Texas! Chase #2 (22 page)

knit turtleneck pullover she was wearing. Her hair was pulled back sleekly away from her face and wound into a mercilessly tight bun on her nape.

Apprehensively he approached her and lifted the handgun out of her hand. She was staring at him fixedly, drawing his attention to her eyes. They were ringed with violet smudges, looking as though they had both been socked very hard. He remembered seeing them badly bruised when she lay in the hospital bed following her auto accident. She had been pale then, too, but nothing like now.

He clicked on the safety of the pistol and set it on an end table. Then he took the flashlight from her and set it aside also. "Want to tell me what's going on? Have you always had that gun?"

She shook her head no. "I bought it Tuesday."

"Do you know how to use it?"

"The man showed me."

"What man?"

"The pawnbroker."

"Jesus," he muttered. "Have you ever fired the thing?"

Again she shook her head no.

"Good. Because if you had, your shoulder would have probably knocked your ear off when you recoiled. Not that you would have needed an ear any longer because the blast would have deafened you.

Who did you intend to shoot?"

She wilted like a starched petticoat on a humid day. One second she was standing, the next she was crumpled into a little heap on the sofa. She buried her face in her hands.

It wasn't like Marcie to have fainting spells or crying fits. Alarmed, Chase sat down beside her. "Marcie, what is happening here?

What were you doing with that gun?"

"I wasn't going to shoot anybody. I was only going to frighten him with it."

"Frighten who?"

"The caller." She raised her head then and looked up at him. Her eyes were filled with tears, seeming larger and bleaker than ever.

"He's called every night since you've been gone. Sometimes two or three times a night."

Chase's jaw turned to granite. "Go on."

"He knew I was here alone. He kept talking about your being away. He also knows where we live.

And… and he said he was going to come after me. Chase," she said, her teeth beginning to chatter, "I couldn't stand it anymore.

I had to do something. So I had a locksmith change all the locks. I set another code on the alarm.

Tonight when I heard you on the porch, and you broke the glass and—"

He put his arms around her and drew her against his chest. "It's okay. I understand now.

Shh. Everything's fine."

"Everything is not fine. He's still out there."

"Not for long. We're going to put a stop to this once and for all."

"How?"

"By doing what you should have done in the first place. We're going to see Pat."

"Oh, no, please. I'd feel so foolish making this a police matter."

"You'd feel even more foolish if you had accidentally put a hole through me."

She trembled. "I don't think I could ever bring myself to pull the trigger on that thing." she said, nodding down at the pistol.

"I don't think you could either," he said soberly. "So in effect, that still leaves you defenseless when you're here alone." He picked up the pistol and crammed the barrel of it into his waistband. "Come on, let's go."

"Right now?" She resisted when he tried to pull her to her feet.

"Right now. I've had it with this creep."

They reset the alarm. There wasn't much they could do about the broken window, so they just left it.

"Where's your car?" he asked as they went down the front path.

"I started parking it in back."

Chase assisted her into the cab of his pickup and climbed behind the wheel. He'd just spent four hours driving from Houston and had been looking forward to getting out of the truck.

Lately, things rarely turned out the way he expected or wanted them to.

"I spoke to Lucky," Marcie said quietly once they were under way. "He told me you'd gone to Houston to see about the contract."

"The decision makers had narrowed it down to three drilling companies that had bid on the job. They wanted to talk with us personally.

After costing me five nights in a hotel

and a week of eating out, they picked an outfit from Victoria."

It had been a crushing disappointment, which a four-hour drive and two hundred miles hadn't ameliorated. He had invested almost two months' time and a lot of worry and planning in getting this contract and had ended up with nothing to show for it except an exorbitant credit-card bill.

What was worse, he had no other prospects to pursue. Thanks to Marcie's loan, he didn't have to worry from a financial standpoint, but his pride and sense of professional worthiness were still on the critical list.

"I'm sorry, Chase. I know you were counting on that job."

He gave her a brusque nod, glad that they had reached the courthouse and that he wouldn't be required to talk about it any more.

They caught Pat Bush in the corridor on his way out. "Where are you going?" Chase asked him.

"To get a cheeseburger. I haven't had dinner."

"Can we talk to you?"

"Sure. Why don't y'all come with me?"

"It's official."

One look at Marcie apparently convinced the sheriff that the matter was urgent. That and the pistol tucked into Chase's waistband.

He retraced his steps to his office and held open the door. "Come in."

Chase ushered Marcie inside. Pat's office hadn't changed since Bud Tyler used to bring his boys in for quick visits. While the two

men discussed politics, the ten-point bucks that always got away, all levels of sports, and local happenings, Chase and Lucky would strut around twirling fake pistols and wearing badges Pat had pinned to their shirts.

One time they'd gotten in trouble for drawing mustaches and silly eyeglasses on all the wanted posters while their father and the sheriff weren't looking. Another time they'd gotten whippings for dropping a lighted firecracker into a brass spittoon in the squad room.

Now, Chase laid the pistol on the edge of

Pat's desk. Pat regarded it closely, but didn't comment. He waited until they were seated across the desk from him in straight wooden chairs before removing the matchstick from his mouth and asking,

"What are y'all up to?"

"Marcie's been getting phone calls."

"Phone calls? You mean obscene?"

"And threatening."

"He hasn't actually threatened my life," she interjected softly. "He just says that he's coming after me to…

to—"

"To do all the things he's been talking about over the phone?" Pat prompted.

"That's right." After nodding, she left her head bowed.

"So it's definitely a man?"

"Definitely."

"And you don't recognize the voice?"

"No. He always whispers as though he's deliberately trying to disguise it."

"You think you might know him?"

"I have no idea. He might just want to make his voice sound scarier."

"When did this start?"

She raised her pale hand to her temples and massaged them. "Several months ago, I think."

"Before we were married," Chase said.

"Hmm. Does he always say the same thing?"

"No." The question made her curious. She raised her head. "Why?"

"Could be we're not dealing with an individual, but a group of kids. They try to see who can say the nastiest stuff, get the best response, that kind of thing."

With a small shake of her head Marcie said,

"I don't think so."

"Neither do I." Chase leaned forward. "When

Marcie first told me about this, she passed it off as a prankster who got his jollies by talking dirty. She figured he would eventually grow tired of her and move on to someone else. But he hasn't, Pat. He scares her spitless every time he calls. I think it's more than your average heavy breather."

Pat picked a fresh wooden match from a box on his desk and put it in his mouth. He'd traded cigarettes for match-sticks years ago.

He maneuvered it from one side of his mouth to the other.

"What do you do when he calls, Marcie?"

"At first I just hung up as soon as I realized what it was. But he began calling repeatedly, sometimes several times a night. It got to be such a nuisance, I started listening, hoping I'd recognize his voice. I thought it might be someone I run into frequently—the man who sacks my groceries, the man who pumps my gas, the teller at the bank who always flirts. I wanted to embarrass him by calling him by name, you see. But I never could identify him."

"Any heartbroken lovers in your past?"

"No."

"What about the fiance in Houston?"

She looked at Chase with incredulity. "He wouldn't do anything like this!"

"How do you know?"

"There's an ex-lover?" Pat asked, showing interest.

"I assure you, Sheriff Bush, it's not him."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because he doesn't have the sexual imagination for one thing. I'd suspect Chase before I would suspect him."

When she realized the conclusion that could be drawn from what she had said, her eyes collided with Chase's. His were full of expression.

Pat coughed behind his hand. Marcie wet her lips and tried to cover the blunder.

"It's not my ex-fiance," she said staunchly.

"Besides, they sound like local calls. Not long distance."

"Better give me his name anyway."

"Is it really necessary?"

"We'll check his long-distance bill through the phone company. Unless he's our man, he'll never even know about it."

"But the thought of invading his privacy—"

"Do you want to find this creep or not?"

Chase asked impatiently.

Marcie glared at her husband defiantly, then reluctantly provided the sheriff with her former fiance's name. "I promise we'll be discreet."

Pat told her. He leaned back in his chair. "Why didn't y'all come tell me about this before now?"

"I wanted to," Chase said. "Marcie insisted that we wait."

"Why?" Pat wanted to know.

"I thought he would eventually stop calling."

"But when he didn't, why didn't you tell me about it?"

She wrung her hands. "I'm not sure. I guess

I wanted to solve the problem on my own. In the scheme of things it seemed like such a piddling problem. It really didn't get so bad until this week. He called more frequently, and his voice was different."

"Different? How?"

"It wasn't just sleazy. It was sinister. He kept saying he was coming to fulfill my…

my…" Again she rested her forehead in her hand.

"I know this isn't easy, Marcie," Pat said kindly.

"No, I assure you it's not." In a manner that Chase admired, she pulled herself together.

In one long breath she told them, "He said he was prepared to fulfill my sexual appetites while my husband was away. Not in those exact words. But that was the gist of it."

Chase growled, "If I ever get my hands on the slimy sonofabitch—"

Pat pointed a stern finger at him as he interrupted. "You'll stay out of it, is what you'll do. I mean it, Chase. You just had to finance a new set of false teeth for that feller you bashed out at The Place. Don't you boys ever learn?"

"Nobody talks smut to my wife and gets by with it."

"If we catch him, he won't get by with it.

This is a police matter."

Chase muttered a blue opinion. Pat ignored his muttering. "Which one of you is going to tell me about that?" He pointed at the pistol.

"I bought it for protection," Marcie told him, her cheeks turning slightly pink with embarrassment.

"Foolish thing to do," Pat said bluntly.

"Oh, I wouldn't actually shoot it at anybody.

You didn't think that, did you?"

He looked at her for a moment, then dryly replied, "When somebody packs a .357 magnum, that's the conclusion I have to draw, yes, ma'am."

"She almost shot me." Chase told Pat about his hapless homecoming.

"Well, that kind of craziness is gonna stop," Pat said, coming to his feet.

"These callers rarely do anything. They're cowards. Don't get me wrong, Marcie. You should exercise caution. Keep all your doors and windows locked and your alarm set even when you're there. But let's not get paranoid over this thing."

"What are you going to do?"

"Put a tap on your phone first thing tomorrow morning. And a tracer. Probably won't do much good. He probably calls from pay phones and knows just how long to talk before hanging up."

Pat opened the office door and called for a female deputy. "In the meantime, I want Marcie to go with Deputy Davis here and give her some quotes of things he says. Key words are important. Try to remember words that he repeats. We'll send the report to Dallas and have them run it through their computer.

If he's got a prior, we'll find him that way."

Chase assisted Marcie to her feet, placing his arm around her waist. He moved with her to the door, passed her off to the buxom woman in uniform, and was about to follow them across the squad room when Pat detained him.

"She might be less self-conscious talking about it if you're not there."

"I'm her husband, for crissake."

"Indulge me. Besides, I want to talk to you."

Chase reentered Pat's office. The sheriff closed the door again and returned to his chair behind the desk.

"How'd it go in Houston?"

"The Rockets lost and I came home without a contract."

"Sorry, Chase. But don't worry. You'll eventually pull out of this slump."

"I'm beginning to wonder." He stared into near space for a moment. "Met an interesting guy while I was there, though. Named Harlan

Boyd. He works as a troubleshooter in oil-related businesses. Or maybe he's just a con artist with a string of b.s. that sounds convincing.

Anyway, he said he might have some ideas for us. Hell, I'd be open to anything."

"Chase?"

"Yeah?" Chase raised his head. The older man's tone of voice had changed. It was hesitant.

He got the distinct impression that Pat had something except the suffering oil business on his mind.

"Have you ever answered the phone to this obscene caller?"