Blood Stone (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 2)

by Michael Allegretto

  “I don’t count.”

  “Christ, Abner.”

  “Maybe it’s full of money. Come on, I’ll buy lunch.”

  “All right, all right.”

  The van parked in front of Fontaine’s building had a sign on it “Security Lock and Safe, Inc.” Parked beside it was a new shiny silver Mercedes. It didn’t have any signs. It was a sign.

  Greenspan and the safe guy were waiting inside Fontaine’s office.

  The safe guy was down on his knees before Greenspan, who stood over him like a medieval prince receiving a peasant. The prince was thin as a long-distance runner and a few years younger than I was. His face was smooth and tan. So was his suit. He wore a diamond ring and a thirty-dollar haircut and shoes that cost more than everything I had on. Also, he was in debt up to his eyeballs. He wasn’t exactly crooked, but if he didn’t make big bucks honestly and soon, he was the type who could and would circumvent the law.

  “Is that the right combination?” he asked. Then, “Hello, Jake.”

  Greenspan’s voice was a well-modulated baritone trained to impress clients, charm judges, and intimidate opponents. He was an effective attorney. I tried not to hold that against him.

  “Hi, Abner.”

  The safe guy stood, rubbing his knees. “I hate these goddamned floor safes,” he said.

  “Well?” Greenspan asked.

  “The original number’s been changed. I gotta get my tools.” He left.

  “I understand Lloyd was sitting here when he got it.”

  “Yeah, about there,” I said.

  Greenspan went to the desk and ran his hand across it. Then he checked his fingers for dust, or maybe blood. “A friend of mine in the department says it looked like a professional job. Two shots to the head, bam bam, one almost on top of the other. Twenty-two-caliber magnum.”

  “Are you saying the cops think it was a mob hit?”

  Greenspan shrugged. “Nobody’s sure. In any case, they’ll never get the guy who did it. They don’t have squat.”

  The safe guy came back with a heavy box of tools.

  “How long will this take?” Greenspan was checking his gold watch.

  “As long as it takes,” the guy said and went to work.

  “I’ve got phone calls to make.” Greenspan went out to his car to make them.

  I looked over my inheritance—empty file cabinets with their contents scattered all over the floor, two broken-down chairs, and a big rolltop desk. And now a safe in the floor with a ruined lock. I kicked through the papers on the floor, some typed, some decorated with Fontaine’s illegible scrawl. Two pages clipped together caught my eye, and I picked them up just as the safe guy stopped drilling.

  “I can open it now,” he said and went out to get Greenspan.

  When they came back, the guy opened the safe door, then stepped aside. Greenspan grimaced at the dirty floor.

  “Do you mind? These are expensive slacks.”

  The safe guy looked at me, then got down on his knees and reached into the safe.

  “Empty,” he said.

  “Great.”

  “Are you certain?” Greenspan said.

  “See for yourself.”

  “That safe’s been in here forever,” I said. “Fontaine probably never even had the combination.”

  Greenspan muttered to himself, filled out a form, then gave it to me and the safe guy to sign. The guy packed up his tools and left.

  “Well, Jake, it’s all yours,” Greenspan said. “I’ve spoken with the landlord and you’ve got three days to cough up six months’ rent.”

  “What?”

  “Or else move everything out of here, which will cost right around five hundred bucks. I checked.”

  “Jesuschrist, Abner.”

  “It’s mostly the desk. They really built these babies in the old days.” He drew his hand lovingly across its blemished surface. “You know, this would look pretty nice in my office. I mean, after it was reconditioned, stripped, and stained. I could take it off your hands.”

  “I wondered why you wanted me down here.”

  Greenspan smiled.

  “Okay, okay. You pay to have everything moved out, and you can keep the desk and burn the rest.”

  “Deal,” Greenspan said.

  He took out another form and I signed the desk over to him. Then he checked his watch, said, “Got to run,” and was gone. I guess he forgot about buying my lunch.

  11

  THE TWO SHEETS OF paper I’d picked off the floor of Fontaine’s office were held together with a paper clip. The top sheet was a typed letter, possibly copied from the second sheet, which was filled with Fontaine’s illegible scrawl. Together they might give Vaz a clue about Fontaine’s journal.

  But what had originally caught my eye were the contents of the letter:

  Mrs. Gloria Archuleta

  P.O. Box 3929

  Santa Fe, NM 87502

  Dear Mrs. Archuleta:

  Good news. I am close to recovering the missing property. The cooperation you have given me throughout this entire affair will soon be rewarded. Of course, money alone cannot make up for those many years without Rueben, but it may make life a little easier for you and your children.

  Yours truly,

  Lloyd Fontaine

  Private Investigator

  Fontaine had been corresponding with the wife of one of the Lochemont robbers—the robber, in fact, who nearly everyone believed had escaped with the jewels, everyone but me and Fontaine and Fontaine’s murderer and apparently Rueben Archuleta’s wife, Gloria. I wondered about the phrase “those many years without Rueben.” Did that mean he’d died, or that he’d run off after the robbery and never come home?

  I drove to my apartment and gave the pages to Vaz.

  “Archuleta? From the robbery?”

  “The same,” I said.

  He looked from one page to the other.

  “Let us pray that these help me with Fontaine’s journal,” he said. “Otherwise it is hopeless, because this is as far as I can go.”

  He showed me a pile of ruled yellow sheets, each covered with his heavy block writing in soft-leaded pencil. The first line of the first sheet looked like all the rest:

  ?GXU? R??EG S?DNI ??LF? M?PHD

  “Are these question marks yours?”

  He nodded yes slowly. “He scribbled, Jacob. The man didn’t even need a code.”

  “I appreciate your efforts, Vaz.”

  “Speaking of which,” he said, “I’ve located our Mr. Witherspoon from the Gazette.”

  “All right.”

  “I made a few dozen phone calls and finally found the correct newspaper in Idaho Springs.”

  “Idaho Springs,” I said. “That fits.”

  “Yes, the site of the murder shack and so on. In any case, Mr. Witherspoon is the editor, and he’s been with the paper for years. I described the photos to him, but he can’t recall them.”

  “Did he know Fontaine?”

  “He said the name sounded familiar, but that’s all.”

  “He didn’t remember giving Fontaine the photos?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, Vaz, good work. I’ll take the photos up there tomorrow and talk to Witherspoon in person.”

  I got to the office at seven-thirty and waited for Helen Ester to show up with the money for Meacham. Whether Meacham accepted it or not, I intended to question him about Lloyd Fontaine and the Lochemont jewels.

  Helen showed up just after eight, wearing a high collar, too much makeup, and oversized dark glasses. She walked past me into the room and sat stiffly in the visitor’s chair.

  “Do you have the money?” I asked.

  “I … yes.”

  “What’s wrong? And why the shades?”

  “I … I’ve just come from talking with Zack Meacham.”

  “You what? Dammit, we agreed to go down there together. That neighborhood is—”

  “I know. Jacob, I—”

  “What
happened? And take off those glasses.”

  “I wanted to talk to Meacham alone, to reason with him. I thought he’d … listen to reason.”

  “Goddammit, take off the glasses.”

  “He was surprised that anyone knew where he was. Surprised and angered. I asked him to please leave Charles alone. I told him if he would, I was prepared to give him ten thousand dollars. He wouldn’t listen. He just became more angry.”

  I was getting angry myself. I reached out for her glasses and she pushed my hand away. Her collar opened slightly, revealing a large red mark on her neck.

  “He … he hit me, Jacob.”

  She took off the glasses. An ugly purple bruise showed through the makeup high on her cheekbone, and her left eye was nearly swollen shut.

  “Jesuschrist.” I touched her face and she winced and drew back. “I’d better take you to a doctor.”

  “No, it’s okay, really.”

  “Then I’m sending you home in a cab.” I put on my jacket over my gun.

  “Jacob, please.” She held my arm.

  “I’ll just talk to him. More or less.”

  “No.”

  “It’s not your decision to make,” I said.

  “Please, I want to give him another chance to accept the money.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “He’ll listen to me now, with you there.”

  “Forget it. You’re going home now in a cab.”

  “I’m going with you, Jacob.”

  “Like hell you are.”

  “Like hell I’m not.”

  By the time we got to the Frontier Hotel, I had cooled down a bit. I was almost ready to let Meacham live.

  “I … I’m afraid to go back in there,” Helen said. “Can you bring him down here? We can talk in the car.”

  “All right, just stay put and keep the doors locked.”

  I started to get out, but she held my arm. Her bruises were invisible in this dim light, and I could almost forget what Meacham had done to her. Almost, but not quite.

  “Be careful,” she said. “He’s like an animal at bay. And I saw a gun when I was up there.”

  I crossed the street. It was empty and dark, lit only by the city glow from a cold, overcast sky. Traffic noise was continuous but distant, feint, and blocks away the office towers stood watch over the city with tiny, unblinking lights.

  Dracula the night clerk sat behind the front desk, waiting. He watched me cross the filthy lobby and climb the stairs. The third-floor hallway was silent and lit only by a weak light at my back. As I started down the hall, I heard a horn honking from the street outside. Was it Helen? Maybe she’d seen Meacham down in the street.

  I turned to go back, and suddenly two gunshots rang out from the end of the hallway, Meacham’s end.

  I ran down the hall to number twelve. No one on the floor had opened a door. Either they hadn’t heard the shots, or they were trying hard not to get involved. Meacham’s door was ajar, so I pushed it open, keeping out of the doorway.

  “Meacham?”

  No answer.

  I took a quick peek inside. Then I went in, gun first.

  Meacham lay on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. There were cuts and lumps on his face, and his lip had been split open, but his main problems were the two bullet holes in his chest. His shirt was soaked with blood.

  I felt the side of his neck. Nothing.

  Then I stepped to the open window, where a chilly breeze moved the curtains. There was a fire escape, which zigzagged down three stories to the alley. A guy was jumping off the last few steps.

  “Hold it right there!” I yelled and pointed the snubbed-nose .38 at him—a fairly useless gesture at this distance.

  He looked up and I saw his face in the faint light from the street. He was a good-looking dude in his midthirties, possibly Latino, with shiny black hair and a shiny leather jacket. He raised his arm, and flame came out the end. The bullet hit the metal railing and ricocheted into the night. He fired again, and when I fired back a couple of times, he took off down the alley.

  I clambered down the fire escape, dropped to the cement, and ran after him.

  He was already across Twenty-third and into the darkness of the next alley—too far away for me to try a shot. My best chance was to stay with him and wear him down. By the time I’d reached the street, he was a block ahead of me, dodging cars on Broadway, heading for the center of town and still going strong. Meanwhile, I was struggling in my street shoes and stumbling through dark things underfoot. He gradually increased his lead, and when he turned the corner onto Twentieth by the bus depot, I was a block and a half back. By the time I got there, he was nowhere in sight. There were a few cars and no pedestrians. I stood there sweating and huffing and trying to remember when I’d been in better shape. I searched a few streets and alleys on my way back to the Frontier Hotel, but the guy was probably already home, cleaning his gun and having a beer.

  When I stepped around the corner of the Frontier Hotel, the street was busy with cops and citizens. Nothing like a gunfight to get everybody’s attention. Helen Ester was standing by my car, talking to a uniform. I started to holster my gun when somebody behind me yelled, “Freeze!”

  I turned, slowly, my arms at my sides. The young cop was in a crouch, and he held his .38 Police Special in both hands, arms extended, muzzle pointed at the middle of my chest, just like they’d taught us in the police academy.

  “Drop it, motherfucker,” he said.

  They’d never taught us to use words like that, but I dropped it anyway.

  Another cop hustled over.

  The first one said, “This dude came out of the alley carrying that piece.”

  I told them who I was and what I did for a living. “I was chasing the man who probably killed Zack Meacham. He’s the stiff upstairs in twelve.”

  The cops glanced at each other. A few citizens had drifted over to check out the new development in the evening’s entertainment. In their midst was one old hag with more hair curlers than hair and a pink bathrobe that looked like something she’d found in the street.

  “That’s him, Officer,” she said, her voice graveled by a lifetime of booze, her gnarly finger aimed at me. “That’s the man I seen run down the fire escape right after the shooting started.”

  “You’re under arrest,” the first cop said.

  “Look, I just told—”

  “Lean against the wall and spread ’em.”

  “But I’m a private—”

  “You have the right to remain silent.”

  “Shit.”

  12

  THEY TOOK ME TO the main police building on Thirteenth and Cherokee, where I was allowed to use the phone. I called Helen Ester. No answer. For all I knew she was in another part of this building. I called Abner Greenspan at home and got him out of bed.

  “I’ve been arrested.”

  “For what?”

  “Suspicion of murder.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Don’t say anything to anybody.”

  I was pictured and printed, then turned over to a pair of homicide detectives, Healey and O’Roarke. Healey had a sad face, and O’Roarke was Oriental. They looked like the same two who’d been with Dalrymple when he’d questioned me about Fontaine’s murder. Small world.

  “You want to talk to us now, or wait for your attorney?” Healey asked.

  “I’ll talk now if you can bring in Lieutenant MacArthur.”

  “He’s on vacation.”

  “Terrific.”

  “Lieutenant Dalrymple will handle this.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “So, you want to talk?”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “We’ll have to lock you up,” Healey said, raising his eyebrows to see if maybe I’d change my mind. So far, he’d been the only one talking. O’Roarke just watched me and said nothing.

  I sat in an empty holding cell downstairs, waiting for Greenspan and thinking about my Latino fri
end in the leather jacket. He was definitely the same guy who’d waltzed me in my office and probably the one who’d killed Lloyd Fontaine. Busy little bastard. I wondered if Soames had hired him to do Meacham or if the guy had done it on his own.

  When Greenspan arrived, they let him talk to me alone upstairs in an interrogation room.

  “What happened?”

  I told him.

  “And that’s all?” he asked when I’d finished. “I mean, all that happened between you and Meacham.”

  “That’s all.”

  “Do you want to talk to the police now? You don’t have to, you know.”

  “I’ll talk to them. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “And you’ll tell them what you told me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re sure that’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “All that happened, I mean.”

  “Yes, goddammit.”

  Dalrymple and Healey asked the questions and I gave the answers and Greenspan piped in now and then with, “I would advise you not to answer that.” O’Roarke just looked and listened. He was beginning to get on my nerves. Maybe that was the point.

  I went through it all without once mentioning Meacham’s threats to Charles Soames. I wasn’t certain whether it was because I felt an obligation toward Helen Ester, or because I wanted first crack at Soames myself. When it was over, Dalrymple wasn’t convinced I was telling the truth, but since Greenspan swore he’d surrender me to him upon request, he let me go. At least, he said, until after ballistics compared the bullets in my gun with the slugs the coroner would soon dig out of Meacham.

  When we left the room, Greenspan told me there was nothing to worry about. But he sounded worried when he said it.

  We saw Helen Ester sitting on a bench just inside the front entrance, and she stood as we approached.

  “Jacob, thank God. They told me you were being released.”

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, but her face looked drawn. “They asked me a lot of questions and I told them everything except …” She glanced at Greenspan.

  “He’s on our side,” I said.

  Greenspan sighed audibly and looked up at the ceiling.

  “I didn’t tell them about Charles,” she said. “I told them Meacham had been threatening me instead. Was that wrong?”