Final Scream (30 page)

“Could be.”

His boot clattered to the floor. “I might point out that you’re not an officer of the law.”

“I don’t think he’ll talk to one.”

“Then he’ll be charged with hindering an investigation.”

“Do you really think he’ll care? He’s stuck in a hospital bed, his leg and arm broken, his face wired together, maybe blind in one eye. I don’t think he’s afraid of jail at this point.”

“He might be smarter than you think.”

“No, he might be smarter than
you
think.” Her lips pursed together in fury. “You try and accuse him of a crime and he’ll hire a team of lawyers who will find physicians who swear he can’t talk, that his throat and voice were affected by the smoke or trauma or something; then they’ll point out that he was sedated and on painkillers, that even if he did speak, he wouldn’t be lucid. They’ll parade a dozen experts in who’ll cite instances where a patient was too traumatized to speak, too out of it to talk rationally. Since he’s only spoken to me, it’ll be my word against his, and I won’t have to testify against him because he’s my husband.”

T. John forced a smile he didn’t feel. “You’re trying to tell me that if I want to question your husband, I’ll have to go through you, is that it?”

“I don’t even know if he’ll speak to me again.”

Frustration seared a hole in his gut. He could push the issue if he wanted to. He was certain he could convince Chase to talk to him without her help, but it might work to his advantage to follow her lead and watch how she and her husband got along. He still didn’t understand their relationship, but something wasn’t right.

“I’m taking his mother to visit him this afternoon,” she said, seeming nervous.

“You won’t mind if I tag along?”

“Of course I’d mind. You can’t come in while he’s with Sunny. But afterward would be okay.”

“You know, Mrs. McKenzie, no matter what you may think, you’re not calling the shots on this investigation.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” she said, her lips barely moving, anger burning bright in the patches of color on her cheeks. “I’m not interested in some power play. I’m just giving you the facts, and I’m hoping that for my efforts, you’ll be honest with me.” She leaned forward, planting her palms firmly on the edge of the desk as she stood. “I’d like to know who the man in CCU is, and I give you my word that I won’t take his name to my paper.”

He didn’t trust her, but he couldn’t help asking, “Why is it so important?”

Something flickered in her eyes, a private pain he didn’t understand, before she said, “Isn’t it obvious? He could be the man who tried to kill my husband.” Swinging her purse over her shoulder, she left. As quickly as she’d burst into his office, she was gone, the door slamming shut behind her.

“Son of a bitch.” T. John opened the top drawer of his desk and reached for his bottle of antacid pills. Some of the confidence he’d felt earlier seeped away.

Cassidy McKenzie wasn’t just an attractive irritation
, he thought as he poured four white tablets into his hand and tossed them into his mouth. She was going to try and roadblock him every step of the way.

Why?

He crushed the tablets in his teeth and washed them down with a swallow of cold, stale coffee. Climbing to his feet, he walked to the window and stared out at the parking lot, where Cassidy, hair turning to fire in the sun, unlocked her Jeep and settled behind the wheel. She knew something, he guessed, but he couldn’t figure what. Maybe she did know the ID of the John Doe, or maybe her husband had told her what he was doing at the sawmill that night. If the guy was talking. Just because she said so didn’t make it a fact. He swirled the dregs in his cup. She definitely knew more than she was telling, and he didn’t think it was because she hoped to scoop the other papers. No, this was personal to her. Real personal.

He wondered if she’d hired the man herself in hopes of burning the mill, killing her husband and collecting a little insurance to boot. According to everyone he’d talked to who’d known the McKenzies as a couple, their marriage was on the skids—only a step away from divorce.

Wilson polished his teeth with his tongue as he thought. Was it just coincidence that the arson device was similar to the one used in the fire that killed Angie Buchanan and Jed Baker? Or was this man the culprit both times? Or…was the man an innocent victim, someone who had either been meeting with Chase McKenzie or prowling around the sawmill for other reasons? One of the workers? A disgruntled employee? Someone who wanted papers in the office where the bookkeeper worked along with Chase, Derrick or his wife Felicity occasionally? Or a drifter—the same arsonist that sauntered through town seventeen years before?

T. John squinted and bit at his lower lip, watching as the Jeep roared out of the parking lot. Maybe Chase McKenzie had set the blaze to try and hide something or to collect the insurance or to kill the other guy. Maybe he was interrupted and caught in his own fiery trap. Or maybe the missus was involved; she could have wanted Chase dead rather than divorce him. It would cost her less money. Or hell, the whole damned fire could be an accident and the two poor bastards caught in the blaze just two stupid-ass guys whose luck had run out. T. John didn’t believe it for a minute.

Too bad Rex Buchanan had picked up Willie Ventura before he’d cracked. Willie knew more than he was saying and he’d been at the first fire as well. Another coincidence? Or was Willie a firebug?

He’d have to question Willie again—that much was certain—and as for Mrs. McKenzie, well, it might not hurt to have her tailed. Willie couldn’t remember where he’d been during the fire.

Sure
.

And Cassidy McKenzie had been home. Alone.

Right. And I’m one stupid son of a bitch
.

He set his empty cup on a battered old file cabinet and returned to his desk. Lowering himself into his squeaking chair, he opened a bottom drawer and pulled out two files, one so thick it had to be held together with a rubber band, the other barely started. The first was filled with yellowed papers and notes, reports that had been kept in the archives for years, the unsolved murder cases of Angie Buchanan, her baby and Jed Baker. The second was a new file, with crisp white paper, notes and computer printouts on the fire at Buchanan Sawmill.

His instincts told him the fires were related and there were a lot of people in town now who were potential suspects in the first investigation. He tugged on his lower lip. Too bad the first case was never solved and the bad-ass McKenzie boy had taken off before he could be questioned. From all accounts Brig was one helluva bad seed, always in trouble. It would have helped to know how he was involved in the first fire.

But he wasn’t around. Probably dead or in prison somewhere far away.

Squinting at the file again, his heartbeat nudged up a notch when he considered the John Doe’s driver’s license. Alaska. Pretty damned far away. Still a frontier in the seventies. A man could get lost in that wilderness…Could all just be a damned coincidence. Or was it?

He reached for the intercom button and barked out a request. Within minutes Gonzales sauntered through the door. “Any luck with the McKenzie woman?” he asked.

T. John shook his head. “Not yet, but I want her followed.”

Gonzales’s dark eyes flared. “You got something?”

“Probably not, but Chase McKenzie is talking. At least she says he’s talking, but get this, only to her.”

Gonzales snorted in disgust.

“Yeah, I think it’s bullshit. But we’ll check it out. Then I want to talk to Willie Ventura again, and he can bring in a whole army of lawyers for all I care. They can try to block me up one side and down the other, but I want to talk to him.”

Gonzales shrugged. “I’ll round him up.”

“Then—this is a long shot—but check with the Alaska DMV, see if they’ve got anyone named Brig McKenzie—well, make that any white male around thirty named McKenzie. Check accident reports and titles of cars through whatever agency they’ve got up there.”

“Could be quite a list. McKenzie’s a common name.”

“I know, I know, but humor me, would you?”

“You think the John Doe is McKenzie?” Gonzales clearly didn’t believe it.

“Nah.” Wilson cracked his knuckles in frustration. “I said it was a long shot, a million-to-one. Oh, Christ, it’s probably nothing more than a wild-goose chase. But just to make sure, let’s check it out.”

Sunny was waiting for her. Dressed in a long black gown, her gray-streaked hair pinned into a tight knot at the base of her skull, she sat on the edge of her bed, purse plopped in her lap. “Cassidy,” she said warmly, extending her hand. Her skin was dark and smooth, without a wrinkle, but one eye was clouded by a cataract she refused to have removed. She didn’t trust doctors with knives or lasers or whatever it was they used.

“I thought you’d like to visit Chase,” Cassidy said, walking up to her and taking her hand. She’d never felt comfortable around her mother-in-law and hated to think Sunny had been her father’s mistress, but it was still hard to see her here away from the home she loved.

“Been looking forward to it.” Sunny stood with difficulty. Though her skin was as supple as that of a woman half her age, her joints were becoming arthritic—a condition which had worsened, she’d confided in Cassidy years before, because she wasn’t able to get out to the woods to find the proper herbs. Even when she requested them from a local health-food store, her doctor wouldn’t allow her to take anything other than what he prescribed—store-bought pills, synthetic chemicals dispensed by huge corporations. Sunny didn’t have faith in man-made drugs and often refused medication.

Her old fingers tightened over Cassidy’s hand. “Something’s wrong.”

“Yes, the fire and—”

“No, there’s something else,” she insisted and Cassidy’s stomach clenched. Sliding her fingers from the old woman’s grip, she didn’t want to believe in the power of her mother-in-law’s visions despite the fact that she, regardless of her own arguments against it, had married the man Sunny had predicted she would wed.

“Here’s your cane.” She offered the walking stick made of smooth dark wood, the handle carved in the shape of a mallard’s head.

“You might not recognize Chase,” Cassidy warned as they walked down the carpeted hall past smooth, almond-colored walls where pastel watercolors had been bolted to the plaster.

“I know my boys.”

“But his face—”

“I can touch him, can’t I?” Sunny waited for the electronic door to be opened by the smiling blond receptionist who had only to press a button beneath her desk. With a buzz, the lock was disengaged and Cassidy shoved open the glass door.

“He’s covered in bandages and he might not want you to—”

“He’s my son. I can touch him,” she said stubbornly. “Chase is a good boy.” She said it too quickly, as if to convince herself. Cassidy wondered how often Sunny had argued with her conscience so that she could still keep faith in a son who had committed her to an institution she detested.

They walked slowly down the steps to the curb where Cassidy’s Jeep was parked. Cassidy held the passenger door open while her mother-in-law settled into the bucket seat.

Within minutes they were passing through open gates, Sunny waving to the guard. “What is it you want to ask me?” she asked.

So she’d sensed the questions racing through Cassidy’s mind. With one brief touch. It was damned weird. “It’s—it’s nothing.” This wasn’t really the time or place to ask her about her old lovers, about Rex Buchanan.

“Don’t lie to me.” Smiling sadly, Sunny brushed a stray hair from her face. “You want to know about your father.”

It was uncanny, almost as if she could read Cassidy’s mind.

“You found out we were lovers,” Sunny said and the air in the Jeep seemed to grow stale.

“Yes,” Cassidy said, unnerved as she eased the rig into the flow of traffic.

“He told you?”

For God’s sake, how did she know?
Cassidy’s hands were suddenly clammy against the wheel. She cleared her throat. “I, uh, I don’t think he meant to.”

“It was time.”

Cassidy’s heart was knocking wildly, so hard she could barely breathe. “I should have known, before I married Chase. I should have known that you were involved with my father.”

“Chase knew.”

Cassidy nearly lost control of the Jeep. She swore under her breath. “He knew?”

“Well, suspected. I never admitted it.”

“For the love of God, he
knew?
” Her mind screamed the truth at her. Why hadn’t he confided in her? Why?

“I think he saw your father once when Rex visited. Chase was just a boy at the time, and after that we were more careful.”

Cassidy’s brain was thudding wildly with questions she didn’t dare speak, suspicions that should never see the light of day. “I don’t understand—”

“Lucretia was a cold woman.”

“But you could have gotten preg…I mean—”

“I did.” Sunny cast her a dark look. “It’s time you knew the truth.”

“The truth,” she repeated. How many lies had she lived with, unaware? Cassidy’s heart sank and she drove without thinking, automatically slowing for corners, avoiding oncoming traffic by habit, though her mind was disengaged, her actions rote.

“Buddy was your father’s son,” she said flatly.

“Buddy?” Cassidy repeated, stunned. “Not Brig—?”

Sunny sighed softly. “Brig was Frank’s boy. As is Chase.”

“But how could you be sure?”

With a superior expression reserved for women who’ve conceived and borne children, Sunny glared at Cassidy. “I know.”

“Oh, God.” Cassidy tried to breathe deeply, to think rationally. So Sunny and Rex had been lovers, so what? It didn’t change things. She wasn’t married to her half brother, hadn’t made love to someone related to her. Her stomach, so volatile these days, clenched and spewed acid to her throat.

“I would never have allowed you to marry Chase if he’d been your brother.”

“Sweet Jesus!” Cassidy whispered as the town of Prosperity came into view. She rolled down her window hoping fresh air would clear her head. “What happened to Buddy?” she asked, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. He could be dead, he could be stashed in a mental institution, a vegetable who knew no one, wouldn’t even recognize his own mother.

“Buddy’s safe.” She touched Cassidy on the arm with her soft fingers. “He lives with his father.”

“What—?”

Sunny chuckled deep in her chest, as if she was pleased that she’d pulled the wool over her daughter-in-law’s eyes. “You grew up with Buddy, Cassidy.”

“But—” Then it hit her, like a lightning bolt that exploded in her brain. “Willie,” she whispered, her stomach tying itself in ever tightening knots. Why hadn’t she guessed? Why hadn’t anyone in town put two and two together?

“Yes,” Sunny said, relief making her voice quiver slightly. “Finally, after all these years, I can go to him.”

“But why—why hide him?”

She stared out the window. “It was your father’s idea. After the accident where Buddy nearly drowned in the creek, it was obvious that Buddy would never be…well, normal again. Too much brain damage from lack of oxygen. Rex offered to take care of him, to see that he was put in the best facility available. He would pay all the bills, and since Frank and I couldn’t afford…well, that’s when Frank left. Not because of Brig, but because of Buddy.”

She seemed so lucid, so clear about the past. “How did you find out that Buddy was Willie?”

“Rex told me; oh, it was years later, when Buddy was nearly grown. The private hospital where Willie—that was the name Rex had given him after paying off the doctor in charge…anyway, the institution was closing, the hospital sold to a group of investors who had plans to tear it down and put in a strip mall or something—” She waved her fingers as if it didn’t matter. “Rex decided Willie would come to live with them. He wasn’t all that old, about ten or twelve, I think—you were just a little girl. At first he lived with the family of that foreman of yours, Mac something or other, then Rex gave him a room above the stable. I believe he’s been there ever since.”

Cassidy didn’t recall Willie coming to live at her parents’ home. For as long as she could remember, he’d been there, hanging around the stable or the barns or the pool.

“Does my mother know?”

Sunny shook her head. “No one knows. Just Rex and me. Not even Buddy.”

This was too much to handle. “I don’t think you should say anything to Chase. Not until he’s better.”

Sunny shot her a disdainful glance. “I would never do anything to hurt any of my sons,” she said, as if Cassidy should understand her. “Never.”

“Good.” Cassidy shifted down and nosed the Jeep through the rounded corners of the tree-lined street leading to Northwest General. She wondered if the story about Buddy McKenzie and Willie Ventura was complete—or if there were holes left for her benefit. Sunny seemed remarkably clearheaded and yet her thoughts were known to wander; fact and fiction sometimes interwoven. How many times had Chase worried aloud about his mother’s sanity? Before he’d had Sunny committed, he’d always been concerned for her safety.

She dropped her mother-in-law off near the front doors, parked, then joined her in the reception area.

Together they took the elevator to the second floor, and at the door to her husband’s room, Cassidy paused knowing that he would be furious with her for openly defying him and bringing his mother to the hospital.

“Chase?” she called softly and entered the room where her husband lay unmoving.

Sunny tensed as she saw her boy, but she walked forward steadily. “Can you hear me?” Sunny asked and the unbandaged eye that had been closed opened suddenly. “I thought so.”

The eye narrowed up at her before shifting to Cassidy and accusing her of horrid things. “She wanted to see you,” Cassidy offered.

“Are they treating you well?” Sunny reached forward, and though Chase tried to pull away, she touched his swollen fingers with her gentle probing hands.

He blinked rapidly as she closed her eyes and whispered something in Cherokee. Cassidy couldn’t understand a word, but Chase seemed to. His eye focused on his mother and some of the anger disappeared from his face. “You will be well,” she said. “It will take time, but you will heal.” Tears filled the older woman’s eyes as she released his fingers. “I’ve been worried about you.”

Chase looked away, staring past Sunny to the wall behind her, and there appeared to be a tensing of the muscles in his face, though with the discoloration and swelling it was hard to tell.

Cassidy opened the door. “I’ll just be down the hall,” she said, understanding that she shouldn’t interfere between mother and son. Not that she ever had. Chase had never allowed it. “I’ll deal with my mother, you deal with yours,” he’d always said when there was some problem with Sunny. It was as if he considered her his personal burden; but he’d always felt that way, even before Brig had left. She walked past the nurses’ station and took a seat in the small waiting area near a picture window. From her vantage point she could look outside or at the door to Chase’s room, so that she’d see Sunny when she emerged. Later, she’d talk to Chase herself, tell him that T. John was about to identify the man in CCU.

As she glanced out the window, she noticed a cruiser from the Sheriff’s Department rolling into the parking lot. Lights flashed as it was parked near the front door. Detectives Wilson and Gonzales threw open the doors of the vehicle, kicked them shut and strode quickly into the hospital. Sunglasses firmly in place, faces grim, they disappeared from her view. Cassidy’s insides jelled. She told herself to remain calm, that even if they did come up to interview Chase, she could handle it. She’d wanted to warn Chase that they knew he could speak, that she’d told them he was stonewalling them, but she’d hoped to tell him when they were alone, without Sunny overhearing.

Now, it didn’t matter. She braced herself for the worst, expecting two determined detectives to storm past the nurses’ station and throw her hate-filled glances. With a soft chime, the elevator landed and an elderly couple emerged, a gray-haired man helping a stooped woman who shuffled slowly down the corridor.

Five minutes passed, then ten. Maybe Wilson was stopping at CCU, she thought. There was also a chance he was at the hospital for another reason—there were certainly other accidents to be investigated—but she couldn’t stop the restless feeling that something was wrong.

She glanced to the door to Chase’s room, still closed, then looked out to the parking lot again where the cruiser was parked at the front door. She licked her lips and told herself that she was just edgy, that she had no reason to be nervous, and yet…her reporter’s instincts were on overdrive.
Something
was happening. Something big. And she’d bet all the money in her checking account that it was about the fire. The elevator landed again. This time a doctor emerged, his face masked in a scowl.

Cassidy couldn’t stand the suspense a second longer. She walked to the nurses’ station. “I’m going to run back to my car for a minute,” she said, lying easily to the portly blond nurse at the desk. “Would you mind seeing that my mother-in-law—she’s in room 212 with Chase McKenzie—that she waits for me here? I’ll only be gone a second.”

“No problem.” The nurse didn’t bother looking up.

“Thanks.” Cassidy walked down the hall and into the waiting elevator car. Within seconds she was in the hallway in front of CCU, wondering how she could get inside without a police escort.

Reaching for the phone that connected directly with the Critical Care Unit’s nurses’ station, she heard voices, angry voices, then the doors burst open. Detective Wilson, chewing gum furiously, his features drawn together in a severe grimace, strode through. Gonzales was on his heels.

Wilson’s sunglasses had been shoved into a front pocket of his shirt, and his eyes, dark and ominous, landed on Cassidy with such intensity she backed up a step and hung up the phone.

“Well, well, look who’s here,” Wilson drawled, unable to hide his sarcasm. “Seems like you’re always around when there’s trouble.”

“Trouble?” she repeated, feeling the floor beneath her start to buckle.

T. John swiped a hand through his short hair and sighed. “Our man in there,” he hooked his thumb to the doors swinging shut behind him, “didn’t make it. John Doe, or whoever the hell he is, just died twenty minutes ago.”