by BROWN SANDRA
“He called me a damn-fool kid and a smart-ass to boot, got in his truck, and drove along behind me so I could see my way by his headlights. That was the first time—” He broke off, leaving the thought unspoken.
“The first time what?”
He averted his gaze and mumbled, “The first time anybody had ever been worried about me.”
Bellamy reasoned that he had fallen in love with more than flying that day. He had started loving Gall, who had paid attention to him, talked to him, been protective of him. But she knew the man the neglected teenage boy had become would rebuff any discussion of that, so she returned to their original topic.
“Detective Moody raked you over the coals.”
Emerging from the nostalgic recollections, he frowned. “Several times. I told him over and over again that Gall and I had been test-flying a plane, that I wasn’t at the barbecue, and that I didn’t get to the park until after the tornado.”
“Why did you come to the park at all?”
“There were thunderstorms around that forced Gall and me to return ahead of schedule, so I figured I had just as well try to smooth things over with Susan. Given a choice, though, I’d have stayed in the air. Every minute I spent in a plane was better than being on the ground.”
“Better even than the time you spent with Susan?”
He grinned. “Tough choice.”
“She was as good as all that? As exhilarating as flying?”
“Susan, no. Sex . . . hmm. It’s the only thing that comes close.”
“What time did you get to the state park?”
“Hold on a sec.” He folded his arms on the table and leaned across it toward her. “Let’s explore this some.”
“Explore what?”
“Sex and flying. Sex and anything. Sex and, say . . . writing.” He narrowed his focus on her mouth. “Given a choice right now, which would you rather be doing?”
“Are you flirting with me?”
“What do you think?”
She thought her cheeks were growing so warm he probably detected her blush. His grin was unrepentantly suggestive and made her feel twelve years old again. “It won’t do you any good,” she said. “Because even if I was open to comparing sex to my lifework, I wouldn’t want to be compared to my late sister.”
His grin faded, and his eyes reconnected with hers. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes you would.”
“No I wouldn’t. In any case, I don’t even remember how it was with her.”
“Because there have been so many since?”
“I’m a bachelor with a basic sexual appetite. I make it clear to the women I sleep with that there are no strings attached to my bed. We fine-tune the hormone levels, then go our separate ways, nobody gets hurt.”
“Are you sure? Have you ever asked?”
He gradually eased himself back into the chair. After a moment, he said, “Tell you what. I’ll elaborate on my sex life after you tell me what went wrong with your marriage.”
Refusing to be baited, she said, “What time did you arrive at the state park?”
He snuffled a soft laugh. “Figured.” Then, “What time did I get to the park? I don’t know. I never could nail down a time for Moody, either, which he saw as an implicating factor. On my way there, I saw the funnel cloud. I realized the park lay in its path. I was minutes behind it, and when I got there, all hell had broken loose.
“It looked like—well, you know what it looked like. People were screaming. A lot of them were bloody and broken. Hysteria. Panic. Shock. Next to war, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You were in war?”
“Air force. Iraq. Our base took some rocket fire and the bastards got lucky with their aim. Left those of us who survived it with a . . . a lot to clean up.” His expression turned introspective. “War looks different from several miles up than when you’re scooping up red mush that used to be your wing man.”
He reached for his glass of tea and took a drink. They didn’t look at each other and neither said anything for a time, then she asked what else he remembered seeing in the wake of the tornado.
“Your dad. He was running around like a crazy man, his hands cupped around his mouth, calling your names. Steven appeared first, looking like a zombie, acting like one. Howard shook him, trying to snap him out of his daze. Then Olivia appeared.
“She was . . . well, that’s the only time I’ve seen any real emotion from the woman. She grabbed Steven and wrapped her arms around him like she was never going to let him go. Your dad was embracing both of them. He and Olivia were crying with relief over finding each other unharmed. But the group hug didn’t last long because you and Susan were still unaccounted for.
“When they saw me, Olivia ran over. Had I been with Susan? Had I seen her? Where was she? She was yelling in my face, making little sense, ranting at me for breaking my date with Susan, making it my fault that she was missing, accusing me of causing trouble as always.”
“She must have been out of her mind with worry.”
Dent fell silent and stared into near space for a moment, then said, “Yeah, but later, after Susan’s body was discovered, I thought about what she’d said. And in a way she was right. If I’d been with Susan that day as planned, she wouldn’t have been in the woods with Allen Strickland. She might have been injured or even killed by the twister, but as least she wouldn’t have been choked to death.”
“I suppose both of us suffer a bit of survivors’ guilt.”
“I guess. But I never let on to Moody about it. He would have misread it. It was bad enough that I was within thirty, forty yards of Susan’s body when the fireman found it. I’d been searching the woods with them. So were a dozen other men, but none of the rest became suspects. Only me. Later, Moody said it was like I had returned to the scene of the crime, as killers do. Bullshit like that,” he added in a mutter.
“Anyhow, when I realized that Susan was dead, not just unconscious, I threw up. Then I went to find your parents, but when I did, I chickened out. I couldn’t tell them. I just pointed them in the direction of where she’d been found.”
He stopped talking and, when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to continue, Bellamy prodded him. “And then what?”
“Then nothing. I was upset that my girlfriend was dead, but I knew that your folks wouldn’t welcome any condolences from me and wouldn’t want me hanging around like a member of the family. So I went home, went to bed.
“The following morning, Moody came calling. You know the rest. He’d talked to your parents and had made up his mind that I’d done it. He didn’t have any physical evidence against me, but I was treated like a felon. For weeks my name was the one in all the papers and on the news every night. I was the ‘suspect in the Susan Lyston slaying.’
“Hell, I couldn’t even go to her funeral for fear of being attacked by a lynch mob.” He formed a tight fist with one hand and tapped it against the tabletop. “The hell of it is, it didn’t stop, not after Allen Strickland was taken into custody, not even after he was convicted,” he said with raw resentment.
“See, A.k.a., the way it works? Even if you’re officially cleared of all suspicion, the taint of having been a suspect stays with you. It’s like a bad odor that clings to you. People have to accept that you’re innocent, but there’s a lingering doubt that you’re entirely clean.
“I learned that during the NTSB investigation. Somebody got hold of those old headlines, plastered them all over the damn place. After that, the airline was ashamed to claim me. It’s seriously bad PR to have an alleged murderer on your payroll.”
She grew uncomfortable under his glare and felt compelled to acknowledge that, sadly, he was right. “I’m sorry, Dent.”
“Can you be more specific? What exactly are you sorry for? For the dung heap I had to wrestle through then, or the fresh one I’m having to wrestle through now? Are you apologizing in advance for what will happen when Van Durbin’s newspaper hits the stan
ds tomorrow and all that speculation starts whirling around me again?”
“Why should it?”
“You have to ask? Before Van Durbin files that story, you can bet he’ll want to identify ‘the cowboy.’ He’ll probably crap himself when he learns I’m none other than the ‘first person of interest.’”
“Who was vindicated.”
“Maybe in your book, but not in real life.”
“Gall provided you with an alibi that cleared you.”
“Moody figured that Gall was lying.”
“He had no case against you.”
“Right. The only thing that saved me was that I wasn’t found with Susan’s panties.”
Chapter 8
Rupe Collier checked his reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of his office door. He patted his thinning hair into place to help cover the ever-widening bald spot on the crown of his head, shot his cuffs to make certain the diamonds in his Texas-shaped gold cuff links were twinkling, smiled widely to check his capped teeth for stuck food, then, approving of what he saw, left his office.
He strode into the showroom, where strategically placed spotlights shone on the new models fresh from the factory. He didn’t ordinarily work the floor, but one of his salesman had told him that a customer was insistent on dealing with the “main man,” and Rupe was definitely that.
The customer, pointed out to Rupe by the salesman, was bent down, peering through the tinted glass window—an option available at extra cost—into the luxurious interior of a top-of-the-line sedan.
“Rupe Collier. Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”
The customer straightened up and returned Rupe’s smile as he shook the extended hand. Rupe was pleased to see that his cuff links didn’t escape notice. The other man wasn’t dressed or groomed nearly as well, and that was the way Rupe liked it. It gave him a distinct advantage when it came to bargaining. In order to be a winner, one had to look the part.
The car shopper dropped Rupe’s hand and motioned toward the car. “How much would this baby set me back?”
“It’s worth every penny of the sticker price, but I can cut you the best deal in the country.”
“Thirty-day guarantee?”
“On any car on the lot. I stand behind my product.”
“Continuing the customer-service policies that your daddy built the business on forty years ago.”
Rupe’s grin widened. “You’re well informed.”
“Your commercials run nonstop on TV.”
“I believe in advertising, in putting yourself out there.” Rupe lightly slugged the man in the shoulder.
“So do I, Mr. Collier. We think alike.”
“Call me Rupe.”
“Pleased to meet you, Rupe. My name’s Rocky Van Durbin.”
Rupe’s stomach plummeted.
The tabloid columnist fished a business card from the breast pocket of his off-the-rack sport jacket and handed it over. Having recognized the man’s name instantly, Rupe realized he’d been cleverly ambushed. But he decided to brazen it out and pretended to read the card.
“New York City? We don’t get many shoppers from way up there. I’m honored.” He pocketed the card with as much nonchalance as he could fake. “If you’re seriously in the market for a new car, Mr. Van Durbin, you couldn’t do better than—”
“No thanks. I’m just looking.”
“Sure, sure,” Rupe said expansively. “Stay for as long as you like. Bob there, who you met out on the lot, will be happy to answer your questions and help you any way he can. But you’ll have to excuse me. Unfortunately, I’m late for an appointment.”
Van Durbin laughed. “I get that a lot.” Then he squinted his ferret eyes. “By people who’re afraid to talk to me.”
He’d practically called Rupe Collier a coward, and Rupe didn’t take the insult lightly. He felt like taking the slimy columnist by his scrawny neck and shaking him till his brains rattled. But he didn’t practice his smile in the mirror every morning for nothing. He managed to keep it intact.
“I enjoy chatting with anybody from the Big Apple. But I’m expected somewhere else soon. Let’s make an appointment—”
Van Durbin cut him off. “Well, see, that’s a problem, Rupe. Because, soon, I gotta be somewhere else, too. Besides . . .” He socked Rupe in the shoulder as Rupe had done to him. “You practically wrote the book on closing the sale. Long as I’m here? Just a few minutes of your time? How ’bout it?”
Rupe’s smile was growing stiff from keeping it in place. “Why don’t we talk in my office?”
“Great! Thanks.”
Rupe led the way, and, although he maintained his easy-breezy gait to keep up appearances, mostly for Van Durbin himself, he was anything but relaxed.
His unwanted visitor whistled softly when he stepped into Rupe’s inner sanctum. “Niiiiice. The car business must be good.”
“Can’t complain.”
“My mother, rest her soul, tried to tell me I’d chosen the wrong career path. ‘You can’t make money in journalism.’ She must’ve told me that a thousand times. I reminded her that Hearst had made some serious coin. Murdoch. But”—he sighed—“Mom was right. They were exceptions.”
Trying not to appear overanxious, Rupe said, “How can I help you, Mr. Van Durbin?”
Van Durbin’s attention had already been snagged by the copy of Low Pressure lying on the desk. Rupe gritted his teeth in frustration. He should have gotten rid of the damn thing after he’d read it. At the very least, he shouldn’t have left it in plain sight.
Van Durbin moseyed over to it now and picked it up, then made a production of fanning through the four-hundred-and-something pages. “Now this local gal has done all right in the writing game, hasn’t she? She’s making a killing off this book.”
Rupe was a natural showman, and he had used those innate showmanship skills to full advantage his entire life. He hoped they didn’t fail him now. He moved around the corner of his desk and sat down in his cowhide chair, motioning for Van Durbin to sit in the chair facing him.
“I have a hunch that you didn’t come all the way from New York to talk cars. That book brought you here. I’ll take it a step further and venture that you know I prosecuted the murder case of Susan Lyston, and that’s what you want to talk to me about.”
Van Durbin spread his arms away from his sides. “You caught me red-handed. Can I ask you some questions about your case against Allen Strickland? I’m addressing that aspect of the story in my column tomorrow.”
Bile filled the back of Rupe’s throat, but he tried to appear unflappable. “It was a long time ago. I’ll stretch my memory as best I can.”
“Thanks, Rupe.” Van Durbin produced a small spiral notebook and a yellow pencil dimpled with a disgusting number of teeth marks. “Don’t mind this. I have to write things down or I forget.”
Rupe doubted that. He doubted the bastard ever forgot anything. He was sly, and he was dangerous. Rupe considered calling the dealership’s security guard and having Van Durbin removed from the premises. But then it would appear that he had something to hide. He would also lose all control over what Van Durbin wrote about him.
No, better to stick to the playacting, cooperate, and give the writer something, in the hope that Rupert Collier would be depicted favorably in his column. He began by telling Van Durbin what a fan he was of the media. “You could call me a news junkie. So I’m happy to answer any questions I can. Fire away.”
“Good, good. Let’s start with why you left the DA’s office.”
“That one’s easy. Selling cars pays better. A hell of a lot better. I wouldn’t have an office near this niiiiice at the courthouse.”
Van Durbin chuckled. “You decided that you’d just as well reap the benefits of your daddy’s labor.”
Rupe recognized that for the well-placed dig it was, but he gave a good-natured thumbs-up. “Daddy didn’t raise no stupid children.”
“Right. You would have been a sap to stay in pu
blic service.”
That was one of those trick questions, which wasn’t really a question but a statement. Rupe was savvy enough to see the trap. “I serve my community in other ways now.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do.” Van Durbin flashed him an obnoxious grin. “But back then, you were committed to ‘sweeping Travis County’s streets free of the criminal element.’ I cheated. I read that quote somewhere.”
“I performed my job to the best of my ability.”
Van Durbin flipped back several pages of his notepad and read some of the scribbles. “Uh, I jotted down just a coupla things I wanted to ask you about. Oh, here. Was Ms. Price’s book accurate? Strickland was convicted of manslaughter? Not murder?”
“That’s right.”
“Why not murder?”
“I determined that his crime wasn’t premeditated.”
“In other words, he didn’t plan on killing her. She did something that set him off and wound up dying over it.”
Another carefully laid booby trap. “Mr. Van Durbin, surely you’re not suggesting that she ‘asked for it.’”
“No, no, I’d never even imply that.” But his wicked grin belied the denial. “Strickland flew off the handle, killed her in a fit of passion, something like that?”
“If you want a clarification of the difference between the charges of murder and manslaughter, you can go online and access the Texas penal code.”
“Thanks, I might do that. Just so I’m clear in my own mind.” He tapped his temple with the eraser of his pencil. “You and that homicide detective . . . what was his name?”
“Gosh . . . who worked that case?” Rupe screwed up his face as though searching his memory. “I can’t remember offhand. I was an ADA, working my patooty off, seventy, eighty hours a week. I was getting thrown cases right and left. A lot of felony cases. Worked with a number of cops, a slew of detectives.”
