Leann Sweeney - Pushing Up Bluebonnets

He scratched his head. "Maybe. Big maybe, in my book. No matter what, Dugan took these pictures for a reason. You see a camera in that ID shop, Hamlin?" Cooper asked.

"Yup. A nice Canon. A forger needs good resolution from an expensive digital so he can magnify whatever he wants to copy—get a nice, up-close picture of what he hopes to re-create. That's an excellent way to capture every nuance and color blend on the target document. I'll print out any pictures that he had on the memory stick and if it looks like it's related to your case, I'll e-mail them to you."

I rattled off my e-mail, telling Hamlin that Cooper was staying with me. Then I said, "These are pretty poor-quality photos. Like something I'd take with my cell phone. Since I know next to nothing about photography, can either of you explain how an expensive digital camera would give us these?" I waved my hand at the pictures.

"Maybe they were taken with a cell phone," Cooper said.

"More likely a telephoto lens." Hamlin was staring hard at one of the cemetery pictures.

"But why?" I said. "Unless . . ."

"Unless Dugan was stalking her, getting a handle on her routine so he could kill her," Cooper said.

"Okay . . . but then, who murdered him?"

We left Dugan's condo not long after, since there was really nothing more to see. I'd hoped Georgeanne would show up because I wanted to ask her a few questions— like exactly when her boyfriend, Kent, disappeared—but I had a feeling she'd be spending a long time with Maria Chavez. Having met Georgeanne, I couldn't see her killing her boyfriend, rolling him up in a piece of carpet and tossing him into the bayou, but Jeff would argue that anyone is capable of murder under the right circumstances. Yes, I could be wrong. I often am.

As promised, Cooper took me back to the garage to pick up my car, and I paid both his fees and mine, which turned out to be enough money to feed a third world nation. They are proud of their parking garages in the Medical Center.

We went back to my house, and while Cooper called Pineview PD to find out—as he put it—"how many people pissed in the street or let their dog run wild" in his absence, I took Cooper's notebook and got busy on my computer. I printed out all the newspaper articles I could find. Most of them were from Texas, a few from Oklahoma and Arkansas. I gathered the pages and took them out to the kitchen, where Cooper was still on the phone. Maybe in his absence Pineview had been reduced to three truckloads of bean pickers without a foreman.

But when I saw his expression after he hung up, I regretted making light of his job, even in my head.

"The Montgomery County crime lab pulled Dugan's prints off JoLynn's wrecked car—where the air bags had been removed. He was in AFIS—that's the Automated Fingerprint Identification System."

"Duh. I know what AFIS is. He's the one who tried to kill her, then?" I said.

"Ordinarily that wouldn't be enough evidence. The air bags could have been removed at any time, even when they lived together. Did you know there's a black market for air bags? But get this. They found his prints on the brake line," he said. "That's far better evidence that he tried to get rid of her."

"Which leads us back to my earlier question at the condo. Who killed him?"

But my brain was spinning with possibilities this time, and one of the scenarios made me a little sick. Could Elliott Richter have learned about JoLynn and Dugan's relationship before I ever told him? Learned about them before he even plopped down that ten grand and hired me?

"Talk to me, Abby," Cooper said.

I sat in one of the kitchen chairs, placed the printouts on the table in front of me.

He took the spot to my right. "Come on. What are you thinking?"

"That Elliott Richter hasn't been straight with us. Maybe true to character, he did investigate JoLynn when she came knocking on his door a year ago."

"You're saying Richter knew about Dugan?" he said.

"Maybe. But that makes me wonder why he'd hire me—unless he needed more answers other than her relationship with Dugan."

Cooper cocked his head, smiled a little. This case sure had changed him from the glum man I'd met little more than a week ago. He said, "And how does all that address the question of who killed Dugan? Because the prints say he's the one who fiddled with that car."

"What if Richter found Dugan and questioned him about JoLynn?" I said.

"Are you thinking he told Richter things about JoLynn, filled in her past with not-so-nice information, gave Richter information he failed to give us the other night at the hospital?"

"I don't want to think that, but what if Dugan con vinced Richter that JoLynn had betrayed both of them?" I said. "Told him she wasn't his long-lost granddaughter, that she heard about Katarina by reading the Houston Chronicle ?"

"You could be right, because I also learned they found JoLynn's prints on that paper you found under the clock. But if she was a scammer, why didn't Richter simply kick JoLynn to the curb? And like you said, why in hell would he hire you and ask me to do everything I could to help find whoever did this to her?" Cooper said.

I considered this and came up with nothing. "I don't know, Cooper. You got any ideas?"

"I prefer simple explanations until I see evidence to the contrary. For now, we assume Richter told you the truth—that he wanted you to find out about JoLynn's past and help me figure out why someone might want her dead. We have absolutely no evidence he knew anything about Kent Dugan."

I relaxed some then, let out the breath I'd been holding in. "Keeping it simple like you said, maybe Dugan tried to kill JoLynn because first of all"—I held up one finger—"she had the nerve to leave him." I added my middle finger. "And second of all, she'd settled into a very nice lifestyle by pretending to be someone she wasn't—pretending by using the tools Dugan had given her to accomplish that feat. I'm thinking that would enrage someone as controlling as Dugan."

Cooper nodded. "My first thought when I saw JoLynn being life-flighted away from that wreck was that someone wanted her to suffer, to be terrified before she died. Fits Dugan, wouldn't you say?"

"Absolutely. I want to believe Elliott Richter, Cooper. I need to believe someone cares about that girl."

"You care," he said softly.

Before I could reply "And so do you," I heard my cell phone ring. I hurried to the counter where I'd dropped my bag earlier and had to dig deep to find the thing.

It was Kate. "Mind if I join you guys for movie night? My last client is at four today and—"

"Do I mind? I wish you could be here this minute. We have lots to talk about." I told her about Kent Du gan's death but decided to save the rest for when she got here. She said to expect her around six, after she went home and picked up Webster. The poor dog needed a night out, too.

"My sister," I said to Cooper after I folded the phone shut and sat back down next to him. "She's joining us tonight."

He'd been reading the printouts and still held one in his hand. "Glad I'll finally get to meet her. About these articles. This one details a story similar to Katarina Richter's. And so does the other one I've read so far."

"I skimmed a few back at the condo and got the same feeling. How similar?" I asked.

"Very. Well-off people with missing relatives. Disappearances long enough ago that someone Kent or JoLynn's age could walk into their lives and say they're the grown child of that missing relative. And they would arrive with documents—fakes of course—to prove it. A lot of homework involved, though. I sure hope that hard drive HPD hauled off will tell us something more."