In what seemed an attempt to explain why the similarities in the cases had been overlooked, she said, “In one of the earlier case files, some fool with no knowledge of crossbows quickly characterized the arrow as having come from a spear gun, and so the word spear gun had continued to be carried over from protocol to protocol until the M.E. got hold of it and declared it an arrow from a crossbow.”
'The M.E.?”
“He's something of a hunter himself. He'd seen crossbows and crossbow arrows before.”
“And you?”
“Yes, I had. The M.E.'s my uncle, and he's been retired, encouraged to take a pension. He hunts with a member of a hunt club.”
“Ahh, I see, and so that's how you got started on this trail?”
“That and the fact I knew Alisha Reynolds when I was a child, growing up. I summered in Georgia, where my mother lived at the time. I was going to be one of Alisha's bridesmaids. Her parents were like my own for a time, and when they were under investigation for Palmer's murder, it brought it all back like a nightmare that never left us.”
“Funny, you don't look old enough…”
She smiled at the compliment. “In any case, I never forgot how awfully she died. When Palmer was killed, I was away at college and hadn't heard anything of it, but when Mootry was killed, I was reminded of Alisha, so I went back in time, searching in Georgia first, and getting very little help. It was, after all, a dead file.”
“No wonder you want an Indian on the case,” he managed to mutter to her now.
She managed a light laugh, which brightened the dark room. “Whatever can you mean by that, Lucas?”
“An Indian knows the difference between a spear and an arrow, and besides, an Indian never forgets an enemy.
” She indulged him with a broad smile now. “Truly, I hadn't given it any consideration.”
“So were any of Alisha's former lovers or suitors ever traced? Anyone jet to Atlanta to check firsthand on the situation there?” He riffled through the additional pages she'd provided but found nothing of great import on the Atlanta murder.
“With so little in the file, your guess is as good as mine,” she replied, “but it appears the detectives in charge didn't follow Atlanta up, or someone didn't get back with more than what you have there in your hands, Lucas.”
“Appears that Palmer's murder here in Houston PD's jurisdiction was given far more attention than the dead socialite in Atlanta.”
“It was already old news. He had moved on to wooing women here in Houston high society.”
Stonecoat nodded. “And since he had become so prominent here-”
“He was originally from here and had returned to get away from the morbid curiosity surrounding the death of his fiancee in Georgia.”
Lucas nodded and said, “Since he was so big here, his case file actually carried an asterisk, indicating that it required a box of its own.”
“The single folder I pulled is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg,” she agreed, adding, “the HPD swarmed over this case, turned it into a special task force operation with forty detectives working around the clock. Palmer's family was well connected. They even got TV time on America's Most Wanted, but nothing-absolutely nothing-came of it.”
Lucas may've heard vague rumblings about the case, but in Dallas at the time, he'd had his own problems as a first-year cop in a mean town. He was filled to overflowing with an unbridled energy that kept his paperwork cryptic and his time on the street twice that of any other cop. He and Jackson hadn't yet been teamed, and no other cop in the precinct could stand being around him. He was too gung ho, the others said of him. He had made few friends in or out of the department. He was hard to get to know because he was always so fired up and anxious. Soon it was rumored he was doing drugs, which he wasn't; but he was called in for a spot drug test. He passed with flying colors. Still, not even his captain could keep him in one place long enough to explain the simplest of regs to him. He couldn't sit in a chair without rocking, couldn't stand in a doorway without bouncing off the facings. When he had been on his back, facing rehabilitation and a grand jury probe and his superiors, the worst part of that hell was being immobile.
“Yeah, I seem to recall something about the case when it broke,” he managed. “It might be interesting to see the episode that aired on it.”
“I've seen it, and it is; in fact, I had a copy made. I'll gladly share it with you.” She went on to explain, “The HPD detectives working the case had spared no one in '86: not Palmer's shrink, not his personal physician, not his attorney, not his servants; they even went so far as to question the doctor's minister at his church. My uncle used to joke that they even brought in a psychic to talk to Palmer's dog. They were that hard up for a lead that had never been forthcoming.”
“Your uncle sounds like a smart man.”
“He thinks he got on everyone's nerves too much.”
“Oh?”
“He was-still is-something of a perfectionist. Things never sat well with him with the Palmer case.”
“Retired, you say? So, where'd he retire to?”
“South of Galveston on the bay. Has a great place. Visit there whenever I can, but he doesn't like me just dropping in.”
“Oh, why's that?” Lucas didn't expect an answer, and his thoughts were running toward the old guy's having plenty of girlfriends in.
“He's writing up his memoirs and it's making him a real bastard. Ask him to tell a story and he's masterful; ask him to put it in permanent ink and he chokes like a dog on peanut butter. I got him a tape recorder for his birthday and told him to just speak the damned book and let someone else transcribe it. I hear now it's going well, but for a time, God!”
When she finished, he said, “It's hard for a man to speak his heart.”
“More Indian wisdom?”
“Fact, is all. Like the detectives at the Thirty-first who joked about dropping a match on the Cold Room. It's easier than speaking their hearts about cases they couldn't solve.”
“Well, sure… The place houses mistakes, oversights… doubts and regrets.”
“Being the designated curator of such a museum isn't likely to win me any friends. The other guys are already calling it Indian Affairs.”
“As opposed to Internal Affairs?” She smiled and laughed.
He joined her, his laugh so loud that someone in the apartment overhead beat the floor to silence him.
“So what will it be, Stonecoat? Are we a team or aren't we?” she finally asked point-blank.
“I'll have to sleep on it.”
“And if you never get to sleep?”
“You know about my insomnia, too? You've been all over my medical file, and you've been all over the computer Internet trying to locate all kinds of conspiracies. I'm not so sure I trust you, Doctor.”
“Don't be ridiculous. I'm only interested in the truth.”
“Yeah, well, perhaps you should heed some of your own Anglo advice.”
“Which is?”
“Careful of what you wish for… you may get it.” She bit her lip and nodded. “Tomorrow, then, without fail, you will let me know, one way or the other.”
“I will.”
She stood up, took his hand and shook it firmly. “Thank you.”
He held on to her hand, enjoying the warmth of touch. It had been a long time since he had held a woman's hand. “For what?”
“For being the first man to listen to me on this, to take me seriously on this, and to see that there is something quite odd going on here.”
“Did you take all you have to Captain Lawrence?”
“I did.”
“Withholding nothing? Not even the Gunther file or the added info from Atlanta on Reynolds?”
“Well, he never gave me a chance to get that far. He's so negative and so insufferable.”
“Funny, I haven't found him to be either.”
“That's because you're a man. He doesn't treat you like a… a goddamned Barbie doll or a bug.”
She made her way toward the door.
“You sure you don't want to stay a little longer?” he asked, afraid to let her go and afraid she might hear the panic in his voice as well. The moment she stepped out the door, the place wrapped itself again in that deafening silence it wore before she'd brought her fire inside. It was a fire he both admired and remembered; it was the fire he had once carried.