Time of Death

Chapter 6

Derek parked his Vette in the driveway, got out, locked it, and stretched his long arms over his head. He had driven in from Memphis this morning, a good three-and-a-half-hour drive, and hadn’t made any stops as he’d crossed the entire state of Mississippi. The farther east he had traveled, the hillier the landscape, going from flatland through the Magnolia State to the tentacles of the Appalachian Mountains that spread into the northern and eastern sections of Alabama. After retrieving his suitcase from the trunk, he glanced around, taking in the beauty of the renovated Victorian house and the peaceful street lined with large, mature trees beginning to come to life in the early days of spring. Dunmore was an old town, seeped in Southern traditions that grounded it in the past. And yet when he had spent quite a bit of time here last year, he had seen glimpses of change, of people looking to the future.

When the Powell Agency had sent him there last summer, he had gotten to know Perdue’s older brother, Jack, a local deputy, rather well. He had liked Jack as instantly as he had disliked Jack’s sister. Odd thing about the vibes you picked up from people. He figured Jack for a combination of hardened soldier and good old boy, a man’s man as well as a ladies’ man. But Jack’s days of carousing were over. Less than a week ago, Derek had attended Jack and Cathy’s wedding. The following morning, he’d left his motel room and driven straight to the Nashville area, to his mother’s birthday celebration.

Now here he was back in Dunmore and doomed to work with Perdue on a new and rather intriguing case. He figured the best way to handle their precarious partnership was not to take the woman seriously. She was big-time uptight, at least around him. He had told her more than once that what she needed was to lighten up, and a good start would be to go out and get herself laid. She hadn’t taken his suggestion in the spirit in which it had been given, which was only with the best intentions, of course.

Chuckling to himself, Derek headed up the walk that led to the front porch. Bet Perdue couldn’t wait to see him.

When he rang the doorbell, he didn’t expect to see a tall, lanky teenage boy open the door and invite him in.

“Aunt Maleah’s on the phone,” Seth Cantrell told him. “She’s talking to somebody at the Powell Agency, getting some information about the case y’all are working on. She’ll be with you in a minute.”

Seth was Jack and Cathy’s son, although Jack and Seth had met for the first time last year. Jack, a former Army Ranger, had been MIA during the Gulf War back in the early nineties. A pregnant Cathy had married another man who had raised Seth as his own. When Jack had come home to Dunmore last year, he had not only discovered that his long-lost love was a widow, but that he was her sixteen-year-old son’s biological father.

As Seth led Derek out of the foyer and down the hall, he asked, “Have you had breakfast?”

“Nope, sure haven’t,” Derek replied.

“We’ve got leftovers,” Seth told him. “A stack of pancakes, some sausage links, and I just put on a fresh pot of coffee.”

“Sounds good. I’ll take it all, starting with the coffee.”

By the time Maleah joined them, a good ten minutes later, Derek had finished off the pancakes and sausage and was downing his second cup of coffee. Seth had explained that even though he was staying with his grandparents while his parents were off on their honeymoon, he had stopped by for breakfast with his aunt since he had only a half day at school today.

“I see you’ve made yourself at home.” Perdue glanced from his empty plate to his suitcase resting against the table leg at his side. “You aren’t planning on staying here, are you?”

“As a matter of fact—”

“There are two perfectly good motels here in Dunmore. Take your pick.”

“Now, Perdue, don’t be that way. You’ve got more than enough room here in this big old house to put me up.”

“He’s got you there,” Seth said.

Perdue gave her nephew an eat-dirt-and-die glare.

Derek laughed. “Think of it as an adventure. The two of us working side by side, living under the same roof, getting to know each other.”

She huffed loudly, not even trying to hide her aggravation.

He hated to even think it, hated to resort to an old cliché, but damn if Perdue wasn’t downright pretty when she was pissed. You’re beautiful when you’re angry. He could think it, but God help him if he said it.

For all her faults and shortcomings, being unattractive wasn’t one of them. Maleah Perdue was what had once been referred to as an all-American beauty. Five-four, a trim hourglass figure, blue eyes and golden blond hair. She looked like the kind of girl men used to dream about taking home to meet their mamas.

Seth broke the uneasy silence in the room when he cleared his throat and then said, “I hate to eat and run, but I’m supposed to meet some of the guys at ten.”

“Are we still on for lunch and a movie Sunday?” Perdue asked.

“Sure are.” He glanced at Derek. “Good to see you again, Mr. Lawrence.”

“Same here, kid.”

The minute Seth exited the back door, Perdue sat down at the kitchen table, taking the chair directly across from Derek.

“You’re not staying here,” she told him.

“I’ll bet if Jack were here—”

“He’s not.”

“What are you afraid of, Perdue? Afraid you’ll succumb to my many charms?”

She groaned, and then burst into laughter.

He didn’t know whether to be insulted or just laugh along with her. He chose the latter.

Chuckling, he looked her right in the eye. “I’m glad to see you have a sense of humor.”

Her laughter died away, but the smile remained.

“We’re both grown-ups, both professionals,” he said. “We’re going to be working together for as long as it takes to find our killer and put him behind bars. That could be weeks or even months. You’re going to have to find a way to put aside your personal feelings for me and—”

“I have no personal feelings for you. None.”

“Prove it.”

She huffed again as she narrowed her gaze and glowered at him. “Dare I ask how?”

“Let me stay here.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “Separate bedrooms, of course.”

Her big blue eyes widened for a split second and then she grinned. “Were you always like this, even as a kid? God, if you were, I don’t know how your mother put up with you.”

“I was. And she didn’t. I’ll have you know that I’m a trust-fund baby. I was reared by a series of highly trained nannies and first-class private schools.”

“Of course you were. Pardon my ignorance.”

“And you grew up in this house, didn’t you, you and Jack?”

Her smile vanished and a storm-cloud frown darkened her expression. Instead of replying to his question, she shoved back her chair and stood. “Come on. I’ll show you to one of the guest bedrooms. You can unpack and then we can discuss the new information that just came in at the agency.”

“What sort of information?”

“Several things, but the most interesting is the title of the only movie that my client, Lorie Hammonds, ever made. The stars of that film were Dean Wilson and Hilary Chambless, aka Woody Wilson and Dewey Flowers.”

“Some stage names, huh? So, what was the title of the movie the three of them made together?”

“Midnight Masquerade,” Perdue said.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

Lorie and Cathy usually closed up shop at six on Friday and Saturday nights, but with Easter fast approaching, Lorie had extended the closing until seven for both nights. Three lingering, undecided customers, who wound up buying nothing, had pushed closing time to seven fifteen. Just as she waved good-bye to the last to leave—Paul Babcock, one of their regulars—and was in the process of closing and locking the front door, she saw Mike Birkett park his truck directly in front of Treasures.

What the hell was he doing here?

She stood in the open doorway and waited for him to emerge from his Ford F-150 pickup. He got out and walked toward her. Her heart skipped a beat. Why did he have to be so damn good-looking? And why, dear God, why did she still want him more than she’d ever wanted any other man?

“Closing up?” he asked as he approached.

She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Got a few minutes?”

“Sure. Come on in.”

After he entered Treasures, she locked the door and placed the CLOSED sign in the window. When she turned around, she almost bumped into him. He stood so close to her that only a few inches separated her body from his. She sucked in a startled breath and eased backward, intentionally putting some space between them.

“I won’t keep you long,” he said.

“That’s all right. I’m in no hurry.”

“I just thought that maybe you … Well, it is Friday night, and—”

“I don’t have a date.”

“Good.” His cheeks blotched with embarrassment. He coughed and then cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean it’s good that you don’t have a date. I meant it’s good that I’m not keeping you from anything important.”

“I knew what you meant.”

He nodded. “You didn’t move in with Maleah last night.” He worded it as a statement of fact, not a question.

“No, she actually spent the night at my house and left early this morning. She was expecting Seth over for breakfast. And Derek Lawrence was supposed to arrive sometime this morning to assist her with my case.”

“Is she staying with you again tonight?”

“No, I’m going home this evening, packing a few things, and moving in with Maleah until further notice.” Lorie wished Mike would stop looking right at her. His intense scrutiny unnerved her. “What is it? Do I have dirt on my face? A black hair growing out of my chin?”

“Huh?”

“You’re staring at me as if I’ve suddenly grown an extra head or something.”

“Sorry. I … uh … Why don’t I follow you home and then escort you over to Maleah’s after you pack a bag.”

Had she heard him correctly? Was Sheriff Birkett, the man who thought she was only one step above pond scum, actually worried about her?

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?”

“Why the pretense of being concerned about my welfare?”

“I’m the sheriff. You’re a citizen of my county whose life has been threatened. I’m just doing my civic duty.”

“Bull. You could have sent a deputy to check on me.”

“You’ve been monitored all day today,” he told her. “Between my men and Chief Ballard’s police force, somebody’s been by here every hour since you arrived at Treasures this morning.”

“So to what do I owe the honor of your visit this evening? Why put yourself out for little old me?”

“Damn it, Lorie, that smart mouth of yours—” Grimacing, he clenched his teeth together and snorted. “I came by here to apologize.”

“What?”

Their gazes met and locked. For a split second, she thought she saw something achingly familiar in the way he looked at her. But the expression vanished so quickly that she realized she had probably imagined it.

“I let my personal feelings get in the way of doing my job,” he admitted. “I had no right to assume you were lying about being threatened and to dismiss your concerns as if they were nothing. I’m sorry.”

To say she was stunned was a gross understatement. She never thought she would live to see the day that Mike would ever again apologize to her for anything.

“I’m sorry, too,” she told him. “I’m sorry that I gave you reasons to believe I’d do anything to get back into your good graces. I should have accepted the fact, years ago, that you didn’t want to have anything to do with me … and with good reason.”

He shuffled uncomfortably. “Yeah, sure. Apology accepted. So, what about you?”

She forced a fragile smile. “Apology accepted.”

“Good. Why don’t I help you close up shop and then I’ll follow you home.”

“There’s nothing to do except turn out the lights, get my purse, and lock the back door on my way out.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said. “You’re parked in back, right?”

“Right.”

She glanced at him briefly. He smiled. Her nerves tingled with awareness. This was the first time since her return to Dunmore that Mike had smiled at her.

Don’t make too much of it. He’s just doing his best to be civil, to do his job, to prove to you and Maleah—and probably to Jack and Cathy—that he won’t allow his personal feelings to interfere with doing his duty.

Mike loaded Lorie’s suitcase into her Edge SUV and closed the hatch. “All set?”

“Yes, but it’s really not necessary for you to escort me to Maleah’s. I’m sure you’d rather be home having dinner with your children.”

“Hannah and M.J. are visiting Molly’s parents over in Muscle Shoals this weekend. Carl and Gail picked them up right after school today. They stay with them on average one weekend a month and they go over for a couple of weeks every summer.”

“I know your wife’s parents appreciate your being so generous with the kids.”

“It’s what Molly would have wanted.”

Lorie smiled and nodded before moving away from him and grasping the driver’s side door handle. “I’m ready to go.”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

As soon as she pulled out of her driveway, he started the truck’s engine and fell in behind her. He really wasn’t sure why he was doing this.

Paying penance, maybe.

His feelings for Lorie hadn’t changed. He still hated her, still wished she would leave Dunmore and never come back, still wanted to drag her off to the nearest bed and fuck her like crazy.

But he owed her the common courtesy of showing her that the sheriff’s department intended to do everything possible to keep her safe. He might despise Lorie, but he couldn’t bear the thought of someone killing her. She might deserve some of the bad things that had happened to her, but she didn’t deserve to die.

You’re an idiot, Birkett. A damn idiot.

Lorie didn’t deserve any of the bad things that had happened to her. Just because she’d left him high and dry, had broken his heart and nearly destroyed him didn’t mean she should be punished forever for wanting a life he couldn’t be a part of. She had begged him to go to LA with her.

“Oh, Mike, it’ll be so much fun,” she had said. “We can both get jobs. You can go to school at night until you get your degree and I can sign with an agent and get small parts in TV at first. And later on, when you’re a big-time LA detective and I’m a movie star, we’ll be the envy of every other couple in Hollywood. Just think how romantic that is—the detective and the actress.”

Those had been her dreams, not his. She had wanted a glamorous life surrounded by the rich and famous. All he’d ever wanted was to finish college, work for local law enforcement, get married, and raise a family. He was a simple man with simple wants and needs. Lorie had been—and probably still was—a complicated woman with the kind of wants and needs he could never fulfill.

It had been his choice to stay in Dunmore and not follow her to LA. At first, she had called him every day, then every week and then every month. He would never forget the last time she’d called and the things they had said to each other.

“Honey, forget all that fame and fortune bullshit and come home where you belong.”

“Oh, Mike, why can’t you understand? I just got a speaking part on a Law and Order episode. I want you to be happy for me. I want you to fly out here and—”

“I can’t.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Yeah, okay. I won’t. I don’t belong out there and neither do you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m not going to live and die in Dunmore, Alabama, and waste the talent the Good Lord gave me. I’ve got a good singing voice and I’m taking acting lessons and my teacher says I’m a natural. And I’m told I have the kind of looks that will help me go far in the business.”

“You do what you have to do,” he’d said. “And I’ll do what I have to do.”

“What you have to do doesn’t include me anymore, does it? You’ve stopped loving me … if you ever really did.”

“How can you say that? I love you so damn much it hurts,” he had told her. “And I miss you something awful. It’s you who doesn’t love me. If you did, you’d come home and we’d get married the way we planned. In a few years, we could save up enough for a house and our first baby.”

“I don’t want a baby! Not now. Not for years and years.”

In the end, Mike had been forced to accept the fact that Lorie would never come back to him, that he had lost her forever.

It had taken him years to get over her, to move on with his life, and he could thank Molly for that. She had been his salvation. All the dreams he’d once had that included Lorie, all the plans the two of them had made together, he had fulfilled with another woman, with Molly. Thinking about his children, he knew that was the way things were meant to be.

He wasn’t the kind of man who wasted his time looking back and wondering what if? or wished for things that he couldn’t have.

Yeah, sure, he could have Lorie, could have had her when she first came back to Dunmore, could have had her before and after Molly died. He could probably still have her. But the Lorie he had known and loved no longer existed. His Lorie was as dead to him as Molly was. The Lorie who had come to him a sixteen-year-old virgin, the girl who had been his and only his. The teenager who had planned her future around him and the family they would one day have.

The Lorie Hammonds who had returned to Dunmore nine years ago was a bruised and battered, used and discarded whore. God only knew how many men she’d had sex with, not just in that sleazy porno movie she’d made, but during the years she had been trying to get her big break. Just about every man in Dunmore had seen her in that film. He had seen the movie once, and the sight of her and what she’d been doing had made him sick.

Why she had ever thought when she returned to Dunmore, her reputation in tatters and her life worthless, that he would forgive her, that they could be friends again, he’d never know.

Mike had been so lost in his thoughts that he almost missed Jack and Cathy’s driveway and had to slam on his brakes and back up a few yards. Lorie parked her SUV, got out, and opened the back hatch. He pulled his truck up behind her vehicle, killed the motor, and got out.

He rushed over to her, grabbed her suitcase, and said, “Here, let me get that for you.”

She released the suitcase without protest and started walking toward the porch. He kept in step alongside her. When they reached the front door, she rang the doorbell and they waited together.

“I appreciate the escort, Sheriff,” she said in a soft, sexy voice that caressed every nerve in his body.

“You’re welcome, Ms. Hammonds. Just doing my job.”

When the door opened, Derek Lawrence stood in the doorway. “Hello, Lorie.” He reached out, grasped her hand, and pulled her over the threshold. He glanced around her and spotted Mike. “Hello, Sheriff. Nice of you to see Lorie here all safe and sound.” He held out his hand. “Here, let me take her suitcase.”

Reluctantly, Mike handed over the suitcase. “Where’s Maleah?”

“On the phone at the moment,” he said. “Seems the newlyweds called to check on Seth and on the old homestead.”

“She isn’t going to tell them about me, is she? I don’t want them worrying while they’re on their honeymoon,” Lorie said.

Derek put his arm around Lorie’s shoulders and ushered her inside the foyer. “I’m sure she won’t say a word. And there’s no reason for anyone to worry about your safety. You have two Powell Agency employees acting as your bodyguards. And may I say what a pleasure this job is for me.”

Mike cleared his throat. Derek glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, are you staying for dinner? Perdue didn’t say. I set the table for three, but I can add another—”

“No thanks.” Mike had the sudden urge to punch Derek Lawrence. “I’ve got other plans.” When Lorie looked at him, he said, “If you need me, I’m just a phone call away.”

“I’m sure she won’t need you,” Derek told him.

With that said, Mike nodded, turned and tromped off the porch. Cursing under his breath, he got in his truck, backed out of the driveway, and couldn’t get away fast enough from the image of Derek Lawrence’s arm draped around Lorie’s shoulders.

Chapter 7

After locking the door and securing it so that no one with a key could enter, he took the laptop from his suitcase and carried it with him to the desk in his motel room. He retrieved the DVD from the pouch on the laptop case, flipped open the plastic case, and carefully removed the disk. With steady fingers, he inserted the disk into the side slot on the computer and waited for the movie to load. He reached over to the far side of the desk, upended a glass, and quickly added ice from the ice bucket that he had filled earlier. As the film credits played, he poured a cola into the glass. He didn’t need to read the credits. He knew them by heart.

Midnight Masquerade. Written by Casey Lloyd and Laura Lou Roberts. Directed by Grant Leroy. Produced by Travis Dillard.

He kicked back in the chair and turned sideways to prop his feet up on the edge of the bed.

Dewey Flowers and Woody Wilson were the stars, the main players in this piece of filth.

Dewey and Woody would never make another sinful movie such as this. They had been punished for their wickedness, for polluting the minds and hearts of everyone who saw this movie; punished for their parts in destroying the lives of the innocent who were adversely affected by the pornography industry, this sickeningly vulgar movie in particular. There was an ironic form of justice in the fact that he was the one who was righting the wrongs they had committed. He supposed that he had known for years that it was his fate to someday seek retribution.