“If that’s how you want to play it, then fine. Refuse my visit. But I think you know me well enough by now to realize that I’m not giving up until this thing is finished, one way or another.”
“Lacy, doesn’t it occur to you that it might be finished with your death?”
“Then at least people would know that you’re innocent.”
She jumped when he pulled the phone away from his ear and banged it on the counter a few times. “You are making me crazy,” he yelled when he put it back to his face. “Fine, martyr, you don’t care about you, but what about your new BFF? Aren’t you worried that all these hornets’ nests you’re poking are going to have an effect on him? If the pastor’s brother is learning what you’re learning, then doesn’t it stand to reason that they’re going to go after him, too?”
“Keegan is going back to Chicago in a couple of days.”
“Then they’ll go after the pastor.”
Now it was Lacy’s turn to swallow down her emotions. “Tosh isn’t speaking to me right now.”
Jason frowned. “Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and to her embarrassment her voice quavered.
“Jerk,” Jason said, probably knowing it would make Lacy laugh, which it did. They smiled, enjoying a peaceful interlude from their heated exchange.
“When you get out of here, maybe I’ll let you beat him up,” Lacy said.
Jason laughed and shook his head. “Now I know you think I’m never getting out.”
“I don’t think that,” Lacy said seriously. “And if your lawyer thinks that, then fire him and hire another one. Or I’ll find you one. You know I’m rich. I could probably get that guy who got OJ off.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s dead now, but thanks. Or rather, no thanks. I’ll stick with my lawyer and we’ll decide together how it’s going to pan out.”
“Jason, please don’t admit to something you didn’t do.”
“You know you’re the only person who’s sure I didn’t do it. Why is that?”
“Maybe I’m the only person who really knows you,” Lacy suggested.
“Maybe so,” Jason said. He glanced at the clock on the wall and Lacy noted their allotted visitation time was almost at an end. “Lacy, would it help if I begged you to let things go?”
“No.”
He sighed. “That’s pretty much what I thought you’d say.” He took a breath, shoring himself up. “Fine. I meant what I said. If you’re intent on doing this, then don’t come back. I won’t see you.”
“Fine,” Lacy said, trying not to show how deeply his words hurt. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”
He nodded without looking at her, hung up, and turned his back as he stood waiting for the door to open. Lacy stayed frozen to the spot, watching until the heavy metal door swallowed him up, trying not to drown in hopelessness. Then she calmly hung up the phone, stood, and walked out of the jail. Instead of pausing in the lobby to talk to Keegan, she went to the sheriff’s office and pushed the intercom button, doing the one thing she had promised herself she would never do again. Taking a deep breath, she opened her mouth and forced out the painful words.
“Lacy Steele to see Detective Brenner, please.”
Chapter 17
Lacy wasn’t sure if Detective Brenner would agree to see her, but he must have been able to smell crow a mile away.
“Lacy,” he said as she was led into his office. “This is a surprise, especially in light of—what did you call it—my ‘complete and utter incompetence.’”
Lacy sat and swallowed her pride. “Let’s be grownups about this. I will admit that I shouldn’t have handled my complaints in a public forum, if you will admit that you mishandled my grandmother’s case.”
“I wasn’t aware that apologies came with qualifiers,” he replied.
They glared at each other over his desk in a silent standoff, seeing who would blink first. Finally he capitulated.
“Fine, mistakes were made in your grandmother’s case.”
Lacy nodded, willing to let the past go, especially in light of present circumstances. “I came here today because I need your help. Please.”
“I assume you’re referring to Jason’s situation.”
“Yes. I need to know how the mistake with the ballistics occurred.”
“What mistake?” he asked, confused.
“I don’t know—whatever mistake indicated a match. Admittedly I’m not much of an expert on these things, but there has to be some margin of error.”
“I am an expert on these matters, at least enough to know when there’s been no mistake. Did you know our state uses ALIAS? That’s a 3-D imaging system for ballistics matching, and there is no margin of error.”
“But,” she tried again, and he held up a hand to interrupt.
“Look, Lacy, this is hard for all of us. None of us wanted to believe that Jason was guilty. Taking him into custody was a necessary evil. We all thought he would be out as soon as the test came back, but the forensics don’t lie. There’s just no other explanation.”
She wanted to be angry with him, but he wasn’t being his usual bombastic self. Instead he sounded sincere and sympathetic.
“I think this case is related to the Susan Pendergast case,” Lacy blurted, hoping to she hadn’t made a monumental error in judgment by trusting him.
“Of course it is. Jason is the arresting officer, and Ed McNeil was the attorney.”
“No, I mean besides the obvious connection. I think the same person killed both Susan and Ed.”
He sighed. “Lacy, that’s just not possible.” His tone was a mixture of exasperation and pity.
“I know it’s not probable, but it is possible. What if the same person who killed them also framed Jason? This is all tied up with the Stakely building somehow, too.”
“The Stakely building? What does that have to do with anything?” He was back to looking baffled.
“I bought the Stakely building, where the original murder took place, and suddenly I’m receiving threats and being followed. The same players who are involved now were involved then. I don’t know why or how, but things are connected.”
“I’ll admit there’s some coincidence there, but I think that’s all it is,” he said.
“But there has to be some way to prove a connection.” She leaned forward. “The bullet from the Pendergast murder was never recovered. What if I find it while I’m renovating? Could you run it and see if it came from the same gun that killed Ed McNeil?”
He shook his head. “The gun that killed Ed McNeil’s is Jason’s.”
“Could you run it anyway? I mean if this 3D system is such a big deal, then maybe it can tell us a lot of information about where the bullet came from.” She knew she sounded desperate; she was desperate.
“Fine. If, in the one in a million chance that you find a bullet that’s been missing for almost a quarter of a century, then I will run it.” He folded his hands on his desk and leaned forward. “I’m going to level with you. I don’t like civilians interfering with my cases, and I like reporters even less. I’m tolerating you because of your relationship with Jason. He’s a good kid, and he was a good officer. But you’re in over your head here, and you’re grasping at straws.”
“I don’t disagree with anything you said. I have no idea what I’m doing. All I know is that Jason did not kill Ed McNeil. You said yourself that he’s a good man and a good officer.”
“Good people do bad things every day,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. There is nothing anyone could say to change my mind. If I have to tear the Stakely building apart with my bare hands to find some more evidence from the Pendergast case, then that’s what I’ll do. Also, I think the mayor did it.” She slapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to impart that last tidbit during her impassioned speech.
“The mayor?” Detective Brenner roared, sitting back so quickly in his chair that it groaned. “You cannot go around accusing public off
icials with no proof. That’s slander.”
“You’re probably right about all of that, too, but he was in a love triangle with Susan and Sheila all those years ago, and he was in charge of the Stakely building now. I think he’s hiding something. He seemed nervous.”
“Maybe he was nervous because you scared him. You’re like a red-headed tank when your mind is set on something.”
“Nonetheless, I think he’s worth checking out, quietly, of course.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, of course, because everyone knows it’s so easy to keep a secret in this town, especially when someone is investigating the mayor. I don’t see that costing me my job at all.”
She folded her hands in her lap, pinning him with a stare.
“You don’t give up, do you?” he asked after a minute of tense silence.
“No, not ever.”
He blew out a breath. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re here, and you said someone’s been making threats against you.”
“I have the license plate of the person who has been following me.”
“Give that to me, make a formal statement, and I’ll look into it. If that information in any way leads back to the mayor, then I’ll have a foundation for an investigation. But I have to be honest with you—as much as I don’t want to, I believe Jason is guilty.”
“If you’ll promise to keep an open mind while you look into things, then that’s all I could ask. But I have to be honest with you—unless your investigation clears Jason, then I plan to hire a private detective to look into both cases. There’s something I’m missing here, and I’m not going to stop until I figure out what it is.”
“That’s pretty much what I thought you would say.” He reached into his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. “Here’s a statement form. Fill out everything that has happened concerning the threats you’ve received, as well as any other witnesses we might be able to contact. Make sure and sign your name at the bottom and leave it with dispatch. I’ll let you know what I find.”
Lacy knew she was dismissed. She took the paper from his desk and turned to go, pausing in the doorway. “Thank you, detective,” she said, and this time she really meant it.
He nodded and dropped his gaze to his desk, resuming whatever he had been working on before she showed up.
Keegan was still waiting patiently in the lobby, a book in his hands.
“Thanks for waiting,” Lacy said.
He looked up at her with a heart-stopping smile and she wondered, not for the first time, what he was doing spending all his time with her this week. “No problem,” he said. “Learn anything useful?”
“No, but I made some amends, I suppose. I can check one enemy off my list.”
“Two because one got shot,” he pointed out.
She wrinkled her nose. “Thanks for reminding me.”
He laughed and rested his arm companionably on her shoulders. “What now?”
She checked her watch. “Now we go home and let grandma feed us. I know she’s worried. Prepare to eat a lot. You’re not diabetic, are you?”
“Not yet, but check back after I leave this week. How is it that you’re not five hundred pounds?”
“One of life’s little mysteries, and a whole lot of exercise.”
“What do you do?” he asked as he opened the passenger door of his rental car.
“I run, if you could call it that. Technically I think it’s more like a fast waddle.”
“Want to run with me? It might help clear your head.”
“I guess we could, but I have to warn you that it’s not pretty.”
“I find that really hard to believe, Lacy, because I haven’t seen anything you do that isn’t pretty.” When he added another smile, she was almost certain that he was flirting with her. Was that what this week was about? Was it some elaborate conquest for him? He was sweet in the same way that Tosh was sweet, but there was something else going on with him, and she didn’t know what. The not knowing was putting her on edge as she waited for the other shoe to drop. After spending so much time together the last few days, she wasn’t sure how forceful her protest would be if he tried to make a move on her. Did he know, and was he purposely breaking down her defenses? Or was she being paranoid?
Speaking of paranoid, “I think I made a kid and a grown man wet their respective pants this morning.”
“What?” he said, jerking the wheel slightly as he turned to look at her. He was already smiling in anticipation of the story to come, and when she told him how she had terrorized the driving student and his instructor, he bent over the steering wheel laughing. Thankfully, they were in her grandmother’s driveway at that point, so there was no chance of him wrecking.
“You are exactly what the doctor ordered,” he said.
“Keegan, what does that mean? I know we don’t know each other that well, but we’ve spent a lot of time together the last few days, and I can tell something is going on with you. If you want to talk about it, then I’m here. It’s important to me that you know that.”
“I appreciate that, Lacy, and I might take you up on it.” He reached over the seat and took her hand. “It’s a precarious situation with Tosh and our history, you know?”
She nodded, though she didn’t know. What was he talking about?
“It might help if I told you. Maybe after we run.” He gave her hand a squeeze.
She gave him a lame smile in return. Whatever it was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know anymore. “I wasn’t kidding before. I’m not a graceful runner.”
“Now I’m intrigued. Go get changed so I can see for myself.”
Lacy complied because if he was interested in her, there was no better way for his attraction to die then to see her in her workout gear.
Chapter 18
“Wow, that was…something.”
Lacy would have responded, but she was still in that phase where she was bent over, tying to breathe.
“Did you ever think there might be something seriously wrong with you?”
She looked up enough to glare at him.
“I’m serious. That just wasn’t normal looking. Or sounding. Do you have asthma?”
She shook her head. “I’m not athletic, okay?”
“I’ve run with people who aren’t athletes before. It was never like that.”
Yes, any attraction on his part was definitely dead now. “C’mon, I need to shower,” she said, standing upright as they walked the last few feet to home.
“Okay, but if you feel dizzy or faint in the shower, then you should sit down. I’m pretty sure you were hyperventilating that last mile or so.”
While he, of course, hadn’t broken a sweat or wheezed once as he easily kept pace with her.
“Maybe you should join a gym, get a trainer—someone professional who is equipped to deal with your particular special needs,” he suggested.
She couldn’t reply with a snide comeback, both because she was still out of breath and because he sounded sincere. He wasn’t making fun of her; he was actually concerned for her wellbeing.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” she insisted. “I didn’t start running until later in life. Lots of people aren’t good at running.”
“I once saw a story about an army vet who lost both legs in the war, and he still ran better than you do,” Keegan said.
Now he was teasing her, and she shoved at him. He grabbed her around the neck in a loose chokehold.
“Shut it, Underwood. And don’t tell Tosh. Forget what you’ve seen here,” she said.
“If only I could, but I’m pretty sure the image is burned into my retinas for all of eternity. On my deathbed, I’ll probably see the vision of you trying to break a twelve minute mile.”
“Keep it up, and we can test that theory really soon,” she said, and he laughed. He waited in the kitchen talking to her grandmother while Lacy showered. He didn’t need a shower because he still looked and smelled as fresh as a daisy after their—slow, according to him�
�three mile run.
They ate supper with her grandparents. The meal and conversation was enjoyable, but something was missing, and Lacy knew what it was. Keegan was sweet, interesting, and fun, but he wasn’t Tosh. She missed Tosh; where was he?
After supper, Keegan and Lacy transitioned to the living room while her grandparents went out. They sat on the couch, and Keegan picked up her hand and stared at it while he spoke. “Lacy, earlier in the car, you said you wanted to hear what’s been on my mind.”
Lacy felt a cold pinprick of fear, the same one she felt whenever anyone of the male persuasion wanted to talk about his feelings. Think of a way to stall. “Wait,” she blurted, and he looked up at her in surprise. “I, um, was wondering if maybe we could go to the Stakely building and have a look around.”
“Now?” He glanced out the window at the setting sun.
“That’s what flashlights are for. It’s just that I saw the sketch from the Pendergast trial of where the shooting took place, and I want to try and pinpoint where it happened while it’s fresh in my mind.”
“Okay,” he drawled. “Let’s go to the Stakely building.”
His ready agreement made Lacy feel guilty. “Maybe we can talk later.” Maybe she would be ready by then to hear whatever it was he had to say.
He nodded and held the door for her, but his smile looked relieved, which increased her guilt. Obviously whatever he had to say was difficult for him, and she wasn’t making it any easier. She put her hand on his arm to stop him. “We can stay here. We can talk.” I can act like a grownup and listen to what you have to say without focusing on myself.
“We’ll talk later,” he said. “I’m interested to see where the shooting took place. I have to admit that when I left Chicago, the last thing I expected was to get dragged into the middle of a murder investigation.”
Building Blocks of Murder Page 14
