Prime Suspect

by A. W. Gray

  Lackey said to Ronnie, “You read about Nance?”

  “I don’t got to. She’s all over the TV. You, too. Them two cop assholes been by already, but I don’t tell „em shit.”

  “Well I need to talk to her. I’m at—”

  “Nancy ain’t home, man,” Ronnie said.

  “How you know?”

  “She call me. Wanted to know how to get to Frank Nichols’s place.”

  Lackey thoughtfully regarded his shoes. Nancy was looking for him if she’d gone to Frank’s place. “I’ll go meet her there,” Lackey said. “Look, Ronnie, I might be leaving town. We might. Me and Nancy, I got to think about this.”

  “You ought to, man. You ought to get the hell outta town and I need to find me a job. That plumber dude that owns the house, he come by today and told me to stop work. Says he don’t want people like us working over there. I told him, hey, ain’t nobody said I done shit. He say, tough, we don’t like it we can talk to his lawyer. “

  Just a few days ago the news would have put Lackey in orbit. Now it just didn’t matter. “What time did Nancy call you?” Lackey said.

  “Little after five. She was in a booth out on Camp Bowie Boulevard.”

  Lackey said, “Thanks, pardner,” and started to hang up, then had a thought and said, “Listen, Ronnie. You still got my Army .45 I give you?”

  “In my truck,” Ronnie said. “Why, you need it?” “I could. Yeah, I might,” Lackey said. “I might come by later for it.”

  He was concentrating on whether or not he should take Nancy and run, so much so that he forgot about the hot sheet that was doubtless out on his pickup. He waited at the light on the corner of Vaughn Boulevard and Avenue J, ready to turn right onto J and cut over to Miller Avenue, when a squad car cruised slowly around the corner to go north on Vaughn. The patrolman really gave Lackey the once-over, squinting against the glare from the pickup’s headlights, slowing abruptly, the black-and-white listing in the direction of the curb. The driver’s partner, visible through the squad car’s rear window as it went past, was alternating his gaze between the pickup and something he was holding in his lap. Lackey’s palms were suddenly damp. He turned onto Avenue J, really struggling with his foot to keep from jamming the accelerator to the floorboard, his heart up in his mouth until he’d gone a full block and the squad car hadn’t followed. He was going to have to ditch the pickup at his first chance and find some different transportation.

  Nancy’s car was parked behind Frank’s Buick in Frank’s driveway. The sight of the green Mustang, neat as a pin, washed and polished and sporting spotless whitewall tires, lifted Lackey’s spirits. He breathed a relieved sigh; as long as he could talk to Nancy, maybe hold her close for a while, everything would work out. He angled across Miller to park at the curb in front of Frank’s place, got out and eagerly crossed Frank’s yard. Halfway to the porch Lackey halted in his tracks. He cocked an ear, listening, as there was a tightening sensation between his eyebrows. There was something out of place.

  The sun had been behind the horizon for a half-hour now, and the earth beneath his feet was warm. This time of year the daytime temperature hovered around ninety, and nightfall would lower the thermometer about ten degrees. The half-moon overhead was partially hidden behind a wisp of cloud. There was a thick-trunked oak standing in the yard, and in and around the tree, crickets chirruped. At the house next door a couple sat on the porch in a swing, rocking back and forth beneath a yellow light. Up the street a lawnmower chugged as someone mowed with their yardlight on. Light shone from behind window shades up and down the block. Not at Frank’s, though, and that was what was wrong. If Nancy was here, there should have been some lights on inside, but Frank’s place was dark as a tomb.

  Lackey retraced his steps to stand alongside Nancy’s Mustang and thumbed the doorhandle. The latch clicked and the door swung easily open. The interior lights came on, both overhead and underneath the dash.

  Lackey’s flesh crawled like a thousand earthworms. If he knew anyone in this world he knew Nancy Cuellar, and leaving her car unlocked—particularly in this unfamiliar neighborhood—was something she wouldn’t have done in a million years. Lackey bent to look inside. The key was in the ignition; the green plastic letter N which Lackey had given her dangled from the chain. Her purse was on the seat.

  She hadn’t been intending to stay. Lackey had always kidded her because, in spite of her determination to lock her car and apartment as though expecting the Indians to attack if she was going to be gone for any extended period, Nancy thought nothing whatsoever about leaving her key in the ignition in front of the grocery story while she “just ran in for a few things.” He’d told her over and over that ninety percent of the car thefts happened while people were “just running in for a few things,” but he might as well have been talking to a tree.

  So she hadn’t intended to stay at Frank’s at all. No, she’d meant to run in for just long enough to ask Frank about Lackey’s whereabouts.

  But she had stayed, hadn’t she?

  But the lights were out inside Frank’s, and the place was silent as death.

  Lackey went back to his pickup, rummaged around and located a steel L-shaped lug wrench, and hefted it. It wouldn’t be much of a weapon against anybody with a gun, but it would have to do. Gripping the wrench firmly, he went across the yard and up on the porch. The screen door was closed, but the front entry way to the duplex stood open. His teeth grinding, Lackey knocked, then stood back and waited for a full minute. No one came to the door and there was no sound from within. He knocked again. More silence.

  He pressed his nose against the screen. Spotlighted in a rectangle of moonlight was one end of a couch along with a small table. There was a big dark spot on the rug, a six-inch irregular circle of . . .

  Lackey yanked the screen open and went inside, then bent and ran his finger over the spot. The spot was damp, and the sticky residue which adhered to his index finger appeared black in the moonlight. Slowly, as though walking on eggs, his gaze darting left and right, a warning knot between his shoulder blades, Lackey walked to the kitchen entrance, reached around and found the switch, then clicked on the kitchen light.

  The kitchen was empty save for a yellowed stove, a refrigerator, and a rickety table, but there were more spots on the linoleum. These spots had dried to a ruddy brown. Lackey hefted the tire tool and went through the kitchen to the doorway leading to the bedroom. He kept his body inside the kitchen and stuck his head around the doorjamb.

  He detected no movement, heard no sound other than the ticking of a clock. He blinked in the dimness, groped on the wall for a switch, found none. On the gray whiteness of the bed was a dark shape, someone or something, he couldn’t tell. The outline of a lamp materialized as his pupils dilated, a lamp and a night-stand by the head of the bed. He stumbled slightly as he entered the room, went over to the lamp, felt under the shade and located a button. A sharp click vibrated his thumb as the room was bathed in muted light.

  Frank—at least he assumed it was Frank, though the face above the sinewy chocolate-colored chest and arms was covered by a dirty pillow—was spread-eagled limply on top of the mattress. There was a singed hole in the pillow; Lackey held the pillow by one corner and slowly lifted it. He had a brief glimpse of Frank’s face, lips pulled back in a permanent scowl, saw in an instant the hole in the cheekbone and the splash of drying blood around the back of Frank’s head. Lackey dropped the pillow like a hot poker; Frank’s tortured features disappeared from view with a soggy, downy plop. Lackey stepped to the foot of the bed and examined the floor.

  Protruding from underneath the bed was one petite, dark green high-heeled shoe. Size 4, Lackey thought. It’s a size 4.

  He murmured, “Jesus. Oh, sweet Jesus.”

  He knelt to pick up the shoe, bent down to look under the bed. Nothing. Nancy’s other shoe was in the corner beside a closet, and Lackey picked it up as well. He backed into the corner and looked hopelessly at Frank. Lackey’s vision blurre
d and there was a dull ache in his throat.

  He made a quick check around the duplex for her body, but., as he thought, there was none. A cheap brown handset phone was on the nightstand. Lackey put Nancy’s shoes on the bed, keeping his gaze averted from Frank as much as possible, picked up the receiver and punched the buttons. There were two quick rings, followed by a click, then a soft female voice said, “Nine-one-one, your emergency?”

  “I’m—” Lackey said.

  Jesus, he couldn’t do this. There was a capital murder warrant out for him. He hung up quickly.

  Lackey managed two steps in the direction of the kitchen before the phone began to ring. Jesus Christ, he’d done it now. That would be the emergency operator calling the number automatically registered on her computer screen along with the address of the caller, and if she didn’t get an answer by the fourth ring there’d be a squad car on its way in seconds.

  Panic nearly caused Lackey to bolt, but he fought for control of himself. What had he touched? Nothing, nothing save for the phone, Nancy’s shoes, and the handle on the front screen door. He let the tire tool dangle as he dug in his back pocket for a handkerchief, went to the phone and wiped at the handset. The ringing ceased; now the computer would be flashing the address to a police cruiser. Lackey scooped up Nancy’s shoes and held them under his arm as he dashed out through the kitchen and sitting room to bang the screen open with his shoulder. On the porch, he used the handkerchief to wipe frantically at the doorhandle, then ran across the uneven yard to the pickup. In the distance, a siren hoot-hooted.

  He tossed the shoes and tire tool into the front seat, then dove in behind the wheel and started the engine. As he pulled away he froze his gaze on the speedometer, let the needle creep up to thirty-five and held it there.

  He was stopped for the red light at Miller and Rose-dale when the black-and-white came into view, siren blaring and rooflights flashing, squealed around the corner and headed for Frank’s. Lackey waited for the light to change, then drove slowly through the intersection.

  He was halfway to Interstate 30, staying well within the speed limit on tree-lined streets, when a flashback came to him. The picture was of himself, standing in Frank’s sitting room and reaching around the door-jamb into the kitchen. Jesus, he’d thumbed the light switch. The lamp in Frank’s bedroom, too, he’d gripped its base with a sweaty hand as he’d turned the lamp on.

  Panic welled in his throat. His hands trembling, Lackey pulled to the curb, stopped, and rested his forehead against the top of the steering wheel.

  After he’d pulled himself together, Lackey took the long way around in driving to Ronnie Ferias’s house. He avoided the interstates and poked along amid stop-and-go traffic down Beach Street and onto Belknap, and out through dusty Haltom City to cross underneath Loop 820 on the Grapevine Highway. It was a fifteen-minute drive on the freeways, twice that by the route that Lackey took, but the chances of some patrolman with nothing better to do running a make on the pickup’s license plate were greater on the interstate. He kept his gaze on the road, certain that stares were focused on him from each car that he passed, and by the time he crept down the rutted alleyway which ran in back of Ronnie’s, Lackey’s fingers were numb from gripping the steering wheel. Ronnie lived in a frame two-bedroom house with a waist-high cyclone fence enclosing the small back yard. A thick hedge ran along the fence with its top portion clipped even with the fence’s top iron rail. Lackey left the engine running and the lights on; he didn’t like the idea of blocking the alleyway, but would rather chance that than leave his truck in front of the house, in full view of anyone who happened along. He entered the yard through a swinging gate, ducked under a clothesline that was no longer in use since Ronnie had bought a washer-and-dryer combo the previous fall, and walked up to the back window which opened into Ronnie’s bedroom. He leaned over a flower bed to knock loudly on the sill. Slats clacked together as the Venetian blinds lifted, then Ronnie’s round Hispanic face appeared and blinked its eyes. “What the hell are you doing?” Ronnie said. His voice was muffled by the closed window.

  Lackey crooked a come-here finger, and Ronnie nodded. Then Ronnie dropped the blinds back into place, and in a couple of minutes he descended the two back steps into the yard. He was shirtless and barefoot, wearing yellow Bermuda shorts. A soft roll of fat poked out over the top of his pants, and his chest was hairless between puffy nipples. “Man, you getting my old lady in an uproar,” Ronnie said. “She already got it figured out that they going to put me in the same cell with you and she going to wind up on relief with these two kids.” There was a kidding-around tone to his voice, the old buddy doing his best to be cheerful, but there was just the slightest bit of anxiety as well. Ronnie folded his beefy arms.

  Lackey wasn’t in any mood to joke. “I’m going to need that gun.”

  Ronnie squinted in the moonlight to study Lackey’s face. “I took it out of the truck,” he said. “It’s right here in my pocket. I had it figured you might want it. You ain’t fixing to get in trouble, are you?” His right-hand pocket was bulging and weighted down from within.

  “You kidding?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, okay, I guess you already in trouble. You get ahold of Nance?”

  Lackey hesitated. He wanted to tell Ronnie, but didn’t have time to get into the details. “No,” Lackey said softly.

  Ronnie dug in his pocket, held the .45 service automatic heavily in one hand while he fished out a box of shells. He turned the gun flatwise, stacked the bullets on top, and offered both to Lackey. “How long since you shot that sonofabitch?” Ronnie said.

  Lackey put the bullets away, then held the .45 at arm’s length, released the lever and slid the clip from the butt. The clip was loaded, brass jackets in a row like a miniature stack of pipe sections. He replaced the clip and slid it home with the heel of his hand. “Not since firing range, in the army,” Lackey said. “At least a year, I never unholstered it down in Panama.”

  “Yeah, well it’s a little off,” Ronnie said. “Goes to the right, so you got to aim a little left. I was going to adjust the sight, but I ain’t had time.”

  Lackey squinted down the .45’s barrel at the ground. “Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Listen, I got to be going.” He turned to leave.

  Lackey had gone five steps when Ronnie said, “Lackey?”

  Lackey stopped, turned, and cocked his head.

  Ronnie shuffled his feet and jammed his hands into his pockets. “Hey. Hey, pardner, you ain’t ever shot anybody, have you?”

  Lackey was suddenly calm. He raised his eyebrows. “No, I haven’t,” Lackey said. “Not yet, anyhow.”

  19

  Nancy Cuellar lay in the back seat of the killer’s Volvo under a coarse painter’s tarpaulin, feeling every bump in the road, her weight shifting with every turn. She was hogtied, her wrists and ankles bound with a line stretched taut in between. If she tried to straighten her legs the rope cut painfully into her wrists; if she lay still there was an awful cramping of her calf muscles and in the backs of her thighs. A dirty strip of cloth was tight over her eyes; a filthy rag was stuffed into her mouth and secured by a second strip of cloth which was tied behind her head. The gag tasted like sour milk. She thought, oh, God, will this ride never end? Then fear stabbed through her at the thought of what might happen when it did.

  At least she was still alive to thank her lucky stars, which was more than she could say for poor Frank Nichols. At the moment the crazy had jammed the pistol against the pillow covering Frank’s face, had pulled the trigger and filled the air with the stench of burning gunpowder, Nancy had given up hope. She’d been sure that her life was going to end, right then and there, and she’d even said a silent Our Father followed by a quick Hail Mary. As the man had loosened the rope from Frank’s ankle, all the while grinning and cooing at her, Nancy had drawn what she’d been certain was her final breath.

  But he hadn’t shot her. Instead he’d told her with a strange faraway look that now they had all the time they needed.
All the time that they needed, Nancy and this maniac, all the time in the world for him to . . . Not me, you bastard, Nancy thought as she bounced around under the tarp. She’d already made a solemn vow that if he tried anything sexual, he was going to have to kill her to have his way. No way are you going to touch me, you freak. Not while I have breath you‘re not. She tried to separate her wrists. Her bonds didn’t give so much as a whisker.

  She’d at first thought that he was going to try to rape her right there in Frank’s bedroom, just nudge Frank’s body aside and have his way with her right beside the corpse. He’d held the ropes in one hand and yanked her to her feet with the other. God, the man was strong. Nancy’s upper arm still throbbed where he’d grabbed her, and he’d pulled her toward the bed with such force that she’d actually stepped out of her shoes. He hadn’t seemed to notice. She was still in her stocking feet, in fact, right at this moment, and therein lay the one ray of hope that she had left. Lackey had been with her when she’d bought those shoes. If Lackey should call Ronnie Ferias, and if Ronnie should send him to Frank’s place to look for her, and if Lackey should find those shoes, then . . .

  And if elephants could fly, she thought, and if an ant could find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and if the little blindfolded Mexican girl could hit the pinata with a stick. Oh, God, God, God.

  He’d given her a shove and she had sprawled headlong onto the bed alongside Frank, had felt the cooling flesh against her body, had silently gritted her teeth and waited for the crazy man to come at her. But he hadn’t. He’d turned her roughly over, her nose pressing against Frank’s bare dead shoulder as he’d tied her hands and feet, brought her legs up behind her and secured the line between her wrists and ankles. “Don’t spect we better be hanging around here, girl,” was what he’d told her, then had left her in that cramped position, her face buried in Frank’s shoulder, while, heard but not seen by her, his footsteps had retreated and he’d left the room.