Pushing Up Bluebonnets

31

The police station in Pineview reminded me of JoLynn's latest hospital room. Small and smelly. Cooper and Kate didn't seem to mind sitting elbow to elbow behind his desk as we waited for DeShay and Chavez to drive from Houston and pick up Kent Dugan's killer. I sat in a corner on a molded plastic chair drinking a Diet Coke. Ian McFarland was in one of the two holding cells, being watched by Marshall. After all, he did threaten to kill himself an hour ago. Cooper decided to keep him here, rather than in the basement jail of the old courthouse near that town square, the courthouse I was supposed to have seen today.

Cooper complied with Ian's wish that his daughter not be called right away. Ian wanted to give his official confession to HPD first. But that didn't mean he wouldn't give us his unofficial confession, despite Cooper reading him his Miranda rights twice. No, Ian simply wouldn't shut up—that is, until Elliott Richter and the nerdiest lawyer on the planet arrived. If the attorney cinched his pants any higher, he'd strangle himself. Ian suddenly stopped giving us his version of events.

The nerd was the company lawyer—a stand-in until Richter could find his friend "the best defense attorney in Harris County." Richter actually shouted this out to Ian through the open door separating the office area from the holding-cell area. A suicide watch, Marshall had pointed out to Cooper, meant that the door must remain open.

I wondered if Richter's offer to get another lawyer would stand when he learned how his friend Ian uncov ered JoLynn's past by stealing her phone and tracking Dugan down. I'm sure he had an easier search than Cooper and I. The Internet can find anyone with a number attached to their identity and Ian found out where Dugan lived thanks to that number. Then he researched Dugan thoroughly before talking to him, learned he ran an ID shop and put two and two together. That's how JoLynn inserted herself into their lives—by making fake documents.

At first, he thought Dugan was in on the scam, but Dugan apparently didn't believe a word Ian said—until Ian showed him the photos his daughter discarded in the trash when she'd been visiting over at Ian's place.

"All I wanted was for Dugan to come and get his girlfriend, blackmail her into leaving by threatening to expose her to Elliott," Ian had said while Marshall used the first-aid kit to clean abrasions on Ian's face. Ian was sitting on the cot in the cell and we were all in the small area right outside. "That way," Ian went on, "Elliott would never know what I'd done, that I was the instigator. At least, that's the deal I made with Dugan. Paid him a pretty penny, too."

Instigator? I thought. Has anyone ever used that word in a confession before?

"What real harm was she doing at Magnolia Ranch?" Cooper asked—which I found a surprisingly sympathetic question for him. "I mean, there's plenty of money to go around. I believe JoLynn made your friend Elliott happy."

"Don't you agree that would have changed over time?" Ian said. "Money aside, I didn't want Elliott to get his heart broken. He's got a lousy ticker as it is."

I said, "She needed a home and he needed a granddaughter. She was a threat to your own daughter's inheritance. Maybe your own. Isn't that what worried you the most?"

"Absolutely not. I was protecting Elliott as well as Simone's inheritance. How was I to know Mr. Dugan would corrupt her automobile—I don't even quite understand what he did to the car, by the way. I suppose he was a psychopath bent on revenge and I had no way of knowing he was capable of murder."

"Actually," Kate said from her spot against the farthest wall from his cell, "the correct term is antisocial personality disorder."

"Thank you for correcting me, Dr. Rose. I will store that information to impress my future cell mates."

I said, "Maybe you didn't realize what a bad dude he was, but like our daddy would have said, 'You roll around with the hogs, you better expect to get muddy.' "

"I am certainly ashamed of what I did behind Elliott's back. But I never intended to kill that man. I met with him late Thursday evening hoping to terminate our relationship. I wanted nothing more to do with him after what he'd done—that murder attempt he was so proud of. But he grew hostile, wanted money to keep quiet, and when I drove off, he got in the way of my automobile."

That's when I started to wonder what the autopsy showed. Somehow, I doubted Dugan's death was an accident. Ian wanted us to believe that, though, wanted to sound noble and concerned, if only for his daughter and his friend. I also began to consider the possibility he never intended to harm himself. He'd been caught like a minnow in a bucket in that garage tonight. Maybe his repeated pronouncements of remorse along with his confessions were all for show.

I finished my Coke just as I heard the sound of a car. DeShay and Chavez must be here. I saw that Cooper rested his hand on Kate's back when the two of them stood, and smiled to myself. They probably had a very nice drive on the way up here and maybe an even nicer dinner. I wanted all the details on our ride home.

DeShay held the door for Chavez and said, "I hear you have someone who needs a ride back to the city." He looked at me. "You never stop working, do you, Abby girl?"

"Take him," Cooper said, "because I'm tired of listening to him yak."

Richter and the nerd backed up to give the new arrivals room, and Richter shot Cooper a look.

Cooper saw it and said, "Sorry if that bothers you, Mr. Richter. You're a very smart man, but you made a mistake with McFarland. Your friend is bad news."

Richter's face reddened, but he didn't argue.

"Can we go home now?" I asked DeShay.

Maria Chavez went in to get their prisoner and DeShay walked by, ready to help her.

"Sure. And we can give you a fast escort. We drove up in a marked car and will go back to Houston with lights, no siren."

I smiled. "Sounds good to me."

On the wonderfully fast ride home behind Chavez, the speed demon, Kate wanted to talk about how I'd figured things out. But I was afraid I'd let something slip about JoLynn's biological family. I told her she knew everything I did, that maybe I'd gotten lucky on this one using a little guesswork. She didn't need to hear the details of what happened in McFarland's garage, either. So I questioned her about her time spent with Cooper and she was happy to share. This was the old Kate and I couldn't be happier to see her revived.

Jeff was waiting for me after I dropped off Kate at her house. I'd called him from Pineview PD and though I didn't share everything then because I wasn't exactly in a private place, DeShay apparently filled him in during his drive to Pineview to pick up McFarland.

"Doris upstairs?" I said, after he gave me a wonderful hug—a hug far different from the one I'd experienced in the arms of Ponytail Nick. And again, I was reminded of my promise. I hadn't realized that promise might mean giving up a small part of myself—a portion of the complete openness Jeff and I shared. This was information I could never share with a cop, not one as dedicated as Jeff was to bringing in criminals. And JoLynn's family had broken the law.

"Doris is spending the night with Loreen," he said. "I thought you could use a massage after the day you've had. Come on."

He took me by the hand and led me up the stairs. When he opened the bedroom door, my hand went to my mouth. "What have you done?"

The room was lit with candles, and vases of yellow roses sat on the tables, the dressers and my small vanity.

"I know I'm not the big romantic type, but you were gone all day and when I found out what went down, how you stared down that turd without your weapon, I got a sick feeling right here." He touched his belt. "If I ever lost you . . ."

I put a finger to his lips. "That's not happening."

Then he asked me a question I didn't want to answer, because I didn't want to lie. "Did Dugan hire that jerk to tackle you in the parking garage?"

"Probably, but with Dugan dead, we may never know. The fake security guard might have been Dugan's pal, too."

"That makes sense, but I—"

"No more talking. I heard someone up here was giving away massages."