“I don’t know,” Riley said. “But check your weapon. You might be needing it.”
She took out her own Glock and clicked the cartridge out and back in again, assuring herself that it was in good working order.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Riley and her colleagues moved quietly into the apartment building. Fortunately, none of the residents were out and about, so they didn’t have to worry about clearing away unwary civilians. They stopped just outside the door to Apartment A and exchanged uneasy glances.
Like Riley, Bill and Jenn had their hands near their weapons.
Riley knocked sharply on the door. They waited a few moments, but there was no reply.
She hesitated. Of course it was possible that Red Messer wasn’t home.
If he didn’t answer the door, maybe they should check in with Chief Dolby to try to find out more about him—including where he might be at the moment.
Riley didn’t much like that idea. If Messer really was their killer, she wanted to arrest him here and now, before he got wind that they were after him.
Before he could possibly get away.
She knocked again. After another moment of silence, she heard footsteps inside the apartment, coming toward the door.
Then she heard a grumbling voice. “Who is it? What do you want?”
There was a peephole in the door. Riley held up her badge and introduced herself and her colleagues.
“Are you Red Messer?” she said through the door.
“That’s what they call me,” came the reply.
“We’d like to speak with you about Fern Bruder’s murder five days ago. And a similar murder that happened in Illinois yesterday.”
A brief silence followed. Riley’s hand edged closer to her weapon.
Then she heard the sound of the door chain rattling and the dead bolt turning.
The door swung open to reveal a husky man wearing a bathrobe, pajamas, and bedroom slippers. He had long gray hair and a beard. Judging from his face, Riley guessed that the gray was premature, and that he was actually in his thirties.
She also noticed that he had a distinct odor.
He works in a kitchen, she realized.
There was no sign that he might be armed, and she could see her colleagues relax a little. Riley tried to do the same.
The man squinted as if half asleep.
“I guess you folks want to come in,” he said in tired voice, stepping aside so that the agents could all enter. “Make yourselves comfortable.”
Riley saw that Bill was watching the man closely as he followed them inside. But Bill made no comment and they all sat down. It was a modest apartment with sturdy furniture that Riley suspected had either come with the apartment or been bought used.
Red Messer looked around groggily.
“Maybe you’d like some coffee,” he said.
“I’m fine,” Riley said, and her colleagues agreed.
“Well, I sure need some,” Messer said. “Excuse me just a moment.”
As Messer headed for the kitchen, Riley noticed that he walked with a slight limp. He rattled around for a few moments, then made his way back with a mug of steaming coffee and sat down.
He took a sip and shook his head wearily.
“Horrible thing, what happened to poor Fern. If I can help you with it somehow, I’d love to. But I can’t imagine how I can help. I sure don’t know anything about it.”
Riley was startled at his opening up this line of conversation.
She asked, “So you knew the victim?”
“A little. I wish I’d known her better. She was a nice lady.”
Riley took the heart-shaped trinket out of her pocket and showed it to him.
“I believe you gave this to her,” she said.
The man stared at the trinket for a moment.
“Good Lord,” he said in a hushed voice.
Then he looked around at the agents and stammered, “Where did you …? How did you …? I mean, how did you know that I …?”
Riley said, “She gave it to her little brother, Bobby. She told him she’d gotten it from you.”
“Yeah, she sure did,” Red Messer said. “I told her it was a little piece of heart-shaped love, flaming red like I used to be.”
He fingered his hair.
“All this used to be bright red, like a ripe old strawberry. I guess you’d never know it now, but that’s why they started calling me Red when I was a kid. My real name’s Jesse.”
He held out his hand for the trinket, and Riley reached over and passed it to him.
He turned it over with his fingers.
“I told her not to keep it too long,” he said. “I told her to pass it along soon to someone else who she thought might need it. Pay it forward, if you know what I mean. I guess that’s why it wound up with little Bobby.”
He sat staring at the trinket in his hand.
Riley studied his face. Was he a killer? He certainly didn’t show any sign of a murderous nature. But Riley knew from hard experience not to judge from appearances or even from first impressions. And she reminded herself of what Weston Bruder had said about him …
“He’s a wicked man.”
Bruder certainly seemed to believe that Red Messer was his daughter’s killer.
Riley needed to find out the truth fast.
“How well did you know Fern’s family?” Riley asked.
“Well, in a little town like this, everybody knows the Bruders. But old Weston Bruder and I were never friends. Far from it.”
Riley sensed that Jenn was eager to ask the next question. She gave her a nod to go ahead.
“Mr. Messer, can you tell us where you were at the time of Fern’s death?”
“Yeah, but if you’re looking for an alibi, it won’t be much help for mine. You said somebody else was killed yesterday?”
Jenn nodded and said, “A woman named Reese Fisher. She died on the tracks near Barnwell, Illinois. It happened in the morning, about the same time of day as the murder near here.”
Messer shrugged and said, “I was here alone asleep both times. I don’t suppose that’s what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. I keep strange hours, because I’m the night shift cook at a local all-night diner. Midnight to eight. I sleep during the day, and I was asleep when you folks knocked on the door. However …”
He pulled up the right leg of his pajamas. Riley was startled to see a prosthetic leg, which had been covered by the pajamas and his bedroom slipper. That obviously explained the limp.
He said, “Maybe this will do for an alibi.”
Bill asked, “Iraq?”
Red Messer answered, “That’s right.”
Riley realized that Bill had picked up on the handicap right away. But she thought that the man had seemed quite mobile despite his prosthesis. Then she remembered the footprints she’d seen at the murder scene back near Barnwell. They’d looked perfectly even. She doubted that they could have been left by a man with a prosthetic leg.
Messer explained, “I lost my leg back in oh-four, during the Second Battle of Fallujah. I was an Army sergeant at the time.”
He smiled a bitter, ironic smile.
“I can’t tell you how eager I was to go and serve my country. I was afraid the Army wouldn’t take me. I had reason to worry. Those were the days of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”
“You’re gay?” Jenn asked.
Messer nodded.
“I wasn’t very open about it here in Allardt. Some folks knew and were all right with it, and others weren’t so all right with it. As far as the Army goes—well, they didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell, so I guess you could say I got lucky.”
Tapping his artificial leg, he added, “Or not. Depends on how you look at it. But I was glad to do my duty. I’d like to think it was all worth it somehow.”
Messer was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “I was a real mess when I came back home. Mad at the Army, mad at myself, mad at the world. I needed something to make me feel whole again. I decided to check out the Ephesian Elders church, see if maybe some religion could help me.”
Messer let out a scoffing sound.
“I didn’t know what I was in for. The Sunday I went, Pastor Brayman happened to deliver a hellfire sermon about all the people the church was against—Jews, Catholics, Muslims, and of course homosexuals. No question about it—that wasn’t the church for me. I quietly got up from my pew and tried to leave without making too much fuss about it.”