“You here to stay?” Pete Lancet finally asked.
Hud looked down at him, past Sloane, who stood as still as a bittern not wanting to be discovered. “Burke said to get to work.”
Lancet had on a different pair of cowboy boots, shiny black with silver lightning bolts coming out of the pointed toes. They went along with the black jeans and black sport coat he was wearing. His tie was lying on top of the closest table. “Call it what you want.”
The air was thick, and Lancet’s eyes were as hard as the two-inch heels of his boots. Hud sighed. He was in no mood to prove his worth or enter into a war of words with someone he hardly knew. It seemed pointless. “Where did Kaye Sherman work?”
“It’s in the file,” Lancet said quickly. “Haven’t read it?”
Sloane broke her statue stance and glared at Lancet. “Knock it off, Pete. We need all of the help we can get.”
“He’s done enough, hasn’t he?”
Sloane closed her eyes, then looked over at Hud. “You get it?”
“Yeah,” Hud said. “I get it. Can’t say I blame you, Pete. I’ve had a rocky start.”
“We don’t need your help,” Lancet said.
Hud shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Lancet’s jaw set even harder, threatened to shatter. “I am.” He spun around, grabbed his tie, and stalked out of the room.
Hud was tempted to go after him, put an end to the tension one way or another, but Sloane reached over and touched his elbow gently. “Let him go. We have some things to talk about anyway.” Her voice was low, almost a whisper, husky and slightly seductive in a way Hud hadn’t heard from her before.
He restrained himself, relaxed as much as he could, and turned his attention back to the picture of Kaye Sherman. She was the break in the pattern. She hadn’t been shot like Pam Sizemore and Leo Sherman. Her murder seemed like a reaction, not part of the plan. At least to Hud. For some reason, now that he saw her alive and happy, he thought she might be the one that was hiding something. Not Leo.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sloane grabbed up a file from the table that Lancet’s tie had been lying on. “Everything we have to date is here. You can review it once we leave.” She handed the file to Hud.
“So you know you’re babysitting me?” he said.
“Whatever you want to call it. Burke trusts me. Besides, he knows how Pete feels about riding with anyone.”
“The lone cowboy. Impressive.”
“He’s just territorial. Don’t worry about him. He’ll warm up to you when the chips are down and he needs something from you. He put me through the wringer before he finally gave me a break when I first got my shield. I thought it was because I was a woman. It wasn’t. He just doesn’t like competition of any kind.”
“If you say so. He started out nice as pie, then a switch flipped.”
“He’s like that. You’ll get to know his moods.”
Hud grasped the file a little tighter, turned his attention back to the board, and stared at the picture of Kaye Sherman again. “Bring me up to speed. Where’d Sherman’s wife work?”
“She was an office manager for a doctor’s office. Has been for years. Went to work as a file clerk right out of high school and worked her way up. Things changed over the years from one doctor to seven. It became a corporation once the new hospital went up in town. It wasn’t a country doctor’s office. She had skills and a lot of responsibilities. Everybody liked her.”
“You interviewed her office?”
“I did. I didn’t turn up anything that gave me concern. She was a victim in this thing. A senseless loss if you ask me.”
“Did she have any access to drugs?”
Sloane scrunched her forehead. “Sure, I guess, though she didn’t have any medical capabilities that I know of. Why?”
“I don’t know; I’m just trying to link Sherman to Pam Sizemore,” Hud said. “Has toxicology come back on Sizemore?”
“It’s in the file. Preliminary.”
“Any meth?”
Sloane shook her head. “None. Some Tylenol, nicotine, and OxyContin. All moderate levels.”
“Did she have a prescription for the Oxy?”
“Nope. None that we can find. That’d be hard to overlook.”
“I’m not surprised,” Hud said.
“Why not?”
“At first I thought Pam Sizemore was a heavy duty meth user, at least until I spent a little time around her kid. He looked the same way she did. Emaciated, frail, dark circles under his eyes like he knew chronic pain. Then I began to think she had a condition of some kind. Moran confirmed it, but we haven’t discussed it in detail. Our conversation was interrupted.”
Sloane stepped back from the wall and looked toward Burke’s office. Hud followed suit and saw the chief through the glass wall talking on the phone. It looked like a casual conversation. Burke wasn’t throwing his arms about in protest or demanding anything, at least not yet.
“Have you seen everything you need to?” Sloane said.
Hud glanced back at the wall. “Yeah, for now, I think. You have something in mind?”
Sloane grabbed up her purse, a nondescript, black, over-the-shoulder deal that could go with all her of work outfits, and headed toward the door. “I need to get out of here.”
For some reason, the look on Sloane’s face and the words that came out of her mouth sounded personal. Like a woman scorned instead of a detective on her way out the door to solve a crime.
It was no easy task avoiding the media. The trucks and vans had started to overflow from the front parking lot to the side of the building. Hud and Sloane hurried to her car, another Crown Vic, slightly newer than Hud’s and clean as the day it had been driven out of the factory. Sloane slid in behind the steering wheel and closed her door. Hud made himself as comfortable as he could with all of the electronics mounted on the dash. The interior of the vehicle was a traveling office with communication capabilities unheard of only years before.
“I’m surprised that we got away without being accosted by a reporter,” Sloane said.
“Me, too.”
Sloane didn’t take any chances and sped out of the parking lot as quick as she could.
“You have some place in mind that we need to go?” Hud asked.
“As far away from there as possible.” Sloane kept her eyes on the road and her face blank of emotion, but her eyes betrayed her. They were full of rage, narrowed, in an unusual expression that Hud hadn’t seen before.
“How come I get the feeling I missed something?” Hud said.
“You didn’t miss anything. Nothing. Okay?”
“Sure, if you say so.”
Sloane didn’t answer, just kept driving. Her eyes grew glassy, and her hands gripped the wheel so hard it looked as if she was trying to manhandle an uncontrollable car. But that wasn’t it at all. The road was starting to dry, and any ice that had formed on it overnight had already melted.
Hud was puzzled by Sloane, but he knew when to speak and when to shut up. Something was going on with her; he just wasn’t sure what it was. Time would tell if it was important. He was as sure of that as he was of anything else.
They came to a stop in the parking lot of Johnny Long’s Supper Club. The restaurant didn’t serve breakfast in the off-season, just lunch and dinner. A delivery truck was parked at the rear, and three other cars were huddled up close to the back door. Hud glanced across the parking lot to the Demmie Hotel and saw that their parking lot was just as sparse. It was too early for Tilt Evans to take his station behind the bar, but just the thought of the thin old man gave Hud a taste for a bit of whiskey to get the day going. He might take the urge a little more seriously if he were by himself.
“What’s up here?” Hud asked, as Sloane parked at the front door.
“This was the last place Pam Sizemore was seen alive.”
“Right. At the back door with a busboy. Jordan something or other. Tilt Evans told me about him.”
“Probably scared the shit out of him.”
Sloane didn’t react. “I want to talk to him. I think he’s holding out on something.”
“You were in the room?”
“Why do you think Burke hired a woman?”
“You soften the blow. Look at them with mommy-eyes and pull a confession out of them. Or maybe he likes the scenery. Burke always has enjoyed the company of women.”
Sloane shot him a hateful look, but said nothing.
“Sorry, that was out of line,” Hud said.
“It was.”
“Okay, what’s his story, this Jordan Rogers kid?”
“No known priors. C student at school. Not even a traffic ticket. Folks live on the south shore year round. Father works in town at a machine shop on and off when they need a welder, and his mother drives a school bus. Hard working, ordinary people with ordinary lives, who’ve probably seen tougher times than we can imagine.”
“How’d he know Pam Sizemore?”
“Tilt says she was a friend of a friend and she was looking for this Jordan Rogers guy. Only when I talked to Rogers, he said he had no idea why she would have been looking for him.”
“So, he’s lying,” Hud said.
“I think so. He knows what Pam wanted, but he wouldn’t tell us. Her tox report gave me an idea.”
Hud stared out the window at the building before him. Johnny Long’s looked the same as it had when he was a kid, only smaller somehow, and more decrepit, antiquated in a 1950s Vegas kind of way. The scalloped trim needed painting, and some of the lightbulbs in the sign were broken. He could imagine the interior was the same. “Why would he lie?”
“If he was getting meth off of her that’d be a problem, wouldn’t it? You think he’d confess to that after she’s been killed? Who wants to be linked to a murder?”
“She cooked but didn’t use. Is that what you think? She just sold?”
“It happens a lot. Makes sense, good business sense actually. If it was only for yourself, why would you ever leave? She had to have a motivation for cooking, especially when there wasn’t a trace of it in her system.”
“He has the look?”
“It wouldn’t take too much imagination to see him tweak out.”
“Great, I just love dealing with meth-heads first thing in the morning.”
“I’ve told you already, sometimes it’s like she didn’t exist. She didn’t leave a diary, no pictures, nothing in the house that has ever given me a clue as to what had changed in her life.”
“Maybe it’s best that you don’t know.”
“Are you suggesting that I should have stopped looking for her? You of all people? You would have done the same thing.”
“I probably would have. But at some point you have to get on with your life. Maybe you should have forgiven her.”
“Forgiven her? For what?”
“For leaving you.”
“I don’t know what to say to that. That’s what I was doing. That’s why I came back.”
“Sure it was.”
Jordan Rogers rolled his eyes when he looked up and saw Sloane and Hud walking his way. Sloane had been right. The boy looked like a classic meth-head. He was in his late teens or early twenties, thin as a rail, with long, straggly hair that didn’t look like it had been washed in weeks, and his right arm was a sleeve of poorly rendered blue-ink tattoos.
A broth of some kind was simmering on a six-burner gas stove, and the entire kitchen smelled institutional, like the hallway of a school two hours before lunch. The kitchen was as big as Gee’s house, including the shop, and held the biggest collection of stainless steel tables, dishwashers, stoves, refrigerators, and walk-in freezers that Hud had ever seen.
“A moment of your time, Mr. Rogers,” Sloane said, as she flipped her badge at the boy.
A manager, a short, balding older man that Hud didn’t know, and Sloane didn’t seem concerned about, had let them into the kitchen. The back door was open, and the delivery truck driver was carting in crates of leafy green vegetables.
“I know who you are,” Jordan said. His eyes darted to Hud, and he talked fast; one word tumbled over the next. “Who’s he?”
“Detective Matthews. He’s riding along with me today. Nothing to concern yourself with. I just need to ask you a few more questions.”
“My dad said I shouldn’t talk to you without a lawyer no more.”
“It’s a real simple question, Jordan,” Sloane said. Her voice was soft, as comforting as the smell of the broth. In almost two seconds, she had transformed herself, relaxed, let all of her hard edges wither away. Hud was impressed.
“I’m supposed to call him if the cops come around,” Jordan said. His chest heaved just as the delivery driver slammed the walk-in door shut. Jordan jumped at the noise, turned away to identify the cause of it, then spun around again to face Sloane.
“One question, then I’ll leave you alone, Jordan. I promise. You already have an alibi. Nobody thinks you hurt Pam. We told you that.”
“I don’t need no trouble.”
Hud stood back and watched the kid closely. His skinny little fingers were twitching, and his left foot was tapping a fast beat. He wasn’t full-out stoned, but it hadn’t been long. Maybe a day or two since he’d crashed and collapsed into a long-needed sleep. It was getting close to time for another hit to tweak himself back up.
“One question, then we’ll leave. Okay? I don’t want you to get in trouble with your boss.”
“I need my job.”
“I know you do,” Sloane whispered. “Times are tough all over.”
Jordan looked at the door that led into the dining room. The manager lurked close by. Hud could hear him stapling papers at the maître d stand. “One question, then you’ll leave?”
“I promise,” Sloane said. Nothing changed. No sign of victory. She didn’t even flinch.
“What?” Jordan said. “Go on, what?”
Sloane took a step closer to the boy. He watched her and froze. All of the twitching and tapping stopped. It was as if a vacuum had sucked all of the air out of the room. “If I wanted to trade some meth for some Oxy, who would I go to? I know you know. You just need to tell me where Pam got her Oxy.”
It was clearly not the question Jordan Rogers had been expecting, but it hit a nerve. All of the color instantly drained from his face, and he bit his top lip. Then he took a deep breath, as if he was going to say something. But he didn’t. He spun around again, only this time toward the back door, and he bolted straight out of it. Broke into a full run before Hud or Sloane could say another word.
“Shit!” Hud said, then pushed past Sloane as fast as he could and started to chase Jordan Rogers with all of his strength and determination.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jordan Rogers was fueled by fear and youth and ran almost twice as fast as Hud. The ground was moist, as the mid-morning sun burned off the frozen dew. A thin layer of fog hung over the lake, encasing the surrounding world in silence. The lake was smooth. No waves lapped against the shore. All Hud could hear was the beating of his heart, the struggle for breath erupting from his chest, and his hard-soled brown wingtips hitting the ground harder and faster than they were intended to. It was all he could do to keep his balance as he zigzagged in between the trees and the shore, following Jordan’s trail. His lungs burned, and he wished he’d never started smoking again.
The land behind Johnny Long’s reached out and met the lake in a gradual slope. To the north, the direction Jordan had fled, was an open lot that stretched about one hundred yards. It was peppered with tall trees, mostly oak mixed with some pine, and the grass was thin on the slippery ground. The lot ended in private property, as another row of dilapidated pre-World War II cottages stared out over the lake. None o
f the yards were fenced in, and this gathering of cottages offered plenty of places to hide if the kid knew the area at all.
Jordan kept running and Hud kept chasing, even though he was losing the race. What Jordan Rogers lacked, though, was focus and a well-thought-out escape plan. He kept looking over his shoulder, checking to see where Hud was, how close he was behind him. It was an every-two-second exercise, which, in the end, proved to be his downfall. Jordan slipped on the wet ground, bounced off a thick oak tree, tumbled forward, and slid face first against another tree.
Hud pushed harder than he thought he was capable of. Adrenaline kicked in. This time he was the owl and not the mouse. His prey scrambled to his feet, slipped again, then gained his footing just as Hud leapt into the air; if only he’d had wings. They collided, a flesh against flesh tackle that was Super Bowl–worthy, followed by a crack and a loud groan that echoed off the thin, vaporous wall of fog. They crumpled to the ground in a heap of arms and legs.
Every police department’s interrogation room looked pretty much the same: bare walls, bright overhead fluorescent lights, a two-way mirror, a nondescript four-legged table that would have made the Shakers proud, and two utility chairs. Comfort was not in the design plans, or in the ventilation. The air was thick, unmoving, and, despite how cold it was outside, warm and stuffy inside the room. Sweat beaded on Hud’s brow.
Sloane sat across from Jordan Rogers, and Hud stood next to the door doing his best James Dean imitation, with his right foot behind him, holding up the wall. All he was missing was a cigarette dangling from his mouth. His pants had dried from the rumble and tumble of the apprehension, but they were dirty. He was starting to think he had an unnatural attraction to mud.
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