Nobody Lives Forever (7 page)

Cooking breakfast at five
P
.
M
. is an unnatural act, Laurel thought. She plucked a wisp of gray fluff from the drain in the stainless-steel sink, studied it closely and looked puzzled. Nothing was right anymore, and she was scared. She had been coping and doing well, happy for the first time, convinced that nothing frightening would ever stalk her life again. Rick was wonderful, so strong and protective. But then he had switched back to the midnight shift, leaving her alone. Their young neighbor had been killed in the dark, practically on their own lawn, and now this gloriously good-looking policewoman and her big boobs seemed to be in the picture.

Cops who work together are like family. She knew that. Once Laurel had accepted Jim, along with his endless gripes and complaints, she had found he was not as threatening as he appeared. In fact he was really sort of a big, bluff teddy bear. Jim was important to Rick, so Laurel made Jim important to her, but Dusty was another matter. She was beautiful, and she and Rick shared an air of easy intimacy. The relationship was probably rooted in noting more than shared police experiences, Laurel told herself. But this woman will now spend the long nights with Rick. While I wait here, alone and afraid, they will share meals and jokes, laughter and anger, danger and triumph. I'm shut out, she thought, and losing time again. This always happened when she was pressured. And why did she feel under pressure? Was she simply insecure, or was she jealous with good reason? All she knew was that she must
not
be left alone in the dark.

She watched, slightly queasy, as Rick wolfed down the scrambled eggs, marmalade and hot bread. She wore pale lipstick that matched the satiny pink ribbon holding back her long hair. “If you could just go on days we could live like normal people for a while,” she began.

Rick gazed fondly, through bloodshot eyes, at this soft-eyed and tender young woman, so unlike his voracious bedmate hours earlier. “Years ago I never thought I'd get used to midnights, either. But if you work homicide and want results, it's the only shift to work. It's simply a matter of adjusting your body clock, sweetheart. It takes a little time.”

“It's just that I've always been a day person. And after Rob…” Her voice faded to a whisper. “It's so awful.”

He put down his half-empty glass of orange juice. “What happened is another strong reason for me to stay on nights,” he said, his voice still husky from sleep. “We have to solve this one. And don't worry”—he reached for her hand—“all that stuff about the killer returning to the scene … it's bullshit in this kind of case. The guy who did it ran like a thief. He's not coming back. Even so, I did ask one of the guys who moonlights as a locksmith to come by tomorrow and beef up security. And my next day off, we'll go out to the range again. I want you to practice with my off-duty gun.”

“You know I'm afraid of guns,” she murmured.

“You won't be once you're more confident. You've got to know how to use it. You did great last time.” His words were firm and almost fatherly. “There's nothing to be scared of. And you'll get used to these hours. Look,” he said, arching a wicked eyebrow, “at what a swell morning we had.”

She looked up, puzzled, then carefully finished buttering a piece of toast. She placed it before him like an offering.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean? You already forgot our little fun and games? Lady, you really know how to shoot a guy down.”

He looked wounded.

“I just wasn't sure,” she whispered, and quickly turned to fill his coffee cup. She was actually blushing.

He caught her hand as she moved toward the stove. “Let me get your coffee,” she protested.

He buried his face in her apron and planted a kiss where her crotch would be. “Ahhh,” he said. “I thought I smelled something good.”

“It must be the spaghetti sauce,” she said. “I think I'll freeze some.” She hurried into the kitchen, leaving him shaking his head and grinning.

The doorbell rang. “I hope to hell it's not the Thornes.” He winced with dread at the thought. “I have to go by there later.”

Laurel opened the door to Dusty, all business, clutching a file folder. “The lieutenant asked me to drop this off since I was doing some more canvassing over here anyway.”

“Come on in,” Rick called.

She stepped inside, looking slightly uncertain. “I can only stay a minute. Thought you'd be up by now.”

“Anything?”

“Nope, just a press release for you to sign and something for you to tell the parents. Rob's baseball team and some of the other student groups at the university are collecting donations to boost the reward fund if the family's initial offer brings no results. If the money isn't needed, they plan to establish a memorial scholarship.”

Laurel had left the door ajar. Now it was inching open. “Hello?” It was Beth Singer, from next door. She wore battered tennis shoes, tan walking shorts and a peach-colored blouse.

She apologized for barging in. Her eyes, dark with concern, widened with interest when she saw Dusty, then smiled to acknowledge her. “I know you've all got a lot on your minds, with the investigation and all, but Benjie is beside himself.”

“Sit. And don't mind me,” Rick said, rubbing the stubble on his cheek. “I just got up, haven't shaved yet. Have a cup of coffee. You too, Dusty.”

“I would love some,” Beth said, sighing and shaking her auburn hair. “I spent half the day next door with the Thornes. What a nightmare. The other half I have spent beating the bushes.”

“What is young Benjamin's dilemma?” Rick asked.

“We have a state of emergency,” Beth said flatly. “Boo Boo Kitty is missing, and Benjie is bawling his eyes out. We've looked everywhere for the little bugger, and I don't know how I'll get that kid to go to bed tonight unless we find her.”

“I haven't seen her. What about you, Laurel?”

“Not since yesterday.” She poured Beth's coffee, slopping some into the saucer. “I'm so clumsy,” she apologized, blotting it awkwardly with a napkin.

Rick sipped his, then stared into the cup. “Is this instant?”

Laurel nodded, her face flushed.

“What happened to the fancy contraption that grinds up the beans and spits out the coffee?”

“I'm sorry. It won't work.”

“It's okay, babe, I drink worse stuff on the job all the time. I'm just spoiled rotten. What's the matter with the machine?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I can't get it open to put the beans in.”

Dusty bounced energetically out of her chair and into the kitchen, uninvited. “Let me look at it, I'm pretty good with these things.” She swiftly examined the machine. “Here,” she said, simply sliding open the little panel. “There's nothing wrong with it. The beans go in here, the filter there, the water there, and the coffee comes out here. Voilà.”

“Of course.” Laurel looked flustered. “I just forgot how the darn thing works.”

“When all else fails, read the instructions,” Rick said. Laurel seemed so disconcerted that Beth threw both arms around her in a warm hug. “It's been a rough weekend. It's a wonder any of us are still sane,” she said, sitting down again across from Rick. “I know I won't be if Boo Boo Kitty does not bring her furry little ass home.”

“Someone must have picked her up last night,” Laurel said.

Beth shook her head. “She was here this morning. She and Benjie were playing in the backyard. I was hoping she had wandered in here.”

“Bet she doesn't miss a meal,” Rick said heartily. “Cats know how to take care of themselves. She'll come back. Chuckles is almost fifteen years old, and he has never missed a meal.”

“Yeah, Chuckles was your mom's cat,” Beth said smiling.

“He came with the house,” Rick said. “Mom thought he'd have trouble adjusting to condo living. I built his pet door in the garage when he was the size of Boo Boo.”

“Tell your folks I asked for them next time you talk to 'em. I'm gonna go check across the street,” Beth said. “If Boo Boo Kitty shows her face, puh-leeze call me.”

“What does she look like? I'll keep an eye out too, as long as I'm in the neighborhood anyway.” Dusty pushed her chair back from the table and stood up, altered instantly from friendly feminine coffee-klatsch demeanor to the no-nonsense body language of somebody accustomed to taking control: alert, back straight, feet slightly apart and planted firmly. Rick watched. He could not help recalling that he liked her reverse transformation better, from tough cop, a cool professional, to woman, warm and seductive, wet and willing. Wonder Woman to sex kitten. He had always found it a turn-on.

“Appreciate it. Small, pale gray, fluffy. Thanks for the coffee.” Beth winked at Laurel, who looked ill.

None of the messages waiting at headquarters related to the murder of Rob Thorne; it was as though the killer had appeared out of nowhere, then melted back into the muggy night. The reward might generate some tips. The parents had offered five thousand dollars for information leading to the killer's arrest and conviction. They were willing to make it more, but Rick advised against starting high. If the facts were out there, the people most likely to have them would turn in their mothers for a lot less than five thousand dollars.

The fund-raising effort by the student groups touched Rick. It made the dead boy's parents cry.

Dominguez and Thomas were still working the convenience-store shooting. The next case would go to Rick's team. There was no hiatus. He and Jim went to records to pull a printout of recently paroled burglars to check out in the Thorne case. They were only gone for fifteen minutes. By the time they got back, it was their turn. A stranger was dead.

Dusty looked up brightly from her desk. She wore deep blue, the same shade as her eyes. “We've got one holding,” she said briskly. “Went down about ten minutes ago. Some kind of a fight down in the Hole, one dead, the perp is being held at the scene by uniform.”

“Shooting?” Rick said coolly, picking up his walkie.

“Nope,” she said. “No weapons involved, apparently. Just a beating.”

“Let's go.”

Dusty punched the elevator button. “And
who
is Terrance McGee? He says he has found new evidence. Are you really investigating attempts to poison him? Why didn't you fill me in?”

“A wacko,” Jim said. “Paranoid.”

“Really? I just spent a half an hour on the telephone with the man.”

“Now he's got somebody new to talk to,” Jim said gleefully.

“And he sounded so sincere,” Dusty said, as the doors slid open and they stepped inside.

“They always do,” Jim said.

“Ain't
that
the truth?” The doors whooshed closed.

The Hole is inner city, a tough Overtown neighborhood of dilapidated apartments, thriving crack houses and all-night bars. The disgruntled suspect was locked in the back of a cage car. “Sly!” Dusty called out in surprise. Gone were the graceful and fluid movements. He waved awkwardly. His hands were cuffed at the wrists.

When he saw that no one in the slightly unruly crowd was watching, that all eyes were glued to the covered corpse sprawled on the pavement, he furtively shook his head. “I didn't do it,” he mouthed frantically from behind the glass.

“It's J.L. Sly,” she said aloud, in her precise, deadpan delivery. “And he says he didn't do it.”

Jim grunted. “That's what they all say.”

“We warned him about that king fu crap,” Rick muttered. “Let's see what we have.” He stepped over the yellow crime-scene tape, lifted the paper sheet, did a double take and whistled. The dead man was a well-built Latin, nearly twice J.L.'s size. His only apparent injury was a small, slightly bloody cut on the forehead.

“What have you got?” Rick asked a young cop. He was a rookie who snapped to attention, all spit and polish.

“Sir, the two individuals in question apparently participated in some type of altercation. The alleged perpetrator, a local resident who is well known for his expertise in the science of martial arts, struck the victim a single blow, causing his demise, sir.”

“Is that the head injury?”

“No, sir. The laceration to the front of the victim's head appears to have been sustained when it made contact with the pavement, sir. He was apparently already deceased at that point in time.”

“I wish you would speak English,” Rick sighed.

“Beg your pardon, sir?”

“Never mind. Good job, Officer.”

“What
are
they teaching them in the academy these days?” Dusty asked softly. She stood on the opposite side of the dead man. “Big fellow, isn't he? J.L. must be good to waste him.”

“Everybody knows his reputation, I wonder why this guy didn't back off.”

“Maybe he's new in town.”

The crowd had become increasingly raucous. “Okay,” Dusty shouted. “Back on the sidewalk, everybody! You, too. You know you can't block the street. You heard me!” The crowd scattered before her like a flock of pigeons.

Jim watched. Her ability to control ghetto crowds always impressed him. Young blacks will often obediently follow orders from a woman, while the same orders from a man would create a confrontation. There is nothing macho about decking a woman, he thought, or maybe it's the matriarchal society they live in. So many young blacks are raised by mothers and grandmothers, women accustomed to being listened to, women who have to be tough to survive and bring up their children alone in bad neighborhoods.

“Okay, now, listen up,” Dusty shouted. “If you saw what happened, step right over here so I can write down your name. Those of you who didn't see anything, stay behind that yellow rope, or better yet, go on about your business.”

The witnesses were eager. The victim had burst into the corner bar, belligerent and disoriented, screaming in Spanish. He appeared to be under the influence and scuffled violently with several patrons. He eluded their grasp and ran out the door, smack into J.L. Sly. The crowd watched J.L. posture and pose as he warned the stranger to back off and behave himself. But J.L.'s sudden crouches and shrill kung fu cries were no deterrent. Instead, the big man kept coming. Wild and roaring, he forced J.L. into a corner, his back to the wall. Excited, the crowd pressed in for a closer look. The moment of truth came—and went. J.L. hesitated. Disappointed doubters catcalled. The big man lunged forward for the kill. At last J.L. hit him. The blow missed his opponent's head by a mile and glanced off a burly bicep. No matter. The big man dropped like a rock and never moved again. The stunned crowd fell back, whispering “Kung fu” and respectfully murmuring J.L.'s name.

J.L. appeared dazed himself. He simply stood there, staring down at his crumpled victim until police arrived.

The detectives sent the dead man to the morgue and took J.L. to headquarters. Stoic as they drove through the awed crowd of spectators, he managed a clenched-fist salute for a few acquaintances who pressed their faces against the car windows and shouted his name.

He was an entirely different man in the interrogation room, slumped woefully, crumpled in a wooden chair, hands still cuffed.

“Killed the guy with one blow,” Jim said, nodding approval. “You don't have just a reputation anymore, J.L. You rate legend in your own time. But most likely you will never get to enjoy the status because, speaking of time, you will probably never see daylight again.”

“You're not going to charge me, are you?” Panic cracked his voice. He searched each face, his eyes wild. “I barely touched him.”

“J.L.,” Dusty said gently, “the man is dead. He didn't commit suicide.”

“Come on, guys, I helped you out
beaucoup
times.”

“I know, we're friends,” Rick conceded. “We warned you. But did you listen? You think this makes us happy? We're going to have to charge you with second-degree murder.”

“It was an accident!” J.L. screamed.

“Martial arts training makes your hands lethal weapons. You've said so yourself a thousand times. You didn't have to duke it out with the man, you could have run, or walked away. The fact that you iced the guy with one blow makes it obvious you knew what you were doing. I'm sorry,” Rick said, nodding at Dusty.

“Now, J.L.,” she said, “I believe the officers at the scene advised you of your rights, but we want to do it again, and we want you to initial every paragraph.”

“It's not true!” J.L. wailed. “Take these off,” he whimpered, rattling the handcuffs and holding up his wrists.

“I don't know about that,” Dusty said. She looked at Rick, then back at J.L., who was now sobbing as tears skidded down his face. “As ludicrous as it seems, since he
did
just kill a man with his bare hands, I am inclined to take them off.”

Rick sighed and nodded, then dug in his pocket for the key. “Behave yourself, will you, J.L.?”

The man nodded, rubbing his wrists and sulking. “Thanks, Miss Dustin. I have a confession to make. A good example for wise men to follow…”

“Okay, but the form first.”

J.L. listened and scrawled his initials after every paragraph. “Now?” he whispered, still sniffling.

Dusty nodded and handed him a tissue. He blew his nose loudly, wiped his eyes and began.

His confession was not precisely what they expected.

“Look at me,” he demanded. “I'm five feet, four inches tall, with lifts in my shoes. I weigh a hundred and twenty pounds. I never grew.”

The detectives looked puzzled.

“Neither did Michael J. Fox, J.L. We want to know about what happened tonight—” Dusty said, clearing her throat.

“I'm coming to that. I'm coming to that. Look at the neighborhood where I grew up. You know it's survival, survival of the fittest. And I was never
fit
. I could do no sports. I didn't have no brothers and sisters to stand up for me. I was sickly when I was a child. In school nobody wanted me on no team. Other kids picked on me, knocked me down and took my stuff.”

“The fight tonight, J.L.”

“I'm getting to it. I'm getting to it! Give me a chance!”

“Okay, okay.”

“I never did much but stay to home, sitting in front of the TV—and then one day it changed my whole life. I saw a show about kung fu. It came on every week, stories about a man who was taught the ancient art, a man who brought harmony and got respect. He could protect people and right wrongs. Like Sir Galahad.”

Dusty's right eyebrow raised slightly at the image.

“So you learned kung fu,” Jim said impatiently.

“No.” J.L. looked genuinely surprised at the suggestion. “Where would I learn that? I saw the movements of the great circle and learned how to scream from watching the TV show. I practiced a lot. I practiced all the time,” he said softly, “in front of mirrors by myself.

“When my mama died I took her home, back up to Georgia. I promised her I would. Then I stayed up there for a while visiting my cousins and relatives. Day after I come back, I had on my new suit, the one I bought for the funeral, and a bunch of jitterbugs in Overtown decided to take it away from me. It wouldn't even have fit any of them. It was just sport to them.

“I don't know why I did it. But I had been practicing my moves and my yells so much, it just happened. They got scared and backed off. I told them I learned it from an oriental man, a master I met while I was away. I got respect. I could walk down any street, anytime. Everybody believed it, because I was good. I was really good. I never had to put a hurt on anybody. Although,” he stared at the floor, his voice dropping, “I might have told them I did. I said that's why I came back, cuz I hurt a man real bad and the law was after me.”

“But it wasn't true?” Rick said.

“That's right, it was show. It was all show. But everybody believed it. People looked up to me. I could stop barroom fights. I could make bullies back down and stop beating on their women. I could be a hero. All I had to do was walk in the move like this.” He got to his feet and slipped into a crouch, his dark hands moving in menacing circles.

“Sit down,” Rick said, absently rubbing his temple as though his head ached. “You're saying you never really learned it?”

“That's right,” J.L. said, sliding gracefully into his chair.

“Then what happened tonight?” Dusty asked.

“That's what I'm trying to tell you,” he said earnestly. “Nothing. That's exactly what happened. Nothing. That crazy man was about to kill me. I knew I was about to die. But everybody was watching, and he wouldn't back off, so I finally took a chop at his head, but I missed. I barely touched his arm. Let me show you.”

He reached over and lightly tapped the side of his hand on Rick's upper arm.

“Watch it.” Jim's big hand instinctively went to the .38 in his leather shoulder holster.

“It's okay,” Rick said, holding his arm up, as if to demonstrate that it was still intact. He shook his head in disbelief.

“So if that was all that happened, how did you drop the guy?” Jim said.

“He just fell down.”

“Just fell down and died. Well, that's novel,” Jim said.

“If, and I emphasize that word,” Rick said, “
if
you're telling the truth, it had to be just a lucky punch. You got pumped up and hit him harder than you thought. With your reputation, it's going to be an uphill battle for you to convince a prosecutor that it's manslaughter, not homicide.”

“Manslaughter? I barely touched him. I know I didn't hurt the man!”

“Nobody shot him,” Jim said. “Nobody knifed him. I didn't see an arrow in his back. You hit him and he's dead.”

“We have to book you,” Rick said.

“You're really going to put me in jail? I don't believe it. I—I've never been to jail. It's not right. Sergeant, Miss Dustin?” His eyes moved from face to face in search of a friend.

Dusty looked away, staring uncomfortably at the arrest form on the table in front of her.

Rick ignored his pleading gaze and summoned a uniform who stepped in and motioned for J.L. to get to his feet and accompany him to the booking desk. “I didn't do it!” he insisted.

“Watch him,” Jim told the officer. “His hands are lethal weapons.”

“That's not true!” J.L. said. “I may have been wrong to fake it, but everybody has to be a hero sometime.” The officer snapped a new set of cuffs around his wrists and steered him out the door, still protesting.

“Everybody has to be a hero sometime! Everybody has…” J.L.'s mournful wails echoed off the cold walls of the empty hallway until cut off by the elevator doors as they closed.