Deadly Dreams (15 page)

“Did you know him?”

Randolph shoved his hair back, revealing a diamond stud winking from his earlobe. Although his hair was still dark, the stubble on his jaw was sprinkled liberally with gray. “Naw. Didn’t know any of the vics, but there’s not a guy on the force that doesn’t want the bastard responsible put away for this. Everyone keeps up on the details. That’s why I came here instead of calling. Anything I can do to help, you got it.”

“We appreciate that.”

“So, Emmons.” Randolph handed Nate a file folder he carried. “Here’s a brief rundown on what I know of him. Where was that park you mentioned, northeast side? He’d have been well outside his area. He operates mainly in the ’hood surrounding Temple University.” He gave a dour grin. “Runs an ‘enterprise’ that encompasses about ten square miles, give or take.”

“You put him away for a few years.”

The other detective snorted. “Damn few. Some dirtball encroaches on his territory, right? Emmons ties him up, has his goons dip the poor bastard in a vat of acid, as a warning to anyone else with the same idea.”

Risa’s stomach gave a quick vicious lurch. “Nice.”

“Yeah, he’s a charmer. How the guy doesn’t die isn’t the miracle, though. I had Emmons solid for the crime and he walks on appeal.” Obviously the memory still rankled.

“Tough break. What happened?”

“Some of the physical evidence went missing from the evidence room and couldn’t be used at the next trial.” He shrugged. “He’s supplied by the Rodriquez family, and they have very deep pockets. I imagine their influence is far reaching, although why they’d give a shit about someone like him, I don’t know. He’s just a cog in the wheel.”

Risa and Nate exchanged a glance. “How big a cog?” she wanted to know.

Randolph lifted a shoulder again. “Too big to bother with selling a little pot to your wit, I’d think. He’d send a runner. You sure you got the right guy?”

“No.” Nate smiled wryly and held up the folder the man had given him. “But this might help us figure out who the right guy is.”

Randolph half turned to leave. “Well, if your wit was looking to score, there’s no shortage of scumbags willing to deal it to him. I run into plenty of high school kids selling dope. The guy you’re looking for might not even have a record yet.”

“Thanks again for your help.”

The other detective nodded. “Like I said, we all want to see you catch who’s responsible. You need some eyes on the street, just give me the word.”

Risa waited until the door closed behind the man before looking at Nate. “If there’s another Juicy out there with no record yet, it’ll make the search a bit more interesting. But Crowley identified the other guy, right? Dwayne Jersey.”

Nate was already reaching for his cell phone. “I’ll give Pelton another call.” A few minutes later, he turned on the speakerphone. “Officer Pelton, this is Lieutenant Detective Nate McGuire calling from the . . .”

“McGuire, I was just going to return your call.” There was an almost continuous sound of phones ringing in the background. “Got your message when I got in this morning. I want to do whatever I can to help you catch the bastard killing cops. Just ran down the most recent information I could find on Dwayne Jersey.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Ah . . .” There was the slight sound of shuffling papers. “You’ve got his basic info on the arrest sheet you pulled. Hasn’t been in trouble with the law recently, at least nothing he’s been caught at. Been in trouble of a different sort, though. Word is he had his ass handed to him the other night for hitting on the wrong woman at Lil Tony’s nightclub.”

“What’d you find on him the time you arrested him?”

“Couple pounds of marijuana, a few pills. He didn’t go away for it. Did a stint in county lockup because he couldn’t pay the fine. I checked with his probation officer and he’s not exactly a model of clean living, but he hasn’t flunked a drug test yet.”

Nate’s gaze met hers as he said, “He’s been identified as someone who sold some pot in the park where the last victim was found.”

“Damn. Christiansen, right? Everyone’s talking about the murders. And Jersey might be your guy. The way I hear it, he doesn’t deal much with the heavier stuff, but he does move a ton of weed. Unless that last arrest worked a miracle of rehabilitation.”

“Where do we find him?” murmured Risa. Nate narrowed his eyes at her and turned partially away.

“Do you have a current address? I want to verify his whereabouts for a couple mornings ago.”

“Sure, I got it right here.” Nate scrambled for a scrap of paper on his desk and a pen to write down the address the man recited to him. “But if you’re talking about a couple days ago, it wasn’t Jersey in that park selling dope.”

“How do you know?” Risa and Nate uttered the words simultaneously.

“He’s still in the hospital. Has been since Saturday night. Well, early Sunday morning, I guess. That fight at Lil Tony’s? Jersey got the crap beat out of him. Way I hear it, he’s already had two operations and still has a couple more coming. Guy can’t even walk right now.”

Risa rose, suddenly impatient for the call to end.

Nate obviously felt the same. “I appreciate the information. It helps.”

“Hey, we’re all looking to help you any way possible. Let me know if you need something else.”

Nate hung up, his face thoughtful. “Crowley lied.”

“Obviously.” She grabbed her jacket, although the weatherman had promised a return to seasonable temperatures. But given his record, she saw no reason to trust him. What other occupation got to retain their jobs when they were right only half the time? “The question is, why did he lie? Was he just trying to give you a face to go with the name?” She immediately corrected herself. “But that’s stupid. He had to know we’d find out.”

“But if Jersey hadn’t been alibied for the time in question, it would have been Crowley’s word against the dealer. We’d have gotten nothing anyway.”

“And the real Juicy would never be questioned; hence, he’d never know that Crowley had given him up,” Risa concluded. She cocked a brow. “So are you driving or am I?”

That put a hurry in his step. “I am. It’s a department-issued car.”

“I’ve driven them before.” She waited until he’d locked the door behind them before striding toward the front door.

“Not with me you haven’t.”

She smiled to herself as she wended her way through the desks and cubicles. “Something tells me you don’t trust me, detective.”

He grunted. “Don’t take it personally. I don’t trust anyone.”

From the quick Google search Risa ran on her phone on the way to see Crowley, Lesser’s Plumbing Supply Business was a mom and pop company that had been in operation for fifty years. And given the seamed faces of the gray-haired couple that met them at the scarred service counter, mom and pop were still actively running the store.

“Yes, Samuel Crowley works here.” The man’s bushy eyebrows drew together. “Why, what’s he done?” In an aside he said to the woman, “I told you it was a mistake to hire him, Martha. But oh, no, you said, give him a chance. I knew in my gut that . . .”

“Mr. Crowley hasn’t done anything, sir,” Risa put in smoothly. The red embroidered name on his crisp blue shirt read BOB. “He’s actually helping us in an ongoing investigation.”

Her explanation didn’t seem to pacify the man’s suspicions appreciably. “Person gets mixed up with the police, it’s usually because they were where they shouldn’t be in the first place.”

“Oh, stop it, Bob.” Martha’s voice was surprisingly strong for someone who looked so frail. They might not be eighty yet, but they were both knocking at its door. “You were part of an investigation a couple years back when our store got broken into. Does that make you a crook?”

“It makes me a victim.” The man glared at his wife from behind thick black-framed glasses. “That’s a completely different thing. Unless . . .” His attention switched back to the two of them. “Was Sam the victim of a crime?”

“We’re not at liberty to discuss it,” Risa said gravely. “But if Mr. Crowley chooses to share the details with you, that’s up to him.” Which left the man clear to feed his employers whatever story he wanted to concoct for them, while skirting the need for Nate and her to tell the couple anything.

The bell over the door rang then, heralding a customer. The man opened his mouth again but Martha shushed him. “You tend to business.” Her faded blue eyes shifted to Risa and Nate. “Come with me. I’ll take you to Sam.”

They followed her down a cramped hallway lined with bulging cardboard boxes to a door with a smoked pane of glass in it. Opening it, she announced, “Sam, you’ve got visitors.” Despite her admonition to her husband, a bit of Bob’s suspicion gleamed in her eyes as she aimed a hard stare at the man. “We’ll talk later.”

But Risa didn’t think the promise Martha left them with was the reason for Crowley’s sickly pale expression.

“What are you trying to do?” he hissed as the door closed behind Martha. “Make me lose the only shitty job I can find?” His words were no less heated for being whispered. “What’d you tell them? They watch me like a pair of old buzzards anyway.”

“I figure that’s on you,” Nate said unsympathetically. “Couple takes a chance on hiring an ex-con, can’t blame them for being mistrusting.”

“What do you want?” Crowley’s tone might have sounded belligerent if a flash of fear in his eyes didn’t accompany it. “I told you everything I knew last night. Did you find Juicy? Ask him about our meet?”

“Not yet.” Nate folded his arms and propped his hips against a rickety table piled with file folders. “Wanted to double-check with you before questioning him. Be sure we have the right guy.”

“What’s to double-check?” Crowley’s confidence was returning. Carefully he smoothed a hand over his crimped brown hair, his gaze flicking to Risa for a moment. “I already identified him from the photos. The rest is your job.”

“You know what else is our job, Sam?” Her voice was conversational. “Knowing when a jerk-off like you is lying to us. That comes from experience, and unfortunately we have
lots
of it.”

Tension settled in the man’s thick shoulders. “Listen, is he lying about meeting me there? Because that goes to figure. He’s not about to tell the truth if he thinks it’s going to get him arrested. And he probably didn’t see anything anyway. I got there before he did. Waited a couple minutes for him.”

“The details keep changing but you know what stays the same? It’s all bullshit.” Nate slapped his palm hard against the table he was leaning on. The towers of file folders started to sway. Sam’s eyes went wide and he lunged from his desk.

“Dammit, you know how long it took me to organize those?” He ran to the table in time to catch the pile that made a slow topple toward the floor. “Could use some help here!”

“Yeah, see I feel the same way.” Nate shot a look at Risa. “How about you?”

She gave a nod, watched Crowley juggle folders in a doomed attempt to save them from hitting the floor. “Yeah, we could use some help, too.” Papers spilled as one folder after another slipped from his grasp to hit the floor.

“Fuck!” Crowley kicked one of the folders in frustration. “You guys are nothing but trouble.”

“Trouble has a habit of following you around, doesn’t it, Crowley?” Nate’s tone was hard. “ ’Course you bring most of it on yourself.” He took two photos from his suit jacket pocket and tossed them on the man’s desk. “You need another look at these?”

The man barely glanced at them. “I already . . .”

“The guy you ID’d last night has been in the hospital since Sunday. So he sure as hell wasn’t meeting you in the park on Monday. You’ve been jerking me around since I caught up with you.”

“The fancy word for ‘jerking us around’ is obstruction,” Risa informed him. “That’s what we’re going to charge you with, right before we cuff you and march you out the door in front of your former employers. With that and your own admission of buying marijuana, we have enough to send you back to Somerset. And I can guarantee it will be for longer than two years this time.”

Giving up on retrieving the folders, Crowley rose, inched back toward his desk. He was sweating now. Beads of perspiration dotted his upper lip, his brow. “Okay, so none of the pics were the Juicy I met with. I figured you’d think I was lying if I said that, so I pointed at one of them.” He tried a weak smile, couldn’t quite pull it off.

Risa surveyed him consideringly. “You must really be afraid of him.”

“I told you, I . . .”

She turned to Nate. “Let’s give him one more chance. I’m betting Juicy’s number is on his cell phone. We can have him set up a meet, scoop this guy up, and end this thing once and for all.”

Crowley dropped heavily into his desk chair, looking ill. “You have no idea what he’s capable of. And he didn’t have anything to do with what happened in the park. He was only there because I was going to be there anyway so that’s where I arranged to meet him. Honest.” He looked from one of them to the other, his eyes wild. “This has nothing to do with him.”