Thicker Than Blood (Alo Nudger Series)

by John Lutz

  “You don’t know?”

  “I know, but I can’t have other people knowing. Sometimes for their own protection I don’t want them to know. I mean, if the police asked you my whereabouts, you’d be bound by your professional ethics to tell them. It’s ’cause you’re a good and honorable man. I know that and do understand it.”

  “I want to help you, Norva.”

  “You can. That’s why I called, for you to give me a report about what all you learned since last we talked.”

  Oh, boy! She was his client, and he was a good and honorable man bound by professional ethics. Hopelessly entangled in them, in fact.

  So Nudger told her about Luanne’s connection to the drug world, a connection that was in part because of Dale Rand. And he told her about finding Mirabelle dead, and King Chambers almost dead, and what Chambers had told him about Luanne being responsible for a major drug deal not happening. Then about Chambers dying.

  She was silent for a while, then she said, “Goddamnit, Mr. Nudger, if you’ll pardon my French.”

  He said, “When something like the botched drug deal happens, the person responsible has got to pay, Norva. That’s how those creeps do business. Chambers sent Aaron to kill Luanne, then he played it safe and killed Aaron so no one would ever find out. But now Chambers is dead. They’re both dead, Norva.”

  “I got it all figured out that far, Mr. Nudger, since you turned over the right rocks for me and let in the light.”

  “Then why don’t you give yourself up?”

  “Not hardly, Mr. Nudger.”

  “Are you with Bobber?”

  “How come you ask?”

  “Before he died, Chambers described who broke into his girl friend’s apartment, killed her, then attacked him with a knife. It had to have been Bobber.”

  “Hah! You serious, Mr. Nudger? Bobber ain’t no killer.”

  “Chambers said the man had red hair and a Marine Corps insignia tattooed on his arm.”

  “Which arm?”

  “Well, Chambers didn’t say.” Nudger searched his memory and couldn’t recall himself which of Bobber’s arms was tattooed with the insignia.

  “Weren’t Bobber, I’m sure. There’s lots of ex-marines out there walking around. Anyways, when were those people killed?”

  “Early this morning.”

  “Well, see! I been with Bobber since last night. He was here all morning, right in my sight. Laying in bed in his Jockey shorts and the same shirt he always wears.”

  Nudger tried not to imagine that. “Norva, is Bobber Luanne’s real father?”

  “He wouldn’t hurt nobody on purpose, much less kill them. He looks much gruffer than he is.”

  “Norva—”

  A click like a gun’s hammer falling on an empty chamber came over the line as she hung up.

  Nudger stood up and went into the kitchen. He got a cold can of Budweiser out of the refrigerator and held it to his forehead as if it were an ice pack, rolling it now and then when his body heat began to warm the aluminum.

  When his headache felt better, he opened the can and sat at the kitchen table to drink its contents and think for a few minutes before calling Hammersmith.

  What if Bobber really had been with Norva at the time Mirabelle and Chambers were killed?

  That would cloud everything again, just when Nudger thought comprehension was beginning to shine through.

  He drank a second beer and discovered that his headache was gone. He felt calmer, and suddenly weary. Tomorrow, he decided, would be soon enough to call Hammersmith.

  He made sure all the doors were locked, set the air conditioner on high, then stripped to his underwear, and stretched out on the bed. He tuned the small-screen bedroom TV to the ball game.

  The Cardinals were playing the Dodgers on the west coast, so the game had started late and was only in the fourth inning. Nudger watched the Dodger lead-off man stride to the plate.

  By strike one, Nudger’s eyelids were heavy.

  When the count was three and two, he was struggling to focus on the tiny glowing screen near the foot of the bed.

  On the next pitch, the batter hit a high bouncing ball to the shortstop and was barely safe at first base, but Nudger was out.

  When he opened his eyes the television screen was blank, the drapes were pulled wide open, and the room was splashed with bright yellow sunlight that brought with it a weighty morning heat.

  And Norva Beane was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed, studying him.

  She was wearing a wrinkled gray shirt that looked like a man’s dress shirt with the sleeves cut off just above the elbows. The shirt was tucked into Levi’s that were creased and contoured to her body as if she’d been wearing them a long time. Life on the run had its drawbacks. She appeared exhausted, but the fire still shone in her eyes.

  She said, “You look like you didn’t sleep much last night, Mr. Nudger.”

  He swallowed the sour taste in his mouth, then cleared his throat. “You look like you didn’t sleep much last week.”

  “Well, that’s surely true.”

  He sat up straighter and rested his back against the headboard. He was glad he’d awakened without an erection and suddenly wondered how long Norva had been sitting there watching him. “Why are you here, Norva?”

  “ ’Cause after we talked on the phone, I spent the rest of last night thinking how it’s definitely time to come to you with the entire story, the whole and nothing but the truth.”

  “It’s past time,” Nudger said.

  He wanted to get up and put on some pants, rinse his face, brush his teeth, and drink some strong black coffee. But he didn’t want to interfere with Norva’s inclination to tell him the truth, or something like it, yet again. She looked strangely innocent there in the harsh sunlight, pretty but haggard, a worn-out doll from someone’s collection struck to life.

  “After I took a shot at Dale Rand, I went and hid,” she said. She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead quickly and lightly, as if brushing aside a stray wisp of hair. “I’m glad now you spoiled my aim and stopped me from killing him, Mr. Nudger.”

  “Everyone’s glad, Norva.”

  “What I been doing is hiding, being a suspect in my own daughter’s murder. You and I both know I wouldn’t have hurt a hair on poor Luanne’s head.”

  He nodded, thinking that was true.

  Her Adam’s apple worked in her sun-goldened throat; something beautiful about that, Nudger thought. She said, “I didn’t do right by that girl, and I’ll surely burn in hell for it.”

  “You did the best you could at the time,” he told her. “Hell’s when people can’t let go of things and flog themselves with regret for the rest of their lives.”

  “She was my little girl and I coulda saved her from what happened. You can’t change my mind on that.”

  “You had no way of knowing she’d be adopted by someone like Dale Rand. She might just as easily have landed in a happy enough family, been okay.”

  “Might have. World’s full of might haves, though.” She stared at the floor for a moment, then raised her head and looked directly at Nudger. Her Adam’s apple bobbed again in her taut throat. “I didn’t exactly tell you the truth last night about me being with Bobber. He was gone all that night I said he was with me, and I didn’t see him till nearly noon yesterday.”

  Ah-ha! “Then he had plenty of time to murder Mirabelle and Chambers.”

  She worked her head around on her neck as if wearing a tight collar, looking miserable. “More’n that. He did kill them, Mr. Nudger. He told me so himself, thinking I’d be proud of him. He didn’t plan on even hurting the woman, but she kept fighting him, and he had to take her down fast so’s she wouldn’t rouse Chambers. Bobber thought Chambers was in the bedroom, not in the shower. If he hadn’t been under running water he mighta heard Bobber and the woman fighting and come out and shot Bobber.”

  “The world turns on those kinds of things, Norva.”

  “Don’t
it just ever? Anyways, you was right and Bobber surely did kill them folks. Not that Chambers didn’t deserve it. And I can’t hardly blame Bobber. ’Cause you was right about something else, Mr. Nudger: Bobber is Luanne’s natural father. Not long after he learned I was expecting, he went and joined the marines and I never saw him for years. Not till he came back a few months ago to Possum Run and told me what had happened to our baby daughter. ”

  Clouds must have moved across the sun. The bedroom dimmed for a moment, then gradually brightened to its previous intensity. Something was stirring uneasily in the back of Nudger’s mind. “Why are you really telling me this, Norva?”

  “ ’Cause Bobber’s not what I thought he was, not at all the boy I recollect.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, he’s got these demons in him now, and they cause him to do bad things.”

  Like murder, Nudger thought. He said, “What about Dale Rand? Did Bobber do something to him, too?”

  “It was us that took Dale Rand. It wasn’t a bit of trouble; Bobber just showed him the knife and Rand came right along with us. Rand’s a coward, is what he is. Which ain’t surprising.”

  Nudger swiveled his body and sat on the mattress. “Where’s Rand now?”

  She gnawed her lower lip, then the inside of her cheek.

  “Norva?”

  “That’s just the trouble, Mr. Nudger, I couldn’t tell you.”

  He didn’t want to play her word games. “Does that mean you don’t know?”

  “That’s it. Rand got away from us, from where we was keeping him in this old house trailer. It was Bobber’s fault.”

  “The abduction? Or Rand getting away?”

  “I guess the abduction was purely my idea, though Bobber got right enthusiastic about it. He figured there’d be ransom money.”

  Nudger remembered the empty attaché case on the floor in Mirabelle’s apartment. Had she been forced to reveal where drug money was hidden, then killed? “Did Bobber take money from Mirabelle Rogers’ apartment?”

  “Some. He didn’t tell me how much. Wasn’t enough, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Bobber started listening to Rand where we had him tied up in this little room. That Rand is smooth, and pretty soon Bobber started saying to me how Rand really didn’t hurt nobody, and he’d treated Luanne pretty well, considering. I mean, Bobber had these demons himself, so he wouldn’t hold it against a man for getting involved in narcotics.”

  “What about the rest of it?”

  “Bobber wouldn’t believe the rest of what you told me. Not after hearing Rand’s lies. Which is what I told Bobber they was, only he wouldn’t listen. Me and Bobber had us a big argument, and after that’s when Rand got real persuasive. I went in the next room and heard him offer Bobber lots and lots of money if Bobber’d only help him escape.” Norva bowed her head and pressed her palms to her temples, as if she had a terrible headache. “Bobber told him to shut up, but Rand kept promising more and more money. Bobber stormed outa there then and found me eavesdropping, so he whapped me in the ribs. I don’t put up with no man doing that to me, and I told him so.”

  “What did he do then?”

  “He went on outside and started drinking. I laid down and went to sleep, and when I woke up, Rand was gone. Bobber said he musta slipped his ropes and snuck out whilst I was asleep and Bobber was passed out drunk, but I knew better. Rand finally offered enough money, so Bobber let him go. When I said that to Bobber we argued again and he made like he was gonna hit me, only he didn’t. He just got in his truck and roared away, and I ain’t seen him since.”

  “You sure Rand got away?”

  “Yeah, and probably he’d of died if he hadn’t. The trailer didn’t have no air conditioning. It was hot enough to burst into fire there in that room where he was, and I think he was sick when we took him from his house. We went into his office through some French doors and made him walk with us right out through those same doors and through the backyard to where we had a car parked in the next block. We knew cops was watching the front of the house, but we got him anyways. We coulda killed him right there, which shows you how smart the cops are. Country folks can move through yards and trees so there’s no way a city cop can figure we’re there. Bobber had a good laugh outa that.”

  “Sick?”

  “Huh?”

  “What did you mean, Norva, when you said Rand was sick when you abducted him?”

  “Well, we hadda wait till he was done with a phone conversation before we went in and got him, and I overheard him talking to his doctor.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yep. Called him Doctor Walling. They was talking about some kinda virus.”

  Nudger sat still for a moment, staring at the patterns of sunlight and shadow on the carpet, at the dust motes swirling in the hot, heavy air.

  Then he said, “Norva, it would be best if we found Dale Rand.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Wait in the living room while I get dressed, then we’ll go see if his wife knows where he is.”

  “We could just call.”

  “No. If Rand happens to be there, he might run. He’s probably still afraid, and if he promised Bobber money, he won’t go to the cops.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” She stood up, stretched with her arms above her head, then gave him a smile, as if somehow he’d reassured her. “I got no desire to see you naked, Mr. Nudger.” She walked from the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

  Nudger called Hammersmith and pulled on some clothes.

  On the drive to the Rand house, Norva sat calmly and silently beside him while he consumed half a roll of antacid tablets.

  His stomach hardly noticed them.

  CHAPTER 36

  As Nudger steered the car into Rand’s driveway, he saw a stocky figure bending over the shrubbery that bordered the shaded concrete. He felt a wash of relief; if a gardener was pruning the shrubs, things must have returned to something like normal. Or, if not normal, at least more manageable. Routine could be a bulwark against grief.

  He parked the car near the house and climbed out. Norva got out on the passenger’s side. It wasn’t yet unbearably hot, and the grassy, well-tended grounds lay as peaceful as a cemetery. A squirrel darted madly across the lawn and clawed its way up the trunk of a maple tree. A bird Nudger couldn’t see was nattering away in an attempt to establish territorial control. Probably no one but Nudger was listening.

  “Mr. Nudger!”

  Norva’s soft but alarmed voice made him turn, poised with one foot on the first step to the porch. She was facing away from him, staring down the driveway.

  Nudger saw that the man he’d assumed was a gardener was wearing a dark business suit, not coveralls, and was now on his hands and knees. He was vomiting blood, his body quaking with each painful, prolonged heave.

  Nudger started down the driveway toward him. Norva was beside him but trailing a foot or so behind, as if she didn’t want to look any closer at the man, or at what his presence might mean.

  When they were halfway to him, he shifted position and Nudger saw his face. Despite the blood-smeared features, he recognized Al Martinelli.

  He knelt beside him. One of Martinelli’s eyes was rapidly swelling shut and his nose appeared to be broken. Those were the least of his problems. The front of his white shirt was red with blood, and the material was slashed as if by a knife blade. For a sickening moment Nudger was back in Mirabelle’s apartment, watching King Chambers’ life disappear like draining bathwater. Blood was such a terrible reminder of mortality.

  “What happened?” Nudger asked, his stomach reeling at the sight, and at the stench of blood and bile.

  Martinelli made a strangled, helpless sound, rolling his eyes. A hard guy who’d given up all pretense of toughness.

  “We’ll get help for you,” Nudger assured him.

  The wounded man made the same strangled sound, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth
and down his chin to spatter on the concrete driveway. This time he pointed to the house. Then he collapsed onto his side and seemed to hug the ground, as if embracing his shadow, shifting about until he lay curled in the fetal position. His breathing was rapid and unsteady, his gaze fixed inward. One hand rose feebly, sunlight glinting off a gold ring, and Martinelli pointed again toward the house. Briefly there was accusation and rage in his eyes, then they assumed their same shallow stare. The bleeding had let up enough for him to murmur, “House ... inside.”

  “Hang on and we’ll phone for an ambulance.”

  “Fuck that . . . Just get . . . ”

  As his voice trailed to silence, his eyes closed and his breathing evened out. Unconscious, he seemed to have achieved some delicate equilibrium on the thin edge between life and death.

  Nudger stood up and strode through the brilliant heat toward the house.

  Norva was trying to keep pace, breathing heavily. “That man’s gonna die, Mr. Nudger.”

  He didn’t say anything. His stomach was gnawing on the lump of fear in his gut. He was terrified of what he might find inside the house, but he knew he had to look.

  “Mr. Nudger—”

  “You better stay out here, Norva.”

  “No, sir!”

  Nudger might have argued with her, but just then the door opened and Dale Rand burst from the house. He was gripping a brown leather briefcase and striding with his head down toward the rented blue Cadillac Nudger had seen him in earlier.

  He suddenly looked up, spotted Nudger and Norva, and gazed at them with an odd detachment, a busy man without time to trifle with underlings, and continued toward the car without hesitation. Martinelli he didn’t seem to notice at all.

  Nudger took several quick steps to the side and grabbed his arm. “Rand, wait!”

  Something slammed into the side of Nudger’s head and he was on the ground. His right knee had banged against hard concrete but his upper body was on grass. He rolled onto his back and heard himself groan.

  When the world stopped whirling, he realized Rand had struck him with the briefcase.

  There were objects on the ground all around Nudger. Someone was cursing. Rand. He was bent over, scooping up hundred dollar bills and slips of paper. Money and evidence.