Chapter 36

  

It was a long night.

Joe searched the rest of the house while Wynan stood guard over McCready. Jamie and I sat on the parlor sofa, my arms around her shoulders, while she described her ordeal.

It took the Landry police a while to get to the house and another several minutes to staunch the bleeding in McCready’s nose, handcuff him, and get him into a police car.

It was another hour getting Jamie to the hospital in Landry and then waiting to learn enough about her condition.

Wynan couldn’t take his arms from around Jamie, even in the hospital.

He had insisted she spend most of the night and be thoroughly examined in spite of her repeated protests. “I’m not hurt, Grandpa. He didn’t hurt me. He just kept me.”

And then it was another half hour quizzing Shelby over coffee in the hospital cafeteria.

“Sorry,” said Shelby, slurping coffee from a mug. “I meant to catch up to you, but when I got to the south shore of the lake, I figured since you and Wynan were going up the west side, I’d check out the east side. If I found something, I’d call on the sat phone. If not, I’d join up with you at the top of the lake.”

“I see,” said Joe evenly.

I was still annoyed. “Did you know I followed you?” I tried to imitate Joe’s professional tone of voice, but I was sure Shelby sensed my irritation.

“No, Red. I never saw you.” He put down his mug. “Again, sorry to have caused you worry, but I’ve always been able to take care of myself, and I thought I could help.”

“Shelby, I have to tell you, I was sure you were up to something when you veered off in another direction. Why didn’t you follow Joe and Wynan so you could be together when you got to the house?”

Shelby looked sheepish. “When I reached the lake, I remembered the last time I had seen the house and realized I should have told them to go east of the lake instead of west. I felt like an idiot and thought I could make up for it by finding the girl myself.” His eyes widened. “Prove that we Vanes are good guys. My brother would really like it if I did that.” He paused, looking first at Joe and then at me. “I planned to call Joe when I saw the house, Red. Honestly.”

There was something in Shelby’s big, rumpled face that softened me. I began to believe he was telling the truth.

“At least we found her,” I said.

“You found her, Red. You discovered the driveway to the house.”

Joe turned his face away. He was probably still mad as hell about my decision to leave the car. I turned back to Shelby. “So how did you catch up to Joe and Wynan after all?”

Shelby laughed. “Oh, I heard them coming through the woods like a herd of wild boar. They were moving fast and making no effort to keep their movements quiet. Joe was honed in on the GPS on your cell phone and I don’t think he gave a shit who heard him.”

  

After the sun came up, we gathered in Joe’s office at Landry Police headquarters. Wynan, Jamie, and Shelby sat in chairs facing Joe’s desk.

I perched on the windowsill. We were waiting for a report from Joe’s team, who’d been working feverishly during the night until early in the morning.

A stocky gray-haired detective named Norman O’Hare came in with a sheaf of papers in his hand.

“Where’s McCready?” asked Wynan.

“In a cell downstairs,” said Norman.

“How’s his nose?” said Joe.

“Busted. The doc looked at it. Put some ice on it and said he could patch him up until we got him to a jail with a psych ward where they can treat him.”

Norman turned to Joe who was looking through the papers. “Can I bring you up to speed on anything, Joe?”

Joe looked up from the papers, his face drawn and pallid. I had gotten an hour or two of sleep on the couch in his office, but Joe had been working all night since the arrest of Ezra McCready. “Has the team found Alice Lassiter’s body yet?”

“Not yet. McCready’s directions to the site were a little on the vague side. I’ll let you know as soon as we have anything.”

‘Thanks. Please stay here for a few minutes while I fill in the rest of these people about what we’ve learned. And please speak up if I forget anything.”

Norm settled on the couch against the wall as Joe began.

“Here’s the short version of what we know so far: Daniel Lassiter married Alice McCready a year after his first wife died. He beat her to death four years later when he found her in bed with his sixteen-year-old son,” Joe said.

A collective sharp inhale from almost everyone in the room as we absorbed the weight of his words.

Joe continued. “According to Ezra’s statement last night, just before Daniel died, he showed his son where he buried Alice.”

Jamie shuddered. Wynan put his arm around her shoulders. “Do you want to stay for this?” he asked. She nodded.

Joe’s voice softened a bit. “Lassiter’s will left Ezra the house and a large inheritance. Ezra collected some of the money, took off, and assumed Alice’s name—in honor of his love for her, he says. He enrolled in an Oregon high school and went to college and then on to graduate school. The summer between high school and college, he petitioned to have his name changed legally to Ezra McCready. He also had all his Nevada property put in a trust in the bank in San Francisco that Wynan discovered.”

“Joe, breathe,” I said.

Joe flashed me a frown. “McCready’s statement says he didn’t want to be associated with the Lassiter name, so he had the bank sell the other properties but kept the original family home by the lake because Alice’s grave was there.”

“When did he move back to the house?” asked Wynan.

“Apparently a couple of months ago.” Joe scanned the next page of notes.

“How’d he have time to install all those bars on the window?” asked Jamie.

Joe shook his head. “Actually, he tells us the house always had bars on the windows even when he was a kid growing up there. Apparently his grandfather, Pastor Edward Lassiter, had security issues.”

“When did he put in the padlocks?” asked Jamie. She looked wan but generally healthy. She held her grandfather’s hand and her voice trembled slightly.

“He didn’t tell me that, Jamie,” said Joe, with a gentleness I was pleased he could still muster. “But he did admit he had been watching you for several weeks and planning your kidnapping for some time.”

“How did he find out so much about me?” Jamie’s lip trembled.

“He’s the provost,” I said. “He had access to all your records, and once he got the key from your handbag, he gained access to your apartment.”

I turned to Joe. “Does he deny or contradict anything Jamie has told us about him?” I couldn’t believe a man as smart as Ezra McCready would just spill out the entire story without demanding a lawyer. I could still see him in the president’s office lecturing me.

“McCready doesn’t deny a damn thing,” said Norm from the couch. “The watchman has asked for his attorney. He’s ex-military and tough as nails, says he was just doing his job as a security guard. But McCready’s a different story. He looks broken to me. He just sits on the floor of his cell with his head in his hands. Won’t eat. Weeps a lot.”

I tried to imagine feeling sorry for McCready, but my mind couldn’t make that leap.

Jamie sighed and squeezed Wynan’s hand. “He never hurt me. He really wanted me to fall for him, but I couldn’t.”

“Of course you couldn’t,” I said.

“Filthy son of a bitch,” said Wynan.

Jamie seemed lost in her thoughts. “It wasn’t that he was cruel or ugly or anything…” Her voice went down an octave. “It’s just that he was so creepy.”

I got down from the windowsill and went to the girl and put my arms around her. She put her hand over mine. “Oh, Dean Solaris, I was so scared of him. I still can’t believe how scared I was.”

I continued to hold her.

“Did they find the gray van?” asked Wynan.

Joe shuffled the papers again. “In the shed behind the house, along with Jamie’s car. McCready’s been doing a lot of driving.”

“Why did McCready move back here to Nevada?” asked Shelby.

Joe looked at another one of the papers. “Apparently he came back here because President Lewis offered him the provost’s job last spring.” Joe picked up another paper. “Over the summer he rented an apartment here in Landry for a while until the semester began and…”

“And he saw me on campus,” said Jamie.

  

By noon I knew I had to go home, take a shower, change my clothes, and get to campus.

The school, hell, the whole university, would be in an uproar over the news about the provost and Jamie’s return.

Joe motioned to one of the patrolmen in the hallway. “Please take Dr. Solaris to her home,” he said.

“You coming?” I asked.

“I still have paperwork to do to get McCready transferred to a jail with a psych ward where he can be examined.”

“Later?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you still angry with me?”

Joe pulled me into an alcove while the young patrolmen waited patiently by the door. Joe’s face was inches from mine and his eyes were dark and held no affection. “You should have waited in the car instead of pursuing Shelby. You could have called on the sat phone if you were worried about what he was up to. I asked you to wait.”

“I called you when I found the driveway.”

Joe’s chest heaved with exasperation. “You had no business being anywhere near that driveway.” He gripped my arms. “Don’t you realize the watchman might have shot you? McCready might have taken you hostage. Any number of really dangerous things could have happened to you because of that stupid move.” Joe’s breath was hot and sour.

“But I found…”

“I know what you found. I also know that your impulse to take risks drives me crazy. For all your insights, for all the help your big brain can be, you still don’t know how to protect yourself or accept intelligent advice. You always think you know better.”

I put my hand on the side of his face, but he shook his head. His breathing became heavier. “Honestly, I don’t know how much longer I can live with this.”

Pain started in my chest and went down to my stomach. “You mean live with me, don’t you?”

“I’m too tired to answer that question now.” He pulled me back out into the hallway. “Please take her home,” he said to the patrolman, and turned on his heel.