Chill Factor

by Chris Rogers

  He slid his gaze to meet hers, eyes filled with confused anguish. Then he dropped his forehead against the heels of his hands and clutched handfuls of his carefully styled hair. Dixie had the urge to reach over and pat his arm, tell him this would all go away if he told the truth. But would it?

  Finally, still staring down at the table, he tugged his tie loose and nodded.

  “You asked me once why I moved away, Dixie. I had … something to hide, at least I thought so at the time. Now … I don’t know. Everything came apart anyway. After I met Ashton, we opened the gallery, and business mushroomed. I thought, okay, it’s time. I can’t go on living one life in Dallas, another when I visit Houston—or my family visits me—a lie that’s getting harder and harder to hold together. Remember our senior prom?”

  The night her rhinestones kept popping. Dixie nodded.

  “You asked why I insisted on dancing right up close to the bandstand,” he said. “You even commented that the lead guitar player looked like Sean Cassidy. What you never realized is … I had a panting, lovesick crush on the guy. My first real crush—although I always watched The Brady Bunch to see Greg, not Marcia.”

  Marty’s revelation didn’t come as quite the shock he obviously expected. Dixie had noticed the way he looked at that lead guitar player.

  “I told Mom and Dad two Christmases ago,” he continued. “The year I brought Ashton down to visit. After Christmas dinner, he flew back, and I told them—we were lovers, Ashton and I.”

  Marty cleared his throat and took a sip of water.

  “Dad—he was never much of a talker, as you know—he just stared at me for two or three minutes, not saying a word. Then he rose from that damn chair he always sat in and walked into his bedroom and shut the door. Still hadn’t come out when I left the next day. And Mom—can you believe this?—Mom begged me to see a doctor. Said there had to be something we could do. Like I had a sickness. Like her brain was stuck in the fifties. Where had they lived the past forty years?”

  He stopped abruptly. Then he swiveled his chair toward the same view of downtown that Belle continued to stare at. Dixie knew the attorney was giving Marty a measure of privacy, her way of encouraging communication.

  Dixie preferred observing Marty’s face as he talked.

  “When Dad died, Mom blamed me. Oh, she never came right out and said, ‘You killed him, Marty.’ She’d say, ‘He never got over it, Marty. He never did.’ But Mom tried to accept my life after that. She came to our big show last fall and stayed three days. That’s when I invited her to move to Dallas—not to sell the old homestead, but … to spend time with us. I’d rent her a town house. ‘No,’ she told me. ‘I don’t fit here. I don’t fit much of anywhere anymore, but certainly not here.’ Not long after that I noticed the changes. Small things at first—her voice on the phone, firmer, more exact, then her clothes. When I flew down for Christmas, she wore a silk jogging suit. Silk. You ever know Mom to spring for silk, Dixie? ‘Dacron’s fine,’ she’d say. ‘Washable. Where would I wear silk? To weed the flower beds?’ There she stood in this silk periwinkle jogging suit. And she’d been exercising, dieting. She’d lost ten pounds.”

  He whirled his chair to face Dixie, his features more animated.

  “I liked seeing the changes—a positive sign, I thought. Hah! That’s when she asked me not to bring Ashton home again. Said she understood and wanted me to be happy, but she couldn’t bear it if her friends knew.”

  He finished the water and stared blankly into the glass.

  “This spring, Ashton and I started having … problems. He’s such a damn scrooge, at times. Especially about money. It was his money—and my brilliant talent, if I may brag a little—that started Essence Gallery. Ever notice how easily money falls into neat rows of figures you can add up and subtract and roll into one big green stick to brandish over someone? Talent simply … is. Talent flows into your soul. Talent sparkles. But it takes Ashton’s money to keep the doors open until we attract the deep pockets. We were in the middle of a stinko argument when this whole crazy mess with Mom came out of nowhere. The police call, telling me she’s dead. I arrive and … and there’s speculation it was suicide?” He closed his eyes. “I needed someone I could talk to, someone who really knew me.”

  Apparently relieved to have spilled his secrets, he looked squarely at Dixie. He must’ve found what he sought in her eyes, because he continued talking.

  “I called my friend—the one who brought me out, years before I moved away. Older than me. The son of a … friend of Dad’s. I think maybe Dad figured that part out later, after I dropped the bomb that Christmas. Anyway, he’s not … I can’t drag him into this. Ashton may be tight with money, but my friend’s situation is … hell, it’s impossible.”

  Although Dixie believed him, believed that his mother’s death had rattled Marty enough to seek the comfort of an old friend, she could also see him loading all his misery into a rifle and aiming it at the officers who’d canceled any chance of Marty ever mending the rift with his family. Marty’s emotional expression had always leaned toward extreme. And the convenient “friend who doesn’t deserve to be dragged down into the dirt” dramatically completed the scenario.

  Dixie could hear Barney’s gentle words, as if he were sitting beside her, A foolish friend is twice the burden of your gravest enemy.

  “Did the cops identify the weapon that killed either Harris or Tally?” Dixie asked Belle.

  “They’re not saying.” Belle returned to the table. “And since they didn’t charge Marty we can’t ask. But we know they found receipts for all the rifles in Bill’s gun cabinet. Apparently, he kept excellent records. One additional receipt, for a …” She consulted her notes. “Remington 30.06 Springfield, with a rangefinder telescopic sight, didn’t match any of the rifles accounted for. A notation on the sales ticket gave them the hint they needed: Marty’s birthday.”

  Marty frowned, hair sticking up where he’d clutched it.

  “My first year at college—Dad and I went hunting during the holidays. But I sold that rifle after I moved to Dallas and needed cash. They can’t be saying my rifle killed those cops.”

  “What they’re saying is you had access to the type of weapon it takes to kill a man from five hundred yards,” Dixie said, filling in the blanks.

  “But I’m telling you, I sold that rifle.”

  Belle made a third dot on her legal pad. “If you keep records as good as your father’s, you’ll have the bill of sale to prove it.”

  “Listen, I needed money, and a guy offered me three hundred bucks—cash. I took it.”

  “You remember the guy’s name?” Belle asked.

  “No.” Marty raked at his hair. “But there’s no way it could be that gun. Sold twelve years ago in Dallas? What are the odds?”

  Dixie made a mental note to find out from Rashly—provided he’d speak to her—if he had ballistics test results yet. By now the police investigators should know where the sniper holed up to shoot Tally. And they might have found some spent casings, if the shooter was in too much of a hurry to pick up his brass. Riflings on the lead, which probably flattened on impact, might not be precise enough to indicate a specific model.

  “Let’s get real clear, Marty,” Belle said. “This is no ordinary shooting you’re suspected of. In a legal system where every opinion has a counter opinion, nobody likes cop killers. If enough people are convinced you murdered those officers, evidence will stack up to prove it. Trust me.”

  The lines in Marty’s face flattened out. “You mean, the police will manufacture the evidence they need?” For the first time, he looked more scared than miserable.

  “They simply won’t notice anything that doesn’t point in the right direction,” Dixie told him. “The direction they’re convinced leads to the killer.”

  “Then you’ll have to find evidence that proves I didn’t do it.”

  Friendship wears a price tag, lass. “Marty, you’ve seen bubble-wrapped items hanging on store racks
?” Dixie asked. “Toys, tools, kitchen implements—stuck to a piece of cardboard, with plastic molded over the whole thing? The cops will have this case sealed up tighter than one of those plastic bubbles.”

  “But they have to prove I did it. If I didn’t do it, they can’t prove it.”

  “Technically, yes,” Belle said quietly. “But juries don’t like cop killers, either. They’ll be eager to convict.”

  Dixie laid a hand on Marty’s arm. “If you have an alibi, now is a good time to use it. Before every police officer and some key prosecutors in this city have invested energy in proving they arrested the right man.”

  She could feel him tremble through his tailored jacket, but his mouth tightened and he shook his head.

  “I lose either way. If Ashton finds out who I was with, I kiss everything good-bye—my home, my business. My life. Ashton’s told me, if he ever caught me with anyone—but this friend, especially—we’re through.”

  “I thought you were partners,” Dixie commented. “Don’t you have a partnership agreement?”

  “Not on paper.”

  Of course not.

  Leaving Marty at the conference table, Belle motioned Dixie into the next room.

  “Even if he gives us the name of his friend, it may not be enough.”

  “Why not?” Putting herself in the prosecutor’s shoes, Dixie had already mentally earmarked the problems with Marty’s defense, but she wanted to hear Belle’s take.

  “First, the gay angle. Voir dire could take weeks and we still might not weed out the homophobes. The fact that Marty and his Houston lover have both lied about their relationship for years could taint any testimony from this mystery man. Second, supposing we get past the gay lies, can his lover convince a jury that Marty never left the hotel that night? Never went out for cigarettes or snacks or magazines? The lover never fell asleep? And third, there’s all those rifles. A jury—with the prosecutor’s help—will picture Marty sitting at his mother’s house, mad as hell that not one but nine officers shot at her, and staring at his father’s rifles—a tried-and-true Texas code for settling disputes. A jury—again with the prosecutor’s help—will appreciate Marty’s rage, may even feel some of that rage themselves. They’ll forget that none of the guns in that case is the murder weapon, or that Marty’s missing rifle can’t be positively identified as the murder weapon. They’ll see the missing rifle as ‘proof’ of concealment. The mere presence of those other guns, and the fact that Marty knows how to shoot them, will slant the jury’s opinion. They’ll feel sorry for Marty’s loss. They’ll speculate on how they might have acted in his shoes. And in the end, they’ll believe he did it.”

  Yep. That’s pretty much how Dixie’d figured it. “What now?”

  “I’ll try to find out exactly what the prosecution’s holding. You, first and most important, keep Marty in sight at all times.”

  “In case another officer is killed.”

  “Lord, I don’t want that to happen, Dixie. But we both know it would take suspicion off Marty—provided we absolutely can prove his whereabouts at the time.”

  A foolish friend is a heavier burden … “And second?”

  “Find some better suspects.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Saturday, 4:30 A.M.

  By habit, Dixie wasn’t a runner. She preferred bending-lifting-stretching exercises, reserved running for the racquetball court, where it actually accomplished something—when a ball went high and wide—but she awoke knowing she had to exercise yesterday’s frustrations out of her muscles.

  She pulled on baggy shorts and athletic shoes, drew a comb through her hair, not even taking time to brush the sleep off her teeth, and called to Mud as she ran down the driveway, through the gate, out to the main road, and away from town. The air felt heavy with overnight moisture. Clouds in the west promised a chance of rain later.

  Mud, delighted with this new game, sprinted alongside for a while, then dashed ahead to scare out a squirrel. Dixie sprinted past the Pine house without looking and continued to a gravel road that cut back into undeveloped acreage. So much had happened last night that she hadn’t had time to think about. Not consciously. While she slept, her brain had whittled at the information, trying to shape it. Several times during the night she’d awakened with a half-formed idea, but as she tried to bring it closer, to see it, the image dissolved like wet rice paper. Once she’d grasped a picture of Parker, strikingly handsome in his white shorts on a fine sailboat, his laughter whipping in the wind like the sails. An instant later the image vanished.

  Dixie had no desire to analyze that one.

  The image she awoke with was of Marty on a golf course, chasing balls for Derry Hager. Derry, four years older, could get kids to do things. His family had money, but that wasn’t it—Derry never paid for favors. He simply expected and received. Dixie hadn’t liked him and had steered clear when he visited. Marty seemed to prefer that, anyway, almost picking a fight at times so Dixie wouldn’t horn in on his fun with Derry Hager.

  And twenty years later, it had been Derry who set Marty up with a friend in Dallas wanting to open a gallery.

  Already winded from the unaccustomed pace, Dixie slowed past a weathered shack, windows long gone, shingles curling, and wondered briefly who’d lived there and if their lives had wasted away like the house. Dewberry vines covered the fence in mounds, dark ripe fruit thick among the paler leaves. Mud stopped to snuffle around the roots, but Dixie ran on.

  Another image from her restless night had been sparked by a late-night newscast featuring the two slain HPD officers. Dixie recognized the photo of Theodore Tally from the circle of blue uniforms gathered around Edna’s body after the shooting. Ted and a female officer had been standing nearby when Dixie yelled at Arthur Harris.

  If she could see head shots of the other seven officers at the scene, Dixie thought she might recognize all of them—the terrible event had etched their faces in her memory—but how could the sniper know that both Art Harris and Ted Tally had taken part in Edna’s death?

  Unless the assassin was among the rubberneckers who stopped to watch. At least one camera lens had winked in the morning sunlight. With pictures and perseverance, all the officers could be identified.

  On the other hand, reporters—anyone working with news media—would have access to press photos, including shots never released to the public. Who else could have snapped a shot of Dixie yelling at Art Harris? A shut-in from a neighboring house?

  Reporters also had sources within the police department. Anyone in the Mayor’s office or on City Council might weasel the names from an HPD employee. And at HPD? Internal Affairs, of course. Homicide. Everyone on the task force. The HPD psychiatrist, Emile Arceneaux, could poke around just about anywhere. Any of the other law enforcement agencies involved might learn the names by merely asking enough officers who knew. The list seemed endless, now that she thought about it, especially since she hadn’t the time to interview them all.

  As Dixie’s lungs began to ache, she sorted this information into a mental file cabinet. No way would the police let her near any evidence. But after watching the late-night report on the assassinations, she’d read everything she could find in her week-old stack of newspapers, highlighting specific details …

  HARRIS WAS SHOT COMING OUT OF HIS HOME IN SOUTHEAST HOUSTON. THE TASK FORCE, GAUGING THE BULLET’S TRAJECTORY, PLACED THE SNIPER ON THE ROOF OF A NEARBY TWO-STORY APARTMENT BUILDING.

  Three hundred fifty units. People coming and going at all hours … a wide ethnic mix … nobody would’ve noticed the sniper slinking in the shadows.

  EVIDENCE GATHERED AT THE SCENE SUGGESTED THE SHOOTER MAY HAVE CLIMBED DOWN TO THE UPPER BALCONY.

  From there he could’ve taken the open staircase like any resident. Police had canvassed the area for witnesses. By now, investigators would be flashing Marty’s photograph around.

  The sky had lightened to pale gray, a wisp of coral peeking above the skyline. Soon she’d have to pick
up Marty. But Dixie needed to finish filling her mental file cabinet before the frail ideas and images vaporized with the dawning light.

  OFFICER TALLY WAS SHOT IN THE PARKING LOT OF A SOUTHWEST HOUSTON RESTAURANT WHERE HE HAD STOPPED FOR COFFEE.

  Like Art Harris, he’d died instantly, but Ted had lain beside his patrol car until a woman noticed him as she parked—blood still fresh—probably no more than a minute, according to the medics. Plenty of time for the shooter to disappear.

  BOTH HARRIS AND TALLY WORKED HPD BEAT PATROLS.

  The two robberies that resulted in “shoot-outs” occurred in the towns of Webster and Richmond. HPD responded when the robbers crossed into Houston jurisdiction, which in Edna’s case didn’t occur until she’d passed through two other jurisdictions, picking up a patrol car in both.

  Dixie had consulted a map that showed all three cities. Webster lay just southeast of Houston, Richmond southwest. The distance between the robberies spanned fifty-two miles, the distance between the shootings roughly thirty miles. Apparently, both women had been driving into Houston when police stopped them. Where in Houston?

  The Pine robbery was the only squeal those two men ever caught together, Rashly’d told her.

  Most Houston patrol officers rode solo, not in pairs, and Art Harris worked out of the Clear Lake police station. When he responded to the Richmond robbery pursuit, he was way off his beat. Off duty, maybe? If so, the newspaper hadn’t mentioned it. On the other hand, he’d have been in exactly the right neighborhood to respond to the Webster robbery. Had he felt cheated, not getting in on that action, and later defied departmental policy to respond to the Edna Pine chase? Maybe he lived near the spot where Edna was forced off the road.

  Feeling her second wind now, Dixie made a mental note to get Art Harris’ home address—not an easy task, with most officers’ phone numbers unlisted. She knew a couple who could do it, if anyone could.