyes. "She said she didn't want anything more to do with me." He sniffed loudly. "After the pictures… I don't know. It was as if Dottie was proving something to Jenny, my showing up that night."

"Proving you were all alike," Jeffrey provided, thinking this was just the kind of thing a woman like Dottie Weaver would do.

"That's not true," Fine insisted. "I loved Jenny. I cared about her deeply."

"That's why you tried to visit her after the church retreat?"

"She looked sick," Fine told them. "I didn't know what was wrong with her and Dottie wouldn't let me near her. I even posed for more of her pictures just to get into the house, just to see if Jenny was all right, but Grace kept her at the trailer when I was there."

Jeffrey clenched his teeth together knowing Fine had willingly gone to Dottie's so he could molest more children. The fact that Fine truly believed he loved Jenny Weaver was just as obvious as the fact that there was something seriously wrong with his mind.

Nick asked, "What about Grace Patterson? What was her involvement in this?"

Fine scowled at the name. "She was worse than Dottie. She was disgusting."

"How so?"

"The things she came up with," he said, his voice coarse. "May she rot in hell for her sins."

Jeffrey did not point out the obvious. "Dottie and Grace were together on this?"

He nodded. "Grace directed most of the photo shoots. Dottie took care of the business end of things." He waited a beat. "All the poses were Grace's idea. She liked to get in on them, touch some of the children. The more sadistic it could be the better."

"Dottie never did this, too?"

"She knew how to make the ones that looked real. The romantic ones. Dottie worked the softer stuff and Grace worked the hard core." He licked his lips nervously, as if by default the women were more guilty than he was. "They knew each other from way back."

"They told you this?"

"No," he said. "Jenny did. Jenny said that she and her mother moved around a lot. Wherever they went, Grace would visit them at least once a month."

Jeffrey asked, "What about Teddy Patterson?"

Fine shook his head. "He would have killed us all if he had known."

Nick showed his surprise. "He didn't know?"

"Of course not" Fine snapped. "We never did anything unless he was out of town on business. He drove a truck."

Nick sounded as skeptical as Jeffrey felt. "He never delivered any of the magazines?"

"Grace kept him out of it," Fine said. "He wasn't that kind of man."

"What kind of man is that?" Nick asked.

Fine stared at the Bible again. "A man like me, I guess. A man who would be with children."

"A man who would hurt children," Nick corrected.

"I didn't hurt her."

"You didn't?" Jeffrey asked, leaning across the table. "You wanna tell me how a thirteen-year-old girl gets a pelvic fracture?"

"There were other men she was with," Fine countered, yet he did not seem surprised by the information.

"Other men who weren't gentle like you?" Jeffrey goaded.

"It wasn't like that."

"Really?" Jeffrey said, incredulous. "How big are you, Dave? You want me to look up in Jenny's autopsy records how much smaller she is than you?"

Fine cleared his throat, but he did not answer. He took the Bible off the table and held it to his chest. Jeffrey stared at the man, thinking there was something he was missing. He saw it then-the wedding ring on Dave's left hand. His mind flashed on the image he had seen earlier in the maga-zine: the hand firmly behind Jenny Weaver's head, pushing her down so that she gagged on him.

"You son of a bitch," Jeffrey said, lunging across the table. His knee caught the edge, but he didn't care as his hands wrapped around the Bible.

"Jeffrey," Nick yelled, halfheartedly trying to pull Jeffrey back.

Jeffrey let the anger take hold of him, saying, "You sick son of a bitch," as he ripped the Bible from the preacher's hands. Fine had been holding on so tightly that he fell back in his chair. "I saw the pictures, asshole. I saw what you did to her. I saw how you raped her."

Jeffrey stood, looking at him over the table. "You don't deserve this," he said, indicating the Book. "What you did to those kids… what you did to her…"

"It was just Jenny," Fine insisted, sitting up.

Jeffrey started to go around the table, then stopped himself, thinking Fine wasn't worth it.

Fine repeated, "It was just Jenny."

"You left your fucking wedding ring on in those pictures," Jeffrey told him, putting the Bible down. "I saw it in at least ten different pictures with ten different kids." He walked around the table, groaning at the pain in his knee. "You fucking idiot."

"You can't talk to me that way," Fine snapped.

Jeffrey grabbed his arm, yanking him up off the floor. "You'd better be glad I'm talking and not beating the shit out of you."

"This is police brutality," Fine said, brushing off his pants. "I want a lawyer."

Jeffrey said, "Buddy Conford wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole."

"I've got someone else," Dave said, tucking his shirt into his pants. "Someone from Atlanta."

Nick provided, "Someone who defends perverts like him all the time. Probably takes his fee in pictures."

Fine smiled, and for the first time, he appeared to be on the outside what he was on the inside. "Or little girls."

Jeffrey felt his shoulders tighten, and the animal desire to rip Fine's throat out was only quelled by the possibility that Fine knew more than he was saying.

"You're going to jail," Jeffrey told the preacher. "You know what they do to people like you in jail?"

"Right," Fine said. "I watch television. I know you're just talking crap."

"Crap?" Nick said. "You mean that bloody stuff you're gonna find in your underwear every morning?"

Fine had the gall to look smug. "I don't think I'm going to jail."

Nick asked, "What makes you think that?"

"I've got a bargaining chip," Fine said, smiling.

"What bargaining chip," Jeffrey shot back, trying not to sound eager. If Fine thought he had power here he would never tell them what he knew.

"Let's just wait for my lawyer to get here," Fine said, holding out his hands to be cuffed. "I don't have anything to say without my lawyer."

"Think about that in general lockup," Jeffrey said, pulling out his handcuffs.

"Goodness me," Nick breathed. "General lockup."

"What's that?" Fine asked, something close to panic in his voice.

Jeffrey tightened the cuffs on Fine's wrists. "Just jail."

"Funny thing about jail, though," Nick began. "Lots of fellas in there had someone just like you in their lives when they were growing up."

Fine turned around. "What does that mean?"

Jeffrey smiled, turning Fine toward the door. "Means while you're waiting for your fancy lawyer to drive here all the way from Atlanta, you'll have plenty of time to explain to your fellow inmates how it's all about love."

"Wait a minute." Fine stood where he was, even as Jeffrey tried to push him. "I'll have my own cell," he said as if he was certain this would happen.

"No you won't, you sick fuck," Jeffrey said, pushing him so hard that Nick had to catch him before he fell.

"It's the law," Fine insisted. "You can't put me in with other inmates."

"I can do whatever I want," Jeffrey told him.

"Wait a minute," Fine repeated, his voice shrill and panicked. "You can't do that."

"Why not?" Jeffrey asked, grabbing the preacher by the collar and forcing him out of the room.

"No," Fine said, reaching for the door but missing. His fingernails trailed across the wood as he grabbed for anything to hold on to.

"You got something to tell me, Dave?" Jeffrey asked, pushing him down the hall.

"Help me," Fine said, reaching for a patrolman who happened to be coming out of the bathroom. The cop looked at Fine, then Jeffrey, then walked on as if he hadn't seen anything.

"Move," Jeffrey said, still holding him up by his collar.

"Somebody help me!" Fine screamed, bending his knees until he was on the floor. Jeffrey still dragged him down the hallway by his shirt collar.

"Help!" Fine screamed.

"Help you like you helped Jenny?" Nick asked, walking beside him. "Help you like you're helping Lacey?"

"I don't know where she is!" Fine screamed, putting his hands on the floor to give more resistance.

Jeffrey saw Maria stick her head around the corner. She looked at Fine, then turned back around.

"Help me!" Fine cried, his voice hoarse from the effort. "Oh, Lord, please help me."

Jeffrey's hand was cramping. He let go, and Fine dropped to the floor, sobbing. "Oh, Lord, please deliver me from these men," he prayed.

Nick bent down in front of him. "The Lord helps those who help themselves," he suggested.

"But you can keep on praying, Dave," Jeffrey told him. "You can pray the papers don't print how you died from having your asshole ripped open."

Nick put his hand on Fine's shoulder. "Hate to have your wife and kids read about that, Dave. It's a bad way to have to go."

Fine looked up, tears streaming down his face. "Okay," he said. "Okay, okay."

"Okay what?" Jeffrey asked.

"Okay," he repeated. "I might know where she is."

Jeffrey drove while Nick sat in the back seat alongside Fine. Behind them, an unmarked car with four GBI officers drove at a safe distance.

"You better not be fucking with us, Dave," Jeffrey said, making a right turn to circle the block for the third time.

"I told you I'm not sure what the address is," Fine insisted. "Dottie only took me here once."

"What'd she take you here for?" Nick asked.

"Nothing," he mumbled, looking out the window.

Jeffrey looked at him in the rearview mirror. "This better not be just you postponing the inevitable."

"I'm not, okay?" Fine snapped. "I told you this was where she did some business."

"What kind of business?" Jeffrey asked.

Fine looked like he wasn't going to answer, but for some reason he did. Jeffrey liked to think it was guilt that made Fine tell them things, but he had been a cop long enough to know it was plain and simple stupidity.

Fine said, "This guy, he keeps kids here sometimes."

"You sure it's just him alone there?" Jeffrey asked.

"Yes," Fine insisted. "It's mostly used as a safe house."

"Safe for who?" Nick asked.

"Who do you think?" Fine snapped. "He keeps pictures mostly, but a couple of times I saw some kids and a couple of cameras."

"And out of the goodness of your heart you reported him to the police," Nick suggested.

Fine stared out the window, probably feeling sorry for himself. They had spent an hour driving to Macon, then another two hours driving around different subdivisions looking for this house that Dave Fine said he would recognize only by sight. Jeffrey looked in the rearview mirror, wondering how much longer they had before somebody called the Macon cops about two suspicious-looking cars in the neighborhood.

They were on tricky ground here. Technically, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had jurisdiction over the state, but as a courtesy, they should have notified the Macon Police Department that they were conducting surveillance on their turf. As Jeffrey and Nick weren't even sure Dave Fine had ever been here, let alone whether or not Lacey Patterson was being held in Macon, there wasn't much they could tell the Macon Police Department. They couldn't get a warrant without a street address, but Nick was counting on im-minent jeopardy to cut through that red tape. They could always say later that they saw something suspicious in the house. With a child involved, and time being of the essence, neither one of them was worried about getting slapped on the wrist for this.

"Turn here," Fine said. "Left up here. This street looks familiar."

Jeffrey did as he was told, thinking it was pointless because they'd already been down this road.

"Then up here on the right," Fine told him, excitement in his voice.

Jeffrey took the right, going down a new street. He exchanged a look with Nick.

"There it is," Fine told them. "It's the one on the right with the gate."

Jeffrey didn't slow the car, but he had enough time to see that all the windows had the blinds drawn. The outside security lights were also on even though it was the middle of the day. The gate had a large padlock on it. Whether or not this was to keep people out or keep them in remained to be seen.

Jeffrey stopped the car at the end of the street and waited for the other car to catch up with them. He could hear cars from the interstate, which was less than thirty feet from where they had parked. Jeffrey guessed the people who lived around here got used to the noise, but right now, every car was like fingernails against a blackboard.

Agent Wallace got out of the car, leaving two men and one woman inside. He adjusted his belt, even though he was wearing a shoulder harness. He was a beefy young guy who worked out enough to make the material around the short sleeves of his shirt look about ready to break. His cheeks were so close-shaven that Jeffrey could almost make out the razor marks.