Pernicious (6 page)

         
He smiled at her, a patronizing smile. “You’ve seen her driver’s photo, haven’t you?”

         
“Yes, I’ve seen it.”

         
“Her head is down. You can’t distinguish her face.”

         
“That’s a mistake. The DMV’s mistake.”

         
“I don’t think so. This woman doesn’t make mistakes.

Two years ago I started this case thinking Mrs. Perkins had made a mistake somewhere in her schemes. I was wrong, dead wrong. At a distance it looks an easy, open-and-shut case--woman kills for insurance proceeds.

         
“Up close it’s a nightmare. Tons of circumstantial evidence, not a shred of physical proof. This woman makes me look bad, incompetent. Five months into my investigation my superiors shut it down. If you can add something solid, I can reopen the case.”

         
Tasha lighted a Newport. “Mind if I smoke?”

         
“Yes, I do.”

         
She stubbed the cigarette in a homemade aluminum foil ashtray. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hollis, I have no evidence whatsoever concerning Willie Davis’ death. In fact, we were convinced his death was an accident.”

         
“Who?”

         
“Willie Davis.”

         
“Who the hell is he?”

         
“The victim. Her husband. The guy she allegedly murdered.”

         
“Never heard of him. The claims I worked involved a Tyrone Banks and a Lester Perkins. Willie Davis,” shaking his head, “is a new one on me. Did she file a claim on him?”

         
“I don’t know. That’s why I called you.”

         
Richard Hollis scratched his chin. “She’s listed on the bureau’s hot list…any claim she files should red-flag. With a million and one insurance agencies out there, there’s no guarantee…Wait a minute! May I use your phone?”

         
Tasha nodded and Richard Hollis snatched up the phone.

         
“You got a social on Willie Davis?” Tasha shook her head. “No problem, if a claim has been paid we got him.”
After a brief phone conversation he hung up. “No connection insurance-wise. Willie Davis drowned in a boating accident, didn’t he?”

         
“Yes, he did.”

         
“Damn! This is very interesting. Somehow she has managed to marry and become a widow again without our knowledge. Do you have a marriage certificate?”

         
“No. I’m sure there’s one on file. Why?”

         
Scratching his chin with both hands: “That makes three suspicious deaths. This recent one, though, Willie Davis listed a Keshana Green as his sole beneficiary.”

         
“Who is she?”

         
“You tell me?”

         
Tasha glanced at her watch. “Why don’t you tell me all you know about Perry Davis or Perry Perkins.”

         
“She’s originally from Dawson, Arkansas, near the

Louisiana line. Her maiden name is Perry Robinson. She came to Little Rock about ten years ago and married Tyrone Banks, a fifty-three-year-old truck driver. She must have given him the deluxe package because he divorced his wife of twenty-nine years and left his five children.

         
“The lovebirds interrupted their honeymoon to purchase two life insurance policies, one totaling four hundred thousand and the other fifty thousand. Three weeks later, lo and behold, Tyrone’s ticker stopped. The paramedics reported that Tyrone was stretched out nude on the couple’s living room floor, clutching his chest and his piccolo.”

         
Tasha raised an eyebrow.

         
“Pardon me. Perry collected a grand total of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars on two policies, both of which not a month old. A short time later she met and married a thirty-six-year-old Lester Perkins. Lester was definitely a work in dysfunctional psychology.

         
“He once staged a slip-and-fall at Wal-Mart and fell outside of the wet spot. Before hooking up with Perry he was living at the Rescue Mission. Perry rocked his world by putting his name on all her bank accounts.

         
“A few weeks after their marriage, Lester, now worth almost a half million on paper, draws out two insurance policies, one for one hundred thousand and one for three hundred and fifty thousand, with you-know-who as beneficiary.

         
“His body was found two weeks later at the bottom of a sixty-foot cliff in Petit Jean State Park in Morrilton. The Crystal Hill Insurance Agency paid Perry off, but they were highly suspicious. After a futile investigation, they called us at NICB. This is where I come in.

         
“The first thing I tried to do was to get the Morrilton police to look at Lester Perkins’ death as a possible homicide. They wouldn’t budge. Next I tried to get the assistance of the Arkansas State Parks and Recreation Administration. They wouldn’t budge, either.

         
“With no outside interest, the Lester Perkins’ investigation was a no-win proposition. The man had no friends, no relatives, nothing. A hobo with no connections. So I turned the focus on Tyrone Banks, which at first glance was weaker than the Lester Perkins investigation. I went and talked to Shirley Banks, Tyrone’s ex-wife.

         
“Mrs. Banks swore on her dead mama’s grave she knew for a fact Perry killed Tyrone for insurance money. The ME’s report said Tyrone had a weak ticker and it was due to play out sooner rather than later. The mystery was why Tyrone ingested four hundred milligrams of Sildenafil, an impotency drug seldom prescribed to weak-hearted men.

         
“I figured all I had to do was find the prescription and connect it to Perry, because I was sure she’s the one who bought the drug and somehow slipped it to Tyrone. Couldn’t find it, and I checked every pharmacy in the city, the surrounding counties, almost half the state. Maybe she got it off the Internet, I don’t know. My last card to play was to go talk to Perry. You haven’t met her, have you?”

         
“No, I haven’t.”

         
“She’s a knockout, a TKO in the first round. She has this…I don’t know…It’s more than sex appeal. She’s sexually hypnotic, the best way I can describe it. When I first met her she was very friendly, overly polite. When I requested she submit a polygraph, her attitude changed. She called me a Crayola Cracker. I’ve no idea what it means.

         
“My superiors told me to produce or move on to another case. I submitted an Injunction File on her. It was sent back with the word Hold stamped on it in big, bold letters. I’ve been an NICB investigator going on thirteen years and never had a case come back with Hold stamped on it. Never.”

         
“Now,” Tasha said, “I’ve brought it up again.”

         
“It’s like an old scab that will not heal, and the more you pick at it, the more it bleeds.”

         
“We’ll get her. Might take a little legwork, but we’ll get her. First we need to find out who this Keshana Green is.”

         
“Yes. She might be the missing link.”

         
Tasha wrote the name down. “K-E-S-H-A-N-A, right?”

         
“Correct. I’ve worked this case for months and not once has that name come up.”

         
Tasha stood and crossed to the exit, hoping the insurance investigator would follow. “Thanks for coming down, Mr. Hollis. I’ll keep you informed.”

         
“Maybe we could scratch on it together. Two heads better than one.”

         
Tasha shook her head.

         
Richard Hollis walked out with a sullen look on his freckled face.

                          
Chapter 3

         
Tasha called Neal and told him she would arrive home late, then she and Bob drove to the Pleasant Grove Retirement Community. Bob had balked initially, until Tasha promised him a steak dinner.

         
East of downtown Little Rock, Pleasant Grove, formerly projects built in the fifties, was bracketed by a steel mill and a lumber company. The dank odor of wet pulp slightly dominated the stench of molten steel.

         
“You really think Willie was murdered?” Bob asked when they arrived at apartment number forty-two.

         
“I sure do,” Tasha said. “Richard Hollis thinks his widow is a southern-fried femme fatale. I’m telling you, Bob, this might be the case that takes us over the top. We pop this one and we might get a spot on
truTV
.”

         
Bob laughed. “Hell, I’ll need a new suit.”

         
Tasha stared at his expanding paunch. “Now that may be a problem.”

         
Bob knocked on the door. “Yes,” said a voice from inside.

         
“Little Rock Police,” Tasha said.

         
The curtain moved and a woman peeked out at them.

         
Tasha held her badge to the window.

         
“What do you want?” the woman said.

         
“Ma’am, I’m Detective Tasha Montgomery. We talked on the phone.”

         
Immediately the locks popped and the door swung open.

         
“Thank you, Jesus! Thank you!” the woman exclaimed, a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with excitement. “Do come in…please!”

         
Though the woman’s hair was bone gray, she appeared younger than she sounded over the phone. Smooth chocolate-colored skin; the complexion of a woman in her early forties.

         
“Mrs. Davis,” Tasha said, “this is my partner, Detective Bob Kelvis.”