Hotshot P.I.

by B. J Daniels

  Tadd picked up the card. His eyes widened. “I’d heard Kiki had brought in some hotshot private eye.” He laughed. “I’ll be damned. So you’re a P.I.” He shook his head. “Interesting, her choice of investigators, wouldn’t you say?”

  No kidding. “I’d like to see what evidence you’ve got so far.”

  Tadd nodded. “Sure you wouldn’t like some coffee? Or maybe a stiff drink?” His smile slipped a little as he looked from Jake to Clancy and back. “You’re not going to like this case.”

  “There isn’t much about it I’ve liked so far,” Jake said. Clancy mumbled something under her breath and looked at her watch.

  “Don’t worry. This won’t take long,” Jake assured her.

  “Do I look worried?” she asked with wide-eyed innocence.

  The attorney excused himself and returned a few minutes later with a large manila envelope. He placed it on the desk in front of Jake and returned to his seat without saying a word.

  Jake opened the flap, pulled out a stack of papers and flipped through them. He let out an oath without even realizing it.

  “Told you you weren’t going to like it,” Tadd said.

  The case against Clancy was overwhelming.

  “I think I will take that coffee,” Jake said to Tadd.

  Jake sat stunned as Tadd buzzed his secretary. It had been one thing telling himself the woman who betrayed him was a killer. It was quite another to realize it might actually be true.

  “Why didn’t the sheriff just hang her on the spot?” Jake asked Tadd after he took a sip of the coffee the attorney handed him, happily discovering it to be heavily laced with bourbon.

  “Would have a hundred years ago. If she’d been a man.” Tadd chuckled. “Instead, she’s a woman. And a Talbott to boot.” He shot Clancy a smile to say he was just kidding, but with one look from her, it died on his lips.

  Jake wondered if she realized that she’d be cooling her heels in a cell right now if it wasn’t for Aunt Kiki’s money and the illustrious Talbott name. Not to mention what Kiki must be paying Tadd. Jake wouldn’t be surprised if Kiki wasn’t also making a large donation to the Tadd Farnsworth for County Attorney campaign for added incentive.

  Jake thumbed through the rest of the evidence, including a list of Dex Westfall’s belongings from the murder scene: a bloody western snap-front shirt, a pair of jeans and red cowboy boots. No socks. No underwear. Jake raised an eyebrow. Had Dex gotten dressed in a hurry for some reason? Or was that his usual attire? Jake made a mental note to ask Clancy.

  There was also a list of items found at the cabin Dex had rented at the Hawk Island Resort, including Dex’s wallet, watch, keys and some loose change.

  “He didn’t have his wallet or keys on him the night of his murder?” Jake asked Tadd, suspecting even more that for some reason Dex Westfall had dressed in a hurry.

  “I guess he didn’t need them,” Tadd said. “No place to spend money and he sure couldn’t drive anywhere. He probably took one of the island trails to Ms. Jones’s.”

  “You don’t know how he got there?” Jake asked, surprised.

  “Does it matter?” Tadd said. “He got there. We know that.”

  Everything mattered, Jake thought. What Dex hadn’t done was drive. There were no cars or roads on Hawk Island. That left two other options: he could go by boat around the island to Clancy’s. Or he could take one of the many mountain trails. Because the sheriff hadn’t found a boat at the scene didn’t mean Dex hadn’t had someone drop him off. And that meant maybe he’d planned to have that same someone pick him up again.

  Dex was last seen with Clancy after the resort café closed on Friday night. That meant there wouldn’t have been any place on the island for Dex to spend money. But Jake still thought it odd Dex hadn’t taken his wallet. Most guys would grab their wallet, keys and watch out of habit. Some things you just felt naked without. Like underwear.

  The wallet, according to the report, contained less than thirty dollars. He glanced through the photocopy of the items—a Montana driver’s license, a few credit cards. Jake frowned. No photographs. Not even one of Clancy, the guy’s girlfriend. No family photos. No receipts or junk like most people carried in their wallets. No mementos.

  Dex Westfall’s belongings reminded Jake of a new subdivision. No feeling of history. Everything of Dex’s had been marked on the sheriff’s list as in new condition. Jake found himself wondering just who the hell this guy was and what Clancy had seen in him as he glanced at Westfall’s driver’s license photo again. The guy was almost too good-looking. Jake had never figured Clancy for that type, but then, he reminded himself, he didn’t know Clancy anymore. He looked over at her. For instance, what was she thinking about right now? He realized how little he knew about her. It worried him. A lot.

  Taking out his notebook, Jake jotted down Dex’s social security number and address from his driver’s license, and took down the credit card numbers. He put everything back in the envelope and looked up at Tadd.

  “What do you know about this guy?” Jake asked.

  Tadd shrugged. “No more than what’s here, and we won’t know until his next of kin are notified.” Jake noted Clancy’s sudden rapt attention and wondered why this subject would interest her when nothing else about her case had.

  “There’s one other thing,” Tadd said. Jake felt the bad news coming even before Tadd opened his mouth. “You should know the sheriff has two witnesses who overheard Westfall and Clancy arguing at the marina café the evening Dex Westfall was murdered. Both said they heard Clancy threaten Dex.”

  Jake groaned inwardly.

  “One is a waitress at the marina café,” Tadd continued. “The other is Frank Ames. You remember him?”

  Yeah, Jake remembered the tall, pimply-faced kid six years his senior. Frank had always had a major chip on his shoulder, one that Jake had more than once wanted to knock off. Jake’s father had given Frank a job at the resort, wanting to help him. But Frank’s hostile unfriendliness had forced Warren Hawkins to let him go, making Frank Ames all the more bitter.

  “Frank owns the resort now,” Tadd said. “Maybe you’d heard.”

  “No, I hadn’t.” Jake hadn’t heard anything about Hawk Island since the day he promised his mother he’d never say his father’s name in her presence again. It had been the day they left Flathead Lake, right after Warren Hawkins had been convicted of embezzlement, arson and one count of deliberate homicide. They’d left town on the whipping tail of a scandal that had rocked the tiny community. Kiki had been right; his mother had insisted they leave without stopping at the Montana State prison in Deer Lodge to see his father even one last time.

  Jake had kept his promise to her; he’d never mentioned his father’s name. But several times a year he’d visited Warren Hawkins in prison. Jake had wanted to reopen his father’s case and do some investigating on his own, but Warren had asked him not to. Jake had left it alone, not wanting to hurt his mother any more than she had been.

  But now she was gone. And he was back in Montana thanks to Aunt Kiki. Back on Flathead Lake. And that hunch of his was knocking at the back of his brain, demanding to be let in. Demanding that he follow it, no matter where it might lead. Clancy was his ticket as surely as Tadd Farnsworth was a born politician. It was just going to be harder to get the truth out of Clancy than he’d first thought.

  “Can I get a copy of this and the autopsy report?” Jake asked, tapping the envelope with his finger.

  Tadd nodded.

  “Give me call when it’s ready.” He gave Tadd the number from the cellular phone Kiki had given him.

  “Here’s my home number,” Tadd said as he took out a business card and wrote on the back. He handed it to Jake. “In case you come up with something.” He sounded more than a little doubtful that would happen.

  Tadd pushed his intercom button and instructed his secretary to make Jake a copy of the Dex Westfall case, including the latest on Clancy’s sleepwalking defense.

 
“What?” Jake snapped, telling himself he must have heard wrong. He glanced over at Clancy; she met his gaze for an instant, then looked away, her body suddenly tense. Jake cursed under his breath. What else had Clancy and her aunt failed to tell him?

  “I guess you didn’t know,” Tadd said, smiling sympathetically at Jake. “Clancy was sleepwalking the night Dex Westfall was killed. That’s why she doesn’t remember what happened.”

  Jake stumbled to his feet, feeling the weight of the world settle around his shoulders. He took Clancy’s elbow and steered her out into the hall.

  “Sleepwalking?” he demanded the moment the door closed behind them. He couldn’t believe what a chump he was. Even when she’d lied on the stand, he’d figured she only did it to protect her own father. If Tadd was opting for a Twinkie defense like sleepwalking, it meant only one thing: Clancy’d killed Dex Westfall and she damn well knew it.

  “Sleepwalking?” Jake demanded again, trying to keep his voice down.

  “I guess I shouldn’t expect you to believe me,” Clancy said, jerking her elbow free of his grip. She started down the hall, but he grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around to face him.

  He let his gaze rake roughly over her, telling himself not to be fooled by that face of hers with its cute little button of a nose or the crocodile tears in those big brown eyes. He pulled her into the first alcove and blocked her retreat with his body. “Another murder and you just happened to be sleepwalking again?”

  Clancy found her gaze locked spellbound with his. There was something commanding about him. He demanded her attention, and ever since she was a girl, she’d been unable to deny him. She looked into his eyes; they darkened like thunderheads banked out over the lake. Everything about him, from his eyes to the hard line of his body, warned her of the storm he was about to bring into her life. Jake Hawkins was a dangerous man, one she’d be a fool to trifle with.

  “I walk in my sleep. I have ever since I was a child.”

  He stared at her, suspicion deep in his expression. “Sure you have.”

  She wanted to slap his smug face. “I assume you’ve never walked in your sleep.”

  “No.” He made that one word say it all.

  She reminded herself that people who’d never sleepwalked didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. But she wanted Jake to, needed Jake to.

  “It’s frightening, because when you wake up you don’t know how you got there. You don’t recall getting up. Suddenly you are just somewhere else, and you don’t remember anything. Not even where you’ve been.” She met his gaze. “Or what you’ve done.”

  “How come I never heard about you sleepwalking when we were kids?”

  She glanced away. “I was…ashamed. Wandering around at night in my pajamas, not knowing what I was doing. It was something I didn’t want anyone to know about.”

  Jake nodded, eyeing her intently. “And you’re trying to tell me that the night Dex Westfall was murdered you were walking around in your pj’s, sound asleep, and you don’t remember killing him? Not that you didn’t kill him, but that you don’t remember because you were sacked out?”

  “I’m trying to tell you the truth,” she said angrily, and wondered why she was even bothering. “Sleepwalking isn’t something I have control over. It just…happens. Like last night.”

  “Last night?” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “You mean last night on the dock when you were sure someone pulled you into the lake and tried to drown you? Now you’re telling me that you were asleep?”

  She didn’t like his tone. “I was walking in my sleep.” She took a breath and looked away. He’d never given her the chance to explain ten years ago; he’d just assumed she’d lied on the stand and he’d cut her off without a word. Without a goodbye. “Just like I was the night of the fire.”

  “How convenient that you were asleep at the murder you committed,” Jake said, bitterness oozing from his every word. He slammed a palm to the wall on each side of her. “And how inconvenient for my father that you just happened to wake up in time to see him kill Lola Strickland.”

  “Yes.” She ducked under his arm and ran down the hall, blinded by tears and regrets. Behind her, she heard him. The sound was a low, pained howl, the cry of a wounded animal. It tore at her heart. She wanted to take him in her arms, to comfort him. But nothing she could do or say would do that. She’d told the jury the truth. She didn’t know what else had happened that night at Hawk Island Resort because she’d been asleep—walking, but sound asleep. Sleepwalking had always been her private shame. A frightening weakness that was best kept a secret. Until the night Lola Strickland was murdered. Now that horrible memory had come back to haunt her—just the way her sleepwalking had come back.

  Jake slammed a fist into the wall, too stunned to chase after her. Sleepwalking? She’d been sleepwalking the night of Lola’s murder and the night Dex Westfall was killed in her garret? And last night on the dock? His brain tried to assimilate this information but couldn’t.

  That’s why her story had sounded like a lie. Could she really not remember anything? Was that why there’d been so many holes in her story? Because she’d been asleep?

  His mind refused to accept it. Just as it had ten years ago.

  She was lying. Again. Sleepwalking! Again.

  He charged after her, only to run headlong into a group of students on some kind of career day. The teacher tried to gather her flock, but they scattered like errant chicks. Jake forced his way through to reach the elevator door just as it closed. He watched the numbers overhead to make sure Clancy was headed down before he took off at a run for the stairs. She didn’t really think she could get away from him, did she?

  He burst out of the stairwell and into the main lobby as the elevator doors were closing again. He raced over to them, slapping the doors open and startling the only occupants, an elderly couple.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was looking for a blond woman.

  About five six. Cute.” Incredibly sexy. And innocentlooking. He started to make a curvaceous outline with his hands, but stopped himself. “Nice figure. Wearing a navy shirt, jeans and sandals?”

  They both gave him a knowing smile. The elderly woman pointed across the hall to a door marked Women. “She seemed a little upset,” the woman said, clearly blaming him.

  “Thanks.” As the elevator doors closed again, Jake made a beeline for the bathroom, cursing himself for letting Clancy out of his sight for even an instant.

  He stormed through the doorway, propelled by a flammable fuel of high-grade anger. “If you think I’m going to believe this latest story of yours—” he said, taking up the conversation right where they’d left off.

  His voice echoed off the tiled walls. A half-dozen women looked up, startled. Clancy wasn’t at either of the two sinks powdering her nose. That left only the row of four stalls.

  “Sir, you’re in the wrong rest room,” one woman politely informed him as if he didn’t know.

  He politely informed her that he didn’t care, then he leaned down to look for Clancy’s sandaled feet in the occupied stalls. No Clancy. The last stall appeared empty; someone had put a handmade Out of Order sign on it.

  Most of the women had the good sense to flee from the room, though they did it in high indignation, telling him in no uncertain terms what they thought of his behavior.

  You want to see bad behavior, he thought to himself, wait until I get my hands on Clancy. A couple of women stayed to give him grief. He ignored them, waiting for the stalls to empty out. As he glanced around the room, he assessed the situation. There was only one door. Clancy hadn’t had time to come back out.

  Jake waited for the last woman to exit. As she stomped past, he noticed that the summer breeze coming through the open window at the end of the room smelled sweet with the scent of freshly mown grass. Jake could hear the sound of a lawnmower buzzing just outside at ground level. In front of the window, someone had upended a trash can.

  Jake cursed himself
and his stupidity as he pushed open each stall door on his way to the window. All the stalls were now empty, just as he knew they would be. And on the corner of the metal window frame was a small scrap of navy blue material that perfectly matched the shirt Clancy had been wearing.

  Damn her hide, she’d given him the slip.

  Chapter Five

  Clancy caught the first flight out of Kalispell. She thought she’d feel safe once the plane was in the air. Instead, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was after her. And not just Jake Hawkins.

  She glanced around at the other passengers but saw no one she knew. No one even appeared remotely interested in her. As the plane banked to the east, she looked out the window and told herself she had to calm down and think clearly. Her life depended on it. And yet she’d never felt more afraid, more alone.

  Except for one other time in her life. The night of the resort fire. The night Lola Strickland was murdered. Clancy closed her eyes and tried to fight back the painful memories. But the memories came, edged with one penetrating truth: she’d walked in her sleep that night, just as she had the night Dex Westfall died.

  It had been late that night ten years ago when she’d come down the stairs, awakened by the sound of her parents arguing. Her parents never argued. Until that moment, she’d led an idyllic life on the island. The only dark spot in her whole childhood had been her required yearly visits back East to see Aunt Kiki and get a little culture so she didn’t grow up a wild heathen. Clancy had hated the visits, the stiff, prissy dresses, the long, boring lessons in social graces, her aunt’s endless lectures on the value of money and the Talbott name.

  But it was her aunt’s low opinion of Clancy’s father that made her call Kiki the Wicked Witch of the East. Kiki had always thought her sister had married beneath the family name when she’d married Clarence Jones. Clancy idolized her father.

  Clancy had stopped on the stairs when she heard her father’s voice saying that he couldn’t go to the police, wouldn’t go to the police. Warren was his best friend.