Here Comes the Night (22 page)

Angie sat motionless in the bathroom for a good five minutes
after she heard the door close. She had the shakes so bad she wasn’t sure she
could have gotten out of the tub anyway. She had recognized the detectives’
voices, which spooked her so bad she just scrunched down even lower, clutching
her head with her arms.

Clearly, they were taking Buck with them, but she didn’t
know if they had arrested him or not.

Finally, when the apartment’s quiet was starting to acquire
a buzzing hum of its own, she slowly pushed herself up out of the tub. Her
right foot had gone numb. She wiggled it as she tiptoed around, as though
somebody might still be there.

Once the feeling was back, she grabbed the rest of her stuff
and quickly got back into her disguise. Angie paced another ten minutes, then
finally slipped out. Her body was so tightly alert that when she heard a
distant door close as she reached the lobby, she jumped and barely stifled a
scream.

She slipped out the back entrance of the building and
hurried back to the Mercedes. She forced herself to drive below the speed limit
all the way home. When she reached her neighborhood, she threw off the wig and
scarf before pulling up to the house.

Just as she clicked the garage door opener, her cell phone
personal ringer went off in her purse. Her heart seemed to jump up into her
brain. After the heart thumps calmed, she picked it out of her purse. It was an
Unknown Number
. Maybe the funeral home.

She answered. “Hello?” Angie slumped as she recognized
Edgars’ voice.

“Mrs. Wesner?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry to have to interrupt your day again, but we’ve
had a couple of new developments and we need you to come down to the station if
you could.”

So they must have arrested him. She forced a natural voice.
“Now, you mean?”

“If that’s possible. Yes, ma’am.” A beat, then, “I’m sorry.
I know it’s a difficult time, but his shouldn’t take long.”

“Okay,” she finally agreed. “It’ll take me a few minutes to
get ready.”

Edgars said, “Say in half an hour then?”

Angie didn’t like his pushing, however polite he sounded on
the other end. “I’ll try,” she said, a bit curt.

“Thank you, Mrs. Wesner.”

Angie clicked off the phone and pulled the Mercedes into the
garage. She sat there, mulling it over. Deep down, she wanted to run, like she
had most of her life. She would know how to do that. There would be a pang of
guilt, an awful moment of discomfort as she saw herself betraying him. Then
she’d scat, quick as she could.

Just leave the engine running, back out and drive wherever
the roads took her. Only this time she could see what lay ahead. Always
checking the rear view mirror. Always listening for that knock on her door.

She sighed. Not this time. This thing was just going to have
to play out. She couldn’t rush it, and had no control over it now. It was,
however, far from over. She and Buck might yet find themselves in some seaside
home, growing old together, walking down familiar beaches.

The motor still running, Angie sat there in a garage filled
with boxes of Christmas decorations and kitchen stuff, paint cans and
anti-freeze. She could see how mundane her life was, after all. She had always
felt driven to grow it into something more dramatic, more important, more
glamorous. And to hell with anybody in her way.

Now, out of the blue, none of it seemed to matter. The only
thing was this unexpected warm spot inside her. She didn’t want to let go of
it. She’d risked going to Buck’s apartment to find out exactly what happened,
maybe steal a quickie with him. Instead Angie had gotten a rush of emotion from
him that was more complicated and real than they’d ever shared before.

She’d never loved him more than then, his tired heart the
only thing giving him the strength to make love at all. She had wanted to throw
off her own emotional armor and trust him. She had come close. Only with him
had even that much ever loosened with a man.

Then she realized her decision about Buck had been made a
long time ago. She was just finally ready to acknowledge it. Angie was not
about to leave him. She would go inside, get dressed, drive to the station and
lie for him, cover up, whatever it took.

It was time to fight, not flee.

The wait in the holding cell had crawled by for Erika. She
had read every inscription on the wall, studied every dried stain, however
distasteful her conclusions on the contents. She still had an uneasy, awful
predilection, which the relentless gray sky outside only punctuated.

Erika had always had a strong sixth sense, a way of knowing
something was going to happen, even when it seemed it couldn’t. She remembered
hugging her perfectly healthy foster mother goodbye after a weekend visit. As
Erika had turned to leave, it crossed her mind, “God knows if I’ll ever see her
again,” even though it made no sense
.

That afternoon her mother had suffered an abdominal
aneurism. By the time Erika hurried back, she was already gone.

Persistent thoughts about Tony while she had paced the cell
bothered her, even though there were plenty of reasons for them. She had no
idea where he was, probably running, possibly making more trouble for himself.
And, even though she had ignored it, that same
last time deja vu
had
washed over her when she left Tony in her apartment.

Erika had assumed it meant she and Tony would never have
that talk about breaking up, that Tony would blow town or never get back to
her. She had convinced herself the feeling went no deeper than that. Tony was
too mean to die.

When Lieutenant Douglas, wearing a somber, sympathetic face,
came to her cell a few minutes later, she didn’t put the two events together.
“Sorry to keep you here so long,” he said. “It’s been a bear of a morning so far.”

“I understand,” Erika said.

“If you’ll come with me, I have some news.”

Erika followed him down the hall which led to interview
rooms. As they turned a corner, walking right toward them was Buck Dearmore and
Detective Edgars. Buck’s eyes met hers, and she almost said hello, but he
squinted, like he wasn’t sure if he knew her or not. After the beating it
looked like he had taken, she could understand. Most people never recognize
waitresses, anyway, unless they’re serving them food.

Douglas ushered her into his cubicle office and they sat
down at his desk. “You want some coffee? Coke?” he asked.

Erika shook her head. Douglas looked like he didn’t know how
to start. Then she knew what it was.

“You found Tony,” she stated.

“Yes,” Douglas nodded.

“Is he okay?” she asked, but she knew he wasn’t.

“I’m afraid not. I’m sorry to have to tell you, he’s dead.”

Erika crumpled. Just like that, he was gone.

“Tony was shot a couple of hours ago trying to rob a garage
off 152. He was found dead near the scene.”

She nodded. Her throat constricted. “Was anyone else hurt?”

“He shot a garage owner.”

“Dead, too?”

“No, he’s in the hospital. Looks like he’ll make it.”

After a moment, she asked, “Maybe some water?”

Douglas returned with a glass of water, then took a plastic
baggie from his desk. He waited while she took a drink and composed herself.

“We usually try to have the family identify the body, but
his mother seems to have moved away somewhere,” Douglas began.

Erika looked up at him. “You want me to…?”

Douglas nodded.

“I’ve never done that before.”

“We’ll make it as brief as possible. You’d see him on a
Gurney in the morgue. Through a viewing window. Just his face.” Douglas waited
for a response that didn’t come. “I’m sorry to have to ask, especially after
all you’ve helped us with.”

Erika stared at the baggie in his hand. “What’s that?”

“A ring found on the body.”

She recognized the snake ring through the clear plastic.
“It’s got a snake winding around it.”

“Yeah.” Douglas nodded, took the ring out of the bag and
held it up with a ballpoint pen for her to see.

Struggling for composure, she said, “That’s it. I gave it to
him yesterday.”

Outside the police station, in addition to the usual media
vehicles, several local t.v. broadcast trucks began pulling up, unloading
complete crews for onsite broadcasts.

Edgars heard the commotion just as he sat down in one of the
interview rooms to talk with Buck Dearmore and Hackman, his lawyer.

“What
the hell?”
the detective asked as he
rose from his chair and walked over to a window. Lack of sleep and too many
irons in the fire had spent what little mental capital he had left. He was in
no mood.

When he glanced down into the street, Edgars was impressed
enough to whistle.

“What is it?” Dearmore asked from his seat by the table.

“A boatload of media. I’m not sure why.”

Hackman eyed him suspiciously. “Did you make some big
announcement about my client’s visit?”

“No, sir, did not,” Edgars said, walking toward the door.
“Although I can understand why you might think that.” In fact, Edgars could not
guarantee that somebody else at the station hadn’t leaked the fact that
Dearmore was here being questioned. “I’ll be right back.”

As he stepped outside into the hallway, a couple of other
detectives were hurrying past him toward the elevator. “Hey, what’s going on?”
Edgars asked.

One of them turned with a grin. “They nailed ‘Hankie’.”

Edgars chuckled. “No shit?”

“They’re bringing him in now,” the other detective said.
They stepped on the elevator and were gone.

It was one of those cases that the department would relish.
Hankie had been spitting in their eye for years. In fact, Edgars thought if
Hanks had not flaunted his Teflon status so publicly, he might not have been
pursued with such gusto. But too many humiliating jabs had been thrust at Vice.
If they really had Hankie dead to rights, the cop bars would be jammed to the
wee hours tonight.

Edgars went back into the interview room. Buck looked up at
him, his eyebrows raised in a question.

The detective shook his head, like no big deal, and sat
down. Then he decided, why not tell him. “Apparently, Vice finally caught up to
‘Hankie’ Hanks.”

When he glanced up at Buck, Edgars caught a barely
noticeable wince. Then, casually, “You know him?”

Buck colored slightly and said, “Who doesn’t?” before Hackman
could put up his hand to stop him.

“Indeed,” Edgars said, but a hunch was already taking form
in his gut. One of those threads that keeps winding its way back around. But
Edgars had bigger fish to fry first. “We have some questions about keys, Mr. Dearmore.”

“What?” Buck seemed distracted.

Hackman looked at his client with concern. “Are you sure
you’re up to this?” Dearmore nodded. Hackman didn’t look so sure.

“Keys,” Edgars repeated.

“I’m not following you,” Dearmore said.

Edgars took a plastic bag out of his pocket and removed a
standard office key from it. “This is the key to the president’s office. We got
it off Wesner’s key ring this morning. It’s a
Do Not Duplicate
, and, in
fact, your boss only made four copies that we know of. He didn’t even give his
bonded guards one. And their Master Keys don’t unlock either of his office
doors.”

“What does this have to do with my client?” Hackman asked.

“When we brought Mr. Dearmore in this morning,” Edgars said,
glancing at the lawyer, “we did the standard inventory on his personal effects,
which included his own key ring. Our in-house locksmith says another of
Wesner’s four keys was on it.”

Buck looked like he’d been punched in the guts. His already
sallow face drained of color. Hackman glanced over at him, but then went back
to the detective.

Edgars spread his hands, the curious investigator. “Problem
is, we can’t figure out how it is you have a key to Wesner’s office. I mean,
seeing as how he basically treated you ‘like you weren’t there.’ Wasn’t that
how you put it?”

Hackman put up a hand to halt the proceedings. “I’d like a
moment with my client.”

Edgars tried not to smile as he left the room.

Looking at him through the viewing window, Erika was struck
by how peaceful Tony looked, his face almost boyish. No taut set to his jaw, no
chin stuck out at the world. His face and head showed no injuries at all. It
was his spine that had been severed when the shotgun shell hit him square in
the back, and that wasn’t visible.

They hadn’t performed the autopsy yet, so there were no
tell-tale Frankenstein stitches showing under the smooth sheet that covered his
body.

Erika had prepared herself for mixed feelings, but his
relaxed death mask made her think he had been okay somehow with leaving this
world, even after how hard he’d fought everything and everybody. Perhaps there
had been peace, at last.

Finally, Erika turned to Detective Douglas, who was standing
beside her. “It’s Tony,” she whispered. Douglas nodded to the technician standing
beside the Gurney, and she closed the blinds on the window.

Erika sighed with relief and turned to Douglas. “Now what?”

“There’s somebody who wants to see you,” he said.

A few minutes later, when Detective Douglas opened the door
to a lawyer/client consultation room, Erika saw an attractive black woman with
beaded braids waiting for her inside.

The woman got up and offered her hand. “Miss Newton, my name
is Indigo Fisher. I’ve been waiting to talk with you.”

“I don’t understand. Are you a Public Defender…?”

“No,” the woman said. “Not at all.”

Angie couldn’t find a parking space anywhere near the Police
Station. The place was packed with media trucks, which confirmed her immediate
fear that Buck had been arrested for Gordon’s murder. She couldn’t figure out
how that had happened, but the swarming reporters and cameras said otherwise.

Finally, she got a spot two blocks away. Her worn jeans and
sneakers and baseball cap would help her slip into the back door of the station
unnoticed, she hoped.

When Angie was almost there, a convoy of official sedans
with red and blue dancing lights showed up. When they halted at the rear door,
several officers popped out, then reached in for their prisoner.

Angie’s mouth dropped when she saw Hankie, in handcuffs,
emerge from the back of the second car. His face was flush with his usual
bravado, but he seemed a little frazzled. Scruffy beard, bloodshot eyes, a
hesitation as he stood on old, stiff knees.

After all this, would he be the one giving them up? Angie
wondered. But there were so many more powerful civic leaders to betray first if
Hankie was looking for leverage to stay out of jail. She and Buck were little
leaguers. Still, Angie did not trust the coincidence.

Reporters jostled for position. Hankie looked around
confidently.. “This is the same ole, same ole, folks. I’ll be out of here—” He
couldn’t finish before an officer tugged him along sharply. They disappeared
inside, leaving the flashing cameras.

By the time Angie had worked her way inside the station’s
rear entrance a few minutes later, she had half-convinced herself that Hankie’s
arrest was just another in his long string. She walked through the metal
detector then headed down the halls that eventually led her back to the front
reception desk. But she didn’t get that far.

Right in front of her, one of the hall doors opened and
Detective Douglas came out. He looked surprised, then pulled the door behind
him, but not before Angie glanced inside and got the second shock she’d had in
less than an hour.

Indigo Fisher was sitting at a table, huddled with the
waitress with the burgundy-streaked hair from the O.K. Corral. Before Angie
could grasp what their meeting might mean, Douglas said, “Mrs. Wesner. You’re
here already.”

“I came in the back way,” Angie said. “There were so many
reporters out front.”

“Of course,” he said, indicating she should follow him.
“We’ll just need to find a room.”

He led her into an area with interview rooms all around it.
Angie could see through the blinds into one of them, where Buck was seated with
his lawyer.

When Douglas ushered her into the room opposite Buck’s, she
felt a cold ripple up her back. Of course they would try to play them off one
another. Except now, thanks to her risky visit to see him, she and Buck would be
on the same page. It was critical to hold the story together.

Douglas offered coffee, which she accepted gratefully. The
hours without sleep were wearing on her like pinpricks. Then the detective’s
cell hummed. “Horse,” he answered simply. He listened for a moment, then, “I’m
on my way.”

He clicked off the cell and turned to Angie. “I need to find
my partner before we talk. It shouldn’t take but a few minutes.” As he left,
she saw him say something to a uniformed cop outside the door.

Reality was taking on the feeling of a pinball machine.
There were plenty of flashing lights pinging from side to side all around, but
sooner or later the ball had to drop.