“Mr. Melcher, am I being charged with anything?”
“I told you, this is just a friendly little—”
“Q&A, yes, I remember. In that case, I’m leaving now.”
“You’re free to go at any time. Chief DiSalvo? Is there anything you’d like to ask Ms. McAllister while she’s here?”
Nick gazed steadily at her. “No,” he said, his voice as flinty-hard as his eyes.
“Fine,” she said, her eyes locked with his. “Then goodbye, gentlemen.”
Her hand was on the doorknob when Melcher stopped her. “Ms. McAllister?” he said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t plan any sudden trips out of town.”
She paused with the door half open to look back at him. He was sitting on the edge of Nick’s desk, one leg swinging in midair, a look of supreme satisfaction on his face. She looked at DiSalvo in disbelief. “Is this guy for real?” she said.
And she slammed the door behind her.
Chapter Nine
She came close to kicking the dog, thought better of it and hurled a water glass across the room instead. The act was childish, petulant, and thoroughly satisfying as she watched it shatter and imagined it slamming into Nick DiSalvo’s head and bursting it like a watermelon. “That son of a bitch,” she told Elvis, who sat watching her with his ears pricked and his ugly face radiating curiosity. “I trusted him,” she ranted. “I trusted him! And he’s no different than the rest of them!” For emphasis, she slammed her fist against the side of the microwave.
Pain shot through her knuckles, and the stack of mail she’d tucked into the cubbyhole a few days earlier fell to the floor. Tears flooded her eyes as she brought her knuckles to her mouth and bent to pick up the forgotten mail. A four-year-old electric bill. A couple of flyers. And the damn bank statement.
She glared at the envelope. The way this day had started out, it couldn’t possibly get any worse. “Screw it,” she said, and tore the envelope open. She set the statement on the counter and, still sucking on her injured knuckles, began thumbing through the checks.
She found it near the bottom of the stack, stopped riffling to backtrack and take a second look. It wasn’t a big thing, just slightly odd, a check made out to Francis Willoughby for $250, and signed in Michael’s neat, elegant handwriting. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She flipped over the check. It had been endorsed with one of those personalized stamps that said Willoughby Contracting—For Deposit Only.
Why on earth would Michael have paid a contractor two hundred and fifty dollars?
She opened the drawer and took out the phone book, opened it to the yellow pages, riffled through them until she found Willoughby Contracting. She dialed the number, then stood at the sink, running cold water over her bruised and bloody knuckles, while it rang. “Willoughby Contracting,” a soft female voice said.
Kathryn turned off the water. “Francis Willoughby, please.”
“Just a minute, hon. Fran, it’s for you!”
Obviously a highly professional setup. Kathryn tapped her toe as she waited, and then Francis Willoughby came on the line. “Mr. Willoughby,” she said, “this is Kathryn McAllister.”
The silence at the other end told her he knew who she was. She took a deep breath and made her voice as pleasant as possible. “I’m looking for some information. I just came across a check that Michael wrote you two weeks before he died. It was for two hundred and fifty dollars. I was wondering if you could tell me what it was for?”
There was a long silence. And then he blurted out, “I would’ve paid the money back, but you was in jail, and—”
“No, no,” she said, “I don’t want the money. I just want to know why he gave it to you.”
“It was a retainer. He hired me to rip out the kitchen in the Chandler place and build a new one.”
Blankly, she said, “He was going to renovate the kitchen?”
“He said you’d been wantin’ a new kitchen ever since you bought the house. I came over and checked it out one day while you was at work. It was in sorry shape, Miz McAllister. We decided the best thing to do was to gut it out and start over. Your husband wanted me to tear down the wall by the dining room, put in an archway, install new flooring, new ceiling, new appliances and countertop. New everything.”
“Why would he have done that without telling me?”
“He was gonna surprise you. It was supposed to be an anniversary present.”
She thanked him and hung up the phone. Went slowly to the open back door and stood there, looking out through the screen, her eyes slowly filling with tears. “Oh, shit,” she said, and leaned her head against the screen. Elvis walked over to her, nudged her thigh with his nose, and she reached down absently and scratched his head. If Michael hadn’t died, her life would be so different now. The house that was sitting empty out on Ridgewood Road would be the showplace they’d always intended it to become. They’d have a couple of toddlers playing in the yard, sunny and blond, with their father’s laughing eyes. And she would still be Mrs. Michael McAllister. Still young, still innocent, still in love.
Not the greedy, grasping woman who’d rolled wantonly around the living room floor with Nick DiSalvo.
The phone rang. Ignoring it, she bent to pick up the shards of broken glass. She walked to the wastebasket and dropped them in, ran cold water over her hands. Her knuckles were throbbing, and the phone continued to ring. Woodenly, she went to it and picked it up. “What?” she said.
“I’m sorry,” DiSalvo said softly.
Her stomach turned inside out. His voice was low and intimate, like they were pals or something. “I have nothing to say to you,” she said, and hung up the phone.
It rang again almost immediately. The man was nothing if not persistent. She took out the broom and dustpan and finished cleaning up the broken glass, then turned Elvis loose into the backyard, where he immediately lifted his leg on Raelynn’s mother’s peony bush.
After a while, the phone stopped ringing. She brought Elvis back in and tossed the bank statement into the trash. There was no sense in wallowing in the past. Michael was dead, those beautiful blond babies would never be born, and last night with Nick DiSalvo had been the biggest mistake of her life.
Five minutes later, the Blazer came roaring down the street and sailed into her driveway. He stomped on the parking brake and opened his screeking door and stalked up the walkway and onto the porch.
“That hinge could use a little WD-40, DiSalvo,” she said through the locked screen door.
His dark eyes were wild. “Why’d you hang up on me?” he demanded.
“I told you, I have nothing to say to you.”
“Damn it all, Kathryn, it wasn’t my fault. He insisted on talking to you.”
“And just when were you planning on letting me know I was a suspect in another murder? Christmas? Arbor Day?”
“Look,” he said, “I have a teenage daughter who’s hounding hell out of me to be a proper father. I have an unsolved homicide hanging over my head and the mayor breathing down my neck to get it solved. I have a twelve-year-old hotshot who thinks he’s Efrem Fucking Zimbalist sniffing around in my investigation. I don’t need this shit from you!”
Her fingers tightened on the door frame. “You knew, Nick! You knew last night, but you didn’t bother to let me in on it. You used me!”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t do anything you didn’t want as much as I did!”
“Are you familiar with the word betrayal?”
His face hardened. “Let me in.”
“No.”
“I’m not standing out here on the damn doorstep and telling everybody in Elba our business. Let me in the damn house.”
“Your truck spent the night in my driveway, Nick. Everybody in Elba already knows our business!”
“I just want to talk to you. Alone. In private. That means without the whole neighborhood listening in.”
“No.”
“McAllister, you are the stub
bornest damn woman I ever met! Why the hell won’t you let me in?”
“Because if I open this door, in five minutes we’ll be rolling around on the floor! I can’t do this, DiSalvo!”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake! I won’t touch you. Just open the goddamn door and let me in.”
She grasped Elvis’ collar and held it tight. From somewhere deep in his throat, the dog made a low, growling sound.
Nick gaped at him in disbelief. “Call off the dog,” he said.
“No.”
Elvis growled again, and Nick scowled at him. “Call off the frigging dog, Kathryn.”
“If you try to touch me,” she said, “he’ll rip your throat out. He has very large teeth. He could kill you in fifteen seconds.”
“And I’m carrying a loaded .38 that could kill him in one shot.”
Appalled, she said, “You would shoot my dog?”
He clenched his fists, and a vein stood out on the side of his neck. “I AM NOT GOING TO SHOOT YOUR DAMN DOG!”
“And I’m not letting you in, DiSalvo. You seem to have this warped idea that you can come slinking up to my doorstep every time you have a hard-on, and then refuse to acknowledge me in public. I won’t be treated that way.”
“I’m trying to keep your ass out of the slammer!” he shouted. “What was I supposed to do? Tell Melcher I’d just finished rolling in the bedsheets with you?”
“Yes! And then walk down Main Street beside me, right in the light of day!”
“I could lose my job, Kathryn. I’m the goddamn chief of police, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Right. I forgot you’re a cop. The job always comes first with you, doesn’t it, Nick?”
“You’re missing the point, McAllister. If I lose my job over this, I can’t protect you. And that’s the goddamn bottom line!”
Her anger dissipated, leaving her feeling strangely deflated. “Jesus, DiSalvo,” she said. “Are you really naïve enough to believe you can protect me?”
“Nobody’s touching you,” he said grimly. “I won’t let them.”
“If the State really wants me,” she said, “they’ll have me. And there’s not a thing on God’s green earth you can do about it.”
“Kat,” he said, and his voice was silken, seductive, reaching into every soft, feminine place inside her. “Open the door. Please.”
It took every ounce of strength she possessed to turn him down. “Not until you’re willing to acknowledge me in public,” she said. “Go away, DiSalvo.” And she shut the door in his face.
Rowena was knitting again, and he was just steamed enough to call her on it. “I’d appreciate it,” he said, “if you wouldn’t do that during working hours. It makes us look like a bunch of backwoods hicks.”
Her mouth fell open and she nearly dropped her knitting needles. “Why, ah— Whatever you say, Chief.”
“Thank you. I’m calling a staff meeting in my office in a half-hour. See that everybody’s notified.”
She hastily tucked her knitting into a bag beside her chair. “Everybody?” she said.
“Everybody who’s employed by this department. Make it crystal clear that if they want a job tomorrow, they’d best show up.”
A half-hour later, they assembled in his office, curious, silent, and nervous. He sat down in his chair and without speaking a word, looked at each of them in turn. Rowena. Bucky. Earl. Teddy Crane, the night dispatcher. Linda Barden, who filled in on a part-time basis nights and weekends.
His little kingdom. His little army. One of whom was a rat. “I want to know,” he said grimly, “which one of you tipped off the SBI about the note that was in Wanita Crumley’s pocket.”
They looked at him, looked around at each other. Bucky cleared his throat nervously, but nobody spoke. Nick stood up and walked around the corner of his desk. “The information didn’t just up and walk its way to Raleigh,” he said. “It had to be one of you. Nobody else knew about it. Did they?”
Bucky cleared his throat again. “Not as far as I know, Chief.”
“Well, then?”
The silence grew uncomfortable. “Bucky?” he said.
“Sir? Uh, no, sir, of course I didn’t tell anyone. I’d never do that.”
“Earl?”
“Twern’t me, Chief. I went home the same time you did and fell into bed.”
“Teddy?”
Teddy shifted his weight to rest on the other leg. “The only person I told,” he said nervously, “was my wife. But she wouldn’t tell nobody. She’s never even heard of the SBI.”
“Rowena,” he snapped.
“Sorry, Chief. I slept like a baby last night. Didn’t know anythin’ about it until I read it in the Gazette this morning. Agent Melcher was already here when I got to work.”
The exhaustion was catching up to him. He ran both hands down his face, rubbed his eyes. “Linda?” he said.
“I wasn’t even on duty last night, Nick. My kid was sick.”
Nick walked slowly to the window and gazed out at the street. Turned around and looked at them again. “Somebody’s lying,” he said. “And when I find out which one of you it is, I’m going to wrap my fingers around your throat and squeeze as hard as I can.”
Rowena and Bucky exchanged glances. “You feelin’ all right, Chief?” she said.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we are running a police department here. This is not a craft club or a meeting of the Ladies Aid Society. Nor is it a gambling hall, a flea market, or a kaffeeklatsch.” He looked at them again, one after the other. “It’s a fucking police department!” he bellowed. “And we are going to start acting like one! Is that understood?”
For the third time, Bucky cleared his throat. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly.
“Fine. You can leave.”
In unison, they turned like rats escaping a sinking ship. “Not the rest of you!” he yelled. “Just Bucky!”
Rowena paused with her hand on the doorknob. Earl stopped dead in his tracks. Teddy and Linda looked uncertain. “I want to hear it from your own lips,” he said. “Each of you. Do. You. Understand?”
His response was a chorus of yes sirs in varying tones. “Good,” he said. “Now get the hell out of my office.”
Linda was the last to go. She paused to look back at him. “Should I close the door, Chief?”
He looked at her for a moment without saying anything. “You’re a cop,” he said. “You figure it out.”
Her eyes widened, and she hastily shut the door behind her. Nick drew off and kicked the wastebasket as hard as he could. It rolled across the floor and slammed into the wall opposite his desk.
And then he sat down at the desk and put his head in his hands.
Chapter Ten
He heard the baying as soon as he got out of the truck. It sounded like the hounds of hell had descended. He strode up to the front door of the house and knocked. When there was no answer, he walked around the side and followed the yapping past a couple of outbuildings and into the field behind the house.
There were several of them, black and tan hunting dogs, yelping with frenzied excitement and leaping in a vain attempt to reach something hanging from an outflung branch of an ancient oak tree. Shep Henley stood nearby, watching them with no expression on his weathered face. Nick’s predecessor was tall and squarely built, with a noticeable paunch and a permanently sour expression. They’d met just once, when Nick had flown to Elba to interview for the position of police chief. A week later, Henley had called to offer him the job.
As he drew nearer, he saw that it was some kind of animal carcass the dogs were trying to get at. It had been skinned and hung just beyond their reach. Henley turned and watched his approach. “DiSalvo,” he boomed, when Nick was within hailing distance.
“Chief Henley,” he said, over the baying of the dogs. He leaned his weight on one hip and stood watching their frenzied efforts.
Henley pulled a pack of Camels from his pocket and lit one. “Hear you had a bit of excitement last
night,” he said, dropping his lighter back into the pocket of his plaid shirt.
“That’s one way of putting it.” As always, the smoke drew him in, made his mouth water. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing with the dogs?”
Henley flicked an ash and studied his dogs. “I suppose they don’t do much coon huntin’ up in New York City.”
The way he said the words New York City set Nick’s teeth on edge. “No,” he said flatly. “In New York, we only hunt two-legged prey.”
Henley drew on the cigarette, then flicked it to the ground and stepped on it. “Trying to quit,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if I can do it.”
“I hear you,” Nick said.
“See, to train a huntin’ dog,” Henley said, “you skin a coon carcass and tie it up in a tree. Gets ‘em all excited, used to the scent of coon. You can tell a good coon dog early on, by the sound he makes when he sniffs that carcass and thinks he’s treed somethin’ mighty important. If the dog don’t get excited, best thing you can do with him is put a for sale sign ‘round his neck and turn him into somebody else’s problem.”
“I see. So what are these, some kind of hound?”
“These here are genuine, AKC-registered Walkers. Best coon dog there is. Good one’ll go you fifteen, sixteen hundred.”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Dollars?” he said.
“Well, you see, DiSalvo, around these parts, coon hunting’s been elevated almost to the status of a religion. There ain’t much, not even the love of a good woman—” He paused suggestively, giving Nick the distinct impression that he knew a great deal more than he was telling. “That’s gonna come between a man and his dogs.” Henley eyed him speculatively. “Maybe you’d like to come along some night, see what the excitement’s all about. If you don’t have other, ah—obligations.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“I don’t imagine you came here to talk about dogs. What’s on your mind?”
“I’d like to ask you some questions about the McAllister case. I have this feeling. Call it a hunch, call it whatever. I think the two murders are related.”
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