Telephone poles and yucca trees flashed by as Roberts made good time, hauling west on Highway 78. He wasn’t far from Brawley. He needed gas again and figured that the town would be a good place to stop and fill the tank while grabbing a bite. He’d buy the girl-what was her name, oh yeah, Vera-a meal just as Haskell had done for him. Money would not be a problem now, not with the seven hundred sixty-eight bucks he found in the guy’s wallet. He felt a little guilty taking Haskell’s money, but he knew he’d have to buy gas, and besides, dead men didn’t need money.
He decided to let Vera sleep until they pulled into the gas station, where she could use the restroom to fix herself up. He wanted her to look clean and fresh when they entered the cafe, just another normal couple on the road. He didn’t want to draw any attention. Not with a dead body about a hundred miles back. Yeah, he’d let her sleep for a few more miles.
But Roberts didn’t have to wake Vera. She awoke by herself, and when she did, she turned and snapped at him, “Where did you leave his body?”
Useless. Vera had him nailed. Before Roberts had offered her a lift, she’d ridden all the way from Louisiana with Haskell. He picked her up at a roadside tavern outside of Shreveport, but dumped her in Arizona when she refused to “cooperate.” Haskell had the scratches on his arm to prove she’d meant business.
As Roberts drove, he contemplated how fate had tripped him up again. Of all the broads in the world, why did she have to be the one standing there at the side of the road looking the way she did?
He’d already given Vera all the money. Now, he hoped she would keep her word and not squeal to the cops about Haskell rotting in a ditch. About Roberts wearing the dead man’s clothes and cruising along the highway in his fine convertible.
Another two hours of silence passed as he drove across the California desert, frantically ransacking his mind-creating, and then finding the obvious flaws, demolishing countless plans of how to get rid of the woman who called herself Vera.
But after they drove through the Banning Pass and approached the outskirts of San Bernardino, she said, “I wanna stop in town. I wanna get some things before we hit L.A.”
“Okay, we’ll find a store. I’ll drop you off and circle the block.” Sometimes unexpectedly, an opportunity appears…
“Nothin’ doing, buster. From now on, we’re stickin’ together. We’re gonna be like Siamese twins.”
…And disappears.
It was twelve minutes past noon when the man slipped into number 2 at the motor court bungalow. Pausing, he glanced around the room and, noticing no one, tucked the gun back in his jacket pocket. He stepped lightly across to the bedroom door. Pressing his ear to the painted wood, he heard someone breathing heavily, snoring in the other room. Had to be her. This was going to be easier than he thought. He reached down and twisted the knob. It wasn’t locked.
He pushed though the door and saw her sprawled on the bed wearing a short, flimsy nightgown, her ample breasts clearly visible through the sheer material. Her head lolled to one side and the sound of her heavy breathing competed for his attention with the stench of bad booze that filled the room. Several empty whisky bottles littered the floor. A telephone with a long cord lay next to her on top of the thin cotton bedspread, the receiver off the hook.
He flexed the fingers of his gloved hands, feeling the comfort of the soft leather as it stretched across his knuckles. He moved closer. Leaning forward, he gently turned her head so that her closed eyes were facing up at him. He formed his hands into claws and encircled her long neck with ridged fingers, pressed his thumbs into her larynx.
The muscles of his jaw tightened as he applied strong constant pressure. A sense of euphoria came over him as he felt his thumbs digging deeper into her flesh, meeting only momentary resistance before cracking the stiff cartilage of her windpipe.
Vera’s eyes snapped open.
She kicked and struggled violently.
Her face warped into a mask of terror. With his substantial mass, he leveraged his body and pressed harder. She tried to scream but no sound came out. He’d crushed her voice box and now he broke her neck. Her eyeballs rolled upward and the capillaries in the whites burst, splintering into tiny red webs. Blood filled her mouth. Her legs jerked twice. She went limp. It was over.
CHAPTER 3
The lower slope of the San Gabriel Mountains formed a spectacular backdrop for the Inland Empire as I barreled along Central Avenue heading back to Downey. I wanted to rush to my office and review the Roberts file again, preferably while sipping magnificent coffee brewed by Mabel.
Perhaps the file contained something I overlooked, something of a mitigating nature, something I could use at the hearing. Under my intense questioning, he’d maintained his innocence, but without any evidence in Roberts’s favor, I realized the guy had to be guilty. He had murdered the woman in the motel room. And what about that line he dished out, the bit about Haskell? An accident. Who’d believe a pile of crap like that? He killed the guy and stole his clothes, wallet and cash. He took his car and left him for dead along the side of the road, lying in the brush somewhere in the middle of the Mojave Desert. In any case, his guilt or innocence wasn’t the issue now. My job was to convince the board he was no longer a threat to society.
Sure, Roberts deserved to do his time. But it boiled down to a question of dogma. I was there to satisfy the State’s guiding principle that proclaimed everyone was entitled to representation in all phases of their legal entanglements. It said so in the United States Constitution, and who was I to argue with that? Besides, it was a job and-what the hell, I’d do what I could for him.
As I drove, my curiosity about the dead man, Charles Haskell, began to build. Although Roberts wasn’t tried for his murder, the circumstances surrounding Haskell’s death would certainly weigh heavily on the board’s collective minds. Roberts said that Haskell’s death had been an accident. It won’t hurt to check. I made a mental note to scan the Yuma County DA’s reports. Might be something there I could use to shed doubt about the murder allegation. But I knew I was being optimistic. Like the famous psychologist, what’s his name, once said, “Optimism flourishes in a lunatic asylum.”
I wheeled into the office parking lot and slid out of my Vette, clutching the file.
Mabel looked up from her reception desk when I entered. “Where you been?”
“Chino. Interviewing our new client, you knew that.”
Mabel, our firm’s office manager, receptionist, and resident nag, looked down at her bright red fingernails, which didn’t match her dyed carrot-colored hair. “Four hours to interview one guy?”
“Two hours driving.”
“The state’s only paying us for one and a half hours driving time and one hour for the interview.” She leaned forward. “I’m sorry, Jimmy, but someone has to watch the timesheets. We have bills, you know. I don’t think you and Rita realize the expenses involved in running the office.”
“Do we have any coffee?”
“You know how much coffee cost these days? A buck and a quarter a pound. You drink too much coffee, anyway.”
“Mabel!”
“You’re the boss. But I’m not making a fresh pot.”
Even a few hours old, Mabel’s coffee tasted better than any freshly brewed stuff served in restaurants around Downey. If we didn’t make it in the law biz, we could always open a coffee place, just serve coffee, nothing else, people would flock. Yeah, right. I took a sip, smiled, sat at my desk and opened the Roberts file. Carefully, I flipped through the pages, now yellowed with age. I continued turning the pages until I came to the coroner’s reports.