Hence the calligraphy set and the unusual number of pens. Every detail an investigation uncovered always had a reason. A detective just had to find out what it was.
Brax scattered the scrolls, prowling through them until he located number one. He stared at it far longer than necessary, his belly screaming with that bad feeling common to cops and people snooping where they didn’t belong.
The ribbon knotted when he tried to undo the bow. In the end, he slipped it off, the bright red cascading to the floor. Unfurling the paper, he pressed it flat to the table. The ridiculous curlicue font, made more difficult to read by the fact that it was in bold, confounded him for a moment. He flipped on the desk lamp attached to the top of the drafting table, and the words suddenly jumped out at him.
He followed three paces behind her, leaving room between so that he could watch the play of sinuous calf muscle as she walked. Her short skirt barely covered her butt cheeks, her bare legs smooth and tan, and her boots topped with bulky hiking socks.
Jesus. This could not be what he thought it was. He kept reading.
The contrast of feminine to utilitarian raised his temperature. Sex was about alluring contrasts and minute sensuous details. A soft breeze blew across his back, then caught the hem of her skirt, lifting it. He’d hoped for a tantalizing glimpse of silk. Instead, he was rewarded with firm, delightful flesh.
Brax folded his arms, laying his head down. Damn, damn. The fantasy. Simone had written it. He’d know that voice anywhere. He’d dreamed the words of her website teaser over and over. Her writing was unmistakable. He forced himself to read on.
She scooped at the skirt, laughing and turning to him. “Oops. Guess I forgot my underwear.” God, he wanted her. Here, now, under the hot sun, against the warm earth.
Brax read until there was nothing left to read. To his everlasting shame, his jeans bulged with a painful erection. Though the room was empty, he felt like a voyeur. He’d eavesdropped on Carl’s fantasy.
On Simone’s fantasy.
Jesus, he could only pray it wasn’t their fantasy. Simone and Carl. God, no. He could pray, but he was beyond hope.
The woman in that fantasy was not Maggie. Yes, Maggie had blond hair, but there, the similarities ended. Simone had described herself. She’d beefed Carl up to stud status, letting him do his fantasy lover bit six times in different spots along a mountain trail. He’d managed to come six times, too.
Six sex scenes in the space of twenty pages, all so vivid that Brax had a hard time not imagining himself doing those things.
Godammit. She’d written a sex fantasy for Carl. Brax had known it, in his heart and gut, he’d known. He’d wanted to believe she wrote it for Maggie and Carl, starring Maggie and Carl, the way Doodle had said Simone wrote snippets for his wife.
Goddamn Simone.
That woman was not Maggie. No forty-two-year-old woman could possibly contort her body into those positions. He wasn’t sure a twenty-year-old could, either. That was definitely not Maggie.
Shit, shit, shit. The money, the withdrawals, now this. Why had Carl printed each page out on fancy paper, then rolled them into a scroll and tied them with a fricking ribbon? Godammit.
At first, he retied the ribbons. Five pages in, he no longer gave a damn. The untied scrolls had rerolled themselves and cascaded to the floor as he tossed them aside. They crackled beneath his quick stride to the computer.
His flesh hot, his body aching, he booted up Carl’s email program, flipping back to find the password page in the spiral notebook. Sure enough, the email sign-ons were there, too. Brax typed them in, then perused the emails in each of Carl’s folders. Nothing from Simone, nothing from her website. Carl hadn’t saved the original message. And Brax wanted to see it. He needed to see where the hell that fantasy came from. He had to have it before he accused her.
But Carl had left no trail. He’d documented every goddamn detail of his life, but he hadn’t kept Simone’s emails. Brax clenched his fist with the need to pound the desk in frustration. Afterward, he could never say why he decided to download Carl’s unread emails.
He waited for what felt like an eternity for fifty-two emails. High-speed wasn’t as high-speed as he needed right now. When they hit the inbox, most could immediately be marked as spam. Only one held any meaning for Brax.
An email from Simone’s website. His fingers trembled as he guided the mouse and clicked.
“If you’re planning what I think you’re planning, you are dead meat. And I do mean dead meat. Rotten maggot-infested buzzard bait.”
Her words hit him like a left jab to his jaw.
Jesus H. Christ. Simone had threatened Carl. Now Carl was dead. Buzzard bait, just as she’d said.
* * * * *
Simone heard a car engine turn over, but by the time she’d rushed to the window, the drive was empty. Brax’s SUV was gone from Maggie’s front drive.
“Where’s he going?”
Della came to stand at her side. They both stared out into the dusk.
“I don’t know.” An obvious answer, unless Della thought she’d suddenly become a mind reader. Where he’d gone was less important than why he’d rushed off without coming back inside. Brax had found something in Carl’s trailer, but what? And why had it sent him driving off without a word?
A shiver ran across Simone’s shoulders, and she rubbed her arms to dampen the trail of goose bumps.
* * * * *
Brax charged into Teesdale’s office to find the man perusing the pages of a magazine. He’d changed from his rumpled uniform to casual and left his hat on the credenza behind him. He read for another thirty seconds before closing the periodical and setting it on his desk. Gently.
“Have a seat, Braxton.”
Brax didn’t take a seat nor did he start his questions in the order of priority. He’d leave Carl’s personal effects, including the cash, for last. A whammy at the end.
Wrong. The most important question was for Simone. He’d whammy her after Teesdale.
“You’re not insisting on an autopsy just to piss me off, are you.” It was not a question.
Teesdale put his feet on his desk, crossing his ankles. The tread of his boots had almost worn through. “It’s routine.”
“Bullshit.”
Arching a brow, Teesdale said, “What makes you think we need an autopsy? Not two hours ago, you seemed mighty against it. For your sister’s sake, I think you said.”
“Carl’s the only witness to the event, and I want to know what his body testifies to.” In the basement, he’d been thinking with his heart instead of his head. He couldn’t bury it in the sand anymore. The money shouted foul play. Foul play shouted Maggie’s name. Then of course, there was Simone and the fantasy. And that email. He’d get involved because he had to.
It never occurred to him to simply cover up what he already knew.
“Bullshit,” Teesdale mimicked. Then he flexed his jurisdictional muscles, though he kept his tone mild. “You think you know something. Better tell me or I’ll have to throw you in a cell for obstructing justice.”
Fighting words, but the sheriff’s lackadaisical manner and attitude suggested he didn’t care one way or the other what Brax knew or what the autopsy might reveal.
“Let’s work together on this.” Not wanting Teesdale mucking with things at this point, he’d keep Carl’s finances to himself until he could pigeonhole the sheriff’s abilities. “Tell me when the autopsy’s scheduled for.”
“When the M.E. gets back from his conference.” The sheriff leaned forward, flipped a couple of pages on his day calendar. “Saturday, probably.”
Three fricking days. “Doesn’t he have an assistant that can do it?”
Teesdale snorted, then outright laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“You don’t seem too fucking concerned about it.”
The man shrugged. “You work with what you’ve got.”
“Where the hell is Carl now? Still down in the basement?”
“The boys from Bullhead picked him up an hour ago. Don’t worry, he’ll be patiently awaiting our M.E.”
Worry? He was goddamn crazy with the scenarios racking his brain. Scenarios involving his sister. Or Simone.
Dammit, he should have examined Carl’s body closely. “Three days isn’t good enough, and you know it, Teesdale.”
The sheriff put his feet on the floor and rolled his chair closer to the desk. “Sit down, Braxton,” he said, with more force than previously.
Brax sat, not in deference to Teesdale’s command, but due to the weight of his own failures sitting heavy on his shoulders. He’d fucked up royally. He hadn’t checked Carl’s body. He hadn’t asked any questions about the crime scene. He hadn’t even considered that there was a crime scene. With the four chickens riding their dirt bikes through the gorge, and probably a horde of lookie-loos, any evidence would now be obliterated.
In short, he hadn’t adhered to the training of a long career in law enforcement. He would not, however, allow further self-recrimination to get in the way now.
“I’m going to interview the chickens and go over the site where they found him, including the spot from which he presumably fell.” He’d have to ask the girls about the money, too. Even chickens might be tempted. There was Lafoote’s involvement to be considered, as well, the hotel being the big money game in town.
“I’ve got it handled.”
He didn’t give a damn if he was stepping on the sheriff’s toes. “This is more serious than following a trail of Twinkie wrappers to Mud Killian’s doorstep.”
“You don’t say?” Teesdale drawled.
Brax wasn’t in the mood for a pissing contest. He wanted to do right by his sister. The money Carl withdrew shouted out that Maggie was right. Carl hadn’t tripped and fallen over the edge of the cliff. “Let me give you the benefit of my recent experience.” His stomach cramped, his words a reminder of why, besides Maggie’s plea, he’d wanted this hellish trip in the first place. “The faster we move on this, the more likely we are to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. Every tick of the clock is our enemy.”
For the first time, Teesdale reacted with something more than a drawl or a negligent wave of his hand. His jaw tightened and nostrils flexed. “I have a helluva lot more experience in my left toe than you’ve had in a lifetime.”
“I’m sure Goldstone has been a gold mine for you.”
Teesdale curled his lip. “L.A. Ten years. RHD.”
Shit. LAPD, Robbery-Homicide Division. Ten years. Had he been washed out? Probably. LAPD to tiny, forgotten County Sheriff wasn’t just a step down, it was a fall into the abyss.
Teesdale leaned forward, narrowed his eyes, his teeth gleaming through a mirthless smile that looked like something on a death’s head. “I can see you’re dying to know what I did to get the boot out here.”
“Yeah, sure, why don’t you tell me?” The story obviously stood between him and what he needed Teesdale to do on Carl’s death investigation. He’d hear the man out, then get on with business.
“You got any gangbangers in Cottonmouth, Sheriff Braxton?” Teesdale used the title as a slur.
Brax had faced worse than gangs. A suspect list consisting of people he’d known for years. People he considered friends, yet suspects in the murder of a respected man they’d all known.
“I can see you think you’ve got your share of shit. And maybe you do. But you ain’t seen nothing till you see what they’re capable of.”
“I’m sure Goldstone is—” He’d been about to say, more your speed, but thought better of the sarcasm. Obviously Teesdale had seen things the ordinary citizen couldn’t comprehend. “Preferable,” he said instead.
“Preferable, yeah.” Teesdale punctuated with a short bark of laughter. “There are a lot of things preferable to digging an eight-year-old girl out of the city dump where her killers tossed her body like trash after raping her until they’d damn near ripped her in two, then slammed a lead pipe into her head so many times it looked like a squashed pumpkin.”
Brax had been wrong. There were worse things.
The sheriff’s voice dropped, and his gaze focused on something far beyond Brax’s shoulder, memories long in the past but never forgotten. “We got them. Four. Fifteen, fourteen, eleven, and ten. Minors.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding with difficulty past a lump in his throat. “I testified, but I didn’t wait for the verdict, never even read about it. Got out of there the next day.”
Brax didn’t blame him for that.
Teesdale closed his eyes, a shudder twitching his shoulders. “My little girl was eight at the time.” Then he stared Brax down with a dark-eyed crazy-man look that only a father could wear. “You can bet your goddamn ass I’d rather be trailing Twinkie wrappers to Mud Killian’s door than dreaming about my little girl topped with nothing but a squashed pumpkin head.”
Teesdale hadn’t been drummed out. He hadn’t run away. He’d done the only thing a man afraid for his sanity could do, the very thing a father would do.
Brax was used to meeting glare for glare, did it all the time and always came out on top in the exchange. This was different. This was beyond his ken. Teesdale was right. Despite being a cop, Brax’s world didn’t contain children who preyed with such viciousness upon other children. Monsters made out of little boy parts. Jesus H. Christ.
“Carl withdrew three thousand dollars from his checking account yesterday morning before he went hiking,” he said.
“Throwing me a bone, Braxton, because my little story tugged at your heartstrings?”
“Nope.” Though it had. “Just asking for help from the good sheriff of Emerald County.” He’d intended to slam the sheriff with the cash thing, but Teesdale’s brief story changed that plan. Given the choice between gangbangers or Mud, Brax would have taken to trailing Twinkie wrappers himself. The man would know his craft after his years of experience, and Brax’s best hope for keeping Maggie safe was to work with him rather than against him. “How old is your daughter now?”
Sheriff Elwood Teesdale smiled and dropped five years’ worth of lines from his face. “Almost sixteen. She’s the prettiest little thing I’ve ever seen. Already planning which college she wants to go to. I’m thinking Stanford. She’s as smart as a whip. Wants to be a doctor.”
“I’m sure she’ll be whatever she sets out to be.”
“Yeah.” He sat back in his chair and folded his hands across his belly, once more the contented small town sheriff whose biggest case involved Twinkies and a perp called Mud. “Now, about that cash. Maggie have any idea what he used it for?” Teesdale asked.
“She’s sedated. I’ll ask her as soon as it’s possible. But I’m not holding out that she’ll have any useful answers.” He knew she wouldn’t. “Don’t suppose you found an easy three thousand on the body or in the truck?” The question had to be asked even if he knew the answer would be in the negative. The whereabouts of the cash lay in the identity of Carl’s killer.
“I’d have given it a mention if I did,” Teesdale said dryly.
“Yeah, I’m sure you would have.” He met the sheriff’s gaze head-on, and those few seconds belied the near accusation in his question. Teesdale would have demanded where the hell it came from. Not salted it away.
“I plan on dropping by the bank tomorrow to see if anyone remembers seeing Carl,” Brax said.
The sheriff didn’t pull the old stay-out-of-my-case thing. “Good idea.”
Brax couldn’t say he’d been having a whole hell of a lot of good ideas lately. “Now tell me why you want the autopsy.”
Clasping his hands over his belly and drumming his fingers, Teesdale didn’t answer directly. “I take it you think the money is talking murder instead of a simple fall.”
“I take it you’d agree with me on that.” Brax stared him down and waited.
Teesdale rolled his lips, wriggled his mouth, let out a long sigh, then gave Brax what he’d both been afraid of and needed to know. “Carl had an o
dd depression on the side of his head.”
Brax didn’t have to ask if it was on the side the critters had been at. He’d have noticed anything on Carl’s good side.
“I’m no medical examiner, but I’ve seen crushed skulls before, and this wasn’t caused by any rock he hit on the way down. Too uniform, in my opinion. Like he’d been struck with something rather than landing on something.”
“The sooner we get that autopsy then, the better. We’ll need time of death.” Maggie had been out during the morning and part of the afternoon, returning in time to dress, then drag Brax off to the tea party.
She didn’t have an alibi if Carl had died before two o’clock.
“I’ve got a call in that might help speed things up.”
Brax almost laughed. The sheriff had been giving him a hard time. He didn’t bother to ask what that call might do. This was Teesdale’s jurisdiction, and with LAPD RH under his belt, the man had a right to it. Hell, he’d know all the back doors in his own county.
Brax broached another topic on his mind. “What do you think of Jason Lafoote?”
“As our man?” At Brax’s nod, Teesdale snorted. “No motive.”
It was a long shot, but the only one Brax had. “Carl told me he got the judge to hold up those permits.” In as many words. “Could be Lafoote held it against him.”
Teesdale stroked his chin. “Doesn’t make sense. What would be the point? Della would still stand in the way. If it was Della at the bottom of the gorge, now that’d make some sense.”
“With Carl out of the way, Lafoote could have been hoping Della would change her mind.”
“Too much risk that she wouldn’t. If the permitting, or lack thereof, was the motive, doesn’t make sense he’d hit Carl first.”
Nothing made sense at the moment. A sense of the situation only came after hours and sometimes days of investigation of the small, seemingly meaningless details.
Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) Page 18