Confessions

“I heard a s-s-shot.” He stuttered painfully. “Then another. At first I thought it was a dream, you know. By the time I realized they were r-r-real shots, one of the burglars, the one rifling my desk, s-s-shot me.”

“You were downstairs at the time of the shooting?” Trace knew that from the blood spatters, but he wanted to hear the senator’s explanation.

“I got in late.” He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Even with the oxygen assist, the effort of talking seemed to be giving him great pain. “Damn f-f-flight delays. I didn’t want to wake Laura up, so I just crashed on the couch.”

“When was that?”

“About midnight.”

“Was the security system on when you arrived?”

“No. And I didn’t set it.” He groaned again. “Storms always set the damn thing off. I’ve been promising Laura... Oh, God.” He began to sob. “I had my secretary call the company yesterday. They couldn’t come out until after the fourth.”

He bit his lip and appeared to be struggling for calm. “If only I’d called sooner, this wouldn’t have happened.”

That might be true, but Trace wasn’t into Monday morning quarterbacking. “Did you happen to get a look at the guy who shot you?”

“Not really. He was wearing a mask.”

“A ski mask?”

“Uh-uh...” He closed his eyes. “It was brown. And sh-sh-sheer. Like he’d pulled a nylon stocking over his face.” He sucked in another breath. “Oh, God, it hurts,” he moaned.

“You’re doing great, Senator,” the paramedic advised. “Just try to stay calm. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“I heard the g-g-gunmen run out the door. I t-t-tried to get to Laura after I called 911. I was crawling across the floor. Then I guess I passed out....”

Tears welled up in his light blue eyes and ran down his cheeks in long wet ribbons. “Oh, C-C-Christ. How could this happen?”

No one in the room answered. While the paramedics continued to work on the senator, Trace left the den, gesturing for his deputy to follow.

“Turn on my overhead lights,” he said, handing J.D. the keys to the Suburban the Mogollon County supervisors had included in his deal as an enticement to sign.

It wasn’t every day a big-city crime buster was willing to come to work in the boondocks and they’d wanted to ensure he wouldn’t change his mind once he learned that jaywalking and the occasional drunk and disorderly was about as bad as it got in Whiskey River.

What they hadn’t realized was that Trace would have taken the job without the new truck.

“Check around the outside. See if you can find a point of entry. Also, with all the rain, there should be footprints.”

“Yessir.” J.D. snatched the keys with an enthusiasm that reminded Trace of himself in what seemed another lifetime.

Taking his .38 Detective Special from its hip holster, Trace climbed the stairs, all his senses on alert. The odds of the shooter still being in the house were slim to none. But Trace had the scars to prove that a cop couldn’t be too careful.

He studied the crime scene from the doorway of the master bedroom, his gaze sweeping over the warm pine flooring, the white walls adorned with expensively framed western art. The bed had been handcrafted from cedar logs. The headboard, along with the wall behind it, was marred by a sweeping, red-pink arc.

A quilt had slid halfway off the mattress. In the center of the bed a woman lay faceup, her arms outstretched, as if reaching for something, or someone, no longer there. Her palms were open, her fingers slightly curled. Her green eyes were fixed in an expression of vague surprise Trace had seen before. The drawers of the two nightstands on either side of the bed were open. As were those of the bureau. The contents of the drawers had been tossed haphazardly onto the floor.

Atop the dresser were various perfume bottles, a silver-backed mirror and a crystal-framed wedding picture. The smiling faces of Laura and Alan Fletcher looked out of the frame at the grisly scene. The glittering contents of a mahogany jewelry box had been dumped out, scattered across the gleaming pine planks.

Stepping over the damp towel lying on the floor by the dresser, Trace approached the bed.

Even as he noted absently that Laura Fletcher was still beautiful, even in death, he began to emotionally distance himself. It was not a deliberate decision. Rather, it was as if a self-protective switch had clicked on inside his brain. He’d developed the ability to detach himself early in his career.

In his sixteen years on the Dallas police force, he had been witness to the most basic of human evil—the taking of another life. When faced with the nude body of a female, who only hours earlier had, perhaps, been laughing and loving, a cop could not waste time pondering theological questions about man’s inhumanity to man.

What he had to concentrate on was whether that bloody hole in her breast was an entrance wound or an exit wound. He had to judge the distance and caliber of the weapon that had made that circular wound in her left temple.

And, as he lifted her wrist, clasping the flesh that was already growing icy now that the life had drained out of it, rather than notice that her fingers were long and slender, he took note of the blood on the fingertips of her left hand—which gave evidence that she’d been aware of being attacked—and wondered why it was that the senator’s dead wife wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

J.D. had been right. There was nothing they could do for Laura Fletcher now. Except find her killer.

He took a notebook from his pocket and quickly sketched the position of the body, the bed, the rest of the crime scene. Then he went back downstairs and repeated the process in the den.

The paramedics had stabilized the senator and had him lying on a gurney, ready to wheel him out to the waiting ambulance.

“You taking him to Payson Hospital?”

“That’s the plan,” the paramedic answered. “His wound isn’t critical enough for air evac.”

“I’ll follow you.”

“What about Laura?” Alan Fletcher groaned. “Is she—”

“Don’t worry about her right now,” the paramedic broke in, exchanging a look with Trace. The senator’s color wasn’t good and the way he kept going in and out of consciousness suggested that he could go into shock. This wasn’t the time to tell the man his wife was dead. “Just worry about yourself, Senator.”

Trace followed them out. “Find anything?” he asked his deputy.

“No sign of false entry. But you’re right about the footprints. Got a real good set coming from the driveway. Tire tracks, too.”

“Good.” Trace nodded. “I’m going to call DPS and have them send over their crime lab guys.”

J.D.’s eyes widened at the idea of involving the state Department of Public Safety. “You’re bringing outsiders in?”

“I don’t have much choice,” Trace pointed out. “The average high school chem class probably has more equipment than we do. This is going to be a high-profile case. I want to make sure there aren’t any mistakes made.”

“Ben isn’t going to like this,” J.D. warned.

Ben Loftin. A lifelong resident of Whiskey River, cousin to the mayor, a fifteen-year deputy and the man who’d expected to be promoted to sheriff. From his first day on the job, Trace had suspected Loftin was also one of those redneck bullies who gave cops—especially those in small towns—a bad name.

“Ben Loftin isn’t sheriff,” Trace reminded his deputy gruffly. “I’m going into Payson with the senator. I want you to lock this place up tight and don’t let anyone in until the medical examiner and the crime lab guys get here.”

“Even Ben?”

“Especially Loftin,” Trace stressed. “From what I’ve seen of the guy, his investigative skills would make Barney Fife look like Columbo.”

J.D. began to laugh, then choked it off when one look at his boss’s rigid face told him the comparison hadn’t been meant as a joke. “I’ve got the tape in the trunk of the black-and-white,” he said. “I’ll cordon off the perimeter.”

Once again the deputy’s eagerness reminded Trace of himself and made him feel about as old as dirt. The near-fatal shooting that had taken his partner’s life had left Trace with scars—both physical and mental—that he figured he’d carry for the rest of his life.