Where I Can See You

by Larry D. Sweazy

  “You want anything to drink?” Sloane asked Jordan.

  The dishwasher shook his head. Mud and dirt liked him, too; he was covered from head to toe in it. Fear hadn’t left his eyes. “No. Last time I was in here the other guy kept getting me soda. Then he wouldn’t let me go use the bathroom when I had to. I ’bout peed myself. No, thanks. I’m not going through that again. It was a mean game that I ain’t falling for twice.”

  “I’m not the other guy,” Sloane said.

  “I don’t care who you are,” Jordan answered. “Do I need a lawyer? I ain’t got no money and neither do my folks. I need one of those free ones. And a phone call. Don’t I get a phone call? How come there’s no phone in here? I’m a prisoner. I have rights. I know I do. I’m innocent, you know. I am. I didn’t do nothing. Nothing, you got it?” He tapped one foot, then the other. He was antsy, or still a little ramped up from his most recent encounter with meth.

  “You never answered my question,” Sloane said. Her voice and demeanor were calm, unaffected by Jordan’s sudden purging of words. She looked like a human resources person sitting across the table from a job applicant, judging every move, every nuance for believability and worth. The look on her face told Hud that she hadn’t seen or heard anything of value—yet.

  Hud remained still and continued to watch with interest. He was going to take the soft, observant approach until Sloane signaled him in. That was fine with him. He didn’t mind watching Sloane work. She was pretty good at keeping the kid in the chair. He couldn’t bolt this time.

  Jordan sneered at Sloane. Hud thought the kid was going to stick his tongue out at her. “I’m not going to answer your question, either. I’m not stupid,” he said. “I’m not. I was good in school. Most of the time. I skipped sometimes. I liked to watch I Love Lucy in the morning. How about you? You like Lucy?”

  He almost got to Sloane. She was trying to follow him, but she couldn’t, or didn’t want to, Hud wasn’t sure which. “I don’t watch much TV. So, we can just sit here for a while then. Enjoy the view since you’re not going to talk to me,” she said.

  “I ain’t going to confess to selling drugs. Not me. Nope. I’m not going to the pokey for something I didn’t do.”

  “I didn’t ask you if you sold drugs to Pam Sizemore, did I?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Did you? I don’t remember what the question was.”

  “But you ran. Why’d you run, Jordan?”

  “I didn’t have nothing to do with this. Nothing. I said that. Don’t you remember? Fred Mertz reminds me of my Uncle Paulie. Big, bug-eyed, and wide. Drove a Kenworth but always told Peterbilt jokes. Why would he do that?”

  “Nobody said you did anything, did they, Jordan?” Sloane continued, staying on track. “Let me refresh your memory. I asked you if I wanted to trade some meth for Oxy who I would go to.”

  “Same thing.” Jordan crossed his arms and cast a sideways glance at Hud. He was checking to see if he was still there.

  Sloane lowered her head, then flinched in Hud’s direction. Jordan didn’t notice, or it didn’t matter to him if he did.

  Hud hadn’t moved a muscle. “She’d come to you, wouldn’t she Jordan,” Hud said, just as evenly as Sloane. “You and her had a deal worked out. You worked out a code on Twitter that only you two knew the meaning of. You probably think we’re old and don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff, that nobody is smart enough to check and see what you two talked about for the last six months, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong. We know you had a relationship with Pam Sizemore that was all business and no play, isn’t that right?”

  Sloane said nothing. They both watched Jordan Rogers squirm in the cold, hard seat he had found himself in. He licked his lips. They looked like desert sand baked pink in the fluorescent light.

  Hud stepped away from the wall. “We have access to phone records, too, Jordan. Nothing is private when it comes to murder. All we have to do is go to a judge and ask him for a warrant for all of your phone calls. Who you called. Who called you. What voicemails you saved. I will know everything about your phone. Everything. You can’t lie, you can’t hide, and you can’t erase what you don’t have access to anymore.”

  Jordan Rogers craned his neck and stared straight at Hud, with more fear in his eyes than had previously been there. It was like he was in pain, a nerve in a tooth drilled on and hit directly. He contorted his face, looked away at the flat, empty top of the table. “What happens to me if I say I’m the guy she’d come to? What happens then? I can’t do the pokey.”

  “Depends on how you answer the next question,” Sloane said calmly.

  “You said there was only one question,” Jordan replied.

  Sloane shrugged. “I just thought of another one.”

  “What is it?” Resignation replaced the fear in Jordan’s eyes.

  “Where do you get your Oxy?”

  “So, you and Burke hung out a lot as kids?”

  “Yes. Kind of. We’d fish. I’d hang out at his house. Gee wasn’t ever keen on company. I think Burke’s parents made her uncomfortable. He was the closest full-timer around, and there weren’t many other kids my age. So there wasn’t a lot of choices for friends.”

  “Why did Burke’s parents make Gee uncomfortable?”

  “They hobnobbed with the upper crust.”

  “Burke’s dad was the sheriff. Kind of went with the territory, didn’t it?”

  “Gee didn’t tolerate people who put on airs. Especially the locals. It was bad enough to deal with the vacation people. They could be snobby and demanding, but we made our living off them, so there was compensation of some kind for dealing with their crap, I guess. Locals. No. But it existed. The Burkes ran in a different, wider circle. One we didn’t and, most likely, couldn’t run in. Not that Gee was all that social. Especially after my mother was gone. So there was always tension between me and Burke, even then. He could go to places that I never could, just because of his dad.”

  “Like where?”

  “He always got to go to the Flowerses’ big shindigs, partied at the Demmie at those faux debutant balls in the spring. Rubbed it in my face when he could.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He knew I had a thing for Goldie.”

  “A thing?”

  “Yes, a thing. Does that surprise you? She was beautiful. Everybody had a crush on Goldie Flowers.”

  “No. It doesn’t surprise me. It surprises me that Burke knew. That he used it against you.”

  “That’s what Burke does, isn’t it?”

  “If you say so. Tell me about Goldie.”

  “It was distant. How could I ever tell her that I liked her? I was a kid from across the lake who wore cheap tennis shoes and had to work at my grandmother’s shop after school and on weekends. She had her pick of all of the boys around.”

  “You lacked confidence.”

  “Maybe. Then.”

  Jordan Rogers quit talking. Refused to say another word until an attorney showed up. Which didn’t take long. The public defender was a woman, Lucy Hayeton, who looked like she should have retired twenty years prior. She smelled like cat litter and had hair that was white as a deep January blizzard. Hud had never met her before and immediately didn’t like her anger, severe attitude, and adversarial approach to the situation. Not that he had expected anything less. He excused himself from the interrogation room and left Sloane to face the lawyer on her own.

  Burke met him in the hall. “Are you going to charge him?” Hud said.

  “Maybe. He’s withheld information. Obstruction.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “At the moment. Until all of the data from his phone can be put into a cohesive document. Everything we need is there; I’m sure of it.”

  “Sure of it, but not positive. She’s going to eat you alive. The kid will be out of here by the end of the day. Besides, he’s not our killer. You’re chasing shadows, Burke.” Hud started to walk away. His bones felt like cold steel.
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  “Where the hell are you going?”

  Hud stopped. “Home to change clothes. I need a car, too.”

  “Yours is in the shop.”

  “Fine,” Hud said. “I’ll take Sloane’s. She’s not going to need it for a while.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The thick gray afternoon sky felt familiar, like a relative who came to visit on a regular basis. Somewhere beyond the clouds, the sun burned brightly, but, like Hud’s mind and heart at the moment, it was wrapped in a dark blanket, inaccessible at best. The moodiness of October had always suited him, but now that he felt the pull of it, the maddening silence of the off-season and the growing lack of daylight, he was beginning to think that there was nothing but torment waiting for him in the days ahead.

  He felt like Jordan Rogers was a link in the chain that could lead him to the killer, or at least to a motive. Drug and turf wars weren’t unfamiliar to him. Meth was a link, too. Pam Sizemore was caught up in it somehow, but Leo Sherman and his wife didn’t fit into that picture. Not in a stereotypical way. They had a lot to lose. More and more, their deaths made little sense to Hud. Unless one of them had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and somehow got pulled into the current of things. That was possible. Unlikely. But possible.

  Detroit had been rife with the plague of drugs, just like every other big city, but the landscape around the lakes was different. And, to a degree, so were the people. Hud was frustrated that he couldn’t see anything more clearly than he did, and he suspected that it was his own lingering troubles that stood in the way of solving the crime, or at least of heading in the right direction. He needed something to break before someone else was killed. Another day, another murder. He felt that pressure. To catch the killer before he took a shot at somebody again.

  Hud had to wonder if things would have been any different if he’d never left home in the first place. Would he know the source for the kid’s Oxy? Would he have had a trustworthy network that could have given him valuable information on a regular basis? He had no snitches to rely on. No one owed him any favors. He had no one to protect, and no one to protect him. Hud was on his own, and, the way he saw it, that was his biggest problem of all. Even Burke and Lancet seemed to be working against him, allowing him to fail more than succeed. The jury was still out on Sloane, though he felt as if she was warming up to him more than anyone else in the department.

  It was a quick trip to the shop in Sloane’s Crown Vic, where Hud changed clothes, refreshed himself, then headed back toward the office. Halfway there he realized he’d skipped lunch and decided to stop in at the bar at the Demmie Hotel for a quick bite to eat. Besides, he wanted to ask Tilt Evans what he knew about Pam Sizemore and Jordan Rogers. With Johnny Long’s right next door, it was possible he had seen or heard something that might be helpful.

  Hud cast a glance over to Johnny Long’s as he got out of the car. A hard breeze pushed up against him, offering a cold slap from the lake, reminding him that comfort had headed south, just like everything else in its right mind. At least with the leaves off the trees there was more light—gray light—to see all the way to the lake. Small waves rode to the shore, offering texture and movement that hadn’t previously been there. There were no boats on the water or people about. It was a lonely, empty view that Hud had always enjoyed. At least until now.

  The restaurant’s parking lot was almost empty. Only three cars sat in it. A far cry from this morning after Jordan Rogers had run off, and then been detained. Police cars and media vans had crowded every inch of the asphalt and overflowed onto the grass.

  The hotel lot was just as bare as the restaurant lot across the street, and Hud was glad of that. He wanted to eat in peace, ask his questions, then get on with his day—which included teaming back up with Sloane at some point. He pushed inside, glad to see Tilt standing behind the bar, drying glasses, tidying up the place as usual.

  Tilt looked at Hud, nodded, then went back to his chore. The man’s white hair was a little disheveled, and his eyes were bloodshot. It looked as if he’d been on a bender the night before.

  Hud settled in on his usual bar stool. There was no one else inside the bar. “You still serving lunch?”

  The jukebox was silent, the lights turned down low, and the grayness from outside had worked its way into every corner of the place. The smell of hot grease lingered distantly, and the smell of sour beer was prevalent and expected. Nothing had changed since Hud had been in the bar last. He found comfort in the sameness, even if something in the air felt off-kilter.

  “For you? Sure. What can I get you?” Tilt said.

  “Just a burger and a Coke would be fine.”

  “No whiskey?”

  Hud shook his head. “I’m in enough hot water.” He stared at Tilt, was more than a little concerned that the bartender seemed to be ragged around the edges. Tilt was usually put together with the precision of a military man, hardly a hair out of place. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure. The days just get long this time of year. I’m usually the only one here, so I’m cook, chief bottle-washer, and waitress all rolled into one.”

  “You were a little swamped for lunch after all the commotion at Johnny Long’s calmed down, weren’t you?” Hud said.

  “A lot of out-of-towners are out and about right now, yes. I was packed for lunch. Wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”

  “The press?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Burke’s about to come unglued,” Hud said. “We need to put this thing to rest.”

  “The damage is already done. Won’t matter what happens now, will it?”

  “You think?”

  “I do,” Tilt said. “Three murders in just as many days. It doesn’t matter what season it is. Hell, you know how things work. Half of the reservations for rentals are made one year for the next, and another third come in over the winter. At least, that’s how it used to be. Bad news travels fast these days. It doesn’t take much for people to feel insecure, like they’re not safe.” Something caught Tilt’s attention, and he looked away, out the window. “Great,” he offered with a sigh. “That’s all I need.”

  Hud followed the look. “What’s up?”

  “Trouble, that’s what.”

  “Really, why’s that?”

  “You ever met Goldie Flowers’s husband?”

  “Soon-to-be ex, from what I understand.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  Hud stood up from the bar, squared his shoulders, and looked out the window at a beat-up ten-year-old pickup truck parked next to the Crown Vic. “I have a feeling this is no carry-out order. I’m assuming you have a weapon of some kind under the bar?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Good. You might need it.”

  “So, who were the upper crust?”

  “Burke, the Flowerses, of course. Millie and Herb Vance owned the Demmie back then. They had exclusive parties on the top floor, you know, and Johnny Long, of course. He owned a restaurant in one of the suburbs outside of Chicago, too, besides the one next to the lake. They all hung together and fawned over the big-money people in the summer.”

  “Johnny Long or Herb Vance had nothing to with the Shamrocks?”

  “No, I checked. Nothing linked back to anyone here. I thought maybe Fred Myerson owned a stake in it, but that was a dead end, too.”

  “He owned the Dip, right, Fred Myerson? The ice-cream place with the little zoo?”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “Was he part of the crowd Gee didn’t like?”

  “No, not that I know of.”

  “You suspected him, didn’t you? That he did something with your mother?”

  “I did.”

  “And everyone else, too?”

  “Maybe that was my mistake. Not that it would have changed anything. Most all of them are dead now, anyway. Nobody’s talking because they can’t, or they won’t.”

  Hud sat facing the door. He could only assume that Goldie’s soon-to-
be-ex-husband had come looking for him.

  Tilt stood tensely behind the bar, with both hands anchored on the counter. He leaned forward a little bit. “Didn’t expect to see you in today, Tom.”

  The man stopped just inside the door and looked around. Hud recognized him immediately. He had been the man sitting with Goldie the first time Hud had seen her at the bar. The light had been dim and shadowy, and he’d only had eyes for Goldie. No surprise there. At the moment, though, he was concerned about the man—Tom—and nothing else.

  “You seen Goldie, Tilt?” Tom asked.

  Tilt shook his head. “Not today. Can’t say I saw her yesterday, either.”

  “Figured as much.” Tom let his attention drop to Hud. “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Nobody else in here is there?” His voice was tinged with anger that only needed a spark to spread into a rage. He had that look about him, like being pissed off was a full-time job. Unlike Goldie, there were no scratches or bruises on his face. His head was shaved, making him look even more severe than he already did. He had a tattoo on his right forearm—a red blazing skull—and some old blue ink on his left arm that looked as if it had been there since he was a kid. He might have been ten years younger than Goldie, but it was hard to tell, all pumped on anger and frustration like he was. Tom whatever-his-last-name-was was not the kind of guy Hud would have ever imagined Goldie Flowers marrying.

  Hud hesitated in answering the question, which didn’t set well with Tom. “Well? Spit it out. You seen her?”

  “What makes you think I even know who Goldie is?”

  “Everybody knows Goldie,” Tom said.

  “Maybe,” Hud answered. What he wanted to say was, “Yeah I saw her last night. She was scared, hurt, and beat up.” And then he wanted to beat the living shit out of the jerk. But he didn’t say a word or offer any information at all. “When was the last time you saw her?” he asked.