“At least,” said his colleague.
Overholt’s body lay crumpled between the couch and the window.
Too soon to say whether it was the neighbor across the street who had taken him out or if he died by the M16
rifle they were going to have to pry out of his cold dead hands after they finished taking pictures to document the scene.
The neighbor’s rifle had already been confiscated and would be subjected to a thorough examination by ballistics experts.
Overhead, two TV helicopters, one from Raleigh, the other from Fayetteville, circled overhead like two buz- zards looking for fresh roadkill. On the ground, Richards recognized a familiar face among the SBI agents in the crowd—Terry Wilson, a longtime friend of Major Bryant’s. As soon as he spotted her, he came right over.
But it wasn’t the two bodies inside that concerned him at the moment.
“Hey, Richards,” he called. “What the hell’s this Amber Alert on Cal Bryant?”
C H A P T E R
18
“You must be Paul,” I said, when I finally untan-
gled myself from Dwight’s welcoming arms.
Chief Radcliff had a grin as big as Virginia on his broad face as he shook my hand. “And I’m guessing you’re Deborah?”
“Any word about Cal?” I asked.
His smile disappeared and a quick glance at Dwight’s face gave me the answer.
“What about Jonna’s killer?”
“Not yet,” the police chief said grimly.
“Driving up, I kept thinking that Cal wouldn’t have gone with just anyone, would he, Dwight? Is it possible that Jonna felt threatened? She didn’t know you were coming up, so did she maybe send someone he trusted—someone
“Would—could—might—we just don’t
“That’s what’s driving me nuts. I want to think whoever has him believes they’re doing what Jonna would want, but who the hell would it be? And why wait so long to take him? Jonna disappeared Thursday morning. Cal wasn’t taken till yesterday afternoon around two-thirty.”
As he spoke, he glanced up at the clock over Paul Radcliff’s door. It was a couple of minutes before five, which gave him something less serious to worry about. “I thought you were driving, not flying.”
“Flying’s a waste of time,” I said, happy to distract him, even if it meant getting growled at. “If I’d tried to fly, I’d probably be touching down at the Roanoke air-port about now and it’d be another two hours to rent a car and drive back down here. Don’t fuss, Dwight. The roads were in good shape.”
In truth, the interstates had been just fine. Icy second-ary roads had probably produced enough fender benders to keep the commonwealth’s troopers too busy to worry about free-flowing traffic, so I hadn’t had to lose time wheedling my way out of any tickets. It wasn’t until I took the Shaysville exit that things got a little hairy, and even then I only fishtailed once. Okay, twice if you count sliding in beside Dwight’s truck, but that was because I was almost past before I recognized it and I’d braked too sharply.
“I don’t suppose you stopped for food,” he said, offering me the rest of his sandwich.
“Or anything else,” I admitted. “So point me to a restroom first.”
When I came back, refreshed, I wasn’t hungry but I welcomed the mug of hot coffee Paul had poured for me.
“I called Sandy,” he said, “and she told me that if I didn’t bring both of y’all home with me, I didn’t need to come either.”
They brought me up to speed on everything they’d learned since I’d spoken to Dwight earlier, including the unexpected news that Jonna occasionally took antidepressants, which may have been what last night’s intruder was after.
Shortly before six, as I turned to ask Dwight what our plans were, Paul’s phone rang. He listened intently, but with his hand over the receiver, mouthed, “Nick Lewes.”
I looked at Dwight and he murmured, “Special agent, Virginia state police.”
“What about the boy?” Paul asked.
A moment later, he replaced the phone on the hook and gave us a regretful look. “No word on Cal, but they’ve had a call about the ME’s preliminary findings. Jonna’s body was pretty much frozen solid, so the usual indica-tors don’t help. What did help was that you could tell them when and what she had for breakfast Thursday, because that was her last meal. They’re thinking she was shot no more than four to six hours later and that death would have been instantaneous.”
“While I was at work down home,” Dwight said.
