Page 112 of Sting

“How’d he die?” Shaw asked.

“Gunshot to the head. Left frontal lobe. Close range.”

“Suicide?”

“No gun found near the body, no powder on his hands.”

“Homicide then,” Shaw said.

“Fair bet.”

Wiley asked if there had been signs of a struggle.

“No. He had cash and one credit card on him, so robbery doesn’t appear to have been the motive. Morrow said it looked like the killer walked up to the open window and popped him.”

“At home?”

“Driver’s seat of his pickup truck. He’d pulled off the highway onto a side road.”

“What for?” Shaw asked.

“Nobody knows.”

“To take a leak?” Wiley ventured.

“No evidence of that. Morrow doesn’t think he got out of the truck.”

Shaw asked him about a shell casing.

“None found. No other bullet, either. Looks like the shooter only fired once. With intent.”

Shaw thought on that and almost missed Hickam’s saying, “But Morrow has a possible motive. The bartender—” he paused and looked at Shaw in the rearview mirror “—he’s the one who put us onto you.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. He’s former military, right? Saw action?”

“He mentioned Iraq.”

Shaw nodded. He’d noticed the bartender’s scrutiny of him and Mickey, which had been surreptitious but sharp. Nothing made a man more observant than a war zone where the enemy didn’t wear a uniform.

Hickam said, “When the bartender heard about Royce’s murder, he immediately called Morrow. Told him Royce was in the bar last night for hours, acting like a celebrity, knocking back whiskeys like they were Kool-Aid.”

“Was his ol’ lady with him?” Wiley asked. Turning to Shaw, he added, “He had a live-in who ragged on him.”

Hickam said, “She was there, all right, and did more than rag on him. They got into it. Put on a floor show for the crowd, the bartender said. She stormed out with two girlfriends. No sooner had she left than Royce started tangling tongues with another girl. Around midnight, he and the newbie staggered out together. All this has been corroborated by the witnesses they’ve been able to locate.”

“What does Royce’s ol’ lady have to say about it?” Wiley asked.

Hickam told them that Morrow himself had gone to pick her up at her place of employment. “She oversees the paint department in a big-box store. Morrow said she dropped to her knees and started wailing when he broke the news. Said her shock and tears looked genuine, but he brought her in anyway. She swears she didn’t see or speak to Royce after leaving the bar.”

“She lawyer up yet?”

“No, but he sent deputies to round up the two friends who drove her home last night. They were questioned separately, and their stories match hers. They took her back to the apartment she shared with Royce where they killed a couple bottles of wine toasting the good riddance of him. Around four a.m., the friends decided they were too drunk to drive home, so they crashed there at her place and got up this morning barely in time to drag themselves to work.”

“What’s Morrow’s read on her alibi?” Wiley asked.

“He tends to believe it.”

“I do.”

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