Flashpoint

by Lynn Hightower

  “How long are we going to be gone?” Tim asked.

  Sonora frowned. “I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far. Probably till Visa cancels my card.”

  51

  The first picture came in the mail late that afternoon. Two more arrived the next day.

  52

  Sonora sat on the couch in the living room, thinking about walls. The phone rang. She did not count the rings, or notice when they stopped.

  Walls were not the sort of thing one normally noticed. She knew that, in the back of her mind—knew that so much time staring at walls was not a good thing. But there was something about a wall that was steady and undemanding, muting somehow. Walls dulled the senses, which in turn dulled the pain.

  She was glad the kids were gone. It was good to know they were safely tucked away at the seaside with a grandmother who might smoke too much, and make Heather sneeze, but who would nurture them. Nurture was hard right now. Sonora was relieved not to have to nurture.

  And dealing with the kids would definitely take away from wall time.

  She heard a bark. Got up to open the back door, felt the wind across her face, sniffed it like a bouquet.

  So much for her quota of daily activity.

  Clampett nudged her knee, licked her fingers. Sonora scratched his neck under the worn leather collar. The angels might turn their backs, but not her trusty dog.

  53

  Sonora was asleep on the couch when the doorbell rang. She opened her eyes. Rubbed a hand over her face, licked dry lips. She looked at her watch, saw it was two o’clock—A.M. or P.M.?

  The doorbell rang again; P.M., she decided. Felt like afternoon.

  She opened the door, blinked at the man who stood on the front porch. Felt Clampett’s presence by her side.

  The man was somewhere between twenty-eight and thirty-eight, which was a nice age bracket for a girl who was interested, which she wasn’t. He wore jeans and a white cotton shirt, had high, broad cheekbones, a baby face, wavy brown hair.

  Nice shoulders, Sonora thought.

  The man picked up a rose petal from the soft stems and pieces that littered the front porch.

  “Somebody been sending you flowers, pretty girl?”

  Sonora wondered if she should tell him that the rose petals had spilled from funeral flowers. She looked down at her worn jeans, thin white T-shirt, thick white socks. She decided that she was not a pretty girl and that this man annoyed her.

  “I don’t want any,” Sonora said.

  “Now hang on and give me a chance. See, your dog there hasn’t barked or growled once. Dog knows I’m good people.”

  Sonora put a hand on Clampett’s collar. “This is the world’s best dog. In honor of this dog, I’m going to give you thirty more seconds.”

  He grinned. “I’m from across the river, honey, I’m not sure I can talk that fast.”

  “Give it a shot.”

  He rocked back on his heels. “You’re Blair, aren’t you? Homicide cop working the case where the guy was cuffed in his car and burned up?”

  Sonora straightened her back. “Let’s see some ID.”

  He reached into his back pocket, and she tensed. “No room in there for a weapon, honey, not in this pair of jeans.” He handed her a badge, and she looked it over, squinting.

  “Deputy Sheriff Jonathan Smallwood. Calib County, Kentucky?”

  He propped an elbow on the wood rail of her front porch. “Sorry about what happened to your brother.”

  She nodded. Word like that spread quickly, cop to cop.

  “That’s the main reason I drove up here. After I heard about your brother. I got a story to tell you.”

  Sonora opened the screen door. “Maybe you better come in.”

  Smallwood paused at the edge of her living room, gave her a look over one shoulder, and shook his head.

  “You been eating anything at all?”

  Sonora curled up on the couch, cross-legged, pretending not to notice when Clampett jumped up on the next cushion and laid his head in her lap. House rules for dogs had gone to hell.

  Smallwood opened the curtains, stirring the dust, letting a latticework of sunshine in so bright Sonora blinked. He gathered up glasses, wadded tissues, pizza boxes, and disappeared into the kitchen. He stacked newspapers and set them on a chair.

  “Feel better?” Sonora said.

  “No, but you will.” He settled into her rocking chair. Crossed one ankle over his knee. “Once upon a time.”

  Sonora leaned close.

  It had been five years since he’d come across the car burning hotly on an out-of-the-way county road where the savvy parkers knew to go. It had been hot out, early September, and he shuddered when he described the blackened figure fused to the steering wheel—eyeless sockets, arms pulled forward, pugilistically locked.

  The car had belonged to one Donnie Hillborn, and dental records had confirmed that the blackened body was indeed Donnie, the older brother of Vaughn Hillborn, hotshot football player, currently being courted by the University of Tennessee, the University of Kentucky, Duke, and Michigan State.

  Donnie had been a local embarrassment. Donnie had been gay and proud of it.

  There had been numerous oddities at the scene. A key in a charred fist. The smell of gasoline inside the car. A Coke can in the weeds nearby that had held gasoline and not Coke. No shoes, belt buckle, or signs thereof, anywhere on or around the body.

  “Could’ve burned up, I guess.” Smallwood glanced at Sonora.

  “Not if the body didn’t.”

  He looked thoughtful. “Officially listed as a traffic fatality, despite the lack of tire marks or collision damage.”

  “Autopsy?” Sonora asked.

  “Wasn’t one.”

  “Why does this smell so bad? Why cover it?”

  Smallwood rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s the sports thing.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “The family didn’t want it investigated. They figured it was some kind of hate thing. Because Donnie was gay.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “This is a very out-of-the-way county in Kentucky. A man can go to LA and walk around with false eyelashes and a cosmetics bag and people don’t look twice. But where I come from … don’t tell me Cincinnati’s an oasis of tolerance. You people just concentrate your vice on the other side of the river in Covington.”

  “We let Mapplethorpe stay.”

  “Been lynched in Calib County.”

  “I take your point, Deputy. How’d the family manage to swing it? Money?”

  “You birth a football player, it puts you in the catbird seat.”

  “Come on, I don’t get this.” Sonora tickled Clampett just under his left ear. “Nobody’s going to cover up a murder because somebody’s kid plays good high school ball.”

  “And you looked so intelligent, too.”

  “Explain it better,” Sonora said.

  Smallwood rocked back in his chair. “I’m not saying who the family talked to, or where the pressure connected. Could have been local, could have been the sheriff. Could have been somebody at the university, some alumni. All I know is, the death of Donnie Hillborn becomes a tragic traffic fatality, and Vaughn gets pretty serious about going with UK.”

  “And did he? Might give you a clue as to who put pressure on who.”

  “We’ll never know. Six weeks later, he was dead too.”

  Sonora lifted her head. “Of what?”

  “Accident, out on the farm. Hillborns had a little place, way out from town. Barn caught on fire. Vaughn was inside, trying to get his horse out. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “It’s crap, and you know it.”

  Smallwood looked at her. “They found a cigarette butt.”

  “Kid played football, he didn’t smoke.”

  “It’s Kentucky, everybody smokes.”

  “So what did you do, Smallwood, you leave it alone?”

  Clampett jumped off the couch and put his no
se on the deputy’s knee. Smallwood rubbed the dog on the side of the neck.

  “Believe me, I tried, and I caught hell for it.” Even now, five years later, Sonora could hear the frustration in his voice. “The thing is, these people never went anywhere, except to Lexington now and then to shop at the malls. Hillborn was a good kid, studied hard, worked the family farm. I’ve looked at every face in town, more than once, and I can’t make sense of it. I thought at first it was some kind of nutcase passing through, but Vaughn died too, so that don’t hold up.”

  “What did Donnie Hillborn look like?”

  “Big guy, solid. Six-two.”

  “Dark curly hair and brown eyes?”

  Smallwood looked at her. “Yeah.”

  “Sounds like my girl’s involved.”

  “I thought so, that’s why I’m here. What do you know about her?”

  “Selma Yorke. Small, wavy blond hair. Never smiles.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Watching men burn up in their cars brings her to sexual highs. She takes pictures.”

  “Where would she run across Hillborn and his brother?”

  “She likes brothers.” Sonora’s throat closed. She swallowed.

  Smallwood’s look was full of pity. “I’ve never seen anybody like that in Calib County, and I’d know.”

  “You said Vaughn went into Lexington. Maybe he caught her eye there.”

  “I checked. He’d been doing recruiting trips for months, training, studying, and working on the farm. He hadn’t been to Lexington since Easter, and the only place he went was Sears, to get some Craftsman tools and his taxes done at the H and R Block.”

  “Why didn’t you call me three weeks ago?”

  “You’re not listening, are you? The case is closed and I’m not here, and the investigation does not go on. But I have copies of the investigation reports in the trunk of my car, and if you want them they’re yours.”

  “I’m not working the case. Why don’t … Hold up a minute. You said he went to Lexington around Easter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “To get his taxes done?”

  “Yeah, at H and R Block. At the Sears.”

  “Sears. Hell, yes, next to the Allstate booth. Ashley Daniels works for Allstate, in a mall. It’s taxes. April fifteenth. It’s not Easter at all, it’s the tax thing. It’s H and R Block.” Sonora put a fist under her chin. “Be interesting to find out how many of Selma’s victims got their taxes done there.”

  “Don’t mind my look of confusion, honey, but have I helped you out?”

  “Yeah, you’ve helped me. Thank you very much, Deputy Smallwood. I didn’t see you, I didn’t talk to you, and you can clean up my living room anytime you want.”

  He shook her hand warmly. “Your rocking chair is real comfortable, and I’m nuts about this dog.”

  54

  The office was familiar and strange—her desk unnaturally clean, no messages on the answering machine. Sonora smelled old coffee and felt like she’d left yesterday and a hundred years ago.

  She ducked into Crick’s office before anyone saw her.

  He was frowning at a computer printout, but when he saw her he smiled.

  “Home from the wars,” he muttered and motioned to a chair. “How are your children?”

  She sat down. “Taking it so well it scares me.”

  “Kids are tough. How are you progressing on the nervous breakdown?”

  She laughed. Realized she hadn’t in a while. “Very well, thank you, sir.”

  “I see you’re wearing a clean shirt and tie. This mean you want to ease back into some work time?”

  Sonora nodded.

  “Good. You know you can’t do active work on the Daniels case, but we can use you to consult. Or you can wash your hands of the whole thing, and nobody’d blame you a bit.”

  “You know better. Get prints, anything off the pictures?”

  Crick shook his head. “We’ve been watching Selma’s house, but there’s no sign anybody goes there. We’re trying to get a court order to search the premises. So far judge says no go.”

  “I’ve had to get my kids out of town, my brother got torched, and the judge says no go?”

  Crick’s face was expressionless.

  “What happened to Molliter’s big witness?”

  “Got a body turned up at the morgue, looks like it may be her. Molliter had court today. He’ll ID it tomorrow.”

  “I could go. I saw her in interrogation.”

  “That would help.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Would a cup of coffee help you work your nerve up, Sonora?”

  “Sir?”

  “So you can say whatever it is you’ve got on your mind.”

  Sonora tilted her head sideways. Took a deep breath. “You remember that conversation we had in Keaton Daniels’s bathroom?”

  Crick’s eyelids drooped slightly, but he stayed quiet.

  Sonora sat on the edge of her chair and looked at the floor. “I slept with Keaton Daniels, and used his shower. The physical evidence you got out of the bathroom—it could be her or it could be me.”

  “I see.”

  “Selma was out there. Watching. She knew I spent the night. She called and said she’d pay us back, both of us.”

  Crick looked at her.

  “That’s why she showed up at my house. And his.”

  He placed his fingers together, carefully. “No wonder you were worried.”

  “Still am.”

  “Sonora. It’s a wonder she didn’t take your babies out with your brother.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Not a minute goes by, I don’t think about it. Maybe she’s getting a conscience.”

  Crick pointed a finger at her. “Pay attention. They never, ever, get a conscience. She didn’t kill your kids because it didn’t suit her at the time. Maybe it didn’t fit in with her fantasy. Because that’s what these killings are, they’re her fantasy. That’s why she does what she does, she’s acting it out. And she’s got no limits on what she’ll do to make it happen. Make no mistake. If she’d felt the slightest urge to kill them, she would have, without a second thought.”

  Sonora nodded, sat back in her chair. “There’s more.”

  “I don’t want details, Sonora.”

  “I had a visitor. A deputy from a remote part of Kentucky who had a story to tell me.”

  “He slept with Keaton too?”

  “Selma hit there. Two brothers, both dead in fires, one burned up in his car. A few months before it happened, one of them had his taxes done at H and R Block.”

  “So?”

  “So. H and R Block in a booth at Sears. These booths are usually located next to the Allstate counter, or they used to be. You following me?”

  Crick frowned. “Not really.”

  “Daniels’s wife, Ashley, is an Allstate agent. Her booth is right next to the H and R Block office every year. I checked. These killings happen in the fall, but it’s usually after a few months of phone calls and stalking. Keaton said his calls started in April. And Selby, that guy in Georgia, that’s when his started. April. Think April fifteenth. Taxes. H and R Block. You get it?”

  “You saying she’s some kind of tax accountant? Works for the IRS?”

  “For H and R Block. Not hard to get on there, it’s seasonal, they train people. Perfect for her psychological profile—intermittent, undemanding employment. When tax season is over, she’s got time and a long list of possible victims. Name, address, income. Deductions.”

  “Yeah.” Crick rubbed his chin. “Ties in with that weird thing she has with numbers. What is it, threes and nines?”

  “Threes are evil, ones are shy.”

  “Obviously not your average bear, this girl.”

  Sonora looked at him. Waited. “Crick, drop the shoe, will you? Yell at me now, please, and get it over with.”

  He leaned back in his chair, gave her a sad smile. “Normally I’d transfer your ass, the very least. I’
m cutting you a lot of slack. I think you’ve had enough grief, Sonora.”

  She stared at the floor. “You don’t seem surprised. I take that to mean I’m a lousy liar.”

  “Not at all. It’s her that convinced me. Something set her off enough to stalk you, and kill your brother. Could be the cop angle, could be more than that. I thought there might be more. Your kids came damn close to the edge there. If it gives me nightmares, God knows what it’s doing to you.”

  Sonora chewed her knuckles.

  “Look, Sonora, it’s good your kids are out of town, but they can’t stay away forever. We need to keep Flash stirred up and angry. We need to keep her off balance.”

  “You want me to sleep with Keaton again?” The look he gave her made her sorry she’d said it.

  “Radio call-in show, remember? We decided to let Sam take your place, but you know it’ll work a hell of a lot better with you. Problem is, this business with your brother. It’ll draw a lot of attention.”

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Might not be what you want.”

  “What I want,” Sonora said. She let her hands rest between her knees. “What I want is to catch her.”

  55

  Sonora walked carefully on the freshly mopped tile floors, watchful of wet spots. The morgue was quiet, the lights off in most of the offices. From somewhere came a voice that sounded like Eversley.

  “Yeah, sure, another mysterious disappearance. First my chicken coupon, now this. You telling me the DBs are taking this stuff?”

  Sonora passed the refrigeration unit. The thermometer showed a temperature of fifty-five degrees. Inside the viewing window, she saw the forlorn body of Sheree La Fontaine, lying like a ramrod on a gurney, a towel balled around her feet.

  Marty stood patiently beside her. “Hate to say it, Detective, but we’ve had DBs in here that looked healthier than you do.”

  “I’m in the right place then, aren’t I?”

  He inclined his head toward the body. “That her?”

  “That’s her. Sheree La Fontaine. Working girl from the other side of the river, hails from North or South Carolina.”

  “Wasn’t she a suspect in that Daniels thing?”