Chapter 3
June 28
"I hear you two had a fight."
Matt Converse watched the boyfriend's eyes. They flicked
away, came back almost immediately. The guy — Keith Kenan,
thirty-six years old, one divorce, employed on the line at
Honda for five years and resident of Benton for that same
period, clean police record except for one brawl over in
Savannah two years back and a couple of old DUIs — was
nervous. Nervous didn't always equal guilt, but it bore
watching.
"Who told you that?"
Matt shrugged noncommittally.
"So what if we did? That don't mean anything. Everybody
has fights." Kenan's tone was defensive. He was getting
agitated. Matt observed the quickening of his breathing,
the tightening of his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes, with
clinical detachment. Kenan was a big, burly guy with a
dark blond buzz cut, smallish pale blue eyes, and a tattoo
of a heart pierced by a dagger on one pumped-up biceps,
which was bared by the ratty tank top he was wearing with
black nylon gym shorts. The two of them were standing in
the combination living/dining room of the apartment Kenan
shared with Marsha Hughes.
Correction: had shared. Marsha Hughes had been missing for
just over a week. This was Matt's second conversation with
Kenan. He'd first talked to him five days ago, after one
of Marsha's friends at work had become concerned enough
about her unexplained absence to report it to the
sheriff's department.
"Everybody has fights," Matt conceded. Kenan started to
pace. Matt took advantage of his distraction to glance
around. Except for a single meal's worth of dishes on the
dining-room table — apparently the previous night's supper
because, upon answering the door, Kenan had complained
about being rousted from bed — the apartment was neat.
Furniture by Sam's Club or Wal-Mart. Worn green carpet.
Gold drapes drawn against the bright morning sun. Walls
painted white, hung with a few nondescript prints. As far
as he could tell, nothing out of the ordinary. No telltale
brown stains on the carpet. No suspicious dark spatters on
the walls. No corpse sticking out from under the couch.
Matt's mouth quirked wryly. If it were only that easy.
"Look, Sheriff, I ain't stupid. I know what you're getting
at," Kenan burst out, turning to face him. "I didn't lay a
hand on Marsha, I swear."
"Nobody's saying you did." Matt's voice was calm, his
demeanor nonconfrontational. No point in provoking Kenan
by escalating the discussion into more than it needed to
be at this stage of the investigation. It was still quite
possible that Marsha had left on her own; she could turn
up alive and well somewhere at any minute. On the other
hand, he didn't like the feel of things. Call it instinct,
call it applied common sense, call it whatever you wanted,
but he didn't think that a woman who'd lived in the area
most of her life, who'd shown up like clockwork since
she'd started at the Winn-Dixie eight years ago, who had
regular habits and a good number of friends, would light
out to parts unknown without letting somebody know.
"She just took off," Kenan said. "She got in her car and
took off. That's what happened. That's it."
Matt took his time. "Mind telling me what the fight was
about?"
Kenan looked harassed. "Baloney, all right? I had some
baloney in the refrigerator and it was gone when I got
home from work and went to make a sandwich. Turns out
she'd fed it to a damned dog." He took a deep breath. "It
was stupid. Just one of those stupid things."
Over Kenan's shoulder, Matt watched his deputy, Antonio
Johnson, emerge from the bathroom down the hall. Antonio
would turn fifty in two weeks. He was black, a little less
than six feet tall and nearly as wide, built like a
linebacker gone to seed. He had a bulldog's pugnacious
face, a more or less permanent scowl, and basically looked
like a thug in deputy's uniform. He had asked to use the
john right after Kenan had let them in, as a way of
getting a look at the areas of the apartment the sheriff
or his deputy were not normally allowed to see without
benefit of a search warrant. It was a ploy they had used
before, and would use again. Sometimes it netted them
valuable information. Today, apparently, they weren't
going to be so lucky. Antonio replied to his questioning
look with a negative jerk of the head.
"Thanks," Antonio said to Kenan as he joined them in the
living room. Kenan nodded, then glanced back at Matt.
"I didn't do nothing to her," he said, wetting his
lips. "I swear to God."
Matt looked at him. Kenan held his gaze.
"You mean besides yell at her," Matt said agreeably. "And
chase her down the stairs and out of the building. Isn't
that what happened that night?"
Kenan didn't say anything. He didn't have to. The breath
he sucked in through his teeth was as much confirmation as
Matt needed this side of the courtroom.
"Might as well give it up," Antonio said, folding his arms
across his massive chest and glowering at Kenan. "We
know."
Matt barely stopped himself from casting his deputy a wry
glance. What they knew was basically what Kenan and the
neighbors had already told them: Marsha Hughes had had a
fight with him, had left or been chased from the apartment
and had not been seen by anyone important to her since.
Without any kind of solid evidence that Marsha had come to
harm, what they knew didn't amount to a hill of beans.
There was no case. But Antonio was an optimist. He was
always thinking that if he applied enough pressure,
potential suspects would crack, confessing all and saving
everybody concerned a boatload of time and trouble.
Sometimes it even worked.
Kenan's expression changed. His lip curled angrily as his
eyes slashed to Matt. "I saw you talking to that damned
Myer woman the other day. Stayin' home all the time,
claiming she hurt her back and can't work, getting her
kicks butting into other people's business." His voice was
tight with resentment. "She's the one who told you that,
right?"
"Actually, everybody in the building who was home that
night pretty much says the same thing." Matt's demeanor
was still mild, still neutral, although he made a mental
note to keep an eye on Audrey Myer, who had indeed been
the primary source of his information, in case Kenan
should live up to his hair color and try something stupid.
Reaching for a brass-framed picture of Kenan with Marsha,
whom he recognized from a photo he'd collected for
identification purposes on his first visit to the
apartment, Matt paused and glanced at Kenan before picking
it up. "Do you mind?"
"Help yourself." The tension in his voice was still
palpable.
Matt picked up the picture and made a show of examining
it. It was a snapshot rather than a formal portrait,
obviously taken at a fair or amusement park, showing the
two of them dressed up in old-fashioned clothes, including
a big picture hat for Marsha that hid most of her red
hair. They were grinning at the camera, their arms around
each other, clearly on good terms at that moment.
At another moment, had Kenan killed her?
"Good-looking woman," he said, putting the picture back
down on the end table. His gaze slid to Kenan again. "You
must be worried sick about her."
The point being that so far Kenan had shown no sign of
being unduly concerned over Marsha's fate. Chalk up one
more red flag. Of course, it was possible that Kenan was a
still-waters-run-deep type, with a lot more going on
beneath the surface than Matt had been able to discern. It
was also possible that Kenan simply wasn't all that sorry
she was gone, which still didn't make him guilty of a
crime.
The thing about it was, Matt wasn't even a hundred percent
sure that a crime had been committed here. His gut
instinct said that Marsha Hughes's prospects for turning
up unharmed did not look good, but then, his gut instinct
had steered him wrong before.
"I am," Kenan said. Belligerently.
Matt took note of the tone, of the clenching of Kenan's
fists, the reddening of his face.
"You've been known to hit her." Matt's voice was almost
gentle. His purpose was to uncover information, not to
accuse.
"Who told you that?" Kenan responded. He was breathing
heavily even though he was no longer pacing.
Matt shrugged.
"Goddamned nosy-ass neighbors." A muscle in his jaw
worked. His stance had shifted, become aggressive, with
legs braced apart, shoulders rigid, fists clenched into
tight bunches by his sides. His eyes were hard as they met
Matt's. "Look, like I said, we had fights. Marsha's no
angel, either. Anything I did to her, believe me, she gave
as good as she got."
"Did you hit her the night she disappeared?"
"No! No. I didn't touch her. She left, all right? We had a
fight and she left. She got in her car and I watched her
drive away. That's the last time I saw her."
Antonio made a skeptical sound that was not quite under
his breath. Kenan's gaze swung around to him. The look
Kenan gave him was tense, angry. The interview was
teetering on the brink of turning ugly, Matt realized.
Pushing Kenan to the point of clamming up and calling a
lawyer would be counterproductive. Time to hang it up for
now.
"Well, thanks for your cooperation. We'll be in touch,"
Matt said, offering his hand before the encounter
deteriorated irredeemably. After the briefest of
hesitations, Kenan shook it. Antonio shook hands, too. It
was clear from the expression on his face that he did so
with reluctance. Making nice with those he considered bad
guys was not one of Antonio's strong suits.
Antonio tended to take crime personally. Matt had spent a
considerable amount of time in the two years since he'd
been elected Screven County Sheriff dissuading Antonio
from breaking people's arms and legs. Figuratively
speaking, of course. At least, most of the time it was
figurative.
Suppressing a sigh, Matt turned to the door, then glanced
back over his shoulder with his hand on the knob as if
he'd just remembered something.
"Just so you know: we've got an APB out on her car, and
her picture and stats have been sent to every law
enforcement agency in the Southeast. Plus we're still
running down a few leads locally. We'll find her."
His tone was deliberately confident; if Kenan really was
concerned about his girlfriend's fate, it should provide
some small degree of reassurance.
On the other hand, if he wasn't revealing any concern
because he knew very well where Marsha was, having
personally put her there, it should worry him.
Either way worked.
"Yeah, we'll find her." Antonio turned it into a threat as
he followed Matt out into the stuffy upstairs hallway.
Kenan closed the door behind them without another word.
The sound, louder than it needed to be, echoed off the
concrete-block walls.
"Think you could tone the hostility down a notch?" Matt
asked as they took the stairs.
"We got him. That's our man right there. The guy's an
asshole."
It was hot in the stairwell; the sound of their shoes
hitting the metal treads echoed around their ears.
"Last time I checked, being an asshole wasn't a crime. As
for any evidence against him, we don't have diddly-squat."
"He has a history of beating up on her. She was scared
enough of him the night she disappeared to run out of
their apartment. He chased her outside. We've got half a
dozen witnesses ready to swear to that. Nobody's seen her
since. What more do you want?"
"A lot," Matt said dryly, pushing open the door and
walking out into the sweltering heat. There'd been a whole
string of hellishly hot days like this, nine or ten
together. It was ninety-nine in the shade, and humid. He'd
seen it before — the heat made people crazy. There'd been
more crimes, petty and otherwise, in the last two weeks
than there had been in the previous six months. His eight-
man department was swamped. They were all working pretty
much around the clock, himself included. Today he'd been
fighting crime since five A.M., when Anson Jarboe had
tried to sneak into his house after an all-night bender
and been surprised by his wife, who'd been waiting in
their darkened living room with a baseball bat. Anson's
shrieks as she'd given him what for had roused the
neighbors, and the neighbors had called the sheriff. It
was now five past eleven, and he knew from experience that
the day — a Friday — was just getting underway. After
people got off work, the county would really start to hop.
All he wanted to do tonight was sit in his air-conditioned
house in front of the TV set with a cold beer in one hand
and the remote in the other; there was a baseball game he
was dying to catch.
Fat chance of that.
"Well, I — " Antonio began, then broke off, a grin
splitting his homely face from ear to ear. Alarmed, Matt
glanced around to see what had prompted such an
uncharacteristic display of glee from his typically stone-
faced deputy. When his gaze lit on the cause, he barely
managed to swallow a groan. He'd known it had to be bad to
wrest that kind of grin out of Antonio, but this wasn't
just bad — it was awful.
"Oh, Matt, there you are!" Shelby Holcomb's face
brightened as she spotted him. Waving, her face wreathed
in smiles, she straightened up from peering into the
window of his official car and headed toward him.
"Hey, Shelby," he answered, his pace slowing.
Undeterred by his clear lack of enthusiasm, she kept on
coming. Slim and attractive at thirty-two, a Benton native
who had moved back to town four years before to take over
the local Century 21 franchise, Shelby had twisted her
honey-blond hair up in some kind of fancy-looking roll at
the back of her head as her sole nod to the heat. Her
makeup was on in full force, down to the bright red
lipstick that gleamed as the sun hit it. She even had on a
suit, for crying out loud, a powder blue number with a
short skirt and elbow-length sleeves, which he guessed was
no big deal for Shelby despite the soaring temperature
because the woman never seemed to break a sweat. Buttoned
up the front, it exposed what Shelby no doubt considered
an effective but tasteful amount of cleavage. She had on
hose, and heels, and was carrying that damned notebook she
was using as her latest weapon in the war of conquest she
was waging. Not that he was about to fall anytime soon.
She'd been chasing him for years. Last summer, in what was
one of the many brain-dead episodes that continued to
distinguish his existence, he'd made the mistake of
letting her catch him for a while. They'd hung out, had
fun, gone to some parties, the movies, Savannah for dinner
a couple of times. All in all, they'd had a good time.
Then Shelby had started reading magazines with titles like
June Bride and dragging him into jewelry stores and
otherwise giving off all kinds of vibes that she was
starting to pair him with "forever" in her mind.
Forever gave him nightmares. Forever wasn't in his game
plan. Forever and a woman? Not happening. At least, not
anytime in the foreseeable future. Just the idea of being
tied down to a wife and kids and a mortgage made him break
out in a cold sweat.
He'd had enough responsibility in his thirty-three years
to last him the rest of his life. No way was he taking on
more when he was right on the brink of working his way
free.
He'd come out with some lame speech in which not rushing
things and her being way too good for him and his needing
space had been the dominant themes. Then he'd run for the
hills. She'd been gunning for him ever since.
"Matt!"
That voice was even more familiar than Shelby's, and came
with its own set of worries. It belonged to Erin, the
oldest of his responsibilities. He turned his head and
spotted his sister as she popped out of the passenger seat
of Shelby's red Honda, which was parked behind his
cruiser. A recent graduate of the University of Georgia,
she was twenty-two, petite and pretty with short, tousled
black hair and a mischievous grin, which at the moment
beamed full-wattage at him. As their eyes met over the
roof of the car, he couldn't help grinning back at her,
albeit a little ruefully. Erin, blast her sweet but
troublemaking little hide, had gone and gotten herself
engaged to Shelby's younger brother, Collin, who had set
up a law practice in Benton the previous year. As Matt was
paying for the wedding as well as giving the bride away
and Shelby had taken upon herself the task of organizing
the event, the opportunities for Shelby to hound him had
multiplied exponentially. It seemed like everywhere he
went lately she turned up.
"Yo, Erin," he said with a touch of reproof. His sister
knew Shelby was after him, and like the rest of his
family — along with half the damned county — seemed
determined to do her bit to help shoo him into the trap.
"I just wanted to get your opinion before I ordered the
flowers." Shelby smiled at him with determined charm. Matt
obediently stopped walking as she reached him and looked
down at the notebook, which she was flipping open
practically under his nose. He'd been through this drill
before: she showed him something — a picture, an estimate,
a list — and he nodded and said, "Looks great." Then she
did what she wanted — with his money.
It was expensive, but easier and safer than arguing.
This time, however, the amount in question was so high
that he protested before he thought.
"Fifteen hundred dollars? For flowers?" He met Shelby's
eyes. They smiled meltingly into his. Her lips parted. Her
lashes fluttered. Alarmed, he dropped his gaze back down
to the price list.
"I told her it was too much." Apology in her voice, Erin
joined them. She was wearing short white shorts that
showed way too much of her tanned legs, in Matt's opinion,
and a lime green halter top that molded her ample breasts.
Looking her up and down with a gathering frown, he made a
mental note to have a chat with her sometime in the near
future about the advantages of leaving something to the
imagination. She apparently read his mind, or his
expression, because as she met his gaze her grin returned
and she gave a teasing little wriggle that set her breasts
to jiggling.
He frowned at her, she wrinkled her nose at him, and they
engaged in a potent but silent exchange of opinions as
visions of convents filled his head. Then the sheer
ridiculousness of the situation occurred to him.
Somewhere, he thought, angels must be snickering at the
idea that he, of all people, had wound up with three
increasingly babelicious girls to shepherd into womanhood.
It had to have been the cosmic joke of the century.
"It is a lot." Shelby sounded apologetic too as she curled
surprisingly strong fingers around his elbow. "But I don't
think the florist is being unreasonable. You have to
consider that besides the bride's bouquet, we need
nosegays for the bridesmaids, and boutonnieres for Collin
and the groomsmen, and flowers for the church and
centerpieces for the tables at the reception and — "
"Whatever you think," Matt interrupted, feeling hunted.
His uniform was khaki, long pants, short-sleeved shirt,
and Shelby was taking full advantage of the looseness of
his shirt sleeve to slip her hand right up under there to
caress his biceps. The feel of her soft, meticulously
manicured hand sliding across his overheated skin was
enough to make him remember that he hadn't gotten laid
since he'd fled her bed at the end of March. Which was
exactly what she had intended, he was pretty sure.
Antonio crossed his arms over his chest, looking
thoughtful. "When Rose got married" — Rose was the younger
of his two daughters — "I told her that she could choose
between the flowers she wanted or the down payment on a
new car. That's how much the flowers were."
"So what did she choose?" Matt asked, slightly interested.
"The flowers. Can you believe it?" Antonio shook his head
at the folly of women.
"My idea is that we should just do the flowers ourselves,"
Erin said, giving Matt a wicked smile that told him she
knew where Shelby's hand was. "We could get the cost down
to five hundred dollars and still have practically the
same thing."
"Whatever you think," Matt said again, desperate to end
the conversation. The only thing worse than being kept
abreast of every little detail of his sister's wedding
plans was being stalked by Shelby at the same time. He
hadn't realized it while they'd been seeing each other,
but the woman had the tenacity of a bulldog; once she got
her teeth into something, she never willingly let go.
More fool he for letting her sink her teeth into him in
the first place.
The cell phone clipped to Matt's belt began to ring. He
had a pager, but it could only be accessed by an employee
of the sheriff's department. Many of his friends,
neighbors, relatives and other assorted county residents
preferred to bypass the whole official process and call
him on his personal line. At least answering it provided
an excuse for him to step away from Shelby without making
his discomfort with what she was doing obvious. She looked
after him in transparent disappointment as her discreetly
dislodged hand dropped to her side.
Thank God Erin's wedding was only a little over three
weeks away, Matt thought. He was starting to feel harassed
to the max. On top of everything else, playing cat and
mouse with Shelby without saying or doing something that
would hurt Erin's relationship with her new family was
getting old fast. It was no damn fun being the mouse.
"Got to go," Matt said as he hung up, feeling relieved and
doing his best to hide it. He looked at Antonio. "Mrs.
Hayden's out walking her dog down Route 1 again."
Antonio made a face.
"So what's wrong with that?" Erin looked from one to the
other of them with a mystified frown.
"All she's wearing are her shoes and a big sun hat," Matt
clarified. Mrs. Hayden was ninety if she was a day, and
growing increasingly forgetful. Lately she had tended to
forget to put on her clothes. This was the fourth time
since the weather had turned nice in March that they'd
gotten a call from a scandalized driver reporting that she
was strolling naked alongside the road as her equally
ancient shih tzu snuffled at grass clumps from the end of
a leash.
"Can't somebody else deal with it?" Shelby asked with a
hint of impatience, tapping her fingers against the cover
of the notebook as if that were the most important thing
in the world.
"She likes Matt," Antonio said, grinning again. Matt was
beginning to realize that lately a great many of his
deputy's rare grins were being had at his expense. "If any
of the rest of us come near her, she clobbers us with her
hat. She lets Matt take her home."
Erin chortled. Shelby looked disgusted.
"See ya," said Matt, taking full advantage of what he
could only regard as a heaven-sent opportunity to escape.
He never would have thought it possible, but he found as
he retreated in good order to his cruiser that today he
was actually grateful for having been personally notified
that Mrs. Hayden was having one of her more bizarre senior
moments again. He'd rather deal with a naked nonagenarian
than a love-thwarted thirty-something any day of the week.
With Antonio riding shotgun, he lifted a hand in farewell
to his sister and his ex-girlfriend, then drove out of the
parking lot.
The question of Marsha Hughes's whereabouts was
temporarily put on the back burner as he sped off to make
the county safe from the hazards posed by dotty old
ladies.
Copyright © 2003 by Karen Robards