Play Dirty

CHAPTER 27

TURNER RAISED HIS HANDS IN SURRENDER. SELF-DEFENSE maybe. “I had to call them, Griff. It’s for your own good.”

Griff sneered. “As counsel and friend, go fuck yourself.”

Then he was out the door. He skirted the swimming pool and used a lawn chair to help him vault the privacy fence. His knees took the brunt of the eight-foot drop to the ground on the other side. Another swimming pool. This one had the underwater light on. It felt like a searchlight, directed on him.

A searchlight made him think of a police helicopter, and that gave him the impetus to bust through the gate without fiddling with the latch. He ran through that yard, across the street, into the front yard of another house, where the sprinklers were on. His thrashing legs got wet, and so did the soles of his shoes, making them slippery.

Another freaking fence. “Shit!” Didn’t these people trust their own neighbors? He searched for the gate, which was hard to detect in the darkness. He found it, but it was locked from the inside. He backed up, threw himself against it. It didn’t budge.

He heard tires screeching, close enough for him to smell the smoking rubber.

He ran through the sprinklers again to the neighboring house. Finally, a house with no fence, only a hedge. He plunged through it. The thorny holly plants clawed at his bare legs, tearing skin, but he didn’t let that slow him down. He ran between that house and the one behind it, which put him on the street where he’d left the borrowed car.

He paused in the darkness between two houses, his lungs a bellows, his heart a jackhammer. He could hear shouting, tires squealing, car doors slamming. Hunnicutt’s car was three houses from where he stood. Nothing here was moving. Yet. He couldn’t delay. The search for him would soon spread to this street. He had to risk exposure.

He stepped from between the two houses, primed to sprint.

A police car, lit up like a Christmas tree, took the nearest corner on two wheels.

Griff ducked back into the shadows. Cursed Turner. Cursed his luck. Cursed his whole frigging life.

Then he ran.

Later, he would wonder how in hell he had got out of there. His escape almost made him a believer in divine intervention. Maybe for once in his life, God had suited up to play on his team.

He zigzagged through the neighborhood, moving from one patch of darkness to another. The chopper did appear with its searchlight, which was more powerful than the beam of any lighthouse. For hours he dodged it and the squad cars that either sped or crawled through the streets. Policemen on foot searched, practically going door to door.

He took a few minutes’ refuge in an open garage, where he found a rag to blot the streams of blood off his legs. Sweat made the wounds sting mercilessly. Once, when he got trapped between the approaching chopper’s searchlight and a policeman on foot, he slid into the deep end of a swimming pool. Luckily there was no underwater light, and the pool was one of the pretentious ones, designed to replicate a tropical lagoon formed by lava rock, so it was dark.

He held his breath until he thought his lungs would burst, but because of all the swimming he’d done recently, he was better conditioned than he would have been normally. Looking up through the surface, he could see the chopper’s light sweeping the area. The policeman came so close, Griff could hear him muttering to himself.

Finally both the officer and the helicopter moved on. Griff’s head cleared the surface, and he gulped oxygen. He climbed out of the pool, pruney but revived. His legs weren’t stinging anymore. He didn’t even attempt to return to the car. Cops would have been all over it once they ran the tag number through the DMV and discovered it didn’t belong to anyone living on that street.

He still had his cell phone. Thank God he’d taken it with him. He thought about dialing Glen Hunnicutt, asking him to meet somewhere and pick him up. But he didn’t want to involve the man any more than he already had.

He had no one else to call. No one he could trust. No one who trusted him.

He felt safer when he was out of Wyatt Turner’s neighborhood, but only a bit, because he still had a long way to go to reach the motel. Cops all over the city would now be on the lookout for a man of his description on foot. There would be a lot of harassed joggers in Dallas that morning. Those who ran before daylight were sure to be stopped and scrutinized.

When he walked beneath the freeway overpass and saw the neon vacancy light flickering in the motel office window, he wanted to weep with relief. It wasn’t much, but it was the only hiding place he had. Dawn was just breaking.

He needed to lie down. Close his eyes. Breathe easily. Rest.

But as he neared the parking lot, he noticed that the dope-smoking night clerk was no longer on duty. His replacement was dressed casually, but he looked too clean-cut to work in a place like this.

Griff ducked behind the used-tire store’s portable marquee. From that tenuous hiding place, he watched the guy come out from behind the check-in desk. He left the office and started down the breezeway. He was carrying a foam cup. Steam was rising from it. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee made Griff’s mouth water. But his heart began to feel very heavy when he saw the guy stop at room number seven and knock three times on the door.

It was opened by a man who was as clean-cut as the one manning the office. He took the coffee from his buddy and savored his first sip with a long “Ahhh.” They had a brief exchange, then the office guy left the other inside the room and walked back to the office.

Griff crouched behind the sign advertising the special on retreads and bent his head over his knees.

How the hell had they found him? Was Rodarte fucking clairvoyant?

He remained hunkered down behind the sign for a while, until his overtaxed leg muscles began to cramp, his knees to grow stiff, and the eastern horizon to become limned with orange.

Knowing he had to relocate, he reached into his sock for the bills he’d tucked there before going to Turner’s. The currency was wet from his time in the pool, but it was spendable. He’d hid his cell phone beneath the diving board of the swimming pool, out of sight, before he’d slipped into the water, then retrieved it when he got out. The battery still had juice.

That paltry amount of cash and the phone were the only resources left to him. He didn’t even have a dry change of clothes. But he couldn’t stay here. He had to move. He forced his aching legs to unfold and began walking, being careful to keep something between himself and the office of the motel.

As he walked, he flipped open his phone and placed one short call.

Glen Hunnicutt was in his office, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with a customer, when the dealership’s receptionist tapped on his open office door. “Excuse the interruption, Mr. Hunnicutt. There’s someone here to see you. A detective with the police department. He says it’s important.”

“Come in.” Hunnicutt rolled his hand, motioning the man into his office.

“Stanley Rodarte, DPD.” He extended Hunnicutt his card.

“Have a seat, Detective,” Hunnicutt said expansively, pointing him toward a chair. “You want some coffee?”

“No thanks.”

“You sure? Our coffee’s as good as our auto-mo-biles.”

“No thanks.”

“Maybe a nice, cold Dr Pepper?”

“Nothing, thanks,” Rodarte said, showing his impatience.

“You shopping cars this morning, Detective?”

“No.” Rodarte nodded toward the other man in the room, who was seated across from Hunnicutt’s desk. “Could we have a minute alone? This is a police matter.”

“Meet James McAlister. Jim’s my lawyer, so I have no secrets from him.” The look on Rodarte’s face was priceless. It was all Hunnicutt could do not to chuckle. The detective hadn’t expected a lawyer to be present.

Hunnicutt had arrived at the dealership shortly after daybreak so he could replace the security chain before his employees began reporting for work. He’d been at his desk catching up on paperwork when Griff’s warning call came through the main phone line. Fortunately, he’d answered.

Upon hearing his voice, Griff said, “It’s hit the fan. I’m sorry. You’ll be hearing from a cop named Rodarte. Stanley Rodarte. He gives you grief, you say this to him. You listening?”

“I’m listening.”

Griff had left Hunnicutt with the message, then hung up.

Addressing Rodarte now, Hunnicutt said, “Jim’s here to buy a car for his daughter who’s turning sixteen next week. He expects a discount from me. Like hell, I said. He never gave me a discount on legal fees. I told him-”

“We found a car belonging to you,” Rodarte said, brusquely cutting in. “It was found abandoned on a neighborhood street a few miles from here.”

Hunnicutt looked at McAlister, registering surprise. “You found it? Already?” He whistled. “I’m impressed. We only reported it stolen, when, Jim? Eight, nine this morning? You guys in the DPD are good!”

Rodarte had received his second blow. “You reported the car stolen?”

McAlister snapped open the briefcase resting on his lap and took a form from it. It had been filled out by the policeman who’d responded to Hunnicutt’s call, reporting that a car was missing from his inventory. Rodarte yanked the form from McAlister, glanced at it, and verified its accuracy, down to the car’s make and model, license plate, and VIN. Hunnicutt got the impression Rodarte was about to wad up the form and hurl it to the floor. McAlister rescued it just in time and replaced it in his briefcase.

“When was it stolen?” the detective asked tightly.

“Don’t know. I didn’t notice it missing until this morning. Cars get shifted around all day, every day. It could have been missing a couple weeks, a couple days, or a couple hours. No way of telling.”

“Griff Burkett’s prints are all over that car,” Rodarte growled, looking like a man barely in control of his temper.

“Griff Burkett? The Griff Burkett? No shit! You sure?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure.”

“Well, I’ll be. Imagine that. Hmm. Wonders never cease.”

Rodarte’s glower turned darker. “He left it parked two streets from his lawyer’s house, where he went last night asking for information that would help him elude arrest for the murder of Foster Speakman. Turner called us instead.”

Hunnicutt looked over at McAlister. “Lucky I’ve got you.”

“Burkett managed to get away on foot,” Rodarte said.

“The boy has talent,” Hunnicutt said. “Fastest quarterback I’ve ever seen. That fancy footwork of his was something to watch, wasn’t it?”

Rodarte looked ready to explode. “You gave that car to him, which amounts to aiding and abetting a murder suspect.”

“That’s an awfully ugly allegation,” McAlister said calmly. “I’m hereby instructing my client not to answer any further questions, Detective.”

Ignoring the lawyer, Rodarte kept his eyes on Hunnicutt. “When did Burkett call you? Yesterday? Last night?”

Hunnicutt said nothing.

“Obviously you admire him, but he’s no hero. Yesterday he made a bunch of calls to area families named Ruiz. I had cops calling those same families, searching for clues into the disappearance of Manuelo Ruiz, who we believe witnessed Foster Speakman’s murder. We compared notes. Same phone number showed up on several caller IDs. We traced that number to a fleabag motel out on 635. I’ve got men staking out the place, waiting for him to slink back to where his stuff’s at.

“And when he does, I’m going to put him through the wringer. Your name’s bound to come up. He’ll give you up, Hunnicutt. Burkett doesn’t have friends, only people he uses then shits on. He has loyalty to no one except himself. You talk to me now or face indictment later.”

Rodarte paused, took a breath. “Now, where is he? If you know, and you don’t tell me, you’re obstructing justice. Where is he?”

Hunnicutt calmly lit a cigarette. “You sure you couldn’t use a Dr Pepper?”

Rodarte banged his fist on Hunnicutt’s desk. “Tell me, goddammit!”

“Detective Rodarte, you’re harassing my client,” McAlister said.

Rodarte stood up and leaned far across Hunnicutt’s desk, thrusting his face close. “I can get your phone records for this place, prove he called here.”

“You’d need a search warrant,” the lawyer said. “I doubt any judge in the county would grant you one for such a flimsy reason, but if one did, and if you found a number belonging to Mr. Burkett on those records, it still wouldn’t prove that he spoke with Mr. Hunnicutt.

“How many calls a day do you estimate come into this busy car dealership? Hundreds, right? My client can’t be responsible for any of them. And if you did manage to prove that my client talked to Mr. Burkett, that doesn’t prove that he provided him a car or assisted him in any way.”

Rodarte, still ignoring the attorney, glared into Hunnicutt’s guileless face.

“I think you’ve run out of ammunition to back up your threats, Mr. Rodarte.” Hunnicutt placed his cigarette in the hollow belly of his armadillo-shaped ashtray and stood up. He moved to his office door and opened it.

Rodarte disregarded the blatant suggestion that he leave. He asked, “How’d Burkett get the key to that car if you didn’t give it to him?”

Hunnicutt yelled through the open doorway, “Sweetheart, come on in here a sec.”

The receptionist who’d ushered Rodarte in reappeared, asking brightly, “Did he change his mind about the coffee?”

“What’s my pet peeve?” Hunnicutt asked her. “What do I get onto the salespeople about more than anything?”

“Letting customers leave without buying a car.”

Hunnicutt boomed a laugh. “Second to that.”

“Leaving the keys under the floor mats.”

“Thank you, honey.”

She left, and Hunnicutt turned back to Rodarte. “Leaving the keys under the floor mats. They do it for convenience’s sake, always meaning to go back later and properly lock the cars they’ve taken out on demonstration drives. They plan to go back when they don’t have customers stacked up. But-thank God, and I ain’t complaining-sometimes they’ve got customers waiting. So they just slide the ignition key under the mat. Then they get distracted or busy and forget.” He shrugged his burly shoulders. “I chew ass about it all the time, but what can you do? They’re selling cars like hotcakes.”

He shared a long look with Rodarte, who glanced over at the unflappable lawyer. McAlister raised his eyebrows eloquently. Rodarte stalked through the office door. When he pushed past Hunnicutt, he said in a malevolent undertone, “You haven’t heard the last of me.”

Hunnicutt said to his lawyer, “Excuse me, Jim. I’m gonna walk him out.”

“Glen-”

“It’s cool.”

He moved quickly for a man his size and caught up with Rodarte as the detective was climbing into his car. Rodarte rounded on him. “I know you provided Burkett that car. You were jailbirds together at Big Spring. Next time, you’ll go to Huntsville, and let me tell you, that ain’t no country-club prison like the one you’re used to. Your big white ass would be a turn-on to lots of queers I’ve put there.” His eyes glinted with malice. “You’ve made an enemy today, Hunnicutt. Nobody makes a fool of me and gets away with it. You wait and see.”

Hunnicutt leaned in. He was a head taller than Rodarte and seventy pounds heavier. “Don’t threaten me. I know about you. You’re a bully. The worst kind. You got a badge to back it up. But if you even think about hurting me or a member of my family, you remember what I told you today.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

Hunnicutt leaned down even closer and whispered, “Marcia’s got a lot of friends.” As he straightened up, he had the pleasure of watching Rodarte’s eyes turn wary. Griff had known what he was talking about. The name meant something to Rodarte, and so did the implied threat. It instilled, if not fear, at least reservation.

Hunnicutt held the detective’s stare, then stepped back and flashed a wide smile. “If you’re ever in the market for a used car, come see me.” He walked to the front of the olive green sedan and kicked the tire. “But I’ll tell you right off, I wouldn’t take this for a trade-in.”

What was he going to do?

Where could he hide?

Surrendering, as his turncoat lawyer had urged him to, wasn’t an option. Even if he wanted to entrust himself to the legal system again, which he didn’t, Turner had deserted him, and, by the sound of it, so had his probation officer. There was no one in his corner.

No, he could not turn himself in. But while dodging capture, he could be gunned down in the street, if not by someone wearing a badge, then by a citizen with a vigilante mentality.

Taking temporary shelter in a cement culvert, he flipped open his phone and punched in the familiar number, only because there was absolutely no one else he could call.

It rang six times before it went to voice mail. “Thank you for calling the Millers. Please leave a message.” Griff hung up and immediately redialed, more from a desire to hear Ellie’s cheerful voice than with the hope of his call being answered. He listened to the recording again, wondering where Coach and Ellie could be this early in the morning.

But if one of them had answered, what would he have said? What could he say that they would believe?

He punched in another number he had committed to memory. Jason Rich answered. “Hey, Jason, it’s Griff.” He tried to sound like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “I called to apologize for not making it to our workout yesterday. And looks like I won’t be there today, either.”

“How come?”

“I’ve come down with some kind of stomach flu. I think I got hold of some bad tamales. I’ve been puking my guts up.” A short pause, then, “Is your dad around? I’d like to talk to him, please.”

“You’re sick?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s not true, what he said?”

“What who said?”

“That policeman.”

Griff pinched the bridge of his nose, hard. “Was his name Rodarte? A detective?”

“A man with scars on his face. He came here yesterday and talked to my dad and me.”

Griff had hoped that Rodarte would forget his tie to the Riches, but Rodarte never forgot anything. He had made a veiled threat to harm Jason. Yesterday he had questioned him, probably put pressure on the kid to tell him everything he knew about Griff Burkett. He would have frightened the boy. Griff could have killed the son of a bitch for that.

“He said you-” Jason’s voice cracked. “He said you-”

“Jason!”

Bolly’s voice, coming out of the background. Sharp. Intrusive. “Who are you talking to? Jason, who is that?”

Then Jason, in a pleading voice, said, “Dad, he’s-”

“Give me the phone.” Scuffling sounds. Then directly into Griff’s ear, Bolly snarled, “I should have known better than to trust you.”

“Bolly, listen, I-”

“No, you listen. The cops have been here twice. My wife freaked out, especially when this Detective Rodarte told her what you did.”

“Bolly-”

“I don’t want you calling here. I don’t want you near my family. I trusted you with my son. Jesus, when I think-”

“I wouldn’t lay a hand on Jason. You know that.”

“No, killing your lover’s paraplegic husband is more your speed.”

Griff squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the accusation and the image it conjured. “I called to tell you to be careful of Rodarte. Keep Jason away-”

“Don’t dare even speak my son’s name.”

“Listen to me!”

“I’m over listening.”

“Don’t leave Jason alone with Rodarte. Don’t leave Jason alone, period. I know what you think of me-”

“You don’t know the half of what I think of you. I hope this Rodarte finally nails your ass. And when he does, I hope they fry it.”