Killing Zone (14 page)

Wager looked down to that entry: “Occasional scrapes ran parallel to the line of heel prints (Item #122) possibly caused by the victim’s shoes dragging toes-down through the dirt. Marks on the toes of the victim’s shoes were consistent with being dragged (Item #202).”

He was dead before he was dumped. That’s what those marks told Wager: Green was hauled in by someone who draped the victim’s arm over his shoulder to carry the weight. Someone wearing heels like cowboy boots. That was hypothesis, of course, not fact—the only facts were the prints and the scrapes in the dirt. But now those facts were starting to speak.

Wager turned to the itemized survey of the victim’s clothing and personal effects that had been tested in the forensics lab. Green’s pockets contained a wallet, handkerchief, comb, a dollar and seventy-three cents in loose change, a small pen knife, and nothing else. Wager thought about the things in his own pockets and the everyday things that should or should not be in Green’s. Keys. No keys. Everybody had keys: car, home, office. But no keys on Green. That reminded him to call MVD again about the missing car, because the keys would have been used to drive away in that car. The wallet had been gone over for forensic evidence, too. Nothing unusual there: only Green’s prints on the various cards and photographs in the plastic windows. Wager scanned the list of contents for other pockets and found nothing notable. A glasses case and a pair of sunglasses found in the jacket’s inside pocket, a matching gold pen-and-pencil set also found in the vest pocket. That was it, and Wager leaned back to gaze at the ceiling and turn over those items in his mind.

Nothing that shouldn’t be there … Only one thing that should be … Somewhere at the edge of his concentration, Golding hung up the telephone, shrugged into his coat, and said something to Wager as he left the office. Wager’s mouth said something back, but his mind didn’t register what, because it was again counting off those footprints and scrapes, those things found on the victim. He jotted another note and then turned to the lab analysis of Green’s clothing. According to visual inspection, the suit was recently pressed; recovery of trace materials from the pockets, pleats, and seams was hampered because of removal of the victim’s clothing at the morgue. However, a lab analysis of the underwear revealed traces of semen and vaginal fluids, indicating that the victim had sex and apparently dressed rapidly after the act so that the fluids on his flesh were still damp enough to smear.

He found corroboration further down in forensic’s detailed study of the corpse. Skin swabs of the crotch and penis indicated heterosexual activity, and combing of the pubic area resulted in hair samples different from the victim. Wager read that entry and then ground the heels of his hands into his tired eyes and read it again. The samples were from a blond Caucasian woman.

A wife who wasn’t too surprised when her husband was gone all night.

Two periods of missing time.

And Sonja Andersen had not called her condolences because she was unsure whether or not Mrs. Green would want to hear from her.

Making a longer entry in his notebook, Wager finished reading Adamo’s survey of the forensic findings: The site offered little conclusive evidence of the perpetrator’s identity, but enough soil and vegetation samples had been collected to provide links to the clothing of any future suspect. The pathological analysis of the victim’s clothes revealed sexual activity probably on the same day he died.

Replacing the sheets in their envelope, Wager leaned back and thought for a while. Then he jotted a few more lines in his notebook and began finishing up the rest of the notes and notices in his mail. Near the bottom of the pile, he found a telephone slip with a familiar number and a request checked: “Call as soon as possible.”

He dialed and listened to the tone rattle twice before a man answered with the bar’s name. “Is Fat Willy there?”

“Who wants him?”

He was sure the bartender knew his voice by now, but the ceremony never changed. “Gabe.”

“I’ll see.”

A few seconds later the wheezing voice came over the wire. “Thought you forgot all about your friends, Wager.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“You been busy, shit. You been running around in circles, you mean.”

“All right—I’ve been busy running around in circles.”

“Uh huh. What’s the word, my man?”

“Nothing doing. They’re up for two felonies and Papadopoulos wants to put them away as habituals.”

“Shit, Wager—you owe me! Goddamn it, you owe!”

“I owe what I can pay, Willy. Not what I can’t. McKeever complains they threatened to set his store on fire, and then the damn fools did it. Then they beat him up because he fingered them. Nobody can help a couple of turdheads like that.”

“That ain’t the way it was! That McKeever—you know him? You know what kind of scumbag he is?”

“Never heard of him.”

“You about the only one. He set fire to his own store, man. Insurance scam. He set fire to it and then laid it on Franklin and Roberts. They went over there to make him stop that crap and he come after them with a forty-five—wasn’t a damn thing they could do but take it away from him. Assault? Shit!”

“He must have had some reason to blame your two choirboys, Willy. Or did he just pick the names from the telephone book?”

Willy’s lurching breath measured a second or two. “All right, here it is—straight. That McKeever, he runs a numbers game out of that two-bit candy store. Numbers, a little cards, and craps on the weekend, you know. He likes to lay off a few bets with me now and then.” He paused. “Personal wagering—friendly bets—all legal, you understand.”

“I understand real well, Willy.”

“Yeah. Anyway, McKeever, he got no luck. He’s one of them people got no luck at all. He always loses and he loses big. He owes me, you know?” He waited for Wager to say he knew, but there was only silence. “Well, he owes me. So I send Franklin and Roberts over to talk to him—see what they can find out about when he’s going to pay up.”

“And if he doesn’t pay, they burn him out?”

“No, shit, man—they don’t say nothing about that! That’s what I’m telling you—they burn down his store, how’s he going to make money to pay me? They go over and look mean and that’s all. God damn, Wager, I know what their records is. I use muscle, it ain’t going to be somebody got three falls against them.”

“So you’re telling me McKeever burned his own place for the insurance and blamed them.”

“Yeah—turns out I wasn’t the only one he owed. That eedjit got into his own crap game and lost. His own game! I told you he was unlucky. Except he lost to a crazy man—Wall-Eye Oates, the one spent too much time down in Canyon City. Wall-Eye, he say he going to pocketknife McKeever if he don’t pay up and pay up now. McKeever believes him. Hell, I believe him. So McKeever burns down his own store, and he knows damn well he can’t make it look like nothing but arson, so he blames Franklin and Roberts.”

Wager knew of Wall-Eye; he’d interviewed him once in the emergency ward of Denver General when what was left of the man had been hauled in after a knife fight. He was crazy—that much of Willy’s story was true. “All this can come out in court, Willy. That’s grounds for a not-guilty plea.”

“I don’t want it to get that far. Them two, they got long records and it’s only their word against McKeever. You think a jury or judge going to listen to what they say? McKeever knows that. He ain’t had a charge against him in twenty years. My men don’t want to take a chance in court and I don’t blame them. You heard what Nick-the-Greek said he do.”

There was a lot more that Willy wasn’t telling him, additional reasons why the fat man was so worried about Franklin and Roberts. “Those two’ve worked for you a long time, right, Willy?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“They know about your business. They said if you don’t get them off, they’ll trade what they know for a lighter sentence, right?”

Another heavy breath, something like a sigh. “Maybe.”

Wager, too, gave something like a sigh. “I’ll tell Papadopoulos what you told me about McKeever. But I don’t think it’ll do any good. He likes the simple truth of Franklin and Roberts shaking down McKeever.” And so would a jury.

“Well, damn it, do some good! What the hell we paying our taxes for?”

“You don’t pay taxes Willy. You know that.”

“Maybe I don’t, Wager. But I pay in other ways. I paid for this in advance—I saved your pimply white ass that time, and you goddamn owe me for it.”

“I’m also goddamn working on a homicide right now.”

“Don’t hand me that shit, Wager. You know who killed Green; it’s all over the street.”

“Who?”

“Who! Who! You know who: that White Brotherhood shit, that’s who.”

“I don’t know that, Willy. I don’t know that at all.”

“You the only one! That’s the word that’s out, Wager. Everywhere.”

He gave it a try. “What can you find out for me about Green?”

“Say, what?”

“Green. Find out everything you can about him.”

“You asking for another fucking favor? You tell me to kiss my own ass about Franklin and Roberts and then you turn around and ask for another fucking favor? Man, you got the most … You are the biggest …”

He groped to think for a word that fit, and in the pause Wager said, “If you come up with something worthwhile, it’s leverage. The chief might be willing to shrug off Franklin and Roberts if it means getting Green’s killer.”

“… Oh, yeah?”

“It’s a chance. But it has to be soon. They go up for charges on Monday. After that, it’s in the court’s hands.”

Willy muttered something under his breath. “What I hear, Wager, is Green was straight. Somebody the people are proud of. That’s why they so pissed.”

“See what you can find out, Willy. The name of the game’s information right now. With it, maybe we can do something. Without it, we’ll take a little longer.”

“Yeah, a little. Forever, you mean. I’ll see what I can do. And Wager—your best ain’t been too good; you do better than that, you hear me? And one more thing, my man: You got some calls from me on that shitty answering machine of yours. Maybe if you ever went home sometime, you’d get your messages.”

1911 Hours

The reason Wager did not go home was that he knew what was waiting in the silence of his apartment and he wasn’t yet tired enough to be able to ignore it. He had considered moving, leaving behind the echoes and shadowy things that hovered at the corners of his eyes and, when he turned to stare at them, congealed into a familiar lamp or a chair or a bathrobe hanging from a half-open door. But to leave it required an energy he didn’t feel, and something else, too: a willingness. He did not know that he was willing to strip himself of those memories even though they were a source of pain. He did not want to lose the only thing that remained of Jo—the pictures in his mind of moments that, for no clear reason, had been captured and which for reasons equally obscure came back now. Her smile as she held the flowered coffee cup in both hands, elbows propped on his table after a quiet dinner; her shadowed profile as she looked up at him with her hair spread in wild grace across the pillow; a favorite phrase she used when some minor thing went wrong and that even now brought a half smile to his lips. He remembered especially the baggy way his bathrobe wrapped her after they swam in the apartment pool, and how it emphasized her smallness and gave her an appearance of vulnerability that she never admitted to. He felt again the eager happiness she brought to him when they went cross-country skiing that first time, and her laughter as he learned to ride a horse. But the memories that ached deepest were of those times for the two of them alone, times marked by a quiet smile or a glance or the touch of his flesh on hers. These memories, mixed with the magnitude of their loss, would be waiting for him at home, and he wasn’t yet ready to face that.

Instead, he flipped through the pages of his notebook until he came to the number he sought and dialed, unconsciously counting the rings until a young voice answered with an eagerness that faded when the call was for the child’s father. A few minutes later, Wager was mingling with the throbbing traffic of Friday night and angling across town toward the northern edge of District Two.

The resemblance between Ovid Green and his brother wasn’t noticeable unless the two were side by side or, as Wager had done, you stared at enough photographs of the city councilman to carry his face in memory. Four or five years older than Horace, Ovid had the same heavy build and large but fragile-looking jaw. But his eyes were different—larger and set closer together—and the flair of his nose above the thick mustache was wider. He stepped back from the glare of the porch light and asked Wager in. “I don’t know what-all I can tell you. My brother and I didn’t see that much of each other. Especially since he became a city councilman.”

“I’m just trying to learn anything I can, Mr. Green.” He sat on the couch Green gestured toward. From beyond the living room and past the open dining area came the tinny laughter and music of a television set. Wager guessed there was a family room at the back of the split-level, one that opened to the fenced yard through a sliding glass door. The click of toenails scratched the hardwood floor and a large German shepherd padded into the room to sniff with interest at Wager’s shoe before ambling over to Green’s chair and falling with a weary grunt beside it.

“We weren’t all that close. As kids I was, well, four grades ahead of him. That means a lot when you’re that age, you know. I was in junior high while he was still in grade school; then when he moved up, I was in high school.” The dog’s brown eyes watched Wager unblinkingly. “In fact, we were closest when Horace got out of the Air Force and came back to start up his furniture store. I was still working as a loan officer at the bank and Horace was busy getting started. We saw a lot of each other then.” He said modestly, “I helped get his loan through.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Lord, ten years I guess—” He counted back over the years. “Eleven. He was twenty-six when he started that store. Only twenty-six, can you believe it? Of course, it wasn’t in the same place as the new one and he’s upgraded it a lot.”