Contract Killer

by Richard Hoyt

  “I’m Willie’s friend. Hook me into accompanying Poorman, Willie gets blamed.”

  “Poorman scoots on back to Houston, where he’s from. That’s how Dan Harner sees it. You’re talking about some heavy-duty charges. Extortion, for one. He was risking a murder rap with that botulism.”

  “Ol’ Fox loves his dog. Maybe that’ll help him out in court. Strikes me that a man willing to poison people to discredit the Prettybirds just might be willing to kill a judge and blame that on them too. You never know. Parts of the body show up in the shadow of the totem pole in Pioneer Place.”

  Willis said, “The thought had occurred to me, I’ll admit. Incidentally, we might have some charges coming down on Egan too.”

  “Screwing around with justice.”

  “The lawyers have big fancy words for it, Denson. I don’t know if any of this has anything to do with Rappaport being chopped up or not. With this kid Hartwig missing, I don’t think we’re looking at the psycho.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  “Somebody who hates judges or courts.”

  “That’s the best bet.”

  “Could be this salmon business. Could be something else — another one of Rappaport’s decisions.”

  “Anything’s possible,” I said.

  “For the present, there’s not much I can do except work the nut lists — maybe I can find one who appeared in Rappaport’s court, something like that. I have to sneak into records late at night and do my work in secret like some damn thief. The problem with psychos, Denson, is that they can lay dormant for years, like Mt. St. Helens, or what’s worse, you don’t know who they are. They haven’t been identified. You can be talking to an apparently sane person who’s in fact crazier than a loon.” Willis shook his head.

  “Everybody is crazy except me and thee, and sometimes I suspect even thee might be a little touched,” I said.

  “That’s exactly it.”

  “For all I know you like to wear women’s underwear.”

  Willis glowered.

  I said, “You must have some kind of lab analysis of the physical evidence by now. Surely that’s allowed.”

  “The tech people said the flesh has been kept in a freezer, not on ice. They found traces of fired clay on the grain of the cuts.”

  “Brick dust?”

  “That’s the best guess. It could be something else. An analysis of the cut flesh suggests that the cutting blade is broad-gauged and ragged — apparently not a hacksaw or meat cutting blade.”

  “A brick saw then.”

  “A brick saw or chainsaw. The lab people say a clean steel blade with conventional teeth wouldn’t collect that much residue. There were more clay particles in the earliest pieces — the chunk of ankle and the slice of thigh. It could be a brick saw or it could have been a chainsaw that had been allowed to lie in the back of a pickup in which the accumulation of dust might account for the clay. Either alternative is plausible, the lab people say. There were fewer particles beginning with the hunk of forearm. The body was cut into large chunks first, then frozen.”

  “If the tech people can say all that about the saw, why can’t they identify the body?”

  “It’s blood type O. A middle-aged man. I think they’ve got him I.D.’d but aren’t saying anything.”

  “Rappaport?”

  “There are people here in the department who would make book on it,” Willis said.

  “The lab people think the blade got cleaner with every slice of frozen flesh, is that it?”

  “That’s their best guess. Do you know of any brickmasons associated with this case?”

  I couldn’t think of any. I started to say no, but stopped. I remembered Prib, Willie’s friend. He was a bricklayer. He’d had lime stains on his clothes at the Doie. I thought of Willie. Both Janine and I thought he was telling the truth in the Doie. “I know one,” I said.

  “You do? Who?”

  I told him about Prib Ostrow.

  “He look psycho to you?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t think so. He’s large and full of energy. Devoted to the Prettybirds, but I don’t think he’s nuts.”

  “You never know about psychos, Denson. I’ll check to see if Ostrow has any kind of record. You know, all these doo-dahs think they have to do is wait. He’ll keep rationing the pieces away until he runs out of corpse or gets caught.”

  “What happens if he uses up Rappaport’s corpse and they still haven’t caught him?”

  Willis said, “Then maybe he finds himself another judge to kill. And maybe another law clerk, too. We’ve still got that to consider.”

  “The only thing is that if Prib Ostrow is involved …” I waited for Richard Willis to finish the sentence.

  Willis didn’t hesitate. “… then we’re probably looking at the Prettybirds.”

  The logic was inescapable. “At Willie,” I said.

  “Yes, we are. Or Rodney.”

  “Willie Prettybird didn’t have anything to do with freezing a man and cutting him up with a brick saw. If you’re around a person long enough you get to know what somebody can and can’t do.”

  “Oh, you know that’s bullshit.” Willis was disgusted with me. “Gut feelings don’t count. You can never know what’s going on inside somebody’s mind, not really. Only facts count.”

  I told him about the visit Janine Hallen and I had made to Buck Bohannon’s RV Rendezvous.

  Richard Willis pulled a sheet of paper out of his jacket. He put on a pair of reading glasses. He read the paper through. He looked at me and adjusted his glasses. He reread it. Finally he said, “Some of the guys on this force, Denson — and some of them we make detectives so as not to be accused of discriminating against stupidity — are so damn dumb they can’t pour piss out of a boot with the directions written on the heel.”

  “I bet they didn’t check the RVs for freezers.”

  Willis was infuriated with his colleagues. He said nothing. His silence was his answer.

  “See. There you go. Here you are, complaining about a computer,” I said. “At least Toba does what it’s told.”

  “I want you to watch the Prettybirds and Prib Ostrow. If the cops around here want to spend their time choking their chickens, let them.”

  “Harrier didn’t seem like a bad guy.”

  “Dan’s okay,” Willis said. “He’s lucky he’s got a broken ankle — gives him a chance to stand clear of this butcher murder debacle.”

  “Maybe you’re lucky, too.”

  Willis grinned. “Yes, maybe I am.”

  “Any new ideas on how the murderer is smuggling those chunks past cameras? That’s a curious one, I have to admit. Under the circumstances, Toba should have done the job.”

  Willis took another drink of whiskey. “Judging from the scuttlebutt in the cafeteria, they’ve thought of everything from trained dogs to catapults. A guy who trains dogs for the Army at Fort Lewis said a smart dog could do it. The iron fence is too short to stop a strong dog. Give him the right dog, he said. With all the mongrels that hang out at that place, just how in the hell are we going to catch a guy with a trained dog, Denson? Do you want to tell me that?” Willis had to beat the department. Had to. The trained dog possibility was a complication Willis didn’t like. His face tightened.

  All I could think about was a smart German shorthair who’d once cleared a barbed-wire fence in pursuit of a goose. Was big George running errands for Foxx Jensen in exchange for a nuzzle behind the ears and a little extra liver?

  25 - A HOWLING

  The door to the Doie’s exit to the Seattle underground was at least fifty years old, so I really didn’t need a key to go through it. There were so many tiny cracks on the black enamel of the knob that I thought at first it was covered with a cobweb. The key was one of those round old things that are so inefficient they hardly qualify for the name. The flashlight that I had dug out of the trunk of my Fiat went out momentarily, so 1 whacked it on the side of my leg. The battery was a couple of years old and didn�
��t have a whole lot of poop left.

  I turned to Janine and said, “One thing an experienced detective does is check out his equipment before he goes on an assignment.”

  “I see I’m in good hands, Mr. Denson: you bring one flashlight that doesn’t work for two people to share.”

  I trained the yellow light on the hole and inserted the key Juantar had given me.

  Behind me, Janine Hallen said, “A bright light’d probably hurt our eyes anyway.”

  “There’s one thing I should warn you about.”

  “What’s …” Janine suddenly gagged and started spitting.

  “Check for cobwebs before you start to talk.”

  “A person feels real safe with you.”

  I checked the corroded door hinges but couldn’t tell in the poor light whether they’d been used recently. I turned the key and pushed on the door, which didn’t want to move at first. “After you, ma’am.”

  “No, no you first, Mr. Denson. I know you’re a gentleman. You go on ahead.”

  I waved my hand in front of me to catch any cobs that might have been strung down by the open door. I stepped onto the floor of the underground passageway directly underneath the sidewalk along Yesler Way. The air smelled like a week-old wet towel. I squatted, and when I put my hand out for balance I touched warmth.

  Something raced up my shoulder, brushed against my face.

  I jerked back.

  My head cracked into Janine’s face. “Ouch!” she said.

  “A fucking rat! Yyyaaagggh!” I was disgusted to the point of feeling sick. A rat!

  Janine spit in the blackness. “Got me in the mouth with your head.”

  “Are you still with me?”

  “You’ve got a hard head, but I’m okay.”

  I trained the yellow light on the map. Janine and I had had to estimate the length of the sidewalk in front of Juantar’s Doie Bar and Buck Bohannon’s RV Rendezvous next door. “I’ll put my beam on the floor. You watch the base of the buildings.” I stepped forward slowly with Janine Halien’s left hand holding onto the collar of my jacket.

  We had gone about fifteen yards when she said softly, “I think this must be the common wall, John.”

  She was right. We were at the place where a brick wall separated the Doie from the Rendezvous.

  I turned out my light. “If this screwball happens to catch us down here, I’ll douse the light,” I whispered. “Don’t move. We’ll let him move around if he wants, but we stay still.”

  “We stay still,” Janine whispered.

  I can be nonsexist only up to a point. “You let me take care of him.”

  “Sure. I saw you handle the rat, remember?”

  “Listen, James Bond couldn’t have handled that rat any better,” I said.

  “James Bond wouldn’t have mashed my lip.”

  I gave her a gentle elbow. I turned my flashlight on again and whacked it against my leg. We continued slowly down the underground sidewalk in front of Buck Bohannon’s RV Rendezvous.

  We continued until Janine said, “Door.”

  “Ahh,” I said. I tried Juantar’s key in the decrepit lock. It didn’t fit. I tried my handy-dandy lock pick. It didn’t work.

  “Very smooth there, James.”

  I tried the pick again. The door opened. It was easier than the one below the Doie. “You give up too easily.” We entered Buck Bohannon’s basement. I closed the door and doused my flashlight again.

  “I bet even I could get through a lock that old,” she said.

  “Not a bad point. All the killer had to do was slip downstairs at the Doie, pop the lock of Juantar’s door and this one, and he was inside Buck’s. Easy to lug those RV freezers down here. But then where?” Janine was so close to me I could smell her. The aroma was lovely. There is no odor so grand as that of a woman who likes you and wants to go to bed with you. I led Janine back to the underground sidewalk and relocked the door to Buck’s basement. I shined my light up at the metal support beneath the sidewalk above.

  I started back toward the door to Juantar’s bar with Janine’s hand at my collar.

  “Did you ever see The Thing when you were a kid?” she asked.

  “I know. I know. This is spooky.”

  She stopped suddenly. “Hear that?”

  I’d heard it. A sound farther down the sidewalk beneath the sidewalk. “Another rat, I think.”

  Janine said, “I almost peed in my pants when I saw that movie. Had nightmares for weeks. Do you think we’re onto something?”

  “I think the killer probably stole those freezers from Buck.”

  “To store the corpse.”

  “I don’t think he’s using them to make ice cubes.”

  “How is he…” Janine gripped my collar a tad bit tighter. “… you know, doing that to the body?”

  “How is he cutting up the corpse? Willis’s lab boys say they’re being sawed after they were frozen. They think he’s using a brick saw or a chainsaw.”

  “From which you deduce?”

  “We’re looking for a psychopath who owns a brick saw or a chainsaw.”

  “Cutting a frozen corpse into steaks and chops. Brrrr! I think I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Gonna wet ‘em again, eh? A cool lady lawyer like you, afraid of a little screwball.”

  I opened the door into the Doie and was about to step inside when I heard it — we both heard it: a low, mournful howling, that rose, wavered momentarily, then faded.

  “What’s that?” Janine asked.

  “Don’t know,” I said.

  We heard some yips and yelps, then the howling again, stronger this time, a howling that rose and fell, rose and fell. The howling stopped. We heard two discontented barks. Then nothing.

  “A dog,” she said.

  “No, no. That’s a coyote. I grew up in a place called Cayuse, Oregon. I heard them all the time.”

  “A coyote?”

  “Or maybe a human doing an imitation of a coyote.” We listened for more howling, but there was none. Then again maybe she was right, I thought. Maybe it was a dog. I whistled loudly twice. “Hey, George! Come here, boy. Come here.” I whistled three more times. “George!” I called.

  There was no answer. The Seattle underground was quiet.

  At last, Janine said, “Scoot. Let’s get out of here.”

  I didn’t need a whole lot of persuading. The business about the coyote or dog, though, I found interesting. “Do you think a miniature German shorthair could make a racket like that?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact, my cousin Bobby owned one. Sure it could.”

  We both giggled with relief when we were upstairs sitting safely in one of the Doie’s booths. Juantar saw us and came over, giggling, rubbing his hands together. “Praise Jesus, you two do look pale. How about some hot spiced wine? You’ll like it, Denson, it’s made with screw-top and some extra goo. It’ll put some color in your cheeks. Praise the Lord!”

  “Put something strong in it, Juantar. Some brandy or something. How about some vodka?”

  “I can go pee-pee in it if you want,” Juantar drawled.

  “A little booze’ll do, thanks, Juantar.”

  “Praise God!” Juantar stroked his curly beard. He went to get the wine.

  Janine’s lower lip was swollen and split slightly on one side. She touched it with the tips of her fingers. “If my lip’s out of commission you’ve got only yourself to blame.”

  Juantar spotted the swollen lip when he returned with the drinks. “My, my, a passionate couple.” Juantar leered at me. “Oh, you big boy, you.”

  “Go, Juantar,” I said.

  Juantar went, saying, “Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus!” Juantar didn’t count a whole lot on the Christian trade.

  Janine felt her lip again. “So where is he hiding the freezers, John? The underground?” This was the first time she had tried the detective business and she was excited. She had a quick mind.

  “A while back the city hired some engi
neers to shore up the supports under the sidewalks. To do that they’d’ve had to map the entire underground. The cops knew what was down there when they searched it. Nothing, Willis said.”

  “The killer wouldn’t need much space,” she said. “Engineers are human. They make mistakes. In the middle of the night he’d be alone down there.”

  She was right, of course. Engineers, cops, and private investigators are all human. “What do you think we should do?”

  “For starters, I think one of us should do a little library work. Me. I’ve spent half my life in a library. Point me in the right direction; I know how to find things.”

  “It’s worth a try. If you haven’t already, you might take one of those tours to get a feel for the place.”

  “I went with some friends once. Poe would have loved it down there. I’ll trace the underground back as far as I can, then start from what’s known of the beginning and work forward,” Janine said.

  “Looking for what?”

  “Variations in the original plan of the underground. A bunch of high school kids cleaned this place up in the late 1960s — maybe they overlooked something. Maybe the engineers overlooked something.”

  26 – WILLIS GOES UNDERGROUND

  Richard Willis could not understand why I would willingly choose to hang out at Juantar’s Doie Bar. He surveyed the Doie with a look of amazement on his face. Two women played cribbage. A man worked a crossword puzzle. Juantar strode back and forth behind the bar talking to an old man in a small hat. Juantar motioned crazily with his hands as he talked. He gestured to the bullet-ridden silhouettes behind the bar, talking all the while.

  “Guys like you are beyond me, Denson,” he said. “On the face of it you’re a bright enough guy, yet you willingly choose to hang out in a place like this. What a collection of creeps!”

  I’d told Willis to dress casually, but there he was with a spiffy jacket and bow tie. I said, “You look like a waiter in a bus station.”

  “Like a what?”

  “I like your tie. Is that one of those clip-on things or what?” I asked. I flipped the end of his tie with my finger.

  “A clip-on tie?” Willis’s face tightened, then he relaxed. “Denson, if I didn’t have my career on the line …”