Mortal Prey

“I’m smelling him anyway.”
    Malone shook her head. “Can’t believe it. Cannot believe it.”
     
    RINKER AND POLLOCK were up at first light. Rinker got the paper off the porch. Levy dominated the front page. She read the story, and followed it through to the jump page.
    “Anything good?” Pollock asked.
    “No, not really….” She looked back at the photo of Levy on the front, and was about to toss the paper when she noticed a smaller headline below the fold: “ Webster Groves/Woman Tortured To Death: Police .”
    And beneath that:
     
    The brutally tortured body of a Webster Groves woman was found in a roadside ditch in Kirkwood yesterday by a highway crew picking up trash.
    The woman was identified as Nancy Leighton, 38, who lived at the Oakwood
    Apartments in Webster Groves. Police said they are following a number of leads, but have made no arrests in the murder.
    “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” said Webster Groves homicide detective Larry Kelsey. “This woman suffered a long time before she died.”
     
    Rinker read the rest of it—no details of the torture, but plenty of hints, along with vows of revenge from the cops, who apparently had not a single clue—and then crumpled the newspaper in her hands. Nancy Leighton. An old friend, now dead; and dead because of Rinker. Somebody was sending her a message, and the message had been received.
    “You all right?” Pollock asked.
    “Yeah…just nervous about this whole thing, I guess. Not too late to back out.”
    “No way. I’m feeling better about it all the time,” Pollock said. “Should have done it five years ago.”
    Rinker balled up the paper and tossed it under the sink. Nancy Leighton. No help for her now; but she had one coming, Nancy did.
     
    RINKER AND POLLOCK had been up late the night before. Pollock had said that there was nothing in the place that she really wanted, but that turned out to be not quite right. They’d gone out twice for packaging tape, and finally had four large boxes to be shipped to Pollock’s parents. Pollock knew about a private UPS pickup spot at a strip mall south on I-55, and they’d drop them on the way out of town.
    At eight o’clock, everything that could be packed was packed, and all the notes that could be written to neighbors, friends, and the landlady had been written, and they’d eaten almost everything in the refrigerator for breakfast. Pollock started crying when Rinker carried the first box out to the garage. Looked around the apartment and started weeping. Said, “Oh, shit,” and went into the back and came out with a framed picture that had been hanging in the bathroom. “I’ll mail it home from Memphis,” she said.
    “Scared?”
    “Ah, God.”
    “You can still chicken out,” Rinker said.
    “Not now. I finally got up the guts,” Pollock said. Still, she looked around. “Like leaving a prison cell, but it’s your cell.”
    “Let me tell you about my apartment in Wichita….”
     
    THEY TOOK BOTH cars in the early light of morning, a short convoy out to the interstate, the arch popping up in their rearview mirrors. Ten miles out, they stopped at the UPS place and Pollock went in and mailed the boxes.
    When she came back out, they stood beside Rinker’s car and Pollock asked, “What’re you going to do now?”
    “I’ve got another place I can stay,” Rinker said. “Another old friend.”
    “If you stay, they’re going to kill you.”
    “Not for a while yet,” she said.
    “Clara, you gotta get out.”
    Rinker hugged her and said, “You take care of yourself, Patsy. I won’t be seeing you again, I guess, but you been a good friend all my life. I’m gonna get out of here before I cry.”
    Pollock hung on to her for a minute, a big, ungainly woman, hard-used, and Rinker started to tear up. Then she broke away and said, “One thing…”
    She went around to the trunk of the car, took out a sack, and handed it to Pollock. “Twenty thousand dollars. For the lawyer.”
    “Clara, I can’t…”
    “You shush. This isn’t for you, this is for her. She sure as hell will take it. Tell her you were afraid to put it in the bank, and it’s your life savings.”
    Another minute of small talk, and Rinker loaded up and was gone, leaving Pollock in the parking lot with the sack. Rinker didn’t know if her friend had a chance or not. Thought she might.
    She turned out of the parking lot and headed back toward town. She still had some gear at the apartment,