Landry's Law (5 page)

Dawn was threatening when Seth reached for the first wooden crate. It was at that moment that he heard a key being inserted into the front door.

Kneeling down, Seth unholstered his weapon, held it in a two-handed grip, and then stopped breathing as he trained the muzzle on the slowly opening door.

“Good gracious, Seth Landry!” Olive screeched. “Put that gun down before you give me a heart attack!”

He holstered his gun as Junior dutifully followed his mother into the cabin, carrying a basket. Seth could smell freshly baked bread along with Olive’s vapor trail of perfume.

“I can’t believe you left her in jail all night,” Junior said in an angry tone Seth had never heard during their nearly forty years of acquaintance. “You know she isn’t a killer.
How
can you do this?”

“It’s my job,” Seth explained, irritated by their intrusion. Hell, he was just irritated period. “I don’t
mean to be rude, Olive, but I need to finish my work here and I can’t have you and Junior traipsing through the place like you own it.”

“I do own it,” Olive reminded him.

“Sorry, I forgot. But I must insist that you leave now. I’ll be by the shop later today for a look around.”

“The shop?” Junior said, his voice high-pitched with apparent indignation. “What for?”

Seth met his eyes, which were magnified to an unnatural size by his thick, black-rimmed glasses. “I have a warrant to search Savannah’s work area as well as her home.”

Olive planted her hands on her ample hips and glared at Seth. “If you think I’m going to let you tear my shop apart on some wild-goose chase, you have another think coming. And if you get within ten feet of my bedroom, I’ll get the shotgun and fill your backside with buckshot!”

“Unless Savannah has access to your upstairs apartment, I’ll only be searching the first floor.”

Olive snorted with obvious disgust.

“Are you going to leave her in jail while you do all this?” Junior asked.

Seth shrugged, knowing that he could hold her for twenty-four hours before pressing charges or cutting her loose.

Olive grabbed the basket from Junior and virtually slammed it into Seth’s stomach. “I made some bread
and put in some of my strawberry preserves. You take this to Savannah in that awful jail so she can have some proper food or I won’t allow you to search my shop.”

Seth nodded. “I’ll see that she gets it.”

“You know you’re all wrong about her,” Junior said, subdued. “We watched them together until you made me leave.”

“That’s true!” Olive piped in. “If you would have let Junior stay and keep an eye on them, none of this would have happened. I promised Savannah that Junior would keep her in his sight the entire night. You had no business sending him home at nine o’clock.”

“That would have been difficult after Bill took her up to his suite.”

Redness spread from Junior’s thick neck to his face. “
I
would have gone up with them.”

“Maybe Bill had other ideas,” Seth remarked as delicately as possible.

Junior shook his head furiously. “Bill and I had a talk in his suite before Savannah arrived. I told him she wasn’t that kind of woman, so he shouldn’t even try.”

“She did go to his room willingly,” Seth pointed out. “We have no way of knowing why they went to his room.” Seth’s gut knotted when he stated the obvious.

Junior’s face was now a burning red. “I’m sure it was perfectly innocent. Bill gave me his word.”

Seth didn’t want to argue the point. He wondered if Junior had any notion of the kind of ideas a man could get alone in a hotel room with Savannah. Probably not, since he was his mother’s eunuch. In fact, Seth couldn’t recall Junior having more than a dozen dates in recent history. None at all since Savannah had come to town.

The light dawned sometime after Olive and Junior had marched haughtily out of the cabin. The normally meek Junior had displayed a lot of emotion. Seth guessed that Junior had a major crush on Savannah. Poor guy. It must have felt pretty masochistic when mommy had assigned him the chore of watching Savannah have dinner with one of his friends.

Hell, Seth hadn’t exactly enjoyed watching the sensual way she had touched Bill’s hand. He could still hear the sound of her laughter, still see the way her dress complimented her figure. He wondered if she knew that candlelight made her eyes look even more exotic.

He wondered why he was recalling personal details when he was supposed to be conducting a search. “Lack of sleep,” he grumbled as he moved into the bedroom.

Her bed was at an angle and unmade. He could see the faint imprint of her head on the pillow. That required further investigation. He lifted the pillow from the bed and drank in the smell of her. A sudden
vision of Savannah in his bed with her dark hair fanned out framing her face caused the expected physical reaction.

“Geez, Junior has a crush and I’m teetering on the border of obsession. What is it about her?” he asked with a healthy dose of self-loathing.

Seth went through her closet and was amazed by the amount of her clothing. Some had labels, but most didn’t, which struck him as odd. He couldn’t even find a place where the labels had been removed.

He checked all thirty-one pairs of her shoes as possible hiding places. Then he went to her dresser. The top three drawers contained undergarments and neatly folded sweaters.

The bottom drawer was another matter. It was full, but not with clothing.

Seth returned to his office after a fruitless search of Savannah’s home and Olive’s Attic to find Savannah, the matron and some guy who looked as if he just stepped out of the Conservative-of-the-Month calendar.

The matron left almost instantly, but Seth barely noticed. He was too intent on studying the expression on Savannah’s pretty face.

As he placed the picnic basket on his desk, he realized she looked gaunt and pale. He’d seen that kind of look before. It was the same expression he encountered whenever he had the grim job of ringing a doorbell in the middle of the night to tell some un
prepared parents that their child had died in a car crash.

That was definitely what he read in Savannah’s expression and it twisted a knot in his gut to see her like that.

The suit and tie rose and offered his hand. “Peter White,” he said amicably.

Seth returned the greeting, then walked around to the opposite side of the desk. Savannah wouldn’t even meet his gaze.

“What can I do for you, Mr. White?” he inquired.

Lifting a chrome briefcase into his lap, he flipped open the latches and retrieved several documents stapled inside the recognizable blue title pages.

Even running on no sleep, Seth knew instantly that this White guy was Savannah’s lawyer. Interesting part was, he’d never seen nor heard of a lawyer named Peter White in any of the surrounding towns or counties.

“This,” Peter began as he handed Seth the first of three sets of papers, “is a Show Cause order from the Federal District Court. It gives you until noon today to charge Miss Wyatt.”

Federal court?
Seth thought through the fog of his sleep-deprived brain. Why would the Feds be interested in a murder investigation in a town with a population of less than two thousand?

“And this,” Peter continued, “is an order from
the Federal Bench placing Miss Wyatt in my custody until you respond to the Show Cause order.”

“Why do you want her?” Seth asked.

“That’s irrelevant at this time, Sheriff. And lastly, I have an order requiring you to turn over copies of any and all evidence related to the murders.”

“Irrelevant my ass!” Seth snapped. “You can eat your court orders until you tell me what this is all about.”

Ignoring Seth’s indignation, White snapped his briefcase closed. “We’ll be at Miss Wyatt’s cabin until noon. If you aren’t going to charge her, then I’ll have someone come by before the close of business today to get those copies.”

Seth was still speechless and angry as he watched Peter White, Esquire, escort a silent Savannah from the building. He moved to the window and watched as White put Savannah in the passenger’s side of a government-issue vehicle. His head was swimming. Savannah must have used her phone call the previous night to call the Feds. What did she have to do with them and why were they in such a hurry to grab jurisdiction?

One possibility was that she truly was a serial killer and all this federal mumbo jumbo was just to get her into the hands of the FBI. Seth shook his head to rid it of that idea. His instincts told him that
this
woman just didn’t fit the profile.

Savannah had an in with the Feds, but so did he.
Seth grabbed up his coat, left word where he was going and headed out into the painfully bright sunlight glaring off the snowdrifts.

He walked across the street to his brother’s medical office. About ten minutes after his arrival, Chance came out into the waiting room and frowned. “You look like hell.”

“Yeah?” Seth responded. “Well I feel worse. I was up all night.”

“Want to sack out on one of my examination tables?”

Seth shook his head as Chance took him back to his cluttered office. He made an attempt to exchange pleasantries with Val, Chance’s nurse and Tara, the billing clerk who worked for Chance, but also moonlighted with Junior during tax season. Chance poured two cups of coffee, then sat on the edge of his desk prepared to listen to Seth’s dilemma.

“I heard the butcher’s bill went up last night,” Chance said.

Seth picked up a plastic heart and started to disassemble it. “Butcher’s bill?”

“During the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Nelson used to ask his aide for the butcher’s bill for the day. He thought it was more humane then asking how many soldiers had died.”

“Bill Grayson is currently in the morgue at Deer Lake Hospital,” Seth said. He then went on to retell
the events leading up to, during and after the discovery of Bill’s body.

“Sounds like you’ve got the Wyatt woman dead to rights—no pun intended.”

Seth glared at his younger brother. “I’ve no longer
got
the Wyatt woman. Some federal attorney was waiting for me when I got back this morning. Tossed a bunch of motions at me, then waltzed out of the office with Savannah in tow.”

One of Chance’s salt-and-pepper brows arched. “Savannah?”

“Yes,” Seth hissed, all but daring his sibling to make an issue out of it.

Which was precisely what Chance did. “You’ve got the hots for a woman who kills her dates? You need some serious counseling, bro.”

“I do not have the hots,” Seth insisted.

“Pu-lease,” Chance said, chuckling. “I can hear it in the way you say her name. Reminds me of when Sam fell for Callie.”

“It isn’t anything like that,” Seth insisted defensively.

That only made Chance laugh harder. “You can fool yourself, but you can’t fool your doctor.”

“My doctor is a fool,” Seth grumbled.

“Very adult, Seth. Name-calling isn’t very impressive when it comes from the town’s senior law enforcement officer.”

Seth took a long sip of the hot coffee. “Okay, so
maybe I’ve noticed a few things about her that I find appealing.”

Chance grinned. “Now we’re getting to the good part.”

Seth gave his brother a warning look. “I was referring to her personality, not her body.”

“Too bad,” Chance said, raking his hands through his hair. “Because I’ve seen her body and it seems flawless to me.”

“Chance?”

“She’s not a patient,” Chance defended with poorly feigned innocence. “Every now and again I run into her on the street. I’m not sure whether it’s her pouty lips or those blue-brown eyes that excite—”

“Shut up!” Seth wailed.

Chance was laughing at him, which didn’t improve Seth’s disposition.

“I was only ragging on you to prove a point,” Chance explained.

“That point being that in spite of those dozen or so gray hairs, you’re still a childish SOB?”

“No,” Chance answered, more subdued. “You’re thirty-eight years old. It’s about time that a woman knocked you to your knees.”

“I am not on my knees,” Seth insisted. He closed his eyes long enough to let out a slow sigh. “I don’t know what I am.”

“Why don’t you spend some time with her and find out?” Chance suggested.

“I’d have to get in line. White got a federal judge to give him custody of Savannah if she’s charged.”

“Are you going to charge her?” Chance asked.

“No. In spite of the evidence, which isn’t much more substantial than her having been with all three men before their deaths, all my instincts tell me she isn’t the killer.”

“Do you trust your instincts?” Chance asked, apparently worried for his sibling. “If you’re wrong, this woman could decide to make you victim number four.”

After a brief moment of reflection, Seth said, “I’m sure. She’s not the killer. But I think she might be the reason for the killings.”

“What?”

Seth explained about her hidden past and said, “Since she knew how to get herself a Justice Department attorney here almost instantly, I’m thinking that maybe Savannah is the target, not the perpetrator.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“Go out to the ranch, grab a few hours of sleep, then see if I can find some way to get in touch with Cody.”

T
HE
L
UCKY
7 was 825,000 acres, fifteen miles from downtown Jasper. Unlike Shane and Sam, the ranch no longer felt like home for him. It hadn’t for ten years, ever since his mother and father had taken off.

As he drove closer to the ranch, Seth tried to imagine what they’d be doing now and why they had both chosen to sever all contact with their seven sons. That was the part that continued to haunt Seth even after a decade.

He’d been twenty-eight when it happened and for the life of him, he hadn’t seen it coming. Hell, he hadn’t had the first inkling that there was trouble in the marriage. He did recall that when he was about ten, his parents had had several loud arguments when they assumed the boys were all sleeping. But that seemed to pass and there had been nothing to prepare him ten years later for the announcement that his mother was leaving with some man she would only name as John. Nor could he or any of his siblings talk his father, Caleb, from heading out after Pricilla and the mysterious John.

Seth smiled, thinking back on the great times he had had with his father. Caleb had been a kind and patient father to every one of his sons, except for Shane. For some reason, Shane could do very little to please the old man. Caleb used to taunt Shane about his bruises, calling him a wimpy little brat. Luckily, in the ten years Shane had been off doing whatever, he had gained self-confidence and self-esteem. Ironically, he was now the most like Caleb. He loved the ranch, loved the physical labor, the long hours.

Seth was so lost in thought that he nearly missed
the arched brick-and-wrought-iron gate to the ranch. About a half mile ahead, he could see the house, with smoke curling out of one of the chimneys.

There were tracks in the snow of the front lawn, and deep ridges from a sled. Obviously, his nephew, Kevin, was learning to steer the old sled that had been handmade by his great-grandfather. A true Landry tradition.

Parking the Bronco in the horseshoe-shaped drive, he climbed the steps and hurried inside. He was about dead on his feet.

“Uncle Seth!” Kevin screamed as he came barreling around the corner and into Seth’s legs.

Lifting the boy, he gave him a hug and tousled his white-blond hair. Just as he was putting the boy down, Callie, his sister-in-law, sort of waddled in his direction. She was so small that at six months, she looked like most pregnant women in their final days.

Her smile was bright and genuine. He bent down and gave her a kiss. She took his hand and placed it on her swollen abdomen, moving it for a moment until he felt a strong jolt against his hand.

“Wow,” was all Seth could manage to murmur.

“Ow is more like it,” Callie complained good-naturedly. “This baby’s a kicker. Night and day. I’m so tired I can barely stand up.”

“I know the feeling,” Seth agreed. “I called Sam’s office and they said he was working from home today.”

“In the den,” Callie said. “Shall I ask Taylor to bring in coffee?”

Seth shook his head. “Not for me. After I talk to Sam, I was hoping to sack out in one of the bedrooms.”

Callie placed a concerned hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”

He nodded and faked a pretty decent smile. “Just tired.”

“Then get whatever you need from Sam and get to bed. I’ll let Taylor know you’re here in case your office calls.”

“Thanks. Ask Taylor to make sure I’m awake before noon.”

Seth found his brother in the darkly paneled office looking at a ream or so of computer printouts. Sam glanced up and greeted his brother with a mixture of happiness and curiosity.

“You look a little worse for wear,” Sam commented. “I heard about Bill Grayson. Tough thing. You went to school with him, didn’t you?”

Seth nodded. “Doc Hall is trying to track down some relatives. With his mother and father gone, we’re not sure what to do with his body after the autopsy.”

Taylor Reese, the housekeeper, came in carrying a tray and wearing a smile. She was quite a change from their late housekeeper Mrs. Lange. Taylor was a part-time student and to most men, a ravishing beauty.
Ironically, Seth used to think some less than pure thoughts whenever he saw Taylor. Today all he seemed to notice was that she had brought him some red-colored herbal tea that she promised would help him sleep.

Seth thanked her, but had no intention of drinking something that looked like steaming Kool-Aid.

As usual, wherever Taylor was, Shane wasn’t too far behind. In fact, when he joined Seth and Sam in the office, his eyes were pretty much glued to Taylor’s behind as she left the room.

Shane made an exaggerated gesture of his heart beating rapidly. “I’ll wear her down if it takes me the rest of my life.”

Seth and Sam exchanged looks. They had a bet riding on any outcome. Seth’s fifty was in Shane’s corner. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Shane muttered. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the jail guarding your incredibly beautiful prisoner, Miss Wyatt?”

Seth rolled his eyes. “I thought Taylor was your project. What would you know about Savannah?”

“Savannah?” Shane and Sam said in unison.

Seth blew out a frustrated breath. “That’s her name for God’s sake!”

Shane moved to the edge of the mahogany desk and leaned against it, then lifted one of the cups of coffee to his mouth.

“What did you do now?” Seth asked when he
saw a portion of a huge purple bruise on Shane’s wrist.

His baby brother shrugged. “Musta hit it when I was in one of the corrals. Forget me. Tell me why you’re referring to our resident Black Widow killer by her first name.”

“She isn’t a killer!” Seth insisted.

Both brothers backed off. “Sorry. It’s just that the paper said—”

“Sam,
you
ought to know better than to believe everything you read.”

“Point taken,” his eldest brother agreed. He knew firsthand how easily the truth could be twisted. He and Callie had learned that lesson the hard way.

Seth told his brothers all about the Fowler, Whitlock and Grayson murders, the trophies, his fruitless search of Savannah’s place, everything.

“It’s a piece of cake to get out of the rooms at the Mountainview Inn without being seen,” Shane said.

“How?” Seth asked.

“The ventilation system. All the bathrooms have oversize vents. You just slip in there and follow it to the end of the building. You can even see the parking lot, so you can jump down when you know the coast is clear. The only problem is, you have to be lanky or little to get through. The vents are pretty tight. But if you’re sure Savannah wasn’t the killer, that would be my guess as to how the murderer escaped right from under your nose.”