Блейк Пирс - Luring

“Nelson … the name’s familiar. Ain’t she the mayor’s wife or something?”

Leaning against the bars outside the cell, Sheriff Tallhamer grunted and said …

“She’s dead, that’s what she is.”

Jake fought down a groan of discouragement. He hadn’t planned to spring the truth on Cardin in so blunt a manner. He’d hoped to take his time about it, try to find out if he already knew what had happened to Hope Nelson.

The lawyer in the other cell jumped to his feet.

“Dead?” he yelped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Tallhamer spit out some tobacco on the concrete floor and said, “She was murdered just last night—in exactly the same way Alice was killed. Strung up from a fence post, bundled up in barbed wire.”

Suddenly seeming perfectly sober, Ozzie barked, “So what the hell are you holding my client for? Don’t tell me you think he murdered another woman last night while he was locked up right here.”

Jake’s spirits sank. His tactic was spoiled, and he knew that any further questions were likely to be pointless.

Nevertheless, he asked Cardin again, “Did you know Hope Nelson?”

“Didn’t I just tell you no?” Cardin said with a note of surprise.

But Jake couldn’t tell whether his surprise was unfeigned or he was just faking it.

Ozzie grabbed the bars of his own cell and yelled, “You’d damn well better let my client loose right now, or you’ll be facing one hell of a lawsuit!”

Jake stifled a sigh.

Ozzie was right, of course, but …

He picked a fine time to get competent all of a sudden.

Jake turned to Tallhamer and said, “Let Cardin go. But keep a close eye on him.”

Tallhamer called for his deputy to bring Cardin’s belongings. As the sheriff opened the cell for Cardin to leave, he turned toward Ozzie and said …

“Do you want to go too?”

Ozzie yawned and lay back down on his bunk.

“Naw, I’ve done a pretty good day’s work. I’d just as soon go back to sleep—as long as you don’t need the cell for anybody else.”

Tallhamer smirked and said, “Be my guest.”

As Jake walked out of the station with Tallhamer and Cardin, he noticed that the white-coated man was still standing on the other side of the street in exactly the same spot as before.

Suddenly, the man went into motion, striding across the street toward them.

Tallhamer grumbled quietly to Jake …

“Here comes trouble.”

Jake scrutinized the man who was rushing toward them just outside the police station. He saw outrage in the man’s face and bearing, but didn’t sense that it was aimed at him. And he was aware that Tallhamer wasn’t bracing for action.

Meanwhile, Cardin had turned and hurried rapidly away along the sidewalk.

The angry man stormed up to Tallhamer. Waving an arm in the departing Cardin’s direction, he shouted …

“I demand that you take that bastard back into custody!”

Seemingly impervious to the man’s anger, Sheriff Tallhamer calmly introduced Jake to Earl Gibson, the town’s only doctor and Alice Gibson’s husband.

Jake started to shake hands and to offer his condolences, but the doctor’s arms were still waving in circles as he ranted on at Tallhamer. He noted that Dr. Gibson was a remarkably homely man with a heavily pockmarked face that wasn’t improved by the flush of fury. He remembered Cardin describing him as “that toad she took up with.”

Indeed, Cardin was positively handsome by comparison.

Jake figured that Earl Gibson must have virtues that had attracted the dead woman despite his looks. After all, Gibson was a doctor, and Alice’s ex was nothing more than a failed short-order cook …

Probably a pretty easy choice in a town with few options.

Gibson’s anger only increased when he found out who Jake was.

“The FBI! What business does the FBI have even being here? You already caught my wife’s killer. You had him locked away. There’s not a jury in the world that wouldn’t find him guilty. And now you just let him go!”

Sheriff Tallhamer shuffled his feet and spoke in a patient, almost condescending tone …

“Now, Earl, we talked about this just a little while ago, didn’t we?”

Dr. Gibson said, “Yeah, we did. And that’s why I stayed right here, waiting. I had to see this for myself. I wanted to stop it.”

“We’ve got to let him go, and you know it,” Tallhamer said, “Another woman was murdered last night over in Dighton, the same way as Alice was. I can vouch for Phil Cardin’s whereabouts last night, and he sure wasn’t anywhere near Dighton. He didn’t kill that woman, and now we’ve got no reason to think he killed Alice, either.”

“No reason!” Gibson said, sputtering with rage. “He threatened her life that very day. And don’t insult me with all this nonsense about the victim in Dighton, and how Phil Cardin couldn’t have killed her. We both know there’s a perfectly viable suspect for the other murder.”

Jake’s interest was suddenly piqued.

“A viable suspect?” he asked.

Gibson scoffed at Sheriff Tallhamer and said, “So you didn’t tell him, eh?”

“Tell me about what?” Jake asked.

“About Phil Cardin’s brother, Harvey,” Gibson said to Jake. “He takes Phil’s side in everything. He threatened Alice too. He’d get her on the phone and tell her that he and Phil were going to get revenge. He called her the same day she was killed. And wherever he was last night, he wasn’t in any jail cell. He’s the one who killed that woman in Dighton. I’d bet my life on it.”

Jake was truly startled now.

He asked Gibson, “Why do you think he’d kill someone in another town?”

Gibson said, “His motive you mean? Maybe he had something personal against that woman. He wanders around the state a lot so maybe he got involved with her, then followed his brother’s example. But I think he most likely did it to protect his brother—to make people think he didn’t kill Alice.”

Tallhamer sighed and said, “Earl, we talked about this too a little while ago, didn’t we? We’ve both known Harvey Cardin all our lives. He travels around because he’s an itinerant plumber. He talks tough from time to time, but he’s not like his brother. He’d never hurt a fly, let alone kill anyone in such an awful way.”

Jake’s brain clicked away, trying to process what he was hearing.

He wished Tallhamer had told him about Harvey Cardin from the start.

Small town cops, he thought. Some of them are so sure they know everything about everybody in their district that they can miss what’s important.

Jake said to Sheriff Tallhamer, “I want to talk to Harvey Cardin.”

The sheriff shrugged as if he considered it a waste of time.

He said, “Well, if that’s what you want. Harvey lives only a couple of blocks away from here. I’ll take you there.”

As Jake started walking with the sheriff, he saw that Gibson was following along. The last thing Jake needed right now was a grieving and irate widower inserting himself into the interview of a possible suspect.

As delicately as he could, he said, “Dr. Gibson, the sheriff and I need to do this on our own.”

When Gibson opened his mouth to protest, Jake added …

“I’ll want to interview you in a little while. Where can I find you?”

Gibson fell silent for a moment.

“I’ll be in my office,” Gibson said. “The sheriff can tell you where it is.”

Gibson turned and stormed angrily away.

Jake and Tallhamer walked the short distance to a tiny white house where Harvey Cardin lived. It was a ramshackle cottage with an overgrown lawn.