Trial by Fire (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 6) Page 8

  “Excuse me,” Parker said as he came up the drive.

  The man turned to him.

  A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. His dark sweaty hair hung over his forehead and he wore the same surly look as his brother in the mug shot from Demarco.

  “Are you Steven Clark?”

  The man eyed Parker up and down as if he had just dropped in from outer space. “Who wants to know?”

  Parker extended a hand. “I’m Wade Parker. We spoke on the phone?”

  The man looked at him as if daring him to cross some line. “I’m a little busy here.”

  Without shaking the offered hand he picked up the box he’d just taped and brushed past Parker heading for the U-Haul, his sandals flapping against the concrete.

  Parker turned and followed him. “I can see that. But as I said on the phone I’m a private investigator looking into an old case. I’d like to speak with you a few moments. It won’t take long.”

  Ignoring him the man trotted up the ramp and disappeared inside the truck. He appeared several seconds later without the box.

  “You still here?”

  “I am.” Parker grinned up at him from the ramp.

  The man banged down the ramp again and headed back to the garage. “I didn’t think you’d have the gall to come over here.”

  “And yet here I am,” Parker repeated, still following the man. If he’d known he was going to get a workout, he’d have worn gym clothes.

  The man took his cigarette out of his mouth, tossed it on the driveway and ground it with the toe of his running shoe. “Look Mister. Once and for all I’m not going to pay those charges on my cell phone. I didn’t make those calls.”

  Parker laughed. The man thought he was a bill collector.

  “No, Mr. Clark. I’m not here about any phone charges. I really am looking into an old case. It’s about your brother.” Parker took out his ID and held it up.

  That got his attention. He turned and squinted at the ID, then at Parker, really looking at him now. “Oh, yeah? What do you think he owes the phone company?”

  “Nothing,” Parker replied softly, putting the ID back in his wallet. “Since he’s dead.”

  The man reached for another box. “Like I said, I’m busy. My wages got cut at the warehouse, so now I’ve got to move into a stinking one-bedroom apartment right next to the airport. My wife and little girl are freaking out.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Clark. But I do need to speak with you about your brother.”

  Clark flapped back down the drive again with Parker at his side.

  “My brother died three years ago,” he said over his shoulder. “He attacked some guy’s wife in a bar and the dude slit his throat. I don’t really blame him. I would have done the same. Guy got a five year sentence. Might be out now. Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  Parker let him go another few steps. “I understand your brother was convicted of sexual assault several years ago.”

  Steven Clark stopped in his tracks, slowly turned around. “Is that why you’re here?”

  Parker nodded. “That’s why. I represent a possible victim. I’d like to clear your brother’s name of any aspersions.”

  Suddenly the man sensed the weighty ramifications of this visit.

  Clark put the box down in the middle of the driveway and returned to the garage. He pulled out two rusty lawn chairs, sat down on one of them, pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket.

  “What do you want to know about my brother?” he said in a weary tone.

  Parker assumed the second chair was for him so he sat, hoping it wouldn’t collapse under him. “Your brother was arrested for several charges of rape over the years, wasn’t he?”

  Clark lit another cigarette, took a long drag. Then he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees as he stared out at the U-Haul. A robin chirped in a nearby elm tree.

  “Chuckie was always in trouble. Ever since high school. My brother was five years older than me and my dad was pretty rough on him. Mother protected me. She couldn’t do much for Chuckie.”

  “I see.” Parker was quiet, waiting for the rest.

  “They’re both gone now. Our parents.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The first I heard about Chuckie’s ‘problem’ was when some girl at high school said he attacked her. It was his senior year. There was such a shit storm. Cops came over to our house. The neighbors started avoiding us. My folks talked about moving. We never did.” He blew smoke out the side of his mouth, opposite of Parker for politeness. “I couldn’t believe what they were saying about my brother. I refused to believe it. But when Chuckie got out on his own he kept getting arrested. He always got off. The women were afraid to testify. Except the one. He got six years for that one.”

  Parker let a moment pass before he spoke. “I’m interested in one case in particular, Mr. Clark. One that wasn’t reported. It would have occurred several years before your brother was incarcerated.”

  Clark squinted at Parker as if bracing himself for a heavy blow. Then he shook his head. “He didn’t talk to me about his…doings.”

  “I have some details. I’m wondering if you could confirm if your brother Charles might have been in the area of Lawnfield Heights fifteen years ago.”

  “Fifteen years ago?” He looked at Parker as if he were asking for the moon.

  Parker pressed on. He named the year, the possible range of dates. He described the area, which wasn’t difficult after being in that very spot that afternoon.”

  When he finished Steven Clark took another long drag of his cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke toward the driveway.

  “February. I remember that year. February eighth is my birthday. I’d just turned twenty. I’d just quit community college. Chuckie took me out for a bender. We drank all night, ended up at his place. The next day we took off for a cottage my dad used to rent at Lake Galena. Stayed there the rest of the month. Got a sled, ice fished, drank beer, ate crap, froze our asses off. It was a great time. The time I choose to remember when I think of my brother.”

  Parker felt this man’s sense of loss and wished there were something he could do for him. The women he’d attacked were not the only lives Charles Clark had ruined. But he also felt his hopes start to sink as if it were trapped under the ice on that lake.

  Charles Clark had an alibi for all of February from a man who couldn’t possibly benefit from lying.

  Though it wasn’t finished, Steven Clark snuffed out the cigarette with his shoe and turned to Parker to deliver the final blow

  “So, no, mister,” he said. “Chuckie wasn’t in Lawnfield Heights during February of that year. He was with me.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Shaking off the misery he’d left in Franklin Park, Parker made another phone call as he headed back toward the city.

  The sun was setting behind him as he turned onto Grand. He took a right on North River Road and followed it south. After about thirty minutes he’d reached an area just a mile or so north of where he and Miranda had been that afternoon. And the same distance east of where she had lived with Leon Groth.

  A few blocks off Monroe he found the designated spot. A nondescript building called “Lacy’s” with silhouettes of naked females in the windows. A seedy establishment if he’d ever seen one.

  He parked the car and went inside.

  Loud heavy metal music hit him as soon as he stepped over the threshold—along with the smell of cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and sweaty clientele. A large man in black demanded a cover charge.

  Parker reached into his pocket and handed him some bills without protest. Then he let a hostess in fishnet tights and pink feathers lead him to a table.

  He sat and ordered a Bud for the second time that day. Finer spirits would not be available here.

  Several yards before him stood a long stage with three young women prancing sensually around three golden poles.

  A redhead at the far end was clad in a
faux policeman's uniform, complete with handcuffs. She was down to her low-cut leather jacket and panties. A blond who couldn’t have been of age danced in the middle spot wearing a frilly black petticoat and a shimmering silver bra. She blew kisses at the men ogling her as she marched around her pole.

  The third was a dark-haired woman in a very short sky blue cowgirl outfit. She clung to the pole and bowed her head back, her hat falling off, her long dark hair nearly sweeping the floor. And as she dipped down, she opened the fringed top of her costume and bared her breasts.

  The audience of males screamed and cheered and whistled.

  “You can ride my horse anytime,” someone cried, unoriginally.

  Parker was a man. He couldn’t help feeling a natural response to the act but it was heavily overlaid with disgust. And with pity for these women.

  Part of him wanted to rescue them from this life, but that wasn’t what he was here for.

  The waitress brought his beer and asked if he wanted anything else, with obvious innuendo.

  He shook his head and handed her a bill. As she scooted away to the next table in search of more willing clientele, Parker turned his attention to the patrons.

  Ninety-five percent male, at least, as one would expect. These were local working men. Lower income employees from nearby plants who had stopped off for a little excitement after a mind numbing eight or twelve hour shift. Construction, sanitation, warehouse workers with thick arms, thick necks and thick-headed attitudes about women that were not easily altered.

  There was one who stood out, though, dwarfed by the others.

  He was short, thin, dressed in tight jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt that looked like underwear. Yet he was muscular enough to fit with this crowd. His back and shoulders were decorated with tribal tattoos that gave him the appearance of a real tough guy.

  And he was—to some women, at least.

  A beer bottle in his hand he lingered at the foot of the stage near the dark-haired performer, his gaze fixed on her, his mouth gaping open, drool nearly dripping onto his chin.

  Likes brunettes, Parker noted, his jaw clenching.

  He reached for his cell and thumbed a text. “I’m here. Behind you.”

  After a moment the man turned his head and squinted in his direction.

  Parker raised a hand and beckoned him over.

  The man sauntered over a bit bowlegged, as if he thought he had just stepped out of a Wild West movie. On second thought it was probably the alcohol that made his gait so awkward.

  “Jacob Hirsch?” Parker said when the man reached his table.

  “You Wade Parker?”

  “I am. Care to have a seat?” Parker indicated the chair across from him.

  Hirsch set his bottle on the table, pulled out the chair and sat down. He plopped his elbows down and gave Parker a sharp, who-the-hell-are-you? stare.

  He wore his nearly black hair in a short buzz cut that accented a thin narrow nose, hollow cheeks and a pointed chin. Rat-like features. He was one of the brown-eyed ones from Demarco’s list but under these lights his eyes looked solid black. A frightening face to meet in a dark alley, despite his smaller stature.

  Hirsch was in his early forties. Had been convicted twice of criminal sexual assault, had served five years for the first offense, eight for the second. He’d been out of prison less than a year and he had that hardened look of the recently incarcerated.

  “So what do you want again?” he said with a sneer.

  Parker forced a smile, reached for his own beer bottle, took a swallow. “As I said on the phone I’m a writer. I have a blog.” He’d borrowed the idea from Brian Ivy, the food blogger and current owner of Lydia Sutherland’s house. “I’m doing a study of former prison inmates. I’d like to interview you.”

  Suspicious Hirsch squinted at him with one eye. “Me? You want to interview me?”

  Don’t spook him, Parker thought. Keep the tone friendly. Flatter him. “I’ve done some research and found your case interesting. I’d like to hear your story. What brought you to your time in prison? What hardships did you suffer growing up?”

  “You mean like a…biography?”

  Parker kept his expression unthreatening. “Something like that. What shaped the life of Jacob Hirsch?”

  Hirsch considered the idea a moment, took a swig of his beer, then lifted one side of his mouth in an ugly half grin. “That would make a good title.”

  “It would.” He was buying it. At least enough to get him talking. Taking the remark as consent Parker swiped his phone to the memo pad and began the “interview.”

  “So tell me, Jacob. What was your childhood like?”

  Hirsch lifted his scrawny shoulders. “Nothin’ special. I mean, they say guys like me, guys who done time, they had to have father hittin’ on them or something. But it wasn’t like that.”

  “So your home life was peaceful?”

  Hirsch cracked his knuckles and thought a moment, basking in the limelight. “Normal. I’d say it was normal.”

  No telling what that might mean. “Brothers? Sisters?” Parker already knew the answer.

  “Two each. Five of us kids. A big family you might say.”

  Parker pretended to make a note in his phone. “And what was it like growing up?”

  “Growing up? Like I said. Normal. I went to Morton East, got out, got a job at the sanitation plant.”

  Feigning interest for several long minutes Parker listened to Hirsch go on about his mundane childhood, a family vacation or two, his time in detention during high school, his work history, his run-ins with his bosses and the way he was unfairly treated by them. He left out the prison time.

  Parker decided it was time to ease the conversation in the direction he intended it go. “When was the first time you took an interest in girls?”

  Hirsh wrinkled his thin nose as if he smelled a foul odor. Suspicion was back in his eyes. “Girls? What’d ya mean? Like a first date?”

  “First date, first kiss. Human interest side.” Parker flashed him a confident smile.

  Hirsch responded with a scowl and a curious look. Then he reached for his bottle and shrugged again. “That was normal, too. Parties, high school prom, going to the drive-in to make out. That sort of thing.”

  Again, he’d evaded details. If Parker were really writing a piece on this man, it would be a short one.

  Without looking up, he asked, “Childhood sweetheart?”

  Hirsch set the bottle back down on the table without taking a sip. “What do you know about that?”

  Ah, the sore point. According to Demarco’s information, a young woman Hirsch had grown up with had pressed charges against him when she was seventeen. Her name was Judith Walsh.

  Parker feigned innocence. “I’m merely asking if there was anyone special in your life.”

  “Merely, huh? Well, I’ll tell ya about my childhood sweetheart—none of ya’s fuckin’ business.”

  Parker didn’t blink. “No offense, Mr. Hirsch. I simply thought it would round out the article.”

  Hirsch fisted his hands on the table but didn’t say anything.

  Parker glanced toward the far wall. There were bouncers here. Big muscleheads hired to protect the dancers. He decided to risk it.

  “Fifteen years ago in February a woman claims you followed her to a grocery store and attacked her.”

  “What? What the hell?” Hirsch got to his feet. “You ain’t no blogger. You’re a cop, ain’t you?”

  Parker put his phone in his pocket and gave Hirsch his coldest look as he rose. “No.”

  “The hell you ain’t.” Hirsch shoved the table over, knocking Parker’s untouched beer onto the floor, splattering the next table.

  The men there got up and glared at him. “What the hell, man?”

  “Mind yer own fuckin’ business!” His manhood in question, Hirsch lunged toward Parker, took a swing.

  Parker drew back, felt the whoosh of the fist sweep past his face. This was what he got for attempt
ing a conversation with a criminal who was inebriated.

  Hirsch stumbled from the miss, regained his balance, came back with a powerful uppercut.

  Parker caught him by the wrist just before knuckle connected with cheekbone. “I wouldn’t try that again if I were you.”

  As Hirsch glared at him with those hateful black eyes, Parker fought back the urge to pummel this piece of slime into dust on the concrete floor.

  Suddenly the black eyes flashed with recognition. “I know who you are now. You’re a fuckin’ lawyer. Judith hired you, didn’t she?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Yeah, she did. Fifteen years ago. February. Judith and me went to Indiana. Stayed in a motel for the whole month. Cost me a bundle. We was supposed to get married but the fuckin’ bitch ran out on me. She can’t press charges against me now for that. It was consensual. It was fifteen years ago. It was out of state.”

  The words sinking in, Parker realized he had struck out again.

  Judith Walsh, the unfortunate woman who had pressed charges against Hirsch at seventeen, years later had changed her mind and run off with him. During February, fifteen years ago. For the whole month.

  Parker would check out the alibi, but from Hirsch’s kneejerk reaction, he knew it would turn out to be true.

  Hirsch had not been in that alley in Lawnfield Heights fifteen years ago any more than Charles Clark had.

  Parker had known he was grasping at straws, but he still hated the feeling of them slipping through his fingers.

  He let go of the man’s arm, pushed him away. “Goodnight, Mr. Hirsch.”

  He turned to go.

  “Hey, lawyer,” Hirsch sneered behind him. “You tell Judith to go fuck herself. Or maybe I’ll come do that for her.”

  Grinding his teeth, Parker stopped. He hesitated, fighting back the sudden rage boiling inside him. He lost the battle and turned around.

  But he’d taken a second too long.

  Hirsch’s fist came at him again, faster this time. The freshly cracked knuckles nicked him on the cheek just before he could duck away. A sharp sting under his eye was a wakeup call.