Touch of Evil (23 page)

A gallows was erected at Erwin, and a dummy was procured and dressed as much after the fashion of the Governor as possible, and the ceremony of hanging him was gone through with, the Sheriff of the county officiating. After the drop fell, the effigy was saturated with kerosene and a match applied…There were many women and children present, and the affair passed off in a very orderly way. It was explained by the leaders that this was the only way that the people had of expressing their indignation adequately.

—From “Gov. Turney Hanged in Effigy,” the
New York Times,
May 13, 1895

Hanging an enemy in effigy is a coward’s substitute. Children playing at a man’s work with their straw-stuffed dolls.

Pitiful and weak…a substitute for truly dealing with one’s problems. As I’ve dealt with my own, by one means or another. Get in my way, you’re swinging. Get too close to my secret, and you’re a dead man, too.

Only with women have I lacked the strength to follow through on the needs, desires, and—I’ll admit—the savage fantasies that haunt me. A failing of mine, I confess. A weakness I must remedy…

(I see your swinging feet, dear…one gold sandal already fallen, the other dangling by a toe.)

Not out of shattered fascination, or the need to amend my earlier misstep. And certainly not out of any “precipitating incident,” as the fucking shrinks would call it.

When next I act, it will be for no lesser purpose than my own preservation.

Because I cannot let them hang this on me.

I cannot hang (like you)…

Justine was in Ross’s tiled bathroom tying back her hair—quite damp after Ross had joined her in the shower—when the cell phone buzzed in her pocket. Fishing it out, she looked over at Ross, who was buttoning the fly of his jeans, his shirtless torso making her wish she could roll back time an hour.

“Forces of evil,” she explained, seeing the four-letter word
work
in the caller ID window.

Ross gave her the same look of regret she’d seen in half a dozen motel rooms when one of them was called away. “Already?”

“Wofford here,” she said into the phone. “What’s up, Larry?”

She’d left Crane in charge today, riding herd over the other deputies on duty. Though she’d finally taken an afternoon off, the investigation couldn’t.

“I cashed in a favor, got ballistics rolling.” Because of its small size, Preston County lacked its own firearms examination unit and contracted with another jurisdiction.

“Glad to hear it,” she said, still amazed by how well “Ichabod” had stepped up as her second in command. She had to admit she’d had serious doubts about his leadership abilities, had understood the rumblings of disbelief among the other men when she’d made Crane her “provisional” chief deputy, but having a man she could trust to support her now was crucial. To her immense relief, Larry had almost immediately begun asserting himself with a confidence that surprised everyone—including Justine.

“So do we have the murder weapon?” she asked.

Halfway through buttoning his shirt, Ross froze, tension
stiffening his shoulders, as if he guessed where Justine’s thoughts were heading.

“We’ve got it, all right. And that’s not all. We’ve traced the registration to a person of interest right here in our home court.”

Justine’s nails dug into her own palm. “Let’s not milk the moment. Tell me.”

“Dr. Kenneth Fleming purchased it four months back. So what do you say? We got enough here to run a search warrant out to Judge Moore on a Sunday?”

Though neither the DNA nor the handwriting comparison had come back from the samples Fleming had offered, Justine didn’t hesitate a moment. “Hell, yes, and pick up the subject—as long as you take backup with you. I’ll be down there as soon as I can—or at his house if the timing works out.”

“You need his address?”

“I’ve got it.” Fleming was still rattling around in the expensive new house he’d bought for his family in Lakeview Village Estates. Still imagining they’d come back? Or was he hoping to snare a beautiful young woman to take the place of his ex-wife?

And could Laney Thibodeaux somehow be in on the plan? Or had Fleming, a man with access to all manner of drugs and a track record for misusing them, taken steps to chemically ensure her compliance?

As she slid her feet into her shoes, Justine felt a chill rip through her.
This could be it. The solution.
Though she hadn’t believed him capable at first, part of being a good cop was following the facts rather than one’s own biases and preconceptions.

Even if they led in a direction she didn’t want to go, she thought as Ross finished tying her hair back for her, his lips finding their way to that sensitive spot behind her ear. As much as she hated to, she stepped away from the distraction…and
the pinch of guilt she felt, knowing that she would need to question Laney as well as Kenneth Fleming.

“If you get him to the office before I make it in,” she told Larry, “stick him in an interview room and wait for me to get there.”

“You’ve got it, boss,” Larry said, so easily it made her wish he’d been her second in command from day one.

Once she ended the call, Ross’s gaze founds hers in the mirror. “Need me to run you home now?” he asked. “Sounds like something’s up.”

“Sounds like.”

“This have to do with Laney’s attack?”

This question, at least, she could answer. “I don’t know for sure yet. Probably won’t for a good while now.”

His expression darkened. “Who is it, Justine? And don’t you dare say you can’t tell me.”

Shaking her head, she frowned. “No way. Not now.”

“If it’s someone I might know—”

“What’re you gonna do, Ross? Rush over there and start with the chest pounding? Or tip him off by calling him and—”

Ross took her by the shoulders, turning her to face him with firm hands, searching her with storm-gray eyes. “It’s Kenneth, isn’t it?”

Justine wondered how he always read her. “I didn’t
say
that,” she said, the protest as useless as it was belated.

“You think Kenneth Fleming’s a murderer? A rapist? You told me before I shouldn’t—”

“Go punch him out? Of course I’d say that. Do you really think I’d want you risking your life, in case he
is
a killer? Besides, this guy ends up black-and-blue, some defense attorney’s going to be all over that, white on rice.”

“Still, we’re talking Kenneth?” Ross’s skepticism recalled Kenneth’s failure to cover up his drug use.

She nodded. “Maybe he’s a better criminal clean and sober—if
he did this. Which is still very, very far from a proven fact at this point.”

Flicking him a look, she added, “Are you getting this, Ross? For the time being, you need to stand back out of the way and let me do my job.”

He stared back at her, what appeared to be cold fury vying with his common sense. “So I’m just supposed to go to work this evening, pretend there’s nothing happening?”

Justine thought of how much easier it would make her life if he did—how much more likely she’d be to get answers if she could convince Laney to speak without benefit of counsel. And she thought about how furious Ross had been when he’d shown up at her place believing she’d done an end run last night around his “interference.”

She could almost hear her father saying,
It’s not your job to keep protective relatives of suspects happy. It’s your job to keep the citizens of Preston County safe.

But Ross wasn’t just some family member, raising walls and hurling down denial. He was the man she trusted with her son’s life, the man she’d learned to trust, however much she’d fought it, with her heart.

But he was a man with his own job as well: to make certain Texas justice didn’t run roughshod over a young relative who might turn out to be an innocent, fingerprints or no.

Justine recalled what Dr. Wagner, the Dallas toxicologist, had said about foreign criminals using scopolamine to get their victims to willingly give up their money, bodies—even their own children. Was it really such a stretch to imagine using it to coerce someone into handling a murder weapon after it had been wiped clean? Or, for that matter, even killing someone the truly guilty party wanted dead?

Zombies,
she thought with a shudder, picturing Hart Tyson, Jake Willets, and Caleb LeJeune marching into the moss-strung woods to place the nooses over their own necks.
Picturing Laney, cold and bruised as she wandered that same hollow, her memory reduced to mist.

“No, you shouldn’t go to work,” Justine told Ross. “You should get on the phone to that lawyer friend of yours and get him out here right away. Because the fact that Laney knows this man could be a game changer. Especially since we’ve got her prints on the gun that killed the same deputy who was questioning her—”

“You…you have her prints and didn’t tell me?” His anger bounced off the mirror and the tiles, reverberated through air still slightly misted from the shower they had shared. “You knew this
before,
about Laney’s prints on the murder weapon?”

Justine’s throat tightened. She wanted to take him into her arms, tell him all of this could be worked out. Wanted to touch him again, to console herself as much as him. But she knew he wouldn’t stand for it. And she owed him better than some fairy tale to try to placate him.

She owed him the kind of truth that seldom had a happy ending.

“First of all,” she explained, “I had no evidence at the time that it
was
the murder weapon.”
Only a gun found in Laney’s abandoned car.
“Second, I told you to get her a good lawyer…which, believe me, is a lot more than I do for the average suspect.”

“So here you are, in my house, calling her a suspect.”

Justine had known—she’d been absolutely certain—things would turn out this way between them. She’d tried to warn Ross earlier. She’d tried to warn herself. Still, his anger cut deep.

But it was imperative that he didn’t see her bleeding, didn’t see the wound she had no idea how to stanch. “You know what, Ross? I don’t have time for this now. I’ve got a job, and I make no apologies for doing it. If you can’t handle that, then maybe we should chalk up all the rest”—she tossed off a gesture
toward the bedroom—“to something no better than what we had before. And absolutely no more workable.”

He went stiff, his expression turning even harder. “If that’s the way you want it, Justine.”

“I need to get home and then to work. So are you going to take me? Or do I have to call somebody for a ride?”

Ross dragged his keys out of his pocket and slapped them on the counter.

“Take the car,” he told her brusquely.

She felt the rejection like a blow but did her best not to show it. “You don’t want to drive me?”

Shaking his head, he said, “Not now. I’ve got that call to make, and then…I’ll have Gwen give me a lift later.”

“Fine, Ross,” Justine told him. She resisted the impulse, moments later, to squeal the Mustang’s wheels as she pulled out.

He is the gentlest of men, this alleged sternest of judges. He is courtly of manner and kind of voice and face, the man who has passed the death sentence upon more criminals than has any other judge in the land. The features that have in them the horror of the Medusa to desperadoes are benevolent to all other human-kind.

—Reporter Ada Patterson, writing of Judge Isaac (“the Hanging Judge”) Parker, from “An Interview with the Distinguished Jurist by a St. Louis Correspondent,” as published in the
Fort Smith Elevator,
September 18, 1896

Often called upon to go from crime scenes or the jail to civic group or budget meetings, Justine kept a change of clothes and makeup kit in her office. Rather than lose another forty minutes by returning home, she decided to use them, along with Lou’s old .45 and shoulder holster, which she stored at work instead of around Noah.

In the parking lot, she slipped into a space a good distance from her marked spot. With luck, no one would see her emerging from Ross Bollinger’s all-too-recognizable red convertible.

But she tempted fate by taking the extra time to raise the car’s top so she could properly lock up. As she finished, she heard a low whistle behind her.

“Gorgeous…”

Face heating, Justine whipped around—only to see Calvin
Whittaker, in faded jeans and a worn Hammett’s on the Lake shirt, a stack of manila file folders in his big hands.

He flushed and stammered, “I-I meant the car, Sheriff. A real classic.”

Justine stared at him for an uncomfortable two seconds while she fought back the impulse to laugh. “Of course. But what brings you in on your day off? Larry call you?”

Calvin shook his head. “It was Phil Savoy. Do you know him? Roger’s oldest. We hung around in school together.”

Justine nodded, remembering the college baseball player from the family photos on Savoy’s desk. That picture could be a few years old, but still…“You’re only his age?” Damn, her rookie deputy was such a kid.

Calvin went from pink to scarlet. “Phil stopped by the dock. I was messing with my boat there. Old outboard motor with more carburetor trouble than the thing’s worth.”

Reminding herself not to needle him any more about his youth, she willed the man-child to get to the point.

“You remember how Mrs. Savoy said Roger didn’t have any of his notes at the house?” Calvin asked.

Justine nodded, instantly alert. The files found at Roger’s desk had seemed so perfunctory, in contrast to the meticulous reports she’d seen on so many past cases, she’d known there had to be more somewhere. Along with the small appointment calendar she’d so often seen the man pull from his pocket and consult.

“Phil said his mom was just upset and hadn’t wanted to do anything to help…” Calvin averted his eyes. “Well, let’s just say she’s holding on to some real hard feelings toward you.”

“I sort of got that from our last conversation.”

“Phil said he got to thinking his dad’s notes might help us find the killer. And he wasn’t about to let his father’s murder go unsolved out of spite.”

“That’s excellent. You find Roger’s calendar in that lot?”

Calvin shook his head. “Haven’t really looked yet. Thought I ought to bring it straight here.”

Justine nodded. “Let’s get the files inside, and you can go ahead and clock in if you’re able to stay.”

“Sure, but…” He gave his motor-oil-grimed attire a doubtful look. “But maybe I should run home and put on a uniform.”

“Sure, sounds like a good idea,” Justine said, wondering if he kept an Eagle Scout uniform in the same closet. “Meanwhile, let me take those…and come back to help me with them as quick as you can.”

Calvin grinned and nodded, looking so eager, she added, “Drive carefully, Deputy. I need you back here in one piece.”

Justine walked inside with the folders, what felt like an imminent breakthrough quickening her steps. It was time to scratch some entries from the Book of Questions and finally complete her spiral of Known Facts.

By the time he finished talking his attorney friend into making the drive from Houston, Ross felt a little better.

“Don’t you worry,” Dan Henderson assured him, oozing the folksy charm that had somehow made him popular among Houston’s most affluent defendants. “This sounds like nothing so much as a confused, frustrated department playing Blame the Victim. I promise you, I’ll help these bush leaguers see the error of their ways.”

“You’d better not let Sheriff Wofford hear you call her a bush leaguer,” Ross warned. “Not unless you want your balls in traction.”

“Is that even possible?” Dan asked.

Ross thought of the way Justine had blasted him before she’d walked out. “Trust the doctor on this one, all right? And I’ll trust you with my cousin.”

He had barely put down the receiver of his bedside phone
when it rang again. Picking up, he said, “Even you can’t have gotten lost already.”

“Hey, Ross. You busy?” He immediately recognized his sister Gwen’s voice and heard the strain in it.

“What’s wrong?” Since Laney’s attack, he’d noticed Gwen had been tenser, quieter than he’d seen her in a long time. But then, all of them were on edge, shaken by the trouble swirling around their family.

“Yes, something’s…God, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s…I had a fight with Erik. A big fight.”

“I thought you two were getting on great.”

“I thought so, too, but he’s been really stressed lately about his business.”

“What
does
he do, exactly?”

When Gwen explained it, Ross came to his feet. “That didn’t set off any alarms?” he asked. “That he’s been wining and dining county commissioners and trying to make inroads with the same woman you work for?”

“Believe me, I asked him about it point-blank when I found out. But he swore he had no idea I worked for the sheriff when he met me, and he’s never once asked me to do anything or discuss anything that made me uncomfortable…except…”

“Except what?” Ross asked.

“There was this one time I found him with my phone. He said the battery on his was dead, but—forget it. I’m sure that was nothing.”

Ross made a noncommittal sound, weighing his dislike for the coincidence of Whatley’s business with Justine against his sister’s normally unerring judgment. She knew people, understood them on a level that would make her an outstanding clinical psychologist, should she ever decide to finish the graduate work she had abandoned so abruptly.

But Gwen knew herself as well, which she proved by adding, “But I suppose there’s some chance I might’ve been influenced
by the fact that this handsome, successful, and intelligent single man suddenly appeared in Dogwood—an advent so rare I checked the east for a star rising.”

Even as wound up as he was over Justine, Ross laughed. “So what happened? Did he take out his job stress on you?”

“Worse yet. He asked for money. A lot of money. A short-term loan, he swears, just enough to help him through a temporary cash crunch.”

“Ouch,” Ross said through gritted teeth. Because Gwen’s money—or the family’s money, since she hadn’t yet come into her trust fund’s principal—was not an angle he’d considered. Particularly not from a man who dressed, talked, and played the part of big success so well. “So what did you tell Erik?”

“That our mama always taught us never to mix love and money. But I would gladly introduce him to a banker who might help him.”

Proud of his sister, Ross said, “Good for you, but how did it go over?”

“About as well as you’d imagine,” she said. “He was…he was furious. Called me a rich, entitled princess and several other choice words before he stormed out. And I…I was so stunned. I never expected…I really thought I knew him. Loved him, even.”

“I’m so sorry, Gwen. I know it hurts.” He’d run into his share of women who’d turned out to be a lot more interested in his inheritance than he was. “Do you need me to come over?”

“No, no. I think I’d rather be alone for right now. I’m contemplating hot-fudge therapy as we speak.”

“A little self-indulgence is definitely in order, but about Erik…You don’t think he’s mad enough to give you trouble, do you? Do you need me to go talk to him? Warn him off or anything?”
Like stomp a hole in him for hurting you?

“Stop it, Ross. Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Feeling the need to solve every problem for all the poor, hapless females in your life. Did Anne put up with that from you?”

“Let’s not bring Anne into this.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was wrong of me to mention that. And I do appreciate your willingness to help. We all do, Ross. It’s just—”

“For the record, she didn’t like it either,” Ross admitted, though he knew he’d gotten even more protective since Anne’s death. “But I can’t help wanting to keep the women I love safe.”

“That’s fine, but
this
woman’s perfectly capable of handling it on her own.”

“With a little help from Häagen-Dazs,” Ross added. “But before you get started, maybe you could give me a lift to see Laney. There’s some legal stuff I have to talk with her about.”

“What’s the matter? That relic you’re driving finally give up on you?”

Ross, who had been nursing along that engine since high school, was offended. “No. Never, but I loaned it to…a friend.”

“Must be
some
friend, if you’re letting her use your car.”

“How do you know it’s a woman?” he asked.

Gwen’s scoffing little laugh annoyed him. “Tell me I’m wrong, brother. But don’t worry. I’ll come get you. Just be prepared to spill the juicy details.”

“Thanks,” Ross told her, already wondering whether there was any longer a relationship with Justine to discuss.

With Larry off to find the judge to sign his warrant, Justine opened the cabinet door in her locked office and stripped off her shirt. As she reached for her white blouse, she froze, catching her reflection in the mirror she’d hung behind the
cabinet door. Noticing the red marks, the whisker burn of Ross’s stubble, on the tops of her breasts. An observation that brought with it a pang sharp with regret and longing.

If she removed the bra, she’d find more, she was certain. Nips and scrapes of passion that reminded her of those she’d once brought home from the cheap motel rooms where she’d met him. Reminded her that even the most consensual of affairs sometimes left marks.

“Not to mention the ones that don’t show.” She thought of the way they had argued over Laney Thibodeaux, whose body had borne marks of its own.

Marks Justine had assumed had come from some unknown stalker. But what if they had not? Justine shivered, imagining those dark bruises and lacerations coming from rough sex with a lover the young woman had welcomed.

But lovers didn’t drug each other, or leave those they cared for in the cold rain, miles from anywhere. Justine frowned, thinking about crime statistics, numbers that bore out the sad truth that all too often love proved fatal, especially to women.

As Justine considered, she finished dressing, slid into low-heeled pumps, and applied lipstick, then put on a pair of gold hoop earrings she found in the pocket of her jacket. With her professional battle armor in place, she cleaned the broken pencils from her desk, resharpened four fresh ones, and sat to go through the files Marilyn Savoy had hoped to keep from her.

“I guess you should’ve burned ’em quicker,” Justine said as she flipped through the folders to check out their neatly labeled tabs.

The top file was simply labeled, Hangman’s Bayou. Separating it from the stack, Justine found a paper-clipped sheaf of what turned out to be obituaries from Houston, Austin, Plano, Wichita Falls—with names she recognized as those of other hanging victims from around the state. Most had been printed from what was probably Roger’s home computer,
which showed dates prior to Caleb LeJeune’s death. So Roger had been digging into the local deaths, investigating them as homicides even as he’d attempted to misdirect her into believing they’d been suicides.

“Wanted to be the big dog, didn’t you?” Justine murmured, realizing Roger must have intended to bring her down, by supposedly bucking her “flawed judgment” to solve murders in a case that could easily draw a lot of press.

But something had gone badly wrong with Roger Savoy’s plan. “Did you get too close to someone? Close enough to make a killer nervous?” she asked as she flipped through page after page in the thick file. She lingered on what looked like a to-do list, a note with the name Kenneth Fleming underlined, followed by:
Wife/kids—Whereabouts? Seen since leaving town? Check w/former coworkers/neighbors. Missing persons reports?

A chill crawled over Justine’s skin as she thought about the decomposing female body found near Lake Whitney. Justine dug deeper, hoping Roger had had better luck at finding answers. Seeing nothing helpful, she made herself a note reminding her to make locating Kenneth’s family a priority.

But Justine didn’t stop her exploration there. Instead, she flipped through more pages, trying to get a general overview, when the black-lettered tab of another thick file caught her eye. W
OFFORD
, it read, the letters angry slashes. Oh, boy…did that mean Roger had been investigating
her,
too?

It did, she soon discovered, blood freezing in her veins as a stack of photos slid free. A series of grainy pictures of herself walking into a motel room, her dark glasses and lowered head all but screaming of the seediness of her assignation.

As if Ross Bollinger had been someone to be ashamed of. What the hell had she been thinking, treating the man—treating
herself
—like that? She was a grown, single woman meeting an attractive, eligible man, but her own lack of self-confidence had made something sleazy of what should have
been the best thing that had happened to her in this past year.

Never again,
she vowed as she shuffled through the photos, understanding for the first time why Ross had hated the way she’d forced him into sneaking around.

And despising Roger Savoy for finding a way to embarrass and piss her off from beyond the grave.