Conard County Justice (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 42) Page 12

  Sighing, she finally gave up rereading for some nugget she had missed. She’d skipped breakfast this morning and just wanted to get home and eat.

  She got one of the department’s credit cards from the front desk, then headed out, hoping that Larry’s articles might be more useful.

  Maybe there’d be enough in one of them to kick-start an investigation at the other end of this trail.

  Slim hope, because they’d have to offer some kind of link that wasn’t as vague as “Larry wrote an article about...”

  Crap.

  She wasn’t in the best of moods when she walked through her front door, but she saw Duke through the kitchen door, sitting at the table. Somehow that gave her a little lift.

  She had a bigger lift when he held up the bakery bag, which always meant goodies.

  He said, “Melinda packed it with your favorites. I made coffee. I know it’s late for breakfast, but...” He shrugged.

  “I haven’t eaten yet. It’s time for me.” She felt a smile crease her face. “I hope you’re hungry, too. This is fabulous.”

  Soon she had two dessert plates on the table, napkins and mugs of coffee. She was touched that he’d thought of such a thing, considering what he was dealing with.

  “Did you go for a run?” she asked just before she bit into a raspberry Danish.

  “Yeah. I needed it. I hope I didn’t keep you awake last night. I tried not to bang around too much.”

  “You didn’t.” She’d had enough to keep her awake even if he’d never clanged a plate. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t learn much this morning. Evidently there weren’t a lot of clues in either house. Gage seemed to think both burglaries might be related. Anyway, the Hodges house, the second one, has been released, so I’m going to call them and ask if they’d be willing to meet you. They can tell you more about what was taken, and maybe their overall impressions.”

  “I’d like to look around.” He settled on an apple turnover, eating with his fingers.

  “I don’t know if they’ll give you carte blanche to wander around. Prepare to just talk.”

  “Yeah. But I want to ask if they knew Larry.”

  From the files she’d read, she wasn’t sure anyone had asked that. In fact, the more she thought about it, it struck her as completely odd how little anyone had been able to discern from the crime scenes. Were they really down to forensics? No other clues?

  Given how long it could take to get fingerprints through AFIS, it might take a week or more to get a complete check nationally.

  Would anyone even want to do that at this point? They had no proof that someone from out of the area had committed the crime.

  Duke spoke, his turnover gone. “You’re thinking.”

  “Yeah. That could be dangerous.”

  His expression didn’t leaven. “I doubt it. What’s bothering you?”

  “How very little evidence we have at this point. That may change with the completed forensics, but right now...”

  When she left the thought incomplete, he spoke. “So both places were clean?”

  “At the moment, that’s how it seems. But more evidence will come to light. It always does.” She wasn’t exactly feeling hopeful, however. As she reached for another piece of her Danish, Duke caught her attention. He looked arrested, as if a thought had struck him.

  “What are you thinking about?” Cat asked.

  Slowly his eyes tracked back to her. “About how clean the scenes might be.”

  “And that tells you what?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  God, now he was concealing things from her. If she didn’t give such a huge damn about Larry and his murder, she’d run screaming from this whole situation.

  Well, not really. She’d never been one to run screaming from anything. Still, the temptation was there.

  “Damn it, Duke. If you’ve got an idea, share it.”

  “I can’t. It’s not exactly an idea. Not yet. I’ll let you know once I’ve worked it through myself. About Larry’s articles?”

  “Yes. Gage told me to call the paper in my official capacity. If there’s a problem with that, I’ve got one of the department’s credit cards.”

  He nodded. “You’d think the paper would give me access, given I’m Larry’s brother.”

  “Do they know Larry’s gone?”

  Duke grew grim. “Probably not. I guess I’ll have to tell them.”

  “I’ll handle that. And we’ll get those articles today. I’m not going to be patient about it.”

  She just wished she knew what had caught his attention about the scenes appearing clean at this point. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. People had grown savvier about forensics thanks to television and movies. Some of what they believed wasn’t true, but, in her experience over a decade, more perps were leaving less of a trail behind.

  She’d lost interest in her Danish but didn’t want to offend Duke. He’d gone out of his way to bring her something she liked.

  “As soon as I finish this, I’ll call the paper,” she said. “I’ll have to wait until later to call the Hodgeses. Both of them are schoolteachers.”

  He nodded. “I’ll survive.” His smile was crooked. “Maybe I should try to extend my leave so I can drive you crazy a bit longer. Or maybe so I can relax a bit. I’ve set myself a tight deadline.”

  “It depends on the murder, Duke. Sometimes there just isn’t enough information to point us in any direction. It will eventually turn up, however.” She refused to remind him of how many stranger homicides that were never solved.

  Then, hoping to get his mind going in another direction, she said, “Can you extend your leave?”

  “I have enough time built up. My deputy can fill in for a while longer.”

  Amusement sparked in her. “You have deputies, too?”

  That made his eyes dance. “Oh yeah. I could have said ‘second in command,’ I suppose.”

  “Then I would have missed my little joke.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” he agreed.

  She gave up on the Danish and rose to wash her hands. “I think I’ll go dive into getting to Larry’s articles.”

  “I’ll be along in a minute.”

  Yeah, she fully expected him to be breathing down her neck and peering over her shoulder.

  When she got to her office, she got a little start. She was looking at a twin bed made so neatly that she had to pause to admire it. He’d even squared the corners, something she never bothered with.

  Duke had his advantages, she decided.

  She knew the name of Larry’s paper because he’d had a press card among his belongings. His wallet was gone, but a few things remained.

  That could fit with a routine burglary: no cash, no credit cards remained. But the savagery of the murder made all that seem irrelevant. She closed her eyes a moment, unable to escape the memory of discovering Larry’s body.

  Stop! It wouldn’t do a bit of good. Work the problem.

  She reached for her landline, and when the paper’s page popped up on the computer screen, she punched in the customer service number.

  She hardly paid attention to the sounds from the kitchen, other than to recognize that Duke might be doing dishes. She had to work her way through three layers and finally landed at Larry’s editor’s desk. Lavinia Johnson. She scribbled the name down on her pad.

  Evidently she was going to have to give the bad news first.

  She identified herself, including her badge number, then dropped the bombshell bluntly. There was never a gentle way to deliver this news.

  “I’m sorry I have to tell you, but Larry Duke was murdered.”

  “Oh my God!” The exclamation reached Cat across the telephone line, filled with shock. “What...? How...?”

  “At this time it appears to be a home invasion, a burglary.
But we’re trying to check everything out.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  Cat waited for Lavinia Johnson to speak again, giving her a little time to absorb the news. She heard Duke come into the office and pull a chair over closer.

  Then Lavinia spoke. “Does his family know? I have his emergency contacts.”

  “The news has been shared,” Cat answered.

  “I didn’t want to have to make calls,” Lavinia admitted. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “We’d like access to the archive of Larry’s articles.”

  “Do you think...? No, I guess I shouldn’t ask that. Ongoing investigation. Yes, certainly. If you have a pen ready, I’ll give you the newsroom’s log-in and password.”

  “I’m ready,” Cat answered. She scribbled quickly and repeated the information to Lavinia.

  “That’s it,” the editor agreed. “Damn, I still feel like the world’s spinning. Larry was a fine reporter and a fine human being. We’re very proud of him here.”

  “I’ve heard wonderful things about him.”

  “Every one of them is true,” Lavinia answered. Her voice was growing tight, and Cat could almost hear the coming tears.

  Cat finished up with, “I’m very sorry for your loss. I didn’t know Larry for long, but it was definitely a pleasure.”

  When she hung up, she didn’t waste any time logging in. “I figure we’ll work back through time.”

  “I agree,” Duke answered.

  “Do you want me to print it out for your use?”

  “You’ll need a mountain of paper for that. No, I can get the articles myself when I get home.”

  She turned to look at Duke. “His editor said he was a fine reporter and a fine human being.”

  Duke’s face darkened slightly. “That’s nice to hear. From Larry’s telling, it sounded as if the newsroom could be a powder keg. Deadlines, ugly stories, sources that didn’t call back. High pressure leading to short tempers, I guess.”

  Well, that was another thing to keep in mind, Cat thought. It might not have been the subject of one of his articles who wanted him dead. Maybe he had some enemies in the newsroom. “Do reporters make much in big cities?”

  “Not from what I understand. It isn’t poverty level, but it’s not generous.”

  “That’s what I thought.” So how could another reporter afford to mount any kind of trip to kill Larry? And really, how bad could a newsroom explosion be? Bad enough to want to murder?

  She expected to find more fertile ground in his investigative pieces.

  “Oh man,” she said as Larry’s articles began popping up in a list of titles.

  “What?”

  She felt Duke lean closer.

  “It looks like he did a lot of articles. This list is huge.”

  “He wrote a bunch of shorter pieces, like every other reporter. Partly because the paper wasn’t going to pay him for a couple of years while he wasn’t writing anything. Partly because newsrooms were shrinking—probably still are—and the workload went up for everyone. I gather he might have written a story or two every week.”

  “That’s going to help,” she said sarcastically. “I don’t know how well these stories are tagged. Give me that one that upset you. Maybe that’ll get us into something. Or maybe we need to read them all.”

  “That’s quite a body of work. How long do we want to spend reading?”

  She looked at him again, wondering if he expected her to let him be a second pair of eyes. The problem with that wasn’t him reading Larry’s articles—he had every right to—but he wouldn’t see them through a cop’s eyes.

  Plus, she only had one computer. They’d have to read over each other’s shoulders or take turns.

  He spoke. “Well, the murder-for-hire story was in September, just over two years ago.”

  “Okay, I’ll start there. Then maybe we should come forward in time before we start going backward. In case it was a more recent story.”

  She looked at the screen again. There’d be some eyestrain before long.

  * * *

  AN HOUR LATER they headed for the truck stop to have lunch with Bud Wicke, the garage mechanic. The garage was conveniently located, in terms of his business. Bud sometimes had to run over to the truck stop to repair a long-haul truck, as well as performing routine repairs for locals.

  As they drove toward the truck stop, Duke said, “Tell me a little about this guy, if you can. Just public knowledge.”

  Cat stifled a smile. “Like I could tell you much more than that.”

  “I know. Just the common knowledge.”

  “Well, Bud Wicke is one of our local garage mechanics. He started working for the place years ago and eventually bought it.”

  “Hard worker.”

  An insight. Cat hadn’t really given it much thought. “I guess so. Anyway, I don’t know much about him, because I’ve only been here a little over two years. Whether there’s much more, I can’t say. But I can still tell you he’s a bit unexpected.”

  She felt Duke look at her. Amazing how you could tell when someone was watching you. “How so?” he asked.

  “I hear he’s got a college degree in math, as well as all his mechanic’s certifications. Apparently, he just loves working on cars.”

  “He likes to learn.”

  “That would be my guess. Larry was interesting, too. He made friends with an eclectic group of people around here.”

  She turned into the truck stop parking lot and nosed toward a vacant parking space near the diner. On the far side of the lot there was parking for the big rigs, but that area was nearly full of idling trucks. Truckers preferred driving on nighttime roads if they had a choice, sleeping during the day to avoid heavy traffic. Hasty’s diner stayed busy during much of the day.

  Inside, the tables were busy. Hasty, a tall, lean man, flipped burgers on his grill and shuttled through breakfast orders and even veggies. He could do just about anything on that grill.

  Bud Wicke sat at a corner table beside the wall of windows that surrounded the dining area on two sides. He smiled and waved them over.

  Cat made the introductions, reminding Bud that Duke was Larry’s brother in case he’d forgotten or she had neglected to mention that the day before when she’d phoned him.

  The waitress zoomed over with some menus, and both Bud and Duke immediately ordered coffee. Cat chose a diet cola.

  Bud spoke after the waitress charged off with their orders. Breakfast for Duke, burgers for Bud and Cat, who felt she needed some recovery from all that Danish earlier.

  “I’m so sorry,” Bud said to Duke. “I liked Larry. He was a good man to play cards with and shoot the breeze over a few beers. He beat me at darts nearly every time I walked into Mahoney’s. My ego was bruised.” He said the last lightly, as if making fun of himself.

  “I never wanted to face him in darts,” Duke agreed. “Now, running—that was a whole different thing.”

  Cat spoke. “With you being a Ranger, I’m not surprised. Bet you could do more push-ups, too.”

  Duke laughed quietly. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Larry mentioned you a couple of times,” Bud offered. “He called you Duke.”

  “Everyone does.”

  Cat attempted a little humor. “Unless they call him Major.”

  That made a smile cross Bud’s face. “Then I’ll call you Duke. About Larry, I don’t think I know anything useful. I was at the poker table and bar with him, but I sure as hell didn’t see anything that would make me think he had enemies. Easy to get along with, always friendly. It must have been kids.”

  Although Bud didn’t sound happy with that idea. He sounded like a man who would rather believe that than any alternative.

  “So nothing about what he was here to work on?”

  Bud shook his hea
d. “I don’t think I ever asked, either. He said once that he was here for the quiet to work on a book, but that was it. Oh yeah, he also said that he was a reporter.”

  Conversation lagged while they waited for lunch and started to eat. Cat’s burger was perfectly cooked, juicy, the way she liked it.

  She supposed that if she tried, she’d be able to ask a useful question, but she held back. It was important for Duke to ask the things he needed to know, certainly before she jumped in with any standard cop questions. Questions that Bud had probably answered right after the murder.

  But suddenly she thought of something and asked anyway, mainly because Duke had fallen silent. “Did we interview you after the murder?”

  Bud shook his head again. “Nobody came to me. Hardly matters, since after I heard about Larry, I tried to figure out if I knew anything, like him mentioning kids hanging around. If I’d thought of something, I’d have trotted over to your office. As it is...” He let it hang.

  Then Bud straightened a bit, half a hamburger still in his hand. “I just remembered. Larry mentioned two days before he was killed that he felt watched sometimes. But he laughed it off, saying that anybody new around here would get watched. He was probably right.”

  Cat wasn’t sure she agreed, and a glance at Duke suggested he wasn’t buying it, either.

  “Larry was good at laughing things off, including the threats he received as a reporter,” Duke said.

  “Threats? Seriously?” Bud looked appalled. “What was he reporting about? Major crime organizations? RICO violations?”

  “In the past.”

  “Wow, I’m impressed. Every time I hear about something like that, I think the reporters must have a lot of guts.” Then he shrugged. “Maybe it’s in the family. You probably have a lot of guts, too, being a Ranger.”

  “I usually know where the threat is coming from. Larry would get these anonymous letters or emails. A few bothered him enough to turn over to the authorities, but most he just dismissed.”

  “Man. I liked the guy before, but now I’m feeling huge respect. I’d be looking over my damn shoulder every single minute.”

  “He wasn’t, from what I saw of him. But his address? Under wraps.”