The Color of Wounds

by Frank Martorana

  “No, that’s not it,” Loren said with more feeling than anything she’d said to that point. “What really pissed me off is you.”

  “Me?”

  Aubrey stayed perfectly still.

  “Yes, you. You as much as told me to keep my hands off him that morning when the Presbyterian Church got blasted. Then, wouldn’t you know it, I get an important read on the mystery girl who’s been hanging around town …” She broke off mid-sentence, throwing her hands up in despair. “And I can’t get near Kent to tell him about it. All because of you.”

  Aubrey wasn’t buying it. “You could have told somebody else. Merrill. The police.”

  “I did. Just not the police.”

  “Who did you tell?” Kent asked.

  “Marvin Tice. Not that he could do much about it. But he was willing to listen, and I needed a listener at the time.” Loren’s face folded into an apprehensive look. “He did tell you, didn’t he? He said he would.”

  “He never told me anything. What did you tell him? Exactly.”

  “That the girl was one of the Burman grad students who worked in the Texas Torture Lab. Remember? I recognized her the second I laid eyes on her.”

  Kent’s gut twisted like a snake poked with a stick. “So you told Tice you had placed Dee Mitt?”

  “Yes. Whatever her name is.”

  Kent stood and stepped to the phone, picked up the receiver, and dialed.

  “Who are you calling?” Aubrey asked.

  “Merrill.”

  “Why?”

  Kent opened his mouth to reply, then suddenly redirected his attention into the phone. “Morning. It’s me.”

  “What’s up,” Merrill said, making no attempt at small talk. “I’ve got a lot going on this morning. You probably heard about the car bomb at VinChaRo.”

  “I’ve got a couple of things for you, Chief. One, the person who blew up Eddy Mathews last night was the same person who bombed everything else around town. And ...”

  “How do you know that?” Merrill said.

  “Wait a second. And two, Marvin Tice is the person.”

  Merrill was silent on his end for a moment. Then he said, “Eddy had plenty of enemies. Law enforcement is well aware of who he was connected to. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Do you have a report on what the explosive was yet?”

  “You are kidding, right?”

  “It’ll be that new concentrated C4, same as the others.”

  Merrill’s voice became suspicious. “How do you know so much?”

  “Because that car bomb was meant for Loren Summer, not Eddy.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Loren and Eddy were at the sale together.”

  “There was only one body,” Merrill said.

  “That’s because they didn’t leave together. Aubrey and I broke up a fight they were having in the parking lot, and we took her to my place.”

  Kent heard Merrill make the sound he made whenever he was playing catch-up.

  “Is that where you are now?” Merrill said.

  “Yes.”

  “Her too?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were they fighting about?”

  Kent described the incident in the VinChaRo parking lot.

  “So,” Merrill said. “You actually saw the explosion.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t call me.”

  “I knew a half dozen calls would come into your office in ten seconds. Was I right?”

  Merrill tacitly admitted Kent was right. “That’s not the point.”

  “I’m sorry, but we really didn’t have anything else to contribute at that moment and,” Kent hedged, “Loren needed medical attention.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’ll be fine. Just bruised up. But now I do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Have something to contribute.”

  “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  “Like I said, that bomb was meant for Loren, not Eddy. I just found out from Loren this morning. Stay with me now, this gets complicated. She found out Dee Mitt was the ringleader of the Burman students all by herself. She actually recognized Mitt. But, she didn’t have the benefit of connecting Mitt to Tice like I did when I found the newspaper clippings in his office. So, for reasons that aren’t important, Loren ends up telling Tice that she recognized Mitt. You with me?”

  “Yeah,” Merrill said slowly. “So Tice knows Loren knows who Mitt is. Go on.”

  “Right. So Tice has to eliminate Loren. Somehow he finds out Loren is with Eddy at the VinChaRo auction. I don’t know. Maybe he was tailing her. Anyway, he decides that’s the perfect way to get rid of her. If he’s lucky, the police will think Eddy was the target. So he rigs Eddy’s car.”

  “But I don’t understand why he needs to get rid of Loren.”

  “Because Tice and Mitt are connected. I told you. Remember the notebook? I just haven’t figured out the details yet. I don’t know what they’re up to. But I do know that Tice can’t afford to let anyone know about Dee.”

  Merrill was silent at his end for several seconds. Then he said, “Does Tice know that you recognized Dee? Or that now Aubrey knows who she is? Because if he does, that puts the two of you in the same danger as Loren.”

  “I don’t think so,” Kent said, but his voice held some doubt. He glanced over at the two women, both listening and staring at him.

  “Well, I want all three of you to keep your heads down. You get what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah. In the meantime, you find Tice.”

  “Yep. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  Kent hung up the phone slowly and delicately, as if he were snuggling a newborn puppy against its mother. He turned back to Aubrey and Loren.

  “Did you catch all of that?”

  Aubrey nodded. “Sort of. One side of it. Sounds pretty confusing, but bottom line, Tice is the bomber.”

  Kent took his car keys from a hook near the door. “That’s the important part. Tice is the bomber. And the murderer. He was trying to kill you, Loren, when he got Eddy because you know about Dee Mitt.” His eyes moved from Loren to Aubrey. “So Aubrey, you could be a target now, too. Stay here. And be careful.” He reached for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Aubrey said.

  “To find Dee Mitt.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Kent was glad it was Sunday morning. The neighborhood was deserted, a picture of peace and quiet. He eased his Cherokee down LaMont Place looking for eleven twenty-one, the address where Merrill said Dee Mitt lived. He leaned toward the windshield and squinted at house numbers. Odd numbers were on the left.

  He pulled to the curb across from a tired little ranch with one-one-two-one in fake wrought iron numerals over its front door. There was no garage and no car in the short driveway. Blinds were pulled on both front windows.

  “Stay close,” he said to Lucinda. “We don’t know what we are getting into.”

  He crossed the street, followed a cracked sidewalk up to a porch that was covered by an aluminum awning, and knocked.

  No answer.

  He knocked again.

  Still no answer.

  He thumped the door with the heel of his hand.

  “She probably can’t hear you,” came a voice off to his left.

  Kent turned and saw the speaker was a man. He was next door on a porch just like Mitt’s. He looked to be about seventy, white hair and pink skin, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and worn khakis.

  “What was that?” Kent said.

  The man stood slowly, stepping to the rail toward Kent. “I say she probably can’t hear you.” He paused. “Say, ain’t you the vet?”

  “I am. Kent Stephenson.”

  “I h
ad my cat to you once. Years ago.”

  “Is she in there?”

  “My cat? No, she’s long dead.”

  “I mean the girl that lives here.”

  “Yup, she is. You were in that tiny animal hospital back then.”

  “She ought to be able to hear me,” Kent said and pounded the door again.

  “Took her eye out.”

  “What?”

  “My cat. She had an infected eye. You had to remove it. You did good. She did good, too. Came along fine. We changed her name to Cyclops after that.”

  “Glad to hear it. You sure she’s in there?”

  The man scrubbed his growth of beard with the palm and said, “Passed out drunk, I’d guess.”

  Kent stared at the door, then back at the neighbor. “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t know it for sure. It’s what I guess.”

  “All right,” Kent said, his patience fraying. “Why do you guess she’s drunk?”

  The neighbor spoke slowly, as if discussing the weather. “She came stumbling by here about an hour ago, all staggery and doubled over. She puked before she went inside. Right about where you’re standing.”

  To this point Kent hadn’t paid much attention to Lucinda sniffing around his feet. He looked down and saw tacky yellow globs of bile and some smeared white chunks he’d guess were bread or cereal stuck on the porch floor. He nudged Lucinda away from it with his foot.

  “She was moaning, too,” the man added.

  Kent glanced at his watch. “It’s just ten o’clock. Kind of early to tie one on, isn’t it?”

  The man shrugged with the unimpressed air of one who’d been there. “Early or late? It’s kind of hard to tell.”

  “Was she alone?”

  “Yup. She usually is.”

  Kent turned back to the door and, with low expectations, tried the knob. It opened with a loud click. As he and Lucinda stepped in, he heard the neighbor say, “Thanks again for fixing my cat.”

  Inside was a tidy little suite of rooms. Furnishings were simple, flea market variety, but clean, orderly, and accented with enough knick-knacks to make it cozy. The air smelled lightly of incense or potpourri. The homemaker was doing her best to make a comfortable home on a tight budget.

  To Kent’s right was the kitchen. Its once white ceiling was yellowed, its wallpaper tired, but countertops and simple appliances gleamed.

  To his left, a hall headed back into the bedroom area.

  He went left, reasoning a drunk would head for a bed.

  “Stay behind me, girl,” he said to Lucinda. “Let me go first.”

  There were three doors. The first door he opened was a bathroom. He was about to open the second one when a long moan came through the third. Lucinda growled. Instantly, he felt his heart rate pick up.

  He moved to the door with the sound and eased it open just enough to peek inside. What he saw, an arm’s length away, was a black hole. It was the bore of a large-caliber revolver and it was pointed at his face. He pinched his Kegel muscles just in time to prevent an accident.

  Lucinda let out a roar that sounded more like a bear than a dog and shot past his legs charging for the person who threated her owner.

  Kent dove for her and managed to grab her collar as the gun barrel pivoted toward her.

  “Don’t make me shoot your dog,” Dee Mitt said.

  She was lying on her back on the bed, fully clothed to the fatigue jacket. Her right hand held the revolver. His line of sight followed along the barrel to Mitt’s blue eyes fixed on Lucinda. He watched her thumb rise up to the hammer like a tiny baldheaded puppet and cock it.

  “I don’t want to, but I will if I have to.”

  “No. There’s no need for that!” Kent said. “Lucinda, sit.”

  Lucinda sank her haunches to the floor but kept her eyes locked on Mitt.

  Mitt moved the gun back to Kent.

  “Dr. Stephenson,” Mitt said without the least hint of surprise. “We meet again.” Her face held a faint smile, but behind it was a darker look.

  Kent tried to work some saliva back into his mouth. “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  She held the gun steady. “Really?”

  He noticed one of her eyes was swollen. She had a dark bruise on her cheek, dried blood around both nostrils. He winced.

  “What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever seen anybody who got beat up?”

  “I have. But that doesn’t mean I like it.”

  Her lips started to pull into a smile, but she dropped it and lightly touched the corner of her lip with a finger. “I figured you’d find me sooner or later.”

  “Sorry it took so long. I’m kind of slow.”

  “There were plenty of hints.”

  He nodded. “I see them now. Twenty-twenty hindsight.”

  She blew a short laugh through her nose.

  She was cute, even with her bruises. Once upon a time warm and friendly. But now there was a hardness that he guessed kept emotions in, or out, but it didn’t conceal her sadness.

  “Why don’t you put that gun down and we’ll talk about it?”

  Still calm and still holding the gun pointed at him, she asked, “Do you think this gun is for you?”

  He shrugged. “It kind of looks like it.”

  “I’m not a killer. If I were, I would have killed you a long time ago.”

  “Then why are you aiming it at me?”

  “Because I want to get your attention.”

  “I assure you. You have it.”

  “And because I want to establish that I’m in the driver’s seat here. And,” she slowed her speech for emphasis, “because I want to point a gun at the source of my problems for all these years.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Kent and Dee Mitt remained frozen for a long moment, staring, each trying to get a read on the other.

  Mitt’s arm trembled from the weight of the huge revolver she had pointed at Kent.

  “Will you put that thing down, please?” Kent said.

  At first she did not move, then, slowly, she bent her elbow and drew the revolver back toward her. But Kent’s initial relief changed to horror as she brought the muzzle to point under her own chin.

  “This is what I was going to do,” she said.

  “No! Don’t do that!” he said. He leaned toward her, saw her hand tighten on the gun, and immediately backed off. “That won’t help anything.” Get her talking, he thought, trying to think of something to say.

  “Who beat you?” he asked.

  Dee blinked, surprised at the question.

  “Who do you think?”

  “Was it Marvin Tice?”

  She didn’t answer, but her eyes said, “Yes.”

  “What’s he to you anyway?”

  “My boyfriend.”

  “Is that all?”

  She gave her amused noise again. “Some people would think that’s pretty important.”

  “What I mean is, do you work together? Have you known each other a long time? That stuff.”

  “Why don’t you ask what you really want to know?”

  “Which is?”

  “Which is, are we the bombers?”

  Kent shrugged. “All right. Are you the bombers?”

  She gave him a quizzical smile. “Maybe.”

  “That was a rewarding exchange,” he said, and, still gripping Lucinda’s collar, he leaned back against the wall. “Let’s try this: Why did Tice beat you up?”

  Kent saw the pleasure leave her eyes, replaced by tears. Her voice became wet and thick.

  “Because he was angry,” she said.

  “Pretty cowardly reason.”

  “He thought I tipped you off about his fucking lab.” She hesitated, staring straight at Kent, trying to decide whethe
r to continue. Then in an exhaled breath she added, “And because he missed Loren Summer with the car bomb.”

  It took Kent a second to realize she just answered his earlier question.

  “So you and Tice are the bombers.”

  “Not us. Him. I hate the whole thing,” she said, her tone heavy with self-hatred.

  Kent gave her time to say more. It seemed she wanted to, but the gun was still pointed at her throat, and when she remained silent, he prodded her gently. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Tears spilled over blond lashes and trickled down her face, but she did not speak.

  “You both went to Burman A&M together. Didn’t you?”

  “You finally figured it out?”

  “Just this minute, actually.” He gave a short laugh at his own stupidity. “Seems obvious now. I saw your picture in some articles about the Burman thing in Tice’s lab. That jogged my memory, and I remembered you being there and at the hearing. But it never dawned on me that Marvin Tice was there too. I never saw him. Or, he kept a low enough profile that he was just a face in the crowd.”

  Kent pointed a finger at Mitt and showed an expression of admiration. “You were the champion of the grad students. You took all the heat.” He saw her grip on the revolver relax and its muzzle slip to a safer direction. “I’d say you are a pretty devoted girlfriend.”

  Kent watched a wave of relief wash across Mitt’s face. At long last, she was appreciated, recognized for all she had done.

  “Devoted? That’s an understatement,” she said, and her mind sailed back to the early years of their relationship. “Marvin and I met at Burman. I was an awkward, bookish teenager from a backwater town in Florida. I thought Marvin Tice was brilliant. He was confident. He had plans for his life, goals of fame and fortune. He was going to make scientific discoveries that would benefit all of mankind.” She paused. Her voice dropped. “He said he loved me, and he wanted me to be a part of all that. I believed him.”

  Mitt brought the gun down to her side. Kent breathed more easily. Lucinda’s demeanor scaled back from laser-focused protector to cautious observer.

  “I sacrificed everything for him. I did all I could to shield him from the Burman scandal. I wasted my whole career for him.”

  Mitt’s shoulders rose into a shrug that held a long moment. “When it was all over, he had changed. He was angry, mean. I couldn’t do anything right in his eyes. He treated me like I was an idiot.” She looked at Kent, her eyes seeking an explanation. “But I still loved him. I couldn’t make myself leave. And he knew it. He knew I’d go anywhere with him. Do anything for him.”