In His Reach, page 10
“There’s no need to get cold with me, Eve,” Memphis said with a wink. Eve’s eyes shot open.
“How do you know my name?”
“Would you like to find out?” the man bounced his eyebrows invitingly. “All it’ll cost you is a drink. I’ll even buy; you just have to sit there and drink it.”
“How do you know my name?” Eve asked again. The steel trap expression that had taken over her face spooked the flirt right out of the young man’s demeanor. He laughed uncomfortably, looked around the bar, and coughed down his sleeve.
“Alright, I’ll level with you,” he acquiesced at last. “I thought you looked familiar at the bar, but I couldn’t place it. I was going to ask you about it, but you took off before I had the chance. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I got on the internet and did a little research. I thought I remembered something about you and serial killers from maybe a year ago. It didn’t take me long to find you once I had that much, Eve Hope. You’re pretty famous, especially in my circle.”
“What circle is that?” Eve asked. Every red flag was springing up in her mind, and her whole body was energized with the high-strung adrenaline crackle that fueled her for combat. Under the table, she flexed the fingers of her gun hand. Her standard service weapon was back in the motel room, but Eve never went anywhere entirely unarmed. She had a Walther PPK in a concealed ankle holster under the cuff of her bootcut jeans as a last resort. She crossed the hot leg casually over the other, making it an easier draw should the situation suddenly demand it.
“I’m a crime writer,” the man replied. “Podcasts, mostly, but I’ve been trying to pull together a novel for a few years now.”
Eve eyed the man warily. The answer was satisfactory enough, but there was still something in her gut that made her hesitant to trust the stranger.
“What’s your last name?” Eve asked with a smile she hoped would charm him out of noticing the sudden shift in her attitude. “I’d be curious to check out your podcast. I love true crime, obviously,” she tittered fetchingly and tried to not throw up at her own phoniness. She had no interest in Memphis’s podcast, but it seemed like a good way of getting him to talk about himself.
“Memphis Esposti,” he said, “but my podcast handle is Blood-Moon-Truth.”
“How long have you been writing podcasts?” Eve asked.
“Well—” Memphis began with an eager flame in his eyes, but before he could launch into his creative history, Eve saw Hobbes burst through the saloon doors and rush towards her. He had a wild, wide-eyed look on his face, and his hair was mussed as if he’d been in bed until moments before. Memphis’s expression fell as he followed Eve’s eyes and saw her partner rushing towards the table.
“Excuse me,” said Hobbes to Memphis without giving him much thought, then turned to Eve with an urgent expression, “can I speak to you for a minute?”
“Sure,” Eve said, gathering her papers into her bag and sliding quickly out of the booth. “Sorry to cut you short, Memphis. It was nice meeting you.”
“You too,” Memphis said, waving a wistful farewell.
“What’s up?” Eve asked as they pushed out of the bar into the chilly, midnight air.
“Sorry for interrupting your date, but we’ve got to move,” Hobbes said, striding purposefully across the parking lot towards the Charger. “There was another shooting at Flat Hill Ranch.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Eve and Hobbes walked in through the automatic doors of the DeSoto County hospital emergency room. It was nearing one o'clock in the morning as they passed under the harsh white, fluorescent lights of the entryway. A second interior door separated the waiting room and admission desk from the trauma ward. They were stopped by a short, pock-faced security guard.
“Who are you here to see?” the guard asked, standing stoutly in their way with his arms folded across his chest.
“Emil Russi,” Eve answered promptly. “We got a call from Sheriff Delvecchio, who told us Russi was admitted late last night with a gunshot wound to the shoulder.”
“Are you family of the patient?" the guard asked, squinting suspiciously from Eve's face to that of her partner. "At this point, only relatives are allowed to visit, and only one at a time.”
"No, but we've got the clearance," said Eve, getting out her budge for the gravel to gawk at.
"Right through the doors," the security guard said, stepping behind his desk and jerking his thumb towards the quiet ward. Eve gave him a curt smile and stepped through the swinging double doors.
The emergency ward was nearly empty and quiet. The agents’ shoes squeaked across the smooth, sterile floor. They came to the last stall on the left, where a man standing by the bedside in a white doctor’s coat with a stethoscope around his neck was busy checking the injured man’s vitals.
On the other side of the bed, a man in a wide-brimmed, white Stetson stood with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt, plainly the sheriff. He looked up when the agents approached and stepped quickly away from the gurney to address them.
“You must be the feds,” the sheriff said, removing his ten-gallon hat an inch or so off his head before resettling it over the thinning hair underneath. “I’m the sheriff around here, Giorgio Delvecchio.”
“I’m Special Agent Eve Hope,” said Eve, showing Delvecchio her badge, “This is my partner, Special Agent Hobbes. Thanks for your call. We appreciate your help.”
“We’ve got a common goal: justice,” said the sheriff. “I’m a little surprised our investigations haven’t brought us across each other’s paths until now.”
“We only got into town this morning,” said Hobbes with a slightly apologetic tone.
“Yeah, well, it’s been a hell of a few weeks,” Delvecchio said, lifting his hat again to rub his head and looking back at the prostrate form of the large man in the hospital bed. “This county’s been peaceful, except for your occasional drunken fist fight, for nearly 200 years. Now, we’ve got three bodies.” He shook his head mournfully. “I don’t expect you DC folks to understand this, but every single person that lives in DeSoto County is like family to me. Every single one of them trusts me to uphold the law, to keep them safe. Hell,” he shook his head mournfully, “guess I’m doing a pretty bad job these days.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Sheriff,” Eve said. “It won’t bring back the dead to beat yourself up, and it doesn’t help us catch the killer. Our ballistics have confirmed that the bullets that killed Maya Ferndale and Beatrice DeSoto were fired from the same gun. They were .38s, with letters etched onto the caps.” Her eyes moved back to the man on the hospital bed. “Has the bullet been recovered from Mr. Russi?”
“The round passed through his shoulder,” said Delvecchio. “The doctor will be able to tell you about his condition in more detail, but basically, the worst damage is from the blood loss. My deputy’s out on the property now with the DeSoto family. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Mr. Russi sort of lived on the property in a servant’s bungalow out back.”
“Yes, we were out at the Flat Hill property this afternoon,” Eve said. “Actually, Mr. Russi greeted us at gunpoint.”
“Yeah,” Delvecchio shook his head with a sad laugh, “that’s Emil. We think he was shot in front of his house, but this tough, old bastard dragged himself back in, got hold of his shotgun, and squeezed off a few rounds before he bled out and lost consciousness. He was still clinging to his old double barrel when the family came out and found him.”
“Did he make contact?” Eve asked eagerly. If their killer was wounded, that would change the game dramatically. He might limp off to lick his wounds in hiding, or he might perpetrate a massacre the same night in an adrenaline-addled craze of bloodlust.
“Hard to say,” said the sheriff, “certainly not lethal contact, but we haven’t scouted the area for blood or tracks yet. Waiting for the sun to come up, and I wanted to make sure Emil was stable before I left.”
“How’s his condition now?” Eve asked, stepping past Delvecchio and walking over to the big man’s bedside. The doctor, who was just wrapping up his tests, looked up with a grim expression on his face.
“We’ve been giving him blood since he got here, trying to replace what he lost. We’ve got to get him stabilized before he can handle the operation.”
“Operation?” Eve asked.
“There’s been acute damage to the left subclavian artery. If he survives long enough to undergo surgery, we have to replace the section of the artery. He’s a long way from being out of the woods.”
“I’m sure he’s in very capable hands,” Eve said.
“Oh, he won’t be operated on here,” the doctor said. “He’ll be flown to Pittsburgh General once he’s stable enough.”
“Keep me updated on his condition,” Eve said, getting out a card to hand the doctor. “It’s of the utmost importance that I talk to this man once he’s in a condition to do so.”
“Your optimism is an inspiration,” the doctor said doubtfully, peeling off his glove to accept the card. Eve sucked in her cheeks and looked down at Emil Russi’s face. His wide, stolid features looked grave and somber against the backdrop of the hospital bed.
“You focus on healing,” she said to the unconscious man in a soft, genuine voice, “I’ll handle justice.”
Sheriff Delvecchio accompanied Eve and Hobbes out of the hospital, walking with a slow, casual saunter.
“What do you make of all this, Sheriff?” Eve asked as they crossed the threshold back out into the night’s chill. Delvecchio hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked troubled.
“Hard to say so soon,” he said after a moment. “Like I said, we don’t get much homicide out this way. This is a little outside the scope of my regular repertoire. I don’t have anything to support it yet, but if you asked me, I’d say we’re looking for an outsider, maybe even a transient. People around here don’t have this kind of violence in their DNA.”
Eve thought about how many times they’d encountered men with guns since arriving in DeSoto County but kept her reflections to herself. She knew to trust the Sheriff’s instincts as she would trust her own. He knew the county and its residents, in his own words, like family. His read of the situation would be steeped in a deep understanding of the community despite his inexperience in homicide.
“I know this little town isn’t known for its high turnover rate,” Eve said as they walked across the hospital parking lot towards the Charger. “What kind of outsiders do you get through here?”
“Truckers, bikers, transients,” Sheriff Delvecchio said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarettes. “These types come and go in a few hours. If we’re lucky, they spend a few bucks at the general store and get back on the road. Sometimes you get workmen out here to repair the power lines. They usually have to stay in the motel for a night or two.” He shook out a cigarette and fitted it into his lips. “Mind?” He asked as an afterthought, lifting an eyebrow in Eve’s direction. Eve shook her head, and the sheriff lit his smoke with a stainless-steel Zippo.
“You ever get tourists back in here?” Eve asked. “Seems like there would be plenty of picnic spots out in the fields and pastures.”
“We get hikers from time to time, but there are more popular destinations that keep the tourists out of DeSoto for the most part. Once in a while, some hipster photographer will go squatting on someone’s land, living in a tent, and shooting pictures of barn owls or what have you. If the farmer sees him, I get a call and go shuffle him off the property.”
“Have there been any recent newcomers to the county that you can think of?” Eve asked. The sheriff sucked his cigarette, then shook his head.
“Can’t say anybody’s come across my radar recently,” the sheriff said. “My deputy and I have been making the rounds. We turned out a couple homeless encampments, but they’d been empty for a long time. I’m afraid we’re still scratching our heads on this one.”
The agents reached their Charger and paused. Delvecchio’s truck, parked a few spaces away, was a white, mid-2000s Chevy on a lift kit with “DeSoto County Sheriff” painted around a gold star on the door.
“I hope we can coordinate to work together on this,” the sheriff said, flicking his cigarette butt to the pavement and crushing it under the toe of his boot. “I could use all the help I can get, and the folks of my county would be a lot safer with the two of you on the case.”
“We’re going to do everything in our power, Sheriff,” said Eve as Hobbes handed him a business card. “You can count on that.”
Delvecchio ambled off towards his truck as Eve climbed into the driver’s seat of the Charger. She started the engine and turned on the headlights as Hobbes came around the front and climbed in.
“Tough old guy,” Hobbes said.
“You mean Russi or Delvecchio?”
“Both, but I was talking about Russi,” Hobbes said. “Takes a bullet through his shoulder and still has enough in him to crawl for his shotgun and fire a few shots.” The young agent shook his head in admiration. “I don’t know if I could do it.”
“That’s the thing about combat,” Eve said, “you never know what you’re capable of until you’re doing it.”
It was a few minutes before two a.m. by the dashboard clock. The beams of the Charger’s headlights cut through the darkness, landing on another truck that Eve hadn’t noticed while they were walking. It was painted glossy black, shining with luxury and newness. The driver’s window was open, and Eve could see the profile of a man sitting behind the wheel. A cigarette hung from his mouth, but the ember appeared to have gone out. No smoke curled away from the truck.
Squinting through the darkness, Eve thought she’d seen the same truck at Flat Hill Ranch that afternoon. The vague recollection was strengthened when she identified the profile as Stephano DeSoto.
“We keep seeing him,” Eve said to Hobbes, gesturing towards the man in the truck with her chin. “When we were leaving Flat Hill, Stephano was the one we saw walking away from the house.”
“And didn’t you say he was walking in the direction of the gamekeeper’s cottage?” Hobbes added, a spark of excitement in his eye.
“We’d better go talk to him,” Eve said, killing the headlights and removing the keys from the ignition. “Don’t jump to any conclusions but keep your wits about you all the same.”
Eve sprung her door open and got out of the car. She crossed the parking lot to the black truck, approaching in such a way that Stephano would see her coming. There was something about the way he was sitting, staring straight forward with that unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, that made Eve think twice about sneaking up on him.
Even though she’d walked right through his eye line, Stephano made no movement to acknowledge her as Eve approached. She stood a foot from his open window, with Hobbes trailing closely behind her, and still, the man stared straight forward through his windshield.
Eve cleared her throat, and still, the man didn’t move. A chill passed down her spine, and she took a step closer, peering into the cab of the truck.
“Is he dead?” Hobbes whispered from behind her shoulder. Eve ignored her partner, staring intently at the man’s face. His color was still good, but his eyes were glassy.
“Mr. DeSoto?” Eve said in a worried voice that echoed under the moonlight in the desolate parking lot. “Stephano? Are you alright?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Slowly, as if they were coming unstuck from eons of amber, Stephano DeSoto’s eyes shifted towards Eve’s concerned face. He stared at her for a long, dark moment, then let his eyes fall into the shadowy area beneath the steering wheel.
“He moves in the darkness,” Stephano DeSoto said.
“Who does?” Eve asked.
“I cannot say his name.” Stephano’s accent made him pronounce “cannot” like “can-no.” He sucked suddenly at the cigarette, realized it had gone out, and fished a lighter out of his coat pocket. He relit it and took a few rapid puffs.
Eve desisted from pressing the man further, at least right away. He was plainly nervous, and she didn’t want to risk spooking him off. “What are you doing in the hospital parking lot, Mr. DeSoto?”
“I drove Emil to the ER after he was shot,” Stephano said, glancing up at Eve through his open window. Eve noticed that his seatbelt was buckled. Odd. The man raised a dark eyebrow at her. “I assume you already know about Emil?”
“Yes, I saw him and spoke to Sheriff Delvecchio as well. We’re going to figure out who did this to Emil.”
“Giorgio, he’s a good man. He’s family, you know? He’ll hunt down the dog that did it.”
“He said he feels as though the whole county were his family,” Eve said. “He seems like a fine sheriff.”
“That’s because he’s got DeSoto blood in his veins. He’s my cousin, very close with the family.”
“Really?” Eve said in surprise. “Funny, he didn’t mention it.”
“He’s very humble,” Stephano said.
“Mr. DeSoto,” Hobbes put in, stepping forward so that he could see the man’s face more clearly, “what time did you find Emil and bring him here?”
“Must have been about eleven, maybe a quarter after when I found him. It was twenty minutes to the hospital with my foot on the floor. There was no sense in calling for an ambulance—it wouldn’t have gotten to the ranch in time.”
“So, you got him checked in around 11:30-11:45 p.m. last night?” Hobbes checked his mental arithmetic to keep the man talking.
“Right. I saw him in, but the nurses hustled me out of there pretty quick. I didn’t want to get in the way, so I came out here to smoke a cigarette.”
“And then what?” Eve asked. Stephano blinked at her as if she were stupid.
“And then … you and your partner walked up.”
“Mr. DeSoto,” Eve said with concern creeping back into her voice, “it’s two o’clock in the morning.”
“What?” Stephano shook his head in disbelief, then looked at the dashboard of his truck. He rubbed his palms deep into his eye sockets. “Huh, I guess I got lost in my thoughts. There’s been a lot going on, first with my mother and now Emil …” He laughed sadly and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, although Eve hadn’t seen any tears forming. “I’m kind of worn out, I guess.”
