When Tucker reached out for it, Sam formed a fist around the bill. “You gotta give me the goods first, Tucker.”
“She’s dead, huh? Pinky’s dead?” The man’s nose turned red, and he blinked his watery eyes.
Jolene sniffed. “Yeah, Pinky’s dead.”
Tucker cackled and slapped the thigh of his raggedy black pants. “I saw who killed her.”
Chapter Ten
Jolene’s fingers curled around the door, and she caught her breath. She felt like grabbing Tucker and shaking him, but she didn’t want to scare him off. The guy seemed ready to blow away with the next breeze.
“You saw what happened to Pinky?”
“I heard.” Tucker tapped his head. “I was dreaming in my pad.”
“Dreaming?” Sam turned his head and rolled his eyes at her. “You mean you were sleeping?”
“I was sleeping and dreaming.” Tucker started combing his fingers through his unkempt beard, not a gray hair visible, but he looked old enough to be Sam’s father. “Big loud noise woke me up.”
“Did you hear voices?” Sam allowed the ten-dollar bill to peek through his fist, and Tucker’s gaze followed every one of Sam’s gestures. “Yelling? Screaming?”
“Just a yelp, like a yelp, yip, yap. Big loud noise. Scraping sound like furniture moving.” Tucker narrowed his eyes. “Then he left.”
Jolene’s heart jumped. “You saw the man who killed Mel...Pinky?”
“I heard footsteps—clomp, bomp, stomp. I eyed, spied though the blinds and saw a man leaving. Stocking cap on his head. It’s hot. Nobody needs no stocking cap.”
“This rhyming is giving me a headache.” Sam rubbed his temple with two fingers. “Did you see what this guy looked like, Tucker? Other than the stocking cap? Beard? Long hair? Clothing?”
Tucker tore at his shirt. “It wasn’t me. No beard. It wasn’t me. Don’t take my thumb, don’t take my thumb, don’t take my thumb, drum, crumb drive.”
“Damn.” Sam dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t say it was you, Tucker, and we’re not going to take your thumb. I’m asking what the guy looked like.”
“Dark clothes, black clothes. Dark, stark, weird beard.” He waved his hands. “Not me, not me. Not my thumb.”
“We know that, Tucker.” She tugged on Sam’s sleeve. “Give him the money for God’s sake.”
Sam held on to the bill and asked, “Did you see him get into a car? Hear a car?”
“No car. Like me, no truck. But not me.” Tucker started hopping from foot to foot. “It wasn’t me. Not my thumb.”
Sam smacked a hand against his forehead. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Jolene hunched over the car door. “Tucker, can you talk to the police? Tell them what you told us? You want to help Pinky, don’t you? She was good to you, and that man hurt her.”
“They’ll get me for staying in that place when I ain’t supposed to. They’ll take my thumb drive. Pinky gave me that.”
“You’re not there now. The cops aren’t going to arrest you for anything. They’re trying to find out what happened to Pinky.” Sam held out the balled up ten to Tucker. “I’ll make sure they don’t arrest you. Just tell them what you saw.”
Tucker snatched the bill and opened his voluminous coat, wet from the rains, to find a place to put the money. As he tugged open one side of his coat, a purse fell to the ground.
Jolene covered her mouth. “Sam, that’s Melody’s purse.”
Tucker made a grab for the purse and shouted, “Not me. Not me. No thumb. In the floor.”
He scrambled toward the bushes, and Sam lunged forward and tackled him, pinning his arms behind his back. “That’s it, Tucker. Game over. Jolene, go get the police down here.”
“Sam!” Jolene clutched her stomach as Tucker wailed. “You don’t really believe he killed Melody, do you?”
“He has her damned purse, Jolene. Go get the cops before I have to hurt him.” Sam flipped Tucker over and planted a knee in the middle of the frail man’s back.
Jolene jogged across the parking lot and grabbed the first officer she saw. “We ran into a homeless guy near our car. He admitted to squatting in the apartment next to Melody’s, and he has her purse.”
Another cop overheard her and the two sheriff’s deputies hustled toward the edge of the parking lot.
When they arrived, Sam looked up from the squirming Tucker. “I’m Border Patrol. I have my weapon but no cuffs. I didn’t have to pull my gun, but you need to take him into custody.”
Tucker thrashed on the ground. “You told me you wouldn’t call them. Where’s my ten bucks? Tucker, trucker. Tucker, trucker.”
One of the officers swore. “Oh man, it’s Tucker Bishop.”
“You know him?” Sam panted. “He’s wriggling like a fish on a line over here.”
“We pick him up occasionally, mostly for a seventy-two-hour hold in the psych ward. He’s usually not violent.”
“Yeah, except he’s in possession of a dead woman’s purse. He told us he heard someone in Melody’s apartment and saw him walk by, but I don’t know how much we can trust him.”
The deputies approached Sam and Tucker, one of them drawing his weapon. “Stop struggling, Tucker. We’re gonna take you to the station and find out what you know, give you a cot and a hot. Why do you have that woman’s purse?”
“She gave it to me. She gave me stuff.”
Sam finally relinquished control of Tucker to the sheriff’s deputies. Standing up, he brushed off his clothing. “I’m going to have to do more laundry.”
Jolene spotted Melody’s purse on the ground and crouched down, reaching out for it.
“Don’t touch it, Jolene. Let them bag it for evidence and test it for prints. The fewer people touching it right now, the better.”
She snatched her hand back. “I don’t see her phone.”
“What?” Sam took a knee beside her.
“Her phone.” Jolene poked at the purse with a stick she snatched up from the parking lot. “She’d usually stick it in this
