by J. A. Jance
The use of pantyhose for restraints was the most obvious. In the upper-right-hand corner of the page, she wrote the word “pantyhose.”
What else? Both Serena and Rhonda had been bludgeoned to death. No stab wounds. No gunshot wounds. Bludgeoned. Leann Jessup hadn’t died, but there were no wounds to indicate the presence of either a knife or a gun. In the corner, she wrote: “Bludgeon (2) ? (1).”
In each case, there had been a plausible suspect who became the immediate focus of the investigation. Both Jorge Grijalva and Professor Dean Norton had a history of domestic violence. So did Dave Thompson, for that matter. That became the third notation: “Domestic violence.”
She sat for a long time, studying the notes. And then it came to her, like the second picture emerging from the visual confusion of an optical illusion. With a physical batterer there to serve as the investigative lightning rod in each of the three separate cases, the real killer could possibly blend into the background and disappear while someone else was convicted of committing his murders. Her hand was shaking as she wrote the fourth note: “Handy fall guy.”
For the first time, the words serial murderer edged their way into her head. Was that possible? Would a killer be smart enough to target his victims based on the availability of someone else to take the blame?
Lost in thought, Joanna jumped when the phone at her elbow jangled her out of her concentration.
“Joanna,” a reproving Marliss Shackleford said crossly into the phone, “your mother told me you’d call me back right away.”
Irritated by the interruption, it was all Joanna could do to remain reasonably polite. “I’ve been a little too busy to worry about that picture, if that’s what you’re calling about, Marliss. I’ll try to take care of it next week, but I’m not making any promises.”
“Too busy with the Leann Jessup case?” Marliss asked innocently.
For a guilty moment, Joanna felt as though Marliss, like Jenny, was some kind of mind reader. “You know about that?”
“Certainly. It’s in all the papers. And with you up at the APOA during all these goings-on, I was hoping for a comment on the story from you—one with a local connection, of course.”
Before Marliss finished making her pitch, Joanna was already shaking her head. “I don’t have anything at all to say about that,” she answered. “It’s not my case.”
“But you are involved in it, aren’t you? Eleanor told me that you missed Thanksgiving dinner because—”
“It’s not my mother’s case, either,” Joanna said tersely. “I can’t see how anything she would have to say would have any bearing at all on what’s been happening.”
“Well,” Marliss said. “I just wondered about that woman who was injured. Is Leann Jessup a particular friend of yours?”
“Leann and I are classmates,” Joanna answered. “We’re the only women in that APOA session, so naturally we’ve become friends.”
“But she’s, well, you know….”
“She’s what?” Joanna asked.
Marliss didn’t answer right away. In the long silence that followed Marliss Shackleford’s snide but unfinished question, Joanna finally figured out what the reporter was after, what she was implying but didn’t have nerve enough to say outright.
Of course, the lesbian issue. Since Leann Jessup was a lesbian and since she and Joanna were friends, did that mean Joanna was a lesbian, too?
Knowing an angry denial would only add fuel to the gossip-mill fire, Joanna struggled momentarily to find a suitable response. She was saved by a timely knock on the door.
“Look, Marliss, someone’s here. I’ve got to go.”
Joanna hung up the phone and hurried to the door, where she checked the peephole. Bob Brundage, suitcase in hand, stood outside her door.
“I came by to tell you good-bye in private,” he said, when she opened the door and let him in. “Good-bye and thanks. I couldn’t very well do that with Eleanor hanging on our every word.”
“Thanks?” Joanna repeated. “For what?”
He shrugged. “I can see now that showing up like this was very selfish of me. I was only interested in what I wanted, and I didn’t give a whole lot of thought as to how my arrival would impact anyone else—you in particular.”
“After all those years of being an only child, I confess finding out about you was a bit of a shock,” Joanna admitted. “But it’s all right. I don’t mind, not really. Was Eleanor what you expected?”
Bob shook his head. “Over the years, I had conjured up a very romantic image of the young woman who gave me away—a cross between Cinderella and Snow White. In a way, I’m sorry to give her up. It’s a little like finding out the truth about Santa Claus.”
“What do you mean?” Joanna asked.
“I mean the woman I spent a lifetime imagining is very different from the reality. I’d say Eleanor Lathrop was a lot easier to live with as a figment of my imagination than she is as a real live woman who can’t seem to resist telling you what to do.”
“Oh, that,” Joanna laughed. “You noticed?”
He nodded. “How could I help but?”
“She’s done it for years,” Joanna said. “I’m used to a certain amount of nagging.”
Bob Brundage grinned with that impish smile that made him look for all the world like a much younger Big Hank Lathrop. “So am I,” Bob said, “but I usually get it from higher-ups and then only at work. You get it all the time. You’re very patient with her,” he added. “That’s why I wanted to thank you—for handling my share of Eleanor Lathrop’s nagging all these years—mine and yours as well.”
“You’re welcome,” Joanna said.
This time Bob Brundage was the one who held out his hand. “See you again,” he said.
“When?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. The next time I’m out this way on business, I suppose,” he said a little wistfully.
“You and your wife could come for Christmas, if you wanted to,” Joanna offered. “It’ll be our first Christmas without Andy, so I can’t make any guarantees of what it’ll be like, but I’m sure it’ll be okay. I’ve been told I cook a mean turkey.”
Bob looked both hopeful and dubious. “You’re sure you wouldn’t mind?”
“No,” Joanna said. “I wouldn’t mind. Besides, we could pull a fast one on Eleanor and not tell her you were coming until you showed up. She loves to pull surprises on everyone else, but she hates it when someone puts one over on her.”
“That’s worth some thought then, isn’t it?” Bob’s eyes twinkled. “Marcie and I will talk it over and let you know, but right now I’d better go. Eleanor’s waiting downstairs to take me to the plane.”
Joanna escorted him as far as the door and then watched as he walked down the hall. “Hey, Bob,” she called to him, when he reached the elevator lobby.
He turned and looked back. “What?”
“For a brother,” she said, “you’re not too bad.”
He grinned and waved and disappeared into the elevator. Joanna turned back into the room. Making her way back to the desk, she expected it would be difficult to return to her train of thought after all the interruptions. Instead, the moment she picked up the paper, she was back inside the case as though she had never left it.
Marliss had called in the midst of the words serial killer. Coming back to her notes, Joanna knew she was right. It wasn’t a matter of guessing. She knew. Proving it was something else.
Joanna still wanted to reach Carol, but it was too soon to try again, so she picked up the paper and resumed studying it once more. Assuming her theory was correct—assuming there was only one killer in all this—where was the connection? How did all those people tie together? What was the common link?
Joanna started a new list in the upper-left-hand corner of the paper: “Cops (2).” Divorced? First she wrote down: “3.” Then, reconsidering what Lorelie Jessup had said about Leann’s breakup with her long-term friend, Joanna Xed out the three and wrote in:
“4 of 4.”
What else? Joanna stared at the paper for a long time without being able to think of anything more to add. Finally, it hit her: The Roundhouse Bar and Grill. According to Butch Dixon, Serena, Jorge, and Dave Thompson had all been in the Roundhouse the night Serena died. And Joanna herself had taken Leann there. That meant only two people on the list, Rhonda and Dean Norton, hadn’t been there, although they might have.
Dean Norton had been a professor at the ASU West campus, which was just a few miles away on Thunderbird. Maybe he and Rhonda had turned up in the Roundhouse on occasion, along with everybody else. After a moment, Joanna realized that there was one way to find out for sure.
Ejecting Lorelie’s tape from the VCR, Joanna dropped it into her purse. She made it as far as the door before she stopped short. She wasn’t on duty, but she was working.
One of the lessons Dave Thompson had harped on over and over again in those first few days of instruction was the importance of officer safety. It would have been easy to dismiss the advice of a likely Peeping Tom who was also suspected of attacking Leann Jessup. But now Joanna was living with the growing suspicion that somehow Dave Thompson was also a victim. If that turned out to be the case, maybe his advice merited some attention.
Putting down the purse and unbuttoning her shirt, she slipped the Kevlar vest on over her bra. She had ordered her own custom-made set of soft body armor, but until it arrived, she was stuck wearing Andy’s ill-fitting and uncomfortable cast-off vest. By the time she put on a jacket that was roomy enough to cover both the vest and her shoulder-holstered Colt, she felt like a hulking, uniformed football player. In comparison, Carol Strong’s small-of-back holster had disappeared completely, even on her thin, slender frame.
Joanna stopped by the pool long enough to tell Jim Bob and Jenny she was going out for a while; then she drove straight to the Roundhouse. As expected, Butch Dixon was on duty. He brought her a drink without any of his accustomed camaraderie. Only when he set it in front of her did she realize she had screwed up.
If the Roundhouse was a common denominator, that meant so was Butch Dixon. What if he…
Joanna took a sip of her drink. “This tastes more like diet Coke than Diet Pepsi.”
He grinned and nodded. “Good taste buds. Got some in special, just for you. Ask for it by name. Joanna Brady Private Reserve Diet Coke. If I’m not here, tell Phil it’s in the fridge next to my A and W root beer.”
It was hard to persist in believing that someone that thoughtful would also be a serial killer. Joanna raised her glass in salute. “Thanks,” she said.
“You bet,” he said. But then the grin disappeared and Butch shook his head. “I just can’t seem to get Dave Thompson out of my head today. He came in here all the time, you know.”
Joanna studied Butch’s face. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t,” she said. “Not until last night. Remember the first time I came in here asking about the night Serena Grijalva died? Why didn’t you tell me then that Dave Thompson was a regular?”
“I don’t recall your asking me that question straight out,” Butch returned easily. “Besides, if you had asked, I probably wouldn’t have told you. I don’t even tell wives and girlfriends who comes and goes around here. Why would I tell anyone else?”
“You don’t tell? Why not?”
Dixon smiled. “Client/counselor privilege.”
“You’re no lawyer, are you?”
Dixon shook his head.
“Since when do bartenders have the protection of client privilege?”
“You’re right,” he said. “It probably wouldn’t hold up in court, but I do try to protect the privacy of my clientele, for business reasons if nothing else. Dave was one of my broken birds. I was hoping that eventually he’d get his head screwed on straight. And he was working on it. That’s why this so-called suicide crap doesn’t wash. Ol’ Dave maybe imbibed a bit more than was good for him…”
“A bit?” Joanna questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Butch shrugged. “So okay, maybe a lot more than was good for him. It’s bad business for me to run down the drinking habits of some of my very best customers. It doesn’t pay. But still, mentally, I’d say Dave was in much better shape in the last few months than he was when he first started coming here. And if he drank too much, at least he was responsible about it. If he was planning to tie one on, he always had me keep his car keys. If I asked for them, he always handed them over without any argument. Whenever he ended up too smashed to drive, I’d keep his car here overnight and get someone else to drive him back home.”
“Did he talk about his wife much?” Joanna asked. “About his ex-wife?”
A curtain seemed to fall over Butch’s face. He didn’t answer right away. “The man’s dead,” Butch said finally. “It doesn’t seem right for us to be picking him apart when he isn’t even buried yet.”
“Don’t go invoking client/bartender privilege on me again,” Joanna said. “Dave Thompson is dead all right, and I’m trying to find out who killed him.”
“Hey, barkeep.” Three stools down the bar, a grizzled old man raised his glass. “Medic,” he said.
Butch hurried away to fill his thirsty customer’s drink order. He returned to where Joanna was sitting with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“As in murder?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
Butch shook his head. “What the hell’s going on? First Serena Grijalva and now Dave Thompson. Does someone have a grudge against my customers, or what?”
Joanna reached in her purse and pulled out the videotape. “That’s what I was hoping you could tell me. Would you take a look at this and see if there are any other familiar faces on it?”
“You think someone’s knocked off more of my customers? If that’s the case, before long, I’ll be out of business completely,” Butch said. But he took the video and slipped the tape into the VCR that sat on the counter behind the bar. “What is it?” he asked as the television set blinked over from an afternoon talk show to the tape.
“The news,” Joanna answered. “From Tuesday night.”
“Oh, that,” he said. “I think I already saw it.”
Moments later, the now-familiar face of the studio anchor came on the screen introducing the equally familiar reporter, Jill January. As the taped newscast ran its course, Joanna watched Butch Dixon’s face for any sign of recognition. There wasn’t any in the first segment. Both Rhonda and Dean Norton’s flashed across the screen without any noticeable response from Butch. That changed when Ceci Grijalva’s face appeared in the second segment.
“Damn!” he said. “That poor little kid. What’s going to happen to her?” Then later, when Joanna’s name was mentioned, he looked and nodded. “I’ll bet this is the part I saw already.”
The taped Joanna Brady was just beginning to answer Jill January’s question when Butch Dixon clicked the remote.
“Wait a minute. Let me play that back. I don’t want to miss anything.”
The action on the screen slipped into reverse. Joanna Brady and Leann Jessup were walking backward up the aisle at the end of the vigil rather than down it.
“Hey, looky there,” the old man down the bar exclaimed, squinting up at the television set. “Isn’t that there Larry Dysart?”
“Where?” Butch asked.
The old man pointed. “Right there, over that one broad’s shoulder. Nope, now he’s gone.”
Butch grabbed the remote and stopped the action once again. “Where?” he said.
“Right there,” the old man said. “Wait’ll they get almost up to the camera. See there?”
“I’ll be damned,” Butch said. “It is him. And he looks like he’s all bent out of shape. That sly old devil. He never once said anything about going to the damn vigil. If he had, I would have made arrangements to go along with him.”
Joanna felt a sudden clutch in her throat. “What did you say his name was?”
“Larry. Larry Dysart.”
> “He’s a regular here, too? Did he know Serena?”
“Sure.” Butch nodded.
“Was he here the night Serena died?”
“I’m pretty sure he was,” Butch answered.
“If Larry’s a regular, then he knows Dave Thompson as well?”
“As a matter of fact, Larry drove Dave home several times. Larry doesn’t drink booze anymore, so I could always ask him to drive somebody home without having to worry about it. He never seemed to mind.”
“And what exactly does Larry Dysart do for a living?” Joanna asked. There was a tremble of excitement in her voice, but Butch Dixon didn’t seem to notice.
“As little as possible. He’s a legal process server. It was a big comedown from what he might have expected, but he never seemed to carry a grudge about it.”
Joanna fought to keep her face impassive, the way her poker-playing father had taught her to do. This was important, and she didn’t want to blow it. “Carry a grudge about what?” she asked.
“About his mother giving away the family farm,” Butch answered. “And I mean that literally. In the old days, his grandfather’s farm—the old Hackberry place—was just outside town here, outside Peoria. It was a big place—a whole section of cotton fields. If Larry had been able to talk his mother into selling it back when he wanted her to, he would have made a fortune. Or else she could have held on to it. By now it would be worth that much more. Instead, she and Larry got in some kind of big beef. She ended up giving most of it away.”
“Who to?” Joanna asked.
“Til,” Butch answered. “Tommy Tompkins International. Tommy was one of those latter-day Armageddonists who believed that the world was going to end on a certain day at a certain hour. Before that happened, however, his financial world collapsed. He and his two top guys ended up in the slammer for income tax evasion.
“Now that I get thinking about it, I believe the APOA dormitory is right on the spot where the house used to be. That’s where Larry lived with his mother and stepfather back when he was a kid. The stepfather died young, and Larry and his mother went to war with each other. They patched it up for a while after she got sick. Since she was the one who’d donated the land to TTI, she was able to wangle her son a job running security for Tommy back in the high-roller eighties, when he had the whole world on a string. Then everything fell apart. When the dust cleared, the world didn’t end as scheduled, Tommy was gone, and the property went into foreclosure. All Larry was left with was a bad taste in his mouth and what he had inherited directly from his grandfather.”