The Sundown Speech

by Loren D. Estleman

  The water tumbler and aluminum pitcher were inside his reach, but I poured him a drink. When he took it in both hands and still managed to splash some over his chin, I knew why he’d asked me. His Adam’s apple dipped down and up twice. I took back the glass before he could drop it and returned it to the table.

  “I don’t handle confrontations well,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I was just going to ask how the production was coming along. Maybe he’d say something about our money. The front door was open, so I went inside.”

  He fell silent. I tensed up. The world took a couple of turns before he spoke again; when he did, it was like someone ringing a loud bell.

  “I lost my nerve,” he said. “I stood in that shabby little living room five minutes and nobody showed. I thought about going upstairs; thought about it so hard I was surprised to find myself still standing in that room. You know, like when you’re sleeping and you’re cold and you dream you reached down and pulled the covers up to your chin, then wake up and you didn’t. When I realized I was never going to climb those stairs, I left.

  “I had no idea Marcus was outside, photographing my car.”

  There was still water in his glass. I drank it. I’d caught his headache.

  “I never told Heloise about that visit,” Dante said, “or anyone else. It wasn’t my finest moment. When she suggested we hire a professional, I thought whoever it was wouldn’t have any trouble walking up a simple flight of stairs.

  “Don’t tell her I chickened out,” he added. “It’s just what she needs to finish the job.”

  THIRTEEN

  Coming back along the winding scenic stretch of Huron River Drive I had to slow down behind an orange dump truck waddling along like a fat dog. For once I didn’t mind. It gave my tired brain time to turn over. I watched a leaf here and there begin to show yellow, a deer bounding among the trees, flashes of brown coat and white tail, and replayed the rest of the conversation in my head.

  “You risked a murder rap because you were afraid of what your wife would say if she found out you went to see Jerry Marcus?”

  “Of course, I didn’t know our car would show up on video. By the time the police told me the reason I was being held, it seemed too late. I’d never been to jail. I hope I never have to go again. It’s worse than I ever dreamed.”

  “It doesn’t get better with repetition.”

  “I don’t claim to have thought it through. The idea of me killing anyone was such a ridiculous notion I expected them to let me go right away. When that didn’t happen, I made up my mind to tell the truth. But then Suiz got me out.”

  “The only reason you’re off the hook now is Marcus threw the cops a curve. He killed someone in his place and found a way to rig the DNA evidence so he came out the victim. He might’ve gotten away with it if he hadn’t gotten obsessed with leaving behind a witness.” I’d told him then about his taking a shot at Holly Zacharias and getting his mitts all over the car he’d used.

  “You can’t falsify DNA,” Dante said; “I’ve as much as said that in print. Unless the samples got switched.”

  “Not likely. I think the detective in charge of the case is straight. I know he’s nobody’s fool. Anyway, the hoops an outsider would have to jump through once those slides are in the system would incriminate him even worse.”

  We’d been speaking low. At that point his voice had dropped to a murmur. “As bad as it was, jail was the first vacation I’ve had from that witch in thirteen years.”

  “It may be the making of you.”

  He’d looked at me quickly, then decided I wasn’t poking his cage.

  “I suppose I put both of you in danger. If the police weren’t concentrating on me—”

  “They can’t be everywhere. Let’s remember who’s to blame. Right now there’s a young woman packing to blow town because Marcus—or whoever he is—missed. We can’t count on his aim not improving next time. We’ll all be better off when we know the name of the stiff the cops pulled out of that cupboard.”

  “Do you have a theory?”

  “Not even a harebrained one. The dead man sure looked like the man in the picture you gave me from the paper.”

  “It was the man I gave the check to, I’m sure of that.”

  “If it means anything, you weren’t the only fish he hooked. He paid for an empty safe-deposit box, which I’d bet anything wasn’t empty until at least Saturday. That’s when he set up this double to take his place on the slab and skedaddle with the swag, as we law enforcement professionals say. Except he dropped the ball.”

  “What sort of ball?”

  I told him about the box with the hole in it.

  “That’s not much.”

  “It’s getting to be; anyway, he seems to think so. Since everyone thought Marcus was murdered, the cops timed the death after Holly saw him with the box. Medical evidence of time-of-death is rarely precise. It can wobble an hour or more this way or that, depending on temperature and humidity and a bunch of other things the techs can’t quite corral. Now it looks like Holly saw him fleeing the scene after the murder. Probably had another car waiting nearby, maybe the Crown Victoria he drove this morning and tried to torch later. His luck was still running sour; a county cop put out the fire before it could burn away his fingerprints.”

  “An empty box with a hole in it. Sounds like something from Poe.”

  “Who said it was empty? Holly said he handled it as easily as if it was, but also like he was afraid something would spill out the hole.”

  “The money? Our money? The investors’, I mean.”

  “Any killer who’s smart enough to fake scientific evidence is too smart to carry tens of thousands in cash in a box with a hole in it. I found something else in Marcus’ room I’d forgotten about. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it’s starting to look like that nail that lost a war.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I need to discuss it with Lieutenant Karyl before anyone else. It’s just the sort of thing cops get jealous about. Somehow I don’t think it will be a surprise. He’s like you: short on speech, long on brains.”

  He’d asked more questions, but when he saw they weren’t any use wondered why I still cared about a case that should have been closed when he was released from jail.

  “I’m off the clock where Suiz is concerned. I’ll send him a bill. Meanwhile there’s some collateral damage that needs cleaning up. The wrong person’s on the run.”

  “The Holly girl? But—” He’d fallen back against the pillow then, closing his eyes. “We underestimated you. You ought to charge twice as much.”

  “I’d wind up with half as much work and twice as much trouble. What are you going to tell Heloise?”

  “The truth. She’ll enjoy that.”

  I took that as a curtain line and said good-bye to his wife at the front door. I’d miss the Gunnars the same way I miss mosquitoes in winter.

  FOURTEEN

  In a party store I spent some more change calling my answering service. I still had one then; I’d still have it now if all the outfits hadn’t gone into some other line of work. Now, every time someone hangs up on the machine, I figure I’ve lost a client. The ones who are too shy to record a message are usually upset enough not to haggle over my fee.

  I was popular again. There were three messages: Hernando Suiz, the Gunnars’ attorney, wanted a full report, and Lieutenant Karyl wanted to talk. Barry Stackpole had called just two minutes ago, asking me to call him back on his cell. I let them wait and ran the gauntlet of roommates to reach Holly Zacharias. She’d called her father, who’d bought her a seat on a Northwestern flight to Chicago leaving from Detroit Metropolitan Airport at 6:00 P.M. I asked who was taking her to the airport.

  “Shuttle from the Campus Inn. It leaves at three-fifteen.”

  “That doesn’t give you much time to pack.”

  “I don’t have much to pack. I’m not into material possessions.”

  “Me ne
ither, but the choice wasn’t mine. I’ve got a car, such as it is. The driver doesn’t accept tips.”

  “If you’re offering a ride, I’m accepting. I get sick riding in buses.”

  I arranged to meet her at four, then called Barry.

  He was driving, working the clutch and shifter on the Dodge Charger he’d had customized to accommodate his artificial leg. A slight echo told me he had me on speaker.

  “That number you had me look up came with a name,” he said. “The name showed up on the news. Still think there’s nothing in it for me?”

  “I didn’t know it was a murder then. I can get all the abuse I want on someone else’s dime.” I slid a cigarette into the notch in the corner of my mouth.

  “Give me something useful and I’ll sing your praises to the angels.”

  “I may have something, but I have to run it out. That’s why I called. Same favor as yesterday, new number.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Not one of my favorite expressions today.” I gave him the number that had showed up on Jerry Marcus’ redial. It didn’t matter if Barry was doing ninety and had both hands on the wheel; he’d switched his photographic memory to digital while Kodak was still discussing the pros and cons.

  “I got an exit coming up,” he said. “Call me back in five.”

  I hung up and bought two bottles of The Glenlivet from the Sikh behind the counter and kept the receipt. If the Marcus murder turned out to be nothing more than the usual run of mayhem, I’d owe Barry for his time.

  His engine noise was missing when I called back. He’d parked. He drove like a maniac, but always with both hands on the wheel. “I put everything on my iPad,” he said. “Searching, searching; wait.” He snickered, a sinister sound coming from him. “What business can you have with Alec Moselle?”

  “Don’t know yet. I never heard of him until a second ago. Who is he?”

  “You ought to read something more than Fact Detective.” He gave me an address on Washtenaw Avenue in Ann Arbor.

  I wrote it down. “How about a hint?”

  “Bring along plenty of sunblock.” He laughed and broke the connection. If he weren’t my only friend I wouldn’t like him at all.

  * * *

  I moved Alec Moselle to the bottom of the stack of mysteries for the time being and returned Karyl’s call; I didn’t feel like talking to a lawyer. I never feel like talking to a cop, but he was smack dab in the middle of the case that had put Holly on the run.

  The female dispatcher or whatever who answered said the lieutenant was at lunch. She wouldn’t say where.

  “Amos Walker’s the name,” I said. “He left me a message.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Walker. He’s at Thano’s, on East Liberty.”

  Thano’s Lamplighter belonged to a blue plastic awning down from the Michigan Theater, a renovated movie palace with a gaudy marquee chased with electric bulbs. I almost missed the restaurant, because one of the city’s sacred trees obscured the sign. I parked in an echoing structure across from the downtown Borders and entered a narrow front next to a record shop; in Ann Arbor, you can still watch Rudolph Valentino loving up Nita Naldi on the big screen and buy Sinatra on vinyl.

  Inside was a shotgun arrangement going straight back between a counter and a row of narrow booths. Karyl took up all of one side of a booth facing the door. He hailed me and I slid into the opposite seat. He was slurping Coke through a straw from a tall plastic glass.

  The sharp smell of cooking onions stung my eyes. I blew my nose into a napkin. “Did they do an environmental impact study before they opened this place?”

  “Best-kept secret in town,” he said. “Greektown should serve moussaka this good.” His fork cut into a square of cheese, ground meat, nutmeg, and batter as if it were meringue.

  I’d gone there feeling more tired than hungry, but I’d slept since I’d eaten, and the way he rolled his eyes when he forked the morsel into his mouth would make a monk break his fast. When a sweet-faced young waitress built like Zorba boated over, I glanced at a laminated menu stained all over with tomato sauce and ordered the lamb shank and a glass of water.

  “Holly turned down my offer,” I said, when she’d left. “She’s moving in with her father in Chicago, where when you get shot at you usually know the reason. I’m taking her to Metro this afternoon.”

  “She’s not going.”

  I watched him scoop a pile of brown rice into his face. He was using those delicate hands for loaners while the paws he’d been born with were in the shop. I said nothing.

  “She leaves,” he said, “Marcus goes underground. We still don’t know who the dead man in his apartment was. They tested the scientific evidence in Lansing twice and it came up Marcus every time. They can’t both be Marcus. Me, I’m a print man. Prints on the steering wheel of that Crown Vic say Marcus. Marcus it is. If it’s Holly he’s after, we need her here, doing whatever it is coeds do now, to smoke him out.”

  “That rarely works out so well for the bait.”

  The waitress returned with my lamb shank steaming on a plate, my water, and a refill on Karyl’s Coke. When we were alone again he said, “She’ll have more plainclothes cops around her than the governor.”

  “That makes me feel better. You can always spot them by the Blues Brothers shades and Sta-Prest suits. He won’t come within rifle range of her. So what’s the point?”

  “This coming from a middle-aged private cop who thinks dressing like Bono’s opening act makes him invisible under colored lights.”

  I put the shades in my T-shirt pocket again. I felt grungier then. I’d gone twenty hours without a change of clothes.

  That was a mistake, letting him see my eyes. He slid his fork into his plate and pushed it aside. “Don’t even think about sneaking her out, Walker. I’m all hotted up to arrest someone.”

  “That’s my first jail threat today.”

  “You don’t want to test it. I’m just nailing down all the flaps,” he said. “By now Marcus is running the other direction. He fired his last arrow when he missed you and Holly.”

  “I think you’re other-estimating him, Lieutenant.”

  “What’s ‘other-estimating’?”

  “Neither over nor under, just outside the normal criminal perimeters. If he was the running type, he wouldn’t have risked this morning. He’s working on his defense now. A good lawyer can stir up enough dust to bury attempted, but Holly can tie him to the murder.”

  “That box again.”

  I carved off a piece of lamb and chewed. It was tender, cooked with just the right touch of pink, but the chef might have made it from the picture in a grocery ad for all I tasted it. I was only eating it to keep my hands busy. My appetite was as dead as the lamb.

  “I figured it out,” I said. “Also why he cut a hole in one side.”

  “Me, too.”

  He fished in a side pocket. “I’m an old-fashioned cop. I let the people who know about such things monkey around with microscopes and blood spatters. DNA? Stands for Don’t Nag About it. I work with evidence you can pick up and feel and sniff.” He slapped something on the table between us.

  I’d seen the Ziploc bag before, and the bits of white Styrofoam he’d scooped up from the murder scene. I’d handled one.

  “Sheriff’s deputies had a case just like it last year,” he said, “in a rural community twenty miles from here. Guy snared a couple in a pyramid scheme, and when they pressed him about their money in their house, he excused himself, went outside, and came back in with a box just like Marcus’, hole and everything. He’d filled it with Styrofoam peanuts, the kind that everything comes in through the mail and private parcel services, and stashed a revolver inside. Shot them each once, right between the eyes.” He pointed a finger between mine and worked his thumb twice, then tapped the bag. “None of the neighbors heard the shots. That how you saw it?”

  I nodded. “Any connection?”

  “No. Those county cops are good. They nailed the guy in less than
two weeks. It was written up, even made the Detroit TV stations. It may have been where Marcus got the idea.”

  “I don’t remember the case, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how someone could fire a heavy piece like a Magnum in broad daylight in the middle of crowded student housing, with a couple of kids swilling beer right on the front porch, and not be heard. Guns are easier to get than suppressors, and if it was a revolver—” I looked the question.

  “It was. Unjacketed slug.”

  “Settles the point. A revolver isn’t self-contained, like a semiautomatic pistol; the noise leaks out of the firing mechanism and the cylinder, not just the barrel. But if he packed the box tightly enough with shipping material, it would sound like somebody dropping a book on the floor. Who’d remember that in Ann Arbor?” I tapped the bag. “Can you make a case?”

  “The state police lab found scorching and traces of spent powder on some of the pieces, but we need more. The box is long gone, but it was his hard luck someone saw him carrying it out of the house, and remembered. He probably thought she was as fogged up with beer as her friend Sean. Her mistake was asking him about the box.”

  “His was worse. The longer we thought he was the victim, the more time he had to clear out with the money he’d swindled from his investors. With Jerry Marcus dead, he could start all over again under a new name. Now he’s got to use some of that getaway time to stay out of jail.”

  Karyl’s straw gurgled. He set down the glass. “We can’t count on him blundering a third time all on his own. He’s smart. Crazy-smart: He figured a way around the latest thing in criminal science, and no one else has been able to do that. Beyond that, he doesn’t think things through. That’s why we need Holly here in town, to force him into making his last mistake.”

  Our waitress came back, saw that I’d given up on the lamb shank, and asked if I wanted a takeout box.

  “No boxes!” I barked.

  She paled. I apologized. “Thanks, but I don’t think it’ll keep. I’ve still got a lot of running around to do.”

  She took away my plate. “I hope that means visiting the Hands-On Museum,” Karyl said. “We’re proud of it. I’m tired of giving the same speech every time I see you.”