Shotgun Lullaby (A Conway Sax Mystery) (24 page)

I could feel her, truly
feel
her, waffling. Waves rolled from her. I sat dead still, like a man who just found a finch on his shoulder.

My prayers almost worked.

She almost turned to face me, human to human.

She almost talked.

About Roy.

I could tell.

But then we pulled into the driveway. Jessie opened her door before I even got the truck in park. She pounded up concrete steps, hunched against rain, thumb-typing a text message without looking back.

I stayed in my truck so long Sophie came to fetch me.

*   *   *

Charlene closed the bedroom door, waited two beats, and whipped it open.

I said, “Looking to bust Sophie spying?”

“You bet I am. And not without reason.”

She shut the door for real. And locked it. “What was that all about, Conway Sax?”

“What was what about?”

“What was
tonight
about? Don't play dumb. You know I hate that.”

I did know it, but I was in a jam. The whole evening had been an unspoken agreement between me, Sophie, and Jessie to keep Charlene in the dark. Jessie had it easy—she'd spent an hour in the bathtub before locking herself in her room. I'd been scared that if I said much of anything, Charlene would know something was wrong and pry it out of me. Sophie must've felt the same way, because she was so quiet Charlene asked if she felt okay.

“Guess everybody was just tired,” I said, closing the blinds. I had a plan to sidestep Charlene's curiosity, and it was one the neighbors didn't need to see.

“Tired my ass,” she said. “There was another grand conspiracy going on. I'm
sick
of those.”

I needed to show her a little leg, throw her off the scent. “Sophie had a half day today.”

It worked. Charlene grimaced, then pinched the bridge of her nose. “
Dammit!
Dammit dammit dammit.”

“Not a big deal. She's old enough.”

“I know, but she needs new cheer shoes, and I'd promised today was the day. The two-month-old white sneakers she's worn a half-dozen times apparently aren't white enough for the big competition. Can you explain that to me?”

I was too busy feeling relieved to say much.

So I crossed the room and kissed her.

She kissed me back like a Freightliner. Damn near knocked me backward to the bed. Which maybe she'd wanted to.

To show her who was boss I crouched some, got my hands under her rear end, and lifted. She didn't have much choice but to wrap her legs around my waist. I got us turned around, so now it was
me
dumping
her
onto the bed, falling atop her. Both of us giggling and kissing the whole time.

I forget which of us switched off the lamp.

After, she slept and I dozed. Couldn't afford to do more—had to meet Donald.

At twenty past nine, I slipped out of bed and dressed.

There's a certain look to a woman's shoulder blades in half-light. So pretty. So lonely.

*   *   *

The rain had pushed through by the time I eased to the locked main gate at Hopkinton State Park. Deep mud ruts told me Donald had driven around it, the way I'd explained. But he had four-wheel drive, and I didn't.

I rolled into the ruts. Bogged. Fought three seconds of worry that I'd get stuck and have to tap-dance with a local cop. But my rear tires found enough grip to shove me through.

It's a decent-sized park, but most of the roads are gated off at night, so there's really only one place you can drive. I killed my headlights. With clouds still blocking the moon and stars, I had to move slowly.

Bear right, up and over a hill, bend left to a string of parking lots serving a reservoir I could feel but not see. I'd chucked a few guns in there—it was one way I knew this place.

The other: most summer Sundays, Floriano and his kin, along with half the Brazilians in the state, mob the place for all-day grill fests and beach parties. I'd joined the Mendes clan here a few times, eating my weight in Brazilian sausage and beef.

Damn, but it was dark. Even the dashboard light would screw up my night vision, I knew, so I dimmed it all the way down.

I drove, listened, looked.

I heard only halfhearted waves tickling the reservoir's angled sides.

Rolled forward twenty yards at a walking pace, stopped, looked, and listened again.

Nothing.

Did all this again. Again. Again.

After five minutes that felt much longer, I was cursing myself for being vague about the location of the meet, wondering if Donald had managed to find another lot somewhere. I pulled my cell. He was probably close enough to hit with an apple core, but in this dark I'd best call.

That's when the gun went off.

I wish I didn't know that sound so well, but I do. And it wasn't anything other than a handgun. I fumbled my cell, ducking instinctively in my seat even as I registered the sound and a white flash to my left.

I came out of the panicky duck and looked that way in time to see another flash, hear another pop. Sure enough, the flash told me it was Donald's big-ass Cadillac SUV. As I'd guessed, it was no more than fifty yards away.

I jumped out. I ran toward the truck's outline. It lit up a third time and I flinched, stumbling—but this time there was no pop to match the flash. A dull thunk told me a door had closed, and I began to fear what I was going to find.

Hit the Escalade's left side running hard, both hands out to stop me. I half-registered slop on the driver's window, grabbed the handle, pulled hard …

… his lime-sherbet-green cowboy hat fluttered past my shoulder.

And Donald Crump, all five foot two of him, a man who could eat barbecue all day long and never admit he liked it, a man who could impersonate an NFL lineman one week and run a solar company the next, fell into my arms with a little hole in his right temple and a big hole in his left.

I saw it all by the Escalade's dome light. I saw more than I wanted to see. I saw too much.

The keys were still in the Cadillac's ignition. A chime went
ding-ding-ding
.

Donald's dead weight took me down slowly. I ended up splayed on the tarmac with his body between my legs.

I spoke. I babbled. I said something. I didn't know what.

Later on, the Hopkinton cop who made the scene first said I kept saying, “Aw, hell.” Only that. Over and over.

Until they pried me away from Donald and cuffed me and shoved me in a cruiser.

*   *   *

They didn't haul me out of holding to speak with Lima until eight the next morning.

Don't know whether I ought to tell this—it's an embarrassing thing to know—but when it comes to jail, most everything you see on TV and movies is horseshit, pure and simple. Unless you're a prize jerk, most cops treat you okay.

The night before, cuffed in the back of the cop car, I'd told the Hopkinton PD they ought to call the staties before deciding what to do with me. They had. I spent the night in a decent one-bunk holding cell in a back corner of the staties' Framingham barracks. Sure, I wore prison orange—but only because they offered to have my clothes washed overnight. Dinner and breakfast were from Burger King. I'm a McDonald's man, but I hadn't complained.

So don't picture that squirrelly guy who begs the detectives for mercy because he spent all night on a bench fending off rapists. At 8:00
A.M.
, when they nodded me into the interrogation cube, I had a good night's rest, a full belly, and lemon-scented clothes.

I also had cuffs on my wrists. That part's not horseshit.

Neither is the worry. If I'd had my phone, the staties would have let me call Charlene—the one-phone-call bit is more TV nonsense—but I'd dropped it in my truck when the shots were fired. And, the guard told me after checking, my truck was part of the crime scene. It was getting the full forensics treatment.

“The hell for?” I'd said to the guard. “All I did was drive into a parking lot and watch my friend get shot.”

“Don't tell me,” he'd said, squinting at his clipboard, “tell Detective Lima.”

And here he sat, lips pressed together, both hands flat on the beat-up table, manila folder open before him.

“Why am I here?” I said. “I drove into a parking lot and watched Donald Crump take two in the head.”

“Sit.”

I sat.

“Pure as a mountain spring,” Lima said. “That's you. Billy Bob Bystander. So why'd you bust into a state park with a locked gate and clearly posted hours? And why'd you black out your truck while you drove around?”

“Donald called. He wanted—”

“Fuck Donald Crump!”
Lima screamed it, blowing his top for the first time I'd seen. “Everybody loves Crump! Everybody wants to hug him and take him home for dinner! He wasn't a pint-sized black leprechaun committing pranks, Sax. He was a fucking-A thief/con man/douche bag who'd steal your gold fillings if you gave him half a chance.”

Boy, was he pissed.

I counted to five. Maybe Lima did, too.

“Donald Crump called me yesterday,” I said. “He was shook up. He wanted to meet in a quiet place. I told him the place.”

Lima stared at the report in his folder. He looked like a man trying to will the ink on the pages to shift until it said what he wanted it to say.

Huh.

I thought.

Then I thought out loud. “You've got his cell and mine. So you know it's true he called yesterday afternoon.”

“Right. So you remembered the call and fed me BS that would fit. Big deal.”

But Lima was trying to sell himself. And failing.

Then there was a nice click, and I half-smiled in spite of everything.

“You knew I was rolling with my lights turned off,” I said. “You've got a goddamn witness.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It was quiet for a long time.

“Two.” It killed him to say it.

I said nothing.

“Plus cell-phone video.”

“What?”

Lima sighed, leaned back. “You get many handjobs when you were thirteen, Sax?”

“That's a hell of a question.”

“Young Mica … hell, you don't need last names. Young Mica met young Alexa in the state park last night. Facebook friends. Thirteen years old. Both of 'em Hopkinton kids, but they go to different schools. Sneaked out for a handjob that had apparently been promised young Mica by young Alexa.”

“They met at the reservoir,” I said, nodding, seeing now where he was headed. “It's a big makeout spot. Or was. Floriano said that's why they started locking the gates at night.”

“Who's Floriano?”

“Never mind. Was I right about the kids?”

“'Course.”

“What about the video?”

“In this day and age, what red-blooded boy wouldn't secretly record his first handjob?”

“It was dark as hell.”

Lima shrugged. “Night-vision app. No problem.”

“Can I see the video?”

“No.”

“It tell you anything new?”

“Yes.” He looked at me awhile. “It told me somebody was trying to set you up.”

I said nothing.

“Want to tell me who might do that, Sax?”

I said nothing.

“Want to talk about the Pundo family, Sax?”

“How'd the video tell you this?”

He leaned back, stared at the ceiling awhile. Sighed, dropped his shoulders. “Young Mica's video was pretty crappy, especially when things got exciting.”

“I'll bet.”

He worked hard to hide the smile. “Once the gunfire started, I mean. We miss the first gunshot flash altogether, though we do hear it. We see the second gunshot flash. Then we see your truck's dome light when you climb out. Then we see Crump's dome light, presumably when the shooter climbed out, and then again when you open the door and find the body.”

Donald's body. The cowboy hat, the burst left temple. I'd managed to bury all that overnight.

“Guess what we see next,” Lima said.

I thought of the sequence. “Hopkinton PD pulls up. And now that you mention it, they must've been tipped off to get there so quick. I doubt they even have keys to the main gate.”

“You're right about all that, but guess what we
see
.”

I waited.

“We see your truck's dome light again.”

“Huh?”

He opened a drawer, pulled from it a big Ziploc bag, laid the bag on his desk. It held a slip of paper, some sort of evidence ticket.

And a pair of thin, purplish rubber gloves.

I recognized them right away—we buy them by the boxload at the shop. They keep grease off your fingers while leaving most of your touch for threading small nuts.

“Surgical gloves,” Lima said.

“I know.” I explained how.

“Found 'em in your truck's center console.”

“Are you going to say what I think you're going to say?”

He nodded. “Powder residue. Near-microscopic grit. Good stuff.”

“Didn't you say that
CSI
stuff never helped anybody make a case?”

“You work with what you got. If it wasn't for young Mica, these gloves would have me looking at you a whole nother way. Walk in my moccasins, Sax. Can you see it?”

I thought. Nodded. “While you were rushing the gloves through the lab, you must've checked the inside for DNA.”

“Sure. No go. Instead, they found traces of the powder that keeps the gloves from sticking together in the box.” He looked a challenge at me.

I said nothing for a full thirty seconds. Then: “Two gloves, one worn on top of the other. The outer glove held the gun that shot Crump. The inner one trapped the actual shooter's DNA.”

“That's how I see it. The inner glove's long gone, the outer one ends up in your truck.”