Chill Factor (29 page)

He was a good cop, not a great detective, but one helluva good beat cop in his day. Never really wanted to be Chief—that was Banning’s idea. Smooth-talking Avery Banning. From Ed’s small-town Arkansas background, becoming Chief of the Houston Police Department had looked like finally grabbing the brass ring. Couldn’t turn down such an offer—not and live with Mira afterward.

“Houston already has a strong police force,” Banning had coaxed. “What better place to step up in your career?”

The salary sure beat what he’d earned in Arkansas, or even in the small Texas college town where he’d met Banning.

“Nothing to it,” Banning had told him. “Study what the former Chief did, keep doing more of the same. Easy as fried corn bread.”

Terminal lung cancer and early retirement—that’s what Ed owed his big break to. Made him feel ghoulish.

He glanced down at Oprah, wondering how she’d lost all that weight. Mira would say to take a lesson.

Behind the magazine, way back in a space you had to pull the drawer all the way out to find, he’d stashed a pint of Wild Turkey. Too early yet, but Ed wouldn’t mind a nip, help him turn his mind to what it ought to be churning on, what he’d
avoided all morning, those two dead officers, barely as old as his own daughter. How the hell did you deal with that?

He slipped his hand into an open bag of sunflower seeds in the drawer and scooped out a few. Mira’s idea, sunflower seeds. Said it’d help him quit smoking, which it had. Now he’d got the seed habit, and what would help him quit that? He cracked a shell, popped the seed in his mouth.

His friendship with Avery Banning went all the way back to those college days. Not that Ed went to college, no patience for books, but he’d been on the job in the town where Banning attended. Busted the little snotnose for a slew of traffic tickets, then helped him clear his record. After that, they played poker once a week. He liked Banning, even with his sneaky streak that kept other players on their toes. Despite some trouble in school, the boy had grown up to have a damn good head on his shoulders, knew how to make things happen, for sure.

But if Ed’d known something like this would come down his first six months as Chief, he never would’ve taken the offer—although Banning had a way of talking you into things.

He slid the drawer shut on Oprah. Turned his attention to the mail—opened and sorted, neatly slit envelope clipped behind each letter, interdepartmental stuff in one pile, civilian correspondence in another. He wondered if Mira had been up here giving lessons.

With a sigh, he signed all the letters he’d dictated yesterday, then started reading through the civilian stack. Most of it came from folks wanting a piece of the action at Banning’s Memorial Day commemorative. Ed glanced at the clock. Still too early for a nip.

Near the bottom of the stack came a stopper.

You see what poor management causes, Chief? This will be the only warning you receive …

After reading those first lines, Ed reached for a sheet protector, slipped the letter inside, and finished reading it through the plastic.

Jean Gibson flipped through an assortment of bills and paused at an expensive envelope—personal executive size with an
engraved three-color logo—addressed to her husband: Councilman John Jason Gibson. The title never failed to give her a satisfying thrill.

They’d married in such a rush of excitement. Before Gib’s proposal, Jean had been at her lowest, certain she’d remain a spinster the rest of her natural life. Three years after Gib’s first wife died in a drowning accident—drunk as a sailor, but Gib kept that part from making the tabloids—Jean had met him at a political rally. Strong, commanding, decisive, just like her father. In nine days, her life had turned around. In two weeks, she was engaged.

Gib’s proposition, that he and Jean marry before he tossed his hat in the ring for the mayoral race, hadn’t been very romantic, but at her age, forget candlelight and roses. Gib wanted her at his side as he ran against Avery Banning. Gib was obviously the better man for the job. And the insurance from his first wife’s death would’ve helped finance his campaign. Then Gib decided not to run this term.

Jean glanced at his picture on the mantel. Homely, no other way to say it, but in his Marine officer’s uniform Gib was the grandest man she’d ever met. Served proudly in the Gulf War, called back from reserves—that fact alone gave him an edge on Banning.

Banning’s slick handsomeness and glib oratory had seduced the media, though, and the voters ate up his lies like apples from the Tree of Plenty. Jean had watched him last night on the tube, attempting to smooth over this sniper business. Even Mr. Mealymouthed Banning sweated this problem.

She slid her hand over the textured envelope. No return address, but her dressmaker’s fingers recognized quality.

“Gib?” She resisted tearing the envelope open. She and her husband respected each other’s privacy.

“Out here, Jean. Let’s eat breakfast on the patio. We don’t see days as magnificent as this too often.”

She found him perched on a bench, reading
The Wall Street Journal
, finished sections stacked neatly on the brick pavers. Military neat, that was her Gib.

“Do you recognize this emblem?” She held the envelope in front of the financial pages.

“No,” he said after a moment. “Should I?”

“Looks important. Should I open it?”

He started to take it, then waved it aside.

“Yes, open it.”

Jean tapped the letter down to one end, tore a narrow strip off the other, and slid the page out.

“Councilman John Jason Gibson,”
she read proudly aloud. Then her heart began to thump much too fast.
“You see what poor management causes, Gib? This will be the only warning you receive …”

Dixie rang the Harrises’ doorbell.

No answer. With her husband’s funeral only a few hours away, perhaps the reluctant mother had gone to a friend’s or relative’s house where she’d have comfort and help with the baby.

Relief lifted Dixie’s spirits. Questioning a widow at such a time—even in an effort to find her husband’s killer—had seemed cold-blooded. Yet, a brief talk with Ann Harris could answer a lot of questions, especially if Art’s death was unrelated to the robbery shootings. Dixie’d have to return later, maybe tomorrow. The timing wouldn’t be much better, but for the moment she was glad to put it off.

Twenty-six miles down the road, she and Marty stood at the home of former HPD Officer Ted Tally. The fifties-style ranch house sat nine blocks from the restaurant where he was killed. Seeing an
OUT OF ORDER
note taped over the doorbell, Dixie knocked and waited, with no idea whether Ted had lived alone.

“Did your mother ever belong to a sorority?” she asked Marty.

Looking surprised at the question, he shook his head. “Mom tried three times to finish college, though.”

“I remember that—she took commercial art at night school.”

“Tried. Dad always found a reason Mom needed to stay at home. He told me once that wives should never be well educated, that it gave them wandering fever.”

As Dixie knocked again on the door, she pictured Bill Pine in his favorite chair, watching TV, Edna bringing whatever he needed. Bill had been a regular Archie Bunker, and Dixie hadn’t noticed at the time.

When they’d waited another minute with no answer, Dixie tried the doorknob, out of habit, not expecting it to open. Then she started around the house, peeking in windows, Marty close behind her. A tall hedge encircled the yard, blocking the view from neighbors. There appeared to be no one inside the house. At the back door, Dixie tried the knob again—and this time it turned freely. The door opened.

She froze. What cop left his door unlocked? But it
had
opened … she heard no one inside … and curiosity drew her forward.

“We can’t go in there,” Marty whispered.

“Hello?” Dixie called. No response.

The laundry room—dirty clothes piled high in an open hamper—suggested a bachelor lived here.

“Hello! Anybody here?”

No answer. Dixie waved Marty in and shut the door.

“Dix! We’re trespassing here. Aren’t we? I know he’s dead, but—?”

“We’ll only stay a minute,” Dixie promised. “Keep your hands in your pockets.” Unlikely that Ted’s house would be dusted for prints now, but why risk it?

The kitchen had a well-used microwave, crusted with food spatters, a practically new stove and oven, and a refrigerator with nothing inside but a frozen pizza, a carton of Bluebell Double Fudge ice cream, jars of mustard, catsup, pickles, and nine bottles of Corona. Reminded Dixie of her own fridge.

In the living room, a fairly new multimedia system dominated one wall. Directly across from it sat a couch and two chairs, well used. A bed pillow and blanket suggested someone had slept on the couch. A clutter of objects covered the coffee table—newspaper, a plate and utensils, a
TV Guide
, an empty Corona bottle, a copy of
The Purloined Letter and Other
Stories
by Edgar Allan Poe, and a stack of opened mail. Dixie peeked into the bedroom: an unmade bed—one pillow, no blanket—nightstand, lamp, chest of drawers.

Returning to the living room, she found Marty eyeballing a CD rack.

“Country and western,” he mumbled. “Not a bad selection, if you like country. What are we looking for?”

“I won’t know until I see it.”

A bookshelf held items of a personal nature: a set of Funk and Wagnalls, four recent best-sellers, a battered paperback of
Catcher in the Rye
, a coffee-table volume on sports cars, a pair of gift-shop candle holders with unburned tapers, and a row of what looked to be family photographs in various frames. One photo showed a gray-haired woman flipping burgers on an oil-drum barbecue grill, two young girls playing with a tabby cat; Ted making a face at the camera; and a man and woman, mid-thirties, taking beers from a cooler. In a smaller studio close-up of the man, he wore a police uniform. Ted’s brother? Close family resemblance, anyway. A pair of matched frames held studio shots of the couple and the gray-haired woman. The woman appeared in yet another snapshot, looking several years younger, with a man about her same age.

Propped behind all these sat an eight-by-ten of Ted’s graduating class at the police academy. Dixie nudged the smaller frames aside for a better look at the graduates. Young Officer Tally looked impressive in his dress blues. So did Officer Harris.

Classmates assigned to beats thirty-odd miles apart respond to the same squeal. Having coffee together. Harris off his beat but caught up in the excitement?

Unframed on the same shelf, a snapshot showed Ted with an African-American teenager, his arm wrapped around the kid’s shoulder. Dixie lifted it by the edges to look at the back. Someone had penned
My Little Brother Samuel
and a recent date.

Janet Easton had said the man who turned Art Harris from the Dallas gang was a Big Brother. The Tally-Harris friendship dating back at least to their academy days, coupled with their common interest in Big Brothers, made their deaths seem less and less coincidental. Even if the shooter was systematically
taking out the officers responsible for killing Edna Pine, what were the odds of “accidentally” singling out two friends as the first victims? The killer had to know more details about those officers than any passerby.

“There’s a bunch of notes inside this book,” Marty said. “You might want to look at them.”

“I told you not to touch—” She sighed. Damage done. “Anything interesting?”

“Beats me.” He held out a handful of pages. “Here, you—”

A car pulled into the driveway.

Damn.
They
couldn’t
be caught here.

“Marty! Out the back!”

Fortunately, Dixie’d parked the Mustang at the curb across the street; it would likely go unnoticed.

Marty darted for the kitchen, Dixie on his heels. They slipped out the back door. Dixie peeked around the house as the couple from the barbecue photo stepped out of a white Chevy pickup. Ted’s family.

Dixie waved Marty toward a slim gap in the hedgerow separating Ted’s yard from his neighbor’s. Thirty fast strides and they hit the street. Slowing, they approached the Mustang and climbed in.

Dixie looked back at the couple entering Ted’s house. Maybe they’d stopped by earlier. Grieving family members might forget to thoroughly lock up a house whose only occupant wouldn’t be returning.

“Where do I put these?” Marty still held the book and note pages from Ted’s coffee table.

“You
took
them?”

“Not intentionally.”

“Well … let’s get out of here. Then we’ll see if you stole anything useful.”

In West University Village, where she’d arranged to meet Parker, narrow streets, crowded with shoppers and late-lunchers taking advantage of the fine weather, made for slow going. Spotting a parking place beside Parker’s Cadillac—astonishing
in the Village—Dixie took that as a good omen, and they entered Charlie’s Hamburger Joint.

“I don’t need a baby-sitter,” Marty grumbled when they’d ordered their burgers at the counter and joined Parker at a table.

“Considering the trouble you provoked without one, I’m surprised to hear you say that.”

After an uncomfortable silence, Parker remarked, “Guess we could think of this as a consultation. My new house has bare walls, and what I know about art wouldn’t ill a clamshell. Don’t even know where to start.”

Marty perked up. “Parker, within five miles of this very spot, I can show you undiscovered genius and deals you won’t believe. You can buy the pieces you love—under my direction, of course—then watch them appreciate on your walls.”

While Parker and Marty avidly discussed art, Dixie claimed their orders, loaded the tray with condiments and utensils, and carried it back to the table.

“No, no, I don’t need any help,” she groused, plunking the tray down.

They both sheepishly helped unload. Marty returned the empty tray. Talking subsided while they tucked into old-fashioned burgers and crisp fries, then Parker asked about their morning.