The Price of Malice (12 page)

Sam, still watching Halnon, waved at him. “Bye-bye. Don’t forget.”

He didn’t answer as he quietly retreated, but she saw the half nod of his head in the gloom.

She waited until the sound of his shoes had stopped resonating on the stairs.

“Can I get up?” Halnon complained from her position.

“Not yet.”

Sam moved over to her and repeated the pat-down she’d conducted on Fitzhugh. Finding a soft, slightly crunchy bulge in the woman’s back pocket, she ordered, “Straighten up.”

Halnon raised herself slightly on her knees, alleviating the pressure against the butt of her pants, and allowing Sam to reach in and extract a bag of weed from the pocket. Halnon half twisted around at the gesture and said angrily, “You can’t do that. It’s not a weapon.”

“Wrong, legal-eagle—read Terry versus Ohio. Plus, you’re still on probation, and I’ve already got you on consorting. Do you really want to dick around like this?”

Halnon resorted to what she knew. “Fuck.”

Sam stepped away and holstered her gun. “Okay. Get up.”

Halnon slowly rose, dusting off her knees. She was dressed in jeans that should have cut off her circulation, accessorized by a tank
top so tight and so brief, Sam wondered why she’d bothered. On the other hand, it was pretty clear what had lured Fitzhugh up here.

Sam pointed to the open door. “Go. Straight to the couch and sit.”

Again, Halnon followed orders, but now aware that something more was afoot than a simple opportunity arrest. She settled in comfortably, crossed her legs, and asked, “Okay if I smoke?”

Sam was standing to one side of the now closed door, her back against the jamb, so she could see the entire room. “You got ’em?”

Halnon gestured to the table beside the couch. “Right there.”

“Okay.”

While her hostess extracted her cigarette, Sam asked her, “You hear about your neighbor?”

“Wayne?” Halnon reacted instantly, flicking her lighter. “I heard he got knifed. That what you mean?”

“You know something else?”

She drew in a lungful of smoke and slowly let it out in a sigh, wreathing her head in a temporary cloud. “Jesus,” she said simultaneously. “You rousted me for Wayne? Who cares?”

“Yeah,” Sam conceded. “We’re getting that a lot. Tell me about him anyway.”

Halnon took a stab at taking control. “Why should I? I’m no snitch.”

Sam burst out laughing, making the other woman smolder. “
What?
Andie, for Chrissake. You just practicing, or do you actually think I’ll buy that?”

Her lips pursed, Halnon dropped the unfinished cigarette to the floor, stamped it with her shoe, and crossed her legs. “Fine. What do you want me to tell you?”

“Interesting wording. The truth, Andie. Just the truth. I take it you knew him.”

“Kinda. Sure.”

“You were friends?”

This time Halnon laughed, albeit bitterly. “I was a little old for him.”

“So, he was exclusive that way? Only liked kids?”

“Far as I know.”

“Both sexes? Boys and girls?”

“Girls.”

“You ever witness that?”

Halnon flared up. “What do you think I am? I wouldn’t watch that shit.”

“Then how do you know what he was doing?”

Her expression was wiltingly condescending. “How did you know what Tanner and I had in mind when you busted us?”

“You saw Castine bring kids to his apartment?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Sam left her position by the wall and crossed to the couch, sitting on its edge to imply an intimacy she didn’t feel. “Andie,” she said feelingly. “I’m sorry I came on so strong. I really hate this stuff. It gets to me—with the kids. But you know how it can be, being a girl and having a scummy guy like that come after you.”

Halnon reacted immediately, as if warding off a bad memory. “I wouldn’t know. Even as a kid, I woulda cut the balls off anyone trying that.”

Sam nodded thoughtfully. “I know, I know. That’s not what I’m saying. I just want to nail this down. Could be whoever killed him was a competitor—another snapper. May not be just good news, like you said.”

Andie’s eyes widened. “For real? Holy shit.”

“I’m not saying it’s a fact,” Sam said quickly. “Just that it’s possible.”

“Sure, sure.” Halnon nodded her head, having clearly not heard the built-in denial.

“So,” Sam continued, “I’d really appreciate anything you can give me—what you heard; what you saw. There must’ve been something.”

“Oh,” Andie now freely volunteered. “He was a total pig. I hated having him next door. I’m glad he’s dead, ’cause I was wondering how to do it myself. You know?”

Sam nodded sympathetically. “Did you tell someone about it?”

“I didn’t need to. People knew about Wayne.”

The continual vagueness was getting to Sam. “Like who, Andie?”

“I’m not gonna rat out my friends. What if one of them did do it?”

Sam scratched her forehead, considering her options.

Out of the blue, Halnon then volunteered, “I knew one of the girls, though. Becky Kerr. I saw her running out of here once, crying. I knew in my gut what had happened.”

Sam sat forward. “You saw her running from Castine’s apartment?”

“Down the stairs when I was coming up. Same thing.”

“She could’ve been visiting one of your other neighbors?”

“Those bitches?” Halnon asked incredulously. “I don’t think so. It was Wayne. I’m telling you.”

Maybe, thought Sam. “Any others?”

“Kids?”

“Yeah.”

But Andrea Halnon shook her head, undermining the accusation she’d previously made against Castine.

Still, this was something to pursue. A thread.

“How do I find Becky?” Sam asked.

“Beats me. Ask her mom—Karen Putnam.”

Sam rose and crossed back to the door. “I think I will.” She then pointed a finger at Halnon and added, “And remember: You owe me one.”

Halnon’s familiar expression of contempt resettled in place. “Yeah, whatever.”

W
illy Kunkle checked the list of ex-tenants that Liz Babbitt’s landlord had given him, and then consulted his watch. He wasn’t bored, or longing to get home. He’d been known to work for days on a whim, and knew Sam was chasing leads anyhow, and that home therefore meant an empty apartment. The thought made him smile ruefully. There’d been a time when the mere notion of having a woman living with him was a fantasy, much less something to count on.

He’d been married once, long ago, and had completely messed it up. An ex-New Yorker from a troubled family, briefly a NYPD cop, also a former combat sniper, he’d amassed enough psychological baggage to propel most people straight to suicide. But he’d held off, perhaps out of perverseness, as he claimed, or from a stubborn need to simply defy the odds. Whatever the motivation, he was still around, and looked like he might be enjoying the best time of his life.

Besides, right now, he was doing what he loved most: hunting, sitting in his car in the village of Bellows Falls, by the curb, waiting for the next name on his list to appear.

This happened three minutes later. An older car with a pizza sign magnetized to its roof went whipping by on its mission with a skinny, worn-out man at the wheel.

Kunkle pulled in behind him with surprising dexterity, given his one-handedness, passed him, and then cut him off, forcing him to either stop or become a lawn ornament.

He swung out of his unmarked vehicle, marched back to the delivery car, and thrust his face through the driver’s open window, smiling widely at the terrified, sweat-covered face of one Terry Stein.

“Hi, Terry,” he said. “How’s tricks?”

The other man gaped at him. “Kunkle? You almost killed me. What the hell was that?”

“I want to talk. Shove over.”

“What?” Stein stared from Willy to the pizza box beside him. “I have a delivery.”

Willy opened the door. “Hold it in your lap. Move over.”

“You can’t do this. I’ll lose my job if I’m late.”

Willy shoved his face so close, it was barely an inch from Stein’s, making the latter cringe. “
MOVE
,” he shouted, forcing the man to obey.

Scrambling awkwardly, Stein tried to maneuver the large, hot box, as well as slide his butt over the console of the small car, muttering, “I didn’t do nuthin’. This is wrong.”

Willy slid behind the wheel and slammed the flimsy door, barely noticing the stink and heat of the car’s interior. Terry had been known to use the vehicle as much to live in as for transportation, and was no advertisement for personal hygiene. In a phrase, he was one of “Willy’s people,” as Joe and many others referred to them—overlooked members of the occasionally working poor, given to life at the edges and to whatever opportunities arose, many of them illegal.

“You used to live on Manor Court,” Willy stated.

Terry stared at him. “Maybe,” he said tentatively, adding, “that was a while ago.”

“What did you do with the key?”

The other man was trying to keep the pizza off his lap and not burn his hands. His employer was too cheap to buy insulated delivery bags. “I kept it on me.”

Willy glanced out the window, sucked on his upper lip a moment, rubbed the side of his nose with his index, and tried again, his voice tightly under control.

“Not then, you moron. What did you do with it afterward?”

“After I left? Gave it to the next guy.”

Willy reached out suddenly, grabbed the box with his large hand, and jammed it between the windshield and the dashboard, crumpling it in two and releasing an odorous cloud. He quelled Stein’s predictable outburst with, “
Focus
, Terry. Listen to what I’m saying here.”

It was a bluff, of course. Willy had no idea if it had been Terry who’d circulated an extra copy of Liz Babbitt’s apartment key. He didn’t even know if a duplication had occurred. That had just been a guess, if an educated one. But after having spent some time researching the theory—and interviewing others in the same manner—Willy had become comfortable thinking Terry Stein might supply him with what he needed to know.

He grabbed Terry’s shirtfront and yanked him around to where the back of his head almost jammed against the dashboard.

“Terry,” he said quietly, “who did you give the key to?”

It worked. Stein blinked up at him a couple of times, swallowed hard, and said reluctantly, “Some guy. He paid me for a copy—two months’ rent.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. He just said it wouldn’t matter till I was out of the apartment. I didn’t believe him, course, so I put an extra padlock on for the rest of my time there.”

“And?” Willy released his grip.

Terry straightened and smoothed the front of his T-shirt. “And nuthin’, man. I never saw him again, nobody ever fucked with my stuff, and I got the money. It was a good deal.”

“You ever read the papers?” Willy asked him.

“Sometimes.”

“That murder in Bratt?”

Terry’s mouth opened slightly. “Yeah?” he said hesitantly.

“Your old apartment,” Willy stated.

Terry was already shaking his head. “I had nuthin’ to do with that. Nuthin’.”

“You read who the dead man was?”

“No.”

“Who did you give the key to?”

The pizza man shrugged. “I didn’t know him. Funny last name.”

“Castine?” Willy asked.

“Maybe.”

Willy pulled a cleaned-up postmortem portrait from his pocket and showed it to Stein in the streetlight.

“That him?”

Terry nodded, grimacing. “Jesus—yup.”

“How’d you meet?”

The man lifted a shoulder. “You know—around town.”

Willy poked him hard in the ribs, making him gasp. “And you sell him your front door key ’cause, what the hell, you want everything you own ripped off.”

Stein licked his lips.

Willy leaned into him, making him cringe. “You are fucking with me,” he said slowly and carefully. “I don’t like that.”

Terry caved. “So I knew him.”

“How?”

“I sold him some dope; we shared a few drinks. You know, we did stuff, now and then.”

Vague as that sounded, Willy knew it to represent an entire lifestyle of random, day-to-day interactions for a good many people. The Terry Steins of this world often functioned with the accuracy of bumper cars, never knowing where they were headed or who they might meet at any moment—including a one-armed cop during a pizza delivery.

“So, why did he want the key?” Willy asked him. “Even you would’ve asked that.”

“He said he wanted to get laid.”

“In your apartment, when you were at work or wherever,” Willy suggested.

“Yeah.”

“Who with?” Willy asked.

Terry made a face. “I don’t know. Some broad.”

Willy took hold of his hot, sweaty hand and bent one of his fingers back, making Terry flop around, trying to ease the pain.

“Oh, fuck. That hurts, man. Shit. Stop. You can’t do that. It isn’t legal.”

“LEGAL?”
Willy yelled in his ear. “You handed over an apartment key to a man who then got murdered there. You have any idea how deep the shit is around you?”

“I didn’t know,” Terry howled.

“Tell me what you do know.
NOW
.” Willy let go of him.

Stein sat piteously holding his hand, rubbing his finger. “You coulda broke it.”

“I
will
break it, if you don’t talk. Who was Castine seeing?”

“A married broad,” Terry admitted. “Small place, lots of kids. They had to be quiet about it.”

“You’re not gonna make me ask, are you?”

Terry sighed. “Karen Putnam. Her hubby was in the can then. I don’t know about now. Wayne and her had a thing.”

“Where does she live?”

“West Bratt Mobile Park,” Terry said without hesitation.

Willy smiled. “Suddenly, you’re the goddamn Answer Man.”

Terry merely nodded, still pouting.

“Then answer me this,” Willy pursued. “Why your apartment and not his own?”

“He said she wouldn’t go there—too much of a dump.”

“They couldn’t just rent a room?”

Terry lifted both skinny shoulders. “I don’t know—maybe this turned him on.”

Willy thought a moment. “Tell me more about Wayne.”