by Brant, Kylie
“Didn’t say I agreed. Just tellin’ you the way some folks ’round here think.” He lifted a bite of pancakes to his lips and chewed, his eyes sliding shut in an expression of appreciation. Swallowing, he added, “Donnelle is the one to see if you want the full story and all the versions of the legend. I can help you out with that. You heard her invite me to call on her at the museum tomorrow. I could take you along. She might not open up to a stranger, but she’ll talk to me.”
“She might speak to me if I stop in on my own tomorrow.”
He took another bite, then reached for his juice. “She might.”
She heard the doubt in his tone. Based on the woman’s friendly dismissal earlier, Ramsey doubted it, too. “Or maybe I could get Leanne to intervene somehow.”
“She’d probably be glad to. If you let her get her hands on your hair. Probably have to throw in a manicure and pedicure, too, but most women go for that sort of thing anyway, so it’s not like it’d be too taxin’.”
Shrewdly, she assessed his too-innocent expression. The man observed entirely too much. “But you’d let me go with you?”
“Sure.” He paused long enough to cut more pancakes, rubbing them generously in the syrup pooled on his plate before bringing them to his mouth. “For a price.”
“I should’ve known,” she muttered, disgusted with herself for wasting time with the man. Rising again, she grabbed the containers and prepared to leave.
“Whoa.” His eyes twinkled as he reached a hand out to stop her. “All I’m talkin’ ’bout is a date.”
She stopped, eyed him jaundicedly. “A date.”
“Has to include a meal,” he said judiciously, “to count as a real date. Dinner would be best.”
“Breakfast,” she counter offered.
“I’ve seen your mornin’ mood, remember? Lunch.”
“Done.” With a sense of resignation, she gave in. “But not until after we’ve talked to Donnelle.”
He studied her then, his eyes brimming with merriment. It occurred to her that some men could be too handsome for their own good. “Okay. I’m gonna trust you. That you won’t think of some excuse to beg off after you’ve gotten what you want from me.”
Because it’d only barely occurred to her, she said tartly, “And I’m going to trust you to get Donnelle to open up to me.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got a gift for gettin’ people to talk to me. I often thought I should have been a priest ’cept for one li’l thing.”
“Let me guess.”
“I’m not Catholic.” Grinning, he shook his head and speared another bite of pancakes. “But I like the way you think.”
Out of patience, she rose, this time intent on making her escape. “I’ll meet you at the museum tomorrow at . . .”
“If that isn’t just like you, Dev, to hoard all the pretty gals for yourself.”
Ramsey and Dev looked up at the newcomer in unison.
“Hey, Doc.” With a look of genuine pleasure on his face, Dev got up and shook the newcomer’s hand. “You still chasin’ Jenny ’round the office in between patients?”
“Gave that up long ago. She got too fast for me.” The stranger looked at Ramsey. “Gonna introduce us, Dev, or are you afraid I’ll steal her clean away from you?”
“Ramsey Clark, this old coot is Doc Andrew Theisen. Been ’round this town long enough to know where the skeletons are hidden. Come to think of it, given his bedside manner, he may have contributed to a few of them.”
Ramsey found her hand engulfed in Theisen’s. “Listen to the ungrateful wretch. I brought him into this world, and he’s been bitchin’ ’bout it ever since.”
She smiled, unwillingly charmed. He was seventy if he was a day, but fit, with a receding hairline that had long since gone white. His hazel eyes behind the dark framed glasses were kind, inviting her to share the joke.
“You should have filmed the moment you slapped him after birth. I think it would have achieved bestseller status.”
The older man laughed, dug an elbow in Dev’s ribs. “I like her. She’s not meltin’ in a gooey puddle at your feet. Show’s she got character.”
“She’s got plenty of that.”
“Here, take my seat.” Ramsey took the food containers and stood. “I have to get these back to a friend.”
“Let’s say ten o’clock at the museum tomorrow,” Dev said as Doc slipped into the seat she’d vacated.
“See you then.” She smiled once again at Doc and said, “Nice meeting you.”
“My pleasure.”
Ramsey turned to go, fighting her way through a crowd that seemed to have doubled since she came in. Driving back to the motel, one of the containers tumbled off the pile, and she muttered a curse, reaching for it with one hand while driving with the other. Jonesy better appreciate her efforts. And he damn well better have some news for her on those tests sometime today.
Having learned her lesson earlier that day, she knocked on the lab door first. Or, since her arms were full, at least tapped it impatiently with her foot. She stepped back as he opened the door for her, delight written on every bit of his face that didn’t have a piercing through it. “Room service. My favorite.”
Rather than letting her into the lab, however, he came out, and she followed him to a nearby picnic table. “I’ve got tests running. I don’t want to risk any contaminants.” She sincerely hoped he was talking about the food and not her.
“Listen, Ramsey . . .” Jonesy was popping open all the containers and taking out the plastic silverware. He seemed to have trouble coming up with words. “About earlier this morning . . .”
Nearly grinding her teeth, she said, “We are definitely not going there.”
Doggedly, he went on. “I don’t know how much you saw . . .”
“Let’s call it too much and leave it at that, shall we?”
But he wouldn’t give it up. “I just want you know, there’s a difference between guys. Now me, I’m a grower, not a shower. What I mean is . . .”
Ramsey abruptly turned to go. “We are not having this conversation.” Swiftly, she started toward the motel, where she hoped to find Matthews and Powell.
“All I’m saying is, don’t judge the gift by the package, if you get my drift.”
“Call me when you have some results. That I’ll want to hear. The rest of it . . .” The mental image flashed across her mind and she winced. “We will never talk about that again.”
When she got to the office the TBI agents were using as headquarters, Powell was already gone. Matthews was sitting at the table, his laptop before him, sipping coffee and typing up yesterday’s interviews in a desultory manner.
“Where’s Ward?” she asked him.
Matthews winced, holding his head. “Inside voice, Ramsey. Have some pity on the walking dead.”
“Did you tie one on last night?” she asked unsympathetically. “How do you stand staying out all night and getting up the next morning?” She’d heard him come in again last night. She’d just gone to bed herself. But she didn’t spend much time sleeping anyway.
“Not well. This morning, not well at all. Powell got an early start to try to catch some of those property owners you guys missed yesterday.”
“Hope he has better luck today than we did yesterday.” She went to the fax machine, made a sound of satisfaction when she saw Bledsoe, the forensic artist, had sent the sketch of the victim resembling the way she would have looked alive. She plucked it off the paper tray. “Thank you, Alec,” she muttered.
She opened the cover of the copier, pausing a moment to study the rendition. This was what was needed, she recognized, at least for her. A reminder of who the woman was before she’d become a victim. When she still had a life to lead, errands to run, problems to solve, friends to enjoy.
Before she’d come to the attention of her killer.
A few minutes later she grabbed a stack of the copies she’d made of the sketch and showed the top one to Matthews. “I’m going
to deliver this to Rollins’s office and have him distribute it to all the law enforcement offices within fifty miles. You’re going to help me track down all the nail salons in the same vicinity and show this sketch, see if we can get a lead on the victim.”
Matthews cocked a brow, gave her a cynical look. “Oh, am I?”
“I suppose you could go help Powell,” she said, considering. “Yesterday I had a hillie point a shotgun at me, but that was probably an exception.” She paused a beat. “You know what nail salons are full of, Matthews. Women.”
The agent didn’t look as enthusiastic at the prospect as she’d hoped. “I’ve about had my fill, thanks.”
“Now why do I have a feeling I should tape record that remark for posterity?”
“Well, not forever,” he amended, continuing to type slowly. “But the crazy gals in this town . . . you know two of them nearly came to blows last night at the Half Moon over me?”
“Don’t tell me,” Ramsey said drily, going back to check on the copies being spit out. “You’ve brought a different one of them back here at different times, and last night they were both in the same place at the same time, comparing notes. You’re a prince, Matthews.”
“And then,” he continued aggrievedly, “after I separated them and tried to smooth things over, they both turn on me.” He shook his head in disgust. “By the end of the night, they’re acting like best pals and I’m being treated like the scourge of the town. I will never understand women.”
“Yeah, we’re a mystery, all right.” It sounded as though he were lucky to get away without being castrated. No female liked being slapped in the face with the realization that she was only one of a string.
Unwillingly, her mind flashed to Stryker. Women of all ages seemed to respond to him, and she’d be willing to bet he’d cut a pretty wide swath through the females in town. Maybe he was that most rare of male creatures, a good breaker-upper. A man that stayed on good terms with former girlfriends had a gift.
And a bone-deep charm it would pay to remain wary of.
Chapter 7
Ramsey got a later start than she would have liked after stopping by the sheriff’s office. When she discovered there were already results for the ViCAP report she’d submitted, she decided they could wait until tomorrow morning. She was anxious to get started with the nail salons.
She was unsurprised to learn Mark Rollins wasn’t in.
“He got a call last night on the Simpson suicide,” the dispatcher, Letty Carter, confided. “Beau blew his brains out while Marvella was at her card club, and the whole town’s buzzin’ ’bout it. Some are sayin’ the store was in trouble and he was ’bout to lose the business his daddy built. But if you ask me, there’s been emotional problems in the Simpson line for generations. Beau’s grandma was a drinker, and his great-aunt Beulah was given to talkin’ to people no one else could see.”
Ramsey digested the gossip silently. She’d be willing to bet Letty was old enough to have been acquainted with both Simpson’s relatives. The dispatcher was as wizened as a dried apple, and by the end of her shift each day, her makeup settled into the deep creases in her face. Her hair was a brassy blond color that even Ramsey could tell wasn’t professional. She wore bright pink lipstick and matching fingernail polish.
Noticing the nails jerked her attention back to her task. “I’m sure the sheriff has his hands full right now, so I’ll catch up with him later.” She handed a copy of the sketch to the older woman. “I’d like this faxed to every law enforcement entity in a fifty-mile radius. Let them know we’re looking for an ID on a homicide victim.”
Letty studied the sketch. “Pretty girl.” Regret tinged her tone. “It’s a cryin’ shame what was done to her. I’ll take care of it right away.”
But hours later, Ramsey reflected that Letty’s swift follow-through might well be the last bit of assistance she received that day.
She turned right as prompted by the in-dash GPS, and made her way into the town of Steadmont, population two hundred fifty. Armed with a stack of sketches, the maps she’d pried away from Letty again, and a Yellow Pages listing of salons in the vicinity, Ramsey had so far covered six towns east and south of Buffalo Springs. She’d decided to hit the smallest ones first, figuring a person would be missed more quickly in a town of seventy-two than one of three thousand. So far, her methods had met with a noticeable lack of luck.
She’d taken time to swing by Leanne’s place and show the sketch around, but no one there recognized the victim. That fact hadn’t been surprising.
Since she wasn’t cursed with aYchromosome, asking for directions didn’t bother her. And it hadn’t taken her long to figure out the fastest way to find the addresses on her sheets was to stop at the first gas station or woman on the street and ask. When she spotted a female out watering flowers, she did just that and was directed to a small pretty shop around the corner from the main thoroughfare.
But the owner at Pine Creek Nails shook her head when shown the picture of the woman. “No, she don’t look familiar. Not one of my regulars, that’s for sure, and I’d remember a walk-in that came in that recently. A French manicure, you say?” The operator squinted at the picture again. “I don’t get much call for that here. Did you try Susie at Look Sharp? She’s just a few blocks west of here.”
“I’ll check there next, thanks.” After leaving the sketch and her card with the woman, Ramsey headed back to her vehicle.
When her cell rang, she recognized Matthews’s number and answered. She’d dropped off a copy of the nail salons on her way out of town and requested that he head out the opposite way from Buffalo Springs to begin canvassing the places. “Tell me you’re having better luck than I am.” As she spoke, she pulled away from the curb and headed in the direction of the other salon.
“Possibly.” Matthews sounded a great deal more chipper than he had that morning, so maybe his hangover had subsided. “I’m in Tallulah Falls, northwest of Buffalo Springs about thirty miles. And I have an operator here who thinks she recognizes the sketch as a woman who came in a couple weeks ago. Thing is, she swears this woman she worked on didn’t have any tattoos. Said they’d talked about them and that both had agreed they didn’t go in for that sort of thing.”
“It’s possible the victim was lying, I guess,” Ramsey said slowly. “The tattoos aren’t new, the ME said. His estimate was a couple years old for the one on her back and older than that for the one on her ankle.”
“Anyway, I’m here while the operator is talking to the other workers trying to come up with the woman’s name. If it pans out, I’ll stick around and follow up, see if I can find out where she lived and worked.”
“Great.” A hum of interest sparked. “Keep me posted.”
Ramsey knew better than to hang her hopes on the lead he was following, but it was more promising than anything she’d come up with today. Her fortunes continued as the next operator denied recognizing the sketch but told her of a woman who did nails out of her home. Ramsey had a similar lack of luck there, so she checked off the town and headed to the next, but not before hitting a fast food drive-through on the way back to the highway.
As she munched on fries and a sandwich, she thought about the tattoos Matthews had mentioned. They’d follow up on them if this lead didn’t pan out, but tattoos were notoriously hard to trace. People didn’t necessarily get them close to home, often bringing one home as a “souvenir” from vacation. Ramsey couldn’t imagine wanting to risk carrying hepatitis back as a souvenir, but there was no accounting for taste.
It would be difficult to trace the artist and find records far enough back to identify the victim, especially since neither of the tats had been especially unique. And she knew from experience on other cases that tattoo places regularly went out of business, making them even harder to trace. If the ID process boiled down to tracing the tattoo, it was going to be an exercise in frustration.
Keeping an eye on her mirrors, she punched the accelerator. It was getting on tow
ard late afternoon. She’d likely have time for only two or three more towns before they closed, unless she found a salon that kept evening hours.
The town of Kordoba bore more than a passing resemblance to many of the towns she’d visited that day, and according to the map, boasted slightly more residents than Buffalo Springs. There were four places listed on the White Pages printout for nail salons, but the owner of the first informed Ramsey that one of them was out of business, and a third had moved her salon to her home in the country.
Given the time, she didn’t linger, leaving the picture and card with the woman to head to the other salon in town. This one was right on Main Street and outfitted with a candy pink and white striped awning and enough pink adornments inside to make Ramsey feel a bit nauseous.
