Dyer Consequences (23 page)

Kelly stopped her pacing and turned to face Jennifer. Early afternoon sunshine streamed down, making even the mud sparkle. She was aware of the cold breeze against her cheeks, the smell of mud. “What do you mean?”

“I remember your saying Lieutenant Morrison reminded you that you’ve been responsible for leading the police to four different killers. If not for you, Kelly, those people would have gotten away with murder.”

“What are you saying, Jen? That there are several people in Fort Connor who hate me? Gee, thanks. That really makes me feel good.”

“No, I’m not saying that . . . exactly. I just wish you’d be more careful. You scare me sometimes. You scare all of us. You get right in people’s faces, Kelly. You make them say things, admit to things, trip them up. I’ve watched you. You’re relentless.” Jennifer stared off toward the golf course. “Maybe Bobby and that crew from Colorado Springs are behind all the trouble. They probably are, and I hope they’ll slip up so the cops will catch them. But part of me is afraid you’ve pissed off somebody else, some psycho who’s lurking around town.”

Kelly tried to capture the image that Jennifer described, but it wouldn’t come into focus. A psycho lurking in Fort Connor who was out to get her? Her analytical side spoke up.
Riiiight.

She couldn’t help but smile, even though she could tell Jennifer was serious. “A psycho, huh? Boy, Jen, I don’t know if I can handle that or not. What with Jayleen’s ‘bad juju’ and now you with some stray psycho, I might as well hide at home in my cottage and never come out.”

“Hey, Megan, what’s up?” Kelly said into her phone as she continued tabbing through the accounting spreadsheet on her computer.

“I’ve found something else about Robert J. Lester. My friend who works for the university was able to access enrollment records for previous years. It seems Lester was a student at the branch near Colorado Springs a couple of years ago. He took a course in ranch management but didn’t finish. Dropped out. And he’s not registered now.”

“Well, well,” Kelly said as she leaned back in her office chair. Carl padded across the dining room floor and rested his chin on her knee, waiting for a head rub.

“She also checked the name Bobby Smith, but nothing showed up.”

Kelly gave an exasperated sigh. Then an idea suddenly pushed itself forward. “Hey, Megan, if you’re online, could you check the main university directory, please? The one here in town. Check the separate departments and see which one teaches courses on ranch management.”

“Sure, hold on a sec.”

Kelly sipped the last of Eduardo’s coffee and rubbed Carl’s silky soft ears. Carl offered first one ear, then the next. Meanwhile, the sound of Megan’s keyboard clicking away drifted over the phone.

“Okay, got it. There’s a Department of Forestry, Range-land, and Park Management. Now, what?”

“See what courses they have in ranch management this semester and who the professors are.”

“Let’s see... ranch management. There it is. Professor Baxter Brown is teaching this semester’s course. May I ask why you want to know? It sounds like you’re fishing for something.”

Kelly scribbled the name on the edge of a client file. “Thanks, Megan. I’m going to give Bobby a call and ask him how he likes his professor, this Baxter Brown. I’ll say I met him or something.”

“Why, Kelly?”

“Because I want to catch him in another lie. He told me he was taking a course in ranch management at the university this semester, and we’ve discovered he’s not enrolled. We know that’s a lie. I want to see what happens when I ask him how he likes the course. I’m betting he’ll lie again. He’s lied to me from the start.”

“So, what does that prove?”

Kelly exhaled an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know. Proof of another lie, I guess. That’s something. We can’t catch him doing anything else. That’s what frustrates the living daylights out of me, Megan. It’s not right.”

“Kelly, that guy is trouble. I don’t think you should be calling him. Why don’t you—oops, that’s my client calling. Talk to you later, Kelly.” Megan clicked off.

Kelly stared at her phone, debating for a minute, before she searched the directory for Bobby’s number. She punched it in and took a deep breath to calm down. Bobby answered on the third ring.

“Hey, Kelly, it’s good to hear from you. Jayleen told me what happened. I sure am sorry you had that accident. Is your foot gettin’ any better?” He sounded as friendly as ever.

Kelly bit her tongue. “Yeah, my foot’s actually doing great. Almost healed,” she exaggerated. “It wasn’t broken, just a real bad sprain.” Now,
that
was a lie. Talk about Bobby. . . .

“Well, that’s good to hear, it sure is. What can I do for ya? The animals are comin’ along great, especially now that the snow’s startin’ to melt.”

“That’s good. I hope to come up there as soon as I can. No special reason for the call, just wanted to check in. I haven’t talked to you since my car accident.”

“Lord, Kelly, that was somethin’ awful. You were downright lucky.”

Kelly held her tongue, while Navy curses bounced around her brain. “Yes, I was. But I’m better now. By the way, I think I met your professor last night at a dinner party. Professor Brown. Baxter Brown? He said he taught ranch management at the university. That’s the course you’re taking, right?”

Bobby didn’t miss a beat. “That’s right. So, you met him, huh? He’s a nice guy, isn’t he? Talks over my head a lot.” He chuckled in a good-natured way.

Kelly had to hand it to him. Bobby was one skilled liar. Smooth, affable, and unflappable. Positively scary.

“Yeah, he was real entertaining with his ranch stories,” she lied.
If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em.

“Oh, yeah, he’s got a million of those.” Bobby’s chuckle sounded again, low and friendly.

That’s it.
She had to get off the phone with this lying son of a sailor before she slipped and said something. “Hey, Bobby, talk to you later. I’ve got another call coming in.”

“ ’Bye, Kelly, take care of yourself, now.”

Muttering under her breath, Kelly clicked off and tossed the phone into her briefcase. Pulling herself out of her chair, she half-walked, half-hobbled to the kitchen—without her crutch. She was carefully putting more and more weight on her casted foot. Right now, she needed to pace or clump or walk off her frustration after that conversation.

Searching for more coffee, she found nothing but an empty pot and settled on a cold soda from the fridge instead. As she hobbled back to the dining room, Kelly glimpsed Tracy’s jacket on the sofa.
Damn
! She forgot to tell Burt about the jacket. She’d better call him now.

Kelly grabbed the jacket and hobbled back to her desk, where she dug her cell phone out of the briefcase again. She was about to dial when she noticed one side of the jacket was heavier than the other. There was probably something in the pocket, she figured, and set her phone aside while she searched. She withdrew a cell phone from the jacket’s left pocket. Tracy Putnam’s cell phone. Kelly caught her breath.

Tracy’s jacket had been buried beneath trash on Pete’s side of the basement. That’s why the police didn’t find her cell phone. Now they could trace her boyfriend, Jimmy. They could discover who he really was. There would be a record of his last call to Tracy the night she died. Or better yet, a message with his voice.

She had to see that number for herself. Then she’d call Jennifer and check if the number matched J. D. Franklin’s. She couldn’t wait for police to confirm it. She wanted to know
now.
Kelly switched on the phone. Several arrows appeared on the screen, pointing to various functions. Each brand of phone was a little different from the others.
Why can’t cell phones be uniform?
she wondered as she worked through several screens.

Finding the message inbox at last, she saw that it was empty.
Rats.
No messages from boyfriend Jimmy. Searching the menu again, Kelly found the directory and started scanning the names there. Not that many, actually. But at least these would provide another checklist for the police to interview. She continued scrolling through the alphabet until her eye caught the name she was looking for.

There it was.
Jimmy.
Her pulse speeded up.
All right! Now, we’re in business,
she exulted. She’d call Jennifer right away and . . .

Kelly read the phone number listed for the mysterious Jimmy. It looked familiar. It should. It was the very same number she’d dialed only a few minutes ago. Bobby’s number. Bobby was Jimmy.

Kelly’s heart skipped a beat. Oh-my God! Bobby was the mysterious boyfriend. The mysterious Jimmy. Robert J. Lester. Was that Robert
James
Lester? It must be. That means . . . Bobby was the last one to talk to Tracy. He came to the shop that night and entered through the door Tracy left unlocked for him. Bobby killed Tracy. And he trashed the shop to make it look like vandals.

Images bounced around Kelly’s brain now, her heart racing double-time as her imagination went into overdrive. Bobby was a liar, many times over. He’d lied to everyone. To her, to Jayleen, to everyone who hired him, and finally, to Tracy. But was he a killer?

But why would he kill Tracy? Did she discover his lies? Is that why he killed her? Was he dating her solely to get information about the ranch? Find out who the buyers were and where they lived? That had to be it. Smooth-talking Bobby probably picked out quiet, shy Tracy on purpose, then poured on the charm while he pumped her for information, using her. What a lying, devious, heartless son-of-a-bitch. Maybe Tracy discovered what he was doing and confronted him. Bobby must have killed her to protect himself.

Kelly tossed the jacket to a nearby chair, while she searched through Tracy’s phone for “Received Calls.” Sure enough, the last one was dated the night Tracy was killed. And the caller was “Jimmy.”

“
Gotcha,
you bastard!” Kelly swore in triumph as she clicked out of the message menu.

Or, so she thought. Unfortunately, pressing “OK” did not close out the screen on this phone. Instead, it dialed the number listed. Bobby’s number.

Watching the dancing symbols flash across the screen, Kelly realized what she’d done and quickly pressed the off button. She drew in a deep breath and sent a quick prayer heavenward that the call hadn’t gone through. Placing Tracy’s phone carefully on her desk, Kelly picked up her own and punched in another familiar number. She needed to talk to Burt now. Listening to the rings, Kelly took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

Burt picked up Tracy’s cell phone from Kelly’s dining room table. “This is great, Kelly. Now our investigators have a
reason
to question Bobby. He’ll have to answer for his whereabouts on the night of Tracy’s death. I’ve gotta hand it to you, Kelly. Broken ankle, foot in a cast, nothing stops you, does it?” He gave her a grin.

Kelly didn’t return it. That cold feeling in her gut was still there. “I wish I was as optimistic as you, Burt, but questioning Bobby will get you nowhere. He’s a master liar, like his relative sitting over there in the mental health facility. I’m sure he’s got an alibi all planned out. Hell, he probably got some drunk to claim he was drinking with him at a bar that night.”

“Hey, don’t be so skeptical. Those detectives know their jobs. They’re professionals.”

“Yeah, and Bobby’s a
professional
liar,” she shot back. “He lies right to your face and comes across as completely honest and sincere. He oozes cowboy charm and trustworthiness. And he’s devious as hell. He’s got an alibi, I’ll bet. Wait and see. Those detectives will never trip him up, and they’ll come away with nothing substantial.” She frowned at the phone. “Like you’ve said before—without anything that connects him to Tracy’s murder, you’ve got no grounds to charge him. I’ll bet you can’t even get his fingerprints, can you?”

Burt shook his head.

Kelly’s arm jerked out in frustration. “You’d think since he was the last one talking to her, he’d become a ‘person of interest,’ or whatever you call them.”

Burt gave a rueful smile. “Well, you’re right about that. Since we’ve found absolutely no link between those north side guys doing the break-ins and the shop vandalism, the boyfriend-killer theory appears more likely. Now that we know Bobby was the last one to call Tracy that night, it’s highly probable he also came over to the shop. But—”

“
But
you can’t prove it, right?” Kelly finished in frustration.

“No, they can’t, unfortunately. He could tell us they were simply talking on the phone or making a date for the next night or whatever.”

“We can’t prove anything yet, Kelly. Give the detectives a chance. Bobby’s bound to have left other loose ends somewhere. They’ll find them. Wait and see.”

Kelly gave a disgusted snort in reply. She’d never been good at waiting. She was too impatient. “Wait and watch him get away with murder, you mean.”

Burt shook his head again, giving her a fatherly smile. “They’ll get him eventually.”

She exhaled a loud exasperated sigh. “It’s the eventually part that gets me, Burt. Meanwhile, I have to sit and do nothing. You know that drives me crazy.”

Burt laughed as he rose from his chair. “I know, Kelly. Listen, I’ll take this to the department first thing in the morning. The guys will get right on it, I promise. Meanwhile, you’d better keep this new information to yourself, okay? Don’t share it with the others until the detectives have checked it out. Believe me, I’ll keep you posted.”

“You got it,” Kelly said as she pulled herself out of the chair and hobbled—without her crutch—to the door with Burt. “Oh, don’t forget to let Deputy Don in on all this, okay? Without him, we’d still be clueless about Bobby’s identity.”