A Killing Secret

by Robert E. Dunn

  “What’s going on, Doreen? I have an investigation I need to get onto.”

  “Sheriff Blevins has a suspect in interview and things are not going well.”

  “A suspect? In my case?”

  “I think it’s his case now. You better hurry.”

  I did. Dropping the mic onto the seat, I hit the gas, then my lights. The county road at that point was little more than a series of blacktop humps. If I went too fast my truck would fly off one of the peaks. On the down sides, wispy snakes of snow crawled, filling the small valleys. I threaded the needle between haste and care.

  I was at the bottom of a trough when another car, a beat-up Ford full of kids, topped the hill in front of me. It was going too fast and the tired suspension was no match for the terrain. The car didn’t quite fly so much as hop off the road crest. I could see the front tires wag back and forth as the driver tried to find some control. When the wheels hit, the steering was pointed the wrong way. The car veered my direction and whipped its trunk toward the ditch on the other side.

  I braced for an impact even as I went off the shoulder on my side of the road.

  The car skidded, then righted and passed me so close there would have been contact if the old car still had all its paint.

  My truck was in the ditch and stopped dead. In my rearview mirror I saw one working brake light brighten on the Ford before it disappeared over the top of the next hill. I didn’t waste time trying to fool myself that they were coming back. I did think a moment on the value of trying to catch them. I decided it would be wasted effort. By the time I got myself out of the ditch and turned around, they could have taken any of three cut-offs or simply gone off-road to hide.

  I put the big GMC truck into four-wheel drive and slithered out of the muddy drift. Driving even more carefully, it took me half an hour to get back to the sheriff’s office in Forsyth.

  Chapter 3

  By the time I got to the office the crisis was over. But that’s like saying you have a broken sewer pipe and you turned off the flow. You still have to deal with the mess. Sheriff Billy Blevins, the calmest, most thoughtful and careful man I’d ever known, had ignored Hosea Fisher waiting in his truck. Instead, Billy had gone straight to Fisher’s Ozarks Star Road Theater. There he had intruded on a circle of prayer for Rose Sharon and arrested Donny Fisher. According to witnesses, many of whom were still at the station complaining, the sheriff was rough and unnecessarily aggressive. When the boy’s mother stepped in it turned into a melee. Billy didn’t stop after arresting the son for the murder of Rose Sharon. For good measure, he brought in the boy’s mother, Sissy Fisher, and their pastor for obstruction and interference.

  When I arrived, Doreen was waiting with the story, and phone messages from our district attorney and a friend of mine, Landis Tau. None of it was good news.

  “Why are you giving them to me?” I asked.

  “Because you can talk to him,” she said. “No one else can.”

  “What are you talking about? Billy is—”

  “Something’s wrong, Hurricane.” Doreen pointed to the closed door of the sheriff’s office. “I don’t know what happened, but the man in there isn’t the same one who started the day.”

  I took the pink message slips and walked down the hall. The other people in the station made it a point not to look at me. I wondered how open the secret of our relationship had become. I stopped, facing the door and looking at the squares of paper. The DA, Billy could handle. At least the man I thought I knew could. But the other lawyer—Landis Tau—he worried me. He was a friend. Tau ran a not-for-profit called the Midwest Center for Civil Rights. A significant part of that foundation’s funds came from Tau’s successful efforts for private clients. The man was not a game-player. If your department became involved with him, someone had really screwed up.

  The door wasn’t locked, at least. And I didn’t bother knocking.

  His predecessor had always put his muddy boots right on the desktop. Billy sat behind the desk with his feet propped on the lip of an open drawer. In his lap was a pint bottle. It was unopened.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “You oughta know.”

  My cheeks burned with the flush that bloomed in them. “I know what it is for me. And does to me. You know it too. You were there for some of my worst.”

  “What is it about the temptation?” He examined the bottle. “You know, I can count the times I’ve been drunk on one hand. And I’ve never gotten so drunk—”

  “What? Crying drunk? Sick drunk? Blackout?” I sat in the guest chair closest to his line of sight. “Or just as drunk as you’ve seen me?”

  He reached up and set the bottle down on the desk. It hit with a solid thump. “I’ve never been as drunk as I would like to be right now.”

  I stared at the bottle until Billy took it away and dropped it into a drawer. It wasn’t until it was out of sight that I saw he was looking right at me.

  “You’re why I don’t,” he said.

  “It’s good that someone has learned from my experience.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “What?” I was shocked by the humorless assertion.

  “You’re an idiot,” he repeated. “And you’re kind of self-absorbed. But I’ve told you that before.”

  “You have.”

  “You always think it’s about you. Even when it is, you think it’s about you in the wrong way.”

  “I don’t think either one of us knows what you’re talking about at the moment.”

  “My refraining from getting drunk has nothing to do with your experience, or the lessons of your alcoholism. It’s not about you. It’s about me, not wanting to make your life harder. I don’t want to be your excuse. I do want to be your reason. At least part of the reason you stay sober. That…you stay at the job.”

  “Billy…”

  “That you stay in my life.”

  “That’s not what we need to talk about.”

  “Yes, it is.” Billy leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “Because things get all tied up with other things.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know.”

  I waited for more. When it didn’t come I asked, “What about the girl?”

  “What about her?”

  “Okay. What about the kid you arrested?”

  “He killed her.”

  “What’s the evidence?”

  “I don’t have any. I know. And I wanted him to know that at least someone had the truth on him no matter what happens.”

  “That’s not the job.”

  “As I recall, you never thought I was the right man for the job.”

  My face flushed again. I loved Billy, but I voted for someone else. “I thought you were too kindhearted for a job that requires a son of a bitch.”

  “We all have kind hearts and hard ones.”

  “I guess that’s true. What are you going to do about this kid you arrested?”

  Billy grinned at me like a gleeful executioner. “I’m going to apologize and let him go. You’re going to get the evidence to put him away.”

  “So today was what? Some kind of show?” I tossed the message slips onto his desk.

  He looked at the papers but didn’t move. “Some kind, yeah.”

  “What was your relationship to the girl?”

  “It looks like I have some calls to return.” Billy finally reached for the notes.

  I didn’t need a goodbye to tell me when I was being dismissed. On my way out of the station I stopped at my office long enough to print Rose Sharon’s driver’s license info and call the jail.

  “Hurricane!” Donald Duques greeted me. “How’s it hanging?”

  “Have you ever heard of political correctness, Duck?”

  “I’m an old, fat white man with a high school educ
ation. Who do you think they invented it for?”

  I let it go. “You have people down there. Two the sheriff brought in.”

  “The Fishers? Yep.”

  “Cut them loose.”

  “Even the ballbuster?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The kid’s mother. She’s a two-dollar bitch stuffed into a hundred-dollar dress and pinned up with a thousand dollars’ worth of silver.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “They say she hit Billy. Pulled his hair and tried to kick him in the crotch.”

  “Sheriff Blevins…” I put a lot of emphasis on the title. “Probably deserved it.”

  “I should ask him about the release.”

  “Let them out. Let them use the phone to call for a ride or anyone they want. And apologize. If they ask why it happened—you don’t know anything.”

  “Story of my life.”

  “You got that right.” I hung up, then went right for my truck.

  Rose Sharon’s listed address was the same as the Fishers’. It was a big fieldstone house built into a steep hillside. It shared the same back-door view of the lake as my own home. We were neighbors, two miles away by road, about a thousand yards by the crow’s path.

  That wasn’t nearly as surprising as the little person standing on the front porch waving at me as I parked.

  Landis Tau scraped the lower edge of four feet in his shoes. But those shoes cost as much as most people’s house payments. His tailored suits and bright bow ties had the kind of elegance that dared you to judge them by size.

  I had met him while working a case dealing with white supremacists. Since then he’d asked me to serve on the board of his not-for-profit legal center. In turn, I asked him to serve on the board of a nonprofit I founded to help provide for some refugee girls. I had a feeling our relationship was about to get much more tangled.

  “Katrina! My favorite hurricane.” He held out a hand as I approached.

  I stayed on the walkway level and barely had to bend to shake. “Landis. Why are you at my victim’s house?”

  Landis laughed like he knew something I didn’t. “That’s the thing about working for someone you are romantic with.”

  “Am I supposed to understand what you’re saying?”

  “Some secrets keep and some don’t. Everyone knows you and he are a thing, Hurricane.”

  “That’s not what we’re here to talk about.”

  “Your sheriff beau didn’t tell you that Rose Sharon resided with the Fisher family?”

  I tried not to let my discomfort show on my face. “He didn’t need to. Hosea Fisher told me. But that’s not the issue. I’m here to conduct a homicide investigation. I need access to the victim’s home.”

  “See, that’s the thing.” Landis was no longer smiling. “She was a guest in their home. And even though I got a call saying my clients have been released, I am still going to insist on a warrant for any examination of their home.”

  “I’m trying to find a killer.”

  “Your sheriff already declared Donny Fisher a suspect. Arrested him even. Without cause. Given the sheriff’s relationship with Miss Sharon, that smacks of vendetta.”

  That time something must have shown on my face. I saw it reflected in the lawyer’s expression.

  “You didn’t know?” It was a question but it wasn’t.

  I didn’t answer. Instead I asked, “How long?”

  “You would have to ask him.”

  I shook my head. “How long was she a guest here?”

  It was his turn to work his face. He was better at it than I was. “I don’t know.”

  “I have a printout of her driver’s license issued two years ago. This is her listed address. That doesn’t sound like a guest.”

  “Hosea Fisher owns the home.”

  “Did Rose Sharon pay rent?”

  “No.”

  “She paid no money? Contributed nothing to the maintenance of the house?”

  Landis held his face as if it was cast in concrete. “You’re making some good stabs, but you should leave it to a judge.”

  “Would you stay here guarding the door so ferociously to keep your clients out if I went for one?”

  “It’s their home.”

  “It’s my investigation.”

  “Call your DA.”

  I thought about it. My hand was on the pocket that held my phone. But for some reason I felt like Duck at that moment. He was a man who literally believed that the world was being torn down and rebuilt not just against him, but to spite him. Despite the fact that his was a reaction to losing the good old boy’s white privilege, I understood a little bit of it every time I had to face a lawyer. “Where’s her room?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “Is it a secret?”

  “In the basement.”

  I looked over at the concrete steps leading around the left of the house and down the hill. “Let’s go see.”

  “I will still insist on the warrant,” Landis declared, following without trying to keep up.

  “Still?” I stopped and looked up the hill at him when I reached the level of the walk-up. “So there’s something different?”

  He stared down at me from the walk.

  I went around the corner and peered into the sliding glass door. Inside was a large room with a couch and TV. The nearest corner was lined with stringed instruments: guitars, banjos, a mandolin and a dulcimer. On the other side was a paneled wall with an open door. Through the door I could see a bed made up all in pink and white.

  “Don’t think this changes anything,” Landis said as he circled the corner.

  “It’s a separate residence,” I said. “And look.” The door slid open as I pulled the handle. “It’s unlocked.” I went through the door and turned around to block Landis. “I can’t let you in.”

  “You know I’ll fight you in court.”

  “Unless you can swear to me right now that Rose Sharon was your client I’ll take that chance.”

  For a moment he hesitated, keeping his gaze hard. After that moment he shrugged and smiled. “It’s freezing out here.”

  “Nothing says you have to wait outside. You can go anywhere else but you can’t come in here.”

  “Think you have the spine to arrest me?”

  “Do you think I don’t?”

  “You don’t have cuffs small enough.” His joke seemed intended to break the congealing tension. It didn’t work. At least not for me.

  “I have duct tape in the truck.”

  “And you wonder why trouble swirls around you like… Well, you know.”

  I backed into the room and pointed at a spot of floor just inside the door. “You can stand there.”

  “See?” he asked. “You aren’t quite the walking evil people say.”

  “Who says that?”

  “Don’t pretend ignorance of your own reputation.”

  “I’m not ignorant of it. I just never heard I was evil.” I walked around the couch and looked through a plastic tray by the TV that held a remote, some keys and loose change. “No dust. No clutter. She was a tidy girl.”

  “Housekeeper,” Landis said.

  “There’s a lot of money in Branson music.”

  Landis canted his head like he’d caught me snickering at a funeral. “Judge much?”

  “Who says I’m judging anyone?”

  “I heard it even if you didn’t.”

  I left him behind and went into the bedroom. There was a stuffed elephant perched on the pillows. Her dresser was stacked with professional music magazines. The mirror was framed by a collage of show tickets, and photos. Two of the pictures stood out. One was Rose with her arm around an older man in the Army battle dress uniform. The name tape on the BDUs was obscured but the serg
eant’s stripes were clear. They were smiling. Tucked in another corner of the mirror was a grainy print that was obviously a selfie she had taken. It was striking not because of the happy grin on Rose Sharon’s face, but because of the smiling man she was leaning up against—Billy Blevins.

  “People with money piss you off,” Landis continued from the other room. “Even though you have plenty of your own. Plenty hell—your husband’s estate left you a rich woman. Why do you even stay on the job?”

  I pushed the door aside and stuck my head back into the greater room. “Money doesn’t piss me off. Privilege does.” Turning back, I crossed the bedroom to the small private bathroom. “I guess that’s why I’m still on the job.” I spoke up loud enough for Landis to hear without really talking to him.

  “I hear people lie to themselves all the time,” Landis called, and there was no doubt he was speaking to me.

  The bathroom was tidy and scrubbed. I left it without touching anything.

  “Find anything useful?” he asked as I returned to the main room.

  I didn’t have an answer. Or, more accurately, I didn’t have an answer I wanted to give. So I pulled out my phone and dialed our crime scene tech directly. I gave him the address and asked him to search and secure the rooms. As I spoke I walked into the corner where the instruments were lined up and waiting for hands. The space was defined by sheets of plywood on the floor and two wooden chairs that looked to be garage sale treasures. Littering a half circle around the chairs were lined pages with music notation and lyrics. Penciled in neat script at the head of each page was the title: “You Took What Wasn’t Yours.”

  Before I could even begin to puzzle out the implications of that, my gaze caught on one of the guitars. It was a cheap instrument and looked much the worse for wear. I’d seen it before. It belonged to Billy.

  “Find something interesting?” Landis asked.

  “Maybe,” I answered, putting my attention back on the page in my hand. “If I could read music.” I dropped the paper onto the nearest chair. Questions were building up like a dry stack rock wall. Everything was its own thought and nothing stuck to anything else. Still they piled. Worse, I had no idea which side of the wall I was on. Was Billy a suspect? Were the girl and Billy’s relationship with her part of the reason for my own personal difficulties with him? Why had Rose Sharon been murdered so dispassionately?