Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery (25 page)

“Money.”

He nodded. “Not a lot. Maybe a grand. No one in here does something for nothing.”

“Who does this money go to?” I asked.

“You give it to me and I give it to him. You can bring it in cash. They don’t search you, do they? Not like family members.” Tim took a few steps back from me, as if he were trying to uncross the line he’d just crossed. “You can check out the story or you can just ignore it. I’m just telling you what I know.”

“Well, thanks, I guess,” I said, reeling a little from this new information. “I don’t know about getting any money, but I’ll look into it. If it turns out to be something, I’ll get back to you.”

“I’m sorry, Kate,” Tim said. “I’m not good at the right thing to say, and I think you got the worst possible idea about me.”

“
You put yourself in a position for me to think the worst.”

“I get that. I ain’t learned a lot of social skills in here. If you want to just forget what I asked you, about your friend helpin’ me, that would be okay, but what I told you is true.”

I wanted to walk out of there, to just shake his hand, make arrangements for our last interview, and leave. But I didn’t. And it wasn’t just because an innocent man locked in prison for twenty years would make a perfect ending to the documentary, though it would. It was because if he was innocent…I didn’t want to finish the thought. It was just too sad to consider.

“If you didn’t kill your wife, then what are you doing in prison?” I asked.

“I was there when it happened, in the apartment. I was half passed out, and I saw Cody trying to take advantage of Jenny.”

“Cody, your drug dealer,” I said.

“Yeah. I didn’t do anything to stop it ’cause we didn’t have enough money to pay for the drugs and I figured it was kind of a trade.” He kept his eyes toward the floor. “But Jenny wasn’t inclined to go along with it, and something got out of hand and Cody just stabbed her. I tried to stop it.” He cleared his throat, seemed almost ready to cry but didn’t. “I grabbed the knife from Cody but it was too late. Jenny reached up to me for help but I couldn’t do nothin’ by then. The damage was done. I just stood there and watched her die.”

“Did you tell the police what had happened when they arrested you?”

He shook his head. “I told ’em it was my fault. And it was. And I was so drugged out I didn’t make any right choices. By the time I sobered up, it was too late. I had an appointed attorney, and he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t even stay awake during half the testimony.”

“And Cody?”

“His family knew people. His daddy was on the city council. I was a nobody with a knife in my hand, a drug addiction, and a dead wife.”

“And all the years since?”

“I didn’t care if I lived or died.”

“So why care now?”

He looked at me. “My little cousin, the one who visited me, she told
me that Cody is dealin’ again. He was straight for a while, but he tried to put the moves on my cousin, get her to try some meth. I’m gonna do what I can to stop him.”

I looked for the telltale signs of a lie—I’ve seen them all, the broken eye contact, the extraneous detail—but there were none. Tim looked straight at me, his eyes sad but sincere. “I’ll do what I can,” I said.

He smiled a little, then turned toward the guard, who handcuffed him and took him back to his cell.

I
t’s a good story,” Andres said.

Andres, Victor, Vera, and I sat in Vera’s kitchen, eating deep-dish pizza, drinking beer, and trying to figure out what to do. Vera had spent the better part of ten minutes staring off into space, so I wasn’t sure if she was even listening.

“I can call Makina, tell him what Tim said,” I suggested.

Victor sneered. “That guy has his head up his ass.”

“You’ve already told him about Roman,” Andres pointed out. “Told him about the fire, about his cousin’s murder, about Ilena being afraid of him. Haven’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“And what’s he done with that information?”

“Nothing,” Victor answered for me. “He’s too busy going after two completely innocent people. I say you give him nothing.”

“Victor’s right.” Andres patted his old friend’s back, the first friendly gesture between the two of them in weeks. “It’s a prison rumor given to you by a convicted killer looking for cash. Is Makina really going to take that seriously?”

“Especially since it may not be true,” I agreed. “I told Tim about the fire. I practically handed him Roman as a suspect. He could have just made up the whole thing.”

“I don’t think we can take a chance on whether it’s true or isn’t,” Vera said, finally turning to face the rest of us. “If Roman killed Erik, then we have to prove it. If he gets arrested, Doug can come out of hiding. If he’s okay.”

“That’s a lot of ifs,” I said. Including the one she’d left out: If Roman had planned to hire someone to get rid of one “package,” couldn’t he hire someone to get rid of us? I looked over at Vera, who looked as worried as I felt. “I suppose we can try,” I told her. That cheered her up, but she had a lot more confidence in my detective skills than I did. “It
would be something if Tim has given us the break we need to find Doug and wrap this damn thing up.”

“That poor man,” Vera said. “Tim, I mean. All these years to carry around that guilt about his wife, and to be in prison for something he didn’t do.”

“
If
he didn’t do it,” I reminded her, and myself. “All we have is his word. And as Brick said, all these guys are con men.”

“He would know,” Andres interrupted. “What is it with you and that guy, Kate? My wife does the same thing. She has faith in the most ridiculous people.”

“Quite a character flaw,” I said.

“You never saw the good in people before,” he told me, actually sounding concerned. “It was your best quality.”

“Tim gave us information that we can use to find Erik’s killer,” Vera answered for me. “And the deal Kate made was we would help in return, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

“That’s only one part of this,” I reminded her. “Brick said that if we want to know who killed Erik we have to know more about him.”

Andres rolled his eyes, and even Victor shook his head, but Vera smiled approvingly. Regardless of what any of them thought, what Brick had said made sense. Instead of focusing on the suspects, which so far was getting us nowhere, we had to focus on the victim. It’s an unfortunate reality that in true crime shows, and in life, it’s the victim who gets lost in the shuffle while the killer gets all the attention.

When I tell friends I’ve sat across from people who’ve committed horrible acts of violence, even the mildest of my friends are riveted by my stories. But no one asks me what it’s like to sit with the families of murder victims. No one asks me about the victims at all. And I was just as bad. I’d barely spent any time thinking about Erik Price. It was as if his death was an annoyance to me, getting in the way of my sleep and keeping me involved with Vera.

“I’m going to look into Erik’s background, see what I can find,” I said.

“Because Brick said so?” Andres asked. “Kate—”

“Andres,” I said, stopping him. “I’m not enamored by a prison inmate, if that’s what you’re getting at, and I’m not doing his bidding.”

“
But you trust him,” Vera cut in. “You like him.”

“As a person, yes,” I admitted. “I’m not going to be his pen pal or anything, but I like how straightforward he is. I like that he understands what it’s like.”

“To be lonely,” Vera said.

“To be a killer,” I corrected her. “He’s helping me understand how Erik’s killer might think.”

Andres and Victor left, refusing to admit that I was on the right track. We would be shooting together in a few days. I was scheduled to do the interviews with some of the Club Car investors, so whatever ill feelings there were among us would have to blow over by then, but I was annoyed. It was as if the whole world was concerned about the fragile state of my emotions and no one was able to see that my emotions were perfectly fine. Except Vera, who seemed to have gone to the other extreme.

“So, Detective Kate, what’s the plan?” Vera asked as she put the pizza box and beer bottles in the recycling bin.

“I’ll start by searching for info on Erik online, and see what I have in my file on past employment. Maybe someone at one of the restaurants he’s worked at will know if he had any enemies.”

“And Doug?”

“There were those charges on the credit card for the diner near Wrigley Field. I guess we can look there,” I said. “And I can go by his office and see if he’s been in.”

“I did that,” she said, as her face turned red.

“When?”

“A couple of days ago. I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you would be mad, that if the police found out it would look like I was planting evidence or something.”

“Let’s hope the police don’t find out,” I said. “So what happened?”

“It’s a small office. Just Doug and a computer, basically. I thought he might have gone back. But it was empty.”

“No Doug?”

“No
anything. There was a desk, but his files, his computer, anything that could hint at where he is was cleared out.”

“How did you get in?”

“I told the manager that Doug had asked me to pay the rent for him.”

“It’s February twelfth,” I said. “How did you know Doug hadn’t already paid the rent?”

“I took a chance.”

“And he hadn’t?” I asked.

She shook her head. “After I paid it, I asked the manager to let me into the office to pick up some stuff for Doug.”

“And naturally, the guy wasn’t going to give you a hard time, especially since you just gave him money.”

She smiled. “He let me right into the place. I was worried he would stick around and I wouldn’t be able to snoop, but he just left me all alone. It was kind of fun.”

“It would have been more fun if Doug hadn’t cleared everything out.”

“Or someone else.”

She had a point. “I’ll need a photo of Doug I can show around,” I told her.

“I have a bunch of them.”

“That will help.”

“And we have to find out about Tim’s wife,” Vera said.

“That’s third on the list, after Doug and Erik.”

“Why? Tim is sitting in prison while the real killer is walking around free.”

“That could be us, unless we find out who killed Erik,” I reminded her. “And if I have to choose between saving Tim’s neck and saving my own—”

“You’ll save mine,” Vera interrupted. “You had a choice and you chose to help me, even though it put you in a tough spot with the police.” She moved toward me, her arms dangerously close to hugging position.

“I wasn’t thinking that night,” I told her. “If I had—”

“
You would have done the same thing.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think,” I said. “I’m not that giving a person.”

“Maybe you didn’t used to be. Maybe you’re changing.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” I blurted out.

T
hat night I thought about Vera’s words, about my changing into someone kinder. And Andres’s accusation that I was seeing the best in people, even people who were in prison for murder. I love my family, more or less. I loved Frank, most of the time. I’m pretty fond of Andres and Victor, and I love, without hesitation, the chef at my neighborhood British pub, who makes a chicken and mushroom pie that is comfort food and elegant dining in one.

But strangers? Did I care about strangers, or near-strangers like Tim and Brick? Or Vera? Like Brick said, it’s a slippery slope. You start caring about people, start worrying about them, wanting things to work out for them, and the next thing you know, you’re unable to produce a television show.

I’ve dipped a toe in the waters of empathy, and it’s never worked out well for me. I ended up in ugly bridesmaid dresses for girlfriends I didn’t really like. I got roped into a friendship with Vera. And worst, I’ve screwed up on stories because I wanted the subjects to look good, to seem sane and reasonable, at the expense of entertaining television. It’s harder to lie to interview subjects when you like them, or talk them into crying or, better yet, screaming, on camera. If you can’t get what you need, then you don’t get hired for the next job. And that means no money for mortgage payments, or health insurance, or chicken and mushroom pie.

Everyone was wrong about everything, I decided. And mostly they were wrong about me. I didn’t care about Tim or Brick. I didn’t. But I did wonder what it would be like to be in prison for a lifetime, paying for choices that were more than twenty years old.