Strangers (21 page)

“The detective your mother brought in from San Francisco.”

“Oh, yeah, the one she was screwing twenty years ago.” A half smirk tilted his mouth. “Still get it up for her, huh?”

Parfrey slapped the table in front of him, hard enough to make him jump and the smirk vanish. “Shut your filthy mouth.”

“I didn't mean nothing.” Sullen again. “How come he's here? I thought they wouldn't let him see me.”

I said, “Talk to me directly, Cody.”

“Why should I?”

“I'd advise you to be civil,” Parfrey told him. Now that we were into this, he'd lost or hidden his nervousness, at least in part because of the way he felt about his client; the aggressiveness verified his dislike. “And to answer his questions truthfully.”

“What questions? What's he want to know?”

“Talk to
me
.” I said it sharply this time. “And look at me while you do.”

His head came up. One long look at my face and some of the sullenness vanished; he scratched a hand through his spiky hair, squirming a little on the chair, but his gaze held on mine. “Okay, ask me anything you want. I didn't rape those women, I swear to God I didn't.”

“Do you know who did?”

“No. No. If I knew, I'd've told the sheriff or Mr. Parfrey.”

“Any idea who might want to frame you?”

“No.”

“Or why?”

“No.”

“Seems to me you can make a pretty good guess.”

“I tell you, no!”

“A friend of yours, or somebody you thought was your friend. Somebody you were doing business with.”

“… I don't know what you mean, business.”

“The robberies, Cody. I know about your part in the robberies.”

It was meant to rock him and it did. “What … robberies?”

“Burglaries, car break-ins, other thefts over the past year or so. Items of moderate value stolen and then sold elsewhere for cash.”

“I already told the sheriff, I don't know nothing about that stuff.”

So Felix had had an idea that Cody was involved. But he'd been stonewalled in his questioning and he hadn't had any evidence, so he'd let it go until I brought it up again. Part of the reason he'd been willing to talk Mendoza into allowing me this interrogation.

I said, “Where'd you get the money to buy the Marlin rifle from Gene Eastwell? And the new electric winch for your Jeep?”

Cody opened his mouth, closed it again; you could almost see him trying to frame a convincing lie and not being able to come up with one. He squirmed and said to Parfrey, his voice cracking a little, “I don't have to answer that, do I, Mr. Parfrey?”

“I would if I were you.”

“Where, Cody?” I said. “Where'd you get the money for the rifle and the winch?”

“… I saved it when I was working.”

“No, you didn't. And you haven't had a job in five months. Your mother and half a dozen others told me that.”

He appealed to Parfrey again. “You're supposed to be my lawyer. They're trying to put me in prison for rape, now this guy wants to nail me for stealing stuff and you just sit there and let him do it—”

“You won't go to prison for rape if you tell the truth.”

“Man, I
have
told the truth.”

“That you're innocent of criminal assault, yes. Now you need to prove it by putting the blame where it belongs, making a clean breast of what you know about those robberies.”

“I don't know anything! I haven't done anything!”

“Rick Firestone was murdered last night,” I said.

That shot really rocked him. His eyes opened wide, his gaunt face lost color. “Jesus!” he said.

“Shot to death where he lived.”

“No, you're lying to me—”

“He's not lying,” Parfrey said. “That's just what happened.”

I said, “A falling out of some kind. Over the robbery profits, maybe?”

He shook his head, not in denial but in confusion. “You … you're saying you think Rick…”

“I'm not saying anything. What do you say?”

“Nothing … I don't know…”

“You knew him pretty well, didn't you?”

“No … we … he worked on my Jeep a couple of times.…”

“Went hunting together, didn't you?”

“Hunting? I don't remember.…”

“Alana told me the two of you were pretty tight. Hung out together quite a bit recently.”

“Alana … she…”

“She said he called you the night of the third rape, asked you to pick him up because he needed help with a flat tire. You, out of all the people in Mineral Springs. How come?”

“I don't … I don't know.”

“She also said he was half drunk that night. He drank a lot, didn't he? And smoked a lot. And didn't have a girlfriend because he was a geek with bad breath and girls didn't want anything to do with him.”

Headshake. But Cody's eyes had a glaze on them and his lies and denials were weak now. On the ropes and faltering.

“He resented that, didn't he?” I said. “Girls not liking him? You think maybe he hated women because of it?”

Another headshake.

“One of the rape victims told me her attacker's breath stank of whiskey and cigarettes. What does that tell you?”

“Jesus,” he said. “At first I thought…”

“What did you think?”

“That maybe he was … that he did those women. But he swore it wasn't him.”

“And you believed him.”

“Yeah, I … yeah. I believed him.”

“Why did you hang out with him if you weren't friends?”

Headshake.

“Come on, the truth now. Spit it out, get it off your chest.”

Parfrey said, “Listen to him. Be smart for a change.”

The kid's gaze darted left, right, up, down, as if he were looking for a way out. But there was only one way out for him now. He was no mental giant, but even he could see that.

Five seconds. Ten. And then he cracked. “It wasn't me started doing those robberies,” he said, the words coming in a rush. “You got to believe that. Rick, he was the one. Him and this other guy.”

I said, “What other guy?”

Headshake.

“How did you find this out? From Rick?”

“Yeah, after…”

“After what?”

“After I seen him busting into a car at the Southside Mall a few weeks ago. Man, he was slick. In with one of those window bars, out with stuff in about a minute.”

One of those window bars. The kind of tool tow truck drivers carry to open cars when drivers lock their keys inside. That was how Firestone had gotten into Haiwee Allen's VW and the other vehicles he'd burglarized without leaving any signs of damage. He might even have been the one who'd tried to break into my car at the Goldtown Thursday night, for purposes of either theft or vandalism.

I said to Cody, “And then what?”

“He begged me not to turn him in. Told me how much he'd made from all the stuff he swiped. Said he'd cut me in, said if we teamed up I could score big, too.”

“What did you say?”

“I didn't want to. He talked me into it.”

Yeah, sure. Without much resistance, if any at all. The irresistible lure of easy money and the things he could buy and places he could go with it.

“Listen,” he said, “I'm not a thief, not really. Honest to God. It's just that I didn't have a job, any money to get out of this fucking town. Team up for a little while, that's all, until I had enough so I could split. Then never again.”

Parfrey gave him a disgusted look. There was a feeling of disgust in me, too, not only because Cody was young and stupid, almost as stupid as Rick Firestone, but because he was Cheryl's son and how hurt she'd be when she found out he wasn't as clean-handed as she believed him to be.

I said, “But you didn't save your share, did you? You spent it on the new rifle, the new winch, partying.”

“Not all of it. I've still got…”

“How much? Stashed where?”

Headshake. Clinging to that bit of information like a drowning man to a flimsy lifeline. But not for long. Felix would get it out of him sooner or later.

“What did you and Firestone do with the stuff you stole?”

“Gave it all to the other guy, Rick's partner. He knew where to sell it for top dollar. Elko, Battle Mountain, Salt Lake City.”

“I'll ask you again—what's the partner's name?”

“I don't know. Rick wouldn't tell me. Said the guy wouldn't like it if he knew I was in on the deal. Too many robberies, they couldn't keep flying under the radar.”

“What else did he say about the guy?”

“Wasn't local, lived in Elko. That's all.”

“Not how they met?”

“No.”

“You have any problems with Firestone? Arguments over the split, the robbery targets?”

“No.”

“Then why did he frame you for the rapes?”

“… What?”

“Think about it. He had to be the one, didn't he? If he was the rapist and the knife and the ski mask belonged to him?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“And he had to have a reason. What was it? You bone him for a bigger cut?”

“No. Everything was cool between us.”

“But maybe not between Firestone and his partner.”

Long pause. “Oh, man … I told you, the dude didn't know about me and Rick teaming up.”

Felix had warned against putting words in the kid's mouth, but to get the rest of it out I was going to have to lead him a little. And hope that Felix and Mendoza, listening, would let me get away with it.

I said, “What if the partner found out about you? And what if he found out some way that Firestone was the rapist and it pissed him off because that kind of high-profile crime jeopardized the robbery scheme and his part in it? Framing you would take care of both problems, right?”

The strained expression on Cody's face said he was having difficulty wrapping his mind around the notion. “You mean it was his idea, the partner's?”

“That's one possibility. Another is that he put such heavy pressure on Firestone to stop assaulting women that Rick came up with the idea on his own. A third is that the two of them worked it out together.”

“Jesus.”

I said, “The night you were seen running away from the Oasis. Did Max Stendreyer tell the truth about that?”

He did some more squirming. Then, “Yeah, I was there. People that live in one of the trailers at the back end … they were supposed to be away that night. I figured … you know, an easy score.”

“Did Firestone know about this?”

“Yeah, I told him.”

“You see him anywhere near the Oasis when you were there?”

“No. He went home for a while after we fixed his flat tire.”

“A while?”

“He was meeting up with his partner later on. Give the dude some stuff, get some money he had in exchange.”

“What time was that?”

“I don't know exactly. Late.”

“Where was the meet?”

“He didn't say and I didn't ask.”

“All right. You said the trailer owners you were planning to rob were supposed to be away. Meaning they weren't?”

“Yeah. They were home, or somebody was. I was looking to get in through a window and a light went on inside. Scared me so much I just took off and kept on running to where I left my Jeep over on Yucca. That must've been when Stendreyer saw me.”

“Why do you suppose he turned you in to the sheriff?”

“Why? I dunno. He saw me.”

“Did he?”

“He told the sheriff he did.”

“Ever have trouble with him, Cody? Any kind?”

“No.”

“You bought pot from him, right? One of his regular customers?”

“Not regular. Once in a while, like everybody does.”

“So why would he turn you in? He's not a model citizen doing his duty, that's not the reason. There has to be another one.”

Headshake.

“When you ran out of the Oasis that night, what time was it?”

“Time? I don't know … late. One-thirty, two.”

Parfrey made a surprised grunting sound. “You're sure it wasn't later than that?”

“Couldn't have been. I took Alana home around twelve-thirty, then drove around for an hour or so, no more.”

“Why didn't you tell me that before?”

“You never asked me about the time. What difference does it make?”

Parfrey glared at him. “Plenty of difference,” he snapped. “For God's sake!”

“What time was the woman at the Oasis raped?” I asked Parfrey.

“Approximately two-thirty. Her emergency call to the sheriff's office was logged in at two forty-nine, a couple of minutes after her attacker left. She said he was there less than half an hour.”

“And what time did Stendreyer claim he saw Cody running away?”

“After the rape. About three a.m.”

“But it wasn't until morning that Stendreyer turned him in and the sheriff came around to talk to him and found the planted evidence in his Jeep.”

“That's right.”

You could see the kid finally getting it. He blinked several times, then looked at me squarely for the first time since the deputy brought him into the room. “You mean Stendreyer …
he's
Rick's partner?”

“Why else would he lie about seeing you running from the Oasis?”

“Yeah.”

“It must have been Firestone he saw after the rape. When they got together, Firestone spilled the truth and the plan to frame you was cooked up. Solve two problems at once—put a stop to the rapes and take you out of the picture. Stendreyer had to risk involving himself as a witness, but it was minimal compared to the risk of Firestone getting caught and their whole deal blowing up.”

“Fucking bastards!” Cody was angry now, as much at his own stupidity for not catching on sooner to what they'd done to him. “I'm not sorry Rick's dead. Stendreyer killed him, huh?”