Deadline (15 page)

“Right now, it’s Mr. Scott we want to talk to.” Tucker hiked up his belt, or tried, and grinned at Dawson. “We were on our way to come find you.”

“Here I am.” Despite his wisecrack, Dawson got a bad feeling about the detective’s smirk.

“Do you know a guy named Ray Dale Huffman?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Are you sure?” Wills asked in a kinder tone.

“Positive. Who is he?”

“Repeat offender,” Tucker said. “We’ve got him in lockup. He heard through the jailhouse grapevine—it’s the damnedest thing how that works, truly. Anyhow, he got wind of us questioning you in connection to Miss DeMarco’s murder, and he offered to make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

Wills said, “We drop the charge against him in exchange for information about you.”

“Sorry. You’ve been had. I don’t even know the guy.”

Tucker’s grin turned even more smug. “Not what he said.”

“I don’t give a shit what he said.”

“Well, you should.” Tucker moved in close and leered up at him. “Because Ray Dale claims that one night last week, down on River Street, he sold you a whole bag full of drugs.”

They allowed him one phone call. He called Headly.

“I can’t talk now. We’ve got friends over. The cabernet is breathing, steaks are on the grill, and Eva’s tossing the salad.”

“Amelia Nolan’s nanny was murdered last night.”

Dawson could practically hear the gears grinding inside Headly’s head. “Hold on.”

While he went to notify Eva and their guests that dinner would be delayed, Dawson glanced over his shoulder. The two detectives were out of earshot but observing him closely. Tucker was stroking his jutting belly, which he used as other policemen did a billy club, to try and intimidate.

Dawson didn’t know how long they would give him, so when Headly came back on the line, he said, “I’m in a time crunch, so listen and don’t interrupt.”

According to the oversized wall clock, he talked for one hundred and twenty-eight seconds, summing up as concisely as possible the events of the past few days, filling in pertinent facts he’d deliberately left out of previous conversations.

When he stopped, the first thing out of Headly’s mouth was, “Jesus.”

“Yeah. The wristwatch thing freaked Amelia out because she’d sensed somebody had been watching her.”

“You.”

“Not me. I told you, she got the feeling before I ever arrived on the scene. Then there were the photographs.” He’d told Headly about them, too, ignoring grunts of disapproval for his having taken them in the first place. “We still don’t know what happened to them. The beach ball also remains unexplained.”

“You said the girl, Stef, was driving Amelia’s car and wearing her rain slicker.”

“A distinctive slicker. She had the hood up. It was dark. Cats-and-dogs rain. From the back, she could easily have been mistaken for Amelia.”

“And Dirk’s gone underground.”

Dawson expelled his breath. “That’s where we are. What do you make of it?”

“You know before asking.”

Yes, he did. “Amelia won’t admit it, but she’s afraid my hunch is right.”

“We could be wrong,” Headly said, musing aloud. “Maybe the nanny got crosswise with somebody, and he or she whacked her.”

“That’s a possibility, of course. But if Stef had an enemy, she didn’t show it. We know of none. And we know definitely that Amelia has one.”

“Okay, if Jeremy’s alive, what would he gain by killing his ex-wife?”

“His children.”

“Shit,” Headly said. “I walked right into that one.”

“He once told Amelia that nothing would keep him from his sons.”

“By the way, I called the local newspaper in Wesson’s hometown, played the FBI ace, and asked that his parents’ obit be e-mailed to me. I laid it on thick. A matter of national security, and so on. Anyhow, I got it this afternoon. It included a picture of two pleasant-looking individuals on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. She was wearing a corsage of roses.”

“Not Carl and Flora.”

“Not even close.”

“So even if Jeremy was their son by birth, he wasn’t reared by them.”

“Looks like.”

Before they could take that topic further, Tucker nudged Dawson’s shoulder and mouthed, “Sixty seconds.”

“I gotta go,” he said into the phone.

“No need to rush now. Eva’s already steamed. But she’ll get over it. She always does.” After a pause, he said, “Dirk needs to be found.”

“Yeah, about that…I thought maybe you could come down.”

“To Savannah?”

“If Dirk
is
Jeremy, you’ll want to be in on the hunt and the capture. Right?”

“Definitely. I’ll call Knutz first thing tomorrow morning. Have him start putting together a task force.”

“Any chance you can get here tonight?”

“
Tonight?
”

“For a couple of urgent reasons. First and foremost, Amelia needs someone watching her back.”

“I thought that was your detail. What’s the other urgency?”

“I need you to bail me out.”

Even before thanking Headly for picking him up, as they walked from the jail, Dawson asked him if Amelia was safe.

“Soon as our call ended last night, I talked to Knutz. He’s got people he occasionally uses for surveillance, sorta freelancers. He put somebody on Amelia. A gal actually, but she’s one of the best, he says.

“Anyway, she followed Amelia when she left the sheriff’s office. She went straight to her apartment, spent the night there without incident. She left it this morning at eight o’clock.” He checked his wristwatch. “About ten minutes ago.”

“So she’s okay?”

“Didn’t I indicate that?”

“What about the boys?”

“They weren’t with her.”

“She must have left them with the museum guy and his wife. She said she might. It was probably for the best. But somebody should be guarding that house, too. They—” He caught Headly looking at him curiously. “What?”

“For a jailbird, you’re awfully concerned about the welfare of a widow and her two kids.”

“If something happens to them, it’ll be on your head for not telling the locals about the possibility of Jeremy’s resurrection.”

Querulously, Headly said, “Another one of Knutz’s freelancers is watching the museum guy’s house. Okay?”

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Well, I’ve been a little busy lately getting your ass out of jail.”

“Thanks, by the way.”

Headly merely snorted.

Dawson said, “I wasn’t worried about being formally charged.” He’d spent an uncomfortable night in jail—fortunately not in the same cell with Ray Dale Huffman, whom, had he gotten close to, he might have strangled. “It was only a matter of time before they had to let me go.”

Headly motioned him toward the rental car he’d picked up at the Savannah airport.

“How do you figure?”

“They didn’t have any evidence.”

Headly used the remote key to unlock the car doors. They got in on opposite sides, and Headly started the engine immediately. “Of illegal drug possession or homicide?”

“Certainly no evidence tying me to Stef’s murder.”

Headly just sat there with his hand on the gearshift, looking at him, silently asking about the other possible criminal charge.

“All right, I’d bought some pills from Ray Dale. Yesterday, a rookie deputy was sent upstairs with me while I changed clothes. He was green, easily distracted with jabber. I snatched the bottle of them off my nightstand, and when he allowed me to go to the john, I flushed them.”

“Clever you.” Headly backed out of the parking slot, muttering angrily under his breath.

“Will you relax?” Dawson said. “They were—”

“I know what they were. I found your stash in your apartment.”

“Excuse me? You broke into my apartment?”

“Don’t go all righteously indignant on me. I’m not the drug addict.”

“I’m hardly an addict.”

“No? Then why are your hands shaking?”

He’d hoped no one would notice. “Look, I only needed something to take the edge off.”

“Off what?”

Dawson clammed up, then said, “I wasn’t taking anything you can’t get from a doctor.”

“Then why aren’t you getting them from one, instead of buying them off guys on the street with names like Ray Dale? God only knows what they’re laced with.”

Dawson was about to argue that, but truth be told, he couldn’t vouch for the pharmaceutical integrity of the pills he’d been taking. His only criterion for quality control had been that they worked. Their numbing effect was swift and short-term, but even a moment away from the nightmare was worth the risk of taking compounds of dubious origin.

“I was careful,” he mumbled.

“Buying only from reliable, upstanding illegal drug dealers.”

Dawson didn’t address his godfather’s sarcasm, knowing it was justified. His recklessness was indefensible, so he didn’t even attempt to excuse it. “Take the next right, then the hotel is up one block on the left.”

When he’d relocated to Saint Nelda’s, he’d taken only what he thought he would need at the beach and hadn’t checked out of the hotel, a decision he was glad of now. He left Headly in the lobby while he went upstairs to shower and change clothes. He was back down in five minutes. In less than ten more, they were entering the courthouse.

C
ourt convened shortly after nine o’clock. The judge said she hoped everyone had enjoyed the holiday weekend, then asked Willard Strong’s defense attorney if he was ready to cross-examine the witness.

Mike Gleason stood. “Ready, Your Honor.”

Amelia was escorted in. As she took her seat in the witness box, she was reminded that she was still under oath.

Sitting beside Dawson in the gallery, Headly harrumphed. “What did you notice first, her intelligence, her modesty, or her self-control?”

Dawson didn’t answer. Mike Gleason had already fired the first volley by asking Amelia if she had formed an opinion of Willard Strong even before meeting him.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“What I mean is this, Ms. Nolan. Your husband returns from war. He’s obviously suffering from PTSD. What do you do? Encourage him? Nurture him? Exercise patient, loving kindness? No. You leave him and rob him of his sons.”

Jackson was on his feet immediately. “Objection.”

“In fact, Ms. Nolan, isn’t it true that your first reaction to anything that diverted your husband’s attention away from you, including and especially his friendship with Mr. Strong, was—”

“Your Honor—”

“Spiteful jealousy?”

The judge banged her gavel several times and sustained Jackson’s objection.

Many more were to come. Despite them, Gleason tried his hardest to chisel away at Amelia’s loyalty and integrity.
Merciless
and
selfish
were words he used to describe her efforts to get out of the marriage.

He grilled her about the two times she’d been with the defendant, at Hunter’s birthday party, and then the day he had come to the townhouse looking for Jeremy. He tried to discredit her accounts of these incidents, to put a spin on them that would make her out to be a woman prone to either hysterics or malice.

It was an ill-chosen strategy. Amelia remained calm. She didn’t get flustered, even as she stressed the immediate threat that Willard Strong had posed to her and her children.

Eventually the lawyer must have sensed that her composure was more persuasive than his theatrics and that all he was accomplishing was to irritate the jurors and make them more, not less, sympathetic toward her. After an hour of getting nowhere, he wrapped up rather quickly and told the judge that he had no further questions for her.

She stepped down, and the bailiff led her out through the same side exit as before. Dawson whispered, “Let’s go,” and together he and Headly left through the door at the back of the courtroom.

They intercepted Amelia in the corridor. Cell phone in hand, she was punching in a number when she noticed them walking toward her. Her hands dropped to her sides. “They let you out of jail?”

“You sound disappointed.”

Headly stepped forward and extended his right hand. “Ms. Nolan. Gary Headly.”

She shook his hand, but with a notable lack of warmth. “Are you his lawyer?”

“Second-generation family friend. Also his godfather. But please don’t hold that against me.” His friendly smile wasn’t returned.

Dawson tilted his head toward the courtroom. “You did great in there.”

“It wasn’t a talent show.”

“I know that,” he shot back, matching her ire. “All I meant was that your reason was effective against his ranting.”

“I’m just grateful to have it over and done with. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She made to go around them, but Dawson sidestepped and blocked her path.

“Where are you going?”

“To pick up my children.”

“Are they all right?”

“No. They’re not all right.” She pushed back her hair, hooking a strand behind her ear, which was a sure signal that the composure she’d exhibited in the courtroom was about to desert her. “They keep asking where I am and when I’m coming to get them. They sense that something is wrong, but they don’t know what, and not knowing is frightening to them, especially to Hunter, who is remarkably perceptive for his age. At some point I must tell them that their adored nanny is dead.” Her voice cracked, which she tried to cover by clearing her throat. “I have to go.”

This time Dawson didn’t physically try to stop her, but he spoke her name with appeal.

She turned back, but her body language remained hostile. “If you’re still after a good story, why don’t you write one about yourself?”

“I’m not interesting.”

She gave a caustic laugh. “Oh, but you are. You’re secretive, mercurial, a study in contradictions. Beyond that, you’re…”

“What?”

“Just so I’m clear, those pills you were taking weren’t doctor prescribed, were they?”

He wouldn’t admit it out loud, not inside the courthouse. But he gave one shake of his head.

Softly, but bitterly, she said, “Right.” As she turned to go, her cell phone, still in her hand, vibrated. She looked at the LED and answered immediately. “Deputy Tucker?” She listened for a moment, her face going pale. “Where did you find him?”

Dawson was beside her in an instant, whispering, “Dirk?”

She looked up at him and nodded. “I see,” she said into the phone. “Well, please keep me—”

“Excuse me, Ms. Nolan.” Headly took the phone from her hand and raised it to his ear. As he started walking purposefully toward the elevator bank, Dawson heard him say, “Deputy? My name is Gary Headly. I’m a friend of Ms. Nolan’s. Also an agent with the FBI. We’re on our way. Please be there to meet us.”

Amelia felt disoriented from the shock waves that just kept coming.

She had spent a virtually sleepless night, alternately pacing the floor and tossing in bed, sometimes sobbing over what had happened to Stef, then trembling in fear that she had been the intended victim. Off and on she prayed fervently for the safety of her children, bargaining with God to preserve them.

And at any given time, she was despising Dawson Scott for his multiple deceptions and half truths and omissions, even as her body betrayed her with stirring recollections of his nakedness, his blatant arousal, the sheer carnality of his kisses, and her responses to them.

At dawn, she’d had to shelve all the emotional turmoil and pull herself together for her court appearance. Actually, it hadn’t been as terrible as she had anticipated. Mike Gleason had raked her over the coals, but she, like everyone in the courtroom, realized that it was desperation, not conviction, that had fueled his fiery attack on her character. She almost felt sorry for Willard Strong, who’d had to sit by and watch his case being damaged rather than strengthened.

But it was over, and she didn’t have to think about it anymore. She wanted to collect her children and return to the beach house, splash in the surf, feel the sea breeze in her hair, and taste the salt air. She wanted to laugh and romp in the sand with her sons. But even as she visualized such playful abandon, her heart felt anything but carefree.

The specter of Stef’s murder clouded her happiness over having the trial behind her. She must figure out how to explain the nanny’s sudden absence to her sons, how to tell them in a way that was honest but that wouldn’t leave them with an acute fear of death.

She hoped that by now they would have forgotten about Dawson altogether so she wouldn’t be required to talk about him.

But he had a way of turning up when she least expected him, as he had in the courthouse corridor. His night in lockup had left him looking hollow-eyed and underfed. But still incredibly good. At the sight of him, her body had quickened in spite of her determination to remain aloof.

The situation had turned truly bizarre when the older man, who’d introduced himself only moments earlier as Dawson’s friend and godfather, seized her cell phone and started throwing his weight around.

Now, without being given sufficient time to process this staggering series of events, she was flanked by Dawson and Headly as they entered the building that was becoming uncomfortably familiar.

As instructed, Deputy Tucker was waiting for them in the lobby where she and Dawson had talked last night. His first words were for Dawson. “You should feel right at home.”

Dawson ignored the dig and didn’t respond.

Tucker acknowledged her with a polite nod, then turned to the older man. “You must be Agent Headly.”

Headly shook hands with him and proffered his ID.

As the deputy handed it back, he said, “The sheriff’s office is working the DeMarco case in conjunction with Savannah Metro PD. If we need additional help, we’ll go to GBI. Why’s the federal bureau horning in?”

“Not the Bureau. Me. And I’m here only as a friend of Ms. Nolan’s.”

“Huh.” The deputy regarded Headly skeptically, then addressed her. “Reason I called you, I thought you’d want to know that Dirk’s last name is Arneson. We’ve got him back there now talking to Wills.”

“Where did you find him?” Dawson asked.

“Here in Savannah. One of those temporary apartments that rents by the week, but a nice one.”

Amelia said, “Stef told me that he works on boats.”

“Electronics systems,” Tucker said. “Fancy, high-tech gizmos. We’re running down his current employer to check that out.”

Sizzling through her mind was the word
electronics
, which was closely related to Jeremy’s field of expertise. She saw that Dawson had picked up on that, too. He had planted in her mind the possibly that Jeremy was alive and posing as Dirk. If that was true, just knowing that he was under the same roof was making it hard for her to breathe.

Headly asked, “Did he have identification?”

“Florida driver’s license, an insurance card for a 2009 Ford pickup, one credit card, one gas card. All legit and nothing overdue.”

“Has he been cooperative?” Dawson asked.

“More or less. Arresting deputies said he gave them some attitude. Probably because there’s an outstanding warrant for him in Florida.”

“For what?”

“Parking tickets.”

“Parking tickets?”

The detective gave Dawson a look. “What? You were expecting something else?”

“Weren’t you?”

Tucker merely shrugged. “When the deputies told him that parking violations weren’t the issue, he claimed not to know why we wanted to talk to him.”

“He denied knowing Stef?” Dawson asked.

“No. He admits to hooking up with her a couple of times, but swears that until the deputies told him, he didn’t even know that she was dead.”

“It’s been on the news,” Dawson said.

“We pointed that out to him. Still claims he hadn’t heard anything about it. He also provided an alibi for the night she was killed. Says he and a couple other guys have been working on a yacht that’s tied up over there on Saint Nelda’s south dock. But the day Miss DeMarco was killed, they hadn’t gone to the island, on account of the storm. They were afraid they wouldn’t be able to get back, and they had nowhere to stay out there. He says that at the estimated time of her death he was playing poker with his friends in his apartment. He gave us their names. We’re trying to track them down, but he tells us they went to New Orleans yesterday for another job.”

“A poker night with suddenly absent friends?”

For once the deputy agreed with Dawson. “I hear ya. We talked to the captain of the ferry that goes out to Saint Nelda’s. From the description we gave him, he knew right off who we were talking about. Says he’s carried him back and forth many times.

“But he can’t remember if Dirk was a passenger on the ferry on Sunday. Because of the weather, he had his hands full piloting the thing before they shut down ferry service altogether. He can’t swear one way or another whether he hauled Dirk that day or not.

“And, too, the owners of that yacht are in North Carolina. Dirk had access to it, and he knows how to pilot it, even in bad weather, because he installed all the safety geegaws.”

“You’re saying he might not have needed the ferry to get himself to the island and back.”

“Righto. We’re looking at him hard,” Tucker said. “He admits to being sort of a drifter, moving from job to job along the East Coast. His ‘permanent address’ is a post office box in Florida.”

Amelia, Dawson, and Headly exchanged a look. Dawson came back to Tucker. “Does he have any kind of scar on his head?”

“Scar?”

“A patch of hair missing. Like he suffered a serious wound.”

“The hell you talking about?”

Before Dawson was forced to explain the reason for his question, Headly intervened. “Ms. Nolan doesn’t know Dirk by name, but she may recognize him by sight. If so, it could have some bearing on your investigation. Can she take a look?”

Tucker motioned them toward the door. “Any help we can get.”

She said, “I don’t want him to see me.”

“He won’t. He’s in an interrogation room. There’s a one-way window.”

The four went through the door that opened into a large squad room furnished with work stations partitioned off from one another. A few personnel were about, doing various things. They all stopped what they were doing and watched them traverse the room. Tucker led them out of that room and into a sterile corridor. They made a left turn into another seemingly endless corridor identical to the first.

Tucker, in step with Amelia, asked, “Did Miss DeMarco seem to welcome his attentions?”

“From what I gather, yes,” Amelia replied. “She always looked forward to meeting him.”

“Did she ever tell you where their dates took place?”

“Mickey’s is the only night spot on Saint Nelda’s.”

“For that reason, we started there. Neither Mickey nor any of his employees ever remember seeing her there with a guy fitting his description.”

Amelia shook her head in puzzlement. “I don’t know where else they would have spent time.”

“Our guess: the yacht. It’s snazzy. He probably wanted to impress her. But when we asked him if he’d ever entertained her on the boat, he denied it. I figure because he doesn’t want to lose his job. If his alibi doesn’t pan out, we’ll get a search warrant.” Absorbed in thought, he stroked his cheek. “Her purse was left behind with cash and credit cards. She wasn’t sexually assaulted.”