“He has not,” I said. “What about his attorney?”
“Kid named Richie Brock, just out of law school. Twenty-two years old. Was some kind of prodigy.” Gibbs leaned forward and rested his arms across the top of the desk. “You two never have told me what your interest is in all of this.”
Woody said, “I know his wife.”
Gibbs made a little nod. It was one of those motions meant to imply an understanding between two gentlemen.
“Not like that,” Woody said.
Gibbs lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You nodded.”
“Excuse the fuck out of me, then. I couldn’t give two shits what your connection is with this. I would just prefer that neither of you cause trouble here.”
Woody and I turned to one another, then back to the sheriff.
I said, “Do we look like trouble?”
“You look like the types who make a man’s final days before retirement troubling.”
“How long you got?”
“About a year.”
“Big plans?”
“Fish some. Hunt some. Play with the grandkids. Wait to find out if those Sundays I spent in church paid off, or if I should have stayed home and learned how to golf.”
“I noticed that you didn’t have Dave’s best friend there during the perp walk.”
“You mean Deputy Oates? He was out delivering paperwork to Charleston this morning.”
“Was he delivering paperwork before or after you figured out where Dave was?”
“Does that matter?”
“It’s a question, that’s all.”
Gibbs leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk. His shoes were polished to such a high gloss, you could have shaved in the reflection off of them, if you were so inclined to do such things, which might have been weird, especially if you had a mirror nearby.
Anyway . . .
“Are you gentlemen going to make this difficult?” Gibbs said.
“We’re only trying to find out if Dave killed Jimmy Omaha,” Woody said.
Again with the “we.”
“Got video of his van,” Gibbs said. “Got a motive. What more you want?”
“Could be anyone’s arm, though,” Woody said. “Said so yourself.”
“I also said that between the video and the fight, we’ve got something as good as an eye witness, plus probable cause. Not sure what more you think we need.”
“A gun with fingerprints would be great.”
“That’d be stellar, but sometimes the deck’s not that stacked.”
I said, “Where’s the van?”
“The county impound lot,” Gibbs said. “We found it abandoned off a road outside of town.”
Woody slouched into his chair. “Doesn’t it seem weird to you that Dave would use a vehicle that identifies him so easily to go and commit a murder? Then he leaves the vehicle somewhere it can be found. Plus, he’s got the trouble of having to get home from wherever the van was left. Those aren’t things that add up.”
Gibbs leaned across the desk. “What you’re talking about right there, those of us in the law enforcement profession like to call ‘the investigatory process.’ Why don’t you maybe consider letting us handle that part of things, and you two do whatever the hell it is you do?” He glanced back and forth between us. “What is it you two do, anyway?”
“Chew bubblegum,” I said.
“Kick ass,” Woody said.
“Jesus help me,” Gibbs said.
Woody pushed himself upright in the chair. “Being that we’re honorable men and all bullshit, Sheriff, you mind telling us if you think Dave did it?”
“Doesn’t matter if I think he did it. Only matters about the evidence in court. As it stands they’ve got enough to put Dave in prison. My gut tells me that you two don’t intend to let that happen quietly.”
“Not real fond of innocent men going to prison,” Woody said.
“You know those Sundays I said I spent not golfing?” Gibbs said. “Had a lot of preachers yelling the good word at me during them, and you throw that in with the years doing this job, and I can tell you, there’s not a one of us alive who can claim to be innocent, regardless of what we get accused of. It’s almost always a matter of whether we got caught.”
9
Woody headed over to talk to Sheila, Dave’s wife. He thought it might be a good idea for me to chat up the defense attorney, Richie Brock. Because I’m a charmer and all.
I considered going door to door, knocking and asking whoever answered until I found Richie Brock. The size of Raineyville, I could do it and have time to beat the lunch crowd. Instead, I punched his name into Google on my phone. It seemed the more polite and sane way to go.
Brock’s office was a block up and a block over from the courthouse, so almost on the other side of town. My knee felt stiff and ached on the walk, but I tried not to think about it. The building was a throwback to the 1950s, with cement floors and the walls covered in one-inch white tiles. You should have gotten a saxophone accompaniment and jazzy finger-snaps when you walked down the hallway.
The directory was an old ones, with the listings in lettered tiles in a glass case, some letters having dropped off, and it turned things into a guessing game. Brock’s office was on the third floor, along with a dentist, two insurance agents, and a pet obedience school. I took the elevator because I’m lazy.
A sheet of paper taped to the frosted glass door read, “Richard Brock, Attorney at Law,” and below that another piece of paper that read, “Come On In!” Coltrane played from a stereo, and Brock was at his desk, eating Chinese from a paper carton. His jacket hung from a coat rack in the corner, his tie was loose, and he manipulated the chopsticks like he had claws for hands. Every bite was an exercise in disappointment, almost getting to his mouth and then slipping back into the carton.
He set the chopsticks down and smiled at me as I walked in. He looked even younger than he did in court. His hair was dark black and had an arrow-straight part on the side. He combed it with something that left it slick and glossy and made me think of Sinatra and Martin in Vegas.
Brock came around the desk and shook my hand as he gestured toward the visitors’ chairs. “You caught me in the middle of lunch.”
“And not a very successful one, either.”
“I’m not sure how the entire Chinese nation hasn’t starved to death,” he said as he sat back down.
“I hear forks are a thing now.”
“That might be it. What can I do for you?” He paused for a moment. “You look familiar.”
“I’ve got one of those faces.”
“That’s good. Everyone should have a face. Otherwise you’d just creep out little kids.”
“I was at the magistrate today when they did the bond hearing for Dave Miller.”
He snapped his fingers. “Exact-a-mundo! I knew it. You a friend of Mr. Miller’s?”
“I’m at best a passing acquaintance.”
“You a passing acquaintance who’d happen to foot his legal bill?”
“I couldn’t foot a lunch bill if lunch came in a paper bag.”
He sighed. “I got told these public defender cases don’t pay diddly squat, and let me tell you, they weren’t underestimating the amount that diddly squat is. It bypasses diddly squat and goes straight to butkus.”
“But it’s for the public good, right? You been out of law school long?”
He glanced at his watch. “Today’s Monday? It’s about noon, and it’s what, June? So two months?”
“Never handled a murder trial then.”
“Never had a case that’s gone to trial. You know how long it’s been there’s been an actual murder in Chandler County?”
“I haven’t checked with the Chamber of Commerce or the historical society, but I’d imagine it’s been a while.”
“You’d be correct. More than twenty years. One of the sheriff’s deputies told me about it this morning.” He
shook his head. “Most of what I do seems to be bankruptcy work or divorces, and then the public defender work because everyone’s broke and likes to get into bar fights. Saturday night eruptions at the Dew Drop Inn keep the lights. And you never shared your name.”
“It’s Henry Malone. So you had a shot to talk to Dave?”
“Long enough to let him know he has legal counsel, then he got hustled back to the regional jail.”
“You have an investigator you work with?”
“I didn’t know you were a comedian, Henry. There’s no budget for investigators in public defense. The best I can hope for is developing an alibi for Mr. Miller, and failing that, pleading out to something that lets him see sunlight as a free man ten minutes before he’s dead.”
“You’re a wild optimist, Richie Brock.”
“Unfettered optimism isn’t an option when you buy your suits from thrift stores. So if you’re nothing but a passing acquaintance, what’s your interest in the travails of David Miller?”
“My friend’s interest is more vested than my own, and he seems convinced that Dave didn’t do it.”
“Can he provide Mr. Miller with an alibi for the night in question?”
“He cannot.”
“Then no offense to your friend, but that will not do Mr. Miller any good. The prosecutor’s office already has a solid case against Mr. Miller, and the day’s not even done yet.”
“I heard about the video.”
“That’s the nail in the coffin. It doesn’t help that Mr. Miller went into the Dew Drop on a Saturday night prepared to raise hell and starting a ruckus.”
“Blaming Dave for that fight is like blaming the match for the spilled gasoline exploding; there was going to be a spark.”
I looked over his desk. There were stacks of papers, files thrown everywhere. He had an open laptop with what looked like Fortnite on the screen. Dented surplus filing cabinets were pushed to the side. His degree was framed and on the wall behind him. He’d hung up posters to fill up the space, for The Maltese Falcon and Kiss of Death and The Big Sleep.
“Seems like your influences and your reality haven’t crossed across one another,” I said. “The tough guy world versus small-town lawyer.”
He glanced back at the posters. “Being a tough guy didn’t seem like a real career option. There seemed to be more need for someone who can file bankruptcy proceedings over someone who can take a blow to the back of the head.”
“I haven’t been able to make that second part pay, either.”
Brock’s attention popped to life, and he sat up in his chair. Maybe he thought I was a tough guy. I hated the idea of disappointing the kid with the truth.
Brock slurped up a bite of noodles. “You an investigator?”
“Used to be a state trooper. Retired.”
“You licensed now?”
“I may be. I didn’t check the mail before I left the house this morning.”
“Well, then, this sounds like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
10
Woody called as I walked back to the Aztek.
“Get over here,” he said. “Things are getting interesting.”
“Because I thought shooting the biker was somewhere on the dull side. Give me directions. We have a job now.”
“We do?”
“Yes. We’re private investigators now.”
“Sexy.”
“I’m psyched. I’m on my way to buy a trench coat and jazz albums.”
“Is this a job with the public defender who looks like he should run the slide projector during class?”
“That’s the one.”
“With the youthful public defender: was there an offer of gainful employment in this, or are we pro bono?”
“When the hell has a paycheck been the reason we’ve done shit before?”
“Money would be nice,” I said. “You still thinking Dave didn’t shoot this guy?”
“The aforementioned Jimmy Omaha, yes.”
“I didn’t aforemention him, but sure, go with that. So Dave didn’t kill him?”
“Get here and we’ll talk.”
The houses in the neighborhood were all small white constructs lined up one after another, as if part of a child’s play set. They’d been built by coal companies decades ago, coal camps to give the companies somewhere to put their workers. Time passed and the coal companies left, but the houses somehow remained, indistinguishable from one another except for their various states of disrepair.
I pulled up behind Woody’s Jeep parked in a driveway as a back door opened and a woman in faded jeans and a Chandler County Warriors T-shirt stepped outside. Her face was tan and wore enough years to be interesting. You could spot her blue eyes from a hundred yards away, but they were rimmed with so much red you might have missed the blue parts. Her dirty-blonde hair was a mass of untamed curls with streaks of gray cut into them, pulled back in the loosest definition of a ponytail possible. She looked as though she’d spent weeks crying, and she was just taking a break. She tossed a half-hearted wave toward me as I got out of my car, and she cupped her hand over her eyes to block out the sun.
“You must be Henry,” she said.
“I think I’m required to be by law. Are you Sheila?”
“This I am.” We shook hands. For her size, she had a strong handshake, and long fingers that nearly wrapped themselves completely around my hand. “Woody’s been telling me all about you. You boys seem to be into things.”
“Idle hands are the devil’s plaything, or something like that.”
She smiled. “Woody said you all are coffee drinkers. I made a pot.”
Woody sat at the kitchen table, already chugging a cup. The kitchen was small, clean, the walls red, with pictures hanging of a fat French chef riding a scooter and stirring the contents of a stock pot, the captions saying, “Never trust a skinny cook” and “Never be ashamed to ask for thirds.” There were dirty dishes in the sink, and the air was gray and heavy with cigarette smoke.
“How was Dave’s lawyer?” Woody said.
“Young,” I said. “I gave him a juice box and put him down for a nap before I left. He might know what he’s doing, but he’s only been doing it for two months, and I’m sure the law is like sex, where you’d rather trust your fate to someone with a little experience.”
Sheila said, “I’m sorry for the way the place looks. Normally I’d be cleaning and, well—” She poured me a cup of coffee. She maintained a tight-lipped, aching expression. “I’m not sure how you take it.”
“This is fine. And no one would judge your housekeeping skills right now. About Dave’s lawyer, I’m sorry; I’m not trying to make light of what’s going on.”
“It’s fine. I appreciate you and Woody being willing to help here, but I’m not sure what you can do.”
Woody got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. “We will poke around, talk to some folks, make a nuisance of ourselves until someone tells us something useful.”
Sheila slumped into a chair at the table. There was already a coffee cup there, an ashtray overflowing with a hundred cigarettes, an assortment of mail, and a half-eaten sandwich. Maybe turkey. She drank some coffee. “No one’s going to have much to say about this.”
“Why not?” I said.
“Because you don’t fuck with the Highway Saints,” she said. “It’s not like they’re the Hell’s Angels, or that TV show about the bikers, but you don’t mess with them, either. They ain’t terrorists, but they ain’t a goddamn social club either.”
“What’s Dave’s deal with them?”
Sheila reached back and pulled her ponytail loose and gave her head a good shake, and her hair bloomed like a dandelion. She ran her hands through it. It took considerable effort, and she redid the ponytail, tightening it this time. “Dave rode with them years ago. He was a probie—a probationary member—but he never got patched in as a full member.”
“What happened?”
She smiled. “He met
me. I was hanging out with the Saints back then. It was after—” Her eyes flittered toward Woody. Woody kept his face turned away from her, and this two-second pause stretched into an eternity, charged with an awkward, mournful energy. “It was after my husband died. I ran wild after Jay died. Made some regrettable choices. Then I met Dave. He was a few years younger than me, and he wasn’t like the rest of the guys riding with the Saints. He had a softness to him. A kindness. I hadn’t seen that in a long time, and it was what I needed, and I suppose I was what he needed, too, so we both said our farewells to the Saints. He had been driving long-haul trucks, but his dad was an HVAC guy who taught him the business, and then when he retired, Dave took over.”
Attached to the refrigerator door by a magnet was a school photo of a beefy kid in a football uniform. His shaved head hinted dark stubble. He did, however, have some impressive facial hair.
“That your son?” I said.
Sheila’s eyes warmed. “Jonah, our football star.”
“He has a better beard than Dave’s attorney.”
“Puberty kicked in hard with Jonah. He’s a senior this year, plays defensive line for the Chandler County Warriors. He was All-State last year, and there’s no reason he won’t be this year. We’ve got a dozen college recruiters calling him. He can’t decide, and I told him I don’t care where so long as he finishes with a degree he can use. He’s a smart kid, but I don’t want him thinking football will always be there. A concussion shouldn’t be what you’d consider a normal workplace injury.” She walked back over to the coffeepot and refilled her cup. “He and Dave, they’ve had their run-ins over the years, but they get along great now. Jay passed away when Jonah was young, so he never got to know him. Dave’s been all he’s known.” She reached for a pack of Salems on the table, flipped the lid, and saw the pack was empty. “Goddammit.” She looked at Woody.
Friend of the Devil Page 5
