“Gruber? If he has a thing for anybody it’s Sanders.”
“I didn’t say he had a thing for you, Sonora. He won the pool, that’s all.”
Sam rolled his window down, looked sideways. Seemed to come to a decision. “Right or left?” he asked her.
“Left.”
He went right.
“What pool?”
“He picked August for when you’d be done with that guy. I would have taken July, myself. And Sanders thought you would get married.”
“Sanders was in on this?”
“She wouldn’t bet in the pool, no, she said it was tacky, and you would kill her if you found out, but her opinion was that you’d get married.”
“You guys had a pool on the Jerk, like the one you had guessing when Molliter’s wife was going to have her baby?”
Sam was nodding.
“You were actually betting on when it would be over with my boyfriend?” They had been betting while she had been crying?
“Actually it was more complicated. Would you dump him, or be dumped, were you—”
“Were I what?”
“Nothing.”
“Dammit, Sam.”
“Don’t get mad at me, I didn’t have any money in the pot.”
“Thank you for that, at least.”
“They wouldn’t let me in, figured since I was your partner I’d have inside information.”
“So Gruber won?”
“Hundred eighty dollars.”
“I hate you guys.”
“Not me.”
“You especially. Dammit. You went right by that turn again.”
“It’s a gravel road.”
“So? That’s against the law, living on a gravel road?”
“It’s not usual.”
“If you were out in the country as much as I am, Sam, you would not be surprised by a little bit of gravel road.”
“You know, ever since you got that horse, you act like some kind of hotshot farm girl.” Sam slowed the Taurus, scattered rock crackling under the tires, announcing their presence to anyone within five square miles.
“I may be learning late in life, Sam, but I am learning.”
“Do you ever get to ride him?”
“Not much. He scares me and I never have time.”
“Get rid of him.”
“No way, I happen to love that horse. And I like hanging out in feed stores, and I now even concede the value of a pickup.”
“Will wonders never cease.”
12
Joy Stinnet’s great-uncle lived on one of those strange little properties that started life as a moderate home in the country. But as the city stretched ever onward and the urbans sprawled, the land around this small place became a haven for people who wanted to spend their money on property that was close to the city proper with the advantages of the countryside. The best or the worst of all worlds, depending upon your viewpoint.
Sam stopped the Taurus about a hundred feet from the house. The driveway was lined on the right by a sagging wire fence, on the left by trees.
The house was small. White clapboard.
Sonora followed Sam across the weedy grass, stepping on squares of crumbling red brick that someone had laid down as stepping stones in happy years gone by. The porch light was on, a yellow sixty-watt bulb in a black metal socket over a heavy wood door that was a faded country green.
The concrete steps led to a small porch that had pulled six inches from the house, leaving a leaf-filled gap that was likely a haven for things Sonora did not want to think about.
“No lights on in the house,” Sonora said. She felt embarrassed. What if they had the wrong house? It had happened before.
“Probably gone to bed.” Sam gave her a sideways look. He knocked on the door.
A dog barked and howled, a sort of choky, panicked sound, as if the animal had been woken from a sound sleep, napping on the job.
Sam and Sonora waited. The front of the yard was screened in by trees, evergreens, oaks, a Japanese maple. Plenty of places for someone to hide, Sonora thought, but shady and cool in the summer.
The dog quieted. Sam knocked again.
“No one home?” Sonora asked him.
“You wish.”
A light went on in a window on the left side of the house. A bedroom. They waited.
There were noises, suddenly, on the other side of the door. A dead bolt, unlatching. The door sticking, a noise of suction, then it swung open.
The man who stood in the doorway was six feet six inches tall, by Sonora’s guess, and anywhere from eighty to eight hundred. He wore yellow and brown flannel pajamas that someone had ironed, and a heavy brown velour bathrobe belted tightly around his waist. He had brown leather house slippers on feet that could easily have been size thirteen and a half. The bones of his shoulders were prominent, his face thin, and though his frame could easily handle another fifty or more pounds, he was not gaunt or wasted. He looked like a man who’d been fit and active most of his life.
He wore glasses, wire frames curling over his ears, which stuck out from the closely razored white-and-gray-flecked hair.
“Who is disturbing me at this time of night?”
The voice aged him.
A basset hound stood quietly by the man’s leg. The dog’s eyes were red-rimmed and droopy. He had clearly been woken from a sound sleep.
Sam offered his ID. “Sir, I’m Detective Delarosa. This is my partner, Detective Blair. We’re police officers, sir, Cincinnati Police Department, looking for a Mr. Franklin Ward.”
“That would be me. I’m Franklin Ward.” The man licked his lips, focused on the identification Sam offered, took it between both of his hands and held it at a distance. Farsighted. His fingers trembled. There were age spots on the backs of his hands.
The man took his time. Cleaned his glasses on the sash of his bathrobe, put them back on, and read Sam’s ID word for word, lips moving in an inaudible mutter.
It was something of a wait. The man’s hands, like cold engines, did not seem to cooperate.
“Is something the matter?” Ward asked them. “I have a clean conscience myself.”
“Yes, sir, no question of that. I’m afraid we have bad news.” Sam left it at that, voice steady, reassuring.
“You best come on in, then. Don’t mind the dog, she’s not going to hurt you.”
The biggest danger from the basset hound, Sonora thought, was that she might fall asleep on your foot.
The man waved them to a couch that was covered in an old tasseled gold bedspread, clearly the dog’s favorite spot from the thick layer of hair coating the gold spread. Franklin Ward sat down in an old brown recliner, the vinyl repaired with duct tape on the right armrest. He sat with his back straight, large hands resting on his knees.
He reminded Sonora of her grandfather. He had died when she was two, but she remembered a tall lean man with glasses and a flannel shirt throwing her up into the air, making her stomach flutter, catching her. Calling her his little cupcake.
Franklin Ward’s quiet, trembling cooperation caught her more than the tears and hysteria of similar visits to other people, victims of mayhem. The wait to be told would be agony for him. He anticipated the blow. Waited for it. For once she was going to let Sam do it.
“Mr. Ward, is there someone you can call to be with you?”
He nodded. Went to the phone, an old clunky black one with a rotary dial. His fingers shook and he dialed heavily, slowly. Looked up at Sonora. “My niece, you know, m’great-niece. She looks after me. Here all the time with her babies. I keep her horse for her … hello, Joy? Joy?” He listened. “Oh, it’s the machine.” He frowned. “Let me dial it again, she should be home this time of night.”
Sonora looked at Sam. “Do something.”
Sam glared at her, stood up, held a hand out for the phone.
Ward looked at him. “Just let me try her again. Maybe you better dial it for me.”
“Mr. Ward, this is about your niece.”
<
br /> Ward looked at Sam as if he’d threatened him. “I better sit down.”
Sam hung the phone up gently and pulled his chair close to the couch. “Mr. Ward, when was the last time you talked to your niece?”
The man licked his lips. “Yesterday afternoon. And she called me this morning, asked me to put some corn oil into Abigail’s feed. Abigail is her mare. Joy used to board her out, but she and Carl have been having some troubles and I said I’d take the horse for a while.”
“What kind of troubles?” Sonora asked.
Ward did not want to tell her. “Money troubles. Carl’s business—he’s a paint contractor, and one of his major clients went bankrupt and Carl never got paid. They had some unexpected bills with the baby, and everything just kind of hit them at once. It happens to people. They’re good people. Please tell me what all this is about.”
“Mr. Ward, I’m sorry to have to tell you that your niece has met with a serious accident.” Sonora wondered why it was habit to say “met with.” As if Joy Stinnet had been introduced to a sociopath and a knife.
“Is she dead?”
“Yes, sir, she is.”
“Well, well …” Ward took off his glasses and polished them again with the flannel belt. “You are police officers? Was it an automobile accident? Is Carl at home?”
“Sir. Your niece was murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How could that be?”
“Someone broke into their home.”
“Are you sure you got the right people? She had a nice new house in that new subdivision … oh, darn, I can’t think of the name, but the street was …” He reached in a drawer, took out a Bible, the King James version, and removed a stack of papers that were wedged in the middle. His fingers moved like thick sausages through the papers. “Here it is, it was on Edrington Court, there in Cincinnati proper.”
Sonora sat forward. “Mr. Ward, we have the right house.”
“What about the babies? What about Carl?”
“Mr. Ward—” Sonora looked at Sam. Why was she doing this again? “Mr. Ward, none of them made it.”
“None of them made it? You mean … all of them were killed?”
“All of them except the baby. A daughter. About two months old.”
“But I just can’t—I just can’t believe this.” Tears leaked from the man’s eyes. “What on earth happened?”
“We’re piecing that together right now, Mr. Ward. Someone broke into the house and killed everyone except the baby. Your niece managed to hide her under the bed and save her. Sir, is there anyone else we can call to be with you right now?”
“Joy. She’s the only family that I have.”
“We can get a social worker.”
“Mrs. Cavanaugh lives down the road. She looks in on me and gets my supper three times a week. I can call her if I need someone.”
“We’ll stay until she gets here. If you could tell me her number—”
“I don’t remember. It’s posted on the wall in the kitchen.”
“I’ll make the call,” Sam said. Escaping.
“Mr. Ward, may I get you a glass of water? Or make you some coffee? Or … anything.”
He did not answer.
A curious blankness settled over him, as if he were unable or unwilling to connect. The news had been too much for him. It was the kind of news that would be too much for anyone.
Sonora’s first inclination was to think that his age would make him fragile, but she wondered now if the opposite was true, if life experience made him more able. He transformed right then and there. He was another person, a distanced person, his eyes like empty windows, his body a tense, tough shell. Endurance mode. Pain mode. No screams and wails, no denial, but a tortured acceptance. He had been there before. The only soft thing about him were the tears that gushed over the new-forming beard stubble on his chin and cheeks.
He was the last remaining one in the clan. Except for the baby. Down to two.
So many questions. She would have to come back. She gritted her teeth against impatience and the familiar feeling that time was slipping away.
13
The fifth floor of the Board of Elections building was lit like a torch, the parking lot behind the loading dock was full. Cincinnati’s finest out in force.
Sonora noticed a smear of blood on the toe of her Reeboks as she walked past the glass booth, through the swing doors into the bullpen. She frowned, replaying the scene in Ward’s living room. She did not think he had noticed. But Molliter, her least-favorite coworker, was giving her a second look. He seemed preoccupied. His hair, orange-red, had been clipped in a burr that would bring tears of joy to a marine recruiter, and his skin, parchment thin, was webbed at the eyes and mouth with a stamp of finely etched wrinkles that overlaid as many freckles as there were grains of sand. He held a file close to his chest as if he were pledging the flag. Sonora could see a fur of fine, red-gold hair on the backs of his hands. She had always wished he would use Nair or something.
He stopped abruptly. Looked her up and down. “I’m praying for them,” he said softly.
Sonora looked over his shoulder, saw Crick with his back to her, deep in conversation with Sanders, and headed his way. Felt Sam’s bulk at her back as she headed down the hall.
Crick turned and looked at her, and she felt a knot in her stomach as she waited for him to ask why they had been gone so long.
“Anything?” he asked.
Anything? she wondered.
“The woman is dead,” Sam said. “Joy Stinnet died on the table in the ER.”
Sonora nodded. “I was right there, she never regained consciousness.”
Crick rubbed the back of his neck. “Damn. Okay. Sit down, right now, Sonora. Write down exactly what she said to you, word for word.”
Sonora sat at her desk. Looked at the typewriter. Drew a total blank. Crick glanced her way, and she started typing Js. J J J J J J J … she glanced up. She wanted to know what the hell was happening.
Crick was talking in a low tone to Sam. “Nothing yet on the Jeep, CSU is still out there, but Mickey’s in the lab, he got in about fifteen minutes ago. He’ll be over soon as he can. What about that baby?”
“Not a scratch,” Sam said.
Sonora had quit typing.
“We got Sanders working on next of kin, Molliter’s checking for prison breaks and ex-cons, and Gruber’s coordinating the initial reports from the neighbor canvass. We’ve got three uniforms out there right now, working the crowd and going door to door.” He glanced up, saw that Sonora was not typing. “Got it?”
“Almost.”
“Okay, get this entered into NCIC and see if we get any hits. How many men were there, did the mother make any sense on that?”
“Two men and an angel.” Sonora noticed that Molliter had stopped and was listening.
Crick looked at her.
“It’s what she said.”
“Two makes more sense,” Crick said. “Got to be two.”
Sonora nodded. Two men, egging each other on. She’d seen that synergy before, a sort of heinous performance art, two predators playing Can You Top This? A third didn’t work. A third meant a gang, premeditation, a crime where money changed hands. Business. The curtain cords used to bind Carl Stinnet said crime of opportunity.
Sonora checked her watch. Wondered how much longer CSU would be out there, and if she could get back tonight. She typed more Js. She closed her eyes, put herself back in the hallway, remembered the woman’s screams when the bed ruffle had been pulled away.
What the hell was it she had said?
Someone behind her called her name, right about the time her phone started ringing. She picked it up.
“Cincinnati Police Department, Homicide, Specialist Blair speaking.”
“Detective Blair or Delarosa, please.”
A man’s voice. Businesslike, not unfriendly, a certain self-confidence in the tone. Not the slippery whine or cant of
the typical informer.
“This is Blair.”
“I understand you caught yourself a bad one.”
Sonora sat up, tried to keep the wary tone out of her voice. “Who’s speaking, please?”
“Sorry. My name is Jack Van Owen, retired, Homicide, is Crick there?”
“Yeah, I’ll—”
“No, don’t go get him. I want to talk to you, but I know you’re busy, and you’d probably like to hang up on my ass. I used to work with Crick. I was his partner for eleven years, so after I tell you what I’ve got to tell you, go talk to him, he’ll vouch for me.”
Sonora sat back in her chair. The name was familiar. Jack Van Owen.
“I wouldn’t be bothering you right now, but … you’ve got a home invasion and some physical evidence that includes olive pits. That right?”
Sonora felt the knot of tension in her jaw.
“Police radio,” the voice said, with just a trace of amusement. “Old habits, you know?”
“Nobody said anything about olive pits.”
“I’m guessing. You got olive pits, that right?”
“You’re spinning the scenario, you tell me.”
“Look, Detective Blair. Sorry, okay, let’s start over. I’m not trying to put you on the spot, and I’m not here to waste your time. I know of a guy I arrested about eighteen years ago. He used to eat olives obsessively, had a jar of them all the time, worse than a smoker. He’d spit the pits on his victims. Last I heard he was in LaGrange, but he was due out last May. I was thinking he might be your guy.”
“Really? Just like that, you got it solved?”
Deep breath on the other end. “If I told you I have friends in CSU, that’s all I’d tell you, I don’t want to make anybody mad. Mickey knows me.”
There was something about his voice. Baritone, self-confident, well-spoken. Not the kind of voice you hung up on.
Maybe he’s the killer, Sonora thought. Getting in on the investigation.
“No, Detective, I am not the killer sniffing around for the thrill. But if this is your guy, his name is Aruba, Lanky Aruba. If I’m right, my condolences to your victims. He’s a nasty boy, stone-cold sociopath, not very bright, or if he is he can’t use it. Very dissociated. Dangerous as hell when you trigger the rage. Think Sling Blade meets A Clockwork Orange. You old enough to remember—”
The Debt Collector Page 5
