Here Comes the Night (15 page)

Angie pulled her BMW into the circular driveway of her Heritage
Hills mansion. The Tudor style home with its turrets and landscaped grounds had
served as a solid fortress against the past, especially her family, who had
reappeared at first, looking to profit from her newfound status.

Gordon had handled that with chilling resolve, telling them
to either get the fuck off the property or face child abuse and rape charges if
he ever saw them again. He had been her hero that day. No one from her family
had ever surfaced since.

Her domestic, Juanita, a sweet, tiny woman from Columbia,
greeted her at the door with tears in her eyes. “Good morning, Mrs. Wesner.”

“Good morning, Juanita. How are you?”

“No, no, how are
you,
is the question. I’m so sad to
hear about Mr. Wesner on the t.v.”

“Yes, it was quite a shock,” Angie said. “I’ve been up most
of the night. I’m going to try to rest for a bit upstairs.”

“Of course, ma’am. I’ll see that you aren’t disturbed. Is
there anything I can do to help?”

Angie thought a minute and said, “I need to take Mr.
Wesner’s clothes to the funeral home. Would you mind laying out his dark gray
suit, the newest one, and his pale blue silk shirt? And one of the dark red
ties, please. Any shoes and socks will do. They won’t see them.”

“I’m sure you’d like to pick our his jewelry,” Juanita
offered.

“Yes, just put the box out. I’ll look through it.”

“You look so pale, ma’am. Can’t I fix you something to eat
first?”

Angie could feel her stomach twisted in knots. She hadn’t
managed to take even one bite of her order at the O.K. Corral.

Juanita encouraged her. “I have some fresh goat cheese.
Perhaps your kind of omelet, with only the egg whites? There’s fresh squeezed
mango juice, too.”

Angie hesitated, but Juanita pressed on. “You need to eat,
Mrs. Wesner.”

“You’re right. An omelet would be nice,” Angie said as she
started up the stairs. She turned on the landing, stopped by a dizzy
light-headedness.

Suddenly, she was as hungry as she had ever been in her
life. “What the hell, make it with regular eggs. And throw in a couple of
slices of bacon, fried crispy the way I like it.”

Sitting in his cell, Buck’s mind was a pinball machine gone
crazy from too many hits. Still reeling from the night in captivity, he could
not piece together what had gone on with the Mustang. The thugs could have
brought it along somehow and had an accident that nearly killed somebody. But
he had been with Meatface and Jorge the whole time, so he didn’t see how that
could happen.

With a lawyer on his way in, Buck had no idea how much to
tell him. He had never been like his brothers, who occasionally still made the
papers, such as, “Buck Dearmore’s brother in jail for public drunkenness,” or
“Football star’s brother jailed for petty larceny.”

Buck had always been the squeaky clean one, Mr.
All-American, the escapee from a drab small town. But no more. Now that he had
completely crashed, his brain was grasping a new, grim reality. He was a
murderer and there was no going back.

It still amazed him, though. If killing Gordon had not been
as simple as one tiny flex of his finger, he didn’t think he could have gone
through with it. Gordon had goaded him just enough, though. That was all it
took. One simple click, and now nothing would ever be the same.

Buck had never met Indigo’s partner, Terrence Hackman, who
showed up an hour later to meet with him. A crisp, handsome young
African-American with a low soft accent, Terrence had talked briefly with the
detectives and then brought Buck the bad news.

“They do have the right to hold you for 24 hours if they
want. We might get you out sooner if it weren’t for the Mustang being seized,”
Terrence explained, “but as it stands, no.”

“They haven’t charged me with anything, have they?” Buck
fought off a slight panic.

“No, not yet. But they’re not going to let you go until they
take a few more hours to see what they’ve got.”

“I was nowhere near the Mustang last night,” Buck said.

“We’ll get to that,” Terrence said. “But first, are you
alright? Your face looks awful. Not to mention your hand. Did the cops
manhandle you?”

“No, this was all from the thugs that hijacked my car.” Buck
looked down to see the bandage around his right hand had soaked through again.
“At least the pain is keeping me awake.”

Terrence pulled a cell out of his gray silk coat. “I can get
you something for that. There’s no reason to…”

“No,” Buck said quickly. Then another gut rumbling pain shot
through his arm, leaving him shaking and faint. “Well, maybe something that
doesn’t knock me out?”

Terrence was already talking low to someone on the other
end. After he hung up he said, “I’ve got some meds coming and some real food.
How long’s it been since you ate?”

Buck had to think. “I don’t know. Yesterday morning.”

“No wonder you’re coming apart.” It was a statement, not a
question, Buck noticed.

Terrence continued. “Maybe we should wait until you feel
better to start talking.”

“I’m okay,” Buck said, anxious to get it over with. “We
might as well get going.”

Terrence wrote some notes on a legal pad and looked up at
him. “They’re going to want to know about your car. And where you were last
night.”

“I got carjacked leaving work yesterday afternoon.”

“Did you see who did it?”

“No, they came at me from the back. Knocked me out. Next
thing I know I’m sitting in a garage somewhere.”

“What did they look like?” Terrence asked.

“They had a hood on me. I don’t know,” Buck answered. He had
realized that much of the actual night’s events could be used to explain his
whereabouts. It could give him a way out yet.

He had to be careful not to mention the poker game from
Thursday night. That would tie him with Angie. If the detectives connected
them, it was all over.

“Could you hear them talking? Anything that might help
identify them?” Terrence was asking.

“Some young guys, I think. They were pretty proud of kidnaping
the great Buck Dearmore, they said.”

“Did they want money or what?”

“I think it was kind of spur of the moment because one of
them recognized me or my car,” Buck said. “After they took the cash from my
wallet, they wanted to talk football.”

“So why the beating then?”

“I mouthed off to them. And they were punks. Didn’t like
that, I guess.” Buck paused, trying to imagine the scene in his head. “Resented
the world and everybody in it.”

“They’re also talking about your office getting broken
into?” Terrence spread his hands and shrugged.

Buck reminded himself to keep his stories straight
.
“I
don’t know about that.”

“What was in your safe?”

“Some cash, nothing significant. Well, some championship
rings. The rest was legal stuff.”

“So you don’t think you were the target?” Terrence was
studying him closely now.

“You mean the office break-in? No. Did the cops say that?”

“No, I’m just trying to get a general picture of what’s
going on.”

“I’d say some pretty shitty coincidences, that’s what’s
going on.”

“You’re probably right. You need some sleep, Mr. Dearmore.
Which will happen when the doctor gets here. He’ll fix you up. We can go over
all this later.”

Buck stared blankly at the wall.

“Mr. Dearmore?”

Buck started. “What?”

“Why did they cut off part of your finger?”

Buck looked dumbly at his right hand for a long moment. Then
an idea presented itself. “I think maybe they planned to sell it?”

“Good God, that’s brutal,” Terrence said, shaking his head.
“We’ll talk more when you’re rested.”

Buck stared grimly at his bandaged little finger. He
wondered if he’d ever rest again.

Erika paused on the stairs up to the Police Station and
looked up. The crisp breeze was dying down as the sun climbed higher, and
clouds the color of cement blocks seemed stuck, trapped in the sky. Her heart
clogged up the same way as she forced herself up the last few steps into the
Police Station.

Inside, the hum of the reception area felt surprisingly
normal. She went up to the front desk and waited while the officer in charge, a
portly good-old-boy, finished some paperwork. Then he turned to her. “Yes,
ma’am, how can the Oklahoma City Police serve you today?”

Erika smiled at the greeting, unexpected for a police
station. “I’m not sure exactly who I need to talk to.”

“Do you have a complaint?” the officer asked.

“No,” Erika said.

“Do you want to report a crime?”

“No, I have information about a crime.”

The officer’s eyebrows shot up with interest. “And what
crime would that be?”

“From last night. The girl on the horse that got hit.”

“You mean Candy Myers? What kind of information?”

“I saw it,” she said.

“You
witnessed
the accident, ma’am?”

“I saw her get hit, yes.”

Obviously pleased with this information, the officer nodded
to her. “If you’ll just take a seat over here,” indicating a bench close by,
“I’ll call those detectives right away.”

Erika sat down. Things were finally in motion. After a few
moments on the phone, the desk officer motioned her over. “They’re anxious to
talk to you as soon as possible. They’re on their way back from an interview,
if you could wait here for them.”

Erika shook her head. “No problem.” Now that she’d finally
found her way here, she wasn’t going anywhere.

Greg Chapman sat across from one of his favorite parolees.
Favorite only because Boopy’s lies were so colorful and inventive that it
afforded Chapman a few laughs in his dull schedule. At the moment he was
hearing from the husky-voiced mother of two about how she had been in the
Emergency Room all day yesterday when she was supposed to check in.

“I can’t wait to hear,” Chapman said. “What were you in the
E.R. for?”

“Well,” Boopy said, inching closer to the desk and adopting
a conspiratorial tone, “me and Dutch was goofing around, having sex yesterday,
like we do. And we started playing this game.”

“A game.”

“You know, in between going at each other. So he could…you
know. Get revived.”

“Are we getting to the part about the E.R.?” Chapman asked.

“Hold your horses. So, he come up with a game called ‘Who’s
in Boopy’s box?’” She paused and saw he was more than curious, even though he
still looked stern. Smiling, she continued.

“So little Mikey’s toys was right there in a basket next to
the bed. So he’s picking up these little plastic soldiers—Dutch is, I mean, I
wouldn’t let Mikey come in while we was fuckin’. So anyhow he says, ‘I think
this little Marine wants in.’ And we’re laughing to beat the band—we’d had a
few, I won’t deny it, and he says, ‘Well, maybe the whole brigade needs to get
in the box.’ So he’s pushing these little green men up in…you know…and then he
starts pulling ‘em out.”

Chapman had blushed and was ready to shut her up, but she
was wound up now.

“No, now,” she promised, “I’m almost there. So we’re
cracking up, singing battle marches and I’m forgetting how many soldiers is in
and out of there by now. So, when we was finished playing around and he was
ready enough to go at it again, I come to realize that they was one left.”

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Chapman cleared his
throat, asking, “One of the Marines didn’t make it out?”

“So, see?” Boopy spread her arms in full disclosure. “That’s
why I made Dutch take me to the Emergency Room and that’s why I couldn’t come
check in. That little soldier was not gonna surrender on his own.”

A rap on Chapman’s glass cubicle wall whirled him around
with a guilty look to see who was there.

Two suited men who looked like detectives stood there. They
looked almost startled, as if they had walked in on a love tryst.

“Sorry,” the older one said, flashing his badge. “We told
the receptionist it was urgent and she said come on back.”

“Oh, sure. Fine,” Chapman said, recovering somewhat. “One of
my cases was just checking in.”

He grabbed Boopy’s papers and initialed them quickly and
scooted her out of the office, her looking back and grinning the whole way.

“I’ll finish telling you next week, okay?” she said.

Still red faced, he whisked her off and turned to his
visitors. “Sorry, one of my more colorful cases.”

“Indeed,” the younger one said with a grin. He introduced
himself as Edgars and the older one as Douglas, both from Homicide.

Chapman indicated the two folding chairs opposite his desk
and they sat down. Detective Douglas dropped a picture of Tony Bonner on Chapman’s
desk.

“I believe he’s one of your cases, correct?”

“Yeah, I got Tony,” Chapman confirmed.

“What can you tell us about him?” Edgars asked.

“He’s in trouble, isn’t he? This kid…he’s a mess, but I
don’t know. Never really had a chance. Spent half his life in jail for killing
his father, who constantly beat the shit out his whole family. Probably needed
killing. Bonner’s hard as they come now, though. Prison took whatever little
bit was left inside and ruined even that. Probably somebody’s bitch the whole
time. Scars all over his body. What did he do?”

Horse said, “We think he was the one driving the car that
nearly killed Candy Myers.”

“Oh shit.” Chapman felt genuinely distressed. “No, Tony, God
O’Mighty.”

“We’ve got his fingerprints in the car, so we’re looking to
pick him up. You got an address?” Edgars asked.

“Yeah,” Chapman said, turning to his file cabinet. “A
temporary one anyway. Like everything else with him. Living with a girlfriend
who he says is giving him trouble.”

“You ever meet her?” Edgars asked.

“No, she never came with him, but I’m sure I would have
checked her record to see if her place was okay,” Chapman said. He found the
address and wrote it down on a yellow Post-it for them.

“When did you last see Mr. Bonner?” Horse asked.

“This morning. Not even two hours ago.”

Both detectives perked up. “How did he seem?” Edgars asked.

“Not much different. Looked like he’d been up all night, but
that’s nothing new. He’d been skipping work…his boss reported that to me so he
knew he couldn’t lie about that.”

“Where’s he work?” Horse said.

“Warehouse downtown, cleaning floors. He hated it.”

“Did you sign off on him?” Edgars asked.

“Yeah, with a warning that he was on thin ice.” Chapman was
flipping through the file to give them a work address. He jotted it down on
another Post-it and handed it to them. “I could have violated him. I could’ve
backed it up easy. I was trying to cut him a break. Hope I won’t be sorry about
that.”

Edgars cocked his head. “We’ll find out, won’t we?” The
detectives headed toward the door. Then Edgars turned back with a shit-eating
grin. “You think your lady ever found that dead soldier?”

Chapman laughed. “Oh, she’s had a lot worse than that up
there.”