by Claire Booth
‘Great. I’ll check in at five fifteen or sooner.’ The phone clicked off.
‘He hung up on me.’ Hank stared at his phone.
‘’Cause you’re being nosy.’
‘Oh, and you’re not?’
‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I don’t have to be nosy. Because I knew it already.’
‘You did not.’
‘I did so. He’s been sucking down those expensive Donorae lattes like they’re water. And that coffee girl was a witness in our last homicide. She lived downstairs from the victim. Sammy interviewed her during his canvass.’
‘Then why did you seem to have an epiphany just now? If you knew before this? Hmm?’
‘Oh, that was just me delighting in being proven right, because I—’
Her cell buzzed and stopped the patently ridiculous claims coming out of her mouth. Hank jabbed a finger at her and pantomimed answering a phone. She rolled her eyes.
‘It’s just a text. Your Marcel Marceau isn’t needed.’
She pulled it up and said it was Sam with a photo of the dead man’s face.
‘Well, it’s not as much decomp as it could’ve been, I guess,’ she said. ‘I wonder if he’s a meth user – kinda has that skinny look to him.’
‘I wonder how fast we can expedite a tox screen and …’ Hank trailed off. He took her phone without asking.
‘What?’ she said.
He stared at the badly lit snapshot. The metal autopsy table was visible behind the man’s head. His hair was more matted than he usually wore it. And there was certainly no volatile flicker in his eyes.
‘What the hell is wrong?’ Sheila said.
‘His name’s Vic Melnicoe.’
‘Are you kidding me? You know him?’
Hank handed the phone back and sagged against the counter. He felt like he’d just had an iron anvil dropped on him.
‘I think I need to tell you what I was doing up in Columbia.’
THIRTY-ONE
Sheila was pissed off. He brings murder back to town with him – and takes away resources from her homicide in the process. She’d been quite pleased with herself, getting him to laugh as they talked about Sam’s date. Now this. Him freelancing a missing person investigation in a different county. It was obviously helping to pull him out of his funk, but God damn. That man. Knowing her luck, they’d find the missing woman dead in their jurisdiction, too.
She’d left him in the control room trying to get a hold of some Columbia detective. What she really wanted to do was take a walk in the fresh air, but since she was trapped in the damn jail, she did rounds instead. Her expression was so thunderous that no one even spoke as she walked by. She was ten feet past Lonnie Timmons’s cell when it occurred to her that there were two other deputies here at the moment. She spun on her heel, yanked the asshat out of his cell, and marched him down to the interview room.
‘What you want now?’ He slouched in the chair and rattled his chain like an ill-mannered dog.
She dropped her notepad on the table. It landed with a smack, and Lonnie started to shift uncomfortably.
‘I already told you. I didn’t kill my dad.’
She sat down and folded her hands together. ‘Yeah, I remember you saying that. But you didn’t say why exactly the two of you didn’t like each other.’
‘He was an asshole. He wouldn’t ever help me out. He said I was a loser.’
She did not disagree with the elder Timmons.
‘You did say that,’ she said. ‘And I gave it some thought after we talked the first time. You hating him for that reason – that makes perfect sense to me. But for him to hate you for that reason? That’s what doesn’t make sense.’
She could imagine that the whining would irritate the living daylights out of a parent, or disappoint him or sadden him or whatever. But provoke hate? She couldn’t see it. Especially considering that – by all accounts – Clyde was an otherwise decent guy. Good co-worker, loved his wife.
‘So what happened to make your dad feel that strongly against you?’ She leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table. ‘Why did he go from being a hard ass to being an asshole?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘You did.’
‘Oh.’
Sheila didn’t blame Clyde for wanting to stay away from his son. She certainly wished she could. ‘Did it have something to do with your mother? It happened around the same time she died, right?’
Lonnie picked at a fingernail.
‘Your dad wasn’t a jerk to other people once she died,’ Sheila said. ‘So why did he start being such a jerk to you? Did you say something about your mom? Were you mean to her when she was sick? Did you not come see her or something?’
‘What? Wait, no way. Where the hell did you hear that? I was there all the time. Well, a lot of the time, anyway. Christ, I was the one who was there when she died. Not him. So really, I should be getting thanked, not getting accused.’
That was an interesting word choice. Blamed would seem to be a better description. Unless … She mentally searched through Sam’s reports from his interviews with Nell’s friends. Someone had said … dear God.
‘Your dad told people he thought she’d been taken too soon,’ she said slowly. Was that not a platitude? Had he been speaking literally? She leaned forward. ‘What did you do?’
He froze, then started shaking his head. ‘Nothing. I didn’t do nothing.’
Her hand came down with a smack on the tabletop. ‘Bullshit. Why would a perfectly ordinary person like your dad accuse you of something? You, who were with your mom when she died?’
‘My God, is Dad talking to you from the grave? No, I didn’t kill my mom, no matter what that old bastard thought. I didn’t even know he thought that anyway. Not until that day at the house with—’
The words came out of him before self-preservation had a chance to kick in. Once it did, he shut up, which thank God gave Sheila a second of silence to corral the previously unrelated facts now spinning through her head.
‘Unless you start explaining why he believed that and how all this shit started, I got no choice but to think you killed him,’ she said. ‘Which means you probably killed your mother, too. Which is two murder charges.’
Lonnie started to cry. It seemed to surprise him even more than it surprised Sheila, who was flat out astonished. He dragged his hand across his face, smearing tears and snot as he tried to suppress his reaction.
‘Man, I didn’t kill her. I don’t know why my dad thought that. It explained a lot, though. He changed after she died. He just wouldn’t have anything to do with me. But I was hard up this time. I owe people. I needed a loan.’
Clyde wouldn’t take his calls, so Lonnie was forced to come down to Branson. He went to the house and asked for money.
‘He lost his shit, man. Totally lost it. Started yelling at me about how dare I come in the house where Mom died. I said, “What does that have to do with anything?” and he’s shouting about how I killed her somehow. That he would’ve had more time with her. I was like, “What the fuck?”’
‘Had your dad ever accused you of this before?’
Lonnie shook his head. His dad had never said the words outright, but after that day, a lot of the comments that Clyde made over the years about Nell going way too soon suddenly made sense.
‘Then what happened?’
He shrugged. ‘I left.’
She leaned back and gave him her rock-hard disbelief look. He wiped his nose and then examined the sleeve of his jail scrubs.
‘You didn’t yell back? That seems unlike you.’
He scowled. ‘You know everything then, don’t you? So why ask? I want to go back to my cell.’
‘You did more than yell, actually. You busted some furniture. You got violent. You got mad enough to kill.’
‘So I threw a table. It doesn’t mean I killed him. I left town and I only came back when you …’ – he stabbed his finger at her with a shaking hand – ‘you called me. You
. I wouldn’t be here except for you.’
She calmly pulled a sheet of paper from the middle of her notepad and slid it across the table. It was a copy of the parking ticket Pimental had tracked down that showed Lonnie’s stolen car in Branson just before the murder. His white-boy complexion went from pasty to ashen.
‘Well?’ she said.
He sagged down in his hard plastic chair. She hoped this would puncture his last reservoir of hot air.
‘I was living out of the car. I thought I’d try again with Dad in a week or so. Because I had no place else to go.’
‘What would happen if you went back to Des Moines?’
‘I’d rather not get my legs broke, OK?’
‘Who do you owe the money to?’
‘Oh, hell no. I ain’t saying. That … no … that’s it. I’m done. I want to go back to my cell.’
Sheila plucked the ticket from his hand and walked out of the room in a much better mood than when she walked in. He was still sniffling as the door closed behind her. She was a little ways down the corridor when the next door opened and Hank walked out of the observation room.
‘You made a grown man cry. That was a beautiful thing to watch.’
She patted at her hair. ‘Shouldn’t you be helping Deputy March in the control room?’
‘Nah. She’s darn sharp. She can handle it. Plus, Earl’s back.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I need to run over to the office and get my case file.’
Hank turned toward her. ‘Do you believe him?’
‘If he was going to put on an act, I think he’d choose blasé. Or bored. Not weepy. But maybe I’m not giving him enough credit. Maybe he is a devious genius, and that whole thing was first-rate theater.’ She slowed her brisk walk. ‘There is one thing that I do absolutely know is true. Clyde Timmons believed that his wife was the victim of a mercy killing. I don’t know if she really was or not, but he thought so. And somehow, that ended up being his death sentence.’
He’d talked to Ghassan three times in the past hour, so when his cell rang again he didn’t even look at it.
‘Yeah.’
‘Why is Aunt Fin staying with Jerry Heinrich?’ his wife said. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’
‘Um … how’d you hear that?’
‘She called me. She said she couldn’t get a hold of you and wanted to know if you made it back safely.’
Hank cringed.
‘Where have you made it back to, dear?’
‘Here in town. At the office, actually. It’s that murder you called me about this morning. I was going to call you …’
‘What a relief that I’m not getting added to your list of abandoned family members.’
When Maggie went sarcastic, it was a blowtorch that left behind only scorched earth and his charred skeleton.
‘Honey,’ he said, ‘I’m really sorry. I should’ve called. I just …’
‘Yeah, yeah. I knew when I called you this morning that you’d probably break land-speed records getting down here. That’s not my point. My point is why the hell isn’t Aunt Fin at her own house?’
He didn’t have the half hour necessary to properly explain the rest of the story he’d abbreviated during their phone call earlier that morning. Sam was on the office line, and Ghassan was leaving a voicemail on his cell right now.
‘Lew might be having some … financial difficulties. It was easier for Fin to stay somewhere else.’
‘Well, I told her to come straight down here.’
‘You what? No, that’s not … don’t do that.’ He thought of Lew’s employee lying in the local morgue. The danger had migrated to Branson County. Aunt Fin was safer where she was.
‘Why not?’ Maggie said. ‘You can’t just go dumping people on random strangers.’
There was dumping people, and then there was dumping people. He was a little occupied with the second kind at the moment.
‘Honey. Calm down. She’s fine. Jerry’s fine. He’s certainly not a random stranger.’
‘He is to her!’
‘Your aunt could handle a horde of invading Mongols if she needed to. She’s not going to be flustered by an extroverted forty-year-old. She should stay where she is.’
But Maggie had already hung up. Hank set his phone on the desk and dropped his head in his hands. If she was mad now, she’d go volcanic when she heard the whole story of what Lew was suspected of doing. The only hope was that it would be directed at Lew and not him. He promised himself that he’d tell her everything tonight.
The office phone beeped. Sammy was still on hold. He grabbed it and apologized. ‘The fingerprints Kurt sent me match Melnicoe in the state database,’ he said. ‘He’s got priors in St Louis for theft and assault.’
‘So what was he involved with in Columbia?’ Sam asked.
Hank sighed. ‘He worked for Maggie’s uncle. The Columbia police are searching for the old man right now. Turns out there’s been some fraud at his company. And he’s also a suspect in the disappearance of his secretary, who’s probably dead somewhere just like Melnicoe.’
‘Damn.’ Sam drew out the word. ‘That’s insane. Is Columbia going to help? Melnicoe definitely died of blunt force trauma. A pipe or something similar cracked his skull pretty good. Whoever it was whacked his neck and shoulder, too. I think those were the first hits and then the one to the head finished him off.’
Hank was glad the Pup was reporting in such a detached way. He hoped that meant the kid wasn’t too traumatized after seeing his first autopsy. He heard road noise on the other end of the line and looked at his watch. It was just after five o’clock. Sam would be able to keep his date. At least something was going right today. He hung up and picked up his cell to listen to Ghassan’s voicemail.
We found a cache of papers under Hardy’s mattress. We’re going through them now. I’m skeptical that you missed those on your visit to her condo.
Hank shifted guiltily in his chair.
I’d care a lot more under normal circumstances, but right now I’ve got the damn feds asking about the bogus inventory and a chief financial officer who’s staring at me wide-eyed like he doesn’t know anything about it. He’s throwing Lancaster under the bus, which is easy to do since the bastard is still missing. I want you to get going on the – wait, what? You found what?
There was shouting in the background and then the message cut off. Hank hit redial so quickly the phone didn’t register it. He jabbed it again, swearing as the call took forever to go through.
‘Hang on,’ Ghassan said. There was some muffled conversation about evidence. Whatever they’d found, they’d found a lot of it.
‘Blood. Tons of blood. In her bathroom.’
Hank sat there, not able to process Ghassan’s words. There hadn’t been blood anywhere. He and Fin had searched the whole condo. They sure as hell checked the bathrooms. He was starting to speak when it hit him. Luminol.
‘Oh, shit.’
‘Yeah. Downstairs bathroom is clean. The one off the upstairs master bedroom lit up like goddam Las Vegas. She had to have been killed in the bathtub.’
Hank sagged against his desk. He’d hoped – so hoped – he could find her alive. He hadn’t been fast enough. And Fin. Dear God, this was going to destroy her. He sucked in a wet breath that finally caused Ghassan to stop talking.
‘Sorry … I … just the bathroom?’ he managed to say. ‘Anywhere else?’
‘There are drops down the upstairs hallway. The techs are doing the stairs now. Hopefully we can figure out whether they took her out the front or the back.’
Yeah, because that really mattered at this point. Hank hung up and turned to stare out the window. Instead of brittle tree branches and parking lot asphalt, all he could see was a tastefully feminine bathroom, decorated in subtle silver and purple and covered in glowing blue splatters.
THIRTY-TWO
He’d originally offered to pick her up, but she told him she’d just meet him at the restaurant. Now he was g
rateful – not having to drive to her apartment gave him just enough extra time to take the quickest shower ever and shave before racing over the lake to Hollister at twice the speed limit. He tucked in his shirt as he jogged across the road from the row of parking to the Downing Street Pour House. He made it only two minutes later than he wanted, which was still five minutes before the time they’d set. He’d definitely wanted to get there first.
He took a shaky breath and waited. She came in exactly on time. Her dark blonde hair curled around her shoulders and her green eyes lit up when she saw him. He felt a little light-headed. It was probably because he hadn’t eaten since this morning. He said hello and prayed he didn’t sound as awkward as he felt. He stepped aside so she could go first as they were shown to their table, resisting the desire to touch her back with his hand. They settled in and the hostess set down the menus, shooting him a sympathetic wink as she turned to leave. Dear God. Did he really look that nervous?
‘So,’ he said after they ordered drinks, ‘have you had any luck finding a house to rent?’
He knew from their conversations at the coffee shop that she was searching for a better place to live than the apartment where she was now.
‘No. But the next best thing. The old bat who lived upstairs moved out.’
Sam busted out laughing. He’d made the acquaintance of the judgmental Bitty Jean – unfortunately – and he could totally see why Brenna was happy she was gone.
‘I would’ve thought she’d never leave,’ he said.
‘Me, either. I guess she broke her hip or her ankle or something. I certainly wasn’t going to ask her for specifics. Anyway, she couldn’t climb the stairs anymore, so she had to move in with her sister. You should’ve heard her complain about it. The whole building threw a party the night she left.’ She was talking and laughing at the same time. When she got to that part, she suddenly blushed. ‘I wanted to invite you, but … I, um, I didn’t know what to say.’
She trailed off and gave a bashful shrug. He just sat there. Stunned. He hadn’t been sure. Even when she said she’d go out with him. But now the nerves jangling around his insides like wind chimes in a storm fell quiet. He felt a smile spread across his face.