Stardom Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #12

by Connie Shelton

  “What’re you doing here? Get moving!”

  Ollie leaped to his feet and ran down the alley. There just wasn’t enough fight left in him for another confrontation. Not like there used to be, even a few days ago. The day he’d questioned String about his share of the bank money. That turned into a nasty scene with String taking aim at Ollie with that pistol. Ollie scrambling to get away, bumping into String, making him shoot a hole in the ceiling of some trailer they’d broken into and spent their first night back in Albuquerque. He’d been on the run ever since.

  He reached the mouth of the alley and stared at the street. Didn’t recognize this part of town. Didn’t really matter. He had no money, no car, no place to go. He waited for a clear spot in the traffic and dashed across to a small park. Streetlights cast small puddles of golden light around the edges of it, but the middle was a black mass of bushes and trees. He headed for the darkest area and flopped to the ground with his back against the trunk of some huge tree.

  The whole dream had turned out so badly. His plan—the house for Rena Lynn, the convertible, their life together—it seemed so far away now. He’d tried to call her, two days ago when he still had a few coins in his pockets. An answering machine came on—when had they gotten that?—and the pay phone wouldn’t give him back his money. He thought of trying to call Sadie, but wasn’t at all sure that his mother would accept a collect call from him. And that would depend on locating her anyway. They hadn’t spoken in three years and it wouldn’t surprise him if she’d found herself a new man by now. She might not even live in this city anymore.

  No, he wasn’t that desperate yet.

  He’d passed a twenty-four-hour Laundromat earlier in the day. This late, there might be a good chance of finding it empty. He could wash up in the restroom. Might even find some clean clothes. Could probably figure a way to get some money out of the place. Those little cash businesses—a place like that would be full of dollar bills and coins and everything.

  He would clean up, find enough money for real food, and then he’d call Rena Lynn again. Or maybe he’d ride the bus up to her place. They could still run off together, even without the money he’d hoped for. Her dad gave her a car when she graduated last month, a used Honda. Pretty nice little ride, even if it wasn’t exactly a hot car. It would get them out of Albuquerque and then they could find a place to get married and settle down. To hell with String and his big plans.

  Chapter 35

  Ron had called in sometime around mid-afternoon. Besides cruising past the addresses he’d gotten for relatives of String and Mole, we did still have a business to run here. He’d gone down to the courthouse to research some records for one of the law firms that regularly hires us.

  Paperwork finished by five o’clock, I was really in the mood to go home for a long nap on the couch, followed by making a nice dinner for Drake. But with my husband out fighting a fire—we never knew how long those could go on—and me living in a hotel with neither comfy couch nor my own kitchen facility, probably the best I could hope for was a night of TV in a generic room.

  Freckles had snoozed the afternoon away beside my desk, in almost the exact spot her predecessor always chose, but now she was up and restless. And a restless puppy should never be ignored. We weren’t all that certain of her house training just yet. She raced me down the stairs and to the back door, but I wasn’t keen on dashing out there to find another surprise visit from an unwelcome guest.

  I clipped the leash onto her tiny collar and led her to the front door instead. A peek out the side glass reassured me that the FBI van was still in place, two doors down. I scanned the street. The man behind the wheel of the gray car raised his fingers in salute and I gave a tiny wave back. All looked normal.

  Finished with her business, Freckles pulled me back to the front door. She was gaining strength every day and I had a feeling leash training better be in the plan pretty soon. At our initial visit to the vet, the day after we’d brought her home, the doctor said we could expect her to grow up to fifty pounds or so. I needed to establish early on just who was really in charge here. In keeping with that, I followed her into the kitchen and filled her food bowl.

  While she wolfed through her food I phoned the agents out front to let them know I was ready to leave, then put away my files, shut down the computer and turned out the lights upstairs. Rechecked the front door and windows, turned on the proper night lights and worked my way to the back door and peeked out the window. The uniformed officer stood near my Jeep, which was reassuring. If only it always worked this smoothly.

  But when I opened the back door to leave, a piece of paper fluttered to the kitchen floor. The bold black marker strokes were way too familiar.

  You owe me $50,000.

  Chapter 36

  The plan went pretty smoothly. Ollie found the Laundromat, even though it was a bit farther than he’d remembered. Bright fluorescent lighting cast white squares across the sidewalk out front and from a vantage point at the dark side of the parking lot he could tell it was empty. He walked in, hoping the air conditioning would offset the heavy summer night but a couple of dryers were running, gobbling up any coolness from the big overhead register. He checked some doors at the back of the place. One went into an empty bathroom, the other was locked—probably a supply closet or something. At least there was no one around.

  He rummaged through the dryers and came up with a pair of jeans and T-shirt that would fit him. He closed the dryer door and tossed the clothing into the restroom, in case their owner showed up.

  With a casual swagger, he cruised past the change machine, a thing that would fill your hands with quarters if you just fed in enough dollar or five-dollar bills. The boxlike metal had been welded repeatedly and looked stronger than Fort Knox.

  An industrial sized padlock held it all together. He gave a tug. It was tight enough to protect an armored car. Well, shit.

  Ollie helped himself to a washcloth from the bounty in the dryer and went into the restroom where he did a respectable wash-up—what his mother would have called a spit-bath—and changed into the clean clothes. He heard a sound and peeped out through a crack near the doorjamb.

  A set of headlights pulled up to the front of the place and a harried looking woman in a waitress uniform jumped out of a small white car. She rushed in, opened the dryer door and patted the clothes inside. They were dry enough to suit her and she heaped them into the basket she’d brought with her, then bustled back out to the car and was gone within minutes.

  Okay, the danger of being caught in someone else’s clothes was gone. But he still had no cash. He eyed the door next to the bathroom. Locked doors always intrigued him. They didn’t usually stop him either. With a glance back at the front windows to be sure no one was watching, he backed up and gave a hard kick. The deadbolt lock held tight, but the hollow-core door splintered. Two more kicks and he got his hand inside. A twist of the deadbolt and he was in.

  Cartons of those tiny soap boxes lined one wall. A mountain of paper towels and toilet paper rolls filled another corner. In the middle of the room stood an industrial sized mop and bucket, and some brooms leaned against the shelving that held the paper towels. As his father would have said, all that stuff was as useless as tits on a boar.

  But maybe . . . He spotted a metal toolbox on the floor. No rings of keys to unlock the trove of coins in the machines—dammit—but a quick search did net him a hefty pry bar.

  “That’s better,” he muttered.

  Back at the change machine he debated how to tackle the heavy padlock. The pry bar didn’t have much effect when he tried to snap it open. But one of the welds on the strapping that held the machine to the wall looked a little weak. He applied all the torque he could muster.

  He felt something move. A little more pressure. A little more shift.

  Something about the sound of the air conditioning changed, a subtle altering of the air in the building. He turned around.

  “Freeze right there!”

>   A damn cop, holding a gun on him.

  “You’re under arrest.”

  He dropped the pry bar and watched his whole plan vanish into thin air.

  Chapter 37

  I must have shrieked, just a tiny bit, when the sheet of paper fluttered to my feet, because the officer out by my car came running toward me.

  “How did this get here?” I demanded.

  He stammered a little while I built up more steam.

  “Weren’t you here all afternoon? How did someone get up to this door? How did they plant this note?” I eyed the back fence, which divided our property from a similar one on the street to the north.

  He reached for his shoulder-mike and mumbled some kind of numerical code, not even attempting to answer my questions. In about five seconds two more men came running up the driveway, the guys from the gray car. Good. I’d like to hear how he explained this to them.

  We spent another ten minutes with a whole lot of mumbo about did I recognize the handwriting, did I think it was from the same sender as the last one, and a bunch of other questions that could be answered with “well, yeah—.” Someone finally called Agent Kingston and he made the sensible suggestions that they bag the note and that someone should escort me to my hotel and see that I was in for the night safely.

  And somehow, even though that hadn’t sounded so appealing an hour ago, it was looking pretty good now. I’d chosen a different hotel and made a reservation earlier in the day, opting for one that was somewhat closer than the far northern end of Coors Road and which would put me on the tenth floor in a class of hotel where anyone the likes of String or Mole would stand out and immediately be spotted by onsite security. This business of avoiding kidnappers sure could get expensive.

  I checked in with Drake and told him my new location. He was fifty miles from home and the fire boss wanted him to stay at the hasty base camp they’d set up, to assure that he would be available again at daybreak. Looked like it was room service for Freckles and me.

  Sick of fast food and cheap motels—or maybe it was simply that my recent experiences of sleeping on couches and floors was still too fresh—I splurged on a meal and wine that set me back almost as much as the cost of the room where I’d stayed last night. Call me a snob but I felt like it was about time to treat myself a little better.

  I set Freckles’ little crate under a painting that purported to be an RC Gorman, closed the floor-to-ceiling drapes, and nestled into my 500-count sheets, with a comforter that must have been stuffed with dandelion fluff on top of me. And thus I stayed, without rolling over once, until my cell phone rang on the nightstand.

  The bedside clock said it was 5:12 a.m.

  “Ms. Parker? This is Detective Dave Gonzales, APD.”

  I think I groaned. Would there ever again be a time in my life that I could go a whole day and night without at least one call from law enforcement?

  “We’re holding a suspect downtown that we think might be the third man from the bank robbery. I know this is a lot to ask, but could you come down and identify him?”

  I sat up in bed and scrubbed sleep grains out of my eyes. “Now?”

  “He’s going over to a cell in the Detention Center in about an hour. After that, it gets a little harder to arrange all this. If you could take a look while we still have him in an interrogation room it really simplifies things.”

  “It will take me a little while to get organized.” I was surprised I could even think about being organized this early. Must have been because I fell asleep before nine o’clock last night. “I’ll be there within the hour.”

  My idea of lounging about in the hotel’s thick terry robe, followed by another decadent room-service order, went the way of all my other plans recently. I took a very quick shower and put on fresh clothes, then put the puppy in her crate and assured her I would be back soon.

  The sun would peek over Sandia Crest in another few minutes, but already the day was beginning to press in with summer heat. I headed west to the police station and parked.

  Gonzales came out for me within moments after I told the desk officer my name.

  “Charlie. Good to see you looking so rested and refreshed.”

  I nodded at the tall, tan complected detective. The last time I’d seen him was during one of my debriefings, after four days on the run. He led the way down a couple of corridors and stopped at a door on the right.

  “I remembered that you said the third man in the gang was named Ollie,” he said. “Lucky I happened to be here when they brought this kid in. He was trying to break into the change machine at a coin laundry. His name is Oliver Trask.”

  Gonzales ushered me into the small room, which was lit only by a dim overhead fixture. Most of the light came from a window set in one wall, a two-way mirror that revealed an interrogation room.

  The kid at the table was Ollie, all right. He looked thinner than I remembered and his blond hair lay in greasy strands. One end of his straggly mustache stuck out at a funny angle. He wore a T-shirt that said Jesus Loves You and didn’t appear to have any socks on with his sneakers. Mainly, he looked alone and scared.

  I nodded at Gonzales. “That’s him.”

  “I’ll turn on the sound,” he said in a low voice. “You wait here. I’ll go in there. So far, he’s only been questioned about tonight’s incident, with a few questions about where he was the day of the bank robbery. I want to see what else we can get out of him and then I’ll check with you to see how much of his story is true.”

  He flipped a switch, picked up a can that I hadn’t noticed on the console, and left the room. A second later, the door to the other room opened and Gonzales joined Ollie at the table.

  “Hey, Ollie. Brought you a Coke.” The cop set the can down in front of his suspect.

  Ollie stared at the can but didn’t pick it up. “When can I go home?”

  “You don’t have much experience at this do you, son? You’re not going home right away. Even if we had all the answers we need from you, nobody’s come to post your bond yet.”

  Ollie’s gaze darted around the room as he performed some kind of mental Rolodex search for a name, someone who would come down here and get him out.

  “You see, Ollie, there’s more than just that half-assed attempt you made to get the money at the Laundromat. You’ve been identified as one of the men involved in a bank robbery/kidnapping last week.”

  I swore that Ollie’s eyes fixed right on me.

  Chapter 38

  I stepped back from the glass, a little unnerved by the penetrating stare.

  Gonzales slapped the table, snapping Ollie’s attention back to the question at hand. “You haven’t exactly come up with a very good explanation of where you were last Friday through Monday, and no one who can verify an alibi for you. So you see . . . we’ll be needing to keep you here until we can do that.”

  “I told you, I borrowed a guy’s car and drove to Texas. By myself.”

  “Yeah. Well, there is a motel clerk who remembers some of that. But he says you didn’t even stay the night. You were there a few hours and then you left. Where’d you go after that?”

  Ollie fidgeted in his chair. He picked up the open can of Coke and took a swallow but then he choked on it and sputtered a little.

  Gonzales sat quietly, his eyes never leaving the young guy’s face.

  Ollie wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve and shuffled in his seat some more. He couldn’t seem to figure out what to do with his hands. He wanted so badly to look cool and in control but he just wasn’t pulling it off.

  Gonzales waited. I wondered if all interrogations involved this much silent staring. Finally, the cop gave a big sigh.

  “Okay, Ollie, tell you what. There’s a lot that we do know about that bank job. So maybe if I throw out a few details you can help fill in the blanks.”

  I could see the younger guy’s wheels turning.

  “We know the identities of two of your accomplices. Leon Mohler and Lonnie Stringer. They’re
guys with records, lot of unsavory stuff. Too bad they weren’t put away sooner because this time they pulled a really bad one. Bank robbery and kidnapping are federal offenses. You know what that means? Longer prison terms, less likelihood of parole. Then there are the murders of Billy Hatchett, Melinda Davies and Sissy Davies.”

  Ollie gulped visibly when Gonzales mentioned the murders.

  “For all we know, you might have been the guy who pulled the trigger on at least one of those murders.”

  Ollie’s hands shook when he reached for the Coke can. He thought better of it and put the hands back in his lap.

  Gonzales ran a hand over his shaved head. “You know, this state can’t seem to figure out whether we want the death penalty or not. Sometimes it’s in . . . sometimes it’s out . . .. No telling which way it’ll go by the time your case comes up.”

  The detective changed his tone, turning almost cheerful. “I’m gonna grab a cup of coffee. Want one? No? Okay, I’ll be right back.”

  Ollie slumped in his chair the minute Gonzales was out the door. As the detective stepped into the room where I stood watching, Ollie began to weep quietly. He raked his fingers through his hair and pounded his forehead against the table.

  “We’ll let him stew for a few minutes. Hopefully, long enough to get him to turn on the others.” He turned to me. “Is there anything you can think of that I can use as ammunition?”

  I glanced back at Ollie. He’d never seemed like a hardened criminal to me, more like a kid who was desperately grasping for approval, anyone’s approval.

  “He told me that he was once pretty close to Sissy Davies. She wasn’t technically related but he called her Aunt Sissy. Her death has to be weighing pretty heavily on him.”

  Gonzales nodded. “We didn’t know about that yet.”