The Miracle Strip (13 page)

Apparently, Lyle thought the same thing, because when I turned into the Marlin, he drove past, turning into the lot of a hotel further down the street and doubling back on foot. I eased my car up to Denise's door and looked around. I'd seen her VW still in the lot of the Tiffany, its rear window shot out and bullet holes in the fenders. But her Harley was missing from the motel lot. Denise was picky about that bike, said it was an antique. She kept a canvas cover over it to protect the canary-yellow paint job, and she always parked it right outside her door. It wouldn't be like her to go off without her bike.

When Lyle strolled up, I took the key out of my purse.

“You can wait in my car,” I said softly.

He nodded and slipped behind the wheel of my Rent-A-Wreck. Something clanked against the metal door frame as he slid into the seat. He leaned down and grabbed an object off the ground.

“What is that?” I asked, staring at the small gun in his hand.

“It's a gun, Sierra,” he said. “I don't plan to use it, but you've been messing with some violent people and this is a precaution.”

“Listen,” I hissed, “don't go running the Lone Ranger routine on me here. I was fine about doing this by myself. I want it quiet, low-key, and over with as soon as possible. You just sit here, all right?” Lyle glared back at me. “And, for Christ's sake, keep that gun in your boot or wherever it was.”

I didn't wait to hear a rebuttal. I marched to the door of Denise's room and stuck the key in the lock. It wouldn't go all the way in. I pulled it out and started to turn it around and try the lock again when I caught the door number on the key: 320. That's right, I remembered, she had moved after the dead man landed in her apartment. Her new apartment was three doors down. I gave Lyle a brief glance and moved down to 320.

This time the key slid in easily. I stepped into the tiny apartment, closed the door behind me, and switched on the lights. Denise's belongings were piled in a clump by the dresser. It looked like she'd grabbed what she could from the other apartment and moved in without unpacking. There were clothes strewn across the bed, which was unmade, and trash littering the floor. She'd propped a few pictures up against the lamp. One was of her and Frankie sitting on Frankie's bike. Arlo sat on the ground beside them. A family portrait.

“Yeah, where are you now, asshole?” I asked the smiling biker. “You show a lot of concern here, buddy.” Denise seemed to have really bad taste in men.

I picked up the other pictures and inspected them. They were Arlo shots. Arlo in the Tiffany, sitting up at the bar like Denise trained him to do. And Arlo as a puppy, sleeping.

I wandered into the tiny kitchen and looked in the sink. Dishes and pots, the food dried to form hard craters and crevices, threatened to spill over the sink's edges. Denise had made spaghetti and spilled the sauce from the sink to the refrigerator. Swipes and blotches of dried red sauce were everywhere. What a slob.

Out of curiosity, I walked over to the refrigerator and pulled open the door. The smell hit me almost before I could take in what I was seeing. Someone had removed all the shelves. Leon Corvase stared back at me, an empty, fish-eyed stare. He was wedged against the rear wall of the refrigerator, blood crusting over his chest and face. Blood had congealed in a mass around his body. As I stood, paralyzed, holding on to the door, Leon started to move. His body slid down, pushing its way out of the refrigerator and onto the kitchen floor.

I moved then, jumping back out of the way, and seeing for the first time the real truth of Denise's kitchen. The spaghetti sauce was in reality dried blood. Leon Corvase had fought and died in this little room, for surely he had fought. His body was battered, his chest was soaked through with blood. Blood had dried on the countertop, in splatters on the mottled tile floor, and in smears on the refrigerator and the door leading off of the kitchen and into what I felt sure was the bathroom.

My heart was choking me, stuffing itself into my throat. I felt cold, even in the stuffy apartment. I had to get out of here, but I knew I had to look in the bathroom first. What if Denise was in there? What if the person who killed Leon had killed Denise, too?

I inched toward the door, my hands shaking and icy. I reached out and shoved it open. The bathroom was empty; only a few bloodstains remained on the sink. My breath was frozen in my lungs, my stomach heaved, and I had to leave. I turned, seeing the room as if for the first time. Arlo's tiny face stared out from his picture, staring at Leon Corvase's battered body, a two-dimensional dog smile plastered across his face.

Eighteen

Lyle knew it had gone wrong. He stepped out of the car when he saw me lock Denise's door and start moving toward him.

“Sierra,” he said, walking quickly to meet me on the sidewalk. “You look awful. What's wrong?”

I was off-balance, lurching into him, trembling uncontrollably. I was going to be sick, I knew I was, but I couldn't, not now.

“You've gotta call the police,” I said.

“Is it Denise?” he asked. The lines deepened around his face. “Is she in there?”

“No, but her ex-husband is. He's dead, Lyle.” My voice rose sharply. “He won't be needin' no ambulance, Lyle. He's cold, Lyle.” I was laughing, like it suddenly struck me funny, but my brain was screaming to me, “Shut up.” I couldn't stop.

Lyle was all business. He grabbed my shoulders, shook me once, and stared into my eyes to see if he'd had an effect. I stopped laughing, leaned past him, and hurled my cookies into the gutter.

“I'll call the police,” he said. “Are you okay to wait here?”

I must've looked uncertain because Lyle reached past me, opened the car door, and gently deposited me in the front seat.

“Lock the doors. Wait until I get back or the police drive up. Don't leave the car.” He spoke gently and slowly, like I was a wild horse and he was trying to coax me into compliance. I didn't need persuasion. I nodded, closed the door, and locked it.

Lyle took off past the darkened motel office, down the street. He headed toward his pickup truck and whatever phone he could find at five in the morning. I sat as still as I could, willing my body to stop trembling, wishing my heart would leave my throat and return to my chest. What in the hell was going on?

*   *   *

There were no sirens this time. The police arrived with the whoosh of tires, the slight squeal of brakes, and the faint squawk of their radio. There wasn't any traffic to speak of so early in the morning and no need to draw a crowd. I watched them pull up in front of Room 320 and thought, It's all happening again. Even the cops were the same.

I unlocked the door and stepped out into the early-morning light. There was a glimmer of recognition in the young patrol officer's eyes when he spotted me. He gestured to his partner, who picked up the radio mike and started talking. Probably calling Detective Nailor, I thought dully.

“Miss Lavotini, wasn't it?” The officer stood in front of me, his uniform starched and pressed, his blond hair regulation cut. “Someone called in a body at this location. This isn't a joke, is it?”

“Is that what I look like to you, Officer?” I asked. “Do I look like the type of girl who has nothing better to do at five o'clock in the morning than call in a phony report, then wait around for you to get here?” I answered my own question. “I think not.”

The kid scowled, scribbled something on his notepad, and turned back to his partner. “Ready?” he asked him. “You wait here,” he said to me, bristling with self-importance.

“I wouldn't dream of going anywhere,” I muttered. I leaned back against the Rent-A-Wreck and prepared to wait for Detective Nailor. More police cars arrived, the mobile crime scene van pulled up, and at last, behind everyone else, the familiar brown sedan of Detective Nailor.

Carla Terrance was the first out of the car. She looked fresh and crisp, as if she'd been sitting at the station, waiting for a five
A.M.
phone call. She barely glanced at me, just walked over to the edge of the crime scene tape, spoke to the first officer on the scene, and then ducked carefully under the yellow ribbon and went inside.

John Nailor didn't look fresh at all. His clothes were rumpled, like they'd been tossed on the floor, then just as carelessly put back on. He didn't wear a tie, and his face was unshaven. He saw me but didn't approach me just yet. Instead he walked over to Room 320 and darted under the tape. He was inside for less than five minutes, then emerged pulling a latex glove off his hand. He headed straight for me.

“Ms. Lavotini,” he began, his voice dark and serious, “I'm going to have to ask you to accompany me to the station.” His eyes were bloodshot and unhappy.

I wasn't surprised. Same witness, same crime scene, twice within little more than a week? I'd be taking me down to the station to talk, too, if I were him. It looked suspicious, sure, but he couldn't be thinking I had anything to do with Corvase's murder, could he? It seemed that he was reading my thoughts.

“I don't know what your part is in all this,” he said, “but it's time you got honest.” He took my arm, as if to escort me to his car, but I pulled back.

“I can drive my own car. I'll follow you.”

He shook his head, like I didn't get it. “I'll see that an officer returns you to your vehicle when we're finished.” His voice was stiff and formal. There wasn't an option.

“All right,” I said. “If that's how you want it, so be it.” I felt strangely sad and I wasn't sure why. I guess I thought he knew me better. Stupid thought, I know. How could a cop see me as anything other than my stereotype?

We rode the three miles to the police station without speaking. Now and then, Nailor's radio crackled as the dispatcher moved officers around to respond to calls. A few times he reached for the mike and spoke softly in the ten-code that only police personnel understand. I stared out the window and watched Fifteenth Street slip by. The morning traffic hadn't begun to build and we had the road to ourselves.

When he pulled into the parking lot of the squat, sprawling police department, I could feel my stomach tense up. Nailor picked up the mike, spoke briefly, then turned off the car. I got out and followed him down the sidewalk to a tinted glass door. Here goes, I thought.

The Panama City Police Department was nothing like I expected. It wasn't like a precinct house on television. We entered through the back door without fanfare and wandered through a maze of dimly lit beige corridors. John Nailor's name was on his door in plain black letters. His office was no larger than the tiny bathroom in my trailer.

He motioned me into a utilitarian black chair and then squeezed himself behind his desk. I looked around the room, gathering information. No family pictures in frames. No personal items in evidence with the exception of training diplomas and police mugs and badges. There was a corkboard next to his desk, but the only thing displayed there was a Most Wanted poster and a few newspaper funnies. His office was all business, just like the man who occupied it.

At least he offered me coffee. We sat clutching thick paper cups and staring each other down. It was almost six
A.M.
and I was whipped. Nailor looked as exhausted as I felt, but I knew this wasn't going to be a short morning. He was too tenacious for that. He intended to wring every drop of information he could out of my sleep-deprived brain.

He looked across at me and for a moment I could imagine what he must have looked like as a kid. His ears were too large and his dark, straight, short hair only served to frame them and make them all the more obvious. As a kid, he would've looked kind of goofy and serious. As an adult, he just looked vulnerable. I mean, how dangerous is a man with big ears? He looked earnest, like it would hurt him personally if you weren't straight with him. He didn't look like he was expecting you to lie. I had the curious urge to reach across the desk and stroke the side of his tired face. It was the little boy still trapped inside him that lured me.

“Sierra,” he said, his voice soft in the tiny room, “I've been sitting here trying to put myself in your place.” Despite the warmth of his voice, I felt myself tense up. Nailor stretched back a little in his chair.

“Your friend Denise comes to you one night and says someone's stolen her dog and wants one hundred thousand dollars to get him back.” The detective shook his head, like this alone would have been enough to let him know something was wrong with the picture. “Then she invites you back to her hotel room and you find a dead man. Then someone shoots at you and your friend. You allegedly chase the car that fired the shots because you think you see her dog and 'cause that's the kind of friend you are.” I started to interrupt, but he held his hand up to stop me.

“Then,” he continued, “you land in the hospital. Your friend disappears. And now we've got the body of her ex-husband dead in your buddy Denise's refrigerator.”

Listening to him, I could see it like he saw it. He didn't think Denise had been taken by her ex. He thought Denise was a liar and probably a murderer. He thought I was too dumb to see through Denise. John Nailor laid his hands, palms up, on the scarred wooden desk. His eyes were sad.

“I need your help, Sierra,” he said. “I think you're a loyal friend, but I think Denise has taken advantage of you.” He pulled his hands back into his lap and leaned forward. “Sierra, Denise spent the last two years before she came to Panama City in a federal prison. She was a partner in her husband's dope operation. She conned and manipulated people for a living. Don't hold on to some misguided sense of loyalty.”

I was so confused. The way he laid it out, I'd be a fool to believe anything Denise ever told me. But in my heart I saw little Arlo, his dark, liquid eyes staring back at me. Could a sociopath own such a good dog? Then this other voice in my head started wondering if Arlo had a sense about Denise and had run off.