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  Wasn’t that the truth? John nodded. “Who finally broke it off?”

  “I think Turner called me and let me know she was returning my ring. I suppose that was when we formally broke up. But it wasn’t a dramatic confrontation or anything. By that point I knew it was only a matter of time, and she must have, too.”

  John smoothed the paper clip into a straight piece of wire. “Can you think of any reason she’d be angry with Calvin Hyman now?”

  “No.” Frazer spread his hands. “That’s why it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “No, nothing.”

  John was silent. He made a spiraling circle out of the wire. They could hear the clicking of keys as Sylvie the receptionist typed at her computer. Larson shifted in his chair, making it groan.

  “I-I mean if it’d been four years ago,” Frazer finally stuttered into the silence, “I could understand.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “She was pretty mad at Calvin at the time. I remember at Rusty’s funeral she told me she thought Calvin had embezzled the money himself and somehow framed Rusty.”

  “And how did you reply?”

  “What could I say?” Frazer sounded frustrated. “She was obviously upset over her uncle’s death. People don’t always say things they mean at times like that.”

  “You think she didn’t mean what she said about Mr. Hyman?” John glanced up at the man.

  “She couldn’t have, could she? Calvin Hyman is the bank president. He’s the mayor of this town. Politically and socially, he’s very active. How likely is it that he’d embezzle from his own bank?”

  “’Course you could say that about Mr. Turner, as well.”

  “Huh?”

  John stood and flipped the paper-clip spiral onto Frazer’s desk. “How likely is it that the vice president would embezzle from his own bank?”

  Frazer stared up from his seat behind the desk, apparently forgetting his authority moves. “Calvin has everything. Why would he need more?”

  John smiled. “In my experience, desire has very little to do with need.”

  Chapter Nine

  T urner peered into the Chevy’s rearview mirror and carefully snipped off a hank of straight dark hair. She was a bit anxious about cutting her own hair, but it wasn’t like she could walk into Bea’s Clip ’n’ Snip on Main and ask for a cut and style. Not without being arrested, anyway. She’d had no choice but to take the scissors into her own hands, so to speak, and she was rather pleased with the result. Probably it helped that she wasn’t trying for any particular style.

  She trimmed the wisps at her temple and then looked at her wristwatch. 5:50 p.m. Calvin and Shannon should be leaving for the Lutheran church potluck dinner soon. It was held the second Sunday of the month, and the Hymans were regular attendees. At least they’d been for the last year. They’d started attending about the time that Calvin must’ve decided to make a bid for the state legislature seat. The current legislator was Mason Carter, who was retiring after his term ended because of poor health. Carter had already endorsed Calvin, and since the seat was traditionally a Republican one, Calvin was pretty much a shoo-in for it. Assuming everything went well and he got the Republican nomination in two weeks’ time.

  Turner sighed and checked the rearview mirror again. It looked like the left side of her hair was a tad longer than the right, but it was hard to tell in the little mirror. She shrugged and put away the scissors.

  The sound of a car engine came from the rural lane. She instinctively slumped down in her seat, even though she’d made sure to pull the Chevy far enough off into the woods so that she couldn’t be seen easily.

  The car drove past.

  She got out her binoculars, climbed to her knees, and turned to look out the back window of the Chevy. From this position she could just make out the county road the car would turn into. After a minute, a car drove past. Yep, that was Calvin’s cream Cadillac retreating into the distance. She waited another ten minutes in case they forgot something and returned.

  But they didn’t. She pulled on her gloves, picked up a small paper bag, and got out of the truck. The day hadn’t cooled off yet, and as she hiked up the lane to the drive she felt perspiration dampen her freshly shorn hair. The Hymans lived in a new house, a huge monstrosity with multiple gables, pale brick facing, and two-story pillars flanking the front door. It was on five acres of land outside of town. A long, grassy lawn rolled down to meet the road, brilliantly green in contrast to the surrounding brown weeds. The Hymans must have spent a fortune watering the lawn.

  Turner walked up the gravel drive without worry that she’d be seen; the nearest neighbor was half a mile away. She strolled around the back of the house and stopped dead. An enormous black-and-white dog was sitting in a chain-link kennel. Her heart leaped into her throat before she realized that the animal couldn’t get out on its own. It was huge, like a giant Dalmatian, only with pointed ears. Maybe some kind of Great Dane? Whatever it was, it stared at her, tall ears pricked forward.

  Turner sidled toward the brick patio at the back of the house. The dog stood up, pink tongue lolling from massive jaws. It looked hot, and no wonder—the kennel was in the sun. She snorted. Only Calvin would put out a dog without shade.

  She waited for the dog to start barking at her, but it merely watched her approach the house. The patio had a teakwood picnic table and chairs and a fancy-looking gas grill. A set of French doors led to the kitchen. She examined the doors for a minute. Damn. Should’ve brought a hammer. Fortunately, several concrete pigs were placed artistically in the flower bed surrounding the patio. Turner selected a self-satisfied-looking porker—it was sitting on its haunches, grinning—and heaved him through the doors. The glass shattered with a spectacular crash. She glanced over her shoulder. The dog had its massive head cocked but didn’t look particularly excited. Maybe he’d watched the house being burgled before. Turner picked up a spatula from the grill. She took a moment to knock out a couple of big pieces of glass from the doorframe and then stepped through.

  The kitchen was vaulted with a distressed-beam ceiling and a thingy for holding copper pots hanging over the island. The theme had probably originally been conceived as French Provincial. But sometime between the planning and the execution, it had been attacked by a platoon of pigs. Pigs cantered down the wallpaper, frolicked on the curtains over the sink, and sat complacently on the counter in the form of ceramic jars.

  Turner blinked for a second, then headed down the hall. She passed a bath, a great room with an enormous fireplace, the stairs, and an empty guest bedroom. The hall dead-ended, and she reversed to the stairs. On the upper level, the master bedroom sprawled over most of the second floor. She paused in the doorway to scan the room but didn’t see what she was looking for.

  The next room was pay dirt.

  It was a study—Calvin’s, she knew by the fishing-themed border that circled the room at head height. Not a single pig in sight. A dark desk with a bookcase/hutch contraption over and around it stood in one corner. Another table branched off it, with a computer monitor on top and the keyboard on a pull-out surface under the table.

  Turner felt like crowing. She sat at the desk and flipped on the computer, then went through the desk while waiting for it to boot up. The hutch held a few books, The Da Vinci Code, a couple of Clive Cusslers, some fishing books, and a whole row of Chicken Soup for various and sundry souls. Brass navigation instruments were placed artistically at intervals—as if Calvin would know how to use a sexton. There was a framed photo of Calvin and a bunch of guys standing on ice and holding dead fish. She peered closer. Frozen dead fish. They must’ve been ice fishing. One of the men looked like a former Republican governor.

  She made a raspberry and started pulling out drawers.

  The middle drawer held paper clips, pens, staples, Post-it notes, and a key ring with four keys on it. In the back were papers, and she flipped through them but didn’t find anything incriminating. She
decided to check the computer before she went any further—after all, it was the most likely source of information. Calvin had fishing wallpaper on his computer with little cartoon fish jumping over the bow of a rowboat. She opened My Documents and found a list of files.

  Ten minutes later, she sat back in frustration. She wasn’t a computer expert by any means, but she knew as much as the average computer owner did nowadays, and she saw no trace of an accounting file. Shoot. Calvin had to have another set of books for the bank. How else could he keep track of the money he was embezzling? She’d gambled—and lost—yesterday when she took the opportunity to open his safe deposit box. She’d hoped it would contain a computer disc or even literal ledgers detailing the money he was stealing from the bank.

  If he hadn’t kept a concrete record . . .

  No, she wouldn’t go there. It did her no good at all to think that he had no record, no evidence of his crime. He must. And since he must, she would find it.

  She opened more desk drawers. The right-hand side drawer held a black handgun. Sheesh. She hoped it wasn’t loaded. The next drawer held files. She paged through household appliance warranties, medical records, a copy of his car insurance, and bills.

  If you didn’t keep accounting books on a computer, then where would you keep them? Not at his bank desk, surely. Even Calvin wasn’t that confident. Besides, she’d searched there more than once and had never found anything besides the safe deposit key. That left this house. Another drawer held a file of brochures for fishing boats and motors, maintenance records for the Caddy, and the mortgage information for a lake cabin.

  Surely he wouldn’t keep it in the car. Shannon could run across it at any time, and Turner didn’t think Shannon knew about her husband’s illegal activities. At least she couldn’t see Shannon—the biggest gossip in town—keeping silent about them if she did.

  She pulled out the center drawer again, and her eyes hit the key ring. A cabin. Would Calvin hide the evidence there? It wouldn’t be as accessible as the house, but it wouldn’t be hard to get at, either. Who questioned a man visiting his own cabin? And in Calvin’s case, a cabin would have the added bonus of not being under Shannon’s daily control. He wouldn’t have to worry about her finding suspicious books while he was away at work.

  Turner picked up the key ring and examined it. Two of the keys were identical and looked like they fit an ordinary door lock. The remaining two were different. One was for an ignition, the other a small, narrow key.

  She pocketed them all. She glanced at the wall clock, which took the form of a walleye circling a fishing lure. 6:45 p.m. The Hymans shouldn’t be back for another hour or more, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

  She took a piece of printer paper and wrote down the address of the cabin listed on the mortgage papers. Then she stood and looked around the room. She had a strong urge to smash the computer and all the pretty sailing instruments. The Lord knew Calvin deserved it. But that wouldn’t help her cause. Instead, she switched off the computer and replaced everything neatly, just to mess with his mind.

  She backtracked to the master bedroom. Ew. The bedspread was quilted pink satin and had flying pigs on it. She upended the paper sack onto the middle of the tacky bedspread. Gold coins, jewelry, stocks, and a couple of certificates of deposit slithered around the spread. All from Calvin’s safe deposit box.

  Turner suddenly thought about the FBI agent who’d called her. What would he think when he saw what she’d done? Would he understand the message to Calvin? It gave her an odd feeling, knowing that MacKinnon was following in her footsteps, analyzing her every move. Not that it mattered. Her message was for Calvin, and he’d surely understand what it meant: I’m not after your money. I’m after you.

  Turner smiled. She did a quick check of the rest of the house, just in case she was wrong about where Calvin would hide the evidence, but didn’t find anything more incriminating than bad decorating taste. Half an hour later, she gave up and went back downstairs.

  Outside, the dog must’ve lost interest waiting for her to return, because he’d laid back down on the concrete floor of his kennel, mailbox head on his crossed paws. He came to his feet as she exited the broken patio doors, and then he gave a tentative tail wag. Turner ignored him and began walking around the house.

  Behind her, a low moan started.

  She kept going.

  The moan turned to a mournful howling. Roooow. Rooroooow. Rorororwoooooow. Eek! The howl ended on a strange high squeak.

  Turner swung around. “Hush!” she hissed at the animal sternly. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, a great big dog crying like a puppy?”

  His jaw dropped open, huge tongue lolling as he wagged his tail at her.

  Turner frowned at him and noticed an overturned red bowl by the door of the kennel. “What did you do? Flip your water bowl?”

  At her words, the dog’s entire rear end started wiggling. She sighed, unlocked the kennel, and reached in carefully for the bowl. The dog watched her, tail slowly wagging. She found the outside water spigot, filled the red bowl, and placed it within reach of the dog. It noisily lapped at the water.

  She started walking away again.

  Rooow. Rooowrowrooooow. Eek!

  She turned around. The dog was staring at her, jaw closed, water dripping from its muzzle. It gave a tentative tail wag.

  “What?” For God’s sake, she was talking to a dog. The enemy’s dog at that. Except it was very hard to see this animal as anyone’s enemy. And what kind of jerk left a big dog out in the August heat without water? “Fine.”

  Turner marched over to the kennel and opened the chain-link door wide. The dog swiped her hand with his tongue and then made a bounding victory lap around the yard.

  “Come on.” She picked up the red bowl and set off down the drive.

  The dog barked once and followed.

  Chapter Ten

  I t was almost midnight by the time John made it back to the dinky Starlight Inn motel Sunday night. He parked the navy Crown Victoria in front of his room and got out slowly, almost expecting his knees to creak. It had been a long day, and he hadn’t needed the late-night call to investigate the Hyman home break-in.

  The row of motel doors and the cracked sidewalk beneath were illuminated by a bare yellow bulb. Moths and mosquitoes were swarming the light. Every now and then, an insect would hit the bulb with a dink sound. Poor bastards, doomed to a pointless death because of evolutionary wiring that no longer worked. There was probably a moral in there somewhere.

  He unlocked his motel room. No modern card keys here. John shut the flimsy door behind him and turned the little knob lock—as if it would stop a determined three-year-old. The AC had cut off sometime during the day, and the room was oven hot. He toed off his boots and socks, stripped off his jacket and holster, laying the Glock on the crummy bedside table, and then took off his shirt. He cranked the air-conditioning unit as far as it would go—which was not very. He needed a shower. He needed a beer. And he needed to talk to Turner Hastings. If he was smart, he’d start with the first, spend some time on the second, and forget all about the third. But he’d never been too bright when it came to women. He skipped directly to the third.

  John took out his keys, wallet, and cell from his pocket, dropped them on the bedside table, stripped off his pants, and flung himself on the bed, wearing only his shorts. He stuffed the foam pillow under his neck, picked up the cell, and hit the speed dial.

  “Mmm?” Her voice was so husky it was scratchy. He must’ve woken her.

  Oh, man. His horny brain immediately flashed on her in a big soft bed, wearing a black silk shorty nightie—no, make it red—the shoulder straps sliding down her arms, her nipples poking at the fabric.

  He shifted on the bed. “Did you have to throw the pig through the window?”

  There was a silence on the other end. Then she said, “You woke me up. Again.”

  “I figured if I had to be awake because of you, you should be, too.”


  “You’re angry.”

  “Oh, just a little. Do you have any idea how Shannon Hyman feels about pigs?”

  “Well, I did see the kitchen. Pig wallpaper.” She sounded more awake now, but her voice was just as husky.

  He wondered idly if she was aware of the effect that voice had on men. Probably not. “Would that have been on the way to ransacking Hyman’s study?”

  “Why, yes, it would.” Bit of testiness there.

  John grinned. Good. “That’s breaking and entering, you know. Emphasis on the breaking.”

  “Hey, I was careful with Calvin’s desk. I left it neater than when I first saw it.”

  “Yeah, but he liked it the way he had it, neat or not.”

  She snorted on the other end of the phone.

  “And did you have to take the dog?” he asked. He’d nearly laughed in Hyman’s face when the man finally realized that his expensive pet was missing. The guy had been furious, although John suspected it was more from the loss of money than affection for the animal.

  “Yes, I did,” Turner said.

  “It’s worth a lot of money,” John replied gently. “Did you know that? It’s some kind of fancy-ass purebred Great Dane. I wasn’t even aware they came in different colors.”

  “Then Calvin should’ve taken better care of it.”

  “What are you going to do with a Great Dane?”

  “I don’t know, but at least I can make sure he has water and food and companionship.”

  “And how do you know that Calvin didn’t give the dog companionship?”

  “Because he’s got calluses on his elbows from sitting in that concrete kennel run.”

  “Why don’t you bring back the dog, Turner?”

  “And he squeaks when he howls.”

  “Turner.”

  Silence. Was it his imagination, or could he hear her breathing?

  “What were you looking for?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”