The Devil's Right Hand - J. D. Rhoades [47]
“Where are you?” Angela’s voice sounded tense. Keller fumbled over his answer, but she cut him off. “Never mind,” she said. “The Highway Patrol found your car.”
Keller sat up. “Where?”
“In a ditch in Bladen County.”
“Anybody in it?”
“No,” Angela said. “But they did find a gym bag full of bloody clothes.”
“Damn,” he said.
“Keller, they’ll be testing those. They’re probably doing it now. And when they get a match on the blood--”
“They’ll know I was at the Puryear house,” he said.
“I’ve already gotten a call, Keller,” she said. “They want you to come down to the station and talk to them.”
“Who’s they?”
“A Fayetteville detective named Stacy.”
“Yeah,” Keller said. “I’ll bet he wants to talk.”
“What do I tell them, Jack?” she said.
Keller looked around the room. He saw Marie’s uniform cap on the top of the dresser. Her badge lay next to it, glinting in the morning light that came through the blinds.
“Tell them you don’t know where I am,” he said. “It’s the truth. And call McCaskill.”
“I already did,” she replied. “He’s in court. I had to leave a message. Jack, if they think you’re running...”
“I’m not running,” he said. “I just don’t want to talk to them right now. I’ll be fine.”
Marie’s voice came from the other room. “Breakfast,” she called out. Keller gritted his teeth, wondering if Angela could hear. Her tone when she finally spoke made it clear that she had.
“Yeah,” she said. “You’ll be fine.” He started to say something, but she had hung up. Keller shook his head and snapped the phone shut. He stood up and pulled his jeans on.
Marie was seated at the table in the kitchen, a bowl of cereal in front of her. There was another bowl across the table from her. “It’s just corn flakes,” she said. “But the strawberries are fresh.” She smiled, a little apologetically. “I’m not much of a cook.”
“This is good,” he said as he sat down.
“Who were you talking to?” she asked. He started to say something, then he saw in his mind’s eye the golden badge sitting on Marie’s dresser.
“Just checking in at work,” he said. “Seeing if there was anything new on DeWayne Puryear.”
“Was there?”
“No.”
Marie shook her head. “Don’t worry about him anymore, Keller,” she said. “He’s our problem now. He shot a cop.”
Keller cocked an eyebrow at her. “Our problem? I thought you were suspended.”
She looked down at her cereal. “Yeah. Well. You know how it is. Once a cop, always a cop.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
She looked at him and sighed. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?” she said.
“I need to find him,” he said.
She got up and carried her cereal bowl to the sink. “Okay,” she said, not looking at him. “It wasn’t like I had anything to do in the next few days anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned back to him. She crossed her arms across her chest and looked at him levelly. “I mean I’ll help.”
Keller was silent for a moment. The words stirred an unaccountable feeling of dread in him. I work alone, he wanted to say. What he did say was, “You don’t have to.”
Her mouth was set in a hard line. “That son of a bitch shot my partner. I want his ass in custody as bad as you do.”
Keller had no answer for that. “So where do we start?” she said after a long pause.
He thought for a minute. “The sister,” he said. “She’s the only family connection we have.”
Marie nodded. “She was held for a while, charged with harboring a fugitive. I heard she made bail.”
Keller stood up and carried his bowl to the sink. “We’ll start with her house, then.”
What this Debbie lacked in looks, DeWayne thought, she made up in enthusiasm, at least once he had used some of his dwindling money supply to get her a supply of rocks. He lay back on the bed, feeling as if all of the fluid had been drained from his