“I guess. But I never let on to Moody about it. He would have misread it. It was bad enough that I was within thirty, forty yards of Susan’s body when the fireman found it. I’d been searching the woods with them. So were a dozen other men, but none of the rest became suspects. Only me. Later, Moody said it was like I had returned to the scene of the crime, as killers do. Bullshit like that,” he added in a mutter.
“Anyhow, when I realized that Susan was dead, not just unconscious, I threw up. Then I went to find your parents, but when I did, I chickened out. I couldn’t tell them. I just pointed them in the direction of where she’d been found.”
He stopped talking and, when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to continue, Bellamy prodded him. “And then what?”
“Then nothing. I was upset that my girlfriend was dead, but I knew that your folks wouldn’t welcome any condolences from me and wouldn’t want me hanging around like a member of the family. So I went home, went to bed.
“The following morning, Moody came calling. You know the rest. He’d talked to your parents and had made up his mind that I’d done it. He didn’t have any physical evidence against me, but I was treated like a felon. For weeks my name was the one in all the papers and on the news every night. I was the ‘suspect in the Susan Lyston slaying.’
“Hell, I couldn’t even go to her funeral for fear of being attacked by a lynch mob.” He formed a tight fist with one hand and tapped it against the tabletop. “The hell of it is, it didn’t stop, not after Allen Strickland was taken into custody, not even after he was convicted,” he said with raw resentment.
“See, A.k.a., the way it works? Even if you’re officially cleared of all suspicion, the taint of having been a suspect stays with you. It’s like a bad odor that clings to you. People have to accept that you’re innocent, but there’s a lingering doubt that you’re entirely clean.
“I learned that during the NTSB investigation. Somebody got hold of those old headlines, plastered them all over the damn place. After that, the airline was ashamed to claim me. It’s seriously ba
d PR to have an alleged murderer on your payroll.”
She grew uncomfortable under his glare and felt compelled to acknowledge that, sadly, he was right. “I’m sorry, Dent.”
“Can you be more specific? What exactly are you sorry for? For the dung heap I had to wrestle through then, or the fresh one I’m having to wrestle through now? Are you apologizing in advance for what will happen when Van Durbin’s newspaper hits the stands tomorrow and all that speculation starts whirling around me again?”
“Why should it?”
“You have to ask? Before Van Durbin files that story, you can bet he’ll want to identify ‘the cowboy.’ He’ll probably crap himself when he learns I’m none other than the ‘first person of interest.’”
“Who was vindicated.”
“Maybe in your book, but not in real life.”
“Gall provided you with an alibi that cleared you.”
“Moody figured that Gall was lying.”
“He had no case against you.”
“Right. The only thing that saved me was that I wasn’t found with Susan’s panties.”
Chapter 8
Rupe Collier checked his reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of his office door. He patted his thinning hair into place to help cover the ever-widening bald spot on the crown of his head, shot his cuffs to make certain the diamonds in his Texas-shaped gold cuff links were twinkling, smiled widely to check his capped teeth for stuck food, then, approving of what he saw, left his office.
He strode into the showroom, where strategically placed spotlights shone on the new models fresh from the factory. He didn’t ordinarily work the floor, but one of his salesman had told him that a customer was insistent on dealing with the “main man,” and Rupe was definitely that.
The customer, pointed out to Rupe by the salesman, was bent down, peering through the tinted glass window—an option available at extra cost—into the luxurious interior of a top-of-the-line sedan.
“Rupe Collier. Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”
The customer straightened up and returned Rupe’s smile as he shook the extended hand. Rupe was pleased to see that his cuff links didn’t escape notice. The other man wasn’t dressed or groomed nearly as well, and that was the way Rupe liked it. It gave him a distinct advantage when it came to bargaining. In order to be a winner, one had to look the part.
The car shopper dropped Rupe’s hand and motioned toward the car. “How much would this baby set me back?”
“It’s worth every penny of the sticker price, but I can cut you the best deal in the country.”
“Thirty-day guarantee?”
“On any car on the lot. I stand behind my product.”
“Continuing the customer-service policies that your daddy built the business on forty years ago.”