She looked at Dan and sighed as she smirked. “I’ll deny it. Don’t you dare bring this up to him.”
Maria slammed the door shut leaving Dan to ponder what she had just said. If Maria looked like this, he wondered how Jack Finnigan looked this morning or whether Jack still had a job. No one ever crossed the Senator without getting some pay back. He had a way of getting back at you if he ever felt you did him wrong. So in the end it didn’t pay to cross him.
CHAPTER 14
Dan drove along a lonely stretch of country road. He had on old-time rock-n-roll blaring from the radio while his finger tapped on the steering wheel to the beat of the song. As he passed farmers in their fields, he waved to them. This was the life, he thought. Through the years in law enforcement in Jefferson County he had come to know just about everyone in the county. And everyone seemed to be related to someone he knew. The radio went off suddenly, interrupting his solitude. Dan reached for the car radio and turned it off and then answered the call.
“What is it?” Dan asked.
“Got a call from Buzz Sheffield.”
“What does he want?”
“Said it was important. Something about the O’Connor boy’s disappearance.”
“How did he know?”
“Small town. Everyone’s talking.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?” Dan asked.
There was a long pause. The silence was overwhelming as Dan waited for Mac’s answer. When no answer was given, Dan knew Mac had something to do with the word getting out about who the bones belonged to. Normally Mac’s gossiping ways didn’t bother him. This was different though. For some reason the murderer was keeping tabs on his investigation. He didn’t need Mac divulging pertinent information to anyone who would listen.
“Well…”
Dan cut Mac off. He would have to deal with Mac’s gossiping ways later. “What did Buzz say?”
“Wants you to meet him on the Bayou Drain. Where you guys used to fish.”
Dan suddenly looked at the radio. “Are you scrambling this?”
“Oh,” Mac said and then quickly added. “Sorry.”
“What did I tell you?”
“There’s been so much going on lately I can’t think straight.”
“I’ll swing over and see what Buzz wants.”
Dan was thankful that not everyone in the county knew where he and Buzz used to fish on the Bayou Drain. So he felt confident that although half the county knew he would be meeting Buzz, only a few knew the exact spot. But it still did not set well with Dan at that moment as he put the radio in its cradle and then flipped on the lights and sirens.
The squad car turned off the highway onto a dirt road. The dusty trail followed behind. In the distance Dan saw the sports utility vehicle parked off on the shoulder of the road. He quickly pulled up and parked in back of it. Dan took the radio out of its cradle.
“I’ll be out of radio contact for a little while.”
“You on the Bayou Drain?” Mac asked.
“Yeah. I don’t see Buzz, though. He’s probably down by the water. Did the medical examiner remove Junior?”
“Just left.”
“Maybe Buzz will shed some light on what’s going on.”
“You be careful,” Mac said.
Dan glanced at the radio for a moment and then laughed. “Yes, mother.”
Dan put the radio back in the cradle and then got out. He glanced down the embankment and saw Buzz sitting on a boulder at the water’s edge. Slowly Dan made his way down the steep embankment losing his footing a few times but catching himself quickly.
He did not remember it being as difficult to get to as a youth. Kelly and he usually fished upstream from this spot because of that reason. He always feared her falling and landing in the water.
Buzz turned to Dan when he heard loose rocks announcing Dan’s presence. He was smoking a cigarette and from the pile on the ground he had been waiting for hi for a while.
“Took you long enough,” Buzz snapped.
“A lot has been happening.”
Buzz ran his hand through thinning hair. “Tell me about it. Didn’t sleep at all last night.”
“Does this have anything to do with what happened to Jason?”
Buzz nodded. “Christ, we were friends. And we just left him there.”
“Left him? Where?” Dan asked.
Buzz tossed the cigarette and then broke down. He shook his head, as if not believing what had happened.
“Want to talk about it?”
Buzz looked up at Dan. “I had nothing to do with it.”
Dan studied Buzz for the longest time. “It was that night,” Dan said watching Buzz’s reaction. “Remember, the night you and Alan picked me up before I reported to Little Rock?”
Buzz turned his back on Dan as if to walk away but then turned around to face Dan. The look on his face was that of a man about to confess a great wrongdoing.
“I trusted him.”
“Who?” Dan asked.
“You got to believe me when I say I had nothing to do with it?”
“With what? God damn it, tell me?”
Buzz looked up, he was about to speak when a shot rang out. His head exploded like a watermelon. Buzz fell backward, landing into the water. The water quickly turned red as it flowed downstream.
Dan rushed to Buzz. He knew it was useless. He had seen kill shots like this in Desert Storm. Right now his first instinct was to get Buzz out of the water. Once that was accomplished Dan rushed up the embankment tripping a few times on the way, making it impossible for him to get a glimpse of the car as it sped away. Dan quickly turned to the squad only to see the tires were flat. He turned to Buzz’s SUV but it too had flat tires. Out of frustration Dan kicked the squad. He limped over to the driver’s door and got in.
* * *
Dan sat in the squad, the frustration clearly on his face and in his voice. This used to be a place he came to get away from the ugliness of the world around him. It was a place he took Kelly to, to teach her how to fish. Now he could never come here again without the memory of seeing Buzz in his last moments of life.
“That’s right,” Dan snapped. “Send the medical examiner out here,” He did not want to explain anything to Mac, not right now and not over the radio.
“Are we going for a record?”
“I’m in no mood,” Dan said. Under normal circumstance he might have found humor in Mac’s comment but not now, not after what he just witnessed.
“Are you going to tell me who it is this time?” Mac asked.
In reality Mac already knew who Dan was meeting. He just wanted confirmation.
“Buzz Sheffield,” Dan finally said and then hesitated. “My list of suspects is narrowing.”
“Yeah, they are all dying.”
“Mac, not now.”
“Want me to do anything?”
Dan thought for a moment. “If any of the boys are near the highway, tell them to take inventory of cars they pass. It might help.”
“Consider it done.”
Dan slammed the radio down and then got out of the squad. His forehead perspired, he was not sure if it was the heat or what had just happened. Life for him would never be the same. Too many of the people he knew were involved in this and he wondered if he was too close to sort it all out now.
CHAPTER 15
Dan hurried into the living room. He just tossed the gun and hat on the chair next to the door. He was too anxious to see Kelly to bother taking off his shoes. He walked into the kitchen and when he saw Kelly at the table working on a puzzle, he slowed down. Dan walked over to the pot of coffee, checked to see if it was hot, and then took a mug off the mug tree and poured himself a cup. He turned around and leaned back on the counter and just watched Kelly.