Sleep Don't Come Easy (19 page)
Read Sleep Don't Come Easy Online
Authors: Victor McGlothin
“His memory is subject to come back a little at a time or all at once with a sudden jolt or a shocking experience,” Vera told him. Her big riddle was working on her overtime now. “You also said a person would be lucky to make it out of that motel alive. Maybe Rags was just that lucky.”
At Vera's behest, Lucius searched newspaper archives on the Internet. Side by side, they scanned over newspaper articles, looking for shootings that happened up to sixty days before Rags was found in that central Texas hunting cabin. Several stories had been written about the infamous motel, the goings-on there and Newel's death. However, they couldn't find one shred of evidence to implicate Vera's client in it. Once again it appeared Rags was innocent of murder.
Then Lucius ran across a front page headline about a dirty narcotics officer, shot down in the street two days after the other murder. Vera thought it peculiar that the article was sketchy at best. An exhaustive search did not produce any additional stories concerning Officer Warren Sikes's demise or impending investigations. If Newel and the slain cop were up to something that got them executed, it likely didn't have anything to do with Rags. However, if his dreams were tied to either crime, Vera was duty-bound to turn him in. There were no two ways about it.
After searching the police department's database, she climbed into her second-hand Explorer with the article and an outdated photocopy of Warren Sikes in his first year as a patrolman. He had the world in front of him. He was young, thin, and alive.
Nine
A
fter brunch with Lucius, Vera was so off balance it felt like she'd misplaced her purse. Ms. Minnie hadn't called her cell phone and possibly did not intend to ever again. As she spent time thinking about the older woman's premonition, Vera's mind began to swirl. It all seemed so silly before, to go getting worked up over a white man who hadn't come through one of the normal referral channels. Typically, former clients who walked away from Vera's office with exactly what they paid for sent others her way. In the three years she'd been in business for herself, Rags was her first white unicorn; a white man throwing money at her instead of employing more reputable firms where he'd feel more comfortable. That was just another in the train of lingering questions still eluding Vera. She couldn't find one reason why Rags was drawn to her, not one.
fter brunch with Lucius, Vera was so off balance it felt like she'd misplaced her purse. Ms. Minnie hadn't called her cell phone and possibly did not intend to ever again. As she spent time thinking about the older woman's premonition, Vera's mind began to swirl. It all seemed so silly before, to go getting worked up over a white man who hadn't come through one of the normal referral channels. Typically, former clients who walked away from Vera's office with exactly what they paid for sent others her way. In the three years she'd been in business for herself, Rags was her first white unicorn; a white man throwing money at her instead of employing more reputable firms where he'd feel more comfortable. That was just another in the train of lingering questions still eluding Vera. She couldn't find one reason why Rags was drawn to her, not one.
Vera spent several hours, running personal errands, before heading back to the office. She parked along the street in front of her building. Her pockets were full but her head was ringing. A strange chill crept up her back as she turned off the engine. Once more, she experienced an unnerving feeling that someone had her under their surveillance. Vera quickly checked her rearview and side mirrors. No nondescript panel vans idled next to the curb as far as she could see. There wasn't one single unmarked police car on the avenue. Just before dismissing the thought altogether, Vera turned toward the opposite side of the street. Her tired brown eyes met with a pair of green ones staring back, from inside the small diner.
From the moment Vera dropped him off, Rags had been gazing out of the large window waiting for something to happen, anything that could have possibly helped him. Becoming increasingly consumed with despair and guilt, he had been renting the booth, biding his time and hoping that Vera returned with some news. Whether the news was good or bad didn't matter. Rags had grown darn tired of wondering what amends he'd have to make for sins of his past. Watching Vera stare at him as if he was a stray dog she didn't fully trust, Rags put ego and humility aside for the sake of truth. Just when it appeared Vera had decided to turn away from him, the beleaguered cowboy stood from the booth calmly as a plea for her company and an up-to-date report on her progress.
“Hell,” Vera mouthed, as she marched across the street. “I must be crazy.” She offered a faint smile to Rags through the window after stepping onto the sidewalk. After he felt sure she would join him, Rags returned to his seat at the booth. “Hell,” she cussed again, while trying to guess how much more breathing she'd be allowed to do before someone was nailing shut her coffin.
“Thanks for coming over, Vera,” Rags whispered, low and slow like a stubborn apology. “I thought for sure you'd see me, then turn tail and scoot in the other direction.” When Vera didn't bother to sit or respond, he began to fiddle with a stale cup of coffee on the table. “Truth be told, I wouldn't blame you if you had.”
Vera's hard expression softened after she took a seat. She signaled for the waitress to slide by with two fresh cups of java. Vera hadn't ever eaten at the greasy spoon because it didn't look all that clean from her office. Now that she was inside, the small restaurant didn't appear to be half bad. Each of the ten tables had been wiped down from previous customers and the floor was fairly spotless. “I wouldn't tell me that again if I were you. It's hard enough turning over rocks in someone else's backyard anyhow.”
“I can't say that I understand,” he muttered, uncomfortably.
“Meaning, the only rock worth a damn had a dead male prostitute under it.” Vera neglected to share what she'd learned about the slain officer. If Rags had something to do with it, she didn't want to tip him off that she suspected it. “Look Rags, I'm working hard on your case. That hasn't changed. While there might not be anything to find, I'm going to keep looking anyway. But I need to know a thing or two from you.”
“Like what?” he asked anxiously.
Vera thanked the waitress then sprinkled a pink packet of sweetener into the piping hot coffee. “Well, it would pay to know exactly how far you're willing to go with this?” She could tell by the way his eyelids shuddered that he didn't fully comprehend that question either. “What if I come across some very damning evidence that could send you to prison or worse?” Suddenly his eyelids closed like he was mulling over her answer. When his head fell forward, Vera leaned in to get a closer look at him. “Rags, you all right? Rags?” she said, pulling at his wrist lying on the table.
“Yeah, yeah,” he whispered quietly. “I'm up. I'm up.”
With both her eyes trained on his, Vera realized that he'd simply fallen asleep. Regardless of what she may have found underneath other unturned rocks, Rags was suffering from sleep deprivation. There was no telling how many days he'd been awake or what little rest he did get since arriving back in Dallas.
“What?” Rags grunted, with an oversized yawn. “Did I miss something?”
“By the looks of it, too little shuteye to go on this way,” she told him. “I've seen what a lack of decent sleep can do to a person's mind. Believe me, the paranoia ain't pretty and that's just the beginning.”
“I could pal around with you some. You know, help you while seeing how my money is being spent.”
“No way in hell that happens,” she objected. “I'm too busy to babysit you. That's not in my job description. I'd like to clear you or give you enough rope to hang yourself, if you want, but I have too many corners to turn to have you falling asleep every five minutes and slowing me down.” Vera took two meager sips from her cup. “Rags, is there any chance you'd been involved with the police department as an informant, like that Newell guy?”
“Sorry, but I can't recollect what I was,” he replied honestly.
“Yeah, you're right,” said Vera, “you can't
recollect
. I'll tell you what you can and will do though, get back to whereever you're staying, lie down and close your eyes for as long as possible. You need it and I'll work better without having to check in on you.”
recollect
. I'll tell you what you can and will do though, get back to whereever you're staying, lie down and close your eyes for as long as possible. You need it and I'll work better without having to check in on you.”
“Just don't stop digging,” he pleaded. “However it turns out. I need the dreams to stop. I need to know about me.”
Vera stared across the table at Rags, his narrowed bloodshot eyes. He was very close to falling asleep again. “Uh-huh, you and me both,” she heard herself admit aloud before leaving him with his head slumped on the table. Vera wanted to wake him but realized immediately that every bit of rest he managed to get was long overdue. The waitress informed her that Rags had been napping off and on. None of the customers seemed to mind and since he'd given the waitress a fifty-dollar tip on a six-dollar bill, she didn't mind either.
It had begun to sink in just how desperate Rags's situation had become. The way he'd internalized it couldn't have been healthy, Vera thought as she hustled back to her office. “I need to talk to you about one of the names on that list,” Vera said into her telephone. “Harold Newel was clipped at the Lazy 8, that rundown gay motel off Loop 12.”
“I know the place. Can't help but to,” Detective Beasley said. “Lots of bad things go on down there.” He wanted to say “I knew it,” but didn't. He figured that Vera had her teeth deep in something and wasn't ready to let go. He'd been there before, foolishly following leads that seemed to go no place in particular although his gut kept telling him to push ahead. “Okay, I know how this works, Vera. You tell me something, hoping I'm interested enough to return the favor. Well, you're out of luck. That's not one of my cases and it's unsolved for a reason. There were no suspects and no reason to think the attack was anything but a jilted lover getting even. Gay druggies and murder aren't the combo you want to stand too close to, trust me. Homo-cides can get very nasty,” he jested.
“Yeah, but,” she started to say before Beasley cut her off playfully.
“Hey, I'm too old for wild goose chases. Didn't we already go down this road before?”
“There's more to it now,” Vera answered, in a manner that forced the detective to put down his jellyroll. “My client knew that guy who got done in. I showed him the list of names and he recognized Newel's but didn't know for sure from where.”
Beasley picked up the second half of his pastry then, deciding what Vera dangled wasn't enough to stop him from eating. “Maybe your guy was soliciting this Newel. Maybe they partied together back in the day. Who knows and who cares? I know I don't.”
“Would you care if I told you that Newel had nine narcotics arrests, zero convictions?
“You're saying he was protected, a snitch?” Beasley asked, while nibbling from the pastry. “And?”
“And two nights after someone clapped him, a narcotics detective was killed. His death was all over the papers, then dropped from the front page like it never happened. You probably knew him, a thirteen-year vet named Warren Sikes. From where I stand, it seems like a janky coincidence. Someone clips the snitch, then . . .” she added, to stir the pot.
“Okay, now you've stepped over the line, Vera. This is not a conversation I want to have and I'm not having it over this phone. I'm about to leave my desk. Don't go too far.”
Donald Beasley called Vera from his cell phone in the back of the police dressing room. He searched among three rows of locker to make sure he was alone before explaining how Internal Affairs had the Sikes shooting under wraps from day one and added that the slain detective must have been dirty, because the departmental brass prohibited any of his friends from working the investigation. The entire case was sewn up tight and put away quietly. “Someone high up was looking down on that shooting and pulling all of the strings,” he said, as an afterthought. “I'm surprised you don't remember it, Vera. Sikes was shot near your office. If my memory serves me, the botched robbery that got him killed went down at that diner. What's it called? The name is something kinda catchy, Midnight Snack or, oh, yeah, Leftovers.”
Goosebumps ran up Vera's arms when Beasley informed her where the crime had taken place. The exact location wasn't mentioned in the articles she read. To think that Rags was probably still in the restaurant asleep made her cringe. The first thought that came to her was criminals returning to the scene of the crime. Now, there was a pressing desire to learn everything she could about the particulars of the case, including why Detective Sikes was shot and why the police department threw up the blue wall of resistance to keep a lid on the investigation.
With her heart rate climbing, Vera raced to her office window. She couldn't conclude if Rags was still renting a booth with outlandish tips, but she had a major concern, getting some answers without him doing something stupid like stowing away in her vehicle again, or worse. Vera thanked Detective Beasley for the information then thought long and hard what to do next. Beasley folded his flip phone closed and did the same. As soon as he exited the locker room, someone flushed the toilet a few feet away from where he'd discussed the “don't ask” police homicide that he shouldn't have, especially with the wrong somebody listening in.
Ten
V
era paced back and forth in her office, waiting on a phone call to set off her next move. She'd reached out to Glow with a voice message telling her that it was urgent she get back as soon as possible. Vera wouldn't go into detail because Glow would weigh her options if she had too much information. Vera didn't want to be put on hold while her girlfriend debated which was more pressing, picking up extra work on the side or hatching her own money-making scheme. When Glow came strutting, knocking at the door, in a black sweatsuit and running shoes, Vera had her answer.
era paced back and forth in her office, waiting on a phone call to set off her next move. She'd reached out to Glow with a voice message telling her that it was urgent she get back as soon as possible. Vera wouldn't go into detail because Glow would weigh her options if she had too much information. Vera didn't want to be put on hold while her girlfriend debated which was more pressing, picking up extra work on the side or hatching her own money-making scheme. When Glow came strutting, knocking at the door, in a black sweatsuit and running shoes, Vera had her answer.
“You got my message,” Vera said, with a smirk. Her words came out more in the manner of a statement than a question.
“I'm here, ain't I?” Glow answered flippantly. She huffed then folded her arms. “Why didn't you leave word and tell me what you wanted? You know how I hate that.”
“Hate what, Glow, me trying to put some money in your pockets?” Vera spat, in a noticeably edgy tone. “Well, I hate it when I do leave you a message and then don't hear back from you for two or three days.”
Glow's frown faded into a perfect smile. “I was just finished with my kickboxing workout and was about to set up this old guy at the Beverly Hotel, which would have taken about . . . two or three days.” She snickered when Vera nodded her head knowingly. “Okay, so you figured me out. I'm here, what do you want me to do?”
Vera leaned back in her chair and interlocked her fingers beneath her chin. “I want you to sit on somebody for me. It shouldn't take but a day or two and I need a second set of eyes on him to make sure he doesn't cause any trouble.”
“Who you want me to sit on?” Glow said, with a naughty leer. “Is he cute?”
“You've met him,” Vera informed her. “Rags, the client you bumped into the other day.”
“That fine cowboy?” Glow asked excitedly, as she took a seat across from Vera. “He's rough around the edges. It might be interesting at that.”
“Not so fast, girl, hold your horses. There's something I need to spell out. I've been doing some digging and skeleton bones are starting to turn up. I told you about Rags's dreams. Well they might be the kind that came true. I can't prove it, but he's likely knotted in an unsolved murdered informant case and a slain cop who supposedly showed up at a botched robbery.” Glow listened to everything Vera had gleaned from Lucius, Cecilia Montez and Detective Donald Beasley. While all the dots seemed to be on the same page, there was no clear connection as far as she could see.
At the end of Vera's pitch, Glow contemplated what risks were involved and then she had only one question. “How much you interested in paying me to sit on this guy?”
“Two hundred a day,” Vera replied evenly, “if you're up for it.”
“I'm up for it at two-hundred plus expenses.” Although her slight negotiating maneuver didn't sound like much, it was a bone of contention. Glow once turned in an expense report for three grand, when she followed a kleptomaniac for Vera. Glow said she had to buy something to keep from looking suspicious in the mall herself. The tennis bracelet was returned immediately, along with the padded expense account.
“Let's make it three hundred then, and no funny business this time,” Vera bartered. “Good, Rags is over at that diner. He's been dozing off for the past hour or so but there's no way he's staying put all evening. I tried to talk him into finding a place to lay his head but he didn't bite.”
“Maybe you were saying all the wrong things,” Glow smarted in a peculiar way that Vera didn't approve of.
Pointing her finger, Vera reminded her part-time associate to keep her guard up. “Glow, don't go getting in way over your head. We don't really know this man. I'd hate to discover he's a bad one and have you standing too close to do anything about it if I needed to.”
Glow got up from her chair and noted the time on her sports watch. “It's four-thirty-two. My time starts now. I'll call you if he keels over or anything. Otherwise, go on and do your thing.”
“Just one problem with that. Rags is squatting right where I need to be, in that curbside restaurant.”
The feisty hustler winked at Vera and grinned. “Why didn't you just say so?” She turned around and strutted out of the door, a twinkle in her eyes. Vera watched as Glow entered the diner and cozied up to Rags. She waggled her finger an inch from his nose. He shook his head, with an objection in mind, but Glow persisted. Vera didn't have the slightest idea what she could have been saying to him, but thirty seconds of it got him to pull up stakes from that booth and out of her hair. Rags, still exhausted and short on sleep, stumbled from the seat he'd been perched on all day and followed behind Glow. After what Vera witnessed, she was no longer concerned about Glow being too close to Rags. Her charm would have rectified a bad situation if the knife she carried couldn't, if he turned out to be dangerous after all. Vera was certain of that. Once Glow had effectively removed her biggest obstacle, Vera was chomping at the bit to stay busy doing what she did best, scratching away at a headache one layer at a time.
After Vera watched her client and good friend drive away in Glow's sporty BMW, she marched across the street. It was four-thirty-five and the diner was nearly empty because the dinner crowd hadn't started to come in yet. Vera took the same booth where Rags had spent the better part of his day.
“What can I get you, sweetie?” grunted the weathered waitress. She had a full head of gray hair, appeared to be in her late sixties and too heavy to have any affinity for standing on her feet all day. Vera fiddled with the menu while selecting her words carefully.
“How ya doing?” she offered pleasantly. “I'd like a cup of coffee, no cream please. Oh, and by the way, how long have you worked here? I heard that a police officer was killed down the block a few years back.”
The older woman placed her balled fist on her thick hip and laid her head back. “I've been working the day shift here a little more than two years but I seem to recall somebody saying something about that one morning. You'd want to speak with the assistant manager to be sure.”
“Yeah, it was in all the papers,” Vera added to make her interest sound strictly legitimate, as far as nosy customers went. “Is the assistant manager in today?”
“Uh-huh. I'll see if she can spare a minute whilst I get you going.” The waitress waddled off like her shoes weighed ten pounds each.
Vera stared at the sign above her office,
Miles Above Investigators
. She chuckled when it didn't impress her anymore than the diner had in all the times she'd turned her nose up at it. What you see in life all depends on where you sit, she reasoned as a middle-aged white woman wearing dark polyester slacks and a tan blouse approached her table.
Miles Above Investigators
. She chuckled when it didn't impress her anymore than the diner had in all the times she'd turned her nose up at it. What you see in life all depends on where you sit, she reasoned as a middle-aged white woman wearing dark polyester slacks and a tan blouse approached her table.
“Hey, I'm Linda,” the lady hailed, looking Vera over suspiciously.
“Glad to meetcha, Linda. I'm Vera.”
“Frances told me you were asking about the shooting that happened a bit ago. What can I do you for?” Vera knew that meant, “What's it to you?”
“I'm a private detective, that's my place across the way,” she answered, with an air of respectability. When Linda sneered at it, Vera quickly returned to earth. “Anyway, I was handling a case for a real estate company back then, looking to broker a lot of property on this block, then the deal fell apart because of what the buyer called a sensitive dilemma,” she lied, to avoid suspicion.
“I see what you mean, a police officer getting himself shot up dead in the street, that's sensitive all right,” the assistant manager contended. “It was a darn shame, too. I remember it like it happened yesterday.” Linda's eyes grew dim like she was trying to recall what occurred during the incident. “Poor man lying in the street like a dog, just didn't seem right.”
Realizing that the woman must have been on the scene, Vera tried to ease the question out as not to alarm her. “You were here, the night it happened?”
“Sure was, I was working the floor back then and I was the one who made the 911 after that colored fellow stuck up the place. I'll never forget it.”
Vera was about to burst on the inside now that the former waitress was running off at the mouth. “Forget what, Linda?” she asked, using the witness's name to foster the rapport needed to get a scoop on everything the employee had.
“Well,” said Linda, as the hefty waitress returned with Vera's coffee.
“Frances, you mind making that to go with a slice of blueberry pie?” Vera asked with the utmost sincerity. Vera handed her a twenty-dollar bill then insisted she keep the fourteen-dollar tip. She'd have emptied her entire purse in order to keep the waitress away from the table and Linda's recounting of the story.
“That's a good idea,” Linda said, grinning from ear to ear. “Honey, I dig your style. Let's talk about it in my office, nice and private like.” Vera dug her style as well. She nodded mostly while Linda retold the incident that ended with a shooting and a slew of puzzling questions. “No, I won't forget it,” Linda said, repeating herself. “As I said, a black fella come in out of the rain at around eleven o'clock and shoves this gun in the cashier's face. Of course she empties the register, per company policy. He snatches the bag and tears out of here. I'm a bundle of nerves while talking to the police operator. I'll give them some credit though, they got somebody down here quicker'n spit. Two police detectives come flying up in a four-door sedan with the lights glaring. It was hard to see what happened then because of the steam on the windows.”
“The what?” Vera asked, although she didn't mean to interrupt.
“You know how it fogs up the windows when it's cold outside and raining, with the heat on inside?”
“Oh, yeah, condensation?”
“Whatever you call it, it was all over the windows, so we couldn't see a thing going on outside of those blue lights flickering.” A sudden sadness washed over Linda face before she continued. “Oomph, next thing you know, we hear what sounds like firecrackers popping off outside. Hell, I get down with the quickness, and crawl all the way to the front door. I know I shouldn't but I can't help myself. That's when I see him, the dead officer stretched out in the road, with his partner bent over him and crying like a baby. It was just plain awful.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” Vera said, thinking of Rags's potential part in the murder. “Hey, Linda, that robber, the black guy, they ever find him?” Vera reasoned that Rags must have been in on the robbery as a lookout or a getaway wheelman.
“Nope, they didn't,” Linda answered regrettably. “Detective Warren Sikes, that's the cop who died, his wife came by here seeing if we knew anything the police wasn't telling her. I never understood why they'd keep anything from her. Now those federal fellows, I wouldn't put anything past them.”
“The FBI, they came around too?”
“Uh-huh, the day after the robbery,” she replied, as if it was customary for them to poke their noses in a holdup. “It was all kinds of folks in for a while then I guess it was old news fast enough 'cause they all skedaddled after a few days.” Since the police department had the investigation on ice, Vera needed another road to travel along.
“Linda, did the coroner's office send a hearse for Sikes's body?”
“No, I believe an ambulance zoomed in and carted him off. Why?”
“It's just a thought,” Vera whispered quietly.
Linda assumed that Vera had been heartbroken by the story she shared. “I told you it was awful. I wasn't supposed to keep this past twelve months but I can't force myself to throw it out.” Linda stood up and pulled a stack of pink copies from a black three ring binder. She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. Unbeknownst to her, it was exactly what Vera wanted too. “Incident reports are to be trashed, per policy, but this one is hard to let go.”
“You mind if I see that?” Vera asked, hoping the manager didn't.
“Hell, girl, take it,” Linda offered. “If you don't, I may never have the nerve.”
Vera read over it carefully. Linda did an outstanding job with the details. Everything she said was there on the carbon copy report, including the name of the emergency medical technician who arrived on the scene.
Linda felt relieved after talking about that terrible night, but there was something else she wanted to say before Vera left her office. “Hey, Vera, are you the kinda private eye that tails cheating hubbies?”
“If you know he's cheating, Linda, why would you need him tailed?”
“Shoot, honey, proof for when I haul his no-good butt down to divorce court.”
Vera chuckled out aloud. “I'd be happy to get you all the proof you need. How about something in an eight-by-ten glossy?”
“I knew I liked your style, Vera,” Linda howled, with her head thrown back. “I could tell right off you's a real peach.”
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