by Sandra Brown
“Hello, Mrs. Plummet,” Reede said politely.
“Hello, Sheriff.” If Alex hadn’t seen her lips moving, she wouldn’t have been certain the woman had spoken. She appeared to be scared out of her wits. Her fingers were knotted together in her lap. She was squeezing them so tightly, they had turned bluish-white.
“Are you okay?” Reede asked her in that same kind tone. She bobbed her head and glanced fearfully toward her husband, who was still fervently praying. “You’re entitled to have a lawyer present when I and Miss Gaither question you.”
Before Mrs. Plummet could offer a reply, Fergus concluded his prayer on a resounding, “Ah-men,” and raised his head. He fixed a fanatical stare on Reede. “We’ve got the best lawyer on our side. I will get my counsel from the Lord God, now and through eternity.”
“Fine,” Reede said drolly, “but I’m putting it on the record that you waived the right to have an attorney present during questioning.”
Plummet’s eyes snapped to Alex. “What is the harlot doing here? I’ll not have her in the presence of my sainted wife.”
“Neither you nor your sainted wife have anything to say about it. Sit down, Alex.”
At Reede’s directive, she lowered herself into the nearest chair. She was grateful for the chance to sit down. Fergus Plummet was a prejudiced, ill-informed fanatic. He should have cut a comic figure, but he gave her the creeps.
Reede straddled a chair backward and stared at the preacher across the table. He opened a file one of his deputies had prepared.
“What were you doing last Wednesday night?”
Plummet closed his eyes and tilted his head to one side, as though he were listening to a secret voice. “I can answer that,” he told them when he opened his eyes seconds later. “I was conducting Wednesday-night services at my church. We prayed for the deliverance of this town, for the souls of those who would be corrupted, and for those individuals who, heedless of the Lord’s will, would corrupt the innocent.”
Reede affected nonchalance. “Please keep your answers simple. I don’t want this to take all afternoon. What time is prayer meeting?”
Plummet went through the listening act again. “Not relevant.”
“Sure it is,” Reede drawled. “I might want to attend sometime.”
That elicited a giggle from Mrs. Plummet. None of them was more surprised than she by her spontaneous outburst. Mortified, she looked at her husband, who glared at her in reproof.
“What time was prayer meeting over?” Reede repeated in a voice that said he’d tired of the game and wasn’t going to be a good sport any longer.
Plummet continued to give his wife a condemning stare. She lowered her head in shame. Reede reached across the table and yanked Plummet’s chin around.
“Stop looking at her like she’s a turd floating in a punch bowl. Answer me. And don’t give me any more bullshit, either.”
Plummet closed his eyes, shuddering slightly, greatly put-upon. “God, close my ears to the foul language of your adversary, and deliver me from the presence of these wicked ones.”
“He’d better send a whole flock of angels down to save you fast, brother. Unless you start answering my questions, I’m gonna slam your ass in jail.”
That broke through Plummet’s sanctimonious veneer. His eyes popped open. “On what charge?”
“The feds would like to start with arson.”
Alex looked quickly at Reede. He was bluffing. Racehorses were considered interstate commerce, and therefore would come under the Treasury Department’s jurisdiction. But government agents didn’t usually get involved in an arson case unless damage amounted to more than fifty thousand dollars. Plummet didn’t fall for the bluff, either.
“That’s ridiculous. Arson? The only fire I’ve started is in the hearts of my believers.”
“If that’s so, then account for your time from last Wednesday night until today, when Deputy Cappell spotted you slinking out the back door of that house. Where’d you go after prayer meeting let out?”
Plummet laid a finger against his cheek, feigning hard concentration. “I believe that was the night I visited one of our sick brothers.”
“He can vouch for you?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Let me guess—he died.”
Plummet frowned at the sheriff’s sarcasm. “No, but while I was in attendance, the poor soul was delirious with fever. He won’t remember a thing.” He made a tsking sound. “He was very ill. His family, of course, could attest to my presence at his bedside. We prayed for him through the night.”
Reede’s incisive eyes sliced toward Wanda Plummet. She guiltily averted her head. Reede then swiveled around and looked at Alex. His expression said that he was getting about as far as he had expected to. When he turned back around, he asked abruptly, “Do you know where the Minton ranch is?”
“Of course.”
“Did you go there last Wednesday night?”
“No.”
“Did you send someone out there last Wednesday night?”
“No.”
“Members of your congregation? The believers whose hearts you had stoked a fire in during prayer meeting?”
“Certainly not.”
“Didn’t you go out there and vandalize the place, paint on the walls, shovel shit into the drinking troughs, break windows?”
“My counselor says I don’t have to answer any more questions.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“Because you might incriminate yourself?”
“No!”
“You’re lying, Plummet.”
“God is on my side.” He worked his eyes like the focusing lens of a camera, making them wide, pulling them narrow. “ ‘If God is on our side,’ ” he quoted theatrically, “ ‘then who can be against us?’ ”
“He won’t be on your side for long,” Reede whispered threateningly. Leaving his chair, he circled the table and bent over Plummet. “God doesn’t favor liars.”
“Our Father, who art in heaven—”
“Come clean, Plummet.”
“—hallowed be thy name. Thy—”
“Who’d you send out there to trash the Minton ranch?”
“—kingdom come, thy—”
“You did send members of your congregation, though, didn’t you? You’re too much of a gutless coward to go yourself.”
The praying ceased abruptly. The preacher’s breathing became choppy and light. Reede had struck a chord. Knowing that, he pressed on. “Did you lead your ratty little army out there, or did you just furnish the spray paint?”
Reede had told Alex earlier that he’d made the rounds of variety and hardware stores, checking out places where spray paint was sold. So far, none of the merchants recalled a significant demand for it on a single day.
Plummet was probably too clever to have bought it all in one store; perhaps he’d gone out of town. Reede couldn’t hold him indefinitely because he had no evidence, but Plummet might be fooled into thinking he’d left behind an incriminating clue.
For the second time, however, he called Reede’s bluff. Having composed himself, he stared straight ahead and said, “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about, Sheriff Lambert.”
“Let’s try this again,” Reede said with a heavy sigh. “Look, Plummet, we—Miss Gaither and I—know you’re guilty as hell. You all but told her to get tough with the sinners, or else. Wasn’t the vandalism out at the Minton ranch the or else?”
Plummet said nothing.
Reede took another tack. “Isn’t confession supposed to be good for the soul? Give your soul a break, Plummet. Confess. Your wife can go home to your kids, and I’ll be able to take off early today.”
The preacher remained silent.
Reede began at the top and methodically worked down his list of questions again, hoping to trap Plummet in a lie. Several times, Reede asked Alex if she wanted to question him, but she declined. She had no more to link him to the crime than Reede had.
; He got nowhere. The preacher’s story never changed. Reede didn’t even trip him up. At the conclusion of another exhaustive round of questions, Plummet grinned up at him guilelessly and said, “It’s getting close to supper time. May we be excused now?”
Reede, frustrated, ran his hand through his hair. “I know you did it, you pious son of a bitch. Even if you weren’t actually there, you planned it. You killed my horse.”
Plummet reacted visibly. “Killed your horse? That’s untrue. You killed it yourself. I read about it in the newspaper.”
Reede made a snarling sound and lunged across the room at him. “You’re responsible.” He leaned down close to Plummet again, forcing him backward in his chair. “Reading about that probably gave you a real thrill, didn’t it, you little prick? You’re gonna pay for that animal, if I have to wring a confession from your scrawny neck.”
So it went for at least another hour.
Alex’s bottom grew tired and sore from sitting in the uncomfortable chair. Once, she stood up and paced the length of the room, just to restore circulation. Plummet’s fanatical eyes tracked her, making her feel so ill at ease that she returned to her seat.
“Mrs. Plummet?”
The preacher’s wife flinched when the sheriff suddenly spoke her name. Her shoulders had been sagging forward with fatigue; her head had been kept slightly bowed. Both came erect and she looked up at Reede with awe and respect.
“Yes, sir?”
“Do you go along with everything he’s told me?”
She shot Plummet a quick, sidelong glance, swallowed hard, and wet her lips nervously. Then, she lowered her eyes and bobbed her head up and down. “Yes.”
Plummet’s face remained impassive, though his lips were twitching with a smug smile longing to be full-blown. Next, Reede looked down at Alex. She gave him an almost imperceptible shrug.
He stared at the floor for ponderous seconds before barking out a deputy’s name. The officer materialized in the doorway as though he’d been expecting his chief’s restrained but furious summons.
“Let him go.”
Plummet closed his Bible with a resounding clap and stood up. He marched toward the door like a crusader dressed in full battle armor. He ignored his wife, who meekly trailed in his righteous wake.
The deprecations Reede muttered were vile and scathing. “Have somebody keep an eye on the house,” he told the deputy. “Let me know if anything he does looks suspicious or even slightly fishy. Damn, I hate to let that bastard walk out of here.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Alex said sympathetically. “You conducted a thorough interrogation, Reede. You knew going in you didn’t have any real evidence.”
He whirled on her, his eyes stormy. “Well, that sure as hell hasn’t ever stopped you, has it?” He stamped out, leaving her speechless with indignation.
Alex returned to her cubicle, fumbled for the key in the bottom of her handbag, and bent to unlock the door. She felt a prickling sensation at the back of her neck that warned her a heartbeat before the sinister whisper reached her ears.
“You’ve been corrupted by the ungodly. You’re consorting with Satan, showing no more shame than a whore who sells herself.” She spun around. Plummet’s eyes had regained their zealous glint. Spittle had collected to form white foam in the corners of his mouth. His breathing was labored. “You betrayed my trust.”
“I didn’t ask for your trust,” Alex countered, her voice husky with alarm.
“Your heart and mind have been polluted by the ungodly. Your body has been tarnished by the stroke of the devil himself. You—”
He was caught from behind and slammed against the wall. “Plummet, I warned you.” Reede’s face was fierce. “Get out of my sight or you’re going to be spending some time in jail.”
“On what charge?” the preacher squealed. “You’ve got nothing to hold me on.”
“Accosting Miss Gaither.”
“I’m God’s messenger.”
“If God has anything to say to Miss Gaither, He’ll tell her Himself. Understand? Understand?” He shook Plummet again, then released him. He rounded on Mrs. Plummet, who had flattened herself against the wall in horrified silence. “Wanda, I’m warning you, take him home. Now!” the sheriff bellowed.
Demonstrating more courage than Alex would have expected from her, she grabbed her husband’s arm and virtually dragged him toward the staircase. Together, they stumbled up the steps and disappeared around the corner at the landing.
Alex didn’t realize how shaken she was until Reede’s eyes moved to the hand she had pressed against her pounding heart.
“Did he touch you, hurt you?”
“No.” Then, shaking her head, she repeated, “No.”
“Don’t bullshit me this time. Did he make any threats? Say anything I could use to nail his skinny ass?”
“No, just garbage about me selling out to the unrighteous. He considers me the traitor in the camp.”
“Get your things. You’re going home.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice.”
He took her coat off the rack near the door. He didn’t hold it for her; in fact, he almost threw it at her, but Alex was touched by his evident concern for her safety. He pulled on his leather, fur-trimmed jacket and cowboy hat as they went upstairs and out the front door.
The Plummets must have taken his advice and left. They were nowhere around. Darkness had fallen. Most of the square was deserted. Even the B & B Café had closed for the night. It catered to the breakfast and lunch crowd.
Her car was cold when she slid beneath the steering wheel. “Start your motor to warm it up, but don’t leave till I come around in my truck. I’ll follow you to the motel.”
“That’s not necessary, Reede. As you said, he’s probably a coward. People who make threats rarely carry them out.”
“Yeah. Rarely,” he said, stressing the word.
“I can take care of myself. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I’m not. It’s me I’m worried about. You asked for trouble when you came here, and you’re getting it. But no female assistant D.A. is gonna get raped, maimed, or killed in my county. Got that?”
He slammed her car door. Alex watched him disappear down the dark sidewalk, wishing she’d never heard of him or his infernal county. She commissioned him to the fiery hell Plummet frequently expounded upon.
When she saw the headlights of the Blazer approaching, she backed her car into the street and aimed it in the direction of the motel that had been home for far too long. She resented being escorted home.
She let herself into her room and locked the door behind her, without even waving her thanks to Reede. Dinner was a tasteless meal ordered off the room service menu. She thumbed through the yearbooks again, but was so familiar with them by now that the pictures hardly registered. She was tired, but too keyed up to go to sleep.
Junior’s kiss haunted her thoughts, not because it had sparked her sensual imagination, but because it hadn’t. Reede’s kisses haunted her because he had so effortlessly accomplished what Junior had wanted to.
Angus hadn’t needed a script to know the kind of scene he’d walked into when he had entered the hangar and found her with Reede. His expression had been a mix of surprise, disapproval, and something she couldn’t quite put a name to. Resignation?
She tossed and turned out of fatigue, frustration, and yes, fear. No matter how many times she denied it, Plummet disturbed her. He was a wacko, but his words held a ring of truth.
She had come to care what each of her suspects thought of her. Winning their approval had become almost as important as winning her grandmother’s. It was a bizarre fact, one she had difficulty admitting to herself.
She didn’t trust Reede, but she desired him and wanted him to reciprocate that desire. For all his laziness, she liked Junior and felt a twinge of pity for him. Angus fulfilled her childhood fantasies of a stern but loving parent. The closer she came to uncovering the truth about their conne
ction to her mother’s death, the less she wanted to know it.
Then, there was the cloud of the Pasty Hickam murder lurking on the horizon. Reede’s suspect, Lyle Turner, was still at large. Until she was convinced that he had killed the Mintons’ former ranch hand, she would go on believing that Pasty had been eliminated as an eyewitness to Celina’s murder. His killer considered her a threat, too.
So, in the middle of the night, when she heard a car slowly drive past her door, when she saw its headlights arc across her bed, her heart leaped in fright.
Throwing off the covers, she crept to the window and peeped through the crack between it and the heavy drape. Her whole body went limp with relief and she uttered a small, glad sound.
The sheriff’s Blazer executed a wide turn in the parking lot and passed her room once more before driving away.
Reede thought about turning around and going to where he knew he could find potent liquor, a welcoming smile, and a warm woman, but he kept the hood of his truck pointed toward home.
He was sick with an unknown disease. He couldn’t shake it, no matter how hard he tried. He itched from the inside out, and his gut was in a state of constant turmoil.
His house, which he had always liked for the solitude it provided, seemed merely lonely when he opened the squeaky screen door. When was he ever going to remember to oil those hinges? The light he switched on did little to enhance the living room. It only illuminated the fact that there was nobody to welcome him home.
Not even a dog came forward to lick his hand, wagging its tail because it was glad to see him. He didn’t have a goldfish, a parakeet, a cat—nothing that could die on him and leave another vacuum in his life.
Horses were different. They were business investments. But every once in a while, one would become special, like Double Time. That had hurt. He tried not to think about it.
Refugee camps in famine-ravaged countries were better stocked with provisions than his kitchen. He seldom ate at home. When he did, like now, he made do with a beer and a few saltines spread with peanut butter.
On his way down the hall, he adjusted the furnace thermostat so he wouldn’t be frozen stiff by morning. His bed was unmade; he didn’t remember what had gotten him out of it so suddenly the last time he’d been in it.