“For now,” Tom said, “I don’t want either of you to tell anybody what you saw or heard. You didn’t hear the shots, you didn’t see the body. Tell everybody you were driving along, you saw Taylor’s car abandoned on the road but you didn’t see him anywhere. You waited to see if he’d show up, and when he didn’t, you called 911. Okay?”
Rachel nodded agreement, but Holly asked, “Why do you want us to lie?”
Tom didn’t enjoy scaring the girl, but she had to understand the importance of protecting herself. “The killer is still out there, and we don’t know who he is.”
“Right,” Brandon put in, and Tom allowed him to play the voice of authority for his girlfriend. “See, if the killer finds out you were here when the shots were fired, he might think you saw him. He’d be afraid you could identify him.”
“Oh,” Holly said, her voice falling to a whisper.
“I’ll have to let Joanna know that Cam Taylor’s dead,” Rachel said. “She’s been friends with the Taylors a long time.”
“Watch what you say,” Tom told her, “and ask her not to talk to Meredith Taylor until I’ve had a chance to get out there.” He wanted to be the first to see the new widow’s reaction to the news.
Brandon gave Holly a quick kiss before the girl climbed into Rachel’s vehicle. Tom opened Rachel’s door, but he caught her hand before she got in. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t want you to talk to Hern about anything that happened today.”
Rachel pulled her hand from his. “You can’t possibly think Ben killed him.”
“I didn’t say I did. You’re both witnesses to Taylor’s behavior and movements before he was killed, and I can’t have you discussing what happened and distorting each other’s memories. Promise me you won’t talk to Hern until I give the all-clear.”
She sighed and nodded. “I understand.”
A few minutes after they left, Gretchen Lauter arrived in her silver Prius, followed by a hearse from a local funeral home. When she finished with the body, deputies would bag it and load it in the hearse for transport to the state medical examiner’s morgue in Roanoke, where the autopsy would be performed.
Gretchen struggled out of her little car, a wince betraying pain in her knees, and banged her head on the door frame. “Crap,” she muttered, her fingers feeling through salt-and-pepper curls for the sore spot.
Tom knew better than to say anything, but he had a feeling Gretchen’s arthritis made her regret giving up her boat-sized gas guzzler. He busied himself with collecting a body bag from the teenage boy driving the hearse.
“All right,” Gretchen said, straightening the hem of her short-sleeved jacket, “where is the poor bastard?”
Tom filled her in as they trekked through the woods. “Two shots to the chest at close range. Right through the heart, looks like. We know the time of death—11:15. But we’re keeping that quiet for now.” He explained his concern for Rachel and Holly’s safety.
When Tom and Gretchen reached Taylor’s body, Dennis was flapping his hands in a vain attempt to beat off the buzzing flies.
“Don’t waste your energy,” Gretchen told him, pulling on latex gloves. “They’ll get at him no matter what we do.”
She looked down at the dead man for a long moment, and Tom sensed she was making a mental adjustment, reclassifying Cam Taylor from decades-long acquaintance to murder victim. Then she stooped and began a brisk examination, leaning in to study the chest wounds, lifting Taylor’s eyelids, prying open his mouth. Tom stood back to distance himself from the urine and feces stench that rose off the corpse like a miasma, intensified by the heat.
“Let’s turn him,” Gretchen told Tom. Which meant you turn him.
Tom rolled the body face-down. “No exit wound.”
“The slugs might be lodged in his heart,” Gretchen said. “Did you find the casings?”
“No. The shooter cleaned up after himself.”
Gretchen stood, grimacing and clutching one knee for a second. “Has Meredith been notified?”
Tom shook his head. “I’ll drive out there and tell her.”
“I suppose you have to consider her a suspect.”
“The spouse is always a suspect.”
“Well, I can’t believe she had anything to do with this. Are you going to call Lindsay?”
Gretchen’s gaze searched Tom’s face with a curiosity that made him avert his eyes. “I’ll let her mother tell her,” he said.
Why hadn’t it occurred to him before now that Cam’s death would bring the Taylors’ daughter back home? Lindsay would stay with her mother through the funeral, at least. Tom hadn’t seen Lindsay since the Christmas holidays, and their chance meeting on Main Street in Mountainview had been awkward for both of them. But now her father’s murder would be her only concern. Lindsay wouldn’t have the time or inclination to think about Tom and their failed romance.
“Hey, boss,” Brandon yelled from the road. “Here comes our man.”
Tom jogged through the woods as fast as the undergrowth allowed. When he reached the road, Brandon had already stopped Ben Hern in his black Jaguar. Tom took a minute to wipe sweat from his face with his handkerchief before he approached.
Hern had powered down his window and was craning his neck to see up ahead. “What’s going on?” he asked Tom.
“You don’t know?”
“Know what? Is that Cam Taylor’s car? Has there been an accident?”
“Step out of your vehicle, please.” Tom rested one hand on the butt of his pistol.
“What? What’s happening here?”
“Step out of the vehicle, please. Now.”
“Why?”
Tom didn’t answer, but met Hern’s exasperation with a calm stare.
Finally Hern sighed heavily and cut his engine. Under his breath, he uttered something in Spanish that didn’t sound complimentary.
The big man unfolded himself from the low-slung Jaguar with a fluid grace that made Tom think of a powerful cat rising to its feet. Tom couldn’t even imagine himself in a car like this, and he’d probably be as awkward getting out of it as Gretchen had been when she’d exited her Prius. But in his early thirties, Tom wouldn’t have arthritis to blame.
Hern slammed his door shut. “Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
“Cameron Taylor’s body is lying in the woods over there. As far as I can tell right now, you were the last person to see him.”
“His body?” Hern’s bewildered glance flicked from Taylor’s car to the trees. “Are you saying he’s dead?”
His confusion seemed genuine enough, Tom thought, but he’d had plenty of time to rehearse what he would say and do when confronted with Taylor’s death. Watching Hern’s face, Tom said, “He was murdered.”
Hern’s mouth fell open, and for a few seconds he said nothing. Then he scrubbed a hand across his face and said, “How? Who—”
“Rachel found his car sitting empty on the road and called 911.”
Hern winced. “Ay, Dios mio. Where is Rachel? Is she upset?”
“Turn around and lean your hands on the vehicle,” Tom said.
“Excuse me?”
“I said turn around.”
Hern looked so incredulous that Tom expected him to balk. That wouldn’t be a problem, with Brandon standing by to help ensure cooperation, but in the end Hern threw up his hands and faced the car. “Go ahead, have your fun, if you think it’s necessary.”
Tom patted him down, feeling nothing but hard muscle under his black jeans and black tee shirt. The guy was in fantastic shape, probably worked out an hour or two a day. Tom had more than a little trouble seeing him as an artist who made his living—an enviable living—by drawing cartoons about his cat and dog.
Finding no weapon, Tom stepped back. “Where have you been since you left your house?”
“I went for a drive,” Hern said with exaggerated patience.
“Did you stop anywhere, talk to
anybody?”
“Not a soul.”
“Did you see any other vehicles on the road, even from a distance?”
“No.”
“Do I have your permission to search your car?”
Again Hern seemed dumbfounded, staring at Tom for a moment without speaking. When he found his voice, he said, “You think I had something to do with this, don’t you? You’re looking for a murder weapon?”
“I’m just gathering information at this point.”
“Well, gather away, Captain.” Hern waved a hand at the Jaguar. “You won’t find anything.”
“Thank you.” Tom motioned for Brandon to join them. To Hern’s annoyance, he asked Hern to state in Brandon’s presence that they had permission for the search.
They did a thorough job, taking ten minutes, but they found nothing. Tom wasn’t surprised. He didn’t believe Hern was stupid enough to come back with the gun still in his possession. If he’d killed Taylor.
Hern had stood aside during the search, his arms crossed, hostility stewing in his face. “Satisfied?” he said when they slammed the doors closed.
Hern was an arrogant son of a bitch, Tom thought, the kind of person Rachel wouldn’t waste time on. Why did she count him as a friend? But then, Tom doubted Hern behaved this way around her. “I understand you had an argument with Taylor this morning,” Tom said.
“Who told you that?”
“Is it true?”
“Yes, all right, we had an argument, which he provoked.”
“You’ve only lived in Mason County for three months. How did you develop such a bad relationship with him so fast?”
“We didn’t have a relationship. He wanted money to save his newspaper.”
“Why did he come to you? What made him think you might help him?”
Hern’s gaze slid away from Tom’s, and he took a moment to answer. “He seemed to believe we had a connection because he knew my mother when they were young, but he didn’t mean anything to me and I wasn’t going to give him money to throw away.”
Hern’s hesitation before replying made Tom suspect he was holding something back. “Taylor and his wife were friends of your mother from way back, weren’t they? When they were all here working in the poverty program?”
Hern seemed startled that Tom knew this. “I wouldn’t say they were friends. My mother was a VISTA volunteer the same time they were, in the late sixties. They all came to Mason County together, but my mother had the good sense to leave when her year was up. They didn’t stay in touch.”
“Your mother’s visiting you now, isn’t she?”
“She was. She left this morning.”
“Before or after Taylor showed up at your house?”
“What does that mean? You think my mother had something to do with this?”
“Just wondering if she knows anything that might be helpful,” Tom said. “Did Taylor ask her for money too?”
“Yeah, he did, as a matter of fact, earlier in the week. But he didn’t see her today. She was on her way back to D.C. by the time he showed up.”
Tom pulled a notebook and pen from his breast pocket. “Would you give me her home and business addresses and phone numbers, please?”
“Aw, come on. You can’t be serious.”
Tom poised the pen above the paper. “And her cell phone number, so I can reach her on the road.”
Hands on hips, arms akimbo, Hern shook his head as if trying to cope with a barely tolerable irritation. At last he rattled off the information Tom wanted. His mother, Karen Richardson Hernandez, was an immigration and civil liberties attorney with an office and an apartment in Washington.
“What kind of car is she driving?” Tom asked.
“Why do you need to know that?”
“What kind of car?” Tom repeated.
Hern muttered something, scrubbed a hand over his mouth and chin, and answered, “A Jaguar, an older one, like mine. But hers is dark blue. Don’t ask me what the plate number is, because I couldn’t tell you. I have trouble remembering my own.”
Tom wrote down everything and stuck the notebook back in his pocket. “I have a lot more questions, so you’ll have to come by the Sheriff’s Department this afternoon.”
Hern’s eyes narrowed. “You know, Captain, I don’t think so. I’m not going to answer any more questions until I have a lawyer with me.”
He turned away without waiting for a response and opened his car door.
“That’s your right,” Tom said, “but you’re making a mistake.”
Hern shook his head. “No, I’m not.”
Tom was watching him drive away when Gretchen Lauter emerged from the woods, followed by Dennis and a second deputy carrying Taylor between them in the body bag.
Tom had finished here and would leave without a single scrap of physical evidence. All he had to go on were Rachel’s story of the argument between Hern and Taylor and Hern’s lack of an alibi. Until the M.E. in Roanoke cut the slugs out of Taylor’s body, Tom wouldn’t even know for sure what kind of gun killed him.
He would question Hern again later, but next he had to talk to Taylor’s wife and try to figure out whether she was an innocent grieving widow or a prime suspect.
Chapter Three
Rachel drove up the farm road, past fields where American saddlebred horses of every color grazed in the shade of pecan and oak trees. She hated bringing news of a murder to this peaceful setting, dreaded interrupting Joanna’s pleasant routine to tell her that her long-time friend lay dead in the woods a few miles away.
She spotted Joanna in a paddock next to the stable, holding a young chestnut mare’s reins while one of the trainers hefted a saddle onto the horse’s back. Joanna’s golden retriever, Nan, sat outside the rail fence, surrounded by a gaggle of geese that included Penny, the gray goose Holly had brought to the farm as a pet and allowed to join the flock. Nan jumped up and wagged her tail when she saw Rachel and Holly.
Rachel braked and powered down the passenger window.
“Hey, girls,” Joanna called. Shading her eyes with one hand, she walked over to the fence. She’d pulled her strawberry blond hair back in a ponytail, which might have looked silly on any other woman in her fifties but suited Joanna’s youthful face and figure. “What are you doing home so early? Playing hooky?”
“I need to talk to you,” Rachel said. “It’s important. Could you come over to the house with us?”
Joanna frowned, but she didn’t ask any questions. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
Rachel drove on to the cottage at the end of the farm road, a few hundred feet beyond the stable, where she and Holly lived. Holly, who had been silent since they’d left the murder scene, opened the passenger door but spoke before she got out. “I don’t want to talk about what happened. Is it okay if I just go on up to my room?”
“Of course. You don’t have to ask my permission. But remember, we have to go in later and give statements. We don’t have a choice about that.”
Holly screwed up her face as if she were about to burst into tears again. “I should’ve just told Mr. Taylor I’d give him the money. He was real good to Grandma and me when we had that flood a few years ago. He checked on us every single day, and he was ready to help us get out if we needed to. And now look how I treated him. If I’d promised him the money, then maybe he wouldn’t have been over there this morning and he’d still be alive.”
“Oh, Holly, you can’t blame yourself for—”
Holly jumped out and ran to the house.
As Joanna’s SUV pulled into the driveway, Rachel mounted the steps to the front porch to get out of the sun. She wished she could get the image of Cam Taylor’s dead body out of her head. She wished she could stop wondering how Ben would explain his absence to Tom.
Ben hadn’t killed Taylor. He wouldn’t do such a crazy thing. Yet Rachel couldn’t shake the fear that Tom would focus on Ben as a suspect.
Joanna let Na
n out and pointed toward an oak tree. “Stay there,” she ordered. The dog ambled over to the tree and dropped onto her belly in the shade. Joanna paused at the bottom of the steps and looked up at Rachel. “You’re scaring me, girl. What’s wrong?”
“Let’s go in.” Rachel still wasn’t sure how to break the news.
When they entered the house, her African gray parrot, Cicero, greeted them with a squawk. “Help, help!” Cicero cried. He swooped over to Joanna’s shoulder. “Save me! Save me!”
“Oh, sweetie,” Joanna crooned to the bird. “What have these mean girls been doing to you?”
“Letting him watch too much TV, that’s what,” Rachel said. She felt relieved by the distraction and immediately ashamed of her relief. “He picked that up from some cop show, and he’s been screaming it ever since. Cicero, go back.”
The parrot took wing again and returned to the top of his roomy cage, where he could look out a window at goldfinches on a feeder.
“Let’s sit,” Rachel said. They settled on the couch with her black and white, one-eared cat, Frank, between them. He yawned, stretched, and presented his head for a scratch from the visitor. Rachel thought of asking Joanna if she wanted something cold to drink, then chided herself for stalling. Come on, get it over with. “It’s about Cam Taylor—”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Joanna said. “Has he been after Holly again? I asked him to leave her alone.”
“He’s been murdered,” Rachel blurted, then winced at the rawness of the words.
“What?” Joanna’s hand paused on the cat’s head. “Cam? Murdered?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so abrupt.” Rachel launched into an explanation, using the version of events that Tom had approved.
As Rachel talked, Joanna sank back against the sofa cushion, a hand to her mouth. Tears pooled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Oh, sweet Jesus, how awful,” she murmured. “Poor Cam. Does Tom have any idea who did it?”
“I don’t see how he could at this stage.”
“Meredith is going to fall apart over this. I should go over there.” Joanna started to rise.
“No, no.” Rachel caught her arm. “She doesn’t know yet. Wait until Tom has a chance to tell her.”
Broken Places Page 3