Half Past Dead

by Meryl Sawyer

  “But not all of them. Some make it. Why don’t you take these and read them?” David asked, handing him the issues that covered Kat’s case. “I have another set.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Let me put them in a folder.” David opened a drawer and pulled out an accordion folder.

  “What did you think when you read the articles?”

  “A rush to judgment,” David replied as he slipped the papers into the file and handed it to Justin. “It would have been helpful to read the reporter’s notes, but the man’s long gone. I’ve tried e-mailing him. He’s no longer on AOL.”

  “Why do you want to read his notes?”

  “Often reporters write down rumors or things they can’t verify. That information doesn’t make it into print.”

  “I get the idea.”

  “What about the deputies? Did any of them help with the investigation?”

  “I’ve asked, but they said Sheriff Parker handled everything himself.”

  David frowned. “That in and of itself is suspicious. I knew the sheriff. He was a fat, lazy blowhard. I can’t see him doing all the work.”

  Justin nodding, thinking he would need to investigate this. Maybe Nora knew something. She was sharp and had been around for a long time. He glanced over his shoulder to be sure no one else was nearby. He pulled the tape of his conversation with Judge Kincaid out of his pocket.

  “Do you have a safe?” he asked David.

  “There’s a safe over in that closet.”

  “Would you store this tape for me? If anything happens to me, play it.”

  David took the tape and walked over to the closet. Inside was a big old-fashioned safe. “Are you expecting trouble?”

  “It’s a possibility. When I was on the force in New Orleans, I killed a man during a drug raid. Lucas Albright’s in jail, but he swore he would get me.”

  “Is this tape about that case?”

  Justin gave David credit. The guy was sharp. “No, Judge Kincaid and Buck Mason hate me. That’s what’s on the tape.”

  David nodded. “Kat told me the story. It seems ridiculous that they blame you for Verity Mason’s death.”

  “She killed herself months after we broke up, but Buck contends it was because she was still in love with me.”

  “She sounds a little…unbalanced.”

  “I suppose she was. I was too young to notice. I just thought she was too clingy, too needy. Buck spoiled her. He gave her everything she wanted. She had trouble accepting our relationship was over.”

  JUSTIN HAD FINISHED READING most of the articles on Kat’s arrest when she returned to the Trib. He quickly stashed the papers in the folder. He was sitting in David’s office as she sailed in. A vaguely sensuous current passed between them.

  Her sassy hairstyle had gone limp, a victim of humidity. Nevertheless she was still incredibly appealing. He held back, steeling himself against his almost primal reaction to her.

  “Your information paid off,” he told her, and David motioned for her to take the chair beside Justin. “Tony Mendoza did work with Pequita Romero.”

  Her lips edged into a rare—genuine—smile. “At a meth lab?”

  “It was more like a meth shack. A lean-to with a propane stove. They’d abandoned it, but the shack was still rank with ether fumes. The smell gets into the wood and the heat and humidity bring it out.”

  “Did Tony say who was running the operation?” she asked.

  “He claims he never met the ringleader. An acquaintance in Natchez told him about the job. The supplies were left for them. Their pay was there every Friday when they came to work.”

  “Do you buy that?” Kat asked, and Justin noted David’s approving smile.

  “I’m not sure,” he conceded. “It’s possible. When I was in New Orleans, we encountered a lot of double-blind operators.”

  Kat’s look was puzzled. “What’s double-blind?”

  “A dealer gets his drugs from someone else. That person picks them up from a drop-off point. Neither of them know the name of the actual dealer.”

  “That makes dealers difficult to catch,” Kat said.

  “From the size of the drum barrel vats they left behind, they were producing humongous amounts of meth.”

  “Wouldn’t it take a lot of cold medicine to produce that much meth?” David asked.

  “You bet. These days pharmacies limit the number of packages one person can buy. This much meth took a boatload of cold tablets—”

  “Boatload,” Kat interrupted. “Doesn’t the Lucky Seven paddle-wheel down to New Orleans and back? Could they be bringing cold tablets by the boxful disguised as food or something for the casino?”

  “Good thinking,” he said, and found that he meant it. Kat had a power and depth to her that went beyond merely being attractive. She was more intelligent than most women he’d met. Never mind. Don’t trust her until she proves herself.

  David might believe her sob story, but Justin had his doubts. His experience with Verity had taught him a bitter, painful lesson.

  “I did a series on the riverboat,” David told them. “They’re major polluters, but nobody wants to do anything about it. And there’s something fishy going on out there.”

  Kat looked at David. “Did you try to find a source at the casino?”

  “Yes, but no one was willing to talk to me. My reports came from public records on testing done by the Army Corps of Engineers on pollution in the Mississippi.” David hitched up his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I have a source out there now. I’ve asked for detailed information about who comes and goes and when. Over the years, I’ve found that’s the best place to start.”

  Justin nodded his agreement. “That’s how I was trained to investigate a crime. Know who the players are. And I don’t think we’re looking at a couple of scared illegals.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “ANY OTHER IDEAS?” Tori asked Clay.

  Clay took a swig of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. He savored the premium scotch for a moment before swallowing. “Not really. I thought offering your sister money would work.”

  They were sitting in the dining room of the Twin Oaks Country Club. They ate there several times a week. There were better restaurants in Jackson, and they often went there, but Clay preferred his club to anyplace in town. When she married Clay, she intended to be like May Ellen and have a cook. Then they would eat at home—just the two of them.

  “She could take the money and disappear—if she wanted to.” Tori swirled the chardonnay in her wineglass but didn’t take a sip.

  This woman who’d emerged from prison wasn’t the sister she’d been expecting. Several people had told her Kat had lost weight and was pretty. What an understatement! No one mentioned how assertive and downright hostile Kat had become. Tori had explained to her mother that there would be no manipulating Kat. Her mother had sat grim-faced and with unfocused eyes staring at some soap opera on the television. She’d replied “okay” in a weak, emotionless voice. Tori had never heard her mother sound so miserable. The end might be nearer than Tori thought.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Clay shrugged, his broad shoulders lifting the blue blazer he was wearing. “We’ll think of something. We always have.”

  “True,” Tori replied, cheered by Clay’s attitude. Lately, he’d been cold, distant. If she could no longer count on her mother, at least Clay was at her side.

  “Don’t look now, but here comes Buck Mason.”

  Tori groaned quietly. Buck Mason resented Tori. He’d planned for his daughter Verity to marry Clay before she’d unexpectedly killed herself.

  “Hey, Clay. How are you doing?” Buck asked.

  “Same old, same old.”

  Buck, the epitome of the Southern gentleman, nodded politely at Tori with the same cool blue eyes that had given Verity a reputation as an ice princess. Tori knew Buck would make no attempt to draw her into the conversation. He never did.

  Buck was over six feet
and still had the linebacker’s build that had propelled him into Ole Miss’s Hall of Fame. He kept himself fit by working out at the gym Tori used. A Friar Tuck fringe of ash-colored hair rimmed his head. The few wispy curls that survived were standing straight up tonight. His eyes were even more sunken into the fleshy folds of his face than usual.

  Buck’s wife had died shortly after Verity was born. He’d never remarried. A pharmacist, he’d devoted himself to raising Verity and running Mason’s Drugs and Gifts. His daughter’s death had crushed him.

  “I need some advice.” Buck’s voice had a raspy edge to it.

  Clay had no choice but to invite the older man to sit down. As Buck pulled out the chair, Clay rolled his eyes at Tori.

  “What’s the problem?” Clay asked.

  Tori prepared herself to hear some legal issue. People were unbelievably cheap. Instead of making an appointment to see Clay at his law office, they waylaid him at dinner or at parties.

  “Justin Radner’s back in town. Peebles made him the sheriff.”

  The venom in Buck’s voice could have backed down a pit bull. It reminded her of unstable guys who suddenly went postal. Tori had heard Buck rant about Justin ruining Verity’s life numerous times but tonight he sounded lunatic furious.

  “Peebles should have called an election,” Clay said.

  “How am I going to get rid of him?” Buck’s voice ticked up a notch.

  Clay considered the question a moment. “Find a candidate to run against him next year. I’ll help you do a smear campaign on Radner. Sending evidence out-of-state is a start.”

  “I’m not having him in my town a whole year. I want him gone now!”

  Buck had raised his voice so much that several diners turned to stare at him. Southern gentlemen did not yell especially in country clubs.

  “Buck, get a grip,” Clay said, his voice pitched low.

  The older man racked his fingers through the wispy tuft of hair on top of his head. “You don’t know what it’s like to have your little girl taken away because of a white-trash scumbag like Radner.”

  To Tori’s way of thinking, this was convoluted logic. Justin had broken up with Verity in the middle of the summer after their senior year. He’d gone off to Duke while Verity had attended Ole Miss. Verity didn’t die until a few days before Thanksgiving. At the time she’d been dating Clay.

  Tori shuddered inwardly. She’d been living in Oxford back then. Tori had nearly lost Clay. It had been a close call, but in the end, they were together again.

  “I know how you feel,” Clay told Buck. “Radner’s a worthless piece of—”

  Tori almost laughed. Had they been alone, Clay would have said “shit.” But Buck was from the old school, and like the judge, he didn’t condone cursing around ladies.

  “Your father won’t do anything.” Buck spit out the words—an accusation more than a statement of fact. “He says to let Radner alone. Wait for the election. I thought he was a better friend than that.”

  Wow! How had Justin Radner managed to come between two men who had been best friends for over half a century? Tori had been certain the judge would be dying to get rid of Justin. Turner Kincaid must have political reasons for staying out of this, she decided.

  “I thought you might know someone out at the Lucky Seven who could help me,” Buck said.

  The consortium backing the riverboat casino was rumored to be linked to a New Orleans crime family. Tori knew Clay went out there to play poker, but he’d never mentioned that any of the men were actually mobsters.

  “I can sniff around,” Clay replied. “I’ll tell them to contact you directly.”

  “I appreciate it.” Buck slowly pushed up from the table.

  After Buck had left the dining room, Tori asked, “Can you help him?”

  Clay shrugged. “I can put out the word at the casino. That’s all I’m going to do. Radner’s a world-class asshole, but I have to think about my father’s political career. I can’t be directly involved in this.”

  Once again politics had invaded her life. Last week, Clay wouldn’t have used his father’s political ambitions as a reason for not helping Buck. The realm of politics was a large, ugly world full of people beyond her control.

  An idea occurred to Tori. “Can you ask around at the riverboat and see if someone will talk to Kat? Scare her a little. Then she’ll leave.”

  “I can ask,” he shrugged, “but I’m not sure I’ll find anyone.”

  “Maybe I’ll come up with something. I talked to Justin about getting her furlough revoked. He wasn’t very helpful.”

  “Stay away from Radner,” Clay warned.

  “THEY ALL SHOULD BE HOME by now,” Justin told Kat.

  They were on the outer fringe of the “north side” in Justin’s pickup. Tony Mendoza told Justin that Pequita had lived in this one bedroom shanty with five other women. Since none of them spoke English, Kat had agreed to interview them to confirm what Tony had told Justin.

  Kat nodded, gave Redd’s nose a pat, and hopped out of Justin’s pickup. She walked up to the wooden shack that hadn’t seen a paintbrush in years. The front door was open and the screen door had several holes in it. The radio inside was tuned to a Spanish language station. The delicious aroma of carne asada made Kat’s stomach rumble. It was after eight, and she hadn’t had a thing since eating a yogurt at noon.

  She’d gone about her business, doing the interviews David had requested, but her mind had been on Justin. The most ridiculous thoughts kept replaying in her head. What would it be like if Justin loved her? What would it be like to be held in his powerful arms every night?

  She might not have been able to get that kiss out of her head, but Justin had clearly forgotten it. He’d been all business. She wouldn’t be with him now except that she spoke some Spanish.

  She knocked on the screen door. The chatter stopped. Someone called out, “Si?” from the kitchen.

  “Es una amiga de Pequita.” It’s a friend of Pequita’s. A fib but Kat didn’t know what else to say. Her experience with Maria had told how wary of strangers the immigrants were.

  IT TOOK KAT NEARLY HALF AN HOUR to pry the facts out of the women. She returned to the pickup with a plastic bag full of the dead woman’s things. She handed the bag to Justin, saying, “Tony told you the truth. Pequita lived here. These are her things.”

  “Any chance there’s a hairbrush in there?” Even in the darkness of the pickup, his gaze was blue and piercing.

  “Yes.” Redd nosed her from the backseat, and she gave him a quick pat. “You’re going to compare the hair against the hair on the body.”

  “You bet.” He turned on the headlights, started the engine, then pulled away from the house. “It’s the only way we can positively ID her. She didn’t have any dental work.”

  “I doubt her family could afford it. That’s why she came here.”

  “True. What else did her roommates tell you?”

  “Maria told me Pequita was very ambitious, and her roommates confirmed it. Pequita bragged about getting a lot of money. She went out late one night to collect this windfall and didn’t return.”

  “They never reported her missing.”

  “No. They knew something must have happened to her, but they were too concerned about being deported to go to the authorities.”

  Kat hadn’t been paying much attention to where Justin was driving. Now she realized he wasn’t heading back to the Trib. “Where are you going?”

  He turned to her and a slow smile curved his lips. “I’m taking you to dinner.”

  Kat was thankful it was dark inside the truck. She could feel the heat creeping up into her cheeks. She knew she should say no but she couldn’t make the words come out. Truth to tell, she wanted to be with him—even if she knew better.

  “ARE YOU AWARE that some aspect of your case must be still under investigation?” Justin asked.

  “Really?” she replied in what she hoped was a surprised tone.

  They’d eaten a
t the Ragin’ Cajun Café, and Justin had driven her back to the Trib to pick up her car. He’d insisted on following her home and walking her to the door. The steps groaned as they went up, guided only by the light of the street lamp on the corner. Redd followed, his claws clicking on the wooden slats.

  “They’re investigating something,” he told her with a brittle smile. “I thought you might know what it is.”

  “I don’t know.” This much was true. She was waiting to be contacted. No one had deigned to tell her what was really going on. She constantly checked her cell phone, but no one had called her.

  He studied her a moment with a gaze that was way too penetrating. She thought he saw right through her and knew she was hiding something. She brazened it out, looking right at him and silently daring him to challenge her.

  She took out her key and fumbled with the lock. It was difficult to see, and she wished she’d left the porch light on. But it would have burned all day and run up her electrical bill.

  “You need a light that comes on automatically when something gets near it.”

  Her key finally slipped into the lock. “I need lots of things. When I get paid, I’m going to buy some of them.”

  She opened the door, reached in, and flicked on the porch light, then hit the switch to turn on the small lamp across the room. “Thanks for dinner.”

  He slid by her and went into the stuffy apartment. Redd trotted after him. “It’s too easy to get in here. You need a dead bolt on the door.” He inspected the two windows facing the alley. He opened one and a whoosh of air that was only slightly cooler than her apartment gusted into the room. “Do you keep these open at night?”

  “When it’s hot, I do.”

  He shook his head. “All anyone has to do to get in is come across the roof next door and walk along the ledge under your window.”

  “No one’s going to bother me,” she replied.

  “What about your sister? I wouldn’t be so trusting, if I were you.”

  “I’m not.” She didn’t like to think Tori would hurt her, but she was desperate to marry Clay. Anything was possible.