A Garden of Vipers (3 page)

Lucas crouched in shadow beside the fast-food restaurant's stinking Dumpster, wadding cold French fries in his fist and jamming them into his mouth. Untouched fries were safest, he figured. The cast-off sandwiches all had bite marks.

Lucas pushed sodden, foot-long black hair from his eyes, brushed French-fry salt from his thick beard. He leaned out into the light. There was a bank beside the restaurant, a small branch office with an ATM in the drive-through. Getting money was critical to Lucas's plan. Money breeds money, hadn't he heard that a thousand times? Like a mantra: Money breeds money.

In the half hour he'd been waiting, over a dozen cars had slipped to the ATM, drivers making transactions, zooming away. Two of the drivers had pulled to the side, close to the rear of the restaurant. Lucas had watched as the drivers turned on their dome lights and fiddled with banking paperwork.

The door at the back of the restaurant slammed open. Lucas froze in the shadows and stench.

“You there, you,” a voice yelled, angry. Lucas felt his muscles tighten, his hands ball into hard fists.

“Me?” said someone inside the place.

“You—Darryl, is it?”

“Daniel,” a voice grunted.

“I got soft drink canisters out here. Get 'em inside.”

“I still got to finish mopping the—”

“Now.”

The door banged shut. Lucas slithered beneath the wheeled Dumpster. His heart sank when he saw he'd forgotten his purse. Made of cheap white vinyl, it lay past the Dumpster, almost in the cone of light from the restaurant. The door reopened and feet appeared. Canisters were hefted in the door.

The door shut. Lucas squirmed from beneath the Dumpster, pavement grease now added to his shirt and pants, pulled from a donations pile outside a Goodwill store. He'd left his institutional clothing with the other castoffs.

Lucas clutched the purse to his chest and turned his eyes back to the ATM. Women afforded the best opportunities. But he'd take whatever fate provided and work with it.

He waited twenty minutes, only one vehicle stopping at the ATM in that time, a pickup truck with dual tracks and a stars 'n' bars decal on the window. A good ol' boy, Lucas thought. The type to keep a pipe under the seat. Or a gun.

Not worth the risk.

Minutes later a compact car entered the bank lot: a woman, driving slow. Lucas gathered the purse in his hand and threw it into the shadowy corner of the bank lot, twenty feet away. It landed as the car's headlights washed over the pavement. The lights hit the purse, passed by, angled toward the ATM.

Slowed.

Stopped a dozen feet short of the ATM. Lucas held his breath.

Take the bait.

The car began backing up. Lucas raised to a crouch. Tensed his muscles. The car parked beside the purse. He heard the door locks snap off.

Lucas was up and running.

The next morning I arose to a sky the color of clay. Harry and I had worked until three in the morning, ascertaining what we could from the victim's name and vehicle papers. Thunder rumbled in the distance, another storm cell rolling through. The phone rang as I was pouring coffee. It was Danielle Danbury—my girlfriend.

“Carson, can you stop by before work?” Her voice was somber.

“What's wrong, Dani?”

“Please hurry.”

“On my way.”

Though Dani's profession as a TV journalist made us natural adversaries, we'd been thrown into an uneasy alliance last year, tracking collectors of serial-killer memorabilia. The bizarre episode had taken Dani and me—I simply couldn't use her on-air moniker, DeeDee—to Paris to interview an elderly art professor. While in the City of Light we'd become lovers, a condition that remained.

The erratic and overlong hours of our jobs made getting together more chance than certainty, and not counting sleeping, we grabbed maybe fifteen hours a week together. At least that had been the norm until a couple months back when Harry jumped into Logan's mess and I'd played catch-up eighteen hours a day.

I raced down the steps of my stilt-standing beachfront home and jumped in my old pickup, making Dani's house in twenty minutes. She was in reporter garb: good jeans, white silk blouse, burgundy linen jacket, strand of pearls at her neck, tiny matching earrings. Her blond hair was lacquered, a concession to the cameras. She clutched a copy of Woodward and Bernstein's book on Watergate,
All the President's Men,
to her breast. Her eyes were red and swollen.

I stepped inside, my heart racing. “What's wrong, Dani? Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, Carson. It's a friend…. She was killed last night. Murdered. I just read it in the paper.”

There was only one murder last night.

“Taneesha Franklin,” I said, reaching to hold Dani. “I was there. I'm sorry. Was she a good friend?”

Dani wiped her eyes, leaned back to look into my face.

“More like mentor and mentee, I guess. But she was a wonderful person.”

“She was a reporter?”

“For a tiny radio station, WTSJ. She was a newbie, spent her days covering city meetings, ribbon-cuttings, yapping politicians…the usual starter crapola. I'd had lunch with her a few times, Teesh asking questions about journalism, me answering. She was bright and dedicated and excited about her little reporting job. What happened, Carson? The paper had maybe four column inches. I can read between the lines. It sounded…brutal.”

“It was bad. Probably a robbery that went haywire.”

Dani and I hear so many lies in our jobs that we don't lie to one another, not even the little white ones. Dani was still holding
All the President's Men
. I tapped its cover, tried a smile.

“You're about thirty years behind on your reading, babe.”

“It was a gift from Teesh. I told her my copy of the book was about to turn to dust, and she bought me a new one. She dropped it off a few weeks back. Read the dedication, Carson.”

Dani opened the book to the inside cover. I saw script in a neat and flowing hand.

“Isn't that great?” Dani asked.

“Maybe a tad strident.”

“It's how the good ones start out,” Dani said, a tear tracing her cheek.

 

I met Harry at the department and we went to the hospital. Last night we hadn't been allowed to interview the trucker who'd discovered the crime scene—he'd suffered a heart attack, but was now stable.

Arlin Dell was a strapping guy with about five bedside devices either measuring or dripping something. The doc gave us five minutes. I pulled up a chair, Harry leaned against the wall. Dell was pale, his voice light. He seemed a bit fuzzy, like he was on a mild narcotic.

“I'd just left the yard with a full load of electronic gizmos headed for Memphis. I cut down that side street, rain pouring, me wondering if it's gonna be like this all the way to Tennessee, when I see this red car in the middle of the street. No lights. I jam on my brakes, about jackknife the rig.”

“You see anyone near the Mazda?”

Dell made a whistling noise, like laughing or choking. “An ape jumped out of the car, ran straight at my headlights, then cut to the side and jumped into the shadows.”

“Ape?” Harry said.

“I climbed from the rig and looked in the car. When I saw what was inside, my heart grabbed in me like a fist. I made it back to the cab, called 9–1–1.”

“Tell me you didn't really see an ape.”

“It was a hairy guy.” Dell patted his cheeks. “Furry face, long hair. Like an ape. Or the thing in those
Star Wars
movies.”

“A Wookiee?” I asked.

Dell shrugged. “Ape. Wookiee. Or maybe one of those guys from ZZ Top.”

 

“I hate a bearded perp,” Harry said as we left the hospital and aimed the Crown Vic for WTSJ, the victim's employer. “The bastard shaves and he's got a brand-new face.”

I'd been replaying Dell's recollections in my head, picturing myself high above the ground in a cab-over Mack.

“You know what really got me, bro? The perp ran straight for the rig, then juked at the last second, disappearing. He ran a dozen feet directly into the truck's headlights.”

Harry tapped his thumbs on the wheel. “Headlights, engine rumble, windows like eyes…The truck should have scared the hell out of a guy who just committed a capital crime. Standard response is haul ass the opposite direction.”

“Maybe thought he could attack the truck,” I said. “Roaring on crack or PCP. Or maybe insane.”

“He'd already pitched his knife. It was on the other side of the vehicle. If he was going to war with the semi, he was going at it bare-handed.”

“Ballsy son of a bitch,” I said. “Or a full whack-out.”

“Never a good thing,” Harry noted. “Either choice.”

 

WTSJ was in a squat concrete-block building near Pritchard, a town abutting Mobile to the north. The receptionist's eyes were shadowed with grief, but she forced a smile.

“Lincoln's the station manager. He's on the air two more minutes.”

She put us in a small anteroom. Lincoln Haley was in the adjoining studio, visible through a thick window. Haley was mid-forties, square-jawed, a neat beard. His forehead was high and protruding, like it was filled with songs. Racks of CDs were at his back. He wore a black headset and spoke into a microphone the size of a beer can. He saw us looking, flashed
two minutes
with his fingers, leaned over the microphone. Speakers filled the anteroom with his voice.

“…coming up on the hour, time for Newsbreak. After the hour it's time for the Queen Bee, Miss Pearlie Winston, bringing you the best in funk 'n' blues in the whole United States…. Now I'm gonna take you to the top with Marlon Saunders….”

Music kicked in. Haley stood, set the headset on the table, rubbed his face. A man worn past the tread. The studio door admitted a large and brightly dressed woman. She gave Haley's hand a squeeze. He appeared in the anteroom seconds later, khakis, sandals, sweater, hands in his pockets.

“I'll do anything if it helps find the animal who hurt Teesh.”

Through the glass I saw the woman put on the headphones, pull the microphone close. She took a deep breath, a big fake smile rising to her face.

“This is Pearlie Winston, queen of the funky scene….”

Haley reached to a switch, killed the speakers.

“Pearlie's heart is broken, but she sounds like she's about to break into song. It's tough. Taneesha was like my daughter, everybody's daughter. She was…w-was…”

“Tell me about Ms. Franklin's job,” Harry said. “At your own pace.”

Haley nodded, composed himself.

“We're a small station, Detective. When Pearlie's not on the air, she's selling advertising time. When I'm not broadcasting or managing things, I'm the electrician. Teesh was our reporter, but sometimes wrote ads.”

“You're probably not ripe for a takeover by Clarity Broadcasting,” I said. Clarity owned Channel 14, Dani's employer.

Haley's eyes darkened. “Everything Clarity touches turns to garbage—profitable garbage, but soulless.”

“Ms. Franklin worked here how long?” Harry said.

“Started as an intern two years back. That girl had boundless enthusiasm.”

“Did she want to be a DJ or whatever, on the air?”

“She did the midnight show for several months. But talking between tunes was too tame for Teesh. Her dream was to be a reporter. Teesh had the aggression, the drive. She just needed more polish. I moved her into our tiny news department. You would have thought I'd given her a job on CNN.”

Harry said, “Was she working a story last night?”

“Not an assignment. But Teesh was always looking to break that big story, find something no one was supposed to know, putting the light on it. I told her we didn't have money for investigations. But she thought of it as training, kept at it on her own time.”

“Self-propelled,” I said.

“Know who she wanted to be like? That investigator on Channel 14, uh, I can't recall names…blonde, big eyes, kind of in-your-face, but sexy with it….”

“Uh, Danbury?” I said.

Haley snapped his fingers. “DeeDee Danbury. Teesh spoke with Ms. Danbury a few times, asked questions. Teesh called her a kick-ass lady with a mind all her own.”

“I've heard that about Ms. Danbury,” I said.