Six-Gun Investigation

by Mallory Kane

  Spinoza straightened even more and his cheeks flushed. “Yes, sir.”

  “Get going then.” He glanced around the room. “Hold it a second, Deputy.”

  Spinoza turned back.

  “Has anyone touched anything? That suitcase? The handbag?”

  “No, sir. I kept an eye on them.”

  “Excellent.” Zane nodded dismissively and turned his attention to the doctor.

  Dr. Jonathan Evans sat back on his haunches and raised his eyes to meet Zane’s. “Lieutenant. Been a while.”

  Zane dipped his head in acknowledgment. He and Jon had graduated from high school the same year.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it? That she was killed here in the same room where her mother was murdered?”

  Zane took in the dead woman’s discolored face and the puddle of blood under her head.

  “Yeah.” He’d gotten over the initial shock. Now he was assessing the scene like an investigator, and his first thought was that his dad was probably the prime suspect, just like he had been sixteen years ago. And knowing his dad, his alibi wouldn’t be any more credible than it was back then.

  “Did you get a chance to check out Carley’s wounds?”

  The doctor shook his head. “Nope. I came straight here. Spinoza called me. He’s a good man.”

  “Glad to hear it. What do you know about Carley’s injury?”

  “I called the Emergency Room staff physician myself. Told him to preserve any evidence he finds on her.”

  “The slug?”

  “Through and through.”

  Damn. “Did he say how she’s doing?”

  “Apparently it was a flesh wound in her side, but it may have nicked a rib. If that’s the case, she’ll be out of commission for a few days.”

  “Thanks, Jon.” Zane turned his attention to the dead woman. “COD?”

  “My best guess is that the cause of death was strangulation. She’s got petechial hemorrhaging in her eyes.”

  “What about all the blood?”

  “Blunt force trauma to the left side of the head, pre-mortem. Too much blood for it to have been inflicted after death.”

  “Spatter?”

  “Over there by the door. Some of it has already been smeared by onlookers.”

  Zane cursed under his breath. “What about TOD?”

  “From the appearance of the blood and her liver temp, I’d say she died some time between seven and seven-thirty. We should know precisely when we get the autopsy results.”

  Zane pulled a pair of exam gloves out of his pocket and started to kneel beside the body, but a small sound from behind him reminded him that there was one other person in the room who needed his attention. He stuck the gloves back into his pocket.

  Anna Wallace. Annie. He turned, and for an instant his vision wavered and he saw the gawky, mousy-haired teenager with glasses and braces who, unlike her mother and older sister, had always been serious and subdued.

  He wondered if he’d have even remembered her if his captain hadn’t told him she’d be here. He’d been a senior in high school when Lou Ann Wallace had shown up in town with her two daughters. Sarah was his age, and a younger, flashier version of her mother.

  Annie had been a sophomore, or maybe a freshman— a kid not worthy of a second look by a senior.

  Then when their mother was killed, Zane had been in school at the University of Texas. Thinking of Lou Ann made Zane think of his dad. He shook off the depressing thoughts and made a mental note to get the records of Lou Ann’s murder.

  “Annie Wallace?” he said gently.

  She hadn’t taken her eyes off her sister since he’d walked into the room. From her position perched like a nervous bird on the edge of the desk chair clutching the long strap of her purse, she had a clear view of Sarah’s face.

  Zane touched her shoulder lightly. “Annie?”

  With an obvious effort, she shut her eyes for an instant, then looked up at him.

  No glasses now. Her eyes were a deep olive-green and wide with shock in her colorless face. Her dark hair was twisted up and held by some kind of barrette, and she didn’t have on any makeup, at least none he could see.

  “It’s Anna.”

  “Sorry. It’s been a long time. Weren’t you called Annie in school?”

  She nodded jerkily and put a hand to her throat. “You’re Zane McKinney.”

  It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t bother to answer. The mayor had told him she’d found her sister’s body. It stood to reason he’d have told Anna that Zane would be taking over the investigation.

  Ironic, considering—

  Stopping his brain from going down that path, he knelt beside her chair. “I need to ask you some questions.”

  Her eyes flickered toward the awkwardly sprawled body of her sister and her hands tightened on the strap of the bag that hung from her shoulder.

  “Have you been processed? I mean, has anyone—”

  “I know what it means,” she said shortly. Her voice quivered slightly, but all in all it was stronger and steadier than he’d expected it to be. After all, she’d apparently walked in and found her sister murdered in the exact same way her mother had been sixteen years before. He wondered if she’d seen her mother lying here.

  “No. I haven’t been processed.” She moistened her lips. “Do you want to do that now?”

  Zane rose and stepped backward. “Yeah. Let’s get it out of the way. Step out into the hall.”

  “What about Sarah?”

  “Dr. Evans will take good care of her.” He moved so that he blocked Anna’s view of her sister’s body.

  He’d dealt with distraught family members before, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone who’d worked as hard as Anna Wallace was working right now to hold herself together.

  She was doing a good job of it, but something about her slender bowed shoulders, the determined set of her jaw and her haunted eyes tugged at a place deep inside him, a sore place. Could it be his heart?

  Ha. If anyone asked the people in Justice—especially his own family—they’d probably deny that Zane McKinney had a heart.

  Anna stood in a stiff, wobbly motion.

  He reached out and touched her lower back to steady her. She was only a few inches shorter than his six feet one. She’d grown since high school.

  His eyes quickly took in every inch of her. She’d grown a lot. He did the math in his head. When he was eighteen, she’d been fifteen, much too young to interest a senior. But now he was thirty-four, she was thirty-one. Hell, they were practically the same age.

  She looked at him quizzically and he realized his mind had wandered. Damn. That never happened to him.

  “Are you staying with Leland?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Her answer was quick. Too quick.

  “I mean, I wasn’t planning to stay at all—” Her eyes flitted back toward her sister’s body.

  “Okay. Why don’t I get you a room? You stand right there and don’t move.” He pulled out his cell phone.

  “Could you—”

  He looked up.

  “Could you ask them to make it on a different floor?”

  Zane knew he had a heart, because it squeezed in compassion at her quiet request. He nodded. “Jon, do you know the number of the front desk?”

  The doctor rattled it off and Zane quickly secured a room on the second floor.

  “Let’s go.” He touched the small of her back again and led her to the door, snagging the processing kit as he passed it.

  Just as they ducked under the crime scene tape that the deputy had draped haphazardly across the doorway, a pair of shiny tooled-leather cowboy boots appeared in Zane’s line of sight.

  Ah, hell. He knew those boots. They had to be thirty years old, but they shone like new.

  He composed his face and straightened, pulling Anna just a bit closer. Then he steeled himself and looked into the blue-gray eyes that were unnervingly like his own.

  “Hello, s
on,” Jim McKinney said.

  Zane’s throat constricted and his scalp burned with a swift and unreasoning anger.

  Typical. If there was trouble involving a female, Gentleman Jim would be right in the middle of it.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, concentrating on not balling his hands into fists.

  Jim took off his pearl-gray Stetson with one hand and took Anna’s hand with the other. “Anna, I’m so sorry about your sister.” He bent his head and formally kissed her fingers.

  Zane’s internal pressure gauge was about to blow. He wanted to shove his father away from Anna. He took a step forward. “This is a crime scene. Get out.”

  Jim frowned at him, then looked beyond him into the room. “I thought I could help out, what with poor Carley in the hospital. Didn’t know the Rangers were sending you.”

  “Well, now you do. And you also know I don’t need any help.”

  Jim cocked one eyebrow. “Especially not from me, right?”

  Zane inclined his head. He couldn’t be angry with the desk clerk for allowing his father inside. There wasn’t a soul in Justice who would deny ex-Texas Ranger Jim McKinney access to a crime scene. He was pissed at himself for letting his old man make him feel like a rookie.

  “On second thought, where were you between seven and seven-thirty tonight?”

  A shadow of shock and pain crossed Jim McKinney’s weathered face. But he recovered quickly and grinned. “Everybody’s a suspect.”

  “Not everybody,” Zane muttered, feeling mean.

  “I was home eating dinner.”

  Zane made a disgusted sound. “At seven? Since when do y’all eat that late?”

  Jim’s back straightened as a slight flush stained his cheeks. “Since I started working at the supermarket in Calhoun City. This week I’m on the day shift. I get off at six-thirty. It takes a good half hour to drive home.”

  A pang hit Zane underneath his breastbone. Jim McKinney, working at a supermarket.

  His dad had been a highly decorated Ranger until that day back in 1991 when a desk clerk at the Matheson Inn had found Lou Ann Wallace strangled to death. He’d resigned from the force under a cloud of suspicion. Since then he’d fought with depression and the tendency to drown his sorrows in a bottle, and he’d had trouble keeping a job.

  Clamping his jaw, Zane pushed away the crippling sympathy for the man he’d once idolized. There was no place in this investigation for emotions. He was the chief investigator, and just like sixteen years ago, Jim McKinney was a suspect.

  “I thought I’d see if there was anything I could do to help.”

  Zane glared at him. “Well, there’s not. I’ll get your statement later. Right now I’ve got to take care of Annie.”

  Jim McKinney’s eyes crinkled and his lips curved into a sympathetic smile as he turned his attention back to Anna. “Again, if there’s anything I can do—”

  “Thank you, Mr. McKinney,” she said quietly.

  Jim started past them toward Room One. His back was slightly bowed and he was turning gray at the temples. He was only fifty-seven.

  Zane winced. When had his dad gotten old?

  He clenched his jaw. “Dad, I meant it. You can’t go in there. Get out of here.”

  Jim sent him a sharp look. “I’ll tell your mother you’ll be by to see her.”

  “You do that.” Zane heard the ice in his voice. Sometimes he felt like it ran through his veins, too. But cool detachment and focused determination worked for him. As a Ranger, especially a lieutenant, he couldn’t afford to lose his objectivity. For Zane, being a good Ranger was job one.

  As his dad’s boots echoed on the hardwood floor, Anna turned to look back toward the room.

  Zane wrapped his arm a little more tightly around her waist. He didn’t want her looking at her sister’s purple contorted face again. He couldn’t afford to have her break down before he had a chance to question her.

  IN ROOM FOUR on the second floor, he set the crime scene case on the bed and opened it, then retrieved a pair of exam gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. He took out a portable fingerprint kit and several swabs.

  Without looking up, he spoke. “Tell me what happened.”

  Anna watched in fascination as Zane’s gloved fingers laid out the forensic tools on the bed. His hands were sturdy yet graceful, like the rest of him. He moved efficiently, no wasted effort.

  She raised her gaze to his face. His even features and high cheekbones made him classically handsome. His mouth was wide and straight and there was a tiny bump on his nose where he must have broken it. It was his only flaw, unless she counted the tense muscle that bulged in his jaw. The muscle that had popped out when they’d run into his father.

  “Annie?”

  She blinked. He’d asked her something. People kept talking to her, but her thoughts were scattered. She couldn’t focus. The rational part of her brain knew she was suffering from shock. As a journalist, she’d talked to enough people in a similar state that she recognized the symptoms. But knowing what was wrong didn’t help her shake it.

  She’d listened to the mayor, to Leland, to the doctor and the deputy sheriff, but right now she couldn’t remember what any of them had said.

  She did remember Jim McKinney kissing her hand. He’d always been a charmer. He loved women, and apparently many of them found it hard to resist his rugged good looks, including her mother. She couldn’t help but wonder why he’d shown up. Was it to see his son, or did it have to do with her sister?

  Her chest constricted painfully and she twisted the leather strap of her purse around her fingers. Sarah was dead, just like her mother, and Jim McKinney could have killed her.

  “Annie, I know it’s hard, but I need you to work with me.” Zane’s voice was calm and smooth, yet compelling, like his manner. As soon as he’d walked into Sarah’s room, the whole atmosphere had changed. He was in charge and everyone knew it.

  “Tell me what happened,” he repeated.

  She sent him an assessing glance. Apparently her journalist instincts hadn’t completely quit working. He might appear solicitous and gentle, but in the few seconds she’d been watching him, her brain had already figured out two things.

  His hawklike eyes missed nothing, and he had serious issues with his father. There was another dynamic at work here, as well. In her career, she’d learned to read people pretty well. It was a skill she’d honed carefully over the past few years.

  Lieutenant Zane McKinney, Texas Ranger, was not happy to be back in his hometown. Not at all. And furthermore, at least two people—the mayor and her stepfather—were not happy to have him back.

  “Do you want me to ask Dr. Evans to give you a tranquilizer?”

  “No.” She almost laughed. The last thing she wanted was to be drugged. She needed a clear head. It was going to take all her intuition and skill to answer this man’s questions without making him suspicious.

  She struggled to focus on his questions. “I’m fine. You want to know what happened when I found Sarah?”

  “Why don’t we start from the beginning? Why did you and Sarah come back here, to the same room where your mother was murdered?”

  Zane’s words ripped through Anna like a knife. “The same room! Oh, my God! I’d forgotten.” Sarah had told her the room number, but she hadn’t made the connection.

  Still, it made sense. “My sister always was a drama queen—” Her voice broke a little. She cleared her throat, irritated at herself for giving in to her emotions.

  Taking a deep breath, she fought the vague nausea that clung to her. She hadn’t seen her sister since she was sixteen. How could it hurt so much that she was dead?

  She swallowed acrid saliva. “Do you see a glass? I could use some water.” She sat down on the edge of the double bed.

  Zane raised an eyebrow, then turned on his booted heel and wasting no motion, took two long strides into the bathroom. The water ran briefly, then he was back.

  She took the glass f
rom his big elegant hand and sipped it slowly. The cool liquid soothed her throat, which was raw from the bitter nausea that had threatened to erupt ever since she’d walked in and seen Sarah sprawled on that floor.

  Zane stood over her, his impatience palpable. “Done?” he asked, holding out his hand for the glass.

  She took another swallow.

  “Anna, I need to process you,” he said firmly. “I need to hear your account of what happened. And I don’t have a lot of time. I’ve still got two crime scenes to oversee.”

  She handed him the glass and he set it down on the bedside table. That last mouthful had been hard to force past the lump in her throat anyway.

  “I’m sorry. Why was Sarah here? I really have no idea. We haven’t spoken since she took her portion of my mother’s life insurance and left town. Then yesterday she called me. Asked me to meet her.” She looked up at him, presenting what she called her concerned journalist face.

  His eyes bore right through her. “Did she say why?”

  She picked up the glass, looking at it instead of him as she lied to him. “No.”

  That wasn’t as hard as she’d thought it would be. Running a finger around the rim of the glass, she took a long breath and met his gaze. “All she said was she wanted to start a new life.”

  A hollow, sickening sense of loss hit her in the solar plexus, the worst one yet. It surprised her how alone she suddenly felt.

  She’d never gotten over the aching resentment toward Sarah for abandoning her. After their mother’s death, Sarah hadn’t wasted any time getting out of here. She’d left Anna with Leland Hendricks, a stepfather she hardly knew.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Those words, spoken calmly and quietly, sent fear skittering along her nerve endings. She looked at Zane’s hands, which were peeling the backing off a sheet of fingerprint paper. They were big, competent and graceful, like him.

  Her gaze slid up the front of his white dress shirt, past the Texas Ranger badge and the stylish tie to his face. What would it take to satisfy him? How much of the truth did she dare reveal?

  She took a long breath and nodded. “Okay. Sarah said she had some information for me.”

  Zane stepped over to the old-fashioned desk near the window. “Come sit over here.”