Failure is Fatal (33 page)

We passed time together catching up on the months apart and talking about her work. I said little about the murder of Marie Becca and the part I played in the search for her killer, but Annie was no fool. She knew that I helped stir this stew pot and was waiting for me to volunteer information. Annie is a patient woman, probably the reason she is my best friend. She possesses personality traits I do not, but wish I did. She also was kind enough not to mention Guy's absence during the Christmas holidays, nor to press for an explanation.

On the way to Syracuse I told Annie the entire story about Marie's murder and my role in helping to bring Adam Stokes to justice. She listened carefully without comment until I finished.

“I wish I had been here.” She had a wistful note in her voice.

“You do not. You might have gotten hurt or worse.”

“I might have helped, and you wouldn't have gotten hurt.” She glanced pointedly at the crutches in the back seat of my car.

“Hhhmmph. Anyway, you can help now. We're here at this Wal-Mart to tie up loose ends, as it were. One of our former suspects is purported to be employed here.”

“Former suspect? So why worry about it now?”

“There's justice that the courts mete out. Then there's justice in a larger sense,” I said, and offered no more in the way of an explanation. I knew these comments would only pique her curiosity.

After circling the lines of cars for ten minutes, I found a place to park near the rear of the lot. If I was careful, I wouldn't need my crutches. Annie slowed her pace as we pushed through the bargain hunters hauling treasures off to their cars.

I spotted him the minute we came through the doors. He was standing at one of the checkout lines, scanning items and placing them in bags. I grabbed something off a nearby shelf and took my place in line.

“That's him, right?” She peered around my arm at the clerk.

We were next in line, and I placed the item on the belt. Finally, he looked up. I smiled. It was not returned.

“Well, well, we wondered where you had gotten to. Even your family, particularly your ‘dear' brother, seems to be in doubt about where you went. My friend and I thought we'd just take a little road trip and follow up on a tip that you found your employment niche. Hi there, Lionel. How's the old career ladder? Find something you're truly meant for?” I continued to smile at him, trying hard not to erupt in outright laugher. We were slowing down the line, and I sensed restlessness from my fellow shoppers. And I guess my smiling face attracted the attention of the clerk doing checkouts next to Lionel.

“Who's she?” said the clerk, her bleached blonde hair falling in a large teased wave over her right eye. She blew a stream of air out the side of her mouth and upward in an attempt to move the hair out of her eyes, but it only resulted in the entire mass rising suddenly and plopping back down to once more obscure her vision. “Lionel?” She put one hand on her boney hip and popped her gum.

“Oh, dear, dear Lionel,” I spoke so that she could hear. “I finally found you. We were all just worried sick. And the kids missed you at Christmas. Your mama and papa want you to come on back home. And so do I. Whatever you did, we're behind you.”

“Lionel?” This time she gave it more demand than curiosity.

“Oh, dear.” I turned toward her. “I just hope he hasn't promised you anything. Last time he had one of these episodes where he runs off and can't remember anything, he tried to marry some woman, a nice young thing, looked just like you. Don't think that didn't pop mama's cork. Even though she forgives Lionel his behavior in these states, she still finds it hard to understand that it's his brain workin' funny that makes him do this. One time he did end up in jail, you know. Moved in with some unsuspecting woman in Buffalo. Yup, moved in with her and stole all her money.” I turned back toward Lionel who was merely standing there with his mouth wide open. It did my heart good to see him so moved by my performance that he was speechless. I don't know what possessed me to say what I did. It just fell out of my mouth.

“Lionel!” Now she was shouting his name. I don't think she cared one bit what he had to say for himself. She seemed like a woman who liked action and would take it sooner rather than later. She reached for her microphone. “Security to checkout counter three,” she said.

“This woman isn't my wife.” His excuse was lamely offered, beginning what was certain to be a useless explanation.

“You didn't even marry her, and you have children?” she said to him.

I nodded in agreement, hanging my head in sorrow at how cruel the man I loved could be. I then snapped up my chin and said, “I don't care. I love him anyway. And I love all our children. I didn't get a chance to tell you before you lit out, but there's another one on the way, honey.”

The clerk eyed my stomach, then looked closely at my face. “Aren't you a little old to be having another kid?”

“It's true. I am, but Lionel doesn't believe in birth control, so there you have it. And he's so hard to say no to.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. By now she was snapping her gum so hard that I thought her jaw would become dislocated. Pepto-Bismol pink press-on nails tapped angrily on the receiver of the loud speaker system as if she was about to put in another call for security. What she had in mind, I had no idea, but whatever it was, it wouldn't be good for ole Li. Patrons in line behind us and in her line seemed to find the interchange interesting, but not enough that they weren't beginning to resent a domestic squabble holding up their after-Christmas sale spirit.

A short man with heavy sideburns sprouting out the side of his red hunter's cap slammed his fist on the conveyor belt behind me. “Hey,” he shouted to Lionel, “what kind of a sorry SOB are you that you weren't home for Christmas with your kids? You ain't checking me out!” He grabbed his load of half-price Christmas decorations off the belt, threw them back into his cart, and pushed off to another line. Other shoppers seemed to be in agreement as the line thinned behind me, people driving their carts off to other checkout stations.

Lionel stood motionless at his register, unable to seize control of what he might have told himself was the simplest of worlds he could create. Or perhaps he just didn't care to save what he settled for.

“I don't want to be any trouble. I'll just leave. Just come home after your shift, honey.” I touched Lionel on the sleeve and waved to the gum-snapping clerk.

“You take care now. I'll see he gets home. I got a brother can pick him up and drop him right at your door,” she said to me. “Ain't that right, Lionel? You met Bobby, now, haven't you? He's a family man. Got kids, just like you, and he don't like men who don't take care of their kids. You know that, don't you, Lionel?” She punctuated her remarks with a loud snap of her gum.

I waved my thanks to her and headed toward the security officer she had summoned. We met the officer several steps beyond the customer service area, separated from Lionel's checkout counter by the swarms of shoppers hurrying to leave the store before they maxed out their credit cards.

“Say,” Annie said. “Isn't that…”

“Yup.”

“Hey,” I called to him.

“You causing trouble here, Dr. Murphy? Wouldn't surprise me. Why don't you shop in your own Wal-Mart instead of coming up here and creating trouble?”

“No trouble, Captain Rodgers. Just a domestic dispute. One of your clerks has been cheating on his wife with one of the other clerks. That's all I know. I heard you found a new position.”

“What about it?” He retained his usual surly disposition and his oversized belly. What was missing was the uniform and some of his swagger. He seemed embarrassed to have me recognize him. His little eyes swept the area nervously, and he shuffled from one foot to the other as if he was eager to have us leave.

“Look here. I got a job to do. Clerk called me, and if it's about some domestic thing, well, you know how it is, they can get real nasty, even in public, so I'll have to go.”

“Okay, well, I'll tell everyone at the college I ran into you and you said to say hello.”

“Well, you don't have to go that far.” He turned and trotted toward Lionel's register. I wondered just what our gum-chewing clerk would say to Rodgers to justify her calling security, but whatever it was, I bet it would be good. Lionel was scared enough of her and her family to offer little resistance to whatever she offered.

“How did Rodgers get here from the college?” Annie said as we walked toward the car.

“I guess I forgot that part. When David, posing as another campus security officer, asked to see that cache of weapons from the Disciplinary Board hearing, Rodgers found the knife missing. Adam took it. When, we don't know. Rodgers couldn't account for the missing knife, so he replaced it with another. When the truth came out that he tampered with the weapons, President Evans fired him. I think Evans was happy to get rid of him. Rodgers was no asset to a college that wants to promote itself as hiring only the best.”

Mr. Sideburns, the man who had berated Lionel for abandoning his kids at Christmas, was loading his purchases into the bed of a battered, metallic blue pick-up. The vanity license read “hottie.” He waved as Annie and I walked by.

“Good luck to you, little lady,” he said to me, “but you'd be better off without that guy. I told Miriam, that's the blonde cashier, when he started getting friendly with her, that he was no good. Somethin' real sleazy about that one. Talks funny, like he thinks all of us don't speak English. Yep, both o' you better off without that one.” He slammed the tailgate hard enough to knock a piece of rusted side paneling off the vehicle. “Shit.” He looked at the metal piece on the ground, then bent over, picked it up, and threw it in the back with his purchases. “You have a nice day now.” He tipped his red hat, then set it back down on the forest of hair sprouting out from his sideburns.

Annie and I smiled at him as we continued toward the car.

“Nice man. Took him only two seconds to size up Lionel. Did he have ears under all that hair or was all that hair coming out of his ears?” I said to Annie. She giggled.

“Why did Adam take that knife?” said Annie. “That puzzles me.”

“Me too. He said he took it to give back to David. Another time he said he took it to use it to find one just like it without the cracked handle. Said he was going to give it to David as a birthday present. I find it hard to believe either story. I think he liked to find out things about others that he could use on them. I think he found out about David being booted out of school for being part of a group who had weapons. With Adam's propensity for opening doors, I think he took the knife figuring he might use it to hurt David somehow.” We maneuvered around a woman pushing one shopping cart, pulling another, and wrestling with two small children, one held in her left arm, the other tugging on her coat and yelling “I want candy” at the top of his lungs.

“Thank god, the car.” I activated the automatic door opener.

“And Adam killed Marie, but why?”

“It was what Der figured. A crime of passion with a hint of self-protection. She rejected him for Ryan. Adam couldn't understand that Ryan and Marie were just good friends. Adam doesn't think that way about friendships with women. When he put the moves on her in her car that night in the mall parking lot, he was incensed that she preferred Ryan to him. And there was the possibility that she might get Ryan to tell about the stories planted in my research. She was a danger to him, so he killed her, then threw the knife in the trash. It wasn't his knife anyway. The wheels were in motion to pin the murder on David. As the investigation proceeded, Adam simply encouraged us to look at others as suspects. But as smart as he was, his hate got the best of him and led him to make mistakes.”

“It sounds to me as if his biggest mistake was underestimating you.” Annie untied her plaid scarf from around her neck as she settled into her seat.

“He always underestimates others, particularly women. He's a real bright guy to whom no one has ever said no or for whom no one has attempted to set limits, certainly not his parents and then not the fraternity, which he ran for his own benefit. Unfortunately for all of us and luckily for him, he found people who shared some of his egomania, but whom he could manipulate like Melvin Chaffee, President Evans, even Captain Rodgers, people who thought they were smart enough to control him but instead were being used by him. These guys all have egg on their faces. Can you imagine how it must feel to have one put over on you by a college student if you truly believe you're much savvier than students are?”

“So what now?” said Annie.

“Hungry?”

“Sure. Always.”

“Good,” I said. We're going up the road a few miles to a little Bar-B-Que place and meet Guy there for lunch.”

“Guy?”

“Sure. You remember Guy. Tall, muscular. Smart, funny, blue eyes.”

“I know who Guy is. I'm just glad that…”

“What?”

“I'm just glad we're having lunch, that's all. I'm hungry. Bet you are too.”

I nodded, applied pressure to the accelerator with my good foot and smiled with satisfaction as the SUV leaped ahead. My stomach let out a low growl. I could hardly wait.