Dead Memories (Carol Ann Baker Crime Book 2)

by Lissa Pelzer

  ‘Okay. I’ve heard enough.’ Tanner went to the desk panel. ‘Interview terminated at two-oh-three.’

  And Purcell flinched and edged back into his seat as if he were about to get a beating. That made Tanner laugh again, and he played on it, diving at Purcell before getting him up so a duty officer could take him back to his cell. Once he was gone, Caffey glanced at his watch and told Tanner he was heading out for food. It was always good to leave before Tanner started one of his wrap-up chats.

  Caffey got a meat sub, ate it in the restaurant parking lot and on his way back, drove along the North County Road, past the old junkyard that had once belonged to the Snell family and towards the strip mall where they had located Snell’s Camaro.

  Tanner previously hypothesized that if Purcell disposed of the weapon, he would have done so when he pulled up here in the Camaro but they had done a sweep of the area and found nothing. Alternatively, Caffey had argued that Purcell would have held onto that gun because he’d be scared of one of Snell’s boys coming after him, but that was a dead end too as it hadn’t been in the truck when it went to forensics, or at his residence either.

  But Caffey had an idea. He put his foot back on the gas and carried on to the crossroads where Purcell had collided with Officer Randal, where Janine Kenny had been standing on the side of the road, for no reason, seemingly just waiting to get hit.

  At the Stop sign, Caffey pulled over on the verge and got out. There were trees and bushes to the right and the intersecting road was slightly obscured. At nighttime, this place would be pitch black and if you were holding a murder weapon and had just hit a cop, what would you do with it?

  It was obvious now. Here’s where Purcell threw the gun away. His first instinct was to call Tanner, but as his thumb flicked across the screen, he stopped and threw his phone down on the passenger seat.

  Caffey stepped into the middle of the bleached out asphalt strip, turned on the spot, and looked in every direction. Officer Randal had been here, to his right, so Purcell would have thrown the gun in the opposite direction. He looked back. Verges and drains ran alongside the road. Behind, it was all farmland, corn and soy fields. It was too much space to look through single handedly. Reluctantly, he went for his phone again and realizing he’d left it in the car began to walk back.

  But as he crossed the road, he felt the sensation of windshield glass underfoot and lifted his boot up to find several pieces of rolled glass stuck in the tread. He stepped down into the verge to rub the glass out on the long grass and that’s when he saw the flash of metal.

  Red Rider

  He was the only person who knew the truth. Carol Ann Baker, the girl still wanted for shooting the cop, still wanted in connection with the murder in Ohio, was the same girl as the one laid up in a bed in Indiana, under the name of Janine Kenny.

  He’d been down here three days now, mostly just sitting, walking and contemplating what needed to be done, asking questions to the sky and waiting for signs and answers. But now he knew what it was he needed to do.

  Most people wouldn’t take Red for the spiritual kind. He didn’t go to church, hadn’t been since he was a little thing and his daddy had been the Pastor. After the age of about fifteen, he’d never felt the need. His thinking went something like this: when you were ill, you went to the doctor, when you needed a haircut, you went to the barber and when you weren’t sure about God, when doubt as to His plan, or even His existence came into your head, you went to church. For people like Red, those who held the Lord in their physical body, church was just a load of old bull. Sure, the guy up front could quote references to scriptures for just about every question anyone had, but there were Internet pages that could do that too.

  So Red had found his answers elsewhere and spent yesterday evening online looking for Janine Kenny. No luck. That was okay, there were other ways and this morning, he’d moved the Freightliner back to the place where Jerrod worked because Jerrod was an idiot, if they talked about that girl, and then something happened to her, Jerrod wouldn’t put two and two together.

  ‘Hey friend,’ he said as the ratty little guy came past. ‘Remember me, you helped me out a couple of weeks back.’

  Jerrod rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand and then seemed to remember the fifty bucks Red had laid out for beer and burgers.

  ‘Mr. Red!’ he said with what passed for a smile. ‘What you doing here?’

  ‘I was tired and I needed a beer and a friendly face. So how about it?’

  Jerrod blinked. His wheels were turning. ‘Sure,’ he drawled. ‘But I said I’d have a beer with Aaron here, once we got through tonight.’

  Red knew what he meant, but played his cards low. ‘You heading over to his place? I understand. I don’t want to intrude.’

  ‘Nah, man. I didn’t mean that. Only if you don’t mind Aaron coming along?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Red said through a tight smile.

  Within an hour they were all sat in the same bar and grill they had hit up last time, sitting two tables further along nearer the door. The waitress was the same girl and he could have been mistaken, but she did seem to remember him. They ordered the same food and the same round of beers too.

  ‘So what’s new around here?’ he asked as the beers came along.

  That got no response except a couple of dry hisses.

  ‘What happened with those boys from the trailer park?’

  This raised their eyebrows and Jerrod pushed his cap peak up so that the light above the table just about touched his nose. ‘That’s all gone crazy,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah? How so?’

  There was a sly glance between the two and Aaron went back to his phone.

  Red didn’t really care. It was just an opener, but he wanted to get a few yeses out of them. It was a technique he’d learned from his papa when he was collecting for a new roof for the church or a new dining room table for their house. You get someone to say yes a couple of times for something small and they’d keep saying it for the rest of the conversation. It was the same with women. Ask them if they’ll accept a flower, ask them if they’ll take one of your books, and then ask them if they’ll come to one of your sermons. Not that Red had given any sermons in fifteen odd years. He stroked his beard.

  ‘Well, nothing is ever straight forward in life, is it?’

  ‘Ain’t that the truth?’

  ‘It’s like the bumper sticker says… Shit Happens.’

  ‘Bullshit most of the time, more like,’ Aaron added.

  ‘So, what happened to that amnesia girl, she get better?’

  And there it was again, that look between them. Neither of them answered. What was with these two?

  ‘Am I asking the wrong questions?’ he asked.

  The waitress came over balancing their baskets on her forearm and Red turned to her with a smile. ‘How about a round of shots? You guys fancy taking it up a notch or two?’

  Aaron rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I’m not much for getting lit, not on a Wednesday night and that cheap whiskey leaves me flat.’

  ‘So name your drink.’

  ‘I’ll take a Crown Royal, I guess.’ Aaron answered without a trace of embarrassment.

  ‘Jerrod?’

  ‘Sure, make it two.’

  ‘Make it three,’ Red added. ‘And make them doubles.’ If they were going to fleece him, he better make sure they drank enough to be cooperative.

  Caffey

  Considering he had received all the credit for finding the gun in the Snell case, Tanner was taking it pretty well. He’d driven down to the evidence scene and stood there with his hands on his hips, just as proudly as if he’d found it himself.

  The gun would go off to forensics now and the turn around on this was usually two weeks. But Tanner said he knew someone there, that he could speed things up and so they followed the gun back to the lab, never taking their eyes off it, as if it were a sick friend in the back of an ambulance. They watched it work its way through the evidence h
andover protocol and stood fascinated behind a glass window, where shortly before, a group of school kids on an educational trip had stood bored and hungry.

  But now it was after nine o’clock and the tech looked up at them with tired eyes. Tanner mouthed through the glass, even though if he talked loudly enough he would have been heard.

  ‘Do the fingerprints first...’

  The tech looked away. He unwrapped the gun as if it were a sweaty cheese sandwich.

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Caffey said. ‘I never saw a print taken from such a small gun before.’

  ‘Shhh. Don’t jinx it.’

  The tech swabbed the gun, going slowly down the short barrel, then stopped and brought the light closer. He looked up at Tanner and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Come on now, guys.’ An older man in a lab coat came up behind them. ‘You can wait in the canteen. We don’t want you influencing any decisions back here.’

  Tanner didn’t move, so Caffey put a hand on his shoulder. He felt the tension stiffen and release.

  ‘He's got something, though, you saw that look, right?’

  ‘He still has to lift it.’

  ‘But he’ll get a photo first.’

  They went through to the four-table canteen, closed up now, and got a couple of coffees out of the machine.

  ‘If he lifts that print, we’ll be handing the prosecutor Purcell on a plate.’

  ‘And if the print is from someone else, we’ll be throwing doubt into the mix.’

  ‘Who else could have a print on there?’

  Caffey shook his head but didn’t answer. He had been thinking it and trying to un-think it for the last three hours. The gun had been on the verge, right where Officer Randal’s patrol car had slid off the road. Why would Purcell throw his gun at the cop’s feet?

  At a quarter to eleven, the tech came through to the canteen. ‘Good news – bad news,’ the guy said.

  Caffey lowered his head.

  ‘We’ve got an almost complete first fingerprint on the outside of the barrel. That’s a print some people refer to as an ‘inexperienced handler print’, but it doesn’t match any of the reference prints.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s not a print from Chad Purcell or Ryan Bukowski. I checked for Simon Snell, but it’s not his print either.’

  Tanner was gawking and waiting for the tech to add another ‘but’ to the sentence, but none came.

  ‘So whose is it?’

  ‘I’ve sent through for a search on our local database.’

  ‘Great!’ Caffey said. He knew that would take a week and bring back nothing.

  ‘The gun wasn’t loaded,’ the tech continued. ‘It had been loaded and discharged in the past. The ballistics guys will take it from here. They’ll tell you if it matches your bullet.’

  Tanner was turning his back on the guy, going for his bag.

  ‘I’ve put in for the gun’s history. That’s all I can tell you right now. I’ve done a DNA swab on the handle, but we need to send those samples off too. I’m sorry, gentlemen. I guess that’s it for tonight.’

  ‘You guessed wrong,’ Caffey said. ‘You must have taken prints off a suspect before.’

  ‘Of course, I have.’

  ‘Good. Then you’re coming with us.’

  Red Rider

  Red got another couple beers and another couple of doubles for the boys. He switched to a cheaper brand this time, but they didn’t notice. With the amount of chili sauce Jerrod put on his burger, Red was surprised if he could even tell the difference between beer and lemonade.

  ‘Hey, you were saying something before about that girl, the one that got hit.’

  ‘Were we?’ Aaron asked.

  Red laughed, but inside he was ready to punch the guy.

  ‘Jerrod!’ He leaned over the table and hit him on the arm, another trick he’d learned from the pastor – make body contact. ‘What’s up with this guy? Why’s he got so many fences up?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Jerrod said. ‘But everyone knows, she’s faking it!’

  Red felt a twitch cross his eyes. ‘Is that so?’

  Aaron held up a hand. ‘We shouldn’t be talking about this,’ he said, and turned back the TV and made a dumb comment about why there wasn’t any beach volleyball on this channel.

  And Red chuckled as lightly as he could manage. ‘What’s the big deal, guys?’

  ‘No big deal,’ Aaron said, in Red’s West Coast inflection. ‘It’s just some things we shouldn’t be talking about right now. No offense, but this is a small town and I’m kind of connected to the family.’

  ‘To Janine Kenny’s family? Red asked.

  ‘No…’ Aaron said, but Red was none the wiser.

  The fresh drinks hit the table and Aaron reached for his with a frown. He picked it up and swallowed it in three gulps. Red felt his hand tense up. It was one thing to not want to talk to a guy, and another thing to drink all evening on him, but something else to dispose of that drink begrudgingly.

  ‘We better get off,’ Aaron said, and he pulled his jacket from the back of the bench. ‘Early start tomorrow.’

  Red looked at Jerrod like he might have told Aaron he was staying, but the guy turned around and got his jacket down too.

  ‘I better hit the road.’

  ‘Just let me settle up and I’ll come along with you guys.’

  ‘Nah. It’s alright.’ Aaron held up a hand. ‘You stay and enjoy the game.’

  Red took a deep breath. He would have followed them out anyway, made some excuse of needing some fresh air, but the waitress showed up at his elbow with the check.

  ‘Here you go, Honey.’ She lay it down on the plastic covered fold. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘About what?’ He asked distractedly, wondering where he was going to get any info about Janine Kenny from now.

  ‘You getting hustled by Aaron and Jerrod.’

  ‘You think I got hustled?’ He picked up the check and ran his eyes down the figures and saw she was probably right.

  ‘Looked like it from where I was standing.’ She gave him a wink, but it didn’t seem like a mean wink. She didn’t seem like a mean woman.

  Red leaned back against the bench and looked her over. He wondered if he asked her about the girl, if she’d remember him asking. She seemed sober, so the answer was probably in the positive and maybe she didn’t know anything either. So, Red decided not to ask her.

  But she sidled up and leaned her hip against the booth anyway. ‘You wanted to know something, didn’t you?’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘I heard you asking after the girl, J.K.’

  Red started slightly at the initials.

  ‘That’s why Aaron got pissed. He started seeing the big sister of the guy who hit her.’

  Red squinted to get the relationships in order. ‘Oh right! But wasn’t she with Jerrod two weeks ago? Okay, now that makes sense.’ He laughed and must have sounded as uncomfortable as he felt. ‘I was just making conversation. I don’t really give a hoot.’

  ‘Sure, but you know. That kid, Chad, he went to go see her in the hospital a while back. He sneaked over there. His sister told him where she was.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Red whispered.

  The waitress nodded as she counted the notes Red had laid in the tray.

  ‘A friend of hers knew how to find out. So, it’s delicate. I guess I know how things are, if anyone knew he went around there, he’d be in the shit for sure and so would the sister...and her friend.’

  ‘But doesn’t the whole town know?’

  ‘Not unless the whole town has been waitressing in here every night after those two have had too many beers.’

  Red tried to laugh. It came out rough. He stood up and pulled on his jeans.

  ‘But you want to know where she is, don’t you? For some reason, you care, don’t you?’

  Red waited, hardly daring to say yes. ‘Just in the nature of human interest.’

  A sweet smile spread across her lips an
d parted her mouth. ‘She’s doing much better. She’s at the Wilmington Rehab Center now. She got moved there about two weeks back.’

  Red got up, pulled on his belt so his stomach could slip back down into his pants and raised his eyes momentarily to the heavens. The Lord had a way of delivering what was due.

  ‘Have a good night,’ the waitress said as she walked away.

  ‘You too,’ he replied, but watching her go, he knew she would remember him. ‘Lord,’ Red whispered. ‘I need a sign.’

  And before he’d even pocketed his wallet, the waitress came up behind him again, tapped him on the shoulder and leaned in. ‘Hey, are you good to drive?’

  ‘Huh? Oh, that’s okay. I’m walking. I’m pulled over just at the truck stop.’

  ‘That’s miles away.’

  ‘Maybe two. Not worth calling a cab for.’

  ‘Look.’ She tilted her head forward and lowered her voice. ‘I’m cashing out now. How about you go out and have a smoke and I’ll come get you when I’m through?’

  Red could see the light in her eyes sparkling. She had that glow, that aura. Red had seen it on only a handful of his women before, on Moonbeam, on Buttercup. She had been touched by divine inspiration.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ he said. ‘How about, I just start walking and if you see me, you can pull over.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  Red pulled his jacket around his shoulders and headed out.

  The night was comfortable, August straddling September, and Red glanced up and saw the North Star right in front of him, guiding him along his path. He thought of all the times he’d looked up and seen that star. Out west on the farm, it had been a constant reminder to him of his place in the universe. Lately, he’d gone into his own back yard and tried to find it, but the smog and light pollution from the city obscured even its brightness. Then he saw his shadow jump out in front of him and heard the crunch of wheels as a car pulled up behind. He took a deep breath and told himself that the Lord knew what he was doing.