Hud cut Lancet off, knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Sloane. The other name is Sloane.”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Hud stood staring at the Crown Vic, his feet firmly planted on a bed of decaying leaves. Sloane hadn’t given up. The flashing headlights continued, nearly blinding him. They had the intensity of a lightning storm, and he felt vulnerable, like he were standing in an open field, stabbing a metal rod angrily at the heavens. He knew he only had seconds before Sloane gave up and came to tell him whatever it was that was so important to her. Seconds to decide if he was right about his suspicions, if they were warranted at all. Had she been playing me for a fool all along?
He had no idea where Sloane had been when Pam Sizemore was shot. But she was at the Sherman’s house when the oar came swinging at his head. It could have been her who had knocked him for a loop. Same with Leo Sherman. Hud had no idea where she was when the CO had been shot in the backwaters. There were a hundred different places she could have been hiding with a 30-aught-6 rifle. It was possible that she could have killed all three of those victims.
Tom Tucker was a little different, the opportunity tighter, but possible, once he thought about if everything checked out, if Sloane had had enough time to leave the office after interrogating Jordan Rogers and going to see Bill Flowers. Hud had no idea where she was then. He’d assumed she had been at her desk the whole time, waiting for him. There was no reason to question her whereabouts then, or time to call Lancet back and have him check out Sloane’s schedule. He had to trust his gut. There was time for her to kill Tom Tucker after he had left the Demmie. Barely. But some time. So, was Tina Sloane a cold-blooded killer? If so, why?
He had to question her motive. If Burke’s father and her father had been in a long-standing partnership together, it wasn’t a stretch to think that that business, illegal or on the up-and-up, had been passed on to one or both of them. Could Sloane have been the Chicago connection, the other side of the turf war? If the Shamrocks had been condemned, did that partnership venture into drug distribution—or had it been there all along? A channel developed and refined in the drug heyday of the seventies? Vacationland and recreational drugs go together like ice cream and cake. Why wouldn’t the business evolve from pot to meth when times got hard? Syndicates got used to making money. One drug or the other didn’t matter to that kind of business.
As a cop, Sloane would have been in the best place possible to monitor how close she was to getting caught, to the drug connection being discovered. Unless Burke was involved, too. There was that question. How much did Burke know? How deep did the business go? Hud was too far on the outside to know, but he could see her motive a little clearer. What he couldn’t see was a reason for Sloane to have killed Pam Sizemore. What had set her off? What had started the series of murders? Did Leo Sherman go to someone in the department after discovering his wife’s involvement? Was it compassion or business? Did he lead Sloane to Pam Sizemore? Put her in a position that required Pam to be silenced because she knew the connection?
Or was Sloane innocent and Burke the shooter? Had he had the same opportunity that she’d had? A snippet of the conversation he’d had with Sloane flitted through Hud’s mind, from when she’d come to the shop to warn him about Burke. It had felt strange then, and it felt even stranger now. “. . . So he could keep an eye on you . . .” It was her explanation about why Burke had hired him. Maybe she had been telling him more of the truth than he had realized. Maybe they were in it together? Maybe it was so they both could keep an eye on him. Burke knew that Hud would start poking around in the past.
Time for speculation and planning ran out. Sloane got out of the car. Hud didn’t move. He didn’t know what else to do but stand there. He held his .45 in his right hand, readying himself for whatever came next. Of all the things he had done in his career as a detective, he had never successfully negotiated his way out of a confrontation with a killer. He had tried that with his snitch, and it had nearly cost him his life.
Sloane stopped at the corner of the Crown Vic cautiously, sizing him up. She was nothing but a rigid silhouette of herself. All of the bland details of her attire, of her attempt to fade into the background, all perfectly meshed into the darkness behind her. She was almost invisible, her goal accomplished.
A moth fluttered across the headlight of the car, looking larger than it was. Hud could barely see Sloane’s face. Shadows hid her eyes and the intention in them. He couldn’t see her hands, either, whether they held her trusted Glock, whether he was in the line of fire. If she was the shooter, she wouldn’t miss this time. He was sure of that.
“Did you find anything?” Sloane said. They were about twenty feet apart. Her voice carried easily on the wind. She didn’t seem too concerned about being conspicuous, about being heard.
Hud’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it, decided to walk closer. He had no choice but to take his chances looking her in the eye. “Nothing. Any word from Moran about Burke?”
“He’s not there.” Her face came into view in a shroud of grayness. It was as hard as granite. Her eyes, almost black, were full of scrutiny and uncertainty. She unsettled him more than he had expected.
He stopped a few feet in front of her. “Where’s he at?”
“I wish I knew. What’s the matter? You look sick,” Sloane said.
“Those cottages smell like death.”
“You’d think you’d be used to that.”
“I could never get used to that kind of foulness,” Hud said.
Sloane looked at his right hand, at the .45. Hud followed suit but didn’t see her Glock in her hand, didn’t see a weapon at all. That was a relief. She didn’t have her gun openly ready. Why would she? Doubt filtered into all of the damning scenarios in his mind. Maybe he was overreacting, seeing connections that weren’t there. He hoped that was the case.
“Who were you on the phone with?” she asked.
Hud sighed, cocked his head, disappointed that he had been unable to hide his conversation from her. “Lancet. He found out some information about the Shamrocks that he thought I ought to know.” He watched every muscle in Sloane’s face for recognition, for a reason to react. The granite wall remained solidly in place.
“And?” she said.
“I think you know what he found.”
Sloane stepped forward. Her face changed. Her blank professionalism turned into personal recognition. They were ten feet apart now. “It’s not what you think.”
Hud stepped back in response. “Then maybe you better explain it to me. Because right now what Lancet told me only raises questions and doesn’t answer anything at all. You need to tell me what the hell is going on, Sloane. I’m in no mood to be blindsided again.”
“Everything is crumbling, isn’t it?”
Panic was hard to read at night, especially with conflicting amounts of light and darkness. Hud wasn’t sure what to make of Sloane’s reaction. He didn’t want her to feel trapped, backed into a corner like a wild animal, with no way to escape. “I can help you,” he offered. “If you’re involved in something over your head, I can help you.”
Sloane shook her head. “No, you can’t. You know that. Don’t lie to me, Hud. That’s what I’ve liked about you since you came back. I believed you when you said something.”
“Did I make the same mistake believing in you?”
Sloane didn’t answer, just stared at him.
Somewhere in the distance, the first note of a siren droned high into the cold night air. Brittle oak leaves, hanging on for dear life, rattled behind Hud. The .45 felt heavy in his sweaty palm, and his finger twitched an inch away from the trigger.
“Was it you?” Hud said. He had no choice but to ask Sloane directly, openly. There was no resisting the questions tumbling in his mind. A shiver ran up the back of his leg, shook his hamstring, warning him to run, to take cover. But it was too late for that.
“I don’
t know what you mean.”
Hud stared at her, deciding whether or not to believe her denial. It was too dark to tell.
“Okay,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me that your father and Burke’s father owned the Shamrocks? Let’s start there.”
“What makes you think I know anything about that?”
“At the moment, I think you know a lot more than I do.” Hud’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket again. Insistent, like Sloane flashing the headlights at him. He ignored it again. “What was so important that you needed to get my attention?”
“We should go. There’s nothing here. We need to find Burke.”
“Right,” Hud said. “I’m not going anywhere at the moment.”
Sloane glared at him, then looked at the .45 again. “Do you think that’s necessary?”
“I do. You didn’t answer my question.”
“My father’s business isn’t relevant. He’s dead. So is Burke’s father. Their sins are not our sins.”
“But Burke’s father’s legacy is important to him. Remember? That’s what you told me. How about your father’s legacy, Sloane? What are you protecting? What is your father’s legacy?”
“You’re on dangerous ground, Hud.”
“Is that a warning? I’ve been shot at, smacked upside the head, and dusted off by just about everyone since this whole thing began, and here we are. Do you really think that I’m going to back down now?” Hud stepped in closer, stopped five feet from her. The wind caught her perfume. Just a hint. The promise of something tropical, a journey far away, never to be taken. “You really need to tell me what’s going on, Sloane. I can help you,” he repeated his offer one last time.
The siren grew louder, closer, more defined. There were two, not one, and distantly, another one cried out, trying to catch up with the others. A bead of sweat formed on the ledge of Sloane’s top lip. Hud had no idea what was going on, had no access to a radio, but something told him that Sloane knew where the sirens were heading.
“They’re coming here, aren’t they?” he said. “Time’s running out.”
“No,” Sloane said. “It already has. I can see it now. There’s only one way out of this.” She lowered her chin for a brief second, then stepped forward.
Instinct demanded that Hud raise his .45, aim at her head, tell her to stop, but he resisted the urge, fought believing that Sloane was the shooter for as long as he could. Doubt and disbelief were a mistake he had made before. His wrist rotated upward, and he stepped forward just as Sloane lunged into him, planting her right foot and swinging her upward facing arm at the same time. It was like a door closing shut on Hud’s wrist as their arms met. He wasn’t ready for that kind of attack, and his .45 slipped from his grasp, sailed out of his hand, and tumbled into the darkness.
Sloane wasn’t finished. All of her hand-to-hand combat training was fully engaged. Before Hud could fully process that his gun had been knocked out of his hand, she punched him with the other arm, full force, fist balled, in the same side of the face that the oar had previously found. He tumbled sideways but remained on his feet. Sloane punched like a man. Not like the frilly princess her mother had hoped she would be.
There was enough time for her to pull the Glock out of the small of her back. “This stops now,” Sloane demanded.
Hud didn’t surrender or wait to comply. He fell the rest of the way to the ground and extended his leg out at the same time, putting as much force into his legs as possible, a direct blow at the back of Sloane’s calves. The force of the sweep knocked her forward. She hadn’t been expecting it either, but she held onto the gun.
Survival meant throwing any concern for her health and safety aside. Hud scrambled toward Sloane, jumped and tackled her. She was strong, determined to hold onto the Glock, to win the fight. Fingernails and teeth became weapons. The night air was full of sirens and heavy breath, sweat, the smell of death, and the determination to live. But as hard she fought, Hud was finally able to pin Sloane down, grab her by the throat, and put as much pressure on her windpipe as she could bear. The move forced her to release the gun. Hud grabbed it up with his free hand and jammed the barrel against her forehead. “I swear, you move a muscle and I’ll blow your fucking head off,” he said in between pants, trying to gain his breath.
Blood trickled out of the corner of Sloane’s mouth as Hud lessened his grip on her throat. He was straddling her, had her arms pinned with his legs, could feel her laboring underneath him. She didn’t offer him anything but a hardened glare.
“I’ll ask you again, Sloane. Why’d you do it?”
“You know why,” she spat.
“Enlighten me. Did Leo Sherman come to you and try to soften the blow for his wife? He found out what she was doing, didn’t he?”
“Because of that he was close to finding out more.”
“That you were the Chicago connection.”
“Yes. It was supposed to be simple: get rid of Pam Sizemore and send a message to Tom Tucker at the same time. Pack it in, this is over. You’re small time.”
“But Sherman blew things up. This is his land, and he loved it, was willing to fight for it.”
Hud cocked his head toward the lake, listened to the storm of wails offering promise and saw lights in the darkness for the first time. Behind him a nearby engine roared. He wondered if he needed to still be worried about being shot in the back by some unseen sniper.
“Why’d you kill Kaye Sherman?”
“Confrontations get messy. You know that, Hud. And it gave me room to breathe.”
“It put the focus on Leo. Until you had to shoot him, too.”
“You were getting too close. Don’t you think he would talk?”
“Tom Tucker, too. He knew you.”
“He figured it out.”
Hud stiffened. “What’d you do with Goldie?” Sloane tried to turn her head, but Hud wouldn’t let her. He forced her to look him in the eye. “Tell me what you did to her, goddamn it. Tell me.”
“She was with Tucker. That’s all I know. I expected her to be with him. I had to leave. I was running out of time. She was with him when I left.”
“Dead.”
“She was there.”
Hud trembled inside. He almost had everything he wanted, but he still didn’t know where Goldie was, whether she was dead or alive.
The darkness enveloping the Shamrocks suddenly erupted into bright white light. The ground rumbled with police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. The air smelled of urgency and diesel. Nothing had stopped or parked. All of the vehicles were speeding forward toward Sloane and Hud.
“You figured it all out, Hud,” Sloane said. “I knew you would from the first moment I saw you. I knew you would.” Defeat edged her voice, and she closed her eyes briefly. “You were determined to find the truth, come hell or high water. I should have aimed better when I shot at you. But I missed, and here we are. Daddy would have been disappointed with me for that.”
Hud exhaled, felt a moment of relief. She was right. Everything had led him to this moment, and Tina Sloane had finally been stopped.
A car stopped behind them. Close, maybe thirty feet away. Hud didn’t dare take his eyes off of Sloane, but he was becoming more comfortable that the struggle was over. Resignation rested on her face, as her future became more and more obvious. She couldn’t outrun all of the flashing lights and guns that had just shown up.
A door slammed. Footsteps approached. Then a voice rang out that Hud recognized immediately. “Get off her!” It was Burke.
Hud tensed, then realized he had backup, that there were more eyes on him and Sloane than he could imagine. He started to loosen his grip on Sloane.
“But you were wrong about one thing, Hud,” she said.
He looked over his shoulder as Burke stalked toward them, screaming, yelling. “What,” Hud said, “what was I wrong about?”
“She wasn’t going to run off with Burke’s father . . .”
He knew what she was talking about
right away. “. . . Yours? She was going to run off with your father?”
“And destroy all of our lives.”
“But that didn’t happen,” Hud said, surrendering to the revelation. The depth of what Sloane said staggered him, caused him to lose sight of where he was, what he was doing. “You were protecting him all along.” It was a whisper, a truth so deep that he couldn’t bear the thought of it. Sloane’s father had killed his mother. And justice would never be served. Not real justice.
It was the break Sloane needed to break free of him. It only took a few seconds for her to reach for the .45 she’d knocked out of Hud’s hand.
He reacted, saw what was happening, and in that moment of the need to live, to fight on, to push past regret, he pulled the trigger of the Glock before she could even touch the gun. The shot hit her between the eyes, stopped her forward movement. Blood splattered into the blinding light, offering the color of life to the condemned ground. The report echoed above all the engines, the sirens, and coasted over the lake, disappearing on the push of the wind so quickly it was like the sound had never existed at all.
“Why’d you do it?”
“I had no choice,” Hud said, as he stood up and looked at the two-way mirror. The interrogation room was hot and sweaty. Burke had turned off the air flow.
Deputy Moran shook her head. “Everybody saw you shoot her.”
“It was self-defense.”
“There are witnesses this time. No one saw her go for her gun.”
“They saw what they wanted to see. The truth will come out. You wait and see. It always does,” Hud said. “It always does.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
They found her bones when they tore down the Shamrocks. The floor in cottage number three had been patched and cemented. She had been entombed under a thick slab that would have seemed like it would last forever, outlast the person who put her there.
Where I Can See You Page 24