Best Kept Secrets (33 page)

"No."

"I'm hurting for what my mother must have suffered for my sake," she said, making a swipe at her leaking eyes.

"I'm no doctor."

"I need to be held."

"Sorry. I've got other plans."

"Don't you care that I'm appealing to you for help?"

"Not really."

She hated him for making her beg. Nevertheless, she threw down the last vestiges of her pride and said, "My Grandma Graham died resenting me for ruining Celina's life. She wanted her to marry Junior, and blamed my untimely birth when that didn't happen. Now, dammit," she said, "I need to know that you don't despise me, too.

"Can you imagine how terrible I feel, knowing that I'm the reason my mother married another man when she loved you? If it hadn't been for me, you could have married her, had children, loved each other for the rest of your lives.

Reede, please stay with me tonight."

He closed the distance between them, backed her into the wall, and gave her a hard shake. "You want me to hold you and tell you that everything is okay, and that the sun will come out tomorrow and things will look better?"

"Yes!"

' 'Well, for your information, Counselor, I don't do bedtime stories. When I spend the night with a woman, it's not because I want to comfort her if she's hurting, or cheer her up if she's sad." He took a step closer. His eyes narrowed until they were mere slits. "And it's for damn sure not because I want to play daddy."

Twenty-eight

Gregory Harper, district attorney of Travis County, Texas, was clearly furious. He was on his third cigarette in five minutes. His anger was directed toward his assistant, who was seated on the other side of his desk, looking like she'd been socked hard in both eyes.

"Who've you been sleeping with, Dracula? You look like you've been sucked dry," Greg remarked with characteristic abrasiveness.

"Could we stick to one crushing blow at a time, please?

Don't confuse the issue."

"Crushing blow? Oh, you mean the part where I told you that your investigation is over and done with and you're to return to Austin pronto, posthaste, lickety-split, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, haul ass?"

"Yes, that crushing blow." Alex flattened her hands on the edge of his desk. "Greg, you can't ask me to drop it now."

"I'm not asking--I'm telling." He left his swivel chair and moved to the window. "What the fuck have you been doing out there, Alex? The governor called me yesterday, and he was pissed. I mean pissed."

"He's always pissed at you."

"That's beside the point."

"Hardly. Greg, everything you do is politically motivated.

Don't pretend it isn't. I don't blame you for it, but don't play Mr. Clean with me just because your hand got slapped."

"The governor thinks his racing commission can do no wrong. To admit that the commission made a mistake in selecting Minton Enterprises for a license is tantamount to the governor admitting that he made an error in judgment, too."

"Minton Enterprises is above reproach, as far as the horse-racing business goes."

"Oh, I see. The only hitch is that you suspect one of the Mintons is a murderer, or if not them, a peace officer. Gee, for a minute there, I thought we had a problem."

"You don't have to get sarcastic."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "To hear the governor yesterday, Angus Minton is a cross between the tooth fairy and Buffalo Bill Cody."

Alex smiled at the analogy, which was uncannily accurate.

"That's a fair assessment, but that doesn't mean he's incapable of killing someone."

"What happened to his barn the other night?"

"How'd you know about that?"

"Just tell me what happened."

Reluctantly, she told him about Fergus Plummet and the vandalism done to the Minton ranch. When she was finished, Greg ran a hand down his face. "You've upset a real big apple cart, full of shiny, bright apples." He selected another

cigarette and spoke around it. It bobbed up and down with each word, making lighting it difficult. "I didn't like this case to start with."

"You loved it." Alex's nerves were already frayed, so it annoyed her even more that he was shifting all the blame to her. "You thought it might embarrass the governor, and you relished that thought."

He braced his arms on his desk and leaned over it. "You said you were going out there to reopen your mother's murder case. I didn't know you were going to get a loony preacher whipped into a frenzy, a man's barn nearly burned down, a valuable racehorse shot in the head, and offend a respected judge, who has a reputation as spotless as God's."

"Wallace?"

"Wallace. Apparently, he called our esteemed governor and complained about your unprofessional conduct, your handling of the case, and your unfounded accusations." He sucked smoke into his lungs and blew it out in a gust. "Shall I go on?"

"Please," she said wearily, knowing he would anyway.

"Okay. Chastain's scared shitless of Wallace."

"Chastain's scared shitless of his own shadow. He won't even return my calls."

"He's disclaimed you, washed his hands cleaner of you than Ivory soap could have done. He says you've been seen partying with your suspects."

" 'Partying'? I've seen them on a few social occasions.'

"Dangerous business, Alex. We've got three gentlemen suspects and one lady prosecutor whose association with each goes way back. It's all as murky as file" gumbo."

She tried not to squirm under his incisive stare. "New tack." Standing, she circled her chair. "This is an unsolved murder case. The investigation is viable, no matter who conducts it."

"Okay," he said complacently, folding his hands behind his head and leaning his chair back, "I'll play. What have you got? No body to dig up. No murder weapon. No--"

"It was lifted out of the vet's bag."

"What?"

"The murder weapon." She told him what Dr. Ely Collins had told her. "The scalpel was never returned to the elder Dr. Collins. I've been meaning to check the evidence room on the outside chance that it's still there, but I doubt that it is."

"So do I. The bottom line is that you've still got no weapon. Has an eyewitness come forward?"

She sighed. "During this telephone call, did the governor Mention a ranch hand named Pasty Hickam?"

' "So, it's true."

"It's true. And please don't insult me by trying to trap me like that again. I was going to tell you."

"When? When were you going to slip it into the conversation that a representative of this office got involved with a cowboy who turned up dead?"

"Care to hear my side of it?" She told him about Pasty.

He was frowning more man ever when she finished. "If you're right, not only is it stupid and politically imprudent to continue this investigation, it's dangerous. I don't suppose anyone's confessed."

She made a face at him. "No. But one of them killed Celina, and probably Hickam."

Cursing, he mashed out his cigarette. "Let's stick to one murder at a time. If you had to arrest one of them tomorrow for killing your mother, who would it be?"

"I'm not sure."

"Why would the old man have iced her?"

"Angus is cantankerous and shrewd. He wields a lot of power, and definitely enjoys being the boss."

"You're smiling."

"He's extremely likable, I'll admit." She kept Angus's comment about having a daughter like her to herself. "He's inordinately rough on Junior. But, a slasher?" she asked rhetorically, shaking her head. "I don't think so. It's not his style. Besides, Angus didn't have a motive."

"What about Junior?"

"There's a possibility there. He's glib and very charming.

I'm sure that everything he tells me is the truth, he just doesn't tell me everything. I know he loved Celina. He wanted to marry her after my father was killed. Maybe she said no one too many times."

"Conjecture and more conjecture. So, that leaves Lambert.

What about him?"

Alex lowered her head and stared at her bloodless fingers.

"He's the most likely suspect, I believe."

Greg's chair sprang forward. "What makes you say that?"

"Motive and opportunity. He might have felt his best friend was displacing him and killed her to prevent it."

"Pretty viable motive. What about opportunity?"

"He was at the ranch that night, but he left."

"Are you sure? Has he got an alibi?"

"He says he was with a woman."

"Do you believe him?"

She gave a short, bitter laugh. "Oh, yes. I can believe that. Neither he nor Junior has a problem with women."

"Except your mother."

"Yes," she conceded quietly.

"What has Lambert's alibi got to say?"

"Nothing. He won't tell me her name. If she exists, she's probably still around. Otherwise, what difference would it make? I'll work on tracking her down when I get back."

"Who says you're going back?"

Up till now, Alex had been pacing. Returning to her chair, she appealed to him. "I've got to go back, Greg. I can't leave it up in the air like this. I don't care if the murderer is the governor himself, I've got to see it through to the finish."

He nodded toward the telephone on his desk. "He's going to call me this afternoon and ask me if you're off the case.

He expects me to say yes."

"Even if that would mean leaving a murder unsolved?"

"Judge Wallace convinced him that you've got a bee up your ass and that this is a personal vendetta."

"Well, he's wrong."

"I don't think so."

Her heart stopped beating. "You think that, too?"

"Yep, I do." He spoke softly, more like a friend than a boss. "Call it quits, Alex, while we're all still speaking to each other, and before I get my tail in a real crack with the governor."

"You gave me thirty days."

"Which I can rescind."

"I've got just a little more than a week left."

"You can do a lot of damage in that amount of time."

"I could also get to the truth."

He looked skeptical. "That's a long shot. I've got cases here that need your expert touch."

"I'll pay my own expenses," she said. "Consider this my vacation."

"In that case, I couldn't sanction anything you did out there. You'd no longer have the protection of this office."

"Okay, fine."

He shook his head stubbornly. "I wouldn't let you do that, any more than I'd let. my teenage daughter go on a date without a rubber in her purse."

"Greg, please."

"Jesus, you're a stubborn broad." He withdrew a cigarette from the pack, but didn't light it. "You know the one thing that intrigues me about this case? The judge. If he turned out to be as crooked as a dog's hind leg, it'd really get our governor's goat."

"You're mixing metaphors."

"What have you got on him?"

"Nothing more solid than dislike. He's a persnickety little man, nervous and shifty-eyed." She thought a moment.

"There is something that struck me as odd, though."

"Well?" he asked, sitting forward.

"Stacey, his daughter, married Junior Minton weeks after Celina's death."

"Unless they're brother and sister, that wasn't illegal."

She shot him a sharp look. "Stacey's not ... well, not Junior's type, you know? She still loves him." She recounted the incident in the powder room at the Horse and Gun Club.

"Junior's very attractive. Stacey isn't the kind of woman he would marry."

"Maybe she's got a golden pussy."

"I'll admit, I never thought of that," Alex said dryly. "He didn't have to marry her to sleep with her. So why did he, unless there was a very good reason? In addition to that, Stacey lied to me. She said she was home unpacking after a trip to Galveston, but failed to mention she'd been in the stable that day."

Greg gnawed on his lower lip, then poked the cigarette in his mouth and flicked the lighter at it. "It's still too weak, Alex." He exhaled. "I've got to go with my gut instincts and call you off."

They stared at each other a moment, then she calmly opened her handbag and withdrew two plain white envelopes.

She pushed them toward him. "What's this?"

"My letter of resignation, and a letter of intent to file a civil suit against the Mintons and Reede Lambert."

He almost swallowed his cigarette. "What? You can't."

"I can. I will. There's enough evidence to bring a civil suit against them for the murder of my mother. I'll sue them for so much money in damages that opening a racetrack will be out of the question. Reede Lambert's career will be shot to hell, too. They won't go to jail, but they'll be ruined."

"you win."

"It won't matter if I do or not. In a civil suit, they can't plead the Fifth to avoid incrimination. No matter what they say, everyone will presume they're lying. The racing commission would have no choice but to reverse its decision and revoke the gambling license."

"So, what this all boils down to is money?" he cried. "Is that what you've been after all along?"

Her pale cheeks sprouted dots of color. "It's beneath even you to say something like that to me. I demand your apology."

Greg muttered a string of oaths. "Okay, I'm sorry. But, you mean this, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

He deliberated for a full minute longer before grumbling,

"I ought to have my head examined." Pointing a stern finger at her, he said, "Stay the hell out of trouble. Make sure you've loaded both barrels before you go after somebody, particularly Wallace. If you screw up and I get my ass chewed on, I'll claim you were a naughty girl and that I had nothing to do with your actions. And, your original deadline sticks.

Got that?"

"Got it," she said, coming to her feet. "You'll be hearing from me as soon as I know something."

"Alex?" She was already at the door. When she looked back at him, he asked, "What's going on with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Any reason in particular why you look like the ghost of Christmas, dead and buried?"

"I'm just tired."

He didn't believe her, but he let it go. After she'd left, he reached for the two envelopes she'd shoved across his desk.