In a whisper, she asked, “Who did you call?”
“Hmm?” His hand closed around her breast, but in a comfort-seeking way.
“You said you stopped and made a couple of calls.”
“Harry,” he mumbled into the pillow.
“What did he say?”
“That feels so good. Don’t stop.”
She smiled. “I doubt Harry said that. Who was the second call to?”
“Smitty. I’ve gotta find him and kill him tomorrow.”
“Don’t. You’d go to prison. They wouldn’t let you wear your boots in prison, and I like your boots. They have character. They’re well worn, not new and shiny. And you’d probably be made to wear your hair short in prison. It would be a shame to waste all this unruliness.” She ran her fingers through the thick strands. “The truth is—and I’m very into telling the truth, you know—there’s nothing I dislike about you.”
He responded with a soft snore.
Chuck Otterman rarely stayed in the fishing shack overnight. It boasted even fewer creature comforts than his trailer at the man camp, although there was a double bed behind a plywood wall, where he occasionally caught a few winks. He never slept more than four or five hours a night, anyway.
After dealing with the nightclub owner, he’d dozed, but had gotten up before dawn. While making coffee, he received a text notifying him that Neal Lester had called the office at the man camp and had impressed on the overseer left in charge that it was urgent he speak to him.
Staring out into the heavy rain as he sipped his coffee, he thought that perhaps he should assuage the detective’s anxiety. He used an untraceable cell phone to place the call.
“Hello?”
“Sergeant Lester? Chuck Otterman. Is it too early to call? I understand you’ve been trying to reach me.”
“Where are you, Mr. Otterman?”
“Hell if I know.” He lowered his voice as though he didn’t want to be overheard. “Some colleagues over here in Louisiana invited me for a fishing weekend. I met up with them in Lake Charles, then we drove for hours. Far as I can tell, we’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s still dark, and they’re already on the water. Thank you for giving me an excuse to beg off.”
“What time did you meet them in Lake Charles yesterday?”
“I’m sorry?”
Lester repeated the question.
“Late. After dinnertime. Why?”
“A Prentiss police officer named Pat Connor was killed last night.”
He was quiet for a moment, as though taking that in. Then he breathed a sigh. “I understand now why you’ve been trying to reach me. I met with the man right before I left town.”
“At a gentleman’s club called Tickled Pink.”
“Oh, so you already knew. You must’ve questioned the owner. Smitty something? He’s a cockroach. He scuttled over while I was there to ask if everything was to my liking.”
“We want to question him, but so far we’ve been unable to find him.”
Otterman chuckled. “That could be a problem.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because from what I understand, he tries to stay under the law’s radar. He’s probably as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.”
“What were you doing in his club with Pat Connor?”
“I often meet with people there.”
Lester cleared his throat. “That doesn’t seem like your kind of meeting place, Mr. Otterman.”
“The oil and gas industry has its opponents, from powerful politicians to crackpots. A goodly number of local businessmen and government officials support our exploration, but they don’t want to advertise the fact. They refuse to meet with me in my office at the camp, they certainly don’t invite me to theirs, so we meet at that seedy club.”
“I’m still not sure I understand.”
“It ensures discretion. Anyone in that place can’t tell who he’s seen there without giving himself away, can he?”
The detective seemed to ponder that. It was a time before he said, “Pat Connor was a cop, not a businessman.”
“He had heard—through the police grapevine, I suppose—about me seeing Crawford Hunt with that man Rodriguez.”
“How did that relate to Pat Connor?”
“I don’t know. He asked to speak with me privately. The only reason I agreed to the meeting was because he told me he’d been on duty in the courthouse on Monday. I thought maybe he had something to contribute or to ask me about that. But when I arrived at the club, he was in no condition to talk about anything. He was already drunk. He rambled. He sweated.”
“Sweated?”
“He wasn’t in uniform. He was wearing a cowboy hat and kept taking it off to blot his forehead. He was anxious. Paranoid, actually. After about ten minutes, I’d had it. He was wasting my time. I told him to get to the point or get lost. He got lost.”
“He left?”
“I thought he was too drunk to drive, and offered to let one of my assistants take him home. He said no thanks. In hindsight, I should have insisted. He shouldn’t have been behind the wheel. Was anybody else hurt?”