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“For crying out loud. Isn’t it obvious that he was listening in on the phone and overheard that we were on our way here? He cleared out. Pure and simple.”
“I’m afraid it’s neither pure nor simple,” Perkins said. Speaking directly to Elle, he said, “Much more serious than this morning’s vanishing act is last night’s. After tampering with and lifting evidence, he left the scene of a double homicide, and so did you. The deputies’ service revolvers are missing. Did you take them?”
Elle nodded dumbly.
“Where are they?”
“One in each bedroom. Calder insisted I keep one handy.”
“Are they loaded?”
Realizing that the gravity of her situation extended beyond Calder’s skipping out on her again, Elle gave another nod.
Perkins turned to Glenda. “Do you know the car’s make, model, and license number?”
She produced the information sheet from its drawer and handed it over. “Call the guy at the bottom of the page. He’ll know all that.”
Perkins said to Compton, “I’ll put out an APB.” He moved to the far side of the room and got on his phone.
Elle felt as if the ground were shifting beneath her and that at any moment she might plunge into a fathomless sinkhole. She asked Compton, “Are you going to arrest me?”
“Are you going to cooperate?”
“If I can.”
“Did you see Mr. Hudson this morning?”
She hesitated. They hadn’t fallen asleep until dawn, so, technically she had seen him—all of him—this morning, but she shook her head. “Glenda’s call woke me up. I guess Calder picked up the kitchen extension at the same time and overheard what she told me. It does appear that he then left in a hurry. He took the laptop.”
She indicated the desk nook where a half-full cup of coffee had been abandoned. “Before you got here, I checked the utility room. His jacket is gone, and so are his boots.” Her voice went thready on the last few words.
“When did you last see him?” Compton asked.
Again she sidestepped. “After Glenda left us last night—”
“Which I regret. I should have known better. I had a gut feeling all along about—”
Compton held up her hand to shush Glenda. “Go on, Elle.”
“We went to our separate rooms. I was keyed up, couldn’t sleep. Actually, I was a bit afraid.”
“Of Hudson?”
Elle looked at the detective with dismay. “What an unfounded and appalling question. Why would you even ask such a thing? I can’t explain Calder’s behavior this morning, but last night he risked his own life in order to protect mine and was deeply disturbed because he couldn’t protect Dawn.
“I wasn’t afraid of him. I was frightened because the suspect you’ve failed even to identify is still out there,” she said, making a broad sweep with her hand, “and is bent on killing us. I was under the same roof with two men who were gunned down. Don’t you think my fear was justified, at least a tad?”
Compton looked chagrined but didn’t apologize. “Please go on.”
Elle had to think back to where she’d left off. “Unable to sleep, I turned on the television and saw all the news coverage. I went to Calder’s room, woke him up, and told him about Mr. Whitley. We were both disbelieving. How is Dawn?”
“Not good. You know she was transported to a hospital here.” Elle nodded. “Perkins and I went to see her as soon as we got back to Dallas from the safe house. By that time, a police chaplain had already told her about her husband. She was devastated, barely coherent, but it was crucial that we question her about what went down at the safe house.”
“And?”
“She pretty much confirmed what Calder had told me over the phone, although she didn’t know that Weeks had been killed. She witnessed Sims being fatally shot. That’s when she tried to escape.”
“Did she see the shooter, the car, anything?”
