“Who’s Archie?”
“The dog I was going to adopt.”
“Oh. Who killed him?”
“The people my tax money pays to kill them.”
“Ruzak, I know you’ve got your heart set on it, but maybe a dog isn’t the right kind of pet for you. Maybe you should go with something that doesn’t require quite that level of commitment.”
“What, like a turtle?”
“Or a hamster, if it’s got to be a mammal. What about a parrot?”
“Parrots aren’t mammals, and I read somewhere they can live to be a hundred. I’m not comfortable with having a pet that will outlive me.”
She changed the subject. “You’ll never guess who called me today. Eunice Shriver.”
“Why’d she do that?”
“To talk about you. She’s a funky old broad. She kept me on the phone for two hours.”
“I’ll talk to her. People with obsessive personalities should have the decency to keep it to themselves. What did she want to know?”
“It was weird. She kept talking about you as if you were hypothetical.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Oh, she’d say things like, ‘If this guy you barely knew walked into the diner where you were working and offered to give you a job, bing, just like that, what would you say?’”
“Well, that’s pretty much what happened.”
“Or, ‘Say you had this thirty-something bachelor with limited social skills, let’s call him Teddy, how do you think he’d approach you, as a woman? … ‘ ‘’
“She wonders if I’d approach you if I was a woman?”
“Me as a woman, Ruzak. Me.”
“Oh. What did you say?”
“I said I would let him know I was involved in a relationship.”
“I’ve been meaning to call Vernon.”
“Who the hell is Vernon?”
“Her son. I’m thinking an intervention might be necessary.”
“I think she’s harmless. Aren’t you flattered?”
“More like unnerved. Her grip on reality is one-handed.”
“Right now I’m more concerned with your grip,” Felicia said. “Have you been studying for your exam?”
“I’ve been kind of busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking for my hat.”
“Oh, Ruzak.”
“Look, I should tell you in case you see them around somewhere: I’ve made up these posters offering a reward for Jack’s killer. Well, not a reward for his killer, but one for information leading to the arrest and conviction of his killer.”
There was a second or two of silence, and then she said,“What kind of reward?”
“The monetary kind.”
“Christ, Ruzak …”
“Only twenty-five thousand.”
“Oh, is that all? Ruzak, you’re talking to someone who happens to know the balance in your account.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay. I’m not dipping deep, not up to my neck, just sticking a toe in.”
“More like going up to your waist.”
“Well, we could quibble.”
“You’ll have fakes and con men coming out of the woodwork, Ruzak. Anybody with any legitimate knowledge is going to take it to the cops.”
“I don’t have to pay out unless there’s an arrest and conviction. By that time I’ll have passed the test and be back in business. And that’s all I’m gonna do, Felicia; I promise. No more sleuthing until I have my license. I think he’ll be happy with that.”
“You think who will be happy?”
“Jack.”
“Ruzak, Jack is dead.”
“I know. That’s how this whole thing started.”
“You remember Dr. Fredericks?” she asked.
The shrink. Something knotted up in my chest. I said, lips tight, “Sure I remember her.”
“Maybe you oughta give her a call.”
“You bet.”
I was chilled to the bone, so I took a hot shower, wrapped myself in a towel, and fried some bacon for a BLT in the cast-iron skillet I’d inherited from Mom. Halfway through the frying, the towel slipped from my middle and puddled around my ankles. It’s not a good idea in general to fry anything in the nude, but some masochistic switch had been flipped in my psyche, and the hot grease popping on my pale flesh brought me a kind of perverse satisfaction. I thought of those pilgrims who flagellate themselves on their way to shrines, though the odds weren’t in my favor that I was on some march to enlightenment. The odds were more likely I was slipping down a slope toward a messy landing. The evidence was there, like Eunice Shriver asking Felicia questions that implied my existence was merely hypothetical. The evidence was there that both Eunice and I had climbed into the same metaphysical boat, and that boat was being carried by a swift current toward the falls.
DECEMBER 4
SEVENTEEN
I signed in at the front desk, and the cop behind the counter gave me a visitor’s pass to clip on my shirt pocket. Then I followed a short young woman, whose uniform struck me as at least two sizes too small for her, through a set of double doors, and down a series of labyrinthine hallways until we reached a door outfitted with one of those keypad-locking systems. The door was labeled HOMICIDE. She blocked my view of the keypad with her body as she punched in the code.
“Last office on the right,” she instructed me.
Detective Meredith Black smiled at the sight of me filling her doorway.
“How’ve you been, Mr. Ruzak?” she asked. She reached across the desk, gave my hand two quick pumps, and waved me to a chair. On the credenza behind her were several photos of her with two kids, a boy and a girl, neither more than ten, I’d guess. No man in any of them. Divorced, probably, or maybe he took all the photos. Or they could be a relative’s kids.
I could have filled her in on the details of my escalating existential crisis, but I had been pegged for a kook by law enforcement during my first case, and I was determined this time to present a sturdier façade.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I told Detective Black. “I know you must have your fair share of wannabes and hangers-on and rub-berneckers.”
She smiled enigmatically. I wondered why I had made a list like that. Just doing it up thrust me into the milieu.
“Well, I really don’t have that much to share with you, Mr. Ruzak. As I told you on the phone, the case has stalled.”
“Don’t know if you’ve seen or heard about this,” I said, sliding the poster across her desk. “And I owe you an apology, I guess, for slapping them up all over town without giving you a heads-up. I have this tendency to go off half-cocked.”
“Seems counterproductive in your line of work, Mr. Ruzak.”
“Oh, practically every personality trait I have is,” I said. She was studying the poster. “So I tell myself it’s like my old shop class: Sometimes you have to saw against the grain to get the perfect cut.”
“It’s an admirable gesture,” she said, dropping the poster on her blotter.
“Meaning futile?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t gotten any calls. You?”
“A couple. Nothing promising.”
“Well, then.”
She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. She wore a gray cashmere or cashmere-looking turtleneck sweater and gray slacks. I noted the prominence of her chin. The chin and those large incisors, that’s what Meredith Black led with.
“I’ve got a couple a working theories I’d like to run by you, if that’s okay,” I said. She didn’t say it was, but on the other hand she didn’t say it wasn’t, so I went on. “Nothing past the hypothetical stage. There are things I know but more things I don’t know, and some of the things I don’t know you may know. That’s what I need to know, so I know which to keep and which to toss.”
“Which what to keep or toss?”
“Theories. For example, what do you know about Jumper?”
“Jumper?”
“According to Walter Newberry, Jumper was Cadillac’s only friend in Knoxville. He disappeared near the time Jack was murdered.”
“I interviewed Mr. Newberry. I don’t remember him mentioning any Jumper.”
“Well, he mentioned him to me. So I’m thinking we’re dealing with either a suspect or a witness.”
“There’s a third possibility. It’s a coincidence. Jumper’s disappearance has nothing to do with the crime.”
“Right. So you don’t have anything on Jumper?”
She shook her head. “As I said, Mr. Ruzak, this is the first I’ve heard of him.”
“Okay. Well, he isn’t really necessary for my working theories to work. He’s the best candidate I have for Theory A, but it could be someone else, a Mr. X. By the way, I’m calling the perpetrator in Theory A ‘Mr. X,’ and in Theory B he’s ‘Mr. Y.’”
“A, B, X, Y, got it,” she said.
“Okay, so … Theory A: Jack Minor was murdered by somebody he knew. First, he was beaten to death, an intimate way to kill, right up there with stabbing. Mr. X knew Jack and had some motivation to kill him. Mr. X could be Jumper or another person Jack knew in town. Maybe Jack stole something from him, or Mr. X demanded money from him, or Jack welshed on a bet … it could be any number of things.”
She was nodding. “Agreed.”
“Whether premeditated or spur-of-the-moment, the beating probably occurred where I found him. There’s a possibility he died someplace else and the body dumped in the alley, but that would entail some risk for Mr. X. If Jack was indebted in some way to him, I figure Mr. X lured Jack to the crime scene on a pretext, then jumped him.”
“I’m beginning to see how someone named Jumper could fit into this scenario.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s also possible within the paradigm of Theory A that Jack was the instigator—in other words, Jack set up somebody to rob them and lost the fight.”
“In that case, Mr. X doesn’t have to be someone he knew. I’m assuming Theory B has to do with a stranger killing.”
“Right. Mr. Y is a complete stranger, a psychopath with a God complex who knocks off Jack for his own disturbed reasons—that’s what behind YHWH. He may have been stalking Jack or other transients, or maybe Jack was a victim of opportunity…. Mr. Y sees him that night and lures or follows him into the alley.”
“Or perhaps Mr. Y is someone Jack knows.”
“That would make him Mr. X.”
“My point is, that segment of society is full of people with psychological and emotional problems. It isn’t farfetched that Jack knew someone obsessed with religion, and this person decided to make an offering out of him.”
“Which is why it seems imperative to me we try to find this Jumper. He might be the key. The one thing Mr. X and Mr. Y have in common is YHWH. Plus the fact that Jumper is the only real lead we have.”
“Mr. Ruzak,” she said, and her tone was not unkind, “As I’ve said, the department takes every homicide very seriously, and simply because this homicide involved an indigent doesn’t mean we take it any less seriously than someone murdered in, say, West Knoxville. But I hope you can understand we simply don’t have the manpower to track down every possible lead in every single case. This case has no witnesses, no promising forensics, and no viable suspects, X, Y, or Z.”
“My theories didn’t have a Z. You think there could be a Z? A Z would imply a C when I thought A and B covered every possible scenario using X and Y.”
She showed me her incisors, chin thrust slightly forward. “Here’s one possible C. Jack was murdered by a secret society or cult that worshiped the ancient Hebrew god Yahweh. Either as a ritual sacrifice or because he saw something he shouldn’t have seen or stole something he shouldn’t have stolen. Like a sacred amulet or code belonging to the cult. Maybe you should look into all the functioning secret death cults in the county. Then, after you nab them, sell the film rights to Hollywood. You could call it The Yahweh Code.”
I thought about what she just said. “You think this is funny.”
“I think it’s pitiful. Not you—Jack. Well, maybe you a little, too.” She tapped her well-manicured index finger on the poster. “Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Ruzak. Offering a reward is really altruistic and noble, and I promise if any calls come in on it, you’ll be notified. As I hope you’ll notify us should you develop any leads.”
“I have developed a lead and I did bring it to you,” I said. “Which you poo-pooed.”
“You said it yourself: that’s not a lead; that’s a theory.”
“It’s both.”
She shrugged. “I can make a few calls about this Jumper person, but I’m assuming you’ve already done the legwork and come up empty, otherwise you wouldn’t be here asking about him.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “I don’t believe you’ll make a single call and I don’t believe you take this case as seriously as you would a rich person buying it in West Knoxville. I don’t think you care jack squat about Jack Minor. He was a nobody—not anything to anyone except God, if you believe in a God, and maybe that’s why whoever did this carved those letters into his forehead, like a return address. And just like Jesus being taken up in a cloud, Jack is gone from our sight, but the ironic thing, he was gone before he left.”
I stood up. “And I’m going to find whoever did this, Detective Black. I’m going to find him and deliver him to your doorstep, because you’ve made it clear I’m all Jack has now. Me, of all people! The most hapless PI to come down the pike since Inspector Clouseau, that’s who Jack Minor has on his side.”
“The Pink Panther wasn’t a PI, Mr. Ruzak,” she pointed out, smiling.
“Well, the plain fact is I couldn’t think of any famous PIs who are also hapless. Hapless PIs are invisible, too.”
EIGHTEEN
Later that afternoon, I was on my daily phone call with Eunice Shriver when another call beeped through. I told Eunice I would call her back because I never could get the hang of clicking the button to put people on hold; I always disconnected them. So I held down the button and picked up on the first ring.
“Good, you’re home.”
“Amanda?”
“What’s your number?”
“You just called it.”
“Your apartment number, Ruzak. I’m outside your building.”
“I’ll come down.”
Amanda was sitting on the front stoop, cradling something squirming in a fleece blanket. Being an ace detective, I immediately deduced what it was.
“That’s a dog,” I said.
“Ruzak, it’s Archie.”
She pulled back the edge of the blanket and I saw dark brown eyes and a wriggling black nose.
“You told me they put Archie down.”
“I know. I lied. Can we go inside? He’s freezing.”
“Let me make sure the coast is clear.”
We took the stairs to the third floor; the elevator was too risky. I threw the deadbolt and Archie leaped out of Amanda’s arms as if that was the signal he’d been waiting for. He scampered through every room, skittering on the hardwood, and once he had run the circuit, sniffing along the baseboards and in the corners, he came to a stop in front of me and sat, his tail scraping back and forth as he grinned up at me.
“I think he approves,” Amanda said.
“My landlord won’t.”
“What your landlord doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“I’ll have to take him for walks,” I said. “Sooner or later they’ll catch me. That’s the thing most transgressors never figure out, Amanda: Eventually, everything in shadow comes into the light.”
“That sounds like something from the Bible.”
Well, you can bet it didn’t come from your pal Nietzsche, I thought. “Why did you lie to me?”
“I was angry. You hurt me and I wanted to hurt you.”
“I was that cruel?” It seemed to me the punishment didn’t fit the crime.
“Ruzak, y
ou and me disagree on most of the fundamentals, but I think we both can agree that I’m human. Can you think of anything crueler than rejection?”
“Yes. Indifference.”
“You’re going to reject Archie now, aren’t you? Just to get back at me.”
I looked down at the dog. His eyes were the color of chocolate and fixed on mine. I’d learned from Animal Planet that you never look away from a dog’s gaze; it was a sign of submissiveness. Dogs view humans as two-legged members of the pack, and you had to establish you were top dog. After a few seconds, Archie gave up trying to stare me down and fell to his side, raising his foreleg and offering his belly for a rub. I looked at Amanda.
“He’s housebroken, right?”
“He never messed in his pen,” she said.
“Guess I gotta get to the pet store,” I said.
“I’ll come with you.”
“Will he bark while we’re gone?”
“We’ll take him with us. How about it, Arch? Wanna go shopping?”
So that’s what we did: piled into my little Sentra and drove to Pet Market on Kingston Pike. Archie rode in Amanda’s lap, and she insisted we keep the window down so he could stick his busy nose into the frigid air.
“Dogs have a sense of smell a thousand times more sensitive than ours,” she pointed out.
I wondered if that applied to your flat-faced breeds, like bulldogs and pugs.
“What do you want from me, Ruzak? I’m just a volunteer, not a vet.”
She was being awfully snippy for someone trying to right a wrong.
“What made you change your mind?” I asked.
“Today was Archie’s day. They were coming at five to put him down. So I signed all the papers and paid the fees. You owe me a hundred and thirty dollars, Ruzak.”
Pet Market promised the lowest prices in town, but after bowls, food, treats, a crate and bed, collar and leash, an ID tag with Archie’s name and my phone number, a chewy toy, a package of dried pigs’ ears, doggie shampoo, a comb, and a toothbrush, the total bill came to $312.87. I had no idea they made toothbrushes for dogs.
“What do you think?” I asked Amanda on the drive back. “Is getting a dog like purchasing friendship?”
The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs Page 8
