Open Season Read online

  Finally, almost automatically, she found herself on the road to Huntsville. It was the road she took to go shopping, to have her hair done. Whenever she left the house, it was to go to Huntsville. The road was nice and familiar. Twice she stopped and threw up, though she hadn’t eaten anything and it was mostly dry heaves. Withdrawal symptoms, she thought; her body was rebelling against not having its accustomed alcohol. She had been dried out before, but always in a clinic, where she’d been given drugs to ease the way.

  Maybe that’s what she should do. Maybe she should check herself into a clinic, if she could manage to get herself all the way to Huntsville. She had done what she could, tried to warn Daisy, if she checked into a clinic, when she got out in a month, everything would be all over and she wouldn’t have to deal with it.

  Except she would have to deal with her conscience if anything happened to Daisy and she hadn’t done everything she could to stop it.

  She drove with both hands locked on the steering wheel, but still she couldn’t seem to keep the car in the right lane. The dotted line seemed to wiggle back and forth, and she kept swerving, trying to stay on the right side of it. A big white car blew past, horn blaring, and she said, “I’m sorry; I’m sorry.” She was doing the best she could. That had never been good enough, though, not for Temple, not for Jason or Paige, not even for herself.

  A horn kept blowing. She checked to make certain she wasn’t accidentally leaning on her own horn, but her hands were nowhere near it. The white car had gone past, she hadn’t hit it, so where was that horn coming from? Her vision swam and she wanted to lie down, but if she did, she might not be able to get up.

  Where was that damn horn?

  Then she saw a flash of blue, the strobe effect making her even dizzier, and the big white car was on her left, coming closer and closer, crowding her off the road. Desperately she stomped the brakes to keep from colliding with the white car, and the steering wheel jerked in her hands, tearing free of her grip. She screamed as her car began a sickening spin and her seat belt tightened with an almost brutal jerk, holding her as she left the road; the front axle plowed into a shallow ditch, and something hit her in the face, hard.

  Haze filled the car, and in panic she began fighting to get free of the seat belt. The car was on fire, and she was going to die.

  Then the car door was wrenched open and a big, olive-skinned man leaned in. “It’s okay,” he said in a calm tone. “That isn’t smoke; it’s just the dust from the air bag.”

  Jennifer stared at him, weeping, torn between despair and relief that it was all over. Now she wouldn’t have to decide anything. If Chief Russo was working in cahoots with Temple, there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked, squatting in the open door and examining her for any obvious injuries. “Other than your bloody nose.”

  Her nose was bleeding? She looked down and saw red drops splattering all over her clothing. “What caused that?” she asked, bewildered, as if there was nothing more important than finding out why she had a bloody nose.

  “Air bags pack a strong wallop.” He had a yellow first-aid kit in his hand and he opened it, took out a thick pad of gauze. “Here, hold it to your nose. It’ll stop in a minute.”

  Obediently she held the pad to her nose, pinching her nostrils.

  “You called the library this morning and reported a threat you overheard your husband making,” Chief Russo continued, his voice still as calm as if they were discussing the weather. “I’d like you to make a statement about what you heard, if you feel like it.”

  Jennifer tiredly let her head fall back against the headrest. “Are you working with him?” she asked, all nasally. What did it matter? There was nothing she could do even if he said yes.

  “No, ma’am, I’m not,” he replied. “Maybe you haven’t heard, but Daisy Minor is a special friend of mine. I take threats against her very seriously.”

  He could be lying. She knew that, but she didn’t think so. She’d suffered too much pain at a man’s hands not to notice the complete absence of threat from Chief Russo. Her purse had spilled all its contents on the floorboard when she hit the ditch; she unfastened her seat belt and slowly leaned forward, scrabbling through the mess until she found the tiny cassette tape. “I didn’t just hear it,” she said. “I taped it.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Mrs. Nolan was very shaky, but she was coherent. To cover all bases, Jack insisted she take a Breathalyzer test; nothing registered. She not only wasn’t drunk, she hadn’t had any alcohol that day. One of his investigators took her statement; then several of them listened to the answering machine tape. The mayor’s voice sounded a little tinny, but recognizable.

  “—-grab her when she leaves the library for lunch, or when she goes home this afternoon. She’ll just disappear. When Sykes handles something personally, there aren’t any problems.”

  “Realty?” That was the second man, the one Mrs. Nolan identified as Elton Phillips, a wealthy businessman in Scottsboro. “Then why was Mitchell’s body found so fast?”

  “Sykes didn’t handle it. He stayed behind at the club to find out who had seen them in the parking lot. The other two were the ones who handled the body.”

  “A mistake on Mr. Sykes’s part.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then this is his last chance. And yours.”

  Daisy hadn’t been mentioned specifically, but with the mention of the library and Mrs. Nolan’s testimony about the part of the conversation she hadn’t taped, it wasn’t necessary. Mitchell had been mentioned, and someone’s seeing them in the parking lot of the club. With Daisy’s testimony and identification of two of the men who had killed Mitchell and Temple’s own voice on this tape, the mayor was firmly implicated in a murder. Mrs. Nolan didn’t understand the reference she’d over-heard about a shipment of Russians, but Jack was beginning to have nasty suspicions.

  Regardless, the mayor and his friend were nailed.

  Eva Fay was one of the people gathered around listening to the tape. She put her hands on her hips. “Why, that snake.”

  His people were angry, Jack saw. Investigators, patrol officers, and office personnel alike were incensed. He was no longer the outsider, but one of them, and his woman had been threatened. Not just any woman, but Daisy Minor, whom most of them had known for years. The bad thing about living in a small town was that everything became a personal issue. The good thing about living in a small town was that everything became a personal issue. During times of trouble, the support system was massive.

  “Let’s bring the mayor in for questioning,” he said quietly, keeping a firm lid on his own anger. Daisy was safe; that was the important thing. “Contact the Scottsboro P.D. and have Mr. Phillips picked up, too.”

  He would have liked to have thrown up a net to catch this Mr. Sykes, but he didn’t have the manpower to block every street in town to check licenses. Sykes worried him, but as long as Daisy stayed put, Sykes couldn’t find her.

  “I’ve kept everything off radio,” said Tony Marvin. “He won’t have a clue we’re on to him.”

  “Sure he will. Remember Kendra Owens? Do you think she’s gone all day without mentioning Mrs. Nolan’s call to anyone else?”

  “Not Kendra,” said Eva Fay. “She’s sweet, but she loves to talk.”

  “Then we have to assume the mayor knows Mrs. Nolan called us. He’ll be on guard, but he doesn’t know about the tape, so he may not have bolted. C’mon, let’s get this ball rolling.”

  The damn Minor woman wasn’t anywhere in town, which made Sykes very nervous. She hadn’t shown up at work; she hadn’t been at home. She simply wasn’t there. When people veered so far out of their normal routine, something was up.

  He even called the library, taking care to use a pay phone in case they had Caller ID—not likely in a municipal building, but possible, and that damn call-return service meant he had to be cautious all the time anyway—and asked for Miss Minor. The woman who answered gave