Thick as Thieves

by Sandra Brown

  No. Arden didn’t want to reveal what she had discovered about Rusty Dyle until she knew why he was spying on her. Since he and she had never even met, his interest couldn’t be personal. Which meant it was official and must pertain to her father and two unsolved crimes, one a probable homicide.

  She had obtained the investigation reports in the hope they would yield something she could use to defend against the accusations against her father.

  By the time she got home, she’d decided on the tack to take with Lisa. She got herself a Diet Coke, sat at the table with the police files in front of her, and put the call through. When Lisa answered, the background noise indicated that she was on speakerphone in her car.

  Arden said, “Evidently I’ve caught you at a bad time.”

  “I’m only running errands. What’s going on? Did your pervert drive by last night?”

  She wasn’t certain Rusty Dyle could be classified as a pervert. Snake oil salesman, maybe. He had that kind of pointy-mustache leer and mannerisms. He’d clasped her hand a little too long for what should have been a polite handshake between strangers. Thinking about him made her shudder.

  “Arden?”

  “I don’t know for sure if he came by last night or not. I was exhausted. The round-trip drive to Dallas and all.” The “all” being her go-rounds with Ledge. Fighting with him, kissing him, fighting some more. “I was history the instant my head hit the pillow.” She pushed on before Lisa could grill her.

  “I’ve given a lot of thought to our conversation yesterday. Speaking for myself, and I believe for you, it was like undergoing open-heart surgery. Grueling and painful, but healing in the long run. I don’t want to dim the afterglow.”

  “But?”

  “I went to the courthouse this morning, the sheriff’s office, and got the investigation reports on the Welch’s burglary and Brian Foster’s death.”

  “You did? Why? If you wanted to see those reports, you should have asked me for them yesterday.”

  “You have them?” Arden exclaimed. “Since when?

  “Since forever. I got them before I even moved us away.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Lisa repeated, sounding dismayed by the question. “The investigators were alleging, and people were accepting, that Dad was guilty of both. I wanted to know what evidence they had to base such accusations on. Isn’t that why you wanted the reports?”

  “Precisely. Which makes it all the more flabbergasting that you never shared them with me.”

  “Arden, you were ten years old. The description of Foster’s remains wasn’t for the faint of heart. If either had contained something vital, I would have shared it with you. Neither did.

  “There was no evidence placing Dad at either the store or where Foster was discovered. The authorities based their allegations solely on Dad being an embittered former employee, who had butted heads with Foster the day he was fired. That was their only substantiation.”

  “That wasn’t the only substantiation, Lisa,” she said softly. “Rather than answer to the charges, he vanished, and so did an estimated half a million dollars.”

  It pained Arden to say that, and her sister couldn’t dispute it.

  “True,” Lisa said. “Those facts do point a finger at him. Collectively, it’s compelling, but it’s all circumstantial. Every scrap of it. When you read the reports, you’ll see what I mean.”

  Musing aloud, Arden said, “I wonder what a prosecutor today would think of them. How much stock one would put into them?”

  “Probably none if Rusty Dyle is still the DA.”

  Arden couldn’t believe that Lisa had spoken the name that, not five minutes ago, she had determined not to mention. “What do you know about him?”

  “Only that he’s irksome. You remember Sheriff Dyle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rusty is his son. Growing up, he was a thoroughly obnoxious brat, always pulling pranks. Often cruel ones. He picked on the underdogs. Thinking of him as DA is enough to make one cringe.”

  Lisa went on to describe the man exactly as Arden would. “He had this sly grin that suggested he had the goods on you. You know the type.”

  Yes, Arden had come face-to-face with that type half an hour ago, but she was reluctant to tell Lisa about it, afraid she would go into orbit.

  “He was odious back then, and I doubt he’s improved with age. In fact, he’s probably worse because of the power he wields.” Lisa gave a light laugh. “I’m sure Ledge Burnet finds that hard to swallow.”

  For a second time, Arden was taken aback. Was Ledge’s grudge with the DA common knowledge? “Why do you say that?”

  “They were rivals over this girl. Crissy. Kristin. Something like that. I knew her only by reputation. She was a hot ticket. I wonder if she’s still around. If so, those two might still be feuding over her favors.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Arden murmured.

  “Speaking of Burnet, before you left yesterday, you promised to call me after you had talked to him, but I didn’t hear from you. What did you tell him?”

  “That his services wouldn’t be needed after all.” She recalled the moment with embarrassing clarity. She’d wanted to flail at him, while at the same time wanting to throw herself against him and demand that he resume the make-out session they’d begun on the stairs.

  “Ah, good,” Lisa was saying. “That’s one worry I can cross off. There’s really no reason for you to stay there any longer, is there? Why don’t you just come here? Please? I can tell by your tone of voice that you’re troubled. What’s going on?”

  Arden drew her focus from near space to the investigation reports. “Lisa, in your heart of hearts, do you believe Dad committed those crimes? Don’t answer as my guardian. We’re beyond that. You’ve done me no favors by shielding me from knowing the more appalling aspects of all this.

  “I’ve reached this low point in my life because I’ve been spared the worst. Please, from now on, be brutally honest with me like you were yesterday. Tell me true. Did he do it?”

  Lisa took a long time before answering. “If the father that I knew was guilty, I think that rather than put us—all three of us—through the humiliation of a criminal investigation, a trial, and probable conviction, he would have chosen to make a clean break.”

  “So,” Arden said quietly, “his running away could be construed as an admission of guilt.”

  Lisa hesitated, then asked, “What else would have compelled him to abandon his children?”

  This answer was the most difficult for Arden to accept. “The money.” She whispered the two condemning words.

  “Yes,” Lisa said. “Compared to Wallace’s net worth, five hundred thousand would be a negligible amount. But to Dad, given his situation, his destitution, it would have represented a ticket out.”

  Or as Ledge had succinctly put it: Flight.

  Chapter 25

  That night in 2000—Joe

  Joe had gotten through the entire day without taking so much as a nip. He’d tinkered in the detached garage, organizing tools that he never used anymore. He’d weeded the beds of his late wife’s rosebushes, which hadn’t bloomed since her death because only she knew the proper nutrients to feed them. He’d oiled every door hinge in the house, even those that didn’t squeak.

  He did anything he could think of to keep his mind occupied and hands too busy to pour a drink.

  When Lisa had called him to supper, the first thing he’d noticed was the basket of Easter eggs on the dining table. The centerpiece had so reminded him of Marjorie, it had almost been his undoing. Somehow, though, he’d gotten through the meal without revealing his desperate craving for the anesthetizing effects of Jim Beam.

  He’d even coaxed a few giggles out of Arden. Once a bouncy, chatty, and cheerful girl, she had become much more subdued after losing her mother. Her personality change was his fault, just as Lisa’s increasing brittleness was. He was failing them as a provider and as a parent.

  Lisa was
competent beyond her years. She’d been unfairly burdened with new responsibilities, but was managing well enough juggling them and her studies. He had no doubt she would make her own future.

  It was Arden he most worried about. She was still young and, to her great misfortune, dependent on him. With all his heart, he wanted to see that her future turned out to be much brighter than it portended.

  After helping with the kitchen cleanup, he’d told the girls he was going out to the cemetery to tend Marjorie’s grave. “I would like all of us to go tomorrow. I want to spruce it up before you girls visit.”

  Looking at him with scorn and suspicion, Lisa said, “What can you do out there? It’s already getting dark.”

  “There’s lighting at the cemetery. Enough for me to see by.”

  “It looks like rain.”

  “I’m not going to melt.”

  Lisa let it drop.

  Whining, Arden asked if she could go with him. He reminded her that she had a new Disney film to watch. They’d picked it up in town that afternoon. “You don’t want to miss that.”

  She’d looked dejected and rejected when he’d squeezed her shoulder and told her good night. He’d wanted to reassure her then that things would get better, but he lacked the courage to make that, or any, promise.

  When he’d returned home hours later, only nightlights were on inside the house. He’d climbed the stairs and made it to his bedroom without being intercepted by either Lisa or Arden.

  Once in his room, he’d opened the new bottle of whiskey and had begun steadily pouring drink after drink. Even so, he was still sober when his phone had buzzed and he’d seen Brian Foster’s name in LED.

  Why the hell would Foster be calling him now? With a sense of foreboding, he’d answered.

  Then for several minutes, he’d listened to Foster blubber the reason for the call and explain why it was imperative. Joe didn’t know the young man well, but Foster was an easy read. He was a nitpicker. He dealt with numbers. He thought in terms of exactitude, not fiction. He lacked the imagination to devise this story about Rusty Dyle’s treachery, as well as the audacity to spread it.

  Joe had no difficulty believing everything Foster told him.

  At this point in his shaky narrative, Foster paused to take a deep breath. “In addition to insisting that he and I hide the money tonight, he also says that we should have a scapegoat in place. And, uh, Mr. Maxwell, he means it to be you.”

  Joe reached for his whiskey and took a slug directly from the bottle. “Let me get this straight. He plans to lay the burglary on me? He can’t do that.”

  “He can. He will. He’s certain that Burnet will blow the whistle, and the rest of us will be screwed.”

  “Burnet can’t blow the whistle without screwing himself.” Joe’s hand shook as he raised the bottle to his mouth again. “He won’t do that.”

  “I don’t think he’ll betray us, either, because of the pact we made.”

  Jesus, this guy was naïve. “Do you think that silly pact will carry any weight among a group of thieves, with half a million dollars at stake?”

  Foster didn’t say anything, but Joe could tell that the young man saw how ludicrous it was to hang his hopes on the honor of his accomplices. Joe almost felt pity for the guy and hated being the one to disillusion him.

  “Look, Foster, I don’t think Burnet will talk, either. Not because of a pact, but because he’s too smart. The kid’s been around. He’ll realize that being charged for possession of marijuana is Mickey Mouse compared to being charged with stealing half a million. He’d get more than a few months in juvie for that. So he’s not going to confess to the burglary. I just don’t think he will.”

  Foster whimpered. “Well, it really doesn’t matter what you think. Or what I think. Rusty is convinced that Burnet will turn, and he’s taking precautions.”

  “By setting me up as the fall guy.”

  “Who better than the town drunk? I didn’t say that, Mr. Maxwell. Rusty did.”

  Who better indeed? Rusty Dyle was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. “Did he say how he planned to go about it?”

  “No. But it’s almost time for me to meet him. What should I do?” The accountant’s voice went shrill with near hysteria.

  Joe rubbed his forehead. The whiskey had hit him hard, and it was probably the booze talking when he said, “You could call the cops yourself.” He couldn’t believe the words had left his mouth, but there they were, humming through their two cell phones.

  “I thought of it,” Foster said. “Before I called you, I seriously thought about it.”

  “Why didn’t you? The pact?”

  “No. I’m clinging to the hope that we’ll actually get away with it, without…without somebody getting hurt.”

  Joe didn’t think there was a chance in hell of that happening, but he didn’t share that pessimistic outlook with Foster, who had continued to talk around sucking in gulps of air.

  “But the real reason I didn’t turn myself in,” he said, “is because, if I did, I wouldn’t live long. Rusty would kill me.”

  “He wouldn’t—”

  “He’d have it done. Even if I was locked up for my own safety. Deputies run the jail, you know, and they’re all under Mervin Dyle’s thumb. They’d probably stage my ‘suicide.’”

  Joe didn’t doubt it, but he argued it anyway. “Rusty has browbeaten you into being paranoid and afraid of him.”

  “You’re darn right I am. Aren’t you?”

  Yes, he was. More than a little. Rusty would have his daddy and the whole corrupt sheriff’s department vouching for his son’s whereabouts tonight, paving his tracks with alibis that Mervin would make certain were ironclad.

  Out of the four of them, only three would be made to pay for their thievery.

  Thinking about the likely penalty, and the effect it would have on his already fractured family, Joe almost barfed up his whiskey.

  “You’ve got to tell me what to do,” Foster wailed.

  “Don’t do anything. Don’t show up at the meeting place. Leave the little bastard waiting.”

  “He will come after me.”

  The longer they talked, the faster Foster was unraveling. Joe had to keep a cool head, as hazy with liquor as it was. To panic was begging for a disastrous outcome. At the moment, disaster was only a possibility, a good possibility, but preventable if he could talk Foster off the ledge.

  “All right, meet Rusty as scheduled. Hide the money. But then call his bluff.”

  “Wh…what…what do you mean?”

  “Tell the asshole you won’t be part of any scheme he has in mind for me. Tell him—”

  “He would kill me!”

  “He’s not going to kill you. Think about it. He was the ringleader of this. He originated the plan, made himself boss. Up to this point, he’s pulled off a successful heist. He’s sitting on five hundred grand.”

  Through his heavy breathing, Foster murmured agreement.

  “So he’s not going to do something now that would get him caught. Killing you would be a senseless thing to do.”

  Foster thought it over, then to Joe’s aggravation he said, “No. I can’t stand up to that guy. I just can’t. It’s not in me.”

  Joe didn’t think Foster had it in him, either, which meant that he couldn’t just sit here, getting drunker by the hour, waiting to see what trickery Rusty had in store for him. For all he knew, Rusty had already ratted out the rest of them, and arrests were imminent. That was a bleak but galvanizing prospect.

  He had to act, and he saw only one option open to him. He asked Foster when he was due to meet Rusty.

  “Half an hour. Well, now, twenty minutes.”

  “Where?”

  Foster was about to answer, then stopped himself. After a beat, he said, “I took a big risk by calling and telling you.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “What’s to keep you from calling the cops and working out your own deal?”

  “
That’s probably what I should do.”

  Foster groaned.

  “But I won’t. I swear to you that’s the one thing I will not do.”

  Judging by the choppy sounds Foster was emitting, he was either retching or sobbing.

  “Your time is running out,” Joe said with forced patience. “Where are you meeting Rusty?”

  Sniff, sniff. “There’s a picnic area on the lake where he and I have met a few times to drink beer. It’s gone to ruin. Only a few wooden tables are left and they’re falling down. It’s off the beaten path. There’s a turnoff to it about a hundred yards east of that boat ramp with the bent flagpole.”

  Joe knew the spot. Years ago, he and Marjorie used to take the girls there, before the area had become overlooked and overgrown.

  “What are you going to do?” Foster asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will you be there?”

  “If I can get there.”

  Foster sobbed for real. “We were all so stupid, weren’t we, to be sucked in by him?”

  “Yes. Very stupid. But let’s try to salvage the situation before it gets worse. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. Now listen. Starting now, we must be very careful. They check cell phone data. If we’re ever asked about this call, our story is that you called to tell me how bad you felt over Welch’s firing me, and to wish my family a happy Easter. Understand?”

  “Yes, all right.”

  “Now, go meet Rusty. Take a flashlight. You’ll need it out there. Keep it on as much as possible. Play along with whatever Rusty says for as long as you can.”

  “Then what?”

  Then watch your back, Joe thought. But what he said was, “We play it by ear. Good luck.”

  He hung up before Foster could respond. He stared at the bottle of whiskey with bone-deep craving. Then he carried it into the bathroom and emptied it into the sink.

  He took a dark-colored windbreaker from his closet and pulled it on over his white, short-sleeved shirt. He opened his bedroom door a crack and listened but didn’t hear a sound. He kept his footsteps light as he made his way down the hallway.