“Billie Cox didn’t commit suicide. She was murdered. If someone killed her over this oil field—I’m not saying that’s what happened, but
if
someone did—your knowledge of this deal could make you a liability,” I explained. “It could occur to the murderer that having you available to talk to the police isn’t in his best interest. Right now, no one knows we’ve talked. It’s best if you keep it that way.”
“You’re not saying that someone might murder me?” he said, suddenly alarmed.
“I’m offering you a suggestion that may keep you safe,” I said. “For now, I’d forget to mention my visit. There’s time enough in the future, when all this is settled, for you to bring your clients up to speed on our conversation.”
That may have been the first time McBride understood the reason for my visit. A full two shades paler than when I arrived, he nodded and I left, figuring I’d shaken him up enough to buy myself at least a day before he began worrying that he may have talked too much and would hold a meeting to advise his clients.
On the drive to the ranch, I thought about what McBride had told me. It seemed that Wagner and Clayton were trying to cash in, first by getting Century Oil and Bobby’s company, Barker Oil, to hand over millions more than it was worth to buy the dried-up oil field. The two old wildcatters would then be in a position to score again, by getting Billie Cox to pay an inflated price for Cen
tury, factoring in the exaggerated worth of the Stanhope holdings. If it all checked out, what McBride had given me was a motive to kill Cox. If she’d uncovered the ruse, she was in a position to expose them and not only ruin their plans, but send them to prison for conspiracy to commit fraud. Still, all I had was a theory, not one piece of real evidence.
Convinced he was somehow involved, I’d already asked Janet to subpoena financial records for Grant Roberts. Now I called her and asked her to do the same for Wagner and Dickson. To speed things up, I asked her to zero in on the past three months, the time period leading up to and continuing through Billie’s murder. Next, I considered the other evidence in my possession. When and if I asked a judge to sign warrants for Wagner’s and Dickson’s arrests, I’d need something well beyond speculation. It would help to be able to prove they were the ones, not McBride, who lied about when the photo was taken. That meant that I needed a way to date the photo, but how? Passing time in the car on the drive back to the ranch, I used the new cell phone the captain had supplied and called Mom and Maggie.
“We’re fine, Sarah,” Mom said. “It’s kind of nice having folks wait on us like this. We just had chocolate sundaes with whipped cream and cherries, and Maggie’s already picked out pizza off the room-service menu for dinner. I’m not sure how she’ll like the feta cheese and fresh basil, but Frieda and I are looking forward to it.”
“Geez, and I’m still trying to work in lunch. A Big Mac would taste good right now,” I said.
“Sarah, I told you, with your dad’s history of heart disease you shouldn’t eat like that.”
“Just kidding, Mom,” I said. “I knew that would get you sputtering. Put Maggie on. I miss both of you.”
“Wish you could sneak away and join us,” Mom said. “We’d
order you one of those sundaes. It would be worth the drive downtown.”
I laughed, and then Maggie’s voice came on the telephone.
“How’s Warrior?” she asked, point blank.
“He was in the front pasture with Emma Lou when I left the ranch. They looked happy as clams,” I said. “I’m headed back there now. Buckshot was cleaning their shed when I left, so they’re probably in their little home resting up after their big outing.”
“That’s really good. I was worried. But Mom, this is fun,” Maggie said, her voice relaxed. It sounded like the captain was right, and Mom and Maggie were enjoying their little vacation. “We’ve been watching movies and playing cards with the troopers. Gram told you about the sundaes?”
“Whipped cream and cherries,” I said, with another chuckle. This was what I needed. Hearing their voices made the whole mess tolerable. “I’ll call you before bed tonight, Maggie. Love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom,” she said. “Later, alligator!”
“After a while, crocodile,” I replied.
I’d almost reached the house, when I had another thought, and I called back. Mom chattered about some movie they were watching about wolves, but I cut her off and told her I needed to talk to Maggie.
“Yeah, Mom,” my daughter said, her voice distant, like she, too, was more interested in the wolves. “What do you need?”
“If I fax you a photo at the hotel, one with a night sky, do you think you can tell me when it was taken?” I asked.
My someday-I’ll-be-an-astronomer daughter paused, and I could picture the serious look she’d have on her face, her front teeth holding down her lower lip. Then she said, “If I had my astronomy books, I might be able to say what time of the year it was when it was taken. But I probably can’t tell you what year.”
Thinking about the discrepancies in the two accounts, the attorney’s statement that it was taken in July and Wagner’s and Dickson’s assertions that it was December, I said, “Time of year works. I’ll send Buckshot over with the photo and your astronomy books.”
“Okay, Mom,” she said. “But I’ve got to go. Gram’s got the movie paused right where the wolf cubs are chasing jackrabbits. It’s really funny. The cubs keep falling down.”
Once I got to the ranch, it only took a few minutes to make a copy of the photo on my workshop scanner and grab Maggie’s books. Everything necessary in hand, Buckshot left in his silver pickup for the downtown Houston hotel where Maggie and Mom were watching movies. He’d make a couple of stops first, one at the feed store to buy Warrior a vitamin supplement Doc had called to say would be good for the foal and then at the drugstore, to pick up contact lens solution for Cassidy. We needed the supplies, but the stops would also help to make sure no one was following.
That done, David and I went over what the FBI had discovered in northern California. “Turns out that we had ten registered sex offenders living within fifteen miles of the trailer park during the years Cassidy and her mother lived there,” David explained. “We’ve had some natural attrition. Two died. That leaves eight. One is confined to a state prison, has been for two years, so he’s ruled out. Now we’re down to seven.”
“Any hunches on who’s our most likely guy?” I asked.
“Our California agents faxed information on the remaining seven. I read through it and narrowed the search down to three. I’d like you to do the same. We’ll see if you pick the same men,” he said. “Then let’s compare notes and plan our next move.”
That decided, David left me with the faxed reports at the kitchen table. I grabbed a hunk of Mom’s cheddar and jalapeño bread, slathered butter on top, and munched while I read. Of the ex-cons in the prospect pile, I tossed out two immediately, based on victim choice. They were all disgusting excuses for human beings, but these particular perverts weren’t into young girls. Their victims of preference were adolescent boys. They might branch out to girls if presented with an easy score, but it seemed unlikely that they’d pursue Cassidy when there had to be thousands of potential young male victims who were easier to get to. Horrible folks. Those discards whittled the list down to five.
Since our guy was adept at maneuvering undetected through the cyber world, I figured Argus had to be exceptionally bright and self-taught or have a solid background in computers. Suspects number two and four both had diminished intelligence, one from a blow to the head in high school and the other mentally challenged from birth. Neither had any technical training. I drew lines through both their names on my list.
That pared the possibilities down to three.
The first, a dentist with a small private practice, was married with two kids. He lived a block from the trailer park and had an office that was only half a mile from Cassidy’s old elementary school. The guy had three convictions, two for exposing himself to kids and one for the aggravated sexual assault of a twelve-year-old girl. Sure that working that close to a school was a parole violation, I figured I’d make sure California authorities heard about it one way or the other. But for the time being, I was more concerned about whether the dentist had any e-mails on his computer signed Argus.
The suspect I penciled in as choice number two, a sixty-eight-year-old ex-con, had one conviction for child molestation on his record. He lived two miles from the trailer park and worked in a
nearby town, managing an office-supply store that included a computer section. He hadn’t been in trouble in a couple of decades, but pedophiles often don’t quit because of advancing age.
All that considered, it was number three who struck me as most likely. Forty years old, Jack Shaw not only had a first name Cassidy remembered but also a twenty-year, computer-related resume, much of it selling information technology. A decade earlier, he’d been downsized from his slot with a national cell phone company, where he worked in research and development. As recently as two years ago, he’d sold computer networking systems to small companies. Along with multiple charges of exposing himself to young girls, Shaw had child porn convictions, including selling the revolting stuff on the Internet. I found the final entry in his file upsetting: “Jack Shaw left the area approximately one year ago while under investigation for sexually assaulting an eleven-year-old girl. His location is currently unknown.”
I found David in the shed brushing Emma Lou, while, to my surprise, Cassidy did the same for Warrior. The colt kept licking and nudging her, and the teenager giggled so loudly I heard her before I walked in.
“Thought we’d have a little fun with the horses,” David said. “Warrior seems to have taken a real liking to Cassidy.”
“What a crazy little dude,” she said, with another chuckle. “Every time I run the brush down his back, he pushes me.”
The kid laughed again and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the foal was probably hungry and confusing her with his mom. “Well, if you two are finished, I’d like to sit down with both of you,” I said. “I’d like you to look over my list, David, see if we agree. And Cassidy, you need to look at the photos, see if any of the men look familiar.”
While David paged through the files I’d selected, Cassidy stared at photos of all seven of the registered sex offenders laid
out on the kitchen table, a rather bizarre lineup of possibilities. The photo of Jack Shaw was smack dab in the middle. She paused, looked at him, even picked that particular photo up and held it in her hand, but put it down and said, “Maybe this guy. I’m not sure.”
“Okay,” I said. “So, David, does my list match yours?”
“Yup,” he agreed. “I’ll call our California guys and get them to round these three up, bring them in for questioning. Since they all have priors, our guys should be able to get some kind of a warrant, at least for their computers, so we can look for files relating to Cas-sidy or Argus.”
“Did your people indicate if they have any leads on the whereabouts of that Shaw guy?” I asked. “He looks like the most possible.”
“No leads,” David said. “He was my top pick in this lineup of losers, too. The California office will beat the bushes, let us know what they find out by morning, I’d guess.”
After Cassidy left the room in search of a soft drink, I mentioned to David, “We only have one day left before she’s scheduled to play the rodeo. Does she know she’s going to have to perform even if we haven’t arrested this scumbag?”
David frowned. “No,” he said. “We’re hoping we don’t have to tell her.”
“My guess is that the kid’s too freaked to go along with your plan,” I said. “But I hope we don’t have to ask her to. I hope by then Argus is history.”
“Yeah,” he said. Holding up the files on our new suspects, he added, “Maybe one of these will pan out.”
“Hope so,” I said, but if he’d asked, I would have admitted that I had my doubts.
Half an hour later, the captain personally delivered a cooler full of hamburger meat with all the fixings. David lit the grill and cooked the burgers, and our patrol of state troopers and rangers ate
in shifts at the picnic table under the corral elm tree. At dusk, the captain, David, and I took our turns, just as Maggie’s lights clicked on. I thought about her and Mom and missed them.
“Rick Barron is fit to be tied about us not telling him where Collins is being kept,” the captain said. Cassidy was upstairs in Maggie’s room, listening to music while she ate her dinner. In addition to her burger, she covered her plate with cole slaw, potato salad, and a thick slice of Mom’s egg twist bread I’d covered with melted cheddar cheese.
“You explained that no one can know, I’m sure,” David said, taking a bite out of his burger.
“Yeah, but that didn’t cut the mustard for him. He figures he’s her head of security, and he’s entitled to an answer,” the captain said, dripping mayonnaise onto his plate from an overstuffed bun that held two beef patties and three slices of cheese with lettuce and tomato. It looked like one of those two-thousand-calorie burgers in the fast-food ads.
“You tell him we’ll be more than happy to clue him in, but then she’s going to have to come out of hiding, and he’ll be responsible for protecting her,” I said. “The only way she stays here is that no one, not even her own people know where to find her.”
“I’m aware of that, Sarah,” the captain said. “I told him to go pee on a fencepost if he needs to mark his territory, but he’s not in charge of this operation. We are. The chief and the governor don’t even know where Collins is, but they know we’ve got her in hiding for her own protection, and they’re in agreement that we have no other choice. Since the girl had herself legally declared an adult in California last year, she’s entitled to make her own decisions, and she’s not asking to leave, so we’re not telling Barron or anyone else where to find her.”
“Okay,” I said. “That works for me. But I wish I’d been listening in when you told him to pee on a fencepost.”
“Gotta admit that the man was still angry when I hung up the telephone,” the captain said with a chuckle.