Murder for Love (1996) Anthology by Otto Penzler

Author:Otto Penzler [Penzler, Otto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Monday morning Karen Sisco was outside the federal courthouse in Miami with a pump-action shotgun on her hip. Karen’s right hand gripped the neck of the stock, the barrel extending above her head. Several more U.S. deputy marshals were out here with her; while inside, three Colombian nationals were being charged in District Court with the possession of cocaine in excess of five hundred kilograms. One of the marshals said he hoped the scudders like Atlanta as they’d be doing thirty to life there pretty soon. He said, “Hey, Karen, you want to go with me, drop ’em off? I know a nice ho-tel we could stay at.” She looked over at the good-ole-boy marshals grinning, shuffling their feet, waiting for her reply. Karen said, “Gary, I’d go with you in a minute if it wasn’t a mortal sin.” They liked that. It was funny, she’d been standing here thinking she’d gone to bed with four different boyfriends in her life: an Eric at Florida Atlantic, a Bill right after she graduated, then a Greg, three years of going to bed with Greg, and now Carl. Only four in her whole life, but two more than the national average for women in the U.S. according to Time magazine, their report of a recent sex survey. The average woman had two partners in her lifetime, the average man, six. Karen had thought everybody was getting laid with a lot more different ones than that.

She saw her boss now, Milt Dancey, an old-time marshal in charge of court support, come out of the building to stand looking around, a pack of cigarettes in his hand. Milt looked this way and gave Karen a nod, but paused to light a cigarette before coming over. A guy from the Miami FBI office was with him. Milt said, “Karen, you know Daniel Burdon?” Not Dan, not Danny, Daniel. Karen knew him, one of the younger black guys over there, tall and good looking, confident, known to brag about how many women he’d had of all kinds and color. He’d flashed his smile at Karen one time, hitting on her. Karen turned him down saying, “You have two reasons you want to go out with me.” Daniel, smiling, said he knew of one reason, what was the other one? Karen said, “So you can tell your buddies you banged a marshal.” Daniel said, “Yeah, but you could use it, too, girl. Brag on getting me in the sack.” See? That’s the kind of guy he was.

Milt said, “He wants to ask you about a Carl Tillman.”

No flashing smile this time, Daniel Burdon had on a serious, sort of innocent expression, saying to her, “You know the man, Karen? Guy in his forties, sandy hair, goes about five-ten, one-sixty?”

Karen said, “What’s this, a test? Do I know him?”

Milt reached for her shotgun. “Here, Karen, lemme take that while you’re talking.”

She turned a shoulder saying, “It’s okay, I’m not gonna shoot him,” her fist tight on the neck of the twelve-gauge.

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