Tough Customer (21 page)

"I didn't notice his feet. But his hair was all messed up. I noticed it was standing on end. And his eyes were sorta, you know, bugged out. Like maybe he'd been asleep, and we'd startled him awake, and he'd jumped up off the bed suddenly. Then when Davis came in, he pulled the trigger."

"On impulse? A knee-jerk reaction?"

"Yeah. Like that."

"Don't let me put words in your mouth, Miss Arnold."

"I'm not. That's exactly what it was like."

"And you're sure it was this man?" He opened a manila folder he'd carried in with him and removed from it a blowup of Oren's employee photo from Delray Marketing. The girl nodded vigorously. "I'm positive."

Ski replaced the picture in the folder. "After he fired the shot at Davis, what happened?"

She began to cry in earnest again. "I don't know," she wailed. "I didn't even wait to see if Davis was okay. I just turned and ran. I ran to the office, where that sow was still looking through her stupid magazine. I yelled at her to call 911. I told her that Davis had been shot. The fat bitch says, 'I don't want no trouble.'"

Lisa Arnold spoke in a voice that was obviously an imitation of the motel owner. "I told her to get her fucking, fat--" She cut her eyes toward the video camera, then back to Ski. "Sorry."

"It's okay. Go ahead."

"Well, I told her to get her ass on the phone. But she just folded her fat arms over her big belly. So I grabbed the desk phone and called myself. I didn't even realize it then, but I'd dropped my purse when the gun went off. I didn't have my cell."

"The time between your 911 call and the first responder's arrival was less than five minutes," Ski told her.

"Five minutes?" she exclaimed. "Are you sure? It seemed like forever."

"What were you doing during that time?"

Her chin began to quiver, then her entire face collapsed. She sobbed into the tissue. "I should've gone back and checked on Davis. But I was too scared. I didn't know where that maniac was or what he was doing. I was afraid he'd come after me next.

"So I crouched behind the counter there in the motel office. That old bitch kept telling me that if her place got shut down on account of me, she was gonna kill me herself. I was screaming at her to shut up, to just
shut up,
but she kept cussing at me till that cop got there."

"You didn't see the man again?"

"No."

"His car? Which direction he went?"

"No." She wiped her face and took an uneven breath to steady herself. "I think you probably know everything else."

"Can we go now?" the stepmother asked.

Ski shot her a look that would have curdled milk, then to Lisa he said, "Thank you, Miss Arnold."

"Don't thank me. I feel awful for leaving Davis there."

"We'll have to wait for the medical examiner's official ruling, but I've seen a lot of gunshot wounds. It appeared to me that the bullet was fired directly into his heart. If so, he died instantly." Gently, he added, "There was nothing you could have done for him."

Ski attended to the business of seeing Miss Arnold and her stepmother out. He assigned a deputy to escort them home and to stay there on watch until further notice. He was afraid Oren Starks might decide to come after the eyewitness to Davis Coldare's slaying. He'd already told everyone within the sheriff's office that Lisa Arnold's name was not to be released.

Since the Merritt County S.O. didn't have a crime scene unit, they used that of the nearest office of the Texas Rangers. Ski called the ranger sent to investigate the motel room and asked for an update. He reported that he had finished his work there and was packing up his gear.

Ski said, "I'm having a man stay out there to guard that room. I don't trust the owner not to ignore the tape and go inside. She's got a rap sheet as long as my arm. I've arrested her twice for drug trafficking. She's partial to prescription drugs."

The ranger chuckled. "Yeah, she had some choice words about me messing up her swell place here."

"Let me know what you get."

"Sure will, Ski."

When he was finally able to return to the group in the interrogation room, their mood was somber. The coffee cups were empty. Caroline and Dodge glumly acknowledged him. Berry was sitting at the table, staring at the stir stick she was mechanically turning end over end. Ski pulled out a chair and sat down across from her.

"That boy died because of me," she said quietly.

"He died because Oren Starks shot him in the heart."

She let go of the stir stick, propped her elbows on the edge of the table, and buried her face in her hands. "I'll never forget the sound of his parents' weeping. And it's my fault, my fault."

"How is it your fault?"

She said nothing.

Caroline was staring at her, offering silent compassion and support.

Finally Dodge cleared his throat of a terrible rattle and said, "She, uh, she thinks it's her fault because--"

"I called him."

Ski turned toward her. "Excuse me?"

She took a shuddering breath and squared her shoulders. "I called Oren."

SKI STARED AT HER FOR SEVERAL MOMENTS, THEN LOOKED AT Caroline, who purposefully avoided looking back. He settled on Dodge, who mumbled unintelligibly and patted his pocket in search of a cigarette.

Ski asked him, "What's she talking about, she called Starks?"

"They told me about it while you were..." He gestured to indicate Ski's business outside the small room, then, using his former cop's verbal shorthand, explained the nature of the telephone conversation as Caroline and Berry had described it to him.

Ski assimilated it, searched for the logic behind it, and came up dry. He wanted to ask Berry what the hell she'd been thinking but figured he should contain his incredulity and soften the language a bit.

"This call. Was it to his house or a cell phone?"

"House phone," she replied. "Why?"

"We hoped we might locate him using GPS to track his cell phone signal. But the phone has to be on. Each time we've called his number, we get a recording saying it isn't in use."

"He would know better than to leave his cell phone on."

"Right." He paused for a moment, then asked the question he really wanted the answer to. "Why did you feel an apology was necessary?"

"Dodge just told you."

"I want to hear it from you."

"I'd said horrible things to him. I'd told him he was pathetic. I'd called him a creep."

"He is a creep," Ski said.

"I know, but maybe if I hadn't been so cruel to him that day, he wouldn't--"

"You are not responsible for his actions."

She didn't refute him, but nor was she convinced. "I wanted to make amends. I was trying to be nice."

Again Ski looked toward Caroline to gauge her reaction, but she averted her eyes. Dodge's opinion, however, was plain. He raised his shoulders and gave Ski a look that said,

When Ski came back to Berry, she was staring vacantly at a point in the center of his chest. "I never would have guessed that an apology could have such awful consequences." Her gaze moved up and connected with his.

The guilt and misery he read in her eyes twisted something deep inside him. He felt her pain, wished he could alleviate it, wished he didn't know what it felt like.

"If Oren was out for revenge," she continued, "why didn't he shoot me? Why not me instead of Ben? Why kill that innocent boy?"

She looked so haunted, Ski didn't have the heart to say what he was thinking: That she should have thought twice about being nice to a man who'd stalked her relentlessly. He imagined she now realized that better than anyone in the room. It would be needlessly cruel to underscore it.

Changing the subject, he asked, "Did you pick up on anything Miss Arnold told us?"

"Nothing that would help. I agree that it sounds as though Oren was sleeping, probably with the pistol in his hand. They startled him awake. He fired the gun reflexively."

"His shot has improved a hell of a lot since he plugged Lofland," Dodge remarked.

"Why couldn't he have missed that boy?" Berry asked miserably, rhetorically.

Everyone would be asking that for a long time, and there would never be a satisfactory answer.

After a thoughtful silence, Ski continued. "Tire tracks matching those we found near the lake house were discovered behind the motel. He'd parked in a dense grove. The car wasn't visible from the highway or from the road behind the motel."

"After this, he'll ditch the car as soon as he can," Dodge said.

Ski nodded in agreement. "In the meantime, every peace officer in the state is on the lookout for a Toyota of that make and model. But still no definite color, no tag number. You heard me tell Lisa Arnold that we found a pair of shoes in the room. Apparently Starks left them when he fled. We've got shoe prints going toward the place, footprints going out.

"He used a towel, bar of soap, so we can get DNA and match it if he's ever caught. We can put him in that room, which is good if it comes to trial. But we've got to catch him first, and he's leaving us few clues. He didn't take anything into the room with him."

"He took the pistol," Dodge said.

"He took the pistol," Ski repeated grimly. "But no food wrappers, no empty drink cans, no extra clothing. Nothing was left in the trash cans. No sales receipts. No maps or brochures. Nothing that would point us in a direction."

He hesitated, then added, "The bullet's still in the body. Once it's removed, we'll match it to those we retrieved from the lake house and Ben Lofland. We must assume he still has the weapon."

No one spoke for a time.

Then Caroline said, "I thought all the motels and lodges had been canvassed. Was that one overlooked?"

Ski shook his head. "Checked but eliminated. Starks hadn't registered. He busted the bathroom window at the back of the building and crawled inside."

"How long had he been there?" Berry asked.

"No way of knowing," he said. "The room was cleaned--or so the owner says--three days ago. Hasn't been rented out since. Starks could've gone there straight from the bait shop Friday night and been there all day yesterday. Maybe he didn't get there till after dark last night. Anybody's guess. He needed shelter, a place to rest. He's got a bum leg."

Ski explained that the footprints bore that out. "One's deeper than the other. He's favoring his right leg. He needed a place to crash and took his chances on the room remaining vacant at least for last night."

"But it didn't." Berry's voice was almost inaudible. She hugged her elbows, and Ski noted goose bumps on her arms. She murmured, "I can't bear to think of what that boy's parents are going through."

"They're going through bloody hell, and you're right, Berry, it doesn't bear thinking about." Caroline stood up and retrieved her handbag. "What happened to their son could still happen to you. Oren Starks is aware that, if he's caught, he can be tried and convicted of killing Davis Coldare based on that girl's eyewitness testimony. He'll lay the blame for that mishap on you, and that makes him an even greater threat than he was before."

Dodge also came to his feet. "I agree."

"Then we're all on the same page," Ski said. "I'm going to double the number of men watching the lake house."

Dodge said, "I'm moving out there."

Caroline looked at him sharply. To her he said, "I'll stay in the room where Lofland was shot. Nobody else wants to sleep in it." He turned back to Ski. "Better swear me in as one of your reserve deputies."

"There's required training."

"Considered me trained."

"Can't do it, Dodge. I'm trusting you to--"

"Don't trust me to do a damn thing except kill that fucker if he shows up. He's upped his ante tonight. If I see him, his ass is fried."

Officially Ski wouldn't sanction vigilante law. But he'd been the one who'd had to break the news to the Coldares that their son was dead. He'd personally escorted them to the morgue to ID their boy's body. Friday night's crime at the lake house had been a grudge shooting, an act of jealousy, a personal vendetta that he had originally thought petty.

But now Oren Starks had killed an innocent kid in cold blood. Starks would receive his rights as guaranteed by law, but Ski would extend the man no mercy. Secretly he hoped, as Dodge did, that he was presented with an opportunity to take the killer out.

As Dodge and Caroline prepared to leave, she reminded him that his car was at the lake house. "You'll have to ride back with Berry and me. We'll stop at the Cypress Lodge on the way to pick up your things."

Ski said, "You two take care of that. I'll drive Berry home."

Once they were in his SUV and under way, Ski said, "I wanted to talk to you about Sally Buckland."

Berry sat stiffly in the passenger seat, staring forward, wondering if he realized that he had started using her first name. Another formality had also been dropped. It seemed to have been tacitly agreed that Harris Carlisle was no longer necessary. As they left the courthouse and went their separate ways, Dodge hadn't cautioned Berry against talking to Ski alone. With the fatal shooting of Davis Coldare, it was clear who the culprit was.

When she didn't respond to Ski's statement, he asked if the AC was all right.

"It's fine. What about Sally?"

"What's she like? As a person."

"Attractive, but in a modest, bookish sort of way. The librarian with distinct possibilities."

"I'm getting a mental image. What are her traits?"

"Character traits?"

Hoping to relieve her dull headache, she pulled the elastic band from her ponytail and shook out her hair. In addition to having the headache, she was exhausted. As a result of not sleeping long enough after taking the medication, she felt hungover and lethargic. Her eyes stung from an inadequate amount of sleep and the recent threat of tears. The sun was coming up, but it didn't lift her spirits. Rather, sunrise seemed like a mockery.