I pulled my car up to the front steps and cut the engine, afraid to open the car door and actually get out of my vehicle. A compound like this had to have a guard dog. With my luck, Jerry wouldn't get to me before the guard dog did.
After several minutes I realized the dog wasn't coming and neither was anyone else. I opened the car door and listened. In the distance I could hear music, Cream, from the 70s. The song was "White Room." No dog came to eat me, so I got out of the car and headed up the wide steps to the front door.
YOU MADE IT THIS FAR, a sign said, SO COME ON THROUGH THE HOUSE TO THE BACK. WE'RE PROBABLY IN THE HOT TUB.
My anxiety vanished. He and his friends were all partying in the back. He wasn't lying in wait to seduce me. I just had an overactive imagination, the same problem I'd had all my life.
I grabbed the large brass handle and pushed open the heavy wooden door. Jerry's house was as welcoming on the inside as it was forboding on the outside. Southwestern in theme, Jerry's living room was filled with overstuffed chairs and sofas in a brick red Indian blanket print. A book lay open, with a pair of reading glasses resting on the pages, beside a recliner. An empty shot glass stood next to the book.
I walked on, toward the sliding glass door that overlooked a massive deck. The music was louder now but still I could hear the swooshing sound of the hot tub. Tiki torches burned in holders along the deck railing. Huge potted fig trees and ferns lined the deck, making it a private nighttime enclave. Now I knew why Jerry liked to conduct his business from the hot tub; his deck was an oasis.
I stepped out onto the deck, gently closing the sliding glass door behind me. At the far end was the hot tub, or at least I assumed so from the sound of water. It was hidden completely by plants and flowers.
"Jerry?" I called.
No answer.
"Hey, I hope you're semi-decent." I was walking slowly across the deck, an uneasy feeling beginning to gnaw at my stomach. Maybe he'd passed out. "Hey, Jer, it's me, Maggie…" I stepped to the edge of the fake forest. There was no sound, only the music and the gurgling of the hot tub. The night sky above me was black and starless.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to slip through the screen of plants. Jerry Lee Sizemore lay on his back, his body swirling slowly in the twelve-person hot tub, an ugly red stain blossoming across his chest.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When he answered the phone, I held it tighter against my ear, witling him through the receiver and into my head, willing him to lend me some of his strength.
"Help me," I said, my voice barely rising above a whisper. "Oh my God, help me."
"Maggie?" Marshall Weathers knew my voice. "Where are you?"
I was crying now, choking and gasping, feeling every edge of control I had disintegrating.
"I'm scared," I cried.
"I know you are, Maggie, and I want to help you. Tell me where you are and I'll be right there."
I told him exactly where I was. I stumbled over the words, sobs leaking out at every pause, but I told him and knew he would come to me.
"Maggie," he said, "I'm going to put you on the phone with Bobby, here. He's going to stay with you while I start driving. Talk to Bobby, Maggie." He was on his way without even asking what was wrong.
A younger male voice replaced Marshall's, but still I clung to the phone, standing in Jerry's living room, my back to the deck and Jerry's body.
"Maggie?" the young man said. "Maggie, I want you to try and tell me what happened so I'll know what backup to send with Detective Weathers."
He wanted me to help Marshall. I could do that. My heart was pounding in my chest, I thought I was going to throw up, but I could do this one more thing.
"He's, he's, he's…" I hiccupped, "dead. My… Jerry Lee Sizemore, he's, he's…"
"Dead," Bobby said calmly. "Okay. Okay, Maggie. Are you sure?"
"Yes," I said, my voice rising an octave. "I'm sure! He's been shot!"
"Okay, Maggie, stay with me here a second." There was the sound of hushed voices as Bobby issued instructions to someone.
"When will he be here?" I asked, unable to keep myself from exploding with fear.
"Ten minutes, Maggie. Hang in there. I'm sending some other officers. They'll be there sooner because they're closer."
But they weren't. It was Marshall Weathers who arrived first, flying down Jerry Lee's driveway, his blue light still flashing.
He didn't seem to move quickly, but he was on the porch and at my side in what seemed like an instant. It seemed natural to go to him, to let him take me into his arms, if only for a moment.
"You're sure he's dead?" he asked, moving past me, toward the interior of Jerry's house.
"Yes."
Behind us sirens wailed, lights flashed along the driveway. It seemed as if the entire police force was arriving, filling Jerry Lee Sizemore's expansive front yard with vehicles and uniformed officers.
Marshall stopped the first pair at the foot of the steps. "Go around back," he said. "We got one that's probably dead in the hot tub. Might oughta look and make sure there's no more. Let's make a fifty-foot area in front of the house, then go as far back as you can."
Another unmarked sedan came flying down the driveway, stopping inches from the patrol units. I recognized the man who hopped out of the car, moving quickly toward us. It was Marshall's young partner, Billy Evans.
Marshall waited until Billy reached the top of the steps, then he turned to me. "Stay here with Detective Evans, Maggie. I've gotta go take a look." Two EMTs walked up, bags in hand, questioning looks on their faces. Weathers nodded them in, and the three disappeared inside Jerry's house. Every nerve fiber I had stood on edge, waiting. I realized I was clenching my teeth and knotting my hands so tightly that my nails cut into my palms. I didn't feel safe when he wasn't in my sight.
When he returned there was a strange look on his face. He walked up to where I stood with Billy Evans and then pulled him aside. Whatever he had to say, he didn't want me to hear. Billy looked down at Marshall's right hand, staring at a small metal piece laying in his palm-a shell casing. Then they both looked back at me. I knew, without anyone saying a word, that it was another.38-caliber bullet that had killed Jerry Lee Sizemore.
"Oh God." The words escaped from my lips before I could stop them. It was happening all over again. Weathers glanced back at me and then back at his colleague. "Why don't you finish up here," he said. "I'll take Ms. Reid back and get a statement."
My thoughts were racing, one after the other, too fast for me to track, bits and pieces that were gone like storm clouds before a front. Black widow spider. That's what Weathers was thinking. And everywhere that Maggie went her gun was sure tofollow…
"Come on," Marshall said, "we'll take my car. Someone'll follow with yours."
I let him lead me, not caring about my car. All I could see was Jerry's bloated body, floating before me, the ugly red stain on his chest a stark contrast against the lush tangle of plants, his sightless eyes staring up at an empty sky.
"It was a thirty-eight-caliber gun that killed him, wasn't it? You think I killed him, don't you?" I said. We were not even out of Jerry's driveway. "You're thinking it's the same caliber gun, that it had to be mine."
We were at the end of the driveway and he stopped to look at me. "So now you read minds?"
"Well, it's what I'd be thinking."
"That's you."
"All right," I said, "what are you thinking?"
Weathers turned out onto the road and started toward town. "Don't much matter what I'm thinking."
Marshall Weathers was the most frustrating human being I had ever encountered. He always bounced the ball back into my court, never answered a question, especially if it had anything to do with himself. I looked over at him as he drove. His face was a mask, not an unkind mask, but closed.
"It's all about control with you, isn't it?" I asked.
"I don't follow," he answered. But I knew he did. His mustache twitched.
&
nbsp; "You've always got to be in control."
"Well, sure." He said it as if I'd said, "The sky is blue."
"Have you ever not been in control of a situation?"
"Maybe at the start of something," he said. He was uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation. His shoulders tightened and he stared straight ahead, not looking at me.
"Maggie, sit there for a while and think back on everything that happened from the time you got to Sizemore's until the time I got there." He didn't want any more personal questions. "Close your eyes and play it like a movie. When we get back to the office, I want you to tell me everything you can remember."
I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to see Jerry, over and over, floating in his hot tub. I wanted Weathers to do that. I wanted him to take over and fix everything. But that was just the problem. No one else was going to fix it for me. All of my adult life, I'd had to face this same realization, time and time again. I always fixed everything.
At first, I'd been mad about it. There was no Prince Charming and I wasn't Snow White or Cinderella. Then, somewhere along the line, I got to feeling proud. I was Maggie Reid, and I could take care of myself. Still, when things got a bit much, like now, I found myself wishing for a knight in shining armor. Weathers was merely pointing me back to reality. He'd come when I'd needed him, but I was going to have to pull the killer out of the hat to save myself. Doggone it!
I closed my eyes and willed my mind back to Jerry Lee's phone message, then to his house. The gate had been open. Why? Was it always that way? He was expecting me, in a general way, but he had no idea when I'd show up. Had he expected someone else? What had he found out about the mobile home lot? The reality of Jerry's death was dawning on me. I'd asked him to look into Jimmy's lot. He'd found something, and now he was dead.
I gasped softly and my eyes flew open. Weathers was pulling into the underground garage of the police department. He reached a hand over and touched my arm lightly.
"Stay with it, if you can," he said. "Don't try and make sense of what you remember, just go for the details, the little things that might not seem to matter."
"You don't understand," I said. "He's dead because of me. I sent him to audit the Mobile Home Kingdom and he found something."
Weathers didn't react. "Let's go on up," he said. He opened the car door and stepped out into the gloomy underground parking lot. It was deserted except for the two of us, but we were not alone. From every corner, covering every angle, cameras watched and reported back to their monitors. The place was probably wired for sound, too.
Weathers walked quickly to the door, punched in a series of numbers, waited for a dull click, then pulled the heavy metal door open. He held it, ushering me through with a motion of his hand. He didn't want to talk here. We would talk where he said and when he said, and that was probably for good reason. I walked by his side, struggling to match his quick, long-legged stride, my mind rushing in all directions.
We rode the elevator in silence. He stood so close that had I moved merely an inch, I would've been touching his arm. I remembered how it had felt when he held me for that one quick moment after he'd arrived at Jerry Sizemore's. Stop it! How can you think about that now? I yelled silently. But I couldn't not think about it. The attraction that had simmered before threatened to boil over and consume me.
I brought my hands together and pinched the flesh in between my left thumb and forefinger, hard.
"What'd you do that for?" Weathers had been watching.
"To get my attention," I answered.
He raised an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders. Now he could add dingbat or crazed to the list of adjectives I was sure he carried in his head to describe me.
"Guess that's a woman thing, huh?"
I glared at him. "Like men don't do anything to keep their minds on a task?"
"Don't usually need to," he said.
I thought of Vernell, reciting mobile home statistics to himself while we made love. Weathers was right. Men were the exact opposite of women.
"So what were you thinking that took your mind off Mr. Sizemore?" he asked.
The elevator jerked to a stop, pushing me against his arm. "Nothing," I said, jumping toward the door.
As the elevator door slowly pulled apart, I could've sworn I heard a slight chuckle from Marshall Weathers. I didn't look back. I walked ahead of him, down the long hallway to the CID offices. It was going to be another long night.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was long past midnight.
Plastic cups littered the table between us. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke, burned coffee, and Marshall Weathers's cologne. I'd had about all I could take of repeating the details of how I came to discover Jerry Lee Sizemore's body. I wanted out.
"I've told you everything I can remember," I said finally. It was not the first time I had made that statement, but I had hopes it would be the last.
Marshall Weathers was just as tired. His eyes were bloodshot. He stared into the bottom of his coffee cup, as if hoping it would offer him more than bitter dregs and caffeine.
"You're right." He sighed and pushed the coffee cup away. "Let's call it a night."
He pushed back against his chair, brought his arms up, and laced his fingers behind his neck. For a moment he closed his eyes and I watched him. His face was pale beneath his tanned skin. The lines around his eyes had deepened.
"All right," he said, bringing the chair legs down on the ground and startling me. "I'll take you home, or wherever it is you're staying." The little sarcastic tone was back in his voice. It bothered him that I stayed with Jack. He probably figured we were having a torrid affair. The idea tickled me and I tried not to smile, but couldn't help it. He really didn't like that.
"What about my car?" I asked.
"Give me your keys. I'll see that it gets delivered."
"All right. Let's go." I stood up and grabbed my purse. He moved slower than I did, with more deliberation. He moved, I thought, like a panther, always looking for his next opportunity, always thinking three steps ahead.
Neither of us spoke again until we were seated in his car with the engine running.
"Where to?" he asked. "The warehouse district?" He put the car into reverse and started to leave the garage, assuming.
I let him assume. He pulled out onto Washington Street, heading for Jack's on Elm, and I let him drive almost to Elm before I spoke.
"My place."
"How's that?" Weathers reached over and cut the radio down, as if he hadn't heard me.
"I'm back at my place," I said.
"Huh." A little sound that spoke volumes. About time, it said. "Well good… shouldn't have been with that hippie harmonica player in the first place," it said.
He made a left on Elm and cut over to Friendly, clearly pleased to be heading away from Jack's.
He waited until we were rolling up in my backyard to speak again. "I don't want you to be paranoid," he said, "but you need to be cautious until we catch this guy."
It was the first true indication I had that he believed I wasn't a killer.
"Whoever killed your brother-in-law, and now your accountant, doesn't know that you're in the dark. He could be thinking that Sizemore got to you with his information."
I hadn't put all of that together yet, at least not consciously. But I was scared to death suddenly, so I knew in my heart he was right.
"All I'm saying is, don't take any unnecessary risks. Don't go out alone at night. Have someone walk you to your car after work. Don't go down to the mobile home lot anymore. The usual precautions." He threw that last one in almost as an afterthought, but I knew it was his main point. He'd said the words more slowly: "Don't go down to the mobile home lot."
"You take care of yourself and let me go to work on this."
I was about to say something sarcastic, but found I couldn't say anything. I was too scared to say a word. I looked up at my back deck, the light shining over my back door, every light in the house
on, and realized I was terrified to go inside. What had seemed like such a perfect idea earlier in the evening now seemed foolhardy.
Weathers read me and cut the car's engine. "How about I come in and check around with you? Just put your mind at ease before I go?"
I didn't have to answer. He was out of the car, his hand reaching around to his side and unbuttoning his holster. By the time I reached him, he was standing on the deck, his gun drawn and waiting for me to unlock the door.
I must've stared at the gun, because he smiled slightly. "Don't worry," he said, "if someone's in there, I'll just shoot'em."
I tried to smile back, but the sight of that big black gun rattled me. "You do that," I answered, but I heard the tiny quaver in my voice.
He went in first. He was a large presence in my little bungalow. His footsteps echoed as he moved across the hardwood floors. I closed the door behind us and followed him from room to room. He made a big show of looking in the closets, moving the clothes aside and peering behind everything. He looked under my bed. He looked behind the shower curtain. Nothing.
"Well, you're clear," he said, putting the gun away and moving toward the back door.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?" I asked. This time the squeaky tension in my voice was evident to both of us. I tried to laugh it off, but that only made me sound hysterical.
"I'm kinda coffee'd out," he said. "You'll be fine, Maggie. You got my card and my pager number. If anything happens, if you get worried, you call nine-one-one. If you need me, they'll reach me at home. But you call them first so they can get a car out here."
"Oh, I'll be fine," I said.
"Did you fix that lock on the front door?" he asked, his face suddenly concerned.
"Not exactly, but I have a chain latch I use when I'm here, so I'd know if someone was trying to break in."
He didn't look so certain now, and I was feeling even more anxious. He walked back into the living room, over to the door, where he lifted the chain and held it in his hand.
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