Deadly Interest (39 page)

When I heard another snore-like sound, I
made my decision. Barton wouldn’t even have to know I’d been
here.

I pushed the door open and stepped quickly
inside, hoping that no one noticed my furtive movements.

Just as I’d predicted, Bart was on his back,
open-mouthed and huge. His fully clothed body lay diagonally across
the still-made bed, his head tilted backward over the side so I
couldn’t see his face. I shook my head, feeling smug. So
predictable. He’d left on a single lamp, far in the corner, its
stained shade listing sideways, and though it helped me to navigate
the small area, it did little to cast out the room’s
dreariness.

Determined to get in and out quickly, I
eased forward. Circa 1970 shag carpet, its deep brown pile matted
and worn in paths around the bed, looked to be the newest addition
to the rummage-sale-reject décor. Avoiding Bart, I tried to decide
where he might have stored the will. The smell of old cigarettes
and booze, along with the odor of the big man’s stale sweat, kept
close company as I started for the suitcase in the back, just
outside the bathroom. Another smell, something metallic, swirled by
with an unpleasant tang, to join the collection of scents that
surrounded me. I kept my mouth closed, wishing I could avoid
breathing in the filthiness of the room. I couldn’t wait to get out
of the place.

Crouching, I brought my eyes to the level of
the old-fashioned hardback suitcase, wondering why in the world a
motel with the reputation of the Tuck Inn’s would have invested in
valet caddies. Most people staying here didn’t bring luggage.

I released the lock, first on one side, and
then the other, holding my thumb over the flip-up mechanisms to
keep them quiet. Lifting the lid, and standing, as I did so, I
moved slightly to my right to allow the meager light to help me in
my quest.

It didn’t look promising. Before me sat a
jumble of dingy underwear, socks, and a couple of shirts. Barton’s
very personal belongings.

I’d been about to reach into the mess, when
all of a sudden it felt wrong. Like I’d crossed a line, somehow.
I’d been able to rationalize every step along the path so far, and
here I was, ready to plunge my hands into Barton’s privacy. It
didn’t feel right. I didn’t like what I was doing. And I knew how I
would feel if the situation were reversed.

With regret, I closed the suitcase, pressed
shut the locks, and decided to come back another time.

With ginger steps, I made for the door.
Barton hadn’t moved. Giving his sleeping figure a final glance, I
shuddered at my presence here, and wished I’d never come.
Fortunately, he was totally unconscious, but as I slid past the bed
on my way out, I noticed the abstract pattern on the coverlet.

I stepped closer. The shapeless expanse of
deep red beneath Barton’s supine body caught the light. It
glistened.

Blood.

A lot of blood.

I heard my own gasp, instinctively moving in
to get a closer look. My God, what had happened here? I felt like I
was in a dream where I needed to run, but couldn’t. I moved toward
him in slow-motion, holding my left fist up to my nose; the
unpleasant smells I’d detected at first were much more intense
close up. He reeked of urine and fecal matter. Combined with the
close dankness of the room, I felt my stomach clench, and threaten
to shove upward. But I had to check if he was alive.

I came around the side of the bed that
allowed me to get close to his face, every nerve in my body sending
warning signals to an over-stimulated brain, trying to process all
this at once. Whoever had done this to him could still be nearby,
but I didn’t think so. I couldn’t think so. I had to check him.
That was the only thing I allowed myself to focus on. I forced my
mind to blank out thoughts of anything else.

His eyes were open, wide, and terrified.

As I reached my right hand out to search for
a pulse in his neck, I saw the bullet wounds. Two, that I could
tell. One near his heart, one in his stomach. Both bubbling out
tiny fountains of blood.

Just as my fingers touched his extended
neck, he let out a deep gurgle, and I jumped back, stifling a
scream. My God, he was alive.

I automatically reached for the hotel phone,
stopping myself just short of touching it, remembering that this
was a crime scene. A crime scene I’d contaminated already. I dug my
cell phone out of my back pocket and dialed Lulinski’s number from
memory.

“
It’s Bart,” I said,
thanking heaven when he answered. “He’s been shot.”

“
Where are
you?”

“
At his hotel room. How
quick can you get here?”

“
Not long. Did you call
911?”

“
No.”

“
Do it. Do it
now.”

The blood fountains had slowed, and I didn’t
know if that was good news or bad as I watched Bart’s life ease out
from the two wounds, looking like small mouths drooling red.
Standing close to him as I spoke to the dispatcher, I maintained a
close eye on Barton’s chest, willing his respirations to continue,
holding my own breath each time they hesitated. I knew I could do
CPR if I needed to, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. “Please
hurry,” I said.

I remained near him, not knowing what to do
or to say. “Help is coming soon,” I offered, feeling lame. “You
hang in there.”

Just as I heard sirens blazing into the
parking lot, Barton’s chest shuddered. His lips worked, but no
sound came out. Two fingers of his left hand jerked, and then were
still.

* * * * *

“
Call it,” the lead
paramedic said, stepping away from Bart’s body. The burly,
white-haired fellow had his back to me, but I read disappointment
from the slump in his blue-uniform-shirted shoulders.

His younger colleague nodded, looked at his
watch and said, “Ten-forty-one AM.” When he stood, and began to
scribble notes on a clipboard, I looked at him more closely.

A cop appeared at my left. “Over here,
please,” he said, gesturing me outside the hotel room door.

When he stopped and settled in to start
talking, we were in front of the window of the next motel room.
“Let me have your name,” he said.

At that moment, I realized how violently I
trembled. Deep breaths did nothing to slow my heart rate and my
legs shook. “Can I sit down?” I asked.

He shot me a dark-eyed glare from a
weathered face so reddened and lined, its texture resembled beef
jerky. “Why?”

“
I’m kind of shaky.” I
attempted to tuck some errant hair behind my right ear, but my
fingers quivered and I couldn’t get it to stay.

Fixing me with a grimace, he heaved a
protracted sigh. “We can sit in the squad. Will that do?”

Finding it difficult to form words, I simply
nodded.

He held open the back door and I slid in,
unsurprised this time by the plastic-molded seat. Despite that, I
must have looked shell-shocked because he asked, “First time in the
back seat of a police car?”

I shook my head. How to explain everything
that had gone on since Mrs. Vicks’ murder?

“
Name,” he said, without
preamble.

Answering him, I stared out the side window,
searching the crowd of medics, officers, and assorted onlookers for
Lulinski. One of the trench-coated officials, striding about with
an air of authority looked familiar, and I sat up straighter,
fingertips of my right hand pressing against the window with
hope.

“
You his wife?
Girlfriend?”

My hand dropped to my lap in defeat, when I
realized the man I’d seen wasn’t Lulinski after all.

“
Whose?”

“
The victim, Barton
Vicks.”

I believe the brain moves into auto-pilot
during traumatic situations. Right now, even as my knees beat a
frantic rhythm against one another and my eyes flit back and forth
between the confines of the car and the busyness outside, I knew I
wore the look of guilt. My calm omniscient mind tried in vain to
convince the rest of me that my trembling was unnecessary, that I
had nothing to fear, that I should face this situation as I’d faced
many others, with a cool sense of composure.

But then I remembered the small mouth-like
holes in Barton’s body, releasing his lifeblood, murmuring
death.

“
My God,” I
said.

“
Excuse me?”

My hands shook, my legs shook, and I could
feel every one of my internal organs vibrate with a combined sense
of fear and regret. “He was alive,” I said. “When I got there, he
was alive.”

“
Okay, Ms. St. James,” the
officer said. “Settle down.”

For the first time, I noticed his name
badge. “R. Mason.” The part of my brain that could still process
random thoughts decided he looked like a Richard.

“
I am settled,” I said
with asperity, despite the fact that I was anything but.

“
Good,” he said with heavy
sarcasm, his expression baleful and annoyed. “Then answer my
question. How did you know the victim? Were you lovers?”

“
No,” I said, angry now.
“Of course not.”

It wasn’t this officer’s fault. I knew that.
I knew he had every right to ask me anything he wanted . . . I
understood that my presence here at the scene of a killing
spotlighted me as the prime suspect. But the horror of what I’d
seen, coupled with all that had happened over the past ten days
made my words come out sharp. My body throbbed with impatience. I
needed to talk to Lulinski.

“
Listen, missy,” the cop
said. “Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you’re
in?”

Pressing my shaking fingertips to my
eyebrows, I worked at them, striving to recapture some of that calm
I prided myself on. “Yes,” I said. “I do. Let me start from the
beginning, okay? I can explain.”

Turning toward him, I took a deep
breath.

His sun-crinkled face expressed patent
disdain, as his pen stood poised over his notebook. “I’m
waiting.”

Seconds later, a gray-suited body appeared
in the doorway behind Officer Mason, and I heard Lulinski’s voice.
“I’ll take it from here.”

Relief rushed over me so quickly that I
called him by his first name, “George!” I said, scooching sideways
to get out. That must have startled Mason, because his chin came up
in surprise, even as he’d started to slide out of my way.

“
You’re acquainted with
her?” he asked Lulinski.

Nodding to Mason, he repeated, “I’ll take it
from here,” then extended his hand to help me out of the car.
Grateful for the strength I felt there, I let go with reluctance
when I finally made it to my feet. “Tell me what happened, Alex,”
he said. His eyes narrowed. “You okay?”

The brisk fresh air with its promise of
warmth made me remember my early morning thoughts of spring, and I
wondered what happened to the girl who believed in herself so
completely just hours before.

Still, I nodded. “Yeah.”

He led me to his navy blue sedan, opened the
door and helped me into the passenger seat. Inside the closed car,
its ashtray full of cigarette butts, I could tell that he’d just
finished one. For the first time in my life, leftover smoke smelled
like heaven to me.

His gray eyes were intense. “What the hell
were you doing here?”

“
I wanted to get another
look at the will. The one I told you we found in the safe deposit
box,” I said.

His anger evident, I watched him work his
jaw. “What was so goddamn important about the will that you had to
come here alone? What if you would’ve walked in on the killer in
the middle of this? Then what? Then I’d have not one, but two more
goddamn homicides on my hands, and one of them would have been
you.”

His fury broke through the barriers of my
own, and even as I raised my voice, I was grateful. Anger was so
much easier to handle than fear. “I called you,” I said. “This
morning. Why didn’t you call me back?” I flung an accusatory hand
in the direction of his coat pocket, where I knew he kept his
phone. “You have it turned on. You must have gotten my message. If
you would have called me back I wouldn’t have come here by
myself.”

His body relaxed, almost imperceptibly and
his eyes lost their unsympathetic gaze. “That was you?”

The gentle tone of his voice was
contagious.

“
Yeah.”

Hooking his left elbow over the top of his
steering wheel, he nodded, staring out at the people still swarming
outside. “I’d just gotten out of bed and turned on the phone when
you called me just now. As soon as you told me where you were, I
came out. Didn’t shower, didn’t shave.”

Finally taking a good look at him, I noticed
the sleep-indentation running the length of his face from stubbled
jawline, past his right eye, into his hairline.

“
On the way over,” he
continued, “I saw that I had a voicemail message. Didn’t want to
take the time to check it until after I got a handle on what was
happening here.”

“
Sorry,” I said. I bit my
lip. At the rate things were going, this man would never learn to
trust me.

“
Okay.” His mouth set in a
line, he turned to face me again, pulling out his spiral-topped
notebook. “Now, tell me everything.”

* * * * *

It wasn’t until we made it to the police
station almost an hour later that I remembered Lucy. “Oh my God,” I
said, with a clutch at Lulinski’s jacket. “My sister.”

“
What?” His body language
had shifted to one of swift urgency; he looked ready to bolt back
to the car. “Is she home alone?”

“
No,” I said, holding a
hand up to calm us both. We’d made it through the front door and
stood now at the circular brick reception desk. “I need to call.
Real quick.”