by Diana Palmer
“Not the SAC?”
“Our special agent in charge is in Washington, trying to appropriate funds for a new project we’re trying to get started, partnering with the local middle schools to discourage kids from using drugs.”
“He might need to ask somebody with more money than our government seems to have,” came the dry reply. “On a local level, our own budget is cut to the bone already. I had to buy a digital camera out of my pocket so that I could get my own crime scene photos.”
Garon laughed shortly. “I know that feeling.”
“Is it true, that a lot of cases never get listed on VICAP?” Marquez said.
“Yes. The forms are shorter than they once were, but it takes about an hour to fill them out. Some police departments just don’t have the time. If you could find a second case with a red ribbon involved, I might be able to help you convince your lieutenant that there’s a serial killer loose. Before he kills again,” he added somberly.
“Can you spare us an agent, if we put together a task force to hunt this guy?”
“We can spare me. The rest of my squad is trying to run down a mob of bank robbers who use automatic weapons in holdups. I’m not essential personnel to them. My assistant can run the squad in my absence. I’ve worked serial murder cases, and I know agents in the Behavioral Science Unit I can call on for help. I’ll be glad to work with you.”
“Thanks.”
“No sweat. We’re all on the same team.”
“Do you have a business card?”
Garon took out his wallet and pulled out a simple white business card with black lettering. “My home phone is at the bottom, along with my cell phone number and my e-mail.”
Marquez’s eyebrows lifted. “You live in Jacobsville?”
“Yes. I bought a ranch there.” He laughed. “We’re not supposed to be involved in any business outside the job, but I pulled strings. I live on the ranch. The manager takes care of the day-to-day operation, so I have no conflicts.”
“I was born in Jacobsville,” Marquez said, smiling.
“My mother still lives there. She runs a café in town.”
There was only one café in town. Garon had eaten there. “Barbara’s Café?” Garon asked.
“The same.”
He frowned. He didn’t want to step on the man’s toes, but Barbara was a blonde.
“You’re thinking I don’t look like a man with a blond mother, right?” Marquez smiled. “My parents died in a botched robbery. They owned a small pawn shop in town. I was just six at the time. Barbara never married and had no family. I used to take mom and dad food from the café. After the funeral, Barbara came and got me out of state custody and adopted me. Quite a lady, Barbara.”
“I’ve heard that.”
Marquez checked his watch. “I have to run. I’ll phone you when I’ve talked to my captain.”
“Better make it an e-mail,” Garon replied. “I expect to be in meetings for most of today. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Okay. See you.”
“Sure.”
IT WAS A GOOD DAY, Garon thought as he drove himself back to Jacobsville. The squad was working witnesses at the last big bank robbery to find any information that would further the investigation. Men armed with automatic weapons were a danger to the entire community of San Antonio. He’d talked to the senior ASAC about setting up a task force in concert with San Antonio homicide detectives to work on the child murder. He had a green light. The ASAC had a friend in the Texas Rangers. He gave Garon his number. They were going to need all the help they could get.
He glanced toward the Carver place as he drove by. Her car was still sitting in the driveway. He wondered if she could start it again. It was a miracle the piece of junk ran at all.
He pulled into his driveway and almost ran into the back of a silver Mercedes convertible. A familiar brunette with dark eyes got out, dressed in a black power suit with a skirt halfway up her thighs that showed off her pretty legs. He knew her. She was the realtor who’d just gone to work for Andy Webb, the man who’d sold him this ranch. Her aunt was rich; old lady Talbot, who lived in a mansion on Main Street in town.
What was her name? Jaqui. Jaqui Jones. Easy to remember, and her figure was more than enough to make her memorable in addition to her job.
“Hi,” she said, almost purring as he climbed out of the Jaguar. “I just thought I’d stop by and make sure you were still happy with your ranch.”
“Happy enough,” he said, smiling.
“Great!” She moved closer. She was only a little shorter than he was, and he was over six feet tall. “I’m hosting a party at my aunt’s a week from Friday night,” she said. “I’d love to have you join us. It would be a nice way to meet Jacobsville’s upper social strata.”
“Where and what time?” he asked.
She grinned. “I’ll write down the address. Just a sec.” She went back to her car and bent over to give him a good view of her body as she retrieved a pen and pad. It didn’t take second sight to know that she was available and interested. So was he. It had been a long, dry spell.
She wrote down the address and handed it to him. “About six,” she said. “That’s early, but we can have highballs while we wait for the others to show up.”
“I don’t drink,” he said.
She looked startled. He was obviously not joking.
“Well, then, we can have coffee while we wait,” she amended, smiling so that he could see her perfectly capped teeth.
“Suits me. I’ll see you then.”
She hesitated, as if she wanted to stay.
“I’m just in from D.C. very early this morning,” he said. “And it’s been a full day at the office. I’m tired.”
“Then I’ll go, and let you get comfortable,” she said immediately, smiling again. “Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
He’d gone around her car to put the Bucar in front of the house, on the semicircular driveway, so she simply pulled around him to shoot out the driveway, waving a hand out the window as she passed him.
He went inside, almost colliding with Miss Jane. “That fancy woman parked herself in the driveway and said she’d wait for you. I didn’t invite her in,” she added with a faint belligerence. “She’s only been in town two months and she’s already got a reputation. Put her hand down Ben Smith’s pants right in his own office!”
Apparently this was akin to blasphemy, he reasoned, waiting for the rest.
“He jerked her hand right back out, opened his office door, and put her right out on the sidewalk. His wife works in the office with him, you know, and when he told her what happened, she walked into Andy Webb’s office and told him what he could do with the property they’d planned to buy from him, and how far!”
He pursed his lips. “Fast worker, is she?”
“Tramp, more like,” Miss Jane said coldly. “No decent woman behaves like that!”
“It’s the twenty-first century,” he began.
“Would your mother ever have done that?” she asked shortly.
He actually caught his breath. His little mother had been a saint. No, he couldn’t have pictured her being available to any man except his father—until his father had cheated on her and hastened her death.
Miss Jane read his reply on his face and her head jerked up and down. “Neither would my mother,” she continued. “A woman who’s that easy with men she doesn’t even know will be that way all her life, and even if she’s married she won’t be able to settle. It’s the same with men who treat women like disposable toys.”
“So everybody in town is celibate?” he queried.
She glared up at him. It was a long way. “People in small towns mostly get married and have children and raise them. We don’t look at life the way people in cities do. Down here, honor and self-respect are a lot more important than closing a business deal and having a martini lunch. We’re just simple people, Mr. Grier. But we look deeper than outsiders do. And
we judge by what we see.”
“Isn’t there a passage about judging?” he retorted.
“There are several about right and wrong as well,” she informed him. “Civilizations fall when the arts and religion become superfluous.”
His eyebrows went up.
“Oh, did you think I was stupid because I keep house for you?” she asked blithely. “I have a Master’s Degree in History,” she added with a sweet smile. “I taught school in the big city until one of my students beat me almost to death in front of the class. When I got out of the hospital, I was too shaken to go back to teaching. So now I keep house for people. It’s safer. Especially when the people I keep house for work in law enforcement,” she added. “Your supper’s on the table.”
“Thanks.”
She was gone before he could say anything else. He was still reeling from her confession. Come to think of it, the Jacobs County Sheriff, Hayes Carson, had recommended Miss Jane. She’d worked for him temporarily until he could get the part-time housekeeper he wanted. No wonder she was afraid of her old job. He shook his head. In his day, teachers ran the classrooms. Apparently a lot of things had changed in the two or so decades since he graduated from high school and went off to college.
He was lying awake, looking at the ceiling, when there was a frantic pounding at the front door.
He got up and threw on a robe, tramping downstairs in his bare feet. Miss Jane was there ahead of him, turning on the porch light before she started to open the door.
“Don’t open it until you know who it is!” he shouted at her. His hand was on the .40 caliber Glock that he’d stuffed into his pocket as he joined her.
“I know who it is,” she replied, and opened the door quickly.
Their next-door neighbor, Grace Carver, was standing there in a ratty old bathrobe and tattered shoes, her long blond hair in a frizzed ponytail, her gray eyes wide and frantic.
“Please, may I use your phone?” she panted.
“Granny’s gasping for breath and her chest hurts. I’m afraid it’s a heart attack. My phone won’t work and I can’t start the car!” Tears of impotent fury were rolling down her cheeks. “She’ll die!”
Before she got the words completely out, Garon had dialed 911 and given the dispatcher the address and condition of the old woman.
“Wait for me,” he told Grace firmly. “I’ll be right back.”
He ran up the stairs, threw on jeans and a shirt and dragged on his boots without socks. He grabbed a denim jacket, because it was cold, and was downstairs in less than five minutes.
“You’re quick,” Grace managed.
“I get called out at all hours,” he said, taking her elbow. “Jane, I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ve got my keys. Lock up and go to bed.”
“Yes, sir. Grace, I’ll keep her in my prayers. You, too.”
“Thank you, Miss Jane,” she said in her soft voice. She had a faint south Texas drawl, but it was smooth and sweet to the ear.
Garon bypassed the Bucar, unlocked the black Jaguar and put her inside. She felt uncomfortable, not only because she was in her nightclothes, but because she wasn’t accustomed to being alone with men.
He didn’t say anything. He drove to her grandmother’s house, pulled up in the driveway and cut the engine. Grace was up the steps like a flash, with Garon on her heels.
The old lady, Mrs. Jessie Collier, was sitting up on her bed in a thick blue gown that looked as if it had been handed down from the 1920s. She was a big woman, with white hair coiled on her head and watery green eyes. She was gasping for breath.
“Grace, for God’s sake,” she panted, “go find my bathrobe!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Grace went to the closet and started rummaging.
“Stupid girl, never can do anything right.” She looked at Garon angrily. “Who are you?”
“Your next door neighbor,” he replied. “The ambulance is on the way.”
“An ambulance!” She glared at Grace, who’d returned with a thick white chenille robe. “I told you…we’d go in the…car! Ambulances cost money!”
Grace grimaced. “The car won’t start, Granny.”
“You broke it, did you?” she raged. “You stupid…” She groaned and held her chest.
Grace looked anguished. “Granny, please don’t get upset,” she pleaded. “You’ll make it worse!”
“It would suit you if I died, wouldn’t it, young miss?” she chided. “You’d have this whole house to yourself and no old lady to wait on.”
“Don’t talk like that,” the younger woman said softly. “You know I love you.”
“Hmmmf,” came the snorted reply. “Well, I don’t love you,” she returned. “You cost me my daughter, held me up to public disgrace, made me ashamed to go to town…!”
“Granny,” Grace ground out, her face contorting with pain.
“Wish I could die,” the old woman raged, panting.
“And be rid of you!”
The ambulance came tearing up the dirt road, its sirens blazing, its lights flashing. Grace gave a sigh of relief. She hadn’t wanted their neighbor to hear any of this. It was none of his business. She was too embarrassed even to look at him.
“I’ll go and bring them up here,” she said, anxious to escape.
“Fool girl, ruined my life,” the old woman grumbled.
Garon felt a ripple of pure disgust as he watched the elderly woman clutching her chest. The girl was doing all she could for her grandmother, who seemed about as loving as a python. Maybe it was her illness that made her so nasty. The woman in his life had died expressing apologies to the nurses for having to lift her onto bedpans. That kind, loving, sweet woman had been an angel even in her final hours. What a contrast.
The paramedics came up the steps behind Grace, carrying a gurney. With a nod to Garon, they went to work on old Mrs. Collier.
“Is it a heart attack?” Grace asked worriedly. “Will she be all right?”
One of the paramedics glanced at her. “Are you her daughter?”
“Granddaughter.”
“Has she had spells like this before?”
“Yes. Dr. Coltrain gives her nitroglycerin tablets, but she won’t use them. He gives her blood pressure medicine, but she won’t take that, either.”
“Medicine costs money!” the old lady snarled at them. “All I have is my social security. Couldn’t feed a mouse on what she makes, working part-time at that flower shop and cooking…”
“I can’t leave you alone all day, and I’d have to if I worked full-time,” Grace said in a subdued tone. She didn’t add that she’d have to pay someone to stay with her grandmother, also, and there was no way anybody who knew her would take the job.
“Good excuse, isn’t it?” Mrs. Collier grumbled. She cried out, suddenly, clutching her chest. “Oh!”
“Where are her nitroglycerin tablets?” one of the medics asked quickly.
Grace ran around the bed to the side table, and handed them to him.
Mrs. Collier protested, but he got it under her tongue anyway.
She shivered as it took effect, but the medic who was monitoring her vitals gave the other one a speaking glance.
“We’re going to have to transport her,” he told his colleague. “Can you come with her?” he asked Grace.
“Yes. Just…just let me get dressed. I won’t be a minute.”
She went out without a backward glance, dashed into her room, threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and her old sneakers and rushed right back to her grandmother. She didn’t bother with makeup or even comb her hair. She wasn’t going to a social event, after all.
Garon glanced at her. She wouldn’t win a beauty contest, but she was a fast dresser, he thought with admiration. Most women he knew took hours dressing and making up.
“I’ll follow you in the Jag and bring you home,” he told her.
She started to protest, but one of the attendants shook his head. “We’ll probably have to keep her overnight at least,” he sa
id.
“I won’t stay!” Mrs. Collier raged, but she was still gasping and clutching her chest.
“She’ll stay,” the older paramedic said with a deliberate smile. “Let’s load her up, Jake.”
“You bet.”
Grace stood back beside Garon as they wheeled Mrs. Collier out, still muttering angrily.
Garon didn’t say anything. He escorted Grace down to the Jag and helped her into the passenger seat.
“You’ll need your purse, won’t you?” he asked.
She indicated the fanny pack around her waist. “I’ve got Granny’s cards to check her in,” she said dully. “She can’t die,” she added in a hollow tone. “She’s all I’ve got in the world.”
Which wasn’t a hell of a lot, Garon was thinking. But he didn’t say it. He was resigned to losing most of the night’s sleep he’d been hoping for.
2
IT WAS MIDNIGHT before they had Mrs. Collier through the battery of tests that had been ordered. It had been a heart attack, fairly severe. Dr. Jeb “Copper” Coltrain came out into the waiting room to talk to Grace after he’d seen the results of the tests.
“She’s bad, Grace,” Copper told her. “I’m sorry, but it can’t come as much of a surprise. I told you this would happen eventually.”
“But there are medicines, and they have these new surgical procedures that I saw on the news,” she argued.
He started to put a hand on her shoulder but immediately drew it back before it could make contact. She’d stiffened, something Garon noted with idle curiosity.
“Most of those procedures are experimental, Grace,” he said gently. “And the drugs still haven’t been approved by the FDA.”
Grace bit her lower lip. She had a beautiful bow of a mouth with a natural pink tint, Garon noticed without wanting to, and a peaches and cream complexion that he’d rarely seen on a woman once she took her makeup off. Her hair was a soft, golden-blond. She had it in a ponytail, but when unfettered, it must reach halfway down her back, and it had just a faint wave. She had small, pert breasts and a small waistline. She was perfectly proportioned, in fact. Looking at her long legs and rounded hips in those tight jeans made him uncomfortable and he averted his gaze back to Coltrain.
