Fostering Death (2 page)

Assuming, of course, I didn’t get locked up right away.

“You tell me,” Montgomery said, his eyes boring into my face. I looked down at my boots.

“Refresh my memory, Damon,” Belkins said, staring at the unlit end of the cigar. “How long were you in prison?”

“Just under twenty years.”

“And what was the conviction?”

He knew all this. He just wanted to make me say it. “Murder. Conspiracy. Possession of a handgun during commission of a felony.”

“And you pled guilty?”

“An Alford plea.” That plea—not admitting guilt but conceding that the state had enough evidence for a conviction—had been a problem from the start. Parole boards and counselors like to hear convicts express remorse. Hard to do when not admitting guilt.

“That’s right. Wouldn’t take responsibility, eh?” Belkins stuck the cigar back in his mouth. “Then or now.”

Montgomery changed the subject. “Still working night shift at Quality Steel Fabrications, Jesse?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Still driving a forklift?” Montgomery tugged his collar a bit more snugly around his neck.

“Yes, sir.”

“When I check with them, will they tell me you’ve been missing a lot of work?”

“No, sir. I been there every night.” As if I could afford to take a night off. Between paying for the rent on my little basement apartment and the monitoring expenses for parole, I didn’t have much money to spare.

Belkins adjusted his hat, shielding his face better from the sleet. “I say we haul him downtown and see what we can find out. No sense standing out in the cold here.”

“I want to see who else comes to the viewing,” Montgomery said.

“We can get someone to take him in and hold him until we’re done here.”

Montgomery eyed me. His gloved fingers stroked the cleft in his chiseled chin.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw people leaving the funeral home and turning down the alley. They stopped when they saw us and retreated. I felt the drip of melting sleet running from my wet hair down the neck of my shirt become a rivulet. The shirt was already drenched, so I guess it didn’t really matter.

“It’s my anniversary,” Montgomery said. “Cecile and I have reservations for dinner. She won’t be happy if I tell her I’m working late.”

A mean smile played on Belkins’ lips. “I got no plans for tonight. I can see what I can get out of him.”

My gut tightened. Belkins wouldn’t be particular about the methods he used for interrogation. I didn’t really want to face him alone. Montgomery was young and hungry. He wouldn’t want anything on his record that might stand between him and a promotion. Much better for me if he were present.

But there wasn’t a damn thing I could do if they decided to run me in.

“We know where he lives and where he works,” Montgomery said. “We can always pick him up. Or ask his PO to hold him when he reports in. He’s not going anywhere.”

“True.” Belkins continued to grin at me. “He knows he’ll be locked up for the rest of his life if he takes off. Which is where he belongs.”

“Besides, you know he’s not likely to tell us much anyhow.” Montgomery checked his watch.

“I bet I could get him to tell me something.” Belkins’ grin turned into a leer.

Montgomery glanced over at him. “Does us no good to get information we can’t use in court.”

Belkins shrugged.

Montgomery grabbed me by the elbow and spun me around. He unlocked the handcuffs.

It took an effort, but I didn’t rub my numb wrists. I knew better than to move until they told me to. I stood, looking at my wallet and keychain as they lay where the brick wall met the cracked asphalt of the alley. The slush puddle was swallowing them rapidly.

Montgomery finally said, “You can go. For now.”

Another group of people stepped out of the funeral home and straggled across the entry to the alley.

I leaned down, scooping up my wallet and keychain. Then I picked my jacket up from the wet pavement and turned down the alley, away from everyone. I took a tentative step, expecting Belkins to change his mind and tell me to stop.

“And don’t even think of going to the church funeral service,” Montgomery called after me. “That poor old man’s been through enough.”

He was right about that. I kept my gaze straight ahead and kept going. I didn’t know where the alley went. With my luck it would dead-end at the garage. I’d climb a fence to avoid walking back past them if it came to that. Or hide behind a dumpster until the alley was clear again.

What did they throw in dumpsters out behind funeral homes, anyhow?

I turned at the corner of the building and saw an opening between the garage and another building. I walked toward it, hoping it was a through walkway. It was. I didn’t let myself glance back until I was halfway down it.

No one was in sight. The detectives weren’t following me. I unfolded my jacket and put it on. It was damp, but at least it blocked the needles of sleet that were driving into my shirt. I pulled the watch cap out of the pocket and pulled it over my head. Wool holds body heat even when it’s wet, although I wasn’t sure my body was producing any heat to speak of.

I emerged on the street behind the funeral home and saw a patrol car idling by the corner. The driver eyed me as I turned in the opposite direction and walked away.

After a few blocks, I thought I heard the sound of a car close to the curb following me, but between the wind and the sound of the sleet hitting the sidewalk, it might be just my overactive imagination hearing things. The area between my shoulder blades, the place where “INMATE” would be stenciled in white letters on an orange prison jumpsuit, itched. Word was it was positioned so the tower guards would have a target to aim for in an escape attempt.

I wished I’d taken the opportunity back in the alley to check to see if anything I didn’t know about was in my pants pockets. I didn’t doubt Belkins might slip me some crystal meth or something if he thought he could get away with it, but it had been Montgomery who had frisked me, and he’d be too professional for that kind of nonsense. I hoped.

Shoving my hands into the jacket pockets, I ducked my head into the wind. I wasn’t about to give anybody watching the satisfaction of seeing me check my pants pocket. Or even look back to see it somebody really was following me. One good thing about the sleet—my face was so wet it hid any tears.

When I turned the corner to head toward the aging building where I rented a basement apartment, the patrol car was sitting in the alley. They must have swung around the block. Or maybe it was another car.

Had a car been following me? Entirely my imagination? Without breaking my stride, I glanced back.

A battered, blue pickup truck was creeping along by the curb, lights out. What was that all about? I couldn’t see a cop, undercover or otherwise, being caught dead in a pickup in that bad shape.

I looked back at the patrol car. It was pulled up in the dead-end alley that the single window of my basement window looked out on. Its nose hung over the sidewalk. I’d have to pass it to get to the stairs that led down from the sidewalk to my front door. As I approached, the cop in the passenger seat, a woman with her hair pulled back in a severe bun, rolled down the window. She stared at me.

I didn’t stop or make eye contact, but I did take my hands out of my pockets and let them hang by my sides. No point giving anyone an excuse to go for a Taser. I’d never been tased myself, but I’d seen it done, and it didn’t look pleasant. I had no desire to experience it firsthand.

Resisting an urge to wipe my eyes again, I concentrated on keeping my breathing regular. I’d keep walking if they didn’t say anything to me.

If Montgomery had slipped something into my pocket and told them to search me, they’d stop me.

Unless they were waiting for me to go in so they could search the apartment. Not that they’d need reasonable suspicion for that, either. The parole papers I’d signed gave permission for warrantless searches any time.

Biting my lip, I reminded myself that parole was well worth all the restrictions that came with it. My apartment might be a dingy single room with the kitchenette in one corner and a tiny bathroom off another, but as long as I paid the rent, it was mine. And the key that opened the door was in my own pocket, not hung on some correctional officer’s belt.

The cop made no move to open the car door. Another advantage to the weather. She wasn’t going to get out of the warm, dry car unless she had to.

As I approached the top of the stairs, I listened for someone to shout, “Stop!” But no one did.

I slipped my hands back into my pockets and hunched down into my jacket. The sleet looked like it might be changing to snow. I didn’t look back. That would only make me look nervous. And guilty.

The cops were going to keep a close eye on me. It went with the territory. Cops don’t like parolees. They would be sure I was up to something. They were waiting for—what? Something I said or did that they thought tied me to Mrs. Coleman’s death. And anything else they could incidentally pin on me.

That meant the detectives investigating her death would probably put a lot of their efforts into trying to show that I’d killed her. Unfortunately, that meant they might not investigate what had actually happened.

Montgomery might be my best bet. If I could find out anything useful, he would listen. And look into it. Solving a homicide would be a big deal. And a detective bucking for a promotion didn’t want to be part of a team that made an arrest that ended in an acquittal. Or worse, in a conviction that was reversed on appeal.

I did have one advantage over any official investigation. I
knew
I hadn’t killed Mrs. Coleman.

Salt crunched underfoot as I approached the outdoor stairs down to my apartment. The janitor had spread it to keep ice from forming.

I heard the heavy
thunk
of a vehicle’s door slamming.

Chapter 2

“J
ESSE
!”

I froze. That whiny voice didn’t sound like it was coming from a cop. Resting my hand on the railing of the stairs down to my front door, I glanced over my shoulder.

The blue pickup stood at the curb, engine running and lights out.

“Jesse. You got to help me score.”

Aaron. A kid from the packing line at work. A kid who was going to get fired from a good job because he kept missing work. A kid who was into crystal meth and whatever else he could get his hands on. A kid who might well have turned police informant to save his own ass. That might explain why he hadn’t been fired yet for all the absences from work. Also why it didn’t bother him to be stopping me to ask about drugs in front of the cops sitting in an alley a few hundred yards away.

I turned to face him. “I don’t ‘got’ to do nothing.” I reached for my key, ready to continue down the stairs and into my apartment.

“You’re right, you’re right.” Aaron’s bloodshot eyes watched my hand reach into my pocket, and he flinched. Then he grinned and sniffed, pulling out a small packet of tissues and wiping his nose. He stuffed the tissues, including the one he’d just used, back into the pocket of his jacket.

I looked at the jacket with a tinge of envy. It was an expensive jacket, down-filled and undoubtedly very warm. I shivered in my damp wool hunting jacket from Goodwill.

“I was just hoping you would,” he said. “I got to score. Bad.”

“You know better than that.”

Aaron’s eyes were filled with the genuine anguish of a jonesing addict. “What am I gonna do?”

“I told you before. Call Narcotics Anonymous. They’ll help you.”

“They’d tell me I got to stop using.”

“They’d be right.”

Aaron rubbed his arm. “It’s freezing out here. Let’s go into your place so we can talk.”

“Let’s not. We got nothing to talk about.”

Aaron nodded. “You’re not gonna say anything that’s gonna get you in trouble. I get that. You’re smart.”

“If I was smart, I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you at all,” I said.

“I’m getting desperate.”

“You told me you could run down to Park Heights in Baltimore and pick up anything you wanted.”

Aaron’s face fell. “I tried that. Cost me a whole tank of gas. They sold me a little crystal meth and said that was all they had. So I got a couple of rocks that they said was crack. But it was just little white pebbles.”

In spite of myself, I laughed. “Real rocks, huh?”

Aaron shook his head. “Expensive ones, too. I got to do something.” He reached into his jacket pocket.

What did he have? I tensed and half-raised my fist.

He pulled out a wad of bills and shoved them toward me. “You don’t have to handle nothing. Just tell your contacts they can trust me. I can pay. Plenty more where that came from.”

Which, I suspected, was seed money from the vice squad.

I stepped back and put my hands behind me. Last thing I needed was for the cops to see me take money from Aaron. Especially if the serial numbers had been photocopied.