Before I Sleep (21 page)

Sick indeed.

He threw the bagel in the trash and worked on finishing the coffee. Another cup, hot enough to burn, singed his tongue.

He'd only tried once to break out of the prison that tragedy had built around him, and that, too, had failed miserably because he hadn't been able to escape the confinement of his guilt. Carey had been right about that, when she had accused him of wallowing in it. He
did
wallow. And he was perceptive enough to feel disgust with himself.

What he needed, he decided, was a good, swift kick in the ass. Carey had suggested that, too, during one of their heated arguments about what was wrong with their relationship. She would still be right.

Feeling a weighted need to do something, he got the phone book out and called a company to come take the tree out of his backyard. He didn't even want a stump left.

Then, feeling he had taken a step in the right direction, he got ready to go back to work.

He might not be able to change the past, but he sure as hell could change the future.

You're listening to the Talk of the Coast, 990 WCST, Tampa Bay's number one talk radio station. This is Carey Justice, reminding you that John William Otis has just over fourteen days to live. Fourteen days before he will die for a crime he may not have committed. Have you thought about the fact that once we execute a man, we can never take it back? If, by some chance, fifteen days from now we discover that someone else killed Linda and Harvey Kline, we won't be able to give John Otis his life back.

Tonight our subject is the election of judges. The theory behind judicial elections is that by making judges accountable to the public, the public will have a say how justice is administered in their towns and counties. Sounds good, doesn't it? But justice is supposed to be blind, and how blind can it be when it has to consider public opinion? We ‘re going to talk about that tonight, but let me start with a story …

“Damn,” said Gil, “that woman is something else. Her voice'll melt the socks right off you.”

Even over the car radio, Carey's voice was hot honey, and reminded Seamus of the sleepy way she had sounded this morning. For some damn reason, in the back of his mind he was getting erotic images of all the things he'd like to do to and with Carey's body. “Yeah,” he said, wanting to think about something else.

“She really intends to push this Otis thing right to the end, doesn't she.”

“That's my impression.”

Gil pulled over and parked in the lot of the Denny's where they were to meet the man who had called them. They climbed out of the car.

“Okay,” said Gil. “It's hot enough to pass for a sauna and my brain is beginning to feel like the egg in that drug commercial. Suppose you bring me up to date.”

“If you insist.”

“Oh, I insist. Funny, but I hate walking blind into these things.”

“You want to be bored?”

“Bore me.”

“Sam Hollister. He lives in the neighborhood where Mayberry was killed. Want the address?”

Gil rolled his eyes.

“He called, says he wants to talk to us, but we have to meet him someplace he won't run into any of his neighbors.”

“Well, Denny's is sure it,” Gil said drily.

Seamus smiled wryly. “Hey, there's one closer to his home.”

“Ah. So the ninety billion gray heads who walk through here in the next hour won't be gray heads he knows.”

Seamus shrugged. “I won't ask him to do any undercover work for us.”

“Wise decision.”

But it wasn't really a bad meeting place, and they both knew it. Especially at this time of evening. Most of the elderly customers would have dined earlier and long since left. As it was, there were enough windows to ensure that if anyone that Sam Hollister recognized approached, he could duck into the men's room and pretend he was there alone.

Which was exactly what Seamus told him when they took a booth by a window back near the rest rooms.

The advice made Sam's rheumy blue eyes sparkle with excitement. The excitement was short-lived, though, and was replaced almost immediately by fear. The thin, elderly man sank lower in the booth, almost as if he wished he could crawl under the table.

“Let me get us some coffee,” Gil said. “What do you take, Mr. Hollister?”

“Decaf with cream and sugar.”

“Want anything else?”

Sam shook his head.

Gil signaled for the waiter and ordered three coffees while Seamus dug out his notebook and pen from his breast pocket. They waited to begin the questioning until the coffee had been delivered.

“Sure has been hot out there today,” Gil remarked by way of breaking the ice.

Sam gave an almost shy smile. “I don't suffer from the heat the way I used to. When my wife used to talk about retiring to Florida, I used to tell her she was crazy. Not anymore. The heat feels good to my bones these days.”

“Is your wife enjoying it as much as she thought she would?”

“She did, but she passed on about six years ago.”

“I'm sorry.”

Sam didn't respond to that. For a moment he looked far away and sad, but then he shook himself out of memory and looked at the two detectives.

“We talked to you last week, didn't we?” Seamus asked him.

Sam nodded. “I told you I didn't see or hear anything.”

“Just like everybody else in the neighborhood.”

Sam shifted uncomfortably. Gil took a gentler tone. “What is it you wanted to tell us, Mr. Hollister?”

“I heard something, but I didn't look.”

Gil and Seamus exchanged glances.

“What did you hear?” Seamus asked, dropping the role of bad cop. This guy wasn't going to need it.

“I heard gunshots. Four of them.”

“About what time?”

“It was about two-thirty in the afternoon. I was on my back patio, watering Daisy's ferns. She loved those plants, and I figured she'd want me to keep them alive.”

“I'm sure she would.”

There was a silence as the man fell once again into memory, but then he stirred. “Four gunshots. I knew it wasn't a backfire, because they don't come close together like that. I'm not proud of it, but I just kept on watering the plants. I didn't want to know what happened.”

“Why not?”

Hollister lifted his cup in a shaky hand and sipped coffee, as if taking time to consider exactly what he would say. “It's a good neighborhood,” he said finally. “I've lived there nearly twenty years now. Would you believe I'm almost eighty-five?”

Seamus would have. He didn't think the years of widowhood had been kind to Sam Hollister. “I'd have guessed seventy,” he lied.

Hollister smiled. “Well, I am. And at my age you don't want to get involved in things you can't do anything about. There's not enough time left.”

“I can understand the feeling.”

Hollister nodded, then abruptly shook his head with a sigh. “No, that's just an excuse. At my age you start feeling old and helpless and scared. You start to realize there's a lot of ways you can't take care of yourself anymore. That's why so many people my age have bars on their windows.”

“You start to feel vulnerable.”

“And selfish,” Sam said flatly. “Too many of us get so damn selfish. Guess I've been doing that like all the rest.”

Seamus nodded. “So you heard four shots.”

“Yes, sir, I did. And I didn't want to say anything because … well, we've been having trouble with drug dealers lately.”

Seamus felt his heart kick. This quiet neighborhood where nothing ever happened? “I thought you had a relatively crime-free neighborhood.” That's what Rico had said.

“We did up until about, oh, six, eight months ago. Then these young hoodlums started showing up, selling their drugs on the street as bold as you please in broad daylight. Got so folks was afraid to look out their own windows, never mind go outside. We called the police, and everybody was all hot on starting a neighborhood watch. Except the first time we tried to patrol the streets like we were told, the hoodlums threatened us and we went back inside. And nobody even dared call the police again because of the threats. Everybody was afraid that someone might get hurt if we did. I don't know but what the police thought the problem went away.”

“But it didn't,” Seamus said.

Hollister shook his head. “No, it let up for a few days while the police patrolled a lot. They never did catch anybody. Then the police stopped corning as often, and the dealers came back.”

“So you think this was a drug killing?” Gil asked.

Hollister shook his head. “I saw that boy's picture in the paper. Mark my words, he was no dealer. I may not get around the way I used to, but my eyes are still as good as any eagle's, and I'd have recognized the boy if he was one of the dealers hanging out.”

Seamus looked at Gil. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

Gil nodded. “Could you take a look at some photos and see if you recognize any of the dealers? Say tomorrow at the station?”

Hollister hesitated. “Let me think about it. I probably could, but …” He looked away, and his hands were trembling in earnest. “Something's wrong in that neighborhood lately. I'm not saying I know what it is, but everybody's as nervous as a cat on a hot stove since the killing.”

“That would make anybody nervous, wouldn't it?”

“Not like this. Most especially since the dealers have gone away since then, most likely because the police are coming around too often. Seems to me they ought to be relieved, if it was just a case of one drug dealer killing another.”

Seamus's respect for the man's intelligence increased greatly. “So what do you think is going on?”

“I don't know.” He looked at the two of them from his reddened eyes. “I honestly don't know. But I got two things to tell you. First off, there was some unpleasant talk back about a month ago, about how we had to protect ourselves if the police wouldn't do it. I thought it was all bluster, but, well, you know. And another thing. I know I'm not the only one heard those shots.”

“So why aren't people talking?”

He shook his head again. “I can't say for sure. It's not like anybody is telling
me
why. Maybe it's just what Rico said to us, mat it was street justice, and we don't need to get involved if we don't want.”

“Rico said that?”

Sam nodded. “He said nobody can force us to be witnesses if we don't want. And I know folks are scared. Thing is, I'm not really sure what they're scared of.”

Seamus looked at Gil, then asked, “Mr. Hollister, do you think one of your neighbors took the law into his own hands?”

Hollister looked down. “I don't know,” he said finally. “But I tell you, ever since I saw that boy's picture in the paper, the possibility has been something I haven't been quite able to get out of my head.”

C
HAPTER
12

14 Days

I
t was nearly eleven by the time Seamus left the station. Glancing at his watch, he decided to head over to the radio station, and see what Carey was up to. He rationalized it by telling himself he just wanted to make sure she got home safely. The he didn't work; he knew perfectly well that he just wanted to see her.

He turned the radio on as he drove, listening to her read an Otis poem over the air, as she had done last night, wondering if she was going to close her show every night with one of the poems.

Not that it mattered. It was her show, the poems weren't bad … and he was beginning to get a bit of an itch about Otis himself. Especially since the preliminary autopsy suggested that Harry Downs bad been slashed to death with a razor or a scalpel.

Carey was coming out of the station when Seamus pulled into the parking lot. The off-duty cop who'd been hired by the station was helping her carry a large box toward her car. Seamus pulled into an empty slot near Carey's car and climbed out.

He recognized the cop. “Hey, Lou. When did you get turned into a mule?”

Lou laughed the deep belly laugh that made him one of the best-liked cops in the department. “Hey, what's a guy to do when a lady staggers by carrying something this heavy?”

Carey flashed a smile. “There's something to be said for machismo after all.”

“Right,” said Lou. “I get the sore arms and shoulders tomorrow.” When Carey opened her tailgate, he shoved the box into the Jeep. “Well, since Rourke is here, I'll just say good night. Gotta get back to my coffee.”

“Thanks an awful lot Lou,” Carey called after him. He waved back at her.

Then, shocking Seamus, she opened her purse, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it.

“You don't smoke,” he said.

“You're right. I don't. Except for the last week.”

“Put it out.”

“Mind your own business, Rourke. I'll go to hell any way I want to.”

He sighed and leaned back against his car, folding his arms. The shore breeze was whispering in the trees, giving the balmy night a sweet soft feeling.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“To make sure you get home safely.”

She puffed on the cigarette and blew a plume of smoke into the night. In the light from the streetlamps, her skin had an unhealthy color, and her eyes looked sunken. He remembered she had probably had even less sleep than he had.

“I talked to the IRS about your dad today,” she said finally.

“And?”

“And they're prepared to negotiate. If you want, I'll see what I can do.”

“I wish you would. You're apt to keep your cool better than I could, given that he's my father.”

“That's why people hire lawyers.” She flicked an ash, folded one arm beneath her breasts, and held the cigarette up near her shoulder.

It was an unconsciously provocative pose, and he felt his erotic daydreams suddenly spring to life again. This was stupid. He needed to get out of here while he still could. But he stayed, his feet planted on the pavement as if they were glued. “Thanks,” he said.

“No problem. How is your dad?”

“Okay, I guess. Tomorrow's the first day they'll let me visit him. They wanted to get him through the DTs first, I guess.”

“You must be looking forward to that.”

He shook his head. “Sometimes I wish he'd just go away.”