Still Waters (37 page)

Ellstrom let his gaze roam down over her, and she instantly wished she were wearing something less revealing—like a suit of armor. From the corner of her eye she could see Aaron straighten from his work and regard the deputy with a cold look. Ellstrom dismissed him with a glance.

“I'm here to see your son,” he said at last.

Elizabeth turned toward Trace, her heart thudding in her chest.

Trace met the deputy's gaze, a terrible sense of foreboding sliding down through his stomach.

“Trace Stuart,” Ellstrom said, shouldering past Elizabeth as he pulled a pair of handcuffs off his belt. “You're under arrest for the murder of Carney Fox.”

TWENTY-ONE

“
I
CAN
'
T BELIEVE YOU DID THIS,
” D
ANE SAID IN A
dangerous whisper that had the other men in his office exchanging nervous glances. Kaufman cracked his knuckles. Yeager's dog whined a little and scuttled farther under his master's chair.

Ellstrom raised his double chins a notch. “I was out that way when the call came in about Fox. Stuart killed him, sure as I'm standing here. He probably would have finished the job in the parking lot at the Rooster if I hadn't pulled him off. The kid was pounding the shit out of Fox—”

“I can't believe it,” Dane growled.

Ellstrom gave a snort of indignant disbelief. “There were fifty witnesses—”

Dane cut him off with a look. He pressed his hands on his immaculate blotter and rose slowly from his chair, never taking his eyes off his deputy. “You just took it upon yourself to barge in there without a warrant, without consulting me—”

“I'm a cop,” Ellstrom barked. “I had grounds to believe Stuart committed a felony. I don't need your permission to do my job.”

“You do if you want to keep it.”

“You don't scare me, Jantzen,” Ellstrom sneered.

Faster than he could draw breath, Dane was around the desk and in his face, those arctic-blue eyes boring into his. Boyd had to fight the urgent desire to back away. A healthy dose of fear clawed up his throat, belying his tough talk. Sweat popped out across his brow like dew beading on the skin of a pumpkin. His intestines curled into a writhing knot.

“I've had it with you, Ellstrom,” Dane snarled through his teeth. “You mouth off to the press, disobey orders, slack off on the job—”

“
Me
, slack off?” He swallowed down the bile in his throat and went on the offensive. “What about you,
Sheriff
? Everybody knows the Stuart kid busted up Shafer's and you let him off. Now he kills a man and you're chewing
me
out!
I'm
doing my job while you stand back and let that black-haired bitch lead you around by your dick,” he said bitterly, envy joining the ranks of the sour emotions churning in his belly. “What's the price to beat a murder rap, a great blowjob? I'll bet she wrote the book on it.”

Dane's temper snapped. The cool control he was so famous for cracked like thin ice beneath the weight of Ellstrom's taunt. In a move from his football days he brought his forearm up and caught the deputy beneath the chin. Ellstrom's teeth closed with an audible snap and he slammed against the wall with enough force that the framed commendations jumped on their pegs.

The logical half of Dane's brain told him to back off, that Ellstrom had been within his rights to arrest Trace Stuart, that he should have been able to keep himself in check better than this. But Ellstrom had crossed too many boundaries that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with the more primitive side. By badmouthing Elizabeth he had trespassed on Dane's territory. Dane recognized that fact even as he denied its implications.

“You're through here, Ellstrom,” he whispered, his face inches from the deputy's.

Boyd choked as his windpipe bowed inward. He could barely hear his own voice above the pounding of the blood in his head. “This is assault,” he sputtered, saliva running like water in his mouth, wetting his thick lips and gathering in bubbles at the corners of his mouth.

Jantzen smiled at him, a smile that sent ice through his veins and had his nerves clutching at his guts like frantic hands. “Yeah, too bad you don't have any witnesses.”

He rolled his bulging eyes in the direction of Yeager and Kaufman. The blinds on the window behind them were closed, shutting out the dozen or so people who were working on the other side. Kaufman looked at his shoes and cracked his knuckles. Yeager pinched the bridge of his nose and batted his lashes. “I've been meaning to get to an optometrist. I just can't see like I used to.”

Ellstrom made a strangling sound and Dane stepped back, easing his arm away from the deputy's throat, reining his temper in an inch at a time. He watched Ellstrom clutch at his windpipe and cough, and was disgusted with himself for letting the man get to him. He rubbed the tension in his neck, wondering if he would have come unhinged if Ellstrom's filthy remark had been about Ann Markham.

“Get out,” he growled.

Ellstrom glared at him through watering eyes. “You haven't heard the last of me,” he said hoarsely, shaking a warning finger as he backed toward the door. He gulped in a mouthful of air that felt as hard and round as a tennis ball in his throat. “You got elected because you're the goddamn golden boy. Big hero football player. You can't ride on that forever, Jantzen. That Stuart kid killed Fox. I say he killed Jarvis too. And I'll prove it. Then we'll see who the big man around town is.”

He turned and stalked out of the office, rubbing his windpipe and ignoring the stares of fellow officers and secretaries as he bulled his way toward the door, leaving a toxic trail of gas in his wake. He would come out of this smelling like a rose, he promised himself. All he needed was a little luck and to find that goddamn book and he'd be sitting on top of the whole fucking world, with Dane Jantzen licking his boots and Elizabeth Stuart begging to lick any other part of him. He'd see to it.

Dane shook his head as he watched Ellstrom shove past Lorraine on his way out. Lorraine straightened her glasses and her bouffant and stamped after him into the hall, snapping at him like an outraged schnauzer. He had never been able to figure out why Ellstrom had stayed here after losing the election. Maybe Helen Jarvis had something to do with it. He didn't know and for the moment he didn't care. Already his thoughts were on Elizabeth. He could have safely bet a bundle she wouldn't take this well—Ellstrom interrupting her breakfast and accusing her son of murder. Hell, she'd probably be ready to kill someone herself.

He had his answer the instant he stepped into the interrogation room. Elizabeth stood with her arms crossed tightly beneath her breasts, her stubborn chin raised to the angle of challenge, eyes flashing as she scorched him with a baleful glare. She was ready to kill all right, and the cross- hairs were drawn right between his eyes.

He turned his gaze to Trace, who was slouched at the table looking beat up and miserable. “I'm sorry about the way you were brought in, Trace. Ellstrom was grandstanding. I was busy at the scene. I didn't have any idea what he was up to.”

“Does that mean we're free to go?” Elizabeth asked, her cool tone frosting over the fear that was churning inside her like a whirlpool.

“No, I'm afraid not.” Dane looked to Trace again, trying to read the boy's expression. “I have to ask you some questions, Trace.”

“I didn't kill him,” Trace mumbled, staring down at his hands. His knuckles were scraped and bruised from colliding with Carney's bony face, the flesh torn and raw, which was just the way he was feeling inside—as though someone had taken a metal claw and raked it through him. Damn Carney, he thought, fear shaking him from the inside out.

“Shouldn't we have a lawyer present, Sheriff?” Elizabeth asked sharply, boring a hole through Dane with her stare, daring him to defy her as she had dared the young deputy who had tried to deny her access to the interrogation room. The poor man had tried to cite rules and regulations to her and had nearly gotten his throat torn apart for his trouble. Nobody,
nobody
was going to keep her from her son at a time like this. The deputy had backed off, obviously preferring to risk his boss's wrath than Elizabeth's. That boss stood before her now, watching her, calmly, quietly, those keen eyes taking in every aspect of her rage and probably looking right through it to the fear beneath.

“Trace hasn't been formally charged,” Dane said, thankful Lorraine had gotten hold of him before Ellstrom had seen fit to book the kid. At least Trace—and Elizabeth—had been spared that process. “If you'd be more comfortable with an attorney present, you're welcome to call one.”

Elizabeth glared at him for another minute, trying to decide whether or not he was calling her bluff. He met her gaze evenly.

“It's all right,” he murmured, his tone a little too intimate, reminding her of how good it had felt to have him hold her. He wasn't holding her now. He was getting ready to question her son on a charge of murder.

“No, it's not all right,” she snapped, backing away from him. “Nothing about this is all right.”

She felt frightened and betrayed and all she wanted to do was take her son and get the hell out of here, out of this room, out of this town.

Dane motioned for her to sit down at the table and waited until she gave in before pulling out a chair for himself.

“Pete tells me you put in a good day's work yesterday,” he said, his eyes scanning the damage to Trace's face. The boy had taken some licks. But by all accounts he had given as good as he got. Carney's face had shown as much damage; his head had shown worse. The side of his skull had been caved in like a deflated basketball.

“Yessir,” Trace mumbled.

“I was glad to hear it. I thought that meant you were all through with Carney Fox.”

“Yessir.” He hung his head a little lower as heat rose into his face and shame and humiliation crawled around inside him like a pair of whipped dogs. He had been ready to turn himself around; now he had to sit across from the man who had given him a chance and be interrogated like a dirtball. And lie. He was going to have to lie. That was the worst of it. There was a lump the size of a baseball jamming his throat. He tried to swallow around it and nearly choked.

“You and Carney got into it last night.” Dane picked up a pencil someone had left on the table and absently tapped the eraser against the smooth white tabletop, his gaze never leaving Trace. “What was that about?”

“Noth—” Trace began, but he caught his mother's glare and started again. “He was riding me about working for you.”

“That was what you fought about?”

He nodded, dodging those spooky blue eyes that could probably see through lead walls. He couldn't say anything about Amy, about the dirty things Carney had said about her.

“Where did you go after Ellstrom broke up the fight?”

“Home. I rode my bike home and then I went for a walk in the woods.”

“After dark?”

“Yessir.”

“Why?”

Trace lifted his aching shoulders in a shrug and studied his fingernails. “It's a good place to think.”

“You were alone?”

He tried to swallow again and wished he could be anyplace but here—the bitter, killing cold of the Antarctic, the hottest desert in Arabia, the steamiest, most snake-infested swamp—

“Trace?”

“Yessir,” he mumbled, sliding down a little farther in his chair.

Dane drew in a slow, deep breath and sat back, letting it out in a carefully measured sigh. The boy was lying. He might as well have had the word stamped across his forehead. Elizabeth knew it too. She looked on the brink of tears as she dug through her Gucci bag for her cigarettes. Her hands were trembling as she flipped open a pack of Virginia Slims and selected one, then shoved it back in and abandoned the idea.

“That's your story,” he said, shifting his gaze back to Trace, drumming the pencil slowly, methodically. “You were out in the woods, alone, until what time?”

“I dunno. Late.”

“Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth pressed her fingertips against her lips for a minute, trying to stem the tide of panic rolling through her. The pressure of it built inside her until she thought she might explode. “I don't know,” she said miserably. “I didn't hear him come in.”

“Trace,” he said gravely, “you're not a very good liar. You'd be a lot better off telling me the truth.”

Trace held his breath for a minute, afraid that lump in his throat was going to crack any second. He stared down at his Air Jordans and wished he were as good at lying as Michael was at slam dunks.

“You don't have anything else to say?”

He winced inwardly at the disappointment in Jantzen's voice. Damn Carney. This was all his fault. “No, sir.”

“All right.” Dane tossed the pencil aside and rose from his chair, feeling the long, hard days in every joint and muscle he had and a few he had forgotten about. “I don't have a lot of choice here, Trace. I'm going to have to hold you for a while—”

“No!” Elizabeth exploded, standing up so fast her chair tipped over and bounced against the linoleum.

Dane kept his attention riveted on Trace, who had turned chalky-white. “I want you to think long and hard about this, son. You're a prime suspect and you've got no alibi. Telling me the truth can't be as bad as being charged with a murder.”

He went to the door to call in a deputy. Kaufman came in looking sad and apologetic and started to reach for Trace. Elizabeth made the deputy back off with a glare and put her arms around her son. She hugged him for all she was worth, wishing she could just gather him up and hold him as she had when he'd been a little boy with a scraped knee.

“I love you, sweetheart,” she whispered, stroking his cheek with a trembling hand.

He looked at her through the cracked lenses of his glasses, his gray-green eyes filled with fear and misery and a half-dozen other emotions he didn't give voice to. And in the back of her mind all Elizabeth could see was that little boy with the great big glasses and sober face telling her not to worry about him walking to school because he could cross the street by himself.

“It'll be all right, Mom,” he murmured, wishing with all his heart he didn't have to put her through this, wishing he could go back and undo all the stupid things he'd ever done, wishing Carney Fox had never been born.

Kaufman took him by the arm and led him out, down the long white hall toward the jail and the separate holding area for juvenile offenders. Elizabeth stood in the doorway and watched him go, so heartsick she thought she might die of it. When they turned the corner and disappeared from view, she rounded on Dane, needing to vent some of the fear and frustration and fury.

“How could you do that?” she demanded, blinking furiously at the tears that filled her eyes. “He's just a boy!”