Winter Kill - lanyon Josh (электронные книги без регистрации TXT) 📗

Russell had been paying closer attention than Adam realized.

He said, “I don’t know what gone native means.”

“I notice that you’re not denying that you and Haskell have a relationship outside of your professional one.”

As Adam stared into Kennedy’s eyes he realized something totally unexpected. Unexpected, but possibly encouraging. Kennedy was gay. And he suspected that part of Russell’s antipathy for Adam was due to Adam’s orientation. It was the one sole point on which Adam had Kennedy’s sympathy—but it was a big one.

“Haskell and I did not have a relationship before I came up here. And I don’t know that our friendship will last beyond this assignment. That’s not why I discouraged Russell from dumping this case and returning to L.A. I thought from the first that the case was more complicated than it appeared. I’m now convinced that’s true.”

Kennedy was back to looking bored and impatient. “Yeah, yeah. You think you’ve discovered a serial killer. Two murders, an attempted staging of the body, and everybody thinks they’ve got a serial killer on their hands.”

Adam said politely, “Actually, sir, I think we may have two serial killers on our hands.”

Kennedy’s eyes narrowed. He studied Adam.

“All right,” he said finally. “Let’s hear it. Start to finish. And make it good.”

Chapter Thirteen

“You’re a shit,” Rob told Russell.

Russell turned red and started blustering. Frankie said in warning, “Robbie.”

Rob ignored her. “Get out of my chair,” he said.

Russell complied, huffily, and Rob took his chair. He stretched his legs, leaned back, and eyed Agent Gould. “Back from your early retirement, I see?”

“Hey,” said Gould. “I’m on Adam’s side.”

“Oh, that’s nice!” Russell said.

Gould looked unimpressed. “Nobody likes a backstabber, J.J.”

“So we’re clear, I’m not taking sides,” Frankie said to Russell, “but you haven’t been a whole hell of a lotta help. They can send you home with my blessing.”

Russell made a disbelieving sound, somewhere between a splutter and a hmpf. “Fine. I didn’t realize I was sitting with Darling’s fan club. I’ll wait outside.”

“Do,” Rob said. “In fact, try the middle of the street.”

Gould snorted. Frankie’s look was disapproving. Rob didn’t care either way. He was worried about Adam—when he had left the office, he’d looked like he’d received a death sentence—and he was sick at the thought that Adam might be on his way home this afternoon. It was too soon. Way too soon. They still needed his help. They needed him.

Rob needed him.

He sat there unmoving, angry, stricken, while Frankie and Gould talked. He had no idea about what.

Finally he tuned back in to hear Gould ask, “The girl is still sedated?”

“I spoke to the doctor right before you folks arrived. He said she may not be much help even when she is up and moving again. She might not remember anything.”

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Gould said knowledgably. “That’s too bad. She’s your best witness.”

“Yeah. Poor kid.”

“Does she have any other family?”

“There’s an aunt on her father’s side.”

The door to the interrogation room was still closed. Rob glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes and counting.

Frankie and Gould continued to converse. Rob continued to listen to the silence from the room where Adam was. Not completely silent. He could hear the murmur of voices. They weren’t raised, so that was something.

“We’ll start at nine o’clock tomorrow,” Frankie said. “We’ve just about finished notifying all our residents. So far everyone has been very cooperative. At least on the phone. We’ll see who shows up when the exam begins.”

“If this was L.A., you’d be slapped with a civil rights suit before the first T-shirt dropped,” Gould said.

“But it’s not L.A.” Frankie’s smile was smug. “And anybody who refuses to play ball is going to have some explaining to do.”

“You can’t force people to take part in this,” Rob warned her.

“No, I can’t.” Her smile faded at the approach of footsteps. “Zeke. How did it go?”

Zeke stopped in the doorway. He looked haggard, his eyes red as though he hadn’t slept in days, his normally coiffed hair, rumpled. He looked at Gould without interest or curiosity. Rob suspected he didn’t really even see her.

“Like you’d think. I couldn’t even tell them when we’ll be able to release her body so they can bury her.”

“I know,” Frankie said sympathetically. “It’s a terrible thing. Terrible.”

Zeke said, “I’m going to take the rest of the day off, if that’s okay, Frankie. I’m not going to be any use to anyone today. I’m beat. I haven’t slept since…” He stopped.

“Sure, sure,” Frankie said. “You go home and get some rest. We’ll see you tomorrow morning. Let’s say nine o’clock?”

“Yeah. Whatever.” Zeke shoved away from the door frame as though he needed that extra momentum to keep on his feet. He departed without speaking to Aggie, who called a sympathetic goodnight after him—despite the fact that it was only two-thirty in the afternoon.

“Now don’t go glaring at me,” Frankie told Rob.

“Nine o’clock?” Rob repeated. “So he won’t know ahead of time you’re planning to strip-search every man in town?”

“What kind of a sheriff would I be if I played favorites with my own department?”

“You want me to take my shirt off?” Rob asked. “I’ll be happy to. Hell, no need to wait. I’ll strip now.”

Frankie was unabashed. “Wouldn’t that be a nice treat for Agent Gould and me? But no, I know you haven’t killed anybody, Robbie. So far. Which means I guess I do play favorites sometimes.” She winked.

Rob shook his head, and rose. He was too restless to sit there any longer waiting to hear what was going to happen to Adam. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t know soon enough.

He went to his office, sat down at his desk, and began sorting through his mail. Not that he usually got a lot of mail. What he did get had started to stack up over the past few days.

There were a couple of brochures for training courses, a gun catalog, an “anonymous” complaint about a barking dog from someone who’d forgotten he was being anonymous and used his own return address sticker, and a large brown envelope like those used for mailing legal documents. The wobbly address in the upper left hand corner read M. Koletar.

Rob’s spirits jumped, and he tore open the parcel. A couple of photos fell to the desktop. Nothing else. He shook the envelope, checked inside. There was no note.

He picked up the first photo. It was of a boy of about eighteen or nineteen. He was rail thin and wore one of those flat, moppet type haircuts. Sort of cute in a scruffy way. He seemed to be modeling the tattoo on his scrawny chest. To Rob’s eye, the tattoo looked amateurish, homemade. It consisted of two figures. The figure on the right looked like a triangle at the end of a stick. Maybe it was supposed to be a flower? The figure on the left looked like a cross with triangles attached to the three upper bars. So maybe a religious symbol? Or a tree?

Or just the effort of someone who couldn’t draw very well?

The boy—presumably Dove—smiled with a chipped and cheeky defiance at the camera. It was the face of someone life had kicked in the teeth more than once—but who still hoped this boot would be different.

Studying that boyish and misplaced confidence, Rob felt a pang of sadness. He picked up the second photo. Two boys, arms looped around each other’s necks in casual, goofy camaraderie. One boy was Dove. The other…

Was he familiar?

Rob frowned and turned the photo over.

Dove and Buck. August 1983.

Rob whistled silently. Buck? Now that was a shocker. He’d never picked up any inkling that Buck Constantine was anything other than a hundred percent obnoxiously heterosexual.