Bad To The Bone (19 page)

"On the contrary," I assured her. "I think I
have a very good idea of who I'm dealing with. You're nothing but a
swamp coot of the highest order, a white trash road whore who sells
her snatch for a handful of credit cards."

She gasped, but I wasn't through yet.

"And, honey, guess what?" I said. "You're
getting old. Ain't nobody gonna be buying what you're selling in a
year. Your ride is over. Not even liposuction can help you now. You
better look for a job at a nursing home if you want to find a
husband that can't get away."

"Don't you talk to me like that," she
hissed. "I have more class in my little finger than you have in
your entire big old hulking body."

I had to laugh. She said "hulking" like it
was the worst possible thing that could ever happen to a woman.
Guess she'd never heard of Janet Reno.

If she was hot before, my laughter pushed
her over the edge.

"Don't you dare laugh at me," she screeched
into the phone. "I'll track down your family and shoot them in the
head while they sleep."

"Go ahead," I said cheerfully. "But bring a
shovel. They're already dead."

"Your ex-husband isn't." Her voice dropped.
"I can make him do anything I want. I have him wrapped around my
little finger."

"Congratulations. That's quite an
achievement. Next thing you know, you'll graduate to training
dogs."

"Shut up." Her tone was venomous. "I could
make one phone call and have him put behind bars for the rest of
his life. I know where he keeps his stuff, and a kilo can put a
person away for a long, long time."

In that case, the kilo wouldn't be there
long. She was no doubt a human Dust Buster when it came to coke.
But her words bothered me anyway. They proved that Jeff had lied to
me. Not all of his stash was gone. He had a kilo left. There had
been no girl who took off with his stuff. He had simply wanted me
to help him unload it. How could he think I'd ever do such a
thing?

“This is about Bill Butler, isn't it?" Tawny
tried again, reading my silence as disinterest. "That's why you're
out to get me."

"I don't know how to break this to you," I
told her. "But, unlike you, my life does not revolve around a
series of penises. Bill Butler has nothing to do with it."

"I know you have my photos. You took them
from my safe."

"Sure," I agreed. "I'm using them as an
appetite suppressant so I can drop a few pounds off my 'hulking'
body."

"You're just jealous I slept with Bill."

"Honey," I told her, "Bill said that sex
with you was like dipping his wick in a bucket of dry ice. Now, is
that anything to be jealous about?"

She unleashed another barrage of insults,
most of them concerning what she would do to which body part of
mine if she ever got the chance. I started laughing again and she
hung up in frustration. I dialed *69 in hopes of learning what
number she had called from, but no such luck. She was outside the
calling area.

I sat back and thought. For someone who was
supposed to be cool, calm and collected, Tawny Bledsoe sure was
losing her shit. Too much nose candy. I could use that against her.
The trick was figuring out how—and how far I could go. 

I was mulling over the possibilities when I
heard the front door open. A male voice said something and Bobby D.
laughed. I tiptoed out to the hallway to eavesdrop.

"Yeah, she's in the back," Bobby was saying.
"But I'd take it easy with her. She drank her way through Durham
last night, and she's got a real bug up her ass about this Bledsoe
dame. She's acting a little nutty about it, you ask me. Maybe you
can talk some sense into her."

"Me?" an incredulous voice answered: Bill
Butler. "If you think I can tell that woman to do anything, you're
out of your mind."

"It's impolite to talk about people behind
their backs," I yelled.

"Really?" Bill was in my face before I heard
him coming. "How about eavesdropping? How polite is that?"

"You have something for me?" I asked,
staring at the packages in his hand.

"Afraid I do." I could tell from his
expression that it was not good news.

I led him into my office.

"You look like shit," he said, sitting down
across from me.

"You say the sweetest things," I mumbled
back, acutely aware that I was wearing a gray sweatsuit. When I'd
thrown it on earlier that morning, it seemed appropriate for my
planned visit to see Robert Price. When you're tramping through a
men's jail, it's best to keep your sex appeal on a par with Mother
Teresa's. Not so when it came to Bill Butler.

He tossed a thick envelope across the desk.
“Tawny's phone records. And, by the way, she has no criminal
record."

"Lucky her. She's not that smart."

"Well, she'll have one now," Bill promised.
He pulled several sheets of paper from another envelope. "Sign this
and I can have a warrant issued for her arrest on the misdemeanors.
It's going to make you real popular, Casey, dragging a battered
wife back to face a bad check rap."

"I bet a hell of a lot more people will be
happy to see her behind bars than you think." I signed the
complaint without looking at it and slid it back to him.

"So what's the bad news?" I asked. "I can
see it on your face."

"Your ex has a record. And he's currently
wanted in Florida for felony possession with intent to
distribute."

"Cocaine?"

Bill nodded. "His convictions are minor
stuff, all drug-related, but the outstanding charge is a serious
one. It seemed like a big step up to me, so I called a guy I know
in St. Pete and he put me in touch with the investigating
detective."

"And?" I prompted.

"And your ex is probably in more trouble
right now than Tawny Bledsoe could ever cause him."

"Don't be too sure."

"He's hooked in with some big time dealers,
distributing for them, doing a little sideline business on his
own."

"So what's the scoop on his arrest?"

"They're really looking to bring him in for
questioning," Bill explained. "They're after the big fish, not your
husband."

"Ex-husband."

"Ex. First he refused to cooperate and then
he disappeared, so they issued the warrant for his arrest on the
intent charge, mostly to put pressure on him. They'll be glad to
cut a deal if he agrees to cooperate."

"He told me a different story."

"I wasn't aware you had conversed about it,"
Bill said dryly.

"This was weeks ago. When he first showed up
here. He said a deal had gone bad and that a couple of guys were
after him. He claims some girlfriend double-crossed him and left
him short, without the money or the drugs. He says that's why he's
on the run."

Bill shrugged. "Both stories could be
partially true. He might be running from the cops and the
dealers."

I sighed. "That sounds like Jeff, all right.
He's cursed. Everything he touches turns to shit. Except for me, of
course." I opened the envelope with Tawny's phone records in it and
started flipping through the pages, searching for calls she'd made
around the time of Cockshutt's death.

"What are you looking for?" Bill asked.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I was hoping
I'd find something. Maybe the same long distance number repeated
over and over as evidence of who she was in on the murder with. Or
where she might have gone."

"Well," Bill said. "There's more bad
news."

I stopped reading and stared at him. "What
do you mean?"

"Autopsy results and the early forensics
workup on the crime scene are in. Cockshutt was shot from a lower
angle. The bullet traveled up into his brain." Bill touched the
underside of his chin. "Entry point was here."

"Weird," I said. "Like a suicide?"

"It's the right angle for that, but it would
have been a hell of a trick for him to shoot himself, then wipe
down the gun."

"So someone was crouching down in the car
waiting for him?" I suggested.

Bill shrugged. "That's one possibility.
Whoever it was, he only needed that one shot. It was right on the
money. Then the gun was tossed into the backseat."

"That's even weirder. Lake Johnston was
twenty feet away. Why not just throw it into the lake?"

Bill nodded. "A little strange, I
agree."

"Who's the gun registered to?"

"It was Boomer's gun," Bill confirmed. "You
were right about that."

"There was no evidence of a struggle? As in
someone taking it from him?"

"Nope. No defensive wounds. We know he died
about midnight. And that no one heard the shot. But there's
more."

I stared at him, waiting.

"They found hair and fibers in the car that
match Robert Price."

"Bullshit."

Bill held up both hands. "That's what they
found. Threads from a sweater he owns were stuck to the butt of the
gun. Maybe from wiping it down. Plus there are microscopic blood
splatters on a sweater we took from Price's closet. Results aren't
in on that yet. And don't give me any O.J. setup bullshit. No one
on the job planted evidence. He wasn't even a suspect at the time
it was found."

"I agree that no one on the job planted
evidence," I said. "It doesn't mean that someone off the job
didn't."

"You're going all the way with this, aren't
you?"

"Damn right I am. Doesn't anyone but me find
Tawny Bledsoe's public pity party a little hard to swallow, given
she was banging anyone she could find—including the murder
victim?"

"The people who know her from when she
worked at the department aren't happy she's disappeared," Bill
acknowledged. "They want to question her, but not badly enough to
risk alienating public opinion by dragging her in by her hair.
Besides, you and I know she's a slimeball, but she still has
friends on the job. Plus her alibi checks out. The night Cockshutt
was killed, she was in a motel in Winston-Salem with her daughter
and thirty other members of her church."

"Says who?" I asked. "Did they actually see
her? Winston-Salem is only an hour-and-a-half drive from here."

"The woman who was staying in the motel room
next to hers heard the kid crying sometime after midnight. When the
kid wouldn't stop, she called Tawny's room and asked if there was
anything she could do. Tawny said the kid was fine, she just had an
earache, and that the children's aspirin would probably kick in
soon. The woman hung up, noted the time, the kid stopped crying
soon after and everyone was happy. Tawny was bright and chipper at
breakfast."

"Then she had someone else do her dirty work
for her," I insisted stubbornly, while silently putting up a prayer
that this someone had not been my ex.

"Or she didn't do it at all. It is possible
that Tawny Bledsoe is a slimeball who had nothing to do with this
particular crime."

"Okay, fine," I agreed. "Who else could have
done it? Where was Cockshutt's wife that night, for example? She's
not exactly a grieving widow."

"She was in Asheville, with her mother and
the kids. They were staying at some fancy hotel up there."

"In the middle of January?" I asked
skeptically.

"Casey." Bill was getting impatient. "Some
people like snow, okay? I kind of miss it myself. Besides, with all
the money riding on Cockshutt's death, you better believe the
insurance companies looked into any hint of involvement on the
widow's part. She's clean. They're going to cough up the death
benefits."

"I guess I'm just a naturally suspicious
woman. Which reminds me, Tawny called me."

"You're kidding. When?"

"Just before you got here. But she's out of
the calling area. I checked." I looked up at him and smiled. "She
said to tell you hello."

"Me?" He blanched.

"Not really. But she did say that you were
the best sex she ever had."

"What?" This time he looked scared, with a
pinch of confusion thrown in.

"Just kidding." I smiled at him. He did not
smile back. "What I want to know is where she called me from." I
started thumbing through the phone numbers again, reached the page
just after Boomer Cockshutt was killed, then stopped and stared at
several identical lines.

"What is it?" Bill asked.

"I know that number." I pointed to a
long-distance charge for a Florida call. "The area code is
Tampa/St. Pete."

"You're right. I used the same area code
this morning."

"Why do I know that number?" I reached for
the phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling it." The phone rang twice before a
machine answered. I listened to the recorded female voice on the
other end for a moment, then slammed the receiver down. I had hoped
never to hear that voice again for the rest of my life.

"Who was it?" Bill asked.

"My former mother-in-law." I massaged my
temples. My head had started to throb instantly at the mere thought
of Clarissa Jones.

"Who?" Bill asked. "Your ex's mother?"

"Yes. My ex's mother," I said irritated. "My
former mother-in-law. The very same face-lifted, cellulite-sucked-
out, anorexic bitch who hated me twenty-four hours a day,
constantly let me know that I was not good enough for her son and
who spends her days and nights shopping because god forbid the
neighbors look like they have more money than she does. She dotes
on Jeff so much it's a wonder they don't chuck public opinion and
start shacking up together. God knows his father's not man enough
to stop it."

"Your mother-in-law?" Bill repeated, rather
stupidly in my opinion. "Why would Tawny be calling her?"

"Maybe Tawny wasn't," I explained slowly.
"Maybe my ex-husband was."

"From Tawny's house?" Bill asked. "Why? Is
there a connection to Tawny?"

"I don't know," I said, but it was a lie. I
thought I finally knew why Tawny had involved Jeff. And I was going
to fly down there and find out if I was right.