“What would be good is if you left your goddamn cell phone on from now on,” Glenn grumbled. “Instead of me having to drive all over town in a blizzard looking for you.”
Trapper squared off with him. “I told you. I silenced my phone and slipped it into my coat pocket while you and those Texas Rangers were trying to decide between waterboarding or the rack. Kerra’s room was like a frickin’ greenhouse, so I took off my coat, which is why I didn’t feel my phone vibrate.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Are those hanging offenses?”
Hank divided a look between the two. “Am I missing something?”
“Tin Star here hauled me in for questioning.”
Hank turned to his dad and looked at him with surprise and perplexity.
Glenn was quick to defend himself. “After Kerra told me about the earring, what was I supposed to think?” he demanded of Trapper.
“I’ve already been asked that question once tonight, and I’m not going to honor it again. Think whatever you damn well want to.”
“What were you doing in Kerra’s motel room?”
“Giving her a piece of my mind for going behind my back with incriminating allegations.”
“Not what it looked like to me.”
Trapper didn’t respond to that.
Glenn continued. “She gave us relevant information, otherwise known as cooperating with a criminal investigation. Which is more than I can say for you.”
“Ask me anything.”
“Already did. You told me to screw off and walked out. It was all I could do to keep those Rangers from slapping you in lockup.”
Trapper put his hands on his hips, looked over at Hank, then came back to Glenn. “The Major and I haven’t spoken in years, and the animosity runs both ways, but do you seriously think I went out to his house, hid in the dark, and then shot him?”
“Of course not.”
“Well then, why the third degree?”
In an attempt to mediate, Hank, who by now had caught the gist of what was going on, held up his hand. “Dad was only doing his job, Trapper.”
“I know,” he muttered. “It still sucked.”
“I couldn’t play favorites with you just ’cause we’re friends,” Glenn argued. “It had to be official.”
“Agreed. But you could have called and asked me to come in. You didn’t have to send deputies to fetch me.”
Glenn, red-faced, cussed under his breath as he rhythmically tapped his cowboy hat against the outside of his thigh, but finally he took a breath and relaxed his stance. “I admit that it came off a little more official than I meant for it to.”
Not quite ready to forgive, Trapper held his silence again.
Glenn asked, “When do you think they’ll let me talk to The Major?”
“Not my department. Ask the doctor.”
“Was he lucid?”
“In his right mind, but groggy.”
“Did he see who shot him?”
“I asked; he said no. He asked about Kerra. Eased him to know that she was all right.” He paused before asking, “Are you going to allow her to do that interview tomorrow evening?”
“I’ve mulled it over. Discussed it with key people. We’ve decided it could actually be beneficial. Nervous suspects do stupid things. We’ll have someone standing just outside camera range to signal Kerra not to answer any questions that could impede or compromise the investigation.”
“What about her personal safety?”
“The place will be saturated with uniforms. Plainclothes, too. She’s already got a guard on her, twenty-four–seven.”
“Yeah, about that,” Trapper said, “I blew right past him when I went into her motel room, ready to throttle her.”
“That deputy knows you. Besides, he said she ‘admitted’ you into her room.”
“But he didn’t follow up. He didn’t come to check on her. In the amount of time I was with her before you came banging on the door, I could’ve strangled her a dozen times over.”
“You’d never do that. Not with a cop car out front and all those witnesses who saw you go in.”
Glenn’s tongue-in-cheek response to his serious observation frustrated Trapper and made him want to shake the older man until he saw sense. “Glenn—”
“Hold on.” The sheriff reached for his cell phone, barked his name into it, listened, then said, “Be right down.” As he clicked off, he said to Trapper and Hank, “Press conference. They’re asking to hear directly from me about the crime scene. Hank, give your mother a lift home, please. Tell her I’ll check in when I can. Trapper, keep your damn phone on and…Aw, hell.”
He left them for the elevators, and one arrived just as he punched the down button, which was a good thing because he looked ready to boil over.
“I’m the one with the right to be pissed,” Trapper said to Hank as they watched the elevator doors close. “His best friend is off the critical list. He ought to be dancing a jig. Why’s he so steamed?”
“It’s a culmination of things,” Hank said. “The investigation is going nowhere. They don’t have any solid leads. No suspects. The Rangers are flexing muscle. The FBI has offered their services should they be needed, implying that they are.”
Sensing that Hank had stopped before he was through, Trapper said, “And?”
“And,” Hank said, stretching out the word, “he’s afraid that your intentions toward Ms. Bailey aren’t exactly honorable.”
“He thinks I want to, uh, in preacher speak, have carnal knowledge of her?”
Hank’s expression formed a question mark.
“It’s crossed my mind,” Trapper said. About a thousand times. In his fantasies, he’d had carnal knowledge of her in every way it was to be had, and if Glenn hadn’t interrupted them at the motel, they might be indulging in one of those ways right now.
“Well,” Hank said, “please wait until she’s safely back in Dallas and no longer in Dad’s jurisdiction.”
“What business is it of his?”
“He’s scared something bad will happen to her on his watch, while the whole world is looking on.”
“Something bad has already happened to her.”
“Something worse.”
“I’m worse than falling over a cliff while escaping would-be murderers?”
Hank winced. “Don’t be mad.”
“Mad, hell. I’m flattered.”
Just then Trapper noticed that Emma’s prayer group was breaking up and members of it were moving toward the elevators, giving him an ideal opportunity to split. He reached out and clasped Hank’s right hand. “Thanks for being here. You and the flock grab the elevators. I’ll take the stairs.”
Before Hank could detain him, Trapper headed for the fire stairs, jogged down to the ground floor, and pushed open the door into the lobby just as Kerra came through the automatic doors at the main entrance.
She was wearing a coat over the unflattering tracksuit. There was sleet in her hair. Her cheeks and nose were red with cold. Spotting Trapper, she hurried over. “I was coming to look for you.”
“I was coming to find you.”
“The Major?”
“Against all odds, it looks like he’s going to make it.” Talking over the questions he saw forming on her lips, he said, “Your car’s an icicle. How’d you get here?”
“I hitched a ride in the van with the crew. They were deployed to help cover the press conference. I had them drop me here in front, and they drove around.”