by Paula Boyd
"Maybe he didn’t." Rick pulled off his gloves. "I just need to look at things again."
I had a fair idea of what they were talking about--and what it implied. "So you think the victims were whacked on the head first then shot?"
Rick nodded. "This time, definitely."
I didn’t know what that meant as far as suspects, but it apparently meant something. "So, why is it important to know if they were hit in the head first?"
"A close-range shot to the forehead is an execution," Jerry said. "Not your average amateur work."
Rick nodded. However, if the victims were unconscious already--"
"And maybe even presumed dead by the assailant," Jerry added. "It would be much easier for someone to put the gun to the forehead and pull the trigger. Totally different type personality."
"Oh," I muttered, thinking that through. "But why would they do that?"
"For show, would be my guess," Jerry said.
"But this is all speculation. We may actually have a professional on the job."
I couldn’t think of more questions to ask--except maybe one. "Any yearbook pages this time?"
Rick slid his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. He made it a point not to look at me as he handed the item to Jerry.
Jerry let go of my arm long enough to take the evidence and smooth out the paper as best he could through the plastic.
My eyes followed the stroke of his fingers to the black and white photo beneath. I couldn’t see the whole sheet, but I knew what was there all the same.
The yearbook page that Jerry held featured the student council officers--and sponsor. That particular photo had been taken in the fall, and had been a pivotal point in my relationship with Mr. Pollock. Meaning, that was the day he’d kissed me--in front of God and everybody--while we were taking yearbook pictures. It had all been a big joke. Ha ha. I hadn’t found it funny then and I sure as hell wasn’t laughing now.
In the photo, I sat behind Pollock’s desk, in his chair. He stood to my right, grinning like a jackass, only I couldn’t tell that from the page Jerry held because Pollock’s face had a big thick red X across it.
Calvin had been the first victim, and he’d held pages--with an X over his own face. Was that what was happening again?
My eyes darted to the corpse. Could it be? "Jerry," I said, my voice a squeaky whisper. "Is there any way that Red could be Pollock?"
Jerry studied the older man in the trunk, trying to match it with the younger Pollock from the yearbook. "The nose isn’t right, but he could have gotten it busted a couple of times in the last twenty-five years. The chins both look fairly square." He stopped and shook his head. "I just don’t know. Rick," he said, pointing to the X’d out picture of Pollock, "have somebody crosscheck Red White and Pollock. It would make a lot more sense if they were the same guy."
"Already working on it."
"It doesn’t feel right to me," I said, instantly wishing I hadn’t used that particular phrasing. I had learned to trust my intuition, but I had also learned that it didn’t play well with the traditional crowd. "Pollock’s photo has an X, but it’s a red one. Mean anything? Who knows. Calvin’s X was white. Rhonda didn’t have one at all. Right?"
Rick nodded, but he was processing what I’d said while he did so, not that it was going to get him very far. My thoughts spread out like a spider web, but the strands weren’t very cohesive.
From the minute Red White had snatched the rope from my hand, I’d had an odd prickly reaction to him. I’d pegged it as a familiarity with the person, but now I wondered if it wasn’t just the attitude that I recognized. Still, it wasn’t Pollock’s attitude. As I recalled, Willard Pollock prattled on about anything and everything--mostly himself. Red didn’t seem to have much use for words at all.
And if that weren’t enough, I also couldn’t imagine the vain and prissy Pollock ever resorting to physical labor--or wearing cowboy clothes. Wearing golf shirts and selling time shares in Florida, sure, but not working cattle for a living. That would equate to a snake growing legs and howling like a coyote. Not gonna happen. No, Red couldn’t be Pollock. So why the X?
"Sheriff Parker." A young woman in a Redwater police uniform ran up to us. "You’ve got an emergency call that was put through from your office. A woman out in Kickapoo is on the line with your dispatcher. The caller is apparently hysterical, and demanding that we find you. She’s also asking for someone named Jolene."
Oh, no. "Mother."
Jerry and I hurried over to a patrol car and relayed the message that if Lucille Jackson would get off the line he would call her on his cell phone. He did and she picked up immediately. "Miz Jackson--"
"Where’s Jolene? Is she okay?" Lucille shrieked, loud enough for everyone within fifteen feet to hear.
Jerry held the phone away from his ear for obvious reasons, allowing me to hear what she was saying hear fairly well.
"Jolene’s fine," Jerry said. "She’s right here beside me. What’s wrong, Miz Jackson?"
"You’ve got to get out here right away," Lucille said breathlessly. "There’s this big old package that’s been delivered out here for Jolene and it’s ticking. Ticking I tell you! I think it's a bomb!"
"Who delivered the package?"
"That UPS man in the brown truck. He doesn’t come around here very often, but I still didn’t think a thing about it until he was already gone. Then I heard the thing ticking. That’s when I saw that it was made out to Jolene. Who’d send a package here for her? And why do you think it’s ticking? With all this murder business going on, I just bet somebody’s trying to blow her up."
Jerry glanced at me, then at Rick who had followed us over. "Hold on just a moment, Miz Jackson." Jerry gave Rick the general gist of the story.
"Our killer’s been consistent," Rick said, shifting from side to side. "It doesn’t seem logical that he--or she--would suddenly switch to bombing. But, not impossible either." Rick studied the array of emergency equipment parked by the falls. "I don’t know who we can send."
Jerry put his hand over the phone. "We do have some history with this woman," Jerry said, glancing at me. "No offense, Jolene."
"She’s not going to lie about getting a package addressed to me."
Rick ran a tanned hand through his beach boy blond hair. "Jolene hasn’t been very accessible lately, and our killer could very well be trying a new way of getting to her--and getting attention."
"We better get Lucille out of the house," Jerry said, putting the phone closer to his ear. "Miz Jackson? Is Fritz still with you?"
"Of course he’s still here," she screeched, loud enough for us all to hear. "I wouldn’t have gotten any satisfaction at all from that no-account dispatcher if it hadn’t been for Fritz. But he can’t do everything around here. You get somebody out here who knows what to do about this. I don’t want my house blown to smithereens."
"We’re headed that way, Miz Jackson, but I need to speak to Fritz first." Jerry was the picture of calm, except for a pulsing jaw muscle that indicated a little clenching of teeth. "If you don’t mind."
Apparently Fritz came on the line because Jerry put the phone fully back up to his ear. After a brief conversation, Jerry directed Fritz to get Lucille out of the house, and yes, the DQ would be fine. He also gave explicit instructions on keeping the bomb story quiet, but he didn’t say it with much optimism. "Stay by the radio, Fritz. I’ll need you to meet me back at the house," Jerry said, then hung up.
I glanced at Rick. "Any chance Redwater Falls has such a thing as a bomb unit?"
Rick nodded. "SFT. Special Forces Team."
"Well, aren’t you going to call them?"
His eyes darted to Jerry then to me. "I’d rather not."
"You’d rather not?" I said, a little on the incredulous side. "And why might that be?"
Rick nodded to Russell’s car and official types clustered around. "That’s our third homicide. You have any idea what’s going to happen when word gets out about that? P
anic. I send out twelve guys to surround some little old lady’s house in Kickapoo, maybe for nothing, and what’s that going to do?"
I propped my hands on my hips. "I’m having a hard time following your logic here, Rick. I realize my brain’s not wired for the Redwater-Kickapoo time zone, but--"
"What he means," Jerry said. "Is that we need to assess the situation before we call in additional manpower." He nodded to Rick. "You coming or should I just go on?"
"I’ll ride with you," Rick said, none too happily. "And you know as well as I do, that Jolene should stay at the hotel."
Jerry muttered something like "Don’t waste your breath," but I was already running back to the Expedition.
As we sped toward Kickapoo, Rick finally decided it might be best if at least one SFT guy met us in Kickapoo, just in case. He used his cell phone to call for a reinforcement, but it wasn’t quite that simple since every single member of the Redwater Falls Special Forces Team was already out on other nasty business. Kind of shook my image of the town to hear they were busy with a drug raid, an armed robbery and a pipe bomb in a city councilman’s yard. Here, in Utopia?
Jerry didn’t bother calling his office for help either, for a variety of reasons. For one, they were stretched thin as well, particularly with Fritz shadowing Mother and Jerry hiding out--sort of--with me. And, for two, Jerry had more experience, not to mention common sense, than the rest of them put together. And for three, nobody wanted to look stupid. Just because Lucille Jackson said there was a bomb in a box didn’t make it so. Didn’t make it automatically wrong either, and that was the big problem.
Silence dragged on for a good forty-five seconds as the mesquites and oil wells blurred past the car windows. That’s about my time limit for viewing the landscape here so I shifted around a little in my seat and said, "So, guys, what exactly is it that we’re going to do when we get there?"
Rick slapped a hand on the back of my seat. "We are dropping you off at the Dairy Queen before we do anything. Got it?"
"Hmm, yeah, I think I do. You race up to the Dairy Queen, drop me off, then race away again, and I guarantee you half the town will be following you within minutes. I won’t need to say one word."
Rick grumbled something about having no idea what we were getting into and civilians shouldn’t be around getting in the way. He had a partial point. I really didn’t know anything about bombs other than what Hollywood had shown me, and we all know how authentic that is. I sat back against the seat and pondered what Jerry and Rick would actually need to do to the box. Check it over with an X-ray machine? Stethoscope? Ear pressed against the side, or what?
Admirably, I tried to keep my mouth shut during this latest thinking spree. But since I wasn’t hitting any high notes in the brainstorm department and just wound up with more questions, I decided to look out the window again to pass another forty-five seconds with scenic vista viewing.
Acres and acres of scraggly scrub mesquites whizzed by. Then, as if somebody had taken a spatula and scraped away the grease and crumblies from a skillet, the land became smooth, open fields of red dirt. Scattered across these prime pieces of real estate were oil-sucking pump jacks, silver storage tanks and randomly placed homes, mostly the mobile variety.
Also adding to the panoramic view were many types and sizes of corrugated metal buildings. These tornado attractants most likely held tractors, four-wheelers, bass boats, tool chests, and maybe a couple of car carcasses up on cement blocks, although those were generally kept outside as artistic statements.
Now, I’m not being critical, I’m just passing along a visual observation. And to be honest, I sort of coveted the colored metal sheds. I would have slapped one up on my own property in a heartbeat if I’d thought I could get away with it. It would have been a darned sight cheaper than the cedar-sided, casement-windowed barn-castle my homeowner’s covenants forced me to build.
By the time I’d bought the high-dollar materials, hired a PhD framer, and paid an architect and an engineer to redraw and stamp my plans, I felt like I was building stables for the Queen of England instead of a two-stall shed with a tack room. The multiple trips to the county’s planning and zoning office were loads of fun as well, but not nearly as entertaining as the cheery visits from the building code inspectors--more little details nobody out here has to be bothered with. But I digress.
My romp down memory lane ate up more time than usual and we arrived at my mother’s house about the time I’d decided it was really too long after the fact to use the "heat of passion" defense for bludgeoning a building inspector.
Jerry hit the brakes and pulled up in front of the house.
I was a little surprised to see a white van already there, not to mention a Bowman County sheriff’s car in the driveway. Before I could ask who the van belonged to, I caught a glimpse of the tall gray-haired Fritz Harper standing by the garage. I also saw a piled-high puff of Reticent Rose bobbing along beside him. The cherry-red blouse was hard to miss as well.
"That woman is supposed to be at the Dairy Queen," Rick said, obviously catching the same glimpse.
Jerry didn’t answer, just stared out the windshield at Lucille and Fritz, who had walked away from their lawn chairs and were heading toward us.
I unbuckled my seatbelt. "She looks anxious to talk to you professional types about something."
Jerry continued to stare out the window, kind of frozen-like. But as Lucille got closer, he turned slowly toward me, his big gorgeous eyes speaking without words.
"Hey, don’t look at me. As you have clearly mentioned several times, I’m not a professional law enforcement person and therefore should not get involved in these things. I don’t have a clue what to do." I wasn’t lying either.
Jerry grumbled under his breath, flicked open the door and unfolded himself from the car. Rick and I did the same, although I did not grumble and I did not slam my door like certain other people just had.
Jerry and Rick positioned themselves near the front of the car. I, the untrained--but smarter than I look--civilian, lingered on the far side of the car in an "I’ve got nothing to do with this" sort of stance.
"It’s about time you got here," Lucille said, huffing and puffing herself to a stop within inches of the men. "I’ve worried myself silly over this whole thing and I want it taken care of." Her red blouse had flat gold buttons up the front that flashed sunlight like shiny mirrors in all directions. "And telling Fritz he had to come back here all by himself. Why, the very nerve. Who knows what might have happened to him. He’s a fine officer to be sure, but I darn well wasn’t about to leave him to guard the place alone."
Fritz Harper stepped out from behind Lucille and gave Jerry a "nothing I could do" shrug. It was a gesture we all understood only too well. With a nod of acknowledgement for the rest of us, he motioned toward the van. "That Redwater guy just now showed up, not two minutes before you all got here."
We all looked to where Fritz had pointed and saw a gangly guy with a crew cut standing near the front of the van, picking his teeth with a toothpick.
Detective Surfer Dude almost choked. "Stewart," he gurgled. "They sent me Stewart."
"Yes," Lucille said, smoothing her blouse down around her hips. "I do believe that’s what he called himself. STP Stewart, or something like that."
Stewart turned and acknowledged us with a curt nod and snappy wave.
"Jerry," Rick said. "I need to talk to you privately. Right now."
"Now, just a darn minute." Lucille waggled a long red acrylic nail at Detective Rick. "That man over there shows up and start spouting all this gibberish about detonators and timers, and then he tells me he’s got to put on some special protector suit before he’ll even step foot in my house. Tells me you can’t be too careful these days, like my house is just a hotbed of germs. Why, the very nerve. The way he was acting, you’d think he’d been asked to run naked through a leper colony. This is my house he’s talking about like that! Special suit, my hind foot. Now just what are you going
to do about all that?"
Before anyone could respond--not that anyone wanted to--the man under discussion jogged over to join our cozy group.
He wore what looked like a white Tyvek jumpsuit that was about six inches too short and twice as many inches too wide for his tall, lanky frame. The outfit crackled with every move he made, but he seemed not to notice. Why he’d put on such a thing was anybody’s guess, but if he was preparing for a chemical spill, he’d better hope it didn’t occur on my mother’s driveway as Lucille Jackson has a very firm rule against spots on her concrete.
"Stewart, SFT," he said, nodding to Jerry. "You must be Sheriff Parker. Your mother-in-law said you and your wife would be along shortly."
"That is not at all what I said, Mister," Lucille huffed, tucking her purse up on her arm a little higher. "I said Jerry Don was almost my son-in-law once and still might be one day, and that you’d better treat me accordingly. That’s what I said."
Jerry turned to me yet again with deep and passionate longing, and frankly, in this particular context it was getting a bit tiresome.
Lucille has never paid much attention to anything I say and she wasn’t likely to start now. I gave him a noncommittal little shrug and mouthed the word "sorry," although it might not have come across all that sincerely as he just scowled back at me.
Rick didn’t seem particularly interested in our little petty family distractions as he was still trying to come to terms with the "help" his department had sent him. "What were you planning to do, Stewart?" Rick said, trying to sound casual.
Stewart clamped his toothpick tight between his front teeth as he unfolded a pair of safety glasses and slipped them on. "Disarm it, of course." He patted his chest. "I’ve got an instruction book in my pocket." He pulled the little stick from his teeth and twirled it between his fingers. "I’m ready to give it a go. Just say the word."
Rick’s cute blue eyes crinkled up like he might want to cry. "Why don’t we hold off for a minute," he said, sounding a little choked up.
Couldn’t blame him. The bomb deactivator instruction booklet thing was enough to bring anybody to tears, but the suit was what amused me. Tyvek was great for making envelopes, and the coated variety might very well keep a pint of paint off your pants. It would not, I feared, hold up real well against the shrapnel he was so eager to inject himself with.
