The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs

by Richard Yancey

  “Oh, boy,” he breathed. “Ain’t been to Wendy’s in years. They still have the Frosties?”

  I ordered a medium Frostie for him and an Italian Frescata sandwich for me. I would have preferred a burger, but his bringing up football had made me uncomfortably cognizant of my size.

  Back on the interstate, heading south, I gripped the wheel with one hand and my Frescata sandwich with the other. Reggie dug out dripping mounds of the nondairy frozen treat with his plastic spoon and sucked through pursed lips.

  “Tell me about Jack,” I said.

  “I told you twice already.”

  “No, I mean the living Jack. What was he like?”

  “Real good guy. Always shared what he had, no matter what it was. If he had a couple bucks and you were busted, he gave you one.”

  “He ever talk about his past?”

  Reggie shook his head and his tongue darted between his lips. “Said he was in Nam. Lost everything when his old lady kicked him out for drinkin’.”

  “But where was he from? How’d he end up on the streets? What happened to him?”

  Again, he shook his head. “Like I said, he didn’t talk much.”

  I couldn’t remember Reggie saying Jack didn’t talk much, but this wasn’t an interrogation and my job wasn’t to lean on Reggie Matthews. He had that delicate air of someone breaking the grip of dependency. It hung around him, like a pall. You sense it in recovering addicts and jilted lovers, or anyone who’s had their crutch abruptly yanked away.

  “Was he religious?”

  “Why’s that matter?”

  “His little sign mentioned God.”

  “That wasn’t his. I made that sign.”

  “You let him use it?”

  He nodded. “We worked that corner in shifts.”

  “So was he? Religious?”

  “I never seen him pray or go to any church, if that’s what you’re askin’. He was retarded, you know. Not bad, but there was a lot he didn’t get.”

  “I’m just having trouble understanding why one of those kids carved those letters into his face.”

  “Sick joke, you ask me.”

  He dropped his plastic fork into the empty cup and jammed it into the holder between the bucket seats.

  “Now I’m cold,” he complained, scrunching down and folding his arms over his chest. I cranked up the heat.

  “Pretty esoteric joke,” I said. “I don’t know many people besides priests or rabbis or religion professors who’d get it.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. What a dufus you are, Ruzak, I told myself. I looked over at Reggie, hunkered down in the bucket seat, knees pressed together, squinting through the windshield as if we were on the road on a bright spring day.

  In the art of detection, it’s not just asking the right questions. You have to ask the right people the right questions.

  “How far is the campus from the Ely Building?” I asked.

  “How the hell would I know?”

  “No more than a mile,” I guessed. “Walking distance.”

  “All right,” he drawled. He was waiting for the punch line. I didn’t have it, but I suspected I knew who might.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I fetched a couple of old blankets I inherited from my dead mother to fix up the sofa for Reggie. He gave the middle cushion a tentative push. Then he announced he was still a little hungry, so I found a couple of Roma tomatoes in the crisper drawer, dropped a couple of pieces of bacon in the pan to fry, popped a couple slices of bread into the toaster, and tore the wilted edges from a couple of leaves of lettuce for a BLT. Reggie sat on the edge of the sofa and worried his hands in his lap.

  “Where’s your dog?” he asked.

  “He’s being sat by my secretary.”

  “Sat?”

  “Well, it’s a pretty long drive and he’s a new dog. I didn’t know how he’d handle it.”

  “Is he vicious?”

  “Oh, no, but I wouldn’t say he’s issue-free. I adopted him—or somebody adopted him for me. That’s more accurate.”

  I hadn’t had a sleepover in years. Amanda had sort of offered. I wondered what it meant, if it meant anything, that I ran a girl out my door but welcomed with open arms a homeless man who might be a sadistic killer. Human beings have a tendency to read meaning into everything, like that woman a few years back in the Bible Belt who saw an image of the Virgin in the dried grease of her frying pan. Back in the fall, I read this story about a kid who threw his mom’s cell phone in the microwave—I don’t remember the reason, but the kid was a teenager—and Mary appeared in the ruined LCD. It would be odd for the Mother of God to choose to reveal herself in a cell phone, but once the story got around, pilgrims began to appear at their trailer.

  Reggie ate his BLT at the kitchen counter, taking it with a tall glass of milk. I dug into his backpack and found the pill bottle.

  “Here,” I said, dropping a tablet by his elbow. “Says you’re supposed to take it with food.”

  He grunted and tapped the pill with the nail of his index finger.

  “Jumper’s antijumping pill,” he muttered.

  “Why did you want to jump all those times?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  I decided to change the subject. “Why did they call Jack Cadillac?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe ‘cause it rhymed.”

  “You really don’t know that much about Jack, do you?”

  “I know he had a taste for beef jerky. He liked baseball. He had arthritis and a bad leg. Said it was from shrapnel—friendly fire in Nam.”

  “The police checked into that,” I said. “They didn’t find any record of him in the service.”

  “Said he was a Marine.”

  “Maybe he just thought he was. Although I’m not sure retardation leads to delusions. Maybe he just lied.”

  Reggie sighed. “Does it matter?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I still ain’t really sure why I’m here.”

  “In the morning we’re going down to KPD headquarters.”

  He shook his head. “No, I am not.”

  “I’ll protect you,” I said. “I have a gun.”

  “You gonna shoot our way out of the police station?”

  “I meant I can protect you from Jack’s killers.”

  He laughed a bitter bark of a laugh. “Where the hell did you come from, Ruzak?”

  “Well, I was born in New York, but Dad moved us around a lot, always in the southerly direction. I guess if he’d lived longer I’d be in Key West.”

  I wondered if I was reading this old guy wrong. Maybe he killed Jack after an argument and that’s why he was reluctant to talk to the police. He knew their skills in interrogation exceeded mine. Maybe the whole story of the marauding college kids was a lie. But why, then, come back to Knoxville with me? To dispatch the meddlesome gumshoe? Would someone—Felicia maybe—find me in a couple days, black and bloated in my bedsheets, God’s name carved on my forehead?

  I had forgotten to check messages, so while Reggie washed up for bed I listened to about thirty seconds of silence while whoever called hung on the line. The caller ID had registered the same thing as before: UNKNOWN CALLER. Someone was reaching out.

  DECEMBER 6

  TWENTY-NINE

  I was on the phone with Felicia first thing in the morning. Actually, it was the second thing, after a cup of black coffee and a slice of toast with apple butter. For some reason, every time I had it, I thought of the first day of school.

  “Why are you talking so softly? I can barely hear you,” she said. “I don’t want to wake up Reggie.”

  “Who?”

  “Jumper. I brought him home last night.”

  “And the reason you brought him home? …”

  I told her. I also told her I was relieved I didn’t wake up bludgeoned to death.

  “Ruzak, if you were bludgeoned … never mind. When are you picking up this dog?”

  “I’m swingin
g by right after I take care of Reggie.”

  “Good. I’m letting you deal with Tommy.”

  “Why am I dealing with Tommy?”

  “You know why. You do it just to buy time, Ruzak, but what good is that?”

  “Maybe it’s the one thing you can buy but can’t keep.”

  “Do you make this stuff up, or are you just regurgitating something you read in Reader’s Digest?”

  “That happens,” I admitted. “I’ll think of something and I’ll get all excited and my ego tells me it’s original. It’s like a default setting if I can’t remember if I read it somewhere. My dad subscribed to Reader’s Digest for his bathroom reading, and those are chock-full of the pithy quotes. Dad always used to tell me not to eat anything bigger than my own head, and I always wondered if that came from Reader’s Digest.”

  “I wish I could have met your father,” Felicia said. “One thing I would ask him is, ‘Why, Mr. Ruzak. Why? ‘”

  “What if I brought him a stuffed dog?”

  She stayed right with me. It was one of the things that I liked about her.

  “I think he would throw that stuffed dog back in your face.”

  “This could be a sign,” I said. “Maybe Archie wasn’t meant for me.”

  “I’m not keeping this dog, Ruzak.”

  “I was just putting a feeler out.”

  Next, I called Detective Black.

  “You found Jumper,” she said.

  “Reggie, right,” I said. “He wants to talk.”

  “Does this mean I get the twenty-five grand?”

  “He didn’t do it. I’d tell you the whole story, but I don’t want to compromise the case.”

  “How would that compromise the case, Mr. Ruzak?” I could detect a smile in the question, and I thought of those large canines.

  “I don’t want to create any unnecessary inconsistencies.”

  “Your statement implies there are necessary inconsistencies.”

  “See what I mean? How’s ten for you?”

  I woke up Reggie and told him he needed a shower before we left. He protested.

  “I washed up last night,” he said.

  “And a shave,” I said. “My stuff’s in the cabinet beneath the sink.”

  “What is this?” he asked petulantly. “We goin’ to a funeral?”

  I fried him a couple eggs while he got ready. He was sitting at my counter, sopping up the runny yolk with a slice of toast, when my phone rang.

  “Theodore,” Eunice Shriver said. “I am coming over.”

  “Eunice,” I said. “You can’t come over.”

  “I am tired of chasing after you like Alice’s rabbit.”

  “I won’t be here,” I said.

  “You will be there if I say you’ll be there!”

  She slammed the phone down. Reggie was staring at me, a dab of egg quivering on his freshly shaved chin. He looked younger without the stubble; most older guys do.

  “Who was that?” he asked.

  “A god from an alternative string,” I said as I flipped to the S’s in the phone book. I looked at my watch; I didn’t have time to get into anything protracted, but an intervention seemed to be imperative.

  “A what from a what?”

  “Or maybe she would be a goddess, but the thing about the pantheists is their deities never made anything from scratch; it was always earthier than that, like Zeus frolicking with all those mortal women.”

  He picked up on the sixth ring. He didn’t sound happy to be picking up.

  “What?” he barked.

  “Is this Vernon Shriver?” I asked.

  “Who wants to know?” He possessed the native accent, slightly nasal, sharp in the middle, rough on the edges, like a hunk of half-grated cheese.

  “Teddy Ruzak. I’m a …” What was I? “… a friend of your mom’s.”

  “Did you say Ruzak?”

  “Teddy Ruzak, that’s right.”

  “Listen, buddy, I don’t know who you are, but this isn’t funny.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “You’re from her workshop at the university, aren’t you? Some wise-ass college kid.”

  “I’m a bit long in the tooth for that. The reason I was calling—”

  “Mister, I don’t have time for your jokes. Teddy Ruzak is the name of a character from Mom’s book, so tell me what you want and stop yanking my chain. I’m late for work.”

  “I’m in the book,” I offered.

  “I know you’re in the friggin’ book; I just said that!”

  “I meant the phone book,” I said. “You can look me up.”

  “So Mom pulled the name out of the phone book. What’s that prove?”

  “Well, I guess that’s my dilemma at the moment,” I answered. “Trying to prove I exist. Cogito, ergo sum.”

  “Huh?”

  “Let’s hang up, you call the number for Teddy Ruzak, I’ll answer, and there you’ll have it.”

  “I’m not calling anyone. I’m late.”

  “Then I’ll be quick. Your mother just got off the phone with me and I’m a little worried about her.”

  “Ain’t we all, pal.”

  “No, I mean seriously worried. I know I just said ‘a little,’ but really I mean seriously. I think there’s been a break from reality.”

  “Ruzak—or whatever your name is—my mother’s grip on reality’s been loose for the past twenty-five years.”

  The line went dead. “You know,” I said to Reggie. “Ultimately, there’s only so much one person can do.”

  “And it ain’t never nearly enough,” he said, and I thought maybe I had found a kindred spirit, a fellow amateur philosopher, here in this very oddest of circumstances. But then, I thought, that’s where you usually find the most kindred of spirits.

  “But you have to try,” I said. “Otherwise, you might as well be a fictional character. Though they tend to try harder than us.”

  “I couldn’t save him,” he said, his lower lip coming forward slightly, quivering in agitation. “I had to run. They would’ve killed me if I didn’t.”

  “Look, Reggie, the police want these monsters off the street as badly as you do.”

  “This ain’t gonna get them off the street,” he said. “It was dark, I was drunk, and I got no names. What’s the police gonna do? Round up every kid at UT? All this is gonna do is let ‘em know I talked and then I don’t care how many locks you got on this door or how many guns you got stashed under your pillow.”

  “Maybe you could ask them for some protection.”

  “Right, like they’re gonna protect somebody like me.”

  “Maybe you should knock over a liquor store. That way they’d have to arrest you, kind of a de facto custody arrangement.”

  He got a funny look when I said that. I interpreted it as fear.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” I said.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” he replied.

  THIRTY

  Auniformed female officer led Reggie and me through the doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, down a long corridor, then into a conference room with armless, thin-cushioned folding chairs around a church social–type folding table. She took our drink orders, and after a couple of minutes returned with stale, weak coffee in white Styrofoam cups. She promised it would be just a couple more minutes and closed the door behind her.

  “Relax,” I told Reggie, whose bottom lip was edging out again.

  The door opened and Detective Black came in with two men in tow, one in his shirtsleeves, a badge hanging just below his prodigious gut. The other was wearing a suit. Tailored. With gleaming Florsheims below his cuffs.

  She made the introductions with an arctic smile that reminded me it had been over two years since I’d been to the dentist. What was wrong with me? Humans don’t usually crash spectacularly, which was why, when they do, it’s such startling news. We tend to crumple more than fall, a slow descent into chaos that actually accelerates after our end. The absolute stillness of
Jack Minor lying in that alley was deceptive. A human cadaver is a busy thing as the organs and tissues break down.

  The suit’s name was Beecham, and he was with the district attorney’s office. The guy with the belly was Detective Louis Kennard.

  As Detective Black checked the batteries on her tape recorder, Kennard turned to Reggie and said, “Hey, Jumper. Remember me?”

  Reggie shook his head, lower lip now in full protuberance mode. His eyes were on the tabletop.

  “I pulled you off the roof of the Marriot in ‘98.”

  Reggie didn’t move a muscle. I said, “He’s a little shaken up by all this. But he’s going to cooperate. Right, Reggie?”

  “I’m sorry,” Beecham said. “Are you his attorney, Mr. Ruzak?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly,” he echoed. “Then what exactly are you?”

  “Well, I was an investigative consultant. For about nine months. Then the state closed me down over a technicality and now, you know, I like to keep my hand in.”

  “Mr. Ruzak is offering a reward for Jack’s killer,” Detective Black said. “I suppose he’s here to protect his investment.”

  Beecham leaned over and whispered something to Meredith Black. She whispered something back. Kennard was smiling smugly, massive forearms folded across his chest. His cologne was very strong.

  Finally, Beecham broke off the discussion with Meredith and said to me, “We’d like to talk to Mr. Matthews alone.”

  “Oh, no way,” Reggie said. “Ruzak stays or I go.”

  “Try and I’ll arrest you,” Kennard said pleasantly.

  “Here is the situation, Mr. Ruzak,” Beecham said reasonably. “Mr. Matthews is here to give a statement. He’s not under arrest, but it’s totally outside the department’s protocol to question a witness in the presence of a third party.”

  Reggie gave me a desperate look, as if to say, Don’t go! I reached across the table and patted his hand before standing up.

  “I’ll be right outside,” I said, more to him than to them. Detective Black opened the door for me and then closed it behind me. I lowered myself into the chair in the hallway beside the door, the little foam cup in my big hand, and steeled myself for the wait. I had read somewhere that the average person spends three years waiting—in lines, at traffic lights, on the phone, in the doctor’s office—a fact that was both distressing and useless. I had been running into a lot of those kinds of facts lately. I wondered if Eunice was camping out on my doorstep, red pencil hovering over my ejaculations, poised for the coup d’état—or would that be more of a coup de grâce?