Murder in Germantown (31 page)

“
In my car,” Rhonesia said and then added, “sealed in a box.”

“
What’s in the box?”

“
Don’t know. It’s marked football stuff.”

“
You didn’t look in the box?”

“
No, I didn’t want to taint the prints. They may match the key chain.”

“
Unbelievable!” Aramis said.

He dropped a twenty on the table and they left the restaurant.

“
Where are you going?” Rhonesia asked, admiring his stroll and ass.

“
To open the box.”

Aramis walked to the diner parking lot with Rhonesia in tow. He asked, “Which car is yours?”

“
The Accord.”

“
Get the box.”

Rhonesia opened the trunk to her red Honda, and there was a medium box in there taped profusely.

“
How you managed to take this damn box?”

“
Dragged it into my room. He made a trip to his car and I lived a room away from him.”

“
You’re a cold piece of work,” Aramis said and cut the box open using a Swiss army knife.

He used the knife to shift the items around. He then used gloved hands and hoisted a blue towel from the box, which was wrapped snuggly around something. He opened the rag and was flabbergasted.

“
Who’s the student?” he asked putting the towel back in the box.

“
That’s confidential.”

“
What?”

“
I need a byline, Aramis. If this gun is the weapon used by the shooter, I want credit for it.”

“
You’ll get it.”

“
Follow me to the dorm to drop my car off. Then I will take you to the possible gun owner.”

“
Possible?”

“
Come on, would you,” she replied and hopped into her car.

CHAPTER 70

A gaunt woman answered the door at the ranch home in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. She was in her late fifties and had no care for her appearance. She donned a crinkly, polyester dress and destroyed bunny house slippers. Her hair was gray with streaks of deep drown strewn wildly on her scalp.

“
What do you want?” she asked. She glanced at Aramis Reed and Rhonesia Cosby with eyes chipped from pale-blue agate. “I ain’t buying nothing!”

“
We’re looking for Lewis Barclay, ma’am,” Rhonesia said politely. “Does he live here?”

“
No. And who the hell are you?”

Slowly, Rhonesia took out her wallet from her purse and opened it to where she could flash her LSU ID.

“
I’m one of his classmates. This here...”--she pointed to Aramis--“is the coach of the football team. Her first official professional lie.

The woman digested the words. “Okay, folks,” the older woman said. “Why are you here?”

“
Well...” Rhonesia stammered.

Aramis picked up the slack. “Ma’am, Lewis dropped out of school and we were hoping to change his mind. He’s a promising young man and we’d hate to lose him.”

“
He lives with his father in that horrible city, with the staggering death rate. You can find him under the gun there.”

“
Do you have an address for him?”

“
Sure do. Why should I give it to you?”

“
Barclay may be suicidal, ma’am,” Rhonesia said and smiled.

She was such a great liar. It was quick thinking though that pissed Aramis off. Aramis quickly cleaned up her mess.

“
Yes, a girlfriend of his claimed he flashed a rifle and threatened to kill himself if she did not take him back.”

Now Aramis had lied.

“
Yeah. Your son,” Rhonesia added unnecessarily. “We need to get him some help.”

“
Sure. I’ll get the address,” she said and left the door.

“
Don’t you say another word,” Aramis told Rhonesia.

“
Why not?”

“
Please, Rhonesia. You put too much on that suicide comment.”

The woman returned to the door with an old phone in her hand. She explained to the father of Barclay that his beloved son was suicidal again over some bimbo. She went on and confessed that he always pulled that number to get a girl to love him.

She said, “He thinks because he is a jock, he can have whomever he wants,” to the father on the telephone. “That’s your problem. You had the same attitude and now you feed that bullshit to our boy. One of these days, he is really going to off himself. And his blood will be all on you.” She paused, and then said, “And my gun is missing.”

She hung up and told Aramis, “Here’s the address. I did not tell him that you were coming. He knows how to hide. The bastards. Here’s a copy of my rifle permit. Please have my gun returned to me because I know he stole it. Thank you,” she said and closed the front door.

Aramis hopped into his car and dialed Ravonne.

“
Ravonne, I have great news.”

“
Oh, but I have some great news myself,” Ravonne said.

“
Not as good as mine,” Aramis said bragging.

“
Wanna bet.”

“
Keep your money. I’ll be there in a half-hour.”

“
You better have the smoking gun if you wanna top me.”

“
I do,” Aramis said and hung up.

CHAPTER 71

Aramis held a 2006 LaSalle University yearbook given to him by Rhonesia. He passed it to me to look at the pages that he had placed tabs on. Photo number one was of a mathematics major standing in front of a classroom working out a geometry problem. I hated those in high school and avoided geometry in college. The second photo was of the quarterback of the football team. He wore a school jersey exposing a quarterback physique with jeans and a babe on his hip. The third photo was of the entire football team with arrows pointed at a select few of the men’s faces.

“
Should this QB mean something to me?” I asked.

“
He does,” Aramis told me with a smile plastered on his mug.

“
I’m listening.”

“
Can I get a little back ground music?”

“
I’m not in the mood for games, Miz.”

“
Something with a classical flare,” he told me.

“
Mozart?”

I cued
Don Giovanni
to play out of the surround sound and poured me a glass of white. I sat back at my desk and mixed my fingers together to show the attention I was prepared to offer this journalist/best friend.

“
Okay,” I began. “I saw your photo spread, so what now, Miz?”

“
Listen carefully, Ravonne.”

“
I always...”

“
You’re talking. That’s what you always do. I’ve come into possession of the missing surveillance from LaSalle U, which specifically places your client at the university at the precise times he claims to have been. A few characters, chiefly, Lewis Barclay, who you’ve been told by the client’s girlfriend, Shannon Oscar, hated your client, has been acting suspicious along with Darren Lockman and Morgan Malone. Since I wrote that the potential killer could be roaming the campus posing as a student, Barclay withdrew from classes, collected 70% of his tuition, and is now missing in action. Got all that?”

“
I do.”

“
Good. Me and a source located Barclay’s mother in KOP. She’s estranged from the boy and hates the father. Several days prior to the Hope Circle killings, she reported to the police that her home was burglarized. The only missing item was a Smith and Wesson.”

“
I get the strangest feeling that there is more?”

“
Absolutely. I have the weapon. It’s been sawed off, which is consistent with the ballistics experts.”

“
What! How the hell did you get that?”

“
A source. A confidential source.”

“
Where’s the rifle?”

“
With ballistics.”

“
There’s a problem. It was stolen from Barclay. Would my source be subject to the theft charge?”

“
Aramis, the DA wouldn’t dare prosecute your source for stealing a weapon that was responsible for at least three deaths.”

“
There’s more to my story.”

“
I’d love to hear it.”

“
Thought so. My source went to the Hollow to do some interviewing to find out about the vics. Got some juicy info.”

“
He couldn’t have. I couldn’t even get them to talk. Who’s this source? I have expert lie detectors to validate his claims.”

“
He, is a she, and no lie test is required. You’d be amazed at what the promise of pussy can buy these days from hoodlums in a bar.”

“
Right. What did she find out?”

“
Barclay’s father was a money launderer for the dead attorney who actually funneled the money for the two dead dope dealers. Barclay, Sr. then turns around and loans the money to other businesses fronted by Suspect.”

“
Sounds like motive to me. And your proof is where?” I asked. Aramis was beginning to sound like a textbook of conjecture.

“
In Barclay senior’s financial statements buried somewhere. Surely, you can find a tax attorney in this firm to unearth the secrets.”

“
I could have a secret inquiry completed.”

“
Not could. You have to. What if Junior killed for dear old dad and the bimbo girlfriend helped?”

“
But, why frame Wydell?”

“
You’re not that damn smart. Because he would get rid of the man who blocks his shine and having sex with one of his kind. Duh!”

“
I get it.”

“
Now, what do you have counselor?”

“
Jon Rude tells me that the accomplice was a female.”

“
It’s not my source, but I could ask her about that.”

“
The female wears a size nine, and wore Saucony’s. The Cross Country team wears them.”

“
I’ll look into it,” he told me noncommittally.

I sat behind my desk, glowering at my drink. I had heard enough. “Where’s the surveillance tape, sir?”

He passed it to me.

I watched it.

“
You’ve watched it, so I’m sure that’s all the proof you need to print that up. Take this to the police as well, after I copy it, of course.”

I then sent an E-mail to Jon Rude. “The Barclay business does not go in the paper.”

“
Until you get that audit, of course.”

“
Yeah, I’mma have my pal, Ashton Banks, take care of it. We started together, and he’ll be down to help me.”

I told Aramis and hoped that I could deliver.

“
The public needs to know that an industrial transplant from California and his son are being investigated for criminal ties to the Hope Circle murders. I gotta scoot.”

“
Catch you later.”

CHAPTER 72

Rhonesia curled herself on her bed, sipped green tea and waited for a call from Aramis. She actually missed him in a romantic sense. Certainly, she was all business and was strangely comfortable around Aramis. She had her window open and let the winter breeze bump up against her body. It felt nice with the mix of heat. She hated men, and thought of the man that forced her to feel that way: her father.

She thought of his father and his abandonment. He had committed suicide after being wrongly accused of a rape/murder. By the time DNA arrived to exonerate him, he had hung himself in his Huntingdon State Prison cell in upstate Pennsylvania. He was her number one pen pal. He had written her weekly, and she enjoyed his personalized jail house cards. She kept them in a scrap book along with photos of him in his brown state uniform. She could still smell the Muslim oils that he splashed on himself when she visited him behind the glass. She thought of Wydell and did not want him to face the same doom.