“We had these e-mails that embarrassed Miss Tibbs,” he explained. “She’s seventy, and handles the phone and the mail for us. Well, ever since, if the heading doesn’t have something specific about a case in it, she just deletes it unread, like we told her to. Tell Marquez I’m sorry.”
“I will. What we want to know is if you’re keeping back any information about the little girl’s murder—something you want to keep out of the news.”
The chief glanced at Grace uneasily.
“She’s a clam,” Garon told him easily. “It’s all right.”
“Okay, then. Yes, there was one other thing. The man tied a ribbon around her neck and strangled her to death with it. A red ribbon.”
“HERE, SIT DOWN for God’s sake!” Garon growled. He’d caught Grace just as she folded. “What’s the matter?”
She fought for every breath. She couldn’t give herself away. She couldn’t!
“It’s that twenty-four-hour stomach virus that’s been going around,” she said with a weak laugh. “I had it yesterday and it’s knocked me to my knees. Drastic way to lose weight, you know.”
“Would you like something to drink?” the chief asked gently.
“How about a martini, shaken, not stirred,” she began, with twinkling gray eyes.
“You can have a Diet Coke,” Garon returned, moving to the drinks machine in the department’s canteen with a handful of change, “if I can find the right change.”
“Don’t feed it a dollar bill,” the chief cautioned. “It eats them.”
She gave him a hard look. “You’re a policeman and you let a machine rob customers right in your own office?” she exclaimed.
“A man we arrested last month got hold of a gun and shot the last machine we had in here,” he replied. “Two months before that, one of our own officers accidentally hit the machine it replaced with a baseball bat. Don’t wonder out loud,” he advised when she started to ask how someone could accidentally smash a machine with a bat. “So, you see, we can’t ask the machine people to give us a third one. They’d never understand.”
“I see your point,” Grace agreed.
Garon handed her an icy cold soft drink. She popped the lid and drank thirstily. “Oh, that’s so good,” she said, sighing. “Thanks.”
“You should have told me you weren’t feeling well,” he said.
She smiled at him. “You wouldn’t have let me come with you.”
He pursed his lips and his dark eyes twinkled. Grace blushed.
Garon forced his attention back to Mendosa, and told him about the witness Marquez had unearthed in San Antonio.
“His name is Sheldon,” Garon said. “He apparently lived two doors down from the murder victim. Some homicide detectives from San Antonio talked to him. Marquez and I followed up, and he recalled seeing the suspect.”
Mendosa grimaced. “We had an apparent eyewitness ourselves, a man named Homer Rich. But our former chief said the guy was loopy and he wouldn’t let us go talk to him. The witness lived right next door to the child.” He frowned. “But he doesn’t live here now. He moved out of town not long after the murder.”
Garon frowned. “Was he a suspect?”
“No,” Mendosa said. “The guy was handsome, he made a good living, although I never knew exactly how he made his money. He had a fiancée somewhere. Nobody local ever saw her. He wasn’t a suspect. In fact, he joined the search when her family knew she was missing. He even printed up some flyers at his own expense.”
Garon didn’t say a word. He took notes. But he knew very well that sometimes murder suspects joined in the search and even spoke to the police about the progress of the investigation. He wasn’t telling Mendosa. It would only make the man feel bad. He was operating on a shoestring as it was.
“Know where Rich moved to?” he asked.
Mendosa shook his head. “He kept to himself, mostly. You might ask Ed Reems, he rented the house to Rich.” He gave Garon the address, which he jotted down. “Ed loves to talk. If he knows anything, he’ll tell you.”
“Thanks,” Garon said warmly.
“You’re welcome. If you need help, let me know. We’re all on the same team, when it comes to murder. I’d love to heat up that cold case and solve it. It haunts me. There’s just me and one other part-time officer to handle things here. We have to call in the county sheriff’s department for assistance if anything major breaks. We just don’t have the resources to commit to a decent investigation. I hope you catch this guy.”
“You and me and half the FBI,” Garon replied. “Child killers evoke sympathy from nobody, especially if they get sent to prison.”
“Amen. If you need help, just call.”
Garon smiled. “I will. Thanks.”
GRACE FINISHED her soft drink just as they pulled up at a dingy single-wide trailer on a quiet street just outside the Palo Verde city limits.
“Stay put,” he told her. “I won’t be long.”
He got out and walked up the steps to the front porch. The door opened. He displayed his credentials. A minute later, he went inside the house.
Grace wondered what he was going to find out. The mention of the red ribbon had made her sick. Garon would be suspicious. She didn’t want him to know why it had upset her. It was too soon. Far too soon.
Less than five minutes passed before he came back out, frowning. He got into the car beside her.
“Wasn’t he home?”
He drew in a long breath. “He was home,” he said, staring at the house. “He said that Rich didn’t leave a forwarding address. What’s more, he left the furniture in the house, along with appliances he’d bought. He must have been in a hell of a hurry to get out of town.”
Grace bit her lower lip and mentioned what they were both thinking. “What if he wasn’t a witness? What if he did it?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” He started the car and put it in gear. “I’ll leave you at the chief’s office. I need to do some door-to-door investigating.”
“Couldn’t I help?”
He smiled gently. “Not without credentials,” he said. “I’ll get Mendosa to help me. If we’re lucky, we may turn up something.”
BUT FOUR HOURS LATER, they hadn’t turned up one single witness who’d seen anything connected with the crime.
“Look,” Garon told Mendosa, “It’s a real long shot, but I’d like to send a forensic team down here to scour the house where Rich lived. We might get lucky and turn up something. We can find traces of blood even after houses are wiped clean with disinfectant and bleach.”
“I’ll arrange it with the landlord and his tenants,” Mendosa promised. “How about next Monday, first thing?”
Garon shook his hand. “That’s fine. I appreciate the help.”
Mendosa grinned. “So do I. Nobody likes to see a murderer walk.”
“You can say that again.”
GRACE WAS FASCINATED with the idea that bloodstains couldn’t be totally eradicated by murderers.
All the way back to Jacobsville, she pumped him for information on blood spatter patterns, crime scene protocol and what the FBI lab could do with a single human hair.
“It’s like something out of Star Trek,” she exclaimed.
He chuckled. “Yes, it is. Our high tech tools give us a real edge in solving crimes.”
“If it weren’t for the gory stuff, I think I’d like law enforcement work,” she murmured.
He couldn’t picture Grace at a crime scene. On the other hand, she’d chased a coyote right out of her yard with nothing more menacing than a tree limb. She had grit. He admired a woman with staying power. But she kept secrets, Grace did. He wondered what they were.
“THANKS FOR TAKING ME with you,” she said when he stopped at her house. “I really enjoyed it.”
“So did I,” he had to admit. He walked her up onto the porch. “You’re good company.”
“You’ll have to go and make your own supper, because Miss Turner’s gone,” she said suddenly. She looked
up at him. “I could make supper. I’ve got some fresh cube steak and potatoes I could fix.”
He hesitated. He was hungry, and he didn’t fancy trying to cook. “You must be tired,” he began, feeling guilty.
She shook her head. “I like to cook.”
He smiled. “Okay. What time?”
“Seven?”
“I’ll be here.”
He drove off and Grace ran inside to start things in the kitchen. She felt like a child with a treat in store. She’d never enjoyed a man’s company so much in her whole life. It was a beginning.
THEY SAT IN THE KITCHEN for a long time after they’d finished eating, just talking about the state of the world. They agreed on a lot of issues. In fact, they thought alike on politics and religion, which were said to be the two most controversial subjects on earth.
“You make good coffee,” he remarked, finishing his second cup.
“It’s decaf,” she confessed. “Caffeine bothers me.”
“It’s good, regardless.”
He checked his watch. “I hate to go, but I have to pick up a visiting agent at the airport tomorrow morning, early. He’s going to be in our office for a couple of days, doing an inspection.”
“Inspection?”
He grinned. “It’s a way to make sure we’re efficient.”
“I could write a testimonial for you,” she offered lightly.
“It will take more than that, I’m afraid.” He walked to the front porch and out into the yard, his eyes on the sky. “There’s a halo around the moon. We’re going to get some rain, I guess.”
“How would a city fellow like you know that?” she asked, impressed.
He turned, smiling. “I grew up on a ranch in west Texas,” he replied. “We had an old cowboy—he looked eighty—who used to work with the Texas Rangers. He could smell rain a mile away, predict weather, make poultices. I used to sit and listen to him by the hour when he talked about catching bank robbers. I suppose that’s why I became a lawman. He made it sound like a holy cause. In some ways, I guess it is. We speak for victims who can no longer speak for themselves.”
“Will you catch that killer, do you think?” she asked quietly.
“I hope we will,” he said, moving closer to her. “This man is no amateur. He’s smart. But he did leave trace evidence that will convict him, if we ever get lucky enough to take him into custody.”
“My grandfather used to say that most criminals are stupid,” she recalled. “He said one man he arrested had killed a man and then left his business card in the man’s pocket. And there was a thief who robbed a bank and went out the wrong door, tripped over somebody’s dog that was waiting there and actually knocked himself out on the pavement.”
He chuckled. “We’ve had our share of those, too,” he assured her. “But some aren’t as easily caught.”
“You’ll get him,” she said with utter confidence, as she smiled up at him.
He moved still closer and took her by the arms, holding her lightly against his tall, powerful body. “You’re good for my ego, Grace,” he murmured. “But I don’t think I’m good for you.”
She traced a button on his jacket, without looking at him. “You mean that you don’t want anything permanent. That’s okay. I don’t, either.”
“You’ll want children one day,” he began.
She took a long, shuddering breath. “I…can’t have a child.”
“What?”
It hurt to say that, but they were almost friends now, and he needed to know. Just in case they became more involved. She forced herself to look up at him in the light from the windows. “I was in an…an accident, when I was twelve,” she said. “A bad accident. I got cut up, especially my stomach. So I can’t have children.”
Something inside him mourned for her. He knew without asking that she would have wanted a family if she married. He felt an emptiness in himself at the thought, and he couldn’t decide why.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said somberly. “I love children.” She searched his eyes. “But you could have them, if you married someday.”
His face closed up. “I don’t want to get married.”
He said it so deliberately that she knew there was something in his past, something devastating, that he never discussed. He kept secrets, too, she knew, like she did. But her secrets had to be more life-shattering than his were.
“I’ll remember that,” she promised him, and her eyes began to twinkle. “But you’re way down on my list of prospective grooms, you know. Almost at the bottom!”
His eyebrows arched. “Well, I like that!” he exclaimed.
“I can get any man I want,” she informed him. “I learned about it on television. There’s this new perfume that causes men to parachute out of planes with bouquets of roses and big diamond rings. All I need is a dab of it behind each ear.”
“What if you catch the wrong man?”
“That won’t happen. The guy in the commercial is a knockout.”
“They won’t give you the guy in the commercial,” he pointed out.
“How do you know? They might run a contest and give him away as the prize,” she chuckled. “Aren’t you disappointed?”
He shook his head. “I don’t need a man with roses and diamonds.”
She laughed. “I meant, that you aren’t on the top of my list!”
He pursed his lips and moved closer. “Honey, if I wanted to be on the top of your list,” he murmured deeply, bending, “I wouldn’t need roses to get there.” His hand went behind her head and brought her mouth close, close to his. “I’d only need this,” he whispered as his lips crushed down over hers.
9
GRACE MELTED into his tall body with a faint, shaky sigh. The feel of him, the taste of him, was becoming familiar. He wasn’t at all threatening this way. Not anymore. She loved being close to him.
That was obvious, but it made him wary. She wasn’t worldly, and he was. He could take a woman in his stride and never look back. There were plenty of women the same way. No ties, no complications. But Grace would expect marriage.
The word felt bitter. He lifted his head.
She radiated joy. Her eyes were brilliant with it. Her swollen mouth was smiling. He felt like a heel. He shouldn’t have touched her. But she was appealing in her innocence, as so many experienced women weren’t.
He touched her cheek with his fingertips. “The inspector’s going to have everybody doing handstands Monday, so I’m taking the afternoon off, to get my supplies at the feed store. Want to come along?”
“Yes!”
He chuckled at her enthusiasm. What the hell. He was enjoying her company. He didn’t need to start worrying about the future. It could take care of itself.
He bent and kissed her again, very softly. “Then I’ll see you Monday. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight. I really had a good time.”
He smiled. “So did I.”
She walked into the house on a cloud. Life was sweet.
EARLY MONDAY morning, she drove into town to shop for some clothes that weren’t as old as she was. She had a little cash in her checking account that wasn’t necessary for bills. She wanted something pretty to wear for Garon. She stopped by Barbara’s to ask her advice.
Barbara directed her to the little strip mall in front of the community college, where there was a thrift shop. There were some beautiful things there, used but like new, and they didn’t cost much. Grace walked out with two bags full of nice things, and with a cashmere coat with a fur collar over one arm. She felt like flying.
“Grace,” Barbara said gently, “you know I’m happy for you. But don’t walk into a relationship blind. That man isn’t the marrying sort. And whether he knows it or not, he’s not small town material, either.”
“That’s what they said about his brother,” Grace pointed out, smiling, “and look at him!”
Barbara didn’t return the smile. “Just…go slow. Okay?”
“Worrywort,” she chided, and hugged her friend. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life,” she whispered. “I’m so happy!”
Barbara gnawed her lower lip as she hugged Grace back. “Be happy, then. But if he hurts you, I’ll make him sorry. I swear I will.”
“Stop that. I’m a grown woman.”
“I know,” Barbara agreed. But she didn’t smile. Garon Grier was a mature, worldly man, and Grace was a card-carrying innocent. She’d suffered enough already at the hands of one man. She didn’t need Garon to put nails in her coffin. But Barbara knew she couldn’t stop this train wreck of a relationship from happening. She could only be there for Grace when the bottom fell out of her world.
GRACE HAD BOUGHT a pair of embroidered jeans and a matching long-sleeved white shirt and a denim jacket to go with them. She left her hair around her shoulders, because Garon liked long hair. She studied herself in the mirror and felt really good about the way she looked.
Remembering how tender he’d been with her, she was walking on clouds. She was falling in love. Surely, he must be, too. A feeling so deep and wondrous had to be shared.
He pulled up in her driveway at one o’clock sharp, and she ran outside to meet him, radiant with joy. He was driving one of the ranch pickup trucks, a black one with lots of chrome trim. His Expedition was still with Miss Turner in Austin.
He got out of the truck and didn’t even try to resist the urge to open his arms for her. She made him feel young again, full of hope and optimism. She made him feel like the man he had been, before tragedy had turned his world black.
She hugged him, feeling closer to him than she ever had to anyone else. It was like a miracle, that she could enjoy letting a man touch her, hold her, kiss her. She lifted her face to tell him, but his mouth was already burrowing tenderly into her lips. She opened them for him and held on tight. It was like flying. Joy overflowed like a dammed river suddenly free.
After a minute, he had to put her away from him. He was almost shaking with the need to carry her inside to the nearest bed. He couldn’t do that. It was too soon.
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