Looking for Henry Turner

by W. L. Liberman

  “A few of the boys owed me a favour or two. Wasn't hard to get a riot going in that place. You've seen it. Not exactly the Ritz.”

  “And the car you jumped into?”

  “Courtesy of Mr. Li,” Jake said. Li took a short bow. “When I heard about Eli, I knew I had to get out, that John was out of control.”

  “You heard about Eli before I did?”

  “Naturally.”

  I thought about the layout of the Don. All of the armed guards faced into the inner courtyard where the prisoners congregated. None of them would be positioned by the main entrance. Jake had a police escort that far, so he wouldn't have been stopped. It meant something strange happened in the hand over area, between the locked gate to the prison and the foyer leading out. It'd be unusual to find prisoners hanging around there. Only visitors and guards normally moved through that area. “Tobin did you a favour and didn't know. He walked you through the locked doors and the armed guards.”

  Jake laughed. “Yeah, it was pretty sweet.”

  “Doesn't explain how you overpowered Tobin and made it out the front entrance.”

  Jake just smirked. “I'll leave that to your imagination, boychick.” I really did want to slap him. “Besides, don't worry about me. I'll lie low for a while. It'll be fine.”

  “I don't really care what happens to you, Jake.”

  Jake winced. “Ooohh. That hurt.”

  I started toward him when I heard a commotion at the door. It swung open and Birdie filled it. He marched in but didn't look happy. Behind him came Evelyn. Behind her, holding a shotgun, strode the smiling goon I'd come to know as Quan. I felt the back of my head.

  “Baby,” Evelyn cried. “You all right?” She threw her arms around me. “What happened to your head?”

  “Him,” I replied, indicating Quan who just grinned at me but didn't loosen his grip on the shotgun any.

  “It's all calm downstairs,” Birdie said. “We cleared the place.”

  “Great. I see our little plan worked well,” I said ruefully.

  Birdie cracked his knuckles. “It wasn't all bad. I had fun.”

  “Who are these men?” Evelyn asked.

  “Time to go,” I said. I turned to Mr. Li and Jake. “We'll be in touch—speaking of which?”

  Mr. Li handed me a slip of paper. “You may call at any time day or night,” he said. “I wish you the best of luck, Mr. Gold.”

  “Sure.” I turned to Birdie and Evelyn. “Come on, let's get outta here.” I noticed Jake look at Evelyn in an admiring way.

  “You going to introduce me?” he asked.

  “No.” I took Evelyn's hand and began to pull her toward the door.

  “But..?” she protested.

  “It's late, kid.” I had two heads, one that pounded and one that just ached like the blazes. I looked at Mr. Li and nodded. I didn't say goodbye to Jake. Screw him.

  38

  We dropped Evelyn at home. She gave me a lingering kiss and told me to be careful. I staggered down the steps to the car. I told her I might not be able to see her for a while. Not until things blew over. She didn't look very happy. I pulled myself away reluctantly. Birdie had kept the engine running. Back at my place, I grabbed some ice from the freezer, wrapped it in a towel and held it to my throbbing head.

  After thirty minutes or so, I dumped the ice in the bathtub and washed up in the sink splashing cold water over my face. I took a fresh shirt from the drawer and put it on. I strapped on the .45, took the snub .38 and stuck it in my belt. I made sure I had enough ammunition to weigh down both jacket pockets. Birdie had twin .45's in a cross-hatch holster under both armpits. He carried a chopped down 12-gauge in his right hand. He had two boxes of shells in his pants pockets. I gulped down four Bufferin then took a shot of Scotch to chase them down.

  “Let's go,” I said.

  “We're going to war with John?” he asked.

  “Looks like it.” I knew the feeling and I liked it. “I think I know where Henry is,” I said.

  Birdie hesitated. “You do?”

  “Well, I think I know how we can find him, let's put it that way.”

  “Good.”

  I hoped the dope kicked in soon. The pain in my head screamed.

  First stop. Alison Lawson. She'd cough even if I had to beat it out of her. I'd lost track of time. Being unconscious warped your inner timepiece. Darkness hung over the sky like a warm blanket. No sign of the sun coming up. We moved in that dead of night zone, the one where terrors happen.

  Birdie drove us out to the Lawson residence. I could hear the tires humming. The streets hushed quiet. Sane people tucked up in bed. Two identical Cadillac convertibles parked in the driveway. His and hers. Cute. Except one Cadillac had crashed through the hedges, its engine running and the driver door ajar. Like somebody had stumbled out of it drunk and giddy. We stepped out of the Chevy. I reached in and switched off the Cadillac's ignition and pocketed the keys.

  “This don't look good,” Birdie said. No kidding. It got worse.

  “Front door's open.”

  “Hmmppphh.”

  Birdie cracked open the 12-gauge making sure the shells were in place, then snapped it shut.

  I slid the .45 out of its holster. “Let's go.”

  We each took a side and moving quickly, approached the doorway. I toed the door open and went in first, nice and low. Birdie came in high. The lights blazed. So bright my eyes stung.

  “Mrs. Lawson?” I called. “Mrs. Lawson? It's Mo Gold and Arthur Birdwell. Are you here?” Nothing in the foyer. Too many rooms, too many corridors in the damn place. We heard a rustling sound and a muffled cry.

  “Upstairs,” I whispered. Birdie nodded.

  Then a sob sounded. “Up here,” an anguished voice called. “Quickly. Please.”

  We knew enough not to come just because we were called. We took the stairs quickly but carefully covering as many angles as we could.

  “Down here,” the voice called.

  At the top of the landing the corridor split into a T-shape. It went left and right and straight. The voice came from straight ahead. I heard serious sobbing. The walls had been done up in crimson brocade and gold trim, enough to make me puke again. Some maniac had installed gargantuan chandeliers that had enough candlepower to smoke the Brazilian rainforest. It felt like gamma rays burned through my skull. After wading through plush pile carpet we came to the entrance of the master bedroom. We heard some commotion going on inside. Birdie eased the door open with the barrel of the 12-gauge. It swung noiselessly.

  Reginald Lawson sat on the carpet, his legs splayed out before him with the bloodied corpse of his dead wife draped across his lap. Gussied up in a satin dressing gown infused with blood. In his right hand, he held a bloodied knife. The blade looked long and broad enough to gut a moose. Lawson sat propped against the mattress of a king-size, canopied bed. The kind I imagined in the palace of Versailles. Lawson remained dressed much as he had been when I'd seen him at the club, except that he wore no tie and the buttons of his shirt had been ripped open as if he'd been in a fight. He wept, sobbing helplessly.

  “Hello Lawson,” I said.

  “Please, please…” He looked up at me and I saw what appeared to be genuine tears. “It's Alison, I think….”

  “She look dead to me,” Birdie said. I glanced at him and he shrugged.

  “Yes, yes,” Lawson mumbled. “He's right, she, she…is…”

  “I think it would be a good idea for you to put the knife down, Mr. Lawson,” I said.

  For a moment, he looked puzzled. “What?”

  “The knife…” And I indicated with my head. “Please.”

  Lawson lifted his hand up and stared at the bloodied blade, then collapsed into wracking sobs. The knife dropped on to the carpet.

  I thought about slapping him for a moment. Even in this pitiable state, he irked me. “What happened here, Lawson? Was there an argument? An altercation of some kind?”

  “What?” Lawson wasn't focusing.
His eyes were clouded. “What? You think…?”

  “Go on.”

  Then he began to shake his head. “No. No. No.” He pushed his dead wife off his lap and struggled up. The blood in her chest cavity gurgled, bubbling up as he shifted her off him. His hands were bloody. I could see several stab wounds in her chest. The blood must have spurted everywhere and as she lay dying her weakening heart kept pumping it out.

  “It wasn't me. I found her like this. You've got to believe me. I would never do this to her. Never, ever. You've got to help me, Gold. I beg of you.”

  “Call Callaway,” I said to Birdie. “Use the downstairs phone.” Birdie stepped out.

  Lawson looked around him as if seeing the scene for the very first time. “I've got to get out of here. I can't stay here.”

  “I'm afraid you can't leave now, Lawson. At the very least you're a material witness in a very nasty homicide. The police will need to speak with you.”

  “But don't you see? They'll think I did it. They'll think I killed Alison. I've got to get out of here before they arrive.” His expression screamed bewilderment. He was right about one thing though, the police would think he did it.

  “Think about it, Lawson. You take off now and the cops will think you're guilty without a doubt. They won't even bother looking for anyone else. You're a wealthy guy. Get yourself a top-dog lawyer and see it through.”

  Lawson raised a bloody hand and pointed a stained finger at me. Then he started to giggle and I knew he'd really gone over the edge. “Rich? Rich? Me? That's a laugh and a half, Gold. If only you knew…” He looked around the room wistfully. “You think I would have condoned any of, of, this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I gave Alison my name, that's all. I thought I loved her. I really did but they just wanted my name, my family history. He controls everything, Gold. Not me. I'm just the lackey, that's all.”

  “We haven't got much time, Lawson. The cops will be here soon. If you've got something to say that might help you then you'd better spit it out–here and now.”

  He rambled. “That's why I was with her—Adele. Adele…” I winced. “She's so beautiful and smart, incredibly smart…”

  “So you spent the evening with Miss Rosewell?”

  Lawson nodded. He seemed to have forgotten momentarily that he was covered in his wife's drying blood. “That's right. The entire evening. After your friend there, after he caused that disturbance in the club, we went back to her apartment. I stayed there until late and then I came home and I found Alison, like that, lying there–covered in blood…” His face cracked as he broke down again.

  “What about her parents?”

  Lawson looked up. “Her parents?”

  “That's right. Your in-laws. Have they been told?”

  “Oh my God,” he breathed. “No, I didn't think…” He stared at me in desperation. “I can't. I couldn't. They hate me anyway and now they'll think…” Lawson drifted off and swept his arm around the horrific scene. “You know what they'll think.”

  Birdie stepped back into the room. The carpet grew deep. I hadn't heard a sound.

  “Cops are on the way. Should only be a couple of minutes.”

  I holstered the .45. “Better make that thing scarce,” I said, nodding at the 12-gauge. I turned my attention back to Lawson. He wavered. A good puff of air and he'd topple. “You'd better tell the cops about Miss Rosewell too.”

  He shook his head. “No, I can't do that. I couldn't possibly involve her.”

  “Look Lawson, use your head. It will be better coming from you. If the cops find out about her then it will go even harder for you. There are plenty of witnesses that will put you with her at the club. Having an affair with Miss Rosewell is a good motive for murder and the cops will jump all over that. But if you tell them it will make it look like you have less to hide and that your conscience is clear on the killing of your wife. Miss Rosewell is involved whether she likes it or not and she could end up being your alibi. As it is, things aren't looking too good for you but even if you can't afford it, get yourself a good lawyer anyway. Understand?” I almost added, 'dummy' but bit my tongue.

  “I'll put it in the car,” Birdie replied indicating the 12-gauge. We'd had a special rack fitted into the trunk.

  Lawson stared at me as if he hadn't seen me before. “Why are you doing this? You don't like me, Gold. The feeling is mutual.”

  “You got that right, Lawson. I couldn't give two figs if you went down for this or not. I'm doing it for her, not for you.”

  “Adele?”

  “That's right, and her aunt. She's a decent, hard-working woman who's just trying to find out what happened to her son.”

  “I don't know anything about that, I swear to you.”

  They came in a brace of squad cars with the sirens screaming. Nothing too subtle. We'd taken Lawson downstairs to the den and allowed him to pour himself a stiff Scotch. Birdie met the first couple of cops at the door but wouldn't let them in until Callaway showed up. I could hear sharp words exchanged but Birdie remained an impenetrable wall.

  A few minutes later, Callway's guttural voice chimed in. I kept my eye on Lawson. He sat slumped in a chair holding a heavy, cut glass tumbler but didn't even take a sip. A pair of patrolmen appeared in the doorway. I knew I wasn't going anywhere and Lawson showed no signs of anything at all except a slight intake of breath to prove he was still alive.

  I heard a heavy thumping coming down the stairs and a moment later, Callaway and his shadow, Sergeant Roy Mason, shouldered their way through. Mason worked a wad of gum in his narrow jaw and had a smirk on his weasel face. I could see he limped. Callaway had thunderstorm etched into his expression.

  “Do I need to ask why you're here?” he asked me.

  “Didn't Birdie tell you?”

  “Wouldn't tell us anything,” Mason said with disgust.

  “You mean, he wouldn't tell you anything, Mason.”

  “All right,” Callaway snapped. “Let's not forget we have a particularly nasty murder on our hands here.” He nodded at the comatose Lawson. “What's he been saying?”

  “That he didn't do it. Came home and found her like that.”

  “How'd he get the blood all over his shirt?” Mason sneered. “Dancing with the corpse.”

  “You'll have to ask him,” I said. “There was a lot of blood. Looked like she took a direct hit in the heart. There would have been a lot of spurt.” Mason limped his way a bit closer.

  “Save the analysis,” Callaway said. He went over to Lawson, who didn't even bother looking up at him. “Show me your hands, please, Mr. Lawson.”

  “What?” Lawson barely acknowledged him.

  “I'd like to see your hands please. Hold them up for me, will you?”

  Lawson set down the drink on the carpet and tentatively held up his hands, palms out. Callaway didn't touch them but took a close look.

  “Turn them around please, palm side in.” Lawson did what he was told like a good little boy. Callaway gave them the eyeball. “Roy,” he said. “See if you can find a couple of those small plastic trash bags in the kitchen, will you? And a couple of rubber bands.”

  “Huh?” Mason looked startled.

  “You heard me. Just get them.” Mason winced but he disappeared. He returned a moment later. No one had said anything.

  “Nasty limp you got there, Mason,” I said.

  He glanced at me. “Just slipped on the stairs, that's all.”

  “Sure.”

  Callaway took the bags and rubber bands from him, slipped a bag each over Lawson's hands and snapped the elastics around his wrists. He grunted with satisfaction.

  “Mr. Lawson, you're going to have to come with us down to the station for questioning, okay?”

  Lawson nodded then stared down at his drink on the carpet hungrily. “Check and see if the coroner is here,” Callaway said. Mason snapped his gum. “Roy?”

  Mason glanced up. “Right.”

  “And nobody gets in
the bedroom until the lab boys have finished.”

  “I know the drill, Inspector.”

  “Then act like it.”

  Mason winced then slunk out.

  “We didn't get much past the doorway,” I said. “We didn't go right into the room. I just talked to Lawson while Birdie called you from the downstairs phone.” I paused.

  “Boys,” Callaway called. The two patrolmen stiffened. “Come and take Mr. Lawson down to the station. Make sure he's comfortable and put him in one of the guest suites. Stay with him. You might want to get him a jacket to wear. It can get cold in there.”

  “Yes sir.” The two patrolmen approached Lawson from either side, each pinching an arm. “Right this way, Mr. Lawson.” They escorted him out, his sleek head slumped to his chest. He didn't look up.

  After they left, Callaway noticed Lawson's drink on the carpet. He picked it up and downed it. “Shame to let it go to waste,” he said. “Now what the hell were you doing here?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, we were just passing by as it happens and I spotted the Caddy up on the grass. The driver's door was open with the engine running. I thought that was a little strange. Then Birdie noticed the front door. We decided to see if the homeowners were in distress so we entered the premises. I called out and identified myself. A voice called and asked for help. We went upstairs and found Lawson cradling the body of his wife. She looked dead and he was covered in her blood. That's about as much as either of us knows.”

  Callaway gritted his teeth and rocked back on his heels. There were dark pouches under his eyes and his skin looked puffy. “Oh really? You just happened to be passing by?”

  “That's right.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “And the door just happened to be open?”

  “That's the way it was,” I said.

  Callaway glared at me. I didn't want to add to his troubles but couldn't see any other way. I wasn't going to endanger my stupid brother by telling him the truth. That I wanted to beat information out of the now deceased Alison Lawson.