Dying in the Dark (10 page)

“Do you know Drew Sampson?”

A long pause. “What does any of this have to do with Drew?”

“He was involved with Celia.”

“I think you'd better check your notes, Ms. Hayle.” The nasty tone of her response surprised me; it seemed out of character.

“I have good reason to think otherwise. Do you happen to have a telephone number for him?”

A longer pause. “No. Is there anything else that I can help you with?”

“I'd like to talk to you again if I could.”

My instincts told me she knew more than she was saying. It's always best to conduct an interview in person. If you know what to
look for, only the best liar is able to conceal the truth. The gesture of a hand, the avoidance of eye contact, her posture in a chair, will give her away. You can find out more in ten minutes when you sit across from somebody than in ten hours on the phone.

“Well, I don't think that will be possible. I—”

“Please, Mrs. Donovan. The police are planning to open up the investigation again. I used to be in the department, and we Pis often share information with the authorities. With the cutbacks in the police force, it saves time and manpower. I suspect you might be more comfortable talking to me than to them.”

“Could I ask who your client is?”

“I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say.”

“How did you get my name?”

“It was written in a book that belonged to Celia Jones, which I currently have in my possession,” I said, implying that if she didn't talk to me I'd be inclined to turn said book over to the cops.

‘And you're saying that if I talk to you I won't have to talk to the police?”

“I doubt very seriously if the police will contact you.” Now
that
was the truth.

She sighed again. This is one sighing sister, I thought.

“Okay, but it will have to be soon. I'm leaving for my country home in Connecticut on Thursday night. I'll be there for the next few weeks. Maybe even until spring. I go there to find peace.”

“Will tomorrow be okay?”

“No, Wednesday is better, and it will have to be early in the morning. Mornings are always best for me. Early morning. Eight o'clock.”

I'm not a morning person, but I figured I'd better take what I
could get. “Thank you. Before you hang up, I'd like Drew Sampson's telephone number if you have it,” I asked her again, loading my request with the weight of pseudo-authority My tone must have convinced her. She handed it over this time without question.

I smiled to myself. I'd counted on Rebecca Donovan not knowing squat about cops and private investigators, and the rules, hostilities, and occasional respect that mark our relationship. If she knew anything about law enforcement, she'd have known that most cops consider it beneath them to take a tip from a private investigator, and although Pis are law-abiding citizens, our first responsibility is
always
to our client. We work the same streets as the police, but from different directions. Most folks, though, would rather talk to a private investigator than a cop, particularly if the PI is a woman.

I wasn't so lucky with my next call.

“Who are you, how did you get my private number, and what do you want?” Drew Sampson had a squeak of a voice, the kind that might make a person laugh out loud if she didn't watch herself. I didn't remember him sounding like this in high school, but that had been a long time ago. He'd been such a handsome kid, nobody would have noticed it anyway.

“Good morning, Mr. Sampson. I'm a private investigator. Tamara Hayle of Hayle Investigative Services. I'd like to ask you a few questions, if I could.”

‘About what?”

“I'm looking into the death of a woman. If you have a moment, I think you may be able to clear things up for me.”

“Why the hell are you calling me? And I'm asking you again, how did you get this number?”

“I got your number from Mrs. Clayton Donovan,” I said, guessing correctly that the mention of Rebecca Donovan's name wrapped in her dead husband's mantle would win me a few minutes. He paused for a moment, which gave me time to throw in somebody else. “I also spoke recently with Larry Walton, and he said that it might be helpful for me to speak to you. Larry was extremely helpful, and he was certain that you'd be able to give me a bit of your time.”

I hoped the double whammy of Rebecca Donovan and Larry Walton would do the trick; it almost did.

“So this woman is Celia Jones, I assume?”

“Yes. Celia Jones and her son, Cecil.”

“I guess Larry told you about the grief that bitch and her little bastard caused me and my family, didn't he?”

‘Actually he just said I should talk to you,” I said, recalling the adage about never telling everything you know. “If possible, I'd like to make an appointment to—”

“To what?”

“Well, to talk about your relationship with Celia Jones.”

“That little whore got just what she deserved as far as I'm concerned and the same thing goes for her kid. I hope they both burn in hell.”

That took me back a beat, but I quickly recovered. ‘Are the police aware of your feelings?” I asked in what I hoped was an appropriately threatening voice.

“Look, lady, you can tell the police, the Devil, or God himself what I said about that woman. I don't give a damn. As a matter of fact, I talked to the cops about her because of my wife's involvement with her—and I'll tell you what I told them: I was with a friend the
day Celia Jones was murdered. It was New Year's Eve, and since we'd both had a lousy year, we thought we'd bring in the new year together. We got stinking drunk and both passed out on my couch. I didn't get up until three the next day. Now leave
me
the hell alone.” He slammed down the phone so hard I could almost feel it. I placed the receiver back into the cradle, wondering what his wife had to say. I wasn't disappointed.

Annette Sampson made no bones about her eagerness to talk about her husband, Celia Jones, and what had happened between the three of them. We agreed to meet the next day, which was a Tuesday, at “high noon,” as she said with a charming chuckle that indicated “high” was the operative word, which was fine with me.
In vino veri-tas
as they say. There is truth in wine. I was sure that Annette could give me the name of her husband's friend. He hadn't mentioned gender, and if he'd had something going on the side, I was sure she'd be more than willing to talk about it.

I was feeling pretty good
by the end of the day. I'd jotted down verbatim what Rebecca, Drew, and Annette had said in my “redlocket” file, placing a star next to Drew Sampson's name. I was sure the cops hadn't pressed him hard. Their questions had probably been routine, and I doubted if they'd even bothered to check out his alibi. Drew Sampson was a big man in Newark. They wouldn't touch him unless they had him dead to rights. If they'd grilled anybody about Celia's death, it had probably been dumb, no-pot-to-piss-in Brent Liston.

But if they
did
have a case against Sampson, they wouldn't hesitate to bring him down, and I might be able to help them with that.
My advantage over the police was that I knew Celia Jones. I had her journal and knew what had been written in it. I would also have conducted face-to-face interviews with two women who looked like me, and I knew from experience they'd be more honest with me than they'd be with cops.

I couldn't make an arrest if I found out something important, but I could make it damn easy for the police to make one. I had a good contact in Griffin, and if push came to shove, there was always De-Lorca, my old boss from Belvington Heights. With a bit more digging, I might find out some crucial tidbit about the murder of Celia or her boy that had been overlooked, and the police would take the next step. Maybe then I'd be able to get a good night's sleep.

I've never seen anything like it. To shoot a woman right through her privates.

When it came to Celia's murder, I was sure that Old Man Morgan had called it right. Those bullets, shot at close range, had made a definite statement.

Fucking her was a very small part of our relationship.

How many other men—and women—could say the same?

I pulled out Celia's journal and looked again for something I might have missed, even though I was sure that her little red book had told me all it was going to tell. I called Aaron Dawson's number again, but it was disconnected. That would be one question Annette Sampson might be able to answer for me: Who the hell was Aaron Daw-son?

I was convinced that whoever killed Celia killed her son, too, for something he knew about his mother's murder but didn't realize he knew. What scared me, though, was if the murderer knew that Cecil
had talked to me, then maybe our conversation had contributed to his death.

At the thought of that, my fears about the man in the black coat came back strong; they started in my belly and worked themselves clear up to my heart, and when the phone rang, I almost jumped out of my chair.

“Tamara, this is Larry Walton. I wanted to apologize to you about the way I left you yesterday. I asked you to brunch and I should at least have had the decency to walk you back to your car.” He ran his words together in one long sentence, which got my guard up.

“No harm done.”

“Listen, I, uh, wanted to clarify something. I mentioned that I was down south visiting my daughter, right? Well, uh, I may have made a mistake. I was out with a friend on New Year's Eve and into the next day, when Celia was killed.”

‘And that friend was Drew Sampson.” It hadn't taken Sampson long to call in his chips.

“Drew didn't do anything to Celia. You have to believe that.”

“Because he was with you, right?” I didn't hide my disbelief.

“Listen, I just wanted to let you know what the deal is, okay? I'm sorry, Tamara,” he said as if he meant it.

“Right, thanks for calling, Larry,” I said, trying hard to make my voice sound neutral.

An alibi was an alibi, and, for whatever reason, he was willing to give one to Sampson. Despite the tension between us, I liked Larry Walton, and it saddened me to see him compromise himself like this. If it was a compromise. I called the number he'd given me in North
Carolina to check his story, but got an answering machine. I hung up without leaving a message. Since I wasn't a cop, what was I going to say? His ex-wife would probably think I was some jealous hoochie trying to get the goods on her ex-husband's whereabouts on New Year's Eve. Drew Sampson and Larry Walton were each other's alibi, and that was that. But in my book that made them both look suspicious.

A B C D

I had to laugh at myself when I imagined the response any cop worth his badge would give me if I trotted out Celia's scribbles and tried to tie them to one of these men. They'd laugh me clear out of the squad room. I closed her book and put it back in my safe.

Larry aka Chessman, Drew, Clayton Donovan, Annette, they were all respectable, responsible members of this community. Celia and her son were the outsiders, the uninvited guests who had disrupted everyone's lives.

I typed a few more notes into “redlocket,” recording my impressions of the conversations I'd had with Donovan, the two Sampsons, and the alibi Larry Walton gave Drew Sampson. I turned off the computer, emptied my teacup, locked my office, and headed downstairs, glancing into the Beauty Biscuit, hoping Wyvetta was working late. I could do with some friendly talk and a shot of bourbon. But Wyvetta had gone, so I started toward the parking lot, my mind on what I was going to fix for dinner and whether or not Jamal had finished his homework.

I felt the bastard's hand on my shoulder even before he grabbed it
good. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted his woman, dressed all in black, watching us from that broken-down midnight blue car I'd seen so long ago.

Had it been a woman in that long black coat?

“You killed Celia, didn't you? I know you did it, and I'm going to prove it,” I shouted out because I couldn't think of another damn thing to say, and figured this would be as good as anything else. That was another thing I learned early on: All a woman has in a situation like this is her nerve, and all she can do is go for broke. Liston tightened his grip on my arm so hard I thought he would break it.

‘And you killed Cecil, too, didn't you? You stupid son of a bitch, you killed your own son!” I screamed, my voice shrill with outrage, like / was the one who had hold of his arm.

I figured the bastard would do one of two things: He'd either kill me on the spot or let me go. To my surprise, he didn't do either. He started to cry, which shocked the hell out of me.

“I didn't do nothing to hurt that boy,” he wailed. “I loved that boy. I didn't do nothing to hurt him!”

It could have been guilt or it could have been grief. Or it could have been fear because I'd figured it out. I stood there with my mouth hanging open, not sure what I was going to do next, but then realized I was free. As his woman climbed out of the car, I backed away, keeping my eyes on both of them, like you do on a junkyard dog whose sight is fixed on your leg. I was trembling hard when I got into my car, and I shook like a mold of my grandma's grape Jell-O all the way home.

CHAPTER NINE

M
y confrontation with Liston
had left me tense, and I was still uneasy the next morning, so I allowed myself some self-prescribed luxury. After I'd gotten Jamal off to school, I soaked for twenty minutes in a tub filled with bubbles, read a few chapters of a mystery, then made myself pancakes for breakfast. I took my good time getting to Annette Sampson's house. By the time I got there, it was “high noon,” and the midday sun was pouring through the diamond-paned windows of her living room.

Her house, which was located on a narrow street in Belving-ton Heights, was modest, to put it kindly. When I was a cop in the Heights, I'd been surprised to learn that the town had unfashionable areas. For a kid growing up in the Hayes Homes in Newark, Belving-ton Heights represented the “height” of good taste and high living, offering the best of everything—best schools, best people, best homes. It never occurred to me that these highly paid people had poorly paid servants to do their bidding, and that the “help” were usually black and lived in these small, cramped houses.