Shattered (28 page)

“Then let me go. It's not as though you don't have other things on your mind.”

“Like you don't?” Carol closed the file and returned it with a wry smile. “Thanks for doing this. You didn't have to.”

“It gave me something to do.”

Carol said, “We didn't get to talk much yesterday. How are you doing?”

Laura shrugged a little uncomfortably. “Okay. Scared sometimes. Most of the time. But Winston has stayed over the last two nights, so all that lost sleep wasn't entirely wasted, if you know what I mean.”

Carol's smile was more relaxed this time. “Good for you. Try not to blow it again, okay?”

Laura regarded her steadily. “I should say the same for you.”

Again, Carol shook her head. “No, I think it's best to stay busy, to try to pretend everything's normal. The waiting is the worst part. I know I've been waiting for two and a half years but now...”

“Do you really think Saddler will confess?”

“I can't let myself think about that. The only thing I can think is that he knows where she is and he'll tell as part of the plea bargain.”

Laura's eyes were full of sympathy and understanding. “It was Kelly's voice on the phone, Carol, I could swear it. Her voice, only deeper.”

“That's what I thought at first,” Carol said, “kind of husky, like she had a sore throat...”

Unconsciously, Laura's hand went to her own throat, where the narrow bruise had darkened to a sharp blue-violet. “Like mine,” Laura whispered, and the two women's eyes met in horrified comprehension.

“God,” Carol said, turning away. “God, I can't think about this.”

Laura got up from the desk. “Go home,” she said. “Go find Guy, go hold a vigil at the jail, go do what you've got to do. I'll take care of Carlton.”

Carol shook her head. “No, that would leave the office without an agent. Besides, if I go to Guy's office or the jail, I'll only end up fighting my way through cameras and microphones. I don't know why I'm so jumpy anyway. I mean, the worst is over, right? Saddler's in custody and…”

“And you don't want to be here if he says something you don't want to hear,” Laura said with sudden understanding.

After a moment, Carol nodded, dropping her gaze. “I know it’s silly, but I feel if I'm not here to hear it, maybe he won't say it. Oh, I don't know. But right now—it's just been so much so fast and I need to be away from it, just for a little while.” She hesitated. “Are you going to be okay here alone?”

“I'm not alone, Tammy's here, and Winston's picking me up at five. I won't be working late, so be back before dark.”

“You can bet on that. If Guy calls...” And she shook her head. “He won't. I told him I would be out. But if...” She drew in a sharp breath and finished, “If he does, I have my cell phone.”

Laura nodded in what she hoped was a reassuring way. “I'll tell him. But it’s going to be okay, kid. I have one of my famous feelings.”

Carol didn't point out that her famous feelings were famous for being wrong.

~

Chapter Forty-two

D
errick Long's official mail had been quietly and routinely forwarded to Case's desk. He found the padded envelope from the Gulf County Sheriffs Department at the bottom of a rather thin stack. He had never doubted it would be there; Long was too efficient an investigator not to have followed through on the last order he received before going off duty. Case had asked him to find out if there were any similarities between Melissa Conroy and Mickie Anderson. The file inside the envelope was the result.

Case skimmed it quickly, but didn't find anything he didn't already know. He dialed the detective in charge of the case and found him at his desk.

“Listen,” he said, after introducing himself and explaining his interest in the case, “what I want to know is if anyone you talked to ever mentioned this girl wearing a necklace, real unusual, a leather thong with a pewter figurine of a girl with her hands tied behind her back and a blindfold over her eyes.”

The detective sounded puzzled, and asked him to repeat the description. A little impatiently, Case did.

“No,” allowed the detective slowly, “I can't say I recall anything like that. You've got a description of what she was wearing there in the file. But if you want, I'll check with the parents.”

“And her friends,” suggested Case. “It's the kind of thing she might show off to her friends but not her parents. It's real important.”

“I'll do what I can.”

“Will it take long?”

“Sheriff Case, those parents haven't let a day go by that they haven't been on the phone to me three or four times. I don't think they'll put off returning my call if they don't happen to be in.”

“All right, thanks. I'll wait to hear.” He hung up the phone, frustrated that he couldn't do more.

“Where the hell have you been?” demanded a voice at his door and when he looked up, Fred Lindy, the district attorney for St. Theresa County was standing there scowling at him.

“Investigating a case. Last I heard that was my job.”

Generally, Case liked Lindy. He was sometimes a little too political for the sheriff's taste—the seersucker suits and straw hats, for example, looked better in a newspaper photo than they did in real life—but for the most part the two men thought alike and worked well together. The past couple of days and the promise of a sensational case had brought out the worst in Lindy, however, and he was beginning to get on the sheriff's nerves.

“Well, let somebody know where you're going next time. I've been buzzing your office for the past two hours.”

“I don't work for you, Lindy.”

“You're right about that.” Lindy dropped his attitude and came inside, closing the door behind him. “We both work for the people of this county, which is something we might not do much longer if we blow this one, but I guess you know that. How sure are you that this pervert Saddler murdered those two girls?”

A treacherous little voice muttered in his head: Less sure than I was four hours ago. But out loud he answered brusquely, “You know what I've got, Lindy, and you know what I don't have. You can either go with it or not.”

Lindy hooked his toe around a hard chair in front of the desk, pulling it out, and he sat down. This time of year he abandoned seersucker in favor of blue chambray shirts and narrow red suspenders, every inch the country lawyer. He wore round steel-frame glasses and beneath them, the expression on his face was a mixture of anxiety and satisfaction. It was a look Case knew well, and it meant good news, because Lindy only worried when things were going his way.

He said, “I used the time while you were gone to talk to our prisoner a little bit.”

Lindy was a hell of an interrogator. He had a flat, dry voice and unwavering gaze that had been known to put the fear of God into men stronger than Saddler. When he spoke, you listened. What he said, you believed for a fact. Case could threaten and manipulate and fire off two-sided questions, but when Fred Lindy said, “We're going to trial,” and walked out of a room, the accused started to quake. He had that way about him.

“He doesn't like me, for some reason,” Lindy went on. “He's ready to talk, but he won't talk to anybody but you. He's scared, Case. We've got him now.”

Case pushed up from the desk and started down the corridor with the D.A. keeping in step. “He wants his lawyer there. I figure he's going to try to make some kind of deal. No deals, you got that?”

Case gestured for the deputy to open the door.

“Case, did you hear me? You are not authorized to make any deals!”

The door closed on his voice and Saddler and Soffit got up from the table at which they had been conferring. “I've tried to explain to Mr. Saddler,” said Soffit, “that it does no good for me to be here unless the prosecutor is, too. If you'd just ask Mr. Lindy to step in—”

“I'm here,” Case said, glaring at Saddler. “Talk.”

Saddler licked his lips nervously and sat down again. “Look, I ain't taking no murder rap. What happened on that boat—it was an accident and you know it. You were there, goddamn it. You saw. The other son of a bitch, he's crazy, man. He's trying to pin these girls on me, and this goddamn state is so screwed up, he might just get away with it. What chance has an ex-con got, I ask you that? I ain't taking the rap for something I didn't do. I'm not going to be your goddamn scapegoat!”

Case turned toward the door.

“Wait! Listen, you said something about a deal. You still interested?”

Case turned. “What kind of deal?”

Soffit said. “I really must advise you, Mr. Saddler not to say anything further until I can—”

Saddler turned on him. “Shut up, you little prick! They're trying to turn me into a goddamn serial killer and I ain't copping to that, do you hear me?”

He turned back to Case. “Look, I messed with Dennison's head a little, made a few phone calls, no harm done. And so maybe I watched his wife sometimes from the beach, but hey, she leaves her curtains open, what does she expect?”

Case said, “And did you call her up, pretending to be her daughter? Or did you have somebody else do it?”

Saddler shook his head impatiently. “Man, that's what I'm trying to tell you, I ain't never called that woman in my life and I don't fucking know anybody I could get to do it, either. What's the big goddamn deal, anyway?”

Once again Case turned for the door.

“Hey, wait, now listen to me! Look, okay, I was in her house that night, but I don't know nothing about any phone calls to her, you got that? And when Dennison walked in on me, I might've beaned him with the poker, but no permanent damage done, so what are we talking here? B&E, three years, six months served? I can deal with that.”

Case looked at him coldly. “What about Laura Capstone? Did you lure her to the beach and try to strangle her to death?”

“Who the hell is she? What are you doing, trying to charge me with every crime that's been committed in this crappy little county since I got out? Jesus Christ!”

For the first time he shot a nervous glance at his lawyer, but saw no help forthcoming from that quarter. He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward, addressing Case with all the sincerity he could muster. “That bomb, man, you know I didn't mean to hurt no one. That boat was empty, man!”

“You're not telling me anything I don't already know. I'm real busy here so if that's all—”

“That necklace,” Saddler said quickly. “You seemed mighty interested in it. You think it's got something to do with that Dennison girl and you'd be right.”

Case said carefully, “Go on.”

“Mr. Saddler, as your attorney—”

“When I first got here, I spent some time casing the Dennison place. Them houses down on the beach, they're so easy to get into, a three-year-old could do it. So sometimes I'd just go into one and have myself a look around. Never stole nothing, never did no harm. But I saw some mighty interesting things.”

Case said, “I'm getting bored.”

“Like one of them houses, great big fancy place right down the beach in front of the Dennisons'. In a drawer in the upstairs bedroom, all kinds of shit, child porn shit, weird stuff, man. And that necklace, that's where I saw it. There were a bunch of them all hung on hooks in a row, like neckties or something. And photos. Snapshots of real live girls, stripped down and trussed up just like the girl on that necklace. Some of them looked pretty bad, man.”

Case heard his voice from a very great distance. “Can you tell me exactly where this house was?”

“They've all got names on little plaques at the end of the boardwalk, and I remember this one real well. Hell, man, I can give you the address.”

***

His private phone was ringing when Case walked back to his office with Lindy dogging his heels demanding to know what Saddler had said. Case ignored him and snatched up the receiver, speaking into it brusquely.

“Yeah, Sheriff, this is Detective Rickman over in Gulf County. I talked to the Conroy girl's kid sister, and she recognized that necklace you described. Said she got it from a boyfriend a few days before she disappeared. Only I don't think it was a regular boyfriend, if you know what I mean. This guy sounded older, and Melissa was going to an awful lot of trouble to keep him secret from her folks. We always thought he had something to do with her disappearance, but we never could track him down—or even be sure he existed. Is any of this helping?”

“Yes,” Case said hoarsely, “it is.”

“If any of it pans out, you'll send it on over, won't you?”

“Yes. Thanks, Detective.”

He hung up the phone and Lindy demanded, “What? What's going on?”

It was a moment before Case could trust himself to pick up the phone, another to trust that his voice would work. He had to consciously steady his breathing as he spoke into the mouthpiece. “Get me Judge Wagner,” he said. “And do it quick.”

Then he turned around, and told Lindy what was going on.

~

Chapter Forty-three

“
H
ow're you holding up, sweet thing?” Walt Marshall spoke around a mouthful of unlit cigar, squinting into the sun as Carol came down the pier toward him.