by Brenda Novak
“They didn’t hear anything, either?” she asked in surprise.
“In one room the TV was on so loud the two people staying there could barely hear me pounding on their door. It’s just one woman on the other side, but I woke her out of a dead sleep. I figure I’ll have to wait till morning to canvass the rest.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Leland said. “My mom’s not going to like this. It’ll really upset her. She had a cow when Hillary Hawthorne set up shop in room six and pasted a nine behind it.” He added, as an aside to himself, “Something I actually found sort of titillating.”
Sophia held up a hand. “Keep your sexual fantasies to yourself, Leland.”
“What?” he said in a desultory tone. “You guys are in your sexual prime, right? I’m a single man in my forties who lives with my widowed mother. Knowing Hillary was putting out a few doors down was the highlight of my whole year. If my love life doesn’t improve soon, it might be the highlight of my whole decade. But that isn’t what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Then you’d better get to the point,” she said.
“I don’t have another room for you. I never did make it over to the hardware store today so I can’t steal the lock from the laundry like I did before. I’m afraid Mr. Guerrero will have to find another place until I can get this room repaired.”
Leland made it sound as though he wouldn’t mind if Rod stayed away indefinitely. What with the damage that seemed to follow him, his brand of trouble wasn’t nearly as “titillating” as Hillary Hawthorne’s.
A V formed between Rod’s eyebrows. “So where do you suggest I go?”
Choosing to stare at the carpet rather than brave Rod’s displeasure, Leland rocked back and forth, and Sophia understood why. Rod could be intimidating when he was angry. She knew that from when she’d used her Taser on him. His expression then, and now, brought new meaning to the saying, “If looks could kill.”
“There’s the Sundowner on the other side of town…” Leland said.
Rod glared at him for several seconds more, then finally responded. “Which has, what, eight rooms?”
“That’s about right.” He nodded. “Yeah. Eight. I’m sure of it.”
“You don’t think that, owing to the recent influx of reporters, they’ll be full over there, too?”
Leland shrank back a step or two, out of the doorway. “You could try getting a room in Douglas or Sierra Vista….”
“I’m not leaving town.”
Sophia decided this might be a good place to break in. “Any of your stuff missing?” she asked Rod.
“No.”
“You’ve checked?”
“I’ve checked.”
“So…whoever did this just meant to send you a message.”
“Whoever did this hates my guts and wanted me to know it.”
“Who do you think it was?”
His beard rasped as he rubbed a hand over his face. “The same person you think it was.”
“Stuart.”
“Who else?”
It had to be his half brother. One of them, anyway. As far as Sophia knew, no one else in Bordertown felt strongly enough about Rod to do something like this.
She unclipped her radio from her belt. “I’ll call my officer, have him dust for prints.”
After getting off the bed, Rod grabbed the keys he’d tossed on the dresser. “You don’t want to do that yourself?”
“And let you confront Stuart on your own? No way,” she said. “I’ve had to see the M.E. enough for one summer.” She didn’t specify which man she believed would be left standing but, in her opinion, there was no contest. Maybe Stuart could hold his own against a regular guy.
But Rod was no regular guy.
“This has been a really shitty day, you know that?”
Rod had insisted on driving his Hummer. They’d already been to the Dunlap ranch but were unable to rouse anyone at Stuart’s place, so they’d gone next door, where Patrick had answered as soon as they knocked. Once he got over his initial surprise at finding Rod on his doorstep, he said he didn’t know a thing about the trashed motel room. He also claimed he hadn’t seen his brother since they got off work at dinnertime.
Sophia believed him. Rod must’ve believed him, too, because he’d stalked back to the Hummer without taking Patrick up on his offer to have his wife come to the door and vouch for his presence at home.
They’d left the ranch without stopping at the main house. All the windows had been dark, suggesting that the older Dunlaps were already in bed. Now they were on their way to the Firelight, Stuart’s favorite bar.
Rod’s bad mood translated into a lead foot, but Sophia let his speeding slide. It was late, there wasn’t much traffic on the road and she could understand why he might be a little eager to get ahold of Stuart.
“I can’t say today’s been too stellar for me, either,” she said. After leaving her father’s feed store, and fending off reporters who’d tried every possible tactic to get her to say more than she should about the UDA killings, she’d holed up in her house. She’d been trying to get some rest before working graveyard. Tonight, she planned to patrol the ranches, see if she could spot anything that might help solve the UDA murders or at least discourage a fourth incident. But her attempt at sleep had been a wasted effort. Instead, she’d lain on her bed, wide-awake, pondering whether or not to approach her mother with Leonard Taylor’s story.
If Anne had gone to the police, it meant her mother had believed her and yet had done nothing to protect her. And if she hadn’t, Sophia would’ve dragged their most horrifying skeleton out of the closet for nothing. They’d struggled so hard to get beyond what Gary had done….
Sophia didn’t want to have that awkward conversation. She preferred to let her mother keep pretending, so they could have some semblance of a relationship. As contemptible as Sophia found Anne’s actions regarding Gary’s behavior, Anne was trying to make up for her shortcomings in other ways. She brought over produce from her garden, had just quilted Sophia a blanket, saved magazines and news clippings she thought Sophia might find of interest. As imperfect as Anne was, she was really the only family member Sophia had left. Her brother visited occasionally but work demands kept him on the East Coast, where he was busy raising a family.
In any case, Gary didn’t have a nude photograph of her, at least not in his wallet, so it was reasonable to assume that Leonard had been lying about Anne, too.
But if he was lying, how had he guessed that there was any impropriety in her relationship with her stepfather?
“Sophia, you still with me?”
Bringing her mind back to the present, she shifted her eyes away from the steady beam of their headlights on the asphalt in front of them. “What?”
“I said, what was so rotten about your day?”
Where did she start? With the call she’d received from Councilman Fedorko informing her that her time was running out? With the embarrassment of flashing Rod, only to have him immediately withdraw? With the outright hostility she’d faced from Detective Lindstrom during their meeting with the FBI? Or the confrontation she’d had with her stepfather, in which he’d basically denied everything she knew to be true?
Choosing not to go into any of it, she shrugged and kept her answer vague. “A lot of things.”
“Like…”
Apparently, he wouldn’t let it go, so she decided to tell him a portion of the truth. “After I left your motel last night, I caught Leonard Taylor speeding.”
“And you pulled him over.”
“That’s right.”
Rod startled her by cursing.
“What?”
“You couldn’t have turned a blind eye for once? Shit, Sophia, are you trying to get yourself killed? He could be responsible for twelve murders!”
“What are you talking about? I’m the chief of police around here—at least, for now,” she added under her breath. “It’s my job to enforce the traffic laws.”
�
��Your safety comes before the damn traffic laws!”
She straightened in her seat. “Slow down.”
He didn’t change his speed but he seemed to realize he was out of line and stopped harassing her for doing her job. “What did Leonard have to say?”
She didn’t really want to continue the conversation. His flare of temper didn’t sit well.
“Are you going to tell me or not?” he prodded.
“He didn’t say much.”
Draping an arm over the steering wheel, he took a moment to study her. “You brought it up for a reason.”
She took a deep breath. “I just wanted to tell you that he was openly belligerent, threatened me, that sort of thing.” She’d also wanted to tell Rod what Leonard had said about her stepfather having a nude picture of her, but she’d already told him too much about her personal life. He was only in town for a short while. She wasn’t sure why she felt this urge to lean on him, why she was curious to hear what he’d have to say about Leonard and where Leonard could’ve gotten his information.
Maybe she was latching onto the first person to come along because she didn’t feel she could count on anyone else. Which was pathetic. She had to stand on her own two feet.
“If you see him in town again, leave him alone,” he said.
“Even if he’s breaking the law?” she snapped.
“Unless someone’s life is at stake, you can wait until you have help.”
She folded her arms. “You don’t think I can do this job any more than anyone else does.”
Scowling, he hesitated, then blew out a sigh. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just… Some men, men like Leonard, don’t seem to care how they deal with people. It’s not necessary to put your life at risk to give out a speeding ticket, that’s all.”
She didn’t have the opportunity to respond. They’d reached the Firelight, and he was already getting out.
Rod was looking for a fight. He didn’t kid himself that he wasn’t. He supposed he’d been hoping Stuart or Patrick would provoke him enough to justify a reaction like that ever since he’d returned to Bordertown.
The damage done to his belongings at the motel certainly gave him the excuse he’d been looking for. But he couldn’t find Stuart.
He and Sophia walked through the Firelight, asking the men huddled on stools or sitting around tables if anyone had seen him, but every response was the same—he hadn’t been in tonight.
“Where could the little prick have gone?” Rod muttered.
Sophia stood with him at the back of the bar, surveying the scene. “I don’t know. It’s nearly midnight on a weeknight, and he works early in the morning. Everything else in town is closed up. He should be here if he’s not at home. Unless…” She nibbled at her bottom lip as she considered whatever had occurred to her.
He leaned close to compensate for the loud, thumping music coming from an old-fashioned jukebox. “Unless what?”
“Unless he’s with a prostitute or someone else for the night. I suspect Trudy Dilspeth does a bit more than cut hair for quite a few guys.”
That meant they might not find him till morning. It wasn’t what Rod wanted to hear, but…he couldn’t think of any other place to look. “If that’s the case, we’re wasting our time.”
“We could drive by Trudy’s house, see if we spot his truck.”
“And what, wait for him to come out? Drag him from her bed? We’ll go about our business and take care of this later.” Rod hated to delay his gratification. But he still needed to visit the safe house Sophia had mentioned in their meeting with the FBI. By this time of night there should be some activity.
“You’re willing to do that?” she asked.
He managed a shrug despite the anger knotting his muscles. “Murder is worse than a few slashed clothes.”
“He destroyed your laptop, too.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
Her grin told him she was being a smart-ass on purpose.
“Anyway, the laptop and the clothes can be replaced. I’m ready to head over to the safe house.”
“Then let’s go.”
He was about to tell her that he planned to drop her off at her car. There was no point in taking her to the safe house. In his view, that was another example of unnecessary risk. But just as he opened his mouth to say she wasn’t going with him, a tall thin man with sandy-blond hair approached, his gaze fixed on Sophia.
“Hey, long time no see.”
Even in the dim atmosphere Rod could tell that this man’s skin was about as white as any he’d ever seen. That meant he wasn’t a rancher or a farmer or anyone else who worked outside….
“Dick,” Sophia responded with a bit too much emphasis on his name, and Rod realized this was the pastor she’d once dated. The one who’d impregnated a teenager. He must’ve been in the restroom or something when they first came through because Rod hadn’t seen him.
Smiling, the pastor took her by the elbow and dropped his voice to an intimate level. “How is everything?”
It was pretty obvious Sophia didn’t want him to touch her. She tried to break contact, only to bump up against Rod. That made her step backward to avoid them both. “Fine. And you?”
“I’m hanging in there. I’ve tried to reach you a couple of times, but…I’m not sure you’re getting my messages. You never call back.”
“I’ve been busy.” It was a throwaway statement, spoken with little concern. “Was there anything in particular you wanted?”
He moved in close again. “No. I haven’t seen you at church in a while, that’s all.”
“That’s why you called? To see why I wasn’t at church?”
“I wanted to make sure there aren’t any—” he glanced at Rod and lowered his voice even more “—hard feelings between us that would keep you from worshipping with me on Sundays.”
“I have no interest in worshipping with you, Dick,” she said flatly.
A pained expression yanked his eyebrows together. “Why not? I’ve apologized, Sophia. I don’t know what more I can do.”
“You could quit calling and leave her alone,” Rod said. “That’d be a good start.” He shouldn’t be getting involved in this, but he had no other outlet for the aggression churning inside him. And Rod didn’t like what the pastor’s body language conveyed. Wife or no wife, he’d cheat with Sophia if given half a chance. The mere thought of him sniffing after her bothered Rod. He didn’t want someone like Dick, the married pastor, trying to climb into her bed.
“Excuse me?” Dick said.
Rod rested his hands loosely on his hips. “You heard me.”
Sophia stepped between them. “But, of course, he didn’t mean it. Since what happens in my life is none of his business.”
Emboldened by Sophia’s pointed response, Dick lifted his chin. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Name’s Rod. Rod Guerrero.”
“I’ve heard of you. You’re Bruce Dunlap’s—”
Rod broke in before Dick could grapple too long for the right euphemism. “Bastard. Yes. But you know what they say. You can’t choose your family.”
That left nowhere for Dick to go as far as subtle put-downs went, so he turned his attention back to Sophia. “Are you two…together?”
“No,” she said. “At the moment, I’m even beginning to rethink our friendship.”
Sliding his arm around her shoulders, Rod offered Dick a conspirator’s smile. “Don’t listen to her. She’s got a terrible crush on me. She just doesn’t like to admit it.”
“If only I’d brought my Taser,” she said dryly.
He gave her a visible squeeze. “The handcuffs will be enough for tonight, honey.”
Dick’s confusion grew more apparent. “Aren’t you new in town?”
“I got here a couple days ago.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“And he’ll be leaving as soon as we solve the UDA murders,” Sophia chimed in. “Which reminds me… You haven’t seen St
uart Dunlap, have you?”
“I saw him earlier, pulling out of the Mother Lode Motel,” Dick said. “Why?”
Rod dropped the arm he’d slung around Sophia. “What time was that?”
Dick checked his watch. “Musta been about…two hours ago, around eight-thirty.”
Not too long before Rod had returned from his interviews.
“I know, because I was on my way here and remember thinking I had about an hour and a half to enjoy myself before I had to get home,” Dick added with a weak laugh.
Rod pressed the time display on his phone. “I hate to break it to you, but your curfew’s come and gone.”
“I made it home by ten, but…married life isn’t always easy, you know? Tonight was one of those nights.” He whistled. “So what if my wife’s young. She’s a handful.” He chuckled but there was no real humor in it, and if he was hoping to incite Sophia’s sympathy, it didn’t work.
“Was Stuart alone when you saw him?” she asked.
“Alone and driving like a bat out of hell. He just about crashed into me. And when I honked to let him know I was there, he ignored me. He didn’t seem to care that he could’ve killed us both.”
Because he knew that having Pastor Dick honk at him was the least of his worries if Rod got back to that motel room before he made his getaway.
17
They had fingerprints. Officer Noyes had called to let Sophia know he’d picked up several from the door handle and Rod’s computer. She needed to have those prints analyzed to see who they belonged to, but deep down she wasn’t particularly optimistic that they’d prove it was Stuart who’d trashed Rod’s room. She couldn’t imagine he’d do something like that without wearing gloves. He wasn’t the smartest man she’d ever met, but he wasn’t stupid, either. If she had her guess, the prints belonged to a combination of Rod, Leland and the maid who tidied up during the day.
But she’d gathered what evidence she could, just in case. And they had Dick’s sighting to corroborate their suspicion that it’d been Stuart. In the morning, she’d ask Grant to search for more witnesses and work from there. Not that they’d be able to spend much time on a vandalism case. She had bigger things to worry about. Like the fact that Rod had gone into the safe house fifteen minutes ago and hadn’t come out yet. After he’d dropped her at her car, she’d waited long enough to make sure he wouldn’t realize she planned to follow him and had arrived just in time to see him go in. She’d expected him to come out almost right away, but he hadn’t. And each passing minute wound her nerves a little tighter.
