Page 10 of Outlaw Ridge: Reed
The first was Hilda Merritt, whose daughter had been murdered by Tami and Kip. Second was Corman Pierce. His mother had been victim number two. The third was none other than Jay Warrington, the former dickhead cop who had a serious beef with Hallie.
Reed took out his phone and started a thorough background search on all of them. Hopefully, he’d get a red flag or two that would point to one of them as being responsible for this. Though he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around why the first two would have wanted to follow in Kip’s and Tami’s footsteps and commit a double murder. Being pissed at Luther’s article didn’t seem like nearly enough of a trigger for that.
“Do you have copies of the threats these people made?” Hallie asked him.
“Yes.” Luther handed her a business card with a website link. “I posted them on my blog,” he replied. An answer that clearly didn’t please Hallie.
It didn’t please Reed either. In his experience, threats only fueled more anger and hate. But he used his phone to take a look at the blog.
“You didn’t report the threats to the police?” Hallie pressed.
Luther shrugged. “Didn’t see the need. I just figured they were blowing smoke. Then, I heard about the two new murders, and I wondered…well, I wondered if one of them could have done it.”
“Do you believe one of them could have?” Hallie replied.
Another shrug. “Maybe. Well, not Hilda. She’s eighty-two and barely able to get around. She also doesn’t have the income to hire anyone.”
“Plus, there’s motive,” Reed interjected, voicing what had just been going through his head. “How would killing two people get back at Tami, Kip or you? Why not just go after you if they were pissed about the article you wrote?”
Of course, there’d been more than the two murders in this attack, but Reed wanted to see how Luther reacted.
And there was a reaction all right.
A blank one. They were talking about murder, and yet with Luther’s unruffled expression, they could have been discussing the weather.
“I’m not sure,” Luther said after a long pause. “Maybe someone killed to get people talking about the original murders. You know, like salt in the wounds to those who didn’t stop Kip sooner.”
Luther paused and gave them both a long, slow look. Yeah, there was salt in the wounds all right, and this guy knew it. If that was the case, then Jay was a top candidate since he hated Hallie so much.
“Or maybe someone snapped and wants to make sure their murdered loved one isn’t forgotten,” Luther continued. “A misery loves company sort of thing.”
Both theories were possible, but Reed had another one. “I’m betting your blog readership went up significantly after you did the article on Tami and posted the threats you got because of what you’d written.”
There. He saw it. A quick flash of anger in the man’s weathered gray eyes. A flash that faded as quickly as it’d come. “It did, and I’m thankful for it,” Luther stated. “The more who read my blog, the more who’ll see that Tami is an innocent woman.”
“I doubt that,” Hallie muttered.
Luther got another flash of that anger, and this one was a whole lot worse. “You of all people should know that she is,” he snapped, shifting to Hallie. “Your father’s a manipulative bastard. He’s pure evil. I’ve got statements of the injuries he gave you when you were a kid. Of the way he bullied you. He did those things to Tami, too, only much, much worse.”
He stopped. Just stopped. He clamped his teeth over his bottom lip as if he’d realized he was beginning to sound like a fanatic. Reed could have told him the fanatic label was already there from the article he’d written about Tami.
“Sorry. I get emotional about this,” Luther muttered. “Your mother is a wonderful woman, and she doesn’t deserve what happened to her.”
“Tami is a convicted serial killer,” Hallie pointed out. Her voice was flat, but Reed saw that she was having a struggle to fight back the storm of emotions that were no doubt raging through her.
“A wrongfully convicted serial killer who’ll likely be released on appeal,” Luther argued.
Hallie leaned in and somehow managed to violate the man’s personal space even though the desk was still between them. “Tami’s appeal won’t be successful. I know she’s a killer, and I’m not going to stay quiet about that.”
“Same here,” Reed piped in, earning him a glare from Luther before the man shot to his feet.
“Then, we’ll agree to disagree,” Luther snarled. “You have my contact info.” In contrast to Hallie’s and Reed’s tones, his was clipped and angry. “If you have any other questions, call me.”
The man didn’t quite storm out, but it was close. He couldn’t get out of the office fast enough and practically ran toward the front door.
“He goes on our suspect list,” Hallie said, and Reed couldn’t agree fast enough. “So do the other names he gave us. Yes, even the woman that he thinks might be too old to do this.”
Reed agreed with that as well, and he voiced the theory he had about Luther. “If the appeal works, and your mother gets a new trial, and you and I are dead, then we can’t testify against her. That could tip the scales with a new jury, and she could end up walking.”
