He paused to watch a hawk circling above the valley floor. I took advantage of the opening. “I’m not sure I quite take your point.”
“Not sure I do, either. Guess I haven’t quite stumbled onto it yet. Please forgive me for rambling.” He was an oddly courteous kidnapper. “I parted company with the law a long time ago, Dr. Brockton. I won’t go into all the reasons; all I’ll say is that it was my family that first stood against the Confederacy. That, and it’s damned hard to make a law-abiding living in these mountains.” I thought I detected something like sadness in his voice and his eyes. “But there’s certain lines I’ve never crossed. One of them is murder. I killed when I was a soldier in Vietnam. After I got home, I swore I’d never do it again. It hasn’t always been easy up here, but I’ve kept that vow for over thirty years.” He rocked in silence.
“Exactly what is it you want to talk to me about, Mr. O’Conner?”
“You hauled a body out of Russell’s Cave the other day. I suspect I’m being set up to take the fall for that killing. There’s some petty politics and some bad blood stretching way back in this county, and I figure this looks like a good chance to settle some scores. No matter what anybody tells you, I didn’t do it, Dr. Brockton. I guess all I’m asking is that you keep an open mind. Doubt everything except what you can verify for yourself.”
“Including your claim of innocence?”
He considered, then nodded. “Fair enough.”
“I’m a scientist,” I said. “That’s how I work.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and handed me a piece of paper. “Here’s two phone numbers. Please call me if I can help in any way. Offhand, I don’t know who this guy was, but seems like he shouldn’t be too hard to track down.”
I took a moment to consider whether what I was about to say might compromise the investigation. I made my words and tone as neutral as I could. “So you’ve also heard that it was a man?”
O’Connor sat motionless for a moment, then turned to face me. “Ah. I’d just assumed. Possibly a woman? Well, that would certainly change the picture. Perhaps ol’ Lester Ballard is alive and well in Cooke County.”
“Lester Ballard?”
He waved off the question. “Never mind—I shouldn’t’ve said that. Silly and completely inappropriate. Seriously, though, I can think of several men in this county who might need killing, and a few more who wouldn’t bat an eye at doing some killing. But I can’t think of any local women who’ve gone missing recently.”
“How about not so recently? Tall? Blonde?”
His brow furrowed for a moment, and then the look of puzzlement vanished, replaced by a realization that was swift and terrible. His gaze—so clear and confident before—was suddenly stricken. He looked away. “Oh, Jesus, no,” he breathed, staring out across the valley. “Oh, God, not her.” Tears welled in his eyes, then rolled down his cheeks. He made no move to wipe them away, gave no sign that he even noticed them.
I waited what seemed an eternity. “Mr. O’Conner?”
He seemed not to hear, so I spoke his name again, louder. When he answered, he sounded years older and a lifetime away. “Yes?”
“Is Jim your first name?”
“No. Middle.”
“Mr. O’Conner—Lieutenant Thomas J. O’Conner—you want to tell me what your dog tag was doing around a dead woman’s neck?”
When he finally turned to face me once more, his eyes were as cold and lifeless as the waxy spheres I had washed from the face of the dead woman and rinsed down the drain of the morgue.
CHAPTER 11
WAYLON AND I RODE BACK to the highway in silence. He didn’t duct-tape me this time, but he did cover my face with his rank cap again, giving me a look of sheepish apology as he doffed it and leaned over to hook it under my chin. O’Conner hadn’t spoken another word to either of us; he’d simply waved us away with that dead look still in his eyes. Waylon looked scared, like a child who’s seen his parents fighting or his mother weeping.
He left me sitting in the Cherokee, and a minute or so later Williams appeared, rubbing a visible bump on the back of his head. He, too, was silent the rest of the way into Jonesport. We seemed to have adopted a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy regarding the last half-hour. I wondered if Williams was too embarrassed to speak of what had happened to him. I also suspected it was more than just coincidence that he’d made his pit stop where and when he did. Kitchings was pacing his small office when we entered. “Where the hell have you-all been? You shoulda been here an hour ago.”