Vows of Silence (6 page)

“You have my word, Senator,” he promised. “I will do everything I can to make sure your son’s murder is solved. I’ll also talk to Melinda and make sure she understands that leaving town just now isn’t an option.”

The senator exhaled a mighty breath. “I guess that’s all I can ask of you.”

His head bowed, and with uncharacteristic humility, the senator exited Rick’s office. Before Rick had a chance to analyze the sudden about-face in his demeanor, Deputy Brewer came in and closed the door. Judging by the look of excitement on his face, he had news.

Rick didn’t dare hope for a real break in the case, but he’d take anything he could get at this point.

“You’re not going to believe who Deputy Kilgore spotted in town this morning.”

Brad Brewer was not an overlarge guy. Five eight, hundred forty pounds. But at one time he’d been fifty pounds heavier and built like a brick wall. The bulk had gotten him labeled as the Refrigerator back in his high-school football days. Right now he looked as if he’d just scored the winning touchdown.

“Don’t tell me,” Rick said. “Pamela Carter, right?” Charles’s body had turned up, why not Pam’s unexpected return? A reunion of the town’s missing would be just perfect.

Brad frowned. “Who?”

Rick shook his head. “Never mind.” Pam had dropped out of school and, like Rick, she’d been from the south side of the tracks. Brad wouldn’t remember her especially since he hadn’t been in the department at the time of her disappearance.

“Bent Thompson,” Brad blurted. “He’s back in town. Some coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

Well, well. The vanishing thug was back. Now that was a hell of a coincidence, considering he’d disappeared about the same time as Ashland and Carter. The circumstances had all been so different that the former chief hadn’t connected the three. All three had been adults and no indication of foul play had been uncovered.

“Tell Kilgore I want him keeping an eye on Thompson.” Sure there was no proof of course that Thompson’s abrupt departure from town ten years ago had any more to do with Charles’s murder than Pamela’s, it was likely a waste of time. Still his being back certainly appeared rather timely in a strange kind of way.

“Will do.”

Before he could rush out the door, Rick said, “Just a minute, Brewer.”

Brewer turned back, a question on his face. “Yeah?”

“Close the door.”

Brewer did as he was told then approached Rick’s desk as if he sensed the conversation needed to be kept as quiet as possible.

“Do you remember much about Lacy Oliver and her friends from back in school? Other than the fact that they were the most popular girls in the class.”

He shrugged, looked just a little uncomfortable. “Lacy and Melinda were cheerleaders. Cassidy, well, she was just an uptight—”

“Yeah,” Rick interrupted. “I remember she wasn’t always easy to get along with. What about Kira?” He found it ironic that Brewer hadn’t mentioned Kira, since Rick hadn’t missed the way the deputy had stared at her on more than one occasion since her return to town.

Brewer looked thoughtful for a moment. “She was a cheerleader, too, the best I recall.”

“That’s right,” Rick said, going along with his obvious ploy of indifference. “She was the first black girl on the squad, I think.”

“Color shouldn’t have mattered,” Brewer said tightly, bitterness cluttering his expression.

“You liked her,” Rick suggested, knowing damn well he had before Brewer said a word in denial.

“We knew each other,” he said defensively. “You should have known her, too.”

Rick dropped into his chair, an idea taking shape. “I did, but not as well as you apparently.”

Brewer averted his eyes. “That’s ancient history, Chief. I don’t know why we’re going there.”

“I want you to keep an eye on her, Brewer. Talk to her if you can. Convince her that whatever she and her friends are hiding will only make bad matters worse.”

“You really think they had something to do with this?”

Rick shrugged. “I don’t know if they had anything to do with the murder, but they know something about it. And whatever it is, it could help me prove who killed him. I need those women to trust me. I need them to talk.”

Brewer dropped into the chair directly across the desk from Rick. “Well, I can tell you one thing, it won’t happen as long as Cassidy is in charge. She was always the leader. They’ll listen to whatever she says, even now. I guarantee it.”

Rick sensed a deeper hostility where Cassidy and Brewer were concerned. “What’s the deal between the two of you? You holding a grudge for some reason I need to know?”

He didn’t look away as Rick feared he would. “I have no tolerance for…people of her persuasion,” he said frankly. “Especially the ones who think they know better than anyone else.”

Well, there was definitely a story there, but Rick figured he’d just gotten all he was going to get.

“Make sure Kilgore stays on top of Thompson. You keep an eye on Kira and I’m going to pay Nigel Canton a visit. He keeps making up excuses as to why he can’t drop by for a friendly chat.”

“His alibi is rock solid,” Brewer commented. He’d read the case file, just like Rick.

Rick hesitated as he reached for his keys. “That’s true. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t hire someone to do the dirty work for him.”

Just another scenario Rick had to flesh out.

As he left City Hall, he considered how few friends Charles Ashland, Junior, actually had. On the surface it looked as if he had been surrounded by companions and admirers. More of his acquaintances could be listed in the enemy category than not. He screwed other men’s wives, used cutthroat business tactics and basically pissed people off in one way or another.

But that didn’t justify his being murdered.

Rick slid behind the wheel of his truck and surveyed the town—his town—as he maneuvered around the square. Most of the folks here were good people. Friendly and kind. The racism that had at one time choked the spirit out of the community was all but gone now. Churches outnumbered gas stations. The public school system was the best around.

But that didn’t change the fact that someone had murdered the one and only son of the town’s wealthiest family. Not to mention that the Ashlands were direct descendants of the town’s founding father. Even the best towns had some degree of crime—he just hadn’t expected his first big investigation as the chief of police to be murder.

Charles’s body had been hidden away until nothing in the way of useful evidence remained. Nothing but two mismatched slugs and a generic shower curtain that could have come from anyone’s home, including Charles’s own house.

Rick had one of his men running a check on anyone who had registered a handgun, a .38, back then. Trying to track down the shower curtain was useless. The brand was sold locally and at a number of stores around the county.

As much as he would love to solve this case with plain old detective work and hard evidence, that wasn’t going to happen. His only chance of figuring out what had really happened to Charles Ashland, Junior, was to push Lacy and Kira until one of them broke. They knew something. He was sure of it. No matter how seemingly insignificant that information was, he needed it. A single detail could make all the difference.

The Ashlands weren’t likely to be too happy with him when they discovered his plan of action. But the way Rick saw it, his only hope, outside some sort of information from Lacy or Kira, was to retrace Charles’s steps during the final days before his death and hope he found something others had overlooked.

One little detail could make all the difference.

He considered the way Deputy Brewer had looked at Kira. Rick knew that look. It was the same desperate longing he likely displayed each time he looked at Lacy. If he couldn’t wear down Lacy, maybe Brewer could get further with Kira.

There had to be a way to dig beneath the defenses of that tight little group. He would push and prod until he had done just that.

He wasn’t convinced that one or all of Lacy’s friends were cold-blooded killers, but they had been involved on some level. And no matter the cost, he intended to know the extent of that involvement.

Guilt pricked him, but he pushed it away. He had a job to do and sentimental feelings had no place there.

It was time to put his personal feelings aside and focus on finding the truth, whether anyone wanted the real truth or not.

Melinda just wanted the investigation over. The Ashlands wanted to prove she had done it so they could have the children to themselves. Nigel Canton wanted nothing to do with any of it. But each of them were guilty in one way or another. Melinda, for more than likely hating the husband who cheated on her and abused her at will. The Ashlands, for looking the other way all those years as their prized son tortured his wife. And Nigel Canton, for being in business with the devil himself and taking advantage of the situation when the opportunity presented itself.

They all had something to hide—good, bad or indifferent. It was Rick’s job to find out if any of it had any bearing on his murder case. No matter how long it took he would get to the bottom of exactly what had happened to Charles Ashland, Junior. He would scratch and dig until he had every last detail of the final hours of Charles’s life.

There was no way to run from the past.

It always came back to haunt you.

Chapter 6

L
acy sat at her father’s desk for a long while before she worked up the nerve to do what she’d come in here to do. The house she’d grown up in didn’t have a study, but that hadn’t stopped her father from having a big, beautifully carved wood desk near the fireplace in the living room. It wasn’t as if they had used the room that often. They’d gathered in the family room at night to watch television. When she’d had friends over, the family room was where they played games, watched movies and sometimes even slept.

The living room was reserved for more formal, adult get-togethers and for greeting unexpected company. Like the morning of Charles Ashland’s last day on earth.

Lacy moistened her lips and pulled the middle desk drawer open. Her father’s .38 pistol lay there, right where he’d always kept it.

How was that possible?

She knew it was the same one he’d always had because the pearl handle bore his initials. Her mother had special-ordered the weapon for him more than twenty years ago.

But it shouldn’t be here.

The memory of the pounding on the front door sounded so real she jumped. But it wasn’t real—it had happened ten long years ago.

That morning.

She’d slept really late. She and the girls had had too much to drink the night before. They’d ranted about Melinda’s predicament. Had concocted plans to rid their friend of her horrible husband, even going so far as to come up with ways to kill him. They’d toasted his sure and swift demise so many times she’d lost count. Her parents had been off to work already that morning. Somehow she’d managed to drag herself up and to the door just as the second onslaught of brutal banging had begun.

Lacy remembered cringing in pain. Her head had been throbbing like the ticking trigger of a bomb prepared to detonate any second.

She’d expected Cassidy at the door demanding that she get dressed so they could get to the hospital to stay with Melinda until her no-good husband came to pick her up.

But it hadn’t been Cassidy or Kira.

She’d found Charles slouched against the door frame when she’d opened the front door.

He’d looked Lacy up and down with a lecherous stare and said, “It must be true what they say about beauty sleep. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Lacy remembered lashing out at him the way she usually did. She’d called him a bastard and a few other things, but he’d only laughed. When she’d told him to go away and attempted to shut the door in his face, he’d pushed it right back at her, causing her to stumble. Then he’d come inside and closed the door behind him.

She’d known she was in trouble. That moment had been coming for a long time. Charles had been flirting with her every chance he got. He’d teased her about being the one woman he hadn’t been able to sweet-talk back in high school. She’d hoped he would outgrow his stupidity, but that hadn’t happened. That morning he’d leaned in close to her and told her it was finally their time. He warned that he’d waited long enough. She’d smelled the liquor on his breath and it wasn’t even noon. He’d followed her deeper into the house. She knew what he wanted.

Fear had sent her flying to the living room and her father’s desk. She’d grabbed the .38 and, clutching it in both hands, she’d aimed it at him.

He’d laughed at her, taunted her about being frigid and repeated the trash talk from the locker room back in high school. They’d all laughed at her behind her back graduation night, calling her the only virgin to walk down that aisle. So many had tried, all had failed, he’d mocked.

She’d threatened to shoot him if he didn’t leave.

He’d ridiculed her a little more and then he’d left, but not before wrestling her father’s gun away from her. He’d known she wouldn’t actually shoot him. She hadn’t even had the nerve to take the weapon off safety.

She had rushed to lock the door behind him, then she’d slid down to the floor to cry like the weak, frightened victim she had been.

Why the hell had she let him get away with treating her that way?

To protect Melinda. She hadn’t wanted her friend to know how he’d goaded her all those years. She was every bit as much to blame for allowing his abuse as Melinda was. They’d both had their reasons for keeping the ugly truth hidden, but they’d both been wrong.

Later that same day they had found Charles murdered. The question was, how had Lacy’s father’s .38 ended up back in his desk? She hadn’t seen it again after Charles had taken it from her…not until years later, when she’d returned to Ashland for Charles’s memorial service. She’d been looking for a stamp to mail a sympathy card to the Ashlands. And she’d found the gun right there in the middle drawer where it had always been kept.

She wanted so badly to ask her father how he’d gotten it back, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. He would have wanted to know why she asked.

How had the weapon ended up back where it belonged? Charles couldn’t possibly have broken into her parents’ home and returned it. That was ludicrous to think. But someone had put it back where it belonged.

Her instincts told her that the others, Cassidy and Kira, believed she was the one who’d killed Charles. Or maybe one or both pretended to believe so in order to make themselves look innocent. Both had had every bit as much reason to want him dead as she had. Charles had made all their lives miserable.

Lacy couldn’t help feeling like a traitor even thinking such a thing. But she had to consider all possibilities. Someone had killed Charles. And it damned sure wasn’t her. It was past time she’d figured out who.

She’d thought she could live with the not knowing, that it didn’t matter who had killed him. He had deserved to die. What difference did it make?

But she couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter anymore.

The guilt wouldn’t fade.

She had to know the truth. Not that she wanted to hurt her friends. She didn’t. She would tell no one what she learned. But she had to get to the bottom of what had really happened. It was the only way she would be able to live with herself after this.

Lacy closed the drawer, concealing the weapon Charles had taken from her…the very one that may have been used in his murder. She shuddered. If one of her friends had killed him, they would have recognized the weapon and returned it to her father’s desk.

That was the only reasonable explanation.

It had to be one of them.

Melinda had been in the hospital, but did that completely rule her out?

What was she thinking?

Melinda couldn’t have killed Charles.

This whole thing was making her paranoid, making her feel things she didn’t want to feel.

She’d read the newspaper reports about Charles and the other events that had taken place around the same time he was murdered.

Pamela Carter had disappeared. There was talk that she and Charles had had an affair. That avenue was certainly worth looking into. Maybe Pamela had killed him and run off with the money Charles had withdrawn. Melinda had told Lacy about the missing money. The police had questioned her regarding the large withdrawal, but she hadn’t known anything about it of course.

Charles’s partner, Nigel Canton, had been investigated just as Melinda had. If there had been anything to find, surely the police would have discovered it. But then again, the same officers of the law hadn’t learned the secret they kept. Could she actually count on the police to find the real killer? Did she even want them to, considering it was more than likely one of her dearest friends?

Enough. She pushed up from her chair. She could sit here all day and speculate, or she could get out and find the truth for herself. That way she could protect her friends if she discovered evidence that it was one of them. Who was she kidding? She knew it was one of them. But which one?

She had several hours before she was supposed to be at Melinda’s. There was plenty of time for her to look into things, starting with the long-missing Pamela.

Lacy grabbed her purse and headed for her car. She’d have to be careful. The others couldn’t know. They wouldn’t understand. They would assume she was working against them. In all the years they’d been friends—and their bond went all the way back to before kindergarten—nothing had ever threatened to pull them apart as Charles’s murder had.

Cassidy was with Melinda and Kira would likely be working from her parents’ home. They all had jobs to take care of. Lacy had e-mailed and faxed several high-priority items already this morning. Cassidy had dumped her entire caseload on a junior partner at her firm and was consulting via phone and e-mail. Kira could more easily do her work most anywhere since she edited for a New York based publishing house.

Bottom line, they were all busy. No one was likely going to wonder where she was. She had her cell phone. If Kira decided she wanted someone besides her mother with whom to share lunch she would call.

As Lacy drove through town on her way to the Carter place, she abruptly noticed the smell of the old paper mill. Funny how when you spent your life someplace you forgot to notice something as cloying as that. On her way she opted to go past the suite of offices where Charles had once worked. The same place his partner had bought out full control. Nigel Canton darn sure had a motive for wanting Charles dead. The business aside, Melinda had told Lacy about the affair Charles had carried on with Nigel’s wife, Patricia.

From what Melinda had seen, Nigel hated Charles.

But he hadn’t been alone in his misery. A lot of men in Ashland had hated Charles.

Lacy drove slowly by the two-story building. Charles’s father had forked over the cash for the swanky architecture. Nothing was too good for his only son. The building still belonged to Charles, Senior, but he continued to lease the space to Nigel. Perhaps to keep him quiet about Charles’s extracurricular activities?

People talked in a small town. But when the gossip revolved around the family who all but owned the entire county, things were kept hush-hush to a large degree. And no one in his right mind would have testified against an Ashland. That would amount to economic and social suicide in this county and probably a few surrounding ones.

Lacy scarcely caught herself before she slammed on her brakes. Her breath was trapped in her lungs as her brain denied what her eyes saw. Rick Summers, Chief of Police Rick Summers, had just climbed out of his truck in the parking area outside the building’s front lobby. If he looked back toward the street—

He zeroed in on Lacy’s vehicle as if she’d shouted his name.

Somehow her foot pressed a little more firmly on the accelerator. As the vehicle carried her away, she knew it was a flat-out miracle she hadn’t hit anyone for she damned sure hadn’t been looking where she was going.

Her entire being had been focused on the man staring at her with such determination.

He would know she hadn’t driven by Canton’s office by chance. He would know she was up to something.

Dear God, he already suspected far too much. What the hell was she doing?

Exactly what Cassidy had told her not to do: handing him more fuel to fire his suspicions.

Rick watched Lacy Oliver disappear beyond the next intersection before he dragged his attention back to the here and now. What the hell was she doing driving by Charles Ashland’s old office? Was she watching Rick or checking up on Canton? One seemed about as unlikely as the other.

Maybe she’d picked up on him watching her and had decided to give tit for tat.

He’d have to find out one way or another. He damned sure couldn’t have her nosing around in his investigation.

He ran his hand through his hair and heaved a disgusted breath. He needed to have another talk with her. Soon.

He glanced up at the sky. Even at ten o’clock the sun was already beating down something fierce. The towering sugar maples and pin oaks dotting the landscape did little to block the heat rising from the asphalt.

Rick hustled to the front entrance, crossed beneath the navy canopy that offered some respite from the heat. Each of the windows on the front of the building had a similar canopy. Inside, the lobby boasted a library-type setting with lots of magazines and newspapers from around the globe available for waiting clients. The receptionist greeted him immediately and directed him to his destination.

Nigel Canton’s office looked as if it belonged in a penthouse on Wall Street. It definitely didn’t look like the sort of place one did business in a small town like Ashland, Alabama.

Thick, luxurious carpet. Rich gold walls with brilliant white trim that had to have been hand-carved the detailing was so intricate. The heavy mahogany furnishings and expensive-looking paintings completed the room. Rick was reasonably certain the decor alone cost more than he would make as the chief of police for several years to come.

Nigel, a tall, thin man with even thinner black hair and small brown eyes, looked inordinately bored with the idea that the chief had paid him a visit. He scarcely shook Rick’s hand before reclining back into his soft leather chair and clasping his hands on his desk in front of him.

“I don’t understand why this visit is necessary, Chief,” he said frankly. “I told the police all I knew ten years ago, and nothing has changed since. Quite honestly, I’m not at all surprised Ashland is dead. He made himself numerous enemies in his short life, including his wife and myself.”

Well, at least he was honest to a point.

Rick took a seat though one hadn’t been offered. The upholstered chair was plush enough that he sank deep into it and could have enjoyed the pleasantness of it under different circumstances.

“Mr. Canton, considering that we now know Charles Ashland is dead, it’s imperative that we nail down a broader time frame for all previously taken statements.”

He lifted a sparse eyebrow. “In other words you want to know where I was at the time Charles might have been murdered.”

“I’m afraid that one would be tough,” Rick admitted, “since we can’t establish exact time of death. But what I would like to do is build a broader framework of activity around the time of his disappearance.” Rick flipped open his notepad. “You stated that on the day of his disappearance you were here at the office all day.”