by Diana Palmer
“It’s okay,” she said, still reeling from the pleasure.
He swept his Stetson off the other end of the sofa and looked down at her with soft, black eyes. They swept over her flushed face, down to the rapid heartbeat that he could see under her jacket.
“We can’t get involved,” she reminded him.
“No.” He searched her eyes. “But we can practice kissing together,” he added outrageously, and grinned.
She laughed. “That sounds innocent enough.”
“Five more minutes, and it wouldn’t have been innocent at all,” he murmured. “I have to go. I’ll text you. Maybe next weekend, we can take in another movie or eat out, when I have some time off.”
“You never have time off,” she pointed out.
“I’ll make some. Just for you, pretty girl,” he added and laughed when she flushed again.
He moved to the door, glanced back at her with hungry, possessive eyes. “Don’t practice that with anybody else. Especially Hollister,” he chided.
“There isn’t anybody else,” she replied, and meant it. Her heart was in her eyes.
He smiled, very slowly. “Same here. See you later.”
She watched him close the door. Five minutes after he’d gone, her heartbeat still hadn’t calmed down one bit.
* * *
John pulled up at the curb near the rodeo arena where a still form lay on the sidewalk. Crime scene technicians were working the area around the body while local police made and enforced a barrier around it, keeping the press out. It wasn’t easy. Overhead, a news helicopter was trying to home in with a telephoto lens.
“If I were a really good shot,” Colter Banks mused as John joined him, “I’d take out that lens.”
“You’d get us sued,” John laughed.
“We have really good attorneys. They could say we were duck hunting. Helicopter looks a little like a duck if you squint.”
“You couldn’t sell that to even a crooked judge. Why are we here?” he added.
“Well, it’s like this,” Banks drawled as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Know that ex-boyfriend the dead witness told us about?” He indicated the body. “He was carrying a note from her. Apparently he’s the missing boyfriend.”
“Oh, boy,” John said. He never touched hard liquor. But he’d never felt more like getting drunk.
EIGHT
Hayes Carson was also in his office, on the phone and exasperated when John knocked and walked in. Hayes motioned him into a chair.
“I don’t care who he knows in Washington,” Hayes was growling at someone on the phone. “Yes, I’m aware that the traffic light is out. I’ve called the power company. They’ve promised to get on it just as soon as they finish restoring the other twenty very important outages, one of them at our hospital! In fact, Copper Coltrain raised the devil and insisted that the hospital had to have priority. Which it should.” He paused and started smiling. “Say, why don’t you tell him that Dr. Copper Coltrain insisted on having power restored there first and that’s why the traffic light is still out? He might like to air his grievances to the doctor. Yes, I’m sure it would make an impression.” He laughed. “I’d like to be a bug on the wall, too. Tell him. You bet.”
He hung up. He glanced at John, who was leaning against the door facing him with his arms folded over his chest.
“Somebody had a wreck,” John guessed.
“Our newest ranch owner, in fact,” Hayes said. “He slid through the traffic light and wants to blame us because he doesn’t know how to use his brakes in several inches of snow. He’s been yelling at my deputy.”
“So you referred him to Dr. Coltrain.” He shook his head. “Cruel and unusual punishment. Copper will have him for lunch.”
“On a toasted bun,” Hayes agreed, nodding enthusiastically, “which is why I suggested it.”
“Wicked.”
Hayes laughed. “The guy is from New York City. He bought the ranch through a local Realtor, stocked it with Holsteins and plans to sell his beef to selected overseas markets.”
John stared at him. “Holsteins are dairy cattle,” he pointed out.
“Apparently the rancher learned his craft by watching old B movies about ranching on YouTube. He’ll go bankrupt and leave, and somebody who knows how to raise cattle will snap up the property.”
John laughed. He and Hayes both owned cattle ranches. They knew cattle. No cow-calf producers around Jacobsville would stock Holsteins for beef. Milk, maybe.
“What can I do for you?”
“It’s what I can do for you, actually,” John said. “I’m here to give you an affidavit since I found the body outside town.”
“Nasty crime scene,” Hayes replied quietly. “The murderer was making it personal. Stabbed ten times, beaten in the face until she was almost unrecognizable. Hell of a thing. Do you have any idea why someone would do that to her?”
“A good one. Colter Banks is working a cold case... You remember Melinda McCarthy?”
“That case.” Hayes grimaced. “I never bought the suicide theory.”
“It’s not a theory anymore,” John told him. “Our witness, the dead woman, called in a tip on the McCarthy case. She said that her boyfriend was involved, and that it was murder. The senator’s daughter had something on a high-level person in law enforcement. They shut her up because she threatened to tell.”
Hayes whistled. “Any luck tracking down the boyfriend?”
“Sure. We found him late yesterday in an alley in San Antonio. Dead.”
“Some cold case,” Hayes pointed out. “Is there a stupidity epidemic going around? Because there’s two murders tied to one case, and it’s going to encourage people to start asking questions.”
“We’re already asking them. Cash’s cousin is the state attorney general. If we get any threats to shut down the investigation, he’ll call Simon Hart and we won’t have any more roadblocks. It seems Cash is also related to a US senator.”
“Calhoun Ballenger.” Hayes nodded. “He was targeted by a dirty politician with ties to the drug lords over the border. That is, until some of the drug lords were mysteriously blown up with a hand grenade. The survivors ran afoul of El Jefe.” Hayes smiled sheepishly. “My father-in-law. So when the dirty politician was arrested, Calhoun was appointed as interim senator until the general election—which he won.”
“You guys have some pretty intimidating relatives,” John pointed out.
“It helps when we get stonewalled. The other US senator from Texas, Fowler, is the father of Cy Parks’s foreman, Harley. He’s married to Alice,” he reminded John.
“Alice Mayfield Jones Fowler.” John sighed. “How would we manage crime investigation without her?”
“I’m not sure we would. I called her in after my deputy worked the crime scene and ascertained that the EMTs weren’t really needed. Alice came down from the San Antonio crime lab about the same time the coroner did. She found a few things, too,” Hayes added. “Let me show you.”
Hayes led John back to the locked evidence room. “San Antonio crime lab’s got most of it. I kept this back for my own investigation.” He pulled out a small piece of paper with writing on it.
“I saw one similar to that at the scene of the male witness’s body,” John said at once. “Same sort of paper.”
“I can’t decipher the writing,” Hayes began.
“If you’ll trust me with it, I’ll take it up to Longfellow at the crime lab,” John said. “She deciphered the other note. It was the same handwriting. I’d bet money on it.”
“In that case, if you’ll sign for it, it’s yours. But I want it back when it’s processed.”
“You have my word,” John promised. “Now, if it just has something useful written on it!”
“Alice got some trace evidence, including what looks like animal fur.
Just a couple of hairs, but it might help if it can link to somebody’s pet.”
“Imagine a murderer keeping a pet,” John muttered.
“You never know. It’s a long shot, but it might pan out. She also got a partial shoe tread pattern in blood from the dining room. The murderer or murderers apparently knocked over a chair while they were beating the woman. The print was under the chair. I guess they missed it.”
“Lucky for us.”
Hayes nodded.
“I’d bet money we’ll trace it eventually to one of two gangs in San Antonio. We’ve got a gang war going. Just like the one that happened about the time Melinda was killed. The Department of Public Safety was tasked with helping law enforcement in the city handle the gang problem last month. A lot of arrests were made, but that effort’s concluded. SAPD Captain Hollister has set up a new task force to help deal with the teenage gangs and I’m on it. It’s bad up there.”
Hayes frowned. “Speaking of Melinda’s murder, there was a young man who died about the same time. Don’t you remember? He was found in an apartment near hers. Drug overdose. But his family said he’d never used drugs.”
“Great memory, Hayes. Son of a gun!” John pulled out his cell phone and checked his notes. “The victim’s name was Harry Lopez,” he said. “He had wolf tattoos on his arms.” He hesitated. “Funny, how familiar that name sounds.”
“There must be a hundred Lopezes in San Antonio,” Hayes chuckled.
“Yeah. I guess so. Anyway, Lopez left behind a sister and a brother. They might know something. I’ll tell Banks.”
“Let me know what you find out. And don’t you lose that,” he chided, indicating the clue he’d given John.
“I never lose evidence,” John chuckled.
He gave Hayes the pertinent facts of the case and watched the sheriff’s fingers fly over the keyboard on the computer while he inputted the data.
“You’re faster than me,” John noted.
Hayes chuckled. “That’s why I’m doing this instead of asking you to.”
When they finished, Hayes turned the computer screen around and let John read what he’d typed. John made one correction. Hayes made it, printed out the information on a form for John to sign and date.
“Hey, Fred, come notarize this!” he called to a deputy nearby.
“I’m going to start charging. I am, after all, a notary public,” Fred said with mock haughtiness. But he chuckled and brought his seal. He watched John sign and date the statement and pressed his seal into the paper, making the affidavit admissible in court.
“Thanks for coming by so promptly,” Hayes said. He shook his head. “Brutal murder. Really brutal.”
“Brutal means personal,” John said. “I’ll keep in touch. If I find anything, you’ll be the first to know. I’d appreciate knowing anything you did find out.”
“I’ll keep you in the loop,” Hayes promised. “The crime lab should have something shortly. You’ll go to the autopsy?”
“I will.”
“Get all the evidence you can. I’ve seen hairs solve crimes.”
“Me, too.”
“I could send one of my deputies up to observe,” Hayes said deliberately with a wicked glance in Fred’s direction.
“Not me,” Fred called from his desk. “I have an urgent appointment whenever the autopsy is scheduled!”
“He’s squeamish,” Hayes told John.
“I am not squeamish. I just faint when they start cutting up dead people,” Fred replied. “I also break out in hives. Honest.”
“I could send Marlowe, our newest investigator. He served in the Marines overseas. Nothing fazes him,” Hayes chided.
“I’ll drink to that.” Fred nodded. “Thanks, sheriff.” He grinned. “See? That’s why we work for him. He has a marshmallow for a heart.”
“Not when you point a gun at him,” John said with a wicked grin.
“I’ll concede that,” Fred agreed at once.
Hayes Carson had been in two gun battles during his time as sheriff. He’d been shot three times. The third was an attempted assassination that failed. Hayes still had limited use of the arm that had been injured, but it didn’t stop him from doing the job. He had nerves of cold steel.
“You won’t need to send anyone,” John told Hayes as he was leaving. “I’ll make sure we have whatever we need. SAPD will send a detective from their homicide squad as well. Between us, we’ll get something. Even if it’s just a hair,” he added with a smile.
“Good luck.”
“We could use some. Well, I’ll go to work and see what I can find out about the victims,” John said. “See you, Hayes.”
“You take care of my clue,” Hayes said firmly.
“I will.”
* * *
John puzzled all the way back to San Antonio about the violence of the murder. Profilers in the FBI often said that the more personal a murder was, the more brutal it was. The first person on his suspect list was Rado, but he had no probable cause to even interrogate him. There were no connections to the gang leader. At least, not now.
He left the note with a technician at the crime lab, who signed for it. Longfellow wasn’t in, but she was expected back the next day, he was informed. Then he went back to the office and knocked on the lieutenant’s door. He was invited in.
“Something?” Lieutenant Gadsden Avery asked, dark eyebrows arched.
“Something. The note on the latest victim’s body came from the murdered woman outside Jacobsville,” he said, dropping into the chair Avery motioned to. “It was a confession that she’d spoken to law enforcement and a request for the victim to go and see her in a hurry. I’ve got another note, in the same handwriting. I dropped it off at the crime lab on the way here. I asked them to have Longfellow look at it—she can read the writing—but she’s off today sick.”
“This whole thing is one big tangle,” Avery said with a rough sigh. He leaned back in his chair and propped his boots on his desk, hands behind his head as he stared at John through narrowed, piercing gray eyes in a tanned lean face. “If Melinda McCarthy was murdered, and I think she was, whoever’s involved at the federal level is going to make pursuing an indictment very, very difficult.”
“It may be political suicide to push it,” John said.
Avery grinned. “Let them try. We have enough high-level connections to put even a senior DEA agent against the wall. If all that fails, and we get threatened, I’ll ask Cash Grier to go speak to them.”
“Grier has a way with words,” John said on a laugh.
“That’s not all he has a way with. One of my friends got caught for speeding in Jacobsville a couple of years ago.” He let out a whistle. “My friend said Grier didn’t say a single bad word or even raise his voice. It was the way he looked at him. It sent my friend rushing to the police station to pay the fine. Now, if he goes through Jacobsville, he watches that speedometer like a hawk.”
“They tell tales about Grier,” John mused.
“And most of them are true,” the lieutenant replied. “So. Where do we go from here?”
“I’m going over to talk to Marquez at SAPD. His detective on scene was going to backtrack and see if he could find any friends or acquaintances who were willing to go on record about the two victims. I want to see what he found, if anything.”
“Want a hint?”
John nodded. “Anything would help.”
“Go talk to Cal Hollister instead.”
He frowned. “He’s heading up the joint gang task force. Is that why?”
“No. Hollister has ties to a minister who used to be a merc. The minister works in the center of Los Diablos Lobitos gang territory. But the boys leave him alone. They know what trade he used to practice, and they don’t provoke him. They say he can walk into the darkest alleys at night and nobody touches him. That�
��s mainly because of his connections. He’s friends with the leader of Los Serpientes in the city. If anybody harmed the priest, he’d have not only the Serpientes to deal with, but many of the priest’s old friends as well. They won’t take the chance.”
“I’ve heard about the priest. Never met him.”
“Get Hollister to introduce you,” Avery advised. “The priest is bound by oath not to disclose anything he hears in confession. That’s probably why he’s still alive. Well, that, and his contacts. But he might be able to tell us something about any connections the victim had, if there are any. He knows most of the Lobitos gang, and the latest victim here was a member.”
“It might be the break we need,” John said, encouraged. “Thanks, lieutenant.”
The phone rang as the older man was about to speak. He answered it, put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, “This is going to take a while. I’ll talk to you later.”
John nodded and left the room.
* * *
He hated the idea of Hollister, because the man knew Sunny far better than he did. She wasn’t attracted to the police captain, however, which made the visit at least tolerable.
“What can I do for you?” Hollister asked with a smile.
“I need an introduction,” John began.
Hollister’s blond eyebrows arched. “Does Sunny know that you’re trying to meet other women?” he teased.
John glared at him. “I need an introduction to a priest,” he clarified.
“That sounds ominous,” Hollister replied, tongue in cheek.
“I don’t need one for myself.” John took an exasperated breath. “There are two new related murders...”
Hollister sat forward. “One in Jacobsville, badly mutilated, and one, a member of Los Diablos Lobitos, in an alley here in the city,” he said, quickly serious. “I know. We’ve got men on the street trying to find any friends or family or acquaintances of either victim. We’ve also got as many officers as we can spare going door to door around the crime scene looking for witnesses.”
“Thanks,” John said.
Hollister nodded. “We all have to work together to get these gangs stopped. We’ve had our share of murders recently.”