Chapter Nine
Jeannie held her hands over her mouth like the speak-no-evil monkey, trying to digest what the lawman had told her. Anyone bearing news like his should look more distressed, she believed. This man just sat upright with his cowboy-style hat across his lap and his hands on its brim. There might have been sadness in his brown eyes, hooded by heavy lids and with a slight downturn at the outer corners, but she had never seen him before, so that could have been his usual expression. His hair was dark brown, with a flattened ring where his hat usually rested. He had a prominent nose, a wide mouth with thin lips, a pronounced jaw. Exposure to sun and wind had leathered his skin, so that the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth resembled cracks or fissures in its surface. He was probably six-one or two, and his tan uniform was mostly clean but damp, muddy around the legs, and worn, with long sleeves snapped at the cuffs and black cowboy boots mostly hidden beneath the pants. He sat on the edge of the leather chair so his gun, handcuffs, and whatever else dangled from his belt didn’t mar its finish.
She thought there should be something about him to indicate that he had just come down the road from the neighbors’ house, where he had looked at four dead bodies. A sign, a symbol of some sort; such a horror should leave a mark. She didn’t even want to think about the fact that there had been a killer on their road—a road with only the two houses on it. Had the killer picked the Lavenders at random, driving right past her home to get to them? She couldn’t imagine any reason why a struggling ranch family should be the target of such an act. But how did one rationalize the insane, or understand the inexplicable?
“Do you have any idea why someone would have … would have done that?” she asked as he was leaving, her voice catching.
He stopped with the front door open, one foot on either side of the threshold. “None at all, ma’am. That’s what we have to figure out. Once we’ve done that, then I reckon we’ll have a much better idea who did it.”
“Have you solved a lot of mass murders, Lieutenant?” Oliver asked, joining them at the door. There was an edge to his voice that Jeannie didn’t like, as if he were angry at the deputy and purposely baiting him. Not beyond the realm of possibility, she knew. Oliver had never cared much for authority figures to begin with, and after the last year, that dislike had turned bitter.
The lieutenant let it roll off him. He spoke softly, casually, and if she hadn’t become accustomed to the country accents of rural Arizonans, Jeannie would have assumed he’d been raised in the South. “Fortunately, it don’t come up that often in these parts,” he said. “But don’t you worry, we’ll get it taken care of, all right.”
“I hope you do,” Oliver said, with less hostility this time. The last thing they needed, Jeannie thought, was to make an enemy of local law enforcement.
“Well, I’ll get out of your way now, let you go on with your day,” Buck Shelton said. He fished a business card from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “That’s got my numbers on it, office and mobile. If you think of anything that might help, no matter how mundane it might seem, give me a call. Same thing if you feel nervous or threatened, like anyone’s coming around here that oughtn’t to be.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant Shelton,” Jeannie said quickly, before Oliver could answer. “We’ll do that.”
The lieutenant left, and Jeannie and Oliver stood in the doorway staring at each other. “My God,” Oliver said after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. “Can you believe … the Lavenders?”
“And poor Lulu,” Jeannie added. “She must be frightened out of her wits.”
“Lulu’s tough,” Oliver said. “Of course she’s scared. But if I know her, she’s already looking for a way out, and a way to kick the ass of whoever’s got her.”
Thinking about Lulu choked Jeannie up again. She stepped forward, pressed herself against Oliver’s wide chest. His arms wrapped around her, fingers pressing into her back. Even after everything they had been through, he remained her rock, her anchor, in a way that surprised her whenever she dared to think about it. She fancied herself an independent woman, and she knew she could get by without him.
But she would rather not have to. It always came down to that.
On his way out, Buck Shelton had reversed his course momentarily and asked them to keep what he’d said to themselves. He had mentioned the media madness surrounding poor Elayne Lippincott’s disappearance, and Jeannie had understood immediately. Jeanine Pirro had practically moved in with the Lippincotts, although rumor had it she was getting bored with Sierra Vista’s nightlife and hoping for a quick end to the case. Jeannie would not have wanted Larrimore Trail to become the latest press encampment, especially since the only neighbors to interview or harass would be her and Oliver.
He had indicated, also, that it was a law-enforcement decision, something to do with keeping Lulu’s abductor off-balance by not letting news of his crime leak out. She was happy to go along with his request, and Oliver agreed.
After a few minutes, she returned to her painting. She had almost finished the two walls she was turning sage green, leaving the other two white for contrast. As she brushed paint up against the masking tape she had applied at the corner, her mind kept reeling back to the sheriff’s visit. He had never specifically said why he had come over. She had assumed, at first, it was because of the proximity of the houses. He hadn’t said anything to her about the fact that Oliver and Lulu sometimes drove to school together.
What if there had been some clue—a diary entry, a note, something, he had found at the Lavender house that had sent him their way? Did he know something about Oliver and Lulu that she didn’t? There had been a time when she wouldn’t even have wondered, but the trust on which their marriage had been based had been broken, and although they had moved on together, reestablishing that trust had proven difficult.
Jeannie shook her head, embarrassed for even thinking along such lines. What Shelton had described involved unspeakable violence. Oliver might have been capable of deception and dishonesty, but not murder or kidnapping. Such things weren’t part of his makeup. Just because you were burned once, she told herself, doesn’t make the man you love a killer.
She resolved to put such thoughts out of her head, and returned her focus to painting.