I selected seven handguns and laid them out on the kitchen table, trying to decide on one. The first two were Lorcins— garbage guns designed for disposable death. They were cheap enough to fire Souglvisand toss away, but just as likely to blow up in your hand. What was Bobby doing with them anyway? I shuddered and put them aside. The rest were more reliable.
He had a Colt .45, Ruger .357, a SIG Sauer semiautomatic and a 9mm H&K. I considered the Colt .45 seriously because it was a revolver and I was reluctant to go waving an unknown semi around. In the end, I chose a Smith & Wesson .44 magnum with a barrel long enough to dry clothes on. That sucker was more than ten-and-a-half-inches long. Overkill, perhaps, but a nice weight. Clutching the solid grip, I felt like Jesse James. Most important, I had handled one before. I returned the other guns to their hiding place and left an IOU for the .44, just in case. I didn’t want Bobby D. to go off half-cocked, so to speak, if he discovered it missing.
I felt ready to face the mysterious Pete Bunn. Just the same, it wouldn’t hurt to let someone know where I was going, just in case I ended up next to the vanished George Carter. But who could I call? There weren’t a whole lot of people who would care if I were missing. I had no idea where Jack was this time of day, and I was not anxious to explain my current situation to Bobby D. since there was little he could do and he had his hands full groping nurses and complaining about the hospital food. I’d have to swallow my pride and give Bill Butler a call.
I sat at the kitchen table eating French bread pizza while I dialed. Bill was at his desk and none too pleased to hear my muffled voice. “Sorry,” I said. “We have a bad connection. There seems to be pizza on the line.”
“That gets old after a while,” he warned me.
“Sort of like I do?” I suggested.
“Sort of like I feel,” he countered. “I have news for you. I was just about to give you a call.”
“Yeah?”
“Hill will talk to you, but it has to be tonight. He’s got something big kicking in tomorrow and won’t have any extra time for weeks. He’s not happy about taking time out for this crap, but he’ll do it as a favor to me.”
I was silent. Out of surprise. I had not expected Steven Hill to agree.
“Did you hear me?” Bill repeated.
“It has to be a public place,” I told him. I wasn’t liking what I was hearing about Hill. And I don’t like acting any stupider than I am.
“Oh, for god’s sakes,” Bill said, exasperated. “If it makes you feel better.”
“It does. Tell him to meet me at the Lone Wolf at nine o’clock tonight. He’ll know where it is. I’ll hear what he has to say.”
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”
I had to hand it to Bill—as a transplanted northerner, no one could touch him when it came to the sarcasm department.
I drove back to Durham, revising my strategy and feeling secure knowing that the Smith & Wesson was wedged in the glove compartment. I’d see what Steven Hill had to say to me tonight and talk to Pete Bunn in the morning.
Better yet, I thought, as I passed by a pickup truck loaded with a pack of baying beagles, I wouldn’t talk to Pete Bunn at all. At least not yet. I’d revisit his deserted farm tomorrow instead, only this time with some help. I had an old friend named Slim Jim Jones who would be just the person to call.
The Starlite is the only drive-in movie theater left in this part of the state. People from counties around flock there to watch first-run movies and stuff their faces with popcorn, dill pickles and twenty-five cent hard-boiled eggs. If you’re more into drive-by than drive-in, the owner also runs a gun shop out of the concession stand.
I drove past the flickering screen wistfully. I loved parking in the front row, not budging my big southern butt from my big Detroit car, lying half-comatose in the privacy of my automobile, overeating on junk food, popping open a beer and muttering comments at the actors. It made me feel so very American. Unfortunately, I could not stop to linger. I had miles to go before I could sleep.
The owner of the Lone Wolf looked as if his mother-in-law had just walked in holding hands with his mistress. He was definitely not pleased.
“Johnny,” I lied, “how nice to see you again.” What I really wanted to do was pistol-whip him with my new ten-inch barrel, then throw him in the Dumpster out back with the rest of the garbage.
“Save it,” he growled, scowling at a table where Steven Hill sat waiting for me. “I suppose you’re responsible for bringing that jerk into my bar?”
“That jerk?” I widened my eyes innocently. “Is he not a fellow brother in blue?”
“He’s a professional snitch, and half the guys who come in here spend their time on the job avoiding the likes of him. Kindly get him out of here before my business takes a nosedive.”
I glanced around the main room. A dozen or so overweight men and women sat drinking themselves into oblivion. It looked like a convention of Weebles, except-that the Scep to liny not only wobbled, they also looked like they might fall down at any moment. “Seems like you’re doing all right to me,” I said. “Better than last night.” A bored-looking waitress yawned in one corner. “Look at that,” I added. “There’s even an alert staff member standing at the ready to handle the every whim of this overflow crowd.”
He walked away without asking if I wanted a drink. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned southern hospitality?
“We meet again.” Steven Hill rose from the table as I approached and flashed me a smile guaranteed to melt all panties within a ten-mile radius. Fortunately, I wasn’t wearing any.
“Seems to me that we never really met properly in the first place,” I corrected him. I shook his hand just to let him know that I was no wimp in the muscle department, then took a seat. He was drinking Red Dog beer. I am immune to all trends and ordered Bud Lite. The bored waitress took my order, gave Hill a not-so-subtle look and slouched away to do my bidding.
It was odd. Steven Hill was every bit as handsome as he had been at Peyton Tillman’s funeral. His eyes were as green, his dark hair thick and feathered, his body still as muscled beneath an immaculate golf shirt and pressed pants. But, up close, the man excited me about as much as a pile of dirty laundry.
He was too perfect, I decided. Like a man hiding in a Halloween costume. Who knew who really lived behind that mask?
“You’re staring at me,” he said, sounding pleased. Women probably stared at him a lot.
“You look about twenty years younger than Peyton Tillman,” I said. “How is it that you were old enough to serve in Vietnam?”
“Oh, I’m old enough. I just have good bone structure. My mother was part Cherokee.”
The old part-Cherokee trick, eh? Half the people in this state assuaged their white consciences by claiming to be part-Cherokee. “You were friends with Peyton Tillman, weren’t you?” I asked.
He looked away. “I knew him. We weren’t friends. Why are you asking about him?” When I didn’t answer, he continued. “My only tour coincided with his last one. He’s five years older than me. Was, I mean. It’s too bad what happened to him.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Too bad. When was the last time you saw him alive?”
He put his beer bottle down on the tabletop. When he smiled at me, I knew just how Little Red Riding Hood felt. “I thought you were looking into Roy Taylor’s death. Why all the questions about Tillman?”
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I shrugged. “Just curious.”
“So am I. About a lot of things. You’re an interesting woman.”
He flashed me his megawatt smile again and all I could think was: here I sit covered with bruises from an accident, and he hasn’t said a word? Instead, he’s trying to come on to me? My makeup can’t be that good.
“Really,” he insisted when I didn’t answer. “When all this is over, I’d love to get to know you.”
When all what was over? “Hmm,” I said vaguely.
When I ignored his come-on, Hill aimed his smile at the approaching waitress and had more luck. She tried to put my beer in my lap she was so busy licking her lips back. “Nice-looking,” Hill confided when she sashayed away. “But I prefer an intelligent woman. You intrigue me. Tell me about your work.”
I gritted my teeth. He was laboring under the misapprehension that women were either beautiful or intelligent. In my world, they could be both.
“I heard you went to see Gail Honeycutt on death row,” I said. Time to nip his stirring of the loins in the bud, so to speak, and head him off before the pass.
His eyes slid away as he searched the room out of habit. I knew his type. He never looked at the woman he was with because he was too busy checking out whether the grass was greener in someone else’s pasture.
“I’m not the only one of Roy’s old partners who went to see her,” he said. “No crime in that.”
“How did you know other officers visited her?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I heard. In fact, I think that’s where I got the idea.”
He was a closed-mouth bastard. He’d talk all night and not say a word if I wasn’t careful. I plowed on. “I hear you work in Professional Standards these days.”
He frowned. “It’s not popular, but it has to be done. I’m not going to apologize for being an honest cop. The future of the department is on the line.”
“I also heard you helped Missing Persons look for George Carter when he disappeared.”
He stared at me. “You’re finding out a lot in a short p S in”24”eriod of time.”
I shrugged. “It’s my job.”
“Then you’ll understand that it was my job to look for Carter.” He took a swig of beer. “Missing Persons called me in because they knew I’d worked with him and thought I might know where he’d gone. What they didn’t know was that George was on my division’s hit list. Suspected of being in on a couple of bad-news deals. I tried to keep it from his wife. She doesn’t need to hear that right now, but it’s pretty obvious that he left before we could move in on him.”
“Because of his last phone call,” I said.
“The phone call and a lot more I can’t tell you about.”
“Confidential department matters?” I whispered loudly. My sarcasm was wasted. He just nodded.
“That’s right.” he said. “And I’d like to keep it that way. It gives his wife a chance to collect on his pension one day.”
“Is that entirely honest of you?” I asked innocently. “If the man was dirty, does he deserve a pension?”
He gave me a sharp glance. “I said I was honest, not heartless. Look, I don’t see what this has to do with Roy’s death. Roy died eight years ago. And it’s pretty obvious that Gail did the honors. George took off a couple of months ago. It’s a stretch to think the two events are related.”
“True,” I said, pleased I was finally getting under his skin. Was that sweat I saw forming on his perfect brow? Casey Jones, interrogator supreme. “Let’s get back to Roy,” I suggested. “How close were you?”
He shrugged. “We got along fine,” he said. “We worked together. We weren’t best friends or anything. No offense to Roy, but my wife at the time couldn’t stand his wife. Thought she was trashy. I guess she was right. Offing your husband is pretty trashy, wouldn’t you say?”
Depends on the husband, I thought to myself. “You didn’t hang out with Roy doing the guy thing?” I asked. “Go fishing up at his cabin?”
His eyes flickered. He was one suspicious dude. “I’m not a big fisherman. Not enough action for me. Where was his cabin anyway? I know he and George were always up there. Wasn’t it Lake Gaston or somewhere nearby?”
“Beats me,” I lied. Why should I give him any information? He wasn’t giving me any. “Why didn’t you testify about what a great guy he was during Gail’s trial?” I asked. “Like George did?”
He tapped his fingers against the beer bottle. “That’s easy. It was a high-profile case and everyone wanted a piece of the publicity. George testified because he’d seen him last. But when it came to being a character witness, I had to stand in line behind the brass. They never got down to us peons.”
“You’re not such a peon anymore,” I pointed out.
“Hey, I earned my promotions, okay?”
Geeze, he was verging on surly. Maybe I should have flirted back after all.
“Why did you agree to see me?” I asked, hoping to bring us back to calmer ground.
He looked at me over the neck of his beer bottle, hesitating before he spoke. “I’m one hundred percent sure that Gail killed Roy,” he explained. “But I figure it can’t hurt if the rest of the world is one hundred percent sure, too. Besides, the more you know, the more you’ll see that it was nothing more than another useless domestic murder caused by too much alcohol and not enough love.”
“That’s pretty poetic,” I observed.
He ignored me. “I’ve been a cop for almost twenty years. I know why and how people murder other people. There’s nothing all that mysterious about it.”
“Then why the wall of blue?” I asked.
Hill leaned forward, his face earnest. “Casey, I know you’re a professional and take your cases seriously, but this is one job where you could end up hurting a lot more people than you’re going to help. Roy Taylor was my friend, but the truth is that he was a dirty cop and I’d like to keep that from his family. It’s the decent thing to do. Can you understand that?”
“What about his wife?” I asked. “She’s paying with her life.”