“You don’t sound too sympathetic.”
“I have more respect for him than sympathy,” I said. “He’s the toughest man I’ve ever met. The way he lives would kill a mule, but it’s by his choice, and he won’t take any help from anybody, not even Willa.”
“Willa always uses her maiden name as a middle name,” she said. “I’ve wondered why.”
“I think it’s because her people were original settlers here in Caddo County, just like mine. At one time the Hathaways owned about a thousand acres of land and a big mercantile store. It’s all gone now, but the name still means something, and that’s important to Willa. She’s a proud woman despite the mess her life has been.”
“I know that,” she said. “That’s why I hated seeing her with a man like Emmet Zorn.”
“What?”
“They were an item before he took up with Amanda Twiller. Didn’t you know that?”
“No. Are you sure?”
“As sure as death and taxes,” she said. “But it didn’t last.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I would have expected Willa to set her sights a little higher than that.”
She gave me one of those looks—half exasperation, half pity—that men get from women when we’ve said something truly stupid. “She set her sights on what was available to a woman who’s in her forties and terribly lonely.”
I nodded, but wisely I didn’t respond since the same thing could be said of another attractive woman near the same age who was hooked up with an old geezer of a sheriff.
“Bo, Sheila came by the office this afternoon to see you. She’s worried about that complaint she signed against Paul Arno.”
“I’ll go ahead and tell her to drop it if she wants to. We don’t need it since we’ve got him on the cocaine.”
“Thanks,” she said with visible relief. “That’s what she was hoping you’d say. So was I.”
“I doubt that she has to be concerned about him. I expect he’s gone on back down to New Orleans by now.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
I wasn’t. Paul Arno was still in Sequoya and would be for a long, long time because nobody would ever come forward to claim his body.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Early the next morning I dropped by the Caravan to see Willa only to learn that it was her day off. I decided to drive out to where she lived on her family’s old farm about six miles northwest of town. A couple of miles past the city limit, my cell phone rang. It was Hotchkiss telling me the FBI had nothing on Dennard—no past suspicions, no pending investigations, no nothing. His name had never even been a temporary blip on their radar screens. “As far as we’re concerned he’s clean as a hound’s tooth,” he said.
Willa’s house was a sprawling one-story white frame structure built back in the closing days of the nineteenth century. I parked under one of the ancient magnolias in the yard and made my way up the front steps and across the deep porch that surrounded the place on three sides. I knocked on the door, and a few seconds later it opened to reveal Willa wearing a pair of shorts and a cotton shirt.
If it hadn’t been for her coal black hair, she would have made a perfect Valkyrie—about five-eight with long, fine-boned arms and legs and a sculptured face with high cheekbones and eyes of deep blue. Even in her forties as she was now, it was easy to see how Bob Kimball had fallen under her spell.
“Hi, Willa,” I said.
“Hello, Bo. Is this a social call?”
“Maybe,” I said as gently as I could. “I don’t really think it’s anything bad. I’m just tying up a loose end.”
“Then come on in and have a cup of coffee, and we’ll make it a social call.”
She led the way back into the kitchen and motioned for me to sit at the breakfast table. Then she poured us both a big mug from the percolator on the cabinet and sat down across from me. “It’s fresh,” she said. “I just made it. And I guess you came to ask about Scott.”
I nodded and sipped at my coffee.
“I haven’t seen or heard from him in three months,” she said. “For a while before that he was back and forth between here and Houston, then he just disappeared.”
“What was he doing down there?” I asked. “Do you have any idea?”
She sighed deeply. “The usual Scott crap, I guess. Has it ever been anything different? He said he had some gambling debts and needed money. And like a fool, I wound up giving it to him. That boy sure knows how to push my buttons. He wheedled and played on Bob’s death until he got two thousand dollars out of me. How can somebody be so stupid?”
“He’s your son, Willa. That’s what parents do. It’s awful hard to give up on your kids.”
“I guess you’re right. But why are you asking about Scott this time?”
“You know about Amanda Twiller, of course. I have some solid information that before he left for Houston, Scott had been running around with Doyle Raynes, that boy I arrested for killing her. Raynes was murdered day before yesterday.”
“I read about that in the paper,” she said. “Do you think Scott could have had anything to do with that? God, I hope not…”
“I have no reason to think so at this point. It’s just that I need to follow all the leads in a situation like this, no matter how weak they are.”
“As far as I know, he hasn’t been here in three months. He sure hasn’t come to see me if he has. And I never heard him mention that Raynes kid.”
“Willa, will you let me know if he comes back into town? I really would like to talk to him.”
“Of course I will, Bo. I won’t lie for him, and you know it. I might borrow the money to hire a lawyer if he was in really bad trouble, but I won’t lie for him, and I won’t hide him, either.”
“Thank you. It’s not something I looked forward to asking you to do.”
She set her cup down on the table and stared at me with tears in her eyes. “Thinking about Scott always makes me realize that my life hasn’t amounted to much.”
“That’s not true, Willa. You’re kindhearted, and you have a world of friends. There’s nobody in this county I’d trust more than you.”
She wiped away her tears and gave me a wan smile. “I appreciate you saying that, Bo. I really do. But all the good friends and fine reputation in the world don’t seem to matter when I consider that I have no education and no career, and that my husband and one son are both dead and the other son is crazy … I’ve wondered sometimes if Scott isn’t my punishment.”
“Willa, don’t—”
“Bob reenlisted in the Guard when his first hitch was up. We needed the money, and he joked about staying in for twenty years to get retirement. But I didn’t want him to, and I was mad about it. Mad and lonely. I would have preferred to go to work, but he wouldn’t have it. Then he got called up for two months of active duty and—”
“Hush,” I said firmly. “I might have done the same thing in your place.”
She smiled wanly. “Good old Bo. You’re always on my side, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
She took a deep breath and shook her head. “Scott was a strange child from the beginning. He seemed indifferent to me and to Bob both. Worshiped my dad, though. Even when he was just a baby, Daddy could get him to sleep when he was fussy and nobody else could. He was nine when Daddy died, and that’s when the trouble started. I always thought if Dad had lived until he was grown, then maybe…”
She stopped speaking and looked down at her cup. I said nothing because there was nothing I could say. We finished our coffee in silence, and then I rose to leave. On the way out she stopped to show me two portrait-sized photos of her boys that hung in the hallway. The shots had been taken just before Hamilton was killed. Except for their golden brown hair, they looked like their mother, with angular Nordic faces that were so fine-boned they were almost feminine. Both boys had been breathtakingly beautiful as children, and they hadn’t lost their good looks as they grew older. But there was more to t
hem than their physical appearance. They had some ineffable quality that drew people to them like moths are drawn to a bright light. Although they looked enough alike to be twins, there were differences. Hamilton, the older of the pair, had been open and puppyish—a kid who’d worn his goodwill for his fellow man written on his face. Scott, who was perhaps the more handsome of the two, if such a distinction could be made, had eyes that were coldly distant, and the hint of a smirk hovered around his mouth.
I was glad to take my leave because I hadn’t really wanted to come. I walked slowly out to my car and stopped and stood for a few moments looking around. Behind the house lay a large pasture that rose gently upward and crested in a ridge of low wooded hills about a quarter of a mile away. On the ridge’s top I could see the tiny cabin where Jesse Kemp lived. By now he would have drunk up his veteran’s check, and he would be lying inside, inert and catlike, living on dried beans and salt pork and waiting for the first of the month when he could start his strange cycle once again. I shuddered a little and climbed in my cruiser and drove away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
On the way into town I called the jail and told them to bring Nobel Dennard down to one of the interrogation rooms. A few seconds later my cell phone buzzed. It was Danny Kettle. “What you got for me?” I asked.
“Well, Bo, it’s pretty interesting, but I can’t identify my source because he’d kick my ass if he found out that I told you who he is. I hope you can live with that.”
“Sure.”
“Okay. You were asking about Zorn, and this guy I know happened to come by to make a little delivery not long after you left. He says Scott Kimball stole that cocaine Zorn was trying to sell me.”
“Go on,” I said.
“Well, he said Zorn has been frantic ever since it happened.”
“I’d think he would be if the story is true,” I said. “But how in hell does this guy claim he found out about something like that?”
“He claims Zorn halfway hit him up about strong-arming the kid a little for him. See, the story is that Scott is trying to ransom the stuff or something. Apparently, he doesn’t have the contacts or resources to move it himself, but he wants Zorn to cut him in on the deal. He says they’re trying to hammer out a compromise.”
“Danny, I have a hard time believing Zorn was careless enough to let Scott know he had the stuff in the first place. And secondly, nobody has seen Scott around town in months. I just talked to his mother, and she hasn’t seen him either.”
“Well, I do know that Zorn likes to put on the dog about what a player he is. I mean, hell, he told me he had some of the stuff weeks ago, so? Besides, there aren’t any secrets anymore, Bo. It’s all out there if you can see the patterns. People talk, somebody else puts two and two together, and then, bingo! There it is. I mean, if they can haul the president in and make him explain his blow jobs on national TV, what chance have the rest of us got?”
I shook my head in amusement. “Your logic is infallible, Danny. Did your informant happen to give you any idea where Scott could be found?”
“No, and this isn’t the kind of guy I can ask something like that. Actually, I didn’t really ask about Zorn. His name just came up in conversation, and my guy was laughing about it. He thinks Zorn’s a jerk.”
“Danny, how reliable is this source of yours?”
“Gee, Bo. You’re asking me to make judgments in what ought to be your area of expertise. I mean, I just lay the shit out there and you’re supposed to evaluate it.”
“Come on, Danny. Give me some idea.”
“Well, he does like to have people think he has all the secret, inside info denied us lesser mortals. I might not bet any heavy money on the story, but I still think he’s solid enough that you ought to look into it a little. I mean, don’t hold it against me if it’s all crap. I’m just the conduit.”
“I won’t, Danny. And keep on it for me, will you?”
“Do I have any choice in the matter?”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “But I phrased it politely because good manners never killed anybody.”
“Talk to you later, Bo.”
I called Toby and told him quietly to ask the other deputies and the city cops if anybody had seen Scott Kimball in town in the last few weeks.
“Do you want me to check things out with my informants?” he asked.
“Let’s not ring their bells at this point. I have my doubts about the story, so just be casual about it.”
* * *
I found Nobel Dennard drinking a cup of coffee under the watchful eye of one of the jailers. I’d let him keep his street clothes, minus his belt, and he looked a little rumpled and showed a day’s growth of stubble.
“Did you get your phone call?” I asked.
“They let me phone my wife before we left Center.”
I nodded. “You’ll need some clean clothes unless you want some jail-issue orange coveralls. I’ll tell them to let you make a couple of calls a day. I’m not holding you to strict jailhouse rules.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Yeah, and it was pretty good. I’m not a gourmet, so I doubt that I’ll have any complaints about the chow.”
“And I know you have heard the Miranda warning and understood it.”
“Right.”
“Do you have a lawyer?”
“For the time being I’m representing myself.”
I gave him a rueful grin. “You know what they say about a lawyer who defends himself, don’t you?”
“Sure. That he has a fool for a client.”
“Call if you decide to get somebody else. And let your wife know that she can bring you some clean clothes and some books. Everything will be searched pretty good, so tell her not to bring anything that might embarrass either of you.”
He nodded. “And once again, I appreciate it.”
“Now, Nobel, we got to talk a little about the case. Three reliable witnesses saw you leave the jail with Doyle Raynes in your car. One of the precinct constables followed the two of you all the way out to the old Antioch community. Doyle was found murdered that same night down near the river about a mile off that very same road.”
“Your point being?”
“You can see that this looks bad for you.”
“Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t. But I have nothing to say about it.”
“Have you ever heard of a man named Lester Sipes?”
“Sure. With all the publicity he got a few years ago, everybody has heard of him.”
“Have you ever met him?” I asked.
He sighed and shook his head. “Bo, I will admit to nothing beyond what is common knowledge or public record. I have heard of Sipes and that is all I will say on the subject.”
“How about Emmet Zorn?”
He shook his head once again. “I have nothing more to say.”
We locked eyes and stared at each other for the longest time, neither looking away. Then I said, “You know, Nobel, I got some real doubts that you had anything to do with this mess, no matter how bad it looks for you. That means I would be easy to convince if you would just say something in your own defense.”
“Sorry, Bo. I can’t do it.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
He laughed a little. “Is there really a difference?”
* * *
Back at the office I received two calls in rapid succession. The first was from Tom Waller. He had the particulars of Arno’s release, and I didn’t like them one bit. “What do you mean we have to give him his gun back?” I asked in disbelief.
“He’s got a Louisiana concealed carry permit, and Texas has a reciprocal arrangement with those folks over there.”
“But how in the hell did a guy like him ever get a permit in the first place?”
“He qualifies, Bo. He’s never been convicted of a felony. We can have it suspended until there is a disposition on the charges, but it will take a couple of weeks to
run it through the bureaucracy. Meanwhile, by law he’s entitled to his weapon.”
I hung up the phone just as Maylene came in and laid a half dozen outgoing letters on my desk for me to sign. “What?” she asked, no doubt reading my face.
“Oh, nothing much. There’s just a Mafia hit man running around town with a legal pistol in his pocket, and at the same time it looks like we’ve also got a million dollars’ worth of high-grade cocaine loose somewhere.”
“Well, Bo, nobody ever promised you a rose garden.”
“Thanks, Maylene. It does my heart good to know I work with such sympathetic folks.”
* * *
The second call was from Hotchkiss telling me that the bullets from Doyle Raynes’s body came from the same weapon that killed Amanda Twiller.
“And you were right about Lavonne Avante,” he said. “She’s a call girl. Actually, she manages the Lake Charles branch of a fancy escort service out of New Orleans. She only works very special clients herself, and she doesn’t come cheap. And there’s more. The South Winds Motor Hotel is an interesting place. It was built about thirty years ago by an old guy named Rousas Shima as an investment for his retirement. Elderly Albanian immigrant, works hard, retires and converts all his assets into a nice little business that’s meant to see him through his golden years. Sounds like a heartwarming story until you find out that Rousas was a good friend and occasional business partner of Angelo Scorpino, the late and unlamented mob boss of South Louisiana.”
“Who runs the place now?” I asked.
“Rousas’s grandson, a punk named Thomas Shima. He goes by Toodles, and he’s got a couple of larceny convictions.”
“Toodles? Where in the world do these people come up with these damned names?”
“Beats me,” he said with a laugh.
“I assume Toodles is a known associate of all the right folks.”
“Of course. He’s mobbed up to his eyeballs.”
“I need to look into this, but my badge doesn’t pull much weight outside Texas. That federal ID of yours would be a big help.”
Nights of the Red Moon Page 13