A weak tremor throbbed in the side of Hud’s face. He felt pale and hungry. “No,” he said. “I haven’t. Sloane and Lancet haven’t said a word about it, or posted anything on the board from it.” Hud stared at Moran in a fresh light, looked at her from head to toe and imagined her dressed in plain clothes with a detective badge on her belt. It was easy to see. “Something tells me you have.”
“Yes, I have, actually.”
“Can you show me?”
“Sure,” Moran said, as she pulled a cell phone out of her back pocket, and headed back to the car.
There was no way that Hud could not be aware of the wave of technology that had washed over the world since he was a boy. He had been born into a world of mainframe computers and phone booths on every other corner. Cable television was in its infancy. But by the time he was a teenager, cell phones and the rumbling of the Internet had burst into the mainstream as an affordable and necessary utility. He had seen the effects of technology on law enforcement over the years, welcomed it, actually. Unlike Burke, Hud was no Luddite, but he wasn’t an early adopter, either. He saw no reason to have a Facebook page or spend any time on Twitter. Just as with the office computer, he knew how to navigate social media to get almost everything he needed, but he didn’t have the skills to hack a file that had restricted access. He was going to work on that when he found the time. He wasn’t surprised that Moran had skills and talents that he hadn’t considered. You might be more useful than I thought.
“Her last entry on Twitter was posted about three hours before the call came in,” Moran said.
She offered her phone to Hud. He didn’t hesitate. The entry was simple: Last call.
“What do you think that means?”
Moran shrugged. “The rest of her posts are sporadic. Two, three weeks in between them. Some are pictures of the lake, of Timmy, of her out partying over the summer. But she never looked happy. There was nothing there to indicate that she was involved in drugs, was afraid, nothing. I looked.”
“But the trailer was being used to cook meth,” Hud said. “And she looked sick.”
“She did, even the older pictures. I think she had a condition of some kind.”
“I agree. Timmy is thin and frail just like her. They both looked malnourished, starved, and maybe they were. We don’t know enough about their lives to know that yet.”
“Unless she was sending out messages in code, I can’t find a thing that suggests she was selling drugs except the very last one, and even then it’s not certain that she wrote it, or that posts haven’t been deleted. I’m just going on what I can see. That Tweet might not even be about anything we think it is.”
Hud sighed, looked down at the phone one last time, then handed it back to Moran. “Anybody can see this, can’t they?”
“Yes. But Burke needs to look deeper. Get a warrant. Look at everything. Facebook, Pinterest. Everything she did on the Internet. She might have left us some bread crumbs. We might have a motive for her death, for what’s going on.”
“I’ll push him on that if he hasn’t started down that path already.”
“I bet he hasn’t.”
“He doesn’t tell me everything.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Moran stuffed the phone into her shirt pocket, then looked away from Hud, out the half open driver’s side window. “I hate it that it gets dark so soon these days. We need more light. We need more time to find Leo Sherman.”
Hud had barely acknowledged the shortening of the days. The last few were a blur. He followed Moran’s gaze and watched as the golden light slowly retreated beyond the horizon, leaving grayness in its wake. “You don’t think he killed her?”
“I’ve known Leo for a long time. This just doesn’t fit his profile. He’s a good man. Hard working. Loves his life. You’d know that if you ever spent five minutes with him when he was off duty. As far as he was concerned, he lived in paradise. I don’t get it. If I was going to pick a man who’d fall prey to drugs or the money made by selling or making them, Leo Sherman would be the last person I would think of. The last person. Period. He hated what has happened here. He longed for the old days just like the rest of us. He escaped to the past on the water.”
“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did,” Hud said. “Everybody has secrets, a dark side just waiting to be pushed out. People break. And you don’t know what that thing that breaks them will be. It could have been anything. Sex. Drugs. Money. You know that. You see desperation every day. I know I do.”
“Maybe. But he is a good man. I don’t want to believe it, I guess. That he could have fallen on hard times without asking for help,” Moran said.
“I haven’t seen that there’s much help to be had around here.”
“There’s not.”
Hud was about to reach out to her, say something, tell Moran that she’d done a good job, but he heard a distant sound that stopped any words from coming out of his mouth. In less than the blink of an eye, the windshield shattered. It was like a rock had been thrown at it from out of nowhere. But it wasn’t a rock. It was a bullet. Someone had taken a shot at them.
“Get down!” Hud yelled. “Get down!”
Chapter Fourteen
For the second time in two nights the cottage lane was lit up like a carnival of flashing lights. Long fingers of reds, blues, and yellows reached into the early darkness, leaving shadows and uncertainty just beyond their grasp. Several men in county and state police uniforms milled about. A pair of ambulances sat at the crest of the hill, overlooking the lake. One ambulance sat with its back door open, its engine still running. Hud sat on a gurney inside and stared out into the gathering crowd.
“This is going to hurt,” said a skinny male EMT in his mid-twenties, as he leaned in to pull a tiny shard of glass from Hud’s lip.
Hud didn’t flinch, didn’t acknowledge the EMT. He was numb inside and out.
He focused on the blurry faces just beyond the brightness of the ambulance, looking for a familiar face, expecting to see the same nervous Social Security crowd as the day before, but Harriet Danvers and her cohorts were nowhere to be seen, and that concerned him. She’d seemed like the kind of woman who wouldn’t have missed a reason to gawk, especially another incident most likely linked to “that Pam girl.”
Hud recoiled as the EMT drew back with a glittery little diamond-like sliver perched in the grasp of a pair of tweezers. Blood trickled across Hud’s bottom lip. Salt and the flavor of life and death. He made no effort to wipe it away. The bottom of his face felt like it had been stung by a squadron of wasps.
“I don’t see any more glass in your face, but I really think you need to go in to the ER and get yourself checked out,” the EMT said. He had a slight lisp and seemed self-conscious about it. He was a few years out of school and had the look of an adrenaline junky, but he was hard to take too seriously.
“I’ll pass,” Hud answered. “They might think I have a real problem if I keep showing up every day.”
The EMT looked at him curiously.
“I was there yesterday,” Hud explained, with a tap to the side of his bruised face.
“Oh.”
“Can I go?”
“Sure, if you’re up to it.”
“I’m fine,” Hud said, as he hoisted himself off the gurney and stepped down from the ambulance. The ground immediately threatened to swallow him up, and he had to reach to grab the side of the cold metal door to stabilize himself.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” the EMT said.
Hud ignored him, took a deep breath, and found his center of gravity. He wasn’t sure where he was going; he just knew he had to get away from the ambulance, from the EMT, who smelled like sterile soap and had a bad case of coffee breath.
The other ambulance had its door closed. It had its engine running, too. Moran was inside. At least, she had been the last time Hud had seen her. Her face had been all bloody, peppered like his with pieces of the windshield, but she ha
dn’t been hit, either.
There had been one shot. No more. But neither of them had moved until backup arrived. Luckily, Varner had just been up the road. They were both lucky—or the shooter was a bad shot. Something told Hud that wasn’t the case. They were being warned off or scared off. Neither strategy would work. At least not with Hud.
Heavy footsteps kicking through soggy leaves approached Hud from behind. He glanced over his shoulder to see Burke heading toward him. Great. He’s on a mission.
Hud stopped. Waited dutifully. “I figured you’d show up sooner or later.”
Burke’s ruddy face glowed in the flashing lights. The red and yellows hide the agitation brewing under the chief’s skin. “Every time I turn around I’m cleaning up a mess you’ve made.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“The hell you didn’t.”
“I was just sitting here with Moran and we got shot at. How can that be my fault?”
“Watch yourself, Matthews.”
“It’s a valid question.”
“Jesus, I’m starting to think bringing you into the department was the biggest mistake that I’ve ever made. First I get an uncomfortable phone call from Bill Flowers, then this woman, Linda Dupree, calls the office and says you terrorized the Sizemore kid. She went on forever complaining about you.”
“Terrorized? That’s a load of shit, Burke. All I did was ask the kid some questions, and answered some for him. I would never do anything to upset that boy for the fun of it.”
“I didn’t say you did. Linda Dupree said she couldn’t calm him down thanks to you. Did you did tell him his mother was dead?”
“Yes, I told him she wasn’t coming back.”
“Like that’s the easiest thing for the kid to hear.”
“Somebody had to tell him.”
“It didn’t need to be you, goddamn it.” Burke stepped closer to Hud. “You need to leave your personal baggage out of this. Out of everything, you hear me? I warned you about old business from the start. You promised me that you’d leave it alone,” he said. “And stay the fuck away from that kid. He doesn’t need to hear your shit.”
“I can’t help it. What’d you expect, that I was cured of my past? None of us are, Burke. You of all people should know that. You see it every day. I’m no exception. I can’t help it if my mother disappeared when I was a kid. It had a price, an effect. How in the hell could it not?”
“Then it was a mistake.”
“I can’t say that,” Hud said. “I’m glad to be home, to have this job, but I’ll be damned if I can help it that I walked into the flat side of an oar one night, then got shot at on the next. You have an active investigation going on, and it has nothing to do with me other than I’m the one who was in the line of fire because I’m out here doing my goddamn job.”
“Seems to me you’re a target,” Burke said.
“Maybe I am. Maybe any detective would be. If it’s Sherman doing this, he doesn’t know me. He’s just trying to keep me from finding out the truth, or from finding him.”
“And if it’s not Sherman?”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because we don’t know shit. For all I know, Leo Sherman is at the top of the world hanging out with the Eskimos and hunting polar bears.”
Hud shrugged. “Maybe.”
Burke glared at Hud, exhaled deeply, then looked past him at the closed-door ambulance. “How’s the deputy?”
“I don’t know. She was talking, not hit by a bullet, just glass, bloody as hell. I hope she’ll be all right.”
“Me, too. That’s the last thing I need right now.” Burke paused, focused his attention back on Hud. “I think you ought to go home. Call it a day. Take a few days off. You need some time to get yourself back up to speed. It’s been a rough couple of days.”
“This is the worst time for me to take time off. This thing is just starting to heat up. You need every man on this that you have.”
“Don’t tell me what I need.” Burke’s nose flared, and, without knowing that he was doing it, Hud stepped back. It was then that he saw Lancet and Sloane milling about just on the edge of the light, watching, listening to everything being said between the two of them. He didn’t like it, especially when Sloane made eye contact with him, then looked away just as quick as she had made it.
“You know what I mean, Burke. I’ve got more experience in my right hand with a thing like this than those two will ever have. That’s why I’m here,” Hud said. “Isn’t it?”
Burke held his ground, looked like he was about to snap in half as he restrained himself, aware, just like Hud, that there were eyes on him. “It’s not a request, Detective Matthews. It’s an order. I don’t think you’ll do any of us any good in the state you’re in now. Get some sleep. Take it easy. I’ll call you if something comes up that I think you need to know; if we need you.”
“I don’t have a choice?”
The closed ambulance revved its engine, drawing everyone’s attention. The unseen driver hit the siren in three short blips, then put the truck in gear. The strobe bar on the roof flashed quicker, whiter, brighter. Without any further warning, the ambulance lurched forward on the gravel lane and began to drive away. For a brief second, Hud’s concern fell away from himself and back to Moran. He really hoped she was going to be okay.
“No, you don’t have a choice,” Burke said, once he was able to hear himself speak. “Go home, Hud.”
Hud drew in a deep breath, ready to protest more, but the stern look on Burke’s face warned him off saying another word. He had to swallow his words, his pride, and walk away. This was a fight he couldn’t win. He knew it as sure as he knew he was breathing.
“You could have gone back on the force in Detroit, not lost your seniority, your retirement.”
“I could have, and I did until Gee died.”
“How long was that.”
“Six weeks, maybe seven officially. I wasn’t marking a calendar.”
“How was that?”
“How was what?”
“Going back after you’d been shot and the IA investigation had cleared you for duty.”
“Fine, I guess.”
“You weren’t nervous, a little gun shy?”
“Would you be?”
“Maybe. Hard to say. The incident you were involved in wasn’t simple.”
“We’ve established that.”
“You didn’t have a twitch? You just got right back up on the horse and went back at it? Your snitch network was destroyed, exposed, and you’d taken a hit. How’d the other detectives treat you?”
“You want to know if I played well with the others?”
“Something like that.”
“I’m surprised you have to ask.”
Hud set the gym bag down next to the bar. “I’ll have one for the road,” he said.
Tilt Evans had his back to him, polishing a highball glass with a bleached white towel. He stopped in his tracks when he turned around. “Damn, son, you look like hell.”
“Good to see you, too.”
“I heard you took it a little tough.”
“My day got worse.”
“You need a drink?”
“I’m a little overdue.”
“The usual?”
Hud nodded, swallowed in anticipation of the first sip of Wild Turkey. “Tell the morning clerk that I’ll be back for the rest of my things tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving the Demmie?” Tilt finished pouring two fingers worth of whiskey into the glass, then nudged it toward Hud.
“I think it’s time to go home,” Hud said.
“If you say so,” Tilt said, standing back with crossed arms.
“You don’t think that’s a good idea?”
“Not my business, is it?”
“Not really.” Hud took a sip of the Turkey and longed for a cigarette. That would have to wait until he was outside, in his car. The amber liquid burned the back of his throat and offered a familiar
hint of warmth that told him he’d found the pain reliever that he had been looking for. “Got a question for you, if you don’t mind?”
“You’ve always been full of questions.”
“Thank you for your support.” Hud tipped the glass Tilt’s way and took another sip. He let the burn fade away before he spoke again. “Did that Sizemore girl ever come in here?”
Tilt shrugged. “I wondered when you’d get around to that. Sometimes, sure. But she mostly hit Johnny Long’s. She worked there on and off in the summers. She’d come over with some of the other waitresses and busboys after they closed up. I haven’t seen her for a month or so, if I recall. One of your partners came in earlier asking the same thing.”
“I don’t have any partners yet.”
“Too soon?”
“Sure, call it however you want. Which one was it?”
“The cowboy.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Johnny Long’s was the last place Pam Sizemore was seen alive. He probably went there first.”
“You would.”
“No, I’d come here first. I wouldn’t want to spook whoever it was she went to see.”
“You asking me that?”
“I am,” Hud said, taking another sip, not taking his eyes off of Tilt.
“Couldn’t tell you for sure. Like I said, she always came in with a small crowd. Most of them are gone now that the season is over with.” Tilt paused, ran his leathery hand through his thick white hair, then stared up at the ceiling for a long second. When he looked back at Hud, it was as if a light had turned on in his faded blue eyes. “There was one kid that’s from around here that still might be working there. Jordan Rogers is his name, I think. Yeah, that’s it. Jordan Rogers. He worked down at the marina before it closed up, then started at Johnny Long’s when he couldn’t find nothin’ else. Maybe you ought to talk to him.”
“Thanks, Tilt, that’s helpful. I will talk to him. Did you tell Detective Lancet that?”
Tilt shook his head. “He didn’t ask. Seemed to be more interested in you than what was going on over at Johnny Long’s.”
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