The Guilty

by David Baldacci

  his phone.

  “Now we call in the cops and hope they don’t arrest us.”

  “Well, if they do, you and your dad might end up with some quality time together.”

  “I’m not sure that will ever be possible.”

  Chapter

  49

  SHERIFF MONDA STARED down at Sara Chisum’s body, which was in the exact position where she had fallen. They were waiting for the coroner to come and examine it. And since the town coroner was also the owner of the local funeral home and not an employee of the state, he had been away at a convention in Louisiana when the call came in. They were told his arrival might still be a couple of hours away.

  Chisum’s bike was parked next to a tree. She had arrived silently, as silently as she had died.

  Monda walked over to where Robie and Reel were standing with Sheila Taggert.

  He said, “Okay, let me get this straight, so you came out here hopin’ to get a line on the person Sara was tryin’ to get money from?”

  “That’s right,” said Robie.

  “And it didn’t occur to you to call us?” said Monda irritably.

  “Frankly, no it didn’t,” replied Robie. “We had no idea if Emma Chisum was really telling the truth. I didn’t want to involve the police and waste your time and resources for what might turn out to be nothing.”

  Monda looked back over at the body. “Well, it didn’t turn out to be nothin’, did it?”

  “I can’t disagree with you there, Sheriff.”

  “So you think it was an SUV?” said Taggert.

  Robie nodded. “And I’m pretty sure I hit it. So there’s something you can track down.”

  “You have any idea what Sara was goin’ to tell this person? I’m assumin’ the person just killed her instead of talkin’ to her?”

  “We didn’t hear anyone speak,” said Reel. “We heard a car approach and then the shot was fired. We didn’t hear Sara coming in on her bike. We were waiting around the perimeter of the clearing. That’s where we thought the meeting would take place. Either the killer changed the location to the spot next to the road or it was unlucky timing on Sara’s part, I don’t know.”

  Robie said, “You might want to put the rest of the Chisum family in protective custody.”

  Monda nodded. “I think, under the circumstances, that’s a good idea. Do you think Emma has any inklin’ what this is about?”

  “She swears she doesn’t,” said Reel. “But I don’t believe her.”

  “Anythin’ else?” asked Monda.

  “Have you been in contact with the FBI?”

  Monda nodded. “They let us know they were in the area.”

  “Did they tell you why they were in the area?” asked Reel.

  “No. Do you know why?”

  “If they didn’t tell you, it’s certainly not my place to.”

  “Listen, Robie, I want to know what the hell is goin’ on in Cantrell,” barked Monda.

  “Then I suggest you call Agent Wurtzburger back and demand that he tell you. I would if I were you.”

  He looked over at Sara’s body.

  Monda followed his gaze and said, “Guess you couldn’t save her this time.”

  “Guess not,” replied Robie.

  Robie and Reel drove back mostly in silence to the Willows. They had failed in their mission and someone had died. This fact was not going down well with either of them.

  Reel finally stirred. “Sara was our best chance to get some traction on this and we screwed it up. Okay, she wasn’t the nicest person in the world, but that doesn’t entitle someone to just blow her away.”

  “We have one more option. Pete Clancy.”

  “Only he’s gone and we don’t know where he is.”

  “I didn’t say it would be easy.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Monda about the serial killer angle?”

  “Because he needs to get that information from Wurtzburger, not us. I’m not poaching on the FBI’s turf.”

  “You think our serial killer was driving that SUV tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “If you hit the truck with a pistol round there’ll be evidence of that.”

  “Granted. But where do we start looking? In every garage and swamp in Cantrell?”

  “If Sara was there to cut a deal with her killer, what was the quid pro quo?” asked Reel.

  “They searched her clothing,” said Robie. “And found nothing helpful. Her phone was in there. Maybe they can check to see if she had another recent phone call. Although they couldn’t trace the other one.”

  “But it could be something she had in her head. Or she was smart enough not to bring whatever she had with her. She gets paid off and then tells the person where it is.”

  “I’m not sure the killer would have been that understanding.”

  “What else then?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Robie. “Things are more muddied than when I got here. And that’s saying something, because they were as muddied as the Mississippi Delta when I pulled into Cantrell.”

  “Clancy dead. Janet dead. Now Sara dead.”

  Robie shook his head. “I know what Wurtzburger said, but what would Sara have to bargain over with a serial killer?”

  “Well, either Wurtzburger is totally barking up the wrong tree and another killer is doing this, or his serial killer is involved, which means Sara did have something on him, we just don’t know what.”

  “Well, I’m not buying it.”

  “I’m not saying I do, either. But we don’t have an abundance of leads to track down. And the ones we do have get killed or turn up missing.”

  Robie looked down at his phone, on which he had brought up the photo of the man with the little kids. He had snapped a picture of the original before giving it to Wurtzburger for his facial recognition search.

  “What?” said Reel, looking in disgust at the image.

  “Just thought of something.”

  “Well, don’t leave me in suspense.”

  Robie held up the image.

  “Who the hell took the picture?”

  Chapter

  50

  IT WAS NEARLY eleven in the morning when they got back to the Willows.

  As they drove up, Robie and Reel heard peals of laughter coming from the rear of the house.

  They headed that way and when they turned the corner they saw the detached garage where Victoria’s Volvo and Dan Robie’s Range Rover stood side by side. Next to the car was a big bucket with soapy water in it and a sponge next to the bucket.

  In front of the vehicles stood Victoria. She held a hose in one hand and was spraying Tyler, who was running in circles with a big smile on his face, while his mother laughed.

  Victoria saw Robie and Reel and shut off the hose.

  “Well, I see you two were out before the sun came up,” she said, clearly annoyed.

  “We had some things to look into,” said Robie, deciding not to tell her they had actually been out all night. He looked at the bucket and the drenched Tyler. “He’s having fun.”

  “We were just doing some chores when I decided this little guy needed a cooling down.”

  “I can see that,” said Robie, who was watching Tyler with amusement. He was pointing at the hose and then at himself.

  Reel said, “I think he wants another blast.”

  Victoria sprayed Tyler again, while he once more ran in a circle. If he could speak Robie could imagine the boy screaming with delight. The day was already very hot and the water was no doubt very cold.

  Robie eyed his father’s Range Rover, his gaze flitting over the New Orleans Saints sticker on the back hatch. He still didn’t know if his father had been driving the SUV on the night of Clancy’s murder. The fact that his father had refused to say whether he had or not made Robie suspect that his father had been driving the Range Rover. If so, where had he been going to or coming from at that time of night?

  “So what have you two early birds
been up to?” asked Victoria.

  Robie glanced at Reel, who shrugged.

  “We’ve actually been out all night,” he admitted.

  “What?”

  Robie explained to her what had happened, keeping his voice low so that Tyler couldn’t hear.

  She dropped the hose, went over to Tyler, and lifted him, soaking wet, and pressed him to her chest.

  “I…I don’t understand. What is going on?” she said, her voice cracking.

  “We don’t understand it, either,” said Robie. “It seems like whenever we start to make some headway, we lose that advantage. First Pete disappears and now this.”

  Victoria stroked Tyler’s head. “What are you going to do now?”

  Robie shook his head. “Not sure.”

  “Do you think Dan should be kept in jail?” she asked. “At least there no one can”—she glanced down at Tyler—“do anything to him.”

  “That might be best, actually,” said Robie.

  Victoria carried Tyler over to a little red wagon and put him in it. “We’ll head back to the house in a minute, sweetie, and get you all dry.” She turned back to Robie and Reel.

  “So if Dan didn’t kill Sherm Clancy, then the person who killed the Chisum girls might have killed him, too?”

  “It’s certainly possible. We know that my father couldn’t have killed Sara Chisum. He was locked up. So if the murders are connected, then that lets him out.”

  Victoria nodded thoughtfully, the look of fear still evident in her eyes.

  “Well, that’s certainly something to be thankful for. But—”

  “But that means a killer is still on the loose,” said Reel.

  Victoria nodded. Then she took the wagon handle and slowly pulled Tyler back to the house.

  “That woman is scared,” said Reel.

  “That woman should be scared,” replied Robie.

  Chapter

  51

  LATE THAT NIGHT Robie opened his eyes when he heard it. He blinked a couple of times then sat up, his body tensed, his mind alert and ready.

  There it came again.

  Outside.

  No, inside.

  No, it was both outside and inside.

  His mind clouded over for a bit but then snapped back.

  Two sounds, in and out.

  Two sources for those sounds.

  He rose, slipped on his pants, and gunned up.

  He chose to work from in to out.

  The hallway upstairs was clear. Robie stood next to his door in a crouch, his gun pointed in front of him, directed in a swiveling arc at the darkness.

  He waited, listened. His head jerked to the left when he heard the sound again.

  Crying.

  Someone was crying.

  It wasn’t Reel, he knew that. The woman didn’t cry.

  It wasn’t Tyler, because it was clearly a woman and Tyler didn’t make any noise at all.

  It might be Priscilla, but her room was downstairs and on the other end of the house.

  That left Victoria.

  He slipped over to her door and knocked.

  “Victoria?”

  The weeping instantly stopped.

  “What?” said a hoarse voice.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fi—no, I’m not okay.”

  Robie placed his gun in the waistband at the small of his back. “Can I come in?”

  He heard footsteps crossing the floor and a few moments later the door was opened.

  Victoria stood there wearing a T-shirt and silk pajama shorts.

  Her eyes were puffy and her hair was in disarray.

  “You were crying?” he began.

  She didn’t answer, but turned around, walked over, and perched on the edge of the bed.

  Robie closed the door, pulled up a chair from a small vanity, and sat across from her.

  “You want to talk about it?” he said.

  “What’s there to talk about?” she snapped. “My life is for shit. End of story. I’ll probably be crying the rest of my life.”

  “You can’t know that, Victoria.”

  She reached over, snagged a tissue from a box off the nightstand, and blew her nose.

  “I can know that. I do know that. Even if Dan gets off, so what? People around here will always have doubts. That will kill him as much as being found guilty and sent to prison.”

  Robie slowly took this in. That was what his father had told him, too. Perhaps he had told his wife the same thing.

  “You need to take this one day at a time. Don’t jump ahead. Don’t think too much about it. It’ll overwhelm you.” He paused. “And you have Tyler.”

  She nodded, tears still leaking from her eyes. “If I didn’t have him, I think I’d already be in the loony bin.”

  “Well, you do have him. And you have me, too.”

  She looked up at him. “Your being here has really helped, Will. I mean that. With all my heart.”

  She leaned over, gave him a hug, and kissed him on the cheek.

  Then she dried her eyes with the tissue and said, “Well, thanks for letting me vent. I’m sure things will look better in the morning.”

  “We’re going to find the truth, Victoria. I promise you that.”

  She looked at him, her eyes raw. “And what if you don’t like the truth, what then?”

  “I’ll deal with that when it comes.”

  She blew her nose once more. “I guess we all will.”

  “Good night, Victoria.”

  “Good night, Will. You should get some sleep. Sorry I woke you.”