Bitch Factor (16 page)

“You won’t believe this, but I’m a moderate drinker, myself. Most of the time.” He played a six-five on her five-two.

“Right. That’s why you can’t remember what happened the night before the accident.”

“Hellfire, woman, I’d just hit a big sales quota. Happens maybe once a quarter, if I’m lucky. Sure, I celebrate! Deposit the check, hit the Green Hornet, buy drinks for the whole room.”

“Once a quarter?” She didn’t really want to argue about his drinking problem. It was the driving
after
drinking that caused trouble. “According to your file, you’re a twice-a-week regular at the Green Hornet.”

He flipped a domino down, flipped it back up.

“I stop there couple times a week. Play a few hands of backroom poker, down a drink or two. I’m too old to binge every week—not worth the morning after.” He stared at the dominoes, focusing on something deep in his mind. “Especially this last time. God, what a nightmare, like walking into a tunnel that gets blacker and blacker. Only the nightmare didn’t start until I woke up.”

Hearing the misery in his voice—and wondering if it was genuine—Dixie couldn’t resist asking: “What
do
you remember?”

He drew a domino from the bone yard.

“I remember it was a busy damn night at the Hornet. Fifteen, twenty guys from a computer software convention, along with the usual crowd.” He paused, spinning the domino facedown. “What I can’t figure out, though, is where I was between three A.M., when Augie swept me out the door, and seven forty-five, when… the little girl was killed. I mean, it’s only four friggin blocks to my house. That time of morning, that neighborhood, I rarely meet another car on the road. Not much chance of an accident. Otherwise I’d sleep it off right there in Augie’s parking lot.”

“Have you done that often?”

“Once or twice.” He flipped the domino up, looked at it, turned it down again. “Anyway, after a big night, I’m usually good for ten, twelve hours sleep. So what was I doing back on the road before breakfast?” He looked up at her, then shook his head wearily. “Sorry. I know you don’t want to hear this shit. Even if you gave a damn, what could you do about it?”

He’s setting me up
, Dixie thought.
Selling me swampland
. “Did anyone see you going back out the next morning?”

“Nope.” He scraped at a spot on the back of a domino. “Nobody saw me come, nobody saw me leave. Neighbor lady
said she saw
the car
pull out about seven-thirty. Didn’t see who was driving.”

That much was true. Dixie had read it in his file.

“How were you dressed when the cops roused you?”

“Same clothes as the night before. Looked like dogshit, like I’d slept in them, which I probably had.”

“Where were your keys?”

“On the dresser, in this tray where I dump everything out of my pockets.”

“The door was locked?”

“Dead bolt, both doors.”

Also true. Someday she might tell him how easy the back door could be jimmied.

“Anyone else have a key to your car?”

“Nobody.”

“Keep a spare key anywhere?”

“A spare? Yeah. Richards, my attorney, asked that, too. I kept a spare key in a magnetic gizmo under the car frame. Wasn’t there when the cops looked. They said it could’ve jarred loose anytime I went over a bump.”

“Plastic or metal?”

“Huh?”

“The key gizmo, was it hard plastic or metal?”

“Metal, I think. Does it matter?”

“It might. The plastic ones can melt and fall off if you put them too close to the exhaust. The metal ones stay on.”

“I don’t know… could probably find out. Bought it at the hardware store around the corner, the one the kid’s father owns.”

“Whose
father?” Dixie felt the hair rise on her arms.
“The girl who was hit?”
She hadn’t realized Dann knew Betsy Keyes.

“Her folks own the hardware store and cafe. I used to eat in the cafe couple times a week, shopped at the hardware store when I needed anything.”

Dixie stared at him. “So you knew Betsy
before
she was killed.”

“Her and her two sisters.” He must have noticed Dixie’s curiosity had turned to suspicion; his brows jutted together.

“How
well
did you know her?”

“Betsy waited on me at the cafe sometimes. Said she wanted to be a writer. I kidded her about being the next Danielle Steel.”

“Did you ever see Betsy outside the cafe?”

“Outside-?”

“Were you ever alone with her?”

His face turned red, his eyes hot. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking—goddamn, Flannigan! I wouldn’t hurt that kid on purpose. That’s
sick.”

“Did you ever see the girl outside the cafe?”

He slammed his dominoes down and shoved them away from him. “You want to know if I get a hard-on for little girls? Shit!”

“Dann, did you ever see the child outside the cafe?”

Turning sideways in the chair, he looked out the window, his jaw tight. Dixie stared silently at his back until he decided to answer, his voice hard and flat.

“At the hardware store. She sometimes helped her old man. May’ve seen her playing with the other girls in their yard when I walked by, maybe stopped to talk. But what you’re implying
… no.”

He stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door against the chain connecting the handcuffs.

Dann’s denial left Dixie cold. Too many times, when prosecuting a case, she had listened to men deny their sick attractions to children. Once, an outraged father agreed to testify against a friend accused of molesting his own daughter. The witness had a girl the same age, and it turned out during the trial that both men had been sexually abusing their daughters for several years. But the outraged father considered his own situation different, claimed he was teaching his little girl how to satisfy a husband, preparing her for wifedom.

Dixie’s anger was like a rock—cold, hard, and heavy in her gut. She knew it had more to do with herself than with Dann, and she had to deal with it. She shuffled and reshuffled her
hand, snapping the dominoes with unnecessary force on the wooden table.

Picking up one of the worn black rectangles, she ran her thumb across six smooth, dished-out spots. She’d been six years old the first time one of Carla Jean’s men approached her, not yet old enough or savvy enough to know what he wanted; powerless against his advances. Carla Jean wasn’t intentionally a bad mother, but she was absolutely self-centered, incurably romantic, and too generous with her body. She believed in “happily ever after,” believed that someday a prince would carry her away to a golden castle. Meanwhile, she brought home every man she met who had a sexy smile and a pretty line of bullshit.

Dixie had been sitting in bed, reading a picture book about Amelia Earhart, when the man eased the door open.

“My, aren’t you a cute little thing?”

She didn’t know how to answer, had never considered herself cute. The other girls in her first-grade class were prettier. The man didn’t seem to expect an answer, anyway. He sat down on Dixie’s bed and lifted her chin toward the lamplight.

“I’ll bet you grow up to be as fine as your mother.”

Dixie didn’t plan to be anything like Carla Jean, whom she loved devotedly but who cried too often “the morning after.” Right now, Carla Jean was probably passed out from all the booze she drank when she had a “date.”

“I’m going to be an airplane pilot,” Dixie explained earnestly. Amelia Earhart was her current heroine.

The man took the book out of her hands.

“How about I put this aside for now and show you a game?”

Dixie liked games, especially card games. She always beat Carla Jean at Go Fish. But those weren’t the sort of games the man had in mind. His hand under the covers stroked Dixie’s leg.

From that night on, every time Carla Jean had a date, Dixie hid in the closet with a pillow and a reading lamp. Only a few of her mother’s “steadies” realized she had a daughter, and only Tom Scully was persistent enough to find Dixie no
matter where she hid. Scully was a big man with strong hands and a temper.

“You don’t like it when I slap your mama around, do you?” Scully asked.

I don’t like it when you show your ugly face at the door
, Dixie wanted to say. But she just shook her head.

“If you ever tattle to anybody about you and me, little girl, I’ll do more than black your mama’s eye.”

Telling Carla Jean had never done any good, anyway. She had a knack for not seeing what she didn’t want to, for disbelieving anything that threatened her fairy-tale view of life.

When the closet trick stopped working, Dixie learned other evasions. If she saw Scully’s car headed their way, she would duck out and sleep at a friend’s house. One night, when she heard his voice after she was already in bed, she slipped out the window and spent the night on the roof.

But there were plenty of times during the next six years when she was powerless to avoid him. Carla Jean remained oblivious to the truth, even when Dixie tearfully admitted she’d missed her period.

“Honey, that’s natural at your age. Why, you’ve just barely even got the curse.” At twelve, Dixie had been menstruating for two years, but in Carla Jean’s eyes her daughter was still a baby, in ruffles and hair ribbons.

A few nights later Dixie was rushed to a hospital, after a quack doctor finished scraping out the unborn fetus. She awoke at Founders Home, surrounded by teenage girls in similar situations. That night Dixie had vowed never again to be powerless.

Now, hearing water running in the bathroom, she dropped the blank-six in place beside the double and knew that her anger at Dann was the same anger she’d known as a child. The same anger she’d felt as a state prosecutor watching hairballs routinely beat the system.

Why hadn’t Belle mentioned this aspect of the case? It might’ve been in the case notes, of course. Dixie hadn’t read the entire file, only the details that would help her locate the skip. But if Dann had tried to molest Betsy Keyes and the
child threatened to tell, he might have plotted the drunk-driving scheme to cover outright murder. The DA could be going for manslaughter because it was easier to win.

Or was Dann telling the truth?

He emerged from the bathroom, blue eyes as hard as stones, and Dixie felt the fox of wrath gnaw at her heart. She returned his stare. Would a child molester’s gaze be so steady? Or would it sidle away like grabby hands under a little girl’s dress when someone came near?

He’s as angry as I am
, Dixie realized.
But that doesn’t make him innocent
.

Child molesters were shape-shifters, the dregs of humanity appearing to the world in the guise of decent men. They played the role so well they fooled most people.

Dixie recalled Carla Jean’s furious protests that her good old friend Scully would never diddle a little girl, much less her own daughter. Carla Jean’s disbelief had pierced twelve-year-old Dixie like a stab through the heart. In that one instant, Dixie had suffered more than in all the years of grabby hands, more than she suffered under the quack doctor’s knife.

Was Parker Dann playing a role?

She watched his fingers on the dominoes.

“What makes you so sure you drove home after the bar closed? Maybe you did fall asleep in your car in the parking lot.”

Dann looked at her and then away, as if summoning a memory.

“I guess… I don’t know for sure. Seem to remember driving home, but maybe I’m confusing that night with some other time. Usually, though, when I sleep in the car I get a neck crick.”

“Did anyone see you drive away? The bartender, for instance. You said the two of you closed the place down.”

“Augie parks out back and leaves in the opposite direction. No one else was there.”

Dixie studied him, knowing she shouldn’t believe anything the man said, knowing he was probably selling her an empty sack, but interested in hearing him tell it.

“Okay, take me through the evening. From the time you arrived at the Green Hornet.”

He set a domino to spinning.

“Like I said, it was celebration time. Three-million-dollar sale, full commission, you know what that comes to? Two hundred thousand. I bought house rounds all night—”

“Remember any names? People who were there?”

“Sure, a few. Wrote them all down for Ms. Richards. First names, mostly. That’s all they ever gave. In my business, person’s name is important. Make a point of remembering—”

“What happens when Augie closes down? What’s the procedure?”

“Procedure?”
He glanced up before continuing. “Fifteen minutes to closing, Augie makes last call. Some folks take the hint, leave right then. Others buy another round. Two-ten, he picks up any drinks left on the bar and tables. People drift out. Augie starts washing up.”

“I thought you said you didn’t leave until three o’clock.”

“Usually, I stick around till he finishes cleaning. Sit at the bar drinking coffee, flapping my gums.”

“He makes coffee for the two of you?”

“Always has a pot for himself and for coffee drinks—”

“And he doesn’t mind you staying there while he cleans up?

“Actually… Augie sort of prefers it. Got robbed last year, three times in one month. Beat up pretty bad, lost four teeth, most of the hearing in one ear. I hang around to scare off the muggers, you might say.”

“A real Samaritan.”

Dann’s eyes sparked. “I hang around, that’s all.”

“Anything different about that night, other than the big sale? Anybody stay later than usual?”

“No one I recall… no, wait a minute. There
was
someone who stayed late. Drinking bourbon and Coke. We talked about selling fishing trips in the Caribbean. John, that’s his name. Didn’t seem ready to leave when Augie wanted to lock up, so I walked outside with him, talking as we walked. When we got to his car, I said I forgot my keys and went back—”

“Did you get his last name? See what he was driving?”

“Never said his last name.” Dann closed his eyes for a moment, frowning. “Climbed into a foreign car of some kind, boxy, not sporty. Volvo, maybe.”