Gunner couldn’t think of an answer for that, because Loiacano was right: Technically speaking, Thomas Selmon’s murder had been solved, his killer brought to justice. Anything Frerotte might or might not have done to try and profit from Selmon’s murder afterward was immaterial now.
“But we don’t know that the book wasn’t Jack’s primary motive for killing Selmon,” Gunner said. “The money he got from the Defenders—”
“Was what? Just icing on the cake? Come on, Gunner. That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“But—”
“Look. I’ve already got a motive for Selmon’s murder, and one’s all I need. Doesn’t matter how many Frerotte had in all, what matters is that he’s the perp I’ve been looking for, and he’s no longer out on the street. The end.
“Now. You wanna call every agent and publisher in New York to see if somebody’s holding a Thomas Selmon manuscript, be my guest. Just remember it ain’t gonna change anything at this point. Selmon’s still gonna be dead, and so will Frerotte.” He looked over at his partner, said, “Hey, Sal! We about ready to wrap this up?”
Moreno grinned, overflowing as usual with good cheer. “Any time you say, yeah.”
“Let me know what you find out, Gunner,” Loiacano said, putting his little leather-bound notebook back in his jacket pocket. “I’d be interested to hear if you were right about this book thing, or not.”
“Sure thing, Detective. Thanks for all your help,” Gunner said.
Managing to keep the sarcasm in his voice down to an almost imperceptible level.
Gunner made eleven phone calls, then one more, just to make it an even dozen. It was this last he should have started with, the way things turned out.
A literary agent out of Manhattan named Karen Fielder said she’d talked to a man calling himself John Frerotte about a Thomas Selmon memoir back in mid-December, but was still waiting to receive a completed manuscript. Frerotte had sent her a six-page proposal of the book initially, and she’d jumped at the chance to represent it, providing the author’s identity could be verified prior to the manuscript’s submission to publishers. Learning now that both Frerotte and Selmon were dead, and that the book she’d been anxiously waiting to receive would not be forthcoming, nearly devastated her.
“I can’t believe it,” she told Gunner again and again.
She said Frerotte had asked what kind of money she thought the Selmon book might bring on the open market upon its completion, and she had told him an advance in the mid-six figures would not be unreasonable, providing the book delivered everything the proposal seemed to promise.
“The mid six figures?” Gunner asked. “Not the low?”
“The low?”
“Say between one and two hundred thousand.”
“Well,” Fielder said, “it may have gone for as little as that, I suppose. But that would have been something of a disappointment, to be quite frank with you.”
“You didn’t suggest to Mr. Frerotte that he could expect an advance of a hundred and fifty thousand?”
Fielder thought about it, said, “I imagine I could have. If I’d been concerned about overstating the market value of the manuscript. But I’m almost certain we could have gotten much more than one-fifty for it, and I’ve felt that way from the start. You’re sure there hasn’t been some kind of mistake? There really is no Selmon book?”
“The way things look right now, Ms. Fielder, no. There isn’t. I’m sorry.”
He asked her if there was any chance she could send him a copy of Frerotte’s proposal, and naturally, she balked, smart lady that she was. He gave her Denny Loiacano’s phone number out at Hollywood, requested that she reconsider if the cop would be good enough to vouch for him.
Fielder said she’d think about it.
“What does it mean?” Yolanda McCreary asked.
“It means Jack was smarter than I ever gave him credit for. He found a way to get paid twice for killing the same man.”
It was just before nine at the Acey Deuce, and Gunner and McCreary were two of the mere six people in the house, including Lilly Tennell and Pharaoh Doubleday. The TV over the bar was tuned to a Clippers game, but Pharaoh and the two guys at the bar were ignoring it, Lilly was off in the back storeroom somewhere, and the set was nothing but a blur to Gunner from where he was sitting, at the same remote booth he’d shared last Thursday with Gil Everson and Rafe Sweeney. Not that actually seeing a Clipper game ever really mattered; it was always a safe bet the team was getting hammered, regardless of who they were playing or where. It was just one of those universal laws of sports-oriented physics.
“I don’t understand,” McCreary said. “You’re saying Frerotte was writing the book Tommy had been talking about writing himself? About the scandal at the paper?”
“Yes. Either that, or he’d sent this agent in New York a six-page proposal for nothing.”
“But where would he have gotten the idea to do that? From Tommy?”
“I think he probably got it on his own. Jack was a heavy reader of that sort of thing. Seeing a book in your brother’s story would have probably come naturally to him.”
“So where is the manuscript, then? If this agent doesn’t have it—”
Gunner shook his head, said, “I don’t know where it is. I went through Jack’s house pretty thoroughly last Wednesday, but I never made it up to the second floor, and my search of the basement, as you may recall, was rudely interrupted. It could be over there somewhere, I guess. Assuming it survived the fire.”
“How can we find out?”
“If it’s there or not? Sift through the rubble, I imagine. Are you asking me to do that?”
“Am I asking you to do it? Sure. Why not?”
“Well … I just thought you might be ready to let this thing go and move on. But if you want me to stay on it—”
“Move on? How can I move on? If this book was the reason my brother was killed—”
“What? Finding it will bring him back? Or punish Jack Frerotte beyond the grave for having killed him?” He paused, allowing McCreary to consider the question before going on. “Loiacano was right, Yo. Your brother’s dead, and so is the man who killed him. Finding this manuscript Jack may or may not have been writing might satisfy our curiosity about a few things, but that’s about all.”
“Yes, but—”
She stopped, deferring to Lilly Tennell, who had suddenly appeared at their table, smiling, acting like she knew how a real hostess of the public was supposed to behave. “How you folks doin’ over here? Can I get you another round?”
The timing of the question irked Gunner, but he knew to show Lilly any attitude would be tantamount to flushing the rest of his and McCreary’s evening here down the toilet. “Thanks, Lilly, no,” he said.
“You sure? Sister’s glass is empty.”
Gunner looked, saw that she was right. “Would you like another?” he asked McCreary.
“Please,” McCreary said.
“My name is Lilly, honey,” Lilly said, holding her right hand out for McCreary to shake. “Since this fool you’re sittin’ with is too ignorant to introduce us properly.”
McCreary shook the big bartender’s hand and smiled warmly. “Yolanda. Pleased to meet you, Lilly.”
“I like that name. Yolanda.”
“Lilly …” Gunner said.
“Anybody ever tell you you look just like Simone Grant? That girl on Love Conquers All?”
“Oh, yes,” McCreary admitted, blushing slightly. “Many times.”
“You got that same smile, and you wear your hair the same way she does. For a minute there, I thought you was her.”
“No, no, thank God. Simone is terrible!”
“Ain’t she, though? Erica Kane and Dorian Lord, all wrapped into one!”
Both women fell out laughing.
“Somebody wanna clue me in on the joke?” Gunner asked.
McCreary stopped laughing, said, “Love Conquers All is a daytime drama on TV, and Simone
Grant is its star bitch.”
“A ‘daytime drama’? You mean a soap?”
“Don’t nobody call ’em soaps anymore, Gunner,” Lilly said, obviously insulted.
Gunner shook his head. “Jesus.”
Less than a year ago, being laid up at home with a serious concussion had left the investigator with little to do for nearly a week but spend his daylight hours watching soap operas—All My Children, The Young and the Restless, General Hospital, and yes, now that he thought about it, Love Conquers All—and the experience had damn near lobotomized him. In the all-too-addictive universe of ‘daytime drama,’ monogamy was a joke without a punchline, one child was born out of wedlock for every fifteen minutes of airtime, and wealth without beauty, or vice versa, was a physical impossibility.
They might not spell the ruin of modern civilization, Gunner conceded, but soaps sure as hell would never do anything to advance it.
“You think she’s gonna marry Dr. Burton now?” Lilly asked McCreary. “Now that his wife has agreed to a divorce?”
“Simone? I don’t think so,” McCreary said with some confidence.
“I don’t either. ’Cause Ramona said Friday, she’s only givin’ that man a divorce so she can clean his ass out, excuse my French. And Simone—”
“Won’t wanna have anything to do with Dr. Burton after that.”
“Exactly,” Lilly agreed.
“You were supposed to be bringing the lady a fresh drink,” Gunner reminded her.
The big woman glared at him, trying to decide whether or not his insensitivity to the subject of discussion deserved a slap upside the head. She turned to McCreary and said, “White Russian, right, honey?”
“Yes, please,” McCreary said.
Before Lilly could look his way again, Gunner added, “Nothing for me, thanks.”
Lilly grunted at him, then slowly lumbered off.
“That was a little rude, wasn’t it?” McCreary asked.
“We were in the middle of a conversation. Maybe you remember it.”
McCreary thought about defending Lilly further, but realized he was right. “You were telling me why it makes no sense for us to look for the book Frerotte may have been writing.”
“That’s right.”
“Because finding it won’t change anything.”
“Because finding it won’t tell us anything we don’t already know. We know your brother’s dead, and we know who killed him. The only thing we don’t know at this point is why. Did he murder Tommy for the sake of the book, or the five grand he got from the Defenders?”
“And the book wouldn’t answer that question.”
“No. It wouldn’t. At least, I can’t see how it would. But it’s your call, Yo, like I said. You want me to look for it anyway, I will. I’ll start tomorrow, if that’s what you want.”
McCreary grew still, testing the weight of his argument against the insistence of her curiosity. Meanwhile, Lilly brought her her drink, smiled, then left them alone again without comment.
“All right,” McCreary said finally. “I’ll let it go.”
Gunner gave her a long look, uncertain of her conviction. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Why not? It’ll leave some questions unanswered for me, but that’s okay. What counts is that we know what happened to Tommy now, and that the man who murdered him is dead. I never really wanted any more than that.” She smiled. “Besides—I can’t afford you anymore, Aaron. It’s time I went home and put all of this behind me.”
“Home?”
“Back to Chicago. I live there, remember?”
“Sure, I remember. I just thought you might want to wait a while before heading back. Give us a chance to spend some quality time together.”
“Is that what you want me to do?”
“I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t. I thought we had an understanding. About what I’m looking for here.”
“We did. I just … was a little unsure about it, I guess.”
“Yeah? How so?”
She faced him directly, said, “I don’t know you, Aaron. We’ve known each other for all of eight days.”
“And?”
“And a woman needs more time than that to trust her own feelings about a man, let alone his for her.”
“Okay. So how much time do you need?”
“I can’t answer that. I don’t know how much time I’ll need. I only know that I want to take things slow with you, Aaron. Real slow. So that neither of us gets hurt mistaking this for something it isn’t.” She reached out, took his hand.
“And in the meantime, you won’t be selling the family farm back in Illinois,” Gunner said.
“No.”
“Or handing your friend the fireman his walking papers.”
McCreary hesitated, said, “No. Not yet.” She smiled. “But I’m here until the end of the week. Maybe you can change my mind by then.”
It sounded like a tease, but it wasn’t. It was a spoken dream, a wish for something wonderful and God-given made aloud.
He could see it in her eyes.
eighteen
THURSDAY WAS THE DAY IT ALL CAME CRASHING TOGETHER.
The quiet and uneventful Wednesday that preceded it had given no warning of what was to come. As of Thursday morning, Poole was still combing the streets for Rafe Sweeney and/or Gil Everson’s prostitute girlfriend, Byron Scales had yet to utter a word that might assist the FBI in its effort to track down his fellow Defenders of the Bloodline, and Gil Everson’s damage control strategy of one part professed ignorance mixed with two parts stubborn silence was in its third day of going strong. Time, in other words, had not exactly stood still since Tuesday evening, in the aftermath of Jack Frerotte’s death in Gunner’s living room, but it hadn’t produced anything remotely useful to the investigator’s various causes, either.
Perhaps if it had, Gunner would have found something more vital to do Thursday morning than attend Connie Everson’s funeral. He detested funerals, and any excuse to avoid one would have been welcome. But lacking other business on his agenda, and as the late Mrs. Everson had been a client, Gunner felt obligated to pay his last respects, rather than sit at his desk back at Mickey’s and pretend he wasn’t feeling guilty about it.
The service took place at Inglewood Park Memorial Cemetery, literally across the street from the hospital room at Daniel Freeman in which Sly Cribbs—who had himself only narrowly missed becoming the Everson affair’s first fatality—was slowly mending. Gray skies were fitting for funerals, and this one was as gray as they came: dark as charcoal, even black in places, blocking out the sun like an iron ceiling. It was only 10:00 A.M., but it could have easily passed for early nightfall.
Gunner hung back at the grave site like an interloper, watching them lay his former client into the ground with quiet dignity and grace. Councilman Everson, of course, was the chief mourner among the thirty or so people in attendance, darkly resplendent in a black, double-breasted suit, his grief composed but in clear view of all. If it was an act, Gunner thought, it was a good one. But then, guilt could often move a man to depths of emotion sorrow alone could not.
When Everson’s face flashed briefly with surprise, his eyes affixed to something off in the distance no one but he had yet to notice, Gunner almost missed it. The councilman’s recovery from the shock had been immediate, nearly instantaneous. But Gunner was lucky; his own gaze had been focused upon Everson at the time, and he’d caught the change in his expression right away. He turned to see what the councilman had found so disturbing …
… and saw a frail-looking black woman thirty yards away, limping down the paved road leading to the street.
Gunner stepped back, distancing himself farther yet from the gathering at Connie Everson’s grave, and took off at a dead run after her, not really giving a damn if Gil Everson saw him, or not.
“Connie was my sister,” Shelby Charles said. But Gunner had already known that, of course.
He had known it the minute he’d caught u
p to her just short of an hour ago, outside Inglewood Park Memorial Cemetery. He saw her face again and suddenly knew two things: why she had come to see his former client buried, and why she had always struck him as vaguely familiar. They hadn’t been identical twins, Connie Everson and Shelby Charles, but their resemblance to one another was there, however understated it might be.
It had taken him fifteen minutes to talk her into turning herself over to the police. He had feared that her brother-in-law’s black limousine would exit the cemetery, then stop on the street to let Gil Everson whisk her away before Gunner could even begin to question her, but the lead car in the funeral procession just cruised right past them instead, Everson probably deciding against giving the television news crews hovering outside the cemetery a scene he would never be able to explain away.
In the same room at Southwest in which Gunner had endured the smarmy brow-beating of agents Smith and Leffman two days earlier, Gunner and Poole sat down with Shelby Charles and coerced her into revealing, little by little, how she had unwittingly been the catalyst to both Sly Cribbs’s shooting and her older sister’s suicide.
According to Charles, she and Gil Everson had been engaged to be married years before Everson had married Connie Charles instead, when all three had been students at Howard University in the Charleses’ native Washington, D.C. Connie had always had designs on Everson, and he had always appreciated the attention. When Shelby was nearly crippled in a tragic car accident in the spring of 1982, one which left her with both a permanent hitch in her gait and a dependence on prescription pain killers, Connie moved in for the kill, and Everson jumped ship, finding it difficult to envision himself achieving his political goals with a less than flawless mate by his side. Unfortunately for Everson and his new bride-to-be, however, he could not make himself care for Connie Charles the way he cared for her sister. Even after a crushing depression drove her to a life on the street, where her drug addiction quickly expanded far beyond prescription medication, Shelby Charles remained the future Inglewood councilman’s one true love, and Connie Charles was both perceptive and realistic enough to know it. In fact, it was her greatest fear that Everson would eventually respond to this dilemma by either returning to Shelby outright, or keeping her as his mistress.
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