by Brant, Kylie
“Maybe,” she admitted. “But I still think it’s an integral part of the ritual. No reason Jonesy can’t be checking it out while I’m running down detectives from the ViCAP hits on similar homicides.”
The other agent lifted a shoulder as he began to shuffle the phone records into a file folder. “I’m due to meet Rollins at the sheriff’s office to bring him up to date. When you get back from Memphis, you should probably talk to him more in-depth about the lead you’re followin’ on the root. Always need to be careful about extendin’ professional courtesies when we’re called to a case. Even more important when dealin’ with a small-town department.”
She nodded, although she didn’t need the reminder. Hopefully she’d have more to tell the sheriff by the time they discussed it. Maybe she’d get lucky on one of the calls she was about to make to—she mentally calculated—six detectives across the country who had worked a homicide with similar elements to this one.
Riffling through the contents on the table, Ramsey came up with the ViCAP responses. She said good-bye absently as Powell left, her mind already on the upcoming phone calls. Given the time change, she’d start with the hit from the east coast first. She knew she’d be lucky to catch any of the cops at their desks.
Stealing a quick look at her watch, she dialed the first number. There’d probably be plenty of time before dinner to harass Jonesy, as well. Depending on how these calls went, that might prove to be the highlight of the afternoon.
“Vickers, you damn thief! Keep your arthritic fingers out of my candy drawer!”
Dev halted outside Benjamin Gorder’s assisted living apartment and turned to look at the man his granddaddy was shouting at. The accused, a stooped bald man who appeared to be about ninety, cupped a hand to his ear quizzically as he hurried away down the drive.
Although “hurried” might not be an appropriate description for a man using a walker and tottering along at a speed a snail wouldn’t find challenging.
Dev waited for his granddad’s attention to settle on him before observing blandly, “Looks like quite a desperado. Has he made FBI’s most wanted list yet?”
Benjamin glowered at him. “Don’t be a smart-ass, Devlin. Vickers just looks harmless. Comes and goes in everyone’s unit any time we step out for a moment. Can’t keep lemon drops in the place ’cause of him. I swear, he’s worse than an army of ants.”
“Some might think that reason enough to lock their doors.” Dev handed his granddaddy a bag containing several bags of the man’s favorite candies. Including lemon drops.
Peeking inside, the man’s expression lightened. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But he must sit with a pair of binoculars and time it the moment I slip out to water flowers or talk to the neighbor. Don’t let that walker fool you. He’s as quick as a snake when he wants to be.”
Casting another look at the “thief” who had barely made it out of the drive in the intervening time, Dev said doubtfully, “If you say so.” He followed his granddaddy into the small apartment and sat down on the couch. And studied the man who’d mostly raised him, trying not to be obvious about it.
He looked fit if a little tired, Dev decided with a flicker of relief. The stroke had left one side of his face partially paralyzed, but other than that and the shock of hair that had long-since gone white, he looked very much the way he had all Dev’s life. Still close to six feet, with a rangy build that maybe was looking just a bit bonier. He made a note to talk to the facility’s head cook to ensure the man was eating more than his favorite candy.
“Where you been?” Benjamin sat down in his recliner facing Dev. “Haven’t seen you for a coupla days.”
“Here and there. Takin’ care of some business.”
The older man leveled a pointed look at him. “Business that included gettin’ copies of old police reports, I hear.”
“The town’s grapevine seems to be in workin’ order.”
Benjamin snorted. “Never known it to fail yet. What’s goin’ on with you, Dev? Figured if you had questions, you’d come to me with them.”
“I don’t know what questions I have yet,” he admitted. Or even if there were questions remaining unanswered. “Just tryin’ to get a picture of events from that night.”
The explanation didn’t seem to lessen the man’s worry. “No reason why you wouldn’t wonder. And I’ve never been one to hide the facts from you. Did you call your mama with any of these questions that aren’t questions?”
“Yes.” And the memory of that particular conversation still rankled. “She didn’t want to talk ’bout it.”
Why, Devlin? Celia Ann Stryker’s voice had taken on that disapproving note that sounded in it too often when they spoke. What’s the point of dredgin’ all that ugliness up now? That’s the problem with you, you’ve never learned to just get along, to just let things be.
The statement had burned. Seemed like he’d been gettin’ along for most of his life. But he’d let the subject drop. He’d long-since accepted his mama’s methods of coping. They all made their own choices in life. He was just grateful he no longer had to live with hers.
Benjamin sighed. “Well, I’m not surprised. Celia Ann went to pieces over the whole thing. She never was one to deal well with any sort of unpleasantness.” He stared at his grand-son, his expression torn. “Gettin’ on with her life the way she did doesn’t make her a bad person, son. Just maybe a weak one. Fact is, most folks thought she coulda done more to stand by Lucas. Whatever happened that night, your daddy wasn’t in his right mind. You get your nature from him. Took a lot to rile him, just like it does you.”
“So what could Jessalyn Porter have said or done to rile him enough to wrap his fingers around her throat and choke the life out of her?”
Benjamin’s wince made him regret his blunt words. “When a body gets filled with more liquor than sense, there’s no end of heartbreak that can happen. Your daddy wasn’t a big drinker—your mama never woulda allowed it—but he was known to tip a few with his buddies time to time. He’d been out with one of them before goin’ on over to Jessalyn’s house.”
After weighing the decision for a few moments, Dev asked the question uppermost on his mind since showing the report to Ramsey. “The police report said he’d had two beers prior to visitin’ Jessalyn that first time. But his blood alcohol was through the roof the mornin’ they’d found him next to her body. Where was he drinkin’ in the meantime?”
His granddaddy opened his mouth. Closed it again. Finally he scratched his ear. “Well, I don’t rightly recollect. Fella he’d been drinkin’ with earlier spent the rest of the evenin’ with his family, I recall that. All I can be certain of was your daddy didn’t go on home. Celia Ann didn’t see him at all that night. I remember her bringin’ you on over and spendin’ the night. She never did like to stay in an empty house. Near out of her head with worry by then, she was.”
“And you never heard any talk ’bout where he might’ve been in the meantime? Who he might’ve been drinkin’ with?”
Benjamin looked suddenly fatigued, as if the conversation had aged him. “Son, there’s always talk, you know that. There were some who claimed he never left Jessalyn’s a’tall, that there was somethin’ romantic goin’ on between them. Not to speak ill of the dead, but knowin’ Jessalyn, that’s hardly likely. She’d have been a good twenty years older than your daddy at the time. I do know no one ever stepped forward to say he’d been with Lucas drinkin’ that night. But that don’t mean the fella isn’t out there. Just that he didn’t want to get dragged into the mess. People bein’ what they are, that’s hardly surprisin’.”
“No. Not surprisin’ at all.” The police had had a dead body and a murder weapon with prints matching the drunken man lying next to it. What had it mattered that no one had seen the murder suspect drinkin’ himself into a stupor? Some answers had gone to the grave with Jessalyn Porter and Lucas Rollins.
Dev was beginning to believe this might just be one of them.
Because he could see the concern etched into his granddaddy’s face, he deliberately lightened his voice. “So what’s a fella gotta do to be offered some of that candy stash you’re hoarding?”
Benjamin stared at him a moment longer, his gaze shrewd. He’d recognize the diversion for what it was. But the man had always been a master at knowing when to push and when to let things go. “Fella just has to ask. That’s what that damn Vickers can’t get through his head.” He rummaged through the sack he still held, came up with the package of red licorice that had always been Dev’s favorite. “Of course, if the fella also was in the mood to talk ’bout the woman he’s been seen with ’round town, well, I reckon he might get first dibs on the licorice.”
“I’ve never been able to resist a bribe.” Dev stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankle. He held his hands out to catch the strands his granddaddy tossed to him. But already he was at a loss as to where to start. Ramsey Clark was even more of a puzzle than the events surroundin’ his daddy’s arrest.
But damned if she wasn’t a pleasure to contemplate.
“This is stupid,” Ramsey muttered under her breath. What in God’s name had caused her to venture into a shop with the ridiculous name of Sumpin’ Special?
It was that damn dinner with Stryker, she thought aggrievedly, darting a glance around the shop’s crammed interior. Not that she had any intention of dressing up for him. God no. But the luggage Ryne and Abbie had dropped off for her contained little more than the pantsuits and blouses he’d already commented on. She hadn’t yet laundered anything—when the hell would she have had time? That was something else she was going to have to take care of before much longer.
But she still had a few outfits unworn. Mentally calculating the contents of the motel room’s closet, she began edging backward toward the door. Listening to Stryker’s snide comments when she wore yet another suit was infinitely preferable to plunging into the baffling process of mixing and matching clothes that inevitably had to be tried on.
She was within reach of the door now. With a sense of relief, she turned to grasp the handle and push it open.
And cringed, when a familiar voice called, “Well, Ramsey Clark. I never would’ve expected to see you here.”
Manners battled with self-preservation and only narrowly won. Squaring her shoulders, Ramsey turned, returning the greeting. “Hi, Leanne.”
The other woman was standing in front of a three-way mirror, wearing a short black cocktail dress with a plunging neckline and a friendly smile. “I was wonderin’ when I’d see you again. Never figured it to be in here.”
“Actually, I was just leaving . . .”
“Oh, fiddlesticks, you just got here. What do you think of this dress?” The woman cocked her head, studied her reflection critically.
Ramsey felt hunted. “It . . . seems to fit.” Although there didn’t look to be quite enough fabric to cover the woman’s chest completely. But that was probably the style, wasn’t it?
“I have a date this weekend with someone new, and we’re goin’ to a friend’s party in Knoxville. My ex-boyfriend will be there, not that I give a whit one way or ’nother. That ship sailed long ago, if you know what I mean.”
Although she was uncertain she did know, Ramsey nodded politely.
Leanne chattered on as she strolled to a rack of dresses and flipped through the hangers casually. “But since the opportunity arises, I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to look my nicest.”
“Let him see what he’s missing.”
The other woman nodded. “Exactly. I want to wear somethin’ that will make him bleed.”
The words surprised a laugh from Ramsey. “I think that dress might be the perfect weapon.”
“You think?” Leanne turned to face the mirror again. “I’m gonna get it then. ’Cuz that man surely does deserve to be wounded. Just a little.” She whirled around, clapping her hands in delight. “So now we can take care of you.”
The words shot Ramsey with stark terror. “I’m not . . . I don’t need . . .”
“Nonsense.” Leanne walked determinedly to a rack of more casual clothing and started flicking through it. “Lookin’ for somethin’ for dinner with Dev?”
“Absolutely not.”
Laughing gaily, Leanne pulled out a sleeveless cherry-colored top with buttons down the front. “Too matronly,” she decided, and shoved it back into the rack of clothes. Seamlessly, she returned to the earlier conversation. “Mama said he’d told her when they had lunch that you had to bow out. Knowin’ him, he extracted dinner in exchange.”
“You seem to know him well.”
“Better than most ’round these parts do.” With a dismissive gesture Leanne waved away the clerk who was hovering and continued speaking as she pulled out clothes, holding them up to survey before shaking her head and returning them to the rack. “Most see only what Dev shows on the outside, y’know? He’s so agreeable and, let’s face it, so damn good-lookin’, not everyone thinks to look deeper.”
Her words underscored a suspicion Ramsey had had about the man all along. Everybody devised defenses. And living down his father’s past in this town couldn’t have been easy.
The other woman barely took a breath. “But I know him well ’nough to recognize when he’s smitten. He’s taken with you, there’s no denyin’ it. Can’t say you’re his usual type, either. You should try this on.” Quick reflexes had Ramsey catching a jade green top in a slinky material, hanger and all, as Leanne tossed it to her. “It’ll make your eyes look more green than hazel.”
Ramsey couldn’t say which she found more baffling, the fashion advice or Leanne’s casual talk of Dev’s feelings toward her. “I’m not . . . neither of us are looking for anything serious.”
Leanne gave her a droll look before heading over to another rack. “Honey, no man is ever lookin’ for it. ‘Serious’ sort of has to sneak up on ’em. Whack ’em over the head before they know what hit ’em.”
“Now that’s a sentiment I’ve often had around Stryker.”
“That’s why you’ll be good for him.” Leanne’s voice was muffled as she flipped rapidly through a rack of shorts and pants. “You’re not wantin’ to hogtie him and drag him to the altar. That novelty alone was sure to intrigue him. Did you ever shoot anybody with that gun you wear?”
The non sequiturs were enough to make her head spin. But she didn’t bother to dissemble. “Yes.”
Rather than shocking the other woman, Ramsey’s answer seemed to satisfy her. “I knew it. I told Dev I saw a piece on The Mindhunters last year on TV. What’s Adam Raiker like to work for?”
“Intimidating. Demanding. Brilliant.” Brutally honest with a keen insight that Ramsey found nothing less than terrifying when it was turned on her. Failure was more than just difficult to contemplate knowing it would have to be explained to Raiker. It wasn’t an option.
“He half scared me to death just watching the interview. He’s so . . .” The woman cocked her head for a moment, searching for the word. “. . . intense.”
“He is that.” Surreptitiously, Ramsey tried to shove the shirt she was holding onto the rack before her, but Leanne turned at that moment and held up a pair of pencil-slim long black shorts. “Try these with the top. By sticking with black, you probably can wear shoes you already have. The dressing room is right over there.” She practically shooed Ramsey into it, whisking the curtain shut behind her.
It was a bit like getting caught in a hurricane, Ramsey considered, stripping off her clothes with grim purpose. Getting blown this way and that only to find herself landing in a foreign place wondering what the hell just happened.
She heard Leanne speaking with the clerk outside the dressing room. Something about chunky jewelry, whatever that was. Dragging on the clothes and straightening them, Ramsey was struck when she looked in the mirror that the woman outside the room, blast her, had been right. The outfit looked like something Ramsey would pick out, and it fit her exactly.
Without
taking much time to consider her reflection, she stripped swiftly again. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have similar outfits in her closet at home, she reminded herself. Regardless of Dev’s cracks about her wardrobe, she did have regular clothes.
Even if she didn’t want to think about how long it had been since she’d worn anything that wasn’t work-related.
And there was no way to blame Stryker for that.
Scooping up the garments, she opened the curtain to the dressing room again. She may be buying the things Leanne had picked out, but only because she had nothing else appropriate to wear. It certainly wasn’t because she was dressing up for the man.
“I picked out a necklace and earrings that will be just the thing for . . .” Leanne looked up at Ramsey’s re-entry disappointedly. “Didn’t the outfit work?”
“It’s fine.” Ramsey lifted her arm, which she had the clothes draped over. “I’m getting it.”
