Firebreak: A Mystery (26 page)

A breeze fluttered the curtains. The moonlight cast long shadows across the white blanket and sheets. The smell of the night desert filled her bedroom and she took in the scent. He stood in front of her but didn’t touch her.

“I’ve thought about you almost every day since I left here,” he said.

Josie didn’t know what to say. She’d thought of Nick, but mostly in terms of the job he had performed. She had been so caught up in her own drama that any other feelings were silenced.

“I know this room like it’s a room in my own home. I imagined any number of people coming in here. I imagined saving you a hundred different ways. I would have laid down my life for you in a heartbeat.”

She breathed in suddenly, his words catching her off guard.

Nick ran his hands up her arms and stepped closer, the heat of his body on her skin.

“I’m no good at this,” she said again. “The romance and all of this just eludes me.” As the words came out she felt ridiculous. He made her nervous. He was out of her league on so many different levels. With his back to the window his face was in shadow, but she could sense the smile on his face.

“Do you trust me?”

She thought for a moment and had no other answer but “Yes.”

“We all have talents, right?”

She nodded, smiling again.

“Romance is a talent of mine. Let me show you how it works.”

“You’re going to school me in the ways of romance?”

He laughed. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Tell me what the first lesson is, and I’ll consider it.”

“Okay. Number one, stop thinking about romance like a cop.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Think about your words. Eludes? School? Lesson? These are not words that a man associates with lovemaking.”

She laughed and felt his hands pulling her shirt out of her jeans, slowly, the fabric sliding against her skin like silk.

“Here’s the problem. You’re asking me to be unanalytical. I should be free to think any way I want.”

“Josie.” He ran his fingertips up her arms. “This doesn’t have anything to do with thinking. It’s all here.” He touched a fingertip to her chest. “You feel it, you don’t think it.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around. “You said you trust me.”

She nodded once.

He lifted her shirt up over her head and dropped it to the floor. He pressed his thumbs into the sides of her spine, slowly working down her back, whispering her name and kissing her neck until her thoughts faded away.

TWENTY

At seven o’clock that evening, Marta stumbled out of bed to stop the buzzing alarm clock going off on her dresser across the room. Following the debriefing meeting with Josie and Otto that morning, she had gone back home to putter around in her cactus garden behind her house. She had finally lain down at noon to get a restless seven hours’ sleep before her shift that night. Marta loved her job, but the shift work kept her from ever feeling truly rested.

By the time she arrived at the Hell-Bent, at eight o’clock, she found a sea of pickup trucks parked helter-skelter in the field behind the parking lot. Marta had never seen it so packed. Hank needed someone directing traffic or she would end up with a half dozen accident reports to write up before the night was over. She went inside and offered to park cars for Hank, who seemed beyond overwhelmed and appreciative of any help he could get.

“This is insane, Marta. I’ve never seen so many people, and it’s still early. I hate to do it, but I may have to turn people away before it’s over. The fire chief will shut me down if I get too many more people in here.”

They both looked out across the dance floor, which was filled with people milling around in groups, laughing and crying and drinking beer. “I’ll call the sheriff’s department and see if we can get some deputies over here tonight,” Marta said. “You’re going to need it.”

After calling the sheriff’s department for backup, Marta walked the parking lot with her clipboard and paper. Parking cars was a good excuse to get the information Josie had requested. Marta wrote down the make, model, and license-plate number of every dark-colored, four-door truck in the lot. By ten o’clock she was caught up with the list of plates and was helping the deputies park the vehicles in the field in rows.

By one in the morning, Marta had a list of twenty-four trucks that fit the description, and she’d arrested two drunks for disorderly conduct: a productive night. Two deputies agreed to continue working the parking lot and taking names. Marta dropped the list off at the police department and clocked off at 2:00 a.m.

*   *   *

At seven o’clock on Sunday morning, Josie received a text from Mitchell Cowan asking her to come by the coroner’s office. He had results. She rolled over, her phone still in her hand, and looked at Nick, who was facing her with his eyes open.

“I like you, Josie.”

She laughed. “I like you too, Nick.”

He propped up on his arm so he could study her better. “This isn’t a normal thing for me. You asked me last night what I wanted from you. I want more than a kiss. But my life is seriously screwed up. You know that. And yours isn’t much better.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Have I told you I’m not very good at this?”

He smiled then, and lay back down. “This is a good situation. If we’re both screwed up, and neither one of us knows what we’re doing, then there’s no expectations. Right?”

Josie lay on her side with her head now tucked into his arm. “I’m not sure this makes sense right now. Dillon just left. I was with Dillon for years. Aren’t there rules about rushing into relationships? Rebounds and whatever?”

“That’s basketball. You’re okay.”

She smiled again and decided he was right. There were no rule books in life, and even if there were, she was pretty sure her life would be indexed in the appendix under “abnormal.”

Still holding her cell phone she lifted it up for him to see. “The coroner texted. I need to get to his office.”

“No waffles and coffee in bed?”

“You lived here long enough to know me better than that.”

*   *   *

At a little after nine on Sunday morning, Josie pulled into the parking lot at the Arroyo County Jail, where Mitchell Cowan’s office was located. The jail was a brown cinder-block and brick building with a brown awning over the entrance door. Josie entered a vestibule furnished with two chairs and a framed picture of the Pledge of Allegiance. She pressed a buzzer and stated her name and a second set of doors opened into a central hub where Maria Santiago, intake officer, was sitting. The room was octagonal, with Maria located behind a desk in the center. Several doors led to different areas of the jail such as the booking room, the interrogation room, and the prisoner pods.

Josie chatted with Maria for a few minutes and was then buzzed through another set of doors, with the words
COUNTY CORONER
painted in black on them. She pressed an intercom button and announced her name. A moment later the door clicked and she pushed it open. The state-of-the-art jail was paid for by a Homeland Security grant that the mayor received shortly after 9/11, as was the trauma center. For such a small town, the facilities were first-rate.

Mitchell Cowan was wearing a white lab coat, a mask, and a blue surgical cap. He leaned over a body on a stainless-steel gurney, his hands pushing and pulling at something in the open abdominal cavity. Josie turned her head and stared at the wall of cabinets across the room, avoiding the body on the table.

“Chief,” he said by way of a greeting.

“Morning.”

“One moment here while I fit all this back inside. It’s a bit like trying to repack a box. Sometimes you wonder how all the pieces in the package could possibly have fit inside such a small space.”

Cowan finally covered the body and went over to the sink to wash up. Josie could smell the medicinal soap and wondered if that scent ever left his skin.

As he was drying his arms and hands he said, “I hear the negotiator’s back in town. Paying you a visit.”

Josie raised her eyebrows in response.

“You be careful with that one. He strikes me as a little on the dangerous side. You’ve got enough of that to contend with on your own.”

“How on earth did you find out about Nick being in town?”

Cowan grinned. “I had breakfast at the Hot Tamale this morning. There was a fair amount of speculation going on amongst the regulars.”

“Unbelievable.” Josie shook her head and saw that Cowan was enjoying her discomfort. “I hope you texted me about something case-related.”

Cowan lumbered across the room to pick up a stack of file folders. He motioned with his head for Josie to join him at the end of the counter where he stood.

“I received a call from the toxicology lab.” He turned and looked at her to make sure she knew what he was referring to. “The lab that the fire marshal used for the syringe?”

“Sure. What did you find out?”

“The marshal must have some pull. I’ve never had results that quick.”

“What were the results?” she asked, becoming impatient.

“The syringe was empty.”

“No trace amounts of anything?”

“Empty. The syringe has never been used.”

“Damn. The murderer planted it at the scene to make Ferris look like a drug user?”

“Maybe Ferris intended to use it and ran out of time,” Cowan said.

“But we didn’t find any drugs on the premises. And why put it under the couch?”

“To hide it?”

“Hmm.” Josie tried to imagine Ferris being stunned in the hallway and then somehow slipping the syringe under the couch. It was hard for her to imagine a scenario where that worked, unless he hid the syringe and then tangled with the murderer. But if he hid the syringe, surely he would have hid drugs along with it. “What about the bloodwork you sent off for Ferris?”

“It’ll be at least another week before we hear back from them. It’s a different lab, different test than what the fire marshal was looking for.”

“So we still have no idea on the cause of death for Ferris?”

“No,” Cowan said. “But I have confirmed the pills in the baggie you gave me from Billy Nix. One pill was Ambien. Two pills were OxyContin. Official cause of death is asphyxiation. His heart slowed to the point where he wasn’t getting enough oxygen pumped through his lungs to breathe. My guess is, he bought a baggie full of pills and swallowed as many as he could along with the alcohol until he passed out. It was a deadly combination of the pills and the alcohol. For a man his size, with a propensity to drink, he had to work at it. His blood alcohol level was point four five two, enough to put him in a coma even without the pills.”

“The idea of someone forcing pills down his throat and getting him to swallow is—”

Cowan cut her off. “Is ridiculous. He was probably so drunk by the time he finished the pills he could barely swallow. And, there were no abrasions, no bruising around his mouth or cheeks that would indicate someone was forcing pills down his throat. There were also no pills caught in his esophagus.”

“Meaning?”

“If someone had been forcing pills down his throat, I would expect to find some caught in the esophagus.”

Josie nodded her understanding. “It’s hard to imagine homicide at this point.”

“Any thoughts on where a person could get those pills on a Saturday night?” she asked.

“That’s your bailiwick, Chief. Can’t help you there.” He pulled out another piece of paper in his stack. “One more bit of news. I ran the Western blot test on Billy Nix. He tested negative for HIV.”

*   *   *

Josie arrived back at the department and found Otto in the office. She gave him a quick rundown of her conversation with Cowan.

“So you’re ready to concede it was suicide as cause of death?” Otto asked.

Josie nodded, her expression troubled. “It bothers me. Someone helped Billy along, but I don’t know what else you would call it. Billy’s the one that swallowed the pills.” Josie grabbed a bottle of water and sat down at her desk to cool off. The day was already heating up to be a scorcher. “What else do you have?”

Otto said he had already run half of the license-plate numbers that Marta had left for them the night before.

“Any surprises?”

“Mick Sinner’s on here. Thought that was odd, that he’d show up at the memorial service after he pitched such a fit about his band performing the night after Billy died.”

Otto handed Josie what he had compiled so far.

She scanned the list and noticed Hank’s name. “Hank drives a four-door truck too?”

“Yeah. I know his truck. It’s a beauty. Big black truck. He ordered it brand-new out of Odessa.”

“Remember what Brenda told us? She said Billy called two people the night he died.”

Otto nodded. “Just what I was thinking. Slim Jim and Hank. And she said both of them told Billy to go back to the hotel and sleep it off.”

“What if Hank learned Billy was drunk and took the pills to him?”

“I asked Hank if he thought Billy would take pills and he said he was sure of it. He talked about Billy’s nerves before a show. Said Billy could have gotten pills from any number of people.”

“What possible motive could Hank have for helping Billy commit suicide?”

“I don’t know,” Otto said. “Billy made the Hell-Bent a heap of money.”

“We should talk to both Hank and Mick, but I’d like to start with Brenda. I’d like for her to come clean on Billy and Ferris and how those two deaths may be related. She has to be a link in this somehow.”

Otto glanced at his watch. “It’s almost eleven. You talk to Brenda and I’ll finish running the license plates. Then we can grab a bite to eat and go talk with Hank.”

*   *   *

Josie walked outside and the oppressive heat made her feel like turning back around for the air-conditioned office: ten straight days of temperatures above one hundred. Blue sky stretched out in all directions, promising nothing but sun. Sweat dripped down her temples by the time Josie reached Manny’s office, just a block away. She opened the office door and found him sitting in his chair behind the counter watching TV. He pushed himself up and stepped to the counter.