Lucky Thirteen (5 page)

“Lost what
? My mind?”

“Your objectivity
. You’re obsessed.”

Stubbornly,
he picked up Cyclops. “Maybe. But look at this animal. God forbid, but if Larkin Sloan
is
dead, nobody else will want him.”

Chris sighed
. “I guess you’re cat sitting.”

The strange trio drove to the pa
rish lockup. On the rather cool, damp day, Ray left the cat in the car with a scratch under his chin and instructions not to tear up the seats. As if he understood, the animal curled up on the back seat.

♣♣♣

Dupree Parks
had nothing to do but think about the mess he was in. For the moment he was alone without a cellmate. “I tried to be a gang banger, but that didn’t work. What now? What am I? A smart kid criminal?” He smiled ruefully at the thought. “That’s not really funny.”

I’m
a criminal, but I’m a man of my word and fiercely loyal to and protective of those I love.
Dupree shook his head.
There’re just very few people I love. Mostly, I’m a loner. I don’t fit into any group—not even a gang. I ain’t as street-wise as they are. I don’t like to hurt people.

“I’m sorry, Momma. You’re
a tigress who never gives up and fights for my survival. You threatened some of my brothers with a loaded shotgun. You filed assault charges on that asshole ex-husband, Dwight.”
Oh shit! If I get sent to the big house, he’ll be there. I’m a dead man.
He sighed and fought back tears.
“
I blew my last chance and broke your heart.”

Dupree kicked the wall at the thought. “I wanna be somebody—and get outta this place.”

Is that dream
truly like a raisin in the sun, shriveled and dried up by my own hand
. He murmured, “I’m so sorry, Momma. I need Divine
Intervention.”
Poverty is a quagmire and already holds my foot fast. The quicksand will just suck me under. I won’t be like Walter Lee Younger and rise above shattered dreams.
“Damn it.”
I can’t even admit to my friends I actually read
A Raisin in the Sun
and liked it and understood it. I did this to myself and that makes me angrier than anything else
. “God, why am I so bad?”

His mood grew surlier by the minute. By the time the guard came to get him, Dupree sat at the bottom of his self-imposed pit.

“Couple of cops here to see you, boy. Straighten up.”

Dupree curled his lips in a snarl as the guard slapped cuffs on him.

The prison guard escorted him to an interrogation room devoid of all color except the clothing worn by visitors or inmates. Chris sat in one gray folding metal chair at a table, and Ray leaned against the wall. Dupree plopped into the other chair and promptly announced, “I ain’t talking to y’all without my lawyer.”

“
Really? I’m Detective Reynolds. Do you have something to hide?” snapped Ray.

“Like what
? I ain’t done nothin’.”

“Like the whereabouts of Miss Sloan.”

“Whatcha talkin’ ’bout?”

Reynolds
stopped slouching. “Miss Sloan, the teacher you assaulted yesterday, is missing. Where is she?”

Missing?
He shook his head. “I don’t know,” Dupree practically screamed. “I didn’t do nothin’ to that bitch! The last time I seen her, a guard was takin’ her to the office. They brung me here ’bout twenty minutes later, and I been here ever since. Now, I ain’t talkin’ no more without a lawyer. You gotta give me one, and you gotta pay for it ’cause I’m too poor. I ain’t stupid. I know my rights.” He brought his cuffed hands against his chest.

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?”
The detective leaned on the table, his eyes two inches from the young man’s face. “Like what?
Fooyay
! I think you’ve graduated to the big time. Agent Milovich, how does aiding and abetting a kidnapping and murder sound to you?”

“Serious
. This is Louisiana. Could get the death penalty.”

Agent? FBI?
Dupree turned his head to break eye contact. He began to fidget, but said nothing.
That man’s got the crazy eyes.
Dupree shivered perceptibly.
He looks familiar.

Ray
stuck his head out the door and spoke to the guard. He came back in and leaned against the wall in complete silence. He stared at Dupree. The tension resulted in a Mexican standoff between Ray and Dupree. Chris watched curiously. After fifteen minutes of utter quiet and Ray’s gaze never faltering from Dupree, the boy slammed his fists onto the table and screamed, “Fuck you, man! Don’t look at me like that! Look…that man…he gave me a crisp Benjamin to do something to upset her so bad she’d leave school. I didn’t mean to hurt her, just upset her!”

“What man?”
Ray jumped on the little tidbit. “What did he look like?” He pushed himself from the wall.

“I don’t know
.” He shrugged. “He was white. ’Bout your size and…”
No. It can’t be.
Dupree stopped as a look of horror spread across his face.

“And what?” Ray prompted, leaning on the table with both fists resting on the
cold metal.

Oh, shit!
Dupree scooted the chair away from the madman so near him. “Man, it was
you
!”

“What
?” The detective jerked up straight.

“Man, it was raining at the bus stop
. This white guy same size as you, wearing a hoodie, gave me a hundred dollar bill to get Miss Sloan so upset she’d go home. Said he’d meet me today to give me another hundred if I succeeded. I’m tellin’ you, it was you! Where’s my hundred?”

“Why on Earth do you think it was me?”

“’Cause, man. I ain’t never seen nobody with eyes that blue. Man, them was yo eyes!”

“Bullshit!”

Chris looked back and forth between the men, her expression total shock. “Oh, hell, no!” said Ray.

His shoulders slouched
. Ray walked out of the room, hunched in dejection. He bumped the shoulder of the public defender as he came in.

♣♣♣

Dupree reiterated, “I ain’t lyin’. That man l
ooked like Detective Reynolds, ’cept he was real scruffy.”

“I believe you,” said Agent Milovich.

The attorney that entered said, “I believe my client asked for a lawyer.”

Dupree looked surprised
at the turn of circumstances. Chris continued, “Dupree, are you aware that twelve women have been murdered?”

“Yeah
. I seen it on the news.” He laced his fingers together on top of the table. “Do you think this guy done it? Is he gonna kill Miss Sloan?”

“Maybe.”

That ain’t good.
His heart raced. Dupree knitted his eyebrow together. “I’m real sorry I helped him. But a hundred”—He waved a hand in the air—“Two hundred could feed me and my momma a while. Miss Sloan—she cool. She a feisty l’il ole thang. I like her. I’m real sorry, but I ain’t lyin’. Hey, do you think you could get me a pencil and some paper? I think I’ll write about what Miss Sloan wanted us to and give it to her when you find her. She be real spunky. I bet she’ll find a way out, and I’ll tell her I’m sorry. But I ain’t lyin.” More relaxed, he leaned back in the chair.

“One more question,” said the FBI agent.

“No,” the lawyer objected.

Dupree said, “It’s okay.”

Chris nodded. “Where’s the hundred dollar bill?”

“Cashed it in at the store for smaller bills
. Lotsa places won’t take big bills.”

The agent cringed.
Damn it. No chance for fingerprints.

Chris got a pencil and some notebook paper for Dupree befo
re she left. Dupree did write, but nobody would ever know Dupree Parks was most afraid of having his dreams wither and die like a raisin in the sun. He hid the essay under his mattress, and, with his own feeling of futility, prayed he would get one more chance and Larkin Sloan would be found alive.

♣♣♣

Outside the rain had returned, but Ray welcomed the refreshing drops on his face because they would hide the tears he could not stop
. He heard steps behind him and his partner’s voice, “Ray?”

Chris withered
under the gaze Ray gave her. All the pain in the world seemed to show in his crystal blue eyes, and it pricked her to the core.
Oh, my friend
. She swallowed hard.

He whispered against the distant roll of
thunder, “For almost a year I’ve looked at pictures of dead women and felt sick. I take a prescription acid reducer every day to keep an ulcer at bay. I throw up at least once a week from either my stomach or a migraine. I take migraine medication two or three times a week. I take Ambien just to sleep without nightmares. But
nothing
I’ve experienced hurts as much as that one accusation I read in your eyes.
You
of all people.”

“Ray,” she said in an apologetic tone
, “for the record, where were you?”

“Talking to number twelve’s boyfriend with his mother and the school counselor present.”

“I knew that. I just wanted to hear the words.”

Nonplussed, h
e looked at Chris. “I don’t understand. This was just another exercise in futility.”

Chris
argued, “No, it wasn’t. I believe the kid. We now at least have something to start with. We have a white man about six feet tall with blue eyes. You said he knew something. You were right.”

They got into the car
. Cyclops mewed a greeting. Ray thought his feeling of futility might pass. This was a clue, the first that would add to Ray’s stress level.

♣♣♣

Late in the afterno
on, Ray and Chris drove into the cheap apartment complex where Maurice Lambert lived. The cab driver had been rendered unconscious and left at the back door of the very hospital where his fare was last seen.

A
man of about sixty admitted the police officers and answered their questions to the best of his ability.

Holding up a recorder,
Ray asked, “How did you come to be at the hospital?”

“I took a guy there
,” Lambert replied with a nod.

“Where did you pick him up?”
Ray continued.

“Near St. Ignatius
.” The cabbie shrugged. “He seemed a little odd, but I thought that was why he was going to the hospital.”

“Odd how?”
Ray frowned.

Lambert scratched his head.
“He seemed a little out of it, but he had on expensive clothes.”

“Describe him, please,”
Chris requested.

“About six feet, in need of a shave, blue eyes
.” The cabbie scowled toward Ray. “He looked a lot like you, Detective.”

“Oh, my God,” grunted Ray
. “Go on.”

“He had on a hooded sweat shirt, the kind lots of serious runners wear, not cheap, and blue jeans
. I took him to the hospital and suddenly felt his hand over my face. There was a sweet smell. I woke up at the back door of the hospital.”

Ray nodded
. “Did you at any time see a petite red-haired woman?”

“No
. I went on into the emergency room and got examined. The doctor said I’d been drugged. I called the dispatcher and another driver picked me up. My cab was around the corner from the taxi office.”

Examination of the cab turned up a few long red hairs, but there were hundreds of fingerprints as would be ex
pected in a taxicab. Ray figured the assailant had used chloroform. He knew from the video, the man had worn gloves at least part of the time.

♣♣♣

Ray and Chris
made one more interviewing stop that evening. Chris had found an address for Bradley Tisdale. They knocked on the door of a small, well-kept house not far from St. Ignatius. They heard a man’s and a woman’s laughter inside. An attractive man with dark hair and strange lavender eyes opened the door. “Yes?”

Both
investigators showed their badges. An unexplainable feeling of annoyance with this man made Chris begin the questions. “Bradley Tisdale?”

“Yes.”
Brad nodded.

Trying to keep her tone even, Chris asked,
“The one who’s dating Larkin Sloan?”

Brad grimaced.
“Not as of night before last. Why?”

“Miss Sloan is missing
.” Chris whipped out a small notepad. “We’re questioning anyone who might have information.”

“Do I need a lawyer
?” Brad came onto the small porch and closed the door behind him.

“Do you?” asked Ray
, giving the man a once over and finishing with a half snarl on his lips.