Stalker (9780307823557) (3 page)

“It’s okay,” Jennifer said. “Bobbie will know what you mean.”

Smoothly she pulled away from the curb, steering this high-seated monster through the busy lanes of the parking lot, back to the street. She cut over to Padre Island Drive, glad for the open freeway and the way Mark’s little car quickly picked up speed with just a slight touch to the accelerator. It was hard not to speed. Bobbie. She had to find Bobbie.

She crossed the Oso, that narrow tongue of water that licks inward from the bay. Across the flat, blue expanse, under the gray-tinged pile of clouds that were blowing in from the Gulf, she watched a needle-nosed silver plane glide to a landing at the Naval Air Station. The scene was
lazy and unreal, part of someone else’s world. She kept her eyes on the road. Careful now. Careful. Just a few blocks through the poky traffic in the town of Flour Bluff, then open road on the Kennedy Causeway, across the Laguna Madre—its peaceful waters dotted with fishermen—to North Padre Island … and Bobbie.

Weatherbeaten tourist stores—small wooden shelters still piled with shells and printed T-shirts—were clustered with late-night convenience markets and gas stations along the road. Jennifer slowed the car as she came to Whitecap and followed the curving street to the strip of condominiums that faced the open waters of the Gulf. In the spaces between them she could see the rolling green-gray surf and the empty stretch of white sand. Not many people would be here. It was too late for the summer crowds and too early for the winter Yankees.

It would have been easier to drive down on the sand, but she wanted to bring Mark’s car back to him without a spot on it. So she parked beside the last condominium and climbed the dunes to the empty stretch of beach that lay to the north.

The hard-packed sand at the water’s edge was easier to walk on, especially since she had to work against a steady wind that blew from the sea. Jennifer took off her shoes and ran, hair whipping across her face, ignoring the occasional foam that swept up the sand and over her feet, splattering and soaking the legs of her jeans.

There was a special place she and Bobbie had found last year, an old lean-to tucked back in the dunes and abandoned, too far from the condominiums to be discovered by the people who stayed there, and too far to be on the regular beach patrol. They had visited the spot often, carrying in bags of sandwiches, potato chips, and Cokes; snuggling inside the shelter, talking about guys and love,
letting the rhythm of the surf wipe out the problems they had brought in, too.

Sometimes they had hitchhiked to the island; sometimes one of them had been able to borrow the family car. But no one else knew about this place, not even Mark.

Jennifer kept a careful watch on the sand, jumping over an occasional purple blob. Even when dead, the Portuguese man-of-war had a poisonous sting. She was winded, gulping in great breaths of the damp, salt-packed air; more eager than ever to reach Bobbie.

And there it was ahead: the lean-to, its roof partially covered with a drift of sand.

Jennifer moved slowly now, fighting off the sudden thought that maybe she was wrong, that maybe Bobbie was far from here.

She stopped. “Bobbie?” The wind snatched her words, and she shouted again, pulling away a strand of hair that plastered itself against her lips, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Bobbie!”

There was a movement at the open side of the lean-to, and Bobbie crawled out, straw-yellow hair whipping around her head. She scrambled to her feet. “Hey! Jen!” she called. “What are you doing here?”

Jennifer stopped, taking long, deep breaths to steady herself, waiting for Bobbie to come to her. She knew it! Bobbie hadn’t killed her mother. She didn’t even know what had happened!

Bobbie stumbled through the loose sand and stood in front of Jennifer. “Hey,” she said again, and smiled. “Don’t look so miserable. Stella and I just had another shouting match, and I thought I’d stay away a couple of days.” Her smile tightened as she added, “She won’t miss me.

Jennifer reached out and grabbed Bobbie’s arms. “Listen
to me,” she said. “Something terrible happened. I suppose there’s a right way to tell you about it, but I don’t know how.”

Bobbie’s eyes widened, fixed on Jennifer’s, as she waited.

Jennifer pulled a strand of hair from her mouth, tossing her head against the wind. “It’s about your mother.”

She couldn’t continue, and Bobbie said, “What about Stella? Did she get arrested? Is she sick? What?”

The words came out in a cry. “Somebody murdered her!”

“No.” Bobbie shook her head, saying it over and over. “No, no.”

Jennifer stepped forward, trying to hug her friend, but Bobbie moved backward, still staring at Jennifer. “How? Who killed her?” Bobbie asked.

“I don’t know,” Jennifer said. “And there’s more.”

“Do the police know who killed her?”

“Listen, Bobbie, I said there’s more. Right now the police think
you
did it!”

She wished Bobbie would cry, would get angry, would feel something. But Bobbie was like one of the wood carvings in the museum. And her voice was flat. “Why?”

“Because it must have happened after you left your house. The police think you killed your mother and ran away.”

Bobbie closed her eyes, and when she opened them something inside her had wilted. “I didn’t. You know that. I didn’t.”

“Of course I know that.” Jennifer wrapped her arms around Bobbie’s shoulders. “That’s why I’m here.”

“What will I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe I should go to the police and tell them I didn’t do it.”

“I guess. As long as you hide out they’ll think you’re guilty.”

“Yeah. Okay.” But Bobbie began to shake. “What if they don’t believe me? I’d like to get away from here. Maybe Mexico. I could hitchhike.”

“That’s no good,” Jennifer said. “Don’t worry. We’ll find out who did this thing. I promise.” She held Bobbie tightly until the shaking stopped. “Are you going to be all right?”

Bobbie nodded against Jennifer’s shoulder. “Sure.”

Jennifer was suddenly aware of the sand stinging her face. The wind had become stronger, and the water and sky were darkening, with tag ends of clouds out over the sea reflecting the pinks and golds of a hidden sunset.

“I’ve got Mark’s car,” she told Bobbie. “Let’s go.”

She felt Bobbie stiffen only an instant before she heard the shout from above the dunes.

“Don’t move!”

Instinctively she released Bobbie and stepped backward, twisting to stare upward.

“Hold it! I said, don’t move!”

Against the twilight sky stood four uniformed policemen, their pistols aimed at Jennifer and Bobbie.

Newseye Tonight. Good evening. Just a short time ago police apprehended, as an alleged suspect, the daughter of a local hairdresser who died last night after being brutally strangled. Police, who have booked the suspect, Bobbie Trax, an eighteen-year-old student at Corpus Christi High School, for the murder of her mother, Estelle Trax, refuse to release any further information at this time. We’ll go to Margie White on film shot this afternoon in front of Estelle Trax’s home in northeast Corpus Christi.

“Margie White here, and I’m outside the modest home where Estelle Trax’s body was found today by her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Lila Aciddo.

“Mrs. Aciddo, how did you happen to find the body?”

“I—uh—don’t know if I should—uh—”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Aciddo. Just tell me what you told the police.”

“Well, it was Stella’s day off from the beauty parlor,
and she was supposed to—uh—come over so we could—uh—you know, go shopping.”

“And—”

“She—uh—didn’t show up and, well after the fight yesterday—”

“What kind of a fight?”

“I told the police about it. That girl and her mother were shouting at each other so loud I could hear it, even with my window on that side of the house closed tight, because it got painted stuck. And then it was quiet, so I looked out the window, and I seen Bobbie—that’s the girl—go out the front door and run down the block. I didn’t think nothing about it then, because that wasn’t the first time they had it out with each other. So this afternoon I guess I kinda thought I ought to make sure everything was all right and find out from Stella what happened, you know, and that’s when I went over there, and looked in the back window, because the doors were locked, and it was awful.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Aciddo. Today police are searching for Bobbie Trax who—”

I don’t believe it. Crazy. It’s darned crazy how things work out. Yeah, I heard them arguing, and I even saw that nosy old biddy come to the window and pull the drapes aside to get an eyeful. She didn’t see me. None of them saw me. It was dark in those bushes back there by the garage. But all I had to do was wait, and then it was easy to get in.

Now the cops have their suspect.

I wouldn’t have planned it like this. Couldn’t have.

Maybe they’ll stick the kid with it. Maybe not. Depends
on what evidence they’ve got. Depends on what kind of an alibi she can come up with.

Gotta think. Gotta get some aspirin to take care of this headache. Stupid kid. Who’s it gonna be—you or me?

Let’s see what I can do to make sure it’s
you.

“You through crying?”

Jennifer wadded the soggy tissue between her hands and glared at the detective who faced her across the narrow desk. The interrogation room was a small cubicle with tile walls that reminded her of the bathrooms at school. At her left was a glass partition open to a large room that held desks and rows of files and was decorated by two walls filled with bulletin boards. Now and then someone passing through the homicide department glanced in at her without curiosity.

“I cry when I get angry,” she muttered.

“No point in getting angry,” he said. “We just follow the book. That’s the way things get done.”

“It isn’t fair!” she said. “Bobbie didn’t even know what had happened! We were coming back to the city. We were going right to the police station to tell them she didn’t do it.” He didn’t answer, and she added, “That was sneaky of y’all to follow me.”

“We’re not holding you,” he said. He tilted back his
chrome and red-plastic chair and stretched, hands clasped behind his head. “Why don’t you just go home and cool off?”

“I want to see Bobbie.”

“Can’t do that. She’ll be arraigned—”

“What does that mean?”

“It means after she’s interrogated here she’ll be taken before the municipal court judge, charged with the crime, and then she’ll be taken over to the county jail where she’ll get charged, booked, fingerprinted all over again.”

Jennifer shuddered. “You can’t do that! Someone else killed Stella, not Bobbie!”

“Who?”

“I—I don’t know.” She leaned toward him. “You’re the police. That’s what you’re supposed to find out!”

“We go by the book,” he said. “We get evidence. We collect facts. They add up. They give us the answer.”

“What facts? Just because Bobbie and her mother had an argument?”

“There’s something called—well, I’ll put it so you can understand it. When it’s obvious that only one person has been with the murder victim, and there is nothing to suggest that anyone else has entered the scene through force or consent, then it’s a pretty sure thing that the person who was on hand is the one who committed the murder.”

“How do you know no one else was there?”

“Calm down,” he said. “If you were a policeman you’d know that most murders happen between family members or friends. This was one of the easy ones.”

“Bobbie isn’t the kind of person who kills someone.”

“You’d be surprised at some of the so-called nice people who suddenly lose control. Anyone can kill.”

“I don’t believe that.”

He shrugged. “She’ll be assigned a public defender,
and within a hundred and twenty days she’ll get a fair trial. The jury will decide if she’s guilty or not. Does that satisfy you?”

“But there has to be something else you could do to find out the truth!”

“There’s no point in wasting man-hours on a case that’s as obvious as this one. We’ve got other evidence.”

“That stupid scarf. It’s the only so-called evidence you’ve got, isn’t it?”

He ignored her question, hefting himself from the chair. “Come on. I’ll check you out of here.”

He walked out of the interrogation room into the central room of the homicide department, Jennifer edging around the table to follow him.

“If you won’t do anything to find who the real murderer is, then I will!” She spoke so loudly that a few people turned to stare at her. Her face tingled, and she repeated quietly, “I will.”

One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “I don’t think you’d get very far. Unless you’ve got a license as a private investigator and just haven’t mentioned it.”

“What would a private investigator do?”

He stopped abruptly, joining a cluster of men at one of the desks. He clapped a tall, gray-haired man on the shoulder. “Lucas! How’re things going?”

The man was sitting-leaning against the edge of the desk as straight and thin as a hoe handle. He smiled easily. “Got to keep in touch,” he said. “Someone’s got to see if you boys are doing what you’re supposed to do. Right?”

“Right! Good to see you around.” The detective headed toward the hallway with long strides, and Jennifer hurried to catch up. “Lucas Maldonaldo,” he said. “Retired a few months ago, and can’t stay away. One of
the best investigative officers ever. We all learned a lot from Lucas.”

“Please—I asked you a question,” Jennifer said. “I asked you what a private investigator would do to help Bobbie.”

“Well,” he said, “a P.I. would check into the scene, talk to your friend, to witnesses, and so on. He’d do about what we’ve already done.”

“But he might learn something else.”

“It’s happened. That’s one way they earn their keep.” They reached a desk. He retrieved a manila envelope and handed it to her. “Here’s your stuff. You’ll find your boyfriend’s car parked in the lot across the street.”