The Debt Collector (25 page)

“Got some mud in the sink from the bottom of somebody's shoe. Looks like Tammy …” He pointed to the teenage girl lying on the bed, throat bluntly cut across the middle, clotted with blood. “That's Tammy. She was in the kitchen spreading peanut butter on saltine crackers. Those are her prints on the knife.” He pointed to another picture, this one of a table knife, thick with peanut butter, on the floor next to a shattered jar of Peter Pan, extra chunky.

With little kids in the house, Sonora wondered why they hadn't bought plastic.

“We pegged Aruba as the guy who did the little boy. Got a print on the kid's left buckle of his little overalls. Looks like Aruba grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall. We're thinking the little boy was the first casualty. He was probably in the kitchen with his sister. He runs into the living room, Aruba grabs him and the dog goes for him. He slams the kid up against the wall, somebody shoots the dog. Probably Kinkle. He was the guy with the gun, from the angle of the shots and the height of the shooter. Kinkle's like six inches shorter than Aruba. Everything points to Kinkle as the shooter. The weapon recovered in Belinda Kinkle's row house is being worked by the Lexington PD, and it looks like a match.”

Mickey pointed. “Hard to figure what happens when. Sometime about now the dad comes walking in the front door. We're thinking Tammy's still alive. There's a struggle. She runs and they catch her in the bathroom. She maybe was running for her mom. We got strands of Tammy's hair in the shower curtain and a piece of her shirt, just a fragment. Somebody, Aruba we think, tackles her in the bathroom—we've got subcutaneous bruising along the jawline—takes her in the bedroom, and cuts her throat in there.

“Now, here's an oddity. There were blood-soaked towels on the back of the toilet, and the blood was Tammy's. Somebody pressed those towels to her throat, gave up, and wadded them up in the bathroom.”

“The father?” Molliter asked.

Mickey shook his head. “Not likely. We don't have any of his blood in there, he put up his fight in the living room. But it's an interesting point—Tammy gets laid out on the bed with a certain consideration, if you take a look.” He pointed to the picture. Tammy resting on the blood-soaked mattress, hands folded neatly across her chest.

The door opened slowly, as if someone was trying to be discreet. Sonora looked up and saw Clara Bonnet slipping in slowly. She was a black woman, way past retirement age, with advanced osteoporosis that bent her back and was on its way to crippling her knees.

Gruber was up on his feet before anyone else, giving Clara his arm, guiding her to a seat. Clara Bonnet was extremely popular, full of insight and compassion, but blessed with a streak of realism that made her recognize a predator when she saw one. She was as far from warm and fuzzy as any psychologist Sonora had ever met. They had worked together before. Clara had a knack of being right more often than not.

Mickey waited till Clara was settled, gave her a nod. “The mother, Joy Stinnet, was in the closet. The baby, the infant, was lying on the bed, kind of circled by stacks of towels, the mom folding laundry. She had music going—we checked the volume control, it was turned up medium-loud—but if she was in the closet, at the back of the house, with the music going, there was a minute or two when she couldn't hear. They took her from behind—Aruba, we think—slit her from the umbilicus to the right costal margin, lacerating the liver, to wit, evisceration. Her killer, and we're pegging Aruba, leaves her bleeding in the closet, ignores the baby. We think this is the point where the father walks in.

“We've got the dog and the little boy dead in the living room, Tammy dying on her bed, the dad coming in. Aruba's got no clue who might be coming in that door. There's enough confusion that he ignores the baby and goes to help Kinkle with the father.

“The dad comes in knowing something is wrong. He leaves the car door wide open, drops his keys in the driveway. We don't know if he heard something, saw the car, saw something through the window. We may never know. Anything we get will be from the killers. But it would explain Aruba hightailing it back to the living room to back up Kinkle, who's trying to handle the father all on his own, and from the looks of the fight he put up, the father took a lot of handling.” Mickey waved a hand.

“From here it's anyone's guess. Kinkle shoots Carl Stinnet. Nobody goes back and looks at the mother, who crawls from the closet, gets the baby, and goes under the bed.”

“Wait a minute,” Sonora said.

“Why don't you let me finish?”

“You said anybody's guess, but there wasn't any blood on that bedspread, not on the top, where the baby was. So Joy Stinnet couldn't have taken that baby off the bed after she got eviscerated. I saw the bed. Not possible.”

Mickey nodded. “We'll grant you that. Moving back to the bathroom, where we think Tammy may have tried to keep Aruba out. There were cracks along the hinge, new ones, looks like somebody forced their way in. And we've got a tooth, left incisor, definitely belongs to Aruba. So somebody punched him a good one.”

“Are you telling me Tammy did it?”

Mickey was fidgeting with his top collar button. “Gee, Sonora, did I tell you Tammy hit him?”

“No. I'm making a point.”

“Make your point later,” Crick said.

“No, I want to make it now. You're reconstructing with two guys, and I think it's clear to anybody with a brain that there were three. Somebody took that baby off the bed and tucked it in with the mom. Somebody hit Aruba. Somebody kept that girl from being raped—look at Aruba's case file, he's hard core. Somebody tried to stop the bleeding, somebody laid her out on the bed.”

Molliter raised a hand. “You think he got scared away?”

“By who?” Sonora said. “They shot the dog. Had the father tied to a chair, the mother dying in the closet, the other child dead on the floor. They had time to go to the mailbox, take the mail out, spit an olive pit there—”

“How do you know they took any mail?” Molliter said. “Did you find any mail at that sister's house? Did they steal anything?”

“No, just some pictures out of the bedroom.”

“That would be Kinkle,” Clara Bonnet said. She had a voice like an electric blanket on high on a subzero night.

“They took some pictures, went through the papers. I think they were grabbing anything that implicated that check-cashing service.” Sonora turned to Clara Bonnet. “You've looked at the file on this?”

“Oh yes.”

“Clara, what's your take on it?” Crick said.

She leaned forward just a bit. “I've met Kinkle, so that gives me a pretty good insight. I don't know Aruba personally, but I've read his file, looked at his test results. Of the two, he is without doubt the most dangerous. Without throwing you a lot of jargon, he is conscienceless, dissociated, disorganized, running on a kind of predatory instinct. He doesn't live in anything resembling the world you and I know—our reality comes and goes in his head, like a not-so-strong signal from a distant television station. He is brutal, completely unable to hold a job of any kind, unable to maintain any kind of social intercourse. You might find him leading a very marginal kind of life; anything he has he probably takes from somebody else.

“Barty Kinkle, on the other hand, Barty Kinkle never had a chance. Always a nerd, never parented well. Rewired as a child to expect a sort of benevolent neglect. Nobody beat him, but nobody gave a damn. His mother was in the high-end retarded range; she should never have been allowed to raise a child. With the right help at the right time, Kinkle might have made it. He's able to hold down a job, but he's very weak. And he has a lot of rage he turns inward that comes out as depression. The two of them together? A match to gasoline. Would he have the stuff to stand up to Aruba—Sonora, I think that's what you're asking, isn't it?”

Sonora nodded.

“Hard to say. I would have guessed not, but it is conceivable. And it looks like he did.”

“And the three-man theory?” Sonora asked.

Dr. Bonnet pursed her lips. “I won't say not possible, but it would be an aberration. Three implies a gang, and this doesn't have that professional look about it. They used curtain cords to tie up the father, they didn't bring rope, they didn't cut the phone lines. Things happened haphazardly. I don't think any of it was planned. I don't know why they were there, I just know once they broke that kitchen window, that's when it would get out of hand. Aruba's inner predator kicking in, Kinkle swept along and weak and finding some anger of his own. It's not a three-man job, but anything is possible. Do you have any forensic indications there was anyone else present?”

Mickey took it from there. “Some unidentified hairs, but that could be anything. Repairmen, friends, previous owners. Guy who laid the carpet. Nothing definitive.”

“She said she saw an angel,” Sonora said.

“Talk to him,” Clara said. “Talk to Kinkle yourself, Sonora. You would have an excellent chance of him telling you. Men intimidate him, but he relates very well to women. His mother was a poor parent, but she did have some nurturing instinct, and she did love him. Where is he now?”

“In transit. He wants to deal. So does Aruba. They both want to confess and deal.”

Clara smiled. “No point in giving Aruba a polygraph, except for the clinical interest. But give Kinkle a poly and sort it out. I'll sit in if you like.”

Crick nodded. “I like.”

52

Sonora put the phone down, listening to the murmur of her coworkers. Molliter was talking to his wife—she was making a special dinner in celebration. Sanders and Gruber kept exchanging looks, leaving no doubt about how they'd be celebrating.

“You call your kids?” Sam asked.

“Yep.”

“Where you taking them for dinner?”

“Nowhere. One's got a sleepover, the other a rendezvous at
The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
”

“What did Clara have to say?”

“You were there.”

“I don't mean in the meeting. I mean when she took you aside in the hallway.”

“Nothing special. Just small talk.” Sonora bit her lip. Clara had told her she looked tired and asked her if she was okay. She had asked her in a tone of voice that said she did not think Sonora
was
okay. She had told her to call if she needed to talk.

What? Sonora thought. Am I giving off that glow of bad mental health?

Sam waved a hand in front of her face. “Sonora? You still with me here? I was thinking you might want to come home with me tonight, I'm taking—”

Her phone rang and she picked it up.

“Is this the world-famous Detective Blair, the girl who always gets her man?”

“Depends on who's calling.”

“Why, the world-famous physician, who would love to take you out tonight to celebrate, so long as you will forgive me for being on call. Deal time. You can be on call for murder, and I'll be on call for mayhem. I make a hell of a designated driver.”

“But yes, I'd love to.”

“I know it's kind of last minute, but we just saw it on the news in the ER and I thought you might—you just said yes, didn't you?”

“I did.”

“When can I pick you up?”

“I've got some paperwork to slog through. Any chance you can come here? Board of Elections building, on—”

“I know where you are. I'll be there at eight.”

“Is it Twinkies again tonight, or maybe margaritas?”

“Twinkies for me. Margaritas for you.”

She smiled and hung up. “No thanks, Sam, I've got a date.” She looked around at the avid faces and realized that she had been overheard. Word was spreading like the flu. Sonora has a date, the period of the Jerk is officially over. Was this what celebrities felt like, Sonora wondered, with people watching their every move?

She was an idiot. She was being paranoid. No one was paying the least bit of attention.

She went through the paperwork like a zombie, mind everywhere else. Found herself typing Js again. The hell with it—she turned off the typewriter, slammed her desk drawer, and grabbed her purse.

Molliter waved at her from across the room, gave her the thumbs-up. “Have a good time tonight, Sonora.”

It was not in her to snub him, not tonight, not after they'd all worked together to bring home the Stinnet Home Invaders, according to a headline that Sonora had heard not more than ten minutes ago on CNN. She gave Molliter the thumbs-up. Turned the lamp off over her desk. Headed for the bathroom to comb her hair and put on lipstick and refresh her entire scheme of makeup. She found a jeans skirt in her locker, a pair of black tights, and a sweater. She'd been looking for that sweater. She put the lipstick on, not the purple stuff, the Angel Red that had been getting such rave reviews.

She slid out of the bathroom door, hoping not to be noticed.

But they were waiting for her, all of them lined up and down the sides of the walls, whistling and making catcalls, and she decided that it had been much too long since she'd had a date.

“Thank you, thank you, to all the little people.” She tried and failed at dignity, walking past the gauntlet and through the swing doors, took the stairs because just now she did not like being trapped in elevators, and made it out the front door to the sidewalk below.

Darkness had come softly while she'd been doing paperwork. Gillane was waiting for her, parked illegally, standing by the beautiful white Caddie. She saw him before he saw her. He wore a white shirt, simple but incredibly expensive-looking, medium starch, bright white cotton, sleeves rolled back twice, accentuating the strong, tan wrists. It hit her quite suddenly how attractive he was. She felt nervous suddenly, and then he saw her and smiled. She glanced up at the fifth floor, wondering if that was really Sam peering out the window.