Broken Places

by Sandra Parshall

  Tom pulled in a deep steadying breath. At the same moment, something on the floor to his right caught his eye. “Aw, Christ,” he groaned. The crumpled body of Lloyd Wilson lay wedged between couch and table. “God damn it all.”

  Wilson was face-down, one arm under his body, the other spread into a pool of blood beneath the table. Crouching, Tom felt the old man’s neck for a pulse, then looked up at Brandon and shook his head. Wilson hadn’t been dead long. The body had barely begun to cool, and the spilled blood still had the sheen of liquid.

  The dogs howled at the screen door. Tom rose and closed the main door. He tried his cell phone, couldn’t get a signal, and went to the kitchen to use Wilson’s telephone to summon Dr. Lauter and Dennis Murray.

  The dogs bayed nonstop from the porch. When he finished his call, Tom checked their bowls in a corner of the kitchen and found a smear of canned food in the bottom of each. He touched a finger to it. It felt fresh and moist.

  “The dogs were fed sometime in the last couple of hours,” Tom said. He grabbed a dish towel from a counter and wiped his finger clean. “Lloyd was shot after they finished eating. Damn it, I wish I’d gotten his statement down on paper two days ago, even if I had doubts about it. Now all we have are my notes on what he told me.”

  Tom retrieved his crime scene kit from the trunk of the cruiser, but he didn’t want to do anything inside the house until Gretchen Lauter had seen the body. He and Brandon settled on the steps to wait. The two dogs pushed against them, whining.

  “What are we going to do about his animals?” Brandon asked. He scratched and patted one of the dogs. “We can’t just leave them here.”

  “Lloyd’s sister lives down the road.” Tom gave his attention to the other dog. “I think they got them from her when they were puppies. She’ll probably be willing to take them. The chickens too.”

  “Somebody’s sure trying hard to get rid of all the witnesses,” Brandon said.

  “The fact that Lloyd saw the cars at the Taylor house Friday morning points us toward two people—three, actually, since we’re not sure whether he saw Hern’s car or his mother’s. I told Dennis to have somebody pick up Ben Hern and take him back to headquarters for questioning. After we get things underway here, you and I are going to take these dogs over to Lloyd’s sister and break the news to her. Then we’ll pick up Scotty Ragsdale and take him in for a talk.”

  “What about Hern’s mother?”

  “We’ll keep looking for her,” Tom said. “She’s either in this mess up to her eyeballs or she’s lying dead somewhere.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Under the merciless summer sun, Scotty Ragsdale was chopping firewood. Tom and Brandon rounded the side of the house and stood watching as Ragsdale raised an ax and brought it down on a thick circle of tree trunk. The wood didn’t split. The ax blade lodged deep inside it.

  “Goddammit, goddammit, goddammit,” Ragsdale muttered. He yanked on the ax handle, worked it back and forth. When it broke free, Ragsdale staggered backward. Sweat poured down his face, and his soaked tee shirt clung to his body as if he’d just climbed out of a pool. He wobbled on his feet when he approached the chunk of wood again.

  “Oh, man,” Brandon whispered. “He’s flying.”

  Removing his sunglasses and tucking them into the pocket of his uniform shirt, Tom answered quietly, “Yeah, he’s high on something. If it’s meth, he might do almost anything. Be careful. Don’t let him get anywhere near your gun.”

  What had driven Scotty back to drugs after he’d been clean for years? Grief for Meredith? Or guilt over killing her?

  Ragsdale heard their footsteps and spun around, eyes wide. His dilated pupils had reduced his irises to narrow rings of brown. “What’re you doing, sneaking up on me?” he demanded. “Huh? Spying on me.”

  Tom raised both hands, palms out. “We need you to come with us to headquarters so we can ask you a few questions. Just calm down—”

  “Calm down?” Ragsdale raised the ax to shoulder height and advanced on them. “You tell me to calm down, when—when—” He seemed to lose the train of thought. He shook his head hard as if to clear it. Finally he sputtered, “You calm down. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “All right,” Tom said, keeping his voice quiet and even. “We can talk here. Wouldn’t you like to go in the house and cool off, have something cold to drink?”

  “Cold. Yeah.” Ragsdale nodded. “Winter coming on. Gotta get my logs cut.” He turned back to the chopping block.

  “Scotty,” Tom said, “look at me. Listen to me. I need to ask you about Lloyd Wilson. Did you see Lloyd this morning?”

  Ragsdale whirled to face Tom, brandishing the ax. “Don’t you say that name to me. I don’t want to hear that name. You understand me?”

  “Take it easy, Scotty. We need to talk about this.”

  “Talk, talk, talk, that’s all it’s ever been.” Ragsdale’s eyes lost focus, as if he’d turned his attention to some inward vision. “I should’ve known it would never happen.”

  “What, Scotty?” Tom asked. “What wouldn’t happen?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “San Francisco? What do you mean?” Tom watched the ax come down, inch by inch, as if pulled by its own weight. Brandon had edged away and was slowly coming up behind Ragsdale. “What was going to happen in San Francisco?”

  “Nothing,” Ragsdale spat out, his face contorted with disgust. “I should’ve known. It was just a—a dream. Fantasy.”

  Brandon was close enough to grab Ragsdale if the man went for Tom with the ax.

  “Were you and Meredith planning to go to San Francisco together?” Tom asked. “Was that your dream?”

  Tears filled Ragsdale’s eyes and overflowed, mixing with sweat on his cheeks and dripping off his chin. “Dreams never come true. Not for losers like us.”

  “Scotty—”

  “I see you sneaking up on me!” Ragsdale spun around and swung the ax at Brandon. Brandon jumped back and the blade missed him by a couple of inches.

  Tom tackled Ragsdale from behind. He looped his own arms around Ragsdale’s elbows and jerked the man’s arms back hard, hoping pain would make him let go of the ax. It didn’t work. Ragsdale twisted left and right, trying to shake Tom off. Tom held on and rode with it. The ax swung from Ragsdale’s hand, back and forth, the cutting edge grazing Tom’s pants leg.

  With a roar of fury, Ragsdale bent over and bucked like a horse, trying to pitch Tom to the ground. He lost his balance and collapsed with Tom still on his back.

  Ragsdale pushed and squirmed under Tom’s weight. Holding him down with a knee in his back, Tom forced Ragsdale’s arms straight out to the sides in the dirt. One hand still gripped the ax.

  “You son of a bitch, get off me!” Ragsdale shouted.

  Panting, Tom ordered Brandon, “Grab the damned thing. I can’t hold him for long.”

  Brandon slammed his boot heel down on the hand that held the ax. Ragsdale screamed and released his grip. Brandon snatched the ax and flung it onto the back porch of the house, far out of reach.

  Robbed of his weapon, Ragsdale seemed to find fresh energy in rage. He pushed and rolled, and before Tom could regain control Ragsdale’s fist flew up and smashed into his face. Tom felt a shock of pain and blood spurted from his nose. “Damn it, Scotty,” he gasped, “now you’re making me mad.”

  Brandon caught one arm, Tom the other, and they pinned Ragsdale face down in the dirt again. Tom sat on his back, jerked his hands together and cuffed them. Blood poured unchecked from Tom’s nose onto Ragsdale’s hands and back, soaking into his shirt. “You’re under arrest,” Tom said, “for assaulting a police officer.”

  After Tom finished reading him his rights, they hauled him up. Before he was even steady on his own feet Ragsdale started kicking at their ankles and legs. His foot connected with Tom’s shin and Tom stumbled backward, his leg threatening to fold under him. He righted himself and he and Brandon pus
hed Ragsdale forward, around the house toward the cruiser out front.

  “I’ve got rights!” Ragsdale ranted. “You can’t do this!”

  Tom couldn’t breathe through his nose, and blood ran into his open mouth with every gulp of air. A pulsing pain made him want to shut his eyes against the sun. His damned nose was broken, he’d bet on it. Blood streaked and spotted the front of his brown uniform.

  “You okay?” Brandon asked as they approached the car.

  “Yeah,” Tom grunted. He spat blood into the dirt.

  “You need to—”

  Ragsdale swung his head sideways and butted Brandon’s chin. Brandon staggered and Ragsdale almost slipped free of his grip, but Tom still had a firm hold on Ragsdale’s other arm. After the surprise of the blow, Brandon recovered and the two of them maneuvered Ragsdale to the car.

  Even with his hands cuffed behind him, getting Ragsdale into the back seat felt like trying to cram an octopus into a bucket. He kicked, nipped at their hands, spat in their faces.

  “You’ll pay for this!” Ragsdale yelled when they finally shoved him in the car.

  “Aw, shut up,” Tom said, and slammed the door.

  Chapter Thirty

  A couple of hours later, Tom sat at his desk with an ice pack pressed to his nose. His left eye had turned a lurid blend of red and purple, but the ER doctor had stopped most of the bleeding from his nostrils. Tom had changed into a shirt and jeans he kept in his locker at headquarters, and the sheriff’s secretary had taken the soiled uniform down the block to the cleaners.

  Dennis Murray rapped on the open office door and walked in. Peering at Tom’s face, he said, “You sure you don’t need a splint on that nose?”

  “It’s cracked across the bridge, but it’s not displaced. The doctor said there’s no point in a splint. What have you got for me?”

  Dennis took a seat in front of the desk. “Lloyd Wilson’s body’s on its way to Roanoke. I didn’t find any casings at the scene. And this just came in.”

  Dennis handed Tom a fax. Lowering the ice pack, Tom read the autopsy report on Cameron Taylor. Two slugs removed from his heart muscle had been fired by a .22 pistol.

  “They took a slug out of Meredith’s brain,” Dennis said. “Both the Taylors were killed with the same gun. They’ll have Meredith’s complete autopsy report sometime tomorrow.”

  Tom dropped the stapled sheets on his desk and returned the ice pack to his aching nose. “I’ll be surprised if Lloyd wasn’t killed with the same gun.”

  “Right. By the way, while you were gone I checked on Mrs. Barker, made sure nobody’s bothered her. She went on quite a bit about the evil she senses floating around Mason County, but she’s not getting any vibrations, or whatever she gets, about the killer coming after her.”

  “Oh, well, that’s a load off my mind,” Tom said. “But I hope you reminded her to keep her doors locked at night.”

  “Yep. I also heard this morning that some people out in Rocky Branch District are calling a citizens’ meeting at the school for tomorrow night. A lot of those people have been involved with the Taylors since they came here with the poverty program, and Cam was a crusading hero to them.”

  “I guess they think we should have solved the murders by now,” Tom said. “Having a meeting won’t hurry things along.”

  “What I heard was that people are sure Ben Hern killed the Taylors, and we’re tiptoeing around him because he’s rich and famous.”

  “Aw, for god’s sake,” Tom said. “If I had one piece of solid evidence against him, he’d be locked up.”

  “The sheriff expects you to go to the meeting and calm everybody down.”

  “Great,” Tom said. “After everybody finds out there’s been another murder, they’ll be ready to lynch me.”

  Dennis grinned. “Hey, I’ll go along as your bodyguard if you want me to.” Turning serious again, he went on, “I checked on Dave Hogencamp’s whereabouts, and he’s been at work since around five this morning, according to his supervisor. Out of the county, in fact, moving some coal cars. His daughter’s the one without an alibi. She didn’t go to work at Hern’s place today, says her aunt had a doctor’s appointment and couldn’t stay with Mrs. Hogencamp, so Angie had to stay home.”

  “And her mother’s not much of a witness to back her up.”

  “What now?” Dennis asked. “Hern’s been waiting in the conference room for a while, and he’s getting pretty cranky. I had to talk him out of leaving.”

  “His lawyer still with him?”

  “No. She went back to New York because of another case. He said she’s coming back later in the week, though.”

  “I’ll talk to him now.” Tom dropped the ice pack on the desk and pushed to his feet, setting off an explosion of pain in his head. He stood still for a minute to let it die down a little before he walked to the conference room.

  Hern was on his feet, pacing. “It’s about time,” he burst out when Tom entered. “I’ve been stuck in this room for hours. I don’t have to put up with this. I’m trying to cooperate, but I can walk out anytime—” He broke off, taking in the sight of Tom’s face. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Walked into a door,” Tom said. “Sit down.”

  Hern yanked out a chair, dropped into it, and folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t suppose you have any news for me about my mother.”

  Tom took a seat across from him. “No. I gather you haven’t been in touch with her since I talked to you yesterday.”

  Hern’s mask of hostility slipped, revealing his underlying anxiety. He sat forward, fists clenched on the table. “I haven’t heard from her and I can’t find her. She’s not at home, and she didn’t go to her office today. My mother blowing off an important meeting—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t happen.”

  “Wherever she is,” Tom said, “she’s well hidden.”

  “She’s not hiding, damn it, she’s missing. I know something’s happened to her.” Hern scrubbed his hands over his face. “Aw, hell, what’s the point? At least you’re looking for her, and that’s all I care about.”

  “Are you sure she didn’t go to the Taylor house Friday morning?””

  “Yes, I’m sure. How many times do I have to say it? And I wasn’t there either. Your witness made a mistake.”

  “What have you been doing since I saw you yesterday?” Tom asked.

  “I went home. I ate dinner with my lawyer. I worked all evening. This morning I had breakfast with Jessie at seven. She left right afterward. She had to get back to New York because she’s due in court tomorrow and has to prepare. After she left, I worked until one of your men showed up and told me it was urgent that I come in to headquarters. I’ve been sitting here wasting time ever since.”

  “Did you see or talk to anybody between the time your lawyer left and the deputy arrived at your house?”

  “I talked to Angie on the phone around eight. Why are you asking me about this morning? Has something happened? Can’t you be straight with me for a change?”

  “There’s been another murder,” Tom said.

  Hern groaned. “Who?”

  “Lloyd Wilson, the Taylors’ closest neighbor.”

  “Captain, I wouldn’t have known the man if I’d passed him on the street. Why in god’s name would I kill him?”

  “He was the witness who saw a Jaguar at the Taylor house Friday,” Tom said. “So there’s no one who can verify your whereabouts this morning?”

  Hern swore and shook his head. Then he stood. “If you’re not arresting me, I’m leaving.”

  Tom didn’t try to stop him. “Keep yourself available. And let me know if you hear from your mother.”

  When he was gone, Tom considered his options.

  If Karen Hernandez was another victim, why had the killer hidden her body but not the others? And where was her car? It was a distinctive vehicle, not easy to hide, but by now it might be in a hundred pieces in some cho
p shop.

  He was getting nowhere.

  He stared down at his hands, fingers splayed on the tabletop. Rough from working around his sheep farm without gloves, they bore a few nicks suffered in a wrestling match with a barbed wire fence that a neighbor’s cows had knocked down. Had Rachel ever cringed inwardly at the touch of these country man’s hands? Ben Hern had an artist’s hands, strong but smooth, his fingers long like Tom’s but more refined. Elegant.

  The dull pain around his nose and eyes had intensified to a steady throb in the short time he’d been without the ice pack. Rising, he wished he could go back to his office, sit quietly for a while and let the cold numb his face. But he had another stop to make first.

  ***

  Tom walked through the passageway between Sheriff’s Department headquarters, nodded to the jailer at his desk, and entered the cell block. He found Sheriff Willingham standing outside Scotty Ragsdale’s cell with Ragsdale’s elderly parents. The prisoner sat on his bunk with his head in his hands. In place of his dirty jeans and bloodied tee shirt, he wore a standard blaze orange jumpsuit with MASON COUNTY JAIL INMATE stamped on the back in black letters.

  Irma Ragsdale, a little woman in a green smock she wore at the hardware store, turned on Tom the second she saw him. “What is our son locked up for? He hasn’t done a thing. He ought to be in a hospital, not a jail cell.”

  Tom glanced at the sheriff, who shrugged and spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

  “Scotty’s under arrest for assaulting two police officers,” Tom said. He thought it was probably obvious that he’d been one of them.

  “But you provoked him into it! Why were you bothering him in the first?”

  “Irma,” her husband said, “let’s just find out what we have to do. There’s no point in declaring war over this. He’s using meth again, anybody can see that.” Carl Ragsdale, an older version of his son in looks, tried to take his wife’s arm but she shook him off.