The Debt Collector (27 page)

But breathing, please God, breathing.

55

Lights, camera, action. The press edging out from behind the barricade in waves, uniforms yelling, blowing whistles, somewhere a child crying. Sonora stared down at Kinkle, strobe lights flashing across the orange jumpsuit. He looked vulnerable, crumpled over the curb, legs hobbled, wrists cuffed, entry wound in his chest like a star, an exit wound the size of a bowling ball torn from his back. Blood, still sticky, trailing from the side of his mouth. He'd have drowned in it, if he'd lived that long. Death semantics, but she did not think he had.

She felt guilty.

A flash snapped, as the CSU guys took more pictures. She smelled exhaust from the ambulance, motor running, saw Sam, dead to the world, IV drip, blood soaking through the sheet from the waist down.

An EMT touched her shoulder. “You sure you're not hurt?”

Sonora looked at the blood that spattered her sleeve and soaked the front of her shirt. “No. Thanks. Get him moving.”

The man nodded. She thought he looked familiar. One of the guys that had responded to the call on the Stinnets?

Sonora went toward Crick, arms folded. She was shivering. Cold. Sanders was out of breath, face flushed, hair flying, a smudge of dirt on her forehead.

“Anything?” Sonora asked.

Crick turned slightly to include her in the huddle. “We got nothing.”

“Lots of time between the shots. My guess would be a Remington II 87.” Sanders still sounded out of breath.

“What made you decide to walk it?” Crick said.

“Media in the back lot. Sam called, said you didn't want a perp walk.”

Crick ran a hand over his face. Somebody snapped it, photo op, Sonora saw the flash. Crick dropped the hand like it was burned. “Yeah, okay. How's Delarosa?”

“Alive,” Sonora said. This wasn't the point where medics told you shit. This wasn't the point where they knew.

Crick nodded. “Okay. Angle of the shots says the guy was up on our damn roof. We got uniforms up there now, looking. Sanders, you get with the press, see who was back there, see if they saw anything, got anything on tape. This bastard … I want somebody on top of Eddie Stinnet. You saw him on the news?” He looked at Sonora.

“I saw.” An image came, strong in her head. Eddie Stinnet taking pictures from the window of the bullpen. Maybe not such a tourist after all.

“You want Stinnet, or you going to the hospital?”

“I want Stinnet.”

“Sanders, we need Gruber. Where the hell is he?”

“On his way.” Sanders, still breathless.

Crick checked his watch, pointed at Sonora. “Take Gruber with you when you grab Stinnet. Keep it clean, Sonora.”

“I don't do rough stuff.”

Crick looked at her. “You heard me, Detective.”

Eddie and Judice Stinnet were staying at the Knight Bridge Inn, one of those motels where there aren't any phones in the room and you make a deposit if you want a blow dryer for your hair. Sonora wondered how long before they'd make the towels a coin-op deal.

Gruber yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth. He was starting to look unshaven. He shifted in his seat.

“Sam's tough,” he told her. Again. He checked his watch. “Where the hell are they?”

Sonora's phone rang.

“Mom? Where are you?” Her son.

“Can't talk about it, Tim. Are you home?”

“Yeah. Me and Heather are okay, don't worry. You coming home for supper?”

“Unlikely.”

“Heather's going to cook hamburger on a roll, and we already fed Clampett.”

“Kitchen window locked?”

“Yeah, so's the front door, Mom, but it's like four in the afternoon.”

So crime doesn't happen at four in the afternoon? But she caught herself before she said it. Tim was trying to hold his temper. So should she. He was clearly shaken. Sam was a force in their lives too.

“Hey, Tim, I helped stash Sam in the ambulance, he'll be okay.”

“He's tough,” Gruber said for the millionth time, thumbs up.

“He's tough,” Sonora repeated.

Tim cleared his throat. “Sherry called from the hospital.”

“What's up?” Gruber asked, seeing the expression on Sonora's face.

“Sam's wife called my house.”

Tim was talking. “She said to tell you that the bullet broke the bone and Sam's going to be in traction. And he's out of surgery, and it took eleven pints of blood, but he's okay.”

Is he okay? Sonora wondered. Really okay? She looked at Gruber. “Out of surgery. Eleven pints of blood. Bullet broke the bone.”

Gruber shook his head. “High-velocity bullets.”

Sonora's voice gentled as she went back to Tim. “Okay, hon', she say anything else? She need help looking after Annie?”

“I offered already, but Annie's with Sherry's mom.”

Good boy, Sonora thought. “Thanks, Tim.”

“By the way, you were on the news—you were covered in blood.”

“Not mine. Is Heather okay? She want to say hello?”

“No—”

“Heads up,” Gruber said, voice tight.

“—she's taking a bubble bath.”

“Tim, got to go.” Sonora cut the connection, put the phone in her purse while she leaned forward, squinting through the windshield.

Gruber put a hand on the door handle. “I still say we take them in the hallway. It's too cramped in the room. Hell, they could go out a window, if they get in and lock the door.”

“I don't want them in the hallway, with John Q. every which way, I want them rounded up.”

“What about at the car? Look at 'em, see, a thousand packages. Let's go get them with their arms full.”

Sonora looked across the parking lot. Not a civilian close. “Okay, but quick, Gruber.”

“Aw, gee, and I wanted to do it slow. You think
she's
dangerous?”

“Only if you let her talk.”

56

Sonora went straight for Eddie Stinnet, ID flashing, waving a warrant, leaving an annoyed Gruber with Judice.

“Eddie Stinnet, you are under arrest. Turn and face the car, sir, hands on the hood. Hands on the hood of the—”

“What the—”

Sonora kicked the inside of his leg and flipped him to face the car. “Hands on the
hood
, Eddie.”

“But what—”

“
Hands on the hood.
”

He was shaking. But he bent his head, slapping his hands on the warm dirty metal. The car was pinkish gray, like an unhealthy liver. An almost-new Mercury Cougar.

“For heaven's sake, I lost an earring, let me pick it up!” Judice. Not getting it.

“Legs apart, Eddie.” He didn't move fast enough, and she kicked his feet apart.

He might not be the one, she reminded herself. Not that it mattered. She'd wanted to throw him up against a wall and cuff him since he'd told her what he put his brother through for a whole fifty dollars.

“Eddie Stinnet, you have the right to remain silent.” She snapped the handcuffs in place. “If you—”

“That's too
tight.
”

“Pipe down, and listen, I'm reading you your rights.” But she checked his wrists. They were fine. The whiner.

They'd put Molliter in Interview One with Judice at Sonora's malevolent suggestion. Later she would allow herself the pleasure of watching. Now she stood, arms folded, back to the wall, one foot propped on the baseboard.

Gruber sat behind the table, leaning back in his chair, tie loose, still needing that shave. He looked rough. So did Eddie Stinnet.

“So you were shopping at Wal-Mart,” Gruber said.

Stinnet folded his arms. “That's what I told ya.”

“For six hours? You were shopping at Wal-Mart for six hours?”

“We got lunch.”

“Where'd you get lunch?” Sonora asked.

“At
Wal
-Mart. They got this McDonald's.”

“Yeah? What'd you have?”

“Quarter Pounder with cheese, Extra Value Meal.”

“What number is that?” Sonora said. Kind of playing with him.

“What you mean, what number?”

Gruber leaned forward and pounded a fist on the table. “She
means
what number Extra Value Meal, you shit-for-brains, and you raise your voice again—”

“Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I don't know … number three, I think.”

“It's four,” Sonora said. She had no idea.

“Okay, four.”

“Okay four? Okay two? How about ten?”

“They don't have a—”

“Yeah, they don't have a ten,” Gruber said. “But that don't matter 'cause you weren't there, were you, Eddie?”

“What, 'cause I don't know what number Happy Meal?”

“Extra Value Meal, Eddie.”

“Look, check out the bags in the car, we got a ton of stuff, we were shopping.”

“Not for six hours. What kind of guy shops for six hours?” Gruber made it sound perverted.

“Judice had a lot of stuff she wanted to get. I bet we spent five hundred dollars.”

“In Wal-Mart?” Sonora said. Five hundred? And he lent his brother fifty?

“Look at the receipts. They give the time, don't they?”

Gruber looked at Sonora. “Listen to that. Receipts with
time
. Detective Police Specialist Blair, did you ever go shopping and check the receipt for the
time?
”

“Can't say as I have.”

Gruber looked at Stinnet. “I can think of only one reason you would look for a time on a receipt, and that's if you were trying to set up an alibi. You trying to set up an alibi, Mr. Stinnet? You own a gun?”

“Guns? A couple.”

“A couple? You own a rifle?”

“I used to. But I don't have it anymore.”

“Registration says you do.”

Good bluff, Sonora thought. Computers made people assume the police had all the information at their fingertips instantaneously.

“I
had
one, but I sold it.”

“He
had
one,” Gruber said to Sonora. “But he
sold
it. So you don't mind, then, if we test your hands for residue?”

“I don't know.”

Gruber looked at Sonora. “He don't know. Okay, Eddie boy, maybe you want to change your mind about that lawyer. If you killed this guy, you better get an attorney, and you better call him now.”

“Well, but you said if I cooperated—”

“But you're not cooperating, and I'm getting tired of talking to you.”

“Look,” Sonora said. “Suppose he did kill Kinkle. Kinkle killed his brother; he butchered the whole family. Let's keep that in mind, Detective Gruber. You think a jury is going to hurt him for that? Hell, he's going to make more than you and I make in a lifetime selling his damn story.” She looked at Eddie. “Spell my name right, okay?”

Gruber pushed his chair away from the table. “Yeah, go on, get a lawyer, Eddie. He'll get forty percent of your take—”

“Forty percent?” Eddie said. Outraged.

“For your story,” Gruber said. “There'll still be plenty left, after the IRS gets their cut.”

“I didn't do it,” Stinnet said. “But I wish I did.”

Sonora shoved a yellow legal pad across the table. “Make me a list. Everything you bought at Wal-Mart.”

“How'm I supposed to do that?”

Sonora rolled a Paper Mate Gel-Writer across the table. “Try with this.”

Eddie Stinnet uncapped the pen. Licked his lips.

“Write your name at the top,” Sonora said. Getting him started.

The door to Interview Two opened abruptly, and Sonora looked up, trying to hide the flash of temper.

It was Sanders.

“Crick wants you.”

Sonora, heading for Crick's office, could see that Molliter was there, Mickey in the doorway, Gruber at her back. Sam was dead, of course. She remembered his face, so gone, so not there, so deeply unconscious. She had squeezed his hand, felt nothing but deadweight.

Sonora pushed past Molliter. Crick looked up from his desk. “Aruba's been hit.”

“What? Aruba?”

Crick nodded. “We called Whitmore down in Lexington PD soon as Kinkle got splattered, told them to beef up their security. They kept two guys on him. Aruba's dead. Shot through the mesh of the hospital window, bolt-action Remington, high-velocity bullets, just like Kinkle's shooter.”

“Same guy.”

“Eddie have a Remington?”

“Yeah, but he sold it.”

“Oh. He sold it.” Crick popped his knuckles. “Whitmore's still working the crime scene, but they'll keep it fresh for you. Take a camera and get some pictures if you can do it without stepping on toes. Maybe even one of the shell casings, if they find any.”

“Third man,” Sonora said.

“Not if it was Stinnet. What's Eddie got to say for himself?”

“Eddie says he was at Wal-Mart.”

57

Sonora parked illegally in the restaurant lot of an all-night place called Tolly Ho. She was pissed. She'd been sent to the University of Kentucky Hospital by some paper-pusher, because that was where prisoners usually went, but for reasons no one had an explanation for, Aruba had been on the fifth floor of Good Samaritan.

Streetlights made yellow pools on the pavement—Euclid, quiet this time of night. The rain had stopped, but the streets were wet. Did it always rain in Kentucky?

The hospital was surrounded, patrol cars, press vans, everything with the quiet air of after the fact, but at least this time she was in the right place.

A couple of uniforms in the lobby looked her over. She flashed her ID.

“Don't mean much in this town,” one of the uniforms said.

Sonora gave him a second look. “I'm looking for Captain Whitmore, Officer …” She checked the name badge. “Robie, is it?”

“Captain Whitmore is busy.”

The other officer, younger, trimmer, likely more intelligent, had the grace to look startled.