Murder Take Two (27 page)

“Why'd you do it?”

Kevin, back straight, both hands lying loosely on his lap, had no trouble looking Parkhurst in the eye. “You'll have to be more specific,” he said.

“What'd you do with the gun?”

“I thought he was stabbed.”

“Where'd you get the knife?”

“You don't hear very well. I said I didn't do it.”

“You didn't, huh? Why you protecting the bastard who did?”

“I don't know anything about it.”

Parkhurst walked around behind the kid, rested a shoulder against the door frame, and crossed his arms. “You were there.” He spoke softly because he didn't want Susan, watching on the other side of that glass, to know how near he was at slamming this kid against the wall.

If Kevin had a nerve anywhere it was under control. He hadn't said anything about an attorney, or a parent. Parkhurst wondered why. “What were you doing there?”

“Passing by.”

Parkhurst walked around and leaned forward, hands on the table. “You a pretty smart kid?”

“Genius range.”

“What kind of grades you make in school?”

“C's and D's.”

“What kind of genius gets C's and D's?”

“I know more than the teachers. They're so boring they could stop birds from singing.”

“These poor grades, they annoy your father?”

Kevin grinned.

Now Parkhurst was getting someplace. “He ever hit you?”

“No.”

Bingo. “Ever hit your mother?”

“Of course not.”

He lied with conviction. “What interests you?”

“That have anything to do with the subject at hand?” Kevin said.

“What is the subject at hand?”

“This is your show, don't you know?”

Parkhurst smiled. Kevin didn't know it, but Parkhurst now knew a lot about him, could describe the home atmosphere and the despair he lived with. Parkhurst knew because he'd been there, the yelling, the backhanding, the fists. The misery was constant, unless the old man was gone; then the air was poisoned with dread of his return. “You trying to say you didn't stab that police officer and you don't know anything about who did?”

“You finally got it. Congratulations.”

“Maybe you can tell me why I should believe you when you're a liar.”

That got to him. Kevin stiffened, clenched his jaw, and made a fist of the hand in his pocket. “You don't know anything about me.”

“I know more than you think.”

“When did I lie?”

“You said your father never hit you, never hit your mother.”

“He never laid a hand on either of us.”

“Right. You were on the Fandors' driveway. What were you doing there?”

Good as this kid was at hiding whatever went on in his mind, he couldn't suppress a flicker across his eyes of I'm-so-smart-and-you're-so-dumb. It was an expression any cop knew well, the expression of somebody who thinks he's getting away with something. What was it that Parkhurst was missing here? He wondered if Susan knew.

“I thought I heard a noise.”

“Officer Yancy isn't dead. That means a witness.”

“Why don't you ask him then?”

Oh, for God's sake. Maybe he was as dumb as the kid thought. The Fandors were away. Yancy had heard something suspicious, he went to check. “You went in that yard to paint another garbage can. Officer Yancy caught you and you stabbed him.”

Kevin went dead still, bright mind calculating whether he'd admit it or not. He'd know there was no evidence. If he decided to deny it, the cops might believe he was guilty, but they couldn't prove anything.

“Why the artwork? To make your father mad?”

In a split second, Kevin made his decision. Parkhurst caught a glimpse of a seventeen-year-old kid under the smooth exterior. “It drives him nuts. I got an offer for a football scholarship. I want to study art. ‘Art is for wimps and queers. You'll never make a name for yourself with art.'” He folded his hands on the table. “Did I make a name for myself?”

He had at that. First the
Hampstead Herald
and then, because it was so odd, it was picked up by a wire service, even mentioned as the final note on network television news. The kid was no coward; when his father found out, he'd beat the hell out of him.

“What'd you see?”

“Nothing. I heard the commotion. And I waited. I figured he'd be after me and I'd have to go over the fence.”

“Why didn't you?”

“I don't know exactly. He didn't yell, ‘Freeze! Police!' All that. It made me nervous. I waited and when nothing happened I went to take a look. He was on the ground, I thought he was dead. I picked up his flashlight to look and he talked to me. He gave me his keys. Anyway told me to take them. I didn't touch anything in the house but his phone. I did the nine-one-one bit.”

“Was his gun missing when you found him?”

“I don't know. I didn't notice anything but that knife. Shoved in his side that way, I've never seen anything like it. I was afraid he'd croak before the ambulance guys got there.”

“You could have taken the gun.”

“Yeah. But I didn't.”

Whether Kevin was lying or not, Yancy's gun was floating around. “What did you do with all the paint paraphernalia?”

“It's under the sink in Yancy's kitchen, with the cleaning supplies.”

Parkhurst looked at the kid a long minute, then stepped out to talk with Susan. “We've caught us the mad painter. I don't know what else.”

“You think he stabbed Yancy?”

“I could use some breakfast.”

23

Food. Susan considered. At five
A.M.
? Coffee, now there's an idea.

One of the few places open this early was The Best Little Hare House in Kansas out on the Interstate that catered to truckers. Was she strong enough to withstand a jukebox issuing forth country and western philosophy at this hour?

“Let's go,” she said.

Breakfast wasn't the only thing he could use, she noted. Sleep was in order, fatigue showed in his face. Unshaven, with dark circles around his eyes, he looked sinister.

A trucker, hunched over the counter, peered into his mug of coffee, either estimating his chances or contemplating the meaning of life. A nasal voice mused musically that the only way to go is past where you've been. At five in the morning even that made sense. She and Parkhurst took a booth. Two men in the next booth were telling jokes.

The waitress, middle-aged and friendly, brought two mugs of steaming coffee and the menus. Rain splattered against the window, washing flickering streams of red and blue down the glass from the neon sign outside. Smells of frying onions fought with frying bacon for first place. Susan's stomach set up a protest. How soft she'd gotten; it used to be, she could snatch anything on the run. Just to prove she still had it, she ordered sausage and eggs.

“You think he did it?” she asked.

“Stabbed Yancy?” Parkhurst ripped open a packet of sugar and dumped it in his coffee. “I don't know.”

“The reason being to get the gun?”

“Why else would anybody go after Yancy?”

Yancy was a sweetheart, but that didn't mean somebody couldn't have a reason. “Kevin Murphy stabs Yancy and then calls nine-one-one to get help,” she said.

“He didn't want a dead cop, only a live gun.”

“For what purpose?”

The waitress slid filled platters in front of them. Susan eyed hers warily. Aha, now there's food. All on an empty stomach. She shouldn't have been so rash. Starting slow, she sipped coffee.

“That's the question.” He sprinkled pepper on his eggs. “I think we can rule out target practice.”

She forked off a sliver of sausage and nibbled it. Spicy! Oh, yes, hot. Hot hot. Taste buds now awake, eyes watering. Orange juice helped. “What did he do with it?”

“Hid it somewhere.”

“You did look.”

Parkhurst raised an eyebrow. At the next booth, one of the men said, “There was this eighty-six-year-old man who married this eighty-four-year-old woman. And they were happy and traveling and doing all these things…”

“Okay, so why didn't you find it?” Susan said. “He ran across the street, used the phone, ran back. How long was he gone? Two minutes?”

“That's what he says. Yancy concurs.”

“Hardly time for anything complicated.”

The waitress came by and refilled coffee mugs.

“… and then one day the woman wasn't feeling well. And she thought it was just the flu. Except she didn't get better and she didn't get better until finally the man told her to go to the doctor and so…”

“Yancy wasn't exactly clearheaded,” Parkhurst said. “Kevin got rid of the gun, stashed the paints, called nine-one-one, sprinted back. It took longer, five minutes. Yancy maybe didn't know the difference.”

She held her mug in both hands. “Why would he want Yancy's gun?”

“To blow away his old man. He hates the bastard with the intensity of tornado winds.” Parkhurst's voice was easy, but there was something cold as dry ice underneath.

“That's a lot of hate.”

“Murphy Senior is a handy man with his fists.”

“You can't know that.”

“Trust me, I know. The kid is brave, I'll give him that. Stupid, but brave. That's how he got the bloody nose. I'll lay a year's salary on it. The bastard belted him.” Parkhurst laughed without humor. “Picking up Mrs. Yancy had more to do with getting a big dirty dog in his father's shiny new car than with neighborliness.”

“Before you jump to conclusions—”

“I'll run a check—emergency rooms, physicians, teachers. I'll find broken bones, bruises, contusions, accidents all over the place.”

Victims of abuse commonly explained injuries by saying how clumsy they were; they fell and broke arms, tripped and broke jaws, slipped and got bruises.

“… and the doctor took all different kinds of tests. X-rays and blood tests and EKGs and EEGs and MRIs and every other initials he could think of. And he couldn't find anything wrong with her. So he said, ‘There's just one other test I want to do and the results will be ready on Monday.'”

“You never say the old man beats the shit out of you, and never admit he does the same to your mother, but you think about killing him, and you plan.”

“Painting garbage cans ties in with this?”

“Ingenious, this kid. He's dancing on the back of an alligator. I hope Murphy Senior doesn't kill him. I'll have a talk with the navy test pilot, retired. Man to man.” Parkhurst's smile was so tight it was nothing more than his top lip flattening against his teeth.

“… and so on Monday the woman went back to the doctor and he told her. ‘I finally figured out what's wrong with you. You're pregnant.' The woman thought about that for a minute and then she called her husband and she said, ‘You got me pregnant, you old goat.'

“There was this silence on the other end of the line, and he said … ‘Who is this?'”

“If you're right, we've exchanged a mad painter for a potential killer. Is he our stalker?”

Parkhurst leaned forward and picked up his coffee mug. Holding it between both hands, he spoke over the rim, “I flat out don't know. The kid is accustomed to lying, he's done it all his life, and he's good at it.”

Parkhurst sipped, then sipped again. “He could be. Stalkers grow up in families that are physically and emotionally abusive. Not always, but often enough to throw it into a profile. They're loners. Our boy fits there. Angry. Mentally or emotionally disturbed. Insecure. Unattractive.”

“That doesn't fit. Kevin has self-confidence all over the place and he's very good-looking. He's the high school football hero. Much adulation, even from adults.”

“Yeah. He is a loner though.”

They were into the easy back and forth of an ongoing case, but he was slightly defensive, his shoulders tensed, and she was slightly brittle. Both were pretending there wasn't a big swamp of emotions swimming around underneath them.

“What does any of this have to do with the stabbing of Sheri Lloyd?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“… so there was this guy and for his birthday his wife…”

“Hey, Ben.” A trucker came up and slapped Parkhurst on the shoulder, in that half challenging, half playful way that passes for friendship in males. “We have a bet going.” He nodded at the counter where two beefy males in jeans and checked shirts sat sideways on stools.

“I said you were married to that movie star that's here. The one that's”—he glanced at Susan—“so pretty. Eddie said you wasn't.”

“You lose.”

“Damn.” The trucker went back to pay up.

“
Was
means used to be,” Susan pointed out.

“I have also been known to lie. Let's get out of here.” He slid from the booth and grabbed the check.

They trotted through rain to the pickup. She started it. “Parkhurst?”

“Yeah?” Impatient. Cautionary.

She wanted to say something like “I'm sorry.” For what, she wasn't quite sure. That memories, when they got loose, had thorns, and you got hurt when you tried to pick them up? “Nothing.”

Hampstead, just waking up, stirred with people getting off to work.

*   *   *

What would the rain do to Fifer's schedule?

INT. YANCY'S BEDROOM.

Yancy, lying in his own bed, frets because he isn't there.

A mocking smile would go well here. Rain pelted against the skylight, very artistic. Somewhere along the line he'd developed a stake in this movie. It was good to be home anyway, even if he did have Demarco guard-dogging because the chief was protecting him from assassins. Demarco only made one crack about baby cops losing guns, then sat around looking alert.