Wink of an Eye (15 page)

I took a couple bites of the sub while considering Sophia's theory. “If he's that bad off, who's running the department's day-to-day operations?”

She looked at me and shrugged. I wasn't comfortable just
accepting
the sheriff was a feeble old man who couldn't remember the last thing he'd said. Or that he had no idea eight teenage girls were mysteriously missing from his county.

“You don't like it. I'm sure he has some lucid moments.” She finished her sandwich and pushed the plate aside.

“He's got to have more than some lucid moments. He's still doing interviews—if he was that bad off, those in his inner circle would close in. Reporters, or even the general public, wouldn't have access to him.”

She propped her chin in her hand and looked at me. She was on the verge of speaking but carefully considering what she was going to say. Finally, she slightly grinned, reached in her bag, then slid a business card across the table.

I read the card then burst out laughing. Baskets to Go—Sophia's Custom Creations. “Gift baskets?”

“At least I didn't impersonate a priest.”

We laughed until we were both breathless and I was amazed at how easy it was. There were no fleeting moments of wanting to choke the lifeblood from one another followed by the burning desire to rip one another's clothes off. Not that I hadn't already imagined what that gorgeous bronzed-colored body would look like covered only in a shadow.

“Okay, so what's next?” she asked.

I quickly pushed the previous thoughts out of my mind in case she was a mind reader on top of her other talents. “I'm heading over to the McCallen's to take another look at the backyard where Ryce died. What's next on your agenda?”

“Interview the parents of the missing girls.”

“You don't trust Ryce's notes?”

She shook her head. “It's not that. He was very thorough. But, professionally, I can't just accept them as the unadulterated truth. I need to speak with these parents myself.”

I stared at my half-empty water glass wondering if I should be an optimist and say it was half-full and it was just a coincidence that two of the missing girls' fathers worked at the K-Bar Ranch. That left six whose fathers didn't. Or at least that I didn't know about. “When you're interviewing the parents, pay close attention to where they work.”

“You think there's a connection?”

I slowly shrugged. “I just don't want to overlook anything.”

*   *   *

Jasper the border collie met me in Tatum's driveway, turning circles and yapping his head off. I dug the camera out of the glove compartment and got out, telling Jasper to hush. He darted off behind the house, moving ten times faster than I could on a good day. He was back with a slobbery tennis ball clamped between his teeth before I made it to the front door. He dropped it at my feet and barked my instructions. Toss it, you human idiot.… I tossed it once, then escaped into the house before he brought it back for round two.

“Burke, it's Gypsy,” I yelled from the living room.

“In the kitchen.”

He was at the table writing out a grocery list. I pulled up a chair and sat the camera on the table. He glared at me over the rims of his reading glasses. “Wedding or funeral?”

“Pardon?”

He looked me up and down. “Only time people get dressed up 'round here is for a wedding or a funeral.”

I laughed. “How 'bout visitation day at Reeves. Does that count?”

“You dressed up for Hector Martinez?”

I grinned and nodded. “Yeah.” I didn't feel like going into the priest story again.

He pushed the grocery list aside, removed his glasses, and gave me a look over. “I hope whoever beat the hell out of you looks worse than you do.”

“I had a run-in with Mark Peterson's elbow.”

He raised his brows. “Peterson? What happened?”

“Seems my brother-in-law has a once-a-week game of hoops with a bunch of fellow officers. He invited me to tag along. Peterson doesn't play nice when he's losing.”

Burke studied me hard for a moment. “And did Mr. Peterson meet
your
elbow, too?”

I laughed and the pain in my ribs nearly took my breath. “He met a ball in the face, bloodied his nose a little,” I said, slightly wheezing. I wondered if Mom was on duty at the hospital.

“I guess that put an end to it when he saw you weren't goin' to roll over and play dead.” He smiled.

“Not really. He ended it on a high note. Let's just say I seriously thought I'd be singing soprano the rest of my life.”

He raised his brows again. “That hurts.”

I slowly nodded. And experts say you can't really remember pain. I say they've never had their balls shoved into their throats.

“So what happened with Martinez?”

I filled him in on the visit. He hung on every word.

“So he won't recant his confession because he's scared his kid sister will disappear, too.”

“Legit reason, I guess.”

“You know, with no real evidence against him, no serious previous record … a jury might have found him not guilty. But he didn't want to take his chances with a jury.” Burke rubbed his chin, running his fingers slowly over the stubble.

“He said Peterson told him he knew where his sister was and if he ever wanted to see her again, he'd cooperate.”

“So to get him to confess, they told him they knew where the older sister was, and to keep him from recanting, they told him the same thing would happen to his kid sister.”

I nodded. “That's pretty much it.”

Burke slowly nodded. “But why tell you this? If he's not goin' to recant his confession, what difference does it make who told him what?”

I slowly shrugged. I hadn't figured that out yet. There was a lot to this case I hadn't figured out yet. “Where's Tatum?” I asked.

Burke bobbed his head toward the bedrooms. “In his room playing a video game. Too stinking hot to do too much outside.”

That was God's truth. But there was work to be done. “Well, I'm goin' drag him outside for a few minutes. I want to go over what happened when he found Ryce.”

Burke slowly nodded.

“What do
you
remember about it?”

He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed heavily. “They'd already removed the body by the time I got here. They took him straight to the morgue. Told me not to worry about anything. They'd handle it.” His lips twisted with disgust.

“Who is they?”

“Peterson and Averitt McCoy. Sheriff Denny showed up about twenty minutes after I got here. For all the help he was.”

I thought about my conversation with Sophia and wondered, giving Burke's feelings toward the sheriff, if his perspective could have been skewed. “How did Denny act?”

Burke shrugged. “He offered his condolences. Said if there was anything the department could do, to call.” He looked at me through squinted eyes. “Why?”

I told him about Sophia's meeting with the sheriff. He thought about it, then rolled over to the cabinet and pulled out a new bottle of Jim Beam. He got two glasses from the dish drainer, then rolled back over to the table. I do wish he drank Johnnie Walker. He poured me a shot, then one for himself.

“So this gal thinks Denny's not running the department,” he said.

“I'm not really buying it, but it's something to consider, I suppose.” I took a careful sip of the whiskey. Last time Burke brought out a bottle, I finished it and agreed to work pro bono. I was prone to mistakes but seldom made the same one twice.

“Peterson's not high enough up the command chain to run things behind the scene,” Burke said.

“So that means either someone higher up is involved or Peterson has something on Denny. And if that's the case, Denny knows what's going on but he's looking the other way.”

Burke swallowed his whiskey in one shot, then poured another round. I waved him off as he tilted the bottle in my direction.

“Maybe your shooting wasn't related to the election at all. Maybe it's related to the missing girls.”

“Or … if Denny was looking the other way and if I had won, that would have put a damper on their little trafficking ring.”

“Did they recover the bullet?”

He nodded. “But I never saw it. Surgeon told Ryce he handed it over to someone in the department as evidence.”

“But there's no evidence file.”

“Not to my knowledge anyway. I think Ryce had asked to see it and, of course, no one could find it.”

I wondered if the surgeon would know the difference between calibers. “What's the department's standard issue?”

“Glock .357 sig.”

“Interchangeable with a .45.” It didn't matter what type of gun Burke was shot with if we couldn't find the bullet. And I'd bet finding it wasn't ever going to happen.

Burke poured himself another shot, then capped the bottle. “I appreciate your interest in what happened to me, but, like I said earlier … my main concern is what happened to Ryce.”

I slowly nodded. “But if I'm right, it's all connected.”

“And if you're wrong?”

I smiled. “I'm not. Just have to prove it, old man.” I pushed away from the table, grabbed the camera, then walked down the hallway to Tatum's bedroom.

He was sitting cross-legged on the floor at the foot of his bed, a video game controller gripped tightly in his hands. His bedroom was small and compact. A twin bed, a corner desk, and four-drawer dresser were the only furniture. The room was tidier than my apartment had ever been. No clothes on the floor, no empty drink glasses sitting around waiting to be washed. The bed was even made. “Hey,” he said, never taking his eyes off the small television perched on the dresser. “How's the investigation coming?”

I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him take out several bad guys in his pretend game of shoot-'em-up. If the kid could handle a real gun like he handled a video controller, he could cover my back anytime.

“I met Mark Peterson.”

He jerked around and looked at me, focusing on my busted lip. “Geez … did he beat you up?”

My pride wouldn't let me confirm that. “He got a busted nose out of it.”

He turned back to his war game and laughed. “You went for his nose? I would have gone for his jugular.”

I chuckled. “He's only about six inches taller than me.”

“All the more reason to go for the jugular. It was closer.”

I popped him on the back of the head. “Where's your girlfriend?”

He cut his eyes up at me, fighting a boyish grin. “She's not my girlfriend. She went to work with her mom today.”

“Oh well. Maybe you'll get to see her tomorrow.”

He shook his head and laughed. “She's not my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, whatever. I need you outside. I want to walk over the scene again.”

He slowly nodded and sighed lightly. I guessed revisiting the scene wasn't one of the things he wanted to do today.

I gently mussed the top of his hair. “You miss him, don't you?”

He nodded quickly but didn't say anything.

I exhaled deeply, understanding the longing. I wished I could tell him it would get easier but I wasn't going to lie to him. You never accepted it, you just learned to live with it. Sooner or later the anger burns down, but never completely out. It's always there. Smoldering, waiting for the chance to lash out because he wasn't there anymore. And he never would be again.

I finally spoke. “Tatum, you know whatever did happen to your dad wasn't your fault.”

I caught a glimpse of tears rolling down his cheek before he hurriedly wiped them away with the tail of his shirt. “I'm the one who told him about Alvedia's sister,” he sniffled.

That was going to be hard to get over. It tugged at my heart thinking the kid was going to be carrying that guilt for years to come. “But you know you did the right thing. And I'm sure your dad is very, very proud of you. It'd be nice, though, if he were still here to tell you that himself, wouldn't it?”

He nodded again, then rubbed his face with his shirt. He turned the game off, then got up and stood staring at me with reddened eyes. “You ready?”

I followed him outside to the backyard. Jasper ran circles around us, the sloppy tennis ball clutched in his mouth.

“Your dog needs something to herd.” I took the ball from Jasper and tossed it as far as I could, hoping it would buy some time between yaps.

Tatum laughed between sniffles. “He likes to herd the rabbits. Be careful where you walk—he likes to dig trenches, too. Dad sprained his ankle last year and threatened to shoot him.” A tenderness crept into his voice.

I knew exactly where he was coming from. Memories of something my dad had said or done, or something silly that made him laugh, or something Rhonda or I had done to make him angry would pop up in my brain every now and then like random snapshots. I often tried to pull them all together and piece them side by side like a patchwork quilt to make some sense of why he left. But I never could find the pattern. At least Tatum knew Ryce didn't leave him by choice. Not that it made any real difference.

We were standing underneath the tree where Ryce died, both of us looking up at the branch as if it held the answers.

“Tell me again what happened when the paramedics got here.”

“They got him down and laid him over there.” He pointed to a grassy spot about twenty feet away.

“How'd they get him down?”

“They cut the rope.”

“But how'd they get up to him?”

“They used the ladder. I had already gotten it from the lean-to and was trying to hold him up.”

“Do you remember what kind of rope it was?”

He nodded, the image firmly implanted into his memory. “It was yellow nylon. The kind you see on boats.”