Devil Red (7 page)

“Do you remember the dead boy’s name?” I asked.

“Shit,” June said, “I’m two sips off startin’ to have a hard time rememberin’ my own name. All I know is the family was a good family out of Houston, and they were in court during Godzilla’s trial. I heard rumors Godzilla swore she’d get all the other girls, kill them, or have them killed. But I heard one of my cousins say he saw Bigfoot once, and I just got to take him at his word.”

“And how are the girls?” I asked.

“How the hell would I know?” she said, put her head on the table, closed her eyes, and in a moment she was snoring like a water buffalo.

“Well,” Leonard said. “Reckon that’s our cue.”

16

We went back into the hall and the maid met us there. She was friendlier now and her voice was less gruff. She said, “She drunk yet?”

“Yes, but she went down a pretty clear talker,” I said.

“Passed out?” the maid asked.

“Yep,” Leonard said.

“She’s like that. Talks almost like she hasn’t had a drink, then she’s snoozin’. You got to watch sometimes so she doesn’t bump her head, she’ll go down so fast.”

“We’ll take that under advisement,” Leonard said.

“You know, in spite of what she says, she loved her brother very much.”

“So, you been listening in?” I said.

“Absolutely. I knew she wanted another drink too, but I didn’t bring it. She didn’t need it.”

“We heard she was pretty upset about her mother leaving the money to the brother,” Leonard said.

“Not really,” the maid said. “She was worried that Mini would get her hands on it. She didn’t want that to happen, and that’s all there was to that. I’ve worked for her for five years, and she’s not as heartless as she can sound when she’s drunk. She and her brother didn’t get along, but she loved him. She just didn’t know how much until he was dead. I’ll walk you gentlemen out.”

Outside, Leonard said, “That’s some story.”

“Actually,” I said, “I remember hearing about the case on the news. I don’t remember the details, but I remember hearing about it.”

“Me too,” Leonard said. “But it happened before Mini bit the big one, and before she was dating Ted, so I’m not sure it means anything, even if those girls could actually change into bats.”

“No one said they could change into bats,” I said.

“I know, but that would be way cool, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, and we bumped fists. “Do you think Mini telling June about all that in such detail means anything other than they were both drunk?”

“Got me,” Leonard said.

Back in the car Leonard put on the deerstalker.

“You’re just jackin’ with me, aren’t you? You know you look like a moron, but you’re wearing that thing to get my goat and all its children, aren’t you?”

Leonard leaned over and adjusted the car mirror and looked at himself. “I think it fits my personality.”

“What personality?”

“That’s just mean, Hap.”

I put the mirror back the way I liked it. “We’ll take back streets,” I said.

“I want a Sonic burger.”

“You have money?”

“Not on me … You have money?”

“Yes.”

“Will you buy me a burger?”

“Will you take off the hat?”

“You can eat in the car at Sonic.”

“Yes, but the waitress who brings it out will see you and know I’m with you.”

“No one will know you.”

“It’s not a chance I’m willin’ to take.”

“I hate you,” Leonard said.

17

In Marvin’s office, Marvin looked up some things on the Internet and made a few calls to cops, a warden, some prison guards, and other people, including a sandwich shop that delivered.

He didn’t offer us a sandwich, nor did he offer to let us order our own.

Leonard, wearing the deerstalker, sat in a client chair reading one of Marvin’s fishing magazines. I sat with my hands on my knees feeling like a bored kid.

After a long while, Marvin put the phone down, scribbled some notes, said, “Okay, I remember this vampire case. I checked some of the details, and it appears June is pretty accurate in her story. I just didn’t put Mini together with it, didn’t remember her name and Mrs. Christopher didn’t mention it.”

“It seemed too coincidental to ignore,” I said.

“It damn sure looks like the vampire killings and Mini go together,” Marvin said. “It also appears that—”

Marvin paused and looked at Leonard. “You know, Leonard, if I’m going to talk seriously, and you’re going to listen seriously, you have to take off that goddamn shitty hat.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Et tu?” Leonard said.

“Now he’s trying to show some education,” I said.

Marvin just looked at him.

Leonard slowly removed the hat and placed it on his knee. “All my life people have been jealous of me.”

“Keep tellin’ yourself that,” Marvin said. “So, what June told you, it’s pretty much right. We’ll just have to take her word on her brother and the toy train.”

“Oh, man,” I said. “That was something I could have gone to my grave without knowing.”

Marvin nodded. “Yep. Me too. What June didn’t tell you, and probably doesn’t know, but what my phone calls just found out, is about two weeks ago, Evil Lynn, real name Ray Lynn Gonzello, Godzilla to June, had a prisoner start somethin’ with her over who knows what. Godzilla beat her down like she was tenderizin’ meat. Then she challenged a fellow ass-whipped prisoner to cut her. Let her get to the shiv she’d just taken away from her. Wanted to show her that it wouldn’t hurt. That any wound she got would heal. That she was in fact a vampire.”

“Uh-oh,” Leonard said. “This isn’t going to end well.”

“On the nosey,” Marvin said. “Fact was she didn’t heal up at all. Got stabbed under the armpit and bled out faster than you could say ‘Oh, shit. I’ve been stabbed under the arm and it hurts like a motherfucker.’ According to what I got here, Godzilla had some actual last words.”

“I’m guessin’,” said Leonard, “it’s not the stuff about ‘Oh shit, I’ve been stabbed under the arm.’ ”

“Kind of sad, really,” Marvin said. “She said, ‘I’m just a girl.’ ”

“Nothing like experience to put things into perspective,” I said.

“What I’m thinkin’,” Marvin says, “is every day she’s eating crappy food in the cafeteria, and she’s not suckin’ blood—I don’t think—and she’s behind bars like a zoo animal, no vampire powers at work, and she still didn’t get it. That’s the part amazes me.”

“The knife was the only kind of explanation she understood,” I said.

“Now here’s some more CliffsNotes. A year back, Trip, real name Tammy Trip, the vampire’s assistant, was found dead in her apartment, hanging from a doorway. Drove a big nail there, attached a short noose made of two woven nylon stockings, and hung herself. She was all dressed up in her best black duds. Course, according to my buddy over in Camp Rapture who works for the cops, cop who found her said she had shit herself and her tongue was hanging out so far and so thick, they thought she had a partially deflated balloon in her mouth.”

“Dressin’ up don’t help much,” Leonard said, “if you end up with shit down your legs.”

“Six months ago, one of the other girls, one who stayed in the car with Mini, name was Joan Carter, was found in her bedroom with a hypodermic needle no longer full of heroin in her arm. She had been dead a few days. Her dog ate most of one of her legs and a large chunk out of her naked ass, but was kind enough to do all his pissin’ and shittin’ in one corner of the room.”

“Leonard can’t even do that,” I said.

“Then we go back to Mini and her boyfriend,” Marvin said. “They were killed two years ago.”

“Seems like belonging to or being associated with the vampire clan brings a person bad luck,” I said.

“Yep,” Leonard said. “But I do have a suspect. Van Helsing.”

Marvin ignored that. He said, “Now, I hate to tell you this part, and I suppose when I do, Leonard, you can put the deerstalker back on. Cop over in Camp Rapture tells me that a bunch of them thought from the start the bodies of Mini and Christopher’s boy had been killed somewhere else and dumped. And it wasn’t the first time they’d seen the devil head symbol, but all of that was kept hush-hush.”

Leonard put the hat on, lounged loosely in his chair. “Yeah, baby,” he said.

“So the cops weren’t as stupid as we thought,” I said.

“No,” Marvin said. “They thought they’d keep some things back, something they could use to nail their guy later on. Not let it be known they were onto the right idea. Of course, it didn’t help. The cases still went cold.”

“Are you about to tell us the Devil Red symbol was at the scenes of their deaths?”

“It was found in the apartment where the girl hung herself. It was marked above the doorway where the noose was fastened. Other girl, one with the needle … It was drawn on the headboard of the bed. Small, but in sight if you were looking. And, lastly, as you noted, Leonard, it was drawn on one of the trees where Mini and Ted’s bodies were found. Since the murders took place in different towns, and some time apart, no one put it together right away. Maybe it should have been obvious, the girls being part of the vampire group. But, different towns, different departments. Mini was killed in Camp Rapture along with Ted. Godzilla in prison—and there wasn’t any symbol there, which means she may not have been part of the pattern at all, just stupid. Trip was in LaBorde at the time, having just moved there, and Joan, the dog’s lunch, died in Tyler. They figure the killer is spacing his victims out to keep from being connected, to avoid expectations, or is playing a kind of game. Wants to taunt the authorities, show how clever he is. Thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.”

“And so far,” I said, “that’s been true. But whoever is whacking them is leaving the devil head symbol, so they’re not hiding that hard.”

“Here’s something else. Mini was about to inherit enough money to not only buy some plastic vampire teeth, but on top of that there would be eight million dollars left over.”

“Holy shit,” Leonard said, “she invent a perpetual motion machine?”

“Nope. Her mother won the lottery.”

18

“That’s some lottery,” I said. “Eight million dollars.”

“Poor girl,” Marvin said. “She never got to spend her inheritance.” Marvin picked up the notes he had made, glanced at them, and continued. “Her father died when she was young. Her mother remarried, and the old gal wasn’t exactly tip-top in the high value department. A drunk. A bit of a whore. Picked up for shoplifting a couple of times. Even had Mini in on the job once, teaching her to stuff items down her pants. And the kid was five. Mother was fired from a lot of jobs, mostly for not showing up, or showing up drunk, and once for giving another employee head in the back room for fifty dollars. She also paid a fine for dumping a dog beside the road and wishing it good luck in the future.”

“Everything but wearing polyester jumpsuits,” Leonard said.

“The sources for all this reliable?” I said. “We didn’t have this info before.”

“I wouldn’t use them if they weren’t,” Marvin said. “They don’t know it all, but they know a lot. Mostly from cops and retired cops, a couple of lawyers who are only partly shark. But it’s just background stuff, nothing that solves anything. It just means all that money might somehow have been a motive. Figuring out if it was or wasn’t, that’s our job.”

“Shit,” Leonard said. “I was hoping someone else had done the work and we’d be through after today.”

“Actually, that vampire business opened the gate,” Marvin said. “Gave me an idea of who to contact on the force over there. Once I knew stuff they didn’t, they were more forthcoming with things I didn’t know. They figured they might as well tell me. The case was cold to them. So, I hate to give you guys a compliment, but you did good. It’s the way it works in the detective business: The more you know, the more others are willing to tell you.”

Marvin returned the notes to the table and leaned back in his chair. His chair was much better than ours. It was comfy and had wheels on it. “Mini didn’t have true friends because her personality was a little strange. That’s why she latched onto the vampire business, got in with that crowd.”

“She was pretty,” I said. “I could tell that in the photo. A little still, a little pale, and way too dead, but no discernible ants or maggots or signs of rot, still pretty until the bloating. Usually, pretty girls are popular. When they’re alive, anyway.”

“She was popular with some in a certain way,” Marvin said.

“Local hole punch?” I said.

“Yep,” Marvin said. “According to Will Turner, a retired cop I talked to, guy who actually interviewed Mini first, after Godzilla did the chop and suck thing. He got the impression that Mini was trying to fit in. Boys liked her for the drawer shuckin’ part, but not for too much else.”

“If only she could have yodeled,” Leonard said.

“You are a heartless sonofabitch,” I said.

“I was thinkin’ she and her buddies killin’ that drunk frat rat was the heartless part,” Leonard said. “And as a reward, her mother wins eight million dollars for buying a two-dollar ticket. What’s up with that?”

“Bought the ticket at a filling station,” Marvin said. “When she got some of the money, she went out to get drunk in celebration, leaving her husband home with a glass of milk and a bologna sandwich. She got so drunk she fell asleep in her car on the railroad track.”

“I see this coming,” Leonard said.

“She didn’t,” Marvin said. “A train knocked her ass about two miles down the track and into some woods and into a sink of water. Next morning they found the car. Someone finally saw the roof of the car sticking out of the water, shining in the sunlight. She turned out to have a car engine stuck up her ass. But the good news, my contact said, was the air bag opened.”

“That technology,” I said, “it’s somethin’.”

“I presume the husband inherits?” Leonard said.

Marvin shook his head. “Nope. Mini’s mother, Twilla, bought herself a new car and a hairdo and about three thousand dollars’ worth of duds on credit, then went to a lawyer and made a will. She left it to her daughter should anything happen to her. This was two weeks before Mini was found dead. Little later, Twilla got hit by the train. Not long after, the daughter and the boyfriend bit it.”

“Was anyone next in line for the money after Mini?” I asked.

“The animal shelter,” Marvin said. “She liked cats. Not dogs, just cats.”

“Prejudice is an ugly thing,” Leonard said.

“Bert, her husband, wasn’t completely left out. He got ten thousand. But that had to bite his butt. Him with ten thousand and the cats with almost eight million dollars. That buys a lot of catnip.”

“So Bert could have a grudge,” I said.

“I guess the cats are looking over their shoulders,” Leonard said.

“Cops looked into him,” Marvin said, “up one side and down another. They couldn’t find anything that led them to think he was involved or did anything himself. But it’s a motive. I don’t know how it would connect to the other girls, but maybe he was trying to make it look like the murders were connected with what Godzilla and the girls had done. According to what I got here in my notes, Bert wasn’t big enough or tough enough to do much but give Sharon’s cats to the animal shelter. That was about the extent of his mean as far as the cops can see. Still, we won’t take him off the suspect list.”

“June might have a place on that list too,” Leonard said. “I don’t know how much I buy the ‘she really loved her brother’ bit. She didn’t like the idea that he might get that inheritance instead of her. She had the money to make a hit, and if Mini was there when it was set up, so be it. Not that June needs the inheritance, but the ones who don’t need it are often the ones who want more of it.”

“All right,” Marvin said. “June’s on the list too.”

“Do you think it’s odd that Mini’s mom made out a will right after getting the money?” I said.

“Not really,” Marvin said. “She was old enough to think about it. Maybe she finally felt motherly and thought if anything happened to her, Mini would get it and she would check out making up for not being the best mom in the world. And if Mini died, well, there was the animal shelter. The husband did hire a lawyer on contingency to try and pry the money from the fuzzy little paws of all those desperate kitties. I don’t know how that worked out. But there’s nothing about Bert that has to mean murder. And the mother, well, I figure too much alcohol and a big case of the stupids did her in.”

I glanced over at Leonard and his deerstalker. I turned to Marvin. “Do you come across many murders where a fella didn’t like his best friend’s hat?”

“No,” Marvin said, looking at Leonard, “but I can understand the impulse.”