Maggie was waving her hat to get Mac’s attention. Reed Dean was making his way through the throng of reporters.
He was holding something. And grinning. He came to the table and sat next to Mac.
‘I’m Reed Dean, Betty Jo’s brother.’ He smiled like he’d won a lottery. ‘I’m going to be charged with the murder of Horace Wiggins. I didn’t do it, but I must confess I occasionally fantasize about killing every one of the bastards who covered up the identity of my sister’s murderer.’
He held up a stack of computer discs. ‘I just picked up copies of the X-rays taken of my sister’s corpse at Rochelle Hospital.’
‘Why is that important?’ one of the newspaper reporters called out.
‘I suspect you’ll learn that as soon as our sheriff opens his mouth,’ Reed Dean said.
SIXTY-EIGHT
‘Nobody said this was OK. I snuck up here on my own.’ Jen Jessup, in tailored blue jeans and a white blouse, sat in the chair across from his desk.
Mac had spent the last hour fencing with the reporters who’d hung around after the press conference. They’d been looking for more. He didn’t give it to them. They needed to reach the obvious conclusions on their own.
‘Masterfully played,’ she said. ‘You raised explosive questions, answered some and so few of theirs, and brought in Reed Dean for a boffo ending.’
He crossed the room and sat behind his desk. ‘Reed’s still going strong down there, grateful that someone’s paying attention at last.’
‘Yes, I’d love a short one,’ she said, nodding at the bottle of bourbon and two glasses he’d set out earlier for himself and Reed.
He poured an inch for her and one for himself.
She knocked hers back in one swallow. ‘Bastards,’ she said. ‘Problem is you really don’t know which is the one?’
‘There are several possibilities.’
‘Not Roy Powell, if that’s your concern.’ She held out her glass for another whiskey.
‘Yeah, but you and Powell…?’ The words had tumbled out before his brain had the sense to stop them.
‘I already told you,’ she said, giving him the sort of flattered smile that might have come from seeing too clearly into his head. ‘It’s been over for a long time.’
‘The reporters will chase this?’ he asked, pouring her another inch.
‘Like hounds for the rest of today and maybe even tomorrow if there’s no wreck out on the Interstate, or a store doesn’t burn.’
‘Reed is being set up for arson and murder.’
‘Like you set up dear, departed Horace?’
After he didn’t answer, she asked, ‘Is there really another crime scene photo?’
‘Confidentially, not to be repeated to anyone?’
A smile, anticipating, spread across her fine face. ‘Fair enough.’
‘Had to be.’
She laughed, loud – a bark. ‘Ah, that’s rich, meaning there once might have been, but you have no idea whether it still exists.’
‘Reed saw Horace trashing his garage a few hours before he was killed.’
Her face turned serious. ‘Worried he’d left a picture out there?’
‘Apparently he was in a real panic.’
She took a small sip of the whiskey. ‘That neighbor who was watching the goings on through his window said that, too.’
‘The one who fingered Reed?’
‘She told one of Jimmy’s deputies that someone was in the shadows, talking with Horace. She said she noticed the mystery man after she saw Reed drive away without getting out.’
Mac leaned back in his chair. ‘Son of a bitch. Bales put Reed and me through the third degree, knowing Reed never got out of his car?’
‘Jimmy’s kicking up a dust screen.’
‘Maybe on orders,’ Mac said.
‘Only one person could control Jimmy Bales like that.’
‘Clamp Reems,’ Mac said. His head had been dancing with the suspicion for some time.
‘He killed Horace?’
‘If he didn’t, he knows who did.’
‘And Betty Jo Dean?’
‘If he didn’t, he knows who did.’
‘And Laurel,’ she said, showing no surprise. ‘It seems so futile.’
‘Why would the killer need Betty Jo’s head? Answer that, Jen, and I’ll give you the killer.’
‘It’s why you called in the press?’
‘I can’t figure why anyone wanted the head.’
‘It’s bizarre enough to catch their interest,’ she said. ‘Maybe they’ll come across something.’
‘I tipped two of them they ought to start with Randy White. He knows more than he’s said.’
‘He checked into the Hotel Excelsior yesterday,’ she said, ‘a few hours after Horace was found.’
‘He got nervous, living so far out in the sticks?’
‘It’s one of my questions, but he hasn’t been in.’ She stood up. ‘I’m going to try again.’
He followed her down the stairs.
‘I still don’t get the significance of these,’ she said, holding up one of the discs Reed Dean had handed out.
‘The hospital X-rays? You will, as soon as Jimmy Bales starts to sputter. It will convince you just how dumb he is.’
‘You know what else I still don’t get, Mac Bassett?’
‘I can’t imagine.’
‘Your motivation.’
‘A constituent-’
‘You were a man under indictment; a man running a restaurant into the ground; a man who, near as I can figure, is flat broke. Yet you drop everything to nose around a cold murder case, for a waitress who didn’t live in town…?’
‘I’ve got to find Reed, give him the good news about the nosy neighbor.’
‘I’m good at looking into backgrounds.’
‘I’m not the story,’ he said.
‘Perhaps. What else haven’t you told me?’
‘Jonah Ridl said Laurel had a source,’ he said. ‘What she learned probably got her killed.’
‘I need to know who.’
‘You might never know who ran her off the road.’
‘I’m thinking hard about it.”
‘And if you find out?’
‘Then I’ll know who to kill.’
SIXTY-NINE
A reporter from the Milwaukee Sentinel called the Bird’s Nest within an hour. ‘I called your Sheriff Bales.’
‘Yes?’ said Mac.
‘He said there can be no telling whose skull you’re having examined in Champaign.’
‘Yes?’
‘Those discs of Betty Jo’s X-rays Reed Dean handed out to all of us after your news conference?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Rochelle Hospital, where the state police took Betty Jo immediately after exhumation, will authenticate them as being authentic copies?’
‘Yes.’
‘Those X-ray discs can then be used to verify that the skull Doctor Wilhausen examined is the same one that came out of the ground?’
‘Yes.’
‘I told all that to Sheriff Bales. He said you were full of shit anyway.’
‘Yes.’
The reporter hung up, laughing.
‘Yes,’ Mac said again, this time to no one at all.
Mac was in the bar, watching the first of the evening’s news broadcasts, when a polite young man showed up. He was dressed in a suit and looked about twenty-five years old.
‘Am I catching you at a bad time?’ the young man asked.
‘Reporters have been calling ever since the press conference. So long as you don’t mind my catching the news, you’re free to fire away. Be warned, though; I expect you to do your own investigating. You’re more likely to be convinced that way.’
The young man made a small cough. ‘I’m actually an assistant vice-president of the First Bank of Grand Point, sir. I stopped by to inquire whether you have any questions about our letter.’
‘What letter?’
‘The registered one that was signed for yesterday.’
‘Wait here.’ Mac went into the kitchen. April was opening a carton of catsup.
‘Did we get a registered letter?’