Cold In The Grave_A Kilroy Mystery

by Stephen Mertz

  “I.D.'d your two mystery people in that snapshot,” he told me as soon as the social amenities were over. The man is Salvatore Fallaci. He's the top Mafia boss in this city, Kilroy.” There was an edge of real concern in Teddy's voice. We'd become friends over the years. “If you want my advice, I think you're getting in over your head on this one.”

  “I may be going down for the third time even as we speak,” I acknowledged. I didn't have to tell him that part of his toil in the News morgue had been wasted. “What about the mystery lady in that picture of Fallaci and Richmond and the Kaplin woman? Were you able to I.D. her?”

  “Now this, I think, will surprise you,” said Teddy. “The woman with Fallaci in that picture is none other than Sara Carlyle. You remember I told you about her this afternoon. Lloyd Carlyle's errant daughter.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “That's the funny part, Kilroy. I have been unable to unearth the slightest clue as to that young woman's whereabouts or activities for the past five months, and that’s with access to every news media outlet in the city. I've spent as much time on the telephone as I did down in the file morgue. And I came up with absolutely nothing, and this is on someone who was always considered good copy. Sara Carlyle, far as I can tell, has not been seen or heard from lately by anyone. Apparently, she cleaned up her act and disappeared.”

  “Or, just disappeared.”

  “I was wondering about that.” Teddy did not sound enthusiastic. “We could be on to something bigger than a couple of low life homicides. Carlyle, I don't believe that 'retired' business. He's still one of the two or three most powerful men in this state.”

  “Sara is the key to what this is all about,” I decided as I spoke. “Everyone else is accounted for. But it still doesn't make a damn bit of sense. A bunch of people dying for nothing? Why did the killing start? Why did these lives have to be snuffed? And who made that decision?”

  “So where do you go from here?” he asked.

  I'd made up my mind about that a second before he asked the question. “Fallaci will know where the Carlyle woman is, or what happened to her.”

  “Good luck,” he said dryly. “I'll keep an eye out for your name in the obits.”

  “It's the only option I've got,” I said, continuing to think it out as I spoke. “I can't just sit back and watch this thing happen. That's not the way I'm put together.”

  “If you want to stay together, my friend, stay away from Fallaci. I mean that, Kilroy. He will take you apart. What about Richmond? Are you writing him off as the guilty party behind this?”

  “Not hardly. But much as I dislike him, I don't think Richmond was involved in having anybody knocked off. I've got a sort of begrudging respect for a survivor like Lloyd Carlyle, and it never does any good to underestimate the enemy. I can't believe that Carlyle has survived in politics all these years because he's a poor judge of character. Carlyle would know if his boy Paul was involved in something like a murder conspiracy, and if he was, Carlyle would drop him like a hot potato. Since that hasn't happened, I'm willing to go along with Carlyle's assessment for the time being and write Richmond off as a jerk who's running for District Attorney and who just happens to meet the wrong people at parties. That leaves Fallaci. I don't like it either, believe me. But I've got to see him, Teddy. It's all I've got, and I can't stop now.”

  “It’s your funeral,” he said, without sarcasm. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Drop those two snapshots into the mail to my PO box,” I said. “And thanks.”

  “Forget it,” he said. “If this leads where I think it will, I haven't done you any favors.”

  I replaced the receiver back on the hook on that happy note and started off before I could talk myself out of it, taking the side exit from the Courthouse Building onto Colfax, toward where they had impounded my Lancia after my arrest.

  It was snowing. It must have started since I'd left Dickensheets' office, ten minutes ago or less, but whiteness was already accumulating on the sidewalks. The flurries wrapped the city in a cold, swirling fog. It was dark now. The hiss of tires on wet pavement was everywhere, the wet streets reflecting the headlights of the downtown rush hour.

  Driving conditions didn't improve once I recovered my car and headed toward Sal Fallaci's love nest on Logan. The station I tuned in on the dash radio was full of traveler's advisories for the coming hours, and the freeway helicopter reports were nothing but how slick the ramps were and how fender benders were slowing up traffic on all the main arteries.

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the parking area alongside where Fallaci kept his latest lady friend, Martha, the crazy redhead escape artist. I checked the load and action of the .44, and its looseness in the shoulder holster. Then I got out of my car and moved through the falling snow toward the apartment building. But I saw something before I got there.

  Movement, two vehicles away. An American economy job, sitting there, idling, when I first drove up. Now the door toward me, on the driver's side, cracked open and a figure started to emerge from the car.

  Whoever it was must have had his mind somewhere else and not realized that my vehicle had joined his in the parking lot. When the figure saw me, it ducked back into the car and slammed the door, the sound coming to me muffled through the heavily falling snow.

  I hadn't recognized the face or build in the dimness, so I felt certain that he hadn't recognized me. It was someone who did not want to be seen going into the apartment house. With the engine of that car still idling, I had to move fast. I crossed around behind my car and the two alongside mine to come up on the passenger side of the compact. I opened the door and slipped in.

  I was staring into Robert Pierpont's surprised face.

  “Hello, Robert.”

  “Kilroy --”

  “I've been worried about you,” I said. “You haven't done anything stupid, I hope.”

  A patina of sweat coated his face.

  “I've got a gun. I'm on my way into that building to find a man named Fallaci. He's the one who had Cheryl killed, and I know he killed Somerset. I saw it happen.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  “There was a knock on my door.” He gave a dazed, humorless kind of laugh. “It seems like centuries ago.”

  “Who was at the door?”

  “It was the man, Somerset. Another man, an older man, a real vicious looking person, was standing right behind him in the hallway.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. When I opened the door, a shot was fired. The man behind Somerset pulled out a gun and fired point blank at the back of Somerset's head, soon as I had the door open.” There was a tense tremble to Robert’s voice, but that was all. There was no longer anything 'kid' about him. He said with a visible shudder, “Somerset was kicked forward into me from the force of the shot. It was awful. Some of his brains got on me! Then the other man was gone. The gun was on the floor. I was scared. I picked it up, in case he came back. Then I realized what a terrible mistake that was. People were starting to come into the hallway, drawn by the sound of the gunshot. They saw me with the gun in my hand and a dead man at my feet. I could tell what they were all thinking. I dropped the gun, but it was too late.

  “I knew the instant it happened that it was a setup to keep me from making waves about what happened to Cheryl, but I'm damned if it will stop me from finding out why she had to die. I ran. I drove out to Arvada and broke into Leon Somerset's body shop. It was closed and there was a notice to keep out posted on the door. The police had already been through, but they hadn't had anything hauled away yet. I searched Somerset's files and found a file of correspondence between him and this man Fallaci. Cheryl told me one time that Fallaci was the name of the man who owned The Tattle Tail. I don't know why that stuck in my mind, the way some things do, but I went from Somerset's shop to one of the branch libraries and looked through their old newspaper files. Fallaci is the Mafia boss in this town! And he's
the man who killed Somerset, alright. I saw a picture of Fallaci in one of the papers, and it was the same man who stood behind Somerset and pulled the trigger this morning.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I have an old address book that Cheryl forgot at my apartment the last time she was there,” he said. “It had a listing for Fallaci and this address. I - -I guess she visited him here sometimes.”

  I said, “Or maybe she lived here for a while. Let me see the piece you're carrying. Do you know anything about guns?”

  He obediently withdrew a Saturday Night Special, in this case a little .22 pistol that might be all right on the shooting range and might possibly throw a scare into a cannibal like Sal Fallaci, but only possibly. I swiped the .22 out of his hand.

  “Hey! What are you--”

  He had hardly muttered his startled protest when I dropped it into my jacket pocket.

  “Sorry, Robert. I'm not going to let you do whatever it is you think you want to do with a gun when you see Fallaci, which is a lousy idea in the first place. And by the way, I just came from a talk with the police at the District Attorney's office. They don't think you killed Somerset.”

  “You mean, they know Fallaci did it?”

  “I've been working for you, guy,” I said. “I've been trying to earn that retainer you paid me. I don't want to go into everything now. The police are still looking for you. You were seen standing with a gun over a dead body. You'd be doing a very smart thing by turning yourself in at this point. They don't have anything on you except panicking and running away and getting lost for a few hours. They'll let that slide if we give them the ones who are really guilty.”

  “But Fallaci - -”

  “I'll take care of Fallaci. I was on my way to see him just now.”

  “Take care of him?” he repeated. “You mean you're going to - -”

  I cut him off before he could say it.

  “I’m going to talk with him,” I said. “I might have to talk kind of hard. This thing is still in play, and right now I don't want to have to be worrying about you. The best place for you to be would be surrounded by police officers for a few hours. Fallaci's great idea to frame you isn't working so good. He might be real mad about that, and he might want to take it out on you.”

  “He is the person responsible for Cheryl's death, isn't he?”

  I said, “Cheryl is the person responsible for Cheryl's death. It's time for you to recognize and accepted that fact. Cheryl paid the price for her actions, just like we all do. As for the part Fallaci played in it . . . I'm still not sure.”

  “But whatever about Somerset? I saw Fallaci kill him!”

  “Tell the police what you want,” I said. My advice would be to not bring Sal into it.”

  “But we can't let him get away with murder!”

  “Guys like Fallaci never get away with anything in the long run,” I told him. “But whatever happens to him, once you go on the record as an informer against the Mafia, you're signing your own death warrant. Fallaci and his associates will wait for however long it takes, then they will kill you to silence you and for revenge. Believe me, Robert, you're way out of your league on this one. I'm getting paid for this, that's my excuse, and my background means I'm not out of my league. But you've already lost Cheryl. That's enough. Let it stop there. If you lose your own life over this, that would be a real tragedy. What would it mean, then?”

  “So, what should I tell the police?”

  “Tell them how you opened the door this morning, you heard the shot and Somerset's body came pitching in at you, just like it happened,” I said. 'Tell them about picking up the gun, about your thoughts when the people saw you, about running away. Just leave out the part about seeing. Tell the police that you spent the day thinking it over and you now want to fess up about your part in it and clean your conscience. Clear yourself in the eyes of the law. Cops love talk like that.”

  I could see he was going for it. He took a few more seconds, another half minute, to consider, and I let him. The only sound was our breathing. The snow had blanketed the car and muffled all other sounds of the city around us as if we were in a vacuum. We could have been parked on Lookout Mountain, miles away from Denver, instead of in the heart of the city.

  “Do you think they’ll believe me?” he asked.

  “They should. It's the truth minus one fact. The important thing is, Fallaci's associates will be satisfied and you'll stay alive.”

  “But it's just a matter of principle,” he blurted. “I should be helping you. I owe that to Cheryl!”

  I said, “Cheryl died trying to get a stake break out of her world and into yours. Now you want to break into her world and get yourself killed? Does that make sense?”

  “She didn't want to be in my world,” he said angrily. “She'd leave me and go right back to . . . to what she was doing above that bar. But I loved her.”

  He seemed ready to fall apart with his gut-gnawing pain. I couldn't have that. Not now. I had to keep moving.

  “You touched Cheryl’s emotions and her life,” I said. “You touched her deep inside, where it counts. She respected you, Robert, more than she respected herself. You were honest and untainted, unlike the riff-raff in her world. You have goals and commitment. Cheryl's life had none of that and thanks to her feelings for you she got a chance to glimpse her own potential. I know for a fact that she tried to line up honest work.” I was thinking of how Cheryl had asked Paul Richmond for a job on his campaign committee. “That was your influence, Robert, and no one else's. But she wasn't strong enough to break out for good. She'd been a part of that world for too long. So, she tried something to break free. She tried to extort money from someone who wouldn't sit still for it. And so she died.”

  “So that's why Fallaci had her killed.”

  I was growing impatient.

  “Are you listening, Robert? This is a lesson for the learning. Don't take the values you live by, the values that Cheryl admired so much, don't take those values and throw them all down for something that will get done anyway. I’m talking about Fallaci taking the big fall for everything he’s done. That’s not your job. You don't owe that to Cheryl. Believe me, you don't owe it to yourself, either.”

  He couldn't deny the logic of that. I could see the fight drain from him.

  “But what should I do?” he asked blankly.

  “You mean after the police release you? Then it will be your life again, won’t it? You’ll have order in your life again and you'll have the time and space to think things out. You're the only one who can do that, guy. My job is to clean up this mess, to identify the ones responsible and hold them accountable. That is a job I'm qualified for. It’s what you're paying me for. And it's the job I'd better get doing. So, what about it, Robert? Are you going to take my advice? Will you go to the police?”

  “I'll go, right now,” he said. “You're right all the way down the line, Mr. Kilroy. Thanks for talking sense to me.”

  “You're worth it,” I said.

  But I didn't give him back the .22 and he didn't ask for it.

  I opened my side door and left his car. He backed out of the parking space and exited the lot, taking a right turn onto Logan and disappearing into the heavily falling snow. I walked over to my car and locked his .22 in the metal box in the trunk.

  There were a lot of guns in this case.

  I went up to see Fallaci.

  16

  I again took the self-service elevator up to Fallaci's floor. The hallway outside his apartment was as sedate as it had been a few hours ago, on my last visit here. There was no sign of the talkative janitor who had bent my ear this afternoon. There was no sign of anyone. I put my ear to Fallaci's front door and listened. I heard nothing, which meant not a damn thing.

  Maybe the place was soundproofed and there was a party going on in there.

  I grasped the doorknob and suddenly became aware that my palm was sweaty, despite the winter weather outside. I turned the k
nob. The door was locked. But did that stop Kilroy? No, sir. It's times like these when it's worthwhile having unsavory acquaintances who will share with you the tricks of their trade. I brought out my wallet, withdrew the laminated card and fifteen seconds later, the door to the Fallaci apartment was unlocked.

  I stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind me.

  The living room lights were on dim. There was an eerie stillness about the place. My hand reached beneath my jacket. I unleathered the .44.

  At first, I thought I was alone. All I could hear was the wind from outside and the whisper of blown snow lashing against the bay window across the room. It took my eyes and ears a moment to get in tune with the place, the way your senses always need time to adjust, and once my ears were attuned, they began to pick up faint sounds from beyond a half-closed door across the living room that I knew led to the bedroom.

  Sex sounds.

  I stayed light on my feet and crossed in that direction. I pressed myself to the wall next to the bedroom door. Then I looked around the door frame, into the room, and I knew why the Mafia Don's love nest had been so easy to break into.

  Sal Fallaci was occupied. A table lamp had been dimmed to intimate amber. It was a lush bedroom made for sex from the arty pornographic statuettes to the classic nude oils on the walls to the red satin sheets and the abundance of plush pillows on a big circular bed which was presently, athletically occupied by Fallaci and crazy little Martha the Redhead. They had obviously patched up their spat from that afternoon.

  Had they ever!

  I tried to think of a good opening line and when I couldn't, I just stepped into the bedroom with my .44 Magnum leading the way.

  I said, “Anyone here call down for a salami on rye?”

  They flew a part as if they'd been splashed with a bucket of cold water.

  Martha looked to be zapped out of her head on acid or speed or both. She stared at me with her face flushed and her eyes wide and wild. Her mouth moved, but she didn't try to say anything or cover her nakedness. In the amber light, she was erotic.