After Midnight (8 page)

When she emerged from the bedroom some fifteen minutes later, he was still in the kitchen. He held an ice-cube filled Baggie in one hand and the framed 3x5 photograph he’d lifted from the white-painted shelf above the sink in the other.

Like an animal sensing a new and unexpected danger, Jess went still. The various aches that had just begun to make themselves felt all over her body got lost in a sudden, icy rush.

He swung around then, his handsome face registering only casual curiosity. “Is this your mother?”

“Yes.”

“You look like her.”

Afterward, Jess could only blame her terrifying ride into the bay for the emotion that spewed out raw and hot. Marching forward, she snatched the photo out of his hand and thrust it back on the shelf.

“Why don’t you just ask me if I’m like her in other ways, too?” she demanded, whirling on him. “I’d rather you do that than stir up old rumors, the way you did at the cocktail party the other night.”

He didn’t deny it. Damn him, he didn’t even try to deny it.

“Maggie told you that I pumped her for information about you?”

“No, she didn’t. She didn’t have to. She told everyone else at the party, though. They aimed enough sideways glances and speculative looks at me to pierce even my thick hide.”

“I’m sorry, Jess. It wasn’t my intent to…”

“Save the bullshit, sheriff. You intended to do exactly what you did. String out questions. Stir the waters.” Her head went back. Fire flashed in her eyes. “Go ahead. Ask me. Am I like my mother?”

“All right. Are you?”

“Yes.” The reply cracked through the air, as swift and lethal as a rifle shot. “In every way that counts. The only difference between us is that I don’t have to sleep with anyone to cover my rent. The Air Force pays better than hustling drinks at the Blue Crab.”

“I should hope so,” he said mildly. Too mildly.

The evenness of his temper sent Jess’s soaring. She never lost control. Couldn’t remember the last time she’d vented her feelings. The violence that ripped at her now shocked her, yet she couldn’t seem to harness it. Her fingers curled into claws, and she let loose with both barrels.

“What are you thinking? That Helen Yount’s daughter is as hot and easy as she was? That you might get lucky? Is that why you’re conducting this one-man inquiry into my past?”

Disregarding her furious hiss, he laid the ice pack gently against her cheek.

“I’ve definitely got a case of the hots,” he admitted, sliding his other hand around her nape to hold her in place when she would have jerked away. “But my feelings for the daughter don’t have squat to do with the mother. And one of these days, Blackwell, you just might unbend enough to admit you’ve got the hots for me, too.”

“In your dreams, Paxton.”

Jess could have kicked herself when a glint sprang into his eyes. Her gut told her he wasn’t the kind of man to resist a challenge, whether issued by a woman or a striped bass. She expected him to swoop, wasn’t prepared when his mouth brushed hers with a touch so light, so gentle she might almost have imagined it.

“What?” he asked when he drew back and caught a glimpse of her expression. “Did you think I was going to wrestle a woman who just got fished out of the bay to the floor?”

“It wouldn’t have surprised me.”

The reply was churlish and not worthy of either of them. Jess recognized that, but was damned if she’d take it back. His thumb traced her lower lip. Once. Twice. She tolerated it, refusing to look away.

“Someone did a real number on you,” he said softly. “Or on your mother.”

“I think you’d better leave. Now. Please!”

He must have recognized how close she was to the edge. His hands dropped, but not before his mouth made another gentle pass.

“I’m going, Jess. I’ll be back. You know that, don’t you?”

Her breath left on a shuddering sigh. “Yes,” she murmured. “I know.”

Night surrounded Steve as he sat in the cruiser, one wrist draped over the wheel, his gaze on the bay glistening in the moonlight just yards away. He didn’t like leaving Jess alone and still shaken.

He had no evidence that the accident on the bridge wasn’t just that, an accident. It was probably just his cop’s sixth sense was working overtime that had him reaching for his radio mike.

“Dispatch, this is Paxton.”

“Go ahead, sheriff.”

“Advise the South Walton substation that I want a periodic drive-by of Colonel Blackwell’s residence.”

“For the rest of tonight?”

“Until further notice.”

“Ten-four.”

It was Wilena Shaw who made the connection. She mentioned it to Steve when he stopped into Central Dispatch around two a.m. the following morning. He’d been out riding patrol with one of the rookies, keeping his hand in and himself visible to his people, and stopped to cage a cup of coffee before heading home.

The dispatcher’s chair squeaked under her two-hundred plus pounds as she wheeled around. Flipping up the mike on her headset, she ripped the top sheet off her note pad.

“One of the Okaloosa county deputies called to tell you the paint scrapings are on their way to Tallahassee. Said they were yellow. Bright yellow.”

“Did they run a check of local repair shops?”

“They’re in the process of calling them.”

Nodding, Steve took a cautious swig of the scalding hot brew that kept the dispatchers alive and alert during the small hours of the morning.

“Heard a rumor that your Colonel Blackwell’s momma once worked at the Blue Crab,” Wilena continued in her velvety drawl.

It was a small town, Steve reminded himself, and an even smaller department. He wasn’t surprised the rumors Jess had accused him of stirring had percolated through the ranks to Central Dispatch.

“She’s not my colonel.”

“Huh!”

Wilena declined to point out that the whole department was buzzing over the fact the sheriff carried Colonel Blackwell off in his arms, but her sly grin spoke volumes.

“What do you know about the Blue Crab?” Steve asked to divert her attention.

“Not much. It wasn’t the kind of place a woman would feel comfortable in. Sheriff Boudreaux kept his eye on it.” Her forehead crinkled in thought. “Seems I recall an incident years ago where some customers roughed up a waitress. It happened right after I came to work as a dispatcher. I took the call, and the sheriff checked it out. It would have been about the time your colonel lived in Choctaw Beach. Wonder if the waitress was her mother?”

“I wonder, too,” Steve said slowly.

Morning dew glistened like tears on the bearded moss when he radioed in the next morning and advised dispatch he was heading up to Liberty to get in a little fishing.

That was one of the nice things about being the boss, he mused as he drove north out of DeFuniak Springs on Highway 83. He put in long days and late nights, but could pretty well choose when and how to compensate for them.

In anticipation of his expedition, he’d opted for comfortable jeans and a cool white shirt with the sleeves rolled up this morning. With his mirrored sunglasses and green ball cap to protect his eyes and extra supply of Dentyne tucked in his shirt pocket, he was ready for the bright summer sun.

Elbow propped on the open widow, he steered his cruiser through the patchwork quilt of farms that rolled from DeFuniak Springs clear to the Alabama border. This stretch of Walton County was rich land. Good land. Originally inhabited by friendly Euchee Indians who were more than willing to share their fertile valley, the area had attracted settlers since the early 1800s. Its sandy loam, underlaid by clay subsoil, produced abundant crops of wild satsuma, grapes, pears and figs, along with the staples of corn, soybeans, peanuts and forage crops.

Local peanut farmers had taken a hit last year, Steve knew. With such a large portion of his constituency dependent on the land for their livelihood, he’d developed a personal dislike to the Spotted Wilt Virus that had attacked the peanut runners and forced so many farmers to destroy their diseased crop. The new crop looked healthy enough. Tender green and low to the ground, it covered the rolling hills in neat rows.

He reached the turn-off to his destination long before the sun got hot and the fish got lazy. The dirt road stretched straight as a scar through the new-green fields. Thick red dust plumed behind the cruiser, announcing Steve’s arrival as effectively as any security system. Sure enough, when he pulled up his host was waiting in the shade of the porch that wrapped around the house at the end of the dirt track.

The house was relatively new, put up a few years before the present occupant bought it, when peanut prices had rocketed and the communities in North Walton County had enjoyed a building boom. But it was the string of catfish ponds behind the columned, red-brick residence that gave the property its real value in Steve’s mind. Climbing out of the cruiser, he greeted heavy-set figure in the shade of the porch.

“Hey, sheriff.”

“Hey, yourself, sheriff.”

“Sure wish I could retire and become one of the idle rich.”

Cliff Boudreaux’s heavy jowls folded into a grin. “You day will come. Or it would if you weren’t such a lazy sonuvabitch. You’ve been camping out a houseboat for ‘near on seven years now. When the hell you going to move into something a little bigger and a little dryer?”

“One of these days.”

“Don’t know ‘bout you, boy.” Shaking his head, Steve’s predecessor gathered the rods propped beside the porch in a meaty fist. “I figured once you took over the county, you’d put down a few roots.”

“I have. They’re just anchored in silt instead of clay.”

“Next good-sized storm’s going to blow that boat of yours halfway to Alabama.”

“The last one did enough damage,” Steve commented as he hefted a bait bucket and glass jug. Ice chinked in the jug, sloshing the sun-brewed tea Boudreaux swilled by the gallon. “Not just to my boat,” he added. “We lost that two-hundred year old oak in the courthouse square…not to mention the Reverend McConnell.”

Nodding, the older man led the way around the house to the path that cut through a stand of spindly pines to a flat, green pond.

“Too bad ‘bout Delbert. Once he grew out of his wild ways and found the Lord, he did some real good for folks ‘round here.”

Steve stowed the bait bucket and jug and waited while the man who had served as sheriff of Walton County for thirty-six years settled his bulk on the rowboat’s transom seat. Untying the line that anchored the skiff to the small wooden dock, Steve pushed off with one foot and manned the oars. The sun warmed his shoulders as he dropped the blades into the still water. The pond looked more brown than green now that they were on it. Gnats and dog flies swarmed just above its surface, dodging respectfully around the occasional iridescent dragonfly.

“Funny thing about McConnell,” Steve said casually. “You’d think a man who sailed as much as he did would wear rubber-soled deck shoes when he took out his boat.”

“You’d think so,” Boudreaux agreed, scratching the belly that threatened the buttons on his green plaid shirt. He’d always been big man and had carried his bulk with complete indifference for as long as Steve had known him. “Heard the hole in Delbert’s skull matched up exactly with the metal cleat on the aft port gunwale.”

Steve didn’t even bother to ask how he’d learned the specific details of the ME’s report. Boudreaux was still a force to be reckoned with in the local communities.

“Looks like his feet might have gone out from under him and he took a dive.”

“Looks like,” Steve agreed.

“Is that what you came up here to talk about?” Boudreaux asked, slanting him a curious look.

“I came up here to fish.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And to ask about an incident that occurred at the Blue Crab years back,” Steve admitted, grinning.

“There was always something going on in that shithole. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Wilena recalls something about a waitress who got roughed up. We think her name might have been Helen Yount. Is that specific enough?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Pull over there, under the shade of that tupelo.”

For all his paunch and fleshy, hound-dog face, Cliff Boudreaux was nobody’s fool. In his twenty-eight years as sheriff, he’d taken the art of making a suspect sweat to the level of a master. His deputies -- Steve among them -- had found themselves swallowing curses and changing shirts on a regular basis, as well.

He swallowed a few oaths now as he waited for Cliff to bait his hook. With a flick of his wrist, the former sheriff sent the squirming minnow in a smooth arc. It hit with a plop and disappeared beneath the surface. Steve cast to the opposite side of the boat.

“You going to tell me,” he asked after a few moments, “or make me drag it out word by word?”

“Not much to tell. I didn’t even remember the incident until I heard Helen’s daughter was back in the area.” He tested the line, squinting into the sun. “Happened a good twenty-four, twenty-five years back.”

Along about the time Jess bloodied the noses of two classmates. Giving his own line a gentle tug, Steve waited.

“She was flying high that night. Rum and coke -- the kind you snort, not drink. Jiggled those big tits of hers up against every man in the Blue Crab. That’s what they claimed, anyway.”

“They?”

“The five men who stretched her out on a table in the back room and had at her.”

“Oh, hell!”

“One of the other customers thought he heard muffled screams and called in a 911.”

“Was it rape?”

“If it was, she wouldn’t file charges. Probably figured she couldn’t make them stick if she did. Helen had taken a few men into the back room before. More than a few.”

Which probably explained that incident in the schoolyard. Jess would have heard the rumors about her mother. Hell, she probably had them thrown at her every day. Kids could be real pissers.

“Wasn’t pretty what they did to her, though.”

Wrenching his thoughts from a dusty schoolyard, Steve caught the flash of disgust on Cliff’s face. Boudreaux didn’t spell out the details. He didn’t have to. They were both cops.

“She was in pretty bad shape when I got to the Blue Crab, but she wouldn’t let me take her to the hospital. That woman was some stubborn.”

So that’s where her daughter got it from. Well, Jess had warned Steve that she was just like her mother in every way that counted.

“I had a talk with the boys who roughed her up,” Cliff ruminated, “then stopped by Helen’s trailer later that night and suggested it might be better if she moved on.”

“Better for her?” Steve drawled. “Or the men who assaulted her?”

“Both, to my way of thinking. The talk was sure to turn ugly, and that scrappy little kid of hers had already ‘bout got herself kicked out of school.” He angled a look at Steve, his brown eyes sleepy beneath their drooping lids. “That young ‘un was so skinny she couldn’t make a shadow if there was three of her bundled together.”

“She’s filled out some.”

“Must have, if you’re sniffing after her.”

“Jesus, is there anything that goes on in this county that everyone else doesn’t hear about before I do?”

“Not much.”

Reeling in, Steve checked his bait and re-cast. The ripples had spread halfway across the dappled surface of the pond before he asked the question Boudreaux obviously expected.

“So who were these fine, upstanding citizens?”

“The recently deceased Delbert McConnell was one,” the sheriff drawled.

“Oh, shit.”

“He was just getting ready to go into the Marines and feeling his juice. I figure that nasty little incident was one of the reasons he eventually turned to Jesus.”

Steve had seen too many righteous fall and sinners redeem themselves to comment on what led a rapist to God.

“Who were the others?”

“Old man Calhoun was there.”

“Congressman Calhoun?”

“He wasn’t a congressman at the time. Just a pissant used car dealer and state senator like his boy is now.”

Steve gave a soundless whistle. “I’d heard he catted around some up in Washington, but…”

“Some?” Boudreax snorted. “Rumor is it was particularly nasty strain of herpes that ate into the ole boy’s brain and landed him in that nursing home. Dub and Maggie like to put out that he’s gone senile, but my bet is his loose dick finally did him in.”

“A loose dick’s one thing. Rape is something else.”

“He didn’t see it as rape. None of them did.”

“Yeah, well a jury might see it differently. Not to mention public opinion.”

Was that why Dub Calhoun had walked around looking like he’d bit into a hot pepper the night of the big 4th of July shin-dig? Had he heard the rumors about his father and a coked-up waitress? Had he recognized Jess Blackwell as that waitress’s daughter and worried what effect an alleged rape might have on his campaign to claim the old man’s seat in the U.S. Congress?

“Who else was at the Blue Crab that night?”

“Wayne Whittier. He owned the place. Sonuvabitch has always had a reputation for screwing his hired help.”

“That’s three.”

“Billy Jack Petrie makes four.” Boudreax spit over the side of the boat before adding a causal kicker. “Petrie works at the base. In the Supply Squadron.”

The vicious irony sucked the air from Steve’s lungs. One of the men under Jess’s command had assaulted her mother. Petrie must be sweating blood these days…assuming he’d recognized Helen Yount’s daughter. Steve would bet he had.

The coils around his gut squeezed tighter. There were too many coincidences, too many threads slowly coming together to weave a picture he didn’t particularly like.

“Who was the fifth?”

“Just between you, me, and that snapping turtle sunning himself on the branch over there, it was Ron Clark.”

Steve had already figured that out, but hearing the realtor’s name said aloud hit him harder than he wanted to admit.

Boudreaux took an absent swipe at the dog fly buzzing his ear, but his gaze was narrow and hard as it rested on Steve.

“Looks like you got yourself an interesting set of circumstances here, sheriff. Five men sexually assault a woman twenty-five years ago. Her daughter returns to the area, and two of the five turn up dead. Next thing you know, someone rams said daughter’s car and sends her into the bay. You have to ask yourself why.”

Slowly, deliberately, Steve reeled in and set his rod in the bottom of the boat. He had little interest in catfish at the moment, and no desire to pretend otherwise. Leaning forward, he draped his wrists over his knees.