Broken Places (5 page)
“When you did talk to her, did she say anything about problems with other people? Do you know of anybody who was mad at your father?”
Lindsay shrugged. “Somebody usually was. You know he’s never been afraid of controversy. But the paper’s practically dead now, and I don’t think he had any other project in the works. You might have to go back awhile to find the last person he ticked off.”
Tom only had to go back as far as that morning and Taylor’s confrontation with Hern. But he left that aside for the moment. “What about personal grievances? Anything recent you can think of?”
“Well, Mom made a joke about Lloyd Wilson’s latest gripe—the goats getting out of their pen and going in his yard and scaring his chickens. It just sounded like more of the same. What’s happened to Mom’s goats, anyway? Are they okay?”
“They’re fine. Still in their pen, and they’ve got plenty of water and food. Joanna said if you want her to, she’ll send a couple of her guys out there in the morning to take them over to the horse farm.”
Lindsay nodded, started to sip her coffee, then looked at him in sudden alarm. “What about Cricket? Mom’s dog. Was she in the house with Mom when it burned down?”
“We’re not sure, but it looks that way. We looked for her, but no luck. It’s possible she just got scared and ran off, and she’ll turn up okay.”
“Poor Cricket,” Lindsay murmured.
“So,” Tom said, “the situation with Wilson was about the same as always?”
“I was worried it might escalate. That old man’s got a mean temper, and I was afraid he’d fly into a rage over some tiny little thing and—I don’t know. Do
something.
” She frowned. “Is he capable of killing them?”
“I don’t know. I’ll take a close look at him. Can you think of anything else I ought to check out?”
Lindsay chewed her bottom lip, an old habit when she was concentrating. Tom remembered high school classes when he’d sneaked looks at her, watched her perfect teeth nipping that full lip and felt a jolt of desire that kept him stirred up for the rest of the day.
He dropped his gaze to his notebook.
“Mom told me Dad had an argument with Ben Hern about three months ago, right after he moved here,” Lindsay said. “You know, the comic strip guy? His mother was in V
ISTA
with Mom and Dad.”
Tom nodded.
“Hern got mad because Dad ran a story about him moving to Mason County. I’m sure you saw it. The antipoverty worker’s son moves here and buys a mansion, that kind of thing.”
“I remember. What did your mother tell you about it?”
“Hern claimed the story was an invasion of his privacy. Mom said he showed up at the newspaper office the day it ran and shouted at Dad for fifteen minutes. But it’s a matter of public record that Hern bought that place, and how much he paid. Mom said Dad apologized anyway.” Lindsay added with a wry grin, “You can guess how sincere that was.”
“Did you know your father was trying to borrow money from Hern and his mother to keep the paper going?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No. It’s true. I’m wondering, if Hern was already mad at him, why would your father expect him to help out?”
“Mom said they were running out of options. Now I see what she meant. He must have really been desperate. But you say he asked Hern’s mother for money too?”
“That’s what I hear. Did they stay friendly with her over the years?”
“I don’t think so. I never heard her name until her son moved here. Mom was upset about Ben Hern living in Mason County because his mother might visit him.”
And so she had, just before Cam and Meredith both turned up dead. “What was that all about?”
“I don’t know, I just know Mom didn’t like her and it went way back to when they were all in V
ISTA
.”
“Then it makes even less sense that your dad would ask her or her son for money. Cam was at Hern’s house this morning, and they had a pretty heated argument.”
“What?” Lindsay sat forward. “Do you think Ben Hern—”
“I don’t know anything yet, and I don’t have any answers for you. Just hang in there and try not to jump to conclusions,” Tom said, but at the same time he was scribbling a note about looking into Karen Hernandez’s background.
“Okay, okay, but it’s not easy.” Lindsay sighed. “Oh, by the way, Mom had a safe deposit box and she made me co-owner of it in case anything ever…happened to her. I’ll let you into it without a warrant if you want to take a look at what’s there. Probably nothing of any use, but I thought of it when I was about five miles out of Roanoke, and I went back and got my key.”
“Good. Yeah, I want to see the contents. I’ll let you know when.” Tom stood, tucked the notebook and pen into his shirt pocket. “Why don’t you go on out to Joanna’s?”
“I’d rather stick around here and follow developments. I won’t get underfoot, I promise. I’m a professional too, remember.”
Tom shook his head. “There’s no way you could be professional in these circumstances. Nobody could. I’m lucky the sheriff hasn’t taken me off the case because of the personal connection. I can’t let you get too close to the investigation. Go out to Joanna’s place and get settled in.”
Lindsay didn’t argue. She set her mug on the desk and stood, brushing her hair back behind her ears. “Tommy—” As he moved past her toward the door, she caught his hand, making him stop and look down at her. “I wouldn’t want anyone else in charge of this case. There’s nobody in the world I trust more than you.”
Her hand felt cool and fragile in his, and the beseeching look in her eyes strummed a chord of sympathy in his heart. They’d known each other half their lives, been lovers off and on since their teens. He knew she was tough, but she’d lost both her parents today, in horrifying circumstances, and that was enough to break anybody. It had nearly broken him when he’d lost most of his own family. Yet all he could say was, “We’ll find out who did this.”
Lindsay drew a deep breath and put on her best game face. “I’ll let you get on with it. Call me later, okay?”
At the door, she paused. Looking back, she gave him a startling impish grin. “I’m going to enjoy getting to know Rachel. We have
so
much in common.”
Rachel stretched plastic wrap over the plate of chicken, rice, and green beans Holly had left untouched. She was sliding the plate into the fridge when a knock sounded on the front door.
“Oh, go away,” she muttered. Company was the last thing she wanted.
Another knock, this one louder.
Sighing, Rachel headed for the door.
Ben stood on her front porch, hands jammed into his pockets, his whole body thrumming with tension. “I have to talk to you,” he said.
Tom had specifically asked her not to discuss the day’s events with Ben. What was she supposed to do? Tell her friend to go away and leave her alone? “I’ve talked about the Taylors more than enough for one day,” she said. “I don’t want to rehash it all now.”
“Please, Rachel. You’re the only friend I’ve got in this place.”
She hesitated, weighing Tom’s disapproval against Ben’s obvious distress. Tom would never know she’d talked to him
.
She swung the screen door open and let Ben in.
Cicero squawked, “Help! Help! Save me, save me!” from the top of his cage, but he didn’t fly to Ben the way he always flew to Tom.
Ben was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn’t seem to notice the bird’s cries. Instead of taking a seat, he began pacing aimlessly. “Did you know Taylor’s wife died today too, and they think she was murdered?”
“Yes, I heard. It’s awful.”
“I’m going crazy worrying about—” Ben halted and asked in a lowered voice, “Where is Holly? Are we alone?”
“She’s upstairs. Sit down, will you? You’re making me nervous.” What did he have to say that he didn’t want Holly to overhear? Rachel took a chair and motioned Ben toward the sofa, where Frank already occupied one cushion.
Ben dropped onto the couch and rubbed the cat’s head with his knuckles, but he didn’t relax. He seemed to be straining for a light tone when he said, “You’re a lucky guy, Frank, getting rescued by this lady.” He shot a glance at Rachel. “Remember when we stole Mary right off those people’s front steps?”
Displacement activity, Rachel thought. Grabbing at any available diversion to ease his stress. She would play along if it helped him settle down emotionally. “I prefer to think we
saved
her. You did, anyway. I was too terrified of what my mother would do to me if I got caught stealing somebody’s kitten.”
“I still carry Mary’s picture.” Ben shifted to pull his wallet from his back pocket. He slid out a photo and passed it to Rachel.
Humoring him, she looked at the beautiful white cat in the picture, then had to smile at the memory. The first time Rachel and Ben had seen her, they were both fourteen years old—and outraged that someone had left the little kitten in a basket on the front steps all day in chilly November. They’d returned after dark to make sure the cat had been taken in out of the cold. But there she was, huddled in the basket while her owners moved about in the warm house. A food dish next to the basket provided proof enough that she was left out all the time. Ben hadn’t hesitated for a second. He marched onto the property, swiped the cat, stuck her inside his coat, and took her home with him.
“You gave her a long, happy life.” Rachel handed back the picture. She waited until he’d put it away before she said, “Ben, you didn’t come over here to talk about our youthful adventure as cat thieves.”
He leaned forward, gripping his head with both hands. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. You and Holly both. That scene this morning, then finding Taylor’s car—“
“I’m fine,” Rachel said. “And Holly’s going to be fine too.”
“Well, thank god for that, anyway.” His face knotted with anxiety, he met her eyes and blurted, “There was a witness. They’ve probably found her by now. Christ, I’m screwed. I’ve got a lawyer coming down from New York, but she can’t get here until tomorrow. I’ll be lucky if I’m not arrested before then.”
Rachel felt as if she’d stepped off solid ground into quicksand. She pushed out her words. “A witness to what?”
Ben’s eyes widened when he saw her face. “Aw, shit. What the hell are you thinking? I thought you were the one person I could count on.”
“A witness to what, Ben?”
He rose, pivoted away and began pacing again, his fists shoved into his jeans pockets. “Taylor stopped on the road and got out and wouldn’t let me pass. We got into an argument, and a woman drove up while we were shouting at each other. She probably heard some of it. I can imagine what your friend Captain Bridger will make of that.” He stopped and looked at Rachel. “Can you find out if he’s talked to her? Can you get me her name?”
A nasty shiver moved down Rachel’s spine. “Her name? Why? Ben, what are you planning to do?”
“Aw, for fuck’s sake. I’m not going to
do
anything. I just want to know what I’m up against.”
“I can’t get information out of the police to pass on to you.” Rachel realized she was digging her nails into her palms, and she opened her hands and spread them on her knees. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this, since I’m a witness too.”
“Yeah, I figured you were the one who told Bridger what happened at the house this morning.”
“I didn’t have a choice. I just told the truth.”
“Do you believe I killed Cam Taylor? And his wife too? If you think I’m that crazy, I want to know.”
In his eyes Rachel saw anger mixed with fear, confusion, and a desperate need for reassurance. “No,” she said, and meant it. “But I’m worried about the way you’ve been acting. Have you stopped taking your meds?”
He let out a breath, his shoulders slumping. Dropping onto the couch again, he said, “No. I haven’t stopped taking the damned drug.”
Rachel wasn’t sure she believed him. “I know you don’t feel as creative when you’re on it, but that incident in New York should have convinced you that you can’t go without it.”
“I said I haven’t stopped taking it, and that’s the truth.” Rachel expected him to blow up at her, but instead he gave her a speculative look and asked, “Are you going to tell your boyfriend what happened in New York if he asks you if I have any history of violent behavior?”
“I don’t think that one incident adds up to a history of violent behavior.”
“Bridger might think it does. It’s just the kind of thing the cops would pounce on if they want to make a case against somebody.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said with some reluctance. “You’re probably right about that, but isn’t it better to be upfront about it? So it won’t look as if you have some terrible secret to hide?”
“There’s something you don’t know.” Ben rubbed his temples. “Cam Taylor found out what happened in New York, and he knew I made a settlement to avoid criminal charges. He knew that in my position—drawing the strip, doing books for kids, working with animal groups—I could be hurt pretty badly if I looked like a hotheaded bully who attacks people then pays them off. Taylor wanted me to pay
him
off to keep quiet about it. The irony is that after we had that argument on the road, I started thinking it would be easier to give him the money and shut him up. I knew he’d probably keep coming back for more, but I’d almost convinced myself to do it. Then I found out he was dead.”
Lloyd Wilson’s two old mixed-breed hounds pushed up from their resting spots on the porch and circled Tom, sniffing his shoes and pants legs, while their owner peered out through the screen door. Inside the house, a TV blared at top volume.
“What do you want?” Wilson demanded.
Tom raised his voice to overcome Wilson’s hearing problem and the TV’s racket. “Let me in, Lloyd. We have to talk.”
“I got nothin’ else to say to you.”
“You want me to haul you into headquarters? That’s fine with me. Let’s go.” Tom was already in a foul mood after driving out to Ben Hern’s place and getting no answer at the door. He wasn’t going to take any crap from Lloyd Wilson.
“Damnation,” Wilson muttered. With his lips pressed into a resentful line, he shoved the screen door open.
Tom followed the old man into a hot, stuffy living room where a ceiling fixture cast a murky light. A coffee table held a half-empty glass of tea and a plate smeared with barbecue sauce. Although the house had a tall antenna on the roof, the surrounding mountains nearly defeated it, and the TV facing the couch showed a snowy picture that rolled every few seconds. Alone since his wife’s death a few years before, Wilson probably ate his meals with the TV for company. Tom had done the same plenty of times, but at least he had cable.
He snatched the TV remote from the couch and aimed it at the set.
“Hey! I’m watchin’ that show,” Wilson said.
Interesting choice of programming, Tom thought, eyeing an
Entertainment Tonight
report. “You a big Paris Hilton fan? Or is it her little dog you like?”
Wilson’s only reply was a grunt.
“I need all of your attention, Lloyd.” Tom pressed the button to turn off the TV set. In the sudden quiet, his ears still rang from its noise. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can get back to your shows. I’ll bet you don’t want to miss the
Law & Order
rerun tonight.”
“That’s exactly right. I like watchin’ a bunch of cops that know what they’re doin’. Makes a nice change.” Wilson pointed at the room’s only chair. “Sit.”
Tom lowered his lanky body into the chair and kept on going as the cushion sank several inches. He pulled himself forward. “Mind if I get a chair from the kitchen?”
Wilson snorted and dropped onto the couch, which appeared to have sturdier springs than the chair. “Suit yourself. Wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable, now would I?”
Tom fetched one of the two chrome-framed dinette chairs from the kitchen, choosing the one that had the fewest cracks in its yellow plastic seat. When he returned to the living room, he placed the chair facing Wilson.
“Now why’re you botherin’ me?” Wilson said.
“Two reasons.” Tom sat down and pulled his notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. “First, you’re the Taylors’ only close neighbor, and you could have seen something. Second, you’ve got a long history of trouble with the Taylors. You’ve made threats against them.”
Wilson leapt to his feet. “I never threatened nobody! You tryin’ to frame me?”
“I told you I’ll be glad to take you to headquarters if you won’t talk to me here.”
Tom waited, eyes locked on Wilson’s. With the TV off, Tom could hear the crickets outside, tuning up for the approaching night, and the rise and fall of the cicadas’ early evening chorus. The house felt airless, although the windows stood open.
Wilson broke eye contact first and sat down, waving a hand. “Ask your damn fool questions.”
Tom wiped sweat from his upper lip with the heel of his palm. “When was the last time you saw Meredith and Cam Taylor?”
“See ’em every day, drivin’ past.”
“Did you see both of them this morning?”
“Saw him leavin’ early. Not her, though, not today.”
“Were you at home all morning?”
“I was, and if you’re gonna ask can I prove it, all I can tell you is go ask my hens. Most of the mornin’ I was workin’ on a new coop I’m buildin’ out back.”
If that was true, Tom thought, and if Wilson himself hadn’t killed the Taylors, he probably wasn’t much good as a witness either. He wouldn’t have seen anything from his back yard. Tom asked anyway, “Did you see any visitors next door?”
The old man’s expression turned cagey, and he cast his eyes heavenward and frowned in mock concentration. “Now, let me see…I’m gettin’ on in years, you know. Memory’s not what it used to be.” He added with a snort, “Like a lotta other things.”
“If you saw something over there and refuse to tell me, you’re withholding evidence in a murder investigation.”
Wilson’s gaze swung back to Tom. “Murder? Cam Taylor wasn’t nowhere close to here when he got shot. You sayin’ the fire’s got something to do with him bein’ killed?”
Genuine surprise, or a damn good job of acting? Tom cautioned himself not to underestimate Wilson. “Are you telling me you didn’t watch everything that went on over there after the fire? You didn’t see the hearse?”
All the bravado and contempt drained out of Wilson’s face. “I saw a bunch of people comin’ and goin’ but…I never…You mean the wife?”
“We found her body after the fire was put out.”
Wilson flopped against the back of the couch. “Good lord. If I’d have knowed she was in there, I would’ve—well, I don’t know what I could’ve done. Called for help, at least.”
Tom rapped his pen against his pad. “Her car was parked outside the house. Why would you think she wasn’t at home?”
Wilson shook his head like a dog trying to throw off a fly. “If she was in the house, she would’ve run out when the fire started, wouldn’t she?”
“If she’d been able to,” Tom said. “I think she was already dead by then.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Wilson murmured. “I had my disagreements with her, but I never…To tell you the truth, I didn’t believe she was at home. I thought she went off with that fella, like she does sometimes.”
“What fellow? So you did see somebody over there this morning?”
Wilson straightened and shot a resentful look at Tom. “Yeah, I guess I did. Two of ’em, matter of fact. Different cars.”
He fell silent again and seemed lost in thought. Tom prodded, “Who, Lloyd? Who was over there? This is important.”
“One of ’em was drivin’ a fancy car, but I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. It had them windows that look real dark from the outside.”
“When? What time?”
“Maybe ten o’clock. But could’ve been earlier, could’ve been later.”
“How long was the car over there?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t time it.” With a trace of indignation, Wilson added, “I didn’t stand around starin’ through the trees. I got better things to do than spy on the neighbors.”
Not usually, Tom thought. Why the hell did Wilson pick this day to dial back on his snooping? “You said she had two visitors. Do you know who the other one was?”
Wilson snorted. “Ought to. Seen him over there enough times.”
A pause without further elaboration.
“Lloyd—”
“Scotty Ragsdale, that’s who it was,” Wilson said. “You know him, his folks own the hardware store in town. I seen him drive up over there, but I couldn’t tell you when he left.”
Tom’s expectation deflated into disappointment. “Meredith and Scotty have been friends a long time.”
“Friends? I guess that’s one word for it. Real
close
friends, if you get my drift.”
“You have some reason to think it was more than that?”
“I seen ’em kissin’ on the mouth one day, right out there in the yard, him with his hands all over her. And he’s always over there when Cam Taylor’s gone, I guess when he’s workin’ at the paper. Sometimes they stay at the house, and sometimes Scotty just picks her up and they go off together. He drops her back at the house two or three hours later. You can make whatever you want to out of that.”
Oh, man.
Would this turn out to be a simple case of jealousy? A triangle involving three volatile personalities was guaranteed to produce trouble sooner or later. “How often have you seen Scotty over there?”
“Two, three times a week.”
“Was he there today before the other visitor came, or after?”
“After. I think.”
“Did Scotty or the other visitor come back a second time? Was either of them over there right before the fire?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Like I said, I was busy, I wasn’t payin’ all that much attention.”
“You said the first person drove a fancy car. Did you notice the make?”
“Some kind of a sports car. What’re they called, them cars with the cat on the hood?”
“A Jaguar?”
“That’s right,” Wilson said, nodding, “a Jaguar sports car. Dark-colored. I think it was black, but could’ve been navy blue. I never was too good with colors.”
Ben Hern had said his mother drove a dark blue Jaguar. Had Karen Hernandez visited Meredith before leaving the county? Why would she? Lindsay had said they weren’t friends, that her mother disliked Karen Hernandez. Tom hoped he could get her back to Mason County for questioning after the sheriff’s department tracked her down. If he had to, he’d drive to Washington to see her.
Right now, though, he was a lot more interested in talking to Scotty Ragsdale.
Rachel set a dish of food on the tack room floor for the stable cat, an orange tabby named Ginger, and gave her four kittens a large communal plate. Unable to quiet her worries about Ben and erase the image of Cameron Taylor lying dead in the woods, Rachel had sought solace where she knew she could always find it, with animals who needed her attention. She’d brought vaccine with her. After the cats had eaten, she would scoop them up one by one and give them their shots.
Leaning against the saddle bench in the shadows, watching the kittens’ bellies swell as they packed away the food, Rachel wondered if she should keep one or two of the kittens for herself. Frank might enjoy their company.
“Hi there.”
Startled, Rachel spun around. Lindsay Taylor stood in the doorway, her blond hair backlit by the early evening sun through the stable’s main door. “Hi,” Lindsay said again. “You look surprised to see me. Didn’t Tommy tell you I’m staying with Joanna?”
Rachel had heard nothing about this. But maybe it hadn’t been settled until after she’d seen Tom that afternoon. All she could think of to say was, “I’m glad you have a family friend to stay with.”
Lindsay leaned against the door frame and watched the kittens. “They’re cute.”
“Yes, they are.” Rachel turned away, shook out a clean towel she’d brought, and spread it over the scarred wooden table against one wall. From a small zippered case she removed alcohol and cotton balls and the syringes into which she’d already drawn the proper amounts of vaccine.
Silence stretched out. Rachel resisted an urge to look at Lindsay, to examine her more closely. She didn’t have to do that to understand why Tom had been attracted to her. Any man would be.
“Do you ride?” Lindsay asked.
“Yes, I do. This is a great place for it.” Having fussed with the arrangement of the vaccine syringes as long as she reasonably could, Rachel turned and pinned her gaze on the cats again. Sunlight slanting through the room’s single window fell over the little family and made their striped coats gleam like gold. Rachel’s skin prickled with awareness of Lindsay’s eyes on her.
“Tommy and I used to come out here to ride all the time,” Lindsay said. “We helped Joanna saddle-train the young horses. We’d spend practically the whole weekend out here, riding around the hills together, just the two of us.”
“Mmm.” Was that how it was going to be? Constant reminders that Lindsay shared a past with Tom, had more in common with him than Rachel ever would? She could only hope Lindsay would be gone soon, back to her job in Roanoke, before she could do any damage here. Although Rachel wanted to trust her relationship with Tom, it still felt new and fragile.
“So you found my father’s car on the road and called the cops,” Lindsay said.
“Yes, that’s right.” Under normal circumstances, Rachel would offer her condolences again. These weren’t normal circumstances. Common courtesy was the most she could offer.
“Are you sure you didn’t see or hear anything that could identify the killer?”
“I’ve given the police a statement about everything that happened.”
“Yeah, and I’m wondering if there’s something I’m not being told. I have a right to know everything.”
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to talk to Tom about the investigation.”
Arms crossed, Lindsay watched Rachel with an unnerving intensity. The kittens had emptied their plate and begun their post-meal grooming, dampening their paws with tiny tongues and swiping them over whiskers and mouths. Their mother ate more slowly, savoring her food.
“I’ve heard about what happened at Ben Hern’s house before that,” Lindsay said. “How Hern assaulted my father, then went after him when he left.”
Rachel was stunned. Tom had promised to be fair. Could he have given Lindsay such a biased account minutes after making that promise? Or had it come from Joanna?