Part 15 (1/2)
Lucas held up a hand, got close to the kid. ”This is a farm girl, Dex. Just came up to the city, somebody let the air out of her.”
”Ain't got nothin' to do with me,” Dex said, looking at the crowd again.
”Come over here,” Lucas said, his voice friendly. He took the kid's arm. ”Look at the body.”
”What?”
”Come on. . . .” He waved the kid over, then said to the patrolman, ”Loan me your flashlight, will you, pal?”
Lucas took Dex around the bush, then duckwalked with him toward the woman on the wound side. He went willingly enough; h.e.l.l, he'd seen six thousand bodies on TV, and once had walked by a place where some ambulance guys were taking a body out of a house. This'd be cool.
A foot from the body, Lucas turned the light on the stomach wound.
”f.u.c.k,” said Dex. He stood up, straight through the bush, and started thras.h.i.+ng his way out.
Lucas caught his web pocket, hauled him back down, rough. ”Come on, man, you can tell people about this. How the cops let you check her out.” He put the flashlight on the girl's face. ”Look at her eyes, man, they're still open, they look like eggs. You can smell her guts if you get closer, kind of soapy smelling.”
Dex's eyes moved toward the corpse's, and he shuddered and stood and tried to run. Lucas let him go: Carrigan was waiting when the kid fought free of the bush.
”Never saw nothin' like that before,” Dex said. A line of saliva dribbled from one edge of his mouth, and he wiped it with his hand.
”So who was it?” Carrigan asked.
”White dude. Driving a pickup.”
”What kind of pickup?”
”White with dark on it, maybe red, I don't know; I know the white part for sure,” Dex said. He kept moving away from the body, around the bushes back toward the curb. Carrigan held one arm and Dex babbled on. ”There was a camper on the back. People come up here to throw garbage sometimes. I thought that's what he was doin', throwing garbage.”
”How close were you?” Connell asked.
”Down to the corner,” Dex said, pointing. A hundred yards.
”What'd he look like, far as you could tell?” Connell pressed. ”Big guy? Small guy? Skinny?”
”Pretty big. Big as me. And I think maybe he plays basketball, the way he got in the truck. He like hopped up there, you know. Just real quick, like he's got some speed. Quick.”
Connell fumbled in her purse and took out a folded square of paper. She started to unfold it when Lucas realized what it was, reached out and caught her hand, shook his head. ”Don't do that,” he said. He looked at Dex and asked, ”How long ago?”
”Hour? I don't know. 'Bout an hour.” That meant nothing. For most witnesses, an hour was more than fifteen minutes and less than three hours.
”What else?”
”Man, I don't think there's anything else. I mean, let me think about it. . . .” He looked past Lucas. ”Here comes my mom.”
A woman rolled right through the police line, and when a cop reached out toward her, she turned around and snapped something that stopped him short, and she came on.
”What're you doing here?” she demanded.
”Talking to your son,” Carrigan said, facing her. ”He's a witness to a crime.”
”He's never been in no trouble,” the woman said.
”He's not in any trouble now,” Connell said. ”He might've seen a killer-a white man. He's just trying to remember what else he might've seen.”
”He's not in no trouble?” She was suspicious.
Connell shook her head. ”He's helping out.”
”Momma, you oughta see that girl,” Dex said, swallowing. He looked back toward the bush. The girl's hip was just visible from where they were standing. He looked back at Carrigan. ”The truck had those steps on the sides, you know, what do they call them?”
”Running boards?” Lucas suggested.
Dex nodded. ”That's it. Silver running boards.”
”Chevy, Ford?”
”Shoot, man, they all look the same to me. Wouldn't have one, myself. . . .”
”What color was the camper?”
The kid had to think about it. ”Dark,” he said finally.
”What else?”
He scratched behind one ear, looked at his mother, then shook his head. ”Just some white dude dumping garbage, is what I thought.”
”Were you alone when you saw him?” Lucas asked.
He swallowed again and glanced at his mother. His mother saw it and slapped his back, hard. ”You tell.”
”I saw a guy named Lawrence was up here,” he said.
His mother put her hands on her hips. ”You with Lawrence?”
”I wasn't with Lawrence, Momma. I just saw him up here, is all. I wasn't with him.”
”You G.o.dd.a.m.n better not be with him or I throw your b.u.t.t outa the house. You know what I told you,” his mother said, angry. She looked at Carrigan and said, ”Lawrence a pusher.”
”Lawrence his first name or his last name?” Carrigan asked.
”Lawrence Wright.”
”Lawrence Wright? I know him,” Carrigan said. ” 'Bout twenty-two or -three, tall skinny guy, used to wear a sailor hat all the time?”
”That's him,” the woman said. ”Trash. He comes from a long line of trash. Got a trashy mother and all his brothers are trash,” she said. She smacked the kid on the back again. ”You hanging around with that trash?”
”Where'd he go?” Lucas asked. ”Lawrence?”
”He was around here until they found the body,” Dex said, looking around as if he might see the missing man. ”Then he left.”