Donovan looked puzzled. “You just hit him with the telephone?”
“Really hard. I guess I cracked his skull.”
Donovan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “The man didn’t die from that. He was stabbed to death.”
The BMW almost ran off the road before LuAnn regained control. LuAnn stared over at him, her eyes wide. “What?” she gasped.
“I’ve seen the autopsy reports. He did have a wound to the head, but it wasn’t fatal. He died from multiple stab wounds to his chest. No doubt about it.”
It didn’t take LuAnn long to realize the truth. Rainbow. Rainbow had killed him. And then lied to her. She shook her head. Why should that be such a big surprise, she thought. “All these years, I believed that I had killed him.”
“That’s a horrible thing to carry around inside. I’m glad I could clear your conscience on it.”
“The police can’t still be interested in all this. It’s been ten years,” LuAnn said.
“That’s where you’ve run into some incredibly bad luck. Duane Harvey’s uncle is the sheriff in Rikersville now.”
“Billy Harvey is sheriff?” LuAnn said in astonishment. “He’s one of the biggest crooks down there. He had an auto chop shop. He ran gambling in the back rooms of the bars; he was into everything you could earn a buck from illegally. Duane kept trying to get in on it, but Billy knew Duane was too stupid and unreliable. That’s probably why he ended up selling drugs over in Gwinnett.”
“I don’t doubt it. But the fact is he’s sheriff. Probably figured the best way to avoid trouble with the police was to become the police.”
“So you talked to him?”
Donovan nodded. “According to him, the whole family has never gotten over poor Duane and his hasty exit from the living. He said the drug dealing sort of besmirched the whole family. And the money you sent? Instead of salving over those wounds, they took it as pouring salt on them, like you were trying to buy them off somehow. I mean they spent it and all, but they still didn’t like it, at least according to the illustrious Billy Harvey. Bottom line is, he told me that the investigation is still active and he’s not going to rest until LuAnn Tyler is brought in for trial. From what I can tell his theory is that you’re the one who was involved in the drug dealing because you wanted to escape Duane and the boring life. Duane died trying to protect you and then you murdered the other guy, who allegedly was your partner.”
“That’s a bunch of lies.”
Donovan shrugged. “You know it is, I know it is. But the people deciding that will be a jury of your peers down in Rikersville, Georgia.” He took a moment to appraise her expensive clothing. “Or a jury of whom your peers used to be. I wouldn’t recommend that you wear that outfit to the trial. It might rub people the wrong way. Duane being flower food and all these last ten years while you were living the high life and doing a pretty good impersonation of Jackie O, it just wouldn’t sit well with the good folks down there.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” She paused for a moment. “So is that your deal? If I don’t talk, you’re going to throw me to Billy Harvey?”
Donovan patted the dashboard. “It may surprise you to know that I don’t give a damn about all that stuff. If you hit that man, you did it in self-defense. That I believe.”
LuAnn lifted her sunglasses and stared across at him. “Then what do you care about?”
He leaned toward her. “The lottery.” His eyebrows arched.
LuAnn spoke evenly. “What about it?”
“You won it ten years ago. One hundred million dollars.”
“So?”
“So, how’d you do it?”
“I bought a ticket that turned out to be the winning number, how else do you do it?”
“I don’t mean that. Let me fill you in on something. Without getting too technical, I went back through years’ worth of lottery winners. There’s a constant rate of bankruptcy declared by all those winners. Nine out of twelve every year. Bang, bang, you can set your clock by it. Then I run across twelve consecutive winners who somehow managed to avoid the big B and you were smack in the middle of that unique group. Now how is that possible?”
She glanced over at him. “How should I know? I’ve got good money managers. Maybe they do too.”
“You haven’t paid taxes on your income nine out of the last ten years; I guess that helps.”
“How do you know that?”
“Again, all sorts of information is available. You just have to know where to look. I know where to look.”
“You’d have to talk to my financial people about that. I was in other parts of the world during that time, maybe the income wasn’t taxable in the U.S.”
“I doubt that. I’ve written enough financial stories to know that there’s almost nothing Uncle Sam won’t tax, if he can find it, that is.”
“So call up the IRS and report me.”
“That’s not the story I’m looking for.”
“Story?”
“That’s right. I forgot to fill you in on the reason I came to visit you. My name’s Thomas Donovan. You probably haven’t heard of me, but I’m a journalist for the Washington Trib going on thirty years now and a damned good one even if I am blowing my own horn. A while back I decided to do a story on the national lottery. Personally, I think the whole thing is a travesty. Our own government doing that to the poorest among us. Dangling carrots like that, all the catchy ads, enticing people to cash in their Social Security checks to play something with odds at millions to one. Excuse the soapbox, but I only write about things I feel passionate about. Anyway, my original angle was the rich sucking it back out of the poor after they hit the jackpot. You know, investment shysters, people peddling one scheme after another, and the government just letting them go right ahead and do it, and then when the winners’ finances are so screwed up, they haven’t paid enough tax or what-not, the IRS comes in and takes every last dime, leaving them poorer than before they won. A good story, and one I feel needs to be told. Well, while I’m researching the story, I find out this interesting coincidence about all the lottery winners from your year: They didn’t lose a dime of their money. In fact, using their tax returns as a gauge, they’re all richer now. A lot richer. So I track you down and here I am. What I want is simple: the truth.”
“And if I don’t tell you, I end up in a Georgia prison, is that it? That’s what you implied over the phone.”
Donovan stared across at her angrily. “I won two Pulitzers before I was thirty-five. I’ve covered Vietnam, Korea, China, Bosnia, South Africa. Gotten my ass shot up twice. I’ve spent my life chasing every hot spot in the world. I’m as legit as they come. I’m not going to blackmail you, because I don’t operate that way. I told you that over the phone just to get you to meet with me. If Sheriff Billy catches up to you it’s not going to be with my help. Personally, I hope he never does.”
“Thank you.”
“But if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll find it out someplace else. And then I’m going to write that story. And if you don’t tell me your side of things, I can’t guarantee how flatteringly I can portray you. I report the facts, guilt will fall where it may. If you’re willing to talk to me, I can guarantee only one thing: that your side of the story will be heard. But if you’ve broken the law somehow, there’s nothing I can do about that. I’m not a cop, and I’m not a judge.” He paused and looked at her. “So what’s it going to be?”
She didn’t speak for several minutes, her eyes staring down the road. He could see the conflict going on inside her.