The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [80]
“Well, there was one guy . . .”
“Name.”
“Ben. Ben Zikka.”
“Description.”
“I don’t know. Older. Late forties or early fifties, I would say. Not tall, five ten, maybe. Thinning brown hair. Soft around the middle. Not good taste in suits—definitely off the rack.” Mr. Zane ran a hand down his own tailored jacket with authority. “I think he said he was a police officer or something like that. I could believe he’d eaten a lot of doughnuts.”
Rainie scowled, then began chewing on her lower lip. This wasn’t what she’d expected. “Older, kind of frumpy-looking guy? You’re sure he was with Mandy?”
“Fairly sure. They started leaving the meetings together. At one point, I noticed they now came in the same car.”
“And we’re talking about the same Amanda Quincy, right? Twenty-three, slender, blond hair, big blue eyes? If the star quarterback hadn’t dated her in high school, it wasn’t from lack of trying.”
“She was pretty,” Mr. Zane said with more enthusiasm.
Rainie was getting a headache. “You’re sure Zikka and Amanda were an item?”
“I don’t know. You asked about new members she’d befriended. He was the new member she’d befriended. To tell you the truth, however, he only came the first few months. Then he stopped coming. She showed up a few more times, but each time was farther apart. Larry Tanz was going to call her about it, when she had the accident.”
“So she comes to AA, meets this guy, and slowly trails off.”
“Yes.” Mr. Zane shrugged. He said, “It’s often like that in the beginning. Admitting you’re an alcoholic is tough. Staying sober is even tougher. Most of our members end up starting and stopping a few times before it sticks.”
“Was there anyone else at this meeting who seemed to know Mandy? Say, someone six feet tall, well dressed, trim build, late forties, early fifties?” Rainie was working off Bethie’s neighbor’s statement to the police that she’d seen someone resembling Quincy enter the town house. But Mr. Zane shook his head.
“Are you sure?” she persisted.
“You haven’t been to an AA meeting lately, have you, Ms. Conner? You spend half your life overindulging in alcohol and drugs and you’re rarely the well-dressed, trim-build type. Maybe a Hollywood star can pull it off, but the rest of us, we’ve abused ourselves and we look it. Even Amanda Quincy was becoming harsh around the edges.”
Rainie scowled again. One name and description later, she was more confused than when she’d started. She studied good old William Zane. His gaze was clear. He met her eye. Dammit, just when you were hoping someone was feeding you a lie, he went and told the truth.
She glanced at her watch. T-minus ten and still two stops to go. She rose, shook Zane’s hand, and tried not to take his obvious relief at her departure too personally.
At the door, however, she was struck by one last question. “At your meetings,” she said, “you talk about some very personal things, right?”
“Yes.”
“What did Mandy talk about?”
He hesitated.
“Crime-scene photos, Mr. Zane. Crime. Scene. Photos.”
“Mandy had self-esteem issues. Mandy . . . had a lot of self-esteem issues. She talked about how famous her father was. She talked about how beautiful her mother was. She talked about how smart her sister was. And she talked about— Let’s put it this way, she often categorized herself as a disposable blonde.”
“A ‘disposable blonde’?”
“Mandy had this obsession with violence, Ms. Conner. She liked to see slasher movies, to read true-crime novels. She told the group that when she was younger, she used to sneak into her father’s office and look through his homicide textbooks, even read his case files. They terrified her, but she still came back for more. It wasn’t a healthy thing. It wasn’t a face-your-fear kind of thing. She did it to punish herself. You see, most of us identify with the crime solver when we watch slasher movies or read mystery novels. Not Mandy. She identified with the pretty, blue-eyed, blond victims. Disposable blondes, Ms. Conner. Beautiful women who exist simply for the deranged killer to savage first.”
Rainie was