“Hey, the Hurricane is here,” Calvin said before snapping another photo. Deputy Walker was not my biggest fan.
“Are you helping me or not?” Bob asked Calvin. “If you can’t do it quietly, you can go help outside.”
“I’m doing it.” Calvin took another photo. Then he pushed a button extending the camera’s zoom lens all the way out.
“Not like that,” Bob repeated.
I got the impression she had been saying that a lot.
“I told you—” Bob pointed at the paper path on the floor, “go around and get closer. Don’t just zoom.”
“Calvin,” I said. “Would you go out and help Dugan, please?”
“I’m helping here.”
“Deputy.” I gave him a hard look to make sure he understood it wasn’t a request. “Give us the room.”
He looked out the door, then down at the camera in his hand. “You okay with that, Bob?”
“I’m fine,” she answered.
Calvin set the digital camera down on the paper, then shuffled his feet.
I thought he was going to say something. He seemed to decide against it, then zipped his duty jacket all the way and turned up the fur collar. I had to stand to the edge of the butcher-paper path to let him pass as he went out through the kitchen.
As soon as I heard the kitchen door close I asked Bob, “What was that about?”
“Apparently, Dugan likes my ass,” she answered.
“He said that to you?”
“Not to me. I guess he likes to talk about women when they’re not around.”
“Calvin?”
“They had words, I guess. Calvin’s the one who told me—warned me.”
I looked out the door and watched Tom moving to intercept Calvin. He said something that I couldn’t hear. I doubted that it was friendly. Calvin pushed the other man away and went to wave down a news crew that was trying to set up a camera in the road.
Those were questions for another time, I decided, and turned back to Bob. “What do you have here?”
“Classic story,” Bob answered without irony. “Boy meets boy and another angry boy busts in and shoots them.”
“Boy meets boy? You mean…”
“Yep. There was sex going on here. Do you think that was why they were killed?”
“At this point I don’t have much of any idea. I was thinking Levi Sharon targeted Donny Fisher because he had a relationship with Rose Sharon. Who’s this guy?”
“Clark Beasley, by the ID I found. Apparently a drummer. There are pictures on the refrigerator of him and Donny Fisher and Rose Sharon on stage.”
“So, two people dead and one pretty close to it, all connected to the Ozarks Star Road Theater. That’s pretty interesting. Collect the pictures with your evidence.”
“Speaking of pictures and interesting things…”
“What?”
“When I was looking over Rose Sharon’s room I noticed something funny.”
The short hairs at the back of my neck stood on end and a knot of guilt tightened in my chest. “Yes?”
“Her mirror was framed by photos and ticket stubs. Personal mementos. But there were two blank spots just the right size for five-by-seven photos.”
She waited but I didn’t respond. I didn’t look at her, though. I wasn’t that brazen.
“I wouldn’t have thought much of it…” Bob stood up. She stepped in front of me. “But when I came out of the bedroom I noticed that a guitar was missing from the array of instruments lined up in the corner.”
“I have it,” I admitted without looking away.
“I know.” Bob turned, letting me off the hook. She appeared sad rather than angry. “You can’t protect him that easily.”
“I’m not trying—”
“Save it. You should know that there were more pictures. They all look innocent but…”
“But what?”
Bob took a settling breath. “But the sheriff’s actions kind of color how the pictures are viewed, don’t they?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Everyone knows—”
“What?”
Bob knelt back down beside her kit and started packing it up.
I turned around and went out the way I had come, sticking to the paper trail.
The drive back to the hospital took a lot longer than the last one. I drove slowly. I was hurt, and angry at feeling that way. I didn’t believe that Billy had betrayed me with that girl. I didn’t know what I did believe, though. Bob was right. His actions would be like guilt-colored glasses that everyone would see him through. He wasn’t talking to me and that was the worst thing. That was the real betrayal.
In Forsyth, I stopped at the sheriff’s office. I wanted to sit down with Chuck Benson and talk things through. I needed a cooler head and a more restrained perspective. When I parked the truck, though, I was spotted by the throng of press filling the lot and street around the station. They moved toward me in a wave of cameras and microphones. I didn’t know why I was suddenly a target but I didn’t wait to find out. I put the truck back into gear and bolted.
My intended destination was still the hospital, but I ended up driving to my Uncle Orson’s place in Rockaway Beach without really thinking about it. The boat dock was a refuge. This time of year it was usually deserted. Only the most die-hard fishermen got out on the lake in the bald chill of winter.
It turned out that fishermen were not the problem. The parking lot was jammed with cars and trucks, most of which were plastered with bright vinyl stickers that proudly declared call letters or news slogans like Eyewitness and Action.
I stopped on the road and observed the activity. Uncle Orson seemed to be making the most of the attention. He had fired up the split 55-gallon drums he used as grills and was selling hot meals to the waiting reporters.
I called his cell and watched as he wrestled the phone out of his military-surplus down coat.
“I see you up there,” he said, as soon as he connected.
“How can you see me? You have your back turned.”
“No sneaking up on this old man.”
“I believe it. What’s going on down there?”
“I’m cooking chicken for the vultures.”
“I can see that,” I said, already getting annoyed. “Why are the vultures there?”
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking, would I?” Trying to get some people to the point is like trying to race turtles.
“Two words,” Uncle Orson said. He sounded much too happy to ease my mind. “Love triangle.”
“What?”
“Billy. The dead girl, Rose Sharon. And you.” He brayed a windy laugh. Even from where I was I could see him bounce in front of the grill.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. In a love triangle.”
“How is that funny?”
“Oh, sweetheart…” He sounded suddenly serious and careful. “You know you’re my favorite girl in the world…”
“Say what you think you need to say.”
“Katrina, anyone who knows you knows you’re a fighter, not a lover.”
A strong hand squeezed my heart. “That’s not true.”
“You haven’t spent the last couple of years in therapy because of your proclivity for romance, have you?”
“Therapy was a condition for keeping my job.”
“Because of your tendency to break the bones of people who get in your way.”
“Why are you saying that?”
Down at the grill, Uncle Orson turned around. I couldn’t see his face with any detail but I knew he was looking right up the bank to where I was watching him.
“Maybe this is a sign,” he said.
“A sign of what?”
&nbs
p; “If not a sign, maybe it’s just the right time to admit that you were never going anyplace with Billy Blevins.”
“That’s none of your business,” I said, letting my voice get as cold as the frost on my windshield.
“Sure it is. We’re each other’s business. That’s what family is.”
I closed the connection on my phone and dropped it onto the passenger seat. Uncle Orson waved as I drove away.
Chapter 8
I was angry. How much of my anger was because of Uncle Orson’s words and how much was my need to latch on to anger was a question. It wasn’t that he was wrong. It wasn’t that he was right, either. It was Billy Blevins and secrets and my feeling of betrayal that had me primed like a miner’s borehole and ready to blow when I walked into the hospital.
Reporters were there, too. They made a gauntlet of intrusion that I had to fight through in welded-lip silence to reach the doors. When the doors swooshed closed behind me, I stood a moment in the warmth and quiet. I took off my coat for the first time in what seemed like ages.
I followed the wide halls. Walking in warmth reminded me how much pain I was still in. My back burned as muscles tried to unknot. The throbbing I had ignored from my head all day became like a marching band wearing cleats doing a Sousa march over my skull.
Of course the first person I ran into was Sissy Fisher.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, stepping forward to block my path to her son’s room.
“My job.” I answered her with equal force. I caught myself and stopped my march. “I’m sorry about your son, Mrs. Fisher,” I said, making an effort to be professional.
Chuck Benson and Hosea Fisher came out of Donny’s room.
“Where’s the sheriff?” I asked.
“He left,” Chuck said.
“He ran, you mean,” Sissy blurted. She looked me in the eye, putting her rage on display. “You should too.”
“Ma’am, I’m investigating—”
“Investigating?” She made the word sound like a curse. “Investigate yourself. You did this. You and him.”
“Ma’am, I assure you—”
“Your assurances are like sheer curtains at a whorehouse, pretense that hides nothing.”
“Now, Sissy…” Hosea put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. It was a feeble gesture.
Sissy ignored the hand and lunged forward with her finger pointed like a painted arrow. She poked me right below the collarbone. Her nail jabbed into the raised bed of scar tissue that tracked my chest. “You are in this. Right past your big ass and up to your bottle-red hair.”
My first impulse was to twist that hand back and leverage her down with a wrenched elbow. I resisted. I kept my calm and took a step back. When I had a bit of distance, I raised my hand to massage the ridge of scar around my eye. “Ma’am, we’re doing everything we can to find who’s harming your family.”
“Look in the mirror, bitch.” Sissy struck at me with those turquoise-painted talons.
“Katrina!” Chuck shouted. It was a warning, not about the blow, but my reaction.
Chuck knows me pretty well.
I didn’t know until her nails raked my face that I had wanted exactly that, an excuse. Sissy had swiped hard with her right hand. She had the pampered, pretty girl idea of what a fight was. She didn’t want to disable me so much as she wanted to mark me. She also had the privileged rich woman idea of consequences.
I turned with the blow across my face. Her hand passed, taking three furrows of skin from my cheek. My right hand was already rising and I caught her by the wrist, turning it over and putting torque on her elbow and shoulder. As she turned, following the force of my hold, I reached up with my left hand and grabbed a handful of hair. It was a perfect handle with which to put her face into the wall. It bounced once. The silver jewelry she wore clattered against the drywall. I rolled my body over hers and locked the bent arm between us.
I was pulling out my cuffs when Chuck put a hand on my arm.
“Don’t,” he said.
“She assaulted an officer.”
Chuck leaned up close. “She’s a grieving mother with accusations that a lot of people will listen to.” He whispered into my ear but his words remained full force.
I let her go. When she turned back on me I was pleased to see that she would at least be wearing a black eye.
“Get out of here.” Chuck pushed me down the hall and kept me walking away from Sissy Fisher. “Go someplace and cool down. Have a talk with Billy while you’re at it.”
I wished I could.
* * * *
There was no real sunset that day. Gray faded into black in an imperceptible transition. Most of the vans with the bold graphics and the bland white reporters who went with them were gone when I got back to the boat dock. Those who remained were holed up in their vehicles with the heaters on. I thought I could get in unscathed.
I would have made it too, but Uncle Orson had locked the gangway gate. I had a key. It was on the ring I had already stuffed into my coat pocket. The gate is never locked.
The first reporter to reach me was a familiar face. Riley Yates was an old friend to whom I owed a lot. He was probably first because he was a newspaper man. His only tool was the same cassette recorder he had probably used for thirty years.
“Howdy, Hurricane,” Riley said as I kept shaking at the gate with one hand and digging in my pocket with the other.
“You know I don’t like that name, Riley.”
“I don’t like being called Love Machine by Mrs. Yates, but sometimes there is no escaping who we are.”
“You’re a funny man. I’m not going to talk.” I found the key.
“You should.” He turned on his recorder then used it to point at the crews approaching with lights and video cameras. “Or they will do it for you.”
Someone shouted, “Detective!”
We were caught in the glare of tungsten lighting.
“Just you,” I said. I opened the gate and pulled Riley through.
The reporters pushed microphones and camera lenses into the gaps in the gate.
“Get away from the gate!” Uncle Orson bellowed. He was at the door to the shop holding a shotgun at port arms. The reporters got back.
Inside, the shop smelled of wet wood, old tobacco, and fish. The live-bait wells gurgled and the ancient soda cooler chugged. It was all a comfort. It wasn’t very warm, though. Or bright.
“Why’s it so cold in here?” I asked Uncle Orson.
“Off-season. I always cut back on the luxuries in the winter.”
“Heat’s a luxury now?”
Orson ignored my question. He flipped on the lights and twisted the dial on a thermostat. After that he stuck out his hand. “Riley, good to see you.” They shook and my uncle nodded to the recorder that Riley still held ready. “I take it this is an official visit of the fourth estate.”
“Yes.” Riley looked at me as he spoke. “Katrina has agreed to give me an exclusive.”
“But she didn’t promise to answer anything she didn’t want to,” I said. I walked around the counter. Uncle Orson always kept a stock of fruit sodas in the chiller for me, orange and strawberry. I wasn’t a huge fan of strawberry. “You want a drink?” I asked. “I need one.”
I noticed the change in the men’s expressions but made no connection.
“Katrina.”
Orson said my name with such sadness that I stopped what I was doing. Instead of pulling soda from the cooler I had lifted a bottle of whiskey from under the counter. The seal was broken and the lid lying beside the open bottle.
“Some things the hands never forget,” I said.
Orson stepped around the counter and pulled me away. He didn’t make any fuss or say anything more, he simply put the bottle away and pulled three from the soda machine. He gave me a strawberry
.
I took it and I was grateful.
“I’ll understand if you’re not up to an interview,” Riley said. He took a swallow from his bottle.
I was envious of his orange soda. “I don’t even know what’s being said. It’s been a busy day. But if you think I need to say something, I will.”
Riley nodded then took another drink before saying, “This won’t be a private conversation, Katrina. I’m your friend. I’m a reporter, too. And there is a lot in your life that’s impacting the community.”
“And you have a responsibility to ask about those things.” I took a long drink of the strawberry soda. It tasted pretty good.
Riley hit record on his tape machine.
Uncle Orson pointed to the little corner nook with the table and benches, then said, “Talk there. I’ll get the grill heated back up and make something.”
When we were seated and alone I asked, “What are they saying?”
“Which part?” Riley shrugged. “Last I heard you bulled your way into Donny Fisher’s hospital room and gave his mother a black eye.”
“That’s not how it happened. And how did you even hear about it? That was no more than an hour ago.”
“Sissy Fisher called the paper. She called the television stations too. You can bet she’ll be on the ten o’clock news talking about it tonight.”
I thought about that. “Late this afternoon, in performance of my duties, I attempted to visit Donny Fisher to follow up on the investigation into the assault against him and the shooting. It was also my intent to report the information I had learned to Sheriff Billy Blevins, believing him to be on scene at the hospital room. I never entered the room. I was assaulted by a grieving Mrs. Fisher in the hallway in the presence of her husband Hosea Fisher and Assistant Sheriff Chuck Benson. I restrained Mrs. Fisher, but she was not arrested. It was the judgment of both Assistant Sheriff Benson and myself that she acted out of emotional distress, and no charges were warranted. I regret the facial bruise Mrs. Fisher received as the result of her restraint.”
“Wow.” Riley saluted with his orange soda. “That’s a heck of a press release.”
“It’s the truth.”
“That how you got the scratches?”
A Killing Secret Page 8