Clay’s gray eyes turned cold. “I know a few people here in town. Call Morgan in Washington and tell him to get out here. I’ll be out on bail in time for breakfast.”
“No judge is going to hold court on Sunday morning,” Drew said. “Besides, you were naked in bed with a murdered woman, which makes you the likeliest person to have killed her. Who says you’re going to get bail?”
“Call Morgan,” Clay said curtly. “I can’t find out who set me up for murder while I’m sitting in a jail cell. I can manage bail, however much it is.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? You’re a murder suspect. You may not be allowed to post bail. Judges tend to keep suspected murderers in jail until trial.”
“I’m also attorney general of the United States, with close ties to the local community. I’m not likely to flee. The judge will see the wisdom of letting me out on bail.”
Drew wondered if Clay could pull it off. They would soon find out. He called the number Clay gave him, then handed the phone to Clay.
“Hello, Morgan,” Clay said. “I’m in trouble. I need you to make some calls for me, then get yourself here as fast as you can.”
When he hung up, Drew asked, “What about your father? Do you want to call him?”
“No. I can handle this myself.”
Drew crossed to the bed to take another look at the dead girl. Which was when he realized he knew who she was. “I recognize this girl. Her picture was on a poster in Sarah’s office. She was reported missing three months ago.” He met Clay’s gaze and said, “Where do you suppose she’s been all this time?”
“Wherever she was, that’s where Kate is now,” Clay said. “She said something about being held in the mountains.”
“That’s no help,” Drew said. “This place is surrounded by mountains.”
Drew had been anticipating a commotion, assuming the sheriff’s office would arrive with lights flashing and sirens blaring. He was astonished, twenty minutes after his call, to hear a polite knock on the door and Sarah Barndollar’s quiet voice saying, “Police. Open up.”
Sarah had been skeptical when she got a call from the dispatcher to check out the report of a murder at a house on Bear Island. The very exclusive, very private enclave was set along a tributary of the Snake River outside the town limits of Jackson, which meant the county sheriff had jurisdiction.
Sarah’s breath caught in her throat when the dispatcher said a young woman had been murdered, so a moment passed before she said, as calmly as she could, “Is this for real?”
“Maybe,” said the dispatcher, whose name was Daisy.
“There’s no maybe about murder,” Sarah said.
“What I mean is, I think this might be a hoax.”
“Why is that?” Sarah asked.
“The caller’s voice was too calm and matter-of-fact,” Daisy said. “He said there was a party going on downstairs but he was in an upstairs bedroom with the dead girl. I’m not about to send a bunch of police out to interrupt a party of politicians—who might very well end up being found in compromising situations—on some unidentified caller’s say-so.”
Daisy gave Sarah directions to the house and then to the upstairs bedroom where the murder had supposedly taken place.
Sarah had gone to the back door, acting like a deputy assigned to dignitary protection, although for some reason, none had been requested for this party. She could see, as she made her way upstairs, why the dispatcher had been so concerned about reputations. She saw famous faces with glazed eyes and arms around young women who were unlikely to be wives.
She released the strap that held her Glock .40 secure in the holster at her waist and knocked quietly on the bedroom door at the end of the hall, announcing, “Police. Open up.”
“What are you doing here?” she blurted when Drew DeWitt answered the door. “If this was a ruse to get me here—”
“Come in,” he said, opening the door wide. “The victim’s over there.”
Sarah stepped inside and made a quick visual sweep of the room, noting the naked woman lying still on the bed and Clay Blackthorne sitting in a chair across the room. “So there is a victim,” she murmured.
This wasn’t the first dead body she’d seen, but her heart was suddenly galloping as she crossed the room to check the girl’s pulse. Her flesh was cold.
The apparent cause of death was strangulation. Dried blood made it clear the young woman had been alive when the strand of barbed wire that was still cinched around her throat had punctured her skin. “Poor girl,” Sarah whispered.
Sarah noted the splintered wood on the display above the bed. Apparently it had been a crime of passion. She wondered what the murdered girl had done, if anything, to provoke such a vicious attack.
Sarah took out her cell phone and called the dispatcher. “That murder call was no hoax,” she said. “Call the sheriff, the captain, the sergeant, and the coroner, along with enough deputies to make sure that no one leaves this place without being questioned first. It’s going to be a mess, Daisy.”
“Will do,” Daisy said.
“You might as well call DCI in Cheyenne, too,” Sarah added. There was so little violent crime in Jackson, the town didn’t have a CSI of its own. Detectives worked the scene themselves and sent the evidence they collected to the state lab in Cheyenne for processing, or, in high profile crimes—this one certainly qualified—called in the Division of Criminal Investigation from the get-go.
“The politicians downstairs are used to white-glove treatment,” Sarah continued. “And they’re all drunk as skunks. They aren’t going to want their constituents to know they were partying away while a girl was being murdered upstairs.”
Once Sarah knew help was on the way, she turned to Drew and asked, “What are you two doing here?”
“Clay called me,” Drew said. “I’m here as his attorney.”
“Have either of you touched anything?” she asked.
“I closed the girl’s eyes,” Clay admitted.
“I told you not to say anything,” Drew admonished his cousin.
Sarah had avoided the girl’s face, but when Clay spoke, she turned to look—and recognized her. “Oh, no,” she said. “That’s Lourdes.”
“She told me her name was Natalie.” Clay frowned and said, “Actually, Niles Taylor told me that.”
“Clay,” Drew said. “That’s enough.”
Sarah made a mental note to question Niles Taylor, then turned to Clay and said, “What happened here? What was she doing here? What did you do to her? Did you rape her?”
Clay exchanged a look with Drew and said, “I decline to say anything on advice of counsel.”
“Did you do this?” Sarah asked furiously. “She was only seventeen! The same age as your own daughter. How could you!”
“I didn’t do it!” Clay shot back. “I woke up in bed with her, but I have no idea who killed her or why.”
“Goddammit, Clay! I told you to keep your mouth shut,” Drew snapped.
Sarah realized she’d blurted the fact that Clay had a daughter. The fact that Drew hadn’t commented on her revelation confirmed to her that he knew the truth. She turned to Clay and said, “You’re under arrest for the murder of Lourdes Ramirez.” She pulled a pair of metal cuffs from her utility belt and said, “Put your hands behind your back.”
“Is that really necessary?” Drew asked.
“Shut up and back off or I’ll cuff you, too,” Sarah snarled.
“It’s all right, Drew,” Clay said. “I expected this.”
He turned his back and presented his hands to Sarah, who snapped the cuffs tight around his wrists. She felt light-headed. She’d found the young woman she’d been searching for, but far too late to help her. She dreaded calling the girl’s parents, but they would need to identify the body before the coroner drove it to Cheyenne to be autopsied.
“You don’t belong here,” she said to Drew. “You can see your client once he’s been booked.”
“I think I’ll
hang out here,” Drew said.
Sarah could have shoved her official weight around, but Drew had already had time to do whatever damage he wanted to do to the evidence. When the sheriff and the captain and the rest of the cavalry arrived, she could take Clay to jail, and Drew would be their problem.
By the time Sarah left the residence on Bear Island with her prisoner, the entire house had been surrounded by crime scene tape and the Teton County sheriff had shown up to supervise and smooth ruffled feathers.
Clay asked if they could leave by the back door, and Sarah saw no good reason why not. To her annoyance, Drew followed them. As they headed down the stairs, she heard politicians and businessmen blustering that they shouldn’t be detained for questioning since they knew nothing about what had happened. Many of them had their cell phones to their ears waking up lawyers all over the country.
As Sarah locked Clay in the backseat of her Tahoe, she heard Drew tell him, “I’ll meet you at the jail.”
Sarah drove into the secured sally port at the Teton County Jail and escorted her prisoner inside to be booked and fingerprinted. His possessions were inventoried and he was outfitted in a yellow jumpsuit, which was assigned to prisoners accused of violent crime, and put in a holding cell to await a hearing with a judge.
She kept waiting for Drew to show up, so she could kick him out, but he never did.
“I’m going back out to Bear Island,” she told the booking sergeant, “to see if there’s anything else I can do.”
“Buck is going to be pissed as hell that his wife decided to go into labor tonight,” the booking sergeant said with a grin. “We haven’t had this much excitement in years.”
“This is the kind of excitement I could do without,” Sarah said as she threw a wave over her shoulder.
When she backed out of the sally port, she found Drew standing in her way. She rolled down the window and said, “Move it or lose it.”
He crossed to the window and said, “We need to talk.”
“I’ve got work to do.”
“I want to talk about the girl who was killed. About what she told Clay.”
“You want to make a formal statement?” Sarah asked.
“I want to talk to you.”
“I’m an officer of the law. Whatever you say—”
“Cut the bullshit, Sarah. This is important. Clay’s daughter was being held captive in the same place as the dead girl.”
Sarah gasped. “Are you sure? How do you know?”
“Clay told me. He got it from Lourdes before he passed out.”
“Is that why Clay killed the girl? Because she wouldn’t tell him where Kate is?”
“Clay didn’t kill Lourdes. He was set up.”
“Somebody did a hell of a job.”
“No shit. Are you going to help me find out who set him up, or not?” Drew asked.
“I’m not.
“Why not?”
“I don’t think our interests are the same here,” Sarah said.
“Of course they are. We both want to find the killer.”
“Even if it turns out to be your cousin?”
“There’s not a chance in hell Clay murdered that girl.”
“How did Lourdes get to Bear Island? Who brought her to the party?” Sarah said.
“I have no idea. But Clay said she was watching a guy in the corner—who disappeared—and Niles Taylor introduced the girl to him.”
They were interrupted by a radio call. Sarah picked up the handset and said, “I’ll get him now.”
“What’s that all about?” Drew asked.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight until you agree to help me,” Drew said.
“If you want to waste your time following me around, it’s no skin off my nose.” Sarah closed the window, backed the Tahoe up and pulled into a parking spot. She heard Drew rev the engine of his Porsche before he realized she had parked her SUV and was on foot and headed around the corner.
He caught up to her as she reached the entrance to the Jackson Hole Municipal Building, which housed the Jackson Hole Police Department. It was a two-minute walk around the corner from the Teton County Jail, where she’d dropped off Clay, which was shared by town and county police.
“What’s going on?” Drew asked as he leaned up against a counter that separated the public from the police. “What are you doing here?”
Sarah didn’t bother replying. She simply headed down a hallway into an area where she knew a civilian wouldn’t be allowed to follow.
Sarah had wanted to pick up Nate sooner, but the traffic accident south of town had been a bad one and had taken several hours to clear. Then she’d had a domestic call and a stolen snowboard call and finally the call to the house on Bear Island. This was the first chance she’d had to come for her stepson, who’d been waiting in isolation in an interview room until she could retrieve him.
She wanted to go back to Bear Island and question Niles Taylor herself, but she conceded it would be better to let her boss do it, so she didn’t have to spend any more time tonight away from her kids. She would call Jim later tonight and find out what Niles had said.
Thank goodness the Jackson policeman who’d caught Nate vandalizing one of the arches on the town square had been a friend, or her stepson might have found himself caught up in the juvenile justice system.
Harry led her back to a 10x10-foot beige room where Nate sat at a round wooden table, his head in his hands. “Are you ready to go home?” she asked.
He almost leapt off the chair and was across the small room in two gangly strides. “Mom! Where have you been? I thought something had happened to you. I’ve been going nuts in here. No one would tell me anything.”
She didn’t apologize for having to work a second shift, or for being late to pick him up, or try to explain where she’d been. She turned to the police officer who’d made the courtesy call to her and said, “Thank you, Harry. I owe you one.”
She put a hand on Nate’s back and guided him back down the hall past the dying ficus at the front of the building. “Where’s my truck?” she asked.
“At the end of our block at Clive’s house. He drove to the square,” he said. “That cop took the keys from me when I got here, along with my wallet.”
Sarah stood with Nate while the policeman who’d arrested him returned the property he’d confiscated. He’d had to hang onto it himself because there was only a receptionist working at the police department, which shared a dispatcher and other facilities with the county.
Sarah intercepted the keys as they were handed to Nate. “You won’t be needing these.”
Nate shot her an agonized look but apparently realized the wisdom of remaining silent.
Sarah didn’t acknowledge Drew as she exited the municipal building with her stepson in tow. She couldn’t stand the fact that she was giving him more ammunition for one of his diatribes against the likelihood of raising “good kids.” She could just imagine what he would say about her parenting skills after seeing her retrieving Nathan from police custody.
“Hi there, Nate,” Drew said, falling into step beside the boy. “What’d they get you for?”
Sarah was surprised to hear her son reply, “Copping an elk antler off the square.”
“How’d you get caught?” Drew asked.
“That freakin’ Phil started running when he saw the cop. If he hadn’t done that, we’d have got away clean.”
“You lose the loot?”
Nate shrugged. “An elk antler’s not that easy to hide.”
“Nope. Sure isn’t,” Drew agreed.
Sarah saw Drew’s unholy grin behind Nate’s back before the boy turned in his direction, at which point it disappeared.
“Your days of freedom are over, young man,” Sarah said severely, as they reached the Tahoe.
“Aw, Mom,” Nate said.
“Not another word, Nate.”
As Nate slid into the passenger’s seat an
d closed the door, Drew grinned again over his head and spoke to Sarah across the hood of the Tahoe. “Did the same thing myself when I was his age.”
“And?” Sarah prompted, waiting to hear that he’d also been caught.
“Nate’s right. Elk antlers are damned hard to hide. I tacked mine up over the barn door.”
“Don’t you dare tell Nate that story,” Sarah hissed. “I’m trying to teach him—”
“The value of honesty and responsibility and other good things,” Drew said. “Can we talk after you get him home?”
“It’s late. I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”
“Every minute that passes means clues are getting cold, right? I think I saw that on Law and Order .”
“Don’t be flip,” Sarah said sharply.
“Then it’s true?” Drew asked.
“I can’t—”
“I didn’t know the word can’t was in your vocabulary,” Drew said. “How about it, Sarah? Want to help me unravel a mystery and find a murderer?”
Sarah grimaced. “You have five minutes after everyone’s in bed. Then you go.”
“Fine by me,” Drew said. “I’ll follow you.”
He said the last words as Sarah was opening the door to the Tahoe. Nate heard them, watched Drew open the door to his Porsche and said, “If he’s coming home with us, I’ll ride with him.”
He didn’t ask for permission from Drew or wait for Sarah to deny it. He simply bolted out the door and around the hood of the Porsche and into the passenger’s seat of Drew’s car.
Sarah waited, expecting Drew to kick Nate out of his car, but Drew just waved at her through his closed window, gunned the Porsche and tore out of the parking lot. She watched until he made a turn in the right direction, then sighed in disgust and followed him.
12
Drew wasn’t sure why he hadn’t kicked Nate out of his Porsche. Maybe because the boy reminded him of himself at the same age, yearning to be grown up but caught in a boy’s body, with a boy’s need for adventure. It was harder to prove yourself in the modern world. There were no savage Sioux to battle, no wild mustangs to break, no unexpected blizzards to catch you out on the range and force you to fight your way back home in blinding snow and freezing cold.
The Rivals Page 16