Witness To Kill (Change Of Life Book 1) (5 page)

Her voice broke and she inhaled sharply.

“But why Luis, Sherry? What did he have to do with it?”

Sherry peered at her for a long second before answering.

“Like I said. I do’nno for sure where he comes into it . . .
them FBI boys gonna try to figure it all out . . . they gonna figure it all out
with what they spect’s gonna be a big dosea help from you. They mentioned how
good your description was . . . I do’nno why he didn’t treat you better. Who
knows? Mebbe he’s onea them cops mad at the world.”

His one open eye darkened as it seemed to bore into her.
“Mebbe he’s got an idea you’re in on it. You know, mebbe they think you’re
mixed up in drugs, too.”

She met his eye without blinking her own and waited a long
beat before answering. “How about you? What do you think, Detective?”

He snorted softly and shook his head, then his eyes narrowed.

“Nah. Guess I’m thinkin’you’re a good Catholic girl . . .
good Catholic girl run into some bad luck. Mebbe she ended up gettin’ close to
somethin’ she don’ really know nothin’ ‘bout.”

He sat back and shrugged his sloping shoulders, shook his
head simply and scratched under his open eye.

“Don’t have to be a muchuva genius to see that.”

She smiled and mimicked his accent. “So . . . Ruggle’s not
muchava
genius then?” After a moment she frowned over her smile and added, “Hey! So
how’d you know I was raised Catholic?”

“Ruggle’s what I call a
file
man. I seen lots of
‘em.” He shook his head. “Lotta times guys like that don’t even try to stop and
take a good look at a person, ya know? Hell, that
look’s
best thing you
got as a cop. Just set back, take a good hard look. You know . . . use your
head . . . jest try an’ figure . . . what’s this person ‘bout?”

He smiled at her genially. “Far as your bein’ Catholic goes
. . . I’m one, too, and I kin look in the files too.”

He smiled toward the robot, but his eyes seemed to be
looking beyond it. He rubbed his face and went on like he was talking to
himself. “I checked up on that one, that Ruggle. Asked around a little. One’a
those don’t have no life apart from bein’ a cop . . .no friends or anythin’, no
family. Don’t care how he looks, don’t hafta be polite. He’s got the power. . .
. cain’t get rid of a federal worker. ‘specially an FBI guy with somethin’
wrong with ‘im. He’s got that power and he knows it’s all his. That power gets
to be all he is. Seen more’n a few of ‘em.”

He shook his head ruefully. “Law enforcement seems to get
more’n its share o’ that type, you know? But I know the type. Always thought
those were the most dangerous kind . . . don’t care about nothin’ or nobody . .
. not scared a nothin’. Cop that don’t care and ain’t scared’s the worse kind.”

He shook his head more vehemently. “Thing about them feds .
. . they come into town like they know everything . . . don’t stop ‘till they
got some scalps on the wall. Always worryin’ who’s gonna get the
credit
.
You see that story in the
Picuyune
?”

She shook her head.

“Ol’ boy don’t seem ta mind seein’ his name in the paper. Or
his face. I always hated that, never thought it was the right way myself, ya
know, right way of bein’ a cop.” He snickered sarcastically. “‘Course what’s
some
local
know, anyway? You’d think mebbe them boys’d give the PD
credit for somethin’ . . . good job on crowd control . . . something, eh?”

He sat back and gestured around them. “How it is for the
people down here, how it
really
is, . . . that don’t seemta concern ‘em
at all. They jest lookin’ for them scalps . . . bigger the better.” He paused,
then muttered, “People livin’ down here . . . the people gotta live down here .
. . that don’t seem to matter to ‘em at all.”

Male and female waiters in white shirts and green bow ties
darted and dodged between crowded tables as the tourists had begun to slow
their shopping and gawking to rest their feet. Music notes competed from
several directions, trolley bells clanged. Horses clopped by on the edge of
Decatur, pulling bright painted surreys loaded with pointing, picture-taking
people in bright casual clothes.

Down the street, St. Louis Cathedral stabbed three tapering
gray spires at an azure sky. Artists hawking their finished and in-progress efforts
stood akimbo behind easels that lined the sidewalks of all three streets
bordering the huge church, both the works and creators adding brilliance to the
scene. In the cathedral’s lush landscaped plaza, a gray and white cloud of
pigeons suddenly rose a few reluctant feet in front of a bench on a cue only
they heard, flurried a tight irritated tangent, then settled back down to their
bounty.

“Do you know what they want me to do?” Mary asked quietly.

Behind her words, a lugubrious moan spilled over the grassy
berm, an ocean-bound ship’s horn echoing its maritime farewell from the wide
curve of the river.

He sighed and glanced at his watch, then leaned over the
table.

“Really up to them fed boys, tell you ‘bout all that, Hon.”
He rubbed a finger under the open eye and sucked his teeth so loudly she
thought the people at the next table might hear it. “But, hell. Guess you
deserve to know a little somethin’.”

He scooted his chair closer and afternoon light shined on
the fine copper hair of his forearms. “See, . . . thing is, with the new
religion
sweeping the country, the feds have taken over on drugs, figurin’ out ways to
spend all that new Homeland Security money getting’ thrown ‘round. Passin’ the
laws . . . enforcin’ ‘em. Got some hellacious penalties . . . hand ‘em out like
candy. And that’s jest for drugs alone.”

He leaned closer and whispered toward her ear.

“Here, you got a cold-blooded murder somehow connected to
drug traffickin’, maybe big time traffickin’, that’s sure as hell gonna bring
the death penalty. And those
lettermen . . .
they got the resources and
they got the attitude to light some fire on these boys’ asses. Lot of ‘em’s
true believers, comes to drugs. They use tactics we wouldn’ta even thought of
few years back. Sometimes I wonder how they look at they’selves in the mirror.
True
believers,
” he muttered again, then drew a resigned breath. “I guess I
ain’t arguin’ with mosta that ‘cept for the self-righteous bastards . . .
Ruggle’s a good example of ‘em. . . they inflict on what they call us
locals
.
We used to get some respect and cooperation from ‘em. Nowadays . . . hell, they
treat us like the enemy, like
we’re
the bad guys. They don’t take the
time to look around and figger out how things work, you know?”

He stopped talking as a waiter leaned in to pour, the pot
steadied with a folded white cloth. The rest of Mary’s biscuit sat untouched.

“Thing is,” he continued as the waiter left, “‘ith all these
penalties and all this heat they . . . feds that is . . . they
really
put the squeeze on whoever they bring in on charges connected to drugs. They
got laws on what they call
conspiracy
I don’t even understand. Looks
like they can convict jest on somebody’s say-so ‘thout no real evidence, like
this is the way Russia used to be or somethin’. Hell,
everbody
talks
these days . . . ain’t no honor among thieves anymore.”

He smiled but she didn’t join in, then the smile fell and he
lowered his voice. “Everbody, that is, least the way I hear it . . . everbody .
. . ‘cept these Cubans.”

He was looking at her levelly, his face and voice were
locked together in a gravity so heavy it felt like a threat.

“From what I hear these Cubans are a different breed . .
.more like the old mafia, the
real
mafia. You know,
family
and
all that. Well, they don’t fuck around. Excuse me for talkin’ like that but
they don’t . . .they don’t talk and they won’t cooperate. What they’ll do is do
whatever it takes to protect any of their own that get caught . . . like them
boys killed your friend, whenever we catch ‘em. They’ll do anything,
anything
to protect ‘em . . . part of their creed or somethin’. Guess that’s how they
keep their people in line. Them Cubans s’posed to be ruthless and unbending,
jest like them fed boys . . . like Ruggle and that kid, tryin’ to
‘stablish
their careers
. Long’s you stick to bein’ able to identify them men, you the
one in the worst spot. You gotta know that. You the one’s caught ‘tween a rock
and a hard place.”

He sat back and picked up his cup and took a sip, caught her
eyes again and nodded earnestly back toward Ursuline.

“Both you
and
that boy.”

She tried to read his face as scattered applause followed
the robot marching off, the tips can teetered from an arm extended 90 degrees
in front.

“You think they’ll make me say those men killed Luis?” she
asked. “Identify them in court?”

He pressed his lips together and nodded, then tilted his
head gloomily. “Yeah. To be honest with you, Hon, I think there’s a good
chancea that. Long’s they got somebody willin’ to finger ‘em, they ain’t got
much choice, do they?”

The steel-rimmed wheels of a wagon brimming with a
gesturing, camera-aiming Asian family clattered past, its teamster a hunched
black man in red livery, it was being pulled behind a hunched brown hackney in
matching trim, a tattered red plume preceded its bored equine face.

“Neither do you,” Sherry murmured. “It’s jest damned back
luck. Way things stand now, nobody’s got much choice here. You stuck in the
middle.” The one eye blinked a couple of times. “Like I said, you and Brian.”
His eyes went to the sky over the levee. “Truth of it is, way things are . . .
nobody’s
got much choice in this thing.”

Their talk turned less serious. They smiled at each other
and traded polite comments, but they had gone to different worlds. As they
stood to leave, he tossed a crumpled bill on the table and reached over and
popped the last crust into his mouth.
L’addition
never came.

She noticed the man watching intently as they crossed to the
sunny side of Decatur, then stride right toward them. He sported a bow tie, the
upper sleeves of his striped shirt were bunched by garters, a small piece of
paper gripped between the thumb and forefinger of one hand.

Sherry saw him too and stopped to wait on the other curb.

“Sherry?” The man raised his hand and cried from a half
block away in a banjo-strung voice. His head was bald on top, the pale oasis
surrounded by a salt and pepper fringe, his eye-brows were pink and jumpy over
round, bulging eyes. He was short with a tense, bandy frame that quavered when
he talked. “Can I get a minute?”

Sherry nodded while the man’s hands chopped air like a band
director.

“That big’un, one with the arm thing. He was back down at
the joint yesterday . . . askin’ morea the same questions. Had another one with
him . . .” He licked his lips and flicked his eyebrows at Mary nervously.

Sherry nodded again.

“Gave me this.” The man bounced on his toes and pushed the
paper at Sherry like it was contaminated. “Told me to call him when I wanted to
tell him somethin’ . . . somethin’ he could
use
was how he put it.”

Sherry listened, leaning on the back of his heels and
blinking at the business card. Without trying to, Mary saw it was identical to
the one in her purse—the one Agent Ruggle had made her take at the cemetery.

“Made a big show outa nosin’ all ‘round the place,” the man
continued. “Writin’ down the license numbers . . . made me give’em my
accountant’s name. Hell, he asked if my
wife
was parta the business, my
kids. All that crap. Told me he’d personally see ‘I come to my senses’ was how
he put it.”

The man thumbed toward the handkerchief pocket where Sherry
had stuck the card. “I don’t need that. I got nothin’ to say. Nobody down
here’s got nothin’ to say.”

The men continued talking with their heads drawn close.
Sherry held one arm across his chest like a priest listening to a penitent,
reassuring the animated man with soft grunts and little nods, pats on his arm.
But Mary saw that his own face had lost a degree of its rose.

Mary stood aside and waited, trying not to invade their
conference.

Almost lost in the clotted shadows of an overgrown park
across the street, the robot smoked a cigarette on a bench that looked out over
the river valley. It was bent at the waist, the nonsmoking arm hugged around
spindly legs pulled up to his chest like a child’s. The funnel and geometric
body components were strewn on the walk in front of him, the coffee can lay
turned on its side under the bench.

She glanced back and in the brief moments Sherry seemed to
have shortened, gotten heavier; he stood slack-faced, shifting and hitching up
his pants over splayed feet as he stood watching the other man walk away. She
regarded Sherry for a long moment and understood he was seeing
more:
more than the hyper little man; more than the bustling old-world tableau the
little man was walking through. More than
her
.

Not wanting to make him uncomfortable with her staring, she
turned back to the robot.

Illuminated by a watery shaft of light piercing the milky
dusk, his head looked middle-aged gray and weary, his body frail and frangible.
His eyes glowed as he drew on the cigarette and they lifted to follow the
shining arc carved around the city—the crescent of
the
crescent
city.
Below them, the river snaked south under the falling light, slicing the
alluvial plain to the white blur of horizon—and even beyond. The man sat
hunched over the cigarette, the only movement the subtle rise and fall of his
shoulders as he squinted toward the unseen waiting sea. Unseen but
waiting
,
certainly. As certainly as tomorrow’s shadow waits behind today’s prescient
shining arc; as certainly as the silver running river proves an ocean waits
beyond perception to receive it, waits certainly beyond even that last visible
moment when the earth rises to join the sky.