CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The hostess informed me that Date #2 was already at the restaurant when I arrived. I’d been hoping to sneak into the ladies room and get my equilibrium back after my encounter with Hammond.
James Connery helpfully buzzed, “Suspect #2 is Richard Smalley. Investment banker who is on at least twenty dating sites under several different names.”
I vaguely remembered an investment banker. He was one of the ones who broke the rules, and had asked for a meeting before we’d corresponded for two weeks.
The hostess led me to the table and I slid in across from a man about 40, who had a shaved head to hide his receding hairline. He was dressed in a suit and tie, which made me feel a bit underdressed.
“You don’t look like your picture,” he greeted me.
I resisted checking to see if the wig was askew. I looked him up and down. No way was he 38. More like mid-40s. And no way did he hit the gym every day. “Neither do you.”
He grinned. “True. Two peas in a pod, then.”
I tried to relax and grin back, as I desperately tried to remember more about him from his profile. “Pod buddies.”
The waitress took our order. I ordered light, only an appetizer salad, not wanting the guy to pay through the nose for a fake date. Unless he was a serial killer.
“So what rules have you broken, besides not looking like your picture?”
“None.” I couldn’t meet his eyes, as I guiltily, and silently, ticked off all the rules I had broken, and was at the moment breaking with him.
“Let me guess.” He sighed heavily. “You’re married?”
“What makes you say that?” I demurred.
He reached out and trapped my left hand in both of his. His finger touched the faint white line where my wedding band usually sat.
My memory was sucked into the vortex of a black hole. I just stared at him.
The mic buzzed in my ear and I tried not to jump. “Keep him talking. Find out where he lives. We can’t run that info down. Guy’s got too many aliases.”
Hastily, I improvised. “Separated, but I didn’t want to say so on the site. You won’t tell them, will you?”
He laughed. “No. I’m breaking the rules, too.” He let go of my hand, and I thought the interrogation was finally over. And then he asked, “Were you separated before or after you started talking to me?”
Smart guy. I wasn’t sure which was a better answer for Serena, but he said he was a rule-breaker, so I decided to have Serena break another. “After. I know it was against the rules, but I did it anyway.”
“Rules are for suckers,” he said dismissively. “Seductive, isn’t it? The idea that there’s a perfect person out there?”
I thought about how to pry out the information James Connery wanted. “Isn’t there? You found someone you thought was perfect once, didn’t you?”
“Tell me,” he leaned forward and I couldn’t help thinking of the face-eating horror film guy. But all this guy did was say, “Didn’t you think that about your husband, until you had to pick up after him, clean his hair out of the sink, and listen to his sorry excuses for not succeeding?”
Yes. But that would end the conversation, and I had three people listening in, hellbent on me prolonging the talk as long as I could without getting a knife between the ribs.
I channeled Serena’s confidence in going for what she wanted. “I don’t believe in perfect. I, just believe in someone perfect for me, which is why I’m trying to find someone better for me than my ex.”
“Smart. How about supportive? I think you listed that as one of your must haves for a soulmate.” He sneered as he said soulmate.
I didn’t like this guy at all, so I decided that Serena wouldn’t either. And if Serena didn’t like him, she wasn’t going to waste time being nice to him. “What’s wrong with supportive?”
“It’s a crock.”
“A crock,” I said unkindly, “haven’t heard that term in years.”
His eyes narrowed at the gibe about his age. “Yeah well. It is.”
“What’s so hard about being supportive? You should have each other’s backs in a relationship.” I tried to pay attention to the suspect, but my mind kept wandering to Seth. How long had it been since I had really had his back?
It had taken Dierdre to get me to think about the most important question of all when it came to Seth and his desire to be Assistant Dean. Why did he want it?
I still hadn’t asked him. I thought I knew, but would it have hurt me to ask him? If I survived this evening, I would definitely ask him.
“Wasn’t it more about him having your back than you having his?”
“I don’t think so. A relationship should be 50-50. You both have each others’ backs.”
“Really? Tell the truth. You didn’t want a failure husband did you?” The bitterness was unmistakeable.
“My ex was not a failure,” I said, suddenly needing to defend fake Serena’s fake ex. “He just didn’t get me.” I said coldly.
“Didn’t get you? Did you get him?” He threw his napkin on the table. “You’re all alike. I’m out of here.”
I took a deep breath, and changed my tone, knowing that James Connery would not be pleased if Suspect #2 took himself off before dinner. “I’m sorry. The subject is still a bit sensitive. Did your ex tell you that you failed her in some way?”
He picked up his napkin again, and wrung it between strong fingers. “In every way. I’m only perfect on-line. Just like everyone else.” He reached into his pocket.
I tensed, sure he was about to pull out a knife and force me to leave the restaurant with him.
The microphone in my ear crackled to life, “Be careful.” It wasn’t until then that I realized I wasn’t only wired for sound, but also for video. It should have reassured me, but somehow, it did not.
All he did was take out a pen. A nice pen, gold and platinum. I think, based on all the jewelry shops I’d been doing recently. “Let’s see if we’re wasting our time here. Write down the top three values you want in a guy.”
If I weren’t on the job, I would have ended it there. But I was on a job. Delay him, I thought. And maybe delay me. What should I write down that would really set off a serial killer? “You first.”
He smiled and quickly wrote three words on the little square napkin under his water glass, which he hid from me as he handed me the pen. “You next.”
I took the pen. It was warm from his grip. Was I touching the pen of a serial killer? Or just an unhappy man? And really, what separated any of us from such things?
I put the pen to my napkin and wrote without thinking too much; Kind, Loyal, Honest.
I handed him back the pen and held up my napkin. “Switch.”
He’d written: Loving. Loyal. Hot.
“Hot?”
He smiled and shrugged. “The secret is that men think way more women are hot than women do.”
I thought about how Seth didn’t seem to mind my extra poundage. How he always said I was beautiful. “Some men. Where do you live? That will tell me if you’re one of those guys.”
He shrugged. “I live nowhere. My ex lives in my house. What does it tell you?”
“That you probably are the kind of guy who thinks your wife is hot even if she doesn’t.”
He picked up his glass of wine and without looking me in the eye, said, “You’re hot. Even though you don’t look like your picture.”
My natural instinct was to argue, to claim the fake boobs had thrown off his judgment. But I didn’t. I was not Molly. I was Serena. “So my ex says.”
He heard the doubt in my—Serena’s—voice. “But you don’t believe him. My wife didn’t believe me, either.”
No. I didn’t believe that I was beautiful. I thought he needed a stronger prescription for his glasses. “I believe my ex believes I’m beautiful. Maybe you didn’t sound sincere.”
He grumbled, “Maybe she couldn’t hear sincere if it climbed into her ear and shouted.”
“Maybe.” Serena continued the thought, though Molly would never have dared. “And maybe you can’t either.”
He spread his hands, to ward off the truth most likely. “So what it comes down to is that we’re two people who fooled ourselves into thinking this time it would be different.”
“Right.” String him along, I thought. Though what I really wanted to do was leave. Run. Not from a serial killer, but from a man who was putting all his unhappiness out there on the table.
Examining that unhappiness with me, he reminded me how easy it was to be bitter about the flaws in a relationship. I said, simply, “Change is hard, for all of us. But I think it is possible.”
He waved his hand at my words, as if they were pesky gnats. “That’s a lie.”
I shook my head. “No. I believe it. I really do. I’m trying to change. To be better — ” I broke off, suddenly acutely aware that James Connery was listening to everything I was saying.
My abrupt silence must have alerted him, because his voice whispered in my ear, “Good girl, Molly, keep stringing him along. You’re doing great.”
Suddenly I remembered, that was what this man had talked about, in our email exchange. Wanting to be with someone who would value the truth, who would be honest. I’d agreed with him a little too much, I guess. I thought it would feel great to hear the unvarnished truth. But his truth was bitter and it wasn’t doing him any good.
I couldn’t wait for Deb’s call this time, and I kept checking the time on my phone, as discreetly as I could. Richard’s unhappiness was suffocating. No matter how much I protested that it was possible for two people to be happily married, flaws and all, he disagreed just as vehemently. But was his bitterness enough to turn him into a serial killer?
Desperate to end this evening, I asked him point blank, “Was she a shopper? Is that what she did wrong?”
He blinked. “A shopper?”
“You know. A woman who is always going to the mall, spending all your money, buying stuff she doesn’t need.” I led him on deliberately, hoping if he was the serial killer, that he’d just confess it to me right then and there.
He shook his head. “No. She was worse. A couponer. A saver. I couldn’t spend a dime without justifying it in her budget.” He flung his napkin onto the table. “I make enough money to buy anything I want, but no, she didn’t want to waste money on luxuries.”
I shrugged. “Sounds like you didn’t have the same spending style. I read about that somewhere. Spenders and savers can get on each other’s nerves.”
“Nerves. Got that right. She got on every last one of mine. I was glad to give her half my money to see the back of her. Now I can afford to buy a new car if I want. Let her save all of her money, let me spend mine.”
“What kind of car did you buy?” I asked, thinking Connery could use that info to trace the guy down.
“What?” He looked baffled.
“You said you could afford to buy a new car now that you’ve left her.”
“Oh. No. I didn’t buy one. I just could. If I wanted to. And then I could drive it by her house when she was outside mowing her own lawn.” He added nastily, “Because a lawn service is a luxury, even when you have more money than you can ever spend tucked safely in the bank.”
When Deb’s call came, he didn’t even offer to walk me to my car. He just sat at the table nursing another glass of wine. “Go. It wasn’t going to work out anyway. You wouldn’t know the truth from a hole in the ground.”
How did you say goodnight to a serial killer suspect on a fake date that was probably the worst date ever in the history of dating? “Thanks. I had a nice time. I hope you find a way to get past your bitterness and find someone who makes you happy.”
He stared at me accusingly. “I thought you were different. You were so nice in your emails. But you’re just like my ex. Fake nice until you have a guy completely fooled.”
A suspicion leaped into my mind from nowhere. “Is your ex on this service?”
“What if she is? She’s not paying for it. Probably got an offer for a free month and wanted to find some new guy like me to make miserable.” His anger indicated I’d probably hit the bullseye with that one.
And maybe, if he didn’t follow me and try to kill me, I’d uncovered the reason he was on multiple dating sites under different names. He was cyber stalking his coupon-loving, penny-pinching ex.
I stood up, aware of Connery listening in. I asked bluntly. “I’d like it if you’d walk me to my car. There is a serial killer stalking the mall.”
He didn’t even think about it. “You’re safe. The guy targets shoppers. You weren’t shopping for anything but another guy to make miserable.”
“Better than trying to make the same woman miserable, under different names,” I said sharply. And then realized I wasn’t supposed to know about his aliases.
True heartbreak peeked out from behind his anger. “I wouldn’t make her miserable if she would just listen to reason.”
I left him to his wallowing, glad I wouldn’t have to drive around the mall and pretend to leave again, before having drinks with Serial Killer Candidate #3.
“What are you doing?” Connery buzzed in my ear, when I started browsing in a high end furniture store I liked to stop in and window shop, fantasizing about being able to afford nice furniture.
I spoke low, so I didn’t attract stares. “I’m waiting to open Door #3.”
“Go to your car, Molly. Richard may follow you.”
“Oh. Duh.” I went to my car.
Richard did not follow me.
As I closed and locked the car door, my can of pepper spray clutched in one hand, I said to the unseen listeners, “I’m guessing Richard was not our guy. I think he’s still got it bad for his ex, and that’s the reason for all his aliases.”
Connery’s answer in my ear made me jump a bit in the dark parking lot, “Martie’s on it. I think you may be right. There’s one woman on all the services that he keeps trying to hook up with. Probably the ex. The other women he’s dated are still alive and have, so far, all reported having as wonderful an evening as Serena.”
“Wonderful. Right.” I stopped talking, though, as just then a group of teens came jostling out of the mall, on the lookout for parents who were arriving to pick them up.
“According to Martie, he isn’t getting any second dates,” he added. Connery’s helpful voice helped me find a safe path to the bar where I was supposed to meet Suspect #3. Neither one of us wanted Serena to run across Richard again.
The power of the boobs was strong within me, and I had to fend off free drinks and phone number requests every few minutes.
“My date is late, but I already have one so I don’t need another,” I said, finally, to one guy who just wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I think we have a no show,” Connery confirmed. “But let’s give it a little while longer. Martie’s trying to track him down.”
Date #3 did not show up. I waited at the bar until 10, listening to James Connery buzz in my ear as he assessed every guy who tried to buy Serena a drink. Half were “losers,” a quarter were “players” and a few — very few — were “too bad you’re a married woman, Molly.”
Finally, he said, “Time to wrap up, Molly. Martie’s tracked #3 down. He’s in Vegas, newly married to someone he met for coffee at noon. Wait there. Deb will walk you to your car.”
Deb showed up so quickly, I assumed she’d been waiting very nearby.
“The least he could have done was email me and cancel our date,” I said, annoyed at having to sit at the bar for hours, when I could have been home in my pajamas watching TV with Seth. “How are we going to know if he was the serial killer?”
“He’s not. Turns out Martie heard from his mother as soon as she found out he’d eloped to Vegas. He informed Mommy Dearest that he’d bought her a new house, by way of the movers who arrived to move her lock, stock, and mom jeans, before he gets home with his new bride.”
I thought about it for a minute. “He was a suspect because he lived with his mother?”
Connery laughed in my ear. “Bingo. Told you you have the knack, Molly.”
“We didn’t get him.” I said into the dark and silent car.
Deb escorted me back to the station, where Martie unwired me and repossessed her bra, and the two rolls of toilet paper.
“You did everything you could, Molly,” Deb said, sensing my mood.
“Tell that to his next victim,” I answered. “Tell that to Lanie.”
I hadn’t wanted to do this job. But now that I’d done it, and failed to uncover the serial killer, I wished I had succeeded.