Free Cover Your Eyes by Mary Burton Page B

there a reason I should be worried about the DNA test results?”
    “Shit, no. Your daddy ran a clean investigation. Clean as a whistle.” A ragged breath suggested age had stolen some of his fire. “Time has a way of making people forget what we were up against when Annie Dawson vanished in a bloody mess. Those months we searched for her were a nightmare and I don’t want to ever revisit them.”
    “Ms. Wainwright mentioned in one of her many phone messages that Jeb has been asking for DNA testing for years.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means the request came across Buddy’s desk. Why didn’t he have the test done to vindicate his work?”
    The lines of his face deepened. “I know Ms. Wainwright sees an old man who is sick and feeble. But Jeb Jones wasn’t like that thirty years ago. He was a big strong man with a bad temper and a taste for gin. He put his wife in the hospital once and I saw bruises on his boy when we finally arrested Jeb.”
    “Rachel Wainwright hasn’t argued that he was a choir boy.”
    “No one but the Devil himself, could argue the case on Jeb’s character.” Saunders wagged a finger as he always did when he lectured. “He might only have an eighth-grade education but he was street smart then and likely more so now. He’s a pro at twisting the facts so that he looks like the victim. Jeb Jones is no damn victim. Buddy knew it better than anyone.”
    Buddy’s world was black-and-white. You were a good guy or a bad guy and once you landed in either column, you stayed there forever. Deke knew firsthand what it felt like to be judged by Buddy Morgan and to come up short. “I did a search on Jeb Jones’s wife. She’s in a home. Suffered a stroke several years ago. The son still lives in the area.”
    “The boy was ten when his old man was locked up.”
    “No doubt he’d not be much help. But Annie’s husband would remember a lot.”
    Saunders’s frown deepened already-sagging jowls. “Don’t stir up a hornet’s nest, Deke. Leave the Dawson case alone and focus on the active murder cases on your desk.”
    Deke could have pointed out to Saunders that he wasn’t a rookie. He could have said the weekly lectures grew thin. But like always, he held his cards close until a play mattered. “The Simmons case has my full attention.”
    “Any leads?”
    “Still digging. I talked to the bar owner where she sang. I also ran her phone records and a credit check. I can tell you she’d maxed out her credit cards and her landlord was talking about eviction.”
    “If debt were a motive for murder more than half this town would be dead. Did she take drugs?”
    “Clean according to Dr. Heller. She did like to date. A lot. I’ve spoken to several men in her phone address book. All said she was fun but no one had a reason to stick around. One-night stands.”
    “Could any one of those men get pissed enough to kill her?”
    “Very possible. KC secured her computer and has taken it to forensics. Might be data on that as well.”
    “Keep on the Simmons case. I want it closed. What about the Ellen Roberts case?”
    “We arrested a guy she dated. Oscar McMillian. He’s in jail now trying to scrounge bail. I’ll make that arrest stick.”
    “Good.” Saunders didn’t celebrate solved murders because he was too worried about the unsolved ones. “Put your boot on the backs of the lab rats. I want this Dawson shit cleared and out the door.”
    “Will do.”
    As Captain Saunders left, Deke sat and leaned back in his chair. He loosened his tie. The captain was a good cop and he worked hard. When the captain married, Buddy had been his best man and when Buddy died, the captain had been a pallbearer. He was protective of Buddy.
    And it was hard for any cop to take down a criminal and then see him walk. He’d been through it during his undercover days and it never failed to piss him off. Captain was no different.
    And now one of Buddy’s old cases was being questioned. This wasn’t about