Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (141 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ON MY WAY THROUGH the reception area, I stopped at the front desk. A young woman clicked away at a keyboard and looked up at me when I cleared my throat.

“Hello, I have to run some documents out to a—” I looked at my notepad and pretended to read. “Heather Dade. I was told to get her address from you.”

The brown-eyed receptionist smiled and started typing again. I made sure to cover my visitor badge with my purse and waited. Without a word, she wrote something on a sticky note and handed it to me. It was a long shot, but Heather’s name had come up too many times not to follow up, and Joshua had run into a dead end trying to find her.

Taking it, I thanked the woman and hurried out the front door.

Heather Dade

610 Mockingbird Lane

Eagle, ID 83713

I frowned as my mind reeled with questions. I jotted down a few of them right away before I forgot. There was only one thing on my mind now—to find this person and see what she had to say about Hank Williams.

As I walked to my car, I rolled my neck. The restless nights were getting to me. I needed to learn how to tame that nocturnal side or I might break.

I typed in the address on the GPS in my phone. It was on the other side of town. I wanted Joshua with me on this one—we could combine our information on the way there.

And he had a face anyone would trust. Those round cheeks and big brown eyes—most people were putty in his hands. No one suspected that he usually had multiple motivations behind each of his questions.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WILLIAMS HAD MONEY, HE had power, and this afforded him the means to hire out. But like his father used to say, “If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.” Hunting was a solo job. It was a sport, really, and one he enjoyed, but cleaning up the mess and doing the dirty work—that’s what he paid others to do.

“You see, Marco, if you’d done your job, if you’d just once done what I told you to do, this would not be happening.” Marco squirmed, but Williams held him down with a knee in the chest.

“I’m sorry. You said fix it, so I did.” Blood trickled from Marco’s nose, and his eyes darted to the eight-inch knife Williams was holding.

“No, Marco, you didn’t fix it—you fixed nothing. If you fixed it, why is she still snooping around, hmm? Tell me, Marco, why is she still alive if you fixed it?”

In a way, he was glad Marco misunderstood him. He needed this, needed to feel again, to see the fear. It fed him like a drug. He was addicted.

“No, boss, you said fix it, not fix
them.”

Williams hit Marco in the neck with the palm of his hand. Marco gagged and tried to get free, but Williams was a strong man.

“Don’t tell me what I said. You failed me and now I have to do it. I have to do your job, Marco. How do you think that makes me feel?”

Marco couldn’t speak. He spit out more blood and Williams pressed harder into his chest, feeling a rib snap. This felt almost as good as an aged Scotch.

“Marco, Marco, Marco…” He lowered his tone as if calming a child. “You made a mistake. It’s okay.” Marco stopped struggling and looked up at Williams. A new hope filled his eyes. This was the best part—giving them hope, letting them think they might live.

“Just tell me, Marco, did you do your job? I just want the truth and this will all be over—you’ll be free. Just tell me the truth.”

Marco was crying now and the sight filled Williams with glee. “No, I didn’t. I failed you.”

“Lie!” Williams screamed and thrust the blade into Marco’s side. “You weak little man—you did just what I told you and now you’re lying to me?” Pulling the knife out, he stabbed Marco three more times, once in the left side and two in the right. Blood pooled out of Marco’s mouth and Williams stood to watch. Marco’s lungs would fill up and he would drown. It was not a fast way to die, which made it one of Williams’ favorites.

“You should have told me the truth, Marco, not let me push you around. But you were weak, and the weak deserve to suffer.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“SO WHAT ARE WE hoping to find out from Heather?” Joshua asked. He rolled down the window and rested his arm on the sill.

“I don’t know. I just want to talk to her, see what we can find out. I want to know what made her change her name.”

“So we’re fishing?”

“Pretty much.”

“Got it.”

“Have we gotten anything back from the evidence in the barn yet?” I asked, needing something concrete to hope for.

“Nope, not yet,” he replied. “It’s a long shot—not sure the judge will even let us use it. It’s been in that barn a long time and it’ll look to the other side like it was planted.”

“I know. I need it more for my own motivation than anything else, proof in my own head.”

The whole case, from start to finish, didn’t make sense. The more I thought about it, the more messed up it seemed. The paid jurors, my kidnapping scare, the forensic cokehead, the witness flaking out, the way Hank Williams was so calm through the trial, the flowers and threats, Hannah’s reticence … it went on and on.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Joshua broke in to my thoughts and I snapped back to reality.

“Oh, just thinking about this case, the trial—all of it.”

“Kind of messed up.”

“Yeah.”

Joshua looked out the window. “I think he’s just a spoiled man who has a lot of money and has some guys on his payroll who do his dirty work. I think he gets off on it.”

“I agree. I feel like I’m missing something big, like he’s playing this game and I only have half the rules.”

“I feel just the opposite,” Joshua said. “I feel like we’re searching for rules that aren’t there. Does he seem to you like the kind of man who plays by rules?”

“No.” I sighed. “No, he doesn’t.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

HEATHER DADE LIVED IN the not-so-expensive part of Eagle. The whole town had been remade down to the cobblestone streets, but the old Eagle still had trailers and older homes from when all the stoners lived there twenty years ago before the housing boom.

I parked behind a beat-up Nova and walked to the door of the single-wide trailer. I could smell something funky coming from inside, and when a skinny girl with dark rings around her eyes opened the door, the smell hit me in the face, almost taking my breath away.

“What do you want?” Her voice was gruff and it sounded like she just woke up. She eyed me suspiciously, but her gaze softened when she saw Joshua. He was like a big teddy bear.

“Heather?” I asked in my kindest voice. Joshua smiled tentatively.

“Who wants to know? Are you reporters?”

“No, I’m with the DA’s office. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Not interested.” She started to shut the door, but I held up my hand and took a gamble that most of her information on law enforcement came from
CSI: Miami
.

“We can come back with a court order if you like, but then you’d have to talk to me down at the courthouse.”

Two court-order threats in one day. I was getting my money’s worth out of that one.

Heather looked at me through faded blue eyes. She was in her mid-twenties, but looked forty. I was guessing meth.

“Fine. What do you want?” she asked, opening the door a smidge.

“Can we come in?”

She opened the door all the way and we walked into her trailer. I couldn’t believe the mess—beer cans, cigarette butts, rotting food, animal feces, and trash littered every surface. My stomach churned. How could someone live like this? She lit a joint and I was about to protest until I realized the scent covered up the other smells in her house, so I decided not to say anything.

“This is my associate, Joshua.” I motioned toward Joshua, who stood with a fake smile on his face. His eyes watered and I had the feeling he was suffering from the smell a lot more than I was.

“Sorry about the mess. I don’t get many visitors.” Heather cleared a spot on the flowered couch and I sat down. She slouched on the arm of the couch and peered over at me. She looked like a crow perched on the edge of a headstone.

“Heather, first I want to ask you why you changed your name.”

“I never changed my name,” she mumbled and took another draw from her joint.

I cleared my throat. “It was filed on July 7
^th
.”

She tilted her head. “Don’t even remember.”

So this was the way it was going to go. She wasn’t going to sing so easily for me. Well, I could pull a song from just about anyone if you gave me enough time, bribed or not.

“Are you related to Hank Williams?” Joshua asked. I stiffened. If he ruined this for me, so help me …

The question clearly agitated her. She flushed, and her hands trembled so hard the ash crumbled from her smoke.

She wasn’t going to answer. Joshua looked at me and shifted uncomfortably. Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped the sweat from his brow.

I started with something easier. “Do you know a Glen Williams?”

Heather shot me a glare, and then she nodded as if the memory pained her.

“I understand why you don’t want to talk. I know how that works.” I thoughtlessly put my hand on the couch cushion, right into something white and gooey. I yanked my hand away, trying not to make a big deal of it, and wiped the goo on my pants. Hopefully it was just rotten yogurt and not something worse. “It doesn’t have to be about the name change, Heather.” I leaned back. “Just tell us a story.”

Joshua looked at me, confused. Heather finished her smoke and put it out in an ashtray shaped like a skeleton hand. She eyed me sideways. “A story?”

“Yep. A story. Any story.”

Heather suddenly looked like she was a million miles away. She stared at nothing, her eyes flashing with memories. I waited, trying not to tap my toe or shift or do anything that would distract her from her thoughts. Joshua looked around for a place to sit. He dragged out a kitchen chair, dusted off the seat with his handkerchief, and sat down heavily.

It pulled Heather from her reverie.

She took a deep breath and sighed. “I haven’t thought about him in a long time. This trial and the news just brought back a lot of bad memories.”

She seemed so breakable and her face was sunken in, as if she was dead but her body hadn’t received the memo.

“We want to hear a story, Heather,” I said.

“Okay, but all I know is a horror story. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”