Poor Butterfly tp-15

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Less than five minutes later Preston and Sunset came through the door.

  “What’ve we got …?”

  “Brummel. Got a homicide. In there. Found the suspect on the scene.”

  “You guys didn’t exactly fly here,” I said.

  Preston glanced at me.

  “Peters,” Preston said, as Sunset knelt to examine Lorna’s body, “I’ve had a long, bad night, and you’re going to make the day worse and longer. I’ve got a headache and I’m hungry, so if you just want to confess and get this over with …”

  “I didn’t kill her,” I said.

  “Suit yourself,” Preston said with a deep sigh, looking at the scratches on my bloody cheek.

  “Preston,” I said. “I had you called. Would I call you and tell you to come if I planned to kill her?”

  “Remember Barnes,” Sunset said from Lorna’s body.

  “Gus Barnes,” Preston explained to me. “Few months back. Called. Said someone just called and said he was on the way over to kill his wife. Told the desk man to hurry. We got a car there in six minutes.”

  “Five-eleven, Sarge,” said Sunset, standing up. “She’s dead.”

  “Barnes killed his wife,” said Preston, nodding and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Messed it up. Your having us called doesn’t prove diddle-daddle.”

  “Diddle-daddle?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Hard to be creative on an hour of sleep.”

  “Why would I kill her?”

  “Hired,” said Sunset.

  “Spurned,” added Preston.

  “Accident,” said Sunset.

  “Wouldn’t pay blackmail,” said Preston.

  “Enough,” I said. “Let me make a call.”

  “You see a phone?” asked Preston. “I mean one you didn’t tear off the wall?”

  “I didn’t do it, Preston,” I said.

  Brummel, the first cop, came back. About twelve minutes after that a bunch of cops came in, and I was escorted from the apartment by Preston, who said his wife would make him sleep in the guest room tonight if he ever got home. I told him I felt sorry for him. He thanked me.

  10

  The Bayfront Police Station wasn’t on the bay and barely deserved the title “station.” The core of the station was an old red stone building that looked as if it had once been a firehouse. It had been added to over at least three generations, each generation contributing a different color of stone. The wing to the left of the entrance was gray brick, and the right wing a combination of reds, yellows, grays, and even almost-blacks.

  A sergeant named Cunningham with red hair, suspenders, and very bad teeth took my wallet, comb, and the lint from my pockets less than a minute after we went in. A half-asleep Amazon woman in a blue uniform took my picture, and then Preston and Sunset led me up a flight of stairs to a small interrogation room with yellow walls that reminded me of my brother’s office in the Wilshire Station back in Los Angeles. Preston and Sunset spoke to me sincerely for about twenty minutes, letting me know I was in very deep diddle-daddle.

  “Peters,” Preston leaned over and whispered, “you are nailed. You wanna give us some details so we can all get a night’s sleep?”

  “I didn’t kill her,” I said. “I was there to protect her from someone. Stokowski hired me to protect, not murder, remember?”

  “You did good work,” sighed Sunset, looking around for something to use as an imaginary bat.

  “Who?” asked Preston, wearily drinking something hot from a paper cup. “Who were you protecting her from? Oh, yeah. The Phantom of the Opera.”

  “Maybe,” said Sunset brightly, sizing up a rolled San Francisco Chronicle for use as an imaginary Louisville Slugger, “he killed her for the publicity. Phantom strikes. Fill the seats.”

  “Forgive him,” Preston said to me quietly.

  “He’s forgiven,” I said. “What about me?”

  “Not so easy,” sighed Preston. “You didn’t do it, who did? Doorman says she told you to come up. Few minutes later we find you with the body, scratches on your face, phone in your hand ripped from the wall.”

  “She said a couple of guys named Rance and Johnson and a woman named Minnie did it.”

  “Minnie?” Preston groaned, kneading the bridge of his nose.

  “She also said I should ask Miguelito,” I added.

  “Miguelito?”

  “Her dog.”

  Sunset, who had moved behind me, hit me with the rolled-up newspaper. My head jerked forward.

  “Sorry,” Sunset said. “Big fly on your head.”

  “Cut that shit,” Preston ordered, stepping behind me so I had to turn my head to watch the two cops. Preston was smaller, but older and presumably wiser. Sunset shrugged and came back in front of the table to hit a few imaginary balls through the grimy wall.

  “Thanks,” I said over my shoulder to Preston.

  He ran a hand through his graying hair and threw his empty coffee cup in the general direction of the overfull wastebasket in the corner. The wastebasket had one of those paper liners two sizes too big for the basket.

  “And I want a phone call,” I said.

  “Who’s stopping you?” asked Preston, pointing to the phone on the table. “Hey, make two, three calls. No long distance.”

  “All you had to do was ask,” said Sunset.

  I picked up the phone and called information. I got Lundeen’s number. The phone rang six times before Lundeen answered.

  “It’s me, Toby Peters,” I said. “Are you sitting?”

  “Whenever I can,” he said with a deep sigh.

  And I told him. I’ll give him credit. He didn’t say much. He did groan from time to time, and his voice wasn’t steady, but he said he’d have a lawyer there as quickly as he could.

  “Peters,” he said with a tear in his voice, “I must say this. I never really liked Lorna. I didn’t know her well, but I didn’t like her and now … You didn’t kill her?”

  “John,” I said, “why the hell would I kill her?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I … Lord, ‘O happy dagger. This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.’”

  “Beautiful, John,” I said. The two cops looked at me with weariness in their drooping eyes.

  “Gounod,” he said. “Romeo et Juliette. Actually, the words are Shakespeare’s, but …”

  “John, find Gunther, Jeremy, and Shelly,” I said. “Tell them not to come here, to stay on the job. Got it?”

  “I have it,” he said.

  “And send a lawyer, fast,” I said. “You have Vera’s number?”

  He had it. Or rather he knew the hotel she was staying at and looked up the number while I waited. When he hung up I called. The phone rang six times and then a man answered. It was Martin Passacaglia. I heard a dog yapping behind him. I hung up.

  I passed the time waiting for the lawyer feeling sorry for myself. Preston and Sunset played scare-the-suspect.

  “Open …” Preston began.

  “… and shut,” Sunset agreed. “Witnesses say he entered about ten. We get a call that a murder is in progress seconds later, dispatch a car, and catch him with a mess-scratches on his face, and a very newly dead body. Open …”

  “… and shut,” Preston finished.

  I didn’t say anything.

  Preston sang a medley of Russ Columbo, Harry Cool, and Bing Crosby songs.

  “What do you think? Could have been a crooner?” he asked.

  “Lovely voice,” I said. “None of the new guys have the timbre. Maybe Buddy Clark, Perry Como.”

  When Preston started “Just One More Chance” for the third time at about two-thirty in the morning, Sunset left, announcing that he “had to take a leak.” Preston took the news solemnly and sat across from me, waiting with his arms folded.

  “You like baseball?” I asked.

  “I like singing and I like quiet,” Preston said. “I like being home with my wife and kids when my shift is over. I don’t like catching murder
calls, and I don’t like talking baseball with out-of-town private dicks.”

  I shrugged and shut up. He sat quietly, arms folded, out of songs.

  The lawyer arrived at a little after three, escorted in by Sunset, who smiled at Preston and me. I didn’t like the smile. The lawyer was a little Mexican guy about sixty-five. His back was straight, his face clean-shaven except for a mustache, his three-piece beige suit recently pressed, his tan shoes highly polished. He nodded at me and the two cops and placed his briefcase on the table.

  “Gentlemen,” he said.

  “Counselor,” said Preston, sitting on the edge of the table and looking at his watch. “You want some time alone with your client?”

  “Absolutely,” he answered.

  Preston and Sunset moved toward the door, but the little lawyer held up his hand.

  “Not in this room,” he said. “I want privacy. You wouldn’t want your case thrown out later because you failed to honor the lawyer-client relationship?”

  In short, the lawyer was telling them the room had a hidden mike and he knew it. Now we all knew it.

  “Bathroom’s down the hall to the right,” Preston said. “Inspector Sunset will show you.”

  The lawyer picked up his briefcase, adjusted his jacket and vest, and we followed Sunset into the hall. Sunset led us to the washroom and made it clear he would be waiting outside the door for us. There were two windows in the room, both open a crack to let some of the smell of Lysol out and some of the smell of the night air in. Four urinals, their white showing rust patterns, stood along one wall alongside two stalls without doors. Opposite urinals and stalls were two sinks.

  The lawyer, who identified himself as Manuel Flores, turned on the water in all four faucets and talked softly, our heads close enough together that I could smell his aftershave. I told him everything. It took about five minutes. Then he asked questions. That took about fifteen minutes.

  “Basta,” he said when he had finished. “We have a problem. All they have is circumstantial evidence, but that is all they need. The law says they must establish your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That means there can be some doubt as long as the jury, if there is a jury, is convinced that you have committed the crime. But what is a reasonable doubt?”

  “You really think they’re going to hold me for this?” I asked.

  Lawyer Flores shook his head to show he wasn’t sure. He washed his hands, patted down his hair, checked his mustache in the spotted mirror, and led me to the door where Sunset was standing guard.

  Back in the little interrogation room, Flores pulled up a chair and sat at the table with me at his side. “I would like to hear charges and cause before deciding my client’s course of action,” he said, opening his briefcase. He took out a fresh white pad, removed his Waterman pen from his jacket pocket, and looked at Preston. Sunset stood in the corner, arms folded.

  “Your client’s fingerprints,” Preston added, after he had gone over what else he had on me, “are all over the apartment. Just got a call from forensics. He was in that apartment with a dead woman looking for something, probably money, when a patrolman arrived. Also, we have testimony that your client had a fight with the deceased this morning.”

  “Fight?” I said. “You …”

  “Weapon?” Lawyer Flores interrupted, taking notes.

  “Missing,” said Sunset. “There’s a balcony and the bay right outside the window. It’d take a good throw, but our Peters here looks like he’s got a whippy little arm. We’ll look in the morning, but it could have been washed clear down to San Jose by now.”

  “Why do you not believe the Bartholomew woman was dead when my client went up to her apartment?” Flores asked.

  “Doorman called up when he arrived,” said Preston wearily. “Miss Bartholomew told him to send said client up.”

  “How does the doorman know it was the Bartholomew woman who answered?” Flores asked. “An intercom phone, a word, a uh-huh in answer to the doorman’s question if he should send my client up. Why could it not be the killer who answered the call?”

  Preston shrugged and Sunset sighed. They had heard this kind of thing before.

  “What are you fishing for, Senor Lawyer?” Sunset asked.

  “My client answers questions,” Lawyer Flores said. “In return for the state’s attorney setting reasonable bond.”

  “State’s attorney says we go for murder one,” said Preston. “Just talked to him. Asking for a hold without bond.”

  “I need a toilet,” I said, standing up.

  “You were just in the toilet,” said Sunset. “Something wrong with your fucking guts? Your lawyer slip you some greasy tacos or something?”

  Lawyer Flores was looking at his legal pad notes, tapping his pen point in the margin. He looked up at Sunset, who tried to hold Flores’ gaze, but Sunset was a kitten and Lawyer Flores a tiger.

  “I will be filing a grievance with the community relations section of the police department,” Flores said. “The grievance will cite your ethnic insults. This is not a threat, Sergeant. It is a piece of information so that you can prepare for the inquiry.”

  “Confession,” suggested Preston. “And maybe we can recommend aggravated manslaughter. Maybe your client was high on reefers. Hell, maybe the lady threatened him and he had to take her knife away. Self-defense. Be creative.”

  “I’m about to piss in my pants,” I said.

  “Take him,” sighed Preston.

  Sunset pushed away from the wall, made a sour face, and pointed to the door. Lawyer Flores was trying to be creative, but he didn’t have many blocks to play with.

  “Taco lawyer isn’t going to do you shit, Peters,” Sunset informed me as we headed back down the dim hallway to the men’s room. “You got a long wait in County and then a long vacation in Folsom.”

  I started into the washroom with Sunset no more than a step behind. I had no doubt that if I dropped my drawers and sat on the toilet he would stand and watch and criticize my technique. But I wasn’t going to give him that chance. I grabbed the end of the door, stepped to my left, and jerked the door back as hard as I could into Sunset as he took a step into the room.

  He didn’t fall, but he did let out a woomph sound and slid down the slimy wall, his hand going automatically for the pistol in his holster. I got it first and gave him a little push with my foot that sent him the rest of the way to the floor. His head hit the tile and bounced like a baseball on concrete. I backed up toward the windows, pointing his gun at him.

  Sunset was stunned but he wasn’t out. He tried to sit up and slipped. I went for the first window-put my free hand under the opening and pushed up. It didn’t budge. I looked back at Sunset, who was sitting up now. I tried the second window. It wouldn’t budge either.

  “Don’t panic,” I told myself. “Calm. Be calm.”

  I shook my arms in warmup, took a deep breath of stench, and used the back end of Sunset’s pistol to break the window. It made a hell of a lot of noise as the glass fell and cracked in the alley one floor below.

  Sunset made an uncoordinated lunge for me from the floor. I got out of the way, pushed a few standing shards of glass away, and looked out the window as he got to his knees, shaking his head to clear it.

  The alley was one floor down.

  “I’ll tear your …” Sunset growled as I started to climb out the window. He put his hand on the nearby sink to try to pull himself up.

  “I’m going to do you a favor, Sunset.” I said, looking back. “Little friendly secret between you and me.”

  I flipped open the pistol, dropped the bullets into the sink, where they skittered toward the drain, flipped the pistol closed, and threw the empty weapon across the room.

  “Go get your gun, Inspector,” I went on, easing myself out the window as Sunset made it to his feet. “No one has to know I took it from you. Just tell them I went out the window as soon as we got through the door. Our secret gringo.”

  I jumped. I didn’t want to jump. I w
as afraid to jump. But it was better than being locked up and having the key shipped to Peru. I jumped in the general direction of a pile of garbage stacked next to rusty trash cans. I hit the garbage feet first. I landed on an oversized paper bag that popped open like a balloon, and I went rolling in the oily alley. Above me I could hear Sunset scrambling for his gun and bullets. I got to my feet and lurched to the entrance of the alley. I was too old for this kind of thing. I was too old for most kinds of things, but I wasn’t going to admit it, not even to myself. Behind and above me, Sunset was not calling for my surrender.

  “Halt,” he yelled. “Or I’ll fire.”

  “I’m not armed,” I said.

  “Who gives a shit?” he bellowed, and took a shot at me.

  I went around the corner to the street as two more shots tore up brickwork. The street was empty. The sun was setting behind a row of apartment buildings across the street. I hurried across that street and tried to leap the small metal fence of the first building. I settled for scrambling over. I moved to the side of the apartment building and ducked into a concrete-paved walk to the back of the building. From the darkness I looked back across the street at the station entrance. A spurt of four cops came out, all with guns in their hands. Sunset and Preston were two of the cops. They started to fan out. Preston went left, mumbling to himself. Sunset went right into the sunset. Cop Three crossed the street, and Cop Four looked as if he were heading straight at me.

  I turned, moved slowly around the building in the darkness till I hit the backyard and the lawn. The back fence was a little higher than the front. I ran across the lawn and went over that fence as if I were in spring training in Arizona, and then I was on my way.

  I had a dog to find and I knew where to look.

  11

  I found a Plymouth with the back door open about four blocks from the police station. I got in, locked the door, and curled up on the floor. Maybe the search would pass me by. I needed some sleep. I needed something to eat. I needed to think.