Mr. And Mrs. Wrong

He held her for a long time, until her tears ceased and her breathing began to slow. Quietly he eased from the bed, but she stirred at his movement.

“Don’t leave yet,” she said without opening her eyes, her voice sleepy.

“I’m only going to clean up.” He patted her gently. “Don’t you need to?”

She yawned. “In a minute.”

Padding to the bathroom, he flipped on the light, grabbed a towel and headed for the bathtub.

“Wait, Jack, no!”

Lucky’s panicked cry reached him at the precise moment he pulled aside the shower curtain and saw movement below.

CHAPTER TWO

IN THE GRAY of early morning, cops and firefighters wearing protective gloves searched the railroad tracks, their yellow slickers like strokes of paint on a neutral canvas.

Lucky checked her light meter, then framed a test shot in the viewfinder. She’d lose the effect of the slickers with the black-and-white film, but the rescue workers seemed ghostlike in the mist and that, along with the overcast sky, helped convey the somber tone. The composition suggested the horror of the officers’ assignment without actually showing it.

But she didn’t have the right perspective yet. She slid carefully down the steep grade of the track to where she, police and fire personnel had parked.

With the permission of the fire chief, she climbed on top of one of the pumper trucks and reevaluated the scene. From this slight overhead angle, she could include more of the track. She could also sneak a contributor to the tragedy—the Top Hat Gentlemen’s Club—into the bottom right corner of the frame.

Despite the fancy name, “The Hat,” as it was more commonly known, was little more than a shack; it owed its popularity to the two-dollar drinks served from midnight to closing and a waitress named Ginger. She’d posed for Playboy ten years ago, but her chest still had its fans.

The victim had apparently left the club drunk last night, decided to walk rather than drive, but passed out on the tracks, instead. The three-o’clock freight express to Birmingham had ended his life. Lucky had found the body when she crossed the tracks on her way to work.

Satisfied that she had a good photo for the front page of the Sunday edition, she braced her left elbow against her body, held her breath and squeezed off several shots, bracketing the exposures to compensate for the wavering light levels.

“Hey, Lucky,” called one of the police investigators. Deaton Swain picked through some weeds along the bank about ten yards away. “I dare you to get in the cab and turn on the siren.”

“I’ll pass.”

“C’mon, Lucky, don’t be a girl.”

“I am a girl, Deaton. Haven’t you figured that out in all these years?”

“Yeah, but you’re no fun anymore.”

“I grew up, Deaton. You should try it. We’re too old for pranks.”

He shook his head. “I’ll never be that old.”

Lucky finished up and rewound her film. She climbed down and stuck her camera, meter and film in the bag on the rear compartment of her Blazer.

With these two rolls, a couple waiting at the office and the roll she’d taken yesterday of the twelve-pound squash, she’d have a full morning in the darkroom.

Off in the weeds, Deaton was starting to whine.

“Oh, man, enough of this.” He yanked off his gloves. “I’m outta here. Let the uniforms handle it.” After making his way down the bank, he came over and plopped down on her tailgate. “God, I hate these messy cases. And I do mean messy.”

“Me, too. Give me a ribbon-cutting or a town-council meeting any day. At least those don’t involve dead people.”

Deaton snorted.

“Well, usually they don’t,” Lucky qualified. “That one time was a fluke.”

“Not for you. How many bodies does this make for the year? Three?”

“Four.”

He seemed to think about that. “I remember the kid who crashed his car out on River Road and the old lady who died of hypothermia last winter during that freak ice storm, but what was the third one you found?”

“The floater. You remember. I was fishing for Channel cat and pulled him up, instead. The big guy.”

“Oh, yeah. Wasn’t wearing a ski vest.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Stupid idiot. Ought to be a law against fat people going in the water, anyway.”

She didn’t comment. Deaton couldn’t possibly mean half the things he said. She’d known him since kindergarten, and he was just as crazy and amusing as he’d been back then.

“Damn, Lucky, that’s four bodies in seven months. That’s got to be a record, even for you. What’s your total?”

“Seventeen. Eighteen if you count the one before I started working for the newspaper. Nineteen if you add the one out of state.”

“Seventeen locally in how many years on the job?”

“Twelve.”

He shook his head. “I’ll bet this stuff doesn’t go over too well with the captain.”

No, it didn’t, but she wasn’t about to discuss her personal life. People speculated enough on the reason she and Jack were living apart.

“Where is he?” she asked, instead. “He’s usually one of the first on the scene.”

“We had an earlier call and he took it.”

Good. After the fiasco with Jack last night, at least she wouldn’t have to face him in person this morning.

Or maybe she would. His unmarked police sedan turned in the service road and came around the barricade the moment she counted her blessings.

“Ah, hell,” Deaton said, hastily jumping to his feet.

Lucky took a deep breath to fortify her strength, but her already queasy stomach did a major somersault.

Jack was a formidable presence when he was in a good mood, but when he was all business—like now—he seemed even bigger, his shoulders broader. Lucky felt both overwhelming joy and deep sorrow at seeing him. She’d gone thirty years without losing her heart, but then this man had come along and stolen it within seconds.