Murder Take Two (26 page)

Lightning split the sky, thunder rolled over it, and cold drops of rain pattered on Yancy's face.

Some minutes later—two? Five? Yancy couldn't judge time—Kevin sprinted back. “Okay,” breathless, like he'd been running miles, rain dripping down his face. “They'll be right here. You all right? Oh, God, come on, man, don't die.”

Somewhere in Yancy's mind there were words to respond, but they were far back. When he tried to reach them, they went farther back, until there was nothing but velvet blackness.

Overheads on the squad car bled red, blue, and red into the rain-slick street and across faces of neighbors clustered on porches. EMTs slipped an oxygen tube under Yancy's nose, started IV fluids, and kept checking his blood pressure. Parkhurst stood around like excess baggage, and kept out of the way while they strapped Yancy on a stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance. It took off with the siren competing with thunder.

“His sister.”

Parkhurst turned.

Mrs. Blakeley, Yancy's landlady, held the ends of a scarf together around her chin. “Would you like me to call her?”

“I'll take care of it,” he said. “Are you all right?” She looked a little wobbly. “I'll have somebody see you get back to the house.”

“I'm fine. Just—” She breathed in. “Will he be all right?”

“I hope so.”

The small group of neighbors, stunned by what had happened, hadn't seen or heard anything until they'd heard the ambulance. Parkhurst had Kevin Murphy taken in, then sent White and Ellis on a door-to-door. What were the chances some individual was home, knew something, and hadn't rushed out to check the action?

Windshield wipers humming back and forth, he drove ten miles south to Raina Yancy's home. Bringing bad news to a family was the worst of it. At least, the current duty wasn't bringing death. It was just past two
A.M.
when he got there. Using his flashlight to avoid puddles, he trotted through the rain to the rear porch.

Inside, the dog barked; outside, the light came on, and the kitchen door opened. Serena, white-faced, robe thrown over pajamas, had one hand on the dog's collar. “What happened?”

“May I come in, Serena?”

“Is he dead?”

“No, Serena. He's been hurt. He's at the emergency room.”

Her knees loosened. Parkhurst grabbed for her and the dog came at him with all its teeth hanging out.

“Elmo!”

“Easy. Okay.” Parkhurst released her and stepped back.

Serena caught the dog around its shoulders and let it slink under the table. “I'm sorry about that. He's been weird this evening. I don't know what's wrong with him. He's really a very sweet dog.”

Sure he is. Parkhurst eyed the beast warily and guided Serena to a chair. “Your brother's been stabbed. We don't know yet what happened.”

“How bad?”

“Until I get in and talk with the doctor, I don't know.”

She shot up. “I have to go.”

Toenails scrapping, the dog got out from under the table. Parkhurst remained sitting, not wanting to set him off again. “I'll take you. You might want to get dressed.”

In confusion, she looked down at herself. “Yes. Oh, yes. Of course.”

“Leaving you with me,” he said to the dog.

Elmo padded over to him, placed his big head on Parkhurst's knee, and peered up at him through bushy eyebrows.

“Does this mean we're friends?”

Elmo wiggled his eyebrows. Parkhurst gave him a careful pat and the dog snuggled closer, squashing one foot with a large paw.

Five minutes later, Serena came back wearing jeans and a blue blouse, carrying a raincoat that she slipped on.

Parkhurst stood carefully. Elmo, now that they were friends and all, just seemed sorry to see him go. “What about your mother?”

“She's asleep. I'll leave her a note in case she wakes up. First I'll see how bad—how he is and if—if I need to I'll come back and get her.”

With a hand on her elbow, Parkhurst guided her to the Bronco, turned it around, and headed back to town.

Eyes fixed on the silver strands of rain caught in the headlights, Serena said, “I've been nagging at him.”

It was a confession in a voice laden with guilt and remorse. A common occurrence, from a family member or loved one. Regrets. People don't seem to live with love uppermost in their lives, or they don't remember it. They remember the anger and sharp words they can't take back.

When they got to the hospital, he parked in a loading zone, careful not to block entrances or emergency vehicles, and they went inside.

“Where is he?” she asked the emergency room nurse.

“Don't worry.” The nurse, Mary Mason, gave her a reassuring smile. “He's fine. We're working on him. He's in the last room.”

Working on him didn't sound so reassuring to Parkhurst. He shepherded Serena in the direction indicated.

“Hey,” Mary said.

He turned.

“Peter's had a big shock to the body. He's also had morphine. He is not to be pestered with questions.”

“Yes, ma'am. All right if I take a look at him?”

“No. You're not family. And I know you, you'll ask questions.”

“The doctor? All right if I see him?”

“He's busy. You wait right over there and I'll let you know when he's free.”

Parkhurst paced the waiting area until Dr. Sheffield appeared in scrub greens and booties.

“How is he?”

“Stable.”

Parkhurst crossed his arms and said evenly, “This is me you're talking to. Tell me what's going on with that officer, or I'll shoot your foot off.”

A smile crossed Sheffield's tired face. Padding to a yellow plastic chair, he plopped down. “He's fine. Young, fit, healthy. Barring complications, he'll be good as new in a day or two. He was lucky. The knife was rammed into his side approximately here.” Sheffield bent his right elbow and placed a thumb against his side about halfway between waist and armpit. “The knife point hit a rib and went skating along the bone. It's cracked, either from the blow or from the force of his fall. But it didn't go straight in between ribs and puncture a lung.”

Parkhurst felt his shoulders ease. “How much strength did it take? Was the assailant male?”

“I suppose a woman could have done it. He did most of the damage himself when he fell.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Tomorrow.”

Parkhurst stared.

“He's not Superman, for God's sake. He's a kid who's just had a hell of a traumatic insult to his body. He's not on the critical list, but that doesn't mean it's just a scratch. He's got a cracked rib and a stab wound. He's in pain, and in shock. He's also lost some blood. Give him time to rebound. This is my domain and I'm telling you to stay away from him.” Sheffield started to stride off.

“A couple of questions.”

Sheffield threw up his hands. “Go. Just don't stress him out.”

Shirt off, rib cage wrapped, Yancy lay on a bed, Serena at his side, and a young nurse making notes on a chart. Seeing Parkhurst, he tried to get up.

“Hey,” the nurse said, “you want to fall?”

“They gave me something,” Yancy said apologetically.

Parkhurst could see that they had. Yancy's eyes didn't quite focus. “What happened?”

Considering the drugs, Yancy related the incident clearly.

“What did you see?”

“Nothing. A shove. Next, I'm on the ground, waiting to meet my maker. He took my gun.”

“He?”

“I don't even know that.”

Parkhurst collected the bloody shirt, asked the nurse to date and initial the tag after he did. He told Serena he'd have somebody take her home when she was ready.

He went back to Baylor Street to make sure Osey was working the scene and find out what the neighbors might know. He told White to get back over to the hospital and look after Yancy's sister.

*   *   *

Rose. Laura my beloved. The universe is rose. He held the gun in his hand and tested the weight, looked down the sights and gently put a finger around the trigger. Beautiful. It won't be long, Laura, my sweet, my love. It won't be long. We'll be together. Forever.

*   *   *

It was three
A.M.
when Parkhurst called the chief. Her voice was clogged with sleep.

She'd been dreaming. Down jacket blowing around her, she was running along the beach, trying to catch the man ahead. Cold wind clawed her face and whipped her hair. Her bare feet made sucking hollows in the sand, waves rolled in and washed the sand clean as they rolled out. Seagulls wheeled overhead in a gray sky, their high plaintive mews grew shrill, then dissolved into the ringing of the telephone.

Snaking out a hand, she groped at the bedside table, turned over, and cleared her throat. Rain pattered against the roof like tears she had to grieve. “Wren.”

“Parkhurst.” He told her what had gone down.

Dregs of sleep wiped from her mind, she told him what little she knew about Kevin Murphy. An only child, his father a navy test pilot who'd smashed himself up in an accident, now retired and moved to Hampstead with his family. Then she said, “I'll be right down.”

While he waited for her, Parkhurst watched Kevin through the one-way mirrored glass. From the kid's manners, Parkhurst could have guessed the military father. Years ago, Parkhurst knew a military brat. Parkhurst was twelve, Noah a couple years older. At fourteen Noah had that same outward respect of authority, posture straight, stance at attention with adults, and the same self-assurance a kid might get from living all over the world, being transplanted every couple years and asked to survive.

Noah knew four languages, and even in English he could talk rings around Parkhurst. He called everybody
sir,
even Parkhurst's drunken, abusive father. At fourteen, he'd lived places Parkhurst had never even heard of.

They'd met one hot summer day. Noah, flying down a hill on his skateboard, was heading right into an ambush. Four local kids had decided to take the skateboard. Noah—hair short, clothes clean, matchstick arms, expensive shoes—looked like easy fun. They shouldn't have been so confident. Like a dancer, he stepped off the board, picked it up, and smashed one kid across the face. A broken nose with gushing blood put him out of commission. The other three, with just enough brain power combined to know one heavy offensive would take him, came in a flying wedge.

Parkhurst lent a hand, or rather both fists, and his knowledge of street fighting. Even so it wasn't a walk over. All six were bloody and bruised before it was finished, but by God he and Noah won. They grinned at each other, chests filled with the pride of young males walking away from battle as victors.

Skateboard under one arm, Noah turned to him. “I suppose you think we're going to be friends.”

Parkhurst, nonplussed, hadn't given it a thought. “Why not?” Even in preadolescence the battlefield made fast friends.

“I don't have friends,” Noah said in that tight-assed way he had of showing he was better.

“How come?”

“Who needs them?” This was said with jaw firm, shoulders back. “Keep moving. No baggage.”

Wow. A motto. Like the Three Musketeers, one for all and all for one. Noah didn't need anybody. Keep moving, no baggage.

Despite Noah's motto, the distances when he was off in some country Parkhurst couldn't even spell, and the time between Noah's visits to his grandmother, they did become friends.

Years later, in a bar, late one night with both of them slightly squiffed, Parkhurst asked why.

“You were the only person who ever came into a fight on my side,” Noah said. “A new school every year. You walk into a classroom and every face stares at you. There's never time to make friends because you're always packing up and moving on. Next class, different faces stare at you, but they're the same damn faces. You learn to fight your own fights. You learn to live as a loner and you're lonely. Jesus God, are you lonely,” he said to his vodka.

He drained the glass. “The only person in the entire world who ever came into a fight on my side.” He swiveled the bar stool and punched Parkhurst's shoulder. “You, my friend, are the only reason I'm not in a nuthouse.”

In those days Parkhurst was packed with gunpowder waiting to explode. He was always looking for a fight, any fight would do.

Susan came up beside him and they both looked at Kevin in the interview room, seated in a brown plastic chair at the long wooden table, face worried and young. They stood side by side for a minute or two. She'd obviously dressed in a hurry, but she looked as cool and poised as always. Without taking her eyes from Kevin, she said, “You take this on.”

He didn't know what she'd based her decision on, but he was glad. He wanted a go at this kid. When he stepped into the room, Kevin's head whipped up with insolent, thin-lipped assurance and a reckless air of being ready to stand his ground, no matter the consequences.

“Why'd you stab him, Kevin?”

“Sir?”

The
sir,
drilled into him by his military father, had the same hard spin as fuck you. He had a calm self-confidence seldom seen in a seventeen-year-old kid. Forced into being a loner either created self-assurance or sent a kid straight down the tubes.

A natural athlete, with reactions the speed of a prairie rattler, this kid was a miracle for the high school Wolverines; it was the only time in the history of Hampstead High School that they had a team to be reckoned with. A lot of newspaper space got devoted to him at every game.

“You got a score to settle with Officer Yancy?” Parkhurst asked.

“Sir?”

Staring got no more than amused contempt. Of cops? All adults? Susan was probably right. He was at war with the adult world, and that made Parkhurst think. He just might know what made this kid tick. As a teenager, Parkhurst had zeroed his hatred in on cops, because he was constantly hassled. Back in the days before there was so much noise about illegal search and seizure, he'd be netted on the street during routine hauls and dragged in for questioning. Once in high school, between classes a plainclothes man had slammed him against his locker, crushed a forearm against his throat, and said, “You're coming with me.” No fooling around with Miranda, he was thrown in a lineup. He never knew what he was suspected of. The witness didn't come through with an ID and the cop grudgingly dropped him back at school. He'd swaggered into English class. Most likely, nothing like that had ever happened to this kid, not a kid who had a father who knew how to raise hell if it did.