The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted: A Psychological Thriller (15 page)

***

I shot straight up in bed, thinking I’d heard something like a door closing. Not slammed, more like being pulled gently closed. A dream?

I turned the alarm clock toward me: 8:07 a.m. I was still wearing my clothes from the night before. The word
overworked
came to mind, and after that,
underpaid.

I pulled my mobile phone from the nightstand and checked messages. Nothing. Then I dialed CJ’s number at work.

“Norris,” she said, sounding groggy and tired. She wasn’t the only one.

“It’s Patrick.”

“Hey, you. How’re things going?”

“They’re going. Listen, I need to ask you a question.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Ever hear the name Michael Samuels?”

She paused for a moment, and then, “No. Should I?”

“Not necessarily. Just wondering.”

She spoke her words slowly, and I could hear her smiling. “Whatcha workin’, Pat? Wanna tell me?”

“Don’t get too excited. So far all I’m doing is running in circles and getting doors slammed in my face.”

She didn’t respond.

I said, “You still there?”

“Yeah. Uh-huh.”

“Why the silence?”

“Oh, nothing. Just trying to figure out why you’re giving me a snow job instead of the truth.”

“I’m not giving you a
snow job
.”

“It’s a small town, remember that, Pat. People are talking. Also remember that I’m not stupid.”

“Never said you were.”

“Hmm. Yeah. Okay. Well good luck on that. Gotta go.” And she hung up.

I stared at my phone for a moment. Smart girl, that CJ, no doubt. Attractive too, and clearly single; I wondered why, then laughed at myself for asking such a stupid question. I hardly had room to talk.

I started a pot of coffee, went to the door to grab the morning paper.

It was unlocked. I was surprised at first, but I’d passed out so quickly the night before, I figured I’d simply forgotten to lock it.

I poured the coffee, brought it to my bed. Cheap motel, cheap coffee, but at least they gave out free newspapers. Not much going on in Corvine today: the front-page story was,
City Council Meets to Discuss New Traffic Light on Fifth and Cedar,
complete with a photo of the council, all two of them. They didn’t look particularly excited about the issue.

Turned the page for more of the same. Swap meet coming up this Sunday at the Baptist church. Missing German Shepherd; answers to “Mike.” Wondered who in the world would name their dog that.

I yawned.

From the looks of things, Nathan Kingsley’s kidnapping was the most exciting news this town had ever seen—probably enough for them, I guessed. They’d had their fill.

Since both the newspaper and coffee had failed to stimulate, I decided to get in the shower and get moving. I had an appointment with Jackson Wright in about an hour, figured I’d walk around town for a bit, maybe grab something to eat.

I lathered up in the shower and tried to organize my thoughts. No luck there; far too many of them floating around and far too confusing. I rinsed off, got out, grabbed a towel.

And froze.

Written on the steamy mirror, a message:

u spy

now u die

Adrenaline pumped up my spine and made me shiver. I sucked in a breath, forgetting for a moment to let it out as I moved closer. This time it sounded like more than a threat. It sounded like a promise.

Things were moving to a bad place.

The door I’d heard closing wasn’t a dream; it was real. Someone had been in my room while I slept.

But the message wasn’t written while I was in the shower. It was an old trick I remembered as a kid. Write something on a dry mirror with your fingertip, and the oil residue will cause the words to appear once it mixes with steam.

Clever.

This wasn’t just about pushing the envelope anymore; it was about crossing a line. Someone was aggressively pursuing me. I didn’t know who, but I knew one thing: the rules of the game were changing at breakneck speed. While they hadn’t harmed me yet, it would only be a matter of time before they did.

Time to be proactive.

I checked out of my motel and into another several miles outside of town. Paid with cash and used an alias. My name was now Ron Braverman as far as they or my stalker were concerned. Next, to the local gun store—I wasn’t taking any chances. Unfortunately, that ended up being a bust. The owner refused to sell to out-of-state customers. I’d have to get by without one for now.

Chapter Twenty-Five

A young public defender during the Lucas trial, Jackson Wright was now in his sixties with his own private practice, serving as the town lawyer, and handling all matters common. Divorces, probates, bankruptcies—you name it.

His office was a 1930s bungalow converted for commercial use. A grandmotherly woman with flaming red hair and wire-rimmed glasses paused her busy typing long enough to peer over her glasses at me and smile a greeting. After I introduced myself, she directed me to a small waiting area. They had the latest copy of
News World.
I smiled and
began thumbing through the pages.

A few minutes later, Wright appeared, a tall, white-haired man with a round, pleasant face.

“Mr. Bannister,” he said, reaching out to shake my hand.

“Appreciate you taking the time. Hope I’m not throwing you off schedule.”

“Not at all,” he said, then led me back to his office. It was a tightly contained mess, bookshelves overflowing and document boxes scattered throughout. Somewhere in the midst, I saw a desk. Found a chair and sat. He reclined in his, a black leather high-back. With fingers locked in his lap, he said, “I figured it was only a matter of time before you got to me.”

I smiled. “Who gave you the heads up?”

He gazed toward the ceiling, eyes narrow, fingers drumming on his desk. “Let’s see. Millie at the bar, Dottie at the beauty shop, and Mary at the bank… Oh, and CJ Norris over at
The Observer.
But she was more trying to hook us up than gossip. As for the others, well …”

“Strange thing,” I said. “Besides CJ, I haven’t met any of them.”

“Small town,” he said with a smile and a wink. “Word travels faster than spit through a straw around here. So how can I help you?”

I got right down to it. “Do you believe Ronald Lucas was innocent?”

“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation.

“Can you tell me why?”

“There was information that never made it into the courtroom. Things that would have made all the difference in the world.”

“The evidence that went missing…and the girlfriend’s alibi?”

He paused a beat, then nodded. “You’ve spoken to Nissie, I take it.”

“I have.”

His mouth slid toward a frown, and he let out a long sigh. “Unfortunately, I didn’t find out about Emma’s note until it was too late.”

“His intentions were noble.”

“Noble, yeah, but also pretty foolish. And the real tragedy is that he didn’t need to hide that alibi note at all. As far as the kid went, we probably could have remanded custody to Nissie and kept her away from Emma’s husband—especially since it turned out she didn’t even belong to him. Unfortunately, Ronnie was too unsophisticated about the laws and how they worked to know better. And a bit paranoid. I could hardly blame him after what he’d been through.”

“And the other evidence?”

“Well, I’m sure Nissie told you about our mailman.”

I nodded.

“But there’s even more that she
didn’t
tell you. Did you happen to hear about the D.A.’s dramatic performance in court? The one with the window and the much-celebrated Nathan Doll?”

“CJ told me something about that.”

“Very impressive, a real showstopper, but more smoke and mirrors than anything else, because what they failed to mention during their big production number was that a key piece of evidence went missing. Evidence that would have proven their little dog-and-pony show completely meaningless.”

“Really,” I said, leaning forward. “Tell me about it.”

“A fresh shoe print found in the dirt just below that famed windowsill.”

“Whose was it?”

“Not Ronnie’s, that’s for sure. He wore a nine and a half, and this was an eleven.”

“So who’d it belong to?”

“Don’t know. Never got the chance to figure it out since the plaster mold mysteriously got lost on its way to trial. I didn’t find out about it until years later. Believe me when I say that if I’d known sooner, I would have been all over it like white on rice.”

“How does that
happen? Evidence just disappearing like that.”

“Well,” he said, leaning back in his chair and gazing toward the ceiling, “the story went that someone screwed up, but I think someone
covered
up. That print was part of the evidence that initially went missing, only it never came back with the rest of the stuff. Odd that it was the one thing that could have cleared Ronnie.”

“How’d you find out about it?”

“At the Alibi bar, of all places. I overheard some blabbermouth talking one night. You know the type—five hundred words per minute with gusts up to a thousand. She worked for the sheriff’s department and was letting off steam, I suppose, telling everyone about it. At first I thought it was just a bunch of mumbo jumbo—you know, false bravado fueled by liquid courage. But when I looked deeper, it all checked out.”

“Any idea who lost it?”

“One of Lindsay’s flunkies at the time, guy by the name of Flint Newsome was in charge of the evidence when it went missing.”

“So where did it go during the time it was lost?”

He shrugged, lifted both hands, palms up. “Don’t know. Not sure anyone does, really.”

“Suspicious.”

“As a pink fur coat,” he said, eyeing me, nodding slowly. “Indeed.”

“And odd, too, that the shoe print was never reported missing. Don’t you think?”

“Not really. I mean, they had a …
situation
on their hands.” He made quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “So what do they do? Well, the short answer, and the easiest one, is to turn over what they have and keep their mouths shut about what they don’t. Then pray to God it all works out.”

I thought about Jerry Lindsay and his defensive posture.

He continued, “As far as I’m concerned, the whole thing stunk like someone’s rotten trash. They sent an innocent man to the electric chair. That’s murder on top of murder in my book.”

“What about the shoe?” I said. “Can you tell me anything more about it?”

“It was a boot, actually, and like I said,
size eleven.
Tony Lama was the brand, I believe. They knew that because of the logo on the heel. That’s what I believe Blabbermouth said.”

A cowboy boot. I thought about it, then reminded myself that this was Texas; no shortage of those here. But it seemed a lot of coincidences were beginning to stack up, all of them pointing right to the man who called himself Michael Samuels.

I said, “The guy who lost the evidence, this Flint…”

“Flint Newsome.”

“He still around? Can I find him?”

Jackson nodded. “Lives in a trailer up on Highway 72. I’m not sure there’s even a real address. You could probably stop by the Texaco station off the 24 exit, just before Springfield, talk to Judy there. She knows everyone.”

“What about tracking him down at work?”

“He got fired from the sheriff’s department after the whole mess, then became a permanent employee of the state.”

“Doing what?”

“Collecting unemployment, disability, and anything else he could get his hands on. I’ll tell ya’, that boy’s dirtier than tank water.” He shook his head. “A real ne’r-do-well, that one.”