Dix saw the tears in her eyes, and waited for her to recover. He’d known her since he and Christie got married, and yet…He shook his head. Who ever really knew what another person was about?
Marian looked at the rest of them, her lips twisted at their carefully expressionless faces. “Were there others? Others besides Erin Bushnell?”
Dix said, “You need to talk to your father about that, Marian. We’re going over to see him now. If you think of anything else, give me a call right away. I’ve got the same cell number.”
“Is there some sort of serial killer on the loose here, Dix?”
“What we’re thinking is that whoever tried to kill Ruth probably killed Erin Bushnell, and that opened Pandora’s box. He may be trying to do damage control.”
“But why Helen? Does that make any sense to you?”
Dix said, “Tying it together will be the key to all of this.”
Marian walked to the window, turned, and looked back at them. “So much pain to bear now. I suppose I’ll have to deal with Sam’s pain, too. How can he possibly have loved her as much as I did? I wonder, Dix. Do you think my father cared at all?”
“Yes, Marian. I think he did.”
CHAPTER 24
DIX CALLED THE deputy assigned to follow Gordon Holcombe when he left Tara.
“Where is he, B.B.?”
“Weirdest thing, Sheriff. When Dr. Holcombe left Tara, I thought he was going to Stanislaus, then he seemed to change his mind. He drove straight out to the Coon Hollow Bar. He’s been in there nearly two hours. You told me I shouldn’t try to keep out of sight and I didn’t. He knew I was following him, and it didn’t seem to bother him. Right now I’m tucked in a mess of pine trees across the street.”
Dix told him to stay put, they’d be there shortly. He punched off his cell. “Gordon calls this place his sanctuary. It’s a pre–World War Two relic, all weathered wood, dark glass in the windows, and a rutted parking lot in front.”
Coon Hollow Bar was only a mile or so out of Maestro.
“It looks like a treat,” Sherlock said, admiring the old dark charm of the place. “A good number of customers,” she added, waving at four other cars in the parking lot. There was no sunlight inside Coon Hollow. It smelled of beer and salty pretzels and cigarettes. There was one glowing sign for Bud Light above the bathroom door on the far wall. Gordon Holcombe was bellied up at the bar, head down, shoulders hunched. There were maybe six other folks at the bar, either talking in low voices or as silent as Gordon.
Gordon glanced up when the front door opened and sunlight poured in. He watched the four of them approach. Fact is, Ruth thought, he didn’t look the least bit interested in anything except the drink he was sloshing around in his glass.
“Gordon,” Dix said.
Gordon glanced at Dix briefly before looking back down. “Since you’re all cops, I doubt you know what this is.” He held up the glass, swirled the scotch around. “This is The Macallan, Highland scotch whiskey, eighteen years old. It’s considered the Rolls-Royce of single malts. Our barkeep’s father orders it special for me. My last bottle is low so I can’t offer you any. Dix, if you find out who murdered Helen, I’ll buy you a bottle of The Macallan for Christmas. Any of you want a beer?”
“No, Gordon.”
“Then perhaps, Dix, you can tell me why you’ve got B.B. following me? He’s sitting in his cruiser right across the street. Afraid I was going to take off since I’m so damned guilty?”
Dix said, “Tell us what Helen said to you when she called you last night.”
“Helen called me often.”
“Last night, Gordon, or do you want me to get a warrant for the phone records?”
Ruth thought she saw Gordon flinch, and then he stared down into his glass again and swished the scotch around, watching it film the sides of the glass.
“All right, so she called me. I didn’t tell you in front of Chappy. He would have laughed his head off while promising to visit me in jail. He’d also volunteer to stick me with a lethal injection.”
“Helen’s call, Gordon.”
He suddenly looked old, and somehow smaller. He sighed so deeply it made him cough. “It was only a short phone call, Dix, nothing more. God in Heaven, I can’t believe she’s gone. There’s some maniac out there, some crazy man who hates me, who hates Stanislaus, who wants to destroy everything.”
Ruth said, “How very odd, Dr. Holcombe. You believe it’s all about you, and no one else. Don’t you think that’s a rather narrow view? After all, you’re sitting here drinking your fine single malt scotch, quite alive, while Erin Bushnell, Walt McGuffey, and Helen Rafferty are dead.”
Dr. Holcombe looked confused for a moment, then said, “Of course I care, dammit. I didn’t mean—Are you sure you don’t want something to drink?”
Savich said, “No, thank you, Dr. Holcombe. Why don’t we all go over to that booth?”
There were half a dozen ancient booths lining two sides of the room. The vinyl was slippery and cold, the cracks so large one could easily lose a wallet. Ruth allowed Dr. Holcombe to scoot in first, then essentially locked him in by sitting next to him on the outside. He didn’t appear to notice.
“It’s going to start snowing soon,” he said into his glass. “I’m wondering when I leave here with all this scotch in me whether I’ll be able to get back to Stanislaus. You know the media are there, Dix. Soon our donors will be on the line, asking to talk to me. What am I going to tell them? That their director is a murder suspect? I can’t even imagine Helen being gone, much less dead.” He raised pain-glazed eyes to Dix’s face. “She’s always been there for me, my guardian angel. After I left Tara, I was going to my office, but I couldn’t stand the thought of it. Helen wasn’t there, you see. You’ve got to believe me, I didn’t kill her.” He lowered his forehead to the table.
Savich went to the bar and asked for four coffees and a cup of tea.
“If that’s true, Gordon, you’d best start convincing me you didn’t. Tell us about Helen’s phone call.”
“I want another drink first.”
When Savich came back to the booth, he heard Dix say, “No more, Gordon. You need to stop with that stuff. Here’s Agent Savich with some coffee.”
Savich handed him a cup. Gordon stared at it, gave a little shudder. He picked up his scotch glass, tipped it, but it was empty.
“Talk to me, Gordon. Don’t even consider lying, or I’ll give Chappy a free pass to have a field day.”
“All right. Helen was whispering on the phone—it was absurd, really, her whispering like that. She told me she was worried for me, that I had to be careful. She told me you and Agent Warnecki and the other two FBI agents were snooping around, asking her about our affair.”
No one spoke: They simply waited. Gordon sipped at his coffee, unaware of what he was doing. Ruth finally said, “This is a nice quiet place, Dr. Holcombe. I can see how you could view it as a sort of sanctuary, a place where you can be by yourself, away from students and colleagues. Do you always come here alone?”
“Sure, always alone, Agent Warnecki.”
Dix asked him, “What else did Helen tell you, other than to be careful and that we’re snooping around?”
“She said you told her that you knew about my relationship with Erin and some of the other students, that she’d already given you some names but you wanted all of them. She said she didn’t have a choice but to help you. She started crying, begging for my forgiveness.”