Deadly Catch (26 page)

“George Harper was Brett’s biological father. Sheriff Pickron admitted it after I’d figured it out. You do know Bo Pickron is Mrs. Harper’s brother, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“George Harper and Brett’s mother used to date back in high school. They had an affair years ago, after they were both married. My guess is the honorable mayor was paying Chief Merritt to keep Brett out of hot water, and when Tom Mayo busted Brett with the marijuana, Merritt made sure the charges didn’t stick. It wound up costing Mayo his job and maybe his life.”

After emphasizing just how dangerous this whole mess might get if word leaked out, I swore J.D. to secrecy and left. I hoped I could trust him. I’d counted on men younger than him to cover my back in more dangerous situations, but they were highly trained Marines. If this young police officer couldn’t keep his mouth shut, I might wind up in a real world of hurt. Or worse.

I jolted awake. Was I dreaming, or was somebody knocking on my door? I leaned over to the nightstand and squinted at the clock. It was a little after midnight, and I was still groggy from a few too many beers. Another knock. Thinking it might be Kate or Jerry and Donna needing help, I switched on a light and hurried to the door without checking out the window first. Big mistake. I opened the door to face a pistol clutched in the meaty fist of Elvis.

Elvis and Blondie barreled their way in without invitation, Blondie greeting me with a short but effective punch to the solar plexus. I dropped to my knees, gasping for air.

Elvis grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head up until I was staring him in the face. “I don’t think we got our point across in town this aftanoon, friend,” he said and then slammed me upside the head with the gun butt. “Lay off!”

Friend?
I thought, as the world spun and the light faded.
With friends like these . . .

Kate checked the schedule at work and called the next morning to let me know Lamar was supposed to have the coming Tuesday off. She also found out from Tonya Randall that her mother was still working the four-to-midnight shift at the hospital. She didn’t press her luck and try to find out what day or days Debra Randall had off from her nursing duties.

I didn’t bother telling Kate about my little run-in with the goons from up north. I was nursing a headache, and Elvis’s blow had raised a nice goose egg, but surprisingly there was little bleeding. I guess being thick-skulled has its virtues.

I did call Bo Pickron to tell him about yesterday’s afternoon chat and late-night visit with my two new “friends.” He seemed duly unimpressed.

“Look, Sheriff, those guys were in a rental car, and their accent tells me they’re from somewhere up north. This thing is obviously more than a local deal. Maybe it’s time you called in the State or the Feds.”

“No can do, McClellan, unless you got some hard evidence that I can show ’em. They won’t lift a finger on a whim.” I thought about the comb I’d found near my burned trailer and mentally kicked myself in the ass for throwing it away.

Pickron did promise to have his men keep an eye out for the car, which I described for him in as much detail as I could. “Don’t count on us finding it, though,” he said. “Chances are they already ditched the car across the state line somewhere and rented another since you ID’d ’em with it.”

At dusk I left the highway and turned onto the dirt road that ran through the woods parallel to the side boundary of Harper property. Checking the Google map again, I stopped where the sandy rut road made a hairpin turn south toward a cypress swamp. I pulled off and parked behind a thick clump of underbrush. Scratched the hell out my Silverado doing it, but the truck would be hard to spot if anybody happened by. I backtracked down the road until the underbrush thinned some, then worked my way through the woods and came to the white fence marking the estate boundary. I climbed over and snuck back a couple of hundred yards along the fence line until the house was in sight. Using trees and bushes for cover, I eased within thirty-five or forty yards of the house.

I made myself comfortable in a spot where I was well concealed by a hedge and had a good view of the driveway and front of Tara. The air was hot and sticky. I was wearing my camos, sleeves and neck buttoned tight because the mosquitoes were out in force, but a light breeze and bug juice spared me some discomfort.

Kate and I already had photo evidence linking Lamar Randall and Marilyn Harper, but getting up-to-date photographic proof that their affair was still ongoing since Maddie’s death and Brett’s disappearance might prove important to the case. I waited, hoping that if Lamar and Marilyn were feeling amorous tonight they’d do their thing early, leaving plenty of time for Lamar to beat his wife home from her shift at the hospital.

It wasn’t long before I was fighting sleep. It reminded me of being on a listening post in the Marines, only there was no one else along to spare me a couple of hours of shut-eye. I had six hours watching all to myself. By eleven-thirty the only visitors to Tara were the aforementioned squadrons of mosquitoes, scattered fireflies, and a family of chattering raccoons that passed within a few feet without detecting me. I gave it up for the night and headed home.

Tuesday was Lamar’s day off from Gillman’s, so I was back on post by seven that morning. I knew his wife wouldn’t leave for work until midafternoon, but Lamar might use some excuse to get away from the house for a while. If he did, I wanted to be ready and not blow the opportunity.

At ten I heard the sound of an engine break the calm. I grabbed the binoculars I’d borrowed from Kate and made sure my camera was at the ready. Soon a van appeared out of the trees and made a half circle around the drive. I focused the binoculars at a rectangular sign on the car door.
Adele’s Cleaning Service
, then a couple of lines in smaller lettering I couldn’t make out and a phone number in bold along the bottom. No Lamar, but the attractive young woman with big boobs and eggplant-colored hair who climbed out broke the boredom. I wondered if Friendly George or Marilyn had made the hire. My money was on the mayor.

Adele left around one in the afternoon. I made myself comfortable against the tree at my back and dozed off for a while. In the Corps I’d learned to be a light sleeper; if another vehicle came driving up, I’d hear it.

I was on full alert again by four, the time Debra Randall began her shift at the hospital. The hours dragged by, darkness fell, and I spent another wasted night waiting for lover boy. Not even the raccoons bothered to make a show, although a possum walked by close enough that I could’ve reached out and touched it.

They say the third time’s a charm, and I damn sure hoped it would be. I was getting tired of spending hour after hour waiting for Lamar and Marilyn to get their hormones in gear. Back on station at five-thirty Wednesday afternoon, I didn’t have long to wait. I was barely settled in when I heard a vehicle’s engine in the distance and getting closer by the second. I readied the binoculars and camera. Bingo!

It was Lamar’s old pickup, all right; the camouflage paint job was unmistakable. Instead of turning off for the garage, he parked in the circular drive. I grabbed the camera, zoomed in, and snapped a few pictures as he climbed out of the truck and headed for the door. The lighting was good, and I had the camera set on silent mode so he couldn’t hear the shutter clicking.

Lamar ambled up the steps and across the porch. I kept shooting as he rang the doorbell. A minute passed, and he rang it again. A few seconds later the door flew open. Lamar stepped back and nearly stumbled as Marilyn Harper came at him like a she-tiger, screaming at the top of her lungs, arms flailing and fists pounding Lamar’s head and chest as he retreated down the steps. I snapped shot after shot as she reached in a pocket of her robe and threw something at him, all the while screaming like a banshee. Her voice was so shrill and choked with sobs I couldn’t make out what she was saying.

Except for one specific word, a word she repeated three or four times during the brief tirade—“Maddie!”

“Dang, Mac, that
is
money! Look closer, right there.” Kate tapped the nail of her pinky on the screen. “Those are bills.”

I’d driven straight to Kate’s house when I left the woods, and she uploaded the photos from my camera to her laptop. The pics were pretty good as they were, but the Picasa program was bringing out even better detail.

Kate’s eyes searched mine. “Money. What on earth do you think it means?”

I looked again at Lamar, bent over, scooping up the bills that had spilled from the envelope Marilyn hurled at him. “I don’t know, but I doubt it’s a past-due stud fee. I could use a beer.”

I followed Kate into the kitchen and collapsed onto a chair. The surprise of watching Marilyn Harper attacking Lamar had knocked me for a mental loop. Or maybe the long hours I’d spent sitting and spying the past three days had caught up with me.

Kate handed me a beer and twisted the top off her own. She went back to the living room and returned with her laptop. “You’re sure you heard her say ‘Maddie’?”

“Three or four times, and loud enough to scare the bark off the trees.”

Kate scrolled through a few more photos, each one a little more blurry than the preceding shots. “You were shaking the camera on these.”

I took a big swig. “Well, excuse me. I was expecting to see them act all lovey-dovey, and then she comes at him like a mama bear screaming Maddie’s name.”

She ignored my explanation. “We need to find out what the money was for.”

I resisted the urge to say, “No shit” and grabbed the stack of 8×12s instead. I found the ones with Lamar Randall and Marilyn Harper together and set them side-by side. Then I found the one showing Lamar and Brett beside a pickup truck and added it to the lineup. “Scroll back to the clear shots I took this evening,” I said.

When Kate was ready I pointed to the photos of Lamar and Marilyn acting like love-struck teenagers inside the Continental. “Okay. Here, those two are love birds. And here,” I said, pointing to the ones showing Lamar walking from the Harpers’ garage to Marilyn waiting at the front door, “I’d guess they were fixing to get it on again while Friendly George was away.”