Prime Suspect

by A. W. Gray

  PRIME SUSPECT

  A. W. GRAY

  PRIME SUSPECT

  A. W. GRAY

  PRIME SUSPECT

  Copyright © Gray Matter, Inc., 1992

  First ebook copyright © 2013 by AudioGO.

  All Rights Reserved.

  978-1-4821-0179-9 Trade

  978-0-62460-643-4 Library

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Daniel Malcolm Gray and John Edward Gray,

  3.2 college material. From the old man, who, when he was in college,

  thought that 3.2 was Oklahoma beer.

  Other eBooks by A. W. Gray

  The Best Defense (as Sarah Gregory)

  Bino

  Bino’s Blues

  Capitol Scandal (as Sarah Gregory)

  In Defense of Judges

  In Self Defense (as Sarah Gregory)

  Killings

  Lethal City

  The Man Offside

  Poisoned Dreams

  Public Trust (as Sarah Gregory)

  Shares (as William Gray)

  Size

  Trombley’s Walk (as Crosland Brown)

  Venom (as Jeffrey Ames)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Preview of Killings, by A. W. Gray

  1

  On the Third of June, Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-three, J. Percival Hardin III graduated from Berlyn Academy in Fort Worth, Texas, in the upper third of his class. There were forty-nine graduating seniors. The entire baccalaureate assembly, relatives and all, filled less than half of Landreth Auditorium on the TCU campus while a Van Cliburn protegé played “Pomp and Circumstance” on a concert grand piano. The graduating class had voted to forgo the traditional caps and gowns; the men wore plum tuxedos while the female seniors made do with the same formals they planned to wear to the following month’s Debutante Ball.

  Ross Monroe, whose daughter Marissa was a Berlyn senior, held the post-baccalaureate get-together at his home. The Monroe digs overlooked the seventeenth fairway of Colonial Country Club, and inside the mansion were nine bathrooms and a sixty-foot den. A parlor ensemble from the Fort Worth Symphony provided the music. Percy Hardin got high on Purple Passion, which was grape juice mixed with 180-proof Everclear, and rejoiced over his graduation present from his father, which was a brand-new yellow Grand Prix. He danced every dance save one with Marissa Monroe; the lone dance without Marissa he endured with her mother, Luwanda Monroe the hostess. During a break in the music, Marissa took Percy by the hand and led him outside. The couple strolled along stone pathways through the gardens, talking of college plans while they gazed upon azaleas and impatiens in livid shades of red and yellow and blue, and finally sat down together in the vine-shielded gazebo. There Marissa rewarded Percy with her own graduation present, a blow job which curled his toes into knots.

  On the same Sunday, June 3, 1973, and in the same city of Fort Worth, Texas, Lackey No-Middle-Name Ferguson graduated from Richland High, 427th in his class. Lackey’s baccalaureate took place in the Tarrant County Convention Center, which boasted the only auditorium in the county large enough for the 736 Richland seniors along with parents, siblings, current wives and husbands of parents, and children of some of the seniors, legitimate and otherwise. The class wore gray caps and gowns rented from Arnold’s on the Loop for twenty-six dollars plus a fifty-buck security deposit. The New York Philharmonic Orchestra played “Pomp and Circumstance,” though there was quite a lot of static on the convention speakers, and the tape, which was rerecorded from a pirated cassette, lacked a bit in the quality department.

  Mr. Hale, the Vice Principal and Chief Disciplinary Officer at Richland High, called the men of the graduating class aside just prior to the service. “Look, guys,” he said, “this may be the end of the line for you, but it’s old hat to me. Every year the same shit, so listen up. We’ve got three thousand people out there, three thousand hardworking folks that came down here to give their little dumplings a send-off, most of them tickled to death „cause after today they don’t have to support you any more. They deserve a nice ceremony. So what I’m saying here is, the first guy I catch playing grab-ass in line, I’m tearing up his diploma and he can just figure on having to fuck with me again next year. Any questions?”

  The baccalaureate itself went off pretty smoothly, though Lackey had a hard time accepting his diploma with a straight face after receiving a well-timed goose from Ronnie Ferias just prior to Lackey’s walking across the stage. And a secretly pregnant girl named Lucy Martin retired from the service with a bout of morning sickness and had to get her sheepskin by mail. The highlight came shortly after the service ended, when the fathers of the valedictorian and salutatorian went after it with broken beer bottles in the parking lot.

  Lackey Ferguson’s graduation gifts, which came in the form of cash from uncles and aunts, with ten bucks kicked in by his father, totaled fifty-two dollars. He spent part of the money on a six-pack of Lone Star Beer and the balance at the Jackson Hotel, a whorehouse on South Main.

  The following day, while Percy Hardin completed his acceptance letter to Princeton, and while Lackey Ferguson nursed his hangover in the US Army Recruiter’s office, the Texas Education Agency entered both young men on a percentage-of-high-school-grads statistics ledger. Aside from their names on the same TEA printout, the two had nothing in common at that point in their lives.

  2

  Merlyn Graham, whose opinion it was that the only bad loan decisions were the result of bad information, and who attributed his success to prudent use of his time, couldn’t figure out who’d screwed up and sent this customer in. The young guy was obviously flying by the seat of his pants without the slightest idea what the business world was all about.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Graham said. “Our people couldn’t show you how to fill out the application?”

  The young man fidgeted, then stood and offered the application form across Graham’s desk. “That’s not exactly it,” the young guy said. “No, everybody was really helpful, it’s just that none of this applies to me.” He seemed earnest enough, around thirty-five with a self-confident way about him, and Graham thought that if the young man would dress in a suit instead of faded jeans, hard-toed lace-up shoes, and an off-white T-shirt, he wouldn’t make a bad impression at all.

  Graham put on his glasses, snugged the caramel-colored plastic frames up on his nose, shot his snow-white cuff, and pretended to study the form carefully. Rudeness was something that Merlyn Graham wouldn’t tolerate in his people, and he believed that courtesy began right up there with the man in charge. “Well, you’re not showing much information here,” Graham finally said.

  “Hey, it’s not that I „m being hard to get along with.”

  The young guy settled back and crossed his legs. “It’s just that there are a bunch of questions on there that I don’t have any answer to.”

  Graham was beginning to understand why the people out front h
ad referred the customer. A good-looking guy like this would be one that the loan officers (particularly the token female who’d just come on board) wouldn’t have the heart to turn down. No matter, the buck at Ridglea Bank stopped with Merlyn Graham. “Your middle initial is „X’? What’s that, Xavier, or . . . ?”

  “It doesn’t stand for anything. Lackey X. Ferguson. See I was in the army. If you don’t have a middle initial, half the time you don’t make payroll. So I added the X.”

  “I see,” Graham said. The far wall in Graham’s office was plate glass; visible beyond Lackey X. Ferguson were secretaries typing, loan officers loaning, and rows of paying and receiving windows. Look busy even if you’re not, was Graham’s motto. “Well, say, Mr. Ferguson—”

  “Lackey. Last names make me nervous, tell you the truth.” Lackey X. Ferguson had a full head of center-parted brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. His gaze was steady and his manner of speaking;, Graham had to admit, was straightforward and pretty impressive. Graham instinctively liked the guy, but reminded himself that liking someone had nothing to do with a loan decision. Letting one’s feelings interfere was a sure way to get burned in the long run.

  “All right, Lackey then. I’ve got to tell you that your name and address by themselves don’t give us much to go on. Not for a loan of a hundred thousand dollars. I’m not familiar with this street where you live. Is it . . . ?”

  “North Richland Hills. You know, on the far north side.”

  Christ, North Richland Hills. Predominantly blue-collar with a few department store clerks and school teachers thrown in. “That’s another problem, as I see it,” Graham said. “Ridglea Bank is a long way from home for you. Here we service mostly westside folks. Have you tried one of your banks over there?” Graham was getting just a tad nervous, picturing a conversation he’d had with a fellow CEO at the Petroleum Club. Seems a person such as this young guy had cornered an officer at NCNB recently on the pretext of getting a loan, then had pulled a gun and robbed the place. Christ, could this be the guy?

  “No, I . . .” Lackey Ferguson swept the room with his blue-eyed gaze. Could be that he was only nervous, but he might be casing the joint as well. “You see,” Ferguson said, “I didn’t even know I was going to need the loan until this morning. A guy sent me here.”

  A referral? Graham flipped to the reverse side of the form. Oh. He sat up straighter, his attitude friendlier. “I should have noticed. Have you known Percy Hardin long?”

  “I just met him. I saw his ad in the paper.”

  “What kind of an ad?”

  “Construction. He wants to build a bathhouse which is twice the size of the place I live in. But hey, if these rich guys over here want to piss their money off, who am I to say? I just build things.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Graham said. “You’re looking for an interim construction loan. I’ve got to tell you, Lackey, Mrs. Hardin was by and showed me the plans last week, and I don’t think you’re wanting to borrow enough money. The quote I saw on the work was a hundred and a half.”

  “You see that all the time. Somebody’s living in one of these rambling castles, everybody wants to hijack the guy. I don’t believe in that, plus I’ve got ways to cut costs that none of these westside contractors have.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” Ferguson said. “See my partner, that’s Ronnie Ferias, he’s a guy I went through high school with. Ronnie supervises the crews himself so we’ve got no superintendent to pay. Plus we hire convicts.”

  “You use convict labor? What’s that, some kind of new work-release program the county’s got?” Christ, Graham thought, they’re paroling all these guys in no time, now they’re wanting to put them on the streets while they’re still in jail.

  “No. Ex-cons. Look, it’s a federal deal. For every releasee we hire we get a tax deduction. We can pay the guy full wages but save money overall.”

  Graham pictured a group of felons, all driving nails through their fingers so they could make workmen’s compensation claims, and then walking off with half the material on the job while the boss wasn’t looking. “Sounds interesting,” Graham said. “But let’s get back to Square One. The application. Besides the name and address, there’s nothing here. What about credit references?”

  “That’s how I wound up talking to you. It’s what I was telling the guy out there, I got no credit references.”

  “Now hold on,” Graham said. “Everyone in business has credit references, good or bad. How long have you been in business?”

  “Six months, me. Ronnie’s been doing it longer. I joined up with him when I got out of the army.”

  “A serviceman,” Graham said. “That’s a mark in your favor.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I was in seventeen years, resigned as a Master Sergeant.”

  “Three more years,” Graham said, “and you could’ve had fall military retirement. That’s unusual, someone getting out after seventeen years.” Maybe a Section Eight, Graham thought. Mental Disability.

  Lackey Ferguson was beginning to relax, the signs evident, a man now talking about things familiar to him. “A lot of people tell me that. I got sort of disillusioned, tell you the truth. You know about the Panama invasion, the one where we went after General Noriega?”

  “Of course. Who doesn’t?”

  “There’s a lot of things about it you don’t know. Like charging around invading a bunch of civilians. You should have seen us, running around asking everybody directions, looking for a drug dealer. One guy told me, „You want to find a drug dealer go to New York City.’”

  “An international thug,” Graham said. “Masquerading as a military leader.”

  “I can’t argue about that,” Ferguson said. “I don’t like drug dealers any more than the next guy. But really. I’m standing there in the middle of Panama City, right outside the Panama Hilton Hotel it was, and suddenly it comes to me that this just isn’t what it’s supposed to be about. I enlisted to defend my country. I’m a soldier, not a DEA agent. Anyway, when I got back stateside I put the paperwork in motion to get out. Took another six months.”

  “We’re getting pretty far afield,” Graham said, checking his watch. “Why you got out of the army is really your business. But people in the service have credit records. Didn’t you ever have any credit cards?”

  “Not me,” Ferguson said. “One-and-a-half percent on the unpaid balance I can do without.”

  “And you don’t even have a bank account.” Graham was really pushing to get rid of the guy now; he had a lunch appointment and this was a waste of precious time. “Any cash on hand?”

  “I had fifteen thousand dollars when I got out. Mustering out pay plus this poker game.”

  Wonderful, Graham thought. We make the loan, he goes to Las Vegas with the money. “That’s a lot of cash for someone to carry around.”

  “I didn’t carry it far. I bought my pickup.”

  “Well, that might be some collateral,” Graham said.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Ferguson said. “What I’d want to do is pay the money back as soon as this Hardin pays me. Say, you know this guy, huh? I guess we could depend on getting paid.”

  “Well, certainly,” Graham said. “We handle Percy Hardin’s trust fund. My God, man, you saw the house he’s living in.”

  “Yeah. That’s why I was sort of worried about my money. You got any idea what the monthly nut on that place is? What I think is, these westside guys are humping to pay the bills every month just like me, only they got a lot more bills to pay.”

  Christ, Graham thought, a guy flying by the seat of his pants questioning Percy Hardin’s ability to pay. “I’m not seeing much hope in this application, Lackey. Maybe you’ve got some personal references. Someone who could—”

  “Oh, I got a lot of those.”

  “—cosign for you.”

  “I wouldn’t want anybody doing that.”

  “It’s a lot to ask of someone,” Graha
m said. “But at some time everyone needs a little help. Who do you know that might . . . ?”

  Ferguson’s brow furrowed into an earnest look of concentration. “Well, there’s Ronnie. My partner.”

  “The guy you went to high school with,” Graham said.

  “Yeah. He stood right behind me in graduation line. You know, Ferguson, Ferias. F.”

  Graham resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. “Anyone else?”

  “Nancy. Nancy Cuellar, my fiancée.”

  Graham’s pulse quickened slightly. Now here was something that might. . . “Cuellar?” he said. “Is she part of the restaurant family?”

  Ferguson appeared confused, clearly not getting the point, and didn’t say anything.

  “The Cuellar family,” Graham said. “El Chico Mexican Restaurants. They’ve got quite a name.”

  “Oh,” Ferguson said. “Nancy’s a legal secretary. She put herself through college, I guess that’s something to say for her.”

  “Commendable,” Graham said, checking his watch again. “Commendable. Different line of Cuellars.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with that. Hey, we eat at El Chico’s a lot. Under four bucks you can get two chicken enchiladas with sour cream. Nancy’s got an uncle, Geraldo, I think he waited tables at El Chico’s a few years ago.”

  “Speaking of enchiladas,” Graham said, putting the application aside, straightening up his desk, “I’ve got a luncheon engagement. I do hate to cut this short.”

  “Hey, well, don’t let me keep you.” Ferguson rose and went over to stand by the door. “I guess I’m not getting the loan.”

  “A few years ago we could take some flyers,” Graham said. “But not in the nineteen-nineties atmosphere. These regulators today . . .” He wanted to let Ferguson down easy; success was, in part, never leaving a bad taste in anyone’s mouth.

  “Well thanks for your time,” Ferguson said. “And, tell you what, no hard feelings. We’ll be working over at Hardin’s house. Can I send my men to you? These guys all got records, and it’s, you know, tough on them to find somebody to cash their paychecks.”