LURING

by Blake Pierce

  In one cell, a man in a rather threadbare business suit lay on his cot snoring loudly. In the opposite, a sullen-looking man wearing jeans and a t-shirt was sitting on his bunk.

  Tallhamer took out his keys and unlocked the seated prisoner’s cell and said …

  “You’ve got a visitor, Phil. A bona-fide FBI Agent, he says.”

  Jake stepped inside the cell while Tallhamer stood just outside, keeping the cell door open.

  Phil Cardin squinted hard at Jake and said, “FBI, huh? Well, maybe you can teach Deputy Dawg here how to do his goddamn job. I didn’t kill nobody, let alone my ex-wife. If I did, I’d be the first to brag about it. So let me out of here.”

  Jake wondered …

  Has anybody told him about the other murder?

  Jake got the feeling that Cardin knew nothing about it. He figured it was best to keep things that way, at least for the time being.

  Jake said to him, “I’ve got some questions, Mr. Cardin. Do you want a lawyer present?”

  Cardin chuckled and pointed at the sleeping man in the opposite cell.

  “He already is present—in a manner of speaking,” Cardin said.

  Then he yelled at the man …

  “Hey, Ozzie. Sober up, why don’t you? I need legal representation. Make sure my rights don’t get violated. Although I guess that train’s left the station already, you drunken incompetent bastard.”

  The man in the rumpled suit sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  “What the hell are you yelling about?” he grumbled. “Can’t you see I’m trying to get some sleep? Jesus, I’ve got a son-of-a-bitch of a headache.”

  Jake’s mouth dropped open. The fat sheriff laughed heartily at his obvious surprise.

  Tallhamer said, “Agent Crivaro, I’d like you to meet Oswald Hines, the town’s only lawyer. He gets drafted into public defense duties from time to time. Conveniently enough, he got arrested a while ago for drunk and disorderly behavior, so he’s right here at hand. Not that that’s an unusual occurrence.”

  Oswald Hines coughed and grunted.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s the truth,” he said. “This is sort of my home away from home—or more like a second office, you might say. At times like now, it’s a handy location. I’d hate to have to walk anywhere else, the way I’m feeling at the moment.”

  Hines took a long, slow breath, staring blearily at the others.

  Then he said to Jake, “Listen up, Agent Whatever-Your-Name is. As this man’s defense attorney, I must insist that you leave him alone. He’s been asked too damn many questions for about a week now. In fact, he’s being held without cause.”

  The lawyer yawned and added, “Actually, I’d hoped he’d be gone by now. He’d better be out of here before I wake up again.”

  The lawyer started to lie back down when the sheriff said …

  “Stay awake, Ozzie. You’ve got work to do. I’ll go get you a cup of coffee. Do you want me to let you out of your cell so you can be closer to your client?”

  “Naw, I’m good right here,” Ozzie said. “Just hurry up with that coffee. You know how I like it.”

  Laughing, Sheriff Tallhamer said, “How is that again?”

  “In a cup of some sort,” Ozzie growled. “Go. Now.”

  Tallhamer went back into the office. Jake stood staring down at the prisoner for a moment.

  Finally Jake said, “Mr. Cardin, I understand you don’t have an alibi for the time of your ex-wife’s murder.”

  Cardin shrugged and said, “I don’t know where anybody got that idea. I was at home. I ate a frozen dinner, watched TV all evening, then slept the rest of the night through. I wasn’t anywhere near where it happened—wherever that was.”

  “Can anybody corroborate that?” Jake said.

  Cardin grinned and said, “No, but nobody can corroborate otherwise either, can they?”

  Observing Cardin’s snide expression, Jake wondered …

  Is he guilty and taunting me?

  Or does he just not understand the seriousness of his situation?

  Jake asked, “How was your relationship with your ex-wife at the time of the murder?”

  The lawyer called out sharply …

  “Phil, don’t answer that question.”

  Cardin looked across to the other cell and said, “Aw, shut up, Ozzie. I’m not going to tell him anything I haven’t told the sheriff a hundred times already. It won’t make no difference anyhow.”

  Then looking at Jake, Cardin said in a sarcastic tone …

  “Things were just peachy between me and Alice. Our divorce was perfectly amicable. I wouldn’t have hurt a hair on her pretty little head.”

  The sheriff had just returned and handed a cup of coffee to the lawyer.

  “Amicable, shit,” the sheriff said to Cardin. “The day of her murder, you went roaring into the beauty parlor where she worked, yelling right in front of her clientele that she’d ruined your life and you hated her guts and you wanted her dead. That’s why you’re here.”

  Jake put his hands in his pockets and said, “Would you care to tell me what that was all about?”

  Cardin’s lips twisted in an expression of savage anger.

  “It was the truth, that’s all—about her ruining my life, I mean. I’ve been down on my luck ever since the bitch threw me out and married that damned doctor. Just that day I got fired from my job as a short-order cook in Mick’s Diner.”

  “And that was her fault somehow?” Jake said.

  Cardin stared Jake straight in the eye and said through clenched teeth …

  “Everything was her fault.”

  Jake felt a chill at the sound of hatred in his voice.

  He’s a real blamer, he thought.

  Jake had dealt with more than his share of killers who couldn’t accept responsibility for anything that went wrong in their lives. Jake knew that Cardin’s fiery resentment was hardly proof of his guilt. But he could definitely understand why Cardin had been arrested in the first place.

  Still, Jake knew that keeping him in custody was another issue, now that there had been another murder. From what Chief Messenger had told Jake back in Dighton, there was no hard physical evidence linking Cardin with the crime. The only evidence was a history of threatening behavior, especially the recent outburst at the beauty parlor where Alice had worked. It was all circumstantial …

  Unless he says something incriminating right here and now.

  Jake said to Cardin, “I take it you’re not exactly a grieving ex-husband.”

  Cardin grunted and said, “Maybe I would be if Alice hadn’t done me so bad. Spent our whole marriage telling me what a loser I was—as if that toad she took up with was some kind of improvement. Well, I wasn’t no loser until she divorced me. It was only when I was on my own that things started going bad. It’s not fair …”

  Jake listened as Cardin kept griping on about his ex. His bitterness was palpable—and so was his heartbreak. Jake suspected that Cardin never stopped loving Alice, or at least wanting her. Part of him had always held out some vain hope that they’d wind up together again.

  However, his love for her was obviously sick, twisted, and obsessive—not love at all, in any healthy sense. Jake had known plenty of murderers who were driven by exactly that kind of thing they called love.

  Cardin paused from ranting for a moment, then said …

  “Tell me—is it true they found her wrapped up in barbed wire?”

  Shaking his head with a smile he added …

  “Man, that’s—that’s creative.”

  Jake felt a slight jolt at those words.

  What did Cardin mean, exactly?

  Was he admiring someone else’s handiwork?

  Or was he slyly gloating over his own resourcefulness?

  Jake figured the time had come to try to draw him out about the other murder. If Cardin had an accomplice who had killed Hope Nelson, maybe Jake could get him to admit it. But he knew he had to tread carefully.

  He said,
“Mr. Cardin, did you know a woman named Hope Nelson over in Dighton?”

  Cardin scratched his head and said …

  “Nelson … the name’s familiar. Ain’t she the mayor’s wife or something?”

  Leaning against the bars outside the cell, Sheriff Tallhamer grunted and said …

  “She’s dead, that’s what she is.”

  Jake fought down a groan of discouragement. He hadn’t planned to spring the truth on Cardin in so blunt a manner. He’d hoped to take his time about it, try to find out if he already knew what had happened to Hope Nelson.

  The lawyer in the other cell jumped to his feet.

  “Dead?” he yelped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Tallhamer spit out some tobacco on the concrete floor and said, “She was murdered just last night—in exactly the same way Alice was killed. Strung up from a fence post, bundled up in barbed wire.”

  Suddenly seeming perfectly sober, Ozzie barked, “So what the hell are you holding my client for? Don’t tell me you think he murdered another woman last night while he was locked up right here.”

  Jake’s spirits sank. His tactic was spoiled, and he knew that any further questions were likely to be pointless.

  Nevertheless, he asked Cardin again, “Did you know Hope Nelson?”

  “Didn’t I just tell you no?” Cardin said with a note of surprise.

  But Jake couldn’t tell whether his surprise was unfeigned or he was just faking it.

  Ozzie grabbed the bars of his own cell and yelled, “You’d damn well better let my client loose right now, or you’ll be facing one hell of a lawsuit!”

  Jake stifled a sigh.

  Ozzie was right, of course, but …

  He picked a fine time to get competent all of a sudden.

  Jake turned to Tallhamer and said, “Let Cardin go. But keep a close eye on him.”

  Tallhamer called for his deputy to bring Cardin’s belongings. As the sheriff opened the cell for Cardin to leave, he turned toward Ozzie and said …

  “Do you want to go too?”

  Ozzie yawned and lay back down on his bunk.

  “Naw, I’ve done a pretty good day’s work. I’d just as soon go back to sleep—as long as you don’t need the cell for anybody else.”

  Tallhamer smirked and said, “Be my guest.”

  As Jake walked out of the station with Tallhamer and Cardin, he noticed that the white-coated man was still standing on the other side of the street in exactly the same spot as before.

  Suddenly, the man went into motion, striding across the street toward them.

  Tallhamer grumbled quietly to Jake …

  “Here comes trouble.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jake scrutinized the man who was rushing toward them just outside the police station. He saw outrage in the man’s face and bearing, but didn’t sense that it was aimed at him. And he was aware that Tallhamer wasn’t bracing for action.

  Meanwhile, Cardin had turned and hurried rapidly away along the sidewalk.

  The angry man stormed up to Tallhamer. Waving an arm in the departing Cardin’s direction, he shouted …

  “I demand that you take that bastard back into custody!”

  Seemingly impervious to the man’s anger, Sheriff Tallhamer calmly introduced Jake to Earl Gibson, the town’s only doctor and Alice Gibson’s husband.

  Jake started to shake hands and to offer his condolences, but the doctor’s arms were still waving in circles as he ranted on at Tallhamer. He noted that Dr. Gibson was a remarkably homely man with a heavily pockmarked face that wasn’t improved by the flush of fury. He remembered Cardin describing him as “that toad she took up with.”

  Indeed, Cardin was positively handsome by comparison.

  Jake figured that Earl Gibson must have virtues that had attracted the dead woman despite his looks. After all, Gibson was a doctor, and Alice’s ex was nothing more than a failed short-order cook …

  Probably a pretty easy choice in a town with few options.

  Gibson’s anger only increased when he found out who Jake was.

  “The FBI! What business does the FBI have even being here? You already caught my wife’s killer. You had him locked away. There’s not a jury in the world that wouldn’t find him guilty. And now you just let him go!”

  Sheriff Tallhamer shuffled his feet and spoke in a patient, almost condescending tone …

  “Now, Earl, we talked about this just a little while ago, didn’t we?”

  Dr. Gibson said, “Yeah, we did. And that’s why I stayed right here, waiting. I had to see this for myself. I wanted to stop it.”

  “We’ve got to let him go, and you know it,” Tallhamer said, “Another woman was murdered last night over in Dighton, the same way as Alice was. I can vouch for Phil Cardin’s whereabouts last night, and he sure wasn’t anywhere near Dighton. He didn’t kill that woman, and now we’ve got no reason to think he killed Alice, either.”

  “No reason!” Gibson said, sputtering with rage. “He threatened her life that very day. And don’t insult me with all this nonsense about the victim in Dighton, and how Phil Cardin couldn’t have killed her. We both know there’s a perfectly viable suspect for the other murder.”

  Jake’s interest was suddenly piqued.

  “A viable suspect?” he asked.

  Gibson scoffed at Sheriff Tallhamer and said, “So you didn’t tell him, eh?”

  “Tell me about what?” Jake asked.

  “About Phil Cardin’s brother, Harvey,” Gibson said to Jake. “He takes Phil’s side in everything. He threatened Alice too. He’d get her on the phone and tell her that he and Phil were going to get revenge. He called her the same day she was killed. And wherever he was last night, he wasn’t in any jail cell. He’s the one who killed that woman in Dighton. I’d bet my life on it.”

  Jake was truly startled now.

  He asked Gibson, “Why do you think he’d kill someone in another town?”

  Gibson said, “His motive you mean? Maybe he had something personal against that woman. He wanders around the state a lot so maybe he got involved with her, then followed his brother’s example. But I think he most likely did it to protect his brother—to make people think he didn’t kill Alice.”

  Tallhamer sighed and said, “Earl, we talked about this too a little while ago, didn’t we? We’ve both known Harvey Cardin all our lives. He travels around because he’s an itinerant plumber. He talks tough from time to time, but he’s not like his brother. He’d never hurt a fly, let alone kill anyone in such an awful way.”

  Jake’s brain clicked away, trying to process what he was hearing.

  He wished Tallhamer had told him about Harvey Cardin from the start.

  Small town cops, he thought. Some of them are so sure they know everything about everybody in their district that they can miss what’s important.

  Jake said to Sheriff Tallhamer, “I want to talk to Harvey Cardin.”

  The sheriff shrugged as if he considered it a waste of time.

  He said, “Well, if that’s what you want. Harvey lives only a couple of blocks away from here. I’ll take you there.”

  As Jake started walking with the sheriff, he saw that Gibson was following along. The last thing Jake needed right now was a grieving and irate widower inserting himself into the interview of a possible suspect.

  As delicately as he could, he said, “Dr. Gibson, the sheriff and I need to do this on our own.”

  When Gibson opened his mouth to protest, Jake added …

  “I’ll want to interview you in a little while. Where can I find you?”

  Gibson fell silent for a moment.

  “I’ll be in my office,” Gibson said. “The sheriff can tell you where it is.”

  Gibson turned and stormed angrily away.

  Jake and Tallhamer walked the short distance to a tiny white house where Harvey Cardin lived. It was a ramshackle cottage with an overgrown lawn.

  Tallhamer knocked on the front door. Whe
n no one answered, he knocked again, and there was still no answer.

  Tallhamer said, “He’s probably away, maybe working in some other town. We’ll have to catch him some other time.”

  Jake didn’t want to wait for “some other time.” He peered through one of the glass panes in the front door. He could see some stark, simple furniture, but little else inside—certainly no personal touches to the decor. It looked like a the kind of place that was rented furnished, but there was no sign that anybody lived there.

  Jake guessed that Harvey Cardin was out of town, all right …

  But is he ever coming back?

  His musings were interrupted by a man’s voice from next door …

  “Can I help you with anything, sheriff?”

  Jake turned and saw a man standing in the yard.

  Tallhamer said to him, “This FBI fellow and I are looking for Harvey Cardin.”

  The man shook his head and said, “You won’t have much luck, I don’t reckon. I saw him loading up his truck a week ago—just after his brother got arrested for killing Alice Gibson. It looked like he was taking everything he had, not that there was much of it to begin with. I asked him where he was going, and he said, ‘Anywhere that’s not Hyland. I’ve had it with this goddamn town.’”

  Jake felt a jolt of alarm.

  This possible suspect had already disappeared.

  “Come on,” Jake said to Tallhamer. “Let’s go talk to some people.”

  *

  Jake and Sheriff Tallhamer spent the rest of the day conducting fruitless interviews, starting in the neighborhood where Harvey Cardin had lived. All that Harvey’s other neighbors knew was that they hadn’t seen him since he’d driven away weeks ago.

  They had no better luck with Alice’s friends and acquaintances. Alice’s female coworkers at the beauty parlor agreed that Phil Cardin had made a terrible, frightening scene there on the day before Alice was killed.

  When Jake and Tallhamer stopped by Mick’s Diner, the owner said that Phil Cardin had gotten himself fired from his job as a short-order cook for a whole cluster of reasons—skipping work, showing up drunk, and getting into fistfights with other employees.