Broken Places

by Sandra Parshall

  Tom didn’t have a chance to open his mouth before a woman called out, “Why won’t you tell us more details about what happened to Cam and Meredith and their next door neighbor? How are we supposed to protect ourselves if we don’t know what we’re dealing with?”

  Tom cleared his throat. “We don’t have any reason to think the general public is in danger. We believe the motive in these murders was personal. We’re following several leads, and we hope—”

  “Was Meredith raped?” An elderly man had risen from his seat in the third row to ask the question. “I heard she was raped and tortured and mutilated. Is that true?”

  Good grief, Rachel thought. Why did people need to embroider an already horrific murder with sensational fantasies? She had to admire Tom for staying cool in the face of such stupidity.

  He gripped the sides of the podium and answered in a calm voice. “We have no reason to think a sexual assault took place. I can’t comment on Mrs. Taylor’s injuries or the cause of death until we get the autopsy report.”

  The man next to Lindsay in the front row stood next. Although Rachel could only see his back, she recognized Beck Rasey, who had recently brought his four hunting dogs to the free rabies clinic she’d conducted in this area. Tall, with reddish brown hair and a florid complexion, he looked like a typical former athlete losing the battle with flab. Rachel remembered him because he’d lost his temper when she told him all his dogs badly needed to have their teeth cleaned. In so many words, he’d declared that Rachel was trying to scam him out of a big chunk of money.

  Rasey told Tom, “I think you ought to be honest with the citizens of this county and just admit you’re running around in circles. You’re not any closer to making an arrest than the day the Taylors died.”

  “Beck—” Tom started.

  “You know who did it. Why don’t you lock him up?”

  “Beck,” Tom said, his tone sharper now, “if we had enough evidence to arrest anybody, we would have done it already. We’re looking at every possibility. We—”

  “You’ve got an eyewitness,” Rasey said. Shouts of agreement rose from the crowd. “What’s the matter? Can’t you make your girlfriend tell you the truth?”

  To a chorus of hoots and laughter, Rasey turned and pointed at Rachel.

  She felt her face go hot, and then she was on her feet. “I have told the truth. I wish I knew more, but I don’t. I did not see the killer. I don’t know any more than I’ve already told the Sheriff’s Department. I want this person caught as much as you do.”

  She sat down, knowing Tom’s eyes were on her, refusing to look back at him. Her gaze settled on Lindsay, who had shifted in her seat and was watching Rachel with an innocent expression on her face. Rachel felt like slapping her and was grateful for the distance between them.

  “We’re satisfied that Dr. Goddard has told us everything she knows,” Tom said from the stage. “She didn’t see anything that would help us identify the killer. Beck, if you’ll sit down and listen, I’ll finish filling all of you in about the investigation.”

  Rasey stayed on his feet. “We all know the celebrity living in our county is a friend of hers,” he said, spitting out celebrity as if it were a bad taste.

  Rachel wondered if Lindsay had written this guy’s script.

  “Beck, will you sit down and listen to me?” Tom said.

  Ignoring Tom, Rasey swept the crowd with his gaze. “Did y’all know that artist, the Cuban guy that got rich drawing cartoons, he likes to paint pictures of young girls without any clothes on? God knows what else he does with them.”

  Rachel heard gasps all around her. For a moment she was stunned, then she told herself Rasey was inventing things, throwing out any wild thought that popped into his head.

  Tom hustled down the steps from the stage. The sheriff replaced him at the microphone and tried to make himself heard, but Rasey was on a roll and couldn’t be drowned out.

  “That’s the real reason he had to leave New York City.” Rasey shouted. “He got caught with a girl, her daddy caught them and tried to protect his daughter, and that so-called artist beat the girl’s father so bad the man landed in the hospital.”

  Tom grabbed his arm, but Rasey shook him off and stepped away. The deputies along the walls moved forward.

  “Cam and Meredith found out the whole story,” Rasey went on. “They got worried he was gonna do the same thing to our girls here in Mason County. And look what happened.”

  “No, no,” Rachel muttered. Her heart thudding, she pushed herself to her feet again. “That’s not true. It’s a lie.”

  When she saw the ugly curl of Rasey’s mouth she knew she’d invited disaster.

  “Don’t you call me a liar,” he said. “You think I don’t know about you? You let your own mother die right in front of you. You’ve got medical training, but you stood by and let your mother bleed to death—then you called 911.”

  The words hit Rachel like a punch to the chest. She gasped for breath, and the buzz of voices filled her head and overwhelmed her. She stumbled past knees and feet toward the aisle. She had to get out of here. As she ran up the aisle to the door, she thought she heard Tom calling her name, but the only clear voice was the sheriff’s booming over the sound system. “This meeting is over. Deputies, clear the room.”

  Rachel leaned on the panic bar and shoved the door open, then she was outside in the muggy night air.

  ***

  Tom elbowed through the crowd and out the door. Rachel stood in the parking lot in the eerie yellow glow of the mercury vapor lights, surrounded by half a dozen teenage boys. Tom recognized most of the boys, all of them troublemakers, and the worst of the bunch was Beck Rasey’s son Pete, a bulked-up high school football player.

  Pete advanced on Rachel, but she stood her ground. He lowered his face to hers.

  Rage propelled Tom forward. He shoved a couple of boys out of his way, grabbed Pete’s arms and jerked them backward. The boy yelped in surprise. Pinning Pete’s arms behind him, Tom spun him around, marched him six feet to the nearest car and slammed him face down across the hood.

  Pete struggled futilely and shouted, “Get your hands off me, you fucking asshole!”

  Tom pulled the boy’s arms higher, making him yowl with pain. “What did you call me? Say that again, you little punk, and you’ll spend the next month in a cell.”

  “Like hell he will,” Beck Rasey shouted. He jogged toward them. “Take your hands off my son.”

  “Back off,” Tom warned.

  “You gonna make me, hotshot?” He kept coming. Pete’s friends, emboldened, closed ranks with Rasey.

  Tom planted a hand between Pete’s shoulders, leaned on it to keep the boy where he was, and drew his pistol with his free hand. He leveled the gun at the father. He heard squeals and cursing and realized a crowd had gathered. “You’re interfering with an officer of the law. Back off.”

  Reporters and cameramen edged closer, but Tom was too damned mad to care.

  Rasey took a couple more daring steps before he stopped. The boys pulled up short behind him. He glared at Tom, his face working with fury and hatred. “You better keep that gun with you every minute from now on, deputy. You’re gonna need it.”

  At that moment, Sheriff Willingham arrived on the scene with Brandon, the Blackwood twins, and three more deputies. “Beck,” Willingham said, “did I hear you threaten my chief deputy?”

  Tom holstered his gun. He yanked Pete upright. The boy tried to squirm free, but Tom had an iron grip on his arm. “Beck seems to think it’s okay if this punk he raised goes around picking on innocent women.”

  “Innocent?” Pete sneered. “She’s helping a murderer—”

  “Shut up!” Willingham ordered, shaking a finger in Pete’s face. “God in heaven. If you were my son I’d be ashamed to claim you.” He rounded on Beck Rasey. “What you did in there was a pure disgrace. Now you take your boy home and see if both of you can learn how to act like
civilized human beings. You stay away from Dr. Goddard and you stay away from Ben Hern. If I hear about either one of you bothering anybody ever again, you’re going to be in real trouble.”

  Tom shoved Pete toward his father. “Get out of here, both of you.”

  As Rasey and his son stalked off, the crowd scattered to their cars and trucks. The reporters advanced on Tom.

  “Stay away from me,” he said, holding up a hand to stop them. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.” All he cared about was Rachel. Where had she disappeared to?

  He found her leaning against her vehicle, her face in her hands. He touched her shoulder. “Come on, let me take you home. Brandon can follow us in your car.”

  Rachel pulled away from him. “No, thank you,” she said in a stiff voice. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “Like you have been so far?” Tom said, the words falling out of his mouth before he had time to consider their effect.

  Rachel looked at him as if he were a stranger who’d forced his loathsome attentions on her. “Lindsay’s been feeding these people lies about Ben,” she said, “and telling them they have to take things into their own hands. And filling them in about me while she’s at it.”

  For a second Tom’s mind refused to focus on that last piece of information, and instead grabbed hold of what she’d said about Hern. He had to make Rachel see the truth. “They’re not lies. It’s true, what happened in New York. I got the story straight from a cop who was there. Hern can’t deny it.”

  Rachel wasn’t listening. “I don’t think you give a damn what Lindsay does. I’m sick of her. I’m sick of both of you. I wish I’d never set foot in this godforsaken place.” She wrenched open the door of her vehicle and climbed in.

  “Rachel, damn it, will you just calm down and listen to me?”

  Still holding the door open, Rachel said, “Why don’t you ask your nephew about Lindsay? Haven’t you ever wondered why he can’t stand being around her?”

  Tom opened his mouth to speak, but Rachel slammed the door in his face.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Was that Tom following her in a police car or another deputy he’d assigned to play guardian? On this dark road, Rachel couldn’t tell who was behind the wheel. As long as he didn’t try to stop her, she would ignore him and go about her business—which didn’t include going straight home.

  She couldn’t let this night pass without talking to Ben. She was willing to allow him his secrets, but if he’d hidden something as scandalous as a relationship with an underage girl from her while she was going around defending him, he owed her an explanation and she was damned well going to get one.

  The Sheriff’s Department cruiser stayed with her as she drove toward Ben’s property, then up his long driveway.

  “Oh, great,” Rachel muttered when she pulled into the parking area in front of the house. Angie Hogencamp’s green VW beetle sat behind Ben’s Jaguar in the bright arc of the security lights. Rachel didn’t want anybody else around when she confronted Ben.

  On second thought, maybe it wasn’t a bad idea for Angie to hear this. She had a right to know the truth about the man she worked for.

  When Rachel stepped out of her vehicle, the air felt electric, making her skin tingle, and the swaying trees warned of a coming storm. Thunder rumbled in the distance. She slammed her door and waited to see who was driving the cruiser that pulled in behind her vehicle.

  Brandon, not Tom. Okay, she could handle Brandon.

  When he opened his door, Rachel said, “Why don’t you go on to my house and keep Holly company? I might be here a while.”

  “The captain told me to stick with you all the way home. He’s really worried about those nut cases at the meeting. They might come after you.”

  “Right,” Rachel said. “I guess it would make the Sheriff’s Department look bad if anything happened to me.”

  “I don’t think that’s the only reason the captain’s worried,” Brandon said.

  Brandon’s reproachful look gave her a twinge of guilt. Rachel sighed. It wasn’t fair to put poor Brandon on the spot by venting her frustration with his boss. Starting up the steps, she said, “I hope you don’t mind waiting.”

  Ben opened the door just as she was about to press a thumb to the bell. “I saw you drive up,” he said. He frowned at Brandon. “Why do you have a cop with you?”

  Rachel marched past him into the foyer and waited until he’d closed the door. She assumed Angie was within earshot, although she didn’t see her in the living room off to the right. “I got blindsided at that meeting tonight. Somebody stood up and said you left New York because you were sleeping with an underage girl and her father found out. Is it true?”

  “Aw, shit,” Ben groaned. “Why did you go to that damned meeting?”

  “Answer my question, please. Is it true? Is that what Cam Taylor was really trying to blackmail you with?”

  “I’m sorry you got caught up in this. I should have told you, but I was ashamed of the whole business, and I wasn’t sure you’d understand—” He broke off and shook his head.

  “You didn’t think I’d understand if you told me you were sleeping with a minor? Well, yeah, I guess you were right. I do have a little trouble understanding that.”

  “Come on, Rachel, don’t you even want to hear my side of—”

  “It’s not true!” Angie exclaimed, striding up the hall from the back of the house. “You’ll never make me believe something like that.” When she reached them, she turned a pleading look on Ben. “It isn’t true, is it? It’s just some wild story Cam Taylor made up?”

  Both women waited for Ben’s answer. Hands on his hips, he stared at the floor. Deny it, please deny it, Rachel begged silently. Convince me it’s not true.

  Gesturing toward the living room, Ben said, “Let’s sit down and I’ll tell you both what really happened.”

  ***

  Tom sped along the mountain roads, reminding himself every few minutes to slow down before he lost control and wrapped the cruiser around a tree. He heard the growl of thunder coming closer, and he looked up to see streaks of lightning against tumbled dark clouds. Since the night his parents, brother, and sister-in-law had died in a crash during a thunderstorm, Tom had tried to avoid being on the road when a storm broke, but unless he turned toward home right now, he was going to get caught this time.

  He kept going. He had to inform Ben Hern that his mother’s car had turned up. So far the department had kept a lid on the news, but it would leak before long. Hern should hear it from Tom first.

  After seeing Hern, he had to track down Lindsay and get it through that thick head of hers that he wasn’t going to put up with her scheming. What in god’s name did she think she was doing when she got that mob together and turned them on Rachel? And on him and the Sheriff’s Department into the bargain. Didn’t she see how explosive, how dangerous, a situation she had created with her meddling?

  Tom had gone looking for Lindsay after Rachel left the school where the meeting was held, but he couldn’t find her in the dispersing crowd. She knew him well enough to get out of his way, and she’d probably taken off while he was dealing with that gang of punks. He’d catch up with her later. And after Rachel had a chance to calm down, he’d see her and try to apologize, for whatever good it would do. He had a sick knot in the pit of his stomach when he thought of losing her. Despite his doubts and all his unanswered questions, he knew he loved her, and he couldn’t stand by and watch her walk out of his life.

  As he drove up Hern’s driveway, flashes of lightning illuminated the treetops. The storm would break any minute, and if he was lucky it would slacken off before he was on the road again. He expected to be here a while, dealing with an outburst of fury and recrimination from Hern.

  What he didn’t expect was Rachel’s car, sitting outside Hern’s house. What the hell was she doing here? Had she come running right over here to give Hern a report about the meeting?
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br />   A department cruiser sat behind Rachel’s vehicle, and Brandon leaned against the cruiser’s fender. He spoke as soon as Tom got out. “You told me to stick with her all the way home. I couldn’t stop her from taking a detour.”

  Tom slammed his car door. Angie Hogencamp’s VW beetle was here too. One more person to give Hern backup against Tom. “Wait for her. I don’t want her driving without protection.”

  A gust of wind thrashed the trees, tearing loose a flurry of pine needles that swirled down around Tom and Brandon. Lightning threw a stark blaze across towering clouds, then the sky went black again. Tom’s skin suddenly felt damp, and the hairs on his arms stood up. “Come inside with me,” he told Brandon. “I don’t want you sitting out here with all this lightning around.”

  Hern answered the door and groaned aloud when he saw Tom. “Have you come to arrest me, or just haul me in for more interrogation?”

  “I need to talk to you,” Tom said.

  “Can’t it wait until morning?”

  “No.” Tom edged past him, brushing Hern’s shoulder, and Brandon followed. “This can’t wait. You need to hear it now.”

  For a minute Hern stood gripping the door handle as if debating whether to shut the door and accept their presence or keep trying to get rid of them. A blast of wind found the opening and flung pine needles over the foyer’s parquet floor. Hern closed the door. “All right,” he said. “What’s so damned urgent?”

  Without an invitation, Tom strode into the living room with Brandon behind him. Rachel sat on one end of the sofa, Angie on the other. Angie folded her arms and pinned hostile eyes on Tom. Rachel studied her fingernails.

  “I hope you won’t mind if I don’t ask you to sit down and stay awhile,” Hern said.