The Bad Box Page 9

  Stopping power—that meant big bloody holes in people. Sarah had always hated guns and began to wonder if she should just stick with pepper gas. But an old revolver trembling in a pair of 98-year-old hands had saved her life. That was the kind of story one didn’t hear very often in the sociology department, the kind of women’s lib that NOW never championed.

  “Course just showing a gun is usually enough,” the salesman said, perhaps sensing her misgivings. “Something like 80 percent of the time when a gun’s used to stop an assailant, the trigger’s never pulled. But if just showing it doesn’t do the trick, then you want something that’ll do more than aggravate the bad guy.”

  She had never heard a statistic like that in school. She decided to check it the next time she was online.

  “Where’s the safety?” she asked.

  “You’re the safety,” he said. “As long as you don’t pull the trigger, this gun won’t fire. You can drop it out a window and it won’t go off.”

  Sarah grasped it clumsily with both hands and looked down the sights.

  “No, ma’am, you want to keep both hands firmly on the grip. Don’t get your hand over the cylinder or you’re liable to get a nasty powder burn, and you sure don’t want to get your pinky in front of the barrel. Here. Like this.” He took the gun and showed her. “Now, hold your arms out like this.”

  He handed the gun back and she tried holding it the way he had. Yes, it fit her small hand nicely. She imagined the little Ruger waiting in her purse the next time someone tried to strangle her.

  “How much is it?”

  “Four forty-nine and ninety-nine cents.”

  “Yikes.” She handed it back. “You have anything cheaper?”

  The salesman put the gun away and pulled out another that looked just like it. “Three hundred and eighty dollars minus one penny,” he said. “It’s another Ruger LCR, but this one just fires .38 Special.”

  “Still too much.”

  He put it away and handed her another revolver. “This is a Taurus .38 Special Ultralite,” he said. “It’s a well-made gun and it’s just three hundred dollars minus one penny.”

  It was a bit bigger than the Ruger and felt heavier, but it would still fit easily in her purse.

  “Okay, I’ll take it. And some ammo.”

  The salesman put the gun back under the counter and brought a boxed one from the back of the store. Sarah looked it over for scratches, turned the cylinder, and pulled back the hammer with a sense of satisfaction. Her gun.

  The salesman handed her a form and a pen. “You need to fill this out for your background check,” he said. “You have to print or it’s no good.”

  Sarah was almost ashamed at what she was feeling as she filled out the form. In a few minutes she would be as powerful as any man. It would no longer matter that Peter was twice her size. If Darnell intended to kill her, well, she was ready. She would no longer have to depend on squad cars that didn’t drive down the street even the measly once-an-hour that she had been promised. Tonight she could walk to the park by herself if she liked. Tonight she would sleep with the gun beside her bed, knowing it would be more than a match for whatever might crawl through the window.

  She was making checkmarks on a long list of yes-or-no boxes when she came to question 11.l: “Have you ever been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence?”

  She glanced at the bottom of the form where it said that making any false statement was a crime punishable as a felony. She reread question 11.l two or three times, hoping that it asked something other than what it did. Then she marked the yes box.

  The salesman was watching her. “You marked yes,” he said. “Is that a correct answer?”

  “Somebody filed a charge against me once,” she said. “It was a lot of crap, but I was too busy to contest it.”

  The salesman wadded up the form and said, “I’m sorry, but you’re not permitted to purchase a firearm.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Detective Okpara sat in Peter Bellman’s darkened living room and scrutinized the man sitting across from him on the sofa. Bellman wore a soiled bathrobe, his feet and legs bare. Okpara could smell him from across the room. His long red hair was greasy and uncombed, his beard untrimmed, his eyes bloodshot and dilated. One moment they would stare steadily at Okpara like the barrels of two guns; the next moment they’d dart fearfully around the room as if the walls were closing in.

  Strung out on meth, Okpara conjectured. That could explain his nervous gestures, his loud, vehement voice, his widened pupils. The circles under his eyes suggested he hadn’t been sleeping much. Heavy drapes and even blankets cloaked the windows: people who abused amphetamines too long often developed a sensitivity to light.

  Okpara had probed around with a few innocuous questions before asking about Bellman’s attack on Sarah. That caused him to leap up from the sofa and prowl around the room.

  “Don’t believe any rubbish Sarah Temple tells you!” he roared. “She invited me over, she let me in. I mean how the fuck could I force my way through a dozen locks and bolts, tell me that. Do I look like Houdini? She wanted me there. She called me! Hell, she’d invite anybody with a pecker. Need a quick piece of ass, Detective, there you go. She likes it up the back road too, good and hard! So when she found out I didn’t want to fuck her, that I just came over to discuss bills, then she threw a tantrum, started screaming bloody murder. She kicked me—I can show you the bruise! Tried to stab me with a fucking corkscrew! Now who could make up something that weird? That’s what I told them at the station. I mean, who the fuck could make that shit up?”

  Bellman stopped pacing long enough to glare at Okpara. He ran his hands through his wild hair, making it wilder.

  “Then she started yelling for some senile friend of hers to bring a gun. ‘Bring the gun!’ she yelled. ‘Shoot his ass!’ They had it all planned out beforehand—the old witch was just waiting for her signal. Bam! She was there in two seconds with a revolver, for Christ’s sake! Some half-blind old hag straight from Macbeth. I’m going to bring charges against that old gash, I told them so at the station. Bastards threatened to charge me with all kinds of shit, but they couldn’t because they know they’d be laughed out of court. Wait’ll they hear from my Goddamn lawyer! Haul me down to the frigging station at one in the morning while those two witches cackle with glee! Don’t I have any fucking rights? The bitch has even planted rumors at the university—trying to ruin my career now. Well, I’ve got news for you, Detective. That woman has a criminal record. Domestic violence—just look it up.”

  The house smelled dirty: rotten food, something dead. A large potted plant near the stereo was withering for lack of water or sun. Okpara wished he could get a warrant to search the place. He was certain he would find drugs if nothing else.

  “Miss Temple alleges that you visited her upstairs neighbor, Angela Dietrick, AKA Darnell Brook.”

  “Shit,” Bellman said. “So you believe whatever that woman tells you. Maybe she’ll tell you I killed John Kennedy and his fucking brother too. I told you, that woman is a criminal.”

  “Are you stating that you never visited Angela Dietrick?”

  Bellman shot him with a crafty look, no doubt trying to decide what, if anything, Okpara knew.

  “Sure, I was there. What of it? But only for a few minutes. Let’s see—I’d come to see Sarah because she called and begged me to. Once I got there it was the same old story, begging me to let her move back, begging me to fuck her, all that rubbish. I got fed up and left.

  “So when I was leaving the building I met this woman, or this man or whatever he is. How was I supposed to know she was a fucking queer? We struck up a conversation, and I took her to a restaurant. We ate, had a few drinks and a couple laughs. You can ask the restaurant owner, he’s a friend of mine. Is that against the law? I mean, did I walk out without paying the fucking tab or something? She seemed nice enough, very intelligent in fact, and she invited me to her apartment. How was I sup
posed to know about any of this criminal shit?

  “So I drove her home and came in, but I only stayed a minute. Place looked funny to me, bare, like she didn’t really live there, so I figured it was just some place where she brought men, and I got to thinking about AIDS. I mean, if she rents a place just for one-night stands, she doesn’t sound like safe sex, does she? Would you want to screw her? Sarah doesn’t give a shit about things like that, she’ll screw anybody and anything, but I’m not like that. So I waited till she went to the bathroom and I got out of there. End of story.”

  Bellman grinned. As he sat down, his bathrobe came open, exposing his groin. He didn’t seem to notice. He picked up a bottle of scotch from the coffee table and held it out to Okpara. “Maybe you’d like a drink?”

  “No thank you.”

  “Suit yourself.” He raised the bottle to his lips and drank. “Any more questions?”

  “Isn’t it true that your car was parked there the whole weekend? Until late Sunday night, sometime after midnight?”

  “Um, yeah, I guess maybe it was. I’d forgotten. So what?”

  He tilted the bottle and drank some more, taking his time with his answer. “As I was leaving the apartment, I realized I was a little drunk. I saw a cab and I took it. No sense breaking the law, huh, Detective? So much for that little mystery. I didn’t need the car that weekend, so I didn’t pick it up right away. Is that against the law? Maybe it was a no parking zone or something. You want to give me a parking ticket, is that it?”

  Bellman grinned and had another drink. “Let me tell you something, Detective. I admire you guys. Devoted seekers of the truth. But tell me, where do you think the truth is hidden? Do you find it in fingerprints, DNA samples, cold semen in some dead woman’s cunt? Where do you look? Maybe you find the truth in the morgue, in the cold stiffs laid out on the table? Is it in the cuts and bruises and the gaping holes? Maybe it’s written in their eyes—do dead people’s eyes tell stories, give you some glimpse? Is that where you find the truth, in the eyes of those cold naked bodies? What do they smell like, Detective? Some of them must get a little ripe, despite the cold storage. I mean, maybe it’s a woman who lay rotting in the hot sun for a few days before you found her. What’s that like? Are her nipples hard or soft after all that time? What about her pussy? Is it rigid or spongy? You ever fingered one that was pretty ripe? You ever discover the truth there, Detective—in a stinking dead pussy?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sarah was getting iced tea from Howard’s refrigerator when the phone rang. She heard Howard answer it in the living room. A few seconds later his tone changed: “Number one, no. Number two, I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew. Number three, you are a very sick and pathetic creature. Number four, you are not welcome at my house, and I must warn you that the police are watching this place 24 hours a day.”

  Sarah hurried to the living room. Howard slammed down the phone and glanced up at her. “Peter,” he said quietly. “Wanting to know where you’re staying. Maybe that’s a good sign, maybe it means he’s the only person in town who didn’t see my face on the news.”

  He lit a cigarette with a large gold lighter that always sat on the antique marble-top end table. “Damn, I spoke foolishly,” he said. “I shouldn’t have mentioned the police. A dead giveaway. Why would the police be watching my place unless you’re here?”

  He went to the front window and gazed out nervously as if Peter might already be pulling up.

  Sarah made an effort to smile. “I can imagine some reasons,” she said. “Debauched bacchanals. That great big hookah in the corner.”

  “Oh that,” Howard said proudly. “That is a lovely bauble, isn’t it? An old lover gave it to me. It certainly has given me much more pleasure than he ever did!”

  “Howard, I don’t want to put you through any more of this crap. Tomorrow I’m gonna find an apartment.”

  “Poppycock. I won’t hear of it.” He smoked his cigarette and stared out the window. “Me and my big mouth. Now he knows you’re here. Hmm, what’s this? Why it’s that nice detective! Excuse me, my dear.”

  He dashed up the stairs while Sarah got the door. Sebastian Okpara touched his forehead with a handkerchief and gave her a wide smile. “Good afternoon, Miss Temple.” He stepped into the foyer and peered into the front living room. “Such a beautiful place! So many nice antiques.”

  Howard appeared at the top of the stairs in a cream-colored silk jacket that he had not been wearing before. “Oh, they’re just trinkets,” he protested, descending the stairs slowly and regally. “Yard sales and the like. So very nice to see you, Detective Okpara. So good of you to stop by.”

  Howard steered him to the small second living room, away from the room with the hookah. “Perhaps you’d like some iced tea?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Okpara waited until Sarah sat before seating himself. “I suppose you’ve heard that we found the remains of twelve victims,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  Twelve heads in the freezer, the TV had said. Eleven piles of bones in the closet and one headless body in the tub. She had spent much of last night dreaming about the body.

  “Five have already been identified, including Paul Finney,” Okpara said. “That spares you, at least, having to look at some unpleasant photographs.”

  “Thank God.”

  Howard entered with the iced tea. “You won’t believe who just called!” he said, and he related the brief phone call.

  Okpara pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket and jotted something in it. “I believe that both of you have known Dr. Bellman for some time?” he asked.

  “Too long!” Howard sniffed.

  “Two years,” Sarah said.

  “How would you describe his character?”

  Sarah shrugged. “He used to slap me around sometimes. But nothing like Sunday night.”

  “You never told me that,” Howard said. “The next time I see that bully, I shall bloody his nose.”

  “Is he usually vulgar in his speech?” Okpara asked.

  “No, not at all,” she said. “More like pompous and pretentious, always wanting to sound like the great intellect.”

  “I’ve always found him vulgar,” Howard said. “Peter Bellman knows nothing whatsoever about literature or the arts. He’s a perfect example of everything that’s wrong with our educational system these days.”

  “Would you describe his usual appearance as slovenly?”

  “No, just the opposite,” Sarah said. “He’s super self-conscious about his looks.”

  Howard let out a sarcastic snort and said, “He should be self-conscious. He looks exactly like a baboon.”

  “Do you know if he has ever abused drugs?”

  Sarah wasn’t sure what to say. Peter did a few lines of coke once in a while, but should she tell that to a cop? “Not really,” she said. “You know, maybe a toke or two at parties.”

  “Would you say his appearance had changed the last time you saw him?”

  “Yes, definitely. He looked like a wild man, hair all over the place. He’s always so fussy about his looks.”

  “I, for one, have never cared for his appearance,” Howard said. “His taste in clothes is simply appalling.”

  “I applied for a restraining order today,” Sarah said, “but I haven’t made up my mind about filing charges. I’m afraid that will just agitate him, and right now I simply want him to stay as far away from me as possible.”

  “You may be right,” Okpara said. “If you press charges, it’s very unlikely he’ll receive a prison sentence. You let him into your apartment and you didn’t seek medical treatment. The only witness is elderly and therefore not highly compelling.”

  He made a few more notes in his book. “We’ve pulled up some information regarding Darnell Brook,” he said. “I believe it’s best for you to know as much as possible about him, in case he should make a move against you. Sometimes an odd scrap of knowledge is the best defense. I must ins
ist upon your discretion, however. The reporters will learn these facts soon enough, but I don’t want you to help them. Is that agreed?”

  “Of course,” Sarah said.

  Okpara found a certain page in his notebook, but while he spoke he glanced at it only to verify dates. He seemed to have the whole story memorized. Sarah was fascinated by the cold concentration in his eyes. Despite his soft manner, they looked hard and clinical, as if they were made of glass instead of flesh.

  “An important figure in Darnell’s childhood was his maternal grandfather, Gustav Dietrick, so let me start there. Gus Dietrick was born in Germany in 1919. His family moved here when he was a child and bought a farm about 40 miles north of Columbus, near Mount Vernon, and that’s where Gus Dietrick lived his whole life. He married a woman named Eva Block, another German immigrant, and they had three kids, Ida, Rudolph, and Mariel. Mariel was the youngest, born in 1960. She was the mother of Darnell.”

  Okpara spoke precisely and grammatically. His accent was definitely Nigerian, Sarah had decided. Though his body scarcely moved while he spoke, his hands made small, eloquent gestures.

  “Gus didn’t have good luck with his children. Ida, the oldest one, fell into a cistern when she was 11 and broke her neck, and two years later her brother Rudolph was buried under several tons of oats when a grain chute somehow came open in the granary. Somehow young Mariel managed to survive. When she was 16 she ran away from home and ended up in Columbus.

  “At age 18 Mariel married a shoe salesman named Robert Brook. That was, let’s see, in 1981. Six months later she gave birth to Angela, and a year later Darnell was born. In 1989, Mariel and Robert were killed in an automobile accident. Darnell was six and Angela was seven.

  “Old Gus and Eva took the children. There are no records that the children ever attended school while living with the grandparents. Somehow the authorities may have slipped up, never caught on that Gus and Eva had them.”

  “Darnell struck me as well educated,” Sarah said.