Marcie's Murder (41 page)

“Ha
i
n’t I just said so?”

“Was he rough with her?” Karen asked. “Did you see any signs he was hitting her?”

“Oh, my.”
Des looked away again, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. “Another man’s wife, and he treated her worse than you would a dumb animal. She kept always making excuses for her
swollen face
and broken wrist and the like, and Billy
seemed to
believe her stories but I sure didn’t. I knew better just by watching
her and Morris
when they were in the same place at the same time.
He just
plain owned her. Could do whatever he wanted with her, and likely did. I just couldn’t understand how some women seemed to need that. It sure turns me off.”

“
I hear ya
,” Karen said. “Big time.”

2
9

There were eight cells in the wing of the county jail in which Billy Askew was incarcerated, but only one other was currently occupied. A man in his sixties had been brought in on a DUI and had passed out on the cot. They were letting him sleep it off.
A
young guy in his twenties, wearing a stained wife-beater and jeans,
had made a brief appearance
but they’d moved him out
again
a while ago. Askew
had
recognized the kid as a drug dealer with a record for possession with intent to traffic, possession of stolen property, and a
ssault. Not that he gave a shit
. He’d stopped
paying
much
attention to his surroundings.

He sat on the edge of his cot and stared at his hands, which were clasped between his knees. The time passed as it always does, regardless of what we do or fail to do, and Askew let it pass without protest. His mind wandered. He knew he was in a blue funk
. A
corner of his mind chewed away at him to snap out of it and do something, solve the problem, kick somebody’s ass
,
and
get the hell out of
t
here, but the blue funk enveloped his brain and kept him where he was, motionless, almost weightless, like a Styrofoam cup snagged in a half-submerged tree limb in a stream.

There was a dim light in the corridor from a lamp over the door at the far end. Other lights came on, but Askew didn’t give a shit. On a certain level he knew it was late, but he hadn’t been able to sleep so he just continued to sit there and didn’t stir when he heard the door open. Footsteps stopped outside his cell
. S
omeone
banged
a
folding
metal chair on the floor and sat down in it.

“Evening, Billy.”

The dickhead, Muncy. Askew clasped his hands a little more tightly between his knees.

“I realize it’s late, Billy, but I was here doing paperwork and thought I’d have a little talk with you before I went home.”

Good for you, dickhead.

“You should’ve at least talked to your attorney, Billy. You’re in a real bad spot. You should take help when it’s offered.”

Askew stopped listening after the word “attorney.” He’d kept his mouth shut ever since being transported from Bluefield down here to Tazewell. Ice Steele had pounded away at him for a good hour, but Askew had just blocked him out and eventually Ice had given up
and gone away
. Then Judd Witten, Askew’s lawyer, show
ed
up. He’d heard about Askew’s arrest and subsequent transfer on the radio news and c
a
me down as soon as he could get free. Askew wouldn’t talk to him. Wouldn’t even acknowledge his presence. Witten had gone away, saying he was going to arrange for Askew’s release on bail, but hadn’t come back. Not that Askew gave a shit. The blue funk was like a drug. He surrendered himself to it
and stayed motionless as time flowed on around him
.

“–during the autopsy,” dickhead Muncy was saying. “When the lab tests come back we’re gonna know who
se
tissue it was under her fingernails from the DNA, right, Billy? If it’s yours, you’re
screwed
, right? You know that, don’t you?”

Askew said nothing, but unfortunately he was now paying attention.

“If it’s somebody else’s then we’re wasting time trying to grill your ass while
the real killer’
s getting away with it. It’d be a big help if you’d just explain where you were on Saturday night so we can separate the wheat
from
the chaff and find out who killed your wife.”

Askew couldn’t help himself. “You see me missing any tissue, dickhead?”

“No, sir,” Muncy promptly replied, “and that’s the real truth. The doctor who looked you over confirmed you got no marks anywhere
except the
fresh-
skinned knuckle and torn fingernail from your little
dust-up
in Bluefield. The only thing is, the lab may find that the tissue was only Marcie’s, since she scratched her own neck trying to pry the guy’s hands off of her. Sorry, Billy. I know that’s graphic.”

Askew said nothing.

“Best case,” Muncy went on, “we find
both
her DNA and the killer’s DNA in the samples. Worst case it’s only hers and we got to have something else, like a confession or a witness or something.”

Askew said nothing.

“If you could tell us where you were Saturday night
,
and we could confirm it in some way, it’d go a long way toward getting you out of here. Ice don’t feel real good holding a fellow law enforcement commander here in jail with the drunks and druggies.”

Askew unclasped his hands and flattened them on his knees. “Ice is laughing his fucking head off.”

“No, he’s not, Billy.”

“He ain’t had this much fun in a long time.”

“No, that
h
ain’t true, Billy. We’re all real upset about this. You gotta help us out. Tell us where you were on Saturday night.”

Askew stood up and walked over to the bars to look out at Muncy. “That’s personal, and I’m not about to tell a dickhead like you.”

“Would you tell Ice? I could ask Ice to come
back
down. He’d talk to you right now, if you like.”

Askew pursed his lips. Something in him shifted a little. It was as though the current had flipped
over
a
bit
and the Styrofoam cup had become unwedged. “What time is it?”

Muncy looked at his watch. “Almost midnight. Eleven-fifty.”

It was late. Steele was probably already in bed. Next to his wife. Snuggled up comfortable. Maybe already asleep.

“Get him down here before I change my mind,” Askew said.

It took forty minutes for Ice Steele to show up. He wore jeans, scuffed deck shoes, and a faded
gray
Carolina Panthers
sweatshirt. His brown hair was tousled
,
and the bags under his eyes looked as though they were stuffed with cotton. Askew was sitting cross-legged on the cot with his back against the wall. Muncy shifted the metal chair in front of Askew’s cell door
.
Steele sat down on it while Muncy moved a few steps away with his arms folded across his chest and a serious look on his face, as though he’d just orchestrated a high-level diplomatic intervention between warring countries.

“Muncy tells me you got something to say,” Steele growled. “So say it.”

“Nice of you to come down, Ice. Hope
I
didn’t disturb your beauty rest.”

“You did. So cut the crap.”

“I was at my sister’s on Saturday night. The trailer where she was living with her piece-a-shit husband on 102
just
out
side
of Bluefield. Got there maybe
nine-thirty
and stayed until about
one
-
forty
, when I got the call from Dispatch.”

“The way I understand it,” Steele said slowly, “your people were trying to get a hold of you when they first got the call but they couldn’t reach you. Your cell phone was out of service or some damned thing.”

“I had it turned off.”

“That something you do on a regular basis?”

Askew shook his head. “
I was
knee-deep in shit and had to deal with it.”

“What kind of shit we talking about?”

Askew said nothing for several moments. This was the crux of his reluctance to say something in his own defense. He was a man of enormous pride
,
and it cut him deeply that his sister had sunk to the level of trailer trash, victimized by her worthless, drunken husband. He’d always kept Pricie carefully compartmentalized from the rest of his life. He was ashamed of her
;
at the same time he was ashamed that he was ashamed of her. Now the entire thing had become a trap that was costing him his reputation
and
hi
s liberty
.

Complicating the situation, to the point of
paralyzing
him, was the fact that someone, some other man, had been abusing Marcie for the last year and he’d completely missed it.
He’d had
no idea she’d been stepping out on him,
and worse,
he’d completely missed the signs of abuse he had no trouble recognizing in his own sister.
They’d seen so little of each other in the last while that Marcie had almost become a stranger to him. When sh
e said she fell down the stairs and broke her wrist, he
’d
believed her.
When s
he said she
’d
hurt her shoulder walking someone’s dog, he
’d
believed her
, absent
-minded
ly wondering if she were becoming accident
prone
.
When s
he said she had an infected wisdom tooth and the dentist was rough pulling it out
,
he
’d
believed her
,
thinking
he should go have a word with the damned clumsy dentist
.
What a
fucki
n
g
idiot he’d been.

Sitting here alone, punishing himself for his stupidity and his failure to protect both his sister and his wife, he’d become numb. He’d stopped thinking.
But n
ow he knew he
had to
do it
. He
had to
let go of Pricie, stop trying to correct her failings for her, stop trying to push her life into a shape that matched the picture in his head of how his sister’s life should be. He
had
to
let
her
go
and free himself at the same time.

H
e needed to let go of Marcie
, too
. She’d been gone longer than he’d known
,
and it
was rough
to find that out the hard way. Now he needed to save himself. There was nothing else left to do.

“
My sister’s a victim of d
omestic abuse,”
he
said. “Long-term
. Bluefield’s been out there
often
, I
’ve
been out there
too
, but you know how it works. There’s not a lot you can do when the
woman
keeps smoothing it over.
” He paused, aware of the irony in his statement when applied to his own wife.
“
Last Saturday he’d beat her again and I went out there looking for him. Lucky for him, the s
onofa
bitch had taken off. I stayed with
Pricie
as long as I could. Tried to talk her into leaving. Eventually she just fell asleep, so I sat with her for a while. Then I went out to the kitchen to fix myself a drink, turned on my cell
,
and it rang right away. Like to scare the fuck right out of me.” He paused. “Marcie was gone. So I got the hell out of there.”

It was like trying to fix up something on one side, and while your back was turned something infinitely more precious got destroyed on the other side. You couldn’t win. You just couldn’t win.

“I suppose this sister of yours’ll corroborate everything you’re saying.”

“I don’t want her bothered
.
” Askew push
ed
away from the wall and
stood
up. “You understand me, Steele? I don’t want her name in the papers, reporters knocking on her door, bothering her kids, talking to that fucking Neal. I want her left out of it.” He grabbed the bars and shook them. “Leave her the fuck alone
!
”