Arizona Heat. Linda Miller Lael
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leaned against the counter, his arms folded, the ancient coffeemaker chortling and surging behind him, like a rocket trying to take off but not quite having the momentum. Tilting his head slightly to one side, he answered, “It didn’t come up, Moje. We haven’t talked that much lately.”
“She didn’t see who killed her,” I told him. “God, I hope it was quick—that she didn’t suffer, or have time to be scared.” I finally faced him. “Tucker, was she—was she—she wasn’t—”
“She wasn’t molested,” Tucker said.
Relief swept through me with such force that my knees threatened to give out, and Tucker crossed the room in a couple of strides, took me by the shoulders and lowered me gently into a chair.
“How did she die?” I asked very softly. I didn’t want to know, but at the same time I had to, or I was going to go crazy speculating.
Tucker crouched in front of my chair, holding both my hands in his. The pads of his thumbs felt only too good, chafing the centers of my palms. “You can’t tell anybody, Moje,” he said. “That’s really important.”
I knew that. I’d read The Damn Fool’s Guide to Criminal Investigation. The police always keep certain pertinent details of any crime under wraps, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the danger of compromising the case if word gets out before the trial.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Gillian was strangled,” he told me. “With a piece of thin wire.”
I swayed in my chair. “Oh, my God—”
“According to the ME, it happened quickly,” Tucker said, but he looked as though he was thinking the same thing I was.
Not quickly enough.
“You’re sure she ruled out the stepfather?” he asked when I didn’t say anything.
I nodded. “I asked her twice.”
“Moje,” Tucker told me after rising from his haunches and taking a chair near mine, “he has an arrest record. Vince Erland, I mean. Solicitation of a minor—sexual context.”
My stomach roiled. I slapped a hand over my mouth.
Tucker waited.
The coffee perked.
“He’s a pedophile?” I asked, my voice coming out as a croak.
“We’re not sure. The alleged victim was seventeen, and there was some evidence that she encouraged his advances. The charges were dismissed.”
“But still...”
Tucker nodded grimly. “Still,” he agreed.
“Gillian might have been mistaken,” I murmured, “or maybe she simply didn’t want to believe her stepfather, someone she trusted, would hurt her.”
“Nine times out of ten,” Tucker said, “the perp is somebody the victim trusts. Lousy, but true.”
“But it could have been a random attack, right?”
“It could have been, but it probably wasn’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Tucker closed his eyes, opened them again. “Vince Erland picked Gillian up after the dance rehearsal. According to him, they stopped off at a supermarket on the way home and Gillian vanished. The report’s on file—but he didn’t call it in until he got back to the trailer. Most people would have been on the horn to 911 the second they realized their child was missing. Why did he wait?”
“I don’t know,” I said, pondering. “I didn’t see this on the news, Tuck. That Mr. Erland was the last person to see Gillian—”
“It’ll be out there soon enough,” Tucker said. “His story is that he’d promised her a dog, and then had to go back on his word because he didn’t have the money. He broke the news at the supermarket. She got mad and took off, and he thought she went home—it’s a hike, but she probably could have done it.”
“But the police don’t believe it. That’s why they’re holding Erland.”
Tucker looked conflicted. He probably knew a lot more about the case than he would admit, and he was deciding how much to tell me. “Partly,” he said. “They’re concerned for his safety, too. When it comes out that he was with Gillian just before she died, especially with his background, a lot of people aren’t going to presume he’s innocent until he’s proven guilty. I don’t need to tell you that emotions run high in situations like this. Some of the vigilante types might not be able to resist the temptation to take the law into their own hands.”
I was still thinking about Gillian. She was a deaf-mute; she couldn’t have cried out for help when she realized she was in trouble. Still, small as she was, she was determined, too. I believed she would have put up a struggle, however futile.
My heart ached, imagining that.
“Where was Mrs. Erland during all this?”
“Working,” Tucker said with a shake of his head.
“No one saw anything? There must have been other shoppers in the store—clerks, passersby on the road...”
Tucker didn’t answer.
“You’re a DEA agent,” I prodded. “How come you know so much about this investigation? Surely it isn’t under federal jurisdiction.”
“I resigned,” he answered. “I’m with the sheriff’s department now—homicide division.”
“And right off the bat you were assigned to this particular case? Isn’t that a conflict of interest, considering that Gillian and Daisy were friends?”
“Cave Creek is a small town,” he reasoned quietly. “Helen Erland grew up here. Anybody who caught the case would have at least a passing acquaintance with the family.”
I got up, because the coffee had finally stopped brewing, and poured a cup for Tucker and one for myself.
“I could help, Tucker,” I said. “With the investigation.”
Tucker’s jawline immediately tightened. “No way,” he replied tersely. “This is serious police work, Mojo. There’s no place in a murder investigation for an amateur with a mail-order P.I. license and a stack of Damn Fool’s Guides on procedure.”
“Gillian came to me,” I pointed out, generously letting the gibe about my credentials pass. “There must be a reason.”
Tucker, about to take a sip of his coffee, set the cup down with a thunk. A muscle bunched in his cheek. “I mean it, Mojo,” he warned. “Stay out of this case.”
“Too late,” I answered. “I’m already in.”
“How do you figure that?”
“You’re the one with the badge,” I admitted, “but I’m the one being haunted by a seven-year-old in a ballerina costume. I think Gillian’s trying to help me figure out who killed her, and I wouldn’t turn my back on her even if I could.”
“Can’t you just tell her to go into the Light, or something? Like that woman on TV?”
I sighed. “I wish it were that easy. Do you think I like having a little girl’s ghost pop up every time I turn around? Gillian’s not going anywhere, including into the Light, until she’s ready.”
Tucker paled under his biker’s tan. Rubbed his palms together and stared as though he could see through my kitchen floor and into the closed bar beneath it.
“It’s okay,” I said.
I wanted to reach out, touch his cheek or his shoulder, but I didn’t dare, because I knew where it would lead. We both needed comfort, and I was pretty sure any physical