Sting (24 page)

U
pon learning that the young man who'd played a key role in Friday night's events had turned up dead, they wasted only a few minutes arguing over whether or not Shaw would accompany them to Tobias.

Wiley and Hickam were resistant to the idea. He was adamant. To save time, he told them whether or not he rode with them, he would get there. They gave in.

“We'll stop somewhere along the way and buy some things to better disguise you,” Wiley said over his shoulder as they left the interrogation room.

“Good thinking,” Hickam said. “I'd hate to get struck by a bullet intended for Mr. Armed and Dangerous here.”

Although each step sent a spike of pain through his side, Shaw kept up with them until they reached Hickam's car in the parking garage. After climbing into the backseat, he surreptitiously lifted his shirttail and peeled back the dressing to check his stitches. They were holding.

No doubt Jordie wished she'd done more damage with that propeller. If she had it to do over, she probably would plunge it into his throat. She'd said as much, and he believed her. She despised him.

His work was too high risk for him to get life insurance. Not that he had anyone to name as a beneficiary, because his job was also hazardous to personal relationships. Before now, that hadn't bothered him. Often he used innocent people in order to put away bad people. If someone in his wake was left emotionally scarred, it was a cost of doing business. Dirty job and all that.

But when Jordie Bennett had looked at him with unqualified hatred, he'd felt more than a twinge of conscience. That was a first, and it was uncomfortable.

As they wheeled out of the garage, Wiley got a call on his cell phone. Hickam didn't engage Shaw in conversation, which was fine with him. He laid his head back and dozed, waking only when Hickam parked outside a discount store. Wiley was still on his call, doing more listening than talking.

Hickam was back in under five minutes, bringing with him a sack, which he tossed over the car seat into Shaw's lap. “Not a place where I typically shop. That's the best I could do.”

He'd bought an ugly maroon hoodie and a pair of sunglasses with black plastic frames and cobalt blue lenses. Shaw said, “These are fine.”

“I thought they might be.” Hickam made a point of looking at the pearl snaps on the new chambray shirt Morrow had bought for him.

Ignoring the agent's implied insult to his taste, he yanked the price tag off the hoodie. “So what about Royce Sherman's demise?”

“Morrow was on the fly, so he gave me the facts in shorthand. I'll tell you what I know as soon as Joe gets off the phone.”

As though on cue, Wiley, riding shotgun, clicked off. “Sorry. That was Marsha. My wife,” he said for Shaw's benefit. “We have a toilet problem at home, and she's threatening to apply a wrench to the plumber's privates if he doesn't get it fixed. Soon. What'd I miss?”

“Nothing. I waited on you,” Hickam said. “First thing, Morrow emphasized that it hasn't yet been determined whether or not Royce Sherman's death relates to anything that happened Friday night.”

“How'd he die?” Shaw asked.

“Gunshot to the head. Left frontal lobe. Close range.”

“Suicide?”

“No gun found near the body, no powder on his hands.”

“Homicide then,” Shaw said.

“Fair bet.”

Wiley asked if there had been signs of a struggle.

“No. He had cash and one credit card on him, so robbery doesn't appear to have been the motive. Morrow said it looked like the killer walked up to the open window and popped him.”

“At home?”

“Driver's seat of his pickup truck. He'd pulled off the highway onto a side road.”

“What for?” Shaw asked.

“Nobody knows.”

“To take a leak?” Wiley ventured.

“No evidence of that. Morrow doesn't think he got out of the truck.”

Shaw asked him about a shell casing.

“None found. No other bullet, either. Looks like the shooter only fired once. With intent.”

Shaw thought on that and almost missed Hickam's saying, “But Morrow has a possible motive. The bartender—” he paused and looked at Shaw in the rearview mirror “—he's the one who put us onto you.”

“Doesn't surprise me. He's former military, right? Saw action?”

“He mentioned Iraq.”

Shaw nodded. He'd noticed the bartender's scrutiny of him and Mickey, which had been surreptitious but sharp. Nothing made a man more observant than a war zone where the enemy didn't wear a uniform.

Hickam said, “When the bartender heard about Royce's murder, he immediately called Morrow. Told him Royce was in the bar last night for hours, acting like a celebrity, knocking back whiskeys like they were Kool-Aid.”

“Was his ol' lady with him?” Wiley asked. Turning to Shaw, he added, “He had a live-in who ragged on him.”

Hickam said, “She was there, all right, and did more than rag on him. They got into it. Put on a floor show for the crowd, the bartender said. She stormed out with two girlfriends. No sooner had she left than Royce started tangling tongues with another girl. Around midnight, he and the newbie staggered out together. All this has been corroborated by the witnesses they've been able to locate.”

“What does Royce's ol' lady have to say about it?” Wiley asked.

Hickam told them that Morrow himself had gone to pick her up at her place of employment. “She oversees the paint department in a big-box store. Morrow said she dropped to her knees and started wailing when he broke the news. Said her shock and tears looked genuine, but he brought her in anyway. She swears she didn't see or speak to Royce after leaving the bar.”

“She lawyer up yet?”

“No, but he sent deputies to round up the two friends who drove her home last night. They were questioned separately, and their stories match hers. They took her back to the apartment she shared with Royce where they killed a couple bottles of wine toasting the good riddance of him. Around four a.m., the friends decided they were too drunk to drive home, so they crashed there at her place and got up this morning barely in time to drag themselves to work.”

“What's Morrow's read on her alibi?” Wiley asked.

“He tends to believe it.”

“I do.”

At Shaw's succinct statement, Wiley turned around to look at him. Hickam was watching him in the rearview mirror. He said, “It doesn't sound like a crime of passion. Not the way you described the scene. The shooter fired once? With intent?” He shook his head. “That's not a pissed-off girlfriend's kind of kill. A recently dumped ol' lady would have emptied the pistol into him, then called the cops herself and told them where to find his sorry dead ass.”

Wiley nodded, looking glum. “Unless evidence places the recent ex at the scene, I've gotta say I agree.”

Shaw addressed Hickam in the mirror. “What about the newbie? The bartender said they left together.”

“They
exited
together. They could have parted ways in the parking lot.”

“Or not,” Shaw said.

“Or not. Because there were partial footprints outside the passenger door. But first responders found the pickup empty except for Royce. ME estimated time of death between midnight and two a.m.”

“Who called it in?” Wiley asked.

“The side road is a private drive that leads to a house way back in the woods. The property owner is retired. He and his wife were leaving for an early lunch. Royce's pickup had them blocked in. The missus got out to check, so it could be her footprints outside the truck. They're making casts.”

“The retirees know Royce?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Wiley said. “Leaving Morrow, where? All he has so far are the current two women in Royce's life.”

“They're trying to track down the newbie,” Hickam said. “But Morrow didn't have a positive on her name, much less where to find her. He has a lot on his plate. Pulling off that act to spring you,” he said to Shaw in the mirror. “Now this. He asked us to give him a heads-up when we're five minutes out.”

Again, Shaw laid his head back and closed his eyes while the two of them lapsed into a conversation about an asshole of a coroner and the brisk trade he was doing this week.

Shaw tuned them out and thought about Jordie—more specifically how rancid her thoughts about him must be.
Why did you do the rest of it?
she'd asked, referring to all the awful things he'd subjected her to. Fear, deprivation, humiliation, browbeating.

A kiss.

What really sucked? She would forever think that the kiss had been just another maneuver to try to get information from her, and not a matter of life or death. His life, not hers. He'd had to kiss her. Simple as that.

Although it wasn't simple at all. He was a federal agent. She was a material witness in a criminal investigation. Which, by the rule book, placed her off-limits in capital letters. But he bent rules all the time, and he had no control over his dirty dreams.

A half hour later, Wiley roused him from a light sleep. “Kinnard? We're almost there.”

Wiley placed the heads-up call to Morrow. Shaw put on the hoodie, wincing as he pushed his arms through the sleeves, which caused a strain on his incision and all the internal stitches. The blue lenses of the sunglasses probably made his complexion look sickly. At least it felt sickly. He was clammy all over. His limbs were weak and shaky. His side hurt like the very devil.

He wished he could lie down, close his eyes, and stretch out along the backseat the way he'd stretched Jordie out, adjusting her inert arms and legs, lifting her hair off her cheek.

Swearing under his breath because he couldn't stop thinking about her, he flipped the hood over his head, opened the backseat door, and got out. Instantly he was enveloped by the swampy heat, made worse by the fleece hoodie. Goddamn Hickam had chosen it on purpose.

The sheriff's department annex was an old and ugly building. At the back corner of it was an unmarked employee entrance where Morrow was waiting for them. He frowned at Shaw. “You shouldn't have come.”

“We tried telling him,” Hickam said.

“You look worse off than Royce Sherman,” the deputy said.

“I'm okay.”

“Listen.” Morrow held up his hand in front of Shaw's chest. “Nobody in this department knows what we pulled this morning except the dispatcher and the two deputies who posed as the ambulance drivers. All friends of mine. Not even the sheriff himself knows. It gets out, I'll probably get canned.”

“Nobody'll hear it from me. I know you stuck your neck out. Thank you again.”

“You're welcome. But it's not just that. This building is full of officers who were in on the manhunt for you. They wouldn't take kindly to you being here.”

“They should thank me for the overtime.”

“What I'm saying is, I don't think this cool getup is going to fool anybody.”

“You'd be surprised. What people aren't looking for, they rarely see.”

Still concerned, Morrow said, “If an officer does spot you, he might shoot first and ask questions later.”

“If it comes to that, feel free to blow my cover.”

“At least you shaved.”

“Part of the hospital's grooming and personal hygiene service.” His identifying scar didn't show up as well without a scruff, so he hadn't objected when the guy who'd given him the bed bath started lathering his face.

“Don't say I didn't warn you.” Morrow ushered them into the building and led them down a short hallway to a doorway with a wired window. “Take a look.”

Wiley and Hickam looked first, then it was Shaw's turn. He tipped down the sunglasses in order to see better. Inside the interrogation room, two officers were unsuccessfully trying to calm down a young woman whose head was bent low over her chest as she sobbed into her hands.

“Linda Meeker,” Morrow said. “The girl who left the bar with Royce Sherman last night.”

At that moment, she lowered her hands and raised her head to accept a tissue from a female deputy.

Shaw's first sight of her face came as a surprise. He had expected an entirely different sort. “She's just a kid.”

“Sixteen. Barely. Turned last month.”

Shaw watched Linda Meeker's apparent distress for another few seconds, then said, “Friday night while I was at it, I should've killed Royce Sherman, too.”

The other three turned to him, but he didn't take back what he'd said.

Morrow covered an awkward silence by clearing his throat. “In here.” He led them to the neighboring door and entered a small office. “I share it with another detective. He's off today.”

They crowded into the already crowded space. Morrow closed the door and began his explanation without preamble. “Linda Meeker came in about half an hour ago under her own volition but at the urging of a friend, who drove her here when they learned about the murder.”

“Who told her?” Shaw asked.

“They overheard people talking about it at the Dairy Queen.”

Nobody said anything, but Shaw, Wiley, and Hickam exchanged glances.

Reading their dubiety correctly, Morrow chuffed. “It gets better. All of what I'm about to tell you came from the friend, because Linda isn't talking. According to the friend, Linda owns up to underage drinking, intoxication, getting chummy with Royce, and walking out of the bar with him. But she couldn't very well lie about that because there are three dozen witnesses to it.

“From there, the story goes murky. The friend contends that she was waiting for Linda outside. Linda and Royce exchanged fond farewells and parted ways. He took off in his pickup. The friend drove Linda to her—the friend's—house where they were supposed to have been all along. Linda upchucked a couple of times. The friend put her to bed. They slept until after ten o'clock this morning.”