Dirty

by Debra Webb

  “Well, it was used to bash in the skull of an illegal border crosser.”

  What the hell? Before I could find my voice and demand more specific details he added, “But don’t worry, your rock didn’t kill him. The pound of cocaine shoved down his throat did that. Now get your ass over here, Mercer.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  This wasn’t the first time I’d been left to stew in an interview room. I doubted it would be the last. But it did kind of tick me off that I was being treated like a suspect. Excuse me, not a suspect...a person of interest in an ongoing case. That was the PC term.

  So what if the rock came from my yard? I didn’t spend a lot of time counting rocks to make sure no one had taken one. Unlike Nance, I had better things to do. But then, since he had a great deal in common with the mineral matter in question, considering one rattled around in his skull, maybe I should cut him some slack.

  Not in this lifetime.

  I did the usual while I waited. Tore off chunks of my Styrofoam coffee cup and made a not so neat little pile for the detectives to clean up later. Counted the evidence of water leaks on the ceiling and the chipped spots on the walls, which were in desperate need of a paint job.

  Paced the room, ensuring that I swung my hips in my best streetwalker stride. Shucked my jacket, mainly to give the guys in the viewing room something more interesting to talk about in light of the fact that the strappy little camisole showed off a considerable amount of my more marketable assets.

  When I’d lost interest in all of the above I dropped back into the chair and played puzzle with the remains of my cup. Reflected on the fact that I needed a manicure in addition to a touch-up on my roots. That lasted about two minutes before I pushed back my chair yet again, making sure the metal legs scrapped the already scuffed tile floor with a screech loud enough to make the most macho of the bunch wince, and stood.

  For fifteen additional minutes I sashayed back and forth, thought about calling Hobbs and having him send for Bob Fraley. That would really piss off the whole division. Bob might not be a practicing attorney but he would definitely have the whole frigging lot of them on their toes in two seconds flat.

  But then Bob might not feel obliged to help out given that he’d warned me to steer clear of Disposable and I neglected to listen. Oh well, how boring would life be if I always did what I was told?

  The door opened and I turned to face what would no doubt be a barrage of useless questions seeing as I didn’t know anything about any dead guys. At least not that I was aware of. Warren Rayburn made an appearance in my thoughts but, in reality, I didn’t know squat about him...except that he’d rocked my world ten years ago in a shabby motel that had since been torn down and replaced with a Sand Dollar Tanning Salon and a Dominos Pizza.

  Chief Cates, looking distinguished as always, with Detective Nance right on his heels, entered the room.

  “Mercer.” Cates acknowledged me with a nod before taking a seat at the small metal table.

  “Chief,” I returned as I pulled my own chair back out and settled into it.

  Nance leaned against the wall behind the Chief. “Mercer,” he offered in that holier-than-thou tone that made me want to slap that smirk clean off his horsey face. (My apologies to horses in general, but you know what I mean—the whole Jay Leno elongated face that lacks any chin to speak of. Good thing Jay had personality going for him.)

  “It seems someone is attempting to send you a message.” This from the Chief.

  Okay, I saw that now and I also knew the drill as well as anyone present, but did he really have to state the glaringly obvious? The Chief generally showed more class than that.

  “That would be my guess.” I folded my arms over my chest, mainly because Nance hadn’t taken his eyes off my breasts since he’d said my name. That reminded me. I still had to find a way to get back at him for that unofficial web page. It entered my mind to up and tell the boss then and there but I really didn’t care to see a grown man cry. Besides, I had a dirtier kind of revenge in mind.

  “Are you working on a case right now that may have set off an act of violence or revenge such as this?” Cates asked.

  I pretended to consider his question for about twelve seconds, any longer than that would have been too long to be credible, then I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “Bullshit!” Nance pushed off the wall and stalked over to stand next to the Chief. I wondered if he thought his glare would be any more effective at a closer range. It wasn’t. “You’ve been nosing around in one of our old cases.” He leaned down and said something in the Chief’s ear. Judging by the change in the top brass’s expression, Nance had just shared with him that I’d recently viewed the Disposable case file.

  The protracted pause that followed almost made me nervous. But then I glanced at Nance and I just couldn’t maintain the tension. The guy was a self-absorbed prick who’d missed out on his ticket to fifteen minutes of fame by not pursuing reality TV. Part of one episode was all it would have taken to get him voted off the island.

  The Chief spoke at length about sharing information and how particularly important it was this day and time. Cooperation was the buzzword of the twenty-first century, he explained. Not competition. (I won’t bore you with the details. Hell, I didn’t even bore myself. I zoned out after the second sentence that included the word teamwork.) Throughout the monologue I remained vaguely aware of Nance pacing back and forth like a caged rat. He wasn’t smart enough or brave enough to be likened to a lion.

  “I trust you’ll keep us informed if anything develops that would in any way impact my department or this homicide investigation.”

  I snapped back to attention, manufactured a smile sweet enough to pour over pancakes. “Of course. You know you can count on me, Chief.”

  Satisfied, he stood. I did the same.

  “We appreciate your time, Mercer.”

  And with that polite, concluding statement the Chief exited the interview room, leaving Nance looking as if he didn’t know what to do or say next. I could feel the disappointment and confusion emanating from him. I felt certain he’d hoped for an opportunity to conduct a full-body search or worse, lock me up in the pokey for a night.

  Determined not to waste another minute, I shouldered back into my jacket and headed for the door. Nance could find some other way to entertain himself. Odds were he’d had to do it before.

  “Look, Mercer,” he said abruptly, stalling me at the door.

  Damn and I’d almost gotten away without having to interact with him again. “Yeah?” I turned my head to look at him. He wasn’t worth the effort required to shift the rest of my body.

  He stroked his chin and nodded as if whatever he intended to say made total sense to him or like some epiphany had just dawned. “I was just thinking we could look into this Disposable case together. You know, revisit the old and see how it might tie into this latest murder.” He shrugged. “Like partners.”

  I scrunched my face into a pensive expression then shook my head. “Thanks, but I already have a partner.” For the first time since I’d hired him I was glad to have Dawson on my home team.

  I started to go...just leave it at that, but my more evil side just wouldn’t let me do it. What can I say? I’m from Texas. We never forget anything (remember the Alamo?) and we take revenge to a higher level. “Listen, Nance, do me a favor,” I said, drawing the full measure, at least as full as it got, of his over-confident, anal-retentive attention. “Next time you have a thought...just let it go.”

  Since my momma didn’t raise no fool, I made myself scarce before he understood he’d been insulted. I could still hear Nance swearing at and about me to his real partner, O’Linger, when I stepped into the waiting elevator car.

  Too bad the guy didn’t have a sense of humor. He was definitely going to need one by the time I finished with him.

  “Nance is seriously afflicted.”

  That was my assistant’s only comment regarding my latest interaction with our least favo
rite member of Houston’s finest.

  “Tell that to the Chief,” I muttered in response. Cates wasn’t about to admit that one of his men didn’t measure up. And, giving Nance credit, he wasn’t actually a bad detective, he was simply the poster boy for jerks-r-us.

  “Where’s Dawson?” I walked over to the door of his office. It didn’t really look any different than it had three days ago when I reluctantly gave him the job. He didn’t seem the type to do any heavy decorating but I did expect to see a few papers scattered about. Maybe a family photo on the desk. Nada.

  “He’s picking up Betsy Wells. She failed to appear for court this morning.”

  My jaw sagged. I was getting used to that. It happened a lot lately. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

  One eyebrow winged high above the other, Hobbs glanced at my legs as if the suggestion held no appeal whatsoever. “Hardly. Apparently she got cold feet about going before the judge. Jasper called and said she’d hidden under the porch and he couldn’t get her to come out.”

  My mind immediately conjured the vision of Dawson having to crawl under the porch to retrieve the old woman while she swung at him with her rolling pin. A trickle of trepidation went through me at the memory of her having taken a shot at Jasper.

  “Someone needs to check her meds,” I thought out loud as I headed into my own office. The poor old lady might not understand or realize the ramifications of her actions. If I remembered correctly she and Jasper didn’t have any children. Maybe they needed help. I’d have to look into that. Right now I wanted to touch base with Alita and see if she knew anything about the Hispanic man HPD had found murdered yesterday.

  Houston was a big city, but bad news traveled fast through the small, tight knit communities of illegals. The grapevine proved an effective way to protect themselves.

  “What did Max have for you?”

  Hobbs had followed me into my office. I collapsed into the chair behind my desk. God, it felt like months since I’d had the conversation with Max. How could it have only been hours?

  I rubbed at my forehead and the nagging headache that had started there. “Before we get into that,” I said, knowing the subject would take up the rest of the day, “I need to find out if Alita knew this Julio Sanchez.”

  “Already checked.” Hobbs tossed a slip of paper from his notepad onto my desk. “He crossed the border maybe a week ago. Rumor is that he carried some drugs to pay for his passage.”

  Acid roiled in my gut. Just like Disposable. If someone wanted to send me a message why didn’t they just come straight to me? The idea that a man may have died for no other reason than to get my attention twisted like barbwire inside me.

  “Alita didn’t know him personally, but a lot of people are nervous.”

  I just bet they were. I had to get to the bottom of this...fast.

  Scrounging around in my purse I located the photo and placed it on the desk in front of me and tapped the familiar face pictured there. “Meet Warren Rayburn. Former DEA agent. Apparently died the day after we were together.”

  “Hmmm.” Hobbs made a show of deliberating over the photo though he’d studied it before. There was nothing new to see. “Gives new meaning to the phrase killer sex.”

  “Thanks.” I’d already had that same thought myself but I’d be damned if I’d share the moment with Hobbs. Rayburn had walked out of that motel room under his own steam.

  “Shall I see what I can find now that we have a starting place?” Hobbs offered.

  I nodded. “He, including his career with DEA was buried pretty deep. But, as you say, since we have his name, check out anything else you can find on his personal life and—”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  Dawson loomed behind Hobbs. For several seconds I reflected on the differences in the two men. Hobbs used my momentarily lapse into reflection to bring Dawson up to speed on the mystery man’s identity. The two were so different. Hobbs had that polished GQ look down to a science. He could teach Clinton Kelly a thing or two about chic.

  Then there was Dawson. Ruggedly handsome. Well dressed in a more casual, take-my-clothes-off manner. I licked my lips and, before I could stop myself, my gaze drifted down to his fly.

  It happened every time.

  I was doomed.

  I jerked out of that too familiar trance. “How’s Betsy?” I asked, butting into the conversation that had suddenly deviated from Rayburn to the murder victim Sanchez and then off to the best places to eat around town.

  Dawson’s gaze collided with mine and I immediately regretted having asked the question. In that instant my internal temperature shot up a minimum of ten degrees, making the clothes on my back seem like an immense burden.

  “She’s fine. We had a beer on her front steps before I took her in. Thought it might calm her nerves.”

  There was another image to add to the stack growing in some compartment my demented brain had reserved just for lusting after Dawson.

  “See what you can find on him,” I said to Hobbs who held Rayburn’s picture in his hand. “Call Alita. Let her know that she and her friends should take extra precautions right now. We don’t know where this is headed.” I hated that feeling. That lost, can’t do anything to stop this insanity sensation in the very pit of my stomach.

  Hobbs went off to do my bidding but Dawson stayed behind. I didn’t need a crystal ball to warn me the situation was about to plunge into that zone where I seemed to lose all control of my senses.

  “Learning his name should get the ball rolling,” Dawson observed.

  “That’s a good starting place. Now, I just need to know how he played into the Disposable case.” I shifted my attention to the papers on my desk. Shuffled a few here and straightened a couple there. Hoped he would lose interest and walk away.

  “Maybe you already know more than you realize.”

  I clasped my hands on my desk and lifted my gaze back to his. “If you’re asking me if I know anything I haven’t shared with you, the answer is no.” It was bad enough the Chief worried that I might do just that. I didn’t need Dawson on my back as well. “The official HPD case file is as full of holes as Andrew Young’s paternity story about John Edwards’ love child. I don’t see how the case ever got to trial.” What I did see was the ever-growing need to speak with my uncle.

  Before he ended up dead too.

  I don’t know where the thought came from. Intuition? ESP? Whatever. But I suddenly needed to hear his voice.

  “Hobbs!” I was around my desk and at the door before Dawson had a clue as to my intent. “Get my uncle on the horn. I need to speak with him.”

  Hobbs looked up at me over his computer screen. “I thought we weren’t breaching his seclusion,” he tossed back. “I distinctly recall him saying unless it was an emergency—”

  “Do it.”

  My tone left no room for argument. Not even from Hobbs.

  Dawson lingered in my office. Only now instead of standing, patiently waiting for my return as I’d expected him to do, he had settled one lean hip onto the edge of my desk. Take a moment to picture this. Imagine your favorite hottie posed like that, seemingly waiting for your next move.

  A trickle of sweat beaded between my breasts.

  “Was there something more we needed to discuss?” I asked nonchalantly as I walked straight to my chair and lowered into it with my back as rigid as a ballerina’s. My mother would have been proud. To her way of thinking good posture kept away a whole entourage of ailments. In this case it simply helped me to hold onto my professional poise.

  “I was saying,” Dawson replied, sounding mildly irritated and shifting slightly to look at me, “that maybe Rayburn said something to you that night that could provide clues about what happened to him when he left or about the case.”

  Well, what do you know? The guy’s emotional span went beyond just plain old charm. He was just a little bit annoyed with his new boss. Maybe if I played my cards right I could run him off that way. It wasn’t
that I didn’t like him, I did. That was the problem. I liked him way too much. And I knew this would never work. No mixing of sex and business. I could not cross that boundary.

  “I’ve considered that possibility,” I admitted. And I had. From the moment that picture was delivered to me I’d thought about little else...except Dawson. I moved my head side to side as much in disgust with myself as in emphasis of what I was about to say. “We didn’t do a lot of talking.”

  “But you had to say something when you first met,” he pressed.

  I closed my eyes and let my mind wander back ten years...to that night. White Horse Saloon. The place was crowded as always. Most folks were dancing to the music provided by the live band. The White Horse still had a live band every Friday and Saturday night. That particular night I’d been keeping the same barstool warm for a couple of hours. Two or three cowboys had asked me to dance but I’d refused each time, eventually the invitations had dwindled.

  Dancing was the last thing on my mind. I couldn’t believe I was starting over after all those years of marriage. Or that my son would be entering high school in just one more year and I was alone on more levels than I wanted to comprehend.

  I first spotted Rayburn across the room. I remember that he looked out of place somehow. Sure he had the requisite cowboy attire, belt buckle and all. But he didn’t fit in. Now, of course, I knew why. He probably wasn’t even from Texas, much less from around here. He was as handsome as sin and way, way more charming.

  “He walked up to me and asked if I would allow him to buy me a drink.” I laughed. “A clichéd pick-up line at best.” The memories dragged me back.

  “And you said yes,” Dawson prompted.

  A smile nudged at the corners of my mouth. “In time. Mr. Rayburn was relentless.”

  “Surely you talked about something more before leaving for wherever you ended up.”

  There was something odd in Dawson’s tone now...a cold, clinical quality that disturbed me somehow. I searched his eyes for some motivation but found nothing but that sincere, questioning look that said he needed to hear more.