Straight for the kill, p.15
Straight for the Kill, page 15
“Where’s Leo?” Fitzgerald asked.
“Doing what every good bartender and owner does. I really don’t know, and I really don’t care.”
“If this place isn’t open, why are you here?” Lila crossed her arms. “This isn’t your usual haunt.”
Sheehan wandered behind the bar. “Correct, this isn’t my normal evening ritual.” He picked up a half-full bottle of Jack and a whiskey tumbler. “Would the two of you care for a slug?” He lofted the bottle.
“We’re good,” Lila answered, pointing at their uniforms. “We’re on duty.”
“By the looks of both of you, neither of you have gone off duty.” After pouring himself two fingers, neat, Sheehan made himself at home where he stood. “Now, Deputy Dayne, to answer your question. I’m here because I have a stake in this here establishment.”
“Yet you’re rarely, if ever, here.”
“Too far from the hubbub,” Fitzgerald muttered.
Sheehan saluted the deputy with his glass. “Sheriff doesn’t use you enough, Fitzgerald.”
“He’s used plenty.” Lila closed the gap between her and the bar and leaned on the gleaming top. “What are you doing here, Sheehan?”
Enjoying his whiskey and staring at her over the brim of the tumbler was his response.
The crack of a door and the lumbering steps of two came from the back of the bar. Lila glanced at Sheehan and then pushed past Fitzgerald. Her fellow deputy grabbed her arm just as the two men she came to see waddled into the main area. The larger of the two pulled up short at the sight of Lila and Fitzgerald and slapped a beefy hand into his partner’s chest, bringing him to a halt.
“Orville. Jim. I see you finished early,” Sheehan said, swaggering over to the men.
The larger one, Orville, eyed Lila, a lecherous smile turning up the corners of his red, chafed mouth. “Sure did, Sheriff.” His pig-eyed gaze drifted to Fitzgerald. “What’s he doin’ here?”
Sheehan stepped between Lila and the two roughnecks. “They came to discuss some things with me.”
Fitzgerald flung Lila’s arm away and he stalked up to Sheehan. “You’re still keeping company with those two?”
“They have their uses.” His gaze narrowed as he pulled the toothpick from his mouth and pointed it at Fitzgerald’s nose. “Both are loyal to me. Something you fall short of.”
“I don’t side with no one except myself.”
“As Elizabeth is learning all too harshly.” Sheehan jabbed the toothpick into his mouth once more.
Orville stepped around Sheehan’s side. Hooking his thumbs behind the filthy coveralls, Orville looked Lila up and down. “She don’t look like your type, Benny-boy. Thought you were into the weirdos.”
Fitzgerald’s features hardened, his eyes darkened.
“Orville.” Sheehan’s voice was like the whack of a gavel. “I’d much appreciate it if you and Jim would hightail it on out of here while we three talk.”
The fat man sneered, then slapped his partner’s shoulder and the two of them started to turn.
“No, you’re staying right here,” Lila commanded. “I’ve got questions for the two of you to answer.”
Sheehan blinked at Lila. She suppressed the urge to flash a cunning grin at him. Oh, if she could read his mind. Bet those scheming cogs were spinning into overdrive, trying to figure out what she was up to.
Fitzgerald took a step to the side, a move meant to hem the men in. Say what you would about him, Fitzgerald certainly knew when his skills as an LEO were needed.
Jim, the slim one, glanced at Fitzgerald, then to Lila, then to his buddy. Caution reined this one in. Smart man.
Orville, on the other hand, decided to play a card that had never gone over well with Lila. Drawing in his sagging gut, he resumed his thumbs hooked behind the overalls and leered at her. “Just who do you think you are, li’l missy, to be ordering us around?”
“She’ll be a big pain in your ass if you cross her,” Fitzgerald remarked.
Orville’s face flushed red, his pig eyes went mean as he took a step toward Fitzgerald. “Why, you little—”
Sheehan smacked a hand against Orville’s arm. “Keep it to yourself.” He tilted his head, studying Lila, then slowly shifted the toothpick to the opposite corner of his mouth. “This here is Deputy Detective Lila Dayne.”
Something akin to recognition passed through Jim’s eyes. “Wasn’t she the gal that done killed a serial killer?”
“That would be her,” Fitzgerald remarked.
Lila shot an unamused look his direction, but the ire fell flat on the man. He simply ignored her by keeping his eyes on the three men.
Orville sniffed. “There’s no way this half-pint was able to take down no grown man.”
“Don’t matter the size of the woman,” Sheehan said. “It’s about the size of the fight in her. You two boys need to take a seat. Let’s hear what the good detective has to ask.”
Jim didn’t have to be asked twice. He planted himself on a barstool. Orville remained rooted where he stood, fingers stroking the wide denim straps, eyeing Lila.
“I asked nicely the first time, Orville. I won’t repeat myself again.”
The cold, dark tone in Sheehan’s voice snapped the other man out of his stupor. Orville peered at the former sheriff then sheepishly waddled over to a stool beside Jim.
“Ask away, Deputy Dayne.”
Lila met Fitzgerald’s gaze. He sniffed, shaking his head, then stepped back toward the door to act as sentry.
“I think it best if you’d exit the bar, Mr. Sheehan.”
The old man chuckled before he tossed back the rest of the whiskey. He slapped the tumbler on the bar top. “No need to stand on formalities.” He nodded at the two men. “Might be best for me to stick around.”
“So you can control what they can and cannot say to me? I think not.”
“Sheriff stays,” Orville asserted, crossing his arms.
“He’s not the sheriff,” Fitzgerald said from his spot by the door. “Hasn’t been for a damn long time.”
Orville opened his mouth, but Sheehan whacked his arm to shut him up.
“Look, Deputy Dayne, they can speak freely. Ask whatever questions it is you need to ask.”
“You know what. No.” She took a step toward Orville. “We’re going to do this at the department. Fitzgerald, escort Mr. Thurnhall to your car.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Orville barked, scrabbling off the stool like a panicked raccoon.
“Deputy Dayne.” Sheehan stepped between her and Orville, his hands up. “Lila. I would think after the assistance I’ve given you, I’d have garnered some kind of favor.”
“I don’t work on bribes and favors.”
“That might be so, but had it not been for me, Sheriff Benoit would have never found you in time.”
Lila clenched her jaw, grinding her molars at the unbidden memory. Pouring rain beating against her body as she cradled the lifeless body of the man she’d thought of as a father, watching as a killer came at her with a knife.
Lila jolted herself back to the present. “Any favors you’ve garnered are in debt to the sheriff.” She glared at Sheehan. “Not me.” She pointed at Orville and Jim. “Either they come with us to the department to discuss what it is I witnessed a few hours ago or you mosey on out that door and keep your nose out of official deputy business.”
“What do you mean you witnessed?” Sheehan asked.
Lila crossed her arms.
Not getting the answer he wanted, Sheehan looked to the two men. “You know what she’s talking about?”
The two looked at each other, then Sheehan, shaking their heads and shrugging. Apparently, that was not the answer Sheehan was looking for.
A dark, ugly expression came over him. “What did you two do?” he said in a low, lethal voice.
The men’s faces went pale, their eyes widened. Orville’s throat bobbed. Unable to meet Sheehan’s stare, he lowered his gaze.
Flummoxed by this shift in the ex-sheriff’s demeanor, Lila took a step back. A male presence just to the right of her shoulder made her stiffen. Fitzgerald’s hand clasped on her wrist. Of the two of them, Fitzgerald was the only one privy to Sheehan’s mercurial moods.
“Know what, Deputy Dayne, you can have them.” Sheehan bypassed her for the door. “Haul their sorry assess to the courthouse and read them the riot act. Whatever these lazy sacks of shit have done probably deserves a night in lockup. I wash my hands of them.” With that, he quit the bar, slamming the ancient door in his wake.
Orville and Jim hopped off their stools, whining at the rattling door. Fitzgerald demanded they shut the hell up.
When Lila was able to find her tongue, she grabbed her fellow deputy’s arm. “Follow him.”
He blinked at her a few times, then his eyes lit up as he realized what she was ordering. “Keep your cell handy.”
Left alone with the two men, Lila faced them, her hand settled on the butt of her sidearm. “What’s it going to be? Here or lockup as Sheehan suggested?”
Their mouths opened and closed like drowning fish.
Lila’s radio crackled to life. “All units be advised.” Georgia’s voice broke through the static. “Andrea O’Ryan has been located. Repeat. Andrea O’Ryan has been located. Report to headquarters.”
Lila lowered the volume on her radio. “Hmm. Looks like department lockup it is.”
Chapter Nineteen
Elizabeth didn’t want to leave Freya alone. Kyle didn’t want to leave Freya alone. Once again, against doctor’s orders, Elizabeth drove herself and Bentley back to the department. The darkening skies gave her ominous vibes.
She should be elated. Andrea had been found and by all accounts unscathed. What was off-kilter was how they found her. Rafe called Elizabeth after Georgia’s all call. His single warning, “You’re not going to like it,” was enough to spin her wheels. For now, it wasn’t mimicking the deaths of Denise and Brendette and the public relations nightmare those had become.
But how long before it did?
Elizabeth hadn’t been here in the hours and days after their deaths, so she hadn’t witnessed the initial investigations and the three-ring circus it turned into. She was living in North Carolina at the time while Joel, a freshly promoted army sergeant, was training for his next move up the regiment ladder. News of Bre’s passing came two days later. It took another day for Elizabeth to gain the necessary leave since she worked on the base as a civilian contractor and get a plane ticket home. Joel wasn’t allowed leave, and she firmly stood by her belief that if he’d been with her, things wouldn’t have gone the way they did. She wouldn’t have gone off the rails. Would have kept her cool.
The streetlamps flicked on when she pulled into the parking lot on the back side of the courthouse. Elizabeth eased the SUV into her spot then turned off the engine. Most of the deputies’ units were here—Kyle’s having been left at her house—save for one. Fitzgerald’s was missing. Where was her wildcard deputy now?
Sitting here in her car, staring at the building’s three-story brick and stone structure, she flashed back to the day she went toe-to-toe with the then sheriff. In her early twenties, ready to strangle the world into submission—little knowing how horrific the world would become a few short years later—Elizabeth wasn’t about to let anyone, even a dirty, crooked man like the sheriff, get away with lying about something that was clearly a murder. In the background, standing a few feet away from his predecessor, Deputy Kelley Sheehan had watched her, never saying a word to back her up—to be frank, he never backed up the sheriff either—just stood there with that ever-present toothpick dangling from his smiling lips.
Elizabeth turned to Bentley as the dog propped her front paws on the dashboard. The red- and-white border collie tilted her head, staring at her owner under the glittering lamp light.
“Sheehan is involved in all of this. I can feel it in my bones.” Elizabeth pressed a hand to her aching abdomen. “I just have to figure out how to get him to admit it.”
When she pulled her hand away to open the door, she hesitated at the damp feeling on her fingertips. She lifted her hand into the light. Blood. Wincing, she lifted up her shirttail and peered at her stomach.
“Damn.”
Spots of blood oozed from the sutures. She gently prodded the incisions, not able to tell if a stitch had ripped free, and managed to force more blood from the surgical area where they’d removed her appendix. Checking her shirt, she found bloodstains.
“Damn,” she muttered again.
The moment she walked into that bullpen and Rafe saw the blood, there was going to be hell to pay. She glanced into the backseat and spied an Eckardt County Sheriff’s jacket. That would help hide the tell-tale signs of her misdeeds.
Once she was out of the SUV, Bentley hopped down. The jacket zipped up high enough to hide the stains, Elizabeth, with Bentley at her side, hobbled to the department.
Raised voices were punctuated by shrill ringing phones. The noise echoed along the hall, battering Elizabeth’s pounding head. Movement in the interview room stopped her in her tracks. While Bentley continued on to the bullpen, Elizabeth backpedaled and peeked inside the room.
Jim Thurnhall spotted her staring at him and, with a sheepish look, ducked his head.
“Jim, why are you in here?”
He tapped the tabletop with a dirty fingernail. “Uhh.”
“Jim.”
His head snapped up at her bark. “That Deputy Dayne dragged us in here.”
“Us? Where’s Orville?”
“He lipped off to her and she tossed his butt in a jail cell.”
Shaking her head, muttering about stupid men and their stupid mouths, Elizabeth marched—despite her fatigue and pain—into the bullpen. All talk ceased, except for Georgia, who was speaking on the phone with Bentley sitting at her feet.
Elizabeth opened with, “Where’s Deputy Fitzgerald?”
“Tailing Sheehan,” Lila answered. She was kicked back in her chair, covered in grime, hair refusing to be contained by a hairband, fatigue dragging on her features while she plowed through a cheeseburger and fries. Lila swallowed, then swiped a ketchup blob from her mouth with a napkin. “I sent him on that mission.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain later. You need to hear our illustrious undersheriff’s story first.” She shoveled fries into her pie hole. “Where’s Lundquist?” she asked around her food.
“Taking care of his sister.” Seeing her deputy detective downing food made Elizabeth’s belly ache. Except for the few bites of the goodies Marnie had brought her this morning, she hadn’t eaten a lick.
As if reading her mind, and hearing her stomach, the nightshift dispatcher, Alexis, wandered over with a to-go carton from the sheriff department’s favorite go-to restaurant, The Haven. “Here you go, Sheriff.” She placed a plastic-covered fork on top of the biodegradable box. “Deputy Meyer stopped by your house and brought your meds.” She held up a small grocery sack, the movement rattling the prescription bottles.
Sighing, Elizabeth took the items from the youngest member of her department. “Thanks.” The tantalizing aroma of sweet tomatoes and pungent Romano cheese teased her nose and her stomach clenched in anticipation. This had to be The Haven’s famous spaghetti and meatballs. Oh, how Elizabeth loved her crew. They knew her well.
“Sit down. Eat,” Georgia ordered as she worked some miracle to quiet the phones. “They can talk to voicemail.”
Brent wheeled over a chair and patted the backrest. The way these people were coddling her would normally have set Elizabeth on edge, but she was too exhausted and sore to care. She sank into the chair and placed the food container and bag of meds on the desk next to her. As she was about to ask for something to drink, a large, wet, cold bottle of water was set on the desk next to her food.
As she broke the seal on the bottle, Elizabeth checked the dry-erase board. More notes had been added to the timeline. Top among them a photo of the location of Kerri’s possible murder and the discovery of Andrea. The timeline was starting to look better, but it was sorely lacking in vital information.
“Now that we have that all squared away, where is Andrea?” Elizabeth popped the lid on the to-go box.
“Down the hall, sleeping in the conference room on a cot,” Rafe said.
“With the way ya’ll were jabbering in here, I’m shocked she can even bother.”
“After the day she’s had, it’s not surprising. We’ve got security measures in place to make sure we don’t have a repeat of this morning’s kidnapping. She’s safe for now.” Rafe settled on the edge of Georgia’s desk, having full command of the room.
Elizabeth twirled sauce-drenched noodles on her fork. “Well?” She shoved the lot in her mouth.
As Rafe explained what he and Brent had done earlier that day searching for Andrea, Elizabeth destroyed the pasta and meatballs. She was far hungrier than she’d thought.
“We were loading the horses when Young called us.” Rafe left the desk and went to the county map hanging on the wall. He pointed to a spot. “Andrea had been left here, with a burner phone, a bottle of water, and a note with instructions to get out of town.”
Elizabeth squinted at the point above his finger. “She was left on Wailing Lady Lane?”
Wailing Lady Lane was an old road, part gravel but mostly dirt, and haunted. Story went that two farming families lived down the lane a quarter of a mile from each other, and miles from everywhere else. When the stock market crashed in ’29 and the Depression really set in, hopelessness hit one of the men hard. Seeing no way out except his way, he poisoned his livestock and his family, killing all save his wife, who hadn’t eaten the food he prepared, instead giving her portion to her three small children. The other man found her stumbling along the lane, wailing about her dead children. He took her in and reported the deaths to local authorities.
The next day, when his sister-in-law came to check on the family, she found an empty house. She called the sheriff. On a hunch, he went to the deceased farmer’s homestead and found the missing couple and their small son. Dead. Poisoned just like the first family. No sign of the grieving widow. They never did find her, believing her to be the real killer of both families, and in her sorrow, she took her own poisonous concoction and died somewhere deep in the woods.
