Lawman. Part 14

"Those first two things-that's dangerous work. I've seen movies that show how those teams operate."

His hand tightened on the steering wheel. "Yes. Very dangerous."

She frowned. "You chose that sort of work. Something happened to you, too," she guessed. "Something traumatic."

His jaw tautened. "Something," he said. He glanced in her direction. "I don't talk about it."

"I wasn't prying," she said, turning her purse over in her lap. "But you asked me if I talked to anyone about what happened to me."

"So you did."

"So turnabout is fair play."

He didn't answer. He was silent for a time, caught up in the past, in the anguish of those years. The pain was harsh.

She realized she'd stepped on broken gla.s.s and she searched for some way to lighten the tension. "Do you believe in werewolves?" she asked.

The car swerved faintly. "Excuse me?" he asked in disbelief.

"I saw this movie. It was very realistic," she told him. "I'm sure that I know at least one person who's never seen during full moons. You have to use silver bullets on them, you know, regular lead ones won't work."

"I don't have a silver bullet to my name," he pointed out.

"We're in trouble if we run into one," she remarked dryly.

"Tell you what. If you see a werewolf, you tell me, and I'll rush home and melt down some of the silver service and start making bullets right away."

"Deal," she said smugly.

He felt his heart lighten. She was good company, for a shy and damaged spinster. She made him forget the past. He liked being with her.

She was feeling something similar, especially after the way he'd kissed her earlier, with such need and pleasure. She tingled all over remembering how it had felt. Maybe he had a hard time with relationships, and that was why he wasn't married.

THEY STOPPED at the police department in Palo Verde to talk with its police chief, Gil Mendosa. He was sheepish and embarra.s.sed when Garon told him about their current murder investigation and Marquez's efforts to find out about his department's cold case from him through e-mail that was ignored.

"We had these e-mails that embarra.s.sed Miss Tibbs," he explained. "She's seventy, and handles the phone and the mail for us. Well, ever since, if the heading doesn't have something specific about a case in it, she just deletes it unread, like we told her to. Tell Marquez I'm sorry."

"I will. What we want to know is if you're keeping back any information about the little girl's murder-something you want to keep out of the news."

The chief glanced at Grace uneasily.

"She's a clam," Garon told him easily. "It's all right."

"Okay, then. Yes, there was one other thing. The man tied a ribbon around her neck and strangled her to death with it. A red ribbon."

"HERE, SIT DOWN for G.o.d's sake!" Garon growled. He'd caught Grace just as she folded. "What's the matter?"

She fought for every breath. She couldn't give herself away. She couldn't!

"It's that twenty-four-hour stomach virus that's been going around," she said with a weak laugh. "I had it yesterday and it's knocked me to my knees. Drastic way to lose weight, you know."

"Would you like something to drink?" the chief asked gently.

"How about a martini, shaken, not stirred," she began, with twinkling gray eyes.

"You can have a Diet c.o.ke," Garon returned, moving to the drinks machine in the department's canteen with a handful of change, "if I can find the right change."

"Don't feed it a dollar bill," the chief cautioned. "It eats them."

She gave him a hard look. "You're a policeman and you let a machine rob customers right in your own office?" she exclaimed.

"A man we arrested last month got hold of a gun and shot the last machine we had in here," he replied. "Two months before that, one of our own officers accidentally hit the machine it replaced with a baseball bat. Don't wonder out loud," he advised when she started to ask how someone could accidentally smash a machine with a bat. "So, you see, we can't ask the machine people to give us a third one. They'd never understand."

"I see your point," Grace agreed.

Garon handed her an icy cold soft drink. She popped the lid and drank thirstily. "Oh, that's so good," she said, sighing. "Thanks."

"You should have told me you weren't feeling well," he said.

She smiled at him. "You wouldn't have let me come with you."

He pursed his lips and his dark eyes twinkled. Grace blushed.

Garon forced his attention back to Mendosa, and told him about the witness Marquez had unearthed in San Antonio.

"His name is Sheldon," Garon said. "He apparently lived two doors down from the murder victim. Some homicide detectives from San Antonio talked to him. Marquez and I followed up, and he recalled seeing the suspect."

Mendosa grimaced. "We had an apparent eyewitness ourselves, a man named Homer Rich. But our former chief said the guy was loopy and he wouldn't let us go talk to him. The witness lived right next door to the child." He frowned. "But he doesn't live here now. He moved out of town not long after the murder."

Garon frowned. "Was he a suspect?"

"No," Mendosa said. "The guy was handsome, he made a good living, although I never knew exactly how he made his money. He had a fiancee somewhere. n.o.body local ever saw her. He wasn't a suspect. In fact, he joined the search when her family knew she was missing. He even printed up some flyers at his own expense."

Garon didn't say a word. He took notes. But he knew very well that sometimes murder suspects joined in the search and even spoke to the police about the progress of the investigation. He wasn't telling Mendosa. It would only make the man feel bad. He was operating on a shoestring as it was.

"Know where Rich moved to?" he asked.

Mendosa shook his head. "He kept to himself, mostly. You might ask Ed Reems, he rented the house to Rich." He gave Garon the address, which he jotted down. "Ed loves to talk. If he knows anything, he'll tell you."

"Thanks," Garon said warmly.

"You're welcome. If you need help, let me know. We're all on the same team, when it comes to murder. I'd love to heat up that cold case and solve it. It haunts me. There's just me and one other part-time officer to handle things here. We have to call in the county sheriff's department for a.s.sistance if anything major breaks. We just don't have the resources to commit to a decent investigation. I hope you catch this guy."

"You and me and half the FBI," Garon replied. "Child killers evoke sympathy from n.o.body, especially if they get sent to prison."

"Amen. If you need help, just call."

Garon smiled. "I will. Thanks."

GRACE FINISHED her soft drink just as they pulled up at a dingy single-wide trailer on a quiet street just outside the Palo Verde city limits.

"Stay put," he told her. "I won't be long."

He got out and walked up the steps to the front porch. The door opened. He displayed his credentials. A minute later, he went inside the house.

Grace wondered what he was going to find out. The mention of the red ribbon had made her sick. Garon would be suspicious. She didn't want him to know why it had upset her. It was too soon. Far too soon.

Less than five minutes pa.s.sed before he came back out, frowning. He got into the car beside her.

"Wasn't he home?"

He drew in a long breath. "He was home," he said, staring at the house. "He said that Rich didn't leave a forwarding address. What's more, he left the furniture in the house, along with appliances he'd bought. He must have been in a h.e.l.l of a hurry to get out of town."

Grace bit her lower lip and mentioned what they were both thinking. "What if he wasn't a witness? What if he did it?"

"That's exactly what I was thinking." He started the car and put it in gear. "I'll leave you at the chief's office. I need to do some door-to-door investigating."

"Couldn't I help?"

He smiled gently. "Not without credentials," he said. "I'll get Mendosa to help me. If we're lucky, we may turn up something."

BUT FOUR HOURS LATER, they hadn't turned up one single witness who'd seen anything connected with the crime.

"Look," Garon told Mendosa, "It's a real long shot, but I'd like to send a forensic team down here to scour the house where Rich lived. We might get lucky and turn up something. We can find traces of blood even after houses are wiped clean with disinfectant and bleach."

"I'll arrange it with the landlord and his tenants," Mendosa promised. "How about next Monday, first thing?"

Garon shook his hand. "That's fine. I appreciate the help."

Mendosa grinned. "So do I. n.o.body likes to see a murderer walk."

"You can say that again."

GRACE WAS FASCINATED with the idea that bloodstains couldn't be totally eradicated by murderers.

All the way back to Jacobsville, she pumped him for information on blood spatter patterns, crime scene protocol and what the FBI lab could do with a single human hair.

"It's like something out of Star Trek," she exclaimed.

He chuckled. "Yes, it is. Our high tech tools give us a real edge in solving crimes."

"If it weren't for the gory stuff, I think I'd like law enforcement work," she murmured.

He couldn't picture Grace at a crime scene. On the other hand, she'd chased a coyote right out of her yard with nothing more menacing than a tree limb. She had grit. He admired a woman with staying power. But she kept secrets, Grace did. He wondered what they were.

"THANKS FOR TAKING ME with you," she said when he stopped at her house. "I really enjoyed it."

"So did I," he had to admit. He walked her up onto the porch. "You're good company."

"You'll have to go and make your own supper, because Miss Turner's gone," she said suddenly. She looked up at him. "I could make supper. I've got some fresh cube steak and potatoes I could fix."

He hesitated. He was hungry, and he didn't fancy trying to cook. "You must be tired," he began, feeling guilty.

She shook her head. "I like to cook."

He smiled. "Okay. What time?"

"Seven?"

"I'll be here."

He drove off and Grace ran inside to start things in the kitchen. She felt like a child with a treat in store. She'd never enjoyed a man's company so much in her whole life. It was a beginning.

THEY SAT IN THE KITCHEN for a long time after they'd finished eating, just talking about the state of the world. They agreed on a lot of issues. In fact, they thought alike on politics and religion, which were said to be the two most controversial subjects on earth.

"You make good coffee," he remarked, finishing his second cup.

"It's decaf," she confessed. "Caffeine bothers me."

"It's good, regardless."

He checked his watch. "I hate to go, but I have to pick up a visiting agent at the airport tomorrow morning, early. He's going to be in our office for a couple of days, doing an inspection."

"Inspection?"

He grinned. "It's a way to make sure we're efficient."

"I could write a testimonial for you," she offered lightly.

"It will take more than that, I'm afraid." He walked to the front porch and out into the yard, his eyes on the sky. "There's a halo around the moon. We're going to get some rain, I guess."

"How would a city fellow like you know that?" she asked, impressed.

He turned, smiling. "I grew up on a ranch in west Texas," he replied. "We had an old cowboy-he looked eighty-who used to work with the Texas Rangers. He could smell rain a mile away, predict weather, make poultices. I used to sit and listen to him by the hour when he talked about catching bank robbers. I suppose that's why I became a lawman. He made it sound like a holy cause. In some ways, I guess it is. We speak for victims who can no longer speak for themselves."

"Will you catch that killer, do you think?" she asked quietly.

"I hope we will," he said, moving closer to her. "This man is no amateur. He's smart. But he did leave trace evidence that will convict him, if we ever get lucky enough to take him into custody."

"My grandfather used to say that most criminals are stupid," she recalled. "He said one man he arrested had killed a man and then left his business card in the man's pocket. And there was a thief who robbed a bank and went out the wrong door, tripped over somebody's dog that was waiting there and actually knocked himself out on the pavement."

He chuckled. "We've had our share of those, too," he a.s.sured her. "But some aren't as easily caught."

"You'll get him," she said with utter confidence, as she smiled up at him.

He moved still closer and took her by the arms, holding her lightly against his tall, powerful body. "You're good for my ego, Grace," he murmured. "But I don't think I'm good for you."

She traced a b.u.t.ton on his jacket, without looking at him. "You mean that you don't want anything permanent. That's okay. I don't, either."