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  “I know. I’m okay. Really.”

  “She was a hell of a woman.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  He couldn’t just sit at his desk and stare at the telephone, so when he was done with Tommy, he stood, stretched—something new popped in his back—and returned to the outer office. Murmurs and chuckles drifted into the hallway, and when he rounded the corner, he spied Hanson leaning back in his chair, head thrown back, and Billy Dent perched one-hipped on Hanson’s desk, gesturing wildly.

  “I interruptin’ something?” G. William asked.

  Hanson immediately bolted upright in his chair; Billy cleared his throat and stood, still relaxed. “Sorry, Sheriff. My fault.” He spoke before Hanson could even form words. “Came by to drop off the donations for the PBA and got to chatting with Darrell.”

  “Sheriff,” Hanson blurted out, “we—”

  G. William waved it off. There was nothing to do, after all, while they waited for the lab reports on Samantha Reed. And Billy Dent was hardly cause for alarm. A good ol’ boy in multiple senses of the word, Billy was one of those rednecks who had just enough sense and civilization in them to come across as charming, not outdated. Among other things, he ran the semiannual charity drive for the Policemen’s Benevolent Association…and still managed to raise a teenager as a single dad. Few were the places in Lobo’s Nod where you might not stumble across Billy Dent joshing with someone good-naturedly.

  “Not a problem,” G. William said. “Just wondering what all the ruckus is.”

  “Just telling Darrell about the last out of the season,” Billy said, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe his own memory of it. “I swear to God, G. William, this kid gets down on one knee for a grounder, just like you’re supposed to, and the ball—I swear, I am not making this up—the ball rolls up his glove and rolls right up under his sleeve, into his shirt! And then…”

  Billy regaled them with the tale of the Grounder Gone Wrong, pantomiming the poor infielder’s reaction, acting out the disbelief of the base runner with the skill of a practiced comedian. Despite himself, G. William chuckled, but when the story was over, he retreated to his office again. A nice break, but he wasn’t in the mood for jocularity. Rationally, he knew that blowing off a little steam was a good thing for contents under pressure. But in his heart…

  In his heart, he liked keeping the contents under pressure. Kept him honest.

  Billy rapped at the doorframe a few moments later, just as G. William had managed to absorb himself in a flyer about some stolen cars from the state police. “Can I help you, Billy?”

  “Was sort of thinking maybe the other way around.” Billy held up a paper towel with a cruller centered on it. “I didn’t just bring in the donations.”

  “Not enough you raise money, now you have to raise my cholesterol, too?” He’d meant it to come out as a grumble, but crullers were his weakness. He beckoned Billy into the office.

  Billy set the cruller down on the desk and—after a moment’s hesitation—slid into a chair opposite. He glanced at the corkboard and then, very quietly, asked, “You doin’ all right, G. William?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Billy said with the wisdom of a man raising a teenager.

  “I’ll survive.” He was aiming for snappy and breezy, but the words clogged halfway up his throat and he croaked them instead. Even he didn’t believe himself.

  Billy was too polite to comment. As G. William took the first bite of the cruller, Billy slapped his knees with both palms and stood. “You’ll forgive me for indulging my, well, my paternal side, right? Can’t seem to help worrying about everyone these days.” He turned to go, pausing at the corkboard, where photos from the Samantha Reed crime scene had joined the Swinton evidence. Linked here, at least. His cool blue eyes took in the photos, the reports. “A goddamn shame,” he said, his voice tight and edging into anger. “A real goddamn shame.”

  It was, and there was nothing more to say.

  “You ever need anything, you don’t be afraid to call me,” Billy said. “I mean, I know I can’t help with the police stuff, but the other things…I can’t say I know what it’s like to lose a wife the way you lost Joyce, but I know what it’s like to be alone.”

  They grunted acknowledgment at each other as Billy left. G. William inhaled the cruller in the solitude of his office.

  By the afternoon, his desk was covered in details, and G. William hated details right about then, didn’t want to see them or know them. Because these details were like leaves in a forest—they were everywhere, and they meant nothing.

  Samantha Louise Reed: strangled to death. No prints on her neck, but lubricant consistent with medical gloves. Ligature marks on her upper arms, so she’d been tied up at some point. Lividity indicated that the ropes had been removed prior to death, with minor burns showing she’d struggled.

  Good girl.

  Further lividity and blood pooling confirmed what he’d suspected—she’d been long dead when dumped at the crime scene. Picked up who knew where, dragged off somewhere, tied up, murdered…

  And raped, damn it. He didn’t know why the rape bothered him more than the death, why it loomed so large for him. Maybe it was because she’d still been wearing her underwear in that ditch. That had given him hope that she hadn’t died a rape victim. But no, the report was conclusive: bruising and tearing consistent with forcible sexual intercourse, along with condom lubricant.

  Poor Samantha Reed. Poor Dead Girl Two.

  He sighed and picked up the phone. “Hanson,” he said when the line was answered, “I want to talk to Samantha Reed’s boyfriend ASAP. And then her father.”

  Chapter 4

  This was a fact of life: Men killed.

  Yes, women killed, too—in slowly growing numbers that made G. William fear for the future of the species—but by and large, men killed. Men killed other men and men killed women, and when women died, the killer was usually a man and usually someone the woman knew.

  G. William did not like this fact. It squirmed inside him like some kind of living jelly. But his dislike for that fact did not make it any less a fact. That his immediate inclination in the Reed murder was to talk to the boyfriend felt unfair to the kid now sitting across from his desk, but—playing the percentages—the most unfair thing he could do in Samantha Reed’s memory would be to ignore the possibility that David Cloucher had killed his girlfriend.

  Cloucher had the close-cropped hair of a kid who doesn’t know there’s a timer set on every man’s hairline and he should enjoy it while he can. He wore baggy jeans, a sweatshirt that read PROPERTY OF LOBO’S NOD HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC DEPT, a pair of rimless glasses, and a slightly smirky expression that G. William thought of as Default Teen. That expression masked all kinds of things—anger, joy, lust, fear. Teens had the world’s best built-in poker face: a hormone-fueled, constant glare of bored contempt.

  Every time G. William had to interact with a teenager, he thanked the Lord above that he’d never had kids.

  “Saw you last weekend on the court,” G. William said. “Three for four from the three-point line. Not bad. Colleges are—”

  “You think I did it,” David interrupted, his expression not changing a whit.

  G. William said nothing, but cursed inwardly. It’s tough to lull someone into a sense of safety, a zone where they will share with you, when they already feel like a suspect.

  “We’re not in an interrogation room,” he said as gently as possible.

  “You guys always think it’s the boyfriend.”

  “No one’s blaming you, David.” You’re just a big ol’ suspect, that’s all.

  David shrugged. G. William resisted the urge to lean over the desk and slap some serious into the kid. Had he been so impudent and apathetic as a teen? He wanted to think not, but the likelihood gnawed at him.

  “Just want to ask you a few questions,” he said as soothingly as he could. “Like, when was the last time you saw
Samantha?”

  With a world-weary sigh, David started talking. G. William walked him through the basics—last time together, how’s the relationship, anyone fooling around on anyone else, c’mon, David, just you and me here, just two guys, c’mon, were you sniffin’ around?—for about an hour. At the end of the hour, he felt no wiser and no closer to the killer, though he did have a grudging liking for David Cloucher. Underneath the Default Teen was a bright kid, a decent mind, and a wicked sense of black humor that would have seemed natural to any cop at a number of crime scenes.

  Smart kid like that. Too smart to kill? Or smart enough to think he could get away with it?

  Besides being a storehouse for a lifetime of BBQ ribs and fries, G. William’s gut was also a good bullshit detector, and he was picking up no rumblings from David Cloucher. The kid was just a kid.

  He thanked David for coming in and turned to some paperwork. At the door, he called to him, and David paused, looking back.

  “Did you know Cara Swinton?” he asked David.

  Surprisingly, David laughed. “Dude. She was out of my league. Way out of my league.”

  “Doesn’t mean you couldn’t know her.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Did you want to?”

  “I told you before: I was really happy with Sam. I wasn’t cheating on her.”

  G. William nodded. “Thanks again for coming in, David.”

  He started the session with Henry Reed—Samantha’s father—the way he’d ended David’s.

  “Did you know Cara Swinton?”

  Reed blinked twice. “The missing girl? No. She was a year ahead of Sam. Is there some kind of connection—”

  “Never came over to the house?” G. William interrupted. “Never did any extracurriculars with your daughter?”

  With a befuddled expression, Reed shook his head. “No. I told you—she was a year ahead. We never…” He stopped himself, and his expression shifted from befuddled to outraged. “Are you insinuating…?”

  Henry Reed stood abruptly. “I will not sit here and have you…are you out of your mind? She’s my daughter! Jesus Christ!”

  “Henry, calm down and—”

  “Calm down? Calm down? And let you tell me how you think I murdered and…my own daughter?”

  Reed spun to the door.

  “Henry!” G. William struggled to his feet. “Henry, come on, let’s talk!”

  “No. You want to talk, Sheriff, you can talk to my lawyer.” He yanked the door open and stood just outside, jutting an accusatory finger back in. “You know, before you go pointing your finger, maybe you should look at the gross incompetence in your own department.”

  That stung. G. William’s department was small, true, but they’d done everything by the book for Samantha Reed.

  “No call for that, Henry. We’re all doing our jobs.”

  “Really?” Henry Reed’s face had suffused a wondrous shade of purple. “Well, talk to your medical examiner about how difficult it apparently is to give the next of kin the right damn clothes!”

  And with that, he was gone.

  Well, that went well. You sure finessed that one.

  On the way home, Roscoe’s beckoned to him. No. It wouldn’t do to have the sheriff seen in a bar—a fairly dive-y bar at that—while Dead Girl One was still yet to be found and Dead Girl Two was in the morgue. He recognized Billy Dent’s car in the parking lot.

  “You ever need anything, you don’t be afraid to call me,” Billy had said. “I can’t say I know what it’s like to lose a wife the way you lost Joyce, but I know what it’s like to be alone.”

  Yeah. Billy knew what it was like. Wife up and run off years ago. And Billy bore up under it. With dignity. If folks in the Nod kept track of such things, he’d probably be considered the town’s most eligible bachelor these days—handsome, piercing blue eyes, a head of thick, sandy hair. Younger looking than his years, kindhearted. But Billy was too busy for such things. Coached Little League. Drove the FoodMobile a couple of weekends each month. Held barbecues in his backyard that were the envy of the town and half the reason people rejoiced at the onset of summer. A Dent party was the Nod’s biggest bash, and everyone was on the A-list.

  “You ever need anything, you don’t be afraid to call me.”

  Almost on its own, G. William’s car seemed to drift toward the Roscoe’s parking lot, and it took an effort of will to steer away.

  G. William was not a big drinking man. He enjoyed a cold beer like any other right-thinking American, and he’d been known to fire down a shot of whiskey or three, but on a daily basis, his alcohol consumption was close to nil. Crying on Billy Dent’s shoulder, in the dark in Roscoe’s, a mug of beer nearby…that would be bad form, and he was ashamed for even wanting to.

  At home, he found himself staring in the mirror.

  You’re falling apart.

  I’m falling apart.

  Just let it go.

  Just let it go.

  Let the next guy worry about Dead Girl One and Dead Girl Two.

  Not her voice, he realized.

  His own.

  When Cara Swinton went missing, G. William had done his due diligence and investigated her father. Cara had no boyfriend—not even some secret skulduggery going on there—but he’d looked into her exes. Everyone had come up clean, with rock-solid alibis.

  Henry Reed’s explosion of outrage to the contrary, G. William wasn’t about to stint on his investigation into Samantha’s death, even if that meant poking into Henry’s life. The boyfriend didn’t tingle G. William’s radar, but that sudden eruption of Henry’s…that kind of anger could be a father’s righteous indignation and grief, or it could be the ugly head of guilt poking into the conversation. G. William intended to find out which it was. And if Henry got even more pissed at him, that was “the price you pay for sitting in the big chair,” as G. William’s father used to say.

  He had Hanson dig into Henry Reed’s activities for the past few weeks. Hanson was a middling investigator but a good people-person. He wouldn’t throw too much suspicion on Henry, in the event Samantha’s dad turned out to be innocent. G. William was both hoping and not hoping that would be the case—the idea that Samantha Reed had been raped and murdered by her own father didn’t sit well with him, but closing a case is closing a case.

  Darrell Hanson could get people talking without coming across as an actual cop. Not a bad skill to have in law enforcement. He didn’t always know what to do with the information gleaned, but that’s what G. William was for. Let Hanson stand in the river, stooped, and G. William would be the pan catching the nuggets of gold.

  Henry Reed was clean, though. Oh, sure, they thought they’d had a little something sparkly when they discovered that his Thursday nights were unaccounted for. He vanished on those nights—told the wife he was at work, told the boss he was home—but when Hanson tailed him, the truth came out: Henry Reed spent Thursday nights in the basement of Lobo’s Nod Methodist Church, pouring his guts out at a weekly AA meeting.

  Not even a mistress. The man was more than clean—he was shiny. He squeaked.

  It was a good news/bad news situation for G. William. No one behind bars, yet, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that Samantha Reed’s last moments on earth hadn’t been torment at the hands of her own father.

  Chapter 5

  The story faded from the headlines, but not from people’s thoughts. As the weeks crept toward Election Day, G. William felt a pall draped over Lobo’s Nod. Polling numbers showed him neck and neck with his Calverton opponent, who had rolled out his new slogan: “Sweep in the new!” It had apparently caught on, and now he was using it in every appearance. It was a nice little sound bite, and it was working in more ways than one: The electorate was buying it, and G. William was feeling very old indeed.

  To his opponent’s credit, the man had not beaten the drum of Dead Girl One and Dead Girl Two overmuch. As the headlines faded, he’d become more oblique with his references, mention
ing on occasion “recent tragedies” or “the sad increase in violent crime.”

  G. William’s days were blurry and foggy. He went through the motions. He signed paperwork. He handed out shift assignments.

  He dodged calls from Doug Weathers, who just kept calling and calling and calling. But Doug’s bylines were disappearing as interest in the dead girls waned. Weathers seemed desperate to dig up some nut or kernel from the sheriff’s office that could propel him back onto the front page. He’d even commandeered a local cable-access program to blather on about the murders, casting himself as an expert. Despite his best intentions and gut instinct, G. William had DVR’d the whole mess and watched it later.

  “The girls had to be killed by the same perpetrator,” Weathers said at one point with an unctuous yet urgent manner. His zeal was inversely proportional to his actual knowledge. “Both were roughly the same age and very similar in appearance. Serial killers have a type, you know.”

  “You have to kill three people at least to be a serial killer,” G. William growled at the TV. “And if ‘young and blond’ is a ‘type,’ then God help the state of California. I expect they’ll have a massacre on their hands anytime now.”

  Throwing around a term like serial killer wasn’t helpful. Especially when the throwing hand had terrible aim.

  He began to wonder: Had Doug Weathers killed the girls? And then reported on it? It was possibly crazy, but also crazily possible. He made a mental note to investigate the idea—practically licking his lips at the thought of Doug Weathers in an interrogation room (better yet, handcuffs).

  Careful, now. Don’t go fittin’ the facts to your theory.

  It was too tempting, though. And it made the sort of sense that kept coming back and rapping at the back door of his mind late at night. He opened a file on Weathers, for his eyes only. Warrants were needed for most searches, but here’s the thing: A warrant was unnecessary if the person being spoken to didn’t demand one. So when G. William called the bank and the credit card company and the phone company and told folks he was doing a little preliminary work and could they help him out…? They were all-too-willing to lend a hand. It was the path of least resistance, after all. It meant they could get him off the phone and go on with their lives, not worrying about future calls from the sheriff’s office, lawyers, depositions, paperwork.…