House Standoff Read online

  Turner looked as if he was about ready to come out from behind his desk and start whaling on DeMarco. Considering the guy’s size that probably wouldn’t turn out well for DeMarco—but DeMarco kept going. “Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I don’t have the clout to make this happen. Well, what I’m going to do is take a copy of Shannon’s journal to the biggest newspaper in this state and let them read it. And maybe the feds or the state cops won’t come in and take over, but sure as shit you’ll lose your job, any chance you have of being elected sheriff will evaporate, and, like I said, your girlfriend will walk away from ten years of marriage with nothing more than the clothes on her back.”

  “Goddamnit, you can’t do that,” Turner said. “I’m not going to let you do that.”

  “Oh, yeah? What are you going to do to stop me?” DeMarco said. He was sure that as soon as he left, Turner would be calling Lisa Bunt.

  Turner said, “We need to meet. Right now.”

  Lisa said, “Well, I can’t just—”

  “This is serious. It’s that fucking DeMarco. We need to talk.”

  “All right. Calm down.”

  “I’ll wait for you in the trailer. How long do you think it will take you to get there?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Give me an hour.”

  Fortunately, Lisa had been alone when Jim called, brushing down her horse after her morning ride. If he had called while she was having breakfast with Hiram, the situation could have gotten a little tricky. She didn’t know what was going on, but it was something bad. Jim had sounded almost hysterical.

  She’d always known it was a huge mistake to become involved with Jim. But she just couldn’t help herself. For one thing, the man was absolutely gorgeous. The other thing was, and this had actually surprised her, he was incredible in bed. It had been her experience that a lot of good looking men weren’t particularly good lovers; they were just too caught up in themselves. Jim, however, wasn’t that way at all and maybe that was because the man had been with so many women. He’d told her that he lost his virginity when he was thirteen and she could believe it.

  It was just one of those things that happened. Sleeping with Hiram had been disgusting and then the old bastard hurts his back so he wasn’t even capable of sex. When she’d started the affair with Turner, she hadn’t been laid in two years and she hadn’t been laid right in ten years. She had needs, for Christ’s sake. She was only thirty-seven. But she’d also known that the affair would ruin her if Hiram ever found out. A man as proud as Hiram wouldn’t tolerate being a cuckold and God knows what she’d do to make a living if he divorced her. She did not want to go back to the life she’d been living before she met him.

  She thought for a moment about some excuse to give Hiram for why she had to leave immediately and came up with one. She called out to one of the hands who was mucking out a stall and told him to finish wiping down her horse and went back to the house. She found Hiram in his den but he was just sitting behind his desk, staring off into space. Normally, this time of day, he’d be poring over the financial news to see what was happening with gas prices or the price of cattle or a dozen other things. Or he’d be giving his foreman orders on what he wanted done around the ranch that day. But the thing with Sonny had really gotten to him and he hadn’t been able to focus on business or anything else for several days.

  He wouldn’t admit it to her, but Hiram knew Sonny had killed the BLM agent and was likely to spend the rest of his life in jail. And the fact that Sonny had shot the man in the back would have been particularly hurtful to a man as proud as Hiram Bunt. Had Sonny walked up to Hunter and looked him in the eye before he shot him, Hiram wouldn’t have been pleased, but at least he wouldn’t have felt ashamed. And even though he knew it was probably hopeless, he’d hired another lawyer to defend Sonny, a man from Denver who’d defended a couple of high-profile murderers. It pissed Lisa off that he was spending his money—which, with any luck, would soon be her money—by wasting it on a high-priced lawyer.

  She said, “Honey, I have to go to see Dr. Parker.”

  “What?” he said.

  Oh, God, was he going deaf too? “I said, I have to go to Dr. Parker’s office. You know that physical I had last week?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “One of the lab tests came back with a weird result and the doctor’s office just called and told me they need me to retake the test.” She actually had had a physical last week. She was in perfect health.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

  “Some number having to do with kidney function was high. The nurse said the number was so high that she thinks they most likely screwed up the test. Anyway, I have to drive to Rock Springs and pee in a cup. I’ll probably have lunch there and then come right back. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  Jim was sitting in the RV at the fold-down dining room table behind the driver’s seat. All the ratty curtains in the vehicle were pulled closed.

  The RV was a class C motorhome with bald tires and over two hundred thousand miles on the odometer. Lisa had bought it from a gas worker who had needed a quick infusion of cash. It had a small propane stove that didn’t work and a sink barely big enough for a frying pan. With a couple of exceptions, however, the age and condition of the RV were irrelevant. The exceptions were a queen-sized bed in the back that Lisa had installed to replace the motorhome’s original bed, a miniscule shower that actually worked, and a small refrigerator that would hold a couple bottles of wine.

  Jim stood up when she walked into the motorhome. He was so tall his head almost touched the ceiling. His face was grim.

  “What’s going on?” she said, taking a seat at the table.

  “That guy, DeMarco,” Jim said. “He said he’s going to give Shannon’s journal to a newspaper and claim that I shouldn’t be investigating her death because I’m involved with you. He thinks if he does that the FBI or the State Police will take over the investigation.”

  “Goddamn him,” Lisa said.

  She’d flipped through the journal after Jim had stolen DeMarco’s copy. She’d actually been flattered by some of the things Shannon had written about her, Shannon saying how much she liked her and enjoyed her company. She hadn’t been pleased to see Shannon discuss her affair with Jim or to learn that old bat Harriet Robbins also knew about it, but she hadn’t been too concerned. With the writer dead, there wouldn’t be a novel coming out to expose her adultery and she seriously doubted any respectable paper would publish the journal in its current form. A newspaper wouldn’t want to face the possibility of a libel suit for passing on a lot of what amounted to nothing more than titillating, unsubstantiated gossip. But DeMarco was putting a new twist on the journal. He was going to say that Shannon’s knowledge of her affair with Jim was a motive for murder and also a reason why Jim shouldn’t be leading the investigation. She wasn’t worried, however, about the FBI or the State police. She was one hundred percent confident they wouldn’t connect her to the writer’s death. But what would happen is that Hiram would divorce her and, because of the damn prenup she’d signed, there wouldn’t be any alimony to compensate for all those years of being married to him.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t think there’s anything I can do,” Jim said. “Destroying DeMarco’s copy of the journal won’t do any good. He’ll just print out another one. He obviously has access to an electronic copy.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about destroying the journal. I was thinking about destroying him. He’s the only one pushing this thing. If he’s gone—”

  Jesus, he’d always known there was a cold streak in her. Her marrying Hiram was proof of that. But murder—

  “Hell, Lisa, I’m not going to kill the man.”

  “He’s going to ruin us! You’ll lose your job, your wife will probably divorce
you and take what little money you have, and without a doubt, Hiram will divorce me.”

  Turner shook his head.

  “Honey, Hiram will be gone in a few years. In fact, he might be gone even sooner than I’d hoped. This thing with Sonny is killing him. And when he’s gone, and with Sonny in jail, I’ll be the wealthiest woman in Sweetwater County, and you and I can get married and you won’t have to worry about what divorcing your wife will cost you. And if you want to be the sheriff, I’ll help you get elected. But if DeMarco goes to a newspaper with that damn journal—”

  “I’m not going to kill him,” Turner said.

  As if he hadn’t spoken, she said, “And you need to act quickly, and I mean like right away. You gotta stop him before he tells anyone else what he knows.”

  When Jim just sat there, his head hanging, looking down at the tabletop, she stood up and started to unbutton her blouse. “Maybe this would be a good time to remind you of what you’ll be missing if you don’t deal with DeMarco.”

  32

  DeMarco had noticed that Sam Clarke’s daughter usually started cleaning the motel’s rooms around nine in the morning, moving at a glacial pace, slowly pushing her cleaning cart from room to room, spending about twenty minutes in each one. He’d also noticed that sometimes she’d forget to provide clean towels or toilet paper or to empty the wastebaskets. The only reason she’d be nominated for employee of the month was because she was Sam Clarke’s only employee.

  DeMarco took his room chair outside and placed it on the walkway to wait for Lola. He was wearing an extra-large, button-up sport shirt to conceal the bulletproof vest. The vest was hot and uncomfortable and he wondered how cops could stand to wear them all day.

  At nine-thirty, a dusty blue Toyota with a dented left front fender pulled into the parking lot with Lola Clarke behind the wheel. She didn’t immediately exit the vehicle; she sat for about five minutes smoking, making DeMarco wonder what she was smoking. Finally, she left her car and walked reluctantly over to the locked closet at the east end of the motel and removed her cleaning cart.

  DeMarco waited until she finished cleaning the first room before approaching her. As he was walking toward her, he looked around the parking lot and spotted Tommy Hewlett sitting in his rented Jeep drinking coffee. Good.

  Lola was about to enter the next room and DeMarco called out to her. “Hey, Lola, hold on a minute.”

  She said, “Yeah, what is it? You need something?”

  “Nope, don’t need a thing. Just wanted to let you know something. You know that writer who was killed here?”

  “Yeah,” Lola said. DeMarco noticed she had the pinpoint pupils often seen in heroin users and was wearing a long-sleeved shirt on a warm June day.

  DeMarco said, “The writer was a friend of mine. Maybe your dad told you that.”

  Lola didn’t respond.

  DeMarco said, “Well, she left a journal in which she talked about all the fine people she met here in Waverly, one of those fine people being you. She wrote you stole her diamond earrings.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Lola said. “And I’m gonna tell my dad you’re giving me a hard time and he’s going to kick you out of your room. And good luck finding another place to stay.”

  DeMarco almost said I’ve been kicked out of a lot of better places than this— but decided this wasn’t the time for humor.

  “Lola, I’m going to get the FBI to investigate Shannon Doyle’s death because I don’t think that the sheriff is doing his job. And when the FBI starts poking around they’re going to check pawn shops to see if someone hocked the earrings or Shannon’s laptop.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you or the FBI does,” Lola said. “Now if you don’t stop bothering me, I’m gonna go get my dad.”

  “Lola, I don’t care about the earrings you stole from Shannon, but if the cops find out you pawned them, they’ll arrest you, and those earrings were expensive enough to make stealing them a felony. And if they find out you pawned the laptop, well, then you’re going to jail for murder. I’ve heard addicts have it really hard when they have to go cold turkey inside a jail cell.”

  “Hey, I didn’t murder anyone, and you get the fuck away from me.” Lola walked into the room she’d been planning to clean next and slammed the door behind her.

  DeMarco suspected he might not have fresh towels this evening.

  Inside the room, Lola sat down on the unmade bed, trying to decide what to do. As she sat there, she unconsciously began to scratch her left arm, near the scabs over the needle marks. She could hardly think, she needed a fix so bad.

  She pulled out her cell phone. When he answered, she said, “Donny, I’m in trouble.”

  “Oh, yeah? How’s that?” Donny said, his voice conveying how little he gave a shit.

  Donny was a fat, long-haired creep who lived in Rock Springs. He supplied her with dope and when she didn’t have enough cash sometimes he’d make her give him a blow job. Other times, he’d sell her to some gas worker or a trucker if he could find a guy who wanted her. He was always telling her that if she’d fix herself up a little, wear some makeup and a short skirt, they could both make more money and life would be easier for her. Yeah, Donny was a peach of a guy and, God help her, the only one she could think of to call about DeMarco.

  “There’s this guy here at the motel,” Lola said. “He’s investigating that writer’s murder. You remember, I told you about the writer.”

  “Yeah, but so what?” Donny said.

  “I want you to make him stop hassling me. He says he’s going to tell the cops I stole the bitch’s earrings and they’ll check with the pawnshops, and when they find out I hocked them they’ll arrest me.”

  “Well, I guess you shouldn’t have stolen those earrings.”

  “Hey, you listen to me. If you don’t help me and I get arrested, I’m going to tell the cops all about you.”

  Donny was silent for a moment. His voice no longer carefree when he said, “You don’t want to threaten me, girl.”

  “I’m not threatening you,” Lola said, even though she was. She said, “But you know if the cops catch me, they won’t give me anything to help me unless I tell them whatever they want to hear. Plus, you don’t want me arrested. I know you don’t make a lot of money off me, but you make some, and I won’t be able to earn for you if I’m in jail.”

  Another long silence. “What this guy’s name.”

  “DeMarco. He’s in room nine here at the motel.”

  33

  The last person on DeMarco’s list was Carly Turner, the deputy’s wife. He wasn’t sure exactly how to approach Carly. He could simply drive over to her house and knock on the door, but the problem with that bright idea was that Jim Turner might arrest him. He wasn’t sure exactly what Turner would charge him with. Harassment? Trespassing? Certainly, someone in law enforcement would be able to come up with a suitable charge and DeMarco imagined a local judge would tend to be unsympathetic toward a man who was bothering a cop’s spouse.

  On the other hand, if Turner did arrest him then he’d have to think about the possibility of DeMarco telling the judge and everyone else in the courtroom the reason why he was hassling Carly Turner, the reason being the contents of Shannon’s journal. That is, DeMarco would be able to say that the journal indicated a number of folks in Waverly had motives for killing Shannon, one of those people being the wife of the deputy and another being the deputy’s lover. Yeah, it seemed pretty unlikely that Turner would want to take the chance of DeMarco shooting off his mouth in a courtroom.

  Jim and Carly Turner lived in a modest, single-story home with an attached two-car garage. There was a fair-sized lawn, and in a carport on one side of the house was a riding lawn mower and two ten-speed bikes. Over the double garage doors was a basketball hoop, reminding DeMarco that Carly Turner was the mother of a couple of teenage boys.

  DeMarc
o couldn’t help but feel sorry for Carly Turner. According to Shannon’s journal, she’d never had the opportunity to live up to her full potential, her college ambitions having been cut short by her marriage to Turner. Now she was a woman who had become addicted to booze and had a husband who cheated on her. And if the contents of Shannon’s journal were made public—that her husband was screwing Hiram Bunt’s wife—it would not only hurt her but also her sons. On the other hand, if she was the one who’d killed Shannon, he didn’t care how the truth affected her children. That was on Carly, not him.

  It was eleven a.m. on a weekday and DeMarco figured Carly’s boys would be at school and her husband would be off doing whatever a sheriff’s deputy normally did. She answered the door wearing shorts, a white tank top, and flip-flops. She had unruly dark hair and bright blue eyes and although not as striking as Lisa Bunt, she was an attractive woman. DeMarco had never met her but he realized he had seen her before at the Grill having drinks with a couple of other women.

  “Can I help you?” she said to DeMarco.

  “My name’s Joe DeMarco. I’m—”

  “Oh, you’re DeMarco. My husband’s told me about you. Said you’re the one who broke into Sonny’s house and got him arrested. Jim was pretty upset about what you did, but I can tell you that it didn’t bother me a bit. Sonny’s an asshole.”

  “Mrs. Turner, I’m going to cut right to the chase here. Shannon Doyle left a journal, documenting observations she made while visiting here. From her journal I’ve concluded that several people had a motive for killing her.” He paused then said, “You’re one of those people.”