I Think I Love You (32 page)

"Yes, indirectly." She explained that she and her sisters had witnessed the murder from a distance and why they hadn't come forward. "When Elmore Bracken was arrested, we thought everything would be fine. But now, with all the new questions, we just want to make sure the right man is serving time. I actually saw the car and the murder scene up close, and I wanted to compare what I saw with what you saw."

He inclined his head. "Okay."

"How did you find the car?"

He clasped his big wrinkled fingers in front of him. "Walked up onto it, really. I was hunting with Hilton Mann—weren't after much, just training a new dog. It was hot as blazes. The dog ran off-scent, and we were looking for him. Found him next to the car, going berserk. Then we saw the Gilbert woman lying on the seat, dead as could be. Real still. Everything was so quiet."

The abiding stillness had embedded in her memory as well. She swallowed. "Did you see the murder weapon?"

He shook his head.

"Mr. Bradley," she said, wetting her lips. "This is very important. Are you certain there wasn't something that resembled a knife lying on the passenger seat?"

"Yep. Hilton and me, we thought she'd been shot because we didn't see anything that could've killed her."

She believed him—he didn't seem like the kind of man who would lift a souvenir from a murder scene. "Does Mr. Mann still live around here?"

He made a rueful noise. "Nah, Hilton's dead. Cancer took him a couple of years ago."

"I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Bradley, for your time." They stood and he shook their hands. She was halfway across the barren yard when something the man said clicked. She turned back.

"Mr. Bradley, you said that everything was quiet when you walked up to the car."

"Yeah."

"The radio wasn't playing?"

He thought a minute, then shook his head. "No. It was dead quiet, except for our dog barking. I remember thinking it was spooky."

"Thank you."

As they settled back into the van, Mitchell looked over. "The radio was playing when you left the scene?"

"Not just playing—blaring. The guy kicked the volume as he jumped over the side of the car. I'm thinking whoever took the murder weapon also turned off the radio."

"The battery might have run down."

"In an hour's time?"

He backed out of the Bradley driveway and pulled onto the road. "Does the report say anything about the running condition of the car?"

She checked. "It says the car was towed to the jail parking lot, but that could have been because they didn't want to disturb fingerprints."

"I remember reading, though, that the car was wiped clean of fingerprints. They only picked up a couple of partials that matched Bracken's, but he admitted to having been in the car on other occasions, so that didn't prove anything."

Excitement flowered in her chest. "That's why the murderer came back, to wipe away his fingerprints!"

He stared at her. "Uh-huh."

"But don't you see? That means if we find the letter opener, we find the killer."

"Or at least a trail to the killer."

"Right." She sobered. "Do you think the fact that Dean's car was also wiped clean of fingerprints means anything?"

"You mean like a similar MO? Maybe, but not necessarily." He pointed to a tiny roadside grocery store. "How about something to drink before we continue our sleuthing?"

Sleuthing?
She
was
sleuthing, wasn't she?

"Did I say something funny?"

"No. Something to drink sounds good." They let Sam out to run around while they purchased water and juice from the sweet-faced clerk inside. The girl blushed and stammered under Mitchell's smile, and Regina was struck by how winsome he was, how helpful he'd been despite her resistance, how easy it would be to....

No. She would not fall for him, not when her life was already on full tilt.

Of course, being on full tilt would explain why inappropriate emotions were flitting through her mind in the first place.

"You okay?" he asked, oblivious to the revelations exploding in her head.

"Yeah, let's go."

So they hit the road again, this time in the direction of Macken. Mowers had recently cut the grass alongside the narrow paved road. It lay long and seedy in random sheaths on the shoulders of the road, emitting the most perfect, sweet scent imaginable. On either side, fields of hay and tobacco and cattle spoke of the scenic but laborious way of life for dozens of small-farm families.

"This is God's country," he observed.

She nodded, wondering how her life would have been different if she'd grown up elsewhere. Better? Worse? Did a person's innate character develop along a preset pattern regardless of the surroundings? Possibly. Even if they'd grown up in a city, she would still have been the middle child, caught between the strong personalities of her sisters. And if not Dean Haviland, Justine and Mica would have found someone or something else to compete for.

"How do you like Boston?" he asked.

"Very much. I like the energy level and the excitement of the city."

"Which part of the city do you live in?"

"Near Roxbury, and my office overlooks the Charles River. You're familiar with Boston?"

"In my previous life."

"Your life as an attorney?"

"Yeah. I went to law school at Boston College."

She blinked. "No kidding?"

"No kidding. I still follow the Red Sox."

"Why did you leave?"

He shrugged. "After I passed the bar exam, I got a job offer from the DA's office in Raleigh. It was close to family and seemed as good a place as any to practice criminal law."

"You were a prosecutor."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't you miss it?"

He pursed his mouth. "Some days. Some days not." He pointed. "Which way do I turn here?"

He didn't want to talk about it. "Left, and the pool hall is about a mile up on the right, next to the gas station. It's as good a place as any to ask about Stanley Kirby."

Tick's Pool Hall was a greasy little dive where underage kids could get free beer as long as they played pool all evening at three bucks each a game and where adults could purchase pot out back by the Dumpster. Predictably, the regulars weren't the cream of the small-town crop, but as long as Tick kept a lid on serious trouble, the sheriff turned a blind eye.

When they walked in, every eye in the place turned their way. "Act natural," she murmured.

"We stick out just a tad," he returned.

Indeed, she'd never seen so many tight jeans, tall boots, and ponytails—and that was just the men. The women clinging to the men looked like they'd been ridden hard and put up wet. Tattoos abounded, as did snuff, cigarettes, and perspiration. Toby Keith boomed over the speakers.

Regina nodded and smiled at people they passed, then bellied up to the bar. "Hello," she said to the barrel-chested bartender, who was wolfing down a cheeseburger. "That looks good—I'll have one of those."

"Make that three," Mitchell said, sliding onto the stool next to her. Sam settled at their feet. "With two beers and a bowl of water. Is my dog okay in here?"

"I won't tell the health department if you won't." The man served up two glasses of draught and filled a leftover butter bowl with water. "Gimme three cheeseburgers!" he bellowed through the sliding glass window behind him, then took another bite out of his own.

Mitchell set the water down for Sam and dived into his beer. She waited for the head to dissolve a bit before taking a sip of hers. Cold, wet, good.

"Can I buy a pack of cigarettes?" Mitchell asked the bartender.

She lifted an eyebrow, but he ignored her.

The man reached under the bar and tossed a half-empty pack on the counter. "On the house."

Mitchell nodded his thanks, then lit a smoke with a match torn from a book with the pool hall's name on it.

"Don't get many tourists in here," the bartender said with a cheek full of burger.

"I grew up around here," she said, nodding casually. "Regina Metcalf."

He frowned. "Metcalf... John's daughter?"

"Yes."

"I only know about the hot one—the one who does commercials."

"My sister Mica," she said, still nodding.

"Yeah. And wasn't there a redhead?"

"My sister Justine."

"Yeah. Which one are you?"

She pushed up her glasses. "The other one."

"Ah. Hey—" He shook his fat finger. "Dean Haviland was found shot the other night at your place."

"Uh, yes. Unfortunately."

"Your old man do it?"

"We don't believe so," Mitchell cut in. "Did you know Dean?"

"Yeah, sure. He hung out in here when he lived here—maybe ten, twelve years ago. Came in here Tuesday. I probably served him his last meal—ain't that some shit?"

She opened her mouth to ask a dozen questions, but Mitchell squeezed her knee under the bar and left his hand there. Then he took a drag from the cigarette and turned his head to exhale. "About what time was that?"

The bartender squinted. "You some kind of cop?"

"Nope. I have some unfinished business with Dean, and I need to know who he talked to that day."

The bartender rolled his tongue around his teeth with some impressive sucking sounds. "I don't rightly remember."

Mitchell pulled out his wallet, removed a hundred, and palmed it to Hefty. "What time did you say?"

The money disappeared. "About eleven."

"Did he come in alone?"

"Yeah, but he met Stan Kirby and Gary Covey in a booth over there."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Don't know."

Mitchell palmed him another hundred. "Guess."

The bartender looked all around, then leaned in close and pretended to wipe the bar. "I heard Dean tell them that he'd hit the jackpot, but he needed help to pull off a job."

"What kind of help?"

"Stan's a small-time drug dealer—pot, Valium, Viagra."

"Viagra?"

Hefty nodded. "Housewives around here slip it in their old man's coffee. Anyway, Stan gave Dean a bottle of pills; I don't know what it was."

The pills that Dean had tried to get Justine to take? Regina had to force herself not to look at Mitchell. His hand snaked down and he squeezed her knee again. She couldn't tell if he was signaling her to be quiet or simply trying to cop a feel.

"Who's the other guy—Covey?"

The bartender scoffed. "Petty thief, all-around thug. Real lowlife. I didn't hear nothin' he said."

"How long were they here?"

"About an hour, long enough to have a burger and a couple of beers."

"Have you seen the other two men since Tuesday?"

"Nah."

A knot of customers came in and claimed the vacant bar stools around them, effectively ending the conversation.

"Burgers up!" someone yelled, and three plates appeared in the window.

The bartender passed the food-laden plates to them, and Mitchell passed one down to Sam. Steamy burgers and salty fries and a limp dill pickle spear. Regina's stomach howled with gratitude.

They ate their burgers and watched the sports news channel over the bar to avoid the temptation of discussing their new information.

"Your Red Sox aren't doing so well this year," he observed.

"At least my city
has
a baseball team," she observed back, still feeling the impression of his hand on her knee.

They left, heavy with comfort food. Sam dropped to the carpet and was asleep before Regina buckled in. "What do you think Dean meant by 'hitting the jackpot'?"

"I don't know, but it must have something to do with those pills. Maybe he was going to drug Mica to take her back with him, and maybe Justine's room was the only way he could get into the house."

"But what did that have to do with a jackpot? Mica said she's broke. Dean had no life insurance."

"On himself. Wonder if he had any on Mica?"

A horrific thought, but the fact that she could process the information at all spoke volumes about the current state of affairs.

"If he were going to blackmail the three of you with the information that Mica gave him, he wouldn't have called in the tip."

"Unless, like Justine said, he thought he'd be able to collect a reward." She looked at him carefully. "Could he have collected for providing information to support Bracken's hearing?"

"No, there was no kind of reward being offered. Plus the fact that he left an anonymous tip seems to negate that motivation." He pulled on his chin. "No, my guess is that he made that call either to make the three of you look bad, maybe to set up Mica's murder and try to pass it off as suicide and collect on life insurance, or to scare someone who might be connected to your aunt's murder."

"Blackmail?"

"Maybe. Maybe he told the person that you all could identify them, but he would handle the situation for a fee."

"You mean kill us?" She swallowed. "But if Dean knew the person was connected to Lyla's murder, he wouldn't need us for blackmail."

"Maybe he suspected but didn't put it all together until Mica told him what you saw. Or maybe he couldn't have come forward before without implicating himself."

Her head was starting to pound.

"At least we have a couple of new leads to pass to the sheriff," he said. "Dean might have been onto something else, something illegal—a big drug sale, for instance—that he needed his buddies' help with. The deal could have gone wrong and he was shot. Or maybe his buddies got greedy and decided they could handle the deal without Dean."

"But how would that explain Justine's missing gun?"

"Maybe Dean came back and took it. Mica had
his
gun. The front door was unlocked, and we were preoccupied—he could've easily come back and stolen it from the table."

"Do you remember if the gun was there when you and Dad left?"

He shook his head. "I didn't notice."

Regina didn't like the look of the sudden pinch between his eyebrows. "What?"

"Well, if your aunt's murderer is still out there, you and your sisters could be in danger."

She hadn't thought of that.

He turned in his seat to face her. "Tell me more about that day you all were shot at in the woods."