“Yeah, he’s here,” one officer said grudgingly. “He came in a few minutes ago.” He nodded his head toward a hallway. “Last door on your left, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
Alex gave them a gracious smile she didn’t feel in her heart and walked toward the hallway. She was conscious of the eyes focused on her back. She knocked on the indicated door.
“Yeah?”
Reede Lambert sat behind a scarred wooden desk that was probably as old as the cornerstone of the building. His booted feet were crossed and resting on one corner of it. Like yesterday, he was slouching, this time in a swivel chair.
His cowboy hat and a leather, fur-lined jacket were hanging on a coat tree in the corner between a ground-level window and a wall papered with wanted posters held up by yellowing, curling strips of Scotch tape. He cradled a chipped, stained porcelain coffee mug in his hands.
“Well, g’morning, Miss Gaither.”
She closed the door with such emphasis that the frosted-glass panel rattled. “Why wasn’t I told yesterday?”
“And spoil the surprise?” he said with a sly grin. “How’d you find out?”
“By accident.”
“I knew you’d show up sooner or later.” He eased himself upright. “But I didn’t figure on it being this early in the morning.” He came to his feet and indicated the only other available chair in the room. He moved toward a table that contained a coffee maker. “You want some?”
“Mr. Chastain should have told me.”
“Pat? No way. When things get touchy, our D.A.’s a real chickenshit.”
Alex caught her forehead in her hand. “This is a nightmare.”
He hadn’t waited for her to decline or accept his offer of coffee. He was filling up a cup similar to his. “Cream, sugar?”
“This isn’t a social call, Mr. Lambert.”
He set the cup of black coffee on the edge of the desk in front of her and returned to his chair. Wood and ancient springs creaked in protest as he sat down. “You’re getting us off to a bad start.”
“Have you forgotten why I’m here?”
“Not for a minute, but do your duties prohibit you from drinking coffee, or is it a religious abstinence?”
Exasperated, Alex set her purse on the desk, went to the table, and spooned powdered cream into her mug.
The coffee was strong and hot—much like the stare the sheriff was giving her—and far better than the tepid brew she’d drunk in the coffee shop of the Westerner Motel earlier. If he had brewed it, he knew how to do it right. But then, he looked like a very capable man. Reared back in his chair, he did not look at all concerned that he’d been implicated in a murder case.
“How do you like Purcell, Miss Gaither?”
“I haven’t been here long enough to form an opinion.”
“Aw, come on. I’ll bet your mind was made up not to like it before
you ever got here.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It would stand to reason, wouldn’t it? Your mother died here.”
His casual reference to her mother’s death rankled. “She didn’t just die. She was murdered. Brutally.”
“I remember,” he said grimly.
“That’s right. You discovered her body, didn’t you?”