Though I just didn't think the deputy was going to shoot, I remained tense and strung up for action. His eyes were showing a little too much white to suit me. But when I figured he'd heard me coming up the trail, drawn his gun, and sat in the car waiting for me to approach, it wasn't surprising he was squirrelly.
"Up against the car," he ordered. Now that I felt sure he wasn't going to shoot me out of hand, I began to get mad. I put my hands against the car, spread my legs, and let him pat me down, but I could feel my tolerance draining away with my fear.
He frisked me as impersonally as I could want, which was saying a lot.
"Turn around," he said, and his voice was not so hoarse.
I faced him, having to look up to gauge his emotional state from his expression. His body was relaxing a little, and his eyes looked a trifle less jumpy. I focused on looking nonthreatening, trying to keep my own muscles from tensing, trying to breathe evenly. It took a lot of concentration.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked.
He was in plainclothes, though I noticed that his khaki slacks and brown plaid shirt were not too far from the uniform in spirit.
"I could ask the same," I said, trying not to sound as confrontational as I felt. I don't like feeling helpless. I don't like that more than I don't like almost anything else.
"Tell me," he said.
"I wanted to look at the spot again because ..." I faltered, not happy at explaining what had really been an unformed feeling.
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to think about it," I finished. "See, I was thinking..." I shook my head, trying to formulate what I wanted to say. "There was something wrong about this."
"You mean, besides the murder of a young woman?" he asked dryly.
I nodded, ignoring the sarcasm.
He lowered the gun.
"I think so too," he said. Now he looked more astonished than anything, as if it amazed him that I would think about what I'd seen that day, think about Deedra's last moments after I'd reported her death. It appeared that in Clifton Emanuel's estimation, I was so tough that the death of a woman I'd known for years wouldn't affect me. It would be wonderful, I thought, to be that tough.
He holstered his gun. He didn't apologize for drawing on me, and I didn't ask it of him. If I'd been in his shoes, I'd have done the same.
"Go on," he invited me.
"I found myself thinking that..." I paused, trying to phrase it so he'd understand me. "We're meant to think that a man came out here in Deedra's car with her."
"Or maybe arranged to meet her out here," he interjected, and I nodded, waving a hand to show I conceded that.
"Howsoever. So, she's out here, and so is the murderer, however he got here. And then, we're supposed to think that this killer got Deedra out of the car for a little sex, told her to take off her clothes. She strips for his pleasure, tossing her clothes at random, pantyhose here, blouse there, pearls, skirt... and she's out here in the middle of the woods naked as a jaybird. Then she has sex with him, and he's using a condom unless he's a complete moron. Or maybe they don't have sex? I don't know what the autopsy said. But at that point, something goes wrong."
Clifton was nodding his big head. "They argue about something," he said, taking over the scenario. "Maybe she threatens to tell his wife he's screwing her. But that doesn't seem likely, since everyone agrees married men didn't appeal to her. Maybe she tells him she thinks she's pregnant, though she wasn't. Or maybe she tells him he's a lousy lay. Maybe he can't get it up."
That had crossed my mind briefly before, when I'd considered Deedra's artificial violation with the bottle. When Clifton Emanuel said it, the idea made even more sense. I looked up at the deputy in surprise, and he nodded grimly. "For some people, not performing would be reason enough to go off the deep end," he told me darkly.
I looked off into the shadows of the woods and shivered.
"So he shows her potency," Emanuel continued. "He strikes her hard enough in the solar plexus to kill her, and while she's dying he hauls her into the car and then shoves the bottle up her... ah, up her." He cleared his throat in a curiously delicate way.
"And then he leaves. How?" I asked. "If he arrived in her car, how does he leave?"
"And if he came in his own car, it didn't leave any trace that we could find. Which is possible, especially if it was a good vehicle with no leaks. The ground was dry that week, but not dry enough to be powdery. Not good for tracks. But it just seems more likely that he was in the car with her, that he wouldn't risk being seen pulling in here with her. So he must've had his car already parked somewhere close. Or maybe he had a cell phone, like yours. He could call someone to come pick him up, spin some story to explain it. Someone he trusted wouldn't go the police with it."
I spared a moment to wonder why a law-enforcement officer was being so forthcoming with speculation.
"She wasn't pregnant," I muttered.
He shook his heavy head. "Nope. And she'd had sex with someone wearing a condom. But we don't know if it was necessarily the killer."
"So you think maybe he couldn't do it, and she enraged him?" But that kind of taunting didn't seem in Deedra's character. Oh, how the hell did I know how she acted with men?
"That's possible. But I did talk with a former bedmate of hers who had the same problem," Deputy Emanuel said, amazing me yet again. "He said she was really sweet about it, consoling, telling him next time would be okay, she was sure."
"That wouldn't stop some men from beating her up," I said.
He nodded, giving me credit for experience. "So that's still a possibility, but it seems more unlikely."
Emanuel paused, giving me plenty of eye contact. He had no interest whatsoever in me as a woman, which pleased me. "So," he concluded, "we're back to the question of why anyone would do in Deedra if it wasn't over some sexual matter? Why make it look like the motive was sex?"
"Because that makes so many more suspects," I said. Emanuel and I nodded simultaneously as we accepted the truth of that idea. "Could she have learned something at her job? The county clerk's office is pretty important."
"The county payroll, property taxes... yes, the clerk's office handles a lot of money and responsibility. And we've talked to Choke Anson several times, both about how Deedra was at work and about his relationship to her. He looks clear to me. As far as Deedra knowing something connected to her job, something she shouldn't know, almost everything there is a matter of public record, and all the other clerks have access to the same material. It's not like Deedra exclusively..."
He trailed off, but I got his point.
"I'm going to tell you something," I said.
"Good," he responded. "I was hoping you would."
Feeling like this betrayal was a necessary one, I told him about Marlon Schuster's strange visit to Deedra's apartment.
"He had a key," I said. "He says he loved her. But what if he found out she was cheating on him? He says she loved him, too, and that's why she gave him a key. But did you ever find Deedra's own key?"
"No." Emanuel looked down at his enormous feet. "No, never did. Or her purse."
"What about you and Deedra?" I asked abruptly. I was tired of worrying about it.
"I wouldn't have touched her with a ten-foot pole," he said, distaste making his voice sour. "That's the only thing I have in common with Choke Anson. I like a woman who's a little more choosy, has some self-respect."