by Delores Fossen, Rachel Lee, Carol Ericson, Tyler Anne Snell, Rita Herron
“I know.” He crooked his finger at her. “Come here a second.”
She gave a last look at Melody and approached him, tears streaking her face. She must’ve come out of the shock that had gripped her when they first discovered Melody.
He wrapped his arms around her and whispered in her ear. “Wade’s here.”
Her body stiffened, and he patted her back. “Don’t make any wild accusations against him—not here, not now. That’s his sister lying there.”
She nodded and buried her face in his shoulder. “We should’ve done more.”
“I know.”
As Sam drew her out onto the landing, Wade shouted. “What are you two doing here? They won’t let me pass.”
Sam steered Jolene toward her cousin. “We found her, Wade. The bartender at the Sundowner called Jolene to pick up Melody, and we got there too late.”
“How’d she get home? Who did this?” Wade’s smooth face had tightened into a mask. His dark eyes glittered with anger.
Jolene hugged her cousin. “We don’t know, Wade. We think she took a rideshare home. H-her purse is missing.”
“I told her not to live here on her own.” Wade smacked a fist into his palm. “She could’ve lived with us.”
With her arms still wrapped around Wade, Jolene asked, “When did she start drinking again?”
Sam held his breath.
“Don’t blame me for that. If you weren’t so busy running around with your head in the clouds, you would’ve noticed. I couldn’t make her stop.” He thrust his hand out toward Sam. “Ask your boyfriend there if anyone can get an alcoholic to stop drinking.”
Sam clenched his jaw, and then rolled his shoulders. The man had just lost his sister. “He’s right, Jolene. Nobody is to blame for Melody’s drinking except Melody.”
“You’re both accusing me of something I didn’t even say.” Jolene folded her arms. “I’m not blaming you. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. If we had gotten to the Sundowner faster, we could’ve given Melody a ride home. Sam would’ve seen her safely inside.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Sorry, Sam.” Wade wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “I’m upset, lashing out.”
Wade smoothed his hand along his ponytail, and his chest heaved as he took a deep breath. The smooth politician emerged. “Do the police think it was a robbery or an accident? All they told me was that she died from a head injury. Did she fall, or did someone hit her? They didn’t tell me her purse was missing.”
The medical examiner’s white van pulled into the parking lot, and Sam touched Wade’s arm. “Let’s go downstairs, and let them finish their work here.”
Wade gestured to the neighbors poking their heads out their doors. “Did anyone hear anything? See anything?”
Jolene answered, “We don’t know, but the officers questioned them. They wouldn’t tell us anything. The apartment next to Melody’s is vacant. I remember when her neighbor moved out of there a few months ago. The management company hasn’t rented it out yet.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped aside for two people from the medical examiner’s van carrying a stretcher.
Jolene averted her face as Wade swallowed, a struggle to maintain control twisting his features for a minute.
“The officers said they might be able to get something from the cameras over there.” Sam pointed across the street.
“This damned building didn’t even have a security system or cameras.” Wade squeezed his eyes closed. “I told her. I told her.”
Jolene took her cousin’s hand. “Was Melody seeing anyone? Would someone else have picked her up from the bar?”
Wade’s lids flew open. “What are you saying? Don’t the police think this is either an accident or a robbery? You’re not suggesting someone murdered Melody, are you?”
“I don’t know.” Jolene shrugged. “I’m just asking a question, and it’s still murder if it was committed during a robbery.”
“You would probably know more about Melody’s dating life than I would. She didn’t tell me anything like that, not after...”
“Not after you chased off the last guy.” Jolene held up her hands. “I’m just saying.”
“He was bad news, and you know it, Jolene. He’s probably the one who got her drinking again.”
“Is that true, Jolene?” Sam’s hands curled into fists. “If so, Wade’s right—bad news.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Melody and that guy split up almost six months ago. I don’t think she’d been drinking that long.” Jolene ran a hand through her hair. “Or maybe I’m just clueless.”
“I don’t know.” Wade stared over Sam’s shoulder, his eyes blinking. “I have to go up and see Melody’s...body. I want to see her.”
“Of course you do.” Jolene squeezed his hand. “Let me know if we can do anything.”
They both watched Wade’s stiff back as he walked to the apartment’s staircase, still swarming with cops.
Melody rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. “He seemed upset—or Wade-upset, which is a little different from everyone else’s upset.”
“I don’t think Wade would murder his own sister—pay her off, threaten her, coerce her—but not murder.” Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have a headache, and I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling. I’m sorry about Melody, Jolene. Like the bartender said, I always had a soft spot for Melody, too. She’s the one who introduced me to you.”
He hit the remote for his car, and Jolene glanced at him from beneath her lashes before following him to the passenger side.
As he opened her door, a hissing sound came from the bushes bordering the parking lot. Sam pivoted and peered into the foliage, as Jolene tucked her fingers in the waistband of his jeans.
As he stepped in front of Jolene, Sam barked, “Who’s there?”
A pair of eyes gleamed from a face that appeared between two bushes. “Hey, you ain’t the po-po, are you?”
Sam knew how to answer that question under these circumstances. “No, I’m not a cop. Why? Who are you?”
The man shuffled from his hiding place, twigs and leaves clinging to his bushy hair and beard. “I’m Tucker. Tucker the trucker.”
Jolene moved closer to Sam, pressing her body against his.
Reaching back, Sam opened the car door for her, but she didn’t move. “What are you doing out here, Tucker the trucker, and where’s your truck?”
The man laughed, displaying a set of teeth with a few gaps. “I don’t have it no more, man. No more truck.”
Tucker was missing more than his teeth. “What do you want, Tucker?”
He raised a grubby unsteady finger, pointing over Sam’s head. “I live there.”
Sam’s heart rate ticked up. “You live in that apartment building behind me?”
Tucker nodded, putting the finger to his lips. “I’m not supposed to, but the place is empty. I got in there once, so sometimes I squat there.”
“Really?” He must mean the empty apartment right next to Melody’s.
“Nobody’s there. What’s it to you?” Tucker puffed out his scrawny chest.
“Easy, man. I don’t care.” Sam twisted his head over his shoulder and whispered to Jolene, “Get in the car.”
“And miss this? No way.” She grabbed the top of the car door, peering over it at Tucker. “Did you know the woman who lived in that apartment? The one where all the cops are?”
“Pinky?” He grinned. “Yeah, I know her. She promised not to tell no one about me living there. She gave me beer sometimes.”
“Did you see Pinky tonight, Tucker?” Sam shoved a hand in his pocket. “Did you see what happened?”
Tucker scuffed the toe of his filthy sneaker in the dirt. “Do you have beer?”
“I don’t have any beer, but I have some money.
If I give you some money, will you tell us what you saw tonight?” Sam pulled a crumpled ten from his pocket and bounced it up and down on his palm in front of Tucker.
When Tucker reached out for it, Sam formed a fist around the bill. “You gotta give me the goods first, Tucker.”
“She’s dead, huh? Pinky’s dead?” The man’s nose turned red, and he blinked his watery eyes.
Jolene sniffed. “Yeah, Pinky’s dead.”
Tucker cackled and slapped the thigh of his raggedy black pants. “I saw who killed her.”
Chapter Ten
Jolene’s fingers curled around the door, and she caught her breath. She felt like grabbing Tucker and shaking him, but she didn’t want to scare him off. The guy seemed ready to blow away with the next breeze.
“You saw what happened to Pinky?”
“I heard.” Tucker tapped his head. “I was dreaming in my pad.”
“Dreaming?” Sam turned his head and rolled his eyes at her. “You mean you were sleeping?”
“I was sleeping and dreaming.” Tucker started combing his fingers through his unkempt beard, not a gray hair visible, but he looked old enough to be Sam’s father. “Big loud noise woke me up.”
“Did you hear voices?” Sam allowed the ten-dollar bill to peek through his fist, and Tucker’s gaze followed every one of Sam’s gestures. “Yelling? Screaming?”
“Just a yelp, like a yelp, yip, yap. Big loud noise. Scraping sound like furniture moving.” Tucker narrowed his eyes. “Then he left.”
Jolene’s heart jumped. “You saw the man who killed Mel...Pinky?”
“I heard footsteps—clomp, bomp, stomp. I eyed, spied though the blinds and saw a man leaving. Stocking cap on his head. It’s hot. Nobody needs no stocking cap.”
“This rhyming is giving me a headache.” Sam rubbed his temple with two fingers. “Did you see what this guy looked like, Tucker? Other than the stocking cap? Beard? Long hair? Clothing?”
Tucker tore at his shirt. “It wasn’t me. No beard. It wasn’t me. Don’t take my thumb, don’t take my thumb, don’t take my thumb, drum, crumb drive.”
“Damn.” Sam dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t say it was you, Tucker, and we’re not going to take your thumb. I’m asking what the guy looked like.”
“Dark clothes, black clothes. Dark, stark, weird beard.” He waved his hands. “Not me, not me. Not my thumb.”
“We know that, Tucker.” She tugged on Sam’s sleeve. “Give him the money for God’s sake.”
Sam held on to the bill and asked, “Did you see him get into a car? Hear a car?”
“No car. Like me, no truck. But not me.” Tucker started hopping from foot to foot. “It wasn’t me. Not my thumb.”
Sam smacked a hand against his forehead. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Jolene hunched over the car door. “Tucker, can you talk to the police? Tell them what you told us? You want to help Pinky, don’t you? She was good to you, and that man hurt her.”
“They’ll get me for staying in that place when I ain’t supposed to. They’ll take my thumb drive. Pinky gave me that.”
“You’re not there now. The cops aren’t going to arrest you for anything. They’re trying to find out what happened to Pinky.” Sam held out the balled up ten to Tucker. “I’ll make sure they don’t arrest you. Just tell them what you saw.”
Tucker snatched the bill and opened his voluminous coat, wet from the rains, to find a place to put the money. As he tugged open one side of his coat, a purse fell to the ground.
Jolene covered her mouth. “Sam, that’s Melody’s purse.”
Tucker made a grab for the purse and shouted, “Not me. Not me. No thumb. In the floor.”
He scrambled toward the bushes, and Sam lunged forward and tackled him, pinning his arms behind his back. “That’s it, Tucker. Game over. Jolene, go get the police down here.”
“Sam!” Jolene clutched her stomach as Tucker wailed. “You don’t really believe he killed Melody, do you?”
“He has her damned purse, Jolene. Go get the cops before I have to hurt him.” Sam flipped Tucker over and planted a knee in the middle of the frail man’s back.
Jolene jogged across the parking lot and grabbed the first officer she saw. “We ran into a homeless guy near our car. He admitted to squatting in the apartment next to Melody’s, and he has her purse.”
Another cop overheard her and the two sheriff’s deputies hustled toward the edge of the parking lot.
When they arrived, Sam looked up from the squirming Tucker. “I’m Border Patrol. I have my weapon but no cuffs. I didn’t have to pull my gun, but you need to take him into custody.”
Tucker thrashed on the ground. “You told me you wouldn’t call them. Where’s my ten bucks? Tucker, trucker. Tucker, trucker.”
One of the officers swore. “Oh man, it’s Tucker Bishop.”
“You know him?” Sam panted. “He’s wriggling like a fish on a line over here.”
“We pick him up occasionally, mostly for a seventy-two-hour hold in the psych ward. He’s usually not violent.”
“Yeah, except he’s in possession of a dead woman’s purse. He told us he heard someone in Melody’s apartment and saw him walk by, but I don’t know how much we can trust him.”
The deputies approached Sam and Tucker, one of them drawing his weapon. “Stop struggling, Tucker. We’re gonna take you to the station and find out what you know, give you a cot and a hot. Why do you have that woman’s purse?”
“She gave it to me. She gave me stuff.”
Sam finally relinquished control of Tucker to the sheriff’s deputies. Standing up, he brushed off his clothing. “I’m going to have to do more laundry.”
Jolene spotted Melody’s purse on the ground and crouched down, reaching out for it.
“Don’t touch it, Jolene. Let them bag it for evidence and test it for prints. The fewer people touching it right now, the better.”
She snatched her hand back. “I don’t see her phone.”
“What?” Sam took a knee beside her.
“Her phone.” Jolene poked at the purse with a stick she snatched up from the parking lot. “She’d usually stick it in this side pocket.”
Sam pushed to his feet. “Check Tucker’s pockets for a phone.”
One of the deputies snapped on a pair of gloves and asked Tucker to remove his coat. He searched through the pockets of the coat, and then patted down Tucker.
“Nothing.”
Jolene approached Tucker, his hands cuffed behind him, his lips moving with mumbled words. Her heart ached for him. Melody would have been kind to him because Melody had a thing for lost causes.
“Tucker? Did you take Pinky’s phone?”
He shook his shaggy head and spittle nestled in his beard. “No phone. No zone. No drone.”
“Watch out, Ms. Nighthawk, we’re taking him in. We’ll ask him about the phone.”
As the deputies bagged the purse and hauled off a subdued Tucker, Jolene plopped down in the passenger seat of Sam’s car, her legs hanging over the side. “What the heck do you make of that? You can’t possibly believe that poor confused man killed Melody.”
“You said it. He’s confused, Jolene. We don’t know what’s going on his head. We don’t know what drugs he’s on. I was willing to play along up until the minute Melody’s purse fell out of his coat. He could’ve heard her come home, gone next door, asked for a beer. Maybe Melody invited him in, he saw her purse and decided to take it. She fought back, fell and hit her head.” He shrugged in a way that encompassed everything else.
Jolene pinned her hands between her knees. “I don’t know. If Tucker did kill her, why did he accost us in the parking lot? We didn’t know he was there. He could’ve disappeared with Melody’s purse. Nobody would’ve known of his presence. The cops m
ight not have even discovered that he’d been in the apartment next door. Why implicate himself when he didn’t have to?”
“Really, Jolene?” Sam raised his eyebrows. “You’re acting like Tucker the trucker is a reasonable, rational human being, instead of a drug-and-booze-addled vagrant.”
She dropped her head to her knees. “Oh, Melody, why’d you start drinking again?”
Sam stroked her hair. “I’m going to get you home—before something else happens.”
When Sam got behind the wheel, Jolene tapped his forearm. “Is Melody Nighthawk going to be another person in that death register whose death is marked down as accidental? We need to comb through those names.”
“Not tonight. Do you need to call someone, Granny Viv, or will Wade take care of that?” He plucked a charger from the cup holder. “I don’t think this will work with your phone.”
“Wade will tell Gran. I’ll charge my phone when I get home.” She ran a finger down the thigh of his jeans. “Do you have to go back to your motel? I—I’m still rattled after everything that went on today. I’d rather not be alone—even with Chip there.”
“I had no intention of leaving you alone tonight.”
Jolene eased out a sigh and slumped in the seat. Was she inviting trouble by asking Sam to stay? Could she have him in her home and not her bed?
She’d find out soon enough.
* * *
WHEN HE WALKED into her house, Sam removed his weapon from his waistband and set it on the kitchen table. He pinched his T-shirt between two fingers and pulled it away from his body. “Every time I step into your home, there’s something wrong with my clothes.”
Jolene searched the counter for her phone charger. “What is it this time?”
“Did you get a look at Tucker and his clothing? He and it weren’t too clean, and I had to tackle the guy.” He pulled his T-shirt up to his face and sniffed it. “Yeah, this definitely has to go in the wash.”
“I should start charging you for laundry.” Jolene walked to her bedroom and plugged her phone into the charger on her nightstand.
When she returned to the living room, Chip had joined in on the sniffing. His nose was twitching as he checked out Sam’s jeans.
