Cul-de-Sac (16 page)

“Of course I’m scared, I know what you’re capable of Donald … I saw what you did to Hope.”

“I didn’t do that!”

“Then who?”

“Goddamn it Elizabeth you were part of the conspiracy—”

“There was no conspiracy, at least I wasn’t part of one. I testified to the truth … 
I did
find Hope’s head in your room, you
did
assault me that time in the—”

“Assault you? I grabbed your tit because you were pushing it in my face—”

“The Raineys saw you going into Hope’s room the day she was killed and Ken Norton testified that—”

“THEY LIED!”

“Well I didn’t lie at your trial Donald, you have no reason to be doing this to me.”

He released her arms and sat upright. “Did you see those photographs Hope took?”

“No.”

He slapped her.

“
I didn’t.
Your uncle mentioned them once, this was after he got sick … he indicated something about having Hope’s photographs, keeping them as insurance, that’s what J.L. said but I never—”

“Whoever’s in those pictures with Hope, that’s who killed her.” “I never saw them.”

He slapped her again. “Goddamn it who was in those pictures?” “
Murray!
”

Which completely bewildered Growler. “
Who?
”

“
Murray!
”

But now he saw where Elizabeth’s hazel eyes were looking and he heard footsteps and he realized too late she hadn’t been referring to the photographs, she’d been calling to the blond giant who was just then descending upon Growler.

Picked him up by the shoulders, threw him on the floor, stood over him in muscled glory … six-two, 210 pounds of perfectly proportioned, twenty-five-year-old manhood, a hard-bodied, rippled-stomached young specimen with long blond hair tied in the back with a red ribbon. He wore a tight white T-shirt that stretched tightly to cover his pecs, baggy gray shorts reaching below his knees. Murray was barefoot.

Elizabeth got off the floor and backed away, pulling the white blouse together and holding it closed with one hand.

From the floor under this colossus’s legs Growler laughed. “Hired yourself a hot young stud, have you, Elizabeth?”

She was still too shaken to speak.

“Personal trainer,” Murray said.

Growler laughed again. “This time of night, what kind of training you call that?”

Murray looked over at his mistress. “What’s going on, Beth?” The young man’s slack-jawed duh-diction revealed that his superb training had been limited to the physical.

“
Beth?
” Growler rolled his eyes. “Tell me, Murray … Beth pay you by the hour or the inch?”

“Huh?”

Having regained a degree of composure Elizabeth said, “Donald if you’re telling the truth, if you really didn’t kill Hope, then I’m truly sorry—”

“
Sorry?
Sorry doesn’t cut it you rotten bitch—”

“Hey,” Murray grunted, putting a bare foot on Growler’s neck and pressing down.

“What was I to think?” Elizabeth asked. She stayed well back from the two men. “All that testimony against you, those animal heads you kept in your room.”

“I didn’t kill Hope!” Growler knocked Murray’s foot away and sat up.

“What’s he talking about Beth?” Murray whined as he stepped back and held himself like a wrestler ready to grapple.

“Something that happened a long time ago dear.”

“You want me to beat him up?”

She came to stand close behind her big boyfriend, laid a long-fingered, age-spotted hand on his massive shoulder. “We’re going to hold him for the police.”

Growler was still sitting on the floor. “When you helped send me away to prison Elizabeth I might’ve been a sissy … but seven years in hell made me one mean cocksucker.”

“Really,” she said.

“It’s going to take more than Baby Huey there to hold me for the police.”

“Hey buddy,” Murray said, “anytime you feel froggy …”

“Yeah?” Growler asked getting to his feet.

Murray couldn’t remember the rest of it.

“This is for you Elizabeth,” Growler said, pulling from his suit coat pocket the garrote made from guitar string and broomsticks. “Go through me first buddy,” Murray said.

Elizabeth patted him on the back. “You keep Donald here, I’ll call the police.”

She went to the kitchen and was just picking up the phone when she heard them fighting in the hallway. Worried Murray might be getting the worst of it Elizabeth left the phone and walked quickly to a cabinet drawer where she kept her little silver .32 semiautomatic.

When she returned to the hallway Murray was on his stomach, Growler kneeling on the young man’s broad back, the garrote around Murray’s neck … and the only reason he hadn’t already been decapitated, Murray had managed to slip his right forearm between the wire and his neck.

“Let him up,” Elizabeth said leveling the automatic at Growler. He looked at her, gauged her seriousness, then slowly got off Murray. The defeated Adonis stayed on the floor and rubbed his
neck. Growler still held onto one broomstick handle, the garrote dangling from his left hand.

“Whatever that nasty thing is, put it down,” Elizabeth commanded.

But Growler didn’t, he simply turned his back on Elizabeth and her fallen knight, walked the length of the hallway, and exited her front door.

“Ain’t you going to shoot him?” Murray asked as he regained his feet.

“I guess not,” she replied, lowering the .32. “Are you okay?” His feelings were hurt. “Beth, he fights dirty.”

She comforted him with the hand that wasn’t holding the pistol. “I know he does, sugar … I know he does.”

Camel had been in rooms like this hundreds of times … ten by twelve feet, furnished with a wooden chair and a sturdy metal-legged table covered with some kind of gray linoleum vinyl soft enough you could make an impression with your thumbnail, from the looks of it a lot of people had done exactly that. A video camera on a tripod stood in the corner and one wall carried a panel of smoky, reflective glass that hadn’t fooled anyone since
Dragnet.
The other three walls were painted light green from the floor to halfway up, the top half was white, the line between the two colors wavered. The beige carpeting was napped as thin as hope, the ceiling was acoustical tile. In periods of long silence the fluorescent lighting produced an incessant hum so faint you could start thinking it came from inside your head. The room smelled of air that had been used and reused too many times, breathed in and out of hundreds of lungs, you could also smell stale smoke, though ashtrays weren’t in evidence, and old sweat and the general stink of anxiety left behind by troubled people. All these odors were overlayed with Lysol and you kept wanting to open a window but of course there were no windows, no views, no fresh air. Camel’s memories of these rooms from his days as a homicide detective
were made sharp and new this early
A.M.
hour, his debut as a suspect.

Paul Milton had died more or less instantly, he landed on the floor like a puppet would, you cut its strings. People with fatal gunshot wounds to the head mostly just drop, they don’t get blown back against walls with arms and legs spread out, they don’t twirl or dance or call out for loved ones … they fall without sound or ceremony, most of them. Paul did.

Annie went to him and got blood all over her white dress while holding Paul’s head … Camel didn’t see any point telling her not to move the body, he didn’t bother checking for a pulse either. A man drops like that, he’s dead.

Camel washed the blood off Annie’s hands and arms, then called the state police. He also telephoned his lawyer because the idea you don’t need a lawyer if you haven’t done anything wrong, Camel had been disabused of that his first year on the job.

Waiting for the police Camel asked Annie if she had anyone in the area she could stay with, of course she didn’t … newly arrived up here from North Carolina knowing no one is why she came to Camel in the first place. He said he’d call Eddie Neffering, reminding Annie that Neffering was the owner of The Ground Floor, the big guy with the bushy mustache. Annie said she remembered but her eyes were glazed and Camel wasn’t sure anything he said registered with her. Eddie will be waiting when the detectives finish questioning you, Camel explained … you go home with him. What about you, she asked. He said the police would probably take a little longer with him.
Why?
Because that’s the way things work, though Camel knew the exact two reasons he’d be held for interrogation … one, Annie’s husband killed himself with Camel’s gun and, two, Camel had powder burns on his right hand.

It was too hot in this room probably on purpose, Camel felt greasy-skinned and tired-eyed, wishing he could shower and
change clothes. He needed to take a piss and became self-conscious about his posture and facial expressions, whether he stood or sat, how he carried himself when he walked around the room … knowing he was being watched and how his watchers were analyzing him.

He’d be a fool not to worry. Even putting aside the suspicious setting of Paul Milton’s death (comes in to find his wife kissing another man), Camel was aware that grabbing for the .22 magnum just as Milton fired it had put powder marks on Camel’s hand which could be interpreted as evidence that
he
had done the shooting.

A lot depends on the detective who’s assigned the case … if he believes me, Camel thought, I’ll be out of here before dawn. He checked his wrist having forgotten they’d taken his watch, no clock in this room of course, Camel estimating the hour at three
A.M
.

It was in fact one-thirty Tuesday morning when the associate superintendent for criminal investigations entered the interrogation room … Camel surprised that a guy so high up on the state police food chain would bother with a case like this.

Parker Gray carried in his own chair. “Mr. Camel, I’m Parker Gray—”

“I know who you are.”

They’d met a long time ago. Gray was thirty-six, Camel recognized in this man something of himself when he was Gray’s age, the same kind of hard-on anger Camel used carry, a lack of appreciation for the art of compromise, a tendency to roll over people with the iron certainty of always being right.

When Gray asked Camel for his version of what happened, Camel didn’t say well gosh I already told the other officers, I already gave a statement … he knew the drill and recounted for Gray the events leading to Paul Milton’s death.

“Your lawyer’s with Mrs. Milton,” Gray said. “Same lawyer representing both of you?”

“She didn’t know anyone to call, Mark’s helping her until—”

“But you knew to call a lawyer right away huh?”

“After I called the state police, yes.”

“Call an ambulance?”

“He was dead, the state police would send out an ambulance anyway.”

“You know the routine huh?”

“Yes.” Camel also knew enough to wonder why Gray hadn’t given him the usual explanations and warnings, hadn’t reread him his rights, hadn’t turned on the camera.

“Mrs. Milton an old friend of yours huh?” After he asked the question Gray who hadn’t yet used the chair he brought in went around and stood behind Camel. Most suspects won’t turn to look at their interrogator, they’re glad not to have to face him, but Camel moved to maintain eye contact.

“Yes Annie’s an old friend.”

“I bet.”

Even in his dark suit and striped tie Parker Gray looked like a trooper … you could easily picture him gazing out sternly from under a Smokey Bear hat, lecturing a speeder. He had a square jaw and a five o’clock shadow that came out at noon. His eyes were brown and unusually narrow, he had a petite nose that didn’t seem to fit with the other features of his face … the overhanging brow, the big-knuckle cheekbones, the stone jaw. The man wasn’t that tall, five-ten maybe, but the general impression you got was strength and a lot of testosterone.

“You and Mrs. Milton were having a sexual relationship huh?”

“No.”

“Never had sex with the woman?”

Camel figured it was going to come out, Annie might have already told them about the summer they spent together. “We had a relationship fourteen years ago.”