Half Past Dead (25 page)

David shrugged, but she detected a glint of doubt in his expressive eyes. “Not really. I spoke with the husband. He's remarried and wants to put the past behind him. He claims he didn't know what his wife was working on at the time of her death.”

“You suspect he's not telling the truth?”

“When he was talking, I kept thinking he knew more than he was willing to tell me.” He loosened his tie with a shrug. “Call it reporter's intuition. They have a grown daughter who's attending Duke. I'm going to drive up there and talk to her.”

“What could she possibly tell you that the father wouldn't reveal?”

“Who knows? She would have been in her teens. She must have been close to her mother. Maybe they discussed the case.”

Kat was about to mention that not all mother-daughter relationships were close. David surprised her by telling her to write the front page article about Lucas Albright to save him time.

“Just be sure to use my name on the byline,” he concluded. “I don't want anyone—even Connie—to know. It's really not kosher to have you involved since you're part of the story, but I believe you can do a superior job.”

K
AT CONCENTRATED
on the words on her computer screen, doing the final rewrite on Lucas Albright's attack on her and his botched attempt at killing Justin. It sounded like David, she concluded after rereading the piece. It was a tersely worded, professional article. Nobody would think the person who wrote the story had almost been killed by that madman.

“Someone's here to see you,” Connie announced in a tone that made it clear this was a personal visit, another unnecessary interruption during working hours.

Kat quickly closed her screen so Connie wouldn't see what she'd been writing. David was supposed to have written this article, but Kat knew he had been busy downloading as much information as he could on FDIC investigations and the death of the inspector. She turned her attention to the
Trib
's reception lounge where Lola Rae was huddled in one of the hardback chairs. Why wasn't she at the shop?

“Hey, how are you?” Lola Rae asked in a soft voice that didn't carry beyond the reception area.

It was apparent that the hair stylist had been crying. Kat wasn't certain what to say. Lola Ray had coffee and pastries available in her shop each morning. Could Kat have consumed the nearly lethal dose of belladonna there? Or had Lola Rae hidden it in the Mexican food Maria had prepared for Kat?

She smothered the ache of discomfort that came with each step and forced herself to focus on Lola Rae—not idle suspicions. Anyone could have slipped her the poison.

“What's wrong?” Kat sank into the chair beside Lola Rae, careful to keep her voice low and not disturb Connie and the others. There were only a handful of people working in the cube farm, but they were all rushing to meet the two-o'clock deadline to put the
Trib
to bed for the day.

“It's Gary Don,” confessed Lola Rae and a fresh stream of tears dribbled down her cheeks. “He has another woman on the side. Know what I mean?”

It wouldn't surprise Kat, but she didn't voice her opinion. She really didn't know the man at all, but in her opinion he seemed cocky and reckless. There was something else about him that bothered Kat, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

“Why do you think there's another woman in the picture?”

Lola Rae pulled a scrap of tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “The other night, Gary Don claimed he was working, but I drove out to Moonin 'N Coonin. He wasn't there. I went around behind the building to where he keeps his trailer. He didn't see me, but I spotted him getting into this old Chevy with Teresa Evans.” Lola Rae paused for a moment, sucking in air to keep from crying out loud. “Everyone knows she's nothin' more than a ho.”

Whore.
The word reverberated through Kat's brain. She wondered what people had called her. Kat knew Teresa from school. She'd served a short sentence in Jackson for possession of marijuana. As far as Kat knew, she'd never been accused of prostitution. But folks around here were quick to judge. Once you'd been in jail…you never lived it down.

“Last night I followed him,” Lola Rae continued, oblivious to Kat's silence. “I was smart. I didn't use my car. I borrowed one of my brother's motorcycles. I put on a helmet and a leather jacket. No way could Gary Don see it was me dogging him.”

Sensing something was coming, Kat's pulse kicked up a beat. “You followed him out to the bar or when he was leaving it?”

“As he left. He sleeps most afternoons and gets up in time to work or party, depending on his schedule. Last night, he took off from the bar and drove out to one of the levee roads. It's just a dirt path leading through the cane breaks in fields that haven't been planted for years. I hung back and turned off my lights to keep him from spotting me. In the middle of nowhere, he stopped. I was too far away to tell what he was doing exactly, but I saw a huge old tree had fallen down and blocked the ruts that pass for a road. I thought he'd taken something out of the old hollowed-out part of the tree.”

As casually as she could manage, Kat asked, “Did you see what he took?”

Lola Rae hunched forward in her chair and studied the rhinestone-studded jeans she was wearing. “I was wrong. He didn't take a blasted thing. He left a bag of money for that two-bit tramp.”

Kat nearly gasped at her friend's convoluted logic. Why leave the woman money out in the middle of nowhere? He could easily have handed it to her in private somewhere. The money couldn't be for this woman. It had to have been left in secret for someone else.

Kat needed to end the awkward break in the conversation. “Was it a lot of money?”

“I didn't count it but it had to be thousands of dollars. In small bills. There wasn't anything larger than a twenty that I saw.”

Drug money,
Kat silently concluded. She vividly recalled what Justin had told her about “double blind” drops.

“Where would Gary Don get that much money?” she asked, testing Lola Rae's logic. Love was blind, deaf, and dumb—too often.

“Gamblin',” Lola Rae replied without hesitation. “There's always a game going on in the back room at the bar. He takes a cut for running the table. A lot of times he bets.” Lola Rae's lips drew into a grim smile as tight as a corpse's. “He gave me a wad of cash to start All Washed Up. Now he's handing that ho money for something.”

Kat could hardly wait to tell Justin about this development. It could be related to the case somehow. Twin Oaks was simply too small to have the drug running and murders not be linked. There must be a lot of cash floating around and an extreme need for secrecy to force the group to stash it in a log. It had to be retrieved and brought to a central point…like a bank. The casino was another possibility, she reluctantly admitted to herself. This wasn't going to be simple. She would need Justin's help to unravel this mess.

“Did you take the money or leave it in the old log?” she asked, attempting to sound nonchalant. Don't make Lola Rae suspicious. Go along with her assumptions.

“I left it.” Lola Rae barked out a sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh. “I thought I'd catch Teresa picking it up. Know what I mean? I waited until the sun came up but she never showed.”

It was almost two in the afternoon—plenty of time for the next link in the drug network to have picked up the money. Maybe they'd left more drugs to be sold. She wasn't sure what any of this meant, but she firmly believed this was a piece of the puzzle.

Justin needed to be informed of this development as soon as possible, but she didn't dare alert Lola Rae. Let her assume this was about another woman until they knew the truth.

“Is there a good place to hide and watch the tree?” Kat asked.

“Yeah. I rolled my brother's old Triumph behind a stand of bramble bushes and scrub oak. Even in a full moon, no one could spot me in that thicket.” Lola Rae's dark eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“I'll go out there with you. Teresa might have been working. Let's see if she picks up the money today. Who knows? It might be someone else.”

“Like who?” There was a serrated edge to Lola Rae's voice now.

Game's up, thought Kat. Lola Rae knows where I'm going with this. Be straight with her. “Didn't it seem odd that Gary Don would leave the money out in the boonies rather than hand it to Teresa directly?”

Lola Rae brushed a limp hank of hair off her shoulder. “Not really. Gary Don's a tease. He told me I'd find what I needed in an old coffee can behind the post office.” She smiled wistfully as if remembering those days with youthful happiness. “Sure enough. There it was.”

“Small bills?”

“Uh-huh. Gary Don told me to keep it hidden and feed it into my cash drawer a little at a time.” Lola Rae's lips trembled for a second, then tears welled up in her eyes again. “Every night, I'd check the coffee can. You have no idea the security it gave me to know I had enough money to run my shop.”

Lola Rae was one of eight children, and her parents had struggled constantly to keep up with the bills. Lola Rae had no one to count on but herself. A familiar feeling, Kat decided. From the moment her father had died, Kat had known she must support herself. Oh, her mother allowed her to live with her—but she was expected to pay rent. If she hadn't come up with the money, she would have been out on the street.

Too bad Lola Rae's security had come at such a price.

 

J
USTIN GRINNED
across the wide mahogany desk at Cloris Howard. “I'm not asking to see any personal information from the bank's files.” He blasted the bank president with a good ole boy smile even though he was pissed big-time that she'd kept him waiting for over a half hour. “But I'll get a court order if I need to.”

Cloris inhaled, her delicate nostrils flaring just slightly, but she didn't respond. Beneath her cool demeanor he detected a cunning ruthlessness that he'd encountered in powerful men who saw themselves as above the law.

“I'm here to do a little more background on Elmer. I'm sure you want to see his murder solved.”

“Of course,” she replied smoothly. “I was convinced that Wells woman had shot poor Elmer but…”

“She has an airtight alibi.”

“So it seems.” Her observant eyes were a flawless blue, but with no depth of emotion. “How may I help?”

“What was Elmer working on when he was killed?”

“I would have to check.” A note of defiance underscored her words as well as a subtle challenge. “The usual, I'm sure. He handled all our loans.”

“Any problem transactions?” Justin was fishing here, slowly leading up to the questions he really needed to ask.

“I'm not aware of any, and I'm sure if there had been something, Elmer would have conferred with me.”

Justin didn't doubt it. Any jerk could see Cloris Howard called the shots around the bank. Elmer wouldn't be able to take a crap without her okay.

Justin decided now was the time to drop the bomb. “Did Elmer mention that Buck Mason was getting his new loan from Jackson Mutual?”

“That's a lie,” Cloris blurted out before she could stop herself, and Justin smiled inwardly, knowing he'd struck a sore spot. Cloris glanced down at her calendar for a moment, then responded in her usual detached voice. “Buck has always done his banking here. Why would he go all the way into Jackson?”

“A better rate?”

“Impossible. Ask anyone. We offer the best rates and services around.”

Her haughty tone was like a burr under his saddle. How could the woman be so sure? Unless…“Buck and Elmer had met just hours before Elmer was killed. Buck himself told me that he'd broken the news about the Jackson bank to Elmer then.”

“That's absurd! Buck would never do that.”

He opened his mouth to ask the million-dollar question: Why not? A loan was a loan. A good businessman could get one anywhere. What was so special about Mercury? The service? Yeah, right.

The cell phone in his pocket vibrated—three quick bursts. The code he'd given Kat. “Gotta take this.” He stood up and pulled the cell out of his pocket as he walked over to the window, his back to Cloris. “Radner here.”

“It's Kat,” she whispered.

“The reception's lousy,” he told her, not wanting Cloris to guess who was on the line.

“I don't want anyone to hear me. I'm with Lola Rae. We're heading out to a spot along the levee. I think it's a drug money drop-off point.”

Holy shit! She could get herself killed. “I'll meet you. I—”

“That'll blow everything. I'm leaving my cell phone on. It'll act like a microphone, if you don't turn yours off.”

Justin started to protest, then stared at his cell phone for a second. What choice did he have? He flipped it shut, put it in his pocket, but didn't disconnect. He'd planted a miniature GPS tracking device in the heel of Kat's shoe. With the handheld monitor he kept in his truck, he could follow her anywhere within in a sixty-mile radius. But this way, he could track her and hear the conversation.

“Is there a problem?” Cloris asked, her voice just a touch too interested.

He gazed at her a moment, thinking of Kat out in the woods with Lola Rae. Anything could happen. He'd planned to string Cloris along with a little game of cat-and-mouse to see what he could discover, but he didn't have the time now.

“No problem,” he assured the oh-so-cool Ms. Howard. “I spent time with Ida Lou Bitner. Did she tell you Elmer planned to retire in two months and move to Guyana where he'd start a mission?”

Cloris started to giggle. “Elmer? A mission in the middle of nowhere?”

“Who said it was in the middle of nowhere?”

Cloris didn't miss a beat. “Elmer did. He mentioned his plan to move to Guyana and start a religious school. It was just talk, that's all. Elmer wouldn't venture off on his own to some small outpost north of Brazil that most people can't find on a map.”

“Ida Lou tells me the funding was in place. Elmer had even made a deal with a realtor in Guyana to purchase a school and orphanage once run by a Jesuit order.”

“Really?” Her tone expressed surprise, but Justin had a gut-deep feeling that she knew all about Bitner's plans to leave the country. “Reverend Applegate never mentioned—”

“I don't think he knew. This wasn't going to be a Baptist mission affiliated with Applegate's church. Elmer alone would be in charge.”

It sounded a lot like a cult thing to Justin, but he wanted to get Cloris's reaction. After all, she'd worked with Bitner for almost twenty years. Hadn't they talked?

“Interesting.” She appeared to be weighing her answer, debating whether to say more. But she kept her response to the single word. Justin had no idea what was really going on in her head.

Could she have pulled the trigger and shot the man who'd worked for her for over twenty years? Justin wouldn't bet against it.