A Dead Issue (11 page)

I could see Cash weighing my words and tone, not sure if he should trust me ever again.

“We jumped in the car and went back to see if Jonah found it. When we got there, he was dead and we cleared out.”

“Why didn't you call the cops?”

“Because it looks bad,” I explained.

“Looks worse that you didn't,” Cash said, and I detected a note of sympathy in his voice or maybe it was simple wonder at our stupidity.

“Fact of the matter is,” I explained, “it's too late. The cops already talked to us.”

“What we're asking,” Dusty said, “is for you to dummy up. We were at work. Time card proves it. That's all. Then the cops can go find out who really did it.”

Cash pondered this for some time. It sounded so easy that I actually hoped that something would be discovered to show that Dusty was right about someone else being in the house with us—someone who was upstairs and pushed Jonah from the top landing.

“Why should I do that?” Cash asked.

I couldn't think of any reason why Cash should cover for us. He wouldn't do it for his own brother.

“Because we'd do it for you,” Dusty said so earnestly that it was laughable. And Cash did laugh. He threw back his head and let out a noise that sounded like he was choking to death.

“Right,” he finally managed. His eyes jumped from Dusty to me. “I'm going to put my ass on the line out of friendship.” He placed his hands on his hips and surveyed us again. “Dusty, get back to work. Waldo, there's the door. Don't worry, I'll punch you out—on account of we're friends. What you want to do is figure out how much our friendship is worth.”

CHAPTER 21

This was the morning that was going to be the first day of the rest of my life. My goal was to pack up my things and move out. It would not take long. My apartment was furnished, and the only large item I owned was my television set. The rest would fit into a few boxes. My kitchen cabinets were stocked with a few dishes and some glasses. I didn't need any of it. The refrigerator contained beer, petrified pizza, catsup, and a few Chinese take-out containers long overdue at the dump. I dropped them into a garbage bag and happened to look out the window.

Devereaux stood on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. He studied the house number for a moment before approaching the porch and then he labored up the steps as if carrying a queen-sized mattress on his back. I had a brief flash of an old black and white movie from the Fifties—
The Mummy
. Nothing high tech, no special effects; a guy wrapped up in toilet paper dragging one leg behind him. My grandmother could outrun him. The scary thing was his relentless pursuit of his victims. Nothing daunted him. You could outrun him, jump on a plane and flee, but sooner or later he would be at your door, hand outstretched, clawing at you. That's the impression I had of Devereaux—relentless pursuit.

He banged on the door like a bill collector, pounding with a force that could not be ignored. I stuck my head back into the refrigerator and said loudly, “Come on in!” letting him catch me by surprise—then my calm reaction would proclaim my innocence. I listened as the door opened and then emerged with a handful of pizza slices wrapped in foil. I dropped them into the bag. “Oh, hi. I thought you were Dusty.”

“You didn't see me coming up the stairs?” His tone was doubtful, but not challenging.

“I heard you,” I lied.

Devereaux's close-set eyes took in the details of the room, and he leaned to the left to catch a glimpse at the boxes in the next room. “Cleaning out your refrigerator or leaving town?” His tone now had an undercurrent of suspicion.

“Both,” I admitted and stood quietly trying to read a reaction in his face. He said nothing and looked at me until I was forced to break the silence. “I'm not going far. Just down the road to my new job—house sitter at the Cameron estate.”

My turn. I waited for him to break the silence.

“I came here to let you know that we got some answers.” He paused long enough for me to break into a sweat about whether the answers were good or bad. I was keenly aware of the game we were playing, and so was Devereaux. The unsettling thing was that he had so much more experience playing it. “I talked to the oil guy—Dave Morgan? He remembers seeing you at the top of Jonah's lane. Thinks it was closer to seven when he pulled his truck onto the highway.”

This was wrong. I had been trying to stick as close to the truth as possible. I knew I was at the top of Jonah's lane around six.
At that time, I still planned to punch in at seven. I frowned. Either Morgan looked at the time wrong, or Devereaux was toying with me—seeing if I would change my story to match his facts.

“He better have his watch checked,” I said. “I may have been off a few minutes, but not by that much.”

Devereaux flipped through his notebook, possibly double-checking.

“If he was delivering oil, the time gets stamped on the bill,” I offered.

Devereaux paused and looked up from his notes at me. Then he flipped his book closed.

“He wasn't delivering oil,” Devereaux explained. “That's one of the things I found out. He was buying Jonah's truck for his son Brandon. You just missed them.

Now it made sense. Jonah had decided to give up driving before he killed someone. He knew he was pushing his luck. If only we had been a few seconds earlier. We
would have met Brandon behind the wheel of Jonah's truck coming out of the lane and not his father following
him in the oil tanker. I would have known that Jonah was home. I'd have knocked on the door, Jonah would have answered, and I'd have gotten my wallet and gone home. Jonah would still have been alive.

“Guess how much the Morgans paid for that pile of junk?”

“Eleven hundred dollars.”

“Exactly. And in hundred-dollar bills. It looks like Jonah found your wallet and thought it was his own.” Devereaux said.

We stood there for another awkward moment, shaking our heads. I pictured Jonah stuffing his money in my wallet and tucking it in his rear pocket with enough sticking out to be noticeable as he lay dead on his floor.

“This creates a little problem for us,” Devereaux continued. “Nothing serious,” he assured me. “The problem is that when we clear up this case and release property held in evidence, Jonah's money is in your wallet.”

“And?”

“And we could end up with a little dispute as to whose money it is,” he explained.

“No dispute,” I said. “It's Jonah's money. I don't want it.”

Devereaux nodded appreciatively. “I was hoping you'd say that. You can save us a lot of trouble by signing a little statement to that effect.”

He reached into his sport coat as if he was reaching for a gun and pulled out an envelope. Thick fingers worked their way under the flap and withdrew a document.

“If you don't mind,” he said holding it out to me.

I read it over briefly, assuring myself that I wasn't signing a confession, and looked around for a pen. Devereaux produced one from his pocket.

Handing him the signed document, I said, “Jonah was going to pay us with some of that money.”

“I know. What you want to do is file a claim against his estate—you and Dusty. Make sure you get what's yours.” He waved the envelope once in thanks and tucked it back in his pocket. “There's a granddaughter they've contacted. She's going to handle the details.”

Jonah had mentioned his wife and daughter several
times—nothing specific. I gathered that his wife had died, and I knew he had a granddaughter, but these people where missing from his life, dead or disinterested, leaving Jonah alone in the world where his passing away was marked only by a small obituary in the Fannett Dispatch. But now a girl was coming into town to bury her grandfather. A wave of sadness pass over me.

Devereaux watched me for some time, arms hanging down from a body bent forward by its weight. His eyes shifted one more time around the room. “You doing anything important?”

“If you think cleaning out a refrigerator is important,” I answered.

“Look,” he said in a tone that sounded as if he were trying to be reasonable, “You may be some time without your wallet. Let's do each other a favor.” He paused for me to respond. When I didn't, he continued. “Let me take you down to the licensing center in town. I'll get you through fast. Then, with the couple of hours I've saved out of your life, you can come with me to Jonah's. Take a quick walk-through with me to see if anything is missing.”

"Sounds good,” I said and tied up the garbage bag with a twist.

Devereaux was as good as his word. With a flash of his badge and a few confidential whispers to the guy in charge, we were in and out of there in fifteen minutes. The fact that Devereaux was all prepared with some paperwork that greased the way confirmed my suspicions that he wanted me at the scene of the crime.

On the way to Jonah's, Devereaux subtly shifted from small talk to what I recognized as casual interrogation.

“What kind of guy is your pal Dusty? Strikes me as something of a character.”

“Remember the story about the ants and the
grasshopper who played his fiddle while all the ants saved for the winter?”

“One of my favorites.”

“They should have named the grasshopper Dusty.”

Devereaux actually smiled, and in the short time I had known Devereaux, I realized that a smile was something his face wasn't used to. “And you're one of the ants I suppose.”

“Nope. Just another fuckin' grasshopper.”

His whole body lurched with a grunt, and then the smile faded from his face.

“You grasshoppers hang out together?”

“We're brothers,” I said and explained the family dynamics involved while Devereaux studied me. Something told me he already knew the facts and was gauging my accuracy—or honesty. “Sometimes we ride together, have a beer after work. We're getting to know each other.”

“That's nice,” he said almost to himself.

We were passing the Cameron campus and we both looked at the gate as it slid by.

“Looks like business is good,” Devereaux commented.

“Must be,” I answered. “My father's flying off to Chicago to work out a multi-million dollar deal with Caterpillar.”

A mile of scenery slid by before Devereaux spoke.

“He ever do drugs?” Devereaux asked quite casually.

“You mean Dusty or my father?”

Devereaux tilted his massive head in my direction and gave me a deadpan stare.

“I never saw him use drugs,” I said truthfully, “but I wouldn't be surprised.”

Again there was a lull in the conversation, and I decided to fill it. “Why do you ask?”

His eyes shifted toward me and then focused on the road ahead. “Just curious.”

He drove without speaking for a while, “What's he driving these days?”

“A rusted out Chevy.” I answered. “It should have antique plates—needs body work.”

Again we rode in silence. I knew where this was going.

“There was an incident in Easton—a shooting. A low-level drug dealer got popped in his Cadillac convertible. Security camera shows one shooter. He walks up from behind the guy, fires once, and walks away with a bag. ”

Devereaux stared at me silently for a moment, letting the facts sink in. As they did, waves of cold sweat rippled across my skin. “Seconds later, a dark car—black, possibly blue, parks next to the Caddy. Two guys sit next to a dead body for fifteen minutes before they see it. Then they take
off like their asses are on fire.” He glanced at me again and asked, “You guys in Easton Friday night?”

Well, there it was—out on the table, the wild card. The big question was how it should be played. To lie or not to lie—that was the question. To say ‘yes' would put us at the scene of another murder. An investigation on two fronts was bound to uncover the truth. I stalled for more time.

“Are you saying we look like the two guys in the video?”

“You could be,” he answered without hesitation. “The images aren't clear. The car was parked way off. What I want to hear is if you think you could be those two guys.”

What would Dusty do? The answer was simple.
He'd lie.

“We were at Miller's Friday night—with Billy and Ray.”

“This would be later,” he said and I couldn't decide whether he was challenging my statement or giving me an opportunity to tell the truth. Maybe he was doing both.

“I went home after Miller's.” I felt him looking at me, but couldn't make eye contact. I knew that was bad.

“Dusty dropped you off?”

“Yes,” and I shot him a quick glance. His eyes were still on me.

Devereaux pulled into Jonah's lane and we dropped over the rise and wound our way toward the house. The lane had always been an annoying dirt path I took to work. Now it was an extension of a crime scene. We passed the field where my car was stuck and I stared at it, wondering what evidence I left behind.

“See something?” he asked casually.

“Uh, no. I was looking at the piles of brush we made the other day.” I remembered Devereaux checking out the undercarriage of my car as he waited for me to return from lunch with my father. Had he noticed something? Weeds or mud caught up under my car? The field was a perfect place to park while robbing a house.

He swung his head toward me as he navigated down the lane.

“Were those your tire tracks in there?”

The question sent a wave of apprehension through me. Devereaux was thorough. Nothing escaped him, and the realization that he might be playing me like a fiddle was disquieting at the very least.

“Yeah,” I continued as casually as I could. “I drove in there to take a piss.”

“I don't think you
mentioned that the other day.”