“I intend to find out the truth. And you’ll either let me do my job or explain to the citizens of this county why you don’t want these murders solved. That ought to go over big at election time next year.”
Sputtering oaths, Willingham raised a hand as if he meant to strike Tom, but Tom stood his ground.
Dennis Murray opened the door and stepped in, a file folder in one hand. He glanced from Tom to the sheriff. “Excuse me, I—”
Willingham stalked out, nearly knocking the much smaller Dennis off-balance when he charged past.
“I guess I interrupted something.” Dennis’ face was a picture of innocence.
Tom had to laugh, and when he did he felt some of the tension leaving his body. “How far up the hall could you hear us?”
Dennis grinned. “Oh, pretty much all the way to the front door.”
“Thanks for showing up. What’ve you got? Did you find Amy?”
Dennis shook his head, his face sobering. “The mailing address is a box at one of those rental places, not the post office. I had information check phone numbers for about fifty miles in every direction, and there’s no Darrell or Amy Wood listed.”
Tom took his seat again and Dennis sat facing him. “How about unlisted?”
“I talked a supervisor at the phone company into checking for me, and they’re not unlisted either. I contacted all the cell phone providers down there, and they don’t have any customers with those names. I asked about Watford too, but no luck. Maybe they can’t afford a phone.”
“If they can afford to rent a postal box, they can afford a phone.” Tom reached for the folder Dennis had brought and flipped it open to look at the cards and notes Holly had received through the years from her cousin Amy. He stared at the return address printed in block letters in the corner of an envelope. He was getting a bad feeling about this. “Doesn’t the mailbox place have a home address or phone number for the Woods?”
“It’s closed on Sunday,” Dennis said, “but I’ll see what they’ll tell me in the morning about who rents the box. I might have to ask the local cops to talk to them.”
Tom opened one of the cards. The message was written in an open, loopy script.
Happy birthday, Princess! Fifteen already! I’m thinking of you. Lots of love always, Amy.
A tiny heart dotted each
i.
Amy Watford
and Jean Turner had both left within days of Pauline’s disappearance. Jean, for certain, hadn’t been seen since, although her mother claimed she sent money for Holly’s expenses. Jack and Bonnie Watford had given the impression they were in frequent contact with their daughter Amy. All those details about her family, her husband’s accident. Maybe Amy was lying about her married name so certain people—Shackleford, for example—wouldn’t be able to find her.
Or maybe the person who sent these cards and letters wasn’t Amy Watford.
At nine o’clock Rachel collapsed into bed, desperate for a few hours of oblivion. She’d feel better
with Tom in the house, but at least Brandon was there, and Tom had promised to be back by eleven.
Please, God, if there is a God, let Holly get through the night without waking the whole house.
Frank hopped onto the bed and curled up next to her. In his cage in a corner, Cicero made soft muttering sounds as he tucked his head under a wing. Rachel switched off the lamp and relaxed into sleep.
Her cell phone rang.
Struggling back to consciousness, she groped on the tabletop and knocked the phone to the floor. “Oh, crap!” She got an answering croak from Frank. At last she had the lamp on and the phone to her ear. “Hello!”
“Rachel?” Tom sounded unsure who he’d reached.
“Yes, it’s me.”
“I’ve got bad news, I’m afraid.”
Rachel pushed herself upright. “What’s happened now?”
“The animal hospital’s on fire.”
“Oh my God!” Rachel fought her way free of the covers and leapt out of bed. “How? When? What— Oh, God.”
“Rachel, listen. Right now we need to know if you’ve got any animals in the building.”
“No, no. There aren’t any. But we’ve got tanks—oxygen, anesthetic—in the storage room downstairs, they’ll explode if—”
“Oh, Christ. Hold on.” He shouted the information to someone. “Okay,” he said to Rachel, “they know what they’re dealing with now.”
“How did the fire start?”
“I don’t know yet. Your alarm went off about twenty minutes ago and the manager of the Mountaineer saw flames and called it in. I was about to head out to Joanna’s place when the dispatcher alerted me.”
Rachel sank onto the bed. Her clinic, her business, her new life, in flames. Her mind turned to the dead bird on her cottage porch, the threat written on her door, the shots fired at her and Holly yesterday. “Was it arson?”
“I don’t know yet,” Tom repeated, but the edge in his voice told her he suspected the same thing. “I can’t talk to the chief till the fire’s out.”
Rachel forced herself to ask, “How bad is it? The whole building?”
“No. The fire’s in the back. The front looks okay— Well, except for your big window. The firefighters broke it to get in. They were on the scene in less than two minutes. They’ll get it under control soon.”
She pictured men in heavy coats climbing through the hole where the big plate glass window had been, grinding glass shards under their boots as they dragged a hose through the reception area. What was happening to the patient records, the drug supply, the expensive equipment in the back rooms? She stood again. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“No, Rachel,” Tom said. “It’s snowing. The roads are too bad. I don’t want you having an accident and getting hurt.”
“This is my business we’re talking about. I’m coming.”
“Rachel, you’re not—”
She pressed the button to cut him off.
Dressed in jeans, a heavy sweater, and boots, Rachel ran downstairs and grabbed her coat from the hall closet. She pulled it on as she hurried toward voices in the kitchen. Joanna and Brandon sat at the table eating chocolate chip cookies and milk.
“The animal hospital’s on fire,” Rachel announced from the doorway.
“What?” they exclaimed in unison.
“I don’t have time to talk. Joanna, can I borrow your Cherokee?”
“Now wait a minute.” Brandon rose and assumed a policeman’s stern demeanor, but the smear of chocolate on his lower lip spoiled the image. “I’m not letting you go anywhere by yourself.”
“You can’t come with me.” Rachel yanked her gloves from the coat pockets. “You have to stay with Holly.”
“I don’t want you driving in this much snow when you’re upset,” Joanna told Rachel. She blotted her lips with a paper napkin and stood. “I’ll take you.”
“No,” Brandon protested. “It’s too dangerous. What if somebody—”
“Oh, hush,” Joanna said. “We’ll be fine. I’ll take my Glock.” When Brandon’s face registered alarm, she added, “Honey, I was an expert shot before you were born.”
Minutes later, they were on the road, the Jeep Cherokee plowing through the snow at a speed that took Rachel’s breath away. More than once she shut her eyes and braced for disaster, but Joanna negotiated every twist and turn with aplomb.
The scene on Main Street was exactly what she’d imagined. Both of Mountainview’s fire trucks sat in the snow outside the animal hospital. One hose snaked through the broken window and another disappeared around the side of the building. She saw only a couple of firemen, which meant the rest were inside or out back. From the rear of the hospital rose a pillar of black smoke, illuminated by leaping flames.
City police and sheriff’s cars sat sideways in the street to stop traffic. Joanna pulled to the curb a block from the hospital. Rachel flung open her door and jumped out. She ran up the sidewalk through the snow.
Tom seemed to appear out of nowhere and intercepted her with both hands raised. “Stay back, Rachel. You can’t do anything to help.”
She tried to push past him, but he grabbed her. “Let me go!” she cried. “I have to get things out of there before—”
“No,” Tom said.
Catching up with Rachel, Joanna said, “Be sensible, honey. You can’t go into a burning building.”
Rachel wanted to kick and scream, but she knew Tom and Joanna were right. Reluctantly she crossed the street with them to the Mountaineer, where they could wait in warmth.
The firefighters labored for another hour before they extinguished the blaze. After they marked off the burned areas with crime scene tape, Rachel thanked them all, shaking each man’s sweaty hand. One of them gave her a heavy flashlight, told her to be careful where she stepped, and led her inside, with Tom and Joanna trailing. Water pooled on the floor in the reception area and chairs lay on their sides. Glass fragments crackled underfoot. Smoke clogged Rachel’s nostrils with the stench of charred wood and melted plastic.
She reached over the high counter of the reception desk and grabbed the appointment book. Dry and clean, by some miracle. With so many worries beating at her mind, she latched onto the one clear action she could take: call everybody tomorrow morning, reschedule all the appointments. She tucked the book under her arm and followed the firefighter through the door leading to the heart of the hospital.
She looked into each of the four exam rooms, ran the flashlight beam over the soot-streaked walls, the dripping wet cabinets and tables. Filthy, but intact.
She continued down the hallway to the surgery and boarding rooms, and walked into a scene of ruin. The entire rear of the hospital was gone. Nothing remained of the surgery room except the plumbing and the steel tables, now almost buried under chunks of burned roof. Falling snow melted on the smoking debris.
“Oh, honey.” Joanna slipped an arm around Rachel’s waist.
Rachel was too stunned to speak.
“I’m sorry,” Tom said, his hand on her shoulder.
Rachel choked out, “I want to know if this was deliberate.”
“I’ll go find the fire chief and bring him back to talk to you.”
Rachel and Joanna returned to the reception area. Joanna pulled a couple of chairs upright and urged Rachel to sit. Rachel waved her off and remained huddled by the broken window, keeping vigil for Tom’s return. Snow drifted in and collected on her boots.
On the darkened street only the Mountaineer blazed with light. One by one the firefighters drifted away from their trucks and into the restaurant. The sight of them sipping coffee, talking, laughing while her business lay in ruins made Rachel feel unbearably lonely and bereft. She couldn’t think about the future now. If she started thinking about the work ahead, her weary mind would buckle under the burden.
She watched the snow come down. White flakes swirled under the streetlamps before spiraling to the ground, like crazed butterflies caught out of season, dying in the cold.
She was shivering by the time Tom reappeared with the fire chief.
Looking like an outsized cartoon hero in his bulky coat and hard hat, the chief pulled off one glove and wiped soot from his lips before he spoke to Rachel. “Real sorry about this, Dr. Goddard. I hope we can find out who did it.”
A flush of heat shot through Rachel’s half-frozen body. “It was arson? You’re positive?”
“Oh, yes ma’am. No doubt about it. Soon as I saw the flames, I knew it was started with an accelerant. Hell— Heck, I could smell gas. Somebody splashed it against the back of the building and lit a match.”
“Why?” She looked at Tom. “Do you think it has something to do with Holly?”
“I’d be amazed if it didn’t.”
“Her father. The son of a bitch. If he thinks he can scare me into—You’ve got to put him away, before he kills somebody else. Before he kills Holly to keep her quiet.”
Tom met her gaze, and in his eyes she saw an anger and determination matching her own. “I will, Rachel. I’m going to get him out of her life and out of yours.”
“When? And how?”
His face looked set in stone. “As soon as I can. Any way I have to.”
At eight a.m., the fax in the squad room spat out two reports from the state’s regional crime lab in Roanoke. Tom snatched them from the machine, praying for something useful.
No such luck with the report on O’Dell. The pathologist confirmed Tom’s guess that O’Dell had died at least three days before his body was discovered. No bullet fragments were found in the corpse, so they’d never be able to prove any particular gun had killed him.
“Hey, Tommy.” Dennis Murray walked in and dropped his hat on his desk. “I heard about the animal hospital getting torched last night. What a shame.”
“The real shame is we don’t have a thing to go on. Not even footprints outside the building, because of the firefighters tramping around and all the water—” Tom shook his head, let go of the pointless complaint, and skimmed the lab report on the unidentified bones they’d found on the mountain. “Look at this. The second victim was a young woman, probably Caucasian.”
Dennis leaned in to read the report. “Did they give us a cause of death?”
“Possible blunt trauma to the head,” Tom said. “But the skull’s so broken up they can’t be sure how much damage was done by a blow and how much by bears. That’s a lot less important than identifying her. We need to make sure Amy Watford’s alive.”
“I’ll get back to it right now.”
“See if you can find Amy’s dental records,” Tom told him. “I’ll work on the parents.”
He had somebody else to see first, though. He headed out on foot for Reed Durham’s law office two blocks away.
Main Street was lively for such an early hour, with the snow plow making a final pass to reach pavement, and shovel-wielding merchants yelling their usual good-natured complaints about the driver piling snow on the sidewalks they’d just cleared. The sun peeked over the mountains and cast dazzling light on snow-covered roofs. Tom would have enjoyed the scene if he hadn’t been able to see the boarded-up front of Rachel’s animal hospital at the far end of the street.
The door to the law offices was unlocked, but the outer office was empty. Tom knew Durham always came in by eight because he liked to get a quiet hour of work done before the staff arrived. Passing the reception desk, Tom entered Durham’s inner office without knocking.
Startled, Durham looked up and pulled off his reading glasses. “Hey. What’s up?”
“I need some answers, and I think you can give them to me.”
Durham frowned. “I’ll help you if I can. Take a seat, have some coffee.”
“No, thanks.” Tom stood in front of the desk and looked down at Durham. “First of all, I want to know why you didn’t call the sheriff and report her disappearance. Why weren’t you alarmed when her housekeeper called and said she was missing?”
“Who says I wasn’t alarmed? I was scared to death. I knew Willingham wouldn’t do anything about it, so I let Mrs. Barker call him and I called your dad.”
Durham’s explanation, so simple and sensible, left Tom feeling foolish for a moment. But he’d come here for answers to all of his questions, and he pushed on. “All right, tell me this. Who is Mary Lee’s real father?”
Durham assumed an expression of sorely tested patience. “Tom, I told you—”
“You told me a lie. Now I want the truth. I know Adam McClure wasn’t her father.” He raised a hand when Durham started to protest. “Willingham told me. This is one of those rare times when I think I can believe him. But he wouldn’t tell me who her real father is.”
Durham pushed his floppy hair off his forehead. “I don’t know why any of this matters. You’re investigating Pauline’s murder, not her daughter’s paternity.”
“Come off it, Reed. If Pauline was sleeping with another man while she was married to Adam, and she had a baby with him, that could have something to do with her death. Don’t tell me you can’t see that. And I’ve also got a personal reason for asking.”
Durham squinted up at him. “Personal?”
Tom leaned on the desk and fixed the other man with a stare. He had Pauline’s letter to his father in his shirt pocket, and it felt like a cold weight against his chest. “Is Mary Lee my father’s child?”
In the space of seconds, Durham’s expression ran the gamut from shocked to flustered to annoyed. Good thing he didn’t have to argue criminal cases, Tom thought. He’d never put anything over on a jury.
Then Durham laughed. “Where’d you get a crazy idea like that?”
“Let’s cut the crap, okay? I know something was going on between them.” He forced himself to say the words. “They had a relationship.”
Durham swiveled his chair and stared out the window. After a moment, he said without looking at Tom, “You think they had an affair? You really believe your father would do that to your mother?”
Covering up for him, like a good buddy should.
“Don’t try to make me feel guilty. Everything points to it.”
Durham swung his chair back around and met Tom’s gaze. “They’d been friends since high school. That was the first time John had been around any other Melungeon kids. He grew up in this part of the county, and he didn’t meet anybody from Rocky Branch District till high school. He was interested in that stuff, the history, even back then. He got to know all the Melungeon kids, even Troy Shackleford.”
Tom paced the room, unable to stand still. “Just how well did he get to know Pauline?”
“I’m telling you they were
friends
, Tom.” Durham’s voice took on an edge of exasperated anger. “Your dad and your mother were already together, they were planning to get married. Besides, Pauline wasn’t interested in him that way. She had big plans for herself. She talked about going off to New York or California to have a career of some kind. Nothing ever came of it, but that’s what she wanted back then.”
“She did pretty well for herself, marrying the rich bachelor at the bank.” Tom wasn’t ready to believe Durham’s story, and he wasn’t ready to see Pauline as an innocent dreamer.
“She loved Adam McClure,” Durham said. “Robert doesn’t want to believe that, but I knew Pauline as well as anybody, and I can tell you she loved Adam.”
“Yeah, right. And I guess she carried on her
friendship
with my father after she got married.”
“No, actually, they didn’t see each other for a long time after high school. He went off to Vietnam, came back and married your mother and took a job as a deputy. Pauline was married to Adam by then. Different worlds, you know, even in a little place like Mason County.”
Tom halted and glared at Durham. “But they started seeing each other again before she disappeared. Several years before.”
Durham nodded. “But don’t go jumping to conclusions. She was lonely after Adam died. With her husband gone, people in the McClures’ social circle wouldn’t have anything to do with her. She reached out to your dad—and your mother. She had them over to her place for dinner with my wife and me—”
“My mother went to Pauline’s house?”
“Yeah, but they never got close. Just too different, I guess. She had more in common with your father.”
Tom slumped into a chair. “You really expect me to believe he was over at her house all the time and they were just pals, talking about Melungeon history?”
Durham sighed. “I never would have expected John’s own son to think the worst of him. Tom, you grew up in the same house with the man. You knew him. But here you are, believing the gossip—”
“People gossiped about them? Everybody knew?”
“People
thought
they knew something. It doesn’t take much for busybodies to start putting two people in bed together.”
“And my mother had to put up with that? How could he do that to her?”
“Don’t ask me what went on between your parents. All I can tell you is that your father loved your mother more than anything in the world. And you can just forget any crazy ideas you’ve got about him being Mary Lee’s father.”
Tom clutched the chair arms. Knobby upholstery tacks dug into his palms. Could he believe this story? Durham had already lied to him once. He’d been close to both Tom’s father and Pauline and might go to any lengths to protect their memories. Frustrated, Tom demanded, “Then who is her father? Ed McClure?”
Durham shook his head. “He probably wishes he were. But there’s no possibility of it. Even Pauline didn’t know who her daughter’s father was.”
“What?”
“Adam was sterile,” Durham said. “But his mother kept asking when he and Pauline were going to give her a grandchild. She wanted the McClure line carried on by her eldest son. She wasn’t the kind of person who would’ve accepted an adopted child. So Pauline and Adam went to a sperm bank, somewhere up north where nobody knew them. Some anonymous sperm donor is Mary Lee’s biological father.”
Tom didn’t have time to absorb this before Durham’s phone rang. He answered, said, “Right here,” and handed the receiver to Tom. “It’s your sergeant.”
Dennis Murray told Tom, “We’ve got a major new development. It’s…not good. But I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”
Tom jogged back to headquarters, his thoughts bouncing from Dennis’ alarming words to his conversation with Durham, all the new questions it raised, the old questions it left unanswered. When he rounded the side of the courthouse, he saw a State Police car parked outside the Sheriff’s Department.
What now?
When he walked into his office with Dennis, he found two State Police cadets and the middle-aged instructor who was supervising the trainees’ search of Indian Mountain. The cadets, one female and one male, looked ready to burst with excitement. A cardboard box sat on Tom’s desk.
Their instructor, a solid ex-Marine named Cochran, introduced the cadets and told Tom, “The snow didn’t make these two quit. They wanted to search the caves. They found a bear in one of them and had the good sense not to bother it. But in the other one—”
“Way in the back,” the young woman piped up. As soon as the words escaped, she clapped a hand to her mouth.
Cochran smiled. “You can tell it, cadet.”
She went on eagerly. “We crawled way in the back, where it’s real narrow, to make sure we didn’t miss anything. And we started finding gobs of long black hair.”
A chill passed through Tom.
“And when we got all the way to the back, we found this.” The girl glanced at her supervisor for permission, got a nod. She folded back the flaps of the box.
With dread rising in him like brackish water, Tom looked in.
Another skull.
Rachel settled at Joanna’s desk to work through the long list of people she had to call—clients with appointments, insurance agent, contractors recommended by Joanna. She’d just finished the client list when the door flew open.
Holly rushed in, slammed the door, and leaned against it as if barring invaders. “My grandma’s here! With Uncle Jack. They’ve come to get me.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Rachel said. “Don’t these people ever give up? Tell her you don’t want to go home.”
“No! I can’t talk to her. She’ll try to make me feel like a bad person ’cause I don’t want to live with her anymore. Please don’t make me talk to her.”
“Holly, I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, and neither can she.”
“Will you tell her to go away?”
“Yes, I will. You can stay in here if you want to.”
When Rachel reached the front door, Brandon was talking through the screen to Mrs. Turner, who stood on the porch. Out on the farm road, Jack Watford sat in a pickup truck. He was going to let the little old lady do the dirty work this time.
“Good morning, Mrs. Turner,” Rachel said, the soul of graciousness. A blast of cold air through the doorway made her fold her arms and tuck her hands against her sides. “Can we help you with something?”
The woman’s arthritic fingers, without gloves on a frigid morning, clutched her coat collar tight around her neck. “I’m lookin’ for my granddaughter,” she said, her voice a whine. “I need her to come home with me.”
“Holly asked me to tell you she prefers to stay here,” Rachel said.
Brandon added, “She’s old enough to make her own choices.”
Mrs. Turner stepped close to the screen door and lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. “She’s got to come home. She’s not gonna be safe if she don’t come home.”
“Are you making a threat?” Brandon said.
Rachel touched his arm to silence him. She watched Mrs. Turner’s mouth quiver as a tear coursed down a wrinkled cheek. This wasn’t an act. The woman was seriously frightened. Maybe if they let her come in, they could pry some information out of her. But no. It probably wouldn’t work, and it would upset Holly for no good purpose. “Holly is safe here, Mrs. Turner.”
“She’s not safe anywhere!” Mrs. Turner gulped air and made an effort to calm herself. “I heard about her bein’ shot at. Then on the radio this mornin’ they said somebody set the animal hospital on fire. What if Holly’d been in it? She coulda been burnt to death. She needs to come home.”
“She doesn’t want to.”
“She don’t have a job now, with the animal hospital bein’ closed. You got no reason to keep her here, and I really need her at home. I can’t get by without her.”
The poor-old-me act again. If Rachel hadn’t seen it before, she might be swayed. “Be careful, Mrs. Turner. I’ll start thinking you set my clinic on fire to get Holly back.”
“You stupid girl!” The woman’s face twisted into a snarl. “Why can’t you stay out of our family business?”
“Now, listen here, ma’am,” Brandon said. “We’re trying to be polite to you—” He broke off, looking beyond Mrs. Turner.
Rachel followed his gaze. Jack Watford was out of his truck and trudging through the snow to the house.
“Stop right there!” Brandon yelled. He shoved the screen door open, forcing Mrs. Turner to scoot out of the way. With one hand on his pistol, Brandon marched across the porch to the top of the steps. “Captain Bridger told you not to come anywhere near Holly or Dr. Goddard. So get back in your truck and get out of here.”
Watford stopped, hunched his shoulders and crammed his hands into his jeans pockets. “My mother-in-law asked me to drive her. She’s too old to be drivin’ around by herself with the roads so bad.”
Mrs. Turner took advantage of the distraction to pull the screen door open again and scurry past Rachel into the front hall. “Holly!” she cried. “Honey, it’s Grandma. Come on out and talk to me.”
“Mrs. Turner, please stop this.” Rachel caught up with her and blocked her way. The scene was entirely too much like Jack Watford’s invasion of the clinic on Friday. Rachel wouldn’t knock an elderly woman to the floor the way she had Watford, but she would restrain Mrs. Turner if necessary. “Holly is free to go anytime she wants to. But she doesn’t want to. If you think she’s in danger, you should tell the police who’s trying to hurt her.”
“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about!”
“This conversation’s over.” Rachel grabbed Mrs. Turner’s arm and push-pulled her to the door and out onto the porch. “Leave. And don’t come back.”
“Get your hands off her,” Jack Watford shouted. He started for the porch.
Brandon intercepted the man in the yard, caught his arms and twisted them behind his back. “You’re about two seconds away from being arrested, mister. What’ll it be—go home or go to jail?”
“Okay, okay.” Watford stopped resisting and Brandon let him go. “Come on, Mama Turner. We’re not gonna get anywhere talkin’ to these people.”
Mrs. Turner peered through the screen door into the house, and Rachel was afraid she’d make another dash for it. But in the end, Mrs. Turner started down the steps. Watford gripped her arm and kept her upright on the snow as they made their way to the truck.
In the house, with the door closed and locked, Rachel listened to Brandon rant for a couple of minutes. Finally he looked at her and said, “You’re awfully quiet.”
“Mrs. Turner said she heard on the radio that somebody set fire to the animal hospital. But Tom asked the fire chief not to spread around the fact that the fire was arson. I listened to the local radio news this morning, and they said the fire was probably caused by bad wiring. They didn’t say a word about it being deliberately set.”
Sunlight slanted through the windows of Tom’s office and fell like a spill of cream on the skull in Gretchen Lauter’s hands.
“It’s Jean Turner,” she told Tom and Sheriff Willingham. “The teeth match Jean’s dental records perfectly. It’s a stroke of luck the mandible wasn’t separated from the skull, since most of her fillings and extractions were in the lower jaw.”
Tom raked his fingers through his hair, but a stab of pain made him wince and lower his injured arm. How was he going to tell Holly her mother had been dead for years? “Any idea how she died?”
Gretchen laid the battered skull in the box on Tom’s desk as if she were handling a delicate piece of sculpture. “Since no other bones were found in the cave, I think a bear may have torn the head off the body and taken it there to gnaw on at leisure, and at least some of the damage could have been done while the animal was feeding.”
The sheriff scowled at the box with its grisly contents. “God almighty, Gretchen, sometimes I think you enjoy this stuff.”
She shot a sour look at Willingham, then said to Tom, “There are three fractures that don’t look like animal damage to me. The pathologist can be more definite, but it’s a pretty good guess that Jean Turner was beaten to death with a blunt object.”
Willingham grunted and fixed an accusing glare on Tom. “Now I want you to get moving and haul Shackleford’s ass in here for questioning.”
“I intend to,” Tom said. “But I don’t have any evidence against him for the murders, and he’s not going to crack and confess. He’d get up and walk out, and he’d have a right to. I need to find grounds to arrest him, so I can hold him at least overnight.”
“What’re you planning?”
“A raid on the diner while the Shacklefords are selling drugs. He’s back in the county—one of our guys drove past his mother’s house a while ago and saw Troy’s SUV in the yard. He’ll be at the diner tonight, and I’ll have good cause for an arrest. I’ll be able to hold him till he’s arraigned.” As an afterthought, Tom added, “If it’s okay with you.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Willingham’s permission sounded grudging.
If the sheriff had raised objections, Tom would have dropped the subject. But not his plans for the raid.
***
Tom shuffled through the accumulation of paper on his desk, gathered the message slips with names of reporters who wanted to talk to him and dumped all of them into the wastebasket.
He knew he was procrastinating, delaying the trip out to the horse farm to give Holly the news. She’d grown up believing her mother was out there somewhere, loving her, thinking about her and sending money for her support. Now Tom had to rob her of that comforting fantasy. Theoretically, she should be able to take it like an adult, but as he’d recently learned, age didn’t matter when you discovered a big part of your childhood had been a lie.
With the junk cleared from his desk, he pulled his notebook from a breast pocket and flipped it open to the page where he’d jotted Mary Lee’s phone number. He wanted to follow up a hunch before he saw Holly.
When Mary Lee’s maid had summoned her to the phone, Tom told her, “I have some news that might affect our investigation of your mother’s death.”
“Oh?” A faint, reluctant sound. Tom imagined a wary expression on her beautiful face. He pictured her black hair cascading to her shoulders, her slender body dressed in an impeccably made outfit that cost more than he earned in a month.
“I’m afraid your aunt, Jean Turner, is dead.”
A gasp at the other end. “When? How?”
“We found her remains this morning, on the same mountain where we found your mother’s. There’s no doubt about her identity. We believe she was killed around the same time your mother was.”
“You’re sure it’s her? You’re sure she was murdered?”
“Yes, on both counts. How well did you know Jean?”
For a moment she didn’t answer. Tom heard her two children laughing and talking in the background. “I didn’t know her well,” Mary Lee said. “But she was a blood relative. I’m shocked by all this. When is it going to end?”
Mary Lee was pleading with him, as if he had the power to call a halt. “We’re doing our best to get to the bottom of it,” he said. “I need you to answer some questions.”
“I’ve told you, I don’t know what happened. I don’t really know either the Turners or the McClures.”
“Holly believes her mother’s been sending money to her grandmother all these years, to provide for Holly. Now we know it’s not possible. Did you send the money?”
Mary Lee sighed. “Yes.”
“Why did you think you had to help support Holly?”
“Because my mother did. I thought she’d want me to continue helping Holly, especially since the child’s mother had left—” She faltered. “I thought— Everyone thought—”
“Did you pretend the money was coming from Jean?”
“No, I didn’t. If my grandmother invented stories for Holly— I don’t know, maybe she was trying to make the child feel less…abandoned.”
Or did Mrs. Turner have a more selfish reason for perpetuating the idea that Jean was alive? Tom moved on to another puzzle. “Did you know your cousin Amy? Bonnie’s daughter?”
“Why are you asking about her? Has something happened to her too?”
“There’s a chance the second skeleton we found, the one we haven’t identified yet, is Amy’s.”
“Oh no.” The words came out on an exhalation of breath.
“Her parents claim she’s living in South Carolina, and Holly gets cards and letters from her. Supposedly from her. But we haven’t been able to find her.”
“If her parents and Holly are in touch with Amy,” Mary Lee said, “why would you think she’s dead?”
He ignored the question and asked, “Did you know her? She was pretty close to your mother, wasn’t she?”
A silence, then, “All I can tell you about Amy is that she was greedy. She got close to my mother because she wanted the things Mother gave her. Gifts, money.”
“Can you make a guess about why we can’t find Amy?”
“My guess would be worthless, as I’m sure you’re well aware,” Mary Lee said.
Tom rubbed his gritty eyes, wishing he’d had more sleep the night before. This was shaping up to be another endless day. “Well, thanks anyway.” He added, “I hope you don’t mind me saying you have a very odd family.”
He heard a gust of humorless laughter, then a click and the dial tone.
***
Rachel’s heart lurched at the sight of Tom’s grim face and bleak eyes. Bad news.
Closing the door, Brandon asked, “What’s up, Captain?”
Tom led them into Joanna’s living room before he spoke. “The searchers found a third skull. It’s Holly’s mother. She’s probably been dead as long as Pauline.”
Brandon groaned.
For a second Rachel couldn’t find words or the voice to speak them. She remembered the radiant look on Holly’s face the night before when she’d heard her mother’s dental records didn’t match the second skull.
I knew she wasn’t dead. She coul
dn’t be.
Her eyes burning with tears, Rachel said, “This will break Holly’s heart.”
“What will?” Holly asked from the doorway.
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“Come sit down.” Brandon, who looked as if he wanted to cry, tried to nudge her toward the couch.
Holly stood firm and shook her head without taking her eyes off Tom.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Tom spoke with the kindness he might use to force an awful truth on a child. “I didn’t come to you until I was absolutely sure of the facts. We’ve found the remains of another woman. The teeth match your mother’s dental records perfectly. I’m sorry, Holly, but there’s no doubt it’s your mother.”
Rachel slipped an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”
“No!” Holly pulled free and raked them all with a furious gaze. “It’s not true. It can’t be. You made a mistake.”
“I know this is a terrible shock.” Rachel’s voice trembled with pity.
When Brandon reached out, Holly spun away. She gripped the edge of the mantel and stood with her head lowered, her slight body heaving with suppressed sobs. “She sends money for me.” Holly faced Tom defiantly. “Dead people don’t send money orders through the mail.”
For an instant Rachel felt a spark of hope. One look at Tom extinguished it.
“You said your grandmother never let you see the return address,” Tom said.
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Holly,” Tom broke in, his voice firm now, “your cousin Mary Lee told me she sent the money. Your grandmother lied to you.”
Holly crumpled, folded in on herself, her knees giving way. Rachel and Brandon caught her and helped her to the sofa. She sank against the cushions and burst into ragged sobs. Rachel could do nothing except sit with the girl and watch her grief pour out.
Holly cried for ten minutes. At last she grew quiet, wiped tears from her cheeks and blew her nose on the handkerchief Brandon offered. “Have you told Grandma?” she asked Tom.
He sat in a chair facing the sofa. “No. I’ll go see her when I leave here.”
“This is gonna kill her,” Holly said, choking up again. “I oughta go too.”
Rachel opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it. She wasn’t going to tell Holly what to do. But if Holly went over there, and her wily fox of a grandmother played on her sympathy and guilt—
“I’m afraid I can’t take you with me,” Tom said. “I really need to speak to your grandmother alone.”
Rachel was relieved when Holly accepted Tom’s decision without protest.
He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I’m going to arrest your father, Holly.”
“When?” Brandon asked, his face alight with eagerness. “Any chance I could—”
“I’ll get back to you about it,” Tom said. “I want to do it tonight.”
A jolt of alarm shot through Rachel. Troy Shackleford was a murderer. He’d tried to shoot his own daughter. He wouldn’t meekly allow himself to be arrested. “Please be careful,” Rachel said, and instantly regretted it. She had to believe he knew what he was doing, trust him not to take reckless chances.
Tom didn’t seem to mind her solicitousness. His eyes warmed when they met hers, and a faint smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I will.” He went on, speaking to Holly, “If we get to the point of a trial, we’ll need you to testify to what he told you about your mother and Pauline. Are you willing?”
Rachel thought Tom was asking too much of Holly, pushing her to shed a lifelong terror of her father in an instant. But Holly’s face, blotched and puffy with heartbreak and anger, no longer showed a trace of fear. “Yes, sir,” she said, “I’ll do it.”
Tom wiped all expression from his face before he knocked at Mrs. Turner’s door. He didn’t want her to see right away that he’d brought bad news. He hoped to surprise her—or, rather, find out whether Jean’s death came as a surprise to her.
“Oh, it’s you.” Mrs. Turner had opened the main door, but not the screen. Her two dogs, flanking her, wagged their tails and seemed happier to see Tom than their mistress was. The little one gave a cheerful yip.
“I need to talk to you.” Without waiting for an invitation, Tom tried to pull open the screen door, but it resisted.
For a moment Mrs. Turner regarded the latch thoughtfully, as if keeping Tom outside might be the better choice. In the end she hooked a finger under the latch and released it. Turning her back on Tom, she walked into her living room.
He followed her with the dogs romping around him. The old woman stood by the cold fireplace, whispering to her daughter Bonnie. Both shot wary looks at Tom as he advanced with his canine escorts.
“Good morning, Mrs. Watford,” Tom said to Bonnie. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Mrs. Turner clapped her hands twice, startling Tom. At this wordless command, the dogs trotted toward the kitchen. Mrs. Turner lifted an orange cat from an easy chair and sat down with the animal in her lap. Bonnie, her doleful eyes watching Tom, sat on the arm of the chair.
He took a seat on the couch before he spoke. “Your daughter Jean is dead. We’ve found her remains.”
Mrs. Turner received the news with a blank look, as if she couldn’t grasp his meaning. Bonnie was the one who reacted, pressing both hands to her mouth, eyes staring in shock.
“Jeannie?” Mrs. Turner, her face a picture of stupefaction, looked up at Bonnie, back at Tom. “Somethin’s happened to Jeannie?”
“Oh, dear lord,” Bonnie cried. Tears filled her eyes. She clutched her mother’s shoulders. “Oh, Mama. Jeannie!”
Apparently they’d both believed Jean was alive. But how was that possible? “She may have been killed when Pauline was,” Tom said. “We found her remains in the same area as Pauline’s.”
Mrs. Turner shook her head and looked at Bonnie again. “Jeannie too?”
Bonnie got to her feet and stumbled away from them. Her shoulders trembled but she cried without making a sound.
Determined not to give them time to recover and formulate careful answers, Tom barreled on. “Mrs. Turner, I know Mary Lee’s been sending you money. Why did you tell Holly it was coming from Jean?”
Mrs. Turner’s gnarled fingers stroked the cat she held, but the action seemed automatic. Her face said she was struggling to shift her beliefs to fit a shocking new reality. “She— I— The girl needed her mother. So I let her think…” Her voice faded to a whisper as tears puddled in her eyes and overflowed. “Jeannie was my baby. I know it ain’t right, but I always loved her the best.”
Bonnie wheeled around to gape at her mother. She made a guttural sound, but whatever angry retort she’d had in mind died on her tongue. Erupting in fresh tears, she collapsed into an armchair and buried her face in her hands.
Far from being moved by this display, Tom felt a growing irritation. “I don’t know how you could go all these years without wondering what happened to her.”
“I thought she was hidin’ from him,” Mrs. Turner said.
“From who? Troy Shackleford?”
Mrs. Turner averted her eyes and didn’t answer.
Tom was out of patience. “Look, somebody murdered two of your daughters. If you want the killer punished, you have to start being honest with me. Do you know something that can help me put Shackleford away? Has he threatened you?”
“Leave my mother alone!” Bonnie jumped up and rushed to Mrs. Turner’s side. “Can’t you see she’s all broke up about Jeannie?”
“I’m tired of listening to you people lie to me,” Tom said. “If you think he killed Pauline and Jean, why in God’s name are you protecting him? What about your own daughter, Mrs. Watford? Were those Amy’s bones we found on the mountain with Pauline’s? Have you been trying to fool everybody into believing Amy’s alive?”
“She
is
alive! My daughter’s not dead.”
“Then why can’t we find her?”
“You stay away from her. She’s got a good life and you’re not gonna drag her into all this.”
“If she’s alive, then where is she?” Tom said. “Why can’t we find Amy and Darrell Wood in South Carolina?”
“Because Wood’s not their real last name,” Mrs. Turner said. Calmer now, she met Tom’s eyes. “It’s made-up. There’s people she don’t want findin’ her.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want to.” Mrs. Turner stood, gently laid the cat on the chair, and put an arm around Bonnie’s shoulders. “Now we got nothin’ else to tell you. Go on and let us do our grievin’ in private.”
“The truth is going to come out,” Tom said as he rose. “If you don’t want to end up in jail as accessories, you’d better make up your minds whose side you’re on.”
The only answer he got from the old woman was a stubborn look that mixed defiance and sorrow and fear.
Tom and Brandon sat in a parked cruiser half a mile from Rose Shackleford’s diner. Too tense to talk. Freezing without the heater on. Staring into the darkness and waiting.
Tom had missed having Brandon at his side, and he was glad he’d been able to free him for the raid. Grady Duncan, who had no taste for excitement, had taken over guard duty at Joanna McKendrick’s house.
Tom’s handheld radio crackled and Deputy Charlie Foster’s voice came through, the words fading in and out as the signal made its way up the winding road. “Checkpoint Charlie to Mason One. Blackbird’s flying right at you.”
“Ten-four,” Tom answered.
“Oh, man,” Brandon said. “I am looking forward to this. This is gonna be sweet.” Tom heard, but couldn’t see, Brandon rubbing his gloved hands together in anticipation.
A lot could go wrong tonight. If even one person in the diner had a gun, if the crowd panicked— But the raid could go off without a hitch. Whatever happened, good or bad, was Tom’s responsibility. His heavy Kevlar vest squeezed his chest with each breath he took. They’d borrowed the body armor from the State Police, and it probably felt as strange and uncomfortable to the other men as it did to him. A reminder that they might be out of their depth, trying to pull off this raid without outside help.
He keyed the radio and said, “B and B, take your positions and stand by.”
The Blackwood twins were on foot, lurking on the wooded hill behind the diner. At Tom’s command, they would move closer to the back door, ready to pounce if anybody fled through the rear when the raid got under way.
“Here it comes, here it comes,” Brandon said.
Troy Shackleford’s black Bronco was no more than a shadow pulled by streams of light when it zoomed past the concealed cruiser. Tom started the car and eased out of the brush. He didn’t take to the road until the SUV disappeared around a curve. After he’d also rounded the bend, Tom tried his radio to see if the signal would carry to the two deputies waiting up the road on the far side of the diner.
“Mason Three, do you read?”
“Ten-four,” came the faint reply, mixed with static.
“Blackbird’s on the wing. Take it slow.” The less said the better, in case Shackleford had a scanner in his vehicle.
“Ten-four.”
Charlie Foster quickly caught up with Tom and Brandon in the van he was lending for transport of prisoners. When the diner came into view, Tom doused his lights and pulled to the side of the road. Charlie did the same. They had to give Troy and his nephew Buddy time to park, go inside, hand the gym bag containing drugs to Rose, who would unpack the plastic baggies and start selling. Dennis Murray, in the woods across the road from the diner, was snapping pictures with his favorite toy, a digital camera with a telephoto lens.
In the darkened vehicle, Brandon’s breathing was audible, quick and shallow. Tom drew deep, calming breaths, but his heart hammered his ribs and the familiar silence of the mountain night suddenly seemed alien and threatening.
At last he keyed the radio with cold-numbed fingers. “It’s time.”
“Ten-four,” from Charlie.
“Ten-four,” from the third car.
“B and B, on alert,” Tom said into his radio.
A quiet answer, “Ten-four.”
Tom repeated the message to Dennis.
The two Sheriff’s Department cars and the van coasted to the outer edges of the diner’s parking lot. Although nobody inside could have heard them above the throbbing beat of jukebox music, the five deputies emerged from their vehicles silently. Dennis trotted across the road with his precious camera cradled against his chest. He stashed the telephoto lens in the trunk of Tom’s car. He would take the camera into the diner.
Tom drew his pistol.
His mouth had gone dry and the vest seemed to be choking the breath out of him. “Let’s go.”
In the lead, he burst through the diner’s door with his gun sweeping the room from side to side. “Hands up, everybody,” he shouted. “Stay where you are and nobody’ll get hurt.”
Two dozen customers scrambled like cockroaches toward the exit. Deputies shoved them back at gunpoint. Buddy Shackleford vaulted the bar and crashed through a door into the storage room, headed for the rear. Tom let him go. The twins would nab him.
Troy Shackleford slid off his stool and stood motionless in the pandemonium, his malevolent gaze fixed on Tom. Behind the bar, Rose scooped up plastic bags and dumped them down the front of her dress. Her mammoth bosom swelled with new bulges.
“Get your hands up,” Tom yelled at her above the racket of the jukebox and the frantic customers. “And get out here where I can see you.”
Her lips twisted in a sneer, Rose slowly raised her hands and waddled out from behind the bar.
Her bulk narrowed the aisle between bar and booths. The deputies herded customers to the open space around the jukebox and started taking names and addresses before searching them for drugs. Dennis Murray had been assigned to receive and tag evidence. A deputy pulled the plug on the jukebox, and the air became thick with the mutterings and groans of people caught red-handed with no way out.
Tom returned his attention to Troy Shackleford, who hadn’t moved. The guy had the cold, flat eyes and ominous stillness of a viper on the verge of striking. “You’re under arrest for distribution of illegal and controlled substances,” Tom said. “You have the right to—”
“You got nothin’ on me,” Shackleford interrupted. “Whatever goes on here is Rose’s business. I’m just a customer.”
A deep, furious red mottled Rose’s face. Glaring at Shackleford, she opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again but couldn’t find words. She looked like a hooked fish drowning in air.
Tom leaned across the bar and snagged two plastic bags of marijuana. Dangling them from one hand, he said, “Your cousin telling the truth, Rose? You’re the one dealing drugs, and he just stopped in for a beer?”
She shot a poisonous look at Shackleford, then turned it on Tom and added a smirk. “All you’ve got in your hand’s a misdemeanor charge. I’ll pay a fine and be out in a day.”
“I think we can upgrade the charge after we see what you dumped down the front of your dress.”
Her smirk broadened to a challenging grin. “You gonna search me, big guy?” She spread her arms and her green dress billowed around her body. “Go right ahead. No, wait a minute. I think I’d rather have that pretty boy run his hands over my curves.” With a flick of a pudgy finger, she indicated Brandon.
Brandon’s cheeks reddened and he threw a wide-eyed, pleading look at Tom. “Boss?” he croaked.
While Tom tried to suppress a laugh, a soft
plop
made him look down. At Rose’s feet lay a sandwich bag containing about a tablespoon of brownish-white chunks. Crystal meth.
Rose clutched her bosom and frantically struggled to hold onto the cargo, but a second bag escaped and landed on the floor. And a third. Rose clamped her right foot atop one bag and tried to push the others together and cover them with her left foot.
“Idiot woman,” Shackleford muttered.
“Who the hell you callin’ names?” she yelled. “I ain’t one of your flunkies.”
“Shut up, both of you,” Tom said. “And move your feet.” He advanced on Rose, but she didn’t budge. He stooped and grabbed a corner of one bag sticking out from under her shoe. When he tugged, the plastic tore and the crystals, now crushed to powder, spilled out.
“Oh, shit,” Rose cried. She stepped back, exposing all the bags, and stared at the powder on the filthy floor. “Now look what you done.”
Maybe she believed she was going to get the stuff back at some point and wanted the merchandise in salable condition. “Hey, Denny,” Tom called. “Bring your camera here.”
When Dennis started shooting pictures, Rose tried to back away from the evidence, but the bar and three deputies boxed her in.
Tom gathered the bags and handed them to Dennis. “Find the gym bag. We’ll need to have it tested for residue. Who carried it in?”
Dennis jerked a thumb at Troy Shackleford. “And I got some great pictures.”
Shackleford swore under his breath.
To Rose, Tom said, “You’re under arrest for possession and sale of controlled and illegal substances. Brandon, cuff her.”
“No!” she shouted. “You’re not—”
Brandon yanked her arms behind her back—a little roughly, to Tom’s eye, although he wouldn’t have been any gentler. Tom recited her rights while she spouted a stream of obscenities. He didn’t know whether she would turn on her cousin in exchange for leniency, but the dawning alarm on Troy Shackleford’s face told him the man didn’t trust Rose’s loyalty.
Tom was unhooking his handcuffs from his belt, preparing to cuff Shackleford, when a gunshot sounded outside. He raced around the bar and dashed through the storage room. When he shoved open the rear door, the streak of interior light fell on Keith and Kevin Blackwood, wrestling in the snow with Buddy Shackleford. Buddy’s right arm was straight up in the air and he clutched a pistol in his hand. One of the twins leaned a knee into Buddy’s stomach while the other bent his wrist back until Tom expected to hear bones snap. Buddy let out a moan of pain, his fingers opened, and the gun dropped into the snow. Tom snatched it up, shook off the snow, and stuck the pistol into his waistband.
Kevin and Keith hauled Buddy to his feet. “Man!” Kevin exclaimed, while Keith fastened cuffs around Buddy’s wrists. “He took off toward the hill like a hound after a coon.”
Peering around Buddy’s shoulder, Keith grinned at Tom. “We tackled him, though. Our old football coach’ll be proud of us when he hears about it.”
“I’m not exactly ashamed of you myself,” Tom said. He shook his head at Buddy. “Resisting arrest, threatening police officers with a firearm. You’re not helping yourself, Buddy.”
“Go to hell, motherfucker.” Buddy spat and a wad of saliva landed in the snow by Tom’s left boot.
What a pleasure it would be to slam a fist into Buddy’s insolent face. Another time, maybe. “Lock him in one of our cars,” he told the Blackwoods.
As soon as Tom emerged from the storage room into the diner, he realized Troy Shackleford was no longer there. “What the hell?” he shouted. “Where’d he go?”
The three harried deputies working the crowd of customers at one end of the room looked around in bewilderment. Rose cackled a laugh.
Brandon was gone too. Tom hustled out to the parking lot. Shackleford sat behind the wheel of his Bronco and Brandon tugged the handle of the locked door. The engine started. The headlights came on.
Shouldering Brandon aside, Tom rapped on the window with his pistol and yelled, “Cut the engine and step out, or I’ll shoot.”
Shackleford stared back, his defiant face painted red by the diner’s fluorescent sign.
Tom leveled the pistol at the window. Shackleford gunned the engine and the Bronco shot backward out of the parking space and swung around. It crashed into a car, then lurched toward the road.
Tom jumped in front of the Bronco but Shackleford kept coming.
“Captain!” Brandon screamed. “He’ll run you down!”
Tom put a bullet through one front tire, then the other. The vehicle careened out of control but Shackleford didn’t brake. Tom ran after it and shot out both rear tires. The SUV bounced and swerved and crashed into a utility pole. A geyser spewed from the radiator.
Four bullets. He had plenty left. He walked up to the Bronco and pressed the gun barrel against the driver’s window. “Get out. Now. Slow and easy.”
For a minute Shackleford locked his eyes on Tom’s and didn’t move. If he had a gun in the vehicle, if he went for it, Tom would have no choice but to shoot. An icy calm spread through him. He knew what he had to do and didn’t doubt he could do it. The only decision left was Shackleford’s to make.
At last Shackleford raised both hands, palms out to show they were empty. He killed the engine, flipped the lock, slowly opened the door. Tom moved back, gripping his pistol, and Shackleford stepped into the snow. Brandon started to cuff him.
Shackleford shoved Brandon aside and took off toward the back of the building.
“God damn it!” Tom charged after Shackleford with Brandon close on his heels.
They caught him in the same spot where the Blackwoods had subdued Buddy. Tom grabbed Shackleford’s arm and spun him around. Shackleford’s fist came up and walloped Tom in the jaw. He staggered backward, slipping and sliding in the snow. Brandon, trying to keep a hold on Shackleford, looked like he was wrestling with an octopus.
Tom regained his balance, shifted his pistol to his left hand, and slammed his right fist into Shackleford’s gut. The man sank to his knees.
“You got no proof against me,” Shackleford gasped. “You’re wastin’ your time.”
With both his jaw and wounded arm throbbing, Tom led the prisoner to his cruiser. They’d have no trouble making felony drug charges stick. But the murders—Tom would have to dig deep in the few hours he could hold Shackleford before bond was set. If he came up with nothing tonight, maybe a surprise encounter he was planning for tomorrow morning would shake the truth loose.
“Hey, out there!” Shackleford yelled above the racket of his former customers, now his fellow inmates. “I want my phone call!”
Tom, leaning against the booking desk outside the cell block, ignored Shackleford. He peeked over Carl Madison’s shoulder as the elderly night jailer typed the last booking sheet into the computer. The jailers who worked the other two shifts had come in to help take fingerprints and mug shots, but the process hit a snag when their handwritten paperwork reached Carl, who had to be the world’s most inept computer user. The other jailers had gone home, and so had all the other deputies except Brandon. He’d stretched out on a hard bench and fallen asleep after Tom promised to wake him when Shackleford was questioned.
Carl whipped the final sheet from the printer and added it to the pile on the desk. Tom checked his watch. The booking process, begun late Monday night, had lasted until 2:12 a.m. Tuesday. People charged with marijuana possession had been booked first and released on their own recognizance until arraignment. Everybody else was locked up.
“I want my phone call!” Shackleford yelled again from the other side of the door.
“I think it’s time for a chat with our star prisoner,” Tom said. “Hey, Brandon, wake up. We’ll be out with Shackleford in a minute.”
Carl unlocked the door between the booking room and the cell block.
Tom had put Troy, Buddy, Rose, and three other women into individual cells and herded eleven men into the holding pen. When Tom and Carl entered the cell block, the men mobbed the door of the pen, gripping the bars or sticking their hands out in supplication.
“How long we gonna be here?”
“You can’t keep us all in here together!”
“We ain’t got but one toilet!”
“You brought this on yourselves, guys,” Tom told them. When this bunch arrived the place had smelled of antiseptic. Now it stank of sweat and piss. “The sheriff wants you locked up till you see the judge.”
Sheriff Willingham had put in a brief appearance around midnight, found the chaotic scene not to his liking, and gone home to bed. Before leaving, he’d told Tom, “You went to the trouble of arresting them, now make it count. Teach ’em a lesson.”
Tom followed Carl past the cell where Buddy paced and fumed. Rose was his neighbor. She slumped on a cot, her voluminous dress spread around her, and stared glumly at the opposite wall. Earlier, Rose had been searched by Maggie Jenkins, who acted as matron when the jail had a female prisoner. Tom surmised that Maggie’s no-nonsense manner and the legendary thoroughness of her body cavity search had done nothing to improve Rose’s mood. The thought made him smile.
“What the hell you grinnin’ about?” Troy Shackleford said when Tom reached his cell. His gray-streaked black hair flopped onto his forehead in disheveled waves and stubble darkened his cheeks. “You enjoyin’ this? Well, you better get your jollies while you can, Deputy Dawg, ’cause you’re gonna be damned sorry you messed with me.”
“Are you threatening me, Troy?” Tom said.
“Sure sounded like a threat against a police officer,” Carl said.
“You take it any way you want to. Now, I got a right to a phone call.”
“Sure. No problem.” Tom unhooked a pair of cuffs from his belt.
“You ain’t cuffin’ me again.”
“You want the phone call, you wear cuffs while you’re outside the cell.” Tom was still cursing himself for letting Shackleford sock him at the diner, and he didn’t plan to let it happen a second time. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
Shackleford stewed in silence for a minute. Finally he said, “All right. Let’s get on with it.”
“Smart choice. Make your call, then we’ll talk.”
Tom reached through the bars to click the cuffs around Shackleford’s wrists before Carl unlocked the cell door. They escorted Shackleford to the phone at the booking desk. Brandon sat up on the bench, rubbing his eyes.
Maneuvering the phone awkwardly with his bound hands, Shackleford punched in a number and waited a full minute before he got an answer. “Mama? Yeah, I know what time it is. Rose and Buddy and me are at the jail. They arrested us. You gotta find us a—What? Some bullshit drug charges. Just listen, will you?”
The conversation lasted several minutes, with Shackleford’s mother apparently shaking off sleep and launching into a tirade against her son’s stupidity in getting caught. When she raised the volume, Shackleford held the receiver away from his ear and Tom had no trouble catching the gist of her complaint. Soon the son was shouting curses at the mother, but in the end they seemed to reach an understanding. After he hung up, Shackleford told Tom, “I’ll have a lawyer in the mornin’ by the time I see the judge.”
“Actually, you won’t be arraigned till Wednesday. I talked to the prosecutor a while ago, and he’ll need the whole day tomorrow to process these other people. He’ll take you and Rose and Buddy in for arraignment Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, you’ll stay here.”
Shackleford’s face colored deep red. “You son of a bitch, you can’t—”
“We can hold you for forty-eight hours without arraignment.”
Shackleford muttered something Tom didn’t catch—although he gathered it was uncomplimentary—then said, “You can hold me, but I ain’t answerin’ questions without a lawyer, and maybe not then either. That’s my right.”
“Okay, I won’t ask you any questions.” Tom steered Shackleford across the booking room toward the jailer’s private office. Brandon followed. “I’ll do the talking. You listen.”
Shackleford balked at the office doorway. “I’m not goin’ in some little room with two cops so you can shut the door and do what you damned well please.”
“I’m disappointed that you have so little confidence in our integrity.” Tom planted a hand on Shackleford’s back and shoved him into the room. “Have a seat.”
Each taking an arm, Tom and Brandon propelled Shackleford into a chair. Brandon sat beside him.
As Tom sank into the jailer’s leather chair behind the desk, Shackleford gave him a nasty grin. “You oughta put some ice on that jaw, Captain. You’re gettin’ a real bad bruise.”
Tom didn’t acknowledge the remark. His jaw was a little sore, but he’d bet that Shackleford’s gut felt a lot worse. “I suppose you heard what the searchers found on Indian Mountain this morning. Yesterday morning, I guess I should say.”
Shackleford’s brow creased.
“No? I’m surprised the news didn’t reach you.” Tom sat back and watched Shackleford. He couldn’t tell whether the man was simply wary or didn’t know what Tom was talking about.
Almost a minute passed in silence. Wind rattled the windowpanes.
Shackleford blurted, “Damn it, what’re you gettin’ at?”
So he hadn’t heard. He’d be a lot cagier if he had. Tom sat forward, laced his fingers on the desktop. “The State Police cadets found Jean Turner’s head.”
Shackleford snapped back in his chair as if he’d been clobbered with a fist. His swarthy cheeks paled and he gasped for breath.
Tom paused to study this reaction. Looked like genuine shock. Setting aside the questions that crowded his mind, Tom kept his gaze locked on Shackleford’s face and pressed the advantage. “We found her skull and her hair. All that pretty black hair, scattered around in a cave. We haven’t found the rest of her yet. Our local M.E. thinks a bear probably tore Jean’s head off and took it into a cave and made a meal of it, brains and all.”
Looking like he was about to barf, Shackleford gulped and started to rise. Brandon pushed him down.
“All these years,” Tom said, “Holly—your daughter, your own flesh and blood—she believed her mother was alive. I wish you could’ve been there to see her face when she found out her mother’s been dead all along.”
Bent from the waist, Shackleford hung his head so his face was hidden. Tom wanted to grab him by the hair and yank him upright, make the son of a bitch look him in the eye.
“It hit Mrs. Turner pretty hard too,” Tom continued. “Finding out she’s lost two daughters, not one. Her family thought Jean took off to get away from you, but she never left the county. I know you beat her, and I’m guessing you killed her because she threatened to turn you in for killing Pauline.”
Shackleford jerked his head up and met Tom’s gaze. “No. I did not kill Jeannie. I didn’t kill nobody. Sarelda Turner knows that. You’ll never make her say I did it ’cause she knows I didn’t.”
“I have to admit we’re stumped about who the third victim was,” Tom said. “It could have been Amy Watford. Maybe she stumbled onto the truth. She was close to Pauline. She would’ve turned you in. Her parents claim she’s in South Carolina, but I think they’re so terrified of you and your family that they’ll say anything you tell them to.”
Shackleford’s face stiffened. Instead of folding, he seemed to be gaining strength and resolve. “You arrested me on drug charges. Now you’re talkin’ about murder. What’s one thing got to do with the other?”
“You’re the only person with a motive to kill Jean.”
Shackleford didn’t answer.
“As for Pauline,” Tom said, “a number of people had grievances against her. You were one of them. I can understand why you hated her. She pushed you to take responsibility for a child you never wanted, threatened to take you to court if you didn’t pay support. Told you how to live your life. You might’ve lost your temper and killed her for that reason alone.”
Shackleford shifted in his chair and the handcuffs clinked together.
“But maybe you had even more incentive. If somebody else wanted her dead, and offered you money to do it—well, why not get rid of a thorn in your side and make a nice profit at the same time?”
For a second Shackleford’s eyes widened, but he quickly hid the reaction behind a shield of defiance. “You been watchin’ too many cop shows on TV.”
“We know all about Natalie McClure, Troy.”
Shackleford’s gaze darted to the windows, back to Tom, away again. His chest heaved as his breathing quickened. “The lady’s got nothin’ to do with me.” His attempt to sound dismissive came off as nervous and furtive.
Good God, it’s true.
Shackleford and Natalie McClure had plotted together. “Are you going to let her get away with her part in it because she’s rich and comes from an important family? You think she’ll mind seeing you go to death row while she goes on living her comfortable life? Give her up, and you won’t get the death penalty.”
“I never killed nobody, and you can’t prove I did.”
“We can prove motive and opportunity, and you’ve been talking a little too freely about what happened to Pauline. We’ll use your own words against you. People have been convicted with a lot less proof than we’ve got.”
“I’m not sayin’ another word till I’ve got a lawyer in the room.”
“What I don’t understand,” Tom went on, “is how a man can kill a woman he’s been close to, had a child with. Oh, I know it happens all the time. But I’ve never been able to understand it, how a man can go from sleeping with a woman, touching her that way, to beating the life out of her. And a woman like Jean—she was beautiful, and so small and delicate. Helpless against a man your size.”
The transformation taking place on Shackleford’s face made Tom fall silent and stare. The man’s features contorted as if he were in pain. His mouth trembled. “God damn it. God damn it all.” Then he shook his head. “I want to go back to my cell, and I want to be left alone till my lawyer gets here.”
This time when Shackleford made ready to stand up, Brandon looked to Tom for direction and Tom nodded. “Take him.”
As they left the room, Tom rose, stretched his aching shoulders, and walked to the window. Outside, the little town lay silent and calm. He was damned glad Shackleford was in custody and no longer a danger to Rachel and Holly, but to put Shackleford away for good he had to come up with enough evidence to charge the man with murder. When he’d called Rachel earlier to tell her about the arrest, she’d sounded relieved but very much aware that nothing was settled.
God, he wanted this case behind him so he could focus on her. Finally breaking through Rachel’s defenses had felt like walking into a warm room after wandering through a cold, dark night. He couldn’t lose his chance with her.
Brandon came in and closed the door. “What the heck do you make of it?”
Tom rubbed his gritty eyes and returned to his seat behind the desk. “I don’t know. He acts like he didn’t know Jean was dead. But if he didn’t kill her, who did? And why?”
Brandon slumped into a chair. He looked as worn out as Tom felt, stubble-chinned and bleary-eyed and running on empty. “Rudy O’Dell?”
“I guess that’s possible. But after what O’Dell’s mother told me, I don’t believe he did anything willingly. I think Shackleford coerced him into helping to get rid of the bodies—two of them, anyway—and from the sound of it, O’Dell was traumatized by the experience. Why would he kill Jean Turner? Shackleford’s the one who had a reason to want her out of the way.”
“Well, he sure did react when you brought up Natalie McClure. Who would have thought it? A rich, pretty woman like that, president of the Junior League and all.”
“It won’t be easy to make a jury believe it. We’ll probably never get as far as a trial if we don’t get a confession out of one of them.”
“Oh, man,” Brandon said with gleeful relish, “if they did plot the murders together, Mrs. McClure’s gonna do a meltdown when she comes in for her interview in the morning and you put Shackleford right in her face.”