Tough Customer

by Sandra Brown

  "Soon as Ski's got the rooms reserved, he'll let us know where to go. He'll try to get a hotel close to Delray. And, Berry, he wants your, uh,

  rear end back in Merritt tomorrow as soon as your meeting is over. I promised to get you there. No argument. Understood?"

  "Loud and clear. And I can see the advisability of staying in a hotel, but I've got to stop at my house first."

  "How come?"

  "I've got to pick up something to wear."

  "What's wrong with what you've got on?"

  She and Caroline both looked at him like he was an imbecile.

  Resigned, he said, "Five minutes tops. Deal?"

  "Deal," Berry said.

  "Tell me how to get there."

  Traffic increased as they approached the city. Seemingly half the population of Houston was pouring back into town after being away on weekend excursions. Dodge was itching to smoke and was relieved when Berry finally told him to take the next exit off the clogged freeway.

  The neighborhood into which she directed him was well tended and bespoke affluence, and, when she pointed out her house to him, he was even more impressed. He could never have provided his daughter anything as grand as what she had acquired on her own. Of course, Caroline could have finagled a good deal for her on the house, but still.

  He felt humbled, intimidated, and inadequate as he followed the two of them up the walkway to the front door. Needing to reassert himself, he slid his handgun from the holster at the small of his back. "I'll go in first."

  "I need to disengage the alarm."

  "Remember what happened to Davis Coldare."

  Without further argument, Berry gave him the code, then she and Caroline waited on the porch while he went in, disengaged the alarm, and, following his nose from room to room, flipped on switches and flooded the one-story house with light. Satisfied that Starks wasn't lying in wait for Berry's return, he replaced his pistol in its holster and gave them the all clear to come inside.

  "Make yourselves at home." Berry headed down the hall toward her bedroom.

  "Five minutes," Dodge called after her.

  If circumstances had been different, he would have liked to explore his daughter's home. You could tell a lot about a person--things he would like to know about Berry--by the stuff in her house, how it was maintained, how it was arranged. Just this brief exposure to her place indicated that, when it came to neatness and home decor, she took after Caroline a whole lot more than she did him.

  He was about to remark on that to Caroline when Berry screamed.

  CHAPTER 19

  IN THE STREET IN FRONT OF BERRY'S HOUSE, SEVERAL EMERGENCY vehicles were causing other cars to detour. The lawn had been cordoned off with yellow tape. Onlookers were standing in groups outside the barricade, speculating on the nature of the emergency.

  Ski waded through it all, showed his ID to the uniformed cop standing sentinel at the front door, and was told to go on in, that Detective Rodney Allen of the Houston PD was expecting him.

  He stepped into a foyer that had a limestone tile floor and a tall, healthy ficus tree in the corner. Ordinarily it would have been an inviting entry. But now, with the discovery of Sally Buckland's body in the master bedroom closet, the house had become a crime scene, its warm domesticity destroyed by everything the term entailed.

  CSU personnel and a photographer were milling around in the living area. Upon seeing Ski, one of the men wearing latex gloves asked, "You looking for Detective Allen?" and when Ski nodded, he hitched his head. "In the kitchen."

  "What are you doing?"

  "Waiting for the coroner to finish in the bedroom so we can have it."

  Ski glanced down a short hallway from which came the murmur of voices, then went in the direction the man had indicated and found his way to the kitchen. Dodge was standing with his back propped against the granite countertop. Beside him was a good-looking black guy with a shaved head and well-defined pectorals, a bodybuilding type.

  Alert, every muscle in his compact body contracted, the black guy looked ready for anything.

  Dodge looked ready to kill somebody.

  Caroline and Berry were seated on one side of a rectangular dining table with a rustic finish, making it look like it had been salvaged from a French farmhouse after World War I. Caroline's arm was protectively draped over Berry's shoulders.

  Sitting across the table from them was another man. When Ski entered the room, he looked at him from over his shoulder, then scraped back his chair and stood up, extending his right hand.

  He was tall and middle-aged. His slight paunch was the only soft thing about him. He had the world-weary eyes and toughened bearing of a large-city homicide detective. Years of seeing the worst of mankind's handiwork had left an indelible stamp on his face. His handshake was strong and dry, his palm as hard as a hoof. The white squint lines extending from the corners of sharp blue eyes contrasted with his sunburn, which Ski figured was perpetual.

  "Rodney Allen."

  "Ski Nyland."

  "That's Detective Somerville."

  The black guy bobbed his sleek head to acknowledge the introduction but didn't say anything.

  "Have a seat," Allen said.

  As Ski sat down, Berry met his gaze only momentarily before lowering her head. To the detective he said, "Thank you for inviting me to sit in."

  "He was your guy before he was ours. If in fact the individual who killed Ms. Buckland was the same man who shot the kid in Merritt last night."

  Ski said, "Oren Starks certainly should be a person of interest to you."

  "Person of interest, my ass," Dodge muttered. "He's a fucking woman killer and kid killer."

  He had called Ski immediately after notifying 911 of the gruesome discovery in Berry's closet. Ski had been waiting for a judge to grant a search warrant for Sally Buckland's house, which was on the other side of Houston from Berry's place. Despite the flashing emergency lights on his SUV, and the speed at which he'd driven, it had taken him over half an hour to get here.

  During that time, Allen and Somerville had arrived to investigate the apparent homicide of Sally Buckland. During preliminary questioning, Dodge had apprised them of Ski's investigation in Merritt. Allen hadn't invited him here strictly out of professional courtesy. The detective was after information about the suspect he and Ski had in common.

  Ski knew to be concise. He recapped the shooting at the lake house on Friday night. "He was facing felony charges for that. But after last night, he's in much deeper."

  "The kid," Allen said brusquely.

  "Davis Coldare was fatally shot at a motel. Oren Starks has been identified by an eyewitness. He fled the scene, then abandoned his car several miles away and went on foot to a Walmart store. We've got him on security cameras." He explained the shoe purchase and the reason for it.

  Allen asked, "What time was he in the store?"

  Ski told him. "But from there, he vanished. It's like he was raptured off that parking lot, so he must've been picked up and driven back to Houston, possibly by Ms. Buckland."

  "What makes you think that?"

  "Because he used her cell phone to call Ms. Malone this afternoon, around four o'clock. The call originated near Minute Maid Park. Local officers were dispatched. But Starks knew to turn off the phone, the baseball game was just letting out, there was lots of traffic, and we don't know what he's driving. Could be Sally Buckland's car, or not. The trail's gone cold again." He paused to take a breath. "That's where we are."

  Allen said, "Well, it wasn't Sally Buckland who picked him up from the Walmart and drove him back to Houston, because at three-something this morning she was long dead. Coroner's best guess, she's been dead at least twenty-four hours, probably longer."

  Ski's mind backtracked with the speed of a rewinding video recording. "I talked to her by phone yesterday afternoon."

  "So did I," Dodge said.

  "Then she must have been killed shortly following those conversations," Allen said. "The autop
sy might help nail down the time of death more precisely, but the guy in there now is a competent man, been in the ME's office for years, sees bodies all the time. He estimated she died sometime yesterday afternoon."

  Dodge cursed under his breath. "She sounded edgy, nervous, in defense of Starks. I thought she was standing up for him because they were working together. I realize now she was scared." He locked gazes with Ski. "Starks was with her when I called."

  Berry hunched her shoulders and hugged her arms closer to her body.

  "You're guessing," the Houston detective said.

  "I think he's right," Ski said. "My conversation with her was off somehow. I couldn't put my finger on it before, but now I get it. Either Sally Buckland was being coerced or she was saying what she knew Starks wanted to hear. She was trying to save her life."

  "She was shot in the left temple," the Houston detective said. "Practically at point-blank range. But not here. She was killed in another location and her body brought here."

  "How'd he get the body in here without setting off the house alarm?"

  "We were getting to that when you arrived," Allen said.

  They all turned to Berry.

  Speaking in a thready voice, she said, "Oren had a habit of being here when I got home from work or after an evening out. I'd come in and turn off the alarm. He was always ... close. Hovering. Maybe he saw the sequence of numbers. I kept meaning to change the code, but then I moved to Merritt, and it seemed pointless."

  "He took a chance of being discovered by transporting the body here," Ski remarked.

  "The risk was worth it to him," Berry said. "He wanted me to find Sally. That was part of my punishment."

  After a short silence, Allen said, "The murder scene will give us more to go on, but we gotta find it first."

  "We have," said Somerville, whose bass voice was in keeping with his muscular build. He held up his cell phone. "Just got a text. Detectives at Sally Buckland's house found blood in her bed. Lots of it. Soaked into the pillow. Also residue that looks like semen on the sheets. Which is consistent with what the coroner saw on the remains, on and around--"

  "Thanks, Detective," Allen said, cutting short the chilling report from his subordinate.

  But enough had been said to make Caroline King go pale. Berry pressed her fingertips into her eye sockets. Dodge muttered under his breath, then said, "I gotta smoke," and left through the back door.

  As Ski stared at the top of Berry's bowed head, he thought about what Somerville had told them and related it to the photographs taken of Berry in her bedroom and while sunbathing, how beautiful and unaffected she'd looked, how unaware and defenseless. He struggled to maintain a professional detachment, but it was impossible. He wanted to hunt down Oren Starks and hurt him. Bad.

  He said, "Detective Allen, when you get the ballistics report on the bullet that killed Ms. Buckland, I'd like to compare it with the one that killed Davis Coldare."

  "You'll have it as soon as I do."

  Berry said, "Don't forget to tell him about the message."

  Ski looked at her, then at Allen. "Message?"

  The detective said, "The body was zipped into a garment bag. One of those like my wife stores winter coats in. Rod inside, big hook attached to the top."

  Ski nodded.

  "On the outside of it, there was a message printed in blood, apparently Ms. Buckland's."

  "What'd it say?"

  Ski had addressed the question to Detective Allen, but it was Berry who replied in a bleak voice. " 'Sally has you to thank.'"

  Shortly after that Sally Buckland's body was removed from the house to be taken to the morgue, and the CSU team went into Berry's bedroom to do their scavenging for evidence. Somerville excused himself to take a telephone call, and, when he returned to the kitchen, he informed them that Sally Buckland's car had been found in a vast multilevel parking lot in Houston's famed medical district.

  "The entry ticket was in the console, stamped seven-seventeen yesterday evening."

  "Several hours after I talked to her," Ski said.

  "Security videos have this man--" Somerville held out his cell phone so Ski could see the freeze-frame photo that had been texted to the detective.

  The image was grainy and blurred, but there was no doubt that the man behind the steering wheel was Oren Starks. "That's him."

  Somerville then held his phone so Berry could confirm the identity. She rolled her lips inward and nodded.

  "This was taken as he entered the parking garage," Somerville continued. "But Starks wasn't picked up on cameras inside any of the buildings in the complex."

  "He'd left another car parked nearby," Ski said. "Presumably the maroon Toyota."

  Somerville said, "The patrolmen who discovered the car said there are traces of blood on the driver's seat and in the trunk. Looks like Starks killed Ms. Buckland at her house, brought her here in her own car, drove it to the garage, and abandoned it there, where it could have remained for a while without causing suspicion. Patients and family members sometimes stay for days in those treatment centers."

  "Starks made the swap inside the garage and drove the other car out," Allen said.

  "They don't take photos of cars as they're leaving," his partner added. "More's the pity."

  Allen noticed Ski's frown. "What, Deputy Nyland? You don't like that scenario?"

  "Yeah, I do. Except, that would mean that Starks had parked a car in the garage in the medical district, walked to Sally Buckland's house, where he killed her and picked up her car. Right?"

  "I reckon."

  "Okay. From the medical district to her house is a distance of what? Two miles at least?"

  Somerville gave a negligent shrug. "Thirty-minute walk."

  "For you and me," Ski said. "But not for a man with an injured leg."

  "He told me it was black and blue and swollen," Berry said.

  "A limp wouldn't have attracted much attention in that area," Somerville said. "Lots of rehab clinics. Day surgery places. People on crutches, wheelchairs. A guy with a limp wouldn't have attracted attention."

  "I guess," Ski said, but still with doubt. "That's a lot of walking for a man with a bum leg." He explained that Starks had walked almost a mile from the abandoned Toyota to Walmart in Merritt. "Part of that was over rough ground and in the dark. If you're right, he did that after walking from the medical district to Sally Buckland's house. Not only that, why did he make the car switch? Why use Ms. Buckland's car to move her here? Why not the Toyota?"

  "He didn't want the Toyota to be seen by any of her neighbors, who could later identify it," Somerville said.

  The detective's explanation was thin but logical, and Ski didn't have a better one.

  "What's the skinny on that Toyota?" Allen asked.

  Ski said, "The VIN has been scratched off. The license plate belongs to a blue 2001 Taurus in Conway, Arkansas. One of our deputies talked to the owner. He was recently in Houston, had his license plate lifted while he was here, but he's not sure where or when the theft took place."

  "Starks was laying his groundwork."

  "Apparently. But it wasn't too smart of him to return to Merritt last night after killing Sally Buckland," Ski said. "He had to know that every peace officer in deep East Texas was on the lookout for him with a warrant for his arrest for the lake house shooting. Yet after stashing Buckland's body here, which seems another reckless thing to do, he went back to Merritt and hid in a ratty motel. What the hell for?" He shook his head in frustration. "Doesn't make sense to me."

  "He had unfinished business in Merritt," Berry said softly. "

  Has, that is. I'm still alive."

  Caroline hugged her closer. "Is that all for now, Detective?"

  They wrapped up with Allen and Somerville. As they congregated at the front door to exchange contact information, Ski noticed Berry staring down the hallway toward her bedroom. When she came back around, there were tears in her eyes. It would be a long time, if ever, before she could g
o into that room and open the closet door without remembering the gruesome discovery she'd made. Oren Starks had contaminated her home, too.

  As Caroline and Berry went through the front door, Detective Allen detained Ski. "Another sec, please, Deputy?"

  "Sure."

  "Who's the character?" Allen nodded through the open doorway toward Dodge, who was standing just inside the yellow crime scene tape, smoking and chatting with a uniformed Houston police officer.

  Ski replied, "He's a private investigator, working for Ms. King."

  "He's packing."

  "He's licensed to carry."

  "So he said."

  "Then what's the problem?"

  The detective shrugged. "I don't know. Is there one?"

  "No. He's sound. He was a former cop here in Houston. When did you join the force?"

  " 'Eighty-six."

  "You missed each other. He left in 'seventy-nine."

  "Any particular reason why?"

  Ski glanced beyond Allen and saw Somerville propped against the entryway wall, intent on his cell phone. "Have you got your man there checking?"

  "I do, yeah." Allen smiled, but not with humor.

  "Dodge had some insubordination issues, but he wasn't fired. He left by choice."

  "Good. A police department doesn't need a man like that."

  Ski locked gazes with him and, in a steely voice, said, "You're right. It needs a thousand." He let that sink in, then said, "Excuse me."

  By the time he rejoined Caroline and Berry, Dodge was also walking toward them. Ski could tell by his expression that he had acquired new information. "What?"

  Dodge glanced warily at the women. Caroline said, "Don't spare us weakhearted females, Dodge. What did you learn?"

  He took a final drag on his cigarette and flicked it into the gutter. "That officer was one of the first responders. Talkative guy." He looked at Berry and asked a question that seemed out of context. "Did Sally Buckland have any boyfriends?"

  "Not that I know of. Another man wasn't the reason she rejected Oren. Why?"