‘Yeah, does kinda stretch the imagination, huh?’
‘Keep in touch with the husband. Let him know we’re keeping an eye and an ear out, OK?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Anthony said. ‘Meanwhile?’
‘Talked to Milt. He says John Connors, Jr is a washout. I’m not sure we got anything else.’
‘Maudeen Sanders’ kid? Lynette. The one down in Dallas?’ Anthony said.
‘That’s a long shot,’ Emmett said.
‘Yeah, but it’s our last shot.’
‘Maybe we should call her—’ Emmett started.
Anthony interrupted. ‘I’d be more than willing to drive down there and interview her in person, Emmett. Really.’
Emmett shook his head. ‘Let’s wait until Milt gets back. I don’t think we got the resources right now for anybody else to be going on a road trip.’
Anthony nodded, trying not to show his disappointment, while Emmett rearranged the files on his desk.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said, pulling a sheet out of one of the files. ‘We looked at just about everybody except Witovec!’
‘Who?’ Anthony asked.
‘Hank Witovec! The asshole who pistol-whipped that gas station attendant during that robbery with Jesse Trevino. Went down hard for it ’cause Jesse rolled on him? Remember?’
‘Oh, yeah. I observed that interview with Milt. Trevino’s out, right, but isn’t that other guy, Witovec, still in prison?’
‘Yeah, he is, but what about his family?’
‘He got family?’ Anthony asked.
‘I’m looking, I’m looking!’ Emmett said, shuffling through the papers in front of him. ‘Next of kin his father, Anson Witovec, now deceased. Damn.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Just a minute. He had a girlfriend who was interviewed at the time of the arrest. Tried to give him an alibi but Trevino sorta messed that up.’
‘How long ago was that?’
‘’Bout four or five years, maybe.’
‘So why would she start harassing us now? And why me? I was barely here at the time!’
‘Whoever’s doing this doesn’t seem to have a rhyme or reason for it,’ Emmett said. ‘Seems whatever happened, she – whoever she is – blames the entire department.’
‘Which just brings up Reba Connors to my mind,’ Anthony said, looking down at his feet.
‘Gotta get over it, Anthony. You made a mistake. Nothing intentional in what happened. You got lost,’ Emmett said. ‘You’ve done nothing but good before and after that day. The lady needs help, professional help, only the kind of help Jean MacDonnell can give her. But she won’t go looking for it and I doubt if Jean walked up to her and offered free counseling that she’d take it. For some reason she must like living with her sadness and hate.’
Anthony took a deep breath and said, ‘OK, right. Meanwhile, we got a name for this girlfriend of Witovec’s?’
‘Nadine Hamm,’ Emmett read. ‘Works at Wendy’s Cut and Curl – at least, she did five years ago.’
Anthony stood up. ‘Think I’ll go visit Nadine.’
‘Works for me,’ Emmett said and closed the file.
THIRTEEN
Me and Charlie went by the hotel and had lunch with Jean and the others, then headed on back to Prophesy County. Emmett called me on my cell phone and told me about them looking at Hank Witovec’s old girlfriend.
‘Nadine Hamm,’ I said. ‘I remember her. Pretty little thing. Couldn’t believe she’d even look at ol’ Hank. Looked like a bucket of snakes, that dude. But love’s love, right?’
‘That’s what they tell me,’ Emmett said.
‘So keep me posted. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of that girl since Witovec went up. She may not even be around our parts any more.’
‘Just doing what we can do,’ Emmett said.
‘Don’t I know it,’ I said, sighed and hung up. Just doing what we can do. That’s all me and Charlie were doing in Oklahoma City. But in our case it was a big bag of nothing.
And now that we knew the DNA belonged to a woman, it let out a lot of suspects. Like the Permeter brothers, Jesse Trevino, the two Evans boys and Troy Vaught. Which left Mrs Vaught, who was more than a long shot – kind of a stupid idea – Lou Anne Evans, whose DNA we needed to get, Reba Connors, who never left her home, and Maudeen Sanders’ daughter Lynette, who was in Dallas.
I remembered asking Anna to look into Judge Norman’s files to see how many cross references we’d get. I called the shop and asked her about it.
‘Well, all the ones we already knew about,’ Anna said. ‘The Permeter brothers, Trevino and Witovec and Mrs Sanders. But that’s all that stood out.’
‘Shit,’ I said, mostly under my breath, but I apologized just in case she heard me.
‘Heard it before, Sheriff,’ she said.
‘Anything else you can do with that damned computer?’ I asked.
‘Let me go back further into what Holly dug up,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can cross reference things we haven’t considered.’
I sighed. ‘Yeah. All we need is more suspects,’ I said.
‘Sorry, Sheriff. That’s all I got.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘We’re just doing what we can do.’
Wendy’s Cut & Curl was a four-station salon that did it all: haircuts, perms, color and weaves. It even had two pedicure chairs with little jacuzzis for the feet. Anthony felt a bit odd going in. He’d never been in a white woman’s salon. His mama and his wife went to a salon that specialized in African-American hair. He didn’t even know, until he saw the sign, that white women did weaves. Everything stopped the minute he walked in. Not a sound. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his uniform, his sex, or his race – or maybe a mix of all three.
‘Ladies,’ he said, doffing his regulation Stetson. ‘Can I speak to whoever’s in charge?’
A sizable woman in skin-tight ripped jeans, a flowered T-shirt thing showing so much cleavage he was afraid they were gonna fall out and hot-pink cowboy boots stepped away from the first station.
‘I’m Wendy. This is my place,’ she said. Her hair was an impressive white blonde and several times bigger than the size of her head. Her make-up tended toward blue eyeshadow and hot-pink blush.
‘Ma’am, I’m Deputy Anthony Dobbins from the sheriff’s department,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for a young woman who used to work for you about four or five years or so ago. Name of Nadine Hamm.’
Wendy let out an unladylike snort which brought giggles from two of the other stations, stylists and clients.
‘Oh, now, why’d you be wanting Nadine?’ Wendy asked.
‘Sheriff’s department business, ma’am,’ Anthony said.
Wendy turned back to her client who she’d been combing out and continued with the ratting process. ‘Well, Nadine hasn’t been around here since she got caught lying for that bastard boyfriend of hers. What was his name, Sandy?’
‘Hank,’ called the stylist by the third chair.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Anthony confirmed. ‘Hank Witovec. You happened to know where she went to?’
‘Maybe McAlester?’ Sandy called from the third station. ‘So she could be near ol’ Hank.’ Sandy shook her head. ‘Ugliest man alive but that girl really had it bad for him.’
‘She upset about Hank going up?’ Anthony asked.
Sandy moved away from her client, coming closer to Anthony. She was younger than Wendy, maybe in her mid- to late-twenties. Her eye make-up was black, as was her lipstick. Her hair was blacker than pitch-black, part shaved, part spiked, and she had tats and piercings in every visible spot. As she was wearing short shorts and a halter top, there was a lot visible. Being early March, Anthony thought it was too cold outside for the outfit, but the inside of the salon was pretty damned hot so he couldn’t really blame her.
‘Oh, yeah,’ she said, answering Anthony’s question. ‘Me and her were roommates, over at the Tides Apartments, on Fifteenth Street?’
Anthony nodded his agreement that the
Tides Apartments were definitely on Fifteenth Street.
‘And she was just beside herself. She said Hank told her he didn’t do it and, for some stupid reason, she actually believed him. That’s why she made up the alibi, but hell, if anybody’d asked me I’da wrecked the alibi if Hank’s partner hadn’t. I mean, she said she and Hank spent the night together that night and it was horseshit. He wasn’t there at all and I was home all night. I mean, I liked Nadine all right but I wasn’t gonna get myself in trouble for that Hank. She didn’t say the lie in court, though, so I guess she didn’t break a law?’
‘Right,’ Anthony said.
‘Well, right after he got sentenced she took off in the middle of the night. Still owed me half the rent for that month, too! Bitch.’
‘You got no idea where she went?’
Sandy shook her head. ‘Naw. But if you find her, remind her she owes me money, OK?’ she said and moved back to her client, apologizing as she went.
‘Anything else, Deputy?’ Wendy asked, smoothing out the hairdo she was working on.
‘No, ma’am. I guess that’s all.’
‘Well, you tell your wife that I’ve got product in for Afro hair. Spread the word to your people, OK?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Anthony said, ‘I’ll surely do that.’
The blast came out of nowhere. She was thrown across the room. The heat was unbearable. Her hair was on fire. Her face, oh, God, her face …
Sylvia Bradshaw jerked awake. She was sitting in the driver’s seat of the ambulance, her partner Jasper Thorne inside the hospital flirting with some nurse. She couldn’t believe she fell asleep. Not like her. But the dreams had been waking her up on nights lately. They hadn’t done that in a long time. But right now, with all the pressure … All the memories were flooding back. Her therapist at the rehab hospital would have said it made sense, that you can’t go back to where it all happened without reliving it somewhat. You can’t put as much stress on yourself as Sylvia was doing without it coming out somewhere. Like a pressure cooker. That steam’s gotta go somewhere.
The automatic doors to the hospital ER opened and Jasper came strutting out. Typical man, Sylvia thought. He figured all that flirting was gonna get him some. And him a married man, too.
I was finally back at the shop, sitting behind my desk, hoping Charlie Smith would keep his mouth shut about the fiasco in Oklahoma City. Somehow I doubted it. The boy found it funny. I mean, yeah, there was some humor there – if it had happened to somebody else. I tried to put Oklahoma City out of my mind as I bent to work on the myriad of forms littering my desk top. Half of them were things Holly would normally take care of, but Holly wasn’t here and I wasn’t inclined to throw this on Anna. I mean, she was doing all the computer work, which was taking her off patrol. I didn’t need to overload the girl, new as she was.
I’d lucked out after Nita had decided to quit. I’d barely started a search when Anna had shown up with her credentials in her hand. Commendations, good reviews, good grades out of the academy – who wouldn’t hire her? She said she was tired of dealing with all the drugs on the Texas border and wanted something a little more quiet. Thought Prophesy County would do her just fine. Well, she thought wrong. It hadn’t been a good time to join the department – not with some nut job out there trying to pick us off one by one.
I can’t say she’d lived up to the hype her paperwork had promised. She seemed a little timid to me. I mean, I don’t want my deputies being outright aggressive but they did need to show a little backbone. Ten years ago I woulda put it down to her being of the female persuasion, but then along came Jean, Jasmine, Nita Skitteridge and a half-dozen more women that could and would take me on in a heartbeat. So I’ve had to change my tune about the so-called weaker sex. No, this was Anna. And it just didn’t jibe with her commendations and reviews. But maybe the Laredo police department had different standards. After all, it was Texas, not Oklahoma. As I’ve always said, in Oklahoma we do things better than in Texas. No matter what they say.
Anthony came in the side door and stuck his head in my office. ‘Hey, Sheriff? Got a minute?’
‘Sure,’ I said, glad to be taken away from the forms on my desk. ‘What’s up?’
‘I went to where that Nadine Hamm used to work. Wendy’s Cut & Curl?’
‘Yeah?’
‘They said she left town right after Witovec was sentenced. Her old roommate who works there said she thinks she moved to McAlester to be close to Hank.’
I shook my head. There’s no accounting for taste, I thought. Pretty little thing like that following a low-life like Witovec to a prison town.
‘Want me to follow up? See if she’s in McAlester?’ Anthony asked.
‘Ah, hell, Anthony. Your guess is as good as mine. I got no idea what the hell’s going on around here. I mean, I’m not a hundred percent sure our perp is even a woman. Sure, we got that DNA but we don’t know how long that blood was on that broom handle or how many people could have had access to it.’
‘The blood was sticky when the police found it, Sheriff. Couldn’t have been more than a few hours old, which jibes with the time the house was empty, everybody off to the hospital and all.’
I nodded my head. He was right. The DNA belonged to a woman, and it was highly likely that that woman was our killer. And we did have a plethora of women. Just about as many as men. No matter how much I wanted to stick this on the Permeter brothers, it wasn’t them. Unless their mother or Nick’s wife could be behind it all. I thought about that for a minute, then considered it to be a stupid idea. Which seemed to be the only kind of ideas I was coming up with lately.
‘We still got Maudeen Sanders’ daughter,’ Anthony said. ‘I’d be more than willing to drive down to Dallas and check her out.’
I shook my head. ‘If the girl’s in Dallas then she’s not doing this, right? Maybe we should make some calls to her school, her dorm, roommates, whatever, see if she’s been down there all this time.’
Anthony sighed and stood up. I had no idea what bee was in his bonnet. ‘Yes, sir, I’ll get on that,’ he said, sounding dejected, and left my office.
I wondered how things were going at home. Normally, I woulda called Jean and had her stop by and see Anthony’s wife, Maryanne, on the pretext of just checking up on her and the baby. But Jean was in Oklahoma City having a lot more fun than I was. Even with Miz Pettigrew there with her. I grinned when I thought about that. My wife did have her hands full with that woman, that was for damn sure.
Two phone lines rang at once. I saw one being picked up, presumably by Anna, so I picked the second line up myself.
‘Sheriff Kovak,’ I said.
‘Sheriff, this is Buddy Sheridan over at the pool hall?’
‘Yeah, hey, Buddy, how’s it hanging?’
‘Bad, man, real bad. Sheriff, I sorta got a problem? Like, Joe Permeter’s bleeding all over my floor.’
‘Why’s he doing that?’ I asked, rising, I thought, to the occasion.
‘Mainly ’cause he’s dead?’
‘You sure about that?’ I asked.
‘He doesn’t have a face?’
‘So how you know it’s Joe?’ I asked, standing up and grabbing my jacket.
‘’Cause his pecker’s sticking out and it’s got that ring in it he’s been bragging about? Who else but Joe would have a ring in his pecker?’
I didn’t know about the piercing but it didn’t surprise me that Joe Permeter would decorate his pecker.
‘Don’t touch anything, Buddy. I’m on my way.’
‘Sheriff?’
‘Yeah, Buddy?’
‘I sorta already touched lots of stuff,’ he said.
I sighed. ‘Well, just don’t touch anything else,’ I said, hung up and headed to my car.
Between the two of them, Anthony and Anna found the Dallas information on Maudeen Sanders’ daughter, Lynette. She lived off-campus in a house with five other people. Anna found a list of her classes for the past few days but soon found o
ut that at Lynette’s level of schooling the professors didn’t exactly take class registration. There was no way to know if she was attending classes or not. There was no landline at the house Lynette shared. Anna speculated that each person had their own cell phone so they didn’t need a landline.
‘Lots of people don’t do landlines anymore,’ she informed Anthony.
‘Yeah, I know. Me and Maryanne don’t have one and I’ve tried to talk my folks into getting cell phones, but they’re too damn stubborn.’
‘Yeah, I just use my cell, too. I mean, who needs a landline?’
‘Exactly,’ Anthony agreed. ‘But in this case, it would be nice to be able to talk to some of the other residents of that house. See if Lynette’s been missing the past few days.’
Anna tapped a few keys and said, ‘We’re in luck. Lynette’s not on the lease. There’s two names on the lease,’ she said as she tapped a few more keys, ‘another on the electric bill, and, yep, here we go, a fourth on the water bill.’
‘So we got names but no cell-phone numbers, right? Any way to look that up?’
‘Well, maybe,’ Anna said, then looked up and grinned. ‘Why don’t you go do something useful while I mess around here a little?’
He cocked his head at her. ‘You gonna do something illegal?’
‘You really want to know?’
Anthony shook his head but added, ‘See what you can find on Nadine Hamm while you’re at it. She might be in McAlester.’ Then he left her to whatever she had in mind.
‘We just supposed to sit here and do nothing all day?’ Mrs Pettigrew asked the room in general.
Johnny Mac and Petal were at the big table, doing the assignments from school Jean had brought with them. Holly was sitting on the sofa next to her mother-in-law, trying her hand at crocheting. Jean was at the suite’s desk with her laptop, catching up on paperwork from her office at the hospital.
Holly put down the crocheting, sighed and said, ‘Is there something you want to do, Mama?’
‘Yes, ma’am, there surely is!’ she said with a little heat in her voice. ‘I wanna go home! That’s all! I just wanna go home!’ And then the old woman burst into tears, jumped up from the sofa faster than Jean ever suspected she could and hightailed it to the room she shared with Holly.
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