by Edie Claire
Leigh shook her head with disgust. She had heard about the power of first loves—but please. If she'd married her first love she'd be living in some commune in California, eating organic tofu and growing marijuana in a shed.
Beaudoin road was unimpressive. Rural, with a blend of old and new houses dotting its sides only sporadically. Leigh drove from the midway point down to one end and back, checking every driveway for Tanner's truck. It was a wild goose chase, really. He could have his truck in a garage, or he could simply not be home. But she didn't mind the risk. It was October, the foliage was at its peak, and she was in the mood for a drive. And a confrontation.
She was almost to the end of the second half of the road when she spotted it. Tanner's truck. She had no doubts this time. She pulled off the road and onto the gravel driveway. The house was a newer one—a red brick ranch with a satellite dish. Her eyes narrowed. How could Tanner afford a place like this? It hardly looked like your typical bachelor rental.
Her heart sped up a bit as she approached the front door, but she willed it to slow down again. She was not going to find any bodies inside. That would be like getting struck by lightning three times, and remarkable things like that simply didn't happen to ordinary people like her.
She stepped onto the concrete porch and pressed the doorbell. A hanging basket of geraniums caught her attention, and her heart sped back up again. Tanner, into gardening? She was in the wrong place.
Before she could bolt, the door opened. "Leigh?" Tanner asked, clearly amazed. "What are you doing here?"
She looked at his bloodshot eyes and rumpled clothes and felt mildly sorry for him. But only mildly. Though he didn't appear inebriated, the odor of beer lingered pungently on his breath, and the room behind him looked dark and smelled stale.
"Come in," he said automatically, moving quickly to open up the window shades and turn on a few lamps. "I didn't know you knew where this place was."
"I didn't," she answered. "I was just in the mood for a drive, so I thought I'd check it out. I knew you lived on Beaudoin Road, and I saw your truck."
"Oh," he said flatly.
"I heard you got out on bail yesterday," Leigh said cheerfully, trying to lighten the oppressive mood. "I'm glad. Did your brother come through?"
Tanner smiled. "Yep. Wynn was great about it. Even got me a lawyer. Not as fancy as yours, but he'll do."
Leigh picked up on an implied criticism, but chose to ignore it. Tanner was being cordial, but the endearing charm he had shown at the zoo was no longer there. She supposed she was no longer a plausible playmate. She was more like a partner in misery.
"I came by because I wanted to talk to you," she began, sitting down on a surprisingly expensive-looking couch. "I know that my lawyer and your lawyer are working together now, but there are still some things I want to hear from you. You know there's virtually no chance that Stacey's murder and Carmen's weren't related."
He nodded.
"You also know that whoever killed Stacey planted the murder weapon in my apartment last night."
Tanner nodded again.
Leigh was surprised by his lack of animation. "Well? What do you think is going on?"
Tanner sighed and dropped into a recliner. "Someone's killing the women I care about, that's what."
She looked into his reddened blue eyes and saw a kind of grief she hadn't expected. One murdered lover, and Tanner could bounce back. Two was pushing it. Especially when one was the love of his life.
"But the knife being planted is good news, really," she went on, wanting to see his eyes twinkle again, just a bit. How could she continue righteous indignation against a broken man? "The police suspect that the knife was a plant. That's got to help your case, too."
Tanner scoffed. "Tell that to my lawyer. He thinks the police suspect me of planting the knife."
Leigh's eyes widened. "But you were in j—" she stopped, heart sinking. "No, you weren't in jail. You got out yesterday afternoon, didn't you?"
He nodded. "With plenty of time to go back to the cabin, retrieve the knife from wherever I hid it that the police couldn't find it, and take it to your place."
"That's stupid," Leigh argued. "Where could you possibly have hidden it?"
"Don't ask me," Tanner said tiredly. "I'm sure they'll think of somewhere."
A spark of anger ignited. "You're not just giving up, are you?" she demanded.
He shrugged. "Why not? Two of my best friends are dead, I'm facing prison time, and I don't even have a job to go to. You got a better suggestion?"
"Yeah," Leigh said caustically. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, get your butt in gear, and do something about it! You can't bring Stacey or Carmen back, but you can keep yourself out of prison, and you can get your job back."
"Leo told me I was suspended indefinitely. Unless and until I was acquitted."
"Leo Martin is an ass. If I have my way, he'll be the one out of a job himself before too long."
Tanner's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"
"I can't get into the details," Leigh said quickly, wishing she could keep her mouth shut once in a while. "But suffice to say, I don't think the board would like what I've found out about him. Not to mention the fact that he stinks as a director. The man needs some serious public relations adjustments."
She wasn't sure, but she thought that for just a second, Tanner's eyes twinkled. "You go, girl," he said, breaking into a ghost of a grin.
"You're the one who needs to go," Leigh continued. "Carmen's death wasn't a paid hit. You should be thinking about other motives, other possible killers. And then you should be passing them on to me." She paused. "These cases are one, you know. If we find the real killer, we'll both be free."
His eyes flashed with something that could be interpreted as either inspiration—or desperation. "I already know who did it," he said evenly.
Chapter 18
Leigh stared at Tanner dumbly for a moment. "You what?"
"I know who did it," he repeated defensively. "It had to be."
She waited a quarter second, then nudged. "Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to get physical?"
He sniffed, then looked away from her. "I don't have any proof, but it had to be Kristin Yates. Saturday afternoon wasn't the only time that woman on Barber Road saw a tan Eldorado. She'd seen it a couple of times in the days before. That was Kristin's car—it had to be. How many tan Eldorados can there be in western Pennsylvania?" The words were firm, but his tone was unconvincing. He paused, and began fidgeting with an ash tray. "I can't imagine why Kristin would have killed Carmen. They were friends. But it all makes sense otherwise. She knew about the cabin, she could have been hiding out there. Stacey probably ran into her up there and they got into it. Maybe Stacey figured it out, and that's why—"
He didn't finish the sentence, but hurtled the ash tray like a Frisbee. It hit the backrest of a nearby chair and bounced softly onto the seat cushion below. "It just all makes sense. More than anything else, anyway."
Leigh hated her mind for fixating on certain things, but she seemed to have little control over it. "How did Kristin know about the cabin?"
Tanner shrugged. "She'd been there."
"And how would she have gotten in?"
"Everybody knows where I hide the damn key," he said bitterly. "I might as well hang it on the door."
Leigh took a deep breath. She was not going to get upset about this. She wasn't. "Everybody?" she said, choking slightly on the word. "So you have wild parties up there, eh?"
Tanner fell into the trap. "No, but I take—" he stopped too late and covered poorly. "A lot of my friends have been out there at one time or another. A bunch of people from the zoo. You know."
She did. Carmen, Kristin, maybe Lisa Moran. Who else? Tonya? Dena the mystery woman? Leo Martin? She let herself smile at the thought. There, that's better.
"There were all kinds of prints all over the cabin," Tanner continued. "Which doesn't help me at all. If the knife that was planted in your
apartment was my hunting knife, it probably has my prints on it. That doesn't help me, either." He sighed. "But I told my lawyer I think Kristin did it. He's going to go with it."
For a man who might have figured out a way to beat murder charges, Tanner was surprisingly unenthusiastic. Leigh studied him for a moment. "You think Kristin killed Carmen over money?"
His head jerked back, almost as if he were stifling a laugh. "I doubt that."
"Then what?" Leigh persisted.
Tanner's voiced turned irritable. "I told you, I don't know."
Leigh looked into his eyes, which were as close to hostile as she'd seen—at least when they were looking at her. Of course, she could do hostility pretty well herself.
"Well, think about it!" she snapped. "You don't suppose jealousy could have played a role here?"
Tanner looked half angry, half embarrassed. He said nothing.
She was trying to remain objective, but the idea of Tanner with a woman who had once threatened to beat her up rankled big-time. "Horse-faced Kristin?" she said, voice rising. "It's not enough to go through every other female keeper, you have to get it on with horse-faced Kristin?"
Much to her annoyance, Tanner grinned. "She does look kind of like a horse, doesn't she?"
Leigh chose to rein in her anger, funneling it back into its rightful place—veiled disgust. She no longer cared about the extent of Tanner's depravity where women were concerned. But she did still care about wringing the truth out of him. She was tired of pussyfooting. "Someone at the zoo told me that you and Kristin were talking about getting married," she blurted.
"They said what?" Tanner scooted up to the edge of his chair, his voice escalating to a yell. "Who the hell said that?"
Leigh stared at him a moment, trying to figure out the next step in this impromptu lying game. The comment had come totally out of left field, but evidently she'd hit a nerve. Onward.
"I thought that's what they said," she replied uncertainly, thinking fast. "Maybe they were talking about Carmen. I don't remember."
Tanner glared at her, his bright blue eyes fiery. "I never said I'd marry anybody, you understand? Carmen lived in a fantasy world—she thought what she wanted to think. As for Kristin, she'd be dreaming. She wasn't anything to me."
Leigh could believe the last part, at least from his perspective. The other women he'd pursued had at least something going for them….if not Carmen's animalistic seductiveness, then petiteness, pretty hair, or a sense of humor. (The latter category she had created for herself.) Kristin had nothing. She was average in height and average in weight, with dull light-brown hair and a particularly unattractive face. "So, why did you invite her to your cabin?" Leigh asked shamelessly.
Tanner looked flustered. He changed the subject. "It doesn't matter. The point is, she killed Carmen and she killed Stacey. Maybe she had some weird thing for me, I don't know. But if she did, it was one-sided. I never encouraged her. And if I find her, so help me I'll—"
He cut off the phrase, and Leigh was glad. She wasn't afraid of him, but the beer on his breath and the hostility in his eyes were far from endearing. It was interesting that he couldn't bring himself to admit to her who he had or hadn't been involved with, even though they both knew her status as girlfriend-to-be was over. Way over. Perhaps it was some Southern chivalry thing, or perhaps he was just a no-guts weasel. Either way, Leigh was quite certain he had been involved with both Kristin and Carmen. And come to think of it, she could remember one reason why an oversexed cowboy such as himself might have a weakness for horse-faced Kristin. There were two reasons, really. And they'd been prominent ever since Kristin hit puberty.
"Well, apparently Kristin thought she was going to marry you," Leigh said deviously, launching off into uncharted waters. "I bet that's why she wanted to kill Carmen, and Stacey." She took a breath. "After all, everyone knew how you'd never really gotten over Stacey, despite what was going on with Carmen."
Leigh waited for a protest, but none came. "I think you might as well be honest with the police about that," she said with a sigh. "It could help your case, you know." And mine.
Tanner ran both hands roughly over his face, then got up and went into the kitchen. He returned with another beer and sat down. Leigh noticed he didn't offer her one. She hated beer, but that wasn't the point.
"Look, Leigh," he said calmly, his anger suddenly replaced with weariness. "I know you're facing murder charges too, but you're barking up the wrong tree. Women don't go around killing each other over men like me. I don't believe it. There must have been something else going on. And Kristin wasn't the type anyway. She had a better head on her shoulders than half the other keepers. I don't believe she killed either of them."
Now he was openly contradicting himself. "You just said you knew that she did do it!" Leigh said with annoyance.
He threw back his head and groaned. "I know! I know! I did tell the lawyer that. I wish it was her. I keep trying to convince myself it was her. But I just don't believe it. Something else happened."
"Like what?"
"I don't know," he said slowly, pounding out every word.
"Well neither do I!" she railed. "And this isn't getting us anywhere. Look, Mike. I didn't know these women. I knew girls. The Kristin I knew would have killed her own mother, so you tell me she's the one and I'm happy as a clam. But if you really did know Kristin, and I presume you did, Biblical sense and all, and you don't think she's a murderess, then maybe the lawyers are wasting their time. And we don't have much time!"
Tanner looked at her thoughtfully. "What about you?"
"What about me?"
"You're so quick to assume the murders are all about me. What if you're the link?"
Leigh stared at him, uncomprehending. "Say what?"
"You start working at the zoo, and two women you've never liked die violent deaths."
She bristled and started to interrupt, but he stopped her.
"I'm not saying you killed them. But what if someone killed them on your behalf?"
Leigh stared at him as if he'd gone mad. She supposed he could be drunk, at the very least. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. You mean like in Strangers on a Train?" She scoffed. "I assure you, I never gave any hit man a list of my rivals. Furthermore, they weren't my rivals. I didn't even know you and Carmen were involved until after she died." Leigh wondered if he knew about the possession incident. How could he? "And as for Stacey—"
Tanner suddenly laughed. "You always hated her. Even when you were a teenager."
What's not to hate? Stifling the words on her lips, she took a deep breath. Had her dislike of Stacey always been so obvious? "There's no link through me," she said firmly. "That's nonsense. Maybe there's no connection with either of us. Maybe there's no connection at all. But let's get real—that's pretty unlikely. We've got one murder at the zoo and one at your cabin. You're involved. Kristin Yates is my new prime suspect number one, and if you have some real reason to think someone else did it, you'd better tell me now."
Maddeningly, Tanner just shrugged.
Leigh gave up. The more he drank, the less help he would become. He'd admitted a few things she already knew, and confirmed a few she suspected. But he didn't really think Kristin Yates was a murderess, and that bothered her. She rather liked seeing evidence pile up against the old schoolyard bully. Between the tan Eldorado at the scene of Stacey's murder and the knife frame-up, Kristin made for a credible defense theory. If the woman was innocent, it would be hard to convince the prosecutors that she did it. But then, Leigh thought wryly, stranger things had happened.
"You sit here and drink," she quipped. "I'm going to keep trying to get my butt off the hook. And yours too, if you act nice. I'm glad you told your lawyer you suspect Kristin, because as far as I'm concerned, she's guilty. If you decide otherwise, give me a call."
Tanner said nothing, and Leigh walked herself out, giving the hanging plant a shove as she marched off the porch. Satellite dish, nice furniture. How could she ha
ve been so dense?
She got into her car with a sigh of disgust. This wasn't Tanner's rental—assuming he had one. This was Stacey's house. The house they'd lived in together. The home where his heart was.
***
It was dinnertime. Leigh's stomach was quite certain, despite her dispiriting run-in with Tanner. For the first time in days, things were looking up. The guilty party was going to be caught, and she was going to be free. She had already planned her vindication—it would involve another freelance article for the Post, and a certain amount of public humiliation for one Detective Gerald Frank.
She smiled as she pulled into the drive-in lane of a combination KFC/Taco Bell. The merger was a strange business decision, but one which she—as an avid lover of both tacos and buffalo wings—fully appreciated. She and Warren had practically kept the place in business by themselves. At the latter thought, she ordered two sampler combos to go. It occurred to her that Warren hadn't said anything yesterday about his political problems, and she had forgotten to ask. What kind of friend was she, anyway?
She arrived at the door to his apartment the same time he did. "Hi, honey! I'm home!" she said playfully, waving the cardboard boxes under his nose.
Warren smiled tiredly. "What's the occasion?"
"An apology. For being obsessed with my own problems. Your table or mine?"
Warren's table was closer, and within three minutes they were eating at it. "Are you sure there isn't anything I can do about Myran?" she offered. "I could say that we're really not involved seriously, that I'm secretly married to someone else, but I can't resist you because you're such a great lover. Wouldn't that push all the right buttons?"
He grinned. "I'll thank you to stay as far away from Myran Wiggin as possible. Everything will be fine."
"Well," Leigh continued, "if Wiggin thinks more of you because you're involved with a murderess, he's soon to be disappointed." She filled Warren in on the details of the knife-planting and her growing certainty that Kristin Yates had killed both women.
