Death on Heels (29 page)

“We could have turned you into a true cowgirl, Annie Oakley,” Trujillo said.

“See? Disaster averted,” Lacey said. “Besides, I do my serious shopping
alone.
”

Free at last
. Lacey escaped from Mac and Tony just before four, in time to meet up with Vic at the courthouse. As she breezed into the lobby, he was waiting for her, with his buddy, the prosecutor.

“Here comes trouble.” Owens thought he was being clever. Though ordinarily crisp and combed, Brad Owens looked weary and rumpled. He flinched a little when he saw Lacey. She was a visible reminder that his career-making murder case had escaped before he could try the suspect.

“Hello, Brad,” she said.

“Lacey, long time,” Owens said, making it clear it hadn’t been nearly long enough for him. “How are you bearing up after your ordeal?”

“Never better,” she lied.

“I’d recommend you talk to someone about posttraumatic stress.” She laughed in his face. “And don’t worry. The sheriff is going to catch Cole.”

“T-Rex will catch hell from the voters before he catches Cole Tucker.” Lacey wanted to get the pleasantries out of the way.

Deputy DA Owens wanted the easy way out, but the resolution of the Cole Tucker case would now be anything but easy. When Tucker was found, it wouldn’t be a feather in Owens’s cap. With the enormous amount of local media attention to the murders and the daring courthouse escape, a change of venue was almost a certainty. Tucker would be tried in some other town clear
across the state, like La Junta or Pueblo, where the prosecution would have no home team advantage.

“There’s a reward out now.
The Daily Press
is putting up ten thousand dollars.”

“Muldoon is putting up that kind of money?” Muldoon putting up even a dime was odd, even suspicious.

Owens smiled for the first time. “Some of the energy companies are supposed to pony up some more.”

“I guess everyone wants Tucker caught,” Vic said.

“Looks that way.” Lacey hoped Tucker wouldn’t do anything stupid. “By the way, where is the present chief of police? What’s his name?” She had never met Vic’s replacement, who seemed to be missing in action.

“They call him Chief. And he’s ice fishing in Minnesota,” Vic said. “He checked in, said he’s got no plans to cut short his vacation.”

“I like a man with priorities,” Lacey said.

“Doesn’t matter if the chief is here or not,” Owens said. “Not his jurisdiction anyway. The victims were found out in the county. Life goes on. The law goes on. Someone is going to turn Tucker in, and when they do, you’ll have to testify. I’ll call you to the stand.”

“Works for me. I’ll tell the jury he didn’t kill anybody.” Lacey made a show of pulling out her notebook. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

“No one was supposed to release the information about the silver heel. And now it’s all over the Web. Nice going. You may have compromised our case.”

“I may have made your case, Brad. Against the real killer. And you’d have a real First Amendment problem trying to keep evidence out of the news when a reporter finds it. Finders, keepers. I have a duty to share with my readers. Anything else?”

“No comment.” Owens nodded to Vic. “Donovan, we’ll talk later.” Lacey watched him stomp wearily down the polished granite floor and out of sight.

“I love that First Amendment. Works like a charm, doesn’t it?” She tucked her notebook back in her purse.

“You had to go out of your way to irritate him?” Vic asked.

“Wasn’t out of my way at all.” Lacey flashed her most inviting smile and put her hand on his chest. “Vic, honey—”

“What am I going to regret agreeing to now?”

“How about the Little Snake Saloon?”

He made a face. “That place is no kind of bar for any law-abiding citizen. Or you.”

Lacey unleashed The Look in warning. “But it’s where Zeke Yancey hangs out.”

“I never should have mentioned Zeke Yancey. That’s why you want to go, isn’t it? He’s your prime suspect in these murders?”

“He used to be your prime suspect. Along with Muldoon.”

“Times change. Now my favorite suspect is Cole Tucker,” Vic said.

“Zeke Yancey has been warming bar seats there since I was in Sagebrush. And Ally Newport worked there.”

“She worked at nearly every bar in town. What do you expect to get out of it? Other than a warm beer?”

“I’m not psychic, Vic. I just want to ask him a few questions about Ally. That’s all I ever do, ask questions.”

“Yeah, right. It’s all business as usual until it’s time to pull out the scissors and stab somebody.”

“I hardly ever do that.”

Vic jammed his hands in his pockets and headed toward the door. He grumbled under his breath. Lacey followed him.

“I could go alone, or I could get Mom and Cherise to come with me.”

“Why not just unleash a bazooka down Sundance Way?”

“Sometimes you have to bring out the big guns,” Lacey said to his grumbles. “Besides, the Little Snake is the only place where people won’t think to find me. My family, Mac and Tony, Dodd Muldoon.”

“Promise? Even Muldoon?”

“Muldoon wanted us to have a newspaper staff meeting there years ago, to try to sell them some advertising. I refused. I told him it was nothing but a scummy hole-in-the-wall. He’ll never look for us there.”

“It’s probably even scummier now.”

“Duly noted, Chief Donovan. I know where it is. See you later.” She scooted ahead of him.

“Not without me.” Vic knew when he was licked. He caught up with her and took her arm.

“Yancey may not even be there.” Lacey ducked under his arm. “Buy me one drink at the Little Snake, Vic, and then you can take me wherever you want. How often does a guy get an offer like that?”

The Little Snake Saloon was a forbidding windowless barnlike structure, just off Sundance Way behind a taxidermy shop. Inside, the décor was straight from a hangover, with dark and dingy smoke-stained wooden walls that hadn’t seen any care in a decade or more. The bar was an oak plank scarred with hand-carved graffiti.

An ancient mirror backed shelves of liquor bottles. Adding a touch of color behind the bar were neon signs advertising Canadian Club whiskey and Coors beer, and a forlorn string of Christmas lights with old-fashioned bulbs that had hung there since before Lacey left Sagebrush.

A hand-lettered sign over the bar warned: A
NYONE
C
AUGHT
D
EFACING
T
HIS
P
ROPERTY WILL BE
B
ARRED FOR
L
IFE
. T
HAT
M
EANS
Y
OU
! T
HAT
M
EANS
B
ARRED FROM THIS
B
AR AND THE
B
ARTENDER WILL
T
ENDER
Y
OUR
A
SS
O
UT
!

“The place just oozes class,” Vic commented as they found their way through the gloom to the bar. A hard-bitten woman, who looked ancient but was probably only middle-aged, approached them. She stared at her new customers.

“Why, Chief Victor Donovan, as I live and breathe.”

“Hello, Aggie. Nice to see you. But I’m not a cop anymore.”

“You still look like one to me. Better looking than the one we got now. He’s missing all the excitement.”

Aggie Maycomb, the proprietor of the Little Snake, looked about the same as Lacey remembered her. The woman was as wrinkled as a raisin and grayer than granite. Her small bright blue eyes, hawk nose, and receding
chin were the same. Her smile was missing a couple of teeth. Aggie swore she never opened beer bottles with her teeth, people only
said
she did.

“And you.” Aggie turned her gaze to Lacey. “I’ve seen you before.” Her eyes squinted in concentration, then opened wide. “You were some girl reporter or something at Muldoon’s rag.”

“That’s right,” Lacey said. “I’m still a reporter, Aggie, and my name is—”

“Don’t tell me. I got it. Something funny, like a building. Like a museum or something. Smithsonian. Something Smithsonian.”

“Lacey Smithsonian.”

“Ha!” Aggie’s face beamed with satisfaction. She tapped the side of her head. “See? Still works. Why, you’re the one Cole Tucker took a-running from the courthouse. Over his shoulder, I heard. Like Tarzan the Apeman or something. You were his girlfriend, long time ago? Weren’t you? Now I’m putting it all together. Wish I coulda seen that.” She cackled with laughter. “I’d like to see the surprise on old T-Rex’s face at that. Stiff-necked old jackass. Like to see his face when you and Cole Tucker a-run out on him like that. Ha!”

Lacey squirmed on her barstool. She was glad the place was so dim. No one could see her red face. “I think I’ll have—”

“Wait a minute. You the chief here’s lady friend now? Ain’t life strange!”

“Strange indeed.” Vic’s expression told Lacey this was the last place he wanted his business discussed.

“You don’t need me to fill in the gaps,” Lacey said.

“Yeah, I’m good at knowing things,” Aggie bragged. “I never did think that Tucker killed them women. But then, I never figured he’d steal a woman right out of the courthouse under T-Rex’s nose. You don’t look any worse for wear, I tell you. Bet you got some crazy tales to tell.” Her eyes glistened at the thought of being first to be able to spread some hot new gossip around her bar. “But look at me jabbering away. What can I do you for?”

“Dos Equis,” Lacey said.

“Make it two,” Vic added.

Aggie reached back into the cooler and brought forth a couple of beers, and she even added glasses, to demonstrate what a top-drawer joint it was.

“If memory serves, Chief, you was here when this whole murder spree began, when the little Fowler girl went missing. Pity, that.” She picked up a rag and ran it down the bar to greet some new patrons.

Vic poured the amber liquid into his glass, and Lacey did likewise. The cold dark Mexican beer tasted good, not warm as Vic had threatened. She gazed around to see if her quarry was there. There was only a handful of customers at the Little Snake that early in the evening. With a nod to Lacey, Vic indicated a man at the far end of the bar.

Zeke Yancey looked like the proverbial forty miles of hard road. His face was pitted with old acne scars and a few scars from old fights. With his bleary eyes, he resembled a bear just awakening from hibernation, or possibly returning there. Yancey had four days’ worth of black stubble on his face and hair that hadn’t seen a barber in a while. His red flannel shirt and jeans were stained with what looked like motor oil. About forty-five, Lacey guessed, but he could have been ten years younger.

He might have been a handsome man once, Lacey thought, cleaned up, sobered up, and with about fifty pounds of lard melted off him. But Zeke Yancey had given up on being a better man, it was plain to see.

Zeke picked up his head as if he knew he was being watched. He stared at Lacey and Vic and slowly sidled down the bar. He stopped one barstool short of her and stood with one greasy boot propped on the rail.

Aggie stepped back a bit, enough so she seemed out of the way and out of their business, but close enough to hear what was going on. She liked to be in the know, and then she could say Muldoon’s “damn newspaper don’t know half of what goes on in Sagebrush, Colorado,” and she would be right.

“Donovan,” Yancey said, in guttural whiskey-washed tones. “God damn. Slumming it?”

“Zeke. Been a long time.” Vic kept his hands on his beer.

“Who’s your pretty lady friend?” He turned toward Lacey, beer gut out. “We don’t get a lot of ladies like you in the Little Snake.”

“I’m a reporter.”

“You’re a good-looking reporter, I’ll say that for you.” His eyes glittered from the Christmas bulbs and too much alcohol. “You the one, ain’t you? The girl in the courthouse Tucker ran off with.” Yancey started to shake with laughter. “Man, I bet Grady Rush is sorry he ever set eyes on you.”

“You’re friends with Grady?” she asked.

“Not hardly. Grady and me, we have some beers from time to time.”

“Jail talk on Saturday nights?” Vic asked.

“No beer in jail, Chief. But Grady’s a talker. Some of the crazy-ass stuff he’s into, it’s a wonder he’s still working for T-Rex.”

“Oh, really? What kind of crazy stuff is Grady into?” Lacey tapped her fingers against her beer.

“Ah, you know.” Yancey realized he might have said too much. And maybe he didn’t care. “Socializin’ with people like me. Sheriff T-Rex don’t like me much.” His guttural laughter was as pleasant as the rest of him. “Still, I can’t feature Grady being so dumb as to unlock the shackles on someone like Cole.”

“Someone like Cole?”

“Oh, Cole’s all right. I’m speaking of him as Public Enemy Number One around here. Looks bad for Grady. He wouldn’t a-done that for me.” He gurgled a laugh again. “Brick shy of a load, Grady is. No lie.”

“What makes you say Grady unlocked them?” Lacey said.

“He had to, didn’t he? You can’t do it yourself. Unless you’re some kind of Houdini. And Tucker can rope ’em and ride ’em, but I don’t think he can unlock waist shackles.”

“Do you see a lot of the deputy?” Vic inquired. “Does he hang out in here?”

“Wouldn’t say a lot. Here and there. And when I’m a guest at the T-Rex Motel, the one with bars on the windows. You threw me in there once or twice, didn’t you, Chief?”

Vic just smiled and tipped his beer at Yancey. Yancey took a long slurp, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Have you seen Grady since the, um, incident?” Lacey inquired.

“Nope. He hasn’t even come in here. Pretty damn embarrassing, losing a prisoner like that.”

“You got that right,” Vic said.

“Guess you came back to look at Cole Tucker ’midst his troubles. Ain’t that right, Chief? But ain’t she supposed to be Cole’s old girlfriend?” Zeke drained his beer and tapped the glass on the bar. “Hey, Aggie? Sweetie? Baby?”

Aggie efficiently removed his glass, wiped the counter, and drew a fresh Coors from the tap. He nodded with appreciation. “Man, that’s good. You ever take that tour? Over at the Coors brewery in Golden? Mighty fine. You get yourself some beer straight out of that Rocky Mountain springwater tap? Coldest beer I ever drank.” He smacked his lips loudly. Lacey decided a little of Zeke went a long way.