Murder Takes a Break

by Bill Crider

  Cathy came to the door. Her eyes widened when she saw me, either because she'd been expecting a customer or because I looked like someone who'd just swum across the Gulf from the east coast of Florida.

  "You'd better come in," she said, opening the door.

  I stepped inside the office, which didn't really look like an office at all. There was a desk with a computer on it, some potted plants that looked as if they might be slightly over-watered, a couple of overstuffed chairs, and a small table that held a coffee maker and some Styrofoam cups. That was about all. You don't need much when you run a small operation. I stood there dripping on the rug.

  "I'll be back in a second," Cathy said. She left the room and when she came back, she was carrying a large white towel. She handed the towel to me, and I started drying off.

  Cathy watched me with a bemused look. She had dark hair with only a touch of gray in it and very blue eyes. I was a sucker for blue eyes. Among other things.

  I dried my hair and face, but I couldn't do much about my clothes. I handed her the towel and said, "Thanks."

  "You're welcome." She draped the towel over the back of the chair at the computer desk. "To what do I owe the honor of this unexpected visit?"

  "I guess I should have called," I said.

  "You haven't been doing a lot of that lately."

  "I know. I —"

  I stopped because I didn't have any idea what to say next. My social skills seemed to have deteriorated seriously.

  "I talked to Dino not long ago," she said. "He told me that you'd had a little trouble with some old friends."

  I hadn't known that Dino was discussing my personal life with Cathy. But then he probably didn't know that I was discussing his personal life with Evelyn, either.

  "It had to do with prairie chickens," I said. "And some people I knew a long time ago."

  "One of them was a woman."

  I decided that I was definitely going to kill Dino. He was becoming a real aggravation to me.

  "She was someone I knew in high school," I said. "She'd changed. Or maybe she hadn't."

  Cathy laughed. "Haven't we all changed?" she said.

  I wasn't sure, but I said, "I guess so. Have you had lunch?"

  "Yes, and I just happen to have a little something left over. Would you like to eat?"

  "Sure." One of my problems was that I didn't eat regularly. "That is, if you don't mind."

  "I don't mind. It'll be nice to have someone to talk to on a day like this."

  She led the way to her small kitchen, with a wooden table big enough for only two chairs. I sat in one of them while she rummaged around in the refrigerator.

  "Cold Virginia ham, a little cheese, a few carrot sticks, and some homemade whole wheat bread," she said, setting a plate on the table in front of me. "I don't have any Big Red, but I can offer you some wonderful tap water."

  "Water is fine." I looked at the bread. "I didn't know you were a baker."

  "I bought a bread machine. I've probably gained five pounds in the last two weeks."

  If she'd gained any weight at all, I couldn't tell it. Her jeans seemed to fit her with rigorous precision. When I began to eat, she sat in the chair opposite me, put her elbows on the table, and leaned forward.

  "Now," she said, "tell me why you're here."

  "I wanted to see you," I said.

  "And I'm glad. But somehow I think there's more to it than that."

  The ham was tender and tasty, and the cheese was mellow. The bread tasted like the loaves my grandmother used to bake in her oven when I was eight or ten years old. I hated to spoil the food and the good feeling I had about being with Cathy again by talking about the case, but I didn't really have any choice. So I just plunged right in.

  "I'm working on something that involves Big Al Pugh and Henry J.," I said.

  "I thought it must be something you were working on."

  "It's not that I didn't want to call you or come by," I said. "It's . . . well, it's sort of hard to explain."

  "Look, Tru, you've told me all about your sister and how you think you didn't come through for her. But that was a long time ago, and it's time you got over it. Besides, you had no way of knowing that she was in any danger. You can't save the world all by yourself."

  I knew that. It was why I'd quit trying.

  "And you can't just hide yourself in that old house of Dino's, either," Cathy went on as if she'd read my mind. "What good does it do you to bury yourself out there?"

  I'd asked myself that question often enough, but I couldn't answer it. It was easy for me to see that Dino needed to get a life. It was a lot harder to realize that I needed one, too. And on those days when I realized it, it was almost impossible to make myself want to do anything about it.

  "Well?" Cathy said.

  I held up what was left of the slice of whole wheat bread she'd given me.

  "This is great bread," I told her.

  She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms in front of her. A bad sign.

  "I'm not going to let you off that easily," she said. "I'm not going to tell you what you want to know until you promise me you'll begin getting out more. Maybe coming into town once a day. You don't have to come by and see me. You don't have to see me at all. But you have to do something."

  It would be an easy promise to make. But it wouldn't be easy to keep.

  "How about if we try something simpler?" I asked. "I promise I'll come to see you at least once a week, maybe take you out to dinner or to a movie. That is, if you want to see me that often."

  She uncrossed her arms. "Oh, I want to see you, Tru. I want to see you very much. I'm just not sure you want to see me."

  "I do. I just have trouble with my follow-through now and then."

  "How do I know you're not just saying that because you want me to tell you something about Big Al? Or because you like my whole wheat bread."

  "I like the bread, all right," I said. "I've eaten two slices."

  "Don't joke about this, Tru."

  "You're right. I shouldn't joke. I mean what I said, and I didn't say it just to get you to tell me something or just because I like your cooking. I said it because I like you and because I want to see you more often."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Trust me," I said.

  She leaned forward onto the table again and her face relaxed into a smile.

  "I guess I'll have to," she said.

  25

  Big Al had met Henry J. in high school, and they immediately knew they were soul mates.

  "They both liked to work out," Cathy said. "They both liked to pick on the kids that were smaller and weaker. They both liked to sneak through the teachers' parking lot and key their cars."

  "Just your normal teenagers," I said.

  "Not exactly. Did you know that Big Al started her career in high school?"

  "No. But it makes sense. She's been on the shady side of the law for as long as anyone remembers."

  "She sold dope on campus. They never caught her, though."

  "How did she get away with it?"

  We'd moved from the kitchen to the living room, and we were sitting on the couch, halfway watching the football game while Cathy told me what she knew about Big Al. I didn't pay much attention to football these days, but it appeared that the Dallas Cowboys were heading into the play-offs again if they could manage to keep the majority of their starters out of jail until after the season was over.

  "Big Al got away with a lot of things because she was smart," Cathy said. "And she got away with a lot more because Henry J. wasn't."

  "That doesn't exactly make sense," I said.

  Cathy disagreed. "Of course it does. Think about it."

  I thought about it, but I didn't get anywhere. Neither did the Cowboys, who had just run three notably unsuccessful plays, losing big yardage. They were forced to punt from their own ten. Maybe they weren't going to the play-offs after all.

  "Are you thinking, or are you watching that game?" Cathy
asked.

  "Both," I said. "But I can't come up with an answer."

  "Big Al let Henry J. take the falls for her. That's how. He spent a lot of time in court and never graduated from high school. But Big Al did."

  "She must have stuck by him, though," I said. "They're still together."

  "Wouldn't you stick by someone who wasn't smart enough to figure out how he was being used? You'd never know when you'd want to use him again."

  "I don't remember hearing about Henry J. doing any jail time lately. Or ever, for that matter."

  "He hasn't, as far as I know. But that doesn't mean he won't."

  "Let me see if I've got this straight," I said. "Henry J. and Big Al are a team. Big Al is the brains, and Henry J. is the fall guy. But he's also the enforcer."

  "You've heard about Henry J. escapades," Cathy said. "I think all the stories are true."

  "So he's loyal but dumb. If someone needs killing, he does the job."

  "That's about the size of it."

  "So what happens when someone like Henry J. finally catches on?" I asked. "Maybe he's even thought all along that he was the one in control, that he was calling the shots. But he finds out that a woman is running the show and that she's playing him for a sucker."

  "I don't know how the macho male mind works," Cathy said. "I guess you'll have to tell me. What happens?"

  "You're implying that I do know how the macho male mind works?"

  "Let's just say that you'd have a better idea than I would. How's that?"

  "It'll have to do. OK. I'll tell you. If you're a guy like Henry J., you get angry, and you try to get a little of your own back. Maybe you dip in the till if you're smart enough to figure out how it's done, which Henry J. isn't. Or maybe you try to branch out on your own, just to prove you're your own man. That doesn't require brains. Just the opposite in fact. If Big Al caught someone doing that, she'd give him a cheap sex-change operation."

  Cathy didn't know whether Henry J. was operating on his own or not. She hadn't had any contact with Big Al since Braddy's death, and she didn't want any. She didn't see her father's past or the people connected with it as being romantic in the least the way some people might.

  We talked about Big Al for a bit longer, but I didn't learn anything more. Then our conversation drifted on to other, more personal areas, and one thing led to another. I didn't see the end of the football game, but then it hadn't been very interesting anyway. It was getting late when I left, with a promise that I would call the next day.

  "And you'd better not let me down," Cathy said as I walked down the stairs.

  I stopped at the bottom, put my hand over my heart, and told her I was a changed man.

  She laughed as she closed the door.

  The rain had stopped, but the sky still hung down within jumping distance. The clouds were so dark and heavy that it might as well have been night, though it was only a little after five o'clock.

  I drove home feeling much better about things, at least as far as Cathy was concerned. I still didn't have a handle on what had happened to Randall Kirbo, but I was getting a lot of information. Maybe sooner or later some of it would make a pattern that I could recognize.

  I fed Nameless, put some CDs on the changer and sat down to try to make sense of things.

  One theory went like this: Henry J. was getting tired of being pushed around by Big Al, who was even more macho than he was, so he tried his hand at selling a little dope to college kids, maybe to get enough money together to branch out on his own. Fine. But what did that have to do with Randall Kirbo and Kelly Davis? I didn't have a clue, which was the flaw in that theory.

  Another theory was that Bob Lattner was involved somehow. Kelly Davis was his favorite niece. If Randall Kirbo had anything to do with her death, and if Lattner had found out about it, he might have decided that the law didn't move fast enough to suit him. So he killed Kirbo and dumped his body somewhere. There were lots of places better than the Gulf. That all made a lot of sense to me, considering what I'd seen of Latter's personality, but it was assuming a lot of things I didn't know.

  So much for my theories.

  I still had the nagging feeling that there was some little fact that I'd missed, something I'd let slip by me as insignificant or even meaningless but that would turn out to be the key to everything.

  I thought about it while I listened to the Diamonds singing "The Stroll." A wonderful song, but nothing they said was any help to me. I leaned back in the recliner, and I was just about to go to sleep when the telephone rang. I started to ignore it, but I didn't think that would be a good idea. You never know what might be important.

  I answered, and it was Dino, who was practically incoherent. I got enough of what he was yelling at me to know that he thought someone was trying to kill Sharon and that he wanted me to get to her place quick.

  He didn't have to tell me twice.

  26

  Seawall Boulevard is long and straight and perfect for speeding if no one's out driving around and there aren't any patrol cars lurking on the side streets. I didn't see any patrol cars, and I was practically flying low when I turned off on the street that led to Sharon's apartment. I'm pretty sure that the tires on my side of the truck weren't touching the street at all during the turn.

  It was dark and quiet at Sharon's. No police, of course. (We don't go to the cops.) Dino's old Pontiac was already parked out front, but then he lives closer than I do, and it was his daughter that someone was trying to kill.

  Or maybe not. I didn't see any signs of imminent death as I stepped out of the truck. I walked down the block, but there was no flurry of agitation in the area.

  The streetlight at the corner was burned out, but there was nothing particularly unusual about that. In any good-sized town streetlights burned out all the time.

  None of the neighbors was standing out in the street, flashlight in hand, trying to figure out what was going on.

  No dogs were barking furiously in the darkness as if an intruder were running through back alleys.

  There were no fences full of arching cats with tails puffed out the size of feather dusters.

  All in all it was a quiet evening. Cold and unpleasant, yes, but quiet and not threatening in any way that I could determine. But then I hadn't talked to Sharon yet.

  I went up the stairs and knocked. Dino let me in.

  "You'd think anyone would know better than to have a door with a big pane of glass in the top of it," he said. "What good does a deadbolt do in a door like this, anyway?"

  I'd wondered the same thing the previous day, but I hadn't said anything. Anyone who wanted in would just have to knock out the glass reach in, and turn the bolt.

  In fact, it appeared that someone had done just that. There was broken glass all over the worn linoleum, and a few shards stuck dangerously out of the door frame.

  "Where's Sharon?" I asked. "Is she OK?"

  "She's in the other room, and she's OK," Dino said. "But I'm not sure I am."

  "I guess I should have asked about you first."

  "You never let up, do you, Tru?"

  "Sorry," I said. "Sometimes I'm a little too flippant."

  "Flippant? What the hell does that mean? Who uses words like that at a time like this?"

  What Dino needed was a good jolt of something soothing, but Sharon probably didn't have any Big Red.

  "Why don't you go sit in the living room and send Sharon in here," I said.

  The idea didn't appeal to Dino in the least. He said, "I got enough of that last night. I want to hear what she has to say."

  "I'll make a deal with you. You go in there, and we'll talk in here. If there's anything you need to hear, I'll call you."

  "You can be a real asshole sometimes, Tru."

  "So everyone loves to tell me."

  "Well, they're all right about you."

  "I think it's just a matter of opinion, but I won't argue with you about it. Now, send Sharon in here."

  He went out, looking
as if he'd like to deck me, which he probably would. There was no one else around for him to take his fear and frustration out on, except for Sharon, and Dino had never hit a woman in his life, unless of course you counted Big Al, which at the moment I didn't feel inclined to do.

  Sharon came in. There were a few shallow cuts on her face, and one that had been covered with a plastic bandage.

  "Someone shot at me," she said.

  "Are you sure?"

  It was a stupid question, and I deserved the look she gave me.

  "OK," I said. "You're sure. Where were you?"

  "I was standing by the door." She pointed toward the door I'd just walked through, where all the glass was on the floor. "Someone had made a noise downstairs, and I looked out to see what was going on."

  "What kind of noise?"

  "It sounded like he kicked over the garbage cans. They're right down there under the stairs."

  "And when you looked through the glass, someone shot at you?"

  "That's right. Glass went everywhere." She touched the bandage with a finger. "I'm lucky I wasn't cut worse."

  "You're lucky you weren't killed," I told her.

  I went over to the door and looked outside. The street slanted sharply downhill toward Broadway, and someone standing on the sidewalk halfway down the block would have had a fairly clear shot. Shooting uphill is a fairly tricky proposition, however, for someone who hasn't had much practice at it.

  "Did you hear the shot?" I asked.

  She frowned. "I'm not sure. With the glass breaking and everything, I wasn't really listening."

  "What happened after the glass broke?"

  "I fell down. I was scared, and I thought I was hurt worse than I am. Then I called Dino."

  Whoever had fired the shot hadn't hung around to see for sure if he'd done the job he'd set out to do, not that I blamed him. Someone might have reported the gunfire. On the other hand, it might not have been reported at all. What's one more noise on a cold winter's night?

  I looked up at the ceiling. It was stained by smoke and grease from years of cooking on the tiny stove, but I thought I could see where the bullet had gone in. There was no need to get it out immediately. It would stay there for a while.