Standoff, page 18
It backed up, watching him, the fur on its back raised. Ignoring the dog, he tried the door. Open, like he expected. The South was like that. No need to inconvenience anyone wanting to bring food. Once inside, he oriented himself. The kitchen and living room were an open-concept design. To the right was a door, probably a hallway to the bedrooms and maybe a den. He hit pay dirt at the first door he opened off the hall. Marlar’s office. Now to find the photos.
Half an hour later, he’d gone through every folder in Marlar’s file cabinet and had come up with zilch. The laptop was password protected, and he didn’t have time to break the code. He’d have to take it with him, but he’d leave the camera since it had nothing on it. He pulled out a desk drawer and felt under it. Where had Marlar hidden those photos? Maybe in his bedroom? He checked his watch. Not enough time to search the rest of the house.
He’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but he’d come prepared. Working quickly, he removed the items from the cloth bag. Using his knife, he cut a three-foot strip of safety fuse, then slipped one end into a cap and crimped it. Once he had the detonator secured in the half stick of dynamite, he turned to the gas can. Needed something to keep it from rolling. He found a small book that would do and placed it and the explosive under Kyle’s desk then set the can on top.
Before he could unscrew the gas cap, the front screen door scraped open, and a woman’s voice floated back to him.
“See you tonight.”
No! Sharon Marlar was not supposed to be back so soon. If he sneaked out through the kitchen, she’d be sure to see him. His gaze landed on the open office door. If she came down the hall, she’d definitely find him. He pulled his gun as he searched for an escape. If worse came to worst . . .
The closet. He left the gas and dynamite under the desk and slipped inside the closet just as footsteps came down the hall, the dog yapping behind.
“Hush, Toby,” she said, her footsteps continuing until a door closed.
He pressed his back against shelves. There was barely enough room to shut the closet door. On the other side of the door, a low growl came from the dog’s throat.
A toilet flushed just as the doorbell rang. More people arriving. He was trapped. If only he’d waited for the cover of darkness. The doorbell rang again. He held his breath as her footsteps hurried toward the kitchen, then stopped.
“What’s the matter, Toby? Are you looking for Kyle?”
She was at the office door. What if she smelled the gas? He fingered the trigger of the gun in his hand. Don’t come in here.
The distinctive click of a door shutting threw his heart into overdrive, slowing only when he heard Sharon Marlar’s muffled call to the visitor that she was coming.
Cautiously he eased from the closet. With the office door closed, he had no idea what was happening, but then neither could anyone see what he was doing.
43
A car was leaving the Marlars’ when Brooke rounded the curve a quarter of a mile away. She had picked up a large bucket of chicken at Annie’s along with a dozen of her famous biscuits and an apple pie. Comfort food. If she weren’t full from her late breakfast, the heady aroma of the chicken would have her opening the bucket and sampling it.
It was hard to think about meeting Jeremy in an hour at Mammy’s Cupboard. Maybe she’d just have a salad, and leave the pie off . . . yeah, right.
Brooke turned into the drive where a modest house sat on a lot carved out of the surrounding woods. Someone had spent a lot of time tending the yard that was thick with zoysia grass. Kyle, maybe.
The circle drive was empty, but the front door was open. Brooke wanted to first check and see if Sharon was home before she took the food in. A lot of people in Natchez would be comfortable taking the chicken into the house, but she didn’t like rambling around in someone’s house when they weren’t home.
After climbing the porch steps, she rang the doorbell while peering through the old-fashioned screen door into the darkened house. Brooke pressed the doorbell again and let a minute pass. Just as she turned to leave, she heard a faint voice.
“Coming.”
Barking accompanied the footsteps that approached. A thin wisp of a woman opened the door and stepped on the porch followed by the source of the barking. A long-haired dachshund. Brooke turned to Sharon. Dark circles under her reddened eyes spoke volumes about the kind of night she’d endured.
Sharon offered a faltering smile. “Brooke?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said and enveloped the widow in a hug.
“Thank you,” Sharon said, sniffing.
“I was afraid you weren’t home,” she said.
“My car is in the shop, and Kyle’s is at police headquarters.”
Brooke nodded toward her car. “I have chicken and biscuits from Miss Annie’s. And pie.”
Tears threatened to spill from Sharon’s eyes. “Everyone’s been so kind, and this will be perfect for tonight when Bill comes back with his family.”
“Stay here, and I’ll get it.” Brooke hurried down the steps, but after she retrieved the food, she realized Sharon had followed her to the car. “Would you like me to take it to the kitchen for you?”
Sharon stared blankly at Brooke. She ran her hand through her short brown hair. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Sharon, are you all right?”
“I can’t do this again,” she said, her face as white as flour. The tears that had threatened minutes ago spilled from the older woman’s eyes, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “First Brandon and now Kyle. Why?”
Brooke had no answer. Losing her father had been awful. What if she’d lost her sister as well? She set the food on the hood of her car and gently folded Sharon in another embrace. “Go ahead and cry.”
She didn’t tell the widow everything was going to be all right, or that Kyle and Brandon were in a better place. Both might be true, but Brooke knew from experience those weren’t the words she wanted to hear right now.
After a minute, Sharon wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’ve cried until my head is stopped up, and I can barely breathe through my nose.” She fished a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “Everyone keeps saying it’s going to be all right, but it won’t. It won’t ever be all right again. Brandon and Kyle . . . they were my life.”
“It’s hard losing someone you love.”
Sharon gave a little gasp. “Oh, my goodness. I’m sorry. You just lost your father, and I’m coming apart on you.”
Brooke squeezed her waist. “Don’t worry about me, but I do need to get the chicken into your refrigerator. Why don’t we get you back inside and then I’ll put it away.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Yes, you can.” Sharon trembled as Brooke helped her climb the steps.
At the door she hesitated. “I want to sit out here.”
Brooke guided her to the swing. “I’ll be right back.”
She was familiar with the Marlar house, and after retrieving the food she quickly walked to the kitchen and set the pie on the counter. When Brooke opened the refrigerator, it was full. She wasn’t the only one who’d brought food. She found a smaller container for the chicken, and after rearranging the middle shelf, she managed to squeeze it in.
A thump came from the adjacent room. Kyle’s office, if she remembered correctly. Brooke peered down the hallway. “Sharon?”
Absolute quiet answered her, and then sharp barking erupted. Her muscles relaxed. She’d wondered where the dog went. “It’s just me, Toby,” she called. He barked at everything. “Do you want to go out?”
The dog appeared at the kitchen door and barked again. She repeated her question, and the longhaired dachshund sat down and cocked his head, his bushy eyebrows and beard reminding her of an old man. “I guess not.”
Brooke returned to the porch. “I put the chicken in a smaller container,” she said and settled beside the widow on the swing. A strong gust of wind from the south held the promise of rain later. “If I can help do something else, like wash dishes or sweep, or whatever, I’ll be happy to.”
Sharon shook her head. “No, the food is more than enough.”
“When will Todd arrive?” Bill, the son who had been at the hospital last night, lived up around Jackson. The middle son Brooke went to school with lived out in California.
“Tomorrow,” she replied. “Bill dropped me off after we finished making arrangements, then he left to go home for clothes and the rest of his family.”
Must have been the car she saw leave. “When’s the funeral?”
“One o’clock Monday at the church. I hope it doesn’t rain.”
She hated for Sharon to be all alone right now. “You want me to stay a minute?”
Sharon hesitated, then her face crumpled again. Brooke didn’t know what to say or do other than pat her arm.
But instead of falling to pieces again, Sharon straightened her shoulders. “Do you mind? We can stay out here on the porch. I hate being inside the house—the quiet is so loud I can’t stand it. But I can’t stand to hear the TV or radio either.”
“No, the porch is fine.” Brooke sneaked a glance at her watch. She could spare a few minutes before meeting Jeremy at Mammy’s Cupboard.
They sat, neither of them speaking as Sharon stared down at her feet. Occasionally she’d give the swing a push with her foot. She lifted her head, and Brooke followed her gaze to the field across the road. “I understand you found him. Did he say anything before . . . ?”
“His last words were of Brandon and you,” Brooke said. “He wanted you to know he loved you.”
Sharon dabbed her eyes again. “I can’t believe he won’t be pulling into the drive soon.” Then she fell silent again.
Brooke nodded but remained silent.
“I know I have to get a grip, be strong for my two boys that are left, but it’s hard.”
She sensed Sharon’s eyes on her and shifted where she could see her face. “You’ll make it through this.”
“You understand better than most, with your dad . . .” Sharon shook her head. “Kyle didn’t believe your dad killed himself. Told me so.”
“Anyone who knew him won’t believe it,” Brooke said.
“Kyle had even been vocal about it. Told the sheriff if he didn’t investigate it as a murder, he was going to get someone down here that would. Do you think that could have gotten him killed?”
Brooke’s heart hitched. As a state representative, Kyle had the connections to request an investigation. “I hadn’t heard that, but the investigation will uncover his killer.” She hoped.
“You have to find whoever did this,” Sharon said, her voice hard.
“The FBI and Pete Nelson are doing all they can to find the person responsible.”
“Pete.” She spat his name out. “I don’t trust him. His dad was no good, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Brooke kept quiet. She didn’t share Sharon’s sentiments about Pete.
“Kyle told me you’re a law enforcement ranger now, so why don’t you investigate it? I trust you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, and I am on the team,” Brooke said and shifted in the swing. “Are you up to answering a few questions?”
“I’ll make myself be up to it.”
Brooke searched for a question that wouldn’t have Sharon in tears again, if there was one. “Had Kyle been acting differently lately?”
“Kyle rarely let me know if anything was bothering him,” Sharon said. “But I always knew. Lately he couldn’t sleep at night, and when I asked him what was wrong, he wouldn’t tell me. Said it was better that I didn’t know. I thought it had something to do with Brandon’s overdose. His death really shook us up. But . . .”
Brooke gave her time to compose herself.
Sharon dabbed her eyes again. “I don’t know if this might have to do with anything, but over a week ago, I heard him on the telephone in his office. I know I shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but I was tired of his secrets.” She chewed her bottom lip. “He was talking about money someone had donated. Whoever gave it to him was putting pressure for Kyle to vote against legalized marijuana.”
“I understand he planned to vote for it.”
Sharon nodded vigorously. “Because of that boy in town who has seizures. Kyle wanted to help him.”
“Do you know who was pressuring him?”
Sharon shook her head. “Toby started barking to go out, and Kyle must have heard me. He quit talking.”
“Does Kyle have a computer?” Brooke asked. If he had his financial records on it, she could possibly figure out who was pressuring him to change his vote.
“He has a laptop.” Then Sharon gasped. “That had to be what he was working on.”
“What are you talking about?”
She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Monday night I missed him in bed and found him in his office working, but he shut his computer down as soon as I walked into the room.”
Somewhere in the back of the house, Toby barked again. “Could I look at the laptop?”
“I don’t think it’d do you any good. It has a password, and I don’t know what it is.”
“Can I give it a try? Maybe his passwords are in a file in his office somewhere. I can take a few minutes to look.”
Brooke’s heart rate accelerated. This could be the break they were looking for. Except, if she found something, she’d have to leave it where it was and report it to either Pete or the FBI. But there was nothing that said she couldn’t photograph anything she found. She felt her pocket for her phone and remembered she’d left it in the cup holder. “Let me grab my phone from the car.”
Photographs. She stopped at the top of the steps as the Marlars’ dachshund barked at the front door. “Kyle said something about photos last night. Do you know what he might have referred to?”
“He had so many . . . most of them are on his computer.”
“How about his camera?”
“There might be some in it. Pete dropped the camera off this morning, and I put it in his office.” Sharon opened the door to let the dog out, and he shot past them. “Toby is going to be the death of me. He barks at everything. Probably saw a cat.”
The dog tore past the house to the back of the property, his frenzied barks filling the air. Brooke turned and hurried to her car as Sharon followed her to the edge of the porch. A gust of wind pushed against her back, and for a second the scent of rotten eggs turned her stomach.
The wind must have changed, bringing the sulfur smell from the nearby paper mill. Brooke looked over her shoulder toward the porch.
She froze as time slowed.
In the yard, Toby barked, the sound hollow and far away. Sharon turned toward the house as an orange ball of flame barreled out the front door.
Her mind barely registered the boom a fraction of a second later. A blast of hot air knocked her backward to the ground. The buzz of a thousand hornets in her ears drowned out everything as her world turned dark.
44
Luke forced himself to breathe deeper as he turned off the Trace at Emerald Mound. He hadn’t returned to the site until now. Heat shimmered off the blacktop road as images from Sunday night bombarded him.
His Jeep racing down the black winding road from Windsor Ruins to the mounds. John’s pickup in the parking area. His friend on the ground . . .
Luke pulled over and uncapped a water bottle, tipping it up to wet his dry mouth. It was hard to believe it’d been just six nights ago.
He recapped the water bottle and inched his car down the road until the historic landmark came into view. Someone had laid a wreath in front of the park service sign. He bowed his head briefly, acknowledging his inadequacy. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, but even in hindsight, he didn’t see how he could have changed the outcome. Luke couldn’t be in two places at one time. But why was John meeting someone here without backup? Or had his backup been his killer?
He climbed out of his car and took the metal detector from the cargo area. He didn’t think he would find the pocketknife shown in the photos, but stranger things had happened. Luke believed the killer dropped it and then came back for it. Or he could have been one of the investigating law enforcement officers and retrieved it during the investigation.
He was here because he believed in Locard’s exchange principle—the killer brought something into the crime scene and left with something from it. With no clear-cut suspect, discovering what the killer took from the scene was almost impossible. He was looking for what the killer may have left behind.
And by being here, Luke hoped to put himself in the killer’s mind. Unlike serial killers driven by a psychopathic mind and who often spent days stalking their prey and planning down to the last detail, the average killer was an ordinary Joe who got backed into a corner, usually not well organized and who often killed on the spur of the moment. At least with their first kill.
He pulled out the official report and went over it again, noting no note had been found. Odd. If John had killed himself like the ME said, wouldn’t he have left a note?
After an hour under the hot Natchez sun, Luke peeled off the sweat-filled latex gloves he’d slipped on and dried his hands. So far he’d found a lot of nuts and bolts and ring tabs, but nothing else. He was about ready to give up. He made one last sweep with the detector, working toward the county road, when the detector went crazy. He pulled on another pair of gloves and used his fingers to sift through the dirt.
A bottle cap. Frustrated, he started to stand when something caught his eye. Thin, curled pieces of wood like he’d seen on Court Square when the old men sat around whittling and telling tall tales.
What if the drug runner had whittled while he waited for the drugs to arrive? And what if forensics could match the shavings to the knife in Luke’s photos from John’s crime scene?
Luke photographed the site then placed a marker and stepped back and snapped a photo of the site in context of the whole area. Not for court purposes, but for him personally. He picked up the marker and gathered the shavings, placing them into a paper envelope, then he grabbed the metal detector and packed everything away in his Jeep. There was no reason to risk someone driving by and reporting him for having a metal detector on government property.
