“Not yet.”
“What does that mean?”
Losing patience, Griff said, “Besides motive and opportunity, what’s Rodarte got on me?”
The lawyer hesitated.
“Come on, Turner. You owe me at least that much. What am I up against?”
Turner snorted. “Well, there’s the murder weapon covered with your fingerprints. Your DNA will match the tissue they dug out from under Speakman’s fingernails.” He pointed toward the bloody scratches on the backs of Griff’s hands. “Correct?”
“Correct.”
“Hell, Griff,” he said, wincing, “Rodarte doesn’t need anything else to nail you for Speakman. But there’s also this guy named Ruiz.”
“Manuelo. Speakman’s aide. Looks like a South American headhunter with a pleasant but empty smile.”
“Nobody’s seen him.” Turner paused and looked at him expectantly. When Griff didn’t say anything, he continued. “Rodarte checked with Immigration. No file on him. He was an illegal.”
“You’re using the past tense.”
“Was he there last night?”
Again Griff refrained from saying anything.
“Don’t bother lying,” the lawyer said. “They found blood on the rug and in your car. My old Honda. The blood wasn’t yours or Speakman’s. Rodarte surmises it’s Ruiz’s. He’s searching for his remains.”
Beneath his breath, Griff said, “Fuck!”
“Well finally, the oracle speaks. And isn’t that an eloquent statement?” the lawyer said with asperity. “Was he alive when you left him?”
“Which?”
Turner rubbed his high forehead as though to smooth out the worry lines. “Either.”
“Speakman was dead. Ruiz was
adiós.
”
“He escaped you?”
“He ran.”
“Did he see Speakman get stabbed?”
Griff didn’t respond.
“Did you…Was Ruiz also injured?
Was
that his blood on the rug and in the Honda?”
Griff was about to answer, then checked himself. “Are you my lawyer or not?”
Turner studied him for a moment, than asked quietly, “What about the money, Griff? The half million. And don’t play dumb, because your fingerprints were on the lid of the box. So, what was that about?”
“Beats me,” he replied laconically, with a shrug. “Speakman says, ‘Look in the box.’ I looked in the box. I guess he was showing off how rich he was.”
“It wasn’t for you?”
Griff looked at him as though that was the most preposterous thing he’d ever heard in his life.
“Rodarte suggested that Speakman was paying you off for something.”
Griff’s gut tightened. “Like what?”
“Something you had delivered. Or a service you’d performed for him.”
“Shit, Turner, where’s your brain? Where’s Rodarte’s? If that money had been for me, I sure as hell wouldn’t have left it behind. I’d have it and be living it up in some exotic locale, not bumming peanut butter sandwiches off you.”
The lawyer wasn’t fazed. “Lotta money, Griff. Large bills banded together. Stacked neatly in a box. Kind of like the take you got from Bandy for throwing the play-off game against the Skins.”
“I’m telling you—”
“Okay, okay. For now let’s say Speakman just liked keeping boxes of cash around and it had nothing to do with his murder. Rodarte doesn’t even need that element to get a conviction.” Turner stood, circled his chair, placed his hands on the back of it, as though he were about to address the court. “Listen to me, Griff. This is a prosecutor’s dream case. They’ve got hard evidence. They’ve got your DNA. And if Ruiz is alive—”
“He is. Or was last time I saw him.”
“And if he isn’t already back in Honduras—”
“El Salvador.”
“Whatever. If they can catch him, they’ll have an eyewitness in addition to the incriminating evidence. But,” he said, lightly slapping the leather chair back for emphasis, “on the positive side, you placed the 911 call, right?” Griff nodded. “So that suggests you didn’t want Speakman to die. It can be argued that Speakman invited you there, and if the jury buys that, then the next step is their believing that there was no premeditation on your part. You went to Speakman’s house at his invitation. He confronted you with the affair you were having—”
“Had.”
“Had with his wife. You argued. Something he said lit your fuse, next thing you know—”
“I picked up the letter opener on his desk and plunged it into his neck.”
Turner actually looked sad about it. “You’ve got a good chance of being charged with manslaughter, instead of murder one. That’s probably the best you’ll do on this one, and I’m telling you that both as counsel and as a friend.” He paused to let that sink in.
“I hate to paint such a bleak picture, but that’s how it is, Griff. And you’re only making yourself look guiltier by running. Turning yourself in to Rodarte will be rough. I’m not saying it won’t. But it’ll be much harder for you if you don’t.”
“I’m not turning myself in.”
“If you do—tonight,
now
—I’ll represent you. I’ll be right there with you every step of the way. Let them conduct their investigation, and then we’ll see just how badly the evidence is stacked against you. Rodarte has been known to exaggerate, to insinuate that he has more than he actually does, but we
know
he has the weapon and, coupled with the motive, it’s damn incriminating.
“It actually works in our favor that you left the money behind. You didn’t commit robbery, so it’s not a capital murder. I’ll argue like hell for the manslaughter charge. I’ll also file for change of venue. Get the trial out of Dallas.
“But wherever it’s conducted, you can bet the prosecutor will hammer home how defenseless Speakman was against you. He’ll paint you as a brute who attacked a man who couldn’t possibly fight back and win. He’ll make the jurors despise you, and any argument you put forth won’t change the indisputable fact that you were a football player and he was a paraplegic.
“Turn yourself in and let me take over your defense. The only time you have to speak is at your arraignment, when you plead not guilty. You don’t have to breathe a bloody word to Rodarte, the jury, nobody.”
Griff had listened patiently, but now he said, “And you think
not
talking will make me look innocent? Come on, Wyatt.”
“I believe in jurisprudence, in our system of justice.”
“Well, your perspective on it is different from mine. You promised me I’d get off with probation if I cooperated with the feds and told them what I knew about Vista’s operation. Look what happened to that.”
“That was different.”
“Right. We were dealing with the federal grand jury and what-ifs. This time Rodarte’s got my prints on the instrument that killed my lover’s husband.”
Turner’s head dropped forward. He stood, a frown creasing his brow. Finally he raised his head. “I appeal to you once more, Griff. Give yourself up.”
“That’s the best you can do?”
“That’s it.”
Griff studied him a moment, then said softly, “You haven’t even asked me.”
“Asked you what?”
Snuffling a rueful laugh, Griff said, “Never mind. Have you heard from Jerry Arnold?”
“He called this afternoon. Kept saying, ‘Why would he do something like this?’ Stuff like that. You’ve lost another fan.”
Griff wasn’t surprised. “Well, thanks for the info. And the sandwich.” He turned toward the French doors.
“Griff, wait.”
“See ya, Turner.” He opened the door.
He heard the squeal of brakes as though a car had taken a corner too fast. He heard gunning engines, the
whish
of rubber on hot pavement. And in the house across the street, the front windows reflected colored lights. Red. Blue. White.
T
URNER RAISED HIS HANDS IN SURRENDER. SELF-DEFENSE
maybe. “I had to call them, Griff. It’s for your own good.”
Griff sneered. “As counsel and friend, go fuck yourself.”
Then he was out the door. He skirted the swimming pool and used a lawn chair to help him vault the privacy fence. His knees took the brunt of the eight-foot drop to the ground on the other side. Another swimming pool. This one had the underwater light on. It felt like a searchlight, directed on him.
A searchlight made him think of a police helicopter, and that gave him the impetus to bust through the gate without fiddling with the latch. He ran through that yard, across the street, into the front yard of another house, where the sprinklers were on. His thrashing legs got wet, and so did the soles of his shoes, making them slippery.
Another freaking fence. “Shit!” Didn’t these people trust their own neighbors? He searched for the gate, which was hard to detect in the darkness. He found it, but it was locked from the inside. He backed up, threw himself against it. It didn’t budge.
He heard tires screeching, close enough for him to smell the smoking rubber.
He ran through the sprinklers again to the neighboring house. Finally, a house with no fence, only a hedge. He plunged through it. The thorny holly plants clawed at his bare legs, tearing skin, but he didn’t let that slow him down. He ran between that house and the one behind it, which put him on the street where he’d left the borrowed car.
He paused in the darkness between two houses, his lungs a bellows, his heart a jackhammer. He could hear shouting, tires squealing, car doors slamming. Hunnicutt’s car was three houses from where he stood. Nothing here was moving. Yet. He couldn’t delay. The search for him would soon spread to this street. He had to risk exposure.
He stepped from between the two houses, primed to sprint.
A police car, lit up like a Christmas tree, took the nearest corner on two wheels.
Griff ducked back into the shadows. Cursed Turner. Cursed his luck. Cursed his whole frigging life.
Then he ran.
Later, he would wonder how in hell he had got out of there. His escape almost made him a believer in divine intervention. Maybe for once in his life, God had suited up to play on his team.
He zigzagged through the neighborhood, moving from one patch of darkness to another. The chopper did appear with its searchlight, which was more powerful than the beam of any lighthouse. For hours he dodged it and the squad cars that either sped or crawled through the streets. Policemen on foot searched, practically going door to door.
He took a few minutes’ refuge in an open garage, where he found a rag to blot the streams of blood off his legs. Sweat made the wounds sting mercilessly. Once, when he got trapped between the approaching chopper’s searchlight and a policeman on foot, he slid into the deep end of a swimming pool. Luckily there was no underwater light, and the pool was one of the pretentious ones, designed to replicate a tropical lagoon formed by lava rock, so it was dark.
He held his breath until he thought his lungs would burst, but because of all the swimming he’d done recently, he was better conditioned than he would have been normally. Looking up through the surface, he could see the chopper’s light sweeping the area. The policeman came so close, Griff could hear him muttering to himself.
Finally both the officer and the helicopter moved on. Griff’s head cleared the surface, and he gulped oxygen. He climbed out of the pool, pruney but revived. His legs weren’t stinging anymore. He didn’t even attempt to return to the car. Cops would have been all over it once they ran the tag number through the DMV and discovered it didn’t belong to anyone living on that street.
He still had his cell phone. Thank God he’d taken it with him. He thought about dialing Glen Hunnicutt, asking him to meet somewhere and pick him up. But he didn’t want to involve the man any more than he already had.
He had no one else to call. No one he could trust. No one who trusted him.
He felt safer when he was out of Wyatt Turner’s neighborhood, but only a bit, because he still had a long way to go to reach the motel. Cops all over the city would now be on the lookout for a man of his description on foot. There would be a lot of harassed joggers in Dallas that morning. Those who ran before daylight were sure to be stopped and scrutinized.
When he walked beneath the freeway overpass and saw the neon vacancy light flickering in the motel office window, he wanted to weep with relief. It wasn’t much, but it was the only hiding place he had. Dawn was just breaking.
He needed to lie down. Close his eyes. Breathe easily. Rest.
But as he neared the parking lot, he noticed that the dope-smoking night clerk was no longer on duty. His replacement was dressed casually, but he looked too clean-cut to work in a place like this.
Griff ducked behind the used-tire store’s portable marquee. From that tenuous hiding place, he watched the guy come out from behind the check-in desk. He left the office and started down the breezeway. He was carrying a foam cup. Steam was rising from it. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee made Griff’s mouth water. But his heart began to feel very heavy when he saw the guy stop at room number seven and knock three times on the door.
It was opened by a man who was as clean-cut as the one manning the office. He took the coffee from his buddy and savored his first sip with a long “Ahhh.” They had a brief exchange, then the office guy left the other inside the room and walked back to the office.
Griff crouched behind the sign advertising the special on retreads and bent his head over his knees.
How the hell had they found him? Was Rodarte fucking clairvoyant?
He remained hunkered down behind the sign for a while, until his overtaxed leg muscles began to cramp, his knees to grow stiff, and the eastern horizon to become limned with orange.
Knowing he had to relocate, he reached into his sock for the bills he’d tucked there before going to Turner’s. The currency was wet from his time in the pool, but it was spendable. He’d hid his cell phone beneath the diving board of the swimming pool, out of sight, before he’d slipped into the water, then retrieved it when he got out. The battery still had juice.
That paltry amount of cash and the phone were the only resources left to him. He didn’t even have a dry change of clothes. But he couldn’t stay here. He had to move. He forced his aching legs to unfold and began walking, being careful to keep something between himself and the office of the motel.
As he walked, he flipped open his phone and placed one short call.
Glen Hunnicutt was in his office, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with a customer, when the dealership’s receptionist tapped on his open office door. “Excuse the interruption, Mr. Hunnicutt. There’s someone here to see you. A detective with the police department. He says it’s important.”
“Come in.” Hunnicutt rolled his hand, motioning the man into his office.
“Stanley Rodarte, DPD.” He extended Hunnicutt his card.
“Have a seat, Detective,” Hunnicutt said expansively, pointing him toward a chair. “You want some coffee?”
“No thanks.”
“You sure? Our coffee’s as good as our auto-
mo
-biles.”
“No thanks.”
“Maybe a nice, cold Dr Pepper?”
“Nothing, thanks,” Rodarte said, showing his impatience.
“You shopping cars this morning, Detective?”
“No.” Rodarte nodded toward the other man in the room, who was seated across from Hunnicutt’s desk. “Could we have a minute alone? This is a police matter.”
“Meet James McAlister. Jim’s my lawyer, so I have no secrets from him.” The look on Rodarte’s face was priceless. It was all Hunnicutt could do not to chuckle. The detective hadn’t expected a lawyer to be present.
Hunnicutt had arrived at the dealership shortly after daybreak so he could replace the security chain before his employees began reporting for work. He’d been at his desk catching up on paperwork when Griff’s warning call came through the main phone line. Fortunately, he’d answered.
Upon hearing his voice, Griff said, “It’s hit the fan. I’m sorry. You’ll be hearing from a cop named Rodarte. Stanley Rodarte. He gives you grief, you say this to him. You listening?”
“I’m listening.”
Griff had left Hunnicutt with the message, then hung up.
Addressing Rodarte now, Hunnicutt said, “Jim’s here to buy a car for his daughter who’s turning sixteen next week. He expects a discount from me. Like hell, I said. He never gave me a discount on legal fees. I told him—”
“We found a car belonging to you,” Rodarte said, brusquely cutting in. “It was found abandoned on a neighborhood street a few miles from here.”
Hunnicutt looked at McAlister, registering surprise. “You found it? Already?” He whistled. “I’m impressed. We only reported it stolen, when, Jim? Eight, nine this morning? You guys in the DPD are good!”
Rodarte had received his second blow. “You reported the car stolen?”
McAlister snapped open the briefcase resting on his lap and took a form from it. It had been filled out by the policeman who’d responded to Hunnicutt’s call, reporting that a car was missing from his inventory. Rodarte yanked the form from McAlister, glanced at it, and verified its accuracy, down to the car’s make and model, license plate, and VIN. Hunnicutt got the impression Rodarte was about to wad up the form and hurl it to the floor. McAlister rescued it just in time and replaced it in his briefcase.
“When was it stolen?” the detective asked tightly.
“Don’t know. I didn’t notice it missing until this morning. Cars get shifted around all day, every day. It could have been missing a couple weeks, a couple days, or a couple hours. No way of telling.”
“Griff Burkett’s prints are all over that car,” Rodarte growled, looking like a man barely in control of his temper.
“Griff Burkett?
The
Griff Burkett? No shit! You sure?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure.”
“Well, I’ll be. Imagine that. Hmm. Wonders never cease.”
Rodarte’s glower turned darker. “He left it parked two streets from his lawyer’s house, where he went last night asking for information that would help him elude arrest for the murder of Foster Speakman. Turner called us instead.”
Hunnicutt looked over at McAlister. “Lucky I’ve got you.”
“Burkett managed to get away on foot,” Rodarte said.
“The boy has talent,” Hunnicutt said. “Fastest quarterback I’ve ever seen. That fancy footwork of his was something to watch, wasn’t it?”
Rodarte looked ready to explode. “You gave that car to him, which amounts to aiding and abetting a murder suspect.”
“That’s an awfully ugly allegation,” McAlister said calmly. “I’m hereby instructing my client not to answer any further questions, Detective.”
Ignoring the lawyer, Rodarte kept his eyes on Hunnicutt. “When did Burkett call you? Yesterday? Last night?”
Hunnicutt said nothing.
“Obviously you admire him, but he’s no hero. Yesterday he made a bunch of calls to area families named Ruiz. I had cops calling those same families, searching for clues into the disappearance of Manuelo Ruiz, who we believe witnessed Foster Speakman’s murder. We compared notes. Same phone number showed up on several caller IDs. We traced that number to a fleabag motel out on 635. I’ve got men staking out the place, waiting for him to slink back to where his stuff’s at.
“And when he does, I’m going to put him through the wringer. Your name’s bound to come up. He’ll give you up, Hunnicutt. Burkett doesn’t have friends, only people he uses then shits on. He has loyalty to no one except himself. You talk to me now or face indictment later.”
Rodarte paused, took a breath. “Now, where is he? If you know, and you don’t tell me, you’re obstructing justice.
Where is he?
”
Hunnicutt calmly lit a cigarette. “You sure you couldn’t use a Dr Pepper?”
Rodarte banged his fist on Hunnicutt’s desk. “Tell me, goddammit!”
“Detective Rodarte, you’re harassing my client,” McAlister said.
Rodarte stood up and leaned far across Hunnicutt’s desk, thrusting his face close. “I can get your phone records for this place, prove he called here.”
“You’d need a search warrant,” the lawyer said. “I doubt any judge in the county would grant you one for such a flimsy reason, but if one did, and if you found a number belonging to Mr. Burkett on those records, it still wouldn’t prove that he spoke with Mr. Hunnicutt.
“How many calls a day do you estimate come into this busy car dealership? Hundreds, right? My client can’t be responsible for any of them. And if you did manage to prove that my client talked to Mr. Burkett, that doesn’t prove that he provided him a car or assisted him in any way.”
Rodarte, still ignoring the attorney, glared into Hunnicutt’s guileless face.
“I think you’ve run out of ammunition to back up your threats, Mr. Rodarte.” Hunnicutt placed his cigarette in the hollow belly of his armadillo-shaped ashtray and stood up. He moved to his office door and opened it.
Rodarte disregarded the blatant suggestion that he leave. He asked, “How’d Burkett get the key to that car if you didn’t give it to him?”
Hunnicutt yelled through the open doorway, “Sweetheart, come on in here a sec.”
The receptionist who’d ushered Rodarte in reappeared, asking brightly, “Did he change his mind about the coffee?”
“What’s my pet peeve?” Hunnicutt asked her. “What do I get onto the salespeople about more than anything?”
“Letting customers leave without buying a car.”
Hunnicutt boomed a laugh. “Second to that.”
“Leaving the keys under the floor mats.”
“Thank you, honey.”
She left, and Hunnicutt turned back to Rodarte. “Leaving the keys under the floor mats. They do it for convenience’s sake, always meaning to go back later and properly lock the cars they’ve taken out on demonstration drives. They plan to go back when they don’t have customers stacked up. But—thank God, and I ain’t complaining—sometimes they’ve got customers waiting. So they just slide the ignition key under the mat. Then they get distracted or busy and forget.” He shrugged his burly shoulders. “I chew ass about it all the time, but what can you do? They’re selling cars like hotcakes.”