LITMIR.BIZ

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She couldn’t help but wonder …

      Will my picture be there someday?

      Of course there was no way to know. All she knew for sure was that the coming days would bring challenges she’d never faced before in her life. She felt staggered by a new sense of responsibility toward those martyred agents.

      I can’t let them down, she thought.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      Jake steered the hastily-borrowed vehicle along a web of gravel roads from Dighton toward the town of Hyland. Chief Messenger had loaned him the car so Jake could get on his way before the media helicopter landed.

      He had no idea what to expect at Hyland, but he was grateful to have escaped the invaders. He hated being besieged by reporters pummeling him with questions he couldn’t answer. There was little the media relished more than sensational murders in bucolic, out-of-the-way places. The fact that the victim was a mayor’s wife surely made the story all the more irresistible to them.

      He drove with his window open, enjoying the fresh country air. Messenger had marked up a map for him, and Jake was enjoying the slow tour of country roads. The man he was on his way to interview wasn’t going anywhere before he got there.

      Of course the suspect in the Hyland jail might have nothing to do with either of the two murders. He’d been incarcerated at the time of the second victim’s death.

      Not that that proves his innocence, Jake thought.

      There was always a possibility that a team of two or more killers was at work. Hope Nelson could had been taken by a copycat imitating Alice Gibson’s murder.

      Nothing like that would surprise Jake. He’d worked on stranger cases in his long career.

      As Jake pulled into Hyland, the first thing he noticed was how little and sleepy the town looked—much smaller than Dighton, with its population of about a thousand. The sign he’d just passed indicated that only a couple of hundred people lived here.

      Barely big enough to be incorporated, Jake thought.

      The police station was just another storefront on the short business street. As he parked along the curb, Jake saw an obese uniformed man leaning against in the doorjamb, looking like he had nothing else to do.

      Jake got out of the car. As he walked toward the station, he noticed that the big cop was staring at someone directly across the street. It was a man wearing a white medical jacket, standing there with his arms crossed. Jake got the odd impression that the two had been standing there staring at each other silently for quite a long time.

      What’s this all about? he wondered.

      He walked up to the uniformed man in the doorway and showed him his badge. The man introduced himself as Sheriff David Tallhamer. He was chewing on a wad of tobacco.

      He said to Jake in a bored tone, “Come on in, let me introduce you to our house guest—Phil Cardin’s his name.”

      As Tallhamer led the way inside, Jake glanced back and saw that the white-coated man wasn’t budging from his spot.

      Once in the station, Tallhamer introduced Jake to a deputy who was sitting with his feet up on a desk reading a newspaper. The deputy nodded at Jake and kept right on reading his paper.

      The little office seemed saturated with a weird feeling of ennui. If Jake hadn’t known it already, he wouldn’t have guessed that these two jaded cops had been dealing with a grisly murder case.

      Tallhamer led Jake through a door in the back of the office that led into the jail. The jail was comprised of just two cells facing each other across a narrow corridor. Both cells were occupied at the moment.

      In one cell, a man in a rather threadbare business suit lay on his cot snoring loudly. In the opposite, a sullen-looking man wearing jeans and a t-shirt was sitting on his bunk.

      Tallhamer took out his keys and unlocked the seated prisoner’s cell and said …

      “You’ve got a visitor, Phil. A bona-fide FBI Agent, he says.”

      Jake stepped inside the cell while Tallhamer stood just outside, keeping the cell door open.

      Phil Cardin squinted hard at Jake and said, “FBI, huh? Well, maybe you can teach Deputy Dawg here how to do his goddamn job. I didn’t kill nobody, let alone my ex-wife. If I did, I’d be the first to brag about it. So let me out of here.”

      Jake wondered …

      Has anybody told him about the other murder?

      Jake got the feeling that Cardin knew nothing about it. He figured it was best to keep things that way, at least for the time being.

      Jake said to him, “I’ve got some questions, Mr. Cardin. Do you want a lawyer present?”

      Cardin chuckled and pointed at the sleeping man in the opposite cell.

      “He already is present—in a manner of speaking,” Cardin said.

      Then he yelled at the man …

      “Hey, Ozzie. Sober up, why don’t you? I need legal representation. Make sure my rights don’t get violated. Although I guess that train’s left the station already, you drunken incompetent bastard.”

      The man in the rumpled suit sat up and rubbed his eyes.

      “What the hell are you yelling about?” he grumbled. “Can’t you see I’m trying to get some sleep? Jesus, I’ve got a son-of-a-bitch of a headache.”

      Jake’s mouth dropped open. The fat sheriff laughed heartily at his obvious surprise.

      Tallhamer said, “Agent Crivaro, I’d like you to meet Oswald Hines, the town’s only lawyer. He gets drafted into public defense duties from time to time. Conveniently enough, he got arrested a while ago for drunk and disorderly behavior, so he’s right here at hand. Not that that’s an unusual occurrence.”

      Oswald Hines coughed and grunted.

      “Yeah, I guess that’s the truth,” he said. “This is sort of my home away from home—or more like a second office, you might say. At times like now, it’s a handy location. I’d hate to have to walk anywhere else, the way I’m feeling at the moment.”

      Hines took a long, slow breath, staring blearily at the others.

      Then he said to Jake, “Listen up, Agent Whatever-Your-Name is. As this man’s defense attorney, I must insist that you leave him alone. He’s been asked too damn many questions for about a week now. In fact, he’s being held without cause.”

      The lawyer yawned and added, “Actually, I’d hoped he’d be gone by now. He’d better be out of here before I wake up again.”

      The lawyer started to lie back down when the sheriff said …

      “Stay awake, Ozzie. You’ve got work to do. I’ll go get you a cup of coffee. Do you want me to let you out of your cell so you can be closer to your client?”

      “Naw, I’m good right here,” Ozzie said. “Just hurry up with that coffee. You know how I like it.”

      Laughing, Sheriff Tallhamer said, “How is that again?”

      “In a cup of some sort,” Ozzie growled. “Go. Now.”

      Tallhamer went back into the office. Jake stood staring down at the prisoner for a moment.

      Finally Jake said, “Mr. Cardin, I understand you don’t have an alibi for the time of your ex-wife’s murder.”

      Cardin shrugged and said, “I don’t know where anybody got that idea. I was at home. I ate a frozen dinner, watched TV all evening, then slept the rest of the night through. I wasn’t anywhere near where it happened—wherever that was.”

      “Can anybody corroborate that?” Jake said.

      Cardin grinned and said, “No, but nobody can corroborate otherwise either, can they?”

      Observing Cardin’s snide expression, Jake wondered

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