Open Season (24 page)

Mrs. Park smiled and folded her hands. “They’re four hundred dollars each.”

“Okay,” said Daisy without pause. Mrs. Park could have said a thousand and she probably still wouldn’t have hesitated.

Sadie came over and licked her baby while Daisy held it, then licked Daisy. She settled down beside Daisy’s legs and was immediately swarmed, fat puppies trying to root under her in search of a teat, but Sadie had learned how to protect herself and they were frustrated in their efforts.

“Which one do you choose?”

All the other questions had been easy; this one was agonizing. She stared at them, trying to decide.

“There are three males and two females—”

“No, don’t tell me,” said Daisy. “I want to pick a personality, not a sex.”

So she simply sat while puppies played around and over her. Then one of the pale-cream-colored ones yawned, its little mouth open wide, and its dark eyes with the absurdly long blond eyelashes began to close. Clumsily it climbed over her leg and turned around until it found a comfortable position on her lap, then settled down in a sleepy little ball.

“Well, I’ve been chosen,” she said, picking up the puppy and cuddling it.

“That’s one of the males. Take good care of him, now. I’ll be calling and checking on him, and bring him back to see Sadie anytime you want. I’ll just go get the paperwork to fill out so you can register him.”

“What are you going to name him?” Evelyn asked as they drove back to town.
Jo
was driving, while Daisy sat in back with the puppy asleep in her arms.

“I’ll have to think about it. If the size of these feet are anything to go by, he’s going to be huge, so I want something macho and tough.”

Jo snorted. “He looks macho and tough.
Fuzzball
would be a good name.”

“He won’t be fuzzy forever.” Already she felt sad at the thought of him growing out of his puppyhood. She stroked his little head and suddenly realized the enormity of the responsibility she had taken on. “My goodness, I haven’t bought anything! We’ll have to stop at Wal-Mart so I can get some puppy food, his food and water dishes, toys, a bed for him, and those house-training pads to put down. Am I forgetting anything?”

“Just double the supply,” said Evelyn, “since we’ll be keeping him during the day. There’s no sense in carrying his things back and forth.”

“I’ll be late getting back to the library,” said Daisy, and for the first time didn’t care. She had a lover and a dog; could life get any better?

T
emple Nolan was more than stunned to find out the tag number belonged to Daisy Minor, he was disbelieving. Sykes had clearly said the woman was blonde, and Daisy’s hair was brown. Moreover, he doubted she had ever seen the inside of a nightclub; she was the very stereotype of the community old maid who lived at home her entire life, was beloved by the neighborhood kids because she gave out the best candy at Halloween, and went to church three times a week.

But then a vague memory tickled, a snippet of conversation between two of the city clerks he’d over-heard when he passed them in the hallway, about Daisy turning over a new leaf or getting her petals plucked, something with a horticultural flavor. Maybe Daisy was kicking up her heels a little. It still sounded so out
of character for her he couldn’t quite believe it, but it was worth checking out.

He could have asked Nadine, his secretary, if she’d heard any gossip about Daisy, but that icy finger of fear made him more cautious. If Daisy was indeed the woman Sykes had seen, Temple didn’t want Nadine to remember that he had asked questions about her just before her death or disappearance, whatever Sykes arranged. So he told Nadine he was stepping out for a minute, then walked over to the library. He didn’t even have to go inside; he looked through the glass door and saw Daisy seated behind the checkout desk, her head bent over some paperwork—her blond head. Daisy had lightened her hair.

He felt almost sick to his stomach.

He walked back to his office, his head down. When he entered, Nadine said in alarm, “Mayor, are you all right? You look pale.”

“An upset stomach,” he said, telling the truth. “I thought some fresh air might help.”

“Maybe you should go home,” she said, looking worried. Nadine was the maternal type, always baby-sitting her grandchildren, and she tended to dispense more medical advice than the doctors in town.

He had lunch scheduled with the mayor of Scottsboro, so he shook his head. “No, it’s just indigestion. I had a glass of orange juice this morning.”

“That’ll do it,” she said, opening a desk drawer and pulling out a bottle. “Here, have some Maalox.”

Meekly he accepted two tablets and obediently chewed them. “Thanks,” he said, and went back into his office. One of these days Nadine was going to diagnose indigestion in someone who was really having a
heart attack, but at least in his case he knew exactly why he had a sour stomach.

He made sure his door was securely shut, then went to his private phone and called Sykes. What had to be done . . . had to be done.

Jack borrowed a pickup truck from one of his officers, pulled off his tie, put on sunglasses and a John Deere cap, and followed the mayor to his lunch with the mayor of Scottsboro. He saw nothing suspicious, but that didn’t make him relax. Where Daisy was concerned, he
couldn’t
relax. All his instincts, honed razor sharp by years in a dangerous job, were on the alert and scanning for a target.

Daisy, of course, was oblivious of the storm he could sense gathering around her. One of the things he enjoyed most about her was her absolute positiveness; it wasn’t blindness to the bad things that could happen, just an acceptance that not everything was wonderful and a conviction that most things were. Look at her attitude toward Barbara Clud, the gossiping bitch: That was just the way Barbara was, so if you went to that pharmacy, you had to expect her to tell what you bought. Right now, however, he would have felt better if Daisy had a more suspicious view of the world; she might be a little more cautious. At least she was getting a dog for protection. If he couldn’t be there at night, at least she’d have a sharp-toothed alarm system.

After lunch, the mayor went back to Hillsboro. Jack checked in with Eva Fay, then drove to Huntsville and located Todd Lawrence’s antiques store, which was named, simply,
Lawrence’s,
nothing cutesy. Jack went in still wearing the John Deere cap, which, judging from the cool look given him by an approaching salesman, marked him as the bull in the china shop.

The salesman was middle-aged, average in size, and disturbingly familiar. Jack seldom forgot a face; it came from years of studying everyone around him. This man had been at the Buffalo Club; in fact, if Jack wasn’t mistaken, he had danced with Daisy on that first night. His suspicions kicked into overdrive.

“Is Mr. Lawrence in?”

“I’m sorry, he’s occupied at the moment,” said the salesman in smooth tones. “May I help you with something?”

“No.” Jack took out his ID and flipped it open. “Mr. Lawrence. Now. And you’ll need to sit in, too.”

The salesman took the ID and studied it, then coolly returned it. “Chief of police of the Hillsboro Police Department,” he said sarcastically. “Impressive.”

“Not as impressive as a broken arm, but what the hell, I’ll go with what works.”

An unwilling smile touched the salesman’s mouth. “Tough, too.” He shifted his balance just a little, but the subtle changes in his stance made Jack’s eyes sharpen.

“Salesman, my ass,” he muttered. “This is about Daisy Minor.”

There was another change in expression, a sort of rueful resignation. The salesman sighed and said, “Oh, hell. Todd’s in his office.”

Todd looked up when Jack and the salesman entered the small private office. His eyebrows rose as he recognized Jack, and he gave the other man a swift questioning glance before shifting into pleasant-businessman mode, rising to his feet and extending his hand. “Chief Russo, isn’t it? The cap threw me off for a minute.” He looked quizzically at the green cap with the yellow John Deere logo. “How . . . retro.”

Jack shook his hand and said amiably, “How full of
bullshit. Why don’t we all sit down, and you and the martial arts salesman here can tell me how I’m jumping to all the wrong conclusions, that you aren’t sending Daisy around to certain targeted nightclubs and bars, and that Bruce Lee really isn’t shadowing her to—what? Catch her doing something illegal? Not likely.”

“Howard,” said the salesman, grinning. “Not Bruce.”

Todd steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips, watching Jack. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fine.” Jack didn’t have time to bullshit around. “Then let’s talk about what possible reason a straight man could have for trying to convince everyone he’s gay, and what would happen if I blew his cover.”

Todd gave a light laugh. “You really
are
reaching now, Chief.”

“Am I? You know, when I first moved here, I rambled around a lot, learning the roads and the country, so I was in a lot of places where normally you wouldn’t expect to see Hillsboro’s chief. I was also paying a lot of attention to Hillsboro’s citizens, asking who people were and learning their faces, so I knew you by sight.”

“Your point?”

“My point is, if you’re posing as gay, when you check into a motel with a woman, you shouldn’t enter the room at the same time, and you really shouldn’t try to suck her tonsils out while you’re still trying to get the key card in the lock. Plays hell with the image. Want me to describe her?”

“Yes,” said Howard, fascinated.

“Never mind,” Todd said, his face suddenly impassive. “You get around to some out-of-the-way places, Chief.”

“Don’t I?” Jack agreed. “Let’s get back to my original question: What in hell are you doing with Daisy?”

“I can tell you what I’m doing,” said Howard. “I’m trying to make sure she doesn’t get hurt in any way. The nightclub scene can be rough on women.”

“Then why send her there? It’s like sending a kitten into a bear cage.”

“You make her sound totally helpless. She’s an intelligent, observant woman who just wants to dance and meet men.”

“Given what’s out there in the bar scene these days, even intelligent women are ending up raped, maybe just by one man, maybe by all of his buddies, too—and that’s if she’s lucky and doesn’t die. Did you warn Daisy about letting anyone buy her a drink? Or leaving a drink sitting on the table while she dances?”

Howard sighed. “That’s where I come in. I keep an eye on her, watch to see if anyone salts her drink with something.”

“So she’s never out of your sight, right? “You never go to the bathroom, or lose sight of her in the crowd.”

“I do the best I can.”

“Best isn’t good enough, not when you’re using her as some kind of shark bait.” He leveled a hard stare at Todd. “So let’s start hearing some details, and they’d better be good or you’re outted.”

Todd rubbed his jaw. “That threat usually works in reverse.”

Jack merely waited. He had stated his intentions, and where Daisy was concerned, he didn’t back down or negotiate. Her safety was too important.

Todd studied Jack’s expression, evidently reading his determination. “It’s personal, the reason I’ve been... working with Daisy.”

Jack said softly, “I’m taking the whole thing personally.”

“So she got to you, huh?” Todd smiled. “I knew, with just a little sprucing up, she’d turn heads. All she needed was a boost in her self-confidence. She’s so damned charming, with that sparkle in her eyes like a kid on a roller coaster, I figured all she needed was more flattering clothes to really pull in the men.”

“Let’s get to the facts,” Jack growled.

“Okay, in a nutshell: A friend of mine went to the Buffalo Club with a couple of friends. She was bummed out, not in the mood for dancing. While her friends were dancing, a guy came on to her, offered to buy her a drink. Because she was bummed out, she let him. The last thing she remembered is getting sleepy. She woke up the next morning in her own bed, naked, alone, and it was obvious something had happened. She’d been raped and sodomized. She did the smart thing, didn’t shower, called the cops, went to the hospital.

“From the evidence, at least six different men raped her. She had only a hazy memory of the guy who bought her the drink. The cops had nothing to go on but some blurry fingerprints in her apartment, none of which showed up in the files, so the men have no priors. Dead end. Unsolvable crime, unless one of the bastards is caught for the rape of another woman and his DNA matches the DNA in the evidence samples of semen.”

It was a far too familiar story. Date-rape cases were difficult to prosecute even when the victim knew her assailant. When it was a stranger whom she couldn’t remember because she’d been drugged, catching the bastards was almost impossible.

Rage had him grinding his teeth. “So you decided to try catching them yourselves, by using Daisy as bait.
Don’t you think the cops could have handled it better, with a female police officer trained for such situations?”

“Sure, except they weren’t doing it. Budget limitations, low-priority case. You know how it works. There’s way too much crime and not enough money, not enough officers, not enough jails or prisons. Every department has to prioritize.”

“I’m tempted to really hurt you,” Jack said, keeping his voice even with an effort. “And I could, despite Howard here. What were you going to do if some ass-hole
did
drug Daisy? Go vigilante and shoot him in the parking lot?”

“The idea has merit.”

“What are the odds it would even be the same guy? There’s a lot of that shit out there.”

“I know it would be a long shot. But it would be a beginning. Someone to talk, name some names, who would name other names.” Todd spread his hands on the desk and stared at them, his face grim. “There’s more to the story. My friend was the same woman you saw me with that day. She was at the Buffalo Club in the first place because we’d quarreled. She wanted to get married, I told her I couldn’t because of . . . other things—”