Holly Blues (26 page)

“How’s it going out there?” McQuaid asked.

“About like you’d think.” Not looking at him, Jamison yanked off his leather gloves, finger by finger, and held his hands to the heater, rubbing them. “Ugly, isn’t it?”

“Never gets any prettier,” McQuaid agreed. They didn’t have to say that it was the scene that was ugly, and not the weather. They watched as the medics hoisted the gurney into the ambulance and closed the doors. The father trudged to his car, and both vehicles drove off. The medics didn’t run the ambulance emergency lights. No emergency now. Joyce Dillard had already confronted the greatest emergency of her life, and there had been no one around to rescue her. The two men contemplated this truth in silence.

A moment later, the other patrol cars pulled away, as well. All that was left in the blowing, moon-shadowed night was Jamison’s cruiser, the red pickup truck, and the yellow tape squaring off a patch of frozen ditch.

McQuaid reached over and turned the heater up a notch. “You on duty?”

“Nope. Quit at five. Council doesn’t pay overtime. We’ll be back tomorrow morning. Maybe we’ll find something else in that ditch. Likely not, though,” he added without inflection.

McQuaid agreed, although there was a chance. A piece of broken mirror or headlight, a strip of chrome. If it was a vehicular homicide, which maybe it wasn’t. There was still the possibility that Dillard had been out for a walk and fallen accidentally.

He leaned over the seat and pulled up another beer. “You’ve gotta be thirsty.” He handed the can to Jamison, who took it, popped the top, and drank briefly.

“Thanks,” Jamison said, turning to McQuaid. His eyes were cop’s eyes, eyes that had seen more than anybody wanted to see, ought to see, in a human lifetime. But there was no anger there, only weariness and a measuring appraisal that was neither opinion nor judgment. McQuaid recognized the look. He had seen it in the eyes of other law enforcement officers, especially those who had been on the force for a couple dozen years. He had seen it in his own eyes, in his mirror. Sally had seen it, too. Cold eyes, she’d said. Fish eyes. A cold, dead fish.

“You said your ex-wife wanted you to talk to Ms. Dillard,” Jamison said. “Why?”

Time to come clean, McQuaid thought. Nothing to be gained by holding back now. Maybe something to lose if he didn’t.

“I told you some of it,” he said, “but there’s more. Sally came back to Sanders recently with the idea of writing a book about her parents’ murders. That’s when you saw her.”

Jamison swiveled to look at him. “You gotta be shittin’ me,” he said incredulously. “A
book
?”

McQuaid liked him for that. “Yeah, I know. But hear me out. She was working at the KC
Star
and decided to try for a story, or maybe a book, so she came to town to talk to people about the case.”

“She didn’t talk to me. Didn’t talk to any of our guys, so far as I know.”

McQuaid chuckled. “Yeah. Well, maybe you were at the bottom of her list. Anyway, when she got here, she ran into Joyce Dillard. Joyce told her that she had an idea who killed the Strahorns and what happened to the gun. She named a name, but Sally wouldn’t tell me who it was. She wanted me to talk to Joyce and see what I could get out of her.” He paused. “That’s it, Jamison. That’s why I’m here. I don’t have a name to give you, and I don’t know where the gun is.”

“Yeah.” Jamison grunted. “But I got this feeling, McQuaid. You wouldn’t have driven down here from Omaha in a blizzard just on the chance of a chat. What else you got?”

McQuaid drained the last of his beer. “Myers,” he said. He crumpled the empty can and tossed it over his shoulder. It landed with a chink in the open bag with the rest of the beer on the backseat. “Jess Myers. Suspect in the Strahorn shootings. You seen him around in the past day or two?”

“Myers.” Jamison’s voice held an odd tone. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead wearily. “Can’t say that I have. How come?”

“Because Sally showed up in Texas day before yesterday, in the town where I live. She was looking for a place to stay. Myers showed up shortly afterward, looking for her. My wife talked to him on the phone, twice, once late last night. She said he sounded threatening. And Sally was scared.”

“Scared, was she? Why am I not surprised?” Jamison pushed his lips in and out. “She say why?”

“No, and my wife didn’t push it—although she was concerned enough to ask the county sheriff, a friend of ours, to detour a deputy past our place in the night. Then this afternoon, she learned that Sally’s sister, Leslie, is dead. Lake City, Texas, where she lived. Homicide, last couple of days, maybe even more recent.”

No need to tell Jamison the rest of it, that Sally was a person of interest. And anyway, the more he thought about this, the more he thought it had no relevance, except as an inconvenience to Sally (from Sally’s point of view) or from his point of view, as a way to get her into police custody, where she would be safe. She wasn’t the one the Lake City police wanted. They ought to be talking to Myers, find out what he knew about Leslie’s death.

Jamison reacted more strongly than he had expected. “Leslie? Little Leslie Strahorn, used to work at Joe’s?” He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, shook his head. “Aw, hell.”

“Yeah,” McQuaid said, and was almost surprised at the pain he felt.

“Leslie.” Jamison was gruff. “Pretty thing, bouncy. Always a good word. Saw the bright side.”

“Yeah,” McQuaid said again and looked out at the dark.

There was a silence.

Jamison cleared his throat. “Puts a different light on things, don’t it?” he asked. “So how’re you reading it, McQuaid? What’s your take?”

McQuaid gave it to him—China’s argument. The argument she would make if she were sitting in the backseat, looking over their shoulders at that snowy ditch where Joyce Dillard’s body had been found. It didn’t take long.

Jamison rested the beer can on the dash. “So you’re pointing the finger at Jess Myers. You think he killed the Strahorns. Dillard, too. And Leslie. And you figure your ex-wife’s next?”

“It’s a possibility,” McQuaid said. “Make sense? You tagged Myers as a suspect in the Strahorn murders. You must have felt he was capable of doing the job.”

“We also tagged your ex,” Jamison said flatly. A muscle in his jaw was working. “Try this on for size, McQuaid. Sally Strahorn is going through a divorce—from you. She’s a little crazy and a lot desperate for money. She knows her folks have it but they won’t fork it over and she’s got to have it. She sweet-talks Jess Myers into robbing her folks. She unlocks her family’s gun cabinet. He gets the loaded Luger, waits for the Strahorns to come home from Wednesday night prayer meeting. There’s a ruckus, the Strahorns end up dead. Sally and Jess are in it together, whether it was meant to be murder or not. They split the cash that’s in the house. And when she finally collects her share of the insurance, she gives him a payoff.”

The voice in the back of McQuaid’s head said,
I told you so, didn’t I? Could’ve happened that way. Except that it wasn’t Sally. It was the other one. The crazy one. Juanita.

The car was getting warm. McQuaid turned down the heater to low. “I thought you said Myers didn’t show any extra cash.”

“He didn’t. But that’s not to say he didn’t have it. He’s a close-hold kinda guy, secretive, keeps to himself. Could’ve stashed his share under his mattress for his retirement. Or put it into the stock market, or blown it in Vegas.” He grunted gloomily. “All kinds of places where a man can put money these days without anybody knowin’ about it.”

McQuaid wasn’t surprised that Jamison had this all worked out. He was a good cop. He hadn’t closed out any options. And Sally had been on the suspect list, too, which made for a natural pairing with Myers and took care of the problem of the unlocked gun cabinet. He could see the logic.

Well, good,
snapped the voice.
Maybe now you’ll toughen up, McQuaid. Get smart. See what’s real. Sally isn’t what you think, never has been.

Aloud, he said, “Don’t suppose you’ve got any evidence to support your theory,” knowing that if he had anything he could use to make a case, Myers and Sally wouldn’t be suspects. They would have been charged and tried. Convicted, most likely, since the Strahorns were much loved and it would have been hard to find an impartial jury.

“Not enough, but some.” Jamison gave him a grim half smile. “For starters, she was hanging out with him the week the Strahorns were killed. His neighbor thought she was sleepin’ with him, which would’ve made her parents livid, if they knew. And as I said, she was bouncin’ checks. Hittin’ on her folks for a loan. And fightin’ with them.” He shook his head. “Enough bad family feeling to motivate the shootings, McQuaid. It’s all in my notes from the original investigation.”

Hanging out with Myers,
the voice said.
Got that?
Sally had been in terrible shape while the divorce was going through. Sanders was a small town, and gossip was a major recreational sport. McQuaid hadn’t supposed she’d come back home and start sleeping with one of her old flames, but he reckoned anything was possible, especially if Juanita was in the picture.

“You were chief then?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jamison said shortly. “Couldn’t clear the Strahorn case, got replaced.” He gave an ironic chuckle. “It was Joyce Dillard’s daddy led the pack. I guess Patterson—he’s chief now, took over from the guy who took over from me—will find out how it works. Clear the case or take a demotion. Or, since it’s Dillard’s daughter who’s dead, maybe Patterson will get to walk the plank instead of just getting demoted.”

McQuaid understood, and knew what else was going through Jamison’s mind. If he could break the Dillard homicide—assuming that’s what it was—maybe he would get his old job back. If breaking the Dillard case also resolved the Strahorn murders, maybe he’d run for county sheriff. He’d get a lot of coverage in the local paper. He’d be a shoo-in. And from that position, he could thumb his nose at the Sanders town council.

“So how do you think Joyce Dillard figures in this?” McQuaid asked.

Jamison gave him a hard look. “Come on, McQuaid. That’s easy. She finds out who did the Strahorns and wants her cut of the take. Or maybe she’s a good citizen and threatens to blow the whistle on Bonnie and Clyde. Either way, that’s it for Joyce. Last act. Curtains.”

“You’re sure Dillard’s a homicide?”

“The back side of her head was smashed in, I could see that much. The body will go to the state lab. We’ll get the particulars back next week.”

“So maybe Sally was sleeping with Myers and hitting her folks up for money. That’s circumstantial.” McQuaid frowned. “You got anything else? Anything that a clever defense attorney can’t tear apart?”

Jamison’s jaw set stubbornly. “What else is I see her and Myers together when she was back in town last time. She stayed at that motel you asked me about. Sycamore Court. Day after, I see her with Joyce Dillard.” He paused for emphasis. “Then Joyce disappears.” He turned down the corners of his mouth. “This ain’t rocket science, McQuaid.”

“But it’s still circumstantial.” McQuaid tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “You say you saw Sally with Myers?”

Jamison nodded. “Walking. In the park. They didn’t exactly look friendly. When she saw me, she did a fast fade. Beat it out of there. Didn’t want to talk to me.”

“Could’ve been a perfectly innocent connection,” McQuaid said. “She knew Myers from a bad time—also knew that he was a suspect in her parents’ deaths. He found out she was back in town and wanted to see her again. She wasn’t thrilled at the idea. Which was why she wasn’t friendly.” He gave Jamison a crooked grin. “And she faded when she saw you because she knew you’d harass her.”

“Yeah, it could’ve been like that,” Jamison allowed with a shrug. His voice hardened. “Could also have been a pair of coconspirators who’d had a falling-out over money or something else and were no longer on friendly terms. But they had a job to do—taking care of Joyce—and they had to figure out how to get it done. Which meant that they had to get together.”

“Yeah,” McQuaid said grimly. “I suppose it could.” He didn’t like it, but he could see it both ways.

Good,
the voice said.
Now you’re using your head. Being realistic.

Jamison tapped the rim of his can against the car window. “Word around town is that your ex has a serious psychological problem,” he said. “Multiple personality, way I heard it. What do you know about this?”

Don’t lie,
the voice cautioned.
Don’t protect her
.
If Sally—no, if Juanita had something to do with this—with any of it—she’ll have to pay the price. Whatever it is.

“Dissociative identity disorder is what it’s called,” he replied slowly. “I saw some evidence of it while we were married, but I was just a young, dumb kid. What did I know? Didn’t even hear about the diagnosis until a year or so ago. We got the word from Leslie, who keeps—kept—us in the loop.” He sighed. “Sally mostly stays away from us. She hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about her problems, either, unless she wants to borrow money.”

Or wants to hide out,
the voice said.
Which is why she’s in Pecan Springs right now. She just didn’t count on Myers coming after her, that’s all. Probably thought she was clear of him.

Jamison eyed him. “The borrowing probably ended when the insurance came through, though. Two million was what I heard. After she and Leslie split it, she would’ve been livin’ high on the hog. Right?”

“For a while. It didn’t take her long to run through the money. There were always plenty of guys who were willing to help her invest it, spend it, give it away.” He knew this would add fuel to Jamison’s fire. The Strahorn murders were a cold case, but there had been a dead woman in that ditch, and Leslie was dead in Lake City. Three of these killings were on Jamison’s turf. The man deserved his cooperation.