Jude Devine Mystery Series (59 page)

“Their leader. Pure West Virginia,” Arbiter noted. “Couldn’t drown a rat in that gene pool.”

He signed off, and Jude stared up at the Marlboro Man. Even on a dull day he seemed to glow with rugged individualism, a free spirit sharing the open range with his horse and the setting sun. The emblem of a simpler time.

Or maybe not.

*

Debbie Basher was a small, slender brunette woman with a shy demeanor and the apprehensive smile of someone who expected bad news when there was a knock at her door. She looked Jude up and down and blushed, her gaydar evidently functional.

Jude identified herself and asked, “May I come in?”

“Yes. Please do.” She seemed a little tense. “I can’t believe this weather.”

“But there’s no global warming. Yeah, right.”

Debbie laughed. It was a polite, lukewarm laugh, the reaction of someone who strived to please others.

“You look like you’re about to go out,” Jude said. “Is this a convenient time to talk?”

“Sure.” Debbie indicated the snow boots and orange gaiters standing by a backpack on the kitchen floor and explained, “I was just getting ready to join the search again.”

“You’ve been out?” Jude could hear a shower running in a room along the short hallway. Someone had spent the night.

“A friend and I were at Lone Dome yesterday.” She gave a rueful laugh. “We were so worn out—well, at least I was—we thought we’d start a bit later today.”

“You earned it,” Jude said. “Search and rescue is hard work.”

“It was our team that found the evidence,” Debbie said a little breathlessly.

“That was an important find.”

Debbie blushed a deeper shade of ruby pink, clearly proud of herself. Jude tried to picture her running fuse to a detonator and a slab of plastic explosive and blowing up a building. She had a hard time believing Debbie Basher would even know what a detonator looked like.

“Oh. Wow. Duh! I just realized who you are.” Debbie seemed wildly impressed. “You were on TV. You’re the detective in charge of the whole case, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m leading the sheriff’s part of the investigation,” Jude confirmed. The shower had stopped and she could hear someone moving around.

“I saw what happened, on the news. With the baby’s father and the hostage. Oh, my God. That must have been so scary.”

Empathy for others—not the most sought-after personal trait for terrorists. Jude said, “These things happen. It’s an emotional situation.”

“He must be desperate, the poor guy. I was shocked that they got engaged after you let the boyfriend go.”

Jude raised her eyebrows but said nothing so she wouldn’t sound startled. Wade and Tonya were engaged? It was a sorry state of affairs when you had to find out what was going on with your primary suspects by hearing secondhand television reports from the subject of an unrelated investigation.

“Here I am chattering away.” Debbie hurried into the kitchen. “I just made fresh coffee. Would you like a cup, Detective.”

Jude smiled. “You read my mind.”

She took in the surroundings as Debbie added a third mug to the two standing on the counter. The cottage was compact and plainly furnished. Thin, dated carpets. Freshly painted walls and ceilings. Jude guessed Debbie had done the work herself to brighten the place up. It wasn’t the home of a person who had prospered in life, yet it was welcoming and very clean. Two satisfied cats snoozed on cozy pet beds next to the gas heater, and the walls were lined with bookcases.

While Debbie bustled about in the kitchen, Jude scanned the contents. Photograph albums. Biographies. Assorted self-help books about relationship breakup and low self-esteem. No pretentiously titled novels. No animal liberation classics. No conspiracy literature. No
Anarchist’s Cookbook
.

“Cream and sugar?” Debbie asked.

“No, thanks. Just black for me.”

“I know I should feel sorry for her, you know…the mother,” Debbie confided as she poured cream into two of the mugs. “And I do. But, I have to tell you, I think she’s crazy getting engaged to him. I suppose she doesn’t want to believe the worst and she’s trying to make a statement.”

“Yeah. It goes like this—
I’m so dumb I’ll stand by my man even if he killed my kid.
”

The cynical remark came from a narrow hallway leading to the rear rooms of the dwelling. Jude felt the speaker’s hard-eyed gaze before she looked at her directly. She was maybe five eight but held herself taller. Her bearing and presence announced her as military even more than the khaki fatigues she wore.

She walked into the room with an owner’s casual authority and swept astoundingly blue eyes over Jude, then looked harder, subjecting her to the measuring scrutiny of a fighter sizing up an opponent. Her pupils dilated slightly. It was the only indication that something had registered with her.

“I’m Sandy Lane.” No handshake. “Is this a social call or do you have business here, Detective?”

Jude noted the play of expressions on Debbie’s face. Happiness. Lust. Startled dismay. She hastily picked up a mug and handed it to Jude. “I was just telling Detective Devine about us being on the search yesterday. She’s in charge of the case.”

Sandy continued with the authoritarian questioning. “Are you here in connection with the investigation?”

Her manner suggested she expected answers when she asked questions. An officer, Jude decided. Maybe a marine. If this woman didn’t know what C-4 was and how to work with it, Jude would resign from intelligence work and begin a new career flipping burgers. She had a story concocted to explain her early morning visit and ran it by her dubious audience.

“It’s probably a wild-goose chase, but a car matching the description of Ms. Basher’s was seen on Highway 666 on Saturday evening, the evening Corban disappeared. We’re trying to locate the driver.”

“It wasn’t me.” Debbie sounded disappointed not to be a sought-after potential witness.

“Where were you that evening between ten p.m. and midnight?” Jude asked. “Just a routine question.”

“At home. It was snowing too much to go out.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

Debbie shook her head. “I was by myself.”

“Would you mind if I took a look inside your vehicle?”

“Sure. I’ll get the keys.”

Debbie’s antisocial companion didn’t share her eagerness. “Is that really necessary?”

“It’s strictly routine,” Jude replied with good humor. “And no one’s going to impound the vehicle if Ms. Basher declines to cooperate.”

Debbie giggled nervously. “I don’t mind. I have nothing to hide.” Hardly the response of a would-be domestic terrorist. “I hope I can find the damn keys. I was so tired I put them somewhere weird last night.”

Jude finished her coffee and contemplated how she might strike up a friendly rapport with this couple—which they obviously were—given that the dominant half was totally unreceptive. She didn’t buy for a second that Debbie Basher was in the market for serious explosives. But it was conceivable that her name had been used by the real purchaser. No prizes for guessing who that might be.

As Debbie roamed around the kitchen mumbling to herself about the keys, Jude opened her coat and made a show of finding her notepad and pen. All the while, she studied Sandy covertly. The woman was built; she probably worked out more in a week than Jude managed in a month, and Jude was no slouch. Every move she made was economic and deliberate, her physical self-awareness so innate it spoke of years of rigorous conditioning. She had nothing to prove and she knew it.

Jude recognized that hard-won confidence; she possessed it herself. Which was one reason Sandy’s assessing stare unsettled her. Very few men, and no women, ever sized her up as if evaluating how to cut her throat if necessary. Jude’s body prickled its primal awareness of menace, yet she had a sense that Sandy was taken aback by her as well. A cold respect had entered her expression.

In opening her coat, and all but removing it as she looked for her writing materials, Jude had intentionally displayed her physique. Even in a bulky shirt and wool pants it was obvious to anyone who undertook hard physical training that she was in peak condition. The point hadn’t been lost on Sandy.

She caught Jude’s eye and they stared at each other for several taut, calculating seconds.

“Here they are.” Debbie waved the keys, and for the first time Jude glimpsed a softening in Sandy’s expression.

An Achilles heel. Finally. Sandy Lane loved this woman and it appeared to be mutual. So why would she expose Debbie to risk by using her name during an explosives purchase, if indeed she had? Maybe she hadn’t and this was a simple case of identity theft by a stranger.

Jude took the keys. “If you’d like to be present while I search, that’s okay.”

Sandy touched Debbie’s arm. “Stay here. I’ll take care of it.”

Jude gave Debbie a smile. “I’m sorry to have interrupted you, Ms. Basher. We may be close to an arrest, so we’re trying to build the strongest case we can. Thanks for the coffee.”

“You’re welcome. It was good to meet you.” Debbie returned the smile with a trace of awe.

With ill-concealed irritation, Sandy asked Jude, “It’s the boyfriend, right?”

“I’m not free to comment on that. But Mr. Miller is a person of interest.”

As they stepped outside into a shock of frozen air, Sandy demanded, “What’s this really about? Did her ex make a complaint?”

Jude kept her expression impassive, but she knew she’d just been given an opening. All she had to do was find a way to use it. “I can’t discuss any details,” she said vaguely and motioned toward a Subaru that had seen better days. “Is that the car?”

“Yes.” Sandy folded her arms as Jude unlocked the rear door and took a long hard look at the neat interior. “That woman is a piece of work,” she returned to her topic. “I finally talked Debbie into taking legal action to claim her half of their house, and the ex comes back with threats that she’ll out Debbie to her boss and make a complaint that Debbie sexually abused a niece who used to stay with them.”

Jude smiled inwardly. Sandy had just handed her the perfect means to befriend Debbie Basher. She took a few swabs and bagged them to be tested for explosive residue. Pensively, she said, “I don’t think Ms. Basher has much to worry about. The burden of proof is high in cases like that, especially where money and property can motivate false allegations.”

“That won’t help her keep her job. I know
you
know what I am saying.”

Jude conceded the observation with a yes-I’m-gay nod. “It’s not San Francisco out here.”

She had contemplated coming out to the people she worked with most closely, and if she had no other role than sheriff’s detective, she would—at the very least in a don’t-ask-don’t-tell sense. But she didn’t have that luxury. If Harrison Hawke or any other of her targets knew she was a lesbian, she could kiss her undercover assignment good-bye, not a risk she was willing to take after investing two years building a deep-cover identity. Instead she’d created a smoke screen.

Late the previous year she’d agreed to date Bobby Lee Parker, a compulsive flirt who wanted an excuse to chat up Virgil Tulley, the true object of his desires. A bisexual former gas-station robber, Bobby Lee had a reputation as a ladies’ man and had left a trail of female conquests around the Four Corners, including a couple at the sheriff’s office. Jude’s and his unlikely coupling had ended growing speculation about her sexuality, replacing it with puzzled acceptance and relentless teasing.

Bobby Lee had recently come up with a plan to cement their deception, asking her to marry him in a spectacle so public no one would ever dream it could have been driven by anything but foolhardy passion. Jude’s heartless non-answer had lent a poignancy to their situation that had captured the imaginations of locals who had nothing better to do than read the gossip pages in the
Cortez Journal
.

Bobby Lee thought they could let this soap opera run for most of the year before Jude would have to break his heart, by which time no one would care that she was tall and cut her hair too short for a woman. Instead they would be whispering behind her back that she was a callous ball-breaker who’d dumped the only half-decent male ever likely to propose to her.

Jude could live with that.

She closed the hatch and took a cursory look inside the front of Debbie’s SUV. As she moved from the front seat to the back, she said, “If this ex is determined to play dirty, maybe Ms. Basher can come up with something she can use as emotional blackmail herself. Everyone has secrets. If she thinks about it, she probably knows a thing or two the ex would rather keep to herself.”

“I’ll work on it,” Sandy said in a tone of grudging thanks.

Jude closed the driver’s door. “I’m all done here.”

Sandy accepted the keys from her. “I hope you nail that jerk.”

“Finding Corban would help.” Jude offered a professional smile. “By the way, thanks for getting involved in the search.”

Sandy shrugged. “It’s a good workout.”

“You think you need one?”

The subtle compliment garnered a hint of satisfaction. With a faint grin, she murmured, “Old habits…”