by Mike Lawson
“How’d the meeting with the sheriff go?” Tommy asked.
“I think you were right about him. He’s assigning another investigator to the case. We’ll see what happens.”
“And how much longer do you plan to hang around here bugging people?” Tommy asked.
DeMarco shrugged. “At least a couple more days to see what the sheriff comes up with. But if you need to go back to Boston—”
“Nah, I’m okay spending a couple more days here.”
DeMarco’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, hoping it wouldn’t be Mahoney. It wasn’t; it was from a number with a Wyoming area code. He thought about letting the call go to his voicemail in case it was one of those annoying robocalls, then decided to answer it in case it was someone in the sheriff’s office, like the new investigator the sheriff had assigned.
He answered the phone saying, “Hello, this Joe.”
The caller said, “Mr. DeMarco, my name’s Marla. My husband’s a truck driver.” The woman had a twang in her voice, an accent DeMarco associated with places like Texas or Oklahoma.
“Okay, but why are you calling me?” DeMarco asked.
“I ride with my husband and we stayed overnight in Waverly when that writer was killed. I know who did it.”
“You do? Then why didn’t you tell the sheriff?”
“Because my husband wouldn’t let me. He didn’t want me getting called to testify at some trial, which might mean having to hang around Wyoming for a couple of weeks or more.”
“So who did it?”
“A trucker who was staying there the same night we were. I don’t have a name but I know the rig he drives and I have a plate number.”
“So give me the plate number.”
“Well, I was thinking that might be worth something to you. Like maybe five hundred dollars. I could use the money.”
“You need to call the sheriff. Maybe he’ll give you a reward for the information.”
“I told you, my husband don’t want me talking to the sheriff. But I heard you were real interested in that woman’s death.”
“Who’d you hear that from?”
“I can’t talk anymore right now. My husband will be back soon and he wouldn’t like me talking to you. We’re staying overnight here in town, over at the truck stop, and pulling out in the morning. My husband drives a red Kenworth with a shiny chrome bumper and fancy chrome wheels. You come see me tonight, but not until after midnight, say one a.m. My husband’s a drunk and as soon as we stop for the day, he starts drinking and he’ll be passed out by then. Now I gotta go. Earl’s coming. So one o’clock if you want to hear what I have to say. And don’t forget to bring the money.”
The woman hung up.
“Who was that?” Tommy asked.
“Supposedly the wife of a truck driver who knows who killed Shannon. She said it was another trucker whose name she doesn’t know, but says she has a license plate number. And oh, by the way, she wants five hundred bucks to tell what she knows. She claims her husband won’t let her tell the sheriff, plus she doesn’t think the sheriff will offer her a reward.”
“Well, if she’s telling the truth, a trucker would fit the sheriff’s theory for who murdered Shannon.”
“Yeah, but how would she know the sheriff’s theory? And how did she get my name and number?”
Tommy shrugged. “I’m guessing a lot of people in this town know by now that you’re looking into Shannon’s death. And if she’s really the wife of a truck driver, she could have gotten your name from someone who eats at Harriet’s. As to how she got your number, maybe she found out you were staying at the motel and got it from Sam.”
“Yeah, maybe. The other possibility is that she’s the person who killed Shannon and tonight she’s planning on taking a crack at me. People around here think I’m the one driving the investigation and—”
“Which you are.”
“—and that if I’m gone, everything will be okay.”
“So what are you going to do?” Before DeMarco could answer, Tommy said, “What you should do is call the new investigator the sheriff’s assigned to the case.”
DeMarco thought that over for a moment and said . . .
40
There were six big rigs at the truck stop, all parked in a row, next to each other. The area in front of the truck stop, where the convenience store and the gas pumps were located, was well lit but the parking area wasn’t lighted at all. A pale half-moon provided the only illumination. The eighteen-wheelers loomed in the darkness; they had high cabs and were about eighty feet long with the trailers they were pulling. It took DeMarco a couple of minutes to find the red Kenworth, parked between two other big rigs. There was no one standing near the cab of the Kenworth, but he looked down the row on the driver’s side of the truck. About halfway down, he could see a woman standing there. She was about five foot six, slender, dressed in a dark T-shirt and jeans, but he couldn’t see her face; it was too dark and she was looking down at the ground and her features were obscured by a long-billed baseball hat. As Harriet had said, all his suspects were about the same height and had about the same build. The woman could be Lola Clarke, Carly Turner, or Lisa Bunt—or it could be the mysterious Marla.
DeMarco didn’t see Tommy and wondered where he was.
She was thinking: Come on, come on. Why are you standing there?
She wanted him a bit closer to be sure she wouldn’t miss. Ten feet was the perfect distance.
When he was within range, she’d do it quick. No talking. No hesitation. One shot and run like hell. She hadn’t taken her car because the BMW was too recognizable. She’d taken one of the ranch’s older pickup trucks, one that looked like a thousand other pickups in Wyoming, and smeared mud on the license plates. The pickup was parked by the truck stop’s dumpsters and she could reach it in less than thirty seconds and be gone. And if somebody saw her, all they’d see was a woman dressed in dark clothing running. No way would anyone be able to make out her features the way the area was illuminated. And if anyone did suspect her, she’d have an airtight alibi. She’d slipped out of bed with Hiram sleeping next to her, dead to the world, because he had to take sleeping pills to sleep because of his back. If anyone were to ask where she was the night DeMarco was killed, Hiram would swear that she was with him and no one would ever doubt Hiram.
So she’d thought it through completely, but everything depended on speed. One quick shot and it would be over with before anyone just happened to walk by and see her.
But the bastard wasn’t moving. He was just standing there.
COME ON!
The plan had been for DeMarco to walk to the front of the red Kenworth while Tommy circled around to the trailer end of the truck so he could come up behind the woman while she was talking to DeMarco. What Tommy hadn’t realized was that because the parking area was unlit, he couldn’t tell which truck was a red Kenworth from the trailer end. So he glanced down each row looking for a woman standing there, hoping DeMarco wouldn’t approach her until he was in place. He was too slow. By the time he saw the woman standing between two trucks, DeMarco was already walking toward her.
Tommy thought: Goddamnit, DeMarco, you’re going to get yourself killed.
DeMarco walked toward the woman. Just as he began walking, he saw Tommy behind her, at the rear of the trailer the Kenworth was pulling. The woman was about twenty feet away from him. Tommy was forty feet away, now coming up quietly behind her.
DeMarco stopped about ten feet from the woman. He still couldn’t see her face because of the ballcap. He said, “Marla?”
She lifted her head. It was Lisa Bunt—and without any hesitation whatsoever, she raised the gun she was holding in her right hand and shot DeMarco in the chest.
The bullet slammed into the vest DeMarco was wearing, the impact knocking him backward, and he stumbled and landed on the grou
nd, on his back looking up at her.
Seeing he wasn’t dead, Lisa said, “Shit.” She took a step toward him, planning to shoot him a second time, but before she could Tommy fired a shot into the air and screamed, “Stop or I’ll shoot you.”
Lisa spun toward Tommy, and again without hesitating, fired at him. DeMarco heard the bullet zing off the side of one of the trucks. When Lisa had turned to shoot at Tommy, DeMarco had scrambled to his feet and rushed her from behind. He couldn’t stop her from firing the first shot at Tommy but before she could fire a second time, he slammed into her like a linebacker tackling a quarterback and drove her to the ground. He clamped his right hand on her right wrist, and with his left hand wrenched the gun from her.
DeMarco stood up. By that time, Tommy was standing over Lisa, breathing hard, his weapon pointed down at her. DeMarco said, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “And you’re damn lucky she didn’t shoot you in the head.”
Lisa was lying there face down on the ground. Finally, after several seconds, she started to push herself to her feet, but Tommy said, “Don’t get up. Stay on the ground. Just sit there.”
Lisa looked up at Tommy then over to DeMarco. The ballcap had fallen off her head when DeMarco had tackled her and her long, dark hair had tumbled down to her shoulders. Her eyes were filled with tears.
She said to DeMarco, “You son of a bitch. You’ve destroyed my life. Why in the hell did you have to come out here and stir everything up?”
DeMarco didn’t answer her question but if he had answered, the answer would have been: Because someone had to.
Tommy called 911, and less than ten minutes later, a deputy DeMarco had never seen before arrived. He listened to what DeMarco and Tommy had to say about Lisa Bunt shooting DeMarco and taking a shot at Tommy. DeMarco also unbuttoned his shirt and showed the deputy the slug embedded in the vest he was wearing under his shirt. The deputy asked Lisa, who was still sitting on the ground, “Are they telling the truth?” Lisa didn’t answer. The deputy confiscated Tommy’s weapon as well as Lisa’s, put handcuffs on Lisa, and placed her in the back seat of his cruiser. He also took DeMarco’s bulletproof vest, taking care not to dislodge the slug.
DeMarco asked, “What kind of gun did she shoot me with? Was it a .22?”
“It was a .38 revolver,” the deputy said. “Why are you asking?”
“Just curious,” DeMarco said. Actually, he’d been wondering if Lisa had used the same caliber weapon that had been used to kill Shannon.
The deputy told DeMarco and Tommy to stay where they were, and walked back to his cruiser and made a phone call. By now three truckers were watching the proceedings. They’d been sleeping inside the cabs of their trucks and had been awakened either by the gunshots, or by the sound of the deputy’s siren when he arrived. One of the truck drivers was wearing nothing but boxer shorts and cowboy boots and was drinking a beer.
Fifteen minutes later Pat Morse showed up. Morse was close to fifty, a blocky guy with a crew cut who looked as if he might have wrestled in high school and had stayed in wrestling-shape afterward.
DeMarco told Morse what had happened: how he got a call from a woman who claimed to have witnessed Shannon Doyle’s murder.
“And you decided to come talk to her yourself instead of calling the sheriff’s office,” Morse said.
“Yeah,” DeMarco said, seeing no reason to elaborate.
“I guess it was a good thing you just happened to be wearing a vest.”
“Yeah,” DeMarco said again.
Turning to Tommy, Morse said, “And you, you just happened to be here with a gun?”
Before Tommy could respond, DeMarco said, “Tommy’s a friend of mine, an ex-Boston cop, and I asked him to come out here and act as my bodyguard in the event something like this happened. Fortunately, Lisa didn’t know about him.”
“Jesus,” Morse said. “What if she’d shot you in the head?”
41
The next morning, Pat Morse decided to start with Lola Clarke. She’d been sitting in a cell for over twenty-four hours. The first thing she said when led into the interview room was, “I’m sick. You gotta help me.”
Pat had to admit that the woman looked like death warmed over: pasty, sallow complexion, red-rimmed eyes, scratching her left arm as if it was covered with ants. He said, “You’re having withdrawal symptoms, Lola. We’ll get a doctor over here in a bit to see if there’s anything that can be done to help you. But first I need to ask you some questions.”
“I can’t think right now.”
“The questions are easy,” Morse said. “But, Lola, I’m required by law to tell you that you’re allowed to have a lawyer here for this interview. If you want one, it’s going to take a couple of hours to line one up, and, well, I can’t get you that doctor you need until after we’ve talked.”
“Just ask your damn questions,” Lola said. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“That’s a good decision,” Morse said. “Now you have to sign this form here that basically says I’ve read you your rights and you don’t want a lawyer right now.”
Lola scrawled her name on the form and Morse said, “Okay. Now, did you tell Donny Mullen to kill Mr. DeMarco? Before you answer, you should know that Donny’s already agreed to testify against you to get a reduced sentence.”
“He’s an asshole and he’s lying. I didn’t tell him to kill the guy. I didn’t even tell him to hurt him. All I told him was I needed him to get DeMarco off my back. I thought he’d, like, you know, just intimidate him.”
“Good,” Morse said. “I’m glad you’re being honest with me, Lola. But there’s something else I need to know. Where were you the night Shannon Doyle was killed?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I can’t tell you where I was yesterday. I’m so sick I can’t think.”
“Come on, Lola. That writer getting shot at your dad’s motel was a big deal. Certainly, you’d remember that day. When you got to work there would have been cops all over the place.”
“I’m tellin’ you, I can’t re—Wait a minute, I know where I was.” She laughed. “I was in jail, right here in Rock Springs. The Rock Springs cops arrested me and a couple of other girls for what they called loitering and I spent the night in jail. The next morning, they kicked us all loose. They’d only picked us up to hassle us. After they let me go, I went home and changed and went to work.”
Morse looked at her for a moment, then said, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Can I have a cigarette?”
“Sorry, but you can’t smoke in this building.” Then he stopped and moved a trash can sitting in a corner closer to her. “If you get sick, use that.”
He left the room and called a Rock Springs vice cop he knew. Sure enough, Lola was telling the truth. In response to complaints from a couple of businesses, the Rock Springs cops had made a sweep the night Shannon Doyle was killed and rounded up some of the girls working the usual corners. One of the girls was Lola Clarke. They’d picked her up around ten p.m., at least two hours before Doyle was killed, and had held her until seven the next morning.
Lisa Bunt seemed almost catatonic, looking down at the table in the interview room. When Pat Morse asked if she wanted him to call her husband or arrange for a lawyer, she didn’t respond.
He said, “Mrs. Bunt, is there anything about what happened last night that you’d like to tell me. For example, did you really call Mr. DeMarco and pretend to have information regarding Shannon Doyle’s murder? And did you really shoot DeMarco like he said, without him doing anything to provoke you? I mean, did DeMarco threaten you or make you fear for your life, and was that why you shot him?”
Lisa didn’t respond.
“Okay, well there’s something else I have to ask. Did you kill the writer?”
Lisa finally looked at him. She was a bright lady and had to know that at
tempted murder would probably get her half a dozen years in jail, and maybe less if she pleaded guilty and saved the county the expense of a trial. But murder, particularly premeditated murder, was a whole different ball game.
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Lisa, you should know I’m going to get a search warrant to look for the weapon that killed Ms. Doyle. It would be in your best interest to tell me the truth.”
“Get a warrant. I didn’t kill her.”
“Can you tell me where you were the night she died?”
Lisa made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Yeah. I was fucking Jim Turner down at the Best Western, right here in Rock Springs.”
Pat had never seen Jim Turner looking so bad. He hadn’t shaved since the last time Pat had seen him, and it didn’t look as if he’d slept much either. Pat had thought briefly about going to Jim’s house to question him, but decided it would be better to interview him at the sheriff’s office in Rock Springs. He was pretty sure Jim wouldn’t want his wife hearing the questions he planned to ask. Goddamn, but he felt bad for Carly Turner.
Pat said, “Jim, Lisa Bunt says you were with her at a motel in Rock Springs the night Shannon Doyle was killed. Is that true?”
Jim said, “Yeah.”
“So you’re willing to testify, under oath, that at the time the Doyle woman was murdered, that you and she were both in that motel room?”
Jim looked away, sighed, then said, “I was with her that night from about eight until eleven. I left at eleven. But I know Lisa was planning to stay in the room until the next day because she’d told Hiram that she was spending the night in Denver with a girlfriend.”
“In other words, you don’t know where she was at the time the writer was killed.”
“She wouldn’t have killed that woman, Pat. I mean, I know she was worried about Doyle revealing that we were having an affair, but she wasn’t super worried. She said Doyle liked her and doubted that she’d do anything to hurt her. DeMarco was the one who worried her, stumbling around like a bull in a china shop. She was afraid he’d tell Hiram or leak what he knew to the press.”
