Murder in the Smokies

by Paula Graves

  In other words, Sutton thought, he hadn’t. Why would he? Sutton had left the second he turned eighteen and made it clear to his father that he didn’t want to see him again. “He can understand you, right?”

  Seth nodded. “The doctors aren’t sure why he’s not able to talk. They think it might be psychosomatic. You know how vain Cleve’s always been about his looks. The doctors speculated staying mute might be a way to avoid interacting with other folks when he’s this way.”

  “What about therapy? Is he still getting therapy?”

  “I take him once a week. It’s all he’ll agree to, and he fights them all the way. I get the feeling the folks at the rehab place would be happy as pigs in slop if Cleve never came back, but I’m not ready to give up on him yet.”

  Sutton stared at the other man, not sure what he was feeling. Guilt, certainly, but was there also a little envy? Envy that Seth Hammond was playing the role of Cleve’s son, doing the things Sutton should have been doing? “And he never asked for me?”

  “I reckon he knew you wouldn’t come.”

  “Nobody gave me the chance.”

  “I called—”

  “You could have kept at it. Sent a letter or, hell, you could have had Delilah tell me.”

  “I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.” Seth’s voice lowered a notch. “You made it real clear you weren’t coming back here and Cleve was a big reason why. I wasn’t sure draggin’ you back here kicking and screaming would have been any good for him. He needs somebody who actually gives a damn, not somebody who feels guilty and obligated.”

  Sutton wanted to argue. He wanted to slap that mildly scolding look off Seth Hammond’s face and tell him to get the hell out of his house. But it wasn’t his house. And apparently, for the past five years, at least, Seth had been a far better son to Cleve than Sutton ever had.

  “I know he didn’t show it, but I think he was real glad to see you.”

  The only thing worse than Seth’s disapproval was his compassionate pity. “Give me a break. I saw how he looked at me.”

  “Why did you come here today, Sutton?”

  Sutton thought about lying, but he realized the truth might get him a lot further with Seth. Like a lot of con men, Seth was as good at spotting a lie as he was at telling one. “I was following you.”

  Seth’s eyebrows notched upward a moment before his expression went neutral. “Should I be flattered or take out a restraining order?”

  Sutton didn’t answer.

  “It’s about the murders, right?”

  “You work at a place where three of the four victims worked.”

  “So, naturally, I’m the prime suspect.”

  Sutton wished he could say yes, just to wipe the annoyed look off Seth’s face. What did he expect? He’d happily followed in Cleve’s scam-pulling footsteps, taking to the confidence game as if he was born for it. “Your hands aren’t the cleanest in the county.”

  “I haven’t pulled a con in years. And I’ve never been violent. You know that.” Seth smirked. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  “You’re awfully interested in the murders. I mean, you went to a lot of trouble to get in contact with me about what you knew.”

  “Mr. Davenport hired me when a whole lot of people wouldn’t have let me in the door. He took a chance on me, and if I can do anything to protect him and his business—”

  “Sounds personal.”

  “Like I said, he took a chance. Not many would’ve.”

  “Did you hear there was another murder yesterday?”

  Seth looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I knew about it before lunchtime. You know how this town is.”

  “Did Marjorie Kenner ever work at Davenport Trucking?”

  “No, as far as I know, she retired from the school and took to tutoring out of her house to make a little pocket change.”

  “Could there be any connection between her and anyone at the company? Maybe she rented a truck?”

  “I don’t think so.” Seth’s brow furrowed. “I’ve been working there a little over a year, so she might have done it before my time. But why would a serial killer target someone who just rented a truck?”

  Damned good question, Sutton had to concede. April Billings had been twenty years old. Marjorie Kenner had to be in her late fifties at the very youngest. “Did you know either of the other two women who died?” he asked Seth.

  “Amelia Sanderson I knew. She worked in the office until her death. I also knew Coral Vines from growing up, remember? Ah, maybe you didn’t. She was younger than us and by the time she came to high school, you were already halfway out of town. The women at the office talked about her all the time. Apparently she went off the deep end straight into a bottle after her husband got killed in combat in Afghanistan.” Seth’s eyes narrowed slightly as he lifted his gaze to meet Sutton’s, a hint of awareness in his green eyes. He would know that Sutton had joined the army. That it was likely he’d traveled overseas, to Iraq or Afghanistan or any number of hot spots where the United States had stationed forces.

  But Sutton didn’t want his admiration or pity or whatever it was those sharp green eyes were trying to say to him. “How old were they?”

  The question seemed to surprise Seth. “Um, I don’t know about Amelia—probably around our age. Maybe a year or two younger. She lived in Bitterwood. Everybody who’s been killed so far did, even though they’re working in Maryville.”

  That was interesting, too, Sutton thought. “And Coral Vines?”

  “Late twenties. She was three years behind us in school.”

  So Marjorie Kenner was the outlier. Interesting.

  There was a clattering noise from the back of the house. Seth jumped to action, beating Sutton to his father’s bedroom by a couple of steps.

  The remote control lay on the floor in front of the television, the plastic casing holding the batteries popped open and the batteries lying a few feet away, still rolling.

  Cleve made an odd grunting noise, waving his good hand at his empty plate. Seth started laughing as he bent to pick up the remote. Sutton saw his father was smiling, too, looking almost like his old, charming self.

  “He’d already eaten the carrots,” Seth explained. “So when it came time to throw something at the litigants—”

  “Never were good at impulse control, were you, Cleve?” Sutton stopped one of the rolling batteries with his foot and bent to pick it up. He crossed to sit on the bed beside his father. “I know you think you have all the answers, old man. But you can do better than this.” He waved his hand at his father’s wheelchair. “Maybe you’ll never be what you were before. But maybe that’s good, you ever think of that?”

  Seth cleared his throat but didn’t say anything.

  “I get the feeling you only respond to tough love, so I’m going to lay a little on you here.” Sutton put his hand on the arm of the wheelchair. “You never were much for a boy to be proud of. You made your living by tricking people out of their hard-earned money, and you never seemed to have a bit of remorse about doing it. So maybe you ought to look at this as God’s way of slapping you upside the head and telling you to do better.”

  Cleve’s eyes flashed with anger, but he didn’t look away.

  “Seth tells me he’s gone legit. And it didn’t take a stroke to do it.” He gave the wheelchair arm a little shake, making his father’s body shake with it. “He also tells me you aren’t doing what the therapists are telling you to do to get better. Is that another scam? You’ve figured out how to get the government to support you for the rest of your life without your having to lift a finger?”

  “Sutton—”

  Cleve growled something that sounded oddly like the word “rich.” Sutton looked at Seth for interpretation and found Seth staring at Cleve, a look of surprise and del
ight on his face.

  “You old coot! You can talk if you put your mind to it.” He slanted a look at Sutton. “Or if someone pisses you off enough.”

  “What did he mean by ‘rich’?”

  “I believe what he was telling you was that he doesn’t need the government—or you—takin’ care of him,” Seth answered with half a smile. “He was good at more than just convincing otherwise smart people to hand money to him, you see. He was also good at investing.”

  Sutton looked from Seth to his father. Cleve gazed back at him, his hazel eyes, so like Sutton’s own, glittering with triumph. “How much?”

  “About five million, give or take a few hundred thousand.”

  Sutton stared in shocked dismay. “Ill-gotten gains, you old bastard.”

  Cleve looked unrepentant.

  “I’m not sure it’s all ill-gotten,” Seth said quietly. “Some of the things your daddy did weren’t exactly illegal.”

  “Just immoral.”

  “No doubt. But there’s millionaires all over the world you could say that about.” Seth held out his hand for the battery Sutton had picked up. Sutton handed it over and Seth reassembled the remote. He passed it back to Cleve. “You don’t have to like it, Sutton. It just is what it is. The feds and the local cops know about it and can’t make a legal claim to take it away from him. And since it keeps him from sucking the government coffers dry, nobody’s raising much of a stink.”

  “Who’s administering his money?”

  “I am.” Seth met Sutton’s gaze without flinching.

  “Convenient.”

  Cleve grumbled something that sounded profane. Seth’s lips twitched.

  “I guess you’ve got everything under control, then, don’t you, Seth?” The urge to get out of there, to leave the toxic past and confounding present behind him, was more than Sutton could resist. “I wanted to know what you were up to. I guess now I do.” He turned and walked out of the room, wishing he had never come here.

  Seth caught up with him at the front door. “Wait.”

  Sutton whipped around to face him, his fists clenching with a rush of unexpected rage. “What?”

  “There’s one other thing I was pondering telling you, but I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression. But since you clearly can’t think any less of me than you already do, what the hell? A month ago, an acquaintance of mine approached me outside a bar in Maryville to ask me if I wanted to make a quick twenty grand.”

  Sutton frowned, not sure where Seth was going with this story. “And?”

  “Turns out, he wanted me to kill someone.”

  Chapter Nine

  “We may have a chance at a warrant.”

  Ivy nearly ran off on the shoulder as she left the main highway onto Vesper Road. “You’re kidding.”

  Antoine’s voice sounded jubilant over the cell phone’s hands-free speaker. “I have a friend on the Maryville force. Seems he’s got the chief’s ear, and once I told him about the cases and why we think Davenport Trucking might be peripherally involved, he convinced the chief to call a judge friend of his. He’s supposed to call me back in the morning with the judge’s response. He’s asking for a list of names covering rentals from two weeks before the first murder to the present—that should be all we need, don’t you think?”

  It was better than she’d hoped for when she left the office with Antoine still making calls. “It should be.”

  “He’s not going to bother the judge before morning, so go home and get some rest. You look like hell.”

  “You’re such a flatterer, Antoine.”

  She pushed the call end button and slowed as she approached the turn into her driveway. To her surprise, Sutton’s truck was parked next to the house. Since she hadn’t heard from him since leaving Davenport Trucking, she’d figured he’d found somewhere else to stay for the night.

  He was sitting on her front porch, a six-pack of Corona beer on the step beside him. Only one was missing from the pack, she saw as she walked slowly up the path to the steps. It dangled from the fingers of his left hand, still half-full. So unless he’d already been through another six-pack, at least he wasn’t drunk.

  But he looked as if he wanted to be.

  “You didn’t call,” she murmured as he lifted his smoldering gaze to meet hers.

  “I wasn’t sure I was going to come back here.”

  “But here you are.”

  He lifted the bottle to his mouth and took a swig. “Yeah. Here I am.”

  She dropped onto the porch step next to him. He reached into the six-pack and brought out a bottle. “Want one?”

  She was tempted, but she had a feeling at least one of them should stay completely sober tonight. “No, thanks.”

  He shrugged and put the bottle down beside him. “I saw my father.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why didn’t you warn me he’d had a stroke?”

  His words gave her a start. “You didn’t know?”

  Haunted eyes lifted to meet hers. “No.”

  “I figured you knew.” She had seen Cleve Calhoun only a couple of times since his stroke, once at a Knoxville hospital when she was there to check on an assault victim and, more recently, when Seth Hammond had taken him to the local clinic for his flu shot while she was there getting a sprained ankle treated. Seeing Cleve Calhoun, one of the most alive men she’d ever encountered, wheelchair bound and mute had come as a jolt to her system. “You must have been really shocked to see him that way.”

  He took another drink. “Understatement.”

  “Nobody tried to contact you when he had the stroke?” If she’d had any idea he’d been left in the dark, she’d have tried to track him down herself.

  “Seth did, but I didn’t take his calls.” He sounded bitter, but she had a feeling he was blaming himself more than Seth.

  “Still, he should have kept trying to contact you.”

  Sutton paused with the beer bottle halfway to his mouth. “I didn’t exactly give him any reason to think I cared.”

  “Of course you care. He’s your father.” As frustrated as she could get with her mother’s foolish choices, Ivy still loved her and wanted the best for her. And she knew how hard Sutton had struggled with his conflicted feelings back when they were little more than kids. “How is he?”

  “Stubborn. Foolish.” Sutton put the bottle down beside him and put his head in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees. “I don’t even know what I feel, to tell you the truth. Horrified to see him that way? Relieved that he’s Seth’s problem and not mine?”

  “Sutton—”

  “I’m a real piece of work, aren’t I?” He looked up at the rising moon, his face bathed in cool light. He was smiling, but there was no humor in the expression, making it look like a twisted grimace. “Relieved that I don’t have to deal with my cripple of a father.”

  “Your feelings about him are complicated. They always have been—”

  “Stop it!” He whipped his head around to look at her, making her flinch. “Stop trying to justify my selfishness.”

  She pressed her lips flat, anger flaring in her chest. She pushed to her feet. “Fine. Drink yourself stupid. I’m going inside.”

  “Wait.” He reached out and caught her leg, his hand closing around her calf. Heat burned through the fabric of her cotton trousers to brand her flesh.

  His fingers slid slowly upward, making her heart skip a beat.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was a caress. “I didn’t mean to snap.”

  Oh, God. His fingers had stopped climbing, but they hadn’t stopped moving, drawing circles across the crease behind her knee. He looked up at her, his eyes combustive. She felt her body catch fire in response, heat flooding her from her breasts to her sex.

  “Sutton
—”

  He rose to his feet with unexpected grace, lithe and sinuous like a cat on the prowl. Suddenly he was towering over her, his face cast in half shadow. Moonlight bathed the other side of his face, painting him in cool blue tones like a sculpture.

  His hand trailed up her arm, his calloused fingers seeming to shoot sparks along her nerve endings. “I look at you,” he murmured in a low tone, “and I still see a shadow of that dark-eyed kid who used to watch me when she thought I wasn’t looking. I wonder now, what were you thinking?”

  She couldn’t tell him that she’d thought he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, a wild buck kicking against the constraints of his small-town captivity. Part of her had known he’d have to run free, sooner or later, but another part had prayed he’d grow content with his confinement, so she would never have to see him go.

  “My mama told me you were nothing but trouble,” she said, her voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. “She always said, ‘Calhouns will break your heart.’”

  He looked thoughtful. “Do you think she knew from experience?”

  “Your daddy always was a charming old cuss, and you know how my mama is. Always looking for something.”

  He brushed away a piece of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail and into her face, tucking it behind her ear. “I’m not drunk, Ivy.” His finger trailed along the curve of her jaw, making her shiver. “I just want you to know that.”

  She had trouble finding her voice. “Why’s that?”

  He bent toward her. “Because I’m going to kiss you now,” he whispered, sending her sluggish brain into a tailspin. Before she could regain her equilibrium, his mouth was hot and soft against hers, more seductive than demanding. But the effect was the same—fire raging out of control in her blood, molten heat pooling low in her belly and every nerve ending in her body on alert, aching for the brush of his skin against hers.

  Not even in her most vivid adolescent dreams had she imagined how easily she could be conquered by his touch. No last-ditch effort to keep her head, no defiant last stand, just complete, eager surrender. When he snaked his arms around her waist, tugging her flush to his hard body, she melted into him, her hands driving through his crisp, dark hair to pull him even closer.