BOOKER Box Set #2 (A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense): Volumes 4-6

by John W. Mefford

  “What? Yes, my momma is Vera.”

  “Oh, we go way back. Worked together in the cafeteria over at your namesake’s high school, Booker T. Washington.”

  Wasn’t my namesake, but again, I didn’t want to debate it. I just wanted help in finding Metrick without losing my vision.

  “Cool, I’ll tell Momma you said hi.”

  “Oh, I’m Lucinda,” she said, extending her hand out of her window. I shook it while peering into the overgrown landscaping in Lucinda’s yard.

  “I remember some stories about you. She used to brag about you all the time. One proud momma. She back in town?”

  “Uh, yeah…I mean, yes, ma’am, I believe she’s still in town.”

  She started cackling. “I remember when she brought you up to the school on your birthday. Think you were thirteen, fourteen maybe, and she had Norah Jones serenade you. I’ll never forget—”

  “Lucinda, the man I’m chasing. He could be dangerous. Have you seen anyone at all in the last few minutes as you came out to get into your car?”

  “Dangerous?” Her head cocked back, then turned and looked toward her house. “I thought you were just shitting me. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life. Booker, are you going to catch this man?”

  “I’m doing my best. I was just hoping you or someone had seen him run down your street.”

  “I haven’t seen no one. You just go on and do your thing. Catch that nasty man. I gotta run to the store. Just make sure it’s all cleaned up before I get back. Okay, son?”

  Squinting my eyes, I could have sworn leaves in the bush on the right side of Lucinda’s front yard moved.

  Without taking my eyes off the hedge, I said, “Do you have any pets, Lucinda?”

  “I got the cutest little cat. My friend for the last eleven years. Tigger is his name. As you might have expected, he’s an orange tabby. Needs to lose a little weight, though. He’s got a hearty—”

  “Indoor or outdoor?”

  “What? I’m not following you.”

  If I could have produced lasers with my eyes, the shrubbery would have turned into charred sticks.

  “Is Tigger an indoor cat or outdoor cat?” I could see her head turn toward her house out of the corner of my eye.

  “Indoor, of course. Tigger is afraid of his own shadow. Plus he doesn’t have his front claws.”

  “Thanks, Lucinda.”

  She punched the gas just as someone darted out from behind the bushes and raced toward the chain-link fence in Lucinda’s backyard.

  “Metrick, stop!” I yelled out, but he was already in full stride.

  Lucinda slammed on the brake, which only impeded my progress. I smacked the roof of the Impala, then scooted around the back end.

  My shoes hit the gravel driveway in a run, just as Metrick jumped up and over the three-foot fence. He looked mighty agile for a guy with stage 3 cancer.

  I followed suit, leaping over the fence just as he turned to look. I cleared it as he shuffled his feet to prepare himself to hurdle the fence at the back of the yard.

  “Metrick!”

  I might as well have been a tree, or an unknown cop in uniform. His face was blank, and he ignored me again. The guy must have completely duped me the other day. Who knew if any of the crap he spewed was close to the truth?

  Metrick jumped over the back fence, but his fat rear end caught a sharp piece of metal, ripping his jeans, exposing his right cheek. He let out a high-pitched shriek. I thought I saw a line of oozing blood just as he smacked his ass. In a crouch on the other side of the fence, he took a quick look at his hand, then darted out of his stance, although his energy seemed to have been cut in half.

  He rounded the neighbor’s house to the front just as I stuck my boot on top of the fence and landed without breaking much of my stride. I dodged a stack of empty planters, tore through a set of towels drying on a clothesline, and hit the front side of the driveway. My shoes skidded across loose gravel, which then turned into grass, causing me to lose my balance. Leaning a hand down, I righted myself, then came to a halt.

  Where was Metrick?

  No signs of life looking north on Atlanta. Looking over my shoulder to the south, I saw a man a half-block down, raking a few leaves in his yard. I jogged in that direction and yelled out, “Sir,” then noticed from a distance he was wearing headphones.

  Given Metrick’s reduced rate of speed and new injury, he wouldn’t have made it that far. No way. He had to be hiding somewhere within the five or six lots around me. He was probably watching me right now.

  Damn, I wished I was carrying my Sig; if for no other reason, it might scare him into giving up. In the back of my mind, I could hear a voice asking me why my former teammate would bother to give me so much detail about his life, about the harassment he’d received from Donley—his false imprisonment—if it was all just another Metrick lie. Why weave such an intricate fabrication, then try to kill me hours later in the parking lot? And in such an inefficient manner. Guilt was the only word that came to mind. It was hard to imagine Metrick having the necessary skills to pull off a series of planned murders, let alone setting up Donley’s death as a suicide. Motivation was one thing—and depending on which story was the truth, he might have had the motivation, on Donley, maybe others, depending on how the victims might be connected. Pulling off a string of murders like what we’d seen couldn’t be accomplished through sheer luck. But my gut told me he’d somehow been sucked into this sick twister. How killing me fit into the puzzle, I couldn’t understand. Not yet.

  Too many questions to resolve. I first had to apprehend the man, then figure out a way to get him to tell me the truth—if that was even possible at this stage of his life.

  Leaves shuffled just under a yaupon holly, and I scooted a few steps to my left, my weight low and arms spread, readying for a bull rush. Just then a small pooch darted out of the foliage, cutting over to the neighbor’s yard. Suddenly, a Doberman leaped from a raised porch behind me and chased after what looked like a Chihuahua. The smaller dog dove into a mass of leaves and bushes one house down, the Doberman’s loping strides bringing his salivating jowls dangerously close to the smaller dog.

  I ran after them, hoping I could kick the Doberman away and save the smaller dog from being lunch. I couldn’t see anything. I searched for a large stick, but then heard a yelp. Turning over my shoulder, Metrick darted out of the hedge, the Doberman hot on his tracks.

  “Get this fucking dog away from me,” he yelled, running across the yard faster than he had since he’d bolted from Willie’s, his torn jeans flapping just a couple of feet from the dog’s incisors.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black van hauling ass down the road. Metrick had all of his attention on the dog, swatting and kicking at it as he twisted his body around, trying to run and fend it off.

  “Metrick, look out!”

  I ran toward Metrick, the dog, and the road. “Metrick!”

  He didn’t hear me until it was too late.

  I shuddered as Metrick popped off the van’s metal grill, sending him airborne. His body rolled to a stop just a few feet in front of me.

  “What the fuck was that asshole looking at?” the driver yelled, jumping out of the van.

  I rested two fingers on the side of Metrick’s neck, then looked up and shook my head.

  The driver, a boyish-looking guy around twenty, wearing a hoody and baggy jeans, leaned on his knees. “Holy shit, I killed a man.”

  16

  Even through a window and shades, I could still sense his severe pain—and it had nothing to do with all the tubes invading his body

  “Look at that expression on his face,” I said to Henry, standing next to me in the corridor in the ICU unit at Parkland Hospital.

  “He looks like crap. But that’s to be expected, isn’t it?” Henry shifted his eyes toward me, then we both watched a petite nurse walk around Metrick’s bed and check the drip on his IV bag.

  It turns out my two-finger pul
se check wasn’t very reliable. Metrick was still alive when the paramedics had arrived, but only by the thinnest of margins.

  Using his title and a few scare tactics—acknowledging Metrick might be connected to a string of Dallas murders—Henry had been able to secure a few details about his condition. Severe concussion, multiple fractures along his left side, including his humerus, scapula, and clavicle, internal bleeding found around his lungs, lacerated spleen, and other cuts and abrasions. At this stage, it was still touch-and-go as to whether he would live. The internal bleeding was the doctors’ main concern, from what Henry was able to pull from them.

  “Maybe it’s because I talked to him a few days ago and saw a guy who was troubled, to say the least. Not sure how much was the truth, but he’d been dealt a pretty shitty hand of cards, most of which he was to blame for. Or maybe because I saw his blank stare when I was chasing him down earlier…but Metrick seems haunted.”

  Henry arched a doubting eyebrow. “As in possessed or something?”

  “What? I don’t go there, especially if it’s not something I can fathom.”

  “I guess I’m thinking about last night. Cindy has me reading this latest Ania Ahlborn novel, Within These Walls. Honestly, I’ve started to have nightmares.”

  I wanted to ask if he was referring to Cindy or the book, but I somehow refrained.

  “Torment. That’s the word I’m looking for. As I look at his face now, he seems stressed. Tormented,” I said.

  “How many in a generation can we lose, Booker?” Henry said, more philosophical than usual.

  “He’s been doing drugs since he was twelve or thirteen. And I know he was dealing even before they caught him just before our junior year. And ever since then, apparently he’s been in and out of prison, still running with the wrong crowd. Never learned his lesson, and society didn’t help him much. It’s sad really.”

  “This coming from a guy who was almost killed by him,” Henry said.

  “True. He’s also a former teammate, so we used to have each other’s back. I guess that loyalty ended when he was expelled from school.” A quick image of Metrick’s face through the rain-drenched window of the boat-sized sedan that clipped my boot shot through my mind. I couldn’t help but wonder who had been driving.

  “Damn, I hope he survives,” I said.

  “You said he had stage 3 cancer. Frankly, it might be easier on him if he never wakes up.”

  ‘Who’s to say if he was bullshitting me? He’s an addict. And addicts would sell their mothers to the devil if it meant they were that much closer to their drug of choice.”

  Propping his elbow on his crossed arm, Henry rubbed along the side of his mouth, as if he had a goatee. He looked like he was barely able to grow peach fuzz. Meanwhile, if I didn’t shave every day, I looked like a guy who slept behind dumpsters.

  “Something keeps bugging me about Metrick—all the stories he told about Donley, and yes, his trying to run me over.”

  “Just one thing?”

  “You’re right, many things. I don’t see how killing me has anything to do with his life, the stories he told me, or any of the murder vics. I’ve never met the victims before.”

  “Need more research. Can we get Alisa to dig through Metrick’s record? Something might turn up,” Henry said.

  “Just send them over. She’ll work all night if she has to.”

  “Since I can’t trust anyone at the office, I need to run by and sift through our online filing system and locate Metrick’s files,” he said, taking out his phone, likely checking for messages.

  I held up a hand. “Who was driving the car that almost hit me?”

  “No clue. I wasn’t there, remember.”

  “I know that. But Metrick wasn’t driving. I don’t know…for some reason I get this feeling he was along for the ride. That’s why I need to talk to him.”

  “Even if he wakes up, he may not want to rat out anyone.”

  I forced out a breath. “That’s fucked up, but that’s also my fear. I know how people like Metrick think, at least to a degree.”

  Henry pocketed his phone, rested his arms on the metal windowsill covered with a coating of dust. “Right now, Metrick is our best lead, our only true lead.”

  “I wonder if there’s any way he crossed paths with Paco.” I could feel my pulse picking up its pace.

  Henry’s head dropped for a moment, and as he raised back up, his lips pressed together. “I can’t fucking believe it. Paco. Why the hell would he be a target of anyone? Just doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’ve been beating myself up the last day, asking myself the same question, plus about thirty more.” I thought about the place where I last saw my buddy, the rundown church, its gray, battered façade a fitting view, given its isolation from the rest of the bustling city. The inside had been a haven for addicts, possibly gang rituals, based on all the graffiti covering the walls.

  I sucked in a pocket of air as I saw Alisa talking to a guard posted at the end of the hallway.

  Henry gestured, and a few seconds later, she sidled up next to me, ensuring our hips touched.

  “Metrick still hanging on?” Alisa asked, her eyes peeled to the window.

  “Barely. He’s messed up. If the internal bleeding doesn’t get better, he may have to go into surgery. Then it could all be over.”

  “You okay?” She touched a couple of cuts on my forearm. I shifted my arm away.

  “Fine.”

  “I picked up your coat from Willie’s. He said something about wanting to be introduced to your mother.” A bewildered look washed over her face.

  I just shook my head. “I need to pay Willie another visit. Maybe after all this crap is behind us.”

  Henry flicked his hand off my shoulder. “Hey, you never told me how it went telling Paco’s family?” he said, his voice a half-octave lower.

  “Eh,” was all I could muster, a lump forming in my throat.

  “That bad?”

  “Reyna just collapsed into my arms. She asked me how I could let it happen.” My voice cracked as I looked up at the tiles in the ceiling.

  “I can’t imagine,” Alisa said, a tear bubbling in her eye.

  “Their daughters, Lalia and Esperanza, both walked in just as their mother was breaking down. A lot of tears were shed, and not all by them.”

  “I’m sure Paco would have wanted you to be the one to deliver the message, Booker, as hard as it was.”

  “It was the worst.”

  Alisa rubbed my shoulder, and I winced, but out of her sight line.

  A nurse walked by, and Henry turned away and asked for an update. Alisa and I peeked through the shades into Metrick’s room. I could faintly hear the beeping machines and ventilator inflating his lungs. Nothing else moved, his eyes were closed. But that pained expression remained. I wondered how much he was suffering inside, hidden from the rest of us.

  We turned back around as Henry joined us, shaking his head. “Not much has changed. Getting through the next twenty-four hours is critical.”

  Alisa touched my shoulder again, gingerly this time.

  “You hurt your shoulder…again,” she said, looking up at me.

  “You noticed?”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s still attached,” I deadpanned, looking into her amber eyes. They were warm yet inviting, like a crackling fire on a cool fall night.

  Just beyond Alisa’s bed of curls, I spotted a flyer on the wall. The red and white lettering spoke about an upcoming blood donor charity event.

  “Guys,” I said, glancing at Henry then back at Alisa.

  “I know, I’m still one of the guys. At least professionally speaking,” she said.

  I nodded with a slight smirk.

  “Ever since I talked to Paco’s family, I’ve been in a bit of a daze. And—”

  “I can see why. I can’t imagine something as emotional,” Alisa said.

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Henry added. “We’re all human, e
ven you, Booker.”

  “But Reyna gave me some feedback that could help us. Paco told her that a woman called him to set up this haunted house gig. Apparently it was to benefit a charity that meant a lot to Paco. Reyna said it had something to do with helping victims of violent crimes. She thinks Paco called it AKA. I’ve never heard of it.”

  Alisa pulled out her cell phone and started tapping tiny letters. “This is big. I’ll start looking into it right away.”

  “Henry, we need access to Paco’s cell phone. And we might need a warrant for his cell phone company, but I know that could take a while.”

  “I’ll add it to the list of files I need to get you and Alisa on Metrick here.”

  “Looking for any connection to each other. Or just anything that smells funny,” I said.

  Another thought entered my mind. “Not sure there’s much we can do here until Metrick is conscious.”

  “If he pulls through,” Henry added.

  I guided the group over to the bank of elevators. A few nurses gathered around a TV off to our right. Catching a free elevator at Parkland was almost as easy as catching a DART train off Mockingbird at seven a.m.—you either had to be lucky, quick, or overly aggressive. Being in a hospital, I had to rely on the first two, although it was still a waiting game. Alisa gravitated toward a TV program that appeared rigid and official looking.

  “You heard anything more from Ligon?” I asked Henry.

  “Not yet.”

  “Me either. It’s good to have him out of our hair.”

  “For now, yes.”

  “I know it’s only a matter of time.” I let out an exasperated breath, thinking through the string of killings. “As much as I was convincing myself Metrick couldn’t have murdered three cops and a judge, part of me hopes it is him. We’d be damn lucky if it was.”

  “All the homicides except for Kim, of course,” Henry said, his face a bit more tense.

  “Right, I don’t see how Metrick could have weaseled his way into her life or lifestyle.”

  A couple of women in scrubs moved up next to us, prompting Henry and me to shift a few feet closer to Alisa, whose eyes were glued to the flat screen.