4 - Stranger Room: Ike Schwartz Mystery 4

by Frederick Ramsay

  “Who’s a blackmailer, Lydell or Grotz?”

  “Well, I guess it could be either one, let’s say it’s Lydell. Those old history nuts are always digging up stuff about people. And, so then Grotz is sent down to put him away only something goes wrong and—”

  “Grotz is the bad guy and Lydell shot him in self defense? Come on Sam, the guy is so old he probably couldn’t pull the trigger of that antique pistol, assuming the Webley we have in custody is the weapon. And, if it was self defense, why lock the stiff in a room, assuming he could. Why not just call the cops? Besides, who’d send Grotz?”

  “His wife said he had something on the New Jersey Family. Maybe it wasn’t what she thought. Suppose he actually worked for them and his being a writer was a cover. Like maybe they would overlook the stuff he dug up on them if he did them a favor or something.”

  “So he spends months in the library studying Lydell’s books and more time at the historical society, and then comes down here to shoot him. Why waste the time? If someone wanted Lydell or Grotz, for that matter, why not just kill them and hot foot it out of town. Same nagging question, why the big mystery?”

  “I don’t know. Shoot, I just think there is something really fishy about this whole business and weak old man or not…he could have had someone else pull the trigger, you know.”

  “Oh, so now there’re three people involved. So it’s not a spontaneous shooting any more?”

  “Maybe Grotz tipped his hand and so he put in a call.”

  “To whom?”

  “How about George LeBrun.”

  “Love it, if it were true. The guy’s a real bottom feeder, but, same problems, Sam, too many dots to connect, not enough numbers.”

  “Dots?”

  “Yeah. Real connect the dot puzzles have lots of dots. The only way to get the picture is to connect the right ones, in the right order, and to do that you have to follow the numbers. We are long on dots and short on numbers.”

  “But what about—”

  “Goodnight, Sugar. I’m bushed. Big day tomorrow. Why don’t you come in with me early and sort through all the material that we do have, go over the coroner’s reports, the junk from Ike’s car, all of it, and then see if you can come up with some new dots or, better yet, some numbers.”

  “Numbers. Right. Okay, that’s a good idea. Make sure I’m up.”

  Sam switched off the bedside light. A new three quarter moon lighted the room. In a week it would be full. She smiled at the thought and dropped off to sleep.

  Karl, now fully awake, spent the next twenty-five minutes mulling over what she had said. He got up and pulled the blinds tight. The moonlight, he decided, was keeping him awake. Sam had a point. Fishy barely touched what they had their hands on. And what about the other guy—the one who got away—the man who switched places with Grotz. What did they know about him? Where to start?

  The stone smashed through the window and scattered most of the double hung glazing on the floor. Sam catapulted from the bed, rolled and came up in a shooter’s crouch, Glock held two-handed, safety off, and cocked. Karl hit the floor.

  “Jesus, Sam, hold your fire.”

  Chapter 27

  When Ike walked into his office he found Karl sitting on the desk’s edge with one leg swinging, the other on the floor, foot tapping.

  “I thought you were out on patrol?” he said and dropped into his chair. His hands wandered over the desk, shuffled some papers, and raised one eyebrow at the stone that anchored one small raggedy stack.

  “Bad night, Ike.”

  “You too?”

  “I don’t know…what?”

  “Sorry, a little before morning coffee humor. What’s up?”

  “That’s up.” Karl pointed to the stone.

  “I thought I told Billy to take that over to the lab.”

  “He did. That’s my stone.”

  “Looks like the one that landed in Essie’s sister’s living room. Where’d you find yours?”

  “Came through our window last night. Knocked out the entire pane. Landlady is really ticked, like it’s my fault.” Ike started to say something and thought better of it. Now was not the time. “What? You think it’s my fault?”

  “No, no. Go on.”

  “Well, it busted through the window and, no kidding, I swear before it hit the carpet, Sam, who is in REM sleep, rolls out of that sack and has her Glock out and cocked and trained on me. I thought I was a goner.”

  “She’s quick.”

  “Well, yeah. There she is, moonlight streaming in through the busted window, in a full crouch, pistol in both hands. And I swear to goodness, unless she’s part kangaroo, I don’t know where that pistol came from. You should have seen it.”

  The image formed in Ike’s mind and he quickly pushed it aside. A picture of a Sam, all six feet two inches of her, naked, crouched in the moonlight, gun at the ready, did not need to get past short term memory, if that. If his brain were a hard drive, that image alone would get him busted for downloading porn.

  “Why would somebody toss a rock through my window?”

  “I can think of several reasons. But first, check the stone out with somebody at the lab. See if it’s possible it came from the same place as the one tossed at Essie.”

  “What reasons?”

  “Later.”

  “Why not now?”

  “I said, later.” Karl must have heard the uncharacteristic edge in Ike’s voice and stepped away from the desk. The scowl on his face did not look good.

  “You da boss.”

  Ike let that pass. But he and Karl would need to have some words, and soon.

  ***

  “The lab sent back these pictures,” Karl tossed a stack of photographs on the desk. “They’re of the stranger room. Lab guy says they can’t get anything from the rocks except they think they’re from the same place, but quarried limestone is pretty much the same all over this area.” Karl lowered himself into a chair. “What reasons?”

  Ike inspected the photographs briefly and set them to one side. “Okay. I said several. How about two?”

  “Two will do.”

  “First. There is always, in a small town like this, a group of people who, for reasons that defy logic, can’t stand change. In your case, they can’t accept an African-American as a deputy sheriff.”

  “You have Charlie Picket. He’s been here, like, forever.”

  “Yes, but he is our African-American.”

  “Excuse me? Our?”

  “He’s been around, as you say, forever. Everybody knows him. His family has lived in the area for centuries. This town is named Picketsville, for crying out loud. Does that tell you anything?”

  “I thought the town was named after one of those confederate general guys.”

  “No, that guy spelled his name with two T’s. Charlie’s mother cleans houses for the gentry out on Main Street. Before I took over this office, he was the designated black deputy. His job was to patrol the predominately black neighborhood. People got used to that. In their eyes it made some kind of sense. When I put him on general patrol, the white folks did not like it much, wrote me a few letters, said they’d never vote for me again, but they got over it. As I said, he’s ours.”

  “And me?”

  “You are…pardon the language…but, you are that uppity you-know-what from up north somewhere, not ours. You might as well be from the IRS. Do you follow?”

  “I guess. And since I am that person, some of the ingrained…I almost said inbred…would I be far off on that, I wonder…they want me to go away, and a rock through the window is their way of inviting me to leave town?”

  “That’s reason number one.”

  “Okay. You’re saying I don’t have a career developing here in ‘one T’ Picketsville. So, that’s no big tragedy. I wasn’t planning on one anyway. You just confirmed what I already suspected. You need to explain that to Sam, by the way.”

  “I expect she already knows and also knows that it’s not
necessarily true.”

  “Not?”

  “You could become a citizen, so to speak. Listen, everybody from outside has to work their way into a town like this.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Not me. What’s reason number two?”

  “Sit.” Karl sat on the only other chair in the office. Ike rolled his chair to the door and pushed it shut with his foot. “I wouldn’t toss Picketsville away so quickly, Karl. Okay, reason number two—Sam.”

  Karl got to his feet, planted his palms on Ike’s desk and glared at him. “Oh, I get it, de bad back debbil is asleepin’ wid de nice white gal and we gotta do sumpin’ ’bout it. Time to get out the white sheets and the kerosene soaked cross? Miscegenation, Oh Lordy. ”

  “Stop right there, sit down, and listen. This is a nice town. We do not now have, never have had, and never will have Klansmen. The bad guys are pretty much limited to the bozos you’ve already met—the LeBruns and their cousins, maybe a half dozen others. If you just paid attention to the folks on the street, you’d know that.”

  “Huh? I know a bigot when I see one, Ike, and here I am in de Ole South where they grow like weeds…”

  “Folks lean too much on stereotypes and never check to see if they are accurate. Up north they assume down south is home base for racists and worse. Karl, I’d bet you a breakfast there’s probably as much racial intolerance and violence in your hometown of Chicago, as you’ll find around here. At least we have never had a skinhead march.”

  “So, you’re saying…what? It exists everywhere, so it’s okay?”

  Ike drew in a breath, counted to ten, and exhaled. Conversations like this one never went well, which was why, he supposed, most people avoided them. There is something in the human psyche that is either reluctant to engage, afraid of giving offense, or riled by the topic, that will lead to ugly confrontations. Either way, he realized this was not going to go down correctly and he would soon be in hot water. He plunged ahead anyway.

  “No, what I’m saying is, like it or not, you are going to find it everywhere, not just here, or there. It is pervasive, mean, and unacceptable in a civil society. But at the same time, I am sick and tired of people who can’t seem to live in the here and now without playing their victim card.”

  “Their what?” Karl’s eyes flashed dangerously.

  “Victims. Everybody, it seems, wants to be a victim of some sort. Victims because of their race, their gender, education or lack thereof, because of abuse suffered as children, low self esteem, restless leg syndrome, or any of the hundreds of sociological catchphrases, buzz words, real or imagined, and psychobabble that hobble progress. It doesn’t matter a rip to people where you come from. It’s where you’re headed they’re interested in.” Ike ran his fingers through his hair. “People draw lines in the sand. They separate themselves from one another for all kinds of reasons. Mostly because they are different in some way—color, language, origin, breeding—all that crap. Greeks and Persians, Muslims and Christians, Algonquians and Sioux, white and black, urban black and…who?”

  “Koreans.”

  “You see? If you are born in a particular place or time, you acquire all the prejudices of that place and time. It’s a damned shame, but it’s true. Most of us have learned not to respond to those old biases. We sit on them. Some pretend they’re not there, but to do so denies them, and is disingenuous at best. I know it is not politically correct to say so, but most of us are socialized early on with all sorts of negatives about all kinds of other people. We are bigots in one way or another. If you come from a place like this you are probably a racist at some level. A few never rise above it. Those are the ones who toss rocks, join the neo-Nazis, shave their heads, burn crosses, burn schools, or become suicide bombers. The rest of us just muddle through as best we can, trying to do and say the right thing, no matter what bigoted thoughts are dancing around behind our eyes.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Bill Cosby, man.”

  “I could do worse.” Ike paused and caught his breath. Karl did not look convinced. He had a right not to. “Anyway, returning to your midnight missile. The second reason the rock came through your window, believe it or not, is not so much about miscegenation, but cohabitation.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, but folks around here still cling to an old fashioned set of values and one of the things they object to is, what they consider the decline of our social institutions, in your case, marriage.”

  “You’re kidding, right? This is the twenty-first century, Ike. It’s what people do. It’s on prime-time, it’s a cultural norm, for God’s sake, it’s—”

  “Not acceptable to the folks up on Main Street.”

  “Main Street? This is who? Sinclair Lewis?”

  “Look, I’m in no position to preach here. My relationship with Dr. Harris is causing both of us a peck of trouble with her people and mine, but the difference is, we don’t actually live together. People can always pretend we’re not…well. It’s not what you are as a man, Karl, it’s how you function as a man in a small town like this one which is, after all, suspicious of all strangers.”

  Karl knuckled his forehead and stared at Ike for a full minute. “So, you haven’t offered the deputy position to me because…what? I don’t fit in? Because I’m shacked up with the pretty deputy, or because you don’t like my attitude ’cause I tend to play my ‘victim’s card?’ You’re spinning a whole mess of shit here, Ike. So which?”

  Ike shook his head. As he had presumed from the outset, he wasn’t handling this very well. “If you must know, offering you a job is a wholly separate issue. But since you asked—I haven’t offered you the job because I think it’s important for you to go through with your hearing. I expect you will prevail, but even if you don’t, you still must do it. See, if I offered the job now and you accepted rather than face a possible negative result at your hearing, you might regret the decision forever. You’d always wonder ‘what if.’ Could I have made it in the Bureau? If you walk away from a career in the FBI, I want you to do so as a positive choice, not as an escape.”

  “You offering me a job?”

  “Not yet. Now, go talk to your lady and see what you can do about reason number two. But, just so you know, reason number one is what bought you the rock.”

  Karl left, closing the door a little harder than usual.

  Chapter 28

  Henry Sutherlin didn’t spy. When he worked for Lydell, he made a point of keeping his eyes away from the house. The year previously, Miss Martha Marie had slipped past an upstairs window just as God created her. Henry figured if she’d seen him looking, she could make trouble, so now he kept his gaze focused on the task at hand. The disassembled cabins had been delivered two weeks before. The logs were coded and numbered to aid in reassembly. Lydell wanted them sorted so that the crew he’d hired somewhere in town could begin reconstructing his slave quarters. Something, a noise, a premonition, he would never be sure, made him turn and look at the house. Shadowy figures moved behind darkened windows. Just silhouettes, but he’d know George LeBrun and, of course, Lydell anywhere. He ducked behind a pile of the logs. He reckoned he couldn’t be seen. He remembered what the knife had done to Ike’s piece of paper and George was not someone to go through life with only one blade. He didn’t want to be noticed.

  Sounds of an argument filtered through the closed doors. He couldn’t make out the words. He peered out between two of the heavy chestnut beams. In a few minutes, he heard a door slam and then, silence. He stayed crouched behind the logs. Not yet, wait. Lydell walked out through the back door, took two or three steps in his direction, and looked right and left. He carried something heavy in his hand. Henry squinted through the gap in the logs. As Lydell turned to reenter the house, Henry saw the glint of sunlight on metal. Lydell carried a double barreled shotgun. Henry scuttled backward, slipped behind the shed, and then into the woods. He reckoned he was done working for Mr. Jonathan Lydell forever.

  ***

  Sam, true to her
word, went to work early. Somewhere in all those papers, books, reports, and guesses, she believed she would find the answer to the murder of Anton Grotz. She held that view as an act of faith; the practical side of her nature was near despair. TMI. Too much information, too few connections. What did Karl say? They needed some numbers to show them how to connect the dots. She spread the papers, the faxes from New Jersey, and the library books on one desk. The photographs, evidence technician’s reports, ballistics, and coroner’s reports went on another.

  Earlier, she thought she had a lead from the papers accumulated by Grotz. She needed to go back to it and think it through once more. The facsimile of the Staunton Spectator caught her eye and she read it, frowned, and reread it. She picked up the stack of pictures taken of the stranger room. She held one up and studied it myopically, dropped it, and rummaged through the materials for the CD with the pictures stored on it.

  “Be right back,” she said to no one in particular, and headed to her office. Her computer was already booted up and she slid the disc into its D drive. She had a moderately sophisticated photo processing program, so it was an easy matter to find the picture that had caught her attention and bring it up on her screen. She selected a portion and enlarged it. There was no doubt. The traveler’s trunk had a brass plate fastened to it, and the plate had elaborately engraved initials etched into its surface—F.B.

  She reread the Staunton Spectator once more; The traveler is reported to have been a Mister Franklin Brian of undetermined address. He had no baggage and…

  No baggage…F.B., Franklin Brian. It had to be. Of course the lines of communication would have been unreliable during that time, what with Union raids. Of course, they might have misunderstood. But suppose they weren’t. Suppose that trunk had belonged to Franklin Brian. What did it contain that the original Jonathan Lydell felt compelled to keep it? And who was Franklin Brian? Why was he murdered? Sam sat down and whistled.

  “I’ll bet a week’s pay that if we could figure that out we’d have the rest.”