Deal to Die For

by Les Standiford

  “Ray,” Deal repeated.

  “That’s right. Because this whole thing shook Ray up pretty bad. He’d been having a rough time of it anyway. His old lady had left him a couple of months before, he had a shitpot full of bills, he’s trying to figure out where he made his wrong turn in life, then this happens. Two or three weeks later, he starts telling me how he’s having dreams, this kid hanging on to the ledge by his fingernails, Ray is stomping on his hands until he screams and lets go, takes a header to the sidewalk…”

  “Wait a minute,” Deal said. “Did your partner get in trouble over this?”

  “Naw,” Driscoll said. “There was an inquiry, of course, but I didn’t bring up what Ray said to the guy.” He shrugged again. “I didn’t see the need. But Ray couldn’t get it out of his mind. ‘I did it to him,’ he started telling me. ‘I might as well have pushed him off the side.’ Didn’t do me any good to try and convince him otherwise.”

  “So I’m Ray, and Barbara is this guy who threw himself off the County Courthouse,” Deal said. “Where does that get us?”

  Driscoll made a noncommittal gesture with his hands.

  “So what’s the point? Ray finally goes for counseling, Deal should too? I don’t get it, Driscoll.”

  “Well,” Driscoll said, “Ray did seek help, as a matter of fact. He contacted Doctor Smith and Doctor Wesson, had an intimate conversation with them. He hadn’t called in for a couple of days, I was walking up the stairs of his apartment to see why, when it took place.”

  Deal stared at him as it sunk in. “Jesus Christ, Vernon.”

  “The point is, that it wasn’t Ray Robertson’s fault that kid took a header off the buzzard perch, and it wasn’t my fault or anybody else’s fault that Ray Robertson redecorated his place with the inside of his head. The point is,” Driscoll thumped the table with one of his thick fingers, “you got troubles of your own to worry about. Barbara hadn’t done what she did last night, she would have done it some other time and it wouldn’t have had a damn thing to do with you. She had big-time problems, Johnny. You were just a blip on her screen.”

  Deal stared at him for a moment, then turned away.

  “Go ahead,” Driscoll said. “Grieve for her. But don’t start thinking this was your fault.”

  Deal stared out at the traffic on 8th Street, already bustling, never mind it was still early on a Sunday morning. The kind of morning where he ought to be in bed, cup of coffee on the nightstand, Sunday paper strewn all over the place, Janice at his side doing the crossword, maybe a chance he could distract her for a little fooling around while Isabel watched cartoons in the den. That wasn’t asking for the moon, was it?

  And Barbara. What had she wanted? How much would it have taken to make her content, to allow her to want to wake up in the morning, at least? Was it her job? Her love life? Some weird chemical, or the lack thereof, in her brain? Some or all of that taken together and then your mother dies and your only friend pisses you off so bad you decide to teach him and the rest of the world a lesson once and for all? He supposed that was the way it worked, but something seemed wrong.

  He forced himself from his thoughts and turned calmly to Driscoll. “She didn’t do it, Vernon.” The words were out before he realized he was going to say them.

  “Excuse me?” Driscoll had turned back to his neglected breakfast, had a sausage patty speared on his fork.

  “That’s what’s bothering me,” he said. “Barbara. I just can’t believe that Barbara killed herself.”

  “Is that right?” Driscoll said. He took the sausage down in a gulp.

  “This detective I was telling you about,” Deal said. “He doesn’t think she did it, either.”

  “What makes you think so?” Driscoll said. He’d cleaned his plate, was eyeing Deal’s plate now. “You going to eat those eggs?”

  Deal pushed his plate across the table. “The way he looked at me, for one thing,” Deal said. “Like I was a suspect.”

  “That’s what cops do,” Driscoll said. “It’s their nature. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” He took a sizable forkful of Deal’s cold eggs.

  “Listen to me, Driscoll. A minute ago, you were giving me a life-and-death sermon, now all you care about is your breakfast.”

  “A minute ago I was worried you were going off the deep end. Now I see you’re just deluded.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  Driscoll sighed, put his fork down. “A cop gives you a fishy look, that means Barbara didn’t kill herself?”

  Deal shook his head. “He took me through it a half-dozen times: what I was doing before she called, who I was with, what I did when I got there…but the way he was going over the details, it was like he was fishing for the slightest discrepancy…”

  “Sounds like SOP,” Driscoll said. “Anyway, the guy already called me. He’s not on your case.”

  Deal gave him an astonished look. “This detective called you? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Driscoll shrugged. “I’m telling you now,” he said.

  “Jesus Christ, Driscoll.” An old guy with an unlit cigar in his mouth glanced over from his place at the counter and Deal lowered his voice to a hiss. “How do you know he isn’t on my case?”

  “Giverty?” Driscoll laughed. “I know Buzz Giverty from the time we used to drive a patrol car up and down this street right here, before he joined the white flight up to Broward.” Driscoll nodded out the window that gave onto 8th Street. A low-rider had pulled up to the light, its windows smoked to obsidian, the bass from its throbbing speakers pushing enough air to rumble the plate glass at Deal’s elbow. “I told him the whole thing, how you met Barbara in the first place, what you told me about her mother and sister and all…” He broke off to signal the waitress for more coffee, then turned back, “And that you’re basically the squarest, most law-abiding citizen that it has ever been my pleasure to rent an apartment from.” Driscoll opened his meaty palms on the table, resting his case.

  “I guess that’s a compliment,” Deal said. He considered things a moment, then turned back to Driscoll. “But the point is, he seemed to think there was something worth following up on.”

  “Giverty’s just doing his job. The ME says it’s a suicide, it’s a suicide.”

  “That ME’s just off the boat. He could hardly pronounce suicide,” Deal said.

  Driscoll paused, giving Deal a look of concern. “Something does occur to me,” he said finally.

  “What’s that?” Deal said.

  “That you’re doing just what I was talking about earlier.”

  “Come again?”

  “This whole guilt thing,” Driscoll said. “You don’t want to accept that Barbara did herself in because that gets you all screwed up thinking you could have prevented it.” He gave him a look. “So if Barbara didn’t kill herself, you’re off the hook.”

  Deal stared back, dumbfounded. “Terrific, Driscoll. You should forget the private eye business, go into psychiatry.”

  Driscoll raised his hands in innocence. “I’m just trying to figure out why you’re having these feelings.”

  “Goddammit, Driscoll. Even her sister said it. Barbara just wasn’t the type. She was too pissed off to kill herself.”

  Driscoll feigned surprise. “Aha, now there’s your proof.”

  Deal stared at him for a moment, then turned away. “Forget it, Driscoll. You’re right. She blew herself away, let’s forget about it and eat.” He raised his hand to signal the waitress. “What do you want,” he said over his shoulder. “Couple rashers of bacon? A roast pig? How about a side of beef to go with that?”

  Driscoll pulled his hand down, gave him a weary look. “Look, Deal, somebody gets killed, there are usually reasons. Robbery, jealousy, fit of rage, stuff like that.” He ticked off items on his fingers as he continued. “We know that nothing was taken from Barbara’s place. Do you have any knowledge of anyone who was angry with her, anyone who would have wis
hed her harm?”

  Deal turned back to him. It was true—all logic argued against his feelings. “No,” he admitted. “She was angry with her sister.”

  “But the sister—this actress with a life, and money, and all that—she wasn’t angry with Barbara?”

  “It didn’t seem like it to me.” Deal stared at him.

  “Okay,” Driscoll said. He threw up his hands in surrender. “I don’t have anything to do. You want to leave Isabel with Mrs. Suarez a couple more hours, I’ll ride with you up to Broward, take a look at what they got.”

  Deal looked at him. “It’s Sunday. Is anybody going to be around?”

  Driscoll laughed. “You think the ME’s office takes the weekend off? That’s when the crazies go into high gear.” He sighed then, as if he were recalling the weight of thirty years of such weekends.

  “Let’s do it, then,” Deal said, and the big man heaved himself up out of his chair.

  Chapter 23

  “Real pretty,” Driscoll was saying, flipping through the photographs the medical examiner had provided. He dropped the stack back into the manila envelope, handed it to Deal with a dour glance.

  Deal caught a glimpse of the first of the stack, had to turn away. There were three of them in a tiny third-story office that suddenly didn’t seem to have enough air in it for breathing. Block walls painted beige, industrial carpet worn to the thickness of a handkerchief. Deal checked the window, but he knew it was the kind that would only open with an axe. He fought the feeling of claustrophobia, glanced out at the intersection below, empty except for one sun-blistered hawker sitting on a stack of Sunday papers piled high at the curb.

  “Suicide is a terrible thing,” the ME said. It was the same earnest young man from the night before—Mekhtar, according to his desk plate. The way he said it, the way he sat, his lips pursed in a disapproving way, it made Deal want to open the window by tossing him through it.

  Driscoll motioned at the envelope in Deal’s hand. “You mind if I borrow these for a while?”

  Mekhtar’s eyes widened. “Mr. Driscoll,” he said. “I am truly sorry. As you are no longer…” He broke off, trying to avoid any conception of insult. He shook his head in consternation. “Yes. This would be a thing that we could not allow. The property of the department as it is being. Yes, I am very sorry about that.”

  Driscoll stared at him for a moment, astounded by the locution. He glanced at Deal, then swept his gaze about the office, considering things. Something seemed to catch his attention and he made a gesture out Mekhtar’s open office door. “Fenderman’s finally out of here?”

  Deal followed the ex-cop’s gaze. Across the hallway was the entrance to a much bigger office. He got a glimpse of a couple of flags behind a barren desk, dark-paneled walls, some mostly empty bookshelves. Even Deal had heard of Irwin Fenderman, until recently Broward County’s Chief Medical Examiner. He was a flamboyant figure, always on the scene where foul play and any measure of celebrity converged, face in front of the cameras, ready to offer an opinion of what had happened on the spot. The run-and-gun school of journalism loved him, but he’d been less than popular among his peers in law enforcement.

  Mekhtar too followed Driscoll’s gesture, nodding. “Oh, he is gone, all right.” He turned back, pointed at the computer screen on a metal credenza behind him. “He is gone, everything is gone.” Deal saw a series of green lines crawling up an otherwise blank screen.

  “What are you talking about?” Driscoll said.

  “The files, the computer program, everything,” Mekhtar said, gazing mournfully at his blank monitor. “The chief installed our system, you see.” He glanced up at Deal. “And when he had his…” he hesitated, searching for the right words “…falling out with the city council, he decided to take what he felt was his.” Mekhtar threw up his hands.

  Driscoll nodded. “It sounds like Fenderman,” he said.

  Deal placed the photographs back in the manila envelope, returned the envelope to the file and handed it to Mekhtar. “I guess they should’ve given him the raise he wanted.”

  Mekhtar smiled in agreement. “Yes. Things are in much disarray here,” he said. He glanced at Driscoll, holding up the envelope. “I am sorry about the photographs. Perhaps if the Chief were still here, something could be done…”

  “Forget it,” Driscoll said, motioning to Deal.

  “And I am sorry about your friend,” Mekhtar added as Deal brushed by him.

  ***

  They were in Driscoll’s Ford now, waiting on the light at the intersection Deal had looked down upon a few minutes before, Deal still so steamed about Mekhtar and his eagerness to dismiss Barbara’s death as a suicide that he’d almost forgotten.

  “You wanted these?” Deal said to Driscoll. He reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew a wad of photos he’d palmed from the coroner’s envelope.

  Driscoll glanced over, saw what Deal was holding. “Well, I’m a sonofabitch,” he said, his scowl rearranging itself into a grin. “I’m proud of you, Johnny-boy.”

  Deal shrugged. “I’ve been spending too much time around you, I guess.”

  Driscoll clapped him on the shoulder, tucked the photos into his own pocket. “Things get tough in the construction racket, you come see me.”

  Deal nodded absently, still focused on Mekhtar. Analretentive little guy, it probably made him feel better to account for every messy death as quickly as possible. On the other hand, maybe it was an unavoidable consequence of the job. Given the murder rate in South Florida, there were plenty of demands on his time. Who needed to manufacture a case when you needed a computer to keep the victims straight? And, he had to admit, there didn’t seem to be much to go on here, not if logic was your measuring stick. Just Deal’s vague hunch, her estranged sister’s chance comment that Barbara was too angry to commit suicide. He turned away from his thoughts then, fighting the sneaking suspicion that the real reason he was up here, running around Broward County on an otherwise beautiful Sunday afternoon, was because the alternative was to be at home, face-to-face with the calamity of his own life.

  He rolled the window down, no chance of a power window in a car that Driscoll owned, noticed that the newspaper hawker he’d seen from above was heading their way, a copy of the Broward paper held before his chest. From the vantage point of the third floor, the guy had looked like a surfer: cordovan tan, sun-bleached hair, T-shirt, baggy trunks, and rubber flip-flops—a kid picking up a few bucks while the tide was slack. Down here, though, Deal could see the guy was pushing fifty, his face a mask of creases, his eyes leached by the tropical glare to the color of concrete.

  “Sun Sentinel,” the guy said in a rasping, singsong voice. “Get your Sun Sentinel.” He had to be talking to them, but his eyes were locked on something far away. “MORE RAFTERS WASH ASHORE,” Deal read the inch-high headlines. A color photo of bodies tumbling in the surf, more people who’d died trying to get to the promised land. More people who’d died.

  “Hold it,” Deal said as the light turned green. He put out a hand to stop Driscoll, dug into his pocket with the other. He held out a bill for the guy, took the paper.

  “Go,” Deal said to Driscoll.

  Driscoll hesitated. “That’s a ten you gave him,” he protested.

  The hawker stood there uncertainly, turning the bill over and back in his hands.

  “Keep it,” Deal said.

  The guy looked at him. “You want some more papers, Mister?”

  “Go,” Deal said again, and finally the ex-cop hit the gas.

  They drove in silence for a few blocks, Driscoll obviously troubled as they cruised down Las Olas past a long string of fashionable shops, past a sidewalk café jammed with Sunday brunch-eaters, then into prime residential territory that bordered the Intracoastal Waterway.

  “That guy you gave the money to,” Driscoll said finally, his eyes on the road ahead. “He’s just gonna go get juiced.”

  Deal nodded. “So I saved
him a couple hours in the hot sun.”

  Driscoll glanced over at him, started to say something else, then gave up, shaking his head. At the next light, he swung off Las Olas, heading down a tree-lined street that alternated antebellum-style mansions with modern glass and stone estates, each place sitting on an acre or so of jade green lawn.

  “Detective Giverty lives out here?” Deal asked.

  Driscoll snorted. “Giverty lives in a crackerbox down in Davie,” he said. “Place on a couple of acres, where he can keep a horse. That’s one reason why he wanted to move to Broward. So he could keep a horse.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Then what are we doing here?” Deal said. In one way it was all right, cruising aimlessly along the streets of a strange city. Pretty Sunday afternoon, pretty houses. But why wasn’t he with his wife, his daughter, on some happy family outing, burgers on the beach, everybody arm-in-arm on Daddy’s day off…

  “I thought we’d go see Irwin Fenderman,” Driscoll said, breaking into Deal’s thought. He tapped his jacket where he’d put the photos. “See what he thinks of these.”

  “You think there’s something in them that Mekhtar doesn’t?”

  “Let’s just wait and see,” Driscoll said. He pointed up ahead, then abruptly swung the Ford through a break in the lushly planted median. They crossed the opposite lane and entered the long driveway of what looked like an abandoned house. In contrast to the neatly manicured lawns on either side, this one had run riot: the St. Augustine grass rose up in knee-high clumps, wild redleaf vines dragged at the low-lying branches of live oak and ficus seedlings, a lamppost with its glass blown out leaned like a drunk fighting into a gale.

  “Welcome to the Fenderman estate,” Driscoll said dryly, using his jaw as a pointer.

  Deal stared up the cratered driveway, a pale tongue of crushed limestone pocked with outposts of weeds and bahia grass, which circled around in front of the house. The place had to have been something, once upon a time. A big two-story white clapboard with a green-shingled gabled roof, lots of gingerbread trim, and broad overhangs to ward off the sun. On one end, the place was anchored by a massive brick chimney with a number of flues peeking from the top. On the opposite end, the easternmost, was a glassed-in tower with a widow’s walk. Deal didn’t doubt that you could actually see the ocean from up there. It looked like a shore house picked up by a big wind off Chesapeake Bay and dropped perversely down in the tropics.