South River Incident (26 page)

I turned to Billy and
asked, “Could you give us a minute alone?”

Confident in our
relationship after this last scene between the three of us, Billy let go of his
doubt in me, and quietly slipped out of the room. He was going to give me the
space I needed. His manner was warm and self-assured. It filled my heart with
just a little bit more awe.

“He never ceases to amaze
me,” I said to Cole. “No matter what goes down, he still has the patience of a
saint. I don’t need to tell you that, you already know it. Your friendship’s
been around for many years. You’re like brothers. Let’s get right to the
point.”

I wanted to smooth things
over with Cole, but I also wanted to let him know where I stood. I didn’t want
to encourage him.

“The romance the two of us
shared was just romance. I want more. I love Billy and I want what he has to
offer, and I want you to back off. It’s over and I’m going to move on. You
should do the same. I care about you and want us to be friends, but unless you
heed what I say, that won’t be possible. Besides, if you play your cards right
and don’t screw up, you and Claire might find out you have a lot in common.”

Cole laughed, breaking the
ice. “As much as I wanted it to happen for us, it just wasn’t in the cards.
Don’t hate me for still being attracted to you. I can’t help it.” He took a
step closer and put his hands on my shoulders. “If Billy Blackhawk ever treats
you wrong, you come to me.”

My heart flew out of my
chest. The intense desire to fall into his arms and have him ravish me with his
lips was overshadowed by the warmth I felt in my heart for Billy. I put those
desires to rest.

“I don’t think that’ll ever
be necessary.” But I’ll keep that in mind, I thought to myself—the scum that I
am. I was charmed by the idea that for once in my life I had two men who wanted
me. I led myself to believe, if only temporarily, in that farce. In truth, I
knew Billy was the one who truly loved me, and Cole just wanted to hold onto
his trophy.

“We have other things to
worry about,” I said, backing away, taking on a more controlled appearance.
“This family’s in trouble and needs your help. I don’t care that you’re a cop.
I want you to either join with us or get out.” I continued by explaining in
detail the order of events in our situation, starting with what he already
knew, to the last second of Brad and Laura’s life. “As you can see, if we don’t
nail Clayton Tyler, he’s going to have my family killed.”

“I think that’s a little
bit extreme, don’t you?” Cole asked, reluctantly. “I mean, I know this guy’s a
bad dude. The police have been after him for years. But he doesn’t kill people.
He’s a businessman who tries to avoid paying taxes and has too much money for
his own good. He’s a little shady, but I can assure you, he doesn’t do the
things you say he does. He’s a corporate criminal.”

“Jesus, Cole,” I ranted.
“Get your head out of your duffel bag! I’m not saying this guy kills people, he
has others to do it for him. You’d be surprised at how many people he has on
his payroll, and most of them are cops.”

“Are you serious, Jesse?
Can you prove it?” He looked at me with a dumb expression on his face. “We’re
talking about a rich man with a few bad vices. That’s all.”

“Have you got blinders over
your eyes? I’m telling you, Clayton Tyler’s behind this whole thing and he’s
dangerous! He’s going to have all of us killed!” I whisked past him and grabbed
the doorknob. I could see that I was wasting my time. I gave him one last
chance to join us. “You can stand by and let him accomplish his goal or you can
help us stop him. It’s your choice.” I walked out of the room and left him to
ponder what I had said. I hoped he would come to his senses and do the right
thing.

Mom, Claire, and Billy just
about fell all over themselves trying to hustle out of the way and pretend they
were doing something else, instead of standing next to the door with their ears
glued to it.

“Excuse me,” I huffed at
them. “I’d appreciate it if the three of you wouldn’t listen to my private
conversations. Where are your manners?” I walked to the kitchen. “I’m going to
fix a cup of coffee and then head back to the bedroom to get dressed. Does
anyone have any questions about that?” Nobody said a word. I got my coffee and
went back to the bedroom.

Billy followed me and
closed the bedroom door behind us. “Did you and Cole work everything out?”

“I made it perfectly clear
that we were finished. It’s over.”

I pulled a pair of jeans
from a hanger in the closet, and then searched the dresser drawers for a clean
T-shirt. I grabbed a fresh pair of underwear and a bra and headed to the
bathroom to change. I left the door ajar as I got dressed so Billy could hear
me. For some reason I have always felt uncomfortable getting dressed in front
of a man. I ranked it right up there with sitting on the toilet while someone
was around. I needed my privacy when it came to things like that. Once I had
finished dressing, I started pulling clothes out of the hamper, sorting them
into piles for the wash.

“I told Cole we needed his
help in nailing Clayton Tyler. I told him we couldn’t do it by ourselves.”

“What did he say?”

“He’s convinced that
Tyler
’s just a
corporate criminal. He said the police have been trying to get something on him
for a long time, but it had nothing to do with murder.”

“Did you set him straight?”

“Let’s put it this way,” I
said, walking out of the bathroom with an arm load of dirty clothes, “I told
him he could help us or get out of the way. I guess he’s going to get back to
me when he makes up his mind.”

“That’s swell of him.”

I went over to the window,
pulled back the curtain and said, “Have you been outside, yet?”

“Yes,” Billy replied. “We
have at least eighteen inches of snow on the ground and drifts of six feet in
some places. This storm was a whopper. There’re tree limbs down all over the
place. The roads are impassable so you can forget about going into
Charlottesville
.
We’ll have to call Captain Waverly and tell him we’re stuck out here.”

“Maybe he’ll send a car for
me,” I joked.

“Don’t laugh,” he said,
“they have Humvees.”

Both of us avoided the
subject of our upcoming wedding until I couldn’t stand it any longer. “About
our wedding...” I eased into it slowly. “The only reason I wanted to postpone
it was...”

“You don’t have to
explain,” Billy responded. “I understand why you want to put it off. You’re
worried about your family. Getting married should be a joyous occasion, not an
event filled with fear and anticipation of trouble. That’s no way to start a
life together. We’re going to have to take care of this problem real soon or
we’re never going to get married.”

“What will we tell
everybody?”

“We won’t tell them
anything for the time being. Let’s just see how things play out.” He walked
over and put his arm around me. “Are you going to put those clothes in the wash
or are you going to stand there and hold them all day? Here,” he reached out to
take the load, “give them to me. I’ll take care of the laundry while you call
the captain.”

“Set the temperature
selector on cold, not hot,” I said and handed him the clothes. “Don’t...”

“I know how to wash
clothes, Jesse.”

I made the dreaded phone
call.

“Captain Waverly isn’t in
yet,” a soft-spoken female replied. It sounded like she was popping gum—a nasty
habit that I found intolerable. “I’m Officer Lewis, may I help you?”

“Yes,” I said. “My name’s
Jesse Watson. I’m supposed to have a meeting with Captain Waverly this morning
at
ten o’clock
, but I’m snowed in. There’s no way I can make it.”

“Just a minute,” she
mumbled. “I have a memo somewhere. Ah, here it is. Captain Waverly says to send
a SWAT team member out for you if the roads are too bad for you to make it in.
Do we need to do that?”

“He said to send the SWAT
team?”
I gasped.

“Not the whole team,” she
giggled. “He means just one of the guys.”

She shuffled papers while I
verified my full name and address.

“No middle name, huh?”
Officer Lewis mused. “I’ll start the paperwork right now and have someone out
to pick you up around nine.” Without further adieu, Officer Bimbo Lewis hung up
on me.

“And I hope you have a nice
day, too.” I stared at the cell phone in my hand, before closing it and putting
it back in the charger. “It’s a good thing that you’ve got a desk job, girlie.”

My heart beat faster as I
stood and pondered the possible outcome of my interview with the captain. Would
he believe me or would he think that I’m a nut case? If he did believe what I
had to say about Clayton Tyler, what was he going to do? Is this just going to
be a statement-giving session or is he going to try to trip me up? I was a
wreck.

“What did Captain Waverly
have to say?” Billy asked, standing in the doorway. “Is he sending someone out?
He knows you can’t drive in this mess, doesn’t he? It’s too dangerous for
anyone to be out there.”

“An officer said a SWAT
team member should be here around nine.”

“Ah, you’re getting special
treatment, huh?” Billy smiled.

“I don’t think I’d call it
that,” I replied, clearing my throat. “Perhaps the captain just wants to make
sure I show up for the interrogation and he knows I couldn’t possibly drive in
this snow. To be honest, I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible.
Besides, aren’t you the least bit curious about how much the police know? I
thought they were slightly vague yesterday, didn’t you think so?”

“Cops are always like
that,” Billy said. “I’m more concerned about what they’re going to do. I’m sure
they know all there is to know. Here’s how it is.” Billy counted on his fingers
as he lay out the facts. “We know Mary Keen’s kidnapping was staged to set up
Roy
. For
whatever reasons, when that fell through, Clayton Tyler had her killed. He then
got tired of messing with
Roy
and had him killed. We also know that Laura and Brad
Westover, along with a guy named Chicky, were the ones who did the deed. But it
all comes back to Clayton Tyler. It started out as a simple task of getting rid
of an undesirable employee and turned into an obsession over a stupid photo. We
got caught in the middle when he decided he wanted to get us off his brother’s
back. We were the fall guys.”

“And, last night I killed
two people. Why didn’t I get arrested?”

“Because somebody’s trying
to cover up the whole ugly mess.”

“It’s gotten out of
control,” I said, beginning to see the light. “It’s the domino effect;
only
one has to go down, to bring down the rest. Where’s that picture, Billy? I
think it might hold the clue we’re looking for.”

“It’s in my jacket.”

“Let’s have a closer look
at it.”

Billy went to the closet
and searched through his coat pocket, retrieved the photo and returned to where
I was standing.

“We’ve looked at this
picture a hundred times,” he said. “What do you think we’re going to see that
we haven’t already?”

“I don’t know,” I answered,
“but it’s worth a try. We could have missed something. It won’t hurt to take
another look.”

We examined the photo,
looking for the slightest hint of a clue as to why this picture was so damaging
to Clayton Tyler, but found nothing. Billy had put names to most of the faces
and had determined that this party was not held at an FOP lodge. Instead it was
held at the previous home of Mary and Roy Keen; the one they enjoyed living in,
thanks to drugs and dirty money.

“Wait a minute!” I
exclaimed. “That’s Chicky the paramedic standing with those two guys by the
sliding glass doors. Don’t you see him in the background?” I pointed to the men
in the photo. “Holy Moses! That’s Wake Hudson beside him. I’ll bet that other
guy is Clayton Tyler!”

Billy took a closer look.
“How can you tell it’s Sheriff Hudson? You can’t see his face, and the other
guy has his back turned to the camera.”

“I recognized the hair and
his small frame. Look at the reflection in the glass doors. You can almost make
out the other guy’s face.”

Billy squinted and held the
picture out as if the further away he held it, the better he was going to be
able to see. “I can see a face in the glass. What we need to do is find out
what Clayton Tyler looks like and see if this is him. It has to be him. We know
he’s in this picture somewhere.”

“I’d like to know why the
new sheriff of
Greene
County
is socializing with a scumbag like Clayton Tyler.
This picture was taken almost a year ago. I’d bet money that Wake Hudson used
to be on the
Charlottesville
Police force before he was elected as sheriff. He’s
probably one of
Tyler
’s men. That would explain a lot.”

“To say the least,” Billy
agreed. “Can you imagine the power
Tyler
would have if he had a sheriff in his pocket? There’s
no telling what he could accomplish. Too much power is dangerous.”