Forbidden (Southern Comfort)

by O'Neill, Lisa Clark

  Where was she on the nights he’d gone to bed hungry? On the days when he’d ditched school, because he was embarrassed by his rainbow assortment of bruises? By the knowing looks the teachers sent his way but never did anything about?

  Where was she, when that stupid outreach program for underprivileged kids had first sent him away to camp?

  In short, the bitch had been AWOL.

  And her misguided reconciliation attempt… well, he’d simply turned that to his advantage.

  Striding toward the bed, he took one last look at the girl, making sure she was cuffed securely. With the drug he’d administered in her system, she should be out until this time tomorrow.

  And he… he would be spending the night at the Inn.

  Where the pleasure would definitely be his.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE commotion in the outer room brought Clay’s head up from his notepad, where he’d been running through his notations from the interviews conducted that morning. Kim was out riding along with Deputy Jones, and Josh Harding was getting flyers printed with his newly completed composite. However, as one of the voices carrying on the stagnant, recycled government-building air definitely belonged to Harding, Clay gathered his little Tiger Beat buddy was back.

  The other voice was more difficult to distinguish, as it was hysterical.

  Curious, he pulled himself out of the chair which was in danger of becoming a permanent attachment to his ass, and moved closer to the open doorway.

  “Surely you have to know something,” Lola Rodriguez all but sobbed, the strain she was under etched into lines of fatigue on her bare face. “It’s been almost three days.”

  She had something – a T-shirt? – in her hands, which she was subconsciously stroking with her fingers.

  Casey’s shirt, Clay concluded with a frown.

  Josh, encumbered by the box in his hands, did his best to clear the obstacle out of his way, shifting it to one hip, so that he could talk to Casey’s mother without that barrier between them. It was the body language equivalent of saying that even though he was busy, whatever he’d been doing wasn’t so important that he couldn’t take the time to speak with her.

  “We’re doing everything we can,” he said, his voice, his stance, his eyes sympathetic. “And we are making progress. You know I can’t divulge too many details from an ongoing investigation – I’m sorry, I know how harsh that must seem – but suffice it to say that the composite we put out hit pay dirt. We’re growing closer and closer to identifying the man who took your daughter, and that brings us that much closer to finding Casey. I hate to say it, because I know each minute without her must be agony, but you just have to give us time to do our job.”

  Lola nodded, tears threatening to break free from her already swollen eyes, and contemplated the shirt in her hand. Then she held it out to Harding.

  “It’s…” Her voice broke, and she struggled for composure, chest heaving mightily in her effort. Next to her, poor Josh looked ready to crack. “It’s Casey’s shirt. The one she sleeps in. I know you said that the dogs you brought in hadn’t been able to follow her scent beyond the fairgrounds, but…” she hesitated, looking both embarrassed and hopeful. “I brought it in, you know, in case it might help you find her. I heard somewhere that personal possessions can be used as some kind of link, and since that FBI agent is still working with you…”

  Her voice trailed off, and Clay pressed his thumb and index finger to the bridge of his nose.

  Dear God. The woman thought he was some kind of psychic.

  Josh, kind soul that he was, sat the box of flyers down on the floor beside his booted feet and accepted the T-shirt from the woman’s trembling hands. “I’m not sure that’s the way it works,” he lied, with almost absolute believability. “But I’ll be sure to get this to him, just in case.”

  Lola nodded her head again, pushed at her wild mane of hair. “Okay. Well, I…” At a loss, she looked around the station, and Clay realized that now that she’d completed that task she felt totally useless. Totally helpless to do anything to find her child.

  As if her entire life as she’d known it was out of control, out of her hands.

  Harding, once again proving himself to be more than just a pretty face, must have picked up on her emotions as well. Because as Clay watched, Josh seemed to flip through his mental file of things that might give her some sense of purpose. “You know,” he said suddenly, snapping his fingers as if the idea had just dawned – add acting to the man’s list of skills. “If you’re not too busy, it would be great if you could help me pass out these flyers.” He bent over and pulled one from the box. “This man was seen a couple of days ago with the man we believe took your daughter, and we’d like to bring him in for questioning.”

  Lola took the flyer, looked from it to Harding. “Do you think he might know where Casey is? That he might help?”

  “We’re not sure.” That time, he’d fudged only slightly. They weren’t sure if that man knew where Casey was, but it was pretty damn likely he did. And as for him helping…

  Was Satan into ice sculpting?

  “But the sooner we get these flyers out, the sooner we might find him so that we can ask him that ourselves. Do you think you’d be able to help?”

  Good man, Clay thought. He’d given her a relatively simple task with the short term benefit of distracting her from her misery, and had given her a small sense of hope without filling her head with wishful thinking.

  Too much hope could be just as detrimental as no hope at all.

  “Okay.” A solid sense of purpose eased some of the tension from her face. “Just tell me what you need me to –”

  The door to Sheriff Callahan’s office opened at that moment, and the older man leaned out, looking like he’d just endured a very uncomfortable dental procedure minus the Novocain.

  When he spotted Lola Rodriguez, his level of discomfort seemed to ratchet up about a hundred degrees. His face actually twisted.

  There were no poker championships foreseeable in this man’s future.

  “Deputy Harding?”

  Uh-oh. His tone and stance indicated that this was not news he wanted Casey’s mother to hear, and foreboding speared through Clay. Damn. He’d hoped for one, just one happy ending.

  “Yes, Sir?” Josh excused himself from Lola’s watchful presence, stepping toward his boss’s office. The older man pulled him inside, and after several tense minutes Harding departed the office, slipped past Lola and headed toward Clay.

  “Something’s happened?” Clay prompted.

  Josh exhaled on a pensive nod. “Another deputy, Purdy, just radioed in. He spotted a car parked along Greenwood Road – late model, dark blue BMW. He radioed for backup, as it fit the description of our man’s transportation, and then proceeded to approach the car.”

  Okay. Harding was giving him the long, drawn out version of the story, which meant that he wasn’t anxious to deliver the punch line. Clay’s hopes for a happy ending dropped to nil. “And?”

  “The driver of the car didn’t respond to his requests to put his hands up where he could see him, and after Purdy drew even with the car, weapon drawn, he understood why.”

  This time Clay didn’t prompt him. He simply waited for Josh to work his way to it.

  “The man couldn’t respond to any requests because half his head was missing. But his large, white, muscular body was intact.”

  Shit.

  Clay uncrossed his arms and ran his fingers through his hair. He’d been afraid that something like this would happen. The other perp had been pushed past the point of breaking.

  “Deputy Purdy said there appeared to be powder on his hands, from the weapon.”

  “Suicide?” Clay thought that highly unlikely.

  “That’s the big question. If you wouldn’t mind, we need you at the crime scene. Agent O’Connell and Deputy Jones are on their way there, along with the coroner.”

  “Of course.” Clay stepped over to Kim’s
laptop, which he’d temporarily requisitioned, to shut it down.

  “What do you think this means?” Harding cleared his throat. “You know, for Casey?”

  Nothing good, Clay thought, as he punched the final command into the computer.

  Nothing good.

  THE man was even more repulsive in death than he had been in life, all that pale, milky skin like molten wax in the brutal heat.

  Despite the fact that the driver’s side window had been lowered – a convenient way to make it more difficult to trace the bullet’s trajectory – the car’s interior felt like the inside of a crematory. And smelled worse.

  What was left of their kidnapper, and Clay had no doubt this was their kidnapper, was slumped in the driver’s seat, head lolling to the left.

  Or rather, half a head lolling to the left.

  Clay waved away the ever present flies, the tiny vultures of human carrion, and steeled himself against the smell as he climbed into the steel inferno.

  The man wore loose fitting cargo shorts, and conversely, a blue, long-sleeved dress shirt. Buttoned wrong. Like he’d been in a hurry to run out the door so he could kill himself.

  What was left of his head was bald as a cue ball, shaved razor close within the last day, maybe the last several hours. There was indeed powder on his right hand, and a twenty-two caliber weapon on the seat.

  Kind of a wimpy little gun for such a big, macho man.

  Of course, it was the kind of weapon that was easy to hide. And just as deadly as a forty caliber from a short distance.

  Everything Clay saw backed up his supposition. This guy had not been the one to pull the trigger. Not the first time, anyway.

  Clay intuited that the killer had fired a second shot, placing their man’s finger on the trigger, in an attempt to feign suicide. He almost certainly killed the man from a short distance, close enough to do the job but far enough away to prevent him from fighting back. Because going up against a guy this size would be stupid.

  And perp number two was not stupid.

  He could have drugged him, or otherwise incapacitated him, and then used this man’s own finger on the trigger for the fatal shot. But he almost certainly hadn’t done that. He’d wanted to see the other man’s expression – that oh, shit moment when he knew he was going to die – because his partner had failed him for the last time.

  And he wanted him to know it, to feel his own folly. To accept his responsibility for his fate.

  Passing blame. Like his accomplice, the remaining perp needed to pass blame to others.

  The fact that the incident with the dead girl in Atlanta hadn’t brought this about sooner suggested that he either needed this man, or this man meant something to him. Maybe both. He’d given him another chance, and he’d blown it. So he’d blown the guy away. More specifically, he’d blown the guy’s stupid head off.

  Poetic justice.

  “What are you thinking?” Kim asked as she approached the grisly scene.

  “No way he did this to himself.”

  She nodded her agreement, stepping back as Clay pulled himself from the car. “Some kind of decoy?” she mused, pushing one lose curl behind her ear.

  “Some kind,” Clay agreed. “The car we’re looking for. The man we’re looking for. The only thing missing is the silver platter. But our guy’s smart enough to realize we wouldn’t buy the suicide angle for long. There are too many things that just don’t fit that tidy little scenario, including a notable lack of blood spatter inside the car.”

  “They won’t rule it officially, you know, until the ME completes the autopsy. There’s just enough physical evidence to make it look like suicide’s possible, and the behavioral discrepancies don’t hold as much water.”

  “I know it and you know it. And we’re lucky that the locals trust our opinions enough that they’ll know it, too. It will save us from having to wait out the autopsy to proceed with the investigation.”

  Kim looked around at the people milling about in various uniforms, the many individuals who were required to attend to a single, violent death. “At least we’ll be able to get a good set of prints,” she commented. “You think this guy’s somewhere in AFIS?”

  “I’ll eat my new pants if he’s not. This guy had way too much anger for that girl in Atlanta to have been his first violent outburst. I’ll bet he’s got a full rap sheet of assault and batteries, prior to starting his illustrious career as a rapist and human trafficker. But you’ll probably find a rather abrupt stopping point. He’s probably been clean as a whistle between then and now.”

  “Yeah. A real poster boy for anger management.”

  Clay motioned to Kim, moving a little farther away from the car, toward the shelter of the live oak which shaded the roadside. No point smelling that more than they had to.

  “What’s his motivation?” She chewed on her lip and followed. “This guy’s bent over backwards to stay off the radar, and suddenly he’s playing games. He obviously got wind that his partner’s face was plastered all over town – no question that was the stressor that pushed him to pick up the gun – but why bother setting up this little dog and pony show? Wouldn’t it have been much more in character for him to cut and run?”

  Clay scratched the back of his neck as he played out the scenario. “The obvious answer is distraction. He’s given us just enough crap to wade through to slow us down, which means he’s concerned we’re getting close to him.”

  “So what, he sets this up,” she gestured toward the crime scene, “hoping to buy himself some time to get out of Dodge? It would have been a hell of a lot easier to just shoot the guy, hide the body, and hit the road.”

  “Exactly,” Clay agreed. “So what does that tell us about his motive?”

  Kim considered. “He obviously has something else on his agenda now, other than escaping detection. Maybe killing his partner wasn’t enough for him in the way of punishment. Suicide is sort of the ultimate act of cowardice and personal failure. Maybe he wanted to humiliate this man in death. Put him down.”

  “I think you’re right. This perp is definitely into retribution, of an almost eye-for-an-eye nature. His partner was stupid enough to get caught, so he blows his brains out. The man obviously had an ego – the weightlifting suggests as much – and suicide could be considered the ultimate destruction of ego. Only people who truly feel desperate or worthless take their own lives.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “But how do we apply it to the investigation?”

  Clay sighed, plucking at his damp shirt and cursing the heat. “For one thing, the remaining perp has suffered enough of a psychic stressor that he’s now willing to take some risks. And we both know that risks often equal mistakes.”

  “Agents Copeland and O’Connell!”

  Clay and Kim both turned to see Josh Harding striding their way, waving a piece of paper like a flag. “We ran the tags, and the car’s registered to a William Wayne. Driver’s license photo matches our vic, with the addition of blond hair, a mustache and a tan. Beaufort address. I just got off the phone with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, and they’ve executed a search of the apartment. No sign of Casey, but I figured you’d want to take a look. You want a ride?”

  “We’ll follow,” Clay said, after getting a nod from Kim.

  Harding walked off, and Clay pulled his keys from his pocket. “Okay, Tonto. Let’s go see what kind of clues William Wayne left behind.”

  LAUGHTER chimed in the front hall, and Tate poked her head out of the office to find her mother chatting with an elderly woman. The white hair, long floral dress and no-nonsense, thick soled shoes said grandma. And despite the fact that she was stoop shouldered and pleasantly plump, it was obvious that she’d once been statuesque.

  A small valise, looking like it dated back to the fifties, perched on top of a rather large Samsonite suitcase, forming a baggage mountain at the woman’s feet.

  Spying her daughter, Maggie waved her out to greet their guest.

  “Tate, th
is is Alma Walker. You spoke to her on the phone this afternoon, when you took her reservation.”

  Smiling, Tate strode forward and extended her hand. The woman’s grasp was firm and warm, roughened with calluses, which surprised Tate a bit until Alma spoke.

  “Don’t mind these old hands,” she said, chuckling as she tucked them into the deep pockets of her dress. “I’m afraid I’m a bit of an overzealous gardener. It tends to… how do they say it these days? – do a number on the skin.”

  Afraid that she must have given something away from her expression, Tate covered her discomfort with a warm laugh. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alma. Is this your first time in Charleston?”

  “Oh, heavens no! I grew up over near Summerville, and lived around there most of my life. I’ve been living in Atlanta for a number of years, but when you get to be my age you just can’t resist the urge to re-visit the old stomping grounds. Get back to your roots, so to speak.”

  “Tate and her sisters were raised, for the most part, just north of Atlanta,” Maggie contributed. “A little town called Woodstock, up near Lake Allatoona.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Alma said, looking from Maggie to her daughter, blue eyes remarkably clear. “Nice place.”

  “It was a wonderful place to raise a family,” Maggie agreed, and continued to chat with their elderly guest about the area.

  The conversation began to recede into the background, as memories from her childhood flooded unbidden to Tate’s brain. Casey’s abduction had brought so many old feelings to the surface, and her mother’s words seemed to release them from their dam. The shock of seeing a trusted adult defiling one of her peers. The fear, revulsion, and even guilt she’d felt during Donald Logan’s trial. The nightmares she’d lived with for years afterward. And more recently, her struggle with over-protectiveness toward her own child.

  Feeling unbalanced, Tate braced her hand against the wall.

  “Are you alright?” Maggie asked, laying her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, not wanting her mother to worry. And faintly embarrassed, turned her forced smile toward their guest. “Let’s get you checked in, shall we?” She bent to grab the valise.