Exposure (20 page)

He didn't get back to the island until nine o'clock that night. At ten he knocked on Emma's door.

She opened it cautiously, chain in place. "Elvis," she whispered sternly, "whether you agreed with me or not, I told you this morning that—"

"Look at this," he commanded, and slid a drawing through the crack in the door. "I just got back from Seattle PD, where I took my mother to work with a police artist. This is a composite drawing of the man who convinced her to arrange that little party on the Fourth of July."

The door closed in his face. He heard the rattle and slide of the chain, and a moment later Emma was holding the door open for him. "Come on in," she said. Stepping back, she stared down at the drawing in her hand, studying it for a moment before she looked back up at him. "His name is Hackett," she said. "He's one of Grant's men."

"Good. That gives us a place to start." He sat down at the tiny table in the comer and as she, too, took a chair, he informed her, "I've got about forty copies of this. I'm going to distribute them all over the island."

"Where could you possibly disburse them that would make any difference?"

"Oh, lots of places, Em. To all ferry personnel, for starters. The only way on and off this island is by ferry—or private boat, but that would limit his mobility once he got here. Odds are, access to a car for getting around the island is more important than the anonymity of coming and going by private boat."

He watched her absorb the information for a moment, and then continued, "If the guy's on the island for more than a few hours running, he's bound to want to eat. So I'll pass his picture out to restaurants, delis, grocer)' stores, and fast-food joints. His car will need gas, which he may or may not be purchasing here, so I'll distribute them to the attendants at the two gas stations on the island." He shrugged. "As I said, it's a place to start. At the very least, it should give us an idea whether or not he's still hanging around."

Emma looked over at the tiny hump that Gracie made under the covers. She stared at her daughter intently a moment and then looked back at Elvis. "Thank you," she said quietly. "It helps to know something is being done."

"It's not necessary to thank me, Emma. I'm just doing my job. And believe me," he added grimly, "it will be my pleasure to ultimately put this clown away."

He looked her over, hesitated, and then said, "About my mother . . ."

Emma's expression stiffened, but Elvis plowed on, "She asked me to tell you she's sorry." He explained the circumstances and then added, "She really isn't a malicious woman, Em. She just doesn't think things through. She saw an opportunity to make some money on something that was presented to her as a practical joke and didn't stop to consider the consequences."

Emma nodded with reluctant acceptance, and Elvis exhaled a little breath of relief. "I know you've been wondering how Nadine got into your car," he said. "She told me she was supplied with a key."

"Dieu." Long fingers spearing into her hair, Emma ground the heels of her palms into her eye sockets. Lowering her hands to the tabletop, she raised her eyes to look at Elvis. "Grant's like some damn spider, isn't he? Sitting in his web spinning out his stinkin' little intrigues." She smiled bitterly. "Come into my parlor, you poor unsuspectin' sap."

"Yeah, well let him enjoy himself, Em, because he's not going to get away with it for very much longer." Gracie stirred and Elvis watched her until she settled into deep sleep again. Then, turning his attention back to Emma, he made an impatient sweeping movement with his hook. "Look, forget about Woodard," he commanded. "I didn't come here and bring all of this up just to make you feel lousy. I wanted to let you know we're taking steps to put an end to this bullshit. How are you feeling?" he inquired in a low voice, and the eyes that looked into hers were no longer the objective eyes of a cop; they were suddenly very personal. Reaching across the tiny table, he stroked his fingers down the back of her hand. "You still sore?"

"No, I feel pretty good," she replied. "Instead of usin' the shower I took a long, hot soak in the tub this mornin'. It helped a lot."

"Ah, man, Emma, I'm sorry," he said with sincere contrition. "It never should have come down to that.

I should have used a little more consideration last night."

Emma's gaze snapped up to meet his. "Are you beatin' yourself up over a little residual soreness, Elvis? Sugah, that's pointless," she assured him honestly. "You didn't do anything I didn't want you to do. I mean you do realize I always had the option to say no, don't you?"

She thought about her words for a second and then smiled wryly. "No. Wait. On second thought, maybe you should assume full responsibility. Not that what I said about having options isn't true, of course, but now that you mention it I hardly ever exercise those options and that is your fault. You're always gettin' me so excited, I seem to have a hard time denyin' you anything."

"Oh, yeah? You just a girl who can't say no?" He brought her wrist up to his mouth, kissing it and then pressing open-mouthed kisses in an ever-farther-ranging march up her arm. The slight but persistent pressure he exerted on the forearm he held firmly in his grasp pulled her up onto her feet, around the table, and onto his lap. "Does that mean," he asked huskily, pressing kisses on her throat in an erratic path, "that if I promised to be very, very quiet, and rearrange just the bare minimum of clothing, you'd have a hard time saying no to me now?" His fingers slid up her bare thigh beneath the loose leg of her shorts. Halting at the lacy elastic border of her panties, they brushed back and forth, back and forth.

"I have something hard for you."

"Oh, you are so bad, Sheriff." She sucked in a sharp breath when his forefinger suddenly breached the flimsy barrier.

"Uh huh. Bad. That's me." Moving his finger in gentle circles, he looked into her slumbrous eyes.

"So ... have me arrested, why don'tcha?"

"Oh, I would, I would," she assured him fervently, eyes closing and legs sliding a little farther apart. "Except, wouldn't you just know it, there's never a cop around when you need one." Then, reluctantly, she pushed his hand away. "Not here, Elvis."

He followed her gaze to Gracie. "Right," he agreed. He took a deep breath, blew it out, and gave her a lopsided smile. "So, what's your opinion of sex in hallways?"

Hackett started looking for a public phone to use the minute he drove off the ferry. He pulled over with a slam of his brakes at the first booth he saw. Cradling the receiver between ear and shoulder, he held his phone card up where he could see it and punched in the necessary series of access and phone numbers. Then he waited while the phone on the other end rang.

The line was picked up. "Grant Woodard's office."

"Rosa, this is Hackett. Is he in?"

"Yes, he is, sir; won't you please hold a moment? Mr. Woodard is currently on another line, but you shouldn't have to wait very long. He's instructed me that your calls are to be put through immediately." The line went dead as she placed him on hold. While he waited, Hackett returned the phone card to his wallet and the wallet to his hip pocket. Fastidiously, he picked a thread off his summer slacks and snapped out a pristine handkerchief to flick dust from the toes of his expensive Italian loafers.

The connection was reopened. This time it was Woodard's voice that spoke. "What news, Hackett?"

"I'm afraid I've been made, boss."

Grant swore briefly, but then said, "Well, we knew going in it would be a possibility. What happened?"

"I stopped at an oyster bar they've got at the yacht club to get some lunch. It's away from town; I figured it was fairly anonymous. But I saw the counter kid checking my face against a drawing. I got the hell outta there and off the island before that Hell's Angel sheriff could track me down." He admired his reflection for a moment in the smoky storefront window across the sidewalk and then added, "His whore mama musta been the one to supply the description. I know I can't go back there myself, but you want I should get one of the boys out here to whack her?"

On his end of the line, Grant briefly closed his eyes. God preserve him from hired help who tried to think for themselves. "No, that won't be necessary," he said, no hint of what he felt coloring his voice.

"I always knew Gracie would eventually cave in and tell her mother the truth, so having Nadine Donnelly's part in the scam exposed was pretty much a foregone conclusion. What surprises me is that Emma talked to the cops, I expected she'd simply take off for a newer clime." He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Well, that's neither here nor there. Catch the next flight back, Hackett. I've got to put some thought into where I want to go from here."

Sam pushed in the car lighter and reached in the visor for his pack of Camels. He shook one out, tapping the filter restlessly against the steering wheel as he waited for the element to heat up. He and Clare were on their way home after closing down the store, and ever since they'd instituted the in-store no-smoking policy this was one of his more anxiously awaited smokes of the day. The lighter popped out and he brought the glowing tip to his cigarette. Inhaling deeply, he slowly let the smoke escape through his mouth and nostrils.

Clare stabbed the power button on her door handle and with a hum her window lowered. "Dammit, Sam, when are you going to give up that disgusting habit?" she demanded irritably. "I can't tell you how sick I am of breathing in your secondhand smoke." She flapped a hand at him and wrinkled her nose. "Not to mention how fed up I am with the stench."

The hand holding the cigarette stilled halfway between the steering wheel and his mouth, and Sam took his eyes off the road long enough to look at his wife. Mouth set at a mulish angle, she was glaring back at him. A big knot that he'd been carrying around with him for what seemed like forever began to dissolve.

This was the Clare he knew, his old Clare. She'd started giving him a hard time about what she'd termed his "nasty, foul, nicotine habit" on the day they'd met and hadn't let up for nine years. When Evan was alive she'd even had him trained to do his smoking outside where it wouldn't infringe on the air their son breathed. After Evan's death, she didn't seem to care what he did. The only reason he'd brought his habit back inside the house was to see if he could get a rise out of her.

Until today she hadn't even seemed to notice.

He'd made a promise—to himself, to God—and he reached for the pack in the visor. Shaking another cigarette out, he flipped his lighted smoke out the window and handed Clare the pack. "You want me to quit?" he asked.

"You know damn well I do, Samuel Mackey. I've only been after you to do it for the past ten years."

"Yeah? Well, today's your lucky day, honey. See this?" He held up the cigarette he'd extracted. "You're looking at Sam Mackey's last cigarette. Toss the rest of 'em out."

The pack went sailing out the window.

Sam felt only the slightest twinge of panic as he glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the pack bounce along the shoulder of the highway. He'd sworn more times than he could recall that if she would only care enough to demand one more time that he quit, he'd give the cigarettes up once and for all. He'd begun to despair that the demand would ever come. Pulling out the lighter, he put the coil to his last official cigarette.

After dinner, he tracked her down to their bedroom, where she was putting away laundry. Closing the door behind him, he began to unbutton his shirt.

Clare went very still. Watching him uncover his chest, his shoulders, and arms, and then drop the shirt to the floor as he reached for the button on his waistband, she swallowed dryly. "What do you think you're doing, Sam?" she demanded. And swore inwardly to hear her voice come out breathy and anxious instead of coolly inquiring as she'd intended.

"I don't smoke anymore," he informed her quietly, swiftly stripping down to the skin. "It's after dinner. I've brushed my teeth. I've gone through three toothpicks. I don't like gum." Straightening up from working his jeans over his heels, he faced her, naked as the day he was born and aroused to impressive proportions. "I need something to put in my mouth," he said in a low, hungry voice, coming to stand in front of her. Fingers reaching for the buttons on her blouse, he leaned down to scrape his teeth over her lower lip. He chewed on it. He sucked at it. Then he pulled his head back far enough to look into her eyes. "And, honey, since this was your idea, I guess that means you're elected to supply me with what I need."

The stack of jockey shorts that she'd clutched to her chest at his entrance slid soundlessly to the floor. "Oh, Sammy," she breathed out, reaching with eager hands for his naked flanks. "I thought you'd never ask again."

Elvis strolled into work at a few minutes before eight. Stopping at Sandy's desk, he picked up his messages. He set his coffee down on her desk to shuffle through them, and seeing nothing that needed his immediate attention, met Ben's eyes as his deputy looked up. "Anything new this morning?" he inquired.

"Got Harve Hensen locked up," Ben replied, jerking his chin in the direction of the door that led to the two cells in back.

"Harve? For what?" Elvis quirked an eyebrow. "D & D?"

"He wasn't drunk, but he sure as hell got disorderly." Ben smiled wryly. "He beat the shit out of Mike Chance early this mornin'."

"Oh, man. He finally caught on to Chance's car being parked in front of his house, huh?" Mike Chance drove the island's only taxi, and for the past several months had been boldly parking it right in front of Harve Hensen's house while he was inside carrying on an affair with Harve's wife, Kathy.

"Well. . . kinda. He overheard someone snickering about it over at Ruby's this morning and drove back home to see for himself. I think he fully expected to prove the gossips wrong. But sure enough, there was Mike's car, parked—Jesus, Elvis, get this—in Harve's driveway this time, and he walked in and caught 'em right in the act." Ben blew out a breath and shook his head. "Chance is over at the clinic being patched back together, and Harve is in back cooling his jets, courtesy of the good ol' state of Washington."

"Is Chance planning on pressing charges?" Harve Hen-sen was big and sort of dumb. But despite the fact that he wasn't the smartest man on the island, he was considered easygoing and was widely liked because of a genuinely sweet nature. Like all men, however, his good nature had its limitations. Seeing his wife in bed with another man had obviously exceeded them.

Elvis could empathize with the way Harve must be feeling, and he hated the idea of having to throw the book at him. His job, however, was to uphold the law; so if Mike Chance wanted to press charges of assault and battery, he'd have no choice but to act on his wishes.

"Nah, I don't think so." Ben shrugged. "I could be wrong, but that wasn't the feel I got for the situation."

Sandy came in then, and the story was retold. "Ah, that Kathy is a fool," was her assessment. "Harve is such a sweet guy—not to mention a steady provider. I hope he tosses her out on her faithless little butt." Ben wasn't sure he agreed, and the two began arguing the merits back and forth. Elvis left them to it, retreating to his desk to clear up some of the ever-present paperwork.

It was just after ten when he heard Sandy say, "Well, hi, Mrs. Sands! How nice to see you again. And this must be . . ."

His head came up with a snap. Emma was half turned away from him as she closed the entryway door. Gracie was straining forward against her mother's hand.

"Gwacie," she supplied before Sandy could complete the sentence. "I'm fwee, you know." She quivered like a needle at magnetic north in Sandy's direction, but then swung like a pendulum in her mother's grip the minute she spotted Elvis at his desk. "Hi, Shewiff Elbis!" Shaking free of Emma's hold, she raced across the room, throwing herself against Elvis' legs before he could rise from his seat. She thrust her arms out peremptorily and demanded, "Up!"

He scooped her up and plunked her on his knee. "Hiya, kid. Whatcha doin' here? You come to visit me at work?"

"Huh-uh. Maman say we haffa make a repote." She blinked her big brown eyes at him and then continued chattily, "We got our tyoos cutted, Elbis."

"Your tires?" he said. Looking away from her sweet and eager little face, he watched Emma as she approached more slowly. "On the Chevy, Em?" he questioned. "Somebody slashed the tires on your Chevy?"

She sank into the chair next to his desk, long fingers reaching up to rub at her furrowed brow. It didn't take a genius to deduce there was a headache in the making. "We just discovered it. Gracie and I were supposed to go to—"

"Miss-us Mackey's house," Gracie interrupted, eager to help supply some of the details of their story.

"Right. But when I pulled the cover off the car, I found the back two tires sitting on their rims."

"Flattoo 'n' pancakes."

"It's pretty clear they've been slashed, Elvis." She rubbed harder at her forehead. "Why on earth would anyone want to slash my tires?"

"You don't think it could be ... ?" Understood but unsaid in front of Gracie was the name Grant Woodard.

"Well, it could be, I suppose. Instigating a program of harassment, you mean?" She thought about it a moment.

"Sure, I suppose anything is possible. But it just doesn't feel right, Elvis."

"Not his style?"

"No. Not really." She looked at him in frustration. "But then, what do I really know of his style? I would have said he was above all sorts of things two months ago."

"Who you talkin' about, Mommy?"

Emma looked at Gracie sitting with such trust on Elvis' lap while she regarded her with big brown perplexed eyes. "Just somebody who's done some bad things, angel pie." She reached her hands out to her daughter. "Come on over here and see me, sugar," she instructed, and hugged her daughter fiercely when Gracie launched herself out of Elvis' lap and into her arms. She gnawed at Gracie's neck just to hear her laugh.

Elvis stood. "Why don't we go take a look at the damage before we file the report?" He put his hand beneath Emma's elbow to assist her to her feet and waited while she settled Gracie on her hip. "It's probably a random act of vandalism, Em," he assured her. "Unfortunately, we get 'em more often than we like to admit."

Both Sandy and Ben murmured their agreement.

"It's the lack of entertainment," Sandy elaborated. "The kids around here just don't have enough to keep them occupied."