Hard Evidence (11 page)

The past two weeks had been harder than Janna had even realized, but now she felt some of that weight lift from her shoulders. “You are definitely the right girl for this job, Lauren. Welcome to Snow Canyon!”

H
is law enforcement duties drew him to all locations of the county, but Michael’s heart was back at Wolf Creek—where someone still threatened the safety of Janna and her family.

The fact that he hadn’t been able to make much progress on the case burned like fire in his gut and kept him awake at night.

Since the vandalism at the cabin on Monday, he’d spent every spare moment questioning people about Lowell Haskins, and asking about any local high school guys who might belong to the most-likely-to-offend crowd. He stayed out late at night, watching for the elusive stranger Janna had seen out in the woods.

So far he’d hit nothing but dead ends.

He’d found no more evidence of digging out in the woods, and had seen no one lurking out there. By Wednesday he’d been able to talk to four hulking Wolf Creek area high school seniors who’d all been in minor trouble over the years, but every one of them had been over in Salt Grass for the stock car races on Sunday night, in school on Monday, and had family or job alibis on Monday evening.

Fifteen minutes ago he’d received a call from one of his deputies, who’d seen Lowell Haskins walking into a tavern outside of town. Michael had turned it into a hot call—lights and sirens until just a mile away—to make sure he got there in time.

He didn’t have to worry.

The place was dark. Smoky. Lit mostly by the faint, fluorescent glow of the beer signs hanging over the bar. Even at three in the afternoon it smelled of stale beer, sweat and desperation.

A couple of scrawny, unshaven guys sat alone, their forearms resting on the tables in front of them, nursing bottles of cheap whiskey.

Two others sat at the bar. Neither of them turned around at the harsh flood of sunlight that poured in when Michael opened the door. The bartender did a double take at his uniform and took a half step back, his hands raised in the universal gesture for I-don’t-want-any-trouble.

Michael zeroed in on the guy at the left with thinning salt-and-pepper hair and wrinkled, sun-cured skin at the back of his neck. “Lowell?”

The bartender nodded and moved to the far end of the bar.

Lowell met Michael’s eyes in the mirror behind a row of liquor bottles and beer taps on the back wall. He sat rock still for a few moments. Then he took a long draw on his cigarette and flicked the ashes into an overflowing ashtray in front of him.

He turned slowly. “I done nothing wrong.”

“Didn’t say you did. I just have a few questions.”

Lowell studied him, his eyes narrowed. “You’re the cop who’s in with the McAllisters.”

“Excuse me?”

“Gotta be interesting living out at ol’ lady McAllister’s place.” His mouth twisted. “Those daughters of hers are lookers, but she’s a piece of work.”

“I understand you were a foreman out there.”

Lowell turned back to the glass in front of him and downed it in one long swallow. “Yeah. Big mistake.”

“Good job?”

“Like I said, big mistake.”

Michael hooked a boot on the foot rail and rested an elbow on the bar. Bared his teeth in a smile. “Work around here?”

Only a single twitch of the man’s eyelid hinted at his sudden tension. “You probably know the answer to that already,
deppity
.”

“Maybe I don’t believe everything I hear.”

Lowell’s gaze slid away. “I do odd jobs—when I can get ’em.”

“Were you in this county during the last few weeks?”

“Now and then.”

Michael’s interest ratcheted up another notch. “Here—as in Wolf Creek?”

A brief tip of the head. “Carson Ranch, a few days working calves. Before that, over in Harris County.”

“What about Sunday and Monday?”

Lowell’s hand tightened around his glass. “Why?”

“Curious.”

Lowell swung around on his bar stool and cursed. “I cain’t see you coming all the way out here to ask if I was havin’a nice time. Is this where I oughta ask for a lawyer?”

Michael shrugged affably. “Seemed like a pretty easy question, unless you were someplace you shouldn’t have been.”

The following silence was laden with resentment and simmering anger.

“My dad’s place,” Lowell finally bit out. “I was there, okay?”

“Both nights?”

“Ask him. Harvey Haskins—owns the trailer court south of town two miles. Lives in the blue-and-white, back row.”

“Thanks. I just might.” Michael nodded to the bartender lingering at the far end of the bar and turned to leave, but stopped and looked over his shoulder at Lowell. “When was the last time you were on McAllister land?”

Lowell stiffened. “Four, five years…unless I maybe wandered over the line while hunting.”

“Thanks.” Michael strode out into the sunshine, welcoming the fresh, clean air.

It wouldn’t take Lowell a minute to call his father and warn him about what to say, but the trip wouldn’t be a waste of time. What a guy tried to hide was often there in the uneasy flicker of his gaze. The subtle tension. Nuances in his voice and a hesitation in his answers.

And Lowell had certainly telegraphed fear from the moment he saw a uniform come into the bar.

Michael had driven by the trailer park many times. He’d figured that sooner or later his job would bring him to this place in the dark of night on a domestic-abuse call. A shooting. Drugs.

There was a pretty trailer park tucked into the pines on the other side of town, where the residents had planted flowers, put up little white fences around their plots and all but waxed and polished the lane meandering through the property.

This park, on the other hand, was the kind of place where trailers came to die. A boneyard of rusted, crumbling 1960s models, where trash accumulated everywhere but in the Dumpsters, and old men in dirty undershirts sat on their stoops sucking on cigarette stubs.

But no one sat on the steps of the blue-and-white in the back row.

Michael stood to one side and rapped on the door. Waited a minute, then rapped again. “Anyone home?”

A long silence, then a harsh, wheezy cough.

He unsnapped the safety strap over the butt of his gun.

“Sir, are you okay? Can I come in?”

At a mumbled reply, he eased the door open with caution born of far too many years in homicide. The horizontal blinds were all drawn, leaving just razor-thin blades of sunlight to cut through the haze of cigarette smoke.

It took a second for Michael’s eyes to adjust. Longer to force himself to step inside and breathe the stale air.

Unshaven male. Easily one-ninety to two hundred pounds. Late seventies. Balding. A stained T-shirt stretched across his massive, protruding stomach. Oxygen tubing dangled from the prongs in his nose.

“Maybe not a good idea to be smoking with that oxygen,” Michael said mildly.

The man uttered a single curse. “Look around and tell me why I should care.” His voice was breathy, and the effort sent him into a round of heavy coughing.

Emphysema, Michael guessed. A healthy lifestyle apparently wasn’t a priority in the Haskins clan. “Do you have anyone from the county doing home visits here?”

“Got no need. Don’t want nobody comin’ in here.” Harvey’s gaze sharpened, though he had to draw in a couple of deeper breaths before trying to speak again. “What do you want?”

“I just wondered when you last saw your son, Lowell.”

Harvey leaned forward in his recliner, his eyes widening in alarm. “Is he all right?”

“Downing whiskey at a tavern an hour ago. I’m not sure if you’d consider that ‘all right,’ since it was before noon.” Michael glanced at the dirty dishes piled in the sink. Beer cans overflowing a trash can. No land or cell phone in sight. “I just need to know when he was here last, and for how long.”

Harvey sank back into his chair, his breathing labored. “Dunno. All weekend, I guess. He comes and goes.”

“He’s out at night?”

“Stays in, when he’s here.” A dull flush crept up the man’s wattled neck. “Helps me…if I have to get to the can.”

“Can you phone him whenever you need him to stay with you?”

Harvey snorted. “Could if I had a phone.”

“Just one last thing. What do you know about the McAllisters?”

Anger flashed in the old man’s eyes. “Liars, every one of ’em.” He raised his hand and made a sweeping gesture around his cramped trailer. “Weren’t for them, Lowell woulda had a good job all these years. He’d own a decent place and I’d be with him, not in this sewer.”

“What happened?”

“Claire McAllister.” He spat out the name as if it tasted vile. “Get on the wrong side of her, and you can kiss your life goodbye. No one in the county would hire Lowell permanent, after what she said about him.”

Exactly what she’d admitted doing. “So why didn’t he move on?”

“I can’t sell the trailer—couldn’t ever git it up to code.” Harvey’s eyes glistened. “He stayed around to help me, I guess. But that just means we’ll both die poor.”

Michael had wanted to bring Janna good news. Frustrated, he pulled to a stop by his cabin but stayed in the car, the door open and one wrist draped over the wheel.

He’d seen nothing but honest anger and bitterness in Harvey’s eyes. Today’s investigation didn’t eliminate Lowell as a suspect, but it did put him lower on the list.

A phone call to the county health department put Harvey on a list as well.

His living conditions were deplorable, his health precarious. The county’s visiting nurses would be paying him a visit in a few days to assess him as an older adult in need of assistance, so he could get the help he needed.

Michael sighed as he stepped out of the car. There was something missing—some piece to this puzzle that was still eluding him.

Janna called his name, and he turned to find her coming up the lane with an armload of linens.

She wore no makeup, but with her sunglasses perched on her head and her hair drawn back in a silky ponytail that swung with every step, she looked so fresh and pretty that he once again felt that familiar warmth build in his heart.

“These are for you,” she said. “I can set them inside.”

He reached for her burden instead. “I’ll take them. How’s everything?”

“Good news and bad. It’s starting to be the story of my life.”

But she grinned, and he couldn’t help but smile right back. At the end of every day, during the long drive back to Snow Canyon, he found himself looking forward to seeing her, and when he did, his day felt complete.

He shifted the weight of the linens in his arms. “What happened?”

“Lauren is wonderful. She’s a hard worker and really sweet to Rylie and Claire.”

“Claire?” he tried to picture Claire accepting anyone being “sweet” toward her and failed.

Janna laughed. “Not baby-talk sweet. She jokes with her, and doesn’t take any guff. I think my mom admires her already, and having Lauren here meant that I actually got to go riding this morning,
alone
. The beauty and solitude of these mountains is beyond description. I’m going every morning, from now on.”

“I thought you were going to stay close to the lodge.”

“I’ve been riding this land all my life.” She waved off his concern. “There’s a rifle scabbard on my saddle, and I can handle myself. Anyway, early morning has to be pretty safe, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” he warned. “Promise you’ll be careful.”

“I won’t do anything foolish, believe me. Just some nice rides on my old stomping grounds, that’s all.”

“You mentioned some bad news?”

She made a face. “The entire septic system for cabins Seven through Ten. With the rugged terrain here, they share a separate system, and it isn’t adequate per the current environmental codes. Not exactly where I wanted to sink a few thousand dollars, believe me.”

“The county was out here to check?”

“I contacted them last week. They went over their old records, then sent a guy out this morning to take a look. Those cabins can’t be used until the system is replaced. I even talked to Wade Hollister to see if there was anything we could do legally to open them on an interim basis. He said no.”

Michael whistled. “How long will that take?”

“I’ve been calling,” she said glumly. “So far no dice until the end of July. Worse, Wade says it’s hard to pass those inspections. The county guys come out at every stage and have to sign off on them. What they don’t like has to be done over. Wade said that if it proves impossibly expensive, he’ll offer me a secretarial job.” She rolled her eyes. “So, tell me about
your
day.”

“A couple of minor accidents. Domestic dispute. Sheriff Brownley called, wondering how things were going.”

“Anything on our troubles up here?”

“Just a minute.” He took the linens into the cabin, where Ian was immersed in a book and came right back out. “Let’s walk up the hill…might be a little more private.”

They strolled up the lane, and when she slipped her arm through his, it seemed as natural and right as the warmth of the sun overhead and the crisp scent of pine.

“I found Lowell Haskins, and I also talked to his father. They both hold a grudge against your mother, but it sounds like Lowell has an alibi during this last incident.”

“I was afraid of that. It would have been just too easy.”

“So I’ve been trying to think through the possibilities. Who else would’ve been in the area back then—and is still around, frightened by the possibility of discovery? A professional hit would have been neat. Perfectly handled, with no evidence carelessly left behind. The shooter would have been brought in from some urban area—where he’d have more business—and would have disappeared immediately afterward.”

He felt her shudder against his arm. “Go on.”

“This case bears the marks of an amateur. Someone who panicked, maybe. Who neither planned the kill nor thought ahead about the disposal of the remains. With the vast Rockies all around, luring the intended victim to a far more remote area for instant burial would have been the logical choice—and a lot easier, if the killer had stopped to think.”

“So it was probably a crime of passion. A moment of rage.”