by Mallory Kane
She rose and aimed her gun, but saw nothing. She carefully ducked under the crime-scene tape and loped up the hill.
Cade waved her back, but she wasn’t about to hide while he went after the lowlife who’d shot at her. By the time she reached his side, he’d lowered his gun. He stood, feet planted apart, his fists on his hips, his chest heaving. Sweat shone on his face and glistened on his bare arms.
“Did you see anything?” she panted.
He shook his head. “He stood somewhere around here. The sun’s hot today, so the ground up here is already dry. No footprints.” He pointed toward the southwest. “Take a look down there. Whoever did it had a perfect shot.”
Laurel looked back down the hill. The yellow crime-scene tape stood out in sharp contrast to the grass and foliage surrounding it. She glanced down at her orange T-shirt, which must have shone like a banner, then back toward the crime scene.
She raised her weapon and aimed at the spot where she’d stood just a few minutes ago. The idea of someone standing where she now stood and aiming a gun at her was profoundly disturbing. But she couldn’t think about that. She was a professional, and she could never let Cade see how much being shot at had spooked her.
In a show of bravado that was as much for herself as for Cade she pointed her weapon, pursed her lips and made a childish mock sound of a gun firing.
Cade reached over and wrapped his fingers around her gun’s barrel and pushed it down.
“He stood up here in plain sight.” She scanned the horizon and traced the line of trees and tangled undergrowth that hid the creek. The water had etched a sharp curve—almost a horseshoe—into the landscape over the years. The swimming hole and the Swinging Oak were located right at the curve of the horseshoe. “Where did he go?”
“Maybe back to the Visitor Center. Kathy’s SUV is still in the parking lot.”
“You think she did it?”
“I think we can sure as hell ask her. Whoever it was knew the lay of the land.”
“If Kathy drinks even half of what it appears she does, I don’t see how she could hold a gun steady. “
Cade nodded. “I don’t know. She and her husband used to shoot skeet at a club in Memphis. I don’t know if they still do.” He crouched down and examined the ground. “It’s too dry and grassy to tell for sure, but someone certainly could have stood here. Maybe Ralph. This is his land and his project.”
“You think he’d try to shoot me?”
“Maybe he killed Wendell. Maybe that’s what Debra wanted to tell you.”
“Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “But we have a long list of suspects and absolutely no proof.”
“That’s right.” He met her gaze, fire blazing from his blue eyes. “And for that reason, from now on you do as I say.”
For an instant his fury took her aback. “Excuse me?” she snapped. Was he that concerned about her safety? Or just that determined to stay in control of the investigation?
She couldn’t let him bully her. They were equally responsible for this case, and she had to prove that she was his equal in everything. She wasn’t jockeying with him for control, but he did have a disturbing tendency toward protectiveness.
But was she interpreting him correctly? Did he feel protective toward her, and want to keep her safe? Or did he just doubt her ability?
After a searching gaze that almost dissolved her indignation, he turned his attention to the area below. After a final sweep of the area, he holstered his weapon.
“You would never order Fred or Shelton around like that.”
He turned those fiery eyes on her again. “They’re not as stubborn as you are.”
“Stubborn? You listen to me, Dupree. I’m an FBI special agent and a criminologist. This is my purview. And we’re equals on this case. Remember, you requested the FBI’s assistance.”
“Assistance being the operative word.” His glare softened. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”
“No. But I appreciate you asking. Finally.”
“Well, it’s obvious the bullet missed you.”
The bullet. She stared at him for a second. “The bullet—I’ve got to—” She turned and ran.
“What the hell—”
She heard him, but she didn’t stop. She had to find those bullets, because she had a sinking feeling that she knew whose gun the bullets came from.
About halfway down, Cade caught up to her and grabbed her arm. She wrenched it away and nearly tripped over a branch.
“What’s wrong?”
“The bullets—” She gasped. “I’ve got to find them.”
“Damn, Gillespie. They’re not going anywhere.”
He stopped her again in front of the crime-scene tape.
“Cade, let me go in first,” she said. “I need to bag that piece of false nail I found. I was just about to do that when—”
He lifted his hands, palms up. “Go ahead.”
Cade watched Laurel slip under the tape and step carefully over to the place where Debra’s body had lain. She planted her feet in the indentations where she’d stood before, then crouched down. She picked up something off the ground. It looked like a miniature ballpoint pen. She used it to lift a leaf.
He heard a satisfied sound from her. “Here it is.”
Her hand didn’t even shake. He was amazed at how calm she was after almost being shot. He kept waiting for reaction to set in. But right now she was all confidence and efficiency as she scraped the pink nail fragments into a plastic evidence bag with the point of the pen, then sealed it.
Straightening, she held the bag out to him.
He snagged it in his fingers and pocketed it.
Meanwhile, she turned and gazed up at the rise from which the shot had come. She frowned and shifted a few millimeters to her right, glanced at the trunk of the tree, then back toward the rise.
With a start, he realized what she was doing. She was reliving the moment when the gun went off. Based on her level of concentration, he figured she was judging what she’d heard and how far away it had been from her ear. A chill slithered down his spine.
After another few seconds of quiet study, she pointed her finger toward the rise, then swept it past her temple.
Alarm ripped through him like a laser as the tip of her finger scooped the air less than three inches from her cheekbone.
The bullet’s path. The shooter was either damn good or damn lucky. The bullet had traveled over a hundred feet and still barely missed her.
Laurel dug into her jeans again, this time the front pocket. She pulled out a knife. Opening it, she burrowed into the tree trunk.
“That’s a long way for a bullet from a handgun to travel. They were nearly spent when they hit. Probably wouldn’t have killed me,” she commented casually.
“Probably?” Cade felt sweat prickling his neck and back. He couldn’t stop a grisly vision of the bullet impacting the side of her head.
After a few seconds, she retrieved another bag from her pocket. Turning it inside out, she inserted her fingertips into it and extracted the bullet from the tree trunk. Holding it with the plastic bag, she examined it closely.
“Just as I thought,” she muttered as she turned the bag right side out around the bullet and sealed it.
Stuffing it into her pocket, she went to work on the second bullet.
“Leave it. We can dig it out later, after I get a picture of it. Right now I want to talk to Kathy before she leaves the Visitor Center.”
She looked at the tree, then back at him.
“That bullet came from my gun,” she said.
He’d half-suspected that. What he didn’t know was how she could be so certain. “How can you know it’s your gun?”
Her lips turned up. “Ancient FBI trick.” She held out the bag. “Jack O’Hara, one of my colleagues in the Unsolved Mysteries Division, taught me years ago to mark my cartridges. See right there on the side? That’s an L. Whoever stole my gun killed Debra, and probably Wendell.”
“And
now he’s trying to kill you,” Cade said.
Chapter Nine
“Of course I didn’t shoot at anyone. What kind of question is that?” Kathy set her cigarette on the edge of the counter near the sink in the kitchen area of the Visitor Center.
“Kathy, hold it—” Laurel started, but Kathy plunged her hands into a sinkful of soapy water. Too late. “We need to swab your hands for GSR.”
“For what?” Kathy didn’t look up. She fished out a washcloth and picked up a large platter.
“Gun shot residue. Take your hands out of the water please.”
“I told you I didn’t shoot at anyone.”
Cade stepped up beside Kathy and took hold of her wrists. He gently lifted them out of the water.
“Hey!”
“Just trying to help,” he said.
Kathy slung water and suds off her hands. “You’d better watch out, Cade Dupree. I’ll charge you with police brutality.”
He ignored her. “Laurel, swab her fingers. Maybe we can still get something.”
“There’s nothing to get, Cade. Do I need to call Harrison?” Kathy asked.
“Do you need a lawyer?” he responded.
Laurel set the crime-scene kit they’d brought in with them on the counter. Cigarette smoke burned her eyes. She picked up the forgotten cigarette and doused it in the water and then tossed it into the trash.
Quickly, she prepared a swab and ran it over Kathy’s soapy hands. Why would Kathy, who’d probably never washed a dish without gloves on, be so eager to immerse her hands in suds moments after a gun was fired not thirty yards away?
Because she was the shooter?
“Where did Langston go?” Cade asked.
“How should I know? He drove off, still cursing you for messing up his construction schedule.”
Laurel pressed her lips together. It was all she could do to hold her temper in the face of Kathy’s disdain. “What about you? What have you been doing?”
Kathy’s glare could have withered a tree. She turned to Cade. “Cade, what is going on here?”
“Someone fired a handgun from over the rise a few minutes ago. Nearly hit Laurel.”
Kathy’s eyes widened. “That’s awful. No wonder you’re concerned. I didn’t hear a thing.” She spread her fingers. “Do you need to do another swab?”
“No. You’re fine,” Laurel said shortly. “But we would like to check your purse and your vehicle.”
Kathy waved a hand, sending soap bubbles flying. “Of course. I have nothing to hide. One condition, though.” Her attention was still on Cade. “You have to promise me you won’t charge me if you find an open bottle.”
“Kathy—”
“Come on, Cade. I’m just kidding. I don’t think there’s a bottle in there.”
Cade glanced at Laurel. She shook her head. She didn’t want to leave Kathy alone for an instant. “You go ahead and check her car,” she said. “I’ll go through her purse.”
He nodded. “Be right back.”
“Where’s your purse?” Laurel asked Kathy.
“Right over there. Can I dry my hands now?”
Laurel glanced at the stack of dishes on the counter. “Aren’t you going to finish washing those dishes?”
Kathy cut her with a look. “No. I’m late for an appointment.” Her hands still trembled and she looked slightly green around the gills.
Laurel headed for the table. She carefully emptied the contents of a designer bag that had probably cost more than an FBI agent’s salary for two months onto the table. There were the usual things—wallet, lipstick, compact, various crumpled receipts and folded money, a package of tissues, a glasses case and a small flask that was at least three-quarters full.
When Laurel set down the flask she noticed an oily residue on her hands. She sniffed her fingers then sniffed the smooth surface of the flask. It was gun oil—a specific brand that smelled like bananas. She glanced at Kathy who was having trouble lighting her cigarette.
She picked up the flask by its top. “We’re going to need to take this with us.”
Kathy’s eyes narrowed as the cigarette finally caught and silver smoke curled around her face. She drew in a lungful. “What for?”
“We’re checking for fingerprints—mostly for elimination purposes.”
Laurel pulled an exam glove onto her right hand, and then placed the flask into an evidence bag. As she was sealing it Cade came back in holding a half-empty bottle of liquor.
“I’m taking this with me,” he said to Kathy. “I’ve called Officer Phillips to come and take you home to change clothes. We’re going to need your shoes and dress. I believe they’re the same ones you were wearing last night?”
“It’s not nice to notice something like that, Cade.”
“I apologize.”
The door opened again and Shelton Phillips walked in. “Morning, Mrs. Adler. Special Agent Gillespie.”
“Hi,” Laurel said.
Kathy nodded.
“You ready to go, Mrs. Adler?”
“Shelton, when you get the dress and shoes, take them and Mrs. Adler to the station. Take her statement about her movements last night and then drive her back here to pick up her vehicle,” Cade said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You ready?” he asked Laurel.
Laurel nodded in relief. She was more than ready for this day to end. She was tired, and reaction to her near miss was setting in.
In the pickup, she held up the evidence bag. “I found an oily residue on this flask from Kathy’s purse. It’s a type of gun oil that smells like bananas.” She held the bag close to his nose.
“Hard to mistake that smell. What do you think she was doing to get gun oil on a whisky flask?”
“Cleaning a gun and drinking? Shooting a gun and drinking? But most likely, she carried a gun in her purse and some oil got on the flask.”
“What about the rest of the contents of the purse?”
“I didn’t mention the gun oil to her—I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, so I took the flask instead of the whole bag. Let her assume it was because she was carrying booze.”
“So what do you think?”
“I think she’s the one who shot at me.” Laurel cringed at the idea of Kathy’s trembling fingers aiming the gun. “I want to swab the flask and send it with the rest of the evidence. Then we’ll have verification. And if she fired it then put it in her purse, GSR may have rubbed off on the flask. I doubt we’re going to get any off her hands.”
“That means we can’t charge her.” He paused. “Was it your gun?”
“I don’t use that brand of oil. Can’t stand the smell. But I suppose she could have cleaned the gun. My question is, can she possibly be that good a shot?”
He shook his head as he pulled up in front of the police station.
“Cade, do you think Kathy killed Debra?”
“I don’t know, but it’s beginning to look like she was trying to kill you.”
LAUREL STOOD in Cade’s office a couple of hours later, looking down at the meager evidence they’d gathered. Lined up on his desk were the plastic bags that held the graduation night pictures, Debra’s broken false nail, the crime-scene photos, the French nail from Laurel’s room at the B&B, the bullet and Kathy’s flask.
She stared at the slug she’d dug out of the tree, the slug that had missed her skull by less than three inches. At the time, she’d managed to hold herself together. She’d been all business—all FBI, estimating trajectory, pinpointing where the shooter must have stood, preserving the evidence.
But now, in the safety of the police station, staring at the misshapen piece of lead, it was all she could do to hold herself together. Her stomach felt like it had been turned upside down—or inside out. Her head spun with the realization of how close she’d come to death.
She was a criminologist, but most of the time she never saw the crime scene. Working for the Division of Unsolved Mysteries, her participation usually consisted of
going over old case files, re-examining evidence and occasionally disinterring a body for a forensic autopsy.
Until she’d come back to Dusty Springs, the only time she’d actually drawn her weapon or processed a crime scene was during training.
And she’d never been shot at—not with real bullets.
Cade’s office chair screeched as he leaned back and propped his boots on the desktop. The chair’s unoiled springs protested again when he pushed it to a slightly greater angle. He balanced the phone’s handset between his ear and shoulder.
“Cade Dupree here, chief of police in Dusty Springs. I need to speak to the medical examiner.”
He waved Laurel toward a scarred desk and an ancient chair on the other side of the room, but she shook her head.
She couldn’t sit right now. She was too antsy. She reached out and touched the bag that held the bullet. The bag was crooked, just slightly out of alignment with the other six bags. As she adjusted it, her fingers trembled. She pulled her hand back and plunged both fists into the pockets of her jeans.
Stepping over to the cork bulletin board, she pretended to read the notices stuck up there with various thumbtacks, pushpins and a few straight pins. But the bullet lying on the desk behind her taunted her with its nauseating truth—she’d almost died out there today.
She was as spooked as a civilian—more. She’d watched interviews with victims of near-fatal shootings who were much calmer than she felt right now.
Laurel’s brain was whirling. She was wound as tight as the spring on Cade’s chair. Wound so tight she wanted to scream. She wished for something—anything—to stop the memory that ran in an endless loop in her head. The replay of that split-second when the slug had whizzed by her head and thunked into the tree trunk.
A metallic shriek and a thud made her jump. A moment later she realized the noise was Cade sitting up and planting his boots on the floor.
She turned in time to catch him frowning as he picked up a pencil and pushed a stack of paper aside. He was still on his phone. “Key? Okay. In her left pocket.” He jotted something on the desk blotter. “Wrapped in a tissue?”
