Twisted

by Laura K. Curtis

  “He was your brother, not your son.” Lucy reached her free hand across the table and covered one of Scott’s. “And you were just a sick teenager. You couldn’t control what he did.”

  “That how you feel about your brother?”

  “No.” Lucy’s half-sad smile twisted Ethan into a knot, and he squeezed her fingers in reassurance. “It’s how I try to think of him, though. Some days are harder than others.”

  Ethan brought the conversation back on track. “You think Richie might have been buying drugs from Eric?”

  Scott shrugged. “If you’d asked me last week, I’d have said no. Richie’s a tweaker. I figured Eric might be growing weed in the woods and selling it to his buddies, but not cooking meth. No way. On the other hand, most of the meth in this county isn’t local. It comes up from Mexico. He could be distributing for someone else.”

  “So Juan and Richie ended up in the middle of a turf war?” TJ’s brow wrinkled. “Maybe Juan was dealing out of El Lobo Loco, and Eric’s supplier decided to make an object lesson of him?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense, the only way Eric could be tied into this. He’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but he’s no psycho, butchering murderer.” Finally, Scott raised his eyes, only to glare around the table as if daring each of them to contradict him. “He enjoys high-end camping and hunting gear, and he’s essentially lazy, so he probably thought dealing was easier than getting a better job than that crappy night security position he has, but he’d never kill anyone.”

  “Assuming a drug-related motive behind Juan and Richie’s deaths, though, why deliver them to me?” Lucy pinpointed the exact question that had kept Ethan up most of the night.

  “If your major player in the drug game is local, it could be a twofer,” suggested Jake. “He could want you out of town for personal reasons. He’s got to get rid of a competitor, why not scare off a woman whose investigation might bring his business dealings to the attention of the police?”

  “Or maybe more than his business requires protection,” said Ethan. “Lucy’s investigation might uncover other secrets he’s hiding. Or he could have personal reasons for wanting her gone.”

  “Jed Martin,” Lucy said. “I’m not necessarily naming him a killer, or even a dealer, but if you’re looking for someone with a connection to Richie Mack who has it in for me, I’d start with Jed.”

  “Why Jed, in particular? He’s no more connected than half a dozen other men. Brad down at the Gas ’n’ Go hires—hired—Richie from time to time even knowing what a tweaker he was. He’d be first on my list. He’s almost as much of a loner as Eric.” This from Scott.

  “Yes, but Jed came into the library when I was there one day. He insinuated he had information about my mother’s murder, though that might have been bluster. Either way, we had words. I think it’s fair to say I humiliated him.”

  “And—” TJ started to speak, then stopped.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose I’m spilling secrets to anyone who’s lived in this town the past twenty years,” she said, “but Jed used to beat Eulie when they were married.”

  “And he let her go? The usually don’t,” said Ethan.

  “Eulie’s family was pretty powerful in town. When it was minor stuff, they let it go. But the day he broke her arm, she moved back in with her folks. She let him pull the whole story about kicking her out because she wasn’t a good wife, but it was an open secret that she’d left him.”

  “So he’s a bully,” Jake put in. “And Lucy humiliated him, which bullies don’t take well.”

  “Plus, you said your mother had also humiliated him,” Ethan said slowly, turning the information over in his mind. “Him, Chuck, and Richie, right?” He deliberately left Eric’s name off the list. No need to antagonize or upset Scott any further.

  “I don’t know that’s what she did.”

  “Oh, believe me, she did. You’ve never been a teenage boy. I have a damned good idea what brought them to your house that night, and it wasn’t conversation. She sent them away, which would have completely pissed them off. And everything I’ve heard about Martin since I arrived tells me he was the ringleader. Quarterback, football scholarship, came back to town and was immediately accepted back into the fold. He wouldn’t have been accustomed to turndowns. Especially not from women he considered well below him.

  “The problem is, it’s all conjecture. Nothing solid enough to get search warrants, even if we knew exactly what we were looking for, which we don’t.”

  “So what can we do?” TJ asked.

  Ethan turned to Scott. “I’m sorry, buddy, but I’ve got take you off this case. No choice. If we’re going to get this guy, we can’t afford even the slightest hint of impropriety. If we go to court, they’ll try to use your relationship with Eric to shoehorn their way into getting any evidence we might pick up from searches you do thrown out.”

  “Dammit, I came to you. I told you about Eric’s lifestyle, his extra income. I deserve to be part of this.”

  “No question. But what you deserve isn’t the issue.” Christ, what to say to the man? If Ethan had a brother, he’d feel the same damned way. And what if Ethan alienated Scott too badly and he decided to spill the beans to Eric? After all, he clearly didn’t believe his brother capable of any serious criminal offense.

  “Scott,” Lucy said quietly, drawing all eyes, “Eric’s your brother. You’ve said you aren’t close. But if you expect, or even hope, to come out of this with any kind of relationship, you have to back off now. He’ll need you, and he won’t trust you if you’re part of the investigation.”

  Ethan’s heart wrenched. How could she say she didn’t deal well with emotions? She understood relationships better than anyone he’d ever met. He’d find a way to get her to accept him into her heart. He had to.

  Scott shoved his chair back and began to pace the room. “Yeah. Okay. But what does that mean for me? I should go give speeding tickets until the rest of you close the case?”

  “No,” said Jake. “I’d like you to help me, if your boss can spare you.”

  “And what are you going to be doing?” Scott asked sullenly.

  “Figuring out who killed Renee Josephs.”

  • • •

  JAKE ALWAYS DID like to make a splash, Lucy thought. And he’d drawn everyone’s attention, including her own, with his words.

  “That is, of course, if y’all want my assistance.”

  “Hell, yes,” said Ethan, and Lucy’s already soft heart melted a bit more. She’d spent half her life among cops. Most of them had no use for outsiders, even well-trained ones. They hated to share, refused to give up a single iota of their authority.

  “Do we need to make this official? Call in the feds and get you an assignment?”

  “No. I’m sort of on a leave of absence.” He waved away the vagueness of his situation. Really? Wasn’t a leave like a light switch, either on or off? She saw the same curiosity reflected in Ethan’s eyes. “My participation will be strictly off the record. But if you’ll leave me Scott and Lucy, I believe we can make headway.”

  Under the table, Ethan tightened his fingers around her own. He hadn’t let go of her hand, not from the second she’d touched him in reassurance. The feel of his rough skin had reminded her, in the first moment he’d grasped her fingers, of how those calluses had rasped against her body in bed. But then, when the flood of sexual sense-memory had dissipated, his hold had become something more. A promise. A warm, possessive security that simultaneously weakened and strengthened her.

  “All right, then. TJ, you and I will head over to the station and leave these guys here to work with Jake’s program.” A grin flashed across his face. “You might want to change.”

  “Oh, damn.” TJ blushed and hurried down the hall to don her uniform.

  Lucy, watching Jake, saw how his
eyes followed her. “Hey,” she said, reaching across the table to punch him lightly in the shoulder. “Watch yourself.”

  “No problem.” He winked. “Warning received.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Still, when TJ and Ethan left, Lucy noticed that Jake kept an eye on her until the door closed behind them.

  • • •

  AT THE STATION, Bob O’Reilly waited in Ethan’s office.

  “Marge said you’d be right back, or I’d have had her call you,” he said. “I need to talk to you about your John Doe. Then I am going home and sleeping for a week, and you’d better not find another effing body, because I won’t be available.”

  “I appreciate everything you’ve already done,” Ethan said.

  “Yeah, well, appreciate this: the full report’s on your desk, but I’ll give you the main point: your John Doe was dressed.”

  It took Ethan a moment to grasp his meaning. “Like a deer?”

  “Yeah. Gutted, had everything inside him pulled out, then had his skin taken off. After that, someone cut him up with a hacksaw.”

  “Jesus.”

  “You said it.”

  “So our guy is a hunter.”

  “In my opinion, yeah. And an experienced one. It’s harder to skin a human than a deer. Deer hide is thick and can be pulled. Humans have thinner skins; they’d have to be peeled. More like a vegetable.”

  The coffee Ethan had drunk at TJ’s roiled in his stomach and backed up into his throat. He swallowed. “Well, that’s a lovely image. I do appreciate the insight, though. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  O’Reilly grunted, then heaved himself out of the chair. Before he could leave, however, Ethan stopped him.

  “Bobby, what can you tell me about the woman found in the woods the same day they discovered Dobbs at the construction site?”

  “That’s the sheriff’s case.”

  “Yeah, it is. But it might relate to the Renee Josephs murder. If you tell me the two have nothing in common, I’ll let it go. I’m asking for your opinion: did the same person kill them?”

  O’Reilly glanced at TJ. Ethan caught her eye and jerked his head. Though she made no secret of her displeasure, she left the office.

  “So?”

  “Well, if the same guy did do Jane Doe and Renee, he’s been busy. The woman died before Renee, but only by a day or two. He cut her throat with a big knife, quite possibly a hunting knife, but that’s where the similarities end. In fact, she’s got far more in common with your John Doe from last night. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin—my guess is Mexican. And beaten severely. As was your guy. Even before he was cut up, he had broken bones.

  “But even then, your John Doe was delivered into your hands. This woman was buried. No one intended her to be discovered.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “Sheriff’s boys were doing a grid search. Ran across freshly packed earth ’bout a half mile into the woods by the construction site and figured they might find evidence, even a weapon. Found her instead.”

  “Damn.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “Thanks for your help, Bobby. Now, go home and get some rest. And send TJ in, if you don’t mind.”

  “Good luck, Donovan.” The older man waved on his way out, and TJ slipped back into the office. Ethan settled into his chair and gestured for her to take one of the other seats.

  “So we’re looking for a hunter,” he mused. “Eric Allenby hunts. Of course, so do three-quarters of the men in this town. But he was part of the scene at Lucy’s house a month before her mother’s murder.”

  “You didn’t mention that earlier.”

  “Scott didn’t need to hear it. I doubt Eric had anything to do with Cecile’s murder, anyway. He’d still have been a kid. Everything in that case points to a single assailant, and I doubt he could have taken her down on his own.”

  “But Jed could have. And he and Eric are thick as thieves.” TJ grimaced at the expression she’d used. “I think I told you when you first asked me about Eric that he and Jed double date on occasion. And then there’s the way Jed treated Eulie. He and Eric also hunt together.”

  “Indeed. But we can’t go after Jed directly. His business is in Palestine, for one thing. Outside our jurisdiction, so we can’t put a cop outside the place to follow him when he leaves the way we could if he lived here. Plus, we don’t have evidence tying him to anything. Gut feelings and hunches won’t earn us a warrant.”

  “What next, then?”

  “Let me make a call.”

  As he picked up the phone, Ethan mentally crossed his fingers that Toby Brown wouldn’t blow off his request. He could. Hell, he probably should. Dobbs Hollow was far from Toby’s jurisdiction. But with any luck, his devotion to the law and his love of a test would bring him anyway. If, of course, he and his partner, Beau, had time off.

  “A feed factory? You want to check out a feed factory?” Toby’s incredulous tone when Ethan explained his plan had his heart sinking. “You really do like a challenge, don’t you?”

  “You told me Beau could sniff out drugs no matter what surrounded them.”

  “I did. And he can. All right, you’re on. I’ve got today and tomorrow off. How long’s the drive?”

  “’Bout three hours. The plant operates eight to eight, six days a week. The guy I’m interested in is night security. His shift starts at four. There’s another I’d like to see us nosing around, too, a manager who’ll get in at eight. So I figured if I could get you down here tonight, we’d go in at six in the morning. Let the security guard get comfortable before we invade his space, and be waiting for the manager when he shows up for work.”

  “You’re sure you can get permission for us to come in?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. One thing I’ve learned living here, no one likes scandal. I’ll threaten a court order and state involvement and the owner will fall all over himself to be sure word doesn’t leak.”

  “Sounds like a plan. E-mail me your address. We’ll be there in time for dinner.”

  “Thanks, Toby. I appreciate it. I’ll buy you both steaks.”

  Toby laughed. “Sounds like a plan. Don’t forget Beau likes his raw.”

  “A drug dog?” TJ asked when he hung up.

  “The best we had in Houston. Now, we just need to convince Sam Farmer that allowing us to search Farmer’s Feed without a warrant is in his best interest. Both Chuck Hemming and Eric Allenby work for Farmer’s. Having us come through there with the dog should provoke a reaction, even if we don’t find the drugs. But I’m betting we do. Scott searched his brother’s place, and they wouldn’t leave them in the woods, no matter how secure Eric feels there. He’d worry having them that far out of his sight. But the factory’s a perfect spot.”

  “Is that legal?” TJ asked.

  “We can search with the owner’s permission. That’s perfectly legal. Whether we could actually make a case against Eric with the evidence we gather—especially since the ties to him might be weak, depending on where the meth actually is—is another story. But we’re not trying to build a drug case that will stand up at trial, we’re trying to get leverage and make the guy nervous. If he’s a killer, it may not work. If he just has information on the murders, it very well may.”

  TJ nodded slowly, digesting his words. She’d be a fine detective one of these days if she ever got out of this godforsaken town.

  “Let me e-mail Toby, and then we’ll head out to Farmer’s house and explain the situation.”

  • • •

  ONCE ETHAN AND TJ had gone, Jake asked Lucy to pull out her computer so they could see what, if anything, the program had come up with for a pattern. Scott’s cell rang, and he stepped outside to take the call. The minute he did, Jake leaned across the table and put a hand on Lucy’s, drawing her attention. />
  “Your friend Donovan seems like a nice guy,” he said, his eyes scrutinizing her in a way that made her want to squirm.

  “So I have your permission to date him, Dad?”

  He refused to be teased. “I haven’t had a chance to run him.”

  “Jake! He’s a cop, for crying out loud.”

  “You and I both know that doesn’t mean anything. But if you insist, I’ll skip the background.”

  “I insist. He’s a good man, Jake.” She couldn’t pinpoint the source of her certainty, but she accepted it nonetheless. Ethan Donovan was a good man and, at least for the moment, he was hers.

  “He’s a good cop, I’ll grant you that. They’re not always the same thing.”

  Lucy knew Jake’s mind had returned to his sister’s overdose, a death he felt he could have prevented by leaving his job. She covered his hand where it lay on hers, wishing she could offer any advice, any words of healing. But there was nothing.

  Scott returned, breaking the moment.

  “No news,” he explained. “Ethan just wanted to ask me to do the notification. He thinks it will come better from a local, though I don’t think there are any Macks left around here.” He grimaced and returned his attention to Jake. “So, what do we do?”

  “Take your mother out of the equation,” Jake instructed Lucy. “Have I showed you how to do that, to eliminate one case in a series?

  “Yes. But why? How can you be certain her murder isn’t connected?”

  “I can’t. It may turn out we have to add that information back into the matrix. But for a minute, I want to focus on Renee. Your mother’s murder seems to me to have been intensely personal as well as very disorganized. Renee’s is neither.”

  “Cecile’s murder could have been his first.” Jake was the expert, and she knew she shouldn’t argue with him, but to put aside her mother’s murder, even for a moment, grated on her.

  “It could have. But if so, this guy killed for a long time without anyone noticing women disappearing. The statistical anomalies didn’t begin until a few years ago. It’s not enough to rule out a connection, but it’s enough to make me wary of relying on one.”