Steeled for Murder (13 page)

He thought if he kept at it, he would find the cracks in my alibi.

Belkins would not give up until he saw me off the street. In his mind, I was a danger to the public. Especially if he believed that garbage about me being some kind of sex pervert. Why didn’t he check the sex offender’s registry? I wasn’t on it.

Was there anything I could do to convince him I wasn’t the one he was looking for? At this point, he probably wasn’t even listening to any alternative ideas, much less following up on them.

But Montgomery might listen.

Belkins was probably just hanging on until he could retire. Montgomery had Seeking Promotion written all over him.

So Montgomery was concerned about his career. Solving a difficult murder case would be a feather in his cap. And he wouldn’t sacrifice his credibility in the courtroom; he wanted a case that would result in a conviction that would stand up if it was appealed.

Like any cop, he would shield a fellow officer from misconduct charges. Had to be frustrating, though, for him to watch Belkins push boundaries that might get them both in trouble.

I had one major advantage over Belkins and Montgomery in the investigation. I knew I wasn’t involved in either Mitch’s death or his drug dealings. Nobody else could be sure of that.

If anybody gave Montgomery some real lead, I couldn’t see him ignoring it. He’d follow up on it, even if just so it couldn’t be raised in court.

Maybe I was the one who had to give the lead to him. Maybe nobody else would.

Of course, first I’d have to find a lead.

Up until now, all the important decisions in my life had been completely out of my control. Only thing I could ever do was to live with the results as best I could. Thinking about things just made it worse.

The time had come to change that. If Belkins wasn’t going to find out who killed Mitch, and if I didn’t want to go down for the charge, I’d have to get to work.

Chapter 8

As I walked back toward the plant, I tried to think this out. Made sense that Mitch’s murder had something to do with his drug trade. Crystal meth didn’t have to be imported and processed through major pipelines like heroin or cocaine, or even grown in basements with grow lights. It could be manufactured in small batches by anyone who figured out how to get ahold of the ingredients and had someplace secluded to cook it. Some people did it in mobile labs in vans, or even the trunks of cars.

Kelly said Mitch lived in an isolated house about four miles up the dirt road that ran behind the plant. Aaron had asked whether Mitch had his own lab. Maybe he was on to something.

Four miles wasn’t that far to walk. Not when I had all day. All week, in fact. The wind was cold when it gusted occasionally, but the sun was peeking through the clouds. I pulled my jacket sleeves down a little to cover my hands. The sweater added a welcome layer of warmth.

Belkins wouldn’t be happy if he discovered I was trying to find out what had happened. He’d call Mr. Ramirez and ask to have me locked up for interfering with his investigation. I really didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison.

But that’s what Belkins wanted to happen anyhow. Was he even looking into any other possibilities? I felt a flash of anger when I thought about his assumption that I must have killed Mitch. Even if he thought I’d killed that drug dealer years ago—which I was sure he did—couldn’t people change?

If I got locked up again, I’d never forgive myself for not taking this chance to see if I could find out what had really happened.

I circled the chain link fence surrounding Quality Steel’s shipping yard, waited for two semis to pull through the open gate, and then headed up the muddy road into the hills.

For the first hour and a half or so, I enjoyed the walk. As I climbed higher, the scent of pine trees filled the air. Patches of slushy snow dropped from branches. Small animals scurried in the underbrush. Except for the road and the overhead utility lines, I saw no evidence of human existence. Felt good to be alive and free. Maybe this was why some folks raved about hiking. Maybe I’d have to look into it. After I was off home detention, of course.

Then the sky began to grow darker. The wind picked up, and I noticed that the mud in the road was beginning to freeze. A few sharp needles of frozen rain slashed against my face. More followed.

I ducked my head, but the cold wind hit my face. This wasn’t as much fun as when I’d started out. What had I expected in December, though? A spring thaw? The freezing rain got heavier. I kept going, assuring myself that the return trip would be easier, since it would be downhill and I’d have the wind at my back.

I had to be pretty close to Mitch’s house. Unless I had already passed it. I didn’t remember any driveways or roads branching off for the last few miles. Wouldn’t I have noticed? And wouldn’t there be a mailbox on the road? I decided to keep going a little longer and see if I couldn’t locate the house. I had to be getting close.

What would I do when I got there? I had some vague notion of poking around, looking for a meth lab in a shed or something. Even if I found one, then what? Trudge back to town and call Montgomery?

If Mitch’s wife and kids were there, trespassing would not be a good idea. Any sensible woman seeing someone she didn’t know on her property would call 9-1-1. I was sure those weren’t circumstances under which I wanted to encounter the police.

Should have thought this through better. I could have just gone to the library and stayed there for a few hours to see if Belkins got tired of waiting.

Maybe Mitch’s wife and the kids would be somewhere else, staying with relatives. Mitch had only been dead three days. The coroner probably hadn’t released the body yet, so there may not have been a funeral. And it was just before the holidays. Terrible time for a family to lose a husband and father. For sure, her family wouldn’t leave her and her kids in an isolated house at a time like this, would they?

I could at least find the house. If anyone was home, I would leave immediately. If it appeared to be unoccupied, I would have a look around outside. Active meth labs had a distinctive ammonia smell. That would be hard to get rid of. It might linger for a while even after production was stopped.

A mailbox came into sight as I rounded a curve. The name and number were too worn to read. A feeder line left the utility pole and snaked back along a narrow dirt track scarred with tire ruts. I followed it.

The track rose. As I climbed along it, another unhappy thought entered my head. Certainly the police had been here, at least to tell the widow of Mitch’s death and ask her some questions. I hoped it had been someone more sensitive than Belkins who carried the news. They’d almost surely searched for evidence that might shed any light on his murder. If there had been a meth lab, they would have discovered it and dismantled it. Those things could be dangerous; they’d been known to explode.

I rounded a final turn in the rutted track and came upon the single-story house. Its dull yellow paint was dirty and worn. I could see a battered van parked under a lean-to attached to the small barn on the side of the clearing. The intensifying sleet and wind drove forlorn leaves and debris across the crooked front porch. The windows were small and heavily curtained. A brave Christmas wreath with a tattered red bow hung on the front door.

Dim light showed at two of the windows. The place looked occupied. I shivered in my jacket. The clearing was small. I stood uncomfortably close to the house. I should go.

The front door swung open. I backed up a step.

A boy of about seven stepped out. He was dressed in an oversized flannel shirt that nearly reached the ground.

The boy stared at me. “Uncle Carl?”

I shook my head. “Not me. I think I’m at the wrong house.” I backed up faster.

“Please, mister,” the kid said. “We need some help.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I gotta go.” I couldn’t imagine what kind of help I could give him.

The boy ran down from the porch and grabbed my sleeve. He was barefoot.

“Please, mister,” he said again. “We been waiting all yesterday and today for Uncle Carl to come. Mom said he’d be here soon.”

“Where’s your mother?” I asked, trying to gently disengage my sleeve.

A tear rolled down his cheek. “She’s on the sofa,” he said. “She’s awful sick. She don’t talk to us no more.”

A chill that had nothing to do with the winter weather touched my neck. “You should call 9-1-1,” I said. “They’ll send somebody out to check on your mother.”

“Mitch got mad and pulled out the wires,” the child said. “The phone don’t work no more.”

I glanced longingly over my shoulder at the driveway. I never should have come.

“Anybody else home but you and your mother?” I asked.

“Just the twins and Beth,” he said.

“Did you ask them what to do?”

The child looked at me like I was demented. “The twins are three. And Beth’s a baby.”

“Oh.” They wouldn’t be much help.

The child stood expectantly. Somebody had to do something. Looked like I was that somebody.

“What’s your name?” I asked him as I let him pull me toward the porch.

“Sam,” he said. “Sam Miller. Not Robinson. Mitch ain’t my real Dad.” He seemed anxious to get that straight.

I let him pull me inside the front door. I was met by an odor of dirty diapers and old food. A single room opened before me. A cluttered counter separated the kitchen area from the rest of it. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw that several doors opened off the room—three against the back wall and two off the kitchen area. The house felt chilly.

“Where’s your mother?” I asked, looking around.

Sam pointed to a mound of blankets on the sofa. “She said she was cold, so I tried to cover her up.”

Alarmed, I hurried over and put my hand on her cheek. She wasn’t cold now. She was burning up. Her face was red and dry. Her breath came in shallow gasps. I reached down and shook her shoulder gently. She moaned softly but didn’t wake up.

“She needs to get to the hospital,” I told Sam. “How far away are your neighbors?”

“Far,” he said. “Mitch said he didn’t want no nosy neighbors around his house.”

As I stood indecisively, a baby wailed from the back of the house. Two grimy toddlers with tousled dark curls appeared in the hallway. One had a finger firmly up his nose. Undoubtedly the twins.

“Uncle Carl?” one of the twins asked.

Sam ignored them. “You got a car, mister? You could drive her to the hospital.”

“No,” I said. “I walked here.”

“You could use our van,” he said. “I know where Mom keeps the keys. In her purse.”

Right. Like I should be driving a car. “I don’t have a license,” I told Sam. “Isn’t there anybody else who could drive her in?”

A big tear rolled down Sam’s face. “I been trying to think of somebody. But ain’t nobody. Just Uncle Carl, but he ain’t come yet. And you.”

“Where’s Uncle Carl supposed to be coming from?” I asked. Maybe I could somehow get word to him.

“Iraq,” Sam said.

Big help that was.

“Mom says he’s gonna be back and get leave in time to come for Christmas.” Sam rubbed his eye with his fist. “But she don’t know exactly when.”

The woman could not wait indefinitely for medical care. She probably shouldn’t wait at all. Even to my inexperienced hand, her fever felt dangerously high.

I could probably drive the van. If it had an automatic transmission. And I didn’t meet much traffic. But it would be crazy to drive somebody else’s van, without a license, to the hospital, where there would definitely be all kinds of emergency personnel around. Probably including cops.

The woman moaned again softly. Sam looked up at me, his eyes bright with panic. One of the twins stuck his fingers in his mouth. The one with his finger up his nose looked at me and said, “Uncle Carl?” again.

There was no one else. I’d have to do it.

“Look,” I said to Sam. “We can’t leave the little kids here alone.” I didn’t tell him they were probably headed to emergency foster care. Where else would they go? Unless the real Uncle Carl put in an appearance very soon.

The baby was crying steadily now. “Does the baby drink from a bottle?” I asked. “Or does your Mom, you know, feed it?”

Sam looked scornful. “Mitch said the babies had to have a bottle. He said Mom’s boobies were his.”

More than I wanted to know. “Are there any bottles we could take with us?” I asked.

Sam nodded. “In the refrigerator. And diapers, too. I can get the diaper bag.”

“Do we need to give the baby a bottle now?”

“I can see if she’ll be happy with her pacifier.”

“Good. Then see if you can get something warm for the twins.” I thought back to my childhood. “Snowsuits? Or at least some blankets to wrap them in. And you find some pants to go with that shirt. And shoes.”

“What are you going to do?” Sam asked.

“If you get me the keys, I’ll see if I can get the van started and pull it out front. Then I’ll try to carry your Mom out to it.”

With a satisfied nod, Sam went to get the purse with the keys.