Lucky Day (3 page)

This was a fact of life: Men killed.

Yes, women killed, too—in slowly growing numbers that made G. William fear for the future of the species—but by and large, men killed. Men killed other men and men killed women, and when women died, the killer was usually a man and usually someone the woman knew.

G. William did not like this fact. It squirmed inside him like some kind of living jelly. But his dislike for that fact did not make it any less a fact. That his immediate inclination in the Reed murder was to talk to the boyfriend felt unfair to the kid now sitting across from his desk, but—playing the percentages—the most unfair thing he could do in Samantha Reed’s memory would be to ignore the possibility that David Cloucher had killed his girlfriend.

Cloucher had the close-cropped hair of a kid who doesn’t know there’s a timer set on every man’s hairline and he should enjoy it while he can. He wore baggy jeans, a sweatshirt that read
PROPERTY OF LOBO’S NOD HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC DEPT
, a pair of rimless glasses, and a slightly smirky expression that G. William thought of as Default Teen. That expression masked all kinds of things—anger, joy, lust, fear. Teens had the world’s best built-in poker face: a hormone-fueled, constant glare of bored contempt.

Every time G. William had to interact with a teenager, he thanked the Lord above that he’d never had kids.

“Saw you last weekend on the court,” G. William said. “Three for four from the three-point line. Not bad. Colleges are—”

“You think I did it,” David interrupted, his expression not changing a whit.

G. William said nothing, but cursed inwardly. It’s tough to lull someone into a sense of safety, a zone where they will share with you, when they already feel like a suspect.

“We’re not in an interrogation room,” he said as gently as possible.

“You guys always think it’s the boyfriend.”

“No one’s blaming you, David.”
You’re just a big ol’ suspect, that’s all.

David shrugged. G. William resisted the urge to lean over the desk and slap some serious into the kid. Had he been so impudent and apathetic as a teen? He wanted to think not, but the likelihood gnawed at him.

“Just want to ask you a few questions,” he said as soothingly as he could. “Like, when was the last time you saw Samantha?”

With a world-weary sigh, David started talking. G. William walked him through the basics—last time together, how’s the relationship, anyone fooling around on anyone else, c’mon, David, just you and me here, just two guys, c’mon, were you sniffin’ around?—for about an hour. At the end of the hour, he felt no wiser and no closer to the killer, though he did have a grudging liking for David Cloucher. Underneath the Default Teen was a bright kid, a decent mind, and a wicked sense of black humor that would have seemed natural to any cop at a number of crime scenes.

Smart kid like that. Too smart to kill? Or smart enough to think he could get away with it?

Besides being a storehouse for a lifetime of BBQ ribs and fries, G. William’s gut was also a good bullshit detector, and he was picking up no rumblings from David Cloucher. The kid was just a kid.

He thanked David for coming in and turned to some paperwork. At the door, he called to him, and David paused, looking back.

“Did you know Cara Swinton?” he asked David.

Surprisingly, David laughed. “Dude. She was out of my league. Way out of my league.”

“Doesn’t mean you couldn’t know her.”

“I didn’t.”

“Did you want to?”

“I told you before: I was really happy with Sam. I wasn’t cheating on her.”

G. William nodded. “Thanks again for coming in, David.”

He started the session with Henry Reed—Samantha’s father—the way he’d ended David’s.

“Did you know Cara Swinton?”

Reed blinked twice. “The missing girl? No. She was a year ahead of Sam. Is there some kind of connection—”

“Never came over to the house?” G. William interrupted. “Never did any extracurriculars with your daughter?”

With a befuddled expression, Reed shook his head. “No. I told you—she was a year ahead. We never…” He stopped himself, and his expression shifted from befuddled to outraged. “Are you insinuating…?”

Henry Reed stood abruptly. “I will not sit here and have you…are you out of your
mind
? She’s my daughter! Jesus Christ!”

“Henry, calm down and—”

“Calm down? Calm down? And let you tell me how you think I murdered and…my own
daughter
?”

Reed spun to the door.

“Henry!” G. William struggled to his feet. “Henry, come on, let’s talk!”

“No. You want to talk, Sheriff, you can talk to my lawyer.” He yanked the door open and stood just outside, jutting an accusatory finger back in. “You know, before you go pointing your finger, maybe you should look at the gross incompetence in your own department.”

That stung. G. William’s department was small, true, but they’d done everything by the book for Samantha Reed.

“No call for that, Henry. We’re all doing our jobs.”

“Really?” Henry Reed’s face had suffused a wondrous shade of purple. “Well, talk to your medical examiner about how difficult it apparently is to give the next of kin the right damn clothes!”

And with that, he was gone.

Well, that went well. You sure finessed that one.

On the way home, Roscoe’s beckoned to him. No. It wouldn’t do to have the sheriff seen in a bar—a fairly dive-y bar at that—while Dead Girl One was still yet to be found and Dead Girl Two was in the morgue. He recognized Billy Dent’s car in the parking lot.

“You ever need anything, you don’t be afraid to call me,” Billy had said. “I can’t say I know what it’s like to lose a wife the way you lost Joyce, but I know what it’s like to be alone.”

Yeah. Billy knew what it was like. Wife up and run off years ago. And Billy bore up under it. With dignity. If folks in the Nod kept track of such things, he’d probably be considered the town’s most eligible bachelor these days—handsome, piercing blue eyes, a head of thick, sandy hair. Younger looking than his years, kindhearted. But Billy was too busy for such things. Coached Little League. Drove the FoodMobile a couple of weekends each month. Held barbecues in his backyard that were the envy of the town and half the reason people rejoiced at the onset of summer. A Dent party was the Nod’s biggest bash, and everyone was on the A-list.

“You ever need anything, you don’t be afraid to call me.”

Almost on its own, G. William’s car seemed to drift toward the Roscoe’s parking lot, and it took an effort of will to steer away.

G. William was not a big drinking man. He enjoyed a cold beer like any other right-thinking American, and he’d been known to fire down a shot of whiskey or three, but on a daily basis, his alcohol consumption was close to nil. Crying on Billy Dent’s shoulder, in the dark in Roscoe’s, a mug of beer nearby…that would be bad form, and he was ashamed for even wanting to.

At home, he found himself staring in the mirror.

You’re falling apart.

I’m falling apart.

Just let it go.

Just let it go.

Let the next guy worry about Dead Girl One and Dead Girl Two.

Not her voice, he realized.

His own.

When Cara Swinton went missing, G. William had done his due diligence and investigated her father. Cara had no boyfriend—not even some secret skulduggery going on there—but he’d looked into her exes. Everyone had come up clean, with rock-solid alibis.

Henry Reed’s explosion of outrage to the contrary, G. William wasn’t about to stint on his investigation into Samantha’s death, even if that meant poking into Henry’s life. The boyfriend didn’t tingle G. William’s radar, but that sudden eruption of Henry’s…that kind of anger could be a father’s righteous indignation and grief, or it could be the ugly head of guilt poking into the conversation. G. William intended to find out which it was. And if Henry got even more pissed at him, that was “the price you pay for sitting in the big chair,” as G. William’s father used to say.

He had Hanson dig into Henry Reed’s activities for the past few weeks. Hanson was a middling investigator but a good people-person. He wouldn’t throw too much suspicion on Henry, in the event Samantha’s dad turned out to be innocent. G. William was both hoping and not hoping that would be the case—the idea that Samantha Reed had been raped and murdered by her own father didn’t sit well with him, but closing a case is closing a case.

Darrell Hanson could get people talking without coming across as an actual cop. Not a bad skill to have in law enforcement. He didn’t always know what to do with the information gleaned, but that’s what G. William was for. Let Hanson stand in the river, stooped, and G. William would be the pan catching the nuggets of gold.

Henry Reed was clean, though. Oh, sure, they thought they’d had a little something sparkly when they discovered that his Thursday nights were unaccounted for. He vanished on those nights—told the wife he was at work, told the boss he was home—but when Hanson tailed him, the truth came out: Henry Reed spent Thursday nights in the basement of Lobo’s Nod Methodist Church, pouring his guts out at a weekly AA meeting.

Not even a mistress. The man was more than clean—he was shiny. He squeaked.

It was a good news/bad news situation for G. William. No one behind bars, yet, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that Samantha Reed’s last moments on earth hadn’t been torment at the hands of her own father.

The story faded from the headlines, but not from people’s thoughts. As the weeks crept toward Election Day, G. William felt a pall draped over Lobo’s Nod. Polling numbers showed him neck and neck with his Calverton opponent, who had rolled out his new slogan: “Sweep in the new!” It had apparently caught on, and now he was using it in every appearance. It was a nice little sound bite, and it was working in more ways than one: The electorate was buying it, and G. William was feeling very old indeed.

To his opponent’s credit, the man had not beaten the drum of Dead Girl One and Dead Girl Two overmuch. As the headlines faded, he’d become more oblique with his references, mentioning on occasion “recent tragedies” or “the sad increase in violent crime.”

G. William’s days were blurry and foggy. He went through the motions. He signed paperwork. He handed out shift assignments.

He dodged calls from Doug Weathers, who just kept calling and calling and calling. But Doug’s bylines were disappearing as interest in the dead girls waned. Weathers seemed desperate to dig up some nut or kernel from the sheriff’s office that could propel him back onto the front page. He’d even commandeered a local cable-access program to blather on about the murders, casting himself as an expert. Despite his best intentions and gut instinct, G. William had DVR’d the whole mess and watched it later.

“The girls had to be killed by the same perpetrator,” Weathers said at one point with an unctuous yet urgent manner. His zeal was inversely proportional to his actual knowledge. “Both were roughly the same age and very similar in appearance. Serial killers have a type, you know.”

“You have to kill
three
people at least to be a serial killer,” G. William growled at the TV. “And if ‘young and blond’ is a ‘type,’ then God help the state of California. I expect they’ll have a massacre on their hands anytime now.”

Throwing around a term like
serial killer
wasn’t helpful. Especially when the throwing hand had terrible aim.

He began to wonder: Had Doug Weathers killed the girls? And then reported on it? It was possibly crazy, but also crazily possible. He made a mental note to investigate the idea—practically licking his lips at the thought of Doug Weathers in an interrogation room (better yet, handcuffs).

Careful, now. Don’t go fittin’ the facts to your theory.

It was too tempting, though. And it made the sort of sense that kept coming back and rapping at the back door of his mind late at night. He opened a file on Weathers, for his eyes only. Warrants were needed for most searches, but here’s the thing: A warrant was unnecessary if the person being spoken to didn’t demand one. So when G. William called the bank and the credit card company and the phone company and told folks he was doing a little preliminary work and could they help him out…? They were all-too-willing to lend a hand. It was the path of least resistance, after all. It meant they could get him off the phone and go on with their lives, not worrying about future calls from the sheriff’s office, lawyers, depositions, paperwork.…

Besides, wasn’t privacy dead, anyway, shot through the head by Google and Facebook?

Maybe, maybe not…but at the very least, it was on life support, and G. William planned to exploit that fact. He assembled a fairly thorough dossier on Weathers. Nothing jumped out at him. The man was living above his means—and there would be a reckoning for that someday—but hell: These days, who wasn’t? It wasn’t a crime to run up your credit cards.

No mysterious purchases. No strange phone calls, incoming or outgoing. He poked around some more, checking out Weathers’s recent travel. Maintenance on his car. Had he had it detailed lately? That kind of thing. He even followed him around a couple of nights, using his personal vehicle. Caution was his watchword—if he was caught, it would only give Weathers more ammo.

Nothing but nothing. Weathers was as boring as he was annoying.

That should have been the end of it.

Except that Doug Weathers had no alibi for the night before Samantha Reed’s body had been found.

Doesn’t mean anything. Hell,
I
don’t have an alibi for that night, ’less you count passed out on the sofa.

Half the Nod probably couldn’t account for its whereabouts that night. Innocent people rarely kept track of their comings and goings.

He kept up his one-man surveillance of Weathers. Borrowed a GPS tracker from a colleague in the next county over and slipped it into the wheel well of Weathers’s car. He couldn’t be on the man 24/7, but he could let a satellite do that for him. Sometimes these creeps revisited the scene of the crime.

A week went by. G. William began to feel faintly embarrassed, as if waking from a dream in which he’d walked naked through town, proudly displaying his manhood to one and all. Doug Weathers was a loathsome cockroach, yes, but he hadn’t done anything illegal. G. William was glad he’d never confided in anyone his suspicions.

They’d really think the old man’s lost it. Or, worse, they’d pity me. “Poor old G. William. Can’t catch the bad guy and needs something to do to feel useful.”

He recovered the GPS tracker and tried to put the whole shameful thing out of his mind.

The trail (trails, actually) had gone cold. He had no leads in either case. The physical evidence was so threadbare as to be meaningless.

On the one hand, he was grateful for the short, distractible nature of public memory. A movie star gets busted at the airport with a gram of coke or a young singer flashes the same nipples God gave every man, woman, and child alive, and suddenly gossip and chatter shift.

But on the other hand, the reprieve made him feel oily and sleazy. In a way, Doug Weathers was the only person holding his feet to the fire.

And they should be held to the fire. I’m the one responsible. I’m the one who should be killing himself to avenge these girls.

Once, maybe. But it seemed pointless now. He had no leads. Nothing to sink his teeth into, nothing to peel back. No secrets to ferret out.

Maybe—the thought galled and soothed at the same time—it was time to give up.

Let the next guy worry about Dead Girl One and Dead Girl Two.

It was sounding better and better every day. Leave office humiliated, under a cloud? There were worse fates. He’d witnessed them up close—Joyce in her hospice bed, Samantha Reed in her ditch. He’d be getting off easy.

Sure
, he thought, staring at the pristine, still-made bed after another night on the sofa.
Sure, why not?

And he thought that way for at least a week, and his mood lifted the tiniest bit, and he missed Joyce just the smallest, most infinitesimal amount less, until the day Hanson walked past him in the hall at the sheriff’s office and commented, “They’ll let anyone say whatever they want, won’t they?”

“What the hell’s that mean, Hanson?”

Hanson—predictably, fully in character—blanched. “I…I thought you knew.…”

Doug Weathers—no longer the darling of the front page—had taken to the Internet to continue his haranguing of the Lobo’s Nod sheriff’s department. His new blog—Stormy Weathers, of
course
—began with a blistering critique of the department in general and of G. William in particular.
DEAD GIRLS GET NO JUSTICE!!!
the first post’s headline proclaimed. Exclamation points were used in fulsome abundance, as though Weathers’s editors had been holding his exclamatory prowess in check and he could now let loose. A typical sentence read: “With no leads and no information forthcoming, is it possible the sheriff’s department has simply…given up???” The triple question marks no doubt lending gravitas and urgency, in Weathers’s mind.

“Sheriff G. William Tanner has presided over decades of relative calm in Lobo’s Nod…but it’s now obvious that his reign was more luck than genius! At the first sign of REAL crime, the sheriff has tucked his tail between his legs! Given up! The killer or killers of Cara Swinton and Samantha Reed are STILL AT LARGE!!!”

G. William skimmed the rest of the post at his desk in disgust. It was easy to fulminate from the sidelines, much harder to do the actual work. If he’d had even a smidgen of evidence, so much as a soupçon of information, he would be bloodhounding it all over the goddamn county—the state!—in pursuit of the men who’d done wrong by Dead Girl One and Dead Girl Two. But he had nothing. It happened. There were rooms in every police station in every precinct in every state in God’s great US of A in which cold cases languished, unattended and unsolved. The Nod was no exception.

And for that jackass to take to the Internet, to excoriate G. William on his
blog
…

G. William even hated the word.
Blog.
It wasn’t a real word. It was more like a comic-book sound effect. It was something that lived and thrived in a word balloon as an anthropomorphic cat hacked up the still-living birdie protagonist in a kid’s cartoon.

BLLLLOOOOOOOOGGGG!!!!

He hated the blog. He hated Weathers. But at least someone still cared. It seemed entirely possible—entirely likely, really—that G. William would slip away into the vacant electoral night that gloams for all losers, that he would suffer early retirement and not much else for the sin of being unable to solve the murders of Dead Girl One and Dead Girl Two. That wasn’t right. There should be more.

As if losing your wife ain’t enough?

In the closed-door privacy of his office, G. William tightened his eyes against tears. The idea that Joyce’s death was some kind of advance payment on his to-be-overdue loan in the murder department was repugnant to him, but also somehow sensible and comfortable.

Makes perfect sense. Perfectly healthy woman, not too advanced in years, gets diagnosed and dies within six months…gotta be You, O Lord. Only You have that kind of power and foresight. Only You have that sick sense of humor, that sense of irrational and disproportionate retribution. Moses dies within sight of the Promised Land. King David counts his soldiers, and You smite seventy thousand innocents. I give up on two cases no one could solve, so you whack my wife in advance. Screw You, O Lord.

He wiped away the tears that had leaked through, then found himself staring at the handkerchief he’d used. He’d been using one just like it for years: Joyce regularly gifted him with handkerchiefs she’d monogrammed herself. No Internet-bought specialties for her.

The handkerchief was checkered and slightly damp with his tears, and the
W
was unraveling just the tiniest bit. One corner had frayed.

A dozen handkerchiefs usually took G. William through flu and allergy season and well past winter, at which point, Joyce would magically produce new ones, discarding the old ones.

The thread on the
W
stood up perhaps a quarter of an inch. It towered, in G. William’s eyes.

There would be no more handkerchiefs. This was the end of them.

He folded it with scrupulous caution and tucked it into his breast pocket. He would have to be careful with the ones he had left. Very careful, indeed.

October wound down toward Halloween, toward Election Day. Every day, G. William made sure to take an hour—either at the office or at home—to pore over the case files for Dead Girl One and Dead Girl Two. No matter how many times he read through them, though, nothing new appeared to him.

If the polling trend lines continued their current slopes, G. William would be a lame duck come the first Wednesday in November, just two weeks away. And he had no earthly idea what he would do in that case.

Sometimes, home in the living room, swaddled in darkness save for the TV, he hoisted up a roll of belly and slid his service weapon from its holster, holding it aloft in the lonely, sickly glow of the TV.
You eat your gun, your problems go away. It’s the most basic, simplistic solution there is. It resolves everything.

There were no kids to traumatize with Daddy’s death. No living family. A handful of friends, yes, but most of them had been Joyce’s and had drifted away since her death. Not much of a reason to
not
off oneself.

Still. It pissed him off to think that his own death investigation would be handled by the Upstart from Calverton. And probably bungled. Every time he considered the gun, he tucked it back away, safe and sound.

He was pretty sure everyone who eventually offed himself did the same thing. Many, many times.