‘That depends,’ Sydney replied, her eyes weighing up the potential threat. She decided to press on without revealing any signs of recognition, either from the school parking lot or his statement video. ‘Are you Dave Tabbert?’
‘That depends.’ He looked at the two younger men in turn, winking at both. ‘Are you the hooker I ordered?’
The three men became convulsed with laughter, high-fives offered and accepted all round.
Sydney remained impassive, saying, ‘If I were, that would be illegal. And I should know, seeing as I’m a special agent with the FBI.’
Her words had the desired effect of abruptly killing the mocking stone dead. Sydney took confidence from her minor victory and continued on. ‘Sheriff Benton Lowe will be joining me shortly, but I figure if you’d care to answer some questions, we can avoid any unpleasantness.’
Tabbert tossed away his still-lit cigarette and took a step forward, rubbing his thumb on outstretched fingers. ‘ID,’ he said. ‘I got no way of knowing if you’re nothing more than a lying asshole of a reporter trying it on with me.’
Sydney took out her credentials and held them up for him. ‘Special Agent Merlot,’ she said, in case he couldn’t read.
‘Closer,’ he said, grinning. Beside him, the two boys sniggered.
She extended her arm all the way.
‘You’ll have to do better than that, hon. I got the short-sighted gene.’
Unabashed, Sydney walked three paces closer until the two were barely a yard apart. ‘Happy?’ she said.
‘Delirious, honey. Mainly because I remember you. From the other day at the school. Not for nothing, but you smelled real nice then and every bit as sweet right now. So tell me, sweetheart, what business do you have on my property if it ain’t stripping off your clothes and getting my dick hard? And what does that clown Lowe want with me?’
Sydney glanced at the two young men before responding. ‘I think we ought to talk in private, Mr Tabbert.’
He folded his arms beneath his enormous chest, biceps flexing. ‘Don’t see no need for that.’
‘Is one of these two boys your son?’
‘You’re full of questions, ain’t you, hon. I don’t even recall admitting I was Dave Tabbert. You trying to trick me, FBI Special Agent Merlot?’
‘Not at all. I took a gamble on it, seeing as you’re the only adult here other than me. So, is one of them your son, Chris?’ She guessed it was the kid standing to Tabbert’s right as that was the way the man had started to lean without being aware of it.
He dipped his head in that direction. ‘Yeah, this is my boy. What of it?’
‘It’s probably for the best if we have only family here for this conversation.’
Tabbert hooked a thumb to his left. ‘Dylan here is my boy’s best friend, and he’s family to us, Miss FBI.’
‘I suppose that would make you Dylan Cole,’ she said to the young man he’d indicated, enjoying the look of surprise as it replaced his smug grin.
The air remained tense, with an excess of stray testosterone, but for some reason Sydney had seldom felt more alive. She was in her element.
‘How d’you know that?’ he asked.
‘It’s my job to know things about people. And I do it well. What I know would shock you so much you’d never recover. Anyhow,’ she said, turning most of her attention back to Dave Tabbert. ‘Sir, according to the sheriff’s report and the statement you made after the shooting at the Moon Falls high school, you initially claimed to have seen Kevin Muller in the art supplies room on the day. That’s correct, yes?’
Tabbert studied his boots for a moment before licking his lips and meeting her own steady gaze. Uncertainty clouded his eyes for the first time. ‘That’s how Lowe wrote it up, sure. I don’t remember it quite that way. I told him I might have seen it, not that I was sure.’
‘And yet, in fact, you were all the way over on the other side of the building. So you couldn’t have seen anything to even be mistaken about.’
‘I… I got turned around inside my head. My timing was wrong, is all.’
‘Is that so? Are you claiming you saw Kevin Muller in that same room at a different time, perhaps on a different day entirely?’
‘I don’t rightly recall. Look, you might think you’re hot shit coming to my home and asking your damned fool questions, but we gotta live here long after you’re gone, lady. All we want is for folk to leave us be, to let us forget about that day. We’re still hurting.’
‘Sure you are.’
Chris Tabbert stepped forward. He put a hand on his father’s upper arm, his eyes blazing at Sydney. ‘Hey, you leave him alone. He saw shit that day that nobody should ever have to see. You coming around dragging it all back up again ain’t right.’
Sydney noted the aggression, but refused to back down. She had her own thoughts about how this was going to play out. ‘I sympathise. I’ve seen plenty of ugliness myself, the kind I’d rather forget. But what’s equally not right is if Kevin Muller was shot dead that day as an innocent. Because not only would that mean we got the wrong man for those murders, it would also mean that somebody else killed those fourteen other students.’
‘My daddy can’t help you with that.’ The kid’s cheeks burned. He was getting pumped up and Sydney noticed the boy’s fingers flexing and curling. ‘Like he says, he was on the other side of the school that morning. Now leave him be.’
‘Actually, it was me who mentioned where he was. Your father told a completely different story to the sheriff. And I want to know why.’
‘He told you why?’
‘Not to my satisfaction he didn’t.’
This time, Chris Tabbert got right up in her face. He towered above her, but she kept her eyes on his. ‘I don’t give a flying fuck about your satisfaction, bitch. Not unless I got you pinned down on my mattress calling out to God. My daddy didn’t invite you here and neither did I, so I’m telling you to fuck the hell off my property.’
Without taking a backward step, Sydney wiped his spittle from her face, flicked it off her fingers with precise deliberation and said, ‘This is your father’s land. I’ll leave when he asks me to and not before.’
‘You know what we do to trespassers out here, lady?’
After making a protracted sweep of all three men with her unswerving gaze, she said, ‘By the look of you, I’m guessing it’s something unpleasant. You toothless country hicks usually have something depraved in mind. But I don’t think you’re brave enough to do the same to an FBI agent.’
Sydney was pushing the boy’s buttons, getting beneath his skin. She did so because her mind had formulated an idea and she did not want to let go of either it or him right at that moment.
The shit-eating grin returned to Chris Tabbert’s face. ‘You want me to show you different?’ he said. A vein throbbed in his flushed neck. ‘I reckon it’d be all legal and such if I exercised my second amendment rights by showing an uninvited visitor how we deal with trespassing in these parts.’
‘I lived in these parts before you were even swimming around inside your daddy’s nutsack, little boy. So why don’t you take a few steps back and let the adults talk.’
Chris Tabbert looked as if someone had kicked him squarely between the legs. His face twisted in on itself in rage. Sydney saw the boy was teetering on the edge, and thought this was the perfect moment to push him over it.
She held up both hands in a pacifying gesture and said, ‘Before this spirals completely out of control, I wanted to ask you all about the note the police found in the holdall Kevin Muller was carrying.’
‘Note?’ Dave Tabbert repeated. ‘What note?’
‘There was a card inside the bag. On it, Kevin – or somebody pretending to be Kevin – had written a note. Big mistake, because it wasn’t Kevin’s handwriting.’
‘There weren’t no fucking note,’ Chris snapped, screwing up his eyes.
Sydney nodded. ‘Sure there was. The FBI even mentioned it in their press release.’
‘There was no fucking note. It was just a “Thank You” card is all.’
Hardly able to breathe, blood thumping in her temples, Sydney continued to chip away at the boy. ‘And what would you know? You talk a good game, Chris, but when it comes right down to it that’s all you have. A big mouth and nothing to back it up.’
‘You have no idea what I’m capable of. No fucking idea. So fuck you, fuck the bullshit FBI, fuck my daddy who couldn’t get his shit together at the right time, and fuck these games. I’m going inside the house to get my rifle. If you’re still out here when I get back, I’m going to consider you a trespasser and put you down, FBI bitch!’
Though his words twisted in her gut, Sydney stared him down without flinching. ‘You just threatened a federal agent, Chris. That’s a big time offence.’
His face creased up and turned bright red. ‘Yeah, you think that’s a big time offence. I could tell you all about a big time offence if I really wanted to, you fucking whore!’
To Sydney’s surprise it wasn’t the boy’s father who stepped in to calm Tabbert, but rather his friend. Cole moved forward, wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulder and placed his forehead against Chris’s temple. He left it there for a moment before speaking up in a low, soothing voice.
‘You don’t want to be doing any of that, Chris. Agent Merlot here told us she was doing her job and that she was good at it. She didn’t lie. She’s gone and got you all riled up to the point where you don’t know what you’re saying or doing anymore. Time to play clever and pull back, my friend. Chill the fuck out. You hear me?’
Sydney breathed it all in. They’d each taken a turn, but it was Dylan Cole who had proven himself to be the real alpha dog among them. She weighed up the situation and decided to take a chance on her instincts.
‘You hear all that the way I heard it, Chris,’ Sydney said, finding Tabbert’s confused eyes with her own. ‘That was a warning. Pure and simple. And not to me. Your friend here knows you can’t be trusted. He knows if you’re left to your own devices, that mouth and temper of yours will get you into trouble. You screwed up, Chris. I know what you did. And Dylan here knows you won’t be able to keep it to yourself for much longer. Especially not when you’re pushed harder.’
‘Don’t listen to her no more, bud.’ Cole held his friend close, pressed his forehead in tighter. ‘She’s still playing her mind games.’
‘He’s afraid you’re going to break, Chris,’ Sydney persisted. ‘And he can’t allow that to happen. See, he heard what I heard a few moments ago. Nobody outside law-enforcement knew about the card, Chris. Nobody except for the person who put it inside that bag. I wouldn’t want to be you after I walk away from this situation. Take it from me, Dylan is no longer your friend. If he ever truly was.’
Cole pulled back and twisted his head to look her way. ‘Hey, watch your mouth, Merlot. I know all about you, too. I know where you live. And I can find you any time I like.’
‘Oh, and did you pick up on that, Chris?’ Sydney kept her focus on the younger Tabbert. ‘You made your own threat to me in anger. You hear how calm he was? He means it. And if he’d do that to me, an FBI agent, imagine what he’s prepared to do to you. He wants to keep your big secret, Chris. Worse still, your father standing there doing nothing isn’t going to get in his way.’
‘You better go,’ Dave Tabbert said, his empty eyes both sorrowful and pleading. ‘For your own sake, leave us be.’
Sydney nodded. ‘I’m going. For the time being. But I’ll be back. And I won’t be alone, either. Hey, Chris, you want to come with me?’
‘Why the fuck would I want to do that?’
All three men were facing her once again, standing abreast as one.
‘Didn’t you hear any of what I said, Chris. I know you did something so evil you can’t ever take it back. I don’t know why, but I’m guessing there’s a reason behind it. Dylan there wants it to remain a secret, and he’s witnessed a perfect example of how unlikely you are to be keeping it to yourself under stringent questioning. Chris, you don’t come with me, I’ll be astonished if you make it past nightfall.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Sydney caught Dylan’s hand moving. It slipped from around his friend’s shoulders and reached toward the back of his own hip. She went for her own weapon, which was in its shoulder holster beneath her jacket. She had pushed too hard. Cole had reacted like a cat. He was going to beat her to the trigger, and she was about to become a statistic. Time both slowed and quickened as they moved in unison.
‘Hold it right there!’ a commanding voice called out, startling everybody. ‘You move that hand an inch closer to your gun, Dylan Cole, and I’ll put a hole in you the size of a dinner plate. You hear me, boy?’
Cole froze.
‘Hey, Sydney,’ Isaac Solomon said stepping out from around the side of the trailer. In his hands he held a pump-action shotgun. ‘I got my eye on Cole. You want to frisk the other two, make sure there are no surprises waiting for us?’
Her heart battering away at her ribs, Sydney stared in shock at her saviour. ‘Where in the hell did you spring from?’ she asked him. She had only ever met him on a handful of occasions, but she had never been so delighted to see anyone in her entire life as she was Deputy Solomon at that moment.
‘Ben got delayed. He was worried about you and sent me over in his place. I rolled up and took a look through my scope at what I was driving into. Didn’t much like what I saw, so I reacted on instinct. I figured you’d all hear me coming if I rushed in here, and I didn’t want to trigger a reaction from one of these jerk-offs. So I cut through the fence and made my way around on your blindside.’
By this time he had reached Cole. Isaac got the boy down on his knees as he cuffed and searched him for more weapons. He came up with a heavy switchblade. Cole fussed and complained, but Isaac ignored it all as he mirandised him. Sydney found no weapons on either Dave Tabbert or his son after searching them both. Their bravado no longer cut the air, replaced by a mute understanding of their predicament.
‘So what do we have going on here, Sydney?’ Isaac asked her when he had both hands free again. The look he wore gave nothing away.
‘What we have here is part of the answer we’ve all been searching for,’ Sydney told him. She blew out a deep breath and smiled. ‘In fact, it may even be everything.’
Forty-Seven
Benton Lowe stared hard at Sydney and asked for an explanation. They were in the sheriff’s office in Sonora, and Benton was on edge fearing Dylan’s father might burst into the building at any moment; Brian Cole was as aggressive as they came and carried a gun and a badge to go with it.
Sydney understood his reticence and believed she had enough pieces of the puzzle for him.
‘You don’t have to worry about the Cole kid.’ Perched on the edge of the desk, she spoke with quiet confidence, at ease for the first time in days. ‘He was reaching for his gun, so Isaac and I have him cold on that. His father can shout and stomp around all he likes, but that part of Dylan’s story is a done deal. Though I have to say, there may be more to add once we have the full picture.’
‘That ain’t gonna stop him kicking up one heck of a fuss. Last thing I need is a run-in with local PD.’
‘Would you rather Isaac and I had let Cole pull his weapon on me?’ Sydney snapped back.
‘Of course not. Don’t say that.’ Benton looked wounded by the suggestion. ‘Okay, so you want to tell me why we also have Dave and Chris Tabbert in custody?’
‘Chris threatened to shoot me. Told me right to my face that he was going to fetch his rifle and if I was still there when he came back with it I’d know all about it.’
Benton looked bewildered. ‘You don’t say. What in the heck set him off?’
‘Probably me. I deliberately provoked the reaction by baiting him.’
‘You mind telling me why you would do such a foolish thing when you’re outnumbered three to one, Sydney?’
‘Because by that ti
me I knew deep in my bones who and what I was dealing with.’
‘Which is?’
With just Ben and Isaac in the office with her, Sydney was on safe ground to open up. At least she hoped that was the case. After discovering how Baxter had stabbed her in the back, Sydney was finding trust hard to come by.
‘I got so confused, Doc,’ she admitted. ‘I started this all off by simply trying to put across Dexter Muller’s theory, but before long my every instinct screamed at me, insisting he had to be right. That his son was not the gunman. And yet whenever I thought I’d got closer to prising open the evidence enough to see through to the other side, it slammed shut on me again. It was irrefutable, and I wasn’t putting a dent in it.’
‘I told you that right from the beginning, Syd. And even when we looked at it all again, this time together and with a view to clearing Kevin Muller, still we came up short.’
‘Yeah.’ Sydney gave a derisory snort, aimed at her own incompetence. ‘And I’m convinced that happened because we kept starting with the shooting itself and saw only what we were meant to see. So, I went back to where this whole thing began. I’d become so wrapped up in that awful video footage that I forgot all about the things we weren’t seeing, the things we were unable to see through any security camera.’
‘You got my interest,’ Isaac said, standing with his back resting against the door to prevent anybody from bursting in unannounced. He had pulled the blinds down, not wanting the three of them to be observed.
‘Dave Tabbert’s story nagged at me,’ she continued. ‘I didn’t think it was enough to dismiss it as him wanting his Andy Warhol quota of fame. To me, his original statement sounded like a claim he would have been happy to continue with had it not been for you having evidence of him being well away from the action before and during the time it occurred. Yet listening to him today, I couldn’t help feeling he was trying to take a huge step backwards from it. As if he’d not merely invented a scenario to boost his own image, but instead had somehow made a huge mistake which he was retreating from in the eyes of both his son and Dylan Cole.’
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