Dead to the World (18 page)

BACK HOME

Tucker Benton stopped short when he saw the four teenagers – particularly Logan – standing by his mother.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he said, fists clenched as he moved slowly toward his prey.

Bess moved in front of Logan, but Logan pushed her gently aside. ‘Not again, OK?’ he whispered to her.

Bess had to consider that this might be a guy thing – he had to prove his manhood or something – so she stayed by his side.

‘Tucker!’ Mrs Benton said sternly. ‘Leave him alone. And by the way, your sister is OK. And so’s the baby.’

Tucker hadn’t taken his eyes off of Logan. ‘Hear that, asshole?’ he said to Logan. ‘Did you do something to try to get rid of the evidence?’ he said, his teeth also clenched, his fists like ham-hocks at his side.

‘Tucker!’ Mrs Benton said again. ‘He’s not the father!’

Finally Tucker looked over at his mother. ‘What?’

‘This boy isn’t the father! You need to just leave this alone!’ she said.

‘Yeah!’ Megan who could never keep a secret said. ‘Looks like Coach Robbins is the proud papa!’

Tucker whirled around on Megan. ‘What the fuck?’ he shouted. ‘Who the hell you think you are, accusing one of the greatest men I’ve ever known of doing something so … so …’

‘Rotten?’ Megan supplied. ‘Evil? Disturbing?’

Alicia grabbed Megan’s arm. ‘Stop!’ she whispered.

‘Why?’ Megan asked, breaking away from Alicia’s grasp. ‘Is he gonna try to beat me up now? You big bully!’

Tucker turned to his mother. ‘Mom?’

Mrs Benton just shook her head, a look of total defeat on her face. It was at that moment that the locked doors to the depths of the ER opened and Coach Robbins walked out. Tucker took one look at him then walked up and cold-cocked him.

If Edgar Hutchins didn’t die in the Pacific, then what happened to him? I thought. Could he still be alive?
Could
an octogenarian have done these things? Maybe. Maybe not. But he could have had help! I decided. Yes, he certainly could have had help. Like another relative – a son or a daughter! That could be it! But a son or daughter would probably be in their sixties. Could two relatively old people do all this damage? Kill two very healthy specimens like Diamond and Humphrey? What about another generation? What about a grandson or granddaughter! Eureka! I think I might have stumbled on it. Of course, all this rested on one fact I didn’t have: did Edgar Hutchins survive the war in the Pacific?

1972–2004

So Edgar, known to his wife and son as Don Winslow, moved into the apartment his son was renting. Several months later he found a job at a discount store acting as a greeter. He knew he couldn’t go to any of his old gambling hangouts, even if they still existed. He might not look at all like ‘Don Winslow’ anymore, but considering he’d killed a man at those old hangouts, he didn’t want to take a chance. Besides, twenty years inside had lessened his desire to gamble. Every day inside had been a gamble, and he figured coming out of that alive was the best pay-off he was ever going to get.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about the house on Post Oak Street back in Peaceful, Texas, and the treasure buried somewhere within. He kept the fantasy to himself until the day, five years later, when Chet took him to the ER because of a dark red stain on Edgar’s pants from an accidental peeing incident of which Edgar was unaware.

‘God, Dad!’ Chet said, having decided almost immediately upon finding out that Edgar really was ‘Don Winslow,’ his long-lost father, to call him that. ‘That’s disgusting! You peed your pants!’

Edgar looked down at his crotch. ‘I don’t pee red, boy! I musta spilled something.’

Chet leaned down and took a whiff. ‘Gross! No, Dad! That’s pee!’ Then he looked up at his father. ‘You been pissing blood lately?’

Edgar shrugged. ‘Every now and then,’ he confessed.

That’s when Chet loaded him up and took him to the ER. Edgar ended up in the hospital for several days until all the tests came back. Chet was with him when the doctor came in with the bad news. Bladder cancer. Too far along. Maybe a few weeks left. And then he was gone and Chet and Edgar both stared off into space. Finally, Edgar said, ‘Son, I got something to tell you about a place called Peaceful, Texas, and a house on a street called Post Oak.’

And that’s when Chet learned who his father really was, about his half-sisters in the Philippines, but mostly about Helen and the treasure in the old Victorian. Edgar failed to mention that he’d sliced Helen’s throat with the straight-razor he was to leave his son in his will. That was about the only thing of any value – as little as it may have – that Edgar owned. Only that and the secret of the treasure on Post Oak Street.

Chet buried his dad on a payment plan and left town, figuring they wouldn’t chase him down for the remainder of the bill. He moved to Jackson, where things were really happening, and found a friend who needed somebody to move weed for him. Chet had traded his old Valiant in for a VW micro-bus in pretty good condition and his friend thought that would be just the ride they needed to get in and out of Mexico. Chet spent two years hauling weed from a little town in Mexico back to Jackson, Mississippi, and made a lot of money doing it. Like his father back in his Shanghai days, Chet spent his money on women and gambling. And he inhaled a lot of the profits, too.

It was one stormy spring night crossing the border from Nuevo Larado to the Texas side that Chet saw a border guard with a dog who was sniffing away at the cars as they passed through. Chet was riding shotgun, his friend Elias driving Chet’s VW. He looked at his friend, looked at the dog sniffing away and jumped ship. He heard later through the grapevine that Elias got sent down for ten years at Huntsville and was looking to mete out some justice to his old buddy, Chet. Which was why Chet moved back to Biloxi. Once there, he discovered that his mother, Rita, was in bad health and died shortly after he got home. She, too, left him nothing but bills.

Chet was worried about how he was going to handle all this, since he hadn’t exactly saved any money back in his heyday, and now didn’t even have a car, as the VW micro-bus – which was never exactly in his name – was confiscated by the state of Texas. It was while looking over used cars that he met Lola Montgomery. Lola worked at the dealership and gave him quite a deal on a used Chevy Bellaire. The fact that her daddy owned the dealership – one of the largest in Biloxi – may have played a part in the deal. Lola had a one-year-old daughter, Darlene, father unknown, who was an embarrassment to Lola’s family. So Chet married her, gave Darlene the last name of Winslow (he’d found it would cost money to change his name back to Hutchins, and Chet wasn’t big on spending money on things that didn’t get him high or laid), and got a job selling used cars at his father-in-law’s dealership.

In the winter of 1980, his wife, Lola, gave birth to a son, who Chet named Edward in secret honor of his old man. Big sister Darlene was smitten with her younger brother, a reality that lasted all of her life. As far as Darlene was concerned, Eddy could do no wrong, although Eddy liked very much to do wrong. He liked to pull the wings off flies when he was just a tyke, and graduated at the age of nine to killing neighborhood pets. When anyone ever got close to finding out what Eddy was doing, big sister Darlene would cover for him. Her parents never knew what Eddy was up to, and he sure wasn’t into confessing his sins. By the time he was in high school and Darlene, still living at home and going to a junior college, was in her early twenties, she discovered that her little brother got caught trying to rape a girl under the bleachers at a football game. The boys who caught him beat the shit out of him, and it was only by the intervention of a school guard that Eddy made it out of the situation in one piece. Darlene sold her car to pay off the girl he tried to rape. Eddy didn’t really notice.

Chet was as enamored of his son as his step-daughter, Darlene. In Chet’s mind, the boy could do no wrong. And when Eddy turned sixteen, Chet told him the tale of the treasure in the house on Post Oak Street in Peaceful, Texas, and Eddy’s true family history and true name of Hutchins.

‘So why didn’t you ever go for it, Dad?’ Eddy asked his father.

Chet shrugged. ‘I dunno. Just never got around to it. Maybe one of these days.’ Then he smiled real big. ‘Hey, maybe you and me, huh, boy?’

Eddy smiled at his dad. ‘Sure, Dad, that sounds great.’ Eddy knew he’d be going after that treasure, but he sure wasn’t taking dear old dad along with him.

BACK HOME

C
oach Robbins was sitting on the floor of the ER waiting room, rubbing his jaw while Tucker Benton towered over him, his face blood red. ‘How could you?’ he yelled. ‘You were my friend! My goddam hero! And you raped my little sister?’ And then he kicked him.

Coach Robbins scrambled out of the way and made it to a standing position. ‘Hold on a minute! What in the hell are you talking about?’ He turned to Mrs Benton, a confused look on his face. ‘Nancy? What the hell?’

Mrs Benton sighed. ‘He doesn’t know, Les. I wasn’t sure how he’d take it …’

‘Ha!’ Coach said, with little humor. ‘Oh, he seems to be taking whatever
this
is just fine!’

‘What are you talking about? Mom? What’s going on?’ Tucker asked, his face still red, his fists still clutched by his side.

Mrs Benton looked around the waiting room. There were only a few people in there, and one side was empty. She ushered her son in that direction. The coach followed – as did Logan and the Pugh girls. Uninvited but still involved. Well, at least Logan was, and since he was holding Bess’s hand, she had to go, and where one Pugh girl went, they all went.

‘Les?’ Mrs Benton said.

‘What about them?’ the coach asked, pointing at Logan and the girls.

Mrs Benton shrugged. ‘They may as well know the truth. It’s better than what everyone is thinking.’

The coach nodded his head and rubbed his face. ‘Cathy and I have been trying to have a baby for almost five years. We’ve tried everything. Then the doctor suggested a surrogate. We were opposed to it at first, but …’ He looked at Mrs Benton.

She took a deep breath and said, ‘Cathy told me what they were going through. I wanted to help.’ She stiffened her shoulders and said, ‘And we needed the money—’

‘Mom, what the fuck—’

‘Don’t talk to your mother like that!’ the coach said.

‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ Tucker yelled at the coach.

‘Tucker! He’s still the same man who got you through four years of football! The same man who got you that scholarship! It’s not his fault you didn’t fulfill your end of the bargain—’

‘Mom!’ Tucker whined. ‘I can’t help it if I got bad grades!’

‘If you’d studied instead of going out drinking every night—’

‘People!’ Megan said. ‘Enough. So, Harper’s carrying Coach and Mrs Robbins’ baby, is that what you’re saying?’

Mrs Benton straightened her shoulders again. ‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying.’

‘I’m not real clear on the law, but isn’t Harper underage and isn’t this like, you know, illegal?’ Bess asked.

Mrs Benton fidgeted in her seat, and Coach Robbins stared out the window. ‘It’s not cut and dry,’ she said in a small voice.

Coach turned back around. ‘She’ll be eighteen before the baby’s born,’ he said defensively, then sighed, his shoulders drooping. ‘We weren’t sure ourselves at first, Tucker, but … well, Cathy was desperate—’

‘Mom, you, like, sold Harper’s womb?’ Tucker said, his voice louder than necessary. The people at the other end of the waiting room looked up.

‘More like rented it out,’ Megan said. Bess kicked her sister, who said, ‘Ouch!’

‘That’s not how it was!’ Mrs Benton said, turning red in the face; Bess thought that might be more from embarrassment at being caught than anger.

‘What the hell you need the money for?’ Tucker demanded. ‘I’ve been sending you half my pay every week since I joined the army!’

Mrs Benton took hold of her son’s hand. ‘And I thank you for that, honey,’ she said. ‘But that and my small salary and dwindling tips, even with Harper working part-time at the clothing store, just hasn’t been enough. They were going to repo the trailer. I needed a big chunk of money, and Les and Cathy offered me enough to pay the trailer off. Now all I have to worry about is the land it’s sitting on. But with Les’s help, I renegotiated the loan and got a lower payment, so it’s all much better now.’

Tucker pulled his hand away from his mother’s grip. ‘So why didn’t you tell me any of this? I’m gone two years and this happens and you don’t even mention it?’

‘What were you going to do? Go AWOL or rob a bank or something? This seemed like the only alternative,’ she said.

‘And Harper? What about her?’ Tucker demanded. ‘She’s seventeen, for God’s sake! And she’s gonna have a kid that isn’t even hers? And she,’ he said, pointing at Bess, ‘says it’s illegal! Is it? Did you make my sister break the law?’

Mrs Benton squared her shoulders and said defensively, ‘Like Coach said, she’ll be eighteen before the baby’s born. And she wanted to do it, truly, Tucker. After everything Coach has done for us …’

‘What has that got to do with anything?’ Tucker demanded, standing up. ‘Jeez, you people! Did she really want to do this? Or did you guilt her into it?’

His mother stood up too. ‘Coach got her a scholarship to UT, Tucker. A scholarship she couldn’t have gotten on her own. And
she’ll
study! Unlike some people!’

‘Here we go again,’ Megan said under her breath.

‘Shhhh!’ Bess said.

‘This is disgusting!’ Tucker said, making a beeline for the outer door of the ER. But once there he turned and looked at Logan. ‘Sorry for the beat-down, man,’ he said, and walked out.

I called the chief. ‘Anyway we can get a rush on DNA?’ I asked him. ‘Like, by tomorrow?’

‘Hell no,’ he said. ‘If I knew somebody in Austin at the lab, maybe, but I don’t. And why are you in an all-fired rush for the DNA? I thought we were gonna go with the fingerprints?’

‘Fingerprints won’t tell us if there’s a familial match,’ I said.

‘Ya lost me.’

‘What if Edgar Hutchins didn’t die in the Pacific?’ I asked.

‘Who?’

‘The youngest brother! We don’t have a death notification on him – just a missing-in-action notification. So what if he made it back to the States? What if he’s the one who killed Helen Hutchins?’

‘OK, so what if? What’s that got to do with who’s hanging around now?’

‘OK, it probably isn’t Edgar who killed Humphrey and Diamond, but what about his kin? Like a son or a grandson? DNA could tell us if it is!’

‘But we ain’t got any DNA on Edgar, do we?’

‘No,’ I had to admit. ‘But we do have DNA on Norris. And there would be some connection, wouldn’t there?’

‘Hell if I know,’ the chief said. ‘But still and all, no way I can get a rush on it.’

‘Let me call Luna,’ I said. ‘She’s got a buddy in the APD. Maybe we can go that route.’

‘Give it a try.’

‘Any word on the fingerprints?’ I asked.

‘Gave the razor to Mary and she’s down in the lab with it now,’ he said.

‘OK. I’ll call Luna and call you back.’

I hung up and dialed Elena Luna’s office at the Codderville police department. She answered on the second ring. ‘Lieutenant Luna,’ she said.

‘Hey, it’s me,’ I said.

‘You still in Pleasantville?’ she asked.

‘Peaceful,’ I corrected, ‘and yeah, I am. You have a friend at APD, right?’

There was a moment of silence, then she said, ‘Maybe.’

‘Yes, you do! Anyway, can you call her and see if she can get some DNA expedited?’

Luna laughed. ‘Are you out of your mind? The backlog on DNA is like close to a year. And these are for open cases in Austin. And you think they’re gonna drop everything to rush a job for some hick town nobody’s ever heard of? I ask her that, she won’t be a friend for long!’

‘Yeah, well maybe I won’t be a friend for long if you don’t!’ I threatened.

Again, she laughed. The nerve! ‘From your lips to God’s ear,’ she said and hung up on me.

I seriously was never going to speak to her again.

BACK HOME

Mrs Benton and the coach turned and looked at the four kids left – Bess, Megan, Alicia and Logan. ‘I’d be very grateful if you didn’t mention any of this,’ Harper’s mom said.

‘And so would my wife and I,’ the coach said. ‘Logan, you interested in a scholarship?’

It was time for Logan to square his shoulders. ‘Are you trying to bribe me, Coach?’ he said, a frown on his face.

‘No, of course not—’ Then the coach stopped short. ‘Yes,’ he said. He heaved a great sigh. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t need a scholarship. But Alicia could probably use one,’ Logan said.

‘Oh, no!’ Alicia said, shaking her head vehemently. ‘I’m not taking a bribe either!’

‘Look, after what Harper’s done for us, it’s the least I can do,’ the coach said and smiled at her. ‘I’d rather y’all didn’t tell anyone about our arrangement, as much for Harper’s sake as ours. But that’s up to y’all. The scholarship is yours even if you print the whole story on the front page of the
BCR Times
. You’re a foster kid, right, Alicia?’

She nodded her head.

‘Might not be UT,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got connections all over the place. I’ll see what I can do.’

Alicia looked at her sisters, both of whom took a hand each. ‘Do it!’ Megan said.

‘It’s a great opportunity,’ Bess said.

‘I wouldn’t tell anyone anyway,’ Alicia said to the coach and Mrs Benton. ‘As long as that’s what Harper wants. I think we should talk to her. If she’s as OK with this arrangement as y’all think she is, then, yes, a scholarship would be very nice.’

The coach sighed. ‘Even if you find out she’s not, the scholarship is still yours,’ he said.

Alicia nodded her head, then looked at Mrs Benton. ‘May we go in and see Harper?’ she asked.

She nodded, said, ‘She’s in room four,’ and walked up to the nurse’s station.

As the girls were buzzed in, Alicia, heading for the door, stopped herself. ‘Oh!’ She turned to Mrs Benton and pulled the woman’s car keys out of her pocket. ‘I parked your car for you. It’s in the lot toward the back.’

Mrs Benton smiled. ‘I did sort of abandon it, didn’t I?’ She took the keys. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

Logan stayed behind as the girls went in to see Harper. They passed Cathy Robbins on her way to the waiting room.

Harper was lying on a high bed in room four, a light blanket over her legs, a hospital gown over her torso, her hands massaging her belly.

‘What the hell do y’all want?’ she demanded on seeing them.

‘Don’t get upset,’ Bess said, touching Harper’s arm. ‘We’re not here to hurt you in any way.’

‘Like you could!’ Harper said.

‘Your mom and the coach told us everything,’ Alicia said.

Harper looked from one to the other. Finally, she said, ‘OK, so?’

‘So we just want to make sure all this is really OK with you,’ Bess said.

‘Yeah, I’m fine with it,’ Harper said, a frown on her face.

‘But you got pregnant with somebody else’s baby!’ Megan said. ‘That’s like, you know, creepy!’

Harper shrugged her shoulders. ‘Not really. It was just like going to the dentist, but at the other end,’ she said. ‘No big deal.’ Then she smiled. ‘And I sorta like the feeling when the baby moves around!’ Then her eyes got big and she grabbed Megan’s hand. ‘Feel this!’

Megan let her hand be led to Harper’s belly. Then she grinned from ear to ear. ‘Y’all gotta feel this!’ she said to her sisters, and all three girls had their hands on Harper’s belly.

‘Oh my God!’ Bess said, a smile playing across her face. ‘This is incredible!’

Alicia grinned. ‘Not my first kicking fetus,’ she said, ‘and I hope it won’t be my last! It’s so cool!’

Megan removed her hand, frowned at Harper and said, ‘But are you still a virgin?’

Bess quickly removed her hand, too. ‘God, Megan! What a question!’

‘No,’ Harper said, shaking her head. ‘It’s an OK question. I wondered about it, too. But technically I still am. I mean, they had to break my hymen but other than that, I mean, yeah, I guess.’

‘Wow,’ Alicia said. ‘Another virgin birth! Maybe you’ll become a saint!’

Harper laughed. ‘I doubt it.’

It was getting late in the afternoon and I was afraid we weren’t going to hear back from the chief in regards to the fingerprint results. So I said to Willis, ‘Let’s go to the station.’

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘Because I want to!’ I said.

‘Why do you want to?’ he asked.

‘OK, fine, I’ll go by myself!’

He sighed and stood up. ‘I’ll go with you because obviously you’re up to no good, or you’d tell me! I need to be there as a buffer.’

‘Some buffer,’ I grumbled and headed to the door. Once in the car, I said, ‘It’s no big deal. I just want to make sure we get those fingerprint results. That the chief isn’t clue-blocking me.’

Willis laughed. ‘Good use of the word blocking,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

It took us five minutes in my Audi to get to the station. It was after five, but the front door to the station was unlocked, even though the gray-haired lady was no longer behind the counter. I went up to the counter and leaned down to the small opening. ‘Hello?’ I called out.

Willis went to the locked door and knocked. After about a minute, I saw the chief come out of his office. Seeing me with my nose pressed against the glass of the reception window, he got a slightly unpleasant look on his face. Then he sighed and walked to the reception desk and buzzed us in.

‘You get anywhere with your friend Luna?’ he asked me.

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘What about the fingerprints?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Far as I know Mary’s still workin’ on ’em,’ he said.

I looked at my watch. ‘For three hours?’ I asked.

He frowned. ‘Doesn’t usually take that long,’ he admitted. ‘Come on, let’s go see.’

So we followed him to the back of the station, through a door marked ‘employees only,’ that led to a staircase going down. We followed him down the stairs to a warren of offices and labs. ‘We only got the one in use anymore,’ he said, pointing at all the doors. ‘Cut-backs, ya know.’

We agreed that we did. He opened the door marked ‘Lab’ and we followed him inside. There was no one there. ‘Mary?’ he called out, but received no response.

He walked up to the desk and looked at the top of it, moving papers here and there. ‘Hum,’ he said. ‘Don’t see anything.’

He turned and headed out of the lab and back up the stairs. The gray-haired lady was coming out of the bathroom. ‘Where’s Mary?’ the chief asked her.

She shrugged. ‘I dunno. Saw her go out the back about an hour ago,’ she said.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ the chief demanded.

‘Why would I?’ she asked.

Well, she had him there, obviously, because he gave no response. We followed the chief back into his office.

I took the one visitor’s chair while my husband leaned against the wall. ‘Where do you think she is?’ I asked the chief.

‘She probably went home a little early, that’s all,’ he said.

‘Without telling you?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Usually would, yeah,’ he said, frowning.

‘Is that straight-razor down in the lab?’ I asked.

‘Didn’t see it,’ he admitted.

‘Would she store it somewhere?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, in the evidence locker,’ he said and stood up. We followed him back downstairs.

The evidence locker was small and with good reason. There was hardly anything in there. A few handguns labeled and tagged, a baggie of weed, and some white powder that could have been anything from cocaine to speed. In small-town Texas I was pretty sure it was the latter. But no sheathed straight-razor.

‘Why would she take it with her?’ I demanded.

Again the chief shrugged.

‘That’s not normal procedure, right?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said.

‘So what do you know about Mary Mays?’ I asked him.

He whirled on me. ‘That she’s a fine officer! That’s what I know!’ he said. ‘I’ve been knowing that girl since she was a child! Her parents and me and the Mrs go to the same church! I know her history! Hells bells, I know
her
!’

‘Then why did she take the evidence?’ I asked, my voice soft.

He shook his head. ‘Hell if I know,’ he finally said.

‘Maybe we should just call her,’ Willis suggested.

The chief looked at me and I looked back at him. ‘Maybe we should drive over there,’ he said.

‘That might be best,’ I agreed.

So we got in the chief’s squad car and headed out of town to a white-frame farmhouse with acres of plowed fields around it. A man was on a tractor doing something farm-like when we pulled up. The man was close enough to the driveway to cut off the tractor’s engine and call to us.

‘Hey, Rigsby!’ he said. ‘What can I do you for?’

‘Hey, Clifford. Looking for Mary!’ the chief called out from the open window of the car.

‘Why you looking here?’ Clifford Mays asked. ‘Mary don’t live here anymore! Didn’t she give you her change of address? Like maybe six months ago?’

‘Hum,’ the chief said. ‘I just figured she still lived with y’all. Didn’t think to check with Mildred.’ He turned and looked at me. ‘My clerk,’ he said in an aside.

‘I don’t rightly know her new address,’ Mary’s father said. ‘But she lives in that new apartment complex over by the high school.’ He leaned forward and laid on the horn of his tractor. A woman came to the porch of the white-framed farm house, drying her hands on a dishtowel, an old-fashioned apron covering her from neck to groin.

‘What in the hell—’ she started then spied the chief’s car. ‘Well, hey there, Rigsby! To what do we owe the pleasure?’ she said, smiling wide. She was a pretty woman, and it was obvious who Mary Mays favored.

‘He needs Mary,’ Clifford said. ‘What’s her apartment number?’

‘If you ever went over there to see her, you might know!’ his wife chided him. Looking at the chief, she said, ‘It’s that apartment complex near the high school. Apartment 2304. Second floor, near the rear.’

‘Thanks, y’all,’ the chief said, smiled, honked his horn briefly, and headed out of the driveway.

He didn’t speak again until we were parked in the back parking lot of the aforementioned apartment complex. ‘So now what?’ he asked, not looking at either Willis or myself.

‘I guess we go knock on the door,’ my husband said. I was glad he said it and I didn’t have to, because the look the chief gave him wasn’t friendly.

‘Y’all stay in the car,’ he said, opening his door.

‘You know that’s not going to happen,’ I said, opening the shotgun side and letting Willis out of the back.

Chief Cotton sighed. ‘I’m beginning not to like you, ma’am,’ he said.

I grinned. ‘That must mean at some point you did!’

‘Shut up,’ he said, and led the way up the stairs.

Apartment 2304 was the second in from the stairs. The chief knocked rapidly on the front door. It took a minute but the front door opened and Mary Mays stood there, out of uniform, wearing cut-offs and a tank top, her hair down and flowing. She was much prettier and much thinner than the uniform would have you believe.

‘Chief!’ she said, and the look on her face was one of fear. She tried slamming the door, but Chief Cotton’s foot kept that from happening.

‘You wanna tell me what’s goin’ on, Mary?’ he said, his words clipped.

‘Nothing!’ She looked back over her shoulder and tried again to shut the door. That’s when a bullet whizzed through the wooden door of the apartment, hitting the chief.