American Detective: An Amos Walker Novel

by Loren D. Estleman

  The creaking stopped. I went motionless, breathing through my nose.

  “Come out, Walker.”

  It was Loudermilk. I leaned my weight back from my knees, raising them a little and supporting myself on my fingertips, a starter’s position. My blood roared in my ears.

  “Give it up. I won’t shoot.”

  He must have heard something, or made an educated guess. The Ruger barked. Something chugged into the earth a few feet from the house and a shaggy circle lighter than the black underside of the boards opened between me and the night sky. The pier shuddered from the impact.

  “Liar.”

  It was a whisper, but he had good ears. Two more holes punched through, close enough to kick dirt onto my shoes. I gave up looking for the Luger I’d dropped earlier. It could have slid a long way down that slope, or the security captain might have found it and taken it away. I rose. He fired again, missing me by three inches. I backpedaled in a panic and struck something hard behind me that flattened my lungs. It yielded slightly; one of the old pilings that supported the pier, rotted almost through at the base. Feet scraped the boards—Loudermilk, scrambling for balance as the structure swayed beneath him. “Motherfuck!”

  When you’re out of aces, you play the deuce.

  I turned my shoulder into the piling, set my feet, and pushed.

  The pier was solider than it looked. It swung that way, not enough, and I leapt away from the piling a tenth of a second before a bullet crashed through the boards and whacked it on the side, spraying splinters; something grazed my cheek an inch below the right eye.

  Before he could steady his aim for another try I charged the piling, shoving with both hands. It tilted, and half a ton of weathered wood listed thirty degrees and stood still.

  Loudermilk didn’t. Leather soles skidded on wet slime and he hit the railing with all his weight. On instinct I grasped the piling with both hands and pushed with everything I had left. It gave, then stopped. It was holding on by sheer habit. But I had the strength of two, or at least the weight. Loudermilk’s against the railing brought a groan from the pier. It went on groaning like a lovestruck whale, then something cracked with a beautiful splitting peal of surrender and went on over, wrenching nails out of timbers weakened by age and climate and seasons of neglect, showering dirt and crosspieces and old fish scales that twinkled like sequins and a chunk of something hard that struck the top of my left shoulder with a punishing blow. I gasped, but I clambered toward open space, and as I clambered my toe caught something solider than board or timber. I bent and scooped it up on the run. I had a tight grip on the Luger when I dived clear of the tumbling mass of beams and planks and Captain Fred Loudermilk.

  SEVENTEEN

  Sheriff’s substations couldn’t exist but for the invention of concrete. Function without form, pipes and cables and circuit boxes exposed, all the nerves and arteries and braids of muscle out there for everyone to see. Polyurethane sealed the slab floor and the furniture had all the permanency of base camp on Everest. The nearest neighbor was a pile of rock salt.

  Since there was no place to rest my eyes I closed them, and when they opened to the clearing of a throat that sounded too close to a motorboat starting, I realized I’d been asleep. Lieutenant Phillips sat solid as the building behind a laminate desk heaped with requisitions and curled paperbacks, the raw patches on his big face liverish under the fluorescents. “Rise and shine, lazybones,” he said. “It’s a bright new day.”

  My gaze drifted toward the only window, square with two crosspieces like a child’s drawing. It was set six inches deep and no light came through from outside.

  Phillips saw what I saw. “Oh, the sun won’t get the memo for a couple of hours. Daylight Savings Time’s a bitch on those that have to be at work early.”

  “Did you ever go home?”

  “I went home and ate supper. Tigers had six runs on the Indians when I had to leave.”

  “How bad did they lose?”

  “Tied in the ninth and gave up three in the eleventh. Loudermilk’s in Beaumont with a concussion and a broken hand.”

  “I broke it when he wouldn’t let go of the Ruger. Half-unconscious and he still wanted to kill me. What’s his story?”

  “We’ll ask him when he comes around. It’s still only your word things weren’t the other way around. My deputies almost drilled you when they found you standing over him with that German gun.”

  “I don’t guess they ever caught up with Bairn.”

  “You don’t-guess right. I had them pull Loudermilk’s jacket at headquarters. It was full of citations and commendations. One insubordination beef for back-talking the current sheriff, just enough to demote him and force him to quit. I got the head of the lake owners’ association out of bed. They were about to renew his contract as captain of security. Two break-ins in four years, and the property was recovered both times. Bit of a jump from there to aiding and abetting a fugitive in two murders.”

  “I thought so too, and I didn’t know his record. But how would I know about Bairn getting away if I weren’t there to see it?”

  “This is a small community, and everybody tells fish stories. It was all over the lake before I got the call. I’ll just hang on to this for now.” He picked up my Luger from the desk and put it in a drawer. He must have brought it in with him. “The only permit in that wet mess of a wallet of yours was for a Smith revolver. That’s trouble.”

  “It’s spent more time in police custody than in mine. I guess no one wants to do the paperwork. Am I under arrest?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. I called Inspector Alderdyce, but he said he probably wouldn’t see anything my boys hadn’t. He said I could house you at County but there wouldn’t be any satisfaction in it. Said to tell you you missed an appointment with him at your office.”

  “I was seduced by the local beauty.” I remembered something. “What’s Peninsular Realty? It seems to hold title on the whole lake.”

  He touched one of the rough spots on his face, measuring it between thumb and forefinger. It seemed to be a progressive condition. “Not quite, but they may not be finished. They’re out of Benton Harbor. It was all locally owned until a couple of years ago, then the old-timers started dying off and their kids didn’t want to mess with fixing up those old shacks; there’s not a one of them up to code. I figure the Peninsular people finished buying up Lake Michigan and decided to move inland.”

  “They’re that big?”

  “Big enough anyway to drop upwards of three quarters of a million building those two big houses on the north shore and lease them to a GM board member and what-you-call a hip-hop musician in Bloomfield Hills that only use them weekends and vacations. We’ve been out to the hip-hop place three times already this summer on loud-music complaints and a fight involving a brandished firearm.”

  “Loudermilk couldn’t handle them?”

  “They made him a captain, the owners’ association did, but he’s all the full-time security they have. Couple of moonlighters from the Iroquois Heights Police Department to help out when he needs it, but a private patch doesn’t haul much freight with that rap crowd. You’re hard put to find one without a felony record. Makes you kind of nostalgic for the days when all they did was trash hotel rooms and punch out the boys from the press.” He moved a shoulder. “I know what the association pays Loudermilk, and it ain’t enough. If he did go sour, that’d be one good reason.”

  “You know him better than I do,” I said. “All he did was shoot at me a couple of times around the cylinder. You’d know if he was the type. Commendations and citations only cover what goes on in public.”

  “Personally, I think he’s a prick. He’s a competent cop, which don’t get me wrong, counts for plenty, so when he’s got an opinion I listen. But he got as high as he did because he knew when to agree with the old sheriff and just how long to wait before he said no. And I’m a political animal, so you can put what I say wherever you want on your scale. If you ask do I think s
omebody can crook him, I have to say it could happen to anybody, and I never knew a busted cop that wouldn’t cut all the corners he had to to get himself reinstated. But I’m just enough of a cop myself not to take the word of a civilian when he squawks about police corruption. That card gets played too much to throw in my hand every time it shows. That answer your question?”

  “Not at all. You’ve got a good chance of being elected.”

  He chuckled, not entirely without mirth. “All I can say to that is I wish you were registered to vote in this county.”

  “Who’s the local rep for Peninsular Realty?”

  “Violet Pershing. She’s president of the lake owners’ association, the one I got out of bed to vouch for Loudermilk. She lives rent-free in a show home down from the big cedar where the GM guy leases, can’t miss the sign. Planning on joining our little community?”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t dig up my background, Lieutenant. We both know I couldn’t afford the shack with the busted pier.”

  “Destruction of private property, that’s something else I can hit you with if I feel like it. Not that it wasn’t coming down anyway along with the house when Peninsular takes over. I don’t know what you expect to get out of Mrs. Pershing. She’s a looker, and they’re born on the defensive. Anyway I don’t see how the company figures.”

  “Chances are it doesn’t. Most of my hunches pop up into the catcher’s mitt. But if it’s the biggest landowner on the lake, it’s got deep enough pockets to buy a whole fleet of security captains.”

  “Which brings us to why. I thought Fuller fired you.”

  “He let me go because the job went away when his daughter was killed. Now I’m under hack with Oakland County and the City of Detroit. Maybe I can turn something, buy a little goodwill. It’s worked in the past. That is, unless you’ve made up your mind to house me. What are they serving tomorrow night? In Detroit it’s franks and kraut.”

  “Spaghetti, I think, but you don’t get a taste. I’m kicking you on Alderdyce’s recommendation. According to him you’re a pain in the ass with principles. I guess you bought a little goodwill at that.”

  “Thanks. What about my pistol?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind a little paperwork if it keeps one more illegal piece off the streets. I’m a tad weak with the gun-control demographic.”

  “I’ll miss it. My father brought it back with him from Berlin.”

  “Philippines, mine. All he brought back was himself, and he left a leg on Guam.”

  “The greatest generation.”

  “He went to prison for killing a man in a bar fight.”

  “That why you became a cop?”

  “No, it was just a job till I found something that suited me.”

  “Still looking?”

  “Gave up. I’m a bitter, disappointed man, Mr. Walker. Don’t fuck up my investigation.”

  The diner opened at dawn, for fishermen and vacationers who wanted to get an early start on the antiques malls and what-not shops up-country. One of the deputies from the Fuller detail had driven my car to the substation when his partner took me in for questioning, and I’d stopped at a twenty-four-hour gas station and convenience store for cigarettes to replace my sodden pack. Waiting in front of the Chain O’ Lakes I’d smoked three or four, scratching my unshaven neck and trying to find a position on the front seat where my damp clothes didn’t chafe the skin. The woman with the eye patch liked what she saw even less than she had the day before, so I made quick work of the eggs and bacon and didn’t finish my second cup of coffee. That made it still too early to go calling. I drove three miles to a Wal-Mart, bought a package of disposable razors, a can of Barbasol, and a complete change of clothes down to a pair of sneakers, and shaved and changed in the restroom, leaving the wet rags and cracked shoes behind in the trash basket. Without a client to go expenses, the cost of a new suit to replace the old was going to have to come out of the general operating budget. Except I’d gone over that on breakfast.

  I still needed sleep, but the makeover made me feel better about the prospect of dropping in on a stranger unannounced. The house was one of those I’d stopped at after Fuller and I had parted company and found no one home, a Cape Cod modest by the standards of that neighborhood, but with a smart coat of white paint, enameled black shutters, and on each side of the driveway an anchor set in concrete, big enough to sink any boat capable of navigating the shallow waters. The Peninsular sign on the lawn advertised it as a model home. A weather vane shaped like a sextant straddled the roof and there was a porthole in the door. The doorbell buzzed, a disappointment. I’d expected it to play “Barnacle Bill.”

  “Goodness, you’re early.”

  “Am I?” I smiled at the woman who’d answered, a small brunette built to scale in a blue silk blouse, white ducks, and docksiders, artfully scuffed at the toes. Her hair spilled blueblack to her shoulders and she had a long straight nose, good chin, and elongated eyes like you see in Egyptian hieroglyphs. She was in her late twenties.

  “I didn’t expect you before nine.”

  “I didn’t expect you to expect me anytime. My name’s Walker.” I showed her the ID, rescued from its soaked folder and baked in the sun on the dashboard. The printing was blurred but the picture still looked like me.

  “I’m showing someone the house later,” she said. “Is this about the shooting? I didn’t see or hear anything. I got in late last night.”

  “Are you Violet Pershing?”

  She smiled. She had nice white teeth, but here was one good-looking woman who knew when to stop the orthodontist. The canines came to points. “I’m younger than you thought. I get that a lot.”

  “I’ve never met a woman named Violet under sixty.”

  “It was the name of my father’s sponsor. He remained grateful to her till the day he died.”

  “Was he in TV or radio?”

  A crease marred the smooth cream of her forehead. “Oh! Sponsor. The woman who put up money for his passage after Saigon fell and set him up in this country. Not all the people who opposed the war sat back smugly after the troops cleared out. If it weren’t for her I’d never have been born, or at least I’d be a different person. He met my mother over here.”

  “Your father was Vietnamese?”

  “Laotian.”

  I poked that into one of the pigeonholes inside my skull. It didn’t have to mean anything. “I’m investigating the shooter, not the shooting. May I come in?”

  “If you don’t mind my removing the breakfast things while we talk. A toast crust and coffee rings can queer a rental.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “You’ll watch. Nothing gets in the way worse than a man trying to make himself useful in a strange kitchen.”

  I agreed to the terms and followed her through a living room done in smoked glass and putty-colored fabrics into a gleaming kitchen. She cleared a granite counter of a saucer of crumbs, a jadeite mug, and a cut-crystal juice glass, wiped down the top, and placed the items in a dishwasher with a control panel full of twinkling colored lights. When she pressed a panel to turn it on it made no more noise than a goldfish swimming laps in a bowl. I sat at the counter and admired the long firm line of a haunch when she bent to deposit a paper towel in the wastebasket under the sink.

  “Does anyone else live here besides you and Mr. Pershing?”

  “Mr. Pershing lives in Miami with the Cuban woman who used to clean our house. We’re divorced.”

  “Sorry. About the housemaid, I mean.”

  “Thank you. I don’t date detectives, private or otherwise.”

  “We have that in common, at least. Lieutenant Phillips with the sheriff’s department says you spoke in favor of Fred Loudermilk’s character.”

  “His character never came up. I said he was efficient at his job.”

  “So you don’t like him.”

  She tore another paper towel off a roll on a marble spindle and wiped down the sink and faucet. “It happens I don’t, but I didn’
t say that. If I hired someone I liked to look after the security of the residents and he wasn’t any good at the job, it would mean I’m no good at mine. I don’t like men who swagger, but perhaps the way he conducts his responsibilities gives him that right. I thought you said you were investigating that man Bairn.”

  “That was a different shooting. I’m trying to find out why Loudermilk shot at me.”

  That stopped the cleaning frenzy. She left the towel on the drain board and turned my way. “I hadn’t heard anything about that. You’re sure it was Fred?”

  “Both times. The second time an ambulance took him to Beaumont Hospital. I had a little help from gravity.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It did to him, but he isn’t explaining himself until the doctors patch up the bruise on his brain. Actually, I lied: I know why he shot at me. I’m the only one who can testify in court that he helped a suspect in two homicides escape arrest.”

  “Hilary Bairn? Impossible. I heard about him on the news. He’s nothing more than a desperate fortune hunter. What could he offer Loudermilk to take a risk like that?”

  “I hoped you could answer that one. Loudermilk answers to you.”

  “He answers to the association. The owners elected me to bang the gavel when we meet and to sign checks on the joint account for security and maintenance.”

  “That’s another question I had. Why’s it called the lake owners’ association when so few of them actually own property on the lake?”

  “The name’s a holdover from when most of them did. After Peninsular bought them out it didn’t seem worth the trouble and expense of having new stationery printed on a technicality. Anyway, ‘lake renters’ association’ doesn’t carry the same authority. And there are a few single owners left. Gloria Fuller’s one. She owns the house where I understand that man was shot. Her ex-husband is Darius Fuller, the retired baseball player. Ah.” She nodded. “You’re working for her.”

  “Him, actually. That’s about to become public knowledge if it hasn’t already. Right now, though, I’m working for myself. The pay stinks, so I’d like to wrap it up quick. Isn’t it rare for a realty firm to deal only in rentals?”