Damage Control (5 page)

10

E
SPN’S
S
PORTS
C
ENTER
filled the cramped motel room with animated chatter. Two sportscasters sat behind a miniature studio desk, narrating the day’s highlights. Laurence King turned the volume up high, but the newscasters’ voices still did not drown out the sound of the woman through the paper-thin wall.

“More, honey. Yes. Yes. Yes, baby.”

The photograph of Mount Ranier on the wall thumped rhythmically. The lamp shade on the wood-veneer nightstand vibrated. Had it not been bolted down, it likely would have slid off. The woman was being well paid to moan, but at the moment King didn’t want to hear it.

“Oh, you’re big. You’re so big. You just fill me up, baby.”

King pounded his fist on the wall. “Shut the fuck up.” The grunting and groaning continued, uninterrupted. King paced the worn brown carpet, alternately rubbing at the coarse dark stubble of his chin and biting at his thumbnail, perpetually stained with grease and dirt from his work as a day laborer for a construction company. The room held the smell of body odor and moldy wood.

“Fifteen thousand.” Marshall Cole paced an area near the bathroom, stepping around and over fast-food bags, a grease-stained pizza box, beer bottles, and articles of clothing he continued to discard—first his shoes and socks, then his shirt. He stood naked to the waist, his blue jeans hanging from narrow hips, holes worn in the knees. They had buried his other clothes in a dirt field behind the motel, digging the hole deep enough to prevent stray dogs from unearthing them, searching for the scent of blood.

“Fifteen thousand.” Cole compulsively tugged at the bill of his Seattle Mariners baseball cap, alternately pulling it low on his forehead and pushing it onto the crown of his head. “You tell him we want fifteen thousand. I didn’t sign up to kill nobody, Larry. No fucking way.” He pointed to King. “It was supposed to be a burglary. That’s what you said. You said the man told you it was a burglary. Empty. The fucking place was supposed to be empty, man.”

“Shut up,” King shouted at the wall, growing more angry.

“Nobody said nothing about killing anyone. I ain’t no killer. They’ll kill me for this. They’ll kill us both.”

King turned from the wall and took a step toward Cole. “Shut up.” He’d had enough whining from the little prick. “Shut the fuck up. Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t fucking tell me what to do.”

Cole stepped back, no match for King, who stood six foot two and weighed 255 pounds. Cole was rail-thin, with a washboard stomach that displayed protruding ribs. He had a nervous stomach and irritable bowel syndrome, which caused him to spend more time in the bathroom than a janitor and prevented him from keeping anything in long enough to put on weight. With full lips, green eyes, and sandy-blond hair that hung past his shoulders, Cole would have been called pretty if he’d been born a woman.

“Fifteen thousand,” Cole muttered under his breath. “Enough money to get out of here. Maybe go to Canada. They don’t extradite from Canada, do they? Shit!” He threw the cap on the floor and tugged at his hair. “I had to do it. He saw me. He looked right at me.”

“Just take it easy.” King walked to the window and eased back the heavy curtain. The Emerald Inn sat like a boil on a dog’s butt. King hadn’t chosen it for the ambience. He’d chosen it because the rooms were off an outdoor landing that offered a clear view of the dirt and gravel parking lot out front. The same four cars remained. More would arrive after last call at the Four Aces Bar, half a mile down the road. King checked his watch and turned from the window. “I’ll get the fifteen grand, and we’ll get out of here. Nobody’s going to know anything.”

“Something’s wrong.” Cole stood and paced again. “Something ain’t right. I can feel these things. I told you, I can feel them.”

“I’ll handle it,” King growled.

Someone knocked on the door.

Cole’s head snapped as if on a string, his eyes wide as those of a spooked horse. King put a finger to his lips and quietly pressed an eye to the peephole. No way the man could have parked the car in the lot, then walked up the two flights of stairs and down the landing without King hearing him. Fuck, the landing shook each time someone passed the door. And yet somehow the man had done just that. He stood on the landing, his face distorted in the round hole, the pointed nose bulbous and hooked at the tip, with his black wraparound sunglasses bulging like the depthless eyes of a hawk. King stepped back and pointed to the interior door that led to the adjacent room.

Cole shoved the cap back on his head and quickly gathered his clothes. He grabbed a 9mm automatic from the top of the television, dropped a tennis shoe on the floor, and kicked it ahead of him as he hurried through the doorway, closing the door behind him.

King stuffed a Falcon 9mm in the front of his jeans and pulled his shirt closed, then rethought it and pulled it open. Show of force. Let the man know he meant business. He removed the security latch, pulled open the door, and stepped back. The man entered and closed the door without uttering a word. He wore a brown leather jacket, straight-leg blue jeans, and black boots. In his right hand he carried a green garbage bag. He dropped it on the carpet. King knew the man was military of some kind: army or marines. King had done four years in the army. He understood military. He could spot it from across a fucking room. This guy wasn’t just a grunt, though. He carried himself different. He was likely one of those Special Forces types—a Ranger or SEAL or some damn thing. Whatever he was, the guy gave King the creeps. He never smiled. Never changed expressions. Just stared with that blank expression, King’s distorted image reflecting back at him in those ever-present sunglasses. King wished he’d never spoken to the man at the bar. He wished he’d just turned down the drinks and walked away. But five thousand bucks for a simple burglary had been too good to pass up, and King needed the money to pay his ex-wife child support or his ass was going back to county. Besides, what was done was done. There was no sense crying over it.

King stood at the foot of the bed closest to the bathroom with his hands on his hips and his shirt pulled back to display the butt of the Falcon against his hairy stomach. “We have a problem. The place wasn’t empty. You said it would be empty.”

The man put his hands in his jacket pockets. “It was.”

“
Was
for about twenty minutes. Then the fucking guy came home and walked right into the room.”

“So I read.” The man was obviously referring to the article in the metro section of the
Seattle Times
. His fucking face was like a damn statue. “Unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate? Unfortunate, my ass. You didn’t say anything about killing anybody.”

“No, I didn’t.”

In the background, the sportscasters continued to discuss the baseball highlights from games played earlier that day.

“And we didn’t sign on for killing nobody. We ain’t killers. That’s not what we was paid for,” King said.

“Did you get the items?”

“Maybe we did. Maybe we didn’t. What we need to talk about is what we were paid to do and what we weren’t paid to do. The place was supposed to be empty. That’s what you told us.”

“Did you get the items?”

“Are you deaf?” The man did not answer. He just kept staring the fucking stare that sent a chill through King. He fought against it, but his eyes shifted to the pillow on the unmade bed. The man walked to the head of the bed, rolled back the pillow, and picked up the manila envelope. He opened it, studying its contents.

“Oh, God,” the woman next door yelled. “Harder, baby. Harder. You just about there, sugar.”

“We want more money,” King said. “Fifteen thousand.”

“Bring it, sugar. Harder. Bring it harder.”

The man rummaged through the envelope. “You did not get all the items.”

King laughed. “Are you shitting me, man? The guy came home! Shit, you’re lucky we got that much stuff. Cole was in the goddamn bedroom when the guy walked in. So, fuck yeah, that’s all, and fuck if I care. Fifteen thousand. We need to go somewhere for a while and let this die down.”

The man shoved the envelope inside his jacket, returning his hands to his pockets. “I didn’t ask you to kill anyone,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was not your assignment.”

“Now, honey. Now. Come on. Come on, sugar.”

King was stunned. “You are a piece of fucking work. My assignment? This ain’t the military, shithead, I don’t take orders from nobody no more.” He pointed at the envelope for emphasis. “We got what we could, nearly everything. We did more than our assignment. We did a hell of a lot more. We didn’t sign on for killing nobody.”

“You don’t want to go back to jail, is that it?”

“Fuck no, I don’t want to go back. I go back, I go back forever. I ain’t going back, and not for killing nobody. They’ll kill us for that.”

“No,” the man said. “They won’t.”

King shook his head. “News flash, Einstein. This here is a capital murder state. They’ll kill us. They’ll say we murdered him during the commission of a felony, and we’ll get the juice in the arm, and lights out, Martha.”

The bullet ripped through the leather jacket without making a sound. King fell backward. The woman next door moaned.

“Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes.”

The man removed the gun from his pocket and stood over King’s body. Blood oozed from the dime-size hole in his forehead. He pulled a watch from the envelope and dropped it onto the carpet next to King’s body. Then he opened the green plastic garbage bag and scattered blood-stained clothes about the room. Finished, he checked the door handle to the adjacent room and determined it to be locked. He stepped back and planted the heel of his black boot just above the lock. The cheap wood crashed inward, the force driving the doorknob through the Sheetrock on the other side. Two shots rang out from inside the room, causing the man to duck behind the doorjamb. He waited a beat, then swung the gun around the frame, his gaze sweeping the room.

Cole sat with his feet dangling out the bathroom window. He fired another wild shot over his shoulder, dropped his shoes and clothes out the window, and jumped. The man hurried to the window. Cole rolled off the roof of a car onto the ground, looked up, and fired another shot before limping across the highway and disappearing into the darkness.

The man turned from the window and hurried back across the motel, stepping over King and pulling open the door. The man who had been receiving sexual accolades from the woman in the room next door stood on the landing, barefoot, shirt open, struggling to zip his fly. His unfastened belt buckle dangled below a large, hairless belly.

The gunman aimed head high. The man froze, hands on his zipper, eyes wide. The color rushed from his face, leaving him a jaundiced yellow from the dull glow of the landing lights. The gunman smiled, raised a finger to his lips, and shook his head slowly. Then he turned and walked toward the staircase at the end of the landing.

11

T
HE EIGHT CONCRETE
stairs shook with each step. The handrail rattled in his grip. The motel was classic construction from the 1970s, when the building industry was booming and you couldn’t throw a hammer without hitting someone who claimed to be a framer. A two-story box with a flat tar-and-gravel roof, the building had been tagged with gang graffiti; the aluminum-framed windows were rusted and pitted, and the decking peeled and worn. At the top of the landing, Logan checked the intersection between the iron railing and the stucco wall. The large black bolt had wiggled free, creating a hole that allowed water intrusion. Probably dry rot. The handrail wouldn’t support a man’s weight leaning against it.

The rooms were located off the landing, a staircase at each end. Room 8 wasn’t difficult to find—it was the only room with the door open and an armed police officer standing guard. Logan nodded to the officer and scribbled his name on the log before stepping in. Carole Nuchitelli knelt near a body, a man lying faceup on a shag carpet the color of a thick glass of Nestlé Quik.

“You keep following me, Nooch, and people will think we’re dating.”

Nuchitelli looked up with seeming disinterest. “I’ve been here an hour. I think you’re stalking me.”

The room held the stench of soiled carpet and death. Logan looked down at the corpse. The man’s bowels had released. His eyes were open, his face pale and devoid of any emotion. But for the dime-size hole in his head, the man looked frozen. A dark halo around the back of his head indicated that the carpet had absorbed much of the blood. “Looks like a twenty-two,” Logan said.

“Falcon nine-millimeter,” Nooch said.

Logan pointed to the bullet wound in the forehead. “I’m not talking about the gun in his pants. I’m talking about the hole in his head. Looks like a twenty-two.”

She shrugged. “Or a nine-millimeter.”

“Or a nine-millimeter,” Logan agreed. He turned and studied the doorway. “What do you estimate the distance to be?” he asked, pacing it off.

“Eight to ten feet.”

“Eight feet,” he confirmed. He wiped sleep from his eyes. “Heck of a shot.”

Nuchitelli shrugged, unimpressed. “Not that far.”

“Not if you have time to aim.”

She stopped what she was doing, sat back, and smiled up at him. “All right, go ahead. You know you want to.”

Logan pointed at the butt of the Falcon. “That tells me the guy didn’t even see it coming. He was shot in the forehead so he was obviously facing his killer, but, he didn’t even have the chance to reach for his weapon.”

“Maybe the guy surprised him.”

Logan nodded. “Oh, I’m sure he did, but not the way you’re thinking.” He pointed to the front door. “No forced entry. So either he had a key or he was already in the room. Do we have an ID?”

“You know I like them anonymous, Logan. What are you doing out here, anyway?”

“Murphy called. Said he had something for me.”

She pointed at the doorway to the adjacent room and rolled her eyes. “He’s in there.”

“I think he just likes getting my ass out of bed for kicks.”

“You may be right.”

As Logan started for the other room, he noticed a wad of bills on the floor, partially hidden by the body, as well as bloodied clothes. “His?” he asked, referring to the corpse.

Nuchitelli nodded. “In his right-front pants pocket.”

“Whose clothes?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know. His I guess.”

Logan walked toward the door that separated Room 8 from Room 7.

The door frame between the two rooms had been splintered. This was a forced entry. Maybe the killer
had
surprised him. Patrick Murphy stood with his partner, Debra Hallock, and a swarm of people inside the room. Murphy and Hallock worked out of the South Precinct. Murphy was a stereotype: Irish and looked it, with fair skin, ruddy cheeks, and freckles, and was proud to profess his heritage to anyone and everyone. Thin blue veins traversed a bulbous nose that revealed a penchant for happy hours.

Murphy grinned. “Look what the cat dragged out late at night.” He parted his thinning hair in the middle to try to effect greater coverage. Signs of his age rolled over the waist of his pants.

“I hope you have a good reason for getting my ass out of bed, Murph.” Logan offered his hand to Murphy while acknowledging Hallock. “Hey, Deb.”

“Shit. I have to give you something to do in between rescuing cats from trees and playing with your pecker,” Murphy said.

“Firemen rescue cats. And I’ve told you, it’s the Irish, not the Scottish, who play with their peckers.” He looked at Hallock. “Sorry, Deb.”

She raised thin eyebrows on a not unattractive but unmemorable face, as if to say, “What else is new?”

“So, what the hell am I doing here?”

Murphy answered, “You had a murder in Green Lake last night—guy named James Hill?”

Logan nodded. “Yeah.”

“Come here.” Murphy led Logan back into the room with the corpse. Several pieces of evidence had already been bagged in plastic evidence bags and placed on the bed. “We found this near the body.” He handed Logan a bag with a watch. “Read the inscription on the back.”

Logan turned it over and held it up to the single bulb in the overhead light fixture.

To James Jr., Esquire

6-22-90

Congratulations

Dad

“We checked it out,” Hallock said. “Your James Hill was a junior.”

Logan considered the watch, then the corpse. “So who’s the stiff?”

“Laurence King,” Murphy said, grinning.

Not sure Murphy was serious, Logan asked, “You mean like the talk-show guy on TV?”

“That’s
Larry
King,” Hallock said.

“Career shithead,” Murphy offered. “Spent most of his formative and adult years behind bars mostly for burglaries. Held up a gas station seven years ago and did six at Walla Walla before parole. Been out about a year. Two-strike loser. His probation officer says he’s been working construction and keeping his nose clean. Guess not.”

Logan looked down at Laurence King’s feet. He wore work boots, the kind that would make a size-twelve imprint like the one in the mud outside James Hill’s back door. “Not a murderer, though?”

Hallock shook her head. “Not until last night, apparently”

“So the blood on those clothes could be James Hill’s?” Logan mused.

Murphy shrugged. “Could be, but why would they be covered in dirt?”

Logan thought about it. “Send one of the boys outside to look for a hole in the ground.”

“A hole in the ground? You think King buried them?” Murphy sounded skeptical. He shook his head. “Then why the fuck would he dig them back up?”

Logan reconsidered the watch and the cash.

Hallock directed an officer to search around the outside of the building for a hole. “You think the other guy set King up and left us this stuff so we would think King killed Hill?”

“I don’t know. Make sure we get an imprint of King’s shoes,” Logan said. “Don’t suppose we have any witnesses?”

“The guy at the front desk is doing a ‘see no, hear no, speak no’ routine at the moment, but he’s just being a tough guy,” Murphy said. “He’ll talk when I tell him he’s gonna have a patrol car parked up his ass from here to eternity and he can kiss his customers good-bye.”

“Anybody else that was here took off,” Hallock added. “The guy at the desk said King and another guy came in about midnight yesterday and rented Room Eight.”

“Did he give a description of the second guy?” Logan asked.

Hallock looked at her notes. “Nothing to rival Hemingway. Five-six to five-eight. Slight build, long hair.”

Logan reached down and picked up a pair of jeans, considering the waist. Then he looked at Laurence King. “These would never fit him,“ he said. “Could be our guy.”

“Guy at the desk said King came back in about six o’clock and asked to rent Room Seven as well.”

“Did he say why?” Logan asked.

Hallock shook her head. “This place gets a lot of business. The prostitutes hang out near the bars down the street. The guy says he assumed King and his pal were getting a couple of visitors for the evening and didn’t want to ‘tag-team them’ in the same room. His words, not mine.”

“You want my two cents?” Murphy said. “King and his pal have a dispute over the money, and the guy shoots him. Bang.” He pointed at King and imitated the kick of a handgun with his hand. “Then the guy spooks and leaves behind some of the money and the watch and the bloody clothes to make us think King is the guy who killed and robbed James Hill.”

Logan considered the theory. “I don’t know a lot of guys on the run to leave behind a wad of cash—or clothes that could implicate him in the murder.”

“Shit, we ain’t talking about a fucking Ph.D. Ten bucks says he’s a loser like King. Only now he’s running scared because he killed someone and he ain’t thinking straight. ”

“Detective?”

All three detectives turned. One of the technicians stood between the two beds, near the headboards. When they approached, she pointed with a pen, indicating a bullet hole near a framed photograph of Mount Ranier. The hole was partially camouflaged by the mosaic pattern of the wallpaper. The technician pointed to a second dime-size hole several feet away. The bullet had nicked the edge of the picture frame before embedding in the wallboard. Judging by the size of the hole, it, too, had been either a 9mm slug or a .22.

Logan pointed to King. “He never got the Falcon out of his pants, and the guy who shot him had to be standing near the front door. Not even a blind man could have missed this badly. Right, Nooch?”

Nuchitelli looked up. “Not even a blind man,” she said.

“Shit, you should be a detective,” Murphy added.

“Please, not with the money my parents spent on my education.”

Logan suppressed a laugh, turned to consider the trajectory that would have been necessary for the bullets to embed in the wall, and deduced the shots had to come from the adjacent room.

“King’s pal was in there,” Hallock said, noting his gaze. “That’s why they got the second room; he was supposed to be King’s backup.”

“So whoever shot King then likely kicked in the door to go after him,” Logan said.

“What are you saying?” Murphy asked.

Logan walked back into the adjoining room, Hallock and Murphy in tow. “I’m saying I think King’s pal was inside this room and is either a terrible aim or was just firing at random, panicked.” He faced the damaged door frame, stepped back, and bumped up against the bathroom doorjamb. Turning around, he noticed an open window, walked in, and leaned over the tub to look out the window on a dirt lot, careful not to touch the sill. It was a long fall, but not too long if someone was shooting at you. He walked back into the room where King’s body lay. Nuchitelli stood and removed her gloves. Two men were preparing to put the body in a yellow body bag and zip it closed.

“Dust that ledge for prints and send them over along with prints from the victim. I want to have them compared with any prints found in James Hill’s house.” Logan turned to Murphy and Hallock. “I’m meeting Hill’s sister at his house tomorrow. We were going to go over items that might have been stolen. That doesn’t appear to be too urgent anymore.” Logan looked at his watch and let out a tired sigh. Morning would come too early. “I’ll ask her about the watch and if her brother would have much cash in the house. If anything else is missing we’ll get out a list to the local pawn shops.”

“Shit, like that will do any fucking good with those thieves.” Murphy grinned. “We solved your murder, Logan. Even bagged him for you.”

Logan stared at Laurence King’s body, now encased in the yellow bag, and sucked in air through the small gap between his two front teeth. He didn’t think so.