Nobody Lives Forever (21 page)

The suspicion struck like thunder during the drive home. Rick nearly swung into a U-turn toward Pigeon Plum, but decided against it. If what he suspected was true, seeing Dusty now would be the worst possible move. Crazy, he thought, crazy enough to be true. He might have already committed a major screwup. Furious at himself, he felt physically ill. He hoped Laurel would be asleep, but saw lights and heard the chatter of the police scanner as he opened the front door.

“Well, look who's here.” The tone was almost confrontational.

“What the…” He did a double take. Laurel was parked in front of the TV. She had already turned her attention back to a wrestling match on one of the cable channels. She wore one of his T-shirts and was leaning forward, a can of beer in one hand, her forearms resting on the thighs of her blue jeans. The body language was tough, distinctly unfeminine. Her eyes glittered at the action on the screen. “Gotcha,” Rick said. “Now I know who's been drinking my beer.” He bleakly regarded the tag-team match in progress. “I didn't know you liked that stuff.”

“What did you expect, soap operas at this hour?” Her voice was husky.

She leaned back suddenly, placing her hands on the armrests of her chair, her face softening. She looked up, eyes full of sleep. “Rick,” she breathed, then glanced at the clock. “What time is it?” Her voice sounded mellow and befuddled.

He stared at her, then shook his head. “Late, babe. You really ought to get some sleep.” He walked past her into the kitchen, realizing how little he really knew this woman who was sharing his life. He needed a drink.

She followed, looking down at the shirt and self-consciously tucking it into her jeans. “Is anything wrong?”

“I cut the night short because I have to get an early start tomorrow.”

He took the bourbon from the kitchen cabinet, stared, puzzled, at the level in the bottle for a moment, then poured two fingers into a water glass and downed it grimly.

“What's wrong?” She looked big-eyed and scared, like a little girl.

“A case,” he said. He shook his head and poured again.

“Rob's murder?”

“Yeah, partly.”

“What about it?”

“It's all fucked up.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“Maybe. No. I don't know.”

She stepped close, hugged him around the waist, pressed her face against his chest and started to cry. “I'm scared,” she said.

“Hey, I didn't mean to lay this on you,” he said, brushing the blond hair from her forehead. “There's nothing for you to be upset about.”

“I can't be alone at night anymore, Rick. You need to be here. Don't leave me alone again.”

“Goddammit! Don't start in on that now. I need to think.”

He pulled away, took his drink and marched out the back door into the warm night.

“Rick?” She stood at the door behind him.

“Get some sleep, will you? I need to be alone for awhile.” He sat in a chair on the little wooden dock for a long time, nursing his guilt along with his drink and gazing across the water at the city skyline. Moonlight bathed the Centrust tower and the Metrorail bridge, a neon rainbow that straddled downtown. He loved the sight—it never failed to soothe him—until now. “How could something that feels so good be wrong?” The words echoed in his mind. He must be wrong. He had to be crazy. But it all fit—it all tied in. What if he was right?

He did not go inside until dawn began to lighten the sky. He was surprised that Laurel had not slept. She was busy, vigorously scrubbing something in the kitchen. He could smell bleach. She never looked up, and he went to bed—alone.

Rick was waiting at the city personnel office when it opened. He copied some information out of a file, went to headquarters and dialed the Jericho, Iowa, police department from his desk.

A woman answered, apparently the dispatcher. She sounded young and bored. The chief, she said, was out of town, gone to Sioux City to pick up a prisoner.

Rick identified himself and said he needed some information.

“I'm afraid only the chief can help you.”

“It's about an officer who worked for your department a few years back.”

“The chief will be back in a day or two.”

“Her name is Mary Ellen Dustin.”

There was a pause. “So that's where she is, Miami.”

“You know her.”

“I never met the woman, but I know
of
her. I guess everybody here does.” The voice was now alive with interest and juicy malice.

“Well, maybe you can help me out,” Rick said, turning on the charm. “I know it's tough working for a small-town department. Sounds like you're holding down the fort all by yourself there.”

“You've got it,” she said. “Everybody's out on the road.”

“This is strictly a nonofficial inquiry at the moment,” his voice dropped confidentially. “You know, sometimes you just need to know who you're dealing with.”

“Sure thing.”

“She must have been quite a policewoman out there if you recall the name so well without ever meeting her.”

“Police work is not exactly what she was known for.” She sounded cute and gossipy.

“So what is her claim to fame?”

“Well, I wasn't here when it all happened,” she said slowly, “so you really have to talk to the chief”—the official disclaimer out of the way, her voice eagerly picked up speed—“but she ran around with a married man, with a family, you know, a love triangle and all that. Then they all wound up dead, and she got run out of town. Hasn't shown her face here since.”

Rick closed his eyes, his fingers tightening around the telephone receiver. “What happened? Was it homicide? Did anybody go to jail?”

“A lot of folks thought somebody you know should have. But like I say, I wasn't here, and I've got to go now. Call back and talk to the chief.”

He could hear a radio in the background, somebody repeating a request for her to send a tow truck. “When did you say he would be back?”

“Day or two, he didn't rightly say.”

Dusty arrived from court a short time later. Smiling and confident, she wore a bright red blouse and a white wraparound skirt. The judge had ordered a psychiatric evaluation for Terrance McGee, who was being held without bond. When Rick saw her, he slipped the photos he had prepared into his top drawer.

“Jimbo,” he whispered to the detective sitting across from him, “don't mention our witness or anything about the case to Dusty. Nothing.”

“Why the hell not?” he growled under his breath. He looked surprised. He had been admiring the way Dusty's skirt showed off some leg as she swung by their desks.

“Hi, guys. Hear you found a witness. What's the scoop?”

Rick's head shot up from an FBI bulletin he was studying. “Who the hell told you that?”

“The grapevine, guys. I'm a detective. I work here, remember?”

“I hate it when other investigators mouth off about cases that don't belong to them.” He glared accusingly around the huge room.

“What's the problem? Don't tell me it's gonna be one of those days. Woof! Somebody throw our sergeant some raw meat,” she said to Jim, who was grinning.

She removed the fresh red hibiscus she wore in her lapel, put it stem down in a coffee cup, filled it at the water cooler and came back humming. “You look like hell,” she commented, passing by Rick's desk. He did not answer.

“Can't say the same for you,” Jim said. “You look terrific.”

“I feel terrific.” She glanced at Rick, who did not look up. “I cleared my case pretty fast, you must admit.”

She sat down, crossed her legs and removed some legal papers from her briefcase.

“I need to talk to you about that,” Rick said abruptly.

“Yes, Sergeant.” Dusty smiled expectantly.

“That must have been quite a shock, finding the woman's head in the damn freezer.”

“Well, I must admit, I will never look at my Kenmore in quite the same way again. Let's just say it was one of those unforgettable moments that occur from time to time in this business.” She tilted her head and studied Rick's face. “Didn't you get any sleep?” Her eyes began to mirror his grave expression.

“It had to be a helluva shock,” he said, ignoring her question. “I want you to see Doc Feigleman to help you through it. Set up an appointment—and go on home now, take the rest of the day off, comp time. I already cleared it with the lieutenant.”

“I don't need it, Rick. I've got tons of paperwork. I also got the warrant and want to go through Terrance's apartment with the lab. He sends you both his best, by the way, though he is beginning to regret not making use of the city's landlord-tenant dispute hotline.”

Rick shook his head. “I'm serious, Dusty. Go home, chill out. Hit the beach, work on your tan, whatever. And go see the shrink ASAP.”

She looked from Rick to Jim, who shrugged, grimaced and rolled his eyes simultaneously. “I'm a professional,” she said quietly. “It is nice of you to be concerned, but I go to autopsies all the time. I've seen lots of dead bodies, admittedly never between the Mrs. Paul's fish sticks and the turkey TV dinners, but I am fine. In fact I feel terrific because we wrapped this one so quickly.”

“It's an order.” His voice held the ring of finality. He looked impatient. “Taking some time off and seeing the doc is mandatory, SOP when a police officer is involved in a shooting or injury incident, and I think the shock you experienced yesterday is as traumatic in many ways.”

“May I speak to you in private, Sergeant?”

“I see no reason for it. Nobody else is in earshot. The three of us have no secrets. Do we?”

Jim shuffled papers, suddenly pretending to be busy.

“What's wrong, Rick?” Her voice was low and personal.

He shook his head, his face closed, his eyes focused somewhere behind her.

“Is this some chauvinistic, paternalistic bullshit?” she demanded. Suspicion and anger were fast replacing bewilderment. “I am no sissy and no pantywaist. If I had to run to a shrink everytime I stepped in a little gore, I couldn't hack this job. And I damn well can. We all know that. What
is
this? Whose idea is this?”

“I'm doing you a favor. Take off. Now.”

“Can I go too?” Jim said hopefully, trying to break the tension.

“No,” Rick said. “You stay.”

“You're trying to get rid of me.”

Rick did not answer.

Quietly, without another word, she gathered up her belongings and slammed her briefcase shut.

The minute she was gone, Jim parked himself on Rick's desk. “Now she's really on her high horse. What the
hell
are you doing?”

Rick opened his mouth, but the telephone interrupted and he picked it up. It was the front desk. “Shit,” he muttered to Jim, “she's downstairs already.”

Ten minutes later a public service aide, a black youth in a blue uniform shirt, escorted Ms. Viola Sneath into the fifth-floor homicide office, she wore a paisley print dress, clutched a handbag the size of a satchel and carried a sweater. Miami natives carry sweaters or jackets on the summer's hottest days because of the uncontrollably frigid air conditioning inside most public buildings.

“Oohh,” Jim murmured to Rick in mock disappointment, “she didn't bring Pookie.”

Viola Sneath peered alertly from behind the smoke-tinted lenses of her eyeglasses and focused on Rick as he rose to greet her. “So this is where you work.”

“This is it,” Rick smiled. “Would you like some coffee?”

“I think so,” she said. “It's so chilly in here.”

Rick held her sweater as she struggled into it. “Cream and sugar?”

“Both,” she said pleasantly. “Your young man came for me promptly at nine, but he was driving a patrol car. Pookie barked and barked.” She giggled girlishly. “I don't know what the neighbors think.”

In the interview room, Ms. Sneath fretted and plucked at the threads on her sweater. “I told you boys last night, I probably won't be much help. It was very dark, with just the streetlight. My bifocals are new, I'm not quite used to them and there was all that excitement at the shopping center.”

“All we ask is that you do the best you can,” Rick said. “Often people remember more than they think. Sometimes a face will jog their memory. You don't see many strangers in your neighborhood, you're an alert and perceptive person. You may remember this individual better than you realize. Just go slow and look at each one carefully.”

She solemnly placed both hands on the table, as if for a seance.

Rick spread out a set of six pictures.

Ms. Sneath scrutinized each one, carefully examining both the full-front mug shot and the profile. “No,” she said slowly, “that one's too heavy, and the hair on this one is all wrong.”

“Keep in mind,” Jim said, “people, especially women, can change their hairstyle, change the color, even alter their looks with makeup. Try, if you can, to zero in more on their features.”

She nodded, pursing her lips in concentration. “This one is … oh my, is that a tattoo?” she said, peering closely at another. “Does that really say—”

“Yeah,” Jim said bleakly.

She finally leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “She's not here.”

“Okay,” Rick said patiently. “How about these?” He dealt out a second set of pictures, one by one, like playing cards. The muscles in his jaw worked.

The first batch had included a few female robbers and the wives and girlfriends of known holdup men. The second was a mixed bag. One was long dead, a firebug who had loved to call and taunt firefighters after torching hotels. Another would soon be dead, a much-arrested prostitute suffering from AIDS. Then there was a woman who had thrown her children off the roof of a Miami apartment house, another who had murdered her brutal husband in his sleep, a fifth who robbed banks, and Miami homicide detective Mary Ellen Dustin.