The Killing King of Gratis (10 page)

“Well, time is of the essence, and it seems to me that our Atlanta investigators might be able to make more headway with her than we could. Althea isn’t afraid of the courts, but she might fear a little street justice.”

Tommy grimaced. Motte was right, but he didn’t like the possibility that the use of street justice might be traced back to him. He thought a moment, playing out scenarios in his mind.

“Well, I can’t go for that, but right now I’ve got other things to take care of. I’m driving up to Monroe to see if the sheriff there can help me find Newt. Why don’t you figure out what to do about Althea? Maybe there’s probable cause for a warrant, taking her kid away, whatever. Take your time, we may only have one chance to get a crack at her.”

Motte had the answer he wanted from Tommy.

Tommy needed an out if something went wrong with questioning Althea. The “take your time” statement meant Motte would have a couple of days to try unofficial channels, without getting Tommy’s official okay, before he had to use a legally appropriate method. A couple of days would be more than enough with the methods his investigators used.

Motte would call Mr. Knox in the morning, first thing. The Bloodsaw brothers would be banging on Althea’s door by noon the next day. They would get answers from her, one way or another.

S
cott and Todd Bloodsaw were greatly disappointed in small town hospitality by now. They were both aching and sore from the run-in with Newt and Kero. Scott had a persistent headache that would not go away and was now somewhat deaf. Not only was he in pain, but Todd was losing patience with him. It didn’t help that the temperature was already ninety-five degrees and it wasn’t yet noon.

“Listen you complete idiot, listen to me!”

“What?”

“Listen, we have to do a thing with some old crackhead who knew the dead girl. She has some information we can use to figure out this thing.”

“Crackhead? What?”

Todd had little sympathy for Scott’s new condition. Mama always loved Scott best and the little shit didn’t deserve it. Having to tell him what to do, and how to do it, only increased the number of gnats Todd swallowed every time he opened his mouth.

“Just come with me and stay out of my way.”

“What?”

The day after Delroy met with Althea, Scott and Todd stopped near the pool hall and watched her house. After looking around, Todd decided that they would park about fifty yards away and come through the backyard where Delroy was so sick the day before.

They moved the Impala, fought their way through the weeds, and finally made it to Althea’s back porch. Todd figured they would storm in through the back door. He found that, usually, inviting himself in was much more effective than knocking.

He went first, crashing through the back door and immediately falling into a pot of grits spilled over the kitchen floor. Scott was right behind him. He almost fell on top of Todd but managed to keep his balance.

“Get the crackhead!” Todd screamed.

Scott had no problem hearing that and charged into the main room. The television was cranked at full volume, and Bob Barker was asking an old lady from Fresno to guess the price of a Tahoe ski package. Scott stopped in front of Althea’s new TV and gaped at what he saw there.

“Scott, what are you doing?” Todd got no reply so he screamed louder. “Where the hell are you?” Still nothing.

Todd stood up and wiped the grits, cool and gelatinous, off his new blue and white seersucker pants.
Grits,
he thought, randomly wishing he was at the Majestic Diner on Ponce eating some right now. He walked into the main room with his gun drawn. He was going to shoot whoever was keeping Scott silent, or pistol whip his brother for not answering.

Coming into the room he also stopped in his tracks, not two feet from Scott. The smell of bleach was overpowering. As Bob Barker’s crowd screamed “lower, lower,” they met Althea Lacey for the first and last time.

Sitting up in bed with the covers at her feet, she wore nothing but shorts. Her breasts were bare and stacked one on top of the other. She grinned at them with eyes wide open, her arms laid at her side with a glass pipe inches from her fingers. They barely noticed any of that.

What caught their eye was the crow bar sticking out of Althea’s chest. It was starting to sag now, but was buried at least six inches into her body. The medical examiner would determine that it transected her aorta, pierced her heart, and came to rest in her left lung. She bled to death internally, blood filling her peritoneal cavity. There was surprisingly little of the sanguine fluid on her torso or the bed.

“Shit,” was all Todd could utter.

“What,” said Scott, and then, “do you think she’s dead? She looks dead to me.”

“Shit yeah she’s dead! Shit! Shit!” Todd shook his head.

“What do we do now?”

Todd looked at the smoke stained ceiling.

“We are going out the way we came in. If you touched anything, wipe it down. We’re gonna get in the car, call Mama, and see what she wants us to do. Hopefully she’ll tell us to drive until we get back inside the perimeter, at which time we’ll go to Alfredo’s, order two plates of lasagna, and get drunk.”

Todd figured he would be drinking his fourth Peroni in three or four hours.

Scott didn’t hear everything but understood most of it. He was looking forward to going home.
Gratis is too damn hot
, he thought,
and I need to go to the Cheetah
. He had some making up to do and lap dances to buy.

Todd called Mama and she instructed them to stay away from dead bodies, whether in their creation or otherwise. Getting paid to rough up a suspected killer was one thing, but being around when other dead bodies started popping up was another. Her gut told her it wouldn’t be the last dead body found in this case, and her boys didn’t need that kind of heat so far away from where she had influence. “You babies come on home. Make sure you get sweet Scott something to eat and drink after you’ve been on the road for a while. You know how light headed he gets.”

“Of course she doesn’t care if I eat or not,” Todd mumbled to himself as he wiped away any traces of the two in Althea’s house.

“What, what?” Scott replied, not sure if his brother was speaking to him or not.

“Screw you!” Todd yelled, loud enough for his brother to hear him. He wondered if Mama would believe that Scott ending up in a gator pond could happen by accident. He immediately knew she wouldn’t, and decided to make the best of things.

“Mama wants you to drive,” he yelled at Scott.
No waiting for me before I get drunk
. They made their way back to the car and left. Todd made sure they stopped at the first liquor store on their way out of town.

S
kipper never played a better round of golf in his life, and shot no worse than par or better on every hole. He finally made it to the tee-box on the par five 18th hole at the Neck Country Club.

His drive boomed almost three hundred yards. He played a draw and was left looking at the hole about two hundred twenty yards away. It was tucked behind a bunker and immediately in front of a small pond. Usually he would take a six iron and lay up about forty-five yards from the hole. He could hit his pitching wedge to the green from that distance. Today he was feeling adventurous, though, and took his three wood out for the shot.

His playing partners snickered when he took the wood out of his bag. “Look, dude, you’re having a nice round, but this ain’t your day job,” one said.

The second one just started singing “you da man, you da man.” He was drunk, having stalked the drink cart that day, and couldn’t think of anything pithy to say. Vodka had that effect.

The last one, Erik Johnson, quietly asked, “you wanna make a bet?”

“Sure,” Skipper answered, “what are the particulars?”

“I bet you $500 that you miss the green and land in the catbox, and you have to give me $1000 if you go in the drink.”

Skipper looked at his club.

“I’ll take that,” he said, “and if I land on the green you have to give me $500, and $1000 if I put it in the hole.”

“Okay, you’re on,” Erik said. The drunk member of the foursome changed the lyrics of his song to “put it in the hole, put it in the hole.” Erik laughed.

Skipper approached the ball, lined up the shot, and swung away. The ball landed on the green, rolled past the hole, and headed toward the water. When it was two feet from the edge of the green the backspin caught and the ball rolled back the way it came. As the foursome looked on it silently fell into the hole.

Erik felt sick. He didn’t really have the $1000 to lose, but a bet was a bet.

Skipper just smiled and said, “you know I don’t take checks.”

After they settled up, Skipper got into his golf cart and turned it toward his car in the parking lot. He felt great.

Damn
, he thought,
golfing after killing someone is amazing
.

He was on a roll. Killing Millie scratched an undeniable itch. Her death was a relief coupled with the discovery of something wonderful inside of him. He started out that kill with some trepidation, if not dread. He fantasized about the act but didn’t know how he would respond once it was done. He responded, to his surprise, with vigor.

Killing Althea was wholly different. He had to plan quickly once he learned she may have witnessed Millie’s death, or at least her disappearance. This wasn’t a problem. His fear of killing was gone and he was clear-headed, thinking with military precision during his preparation.

He went to her home around four in the morning, betting she would be high when he got there. She was. He kept an extremely low profile while going in, only carrying a bottle of bleach to pour over the crime scene. He counted on finding a suitable weapon once he arrived. The crow bar, lying in the back yard next to her porch, beckoned him to use it. He slipped in the unlocked back door and found his target watching her new television in the main room.

Althea smiled at him at first. She was feeling good, watching an old “Mama’s Family” rerun. Acquaintances often walked in unexpectedly at Althea’s house. It was a hazard of her lifestyle and nothing new to her.

She started to hand him her pipe and then saw the raised crowbar. Her last thoughts, besides the face of her child, were
this ain’t good
and
that damn Delroy
. She was too high to do anything about it.

Skipper left immediately upon killing her and dousing the scene with bleach. He almost laughed out loud as he left. This killing was easy, and he got a rush of power and euphoria. It was spectacular. As he drove home, however, the euphoria started slipping away. “Too soon,” he whispered to himself. This killing was different.

He parsed through the differences in the killings as his cart puttered down the golf path. He anticipated Millie’s much longer, where Althea’s had been rushed. He also reasoned that the collateral damage done to Gratis itself was much greater from Millie’s death. Communities don’t weep over the loss of another crackhead, and church pews wouldn’t fill for their funerals. The full circus of death intoxicated Skipper. This last murder wouldn’t create one.

Well, my man, what are you gonna do next?
Soon he smiled to himself. He knew how to hurt Gratis. You had to take one of her children, but not just any child. This child would have to be missed. This child would have to be someone the town was looking forward to meeting as she grew into womanhood. His thoughts turned to Delroy and all the machinations he was conducting to protect his family.

He wondered what Delroy would do if he knew who Skipper really was. He wondered what Delroy would do if he knew of the new thought starting to crowd his mind. Mostly, though, he wondered where Delroy’s niece was hiding herself these days.

He lurched onto the pavement off the course and drove the cart to his car. He got out and retrieved a cold bottle of Bombay gin from a cooler in the back seat. He had a lot of thinking to do, and he was going to need some inspiration. After all, it was a long drive home.

D
elroy was at his office the next morning when Cozette called him with the news of Althea’s death. As always, Cozette knew before anyone else. He was walking out the door when she called. He spoke to her while driving to Anna’s house.

A courthouse friend called him earlier and gave him the heads up that Broyles was charging Anna with contributing to the deprivation of a minor. Knox was on Broyles’ ass about finding Meg and Peck. He knew he could hold her in jail for weeks as long as he could find some charge that might fit.

The charge was bullshit but in this case bullshit would have to do. The D.A. had kids in college and worked as a prosecutor for a government paycheck since getting out of law school. He had no idea how to survive without that paycheck and was not interested in finding out. He needed to sweat out the children’s whereabouts from Anna. Failing that, he had to at least look like he was trying.

Delroy was already fuming about this as he drove to Anna’s house. The news of Althea’s death hit like a hammer.

“I heard she had a crow bar sticking out of her chest when they found her. Maybe it had something to do with Millie’s death, maybe not.”

“Are the children alright?”

“Yes, they’re staying inside today, although I’m not sure I can keep Peck from roaming the swamp with Matthew. Delroy, did you hear what I said about Althea?”

“Yep, hell Cozette, I’m at a loss about it. What happened to her son?”

“Nothing about him. As far as I know there was only one dead body. I don’t even know if the police realize she had a son.”

“Well, please keep your ears open. I’ll call you later, and thanks again for everything. I really mean it.” At that, Delroy hung up.

He was worried about Terrence, but the first thing he had to do was get Anna out of town. Delroy was boiling mad at the D.A. He tried cases against Broyles, was always courteous, and this was how he was repaid. Delroy had a mind to run against him the next election. He didn’t want the job, but he did want to see Broyles out in the real world trying to make it.