Leann Sweeney - Shoot from the Lip

The moment I sat in the front passenger seat, my phone rang. I checked the caller ID and showed the display to White. “It’s Jeff.”

“By all means tell him what you’ve been doing tonight.”

I opened the phone and put it to my ear. “Hey.”

“You getting ready for bed?” he asked.

“Not exactly. I’m sitting in Sergeant White’s car at a crime scene. Hang on.” I looked at White. “Can we go to speakerphone, Sergeant?”

“Why?”

“I think Jeff would like to talk to you.” God knows I needed his help.

“Sure, princess. I’ll talk to a real cop.”

“What happened?” Jeff said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Speaker okay?”

“Yes,” Jeff answered.

I pressed the speaker option. “I’m about to tell you and Sergeant White why I’m here at a murder scene.”

And I did, talking too fast at times-Jeff had to ask me to slow down more than once-and finishing with, “I hope it’s not my fault this man is dead.”

“Your fault? I don’t think you wielded that knife tonight, Abby,” Jeff said. “Don, you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I heard about Bennie. I’m sorry, man. How’s his wife doing?”

“You know what she said? She said all these years neither one of us got shot in the line and then he goes down on the job anyway. Fucking bad luck, you ask me.”

“You’re there for them both, though. And that’s good luck. Bet you can’t think about much else,” Jeff said.

“That’s the God’s truth. I guess no one can call your girl off this case, Kline? Not even you?”

“She’s working for a client and has a license to do it. You know that, right?”

White sighed heavily. “I know, but she’s probably the same age as my daughter. She’s gonna get hurt. Then I got these TV assholes to deal with. And your partner? You can have him back the minute you show up. Wants to tell me how to do-”

“Don? If you trust DeShay and if you let Abby do her thing, I promise you they’ll work as hard as any of us. You can spend more time with Bennie that way.”

“I’m still on the job,” White said defensively. “I’m still-”

“Listen to me. Abby and DeShay are the good guys. They’re smart. They can help you.”

White bowed his head. “I never thought anything would be more important than the job. Never. Not until Bennie went down.”

I think I’d been holding my breath through the entire conversation, but I felt like I could relax a little now.

Jeff said, “Abby? You there?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly.

“Work with Don, not against him, okay?”

“Sure. Of course. I’ll call you later.”

I disconnected and looked at White. “I’ve told you all I know. I’m worried about the tail, the one Larry Murray picked up on. Someone could have been following me all day, and that’s how they got to Billings.”

“See, that’s the kind of stuff that worries me, Abby.” At least, thanks to Jeff, all his anger and sarcasm seemed to have dissipated.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re saying a murderer probably followed you around,” he said. “Doesn’t that scare you?”

My turn to be defensive. “Sure it does, but that’s part of my job.”

He smiled. “Tough girl, huh? Who besides the TV company would want to tail you?”

“An investigative reporter from a TV or radio station was sniffing around my house this afternoon. Mary Parsons. She seemed to know I’m working for Emma.”

“I know her. She’s nothing to worry about. Anyone else?”

“I was seen all day with Emma on Monday-the day the house was leveled. Our pictures were even in the Chronicle. Then, after her accident, I made plenty of trips to her hotel. I’ve also had a little publicity of my own in the last few years. Guess it wouldn’t be that hard to figure out who I was and what I do if someone decided to check me out.”

He said, “Who you are, yes, but maybe not what you’re doing for Emma Lopez. The TV crew knew, though. One of them could have been approached by or spoken to the wrong person when everyone was standing around watching after the baby bones were found.”

“I never thought about that. Did the HPD videographer catch any crowd footage?” I asked.

White raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “You want to see if you recognize someone you’ve never seen from crowd footage?”

Guess all the sarcasm wasn’t gone.

He went on, saying, “All we know is that someone was real interested in what you’ve been up to. I’m glad you were smart enough to ask Peters to come with you tonight.”

“Hey, I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night. And so you know, I have a thirty-eight in my glove compartment and I know how to use it.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me, Annie Oakley.” He closed his eyes, shook his head. “Figuring out how all these cases are connected will be tough. Billings died because he knew something. Either that or he got too honest at that meeting he went to and pissed somebody off. Christ, we’ll have to find out where he was and who he talked to. And the anonymous don’t much like talking to us. Maybe because we put so many of them in jail before they decide to get sober.”

“You actually believe it was a coincidence that he was murdered on the day I talked to him? Or that one of hisAA-”

“No, I don’t believe he was murdered by one of his AA pals. But I always try to think about all the possibilities.”

“Billings knew Christine O’Meara and mentioned her baby to get me to offer him more cash. Someone had to shut him up before he talked.”

“Duh, yeah,” White said.

“You think Christine’s murderer and Billings’s killer are the same person?” I asked.

“We can’t jump to that conclusion yet,” White said. “One thing I do know: Someone’s out there with a major secret, and they’ve been covering their trail for years-piling on layers while all we’ve got are dried-up leads.”

“Then a TV show comes to town,” I said. “And shines a big, bright light on a buried child.”

“Yeah.” White nodded. “That’s what drew this turd out of the shadows. The publicity.”

“The Chronicle ran a piece before Emma’s house went down. I didn’t see the article, but Chelsea Burch was pretty upset that the paper printed a story about the reality show in advance. If the demolition hadn’t been moved up, all the local TV stations would have been there Tuesday morning.”

He laughed. “Ain’t that too bad they missed out.”

“But that doesn’t mean the killer wasn’t there later on,” I said. “He or she could have arrived on the scene once the story about the baby bones was bulletined across every television screen.”

We were both silent for several seconds. White finally said, “We can guess all we want, but we need evidence. I gotta go help Peters with that. Your car around here?”

“DeShay drove.”

“Then I guess you’re stuck until I can find you a ride home.”

I could have called Kate, but decided I’d rather hang around a little while, maybe learn something more. But I hoped that didn’t mean I had to sit with the corpse.

The following morning, a Saturday, I awoke feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. The same question kept invading my dreams, waking me over and over: What did Billings know that got him killed?

As I lay under my quilt with Diva purring beside me, possibilities rolled around in my brain. Billings may have lied about why he declined the Crime Stoppers reward. Perhaps he’d figured out who killed Christine and was blackmailing the murderer. But judging from his low-rent apartment and his job mounting tires, he sure hadn’t received much of anything for keeping a very big secret. I suppose he could have lost the blackmail money somehow-or maybe the ex-wife took everything for child support. I had no idea.