The sheriff told them what Sloan had mentioned about how odd Greg had behaved — and how the Willises clearly didn’t want him there, were even afraid of him.
Agnes nodded. “See, we…”
Her voice faded and she glanced at her husband, who said, “It’s okay, honey, you can tell him.”
“When Bill lost his job last year, we didn’t know what we were going to do. We only had a little savings and my job at the library, well, that wasn’t bringing in much money. So we had to borrow some. The bank wouldn’t even talk to us so we called Greg.”
Clearly ashamed, Bill shook his head. “He’s the richest one in the family.”
“Him?” Sheriff Mills asked.
Agnes said, “Yep. He’s a plumber… no, sorry, a ‘plumbing contractor.’ Makes money hand over fist. Has eight trucks. He inherited the business when Bill’s brother died.”
Her husband: “Well, he made me a loan. Insisted on a second mortgage on the house, of course. And plenty of interest too. More’n the banks woulda charged. Was real obnoxious about it, since we never really had him and his dad over when he was growing up — my brother and me didn’t get along too good. But he wrote us a check and nobody else would. I thought I’d have another job by now but nothing came up. And unemployment ran out. When I couldn’t make the payments to him I stopped returning his phone calls. I was so embarrassed. He finally drove over here tonight and stopped by unannounced. He gave us hell. Threatening to foreclose, drive us out in the street.”
“That’s when Mr. Sloan showed up. We were hoping he’d stay. It was a nightmare sitting here listening to him go on and on.”
“Sloan said he was scarred. Like knife wounds.”
“Accidents on the job, I guess,” Bill said.
“What’d he mean about a woman who died a few years ago?”
Nodding, Bill said, “He wouldn’t tell us exactly what he meant.” He looked at Agnes. “I’d guess that must’ve been his girlfriend. She died in a car wreck and Greg sort of inherited her son for a few months. It was a mess — Greg’s not the best father, as you can imagine. Finally, her sister took the boy.”
The sheriff remembered something else that Sloan had said. “He said he heard something in the other room. It seemed suspicious to him.”
Agnes blushed fiercely. “That was Sandy.”
“Your daughter?”
A nod. The woman couldn’t continue. Bill said, “She came home with her boyfriend. They went into her room so she could change out of her uniform before they went out. The next thing you know — well, you can figure it out…. I told her to respectus. I told her not to be with him when we were home. She doesn’t care.”
So it was all a misunderstanding, Sheriff Mills reflected.
Bill laughed faintly. “And you thought Greg was the killer? That’s wild.”
“Wasn’t that far-fetched,” the sheriff said. “Think about it. The guy escaped at five tonight. That’d be just enough time to steal a car and get to your place from Durrant in early evening.”
“Guess that’s right, “Bill said.
The sheriff returned to the door and started to open it.
Bill said, “Wait a minute, Hal. You said Durrant?”
“Right. That’s where the prison is that guy escaped from.”
Bill looked at Agnes. “Didn’t that fellow Sloan say he’d just come here from Durrant?”
“Yeah, he did. I’m sure.”
“Really?” the sheriff asked. He returned to the Willises. Then asked, “What else did you know about him?”
“Nothing much really. Just that he said he sold computers.”
“Computers?” The sheriff frowned. “Around here?”
“That’s what he said.”
This was odd; Hatfield was hardly a high-tech area of the state. The closest retail computer store was fifteen miles south of here. “Anything else?”
“He was pretty evasive, now that I think about it. Didn’t say much of anything. Except he did say his parents were dead.”
“And he didn’t seem very upset about it,” Agnes offered.
The sheriff reflected: And Sloan was about the same age and build as the killer. Dark hair too.
Damn, he thought to himself: I didn’t even look at his driver’s license, only his business card. He might’ve killed the real Sloan and stolen his car.
“And that was another thing. He said his car overheated,” Bill pointed out. “You’d think a salesman’d be in a new car. And you ever hear about cars overheating nowadays? Hardly ever happens. And at night?”
“Mary, Mother of God,” Agnes said, crossing herself, apparently finding an exception to the rule about blasphemy. “He was right here, in our house.”
But the sheriff’s mind continued further along this troubling path. Sloan, he now understood, had known there’d be a roadblock. So he’d disabled his car himself, called Triple A and waltzed right though the roadblock. Hell, he even walked right up to me, ballsy as could be and spun that story about Greg — to lead the law off.
And we let him get away. He could be—
No!
And then he felt the punch in his gut. He’d sent Sloan to police headquarters. Where there was only one other person at the moment. Clara. Twenty-one years old. Beautiful.
And whom the sheriff referred to as “his girl” not out of any vestigial chauvinism but because she was, in fact, his daughter, working for him on summer vacation from college.
He grabbed the Willises’ phone and called the station. There was no answer.
Sheriff Mills ran from the house, climbed into his car. “Oh, Lord, please no…”
The deputy with him offered a prayer too. But the sheriff didn’t hear it. He dropped into the seat and slammed the door. Ten seconds later the Crown Vic hit sixty as it cut through the night air, hot as soup and dotted with the lights from a thousand edgy fireflies.
No reconnaissance this time.
On Elm Street downtown the sheriff skidded to a stop against a trash can, knocking it over and scattering the street with empty soda bottles and Good Humor sticks and wrappers.
His deputy was beside him, carting the stubby scattergun, a shell chambered and the safety off.
“What’s the plan?” the deputy asked.
“This,” Sheriff Mills snapped and slammed into the door with his shoulder, leveling the gun as he rushed inside, the deputy on his heels.
Both men stopped fast, staring at the two people in the room, caught in the act of sipping Arizona iced teas. Dave Sloan and the sheriff’s daughter, both blinking in shock at the hostile entrance.
The officers lowered their weapons.
“Dad!”
“What’s the matter, Sheriff?” Sloan asked.
“I—” he stammered. “Mr. Sloan, could I see some ID?”
Sloan showed his driver’s license to the sheriff, who examined the picture — it was clearly Sloan. Then Mills shamefacedly told them what he’d suspected after his conversation with the Willises.
Sloan took the news good-naturedly. “Probably should’ve asked for that license up front, Sheriff.”
“I probably should have. Right you are. It was just that things seemed a little suspicious. Like you told them that you’d just come from Durrant—”
“My company installs and services the prison computers. It’s one of my big accounts.” He fished in his jacket pocket and showed the sheriff a work order. “These blackouts from the heat are hell on computers. If you don’t shut them down properly it causes all kinds of problems.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, sir. You have to understand—”
“That you got a killer on the loose.” Sloan laughed again. “So they thought I was the killer…. Only fair, I suppose, since
