Eleven (20 page)

CHAPTER 20

The forensic investigation vehicles had left from in front of Royster’s house. Deputy White’s cruiser was parked on the road, and Sheriff Harris was standing in front of the chain link fence talking to Paige. Her hands were dug into her pockets, her arms fully extended. She rocked so slightly, one might not even notice, heel-toe, toe-heel. She did that when she was tired and ready to move on. She paused mid-tilt when we pulled up.

Jack walked between Harris and Paige and headed to the house. “We’ve got to talk.”

“Excuse me,” Paige said to Harris, putting a hand to his elbow.

I glanced over at him, and in the casting from the streetlights the man appeared to have aged over the last five hours.

Paige must have noticed my assessment. She leaned into me. “He had a hard time at the Windermere’s. Sally was their only child. Nancy couldn’t have kids after her.”

“Hmm.” The noise came from me, and I wished I had swallowed it.

Paige held an arm out in front of my chest and stopped walking.

“What?” I turned to face her. Maybe if I played it dumb, like I hadn’t realized it, she would move on.

She was smiling. “You’re starting to sound like him now.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Please don’t say that.”

“It’s bound to happen. You spend that much time around someone.”

“Stop there.” I was smiling now.

“Well.” She held the door open for me.

I put an arm over her and got the door. “Ladies first.”

“Thanks.” She ducked to fit under me, and watched me as she passed through.

Being so close to her I smelled her perfume, sweet and lightly floral. I remembered our nights together. And her laugh, not the fake one she put on to be flirtatious or seductive, but her sincere laughter that came out when she was vulnerable. “No problem.”

I turned back and looked at Harris. The toe of his shoe stubbed at the pavement, and his head faced downward watching it. I couldn’t help but think if a seasoned man like the Sheriff found notifications hard would it ever get easier?

My mind went to Quinton’s face, how it fell as his eyes filled with tears of denial. In that moment I had taken everything away from him.

“You coming, Kid?”

I watched Harris for one more second before closing the front door. “I’m here.”

The rest of team was gathered in the dining room. Deputy White came out of a side hallway, the rush of water from a toilet filtered in the background. He tipped his hat to us. “I’ll be outside. Give you folks some privacy.”

Zachery spoke when the front door latched shut. “I contacted the supervisor in charge over at the crime tip line. They pulled their records, and searched for anything that matched Royster’s voice using the tip about the cows as the sample reel.”

“Surprised they have that technology,” Jack said.

“The center was donated to the county by a rich man. Nothing but the best they say. Anyway, just got the call a few minutes ago and nothing came back.”

Jack turned to Paige. “Any further progress on the computer files?”

“I’ve made copies of the files to forward to Nadia to see if there are any more encrypted files.”

“She’s got a lot on her plate. Slingshot, maybe you can study them too?”

“Sure.” I dragged out the word a little too long. Jack noticed.

“You can or you can’t?”

Normally a field job was just that—away from computers. It felt like a demotion. I turned to Jack. “Can.”

“All right then.”

“I’ll make another copy,” Paige said.

“Anything else you have to tell me?”

Paige and Zachery shared a look, shook their heads.

“All right then. We saw Quinton Davis. His background file seemed to match up with the man himself. He lives under the radar, keeps to himself, reads a lot. Really wouldn’t peg him as Royster’s killing partner.”

“It’s quite common for couples to kill together. Typically, when you’re talking romantic involvement as well, the couple consists of one man, one woman. But the dynamics are based on one dominant, one submissive,” Zachery said.

“Obviously the male being submissive.” Paige arched her brows to accompany her sarcasm.

“Yeah, that’s it.” A small smile showed on Zachery’s lips.

I cut the joviality short. “We believe that Quinton was the submissive one in their romantic relationship, making Royster the dominant.”

“That right there tells us the unsub we’re looking for isn’t Quinton,” Zachery filled in the obvious. “We already know Royster had a submissive personality when it came to his involvement with Bingham.”

“Very good.” Jack’s sardonic statement was accompanied by an upward turn of his mouth for only an instant. “Because we know all of this started with Royster’s need for answers, he became vulnerable, a follower. That means whoever was with him during the torture and murder was stronger than he was.”

“But that’s not all,” I started. “Royster abused Quinton.”

“Abused him. How?” Paige asked.

“Cut him, just like the victims.” My statement sank in the air as if it were a tangible element susceptible to gravity.

“Quinton was his practice?”

I held out my phone to show them the picture Quinton had allowed us to take of his torso.

“Oh my god.” Paige’s eyes dragged from the small image to align with my eyes.

“And if you think that’s bad wait until you hear what Royster would say afterwards.” I waited until they were all watching me. “Ssh baby, don’t cry.”

“Creepy.” Paige shivered.

“Yeah and he’d say it while caressing Quinton’s forehead with the back of his hand.”

“Royster was one sick shit.” The statement came from Zachery.

“Seems that way. Do you think maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way—” My cell rang, and Jack looked at it. Even he recognized the ringtone as belonging to Debbie. I hit ignore. “We assume that Royster was the weaker of the two followers, but what if the other person was weaker?”

“No.” The one-worded response came from Jack.

“No?” Sometimes I wondered if he chose to disagree with me simply for being able to do so.

“No. Royster was the follower to whoever else was in that picture.” Jack took out a cigarette and lit up. A puff of white smoke accompanied his next words. “Quinton said Royster complained about the knife not being the right one.”

“That shows Royster was trying to imitate what he saw,” Zachery finished Jack’s thought.

Jack nodded as he took another drag.

Somehow watching him do this made everything fill in for me.  “We know Royster had a submissive personality. Therefore, we know the other person in that picture wasn’t put in place by him. He was recruited directly by Bingham. With Bingham in prison, this follower took over in every way including leading Royster.”

“Quite likely. The man was relatively weak.”

“He kept his relationship with Quinton secret for years.” For some reason I came to Royster’s defense.

“Weakness. He shouldn’t have been ashamed of what they had.”

“So it was weak for him to hold back because he didn’t want unnecessary public backlash including the potential loss of his job?”

“You think he’d be fired over what he had goin’ on with that man?” The Sheriff came into the dining room.

All of us turned to him. I asked the obvious. “You knew about it?”

“Course I did. Most of us did. Small place, or haven’t y’all picked up on that yet? The only ones who thought it was a secret were Earl and Quinton.”

“And nobody cared?”

“Nobody but Earl’s brother.”

“Robert knew about it.”

“Listen, Kid, if you’re gonna parrot everything I say, it’ll be a long night.”

I noticed Zachery’s smile at my expense.

“What did Rob think of his brother being homosexual?” Paige asked.

The Sheriff put one hand on his holster, the other to his hip. “He didn’t like it. Said it was wrong. Said the Bible said it was wrong.”

Maybe that’s why Royster had been easily malleable by Bingham?
Bingham was an advocate of scripture, a preacher of
confess, repent and be forgiven
. If that man accepted him for who he was, who was his brother to condemn him? That could have turned his mission of finding justice for his brother to one relating with Bingham’s mission. But we still didn’t know for certain Robert was a victim of Bingham, and if he was what the motive would have been for killing him. “How did Earl handle that?”

“Robert was still his brother. That’s why he took it so hard when he went missing.”

The sound of a ticking clock made its way from the direction of the kitchen.

“Well, people time to go.” Jack sucked in on the cigarette and headed to the front door. The pile of ash built up on the end no doubt proving as a motivator to get outside.

“Night Sheriff,” Paige said.

“Oh I doubt that. We’ll be watching the place, making sure there are no looters.” He pointed at the broken front window. “In the morning, we’ll get it boarded up.”

The ride back to the hotel seemed never-ending for only being about a twenty-minute drive from Royster’s. But my head pounded. I blamed it on the stench of second-hand smoke that had saturated my clothes and no doubt seeped into my flesh. I could barely wait for a hot shower to melt it away.

Zachery had called
shotgun
like a child, yet he was the genius, leaving me in the backseat with Paige. At least relief from the smell of cigarette came in subtle waves of her perfume.

Zachery dropped his head back on the headrest. “We’re definitely looking for someone close to Bingham. Someone loyal.”

Maybe if I focused on the case, the headache would subside. “He doesn’t have any living relatives. He never had children, so it’s safe to rule out those.”

“The farmers he worked for valued him, said he was hard working, but I don’t think it went beyond that,” Paige offered.

“He attended the Lakeview Community Church but wasn’t a member. No one’s mentioned him being close to anyone else we haven’t already spoken to.” My cell phone rang. It was Debbie again. I glanced at the clock on the front dash. Just after eleven. As far as I was concerned this was my time. I answered.