The yard was huge, a long run, from the days when the rich were very rich and land was cheap. It was hard slogging through the damp overgrowth, with sharp weeds tugging at my cut feet.
I kept running.
I got to the swamp. I wasn"t sure if this was the same place I had seen them. I didn"t see any telltale red. I followed the edge of the swamp for about twenty yards and still didn"t see anything. I looked back at the house, trying to get my bearings. The broken windows seemed to be laughing at me, like the eyes of a gap-toothed jack-o"-lantern. I ran back to where I had started, continuing until I came to a place where the weeds had been trampled down. I followed the twisted gra.s.s past a clump of scrub pine to the open place where I had seen the men.
I saw my patch of red. She could have been a doll, swept by the wind and tide of a hurricane, taken from some small child and left bent and broken in the swamp. There was that sense of disarray about her, arms and legs turned in unexpected angles. But it wasn"t a doll, it was Barbara Selby with her ash blond hair streaming around her and matted with blood.
I yelled and cursed, shouting my fury to whatever was listening, as I half-ran, half-slid down the hill into the swamp.
They never tell you about the anger. I remember the anger, no, absolute fury, that I felt after my father was killed. My Aunt Greta never understood, always telling me not to act that way and I had to accept G.o.d"s will. I would reply that if G.o.d was going to kill my father, then I was going to hate Him. And I would get spanked and sent to bed without supper.
* 80 *
I felt that same anger now as I slogged through the mud and marsh gra.s.s to Barbara. She had been shot, once, in the head. A big black beetle was crawling up her neck to her cheek. I picked it off and threw it as far as I could.
Kneeling beside her, I touched her hand and realized that it was still warm. Could she be alive? I felt for a pulse. It was there, ragged and weak, but she was alive.
I wanted to keep her alive. My first impulse was to grab her up and carry her out of the mud, but trying to haul her up that hill and back into the house might do her more harm than good. She needed help as fast as she could get it. She also needed to be gotten out of this cold, muddy swamp and given first aid. It was not going to be easy for one person to do both those things.
I examined her, trying to make sure that her head wound was her only injury. For all I knew those goons had broken her back, too. I hoped I could keep her alive, that this wasn"t some final horror, that she would die anyway, no matter what I did, a cruel joke from the G.o.ds.
Her head injury was the only one I could find. I decided that I would chance moving her, at least up the hill and out of the swamp.
I looked at the slope, trying to figure the best route up. Suddenly a man appeared. He was yelling something at me, but I couldn"t make it out. He had a gun and he was pointing it at me. I hadn"t done Barbara or myself any good.
He yelled again, but he didn"t pull the trigger. I stared at him and realized that I had never seen him before. He wasn"t one of Milo"s men.
Another man appeared at the top of the hill. He, too, was pointing a gun at me and yelling.
It took me a few moments to understand what they were saying.
They were telling me to drop something. My gun. I still had my gun in my hand. Then I saw the silver glint of a badge on one of them. The police. Only half an hour too late. Why they were yelling at me to drop my gun while Barbara was lying here dying, I didn"t understand.
"Drop it," the first one yelled again. "Drop the gun, now."
I didn"t. I threw it at them. It disappeared over the hill just to the right of the first man.
"Help her," I yelled. "She needs an ambulance."
They scrambled down the hill. When they reached us, one of them * 81 *
grabbed me, slapped me against a close pine tree, and did a search.
Then he handcuffed me behind my back. The other one was checking out Barbara. They weren"t moving fast enough to suit me.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, get an ambulance," I exploded. "She"s got to have help now."
"That"s enough out of you," the first one said. He started dragging me up the hill. I tried to protest, but he twisted my arm and pulled me along. Two more men appeared at the top of the hill. One of them had a walkie-talkie.
"Call medical a.s.sistance," said the officer that was still near Barbara. I heard one of the men asking for an ambulance as I was led back through the overgrown lawn to where the police cars were. There were three of them. About time.
I began to realize how much every part of my body hurt. My jaw where Turner had hit me, my cut feet, all the sc.r.a.pes and bruises I had gotten crawling out of the coal chute, my abraded wrists. I was also cold. I had worked up a sweat running to find Barbara. My jeans were soaked from the swamp and the T-shirt was little protection against the morning chill. I started shivering.
My friendly, kindly police officer didn"t appear to notice. He led me back across the oyster sh.e.l.l drive without slowing down. This time I noticed just how sharp those things were.
He stopped at the cars and then started reading me my rights.
I interrupted, "What am I being arrested for?"
"Murder," he answered.
"Huh?" was my snappy rejoinder.
"Don"t play dumb. Two people with gunshot wounds, one"s already dead. We caught you with a gun. Someone called, said they heard shots out here. This is what we find."
Hunger, fatigue, and pain must have been catching up with me. I couldn"t quite follow his logic.
"Or are you going to tell me you don"t know anything about the dead body in the house," he continued sarcastically.
"Oh, him." Turner had not been on the top of my priorities.
"Yeah, him."
"But he was shot with a .38. My gun is a .45," I said. That woke the officer up.
* 82 *
"Huh?" Now he was the witty one. "How do you know?"
"Oh, women"s intuition," I answered. That didn"t seem to particularly please him. I thought about suggesting they search the bas.e.m.e.nt and get my purse with my P.I. license and gun permit. But I didn"t think it likely that they could find it where I had hidden it, let alone where it ended up after Milo"s boys finished searching.
"I think you"d better start giving me some straight answers, now,"
he said.
I was cold, hungry, tired, filthy, in pain, and he wanted straight answers. An ambulance siren sounded in the distance, coming closer.
I shivered. My left foot suggested standing on my right foot. My right foot told me to sit down. And he wanted straight answers.
"I want a lawyer." There, that was as straight an answer as I was going to give.
"You"ll get your phone call when we get back to the station. Now, why don"t you tell me about that .38?" he asked.
"Actually, I don"t want a lawyer," I said. "I want a police officer."
"I am a police officer."
I almost said I wanted a real one, but I stopped myself in the nick of time.
"Yes, I know," I answered. "A specific one. Detective Sergeant Joanne Ranson, NOPD."
"Any particular reason?" he asked.
"When you talk to her, tell her that Micky Knight says h.e.l.lo."
He scowled at me, but didn"t say anything. The ambulance pulled into the driveway, crunching noisily on the oyster sh.e.l.ls. There was another police car behind it. These guys were the local yokels. Someone pointed the ambulance across the yard to the swamp and it drove off, b.u.mping over the lawn.
Officer local yokel was still scowling at me. Evidently he wasn"t impressed that I knew a big-city cop.
"Well, you"re still under arrest for murder," he finally replied. One of the men from the recently arrived police car came over and talked to my police officer. I couldn"t make out what they were saying. I just shivered.
The ambulance came back from the swamp, its siren on even * 83 *
before it got off the gra.s.s. I watched it disappear down the long drive.
Good luck, Barbara. I hope to see you again, sometime soon. I listened to its siren until it faded in the distance.
The morgue truck arrived. I stood, shivering, watching them take Turner out in a black body bag.
I wondered if they would think I was trying to escape if I walked the ten feet to the closest car and leaned against it. They didn"t even notice. Unfortunately the car was cold. Plus one for my feet and minus one for my body temperature, so my overall level of comfort didn"t change very much.
The morgue truck drove away. It started to drizzle. My officer went into the house to talk to some of his cohorts. Or perhaps to get out of the rain. For a dangerous killer, they weren"t doing a very good job of guarding me. I thought about walking away. But since the idea of standing up had no appeal for me, walking out of here didn"t seem very feasible.
My officer finally came back out of the house.
"My, my, is it starting to rain?" he asked. I scowled at him. He was carrying a disreputable-looking blanket, which he spread over the back seat of the car. Then he motioned for me to get in. I did. At this point, jail sounded like the height of luxury.
He and another officer got in the front seat. There was a heavy-duty part.i.tion between us. We rode in silence, at least for my part, into whatever small town this was. I couldn"t read the name at the police station, since they took me in the back way. The criminal entrance, I surmised.
I caught a reflection of myself in a mirror. I was covered in rain-streaked coal dust, barefoot, with dried blood from elbow to wrist on one arm. My clothing looked like resurrected dust rags, the jeans covered in mud from the knees down. I could easily pa.s.s for seriously deranged.
They led me to a cell, took off the handcuffs, and locked me in.
I heard a crack about fumigating the place after they got rid of me. I didn"t care. I settled on the lumpy bunk and pulled the scratchy wool blanket around me. It took me a long time to finally stop shivering.
After a while, my friendly police officer came back and started asking me questions which I ignored. I just kept telling him to get hold * 84 *
of Ranson. I would let her explain this. I was too tired and too worried about Barbara. I asked him about her, but he didn"t know anything. Or said he didn"t.
He finally left. I got back under the blanket to keep warm. I was probably getting a cold.
Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, a rookie type showed up with orders and all sorts of official-looking papers to take me back to the city. He didn"t look real thrilled when he caught sight of me, borrowing the blanket I had sat on in Friendly Officer"s car to put me on in the back seat of his car. He also made sure that his bulletproof, anti-deviant protective barrier was flawless and solidly locked.
Good, I figured, that meant that I was safe from him. I dozed until we hit the early rush-hour traffic.
Rookie led me to Ranson"s office and left me outside to wait for her return, letting me decide whether or not to ruin one of those beautiful, antique folding chairs by sitting on it. I sat. Beauty is fleeting, but painful feet are forever.
I was sitting there feeling very dirty, not to mention sorry for myself, when Danny Clayton walked by. Without recognizing me, I might add.
"Danny," I said. She kept on walking. "a.s.sistant District Attorney Clayton," I said, getting her attention.
"Do I..." she started. "Micky!" she exclaimed when she recognized me. "My Lord, woman, what happened to you?"
"Oh, I ran into a doorway," I answered. The expression on Danny"s face told me better than any mirror how bad I looked.
"It must have been one h.e.l.l of a door," she replied.
Ranson walked up, casually said h.e.l.lo to Danny, noticed me, and did a double take. I did get some satisfaction out of having thrown her.
"s.h.i.t, Micky, what did they do to you?" Ranson asked in a tight voice.
"They?" Danny asked, looking first at Ranson, then at me.
"Come into my office. No, wait, let"s go to the women"s room and get you cleaned up," she said and led the way.
Since there weren"t too many women in this area, we had it all to ourselves. Ranson went to get me some sweatpants and a T-shirt from her locker.
* 85 *
I started trying to wash the blood and coal dust off. I had a big bruise on my cheek and jaw where Turner had hit me. My clean arms were a welter of bruises and cuts. Both wrists were torn and sc.r.a.ped from the ropes. My left foot had a nasty cut on the arch and both feet had a number of minor cuts from the oyster sh.e.l.ls. The more dirt that came off, the more concerned Danny looked. I almost wished she wasn"t here. I had treated her too badly recently for me to feel I deserved the concern she was showing.
Ranson returned with her gym clothes. I took off the dirty rags.
"Who did this to you?" Danny asked in an angry voice.
"A coal chute, oyster sh.e.l.ls, a swamp," I answered as I dressed.
Danny took my chin in one hand and turned my face to her, then started to trace the bruise on my face. I flinched as she hit a sore spot.
"No oyster sh.e.l.l did that. Or that," she said, pointing to my wrists.
"There are laws against people hitting other people," she finished.
"Yeah, but you should see the other guy," I said, trying to make a joke. Then I remembered the other guy was in a body bag.
"Can you identify him?" Ranson asked.
"Yes," I answered. "I can even tell you where he is." Ranson c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "In a morgue somewhere in St. John the Baptist Parish," I answered. The jokes were over.
"Did you..." asked Danny, leaving the "kill him" hanging.
"No, I didn"t."
"Let"s go back to my office," Ranson said, leading us out.
The first thing Ranson did was call out and order us some po-boys for supper. It was past six o"clock already. She seemed willing to let Danny stay, and I didn"t mind.