Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

“I don’t believe you could.”

“Then-”

“But they do. They do. Jay was one of their own. They’re looking for a scapegoat and somebody-Jay’s killer-made certain they’d have one.”

“Jay’s killer?” Her eyes probed his. “You knew all along he’d been murdered?”

“I suspected. I was anxious to hear the autopsy report, same as you.”

“Did you suspect me?” she asked, her rich contralto suddenly going thin.

He hesitated, then said, “Not really, no.”

“Do you know who-”

“Not yet.”

The faint ray of hope he’d seen momentarily in her eyes dimmed and then flickered out. “I’ve got to go back and clear myself.”

“Listen to me,” he said, taking a step closer. “You can’t go back unarmed. They’ll put you through a shredder. I know. I’ve been there. Come back inside. Listen to everything Delno heard on the news.” Lowering his voice, he said, “Listen to what I have to tell you. Then I’ll drive you back myself. I swear.”

She stared at him, then looked at Delno, who had lifted one of the hounds into his arms and was stroking its lolling head. She looked back at Raley. “I’ll give you an hour.”

Delno dropped the hound onto the porch and held the screen door open for them as they filed back inside. He helped himself to the last of the coffee. Raley offered to brew a fresh pot, but Britt declined with an absent shake of her head. She resumed her place at the dining table. Raley took his previous seat. Delno sat in the third chair.

Britt seemed to have expended all her energy. She sat with shoulders slumped, staring at the nicks in the tabletop. She traced one with her thumbnail. Finally she looked up and caught him and Delno staring at her.

She turned to Delno as though only now registering his presence. “Who are you?”

“Delno Pickens,” he replied, at the same time Raley said, “My neighbor. He has a place a couple miles from here.”

He remembered his first exposure to Delno, what a shocking sight the old geezer had been. Britt was experiencing that mix of amazement and repugnance now. Delno never wore a shirt beneath his overalls, except on the coldest days of the year. This left his arms and upper chest exposed to the elements almost year-round. His skin was crepey, tanned to leather, overlaid with a sparse crop of white hair.

It was hard to determine the natural color of the hair beneath the hat he perpetually wore. A straggly ponytail hung long down his back. He greased it to discourage lice. At least that was what Raley had surmised.

It was a testament to Britt’s basic kindness that she remained sitting that close to the man, because he was no more inclined to bathe than he was to wash his hair. Or maybe kindness didn’t factor into it at all. Maybe she was simply too shell-shocked to angle away from his overripe odor.

“Raley here won’t get hisself a TV,” he said to Britt. “Says he hates the goddamn things. So if there’s something really important in the news, it falls to me to let him know.”

“They have Jay’s pillow?” she asked, her voice still thready.

Delno nodded. “They took it as evidence that first morning. Said it was on the floor next to the bed. One of them hard, foam kind. It bore the imprint of his face. They suspected right off you’d smothered him, but they kept it to their selves till the coroner could prove it.”

“He may have been suffocated with his pillow, but I didn’t do it, Mr… uh…”

“Pickens. And it don’t matter to me none if you did or didn’t.”

She scraped back her chair and stood up, went to the fridge, got a bottle of water and took a long drink. Raley sensed Delno watching him curiously, a thousand unasked questions in the old man’s rheumy eyes. Raley pretended not to notice.

Britt said, “They went to my house to arrest me. What did you mean when you said it looked to them like I had run away?”

“Well-”

“I can answer that,” Raley said. “I left my pickup and hitched into town late yesterday afternoon. After stopping at The Wheelhouse, I walked to your house.”

“That’s-”

“A few miles. After I knocked you out, I-”

“You knocked her out?”

He didn’t acknowledge Delno’s interruption. “I looked for your car keys and found them on the hook by the back door. I left as you would, going out that door and resetting the alarm.”

“How’d you do that?”

“I watched when you punched in the numbers to turn it off, so I knew the code.”

“Oh.”

“I made up your bed and brought along your handbag. It’s still in the truck, by the way.”

“But not my phone.”

“No.”

She assimilated what he’d told her. “You left no sign of a struggle.” He nodded. “You covered your tracks but made me look like a fugitive from justice.”

“Basically. That was the general idea.”

“Great. Fabulous.” She sighed with asperity. “How did you get me out of the house?”

“Carried you. I was trained to carry people, remember?” Without waiting for a response, he continued. “I drove your car to where I’d left my truck.”

“I remember you transferring me from my car.”

“I knew you were conscious at that point.”

“Where is my car?”

“At an abandoned airstrip. In the middle of nowhere. A road dead-ends at it. No one goes out there.”

“How did you know about it?”

“Jay’s uncle had a deer lease near it. We used to do target practice out there.”

Mention of Jay’s name brought a pained expression to her face. “I still can’t believe he’s dead, and that he died in that manner. He must have put up a struggle.” Lowering her head, she rubbed her temples. “I want to remember. I do. But I can’t.”

“The police said he was too far gone on whiskey to have put up much of a fight,” Delno said. “Course he was sick with the cancer, too. That would have made him even weaker.”

“Weak enough that a woman could have killed him,” Raley said.

“That’s what the cop speculated,” Delno said as he scratched his armpit. “ Clark, I believe his name was.”

“He’s one of the detectives who questioned me.”

“I know him,” Raley said. “He’s a good cop. Dedicated to his work. And one hundred percent loyal to everyone on the police force, especially Jay. If the evidence indicates you killed him, Clark will move heaven and earth to see you tried and convicted.”

She turned away to look out the window above the kitchen sink. Raley looked over at Delno, but when he saw a question forming on the tobacco-stained lips, he shook his head and Delno remained quiet.

Finally, Britt turned back. “Tell me what happened to you, Raley.”

“Sit down.” He nodded toward the chair opposite his. She did as he asked.

Delno got up. “Heard it already, and it ain’t a story I wish to listen to again. I’ll be outside with the dogs.”

The screen door slammed closed behind him. The hounds whined in welcome, then stood and stretched and began weaving themselves around his legs. He disappeared, trailing the pack and a stream of muttered curses.

“Quite a character,” Britt remarked.

“You don’t know the half of it. He has an obsessive hatred for mankind. He tolerates me. On occasion, and only then just barely.”

“Once he recovered from his shock, he was friendly enough toward me.”

Raley gave her a quick once-over, then he looked away, mumbling, “You’re different.”

He left the table abruptly, but only long enough to get himself a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Sitting down again, he asked, “How did you know that Jay and I grew up together?”

“He told me once. He said you were best friends almost for as far back as he could remember.”