Best Served Cold

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  And my wife. Well, let me tell you about my wife. We’ve been married twelve years now and I love her more than I did when we first got married. Of course, then we’d only known each other for a little while and we sorta rushed into the marriage because she was pregnant and we both wanted that baby real bad but, still and all, she’s the light of my life. The woman’s beautiful, sexy, smarter than anybody I know, funny, caring and kind. Sometimes she thinks I’m an idiot, but reading Ann Landers and Dear Abby and the like, I figure most women think that about their husbands.

  So I sat in my living room, TV turned on, trying to stay warm and concentrate on NCIS, and missed my family. To say I was looking forward to the next day’s trip to the city was putting it mildly.

  It took a while, but Anthony composed himself. ‘Milt’s going to Oklahoma City tomorrow to interview Mr Connors’ son by his first marriage. Maybe he’s the one that did that to you.’

  ‘But all the others?’ Maryanne asked. ‘Why would he be bothering everybody else?’

  Anthony sighed. ‘I don’t know, honey. I just don’t know.’ He was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘All I do know is I’ll never forgive myself for what happened to you, or for what happened to the Connors.’

  Maryanne took her husband’s face in her hands, turning him to look at her. ‘You’re not to blame for what happened to me and the baby. And you’re not to blame for what happened to those people. The only thing you could have done even if you had gotten there on time was maybe – and I mean maybe – catch whoever did it. What happened to them would have happened no matter what. And what happened to me and the baby probably had nothing to do with those people. Everybody in the sheriff’s office has had something bad happen. You’re not special in that way,’ she said, smiling at Anthony and letting go of his face. ‘But you’re special in so many others.’

  She took him in her arms and he rested his head on her shoulder, feeling that, finally, he really had come home.

  Wednesday dawned gray and cloudy and colder than it had been since the ice storm. I put on a red flannel shirt over a George Straight T-shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots, and finished off the look with my sheepskin jacket. I was ready to take on the city. I called into the department, told Anna Alvarez where I was headed and that I’d be on my cell phone, then loaded the Jeep with a duffel bag stuffed to the gills since I planned to spend the night with my wife and child. I had no idea what Charlie Smith’s plan was and I didn’t really care.

  I got to Charlie’s house a little after seven in the morning and, while sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee with Charlie and his wife Maxine, told him about my intention on spending the night. Maxine said, ‘Go ahead, honey. You could use a little time off. The police station won’t collapse and me and the kids are more than likely gonna be here when you get back.’

  ‘More than likely?’ Charlie asked.

  Maxine grinned. ‘Well, I wouldn’t take it to the bank but the odds are in your favor.’

  Charlie shook his head and went into the back of the house, I presumed to pack a bag. My presumption proved correct when he came out five minutes later with a duffel bag similar to mine in all but color. We country he-men like to keep our macho up at all times. A rolling suitcase just wouldn’t be manly enough.

  The drive to Oklahoma City was uneventful. Even our conversation was uneventful. We both went over and over what we had on the case and nothing new came up.

  ‘So you’re hanging this all on John Connors’ kid?’ Charlie asked me.

  ‘He’s all I got left.’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘Did you question John about him?’

  ‘Naw. John’s not exactly compos mentis these days.’

  ‘Reba?’

  I didn’t answer. I should have questioned Reba about her stepson, if she even knew she had one. Holly had had to do a lot of digging on the computer to find the kid. But I should have questioned Reba Connors. Should have questioned John, too, but my heart just wasn’t into going back to that depressing house and those beaten, depressing people. Especially knowing that I – through my deputy – had a hand in what had led to it all.

  When we finally got to Oklahoma City we went straight to the crime-scene lab to put a bee under their butts about our DNA evidence. We lucked out. We introduced ourselves to the guy at the reception desk only to have a woman walking down the hall stop and say, ‘Hey! I just tried to call y’all! You Chief Smith?’

  Charlie identified himself then me. ‘You’ve got something?’ I asked, sorta breathless.

  ‘Yeah, come on back. Let me get my notes.’

  We followed her into a lab with all sorts of machines and a desk or two. She sat down at one of the desks while simultaneously pulling the chair from the other desk over to hers. ‘Sit,’ she ordered.

  Charlie sat and I pulled up a stool from one of the lab tables and perched.

  ‘OK, here we go. Longbranch, Oklahoma. Bloody splinter. Blood type O positive, female.’ She shook her head. ‘We know it’s a woman with the most common blood type around and that’s all we know.’

  ‘A woman,’ I said, looking at Charlie.

  He looked back at me, his brows knitted. ‘Yeah. A woman?’

  ‘Don’t that beat all,’ I said.

  ‘Shit, I reckon,’ he answered.

  ‘Oh, are we playing country bumpkins today?’ the lab tech asked.

  I smiled weakly at her. ‘Sometimes it just comes out. Especially when we’re totally stink-bombed from out of the blue.’

  ‘No female suspects?’ the woman asked with a raised brow.

  ‘Not so you’d notice,’ I said, thanked her and headed out, Charlie behind me.

  A woman, I thought. Damn, a woman. And a big woman at that, I thought, remembering the tape on the front door indicating somebody standing about five foot eleven inches. Reba Connors was a big woman. Big boned, but how tall?

  The first thing I did when I got in the car was call the shop. I got hold of Anthony and said, ‘Go out to the Connors’ place. Get some DNA from Reba. Toothbrush, hairbrush, a used Kleenex, whatever. And try to figure out how tall she is. Also, ask her what she knows about John’s kid – John, Jr, now John Brewer.’

  ‘Milt, I can’t. I just can’t go out there, knowing what I did to them—’ Anthony started.

  ‘Man, you’re all I got. I can’t send Dalton to do this, you know that. He’s there for wrecks on the highway and that’s about it. You’re all I got. You gotta man up.’

  ‘Shit, Milt.’ Anthony sighed and said, ‘Yeah. You’re right. You’re right.’ And he hung up in my ear. I only hoped he intended to call me back at some point.

  Then I called Emmett on his cell phone.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said, his voice low.

  ‘How’s she doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Still out,’ he said.

  ‘Listen. The DNA came back as a female—’

  ‘No kidding?’ he said.

  ‘I got Anthony checking out Reba Connors. But I got to thinking – what about that Evans woman? Lou Anne, right? At the gas station.’

  ‘Yeah, what about her?’ Emmett asked.

  ‘How tall you think she is?’

  ‘Hell if I know.’

  ‘Didn’t you see her standing?’

  ‘Well, yeah, but I was down in the bay and she was standing up a step in the doorway of the office.’

  ‘Would you say she was tall?’ I insisted.

  He thought for a minute, then said, ‘Tallish.’

  ‘That’s good enough,’ I said.

  The last thing in the world Anthony Dobbins wanted to do was talk to either John or Reba Connors, and definitely not both. He’d never really gotten over what happened at the Connors’ house but he’d thought he’d put it out of his mind. Now it was back, full-blown guilt eating at his stomach lining. He was barely dealing with the guilt over his wife and daughter being in danger because he was a deputy; now he had to deal with the people who were the end result of his biggest failure. He was
glad he’d talked to Maryanne. Her knowing his guilt helped him some, being able to share it, even though she seemed to think it wasn’t his fault – what happened to the Connors and, he guessed, what happened to her and the baby, too.

  Everybody said what happened to the Connors was just a mistake. That he’d been away from the county and didn’t remember the roads as well as someone else might have. There were even those who said it was the sheriff’s fault for sending him in the first place rather than a more experienced deputy. But it wasn’t experience that was the problem. He was experienced. He’d been a cop in Tulsa. No. It wasn’t lack of experience: he simply got lost.

  But he knew his way to the Connors’ house now. It was etched in his brain. He could get there blindfolded, even though he’d only been there that one time. That one time when he was late and Reba Connors was raped on account of that, and John Connors was hit on the head so hard he couldn’t function any more. That was on him, Anthony thought. All on him. No matter what anybody said.

  He got to the house and just stared at it. It had been a pretty place the first and only time he ever saw it. Flowers in borders, a well-tended lawn and freshly painted trim on the house. That picture, like the path to get there, was etched in his brain. It had been a nice place. Not any more. He turned off the engine and just sat there in his squad car, looking at the house, feeling his gut heave, thinking he might vomit, but he pushed it down and felt the burn. He knew he deserved that ulcer he was getting, had been getting since that day. He’d never gone to the doctor so he didn’t know if he already had one or not. He just lived with the pain. The pain he thought he deserved.

  Then the front door of the house opened and John Connors stuck his head out. ‘Whatja want?’ he called from the door.

  Anthony opened his car door and got out, walking up to the porch. ‘Mr Connors, it’s Deputy Dobbins with the sheriff’s department.’

  ‘Oh, yeah! I remember you!’ John Connors said and smiled.

  OK, Anthony thought, the man really was out of his head if he felt he could smile at Anthony. ‘Yes, sir. Can I come in a minute? Talk to you and the missus?’

  ‘Sure! Come on in!’ Turning and walking further into the house, he called, ‘Hey, Reba, honey, we got company.’

  Mrs Connors walked in from the kitchen, saw Anthony and stood stock-still, just staring at him. Finally she said, ‘Get out.’

  ‘Ma’am, the sheriff asked me—’

  ‘Get the hell out of my house!’ she screamed.

  ‘Ma’am, I gotta talk to you. It’s either here or at the station. If y’all wanna get in my squad car—’

  ‘You have the audacity to come in here and demand to talk to me? After what you did?’

  ‘Ma’am, I’ll never forgive myself for being late to get here. Not until the day I die, I can promise you that. But people are getting killed now and I gotta talk to you.’

  Reba Connors moved slowly into the living room and took a seat on the sofa next to her husband, who’d been following the exchange between his wife and the deputy like a fan at a tennis match.

  ‘Who got killed?’ she asked.

  ‘Enid Merkle and Doris Jameson, and possibly Judge Norman.’

  ‘I heard Dave Norman died, but you think he was murdered?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Anthony answered.

  ‘Who’s that, honey?’ her husband asked.

  ‘Dave Norman. From the courthouse. You remember him, John.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes, baby, you do.’

  ‘OK,’ he said and grinned at her, then turned the grin back at Anthony.

  Reba said, ‘You kill ’em? Be your style.’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘The two women, Enid and Doris. I knew Enid from church, back when I went. Doris who?’

  ‘Jameson.’

  She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’ She sighed. ‘I used to know just about everybody who lived in this county. If I didn’t know ’em by sight, at least I knew the name. I kept the records for the county, you know,’ she said, looking up at Anthony. ‘Sit down, for crying out loud. I’m getting a crick in my neck.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Anthony said and sat.

  ‘So what do these killings have to do with me and John?’

  ‘The sheriff wanted me to ask y’all about John, Jr.’

  John, Sr smiled really big. ‘That’s my boy. John, Jr. How old is he, honey? Three now?’

  Reba patted his hand. ‘That’s right, sweetheart.’ She leaned down to the coffee table in front of the sofa and grabbed the TV remote. ‘Here, John. It’s time for your stories.’ She switched the TV on, found the right channel and put the remote back on the table.

  ‘In here,’ she said to Anthony, indicating the kitchen.

  He followed her in there and took a seat at the kitchen table.

  ‘You want coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘No, thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘You’re overdoing the polite crap, Deputy.’

  ‘I’m always polite, ma’am,’ Anthony said.

  She laughed mirthlessly. ‘Well, polite’s nice and all, but being on time would be even better.’

  Anthony sighed. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Why you asking about John, Jr?’

  ‘Need to know if y’all keep in touch. How upset he was about his dad getting …’ Anthony faltered, not knowing how to continue.

  ‘About his dad getting knocked stupid?’ she said, raising her eyebrows. ‘Wouldn’t know. The reason John thinks junior is three years old is because he hasn’t even seen a picture of him since then. John was a drinker when his first wife divorced him and she got full custody without any visitation from John. Not that that meant we couldn’t keep paying child support until he was eighteen, which we did, every month like clockwork. But did we ever get a thank you or even an invite to his graduation? No, we did not.’ She stared hard at Anthony. ‘John quit drinking when we met. Hasn’t had a drop in almost twenty years. Except now, thanks to you, he acts drunk every waking minute of every day.’

  ‘Ma’am, I need to get a DNA swab from you and your husband,’ he said, adding John to keep Reba from knowing he was after her DNA only.

  ‘You’re not touching me,’ she said. ‘Or John. I need you to leave our house.’

  ‘Then I’ll be back with a warrant for that swab, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ she said and opened her mouth.

  Anthony hastily got the swab out of the carrier in his pocket and swabbed the inside of her cheek. ‘How tall are you, ma’am?’ he asked.

  She just stared at him. ‘Why you want to know? You got a measuring tape in your other pocket?’

  ‘No ma’am. The sheriff just wanted me to ask.’

  ‘I’m five-seven and maybe a half. Unless I’ve shrunk.’

  With that, Reba stood up and walked into the living room.

  ‘John, need you to open up. This man’s gonna stick a Q-tip in your mouth.’

  John smiled. ‘OK,’ he said and opened his mouth wide.

  When Anthony had finished, Reba Connors pointed to the front door of her house. ‘Now get out. And don’t even think of ever coming back.’

  Anthony left.

  ELEVEN

  The doctors had told Emmett that Jasmine could be out for days. And he remembered the thought he’d had when Dalton had his troubles – secretly glad it hadn’t been him or his. Well, that sure came back to bite him in the butt. He should never have thought such a thing – being glad it was Dalton’s mama who got hurt and not his own wife or daughter. Emmett wasn’t a religious man, not really, just went to church to please his wife. But he was pretty sure, if there was a God, he wouldn’t have done this to Jasmine just to get him back for bad thoughts. No, Emmett decided. It was the cosmos. What you put out there often comes back to bite you. And he’d been bitten big time. Here she was, his Jasmine, her face so still, breathing tube in her nose, all sorts of tubes stuck in her arms. He wasn’t sure h
ow much more he could take.

  He needed to think about something else. Get his mind off his own troubles. Which made him think about Lou Anne Evans. The perp was a woman – DNA proved that. The tape on the front door – if it had really been at eye level – showed someone five foot eleven. But what if it hadn’t been at actual eye level? What if the perp stood on her tiptoes just to throw them off, or even just lifted her arms up a bit? She could be just about any size.

  He knew Reba Connors definitely blamed them for what happened to her, and maybe rightly so, but she was a shut-in. She didn’t leave her home. Lou Anne Evans seemed to be pissed as hell when he talked to her, though. And she wasn’t a shut-in. She was up and about and it was just Emmett’s own prejudices, he decided, that had declared her unfit to be messing with the brakes on the judge’s or Maryanne’s cars. She owned a gas station. Had been married for twenty years to a man who was a mechanic and her son was a mechanic. Why the hell wouldn’t she know some of it? Osmosis, if nothing else.

  He looked at his wife again, still unconscious. Maybe he could take a few minutes to run by the Evans’ gas station. Just have a quick talk with bosomy Lou Anne.

  We had an address on John Brewer, formerly John Connors, Jr, and Charlie, who knew about these things, put the address into his phone and got directions there. Some woman told us where to turn and how many yards we had to go. I need to get one of those. My phone doesn’t have it.

  I wasn’t sure exactly why I was continuing with checking out John, Jr, now I knew it was a woman doing all this, but there was always the possibility John, Jr was working with somebody else. A sister we didn’t know about, a girlfriend, maybe even his mother? I had no idea, but we were here in the city and I was damned if I wasn’t going to see this through.