by A W Hartoin
Trevino slumped so hard I thought he’d bend in half. “You want to press charges?”
“Yeah, I do,” said Raptor, touching her face tenderly. “My nose is broken.”
“You’ll have to go to the ER to know that,” said Trevino.
Her withering look turned into the ice age. “I’m a nurse. I know a broken nose, especially when it’s on my face.”
“We can arrest Xena for simple assault.” Trevino rubbed his face with both hands, making his bushy brows stick out like porcupine quills.
“Do that,” said Raptor.
I smiled. “Let’s wait on Xena.”
“You heard him. That nut assaulted me.”
“I know. Let’s just give it a minute.” I shot over a look that confused and silenced Raptor. I didn’t know anything could do that. “So back to Hal.”
Trevino sighed. “Why do you think he was killed?”
I ran it down for him as fast I could so he would hopefully stay interested. Bennett was definitely awake and giving me the look I knew so well. When I finished, he squinted, and said, “You look familiar.”
Raptor snorted. “I bet she does.”
Trevino blinked. “She’s not familiar to me, but she’s got a point, though I hate to say it. Bennett, get the kit.”
Bennett didn’t move. His blue eyes stayed fixed on me. “Aren’t you that girl?”
“You need glasses,” said Trevino “Yeah, she’s a girl, a spanking good one, too. Go to the car before you embarrass yourself and me. You know how I like embarrassment.”
Bennett pointed at me. “Tommy Watts.”
“She’s a girl. Come on, Bennett, you’re killin’ me here.”
“No, she’s Tommy Watts’ daughter.”
“Whoopdy freaking do. Go to the car,” said Trevino.
“He’s that famous cop, the detective who solved that serial killer case back in the eighties.”
Trevino raised an eyebrow at me. “Watts, you say?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But that doesn’t matter.”
“He’s famous?”
“I guess. Are you going to call crime scene?” I asked.
“What serial killer was it?”
“I don’t know. There were a couple.”
“Where was this at?” asked Trevino.
Raptor threw up her hands. “Hello! Where have you been? Her dad’s famous. She’s famous. She’s Mercy Watts.”
Bennett made a fist. “You’re the DBD girl. I knew you looked familiar. My roommate has your leather bikini poster on his wall,” said Bennett.
I want to die.
“Yeah, um, can we please talk about Hal?” I asked.
“You’re on posters?” asked Trevino.
“You would do that,” said Raptor with absolute scorn. “Haven’t you got any dignity whatsoever?”
No.
My lower lip poked out against my will. “I’ve got dignity.”
“Where?”
“Never mind. Back to Hal.” I admit I was a little shrill.
Trevino yawned and cracked his back. “Baby, I get it. This guy’s your friend and you’re upset. This probably isn’t a crime. It’s death. It happens. Bennett, call the Norths.”
“Crime Scene techs?” I asked without much hope.
He rolled his eyes. “Funeral home. We’ll do the scene ourselves.”
“Can you get a full unit?”
“I can, but it’s not necessary at this point.”
“Trust me, it’s necessary,” I said.
Trevino cracked his back again. “I’m not asking for a unit to come out from Rapid City on the say so of a bikini model. I don’t care who your father is.”
I knew that poster would bite me in the ass.
“I’m a nurse. That poster was a one-time thing for some special DBD fans and it got bootlegged.”
“Whatever. We’ll bag and tag him. The end.”
That’s when I got sly. “And then you can arrest Xena. I bet she’s fun to cuff.”
Trevino clenched his jaw.
“Or maybe we can forget about Xena,” I said.
“Mercy!” exclaimed Raptor. “My nose!”
“I’m listening,” said Trevino.
“He doesn’t need a funeral home. He needs an autopsy.”
Trevino took out his pad. “That could be arranged. Do you know the family?”
“He doesn’t have a family,” said Raptor.
The cops both looked at me. “Well, as his friend, you can help out and find his heirs, if he has any,” said Trevino.
“Stop saying it like that. He’s not my friend. He’s my grandad’s Vietnam buddy.”
Trevino and Bennett got a whole lot more interested. A Vet. That changed things.
“How many tours did he do?” Bennett asked me.
I looked at Raptor. Her eyes filled and she said, “Two full tours. He was seriously wounded halfway through his third.”
“Purple heart?”
“Four.”
We all stood there for a second and then looked in the room where Hal, a genuine war hero, lay dead on the floor. His fraud charge vanished from my mind.
“Can you please call Rapid City?” I asked. “My dad’s gonna kill me if we don’t get this right for Hal and my grandad.”
Without a word, Bennett walked off to get the kit and Trevino took our statements. “So Hal was his nickname?”
Raptor frowned and then winced in pain. “Short for Harold.”
Trevino leaned over to look at the back of the door. “We stopped by the office. This room was rented by a man named Michael Tarrington.”
Raptor stepped back and gasped. “We switched. I totally forgot.”
Trevino got all stiff and hawkeyed. “You switched rooms with the deceased?”
When Raptor had walked Big Mike and Hal back to the hotel, they realized Big Mike had asked for a queen. Hal had two doubles so they switched.
Raptor sat down next to Wallace, pulled the pug into her lap, and began to cry into the top of her wrinkly head. “It’s my fault.”
Trevino looked at me, two shades paler than he’d been a moment before. It was too weird. That didn’t make sense. Nobody with eyesight and a sense of proportion was going to mistake Hal for Big Mike. It’s not like he was shot. Whoever got those pills down him was up close and personal and I said so.
Raptor wiped her tears away. “I don’t know if this is important, but someone knocked on our door last night. I didn’t think anything of it until now.”
Trevino poised his pen over his pad, not a trace of disinterest now. “What happened?”
“Someone knocked. I was so tired I didn’t care. I thought they’d go away, but they just kept knocking. I got kinda pissed and asked who it was. They never knocked again.”
I exchanged a looked with Trevino. “Did you look out the peephole?”
Please say yes.
Raptor nodded. “I did after I yelled, but no one was there. I thought it was a stupid drunk who got the wrong room.”
Bennett came back with the kit, squatted, and pulled out some gloves and bags. Trevino told him about the switch and the younger cop got thoughtful. “This could be random, assuming this is really a murder.”
“Aren’t random murders usually shootings?” I asked. “Pick some stranger off at a distance. This was personal. They used his own meds.”
“We won’t know that until we get the tox screen,” said Trevino, gloving up.
“So you are going to send him for an autopsy? No funeral home?”
He looked at Raptor. “You want to press charges against Xena?”
“I don’t care about that anymore,” said Raptor.
“Alright. Let’s get to it. Bennett call Rapid and get an ETA.”
Trevino and Bennett got to work and I pulled Raptor to her feet, whispering to her when the cops went in Hal’s bungalow. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Aren’t we supposed to stay here?” she asked, handing me Wallace, who was well-rested
and ready to bark her head off.
I clamped her jaws shut again and said, “I’ve never been too fond of supposed to.”
Chapter Eleven
RAPTOR AND I found the Rally Inn’s office bungalow empty and unlocked. The guestbook was on the counter and turned toward the door. Raptor reached for it, but I held her back. “They’ll have to dust it.”
The blush on her cheeks intensified and her nose had turned an unpleasant shade of reddish-purple and extended to her eyes. She was shaky and more than a little teary. “You think Hal was really murdered?”
“I do.” I gave her Wallace’s leash and got out my phone to take pictures of the guestbook.
“If I hadn’t been there…”
I pressed the camera button and let it focus on the open page. “Don’t think about the ifs. It’ll only hurt you.”
She didn’t say anything and I glanced over. “What?”
“Like when you killed that kid in New Orleans?”
“Yeah, that was special.”
“The news said he was attacking you. You had to kill him.”
I didn’t want to talk about it. Sometimes, my grip on forgiveness was tenuous at best. Richard was still dead and I still killed him. Instead of answering, I took a multitude of shots and then scanned the page.
“It wasn’t your fault, but you still starved yourself. Ace was pretty upset about that.”
Can we talk about something else?
“He should talk. I have to force-feed him five times a day,” I said.
“Why’d you do it?”
I looked at Raptor and, for once, she was Raquel, the granddaughter Robert adored, instead of the person that hated me more than herpes. I sighed. “I had to kill him. Just like you had to either answer the door or call out. There was no way around it for either of us. Guilt doesn’t have to make sense, but it’s not your fault. Somebody was looking to kill Hal. They weren’t going to give up just because you didn’t answer the door.”
Raptor blew her nose and said, “I still wish I hadn’t said anything.”
“I know, but trust me, finding out who did it is great therapy. Look at this.” I pointed to the page. Big Mike checked in at four o’clock the previous day and Hal showed up at six. They were together on the middle of the page. The lines were empty below them.
“Okay,” said Raptor. “So what? They checked in. We knew that already and we didn’t tell the office that we were switching.”
“I didn’t think you did.” A huge group of bikes rode by, drowning out everything, including my thoughts. How did they not have hearing damage?
Raptor uncovered her ears. “What did you say?”
“Whoever killed Hal knew him. It wasn’t random at all.”
“How do you figure that?”
I pointed at the names. “They went to Hal’s original bungalow and heard you. I think they came to the office and looked at the names. They knew Hal well enough to murder him. Stands to reason that they knew Big Mike, too.”
“Sounds good, but why not just figure that Hal had a girl in his room and go away to try again later?”
“Good point.” I stared at the names and got a feeling, a creepy, uncomfortable feeling. How would they know that Raptor wasn’t in with Hal? I almost had it. The answer was on the tip of my brain.
“Mercy, hello,” said Raptor with a hint of her usual snark.
There it was. I knew I had it.
“They know us, too,” I said.
“Huh?”
“The killer was at the bar last night. They saw Hal and they saw us. You were supporting Big Mike and you helped him leave. Not Hal. Hal had a few, but he was moving under his own power. Big Mike had a head wound. It makes sense that you’d stay with him. They heard your voice in Hal’s room, knew you must’ve switched, and came in here to look up Big Mike’s room. See? The register is still turned around.”
“Maybe it just stayed that way after Hal registered?” asked Raptor.
“I don’t think so. George Nappo signed the register as the attendant checking him in and marked him paid. It makes sense that he would’ve done that right after Hal signed it. Someone else turned it later.”
“Sounds good to me. Do you think they left fingerprints?”
“They made other mistakes like cleaning up the vomit and taking the towel.”
“Probably thought nobody would notice. The cops are pretty busy during rally week and Hal did look like a heart attack waiting to happen.”
“Do you want to stay here while I go tell Trevino about the book or do you want to do it?”
Before she answered, the back door of the office opened and the man who’d been chasing Xena staggered in. I could hear an ambulance in the distance and there was a good chance that it was for him, even though he’d cleaned up a bit and gotten dressed. “Have you been waiting long? I’m sorry we have no vacancies. Rally week, you know.” He dropped down into the office chair behind the desk and nearly toppled over.
“Are you okay?” asked Raptor.
“Me? I’m fine,” he said.
That guy wasn’t fine. He had four deep scratch marks on his left cheek and smelled like he’d taken a bath in tequila before he passed out and landed on his head. The knot on his brow was the size of a baseball, but kinda mushy-looking.
“You might want to go to the doctor,” I said. “Your head doesn’t look so good.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I’m a man.” He narrowed his eyes as he really looked at Raptor for the first time. “Oh, girl, were you in a car accident? We’ve got a good little hospital in town.”
“Xena threw your keys at my face. You were chasing her. You ought to know,” hissed Raptor, looking extra vicious with her blackened eyes.
“I didn’t know she hit you. Xena tries to hit me all the time. She doesn’t have a good arm.”
“Good enough, from the look of you,” I said.
“This? This is nothing,” he said. “I ran into a door. Are you going to sue us? The owner won’t like that.”
“Are you George Nappo?”
“Why do you want to know?” he asked suspiciously.
Raptor kicked the desk. “Because I’m going to sue you if you don’t tell the truth.”
He slumped. “I’m George.”
“Did you sign in the last two guests yesterday?” I asked.
“Yeah. So?”
I wanted to know if anyone had been asking about either Hal or Big Mike. Nobody had. Raptor asked if anybody suspicious had been hanging around. She was getting into the whole detective thing, but he laughed. It was rally week and they were low-rent. Practically everyone was suspicious.
“Is the office always unlocked at night?” I asked.
“No. I locked it at eleven,” said George, starting to look concerned. “Is this about the dead guy?”
“You didn’t lock it last night.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t.”
“Why do you think that?”
I leaned over the desk and said, “Because the person that killed your guest came in here to find his bungalow number well after midnight.”
George held up his hands in mock surrender. “That didn’t happen. No way.”
“Yes, it did.”
“No, it didn’t. I locked up. It’s my job. I did my job. It was locked, because I locked it.”
“It wasn’t locked. The cops are going to fingerprint this book and find out who it was.” There might not be any useful fingerprints, but it sounded good to me.
It sounded good to George, too. He jumped up, snatched the book, and ran out the back door while Raptor and I stood there, gaping.
“I didn’t see that coming,” said Raptor.
Me either. I couldn’t seem to move.
“Shouldn’t we do something?”
I grabbed Wallace’s leash and unclipped her. “Go, Wallace. Get him!”
Bark.
“Sic ‘em!”
Bark.
“For heaven’s sake. Y
ou’re useless.” I darted around the desk and yelled, “I should’ve brought the poodle!”
I rammed my way through the door and saw George hoofing it down the street. I so wasn’t in the mood, but I ran after him, paying dearly for my lack of a sports bra. I’d chosen to wear a black lacy bra made for girls with nice, normal-sized breasts that didn’t threaten to hit them in the face when running.
“George! Bring that back!” I screamed.
He glanced over his shoulder and his scrawny legs put on speed that I didn’t suspect he had.
I’m going to beat you with a rock, little man.
George jerked onto the road into slow-going traffic. The rally was heating up and it was bumper to bumper. I dashed after him, almost getting hit by a baby blue Indian, whose owner swore at me. For some reason, George decided that the best way to escape me was to run down the middle of the street, zigzagging around bikes and the occasional car. I followed like an idiot, pain shooting through my ankles from my jump in Paris.
Somebody threw a beer at me and missed, hitting another biker. Cursing and barking erupted behind me, but I kept running. George looked back and ran into a black Harley with Indiana plates.
“What the hell, man?” yelled the rider, who was wearing a Rush concert tee and wire-rimmed glasses.
I almost nabbed George. I brushed his shirt with my fingertips before he darted in front of a Coke truck and I missed the turn, bouncing off the fender and landing on my butt. Three bikers had me up in seconds.
“Are you okay?”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Who is that dude?”
I sucked in a breath and said, “He stole evidence in a murder.” Another breath. “I have to get him.”
A burly guy of about sixty-five put me on the back of his bike. “We’ll get the douchebag.”
We edged across two lanes of oncoming traffic to speed after George, who was almost to a small bridge with metal railings and packed with people walking to the main drag. The Harley put on a burst of speed as George jerked to the right and disappeared over the embankment.
“Where’s he going?” The biker jerked to a halt at the bridge. “I’ll get him.”
But I was already off and running down to the stream. It wasn’t that big, but big enough to get George to stop and have a think about it.
“George! Do not go in there!” I screamed.