Killing Zone (17 page)

“How long were you lovers?” asked Wager.

“A year and eight months. Seven months after I came to work here. It just happened—we fell in love long before it happened, and then one afternoon … we touched. That’s all it took—that one little touch of our hands.”

She was speaking more to a memory she had replayed over and over rather than to either of them. They waited.

“After that first time, he offered to find me a job anywhere I wanted. To pay my salary until I found one I liked. He thought he had taken advantage of me because I worked for him.” The golden hair wagged from side to side in remembered surprise. “He was so apologetic. I told him over and over I didn’t want to work anywhere else. That I wanted to be with him.”

Which probably wasn’t exactly what Green wanted to hear. “You knew at the time he was married?” asked Wager.

“Yes. But it didn’t make any difference.” Her eyes turned angrily to Wager. “And it still doesn’t, except for his … for Mrs. Green.” A spasm of fright chilled the eyes wide. “She doesn’t need to be told, does she? She doesn’t need to be hurt by this, does she?”

Stubbs smiled and shook his head. “We’re not interested in his sex life. We’re after his killer.”

“I don’t know who could kill a man like that. He was a good man—really. A good man.”

“Do you know if he had other girlfriends, Sonie?”

“No.” The Kleenex went back to her eyes, blotting the damp mascara. “No, he didn’t. I know what you’re thinking—a cheap, sordid office romance. But it wasn’t. I was the first—the only—other woman he had since he was married. And we both knew it shouldn’t have happened.”

The words were coming easier now. Wager had seen it before: The pent thoughts and worries held in silence for so long suddenly spilling out when there was someone, preferably a stranger, who would listen and not dispute. And the survivor’s willingness to ignore the faults of a dead loved one—to believe that he or she was capable of nothing but good. What wasn’t clear to Wager was whether the saintliness of the dead was the result of grief or an intensifier of it, a means of honing guilt and loss into a luxuriance of pain. He had seen it in others; maybe he even had a touch of it himself.

“He wanted to go into politics—the City Council was the first step—and he could have been a great leader. We would have to be very strong, he said.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because of his plans—the politics. We couldn’t let anyone even think we were lovers. And someday”—she gathered herself together again—“someday we couldn’t even be lovers anymore. That’s why we had to be strong.”

“Tell us what happened Wednesday afternoon, Sonie.”

Wager leaned forward to study her face and eyes and to hear the soft voice better. As she began to answer, the radio pack in his holster gave a loud pop and his call number and pulled her face toward him, startled at the reminder of who these two men were and what they represented. Keying the reply button two quick times, he muffled a curse and stepped around the partition into the shadowy display area.

“Ten-six-nine,” he answered with his call number. “Go ahead.”

“Lieutenant Wolfard wants you to report by telephone as soon as possible.”

“Will do.”

“He wants to know when.”

“As soon as possible, God damn it.”

He turned off the radio, another violation of regulations, and returned to the office in time to hear Sonja Andersen say “That was the last time I saw him.”

There were a few more questions, mostly designed to establish names and locations that could be used in further investigation. Her previous job was as an account processor for Reliable Savings and Loan. She had lived in Denver for almost five years. Her home was Chadron, Nebraska—a farm about twelve miles north of town. She lived alone in Denver. No, she did not have any other boyfriends.

“What did you do Wednesday night after work, Sonie? The eleventh.”

“I went home.”

“Did anyone come over to visit? Did you talk to anyone on the phone?”

“No.”

“You were home alone all evening?” asked Wager.

“Yes.”

“Horace Green didn’t come over to your place between nine and two in the morning?”

“No.” She looked puzzled. “He had I don’t know how many political things to do. He couldn’t come by.”

“Did he come by often?”

“Sometimes. Not often. It’s a long drive.”

Maybe she meant miles, but Wager figured the real distance Green had to travel had been psychological—certainly the distance from wife to mistress, perhaps the distance from black to white. And he wondered if Sonja Andersen knew just how long those distances could be or if, because she loved, she assumed he did, too. Or if she really loved as she said she did and as she wanted Wager to believe.

On the way out, they found Ray Coleman staring silently through the plate glass at the empty parking lot and the traffic flickering past on I-25 beyond.

“Mr. Coleman, can I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure. You guys come up with anything yet? About Mr. Green’s killer, I mean?”

“Not much, so far. But maybe you can help.” Wager opened the door and motioned for the young man to step outside. “Did you ever hear any rumors that Councilman Green was stepping out on his wife?”

Coleman’s eyes slid away toward the traffic, and he fingered the thin line of hair on his upper lip.

“Did you, Mr. Coleman?”

His face darkened with embarrassment and the finger moved off the mustache to scratch at the corner of his full lips. “You mean …” he finished by jerking his head toward the office.

“What can you tell us?”

“They had it on, I guess. Thought nobody knew.”

“Green and Miss Andersen?”

“Yeah. She was all over him from the first day she was here.”

“Who else knew about it?”

“I don’t know. I sure wasn’t going to tell anybody. I felt … I don’t know, it just didn’t seem right, you know? Here he is, somebody the people really respect—a city councilman, a deacon in the church, and he’s sneaking around with this woman. A white woman.”

“How long did it go on?”

He shrugged, but it was more with disgust than carelessness. “A year maybe. Maybe longer. First time I heard it, I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. But she was having him, anybody could tell.”

“A lot of people knew about it?”

“The whole store, that’s all.”

“What about his wife?”

“Mrs. Green? You mean did she know about it? I sure didn’t tell her, man! I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“Did Mrs. Green ever visit the store?”

He looked down at the pointed tips of his glossy shoes and flicked a piece of gravel with his toe. “A couple times, yeah. But she didn’t come down a lot.”

“Did she ever meet Miss Andersen?”

“Sure. She had to. The bitch’s been running the place for two years, now.”

“How did they act together?”

“Act? I guess that’s the word for it, all right.” The head jerked again. “On her part, anyway—smiling like a damn Halloween pumpkin and taking Mrs. Green on a big tour of the store.”

“They were friendly?”

“If you want to call it that. Sonie was as nervous as a whore in church, but Mrs. Green was cool, man. If she knew anything, she wasn’t letting on.”

“Did Green care for Miss Andersen?”

“Care for her? I don’t know. I don’t know why he did it in the first place. I mean, she’s not all that good-looking, and she’s white, you know? I mean, what the hell did a man like Horace Green want with that? I just don’t understand it, that’s all.”

“Did a lot of people feel that way?”

“What way?”

“Angry at Green for having a white mistress.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t talk about that to nobody. And I don’t know if angry’s the word. Sad, maybe. There was no reason to do it—a white woman, for gosh sakes.”

“Did anyone ever mention the affair to you?”

“Pee Wee told me about it.”

“Who’s that?”

“Pee Wee Crawford. Him and James Mellor work in shipping.”

Wager remembered interviewing them briefly on his first trip to the store. “You talked it over with them?”

“Talk it over? No—Pee Wee came up one day and told me he saw them kissing. He couldn’t believe it. It shocked him, you know? So he had to tell somebody and he told me. I wish he hadn’t. I liked Councilman Green. He was doing things I want to do. I mean having his own business and being on City Council—not that other stuff.”

“Did James Mellor feel that way, too?”

“No. He just laughed. Said a man should be able to dip his wick wherever he wanted to. He likes white meat, he said—a touch of honey.”

“You kept working here, even though you didn’t like what was going on?”

“It’s a job, man. Jobs are hard to get. And Mr. Green was a good man—that’s what I can’t figure out. Except for this, he was a real good man.” He glanced at the passing cars. “She won’t be around much longer, anyway. I bet Mrs. Green fires her ass right after the funeral.”

0958 Hours

In the car, Stubbs whistled dimly as Wager steered through the still-heavy morning traffic on the major north-south interstate. “That kid sure doesn’t like whites, does he? I thought they were all drooling for honky quim. But I still can’t see that as motive enough to kill a man, Gabe.”

Wager had only been thinking aloud. “If Ray Coleman felt that strongly about it, why not someone who felt even stronger?” He’d seen it among the Hispanics: a pride that rejected, sometimes violently, everything Anglo—values, language, products, women, even a mixed-breed like himself. As a kid, he used to puzzle over the thin line between racism and that kind of pride.

“Like Mrs. Green?”

That, too, was possible. But it wasn’t exactly what he was trying to formulate. “Like someone who felt betrayed by Green. Someone who wanted to punish him for not being perfect.”

“Or someone who thought the affair was over and didn’t want it to be? We’re getting a lot of motives and damn few suspects. A racist killing, jealousy, now some kind of weird justice. And everybody keeps saying what a good guy he was.”

“Don’t forget the vote-selling.”

“Jesus. His elements were mixed, all right.”

Whatever the hell that meant. Wager swung with heavy traffic around the Mousetrap and east on I-70 headed for Colorado Boulevard.

“Are you certain you want to talk to Mrs. Green now?”

“It’s not a question of wanting,” Wager reminded him.

“I guess not.”

Everyone did agree that Green was a good man. But even a good man could have a lot of shady areas in his life, things that at first seemed like harmless fun or, even if verging into the illegal, seemed like minor sins at first. Far less than what everyone else was getting away with. So why not give it a try? Perhaps Green was on that gentle road and someone saw it more clearly than he did and resented it. Or perhaps Green had looked up and seen how that road, without his really noticing, had slanted down below the level of the one he had long ago believed himself traveling. And so he wanted to get off. To get back up to the ideal level he and his people’s vision of him thought he should be on. And someone had not wanted him to.

“You want to do the talking or do you want me to?” Stubbs stared at the big home, dim and still behind the spruce trees.

“I will.”

Mrs. Green herself answered their ring. The initial shock had worn away and left her with the sunken, tired look of deep sadness. Although they had not called to say they were coming, she did not seem surprised to see them. She opened the door and stepped back, a hand loosely indicating the large living room. “Come in, Officers.”

“I’m sorry we have to bother you again, Mrs. Green. But we need a little more information about your husband.”

“I understand. Would you like some coffee?”

“No, ma’am.” Wager and Stubbs waited until she settled onto one of the straight-back upholstered chairs before seating themselves on a couch. Its heaviness anchored the room’s window-brightened lightness and seemed to suit what they came for. “Mrs. Green, exactly how well did you know your husband?”

Her eyes, red over the dark circles of flesh, stared at Wager for a long moment. There may have been a stir of anger, but it was quickly buried under pain and resignation. “He was my husband, Officer.”

“Yes, ma’am. But sometimes men have lives their families know little about.”

“Just what are you trying to tell me?”

After a moment, Wager said, “I’m trying to tell you your husband was unfaithful. I’m telling you this to find out if it’s a motive for his murder.”

This time the tears came, but the woman did not move. She didn’t even seem to breathe.

“It’s not something everybody knows or something they should know. But—”

“But you think I might have killed him.”

“I don’t think anything yet. I’m just trying to learn as many facts as possible.”

“You’ve learned that one. I don’t see what more you have to ask me.”

“You did know about it, then.”

“Of course.”

“Were you estranged by it?”

“‘Estranged’? Did we become strangers, you mean?” She thought that over. “I felt it. I certainly felt it, Officer. But we never talked about it. I kept hoping that if I said nothing, let him suspect nothing, he’d come to his senses. For the sake of the children, for the sake of what we shared together. ‘Estranged’? Yes. On those nights when he didn’t come home and I was alone, wondering—knowing—yes, I was estranged.”

“But you loved him, too.”

“Yes.”

“Did this happen often?”

“No. I mean I don’t think so.” The tears had stopped flowing, but the last of them trembled on her cheek as if she didn’t know she cried. “I really don’t know, anymore.”

“Did he ever say anything about a divorce?”

“No.”

“Did you?”

“I’ve already told you, Officer, I said nothing.”

“Do you know who the other woman was?”

Her eyes moved from Wager’s to the double French doors that shut off one end of the living room from a glassed-in sun porch beyond. Through the second barrier of glass, Wager could see the bright warmth of flowers in a sheltered garden. “I figured it out.”