T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 01 - Southern Fatality (22 page)

“My associates have already spoken with you?”

“Sure. They talked to everyone who had anything to do with Jared. I mean, I didn’t even know him that well and they questioned me for almost an hour.”

“Well,” I told him in a confidential tone, “the person I want to talk about today is Walton Ralls.”

“Walton? Well, he got kicked out, you know. Zero tolerance on drugs. Even his dad couldn’t get him out of that one.”

“Tell me everything you know about Walton. And about how Walton and Jared got along when they roomed together.”

He hesitated. “You know, there’s like this code of ethics around here. A good person doesn’t go around talking about his buddies, especially behind their backs. I … I’m just not sure—”

“Let me give you another code, son. It’s a code to live and help live. You don’t leave a teammate, or in your case a fellow cadet, behind,” I told him, inwardly smiling at how easy it was to bullshit a twenty-year-old. “Sometimes when you look at the big picture, you have to break the little rules. What I’m asking you to do is help us find Jared. Not leave him behind.”

“Talking about Walton can help you do that?”

“Yes.”

We strolled the campus while Michael Stratton gave me a lot to mull over. I learned that Walton was a computer geek and a
good enough hacker to have broken into the school’s system to change some grades for a friend. He enjoyed a little pot now and then and didn’t care if he graduated or not. His only goal, according to Michael, was to embarrass the senator. He did just enough at the military academy to get by and his daddy was called on more than one occasion to get Walton out of trouble.

“I probably shouldn’t bring this up, but it’s not like I’m the only cadet who knew about it,” Michael said as an afterthought. Music suddenly reached our ears and when we walked around a building, a marching band came into view. The music was stoic and upbeat with a rhythmic background of drummers. The seventy or so students carried an assortment of instruments including bagpipes.

“That’s the Regimental Band and Pipes,” Michael explained. “They’re practicing.”

We stopped to enjoy the show for a few minutes before continuing our walk. “You were talking about something that several cadets knew?” I prompted.

Michael hesitated, lowered his voice. “Oh, yeah. It was just a prank, you know? Me and Walton were taking candid Polaroid pictures of other cadets. Stupid stuff, like surprising them on the toilet or whatever. So anyway, we caught Jared in, uh … a very compromising position with another kid in the shower. We didn’t know the other guy, but it was Jared for sure. Walton told Jared later that he threw the picture away, like it was no big deal. But I think he really kept it because he told me it might come in handy someday.”

I could still hear the sound of horns and drums, faintly carried with the breeze. On a verbose roll, Michael said that Walton constantly bragged about rendezvousing with an older woman. Laughing, my informant confessed that he and all the other cadets figured Walton invented the fantasy woman, since nobody actually ever saw her.

I’d gotten what I needed and thanked Michael Stratton for his
time. Not bothering to inform the higher ups that I was done with their students, I hit the road and grabbed a roast beef sandwich from the Arby’s drive-through. I set the cruise control on sixty-five and wondered why Jared had attended the Citadel in the first place, knowing in advance he’d never fit in.

It grew dark by the time I reached the Block and Cracker greeted me with bubbly enthusiasm. He eagerly sniffed my shoes and legs to determine where I’d been. Satisfied that I hadn’t been disloyal by visiting another dog, he sat and waited to see if I’d brought him a surprise. I hadn’t, but I fed him a shelled peanut and he was just as happy with that.

Ox slid onto the bar stool next to me and we indulged in a couple of bottled Coors Lights. Since I hadn’t yet cut down on my beer intake, I figured I could at least go to a lower-calorie product. From our vantage point, we could see Spud’s car in the rear driveway. The bumper hung at an awkward angle and there was a sizable dent in the center of it.

Although Wilmington’s falling sun was filtered by a row of stringy clouds, the air remained dense with heat. The Block’s overhead ceiling fans spun at top speed and customers drank more iced tea than profit-generating booze.

“J.J.’s Auto Repair is sending a tow truck to pick it up in the morning,” Ox said. “Complimentary, this time.”

“Has he hired someone to steal it yet?” I asked.

“Don’t know. Your father is one hell of a thinker,” he said, and I couldn’t decide whether the comment was flattering or insulting. Maybe neither. It was probably just an observation.

The early evening crowd of customers was the self-sufficient type that wouldn’t need much for the next hour. They were locals who, content to watch sports on television and catch up on the latest neighborhood gossip, would get around to ordering appetizers or dinner later.

“I think you’ve been ruffling somebody’s feathers,” Ox said after a healthy swallow of beer. I noticed with dismay that, according to the silver label on my bottle, I was drinking one hundred and two calories. It wasn’t even a longneck. I’d have to run in the morning. I’d also have to quit drinking so much beer, I thought, and wondered if my malted beverage intake classified me as a borderline alcoholic.

“If I’d said that to you, about ruffling feathers,” I told Ox, “it would have been a politically incorrect faux pas, or racial discrimination, or something.”

“Yeah, and then I’d have to tomahawk chop you up top the head,” he said in a deadpan voice. I smiled. There were very few things that could get Ox riled up, and a reference to his Lumbee Indian heritage was not one of them. Tonight he wore a white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up and navy shorts with heavy socks and hiking boots. He looked as though he were about to depart for a safari.

“You got something going on tonight?” I asked him. “Maybe a gator hunt in the swamp, or a trek along the river?”

“Never know,” he said.

I’d learned to accept the mysteries in Ox’s life and didn’t press further. There was a real possibility that he
was
going for a midnight hike. “So, whose feathers have I ruffled?”

“Not sure. But a couple of bruisers came in this afternoon asking about you. They weren’t locals and they weren’t tourists.” Wilmington has its share of vacationers throughout the year, and while sightseers might stop in the Block for lunch, they certainly wouldn’t have reason to ask about me.

The men told Ox they were friends of mine, looking me up for old times’ sake. They asked if I lived upstairs and if I was home.

“They look like friends of mine?” I said.

“You have friends?”

“Ha, ha.”

“I told them you were probably out with your grandkids—” he grinned at the cut on my age, “—you being retired and all. They didn’t flinch. They obviously don’t know if you have grandkids or not. Doubt they even know what you look like.”

“Definitely not friends,” I said.

“Nope.”

Apparently, I’d been poking around in all the right places. A couple of thugs had come calling, which was good news. It meant that I hadn’t been wasting my time with a somewhat primitive, albeit effective investigative technique: when you don’t know who you’re after, keep poking around until you stir someone into action. Many criminals would never be caught if they didn’t act impulsively after their hot buttons were pushed.

“You happen to get an ID on the vehicle?”

“They walked in. Probably parked several blocks away,” Ox said, grabbing a handful of roasted peanuts from a bowl. He shelled one and offered the insides to me before eating them in one smooth motion. “I’d have followed them, but it was lunchtime and the place was busy. Ruby was off today and we were one short in the kitchen.”

As in many downtown areas across the country, parking was at a premium in the historic Wilmington district. Well-traveled sidewalks, which connected more than two hundred square blocks, were often busier than the roads.

I thought about eating dinner, but settled for some peanuts instead. The only way to learn more about the visitors was to wait for them to return. I just hoped they did it soon.

When the numbers
came into focus as I woke up, the clock on my nightstand told me it was just after three o’clock in the morning. I’m not sure if it was an unnatural noise or a sense of intrusion, but something awakened me and rang my internal alarm. A squirt of adrenaline pulsed through my veins and I instantly went into combat mode. Cracker, asleep at the foot of the bed, suddenly lifted his head and stared toward the bedroom door with intensity. The outline of his alert ears and perfectly still wide head was barely visible by the streetlight filtering through my bedroom windows.

“Shhh,” I whispered to the dog. Reaching for the Glock, which was on the nightstand, I rolled off the mattress into a crouch. I waited for eight, maybe ten seconds and didn’t see or hear anything. Still, the feeling of unease did not dissipate and Cracker
continued to stare into the darkness, his nose working. As it had done countless times before, my index finger rested lightly on the trigger, ready to inflict deadly force with less than a half-inch worth of movement.

“Stay,” I told the dog softly. I didn’t want Cracker involved with an intruder, especially since he probably wouldn’t offer help. If burglars were to hit the Block when Spud and I were away, Cracker would lick them in greeting and watch them cart off the goods with his tail wagging.

In spurts of quick, silent movement, I made my way through our kitchen and into Spud’s efficiency apartment without turning on lights. A pair of Frederick’s of Hollywood satin sleep shorts and matching cotton tank top were my pajamas of choice, and bare feet allowed me to move noiselessly. Spud’s bedroom door was open and I could just make out the rumpled covers of his bed. He wasn’t in it.

I jumped through the doorway, moving the Glock in a searching arc in front of me and came face-to-face with the barrel of a gun. It was one of Spud’s and he held it steady with both hands, pointed at my chest.

“Son of a bitch!” He exhaled quietly, as recognition registered in his brain.

“Sweet Jesus!” I whispered, thankful my father didn’t have a jumpy trigger finger.

We breathed deep and instinctively moved together so that our backs were flush against the bedroom wall. Once a cop, always a cop. And, once a marine, always a marine. Father and daughter shared the same genes and apparently, some of the same instincts. Something had awakened Spud, too, and he hadn’t liked whatever it was, either. A search of his room and the immediate hallway revealed nothing.

“You almost scared the piss out of me, for crying out loud,” he
muttered. “My prostate ain’t what it used to be.” Spud had taken the time to don a robe and eyeglasses after he’d gotten out of bed. We paused to regroup, our weapons pulled in to our bodies, pointed at the ceiling.

“Stay here,” I told him.

“Like hell,” he said.

He would do what he wanted to anyway. “Okay, then, cover me.”

The house was eerily silent and in a heightened state of awareness, I could hear blood coursing through my arteries. I didn’t even detect the usual sounds a two-hundred-year-old building makes. It was as though the Block held its breath with indignation, waiting to see who had rudely invaded its upper level so early in the morning.

Spud and I made it to our shared kitchen when deep growling erupted and settled into sharp, spitting barks of warning. Cracker sounded like a lethal German shepherd instead of a perpetually happy, trusting Labrador. The next sound my ears processed was a gunshot. The explosion of gunpowder was reduced to a compressed whistling sound and echoing pop—the bullet had been fired from a small or medium caliber gun equipped with a silencer. The muffled sound ricocheted off the Block’s exposed brick walls and the barking stopped.

Wondering how badly Cracker was hurt or if the animal was dead, I resisted calling out to him. With Spud on my heels, I moved to the living area.

“Stay here,” I whispered again.

“Like hell,” he said again.

At the same instant we crossed into the living room, clicking sounds reached my ears. Cracker’s toenails dug into the hardwood floor as he ran at full speed toward the fireplace. I silently said a word of thanks to the man upstairs. We were all in immediate
danger, but a nanosecond of relief washed over me when I knew Cracker hadn’t been hit.

Movement caught my eye as I searched for Cracker’s destination. Squatting on the elevated brick hearth, a bulky form aimed a gun at the dog, preparing to fire again. Several shots pierced the night at the same instant Cracker barreled into the man’s stomach with ninety pounds of canine force. The stranger’s body slammed against the brick wall of the fireplace and hung there for a frozen second before crumpling to the floor in slow motion.

Weapons ready, we scoured the living quarters for another intruder. There wasn’t one. Spud flipped on a light and I squinted as my eyes adjusted. Fur raised along his spine, Cracker stood over the man on our floor, a steady growl emanating deep from inside his belly. I kicked the gun, a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .38 revolver, away from the man’s hand—even though there was most likely not a need to.

I had aimed for the intruder’s shoulder area and the two rounds of .45 hollow-point ammunition from my Glock disabled him. But the single shot from Spud’s Ruger punched a hole squarely in the center of the man’s forehead. He’d landed on his back when he slid to the floor and the opening in his face looked small and perfectly round. The back of his head, though, would reveal a grisly hole the size of a baseball and I was glad we couldn’t see it. Just to be positive he was no longer among the living, I felt for a pulse on the man’s neck. There wasn’t one, and I immediately got the willies.

“Oh, man. I
hate
being around dead people.” Backing away in revulsion, I studied Spud with raised eyebrows, wondering why he hadn’t aimed to disable like I had. It was tough to get information out of a dead man.