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Killer in Sight (A Tom Lackey Mystery)

Page 25

by Sandra Carrington-Smith


  information for him. Lana Briggs answered the call.

  “Lana, it’s Parker. Could you please go to my desk

  and see if you can find my notes from the last few days?

  They should be in a small stack by my computer. I need

  the exact address of Mrs. Jenkins, Jack Little’s landlord.

  I think I circled her name on the notes, so it shouldn’t be

  too hard to find.”

  Lana Briggs put him on hold for a few minutes, then

  she came back on the line and gave him the address.

  “Thanks a bunch. I might call back in a few to get

  someone else to join me here.”

  “Do you know where Lackey is? His girlfriend

  called a while back looking for him.”

  “I’m looking for him too. She called me after she

  spoke with you. He missed his regular checkin, but

  knowing how Lackey resents not having personal space

  to follow his leads I am not surprised that his absence

  didn’t alert a search for him.”

  “Do you need reinforcement, Parker?”

  “I’m good for now. I’m going to talk to the landlord.

  I hate to wake her up at this time, but I can’t think of

  anything else to do.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted, Parker. If I don’t hear

  anything back from you within thirty minutes I am

  going to send a car.”

  “Good idea, Lana. I will call right back.”

  He got out of his car and squinted to see the dirty

  plaque with the unit number that allegedly belonged to

  Mrs. Jenkins. When he found it, he knocked on the door

  several times before a sleepy-eyed Mrs. Jenkins

  answered from the other side of the closed door.

  “Police, Mrs. Jenkins. I just need to ask you a

  question.”

  Mrs. Jenkins opened the door, and Parker needed all

  the self-control he could master to keep his face

  impassive. Mrs. Jenkins’s hair was wrapped on large

  rollers that in the semi-dark hallway light looked like

  coiled pink snakes, and her withered body was barely

  covered by a skimpy magenta nightgown which was

  visible through the open robe she was wearing.

  “Do you know what time it is, young man?”

  “It’s very late, Ma’am, I’m sorry. I am looking for

  an officer who came by here earlier today. Have you

  seen him?”

  “The detective that was here earlia’? Yes, I saw him.

  His ca’ was still here when I closed ma blinds.” She

  wiggled her neck to see around Parker, half-exposing a

  sagging breast as she did that. Parker wanted to look

  away and he couldn’t, and for a moment he thought

  about people who don’t want to look at accidents but

  can’t take their eyes off the mangled cars as they drive

  by.

  “His ca’s gone. He gone, I reckon.”

  “Did you see anyone else go into the apartment,

  Mrs. Jenkins?”

  “Nah, but it don’t mean not’ng. Me and my

  boyfriend was having a romantic dinna’ and I wasn’t

  lookin’ outside.”

  Parker tried his best to keep his running imagination

  from painting pictures in his mind, and he just nodded to

  shoo the thoughts away.

  “I might have to go inside the apartment, Ma’am. Is

  it okay?”

  Mrs. Jenkins sighed heavily. “I’m in my nigh’

  clothes. Let me get the key.”

  “Take your time, Ma’am. I have to call for someone

  to go in with me. It will take a while.”

  “A while? How long’s that?”

  “I don’t know. In fact, can you just give me the key?

  That way I won’t bother you any more, and I can just

  put it back into your mailbox.”

  “That’s goo’. Let me get it for you.”

  She stepped away from the door for a moment and

  came back with a key which she handed to him. “Here

  you go. Be quiet, so you don’t wake nobody.”

  “I will. Thank you Ma’am, and goodnight.”

  Mrs. Jenkins closed the door and Parker went to his

  car to call for someone to join him. After trying to dial

  Lackey’s number without luck several times, he laid his

  head against the headrest and waited. A patrol car pulled

  up within ten minutes.

  Parker led the way to Jack Little’s apartment and

  opened the door with the key that Mrs. Jenkins gave

  him. Even before they went inside, they both saw a faint

  trail of dried blood starting from the doorstep and

  leading toward the bedroom. The trail led to a larger

  blood stain beside the bed, and when Parker leaned

  down to inspect it more closely, something else caught

  his eye: Right beside the bed, half-hidden by the bed

  skirt was Lackey’s mobile phone.

  Brad Johnson laid awake in his cell, his mind

  working overtime to come to a decision. The only way

  for him to get out of jail was to destroy the life of the

  only woman he ever loved. Erin Winthrow was his alibi;

  she was also the non-happily married wife of one of the

  most prominent men in town. She and Brad were

  together the night that Tracey died, but he couldn’t tell

  the Lieutenant about her without breaking the bond of

  trust he and his lover had. Erin had two small children

  and a very controlling husband who wouldn’t think

  twice about taking her babies away from her if she

  publicly humiliated him. Brad couldn’t do that to her,

  and if his silence meant that he was going to serve time

  undeservingly in exchange for her happiness, then he

  was willing and ready to continue on the same path. He

  heard his roommate snore and he sighed. How had

  things spiraled down this way? He had no idea how that

  shirt had gotten into his trunk, but he was sure it wasn’t

  there the day before he was pulled because he had just

  gone to clean his car that morning on his day off.

  Someone had to have put it in there between that

  afternoon and the next day before he got out of work.

  His stupid addiction had taken him further than he

  ever expected, and he couldn’t believe he had lowered

  himself to selling drugs. He wasn’t a dealer, and he had

  really tried hard to curb his need for pills after Tracey

  could no longer provide them for him, but withdrawal

  and desperation had quickly set in, and he wasn’t

  thinking straight. The money he was earning wasn’t

  enough to support what he needed, and he had agreed to

  sell a bit on the side.

  But if someone was trying to frame him by putting

  the bloody shirt in his trunk, how did they know he was

  going to be busted that afternoon? Who could possibly

  hate him enough to follow him around and know of his

  whereabouts? Did that someone listen to his

  conversations on the phone?

  His mind was spinning, and he felt nauseated. He

  had to figure who this person was, and he didn’t know

  where to start. He didn’t want Erin to sacrifice her life

  for him, and he knew that she would do just that if he

  went to trial.

  Mike Howard tried to keep himself busy by reorganizing his
garage. Growing up with a neat-picking father taught him to do just that, and he could almost

  hear his old man’s words ringing in his ears as he

  worked: If your life is falling apart, organizing what you

  can will help you remain in control.

  Mike didn’t feel in control at all, but he continued to

  arrange bolts and nails as he desperately tried to keep

  from falling apart. He cleaned drawers and shelves, and

  he nearly burst into tears when he found Alexis’s sand

  toys neatly stored inside a box behind the weed eater.

  Where was his little girl? Why was God doing this to

  him? Rose wasn’t very religious, and Mike always felt a

  bit uneasy about this side of her, but right now he began

  to wonder if she wasn’t indeed right – how could a

  righteous God allow a little girl to disappear, or a young

  woman in her blossoming years to be senselessly

  murdered?

  A tiny meow coming from the other side of the

  closed door wiped those thoughts from his mind, and for

  a moment he was grateful to the kitten for now allowing

  him to indulge such blasphemous ideas. He opened the

  door and let Petey in to wander around in the garage

  while he worked. Petey rubbed against his legs and

  purred loudly, before he climbed over a cardboard box

  set near his oversize tool box, and sniffed around. Mike

  watched him for a few seconds and then went back to

  separating nails by size. Petey jumped from the box onto

  the table and continued his inspection, using all the

  grace a cat could master until a small cockroach sped

  from under a small stack of papers and raced over one

  of his paws. All of a sudden, Petey was all paws, and in

  a few strikes he knocked all the bolts and nails off the

  table, as he desperately tried to catch his elusive prey.

  Mike cursed under his breath, and he gently removed

  Petey from the table and put him back in the house. He

  had worked on those nails and bolts for the good part of

  an hour, and seeing them all spread on the floor made

  him want to scream out of frustration. He swept them up

  with a small broom he kept hanging by the tool box and

  opened a drawer of the shelf near the table to put them

  in there until a later time when he could sort them out

  again. When he opened the drawer, something metallic

  clung against the back of the enclosure and he dug his

  hand in to see what it was. When he pulled out his hand

  and looked at the object, he felt his knees buckle up.

  Clutched in his hand was his father’s cigarette lighter,

  the one he had misplaced and could no longer find.

  Instantly, a conversation he had with Alexis rang

  through his mind and his heart began to race. “Do you

  remember the lighter you lost last month, Daddy? The

  one that belonged to Granddaddy?”

  “Sure I remember. What about it?”

  “It’s in the tool drawer in the garage.”

  “How do you know that, Alexis? Did you see it

  there?”

  “No. Lily told me to tell you it’s there. You put it

  there when that salesman came up our driveway to sell

  you lawn treatments and you forgot about it.”

  Alexis wasn’t with him when the salesman came;

  she was in her room playing dolls by herself. The man

  had come through the yard while he was organizing a

  box containing his father’s belongings and he had

  almost stepped out of the garage holding the lighter.

  Since he was wearing a pair of gym shorts with no

  pockets, he threw the lighter in the open drawer and

  forgot all about it after the salesman left and Rose called

  him in for lunch. Alexis couldn’t have seen him putting

  the lighter in the drawer, and yet she knew it was in

  there. Lily told her, she claimed. Something else of

  importance nudged at the edges of his mind, and when it

  surfaced, Mike gasped and had to hold on to the table to

  keep himself from falling. Alexis also knew of Tracey’s

  pregnancy, before anyone else knew. He dug his nails

  into the cover of the work table and took a few deep

  breaths to steady himself; he laughed hysterically and

  then he cried, as he crumbled to his knees and realized

  that no amount of organization could save him from

  falling apart right now.

  Chapter 18

  When Parker returned to Jack Little’s apartment to

  see how things were progressing, two patrol cars and an

  unmarked car occupied three of the eight parking spaces

  designated for the residents, and four other spots were

  occupied by unidentified vehicles which Parker assumed

  belonged to residents. Mrs. Jenkins was standing outside

  despite the late hour, and Parker was glad to see her

  completely dressed this time.

  “Hello, Mrs. Jenkins, you’re up late I see. Or

  early…”

  “I dunno what’s happenin’ to the world, Detective.

  In my day, now, you didn’t hear of this kind of

  nonsense.”

  “Maybe you should go inside, Mrs. Jenkins.” Parker

  felt awkward preaching at someone her age, but this

  wasn’t a good part of town and an elderly woman had

  no business standing outside alone at this hour, even

  with several officers just a few doors down.

  “I’m fine, fella. I got to wait for the tow truck to

  take this car right here. I tell residents all the time that I

  don’t want their friends parkin’ in my lot, and look here

  – this car don’t belong to nobody who pay rent in this

  place.”

  Parker’s instinct was on full alert. “This car doesn’t

  belong to one of your residents? Could it belong to one

  of their friends visiting them?”

  “I got eigh’ apartments and eigh’ spaces. One each

  resident; no mo’. Friends ca’s is not allowe’.

  “Wait, Mrs. Jenkins, hold off the tow truck. Let me

  check this plate first.”

  “You do that, Detecti’, but you get this here ca’ out

  of my property.”

  “We will, Mrs. Jenkins. I promise.”

  Parker jotted down the license plate number on his

  pocket-size notepad and walked back to his car. He

  called in the number and waited for a name to go with it.

  His hopes of hearing that the car belonged to Jack Little

  were quickly shattered when the plate was matched to a

  man by the name of Eduardo Carlos.

  He rushed back to Mrs. Jenkins. “You don’t have a

  tenant by the name of Eduardo Carlos, do you?”

  Mrs. Jenkins shook her head. “No, Sir, I su’ don’t.”

  “Have you ever seen anyone going up to Mr.

  Bernardini’s place?”

  “Yes, I have. He has a small man who see him from

  time to time. They look like bruddas, if you ask me. And

  a woman too.”

  “Did this man look like Mr. Bernardini?”

  “Yes Sir, I just done told you that.”

  “Did the man and the woman you saw go in

  together sometimes?”

  “Not sometimes. All the time. Only today, I saw

  first the woman and
then the man goin’ in alone.”

  “He was here today?”

  “Yes Sir. I saw him this afternoon.”

  “Thank you Mrs. Jenkins. I promise that the car will

  be removed by morning.” Parker said as he got in his car

  and started the engine. Maybe Eduardo Carlos had

  nothing to do with Tom’s disappearance, but the only

  way to find out was to ask him directly.

  #

  Kathy sat at the kitchen table and ran her fingers

  through her hair. Almost fourteen hours later now, she

  still knew nothing of Tom’s whereabouts. Parker never

  called back, and Tom’s mobile phone was still turned

  off. She felt in her heart that something happened, and

  yet her mind refused to accept the possibility. She

  rubbed her forehead with her thumbs and tried to focus

  on the photos spread out on the table. A slingshot and a

  dot – what, if anything, could they possibly mean?

  Her phone rang and she jumped before

  automatically turning her head to look at the clock on

  the stove – seven o’ clock in the morning. “Hello?”

  “Kathy, it’s Parker. I still don’t know where Tom is.

  His car is gone, but we found his mobile phone inside

  Jack Little’s apartment…”

  Parker’s pause infused a double shot of anxiety into

  Kathy’s veins. “Parker, you’re not telling me

  everything.”

  “We also found some blood stains, Kathy.”

  Kathy swallowed a mouthful of bile before she

  could answer, and felt faint.

  Parker tried his best to sweeten the blow. “Kathy,

  we don’t know it’s his blood. It’s just an assumption. We

  also found a car which doesn’t belong to any of the

  tenants. I went to the address of the owner, and nobody

  is there. I’m still here, hoping that maybe he will come

  home and I can ask him a few questions. According to

  the landlord, a man was seen going up to Jack Little’s

  apartment this morning, so I am banking on the fact that

  the owner of the car and the guy who went to see Jack

  Little are the same person.”

  “Can you not get in there, Parker?”

  “Not without a warrant or without the person who

  lives here letting me in.”

  “I’d like to show you some pictures, Parker. They

  might be relevant to the case.”

  “What sort of pictures?”

  “They are shots of Tracey Newman’s pupils. Before

  you discard the idea, please hear me out -- some of the

 

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