by John Lutz
“You got that right.”
“You have a snootful when you left Rodney’s?”
“Two beers, is all. You can ask Rodney.”
“I’ve always trusted Rodney. Weren’t drinkin’ behind the wheel, were you?”
Juan’s smile was sheepish. He hadn’t been high on booze last night, but on something else. “I can honestly say no, officer.”
“I don’t know a damned thing about that truck,” Cathy Lee said.
Anger flashed in Joe Ray’s eyes. “You rode in it enough. You even got yourself—”
“Best not go there, Joe Ray,” Cathy Lee said.
“We can show you where we left the old Dodge,” Juan said, tumbling to what might be a dangerous development. Showing a little cooperation and changing the subject. Maybe they should invite the cop inside, where he or Joe Ray could get close to a gun. Not that they wanted to kill a sheriff’s deputy, but if it came down to that…
“Uh-hm.” Simmons looked from one of them to the other. “Forget the Dodge. I gotta say I’m curious about the Ford truck. Big F-150.”
“It ain’t stole,” Joe Ray said. “You can check.”
“Already did. I wonder if we looked in the cab, we’d find some beer cans or liquor bottles. Maybe even some illegal substance.”
“Not on your life,” Juan said, using a forefinger to cross his heart.
“Truck’s not very far from here,” the deputy said. “Let’s go see.”
Juan shrugged. Joe Ray looked worried.
“Seemed far enough when I was walkin’ it last night,” Juan said.
“You can stay here, ma’am,” the deputy said to Cathy Lee. “We’ won’t be more’n fifteen, twenty minutes.” He looked at Juan and Joe Ray. “I’ll drive, since you’ve got no vehicle. I apologize, but you two’ll have to sit in back, where we usually transport prisoners.” Without averting his gaze from them, he walked over to the car and opened a rear door.
Joe Ray and Juan glanced at Cathy Lee and ambled over to get in the backseat. They both had their thumbs tucked in their front jeans pockets. Joe Ray, leaning over to enter the car first, got a look at the steel grille separating the front and back of the interior, and the absence of inside door handles. There was a control for the window to go up and down, but he knew it would be dead.
Halfway into the car, he hesitated and turned and looked back at Deputy Simmons. “This ain’t a trick, is it?”
“No kinda trick I know of,” Simmons said. “Just regulations, sir. We got passengers, there’s where they gotta sit.”
Joe Ray nodded and disappeared into the back of the car. Juan followed.
As the deputy walked around to get in behind the steering wheel, he glanced over at Cathy Lee. His smile seemed genuine again. And at this distance, he was youthful again.
“This is just a formality. We won’t be long, ma’am.”
“I’ll make some coffee,” she said.
When the sheriff’s deputy’s car reached the spot where the F-150 was bogged down off the road, Simmons steered slightly onto what passed for a shoulder and braked to a halt. The back of the blue truck’s bed was visible through lush green foliage. Flattened-out grass and some sheared-off small saplings showed where the big Ford had gone in. The road had curved, and the truck had gone straight and just missed some good-sized cypress tree trunks, one on each side. It hadn’t missed their lower branches.
“Looks like you broke some wood goin’ in,” Simmons said over his shoulder.
“Tell you the truth, I mighta fell asleep at the wheel,” Juan said. “I got sleep watchamacallit—a sleep disorder—so I’m tired most of when I’m awake, doze off unexpectedly at the darnedest times.”
“Sleep apnea,” the deputy said. “Doctor can treat that for you.”
“I don’t wanna wear one of them breathin’ apparatus things when I sleep,” Juan said. “Looks to me like they’d suffocate you.”
“Cure your sleep apnea,” Joe Ray said.
“I’ll be right back,” the deputy said and climbed out of the car and shut the door before they could answer.
Deputy Simmons didn’t look back at them as he approached the truck. Morning sunlight slanted in low through the trees, and the F-150’s bulbous blue tailgate gleamed like an Easter egg badly hidden among the greenery.
When he was as close to the vehicle as he’d been last time, Simmons rolled up his uniform pants and waded into shallow, brackish water. He thought about removing his shoes, but it wasn’t worth the risk of stepping on something. Or getting bitten by something. Besides, the sheriff’s department would compensate him for a pair of regulation shoes ruined in the performance of his duties. He hoped. There was no other, dry way to reach the damned truck.
He felt the cool water rise on his bare legs, then spill into his leather shoes. His socks were soaked within seconds.
All in the job.
When he got to the mired truck, he attempted to open the driver’s-side door and found it locked. He could see across the cab that the opposite door was also locked.
Laugh’s on me.
In part so he wouldn’t look foolish to the two men confined in the rear of the cruiser, he began a slow, sloshing circuit of the truck, making a show of examining its exterior.
When the one called Juan had driven it into the swamp, the branches had scratched it considerably. One deep gouge in the right front fender revealed black paint beneath the blue.
Black.
Simmons was pretty sure the truck hadn’t been manufactured with black primer paint. This vehicle had been repainted. It was awfully new for a repaint, unless it had been in an accident.
Standing and staring at where black paint showed through some other, smaller scratches, the deputy suddenly remembered it hadn’t been that long ago when every lawman in the South was looking for a black Ford F-150. It had been stolen by that Coulter guy who’d been found dead and full of shotgun pellets about ten miles down the state road. This truck had a different license plate number, but that was no surprise.
Sheriff’s Deputy O. E. Simmons decided to leave the two men locked in the backseat of his car for a while. Wading back toward the car, he was surprised to realize he was excited. Somebody had sure as hell shot Coulter, the Torso Murderer, and left his dead body on the side of the road. Maybe it was the two assholes in the back of the patrol car. A couple of killers. Wouldn’t that be some collar? Maybe get him elected sheriff someday.
Slow down, slow down…. Don’t jump to conclusions, get ahead of yourself, and screw up royally.
Simmons played it casual and acted like there was nothing wrong as he drove the two men back to the ramshackle house. He parked where he had last time, in the shade of a big willow.
Cathy Lee Aiken was nowhere in sight outside.
“Any guns in the house?” Simmons asked the two men behind him, making it a casual, routine question.
“Not as I know of,” Juan said.
“Not a one,” Joe Ray said. “I got an old shotgun, but it’s back in the truck. Broke down proper an’ outta sight behind the seat back.”
Leaving the two men confined in back, Simmons locked the car and left it. He went up on the plank porch with his gun drawn. Knocked. Got no answer. Knocked again. Same result. He could feel the hot sun on the back of his neck.
“Ma’am?”
Silence.
He tried the knob and found the door unlocked.
When he glanced back at the patrol car, he saw the two men staring at him intently through the back side window. The skinny one, Joe Ray, actually had his nose pressed to the glass.
The deputy hurled the door open and went into the house fast, gun level and held before him with both hands. Keeping his arms rigid, he swept the barrel from side to side.
The living room was unoccupied.
With his heart lodged low in his throat, he checked out the two bedrooms and found them also unoccupied. A ceiling fan was turning slowly in the bedroom with the double bed. There was a
used condom on the floor. There was also a double-barreled shotgun leaning in a corner.
So much for no guns in the house.
As he entered the tiny, unoccupied kitchen, he smelled it.
He relaxed and holstered his gun.
The coffee was on, but Cathy Lee was gone.
68
Sometimes love was grand.
Linda had brought some take-out Chinese to Quinn’s apartment, and they were eating lunch at the tiny table in the kitchen. It was comfortably cool despite the outside temperature of almost ninety. Quinn was having orange-flavored chicken; Linda, moo goo gai pan. They shared egg rolls and a large foam container of white rice. Quinn had gotten some bottled water from the refrigerator to drink and put it in tumblers with ice so it would stay plenty cold..
The kitchen smelled good with the aroma of food and soy seasoning. Quinn thought it remarkable that he didn’t feel strange sitting here sharing a meal in this kitchen, at this table, with a woman other than May or their daughter, Lauri. So many years in the apartment with May, with Lauri growing up. Then the divorce, and Lauri coming back to live briefly with Quinn, while May stayed in California with her new husband.
Now they were both in California, May and Lauri, and here was Quinn in the apartment with a woman named Linda. A stranger to them, and sometimes to him.
It was almost as if the apartment and its contents were different in some strange, unidentifiable way. Quinn remembered the comedian who’d claimed someone had stolen everything in his apartment and replaced it with identical duplicates. That was how Quinn felt, as if he were playing himself in a dream of his life. And in that context, everything seemed normal. Pass the rice, please, whoever you are. Quinn wondered if Linda ever felt the same strange detachment and alienation. Would it ever pass?
They ate for a while in slow silence while the world moved at its own pace outside the kitchen.
“Nift’s got a bean up his nose about something,” Linda said, dipping her egg roll into sweet-and-sour sauce.
“Could be my fault,” Quinn said. He took a sip of water. “I’m afraid I made him aware that Renz knows he’s had someone in the medical examiner’s office sitting on postmortem information.”
“That gonna be looked into? An official investigation?”
“It’s unlikely, but Nift doesn’t know that.”
“No wonder he’s been nervous lately.” Linda chewed and swallowed her bite of egg roll. Quinn loved to watch her throat work. “The little twit deserves whatever they do to him.”
“He’s not the only informer in the medical examiner’s office.”
Linda looked alarmed, then smiled. “Well, sure, there’s me. But that’s different.”
“Because you’re on the side of the good guys?”
“Damned right.”
Quinn grinned at her. “You are so different from Nift.”
“God, I hope so!”
He sipped from his condensation-slippery glass of water and appraised her. “When we’re finished with lunch—”
“I’ll go back to work,” she interrupted. “And aren’t you supposed to be out trying to catch the bad guys?”
“Haven’t you heard? The Torso Murderer was shot to death down South.”
“Must have hurt like hell, being shot down south.”
Did she believe me?
“You sound skeptical,” he said.
“More like realistic. How long do you think that farfetched Tom Coulter story’s gonna hold up?”
“Maybe Coulter really was the Torso Murderer. Now and then we get lucky.”
“The cops down in Dixie are gonna start tracing his actions over the past few weeks, and when they try to square times and places with him being here in New York committing murders and dismembering the bodies, it isn’t going to work.”
“They won’t be very eager to backtrack on Coulter,” Quinn said, “considering he’s dead.” He reached across the table and touched the back of her hand. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”
“Sure it is. You only need to fool the media. Media wolves are relentless, Quinn, and the E-Bliss folks strike me as smart and have sure as hell known all along that Thomas Coulter wasn’t the Torso Murderer. Assuming we’ve got this figured right.”
“We do,” he said.
“And you think it’s gonna all hold up?”
“I didn’t exactly say that.”
“I love confidence in a man.”
Linda finished her iced water, then picked up her purse from the floor and stood up. She was wearing a brown pantsuit with a white blouse, low-heeled brown shoes, no jewelry other than a silver bracelet. All very demure and businesslike, yet somehow sexy as hell in a way he didn’t quite understand. She wasn’t his type, really, so how could this have happened? A month ago, Quinn wouldn’t have dreamed he could fall in love again. If that had happened, what other surprises might life throw at him?
“You’re going?”
“Back to the morgue,” she said. “Nift needs me.”
“So do I.”
She came around the table and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I hope you always feel that way. Sometimes I’m bad luck for men.”
“Not this time.”
“We have no control over that.” She realized that if Wes Nobbler knew Renz and Quinn had been aware of Nift hiding or delaying information, Nobbler also knew somebody must have ratted Nift out. Renz must have his own informer in the medical examiner’s office. It shouldn’t take Nobbler and his cronies long to figure out it might be Quinn’s lover.
Linda understood how it worked. Nobbler would need her on his side, and he’d squeeze hard. She’d be forced to choose between her career and Quinn.
“You’re trying to tell me something,” Quinn said.
She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. Her lips were cool and dry.
“Telling you to be careful,” she said and moved toward the door.
“Because you love me?”
“Because I love you,” she said, and then left the apartment.
Quinn finished his orange-flavored chicken and started in on some of what was left of Linda’s white rice. It needed seasoning, but he decided not to bother.
He knew Linda was right about the Coulter story unraveling soon. That was pretty much all he knew about what she thought. She was a mystery.
Maybe that was the thing about her that made him hers.
Palmer Stone’s desk was clear, its surface polished. The cleaning woman hadn’t been in for a while; Stone was responsible for the strong scent of Lemon Pledge in his office. Everything, in fact, was gleamingly clean, squared away, and in its proper place. Business profits, Stone sometimes said, were often the result of appearances. Perception had a way of becoming reality. Sometimes there was opportunity in perception. Like now.
“While the law thinks the Torso Murderer is dead,” Stone said, “maybe we should get back to business.”
Victor appeared surprised. “But Gloria—”
“How is she?” Stone asked.
“The same. Now and then you can see her pupils moving under her closed eyelids, but that’s all that moves.” The muscles in his face tightened and his eyes became moist. “I tell you, Palmer, it tears your heart out.”
“I do sympathize,” Stone said. “I wish there were something I could do.”
“I know…. It’s so goddamned rough.”
“It is,” Stone said. “Nevertheless, we’ll have to tend to business without Gloria. She would approve of that, I’m sure.”
Victor looked over at him. “We talking about deleting Maria Sanchez?”
“No, we decided there was too much risk in deleting her. But we should be able to delete Jill Clark, despite the almost constant presence of her friend Jewel. If Jill disappears leaving a note saying she’s left New York, who’s there to question it?”
“Jewel.”
“Jewel will ask Tony Lake about it. He’ll be heartbroken, unable to understand why Jill left him.”<
br />
“I can play that role,” Victor said. “I have before. But Jewel’s no dumb bimbo.”
“I know, Victor. But I’m sure Jewel will buy into it, especially since she has no choice.”
“What about our special client?” Victor asked. “The one waiting to become Jill Clark?”
“We can’t leave a torso to be found as a signal that she can take over Jill’s identity and move in. That would let the police know Coulter wasn’t the Torso Murderer. We’ll simply alter procedure and talk to her, make it clear it will be the only contact—ever—between us. She can be Jill for a while somewhere else, and then move back to New York, if that’s where she wants to be.”
Victor ran his fingers lightly over a chin that Stone was glad to see cleanly shaven today. “I don’t know, Palmer. Jewel’s a persistent pain in the ass. She might not accept my story. She might go to the police.”
Stone made a dismissive motion with his manicured right hand. “If she does, so what? Jill decided to leave New York, like countless other young women who grew tired of the struggle. And there’s always the note.” Stone sat forward. “You can persuade Jill to write the good-bye note, can’t you?”
“Of course. She’s no problem. I can persuade her to do anything.” Victor began rubbing his chin harder, as if trying to sand it smooth. “Once I—”
“Never mind that.”
“Weak stomach?”
“My stomach doesn’t factor into it,” Stone said. “You’re tasked to do something, you do it, and I handle my end of the business. We decided early that, in everyone’s best interests, compartmentalization would be our business model.”
“Yeah, we did.” Victor thought he might have to remind Palmer of that in the near future.
“Listen, Victor, I know Jewel’s a hindrance, but Jill must be deleted because of her link to the old Madeline Scott. And don’t forget she’s gotten at least a glimpse of the new Madeline.”
Victor stopped with the chin rubbing. It had become so vigorous that it had left a red mark. “Okay, Palmer. It makes sense. You’re right, as usual.”