Cry Wolf

Chapter Eighteen

Tony Gerrard sat hunched over the small table in the interrogation room like a sullen sixteen-year-old hood in detention. His curly black hair was renegade length, his wide jaw shadowed blue by his beard. The sleeves of his faded denim work shirt had been cut off to reveal bulging biceps adorned with the artistic handiwork of Big Mamou of Mamou's Tattoos fame. His right arm proudly proclaimed him to be 100% Coonass. An alligator lounged on his left, seeming to come to life as he reached for an ashtray to tap off his cigarette. The gator stretched and twisted, all but bellowing before shrinking back into complacency.

In truth Tony hadn't changed a bit in the ten years since he'd dropped out of high school. Physically, he had matured early, reaching his full height of five feet eight and bulking out with muscle the instant his hormones had sprung to life. Psychologically, he hadn't matured at all. His temper was still the volatile and unpredictable creature of an adolescent. He used his penis like a homing device, and his idea of a good time invariably included sports, crude humor, and mass quantities of beer.

He'd been in trouble off and on since junior high, but his trouble had never amounted to much, to his way of thinking-a few smashed cars, the occasional fist fight. Twice he had been hauled in for pushing A

He smiled a little at the memory of her hurling beer cans at him, swearing at him a mile a minute. But the smile twisted into a knot of pain as he reminded himself that A

He stared down at the plain gold wedding band on his left hand, unable to look away from it, unable to stop from twisting it around and around on his finger.

"You can take that off and hock it, Tony," Sheriff Ke

Tony just sniffed and looked away.

"Divorce would have been cheaper," Ke

Tony blinked at the itchy pressure in his eyes, never glancing Ke

"Sure you did. You just spent six weeks in our little parish hotel 'cause of the missus. You had six weeks to get up a good head of steam. You got out, went to pay her back, got a little carried away…"

"I didn't kill her."

"Tell me, Tony, what's it like to wrap a scarf around a woman's throat and choke the life out of her? Did you watch her face? Did you watch her turn color, watch her eyes bug out as she realized the man she married was go

"Shut up."

"Did you like the sounds she made, Tony?"

"Shut up."

"Or did you like it better when she was begging you to stop using that knife on her?"

"Shut up!" Tony exploded to his feet, sending his chair skittering backward on the linoleum. His face contorted with rage, and spittle flew as he shouted, "Shut the fuck up!"

Ke

Tony hit the seat of the chair so hard, it felt like a baseball bat hitting his balls. Another swarm of red and blue dots swirled before his eyes. He swallowed hard and propped his elbows on the scarred table, hanging his head and rubbing weakly at the back of his neck. What was left of his cigarette smoldered in the ashtray, the smoke nauseating him.

Ke

"You're a sad sack of shit, Tony," he muttered, thumbing through the file. "Getting off on this kind of sick torture stuff."

"I didn't do it," Tony whispered, pinching the bridge of his nose. He wanted to cry, and he hated Ke

"Hell, everybody knows you knocked her around."

"But I never would'a done-" He broke off and swallowed hard as the gossip came back to him in an ugly rush. Everyone in town was talking about what those hikers had found. "I never would'a done that. Never."

"You mean, this?" Ke

For one long, terrible second Tony stared at the body of his wife, his brain cataloging the gruesome atrocities-the scarf knotted around her throat, the cuts the knife had made in her breasts and belly and thighs. In that one second the images were forever branded into his memory. The skin, u

"She probably looks worse than when you dumped her body," Ke

Tony swept the pictures off the table with a cry of anguish, then turned and vomited on the floor, his guts wrenching at the images flashing through his head.

"A

Ke

He had wanted Gerrard to be guilty, had honestly believed he could have committed the crime. A confession would have justified what he had just put Tony Gerrard through. It was a hell of a lot more gratifying to torment a guilty man than a grieving husband.

"You're free to go," he said in a low voice, then let himself out of the room.

The next door down the hall opened, and Danjermond walked out looking cool and composed, unaffected by what he had seen through the two-way glass.

"My God, you're a ruthless bastard," he drawled mildly.

Ke

Danjermond glanced at him from under his brows. "You don't think Gerrard is guilty?"

He shook his head as he dug a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and hung it from his lip. "You saw him."

"He could be acting. Or perhaps what we witnessed was abject remorse."

"If he's acting, then he deserves the goddamn Academy Award." He struck a match and cupped his hands around his cigarette as if he were standing outside in a stiff wind. To banish the sour taste and smell that lingered in his senses, he drew the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled through his nostrils. "I got a call in to the sheriff in St. Martin Parish, where they found that last dead girl. A hundred says the same piece of shit did this one."

He tossed his match down on the floor and ground it to shreds with the toe of his boot. "I'll catch the son of a bitch," he swore. "Nobody does this in my parish and gets away with it."

The very corners of Danjermond's mouth curled in a sardonic, unamused smile. "I appreciate your attitude. Killers ru

Ke

He turned and headed for his office. Danjermond fell in step beside him, his stride fluid and graceful beside the sheriff's cowboy swagger. "Our constituents can be grateful you have the sensibilities of a pit bull, Sheriff."

"Yeah, and I'm mean enough to take that as a compliment." He glanced through the window into his office and pulled up short of the door, a headache instantly piercing his temples as he caught a glimpse of Laurel Chandler's profile through the venetian blind. "Shit. This is all I need. She's probably here to tell me Jimmy Lee Baldwin did it."

Danjermond gazed between the slats of the blinds, taking in the feminine lines of Laurel Chandler's face and the determined set of her chin. She sat in the chair beside Ke

Ke

Laurel emerged from her interview with Ke