Pawnbroker: A Thriller (18 page)

Chapter 79

Beatrice sat with prim posture and great patience while Ray Earl rattled on to the young officer—his nametag said Daniel Burton—taking the report.

“So, Ray,” Burton said, “you—”

“My name is Ray Earl. Ray Earl Higgins.”

“Right. Ray Earl.” Burton glanced at Beatrice and she gave him a tight little smile and a look that said, please just humor him by listening and we’ll be on our way soon enough. She had long since lost count of the times she had sat in this chair, or one in another office in the Montello Police Department, while her boy spun some long-winded tale of the gravest consequence but little truth.

It wasn’t that Ray Earl intended to lie. He was a good soul. His mind just didn’t work the way others did. Ray watched television day and night, and often got reality confused with the fictional worlds behind the screen. When he was a child, even on up to his mid-teens, she tried to reason with him, tried to make him understand what was real. It didn’t work. Nothing would work but to let him have his say. Within a day or so, he’d forget it and move on. So it had been for decades. So it would be this time.

“And how many bodies you say there were?” Burton waited, pen cocked and ready while Ray Earl tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, his face scrunched in concentration.

“Ninety-six,” Ray Earl said with a resolute nod. “Sixty-one male. Thirty-five female. I remember everything, just like Grissom.”

Burton took notes as Ray Earl continued to describe the scene in fine detail. He also thought about what a hellacious beer story this report was going to make. One for the ages.

*          *          *

Teddy Abraham walked into the lobby of the police station with Carmen Rodriguez beside him. “Don’t worry, Carmen, nobody’s gonna dig into your immigration business. I just want to get somebody checking on Emilio, okay?”

Carmen’s eyes were red, puffy. She nodded. Teddy smiled and said, “Good girl.”

He stepped to the wide counter that separated the lobby from the office area, and tapped an old-style call bell. No one came. He tapped again. A door behind the counter opened and Danny Burton walked out, followed by Beatrice Higgins and her Forrest Gumpish son, Ray Earl. Ever the small-town businessman, Teddy recognized all three and spoke to them all by name.

“Be with you in a second, Mr. Abraham,” Burton said and raised a hinged bar so Beatrice and Ray Earl could pass through. Teddy gave a gentlemanly nod to Beatrice as she passed, and she returned it. When they were halfway to the door, Ray Earl turned around and stared straight at Carmen.

“Officer Burton?” he said, gaze still locked on Carmen.

Burton looked his way, a wary look on his face. “Sir?”

“Did I mention that all the dead bodies looked like Mexicans?”

Chapter 80

The conversation turned repetitive and my eyelids sagged. Angela led me to a bedroom. I don’t even remember lying down but when I woke, I could tell by the soft golden color of the light streaming through the window that it was near sundown. I had slept for hours. I stretched and yawned my way back to the living room, where Penny seemed to have become fast friends with both Doc and Angela.

“You sleep any?” I said to Penny.

“Yeah, I’ve been up about an hour. Having a blast talking to Frankie and Angie.”

“Good. Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

She excused herself and followed me through the sliding glass doors, onto the patio.

“Any word from Jimmy?” I said.

“I missed his call while I was asleep. Tried calling back. No answer, so I left a voice mail.”

“What do you think we should do now?”

“Work from here.”

“That’s asking a bit much from Doc and Angie.”

“They offered.”

“When?”

“While you were still asleep.”

“I hate to put them at risk.”

“We won’t. Besides, where else would be better? We’re close to Montello here, where it all started.”

Truth be known, I liked the idea of staying. I detest motels. I sure couldn’t stay at home. So unless we were going to start sleeping beneath the stars, our options were limited. I still didn’t like the notion of bringing danger to their house, though.

“Well?” Penny said.

“I’ll talk to Doc, and as long as I get the feeling they really don’t mind, okay.”

*          *          *

Doc and I were in the kitchen, and he insisted that we stay. “I’m serious about the danger, Doc. People are trying to kill us. I already have you deep enough in this thing, what with Freezer Freddy out—”

Angela walked in and I clapped my trap, hopefully soon enough. “Freezer Freddy, huh?” She was looking straight at me.

I said nothing. Doc said nothing. My mind was running, trying to come up with an explanation as to what “Freezer Freddy” was, having no luck. I swallowed hard.

“I like that,” she said, and burst out laughing. “I’ve been calling him Popsicle Pete.” She kept laughing, and Doc joined in. I just stared.

“For heaven’s sake, Gray, I know what’s in the freezer. Mind you, he startled me something fierce when I went out there looking for a bag of butterbeans and found him, but I’m used to him now.”

She and Doc looked at each other, and simultaneously said, “Freezer Freddy!” Then the laughter rolled again. Although I had started the ruckus, I could not bring myself to join in. It occurred to me that you may think you know someone, but you may be surprised at how they behave regarding a corpse in their freezer.

Chapter 81

I woke the next morning thinking about Lucille Boggs, the old lady in the shop. After twenty-five years of listening to hard-luck stories, sentimental tales and situations bounce off me like a BB off a locomotive. But, for reasons unknown, Lucille’s story got me. She cared for her Alzheimered husband day and night for fifteen years. Six months after he died, she’s still paying fifty bucks a month on the funeral expenses and some kind of mold is growing on the headstone.

A hundred twenty-five bucks to fix the problem and she’s desperate, pawning trinkets that her husband gave her. Things not worth jack to anyone else. Worth everything to her, and she put it on the line to take care of that headstone. Tough stuff, but after it all, right there in the shop, I could still see the love in her eyes, but what really got me was the determination. No quit. She can barely get around, but Lucille Boggs is still taking care of business. That kind of grit impresses me.

Outside, the sun was brilliant yellow in a blue crystal sky. Doc had been on the internet since dawn, researching fuel cell technology. Angie announced breakfast at seven, and after a lengthy turn of thanks by Doc, we dug into the mammoth spread: eggs, biscuits, gravy, sausage, hash browns.

“Find anything new?” I said.

“No,” he managed to say through a mouthful of butter and biscuit. “Like I told you, there’s nothing like it. It’s a decade ahead of everything else.”

“What do we do with it?” Penny said.

I forked up a load of hash browns. “I have an idea.” I chewed, looked around the table at the eager faces, swallowed. Took a long pull of orange juice. “It’s safe to assume all this rigmarole with me comes from them wanting this thing back, right?”

Penny nodded. Doc and Angie chewed and waited expectantly.

“Actually, let me rephrase. They want to find out if we have one, and get it back if we do. I’m sure they have more of them; they just don’t want one floating around outside their control, and they probably don’t want any witnesses who know about the technology.”

“So what’s your idea?” Penny said.

“We let them know we have it.”

“So they’ll be even more eager to kill us?”

“Up until now, they’ve had the element of surprise at every turn. We’re going to take that from them, and hopefully, figure out who the players are in this nightmare.”

“I’m listening.”

“Let’s finish eating first, then I’ll explain. Oh, and Angie, I’m hoping I can impose on you for one more big favor.”

Chapter 82

INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI HEALTH CENTER

TUPELO, MISSISSIPPI

Dr. Belenchia left strict instructions regarding Abby Bolton. No one other than normal ICU personnel was to be allowed in her room, and to enforce that, he had an armed hospital guard posted beside her door.

He told the staff good-bye and made his way down the polished corridor to the staff elevators. On the trip down, he glanced at his watch. 10:32 A.M. Another fourteen-hour night. He rubbed his eyes and yawned as he stepped out of the elevator, then took a right through the huge revolving exit door, squinting against the sunlight as he stepped outside. He crossed the drive-through lane and stepped down into the cool darkness of the doctors’ parking garage.

He shook his head, marveling at the incredible waste he walked through every time he used this garage, past his colleagues’ Mercedes, BMWs, Porsches, and every other status symbol brand that could be imagined. His mind couldn’t get there—his eighteen-year-old Ford LTD, which he had bought shortly after finishing his internship, propelled him from A to B just fine, thank you very much. Why spend that kind of cash on something you spent an hour a day in?

He was about halfway to his car when a man sprang from behind a support column, perhaps six feet in front of him. He wore a black ski mask and was in an attack crouch, holding a knife. Belenchia had nothing but his doctor’s bag.

“What do you want?” Belenchia said.

The man lunged, but Belenchia sidestepped him and stuck his foot out. The attacker tripped over Belenchia’s foot and fell face forward. When he hit the concrete, Belenchia took a two-hand grip on his bag and swung it as hard as he could. It connected solidly, hammering the thug’s head against the floor.

Belenchia ran for his car, not looking back until he reached it. The guy was no more than ten yards away, coming fast. Just as Belenchia got the driver’s door open, the attacker reached the back of the car. His nose and mouth were pouring blood through the openings in the mask.

“I was only supposed to bang you up a bit. Now I’m gonna kill you, cracker.” He pulled a small pistol from his waistband.

“What do you want?” Belenchia was slowly pushing the door shut so he could get on the front side of it for cover, but the pistol fired before he could get down. The first shot went wild, and the thug moved closer. Belenchia was dropping down when his right shoulder exploded with searing pain. He never even heard the shot. He looked down and saw a tiny hole in the center of a large bloody circle on his lab coat.

He fell to the concrete floor, saw the sneakers coming closer.
God, forgive me for my many sins, he began to pray.

Chapter 83

At fifteen past noon, Angie finally turned into the driveway. I paced Doc’s labyrinth in the living room, waiting for her to get inside.

“Did you do it?” I said the moment she stepped through the doorway.

“Of course I did. Now you calm down before you wind up in a hospital yourself.”

Angie had agreed to go into town and call the hospital from a pay phone, pretending to be Abby’s aunt. “Tell me what they said. Did you talk to her doctor?”

“Doctor Belenki, or however you say it, is now in the intensive care himself.”

“I know, he has several patients there, including Abby. What’d he say?”

“No, Gray, he’s a patient.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He was shot this morning by a mugger, in the parking garage right there at the hospital.”

My intestines twisted into knots. I looked over at Penny; she was thinking the same thing. “Angie, please tell me my wife’s still alive.”

“Oh, she is. I talked to the head intensive care nurse.”

“Tell me what she said.”

“Abby is improving. They think she had a reaction to some medicine, but they say she’s stabilizing and looking better, at least physically.”

“Thank God, thank God, thank God. What else?”

“She’s not out of danger, but they upgraded her from critical to stable. She’s still unconscious, but they insisted that this is not unusual in cases like these.”

“Is it a coma?”

“No, I specifically asked them that. They said it wasn’t a coma, and they’re confident she’ll wake up.”

I walked over to Angie and hugged her. “Thanks so much for doing this.”

“Don’t be silly. No thanks needed.”

“Did they say anything else about what happened to the doctor? Were they sure it was a mugging?”

“No, that was the only information they had. He’s in bad shape, though. They’re not sure he’ll make it.”

*          *          *

“Where’s Gray?” Angie said quietly to Penny.

“In the computer room with Doc. You want me to go get him?”

“No, I just wanted to be sure he doesn’t hear me. I didn’t tell him the whole truth about what I found out. I just couldn’t see upsetting him any more than he already is, poor thing.”

“What didn’t you tell him?”

“It wasn’t an allergic reaction. It was an overdose.”

“She tried to kill herself?”

“No. When she was over in the mental health center, some policeman went in her room to question her, and they think he put truth serum in her IV, so much of it that her heart stopped beating.”

“What are they doing to protect her?”

“They have a guard outside her room. Dr. Belenki gave that order just a little while before he was attacked.”

“What about her condition? Is she really doing better?”

“Oh, yes, that part was all true. Do you think I did right by lying to Gray?”

“Absolutely, Angie. Sometimes we have to lie.”