Every Deadly Suspicion

Prologue

PROLOGUE

DECEMBER 1990

“Joe, I’m pregnant.”

Those three words had set Joe Keyes’s world spinning. The prospect of becoming a father changed his perspective on life. He and Paula had been married for two years and never talked about having kids. When she told him four days ago that she was pregnant, he’d fainted, cutting his head open when he fell.

Later at the hospital, while the doctor stitched him up, Joe felt as if the world had shifted, and he was leaning over the precipice of an abyss. If he pulled himself upright, he’d be the husband and father Paula needed. If he didn’t, if he went back to cooking meth, he’d fall straight down into the abyss. And the abyss was bottomless.

“You can’t go to jail again, Joe. What will I do with a baby if that happens?” Paula had pleaded with him.

She was right. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I do not want to go to jail again.”

It was a cold December in California, and Joe could see his breath as he hurried along the path. Around him loomed snow-covered pines, branches drooping under the weight of new powder. The place he and Paula rented sat at the edge of the forest, and his favorite shortcut wove through the trees. He was on his way home to give Paula some news. It was the classic good news/bad news. He had a plan, and once he explained, she’d have to see that it made sense.

Since Paula had told him about the baby, Joe did a lot of thinking. As he adjusted to the idea, he liked it. At first, Joe hoped for a boy. He’d be able to teach a boy to be a good man. He’d certainly make sure his son got past the sixth grade. Yes, Joe would raise a good, strong boy who people would respect.

His stomach churned with butterflies when he considered the second option. What on earth could he teach a little girl? He considered a daughter. She’d be pretty, like Paula, with long, soft chestnut hair and warm green eyes the color of priceless emeralds. Eyes that would make a fella’s heart stop.

I’ll protect her, I’ll provide for her, and I’ll keep her safe. She’ll grow up smart and strong, and she’ll be a daddy’s girl. He smiled at the thought. He didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl. He just wanted to be a good dad, not like the man who’d raised him. That guy had been drunk all the time and rarely home. No, Joe would not be like his dad.

He arrived at home and hurried into the warmth, through the kitchen and into the living room. Paula sat on the couch with a book, bundled up in a blanket.

“I’ve got news.” He sat on the coffee table in front of her.

“You got a job?” Her eyes sparkled with hope.

He tilted his head. “Good news and bad news. Yes, I got a job.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“It won’t start full-time until spring. Ben Hodges hired me to do landscaping. It’s only odd jobs right now, like clearing driveways and stuff.”

“What will we do until then?” Her gaze darkened.

He held up both hands. “I’ve got a plan. Hear me out. I’ve still got the trailer. No one knows about it, not even Blake and Sophia.” He threw his partners into the mix because sometimes Paula complained to him that they got too big a cut when Joe did all the work. “I’ll cook one last batch of rocks. If it’s just us, and I don’t have to split anything with them, I should make enough money to tide us over.”

Surprisingly, Paula didn’t object right away. He could tell she seriously considered the idea, tapping on the book in her lap with a fingernail while she thought. “Promise you’ll quit for good?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Two days later, Joe finished his last batch. He figured in his head that the amount of meth he’d made should net him about twenty grand. He broke it up into small rocks to fill individual packets: quarters, eight balls, and teeners. The quarter was the smallest and cheapest, weighing in at a quarter ounce; the eight ball the biggest at 3.5 grams. He weighed each bit and packed everything into separate little baggies. Once finished, he filled his backpack with the product.

Stretching, looking around his favorite kitchen, he admitted it felt good to be done. He shuffled around the empty battery-acid container and ignored the putrid pile of residue that accumulated during the cooking process. He’d let it all pile up inside instead of packing some of it outside.

The trailer was toast when he finished today. It was all going to burn.

He ran his hand through his hair, trying to clear his thoughts. It was late afternoon; he’d been busy here all day inhaling noxious fumes. Cooking meth did nothing to help a man think straight. Stopping now would be a good thing. When his child was born, Joe wanted a clear head and a clean slate. He slung the backpack over his shoulders and stepped toward the door.

Movement outside the sliver of a window next to the front door caught his eye and he froze. Craning his neck, he peered through the slit.

There it was again.

Stiffening, his heart rate spiked and his pulse pounded. No one else should know about this place. Not even Blake and Sophia.

He never had trusted them with his cooking spot. Blake had a big mouth, and he hung out with untrustworthy dweebs. Joe tiptoed to the bigger window, peeled back a bit of the foil that blacked out the light, and eyeballed what he could of the outside terrain. On the far right, he saw a blue hood and car door. A Jeep. Only a four-by-four would get up here. Chase Buckley drove a blue Jeep.

Joe had been betrayed.

Somehow Blake and Sophia had found him. And they told Chase.

Sure enough, Chase came into view. He walked to the front of the Jeep and stood, staring at the trailer, hands on his hips. Buckley’s presence threw Joe for a loop. The guy’s family practically owned the whole county, cops included. What did he want here?

“I know Joe’s in there.” Blake stepped up to Chase’s side.

“Is he armed?”

It took a minute for the second voice to register. It wasn’t Blake; it was geeky Marcus Marshall of all people. Joe caught Marshall flirting with Paula once and punched him out. A total loser, he hung out with Buckley purely for protection.

“Naw, Joe wouldn’t be dumb enough to have a gun,” Blake said.

Joe slapped his forehead. Marshall. Joe remembered seeing the geek at the 7-Eleven when he’d picked up some water. Marshall followed him.

That’s what Joe got for not being more careful. All he was thinking was that he’d be done with this for good. They’d found him and they’d want a cut of what he’d just cooked. He couldn’t go back to Paula and tell her he’d lost half of the money from this batch. Now what was he gonna do?

Muttering under his breath, Joe tried to figure a way out.

“We know you’re in there, Joe,” Chase called out. “Come on out. I’ve got a proposition for you. It could make us both a lot of money.”

Joe looked around the trailer’s kitchen, which had served him so well. He’d done a lot of stupid things in his life, but getting involved with Chase would be the stupidest. The guy was a loose cannon, a wild card, and Joe wanted no part of the spoiled, rich jerk.

“Joe, we found you. Other people will, too.” Sophia spoke now.

“You’ve been holding out on your partners,” Blake yelled. “You deserve to be spanked.”

“We’ll forgive you. But the only way out is to make a deal with us.” Chase again.

There was another way out. Joe already had planned to destroy the kitchen. The people outside would witness the destruction. The booby trap was dangerous for those standing too close to the trailer, maybe even deadly. Joe refused to consider the consequences. He didn’t invite them here. He flicked the booby-trap switch and hurried for the back of the trailer. With all the caustic chemicals, it would not take much to level the place.

He lifted a hatch in the floor and dropped to the ground as he heard the front door get kicked in. Lying flat, his breath fled as the frigid air hit. He pushed himself out from under the trailer, stood as soon as he could, and then ran. Slipping and sliding in the thin layer of snow on the ground, Joe didn’t dare look back.

He’d just reached his motorcycle when the trailer exploded. Joe flinched and looked back, saw the plume of smoke billowing. He shivered in spite of the exertion. At least Blake and Sophia were together. He could care less about Chase and Marshall.

Joe collapsed in a fit of coughing. That always happened after he cooked and then came out into the fresh winter air. For a minute he struggled for breath, his lungs burning.

One day all this cooking would be the death of him.

Slowly his breath returned to normal, and Joe hopped on the bike and sped away, heading for Dry Oaks, Paula, and his new life.

DEA Agent Gilly surveyed the burned-out trailer site. In the week since the explosion and fire, all the evidence had been collected by local police. Brett kicked through what remained in case they’d missed anything important. He found nothing. Rubbing his hands together, he regretted not having worn gloves.

The explosion was textbook meth-lab booby trap. Gilly could see it in his mind’s eye—the cooker in the trailer was surprised, his lab had been discovered. He flipped the trap switch and fled as the lab blew.

Tuolumne County was fortunate the fire had been knocked down quickly. Light snowfall and cold temperatures had helped. Deep in the forest, on county land, the trailer fire could have caused lots more damage. As for the two people injured, they were lucky as well. Sophia Carson got the worst of it, with second- and third-degree burns on her hands and arms and a serious case of smoke inhalation. Blake Carson was barely singed.

Deputies arrested him at the hospital where his wife was admitted for burns and smoke inhalation. They didn’t believe his story, and because of his record, they wanted to charge him with the lab and the fire. He’d been in custody during their investigation, but ultimately they had to kick him loose because they didn’t have enough evidence to hold him over for trial.

He was guilty, though. Gilly’s instinct told him that. Carson had a rap sheet filled with drug crimes. He’d claimed he and his wife had wandered upon the trailer while hiking and made the mistake of opening the door. Neither one was dressed for hiking, and no hiking trails appeared anywhere near the trailer. The Carsons were driven to the hospital by Chase Buckley, who said he was in the area trying out his four-wheel drive. He heard the explosion, drove over to investigate, and rescued them.

Gilly didn’t believe any of them.

He hated liars and he hated meth. Somewhere in this county his little brother had bought the first dose of meth that hooked him. Now he couldn’t kick the habit, his life was wasted. Gilly was on a mission to put as many cookers out of business and in jail as possible. This burned-out trailer was half the prize—it would no longer produce—but he had to find the cook and put him behind bars.

There was evidence that someone else had been at the scene and fled. Not far from where the trailer was parked, tire tracks were found from a motorcycle. The bike had left in a hurry, digging a deep rut. The rut froze and left a perfect track.

Buckley and the Carsons knew more than they were saying, Gilly was certain. He also had a hunch that the cooker was Joe Keyes. For Gilly, it was simply putting two and two together. Keyes and Blake Carson were known associates. They’d been arrested twice together in the past. Keyes was known to own a motorcycle, but so far, the local cops had not been able to locate it. Gilly had met Sheriff Peterson, and he had to wonder how hard the guy had searched. He didn’t appear to be very motivated.

The two closest towns to the trailer’s location were Twain Harte and Dry Oaks. Carson and Keyes stayed in Dry Oaks. Buckley’s family owned most of Dry Oaks.

While Gilly couldn’t figure how Buckley fit in the puzzle, his thoughts drifted back to his interview with Keyes the day before. He’d found him at the small one-bedroom cabin he and his wife shared. Surprisingly, neither Keyes nor his wife had the look of drug users. Keyes was tall and lanky with a bushy handlebar mustache. His eyes were clear and his teeth good. Meth often destroyed the teeth of users. Keyes’s hands were the only thing that gave him away. They were rough, stained, and scarred, most likely from the caustic chemicals he’d worked with.

Paula Keyes was easy on the eyes. A brown-haired classic beauty, almost elegant—until she opened her mouth. Then you saw the hardness in the woman. She’d be difficult to live with, Gilly thought. He concentrated on Joe, but Paula stayed in the room, arms folded, watching the interview while she leaned against the kitchen counter.

They both admitted they knew the area of the forest where the trailer fire had occurred, but that was all they would admit.

“Joe, you’ve been arrested with Carson, so don’t pretend like you don’t know the name.”

“He’s bad news.” Keyes looked away and gave a disinterested shrug. “I stay away from bad news.”

“He wasn’t in the forest hiking.”

“You know everything. What was he up there doing?” Keyes smirked.

Gilly looked him in the eye and knew that behind the bravado was fear, and guilt. Keyes was his man. If only there were enough evidence to get him in an interview room.

“Cooking meth with you.”

Keyes forced out a nervous chuckle. Then his wife stepped in.

“Joe was here with me. I just found out I’m pregnant. We were celebrating. If you had anything on him, you’d arrest him. But you don’t, so leave now. Please.”

Gilly didn’t believe the story of domestic bliss. He decided that Keyes would be his project. Heaven knew the DEA didn’t have the manpower to cover all the Northern California forest and meth cookers and marijuana growers therein, but he could cover one person he was certain was guilty.

He’d be all over Keyes, that was for sure.