Faye Kellerman_Decker & Lazarus 03

by Milk;Honey

“Yes.”

  Decker said, “Then what?”

  “Shot the rest.”

  Decker asked, “Who did you shoot first, Earl?”

  Earl thought for a moment, then said, “I think Mr. Mason.”

  “Are you sure it was Mr. Mason?”

  “Maybe Luke,” Earl said.

  “Think real hard.”

  “Hard…I don’t like to think about it.”

  “I know, Earl,” Decker said. “And you’re doing a great job. But you’ve got to try again. Who’d you shoot first?”

  “Mr. Mason.”

  “Why?” Decker asked.

  “’Cause he called me a stupid, ef word retard.”

  “What did you do after you shot Mr. Mason?”

  “Shot the rest.”

  “Why, Earl?”

  “They was givin’ me a headache.” Earl burst into tears. “Can I go home now? I feel very bad.”

  “A couple more questions, Earl,” Decker said. “What did you do after you shot all of them?”

  Earl wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I don’t know.”

  “Try to remember, Earl.”

  “I…I just sat there.”

  “And what happened to Katie?”

  “Katie?”

  “Yes, Katie. You said she was taking a nap.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she wake up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I…I don’t remember.”

  “Did you take her out of her crib?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Where’d you go after you shot them all, Earl? You didn’t stay at the house all the time your parents were away.”

  “No.”

  “So where’d you go?”

  “Waited.”

  “Waited for what?”

  “For Granny to call. She took me away. Up to Fall Springs.”

  “Granny D called you up?”

  “Yes.”

  Earl seemed on certain ground now, answering the questions with no delay.

  “Granny D called, and what did you tell her?”

  “Told her I did something bad.”

  “And what happened to Katie?”

  “Katie was crying.”

  “Okay,” Decker said. “Granny called—”

  “Granny D.”

  “Yes, Granny D called, and you told her you did something bad. Anything else?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Told Granny D I shot them all.”

  “And what did Granny D do?”

  “Came down and picked me up.”

  “What did she do with Katie?”

  “Don’t remember.”

  “Granny D didn’t take Katie with her?”

  “I think so. But I don’t remember good.”

  “So Granny D picked you up?”

  “I told you he was there at Fall Springs,” Sue Beth said.

  “Was he there when you arrived, Sue Beth?” Decker asked.

  “I saw him for dinner,” she answered. “That’s all I remember.”

  “How ’bout your mother?” Decker asked. “Was she there when you arrived?”

  Sue Beth ignored the question. She said, “I think Earl’s talked enough. We’d like to go home now.”

  Decker said, “He can’t go home, Sue Beth. He’s under arrest.”

  Sue Beth looked at Decker. For the first time, he saw fear in her eyes.

  “But he’s not responsible for what he did,” Sue Beth said. “He don’t know nothin’.”

  “At the moment, that doesn’t make any difference legally,” Decker said. “I’ll make sure he’s placed in protective custody until you can post bail—”

  “You can’t put him in jail!” Sue Beth sounded horrified. “You just can’t do that. I’ll make sure he don’t run away.”

  “I’m sorry, Sue Beth,” Decker said, “but that’s the way the law works. We’re talking four counts of murder—-”

  “But the boy don’t know what he did!”

  “We’re going to have to take him to Van Nuys to book him,” Decker said. “We don’t book homicide here.”

  “He’ll die in jail!”

  “No,” Decker said, “he won’t die.”

  “But…but…” Sue Beth was breathing hard. “He lies, Mister Policeman. What he said was all lies….”

  “I’m sorry, Sue Beth,” Decker said. “It’s too late for that. You might want to talk to your lawyer. He’ll tell you what the procedure is, the fastest way to post bail.”

  “You can’t just leave us like this!” Sue Beth exclaimed.

  “Talk to your lawyer, Sue Beth,” Decker said. “He’s on your side.”

  “Up to you, Mrs. Litton,” Nixon said. “I don’t have to stick around.”

  Decker said, “By the way, Sue Beth. When you got up to Fall Springs, you’re sure you saw your mother with your father?”

  Sue Beth didn’t answer. Decker repeated the question. Slowly, she said, “I didn’t see my mama, but that don’t mean she weren’t there.”

  “But that doesn’t mean she was there,” Decker said.

  “All I’m saying is, I don’t remember seeing her right away.”

  “When did you see her?” Decker asked.

  Sue Beth said nothing for a moment, then regarded Nixon. With halting speech, she asked him, “Do I have to answer any more questions?”

  “No, ma’am, you don’t,” Nixon said.

  “My lawyer says I don’t have to answer any more questions,” Sue Beth said to Decker.

  “That’s true,” Decker said.

  “Then I won’t,” she said.

  25

  Decker punched the “off” button of the portable tape recorder. It rested on the hospital night stand between a plastic pitcher of water and the nurse’s call button. Marge’s message to him through Hollander was: Bring the damn confession tape with you when you come, or don’t come at all. Decker made it a point never to enrage a convalescing woman.

  Even though Marge’s color was pasty, her head still wrapped in yards of bandage, she was looking better. Her eyes remained red and swollen, but at least they were focused and alert. Instead of the dehumanizing hospital gown, she wore her own terry-cloth robe—pastel pink dotted with white fuzzy things.

  “So, beautiful,” Decker said, “what do you think?”

  Marge had a lot of ideas, but it took her a while before she could verbalize them. They’d taken her off the monitoring equipment, unplugged her from the IV, but trauma and traces of Demerol slowed her agile wit. It took effort to think, even more energy to speak. When she did, her voice echoed in her head.

  “I think,” she said slowly, “that it’s not total bullshit. That Earl was there when all the shooting went down.”

  “I agree,” Decker said.

  “But I really can’t see Earl wasting Linda,” Marge said.

  “Ditto.”

  “The others…” She shrugged. “One thing sticks in my damaged brain, Pete.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Earl mentioned blowing them away with a shotgun,” Marge said. “And he mentioned the little gun—no doubt the S and W. But Earl never mentioned using the handgun. And he didn’t know who it belonged to.”

  “Where did the thirty-eight come from?” Decker said. “Big question mark in my notes. Know what else was odd? The kid seemed confused as to who he killed first. He kept saying Rolland Mason, but the way he talked made me think that he plugged Luke first. He kept on coming back to killing Luke.”

  “Yeah, but we know Luke was probably plugged by a .38 before he was hit with the pellets,” Marge said. A tinny whistle sang through her head, then shut off as abruptly as it had come on. “I’m trying to visualize this scene…I don’t know if it’s water on the brain or what, but the whole thing seems screwy.”

  “One of those family tiffs that went haywire.” Decker thought a moment. “Okay, let’s try to reconstruct it. Lu
ke, Linda, Carla, and Rolland are all in the kitchen. Linda, Rolland, Carla on one side, Luke on the other—a confrontational lineup. From what Earl said, Linda and Luke were the primary participants in this bout.”

  “Then why were Rolland and Carla there?”

  “Good question,” Decker said. “Maybe they were there for moral support for Linda, maybe Carla was after money from Luke and she wanted moral support from Linda, maybe Rolland was running away with one of the gals. A whole lot of reasons for involvement. But let’s just concentrate on Luke and Linda for the moment.”

  “Okay.”

  “Something primal made mild-mannered Luke explode,” Decker said. “In the past, Luke had tolerated his wife’s wild ways. But suddenly harsh words were exchanged, and Luke blew up and called Linda a whore. Then Linda got upset and called Luke the ef word.”

  “What about Earl saying that Luke called Linda a pimp?” Marge asked.

  “Well, that doesn’t make any sense.” Decker’s eyes widened. “Unless…unless Luke called Linda a whore, then Linda turned around and called him a pimp.”

  “But—”

  “Try this on,” Decker interrupted. “Linda was fooling around, but we suspect she was really trying to get pregnant, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So suppose…suppose, Linda stopped taking fertilization treatments because Luke refused to pay for them anymore. You know, I found out any kind of insemination procedure can cost thousands of dollars a shot.”

  “That much?”

  “Yep,” Decker said. “Eight years of treatment, figure two to three times a year. That can add up to beaucoup bucks. Now let’s suppose with the cocktail mixture of other men’s sperm, Luke figured that the likelihood of the kid being his was remote.”

  “Go on.”

  “Now take into consideration all those comments about Luke being cheap like his pappy.”

  Marge nodded for him to continue.

  “Okay.” Decker felt hot now. He suddenly saw Marge grab her head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Marge answered through gritted teeth. “I keep getting all these goddam flares of pain.” She dropped her hands. “They come on suddenly, go away just as fast. But they’re a real pain in the ass…or the head.”

  “You need something?”

  “No more pain meds, Pete,” Marge said. “They’ve already dulled whatever gray matter I have left.”

  “You shouldn’t be working.”

  “Then what should I be doing? Moping around? Thinking about how I fucked up?”

  “You didn’t fuck up.”

  “Of course I did. I missed him, Pete. Asshole was right in front of my face, and I didn’t see him.”

  “So now you know you don’t have sonar,” Decker said. “Margie, A: You didn’t fuck up. And B: Even if you did, what can you do about it? No one except yourself got hurt, Detective Dunn. You’ll get a commendation for an A-one collar—”

  “But I know what happened.”

  Decker threw up his hands. “So beat your breasts and wrap yourself in sackcloth.”

  “Love your sensitivity, Pete.”

  “Kiddo, all my sensitivity is reserved for the rape survivors. Whatever’s left goes to Rina.” Decker thought a moment. “And she doesn’t exactly get bushels full herself. You, being my partner and peer, get the standard male macho fuck-it-all-and-let’s-tank-ourselves-into-oblivion speech.”

  Marge smiled.

  “You up to doing this?” Decker said. “I could come back in an hour.”

  “Go ahead with your theory,” Marge said. “I liked it.”

  “I lost my train of thought,” Decker said.

  “We were on Luke not paying for any more fertility treatments.”

  “Yeah, right,” Decker said. “Okay, Luke said no more treatments, but Linda desperately wanted a kid. Luke told her, fine with him, go out and fuck somebody. Why should he pay for someone else’s sperm when she can get gallons of it for free?”

  “But then why would he call her a whore?” Marge said.

  “Maybe he didn’t think that she’d really take him up on his offer,” Decker said. “And when she did, maybe he brooded on it for a long time, then finally became unglued.”

  “And when he went beserk, so did she.”

  “Then,” Decker went on, “Linda started crying, and that got Earl’s attention away from his baloney sandwich. He saw what was going on and got his shotgun. But something else went down before Earl actually plugged anyone. Someone else shot Luke first.”

  “Linda,” Marge said animatedly. Her head vibrated. She lowered her voice. “Had to be.”

  “Why?” Decker said. “Just because Luke called her a whore?”

  “Nope,” Marge said. “Remember Earl quoting Luke saying that Katie didn’t belong to Linda?”

  “But it should be just the opposite,” Decker said.

  “Bear with me,” Marge said. “When you pressed Earl on that, he said that Katie didn’t belong to Linda because she was a whore. Suppose Luke threatened to take Katie away because of Linda’s affairs?”

  “But the kid wasn’t even his.”

  “That doesn’t mean an irate guy like Luke wouldn’t try to use it against her. Threaten to expose her.”

  “True.”

  “Now how far do you think Linda would go to keep her kid?” Marge said.

  Decker held up his hand, made a gun with his fingers, then pulled the imaginary thumb-trigger.

  “I think so, too,” Marge said. “Now suppose Earl saw Linda killing his brother. Maybe he became irate enough to plug her.”

  “Possible, but…” Decker hesitated, “but picture this. Suppose Linda’s pulling of the trigger was a big surprise to everyone, including Rolland Mason. Suppose he started to light into her—cussed her out. Remember, Earl said that he made Linda cry. Suppose Earl walked in at that moment, and Rolland started giving it to him—called him a stupid, ef word retard. Think of it through Earl’s eyes. He saw Luke slumped over, Linda crying, and Rolland ranting. It’s possible that Earl freaked out and wasted Rolland.”

  “And then Earl saw Luke lying there, and figured he must have killed Luke as well,” Marge asked.

  “Yes,” Decker said.

  “Of course, that doesn’t explain why Earl would murder Linda and his own sister.”

  “Two things come to mind if the first scenario is correct,” Decker said. “Earl went completely berserk and killed the girls. Or someone else finished off the girls and plugged Luke as well and tried to convince Earl that he did everything. Now it seems to me that only three people would have that kind of power over Earl—his mother, father, or Sue Beth.”

  “So the big question is, who was really there when the whole thing went down?”

  “One of the bloody shoe prints we found corresponded to Earl’s size—eight and a half men’s. The other two were women’s size 7—same size as Carla, Sue Beth, and Granny Darcy. Linda’s foot was smaller. Could be Carla ran back and forth calling for help, but I’m betting the shoe print belonged to Sue Beth or ole Granny.”

  “Never found the matching shoe to the print?”

  “No,” Decker said.

  “So who was there?” Marge asked.

  “Well, Sue Beth went to Fall Springs with her family,” Decker said. “Of that we’re certain. The waitress will verify her presence at the restaurant where they stopped on the way. But that still doesn’t clear her of the murder.”

  “I just remember talking to her the first time I broke the news, and later on when she picked up Katie.” Marge shook her head. “Either she’s a first-class actress or she was really in the dark about the whole mess.”

  “So we’re back to Granny and Pappy Darcy,” Decker said, “I’ll try and talk to the parents. That’s going to be hard, because I’m sure Nixon is telling the entire crew to keep the lid on. They’re listening to Nixon now. Amazing how a ‘nigger’ becomes a lawyer when the family’s in deep shit.”

&nbs
p; Marge smiled.

  “Truthfully,” Decker said, “we don’t have a single thing on them. What we have is Earl’s confession and physical evidence to tie him to the scene—his shoe print, his mentioning the shotgun—and the little gun. We’ve got nothing physical on Pappy, and just an anonymous shoe print the same size as Granny Darcy’s. We’re going to have to come up with something better if we want to solve this and make it stick.”

  Marge said, “Suppose it was like Sue Beth originally stated. That Earl was supposed to be left behind with Luke and Linda. But this mess went down. Granny sent Pappy up ahead of her to cover for them, and Granny stayed behind to clean up the mess.”

  “What about Katie?” Decker said.

  “A big question mark.”

  “Look,” Decker said. “If Granny did stay behind, how did she and Earl get up to Fall Springs by dinnertime?”

  “Either Pappy took the bus up and left the car for Granny and Earl, or Pappy took the car, and Granny and Earl took the bus up.”

  “Agreed,” Decker said. “Taxis are out of their league.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to trace,” Marge said. “Not too many buses go to Fall Springs. Seems to me a driver might notice a woman and her adult retarded son…unless Pappy took the bus.”

  Decker said he’d call the bus lines from headquarters.

  Marge was silent for a moment. Then she said, “It just pisses me off that someone tried to pawn this all on Earl.”

  “Let’s not be too hasty,” Decker said. “Maybe he did do it all.”

  Marge looked doubtful.

  “Yes, it stinks,” Decker said. “But let’s face it, Marge, hanging it on the kid makes a lot of sense. A judge would take one look at Earl and confine him to a home. Nice and neat.”

  “Blaming it on a retarded kid,” Marge said.

  “Despite what they say,” Decker said, “the meek don’t inherit too much.”

  Sitting at his dining-room table, Decker was on his fourth beer and his third cigarette by the time he heard Rina pull up. Quickly, he tossed the empty bottles and the stubbed-out butts in the garbage, sat back down, and brooded. Goddam bus system. No one who knew anything was ever in, the drivers were always out, and the goddam schedules were always changed at the last moment. Decker had wasted two hours, was expecting calls from at least a half-dozen people. But it was half past six and his phone had been silent.