Key Death (A Nicholas Colt Thriller Book 4)

by Jude Hardin

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I drove back to the convenience store by Pamela Wade’s house, where I’d bought the coffee. The same clerk was on duty.

  “What happened to you?” he said.

  “Never mind. I need to use your phone.”

  “We’re not allowed to let customers use the phone, sir. There’s a pay phone right outside.”

  “All right. Give me change.”

  I slapped a dollar bill on the counter. He punched a code into the computerized cash register, and the drawer sprang opened and he handed me four quarters. I walked outside. The phone was on the right side of the building, by the freezer where they kept bags of ice for sale. It had been awhile since I’d used a pay phone. The price had gone up. When I was ten, local calls cost a dime. Now they were fifty cents. On average, the price had gone up a penny every year. It made me feel old. I loaded two quarters into the slot and dialed 911, and the coins immediately rattled back at me, down the chute to the change receptacle. Apparently you got a free phone call when someone was dead or dying or on fire or something. I probably knew that at one time.

  “Emergency services,” the dispatcher said. “Is this a real emergency?”

  My hearing had started to come back, but everything still sounded muffled.

  “There’s been a double homicide,” I said. “So I guess you could call it a real emergency. But there’s no hurry. The dead people aren’t going to get any deader.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No.”

  I gave her Dan’s address, and then clacked the receiver into its cradle. I knew the dispatcher would have a lock on the location I’d made the call from, so I didn’t want to hang around. There was no reason for me to get tangled up in the investigation. I would have spent hours at the police station, and maybe years in court. It wasn’t worth the hassle. Once the police walked into the horror show that was now Dan’s house, it would be obvious what had happened. Dan and Veronica had been making a pornographic movie, and something had gone terribly wrong. She stabbed him, and then he shot her. End of story. No need for me to be involved.

  I got in my car and drove over to Pamela Wade’s house. I was beyond exhausted. Running on fumes. I wanted to go home. I was ready for this to be finished. I parked at the curb and marched to the front entrance and knocked. When nothing happened, I started stabbing at the button for the buzzer with one hand and pounding on the door with the other.

  Finally, a light came on. The peephole went black, and a voice from inside said, “What the fuck do you want?”

  “Pamela Wade?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Nicholas Colt. I talked to you on the phone before.”

  The door swung open. “I already told you everything I know. What the fuck are you doing at my house at five o’clock in the fucking morning?”

  “Dan’s not doing very well,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Can I come in?”

  She opened the door wider, and stepped back. She had a white bedsheet wrapped around her body, and she was barefoot. She looked as though she might have been going to a toga party. Her toenails were unpainted, and there were needle marks on the tops of her feet. Now I had a pretty good idea what Dan had gotten out of the van the first time I saw him. I stepped into the foyer, and Pamela closed the door.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Can we sit down?”

  “No, we can’t fucking sit down. Now tell me what the fuck you’re talking about before I call the cops and have your ass—”

  “I’m really tired,” I said. “And there’s a good possibility you’re going to prison. Your friend Danny boy was involved in what you might call the illicit side of the pornographic film industry—not that there’s a legitimate side, as far as I’m concerned—and I’m pretty sure you knew about it. Maybe you were involved yourself. You’re not going to call any cops. That’s the last thing you want to do. I’m going to walk over there and sit on your couch, and you’re going to go make a pot of coffee. Or, as you might like to say, a fucking pot of coffee. Then we’re going to talk.”

  “What makes you think you can just waltz in here and start ordering me around?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t say please. Please go make a fucking pot of coffee.”

  If she’d been totally innocent, she would have booted me out then. Or maybe she would have called the cops. She didn’t do either. She bit her lip and shook her head and stomped off into the kitchen. She didn’t call my bluff. That told me she was guilty.

  Of something.

  I walked into the living room, switched on a lamp, and sat on the sofa. I sank into the cushions. It was a very comfortable couch. I must have nodded off, because the next thing I remember Pamela Wade was standing in front of me wearing a pair of melon-colored sweatpants and a tattered Who Shot J.R.? T-shirt. She’d pulled a long pair of socks onto her tracked-up feet.

  “You want cream and sugar?” she said.

  “Just black. Thanks.”

  She came back a couple of minutes later with two mugs. She handed me one of them, and then sat on the sofa beside me.

  “OK, you got your coffee. Now what was it you wanted to talk to me about? Are you trying to tell me Dan is in some kind of trouble?”

  “Yeah. The worst kind. He’s dead.”

  She dropped her cup. It fell to the floor and shattered.

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “He’s dead. There’s no other way to put it.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “That’s not possible. I just saw him awhile ago. You’re lying. Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Try to call him,” I said. “Or better yet, drive on over to his house. You’ll see half a dozen police cars and a bunch of yellow tape.”

  She lost it then. She stood, careful to avoid the puddle of coffee and the shards from the broken mug, and shouted, “Get out of here. Get out of my fucking house. You’re lying. Just go!”

  She fell to her knees in front of me and started sobbing into her hands.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bottle of whiskey I’d bought from the old derelict. “Here,” I said.

  She grabbed the bottle, uncapped it, took a big swallow. Like it was water.

  “Easy,” I said. “You could unclog drainpipes with that shit.”

  She was trembling. She didn’t hand the bottle back. “Are you sure…Dan…”

  “I’m sure. I’m very sorry. I know the two of you were close.”

  She was doing her best to pull herself together. “What happened?” she said.

  “Like I told you on the phone, I was hired to find out who killed Phineas Carter. I’d decided to watch your place for a while. I really didn’t have anywhere else to go. No other leads…”

  I told her everything that had happened, except the part about me ending up a prisoner in Dan’s house. I left that part out. I told her I had been parked on the street watching the place when I heard the gunshots. There was no reason to tell her that I had been tied to a chair and raped. I didn’t tell her the whole truth, and I didn’t tell her nothing but the truth, but I told her what she needed to know.

  She took another swig from the whiskey bottle. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said. “All we wanted was a better life.”

  “And you thought you could get it by exploiting young women?” I said.

  “It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. We wanted to make enough money to move to Costa Rica. Buy a little surf shop. Just live peacefully.”

  “Who killed Phin?” I said.

  She moved back to the couch and sat beside me. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I think you do know. I think you and Dan started having an affair, started making some plans, and it was easier to just get rid of Phin than to deal with divorcing him. I bet you and Dan used the life-insurance money to get your little porn operation underway. Huh? Is that how it went down?”

 
She started sobbing again. “No. Dan was involved with some pretty shady characters, but I swear I don’t know anything about who killed Phineas. Yes, Dan and I were having an affair. And yes, we were making plans to move away. There was an insurance policy, but it never crossed my mind to kill my husband. I was going to file for divorce. I was just waiting for the right time, you know?”

  “Do you think it might have crossed Dan’s mind to kill your husband? I mean, how could it not have?”

  “Dan was with me the night Phin was murdered. I was at Dan’s place, and then I stopped and got a few things at Walmart and went home. That’s when I found my husband with a bullet in his head. And now Dan’s dead too. Oh my god, I just can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Did the cops ever find out you were with your lover the night Phin was killed?”

  “No. I just told them I went to the store. I’d used my debit card, and I had the receipt, so my whereabouts were well documented. Dan and I stopped seeing each other for a while after that, until the heat was off.”

  “You think one of Dan’s acquaintances might have killed your husband?” I said. “Maybe someone Phin was familiar with as well?”

  Her expression told me I might be on to something. She closed her eyes and wiped away the tears.

  “Of course the thought occurred to me,” she said. “Many times. But whenever I brought it up, Dan just told me not to worry about it. I don’t know. I never pressed the issue, because knowing something like that can end up turning against you. It can get you killed.”

  “For some reason, I believe you,” I said. “I’m going to have to report all this to the police, but you should be all right. I’m going to give them the tag number of the SUV I saw delivering Veronica to Dan earlier, and I’m going to give them a description of the man driving. Of course the cops will be around to talk to you. Just tell them the same thing you told me. And do me a favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t tell them about me. I’m going to make the call anonymously.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a long story. Just pretend I don’t exist.”

  “Why would I want to help you?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’m going to tell them about your other dirty little secret. Ever try to go cold turkey in a jail cell? It’s not a very pleasant experience.”

  She clawed at her face. “All right. I won’t tell them about you. I guess I can do that. I guess it doesn’t matter. This is so fucked-up.”

  “Definitely,” I said.

  I took one last sip of coffee and got up to leave. Pamela tried to hand the bottle of bourbon back to me. I told her to keep it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I tried to drive directly back to Key West, but I didn’t make it. I was too tired. After staring at the road for thirty minutes and passing six or seven pink giraffes hitchhiking, I pulled off at a rest stop and slept in the car for four hours.

  I made it back to my original hotel room Friday afternoon. I climbed into bed and slept several more hours, and when I woke up there was a message on my cell phone from Detective Craig P. Sullivan, Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, Homicide Investigations Unit.

  Sullivan wanted me to call him. I wondered how he expected me to do that, since I was supposedly dead.

  I decided to call Wanda Taylor first. She answered on the first ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Wanda. It’s Nicholas Colt.”

  “Nicholas. Oh my god, we thought you drowned. The Coast Guard was looking for you. Then the guy whose boat you were supposed to have fallen off of—”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “But right now, let me just tell you this: I’m pretty sure I know who killed Phineas Carter.”

  “Really? Has there been an arrest?”

  “Not yet. I don’t know exactly who killed him, but I have a very good lead to give to the police. They’ll follow up on it. Eventually, a lot of people will be going to jail.”

  “Did it have to do with smuggling drugs, like you thought at first?”

  “No. It had to do with greed and jealousy and sex for sale.”

  I told her everything I’d learned from my adventures with Daniel Chard and Pamela Wade. Again, I left out the part about me being captured and imprisoned and sexually assaulted. Nobody needed to know about that. Ever.

  “So I guess it might be awhile before I find out who the actual triggerman was,” Wanda said.

  “It might be awhile, or we might never know. It just depends on how extensive the crime network is. At any rate, it’s beyond the scope of my practice. I’ve already done way more than I should have, working without a license and all. I’m going to have to do some fancy tap dancing just to stay out of jail myself.”

  “I appreciate your efforts,” Wanda said. “Do I owe you any more money?”

  “No. In fact, I owe you some. I didn’t use nearly all your ten thousand dollars.”

  “Call it a bonus, then. I don’t want any money back.”

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  “I’m sure. Thank you, Nicholas.”

  After we said good-bye, I sat there at the little desk in my room for a few minutes and debated over whether or not to call Detective Sullivan. I finally decided I didn’t have much of a choice. If he didn’t know I was alive already, he would find out eventually, and if I didn’t call him now he might go harder on me later. I played his message again, and then punched in the number to call him back.

  “This is Sullivan.”

  “Nicholas Colt,” I said.

  “So it’s true. You are alive.”

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “Robbie Asbury. He was in a coma for a while. When he came out of it, he said you were at the scene of the accident. I figured he dreamed it or something. I really didn’t expect you to ever get the message I left on your cell.”

  “Did he tell you he took a couple of shots at me?” I said.

  “No. He left that part out, but we did find a gun in the car. Interesting.”

  “I didn’t think he recognized me,” I said. “He’d only seen me that one time, at his and Alison’s condo, and my appearance has changed pretty drastically since then.”

  “Sometimes coma-induced head injuries can conjure up revelations that a healthy brain would filter out. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. So what the hell happened? Jim Ballard said you jumped off his boat to go for a swim, and that—”

  “Jim Ballard was full of shit. He knocked me out and threw me overboard. It was only by the grace of God and a school of dolphins that I ever made it back to shore alive.”

  “So you’ve been playing possum for the past three days?”

  “I’ve had a bad case of amnesia,” I said. “I’m just now starting to remember some things.”

  “Right.”

  “Work with me on this, Detective. I have a couple of pieces of information you might be interested in.”

  “The Coast Guard wasted a lot of man-hours and helicopter fuel looking for your ass, Colt. They’re going to be mighty pissed when they find out—”

  “Like I said. A bad case of amnesia.”

  I could hear him tapping a pencil on his desk. “I’m going to need you to come down to the station,” he said. “Unless you would rather me send someone over to pick you up.”

  “What makes you think I’m still in Key West?”

  “Are you?”

  “Maybe. So that’s how it’s going to be? You’re going to arrest me?”

  “Maybe not. But I need you to come to the station anyway. I need to get your official statements on some things.”

  “What things?”

  “Regarding the Alison Parker murder. We have the serial killer in custody.”

  “You caught The Zombie?” I said.

  “Yeah. Haven’t you figured it out yet? It was Robbie Asbury. No doubt about it.”

  “He confessed?”

  “Let’s just say we have all the evidence we need
to convict him.”

  “What evidence?”

  “It’s no big secret. It’s already been leaked to the media. We have forensics that conclusively link Robbie with another one of the slayings. The Roger Englehart case.”

  “Murder number six,” I said. “The registered nurse who lived in St. Augustine. The body was found under a railroad bridge in Brunswick.”

  “I see you’ve done a little homework.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So that’s it. We found several fingerprints on the plastic trash bags that had been wrapped around Englehart before he was dumped in the creek, and we found a couple of hairs on the corpse that didn’t belong on the corpse. When Alison was killed, we combed the apartment for evidence, and of course Robbie’s hairs and prints were all over the place. That’s when we were able to match him with what we’d found on Englehart. Suddenly there was a common thread among three of the murders. It doesn’t get much more open and shut than that.”

  “Robbie was married to Alison,” I said. “And friends with Jim Ballard. He’d probably been on Jim’s boat plenty of times.”

  “But he wasn’t married to Roger Englehart,” Sullivan said. “And they weren’t buddies. The Englehart case is what’s going to make all this come together in court. I promise you, Robbie Asbury is The Zombie. I’m one hundred percent sure of that.”

  “What about the forensics on the other murders attributed to The Zombie?”

  “All the other corpses were clean. He only fucked up that one time, but that’s all it’s going to take. He probably even has alibis for a lot of the killings, as spread out as they were geographically. Most serial killers cover their tracks pretty well. But all it takes is one conviction, and we have solid evidence in the Englehart case. I’m pretty sure the DA’s going to seek the death penalty with this one.”