Back from the Dead

by Peter Leonard

  Harry drove past the Rodeo Bar, big gravel parking lot about a quarter full at 11:50 on Saturday morning. The building looked like it had once been a Knights of Columbus hall, low-slung cinderblock painted gray, peaked roof in front with a sign that said Rodeo and a neon cowboy riding a bull. Harry waited across the street in a strip mall, watching the lot fill up, pickups outnumbering cars four to one. Harry scanned the stores behind him. The strip mall had a Kresge’s and a hardware store, cleaners, a Pancake House and a drug store. Earlier Harry had phoned Bob Stark to see if Stark could find which city Hess, alias Gerd Klaus, had flown out of, which airline he’d flown, and where he’d made his connecting flight or flights to Detroit. Harry was thinking what he’d said to Colette. “Find the city and maybe you’ll find the locker.”

  He sat for a while, got out, went to the drug store and bought a Free Press. Got back in the Mercedes, glanced at the sports section. The Lions were playing Minnesota, the Purple People Eaters, on Sunday, a team Detroit had lost to the last six times they’d played.

  A little after noon a green Ford pickup truck pulled into the parking lot across the street. A heavyset guy wearing overalls and a cap got out, walked to the door and went in the bar. Harry was pretty sure he was one of the rednecks from the farmhouse who’d kidnapped Colette, and it sure looked like the same truck.

  Harry got out of the car, locked the door, crossed the road, moved through the Rodeo Bar parking lot to the green pickup. It was the truck all right, unless there was another green Ford with a rebel flag on the tailgate. He opened the passenger door, sat on the bench seat and looked around. The ashtray was overflowing with tan cigarette butts and there were half a dozen empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans on the floor. He remembered seeing the same cans on the kitchen counter at the farmhouse. Looking through the driver’s-side window he could see the front door of the bar about thirty yards away.

  Harry opened the glove box, found the registration. The truck was a 1966 Ford F-100. The owner was Gary Boone, address on Clark Street in Pontiac. Harry considered his options. He could wait till Gary came out and follow him home, or talk to him right here.

  Harry sat in the truck and watched the parking lot fill up. At 2:15 the front door opened, Gary Boone came out squinting, made a visor with his hand to block the afternoon sun, looking across the lot trying to spot his truck. Harry tracked him all the way, and when the redneck got close Harry drew the Colt and rested it in his lap. Gary Boone stopped at the side of his truck, spit and took a long piss, lit a cigarette, opened the door and got in. He was reaching to put the key in the ignition when he noticed Harry and said, “Jesus. What the fuck! Who the hell’re you?”

  Harry aimed the big revolver at him. “The guy that’s going to blow your head off you don’t tell me what I want to know.” Gary Boone sat back against the seat. “Who you kidding? You’re not going to shoot me here. I know that.”

  Harry pulled the hammer back with his thumb. “You sure about that?”

  “Get the fuck out.”

  Harry lowered the Colt, squeezed the trigger and put a round between Gary Boone’s feet that sounded like an explosion bouncing around the small confines of the interior, ears ringing from the noise.

  “Jesus sucks Jew cock,” Gary Boone said. “What’re you, fucking crazy? You put a hole in my truck.”

  “Next one’s going to find you,” Harry said. “Where’s Zeller?”

  “Honest to God, I don’t know.”

  Harry pulled the hammer back again.

  “I can give you the number where he’s at, but that’s it. It’s in my wallet.”

  Gary reached behind his back, pulled it out, opened it and handed Harry a scrap of paper that had a phone number on it. “Start the truck and pull out. We’re going to take a drive.”

  “Where we going?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  Harry directed the redneck north to a secluded area, an empty desolate stretch of road covered with red and orange leaves somewhere just outside Walled Lake. “Pull over.”

  “Pull over? We’re in the middle of Bumfuck, Egypt,” Gary said, glancing at the gun and slowing the truck, pulling over on the shoulder, putting the shifter in neutral. “Now what?”

  “Get out.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “Listen, I didn’t lay a hand on your lady. Was Squirrel done it. Man’s got the couth of an opossum.”

  Harry pointed the Colt at his right foot. “Want to try this again?”

  “Hey, what about my truck?”

  “It’s mine now,” Harry said.

  “What’re you doing? You can’t take a man’s truck.”

  Gary Boone got out and started walking north. Harry slid over behind the wheel and drove back to the strip mall where his car was parked. Made a phone call from the drug store, tried the number Gary had given him. It rang several times before a woman’s voice said, “Your party is not available. Please press one to leave a message or press zero to speak to an operator.” It was a recording. Harry pressed 0 and a live woman’s voice said, “How may I direct your call?”

  Harry said, “I’m trying to reach a friend, Albin Zeller.”

  “Is he a guest at the hotel?”

  “Yeah,” Harry said. “Where am I calling?”

  “The Kingsley Inn, sir.”

  Harry hung up and ran to his car. Drove to the hotel at Woodward Avenue and Long Lake. He parked, walked in, stopped at the front desk and asked for Zeller.

  “I am sorry, sir,” the clerk said, “Mr. Zeller checked out.”

  “When?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “No sir, but maybe one of the bellmen knows something.” The clerk called the concierge and three young guys in green uniforms appeared in the lobby. “Any of you help Mr. Zeller with his luggage?”

  “I did,” said a longhaired guy named Scott.

  “He say where he was going?”

  “Asked how long it would take to get to the airport.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He had a plane ticket in his shirt pocket but I couldn’t see where he was going.”

  “You know what airline?”

  Cuffee Johnson phoned the Palm Beach detective, Conlin, giving him the bad news. The man definitely had an attitude. Like it was beneath him to deal with Bahamian law enforcement. Cuffee told him the suspect had escaped, and had also murdered a nurse named Paulette, wife of a friend and mother of two little ones.

  “I thought you were gonna have somebody there watching him around the clock,” Conlin said. “Did I tell you to put him in leg irons? That’s what we do with suspects we think are dangerous here in Palm Beach County, make sure they don’t kill people and get away.”

  Hearing the man’s critical tone made his blood pressure rise. “A couple days ago this dangerous suspect, his nurse tells me, was too weak to stand on his own feet,” Cuffee said, giving it back to him. “Man can’t walk, didn’t seem to be a flight risk.”

  “Well either he was playing you, or he made a miraculous recovery.”

  “One or the other,” Cuffee said, “but listen, why are we wasting time talking about it? The question now, how we going to catch him?”

  “You mean how am I going to catch him?”

  This American detective was really full of himself. “What I want to know,” Cuffee said, “how’d this killer get away from you the first time, come to Freeport?”

  That shut him up for a few seconds.

  “Okay,” Conlin said. “Tell me what you know.”

  “I know after sneaking out of the hospital the man broke into a store down the street, stole clothes and money. I know the next morning he took a cab to Lucaya, had breakfast at a restaurant at the marina. And I know he made friends with an American couple, hijacked their yacht and left them stranded on a little deserted island, lucky a fisherman come by when he did. They were thi
rty-six hours without food or water.”

  “Let me guess,” Conlin said. “The yacht’s a fifty-one-foot Hatteras and the couple’s name was Brank. Know who he is? Makes pornographic movies.”

  “That’s what I understand,” Cuffee said. “So you have the boat, uh?”

  “Coast Guard towed it in last night. Nobody on it.”

  Now it was clear. The man was back in Florida.

  Conlin cleared his throat. “What did this guy Brank say about him?”

  “He was a sleeper, you know? Cool, low-key, nothing suspicious about him. Man said his name was Emile Landau, a builder from Atlanta, and Brank believed him. They started talking about boats and Brank invited him aboard. The rest of the story, I think you know.”

  “You met the suspect,” Conlin said. “What did you think?”

  “I didn’t believe him. Man accused of murder but can’t remember anything. A little too convenient, don’t you think?”

  “I felt the same way,” Conlin said, talking one cop to another now. “This guy Klaus was so relaxed when I questioned him, I thought he was falling asleep.”

  “What I don’t understand,” Cuffee said, “this man come from Stuttgart, had a German passport, right? Went through customs in Detroit. But he don’t speak the language?”

  “Said he couldn’t remember,” Conlin said.

  Cuffee said. “Keep me posted, uh? I got a personal interest in this one.”

  Conlin had been at the crime scene since the Costa Rican maid found Lynn Risdon and called the police. The room smelled of perfume and feces, like somebody took a dump and splashed it with Chanel No. 5. That was the only perfume name he could think of.

  Lynn Risdon was on her back fully clothed, lying in her own waste. Face frozen. Eyes open. There was rope binding her wrists and ankles. According to the medical examiner the probable cause of death was asphyxiation. The phone line had been pulled out of the wall, but there was no sign of a struggle.

  They found grey stubble on a razor in the bathroom, and grey hair webbed on a brush and on the bottom of the tub. Looked like whoever killed her had showered and shaved. May have had a snack too. There was an empty milk glass and two plates in the sink. Forensics had been able to lift a couple prints and were checking to see if they matched the prints Conlin had taken of Klaus in the Bahamian hospital.

  The deceased was wearing a two-carat diamond ring and a Rolex. Her cash and credit cards were still in her wallet. So apparently robbery wasn’t a motive. Conlin dumped the contents of her purse on the kitchen table: brush, comb, makeup, condoms, lipstick and wallet. He opened the wallet, took out the driver’s license. Lynn Risdon was forty-one, five six, 130 pounds, dark hair parted down the middle. There was a registration for a 1969 Ford Mustang, but the car wasn’t on the property or out front on the street. Maybe she met the killer somewhere and he brought her here in his car. As he was putting her things back in the purse he noticed a receipt from a bar/restaurant on Gulfstream Road.

  According to a neighbor Lynn Risdon was divorced and collecting $3,200 a month in alimony. Her relationship with her ex was acrimonious. He didn’t know the exact definition of the word, but he knew it wasn’t good. Looking for a motive, Conlin thought? There it was.

  The bartender was a big guy with a gut, looked like a former athlete. He was busy behind the bar, getting ready for the happy-hour rush. Conlin walked in, got his attention and held up his shield.

  The bartender grinned and said, “I’m innocent.” Thinking he was funny.

  Conlin let it go and said, “I need to ask you some questions.”

  “I’m kinda busy. The boozehounds are on their way, be here any time.”

  “You can work while we talk.”

  The bar was empty except for a couple of old dudes in golf shirts down to his right, drinking martinis. He could hear “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night coming from speakers somewhere in the room. Conlin held up a snapshot of Lynn Risdon he’d found in a desk drawer at her house. “You know her?”

  The bartender looked up and nodded. “She’s a regular. Comes in has a few and leaves. Saw her last night.” He was slicing lemons and limes on a plastic cutting board.

  “Was she with someone?” Conlin sat on a barstool, elbows on the bar top like a customer, thinking how good a beer would taste.

  “Guy next to her, ordered a single malt, they started talking.”

  “What’d he look like?”

  “Salt ’n’ pepper hair, late forties, fifty, little shorter than you, little heavier. What happened?”

  He slid the cut slices off the cutting board into a white plastic bucket.

  “This guy she was talking to, they know each other?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a bartender,” he said, like being a bartender was an elite profession – right up there with neurosurgeons.

  “What were they talking about?”

  He looked up from the cutting board and shrugged.

  “I thought you were a bartender.”

  “He was telling her he was a producer, made porno flicks. I don’t know if he was making it up or not, but she was into it.”

  “They leave together?”

  “She had four martinis, could barely walk. He helped her out, practically carried her.”

  “He drive her home?”

  “How do I know? Ask Joey, the valet.”

  “This look like him?” Conlin said, showing him the artist sketch of Gerd Klaus.

  “Yeah.”

  Joey looked like a valet, skinny dark-haired kid with a goatee, wearing skintight black Levis, black tee shirt and a red vest. Joey, Conlin noticed, had a ring on every finger. He was setting up his booth near the door when Conlin walked out of the restaurant at 5:12 p.m. After introductions, Conlin said, “What’s with the rings?”

  “Each one represents a special memory.”

  “A special memory, huh?” Conlin said, thinking this guy had to be a fruit. He showed him the picture of Lynn Risdon. “Know her?”

  “She’s here a lot. Drives a white ’69 Mustang.”

  “See her last night?”

  “Uh-huh. Pulled in at six thirty. Left at around quarter to ten. She was wasted, couldn’t walk, some guy was helping her to her car.”

  Joey had a heavy Boston accent. Conlin had to really listen to understand him. “He drive her home?”

  “I don’t know, but he drove her somewhere.”

  “What about his car?”

  “Don’t think he had one. I saw him walk in from Gulfstream Road at about seven fifteen.” He paused. “I was here till closing, never saw him again.”

  “Ever seen him before?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Conlin showed him the artist sketch. “This look like him?”

  “Definitely.”

  Conlin got to Sunset Realty at about twenty to seven, parked on Worth, went in, flashed his shield and told the bleached blonde receptionist with silver hairpins holding up the front of her hair he was looking for Joyce Cantor.

  “You just missed her. Went out the door a couple of minutes ago. She’s walking home. Lives at the Winthrop House. Know where that’s at, don’t you?”

  Conlin nodded, thanked her and walked outside, looked east, trying to spot Joyce on the congested sidewalk. Didn’t see her. He got in his car. Worth Avenue was one-way so he drove to Cocoanut Row, went right and right again on Peruvian and took it all the way to the beach road, ocean straight ahead, took another right and pulled over in a no-parking zone in front of the Winthrop House. On the way he got a call from headquarters saying a patrolman had found Lynn Risdon’s car parked on Worth Avenue, first block.

  Conlin had taken Joyce Cantor’s statement two weeks earlier in connection with the homicide of a security guard killed on the estate where Joyce was staying. Said she hadn’t heard a gunshot and had never met a German manufacturer’s rep named Gerd Klaus whose rental vehicle was discovered near t
he scene of the crime. Joyce’s story was corroborated by Harry Levin, and by a colored guy named Cordell Sims, who were also staying at the estate owned by some rich guy named Frankel from New York. Talk about a clusterfuck.

  Conlin knew they were bullshitting him, but he couldn’t prove anything and had to let them go, all except for Sims who had an outstanding warrant against him – felony firearm – and ended up spending a day in county lockup until his legal problems were miraculously resolved. Now the German was back and he had a feeling Joyce would be interested to know about it.

  Hess walked out of the restaurant and followed Joyce from the opposite side of the street, strolling along Worth Avenue in his new Palm Beach disguise, golf cap low over his eyes almost touching the frames of the aviator sunglasses. As far as Joyce was concerned he was dead. No one could have survived being shot and thrown in the ocean. That’s why he believed God had intervened.

  He was thinking of the last time he’d seen her – she’d been right there on the bed a few feet away – regretting he hadn’t pulled the trigger when he had the chance. But there had been extenuating circumstances – like a crazy Jew with a gun, shooting at him.

  He passed a police car double-parked next to Lynn Risdon’s Mustang. The policeman was on the passenger side, looking in the window. Hess continued on, a Palm Beach retiree, glancing at his reflection in store windows. Just past South County Road he crossed over on Joyce’s side of the street, thirty paces behind her, slowing down to maintain the distance between them.

  A Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud was approaching, two-tone, silver and black, Hess admiring the classic motorcar with its long hood. When he looked down the sidewalk Joyce was gone. He quickened his pace, glanced left into a boutique, a big open shop, but didn’t see her. Passed two more stores and finally spotted her in a flower shop.

  There was no place to stop and wait without being seen, so Hess walked to the end of Worth Avenue, crossed South Ocean Boulevard and leaned his hip against the seawall, gazing out at the Atlantic. He watched a seagull dive in the water and rise up with a fish twisting in its beak. He looked over his shoulder and saw Joyce on the sidewalk, coming toward him, carrying a bouquet of flowers wrapped in paper. He watched her stop, cross Worth Avenue and go into the Winthrop House through a side entrance. Hess crossed too and followed her into the building. The lobby was crowded with people talking, watching television, playing cards and backgammon. Joyce, he noticed, was at the reception desk in conversation with Conlin, the detective who had visited him at the hospital in Freeport.