Ricochet (19 page)

“Where’s Ballew’s lawyer?”

“Waived one,” the narc told him. “Said he was ready to sign a confession, go straight to jail, do not pass Go.”

DeeDee had been practically dancing in place with impatience. “Are we going to get a crack at him, or what?”

“Be our guest,” the narc said.

As they moved toward the interrogation room, DeeDee asked Duncan, “Were you good cop or bad cop last time we questioned Gordie?”

“Bad. Let’s stick with that.”

“Okay.”

The narc opened the door to the small, dreary room and told the interrogating officer that he had a phone call. “Besides, homicide has a hard-on for our boy here.”

“Homicide?” Gordie squeaked.

The narcotics officer stepped aside to make room for Duncan and DeeDee. “He’s all yours. Y’all have fun.” He strolled out and let the door swing closed behind him.

“Hi, Gordie.” DeeDee took a seat across the small table from him. “How are you?”

“How’s it look?” he mumbled.

Ignoring the attitude behind his reply, she introduced herself by name. “Remember us? My partner there is Duncan Hatcher.”

“I know you.” Gordie cast a wary glance toward Duncan where he was leaning up against the wall, arms folded over his chest, ankles crossed.

“Didn’t the narcs get you anything to drink? What would you like?” She moved as though to get up.

“Sit down, DeeDee,” Duncan said. “He doesn’t need anything to drink.”

DeeDee frowned at him with feigned asperity and dropped back into the chair. “You picked the wrong time to get busted, Gordie. Duncan’s pissed. He had plans for this morning, but now he’s here with you.”

“Don’t let me keep you, Detective.”

The con’s cheeky courage was short-lived. He shriveled under Duncan’s hard glare. “Let’s stop screwing around,” he said to DeeDee, “book him for murder two, and I can be on my way.”

“The guy died?” Gordie squealed. “He wasn’t bleeding that much. Swear to God it was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt him that bad. He said something about my lip. I was high. It happened before I realized. Oh Jesus. Murder two? I’ll confess to assault, but… Oh Jesus.”

“Relax, Gordie.” Duncan’s somber tone and the sinister way in which he pushed himself away from the wall and sauntered toward the table didn’t inspire relaxation.

Gordie Ballew began to cry, his knobby shoulders bobbing up and down.

“Duncan, he needs a Kleenex,” DeeDee said kindly.

“No, he doesn’t.” Duncan sat down on the corner of the table.

Gordie wiped his running nose on his sleeve and looked up at him with patent fear. “He
died
? I barely swiped him with that broken bottle.”

“The guy you assaulted last night was treated and released.”

Gordie sniffed loudly. He gaped up at Duncan, then looked at DeeDee, who nodded encouragingly. “Then how come y’all’re talking murder two?”

“Another case, Gordie. Freddy Morris.”

His face, flushed with anxiety moments before, turned pale. He licked snot off his misshapen upper lip. His eyes began to dart between them, wild with fear. “You’re crazy, Hatcher. I didn’t have nothing to do with Freddy Morris. Me? You kidding?”

“No. I’m not kidding. You want to change your mind about that lawyer?”

Gordie was too upset for that to register. “I… I never shot nobody. I’m scared of guns. They make me nervous.”

“That’s why we’re not charging you with first degree. We don’t believe you made poor Freddy lie down in that marsh, cut out his tongue, and then popped him in the back of the head with a forty-five.” He pretended to fire a pistol and made a loud noise with his mouth.

Gordie flinched. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“You can hold it.”

“Duncan,” DeeDee said.

“I
said
, he can hold it.”

She looked at Gordie with sympathy and raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug.

“Look, Gordie,” Duncan said, “we know, those narcs outside know, the Feds know, we all know you gave Freddy Morris over to Savich.”

“Are you nuts?
Savich
? He scares me worse than guns. If Freddy had been smarter, he would have been scared of him, too, and kept his trap shut.”

Duncan looked over at DeeDee with a complacent grin, as though expecting her to congratulate him for scoring a point. Too late, Gordie realized that he’d given himself away. Immediately he tried to rectify it. “At least that was the word on the street. I heard that Freddy Morris, uh, you know, was in conversation with y’all. I didn’t have personal knowledge of it.”

“I think you did, Gordie,” Duncan countered smoothly.

“No,” he said, shaking his head adamantly. “Not me. Un-unh.”

He squirmed in his chair. He wiped his damp palms on the thighs of his grimy blue jeans. He blinked hard as though clearing his vision.

Duncan let him stew for a moment, then said, “Tell me about Savich.”

“He’s a tough customer. So I hear. I only know him by reputation.”

“You work for him. You cook and sell meth for him.”

“I peddle some dope now and then, yeah. I don’t know where it comes from.”

“It comes from Savich.”

“Naw, naw, he’s a mechanic, ain’t he? Makes machines or something?”

“You think I’m queer, Gordie?” Duncan asked angrily.

“Huh? No!”

“Is that what you think?”

“No, I—”

“Then stop jerking me around. You’re not clever enough to outsmart me. You’re one of Savich’s most reliable mules. We’ve got schoolkids who testified at your last trial, Gordie, remember? They said under oath that they go to you for a sure score.”

“I admitted to dealing every now and then. Didn’t I?” He turned to DeeDee, frantically seeking her backing. “Didn’t you hear me just admit that?”

“You’re far too humble, Gordie,” Duncan said. “Savich depends on you to make addicts, future customers, out of children. You’ve introduced them to meth. You’ve got them raiding their folks’ medicine cabinets for boxes of Sudafed. You’re an asset to Savich’s operation.”

The little man swallowed hard. “Far as I know, his operation is that machine shop.”

“Are you afraid that if you talk about him to us, you’ll wind up like Freddy Morris did?”

“What I heard? I heard… I heard Freddy bought it over some woman. A guy, I don’t know who, did Freddy on account of he was banging his old lady. That’s the story I got.”

Duncan spoke softly, but with menace. “You’re jerking me around again.”

“I ain’t gonna say nothing about Savich,” the convict cried out, his voice tearing. He tapped the tabletop with a dirty, chipped fingernail. “You’ll never get me to say anything, neither. Not now, not ever.”

He appealed to DeeDee, whining, “Where’s the confession? Those first cops that arrested me? They said it would take a while to draw up the paperwork. Left me waiting here, and in come those narcs, harassing me. Now y’all. Just let me sign a confession saying I went at that guy last night with a broken beer bottle. Lock me up. I’m ready to take my punishment.”

“We could make a deal—” DeeDee began.

“No deal,” he said with a stubborn shake of his head.

“We could make this assault with a deadly weapon charge disappear like that.” Duncan snapped his fingers an inch away from Gordie’s flat nose. “Or we could lay several others on you. We might even ratchet this charge up to attempted murder. You’d do more time.”

“Fine. You do that, Hatcher,” he said, calling Duncan’s bluff. “I’d rather go to jail than… Nothing,” he finished in a mumble.

“Than wind up like Freddy Morris?” DeeDee asked.

But even her seeming gentleness didn’t make a dent. She and Duncan continued with him for another half hour. He would not incriminate Savich. “Not even for spittin’ on the sidewalk,” he avowed.

They left him alone, not showing their weariness until they were out of the room. DeeDee slumped against the wall. “I’ve never had to try so hard to be nice. I wanted to wring it out of the little jerk.”

“You were convincing. Even I thought you were turning soft.” Duncan was teasing, and she knew it, but neither was in the mood for levity.

“Y’all did the best you could,” said one of the narcotics officers gazing morosely at the video monitor, where Gordie could be seen gnawing at a bleeding cuticle. “Can’t say as I blame him. Freddy Morris had his tongue cut out. Savich got to Chet Rollins in prison. Somebody crammed a bar of soap down his gullet. He died slow. And that Andre… what was his last name?”

“Bonnet,” Duncan supplied.

“No sooner had the DEA struck a deal with him to testify against Savich than his house blows up, his mother, his girlfriend, and her two kids in there with him.”

“Savich got a hung jury and that screwup ADA ruined us for a retrial,” Duncan said. “He got away with killing five people. The baby was three months old.”

“We thought we had Morris locked down tight,” the narc said, taking out his frustration on his chewing gum. “That Savich is one smart sumbitch.”

“He’s not that smart,” Duncan growled. “We’ll get him.”

“Doesn’t look like we’re going to get him with Gordie Ballew’s help,” the second narc said.

“Even if he made a deal with us, Gordie isn’t a good candidate.” They all looked to Duncan to elaborate on his statement. “First off, he’s scared shitless of Savich. He’d give himself away before you could set up the sting. Secondly, he’s resigned to spending most of his life behind bars.

“In fact, I think he wants to. Why would he risk dying violently by ratting out Savich, when he can be guaranteed three squares a day and a home where everybody else is just as bad off as he is? For someone as pathetic as Gordie, that’s about the best deal available.”

They all muttered agreement of sorts. Duncan and DeeDee left the others to wrap up getting Gordon Ballew’s confession to the assault charge.

“Who do we know I could get to sweep my house for electronic bugs?”

By tacit agreement, Duncan and DeeDee had regrouped in his office. She was opening a can of Diet Coke when he asked his surprise question, nearly causing her to spill the drink.

“You think your house is
bugged
?”

He told her about his overnight guest.

She listened, her mouth slack with disbelief. “Duncan, you stupid—”

“I know, I know.” He raised his hands in surrender. “I was an idiot. I confess. But it happened. Now I’ve got to do some damage control.”

“She could have killed you.”

“Savich is saving that particular honor for himself. This was just another taunt, his way of letting me know how vulnerable I am.”

“Was she worth it?”

“I don’t even remember,” he admitted. “I didn’t know anything until you called and woke me up. When she dropped that bombshell, I bounded out of bed and chased her downstairs. She struck off down the sidewalk at a run. I would’ve gone after her, but realized I was bare-assed, unarmed, and that possibly that was the plan. Savich could be waiting out there in the bushes, ready to pop me the minute I appeared. So I went back in, got my weapon, and searched the house, thinking he might be inside. He wasn’t, of course. Far as I can tell, nothing was disturbed.”

“Except her side of the bed.”

“You couldn’t resist, could you?”

“Did she take anything?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t notice anything missing. But while I was asleep she might have planted some kind of surveillance equipment in my house. I want it checked as soon as possible.”

Within half an hour, they’d run down a surveillance expert who sometimes did contract work for the department. He promised to do the sweep later that morning. Duncan gave him the location of his hidden key as well as the code of his alarm system, which he’d changed before leaving the house.

As he concluded the call, DeeDee stacked her hands atop the mass of steel wool that passed for hair, and sighed with resignation. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Send me to my room?”

“Did you at least use a condom?”

“I did.”

“Well, that’s something. And you’re being conscientious about setting your house alarm. That’s good. But from now on, get references before you take a woman to bed, okay? If Savich is—”

“Cato Laird lied to us.”

She dropped her hands from her head. “I thought we were discussing Savich.”

“Now we’re discussing the Lairds.”

“You learned something yesterday after sending me away from the country club, didn’t you? You fibbed when you told me nothing came out of your locker room chat with the judge. Waste of time, you said.”

He’d called her on his cell phone from the taxi he’d taken from the club to his town house. “Yeah, I fibbed.”

“How come?”

“Because I wanted to take an evening off.”

“Look how that turned out,” she said drolly.

“I knew if I even hinted that I’d learned something potentially important, neither of us would have had a night off, and in my estimation, both of us needed one.”

“I could kill you,” she snarled. “But not before you tell me what you found out.”

“He lied to us about Meyer Napoli.”

He recounted everything Judge Laird had told him about hiring the private investigator to follow Elise. “He’s so crazy in love, he doesn’t care that their marriage has cost him the respect of friends and associates. Possibly even his next reelection. They share a passionate sexual appetite for each other. Even though she had an affair, he loved her too much to confront her with it. It’s over. History. The marriage remains intact. Everyone’s happy.”

“She doesn’t know that he hired Napoli?”

“He says she doesn’t.”

“So the lady was telling the truth when she claimed she’d never heard of him.”

“I guess.”

“And the judge is convinced the affair is over?”

“Oh, it’s over, all right.”

DeeDee looked at him quizzically.

“Mrs. Laird’s lover was Coleman Greer.”

T
HEY WENT TO BREAKFAST IN A DOWNTOWN COFFEE SHOP NEAR
the Barracks. DeeDee ordered an egg white omelet with fat-free cheese, fresh tomatoes, and whole wheat toast. Duncan had two eggs over easy, fluffy grits with melting butter, sausage links, and biscuits with gravy.