Way Past Dead

“Anything’s possible, especially when it looks like it’s your last hope. So let’s get started. You knew her, maybe better than anybody else. I’ve talked to Ray and he’s filled me in on some of the background. I want to hear it from you. Who else could have killed Rebecca?”

Slim brought both hands up and massaged the tension out of his face. I started getting the jitters again, and almost reminded him we only had an hour. Then I decided to hold on and let Slim do this his own way.

“If I had to bet money on it,” he finally said, “I’d lay it all on either Dwight Parmenter or Mike Pinkleton.”

“I know who Dwight Parmenter is, but who’s Pinkleton?”

“Mike Pinkleton was her road manager, the head roadie.”

“Was?”

“Yeah, was. She fired him a week ago.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know, although Mike was a pretty tough kind of guy. Biceps the size of half-gallon jugs and biker tattoos everywhere. Hair down to his shoulders, blue-jean jacket with the arms cut off. You know the type.”

“How long had he worked for her?”

“That’s the weird part. Becca inherited him after our act broke up. That’s how far back we all go. He’d worked for her maybe five, six years.”

“Then why would she fire him?”

“You find that out, you may be onto something,” Slim said.

“But you think he could beat somebody to death?”

Slim snickered. “Wait’ll you see him.”

Enough said. “Okay, now why Dwight Parmenter? From what Ray said, he had a bad case of the hots for her.”

“Which is why he’d have done it,” Slim snapped. He jerked a finger at the window. “You just don’t understand, Harry. When it came to Becca Gibson, the only thing worse than wanting her was having her. She left a trail of bodies behind-used, abused, and excused.”

“I’m trying to understand that. I know she was a heartbreaker and a ballbreaker. But why Dwight Parmenter? If he had the hots for her and she turned him down, did he kill her just for that? Or did he wind up sleeping with her and then get thrown over? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Slim sank back on the stool, calmer now. “I know they were doin’ it,” he said. “Both of them told me that. In fact, there were days lately where I’d get off the phone with one of them bitching to me about the affair, and then five minutes later the other one would call.”

“You were caught in the middle.”

“Yeah,” he said, his head drooping with the weight, “just like I am now.”

“What about her manager?” I asked, shifting gears. “What’s-his-name …”

“Mac Ford. Yeah, he’ll be able to help you. He knew more about the business dealings than anybody else. I’m pretty sure he’ll talk to you.”

“Great, but what I meant was could he have killed her?”

Slim got this quizzical look on his face. “Why? He’d worked with her all these years, trying to build her a career. Rebecca was going to take off. She was going to be really big, and Mac’s cut was going to take care of the next three generations.

“No.” He shook his head. “Anybody in this mess comes out a loser, it’s Mac Ford. Besides Rebecca, that is. Mac’s lost a fortune. He’ll still make money off her, though, off everything she’s got in the can. He won’t starve.”

“What about a will?” I asked. “Becca have one?”

Slim looked thoughtful for a second, as if he were recalling some long-ago memory that made him feel warm inside. “You know, back when we were married and it looked like we were going to go somewhere, I brought the subject up one time. Becca wouldn’t even discuss it. I tried to tell her, ‘Honey, we could get in a car wreck or something.’ She busted my ass over it. Funny thing, Harry, she was scared as hell of death.”

His voice had become softer, lower, as if somewhere beneath the decade’s worth of abuse and baggage and emotional garbage, he still loved her. Some people, I knew from hard experience, were just like that. They get under your skin, wrap themselves around your very nerve endings, and never turn you loose.

“Well, if it’s any comfort,” I said, “she doesn’t have anything to be afraid of now.”

Slim’s eyes glazed over, and I was sorry I’d said that. “Nobody could ever understand it who hadn’t been through it, Harry. That woman was the best thing that ever happened to me-and the worst. All at the same time.”

As I left the jail a half hour or so later, I thought of what Slim had said: The only thing worse than wanting her was having her. I couldn’t help but think of Saint Teresa, and the price she quoted for inordinately strong desires.

Something about answered prayers and shed tears …

The five hundred in cash Lonnie’d loaned me was going to be a pretty good cushion, but I still needed to stay on top of Phil Anderson at the insurance company to get my invoice paid. I got my car out of hock at the parking lot across the street from the jail, then navigated through the traffic back to my office so I could catch him before his usual round of afternoon meetings.

It was nearly ten-thirty by the time I hit the landing on the third floor and turned for my office. As I scrambled for my keys I heard the relays in my answering machine clattering away again, and a muffled voice leaving what sounded like the last of a message. I couldn’t understand what the caller was saying, but the voice was Southern, almost hick.

“All right,” I said out loud, thinking it sounded like Phil Anderson, “do that paperwork thing you do so well.” For some unknown reason, I was in a good mood. Maybe it was just the apex of the bipolar roller-coaster ride. I hoped, maybe even assumed, that Phil was calling me with good news. I already had the money spent.

I pushed the door open just as the caller hung up. My ancient answering machine takes about thirty seconds to reset itself. I took off my coat and cracked a window to air the place out.

I opened my briefcase and took out the notebook where I’d made a page of notes after talking to Slim. The conversation with him had helped a little, but not much. I absentmindedly reached over and hit the play button. After the obligatory greeting from the computer chip, a voice dripping Dixie syrup began playing off the tape. It wasn’t the voice I expected.

“Hey, you son of a bitch, this’s me again. I just wanted you to know I ain’t forgot the promise I made. You go ahead and have you a real good time, boy, because yo’ good times is about to come to a end.…”

Click and dial tone, fade the hell out.

“Jeezus H.,” I said, “what is going on with this guy?”

I reached into my briefcase and recovered the tape with the first threatening message and slapped it in the machine. I hit the button again and listened to the first message.

Yeah, same voice. Same slurring of the words son of a bitch. Somehow, I’d managed to piss off somebody who sounded like they had a mouthful of cotton, or more likely, chewing tobacco.

I pulled the tape out of the machine and stuffed both tapes into my briefcase. If this kept up, I’d soon be heading to Wal-Mart for a case of answering machine tapes.

Who the hell could this be? The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t know the person. Not only did I not recognize the voice, but the threatening messages had only been left on my office machine. After some nut I ran into made a couple of nasty phone calls to my apartment a few months ago, I’d had my home number changed and unlisted. So whoever was taking a turn at me now was beholden to the Yellow Pages. My only recourse was to save the tapes until I had enough of them to call South Central Bell and file a harassment claim.

I raked across my Rolodex cards until Phil Anderson’s came up. Seven short number punches later, I was talking to his secretary.