1 A Small Case of Murder (16 page)

“It was important. He said something important.”

Chapter Thirteen

“I want to know when Vicki’s body will be released.” Hal Poole took a seat in Joshua’s office, which was still littered with moving boxes.

Dr. Wilson’s old leather chair creaked when Joshua sat behind the scarred up desk. “Dr. MacMillan is waiting for results from toxicology tests and, depending on those results; he may want to run more tests.”

“Why would he want to do that?”

“Hal, your niece was murdered.” Joshua pressed his hands together to make a makeshift steeple with his fingers.

“Bridgette said you suspected us. She says that’s why you had us dragged in to answer your insane questions. She told me how you always hated the Rawlings. People who don’t know the Lord hate us. That makes them vulnerable to Satan’s will.”

“This isn’t a spiritual matter. It’s a criminal matter,” Joshua said. “It’s been proven that in a majority of murder cases, the perpetrator is someone the victim knows. I am also looking for this Amber, who has—”

“Amber is a demon from hell sent to destroy us. The reverend says so. You will never find her.”

“I don’t care if she’s the devil herself. She knows a lot of details about these murders and has yet to make herself available for questioning.”

“Of course she does. Satan knows everything about us. The reverend has preached about how that’s one of his weapons. He uses our guilt and our lust for sin against us to tear us away from God. If you came to our church, you’d know that.”

Joshua could see by the insanity in Hal’s eyes that he wasn’t going to be much help. “I’m trying to do my job. God gave us life, and it is wrong for anyone here on earth to take that away.”

“If circumstances were different, I’d agree. But this is a war against Satan, and in every war there are casualties.”

“Hal,” Joshua said as if he were speaking to a child, “if you know who killed Vicki and Beth, you have to tell me. Their killers need to be brought to justice.”

“You don’t have the power to do that. The reverend says that only God can bring Satan to justice. You’re a mere mortal man and a sinful one at that. You haven’t only ignored the warnings of God’s messenger, but you have conspired with the devil’s demons against Him.”

Ignoring the accusation, Joshua asked the question to which he already sensed the answer, “Are you saying Satan killed them?”

“Satan took Vicki’s soul a long time ago,” Hal said. “The reverend had to explain it to me. She’d been taken prisoner. Satan defiled her body while brainwashing her to go to work for him. Oh, how she must have fought him. He took her soul from us and devoured it. When he was through, our Vicki was gone from us forever.”

Hal looked at him with wide eyes. “Mr. Thornton, that body that was found in that trailer wasn’t Vicki Rawlings. She was one of Satan’s demons sent to destroy all that is good and pure. You can’t punish one of God’s soldiers for doing His work.”

Bridgette Poole always expected to be first. After all, she was a Rawlings. Unfortunately, Jan Martin’s new pharmacist wasn’t aware of that.

The store manager was in her office trying to make sense of the pharmacy records when she heard Bridgette’s outrage after the druggist had told her that he would be with her in a moment. Jan rolled her eyes before going out to once again douse the flames.

Dressed in a pair of Capri pants with a matching midriff top, Bridgette pounded the counter. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

Jan grabbed her hand to stop the pounding. “What seems to be the problem?”

“He’s the problem!” Bridgette pointed at the druggist.

He replied, “I told her I’d be right with her.”

“Ten minutes ago.”

“That’s okay, Ron,” Jan said. “I’ll take care of it.” While Ron returned to his duties, she stepped behind the counter. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Poole?”

Bridgette presented her with a slip of paper. “I want all my prescription records sent to this pharmacy in Calcutta.”

“I’ll do that for you right now.”

“I won’t be doing business with this store anymore,” Bridgette announced loud enough to ensure any customers would hear her.

Jan keyed the information into the computer to forward Bridgette’s records to her competitor. “I think that’s best under the circumstances.”

“How could I do business with this place?” Bridgette replied. “Everyone knows there’s no way Beth could have sup-plied Vicki with drugs all these years without you knowing it. Now that the police say Beth didn’t kill herself, I wonder who did. You had a lot to lose if Beth and Vicki told the police who really was behind their dealing.”

Jan handed her the information to take on to her new drug store. “I’d say it was nice doing business with you, Mrs. Poole, but, being a Christian woman, it’s against my principles to lie.”

Bridgette snatched the paper out of her hand. In her rush, she almost knocked over Joshua when Tad held the door open for her to leave at the same time he was coming in.

When Jan saw them make their way down the aisle towards her, she smoothed her hair and forced the confrontation with Bridgette out of her mind.

“You don’t look bad for a man who almost got blown up yesterday,” Jan told Joshua, who stepped up to the counter while Tad took a detour down the hardware aisle.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Joshua cocked his head towards the door through which her last customer had left. “What did you do to offend Bridgette now?”

“I didn’t beg her for her business when she announced that she was taking it to another store on account of my killing her niece.”

“She came in here to tell you she wasn’t doing business with you anymore?”

“She was looking for a fight, and I didn’t give it to her.” She asked, “What are you two up to?”

“Amber called me at Tad’s yesterday after the explosion,” Joshua said. “Unfortunately, I was too drugged to question her before she hung up.”

“How did she know you were at Tad’s place?” she asked.

Tad appeared next to his cousin with his selection of light bulbs and a mop head. “Anyone could have found that out. Tess Bauer showed up at the clinic with her news crew. Someone had told her that Josh was upstairs, and she tried to get up there to interview him. She backed down after Stella threatened to use her microphone to give her an enema. About a dozen reporters had called to ask about Josh’s condition. Stella had a cow.”

Joshua and Jan were laughing along with the doctor about his less than courteous nurse when Ron announced that Leo Walker’s prescription was ready. “When does the delivery person come in?”

“When did you start making home deliveries?” Tad asked her.

The fear on her face was transferred to her druggist. “I didn’t think you did, but when Mr. Walker called in to have his prescription refilled, he told me to have it delivered to his house. When I said you didn’t have home delivery, he said you did it for him because he was housebound.”

“That’s a lie,” she said. “I’ve never had his prescriptions delivered.”

“Did you tell him the prescription would be delivered?” Joshua interjected his question to Ron, who nodded.

“That should be worth a million-dollar lawsuit,” Tad predicted.

Before Jan could throttle the pharmacist, Joshua offered to deliver the prescription. “I’d like to take a look at Leo Walker.”

“Don’t get too close,” Tad warned him. “Leo the Litigious gets cranky for the rest of the day if he doesn’t sue someone before lunch.”

Leo Walker’s home was a white two-story house in Chester’s first residential development, built along the river during the baby boom after World War II. The narrow houses had been constructed so close together that grown men had to navigate the sidewalks between the homes single file.

After Leo had called out that the door was open in response to the doorbell, Joshua and Tad found him in the back of the house.

At the tiny kitchen table, Leo Walker noisily sipped soup, spoonful by spoonful, while leaning over the bowl from his seat in his wheelchair. His eyes narrowed to slits when he saw the doctor. “Business so bad, MacMillan, that you gotta make deliveries for Martin?”

“Come off it, Walker,” Tad said. “You know Jan never did make deliveries. You took advantage of her new pharmacist.”

Leo snatched the prescription bag from Joshua’s hand and peered inside it. “I was in so much pain that I needed this right away. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“I know what real nerve damage and back pain are like,” Tad said.

“You can’t possibly know what it’s like to be in constant pain. It never lets up for a second, even one little bit.”

While Leo ranted about how much pain he was in and how desperately he needed the painkillers, Joshua observed that he didn’t take any of the pills he had been waiting for. The lawyer signaled Tad with a cock of his head, which confirmed what the doctor knew.

Leo Walker was faking his back injury.

“You’d think that Martin, if she cared any about her customers, would have an ounce of sympathy for me and have these pills delivered,” Leo said. “Do you know what it’s like to be bound to this wheelchair? It’s a major ordeal to leave the house.”

“I can see that,” Joshua said.

“Rawlings’ lawyer doesn’t. He refuses to pay one penny for what his junkie kid did to me.”

Joshua asked, “Are they willing to settle the case now that Vicki’s dead?”

His eyes were bright with excitement. “With all the drugs they found in that trailer of hers, I have more of a case.”

Joshua warned him, “Rawlings’ lawyer will move to have that information ruled irrelevant in your civil case.”

“She was higher than a kite when she crippled me.” Leo’s jaw was set tight.

“What the police found in her trailer a year later has nothing to do with this,” Joshua argued.

“She was a drug dealer.”

“I’m simply telling you what a judge might rule. I could be wrong,” Joshua backtracked. “We’re sorry to disturb you. We’ll be going now.”

Tad waited until they had stepped down off the stoop onto the sidewalk before saying, “I guess those pills are really potent. They worked without him even opening the bottle.” 

“He must have hired a real shyster,” Joshua agreed. “Why didn’t his lawyer tell him not to wear shoes that are scuffed on the bottom if you want to convince a jury that you can’t walk? If he can’t walk, how did he scuff his shoes?”

“His doctor isn’t much better,” Tad added, “Rawlings’ lawyer is going to want Leo to explain why he doesn’t have atrophy after not walking for a year. Even after a few weeks, the leg muscles start to deteriorate. Leo’s legs are way too thick. Also, his upper body isn’t muscular enough for a man who has had to use his arms and chest to do everything.”

“I wonder if Vicki Rawlings found proof that he was faking.” Joshua stopped on the corner and looked back at the house.

Tad hoped that he wasn’t considering returning to Leo’s house to question him. Leo Walker wasn’t the type of man to question without his lawyer. “Do you consider him a viable suspect?”

“If Vicki found out about Leo’s scam, then that would give him reason to kill her. Since he can walk, then he could have gotten into her trailer to do the job. With her dead, there’s no longer any threat from her to his lawsuit.”

“Or maybe,” Tad theorized, “Vicki found out, but instead of using the evidence to make him drop the suit, she used it to blackmail him into splitting the award from her father with her. That was more her style.” He gestured towards the house from which they had just left. “Are we going back?”

“It’ll be a waste of time. The harder we push him, the more he’ll dig in.” Joshua crossed the street toward the paved over railroad tracks, “Besides, Walker didn’t kill them.”

“And you say that because—” Tad caught up with his cousin.

“Leo Walker’s personality doesn’t match the murder scene. If Vicki was blackmailing him, he would have simply killed her. He wouldn’t have bothered with symbolism. Whoever did it went to a lot of trouble to create the right setting for Vicki’s body to be found. He drugged her so that he could drive a stake through her heart. Vampires are blood suckers. The killer was making a statement.”

Tad noted, “They kill vampires by driving a wooden stake through the heart.”

Joshua mused, “Plus, we can’t forget that Vicki’s killer was someone she trusted enough to let him give her a shot in the crotch. She wouldn’t have let a toad like Walker touch her privates. Unless we find out something about Vicki’s sexual preferences that we don’t already know, we might as well go back to the drawing board.”

Tad groaned, “I guess we’re going to have to find Amber.”

“Who could also be Alexis,” Joshua suggested. “Enough time has passed for her to come back masquerading as Amber to avenge her family.”

“But where are we going to find Alexis and or Amber?”

“Amber’s a party girl. Where do you usually go to find party girls?”

Tad directed the Corvette to the pull off at the top of a hill overlooking the Ohio River. After Joshua parked the convertible, Tad sat up on top of his seat’s headrest and propped his feet up on the dashboard to admire the landscape.

The green of the valley stretched out before them. The sun drifted behind the mountains in the distance to cast the horizon in red.

“When is—What’s his name?—going to get here?” Joshua checked his watch.

“Crazy Horse,” Tad answered. “I only called him an hour ago.”

“I hope word doesn’t get back to my friends in Washington about my meeting with a couple of drug dealers.”

Tad laughed. “No dealer in his right mind would have these guys work for him. They’d use it all up before it got to the buyer.”

Joshua double-checked the time on the car console.

“What? You got an appointment with the governor?” Tad snapped in a good-natured tone.

“No, I have something more important: My kids who are basically raising themselves while I’m conducting this investigation. This isn’t what I bargained for when I gave up active duty.”

“Are you complaining?”

“I have a feeling Val is. Get your feet off my dashboard.”

Tad dropped back down into the seat. “Face it, Josh. You’re not the type of guy to sit around the house in his underwear watching baseball and drinking beer. Val never would have married you if you were.”

“There’s a middle ground between neglecting your family to chase bad guys and sitting around in your underwear drinking beer, and I’m having a devil of a time finding it.”

An old VW van that looked like it didn’t belong on the road rolled up beside the classic black Corvette convertible.

It was impossible to tell by sight that the two men who exited the van were of the same generation as Tad. Leathery skin hung from their malnourished frames. The sight of their rotted teeth made Joshua’s own mouth ache. They were dressed in baggy, soiled clothes. Their hair was tied up with rubber bands into ragged ponytails. One of them had a bushy, untrimmed beard. The other looked as if he hadn’t shaved for days.

Joshua wondered if his cousin’s old friends were so lost in the drug-filled haze from their youth that they hadn’t noticed that the psychedelic era of the sixties had ended.

They admired the classic sports car while each one came up on either side of the vehicle.

The one with the bushy beard smiled at Tad from the driver’s side. “Doc, good to see you.” When he reached across the car to give Tad a high five, he released a whiff of body odor into Joshua’s face that provoked a cough. “I about passed out when you called. A blast from the past.” He knelt down and looked over the car. “Nice wheels! You really did join the establishment, didn’t you?”

“This is Josh’s,” Tad said. “Crazy Horse, remember I used to tell you about my little cousin? Josh, this is Crazy Horse.”

“Little?” Crazy Horse shook his hand with a dirt-encrusted palm.

Joshua resisted the temptation to wipe the grime off with his handkerchief.

Crazy Horse introduced his companion as Skeet, who greeted them with a high-pitched, squeaky giggle before he reminded Tad about the reason for their meeting. “You said you had some questions.”

“About Amber,” Tad told them.

“The girl yakking on television to that reporter.”

“The very same,” Joshua said.

“Why do you want her?” Crazy Horse frowned. “To end our party? Like I’d help you, fed.” He turned to leave.

“I’m not a fed.”

“You look like a fed.”

“Yeah,” Skeet agreed. “Only a fed would have wheels like these.”

“I told you we should’ve come on my bike,” Tad muttered to Joshua.

All hell broke loose.

Skeet shrieked and charged over the hill. Crazy Horse ran for the van, but Tad tackled him to the ground.

Joshua went over the hill after Skeet. A scream for help came from underneath the thickets and bushy hair.

“Help! Josh! Stop him!” Joshua recognized Jan’s cries.

“I told you he was a fed!” Skeet yelled up at Crazy Horse. “I got me a lady agent right here.”

Joshua pulled Skeet off Jan, whose clothes had been torn by a combination of the bushes and Skeet’s attack, and helped her up the hill to the car. Eying them, Skeet followed. Jan examined her camera for damage that may have occurred in the attack.

Joshua introduced them to the spy. “This is Jan Martin, the owner of the drug store in Chester.”

“I’m a writer,” she corrected him. “I’m covering Beth Davis’s and Vicki Rawlings’ murders.”

“Jan,” Tad demanded to know, “what are you doing here?”

“Josh promised me an exclusive on this story.”

“I did no such thing!” the prosecutor objected.

“Yes, you did. The other day.”

“I didn’t say I’d give you an exclusive.”

“You didn’t say you wouldn’t.”

While they argued, Crazy Horse shook off Tad and opened the van door. “I don’t have time to waste watching a lovers’ quarrel. I got a party to go to. See ya later, Doc.”

Tad pulled him out of the van by the arm. “Crazy Horse, you know I’d never set you up.”

Crazy Horse paused. “Then what is he?”

“I am the special prosecutor investigating Beth Davis’s and Vicki Rawlings’ murders. Amber said on the news that she witnessed the murders. We need to talk to her to catch their killers.”

Tad reminded them. “You guys liked Beth.”

Skeet said, “Yeah, we liked Beth. She was lots of fun.”

“Well, Amber says she saw Reverend Rawlings kill Beth.”

Crazy Horse said, “Amber’s probably dead by now. Rawlings has had his people looking for her ever since the first time she showed up on television.”

“I’m surprised she lived long enough to see the murders,” Skeet giggled, “let alone make a withdrawal.”

“Withdrawal?” Jan asked.

“From the bank.” Skeet smiled to expose a mouthful of rotten teeth.

“What bank?” Joshua could see where the conversation was leading. He kicked himself for only now realizing that no cash had been found in the known drug dealer’s home after her murder.

“A little bird told me that Vicki picked up a payment from one of her couriers on her way home from jail. That money is now gone,” Crazy Horse said.

Jan’s eyes grew wide at the thought of the mysterious witness on the run from the powerful drug lord after stealing his illegally obtained money. “Does Amber have it?”

“Don’t know. One thing is certain, the Rawlings ain’t got it, and whoever does have it isn’t long for this world if the reverend catches them with it.” 

“Do you know where Amber came from?” Tad asked. “Did she ever talk about her family?”

“Nah! She just showed up one day.” Crazy Horse shrugged and wiped his runny nose on his sleeve.

“Yeah,” Skeet said.

“At a party? She showed up one day?” Tad asked.

Skeet and Crazy Horse nodded their heads in unison.

“How’d she find out where the party was?”

The answer was a unison shrug.

Tad coaxed, “Crazy Horse, you know I’m cool.”

“I don’t know about them.” Crazy Horse pointed at Joshua and Jan.

“I’ll vouch for them,” Tad said. “Tell me what you know about Amber.”

“I don’t know nothing, man!” When Tad gave him a doubtful look, Crazy Horse snorted. “Listen, I’m being straight with you.”

Joshua asked, “When did Amber show up?”

“Does anybody know what time is?” Crazy Horse sang.

Joshua turned to Tad.

Amused at the song, the doctor continued the interview. “Amber shows up at a party. Who brought her?”

“Diana Bauer,” Crazy Horse said.

“Diana Bauer? Tess Bauer’s sister? Diana died a couple of years ago. You’ve known Amber all this time, but you don’t know anything about her?”

Crazy Horse told them, “What is there to know except that she’s cool? They used to party together. Amber started coming around with Di. Then, Di died and Amber disappeared. I assumed she got clean.” He sniffed and wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand. “It was like when you got clean, Doc. One day, you were there. The next day, you were gone and went respectable on us.”

Tad returned to the topic of their discussion. “And then Amber came back?”

“Suddenly, Amber was back,” Crazy Horse said. “I figured she fell off the wagon. That happens, you know.”

“Then she got tight with Vicki?” Tad asked.

“And then,” Joshua observed, “Vicki gets killed.”

Crazy Horse grinned at the joke he had previously failed to notice. “Ironic, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, but she didn’t off Vicki,” Skeet said with his high-pitched cackle.

“Why wouldn’t she?” Jan wondered.

Skeet cackled again.

Crazy Horse said, “She and Vicki—man! It was like sparks flying when they got together.”

“Yeah,” Skeet agreed. “Sparks! Like the Fourth of July.”

“What do you mean by sparks?” Jan inquired.

Skeet and Crazy Horse laughed at her innocence. “Sparks! Like in the movies, man!” Skeet shrieked.

“It was love at first sight,” Crazy Horse explained. “Seeing those two together was better than any chick porno flick. It was like a live stage show.”

Joshua raised an eyebrow at Tad, who displayed no surprise by the revelation.