Blood Stone (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 2)

by Michael Allegretto

  “It was just right,” I said.

  Greenspan cleared his throat.

  “Oh. Abner Greenspan, Helen Ester.”

  “How do you do,” she said.

  “I’m tired and it’s late and I have to be in court tomorrow at nine,” he replied.

  Greenspan dropped us at my car, and I drove Helen to her hotel. On the way, I told her about finding Meacham and chasing his murderer. The more I talked, the more frightened she looked.

  “Jacob, I … I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

  “Neither do I.”

  We huddled together in her big hotel bed. She was scared about there being a killer on the loose and still hurting and upset by her treatment at the hands of Meacham and I was right on the edge of being in big trouble with the cops. So there was no romance, or even sex, for that matter. We just lay there in each other’s arms and held on for dear life.

  In the morning we made love without hesitation, without thinking why or why not, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, which, of course, it was.

  Afterward, though, she seemed embarrassed and hurried off to her shower, taking her clothes with her.

  It made me remember a time in high school, having sex with a red-haired girl named Judy in the backseat of my parents’ old Buick and thinking this is what Heaven must be like, and I’d no sooner shot my wad when Judy pulled up her panties, straightened her hair and bra and lipstick, and acted as if nothing had happened, making me wonder if I’d been fantasizing and maybe nothing had happened, or if maybe two things had happened, two completely different things—one to her and one to me.

  I dressed slowly and met Helen in the next room. The bruise under her eye looked worse than it had last night when she’d come to my office, and I was almost glad that Meacham had died the way he had. Almost.

  I reached out for Helen and touched her hair, but when I tried to kiss her, she turned her head and moved away. She sat at the small table by the window, wrote out a check, and handed it to me, averting her eyes.

  “The other half of your fee,” she said, her voice barely audible.

  “And what was that stuff in bed this morning, a bonus?”

  She drew back as if I’d slapped her. Her mouth was open and she shook her head as if she couldn’t believe I could say such a thing.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that. I’ll just be leaving.”

  “Jacob, wait.” She stood and put her hand on my arm. “I … I don’t know what to think. I mean, about this morning, about us.”

  I said nothing.

  “It would be easy for me to fall in love with you, Jacob, and I’m not certain that’s such a good thing.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said.

  “I mean, I … I think I’m still in love with Charles.”

  “I see.”

  “I feel something for both of you and it’s … confusing.”

  “Life’s full of little decisions.”

  “There’s no need for sarcasm.” Her voice was brittle.

  “No, I suppose not.” Sex had definitely changed our attitudes toward each other. “Look, I have to ask you something and I don’t want you to get upset about it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Did Soames know Meacham was staying in the Frontier Hotel?”

  “No. How could he?” She looked puzzled.

  “You didn’t tell him?”

  “Of course not. He doesn’t even know I hired you.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes,” she said, irritation creeping into her voice. “Why are you asking me this?”

  “Because it’s possible Soames hired someone to kill Meacham, assuming—”

  “What?”

  “—assuming he took Meacham’s threats more seriously than you thought.”

  “You’re accusing Charles?” Her face had gone white, giving stark contrast to the bruise around her eye.

  “I’m only speculating.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “How can you think … my God.” She turned her back and stepped to the window.

  I stood behind her and put my hands on her shoulders. She tensed but didn’t move away. Her hair shone more reddish than brown in the reflected sunlight, and the sweet scent of it stirred memories of this morning.

  “I have to go,” I said. “I’ll see you.”

  She nodded, ever so slightly.

  I left.

  When I got to Caroline Lochemont’s house, there was a beat-up green Chevy parked in front. I’d seen it before, pulling away from the curb the last time I was here. I knocked, and Caroline opened the door. She frowned, which was too bad, because she had a face meant for smiling.

  “Am I the only one around here with a job?” she said. “You might as well come in.”

  I followed her inside.

  Charles Soames was sitting in the living room with the seedy-looking character who belonged to the green Chevy. There was a small pile of empty beer cans on the coffee table between them.

  “Hey, if it ain’t that legendary private eye Lomax,” Soames said, overly cheerful from his breakfast cereals—barley and hops. “Grab a seat and have a beer. We’ve been talking over old times down in Canon.”

  “Disgusting,” Caroline said and went in the kitchen. I heard water running and the clink of dishes.

  “This here’s Willy Two Hawks, my next-door neighbor for about the last eight years.”

  “Pleased to meetcha,” Willy said, his voice raspy from years of talking tough. Or maybe in his spunkier days he’d been kicked in the throat. He was a small man in his fifties, with the mahogany skin and high cheekbones of a Native American. He wore blue jeans, cowboy boots, a plaid shirt, and a faded Levi’s jacket. His eyes were hidden behind glasses dark enough for a blind man, and his goatee was made up of exactly twenty-seven hairs.

  I pulled a Bud out of the broken six-pack, popped the top, and sat in a Windsor chair. It jabbed me from every angle.

  “Zack Meacham is dead,” I said, “but I guess you already knew that.”

  Soames glanced at Willy, and Willy’s eyebrows rose above his pitch-black shades.

  “Is that a fact,” Soames said flatly.

  “Somebody shot him last night in his hotel room.”

  “Serves the asshole right,” Soames said. His grin was tight and his lips were moist from morning brew. I tried to picture this man as once having managed the largest jewelry store in the city. I couldn’t. Prison had changed him too much.

  “I thought you could tell me something about it,” I said. “Like the name of the man who pulled the trigger.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t me. Caroline can vouch for that.”

  Caroline came out of the kitchen. “Vouch for what?”

  “Nothing,” Soames said.

  She shrugged. “I’m going to work now, Grandpa.” No one paid her any attention.

  “I saw the killer, Soames. Your Latino friend in the leather jacket.”

  Caroline stopped by the front door and faced us. Soames sensed her there and turned in his seat.

  “You go on to work, Caroline,” he said.

  “But, Grandpa, that—”

  “I said, go on!” he yelled.

  Caroline recoiled as if struck, a look of surprise on her face. She wasn’t used to being yelled at. She glared at us all and slammed the door on her way out.

  “What about it, Soames?”

  “What about what?”

  “Who shot Meacham?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “If you want me to call my sons,” Willy said, “say the word and they’ll toss this joker out on his ass.”

  “You know who shot Meacham,” I said, ignoring Willy, “and so does your granddaughter.”

  “You leave her out of this.”

  “She’s already in it. Now, you can talk to me or talk to the police. So far I haven’t told them about you
and Meacham.”

  Soames sat back in his chair and crossed his legs, ankle on knee. The skin showing beneath his trouser cuff was as white as his socks and lined with blue veins.

  “You don’t know nothing about me and him,” he said.

  “I know enough. He was threatening to kill you to avenge his brother’s death.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Who do you think?” I said, keeping my voice neutral and my eyes on his. The woman I slept with last night, that’s who. “Your girlfriend.”

  “Helen …” He looked surprised.

  “She hired me to find Meacham so she could pay him to leave you alone.”

  Willy snorted, facing Soames. “This is how you handle things now?”

  “I told her to forget about Meacham,” Soames said to us both. “This guy was nothing but mouth.”

  “Helen didn’t think so,” I said.

  “Helen didn’t think so,” Willy said, mimicking me. “Jesus, Charley, you’re letting a woman take care of business.”

  “I never told her to—”

  Willy snorted again and stood. “I got to take a leak.” He bumped my leg on his way out to show me how tough he was.

  “You and your granddaughter know this Latino dude,” I said to Soames. “Now, cut the crap and give me his name.”

  “We don’t know his name,” Soames said, avoiding my eyes. “I’ve never even seen him, but it sounds like the guy Caroline thinks has been following her.”

  “Following? Since when?”

  “I don’t know, a few weeks, a month. She’s spotted him a couple of times.”

  “And neither of you know who he is?”

  He shook his head no.

  I think I believed him.

  “Look,” he said, leaning forward and lowering his voice so Willy couldn’t hear him from the bathroom, “Caroline’s a sweet kid and I never meant for her to get involved with these people.”

  “Which people?”

  “Willy and his sons and Meacham and whoever this grease-ball is.”

  “And Helen Ester?”

  “Helen’s different,” he said, challenging me. “The others, they just want one thing.”

  “What?” As if I didn’t know.

  “Hell, man, they think I can lead them to the Lochemont jewels.”

  Soames finished his beer and crushed the aluminum can.

  “I’ll tell you something else,” he said. “It’s the same thing I told all the others and not one of them believes me and I’m telling you now it’s the goddamn truth. Rueben Archuleta got away with the jewels.”

  “You’re sure about that?” I asked, not believing him for a minute.

  “You bet I am.”

  “I suppose you even know where he is.”

  Soames smiled broadly.

  “Oh, he’s hiding out, Lomax, he’s hiding out real good.”

  13

  I LEFT SOAMES WITH his pal Willy and headed home. Along the way, I was speculating why the Latino dude had been following Caroline Lochemont, when I noticed a tan Ford following me.

  I sped up and changed lanes a few times, and the Ford maintained its distance. The guy kept several cars between us, so I couldn’t get a good look at his face. If it was my Latin friend, I doubted he’d try anything in the bright light of day or on a busy street. On the other hand, I wished I had a gun—the cops had the .38, and my other piece was at home.

  I continued east on Alameda, and when I slowed to turn left on Lincoln, the Ford got close enough for me to see the driver’s face.

  He was somebody new—definitely blond, apparently skinny, and probably tall. Maybe a friend of the Latino. Or maybe a friend of Dalrymple. Whether cop or enemy or both, he tagged along behind me on Lincoln and then on Seventh until I got a block from home, and then he was gone.

  When I opened the door to my apartment, I got another little surprise: The place had been ransacked.

  It had probably happened last night when I’d been with Helen. The furniture was slashed and the stuffing was pulled out, like the entrails of butchered animals. My visitor had emptied the kitchen cabinets and piled the contents on the counter and table. Piled, not dumped, so he’d been quiet about it. Everything I kept in the medicine cabinet was now in the bathroom sink, the mirror had been taped and broken and peeled off, and the tank top and toilet float lay on the tile floor. The clothes in my closet were pulled off the hangers, the dresser drawers were upended on the carpet, and the mattress and box springs were ripped apart.

  But the safe was still locked.

  It was a hundred-pound steel cube, two feet on a side, wedged in the corner of the closet. The only things now in it were a few thousand bucks in emergency cash and my other gun, a .357 magnum with a four-inch barrel. I strapped on the shoulder holster and locked the safe.

  Then I heard someone. I unholstered the magnum and peeked around the corner.

  Detectives Healey and O’Roarke stood in the middle of the mess that had once been my living room.

  “Knock knock,” Healey said when he saw me.

  I came out of hiding.

  “Nice place,” the Asian O’Roarke said, moving a clump of chair stuffing with the toe of his shiny loafer. I believed those were the first words I’d heard him utter.

  “It’s the cleaning lady’s day off,” I explained.

  “Take off your gun and put on your coat,” Healey told me. “Lieutenant Dalrymple wants you downtown.”

  “What for?”

  “Let’s go,” O’Roarke said. I think I liked him better mute.

  Dalrymple was waiting for us in his office. He closed a folder, put his beefy freckled hands on the desk, and leaned back in his chair. He wore a dark blue suit, a limp white shirt, and a tie with a tiny badge for a stickpin. He looked as solid as a building and as patient as a bureaucracy. The scar on his face stood out like a flag.

  “Sit down,” he said, and I did, in the straight wooden chair facing his desk.

  Healey closed the door and he and O’Roarke stood close behind me. It all reminded me of a movie I’d seen starring John Garfield. Or was it Garfield the cat?

  “Do you own a nine-millimeter automatic pistol?”

  “No. Why?”

  “That’s what the lab people say you used on Zack Meacham.”

  “I didn’t kill Meacham. You’ve read my statement.”

  “We’d like to search your office and apartment for the gun, in case you were stupid enough to keep it.”

  “There’s no gun. And if you want to search, get a warrant.”

  “No problem,” Dalrymple said and nodded at O’Roarke, who left without a word.

  “Somebody’s already been through his apartment, Lieutenant,” Healey said. He described my place to him.

  Dalrymple raised his thin pale eyebrows, furrowing his forehead with thick ridges.

  “Sounds like Lloyd Fontaine’s office, doesn’t it?” he asked me.

  “Does it?”

  “What do you suppose they were after, Lomax?”

  “My baseball cards?”

  Healey must have smiled behind me, because Dalrymple glared at him. He looked back at me and worked the muscles in his jaw.

  “There’s some connection between you and Zack Meacham and Lloyd Fontaine and I want to know what it is.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant,” I said.

  “I’m talking about you cooperating and me giving you a chance to cop a plea.”

  “What?”

  “Your arraignment’s tomorrow, Lomax. We’ve already notified your attorney. The D.A. feels we’ve got a good case for second-degree murder, but if you confess now, he’ll knock it down to manslaughter.”

  “What case? You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m deadly serious.” He looked it, too, but then he usually did.

  “You’ve got nothing, Dalrymple. You’ve got no hard evidence, you’ve got no witnesses, you’ve—”

  “We’ve got witnesse
s who saw you enter the hotel before any shots were fired and witnesses who saw you run down the fire escape after the shots were fired. We’ve got your own admission that you went up there angry at Meacham and that you were alone with him in his room with a loaded gun.”

  “He was already dead, for chrissake, and I was shooting it out with the guy on the fire escape. There are windows all along that side of the building. Somebody must have seen it.”

  “We’ve talked to everyone in that hotel,” Dalrymple said. “Some of them saw nothing and some of them saw one man running down the fire escape, but nobody, and I mean nobody, saw two men on the fire escape.”

  He smiled suddenly, savagely, as if he’d just seen some weakness in my face.

  “You’ve got no weapon,” I said. “Meacham was killed with a nine-millimeter and we both know that without that gun you may as well forget going to trial.”

  “Ah, yes, as for the gun …” Dalrymple’s thick fingers kicked around the papers on his desk. “We had your girlfriend, Helen Ester, up here first thing this morning and she told us all about it. Here,” he said, reading from a paper, or maybe just pretending to. “‘He had two guns, one tucked in his belt. It was a flat black gun.’ Those are her words, ‘flat black gun.’ Sounds like an automatic, doesn’t it?”

  “Let me see that.”

  “Sorry, Lomax, official police document. But believe me, it’s signed and witnessed.”

  I didn’t believe him, because he would have shown it to me. He was lying to make me squirm.

  “I know why you shot Meacham,” he said, “and I can’t say I blame you.”

  “I didn’t shoot him.”

  “He beat up your girlfriend and then he, let’s see, how did she put it?” Dalrymple shuffled through more papers on his desk. “Oh, yeah, ‘He hit me several times and then forced me to have sex with him.’”

  “She never told you that.”

  “She sure did, and in detail, too. Fucked and sodomized.”

  He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to comment. I clamped my jaws and said nothing.

  “I suppose Meacham just couldn’t resist the temptation,” he went on. “You know, the man was probably horny as hell and he’s up in his hotel room with a fine-looking broad and she won’t put out. I mean, I saw her up close, Lomax, and she’s got it all, nice set of tits, fine-looking ass, good, strong legs. Who knows, maybe she even went down on him first and then changed her mind when he wanted more. What do you think?”