Bitch Factor (17 page)

“Doesn’t sound like you were very drunk, if you remember all that.”

“I never said
how
drunk I was. Only that I couldn’t remember anything after leaving the bar.” He slapped the domino down and spun it. His face looked gray in the sunlight reflecting off the snow, his facial muscles slack, the lines more pronounced. “Look, I can give you everything I remember, step by step, minute by minute, and I still can’t say for certain whether I got back in that car the next morning, drove toward the school, and… killed that child—”

Something shot past Dixie’s face and hit the window with a
crack!
Dann had spun the domino so hard it flew off the table.

“Sorry.” He got up to retrieve it, the jerry-rigged handcuffs stretched to the limit.

He’s torn with worry
. The realization hit Dixie like a brick.
He’s worried about whether or not he actually killed Betsy Keyes
. What if he didn’t? It looked open and shut, and the caseload for Houston cops was notoriously heavy. Maybe they rushed it through, didn’t dig deep enough.

Theories tumbled into Dixie’s mind. The man who stayed late that night might’ve followed Dann home and stolen his car for some illegal use—maybe a drug dealer who wanted an anonymous car for a deal going down. On his way to return the car, he hits the child. Such a scenario was more believable, in many ways, than pinning an ordinary citizen with vehicular manslaughter when he might very well have been at home sleeping off a bender.

Dixie realized then that she had bought Dann’s story. She forced herself to back up a step.

He stood at the window, where he’d picked up the errant domino.

“Look, Flannigan, I know what you think of me. High-rolling peddler, drifting from town to town, job to job. Got a
little property, a few bucks in the bank. No close family in town, no real friends, no ties. You’re right, I’m not much, but I’m harmless. I like kids—not in any
sick, twisted
way—simply because they’re kids. I used to tease those girls, gave Betsy big tips to serve me coffee, dropped nickels in the little one’s pocket when she wasn’t looking. I
never
would’ve hurt them. Come from a big family myself. I know how this family must have suffered, especially with what happened to the other child so soon after losing Betsy—”

“The
other
child?”

“You didn’t know? Some kind of accident at summer camp.”

Courtney stamped her feet on the grassy lake bank, waiting for dawn to brighten the sky a little and watching for the first sign of lightning. Angry clouds churned overhead, turning the early light eerie. She hoped Counselor Frey wouldn’t cancel I the race because of the storm, then reminded herself to THINK POSITIVE.

She could scarcely believe her good luck yesterday, beating Queen Toad’s best time. Of course, no one knew yet. She’d been practicing, sure, swimming her arms off every single day, building her strength and lung capacity like Daddy Jon had taught her.

In today’s meet, when it really mattered, when she’d be swimming against Queen Toad FOR REAL, knowing she absolutely, positively HAD to beat her, and knowing deep in her bones she could win hands down, no ties, no retakes, who could blame her for worrying that something freaky like this storm would wipe out her big chance?

She hugged herself against a chill as a brisk breeze brought goose bumps to her bare skin.

“No lightning, no lightning, no lightning,” she chanted softly. Counselor Frey was a safety nut. Even without lightning, she might stop the swim meet if it rained hard enough.
Grown-ups were weird like that, worrying about a little rain when you were already soaking wet in the lake.

Mama had promised to arrive early enough to see the swim contest. Daddy Travis had begged off to take care of some business, something to do with his new computer department, and Daddy Jon had to go out of town. Maybe Mama would stop at Camp Donovan to pick up Ellie. That’d be great, because Ellie would cheer louder than anybody. Ellie was Courtney’s biggest fan.

A dark thought slithered through Courtney’s mind. All during summer camp she’d worried about Ellie, badgering Counselor Bryant every night until she telephoned Camp Donovan to make sure Ellie was all right. Now the two weeks were almost over. Suppose something happened on this very last day, something terrible?

Think positive. Think positive. Think positive.

The camp floodlights winked off on their timer. Just a few more minutes and the sun would creep up behind the clouds. Courtney imagined the final race—all the girls and their moms and dads crowding around. Having won three heats already, Courtney would be the center of attention when Queen Toad stepped up, tall and sleek in her blue racing suit. She’d sneer down her skinny nose, but with everyone listening, she’d pretend to be a good sport.

“’You looked pretty good yesterday, Keyes.”

“Thanks. So did you.” Admitting it would be worse than eating boiled squash, but Toad really was a good swimmer, a blue streak gliding through the water. Courtney’s speed and form had improved, yet she knew she looked more like a squiggle than a streak, with her stupid lopsided freestyle. She’d been working hard to smooth it out When she forgot about form and went full out for speed, she swam better. Faster.

“Keep it up, Keyes, and you might come in second. Not a close second—I’ll be kicking water in your face all the way.”

Courtney could almost HEAR the sneering voice, and she tried to think of a clever comeback, something to singe Toad’s
tomato-soup hair. She’d work on it, have one ready by race time.

A few raindrops sprinkled Courtney’s shoulders. The sun still sat low behind the trees, but the sky was bright enough for a practice swim. Imagining the “take your marks” announcement crackling over the speaker, she stood in position, heard the starting gun in her head, and dove. The water wrapped her in silence.

Seconds later she burst through the surface.

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! Was that Toad half a length ahead? Seeing the blue streak in her mind, Courtney grabbed the water in front of her and shoved it behind with all the force she could manage. She kicked and stroked harder than she ever had before, imagining the cheers from the bank, while concentrating on grabbing water and pushing it behind… pull, kick, stroke, stroke, stroke…

She could do it, she knew she could do it. Her lungs felt strong, her legs powerful. The opposite bank didn’t look so far now.

Courtney closed her eyes and willed her legs to kick harder, smoother.
Remember to follow through… follow through… follow through
…

She opened her eyes. The bank was closer. She was gaining on her best speed—she felt sure of it! And she wasn’t a bit tired.

She could make it. She could WIN. A few more strokes, and THEN who would be kicking water in whose face?

What was that grabbing her foot?
Something under the water had wrapped around her ankle. Slithery plants grew close to the bank, but they usually didn’t grow this far out.

She kicked hard, broke free of the plant’s rough grasp, and shot forward—

The plant grabbed her foot again, slowing her down. Slipping underwater, she reached back to pull herself free of the clutchy thing. The lake’s undergrowth kept the water dark, especially this early in the morning, greenish-brown, never clear enough to see more than a few feet. And something had churned up muddy gunk from the lake bottom. Courtney
couldn’t see at all. But she didn’t
need
to see, did she? All she had to do was reach down and find the plant with her fingers.

Uhh! The vine pulled tighter, almost as if someone were yanking on it, pulling her toward the bottom of the lake—

Worry skittered around her mind. Something wasn’t right here, something was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG.

The creepy rustlings earlier—the shape at the window, the footsteps she’d chased through the trees, the flash of white running shoes—suddenly all the images rushed at her.

Oh, no, now the vine was around both feet, wrapping round and round her ankles, like a rope, tying her feet together… how could a plant do that? Fear shuddered through her. If only she could SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING!

Twisting in the water, she bent double to pull at the vine—or was it a rope? It was scratchy like a rope.

Now something moved just beyond her reach. Not the watery plants but something solid. A person.

Oh, no, no, no. It
was
a person—pulling her deeper and deeper.

Her lungs burned, BURNED. She needed air… had to get to the surface.

She let her body go slack, let her bottom drop lower, drew her knees in, gathering the power in her legs…

Then pushed!

And broke free, the rope still binding her feet, but free of whoever was pulling her. She shot toward the surface—

And was yanked back. Her lungs were on fire… she needed oxygen… her head swam with tiny fireflies, buzzing.

Buzzing.

It would feel so good to go to sleep… to sleep… to sleep to stop the burning… burning… burning…

Courtney opened her mouth and allowed cool water to quench the fire.

Dixie stormed out of the cabin. Lifting her face to the sun’s brilliance, she filled her lungs with clean winter air. But the awful images clung to her mind like swamp moss.

She knocked a bead of ice off the Mustang’s door handle, opened the door, and slid onto the driver’s seat. From the snapshot clipped to the visor, the Keyes girls grinned down at her. On the drive from Texas, their trusting brown eyes had egged her on, willing her to find Betsy’s killer. Now she looked at the snapshot and an ache filled her chest. Two of those three girls were dead. Not one, but
two
.

She looked away. Her deep feeling of loss made no sense. Dixie had never met Betsy or Courtney, and both had died months ago. Betsy in the spring, Courtney in the summer.

An accident at camp
, Dann had said. What were the odds of two fatal accidents occurring in the same family in three months?

Dixie found a napkin in the burger sack and blew her nose. When she looked back at the snapshot, her throat tightened again. She’d made a silent promise that she could no longer fulfill, because Courtney Keyes was dead. Never mind that she died long before Dixie went after Parker Dann. For Dixie, Courtney had been alive, grinning down at her from
that visor. Now her smile would never brighten another snapshot.

Parker Dann’s case file lay on the passenger seat, under the thermos. Dixie picked it up. She slipped off the rubber band, looping it around her wrist, and opened the folder. Midway through the papers she found Belle’s notation about Courtney’s death. The nine-year-old had drowned on the last day of camp, on the morning of a swim contest. Swimming alone, before breakfast. Belle had talked with the physician who signed the death certificate. The doctor thought Courtney might have suffered a cramp and then got disoriented under the water. An accident. Three months earlier, Courtney’s sister Betsy was killed in an accident. A grotesque coincidence? The mother must be a blathering basket case worrying about her third chick.

Dixie thought about Ryan, the way his twelve-year-old face brightened when he saw his Aunt Dixie, and imagined the agony of losing him. She fished the newspaper clipping of Dann’s arraignment out of the file. Rebecca Keyes, pale and thin, sat close to her husband, who looked angry enough to kill. The two girls huddled together, Ellie’s small hands clutching the picture book, solemn eyes steady on the page, while her sister glared at Parker Dann.

Dann had been out on bail when the camp accident occurred. He could have murdered both girls, setting up both as accidents. But what reason would he have? Dixie had encountered perversions often enough to know they could surface in the most unlikely personalities. But men who killed children to satisfy some sick need generally wanted close physical contact. They strangled or stabbed, they didn’t run a child down with a car.

Belle had seen no connection between the two deaths. Apparently neither had the DA. It was tragic, certainly, but not unheard of for two family members to die in rapid, unrelated succession. If foul play had been suspected, the media would’ve pounced on it, quick to point out that the man accused of hit-and-run manslaughter of Betsy Keyes was free on bail at the time of her sister’s “accident.”

Okay, so the deaths happened months apart in different counties.

Dixie recalled Dann’s face when the domino spun off the table and hit the window. She’d seen torment there. Every good salesman was part actor, but it would take the skill of an Anthony Hopkins to fake the anguish she’d seen in Dann’s eyes. Was he that good? If she hadn’t caught up with him, he’d be in Canada—hiding out awhile, then reappearing under a new name. The long arm of the law didn’t reach that far in such cases. He’d be a free man.

An innocent man?

Guilty or not, Belle hadn’t been happy with the way Dann’s trial was going. Unless new evidence surfaced in his favor—a witness who saw someone else driving Dann’s car, for instance—Parker Dann would likely spend the next two to twenty years in prison.

Dixie pulled the snapshot off the visor. Her silent promise had been to bring Betsy’s killer to justice. Suppose that killer wasn’t Dann?

Court would reconvene on January 4. If they arrived back in Houston by the twenty-eighth, say, she’d have five or six days to poke around. Granting they
were
accidents, the stolen-car-drug-dealer theory wasn’t too far out. On the other hand, if the answer was that easy, Belle’s investigator should have turned up something. Or maybe not. Since Dixie had taken up skip tracing, her information network surpassed anything she’d relied on as ADA. It certainly surpassed any network Belle might be using.

Dixie put the news clipping back in Dann’s folder, slipped the rubber band around it, and laid the file on the seat. Then she put the snapshot back on the sun visor. When they hit the highway tomorrow—or the next day—she’d have eleven hundred miles to make a decision.