Pulling the Trigger. Julie Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ Martinez, fortunately, didn’t pick up on the way she stiffened in her seat. He pulled into a slanted parking space in front of the building. “When Watts is drunk, he can get mean.”

      So some things never changed in Kenner County. “You don’t have him in custody?”

      “We suspect he’s been doing odd jobs for the Nicky Wayne crime family out of Vegas, like helping Wayne’s hit man, Boyd Perkins, hide out in the area. However, what we believe and what we can prove are two different things. That’s why he’s still a free man. But he’s definitely a person of interest we’ve been watching. Could be he had nothing to do with the murder, and he’s only funneling information to them—someone sure seems to be.”

      She’d heard about the information leaks that had dogged the investigation, seeming to give Boyd Perkins—the man reputed to have killed mob boss Vincent Del Gardo, as well as the bureau’s chief suspect in Agent Grainger’s murder—a heads-up when to go into hiding or carry out another attack. “How do you want me to direct my interrogation? Confirm the source of the security leak? Find out if Perkins is still in the area and pinpoint his location? Or should I concentrate on Watts himself, and tie him to Boyd Perkins and Agent Grainger’s murder so you can make an arrest?”

      “Anything you can get out of him. I don’t make him for premeditated murder—I’d be surprised if he has the backbone for that. But I wouldn’t put it past him to hurt someone if he felt threatened.”

      She didn’t need to read the Kenner County Crime Unit—KCCU, according to her mission brief—report to know his assessement of Sherman Watts was on the money. Drunk or sober—if that ever happened—the fifty-eight-year-old Indian was as dangerous and unpredictable as a badger. If he got cornered, he was just as likely to turn and attack as he was to skulk away into some hole. If he felt he was entitled to something, he’d take it—as long as he thought he could get away with it. And damn to anyone who tried to stop him.

       “You owe me, bitch.”

       With her face smashed down into the bed and his heavy weight on top of her, Joanna’s screams were muffled. The wool lint from the blankets filtered into her nose and mouth with each gasp, and she could scarcely breathe.

       He’d hit her hard enough, too, to make the room spin. But the pain was clear, the humiliation intense. Oh, God, it hurt. Right down to her soul, it hurt.

      Son of a bitch. Joanna jerked her mind back to the rain and the sheriff and the present, and forced herself to breathe. So she had a little extra insight into Sherman Watts and how his mind worked. That’s what criminal profiling was all about, right? Knowing the truth about the suspect—knowing his secrets—could only help her get this interview done more quickly and efficiently.

      Joanna pried her fingers off the armrest to unbuckle her seat belt. She breathed deeply, clearly, in through her nose and out through her mouth, more determined than ever to leave the past in the past so she could help Martinez and his people deal with the present. “Is there any hard evidence to connect Watts to Julie Grainger’s murder? Any motive?”

      Either unaware of her momentary discomfort, or politely ignoring it, the sheriff continued. “We know that Agent Grainger was on the trail of fifty million dollars that crime boss Vincent Del Gardo hid in the area. If she found it, or had a clue on her that would lead to its location, then that’s fifty million reasons why just about anybody would want to kill her. One of our lab teams found a leather necklace that we believe belonged to Watts at the site where her body was dumped. That puts him at the scene—before or after her death, though, we don’t know.”

      “You think Watts has the fifty mil?”

      “No. Someone’s still looking for it, or the attacks would have stopped.” Martinez muttered a curse, clearly frustrated with the lack of closure on the case. His eyes were clear glacial-blue when they locked on to hers. “Sherman Watts is a survivor. He’ll do whatever it takes to stay alive and stay one step ahead of us. There was a time when Watts would pick a fight at one of the local bars, just so he could spend a warm night in jail. Now he’s living in a new trailer on the rez and drinking name-brand booze. He claims his money is from an inheritance. I haven’t been able to prove otherwise.”

      “You don’t believe him.”

      He shook his head. “Nicky Wayne and his family have laundered enough money that they could make it look as if Watts’s income is from a legitimate source. If they’re funding him, Watts may be uncatchable right now.”

      Letting Watts get away with aiding and abetting, theft, murder—or God knew what—wasn’t going to happen. Never again. “I’ll get him in a room and get him to talk. I’ll find out what he knows.”

      Martinez nodded, believing the strength of her words. “I’ve sent a couple of men out to the reservation to bring him in for questioning.”

      She waved aside the offer of an umbrella, retrieved her bag and followed him inside.

      He nodded to the security guard reading a newspaper at the front desk and led Joanna past him to a reception area at the center of a suite of offices. “Anybody home?” Martinez hollered. He removed his hat and knocked it against his leg before brushing away the moisture beading on the shoulders of his black tux jacket. “Elizabeth?”

      Joanna frowned, smoothing the damp hair around her face as she surveyed the executive office area and the hallways, elevator and doors branching off in either direction. “I was led to believe this was a fully staffed facility. Where is everyone?”

      “Like I said, we had a wedding this afternoon. Our chief forensic scientist, Dr. Calista MacBride, married Tom Ryan. Tom’s been with us as an FBI investigator almost from the day I first saw Julie Grainger’s body. I guess the two of them went through the academy together—Tom and Julie, that is. I think Tom and Callie were, uh…friends, if you know what I mean, even before the murder brought them back together.” He turned toward the locker rooms and staff entrance at the end of the hall. “Elizabeth? You here yet?”

      Joanna noted the name plate on the high front counter at the center of the carpeted waiting area. She dismissed the sudden chill of remembrance as the rain trickled down the back of her scalp. This Tom and Callie weren’t the only old friends to be reunited by this case. “Elizabeth Reddawn is your receptionist?”

      The sheriff set his hat on the counter beside the nameplate. “You know her?”

      “Old friend” wasn’t exactly the right term. Joanna’s parents, Ralph and Naomi, had alienated most of the decent people she knew by the time they’d died in a drunk-driving accident when she was eighteen. And once Joanna had left for college and her career, she’d never looked back. Until now. Yet there were bound to be harder memories to face than this one. She would handle them all. Supervisor Ortiz and her boss back in Washington, D.C., were counting on her. “I grew up on the rez over in Mesa Ridge. Elizabeth worked for the reservation sheriff back then.”

      “Elmer Watts?”

      Probably the man Martinez had replaced when the county and reservation units had merged. Sherman Watts’s uncle. Joanna nodded.

      Elizabeth had been the only one in that office who’d really listened to Joanna when she’d needed their help. But as a lowly secretary, Elizabeth Reddawn had been as powerless as Joanna had been. And the resulting pity she’d offered had been no help at all.

      “Then this will be a reunion of sorts СКАЧАТЬ