Murder of a Pink Elephant (25 page)

Despite the fact that Turner was a jerk in most aspects of his life, in this instance Skye felt sorry for him. He seemed to genuinely love his son and want to do what was best for him. What she was about to say would be very painful. Many parents would ignore her advice, but regardless of the obnoxious persona Turner usually showed the world, Skye thought he might listen to her and get his son the help he needed.

“Mr. Turner, it sounds to me from the behavior you’ve described, and what I’ve observed, that Nathan is probably taking meth. It’s come to my attention that there’s recently been an increased availability and use of the drug in this area. Chief Boyd is aware of the situation and is looking into
it. Which means it’s important for you to get Nathan into a treatment program ASAP—both for his health and for his future, so he doesn’t end up with a police record.”

Skye waited for the man’s reaction—gauging the distance between her and the door. She no longer believed Turner was a bodily threat to her, but better safe than sorry.

Turner moaned, his head sinking into his chest. He reminded Skye of a silverback gorilla who had been shot and couldn’t understand what was causing his pain.

“How? I mean where?” Turner stood up and moved toward Skye. “What do I do?”

Skye stood, too. She took a notepad from the desk, wrote a few lines, and handed the paper to him. “This is the name of a hospital in Chicago that specializes in this problem. Ask for the drug treatment unit and make an appointment. They’ll probably agree to see you immediately. Put Nathan in the car and drive him there. Don’t let his pleading and promises sway you. Check him in and do what the doctors tell you.”

Turner took a deep breath and clutched the sheet of paper to his chest. “I really appreciate your helping Nathan like this. If there’s anything I can ever do for you, you let me know.”

Skye hated to bother him at a time like this, but she needed answers. “Could I ask you a couple of questions that may help me figure out who is supplying the kids with meth?”

“Believe me, if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t be standing here, and they wouldn’t be breathing.”

“Well, I have no proof. It’s purely a guess on my part, but I think there may be some connection between the increased meth availability, and the fire, the murder, and the proposed Pig-In-A-Poke development.”

Turner narrowed his eyes. “I know your family is against the amusement park, but it would really help this town. You
sure you aren’t trying to connect it to the drugs just because you want it to be dirty?”

Skye paused and thought about his question. Was that the reason? Could it be a coincidence that Pig-In-A-Poke came along at the same time she became aware of the increased drug use?

“Well?” he growled, fingering the telephone, obviously anxious to make the call to the hospital.

“You might be right. But I feel I need to check everything out, no matter how far-fetched.” Skye moved to the door. “I can’t risk overlooking something and have a kid die because of my carelessness.”

The big man tightened his lips. “Okay. This is all I know about Pig-In-A-Poke. Moss Gibson told me that he could build either north or south of Scumble River Road. But if he can’t get all the land he needs on one side of the road, he’ll have to take the amusement park to another town.”

“So even if he can’t buy the Leofanti farm, which is currently a part of his southern border, he could go north, but he would need the Frayne acreage and the Wolfe property.”

“Yeah. There’s also a little piece on the corner, but the owner inherited the land, lives in the city, and has already signed an option to sell.”

“So it’s all up to the Fraynes and the Wolfes?”

“Right. Gibson has to have land along either County Line or Scumble River Roads. He explained to me that because of land formations, government leases, and other factors, no other acreage in the area meets his needs.”

“Thanks.” Skye climbed down the stairs and yelled up to where Nate Turner was still standing. “Good luck with the hospital, and call me if I can be of any help.”

He nodded, waved, and disappeared inside the trailer. The metal door made a hollow sound as it thumped shut. Skye maneuvered the Bel Air back out onto the road. She only
hoped that Turner would follow through on her suggestion and that they had caught Nathan’s problem in time.

She had been with Turner for an hour. Her stomach was growling, and her neck was throbbing from the day’s frustrations. She was trying to figure out what she should do next when an approaching vehicle’s headlights blinded her.

Skye checked to see of she had accidentally put on her brights. No. She flicked them on and off to indicate to the other driver to turn off his high beams. They didn’t dim.

She clutched the steering wheel. It looked as if the lights were coming straight at her! She slowed down to twenty miles an hour. Shit! Were a bunch of teens playing chicken? She had always hated that game when she was in high school. Two drivers would aim at each other and the first to pull over was the “chicken.”

Honking her horn, she slowed even more and moved as far to the right as she could. The asphalt was slick with sleet and she could feel the Bel Air’s rear end slide as she tried to edge even closer to the shoulder.

The headlights coming toward her shifted in her direction, then sped up. There was no doubt. They were aimed straight at her. Skye wrenched the steering wheel to the right, trying to escape the steel monster bearing down on her.

She heard a scrape; the car fishtailed and then slid over the edge—rear end first—into the eight-foot deep drainage ditch running along the road. Although it felt like she was moving in slow motion, there was only a couple feet of water in the ditch, and the Bel Air hit bottom almost immediately. The car settled on its rear bumper, wedged in the icy mud at a seventy-degree angle.

For a moment she sat without moving or thinking, dazed by the impact and the events leading up to it. Finally, she looked around. Her seatbelt held her in place and except
for the weird position, the car didn’t appear to be damaged. Of course, she couldn’t see the exterior.

Skye struggled to unhook her seat belt, but the buckle was stuck and refused to open. She rolled down the window and started shouting for help. Thank goodness the Bel Air was an old car with crank-style window handles versus an electric button, because the engine had died on impact.

She continued to yell for assistance as she put all her weight behind trying to free herself from the seatbelt. She was already beginning to feel the cold, and she had to struggle to keep her teeth from chattering.

Several minutes went by and she was resting her voice when a light appeared at the top of the ditch. From the way it moved, Skye guessed it was a flashlight. She opened her mouth to call for help but closed it without making a sound. She had just realized that there had been no one on the road except for the vehicle that had run her off it. And once she had gone into the deep ditch no one could see her car. Which meant the person wielding the flashlight was probably the same person who had run her off the road.

Had it been a bunch of teenagers out for a joyride, after too much liquid refreshment, or was it someone who knew she was investigating Logan Wolfe’s death and/or the meth business and wanted to stop her—maybe for good?

  
CHAPTER 22
  

S
kye was furious with Wally. It had been a long time since he had forced her to sit in the back of the squad car instead of in the passenger seat, and that was only one source of her resentment. This time it was Wally who had gone too far. She had been careful to provide him with all the information she had discovered—and it hadn’t been easy, considering the barrier his ex-wife had put up around him—and how had he repaid her? He’d assigned one of his officers to follow her around like she was some sort of criminal.

Granted, Officer Quirk’s presence had come in handy in extricating her from the ditch. But what was the use of having a police escort if he wasn’t even able to catch the bad guys who had tried to hurt her? Quirk’s lame explanation was that his orders were to make sure she was all right before apprehending the wrongdoer. He had screwed up and just didn’t want to admit it.

Skye blew out an exasperated sigh. She was thoroughly sick of sitting in Wally’s cruiser. She had already examined every inch of the floor, seat, and ceiling, and nothing had changed from her previous occupancies.

At least she was warm; Wally had left the engine running
and the heater on. Another plus, the squad car was parked on the opposite side of Veterans’ Parkway from the ditch Skye had been forced into, so she had a fairly good view of her car being hauled from the ditch by the tow truck and the activities surrounding the extraction.

Skye thought back to her rescue. As Officer Quirk had cut her loose from the seatbelt and helped her up the slippery slope of the ditch, he had explained that he’d been following her since she left school. Chief Boyd had ordered him to keep an eye on her, but because of the deserted road, he’d had to keep back in order to remain out of sight. The car that had forced her off the road had been long gone by the time Quirk discovered Skye in the ditch.

Paramedics had arrived within minutes and after examining Skye had said that although she appeared to be okay, she should go to the Laurel hospital to be checked out. She had refused. Except for the bruise forming across her chest where the seatbelt had restrained her, she wasn’t hurt.

Her throbbing head wasn’t the result of an injury. Its cause was a mixture of hunger, frustration, and the fact that she wanted to smack Wally upside the head. Thinking about whacking Wally reminded her that she also wanted her purse, which as far as she knew was still in the Bel Air.

She had just decided to get out of the cruiser and go find her handbag, thus disobeying Wally’s orders to stay put, when he opened the front door and slid in, shaking his head. “Good thing Quirk found you. It’s colder than a witch’s ti—nose out there tonight, and your car is invisible from the road.”

Skye bristled but held her temper. “I would have figured out a way to get out myself. I have a Swiss Army Knife in my purse. As soon as I remembered that, I could have cut the belt.”

“Maybe. But we found your purse wedged into the back window shelf. It would have taken some amazing contortions
for you to reach it.” He tossed the object in question at her without looking behind him.

“Thanks.” Skye’s gratitude was grudging.

Wally continued to stare out the windshield. “Why were you talking to Jess Larson and Nate Turner?”

Skye opened her mouth to make a smart reply but caught herself. She had planned to tell Wally everything anyway, so why rile him up before she really had to? “I was wondering about which side of the Pig-In-A-Poke issue they were on.”

Abruptly he turned sideways on the seat and scrutinized her. “Why? What does the amusement park have to do with the murder?”

She met his gaze without flinching. “I’m not sure. Rod Yager said Moss Gibson had been hassling Logan to sell, and when I thought about it, it seemed that all of Scumble River’s current troubles started when the developer came to town.”

“Interesting point but flawed logic.” Wally managed a smile, although Skye could tell it required effort on his part.

“I know.” She rummaged in her purse for her pillbox, popped the lid, and dry swallowed an Aleve. “But I really have a feeling that the fire, the drugs, and Pig-In-A-Poke are connected. Did you get my message about Logan Wolfe buying huge numbers of items associated with meth production from the Laurel Wal-Mart and his wife being fired from her job there?”

“Yes. Who told you that?”

“A couple of the kids came to me with the information, but they wouldn’t say who told them,” Skye answered. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter who told me. You can look into Logan’s involvement without that information.”

“But Logan’s dead, so that isn’t a great lead, is it?”

Skye clenched her fists. What had gotten into Wally lately? Was it politics or Darleen? “Logan may be dead, but I doubt he was running the business on his own. You need to investigate
his known associates to see who else was in on it.”

“Let’s see, his known associates—who would those be? I know. How about your brother?”

Skye sagged back in the seat. Great! Had she really just aimed the police at Vince again? She straightened and tried again. “Forget Vince. He wouldn’t do that. But how about Rod? After all, he was with Ivy when I went by to talk to her, and he doesn’t seem to have any visible means of support. Or how about Ivy? Clearly she must have been involved.”

“We’ve interviewed them both. Neither admitted anything.” Frustration was evident in Wally’s voice. “Even if your ‘source’ came forward, with Logan dead we don’t have enough to get a warrant to search the Wolfe place.”

“So you’re not making
any
progress?”

“We’re working on other leads,” Wally claimed. “You still haven’t said anything that makes me think there’s a connection between the murder or the drugs and the amusement park.”

There was something. It had come to her just before she had been forced off the road. What was it? Suddenly she remembered and blurted out, “The car.”

“The car that hit you?”

“No. The night of the dance, there was no one around when I arrived, but there was a car parked in the handicapped space.” Skye closed her eyes and visualized the vehicle. “It was a red Lincoln Town Car, which is what Moss Gibson drives.”

“You think Gibson started the fire?”

“Maybe. Logan
was
standing in the way of his development.”

Wally’s expression was skeptical. “I’ll check it out.” He turned and put the cruiser in drive.

“Wait.” Skye sat forward. “What about my car? Where
are you taking me?” Her questions became more panicky as he pulled onto the road before answering.

He looked at her in the rearview mirror. “The tow truck will bring it to the garage the police use. I want to have it examined for paint scrapes from the vehicle that hit you. And to answer your last question, to your mom at the police station.”