Touch of Evil (11 page)

“What
is
that?” Justine’s father asked. “Something dead out there?”

The tingling followed the channel of her backbone and spread to her limbs.

“Probably some animal.” Justine untied Moonshadow from the hitching post. “Let me take Moonshadow to her stall and then I’ll check it out.”

Thunder murmured, closer this time, and her dad said, “Cold front’s blowing in—real cold one for this early in the year. Heard something about it on the news this morning.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her son slip between two strands of wire. “Hey, Noah,” she called, her uneasiness settling deeper. “Why don’t you stick with us? Want to help me feed Moonshadow?”

But whether Noah was drawn to the clacks and hisses of the squabbling buzzards or simply didn’t want to listen, he took off running, waving his arms, in the direction of the birds.

“Get back here,” Justine shouted after him. “Here, Dad, hold the lead rope for me.”

“I’ve got him.” Her father was already off and running to let himself inside the fence.

Justine put up the mare, who seemed to have recovered from her scare. In spite of more low thunder, the horse munched contentedly at the alfalfa Justine dropped into her hayrack.

When she left the stable, she felt the kiss of the first light raindrops and caught a faint flicker of lightning in the distance, beyond the silhouetted line of trees.

Then she spotted her father running, his strong arms holding Noah. And then she heard her father shouting, “That’s no animal, Justine. Call nine-one-one right now.”

And all the while, her son was babbling, “No touch, no touch, bad touch…”.

We must, indeed, all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

—Benjamin Franklin

“We need an ambulance,” Justine’s father repeated as he placed Noah’s hand in hers. “He’s still breathing, barely. It’s Roger. Your deputy, Savoy.”

Her father raced back into the pasture at great speed for a man of his years, but Justine stood rooted to the spot. His words made no sense to her. What did he mean—

“Justine,
move
!“ he bellowed, glancing at her with a look of disgust before dropping to his knees and pushing down with both hands. “Appears there’s two gunshot wounds here. He’s barely holding on.”

Justine’s inertia shattered. Whipping out her phone with one hand, she dialed 911 as Noah squirmed and wailed, not so much in terror, she thought, as out of the desire to break free and go back to his grandfather.

Over the sound of her child’s cries, she gave the location and ordered the dispatcher to send help. “Give me everything you have: ambulance, deputies, firefighters for manpower. We’ve got one of ours hurt bad here. Officer down. Officer down.”

As she flipped the phone closed, Noah pulled loose. But instead of sprinting for the pasture, as she had expected, he took off running for the stable, where he’d been found the day before.

The rain began in earnest, not a cloudburst but enough to
soak through clothes in a few minutes. Enough to chill a downed man, or to make a mud hole of a crime scene.

Justine hesitated, torn between the need to go catch Noah and the duty to find out what, if anything, she could do to help save Roger Savoy’s life.

But what if whoever had shot Roger remained nearby? What if he was close enough to grab Noah again—presuming the shooter was the same person who had taken her son the day before?

Choosing her priority, she called to her father, “Help’s on the way. Let me just grab Noah.”

Red faced, her father nodded her way, his upper body bobbing repeatedly as he did CPR compressions. In the rain, his white hair melted down atop his head.

“God, Roger, you can’t die,” Justine said as she ran. “Please don’t let him.” She wasn’t sure whether it was prayer or fervent hope, but whatever she had thought of Roger, she knew she damned well meant it. Because his death would mean yet another failure, the failure in her sacred duty to keep all of her men safe. It would mean as well that someone in Preston County was targeting all of law enforcement, and not just her.

Sure enough, she found her son hiding in the feed room, though this time he’d crouched behind hay bales instead of sliding underneath the pallet. He stared up at her, his brown eyes liquid. “Bad touch,” he repeated, sounding small and lost.

Though she knew from experience that he wouldn’t like it, Justine couldn’t help herself. Pulling her son into her arms, she clutched him in a damp embrace, not so much for his sake, but her own. Because she needed strength to face this crisis.

And she knew her strength alone wouldn’t be enough to see her through.

From the dark recesses of memory, an echo of her brother’s
last words reached her, floating on the acrid smoke that still threatened to choke her, even after all these years.

You’ll never make it, Justine! Turn back. Turn back—don’t try!

Ross woke to find Deputy Paul Miller, whom he’d known since high school, standing over him along with a second deputy. Embarrassed to have been caught dozing on the couch after last night’s exhausting vigil, Ross stood with a grimace and glanced at Trudy, who shrugged one rounded shoulder.

“I thought one of us might as well get some rest,” she said without a trace of martyrdom. “And you really looked like you could use it.”

Outside, the rain continued, tapping lightly at the windows, darkening the day.

“Thanks,” Ross told Trudy before shaking hands with each of the deputies in turn. “I appreciate your coming, Paul…” He glanced at the name tag of the taller man, a beefy sort, mid-forties, before adding, “Deputy Vaughn.”

“Finally,” Trudy murmured, glancing at her watch. But judging from the way she kept looking down, Ross suspected she was itching to ask the deputies to leave their shoes on the front porch.

Vaughn pulled off his hat, revealing short red hair frizzed by static and a ruddy face to match. Spotted with rainwater, Paul’s hat remained on, but in the shadow beneath its wide brim, his eyes narrowed, and his thick muscles tensed.

Something was wrong, Ross sensed. Something more than Laney running off to see a friend. “You’ve found her?” he asked.

Alive, he prayed. Alive and uninjured. But instinct told him she was unharmed, for he knew Paul well enough to sense hostility, not sympathy, in his expression. What could
Laney have done to make another enemy in the department? Or had their chief deputy’s suspicion of her swept through his comrades like a virus?

Sure enough, Paul took the lead, his mouth twisting with contempt as he said, “We haven’t found your cousin, but we’ve found Roger Savoy—shot.”

“Savoy? When? Where?” Ross couldn’t wrap his brain around it. “Is he—”

Trudy burst out, “I’m sorry to hear about your deputy, but I don’t understand. What could this possibly have to do with my sister?”

Ross felt heat rush to his face. “You’re not suggesting Laney’s involved with one of your men getting hurt?”

Vaughn shook his head, regret weighing down his next words. “Roger’s dead. He died at the sheriff’s.”

“The sheriff’s? This happened at Justine’s place?” Images whipped through Ross’s mind: Savoy’s hand on his gun, his badge flashing to the floor as he threw it near Justine’s feet. Hatred in his voice, his eyes, rage rising like heat waves off of August asphalt.

“What does this have to do with Laney?” Trudy repeated.

Paul Miller glared at her. “The last call Roger made was to a phone registered to Elaine Thibodeaux. Last night, at two forty-five a.m. Elaine’s your sister’s real name, isn’t it, ma’am?”

Trudy’s color deepened. “Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me. Not when you’re standing here suggesting that my baby sister—”

“That’s ridiculous,” Ross interrupted before Trudy’s temper could get her into trouble. “Laney left her phone here. It’s been here all night. See?” He gestured to the small, some-what battered-looking cell phone beside him on the coffee table.

“You haven’t heard it ringing?” Paul asked. “We’ve been calling her for hours.”

Ross shook his head. “Calling what number?”

Rather than answering, Deputy Vaughn frowned. “Mind if I take a look?”

As Vaughn began pushing buttons, Paul asked, “Can you think of any reason Miss Thibodeaux might have more than one cell phone?”

Trudy shook her head. “I can’t see her spending the money to do that. Are you positive you have the right Thibodeaux? There are more than a few of us around here.”

“You can be sure we’ll double-check,” Miller said. “But if we do confirm it was her phone, and that the time of the call lines up with the time of the shooting…no matter what, we’re going to want to question that girl.”

An ugly new idea ripped through Ross, reawakening last night’s fears. “Are you sure my cousin’s not another victim? Have you searched the area where your deputy was found?”

“We have men combing the whole property. They would’ve found her by now if she were there.”

“I need to speak to Sheriff Wofford,” Ross said.

Vaughn looked up from Laney’s cell. “Savoy didn’t call this phone, and she didn’t call him either. Last outgoing call on the log is from five days ago. I don’t see Roger’s number on her contacts list, either.”

“Then she must have another phone,” Paul said, clearly trying to hammer a square peg into logic’s round hole.

“I need to speak to your sheriff,” Ross repeated, more insistently this time.

“You can’t.” Paul’s eyes were flint-hard. “She’s tied up at the crime scene.”

“Either that,” Vaughn added, “or she’s on her way to break the news to Savoy’s wife.”

Justine frowned at her kitchen clock and looked across the table at Calvin Whittaker and Larry Crane, whom she’d asked to take her statement. Upstairs, her dad was entertaining
Noah, though she knew he was itching to show all the deputies, from the two with her to those outside collecting evidence, how a murder investigation should be run.

She wondered if, despite the discovery of the noose around Savoy’s neck, her father would have bagged her hands if it were his scene, would have checked her thoroughly for gunshot residue and blowback from a close-range shooting. Though no one had dared ask her, Justine had changed her clothes and bagged those she’d been wearing before turning them over to a deputy for processing in the hope that this voluntary act would cut a little of the tension.

“We’d better wrap this up now,” she told Larry and Calvin. “If I don’t get to Mrs. Savoy soon, she’ll hear the news somewhere else.”

As awkward as the situation was, Justine owed it to the woman to face her in person, to offer whatever comfort she might. She’d sternly warned everyone on the scene not to call, text, or speak to anyone about this murder. Which ought to give her about a forty-five-minute head start over gossip if she was lucky.

Larry flipped shut the steno pad he’d been using for his notes and ran his hand across his comb-over, which had the unfortunate tendency to peel back and expose the shiny pallor underneath. “You want me to come with you?”

“Or I could go, ma’am,” Calvin offered, his eyes no less worshipful in spite of the body in the pasture.

She shook her head. “Thanks, gentlemen, but I need you to do something else. Something incredibly important, though I can tell you it’s not likely to make you a whole lot of friends in the department.”

Larry tipped a rueful smile and shrugged. “Can’t hardly get less, anyhow.”

Justine thought of all the garbage Larry had taken since she’d known him, from endless cracks about his appearance to incredibly crass jokes about his manhood when his wife
began fertility treatments. But his popularity had hit an all-time low when he’d stood up for Justine, something Savoy had called “a deal with the she-devil.”

“You’ve got me, Deputy,” Calvin told him.

She rewarded both men with a nod of approval. “I’d like you two to dig deep into Roger’s recent activities. Calvin, I’ll need you to box up the contents of his desk and get ’em inventoried. ”

Calvin’s face fell. “We’re cleaning out his desk already?”

“It’s critical we try to nail down any possible leads. Cases he’s been working, recent contacts and appointments. Anything that might give us a clue what he’s been up to.”
Other than attracting buzzards out in my pasture.
“We need to secure the information before everyone in the department starts pawing through it.”

“Can I take the pictures to his family?” Calvin asked, referring to the prominent photo display of Savoy’s wife, two grown sons, and his pride and joy, his first grandchild, a little girl only a few months old.

Justine nodded. “I’m sure Mrs. Savoy will appreciate that. And while you’re there, you’ll need to collect any files or case notes he had at home—I’m interested in his calendar especially. Just try to be sensitive about the way you do it.”

“I sure will,” Calvin promised. “I know them, Sheriff. Their son, anyway.”

“What about me?” Larry asked.

“I’ll need you to speak to Savoy’s friends and relations,” Justine said. “As discreetly as you can. You know what to ask, right?”

Larry nodded grimly, having done the same sort of digging on other murder victims. “What about subpoenas?” he asked. “For phone records and bank accounts?”

“Write up the paperwork and get it to Judge Moore. We need to move on this fast.”

Unless they quickly found the killer, Justine knew she’d feel the heat, especially considering her past relationship with Savoy and the still-unsolved mystery involving her joint bank account with Lou.

Twenty minutes later, Justine was on her way to Lake Havens Realty, where she’d called to confirm Roger’s wife was working. As she pulled into the parking lot of a long modular building with a fake log-cabin exterior, Justine steeled herself for what she feared would be the thorniest, most awkward death notification of her career.

Marilyn Savoy didn’t make it any easier. As Justine wiped her feet and walked into the long, open area with its bank of desks and framed posters featuring gorgeous lake views, the thin, pantsuited blonde turned her back to speak to a young couple—but not before Justine caught the contempt on the woman’s face.

Ignoring curious stares from a grandmotherly-looking type and the older couple browsing through brochures at Marilyn’s desk, Justine forged ahead. “Mrs. Savoy?” she said softly. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak to—”

“I have nothing to say to you.” If the icy tone weren’t enough, Marilyn Savoy’s glare made it clear she’d rather claw out Justine’s eyes and feed them to her than have a conversation.

The young woman clutched her husband’s hand, and the two exchanged a look of supreme discomfort. Across the open area, the older woman whispered something to her customers and rose from her seat, her eyes worried behind her cat’s-eye glasses.

“Is there someplace private we can go?” Justine looked toward a darkened, glassed-in office cubicle. “Perhaps in there, if these folks wouldn’t mind—”

“After what you did to Roger? He told me what happened at the hospital last night—how you almost—”

“Marilyn, please.” Justine thought,
She has no idea, no clue I’m about to change her life forever.
“Let’s go into your office. This is about Roger, and I’m afraid it’s serious.”

Chameleon-quick, the woman’s face turned pale, alarmingly stark beneath her fair hair. “What? What are you saying?” Rooted to the spot, she seemed to have lost all awareness of her customers, who were attempting to move away discreetly.

Justine took a deep breath, struggling to find the right words. “I’m very sorry, but there was a shooting sometime last night—”

“
No.
He’s finishing his paperwork, he told me. Tidying things up—because that’s the kind of lawman he is—even after you
fired
him.”