Out Of Time (11 page)

One look around told me that my sanctuary was safe. The place looked like hell, but the usual hell. Either the burglar had found what he was looking for in my office or he didn’t know where I lived—yet.

My phone machine was blinking and I thought guiltily of Bobby D. I really needed to drop by and see how he was doing. I called for an update and found he was recovering well. Then I played the phone messages and waited for a tongue-lashing from Bill Butler. It never came. Silence may be golden, but it’s not when you really care about someone, act like an ass in front of him, can’t seem to be able to get beyond it and wish that he would realize it and let it slide. No such luck with Mr. Butler. But at least some of the waiting messages were encouraging. Nanny Honeycutt had called to ask if Peyton Tillman’s death had anything to do with the investigation—which meant that the news had made it into the morning papers—and added that she’d arranged for a set of the court transcripts of Gail’s trial to be delivered to my office. An efficient woman. The last message was from a voice I didn’t recognize. It was a woman with a reedy hillbilly accent that turned “can’t” into “cain’t.” She had to have been from the North Carolina mountains, probably near the Tennessee border.

“I don’t know if you remember me,” she said, stretching every word into two syllables or more. “But I got your number off the card you gave me down here at WCC last Sunday. You can’t call me back on account of I’m in prison, but I guess you know that.” She gave an embarrassed wheeze that I took for a laugh. “I don’t know if I can help you, but if you come see me, I can try. I do know something peculiar that went on but I can’t say no more about it right now on account of people are listening. I’m gonna put you on my visitor’s list. Gail’s my friend and I guess I ought to help her since she’s being so stubborn she won’t help herself. My name is Susan Porter, but my friends call me Dolly. But tell the guard you want to see Susan or they mightn’t not let you in. And don’t worry, I’m not in for anything bad. You didn’t look like the type who gets scared, but I just thought I’d throw that part in just in case it gets you here quicker.” With that, she hung up.

The woman had rattled off her speech as if afraid she might be discounted by the listener before she’d had her say.

I certainly wasn’t going to discount her. I couldn’t afford to. I had nothing else to go on. No way they’d let me near the Tillman investigation. If there was a connection to Roy Taylor’s death, I’d have to establish any link through Gail.

With that in mind, I headed for Raleigh. There was one task I could not put off any longer. It would be hard, but I had to do it.

I inched along East Park Drive, looking for the right house number. It turned out to be a small house behind a larger one, so I missed it initially and had to double back. Old Mrs. Rollins didn’t answer the bell at first; I knew someone had to be home, so I persisted. When she finally came to the door, she was still in her bathrobe ath r bathrnd her face was puffy from crying. She looked even older than she was, and frail enough to blow away in a stiff wind. Gone was the dignified guardian of the day before. A grieving old lady had taken her place.

“It’s you,” she said, her fist clutching a crumpled ball of wet tissues.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Rollins. Really I am.” There was little else I could say.

“It wasn’t you that killed him,” she answered, making it clear that she didn’t think Tillman had committed suicide any more than I did. “But I want to know who did kill my Peyton. I’ll give you all the money I have to find his killer. My husband and I, we don’t have much, but it’s yours if you can do that for me.”

“No need for that,” I assured her. “I promise you, I’ll find out who did it.”

“See that you do, young lady.” Her face grew older as her anger dissipated. I was afraid of what might take its place.

“Is there anything that you could tell me that might help?” I asked.

She thought about it, the tissue dangling from her bony fingers. An antiseptic smell wafted out the front door; something sickly and sweet lived in their dark little house. I heard someone coughing several rooms away and the blare of a television set turned up loud.

“No,” she finally said. “But I’m too upset to think clearly. In a few hours, I am going to sit down and think of everything he did and everything he said in these past few months.” The grim line of her mouth told me that she meant every word. “I am going to call everyone he knew and ask them the same thing. If I find out anything, I’ll let you know.” She paused and looked me up and down. “I hope I am not misjudging your character, Miss Jones.”

I straightened involuntarily. “I’ll try my best.”

“Do that.” The coughing sounds grew more alarming, and she shut the door softly in my face, with only a nod for goodbye. The hunch of her shoulders as she turned away told me that the murder last night had taken the life out of more people than just Peyton Tillman.

It was close to one o’clock and time to face the mess in the office. I hoped that none of Bobby’s slimy clients would be waiting outside the door, wondering what had happened to him. But the only person even remotely nearby was Ruby, the meter maid. We waved at each other from opposite ends of the sidewalk, and then I took a deep breath, unlocked the door and went in. It was still a mess—and weirdly empty without Bobby D.‘s bulk.

My first instinct was to simply throw everI ay throwything into a box and heave it into the large Dumpster out back. But Bobby was a purveyor of information extraordinaire and I couldn’t just chuck his files. They were his pension fund, so to speak. On the other hand, I wasn’t about to put them back in order. I compromised by jamming them back into the file cabinets. Needless to say, I kept the blinds closed while I performed even these minor housekeeping chores. I had a reputation to protect, after all. The office still looked as if it qualified for federal disaster aid when I was done, but it would have to do for now.

I put my own office back in passable order quickly, shoving the outdated files into stacks and leaving them for a rainy day’s worth of organizing. I reassembled my desk and carefully returned the contents to the proper drawers. The thief had left behind a box of bullets. Fat lot of good they did me now. Maybe I could lob them at the next creep who attacked me. If I got lucky, I’d nick his eye.

When I was done, I faced the fact that I was putting off going to the hospital to see Bobby. I hate hospitals almost as much as I hate prisons—and for the exact same reasons. You can’t walk in and out of your own free will, and there’s always someone in a uniform telling you what to do. But Bobby was Bobby, and I loved the fat turd. I steeled myself, collected his messages off his machine and dawdled during the short drive down New Bern Avenue to Wake Med.

I should have known better. A mere massive heart attack had not put a dent in Bobby’s ego. He was lying in bed like a South Seas island king, lolling among a cluster of nurse’s aids, ogling the female flesh around him and cheerfully enduring the maze of tubes that led to his arms and chest. His stomach was barely concealed by the hospital gown, and the sheets were fetchingly arranged around his knees.

“Please, Bobby,” I said, pulling the covers up to his midriff. “Enough people are sick around here as it is.”

“Har, har,” he laughed—a sound that most closely resembled the fighting call of the bull seal. “You’re so funny, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“Don’t joke about that,” a small Filipina aid warned him, a frown crossing her pretty face. She finished sponging his arm with an antiseptic pad while simultaneously sidestepping his groping hand. Getting near Bobby was like dancing with an octopus. One misstep and you’d never get untangled. Expertly, she reattached an IV drip then checked the dials on a nearby monitoring machine. Two other aids were fussing around a cart filled with cups of medication.

“Just give me all the morphine you can find,” Bobby instructed them. They tittered nervously—and moved the cart farther away from his bed. I knew the conventional hospital reasoning well: if you’re well enough to joke about narcotics, you’re well enough to go without them.

“Who sent the flowers?” I asked, eyeing an arrangement of carnations on the windowsill. “It looks like you just won the Kentucky Derby.”

“The babe I had the date with last night,” Bobby confided. “I guess she forgives me.”

Or was grateful he didn’t have his heart attack later on in the evening while she was on the bottom, I thought to myself.

“A nurse called her for me,” Bobby said. “Must have laid it on thick. She just can’t live without Big Daddy. None of them can.” He har-harred again and the aids hurried their chores, anxious to be done with their honor intact. I can’t say that I blamed them.

“This was some bad shit going down,” I said, sitting on one edge of the bed. I wasn’t worried about him groping me. He knew he’d get a belt across the kisser if he tried.

“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to ask you what the hell it was all about anyway.” He coughed and the Filipina aid looked momentarily alarmed, but when we both saw that the cardiac monitoring beat remained steady, she relaxed.

“You’re going to be fine,” she told Bobby, patting his tummy as if rubbing a Buddha for good luck. “You’ve made an amazing recovery. I think you’re going to be good as new.”

“Thanks, babe. But if I need a little mouth-to-mouth?”

“She can give it to you,” the woman replied quickly, nodding at me as she fled from the room.

“I already did,” I announced to Bobby as the remaining aids left us to our privacy.

“Yeah? My one chance, and I missed it.” He was quiet for a minute. “Guess you saved my life.”

“Guess I did.”

“Course, you put it in danger in the first place.” He looked smug.

“I beg your pardon?” I was incredulous.

“I don’t think it was any of my clients breaking in,” he said. “The worst cases I get are nasty divorces, and I’m not even working on one of those right now.”

“Yeah, I know,” I conceded. “I think it’s connected to Gail Honeycutt somehow.”

“What are we going to do?” Bobby asked. For someone who is supposed to be my boss, he asks me that question a lot.

“Get to the bottom of it quick?” I suggested. “At least I’m going to try. You’re going to stay here and get well.”

He looked disappointed. “The food here sucks. No flavor. No salt. No seasonings. No butter. No hot sauce. No fun.”

“God,” I sympathized. “That’s terrible. It’s probably nothing but a bunch of vitamins and minerals and proteins and other icky stuff that’s good for you.”

“They won’t even let me have a phone,” he complained. “They want me to rest.” He thumped his chest. “I’m fine. It was just a small lapse, is all.”

“Small?” I patted his hand. “I was doing back flips on your stomach for five minutes until the paramedics arrived.”

“I know, I know. I owe you one. Just don’t go getting sentimental on me.”

“No chance of that,” I assured him. “But what can I do to help?”

“There’s a little black book in my top desk drawer. Or it was there.”

“I know,” I said. “I put it back there this morning.”

“Can you go through it and call up anyone of the female persuasion and let them know where I am? Only don’t call if there’s a cross by her name, that means she’s history. And if there’s a star by her name, don’t leave a message on her answering machine because that means she’s married. I want to know who my true friends are.”

“Done,” I assured him. “What else?”

“Get this thing solved quickly, would you? I want to get back to work soon, and I’m not in the mood to wrestle with another maniac.”

His comment reminded me that I needed to question him again about the previous night. I brought him through the events of the night before one more time, just to make sure he’d told me all he could. This time the assailant was nearly seven feet tall with massive hands that threatened to squeeze the life out of him. Plus, he’d had incredible biceps, hairy forearms and a menacing growl for a voice.

“I’ve got it,” I said. “You were attacked by Bigfoot.”

“Wait till he comes after you,” Bobby said. “See how much you like it.”

“Look,” I said. “I need a favor. Do you know anyone in the>

Bobby thought for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s been a while since I dipped my toe over there in Durham. I don’t think I’ll be able to help. Better go ask that Butler guy if he can help. You know who I mean, the one who gives you such a hard time. The one you like so much.”

“Bill Butler,” I said glumly. “Is that how you view our relationship?”

“Hell, no,” he declared. “But I’m not about to give you my opinion on that one. I want to die a natural death. But not for a couple years yet.”

“At last we can agree on something,” I said, rising to go.

“Did I tell you the food here was terrible?” he asked as I was halfway out the door.

“Forget it, Bobby,” I warned him. “I’m not bringing you any junk food.” I blew him a kiss and fled before he asked for a real one.

Bobby’d had the heart attack, not me. Which meant I could stuff my face with impunity. I got a couple of chicken biscuits and a quart of iced tea from Hardee’s. The tea was so sweet it made my teeth ache. Two cups of that stuff and not even Claus von Bulow could pull you out of the diabetic shock.

I parked outside the Raleigh Police Department and munched on my lunch, debating the pros and cons of going inside.