Remains of Innocence

by J. A. Jance

  Then another thought crossed her mind. What if the people who were chasing Liza had somehow forced Candy to divulge where she was, how she was traveling, and who was helping her? Did that mean that now all those Underground Railroad people were also in danger—Aimee, Sam and Joe, and Bruiser as well as Kimi Sue and Oxman? Standing shivering and with her teeth chattering, she stared back at the building—at the people coming and going, at the trucks and cars pulling in and out. Her pursuers could be any of those passing people. By now, despite all the Underground Railroad’s careful precautions, the bad guys might already know exactly where she was.

  It took all of Liza’s willpower to stay where she was and not go racing for the nearest hiding place, wherever that might be.

  She had no idea how long she stood there, shivering in the frigid wind blowing down from the snowcapped peaks. At last the cold forced her inside. She slunk into the truck stop’s restaurant and collapsed in the booth farthest from the front door that still offered a clear view of the entrance. Not that seeing the people coming and going would do her any good. Liza didn’t know the faces of the people who were chasing her; she wouldn’t have recognized them if they showed up at the same booth and sat down directly across the table from her.

  A waitress arrived to take Liza’s order. She wore her hair in an old-fashioned beehive that reminded Liza of Honey’s back home. Thinking about Honey reminded her of Candy, and thinking about Candy caused unbidden tears to spring to her eyes before she could blurt out her order.

  “Sweetie pie,” the waitress said consolingly, “you just sit here and take a deep breath. Things may be bad right now, but they’re bound to get better. What you need is something to eat. How about some bacon and eggs?”

  Liza nodded. “Over easy, please, and some coffee, too,” she managed. “Black coffee.”

  The coffee came. Liza dried her tears with some of the extra napkins the waitress had thoughtfully delivered along with the coffee. She sat with her hands wrapped around the cheap china mug hoping that the heat from the cup would leach into her chilled body.

  When breakfast came, Liza tried to eat it. She downed one of the slices of bacon and nibbled at the toast, but that was all. She understood that what should she do now was walk as far as the nearest police station and turn herself in. If she didn’t, other people might die, and if she did? That left the very real possibility that she might die, too. Just because she was in a jail somewhere wouldn’t necessarily mean she was safe. The people who were after her were obviously ruthless and would stop at nothing.

  No, she decided, turning herself in wasn’t the answer, at least not yet. She’d go to Bisbee, talk with Guy, see if he had any ideas about what this was about—about who was after her and why. She’d ask his advice. After all, he was her big brother. With Candy gone, Guy was the only one left to ask. If he said Liza should turn herself in, she would.

  She looked at her luggage. The roll-aboard, still full of the money, was stowed on the bench seat next to her. If whoever was trying to kill her had simply asked her to return the money, she would have done so, no questions asked. After all, it wasn’t really hers in the first place. Whatever was left of it—a little under a hundred grand—was blood money now. People had died because of it—her friends had died because of it. Liza didn’t know if she’d ever be able to bring herself to touch one of those bills again, much less spend it.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” a deep voice asked. “Would you happen to be Linda?”

  Liza looked up. The man standing in front of her was tall and muscular, with biceps the size of tree trunks. He was also a walking gallery of tattoos. The tops of some of the designs peeked out past the open collar of his denim shirt. Every inch of bare skin on his arms—from the bottom of his shirtsleeves to his wrists—was covered with an uninterrupted layer of colorful inks, everything from birds to butterflies, American flags to golden eagles. His nose had been broken, most likely more than once. He was completely bald—almost as bald as Liza herself. Clutched in one hand was a John Deere baseball cap.

  Liza’s first instinct was to blow him off and pretend she wasn’t his intended passenger, but at last she managed a brief nod.

  “I’m William, ma’am,” he said, grinning and clapping the cap back on his head. The grin revealed several missing front teeth. “William Gray. I’m fueled up and ready to go anytime you are.”

  If anyone should have been called Bruiser or Oxman, this guy was him. The somewhat dignified name of William didn’t suit him at all. He was fierce-looking. Liza should have been terrified of him. She should have stayed where she was and hitched a ride with someone else. The problem was, she was even more terrified of the people who were looking for her—the people who had killed Candy. No matter how scary this guy might appear, he couldn’t possibly be that bad.

  Liza reached for her bags. “I’m ready,” she said. “As soon as I pay the bill, we can be on our way.”

  Outside William led her to a semi with two shiny tankers hooked on behind it. He didn’t volunteer what was in the tanks, and Liza didn’t ask. For the first time there was no overhead berth. That meant Liza rode in the cab with William, who chatted away in an amiable fashion. Liza was so upset over the news of Candy’s death that she had a hard time listening or responding.

  Before, she had ridden along in the series of rumbling trucks with some confidence that she was doing so under everyone’s radar—that the people who were after her would never be able to pick up her trail. All that had changed. She had told Candy she was going to Arizona. What if he had told someone else?

  Thinking about Candy led Liza to thinking about the restaurant. What would happen to the business? With Candy gone, who would take over and run it? And what about all the people who worked there? They would most likely be thrown out of work as well, all because of Liza.

  As the tanker truck sped down the road, rather than watching the pavement ahead, Liza kept her eyes glued to the rearview mirror, keeping track of each vehicle that came speeding up behind them. Each time one came a little too close or stayed too long, Liza found herself holding her breath and letting it out only when the worrisome car or truck merged into the other lane and surged past.

  “You can stop worrying,” William said at last, penetrating her cloud of silence. “There’s nobody out there, you know. I’ve been watching, too, and I ain’t seen anybody suspicious.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m just paranoid.”

  “From the looks of that arm, I’d say you’ve got good reason. What kind of cancer?” he added. Now that he had her attention, he seemed determined to engage her in conversation, choosing the most obvious option—cancer.

  “Breast,” she said, “lumpectomy and chemo.” The lie came all too easily, without her even having to think about it.

  William nodded. “My mom had that,” he said. “Seven years ago. They caught it early. Now she does that Susan Komen race thing every year. What’s amazing is that she was never a great one for exercising before she got sick. Now she’s doing cancer walks and cancer bicycle rides all over the country, which, considering her age, is pretty impressive.”

  “How old is she?” Liza asked, more courtesy than due to any real interest.

  “Seventy-one,” William answered. “Other than having that one bout with cancer, the woman’s ornery as all get-out and has never been sick a day in her life.”

  William’s cheery answer sent Liza’s mind down yet another dark channel. Candy Small hadn’t made it to seventy-one, and right that minute, it seemed unlikely that Liza would make it that far, either.

  Back in the truck stop in Denver, Liza had already decided that she’d only stick with the next ride as far as Albuquerque, but she didn’t mention that to William Gray. As far as he was concerned, she was going all the way to Las Cruces. It wasn’t until two in the afternoon when they pulled into the Albuquerque Truck Terminal that she told him she was bailing.

  “You’re sure?” William asked with a frown. “I
’ve already lined up someone who can meet us in Las Cruces and take you as far as Phoenix.”

  She didn’t want to admit that she was opting out of the Underground Railroad because she was afraid it had been compromised.

  “No, thank you,” she responded quickly. “I appreciate all your help and concern, but I’m sure. I have friends in here in Albuquerque,” she added, hoping the lie didn’t show. “I’ll spend a few days with them.”

  “Give me the address,” William said. “I can drop you off.”

  “No,” she insisted. “I already called them. They’ll come pick me up.”

  William wasn’t thrilled with the arrangement, but he went along with it. Liza sat in the restaurant and pretended to be texting her friends on the burner phone while she waited for him to refuel and leave. Sitting with the phone in her hand, she wished she could call Guy. She’d had his number once, of course, but that had been in her own phone, the one Candy had taken away from her. The only way to reach Guy now would be to get the number from information, and she didn’t want to do that. Instead, she’d wait until she got to Bisbee. She’d go to his office and talk to him face-to-face. Together they’d figure out what to do.

  Once William’s tanker eased back out onto the roadway, Liza found a pay phone and called a cab. Before it arrived, she went into the restroom with her luggage. Inside the stall, far away from prying eyes, she opened the roll-aboard and let the all-pervading scent of coffee beans overwhelm the restroom’s industrial-grade room deodorizer. When this was over, Liza wondered if she’d ever feel the same way about coffee beans.

  One by one she counted out fifty of her remaining and still astonishingly fragrant one-hundred-dollar bills and stashed them in the side pocket of her worn Coach purse. Five thousand was the top dollar she was prepared to pay for a vehicle. If she couldn’t find a ride for less than that, she was either taking the bus or walking.

  CHAPTER 19

  JOANNA WAS STILL IN OLD BISBEE AND ON HER WAY TO THE JUSTICE Center when Butch called. “Jenny’s just now loading the horses,” he said, “then we’ll be heading out.”

  “You’re not staying for the afternoon events?” Joanna asked.

  “Jenny’s call,” Butch said. “For some reason she’s ready to go home now. Surprised me, too. It’s never happened before. She usually wants to stay until the bitter end. Not today, though, and it’s just as well. I’m tired of eating dust, and Denny is cranky, too. He misses his mommy, and I miss my wife. What’s happening on your end?”

  “I started my day by witnessing Guy Machett’s autopsy.”

  “Great,” Butch groaned. “How did he die?”

  “Just what I told you last night—he drowned. I’ve had people out combing the streets all morning, trying to see if anyone on the Vista saw or heard anything unusual. Dave Hollicker should be off work with a sprained ankle but came in anyway. He’s at the department sorting through the information that’s coming in from the search warrants. In the meantime, Casey Ledford has driven another load of crime scene evidence up to the Department of Public Safety crime lab in Tucson.”

  Call waiting buzzed with a blocked number on the screen. With as much as she had going on, Joanna decided she’d better take it. “Another call,” she told Butch. “Sorry.” She switched over to the incoming call.

  “Sheriff Brady?”

  The voice was familiar, but Joanna couldn’t place it instantly. “Yes.”

  “Detective Amos Franklin here. Sorry to interrupt your Sunday. I called your department looking for you, and whoever answered the phone there gave me this number. I hope you don’t mind. I never let anyone give out my home number.”

  “It’s my cell,” Joanna said impatiently, “and no, I don’t mind. What’s up?”

  “We’ve got a new wrinkle on our end. A man by the name of Clifford Small was found dead in the burned-out wreckage of his home here in Great Barrington early this morning. I waited until our M.E. did the autopsy before I ran up the flag to you. He was Liza Machett’s boss.”

  “Her boss?” Joanna repeated. “Wasn’t he the guy who gave Liza Machett a ride home the other night after you interviewed her?”

  “A ride to his home,” Franklin corrected.

  “Were he and Liza in a relationship of some kind?”

  “Not that I know of,” Franklin replied. “Liza Machett worked for him for years—ever since she graduated high school—but everyone I’ve talked to says it was strictly that—an employee/employer relationship, nothing more.”

  “No friends with benefits?”

  “If it was, nobody’s saying,” Franklin replied, “but we’re beginning to get a better idea of what we’ve got here. The autopsy clearly shows that Candy was tortured before he was stabbed, and he was dead before the fire started. The M.E. found no sign of smoke inhalation.”

  “Candy?” Joanna asked. “I thought you just said his name was Clifford. And you’re saying he was tortured?”

  “Candy’s what everyone in town called him, ever since we were kids, and yes, he was tortured—badly.”

  “Are you thinking Liza is responsible for what happened to him?”

  “I can’t see how that’s possible unless she had plenty of help. Candy weighed a good three hundred pounds. Liza couldn’t be more than a third of that. Besides, call me sexist if you want, but I can’t see a woman involved in something where torture is such a big part of it.”

  “What kind of torture?”

  “His fingers and toes were systematically whacked off over a period of time, probably several hours. When the fun and games were over, he was killed with a single stab wound to the heart. That took some physical strength. Again, I don’t think a woman could or would have done it.”

  Joanna thought about the footprints in the blood around the chair in Guy Machett’s kitchen, a larger set and a smaller one. A man and a woman together? It was a possibility, and just because the search hadn’t shown anyone traveling with Liza Machett’s ID didn’t rule out the idea of her traveling with fake ID of some kind. Joanna knew there were plenty of places where fake IDs were bought and sold on the open market, even in her small-town corner of the world.

  “After Liza disappeared,” Detective Franklin continued, “I started looking into a few things, because there were some rumors floating around. Several people suggested that Liza must have come into a substantial sum of money fairly recently. Before the house burned down last week, she’d spent a small fortune cleaning out and redoing her mother’s place.

  “Once I started asking questions, I learned that she’d been paying her workers mostly in cash. On a hunch, I called Craig Masters, the guy who runs the local funeral home. Sure enough, part of Selma Machett’s final expenses had been paid in advance by Selma herself, but the remainder was paid in cash—thirty one-hundred-dollar bills that Liza handed over the morning of the funeral. According to Craig, that wad of money stunk to high heavens of coffee.

  “Then I called another old friend of mine, Nancy Haller, who manages First National Bank and Trust here in Great Barrington. She says that she and her staff have been seeing an influx of what they call ‘coffee money’ for some time now, for at least the past month or so.

  “She says it usually comes into the bank in hundred-dollar denominations. When the first batch showed up, one of the tellers brought it to Nancy’s attention. The serial numbers on the bills were so old that most of their contemporaries have been taken out of circulation. It turns out that, other than the smell, these bills were in good shape. Since then Nancy’s had her people keep track of the serial numbers, but she also put in a call to someone at the Treasury Department early on because she was afraid they might be dealing with some kind of counterfeit. Treasury sent out an investigator who determined that the bills were real enough. He said not to worry—that it was probably money someone, Selma Machett most likely, had been hoarding for a very long time—the old money-in-the-mattress kind of savings account.”

  By then, Joanna had pulled the Yukon
into the private parking place behind her office at the Justice Center. “How old are these bills exactly?” she asked.

  “Most of them date back to the late seventies. Some are a little earlier.”

  “The money may be what this is all about, then, or it could be something else,” Joanna commented. “Whatever the killers are looking for, they’re prepared to do whatever’s necessary to lay hands on it. Do we have any idea how much money is involved?”

  “Not exactly,” Detective Franklin replied. “I’ve spent the morning tracking down everybody who did rehab work on Selma Machett’s house. Nobody’s willing to give me a straight answer. They’re all claiming that it was a volunteer project organized by Candy Small. That’s probably because they were paid in cash, and nobody’s bothered to declare it as income. When I struck out with them, I checked with several local building supply places and lumberyards.

  “It turns out Liza had recently become a very steady customer at more than one of those. Since she paid cash there, too, the stores don’t have exact records of what she purchased, but they acknowledge her having ponied up money for a substantial amount of building material—plumbing fixtures, new kitchen appliances, flooring. Based on what I can verify and estimating the rest, I’d say she must have spent at least forty grand just on fixing up the house.”

  “The same house that burned down the other night,” Joanna concluded.

  “Correct,” Franklin agreed, “all of which leads me to believe that we’re talking about a fairly large sum of money since there’s still enough of it out there to make it worthwhile to commit three separate murders.”

  “You’ve got the drop on us by a few days in all of this,” Joanna observed. “We have yet to get responses on our requests for phone and e-mail information. Have you been able to uncover any kind of pattern of communication between Liza and her brother? Are there any records of phone calls or e-mails back and forth between them?”