A squawking radio saved me from having to answer right then. A garbled voice mentioned gang activity, a dead body, and the name of the street where Billy had just accidentally killed the youngster.
“Busy night here in the hood.” Cooper fiddled with a control on his walkie-talkie.
“That so?” I kept my tone neutral.
He opened my wallet and chuckled. “Lee Oswald, huh?”
“I go by Hank.”
“Sure you do.” He squinted and rifled through cards and wallet junk. “And you would be a private investigator, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“Who’s this?” Cooper pointed to Larry’s snoring figure, over which a couple of officers were kneeling.
“That’s Larry Chaloupka.” I wondered when he was going to get to the dead body in the driveway. “My partner’s ex-fiancé.”
“This your office?” Cooper walked to the corner of the old house and scratched at what looked like a bullet hole.
“Yeah.”
“Somebody shot it up pretty good.” He turned to the rookie cop. “Anybody checked the interior?”
“Not yet.” The officer shook his head. “The door looks jimmied.”
“See what we’ve got going on inside.”
My stomach constricted, vision tunneled.
Cooper walked a few steps and stopped in front of the window where I had placed my Browning. “Is this yours?”
I nodded as a line of perspiration dribbled down my temple.
Cooper smiled. “You hot?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Let’s stand out here where it’s cooler, whaddya say?” He grabbed the Browning in one hand and my elbow in another and propelled me toward the driveway.
I resisted for a second.
“What?” The officer stopped. “You got a problem going out there?”
“U-u-uh, no.” I was really sweating now. “It’s just . . . all that shooting.”
“It’s secure now.” Cooper tightened his grip on my arm and pushed until I was standing by the front of the ruined Bentley.
That was when I noticed there was no one standing behind the car, hovering over the body of Jesus Rundell. Two marked police units, lights still swirling, were blocking the driveway, only ten or twelve feet from where Billy had shot him. A small group of uniforms stood between the two squad cars, talking and doing cop stuff.
“Hey, somebody want to bag this for me?” Cooper held up the Browning.
An officer headed our way, walking right over the spot where Rundell’s body was.
Or should have been.
Cooper handed him the gun and then turned to me. “Have you fired that weapon tonight?”
I stared at the officer as he walked back to his squad car with my Hi Power. I tried to understand what it meant that the body was no longer lying in the driveway behind the Bentley.
“Hey, Lee Harvey.” Cooper snapped his fingers. “You still here?”
“Uh . . . yeah.” I shook my head and blinked a couple of times. “I mean no. I haven’t discharged a weapon.”
He nodded slowly and left me standing there, joining the small knot of officers clustered between the two squad cars. After a couple of minutes, more uniforms joined them from behind the house. There was a lot of talking and gesturing and scribbling on clipboards.
Cooper frowned and spoke into his radio. He put the walkie-talkie back on his belt and pointed to my office, saying something to a couple of officers.
They walked toward the front door.
Cooper broke free of his little law enforcement confab and headed my way. When he got to where Rundell’s body should have been, he stopped. He looked down, pulled out a flashlight, and turned it on.
I was standing in the ten feet between the Bentley and the outer wall of my office area. With the window broken, it was easy to hear the people moving in my room. I listened to them search the building where I had left Billy Barringer only a few minutes ago. I watched Cooper gesture to the ground where a psychotic hitman had fallen with a bullet in his head.
Broken glass tumbled in my gut. Sweat coated my face.
After a few moments, Cooper approached me. “Guess we better go inside and straighten this all out.”
I let him pull me toward the front door.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
A squad car was parked in front of my office, more uniforms milling about. Crime scene tape delineated the property line. When I saw this, my last hope that Billy had somehow gotten out of the house vanished.
Cooper guided me through the front door. The air conditioner had been turned on. A blast of cool air enveloped me. I started shaking a little but not from the temperature change.
An officer walked into the reception area, an evidence bag in his hand. I couldn’t tell what it contained. He and Cooper had a whispered conversation. Every few seconds they looked at me.
Cooper took the bag and approached me. “Where’s your office?”
“In the back.”
“Show me.”
A few moments later, we were standing by my desk. The overhead light illuminated the damage: broken glass, far wall pockmarked from bullets. A stray round had hit the picture of my Ranger squad in Kuwait City. The bullet had punched through the image of Olson’s chest.
“I wouldn’t have bet on it, but you’re clean. For now.” Cooper unlocked my handcuffs. “You want to tell me what happened?”
“Pulled into the driveway and Larry shot out the window.” I rubbed my wrists.
“Which direction were the shots coming from?”
“Here.” I swiveled my head to indicate the office. “Outside, I mean.”
“What time was this?”
I told him.
“Any idea why Mr. Chaloupka would be shooting at you?”
“He and my partner break up on a pretty regular basis. Plus he’s drunk a lot of the time.”
Cooper nodded and walked to the shot-out windows. He pulled aside the ruined curtains and looked outside. “We found a homicide victim a few blocks away, on the edge of a gang area.”
I started sweating again.
“It wasn’t a hit, though.” He turned from the window. “Actually, it doesn’t look as if he was a member, more likely a wannabe.”
I tried to control my breathing.
“So you pull in and your partner’s fiancé tries to take you out.”
“Yeah.”
“And then you returned fire?”
“No.”
“Who shot back then?”
“I don’t know.”
“We found a pile of nine-millimeter cases. Looks like whoever was shooting was standing by the car at the time.” Cooper strolled to the far wall and looked at the cracked picture. “Hard to understand why you wouldn’t see who was shooting.”
“Guy was behind me. Different guns spit out empties differently.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s a good point.”
A woman wailed in Spanish outside.
“We ID’d the kid.” Cooper shook his head and sighed. “He was only ten.”
I wasn’t sweating anymore. My skin was cold and clammy. I could taste the muddy water of the Brazos River, feel the hook of the trotline dig into my flesh all these years later.
“One shot through the eye. Small-caliber, probably a twenty-two.” He held up the plastic evidence bag. “From a gun like this, maybe.”
I could see the outline of the Ruger .22 that Billy had been carrying.
“We found it on the floor in your office.”
“You think the shooter broke in here, maybe?” I willed my voice to stay even.
“Don’t know. I was hoping you could help.”
“Beats me. All I know is what I’ve told you.” I shrugged. The words that came from my mouth sounded far away.
Cooper nodded. “Let’s go over that one more time, okay?”
By the time I had finished relating my made-up story for the third time, Sergeant Jessup arrived. It was now a
bout three in the morning but his dress was impeccable, silk tie knotted just so, the cuff of his pants breaking perfectly over the toes of his polished loafers. He nodded at me and had a quick conversation with Cooper. The uniformed officer left with Billy’s Ruger.
Jessup sat on the corner of my desk. “You want to tell me what really happened?”
“Just told it all to the other guy.” I brushed glass off my sofa and sat down, suddenly very tired.
“You gonna stick with that?”
“Yeah.” I leaned back and closed my eyes.
“Whose blood was behind the car?”
“Two federal guys were nosing around, asking about a big meeting supposed to happen here in Dallas.” I reached in my wallet and pulled out the card the older FBI agent had given me.
“You’re losing me,” Jessup said.
“Tell them that nothing’s gonna upset the balance of power.” I stood up, handed him the card, and walked to the doorway.
“Where are you going?” Jessup pushed himself off my desktop.
The question took a while to worm its way through my frazzled synapses. “Got to get something to eat. Then sleep.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “Then I need to take a quick trip to East Texas.”
“There’s blood on that Ruger, you know.” He spoke softly.
I didn’t say anything, just listened to the police and crime scene investigators and EMTs outside my office window. The woman’s voice was wailing again.
“When they run a DNA test on it, what are they gonna find?”
“Beats me.”
I wondered if ghosts could bleed.
There was a twenty-four-hour Taco Bell a few blocks away on Gaston. I had no car, so I walked. The streets were empty, the hour too late for even the hookers to be out. When I got to the restaurant I ordered one of everything and ate until nothing would go in anymore. Surprisingly, it made my bruised stomach feel better.
My cell rang as I was leaving. Nolan’s number appeared on caller ID. I turned the phone off, stuck it in my pocket, and staggered back to my office. The crime scene tape was still staked around the property, but the police had left. The EMTs had taken Larry to the emergency room for acute alcohol poisoning. Delmar’s shot-up Bentley hadn’t moved. Judging by the bullet holes in the hood, it looked like it couldn’t move.
Fatigue ravaged my body like a cancer, picking at every cell, draining any semblance of stamina.
But I had nowhere to rest. My home was gone, and I didn’t want to face Delmar and tell him about his quarter-million-dollar vehicle.
The front door was wedged shut with a piece of cardboard. I opened it and made my way to my office. I stepped over the threshold and smelled sweat. No sound disturbed the room except for the low moan of a warm breeze coming through the busted window.
I saw a figure sitting on my sofa in the dark. When I got closer I wasn’t surprised to find Billy Barringer drinking from a tall plastic water tumbler.
“You were in the attic, right?” I sat down next to him.
Billy didn’t reply.
“You killed a child.”
“Gets pretty damn hot up there.” He drained the glass and put it on the floor. “You didn’t turn me in.”
“No.”
“Why?”
There was no answer available that I could articulate. I had made a different choice, one I knew would haunt me long after this point in time passed from the fabric of my consciousness.
“I was in a hurry. Dropping the gun like that was pretty stupid,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I meant what I told you before.”
“About what?”
“About being out of the life.” He stood up.
I kicked off my shoes, wriggled my toes, felt my eyelids get droopy. “Rundell’s body is gone.”
“I put one in his head. It’s over.”
“I’m sure it is.” I leaned over on the sofa.
“See you around, buddy.” Billy Barringer walked out of the room.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The voices in my head would not stop chattering. They were an incessant buzz, just below the volume needed for comprehension. I heard what sounded like my office mate, the lawyer with the Napoléon complex, whispering, his tone angry.
I felt heat, sensed light through my closed lids. I tried to remember where I was. I burped and tasted hot sauce.
“I think he’s awake.” My suite mate sounded louder now.
I opened my eyes and saw two people standing over me: Ferguson, the height-challenged lawyer whose office was in the next room, and our landlord, a foul-tempered Iranian man named Ebrahim.
Sunlight was streaming through the broken windows. Traffic noises came from outside. The events of the previous evening slowly came back to me.
My eyes felt gritty. I blinked and looked at the clock on the far wall. It was 9.30 A.M. I had been asleep on my sofa for a little over five hours.
“Goddmann, Oswald.” Ebrahim’s accent was thick. “Look at what you do. This this this . . .” The veins in his neck were throbbing.
“What are you talking about?” I sat up and rubbed my face. “It’s just a little mess.”
Ebrahim rattled off what sounded like a long invective in his native tongue. I got the feeling it involved me having carnal knowledge with a camel.
Ferguson made a tsking sound. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time.”
“Shut up.” I stood and both men took a step back.
“You. Get out now.” Ebrahim pointed to the door. “No more Lee Oswald here.”
“Hey, my rent’s current.” I walked to the closet in the corner and worked the combination on the small gun safe that was inside.
“No rent. No lease. No nothing for Oswald.” Ebrahim was hopping up and down.
I opened the safe. The police had kept my Hi Power. I found another one and slipped it into an inside-the-waistband holster. I took off the shirt borrowed from Delmar and put on a spare denim one hanging in the closet.
“You not listening to me, Lee Oswald,” Ebrahim said.
“Yes, I am. I’ll move my stuff out of here in the next day or two.” I twisted and something that might or might not have been important popped in my lower back. “If you touch anything before I get it out, I’ll go jihad on your ass, you understand?”
He gulped and backed away from me.
I locked the safe and turned to Ferguson. “I need a ride.”
“What am I, a taxi service now?”
“Yep.” I grabbed his arm and pushed him out the door.
Fifteen minutes later, he dropped me off at Delmar and Olson’s. I rang the bell.
“Hi.” Nolan opened the door. “They had to take Olson back to the hospital.”
I didn’t say anything, just got the clammy-skin feeling again.
“Under his skull. The bleeding wouldn’t stop.”
“Where’s my truck?”
“In the back.” She jerked her thumb toward the rear.
“Keys.” I held out my hand.
She fished them out of her pocket. “Don’t you even care about your friend?”
“More than you can imagine.” I took the keys and padded though the house, Nolan trailing after me. My Tahoe was parked under the old pecan tree that took up most of their backyard.
“What are you doing?” Nolan stepped in front of me.
“What do you care?”
“Shit, Hank.” She shook her head, ran a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry I bailed on you.”
“Talked to Larry lately?” I moved around her and walked outside.
“That’s over for good.” She followed me. “He’s really unstable, thought there was something between you and me.”
I got in the Tahoe.
“Where are you going?” Nolan opened the passenger door and stepped in.
“Nowhere with you.”
“Uh-uh.” She slid onto the seat and placed a hand on my arm. “You look like you haven�
��t slept in a month.”
“Where’s Tess?”
“I don’t know. She called a cab not long after you and Billy left.”
I nodded and tried to understand what that meant.
“Hank, tell me what’s going on.”
“Your ex tried to kill me last night.”
Nolan’s face went white.
“He missed.” I turned on the ignition. “Last time I heard he was still in the hospital.”
She stared at me, eyes wide.
“Alcohol poisoning.” I put the car in reverse and whipped around, heedless of Nolan’s still-open door.
“You trying to kill me?” She grabbed the console with one hand and the door handle with other, pulling the latter shut before it slammed into the wooden privacy fence.
“You said you wanted to come.”
“I asked where we were going.”
“A little town called Spenser.”
“Crap.” Nolan put on her seatbelt. “Nothing good comes from that part of the world.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Two hours later, we passed the city limit sign for Spenser. I tried to remember the last time I’d been there. It must have been twenty-five years ago or more. The circumstances of that trip eluded me at the moment.
Spenser hadn’t changed much, unlike other places I’d been to recently. The square overlooked a small lake ringed with pine trees. All of the buildings in the center of town looked freshly painted. People were milling around on the sidewalks, going in and out of a place called the Blue Bonnet Café.
I stopped at a convenience store a block off the square, went inside, and asked the woman behind the counter for a phone directory. She handed me a thin book.
There was no listing for Barringer. I found it under her maiden name: V. Carmichael, 821 Rosemont Avenue. I tossed the book on the counter, headed back outside, and jumped in the truck.
“Where to?” Nolan asked.
I told her.
“Why do you think it’s there?”
I didn’t answer, just started driving. The good thing about small towns was that it’s easy to find places since the options for looking are limited. A few minutes later, I turned onto Rosemont Avenue.
Vivian Carmichael’s place was a one-story gingerbread house with a covered porch running across the front with two swings at either end. It was in the middle of the block, underneath a massive live oak tree so old it must have been a sapling during the Coolidge administration.
The Next Time You Die Page 23