Cat's Claw (19 page)

“And Kirk was upset?”

“Well, sure. He was pretty pissed at her. Wouldn’t you be?” Palmer waved his hand impatiently. “I mean, first, she goes out and gets mixed up with this other guy. Then she starts asking Larry for the money she put into this place.” He sighed. “But the only way he could get her what she was asking was to find a business partner, which isn’t easy in this kind of economy. And then there was that house. I’d’ve helped Larry if I could, but what she thought her share was worth was way beyond me. I couldn’t come up with that kind of money.”

Sheila changed the direction of the questioning. “Did Mr. Kirk ever mention that he was being followed? Did he ever suggest that someone might be stalking him?”

“Stalking him?” Palmer sounded surprised. “No. He didn’t mention anything like that, although—” He stopped, frowning. “He’d heard from a woman he used to know, though. She was sort of a pest, I guess. He said he wished she’d stop hanging around and go away and leave him alone.”

“A former girlfriend?” Sheila asked. She took out her notebook. “Did he say who she was?”

“No. Larry wasn’t the type to talk about stuff like that. I didn’t get the idea that she was ever a girlfriend. Just somebody he knew from someplace he used to work. The insurance agency, I think he said.” He shook
his head dismally. “Listen, I really would like to go back to the bench and finish up that hard drive. The customer wants it first thing tomorrow. And work kind of makes me feel better, you know?”

Bartlett glanced at Sheila and they traded mute signals. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mr. Palmer,” he said. “At least, not tonight. You can open for business tomorrow at the usual time, but we’ll take the business files and employee records with us.” He gestured to the laptop on the sales counter next to the cash register. “And the shop computer. This is it?”

Sheila knew that finding anything related to Kirk’s death was a long shot, but they had to take a look. There might be something in the emails that had come to the shop, or in one of the other documents.

“That’s it.” Palmer bit his lip. “I guess that won’t be a problem. But what about the customers? And the guys who work here? Should I tell them about Larry?
What
should I tell them?” His voice rose. “And what’s going to happen to the business?”

“You might want to put a notice on the door, letting people know that the owner is deceased,” Sheila replied.

“Yeah,” Palmer said. “Maybe I won’t open up until ten or eleven. There’s going to be a lot to sort out.”

“And as far as the business is concerned,” Bartlett put in, “you may need to consult with Mrs. Kirk.”

“Oh, hell,” Palmer groaned. “That’s all I need. Dana doesn’t know diddlysquat, but she’ll want to take the shop over and run it. She always did, you know—want to run it, I mean. And now it’s hers, I suppose.” Distractedly, he ran his hands through his hair. “Damn. Damn, damn,
damn
.”

“How many people have a key to the shop?” Bartlett asked. “You? The other employees?”

“Yeah, I do, of course. And Dennis Martin and Richie Potts, sure. But they’re not employees. That is, they’re contract guys. They come in when there’s work. When we call them to do a job. Larry or me, I mean.” He waved toward the Rolodex on the counter. “They’re both in the Rolodex. There’s a card up front with their phone numbers and email addresses.”

Bartlett’s cell phone gave three digital notes and he flipped it open, checking the caller ID. “Yeah, Mattie,” he said, and turned away to talk.

Sheila flicked through the Rolodex, finding the card. “And Jason?” she asked. “Is he here, too?”

He blinked at her. “Jason Hatch, you mean? Yeah, I guess. But we haven’t called him for a while.”

“Why?”

“Dunno.” He cleared his throat. “Larry just said to stop using him unless it was a have-to case. Unless we got really busy and couldn’t handle the load otherwise.”

“So Mr. Hatch hasn’t been in the shop recently,” Sheila said. “Since how long ago?”

“Oh, maybe a couple of months. August, maybe.” He shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you exactly.”

Sheila made a note and repeated her earlier question. “Do you know why Mr. Kirk didn’t want to employ him?”

His glance slid away. “Uh-uh. Larry just said to put him at the bottom of the list and ask before I called Jay to come in.”

She persisted. “Would any of the other guys know why?”

Palmer’s lip twitched nervously. “I doubt it. I wouldn’t think so.”

Jason Hatch
. Sheila jotted down the name, noticing the initials.
JH
. “Does Mr. Hatch live in Pecan Springs?”

“Yeah, in a trailer park on the other side of I-35. At least, he did. The
address is probably in the Rolodex.” He paused and added, more sharply, “I don’t know what you’re getting at with all these questions about Hatch. But you’ll find some other names in the Rolodex, too. Guys who have worked here at one time or another since the place opened. Hatch isn’t the only one.”

“Does Mr. Hatch still have a key to the shop?” she asked, and made a note to check the employee records for others who might have had keys.

“Of course not,” Palmer said defensively. “I mean, why would he? He doesn’t work here anymore.” He reached into his pocket and produced a ring with several keys. “If you’re looking for keys, here’s mine. The front door and back door are marked. The little brass one is the cash register. There are some file cabinet keys on there, but we don’t lock the drawers.”

Bartlett closed his phone and stepped back to the counter to look over the keys. “Thanks,” he said, returning the ring to Palmer. “We have Mr. Kirk’s keys, so you can keep these. First thing tomorrow,” he added, “please come to the station so we can print you. Okay?”

“Fingerprint
me
?” Palmer frowned. “But I don’t see— How is this connected to—”

“Just take our word for it,” Sheila said. “We need your prints, Mr. Palmer. In fact, we’ll be printing everyone who’s worked in this shop.”

Palmer’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you need.”

Bartlett added, gently, “And about Mr. Kirk’s mother—we’ve already started the notification process, and she’s been contacted. You can get in touch with her whenever you like. I’m sure she’d appreciate hearing from you.”

“Thanks,” Palmer said glumly. “Yeah, right. I’ll call her when I get home.”

Sheila thumbed the Rolodex and found the card with the names of
the contract people on it, written in the same backslanted hand that she had seen on the grocery list and the calendar notes in Kirk’s kitchen. As she looked at it, something clicked. She turned to Palmer.

“Larry Kirk,” she said. “Right-hander? Left-hander?”

“Larry?” Palmer chuckled sadly. “Southpaw, his whole life. Except when one of his teachers—maybe first, second grade—tried to get him to change. ’Course he couldn’t. Aunt Jenny finally had to tell the teacher to lay off.”

Sheila read the quick look Bartlett gave her, but neither of them said anything. At their request, Palmer pulled a half-dozen manila file folders from the cabinets—employee records and job tickets—and put them into a box. Most of it, he said, was also on the computer. Bartlett filled out an evidence sheet, and Palmer signed for the records and the laptop. Then he pushed his bicycle out the front door and locked it behind him.

“Wow,” Bartlett said admiringly, walking around the bike. “A Madone. Lance Armstrong’s bike.”

“You bet,” Palmer said, fastening his helmet. “Lance won seven Tour de France titles on a Madone. You know bikes?”

“A little,” Bartlett said. “This looks like a sweet ride.”

“Nothing better, in my opinion. It’s a 6.9 Pro, Dura Ace equipped, 7850 carbon laminate wheels. Top-end Bontrager components throughout. Only fourteen pounds. Can’t beat it for racing, especially on hills. Good for commuting, too.”

“Yeah,” Bartlett said. He grinned. “Bet it came with a sweet price tag.”

“A little over ten grand,” Palmer said, “by the time I customized it.”

Bartlett chuckled. “Guess I’d better start saving my pennies, huh?”

“If you’re serious about bikes, you can’t do better than a Madone,” Palmer said, and rode off into the rainy dark.

A few minutes later, the evidence stowed in Bartlett’s black-and-white, Sheila and Bartlett stood together under the awning in front of Chipotle Chicken, the red and green neon rooster in the window coloring the darkness around them. The rain was coming down a little harder now, and the air was turning chilly. It was more like November than it had been that afternoon, Sheila thought. The weather was fickle this time of year.

Bartlett flicked a lighter to his cigarette. “So he was a southpaw,” he said quietly, leaning one shoulder against the brick wall. Water sluiced off the awning, the streetlights turning the puddles to silver. “Looks like our shooter didn’t know Kirk very well, after all.”

“Either didn’t know or forgot,” Sheila said. “It’s not the kind of thing you’d automatically think about, if you were trying to make a homicide look like a suicide.” There would have been lots of stress in the situation. Apprehension, fear of discovery, perhaps even regret. The killer might have known the victim intimately and have forgotten that one simple detail.

“Either way, we can scratch self-inflicted, as far as I’m concerned,” Bartlett added. He blew out a stream of smoke. “Never heard of a left-hander shooting himself with his right hand. I suppose it can be done, but it doesn’t seem likely.”

“Which leaves us with four. Theories, that is, discounting robbery and suicide.” Sheila thought of Kirk on the floor in his kitchen, still and vulnerable, alone in the indignity of death. Talking about him like this—as if he were part of some scientific equation to be solved—left a bad taste in her mouth. She knew they couldn’t afford to get emotionally invested. That was how you missed things. But you also had to retain your personal connection with the victim, your sense of the fragility of life and the awful finality of death.

“Yeah.” Bartlett pushed himself away from the wall. “Timms, an employee, the wife and/or her lover, the stalker. Or none of the above. We don’t have Timms yet, and you’ve already talked to the wife. The lover can wait until tomorrow, but I’m thinking that we need to connect with Potts, Hatch, and Martin. Arrange to get them printed, find out what they know.” He looked sideways at her. “Want to work on this together or separately? Tonight or tomorrow?”

Sheila glanced at her watch. It was after eight and she’d been on the job for fourteen hours. Now that she thought of it, she realized how tired she was. She also knew that Bartlett was giving the boss an out, if she chose to take it. She didn’t.

“We need to get this done. It’ll be faster if we split up tonight, compare notes tomorrow. I’ll take Potts. And Jason Hatch. He was in the Rolodex, too.” Now that she thought about it, it was Hatch she really wanted to see. “How about letting Matheson get a preliminary statement from the lover—Glen Vance? He could do that first thing in the morning.”

“Okay,” Bartlett said. “I’ll take Dennis Martin. Tomorrow, we can get started on the files and get Annetta started on the shop computer. If we’re lucky, we’ll have something from the county forensics guys by noon. And by that time, somebody will have picked Timms up and we can wring a confession out of him. My money’s on that sonovabitch.”

Sheila considered. “That bike of Palmer’s—a pretty pricy item, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Bartlett replied. “Ten grand plus, custom. Not something you’d think an assistant manager could afford. By the way, that phone call—it was Matheson, reporting on his neighborhood canvass. He didn’t pick up anything more than what we’ve already heard. A couple of the people were gone, though, so he’ll be going back tomorrow to pick them up.”

“I’d like to go back to the scene in the morning, too,” Sheila said. “You’ve got the key?”

Bartlett got an evidence bag from his squad car, took out the key, and gave it to her, along with an evidence receipt card. He grinned as she filled it out and signed it. “We do things by the book on this case,” he said pointedly, and they both laughed.

“Where are you headed?” Sheila asked, as she put the key in her shoulder bag.

“To see Martin,” Bartlett replied. “Then I’m going back to the station to open the homicide book.” The homicide book was the case file that the lead detective compiled for every murder investigation. It typically included crime-scene photographs and sketches, autopsy and forensic reports, transcripts of witness interviews, and investigators’ notes, documenting the investigation from the time the murder was reported through the arrest of a suspect. After the arrest, a copy went to the prosecutor in the DA’s office, where it became an essential part of the criminal case as it went to court.

“While you’re at the station,” Sheila said, “you might put a note on Jim Sumner’s desk.” Sumner was the department’s Public Information Officer. “We know that the
Enterprise
is already onto this investigation.”

“How much information do you want released?” Bartlett asked, frowning a little.

Sheila thought he seemed uncertain and realized that this was probably something that Hardin would have handled if he had been managing the case—especially if TV was involved. Hardin liked his moment of fame in front of the camera.

“For now, let’s go with the usual bare-bones stuff,” she said. “Who, where. Fuzzy on the when and how. Investigation continuing, etcetera. Nothing about the shop break-in, no mention of Timms.” She paused.
“Especially nothing about Timms. We need to keep the lid on that as long as we can.”

“I’ll do it,” Bartlett said. “Briefing at oh-nine-hundred? Matheson and Blount can join us. By that time, I’ll have put together a plan for the day’s work.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sheila agreed.

Bartlett dropped his cigarette, stepped on it, and slid her a sideways glance. “Thank you, Chief,” he said.

“Sheila,” she said. “And thanks? What for?”

“No,
Chief,
” he replied. “Thank you for giving me the lead on this case. Means a helluva lot to me. More than you know.”

Sheila thought of Hardin and his habit of taking credit and understood what Bartlett was saying.