| |
“Good morning, Sheriff.” Riley stepped forward to shake hands. “Please, have a seat. Gary phoned. I hear the FBI found Buford Smith’s body at the Onward camp, and you have a BOLO out on Dr. Valdes as a person of interest.”
She forced a smile. “I’ll be happy to tell you what I know about the professor. But first, can you bring me up to speed? The incident involves a BRU faculty member, and it may bear on our campus threat.”
To her ear, her matter-of-fact recitation seemed credible, a law enforcement pro talking shop, nothing personal. Her directness erased the sheriff’s scowl. He lowered his ample body into her visitor’s chair. A musical wheeze escaped as his belt vanished between his stomach’s accordion folds.
The security director returned to her seat and swiveled to face him.
“Riley, I’m sorry . . .” The sheriff stared at the hat in his hands as he slowly twirled it. “Before I share information, I need to clear up your relationship with Dr. Valdes. There’s talk that you are, uhm, involved.”
She cocked her head as if she’d heard something outlandish. “Things aren’t always what they seem. Dr. Valdes and I both arrived at BRU at the start of the fall semester. Until two days ago, I doubt we’d exchanged a dozen words. I phoned him Tuesday when a student he counseled was injured. Later that evening, Dr. Valdes happened to be jogging when that psycho biker attacked me. He drove me to the hospital, then home.”
Riley wet her lips. Everything she said was true. It was the part she left out that made it such thirsty business. She wished Patty would deliver some bottled water.
“Yesterday—Wednesday—Dr. Valdes stopped by my house to update me on the hospitalized student. His visit coincided with my discovery that someone had trashed my bedroom. I should have phoned the police immediately, but I had bigger worries, overseeing security for Reverend Jimmy’s shindig. Dr. Valdes offered me accommodations for the night as a safety precaution. Unfortunately, when thugs strung up an effigy on his lawn, I got my picture taken. That’s the relationship. I barely know the man.”
Now there’s a true statement.
“Uhm, I don’t understand.” The sheriff fumbled for words. “Why did you tell Gary Jacob that Dr. Valdes was your lover?”
Riley laughed. “You got me. Gary is my ex-husband. We divorced after he knocked up the most recent in a string of extracurricular women. I wanted to make him jealous. Figured it was a harmless fib.” It was a fib when I said it.
The sheriff’s cheeks puffed out as he loudly exhaled. “Truth be told, I had a hard time picturing you hooked up with some radical who writes dirty books. I’ve known your mother’s family and your uncle forever. All straight arrows.”
“Well, Sheriff,” Riley said. “How can I help? Where do things stand?”
“Initially we just wanted to question Valdes. Now he’s looking more and more like the killer. Deputy Swihart found Smitty’s scalp buried with a fancy knife and a bloody jacket. The dry cleaner had pinned a ‘VAL’ tag on the jacket to ID the customer.”
Sensing the sheriff’s scrutiny, she feigned curiosity and sieved sarcasm from her response. “Remarkable. Your deputies found the items in a matter of hours?”
Sheriff Hendricks leaned forward. Red blotches warred with his beard’s bristly shadow for facial terrain. His black eyes glittered with excitement. If one discounted domestic homicides, Leeds County had few murders to solve. This was his shot at the big time.
“Sometimes wild-assed hunches pay off.” Hendricks chuckled. “Swihart had just left the crime scene. He wanted a first-hand look since Smitty was some relation of his. Anyway, he radioed another deputy, Nick Monson, who recalled a history marker that had something to do with Indian lore. What with the victim being scalped, Nick suggested Swihart take a look-see. Soon as the deputy drove in—there’s a horseshoe-shaped pull-off so people can read the plaque—he spied freshly dug earth. Real lucky.”
Oh, wasn’t it. What instincts this Nick has. A real Sherlock Holmes.
“We just executed a search warrant for Valdes’s office,” Hendricks continued. “The department secretary admits the professor uses a knife just like the one we found as a letter opener. It was missing. A raincoat hanging on a hall tree in his office had the same ‘VAL’ dry-cleaning tag.”
Though she wanted to scream, Riley kept her voice level. Good thing he couldn’t see the sweat gliding down her spine. “My goodness, you’ve made fast progress. How can I help?”
The sheriff asked if the professor might have said anything during their time together about tracking Smitty down.
She shrugged. “Sorry, he cursed Smitty, but I never heard any specific threats.”
Next, Hendricks asked about Valdes’s campus associates, friends and relatives.
This time, her answers were the whole truth. She mentioned Ray, since the sheriff already knew Wolf’s uncle. The probe increased Riley’s unease. She didn’t know a single thing about her lover’s workaday life, any living relatives besides Ray and Hank, or even if Wolf had close friends—male or female.
Sheriff Hendricks stood. “Guess that’s all. We posted a deputy at Dr. Valdes’s office. Please alert your officers. If they spot the suspect, they should report to us. I don’t want your men to detain him. I suspect he’s gone off the deep end. Never know about these brainiacs.”
Riley escorted the sheriff out. Hendricks had just cleared her threshold when he turned back. “You know I don’t believe in coincidences.” His eyebrows knitted with concern. “Can you meet a couple of deputies at your house? Nothing’s been touched since your intruder visited, right? I’d like a crime scene unit to look around.”
“Sheriff, can’t we can put that on hold? I can leave my house locked, stay with Mother. I need to focus on security for Saturday’s graduation.”
Hendricks shook his head. “It’ll only take a few moments. There may be a connection. First, Dr. Valdes magically appears in the wee hours of the morning when a biker attacks you. Then he takes you home, and you’re not, shall we say, fully alert. The doc gave you pain pills, right? The next day someone trashes your bedroom and there’s no sign of a break-in.”
The sheriff’s hands made a seesaw motion, a pudgy pantomime of the scales of justice. “Add it up. The professor could have copied your key. Plus he turned up when you needed a bed for the night. I can’t tell you why, but I think Dr. Valdes set you up.”
The blood drained from Riley’s face.
No, it can’t be true. Wolf would never try to terrify me.
He was with his uncle in the mountains Wednesday afternoon.
Yeah, but can you account for every minute of his day?
Riley swallowed down her nausea and shrugged. “You win, Sheriff. I’ll meet your men. But not until lunch time. That’s the best I can do. Graduation security has to come first.”
When the sheriff left, Riley collapsed. Her mind flashed back to the lipsticked threat on her mirror. No! This is insane.
Riley reached for her cell phone, turned it on. No missed calls. She checked her inbox. A text message. She held her breath as she called it up.
Deputy Monson killed Smitty on Hunter’s orders. If no new message by Friday, go where boys become men
Riley fought down a scream. Sweet Jesus.
Wolf’s text message was less than half an hour old. What did it mean? Hunter? Surely he wasn’t pointing a finger at John Hunter. Was it code? Some Onward bozo known as The Hunter. And what was she supposed to make of the “where boys become men” line?
Riley knew what she should do. At the rate the roly-poly sheriff moved, he was still waddling down the hall. She should call Hendricks back. Give him Wolf’s message. Of course, he’d scoff at the notion that one of his deputies was a stone cold killer. And what about Hunter? A respected multi-millionaire playing The Godfather. She wasn’t even sure she believed the accusation—if that’s what it was.
In a flash, she understood the message’s final clue. Last night Wolf talked about petroglyphs near Twin Peak and suggested they hike there. It fit. Boys journeyed to the petroglyphs to make their mark and become men.
Is he asking me to meet him there? Or is it a test to see if I’ll betray him?
The coded message was clever. Wolf knew she’d understand, but the line would likely mystify any stranger—at least for a time. The petroglyphs weren’t widely known. The sheriff or the FBI could track Wolf only if she gave him up.
Her heart beat as rapidly as it did in a sprint marathon. Wolf had entrusted her with a secret, with his life.
Holding information back from the sheriff went against everything she believed. Law enforcement was a constant in her life. A legacy from her detective father—an honorable man she respected more than any she’d known.
Riley kept her silence. If she alerted the sheriff, Hendricks would send his deputies—including Monson and Swihart—after Wolf. If they found him, they’d kill him. Riley couldn’t afford to trust anyone in the sheriff’s department, but she would pass the first half of Wolf’s message to Gary. The accusations against Monson and Hunter.
She erased the message, snapped her cell phone shut. Was she nuts? She’d dated John for three months. Spent less than a week of her life with Wolf. Yet she accepted the notion that John might be capable of murder.
Don’t kid yourself. You always sensed something was very wrong about Mr. Right—Lewis John Hunter the Fourth.
Riley made her decision. She’d hike to the petroglyphs after midnight. Alone. She wanted answers. Would Wolf be waiting?
She left her office, heading to a scheduled meeting. She had plenty to do before a noon visit to a crime scene—her home.