A Cold Day in Hell (29 page)

O
utside Betty Sims’s cubicle they stopped and looked at each other.

“How old is she?” Angel asked quietly.

Eileen bristled. “I know lots of sharp old people. Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”

He shook his head. “No, no, I didn’t mean that. She’s been through a lot, is all, and I’m trying to be ready for what we’ll be dealing with.”

“Eighty-two,” Mitch said. “She was conscious and lucid about everything by the time she was brought in. And mad as a wet hen.”

“Mad?” Matt said. “She wasn’t mad when I saw her.”

“She wasn’t conscious when you saw her in that field,” Mitch reminded him. “Now she wants to get back at whoever set on her like they did. She wants to do it for herself and for Frances. Betty says she’s taking a gun because it’ll be in self-defense.”

“Good for her,” Eileen said. She had never stopped getting riled up over male delusions of superiority. Not that she didn’t like the idea of getting a hand, a big hand, in tight situations.

Mitch pushed open a swinging door and walked in. The rest of them followed and stood at the foot of Betty Sims’s bed.

“The assailant broke her glasses,” Mitch said. “She’s got a lot of contusions, but the eyes themselves are functioning well enough.”

The woman in the bed reclined on pillows and also had a cage over a leg, the opposite one from Frances. Looking at her face made Eileen want to hunt down the wimp who beat her up with her own cane.

“I’m Betty Sims,” the woman said, more clearly than might have been expected when her jaw was wired shut. Her eyelids, top and bottom, had swollen to look like two oversize plums, but with splits in the middle through which Eileen could see the faint glitter of Mrs. Sims’s eyes. Her arms were crossed.

“We’re very sorry, Mrs. Sims,” Matt said.

“Call me Betty. Don’t worry, I’ll get the bastard for you—and for poor Frances. I’ve already visited with her. Imagine that, breaking her fingers so she can’t work at the busiest time of year. Tells you something though, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah—” Angel began.

“He knows her, or knows about her,” Betty continued. “He knew she was going to the bank. She goes there same time every day—only she won’t in the future. Damn fool behavior. Advertisin’ you’re carryin’ money. Not that robbery interested him.”

Betty Sims wore her white hair short and brushed back at the sides. Eileen saw that, although her fingernails were broken, they were buffed smooth. “He didn’t take that rock you’re wearing,” Eileen said of a large diamond Betty wore on her ring finger.

“Wasn’t in no shape to take anythin’by the time he ran away. Now, I want to know all about what’s been going on in Pointe Judah. There have been crimes. You can bet The Bitch knows all about them, but we don’t talk and she wouldn’t tell me anyway. She’s going to be so disappointed.”

A silence followed.

“Of course you don’t know what I mean,” Betty said. She parted her lips and showed the broken tips of her teeth. “The Bitch knows everything that happens everywhere. She probably hoped I’d get knocked off while I was visiting Pointe Judah.”

Matt cleared his voice. “The bitch?”

“Will you listen to me?” Betty said. “I ought to be ashamed. Only I’m not. My daughter-in-law hates me. I’m not so fond of her, either. Makes sense she’d send me here for a day and hope I never got back.”

Mitch took one of her hands in his and explained evenly what had been happening in Pointe Judah. He finished by pointing out that Betty’s daughter-in-law couldn’t begin to guess if, or when, there might be a problem in town.

“Hmm.” She frowned, sucked in a breath and smoothed out her expression. “Sounds logical, I must say. Forget what I said. Hate’s like worms, it can eat your brain.”

Eileen hid a smile. She liked this woman.

“Has your family been contacted?” Mitch said.

Betty shrugged.

“Which means?” Matt stood on the opposite side of the bed from Mitch.

“It means they’ll be called when I’m ready,” Betty said. “They know where I am. The bus company found out and they will have told my son.” She looked around the room. “I don’t see him, do you? Of course, his wife’s probably got a meeting at the church, but she’ll come over afterward.”

“Give the word,” Angel said, “and there’s plenty of room for you to recover at my house.”

Eileen wanted to throw her arms around him. He never stopped amazing her.

Betty managed a smile. “Might take me a long time to recover,” she said.

“Betty,” Matt said. He pulled a chair beside her and sat down. “Let’s talk about last night.”

The glint in Betty’s eyes disappeared.

Matt glanced at Mitch who shook his head slightly, and they waited quietly.

“Would you like us to wait outside?” Eileen said, suddenly aware that Matt might prefer to get rid of any audience.

“You stay right where you are,” Betty said.

Matt cleared his throat again. “Last night,” he said. “You went into that field because you heard something?”

“Nothing’s changed since I told everything to Dr. Mitch,” Betty said. She beamed at the doctor. “Someone started to call out, then the noise stopped. I thought there was trouble, so I went to try and help out. Pretty stupid when you’re as old as me, but it’s habit, I guess.”

“Let’s move on to the accident—when you fell.”

“Accident?” she squeaked. “Is that what you call it when someone uses the handle of your cane to pull you off your feet? Then clobbers your face with the stick?”

“I don’t think so,” Matt said. “Earlier I didn’t actually ask you what you saw. Do you feel up to talking about that?”

“Does she need a lawyer?” Eileen said.

Matt took a deep breath. “No, Eileen, Betty’s not being charged with anything and she’s made a complaint—justly so. But if you’d like a lawyer, Betty, that can be arranged at once.”

“Thank you, dear,” Betty said. “I’m not paying for a lawyer. I haven’t done anything wrong and I don’t believe in suing people.”

“Of course not,” Matt said rapidly with a challenging glance at Eileen. “The sooner we get this dealt with, the better. Can you tell me about anything you saw, Betty?”

“Yes. That man was shaking someone like a rag doll. I didn’t find out about Frances till later. Her arms started swinging and I thought she was dead. It was awful. But she’s going to be just fine.”

“Yes, she is,” Eileen said. “I’ve seen her.”

“What can you say about the assailant?” Matt said.

“He was tall.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Really tall?”

Eileen saw Angel’s hands tighten—he’d be all over Matt if he tried too hard to get a description of Chuzah out of Betty.

“When you can’t see over a five-foot fence, most people look tall to you.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, forcing a laugh. “But you know what I mean. Was he basketball-player tall?”

Betty backed off from another painful frown. “Maybe six-foot.”

Matt looked decidedly disappointed. Chuzah was pushing seven. “Did you see his face?”

“Just about,” Betty said, her voice rising. She repeatedly patted a tissue over her mouth. “He was going to look my way but something…caught his attention,” she finished in a hurry.

“What?” Matt said, leaning closer. “What caught his attention?”

Betty snuffled into the tissues. “Oh, I don’t know.” There was no missing a new attitude here. Betty was being a bit cagey. “I guess he was just listening. I couldn’t tell anything about him really.”

“Not anything? Not a thing?” Matt watched her intently.

“No.”

“So you couldn’t tell his ethnic background.”

“Are you supposed to ask that?” Betty said, sounding shocked.

Even Matt rolled in his upper lip to stop from grinning. “Let me put this another way. Was this a green man?”

Betty gave his hand a smack. “You shouldn’t make fun of injured people. That man was whiter than I am. I know because I saw his neck.”

“D
o you think Matt’s decided we’re hiding Chuzah?” Eileen said.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Angel said. “He’s making a lot out of us visiting Chuzah in jail.”

“He could have asked us questions at the hospital.”

Angel snorted. “He wants us on his official turf. Don’t be surprised if he goes completely cop and separates us before asking each of us the same questions.”

Eileen gave him a sick look. “I’m getting Aaron and Sonny back from Chuzah’s as soon as I can,” Eileen said. “It’s Christmas Eve and they should be with us. If Chuzah’s still hiding out somewhere, Locum can come with us, too. We’ll feed him turkey. If I ever get a turkey cooked.”

Angel followed her over the cracks in the police station parking lot. He shouldn’t feel so complacent, not when there were major issues still to be cleaned up, but there was something about the way Eileen said
us
that felt right.

“I think the boys should stay where they are until Chuzah shows,” he said. “If we have to have the big feast tomorrow, so what? A lot of people eat their meal on Christmas Day.”

Eileen stopped, just stopped dead and waited for him to catch up and look at her. “What’s the matter?” he said. Her thunderous expression didn’t bode well.

“Tradition,” she said. “Christmas Eve is when we eat turkey.”

“Did you buy a turkey?”

Her eyes slid away and she looked vague. “Of course I did. I picked it out at Sadie and Sam’s just like I do every year.” A frown settled in. “Didn’t I? I told Sam exactly what I want and he said he’d make sure it was there for me. One of the boys runs it out here.”

“Which boys?”

He barely held on to his laughter. Eileen got a sudden, panicked look. “They have several people who do the odd jobs over there. It isn’t just Sonny and Aaron, is it? My goodness, if it is they must be having fits. And they wouldn’t say a word to me when they know what’s been going on with us. That’s it. Come on. We finish with this, then make sure the boys come back. I’ve got to go to Poke Around and Locum can come there with me.”

She didn’t wait for any reaction from him, just rushed ahead and inside the station. “Where’s Matt?” she asked Carley who, as usual, stood on a box behind the reception desk because she was short.

“You don’t want to get in his way,” Carley said. “He came in here like a tornado. Probably in his office. Everyone’s out looking for Chuzah. We’ve got folks over from Toussaint and Lafayette—everywhere. Not so popular on Christmas Eve, I can tell you.”

Angel went ahead toward Matt’s office and found it empty. He bumped into Eileen on the way back out. She raised her eyebrows.

“He’s not there. Look, Eileen, I think we’d better calm down and take a look at what we’ve got here. Chuzah’s gone missing and it’s great we know Matt couldn’t have been more wrong about him. But there’s been a murder and a string of attacks and as far as I know all Matt’s got are a few bullet casings. Oh, yeah, and no gun was used in any of the attacks.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” she asked. “We have to get on with our lives. Y’know, I think I’ll go right to Poke Around as soon as we get away from here. I’ll get the turkey on my way back.”

“I agree we should get on with our lives,” Angel said. “But we don’t have to be careless or behave like a piece of turkey will put everything right.”

She snapped her fingers. “The turkey.”

“Forget the turkey,” Angel said. If he didn’t know better he’d say she was hysterical. “Seriously. Sonny and Aaron are being watched. I’m not worried about them—just everyone else. Who knows where Chuzah’s gone? He thinks he can’t show up around here without getting arrested.”

“Matt came in here,” Eileen said. “If he went to the bathroom, he can’t still be there. At least, I don’t think so.”

Angel walked along the corridor outside the offices. The door to the room that was used by the deputy chief stood open and he recalled Matt talking about finally hiring someone to take the place of the guy who left last year.

“Matt?” Eileen yelled suddenly and Angel jumped.

“What is it?” he said. “You scared me.”

“I’m the one who’s scared. Where is everyone? Matt couldn’t just disappear.” She passed him and trotted ahead toward the cell block.

He caught up with her at the gate. It stood open. Inside, Officer Fisher sat on the chair where he’d been the last time they came.

Angel stepped through the gate and saw Matt inside the cell Chuzah had occupied. Matt and the guy who had filled in for the department last year, Simon Vasseur, stood side by side.

“If I believed in things like that,” Angel heard Matt say, “I’d be buying a spell or two to ward off spirits.”

Lying on his back, Chuzah was stretched out on the bunk. His feet hung over one end. He appeared to sleep.

“D
on’t leave so fast,” Angel said to Eileen. They’d driven straight to her place from the police station and all she wanted to do was get her keys and leave again.

“You said you were going out to the construction sites,” she reminded him. “That was early this morning and you’re still not there.”

“That’s why you hire good help,” Angel said. “Anyway, everything’s wound down for the holidays so I just want to check around and see where we are on our schedule. We’ve been ahead for several weeks.”

She couldn’t risk his reaction if she told him she only intended to make a brief stop at the shop then go to see Gracie. He’d wonder why, not that she didn’t. But he’d read all kinds of stuff into something simple and try to tag along.

“Eileen?” The front door had slammed shut behind him. “Give me a few minutes, please.”

With the keys in her hand, she left the kitchen and retrieved her mail from inside the front door. “Of course.” She smiled at him. “What’s on your mind?”

“You wouldn’t ever consider getting back with Chuck, would you?”

She turned cold and her fingertips pricked. “Where did that come from?”

“Just from what was said earlier. About Chuck realizing what he’s missing now he’s lost you.”

“The answer is
no.
”

He stood in front of her and rested a forearm on each of her shoulders. “I hoped you’d say that.”

“Maybe I’m insulted you ever doubted it. We both know he’s unstable.”

He bowed his head, then looked her in the eyes. “I know Chuck was unfaithful, but you suggested other things. You’ve told me he was physical with you. You used the word
violence.
Was it worse than you’ve said?”

“Yes. But why are you asking this now?”

“Because I know damn well that Chuzah hasn’t been beating up women, including a little old lady, or sticking a man’s head in a deep-fat fryer. So who has been doing these things?”

Eileen took a shaky breath. “I don’t think Chuck would do that. Everything has always been about him. None of those people were likely to do him any harm.”

He bent and kissed her slowly and softly and then not so slowly and softly. His hands held her head steady while he made sure that when he’d finished, she’d know just how much she’d been kissed. Being without her, the thought of it, weakened him. For the first and only time a woman, this woman, had crawled right inside his skin and taken up residence. She fitted in there very nicely.

The thought of being so close to Eileen that there was no beginning and no end for them, took over and he hugged her tight to answer some of his need, and to give himself a little time to start pulling himself together.

“What did Chuck do to you—that you haven’t told me about?”

“I’ve said plenty. Please let it go now.” She clung to him.

Maybe he shouldn’t press, but he needed to know if he was going to decide how much of a danger Chuck could be. “How badly did he beat you?”

Eileen rested her face on his chest. “Until I bled,” she said, quietly. “Many times. He knocked me out. He made sure the marks didn’t show.”

Their assailant liked to make sure his blows were obvious so that didn’t fit. “I’m sorry,” Angel said.

“He took skin off me.” She choked. “Then he made me have sex with him.”

Angel froze. If he said what he was thinking, he’d scare her. He embraced her, rocked her, rested his chin on top of her head. “Okay. I don’t want you to even talk to him. And I don’t think Aaron should have anything to do with him. Was Aaron in the house when this was going on?”

“Yes. Sometimes. Chuck pushed my face into the bed so I couldn’t be heard. He’d hold me there until I couldn’t breathe, then let me go. He’d told me that if Aaron ever found out, I’d be dead.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “He shot my dog to prove it.”

Angel didn’t say there was a big difference between a dog and a woman. Chuck had known what he was doing. He’d married a sweet, loving woman for whom all life was sacred. She must have loved the dog a lot and that’s why Chuck killed it.

Angel wanted to kill Chuck. He also had the unpleasant thought that it was said that if someone would abuse or kill an animal, they might eventually do the same to a human.

“You understand that Aaron mustn’t go near him, don’t you?” he said.

“Yes. But I don’t want my boy to know what his father is. That’s like telling him he’s half monster.”

Chuck had parked out of sight of Rusty Barnes’s house and approached the building through the overgrown vegetation. He kept close to the siding and slipped downhill to the back of the house, then along the wall leading to the door.

He’d taken the precaution of calling the paper from a public phone, hearing Rusty’s voice and hanging up.

If he had to get Gracie to let him in, it wouldn’t matter. Completely surprising her would be better, but you took what you could get.

Carefully, he tried the door.

Locked. He didn’t want to risk using her key unless he was certain she wouldn’t notice he still had it.

He tapped lightly, waited, then tapped louder and started reaching for his pocket.

“Who is it?” came from inside. Gracie sounded cautious.

“It’s Chuck, honey.”
You friggin’ useless bitch.

When she opened the door she was looking at her watch.

“Am I interrupting something?” he said. He had to control himself. Control himself and make sure she knew what would happen if she didn’t do as he’d told her to do.

Her false smile left the fear in her eyes. “Of course not. You come on in. You’ve been neglecting me.”

Chuck went in and followed Gracie until she was a foot or so from the open door to her apartment.

He raised a boot, a heavy construction worker’s boot, and smashed it into her rear end.

Her hips shot forward while her limbs flailed backward and her neck jerked back, too. She screamed and fell into the apartment.

Chuck went after her, slammed the door behind him. “Get up,” he said through his teeth. “You fucking, useless whore, get up off the floor or I’ll kill you right there. I’ll put my boot on your head and stomp till you’ll never be recognized again.”

She crawled and dragged herself across the carpet until she reached a chair and pulled herself up. “My back, Chuck.” She pressed a hand behind her. “My back hurts so much. What did I do? Why would you do that to me?”

“Because you promised me things and you didn’t follow through. Now I’m runnin’ out of time and it’s your goddamn fault. You let me down.”

“I’ve—”

He punched her hard enough in the stomach to drop her to the floor. She buckled over, retching and moaning at the pain in her gut. He pulled the corners of his mouth down. No fool woman was going to ruin the best chance he was ever likely to get.

Slowly, she rolled to her side and sobbed softly. “I don’t know what you think I’ve done wrong.”

“I told you what to do,” he said, kneeling beside her so he could stare into her face. “Twice I told you to stay away from any opportunities to get careless and say something to Eileen or one of the others. You’ve been with Eileen several times since the last time we talked. You lied to me about helping make sure she never found out about us. And no one lies to me and gets away with it.”

“Chuck.” He hardly heard his name croak from her throat. “I haven’t said a word.”

He ripped her blouse open, tore the straps on her bra loose. She struggled feebly against him but she was useless. Her cotton shorts shredded in his fingers and with them, her panties.

She pushed herself to sit, unhooked the front of the bra and let it drop. Then she got rid of the rest of her shredded clothes. All the time she gave him a lopsided smile. Lipstick smeared from her lips and mascara smeared the skin beneath her eyes.

“Do it, then,” she said. “Do whatever you want. I’ve never done anything to you, but you go ahead and punish me.
Then
I’ll tell you what I’m doing with the rest of my day.”

“Tell me now,” he said, undressing rapidly. Her body was rich, ripe—had been since the first time he’d seen it. She had the kind of imagination that made sex a feast. And he was a hungry man.

“I’ll tell you what I want to tell you, when I want to tell you. Kill me and you’ll suffer for it. Show me why I should care about you.”

He noticed a little blood at the corner of her mouth and cursed. He’d made an art out of leaving no visible marks. At least, not the kind that could be seen when a bitch had clothes on.

His clothes lay in a heap on the floor.

Gracie stood against the wall, beckoning him.

Chuck strolled to stand in front of her, so close he had only to thrust his pelvis and touch her with the business end of what interested both of them. He dipped his knees, drove into her and pressed her hips to his. Jogging around the room, laughing, his head thrown back, he sucked in every burning, beautiful jolt. When she cried out for him to stop, he jolted her harder. “You like it,” he panted. “Tell me how much you like it. And tell me you’ll never go near Eileen again—or Aaron, or anyone else you could say a casual word to and ruin my plans.”

Out of breath, desperate to kneel down, Chuck stopped. He opened his eyes. Gracie’s were only inches away. Her mouth stretched open, her face a rigid picture of hatred.

“Gracie?”

“In half an hour, your beloved Eileen will be here to visit with me. I’m going to make her tea and serve her cookies. She asked to come because she wants to thank me for being a good friend. Maybe I’ll have something she won’t expect me to tell her.”

He bounced her off and pushed her into a chair. “Get dressed, you little fool. Fast.” Dressing quickly, he watched her sit there, slumped, her eyes unfocused. “Shit, Gracie. Pick that lot up—” he pointed to what she’d been wearing “—and get in that bedroom. Dress down. Wash your face and put on some pale lipstick.
Do it now.
”

She still didn’t move.

One arm around her waist and he hauled her into the bedroom. He threw clothes at her. “Put ’em on.”

Moving too slowly, she put on underwear, a pink cotton dress and flat white sandals. He combed her hair through himself, grateful she kept it short. Then he washed her face and raked through a drawer where she kept her makeup.

“Get out of the way,” she told him and pushed him aside. She put on mascara and lipstick.

Chuck gave thanks when she began to look normal again.

“Baby, can I come back in a couple of hours and see how things went?”

“You ever come near this house again and I’ll have you arrested. In the future, this is all on my terms.”

“Listen—”

“
You
listen. I’m going to visit with Eileen. You won’t know what’s happened till I decide to let you know. Now get the hell out of here.”

“Please, Gracie,” he said, reaching for her.

She made a wide circle around him, walked from the bedroom through the living room and out of the apartment. When he reached her, she’d opened the front door and stood outside, at a distance.

“Gracie,” he said as he left the house.

All she did was point away from the house.

“You’ll call tonight?”

She wasn’t going to answer. Would he kill her now?

He heard the approach of a car and took off running, back through the overgrown bushes at the edge of the property.