by A. W. Gray
“It’s different now, daddy,” Lackey said. “They got these college guys. Management degrees, they’re supposed to spend all their time supervising. It’s what the big corporations want „em to do.” He was seated at the white wooden breakfast table in the kitchen with Oscar at his left and Helen, his mom, across from him. Every Wednesday, rain or shine, Lackey came by his folks’s on his way to the job. So far they hadn’t mentioned the murder, though Helen was sniffling a bit as though she had a cold, and Oscar was really grasping to find something to talk about. The green-and-white linoleum and the refrigerator with the icemaker were things added since Lackey had joined the army. Otherwise, the kitchen was still the same. “As long as they’re sending your retirement check, what do you care?” Lackey said.
“I keep cashing it,” Oscar said. “But where I spend it’s going to change unless they show me something different.”
“Marj Stevens called,” Helen said. “August they’re going to Canada. Said she’s sorry she won’t be here.” There wasn’t as yet a trace of gray in her auburn hair. Everyone said that Lackey had gotten his features from Helen and his coloring from Oscar; studying his mom’s prominent cheekbones and straight slender nose, Lackey couldn’t disagree.
“Well at least she won’t be grading my wedding,” Lackey said. “She might do it like one of my English papers.”
“I „spect you’ll be better prepared for getting married than you ever were for English,” Helen said. She gave a nervous laugh, exchanged glances with Oscar, then regarded her folded hands.
Lackey decided he’d better move on before he had to get a kitchen knife to cut through the tension. “Well,” he said. “I got to get going.” He finished his milk with a gulp; to this day Helen never offered him coffee, and Lackey doubted that she ever would. He stood and lifted his hard hat from the table.
“Lackey,” Helen said, and at the same instant Oscar said, “Son.”
Lackey twirled his hard hat between his fingers, wanting to say something that would make them feel better but knowing that the only way to make it right with them was for him to get out of this mess. “Hmm?” Lackey said.
“We got a little savings,” Oscar said. “Not much.”
“Hang on to it, daddy,” Lackey said. “I’m okay.”
Helen began to cry, then, taking her napkin from her lap and blowing her nose. Lackey’s vision blurred slightly. He went over to stand beside her, reached out and stroked her hair.
“I didn’t do it, mama,” Lackey said. “And if I was lying you’d know it. Wouldn’t you, now?”
Lackey was beginning to understand how a fugitive felt, driving down the road glancing in the rearview mirror, waking up in the morning and peering out through the drapes like a guy whose place was surrounded. He thought about the semen and hair samples he’d given, knowing he’d done the right thing, but at the same time feeling nervous as hell. I’m no doctor, Lackey thought, how do I know they won’t mix my samples up with somebody else’s? He pictured himself trying to explain to Nancy how they’d gotten a match on the samples even though he’d never even been in that bedroom. Even Nancy could only swallow so much.
He didn’t notice anyone following his pickup east on Loop 820, but that was something Lackey didn’t know anything about, either. He doubted that the police would put a tail on him with the guy wearing a sign. Probably the tail would be disguised, Lackey thought, like the guy driving behind him at the moment, a man wearing a sportshirt and driving a blue four-year-old Ford. Or the tail could be a woman, the schoolteacher type in the green Nissan in the lane to his right, wearing conservative hornrim glasses, both hands on the wheel, her gaze on the road. He pictured himself stopped at a red light, and the woman suddenly leaping from her car, flashing a badge and pulling a gun from her purse. As she cuffed his hands behind him she’d tell him that word had just come over her radio that his hair and semen samples had matched. Lackey slowed the pickup and moved over in the lane behind the woman. A little further on, she pulled from the freeway into a Citgo station, got out, then regarded him suspiciously with her hand on her gas cap as he cruised on by. Jesus, Lackey thought, now she’ll be calling the police and telling them that I’m following her. He snatched his hard hat from the seat, put it on and pulled it low over his eyes. See, lady, nothing dangerous, just a guy on his way to the construction site.
He took the Grapevine exit, leaving the rush hour stop-and-go traffic—little foreign makes transporting working women over to Irving and Dallas along with a few pickups and semis carrying the blue-collar men—and concentrated on his driving to get his mind off of his problems. As if that was possible.
At eight in the morning it was near ninety degrees; Lackey rolled his window down, rested his elbow on the sill, and let the sun beat down on his arm and the hot wind whip around the interior of the cab. The radio was still tuned to Nancy’s easy-listening station; he switched over to country KJIM and listened to David Allan Coe’s raspy tenor on “Please Come to Boston.” By the time he’d driven north on Davis Boulevard to the remodeling job, and pulled over and parked at the curb, he was in a better mood. He was whistling softly to himself as he cut the engine, climbed down from the pickup and started to cross the lawn. He stopped. The gloom returned in a flash and clutched at his insides.
The car parked behind Ronnie Ferias’s Bronco wasn’t a police vehicle, but it didn’t belong here and had to mean trouble. It was a drab gray unmarked four-door Mercury Marquis. Lackey knew for sure that the Merc didn’t belong to one of the crew. Frank Nichols’s old Buick was across the street behind Ramon Gomez’s beat-up Plymouth; the black guys rode with Frank, and the Mexican workers came to the job with Ramon, all eight of them piling in the two cars, some to save on gas and others because they hadn’t been out of prison long enough to get up a down payment for a car of their own. The Merc didn’t belong to the house’s owner, either; the plumber was a sporty guy who went around in a Corvette and wouldn’t have been caught dead in a plain vanilla four-door. Lackey sighed, then skirted the house and went back to the addition, mentally preparing for trouble. Trouble was back there, all right, beginning with a capital T.
Near the west side of the addition, at the corner where two sections of roof board joined overhead, Lincoln the Parole Officer stood with hands on hips. He was talking a mile a minute, giving Ronnie Ferias a marine-corps drill-sergeant dressing-down. Ronnie wore his usual T-shirt and jeans. His plastic Texas Rangers batting helmet was tilted downward as he regarded his hard-toed shoes. Frank Nichols stood off to one side, along with Ramon Gomez and the other six workers. As Lackey approached, Frank met his gaze. Frank shook his head sadly and rolled his eyes.
Lincoln was saying, “And if you decide to break up the partnership, I got to be able to verify it. The guy can’t be lurking in the wings.”
“We got a deadline on finishing this job,” Ronnie said.
“Not my problem,” Lincoln said. “Your problem. Not my problem whether the guy did it or not, either, that’s up to the D.A. What is my problem is where these parolees hang out, and as long as the guy’s part of this company you’re not using any of our people.” He raised his voice and directed his attention to Frank Nichols and the other workers. “I’ll be checking the other job sites, too, and the first one of my guys I catch working for this outfit can look to spend some time in the cooler.”
Lackey went up and stood between Ronnie and Lincoln so that the three of them formed a triangle. “Mr. Lincoln,” Lackey said. “How you doin’?”
Lincoln’s eyes were hidden behind black sunglasses and his lips were set in a rigid line. He nodded curtly. “Mr. Ferguson.”
“He says we can’t use no more parolees,” Ronnie said.
Lackey swiveled his head to look toward the workers, then said to Lincoln and Ronnie, “I heard him. I guess you know you’re putting us out of business. No way can we put together enough crews to finish these jobs we got going.”
One corner of Lincoln’s mouth turned up. “Lik
e I said, not my problem. And you got bigger problems yourself, from what I’m hearing and reading.”
“I haven’t seen the paper,” Lackey said.
“I don’t blame you,” Lincoln said. “If I was you I wouldn’t read it, either.” He took two long steps toward the workmen. “Out of here, men. Now. I’m going to stand in the front yard and check your names off, don’t nobody think about staying on. You got five minutes to collect your gear.” He turned on his heel and marched away, disappearing around the corner of the house with his clipboard swinging by his hip.
Frank Nichols watched Lincoln go, then glanced around him at the other workers, finally lowering his head and murmuring, “Mothafuckah.” Cussing in English and Spanish, the men began to pick up their hammers and nails and canvas bags of specialty tools. They moved past Ronnie and Lackey in a disgruntled, uneven line, lugging their belongings away.
Frank Nichols paused. His gaze swept Lackey, head to toe. “Ain’t over, bossman,” Frank said. “Bet yo ass on that. Ain’t no way you done that shit, you ain’t the type. I seen too many of „em.” He lowered his head and followed the other men.
When the men had gone, Ronnie said, “That just tears it. Beats all I ever saw. What you think, compadre?”
Lackey looked around at the construction site, at the partially completed roof, at the pile of brick waiting to be laid. “Looks like you and me got a lot of work to do,” Lackey Ferguson said.
At ten o’clock on Wednesday morning, County Detective Henley joined County Detective Morrison and Deputy District Attorney Favor in Favor’s office. “The lab can’t get a match,” Henley said. “I would’ve bet a month’s pay on the fucking guy.” He sat down and rubbed the smooth skin on top of his head.
Favor was chewing an unlit cigar. He laid the cigar in an ashtray, used his thumb and index finger to remove a shred of tobacco from between his teeth, and thumped the tobacco into a wastebasket. “What, not enough points of similarity, or . . . ?”
“Not one,” Henley said. “The hair’s thicker and a different color, they even checked it for dye. The sperm count in the semen’s different, so’s the blood type.” He propped his ankle up on his knee and pressed his shin against the edge of Favor’s desk. “No match. The hair’s not the guy’s and neither’s the jism.”
Favor tugged at his own earlobe. “Well that’s a fly in the old ointment.” Visible through the window behind him, one off-white wall of Tandy Center was in sunlight, the other visible side of the skyscraper in shade.
Morrison bent forward in his chair and scratched his rump, then adjusted the holstered revolver on his belt. “Maybe. But it don’t mean anything except that he had a buddy with him. They probably took turns. Sonofabitch push me down in front of all them people. “Tufts of blond hair stuck out from his crown as though he’d just gotten out of bed.
“Look, Charlie, I can’t blame you for having it in for the guy,” Henley said. “But we got no match, which means we got no case. Shit, you can see the difference without even a magnifying glass.”
“So we squeeze the guy to find out who his buddy is,” Morrison said. “No big deal.”
Favor stroked the side of his chubby face. “Okay, what have we got on the guy? One fingerprint, which corroborates his story that he was in the kitchen. One of Mrs. Hardin’s canceled checks plus the banker’s word that the Ferguson dude came into the bank and cashed it in person. Might look suspicious, but what does it prove? That Ferguson wanted cash. So what?”
Morrison straightened. “You’re forgetting the woman, Mrs. Hardin’s tennis partner. She says Mrs. Hardin told her on the phone that the guy was fucking her. How „bout that?”
“Not worth shit,” Favor said. “Inadmissible without corroboration, and the only one that could corroborate the woman’s testimony would have to be Mrs. Hardin.” He shook his head. “Not worth shit.”
Morrison blinked. “Well what about Mr. Hardin? What if he was to have heard it? He seems like a man that would cooperate with us to help get the bad guy.” He grinned in turn at the other two men.
“What, the guy’s going to testify that his wife said in his presence that some other guy was fucking her?” Favor snorted. “Jesus Christ, Charlie.”
“Well how „bout if he was listening on the extension?” Morrison said.
“Charlie,” Henley said, “the guy was at the golf course. That’s the only reason we’re not putting the heat on him, that we can verify his whereabouts. He can’t start testifying that he was listening on the extension.”
“You got a point, Roscoe,” Morrison said. Then, scratching his chin, he said, “Assume he had a buddy with him. Who could that be? What about his partner, Ferias? The Mexican guy.”
“He was on the job,” Henley said. “Picked up some brick that morning from the supplier; he was out there at the same time Mrs. Hardin was getting hers. Believe me, I checked.”
Favor stood, faced the window, shoved his hands into his pockets and looked down at the street. His outline against the rectangle of daylight resembled a bloated parabola. “This just doesn’t wash,” Favor said. “We got a guy with no rap sheet, a perfect service record, no history of drugs or deviant behavior. I’ve put many of „em away for no other reason than that they pissed me off, but we can’t go against this guy on just what we got.”
“Bullshit,” Morrison said. “Whaddya mean, „no history of drugs’? All those army guys take dope.”
“I can’t get up in front of a grand jury and say that,” Favor said. “Some of „em probably were in the service themselves. What I’m saying is, no way can I go for an indictment without a match on the physical evidence.”
“An old lady that lives across the street saw Ferguson leaving the Hardins’ place,” Morrison said. “He damn near had a wreck with another guy.”
Favor turned around and narrowed his eyes. “What guy?”
“According to the neighbor lady, a guy driving a little white foreign make. I wish we could run that other driver down, maybe he saw something.” Morrison showed a hopeful smile.
“We don’t need that, or the neighbor woman, either,” Favor said. “Hell, the Ferguson guy’s already admitted being over there.” He bent to pick up his cigar, poked the soggy end in his mouth and chomped down. “They’re on my ass upstairs, we got to put together a case. If it’s not Ferguson we got to work on somebody else.”
“It’s Ferguson,” Morrison said. “I’m telling you it is.”
“Jesus, Charlie,” Henley said. “The guy only pushed you down, he didn’t fuck your old lady or anything.”
Favor turned his back and studied the street once more. Pouches of fat stuck out over the back of his belt. “So what’s next?”
“I’m for watching Ferguson,” Morrison said, “and letting him damn well know it. Make him sweat until he comes across with the guy that was with him.”
Henley scratched his nose. “Well, I ain’t saying it won’t work.”
“You fucking-ay it will,” Morrison said. “From now on if Mr. Ferguson goes in to take a shit he’s going to hear a noise in the next stall. Me.”
“Suits me, as long as it’s okay with the D.A.’s office.” Henley looked at Favor. “Hey, Wilson, whatever you say,” Henley said.
Wilson Favor turned from the window, mildly regarding first Morrison, then Detective Henley. He took the cigar from his mouth while Morrison fumbled and lit a cigarette. Finally Favor said, “Well on the laboratory samples we’re putting „inconclusive.’ Anybody, the newspapers or anybody else that wants to know, the lab results are inconclusive. If anybody wants to know if Ferguson is still a suspect, we’re not commenting. They can take that however they want to. In the meantime, you two put some pressure on this Ferguson guy. See what we can come up with.”
11
At three-thirty on Wednesday afternoon, J. Percival Hardin III stood in the middle of the eighteenth fairway at Colonial Country Club and used some body English to urge his worm-burner on. He was one-seventy out from th
e center of the green, and he’d half-topped the ball with a three-wood. It was his third shot on the par-four hole, after his tee shot had squirted off to the right, and after his shanked four-iron second had struck a tree and bounded back into the center of the fairway.
“Go,” Percy Hardin said as he moved his hips in a counterclockwise bump and grind. “Go, baby, go.”
Slightly behind Hardin and to his left, Greg Norman, his golden locks down over his forehead in carefully tousled bangs, stood with hands on hips beside his caddy. “I think it’s going to get there,” Norman said in a thick Aussie accent. The other three amateurs besides Hardin in the group—two men in their fifties wearing navy slacks and knit polo shirts and one youngster whose father was on the club’s board of governors—stood watching near the gallery ropes.
Hardin’s ball was slowing as it bounded in the short grass near the green, between two yawning sandtraps. Finally the shot ran out of gas, rolling over one final time and coming to rest on the putting surface by the width of the ball.
“Good shot, mate,” Greg Norman said. “You fellas play the bounces here, I’ll grant you. Do you get a stroke on this hole?”
“Sure do,” Hardin said. “If I can two-putt from there it counts as a bird.” He handed his three-wood over to his caddy, then hitched up his pants like Arnold Palmer on a roll and fell into step beside Greg Norman. The two of them strolled toward the green. Percy Hardin was wearing a pale lavender shirt, dark lavender slacks, and white Corafam shoes with lavender inserts. Mirrored sunglasses covered his eyes, Doug Sanders style. Behind the gallery ropes, two teenagers, members of the Arlington Heights High School golf team, whispered to one another and giggled into cupped hands over what a lousy golfer that Percy Hardin was.