Dead Wrong

Common sense revolted. No! Damn it, they had Mendoza cold. She’d been sorry, because she liked the kid, but he had to have been the killer. She was letting a mother’s fear intrude, and if she couldn’t think with the cool logic of a cop instead, she’d be the one who had to step back from this investigation.

“Sorry,” she said, forcing herself to look up. “What’s your question?”

“HEARD ANYTHING LAST NIGHT? Or early this morning?” As withered as the winter sagebrush, the old woman stared suspiciously through the six-inch gap between door and frame. Either she was worried about keeping the heat in, or this intruder out.

“Yes, ma’am,” Trina said politely.

“We’re to bed by nine o’clock.”

Trina wouldn’t have minded being invited inside. She was freezing on the doorstep with the sun sinking fast. This was the fourth house she’d stopped at, and at only one had she been asked in and offered coffee. The few swallows she’d managed were a distant, tantalizing memory.

She strove for a conversational tone. “You must not get much traffic out on Butte Road at night.”

The old woman looked at her as if she were simple. “Saturday nights, it’s like living next to Highway 20. All those young hands that work the ranches, they come hootin’ and hollerin’ by, two, three in the morning. Lean on their horns, stereos blasting to shake the windows. They even race sometimes.” Her mouth thinned. “They turn onto our property, we get out the shotgun.”

Trina considered mentioning that the law did not entitle a property owner to shoot someone for turning into his driveway.

Instead, she surreptitiously wriggled her fingers inside her gloves to see if they still functioned and said, “Last night wasn’t Saturday.”

“Some of them get drunk other nights, too.”

Heaven send her patience.

“I’m sure they do.” She shook her head as if scandalized. The old biddy. “Was last night one of those nights? You hear anybody heading home late?”

“Might have.”

“Can you recall what time that was?”

Mrs. Bailey’s lips folded near out of sight, as if it pained her to give a straight answer. Finally she sniffed. “Two-thirty-five. On a Thursday night. Then the fool turned around and went back to town. Bars shouldn’t be open that late.”

Despite her surge of excitement, Trina pointed out, “Someone might have been giving a friend a ride home.”

Silence, followed by a grudging, “Might have been.”

“Are you certain you heard the same vehicle coming and going?”

“Course I am! Wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t meant it.”

Maybe it was perversity that had her suggesting, “One pickup truck sounds an awful lot like another.”

The woman didn’t like explaining herself. After crimping her lips and thinking about it, she said, “This one sounded like my Rufus out there. Don’t bark often, but when he does, you best jump.”

“A deep, powerful engine.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

Her own lips were going numb. “Did you notice when the truck came back?”

“Didn’t look at the clock.” She chewed it over. “Twenty minutes. Half hour.”

The timing was just right.

“Mrs. Bailey, do you think you’ve heard this particular engine before?”

“Can’t say.”

“Would you recognize it again?”

“Might.”

Trina gave her most winning smile, which considering she couldn’t feel most of her face might look more like a death mask. “You’ve been a great help, Mrs. Bailey. We may need to speak to you again. In the meantime, I appreciate your cooperation.”

With no “You’re welcome,” or even a “Mind you don’t slip on the steps,” the old lady slammed the door shut in Trina’s face. A dead bolt lock thudded home.

If she wasn’t so darn cold, Trina would have laughed. She hurried to the Explorer she was driving, started it and cranked up the heat. Intermittent shivers wracked her. But at least she’d learned something that might be useful, she thought with a small glow of triumph. Useful enough, maybe, that Lieutenant Patton would let her keep working the case.

She couldn’t believe her luck to have been singled out today, and by Lieutenant Patton, of all people. Trina had become a cop because she wanted to be just like Meg Patton and her two sisters, the one Elk Springs police chief, the other an arson investigator. From the time she was eleven or twelve she’d read about their exploits in the newspaper, and since Will went to the high school people had talked, too. Lieutenant Patton had been the county Youth Officer back when Trina was in high school, so she’d talked at assemblies or in Trina’s classes a couple of times a year. Trina thought she was amazing—beautiful and brave and smart. Everything Trina wanted to be.

In her interview for the promotion to detective Trina had almost blurted out something about how much she’d always admired the lieutenant. Thank goodness she’d been able to stop herself. Even if it was true, it would have sounded like the worst brown-nosing.

Now here she was, hardly a month later, partnered with her. Despite her shivers, Trina still marveled. Junior partner, of course. The lieutenant had gone back to the station to find out whether the killer from six years ago had somehow gotten out of prison and also to try to discover whether other jurisdictions had had murders with this same M.O. Lucky Trina had been assigned one patrol officer to help her canvass the houses along Butte Road.

But it had to be done, and she was pretty excited to have actually learned something. Maybe. Unless the deep-throated pickup or SUV had just been dropping some drunk ranch hand back at the Triple B or the Running Y. Except she’d stopped at the Triple B herself and no ranch hands had admitted to being out late last night. She’d find out from Officer Buttram whether the same was true at the Running Y. Those were the only two working ranches past the Bailey’s place.

An hour and a half later, she hadn’t learned a thing. Buttram and she agreed to meet back at the station.

There, he shook his head. His ruddy face glowed. “Bitch of a night.”

“I would have traded my right arm for a thermos of coffee.”

“With a dash of whiskey.” He took off his sheepskin-lined gloves. “Nobody heard nothing.”

“I found somebody who did. A Mrs. Bailey.”

Her sense of triumph dimmed at the sight of his face.

“There’s a nasty one.”

“She calls in complaints?”

“Once a month or so.” He shook his head. “Hates the neighbors, hates teenagers, doesn’t much like cows. You believe her, somebody is always being noisy or trespassing.”

Noisy? “I don’t remember a house near hers.”

“She has damn fine hearing.”

Trina quizzed him about who he’d talked to at the Running Y, then went to Lieutenant Patton’s office.