Jill made it to the station moments after they had brought Dan in, just after one in the morning. She found a haggard Mark Branning slumped in a chair next to Allie. She caught her breath and rushed to them. “Allie, what happened?”
Allie looked wearier and more defeated than Jill had ever seen her. “The apartment where we were staying was broken into tonight. Mark fought the guy off and he got away—but not before he’d started a fire.”
Jill’s face drained of all its color. “Was either of you hurt?”
“Mark was,” Allie said. “His legs…”
Jill saw the burns and winced.
“Jill, they’ve just brought Dan Nichols in for questioning.”
“I know,” she said. “He called me. That’s why I’m here. Why are they interested in him?”
“Because the man who broke into the apartment had on a firefighter’s bunker suit and a mask. The other day, at the airport, they found a Newpointe bunker coat. Stan’s been trying to narrow it down.”
“And he’s narrowed it down to Dan? That’s ludicrous. Didn’t you tell him it couldn’t have been him? He was with us all night the night Francis was killed.”
“We told them,” Allie said quietly. “But there’s that time I woke up and he was coming back in from the hall. You were talking to him—you remember. They’re saying that maybe he wasn’t in the hall, maybe he had been to Slidell and back.”
“Give me a break!”
“The guy who broke into our apartment tonight is wounded,” Mark said weakly. “I shot him somewhere in the right shoulder or arm. It’ll be easy to rule Dan out, if he’s innocent.”
“If he’s innocent? Mark, you can’t really think there’s a possibility—he’s your best friend!”
“Of course he is,” Mark said wearily. “I didn’t mean that.”
She looked down at them for a moment, frustrated. Then she realized how painful those burns must be, and how tired and sapped for energy Mark was, just out of the hospital. His head was wrapped in a fresh bandage, but the yellow bruises around his eyes reminded her just how miserable he must feel. “Mark, you don’t look so good. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“What bed?” he asked. “We can’t go home or we’ll be killed in our sleep. We can’t go back to where we were hiding. We can’t get on a plane.”
“Maybe they could find a place for you to lie down, at least.”
“Forget it,” Mark said. “I’m not closing my eyes until this man is caught.”
A few minutes later, Jill found Dan in the interrogation room with Stan Shepherd, Chief Shoemaker, Vern Hargis, and Chad Avery. She walked in with an air of disgust, dropped her briefcase into a chair, and took the seat beside Dan. “All right, guys, let’s get down to business so my client can go back home and get some rest.”
“We just want to know where he was between seven and twelve tonight.”
“I told them,” Dan said. “I cut my hand around seven, then went home and went to bed. No witnesses. Can’t prove a thing.”
“Yes, you can,” Jill said, looking directly at Stan. “Stan, surely you’ve checked him for that gunshot wound Mark says he inflicted on the killer. Does he have one?”
“He has a wound on his hand,” Stan said. “Mark could have been mistaken about where the bullet hit.”
She looked down at the small bandage wrapped around his hand. “Take the bandage off, Dan. Let us see it.”
Dan unwrapped the gauze bandage and showed them the cuts on his hand. “Glass,” he said. “Not a bullet—glass.”
The cops weren’t convinced. “Did anyone see you break the glass?”
“Absolutely. Nick did. He disinfected it and wrapped it for me.”
Stan nodded for Vern to go and check, and he dismissed himself from the room.
While they waited, Dan looked at Stan. “Mark was in a gunfight with that guy? What happened? Was Mark hurt?”
“He was burned,” Jill said. “But he seems okay. I just saw him outside.” She glanced back at the detective and chief of police. “Surely you guys have other suspects. If you know it to be a fireman—”
“A fireman?” Dan cut in. “Is that what this is about? The killer is a fireman?”
“If you know him to be a fireman,” Jill went on, “you must have a whole list of suspects.”
“We have two others we’re questioning tonight, Jill. We just haven’t been able to locate them yet.”
“Well, maybe one of them has a gunshot wound. Maybe you’ll find him soon, and you’ll see. Meanwhile, you must realize that Dan is not your man.”
“I don’t want to think he is,” he said. “But Dan, there are pieces that don’t fit. You can’t prove where you were when Mark was shot at the airport.”
“I was jogging, Stan. People saw me—”
“We can’t find anyone who did.”
“Stan, if I’d gone to New Orleans, shot Mark, then driven back to Newpointe, I’d have been gone two hours, at the very least. I wasn’t jogging that long.”
“Like I said, we can’t confirm that. Besides, everybody knows you drive like Mario Andretti. And you weren’t home when they came to get you earlier tonight, and the night Francis was killed, you were allegedly at the hospital with Allie and Jill, but you disappeared for an unspecified period of time…”
“What? I did not. I was there all night.”
Stan focused in on Jill. “Jill, did you or did you not wake up to see Dan coming back from somewhere?”
Dan gaped at her. “Did you tell them that? That I left?”
Jill couldn’t believe Stan had breached professionalism this way. “No, Allie did. Stan, he wasn’t gone long. He was just in the hall. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t question me like a witness when I’m trying to defend my client!”
Stan wilted. It was pure exhaustion that had motivated him, she thought. They were all worn out.
“Can you prove that you were in the hall, Dan?” Stan asked.
“Prove that I didn’t sneak out and kill Francis Bledsoe in another town? Yes, I can prove it! You bet I can prove it!”
“How?”
“Well…there were others in the waiting room that night. Some of them had to be awake. Somebody saw me, Stan. Somebody had to.”
Stan looked doubtful. “Dan, Vern and Chad found a bunker suit in your trunk.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So why did you have it with you?”
“Because I keep scanners in my car and my house. Sometimes I hear a call and I go to help. I keep the suit in case I need it when I’m off duty.” He gaped at each of them. “Oh, come on, Stan. Most of the guys keep suits in their trunks, and you probably have a scanner at home, too.”
“Even Mark has a bunker suit in his car,” Jill cut in. “I saw one in his car just yesterday.”
“Yeah,” Dan said. “Even Mark.”
“What about the night at the florist, when you had a crowbar—?”
“Aw, man.” He sat back hard in his chair and rubbed his face roughly. “It happened exactly like I said. I saw somebody, Stan.” He banged his hand on the table, then winced at the cut as it started to bleed again. Tipping his hand up to keep the blood from dripping, he said, “Here. You must have blood samples from the killer. Take some of mine, Stan. It’ll rule me out. And give me a lie detector test, truth serum, whatever you want. I’m innocent.”
Stan reached for the phone to call someone to do just that, when Vern came back in. “I just talked to Nick, Stan. He says he did see Dan cut his hand, and he bandaged it up himself. But I asked him if he was sure Dan hadn’t left the station before that, and he said he didn’t know, because he was sleeping. I asked him if Dan could have already had the wound and broken the glass after the fact—”
“What?” Dan shouted. “Why would I do that?”
“To cover for a gunshot wound,” Vern said, raising his voice over Dan’s outburst. “The killer wouldn’t have to be a genius to go back to where he was supposed to have been all
night, make a big deal out of breaking a glass and cutting his hand, and then he’s got an alibi.”
Dan just stared at him for a long moment. “You ought to be writing movies, Vern. Your talents are wasted here.”
“Oscar caliber,” Jill agreed. “Stan, if this is a bullet hole in his hand, how come it doesn’t come out on the other side? It’s on his palm, for heaven’s sake, so it couldn’t have been grazed. It’s a cut! Look at it!”
“I have O positive blood, Stan,” Dan threw in. “What kind did the killer have?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to call New Orleans and see if they have any results yet.”
“Do it,” Dan said. “I don’t like being in the hot seat.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, the telephone in the interrogation room rang, and Stan picked it up. He listened and jotted down something on the pad on his lap, then brought his eyes back to Dan and Jill. Gravely, he hung up the phone.
“What is it?” Jill asked. “Is it the results of the blood test?”
Stan rubbed his eyes, thinking, then focused on them again. “They found two types of blood in Aggie’s apartment,” he said. “O positive was one of them.”
Dan jumped up from his chair, knocking it over. “I don’t believe this.”
“The other one was Mark’s blood type.”
Dan picked the chair up and slammed it down on its legs, then plopped back into it and dropped his head into the circle of his arms.
Jill was silent for a moment. Then she spoke up. “Stan, O positive is the most common blood type. What about the DNA tests?”
“Not ready yet.”
“So where does that leave us?”
Stan turned his bloodshot eyes to Dan. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to book you, Dan.”
Dan looked up, his face burning. “Stan, you must know you’re making a mistake. You know me, man. We go to church together. I was in your wedding.”
Stan nodded glumly as he looked down at his hands. “Go ahead and book him.”
Vern got Dan to his feet again.
“Vern, we played football together. You know me, man!”
Vern didn’t answer as he led him to the door.
“Dan, I’m going to get you out of here as soon as I can,” Jill said. “I won’t rest until I do.”
Dan turned to her. “You believe me, don’t you, Jill? I didn’t do this!”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “I believe you. And I’ll make sure they do, too, before it’s all over.”
Dan was distraught as Vern led him out of the interrogation room. In the waiting area a few feet down, Mark sat in a chair with his bandaged head leaning back against the wall. Allie sat next to him. His pant legs were burned, and Dan could see blistering burns on his friend’s calves. Dan’s anger melted, and he took a step toward them.
“You don’t think I did this, do you, Mark?” he asked.
“No!” Mark got to his feet. “Vern, what’s going on?”
“We’re booking him,” Vern said reluctantly.
“Why? Dan, we both said that it couldn’t have been you.”
“So how come they weren’t convinced?” He looked at them both with a misty heaviness in his eyes. “Allie, you told them I disappeared when I was guarding you in the ICU waiting room. How could you tell them that? How could you even think it?”
“Dan, that’s not what I said. I told them you were with Jill and me all night. That you didn’t leave. They just asked me if there was ever a time when I woke up and you weren’t there, and I told them about when you had walked back in from the hall. I believe you, Dan. But I had to answer their questions. I want the killer caught.”
“Well, I’m not him!”
“We know you’re not,” Mark said. “Vern, I shot the guy in his right arm. Dan isn’t shot.”
Vern lifted Dan’s bloody hand. “It was dark, Mark. You could have just thought it was his arm.”
Mark’s fight drained out of him, and he stared, stricken, down at Dan’s hand.
“Mark, I broke a glass. Nick was there; he’ll tell you. It doesn’t even look like a gunshot wound.”
Dan jerked the bandage off and held out his hand. “You tell me, Mark. It’s just a stupid cut—doesn’t even need stitches. Does that look like a bullet did it?”
Mark couldn’t answer. Dan weighed and analyzed the confusion on Mark’s face, and realized that even his best friend had some doubts.
“Aw, man,” he said. “I don’t believe this.”
He turned away from all of them and started up the hallway, where he would be booked as the serial killer that had terrorized the town.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Marty Bledsoe’s parents lived in a mobile home near Metairie, right outside of New Orleans. It took R.J. Albright and Anthony Martin an hour and a half to find the trailer park. When they finally did, they saw a Metairie police officer waiting to make the arrest with them, since they had no jurisdiction there. They pulled up beside his squad car and rolled the window down. “Thanks for comin’,” R.J. said. “Sorry it took us so long to get here.”
“No problem,” the officer said. “You said it was about the Newpointe killin’s. You think the serial killer’s hidin’ out here?”
“We ain’t sure,” R.J. said. “We just need to take him in for questionin’.”
“Well, the trailer you want is up that-away to the right. I’ll foller ya’ll up.”
R.J. pulled up ahead and turned into the driveway.
When he saw that Marty’s pickup truck was parked out front, he knew they’d hit pay dirt.
A brisk wind swept up, chilling them, as they reached the door. R.J. knocked hard. It was after 1:30 A.M., so they waited, then rapped again.
R.J. was about to knock again when something metal touched the back of his neck. He jumped and reached for his gun.
“Don’t neither of you move.” It was Marty’s voice, and R.J. realized he had a gun pointed at him. Next to him, Anthony stood frozen, as well. The Metairie officer cursed and spat.
“It’s me, Marty—R.J. Put the gun down. Me and Anthony just want to talk to you.”
“You didn’t hunt me down at 1:30 in the mornin’ just to talk to me,” Marty said, his voice quivering. “What’d you come for? You gonna kill me and my kids now, too? You gonna kill my folks?”
“We ain’t gonna kill nobody!” Anthony shouted. “Marty, we’re here on police business. Put the stinkin’ gun down!”
“Turn around.”
The three cops turned slowly around and saw the fireman standing barefoot in nothing but his Fruit of the Looms. R.J. would have been amused if he hadn’t had a deer rifle pointed at his head.
“Did we get you out of bed?” Anthony asked.
R.J. almost laughed at the polite question. Didn’t Anthony realize Marty could blow them away?
“I come out the back way when you knocked,” Marty said. “I ain’t gon’ sleep through another killin’. This time I’m ready.”
R.J.’s amusement faded as he heard the pain and self-recrimination in Marty’s voice.
“Marty, I don’t blame you for bein’ nervous. But Stan sent us. We have to take you in for questionin’.” He kicked himself. How absurd, to tell Marty that when his finger was over the trigger.
“Me?” Marty asked. “Why would you wanna take me in? I’m one of the victims.”
“We just want to ask you some questions. You aren’t the only one.”
The porch light came on, and Marty’s father peered out. “I called the po-lice, son. They’re on their way.”
“These are police,” Marty said. “They’re sayin’ they have to take me in. Do me a favor, Pop. Call the Newpointe P.D. and see if they sent ’em.”
Marty’s father disappeared, and they waited while Marty kept his gun on them.
“No wound,” Anthony noted.
R.J. nodded. “I see that.”
“What are ya’ll talkin’ about?”
“Mark Bran
ning got into a scuffle with the killer tonight,” Anthony said. “Mark wounded him, but he got away.”
Marty’s face twisted, and R.J. saw the tears reddening his eyes. “Did he get Allie?”
“No, she’s okay.”
His mouth quivered. “You think I’m the killer?”
“No,” R.J. said honestly.
“Why would I do that?” He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Why would I want to do somethin’ like that?”
Flashing blue lights lit up the trees around the trailer as another Metairie police car approached. About that time, Marty’s father stepped out onto the porch. “They confirmed it, son. Stan Shepherd sent ’em. Put the gun down.”
Slowly, Marty lowered the rifle as another Metairie cop got out of his car.
R.J. relaxed. “Why don’t I go with you to put some clothes on, Marty, while Anthony fills him in. Then we’ll take you in and get this cleared up.”
Marty nodded, wiped his eyes again, and led R.J. into the house.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
With Dan Nichols locked up and Marty Bledsoe in interrogation—though they had ruled him out—Jim Shoemaker ordered Vern Hargis and Chad Avery to wake the judge to get a warrant to search Craig Barnes’s home and patrol truck, while Stan tried to find Craig.
Stan tried to shake the misery as he stepped out onto the front steps of the police station at two A.M. Several cameras were setting up there, and a reporter dashed up the steps to meet him. “Detective Shepherd, we’re told that you’ve made an arrest in the Fire Wife Killings.”
“No comment,” Stan said and trotted on down the stairs.
“Detective, can you confirm that it’s a local firefighter?”
“No, I cannot.” He reached his car and locked himself in, then tried to get his bearings as he cranked it and pulled away from the curb.
As he drove, his mind raced. As much as the evidence pointed to Dan, Stan didn’t want to believe it. But he didn’t want to believe Craig or Marty had done it, either, and the evidence suggested that it was one of the three.
He remembered Dan’s face as Vern had taken him to be booked. Part of him hoped they’d done the right thing, or Stan would never be able to live with himself. The other part, the bigger one, prayed for some turn of events that would prove Dan’s innocence. After all the prayer groups Stan had attended with him, all the Promise Keepers rallies…
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