The Branson Beauty (12 page)

“I'll let myself out,” Hank said quietly.

*   *   *

He inched his car down the deserted road, carefully keeping it in the only set of tire tracks to have already passed through the unplowed snow. He barely saw the small sign through the trees on the right. Thankfully, it was bright orange.
CALFORT'S
, with an arrow pointing down a drive that was blocked by a closed gate and a lot of snow. Fantastic.

He stopped the car and looked at the gate. He had tried calling the number on the brochure, but there was no answer. It was the only phone listing for the house, and the Pup had come up empty when he searched for cell phones under the name Calfort. So Hank would be unannounced. This far out of town, that was not a good idea. People did not take kindly to strangers traipsing around their property. Especially cops. He didn't know much about the Ozarks yet, but he sure knew that.

He tapped the steering wheel. He knew he should have a deputy with him for backup. But that would mean waiting at least an hour for someone to break free from the storm response and get out here. And he wanted to talk to Callie Calfort now.

He made sure his badge was visible on his coat, although he wasn't sure if displaying it would protect him or just make him a more enticing target. His gun, normally a weight he didn't even feel, became an acute and reassuring pressure against his side.

He got out of the car and walked up to the gate, which was not locked. Small favor, that. He got it open enough to squeeze through. The snow was at least a foot deep. He started wading through it. The satellite photos on the internet had been taken during the summer and showed nothing but a canopy of trees, so he had no idea how far in the house was—or the gun shop. He just hoped he wouldn't accidentally walk through the firing range on the way.

The pine trees were tall and thin and bending under the weight of the snow. It was hard to see through them to the gray sky above. He trudged on, pausing when he passed the rusted husk of a VW bus sitting about ten yards off the drive. Snow covered the roof, but it hadn't stuck to the doors, and he could see the scatter of bullet holes. Target practice. That's probably what they did to hippies around here.

He nonchalantly took off his bulky snow gloves and put them in his pockets. Better a cold hand that could fire a gun than a warm hand that couldn't.

He had plowed another fifty feet in when he caught a blur out of the edge of his eye. He didn't even think—just drew his gun as he dropped to one knee and spun to his right. He found himself staring at the muzzle of a rifle and a camouflaged form half-hidden by a shortleaf pine tree. Neither of them moved.

Great.

He hadn't meant to do that—it had happened before his brain even registered what was going on. And he couldn't very well undo it now. If he lowered his gun, he doubted Camo over there was going to do the same and offer to shake hands.

He tried to make out more of the figure behind the tree. A big camouflage parka with a hood, and very steady hands. That rifle hadn't moved an inch from where it was trained on his chest.

“Where is she?”

The voice was feminine. Hank's eyes widened. Okay.

“Where is who?” he asked slowly.

He could almost hear her finger tightening on the trigger.

“I will drop your carcass right here,” she said.

Hank didn't doubt it.

“Look, I'm the sheriff. My name's Hank Worth. I'm looking for Callie Calfort. I just need to talk to her. That's all. I'm not here for anything else.” He cautiously took his left hand off his gun and held it out to his side. The movement made the badge on his coat visible. He kept the Glock leveled at Camo.

“That a badge?” The rifle moved slightly. Hank was pretty sure it was now trained on his heart.

“Yeah.” He paused. “How about we both put our guns down?”

A dismissive snort. “Not until you tell me why you're here. Why do you need Callie?”

“She … she might know something about a friend … a classmate … who needed her help.”

“Callie doesn't have classmates anymore. She graduated.”

“I know, but there's someone she went to school with last year that I need to talk to her about.” He avoided saying Mandy's name. He didn't know who this person was, and he didn't want to possibly get Callie in trouble. He wasn't sure how kindly her people would look upon her socializing with an almost-homecoming queen from in town.

“Why do you care about this person? Is she in trouble? Is she hurt?” This time, the voice quavered just slightly.

All right. All in.

“She's dead.”

She gasped. Her rifle slumped toward the ground and she staggered out from behind the pine tree.

“Callie?” Hank asked.

She wobbled toward him, her rifle butt dragging in the snow beside her.

“Mandy's dead?”

Hank slowly lowered his gun and lurched to his feet. She was close enough now for him to see the tears in her eyes. That was all he could see, though. The camo hood and the scarf wrapped around her face covered everything else.

“You are Callie?” he asked. “Would you mind taking off your hood?”

She yanked it back, and he could see it was the same girl—thin face, light brown hair, angry gray eyes—as the one in the yearbook photo.

“What're you doing out here, Callie?”

She sniffed.

“I was supposed to meet Mandy. She's late. I was getting so worried. Oh, God. He got her.”

Hank leaned closer.

“Who? Who got her? Who, Callie?”

“I don't know,” she wailed. “The pervert. That's what she called him. The guy who kept writing her letters.”

Hank's heart felt as if it had stopped mid-beat. Please let her know something. “What did she tell you about the letters? What did she tell you about the guy?”

“She'd got them for months and … wait a minute.” She swung the rifle back up and aimed at Hank again, while his gun remained pointed politely toward the ground. Shit.

“You talk first, cop. What happened to Mandy?”

Hank scowled. He'd certainly been asked for information before. He'd had people yell at him, swear at him, sweet-talk him, try to seduce him, shake their fists at him. One lady had even whacked him with her purse. But no one had ever held him at gunpoint. He decided this was definitely his least favorite means of coercion.

“Put that down,” he snapped. He had a feeling that direct hostility would work a lot better with this kid than smooth words. “I'm not telling you anything until you put that damn gun down.”

She glared at him—no more tears in those eyes—and lowered the rifle slightly. Now it would just blow out his gut instead of his heart. He raised his eyebrows and folded his arms across his chest.

“I'm not shooting you. You're not shooting me, either. Put it down.”

She dug in.

“You're on my land.”

“Actually, I'm pretty sure it's your daddy's land. And everything on it's your daddy's, too. Everything.” He drew out the last word. “I'm not here for him. Right now, I don't care to involve myself in your daddy's business. But that means you and me got to play ball. Put the gun on the ground, and I'll answer your questions. Then you answer mine. Agreed?”

Camo Callie tilted her head up so she was looking down her nose at him. He didn't move, just stood there waiting—and hoping she wasn't thinking about which ravine on her daddy's property would be the best place to hide a bullet-riddled lawman's body. Their breaths shot streams of white into the air as they stared at each other across ten feet of open snow in between the trees. He had to breathe through his mouth because his nose had frozen again, the snot hardening into what felt like sharp ice crystals digging into his sinuses. His wheezing seemed to echo around them—it was not helping his attempts to appear calm and cool. Camo was the one who looked comfortable, standing in the woods she'd probably played in since she could walk, holding a gun she had probably learned to shoot not long after that. He wished she would hurry up and decide. Lower the gun, or put him out of his misery. At this point, he wasn't sure which one he wanted.

Finally, she swung the rifle up and over her shoulder. “Start talkin',” she said, her head still tilted back.

Hank's breath came a little easier as he explained the
Beauty
's running aground—which she had not heard about—and then finding Mandy dead in the private dining room.

“She was there for a birthday party. But that wasn't the only reason she came to town this weekend, was it, Callie?”

“No.”

Hank waited, but she said nothing else.

“Were you going to give her a gun?” he asked.

More silence. She seemed to be sizing him up—deciding whether she should admit to it. She wouldn't be violating the law—she could sell to a person older than eighteen in a private transaction. But that was if the gun itself was obtained legally. And he would bet it was not.

Camo Callie's silence held. He decided to come at it from another direction. “Can you tell me about the pervert? What did Mandy tell you?”

Her stance softened.

“She started getting the letters real soon after she went down there to school. They came to her dorm room, so he knew where she lived. She said they were just stupid in the beginning—she didn't even save the first one. But then they started getting scary. He was writing stuff that was totally disturbing. And demanding that she do stuff … like wear her hair a special way, or put something in her window so he could see that she wanted him. That was when she figured he was watching her, not just sending her the letters.

“At first, she thought he was somebody down at OU. But then the letters started coming with Branson postmarks. Or Springfield. I think one was from Forsyth. She was really freaked-out by the time she came home for Christmas. She didn't know what would happen.”

Camo stopped, fighting back tears. “She didn't know what would happen,” she repeated in a whisper, then cleared her throat and continued. “That's when she called me.” She chuckled sadly. “I think she kept calling the gun shop line and just hung up 'til I finally was the one who answered. She asked me if I could get her a gun.

“We were gonna meet at the Steak 'n Shake in town … cuz she knows that's my favorite … but she decided at the last minute that it'd be safer if she came out here. Nobody would hear us talking. I met her down by the gate, and she told me what was going on. I … uh … I suggested a certain … um…”

She trailed off and looked skeptically at Hank. He smiled.

“I think maybe a .380 … for her situation. Don't you?”

“Yeah…” she said in a tone that implied that any idiot would know that. “I recommended the Sig P290. She needed a serious piece of self-defense. She could run damn fast, but I don't think she could handle herself in, you know, close quarters, without some help.” She stopped and patted her rifle. “That's what happened, isn't it?” She now seemed to be talking more to herself than to Hank. “He got her inside. He probably didn't sneak up on her. He wanted her to see him. See who it was.” She leaned toward Hank. “He crashed her into a wall, didn't he? Smacked her head? Or broke her neck?”

Camo Callie had clearly seen a thing or two about what happened when you mixed love and hate.

“Not quite,” he said. “He strangled her.”

“Bastard.”

“Yeah.” He paused. “Why didn't you give her the gun at Christmas? Why'd she have to come back?”

Camo scowled. “I didn't have any. I couldn't get it until mid-January. This weekend was the earliest she could get back up here to get it … I did get her to take my old Ruger Blackhawk revolver to have until then. She didn't have it with her?”

Hank shook his head. There had been no gun in the car, and certainly no gun on her body. Camo's scowl worsened, which he hadn't thought was possible. “I told her. Never go anywhere without it. Never, ever, ever. Why didn't she have it? Why didn't she use it?”

Hank had no idea. He would certainly be working a very different case if Mandy had been carrying it.

“You gave her a revolver? Nobody uses revolvers anymore.”

“
The law
don't use revolvers anymore. They're still good guns.” She was again talking to him as if he were an idiot.

“But had she shot before? That's a serious handgun.”

Camo snorted a laugh. “No way. Town girl like her? She had no clue. What's her dad, an accountant or a banker or something? She said she'd never even picked up a gun before. She came out here one day after Christmas and we did some shooting. She wasn't too bad, for a beginner. The Ruger was too much for her, but it was the only one I had that wouldn't be missed right away. I said we'd practice more when she picked up the Sig. That's easier to fire. I was gonna have her try it out on the bus today.”

“How much was she going to buy it for?” Hank asked.

“Two hundred. I cut her a deal. I know that's still a lot, but I couldn't explain anything less than that to my dad. It was gonna be tricky enough as it was.”

A Sig Sauer P290 for only two hundred bucks. He did not think he wanted to know the provenance of that particular weapon. He was pretty sure they retailed for more than twice that.

“So your dad didn't know about this?”

“I thought you said we weren't gonna talk about my dad.” The scowl was back.

“I'm just trying to figure out if anyone else knew Mandy wanted to buy a gun. Or that she had borrowed one from you until she got it.” He shot her a half smile. She didn't respond. “Did anyone know that besides you?” he pressed.

“No. Only me. Nobody knew she'd ever been out here. At least not on my end. And Mandy wouldn't talk. She knows … she knew,” Camo corrected herself, “that would get me in trouble.”