Shoot / Don't Shoot

hoisted himself up on the stool beside her.

“I heard,” he said. “When it comes to bad news, Peoria’s still a very small town.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Joanna asked. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

“Wait a minute,” Butch said. “The last thing I knew, you and I were pals. You came into my place and had a drink. Now you’re treating me like I have a communicable disease.”

“You are a communicable disease,” Joanna returned pointedly. “I don’t know what you had to do with all this, but—”

“Me?” he asked. “What makes you think I had anything at all to do with anything?”

“Larry Dysart walks in here, he takes my daugh­ter God knows where, and then the next thing I know, he’s buying me a drink. ‘Diet Coke,’ he says. ‘The lady will have a diet Coke.’ Where would he have picked that up, if not from you?”

“Sure he got it from me,” Butch Dixon said. “So what?”

“Why were you talking to him about me?”

“Damn Larry Dysart anyway. Why shouldn’t I talk about you?” Butch returned. “Pretty girl walks into my bar and walks right back out again with my heart on her sleeve. I’ve been doing what any red-blooded American male would do—bragging like crazy. Telling everybody who’ll hold still long enough to listen all about her. You think I put in private reserve drinks for everybody?” He sounded highly offended.

Joanna looked at him as though she couldn’t quite decipher what he was saying. “You mean you were talking about me to him because you like me?”

“What else?” Butch exploded. “What’s not to like? Now, are you going to tell me what’s happen­ing with Jenny, or not?”

And so she told him. In the middle of telling the story, the phone at the end of the bar rang. Joanna held her breath when the bartender said the call was for her.

“Yes?” she said hopefully, when she heard Carol Strong’s voice.

“Nothing so far,” Carol answered. “We’ve gone over the whole house. The dogs are out searching the yard right now. We haven’t found his car yet, but we’re looking.”

Joanna took a deep breath and let the words soak in. “I’ve got to know, Carol. You told me on the phone that you had him. What did you mean?”

“I talked to Serena’s attorney. I was reading over that thing Butch Dixon wrote for you, the part about Serena’s attorney swearing out a restraining order. Madeline Bellerman is a junior attorney for a very big-time firm here in Peoria—Howard, Howard and Rock. For the first time, I found my-self asking how Serena Grijalva came to have such a gold-plated attorney representing her in the no­-contact-order department. It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and I had to track Madeline down at a ski lodge in Lake Tahoe. Larry Dysart was a process server. He did some work for Madeline. He talked her into doing Serena’s restraining order on a pro bono basis. Turns out he also served divorce papers on Dean Norton.”

Carol paused for breath. “I finally figured it out. He only targeted women for murder when he thought he could get away with it because—”

“Because there was someone else to blame,” Joanna finished.

“I’m sorry to say,” Carol Strong added, “he sucked me right in.”

When Joanna put down the phone, Butch Dixon was anxiously