Better Off Dead (5 page)

I thought it over. "Okay, so maybe I am.
Does that make me a home wrecker?"

Marcus stared me in the eye. "Well, I
admired Ashley Wilkes for his honor, so don't you go messing with
my Detective Angel Ferrar."

"Your detective?" I grinned in satisfaction.
"You have a crush on him, too."

"Bulls Stadium. Half an hour," he reminded
me, slamming the stall door shut behind him.

I scurried after Marcus, making it out of
the bathroom seconds before a determined-looking sergeant rounded
the corner and pushed into the men's room with a frantic look on
his face. Thank god we'd made our escape. There are some mysteries
only a wife should be privy to.

"This is ridiculous," I complained. We were
crouched inside a large plastic tunnel that wound through a
playground next to the Durham Bulls baseball stadium complex. "We
look like we're doing a drug deal."

"No one can see us from the road and that's
what counts." Marcus was eating a carton of lime yogurt like he had
to make it last the rest of his life. It had taken him five minutes
just to skim an inch off the top, a process he stretched out while
we caught up on our personal lives. Now he was ready to get down to
business. "What is so important?" he asked me. "You're not usually
this serious."

I told him about Helen Mclnnes and what I
needed. His reaction was immediate. "I can't do it," he said. "It's
too risky."

"I just need to see her file, and the files
on any other rapes near the Duke campus in the past couple of
years," I explained. "Don't give me the date rapes, just the
violent, possible stranger rapes. I need a starting point and I
need to know more about what the cops got on this professor. I
can't trust what Helen tells me, she's too out of it, too confused.
And it was too long ago. She's been blocking it out."

Marcus shook his head. "You don't
understand. There was another rape a few days ago, a brutal attack.
On the campus itself. The parents are coming in later this
afternoon to talk to the investigating officers." He checked his
watch. "I have to be back by three. I'm the only one who ever
thinks to offer these poor people coffee or tea." He shivered. "I
hate it when the parents come in."

"Another one? Where's the girl?"

"Dead," Marcus said flatly. "She died this
morning."

"Why haven't I read about it in the
newspapers?"

Marcus took a leisurely lick of yogurt, then
stared at me. "It happened on the Duke campus. Do you really think
they're anxious to publicize it? It will be in all the papers by
tomorrow. Believe me."

"No shit." I thought it over. "Same M.O. as
Helen Mclnnes?"

Marcus shook his head again. "Not even
close. That's the problem." Marcus, who had six sisters and a very
big heart, was not immune to the magnitude of the horror we were
discussing. But he wouldn't budge. "I wish I could help you. But
those files are hot right now. The pressure is on. They may name a
task force. The girl who got raped and killed was only eighteen,
and her parents are good solid North Carolina folk."

"How many rapes are we talking here?" I
pressed. “Take a guess."

Marcus shrugged. "This is a college town,
Casey." He sighed. "Rape reports come in every week, sometimes
through the campus police, sometimes from the girls or their
friends. There are days when I think rape is our number two sport.
After basketball, of course." He carefully scraped the bottom of
his yogurt container, mining another half spoonful. God, but he was
a healthy eater. I could never survive on shit like that. A girl
like me needs to keep her protein levels up.

"Okay," I conceded. "Take a guess on the
violent stranger rapes only."

"I don't have to guess," he said primly.
"It's my job to know. There have been five attacks on women in the
vicinity of the campus over the past two and a half years. Not
counting this last girl. She was the first to die. Though I am sure
the others considered it. Helen Mclnnes is only the most famous
victim. Some of the other women got it worse than her. None went to
trial. No suspects to arrest."

"Five? Is that a lot?"

"I'm sure it's a lot for the five women who
were raped," he answered primly.

"Jesus, there must be a connection."

He shrugged. "They looked into connections
every time it happened again. There aren't any. It's not the same
man."

"That's impossible," I said. "I want to see
those files."

He shook his head resolutely.

"Please, Marcus," I begged him. "Think of
that poor woman, trapped in her house. You should see her. She's
like a ghost already. Half-hearing what the world says, half-
seeing the things around her. She's disappearing, shrinking. She's
going to roll up into a ball and die if someone doesn't help her
soon."

"Stop it." Marcus pressed his hands on his
ears. "None of that is my fault."

"Please, Marcus," I pleaded. "Be a human
being. Someone has to help this woman. I'll give you money. Lots of
it."

"It's not about the money. Those files are
being tracked. If I pull them up on the computer, someone will know
it. I'll lose my job."

"Just let me peek at the paper files, then,"
I said. "Just for one night. I promise. Just one night."

Marcus stared out across the stadium's
pristine infield. It gleamed under the autumn sun, immaculate,
untouched, in suspended animation until next year's season began. I
didn't know what Marcus was thinking about, but I didn't push him.
I could tell I'd gotten to him.

"All right," he finally agreed, with a long
martyr's sigh. "But I'm not doing it for the money. I'll drop the
files by your apartment tonight, and I am going to wait while you
go through them. I am not leaving until I take them back with
me."

"Marcus, I swear to god, you are such a good
person."

"I know that already," he said. "Now you
stay here and give me a five-minute head start so no one sees us
together." Some people might have been offended, but I was used to
that reaction in people. He slid from the crawlspace.

"I owe you one," I called after him.

He walked away with exaggerated dignity.

Marcus would kill me if he saw me, but I
didn't care. I had to see the parents of the girl who had died that
morning. I was compelled by some lurid wish to look on a sorrow I
would never know. I sat in my bathtub Porsche—conspicuous
everywhere but in a hot rod-heavy police department parking lot—and
waited until they arrived. Just before three o'clock, a sedan
pulled up to a side door and the driver hopped out. He helped a man
from the car. It had to be the father of the dead girl. He was
beefy, but in a muscular way, as if he had labored hard all his
life. Despite the father's apparent physical strength, the driver
hovered around him, holding one of his arms, steadying him, guiding
him around an azalea bush. After a moment, the father gained his
balance, shook off the driver and turned back toward the car.

He leaned into the backseat and stayed
there, frozen, for at least a minute. His shoulders moved as if he
were speaking to someone inside. Finally, he helped a woman from
the car with infinite care. She was small but stocky, her compact
body dressed in a lavender suit that was neither stylish nor
attractive. Her short brown hair was going gray and it did not look
as if she had spent any time staring at it in the mirror lately.
Her face was what startled me the most: before she could take her
sunglasses from her purse and cover her eyes, I caught a glimpse of
her expression. A hopeless, uncaring, unseeing gaze emanated from
two red-rimmed eyes. Heavy wrinkles ran from her nearly bloodless
lips to her chin in deep furrows, proving she had slept little in
recent days.

It was as if her face had collapsed inward,
like a rotting jack-o'-lantern. As if she were shrinking from the
gaze of a world she did not want to be in. She fumbled with the
sunglasses, masked her face and gripped her husband's arm. He held
her up as she took a few tentative steps. The driver hesitated,
unsure of whether to take her other arm. When the father stumbled,
the driver hurried to his side, steadying him instead. Together,
the trio moved slowly toward the door of the station, where photos
of their dead child awaited them.

Jesus, I thought. If they look like this
now, what in god's name were they going to look like when they
left, the image of their dead and violated daughter burned forever
in their memories?

Sitting around my apartment, waiting for
Marcus to show up, was not going to shake the image of those two
now-old people from my mind. I decided to drive out to Helen Pugh's
to see how Bobby was doing with his bodyguarding duties.

I had worried he would sit around on his
considerable ass.

I should have worried he wouldn't.

I spotted him in the side yard the second I
drove up. Bobby had trapped a Mexican kid against one side of a
toolshed and was pressing him against the structure with his
massive belly. He'd twisted one of the boy's arms behind his back
and was holding a .40 caliber Glock to his head. The Mexican looked
like he was about to faint from fear. Above this scenario, Helen
Pugh stood framed in a picture window of her house, face contorted
as she yelled, unheard, behind the glass.

Why did I have a feeling that things were
off to a bad start?

"Bobby!" I shouted, leaping from my car the
second it stopped rolling. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I found this guy sneaking around the back
of the house," he said, kicking the kid's feet apart. The guy's
head smacked against the side of the shed with a thud. "Look at
this—the fucker is armed." Bobby pulled up the boy's checkered work
shirt. The grip of an old-timey pistol stuck out of the back of his
jeans. It looked like something Pecos Pete would wave around.

I stared at the gun, then up at Helen. She
was jumping up and down now, waving her hands frantically, pointing
to the lawn and the trees.

"Uh, Bobby," I said slowly. "I think you
have just apprehended the gardener."

"What?" Bobby lowered his gun and stared at
me.

"That's the guy that works on the lawn. Who
else do you think does it?" I gestured toward the rolling acres of
green. "Helen Pugh won't even step outside."

"The gardener?" Bobby backed up in disgust.
The Mexican scurried to the edge of the shed and took shelter
behind a corner. He looked to be in his late teens, or maybe early
twenties. For someone who'd had a gun at his head, he was being
pretty cool about it now that he was safe. Hell, maybe he was used
to it. Out here in the country, traffic stops on Mexicans can be
mighty thorough.

"Why the hell didn't the dame say something
about it?" Bobby groused.

"I think she was trying to." I pointed to
the window, where Helen still stood, her forehead pressed against
the glass in relief.

"Why the hell is he armed?" Bobby demanded.
"Don't tell me he's shooting gophers with that damn thing." But
Bobby slipped his Glock back into his shoulder holster as he spoke,
then hitched his pants up in a gesture of surrender. He was willing
to step down.

"I use my gun to protect Miss Pugh," the kid
spit out angrily. He glared at us and rubbed his arm where Bobby
had gripped it.

"I can't take you anywhere," I complained to
Bobby. "This poor guy is probably the only thing that has been
standing between my client and disaster for the past six months,
and now you've gone and pissed him off."

"How was I supposed to know?" Bobby whined.
He ran his fingers through his greased-back hair and looked
defiant. Bobby wouldn't apologize if his next meal depended on it,
which was saying a lot, so this admission was as close to a
confession as the gardener was going to get.

The Mexican kid surprised me. He let it go.
So much for machismo. Thank god. He gave Bobby a final glare, then
shifted his attention to me. "You are here to protect Miss Pugh?"
he asked in a heavily accented voice. But he spoke rapidly, as if
he had been around the English language for a while.

"That's right. I'm looking into the
situation for her. You know about it?"

He nodded and stepped out into the sunlight.
He was a good-looking guy, with broad shoulders and a small waist.
He had one of those wide Mexican faces that looks like Aztec blood
is bubbling just below the surface. His cheekbones were high and
chiseled, his eyes dark above a broad nose. His chin jutted out
prominently beneath thin lips, but his strong features were
balanced by thick dark hair that fell over his ears and forehead.
He caught me looking at him and stood a little straighter, then
made a big show out of pulling his pistol from his pants and
checking to see that it was loaded.

"Have you had to use that yet?" I asked.

He shook his head. "But I chased someone
from the yard a week ago. At night."

"You live here then?"

He cocked a thumb toward an outer building.
"I have water and a bed in there. I listen carefully at night."

"Did you get a look at him?" I asked.

He shook his head. "It was a man. That was
all I see. Tall. Very fast. Once he saw me, he didn't stay. He run
down the road and a car engine started."

"I'm glad to know you're here. What's your
name?"

"Hugo." He looked down at his feet,
embarrassed.

"Okay," I decided. "Let's all go inside and
make nice. If we work together, maybe no one will get his balls
blown off." At least not by me, I thought.

"Speak for yourself," Bobby grumbled,
hitching his pants up again. "All the guy had to do was say
something."

"I try to speak," Hugo protested, indignant.
"You be too busy bumping me with that gordo belly of yours."

"Watch it, buster," Bobby answered sharply.
"I speak Spanish." Yeah, right, so long as the word appeared on a
Taco Bell menu.