Dead Boyfriends (26 page)

I let my empty hand hang loosely at my side and stepped back, putting space between us, giving myself plenty of room for hands and feet should the need arise.

Nye laughed it up. No doubt he thought that moving away from him meant I was frightened. My temper started to beat a high-tempo riff deep in my throat, but I swallowed it under control.

“You lived with Merodie for a long time,” I reminded him.

“Too long,” Nye said.

“You beat her up.”

He gave me a smile that knew both humor and cruelty. He chuckled when he said, “I wouldn't want it to get around, but the truth is, she beat me up. She put me in the hospital.”

“You were in the hospital for a day. Merodie was in for over a week.”

“I wouldn't know. I was in jail by the time she got out.”

“How did you like jail?”

“It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.”

Nye thought that was so funny he laughed for a good half minute. It annoyed him that I didn't join in.

He asked, “So, what you want, McKenzie?”

“You were busted for dealing meth.”

“What of it?”

“Who do you think ratted you out?”

“Coulda been lots of folks.”

“Could have been Merodie.”

“Coulda been. If it was, I gotta tell ya, it was the best thing she ever did for me.”

“Is that right?”

“Dealin' meth was a good living, I ain't gonna lie to ya. Before I got boxed, I moved a whole pound of methamphetamine every month. At a thousand to fifteen hundred per ounce, that's a lot of tax-free coupons, baby! And I wasn't just dealing to speed freaks, neither. My customers, I had yuppie businessmen, bored housewives, college kids on a rave—anyone who wanted a two-, three-hour ride. Basically the same customers who made cocaine such a big thing. One customer, a woman, bought a quarter gram of crank the last Friday of every month cuz that was when she cleaned her house, one of those big Victorian mothers with three floors and eighty rooms. She'd swallow the meth and then go into a Speedy Gonzales routine, cleaning that sucker from top to bottom in a single day.

“Only between the Mexicans and the fucking bikers, it wasn't exactly a healthy lifestyle, you know? Besides, crank is bad, man. Messes you up real good. Makes you paranoid, makes you think everyone's out to get you. ‘Course, in my case, that turned out to be true, didn't it?” The laugh again. “ 'Cept I don't know who dropped a dime on me. Coulda been Merodie. Coulda been the Mexicans. All I know is all of a sudden the county cops were all over my ass, searching my car until they found my stash hidden behind the hubcap. Eleven months, three weeks in the Anoka County Correctional Facility, doin' nothing but pumping iron and watching cable.

“But I got clean. I got outta the game. And I ain't goin' back. That ain't no lie. You could say I learned the error of my ways. I didn't get religion, okay? I didn't turn into no pussy in eleven months. Only meth, man, that ain't no way to live. Don't need no building to fall on me to learn that, no sir. And if Merodie is responsible for that, well, thank you, Merodie.”

“Is that why you went to her house after you got out of the joint?”

“Who said I went. . .?”

“Were you looking to thank her?”

“Fuck you, McKenzie. You think I don't know why you're here? I know why you're here. Merodie killed her old man and you want to jam me up for it. Ain't gonna happen. No way. Merodie's goin' down. And listen to me. Ain't nothin' you can do about it. You don't believe me, just ask my friend the county attorney.”

Nye placed a fist on his hip, posing for me.

“You and Tuseman are pals, are you?”

“Hell, yeah. Me and him, we're like this.” He crossed his fingers and held them up for me to see. “Fact is, he wants me to testify against ol' Merodie.”

“Does he?”

Nye liked the surprised expression on my face and was disappointed that it didn't last. “That's right,” he said. “So back off.”

“Does he know you were at Merodie's house the day Eli Jefferson was killed?”

Nye paused before answering.

“I was not at—”

“You were seen.”

He grinned as if he knew a secret I was too dumb to grasp. “I was nowhere near Merodie's house the day Eli Jefferson was killed, and there ain't nobody around no more to say otherwise ‘cept Merodie, and who's gonna believe her?”

Ain‘t nobody around no more to say otherwise
—
how can he be so sure?
my inner voice wondered. While I was thinking it over, Nye leaned in close.

“Besides”—he was still grinning—“I got an alibi.”

“What would that be?”

“Not a what. A who. I was with my girlfriend that whole day.”

“How convenient.”

“Ain't it, though?”

“What's her name?”

“Debbie Miller.”

Nye pulled a torn slip of paper from his pocket and shoved it at me. On it he had neatly printed Miller's name, home address, business address, and telephone numbers. He smiled when I took it from him.

“She's waitin' for you, too,” Nye said.

“Is she?”

“I told you, you was expected.”

 

The radio switched off automatically when I shut down the Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot of the small shopping complex at County Road 10 and Round Lake Boulevard. I wasn't listening to it anyway. Instead, I had been thinking angry thoughts about Richard Nye. Maybe he was involved in Jefferson's death, maybe he wasn't. I sure would enjoy sending him back to jail for something.

I entered the branch bank where Debbie Miller worked. The woman who sat at the desk nearest the door greeted me and asked if she could be of assistance. After a moment's discussion, she motioned to Miller, who had been watching me from her cashier station. Obviously she had been waiting for me. Nye probably called her the moment I left his apartment.

Debbie Miller was one of those women that men fell in love with at a distance, aroused like Pavlov's dogs, not by a bell, but by her shapely figure and lustrous shoulder-length red hair. It was only when they were close enough to plainly see her blemished skin, thin lips, large nose, pointy chin, and eyes that didn't seem to go together that they had second thoughts. She wore a tight, high-collared dark blue dress that was trimmed from hem to throat with gold buttons that emphasized her generous breasts, thin waist, and narrow hips. Yet there was nothing she could do to flatter her face. It was not even remotely pretty and certainly
not helped by the excessive amount of artwork she put in around the eyes and lips.

Debbie approached cautiously, as if she were afraid of stepping in something. She was smiling, but only out of professional habit. I introduced myself and said I hoped that she would answer a few questions if it wasn't too inconvenient.

“Certainly,” she said.

Debbie glanced about the bank. She spied an empty desk with two chairs in the corner near the windows and pointed the way with her sharp chin. I followed.

We sat in the chairs, turning them so we faced each other. Debbie's front teeth were stained with peach gloss from chewing on her lower lip, and her eyes were red and flashing. The rest of her face was pasty white and displayed as much animation as the Pillsbury Dough Boy. She began defending Richard Nye before I even asked about him.

“He's a good man,” she said. Her voice was tense and she spoke very low, possibly so her coworkers couldn't eavesdrop. Or maybe she was embarrassed. Not once did her gaze reach mine.

“He's been in trouble, I know,” Debbie continued. “That's in the past. That's behind him now. He wants to start over. People should let him start over.”

“Fine with me,” I replied as pleasantly as I could. “I hope he lives long and prospers, or whatever it is that that guy in
Star Trek
says.”

Debbie was surprised by my response. “Really?” she asked.

“Why not?” I opened my notebook and balanced it on my knee. “I'm not looking to cause him any trouble. I just want to dot some i's and cross some t's for the lawyer I work for, that's all.”

“Oh. But he really is a good man.”

“How did you meet?”

“It was—It was about a month and a half or so ago, I guess. He had come in to cash his first check from the printshop where he got a job after . . . after he got out of jail. You know about that?”

“Yes, I know about that.”

Debbie seemed relieved that she didn't have to tell the story.

“Anyway, he made me turn the twenties into tens and the tens into fives and then the entire roll into twenties again while he flirted with me, asking me if I lived alone, asking all kinds of personal questions while he made the other customers wait in line. I wore my hair up and he said, ‘I bet you look gorgeous with your hair down instead of in that silly bun.' I'm not gorgeous. Even with my hair down. I know that. But I liked it when he said I was. Richard was the first man to show interest in . . . in a long time. I have to admit—I have to admit I enjoyed the attention.

“And he never lied to me,” she added quickly. “He invited me to dinner that night and I accepted, and during dinner he told me about. . . about his past, about going to jail. He told me that that was all behind him now and he was looking for a strong, honest woman he could love. A woman who would forgive him his trespasses and help him stay on the straight and narrow while he made something productive of his life. That's what he said.”

“No reason it can't be true,” I told her, although I could think of several.

“He's a good man,” Debbie told me again. As she spoke, she pulled absently at the collar of her dress, and for a moment I could see bruises around her neck where someone had choked her.

“I'm sure,” I said, and smiled my most sincere smile. “I just want to know a couple of things.”

“Okay.”

“If you can confirm Richard's alibi, that's jake with me.”

I nearly started to giggle.
That's jake with me?
Where did that come from? The phrase seemed to turn the trick, though. Debbie smiled—although it didn't seem to do her face any good—and leaned back in her chair.

“Let's see,” she said. “You want me to tell you . . .”

“Saturday, August first. Everything from the moment you saw him until the moment he left.”

“Let's see.” Debbie closed her eyes and spoke slowly. “Richard stayed over Friday night and didn't go home until early Sunday morning.”

“What did you do during all that time?”

“On Friday night we stayed in—We just stayed in.” Debbie was blushing now. “On Saturday we had breakfast at my apartment and then he built a bookcase for me and then—”

“Did he bring the materials with him?”

“Huh?” Debbie's eyes flashed open.

“When he came over Friday night, did he have the building materials for the bookcase, or did he get them Saturday?”

Debbie was seized by a moment of panic and indecision. I guessed that she and Nye hadn't covered that when Nye concocted the alibi.

“He brought the supplies with him,” Debbie said.

“Okey-dokey,” I replied, pretending that I was barely paying attention. “Then what did you do?”

“Umm, we went shopping for clothes. We went to the Northtown Mall because we wanted to buy some clothes. I wanted to buy some clothes. But we couldn't find anything I liked so we didn't buy anything.”

“What happened next?”

“We decided to stay in again . . .”

“Sure.”

“We rented a couple of movies. I don't remember what. Something with Bruce Willis.”

“Where did you rent the movies?” I asked.

“Rent them?”

“Yes. Where did you rent the movies?”

“At the mall.”

“Northtown?”

“Yes.”

“Which store?”

“Store?”

“Which video store did you rent the movies from?”

“I don't remember.”

“Well, that's easy enough to check.”

“It is?”

“Sure. They keep records, the video stores.”

Debbie's face grew even more pale, and she began to tremble slightly as if she were caught in a sudden draft. She pulled at her collar again, and I saw more bruising. I wondered if it was confined only to her throat or if Nye had damaged other parts of her body as well.

“What did you do after you rented the movies?” I asked.

Debbie bit her lower lip. “We stopped at Leeann Chin for takeout and went back to my apartment and stayed there together eating and watching movies and stuff until about three Sunday morning.” Debbie spoke as if she were trying to get it all out in a single breath.

I made a production out of
not
writing down her answer. I closed the notebook instead and gazed idly out the window while pretending I wasn't watching Debbie intently in its reflection. I sighed dramatically.

“You really love this guy,” I said.

Debbie was surprised by the question.

“You do, don't you?”

“Yes,” Debbie answered weakly.

“Even though he hurts you?”

Debbie's hand leapt to her throat. “He doesn't,” she said.

“Sure he does. He beats you. What else does he do? Does he embarrass you? Humiliate you? When you make love, is it fun? Fun for you, I mean. I bet it's fun for him.”

Debbie turned her head away. The beginning of tears formed at the corners of her eyes. I was sure they were more from tension than sorrow.

“Yet you still love him?” I said.

Debbie nodded.

“Do you love him enough to go to prison for him?”

“Go to prison?”

“That's what's going to happen if you keep lying for him.”

“I'm not lying,” Debbie protested. There wasn't much energy in her words.