Chill Factor (32 page)

“Can we see where this amount came from?” Dixie asked.

Pearly cross-referenced to an investment account managed by Terrence Jackson. No surprise that Jessica trusted her investments to the Millennium Midas. So far, Dixie had seen nothing suspicious in Jackson’s business.

Lonnie Gray operated Artistry Spa at barely above breakeven, while his personal account supported three sizable mortgages and two sizable monthly automobile payments.

“Is that it?” Pearly asked sharply when Dixie looked away from the monitor.

Despite an ache across her shoulders, Dixie leaned down again to meet Pearly’s gaze.

“You know I’m not out to damage the reputation of these dead officers, don’t you?” What else could account for the hacker’s surly attitude?

A muscle in Pearly’s jaw knotted.

“All I want,” Dixie continued softly, “is to prove that the HPD’s chief suspect didn’t kill them—which he didn’t. If I found proof that convinced me otherwise, I would never protect a murderer.”

The woman’s rigid posture relaxed a fraction.

“What did you discover, Pearly, that you’re not telling me?”

“Nothing … in the financials.” She looked down at her hands.

“Then what?”

Pearly shook her head. “You have everything I can give you.”

From what Dixie’d already seen, Art Harris grew up in
Dallas. Smokin and Pearly White had lived in Dallas. And Art’s neighbor, Janet Easton, indicated that he might’ve been in some trouble back then. Had Pearly uncovered a skeleton in that Dallas closet? Clearly, she didn’t intend to say, and Dixie respected their relationship too much to insist.

As Smokin returned with a slice of homemade chocolate cake and a refill on the coffee, one more question occurred to Dixie.

“How easily could I access pornography on the Internet?”

Smokin’s face fell, and he shot a glance at Pearly.

“Ask Mr. Smut-lover himself,” she hooted over her shoulder.

“Not true!” He turned innocent eyes at Dixie. “The question should be, how to avoid the stuff once you’re tagged as a looker.”

“What do you mean?”

“Suppliers trick you into hitting their Web site, then you’re bombarded with dirty mail.”

“I still don’t understand. How do they trick you?”

“Key your search engine with an ordinary word—smooth, three, cabriolet—”

“He knows them all!” Pearly said.

“You’ll end up at Lovin’ Threesomes or Smooth Moves. And there you are, staring at more flesh than you’ve seen in sixty years.”

“And this is free?”

“Yep. Plenty of free stuff floating around. Unless you click on a button that won’t open without an access code, you can look all you want, never pay a dime.”

“But to access the heavy … pornography … you need a credit card?”

“Yep.”

“Unless you have Smokin fingers,” Pearly amended.

“Not true,” Smokin declared. “Looking’s one thing, stealing’s another.” Yet the guilty gleam in his eyes suggested he might’ve stolen a peek or two.

Dixie couldn’t decide whether this knowledge made her feel better or worse about Ryan’s secret pastime. Hacking into protected pornographic files could land her nephew in bigtime legal trouble. The alternative worried her even more.

Leaving the hackers’ apartment with her stack of computer printouts, Dixie worried Pearly’s strange behavior around in her mind. The couple worked from a self-determined code of ethics that Dixie had never questioned. They would either tackle a job or not, but never before had they refused to part with the information obtained. Only one reason made sense to Dixie: Pearly had learned something that might damage the reputation of one of the officers—and thus bring disgrace, ridicule, or possibly danger to his family.

Fortunately, Dixie’s network included other sources. The one she phoned now knew dirt on law enforcement officers in every backwater town in the state. Anything Slim Jim McGrue didn’t know, he could find out in an eye blink. Jim was scary in other ways, too. As she punched in his cellular phone number, Dixie pictured Jim’s six-foot-eight, sticklike body folded behind the wheel of his State Trooper patrol car. McGrue’s grim good looks—leathery skin stretched tight over a keenly chiseled skull—had frightened many a highway speed-demon into becoming a born-again safety advocate. At least once a year McGrue tossed out a hint that he’d like to be more than a network resource in Dixie’s life, and at least once a year Dixie gave the idea a passing consideration. McGrue fascinated her. He was an interesting friend; he’d be terrifying as an enemy.

“Jim,” she said when he answered. “This is Dixie Flannigan.”

“Always a pleasure. What’s the occasion?”

She related briefly her situation with Marty.

“He’s no killer, Jim. But if we accept the scenario that Ted Tally and Art Harris were assassinated in retaliation for the Granny Bandit shootings, he appears to be the best candidate. I’m thinking there’s something deeper going on. Maybe digging around in the officers’ backgrounds won’t unearth any bones that connect with the body of information I’m assembling, but the coincidences can’t be ignored.”

She explained the officers’ friendship, dating at least back to the police academy, then admitted her verbal attack on Art after Edna’s death.

“If the shooter was on the scene, perhaps he homed in on Art because he thought I singled him out for a reason, then
took out Ted Tally because he saw them together at some point.”

“Dixie, I’ll do this for you.” Slim Jim allowed a long breath of silence before he continued. “But if your friend crawls out of the facts as the doer, I’ll smash him.”

“Yeah, Jim. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Chief Ed Wanamaker lifted his dress uniform from the closet, hung it on the back of the door, and examined it through the cleaning bag. He’d worn it last at Christmas. A happy occasion. Not like today. This was the saddest damn day he could remember. Not enough that two good men died, the whole town had to take up sides over it.

He ripped the plastic off and unbuttoned the shirt.

“Aren’t you going to shower?” Mira sat on the bed behind him pulling on panty hose.

“I showered this morning.” He sniffed his armpit.

“You’re wearing that beautiful, fresh, clean uniform without a shower?”

“Woman, aren’t you listening?” He watched her in the dresser mirror as he buttoned the shirt. His wife was a graceful woman, even at a task as ungraceful as stuffing herself into panty hose. “I showered this morning. It’s not like I’ve been mowing the grass.”

She popped the elastic on his jockey shorts. “What did you eat for lunch?”

“Stopped at a Greek place.”

“I didn’t say where, I said what.”

“Greek salad.” Better not to mention the fried seafood platter.

She draped the towel over her shoulders. Damned if she didn’t look sexy standing there.

“Ed, do you ever think about … moving back to Arkansas?” She said it softly, without the ever-present barb in her voice.

He glanced at the photos on the dresser, their daughter—as a newborn, a six-year-old, a graduate, and finally an Arkansas police officer. “Sometimes. You?”

“Never more than I’ve thought about it this week.”

He put an arm around Mira’s shoulders. She was tall, something he appreciated most on the dance floor and in the sack.

“Even a small-town police force can have a bad week,” he reminded her. He nibbled her earlobe. “You like this new house, don’t you?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“You joined a bridge club, the Ballet Guild—”

“I can unjoin anytime you say the word.”

He turned her so he could see her face.

“Mira, are you saying you want to leave?”

She met his gaze squarely. “I’m saying you’re a good man, Ed Wanamaker. And you don’t have a thing to prove. I heard those newscasters taking their shots at you.”

“Do you believe I’m ashamed of the job I’ve done here?”

“You’re the best damn Chief this city’s ever had. If they don’t see it, that’s their problem. Your friend Banning didn’t warn you the Houston academy turned out officers without enough judgment training.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She blinked. “With better judgment, don’t you think they might’ve found another way—”

“Mira, don’t listen to that crap. When an officer says, ‘Put down your gun,’ and instead an actor aims and fires, it’s the officer’s duty to shoot.”

“What if it had been a child?”

“A child with a gun?”

“It’s happening, kids carrying guns to school, shooting each other.”

Ed grabbed a photograph from the dresser.

“Our
daughter
, Officer Wanamaker, faces down a twelveyear-old
kid with a gun. She says, ‘Put the gun down,’ and he cocks it. Mira, is she
supposed
to take the bullet?”

She stared at him a second, her face twisted with the pain he’d caused. Then she pulled away and stalked toward the bathroom, turning to fling her towel at him.

“I
hate
this!”

Ed watched her slam the bathroom door behind her, then he looked down at the picture he held. That gal looked so damn proud, fresh out of the academy. Setting the frame back on the dresser, he noticed the folded photocopy of The People’s letter, where he’d tossed it when he started changing clothes. He tucked it in his wallet. He hadn’t shown the letter to Mira.

In the bathroom, Mira’s hair dryer was going. He pulled on his pants. Then he opened a dresser drawer and felt around in back for the bottle he knew would be there.

It’d been a lot of years since a shot of Wild Turkey was all that kept him going.

Jean Gibson dropped her husband’s folded shirt into a suitcase as she heard him open the door behind her.

“What are you doing, Jean? You’re not packing?”

“We’re leaving.” She tossed a handful of his dress socks on top of the shirts.

“Leaving to go where, precisely?”

“I read that letter, Gib. We’re not staying here for that crackpot to make good on his threat.”

“Jean, put that away. We have a funeral to attend.”

“Fine.” She could feel him standing behind her, rigid as a post. “We’ll load the bags in the trunk and leave straight from the funeral.”

“Jean …” He caught her hands, filled with a stack of his boxer shorts. “Listen to me.” He tried to take the shorts, but she held on. “Think about how it would look if I turned tail now. If I leave town, I’m finished. I lose everything. Mayor? Forget it. Governor? Senate? Never happen. People have long memories for leaders who weaken at a time of crisis.”

“Then blame it on me. Say I’ve had a nervous breakdown. A death in the family. Any damn thing. The letter said
thirty-six
hours, Gib. Thirty-six hours from
when?
It’s already been
seven hours since the letter arrived. That leaves twenty-nine. You expect Ed Wanamaker to find this lunatic before tomorrow night? That idiot can’t find his pecker with both hands and a flashlight.”

For once, she would not be afraid of annoying him. She tossed his shorts in the suitcase and avoided his grasp to gather up her own things.

“Jean, you’re hysterical. We are not depending on Wanamaker. I called Washington and made a racket they won’t quickly forget. FBI, Secret Service—an entire task force is on the case. Once the feds clear this up, Wanamaker’s out of here, and Banning along with him.”

She looked at his homely face, and her heart thumped. She loved him so goddamn much. But maybe he was right. He knew about offensive objectives and tactical maneuvers and such—a chestful of military medals proved it. He could talk on such subjects for hours.

“But what if they’re too late, Gib?” She forced her voice to sound calm and strong. “What if they catch this man
after
he kills you? Then what is it all for?”

“That won’t happen.”

“How can you be so composed? So certain? Didn’t he kill those officers without anyone even suspecting? Both men just getting into their cars, and
blam!
They’re dead. Nobody even saw it … until they lay bleeding on the ground.”

She turned from him, covering her face to block out the images. She felt the dampness on her cheeks and realized she was crying, and
goddammit
she hadn’t wanted to cry. Gib hated any display of weakness.

“Jean, that will not happen to me.” His voice was cold, factual.

She couldn’t talk without blubbering, so she kept her back to him, shutting him out, saying nothing, which Gib hated almost as much as he hated weakness. Did he really know something he wasn’t telling? Or was he just being his normal, stubborn self?

“It will
not
happen, Jean. Now pile those clothes back in the bureau. Get dressed. We have an appearance to make.” He
encircled her shoulders with his arm and lifted her chin. “The puffiness around your eyes will look natural, under the circumstances. Quite understandable.”

Turning to the mirror, he gazed at his own face. “In fact, I’ll shed a few tears myself.”

Leaving the Heights, Dixie telephoned Amy to find out if Parker had dropped Marty off. Amy put Parker on the line.

“How’d the shopping go?” Dixie asked.

Marty answered on an extension. “Fabulous! You won’t believe the pieces we found. I convinced Parker to commission a sexy Sue Lorenz mural for the bedroom, and, Dixie, we found a J. W. Sharp original to
die
for. You’ve seen the barns—”

“We didn’t buy the barn painting,” Parker amended. “We bought—”

“Mardi Gras! Dixie, Mardi Gras like you’ve never—”

“Old Mardi Gras floats.” Parker, in his own laid-back style, seemed as excited as Marty. “Paintings of faded, broken-down floats. They’re—”

“Fabulous! That’s all we can say, love. You’ll have to see for yourself. I’ve been dying to show both artists at Essence.” Marty broke off abruptly. “Listen, I’m through horning in. I need to help Amy with dinner.” The extension clicked.

“Marty seemed entirely too excited after your gallery binge. Parker, are you sure you didn’t overspend?”

“Nah, we did fine. And Marty promised to help me hang everything next week. How did your snooping go?”