Her Last Scream

by J. A. Kerley

  Everything since had been too good to be true, and he’d figured there’d have to be some kind of fly in the ointment, somebody asking him for money to give up the place the bitch was hiding.

  But everything happened as promised: Treeka was his rightful property and he could do with her as he pleased. All Tommy had to do was burn down the house when he left, and bring a second slut back to Colorado. He was allowed to discipline the whore if she acted poorly – and discipline her hard – but was not allowed to kill her. Someone else, it seems, had that right.

  Tommy Flood looked at the clock again. Eight hours and he’d be back on the ranch. There were things that needed doing to keep Treeka in line, plus he was going to pass the other whore to his benefactor.

  A busy day coming up, good business all around. Tommy Flood checked his speedometer again and began singing along with Dwight Yoakum, his voice booming out the window and into the desert sky.

  Can a man get any happier than this? he wondered.

  I called Harry, then Cruz and I returned to the motel. We had no idea which way Rein had gone, everything depending on a license tag attached to an unknown vehicle. Teemont had expanded the APB to surrounding states.

  I was pacing the balcony, wanting to jump in the van and join the search. But at this hour it was just headlights in the black. Plus there were four directions I could take, three of them wrong, so I paced and wrung my hands and tried to think of things I had missed.

  Meanwhile, Cruz sat on the bed checking every note generated while following Rein, every detail from Boulder to Branson. She’d been working for an hour when I heard a door opening.

  “Carson!”

  I spun to see Cruz waving me back to the room, her laptop in one arm. “What?” I said, pushing into the cool of the air conditioning, the scent of the fast shower she’d taken.

  “I was checking into Victoria Miles, the transport and safe house before Rick, thinking about her story about her sister. We hadn’t really read it, just scanned the headlines for verification, right?”

  “Something wrong with it?”

  “It happened as Miss Miles said: the wife’s suicide, the court proceedings, the acquittal, the shooting by the sister. Without the details from Victoria Miles, you get the impression the wife was a psycho sex weirdo who made hubby’s life a living hell.”

  “That was Miles’s contention: The lawyer was shameless but talented, turned facts on their heads.”

  Cruz tapped keys on her laptop and pulled a newspaper headline to the screen: Dr Conette Acquitted of all Charges. The subtitle was Lawyer Paints Wife as “Sad, Sick Woman”.

  “Read this and see if anything jumps out at you.” Cruz passed me the laptop and I started reading. Three paragraphs were all it took.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  Chapter 48

  It was almost ten thirty p.m. Mountain Time and Liza was dozing on the floor of her office for the second time in a week. Dr Bramwell was on sabbatical, Robert in and out, Deanna Werly, another TA, was ill with strep throat. Liza had been attending classes during the day, teaching Sinclair’s freshman-level courses at night. She planned to rise at four and grade quizzes before Sinclair arrived with his demands.

  A sound intruded on her dreams and Liza found herself staring at the leg of her desk. The door of the elevator closed and she figured its opening had roused her. She opened her door a sliver and saw Dr Sinclair walk past. She started to speak, but was on the floor with her hair flat on one side, a drool-wet sleeve, and a sweater as a pillow.

  Plus Sinclair was moving like a man on a mission, on full-mull as Robert called it, deep in thought. Disturb him at your peril.

  Liza wiggled forward until peeking into his office. Sinclair was standing with a sheaf of papers in his hand. He set them on his desk, seemed to have second thoughts. He turned a full circle with the papers, as if unsure where to file them, then jammed the pages into a thick textbook on his shelves. He laughed darkly, then sat at his desk with his back to Liza. He tapped at the keyboard for two minutes, shoulders rocking with the motion.

  He froze, then leaned toward the screen, as if not believing what he saw.

  He whispered, “They’re my words.”

  Liza watched Sinclair jump from the chair, still fixated on the screen.

  “You stole my words! YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

  Liza couldn’t tell if Sinclair’s voice held anger, confusion, or triumph. Suddenly fearful – though not sure why – Liza slipped her door shut. A minute later she heard Sinclair’s steps fade down the hall and disappear into the elevator.

  One final Son of a bitch and he was gone.

  Liza stood shakily, as if Sinclair’s voice still roiled the air. What the freakin’ hell was that all about? There was a cup of cold coffee on her desk and she drank it, part thirst, part to wake her dream-drowsed head. Dr Sinclair had either been too angry – or too jubilant – to remember to pull his door tight; half the time Liza or Trotman had to lock it at night anyway, Sinclair too lofty for such duties.

  Liza crept toward the office, eyes on the textbook with Sinclair’s sheaf of papers jutting from the book pages. She felt gravity pulling her into his office, across the carpet. The pages seemed to tremble toward her shaking fingers.

  Pick me up, Liza, they begged. Read me.

  “Say again,” Harry said, the sleep dissolving from his voice. I’d called his home at six a.m. to share the latest twist in this bizarre whirlwind of a case.

  “You heard me, brother. The scumbucket attorney in the Macon case was none other than Nathaniel Bromley.” I looked across the room, saw Cruz rolled in a sheet, stripped to her skivvies and starting to stir.

  “C’fee,” Cruz mumbled.

  “What the hell does it mean?” Harry asked.

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe Bromley fell into the case by accident, a friend of the dentist passing along the name of a high-level bottom-crawler. As a member of Blackwell, Carrington & Bromley, he would have been law-licensed in Georgia. They have clients in Atlanta.”

  “The dentist, Krebbs …”

  “You thought Bromley and Krebbs were an odd pair of golfing buddies. Maybe what’s bonding them isn’t smacking a little ball but a hatred of women. You said it yourself, brother: what if there’s an anti-system system?”

  “That golfing stuff never felt right,” Harry said. “If Bromley wanted a golf buddy he could probably rent Tiger Woods.”

  I hung up. Given what Harry’d said about Bromley’s comments to Sal and his BFF chuckling with Krebbs, women weren’t high on Bromley’s list. That alone meant nothing – I knew folks with similar issues, and it made them insecure, but not malevolent – still, it was a connection.

  Cruz had slung a robe around her and was assembling a cup of coffee. My phone rang. “Chief Teemont,” my caller said, the chief of the county mounties. “We found the license tag from Mr Redfeather’s vehicle in the ashes of the burned home. The killer obviously grabbed another. There’s nothing to look for.”

  I cursed beneath my breath as Teemont continued. “Doc Winegartner, the coroner? He reports that both women were lacking eyes, and from what he could tell, their breasts had been slashed. What the hell kind of maniac is out there?”

  Sally Hargreaves sat at the desk in Harry Nautilus’s home reading archived articles on the trial in Macon. She wore one of his robes, a small pretty head poking from the top of a blue velvet tent. The walls were covered with posters of jazz greats: Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker. The house smelled of fresh-brewed coffee.

  Nautilus leaned down. “Cruz dug this stuff up late last night. Guess this means I got to be nice to her.”

  “Jesus, Harry, I hated Bromley before, now I gotta get a twin to handle the overflow. Where from here?”

  “I asked Bromley why he didn’t do any work for his old firm. He got snippy and made a face like smelling dog plop on his shoes.”

  “Who’s the head shyster at Blackwell, Carrington & Bromley?” Sal asked.
<
br />   “Carrington, I think.”

  “Lemme make a call. I’ll bet they get started early at BCB, more hours to bill.”

  Hargreaves dialed the firm, asked three questions, rolled her eyes and hung up. “The receptionist over there sounds like she’s got a broomstick up her ass, probably part of the job description. We need an appointment to see ‘Mistah Carrington’; the earliest he’s taking audiences seems to be next week.”

  “Schedules of the rich and famous.”

  Hargreaves eyes twinkled. “But broom-butt lady revealed that Mr Carrington is heading to the federal courthouse, something to do with a motion.”

  Thirty minutes later the pair made their way through the high-ceiling halls of the federal courthouse in Mobile, Nautilus wearing a powder-blue suit with a scarlet shirt, Hargreaves in a dark jacket-skirt ensemble over a maroon blouse. Her artsy lapel pin was a scalloped, silvery disk with six holes toward the outside centered by a smaller hole. It resembled an organic form until closer inspection revealed a cross-section of the cylinder of a revolver.

  “It looks like a suit convention,” Hargreaves said. “Have you ever smelled so much musk?”

  “Not since my springtime visit to the zoo.”

  Hargreaves pointed to four men in earnest conversation in a corner. “Looky there … Arnold Carrington of Blackwell, Carrington & Bromley, Nate’s old firm. I got to say hi.”

  Nautilus started to grab Hargreaves’s arm to discuss strategy, but decided to let Sally brace the lawyer on her own. He watched Hargreaves plant herself in front of Carrington like a hungry bulldog.

  “Howdy, Mr Carrington. I’m Detective Sally Hargreaves of the MPD. I wanted to say I wish you’d kept Nathaniel Bromley in the firm. It just doesn’t seem right that Blackwell, Carrington & Bromley is lacking its Bromley.”

  Nautilus thought Arnold Carrington looked like an actor who played aging lawyers on TV: a touch of belly roll over the belt, brown hair with gray wings, a blue pinstripe suit without a wrinkle, as if constantly pressed by some internal engine. He was tanned and his teeth were capped and Nautilus figured the man never passed a mirror without snapping it a wink.

  Carrington stared at Hargreaves over tortoiseshell reading glasses. “You’re behind the curve, Detective. We’re now Blackwell, Carrington & Associates. Mr Bromley is history. May I ask why you’d wish him still within the firm?”

  “You haven’t heard? Your old buddy is preparing to attack the women’s center of Mobile. I think the center does important work. Maybe if you’d kept the Natester on the payroll he’d leave women alone.”

  Carrington shot a heartbeat-long glance at his companions. One of the lawyers studied Hargreaves, the other two looked away, as if wanting no part of the conversation.

  Carrington’s response was measured and precise. “Whatever Nathaniel Bromley is doing these days, it in no way reflects the views of the firm. He has no part in the firm, none. Bottom line: Blackwell, Carrington & Associates has absolutely no ties to Nathaniel Bromley, business or philosophical. Are we clear there, Detective?”

  “Do you know why the Natester might –”

  But Carrington and his posse were moving toward the courtroom at escape velocity. Hargreaves returned to Nautilus.

  “Jesus, Harry … In no way reflects our views, no part of our firm – I was half-expecting Carrington to go all Mafia: ‘Nathaniel Bromley is dead to us.’ What do you make of that weirdness?”

  Nautilus watched the quartet pushing into the courtroom, Carrington shooting a backward glance, his face a mix of curious and troubled.

  “Seems the parting wasn’t so amicable, Sal. I Wonder what Nate did to make his old buddies take his name off their expensive door?”

  “Must have been pretty major. Where could we get the low-down on Bromley?”

  Nautilus stared into the distance and grimaced.

  “What’s the matter, Harry?” Hargreaves said. “You look like a skunk just squirted under your nose.”

  “Worse. You ever head of D. Preston Walls?”

  “That little law office by the bail bondsmen and pawnshops?”

  Nautilus nodded. “You ever meet Walls, Sally?”

  “Never had the pleasure. Why?”

  “We’ll stop on the way and get some Lysol. You’ll want to spray yourself when you leave his office.”

  Chapter 49

  “T. Nathaniel Bromley?” Walls said. “He’s outta my league, Harry. I’m just a ham’n’egger who deals with real people with real problems – salt-of-the-earth types.”

  Preston Walls held his hands palm-up at his sides. He was in his mid forties, five-eight, overweight. His suit was mouse brown with a limp carnation dangling from a lapel. The gray in his thinning, ponytailed hair had been darkened with cheap dye, but the stud in his ear was a flawless ruby and the car at the curb was a high-end Porsche, the tag stating LGLEGL. The pneumatic blonde receptionist was a call girl Nautilus had arrested several times when she was in her thirties and Nautilus was in uniform, twenty years ago. The receptionist had been filing her nails when Nautilus and Hargreaves entered and had pretended they’d never met.

  “You know everything about everyone, Walls,” Nautilus said. “Lawyers, judges, prosecutors. You sweep dirt into a file and hope some day you can use it to buy a break for one of your scuzzy clients.”

  Walls shook his head. “Harry, Harry, Harry … my clients are good people trapped in bad situations. I’m less a lawyer than a social worker, a champion for the poor and downtrodden.”

  Nautilus rolled his eyes. He’d been in the office for two minutes and was already craving a shower. “I recall one of the clients, Walls: Ronnie Hill. Didn’t poor, downtrodden Hill drive a purple Benz, five-hundred class or whatever?” Nautilus turned to Hargreaves. “The damn thing had a twenty-grand stereo system: whenever Hall cruised the ’hood he’d be followed by falling glass from all the busted windows.”

  Walls smiled at Hargreaves. “He’s a great kidder, Harry is. But the truth is, Ronnie Hill is a product of the system. When society wouldn’t give him an outlet for his entrepreneurial instincts in society, he built his own business.”

  “Moving a half-key of coke a week,” Nautilus added.

  Walls sighed. “Had the young Ron Hill been given a chance, he might have owned a Coca-Cola distributor-ship, Harry. We all failed poor Ronnie: the community, the educational system, the –”

  “Where’s the guy now?” Hargreaves asked.

  “Holman prison,” Nautilus said. “Every time Hill got busted for moving dope, Mr Walls got him out. Last year poor, downtrodden Ronnie Hill shot at a competitor, missed, hit the guy’s twelve-year-old sister instead. She’s now a paraplegic.”

  Walls frowned. “Why are you here, Harry?”

  “Bromley, remember? I need to know why Nate’s former partners are treating him like a fence-jumper from a leper colony.”

  “Bromley, Bromley …” Walls tapped his fingers on his desk. “Seems I do recall a few sub rosa murmurings around that name. Colorful stuff.”

  “Colorful how?”

  “Listen, Harry, I’ve got this client, Marcus Flatt …”

  “Don’t do this to me, Walls.”

  “C’mon, Harry. Marcus is a good smart kid, a striver, a mensch. His case comes before a judge next week, prosecutor is Willis Baines. You know Baines, don’t you?”

  Nautilus stuck his hands in his pockets to keep them from Walls’s neck. “I’ll check into the case. Maybe I can wangle a little something if Flatt’s not a psycho.”

  “Marcus is ambitious, Harry. He needed venture capital to open a strip-o-mat and –”

  “A what?”

  “A combo laundromat and strip club. Great concept, right? Marcus even had matchbooks printed up: We Take Off Ours While You Wash Yours. Problem is, Marcus kept getting turned down for loans. Then a few dollars belonging to his employer disappeared and –”

  “How many dollars?”

  “Twenty grand or so. Maybe thirty.”
/>   Nautilus pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. “I’ll check with the DA’s folks. See if they can back off on the sentence a bit. No promises. And that’s only if you give me enough dish on Bromley.”

  “Have a seat, Harry. And you too, pretty lady. I’ll give the dish I know. It’s only a little appetizer, but delicious …”

  The trailer bounced hard, clattering down what must have been one of the world’s most-rutted roads, Rein thought, the back of her head banging the wooden floor. Rein never figured she’d be happy to be jammed into a livestock trailer, its floor covered with hay and manure, its window hatches locked tight and the door slammed shut. But the hay had smelled like salvation after the fumes of gasoline.

  She’d heard a crunching of feet over grass, the scrape of a flare dragged across the striker, the whoosh of fire and the run of boots back to the truck. Rein had felt the trailer shudder and grab, creaking as it gained speed. Then, the sound of tires over highway and the twang of country music drifting back from the cab became all Rein heard for hours.

  The banging stopped as the trailer angled downward and jolted to a halt. The door squealed open, Tommy outlined against a blue sky with a bag in one arm and jamming a sandwich in his mouth. She saw nothing past her captor but endless brown dirt studded with scrubby brush and rock outcroppings. Tommy pulled himself inside to squat beside the women, peeling back the tape from their mouths.

  “Time to piss and shit and eat. You can think about screaming, but the closest people are two miles away and going eighty miles an hour. If you do scream, the next thing that’ll happen is you’ll be screaming even louder, because it’ll be me making you scream.”

  He waited for the women to nod acceptance, then gave them a drink from a half-liter of Mountain Dew. He loosened Treeka’s wrist ropes, waved her to stand. “Come on, baby. Time to get emptied out.” He grinned. “Me too.”

  “Sure, baby,” Treeka said, stumbling toward the end of the trailer. “Whatever you want, hon.”