A Finder's Fee (28 page)

“I’m sorry, Donnie, really,” Joe said. “It just wasn’t meant to be, you know? I’m married to Rosie now. We’re going to have a great life together. You have to move on. Find someone of your own. You’re beautiful. It should be easy.”

Joe Walsh’s wildly handsome young face was earnest as he pleaded with her. La Donna was the gorgeous young woman she’d been in the photos on Pam’s bedroom wall.

“You said you loved me,” La Donna cried. “How could you marry her? How could you choose her over me? Don’t you love me anymore?”

Joe flashed a wicked smile then turned back to look at Mad Dog’s smashed car. It was up on a flatbed truck. “I’m sorry, Donnie. What can I say? I do love you, just not like I love Rosie. Can you believe what a wreck this is? I wish I was going to race again so I could see his face.”

La Donna was standing behind him, sobbing so hard she was having a hard time catching her breath. Her gaze fell on an old tire iron that was brown with rust. Her thoughts were random as she picked it up. She wanted to hurt him. There seemed to be no other way.

While Joe kept going on about the car and his opponent who’d been injured, La Donna swung the tire iron up toward him. It was almost too heavy for her. There was no real strength in the blow that brushed his shoulder.

“Hey! Are you crazy or what? Put that down, Donnie, before you get hurt.”

“You deserve to be hurt.” She tried again. The second blow was no better than the first. But it got his full attention.

Joe struggled with her, trying to take the tire iron away. He bent over as though he meant to pick her up or knock her off her feet. She lifted the tire iron again at the same time. It came down on the back of his head, and he dropped to his knees.

There was blood everywhere—on his hair, the ground, the tire iron in her hands. La Donna screamed and dropped her weapon. As she turned to run, the last image she saw of Joe was him crawling toward his black number twenty-three car.

The connection between La Donna and me was severed as she screamed and put her hands against her chest. “He was still alive! Oh my God! I didn’t kill him! Now I remember.”

T
wo of the deputies ran into the room and looked
around, their hands on their weapons. Chief Michaels explained that everything was okay. They cautiously left us alone again.

“I didn’t kill him there, did I, Dae?” La Donna was excited. “You were there. You saw it. He was still moving.”

“You’re right. You hurt him but he was still alive. You ran away when you saw the blood.”

Chief Michaels hugged his sister. I reminded myself that Kevin had been right. La Donna had been pushed to a place where she could hurt another person. Maybe not kill him, but at least injure him. People
were
capable of anything.

“I don’t want to spoil the moment,” Chief Michaels said. “This is all well and good, but I only deal in facts, and so do those deputies out there. It may make you feel better, honey, but we can’t prove any of this. And now that you’ve confessed—”

La Donna wiped away her tears. “I remember now. I left Joe there and caught a ride home. I cried myself to sleep that night after I’d scrubbed the blood off my hands. Someone must have seen Joe after it happened. He might have gone to the hospital. If anyone knows, it would be Rosie. They were supposed to leave together. Joe was going to work for her father in Virginia. There has to be some way to prove it.”

“Rosie doesn’t know. She never saw Joe again.”

“You know her, Dae?” La Donna asked in surprise.

I explained our meeting. “She came back to Duck today. She wanted to talk about Joe. There was a reason Joe chose her over you. She was pregnant with his son. His name is Joseph. He looks like an older version of his father.”

La Donna started crying again. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it. They had a son together. Joe never saw him.”

“Which puts us right back where we were,” Chief Michaels interrupted with his staid pragmatism. “Who else might have seen Joe after you assaulted him?”

“I’m not sure, Ronnie. You know there were a lot of people at the track all the time. Mad Dog’s car was close by. Anyone could have seen him there.”

“Who gave you a ride home?” I wondered.

“One of the deputies. I don’t really remember which one. I was upset and desperate at the time. I don’t know. He helped me get cleaned up and told me it would be all right.”

“I’ll check with the hospital to see if Joe came in and was treated for a head wound.” Chief Michaels came up with a plan. “If Joe went to the hospital, it could’ve been overlooked with all the other ruckus. His injury must not have been too bad. The ME didn’t report a fractured skull or any other serious head injury.”

“At the time, I really thought I’d killed him,” La Donna said. “Now I know, looking back on it, head wounds always bleed a lot, even when they aren’t serious. I’ve been such a fool all these years not telling anyone.”

“Not that it would’ve meant anything until Dae found the body.” Chief Michaels said the words with pride and in an unusually pleasant tone. “Thank you, Dae. I hope we can find justice for Joe’s killer.”

“You’re welcome, I guess.” I smiled a little self-consciously. “I kind of feel like I stirred the pot a little more, not really much help. I hope it can calm down now.”

La Donna laughed. “You’ve saved me from a lifetime of guilt, my young friend. No matter what happens next, I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”

“And you’re sure you can’t remember who drove you home?”

“Dae has been exploring all the deputies who could have been there that night.” Chief Michaels frowned. “Including me and her grandfather. She’s very thorough. I can tell you she doesn’t play favorites. When Horace told me she all but accused him of killing Joe, I almost busted out of my britches laughing.”

“I found a badge,” I told La Donna. “It was at the crime scene. There were ten possibilities for the person who wore it. Now you’re saying a deputy gave you a ride home that day. It seems to fit.”

She searched her memory again. “I’m sorry. It’s not there. Maybe it will come to me later.”

“You should probably rest now.” Chief Michaels kissed her forehead. “Let me see what else I can find out. I’ll keep you posted.”

“All right. I’m glad you could be here. It’s nice to have a know-it-all for a brother once in a while.”

Marjory came into the room as we were going out. She grabbed my arm. “Be sure you’re at Duck Park for the rally later. It will look bad not to have our candidate there.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”

Chief Michaels headed toward the hospital records room. He asked me if I needed a ride home. I didn’t want to bother him, so I told him I could find my own. Someone that I knew was bound to be around. Last resort, I could call Kevin to come and get me.

I was in the lobby, waiting to see if there was anyone I knew, thinking about what had happened to Joe.

It seemed to me that it would be easy for a person who loved La Donna to see that she was in trouble after her attack on Joe. That person might even have seen that Joe was injured and taken advantage of the situation after he’d dropped La Donna at her home.

Seeing the number twelve car on the flatbed made even more sense—that’s why Joe wasn’t buried in his own car. It had nothing to do with whose car it was—it was a matter of expediency.

Whoever buried him wasn’t worried about him being found either. That’s why Joe’s car was left out by the road. People could look all they wanted to and never find him—at least not for forty years.

I looked at the short version of the list of possible lost badge holders. I crossed off Gramps and Chief Michaels. Wally Newcastle probably had an alibi. Blackie Rogers and Marvin Taylor were dead, although I couldn’t quite cross them off altogether.

That left four badge holders either unaccounted for, or unquestioned. And, of course, Chief Peabody, who’d said he’d given Joe a speeding ticket a week after everyone else had theorized that Joe was dead.

I looked across the crowded room and saw Chief Peabody talking and laughing with some sheriff’s deputies. I wondered if he might be headed home. He could drop me off on his way, and I could question him a little more about that speeding ticket.

“Don’t go!” Maggie started talking.

I turned to face a large plastic plant that hadn’t been dusted recently. “I need a ride home.”

“I know, Dae. I’m begging you not to go with
him
.”

I tried to see Chief Peabody again without looking like I was trying to see him. “Why?”

“I believe he killed the lad’s father. Think on it.”

“I have. You know I’ve thought of almost nothing else for days.”

“Which is why I’m still trapped here instead of in the gentle earth with my Thomas.”

“I’m doing the best I can.” I considered her request. “Why do you think Peabody did it?”

“I seen it in his eyes when you talked to him the last time. He is the one who done it!”

“Why didn’t you say so then?”

“I tried. You told me to hush!”

“Just a minute.” I dialed Chief Michaels’s cell phone. When he answered, I asked him if he’d heard from Chief Peabody about the night he claimed to have ticketed Lightning Joe.

“I haven’t heard anything like that, Dae. Are you sure? It wouldn’t be like him not to tell me something that important to a case.”

I mumbled something about misunderstanding and hung up. “Great.”

“You’ll find another way home? Please do.” Maggie quietly urged me to change course.

“That’s not what we do when something like this happens,” I explained.

“What do we do then?”

“We find a way to prove it.”

“Oh no!”

• • •

“C
hief Peabody.” I approached him with a smile. “I was
wondering if you might drop me off in Duck, if you’re headed that way.”

He didn’t look very pleased with the idea. “I have to make a few stops. It might be better if you find someone else. I don’t want you to be late for something on my account.”

I put on my big mayor’s smile and reminded myself that he could be the killer. This could be the big break I’d been looking for. “Please, Chief. I have an election rally and I don’t see anyone else I know. I don’t mind waiting for you to run your errands.”

The other deputies were badgering him about taking me. He finally had to give in or look bad. He decided he could stand being with me more than losing face with his law enforcement buddies.

“Okay. I’m ready to go now. I hope you are too.” He turned and walked outside.

I followed quickly and got in the squad car right away before he had a chance to change his mind. “Thanks so much.”

What was I going to say to him? How could I get him to confess?

He responded by making a grunting sound and starting the car. I wondered what kind of errands he had to run. I could still end up missing the rally if he took too long. Of course the same thing could’ve happened if I’d waited at the hospital too long.

I tried to engage him in conversation. His replies weren’t helpful. He kept his eyes on the road and never even sneered at me.

Of course I had other ideas. “You know, I was talking to La Donna Nelson. I think she may finally remember the night Joe Walsh was killed.”

We stopped at a red light. “What do you mean? I thought she’d confessed to killing him? How can she not remember?”

I knew I had him hooked. There’s nothing lawmen liked to talk about more than a good murder case. “It seems she remembered attacking Joe with a tire iron. She thought she’d killed him because she couldn’t remember what happened after that.”

“That’s probably because she didn’t want to think about it.”

“You’re probably right.” I was on a roll. “But someone had to drive the rollback with Mad Dog’s car on it to Duck then bury the car so it wouldn’t be found. I can’t imagine La Donna knowing how to do that, can you?”

“I don’t know. Women do crazy things.”

“She was only a kid.” I smiled at him. “I have another theory.”

“I’m a captive audience.”

“I think I found that old badge I showed you because one of the ten deputies around at that time knew La Donna had hurt Joe. He picked her up, took her home, then went back and killed Joe. He didn’t know he’d lost his badge. Not that it mattered because all of you on the list had put in for new badges. There are two things that really stand out for me.”

“And what are those, Sherlock?”

“The first one is that everyone knew Blackie Rogers was interested in Rosie Carpenter. He even asked her out.”

“Blackie was interested in anything that wore skirts. What else?”

“You said you gave Joe a speeding ticket after he disappeared. Almost everyone thought he died that night after Mad Dog’s wreck. Your speeding ticket, a week later, changes the timeline.”

“Not really.” He was starting to turn into a narrow drive that probably led to a house farther back beyond the thick bushes at the road. “There’s no way the ME can call time of death with any real accuracy from bones after forty years. A few days wouldn’t make much difference.”

“I suppose that’s true. Where are we going?”

“I told you I had a few errands to run. One of my officers lives up here. He’s been out sick. I thought it might be good to pay him a visit and see how he’s doing.”

I was surprised. I never guessed that Chief Peabody would be sympathetic to something like that.

“Leave him alone,” Maggie murmured.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“Nothing. Just muttering about finding Joe’s killer.”

“I don’t know why Ronnie puts up with you getting into his cases. I wouldn’t.”

We’d reached the house, which was in bad condition. It didn’t even look like anyone had ever lived there. There was no car in the drive, and the whole place was overgrown with vines and grass.

“I think you and me need to have a little talk, Dae.” He got out of the car and came around to my side.

“It’s okay, Chief Peabody. It was probably an accident. You didn’t mean to kill Lightning Joe, did you?”

He frowned and shook his head. “All these years, I thought I was safe. Why’d you have to find that, of all things? Why couldn’t you mind your own business for once?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t go out looking for this. The whole thing was a mistake. I was looking for something else.”

He stared vacantly off into the distance. “You know, I loved La Donna. I wanted her to marry me. She only had eyes for Lightning Joe, just like all the other girls.”

“You dropped her off and went back for him.”

“I sure did.” He wiped his hand across his mouth. “He was a brash, skirt-chasing— You know the type. He would’ve never made her happy. I finished the job she started. I realized that she finally saw him for who he was. I thought maybe, when he was gone, she’d turn to me, like she did that night. But no, she met Chad. That was it.”

I still hadn’t gotten out of the car. I hadn’t even unfastened my seat belt. It would have to be harder for him to get me out of it and drag me into the house and shoot me, right? I was pretty sure that was on the agenda.

“So you loved her, but you let her suffer all these years, believing that she had killed Joe.” Gramps had told me long ago that the best thing to do in this type of circumstance was to keep your captor talking and look for an opening to escape.