“Sort of medium height. Soft.”
“Soft?” she repeated curiously. “Do you mean fat?”
“Not soft that way. I know some real big guys who aren’t soft.” Tucker’s face pinched into a scowl of deep concentration. “He wasn’t fat, but he looked like you could push him over without too much trouble.” Tucker looked at Luke. “Not hard like you, Mr. Danner. Soft.”
“Okay, soft,” Irene said. “Go on, Tucker. What else can you tell us about him?”
“Brown hair.” Tucker appeared to search his memory. “Fancy clothes. And like I said, that fancy car.”
Irene stifled a groan of disappointment. Talk about a generic description, she thought. “Can I assume from the fact that you didn’t recognize him that he was not from around here?”
“No, he sure wasn’t local. Told you, it was the first time I’d ever seen him.” Tucker took a swallo f the hot tea.
They sat in silence for a while. Irene felt her excitement slip away. How would they ever identify Pamela’s visitor with such a vague description? she wondered.
Tucker lowered his mug of tea. “Saw him again, though, not long after that.”
Irene straightened quickly in her chair. She knew that Luke had also gone on high alert although he did not move so much as a finger.
“When did you see him again?” Luke asked very casually.
“The morning after you found her body.”
Irene clutched her mug in both hands. “What was he doing?”
Tucker was befuddled by the question. “Don’t know what he was doing, exactly.”
“Where was he?” Luke asked.
“Outside the municipal building. He got into that big limo with Senator Webb and that pretty lady the ay the senator’s going to marry.”
Irene looked at Luke, hardly daring to breathe.
“Hoyt Egan,” Luke said. “Webb’s aide.”
Twenty-Five
A short time later, Luke stood with Irene on the back porch of the cabin. They watched Tucker Mills shamble off into the darkness of the trees.
“Try not to run away with this.” Luke wrapped an arm around Irene’s shoulders. She was coiled spring tight, every muscle rigid. “Egan may have had a very good reason for driving up here to see Pamela.”
“You heard what Tucker said, they argued.”
“I heard. But that doesn’t mean that he murdered her.” He paused briefly. “Could mean he knows what was on her mind in the last couple of days of her life, though.”
“Yes, it does,” Irene said eagerly. “Maybe they were lovers. Maybe she had ended the relationship, and Egan didn’t take it well.”
“It’s a possibility,” he agreed. “But that’s pure speculation at this point. Furthermore, you’re trying to prove that Pamela’s death was linked to what happened to your folks, right?”
“Yes.”
“Got to tell you, it’s hard to figure how Egan could fit into any scenario involving the deaths of your parents. He’s in his mid-thirties. Not much older than you. He was probably in college at the time. And he’s not from around here, anyway. Doesn’t seem to be a connection.”
“No.” Reluctance was a lead weight dragging down the single word.
He felt like a brute stomping on her conspiracy theories, but he told himself that he was doing her avor, whether she realized it or not.
“Hey.” He tucked her closer against his side. “I’m not saying you’re going off the deep end here. I was with you the other night when someone torched the Webb house, remember? I agree that somethin ery nasty is going on. I’m just not convinced yet that it has anything to do with the past.”
“What’s your theory?”
“Given her history of drug use, I’m starting to wonder if maybe Pamela Webb got involved with some very bad guys.”
“Oh, jeez.” Irene shuddered. “Drug dealers?”
“It’s one possibility. Unfortunately there are a lot more.”
“Such as?”
He shrugged. “Maybe someone used her addiction to try to blackmail or manipulate her.” He hesitated. “Or maybe—”
Irene turned her head very quickly to look at him. “What are you thinking?”
“It occurs to me that a senator’s daughter would be a very useful tool for someone who wanted acces r inside information. Pamela knew the people her father knew. She entertained his associates. Helped organize his fund-raisers. She rubbed shoulders with some of the most powerful people in the country.”
“And she was not just beautiful, she was also sexy” Irene said quietly. “I think it’s safe to say she probably slept with some of those important people.”
“Which opens up even more really unpleasant scenarios.”
“Good Lord,” Irene said. “Do you think Pamela was killed and the house torched because she knew too much? That maybe someone was afraid that she would reveal embarrassing or incriminating information?”
“I don’t know.” He held out one hand, palm up. “At the moment, I’m speculating, just like you.”
“But what about that e-mail she sent to me? I keep coming back to that. She must have had some personal reason for contacting me after all these years.”
“She probably knew that you had become a reporter,” he said, thinking it through.
“If she had something to reveal to the media, she may have contacted you because she felt she could trust you.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I work for a small-town paper. In Glaston Cove, the biggest story at the moment is the debate over whether or not the city council should approve a new dog park. After all those year f working for her father, Pamela must have had lots of major media connections. I can’t see her coming to me if she had some great scandal to reveal.”
“Okay, let’s assume for the moment that she contacted you 1 because she had a personal reason to do so.”
“That personal reason involved information concerning the deaths of my parents.”
Irene folded he rms very tightly beneath her br**sts. “I know it did, Luke. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it does look like she might have come to Dunsley to hide out for a while, eek at least.”
“Perhaps she felt safe here because of her long-standing connection to the town. She knew everyone,