Never the Crime

by Colin Conway

  “Delma’s not fine,” he said. “I didn’t want to talk with the press over there. Any hint of health issues affects stock prices, and I spend half my week talking investors off the ledge.”

  “Your mom is sick?”

  “We don’t know. The doctors think it might be Alzheimer’s.”

  “Alzheimer’s? She’s barely sixty.”

  “Runs in the family.” Jackson faked a smile. “Something to look forward to.” He thumbed toward the police, who were escorting paparazzi past parting gates. “Called this morning. I guess Mom wandered off sometime during the night. Found her on South Collins in her nightgown, picking up seashells, weaving hydrangea in her hair, didn’t even know her own name. Not a good look for the captain of a Fortune 400 company. Cops brought her home right before you got here, Sentinel on their heels.” He glowered at the press. “Goddamn vultures.”

  “I don’t get it. I talked to her last night. She sounded fine.”

  “That’s the problem with dementia. She vacillates from one moment to the next. Doctor says we caught her condition in the beginning stages, so there’s hope. But the very nature of the illness makes her behavior unpredictable.” Jackson peered across the Intracostal.

  Oz followed Jackson’s gaze out to the sea. Tiny white sailboats lulled on peaceful waters, palm fronds lushing in the soft ocean breeze.

  “Is that why she called me here?” Oz asked. “I mean, it’s a little weird, Jackson. I haven’t spoken to your mom in a while.”

  Jackson sighed. “Rodney.”

  He didn’t need to say more than that.

  There were three Dupree kids, but the only one Oz spoke to with any regularity was Jackson, who oversaw Ten + 1’s finances. He hadn’t seen Jackson’s sister Janelle in ages, and their adopted brother, Rodney, had always been a hard nut. Janelle vanished from the public eye after the scandal. Rodney’s conviction sent Ten + 1 into a PR nightmare for years.

  As she had done with Oz, Delma had gone out on a limb to help Rodney, who had been living on the streets when she found him, just another homeless kid sleeping under the bridge. Instead of opening her checkbook, this time she opened her home. Oz hadn’t known the whole story back then. Rodney had been polite enough to him, a little younger than Jackson and Janelle but sullen, artsy, weird. You could tell something wasn’t right in his head. The rest came out in the papers as they prepped for trial.

  “How is your stepbrother doing?”

  “As well as anyone serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.” Jackson intertwined his fingers, presenting one wrapped around the other, as though reaffirming a special, sacred bond. “Tore me up what happened, but as crazy as it sounds I could understand. In a way. The violence of where Rodney had come from. He never fit in here. No matter how much money Delma threw at him, however many second chances she gave him, Rodney still seemed resentful of the family. What he did to my niece…” Jackson trailed off, taking a deep breath like he was preparing to say more. But he only dabbed at his eyes.

  Oz wanted to respond with something comforting, but what could he say in a spot like that? Facts are facts. Before he could fumble a lame attempt, Jackson recomposed himself and pushed the door open, a cold burst of air conditioning swooshing out with the sunlight that sliced through high cathedral windows.

  “I’m sorry Delma called you all the way out here,” he said. “I told her you were too busy with the awards coming up. Humor her, okay?”

  “What’s this all about, Jackson?”

  “I’ll let Delma tell you the rest herself.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Delma sat up high in a plush, king-sized bed, propped on giant, fluffy pillows but looking clearly uncomfortable as a bevy of busy-bodied nurses and aids poked and prodded, fussing over her, taking vitals, doling out medications, which were sifted and sorted into days of the week, health care micromanaged down to the minute. Oz knew how much she hated being fawned over.

  Delma Dupree was something of an enigma. In business dealings, she enjoyed a no-nonsense, ruthless reputation, the principal architect of the Ten + 1 empire she built from the ground up, having inherited the company in shambles from her father, Big Jack Dupree, a notorious gambler and drinker who’d pissed away most of the family fortune at Gulfstream and Hialeah, two of the biggest horseracing tracks in South Florida. But Delma was equally respected for her philanthropy. She sat on the boards of numerous charities and was forever giving back to the community and those hardest hit by economic inequalities. The students used to call her the Godmother behind her back, a nickname that reflected both her tough-as-nails persona and well-documented generosity.

  Upon seeing Oz, she waved her hand as though it were a magic wand, and the help staff dispersed.

  “Oscar Reyes,” Delma said, assuming the all-business disposition he knew too well. “Get over here. Talk to me.”

  Oz carried a sitting chair past the footboard and spun it around. Delma pushed herself up, smoothed out the spread, folding hand over hand. “Did you see Jackson on your way in?”

  “Yes. He seems to be doing well.”

  “Overprotective of his mother. But, yes, he is a good son.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t made more of an effort to see you.”

  Delma brushed a hand, dismissing the notion much like she’d dismissed the staff. “Don’t be foolish. You’re a grown man on the other side of the country. You have a job and wife to attend to.”

  “A job, thanks to you.”

  “How many times must you bring that up?”

  Oz had to laugh.

  When Oz Reyes went down, sports medicine didn’t enjoy the technology it does today. Doctors gathered what was left of his shredded knee, stapled a few ligaments and tendons together, sutured the wound and sent him on his way, but his playing days were over. The injury had further reaching ramifications. Soon as he was walking again, Oz learned how many people he’d alienated at the University of Miami with his abrasive, cocky, star-athlete attitude, burning bridges with abandon. If he treated his studies as a joke, his personal relationships were a full-fledged comedy routine. With the career-ending injury, all prospective endorsement deals dried up, the agency dropped him. And Oscar Reyes wasn’t cut out for talking points in front of the camera. His future appeared DOA, until Delma, a longtime booster at the university, stepped in and handed Oz the gig at CSN, despite the gross lack of qualifications or questions about his character.

  “Let’s see,” Oz replied. “Most other directors I work with are ex-military, ex-law enforcement. There’s only one ex-baller hobbling on a Frankenstein leg.”

  “I got you in the door. The rest you did on your own.”

  “And I owe you for that.”

  “Yes, you’ve made that perfectly clear.”

  Oz kept thinking of what Jackson had told him. Despite the prognosis, she seemed the same old Delma to him, razor sharp and sardonic, with a succinct East Coast frankness you didn’t find on the West Coast, where candid is often confused for cruel.

  “I take it my son has told you about my condition?”

  Oz nodded, expression betraying obvious concern.

  “I’m not dead yet. Stop being so dramatic. Truth is, I’m fit as a fiddle most days.”

  “Jackson said the police picked you up this morning? That you’d wandered down to the beach in the middle of the night?”

  “Oh, that,” she said, as if the gardener had just informed her a pesky neighbor was complaining about the bougainvillea again. “I went out for some air and must’ve lost track of time.”

  Delma left the subject there, making it clear that the half-assed explanation would have to suffice.

  Out the window, a three-foot iguana lazed in a banyan tree on the edge of the water. In the cavernous bedroom, the lizard was just another massive, framed impression on a gallery’s pristine walls.

  “You’re wondering why I called you here,” Delma said.

  “Jacks
on mentioned it has something to do with Rodney?”

  “It does. But you want to know why I called you.”

  This was Delma. No-holds-barred, no punches pulled. Straight shooting. For all the time Oz spent in SoCal practicing politically correct sensitivity, he missed this kind of curt conversation and someone getting right to the point.

  “A little,” he admitted.

  “You followed the case from California?”

  Oz nodded.

  Rodney’s trial monopolized every tabloid and cable news channel five years ago. Couldn’t have missed it if you tried. Ten + 1 Media took a helluva hit, each branch of the company tree rattled, the aftershock felt all the way to the Pacific. Anyone paying attention could’ve seen Rodney was trouble. Oz wasn’t going to say that to Delma. But considering where he’d come from, his crimes, though startling, shouldn’t have been a total surprise.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you know, Oscar? It will save us time.” This was not a topic he wished to broach with her. Sensing this, she reassured him. “It’s all right. There is no detail of this case, however salacious, with which I am not intimately acquainted.”

  “Rodney was convicted of…sexually assaulting…his step-niece.”

  “There is no ‘step.’ I adopted Rodney, outright. He is my child same as Jackson and Janelle. Juniper was my granddaughter. Rodney, her uncle, blood or not.”

  “Sorry. Rodney…sexually—”

  “You can say ‘rape.’ Rodney was charged, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison for raping and murdering his niece, my granddaughter. No matter what kind of PC language you spin or how you try to sugarcoat it, those were the charges leveled and the sentence given.”

  “I can’t imagine how hard this must’ve been for you and your family.”

  “No, you can’t. But I’m going to fix it.” Delma rang a bell, and one of the girls returned. Delma shook her head, twirling a finger in pantomime. Moments later another smaller Cuban girl entered.

  “Esther, please bring me…that thing…we discussed earlier.” Delma glanced in Oz’s direction, then pointed to her bedside and an empty china cup. “And some more tea. Thank you.”

  Esther closed the doors, sealing them back in the chamber. Delma caught his attention. “How is Tania?”

  “I think you mean Anne.” Tania was Oz’s college sweetheart. She had just started her degree in Miami when he took the job in L.A., and attempts at a long-distance relationship didn’t pan out. In fact, the bar fight that cost Oz his knee had started because of Tania. Not that it mattered now. We all have the one who got away.

  “My apologies. Of course. Anne. How is she?”

  “She’s doing well.”

  “You two thinking of having children?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure? How much time do you think you’ve got?”

  “I’m not that old.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I had Jackson when I was twenty-five. Janelle, a year after that. Garrison, my first husband, God rest his soul, died three months later. Heart attack on the seventeenth hole. I’m sure you see my point.”

  Oz nodded.

  “It made me a better person, being responsible for others. I believe that is what we are put on this earth for—to be of service to others. You keep running around, servicing your own needs, your own wants, you never fulfill your true potential. We must assist one another to grow.”

  “I think everyone knows how much you’ve done for others, Delma.”

  “Tell me, Oscar. Do they still call me the Godmother behind my back?”

  He laughed.

  “Yes,” she said, with a sly grin. “I knew all about that nickname. I always liked it, to be honest. Made me think of the Southern fairy tales my mother used to read to me as a child.”

  Delma gazed out the window, at the iguana in the banyan tree, its long, scaly arms hanging down, tail drooping, body slack like a Salvador Dali painting of clocks melting in a desert sun. Whereas Oz only saw this brainless thing frozen on the early rungs of the evolutionary ladder, no ambition to move up the ranks, Delma’s expression toward the creature seemed to betray an odd pity, almost comradery.

  Esther returned with a folder, passing the contents curtly to Delma. She did so with such poise and grace, he half expected a curtsy before completing the grand exit.

  Delma took the folder, peered inside, rearranged a couple pages, then stacked everything in order, presenting the entire package to Oz like a Bible at a baptism.

  “Well,” she said, “take it.”

  He reached for the file, which had to be an inch thick, and peeled back the cover. The name “Rodney Dupree” jumped out, followed by words like “rape,” “aggravated assault,” and “murder.” Medical and police reports, court orders, assorted legalese. All very official-looking. He closed the folder. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  “I want you to find who really raped and murdered my granddaughter.” Delma cleared her throat, repositioning her hands, one stacked upon the other. “Rodney is innocent.”

  Click here to learn more about Occam’s Razor by Joe Clifford.

  Back to TOC

  Here is a preview from Cutthroat, a crime novel by Paul Heatley, published by All Due Respect, an imprint of Down & Out Books.

  Click here for a complete catalog of titles available from Down & Out Books and its divisions and imprints.

  Part One: Newcastle, 1978

  Chapter One

  There were no pictures on John Riddell’s walls. No framed photographs of family members on the window sills or the electric fire’s mantelpiece. He didn’t own records. He didn’t have a television. There were no books. The paint on the walls was peeling. There was a patch of damp in the top-left corner of the ceiling opposite the front door.

  The only thing close to approaching decoration could be the naked woman lying on the bed, writhing on the crumpled bed sheets, waiting for him to undress.

  There were only three rooms. A sitting room/kitchen. Bedroom. Bathroom. The bathroom stank of mould. John didn’t take care of his home. It looked like he was ready to up and leave at a moment’s notice. Likely, he was. Leave the city the same way he arrived.

  No one knew much about him, other than his appearance and temperament. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and big-knuckled. He was laid back. He took the piss out of people he knew, and those he didn’t. He was calm. Until he wasn’t. And when he wasn’t, no one wanted to be around him. He left chaos the equivalent of a bomb blast. And though people couldn’t be sure when he’d first arrived in Newcastle and started making a name for himself, they knew he was a Geordie, if only through his accent. No one could claim to have gone to school with him. No one had knocked around with him in their youth. No one knew who his parents or extended family were. There were stories that he’d been in borstal, the explanation as to why he was such a mystery man, but John would neither confirm nor deny anything.

  Even the woman on his bed knew little about him beyond his name, appearance, and her attraction for him.

  She wasn’t his girlfriend.

  Wasn’t his wife, either.

  Her name was Mary Irons.

  She was someone’s wife. The only item she still wore was her wedding ring.

  “You gonna take much longer, then?” she said, propping herself up on her elbows.

  John undid the buttons on his shirt, hung it from a hanger on the back of his bedroom door. “Just admiring the view, pet.”

  Mary looked him over in turn. His body was mostly muscle, though a little softer in the midsection. A few scars that looked like slashes from a knife on his left shoulder, and another across his right pectoral. She’d asked about them, the first time. His answer had been simple. “Fighting.”

  “I don’t have all night,” Mary said.

  “We’ve got long enough,” John said. He winked at her, loosened his belt buckle.

  “I like it slow.�
��

  “I know exactly how you like it.”

  She giggled, spread her legs a little wider as he stepped out of his pants. He hooked them through the hanger with the shirt, then climbed onto the bed with her, into her arms and between her legs.

  After, they lay together and shared a cigarette. “I’ve gotta get away in a minute,” John said.

  “See? Telt ye there was a rush.” Mary drew on the cigarette, held it up to his lips.

  “And I told you we had time. And we did.”

  “Who you gotta go see?”

  “Your fella. That’s how I knew there wasn’t any rush.”

  Mary sat up a little. “Shit, where at?”

  “Nowhere near here, divvint worry. I’ll be goin into town.”

  She settled down, the back of her head resting on his scarred shoulder. “Got some business goin?”

  “Could be. Divvint kna yet, but only time he ever wants to see me is when there’s a job in the works. He mentioned anything to you?”

  “He never talks about that stuff with me.”

  “What about yer dad? He ever mention anything?”

  “Nah, nowt.”

  “What about when you were a little girl? Did he regale you with stories of his daring daylight robbery exploits?”

  “Never saw him when I was a bairn. He was usually locked up.”

  “I’m sure you went to visit.”

  “Depended where they had him. Sometimes it was just me mam went down, left us with me grandma for a few days. Whenever I did see him he was never talking about what he’d done. It was all, Divvint worry pet, I’ll be out before you know it.” She deepened her voice in an approximation of her father’s. John had to admit it was a good impression. “And I’ll never get caught again, promise. Aye, that’s what he said. Never promised to go on the straight and narrow so there’d be no excuse to lock him up. Promised never to get caught again.”