“Did you look in here?”
She gave an abbreviated shake of her head. “I hate guns.”
Five bullets rolled around in the box, the metal catching the lamplight. Shiny and fresh. Wherever her boyfriend was, he had his gun, and probably plenty of bullets.
What I saw underneath the loose bullets chilled me more than the missing gun.
I carried the box to my desk, feeling the weight of my own revolver hidden under my shirt, tugging the waistband of my pants. I tipped the box and let the bullets roll onto the desk.
In the box lay a cream-colored book with a faux-marbled vinyl cover, bound along the spine with frayed cords. Old English gilt embossed a single word: Scrapbook. On top of the book, cracked and worn, lay a photograph. A duplicate of the crime-scene photo we’d found hidden in Neanna’s car. This one, though, lacked the tiny blood spatters that decorated Neanna’s copy.
In sharp focus, I saw it. The artistic angle of the shot and the wash of lighting, uncharacteristic for crime scene or newspaper photographers. The photos lining the walls at the Pasture.
“Your boyfriend is Ash Carter.”
She gave me a panicked glance.
“He’s a photographer.” I wasn’t asking her. I was reminding myself.
She looked flustered by my sudden change in topic. “Why?”
“He took the photos on the walls in the bar.”
“Uh-huh.”
I used a pen to open the edge of the scrapbook. Just as I expected. Yellowed newspaper clippings. I let the cover fall closed. No need risking fingerprints or other trace evidence.
Ash Carter took all kinds of pictures, including bikini-clad girls at Myrtle Beach. The same man whose photography trip to the beach had supplied Lenn Edmonds’s alibi had a photo of a dead woman, some shiny bullets, and a scrapbook.
I stood staring down at my desk, at the battered gold box, the cracked photograph, the scrapbook. The same man had handily provided an alibi for himself.
I turned the phone around on my desk and dialed Rudy’s familiar cell phone number. I glanced at my watch and felt a tiny ripple of guilt at calling so late. Until I remembered he was on patrol.
Rudy barked into his phone—his tough-cop-in-charge voice. He listened without interrupting to my rapid Reader’s Digest version.
“So he’s probably carrying the gun,” Rudy said.
“That would be my guess.” I didn’t want to further panic Cela by letting her know about the missing gun. She thought she’d brought with her some security. I stared at the faded gilt letters. Security was the last thing she’d brought with her in this box.
“His girlfriend’s got bruises and he caused ‘em?”
“Yep.”
“He’s out at the Pasture?”
“Or out—looking.” I caught myself and glanced at Cela. Abusive relationships are unpredictable on both sides. I didn’t want either a wave of panic or of nostalgic remorse to wash over Cela, pushing her to do something I couldn’t control.
“You got bullets for that gun of yours, Barney?” Rudy’s sarcasm protected us both from reality for a moment.
“You’re the deputy,” I countered, though no one would mistake Rudy for the scrawny Barney Fife of Andy Griffith Show fame.
“I got my other guys scattered around the lakes, because of those break-ins. It’ll take a while to call somebody in. You sure you’re okay there?”
“Sure.” I knew as well as Rudy how dangerous domestic cases could get. “Keep me posted.”
As I started to hang up the receiver, I noticed the blinking message light.
Three calls, all from Fran. The first announced she’d decided to drive back to Dacus for the weekend and had just checked into the bed-and-breakfast. By the third, she’d given up reaching me and had decided how to entertain herself for the evening.
“It’s about ten o’clock,” her last message said. “I’m going to drive out to the Pasture, see if I can find anybody who saw Neanna there last week. Too antsy to sit around this room. Hope you’re not gone for the weekend. Call me.”
My tongue tasted like dried sweat. My fingers stumbled over the keys as I redialed Rudy’s number. It rang and rang. Not even his voice mail picked up.
I dialed again, hoping I’d misdialed the first time. More ringing.
I dialed my parents’ house.
My mom, usually on the night-owl shift at home, didn’t ask any questions after I told her I had someone who needed to check into the women’s shelter.
“Pull around back, into the garage, Mom.”
That way, we could smuggle Cela into Mom’s van through the basement garage, out of sight of any spying eyes.
A part of me hoped Ash Carter was lurking outside or cruising the streets looking for Cela. Anywhere but at the Pasture waiting to ask Fran to dance.
I dialed Rudy again. Still no answer.
I pocketed my cell phone and turned to Cela. I struggled to keep my voice even. She didn’t need to sense my panic, though I didn’t know how she could help but smell it on me.
“Come on. We’ve got a garage under the house. My mom is picking you up. You need to stay in the shelter tonight.”
I didn’t tell her the spacious, bright underground garage had once housed the Baldwin & Bates Funeral Home two-car fleet of hearses. That wouldn’t be a comforting picture.
While we waited, I tried Rudy’s number again. Ring, ring, ring.
Mom arrived in record time, wrapped Cela up in her charitably loving care, and whisked her away to safety.
I closed the garage and left through the side door to the rear parking lot. I cranked the Mustang and barreled out the narrow drive that ran between the house and the shrubs sheltering the office from view of the corner gas station.
I couldn’t raise Fran on her cell phone, but at least it switched me to her voice mail.
“Fran, it’s Avery. Stay away from Ash Carter. I’ll fill you in. I’m on my way. A sheriff’s deputy should be there soon. Stay away from him. I’ll explain later.”
I threw the phone in the passenger seat, bore down on the accelerator, and concentrated on the winding country road out to the Pasture. Wouldn’t do any good to wrap myself around a tree.
Late Saturday Night
Late night brought big business to the Pasture. In the main lot, cars perched everywhere without a crack to angle my car into. I parked in the lumpy, unlighted field across the road and hoped I wouldn’t twist my ankle as I loped toward the long, low building hung in white Christmas lights.
The cigarette smoke had spent the evening gathering thick at the ceiling. By this late hour, it had sunk to head height, leaving the room with little view.
This wasn’t the hot, open, brightly lit square dance barn. The low ceiling, the smoke scraping the back of my throat with every breath, the din of alcohol-fired voices and the band’s chest-thumping beat, the women old enough to need more clothes than they were wearing—all closed in tight as soon as I walked in.
My lucky night. No cover charge for ladies before midnight.
I tried to find a vantage point from which to spot Fran. The sooner I got her out of here, the better.
Was Rudy already here? I hadn’t seen a patrol car outside. Would he be driving his unmarked car?
I quickly realized that the long, flat room meant I wouldn’t see anything if I stood in one place, but moving around presented its own challenges.
The closer I got to the dance floor, the more I noticed the appraising looks I was getting. This place probably didn’t get much fresh meat.
I slipped past a man who had backed a woman up against a rough-hewn support beam, his hand propped over her head to corral her, his face in her uplifted one. A guy stepped in front of me, his shirt collar open so low I had a Saturday Night Fever flashback. He cocked his head in the direction of the dance floor.
I wanted to say, “Careful there, buddy. The heat’s loosened your toupee glue,” but he couldn’t hear me anyway. I just smiled, shook my head, and mouthed “friend�
� while waving my hand in a vague direction.
That’s when I spotted her. On the dance floor, her slender back arched in the tight embrace of Ash Carter.
She danced on her toes, but not in the good form she’d learned in cotillion class. She smiled, nodding attentively. He had a too-bright grin. His step faltered. The crowd on the floor could have been either the cause or what kept him from tripping in an inebriated heap. He clutched Fran even tighter, as though she were the stuffed bunny he’d gotten in his Easter basket.
I didn’t want to panic him. I tried subtle means to get Fran’s attention, like staring at her hard and trying to send her telepathic messages.
Finally, in a glance over his shoulder, she saw me and flashed me a genuine smile, followed quickly by a single shake of her head and a frown when I motioned for her to join me.
She thought she was on to something. More than she knew. The dried sweat from the square dance blossomed out in the heat of my sudden fear.
I couldn’t do anything but stand and watch. And avoid meeting Bad Toupee’s gaze.
This close to the dance floor, the song was recognizable if you listened closely for several bars—an up-tempo waltz, though few on the floor recognized the difference between a three- and a four-count box step.
Ash apparently hadn’t seen me, and Fran wasn’t pointing me out. She kept circling aimlessly in his clutch, smiling and nodding at him.
I sensed the disturbance before I saw its source. All kinds of straightening up started—women adjusting their skirts, patting their hair, men no longer bent over to enjoy the view rising from a décolletage belonging to another man’s wife. Heads didn’t turn but eyes followed the source: Rudy Mellin in uniform, his handgun and other fixtures plainly visible on his belt.
Did officers know the effect they had? They must. Probably why some of them accepted the boring parts and the poor pay.
I’d stayed back in the crowd, hoping Ash wouldn’t notice me and hoping Fran wouldn’t say anything about seeing me.
No avoiding Rudy, though. He didn’t look happy to see me.
“I tried to call you,” I yelled into his ear, not wanting to waste time being scolded. “Fran’s back in town. She left me a message and I couldn’t reach you.”
I turned my back to the dance floor to talk to Rudy, hoping Carter wouldn’t recognize me. Rudy had to bend over to hear me, yet I still felt self-conscious, not wanting anyone to overhear and spook Carter into something rash.
Without warning, Rudy pushed me aside and plowed through the drinkers and dancers.
The crowd closed back before I could follow in his wake. I glimpsed Fran’s face, turned back as if looking for help, just as Ash Carter jerked her out of sight near the band stage at the rear of the dance floor.
I squirmed through the hot bodies, stepping on somebody’s foot and getting smacked sharply by a gyrating man’s exuberant elbow. I reached the rear hallway just in time to see Ash take an ineffectual punch at Rudy. In an easy move, Rudy cocked his arm back and clipped Ash on the point of the chin.
Despite all his Maylene meals, Rudy made the punch look light, effortless. Ash’s eyes literally rolled in his head. He dropped like a sack of feed off a truck tailgate.
With one hand, Rudy scooped Fran behind him, away from Ash. He then stood over Ash, making sure he wasn’t playing ‘possum.
I joined them and slid my arm around Fran. She started shaking uncontrollably.
Everything had ended so quickly. Most of the people in the bar had no idea a murderer had been captured in their midst. My adrenaline overload burned out just as my brain realized how differently things could have ended. The claustrophobic smokiness in the dance hall did nothing to warm my sudden icy fear.
Rudy must have called backup before he came inside, because a burly officer with salty gray hair and too many immobile years behind the wheel of a cruiser appeared almost as soon as Rudy clicked his shoulder radio.
The two officers flipped Ash over and cuffed him as his eyelids fluttered back to consciousness. They hauled him up unceremoniously and out the front door, dragging his toes when he couldn’t or wouldn’t stand.
Fran and I followed, the crowd staying parted long enough to let us pass.
After they loaded Ash, still limp, into the back of Rudy’s patrol car, Rudy turned, flexing his fingers on his bruised punching hand.
“We’ll talk later,” he said, his tone a portent.
The patrol cars pulled away, leaving Fran and me standing alone. I still had my arm around her waist.
I didn’t bother asking where she’d parked. We could retrieve her car later. I walked her slowly through the large gravel lot, across the rough-paved country blacktop, and over the lumpy field to my Mustang.
She slid in without protest, the bucket seat roomy around her slight frame.
Sunday
Sunday breakfast with Rudy was not a pleasant affair. He’d called me at seven that morning and ordered me to put in an appearance at Maylene’s. He was not happy.
I’d no sooner slid into the booth across from him than he lit into me.
“What the hell were you doing, charging into the Pasture last night? You know better than that. Blundering around like that could’ve gotten somebody hurt. Or dead.”
That hit like a punch, but I knew he was right. “Rudy, I tried to call you. What was I supposed to do? Just hope you got there? Just hope you knew Fran might be in trouble?”
“Why not do what ordinary citizens do? Call freakin’ 911. That’s what it’s there for.”
“And tell the dispatcher what?”
Rudy glared at me but didn’t reply.
The waitress sauntered over to take our orders, which gave us both a chance to cool down.
“I’m sorry, Rudy. Like I told you last night, when Cela Newlyn showed up with that scrapbook, it all fell into place for me. All those photos at the Pasture. The photography trip to Myrtle Beach that gave Lenn Edmonds such a good alibi. All of a sudden, I realized who took that carefully lit photo of Wenda. I realized that Myrtle Beach alibi protected Ash Carter as much as it did Lenn. Knowing that, Lenn’s double alibi made sense. Then I picked up Fran’s phone message about going to the Pasture. I panicked.”
My rush of words stopped. Rudy stirred the gritty sugar against the bottom of his coffee cup before he met my gaze.
“Ash convinced Lenn he was helping him out,” he said. “Seems Lenn’s real alibi, the one Ingum only heard rumors about, was awkward. Lenn was shacked up with somebody else’s wife. As it happens, the wife of the guy who staked Lenn with the money to buy the Pasture. Seems everybody loves a college football hero.”
“So Lenn had good reason to be grateful when Ash came up with the Myrtle Beach alibi.”
“They’d been there the week before. Everything was just vague enough to be believable. Stayed in the Edmonds family condo. No time-dated gas station receipts or that sort of thing, and no manpower to track all the loose ends down.”
“But why did Ash kill them?”
“He’s not talking, not about Wenda or Neanna. My guess, he came on to Wenda. She told him to get lost. He got violent. Ash has a problem sweet-talking ladies. As you found out last night.”
“He hasn’t learned anything about finesse despite hanging around with Lenn Edmonds all these years.”
Rudy snorted. “Finesse? Hardly.”
I thought about shop-worn Cela Newlyn and free-spirited Wenda Sims. I doubted Wenda would have given him a second look, especially if she’d already attracted Lenn Edmonds’s attention. Unlike Cela, Wenda had been a woman with options in men, even if she didn’t always have good taste. What had Cela put up with in the name of love?
Rudy’s mouth set in a hard line. “We’re just now finding out what a scary little shit Ash Carter is.”
I waited for him to elaborate.
“We’re checking on him, everywhere he’s been for the last couple of decades. Starting to wonder if these were his only two victims.”
&
nbsp; “No.” The word rushed out in a breath.
Rudy shrugged. “Don’t know for sure. Some questions have followed him around other places he’s been. Girlfriends who left town suddenly. That sort of thing. Both SLED and the FBI are involved now.”
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, our state police. I shivered, remembering the photograph and how Ash had frightened Gran into giving up on her daughter. Had he done more than send the photograph? Had he threatened her? Or Neanna?
“You said Neanna had taken a lot of Xanax. You think he gave it to her?”
“Possible. If she wasn’t used to taking it, that would guarantee she didn’t put up much fight.”
“All he had to do was hold her hand near the gun when he fired it.”
The look on Rudy’s face said he hadn’t thought of that. “That would account for the gunshot residue. Or he could’ve just held the gun in her hand, fired into the woods, replaced the cartridge, and shot her. With the pills, alcohol, and pot, she’d have been little more than a rag doll.”
“Why kill Neanna?”
“Why not? She was asking questions. Probably easy to entice her to meet him on the mountain, with the promise of information. More of a rush job than with Wenda. He took his time there, and he came close to getting away with it.”
“Why leave Wenda on that graveyard bench like that? That had to be dangerous, taking all that time.”
“Who knows? Because he could. Ash has always been a cocky little shit, as long as I’ve known him. Always thought he was smarter than everybody else.”
I shivered at the memory of Fran dancing with him, his tight embrace. It had been just mildly creepy last night. Now it was terrifying. Everything suggested Ash Carter had more experience than we knew getting away with murder.
“Would he have killed her? Fran?”
Rudy raised an eyebrow as if to say, What do you think?
He reached to answer the buzz of his cell phone just as the waitress set down our plates of food. After a series of uh-huh’s, he said, “I’ll be right there,” and flipped the phone shut. “Dangnation.”
Hush My Mouth Page 22
