If Looks Could Kill (29 page)

"Do we
have
to find her?" she asked without looking up.

Mac grinned. "Her chief wants to yell at her."

Chris positively beamed. "Oh, in that case..."

"What are you looking for?"

"I was checking dates. The first three murders happened just about the time of year the books said they did."

"And?"

Chris tapped at the brand-new, original file on Cooter. "The victim in
Family Business
died in a fully grown stand of marijuana."

Mac was on the verge of getting to his feet. That brought him right back into his chair again. "Late summer."

She nodded. "Does that mean something?"

"Yeah. I just don't know what." He was going to have to talk to Danny again, brainstorm about the kind of killers they just didn't see in Pyrite on a given day. Maybe call up some markers from the FBI. There was something here, he knew it. Mac just couldn't put his finger on it. Only a few months away from the real streets, and his instincts were getting rusty.

In the end, he flipped all the files closed. "I need to go over to Harmonia's."

"Can I come along?"

Mac looked up just in time to see a flicker of something in her eyes, a splinter of fear that seemed oddly out of place.

"Yeah, I don't care."

I don't really want you out of my sight, he thought. Mac didn't like the idea of her being in that house alone, especially a house she'd just ripped apart with her bare hands. Much better she tag along after him, where he could baby-sit her without her realizing it.

It wasn't much of a drive. Harmonia Mae Switzer still lived on the site where she and about four generations of Switzers before her had been born. A big, ugly brick Victorian house that had grown up around a series of successively bigger frame homes. The Switzers had been the mine owners and the only Confederates to return unscathed in body and reputation to Pyrite. Staunch members of the DAR and the DCA, organizers and major donors to the Puckett County Museum and major benefactors of everything from hospital wings to town morals and standards, the Switzers had always been a town force. Now, there was only Harmonia Mae left, and her grand, sprawling house and land had to share a road with the Mobile Home Hall of Fame.

Harmonia answered the door in dress, heels, and pearls. The town joke was that she'd never had children because she couldn't figure out how to give birth without taking her girdle off.

"Yes?"

Mac instinctively straightened, cap in hand. Miss Switzer put him in mind of every nun who'd ever laid a ruler across his knuckles. Ramrod straight, iron gray hair, ample bosom, no-nonsense attitude. Which was why he'd stopped by his house on the way here and retrieved his uniform for the visit.

"I'm Chief of Police MacNamara, Mizz Switzer," he introduced himself. "I need to talk to you for a moment."

They ended up having iced tea and saying hello to the monkey.

"Of course, my dear brother Edwin brought him back from Burma with him from the war." The old woman smiled fondly at the beady-eyed pet. "I named him Mr. Lincoln because of the obvious resemblance."

Mac kept an eye on the animal, certain he was going to bite and even more certain that he didn't want Mr. Lincoln's teeth in his arm any more than he'd wanted Cooter's. "And you say you haven't seen Sergeant Lawson since Friday?"

Harmonia Mae immediately stiffened. "Unpleasant young woman. Never had a civil word for anyone. I was relieved to see her go. I don't believe we will have room for her when she returns, either."

"Did she leave anything behind?"

Like homicide files.

"Certainly not. Unless Shelly missed it when she cleaned. The girl does need some discipline in those matters."

"How's she doing otherwise?" Chris asked from the other side of Mr. Lincoln, her tea untasted in her hands.

Harmonia turned sharp eyes on her. "I was, of course, happy to take the child in... unlike some of the people in town who expressed interest in her welfare. And although her father the judge is, of course, a dear friend, it is quite understandable when one child becomes a bit... out of hand, that maybe alternate living situations should be considered."

Mac wasn't sure whether the old woman expected thanks or praise. He'd heard all about the Shelly Axminster situation, and thought the resolution creative.

"If I could look at Sergeant Lawson's room," he suggested diffidently when Chris didn't even manage an answer.

It took Harmonia a minute to break off her silent remonstrances and gather herself to her feet. "Of course, Chief."

* * *

"Old bat."

Mac smiled. "Seems like Shelly was pretty set on moving in with you."

Alongside him, Chris sighed. "Yeah, I know."

They were in the cruiser, headed past the colored lights and pink flamingos of the Hall of Fame. Tommy Blue, who ran it, was standing out front hosing down the asphalt as if it would improve the chances of those flocks of tourists he'd been expecting. Mac wasn't sure, but he bet that an acre lot with fifteen half restored old mobile homes with Astroturf lawns and cement lawn animals wasn't going to be the biggest draw in the county. But hell, what did he know? As Tommy had been quick to point out, Mac wasn't even from Missouri.

"We need some more answers before that next detective gets down here."

Chris turned towards him with sick surprise on her face. "The next what?"

"Name's Garavaglia. He says he's six months away from retirement, and he got handed the case. He'll be down in a couple of days. I thought we could get a jump start on him this time."

She groaned, her head dropping back on the seat with a thud. "I don't want to play anymore."

"Not even if it means this all stops?"

"It's not going to stop," she retorted, head coming back up, eyes snapping fire. "It's going to go on and on, with one detective after another picking at me like crows at a road kill. Who do I know? Who's mad at me? Who have I pissed off and liked and made love to and maybe, just maybe convinced to murder? I thought Lawson was bad, but she was just the first round, wasn't she?"

"If you'd rather, we'll get her back."

Chris snorted rather unkindly. "Yeah, my life's suddenly full of happy choices, isn't it?"

"How 'bout picking up that computer?" Mac countered. "At least we can try and have some answers before the next wave comes barreling through from St. Louis."

"Excellent idea." Her voice was hearty. Her hands were clenched in her lap.

"Dispatch to Chief MacNamara."

Mac picked up the mike and keyed it. "This is MacNamara. Go ahead dispatch."

"Sheriff Tipett wants you to reach him on Tac 2."

"Acknowledged." He flipped channels and keyed again as he pulled up to the stoplight by the courthouse. "Sheriff?"

"Chief MacNamara? That you?"

"Whatchya need?"

"I think you'd better meet me on Highway K by the forty-mile marker."

"You got something?"

"Yes sir, I sure do. I think you'd better see for yourself."

Chapter 12

Chris could smell it the minute she stepped out of the car. Caught there in the still afternoon air, heavier than the sunlight and the fresh pine and moss. Wet smoke. Scorched metal. Destruction.

Eldon waited for them right by the mile marker, there at the crook of the road that crested Miller's Mountain, about ten miles north of town. A beautiful spot to drive through in the summer, the road was cut through a private camp, heavily wooded and steep. Isolated, the back way into town from Highway 21.

"What did you find?" Mac asked, slipping on his hat as he approached.

Chris followed, her eyes already drawn to the deep gully at the side of the road where Miller's Stream dug its way though old granite and limestone.

The sheriff tipped back his hat and hooked thumbs into his belt. "Think I found your girl. She looks to have taken a zig when she shoulda zagged."

The three of them stood there a moment, their attention all focused in the same direction.

At first, it looked like an old boulder. Dark, crumpled, misshapen. Shoved in amidst the other boulders that dotted the Missouri landscape. This one, though, was metal. It had fallen and burned so thoroughly that the only things identifying it as a car were the tires. The grass surrounding it was blackened and scarred, a few of the overhanging tree limbs charred.

"She in there?"

"Oh, yeah. Looks like a marshmallow left on the stick too long. Know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm surprised nobody saw the fire."

Tipett shrugged, his belly straining against uniform shirt and belt. "Only thing I can figure is that Wilbur Carter called in about seein' a UFO landing up this way a few nights ago. But Wilbur's always callin' in about UFOs. Maybe this time what he saw was a car burnin'."

Mac started picking his way down the hillside. Tipett followed, and Chris trailed behind, hanging onto saplings and skidding down the new grass in her tennis shoes. The stench rose in her nostrils, thick, sharp, heavy. A smell you carried around with you for a long time. A fitting introduction to the sight inside that car.

"Not much left," Mac commented, leaning toward the shattered side window.

Chris fought a lurch of nausea. Not anything that spoke of memories or nightmares or confusion. Good old-fashioned physiological response to a horrifying sight.

"I hope she had bad teeth," Tipett was saying. "It's gonna be a bitch IDin' her."

"She's got her ring," Chris managed.

Both men turned. "What?"

She pointed to where the thing that looked like an old spider rested against the crushed steering wheel. "Her wedding ring."

Mac's head swiveled to look, and then back to Chris again, a new respect in his eyes. "You're right. It might help an identification. I have to call St. Louis."

"I'll tell 'em," Tipett offered, lifting off his hat to wipe at his forehead. "I figure they'd like for me to ask 'em for help with the autopsy anyway. It's a cinch Doc Clarkson ain't gonna wanna go pokin' in there if he don't have to."

Mac nodded absently, gingerly picking his way around the steep ground on which the car rested. "You called a wrecker yet?"

"On his way."

"I don't suppose those files survived the fire," Mac mused, peering into the car from the other side.

Chris eased her backside down on the damp grass and looked up into the lace of the new leaves. She didn't really need to watch him sharing space with a human briquette. Especially when she'd been talking to that briquette no more than a couple of days ago.

She tried to decide how she felt. Lawson had been a pain in the ass, going after Chris like a terrier with a bone in its teeth. She'd been unpleasant and unpopular, and determined to make Chris one of the rungs on her personal career ladder.

Even so, Chris should feel some kind of grief. Lawson had been married. She'd left behind at least one person to mourn for her, at least some good she'd accomplished with her work, which was more than Chris would have taken with her if she'd been the one reduced to an unrecognizable hunk of carbon. Lawson had talked with Chris, walked through her house, made some kind of impact on her life that should have at least left a hole.

And yet, all Chris could feel was an awful relief.

Not that somebody else wouldn't come with the questions. Chris would probably have to end up telling Mac the rest of the truth sooner or later anyway. But this was different. It was primal. It had something to do with the intensity of Lawson's eyes when she'd turned her subtle accusations on Chris in the shadows. It had to do with those troubling flashes of memory and dislocation.

Mac had compassion. He would bring it to bear when he found out about her. When Chris thought of Lawson she didn't see compassion. She saw hunger.

"Mind if I pop the trunk?" Mac was asking.

Tipett never moved. "Be my guest."

The sound of metal screeching against metal was enough to send a person diving for cover. Chris turned her attention to the violets that dotted the grass at her feet. Reaching out, she stroked them with a finger and fought the instinctive guilt at her feelings. The shame of venality. Maybe she was evil, just like they said. Maybe there were things locked away she still didn't have access to that would explain the discrepancies she'd found, the uncertainties. The terrible suspicions she couldn't share yet even with Mac.