Faye Kellerman - The Mercedes Coffin

“But the good Lord must have been looking over my shoulder. I meant to tell him yes, but what came out of my mouth was a no. He starts trying to up me, and suddenly I’m back in his face, besting him. I told him that I was a star basketball player and I was being looked at for the bigs, which was a total lie, but hell if he was gonna do better than me, know what I’m saying?”

Oliver nodded. “So how did Leroy respond to that?”

“Just by tellin’ me what a fool I was. And then he said that it was probably a good thing that I said no because Rudy was still mad at me for botching up the operation. So then I told Leroy, it wasn’t me who botched the operation, it was Ben Little.”

No one spoke.

Arlington said, “Then Leroy sorta laughed. You know…snickered kinda. Then he said to me…he said, ‘We don’t have to worry no more about Ben Little.’ And I said, ‘I know that. He’s dead. Someone shot him.’ And he said, ‘I know all about that, Big D’-that’s what he used to call me. Big D. Then he says…he says…‘You know, I was there when it went down.’”

Another moment of silence.

“I got mute. Like Leroy just sucker-punched me. I felt sick just like when I first found out about the murder. I mean, I didn’t even know that Leroy and Dr. Ben knew each other. But I suppose that Dr. Ben knew everyone. So I said…I said, ‘You did it, Yo-King? You snipped Dr. Ben?’ Then Leroy was acting all defensive. He said, ‘I didn’t do no snippin’, I just said I was there when it went down.’ Then he said, ‘I didn’t know they was gonna take him down. Things just got bad.’ And I say, ‘Who took him down?’ And Leroy say, ‘Don’t matter who done it. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Jervis and it wasn’t even a brother. And now it’s over.’ Then he asked me do I want to be a major pimp or no. So I say, ‘No, I don’t got time to be no pimp.’ And that was that. He never called me again, I never called him again.”

Arlington swallowed hard.

“I never even thought about calling the police. I had no proof that Leroy was talking true, and even if he was, I would never pigeon a friend.” Another beat. “It turned out that Leroy wasn’t just blowing smoke about turning A-Tack into a pimp. He did cut a CD and Leroy sent it to me, being all smug. At that time, I was burning with envy. Just burning! I was determined to do better. I figured I really fucked up myself by not going back and joining Leroy. I kept playing the CD and saying, ‘I could do better than that. I could do way better than that.’”

Silence.

“If you know what happened to Jervis and Leroy, you know what changed my mind.”

Marge asked, “How’d you hear about the shooting?”

“My mama told me.” He looked away. “She called me up all excited and told me about Leroy dying and Jervis being paralyzed.”

“What did you think?”

“What did I think?” A beat. “I was sick. I got down on my knees and thanked Jesus for my salvation.” He blew out air. “I tried not to look at Leroy being shot as God’s justice for Dr. Ben, but you think what you think. I didn’t know why it was in God’s plan for Jervis to be hurt. Hell, if Leroy would have called me to pick him up, I would have done the same thing.

“The shooting turned Jervis’s life around. He told me that since he was in a wheelchair, he had lots of time to think about things. He found Jesus and never looked back. That’s what he told me.”

“Did Jervis try to contact you again after you left California?”

“Nah. We faded out of each other’s life for ten years. Then out of the blue, he sent me a Christmas card…telling me what he’s doing. So I wrote him back, telling him what I’m doing. We’ve been exchanging cards now for about five years but nothing more than that. I was happy he found his life, and he seemed happy that I found mine. I hadn’t actually talked to him until last week, when he called to tell me about the interview he had with you.” He looked at Marge. “That’s when he told me that he had gone to Clearwater Park to pick up Leroy. He also told me that Leroy was real jingly, and Jervis knew that something bad had happened. Then I told him about my phone call with Leroy six months after Dr. Ben died. I told him that Leroy said he was there but never admitted to doin’ nothin’”

Arlington stared at the window.

“Maybe Leroy snipped him, maybe he had help. We’re never gonna know because Leroy’s dead.”

“And you’re sure that Leroy never mentioned Rudy Banks in connection with the killing,” Oliver said.

“Leroy didn’t tell me any names. I know that the police talked to Leroy after Dr. Ben’s murder. If they couldn’t get the truth out of Leroy, I figured why should I do their job for them?” He turned to the detectives. “I suppose if you’re determined to arrest me, you’ll do it no matter what I say.”

“We’re not going to arrest you,” Marge said. “But we’re not at that point yet where we have to be concerned with legal matters. We’re just trying to solve an old crime. We’re trying to speak for Ben Little who can’t speak for himself. Thank you for talking to us again. We’ll probably have some follow-up questions if you don’t mind.”

Arlington opened the door to his office and blew the whistle. “Back in formation. I want to see you practice going down the lanes. Keep it smooth.” He turned back to Marge and Oliver. “You can go ahead and ask your questions. And I’ll answer them. But do me a favor, Detectives. Next time you want to talk to me, use the phone.”

DECKER LEANED BACK in his desk chair and regarded his two detectives. A dedicated duo, they had come straight from LAX to work. “So Leroy Josephson told Darnell Arlington that he was there when Bennett Little was shot?”

“Leroy ‘saw it go down’ was the quote,” Marge answered. “Leroy made a point of telling Darnell that he didn’t murder Ben, just that something bad had happened and Little was killed.”

“And that was about the extent of his details,” Oliver added.

“Yeah, it seems that everyone that we’ve talked to is involved and connected, but none of them murdered Little,” Marge remarked. “And equally as convenient, the supposed guilty ones are either dead or missing.”

Decker said, “And both of you found Darnell to be credible?”

Oliver rubbed his eyes. He and Marge had been up since four in the morning to make a six-thirty flight out of Ohio to get to work by ten. Going cross-country east to west was always disruptive. True, he gained three hours, but his internal clock was so discombobulated that it hardly mattered. Even full-strength coffee wasn’t helping. “Right now, I don’t know. When we left, I felt like he was telling the truth.”

“I did, too.” Marge was wearing drawstring pants, a loose-fitting T-shirt, and an unstructured jacket. Comfortable traveling clothes that went anywhere. “If you think it’s necessary, we can set up lie detector tests to rule out Wenderhole and Arlington. But even if they came back as being deceptive, we don’t have anything that ties them to the crime-no witnesses, no physical evidence, just a lot of hearsay.”

Oliver yawned. “I agree with Marge.”

Decker said, “You look tired, Scott.”

“I’ll wake up eventually. I have to. I have a court case this afternoon.”

“Lester Hollis?”

“Yeah.”

“What about you?” Decker asked Marge.

“Other than a mound of paperwork, nothing too pressing.”

“At this point, do we have any new reason to think that Melinda Little, Jervis Wenderhole, and Darnell Arlington were directly involved in Bennett Little’s murder?”

“I don’t know about involved,” Marge said. “I don’t think any of them were actually there when Little was murdered.”