Deadline (Sandra Brown)

schedule.”
    “Okay. I’ll buy that. What else?”
    Dawson pushed back his hair. “This Harriet thing. She’s gonna make my life miserable.”
    “Only if you let her.”
    “She’s sending me to Idaho, for chrissake.”
    “What have you got against Idaho?”
    “Not a damn thing. Nor do I have anything against the vision-impaired. Or hot-air balloonists. But it’s not my story. It’s not even my kind of story. So forgive me if I’m finding it a little hard to work up any enthusiasm for it.”
    “Think you could work up some for a better story?”
    Headly hadn’t asked that casually. There was substance behind the question. So, in spite of his dejection, Dawson felt a tingle of anticipation. Because Headly hadn’t been only his godfather and lifelong good friend, he’d also been his invaluable and unnamed source within the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
    Taking his silence for interest, Headly continued. “Savannah, Georgia, and its environs. Marine Captain Jeremy Wesson, a decorated war veteran, one tour in Iraq, two in Afghanistan. After returning from his last deployment, he retired from the corps, and, by all accounts, went off the rails.
    “Fifteen months ago, give or take, he got tangled up in a messy affair with a married woman, one Darlene Strong. Husband Willard caught them, and it didn’t end well for the illicit lovers. Willard Strong goes on trial for murder the day after tomorrow. Chatham County Courthouse. You should be there to cover the trial.”
    Dawson was already shaking his head.
    “Why not?” Headly asked.
    “Summertime in Savannah.”
    “Look at your calendar. As of today, it’s September.”
    “Still, no thank you. It’s hot down there. Humid. I’d rather go to Idaho. Besides, crime isn’t my specialty. And frankly, I’ve had enough of the military for a while. I don’t want to write about a dead Marine. I’ve been doing that for the past nine months.
    “In fact, maybe Harriet’s assignment is a blessing in disguise. That feel-good story may be just the tonic I need. Something hopeful. Positive. Uplifting. No severed limbs, or blood-soaked fatigues, or flag-draped caskets involved.”
    “I haven’t told you the hook.”
    Sourly, Dawson asked, “What’s the hook?”
    “Police obtained Wesson’s semen off Darlene’s clothing. This, of course, to help make the prosecutor’s case against the cuckolded husband, Willard.”
    “Okay.”
    “So the RANC in Savannah is a Bureau buddy of mine, former New Yorker, big baseball fan named Cecil Knutz.”
    “‘Rank’?”
    “Resident Agent in Charge. Top dog in the resident agency there.”
    “Okay.”
    “Anyway, Knutz saw the report from CODIS. Wesson’s DNA got a hit, a match.”
    “He was already in the system?”
    “He was. Has been for a while, in fact.”
    Headly paused to take a sip of his drink. Realizing that was a tactic used to build suspense, Dawson said, “I’m on pins and needles.”
    He set down his glass and leaned toward Dawson. “Captain Jeremy Wesson’s DNA matched that which we retrieved off a baby blanket found inside the Golden Branch house.”
    That wasn’t a mere hook. It was a grappling hook that found purchase in the center of Dawson’s chest. Dumbfounded, he stared at Headly.
    Headly said, “Before you ask, there’s no possibility of mistake. The match was ninety-nine-point-nine-and-down-to-the-nth-degree identical. In other words, the recently obtained sample and the one from 1976 came from one and the same individual. We got Flora’s DNA that day, too. We know she mothered the child whose DNA was on the baby blanket. And Jeremy Wesson’s age fits. Indisputably, he was Flora and Carl’s son.”
    Dawson stood up, paced a few steps, then turned back to Headly. As though reading the myriad questions racing through Dawson’s mind, he said, “Judging by your expression, I see that I don’t need to spell out the significance of this to you.”
    Although Gary Headly had enjoyed a distinguished career, to his mind all his accomplishments had been overshadowed by what he perceived as his one failure—to bring Carl Wingert and Flora Stimel to justice. It had plagued his career, and now it was contaminating his retirement.
    That was a cruelty that his godfather didn’t deserve, and it made Dawson angry. “This Knutz, why’d he tip you to this?”
    “He knows my interest. Worked with me when I investigated one of their jobs in Tennessee in the late eighties. He’s aware of