White Hot (29 page)

“He didn’t want to confront you on the same day his hired pickets showed up at our plant,” Chris said.

“You’re probably right,” Beck said. “There’s more. I haven’t got to the good part yet. Guess who was in Nielson’s office, dressed fit to kill, and, despite the high heels, looking ready to take on all enemies, starting with me?”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Chris exclaimed. “Sayre?”

“Good guess.”

“What was she doing there?” Huff asked.

“Same thing I was, wanting to see Nielson. Of course her agenda differed from mine. She was there to enlist and offer him her help.”

Chris asked, “By doing what?”

“We never got down to the specifics.”

“Was she with you when you went to see Billy Paulik?”

Beck reacted with surprise, looking first at Huff, then back at Chris. “How did you know about that?”

“Alicia Paulik called Fred Decluette.”

“
I
wasn’t going to see him,
Sayre
was,” he explained. “I went along and used the cards and letters Billy has received from his coworkers as my calling card. I thought hand-delivering them might win points with Mrs. Paulik. Besides, I wanted to see what Sayre was up to.”

“What was she up to?” Huff asked.

“Nothing that I could tell. It appeared to be no more than a courtesy call.”

“When Mrs. Paulik talked to Fred, she mentioned a ‘right sizable’ check. How much did that set me back?”

“Nothing, Huff. I made the contribution without your authorization. You don’t have to reimburse me if you don’t want to.”

“Hell, I’m the one who suggested we sweeten the pot. And just as I thought, the woman is weakening. She kept the check, right?”

“As far as I know.”

“There you go,” he said, raising his glass to toast their success.

Beck said, “Before you drink to it, you should know that I also told the psychiatrist to continue the sessions with Billy indefinitely.”

Chris groaned. “Are you trying to bankrupt us?”

“I’ll admit that it was a bold, spur-of-the-moment decision. I didn’t have time to consult with either of you. But I think it scored points with Mrs. Paulik.”

Huff winked at him. “You wouldn’t be worth spit to me if you couldn’t make some decisions on you own. I trust your judgment or you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in.”

“But we’re throwing good money after bad,” Chris complained. “So we see to it that Billy Paulik gets as good as he can get. What good will it do us?”

“I don’t imagine Beck was thinking in terms of Billy’s productivity as the payoff of that investment.”

“That’s right, Huff. I saw it as a gesture of goodwill that could stave off a lawsuit which could cost us millions. Anything we can do to prevent litigation is a sound investment.”

“I agree.” Huff tossed back his drink, liking the sting of the bourbon at the back of his throat and the heat it spread through his belly. “What was Sayre’s frame of mind when you left her?”

Beck shrugged, but Huff didn’t think he was nearly as indifferent as he wanted them to believe. “We had dinner together. I bought her a trinket. We drank champagne.”

Happily, Huff slapped his palms together. “How did it go?”

Beck raised a wry eyebrow. “It would have gone better if Chris hadn’t told her about your attempted matchmaking.”

Huff turned to Chris. “You told her?”

“What difference does it make?”

“You have to ask?”

“Sayre may have drunk his champagne, but Beck’s not in her bed, is he? And she’s not about to invite him into it as long as he works for us.”

“She might have. Now…Shit. You know your sister. She’ll balk.”

“She would have balked anyway, Huff,” Beck said. “She’s too smart and headstrong to be seduced by a bottle of champagne. However, I hoped that the wine and a meal of fancy French food would loosen her tongue.”

“About what?”

“Nielson. I’m uneasy with the idea of the two of them together. He would exploit having a Hoyle in his corner. If nothing else, he could use that as a media hook.” He framed an imaginary headline with his hands. “Huff Hoyle’s daughter sides with opposition. Complete story and photos on page three.”

Huff belched. The whiskey didn’t taste so good recycled. “I see what you mean.”

“Beyond that,” Beck continued with obvious reluctance, “she thought McGraw was the noose that was going to hang both of you, only to discover that the rope was frayed.

“But that didn’t dampen her resolve. She’s convinced that Chris did in Gene Iverson, that by finagling the jury he got away with murder, and that it’s up to her to see that justice is done. Despite the setback with McGraw, she has no intention of letting the matter drop.”

He first looked at Chris, then turned to Huff. “I wasn’t your lawyer then, Huff. But I represent you now. I don’t want to be blind-sided by something that Sayre may uncover. Is there anything regarding the Iverson case that I should be made aware of?”

Huff knew how to keep a poker face. He’d been doing it since he was eight years old. He looked Beck straight in the eye and said, “If the state had been able to make a case against Chris, there would have been another trial. Sayre won’t uncover anything.”

“Did you hear anything from Red while I was in New Orleans?”

“Nothing except that Slap Watkins remains at large,” Chris told him. “So far there’s been no trace of him.”

“Have they checked out all the places where he’s stayed recently?”

“With warrants. His last-known residence had a drug lab in the bathroom. The couple who lived there were arrested, but they claimed not to know Slap’s whereabouts since they kicked him out. Red said they took the place apart but found nothing belonging to Slap.”

“I hope they find him sooner rather than later,” Beck said. “And when he’s brought in, I hope he confesses to killing Danny. Because of everything that’s going on here,” he said, nodding toward the wall of glass, “we’re going to be viewed through a microscope. By OSHA in particular.”

“Bastards,” Huff muttered around a fresh cigarette.

“We had some play with them,” Beck said, “but it was lost with Billy’s accident.”

“Can’t we head them off?” Chris asked.

“I hoped to. I’ve tried several times to contact the regional rep. He won’t return my calls. Which leads me to believe that he’s planning a surprise inspection.”

Huff said, “I thought you had bribed someone on his staff to warn us of any unannounced visits.”

“I learned yesterday that she’s out on pregnancy leave.”

“Fucking wonderful,” Chris said.

“Yeah, bad timing for us. My point is,” Beck continued, “we’ve got to present a squeaky-clean image. We can’t give them one iota of ammunition more than Billy’s accident already has. They could shut us down pending a thorough inspection. And they would.”

Chris expelled a long breath. “Well, on that happy note, I think I’ll go get drunk.”

“Chris—”

“I’m joking,” he said. “Christ, I’ll be glad when everyone around me lightens up. Can’t we look on the bright side for once? Paulik’s wife is backing down. The pickets? When the sun comes up tomorrow and it gets hotter than hell out there, they’ll break ranks and go home.

“OSHA? We’ll beg forgiveness, promise to do better, pay their frigging fine, then go on about our business. As for Mary Beth, with any luck she’ll piss off her pool boy and he’ll drown her in the shallow end.

“It shouldn’t be too difficult for me to find wife number two. I’ll sow enough seeds to people China—and believe me, I’ve got the swimmers to do it—and deliver the first Hoyle grandson to Grandpa Huff. Last but not least, I’m innocent of murdering my brother. See? What’s so terrible?”

Huff laughed. “All right, you’ve made your point. Get out of here. I’m right behind you.”

Still smiling, Huff watched Chris saunter out. But when he glanced at Beck, his lightheartedness disappeared. Beck was staring at the open doorway through which Chris had just passed.

It troubled Huff that Beck looked so troubled.

It had taken Sayre a long time to fall asleep.

After the eventful trip to New Orleans and the long drive home, she had thought she would fall into an exhausted sleep the moment her head hit the pillow. But to her aggravation, she tossed and turned for hours.

The air-conditioning unit was noisy. When it was running, the room became frigid. When it cycled off, the room grew stifling, and the odors left by every previous occupant, embedded in the carpet, drapes, and bedcoverings, were resurrected.

But the lack of creature comfort was only partially responsible for her insomnia. Her conversations with Beck continued to replay inside her head. Had it been a mistake to entrust him with the secret of Danny’s engagement? And knowing that her father was contriving a match between them for his own selfish purposes, why had she let Beck get anywhere close to her? Why had she wanted him close?

It wasn’t until the wee hours that she managed to drift off. That was why she groaned unhappily when she awakened before daylight. She was lying on her stomach, face half buried in the lumpy pillow. She opened one eye and lay very still, willing herself to go back to sleep before she became too awake.

The air conditioner, she noticed, was silent, so the room was warm. She kicked the covers off her legs, thinking it was the mugginess that had awakened her and that if she got comfortable with the temperature again, sleep would reclaim her.

But removing the covers didn’t help.

Maybe a champagne headache was coming on. She was dehydrated from drinking the champagne and the red wine she’d had with her meal. She needed a large glass of water. And now that she thought about it, her bladder needed attention, too.

Cursing under her breath, she rolled onto her back and pulled herself into a sitting position on the side of the bed. Automatically she reached for the lamp on the nightstand but then decided against turning it on. If she kept the room dark, it was more likely she would go back to sleep sooner.

Coming off the bed in a half crouch, she groped her way around the end of it, moving in the direction of the bathroom. By now she was familiar with the layout of the room, so she might have made it to the bathroom without mishap…if she hadn’t stumbled over the pair of heavy boots that blocked her path.

That they had feet in them with legs attached brought her wide awake.

H
er scream was trapped behind a grimy hand while another gripped a handful of her hair and pushed her facedown onto the bed. He fell on top of her, effectively pinning her down. But she didn’t stop struggling.

“You fight me, I’ll rip it out by the roots. Swear to God, pretty as it is, I’ll tear it out and take it as a souvenir.” He gave the handful of hair a sharp tug that brought tears to her eyes.

She stopped trying to twist away and lay still.

“That’s better.” He squirmed against her buttocks. “Now ain’t this cozy? How’d you like a taste of some of the things I learned in prison?”

Behind his hand, she cried out in fear and outrage. He laughed at the muffled sounds. “Relax, Red. Your ass is awful tempting, but I ain’t got time for romance. I came here to talk, but you can bet your life I’ll hurt you if I have to. Do we have an understanding?”

Between the hand clasped over her mouth and the rumpled bedcovers beneath her face, she couldn’t find sufficient air. She didn’t believe that he had sneaked into her room merely to talk, but she nodded to keep herself from smothering.

“Okay, then. I’m gonna take my hand off your mouth. If you scream, it’ll be the last sound you ever make.”

Gradually he withdrew his hand. Sayre resisted the impulse to lick her lips, because tasting any residue of him would be repugnant. He gave her butt a hard squeeze as he climbed off her. When she was free, she turned onto her back, then sat up. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

The light came on suddenly. She blinked away the sudden glare and saw Slap Watkins, his hand still on the switch of the bedside lamp. It projected harsh light up through the top opening of the lampshade, which shone eerily on his face. The shadow of his head on the wall was the sort that children’s nightmares were made of.

His looks hadn’t improved while he’d been on the lam. If anything he’d grown uglier. His teeth looked longer, yellower. His goatee was more scraggly. His face had become so lean that each bone of it was grotesquely pronounced, almost skeletal. His skinny neck was vulturine, and his large ears looked like attachments that had been stuck on the sides of his head for comic effect.

“Hi, Red.”

Her heart was pounding and her mouth had gone dry, but she tried not to show any fear. She glanced at the door. “Don’t even think about it,” he said around a nasty-sounding laugh. “You couldn’t make it out before I got to you, and that’d force me to break my promise not to hurt you.” Grinning, he slid a knife from his boot and tapped the flat side of the blade against his palm.

“How did you get in?”

“I’m a criminal, remember? Picked the lock in no time flat. Silent, too. Shame on you for not using your chain lock. A lady all by herself, you ought to know better.”

She didn’t want to think about how long he’d been in the room with her before she woke up. It made her flesh crawl to think of him sitting in the chair near her bed, watching her sleep, listening to her breathe. Maybe it was his smell that had awakened her. It had been days at least since he’d washed, and his body odor was nauseating.

“Are these real?” She had left her diamond stud earrings on the nightstand. He was holding them up to the light, turning them this way and that, appraising their value.

“Yes. You’re welcome to them if you’ll leave.”

“Thanks. Believe I will.” He put the earrings in the pocket of his filthy blue jeans. “But I can’t leave till we’ve had ourselves a little chat.”

“What do you and I have to chat about?”

“Do you know I got the law looking for me?”

“You assaulted my brother with a knife.”

“That’s bullshit. I’s only gonna scare him with it. He caused me to cut him. Did it deliberate.”

Although she had advanced that theory to Beck, she posed the question to Slap now. “Why would Chris do that?”

“’Cause he wanted to make me out a killer.”

“Chris believes you murdered our brother. Did you?”

In lieu of answering he opened the nightstand drawer, removed the Gideon Bible, and tossed it to her. “Genesis, chapter four.”

Leaving the Bible where it landed beside her, she asked coolly, “You’re a Bible scholar?”

“Up at Angola, I went to worship services every Sunday. Passed out the songbooks and everything. Looked good on my record.”

“I suppose it balanced the sodomy.”

His eyes turned flinty. “You calling me fag? I’ll teach you different.”

Her sarcasm had been a dreadful mistake. She’d given him something to prove.

When he came at her, she tried to scramble to the far side of the bed, but again he grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her back. He placed the tip of his knife against her cheek and laughed when she fell perfectly still.

“I thought that’d get your attention. Don’t want to mess up that pretty face, do you?” Roughly he pushed her knees apart and moved to stand between her thighs, thrusting his hips toward her face. “You got a real sassy mouth, but I can think of one real good way to shut it up.”

“You’d have to kill me.”

“That might be fun, too.”

Just then the air-conditioning unit came on with its customary clatter and knock. He reacted with a start to the sudden noise and whipped his head toward it. When he realized what it was, he was visibly relieved, but it had spooked him nonetheless. He released her hair and nervously backed away from her.

“Much as I’d love to take full advantage of this situation, I’ve spent too much time here already.” He picked up the Bible and shook it at her. “You tell Sheriff Harper to read his Bible. The part about Cain and Abel. And you’d better be convincing when you talk to him, ’cause if I’m a wanted man for killing a Hoyle, then I’d just as soon kill me one.”

He dragged the tip of the knife across her nipple. “And I’ve always had a real sweet tooth for redheads.”

She was waiting with Sheriff Harper and Deputy Scott in Red’s office when Beck arrived. Like her, he looked a little worse for wear.

She had seen the picket line when she drove past the foundry, although it was no surprise to her because she had spoken to Clark Daly the night before. He had called shortly after her return from New Orleans. He was on his coffee break in the Center, he explained, using a buddy’s cell phone. There had been excitement in his voice for the progress that had already been made.

“I’ve isolated some of Huff’s stoolies and warned men to be careful of what they say around them because it goes straight to Huff.” He and some men he trusted were also doing what they could to keep Billy Paulik in the forefront of everyone’s mind.

“Nielson’s got the picket going. Huff made a speech against it, but it didn’t put the scare into us he intended. Things are looking up, Sayre. I’ll give you progress reports when I can.”

He’d sounded upbeat. His voice had had a ring of confidence that validated her getting him involved in something important. She’d received no more updates, but evidently the discontent among workers had escalated through the night, despite Huff’s efforts to squelch it. Some of the picketers this morning were Hoyle employees.

That explained Beck’s haggard appearance as he entered Red’s office and said grimly, “Morning.”

They chorused a good morning, although none sounded like he meant it. Beck sat in the unoccupied chair next to hers, facing Red’s desk. Wayne Scott remained standing.

“How are things over at the plant?” the sheriff asked.

“Hot.”

“We’re supposed to have a heat index around one hundred today,” Scott remarked, and Sayre wondered if he actually thought that Beck had been referring to the outside temperature.

Beck ignored him and addressed his answer to Red. “Another couple dozen pickets showed up in time to greet the day shift when they reported at seven. Some of our men took the pamphlets they were handing out, and even joined in the march, which made Hoyle loyalists angry.

“Tempers are high. I don’t know how long we can contain them. I’m trying like hell to reach Nielson, see if we can cap this thing, but he won’t return my calls.” Suddenly turning to Sayre, he asked, “Have you heard from him?”

This was the first time they’d made eye contact since his arrival, and it was like a physical jolt. “No.”

He held her gaze, as though searching for an indication that she was lying, then he turned back to Red. “I can’t be away long. Why did you want to see me?”

Red motioned toward her. “Sayre had a visitor this morning. She thought you should hear what he had to say.”

“Visitor?”

“Slap Watkins broke into my motel room early this morning.”

Beck stared at her with shock, then he looked toward Red as though for confirmation.

“This office got the call a little after five this morning. A man was dispatched immediately. Of course by the time he got to The Lodge, Watkins was long gone.”

Beck turned back to her. He looked her over, from the top of her head to her feet, then back up to her eyes. “Are you hurt? Did he…”

She lowered her head, shaking it as she responded to Beck’s unfinished question and all that it implied. “He threatened to hurt me, but he didn’t. The only damage he did is this.” She touched the spot on her cheek where his knife had nicked her when the air conditioner cycled on. “He flinched at a sudden sound. I don’t think he meant to do it.”

“Wayne and I have read the statement Sayre gave the deputy who went to the motel, but we haven’t heard about it firsthand. She thought you should be here.”

Beck nodded absently. “What did Watkins do, say? Did he force his way in?”

“He picked the door lock. I hadn’t put the chain on, which was foolish. I woke up to find him in the room with me.”

“Jesus.”

“I don’t suppose he told you where he’d been hiding,” Scott said.

“No. He didn’t volunteer that information.”

“Did you happen to see which way he was headed when he left the motel?”

“No, but he must have left on foot. I didn’t hear a motor.”

“How did he know where you were staying?”

“It wouldn’t have been that hard to locate me. There are only two motels in town. Process of elimination.”

She noticed Beck’s growing impatience with Scott’s inane questions. Turning to the deputy, he said, “Why don’t you let up on the stupid questions and give her a chance to tell you what happened?”

Before the deputy could address Beck’s put-down, Red said, “Good idea. Sayre, start at the beginning. We won’t interrupt until you’re finished. What did he want?”

“He wanted me to deliver a message to you.” She recounted the incident, leaving out only Slap’s sexual innuendos, which had no bearing on the message he had wanted her to impart to the sheriff. As Red had stipulated, no one interrupted her. “That’s it. Almost word for word.”

After a short silence, Scott asked, “Did you make any attempt to escape?”

“I was afraid that if I ran toward the door I’d get a knife in my back. I couldn’t have opened it and got out before he reached me. He’s skinny, but in any kind of physical struggle, I would have lost.”

“You never screamed?”

“I couldn’t while his hand was over my mouth. Once he released me, I didn’t scream because I didn’t want to provoke him into using the knife. Besides, what good would screaming have done?”

No one had an answer.

Red was rubbing his sunken eye sockets. His skin had a gray cast, and he seemed to have lost weight since she’d last seen him, which had been only several days ago. She wondered whether he was ill, or just beleaguered.

Beck was loosening his tie and working his collar button out of its hole. He looked like a man losing ground against the demons he was battling.

Only Deputy Scott appeared to have been galvanized by this development. He hitched up his gun holster and said, “Well, let’s go get him.”

“I hope you’re referring to Slap Watkins,” Beck said. “Surely you don’t mean to arrest Chris.”

“The hell I don’t,” Scott retorted.

“Not so fast, Wayne,” the sheriff said. Then to Beck, “Maybe we ought to talk to Chris again.”

“Based on hearsay?”

Sayre looked at him with dismay. “Are you accusing me of lying?”

“No. Watkins is just stupid enough to pull a stunt like this. But until he’s in custody, we’ve got only your word for what he said.”

It took an act of will for her not to strike him. “Go to hell.”

“Sayre,” Red said sternly.

She turned toward the sheriff. “I quoted my conversation with Watkins verbatim. That’s what he said. Genesis chapter four.”

“I believe you,” he said. “And probably Beck does, too. But he represents Chris, don’t forget.”

She turned and looked Beck in the eye. “I never do.”

“And remember that Watkins is fresh out of the pen,” Red continued. “He’d say anything to try and keep his sorry self from having to go back. He was throwing up a smoke screen with this Bible story reference, getting us all excited, wanting us to think that Chris killed his brother, take the pressure off himself, maybe long enough to make his way down to Mexico.”

“I think that’s precisely what he hoped to achieve,” Beck said. “He’s running scared. He’s desperate and feeling the heat. He wanted to transfer it to somebody else, and we all know how he feels about the Hoyles.”

“Don’t you think I considered his self-interest?” she said angrily. “Of course I did. I’m not stupid.”

“No one’s accused you of being stupid, Sayre,” Beck said.

“No, just a liar.”

“Calm down. I’m not refuting your word. I’m only trying to make sense of it. Let’s suppose that Watkins was speaking the unvarnished truth. Let’s suppose he has firsthand knowledge that Chris killed Danny. Why wouldn’t he contact the authorities with this information? Why risk getting captured by breaking into your motel room and threatening you with a knife? Why would he go to all that bother and risk to tell you?”

“Because he knew that I wouldn’t sweep it under the rug.”

“No one in this office will either, Ms. Lynch,” Scott said staunchly. “We have to act on this, Sheriff Harper. We’ve already placed Chris at the scene.”

Beck scoffed. “With a matchbook?”

“And we’ve established that he had opportunity during the two hours that he can’t account for his time.”