Six-Gun Investigation

by Mallory Kane

  As much to test his response as to distract herself, she said, “You mean, you’re not going to make me sleep with the vending machines?” She punctuated the comment with a little smile.

  “You’ll be fine.” His glare softened slightly. “Are you afraid the killer can get to you?”

  Anna wasn’t afraid of the killer right this minute. She was afraid of her own thoughts. She was afraid of being alone in that hotel room where they’d made love.

  “Where are you going to sl—be?”

  He gestured toward the evidence boxes. “I still have a lot of work to do. I’m probably going to be here most of the night.”

  “Can I stay with you? I mean—I won’t bother you.”

  Irritation flared in his eyes but it faded quickly. He blinked. “Sure.”

  His answer surprised her. She’d been certain he’d refuse. Was he worried that the killer might try to get to her again? That thought was not comforting.

  “I’d like to watch the tape with you.”

  He opened his mouth, but before he could say no, she plunged ahead. “You said I could look at my mother’s evidence.”

  After a brief pause, Zane stood. “Okay, but you better prepare yourself. We don’t know what this is. It could be a videotape of the crime scene.”

  In other words, she might see her mother dead, just like Sarah. Bitter trepidation tightened her throat. “I know.”

  He pushed back from the desk and stood. “I’m going to get something cold to drink. Want anything?”

  “Water, or maybe a diet cola. Didn’t I see some crackers in one of the machines?”

  He nodded and left the room.

  With him gone, she pushed out breath in a huge sigh, and felt the tears coming back. She squeezed her eyes shut and lectured herself.

  Crying didn’t accomplish anything, except make her feel bad and ruin her makeup, on the rare occasions she wore it. Crying sucked away energy and left her exhausted.

  Wiping angrily at the wet trails on her cheeks, she picked up the tape. Getting it set up would distract her. She looked around. A small TV sat on top of a file cabinet. She stood up and examined it. It was a combined TV and VHS recorder/player. Sitting beside it was a remote control.

  She turned on the TV, inserted the tape and pressed Play. The image that appeared on the screen was familiar. She’d lived in that huge house for over two years. She was looking at Leland Hendricks’s security tapes.

  The date stamp in the lower right corner of the screen told her this tape was made the day Lou Ann was killed. The time stamp read 4:00 p.m.

  “Hendricks probably had tapes running twenty-four hours a day.”

  Anna jumped. She hadn’t heard Zane return. He handed her a diet cola and two bags of chips. He set a grape soda and several snack bags on the desk then sat down in the desk chair and turned it toward the TV.

  Anna popped the top on her cola and sipped at it, eyeing his drink. “Grape soda?”

  His gaze snapped to hers and a smile curved his lips. He shrugged one shoulder. “Old habit. Gotta have my sugar fix.” He turned back to the TV screen. “He must have had them set up to start every eight hours—4:00 p.m., midnight and 8:00 a.m. These days it’s a lot easier with DVD technology.”

  They watched in silence for a few minutes, but nothing changed on the screen, except for leaves rustling on the trees and an occasional bird or insect flying by.

  “I remember Leland was incensed that he had to account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder.” Anna shook her head as she watched a cat slink across Leland’s driveway. “He finally offered the sheriff this security tape as proof that he never left the house.”

  “Where were you and Sarah that night?”

  His question magnified the heavy sense of trepida tion that blanketed her whenever she thought about that night and the days that followed. “I was spending the night with a friend. Mom suggested it. Sherri was my best friend.” Sudden realization dawned, surprising her. “Mom did that on purpose. She wanted me out of the house!”

  “Could be. Any idea why? Were she and Leland having problems?”

  “Mom’s only problem with Leland was Justin. She didn’t like having him living with us. Said she’d done her time changing diapers and chasing a toddler around.”

  Zane pulled out his PDA and made a note. “What about Sarah?”

  “Sarah had a new boyfriend. She was never home.”

  “And Justin and his sister? Where were they?”

  “I think Rosa was baby-sitting them. I went home with Sherri from school, so the first I knew of what had happened to Lou Ann was when the sheriff showed up. I remember thinking if I’d been home, maybe I could somehow have saved her.”

  Zane held out his hand for the remote. She gave it to him, doing her best to avoid touching his hand. But he brushed her fingers with his. “I’m sorry, Annie.”

  She nodded.

  He fast-forwarded to a few minutes after six.

  “There’s his car, pulling in,” Anna said.

  “He doesn’t live that far from the Matheson Inn. Why did the sheriff accept this tape as his alibi? He could have gone out the back and walked to the inn.”

  She stood and pointed to the left side of the screen. “There’s no door on the back of the house. There’s one leading into the house from the garage, the front door, of course, and this one. You can barely see it from this angle, but it exits from the kitchen, which is right behind the garage. No matter which way he left, the camera would have picked him up.”

  “Hold it. What’s going on?”

  Anna saw it almost as soon as Zane did. The date/time stamp disappeared from the edge of the screen.

  He rewound the tape for a few seconds, then played it again. Anna watched closely.

  “There,” she said. “Right at 6:08 p.m. the time stamp goes off, but I didn’t see anything change on the screen. There must have been a defect in the camera.”

  “Hmm.” Zane didn’t sound convinced. He let the tape play. The date and time reappeared at 6:14 p.m.

  “Six minutes. That jibes with my watch. So there’s no time missing.” He pressed fast-forward again. “What was the exact time of the murder?”

  “I’m not sure.” She felt like an observer, watching Zane and herself discussing her mother’s murder as if it were just another tragic story to be reported. It was an odd feeling, sad, and yet comforting. Unlike the queasy, helpless sense of loss she’d lived with for the past sixteen years.

  Maybe working together, she and Zane could finally find the killer, and bring closure—for a lot of people.

  “Look in the box. Find the medical examiner’s report.”

  She rummaged among the folders until she found one labeled M.E. She opened the folder and found a form labeled Death Certificate that had been filled in by a steady hand. “Here it is. Time of death—between 9:15 p.m. and 9:22 p.m.”

  Zane stopped the tape at 8:53 p.m. “Okay, we’re at twenty-two minutes before your mother was killed.”

  They sat there together, watching the unchanging picture on the screen. Leland had lawn lights, so it would be easy to see any movement. At 9:12 p.m., the stamp flickered off.

  Anna glanced at Zane, who checked his watch. The next few minutes seemed interminable. But finally, the stamp flickered back on.

  “Nine-eighteen.” She studied the image on the screen. “Nothing happened. So I guess Leland’s alibi holds up.”

  Zane rubbed his cheek and chin, then checked his watch.

  There was something he didn’t like about what he’d seen. “What is it?”

  He shook his head, his mouth set, a tiny furrow etched between his brows. “Did that seem like six minutes to you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the short in the camera, or whatever it is, is random. We should test several other places.”

  He nodded, never taking his eye off the screen. “Right. We should. Let’s make sure we do this accurately.” He handed her the remote. “Rewi
nd and run that section again, and mark out loud when the stamp disappears and when it reappears. I’ll time it on my watch.”

  Anna rewound the tape to 8:56 p.m. and pressed Play. Both of them sat unmoving as the timer crept forward, minute by minute. Finally the stamp read 9:11 p.m.

  “Okay, get ready,” she whispered.

  Zane slipped his watch off his wrist and held it up, in line with his view of the screen.

  The one changed to a two.

  “Mark,” she said, her pulse speeding up. She kept her eyes on the screen, searching for anything out of the ordinary—a slight movement, a shadow, anything that could be Leland sneaking out of his house.

  At 9:14 p.m., the picture wavered.

  Anna’s heart thumped in her chest. Her finger went automatically to the Pause button. She had to stop herself from pressing it. This was about time elapsed. Not a slight waver that could have been caused by a dirty machine or a worn-out tape.

  But her pulse still hammered. She stared unblinking at the screen, in case anything else looked odd. Finally the numbers flipped to 9:18 p.m. “Mark!”

  Zane scooted closer to her, the rollers on his chair rumbling loudly on the hardwood floor. “Take a look.” He held out his watch.

  He’d used a stopwatch function. The time read exactly five minutes.

  “I was right,” Zane said. “I’m going to send this tape to the media lab and let them test the whole thing. They’re much better equipped to determine if the timing is random or not.”

  He started to get up to retrieve the tape from the recorder, but Anna caught his forearm. Her fingers were warm.

  “Zane, wait. I want you to see something.”

  He looked down at her hand. It was small and pale next to his sun-browned skin. Her fingernails were short and neatly rounded. No polish. And no rings.

  The sound of the tape rewinding pulled him back into the moment. “See what?”

  She stopped the tape, then pressed Play.

  “Right here—coming up.” Her fingers tightened on his arm. “There! Did you see it?”

  “No.” He cursed silently. He’d been too busy considering all the differences between men and women, specifically the differences between Anna and him. Like that pale beautiful skin. Like her firm supple breasts and the way she’d moaned when he’d touched her.

  Damn it! He shifted just enough to slip his arm out from under her hand. Her touch was too distracting.

  “What am I supposed to see?” he said shortly.

  He felt her stiffen. “Just watch it, please. I want you to see it for yourself.”

  “Okay.” He concentrated on the image. Absolutely nothing happened, 9:12 p.m. had been on the screen for about twenty-five or thirty seconds. Then something changed.

  He blinked. “What was that?”

  “Watch it again.”

  He did. “The picture sort of wavers. It happens at the same place every time.”

  “Yes.”

  Her voice was lilting, excited. This must be what she was like when she was working, reporting on a story. He stole a glance. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks were pink. She was so fresh and lovely she made him ache with want just to look at her.

  “I’ve seen insurance fraud cases and divorce investigations where videotapes were altered. This reminds me of how those tapes looked. I’ve seen experts show the tape frame by frame.”

  Zane felt stunned—speechless with the implication. His brain raced. His heart thudded in his chest. He flopped heavily down into the desk chair.

  “What do you think?”

  Her excitement was palpable, but right at the moment, Zane couldn’t think past his own emotions.

  “You’re saying Leland tampered with the tape?” He heard the breathless tension in his voice.

  “I think so. There could be a whole minute missing. That’s plenty of time to get out of the house and away from camera range. If he left at nine-twelve, could he get to the inn, kill my mother, and get back home before the sheriff contacted him with the news that his wife was dead?”

  Could he? “With a little planning and a lot of luck.”

  Zane couldn’t sit there any longer. He stood and walked out of the sheriff’s office and down the hall to the break room. The room was dark except for the red and blue vending machine lights. He paced back and forth, rubbing his neck, his face, doing his best to think rationally, like a Texas Ranger.

  He’d spent sixteen years weighted down by the guilt of his father. His entire career as a Ranger had been based on his will, his drive to prove to the Rangers and to himself, that he was nothing like Jim McKinney. That he was trustworthy, honorable. That he was Ranger material. It had been hell, seeing the looks on his fellow Rangers’ faces, hearing their muttered comments, enduring their disdain.

  Now, with one flicker on a TV screen, everything had changed.

  Zane had been—hell, the whole town, the whole state of Texas, had been convinced that Jim McKinney was guilty. Except for a technicality and a good lawyer, Jim would be serving time for murder. He was the only suspect who had the trifecta—motive, means and no alibi.

  But if Leland Hendricks had tampered with his security tape, then the case against McKinney fell apart.

  Zane massaged the knot at the back of his neck as his thoughts raced, ticking off the pieces of evidence against Leland.

  He had a stronger motive—several motives in fact. His wife was cheating on him, he needed money, and he’d taken out a substantial insurance policy on her life. He had means. He’d worked at the Matheson Inn. He probably knew every door and closet and back entrance in the building. It would have been a snap for him to sneak in the back door and slip up to her room.

  And now, it was almost certain that his alibi was destroyed.

  Leland Hendricks could have murdered his wife.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Zane? Is something wrong?”

  Of course she’d come looking for him. He should have followed his first impulse and walked outside. But if she’d found all the rooms empty, she’d be scared.

  Hell, maybe he’d wanted her to follow him. He blinked, realizing his eyes were blurry with tears. What a sap he was.

  “Just thirsty,” he said tightly, hoarsely, reaching into his pocket for change.

  “You didn’t finish your grape soda.” Anna frowned. Zane was obviously upset. She saw it in the tense curve of his back, heard it in his tightly controlled voice.

  What had happened that would cause him to be so distressed? All they’d done was blow Leland Hendricks’s alibi. It was a huge break in his case. Why wasn’t he happy to have another suspect with no alibi other than his father?

  His father.

  “Zane?” The chink of coins hitting the cash box inside the drink machine echoed in the silence. “Whatever it is, I can help.”

  The can tumbled into the tray with a thunk. He grabbed it, still with his back to her. “It’s after ten. If you’re still planning to sleep here, you know where the blankets are.” He gestured halfheartedly toward the closet. “I’ve got to get to work.”

  “This is about your father isn’t it? I’ve seen the tension between you two. I know it must have been hard for you, with everyone believing he was guilty.”

  He shook his head and sat on the arm of the couch. He set the unopened can on the side table. He propped his elbows on his knees and stared at his hands.

  After a moment he spoke. “Texas Rangers aren’t just law enforcement officers,” he said. “We’re the peace-keepers, the heroes of Texas. Only the best make the cut. The code of the Ranger is never violated. We’re held to a higher standard, and we always exceed it.”

  There was pride in his voice. But there was also something else. Maybe irony.

  “But your dad violated the code.”

  He angled his head to look at her and she saw the shimmer of dampness in his eyes.

  “He was the biggest, bravest man I ever knew. He was everything I wanted to be. I was older, but it was my
brother Sloan who always knew what Dad really was—how he cheated on Mom.” He laughed, a short, sharp sound. “I was too blinded by hero worship.”

  “You were sure he was guilty, but now, with Leland’s alibi broken—”

  “I spent sixteen years fighting to prove I was nothing like him. Sixteen years blaming him and your mother for wrecking my family, for ruining our lives.”

  Anna’s throat tightened with emotion. She’d done the same thing. All the hurt, all the disappointment, all the grief he was feeling was familiar to her.

  She longed to go to him, to cradle his head against her breast and comfort him. But she had no idea how he’d react. If he rebuffed her, it would break her heart.

  So she used what she had—words. “Your father had a lot to atone for. So did my mother. You weren’t totally wrong. They hurt a lot of people.”

  “You don’t get it.” He stood and walked over to the doorway. His back was still to her. “My career, my accomplishments. Everything I’ve always been so proud of.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve been fooling myself and everybody else. I didn’t become a Ranger because I was dedicated to the cause. I didn’t get to be lieutenant because I was honorable and brave and valiant. I got to where I am today because I wanted to rub my dad’s nose in it.” His voice was raspy with pain.

  Anna knew he’d never spoken those words to anyone. It had probably never occurred to him until he’d returned to Justice.

  She couldn’t just stand here and let him hurt alone. So she stepped up close behind him and flattened her palms against his back. “I don’t believe that.”

  “Believe it.”

  “I understand how you feel. I spent a lot of years blaming them for wrecking my life. But I finally had to convince myself that what they’d done didn’t have to affect my whole life.” She curled her fingers against the crisp cotton of his shirt.

  “You were what—eighteen?—when my mother was murdered. Hardly more than a kid. You probably did want to rub his nose in your accomplishments then. But that’s not how you feel now, is it?”

  He turned and grabbed her hands. He placed them against his chest. “Isn’t it? Tell me, what do you see when you look at me?”