Chapter 4

"Shit ... That's what I'm talkin' about, homes!" Roy's head turned slowly on his thick neck. "See that shit?"

"What's that?" Mike tried to see past his teammate, but Roy's big black body filled the front seat of his truck.

"Turn around, man," Roy slammed the dash with his palm excitedly. "That bitch was fine!"

"Heh!" Mike shook his head and put his soda in the cup holder before swinging a big U-turn. He and his friend had gone to the Burger King for some lunch and now they were just killing time before getting back to the college.

"There she is!" Roy grinned and he grabbed his crotch, giving his big cock a squeeze through his jeans.

"Damn!" Mike stared at the woman as she walked down the sidewalk away from them. He couldn't see her face or tits, but with an ass like that, with those long legs and golden hair, the man knew it was all gonna be good.

"You seen her before?" Roy asked and his quarterback shook his head.

"Nope," Mike answered. "But she's begging for it, ain't she?"

"She wants some," Roy's deep voice broke into a rumbling laugh. "Rape that ass all night long, homes!"

"No shit," Mike agreed. "She ain't from around here either."

"Nobody gonna miss her," Roy nodded. "We take her out to the canyon, huh? Play with that puss all weekend, Mike. Come on!"

"Shut-up. Be cool now," Mike waved at the man as he pulled up alongside the woman, driving slowly past the small stores and shops that lined Main Street.

"Talk some of that white boy shit!" Roy chuckled softly.

"Hi..." Mike leaned out the cab of his old Dodge Powerwagon. "Uh, excuse me ... Miss?"

Emily Thomas had noticed the dusty pick-up truck and she reluctantly stopped walking, looking at the young man who was driving. She'd seen boys like him before and recognized his cocky smile for what it was, just another come on from one of the local studs. She had turned down a lot of offers during her four years of college and plenty more after graduating. Emily sighed inwardly as she knew that ignoring the boy wouldn't send him on his way. Studs were like bullies, in her opinion, and she had little use for either of them.

"Hi," she smiled back politely, but not very warmly at all. "Are you looking for directions?"

"I'm looking for something," Mike grinned the way a young man will when he has a high opinion of himself.

The quarterback of the college football team was big and muscular, with a square jaw and handsome face beneath his deliberately unkempt black hair. It didn't occur to Mike that the woman wouldn't find him attractive and he thought she was gorgeous. A little older than he was, like 25 maybe, and looking sweet as hell in her short blue skirt and yellow blouse. Not much of a rack, Mike noticed, but she was tight all over, he could definitely see that.

"Well," Emily sighed theatrically. "I'm afraid I'm just passing through. You'll have to ask someone else for help. Sorry."

Emily started walking again, turning her eyes towards the store front windows and catching the truck's reflection in them. She'd probably have to go inside one of the shops, just to get away from the guy, and she wondered why some people couldn't take a hint.

"Hold, on a second. My name's Mike, what's yours?" the man asked as he pulled his truck to the curb and parked it. "I just want to get to know you a little."

"I'm on my way to meet my husband for lunch," Emily said over her shoulder, frowning as the boy walked quickly to her side. "I'm running a little late."

"I'll walk you then," Mike offered, giving Emily his very best smile. "You're married, huh?"

"Happily," she said. "So, uh ... I think I'll be okay."

"Please? You wouldn't want to get me in trouble would you?" he wondered in a coaxing voice.

"Trouble?" Emily turned her blue eyes on him.

"My momma would whip me good if I let a pretty lady like yourself walk around town alone," Mike said, working up as much charm as he possessed. It was enough for the local girls, the young women just starting college who were flattered by a handsome boy's attention.

"Is that right?" She actually smiled and the boy wasn't that bad, he had a great smile and must have had a lot of practice with it. "Well, you tell your momma you were a perfect gentleman. But I really don't..."

"What's your name?" he asked, ignoring Emily's protest. "At least give me that much. I'll be spending the rest of my life wondering, if you don't."

"Oh," Emily sucked at her cheek. "I couldn't have that on my conscience, could I?"

"I'm sorry," Mike shrugged helplessly. "I just don't get to meet a lot of new people. I'm Mike Setter..." he turned towards her and held out his hand.

"Emily Thomas," the woman said reluctantly and let Mike hold her fingers for just a second.

"Emily," Mike said softly. "That's a nice name. You wouldn't be that new English professor we're getting, would you? At the college?"

"Me? No," Emily smiled at that. "I'm just here for a couple days and ... I really should get going."

"Sure," he nodded. "To meet your husband, right? I noticed you don't have a ring."

"What? Oh..." Emily frowned slightly. She wasn't used to lying and the woman wasn't very good at it.

"That's okay," Mike smiled again as they stood there on the sidewalk. "It's none of my business, but..."

"But what?" She pulled some blonde hair out of her face as a dry wind picked up for a second.

"If your husband doesn't meet you," Mike said slowly. "I'd like to buy you lunch. If that's okay."

"No," Emily smiled. "That's very nice of you, but ... I'll be fine. It was nice meeting you, Mike."

"Yeah, nice meeting you too, Emily," He knew he didn't need to push it any more than he had.

He'd gotten what he needed out of her. She was alone and in town for at least one more night, that meant she was staying someplace and there were only a couple motels in town. Emily Thomas would have a room at one of them, he was sure, and a couple phone calls later he had her room number.

"Two Twelve? You sure, Janice?" Mike gave Roy a thumbs up through the glass of the telephone booth. "What? Yeah, baby ... I told you, next week I'm gonna take you out for something special ... Soon as I settle with Susan, you know..." Mike rolled his eyes " ... I love you too, Jan..." he hung up the phone " ... bitch. Howard Johnson, dude."

"You sure she ain't married or nothin'?" Roy asked and Mike shook his head with a laugh.

"That chick ain't married," Mike said. "She's probably just fuckin' lost or something. We gotta get everybody together if we're gonna do this thing."

"Heh!" Roy nodded eagerly. "We gonna do dat thing! Fuck, that bitch was fine!"

"No doubt," Mike said. "But we gotta bury this one or some people are gonna start asking questions."

"What about that slut? What's her name?" Roy wondered. "She knows you was askin' now."

"Janice?" Mike looked at his friend. "I told her next week I'd take her out for something special."

"So?" Roy narrowed his eyes.

"So, next week we take her out to the canyon and give her something special," Mike laughed as he opened the door of his truck. "That bitch is dumb as dirt."

"Oh shit! We gonna do her too? You got 'em lined up!" Roy laughed as he got in the truck, giving his quarterback a look of admiration. That was why Mike was the quarterback, Roy figured, cause for a white boy he was pretty smart sometimes.

This boy wasn't too bright, Tina sighed, but Deputy Hansen had been the first responder to the scene of Barbara Welch's death.

" ... and she was already out of the pool when you arrived?" Tina asked him, knowing the facts but it was a matter of protocol to ask the questions anyway. You never knew what you might get for an answer, verbal or otherwise, and Tina was watching the man closely.

"Yes ma'am," Hansen nodded, sipping a Coke as he leaned against the front counter. "Old Hank Lawler pulled her out soon as he found her, but I reckon she was already dead."

"Hank Lawler is the maintenance man over at the college."

"Uh, he's a janitor, yeah." The deputy nodded, taking another look at the Ranger's tits and wondering what color her bra was under that white blouse and mustard blazer. Black, he figured, but it coulda been blue.

"Was she clothed?"

"C-Clothed?" Hansen blinked beneath the woman's bright green eyes. "She was wearing, um ... A swimsuit. I guess."

"You guess?"

"I mean, uh ... yeah. She was swimming so..."

"Did you check her for a pulse? Try giving her mouth-to-mouth? What did you do upon arriving at the scene, Deputy?"

"I, uh..." Hansen shrugged. "I called the Sheriff."

"Okay," Tina nodded. "Thank you, Deputy. You've been a real help."

After spending the morning talking to Fiddler and going through the official reports, the last thirty minutes with Hansen hadn't given her anything new. The boy wasn't lying and he was too dumb to be involved in anything more serious than extorting free donuts from the coffee shop. The person she really needed to talk to was Helen and get the original of that file she'd faxed Mahoney's office. But before Tina could do that, she needed the sheriff out of the office.

Unfortunately, Fiddler seemed more than content to baby-sit Vasquez, sitting behind his desk and trying to look busy while he watched her with his beady little eyes. Tina wondered just how nervous the man might be. She went back to the desk Fiddler had put at the Ranger's disposal and Tina looked through the reports and her notes slowly.

There were always clues and after a few minutes Tina found one, or at least another detail to follow up. Barbara's lab work hadn't returned yet and like all small towns in Texas, the coroner had sent his samples off to UT-Dallas Medical Center to be processed.

"TFL, Norris speaking. Can I help you?"

The woman at the other end sounded a little busy and the people at the University of Texas Forensics Lab always were. In addition to being part of the university medical school and supporting an associated hospital, they were contracted to support Texas law enforcement in a scientific capacity.

"Good morning, this is Detective Vasquez with DPS, I'm following up some lab work..." Tina held the line as her call was forwarded once and then twice before she could fully explain to the man on the other end what she was looking for.

"Yeah, we just finished that one up, actually," a young man named Peters said somewhat apologetically. "It was marked routine, so..."

"Right," she cut him off. "Just give me the details."

"Bloodwork was clean, some elevated blood sugar, but no alcohol or drugs. Uh, lets see ... The only real interesting thing is the sample from the lungs was inconsistent with the comparison sample..."

"How's that?" Tina asked. "Just give it to me in English."

"Right, sorry," the man cleared his throat in annoyance, wondering why a routine request had suddenly become a priority. "The water from the lungs contained chlorine, about seven parts per million, but the comparison sample from the swimming pool? I'm assuming. That water showed only three parts per million."

"Chlorine," Tina said. "And the discrepancy is ... significant?"

"Right," Peters agreed. "That's a big difference. The victim didn't drown in the same water. It was probably a swimming pool, yeah, but unless the samples were taken after the pool was drained and refilled and the filters changed..."

"It was a different pool," she said, narrowing her eyes at that.

"Yep," he drawled. "Does that help?"

"I don't know," Tina answered seriously. "What's normal for a swimming pool?"

"Normal? It depends on the system, but usually about 3ppm is what we see around here," Peters shrugged into his phone. "Seven is a lot for a pool, that's more like what we get from kids."

"Kids? Children?"

"Yeah," Peters said and his voice was tinged with something like regret. "We get cases, you know, once a year or maybe twice kids fall into a hot tub or Jacuzzi and..."

"Higher chlorine," Tina nodded. "So she could have drowned in a Jacuzzi and been moved..."

"Sure," Peters agreed. "But ... no alcohol and it's hard for an adult to drown in a hot tub."

"Unless she had help," she said. "Okay. Make sure those reports get copied to the Rangers, attention Mahoney at SCD okay?"

"Ma-hon-ey ... SCD ... got it," Peters said, writing it down. "Anything else I can do for you, Detective?"

"No, that's good work," Tina said. "Thanks." She sat back in her chair, looking over the notes she'd taken and feeling a small surge of excitement.

"Ladies and gentleman, we have a murder," she said under her breath. It wasn't great evidence, but it wasn't bad either. The file Helen had sent showed physical abuse and sexual assault, which led to a strong suspicion of wrongful death, but now Tina had a smoking gun, confirming what she'd already known to be true.

"Hey, Deputy?" Tina leaned against the doorway and Hansen jerked upright, almost coming to attention at the sound of her voice.

"Uh, yes ma'am?" he stared at her guiltily and Tina could imagine what he'd been daydreaming about.

"Is there a Jacuzzi or a hot tub near that swimming pool where the body was found?"

"Y-Yeah..." Hansen nodded dumbly. "There's a training room, thing ... Uh, why?"

"Just wondered," Tina gave him a smile that would probably blot every memory of their brief conversation from his adolescent mind, or so she hoped.

Barbara Welch had been raped and drowned someplace else, probably the training room, then dressed in her swimsuit and tossed into the pool to be found the next morning by the maintenance crew. Deputy Hansen had responded, taken one look and called Fiddler. The sheriff had called the county coroner and conducted an investigation of the scene and concluded death by misadventure. Another accidental drowning in a state that had reported 83 such deaths the year before.

"I'm going for some lunch," Fiddler appeared from his office, looking at Tina. "Care to join me?"

"Oh, no thanks Sheriff," she smiled apologetically. "I need to work on this a little more. I was wondering though, if I could see the file on Lisa Thomas."

"What file?" Fiddler blinked and Tina felt a surge of emotion, both good and bad.

"I was speaking to her sister this morning," Tina said slowly, knowing full well that Fiddler was aware of that. He'd seen them together at the diner. "She told me she filed a missing persons report with your office."

"Oh, the report," he cleared his throat. "Yeah, uh ... Ask Helen to get you a copy. Not much in it, she ... run off, I guess."

"Yeah," Tina nodded.

They'd already discussed Lisa's relationship with Barbara, but the Ranger had been saving her request for the file for an unguarded moment and now it had paid off. The sheriff knew something about Lisa's disappearance and that meant he probably knew everything. Tina had been hoping for good news, but that split-second look of surprise in Fiddler's eyes told her that there wasn't going to be any.

"The hell you mean she's a Texas Ranger?" Dr. Floyd Peterson looked up from his desk and Fiddler shrugged, grabbing a chair and putting his bulk into it.

"Not a real one," Fiddler said, trying to explain the woman's presence as Vasquez had explained it to him. "She's just getting information on how we do business. She's a paper pusher, going to get us more funding, she said."

"What?" The coroner stared at the man across from him. "Rangers don't push paper, Owen. They don't come around looking at how you do business; they are the business. What's she looking at?"

"The Welch case." Fiddler frowned, wondering if that Mexican bitch had been lying and he figured she had.

"That's fucking great." Peterson threw down his pen. "She asked for it, or did you give it to her?"

"She asked for it," the sheriff admitted. "What was I supposed to do?"

"I don't know," the older man pursed his lips and thought about it for a minute while Fiddler sat like an unhappy schoolboy. "All she's got are the official files, right?"

"Yeah," Fiddler nodded.

"What did you do with my original?" Peterson asked, because that had weighing on him for nearly a week.