“Mr. Church,” came Wanda’s voice from behind her. “I’m sorry but I didn’t know you had an appointment with this lady.”
Perplexity creased Donald Church’s round face. “I didn’t schedule any appointments today, Ms….” His eyes opened wide as he recognized her.
When Andrew had just started working here, she’d come around a lot to meet him for lunch. She’d met Paul Lambert, Donald Church and the rest of the staff, though it was before Lindsey was hired.
“You’re Cara Hamilton, aren’t you?” Church asked.
Cara nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t call to set something up, Mr. Church, but I really need to speak with you. It’s about Nancy Wilks.” And the other murders, though she would lead him into that gently.
“Oh, yes.” He sounded sympathetic. “I heard you found poor Nancy, didn’t you?”
Cara nodded.
“I’m not sure how I can help, but come in. We’ll talk. Finding her must have been terrible. Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure.”
Church told Wanda to bring two cups and led Cara into his office. It was large, and as cluttered with boxes as the reception room. He took a carton off a chair facing the desk and motioned Cara to sit.
Donald Church wasn’t much taller than Cara, and he was rather plump. He looked older than his partner Paul Lambert had, though that might just have been because Lambert kept in better shape. Cara remembered Church as being a jovial sort, but his round face was sober now.
“Such a shame about Nancy,” he began. “The Sheriff’s Department has been here, and I’ve answered what questions I can, but there’s not much I could tell them.”
“Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill Nancy?” Cara asked.
He stared, eyes narrowing. “You’re not just here because you want sympathy about finding her, are you? Are you doing one of your vicious newspaper stories? Did you come here expecting me to point a finger at someone and accuse them of murder? Or, worse yet, to confess my own guilt?”
He definitely wasn’t the man she recalled, who’d had a good sense of humor and liked to crack jokes. Of course, nothing about Nancy’s death was a joking matter. Or Church’s partner’s murder of another person and subsequent suicide. Or the firm’s relationship to the murder committed by the mayor. All in just a matter of months.
“No, sir, I didn’t,” she said. “But you’re right about my working on an article about Nancy. She was my friend, and if I can help figure out who killed her, I will. But I want facts, not innuendoes. And I’m not accusing you or anyone else.”
He didn’t look mollified, but after Wanda had brought coffee and left again, he said, “Look, Cara. I understand your wanting to help find Nancy’s killer. I want justice for her, too. But I have no idea who did it. And right now, this firm is in shambles. I’m in shambles. I don’t know where to go from here.” There was a catch in his voice as he leaned over his desk, his hands holding the sides of his round, balding head. When he looked back at Cara he said, “Go ahead and ask questions. But don’t expect any helpful responses. And I’ll answer some even before you ask. No, I don’t know who killed Nancy. And no, though I’d been partners with Paul Lambert for years, friends with him for longer than that, I’d no idea what he was up to. Is there a connection between what he was doing and Nancy’s death? Or Andrew’s for that matter? Oh, I can see how the firm must look to everyone outside. And I must seem a fool or worse to be here and not know anything about it. But I don’t.”
DEAD ENDS. That was all Cara had achieved that day.
She sat back in her own desk chair at the Gazette and stared once more at the computer screen.
Oh, and suspicions, of course. She didn’t want to believe Donald Church knew more than he’d said, but could he have been that ignorant of Andrew’s discovery of the mayor’s conflict of interest in investing in Ranger Corporation? Could he not have known his own partner and friend Paul was capable of committing murder for his own benefit, and a client’s?
Ranger Corporation.
She spent the next hour online, following information she’d gleaned—as well as a hunch. “Her reporter’s nose was aglow with questions,” Shotgun Sally would have said. No stings from the “tattle bug,” though, or prickling with the “news itch.” And no wonder. Far from getting the dope for a really good story, when she was done hunting, she had even more questions.
Impulsively she lifted the phone receiver, glanced at her computer notes and punched in the phone number on her screen.
“Roger Rosales.”
“Hi, Roger.” Cara identified herself, though she figured by his silence that he’d recognized her voice. “I was checking through County Recorder files and saw that some property west of town recently changed hands. I don’t mean the West Ranch that Ranger Corporation bought from Andrew McGovern’s girlfriend a few months ago. And not the property Ranger tried to acquire from Bart’s uncle Jeb before he was murdered, or Bart’s land, either, of course, but land adjoining them. The new deeds I found weren’t in Ranger’s name.”
“So why are you calling, Ms. Hamilton?” He sounded as though he was speaking through tightly clenched teeth.
“I’m getting to that. The thing is, I didn’t recognize the names of the companies who own those properties now. They aren’t local, and I’ve checked state records, too, and found them confusing—limited liability companies with partnerships as their members, and limited partnerships as partners, that kind of thing. I hardly found the names of any people anywhere, and those I did ferret out appeared to be lawyers in the East somewhere, probably representing unnamed clients. So I figure I’d just come right out and ask—is Ranger Corporation affiliated in any way with Eastern Mustang Property Acquisition or Texas Mustang Valley Sites?”
“Sorry, Ms. Hamilton, but I have another call coming in.” And then he was gone. He hadn’t denied anything, but he hadn’t admitted anything, either.
That wouldn’t stop Cara from hunting for connections. In fact, she intended to ask for help. She had one heck of a resource whose own sources could undoubtedly cut through the crap and get to the heart of who owned what. And how Ranger was snugly involved in it all.
Except that her resource was one of her biggest problems. She would have to face him head-on. And the very idea of being face-to-face with this particular problem gave her warm jitters.
That big, six-foot, good-looking, ornery problem could be helpful, if he chose to. Just as easily, he could stand right in the way of her biggest story ever.
With a sigh and a smile, she grabbed her purse from the back of her chair and headed off to find Deputy Mitch Steele.
“YOU PROMISE you’ll be out of here soon?” The man facing Mitch on the Caddo Street sidewalk was nearly a foot shorter than him, but his unpleasant nature made him seem large enough to tempt Mitch to knock him down a few pegs.
The effort wasn’t worth increasing the sweat lightly beading on Mitch’s brow in the humid summer heat. “We’ll be gone when the forensics technicians say they’re done collecting evidence.”
His measured response did nothing to temper the anger on John Ayres’s wizened face. “Look, Deputy. I’m already going to lose a lot of money thanks to the crime committed on my property. I’ll have to scrub that apartment and repaint, and there’ll still be a stigma on it. The least you can do is make sure I can start working on it right away.”
The least you can do, Mitch thought, is have compassion for your murdered tenant. John Ayres owned the property where Nancy Wilks had rented the first-floor apartment. “I assure you we want to finish here and catch the suspect as soon as possible, Mr. Ayres.”
“Not good enough.” His jaw jutted farther, a tempting target.
Mitch’s knuckles itched. Despite how he’d carefully schooled himself in patience, he wasn’t sure how long he could keep his cool with this jerk. Ayres thought he owned this property? Hell, as far as Mitch was concerned, his mother’s people had the right idea. The earth belong
ed to everyone. That meant the people of Mustang Valley would all have an interest in this Caddo Street apartment building.
He wondered what Mr. Ayres would say to that.
Not that it mattered. The deed was in Ayres’s name. Under Texas law, it was all his, and Mitch knew he couldn’t argue with that.
A car pulled up on the street beside them—a scratched yellow Toyota. Cara’s.
The corner of his mouth twitched, as if it had a will of its own. He’d no intention of smiling just because the frustratingly single-minded woman had somehow tracked him down. He hadn’t suggested where to meet, though he’d agreed with her earlier to get together and talk.
Why wasn’t he surprised she’d found him?
Her car door slammed. In moments she approached along the sidewalk. A huge smile lit her face. “Hi, Mitch.” Her huge purse was slung over her shoulder. She wore the same outfit she’d had on earlier: blue skirt, yellow blouse and vest. “I thought you might be here.” She looked pointedly at John Ayres, then held out her hand. “I’m Cara Hamilton.”
Ayres didn’t look charmed as he gave a quick shake. “John Ayres,” he muttered.
“Oh, you’re—you were—Nancy’s landlord, weren’t you?”
The old man nodded as Cara reached into her bag for something. She extracted a pocket recorder.
“How did you feel, Mr. Ayres, when you heard that poor Ms. Wilks had been killed right in her own apartment?”
“You’re that reporter,” Ayres accused.
“That’s right. Now—”
With a scowl at Mitch that he turned back on Cara, Ayres stomped away.
“Guess he didn’t want to give you an interview,” Mitch said.
“Guess not, but that’s okay. I didn’t want to talk to him, anyway. But you looked like you needed rescuing.”
Startled, Mitch looked down at Cara. Her auburn brows were raised, and her expression suggested apology.
“Truce?” she asked.
Mitch didn’t want to let go of his anger with her so easily. Maybe her only sin—telling her boss that Deputy Hurley Zeller dated the victim Nancy Wilks—wasn’t a big one, but the repercussions of her indiscretion hadn’t been pleasant.
Worse, she might have added yet another impediment to Mitch’s own covert investigation. Bad enough he was disliked because of his heritage: one side Native American, the other scandal-ridden, allegedly corrupt sheriff. But he’d been around long enough to become part of the furniture—like a well-planted bug. People didn’t watch their mouths so much around him anymore.
Not that he’d heard anything that led to solid evidence about his father’s murder. Yet. At times frustration nearly got the best of him. But then he’d remind himself that he had supposedly learned patience, in different ways, from both sides of his heritage.
But Cara’s intrusion into his plans had caused the sheriff and others to recall their distrust of him. It couldn’t be allowed to continue.
She’d asked for a truce. He was still considering it, and not with much favor.
A troubled look shadowed her hazel eyes and she looked away from his, causing him a sudden fit of withdrawal. Not that he was addicted to sharing gazes with Cara. But that suddenly haunted expression made him want to touch her.
“Look, Mitch,” she said in a low voice. “I’m really sorry about what happened. I know what it’s like to have something you share with someone misused. I shouldn’t have trusted Beau.”
Her apology knocked him for a loop. He hadn’t expected it. Was it genuine? It certainly sounded that way, but speaking of learning not to trust someone…
As she lifted her gaze back to his, the clouds racing across the Texas sky seemed to have suddenly gone off the radar. Or had Mother Earth just decided to allow the sun to shine?
“Can we go somewhere to talk?” Cara said. “I want to tell you what I learned today. I’ve got some possible leads, but I need help with them.”
Ah. That was the reason for the apology. Mitch’s cynicism kicked back in. No matter how appealing this woman was, he had to keep at the forefront of his mind that she had an ulterior motive. He wanted to solve the Nancy Wilks murder, as he did all murders—for justice; Cara Hamilton wanted to for the sake of her story.
“What, Mitch?” Her gaze was searching, as if she wanted to extract his thoughts from his mind.
“Nothing.” He immediately regretted his abruptness, seeing a look of pain shoot across her face.
Man, was she a good actress. And yet… He wanted to believe in her sincerity. In their partnership.
That just might be because he had an urge every time he was around her to strip off her clothes, very slowly, and lay her down…
Maybe she could read his thoughts, for though she didn’t look away, he thought he saw his desire mirrored in her eyes. He knew he wasn’t imagining her faint flush.
And there they stood, on the sidewalk of a residential street, right outside a murder victim’s house.
“Let’s take a walk,” he told her.
“Okay.” Her agreement came quickly, as if she, too, recognized this was the wrong place, the wrong time.
The wrong people, too, he and she. And they always would be.
He measured his stride to hers as they headed down the sidewalk. He wasn’t surprised that, despite her petite size, she walked with the same determination that she seemed to throw into everything. He barely had to slow his usual pace at all.
“Tell me what you learned today,” he said.
She described her visit to the Lambert & Church offices, her uneasy interview of Donald Church. One of the other deputies had already interrogated the law firm partner, but Mitch intended to have a go at him, too. Soon.
When Cara told Mitch about the calls she’d made to people on her plausible enemies list, those she’d ticked off by her articles, he was ticked off, too. “Didn’t I tell you not to do that? If one was the person who tried to run you over, letting them know you suspect them may only rile them further.”
They’d stopped walking. She folded her arms and tilted her head back, ready to do battle with him. Her mouth was set stubbornly. As her soft red curls slid backward, he resisted the urge to brush them back into place.
Why did he find such belligerence appealing? Or was it because he’d begun to want this woman so much that whatever she did sent sparks through him that put his entire body on notice?
“Next time, will you clear it with me first?” He couched his order in a request. “Maybe we can talk to them together.”
“Sure.” He ignored Cara’s skeptical expression that belied her positive response and resumed their walk down the sidewalk.
She kept up, continuing her rundown of what she’d done that day. She described her research in the County Recorder’s Office. “And then I called Roger Rosales.”
When Mitch tried to stop this time to chew her out, she took his arm and towed him along. Every nerve ending in his body seemed suddenly to have rushed to where she held him. To his surprise, he laid his free hand over hers. It must have surprised her, too, for she looked startled as their gazes met. Her smile stoked his juices even more.
He didn’t scold her. He didn’t let go of her, either, even as she got to the point. She wanted something from him. That was why she was sharing again.
Of course.
“Can you use your sources to find out what relationship Eastern Mustang Property Acquisition or Texas Mustang Valley Sites might have with Ranger Corporation?”
“Possibly,” he replied, making a mental note of the company names. If they did have a connection with Ranger—
“And you’ll share the information with me?”
“Possibly,” he repeated.
She planted herself suddenly in front of him, glaring up with flashing eyes that were dark with anger. “Not good enough, Mitch. If we’re partners—”
“We aren’t partners,” he told her, irked that she still didn’t get it. “Me, deputy.” He pointed toward himself. “You
, civilian.” He pointed toward her.
She grabbed his finger. Hard. As if she hoped to break it.
That would look great to the others in the department—a job-related injury given to him by a gorgeous but angry waif he’d just as soon have kissed as pointed at. He stared at her pouting, enticing lips, even as she used them to swear at him.
“Damn it, Mitch. We have a deal. I may be a civilian, but I’m one with a need to know. And information of my own. And—”
“And one who was nearly run over by someone aware of your ‘need to know’ and what you do with it.”
“But I told you what you asked today, shared all the information I got. It’s only fair that you reciprocate.”
“I’ve already told you I will—as much as I can without compromising my case.”
“But—”
“Isn’t it clear to you yet that what you’re doing is dangerous, Cara? I need to spend my time tracking down Nancy’s killer, not holding your hand.” He gently pried his finger away from her grasp. “And making sure you don’t get hurt.”
“You’re not my keeper or my watchdog, Mitch.”
“No, just your ‘partner,’ right?”
“Only to the extent you say so. That’s not good enough.” Before he could stop her, Cara had stalked off. In a moment she was back in her car. She scowled at him as she drove away.
It felt as if she had stared daggers at him. Why else did her anger make him feel as though she’d pierced his soul?
What’s more, why did he have the feeling that she’d thrust herself into harm’s way, just to pay him back?
AFTER TAKING TIME to get herself a new cell phone, Cara returned to her office at the Gazette. She looked around for Beau, mostly so she could avoid him rather than talk to him. She wanted to transcribe her notes of the day onto her computer.
She wanted to mull over more carefully the way she was dealing with Mitch. Why did they seem to irritate each other the way fingernails on blackboards screeched at a listener’s nerves? And that was without even trying.
What she would prefer trying with Mitch was positive reinforcement. If he scratched her back, she would scratch his.
Lawful Engagement - Linda O Johnston Page 11