“No.” Michael still didn’t look at him. “The front windows are down. You’ll be fine.”
“I get claustrophobic in closed-up places, Deputy.” Anthony raised his voice a little.
Michael finally looked around at him. “Then you’d better get used to it or start talking.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” Anthony sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. He turned his head away from Michael.
“I think you do, kid.”
Michael was glad to see Buck pulling up behind his cruiser. Buck had been around a long time, and if he ever worked on a missing persons report, he would remember.
Muttering a few choice words under his breath, Buck stepped up beside Michael. “Remind me to go in the front when we leave here. I’ve been eating your dust for a mile.” He spit on the ground and then spotted Anthony in Michael’s cruiser. “What’s he doing here?”
“I’m just hanging on to him for a while. For his own protection.”
“He got anything to do with this?” Buck gestured out toward the lake. “I mean, you don’t think after all these years . . .” Buck left the thought dangling.
Michael looked at Buck, who was staring out at the lake now, and the uneasiness that had been with him all the way down to the lake suddenly had a name. The only missing person in Hidden Springs who had never turned up was Roxanne, but that had been over ten years ago.
“That’s crazy,” he said to Buck.
“Yeah,” Buck agreed. “They say whether it was a man or woman in the car?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
Buck blew out a long breath. “Guess we’d better go see what they’ve got.”
After they talked to the divers, Michael sent Lester back out to the main road to wait for the crane Betty Jean had managed to locate. When Buck asked him how he thought they’d get a crane down that sorry excuse for a road, Michael radioed Betty Jean to get Baxter Perry to come out with his chain saw.
Then with a sigh, he told her to call Justin and the sheriff. “The divers say the water’s murky down there, but they’re sure they saw a skull in the car.”
It took a long time to get the car out. The sheriff came and left. Lester went to do his crossing guard duties at the school and came back with Hank Leland on his tail. Michael relented and let Anthony out of the car, but he or Buck stayed on the boy like a shadow as the afternoon slid by. When Anthony claimed to be starving, Buck got him a pack of peanuts and a lukewarm soda out of his stakeout stash.
Anthony gave him a look. “How come you’re being so nice, Sergeant? You decided we look alike or something?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, kid,” Buck told him. “If you’d been mine, I’d have beat the you-know-what out of you a long time ago. Now eat and shut up before I forget you ain’t.”
Quitting time came and the divers went into overtime. The shadows lengthened, and Michael asked Betty Jean to call Karen and Alex for him. He didn’t have a signal on his cell phone.
“Both of them?” she said. “And what do I tell them? Michael can’t decide which of you he wants to see tonight?”
“Lay off, Betty Jean. It’s been a long day. Just tell Karen I’ll call her tomorrow and Alex that it looks like the big city is out of the question and even Cindy’s finest is doubtful.”
“You sound blue about it. You want me to tell her that too?” Betty Jean said.
“Would you cut it out? We’re on the radio.”
“Oh, sorry.” Betty Jean didn’t sound one bit sorry.
“Anything else going on?” Michael asked.
“Those forensic guys have been over at Joe’s for hours. Maybe Buck should come in and talk to them.”
Michael looked at Buck, who shook his head. “He’ll check with them later. You can go on home if you want to.”
“You know who it is yet?” Betty Jean asked. “The judge wanted me to ask.”
“We may not know even after we get the car out. They say it’s been down there a long time.” Michael started to key off but then added, “Thanks for finding the crane, Betty Jean. You’re a wonder.”
“I’ve been telling you that for months.” She gave a snort and broke the connection.
“Big date, Deputy?” Anthony said after Michael put the radio back in his belt. “I wouldn’t want to mess that up for you. So whenever we get away from here, you can just drop me off at my car and you can take out your girlfriend.”
“I told you, kid.” Michael barely glanced at him. “You’re with me till I get some straight talk out of you.”
“Whatever.” Anthony shrugged a little. “It’s your date.”
Down below in the lake, the divers surfaced and began making upward motions. Then they clambered over the edge of their boat and scooted it well out of the way. The crane operator started cranking up the cable, and in a matter of moments, the car’s bumper and grille broke the surface of the water. Hank lay down on his belly on the rocks close to the edge, busily clicking pictures.
“A Chevy,” Buck said softly. “Can you tell a color?”
“It’s hard to tell with the rust.” Michael squinted at the car. “Red maybe.”
Buck didn’t say anything more as the car emerged from the water inch by inch. When it broke free of the water, he looked over at Michael. “Better put the kid back in your cruiser. We won’t have time to watch him.”
“Where could I go?” Anthony protested. “We’re at the end of nowhere.”
Buck ignored Anthony with his eyes hard on Michael. “Do it.”
Michael looked at the car, then back at Buck before he took hold of Anthony’s arm. “Come on, Anthony.”
“What’s going on here?” Anthony jerked loose from Michael and stared at Buck.
“Nothing, kid. Just do as you’re told for once without raising a fuss.” Buck didn’t quite meet the boy’s eyes.
Anthony stepped up close to Buck. “You think it’s her, don’t you?”
Buck didn’t push the boy away as he looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t know. It could be.”
Anthony’s eyes went to the car streaming water back down into the lake. “If it is, I have to know.”
Buck put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “You’ll be the first we’ll tell, but just in case this is your mama, you don’t want to see this. You want to remember her the way she was to you as a little boy. Not this way.”
Anthony looked scared and near tears as he shrugged off Buck’s arm and stalked toward Michael’s car. Michael followed him, but at the car, Anthony said, “You don’t have to lock me in. I ain’t going anywhere.”
When Michael hesitated, Anthony went on. “You have my word.”
Michael wasn’t sure he could trust the boy, but he was sure that he’d spoil any chance of ever reaching him if he didn’t. “Okay, Anthony. On your word.”
“Hey, Deputy,” Anthony said as Michael turned back toward the cliff. “I used to keep a couple of little cars in the glove box to play with if I had to wait on Mama. You think they’d still be there?”
Michael looked around at the boy. Behind him, the cable screeched and the car scraped against the rocks. He kept his eyes on Anthony’s face. “I don’t know, but I’ll look.”
Michael and Buck pried loose the door with a crowbar. It popped open with a loud creak, and more water and a couple of carp spilled out on their shoes.
“Careful,” Justin cautioned behind them.
Michael wasn’t sure exactly why they needed to be careful. There was nothing left but bones, and the years in the water and then the journey back onto land had disturbed them more than he and Buck ever could. The skull, like something out of a horror movie, stared up at him with green algae growing on its forehead and in its empty eye sockets.
Buck swore under his breath. “I wish I could go sit in the car.”
“Female.” Justin spoke briskly beside them. With rubber-gloved hands he picked up a leg bone. “About five feet four, slight frame.”
<
br /> He had a stretcher with a body bag pulled up close to the car. He handed Michael and Buck some rubber gloves. “Get every fragment you can. It’s the least we can do for the poor soul after all these years.”
“Do you think it’s Roxanne?” Michael asked no one in particular as he pulled on the gloves with a snap.
“We’ll have to use dental records to make a positive ID,” Justin said. “But Buck says the car’s right, and the bone structure fits. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
They gathered the woman’s remains, gently laying each find in the body bag, and the whole time he worked, Michael could almost feel Anthony breathing down his neck, even though the boy had stayed in the cruiser.
Instead, it was Hank peering over their shoulders to get a better view. He might have taken pictures if Buck hadn’t looked up at him and growled, “You even think about snapping a picture, Leland, the camera goes in the lake whether you turn loose of it or not.”
Hank took one look at Buck’s face and lowered his camera. “I’ll get a shot of the car when you’re finished.” He backed off a respectable distance.
Once Justin was satisfied there was nothing more to be disturbed or found, Michael reached across and pried open the glove compartment. A rust-encrusted revolver fell out in his hand. Right behind it were the two cars. He picked the biggest one up and scraped some crud off it until the shape of a hot rod appeared like magic under his fingers.
“What’d you find?” Buck asked.
Michael opened his hand to show the toy car. “He said it would be there.”
“I always knew she wouldn’t leave the boy.” Buck looked as if his faith in motherhood had been restored.
Michael’s hand closed around the toy. Lester was helping Justin load up his hearse yet one more time. “Accident?” Michael said.
“Who knows? I hope so, but can’t imagine why she’d be out here by herself.” Buck yanked off the rubber gloves and pitched them into the car. “Justin said her skull was cracked, but that could have happened on the way down. One thing sure, I don’t think she drove into the lake on purpose.”
“Did you know she had a gun?”
“No, but doesn’t surprise me. Roxanne wasn’t the kind to take chances or to trust somebody else to bail her out of trouble if it came along.” Buck shook his head and clapped a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Look, Mike, maybe last week we could have worried this into a homicide, but fact of the matter is, even if we did, I don’t know what we’d do next. The trail is cold. Stone-cold. And we aren’t doing so hot figuring out a couple of murders that happened so close under our noses, we ought to be able to sniff out the culprit.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Buck Garrett is always right.”
“I thought it was Garrett always gets his man.” Michael managed a little smile.
“That too. Now watch what you say. That pesky Leland is inching back over this way.”
“You think you can keep him occupied while I go talk to Anthony?” Michael looked over at Hank. “I wouldn’t want his picture on the front page next week.”
“Leland’s going to have so much to put on the front page next week he may have to put out two of them, but go ahead. I’ll take care of our newshound.”
“I can trust you not to throw him in the lake?”
“Don’t worry, Mike. I can be nice when I want to be.”
To prove it, Buck moved between Michael and Hank before the editor got out his first question.
“Hey, Leland, quit playing favorites.” Buck sounded like he was talking to a long-lost friend. “Keane’s not the only one around here who knows what’s going down. Why don’t you ask me your questions?”
Hank practically dropped his pencil. “Is that before or after you throw me in the lake, Garrett?”
“What a joker.” Buck let out a hearty laugh and put his arm around Hank. “Come on. If you want pictures of the car, now’s the time before T.R. starts loading it up.”
His eyes wide, Hank glanced back over his shoulder at Michael as Buck began steering him toward the car. “He’s going to throw me over, isn’t he?”
Michael tried to keep a straight face. “I think you’re safe as long as you don’t try to take his picture.”
Anthony took the toy car from Michael without a word. Michael sat down beside him and waited, not sure what to expect out of the boy. Sorrow, anger, disbelief. He was ready for any of that. He wasn’t ready when the boy started laughing.
“All these years, she’s been right here.” Anthony looked over at the lake. “Right here.”
Michael put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and pulled him around where he could see his face. “You all right, Anthony?”
“Don’t look so worried, Deputy.” Anthony’s laughter died away, but a smile stayed on his face. “The thing is, I always knew my mother wouldn’t go off and leave me like everybody said she did. And she didn’t, did she?”
“No, she didn’t.”
His smile faded completely away. “I guess that man was right. Somebody did kill her.”
“What man?”
“That first guy. Rayburn. He told me somebody killed her.”
Michael stared at him intently. “When did he tell you that?”
“The morning he got shot. He called the house before Aunt Vera even got up. She gave me heck about that. Said I’d better tell my friends to wait till a decent hour to be calling.”
“You were the one meeting him at the courthouse?”
“Yeah. He told me if I wanted to know more, to meet him in the parking lot at nine.” Anthony looked straight at Michael. “He said he knew something must have happened to my mother back when she disappeared and that he wanted to help me find out what.”
“How was he going to help you find out?”
“He said he’d tell me more when we met. That he was pretty sure who my mother had been hanging around with before she disappeared.”
“Did he tell you who that was?” Michael asked.
Anthony’s face closed up again. “Nope. Said that it might be better if I didn’t know too much until he worked a few things out. That bad things happened to people who knew too much sometimes. I guess he must have known too much, huh, Deputy?”
“Could be.”
“And Joe too. What do you think Joe knew?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Well, now you know what I know.” The kid leaned back and blew out a breath.
“Do I?” Michael studied the boy’s face.
“I’ve spilled my guts. What more do you want?”
“Everything you know.”
“I told you everything. The man called. Told me he figured something must have happened to my mother all those years ago. Wanted me to meet him so he could help me find out what. Then he was dead when I got there.”
“Is that everything, Anthony?” Michael kept his eyes steady on the boy’s face. “I get the feeling there’s more.”
Anthony turned defiant. “Do I have to make something up so you’ll be happy?”
“I only want the truth.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Anthony narrowed his eyes on Michael.
“Try me.” Michael didn’t waver.
“Okay, Deputy, here’s the truth. I told you what I know. That’s it. The whole story. I don’t know anything else.” Anthony dropped his eyes back to the car in his hand. He pushed it forward a little. “How about that? It still almost rolls.”
24
Michael gave up on getting Anthony to do any more talking and locked the boy in again. Anthony hardly seemed to notice as he rubbed the little car with the bottom of his T-shirt.
On the other hand, Hank wouldn’t quit talking as he followed Michael around, throwing out question after question. How come Anthony was with Michael? Had Michael had a tip about the car in the lake? From Anthony? About it being Roxanne? If they didn’t have a tip about the car, why were they at the lake?
Finally Michael turned
and looked straight at Hank. “You’re asking the wrong person. You need to talk to Paul Osgood. This whole operation was his idea.”
“Can’t. At least not right now.” Hank stuck the lens cover on his camera and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Last I heard, they weren’t real sure Paul was going to pull through.”
Michael thought maybe the editor was trying to pull one over on him to get an unguarded comment he could print. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope, honest. He’s in bad shape. Something about a mistake in medication.” Hank looked at Michael with narrowed eyes. “You think our killer found out Paul knows something and found a way to slip him the wrong medicine on purpose?”
“That’s crazy,” Michael said.
“No crazier than this.” The editor nodded toward the car they’d pulled out of the lake. “You finding Roxanne’s long-lost car, and then her kid being here in your car. Come on, Michael. You don’t expect me to believe this is just a coincidence. Something fishy is going on here, and it’s my duty as a newspaperman to find out what.” Hank pulled out his notebook and pencil.
“Weird things do seem to happen, don’t they, Hank? Like the way you just happened to follow Lester out here.”
Hank shut his notebook and stuffed it back into his shirt pocket. “I suppose coincidences can happen.”
Michael didn’t let him off the hook that easily. “And I hear your information network has expanded to include mixed-up kids.”
Hank had the grace to look a bit shame-faced. “I didn’t offer the boy much more than an understanding ear.”
“That’s all, huh?”
“It could be I did say I might be able to help him hunt for his mother. It’s not all that hard to find people nowadays. Not if you know how to search on the computer.” Hank flicked his eyes over to the car they fished out of the lake and back to Michael. “Of course, don’t guess I’d have had much chance of finding her in this case.”
“Anthony’s got enough problems without you playing with his head to get a story.”
“Oh, give me a break, Michael. I’d pass anything he told me on to you.”
“I mean it, Hank. Leave the kid alone.” Michael gave him a hard look. “This isn’t a game and I don’t want to find any more dead bodies. Especially not Anthony’s. And not yours either, for that matter.”
Murder at the Courthouse Page 19