Rude Awakening (21 page)

Holly looked at Dalton and smiled. He didn't see it, though, as he wasn't looking her way. So, she thought, he's gonna ask me out to dinner. Then she sighed. OK,
I'm
gonna have to ask
him
out. Whatever.

They headed for the dresses, with Holly's mind already thinking, Shoes!

Me and Emmett drove out to a barn on a piece of land that had been foreclosed on almost a year before, figuring that barn should be pretty beat up. There was nothing there. No evidence that Emil Hawthorne had ever held hostages at this location.

We were back in Emmett's car, heading to a second location, when we got a call from Anthony Dobbins.

‘Sheriff?'

‘Yeah, Anthony?'

‘We got a DB over at Mitch Dovey's place on the back side of Mountain Falls. Some trespassing hikers found it.'

‘Who the hell is it?' I asked.

‘Well, Sir, the ID in his pocket says it's Emil Hawthorne.'

We hightailed it back toward my house. You had to take a road off Highway-5, go up the mountain a ways, on the other side of the mountain from my house, then there was a turnoff to Mitch Dovey's spread. He never did live there, but he used to grow about 100 acres of cotton there every year, until he got too old to care. The 100 acres was shielded from the side road by old oaks and pines and what have you, and most of the former cotton fields were overgrown now with second-growth trees and wild grasses. But at the back of the spread, he had an old barn, nestled in some trees up against the foothills.

The body was lying in front of the barn. I got out of Emmett's car and walked up to where Anthony Dobbins was standing. ‘You call it in to Doc Church?' I asked, naming the new county medical examiner.

‘Yes, Sir,' Anthony said. He handed me a wallet. There was a newly minted Illinois driver's license, a Visa card, an American Express card and around $400 in cash. The ID and both credit cards carried the name ‘Emil Hawthorne' big as all get out. The DB was lying on his stomach, his face in the ground. What blood there was came from the head area.

‘You see where he was shot?' I asked Anthony.

‘Yes, Sir. Two shots. One right between the eyes, and another in the left cheek area. But by the amount of blood, I'd say the first shot got him. Figuring the one between the eyes.'

‘How so?' I asked.

‘Well, Sir, the shooter would be aiming real good the first time, and the second shot would just be like overkill.' He stopped for a minute, grinned sheepishly, and said, ‘No pun intended, Sir.'

I grinned back. ‘You might wanna remember it, though,' I said, ‘in case this scenario ever comes up again.'

‘Yes, Sir, copy that,' Anthony said.

We heard a car pulling into the long driveway and waited while the ME parked and got out. Rose Church was elected shortly after Old Doc Watson had retired. She was usually an anesthesiologist, but she was still good at pointing out that somebody was dead. Me and her didn't get along real good, but that was neither here nor there.

‘Hey, Dr Church,' I said as she walked up to the DB.

‘Hey yourself, Sheriff,' she said. ‘How're Jean and your boy?'

Well, that story was so long I didn't dare get into it, so I just said, ‘Fine, thanks for asking.'

‘Who we got here?' she asked, nudging the dead body with the toe of her shoe.

Dr Church was a mannish-looking woman, with real short salt-and-pepper hair, a body like a fireplug and big hands for a woman. But then, who am I to say? Saying such a thing out loud would just get me in trouble with somebody.

‘A foreigner,' I said. ‘From Chicago.'

‘Humph,' she said at my attempted humor.

With Anthony's help, she turned the body over. There appeared to be no wounds other than the two shots to the face. He was a skinny guy, with gray hair and a sallow complexion. I'm not sure if that was from the coma or newly developed due to him being dead and all.

Dr Church took out a hand-held recorder and began to speak into it. ‘Two gunshot wounds, look like twenty-two caliber, one between the eyes, the other center of the left cheek. No other wounds visible. By the lack of blood, I'd say fairly instantaneous death.' She turned off the recorder and rolled the body back over onto its stomach. Pointing at the back of his head, she said, ‘Birds have been pecking on him pretty good back here, so no telling how long he's been laying here. I'll have to take him in to figure out time of death, but off the top of my head, I'd say, he's already gone through rigor, which means he's been laying here for at least six hours,' Dr Church said.

At least six hours. Emmett had found the hostages no more than four hours ago. Seemed like I needed to have me another talk with sweet little Miz Holly Humphries.

Dalton had made the executive decision to take Holly Humphries to the Longbranch Inn rather than to the Motel Five out on Highway-5. For some reason he couldn't fathom, he wanted Holly to like his hometown, and there was nothing much out on Highway-5 to like. But the Longbranch Inn sat right on the square, right across from the county courthouse, and was real old and real pretty and the rooms were made up old-fashioned-like and he thought she might like it. Not that he cared, but it was nice to be nice to someone who'd been through what she'd been through. Not to mention how she probably saved his nephew's life.

Coming into town on Highway-5, Dalton said, ‘This here Highway Five turns into Main Street right here. That over there is the post office. The original one. Well, not really. The original one was a shack, but this is the second original one.'

‘Very nice,' Holly said, staring at the Georgian-style brick building with the mismatched shingles on the roof.

‘That there in the middle of the square,' he said, pointing straight ahead of them, ‘is the courthouse. It's real old, too.'

‘It looks real old,' Holly agreed. ‘But very pretty.'

‘County had it refurbished 'bout five years ago,' Dalton said proudly.

‘That must be why it looks so good,' Holly said.

‘Yeah. Across the street there,' he said, pointing, ‘is the Longbranch Inn. That's where you'll be staying. They got the best food in town. And real nice rooms. Our head deputy Emmett Hopkins and his wife Jasmine, who's also a deputy, they spent their wedding night there,' he said, then blushed bloodred.

‘I'm sure I'm gonna like it just fine,' Holly assured him.

‘Dalton come in,' came over the radio.

Dalton picked up the mic and switched it on. ‘Car Three, over,' he said.

‘It's Milt. Miss Humphries still there with you?'

‘Yes, Sir, over,' Dalton said.

‘Bring her on back here, would'ja please?'

‘Before or after I check her in at the hotel, over,' Dalton said.

‘Right now means right now, Dalton. Oh, and over and out,' Milt said and hung up.

Holly liked that Dalton had started talking, and liked the way he talked about his hometown. She guessed Tulsa was her hometown, but she didn't feel that way about it. The little parts of the city she knew she wasn't really keen on. But when Dalton brought her to the downtown area of Longbranch, she could certainly see why he was prideful about his hometown. It was beautiful. Just like out of a movie – maybe a Western, but still and all. The courthouse in the middle of town was surrounded by centuries-old oak trees, and the lawn was green and perfect, with spring flowers bursting forth all over. Each little store had a big old pot in front of it with spring flowers. The hotel he pointed out was almost as ornate as the courthouse, and she couldn't wait to see her room in such a place.

But then the call came in from the sheriff, and Dalton turned the squad car around, heading back out Highway-5 to the sheriff's department. She didn't like the feel of this at all.

Once there, Dalton parked on the side, and led her in through the staff-only entrance. Normally, she would have found that fairly cool, but right now she was a little upset. She really wanted to rest, to lay down in what she knew would be a four-foot-high four-poster bed in a room with old-fashioned wallpaper, and close her eyes to sweet dreams about cowboys and dancehall queens.

The sheriff was in his office, the first door they came to. He looked up. ‘Hey, Miz Humphries, come on in.' He stood up and ushered her to a chair. ‘Thanks, Dalton, please close the door behind you.'

And then she was alone with the sheriff.

‘Miz Humphries, I need to ask you a few questions,' the sheriff said.

‘Yes, Sir,' she said. ‘I think I told you everything, but anything you need.'

‘When exactly was the last time you saw the man you say you knew as Mr Smith?'

Not being a complete and total idiot, Holly didn't miss ‘the man
you say
you knew as Mr Smith.' That sounded as if he didn't believe her, and if he didn't believe her, what was she going to do? Holly took a deep breath and then plunged ahead. ‘That's the only way I knew him, Sheriff, I swear to God. He told me his name was Mr Smith. He never said anything else. No first name, no nothing. I shoulda asked, I know, but I was so happy to get an acting gig that I just took him at his word!'

The sheriff nodded his head. ‘OK,' he said. ‘But I still need to know, when exactly was the last time you saw him?'

‘Oh, yeah. OK. Uh.' Holly thought for a moment, then said, ‘As Eli and I were running away. It was dark, I guess last night some time, and we were running along the woods near the driveway, and he shone his flashlight on us and we ran back into the thick woods behind the barn.' Another bout of thinking, then she said, ‘At least, I think it was Mr Smith. I didn't see his face, just the flashlight beam, but who else could it have been?'

‘Who else, indeed?' the sheriff said ominously. ‘Let's go over again how you met Mr Smith.'

So Holly painstakingly described yet again how she'd seen the ad on ‘Craig's List' and had emailed the address listed and how Mr Smith had called her and set up a meet. She told the sheriff every last detail of every encounter she'd had with Smith, then asked, ‘Do I need a lawyer?'

‘Why would you need a lawyer?' the sheriff asked.

‘I don't know,' Holly said, tears building up behind her eyes and her voice getting wet. ‘You're scaring me!' she wailed and burst into tears.

At which point, the sheriff's door opened and Dalton Pettigrew burst in.

‘What'd you do to her?' he yelled at the sheriff.

Through tear-filled eyes, she saw the sheriff stand up and walk around his desk. She turned to look up at Dalton, her eyes pleading.

‘Let's you and me go outside, Deputy,' the sheriff said, and they closed the door, leaving Holly alone in the sheriff's office.

I grabbed Dalton by the arm and dragged him down the hall to the now-empty lobby. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?' I demanded.

‘She didn't have nothing to do with this, Milt!' Dalton said, for all the world looking like he could punch me out. I'd never seen that look on Dalton's face before, and I must say, if you'll excuse the expression, I was nonplussed.

‘You don't know that, Dalton. And I'm not saying that she did. But I got some tough questions to ask, and she's one of the people I need to ask them to. She's the only one who knew Smith, she came here
with
Smith . . .'

‘And she saved Eli's life!' Dalton all but shouted.

‘No doubt she did,' I said. ‘Maybe she changed her mind about being in on it, or maybe she didn't know anything about it. I don't know. All I do know is that Dr Church says Smith's been dead like six hours. And y'all were found four hours ago. Seems like there's leeway for Holly to have shot Smith and left with Eli.'

‘Don't you think Eli would have noticed if she'd shot Mr Smith?' Dalton demanded.

Hum, I thought. He had me there. ‘Maybe she did it while he was asleep. Or maybe she'd already run away with Eli, left him stashed in the woods, then come back and did Smith.'

‘That's stupid!' Dalton said.

I looked at him hard and he said, ‘Sir.'

‘You go swab out the cells right now, Dalton. And don't come down my hallway until I call for you. You got that?' I said.

He stared at me hard for a minute and then said, grudgingly, ‘Yes, Sir,' and headed for the broom closet to get the cleaning supplies for the jail cells. They'd been cleaned on Saturday by Lonnie Sturgis and we hadn't had anyone in there since then, but it was a ‘keep busy' kind of chore, and we both knew it.

I went back to my office, where Holly Humphries was blowing her nose and drying her eyes. I sat down behind my desk and said, ‘Miz Humphries, I'm not accusing you of anything, and if you want a lawyer, you can call one.'

‘I don't know any lawyers,' she said, a sob in her voice.

‘I'll call one for you, if you want me to. But I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just trying to find out what we can about this Mr Smith. And what happened after you and Eli left him. You see, Miz Humphries, somebody shot Mr Smith about the same time you say you got away from him. Shot him twice in the face. Killed him dead.'

Holly's eyes got huge and her mouth quivered. ‘I swear to God I didn't kill him, Sheriff.'

‘It'd be best if we could prove that, Holly. How 'bout we do a paraffin test? Check your hands for gunshot residue?'

She held her hands out toward me. ‘I've never shot a gun in my life, Sheriff. Have at it. Can I take a polygraph, too?' she said, beginning to lose her fear and getting a little excited. ‘And you can swab my mouth for DNA!'