The Branson Beauty (21 page)

Sam broke in. “I went back through her phone's history. He only called her twice after Christmas break. She had”—he flipped through his notebook—“twenty-four outgoing calls to his cell number in that time period. All but three were about ninety seconds to two minutes long, so I'm assuming she was leaving voice mails most of the time.”

Her other phone calls and texts were fairly routine, he said, and most corresponded to the cell numbers Sheila had gotten from college friends. Many track team–related calls. Her parents, at least once every couple of days. Repeated calls right before Christmas break to a number that came back as the listing for Calfort's Firing Range and Gun Shop. Hank nodded.

“And then,” Sam said, “there's one I don't know about. It's a New York area code and comes up as a cell phone. I've got a call into the phone carrier to try to get a name with it, but that's slow going. I was going to just call it directly, but I thought I'd ask you first.”

Hank, who had been leaning his office chair back on its rear legs, banged down on all four. “New York? Well, now. When?”

Sam flipped his pages. “Three before Christmas, including one when she was back in Branson for break. All incoming. Then one outgoing one the afternoon of New Year's Eve. Then two more incoming, one in January and one last week.”

Now, that was interesting. Chad had wanted to talk to Mandy, had he? “Don't call it right now. It's got to be the Sorenson kid's number. Any call from us would probably spook him even more. Let me have the number … I have an idea.”

Sam scribbled it down, and Hank put the piece of paper in his pocket. He turned back to Sheila. “Anything else? What about the track thing Saturday night?”

She shook her head. Nothing out of the ordinary. Her teammates said she was excited to go home to see her “grandma friend” and her folks, but that she was not looking forward to getting up so early to make the drive.

Her coach had noticed she was jumpier and more anxious than most of his kids during the fall semester, but he'd attributed it to simple freshman jitters. He said she'd calmed down after Christmas, but joked that she still must have needed a grown-up version of a security blanket. She never went anywhere—even practice—without her purse.

“Now, of course, that makes sense,” she said. “And we still haven't found the gun?”

“No.” Hank scowled.

“Are you sure it wasn't on the boat?”

Sam cringed. Hank's scowl got worse.

“Yes. I am sure it was not on the boat. I searched the whole damn thing. Again. And now it's at the bottom of the lake. And the fire marshal isn't—”

Sheila cut him off. “I heard. And it does make sense, actually. C'mon, dead kids? You can't argue that isn't more important than mucking around on the bottom of Table Rock Lake when you know no one was on the boat. What'd the posted guard deputy see?”

Hank's ire returned tenfold. “Nothing,” he spat, “because he'd gone home. The minute his shift was over. Even though no one had arrived to relieve him. Didn't call in, didn't do a damn thing except leave a crime scene unattended.”

Sheila's mouth dropped open. “That's … that's … who would do that? Who would—” She stopped. “Oh…”

Hank nodded.

“You never should have assigned him that,” she said. “The man is a—”

“You assigned him that,” Hank snapped. “Plus, everyone else was either ending shifts with tons of overtime already, or patrolling this ice rink of a county, or investigating a homicide, or—”

“Well, if you would listen when I talk about the scheduling, then—”

“Really? You briefed me on what to do when every deputy in this damn department is on overtime? You went into your contingency plan for when there's a huge snowstorm, a murder, and a big-ass fire all at the same time? Somehow I don't remember you getting into—”

Sam cleared his throat and looked at them with a mixture of sheer terror and exasperated gumption. “I think … that we should get back to the case … here … now,” he said, his eyes wide as he looked from Hank to Sheila. He cleared his throat again. “Alice is trying to get prints off the purse. There were none but Mandy's on the phone. I had her do that before I started going through it.

“Now.” He took a deep breath, sat up a little straighter, and shifted subjects. “I got the autopsy report, and it was definitely manual strangulation. No sexual assault. No assailant DNA. Nothing under her fingernails or anything like that.” He laid the report on Hank's desk and slapped his hand down on top of it. Sheila gave him a puzzled look, but Hank just raised an eyebrow. Less Pup, more Dog. Good.

*   *   *

Hank walked back into the lobby and reflexively looked up at the clock. It was still broken. He dug his cell out of his pocket. 10:02
A.M.
Icy snow crunched in the parking lot as a car slowly rolled in. Hank straightened and put down his coffee.

A tall, stocky older man with very polished gray hair and wearing a dark suit pushed open the door. The bell above tinkled unnecessarily. Hank waited, but there was no sign of Gallagher following. He picked up his coffee and took a deliberate sip. The dark suit frowned.

“I'm here to meet with Sheriff Worth,” he said in a clipped tone.

Hank looked at him over the brim of his mug as he continued drinking. He finally lowered it and said, “Are you? You don't look like Henry Gallagher to me.”

The suit's eyebrows rose. “I am Mr. Gallagher's attorney. Mr. Gallagher could not attend and so asked me to come. I represent his interests.”

Hank took another drink and sized the guy up. He was definitely not local. Probably not Springfield, either.

“Where you from?”

The suit straightened. “St. Louis.”

“Huh.” Hank would have bet money that he actually lived in the ritzy suburb of Ladue. Self-satisfied confidence, expensive tailor, Catholic school ring on his hand.

“And your name?” he asked.

“Richard Clancy.”

Marvelous. He had to be the Clancy in Wikson & Clancy. They had an office in Kansas City, but they were based in St. Louis. He knew this because their fingers were everywhere. And now they were reaching into his little corner of the state.

“You ever been to Branson before?”

“Yes, actually. We've vacationed here several times. Beautiful lakes.”

“Mmmm,” Hank said. He had used vacation as a verb. Definitely Ladue. “See any shows?”

The suit shook his head. “Only once. My mother-in-law insisted on seeing Andy Williams … that was the only time she came with us.”

Hank wondered where the mother-in-law was now. So he asked. Then he asked where they'd stayed, what they'd done, how long the drive had taken. He asked when the suit had left St. Louis that morning and whether he'd stopped at Russell Stover on the way down. He asked if the roads were clear and what kind of car he drove. And he carefully watched the vein in the man's forehead get more and more prominent with every question. Right before Hank figured it was about to burst, the suit said, “Really, I think we should get on with business. I am not here to chat. Can I see the sheriff, please?”

Hank smiled and put down his coffee cup. “I am the sheriff. And you are not here for business, because you did not even bother to bring in a briefcase. I'm sure you are a very good lawyer, but I doubt you have the details of Gallagher Enterprises committed to memory. And you did not bring your client, per my very explicit instructions. So until you show up at this office with Mr. Gallagher, you are just wasting my time.”

He picked his mug up again and stared at his visitor, who clearly was of the opinion that it was
his
time that had been wasted. The suit's nostrils curled, and he straightened again. He spun on the heel of a shoe buffed almost to the same high sheen as his hair and marched out the door. Hank broke into a genuine grin. He hadn't gotten a single scintilla of usable information—unless the guy's “Moon River”–loving mother-in-law turned out to be the killer—but he'd certainly had some fun. His smile widened. If nothing else, the little encounter had cost Gallagher an arm and a leg in legal fees.

*   *   *

The Krycenski family stared at him across their kitchen table. Mother, father, and sweet Danielle, whose face was still splotched from crying. She clutched her mother's hand.

“Are you sure this is necessary? Why can't
you
find him?” Mr. Krycenski asked.

“If we could find him,” Hank explained with much more patience than he was actually feeling, “we would.” Deep breath. “But Chad Sorenson has disappeared. Having your daughter call him from a trusted phone number is by far the quickest way to get him to come out of hiding. If we go through the cell phone company, we need to get a warrant and then track down his signal. That takes a lot of time that I do not have.”

He turned to Danielle. “You want to catch whoever did this to Mandy, don't you?” She nodded. “I don't know if Chad did it,” Hank continued, “but I do know that I need to find him. Now. You remember what to say?” She nodded again and picked up her cell phone with a trembling hand. She scrolled to his number, her other hand clutching her mother's. The only sound was the dog panting under the table and then the ring coming over the speaker phone as the call went through.

One. Two. Three. It was going to go to voice mail. Hank sighed. He'd have to jump through all the legal hoops after all. Four— “Hello? Danielle? What's up?”

All three adults leaned forward. Danielle's whole body shook. “Hey. How … how are you?”

“I'm fine. Just hanging out. You know.”

“Yeah. Me, too. I guess. Um, I … I can't believe it about Mandy.…”

A pause. The adults leaned closer. “Um, Mandy. I can't believe it, either. It's totally nuts. Right on the boat like that.”

“Yeah, I know. I … I'm really, um, really freaked-out about it. Is there any way we could meet up? You know, like, to talk? I could really use a friend.”

Another pause. “Can't you talk to those other chicks at school?”

Danielle started to cry. “They don't know. They weren't there. They weren't friends with Mandy like we were. Nobody was. And…” She stopped, sobbing. “Please…”

A very long pause. Even the dog had stopped panting.

“Okay. Sure. How about Battlefield Coffee up in Springfield?”

“That's fine,” Danielle said.

“In an hour. I, uh … I got somewhere to be after that.”

“That's fine. I'll be there.” She hung up and looked over at Hank. “He didn't even ask me how I was doing.” She put down the phone and let go of her mother.

“What do you want me to do now?”

*   *   *

The caravan slowed as it approached the busy intersection of Glenstone and Battlefield. Danielle led in her father's Toyota Camry. Then came Hank, following discreetly behind in Maggie's minivan, which he had not told her he'd taken from the hospital parking lot. And behind him were Danielle's parents in their other car, a Chevy Tahoe. They had insisted on coming. Hank had been about to say no, but then he put himself in their position. There was no way—absolutely no way—he would let Maribel trot off to meet a possible murderer without him hovering as closely as possible. So he had looked at Danielle's distressed parents and relented. But he had insisted they park across the street, stay in their car, and under no circumstances call or text their daughter.

Now Danielle was pulling into the far end of a strip mall's parking lot. She and Chad had arranged to meet at a coffee shop across from the Battlefield Mall. Hank took a different entrance and parked behind the long building, where his car couldn't be seen. He peeked around the corner as she walked into the shop, then nonchalantly entered the end store. Conveniently, it was a convenience store, so he stood near the front window, browsing the candy bars as he watched. Five minutes later, a Lexus SUV pulled in and a very tall young man in a leather jacket strode into the coffee shop. Hank put down the Snickers and followed.

He pulled his wool hat down farther on his head. At the strong suggestion of both Sam and Sheila, he'd borrowed the extra St. Louis Cardinals windbreaker Sam had in his trunk, so he was not in the cop-looking—and still smelly—winter coat he had been wearing at the boat fire. He hoped he looked different enough that Chad would not recognize him the minute he walked in. The bell jingled.

The place was almost deserted. Chad was folding his tall frame into a chair opposite Danielle, who did not look nearly as teary as she had earlier. Hank grabbed a newspaper from the recycle bin and sat behind Chad.

“Do you know anything about it?” Danielle was asking.

“No way,” Chad said. “I didn't even know about it until I saw it on the news.”

“Wow,” Danielle said. “Nobody called you or anything? The cops came to school to see me.”

“They did?” Chad sounded worried. “Why would they do that?”

Hank could see a sliver of Danielle's face from behind his newspaper. She looked as if she was going to smack Mr. All That.

“They're trying to figure out who did it. Duh. They need to talk to all her friends to find out everything they can … you know, about Mandy. I can't believe they didn't want to talk to you.”

The leather-clad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Maybe they did. I don't know.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the time. “Look, Danielle. I gotta go.”

Over the top of the newspaper, Hank could see her trying not to look toward him as she thought about what to say to keep Chad talking. With effort, she focused on Chad and suddenly burst into tears. Brilliant.

“Where are you going? What's so important?” she sobbed.

Chad started to fidget. Apparently, Mr. All That wasn't used to his young honeys throwing tearful fastballs at him. He took a sip of his drink, looked at his phone again, and then glanced worriedly around the shop. The four other customers and two baristas were all staring at him as Danielle's sobbing grew louder. Hank, while enjoying the jerk's discomfort immensely, just wished he'd answer the damn question.