Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split (18 page)

“A cop that was there that night?”

“Uniformed cop, not a detective,” Truman said. “He knows my daughter. He said something funny too. The police think that girl was killed because of a computer program.”

“What kind of a program?” Jackie asked.

“One that handicaps racing greyhounds. Whoever had it could get rich from making the right bets. The cops say this Rosie and her boyfriend came up with the program. And whoever killed her, killed her for that program. It’s on a computer disk. Of course they haven’t found it”

“Hey,” Jackie said. “Remember what Mel told us last week when he went to look for Rosie? He said she had a new system to pick winners. That must have been what he was talking about.”

“A computer disk,” Truman said. “I’ll be damned. Wonder if anybody else out at the track knows anything about the thing?”

“We could go out there,” Jackie said. “Walk around, ask some questions.”

“Play detective?” Truman sounded dubious. “I don’t know.” He looked down at the pile of clothes on the bed. Picked up a loud flowered sport shirt. He remembered Mel wearing it to cookouts at the house back when Nellie was alive. He picked the shirt up idly. It smelled like Mel. Like tobacco and some kind of woodsy soap or aftershave. Like Mel used to smell. Not like he did now, not that sour nursing-home smell. The flowers reminded him of the ones on the girl’s hat. Roses.

“The newspaper story gave Rosie Figueroa’s address. A tourist court off Fourth Street,” he said. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt anything to go over there, ask the neighbors what they know. Maybe hit the track after that. Just walk around. Ask some harmless questions.”

“All right now,” Jackie said, grinning. “You think Pearl would mind if I wore this jacket? I really like it.”

“Take it,” he told her. “Take the whole basket if you want. I got no use for it. And Pearl wants somebody to get some use out of it”

“Just the jacket.” Jackleen said, thrusting her hands down into the patch pockets.

Truman bundled the discarded clothes into his arms and plopped them on top of the basket. “We can drop this stuff off at the Free Clinic,” he said as he followed Jackie out into the hallway.

He set the basket down to lock the door.

“Hey!”

Truman looked up at Jackie.

She was holding a small brass key in her palm. “This was down inside the jacket, in the lining. There’s a little hole in the pocket lining. It must have slipped through. I better take it back to Pearl, it could be something she needs.”

“We’ll stop on the way down,” Truman agreed.

Pearl turned the key over and over in her hand. “Just a minute,” she said.

She went to the dresser and reached inside her pocket-book. When she came back she had a bulky key ring with a dozen or so keys jangling from it. One by one, she held the keys up to the small brass key Jackie had found.

“No,” she said, puzzled. “I’ve never seen this one before. You’re sure this came out of that jacket?” She nodded at the plaid coat Jackie had draped over her arm.

“It was down in the lining,” Jackie explained. “I felt something hard. I thought maybe it was a button or a piece of change or something.”

“Wasn’t this the jacket Mel was wearing at the track that night?” Truman asked.

“The police gave me his things back yesterday. They were in a horrible brown envelope marked ‘Evidence.’ I tore the envelope up and put the jacket with the other clothes to give away. The pants,” she said, pausing, her face crumpling, “the pants had spatters. Bloodstains. That girl’s blood. I threw them away.”

“Never mind,” Truman said. He’d thought things over in the elevator. “Never mind. We’re going to clear Mel’s name, Pearl. Find out who killed Rosie. This key could have something to do with it.”

Pearl shook her head sadly. “It won’t matter much now, will it? Mel’s in that nursing home. I’m here. Alone.”

Truman took the key from her. “She was just a kid, Pearl.”

When they were alone, on the elevator, Jackie put the jacket back on. “Are we crazy?” she asked. “Thinking we can find out who killed that girl when the police and the district attorney and the judge and everybody else already decided Mel did it, and he can’t remember himself?”

Truman took the key out of his breast pocket and looked at it again. “Crazy?” he said. “What’s so crazy about asking a few harmless questions?”

They were almost to the lobby door when Truman heard his name being called. He turned around.

Ollie came bounding across the tile floor. He was dressed in a pale yellow sport coat, baggy slacks, and the loudest, widest tie Truman had seen since the forties.

“What’s up?” Truman asked.

Ollie favored Truman with an exaggerated wink “You’ll never guess where I’m going.”

“You got me,” Truman said. “Where?”

Ollie glanced around the lobby to see if anyone could overhear. “Over to Cookie Jeffcote’s condo. What do you think about that? Huh?”

“Cookie Jeffcote! What you messing with her for?” Jackie demanded.

Ollie held a finger to his lips. “Shh. It’s top secret. I’m not supposed to tell anybody, but I guess you two wouldn’t count. She invited me over for drinks. To tell me about the special deal the church might cut some of us on this conversion thing.”

“Special deal?” Truman looked dubious. “What special deal?”

“I dunno,” Ollie said. He slicked his hair back with the palm of his hand. “But Ollie Zorn was never a man to let opportunity pass him by. No sir.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta go. She lives all the way out at St. Pete Beach and not that many buses go out there Saturday night.”

He gave Truman a subtle elbow in the ribs. “I’ll give you a full report in the morning.”

Jackie watched him hurry out the door. She shook her head. “What you think that’s about?”

Truman laughed. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”

Wade Hardeson was hungry and thirsty. But he’d had to part with most of the cash his grandmother had given him to pay the back rent and get back into the apartment. And for what? Someone had been there already, trashed the place. The disk wasn’t there.

He’d fucked up. Set up a meeting with the mob guy, Mikey, just assuming he’d find the diskette.

There was a shopping center with a brand new Winn-Dixie just a block away. He’d think better after he had some lunch.

Once inside, he got a shopping cart and wheeled it directly to the paper-goods aisle. There he stacked the cart with bulky rolls of paper towels, the largest package of disposable diapers he could find, and an eighteen-roll package of toilet tissue. It made a high white tower, totally obscuring Wade from view.

Then he made his way to the beer coolers. He pulled the cart in front of the cooler door, opened it, and helped himself to a quart bottle of malt liquor. He uncapped it and let the cold liquid slide down his throat. He needed this. It felt like he’d been gargling sand all day.

Moving on to the deli, Wade positioned the cart to shield himself from view again and picked up a half-pound package of sliced honey-baked ham and a tray of sliced sharp American cheese, tucking both under the waistband of his jeans. He was enjoying himself.

Shoplifting smorgasbord, Rosie had called it. If they were broke, which they usually were, they’d make a game of it. Rosie liked shiny new supermarkets, especially the ones with self-serve delis and the hot-entree sections. She got so good at the game, she’d go in, have the clerk fix her a Styrofoam tray of fried chicken, baked beans, coleslaw, and potato salad, and then she’d roam the aisles, eating as she went, stuffing more groceries down her shirt and in her purse. “The fools even give you a plastic fork and knife,” she’d said, laughing.

At the bakery, Wade untied a bag of rye bread, slipped four slices of bread out of it, and retied the bag. He reached into a plastic display case, grabbed a chocolate- frosted Bismarck, and gobbled it.

Using the paper tower as a shield, Wade worked himself into a corner display of liter bottles of Fresca and Tab and fixed himself two thick sandwiches, which he ate just as quickly.

He was still thirsty, though, so he wheeled the cart back down the beer aisle.

As he was reaching into the cooler again, he spotted something troubling reflected in the glass door. The woman wearing the ugly flowered dress and the head scarf and sunglasses. In-store security?

No, Wade decided. It was the same woman he’d seen at that old folks’ hotel. She was way too young to be hanging around a hotel like that. He could tell by her slender calves and ankles. Dynamite legs.

Had he seen those legs before?

Oh yes. The sexy little legs had a vicious mouth that went with the package. Tammi. She was that goon Curtis’s girlfriend. And the last time they’d met, he recalled, she’d bragged about having a gun.

Sweat beaded on Wade’s upper lip. She was following him. Hoping he’d lead her to the computer disk. He had to get back out to the car, get to Nana’s gun in the glove box, pull it on her before she could pull one on him.

He took one last swig of the malt liquor. Cold courage.

The bottle was still at his lips when the crash came. A metal shopping cart full of canned goods slammed into his kidneys, knocking him flat against the metal shelves of the beer cooler.

“Hiya, Wade,” Tammi said, flipping up her sunglasses so he could see those icy blue eyes. “Remember me?”

“I don’t have it,” he said, rubbing at his mouth. The force of the collision made him jab the beer bottle into his upper lip.

“I know you don’t,” Tammi said, backing the cart up the tiniest bit, to allow her to edge up close beside him and grab his arm. “But I’ll bet you know where to find it. Right?”

“I don’t,” he protested. “Swear to God. It’s like I told your friends. Rosie took it. She must have hid it somewhere. I looked all over the cabin. It’s not there. Hey— didn’t you guys wreck the place?”

“Not me,” Tammi said. She dug long nails into the skin of his forearm, enjoying his wince of pain. “Now that you’ve had lunch, why don’t we go outside and discuss the situation?”

“I’m supposed to meet somebody,” he blurted out. “A guy who wants to buy the program. He’s connected. If I don’t show up for the meet, he’ll find me and kill me. Then nobody’ll get the program.

“I’m the only one who knows where to look for it,” he added. “How to use it. It’s no good without me.”

“That might be,” Tammi admitted. She was pinching him now. “I’m kind of thinking you might need a partner. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Truman and Jackleen stood on the front stoop of the manager’s office. They’d been knocking at the door for five minutes with no response.

Even in the sparse shade of the tall pine trees it was unseasonably hot. Truman mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.

“She ain’t home,” a voice called from nearby.

He whirled around to see where the voice was coming from.

A boy, maybe twelve years old, sat in the shadows of the next cabin over. His skin was smooth and dark, and his thick black-rimmed glasses rested on chubby cheeks.

“It’s her wrasslin’ night,” the boy explained. “Are you cops too?”

“What makes you—” Truman started.

“Detectives,” Jackleen said quickly. “You live here, do you?”

“My aunt Frieda does,” the boy said. His voice was deep and hoarse-sounding. “I stay here on weekends. You gonna arrest somebody?”

“Don’t know yet,” Jackleen said, giving the boy a smile. “Did you know Rosie Figueroa? She lived here too, didn’t she?”

“My aunt Frieda knows her.”

“What about her boyfriend?” Truman asked. “Did you know him?”

“Uh-huh.”

Jackleen went over and sat down beside the kid.

“Tell me about Wade,” Jackleen said. “What’s his last name? Have you seen him around here lately?”

“I don’t know his last name. You want me to ask Aunt Frieda?”

Jackie glanced over at Truman, who gave her a quick nod.

The kid went inside and came back a moment later, aunt in tow.

She was short and skinny. She wore blue nylon running shorts and an oversized man’s T-shirt and had the same thick-lensed glasses as her nephew.

“D’Antonio ain’t supposed to talk to strangers,” she said.

“They cops, Auntie,” the kid started.

“Rosie got kilt last week. What y’all want now?”

“Can you tell us anything about this Wade guy?” Jackie asked.

“Rich boy. Drove a Porsche till the repo man come for it. Had some kind of computer job. He stayed drunk mostly.”

“What was his last name?” Truman asked.

Frieda peered closely at Truman. “Ain’t you too old to be a cop? You got a badge?”

“He’s the captain,” Jackleen said. “We’re plainclothes detectives, working undercover. We don’t carry badges undercover.”

Frieda considered this. “Wade Hardeson,” she said finally. “Rosie was too good for him. She worked her ass off at that track while he’d lay around drinking and messin’ with that car of his.”