The Crush Part 29

Oren fiddled with the tricolored satin ribbon tied around the ugly carnations. He glanced at Wick askance.

"You gotta look at it from his standpoint, Wick."

"The h.e.l.l I do! Until he has to have six units of blood, until his nuts swell to the size of bowling b.a.l.l.s and he's got a tube shoved up his d.i.c.k, don't talk to me about his standpoint."

"I know you're gonna be p.i.s.sed when I say this--"

"So don't."

"When it comes right down to it, he's right."

"If I could slug you right now, I would."

"I knew you'd get p.i.s.sed." Oren sighed. "Look, Wick, the DA plays it safe, yes, but--"

"He's a p.u.s.s.y!"

"Maybe, but he's justified this time. When you boil it down, we've got nothing hard on Lozada."

"Lozada," Wick sneered. "He's got everybody running scared, doesn't he? You think he's not laughing his a.s.s off at us?"

Oren gave him several seconds to cool off before continuing.

"Everything in our hopper is circ.u.mstantial.

Lozada knows you. He knew Sally Horton. That's a link, but it doesn't provide motivation. If, by some weird fluke, the grand jury did indict him, we could never make a case out of that. I was given three days to come up with something.

Same as always, he didn't leave a trace. I've got nothing."

"Except my word on it."

Oren looked pained. "The DA factored in your background with Lozada. He hasn't forgotten what happened.

That reduces your credibility."

Arguing a point so blatantly valid would be futile.

Oren sat down on the green vinyl armchair and stared at the floor. "I've got no choice but to release him. It wasn't easy, but I got search warrants. We've tossed his place.

Nothing. Clean as a freaking whistle. Even his scorpions look sanitary. His car, same thing. Not a trace of blood, fibers, anything. We've got the weapons, but they could belong to anybody. No eyewitnesses except you, and you've been discredited. Besides, by your own account, you didn't actually see him."

"I was too busy leaking blood into my gut."

"His lawyer is already making a h.e.l.l of a racket about police hara.s.sment. He says--"

"I don't want to hear what he says. I don't want to hear a G.o.dd.a.m.n word about that son of a b.i.t.c.h's civil rights being violated, okay?"

A long silence ensued. After a time, Oren glanced toward the corner near the ceiling. "TV work all right?"

Wick had muted the sound when Oren came in. The picture was little more than colored snow, but images could be detected if you looked hard enough. "Sucks. No cable."

They stared at the silent program for several moments before Oren asked if it was a good show.

"Those two are mother and daughter," Wick explained.

"The daughter slept with the mother's husband."

"Her father?"

"No, about her fourth stepfather. Her real father is the father. The parish priest. But n.o.body knows that except her mother and the priest. He hears his daughter's confession about boinking her mother's husband and freaks out. He blames the mother for being a bad influence, calls her a s.l.u.t. But he's guilt-ridden because he hasn't been there for his daughter. As a father--I mean as a dad. He's been her priest since he christened her. It's sorta complicated.

He went to her house, for christsake." Wick's last statement didn't relate to the soap opera, but Oren knew that.

"I can't rule out the possibility that she invited him there, Wick."

He didn't even honor that with a comeback. He let his

hard stare say it all.

"I said it's only a possibility." Averting his head, Oren muttered something else that Wick didn't catch.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"He was feeling her t.i.t. Okay?"

He wished he hadn't asked, but he had. He'd pressured Oren into telling him, and Oren had, and now he was gauging Wick's reaction. He kept his expression as pa.s.sive as possible. "She was afraid to fight him off."

"That's what Grace said too, but neither of you was there."

"Grace?"

"Oh, yeah." Oren gestured expansively. "My wife has become Dr. Newton's number one fan."

"I knew they had met. All Grace said to me was that she was glad I was in such capable hands."

"I get slightly more than that at home. I get an earful about how I'm judging the doctor too harshly and unfairly.

Grace thinks I'm holding a grudge because she served on that jury."

For the first time since Oren walked into his room, Wick came close to smiling. He liked to think of Grace giving his partner an earful. If there was anyone on earth Oren would listen to, it was his wife, whom he not only loved but also respected for her insight. "Grace is a smart lady."

"Yeah, well, she didn't see the romantic setting that I did. She hasn't seen this,^either."

From the breast pocket of his sport jacket, Oren withdrew several sheets of paper that had been folded together lengthwise. He laid them on the bed tray next to the untouched juice. Wick made no move to pick up the sheets.

"In all the excitement of recent days you might have forgotten that Dr. Newton fatally shot a man when she was sixteen."

"It didn't escape your memory, though, did it?"

"Don't you think it needs to be checked out before we submit her name for sainthood? I contacted Dal ton PD, along with the county sheriff's office. It's all in there."

Wick resented the incriminating sheets on the bed tray and was reluctant to read them. "Why don't you summarize it for me."

"Ugly. Very ugly," Oren said. "Daddy walked in seconds

after the two shots were fired. Raymond Collier was dead.

Died instantly. T. Dan a.s.serted that his big bad business partner had tried to seduce his sweet baby girl. She shot him to protect her virtue. Clear-cut self-defense."

"It could've gone down that way."

"It could've, but unlikely. Especially since she'd been going down on Collier."

"Oh, good segue, Detective."

Oren ignored the remark. "A good question for her would be why she chose to protect her virtue on that particular day."

"Did anyone ask her?"

"I don't know. I doubt it. Because here's where it gets really interesting. No one was formally questioned. There was no hearing, no inquest, no nothing. T. Dan had deep pockets. Apparently he threw enough money around to bury the thing quicker than it took for Collier's body to get cold. His death was ruled an accident... at the scene.

Case closed. Everybody went home happy, including Collier's widow. She left Dalton for her new, completely furnished condo in Breckenridge, Colorado. She made the trip in her s.h.i.+ny new Jag."

Wick thought it through, then said, "You talk about reduced credibility. I don't believe any of it."

"Why not?"

"The police department and sheriff's office admitted to sweeping a fatal shooting under the rug?"

"No. Their reports were brief, but official. There was no evidence to support anything other than an accident.

But I tracked down the former cop who was first on the scene."

"Former?"

"He left law enforcement to install satellite dishes. But he remembered driving out to the Newtons' house that day in response to the summons. He said it was the weirdest thing."

"What?"

"Their behavior. Whether it was accidental or intentional, if you'd just shot somebody stone dead, wouldn't you be upset? A little rattled? Shed a few tears? Show some remorse? At the very least do a little nervous hand-wringing?

"He said Rennie Newton sat there cool as a cuc.u.mber.

Those big green eyes of hers stayed dry. And she's sixteen, remember? Kids that age are usually excitable. He said she never faltered as she talked him through what had happened.

"T. Dan and Mrs. Newton sat on either side of her. T.

Dan lambasted Collier for attempting to rape his daughter.

Just went to show, he said, how you never really knew someone as well as you thought you did. The mother cried softly

into a hanky. She had heard nothing, seen nothing, knew nothing, and would the officers care for something to drink. The ex-cop said it was downright spooky, like being in an episode of The Twilight Zone."

Wick tried to imagine a sixteen-year-old Rennie giving a calm account of killing a man, even accidentally. He couldn't. He couldn't imagine the incorrigible teen Crystal had described either, or the nymphet who had enticed a married man. Nothing he had heard about her past life coincided with her present one.

Oren said, "I'd better be shoving off. Let you catch a nap. Can I get you anything before I go?"

Wick shook his head.

"I don't mind going down to the magazine shop and--"

"No thanks."

"Okay then. I'll come back with Grace tonight. Sometime after supper. Think you're up to a visit from the girls?"

"Sure, that'd be great."

"They've been bugging us to bring them to see you. I promise we won't stay long."