“No,” Gleason said firmly. “It was that other driver, in the Mustang. He cut her off. I did nothing wrong.”
“Think of Marley, Sully. Scrooge tried to console Marley’s ghost by calling him ‘a good man of business.’ The ghost wailed that he had discovered too late that mankind was his business.”
Within Gleason was a voice longing to shout out, Yes, I did it! I killed her! But the consequences were too much to bear. Gleason turned to face Noel and looked him in the eye.
“I told you what happened. I’m not responsible for that girl’s death.”
That’s the only story I’m left with, Gleason’s mind added silently, and I’ll cling to it until the day I die.
After a moment, Noel’s face broke into a wide smile. “I knew it! I knew you were innocent. Some in my office believed the police, but I told them they were mistaken. Thank you, Sully. Thank you so much.”
Sleepiness consumed Gleason. He drank down the last of the water and dropped the empty bottle back into the holder.
“Please, Charles, can you get me home? I’m very tired.”
“Of course, Sully.”
He turned into the driveway of Gleason’s home. Using the remote clipped to the visor, he opened the garage and pulled up inside, putting the Escalade into Park. Gleason was lost in a dreamless sleep. From his coat pocket Noel took a piece of paper, leaving a note for Gleason. Then he got out and closed up the garage. He walked down the driveway, softly humming “Silent Night.”
The winter sun had already sunk low in the sky when BCA Investigator Jarvis Abernathy arrived at the Bice home in Chaska. He’d called to alert them that he was on his way.
It was Cortney’s grandfather, Quentin Cooper, who answered the door. Several times over the last twelve months Cooper had come out from California to be with his daughter’s family, helping them cope with Cortney’s death.
“Good to see you again, Jarvis.” Cooper’s rich tenor voice was familiar to the investigator, as it was to most people in the country. Along with a film career that covered a half-century, he did numerous voice-overs for ads. He’s not God, but he sounds like Him, was how the ad executives put it.
It was still strange for Abernathy, seeing in the flesh a man he’d grown up watching on a movie screen. The actor’s sandy hair was now silver and cropped close to his skull, though his skin remained unblemished. When Abernathy asked how he’d managed that, Cooper had chuckled and said, “Moisturizers and special effects.” The detective found he liked the man immensely, for although he was a fixture in Hollywood—an actor who disappeared into his roles like a male Meryl Streep—in person he was warm and devoid of the egotism one expected in an actor. Abernathy had to admit, his feelings about Cooper made the message he’d come to deliver personally all the harder to handle.
“Where are Ruth and Brad?” Abernathy asked.
“Waiting in the living room.”
The parents were seated close together on the couch, their hands entwined. They looked at him with hopeful, guarded eyes. Hopeful the man responsible for their daughter’s death would finally face punishment; guarded from past disappointments. Abernathy took a chair across from the Bices, while Cooper perched on a chair arm off to the side of the room.
“There will be an announcement made within the hour about Cortney’s case,” the detective said.
“You said you were going to arrest him this morning,” Ruth Bice said. The loss of Cortney along with the unresolved case had worn hard on her. She was a string stretched taut, almost to the snapping point. For Abernathy, the worst part of any murder or manslaughter investigation was seeing the violence echoing in the lives of the victim’s family.
“That was the plan. After we got Maggie Ferigami to tell the truth about the night Cortney died, everything fell into place.”
Gleason had used Maggie to bolster his claim that he hadn’t been drinking, and she’d maintained that story throughout the year. Then, last week, Abernathy heard an attempted reconciliation with her husband had fizzled. He’d kicked her out, and when she’d turned to Gleason for support, he dumped her. Abernathy interviewed her again, offering her immunity for any previous false statements. This time she told the story straight, including how they’d polished off a bottle of rum during their Christmas Eve tryst, with Gleason doing most of the polishing. It had taken a few days to finish not only crossing the t’s, but hammering those crossbeams in place, before they were ready to arrest Gleason.
“What happened?” Brad asked.
“Do you know what ipecac syrup is?”
Both Bices looked blankly at Abernathy.
“I’ve heard of it,” Cooper said. “Decades ago doctors recommended that households have it available in case of an accidental poisoning. It induces vomiting. Why do you ask?”
“Gleason went to Jimmy’s Tavern last night. Witnesses say he took ill.”
“Jimmy’s Tavern,” Brad repeated. “That’s where he was drinking the night Cortney died, isn’t it?”
“Yes. This morning we found a small bottle labeled ipecac syrup on a ledge outside the tavern’s door.”
“So someone laced his drink?” Ruth smiled harshly. “Good. I guess not everyone in that bar supports Gleason. If you find out who did it, let me know. I’ll send them chocolates and flowers.”
“I doubt we’ll ever know. There were no fingerprints on the bottle, but then people wearing gloves in Minnesota in December is a given. The bartender said Gleason was talking with an Englishman last night, but we’ve been unable to locate him. I mention this only because it complicates what we discovered when we went to arrest Gleason. We found him in his garage, dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. Towels were stuffed under the doors to seal the garage, and his SUV had run until the tank was dry. There was residue in an empty water bottle beside him that the lab identified as a sleeping compound. We found a printed suicide note, confessing to causing your daughter’s accident.”
“No, that’s not right,” Ruth said, shaking her head. “That’s too easy a death. He should have felt pain, after what he did to—”
Ruth broke down. Her husband hugged her as the sobs came.
When she quieted, Brad looked at Abernathy. “Thank you, Jarvis, for coming to tell us.”
“This closes the case,” Abernathy said. “Frankly, even with Maggie’s testimony, the prosecutor only gave us a fifty-fifty chance of a conviction. If Gleason had continued to fight, he might have gotten off.”
Brad shuddered. “That would have been another nightmare.”
“We’ll have some officers here soon to provide security. The press will want a comment after the announcement.”
“When they come, I’ll speak to them. I’m just glad it’s over. I guess, in his mind, Gleason finally did the decent thing.”
“Yeah,” Abernathy said as he rose.
“I’ll walk you out,” Cooper said.
At the door, Abernathy turned to Cooper.
“You should have taken the card.”
“What do you mean?” Cooper asked, appearing puzzled.
“Chapman and Hall? They published many books by Dickens, including A Christmas Carol. The address in Camden Town was where Dickens lived as a child. Apparently he used that house as a model for the Cratchit home. And the name—Charles Noel? Charles Christmas? You did that television version of the story a few years back, didn’t you? I remember it was well-received.”
The actor’s lips pulled back into a slight smile, but he remained silent.
“So Gleason got a visit from the Spirit of Christmas Past—last Christmas Past,” Abernathy said. “I take it, unlike Scrooge, he remained unrepentant. The case is over, the prosecutor’s happy, and my captain doesn’t want to hear about what I believe happened. But don’t think you played me, old man.”
Abernathy walked away. Cooper’s ice-blue eyes watched the detective depart.
Copyright © 2010 David H. Ingram
Black Mask
Black Mask
THE TALL BLONDE WITH THE HOT BOILER
By Harley Mazuk
Harley Mazuk was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and has worked at a variety of jobs, including, for the past ten years, corporate communications. This is his first work of fiction and it would...
Top of Black Mask
Department of First Stories
Black Mask
THE TALL BLONDE WITH THE HOT BOILER
By Harley Mazuk
Harley Mazuk was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and has worked at a variety of jobs, including, for the past ten years, corporate communications. This is his first work of fiction and it would normally go in our Department of First Stories. We’re publishing it in Black Mask because he was so clearly inspired by the style of Chandler and Hammett. The tale is set in San Franciso 60-some years ago. Its P.I. already stars in a just-completed novel!
---1---
A tall blonde came to see me about her hot boiler, but when I stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor of the Rose Building that late May morning, I didn’t notice her at first. I looked to my left and saw this fellow holding up the wall. His hat brim was so big, it cast a shadow on his face, and only the glow of his cigarette showed underneath. His sport jacket came down to his knees, and his pants had enough extra material in them to wrap the trunk of a redwood tree.
But my office was to the right and I turned away from the zoot-suit kid and walked down the hall. That’s when I first saw the tall blond dish pacing outside my door. Her pillbox hat was cocked at an unusual angle; her sunglasses didn’t cover what looked like a fresh shiner. Her peach blouse was soiled and gapped a bit where it was missing a button at bra level. The seams of her stockings ran as straight along the backs of her calves as Lombard Street down Russian Hill. The overall impression she made was of a piece of bruised fruit, or of a hooker who handled a lot of rough trade.
“Morning,” I said, as I slipped my key into the lock on the door. “Tough night?”
“Are you the detective?”
She had a vaguely European accent. The d and each t in “detective” were clipped and hard; the h in “the” was barely there. “That’s right. Frank Swiver’s my name. Come on in.”
I opened up shop and gave us some lights. An inner door with smoked glass had my name in black letters across the top, then underneath:
Private Investigations
Old Vine Detective Agency
I held that door open for the tall blonde. Following her in, I flipped my fedora onto the hat rack and slid the guest chair out. “And you are?”
“I am Mrs. Karin Maldau,” she said. “Thank you.”
Car-with-a-rolled-r-eeen. Karin. “And how can I help you today, Mrs. Maldau?” I moved around my desk and sat in my swivel rocker.
She opened her bag and took out a deck of Old Gold Kings. “Do you mind if I smoke, Mr. Swiver?”
“Be my guest.” I opened the middle desk drawer, found an ashtray, and slid it to her. Then I struck a wooden match and reached it across. Yes, she steadied my hand with hers when she lit up.
“Thank you.” It sounded almost like “tank you,” or “dank you,” but there was a slight aspiration in there. I smiled and waited.
“Mr. Swiver, I have trouble. My car has been stolen.”
I felt a bit deflated. I had rather hoped she was being blackmailed over some nude photos she’d posed for. “Your car was stolen?”
“Yes, that’s right. I want you to get it back.”
“Mrs. Maldau, I would like to help you, but I have to be honest.” I rubbed my hand through my hair. “I really don’t do a lot of auto-theft work. In fact, I can’t recall the last bent car case I handled. I think you’d be better off letting the police work on this. Have you reported it yet?”
“No.”
“Well, first thing, let’s call it in,” I said, and reached for the blower.
“No.” She jumped to her feet. “You mustn’t ... I mean, I mustn’t have the police.”
I leaned back. “They can help you.”
Karin Maldau sat back down. “No. I don’t want the police.”
I waited.
“My husband, Mr. Maldau. He would be very angry with me. It’s a brand-new car, you see. He just bought it for me.”
“Make and model?”
“Nineteen forty-nine Mercury. It’s a coupé. Two-door coupé. Purple.”
“When did this happen, Mrs. Maldau?”
“Last night, sometime before six A.M. I have been waiting for you in the corridor for two hours.”
“Maybe the cops coulda done something in those two hours. They coulda put out an APB—that’s an all-points bulletin, Mrs. Maldau.” I grinned. “If the thief was joyriding, they might have spotted the car. It’s a new model. There aren’t many of them on the streets.”
“No cops, Mr. Swiver.” She raised her voice to say that and winced. I noticed red marks on her throat. “I want you to find my car.” She reached in her purse and brought out a wallet. “Here are two hundred dollars. I don’t know your fees, but that is all I have with me.”
“My fee is twenty-five dollars a day, plus any expenses.”
“Here are two hundred now. I will bring you another two hundred when you recover my car. But you must make haste. Put aside your other cases.”
“Well, I could do that. I could focus on your case. But the police have more resources. They have a better chance of success in a matter like this. I’m just one guy.”
“I think I am not getting so much for my money, maybe. But still ... I must have back my car. My offer remains.”
I didn’t have any other clients at the time. I could probably have parallel parked a ’49 Mercury in the hole in her story, but the four pictures of General Grant that she’d fanned out on my desk were authentic enough.
“Let’s say I could find your boiler for you, Mrs. Maldau. If I could do it, the police could too, and for no charge. Four hundred dollars is a lot of dough.”
“I told you, I don’t want my husband to know. He has a temper. You find my car. Return it to me. He will not know it was gone. I will take a cab home now. I will tell him I left the car at the home of a lady friend.”
“Where did you leave the car? Where was it when it was stolen?”
“On Webster Street.”
That was on the edge of the Marina district. “Parked on the street?”
“In the parking lot. Sorrento Inn. That is a motor court there.”
“A motel?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, Sorrento Motor Inn.”
“Did you park it there, Mrs. Maldau?”
“Yes, of course. When I awoke, the car was gone.”
A married dame spends the night at a casual motel; her heap turns up missing. And she didn’t want her husband to know.
“Were you alone at the Sorrento?”
“I was not. But you need not concern yourself about who I was with. It could not possibly help you find the car.”
“All right, Mrs. Maldau. I’ll see what I can do. Do you have the registration?”
“No, it was in the car. But I know the plate number. California yellow plates with blue numbers, 78N395.”
“Car in your name, or your husband’s?”
“His, Agustin Maldau.”
“Do you have the keys?” I asked. She did and she gave them to me. I scooped up the fifties, folded them, and put them in my trouser pocket. “How do I get in touch with you?”
“We’re in the book, Mr. Swiver. But please don’t call. My husband might answer. I will call you in six hours. If you’re not in, I will call again each hour.”
We left it at that. She said goodbye, and I poured a short glass of Chenin Blanc and tried to think of how I’d find a stolen car. I walked over to the window with my glass of wine and looked down on Post Street. I saw Karin Maldau walk out and head toward Union Square. I saw the zoot-suit kid step out of a doorway and head up the street the same way.
---2---
A black man na
med George was the porter in the garage. I talked to him when I went down for my heap.
“Stolen when, Mr. Swiver? Last night? Shoot. It’s probably parts by now.”
“Parts?”
“Yes sir.” George pulled a pouch of Bull Durham out of the top of his overalls and started to roll one. He held the paper in his right hand and shook tobacco out of the bag with his left. “Car thief takes a car. What’s in it for him? It’s hot. He can’t sell it. He got no title. But he take it apart, he can sell the tires, the wheels, the generator. He can sell the gears, the radio, the lights. Nobody asks for a title for the parts. Thief can sell ’em all cheap, and he still makes a few hundred bucks. Might make more than a grand. What kind of bucket is it? Cadillac might bring two thousand in parts.” He pulled the strings on the bag shut with his teeth, dropped it in his overalls, finished the roll, and then wet the whole cigarette down in his mouth.
“It’s a ’forty-nine Mercury.” I lit him.
George’s sleepy expression changed. “’Forty-nine Merc? Oh, that different. See, that’s a brand-new car. That’s in demand. Yeah, Ford got them a hit there. You see, you want to buy one, you can’t just get your pick and drive it off the lot. No sir. You gots to wait. You place an order, wait maybe six weeks for Dee-troit. So now, your car thief, he has a product he can move. He don’t have to spend time cuttin’ it up into pieces. He can find one buyer. Yes sir, you might still have a chance here.”
“George, what if I wanted a new Mercury and didn’t want to wait? How could I get a hot one?”
“Don’t know, Mr. S. I don’t work with no hot boilers. Chances are the thief might have already had a buyer. Mighta been fillin’ an order, like. But I’ll tell you what I’d do. How’s your Spanish? You should talk to some Mexicans. Yeah, I think they like that kind of merchandise.”
I gave George fifty cents. He held the door of my ’38 Pontiac open for me. Maybe it was time to shop for a new car.
---3---
First, though, I paid a visit to the scene of the crime, the Sorrento Motor Inn. It was a two-level modern building, tucked under the morning fog, just south of Chestnut. A couple of quiet gulls sat on the roof. There were about two dozen rooms opening to the outside around a courtyard that was the parking lot. It was now ten-fifteen, and most of the spaces were empty. I parked by the office and went in.
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 01/01/11 Page 16
