“Whose wife?”
“Shane Cutler’s. He’s George’s stepson. You go talk to Shane about Lori Rogart.”
Chapter 33
Jess made her second stop of the day at the Custer County Sheriff’s Station, armed with a new set of questions. First, she had answers ready.
“Hey, Troy, I gave you one of my old cards by mistake.”
Troy wasn’t smiling this time. “Yeah, I know.”
“You know?” Jess fingered the business card in her hand. The one with the correct set of phone numbers on it.
“When I tried to call you and got somebody else on the cell number.”
“Why would you try to call me? I’d just left.” Jess felt a frown coming on. She relaxed into what she hoped was a pleasant smile.
“I remembered something, so I dug into the file for you,” Troy said coldly. “I was still going to give it to you—until I dialed the other number and got the old guy. His voice mail, not him.” Troy turned his back on her and pretended to bury himself in paper work.
“Oh, damn!” Jess plopped herself in the forehead with the heel of her palm. “You got my dad!”
“What?” Troy wheeled, his expression softening.
“Yeah. After I got my own apartment, I had new cards printed. Here.” She handed him one, relieved that he took it. How’s that for unburning a bridge? The series of lies that flowed so glibly from her mouth rattled something deep inside, but she quickly covered that voice with more inane chatter. “When I pulled out a card at my next stop, I discovered my mistake. The new cards were still in the console of my car.”
“Oh, well, I guess it’s okay if I call you?” He looked like a star-struck teenager.
Jess felt a sly smile creeping onto her face. The prospect of being taken for someone Troy’s age was a love-pat for her tottering ego.
Troy was writing something on a yellow sticky note, looking at the note as he continued, “You seem … ah … a tad mature to be just going out on your own. But I guess you must have your … reasons.”
Goddamn little pissant! Get somebody your own age.
Troy handed her the yellow sticky note on which he’d printed a name.
Jess threw a splint on her fractured pride and eyed the name. “Arlette Cruz-Ramos?”
“Shh ….” Troy glanced around as the sound of chairs scraping in an adjacent room announced that they might soon have company.
A door at the rear of the room opened, and a portly, middle-aged deputy in a tan uniform like Troy’s emerged. “Late lunch,” he announced to Troy as he ambled by. Jess saw him snap an ogle just before he exited through the front door.
Only when they’d heard the clatter of receding footsteps and the hum of a vehicle starting did Troy explain. “You wanted to know why Darren Rogart had been dropped from the short list.”
Was I really that transparent? The idea alarmed Jess. She remembered only a quick reference to Rogart. “So, who is this person?”
“Rogart’s alibi.”
Jess flashed an indulgent smile at Troy and asked what she’d come to ask: “Did the Rogart girl ever confirm that she was raped by Larry Strickland?”
“Why do you ask?” Troy was guarded in tone again.
What the hell. A little truth won’t hurt. “Because the widow says she thinks it was somebody else. At least she implies that it was another member of the hunting party.”
Troy gave a little disgusted snort. “Well, she’s his widow. What do you expect?”
“Troy, you’re evading,” purred Jess. “Did little Lori ‘fess up she was really having a lovers’ tryst in that cabin?”
“You know I can’t answer that.” Troy smiled, but something in his expression showed Jess she’d gone too far. “Sex crimes and minors are off limits. You know that.”
Jess looked back at the note in her hand. “This name? Should it be ringing any bells?”
“If I were you, I’d Google it first chance I got.”
* * *
After leaving Troy with a wink and a nod, Jess retraced her route, headed east on Highway 96, then north on Interstate 25 to Colorado Springs where she stopped for a late lunch at a Chile’s. She ordered the biggest, artery-clogging hamburger they had, with everything on it. “Rare,” she told the waitress. “No, make that raw,” she corrected.
The waitress frowned. “We have to cook ‘em till they’re not red. It’s a regulation.”
Oh, just bring the goddamn burger already. Jess smiled through gritted teeth. “Whatever.”
Later, as she ate her well-done hamburger, she revisited the sheriff’s report she’d scanned into her laptop. Why had they so quickly discounted Shane Cutler’s prior? Oh, right. The girl said it was consensual. But he’d been convicted of statutory rape.
As she finished the hamburger, Jess considered Googling the name Troy had given her. But daylight hours were fleeting. She was more focused on Shane Cutler. She could check out Arlette-With-the-Double-Name later.
The drive to Sedalia, where Cutler lived, took her back up I-25 North, then northwest on Highway 85. It seemed to take longer than the trip south had taken. If she didn’t make better time, she’d be caught in the evening rush. The sun had already begun its descent behind the frosted purple mountains that marked the horizon to her left.
A Chinook wind had swept the area dry, but now the cold was creeping back. Still a California girl at heart, Jess longed for the warmth of spring.
After consulting her trusty GPS, she was able to scope out the Cutler residence without much lost time. Sedalia was smaller than Westcliffe, the outskirts stippled with mini-horse ranches. It was definitely not a one-horse town. First pass through told her that equines might even outnumber people. And the demographics gleaned from her mapping service told her that she was going to stand out like a proverbial sore thumb—the town was even whiter than Westcliffe.
The Cutler home was a cute little yellow-and-white two-story, attached garage-with-room-over. It was on a corner. Jess drove around the block once and saw a swing set in the chain link-fenced back yard.
When she parked and got out of the car, she was still thinking up her spiel on the fly. Better stick to as much truth as you can make up. Chuckling to herself, Jess laid on the doorbell.
The girl who answered—a strawberry blonde with freckles—looked about twelve. A toddler that could have been boy or girl clung to her legs, while advanced pregnancy ballooned out under a flowered smock. Her pale feet, in Crocs, looked swollen.
“Mrs. Cutler?” Jess took a stab at the obvious.
“Yeah,” replied the woman-child in a girlish voice.
“You have shoes on,” blurted Jess.
“What?”
“Nothing. Scratch that. I’m Jess Edwards. Darren Rogart’s a friend of mine. He’s asked me to look into the Patty Strickland thing. Thought it might be a good idea to chat with your husband about some corroborating information.”
Woman-child looked confused. “What Patty Strickland thing?”
“Her disappearance.”
“Ow!” Jess watched in amazement as the toddler took a bite out of Mama’s leg. “Barclay, that’s not nice!” Mama-Woman-Child detached the kid and set him/her on a wooden animal toy that looked like a cross between a giraffe and a hippo.
Must be a boy child … but not necessarily.
“Trisha—that’s what she goes by now—hasn’t disappeared. She’s at Darren’s.”
“Now she is. But she was missing.”
“Huh?”
Two for two. If this is the result of child-bearing, let Diana count herself blessed.
“Could I talk with your husband?”
“He’s down at This Geek For Hire,” she said. “His store, only computer place in town.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Cutler.”
“Don’t you want the address?”
“I’ll find it.”
This Geek For Hire? The GPS took her to it. Seven minutes. How far could it be in a town of two hundred?
As Jess pulled into the small parking lot, she saw a man hanging a “Closed” sign behind the front door glass. Young, he moved like he thought the crown jewels reposed in his drawers.
“Wait up,” called Jess. She got out of the car and walked briskly toward Shane Cutler. It couldn’t be anybody else. White-blond hair, tan skinned, hard-bodied, his sly blue eyes met hers as she approached the building.
A macho geek? Looks like an oxymoron to me.
“Hi, Jess,” he drawled. “My wife just called.”
Of course she did.
He didn’t look upset as the lower lids of his eyes crinkled in a half-assed smile that held a certain reptilian charm.
To get eye-to-eye with Cutler, Jess had to look down a couple of inches. But still, it was a damn sight more believable that he was a thirteen-year-old’s dream man, as compared to the likes of an old geezer like Larry Strickland. It gave Jess the shivers just to think about that scenario.
“I’m just finishing up some loose ends for Darren,” began Jess. “Isn’t it great that Patty’s been found?”
“If you say so.” Cutler’s benign grin was replaced by an insolent smirk.
He knows I’m lying. What the hell. I’m here. “You one of the elite with keys to Larry’s cabin?”
“I see you’ve been talkin’ to the grievin’ widow. You really buy into her story ‘bout the keys?”
“Why would she lie about it?”
Shane locked the shop door behind him, then shrugged. “Get the heat off herself. She’s had the hots for Darren for years. Much easier if her old man bought it. Truth is, Darren does a lot better than her.” He looked hard at Jess. “Usually.”
Jess had the feeling that more calls than the one from Shane’s wife had been made to him within the past hour or so. She stepped back a few paces, looked Shane up and down. T-shirt, tight jeans. He wasn’t even shivering. A concealed weapon was unlikely, unless it was the bulge behind his fly.
“I understand your wife’s not a Lori Rogart fan. How do you and Lori get along?” Way to get killed, Jess.
But she had the Glock and Shane only had…what he had. She doubted it was that impressive.
A blink turned his blue eyes to ice. “We run your kind off the streets at sundown, bitch.”
Jess shrugged off the slur. “Since Larry’s dead, what difference does it make? Can’t hurt anyone to let him take the fall, can it?” She knew her words hadn’t distracted him when she felt his anger accelerate even before his stance shifted.
“Stay away from my wife.” His wrist snaked out and snared her right arm. With her left, she chopped him in the neck and dropped him to his knees, then twisted his arm behind him until he yelped in pain.
“Don’t mess with me, Cutler.” She flung him away from her like a hamburger wrapper.
“I’ll get your black ass for this.” His words surged up out of his pain, but he didn’t follow as Jess turned her back on him and strode toward her car. She purposely projected disdain in each unhurried step, but her ears were keenly tuned to pick up any sign of movement behind her.
As she drove away from the building, Jess saw it parked on a side street. A silver Dodge Ram. She slowed down and zapped the license plate with her cell camera. HUNTER 3.
Chapter 34
“What’d that black bitch want with a picture of George’s truck?” Shane’s voice over the phone sounds worried. “I only borrowed it since mine’s in the shop.”
“Beats me,” the Hunter replies, assuming his good-ole-boy façade, suppressing the urge to reach through the phone and strangle the stupid redneck for disparaging his perfect African specimen. “I’d say don’t sweat it. George’s truck, George’s problem.” He lounges casually, darkly clad against a white gazebo in the park across from the black’s condo, hoping for a quick peek at her. Inside, he’s tightly strung. He wants her, but he knows tonight’s not the night.
“Easy for you to say,” continues Shane. “She’s not nosin’ around your place. She asked me how Lori and I got along. Man, I don’t need a second statutory rape charge. You said we were cool about Lori.”
“We are. No worries there,” replies the Hunter. Only half his attention is on the phone call. The other half is wondering where the black is. It’s been dark over an hour. She should be home by now. He doubts that she’s gone to the gym after the day she’s put in.
“What if your phone is bugged?” Shane asks.
“Is there a problem with yours?” the Hunter counters with his own question. In the background he can hear the voices of Shane’s wife and kid. Quarrelsome and whiny. If they were his, he’d strangle the bitch, incinerate her and feed that ugly kid to the coyotes.
“No,” says Shane abruptly. At least he shows the sense not to elaborate on his certainty. If a techy like Shane was unaware of bugs on his own turf, well that would make him worse than useless.
The Hunter has no worries about this particular call being traced. He’s using one of those disposable cells with no registration requirements. “Did you get the stuff I need from George?” he asks. He’s almost out of Ketamine. It works so much better than a bullet. George keeps a supply on hand at his veterinary clinic. But it’s much better if Shane gets it for him from his stepfather, however he can. If the Hunter loses this connection, he can always get what he needs on line, but this way he won’t leave a trail when he’s finished with Shane.
“Uh-huh.”
A vagueness in Shane’s voice bothers the Hunter. “Did you steal it or did he give it to you?”
“What do you think? How many neighbors with barking dogs can a guy have? George was cool with one. He did ask why I didn’t just shoot it.” The background voices are silent now.
“What did you say to that?” he asks, turning away from the street to avoid the headlights of an approaching car.
“I told him it was keeping Missy and Barclay awake and the neighbor wouldn’t cooperate. Since the mutt wasn’t on my property, I couldn’t shoot it. I had to be creative. He seemed to like that.”
“What did you tell him this time?” The car passes without slowing down. Not her.
“I got to thinkin’ if he ever did an inventory, he’d see there was a whole lot more gone than needed for one dog. Even a big one. So I fixed that problem.”
“Good for you. How’d you do that?” He pulls the baseball cap lower as a couple of bicyclers roll past.
“Let’s just say George had a burglary at his clinic the other night.”
“Did he report it?”
Shane laughs. “Turned out good for George, too. You know he’s got other off-the-books customers. Paying ones. Let’s just say the burglary solves his accountability problems.” He laughs again. “Yeah, he made a report.”
The Hunter hadn’t known about George’s sideline. “Since you’re able to laugh about it, I take it there’s no chance of it coming back to bite you.”
“You think I’m stupid, or what?”
The Hunter leaves that one dangling. Shane doesn’t push him. In the background he hears Missy Cutler. “Honey, dinner.”
“In a minute,” Shane yells back.
After they arrange for delivery of the Ketamine, the Hunter closes the cell phone, feeling a twinge of annoyance. He derives no pleasure from killing males. Shane’s an apt pupil up to a point, but he’s approaching the end of his cycle of usefulness. He thinks the Hunter is using the Ketamine as a date-rape drug. He’s even eager to go with the Hunter on one of his excursions.
But Shane is basically stupid in his interpretation of relationships. He’s still totally unaware of anything unusual in their arrangement concerning Lori. He has no clue that his and the Hunter’s feelings in this regard should be at odds.
Shane’s only concern is that he not be arrested and that his wife be kept ignorant of the affair. The Hunter laughs aloud at this latter thought. It won’t be much of a stretch to keep Missy Cutler ignorant.
In electronic matters, Shane has proved extremely useful. All the nights
spent at Shane’s computer shop, mining his knowledge, picking his brain, have enabled the Hunter to set up his own web site. Best part: Shane hasn’t a clue about what a good teacher he’s been.
Chapter 35
Diana jumped involuntarily at the sound of the doorbell. She looked out a side window and saw Jess illumined by the porch light. Her friend looked positively haggard in the lamp’s yellow rays. As Diana threw open the door, Jess held up a hand, leaving Diana’s greeting hanging in midair. “Don’t ask,” said Jess. “It’s been a long day. I need to fill you in, but you need to feed me.”
“I got the security system fixed,” said Diana as the two walked toward the kitchen.
Jess brightened. “Oh, shall we test it?”
“It works just fine. The company tested it.”
“We should make sure,” said Jess, doing an about face and heading back toward the front door.
Diana grabbed her friend’s arm. “Trust me. It’s fine.”
In the kitchen, Jess sniffed the air expectantly. “I haven’t eaten since that overcooked hamburger I grabbed in Colorado Springs. What’ve you got?”
“No meat. You knew that coming in.” Diana turned and opened the stainless steel fridge. “I’ve already eaten and you wouldn’t have liked it anyway. Let’s see … I could make you an omelet.”
Jess peered over her shoulder. “What’ve you got to put in it?” Without waiting for an answer, Jess reached around her and started selecting items: a wedge of cheddar cheese, a bottle of capers, a carton of ricotta.
“Anything else?” asked Diana sarcastically as Jess deposited the items on the countertop.
A she settled onto a bar stool, Jess replied, “Nope, just cook it. Oh, and the eggs. Forgot the eggs.”
Diana rolled her eyes and removed an egg carton, placing it beside the other items as she dipped into a cupboard for utensils. Then she began assembling the omelet. “Okay, Sherlock, let’s have it.”
“For starters, there are three silver Rams with hunter vanity plates,” began Jess, “and to end the day, I’m pretty sure I interviewed the guy who raped Lori Rogart.” Into Diana’s surprised expression, she added, “Better believe he was no ghost.”
The Trophy Hunter Page 15
