Trina didn't like the way he said her name, each syllable enunciated. It felt mocking. She was trying real hard not to dislike Gavin Husby because he had a weasly face and poor impulse control where his ex-wife had been concerned.
"This is Detective Dixon. May we come in?" she asked. "We'd like to talk to you again."
"Yeah. Sure." He stood back. "I wasn't expecting anyone."
Despite what she took as an apology, the place was neat to the point of being sterile, just as it had been the first time she saw it. It could have been a vacant furnished apartment.
"You're pretty tidy for a bachelor," she commented.
"I've got nothing better to do while I'm not working." He turned off the television, which had been tuned to some shoot 'em up movie or show she didn't recognize in the one glance. "Go ahead. Sit down. There hasn't been another murder, has there?"
Why was she so sure he knew there hadn't been? She chose one end of the couch, Jerry at the other.
Gavin sat down in the recliner facing the TV. An open beer can and the remote control were the only indication he actually lived here. He shook his head. "Karin. Boy, that hit hard. She and I really had some chemistry. You know?"
"You did say that you'd intended to ask her out."
He rocked a couple of times, quickly, pushing off hard with his bare feet. The recliner creaked. "Yeah, yeah. Jeez. Have you found out anything?" His gaze flicked between them.
"We're pursuing several leads." Trina opened her notebook. "Mr. Husby, did you know Gillian Pappas?"
Muscles tightened around his eyes. "Sure, I did. Will's girlfriend. Why are you asking me about her?"
"I'm sure you've seen television and newspaper accounts suggesting similarities between the two recent murders and Ms. Pappas's."
"Yeah, but that guy is in jail for killing her." He leaned forward, expression avid. "You don't think…?"
She deliberately made her tone wooden. "We're exploring the possibility that this killer saw Ms. Pappas's body or attended the trial. He's gotten some details wrong, but similarities certainly exist."
So quickly she might have imagined it, anger flashed on his face. Or maybe she did imagine it. Certainly when she studied him, his expression was ingenuous.
"I didn't go to the trial. I can't tell you who did."
"You did live in Elk Springs at the time?"
"Yeah, I went to the community college and then I started working out at Rick Haydon Chevrolet. That's why I never went. I was working."
"I see," she said. "Perhaps you can tell us if you recall anyone seeming especially interested in talking about the crime and the trial. Perhaps reading obsessively about it."
"You mean, friends?" He shook his head. "Well, of course you do. You figure the killer has to be someone who knew Karin and Amy. Somebody who hung out with Will and me."
Noting the casual way he paired himself and Will, she wondered whether he particularly wanted the investigators to think he and Will were best friends. Or was it he who wanted to believe they were?
"It's certainly a possibility," she agreed.
"I don't want to rat on friends."
"Mr. Husby, this was a terrible crime. Surely you want to help us catch this monster before he kills again."
His face twitched, expressions crossing it too quickly for the naked eye to read. "Okay. I mean, you're right. Uh…Travis. Travis Booth. You know him? The skier whose career bombed? He wasn't here then, but he called constantly. He had me send him newspaper clippings. He might have kept an album or something."
"I understand he and Will Patton are close friends."
"They were in high school. I don't know so much anymore."
She pretended to scribble a note. "Anyone else?"
"It's hard to think. I mean, that's all anyone talked about. You know?" He looked from one to the other detective. "We all knew Gilly. We figured she and Will would end up married. He was destroyed afterward."
"Let me suggest some names. Perhaps you recall whether they were here in Elk Springs at the time." She flipped back a couple of pages in her notebook, as if needing to check a list. "Billy Landon."
"The faggot?"
She didn't quite hide her surprise. "He'd come out in high school?"
He sneered. "No, but you could tell. There was no way he raped anyone."
"Jimmy McCartin."
"Wannabe McCartin? We couldn't shake him in high school. He sells real estate now, you know." He frowned. "Yeah, he was around then. I'm almost sure he was. Probably sniffing after all our girlfriends."
"Sniffing?"
"Yeah, you know. Haven't you ever had a dog follow you when you were having that time of the month? Maybe try to hump your leg?"
Startled and offended by his crudeness, Trina was careful not to let her expression change.
"That's what Jimmy was like. At dances he'd just kind of ooze up to girls like Nita Voss and Amy. The hot ones who didn't even know he was alive. He'd cut in on dances. That kind of shit." He shook his head. "Pathetic."
"And you, Mr. Husby?" She allowed doubt to creep into her tone. "Did you date the 'hot' girls?"
He didn't hide the anger as well this time. She wondered why he bothered.
"You kidding? They liked jocks. I even screwed around with the great Will's girlfriend, Christine Nylander, at a party once. He never knew." His eyes widened. "Unless you tell him. But you wouldn't do that, would you, Detective Giallombardo?"
She stared back at him, face impassive. After a moment, she said, "I understand that you moved back to Elk Springs just recently?"
"Yeah, last summer." He shrugged. "Seemed like the thing to do."
"At the time you were married."
His face contorted. "Yeah, shit, you know that bitch got me sent to jail. Nothing was ever her fault." Facial muscles relaxed. "Good riddance."
Something in the way he said the last rang an alarm for Trina. It wouldn't hurt to follow up on the whereabouts of the former Mrs. Husby and be sure she was all right.
"Where were you living before last summer?"
"Me? Oh, I'm the regular rolling stone. You know, gathering no moss." He chortled. "I get bored and move on. I've lived all over the Northwest. Portland, Seattle, you name it."
"I gather you have no trouble finding work."
"I'm too good to have trouble." He sprawled back in his chair, all but preening. "Any dealer is lucky to have me, and they know it."
"But you're currently out of work."
"This is a slow time of year. Why hustle in shitty weather when you can afford to stay home?"
"Then it's not true that you tend to leave jobs because of quarrels with your bosses? Because of an uncooperative attitude?"
He shot forward, his voice rigid with fury. "Who the hell told you that? I've got a right to know!"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you," she said blandly, satisfied to have gotten an unambiguous response. "Can you answer the question, Mr. Husby?"
"Whether I get along with my bosses? Some of them are pricks. Okay? They undercut me doing my job, I tell them. That makes me uncooperative? They're idiots! I'll forget more about selling cars than they'll ever learn!"
"And yet they keep hiring you."
His eyes narrowed to glittering slits. "I average twenty-two cars sold a month. Year in, year out. Bad months, good months, no matter what dealer I'm working for. My top month, I sold fifty-one cars. That makes me the goddamn Van Gogh of car salesmen. See?"
Hadn't Van Gogh first cut off his ear in a fit of madness and finally killed himself? Why not Rembrandt? Michelangelo? Did Gavin Husby imagine himself to be both brilliant and insane?
She closed her notebook. "Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Husby. We'd appreciate you staying available should we need to speak to you again."
"Don't leave town?" He stood. "Why would I?"
Trina didn't like the sensation of having him standing over her. She got up, too, not allowing herself to step back to open distance between them.
&nbs
p; "I'm sure there's no reason at all that you'd want to leave Elk Springs," she said, holding his gaze with a cool one of her own.
"You bet your sweet titties there isn't," he said in a low voice she sensed was meant for her ears alone.
Jerry Dixon heard him. "You're speaking to an officer of the law, Mr. Husby." His voice was steely. "Please remember that."
Gavin held Trina's gaze for a moment more, as if he wanted to be sure she saw that he couldn't be pushed. Then he turned with exaggerated surprise.
"I didn't mean anything by that. Sorry, Detective Giallombardo. It was a figure of speech."
"Uh-huh," Jerry muttered.
Trina nodded at Will's not-quite-friend. "Good day."
Not until the door was closed behind she and Jerry did she realize that goose bumps prickled over her skin.
The two detectives walked in silence to the Explorer. Inside it, both doors closed, he said, "That's our guy."
She wanted to agree, couldn't remember when she'd despised someone more. "He's scum, that's for sure. That doesn't mean he's a serial killer."
Jerry's face was unusually serious. "He forgot I was even there. You're a woman, and that guy has plenty of trouble dealing with women. You pushed pretty hard. He hates your guts, Giallombardo. You need to be careful there."
"I'll be careful," she said, with bravado she didn't feel. "It'll be interesting to see what Gavin Husby does now."
"I like him for our killer," Jerry said stubbornly.
"Maybe." Trina started the engine. "What say we go talk to Jimmy McCartin?"
"Today, you're the boss."
The Century 21 office was in a storefront on Main Street, sandwiched between a jeweler and a café/bookstore. Photos of properties for sale were artfully arranged on boards set on easels of varying heights in the window. Trina noted a cluster of homes available in Crescent Ridge.
Inside, a pretty young receptionist said, "Mr. McCartin? Let me check to see if he's available."
He came out a moment later, beaming, hand extended. Trina doubted she'd have recognized him from his high school yearbook photo. Then, he'd been scrawny and geeky looking. Now, she guessed his wiry body was that of a runner. He wasn't a handsome man, but he radiated pleasure at the chance to meet them.
"Did you see a listing with my name on it?" He shook Jerry's hand vigorously, then Trina's. "You look familiar."
"I went to high school here," she admitted. "A couple of years behind you."
"Ah! That'd be it." He looked from one to the other. "What can I do for you folks?"
She introduced herself and Jerry and asked if they could speak to him privately.
His smile scarcely dimmed. "Why, of course you can! Awful thing up there at Crescent Ridge! Not so good for the developer, either. He's pretty nervous right now, thinking it's going to affect sales. I've already had one good prospect shy away."
Will? she wondered.
McCartin led them to a conference room with upholstered chairs around a veneered oak table. A binder with more photos of houses lay open. He closed it as they sat around one end of the table.
"Now, what can I tell you?"
Shot in the dark. "I understand you dated the victim at one point."
His face reminded her of Jim Carrey's, with that malleable quality that allowed him to effortlessly change expressions. Now it spoke of grief and solemnity.
"Karin. Yes, last fall we dated a few times. Nothing earthshaking. But you understand how shocked I was to hear it was her."
With a few nudges, she got him to talk about how they'd met, how long they'd seen each other, why the relationship fizzled. She couldn't read any resentment into his admission that Karin was the one who moved on, but then Jimmy McCartin's expressions were an awful lot harder to interpret than Gavin Husby's, despite their exaggerated quality.
"Did you know Amy Owen as well?"
"Yes, in high school."
"Did you date her as well?"
He laughed. "Lord, no! I was the equipment manager, not the star quarterback. In those days, I'd have been lucky if she remembered my name." His features reassembled to express sadness. "Terrible thing."
"Did it bother you that she couldn't be bothered to remember your name?" Trina asked.
"Not a bit. She was a star to be admired from afar to someone like me." He bobbed his head, shrugged a couple of times in a twitchy way. "Okay, that's not totally true. I mean, what kid likes knowing he's invisible? Me, I pretended a lot. Hey, as equipment manager, I was part of the team, right? More important than the bench sitters, that was for sure! So I hung out with those guys, told myself they were my friends even though I knew better."
Trina felt a painful twinge of sympathy, even identification. What kid likes knowing he's invisible? But she couldn't allow that sympathy to affect this interview. Not if there was the slightest chance Jimmy McCartin had let his sense of alienation blossom into an anger so violent, all he wanted was to destroy the girls who'd ignored him—and the man who had been one of the acknowledged leaders of the guys who hadn't really been Jimmy's friends.
"Like Will Patton?" she asked softly. "Was he one of those guys?"
"Funny you should mention Will. He's the client I was telling you about…" He broke off. "Wait. Will's girlfriend was the one who was murdered back—what?—six, eight years ago."
"That's right."
"He and Amy had a thing in high school." His forehead crinkled earnestly. "But Karin…"
He wasn't likely to forget that a woman he'd dated had been seen shortly thereafter with Will Patton.
"The two of them recently dated a couple times."
His eyes opened wide. "You're thinking…"
"Tell me, Mr. McCartin. Did you dislike Will Patton? Resent the fact that you were invisible to him, too?"
"No, no!" Finally he registered alarm. "Will was a good guy! Always decent to me, even if we both knew I wasn't in his league."
"Were you in Elk Springs when his girlfriend was murdered?"
He blinked quickly, several times. "Yes…well, let me think…yes. Uh-huh. Sure. I remember reading the paper, hearing people talking. I didn't know her, of course. It wasn't as if Will and I had stayed friends once we graduated." He gave an unconvincing laugh. "Once I wasn't the equipment manager any more!"
"And during the trial?"
"Sure, I was living at home that year. I remember now. That's when I was studying for my real estate exams."
"Did you follow the trial closely, Mr. McCartin?"
"Jimmy. Jimmy, please!" He gave her a big, meaningless grin. "After all, we went to high school together. As for the trial. No. No, not really. Just casually."
"And you're aware of the similarities between these two recent murders and the murder of Will's girlfriend back then?"
He was squirming now, but managed still to sound expansive, amiable, a salesman to the core. "Sure, sure. I've been following the news. Strangest damn thing. And tragic, of course."
"Do you remember where you were on the night of either murder, Mr. McCartin?"
"I was home both nights. I'm not seeing anyone right now, not seriously, and I do live alone. Nice place out in Metolius Heights."
Her gaze dropped to his hand, drumming the padded arm of his chair, the soft sound reminding her of chattering teeth. Jimmy McCartin was a nervous man.
Because he was a normal citizen who didn't like the implication behind her questions? Or because he'd never expected the eye of the law to turn his way at all?
Perhaps he'd said it best himself. Wasn't Jimmy McCartin invisible? Consumed by rage, did he gain some pleasure from taking advantage of the fact that no one ever remembered whether he was there or not?
"Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. McCartin." Trina closed her notebook and stood, conscious of Jerry doing the same. "We'd appreciate it if you'd stay available."
He all but bounded to his feet. "Naturally! Anything I can do. Anything at all!" He hustled around the table, grin in place. "Let me walk you folks
out."
Have you ever had a dog follow you when you were having that time of the month? Maybe try to hump your leg?
Okay, Trina thought, Jimmy was as creepy in his own way as Gavin was. Nobody could be this good-humored, this eager to please, not after being asked for their whereabouts on the night of a brutal murder. Jimmy was just better at suppressing his anger.
But anger had to come out somehow, didn't it?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WILL WAS working up a search warrant when Trina marched into his office.
"Well, you have some real scum for friends," she declared, flinging herself into a chair.
"What?" He wrenched his attention from the monitor on his laptop.
"You heard me. I just spent a fun afternoon talking to Jimmy and Gavin. Good guys. They both made my skin crawl."
Feeling pulled two ways, he shook his head. "Hold the thought." He read over his embroideries on the boilerplate warrant and hit Print. On impulse, he said, "Want to walk with me? I've got to find a judge." He put on his wool coat and grabbed the pages feeding out of the printer.
She looked over his shoulder. "A warrant. Sure. You have a preference? I saw Shuh turn around and go back into the courthouse with someone."
Will hadn't met His Honor Duane M. Shuh yet, but he shrugged. This one was a gimme. "Let's hustle."
She had to trot to keep up with his long strides. "Who wants it?"
"Aunt Abby." He glanced back at Trina as she tore around a corner in the hall after him. "She's not a patient woman."
"I met her."
"You did?" He held open the outer door for her, his nose catching that faintly exotic scent even as the cold air hit them. Floral, but not your average roses or lilac. An interesting contrast to her pedestrian clothes and a face bare of makeup. With an effort he recovered his train of thought. Aunt Abby. Trina. How did they connect? "Oh, yeah. Crescent Ridge."
"Speaking of which, ol' Jimmy couldn't decide whether to be more upset by the tragedy of a woman's grisly death or the fact that property values up there may be affected."
Will shook his head. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"
Dead Wrong Page 21
