Death on Heels (22 page)

A sort of strangling sound came from the sheriff’s throat. In the rearview mirror, Firestone’s eyes were unreadable, but he shook as if he were trying not to laugh.

A vehicle parked on a side road caught Lacey’s eye. Something that looked suspiciously like an old turquoise station wagon. It wasn’t the original paint. Lacey knew that wagon.

“Oh, no!”

“Something bothering you, Lacey?” Firestone asked.

“My mother is in town, isn’t she?” And if her mother was in town, then her sister would be in town too. The only lucky break she’d caught was that her father might still be on that plane to Thailand, or maybe he just landed. Lacey groaned.
Things just aren’t bad enough, are they?

“Indeed she is. I met her this morning. She’s extremely concerned about your safety.” The sheriff had a pleased smirk on his face.

“This is terrific.”

“Aren’t moms something.” Rico Firestone smiled for the first time. “Wouldn’t want my mother coming up here to check on me.”

Lacey was going to offer a clever retort, but she couldn’t think of one.

“Why’d you even come to Sagebrush?” T-Rex demanded.

“To see Tucker.”

“A man you hadn’t talked to in what, seven, eight years? A man you ran out on?”

“I did
what
? Everybody thinks they know everything
about everyone in this town, don’t they?” Lacey snarled. “I came to see Tucker because he didn’t kill those women. No way.”

“Is that all?” Firestone broke in.

“Well, I thought maybe I could see him, and there might be a story in it.”

“That sounds a little bit more like the Lacey Smithsonian I know,” T-Rex cracked. “You plan to exploit his misery for a newspaper story. That’s real sentimental.”

“I’m a journalist, and I write the facts. I don’t exploit misery, if I can help it. But just maybe, Sheriff T-Rex, I’ll be exploiting
your
misery, not to mention shedding light on your idiot deputy and your whole dim-witted department. Don’t you have an election coming up soon?” The sheriff shut up. His face was getting redder again.

“How’d you find out about Cole’s arrest?” Firestone asked.

“I read it on the Web. Believe it or not, Tucker’s arrest wasn’t just a local story. The whole country is watching Yampa County screw this up.” Lacey ran her fingers through her tangled hair. She was too tired to hunt for her comb. She had grit in every pore. Her dishabille was making her cranky. “Vic saw it too. We discussed it.”

“Let me get this straight,” Sheriff T-Rex sneered. “Your new boyfriend discusses your old boyfriend with you and you immediately decide to grace the old boyfriend with a visit, thinking of the possibilities for a damn newspaper story. And what’s wrong with Donovan to let you do this? Thought he was smarter than that.”

“Let me? He
let
me do this? What century are you living in, Sheriff? Wait, I remember, it’s that century where the sheriff calls out the posse while a bunch of good old boys frame an innocent man for murder.”

“You’re a piece of work, lady.”

Lacey turned to Firestone in the back. “Hey, Rico, isn’t it time for you to referee this fight? You can be the
good
cop.”

He might have chuckled, but he quickly cleared his throat to cover it. “Why did you come back to Sagebrush, Lacey?”

How many times am I going to have to answer that one?
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

“Because…because there was no way I could believe Cole Tucker was a killer. If Tucker is a killer, what does that make me? What does that say about what I believe and who I trust? I couldn’t live with that.”

There was silence while the two lawmen considered her words. Sheriff T-Rex chewed his lip and headed the big SUV into Sagebrush.

“Make it quick,” T-Rex said. “We got work to do.” He squirmed in his seat, clearly thinking this was a terrible idea.

“It will take as long as it takes,” Lacey said.

She was seated between Sheriff Rexford and Agent Firestone at the Amarillo Café on Sundance Way in Sagebrush. The café was still painted the same dirty seafoam green that she remembered. From inside, the word
Amarillo
was crookedly spelled backward on the window in a crescent shape.

A few faded pictures of mountain ranges hung on the walls. Pale gray linoleum-topped tables and wooden chairs were scattered around the room. The fluorescent lighting did no one any favors. A few coffeepots were set on burners on a table where the patrons could grab them if the waitress was busy, but the waitress really hated that. The Amarillo Café hadn’t changed a bit.

It was the kind of place Lacey once found hard to appreciate, until now, when she straggled in, hungry and dirty and worried. Today the Amarillo provided an oddly familiar comfort. She tried to keep her mind on her theory that the silver bootheel resting at the bottom of her tote bag might have something to do with at least one of the dead women. It seemed more and more far-fetched the longer she thought about it, but it was her number one exhibit for today’s show-and-tell.

In front of her was a steaming mug of coffee, aromatic and freshly brewed. She closed her eyes and inhaled
the fragrance before sipping. Rico Firestone and T-Rex also had mugs of coffee, but they were not as enchanted as she was.

When a large bowl of homemade vegetable-beef-and-barley soup and fresh bread were served, Lacey almost wept with joy.

T-Rex grabbed a copy of
The Sagebrush Daily Press
from another table. He shoved the paper at her. “I’m sure you’ll want a souvenir.”

A years-old picture of her was on the front page, under a blaring two-line headline: D
AILY
P
RESS
R
EPORTER
A
BDUCTED AT
Y
AMPA
C
OUNTY
C
OURTHOUSE
!

Dodd Muldoon strikes again
. Lacey felt the blood drain from her face. “What did that maniac write about me?” She read through a few paragraphs, wincing with horror. Muldoon had made her sound like a combination of Joan of Arc and Brenda Starr. Worse, he personally took credit for her entire reporting career, by virtue of his “having initiated” her into the world of journalism.
Ewww.

Never one to let an opportunity pass by, Muldoon also dug up a story about the time Lacey had crawled through a “massage parlor” window to interview the “masseuses” inside. The massage parlor, to which no one working there seemed to have a front door key, turned out to be a front for a prostitution ring out of Denver. It had proven to be a hot news story back in the day, for
The Daily Press
and a young reporter named Lacey Smithsonian. Muldoon’s recollection of her role in the episode managed to be simultaneously flattering and embarrassing, a patented Muldoon combination.

“This is horrible,” she gasped and felt herself color. People in Sagebrush read this paper cover to cover. Nobody believed every word, necessarily, but they read it.

“See how it feels,” T-Rex said. Firestone lifted his coffee cup and chuckled.

“I’m familiar with Dodd Muldoon’s brand of journalism. One reason I left.”

Lacey returned to the article, which ended with this
boast: “…If Lacey ‘Scoop’ Smithsonian survives this shocking abduction,
The Daily Press
guarantees you’ll read her exclusive report here first.”

She muttered under her breath, “I’ll kill him.”

“Good. That would rid me of two of my problems,” T-Rex said. “I got a cell all picked out special for you. Right next to Cole Tucker’s.”

“Very funny, Sheriff. I expect your ace deputy will have the third cell.”

The restaurant was empty when the trio strolled in, but not for long. Word quickly spread of Lacey’s return to Sagebrush on horseback. The place filled up. People crowded around, trying to listen in on the table where Lacey sat between the two lawmen. She focused on her soup and paid them no attention. T-Rex barked and they backed up.

“Can’t you eat any faster?” he asked Lacey.

“I’m not you.” She ignored them all and ate slowly and with great satisfaction.

The noise level rose until a group of newcomers showed up. A tall man with a sandy mustache and a cowboy hat entered first, followed by a couple of men in billed caps. She recognized one of them: Deputy Grady Rush out of uniform, in jeans and a denim jacket.

With the tall man’s arrival the atmosphere changed subtly. The chatter stopped and tables of locals started listening again.

“So you made it back,” the tall man said to Lacey. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place him or his toothy smile. “Safe and sound, I see.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sheriff T-Rex said. “Cole Tucker is still out there.”

“I’m sorry. You are?” Lacey said.

“Virgil. Virgil Avery.” He offered her his hand. She ignored it. “You remember me, Lacey. You wrote a nice little news story about me way back when. About my real estate company. I’m mighty glad to see you safe and sound.”

“Virgil here is one of our key posse members,” T-Rex put in. “He’s been hunting you since yesterday.”

Lacey felt a curious sort of calm, watching the man who had made offer after offer on Tucker’s land. All of a sudden she couldn’t eat another bite. She pushed the soup away.

“And your friend is?” She indicated the shorter, stouter man standing behind him, wearing a cap that advertised natural gas. His stubby fingers were covered with chunky turquoise rings, his nails dirty.

“Where are my manners? Let me present my friend Mitchell Stanford.”

Stanford stretched out his right hand. Lacey kept both hands on her coffee cup. Stanford dropped his hand without dropping his big smile. She tried to look like she had heard nothing about either of them, as if Tucker hadn’t painted them with a specific brush of villainy. They were after the Tuckered Out Ranch.

“Grady, what the hell are you doing here?” T-Rex shouted at the big man who was trying to shrink into the crowd.

“I’m, um, off duty, Sheriff. I just thought I’d help out the posse,” Grady said. His head was bowed. He ignored Lacey. “Maybe I could help catch the, uh, fugitive, you know?”

“You mean help chase the runaway horse after
you
opened the barn door? Do you have a brain in your head, Grady? You are on administrative leave, pending the completion of my investigation into the events at the courthouse yesterday.” T-Rex’s face was beyond red; it was turning an outraged shade of magenta. “And you are not welcome on this posse, or anywhere else in my county. The very sight of you gives me a pain in my gut. And lower. Now get your sorry prisoner-losing ass out of here!”

Lacey was mentally writing down that “sorry prisoner-losing ass” quote. She was sure it would come in handy. Other customers watched, happy to witness the sheriff ream out his deputy. In public. At the Amarillo. They would have a story to tell at the Little Snake Saloon that evening.

Grady exchanged a look with Virgil Avery and the
others before he shuffled out the door. Mitch Stanford watched Grady go, but Avery kept his attention on Lacey and the lawmen.

“Did he hurt you?” Avery asked Lacey. “Abducting you against your will like that? Terrible thing, a thing like that.”

“Man like that’s capable of God knows what kind of ugly behavior,” Stanford said. “When I think of those poor pretty young women, I think that Cole Tucker must be a real animal.”

Lacey’s stomach turned. She wished she could send death rays from her eyes, but she settled for giving them The Look. “Tucker never hurt me.”

“Yeah, it’s a real good thing that Miss Smithsonian’s safe and all, so she can write some new damn exposé about this town, but our work’s not over,” T-Rex said. “We still got to find Cole Tucker.”

Virgil Avery never took his unblinking eyes off Lacey. “I imagine Miss Smithsonian could point us in the right direction. Where did he go, Lacey?” He leaned in to the table, and she leaned away from him.

“Let the poor girl rest a minute, Virgil, for crying out loud,” Stanford said. He seemed a more jovial sort, with his red round face and ever-present smile. He turned to Lacey. “We’re all mighty glad you’re safe. This town doesn’t need any more victims of this guy.”

Stanford had an oily kind of salesman manner. Probably came in handy when he was peddling future riches for mineral leases today.

“Back off, boys, we’ll be doing the interviewing,” Firestone said. “Let the woman breathe.”

Stanford and Avery smiled and backed away from the table. Avery leaned over to the coffeepot station, grabbed himself a cup, and poured from the pot. He earned a glare from the waitress, but he smiled at her. “Come on, Sally, I’m saving you a trip.” He turned back to Lacey. “Maybe Tucker didn’t get around to victimizing you yet. But I guess you and him have quite a history, so maybe you two—”

“Agent Firestone,” Lacey said, “can you shut him up?”

Firestone stood up. Sheriff T-Rex stood up too, not to be left out.

“That’s enough, Avery. The lady’s had a rough night,” Firestone said.

“Let’s remember we still got a fugitive out there,” T-Rex added. “Why don’t you boys brief my undersheriff and we’ll talk later.”

Lacey reached down to reassure herself that her bag was still there. The silver bootheel nagged at her. She glanced down at the men’s feet. Avery and Stanford both wore cowboy boots. Like several of the other posse members. Like the sheriff and Firestone.

When she straightened up, Mitch Stanford met her eyes. “That’s a mighty nice pair of boots you got there, Miss Smithsonian.” Lacey felt like she’d been living in her boots for ages, though it had only been two days and a night. “F. M. Light, I bet,” Stanford continued. “I bet they don’t wear pretty boots like that back East.” There was a bit of “back East” in his accent.

A phone jingled. It sounded like Lacey’s cell phone, the one Tucker threw out the window. She turned her head in the direction of the sound, puzzled. Rico Firestone took a battered phone from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to her.

“For you, I think.”

“How’d you get my phone?”

“Someone turned it in. Do you want to answer?” Firestone was waiting to listen in.