by Sandra Brown
Chapter 28
Ray smiled with satisfaction when he thought of Bellamy receiving that text message. Her number had been stored in Gall’s cell phone, which Ray had found in the pocket of his overalls. How lucky was it that he’d taken the “dummy” with him when he ran from the hangar?
See? There was a reason why things happened the way they did. Allen had always said so. He should’ve listened better and believed.
Bellamy and Dent would see that picture of Moody and understand what was in store for them. Thinking how scared they must be made him chuckle. He just had to figure out how to close in on them. Rupe would help. He was good at planning.
Ray’s first problem, however, was to dispose of the body and clean up the mess. He hadn’t known a body could hold that much blood. Dale Moody had bled like a stuck hog, making one hell of a mess in Ray’s duplex.
The last thing he’d expected was to find the detective lying in wait for him when he returned home around dawn. Ray had been trying to hunt down the son of a bitch all night, when Moody had been here all along, waiting to jump him when he came through the front door.
As planned, Rupe had called Ray from the reception following the funeral. Ray had wanted to go, but Rupe had said he would stand out in the ritzy crowd, and that that would be a disaster. Rupe had also suspected that Moody might show up at some point during the observances for Lyston, and he’d been right. Rupe was smart like that.
He’d spotted Moody skulking around the country club. “He had a brief chat with Bellamy. Your enemies are as thick as thieves with each other, Ray.”
Rupe had given Ray a description of Moody’s car and the license number, and had instructed him to be parked within sight of the country club gate, so that when Moody left, Ray could follow. He’d pulled out behind Moody in the car Rupe had loaned him from the glass company where he worked.
Rupe had told him to stay on Moody’s tail and find out where he went, who he talked to, and what he did. But Moody’s cop instinct must’ve kicked in, because they hadn’t gone two miles before Ray lost him.
Rupe had called him repeatedly throughout the night, but Ray didn’t answer. He knew Rupe was calling for an update, but, as far as Ray was concerned, Rupe could go screw himself. He was on a mission of his own. He wanted to find and kill the man who’d sent his brother to prison.
He’d spent the remainder of the night driving to all the places Rupe had called “Moody’s old haunts,” but with no luck. Moody wasn’t to be found. It had shocked the hell out of him when he’d let himself into his duplex and was immediately caught in a headlock by the man himself. With his other hand, he’d pressed the barrel of a pistol against Ray’s temple.
“Why were you trying to follow me, Ray? Huh? I hear you’ve been up to some mischief lately. Slicing up Dent Carter, trying to kill an old man. Was I supposed to be next? Hmm? What’s got into you?”
Ray rammed his elbow into Moody’s soft gut and broke his hold. Ray spun around, and as he did so, he whipped his knife out of its scabbard and lunged. Moody saw it coming, but he was winded, and clutching his chest with his gun hand, and—Ray didn’t think he was imagining this—he kinda smiled.
Ray’s knife made a clean arc. The blade went through Moody’s neck like it was warm butter. Blood spurted everywhere, on the walls, the furniture, on Ray, who leaped back but not far enough to escape the fountain.
Moody dropped his pistol but otherwise didn’t move. He just stood there with that strange smile on his face, looking at Ray. Then finally his eyes rolled up into his head, his knees buckled, and he dropped like a sack of cement.
Ray, cursing the blood spatters on his favorite leather vest, stepped over Moody’s body, went into his kitchen, rinsed the blood off his knife, dried it with a dish towel, and returned it to the scabbard. He then washed his hands and bent over the sink to scoop several handfuls of cold water into his mouth.
Killing was harder than it looked like in the movies.
He figured he ought to call Rupe, report this, get the man off his back. But Rupe didn’t answer. The asshole was probably getting his beauty sleep while Ray was doing all the work.
Ray left him a blunt message. “Moody’s dead. He made a mess of my place, so I may have to move.”
He disconnected, made himself a potted-meat sandwich, and washed it down with a glass of milk.
When he went back into the living room and saw how funny Moody looked with his head lying to one side like that, he got the inspiration to take a picture and text it to Bellamy, using the old geezer’s phone. That way she wouldn’t have Ray’s number, which Rupe had told him to keep just between them.
That done, he now realized how bushed he was. He’d had a long night and a busy morning. Before he addressed the problem of moving Moody’s body, he decided to get some rest.
He went into his bedroom, opened the closet, and knelt down on one knee. To the naked eye, the corner of vinyl flooring looked like all the rest, like it was still glued to the concrete underneath. Only Ray knew that it could be easily peeled back because it was he who’d pried it loose the day after he’d moved in.
He’d chipped away at the concrete underneath, until he’d dug out a shallow depression. It didn’t need to be deep, only large enough to hold a pair of panties, and there wasn’t much to them at all. They were lighter than air. You could see through the material.
Taking them from their hiding place, he admired them as he had the first time Allen had crammed them into his palm. Ray remembered it like yesterday. Allen had been nervous. No, more than nervous. Scared. Moody and another detective had parked at the curb and were coming up the walk.
Allen was talking fast. He was sweating. “You gotta hide these, Ray. Okay?”
“That girl’s panties?”
“Hurry. Take them. Hide them.”
Ray stuffed them down his pants and into his own underwear, then patted his clothes back into place. Allen watched, nodding approval. “Soon as you can, get rid of them. Burn them. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Then the cops knocked hard on the door. Allen wiped his damp upper lip, clapped Ray on the shoulder, and went to answer the door. Moody read him his rights while the other detective put cuffs on him. Then they took him away.
The whole time Allen was incarcerated, they never talked about the panties again. Allen never asked if he’d burned them, and he’d never admitted to breaking his promise. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy them. They were his most prized possession. They were the last thing his brother had ever given him.
He didn’t take them out of their hiding place very often. Not as often as he wanted to. But if killing Moody wasn’t a special occasion, he didn’t know what was.
He stretched out on his back on his bed and put his hand inside the panties, then held it up to the window and looked at his splayed fingers silhouetted through the sheer fabric. He sighed with contentment and rolled onto his side for a doze.
The cramped cockpit of a fighter jet had never made Dent claustrophobic, but being inside an interrogation room at the Austin Police Department was an unsettling reminder of the last time he’d been here, being hammered by Dale Moody. It mattered little that Moody was dead. He still felt like clawing at the walls.
Beside him, Bellamy looked pale and shaken, and often anyone speaking to her had to repeat what they said before it registered. Her distraction was understandable. Seeing the picture of Moody with his neck open had been a shock.
Because everyone in the department recognized her as a celebrity, and as the surviving daughter of the recently deceased Howard Lyston, the detectives were deferential.
Nevertheless, sweat had begun trickling down Dent’s rib cage as soon as they were ushered into the interrogation room to give their statements. He kept a tight grip on Bellamy’s hand, admittedly as much for his comfort as for hers.
Haymaker had called the police department from his house. Speaking to a homicide detective, he’d told him about the grueso
me text message, identified the victim as retired police officer Dale Moody, and given the detective the number of Gall’s cell phone.
“It’s believed a guy named Ray Strickland has the phone, and that he’s the one who sent the text. He’s being sought for a suspected assault, so you’ve already got a report on him. The three of us are leaving now and will be there soon.”
When they arrived at the police station, they’d been immediately met by the homicide detective with whom Haymaker had spoken, Nagle, and another named Abbott. To Dent they looked interchangeable. Same age. Same height and body build. Similar sport jackets.
They’d taken Bellamy’s phone from her, looked at the picture that had been texted, and had admitted that they didn’t yet have an address for one Ray Strickland, but that they were trying to locate him by triangulating the cellphone signal.
“We’ve also issued a BoLO.” Which Haymaker had translated to Dent and Bellamy as be on the lookout.
“Why would this Strickland want to kill Dale Moody?” Nagle had asked.
Haymaker had handed over the copied Susan Lyston case file. “It all goes back to this.”
Now, more than an hour later, they were still talking, answering questions, painstakingly telling the entire story. At one point, a uniformed officer had stuck his head in and summoned Abbott into the hallway. Nagle urged Bellamy to continue.
She was retelling him about her conversation with Moody at the funeral reception when, suddenly, Abbott returned and announced, “Moody’s body was discovered inside Strickland’s residence.”
“How’d they find it?” Nagle asked. “The cell phone?”
“No, we got a tip on where he lived.”
“From who?” Nagle asked.
“Rupe Collier.”
“What?” Bellamy and Dent exclaimed in unison.
“Yeah, seems Mr. Collier took pity on Strickland after his brother was killed in prison. He found him living on welfare. He gave him a job, set him up in a duplex, where he still lives. He said Strickland’s never bothered anybody. A loner, but no troublemaker. Fairly good mechanic as well as a glass man. Does windshield work for him.”
The detective glanced uneasily at Bellamy. “But, according to Mr. Collier, ever since your book came out and gained so much attention, Ray’s been missing work days. He’s been belligerent toward his boss and co-workers. Mr. Collier says he’s talked to him several times by phone, trying to persuade him not to dwell on the past.
“But he says Strickland grew increasingly agitated and had recently made some threats against the two of you and Dale Moody. Yesterday, he took off with a car belonging to Mr. Collier. He made several attempts to speak with him by phone and talk him into returning the car before he was forced to report it stolen. Strickland didn’t answer his phone and never called him back.
“Then, a short while ago, Mr. Collier retrieved a voice-mail message from Strickland, which had been left very early this morning. He said that Moody was dead and mentioned that he might have to move because of the mess. Mr. Collier called nine-one-one immediately and gave them Strickland’s address.”
“What a guy,” Dent muttered. But the detectives didn’t hear him because Nagle was asking Abbott about Strickland’s state of mind when he was taken into custody.
“He wasn’t.”
“He’s at large?”
“ ’Fraid so. We’ve got the license plate number for the car. Shouldn’t take too long to bring him in. He’s been upgraded to an armed-and-dangerous.”
“How did he manage to get away?” Bellamy asked.
“According to the first officers in, they found him in the bedroom, asleep on the bed. They surrounded him. He was startled awake and launched an immediate attack with a knife, apparently the murder weapon. They said he was a wild man. Didn’t heed their orders to drop the knife.
“One of the officers was wounded. He took the blade in the shoulder. Deep and dirty, but it looks like he’ll be okay. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Strickland made good his escape.
“There’s something else,” Abbot said, looking down at Bellamy. “Strickland left these behind on the bed.” From his jacket pocket he removed a sealed evidence bag and held it out to her. “Could these have belonged to your sister?”
Bellamy was loath to touch the bag, but she took it from the detective and looked at the article inside. Her throat seized up. Dumbly she nodded, then said, “That’s the type she wore.”
Abbott took back the evidence bag. “I’ll get them to the lab, see if there’s any forensic evidence to prove they were hers.”
Haymaker said, “Dale always contended that the guy who had her underpants was the guy who killed her. If I’m remembering right, Allen was Ray’s guardian. Maybe he took the fall for his little brother.”
Bellamy ventured another theory. “Perhaps Allen gave them to Ray so he wouldn’t be caught with them in his possession.”
“We’ll go digging in that case file,” Nagle said. He seemed eager to do so.
“While you’re at it, you may want to take a look at this, too.” Bellamy passed Moody’s confession to the detective. “I think you’ll find it interesting reading. Especially in regards to Rupe Collier and why he was the first person Ray called after killing Dale Moody.”
Steven disconnected the call and turned to address his mother. “She said she would stop by and fill us in on the details. She sounded tired and a bit hoarse from talking for hours to the police, but she says she’s basically okay.” Wryly, he added, “She also said it will be a long time before she’ll open a text message.”
“How awful that must have been for her,” Olivia said.
“ ‘Ghastly’ was the word she used.”
“I’m worried about her. She’s had to endure so much the last several days.”
“And I’m partially responsible. Is that what you were about to say?”
“Not at all.”
“Well, it’s true.” He sighed and sank back into a chair. “I’ll never forgive myself for hiring Dowd, who only gave Bellamy something else to worry about.”
“You made a mistake,” William said. “Your intention was good. You didn’t foresee how it would be perceived or turn out. You’ve apologized. Let it go.”
Steven smiled across at his partner. “Thank you.”
William returned his smile, then asked to be excused. “I should call the restaurants and check in, make sure no crises have arisen.”
Steven saw through the ruse. William was sensitive to the family matters Steven and his mother needed to discuss and was giving them the privacy to do so.
As soon as he’d cleared the door, Olivia let down her guard. Her shoulders slumped with fatigue, which Steven knew was a holdover from the days she’d stood vigil over Howard’s deathbed. She was also suffering equal parts of grief and mental anguish.
“As soon as this Strickland character is caught, it will be over, Mother. Finally and forever.”
“God, I hope so.”
He laughed mirthlessly. “It will be strange to wake up and not dread the day and what ugly surprises might be in store. From the day Bellamy’s book went on sale, I haven’t welcomed a single dawn.”
“I know what you mean. Neither have I. I just wish… Well, I wish a lot of things that can’t come true.”
“Such as?”
“I wish Bellamy hadn’t received that hideous text.”
“She has Dent’s broad shoulders to lean on.”
“That’s another of my wishes. I wish he weren’t in her life.”
“It’s not official.”
Olivia looked at him and arched her brow.
“Yet,” he added ruefully.
“Do you think it’s inevitable?”
“I’ve seen the way they look at each other.”
“Which is how?”
“The way you and Howard looked at each other just after you met.”
She smiled sadly. “That bad? Well, in any event, there’s nothing I c
an do about it. Just as I can’t stop you from going back to Atlanta tomorrow. I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon.”
She would be hurt to know just how badly he wanted to escape this house that held so many horrible memories for him. He’d stayed this long only because he didn’t want to leave her alone in her grief. But he wouldn’t breathe easily until he was miles away.
“Mostly,” she said on a sigh, “I wish that Howard had lived long enough to see the end of all this.”
“I wish that, too. But thank God it’ll soon be over for the rest of us. Bellamy’s quest, for lack of a better word, came to an end when Susan’s undies were found in Ray Stickland’s house. Case closed.”
Olivia put her elbow on the arm of her chair, leaned her head into her hand, and massaged her forehead. “The recovery of her panties will be in the news. It will be written about, talked about, speculated on. For days.”
“But not forever. Another scandalous story will soon come along.”
“That little trick of hers cost us all so dearly.”
Steven went perfectly still. He stopped breathing, and he would have sworn that his heart stopped also, except that his body was infused with an incredible rush of heat. His eyes remained fixed and unblinking on his mother.
Eventually she lowered her hand, raised her head, and looked over at him, smiling wanly. “We have no choice but to get through the coming media blitz. God knows I—” She broke off and looked at him curiously. “Steven? What is it?”
He swallowed. “You said that little trick of Susan’s cost us all so dearly.”
Olivia’s lips parted, but nothing came out.
“What little trick were you referring to, Mother?”
She still didn’t speak.
“Mother, I asked you a question. What little trick? Her little trick of taking off her panties and giving them to men?”
“I—”
He shot to his feet. “You knew?”
“No, I—”
“You knew, didn’t you? You knew she’d done that little trick with me. Many times. Did you also know about everything else?”
When she stood up she was wobbly on her feet and had to grab the back of her chair for support. “Steven, listen to me. Please.”