Tough Customer

CHAPTER 17

WASTE OF MONEY IF YOU ASK ME."

"Well, I didn't."

Caroline's calm retort served to make Dodge edgier, if that was possible. Every time he lit up a cigarette, she frowned in silent disapproval, which robbed him of the pleasure of smoking it, which was creating a drastic shortfall in his minimum daily requirement of nicotine. He figured he was running at least a quart low. His system was craving it. His skin was itching from the inside. His piss factor was high.

But they were in her car, so even if he wanted to defy her objections and smoke, he couldn't. Soon as they got to where they were going, though, he'd smoke one down to the filter, and if she didn't like it, that was just too damn bad.

He'd volunteered to drive because that at least kept his hands busy. "Is there only one Walmart in town?"

"Yes. Do you need directions?"

"Nope. I spotted it yesterday."

"Before or after your chat with Grace?"

It pleased him that his conversation with the bartender still rankled Caroline, but he took it no further than to shoot her a wicked grin. "Twenty-five grand?" he said in reference to the reward she had offered the sheriff's office. "They'll have every nearsighted redneck in southeast Texas playing I Spy with Oren Starks."

"I'm sure Ski will have trained personnel filtering out the crank calls that come into the hotline."

"For all that'll help," he said under his breath. "The task force set up a hotline for information on the bank robber. Know what we got?"

"Reports of a Russian submarine in the shipping channel, UFO sightings, the Second Coming, a pack of rabid wolves running amok in the medical district, and a woman who called nightly offering free sex to whoever was interested."

"I told you that already?"

"Thirty-one years ago, you ranted about it whenever you got frustrated over the case."

"Then you must've heard it a lot."

"At least a thousand times."

"Huh."

"I'm sure Ski expects to get a number of kooks calling in," she said, "but he might also get a useful tip. Besides, putting up the reward made me feel like I'm contributing to Oren Starks's capture, rather than sitting around and doing nothing."

Dodge mumbled something.

Caroline looked at him. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Something about money. What did you say?"

"I said you won't miss the pocket change."

"You said more than that."

"I left out the expletives."

"Why were you using expletives?"

"Would you rather I'd've repeated them to you?"

"Why were you using expletives in regard to my money?"

He recognized her tone. She wasn't going to let the matter drop, which was fine with him, because her financial status had been eating at him, and he'd just as soon air his grievances.

"You wouldn't know a financial problem if it bit you in the butt, because you've never had one." Seeing her angry expression, he added snidely, "Well, have you?"

"I've been fortunate."

"I'll say. Fortunate enough to marry the rich, successful boss." Because he was feeling particularly fractious, he'd pushed, and he knew immediately he'd pushed too far.

Coldly she said, "Don't you dare criticize me for marrying Jim."

"I didn't."

"Not in so many words, but it was implied."

"You're hearing implications that aren't there because you're supersensitive on the subject of your marriage."

"I have no reason to be supersensitive on the subject."

"No?"

"No. I had a good marriage that lasted for twenty-six years. Up till the day Jim died, we were happy together."

"Congratulations."

His sarcasm didn't escape her. "You wish I'd been unhappy?"

Raising his voice, he said, "I wish you'd been happy with me."

"Whose fault is it that I wasn't?" she fired back.

He swore. Neither said anything for a while, then he asked, "How'd Malone die?"

She took so long to answer, he thought she might refuse to. Finally she said, "He had a stroke. Sitting at his desk in his office. It left him in a coma. He died two days later without ever waking up, which was actually a blessing. The neurologist told me that Jim had sustained extensive brain damage."

Dodge drove in ponderous silence. Then, "So you loved the guy."

"Yes, Dodge, I did. Mostly I loved him for loving me and Berry. She was almost a year old when Jim asked me to marry him. He'd been a confirmed bachelor for forty years but was willing to take on a wife and baby."

"He wanted you. You had a baby." Dodge gave an eloquent shrug.

"He didn't view Berry as a sacrifice he had to make in order to marry me. He accepted her without explanation or qualification. He loved her dearly and reared her as his own. Which was good, since he and I never had any children together."

"Why not?"

"No reason. Just one of those things. It never happened. We didn't let it become an issue. Both of us were very involved in expanding the business. We worked long and hard. And we were satisfied with the daughter we had."

Either his nicotine deficiency or this discussion about another man loving and rearing his daughter was making his chest hurt. But Dodge couldn't stop giving voice to the questions that had bedeviled him for three decades. "What kind of kid was Berry? Was she happy?"

Caroline looked across at him and smiled. "Very. Completely. She was exuberant. Smart. Precocious. Athletic. Competitive. Willful at times, but not bratty."

"Stubborn like you."

"Cunning like you."

"Did she have your redhead's temper?"

"I don't have a redhead's temper."

He laughed at her tart response, then she joined him. His laughter was the first to falter. "Did you ever tell her?"

"What?"

"Do I have to spell it out, Caroline?"

She turned her head away to gaze through the windshield. She was doing that thing with her hands, clasping and unclasping them, a habit familiar to him. She did that whenever she was organizing her thoughts, particularly distressing ones.

"Yes, I told her. Jim had adopted her and given her his name, but I thought she should know that he wasn't her birth father. I didn't want that to be a big, dark secret lurking in the background of our lives, just waiting to spring and inflict damage on our relationship."

It cut Dodge to the quick to be reminded that he'd signed away all parental rights to his daughter. It had been a sanitary procedure, handled by lawyers. At the time, he'd been angry and had thought he'd been given little choice.

He couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if he had raised a stink. Would the outcome have been different if he'd refused to relinquish the upbringing of his daughter to another man?

But now, as thirty years ago, he couldn't see any benefit arising from a tug-of-war that would only have prolonged the inevitable and created more hostility and heartache for everyone involved, particularly for Caroline and Berry.

"When Berry was old enough to know where babies come from," Caroline continued, "I told her that Jim wasn't the man who'd planted the seed in my tummy. Something to that effect," she said, smiling gently. "But I assured her that Jim was her daddy. She accepted it."

Dodge braked for a traffic light, touched his breast pocket where the packet of cigarettes beckoned to him, worked his bottom more comfortably into the driver's seat, and muttered deprecations at the driver in front of him who didn't know to pull into the intersection so he could hook a quick left when the light turned yellow, allowing Dodge to hook an even quicker one before it turned red.

He cleared his throat. "Wasn't she ever curious to know who the sower of the seed had been? She never asked what had happened to her real daddy, why he'd left her and didn't come back?"

"She brought it up only once," Caroline said. "She was of an age when I felt I should caution her against the pitfalls of having sex in the heat of the moment without using common sense or, if that failed, protection. And she asked if that's what had happened to me. She wanted to know if she'd been a mishap, an unwanted responsibility that a man had run away from."

She looked across at Dodge, and he looked back at her.

Caroline went on. "It broke my heart to hear the vulnerability in her voice when she asked that question. Apparently she'd been haunted by the thought that her conception had been an unhappy accident. She'd yearned to know the truth but hadn't asked for fear of having her supposition confirmed."

"Jesus," Dodge groaned miserably.

"I relieved her of the notion. I emphasized that she'd been conceived during a happy time, and that neither her father nor I had regretted the pregnancy. I told her that there had been issues between us that didn't relate to her, but that were serious enough to prevent us from being together, and that you--he--had seen the advantages of her staying with me." She looked down at her hands, still clasping and unclasping them in her lap. "She believed me. At least I suppose she did, because she never raised the subject again."

"And now?"

"Now?"

He gave her a dubious look. "She's a smart cookie, Caroline. How could she not have a clue?"

"Maybe she does. She hasn't asked outright, but she's pressured me for information about you."

"So she suspects that I'm not just a referral from a friend."

"Possibly. But it's quite a leap from expressing curiosity over your credentials to determining that you're her father. She might be putting two and two together, but it hasn't added up to four yet." After a moment, she added softly, "One thing, though."

"What?"

"Even if she is deliberating it, she won't reveal her hand until she's good and ready."

"Plays her hand close to her vest?"

She shot him a smile. "In that way she's like me."

Walmart came into view. The massive parking lot was in a state of barely controlled pandemonium. A few sheriff's office and state trooper cars were there with their colored lights flashing. Dogs were running in circles, sniffing the ground near a row of garbage receptacles. Onlookers were being held back by uniformed officers of various agencies, including the Merritt city police.

And in the thick of it was Ski Nyland.

Dodge understood why the deputy's telephone summons had been so abrupt. Presently he and several other badges were clustered around a potbellied, middle-aged guy wearing a blue Walmart employee vest. When Ski spotted Dodge pulling into the parking lot, he left the group and jogged toward them.

Dodge said, "He wants to jump our daughter."

Caroline said, "If I'm reading the vibes right, the feeling is mutual."

The moment Ski reached them, he asked, "Where's Berry?"

"She went to the hospital to see Ben," Caroline told him. "I couldn't reach her on her cell."

"Try again. Get her over here." As an afterthought he added a "please," although Caroline seemed not to have noticed his brusqueness. Responding to his sense of urgency, she immediately had accessed her cell phone and was speed-dialing Berry.

Dodge got out of the car and lit a cigarette.

Ski bore down on him, growling angrily, "What the hell, Dodge?"

Dodge clicked his lighter closed and blew smoke toward the sky. The deputy's anger needed no explanation. "I had a hunch, I acted on it."

"You tampered with evidence."

"Sue me. And, by the way, I didn't tamper with anything. I know how to handle evidence."

"Where is it now?"

"Safely stored. So what do you want to do? Slug out our difference of opinion on protocol and chain of evidence in front of God and everybody? Or talk about the significance of those pictures?"

Ski removed his sunglasses and wiped his sweating forehead on his sleeve. He glanced into the car at Caroline, who was still talking on her cell phone. Coming back around to Dodge and keeping his voice low, he said, "Best I can tell, they were taken with a telephoto lens."

"But close enough to be scary."

Ski gave a solemn nod of agreement. "Close enough. They're a whole friggin' photographic study of Berry's life here. He got shots of the lake house from every angle. He's got her coming and going all over town."

"Wearing different clothes," Dodge said. "Which means he followed her on numerous occasions."

"He got up close and personal, too."

The deputy's square jaw hardened, and Dodge knew he was thinking about the series of shots taken of Berry through her bedroom window, and when she was sunbathing on the pier, blissfully unaware that a man who'd vowed to kill her was watching, perversely violating her in a way that made Dodge's blood boil.

"Careless of him to leave them in the motel room."

"He didn't," Ski said. "I found them in a trash barrel on the side of the road behind the motel, near where he'd hidden the car."

"So even after killing the kid, he had the presence of mind to take them with him and try to unload them."

"He didn't want to be caught with something that would implicate him."

"Careful bastard."

"Berry told me he works puzzles. He's methodical. He won't stop."

"Which means we gotta stop him," Dodge said, tossing away his cigarette butt.

"He's on foot. At least he was."

"Fill me in."

"We found an abandoned maroon Toyota. Just by eyeballing the tire tracks, I'm almost certain it's the same car that was at the lake house and behind the motel. Starks left it on foot, shoeless."

"You used the dogs to track him." Dodge motioned to the trio of German shepherds, which were leashed but still moving in frenzied circles, their noses to the asphalt.

Ski said, "Army buddy of mine has this canine search and rescue outfit out of Tyler. He called up one of his best trainers and his dogs, got them down here in a hurry. We had Starks's shoes. The dogs picked up his scent, followed it along the railroad tracks till they crossed Highway 287 at a point a half mile from here."

Caroline got out of the car and joined them. "I caught Berry just as she was leaving the hospital. She'll be here within minutes."

"Then what?" Dodge asked, turning back to Ski. "After Starks got here."

"Then nothing. The trail goes cold."

"Shit."

"Tell me," Ski muttered. "All the dogs converged on the area just over there by the Dumpsters. Either he stole a vehicle, which I doubt since none has been reported, or he hijacked one, or somebody picked him up."

"You've ruled out that he was sucked up by space aliens?"

Ski snuffled. "At least then I'd know where to start looking. As it is, the trail ends here." He motioned toward the Walmart employee who seemed inflated by all the attention he was receiving. "Store manager. He's got Starks on several security camera videos. At least I'm fairly certain it's Starks. That's why I want Berry to take a look."

"Here she comes," Caroline said.

The parking lot was swarming with law enforcement personnel and onlookers, including a van full of elderly people from an assisted living facility, but Berry spotted the trio she sought the instant she turned off the highway.

She pulled her car to a stop near them and got out.

Ski said, "Thanks for getting here so fast."

She responded with matching formality. "Mother said Oren has been here."

He gave her a bullet-point rundown of the events that had taken place since the discovery of the abandoned car. "I thought you might look at the videos, confirm it's Starks."

"Of course."

"I'll get the manager and meet you inside the main entrance." He left them and, in his long-legged stride, walked over to the group of peace officers huddled around the man in a blue vest.

As she, Dodge, and Caroline made their way toward the store entrance, Caroline asked after Ben.

"He's glad he has drugs for the pain."

Berry had no more to say on the subject and was relieved when they didn't press her for details. The AC inside the store was a welcome relief from the heat of the parking lot. Ski and an older deputy, whom she remembered simply as Stevens, came in accompanied by the store manager, who said importantly, "This way," and busily jangled a cluster of keys attached to his belt.

Before they fell into step behind him, Dodge motioned toward the store's snack bar, where a young man was slouched in a booth. Across from him was a woman wearing a Merritt County sheriff's deputy uniform. The young man's posture and expression conveyed boredom and bad attitude. The deputy looked angry and dour as she tapped a pen against her blank notepad.

"Who's that with the deputy?" Dodge asked.

"The cashier who rang up Starks's purchase. We haven't been able to shake much out of him."

"Mind if I give it a shot?"

Ski shrugged. "Be my guest."

Stevens looked at Ski with surprise but didn't question his decision to give Dodge a turn with the witness.

Dodge strolled over to the booth. Ignoring the young man, he said something to the deputy, who looked over her shoulder at Ski. Ski gave her a nod. She shrugged, slid out of the booth, and left the store through the exit. Dodge took her place in the booth, facing the young man across the table.

Berry said, "I thought women were his speciality."

Caroline smiled faintly. "He can be persuasive with men, too."

Ski said, "I gotta get back outside, so I'm turning you over to Stevens."

He left, and the store manager ushered Berry, Caroline, and Stevens to the rear of the store and into his office. He seemed disappointed when Berry identified Oren Starks within seconds of watching the first security video he put into the player.

"That's him. Definitely." On the monitor Starks could be seen entering the store. "He's even wearing the same clothes." The video was in black and white, but even though the pants and shirt were rumpled, they matched those he'd had on when he came to the lake house.

"He's limping, too," she observed. He appeared benign, an average-looking man without a single sinister aspect. But seeing him again made Berry shiver with revulsion and fear.

"Didn't anyone notice that he was in stocking feet?" Caroline asked.

"The store is open twenty-four/seven." The deputy pointed at the digital time readout at the bottom of the screen. "He walked in at three-twelve a.m. That time of morning, only a skeleton crew is manning this huge store. There were a handful of other customers, but you can tell Starks avoids going down aisles where there were other shoppers."

Oren had made short work of picking out a pair of sports shoes and paying for them. He was in and out of the store within minutes. Caroline asked, "Why didn't he just put on the shoes and walk out? Why risk being recognized by the cashier?"

"Why risk being caught shoplifting?"

"And it wouldn't have been gaming," Berry said. The others looked at her. "He knew security cameras would be recording his movements. He's saying to us, 'I may be a killer, but I'm not a thief.'"

Stevens said, "You're positive this is our guy?"

"Positive."

"Ski was, too, but he wanted it corroborated anyhow. He's careful that way."

They filed out of the office and made their way through the aisles of the store toward the exit. There was no sign of Dodge and the young man in the snack bar, but when they emerged from the store, they saw him standing with the female deputy who'd been questioning him before Dodge took over. He now appeared much more talkative; the deputy was taking rapid notes.

"Guess your guy got him to open up," Stevens remarked as he guided Berry and Caroline over to where Ski and Dodge were conferring. Dodge was pulling hard on a cigarette. As they got near, Berry heard him say through a foggy exhale, "It's amazing how cooperative a guy can get when his dick is the bargaining chip."

Berry couldn't help but smile. "Dare I ask?"

Dodge grinned, but it was a chilling expression. "The cashier. I told him his attitude needed some readjustment, like right fucking now, or else. I made myself understood and believed."

"What did he say about Oren?"

Dodge was grinding out one cigarette and lighting another, so Ski answered for him. "He'd never heard of Oren Starks. He just moved here from Fort Worth to live with his grandmother, and all she watches on TV is the Weather Channel. Since he didn't go to school here, he didn't know Davis Coldare, either. He hates his job, hates the manager, hates the hours, but needs the money."

"For dope," Dodge provided. "He smoked some weed during his break about half an hour before Starks showed."

"You got that out of him?" Ski asked.

Dodge shrugged. "As I said, we reached an understanding."

Ski resumed. "Starks came up to the counter with the shoebox. The cashier scanned the bar code. Starks paid cash. The cashier gave him change for three twenties and a ten. He remembered because every other customer had paid with a credit card. He asked if Starks wanted a sack. Starks said no and walked out carrying the box, which we found along with his receipt in one of those containers. I'm assuming that's where he put on his new shoes."

"Then pulled a Casper and disappeared," Dodge said with finality.

"That was the extent of his exchange with the cashier?" Berry asked. " 'Do you want a sack?' 'No.' That was it?"

"I'm afraid so," Dodge said. "I asked him if Starks was acting funny. He said no. I asked was he acting weird or furtive. He asked me what furtive meant, so I described furtive behavior, and he said, 'Well, yeah, I mean, dude, I guess, maybe.' Make of that what you can."

Before they could make anything of it, Berry's cell phone rang. She took it from her handbag and touched the screen. "Hello."

"Hello, Berry."

Her heart nearly leaped from her chest. Even through the phone, despite the noise in the parking lot, there was no mistaking Oren's voice.

"Surprised to hear from me?" he asked.

Caroline and Dodge were bickering over his cigarette, but Ski's gray gaze was fixed on her. Reading her shocked expression correctly, he waved for the others to be quiet and moved to stand within an inch of her, a silent question in his eyes.

She nodded, wet her lips, said into the telephone, "Yes, Oren. I am very surprised. Where are you?"

He laughed, the awful sound causing goose bumps to break out on her arms. "Wouldn't you like to know?" He hummed a few bars of a tune.

Berry turned the screen of her phone toward Ski so he could read the number displayed. He scribbled it into his palm with a pen and held it out for Dodge to read. Dodge dropped his cigarette and ran toward a group of sheriff's deputies.

Ski was making a rolling motion with his hand, indicating to Berry that she should keep talking. But it was hard for her to hold a thought with all the commotion going on around her. She thought of switching over to speakerphone but was afraid that Oren would detect that others were listening in and hang up.

"Tell me where you are, Oren, so I can come and help you."

"Help me?" He dismissed that with a snort. "As if."

"You need help. You're hurt."

"Clumsy of me to fall down your stairs. It put my aim off, or you'd be dead."

It was difficult to ignore that, but she did. "Is your leg broken?"

"I'm not sure." He answered nonchalantly, as though she'd asked him whether or not he thought it would rain. "It's black and blue. Very swollen."

"Painful, I'm sure."

"Nothing I can't handle with some ibuprofen."

"You should get it examined. You might have developed an infection that could be fatal."

"Oh, I won't die that ingloriously, Berry. And I won't die without taking you with me."

She shuddered. Ski took her arm in a firm, reassuring grip that fortified her enough to continue. "Please listen to reason, Oren. You're in a lot of trouble. Ben is going to be okay. But the boy you shot last night died."

"That wasn't my fault."

"That's what we think, too."

"We? Meaning you and Deputy Nyland?"

At the mention of his name, Ski's eyebrows shot up, and she realized that he could hear Oren's voice through the phone.

"How do you know Deputy Nyland's name?"

"He's been mentioned in all the news reports."

"Yes, well, he believes you didn't mean to kill the Coldare boy." Ski nodded approval of what she'd said. "He thinks that shooting was an accident."

"Oh, I'll just bet he does."

"He does. He told me so himself. He's giving you the benefit of the doubt, Oren, but you're making yourself look guilty. Turn yourself in and--"

"He's there with you now, listening in."

"No, he isn't. I'm alone."

"Liar. There's too much background noise."

"I'm at a fast-food place waiting for my order."

"Which fast-food place?"

"What difference does it make?"

"Which fast food-place? I've become rather familiar with Merritt. Are you at the Chicken Shack or The Smokehouse?" Then he laughed. "Don't bother answering. Whatever you say, I know differently."

"Oren--"

"Shut up and listen to me, Berry. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you slowly. I'm going to watch you die, and I'm going to enjoy it. Turn around."

"What?" she asked hoarsely.

"There's a lot of confusion at Walmart this morning. Why, I'll bet a person could be in plain sight but remain unseen."

She spun around, her eyes rapidly scanning every face, searching for his.

"Boo!" He laughed his high-pitched giggle, hummed another few notes of a song, and then the phone went dead.

The hand holding her cell phone fell to her side. Caroline stepped forward and took it from her before she dropped it. Ski remained standing in front of her, as solid as a pillar, his hand still around her biceps.

Dodge came huffing up. "They've got the cell phone on GPS. Somehow, some way Starks made it back to Houston from here 'cause that's where he's at."

"He can't be," Berry said weakly.

Dodge gave her an odd look. Ski said to him, "He intimated that he could see her, that he's here."

"Here? Un-uh. He's just trying to spook you."

"Well, it's working. He said he knew Ski was with me. He said there was a lot of confusion at Walmart. How would he know that if he wasn't here, watching?"

"Easy guess," Dodge said. "He would know that, by now, he'd been tracked to the store, and that the first thing checked would be the security cameras to confirm that he was here. He's playing you."

Going back to Ski, he continued. "His location hasn't been pinpointed, but the GPS coordinates have been passed along to HPD and Harris County S.O. Officers have been dispatched and are running hot. Damn, I wish we'd had these toys when I was a cop."

Berry didn't doubt that Ski had registered everything Dodge had told him, but his eyes had remained on her. Softly he said, "You did great."

She gave him a weak smile and nodded. "Thanks."

"How'd the son of a bitch sound?" Dodge asked.

"Smug," Ski replied.

"What did he say?"

"That he was going to kill her. Slowly. That he was going to watch her die and enjoy it."

Dodge muttered an obscenity. "Give you any clues where he was?"

"The parking lot of Walmart," Berry said dully.

"He ain't here," Dodge insisted. "He called from a Houston location. Was there any background noise?"

Ski said, "I didn't hear anything distinctive. Did you, Berry?"

She shook her head.

Ski moved his hand onto her shoulder, squeezed it gently and repeated, "You did great." Then to the group in general, he said, "If he called from Houston--"

"He did," said Dodge emphatically.

"Then I'm going down there. Dodge, do you still have your pistol?"

"What do you think?"

"Will you stay with Berry?"

"I want to be there when they book this asshole," Dodge said.

"They don't have him yet."

"When they do."

"You're still hoping for a crack at him."

"That, too. That especially."

Ski shook his head. "Sorry, Dodge. You're unofficial. Besides, if Starks eludes capture again, I trust Berry with you more than I trust her with anybody else."

Dodge swore, looked at Caroline, then at Berry. "All right," he said to Ski. "I won't let her out of my sight."

"Thanks."

"But I'm still gonna shoot the bastard if I get a chance. I know an excellent defense attorney."

Ski grinned, then turned and started jogging away.

"And, Ski, something else." Ski stopped and turned back. Dodge said, "That number that Starks called her from?"

"I'm sure HPD is running down the records on it."

"No need to," Dodge said. "Didn't you recognize it? It's Sally Buckland's cell phone."