Seeing Red(35)

They drove past the municipal park where tree branches were becoming glazed with ice.

“Remember that shindig the town threw for your daddy? Right out there,” Glenn said, pointing through the driver’s window. “Citywide barbecue on the Fourth of July. Texas Tech band. Banners. You remember?”

“Yes.” He remembered it well because he’d been required to miss a Little League championship game in order to be standing beside The Major when he received a key to the city and a plaque from the town council. Missing that stupendous event hadn’t been an option.

But he doubted a stroll down memory lane was the purpose of this outing that required no interruption. “What’s up, Glenn?”

“I heard Kerra Bailey had a visitor last night. Bearing pretty pink flowers.”

It came as no surprise to Trapper that Glenn knew about it. Deputy Jenks would’ve reported back to him. Besides, Trapper hadn’t exactly made a secret of the hospital visit.

“Actually, the flowers were red with a butt-ugly bow. I bought them on special at QuikMart when I went in for a six-pack.”

Glenn kept driving, saying nothing.

“I had watched the interview,” Trapper said, trying not to sound defensive. “I wanted to tell her what a good job she’d done.”

“Okay. What about the time before, when you went back after you and I had left the hospital together?”

In response to the implied hand-slapping, Trapper stretched his legs out as far as he could in the confined foot well and drank from his cup of coffee with affected nonchalance. “The doctor ran us out before I’d heard what I wanted to hear.”

“What was that?”

“Whether or not she saw the men who shot The Major.”

“You ask her?”

“Yes.”

“What’d she say?”

“She said no.”

Glenn stopped at a traffic light, reached for his thermal coffee container in the cup holder, and eyed Trapper over the cap of it as he drank from the spout. “You didn’t tell me you’d talked to her.”

“I figured you had enough on your mind.”

“When I have enough on my mind, I’ll let you know. Okay?”

Trapper made a gesture. Okay.

Glenn returned his thermos to the cup holder. “She share anything with you last night?”

“A glimpse of inner thigh, but it was by accident.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know what you mean, but, no, she didn’t share anything.”

Glenn signaled a left turn and executed it with care. “She tell you her bag is missing?”

Caught unaware, Trapper retracted his legs and set his cup back in the holder with care, but kept his tone casual. “What bag?”

Glenn described the bag as “about so-so,” and took his hands off the steering wheel to approximate the dimensions. Trapper knew the bag.

“Most of yesterday was spent going through the chain of custody,” Glenn was saying, “but the upshot is that it’s unaccounted for, and nobody claims to have any knowledge of it.”

He shrugged before continuing. “Expensive and belonging to a TV celebrity would make it worth stealing, so it’s conceivable that somebody at the hospital lifted it. You know what the ER’s like. But I had a deputy review the videos from hospital security cameras, and nobody was captured toting it out. Besides, the EMTs who brought her in said they never saw it. Logical conclusion, the perps have it.”

“What’re your detectives saying?”

“About the bag?”

“The investigation in general.”

“I’ve read the highlights of Kerra’s two interviews with them.”

He recounted them to Trapper, and they matched the highlights that Kerra had given him.

“But have there been any breakthroughs?” Glenn said. “No. Seven people were inside the house that afternoon and evening, and that’s not counting the two from the café who delivered the fried chicken dinner. The production crew had been meandering around all afternoon, hauling equipment in and out, stringing cords from outlets in the back rooms to the living area. They were in practically every room of the house at one time or another.”

“Meaning there’s enough trace evidence in there for a hundred cases.”

“Right. What we collected, we sent to the Tarrant County’s SO lab. They have better equipment than smaller departments like mine, but that also keeps them busy and backlogged. It could take several days before they even look at the samples.”

Trapper understood the frustration of wanting answers and having to wait for them while perpetrators remained unknown and the trail grew colder. “Nothing else shook loose?”

“From the crime scene? Not really. This shit,” Glenn said of the weather, “hadn’t started yet. The ground was dry, hard to get impressions off dry and rocky ground. I’ve got personnel working around the clock, and now the Rangers have joined the party. Waltzed in and said they wanted to question Kerra Bailey.”

Trapper didn’t tell him he already knew that. He leaned back in his seat and stared thoughtfully out the window. “I had her talk me through it.”

“Reckoned you had. That’s why I called this meeting. You had no authority to do that, Trapper.”