Black Widow Page 14

  It was Henley’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “McAllister and Crumley?”

  “That’s right. I think whoever killed McAllister did Crumley, too. To shut her up.”

  Henley considered it in silence. “What’s the connection?” he said.

  “I’m working on that. McAllister’s widow believes that Crumley lied on the witness stand. If that’s true, she must have had a reason.”

  “You think somebody put her up to it.”

  “It stands to reason. Why else perjure herself?”

  “Well,” Henley said, “I suppose we’ll never know now, will we? Seein’ as how she and Michael McAllister have both gone on to their eternal rewards.”

  The dogs continued their cacophony. “What can you tell me,” he said, almost shouting to be heard above the uproar, “about the day McAllister died?”

  “Open and shut case, far as I was concerned. She found out he’d been whoring around, and she stuck him with the scissors. Who’d have thought a pretty little thing like that could hold so much of a grudge? Anyway, by the time we got there, she was in shock. Couldn’t believe what she’d done.”

  His pulse quickened. “You were there?”

  “Earl and I. She come runnin’ out of that house like a bat out of hell. Blood everywhere. And she fought like a wildcat.” Henley’s eyes grew glassy, as if he were enjoying the memory. “You ask me,” he said, “there’s your killer. I don’t give a rat’s ass that Clara Hughes claims the McAllister woman couldn’t have done it because she was somewhere else at the time of the killing. That woman was guilty as sin. I knew it then, and I know it now. You really believe the two killings are related, you’d best be checking out McAllister. She’s your damn killer.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. Listen, while I think of it, mind if I ask you another question?”

  Henley had already lost interest in him and was watching the dogs again. “What’s that?” he said.

  “You familiar with snake handling churches?”

  Henley looked at him. “That kind of thing’s illegal in North Carolina,” he said.

  “Uh huh. I was just wondering. Do you know if there are any around here?”

  * * * * *

  It was nearly eight o’clock when he got home, drained and running on half his cylinders. He went to the refrigerator for a beer, and paused in puzzlement at the kitchen doorway. There was a new lace tablecloth on his kitchen table, a vase of fresh-cut flowers sitting dead-center. “Janine?” he said.

  She came up behind him like a wraith. “What do you think, Daddy? Doesn’t it look pretty?”

  Those dark eyes begged him to be pleased with the results of her handiwork. He cupped her cheek. “Sure, baby. It looks real nice.”

  “Come see what I did in the living room!” She caught him by the hand and drew him along behind her. His head was throbbing, and all he wanted was to kick off his shoes and decompress with a cold one. Instead, propelled by guilt, he followed her. She switched on the overhead light. “What do you think?”

  The plain but serviceable couch had been disguised by a new throw in a soft shade of peach. Miniature pillows in splashy colors were scattered about its length. In the corner by the window, a wicker basket held a six-foot palm tree, and on the wall, a framed picture of the New York City skyline dominated the room. “Wow,” he said.

  “Do you like it?” She looked eager and breathless.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said. “Where’d you get all this stuff?”

  “Caroline took me shopping. Isn’t it great, Daddy? I thought the New York picture would make you feel more at home.”

  “Sure, sweetheart. That was really thoughtful of you.”

  She beamed at the compliment. “Are you ready to go for pizza?” she said.

  Christ. He’d totally forgotten. This morning had been a lifetime ago, back when he’d still been strutting like a rooster, back before Kathryn had disemboweled him with one fell swoop. His face must have given away his feelings. “Daddy?” his daughter said, looking crestfallen. “We are going, aren’t we?”

  No matter how tired he was, he just couldn’t do it to her. “Hey,” he said, “would I disappoint a face as gorgeous as yours? Give your old man ten minutes to shower and change, and then we’ll track us down some pizza.”

  They ended up at the bowling alley, where they ate pepperoni and anchovy pizza and bowled a few strings. Janine was a fair-to-middling bowler, beating him by a spread of more than a dozen points. She was also tactful enough to overlook the gutter balls he threw due to lack of sleep and a churning brain. It didn’t really matter anyway. What mattered was that they were together, and his little girl was glowing in a way he hadn’t seen since before the divorce.

  She chattered all the while, told him about her friends and her school, about joining the yearbook club and playing field hockey, about making the Honor Roll every single semester of her seventh-grade year, and he realized how little he really knew about this child he and Lenore had created. For the first time, it struck him that Lenore had been right all along. He hadn’t been there for Janine. He’d thought that working his ass off and being a good provider was enough. But he’d been wrong. His marriage had disintegrated, and his daughter was growing up a stranger right in front of his eyes.

  He wondered if it was too late to make it up to her.

  They finally called it quits around eleven. He was so tired he could barely see straight, and he couldn’t wait to fall into bed. As they were taking off their bowling shoes, he said, “I was wondering. Are you afraid of snakes?”

  She rolled her eyes and gave him a look that clearly said he was an idiot. “Oh,” he said. “One of those things I should already know, right?”

  “Geez, Daddy. For years and years I wanted to be a veterinarian. Don’t you even remember?”

  “I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind right now. I was thinking about going to church tomorrow. Want to go with me?”

  “You want to go to church?”

  “Well,” he said, bending to tie his shoelaces, “this isn’t just any ordinary church. They have snakes there. Big, poisonous ones.”

  “Are you serious? You mean like rattlesnakes and stuff?”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “Oh, wow. I’d love to!”

  “It’s a long drive,” he said. “It’ll take us a while to get there.”

  “I don’t care. This is too good to pass up.”

  They left the air-conditioned comfort of the bowling alley, and the hot, steamy night hit him in the face with almost physical force. His truck was one of the few left in the parking lot, a dark, hulking shape turned orangey by the sodium-arc light above it. They were halfway across the parking lot when he saw the lettering, a good eighteen inches tall, spray-painted in white down the driver’s side of his Blazer.

  FORNICATOR.

  The word was ugly, turning something that had been meaningful into something dirty, indecent. Beside him, Janine stopped dead. “Daddy?” she said.

  He swore. “Stay here,” he said, and stalked off toward the truck. He unlocked the passenger door, yanked it open. Checked out the front seat, then opened the glove compartment and took out his high-powered flashlight. He walked all around the vehicle, aiming the beam of light at it. The paint had run, giving the lettering a slightly eerie appearance. Nick got down on his knees with the flashlight and checked the underside of the Blazer. Brushed off his hands and pointed the beam of light at the vehicle’s interior, slowly scanning it for anything that might be out of place. Or that shouldn’t be there. A rattlesnake, for instance.

  He popped the hood and checked beneath it. There was nothing. “It’s all right,” he said, turning off the flashlight. “Just somebody being a wise-ass. Let’s go home.”

  Janine climbed reluctantly into the truck, but she wouldn’t let it rest. “Who would do something like that?” she said indignantly.

  He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. “Probably just kid
s with nothing better to do.”

  “Daddy? Are there people here who don’t like you?”

  “I’m a cop, sweetheart. There are always people who don’t like cops.”

  After a time, she said, “I know what that word means.”

  “Yeah,” he said grimly. “So do I.”

  “Why did they say it? Why did they call you that?”

  He didn’t know what to tell her. At thirteen, was she ready to handle the truth, that her father had the same sexual needs as everybody else? Would he run the risk of alienating her if he admitted that he was human?

  He cleared his throat. “Somebody,” he said, “apparently doesn’t approve of the company I keep.”

  She looked at him for a long time without speaking. “You didn’t sleep at the station last night, did you?”

  He gnawed at the inside of his cheek. “No,” he said.

  “I knew you didn’t. Rowena called the house this morning, looking for you.”

  He turned into his driveway and shut off the engine, and they sat there in the darkness for a while, listening to the chirping of crickets and the drawn-out whine of a tractor trailer out on Route 1. “Is it the lady from the grocery store?” she said.

  Nick let out a long sigh and leaned back against the headrest. “I’m sorry if you’re disappointed in me, Janine, but I’m not any kind of hero. I’m just a guy, just a goddamn ordinary guy, and—”

  “Do you love her?” she said.

  He toyed with the blinker switch. “It’s complicated.”

  “Does she love you?”

  He thought about last night. There had been tenderness, and passion, and the fulfilling of a blinding need. But had there been love? “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Right now, she’s pretty upset with me. I guess there’s a lot of that going around.”

  “I wish you’d told me the truth in the first place. I’m thirteen years old, not a baby. But I’m not mad at you, Daddy. I told you, I just want you to be happy.”

  After Janine had gone to bed, he took the cordless into the kitchen and called Kathryn. She answered the phone sounding sleepy and disoriented, and his stomach knotted from the need to lie down beside her in the heart of those cool, crisp sheets. “Please don’t hang up on me,” he said. “This is important.”

  There was a moment of silence before she said softly, groggily, “Nick.”

  “I’ll be tied up for a few hours tomorrow,” he said, “so I won’t be here if you need me. I want you to be careful. Somebody decided to paint my truck a new color tonight.”

  “What?” Her voice sharpened, and he imagined her sitting up with the covers falling down around her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Janine and I went bowling. When we came out, some joker had painted ‘fornicator’ down the side of my Blazer.”

  “Oh, Christ. Poor Janine. How did she react?”

  “She asked a few questions I wasn’t expecting to have to answer. I told her the truth. What else could I do?”

  “You told her about us? About last night?”

  “Hell, Kat, she knew about us before I did. That night we bumped into each other at the grocery store, she was already asking questions.”

  “I don’t like this,” she said. “This hatred, overflowing onto you. And now your daughter. I don’t want you involved.”

  “I’m the goddamn chief of police. I can’t help being involved.”

  “It’s not because you’re the chief of police,” she said bitterly. “It’s because you made the mistake of fornicating with the town pariah.”

  “Damn it, Kathryn, don’t let them turn what happened between us into something dirty. It wasn’t like that, and you know it.”

  “No? Just what was it like, Nick?”

  He heaved a mighty sigh. “What do you want me to say, Kathryn? You tell me what you’re expecting, because I can’t read you anymore.”

  “I have to go now.” There was an almost inaudible tremor in her voice. “Talking with you just confuses me.”

  “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  There was a moment of silence. “You, too,” she said. “Take care of that beautiful daughter of yours. Good night, DiSalvo.”

  And she hung up the phone.

  The autopsy report was waiting on his desk the next morning. While Janine played with Rowena’s typewriter, he skimmed through it. He didn’t find any surprises. Official cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head. Ellsworth had removed a .38 slug, and it had been shipped off to the state crime lab for examination. The angle of the bullet indicated the gun had probably been fired by a right-handed person, from a distance of about five feet. Only minute traces of gunpowder had been found.

  Nick set down the report, sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair. Now all he needed to do was check out every right-handed person in Rowley County. Shouldn’t take more than a year or two. They’d spent most of yesterday taking statements from everybody who’d been even peripherally involved. Bucky and Earl had canvassed the neighborhood where they’d found the body, talking to everybody they could find, but nobody had seen a thing. There was nothing to link anybody to the crime. Except for that damning piece of paper with Kathryn’s phone number on it.

  The NCIC report on Wanita Crumley that he’d asked Rowena to run before he left yesterday was far more interesting. Apparently Crumley had spent some time in Baltimore since the McAllister trial. She had a lengthy arrest record with the Baltimore PD. Solicitation. Shoplifting. Possession of a controlled substance. Attempting to solicit sexual favors from an undercover police officer. “Well, well,” he said. “Our little friend Wanita was a busy girl.”

  He phoned Baltimore, and was connected with a Vice cop named Houston. Nick introduced himself, then said, “We got us a DOA down here by the name of Wanita Crumley. I understand you boys might be acquainted with her.”

  “Ah, yes, the lovely Wanita. One of my all-time favorites. What happened to her?”

  “She took a .38 slug in the back of the head, night before last.”

  “Aw, geez. Hang on while I look for my crying towel. Shit happens, don’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, thinking of the white lettering he’d attempted to cover with black spray paint this morning. “Shit happens, all right. Anything you can tell me about her?”

  “She peddled her ass on the street to keep herself and her boyfriend rolling in powder. Got any idea who did her?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. What’s the scoop on the boyfriend?”

  “Sorry, DiSalvo, you just missed him. He checked out a couple of months ago. Got into some bad shit that somebody cut with strychnine. By the time we found him, the rats had been at him for a while.”

  “What a picturesque vision on this lovely Sunday morning. Anything else you can tell me? Anybody who might’ve wanted her out of the way?”

  “Crowd she ran with, who could say? Any one of ‘em would probably sell their grandmother for a couple of snorts.”

  He thanked Houston and went into the outer office to check the files. Chances were slim to none that Crumley had discontinued her extracurricular activities when she returned home to Elba. If so, there had to be an arrest record somewhere.

  The file cabinets were locked. “Damnation,” he said, and Janine looked up from her typing.

  “Are we going soon, Daddy? I’m bored.”

  “Soon,” he said. He opened the desk drawer and rummaged through it, hoping to find a key for the files, but there was none.

  Cursing, he flipped through the Rolodex, found Rowena’s number, and called her. “I’m sorry to call you at home on your day off,” he said, “but I need the key to the file cabinet. Where is it?”

  There was a silence, and then Rowena cleared her throat. “Well, Chief,” she said, “if you really need it, I suppose I could prob’ly drop it off on my way to church.”

  He leaned against the desk and closed his eyes. “Why am I not surprised? There isn’t one here, is ther
e?”

  “I keep it on my key ring,” she said defensively. “For safekeepin’. Chief Henley always had one of his own. I assumed he gave it to you when you took over.”

  “The only thing Chief Henley gave me when I took over was his headaches.”

  “Well, then,” she said cheerfully, “looks like we’ll just have to get one made up for you. Shall I drop mine off to you this morning?”

  Nick sighed. “Never mind,” he said. “It can wait until tomorrow. Sorry to bother you, Rowena.”

  He hung up the phone and rubbed his knuckles on the top of Janine’s head. “Come on, squirt,” he said. “Let’s go hunt us up some snakes.”

  “There’s sin in this world, brothers and sisters. The devil is mighty powerful, and he tempts us all!” Dressed in his Sunday finest suit, outdated by about fifteen years, Brother Leroy looked out over his congregation.

  “Amen!” said a man in the first row.

  “Hallelujah!” said somebody just behind Nick.

  The wispy thatch of sandy hair that Brother Leroy had combed over his bald spot fell to one side. “But them that’s got a strong faith,” he said, “them that believes in the Lord Jesus with all they got in ‘em, that faith is gonna make ‘em strong, help ‘em to fight Satan.”

  “Hallelujah, brother!”

  “And the Bible tells us, brothers and sisters, that if our faith is strong, we can do mighty things. Like healin’ the sick.”

  There were fervent amens scattered around the room.

  “And raisin’ the dead.”

  “Praise the Lord Jesus!”

  “And drinkin’ strong poisons.”

  “Thank you, Jesus!”

  “And the takin’ up of serpents in his name!”

  Around Brother Leroy’s neck hung a four-foot copperhead. The snake writhed and squirmed, clearly uncomfortable, clearly wishing to be somewhere else. Brother Leroy closed his eyes and raised his beatific face to the Lord. “My faith is strong,” he said. “And I know that my Lord won’t let this serpent, this tool of Satan, hurt me. Long as my faith never wavers, I won’t be hurt by followin’ the signs.”

  “Yes!” a woman shouted. “Thank you, Jesus!”