“It sounds authentic,” Joe agreed, and then they thanked her and crossed the street to where she’d indicated the shooting had happened, an alley that angled downhill, behind the hotels. Outside of a hotel called the Linderhof, a guy wearing a long denim jacket that flapped around his legs like a duster was spreading snowmelt on the steps and smoking a cigarette. Maintenance man, probably.
“Want to see whether he, too, has heard the gospel?” Perry asked.
“I expect it spreads fast around here, but it might have some variations,” Joe said. “We might as well hear them all.”
They went up and badged him and he looked at them sourly while he smoked the cigarette.
“Cleveland, you say?”
“Cleveland, Ohio, yes.”
“You interested in the black fella? I don’t say that ’cause he was black. I say that ’cause he drove the car in.”
“The car where Nora was shot?” Perry asked.
“That’s the one. Sweet car. Older Mustang, maybe early ’70s. Nah, that ain’t right, not with those taillights. Late ’60s.” He took a long drag and then repeated, “Sweet car.”
“Where was it impounded?” Joe asked.
“It wasn’t. They just left it right where it was. There’s police tape on it. I assume it’s likely locked, too.”
Perry glanced at Joe, clearly impressed by this police work, and said, “Was there anybody working here who might have had a view of what happened this morning?”
“Nope.” Another puff on the cigarette, then, “I keep meaning to watch the tapes and see if there’s anything useful on them. But, hell, with this storm, the manager keeps busting my balls about getting ice-melt down.”
“You’ve got security cameras here?”
“Sure. A couple pointed right at the alley. I figure they might be of some use.”
“I figure you’re right,” Joe said. “Let’s take a look.”
The security footage that hadn’t been reviewed or even requested by the three-man Helen Police Department, currently occupied with plans for snowplow routes, offered more than a view of the car.
It showed the shooting.
“I’ll be damned,” the maintenance man said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
Joe was starting to get a headache. He wondered how many homicides had been investigated in this town in the past century. Whatever the total was, it had to be matched exactly by the number of cold cases.
“Probably going to want to pass this along to the guy they’ve got in jail,” Perry said as they watched the grainy-but-indisputable image of Antonio Childers opening fire on Nora Simpson. “It seems potentially useful to the defense team, what with the video of someone else doing the killing and all.”
“How about the girl, though?” Joe said. “She’s driving like she’s expecting someone. Cruising slow through that alley. But she sure as hell wasn’t expecting Antonio. She’s cruising, and he’s running. She seems surprised by him. If she just stole his car, that doesn’t jibe.”
“Remember what the girl who was spreading the gospel told us,” Perry said. “The cop they locked up said Nora Simpson stole his car, but that he was lying about that, because—”
“It wasn’t his car,” Joe finished. “Right. Could be some of Detective Tolliver’s testimony had been bent around the edges by the time it got to her. So let’s say Nora sleeps with him, and then she steals a car. Problem is, it’s Antonio’s car. All fine. But how in the hell does she start it?”
“Hot-wire, maybe?”
“If she’s hot-wiring cars, she doesn’t need to steal keys.”
“We need to chat with Detective Tolliver,” Perry said. “I’d rather hear his version of things first. And alert him to the presence of this video. Seems like the kind thing to do, before they send him to the electric chair.”
“Hang on,” Joe said. “Can you go back?”
He had been focused on the shooting the first time through, but now as they watched it again he’d seen that just after Antonio Childers left the frame and just before the guy in one shoe and his boxer shorts arrived, there had been a blur of motion that looked like another vehicle pulling in. Pulling in too close to the scene not to have been part of it.
The maintenance man rewound and played it again. Joe put his finger on the corner of the screen. “Right there, Lincoln. You got better eyes than me, what’s the make on that truck?”
Perry leaned forward and squinted. “F-150, I’d say. It’s in and out awfully fast, but we can grab a still image and blow that up. Looks like an older Ford, though. Exhaust is custom. They don’t have those big dual pipes coming out of the factory.”
“Hell,” the maintenance man said. “That’s Paulson’s truck.”
Joe said, “You know who owns that thing?”
“Pretty sure. Like this fella said, those pipes stand out. Double Simpson put those growlers on. I remember that, because people said it should have been a, what do you call it? Noise ordinance violation, I think. But since it was Paulson’s truck, and he wasn’t likely to give himself a ticket, who the fuck cared how loud it was, right?”
They both stared at him.
Lincoln Perry spoke slowly, as if he had to use a second language with this guy. “That’s a police officer’s truck?”
“Sure it is. Matter of fact, it is that police officer’s truck.” He pointed at the screen where the surveillance footage was still running, and a tall, skinny, uniformed officer had a gun pointed at the guy in his underwear. Other than the gun and the badge he might’ve been mistaken for a telephone pole. He would’ve been the butt of the joke even in a movie. Despite his considerable height, he didn’t look old enough to shave and probably had needed to add holes to his duty belt to cinch it up tight enough to hold the weight of the gun without his pants falling off his ass.
Joe said, “So Paulson’s truck was in motion, but Paulson wasn’t driving it. Who do you think was, mister?”
“How in the hell do I know?”
“Because you’re batting pretty well already,” Joe said. “So if you don’t mind, keep swinging.”
“I don’t know. Paulson doesn’t have a wife or a girl, lives by himself. I got no idea who’d be driving his car at the ass-crack of dawn while he’s on duty.”
“What about the guy you mentioned earlier, the one you said customized the exhaust on that Ford?” Perry asked. “Said his name was Double?”
“His full name is Thomas, I guess, but nobody around here has called him anything but Double since he was a kid. Not sure why, exactly. I think it’s because whatever trouble you had in your life before he showed up, it doubled on you the moment he got there, you know? Matter of fact, I’ve heard it said it was his first-grade teacher who started that nickname. You know a kid is a problem when a teacher tags him like that.”
Joe said, “Does Thomas, or Double, or whatever the hell he’s known by, move drugs?”
“Probably.”
“Coke?”
“I don’t know. That boy walks down the sidewalk and I cross the street, right? I ain’t exactly in his inner circle. But it surely wouldn’t surprise me.” The maintenance man grew reflective. “Matter of fact, I recall one story about him. Highway patrol stopped him somewhere north of Valdosta, and he was running something, I think maybe it was coke but I can’t say for sure. Anyhow, between the time they ran his license and the time they made him get out of his car, he keistered it. The car search came up empty and they let him go with just a ticket for the expired plates.”
“Keistered it,” Perry echoed.
“It’s when you shove the drugs right up your asshole.”
Perry lifted a hand to ward off any further imagery. “I followed the mechanics, thanks. I was just unfamiliar with the term. I’ll file that one away, though. So he does have a drug history, and he’s close with the local police, particularly the officer who was first on the scene. Correct?”