Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (22 page)

Carl Lee’s hand twitched. It looked as if he was ready to use it to silence his client.

“It says here that the car was stolen in Atlanta.”Tony’s fingers toyed with the papers in the file but he did not look away from Quentin.

“Now hold on there.” Quentin put up his hands as if to shield himself from the words. “I don’t know nothin’ about no stolen car. He showed up here driving that little sissy car and all I know’s that he wanted to get a local plate.”

“You didn’t think it strange that a preacher would want a stolen license plate?” said Wade.

“He said that preachers don’t make much money and most of that’s got to go to charity and so God don’t mind a few shortcuts like used license plates.” Quentin scratched his arms while he looked into Tony’s face. “I’d think you’d know all about that, what with your late daddy bein’ in the same line of work.”

That rendered Tony speechless. His father had been a Methodist minister. While Tony admitted he had not paid as much attention to his father’s words as maybe he should have, he felt sure he would have remembered hearing a theory like that.

Wade jumped in. “What about drugs? Did he have any connection with any kind of illegal substance?”

“Drugs?” Wide-eyed, Quentin’s head moved from side to side.

Tony believed his confusion couldn’t have been feigned. Quentin couldn’t possibly be that good an actor. Cousin Hub had not included Quentin in his business arrangements.

“Hub didn’t do no drugs. He said that they were the devil’s own invention but Lordy, he sure could drink.” He chuckled. “Some nights he drank store-bought and some nights he drank shine but, nossir, not drugs.”

“We noticed that he wears a wedding ring.” Tony saw no reason to tell Quentin about the OxyContin. “We need to notify his wife and family about his passing. His using your Cousin John’s identity has clouded that important issue for us. Do you know where they are? Does he have children?”

Quentin’s face said it all. He had no idea. For all he knew about this cousin, he might have been a stranger who had arrived at his door. If Hub hadn’t had the same odd eyes that his mother did, Quentin might not have even accepted him as a relative.

“Okay, try this question then.” Frustrated beyond belief, Tony massaged his neck, hoping that relieving some of the tension would make him more patient. “Why were your fingerprints on the driver’s side door on that little car of your cousin’s? Did you ever drive it?”

Quentin shook his head. “Never touched it.”

That was a lie and everyone in the room knew it. No one said a word. They all just stared at him. His attorney jabbed him in the ribs with the pen he gripped. “I mean, leastways, I never drove it anywhere. I might have touched it, you know, as I walked by and all.”

“Under the handle?” Tony flipped his papers again. Then he studied a report clipped into the folder. His eyes lifted and he stared at Quentin. “Exactly when did you say it was that you last saw your cousin?”

“When he was alive or after he died?” Quentin looked pleased with his saucy question.

Tony felt pleased with it too. In fact, he felt as pleased as an unsupervised puppy discovering an open trashcan. “I wasn’t aware that you ever had a chance to see him after he was deceased. Would you like to tell me when you would have done that?”

No one said a word.

Only the sound of Carl Lee cracking the knuckles of his big hands interrupted the silence of the little room. He took his time and cracked each knuckle with careful precision. With each crack, the expression on his face became more forbidding.

Built a lot like his uncle the mayor, attorney Carl Lee Cash dollar had the long-boned build of a basketball player. In spite of the fact that there was very little meat on him, he was known to be strong and fast and could easily palm a basketball.

Quentin’s mouth opened and closed as he looked at his unhappy lawyer. Then he paled and slid down on his chair until he was almost on the floor. He seemed fascinated by the ceiling.

“Assuming for a moment, that my client might have seen his cousin after his untimely demise,” said Carl Lee, leaning forward and meeting Tony’s eyes. “Is that necessarily a problem?”

“That might depend on a number of factors.” Tony stared at Quentin. “I presume that the last time our killer saw Hub, he was dead. So I would guess that the killer was the last person to see him alive and the first to see him dead.”

“Assuming his cousin was already dead, is there any reason to hold my client?” Carl Lee’s hands twitched.

Quentin’s eyes filled with tears but he sat up straighter. Hope bloomed on his homely face.

“Not necessarily.” Tony scribbled something in his notes before looking first at Carl Lee and then at Quentin. “I would be interested in exactly what time this assumption occurred. It could help establish the time of death.”

“You don’t know when he died?” The words seemed to leap from Quentin’s mouth.

Tony shifted on his chair. “We have a range of time but wouldn’t mind narrowing it down a bit.” He watched as Carl Lee wrapped one big hand completely around one of Quentin’s upper arms and squeezed—and not too gently at that.

“Tell them everything you know about that night or I’ll let them arrest you.” Carl Lee’s voice sounded low and dead serious. “In fact, I’ll help them arrest you.”

“You mean I haven’t been arrested?” said Quentin. “Then why am I wearing this outfit?” He tugged on the left sleeve of the jumpsuit. “Is someone taking care of my dogs? Angelina won’t feed them right. Even her own dog don’t like her.”

“You haven’t been arrested for the death of your cousin. That’s all we are talking about, for now,” said Carl Lee. “Tell them about finding your cousin.”

Quentin stuck his lower lip out as if he was a three-year-old denied a treat and shook his head.

Carl Lee cracked one of his knuckles again and Quentin started talking.

“Like I told you before, Hub went to town to do his preaching. I came to town a bit later for a little fun at the Okay.” He didn’t need to use the full name of the bar. “It was pretty late when I left there, but I don’t know the real time. I went by Ruby’s ’cause Hub owed me money. He wasn’t in the car.” He coughed. “Then I parked over near the trailer park and fell asleep in my truck for a while.” He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles like he just awakened.

“I just remembered.” Quentin sat up straighter. “When I went by Hub’s car again, it was running, but the lights was off, so I pulled up and looked in. That had to be a bit before four. I couldn’t make him out real clear so I opened the door just a crack. One of them damn snakes was just a-sittin’ on his lap like they was goin’ for a joyride.” He shivered. “I slammed that door and left. I swear to God, Sheriff, he was dead as they get.”

“The back lot at Ruby’s seems like an odd place to just drive by and see a parked car. You can’t see it from the road. You can hardly see it from the café.” Tony’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know he would be there instead of at your place, and why would you bother even looking for this cousin you barely knew?”

Clearly uncomfortable with these questions, Quentin looked as if he had swallowed a porcupine. “He liked to park there. Don’t ask me why. I asked him once, and he about bit my head off.” There was no answer to the question of why.

“Did you see anyone else back there, either time?”

Quentin started to shake his head and stopped. “Just that Pinkie woman on her Harley.”

Tony examined his notes. That fit with Pinkie’s story.

“Do you know a Sammy Samson?” Tony watched as Wade shifted his chair back a little from the aroma that seemed to be increasing as they sat there. The benefits of Quentin’s soap seemed to be wearing off. “We think that maybe he was a friend of Hub’s.”

“What’s he look like?” Quentin started chasing imaginary insects again. “I ain’t too good with names sometimes.”

Tony placed a photograph on the table. “Is this man why you were looking for your cousin?”

“I seen him around.” Head bobbing like a cork in a heavy sea, Quentin looked under the table and then under his chair. “What did he do?” He threw a glance over his shoulder.

“Besides shoot one of my deputies?” Tony slammed his fist on the metal table. The sound of it echoed around them. He couldn’t disguise his anger. It felt like electricity pouring from his body. He noticed that everyone in the room sat up straight as he struggled to conquer his rage.

“We think he also hit Miss Nellie Pearl Prigmore in the head hard enough to do more than knock her out. She had to be airlifted to Knoxville, and she is still in a coma.” He flipped the file closed and laced his fingers together, staring at Quentin. “If she dies, the charges against him will include murder.”

Quentin looked lost.

Carl Lee looked concerned.

“About now, I suppose you are wondering why I am telling you this. Would you like to know where we found him?” He waited for the answering nod. “They were up near her place, in the woods. When we caught up with him, he had drugs in an old lunch box and a gun and an envelope containing a tidy little sum of money stashed in a hole in the ground.” Leaning forward, Tony smiled. “Would you like to guess whose fingerprints we found inside that lunch box and all over some plastic sandwich bags filled with meth?”

Shaking his head in denial, Quentin looked ready to burst into tears. His chin quivered and his teeth were buried so deeply in his lower lip that it was starting to bleed.

“Yes, that’s right, they are yours. A positive match.” Tony relaxed in his chair and watched. The next move was Quentin’s. Tony was prepared to wait him out.

Carl Lee kept his firm grip on his client’s skinny arm. His long fingers met and appeared to be squeezing, hard, as he whispered something in Quentin’s ear. Quentin was shaking his head at every word. It didn’t take much thought to realize that the young lawyer was not happy with his client. In fact, it looked as if Carl Lee was ready to throw Quentin to the wolves.

“It was my stuff.” Quentin’s almost colorless gray eyes moved to Tony, and Carl Lee released his arm. “Sammy’s got no right to mess with it.” He squirmed on his chair. “It’s for . . . what do you say? Personal use.”

Wade pulled the file over to his side of the table. He flipped through the pages until he found what he was searching for. It was an inventory of the contents of the lunch box.

“If you
personally
use that much meth, Quentin, why bury it so far away from your house. Isn’t it kind of a pain to have to walk or drive a mile, dig up the box, rebury it and then go back? Why not just keep it under your bed?”

Quentin gnawed on his torn lip. A glance in his lawyer’s direction made him chew faster. “I put it there so my girlfriend won’t use it all, and—” His lips kept moving, but silence reigned.

“And?” The three men leaned closer to catch his words, but after taking a breath thought better of it and sat back.

He gave his lawyer a last desperate glance. “If I didn’t have what I’d promised to have when the man came to pick it up, I don’t know what would have happened to me.” He released a long and sorrowful sigh. “Angelina don’t care nothing about me as long as she gets all the stuff she wants. She says that since it’s her recipe, she should get the most.”

“What man?”Tony intended to get back to the subject of Angelina Lopez and her recipe.

“You know, the one you was askin’ about. Sammy.” Quentin’s twitching picked up speed. “Hub said that he was one mean bastard, and I guess he should know ’cause they met in prison. Sammy was his cellmate. The two of them was always goin’ off somewhere together and that was fine with me.” The twitching had turned into shivering. The vibrations were so intense now that his chair began to move around on the linoleum flooring.

Tony couldn’t quite decide if Quentin was having a bad reaction to the drugs in his system or if he was just flat-out scared. Either way, he was not in any shape to tell them anything more for a while.

Tony tipped his head to pull Carl Lee away. They went into the hallway.

“Are you planning to arrest my client?” Carl Lee frowned. His Adam’s apple bobbed above his shirt collar. “Do you have evidence that he’s guilty of anything more than possession?”

“Not at this time. You tell me what to do because I don’t know.” Tony headed for his office with Carl Lee trotting along next to him. “He’s having some major drug problems that just locking him up won’t help. Yesterday afternoon, his driveway was totally impassable, so he won’t be able to go home until some serious clearing is done.”

Tony opened the fresh jar of antacids. Not bothering to use his hands, he shook some tablets directly into his mouth and crunched on them. “I don’t think he killed his cousin but I don’t know that for sure. His fingerprints were on the car, but that is not enough cause to arrest him. His girlfriend is cooking some serious stuff up there, and he is involved in that little project up to his bloodshot eyeballs. If that’s not bad enough, we have his connection to Samson and Nellie Pearl.”

He offered the young lawyer his jar of antacids.

Carl Lee took four. “Can you keep him here a couple of days, you know, for his own good?” Carl Lee looked as if his own words had taken him by surprise.

“We are not running a hotel and we sure are not running a detox center.” Tony looked at the clock. It was already almost noon. He started easing his way to the door, anxious to leave. “If he isn’t under arrest, we have to let him go. It’s up to you and Archie to argue the charges. We picked him up because it is against the law to be cruising around intoxicated. He is as sober now as he ever gets, and he is all yours.”

“Can I make a couple of calls?”

“Go for it.”

“What about Samson? Where is he?” After consulting his PDA, Carl Lee started punching the buttons on his cell phone. “I don’t want him coming after Quentin.”

“He is not going anywhere. Sevier County has him locked up tight, and the judge over there has refused to even hear bail requests until Monday afternoon. If you’re concerned about Samson coming after Quentin for something, I think you can relax. I don’t expect that he will be granted bail for the attempted murder of a police officer.”