The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  “Uh,” James cleared his throat. “Was this jerk about six feet, mid-thirties, dark hair and eyes?”

  Shelley’s eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed. “Yeah. You know him?”

  “Maybe.” At least now James knew who Anthony had been referring to when he’d mentioned that waitress. “The car you supposedly ran off the road, did the cops happen to mention anything about it belonging to another cop?”

  Shelley stared at him for a long moment, then said in a low tone “What do you know?”

  Not nearly as much as he needed to. “There’s…” James said slowly, “a bigger picture here, and I only have parts of it.” But shit, there had to be a connection.

  James glanced down at Shelley’s feet. Not that he’d expected otherwise, but she probably wore no bigger than a size six. “You don’t happen to know a man named Joe Palmer do you?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Not if you know what’s good for you.” He drummed his fingers on his thighs. Could Natasha have driven Kathleen off the road? Could she be the one who’d been stalking Justin? James had heard that sometimes, when a doctor saved a person’s life, that they transferred their gratitude into what they perceived to be romantic feelings, he guessed you could call it.

  Maybe the whole proof of danger thing was just a ruse, a ploy to get his attention?

  “Are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on?”

  James flinched at the suppressed fury in Shelley’s voice. At least she didn’t sound depressed any longer.

  He rubbed his hand over his face. “Does Natasha own a post office box?”

  “What? No, I don’t think so. There’s a mailbox in the lobby of the building. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Okay, next question. Is she fairly skilled with small electronics? Or at picking locks?”

  She glanced at his mug. “Is there something other than coffee in there? No, to both questions. What the hell?”

  “Bear with me a moment,” James said. Maybe she was being straight with him, maybe she wasn’t, but at this point, he figured he had nothing to lose by asking. “Have you seen anything that might indicate that Natasha could be… obsessed with my brother?”

  “Obsessed? You mean, like, sexually or romantically or whatever?” Shelley laughed. Then laughed louder.

  “Men,” she finally said, wiping at her eyes. “No. The answer to your question is no. Not that he’s not cute and all, but Natasha is not obsessed with your brother.”

  James didn’t see what was so amusing. “How do you know?”

  “I just do, okay?” Then she turned serious. “But obviously something’s been going on – with Doctor Wellington? – to make you ask that.”

  James didn’t want to get into the details, but he nodded, hoping that would suffice. “And I don’t know why, or how exactly, but Natasha does seem to be involved. She told Justin, right before she was shot, that she had proof that he was in danger.”

  Shelley’s brows drew together. Then she shot up so suddenly that coffee sloshed out of the travel mug.

  “Shit,” she said, brushing it off the leg of her jeans. Then she looked at James, her dark eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “Natasha said something the other night, before she left the apartment. I thought she was just pulling stuff out of her ass, you know, since we were fighting about the car and the overdose and everything, but…”

  “But what,” James said when she trailed off.

  “She said that it was all happening again, and that she wasn’t going to let people tell her she was crazy this time. That this time she would get proof.”

  James sat up as well. “What was happening again?”

  “I don’t know. We were both pretty upset, and… she left before I could find out what she meant.”

  This was the connection, James thought. He didn’t know exactly how it connected, but his gut told him that it did. “Shelley,” he said. “Would you be willing to talk to somebody about what Natasha said?”

  “Talk to who?”

  James hesitated to tell her that the person in question was almost certainly the jerk from the other night. “Um, a private detective I know.”

  She shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “Great.” James reached into his back pocket for his phone. But before he could pull it out, he saw Shelley’s eyes widen at the same time he felt something hard press into the back of his head.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” a voice said from behind him. “No, don’t turn around. And you,” the voice directed itself to Shelley. “You scream, you make one peep, and I blow off his head and then yours. Good,” it said as James watched Shelley’s mouth snap closed, her eyes narrowing with what appeared to be both fear and hatred.

  “We’ll be taking your car, LaShelle,” the voice said. “You’re going to help me get him into this wheelchair first.”

  Wheelchair?

  But before he could look around, let alone figure out how to get himself and Shelley out of this situation, the thing that had been pressing into the back of his head struck him.

  Shelley’s horrified face was the last thing he saw before everything went dark.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  KATHLEEN felt relatively certain that she was going to explode. The detective to whom James had handed over the gift tag and the envelope in which it came was indeed a giant douchebag, more interested in throwing his weight around than in, oh, actually assisting in solving a crime. Thankfully Mac, in this particular instance, possessed both a cooler head and the power of absolute intimidation. He’d managed to get them what they wanted without jumping through more than a few unnecessary hoops.

  “Thank you,” he addressed the clerk who brought them the plastic bag, checked their IDs. She nodded, pushing over the form they needed to sign.

  “Follow me,” her favorite detective said afterward, showing them to a small room where they could examine the evidence. Shorter than her by several inches, he held the door open, and Kathleen smiled down at him – or maybe just bared her teeth – as she brushed by.

  Because she knew he’d have to involve himself, hovering over his evidence like a mother bird on the nest, she resigned herself to his presence.

  Mac pulled out the bag he’d brought with him, laid it on the table next to the one containing the envelope and the gift tag.

  Snapping on gloves, he pulled out the silver bag they’d recovered from Mandy’s apartment. The fact that it had been missing a tag wasn’t significant in itself – people reused gift bags all the time. But the fact that this bag had apparently contained the wine which was mixed with Xanax to form a fatal cocktail, and that neither of Mandy’s friends had given it to her, meant it was one of those little details that made Kathleen reluctant to close the case.

  Mac laid the bag down next to the tag, looked them both over. The hole in the gift tag was torn, indicating it had been ripped off something. Like the handle of a bag. The piece of tag that still clung to the handle appeared to match the tear.

  “Seems to be the same pattern,” he finally said of the sparkly silver paper.

  “You can’t be certain until the lab runs tests,” the Mother Bird interjected from over her shoulder. “Visual comparison isn’t enough. You need to prove it’s the same dye lot, at least.”

  Kathleen blinked, but Mac didn’t even twitch. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m familiar with the proper procedure.” Ignoring the other detective, he glanced at Kathleen, his expression inscrutable.

  Then he sighed. “Okay.”

  Kathleen let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She could have gone to the lieutenant herself, asked to reopen the case, but she hadn’t wanted to do so without Mac being on board.

  “We’ll need to have it tested,” he said, his tone wry “but yeah. We can’t just ignore it. I’ll call the LT, then the first order of business is to trace that post office box. Could be she sent it herself,” he cautioned “sort of a final psycholog
ical screw you, and it just got lost in the mail or misplaced for a few days or whatever.”

  “Possibly,” Kathleen acknowledged, though her instinct said otherwise. She knew Mac was concerned that she’d been hesitant to sign off on suicide because she was worried about how the guilt – misplaced as it might be – would affect Justin.

  But the alternative – that someone had murdered Mandy as some sort of… favor to Justin? That was infinitely more terrifying.

  “Rock and a hard place,” Mac murmured, and Kathleen knew that he had divined her thoughts.

  She glanced over her shoulder, to see that the Mother Bird was busy on his cell phone. “We’re going to have to work with him on this,” she murmured back. “He already knows that Justin and I are acquainted. If he finds out we’re… involved, he’ll probably make a stink about it. I don’t think he likes me.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” Mac said, and Kathleen kicked him under the table. Unfazed, he zipped the silver bag back inside the evidence bag from which he’d taken it. “I want to talk to you,” he added, his voice barely above a whisper. “But not here.”

  They made the necessary arrangements with the other detective, then Mac followed her out to his car, and gestured for her to climb in.

  When they were both safely ensconced inside, the scent of the peppermint tea Mac had been drinking scenting the air, he paused, his surprisingly graceful brows drawn together.

  “What?”

  “After you called, on the way over here I got to thinking. If,” he said, with decided emphasis “this woman was murdered, ostensibly because she’s been giving Doctor Wellington problems, there’s a flip side to that. You said the doc – again ostensibly – seems to have acquired himself a stalker, right? Well, this stalker thinks that she – and let’s just assume it’s a female, for the sake of argument – is doing him some favor. Giving him a gift. But she’s also doing herself a favor, in the form of getting rid of potential competition.”

  “Okay,” Kathleen said. “I mean, there wasn’t a chance in hell of Justin ever getting back with Mandy, but okay, I see your point.” When he continued to look at her, those finely arched brows raised high on his wide forehead, it finally hit.

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh.”

  “The accident,” she said. “I was leaving Justin’s house when it happened. And we…” her mouth snapped closed.

  Mac’s look was wry. “No need to go into details. But I’m guessing that a person who considered the doc their territory might have reason to see you as a threat.”

  “You could say that.” And as her mind raced, Kathleen felt herself grow rigid. “Son of a bitch,” she said. “The doll.”

  The image of that bloody little plastic baby was replaced in rapid succession by the memory of Mandy, dead in her bathtub, and rage mingled with fear. She’d been showing her family photos of Joe Palmer, telling them to watch out for him. Fat lot of good that would do if it turned out the psycho who killed Justin’s ex was responsible.

  She considered what Anthony had found out with regards to the car that hit her, and knew it was time to clue Mac in.

  “I know who owns the car,” she told him “the one that ran me off the road.”

  His brows shot up again. “You do?”

  “Yes.” Might as well bite the bullet. “I saw it in the parking lot,” she explained. “Outside the pharmacy. I, uh, hired Anthony to run the tags and send a paint sample to the lab.”

  When those brows – by far the most expressive part of his face – began to draw together, she went on quickly. “It belongs to a waitress that works at Murphy’s.” Then she explained who Shelley Kinson was, her connection, of sorts, to Justin, and that she’d been working – in front of plenty of witnesses – at the time Kathleen was run off the road.

  “Justin again,” Mac grumbled.

  “He seems to be the common thread,” she agreed, and because she could see the displeasure on his face, went on with her explanation. “Anthony turned the information over to the Mount Pleasant department,” she told him, “since it was technically their case. I know they interviewed the Kinson woman, because I talked to them about it. But if they’ve found out anything further, they haven’t called.”

  Mac rubbed his fingers into his forehead. “So we’ve got another jurisdiction to deal with. And a private investigator.” At this, his fingers stilled, and he shot her a baleful look.

  “I couldn’t come to you.” The look she returned was equally baleful. “The lieutenant wouldn’t let me near the investigation into the doll because the conflict of interest could cause problems when it came to trial, and I was concerned that the two incidents were connected. Not knowing what was going on, not knowing how best to protect my family, made me feel helpless. You know I can’t handle that.”

  “Yeah.” Mac huffed out a breath. “I do.”

  “Speaking of said investigation. Any progress on the video of the unidentified man purchasing the doll?”

  Mac rolled his eyes. “Harding told you.”

  “He owed me,” Kathleen said. “I fed him some information when it was his loved one in danger.”

  “I wasn’t holding out on you because I wanted to,” Mac muttered.

  Kathleen laid a hand on his arm. “I know that. Rock and a hard place.”

  That brought the ghost of a smile. “No luck so far,” he admitted. “The angle is bad, the film is grainy, the customer paid in cash. We’ve been pursuing some other leads, but…” He shrugged, to indicate they were basically grasping at straws.

  “The fact that it was a man… Mac, there were footprints. At Justin’s house, after a breakin. And outside my window, the night it snowed. They were made by a men’s athletic shoe, size twelve and a half. I don’t know what that does to the theory that Justin’s stalker is a woman.”

  Mac frowned. He thought about it for several long moments, then pulled out his phone. After swiping his finger across it a number of times, he stared at the screen, then turned it so that Kathleen could see it.

  “Men’s athletic shoe,” he said. “Whether it’s a size twelve and a half or not, I can’t say. We might be able to measure the floor tiles to get a comparison.”

  The image was obviously taken from the surveillance video in the toy store. Setting aside the emotion that caused her to clench her teeth – after all, this was the man who’d allegedly threatened her newborn niece, or at least had a part in it – she scrutinized the still.

  The man wore a long coat that looked several sizes too big for him and a hat that obscured his features, but Kathleen was focused on his shoes. “What do you think he is?” she said, looking at his height in relation to the counter. “Five-ten, maybe? But his feet are huge.” She shook her head. “Could be a twelve and a half, but like you said, it’s tough to tell.”

  “I’ll see if we can get some more solid measurements.”

  “Do you have the video?”

  “Not with me. But at this point, I can’t see why the LT wouldn’t agree to let you have a look. Maybe you’ll see something we missed.”

  Kathleen started to hand the phone to Mac, then jerked it back toward her.

  “What?”

  “I’m not sure.” She squinted at the screen, and pulled up the memory – clearer than this photograph – of the night she’d stood outside the theater in the cold. “Either it’s a really odd coincidence…”

  “Or?” Mac prompted.

  Kathleen finally looked up. “Or that man is wearing Justin’s coat.”

  “HEY.”

  Justin looked up, blinking his eyes to clear them.

  “I’m sorry,” Anne said softly. “I didn’t realize you were sleeping. Your eyes were sort of…” She slitted her own to demonstrate.

  Justin chuckled, rubbing a hand through his hair. “You know how they say that people sleep with one eye open when they’re on guard? Well, physicians learn to sleep with both eyes open, I guess. At least partway.”

  Anne held out a Styrof
oam mug. “I brought you some coffee,” she said. “I wasn’t sure how you take it, so I brought a little of everything. Although please don’t think I’ll be offended if you don’t want it.”

  “No, that’s great. Thanks.” He accepted the cup. Discarding the packets of sweetener, he opened up the little cup of creamer and poured it in. After the first sip, he checked his watch, and frowned. “My brother was supposed to be bringing me some, actually. You haven’t seen a younger, slightly brawnier version of me walking around anywhere, have you?”

  “I’m afraid not.” She smiled. “Though I’m intrigued by your description.”

  “Oh. Well, James and I rather resemble each other. Physically, anyway.”

  “Natasha…” she paused. Swallowed past the thickness that crept into her voice. “I can’t say that my sister and I have ever resembled each other, physically or otherwise. Well, apart from coloring, and I guess we both have our mother’s eyes. But she’s fairly petite and rather, um, shapely – or at least she is when she’s healthy – whereas I’ve always been more stork-like.”

  Justin’s mouth curved. “I’d hardly describe you that way.”

  “Well, I’m tall,” she pointed out. “For a woman, anyway. And when I was younger, I was certainly gawky. All legs.”

  Justin glanced at the legs in question. Not in Kathleen’s league of course, but certainly attractive. “That’s not really a bad thing.”

  She flushed, looking up shyly from beneath her lashes. “Thanks.”

  Because he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the direction the conversation was going, he focused on his coffee. After several moments of awkward silence, he pulled his phone from his pocket. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he said “I’m going to check in with my brother.”

  “Of course.” She waved a hand, then reached into her purse to pull out the novel she’d been reading off and on over the course of the evening.

  Sitting his mostly empty cup aside, Justin headed down the hallway. He didn’t want to invite censorious looks by using his phone near any of the more sensitive equipment.