Bad Debt (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 14)

by Jenna Bennett

  Lupe Vasquez nodded. “Keep me covered until I get to the trees?”

  “Course.” He glanced at me, probably close to giving me the nod to go.

  “I have a better idea,” I said. “If he sees Vasquez headed down that way, and then there’s no more activity around the car, he’ll realize that you have moved on, too. He’ll either be looking for you, or he’ll come down here and try to take Vasquez out. Either way, he won’t stay where he is now. Wouldn’t it be better if you gave me your clutch piece—” the one he kept strapped to his ankle, “and I’ll stay here and take potshots at him with that while you go through the woods and double back around? That way, he might not realize that you’re coming.”

  For a second nobody spoke. Then— “You don’t know how to shoot, darlin’.”

  “I can point and pull the trigger,” I said crossly. “You said yourself he’s too far away, so it doesn’t matter if I wouldn’t actually be able to hit him. I’m just providing a distraction to let you get away. If he doesn’t realize I’m here, maybe he’ll think that you sent Vasquez off for help and you’re the one still hiding behind the car. He’ll think he has you pinned, so he can just wait you out.”

  There was another moment of silence.

  “It’s not a bad plan,” Lupe Vasquez murmured.

  Rafe glanced at her, and then back at me. “I want you safe.”

  “I won’t come out from behind the car. I promise.”

  “What if he blows it up?”

  “He probably won’t,” I said, with a lot more confidence than I felt. “Once she gets into position, Vasquez will keep him too busy to worry about me.”

  Lupe Vasquez nodded.

  Rafe looked from me to her and back. I could tell he didn’t particularly like the idea, but he knew it was more likely to work than otherwise. When he reached down and pulled the small gun he keeps strapped to his ankle, and handed it to me, I knew he’d capitulated.

  “Hold it like this. Point that. Pull the trigger.”

  I nodded.

  “Be prepared for some kickback. It’s a small gun, but it’ll still have some.”

  I nodded, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant.

  “Ready?” He glanced at Lupe Vasquez, who was crouched at the rear end of the car, ready to take off. Her gun was in her hand.

  She nodded.

  “Keep her covered,” Rafe told me.

  I nodded.

  “On three.” He counted down. Lupe Vasquez took off like a shot, the gun in her hand spitting fire in the direction of the woods across the track. Rafe took off at the same time, into the trees and brush behind us. And I leaned a hand on the hood of the car, and let fly a bullet in the direction of the gunman.

  The gun jumped in my hand. Kickback. OK, then.

  I aimed and squeezed the trigger again. And by then Lupe Vasquez had thrown herself headfirst into the trees and brush farther down the track, and I could stop shooting. Behind me, everything was quiet. Rafe was gone, without so much as a snapping twig to mark his passage.

  The rifle across the way spit out another bullet. Not aimed at the car this time, but aimed at Lupe Vasquez. I held my breath, but didn’t hear her scream. He must have missed.

  That didn’t keep him from trying again. For the next several minutes, he practically peppered the area where Lupe Vasquez had disappeared with bullets. I hoped to God she’d managed to get away. Or that she was flattened on the ground holding her breath, or something. She didn’t return fire, I do know that much. But that might simply be because she couldn’t. Not because she was dead, but because the number of bullets coming her way kept her pinned down.

  I sent a desultory shot in the direction of the gunman myself, and got an answering shot back, before he went back to taking potshots at the area where Vasquez had disappeared. It must be more important for him to stop her from getting away, than to take out Rafe, whom I assumed he thought was back here.

  The only good thing about it all, was that he didn’t seem to have realized that Rafe was gone. The few bullets thrown in my direction, and the many, many directed at Lupe Vasquez, left no room for shooting at Rafe. He must think that Rafe still was pinned back here behind the car, when, in fact, he was on his way through the trees, preparing to land on the gunman like the wrath of God.

  I won’t lie about it. It was the longest fifteen or twenty minutes of my life. That’s how long it took before I heard activity across the way. When bullets weren’t flying, it was quiet out here in the woods, and I had no problem hearing the scuffle on the other hillside. Voices, thumps, and then a single gunshot.

  I was on my feet before I realized I’d stood up. “Rafe!”

  “Get down!”

  It came from the left, where Lupe Vasquez was up on her feet now, too. In one piece, thank God.

  I dropped back down behind the car while I waited, breathlessly, for a flurry of bullets. When none came—not my way, not hers—I thought it might be acceptable to hope, just a little, that that single shot we’d heard had either been Rafe putting a bullet into the gunman to slow him down, or said bullet had gone wild and hit a tree trunk or the ground.

  A minute passed. Then another. And a third. A small eternity in seconds ticked by, heartbeat by heartbeat. Pearl whimpered, and I reached down to ruffle her ears while I kept my own peeled. Next to me, a few yards down the road, Lupe Vasquez did the same. She hadn’t dropped to the ground again after telling me to get down. Instead she was standing, half hidden behind a tree trunk, her gun in her hand, but not pointed. Until the sound came that we’d been waiting for. The sound of movement on the other side of the road.

  Lupe Vasquez lifted her gun and sighted. I rose on my knees, high enough to be able to peer through the car window and out on the other side.

  Something moved between the trees. I held my breath. Was it Rafe, coming to make sure we were all right? Or was it the gunman, who—having disposed of Rafe—knew that it was just the two of us women down here?

  Not that I wanted to disrespect Lupe Vasquez by implying that she couldn’t take care of herself. I’m sure she could. She could probably take care of me, too. And I did have a gun of my own, with—hopefully—a few more bullets in it. I wasn’t entirely sure how many I’d used—maybe three or four?—but since I also didn’t know how many had been there to begin with, it didn’t really matter. I looked at the gun, turning it around, but there was no cylinder with bullets a la Dix’s old Old West cap gun I could look at. And Lupe Vasquez hissed at me—probably because I was waving a loaded gun around and pointing the muzzle at myself—so I turned it back around. It was tempting to shake it, to see if I could hear rattling inside, but I wasn’t familiar enough with guns to know whether that would be a good idea. It didn’t particularly seem like one.

  Pearl growled. The sound of someone moving through the trees on the other side of the track was louder now, and the fur on the back of her neck stood up. I should have kept hold of her, I know, but by the time that thought occurred to me, she had already moved. Around the car and into the middle of the track, where she stood with her feet planted and her shoulders hunched, fur bristling, barking in deep, threatening woofs.

  I saw a flash of movement between the trees. Something pale blue, like the sky. A pair of jeans?

  And then someone stepped out of the trees, and all the breath left my body on a big, relieved sigh.

  “Shut it,” Rafe told the dog. “It’s me.”

  It was. Alive and whole and—as far as I could tell—with no blood on him. Pearl hesitated, and her stub of a tail gave a tentative wag.

  “Good girl.” He gave her a pat on the head on his way past. By this point, Lupe Vasquez had left the tree where she’d taken cover and was on her way toward us. I got there first, of course, and threw myself at him.

  He caught me, and without any kind of telltale grunt of pain. Another indicator that he hadn’t been hurt.

  There was no need to tell him I’d been worried. He knew. “I’m all right.
”

  “Me, too,” I said, into his chest. “So is Pearl. And as far as I know Lupe Vasquez.”

  He nodded, and let go when the latter reached us.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Fine,” Rafe said, keeping his arm around my waist. Down on the ground, Pearl had realized that this was a happy occasion. She was jumping around us with her tongue hanging out, looking like she was smiling.

  “Did you get him?”

  Rafe nodded.

  “Who was it?” I asked. “Anyone we know?”

  He hesitated. “I think I’d better just show you. Not sure you’ll believe me otherwise.”

  Interesting.

  He led the way back into the trees on the other side of the track. I did my best to keep up, while Pearl danced around me. Lupe Vasquez pulled up the rear, trying not to stumble over the dog. She had holstered her gun, but still had her hand on it. “Is he dead?”

  Rafe shook his head. “I cuffed him. He ain’t going nowhere. And since his hands are behind his back, he won’t be shooting at us.”

  Good to know.

  Even so, when we got to a point between the trees where we could see him lying there, we all stopped.

  I didn’t recognize him. Not from this angle. He was flat on the ground, and blended, to a degree, with the faded grass and dead leaves. He was dressed in camouflage; not military, but hunter. A pair of coveralls and a hat that covered everything but the hands that were cuffed behind his back. Pale skin, so we weren’t looking at one of the South Americans. He was facing away from us, so we couldn’t see his face, and what I did see wasn’t familiar. He might be someone I’d met, but he wasn’t someone I knew well. Or at all.

  Lupe Vasquez, on the other hand, caught her breath quickly. I glanced at her, and saw that her eyes were wide and her mouth open. Obviously, she knew who it was. Or thought she did. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Is that...?”

  Rafe nodded.

  I looked from one to the other of them. “Who?”

  Twenty-Five

  “Chief Carter?” Sheriff Satterfield repeated, with a heavy dose of ‘I have a hard time believing that’ in his voice.

  It was later that evening. And we were all gathered in the parlor at the mansion. The sheriff had been released from the hospital, and Todd had driven him to see Mother. They were both there. So were Rafe and I. So were Lupe Vasquez and Patrick Nolan. We were all sitting around, on chairs and Great-Aunt Ida’s loveseat, looking almost like we were having a friendly gathering instead of a debriefing.

  Rafe nodded. “I caught him shooting at Savannah and Officer Vasquez, so it’s not like I could be wrong.”

  “Dayum,” the sheriff said, and then shot an apologetic look at my mother. “Sorry, Margaret.”

  Mother shook her head. “Are you sure you’re all right?” She divided a look between Rafe and me.

  We both nodded. “I was hunkered down behind the car the whole time,” I said. “Rafe was the one who risked his life going after the guy.”

  He gave me a look. “You were risking your life the whole time you were behind the car, darlin’. I spent most of my time walking. The only risk I took was those couple of seconds it took to make him put down his gun.”

  “Those couple of seconds during which he could have shot you.”

  “Those couple of seconds when he wasn’t shooting at you,” Rafe said.

  It wasn’t worth arguing over. And anyway, he was right. We’d both been in danger. So had Lupe Vasquez, who was watching the conversational ball bounce back and forth like a spectator at a particularly exciting tennis match. She had a band aid covering the bump on her head, but looked otherwise all right.

  I turned back to Sheriff Satterfield. “Yes. Chief of police Carter. Decked out in hunting gear and taking potshots at us with a rifle. Probably the same one he used to shoot you last night.”

  “Why?” the sheriff asked, and that was, indeed, the question of the hour. Or evening. The whole day.

  “He wasn’t real cooperative in interview,” Rafe admitted. “We brought him down to the sheriff’s office, since we couldn’t very well take him to his own station.”

  The sheriff nodded.

  “I did the interview. Cletus Johnson sat in, since you weren’t available.”

  “How’d that go?”

  “Fine,” Rafe said. “It was professional. He don’t like me much, but he likes his job. So he did what I told him to do.”

  The sheriff nodded.

  “Officer Vasquez,” Rafe glanced at her, “gave a statement about what happened out on the Skinners’ property, and then she stayed in observation. I didn’t think it’d help to have her in the room with us. I figured her boss’d try to dominate her if he could.”

  The sheriff nodded. So did Lupe Vasquez. So did I, not that I’d been there. After Rafe had shown us the handcuffed chief back there in the woods, he had tracked down the chief’s car, which was parked some yards farther up the road from where ours had hit the tree. He had loaded us all into it, including the chief, and driven far enough that we could get a cell signal. Lupe Vasquez had called her partner for help. Once Nolan showed up, she and Rafe had driven Chief Carter to Sweetwater in the chief’s car, while Nolan had taken me and Pearl back to the mansion. He’d gone to the Sweetwater sheriff’s office to watch the interrogation with Lupe Vasquez after that, and Pearl and I had stayed home until Rafe came back. Vasquez and Nolan had driven the chief’s car back to Columbia. Rafe and I had taken Nolan’s squad car to the repair shop to pick up the Volvo, had dropped the squad car back outside the Columbia police station, and had ended up back home. And now here we were, going over all of the details.

  “He admitted to shooting at us,” Rafe said. “Not much else he could do, when we caught him holding the gun.”

  The sheriff nodded.

  “He admitted to shooting you last night, and trying to shoot me. We matched the second bullet since it would tie things up nicely, but we have his confession.”

  “Did he confess to killing the Skinners?” Todd wanted to know. Preparing his case, I guess.

  “He didn’t have to,” Rafe told him. “He was carrying the same two rifles that were used in the shootings.”

  “That doesn’t mean he pulled the trigger.”

  I refrained from rolling my eyes. But really, could Todd be any more of a lawyer if he tried?

  Rafe nodded, acknowledging the point. “He said he did it. He used two different guns to make it look like two different people were involved. And then he used one of those guns to shoot at the sheriff, and the other one to shoot at me. And Savannah.”

  Everyone turned to look at me.

  “He called here yesterday morning,” Rafe added, “to tell us about the greenhouses, since we hadn’t found’em on our own. He wanted to make sure we did, since it made a good motive for the murders. He told me he didn’t think anyone would ever actually solve the case, and he was trying to blow as much smoke as he could.”

  “So what was his motive?” Todd wanted to know.

  “He wanted a big case,” Rafe said. “Nothing much has happened in this part of the state since Savannah’s high school reunion in May.”

  I nodded. The others did, too, since they obviously all remembered the serial murders that had taken place then.

  “Rumor has it Chattanooga’s gonna be needing a new chief of police in the next few months. He didn’t think his record was flashy enough to apply and get in.”

  Todd’s eyes widened. “He killed seven people for career advancement?”

  Rafe lifted a shoulder. “Pretty much, yeah. He figured a big case like this would put him on the map. He didn’t foresee the sheriff calling me instead of asking him for help. He thought he’d be playing a big part in ‘solving’ the case. The pot would tie to the drug scene in Columbia, and he could get rid of the Skinners and clean up the drug problem at the same time. And go off in a burst of glory.”

  “So he killed seven people to make himself look good
?”

  Both Lupe Vasquez and Patrick Nolan looked faintly sick, probably because they’d been working for him.

  “That was the biggest part of it,” Rafe said, “yeah. He knew the Skinners were growing pot. And he knew about the dog fighting. It was a way to stop all that. And advance his own career and reputation at the same time.”

  “That’s obscene,” Mother said angrily. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Pearl lifted her snout from the carpet and gave a soft sort of woof. Mother glanced down, and then reached down and petted her head.

  “Some kind of narcissistic disorder?” I suggested, since the chief certainly sounded like someone who saw himself as the center of the universe.

  Rafe shrugged. “Or he’s just a selfish bastard who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

  There was a beat while we all digested this.

  “Did you record the interview?” Todd asked.

  Rafe nodded. “Course.”

  “I’m going to need a copy of that recording.”

  “You’ll have to take that up with the sheriff.” Rafe glanced at Bob Satterfield, who was sitting on Great-Aunt Ida’s peach velvet holding my mother’s hand. “I’m just helping out.”

  Sheriff Satterfield nodded. “We’ll talk,” he told his son.

  I turned to Rafe. “Now, you suspected someone earlier than this morning. Last night, you told me you had a suspect, but you wouldn’t tell me who it was.”

  He nodded.

  “Was it Chief Carter?” the sheriff wanted to know.

  Rafe made a face. “Yeah. I figured, if I accused him of anything without proof, you weren’t gonna listen to me, though.”

  The sheriff didn’t respond to that, but I thought there was a good chance Rafe was right. When you accuse the chief of police of seven counts of murder, especially when your own past is more than a little checkered, you’d better have your ducks in a row. He’s more than proven himself since those early days—Rafe, I mean—but I had a feeling the sheriff would have been more likely to side with the chief of police anyway.