The Debt Collector

by Lynn S. Hightower

  “I saw.” An image came, strong in her head. Eddie Stinnet taking pictures from the window of the bullpen. Maybe not such a tourist after all.

  “You want Stinnet, or you going to the hospital?”

  “I want Stinnet.”

  “Sanders, we need Gruber. Where the hell is he?”

  “On his way.” Sanders, still breathless.

  Crick checked his watch, pointed at Sonora. “Take Gruber with you when you grab Stinnet. Keep it clean, Sonora.”

  “I don’t do rough stuff.”

  Crick looked at her. “You heard me, Detective.”

  Eddie and Judice Stinnet were staying at the Knight Bridge Inn, one of those motels where there aren’t any phones in the room and you make a deposit if you want a blow dryer for your hair. Sonora wondered how long before they’d make the towels a coin-op deal.

  Gruber yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth. He was starting to look unshaven. He shifted in his seat.

  “Sam’s tough,” he told her. Again. He checked his watch. “Where the hell are they?”

  Sonora’s phone rang.

  “Mom? Where are you?” Her son.

  “Can’t talk about it, Tim. Are you home?”

  “Yeah. Me and Heather are okay, don’t worry. You coming home for supper?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Heather’s going to cook hamburger on a roll, and we already fed Clampett.”

  “Kitchen window locked?”

  “Yeah, so’s the front door, Mom, but it’s like four in the afternoon.”

  So crime doesn’t happen at four in the afternoon? But she caught herself before she said it. Tim was trying to hold his temper. So should she. He was clearly shaken. Sam was a force in their lives too.

  “Hey, Tim, I helped stash Sam in the ambulance, he’ll be okay.”

  “He’s tough,” Gruber said for the millionth time, thumbs up.

  “He’s tough,” Sonora repeated.

  Tim cleared his throat. “Sherry called from the hospital.”

  “What’s up?” Gruber asked, seeing the expression on Sonora’s face.

  “Sam’s wife called my house.”

  Tim was talking. “She said to tell you that the bullet broke the bone and Sam’s going to be in traction. And he’s out of surgery, and it took eleven pints of blood, but he’s okay.”

  Is he okay? Sonora wondered. Really okay? She looked at Gruber. “Out of surgery. Eleven pints of blood. Bullet broke the bone.”

  Gruber shook his head. “High-velocity bullets.”

  Sonora’s voice gentled as she went back to Tim. “Okay, hon’, she say anything else? She need help looking after Annie?”

  “I offered already, but Annie’s with Sherry’s mom.”

  Good boy, Sonora thought. “Thanks, Tim.”

  “By the way, you were on the news—you were covered in blood.”

  “Not mine. Is Heather okay? She want to say hello?”

  “No—”

  “Heads up,” Gruber said, voice tight.

  “—she’s taking a bubble bath.”

  “Tim, got to go.” Sonora cut the connection, put the phone in her purse while she leaned forward, squinting through the windshield.

  Gruber put a hand on the door handle. “I still say we take them in the hallway. It’s too cramped in the room. Hell, they could go out a window, if they get in and lock the door.”

  “I don’t want them in the hallway, with John Q. every which way, I want them rounded up.”

  “What about at the car? Look at ’em, see, a thousand packages. Let’s go get them with their arms full.”

  Sonora looked across the parking lot. Not a civilian close. “Okay, but quick, Gruber.”

  “Aw, gee, and I wanted to do it slow. You think she’s dangerous?”

  “Only if you let her talk.”

  56

  Sonora went straight for Eddie Stinnet, ID flashing, waving a warrant, leaving an annoyed Gruber with Judice.

  “Eddie Stinnet, you are under arrest. Turn and face the car, sir, hands on the hood. Hands on the hood of the—”

  “What the—”

  Sonora kicked the inside of his leg and flipped him to face the car. “Hands on the hood, Eddie.”

  “But what—”

  “Hands on the hood.”

  He was shaking. But he bent his head, slapping his hands on the warm dirty metal. The car was pinkish gray, like an unhealthy liver. An almost-new Mercury Cougar.

  “For heaven’s sake, I lost an earring, let me pick it up!” Judice. Not getting it.

  “Legs apart, Eddie.” He didn’t move fast enough, and she kicked his feet apart.

  He might not be the one, she reminded herself. Not that it mattered. She’d wanted to throw him up against a wall and cuff him since he’d told her what he put his brother through for a whole fifty dollars.

  “Eddie Stinnet, you have the right to remain silent.” She snapped the handcuffs in place. “If you—”

  “That’s too tight.”

  “Pipe down, and listen, I’m reading you your rights.” But she checked his wrists. They were fine. The whiner.

  They’d put Molliter in Interview One with Judice at Sonora’s malevolent suggestion. Later she would allow herself the pleasure of watching. Now she stood, arms folded, back to the wall, one foot propped on the baseboard.

  Gruber sat behind the table, leaning back in his chair, tie loose, still needing that shave. He looked rough. So did Eddie Stinnet.

  “So you were shopping at Wal-Mart,” Gruber said.

  Stinnet folded his arms. “That’s what I told ya.”

  “For six hours? You were shopping at Wal-Mart for six hours?”

  “We got lunch.”

  “Where’d you get lunch?” Sonora asked.

  “At Wal-Mart. They got this McDonald’s.”

  “Yeah? What’d you have?”

  “Quarter Pounder with cheese, Extra Value Meal.”

  “What number is that?” Sonora said. Kind of playing with him.

  “What you mean, what number?”

  Gruber leaned forward and pounded a fist on the table. “She means what number Extra Value Meal, you shit-for-brains, and you raise your voice again—”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I don’t know … number three, I think.”

  “It’s four,” Sonora said. She had no idea.

  “Okay, four.”

  “Okay four? Okay two? How about ten?”

  “They don’t have a—”

  “Yeah, they don’t have a ten,” Gruber said. “But that don’t matter ’cause you weren’t there, were you, Eddie?”

  “What, ’cause I don’t know what number Happy Meal?”

  “Extra Value Meal, Eddie.”

  “Look, check out the bags in the car, we got a ton of stuff, we were shopping.”

  “Not for six hours. What kind of guy shops for six hours?” Gruber made it sound perverted.

  “Judice had a lot of stuff she wanted to get. I bet we spent five hundred dollars.”

  “In Wal-Mart?” Sonora said. Five hundred? And he lent his brother fifty?

  “Look at the receipts. They give the time, don’t they?”

  Gruber looked at Sonora. “Listen to that. Receipts with time. Detective Police Specialist Blair, did you ever go shopping and check the receipt for the time?”

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  Gruber looked at Stinnet. “I can think of only one reason you would look for a time on a receipt, and that’s if you were trying to set up an alibi. You trying to set up an alibi, Mr. Stinnet? You own a gun?”

  “Guns? A couple.”

  “A couple? You own a rifle?”

  “I used to. But I don’t have it anymore.”

  “Registration says you do.”

  Good bluff, Sonora thought. Computers made people assume the police had all the information at their fingertips instantaneously.

  “I had one, but I sold it.”

  “He had one,” Gru
ber said to Sonora. “But he sold it. So you don’t mind, then, if we test your hands for residue?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gruber looked at Sonora. “He don’t know. Okay, Eddie boy, maybe you want to change your mind about that lawyer. If you killed this guy, you better get an attorney, and you better call him now.”

  “Well, but you said if I cooperated—”

  “But you’re not cooperating, and I’m getting tired of talking to you.”

  “Look,” Sonora said. “Suppose he did kill Kinkle. Kinkle killed his brother; he butchered the whole family. Let’s keep that in mind, Detective Gruber. You think a jury is going to hurt him for that? Hell, he’s going to make more than you and I make in a lifetime selling his damn story.” She looked at Eddie. “Spell my name right, okay?”

  Gruber pushed his chair away from the table. “Yeah, go on, get a lawyer, Eddie. He’ll get forty percent of your take—”

  “Forty percent?” Eddie said. Outraged.

  “For your story,” Gruber said. “There’ll still be plenty left, after the IRS gets their cut.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Stinnet said. “But I wish I did.”

  Sonora shoved a yellow legal pad across the table. “Make me a list. Everything you bought at Wal-Mart.”

  “How’m I supposed to do that?”

  Sonora rolled a Paper Mate Gel-Writer across the table. “Try with this.”

  Eddie Stinnet uncapped the pen. Licked his lips.

  “Write your name at the top,” Sonora said. Getting him started.

  The door to Interview Two opened abruptly, and Sonora looked up, trying to hide the flash of temper.

  It was Sanders.

  “Crick wants you.”

  Sonora, heading for Crick’s office, could see that Molliter was there, Mickey in the doorway, Gruber at her back. Sam was dead, of course. She remembered his face, so gone, so not there, so deeply unconscious. She had squeezed his hand, felt nothing but deadweight.

  Sonora pushed past Molliter. Crick looked up from his desk. “Aruba’s been hit.”

  “What? Aruba?”

  Crick nodded. “We called Whitmore down in Lexington PD soon as Kinkle got splattered, told them to beef up their security. They kept two guys on him. Aruba’s dead. Shot through the mesh of the hospital window, bolt-action Remington, high-velocity bullets, just like Kinkle’s shooter.”

  “Same guy.”

  “Eddie have a Remington?”

  “Yeah, but he sold it.”

  “Oh. He sold it.” Crick popped his knuckles. “Whitmore’s still working the crime scene, but they’ll keep it fresh for you. Take a camera and get some pictures if you can do it without stepping on toes. Maybe even one of the shell casings, if they find any.”

  “Third man,” Sonora said.

  “Not if it was Stinnet. What’s Eddie got to say for himself?”

  “Eddie says he was at Wal-Mart.”

  57

  Sonora parked illegally in the restaurant lot of an all-night place called Tolly Ho. She was pissed. She’d been sent to the University of Kentucky Hospital by some paper-pusher, because that was where prisoners usually went, but for reasons no one had an explanation for, Aruba had been on the fifth floor of Good Samaritan.

  Streetlights made yellow pools on the pavement—Euclid, quiet this time of night. The rain had stopped, but the streets were wet. Did it always rain in Kentucky?

  The hospital was surrounded, patrol cars, press vans, everything with the quiet air of after the fact, but at least this time she was in the right place.

  A couple of uniforms in the lobby looked her over. She flashed her ID.

  “Don’t mean much in this town,” one of the uniforms said.

  Sonora gave him a second look. “I’m looking for Captain Whitmore, Officer …” She checked the name badge. “Robie, is it?”

  “Captain Whitmore is busy.”

  The other officer, younger, trimmer, likely more intelligent, had the grace to look startled.

  “Officer Robie, I’m tired. I’ve had a long day, and I don’t like your haircut or your round and nasty face. Now, look, look down there at the floor.” She pointed and he glared, then looked.

  “So?”

  “That’s the floor I’m going to wipe with your ass, if you don’t lose the attitude and take me to Captain Whitmore. Are you keeping up with me, pal? Do I need to say it again, maybe slower?”

  They stood toe to toe, glaring. Sonora knew this man well, as she knew all the small-time, hard-on, low-brain Robies of the world. He didn’t give.

  The other officer was getting upset. “Ma’am, I’ll be glad to take you to Captain Whitmore. He’s upstairs on five. If you’ll just—”

  “Back up, Robie, and get the hell out of my way.”

  He did. One step. A small one. She took what she could get, following the dark-haired officer, Darnell, heard Robie muttering.

  “Ohio bitches.”

  She would have laughed if she’d been in a better mood.

  “Sorry about that,” Darnell said.

  She followed him down the corridor to a bank of elevators. She shrugged. “Too many cops, not enough crime.” According to the statistics, Lexington had more police officers per capita than anywhere else in the country.

  Darnell looked hurt. Sonora felt guilty.

  “Tell me, Officer Darnell. Any particular reason for the fifth floor? Better security, or was that just where they had a room available?”

  “Well. Number four is maternity.”

  She laughed.

  “Five is the psych ward, ma’am.”

  The elevator door opened to Whitmore and Detective Yagamochi, another one of Sonora’s favorite people. Yagamochi seemed anxious to get on the elevator.

  “Sonora. Hey.” Whitmore, suit more wrinkled than ever, took her by the arm. “Glad you could make it.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.” Officer Darnell looked unsure of himself. He started for the elevator. “Hold,” Sonora said. “Whitmore, I had a problem with one of your guys downstairs.”

  Whitmore frowned. Mai stepped on the elevator, punched the button. The doors closed, stranding Darnell.

  “By the way, hello,” Sonora said to the door as it shut. Typical Mai behavior.

  “What kind of problem, Detective Blair?”

  Detective Blair now.

  “It was Robie, sir,” Darnell told him.

  “Robie? What, again?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Want some overtime, Darnell?”

  “Yes, sir.” Darnell, from the look on his face, did not want some overtime.

  “You tell Officer Robie that Captain Whitmore said to go home and that I’ll be in touch with his lieutenant.” Whitmore looked at Sonora. “I’ll take care of it. Guy’s a cowboy.”

  “Guy’s an idiot.”

  “That too.”

  “Tell him if he ever needs a job, don’t come looking in Cincinnati.”

  “He’ll be a security guard, somewhere, before the year is out. Come on, we got other things to think about. Let me show you what I got.”

  Sonora followed him down a wide, clean corridor, wrinkling her nose at the medicinal gym-sock scent found only on a hospital ward, thank God. The psych floor was different from the usual. Potted plants. People in street clothes, not scrubs. Orderlies carrying leather restraints.

  Rubber rooms, buff attendants, fake smiles, and Thorazine. Sonora felt queasy. Don’t let them see that you’re crazy.

  “Sorry about your partner.”

  “Thanks.” She was tired. She’d had a long drive and a shit day. “Shooter got Aruba through the window?”

  “Tore the damn thing right off. He was up here in the nuthouse because the security is better. No civilians.”

  “Really?” Sonora looked up and down the hallway.

  “Staff. They all wear street clothes on this floor, to keep the patients from getting upset. Good setup for Aruba, ’cause they got the drugs and experience to ha
ndle a head case. Which he was, from what I could see.”

  Sonora did not comment. She’d wanted Aruba in jail, not an institution, which was a moot point now.

  Whitmore turned a corner, and Sonora had to do a shuffle step to follow. “We kept two guys on it, instead of the usual one.”

  “Inside or out?”

  “Out. Aruba was in bed, under restraint. He never had a chance.”

  “It was this or the chair,” Sonora said. But she felt cheated. She wanted the trial, and so did the DA, so did all of Cincinnati. Aruba, the bastard, had taken a short cut.

  The doorway to the room was crowded. Two folding chairs in the hallway, an overturned foam cup. Crime-scene guys and uniforms. People made way for Whitmore, looked Sonora up and down.

  “Had a guy sitting outside the door, another guy in the room—”

  “I thought you said they were both outside.”

  “He’d gone in to take a leak. Better in here than leaving his post.”

  Sonora walked inside. Aruba was still there, strapped to the bed, arms in the leather restraints, even the one in the cast. That must have hurt. But not as much as the bullets that had perforated his chest in a close torso cluster. He could have been a police target at the firing range.

  His eyes were open, pupils yellow, a snarl on his face. No way he’d seen it coming. He’d died quickly.

  Sonora was a tiny bit glad he was dead already, just for the sake of the world. Things went wrong sometimes in a courtroom; there were never any guarantees. But she still felt cheated.

  “He was going to confess,” Sonora said. Stepped sideways around an IV pole connected to nothing that had crashed over the bed. Aruba, in his death throes.

  Whitmore motioned to a door, next to an empty closet. “Our guy was in there, taking a leak. Safer than leaving his post.”

  “He fire his weapon?”

  “No. Killer used a Remington bolt-action shotgun. Same as your guy, that right?”

  “Yeah, probably the same weapon. Soon as your ME digs those bullets out—”

  “I hear you.”

  Sonora took a camera out of her purse. “Okay by you if I take a couple of pictures? For the case book?”

  “Sure, go ahead. We can send you what we get—”

  “I know.”

  “I hear you already have somebody in custody. How’s he look?”