by AR Simmons
“No. I have work to do before class. I should have done it last night. Did you get any sleep at all?”
“Some,” he lied. “I’m good to go for the day.”
“Are the nightmares back?”
No, he thought, and don’t summon them.
“I haven’t even thought about Somalia in a long time. I think maybe he’s … maybe I’ve … come to terms with … what I did over there.”
“Richard it’s not something you did. It’s something that happened to you. You were the second victim in that. You know that’s what the doctor said.”
“Yeah,” he said irritably. “Well, the doctor wasn’t there. I was. My finger was on the trigger, and I was the one standing when it was all over.”
“I don’t want to make it worse for you,” she said. “I know it just irritates you when people say they understand, but I think I can imagine how you must have felt.”
It wasn’t how he had felt. It was how he still felt. No good could come from telling her that she, the so-called doctor, and all his supportive well-wishers were out of their damned minds if they expected him to be able to put it behind him. The fact was that the soldier he had killed was only a child. That fact remained no matter the mitigating circumstances that were supposed to make it all right. Perhaps that was why Mancie had become such an obsession. He was going to balance the books.
Right, Richard! Simple arithmetic: destroy a life? No big deal—just save a life, and everything is okay again.
“You’re going through it again, aren’t you?” Jill asked, moving closer as if she could comfort him.
He moved away. “I’m all right. Just leave it alone. Okay?”
•••
4:20 PM
Richard failed to notice the car across the street when he pulled into The Honeycomb’s lot after work. He parked next to the BMW with the unmistakable vanity plates. He grimaced at its nearly black, cop-killer windows, wondering if the vehicle fit a police profile, or if the price range lifted it above suspicion. He went inside to find an agitated waitress hurriedly gathering tumblers and mopping the floor with a hand towel.
“I know, ma’am,” she said brittlely. “I just didn’t expect you to turn around so quick.”
A diminutive, expensively dressed woman brushed a small wet spot on her blouse with a bar towel. Her miniature features were set in a scowl beneath a cloud of blonde hair. Although no more than five two, she dominated the situation as rich, connected people tend to do. Not deigning to respond, she dropped the towel onto the floor, turned on stiletto heels, and glared at someone behind Richard.
“Fire her,” she mouthed, blue eyes blazing. Then she brushed past.
As he turned to watch her leave, he saw McComb at the end of the bar near the door.
Richard took a barstool and ordered beer.
“How’s Molly?” asked McComb as he wiped down and uncapped the bottle.
“She seems to be doing okay,” Richard answered, trying to sound disinterested.
He took a pull on the bottle. “I heard that they might extend riverboat gambling to the lakes down here,” he improvised. “What do you think the chances of that are?”
McComb shrugged. “Not if your bible thumpers and the folks in Branson have a say. Where did you hear that?”
“A guy at the gas station said something about it. I used to gamble a little up in Michigan. Where would a guy go around here to connect up with something like that?”
McComb looked at him a long moment. “Go back to the gas station and buy a lottery ticket.”
Richard laughed. “I’d like something with a little more skill involved and better odds.”
“Go to St. Louis or Kansas City and hit the boats.”
“Odds are still lousy. How about betting on sporting events? A guy’s got a real chance with that kind of action.”
Over the next half hour Richard sounded McComb out on the local gambling scene, trying to get a feel for the man’s interest and perhaps involvement. McComb showed neither unusual interest nor reticence in talking about it, but like the experienced bartender he was, he didn’t name names when it came to illegal activity. Eventually, he mentioned a former athlete who “likes to talk about possible outcomes” and had a “hypothetical interest in the point spreads.” He suggested that he and Richard get together and discuss their common interest.
“You know him pretty well?”
“Me? No. I just hear guys talking. I don’t know anything about him really.”
“I might do that. Where can I find him?”
“He works out of … at Higgins Sporting Goods down on Vine.”
•••
Bookies, even small-timers, don’t discuss business with strangers, much less reveal details, but Richard knew how he could find out about McComb’s gambling habits if he hadn’t burned his bridges too thoroughly.
“Back already?” said Adams when he saw Richard coming toward his desk. “What do I have to say to get my point across? You’re wasting your time and mine, Carter.”
“Probably, but this comes under the heading of not withholding information. Molly told me something she may not have told you.”
“Let me guess. Something really helpful, like maybe she remembers seeing someone that night, but she didn’t recognize him. Something like that?”
“Pat Allsop still had a key to the house.”
Adams’s look said he hadn’t known it, but he feigned disinterest.
“So what? He didn’t want the kid, so why would he take it?”
“Beats me,” admitted Richard. “But since there were no signs of forced entry maybe it ought to at least be in the case file.”
“You’re lecturing me on investigative procedure now?”
Making Adams angry wouldn’t help. “No, just explaining why I came down. I just found out about the key and thought you should know right away.”
Adams didn’t seem to appreciate the information.
“I’ll just insert that jewel in the case file as you suggested, and then you can be on your merry little way.”
“I was hoping you could answer a question for me while I was here.”
When Adams didn’t object immediately, he hurried on, prefacing his request with an explanation.
“Molly insists that she didn’t take the Valium on purpose or by accident. If she’s telling the truth, then there are only a few people who could have slipped it to her. I was looking at Bobby McComb, and—”
“Why?” interrupted Adams.
“The bar is the logical place for it to have been done, and he’s got the bar up for sale. Maybe he was in financial trouble and—”
“Ridiculous. Molly Randolph didn’t have money for ransom. Kidnappers hit rich people.”
“Some people might consider the Allsops rich,” Richard pointed out. “Maybe—”
“They didn’t get a note,” objected Adams impatiently.
Then he laughed.
“That’s a good one. McComb trying to get back the fortune he was paying her to wait tables!”
“Maybe it wasn’t ransom. Maybe someone wanted a baby real bad, bad enough to pay big bucks.”
Adams grinned as if getting a punch line.
“I see where you’re going with this. Grandma and Grandpa can’t stand to be separated from their grandchild after the split, so they pay McComb to drug Molly so that her ex can steal the kid when she passes out.”
“I didn’t say that’s what happened,” said Richard, angrier with himself for actually considering the possibility at one time, and embarrassed that Adams thought that he still did.
“Then the evil grandparent kidnappers kill another baby, throw it in the dump, and go commit a sex murder on the babysitter just too muddy the waters. It’s brilliant, Carter. I gotta hand it to you. I would never have thought of that.”
“There is a market for healthy babies,” Richard reminded him. “And, as you pointed out, there are two other homicides that may be associated with the abd
uction.”
“Disappearance,” Adams corrected.
“Yeah. Well, Molly could have died with that alcohol-Valium mix. That would have been three homicides.”
“Most likely self-administered. Hell, Carter. It could’ve even been an attempted suicide after she killed the kid.”
Richard hoped the “Most likely” indicated a softening of Adams’s attitude.
“Look,” he said. “Take another look at her—I mean before the disappearance—all you’ll find is a hard working, responsible young mother who—”
“Who found holding down two jobs and raising a kid more than she could handle without chemical help. Face it, Carter. It got the best of her. She got high and somehow killed her kid—probably by accident, but she did it. Maybe she can’t live with it so now she’s making all this stuff up. Hell! By now she probably believes it.”
“So what—she killed Katie Nash? Why would she do that?”
“It probably had nothing to do with the kid,” admitted Adams wearily. “I don’t know. About all I know is that you give me a headache, Carter.”
Since nothing had changed with Adams, Richard decided that he might as well broach the question he came to ask. “What can you tell me about the local gambling scene?”
“Gambling scene? What gambling scene?”
“People gamble everywhere, and I’m not talking about the lottery.”
“Oh, I get it,” said Adams already shaking with amusement at what he was about to say.
“McComb’s motive for drugging your little friend, right? He owed money to the mob, and they were going to whack him if he didn’t come up with the cash? That’s it! He tells them that he can’t get the money, but he’s got this cute little baby that they might be interested in.”
Richard ignored the ridicule. “Where would a guy go to bet on games?” he asked.
“Gambling and prostitution are run by the guy in charge of white slavery and the opium dens in the county,” said Adams, warming to his routine. “The local capo is Clem Kadiddlehopper Muzeroni.”
Richard pressed on despite the inanity. “I hear that a certain has-been athlete who runs a sporting goods store supplements his income by booking bets. Anything to that?”
“I’m not sure,” said Adams carefully. “If there is, I imagine that the IRS will get him one of these days.”
“So you guys just let it slide, huh?”
He wished he hadn’t said it, but Adams didn’t seem to take offense.
“A vice squad in a town this size? Got better things to do. Besides why begrudge the middle class gamblers a little play. The state sponsors a lottery for the poor, and the rich go to Vegas or to the boat-in-a-moat casinos to get their pockets picked. Us Catholics got our bingo. Betting on the games and playing poker should be illegal?”
“I thought it was,” said Richard dryly as he got up to leave.
“Wait a minute, Carter. Since you brightened my day with that little tidbit about the mob connection, the least I can do is set you straight. McComb could have lost his shirt—or his business or whatever—but no one around here is going to send an enforcer around to bust up knuckles or anything like that—certainly not Benny Fortner.”
“The former star athlete?”
“All-star QB. Blew a knee in his last regular-season start for the Jayhawks. Would have had a chance to showcase in the Orange Bowl. Everyone around here had him going to the pros. Leave him alone. He’ll end up in trouble soon enough. Everybody knows what he’s doing. Some day the wrong person will lose too much, and the IRS will get a tip.”
The small-town attitude didn’t really surprise Richard. He was small town too. As he reached the door, he thought of something else that might have put McComb into debt—someone, that is. The vindictive little woman at the bar definitely had something going with him, and she looked like she might be expensive to maintain. If the BMW was hers, maybe McComb had bought it for her.
“You couldn’t run a license plate for me, could you?”
Adams smiled good-naturedly. “No way in hell,” he said.
“Okay,” said Richard, thinking that he could get JR to run it for him.
“Wait a minute,” called Adams. “Who are you bothering now?”
“No one. I just saw this car with vanity plates a couple of times out at McComb’s. I was curious because he claims not to know the driver. The plates said ‘Charity.’”
Adams roared.
“What’s so funny?”
“Detective Carter, you’ve got to be the only one in town who doesn’t know Charity!”
“So who is she?”
“Just the only damned celebrity in town. If we had them paparazzi or whatever, they’d be following her everywhere she went and trying to take her picture.”
The huge hairdo fit Richard’s stereotype of a country music star. “Famous singer?”
“Nah. Wannabe singer. She’s a famous wife. Married Rennie Peele.”
“The music show guy down at Eureka Springs.”
“That’s the man.”
“She’s Lyla Peele?”
“AKA Honeybunch, AKA Charity.”
“What’s she doing hanging out at McCombs?”
“He used to be her manager.”
Richard frowned. “I thought her manager was a guy named Chandler.”
Adams shrugged. “Maybe she got a new guy. Not that she needs one now.”
No, thought Richard. And she didn’t need Bobby McComb to buy her anything either.
•••
October 30
He was in the grease pit about a week later, struggling with a bunged-up transmission fluid plug when the wrench slipped smashing his knuckles against the frame. When he bent to feel for the wrench he had dropped, he heard a familiar voice above asking about the seven-point special they were advertising that week. He couldn’t place the voice, but the mystery was solved when he came up later for a bathroom break and found Jerry Chandler sitting in the waiting room, thumbing disinterestedly through a car magazine.
“What brings you to town,” Richard asked him.
Chandler eyed Richard’s soiled coveralls and blackened fingers. “Doris had to come back to settle the estate, such as it is. I’m taking care of the car while she’s at the lawyer’s.”
When Richard came out of the bathroom, Chandler was standing at the window, looking impatiently toward his car.
“Mr. Chandler, didn’t you say your brother was Lyla Peele’s manager?”
“That’s right.”
“Then what about this McComb guy?”
Chandler laughed. “McComb is my brother—well, half-brother, but I don’t like that term. Different dads, that’s all. Mom never had his name changed when she married my father. It always confuses people.”
Chandler found the look on Richard’s face amusing. The man seemed to find a lot of things amusing.
“You’re thinking that we’re not much alike, gospel singer and bar owner?”
Actually, Richard was thinking that he felt like a fool for not having discovered the connection before now. “No. I was just thinking about name changes,” he said. “How many has Lyla had?”
“Only one legal name change—when the old man married her,” replied Jerry Chandler, “I guess you mean the stage names though. ‘Honeybunch’ went back to just plain ‘Lyla’ and then to ‘Mrs. Peele.’”
“And now she’s ‘Charity?’”
“Yeah. She should have stuck with ‘Honeybunch.’ It’s an honest, trashy name. Fits her,” he sniffed before laughing again. “Actually, a fish sits on a bicycle better than ‘Charity’ sits on her.”
Remembering the incident with the waitress, Richard tended to agree.
“I only helped her get an audition as a favor to my brother,” continued Chandler. “I didn’t think she stood a chance of landing a position. Turns out she landed the biggest one of all. Now she owns half the show.”
Chandler had told him virtually the same thing when he and Jill w
ere in Eureka Springs, but the entertainer in him couldn’t resist reprising his punch lines.
“So what’s she doing here?”
“There’s a divorce in the works. The old man’s sixth, I think. As sharp as he is, he can’t seem to find himself a good woman. He keeps making the same mistake. Honeybunch will be his latest ex as soon as the lawyers can agree on how much she gets out of the old man.”
“There’s a problem?”
“You bet. The old man’s got enough money to burn a wet mule, but he didn’t get it because it didn’t mean anything to him, if you get my drift. I think there’s some kind of prenuptial agreement, and both sets of lawyers are looking for loopholes.”
“So who’s divorcing who?”
“Mutual. Both are claiming infidelity. He’s pushing a negotiated settlement before they take it to a judge—kinda like buying out a contract, you know. Wants to keep it out of the news. Bad for his image.”
“What’s the problem? He’s been divorced five times already, right?”
Chandler shrugged. “Divorce is one thing, lurid details another. He sells family entertainment, so he wants it discreet.”
The door opened, and the boss stuck his head in. “We got business to do, Carter,” he said pointedly.
As if on cue, the pay window slid open. “Your car’s ready, Mr. Chandler,” said the office girl.
•••
On the way home, Richard saw Molly’s car parked at the café. They hadn’t scheduled a meeting. He hadn’t even spoken to her for several days. Feeling guilty, he parked across the street and went inside. An old couple occupied the table where he and Molly usually sat. Thinking he had mistaken someone else’s car for hers, he was about to leave when his eyes adjusted from the bright autumn sunlight to the relative gloom, and he spied her in the back.
“So what’s going on?” he asked as he slid in across from her.
“It’s been over a week since we talked,” she said, adjusting the blank tablet unconsciously.
“I haven’t found out anything new, Molly—at least nothing new to you.”
Her brow knitted in question.
“You knew that Bobby McComb was related by marriage to Katie Nash, didn’t you?”
