by Al Roker
“No. He left it here,” the housekeeper said. “It’s got this sound of folks laughing. I could hear it after I dialed him.”
“I thought I heard laughter,” Carrie said. “But it sounded far off.”
“Basement, I think,” Josie said.
Carrie and I stared at each other. Josie seemed like a nice enough person. I didn’t feel right about setting her up for the shock of her life. But I supposed she’d eventually have gone down to the basement on her own. In any case, Carrie barely hesitated.
“The basement’s a funny place to leave your phone,” she said.
“Mr. Kelsto uses the basement to practice his comedy,” Josie said. “He probably jus’ put it down and forgot it.”
Carrie frowned. “I don’t know … The condition of this room … Robbers … Larry not being here for our meeting … His phone down in the basement …”
Josie was frowning, too. “I guess I better …” She gave me a pleading look.
“We’ll go down with you.”
That’s me, pillar of compassion.
I positioned myself to block most of Josie’s view, but she’d seen enough. “Oh. JesusMaryJoseph,” she mumbled. “He’s dead, idden he?”
I nodded, and she began to weep.
I helped her back upstairs, straightened a chair in the dining room, and sat her on it. Carrie brought her a glass of water from the kitchen and a towelette to dry her eyes.
She took a long drink of water, almost choked on it, then pushed the glass away. She started to rise. “I got to do … call somebody … an ambulance …”
I put my hand on her shoulder and kept her on the chair.
“You just sit here, Josie,” I said. “I’ll make the call.”
Chapter
SEVENTEEN
Two uniformed CPD officers arrived thirteen minutes after my 911 call.
One of them, a six-two, black-haired, blue-jawed Officer Boyle, herded us into the disrupted living room, while his partner, a shorter, rounder, browner Officer Gilstrap, went downstairs to corroborate our statement about a dead man in the basement.
It was nearly forty minutes, another four beat cops, and a Cook County medical examiner’s tech team later when, to my surprise, Detectives Hank Bollinger and Ike Ruello arrived. Since it was doubtful they were the CPD’s only homicide dicks, I assumed someone at dispatch had been particularly diligent in connecting Kelsto’s demise to their investigation of the Pat Patton murder. I didn’t know at the time that there was an obvious connection.
Bollinger gave Carrie a curious look and said, “You usually wear a wig, Ms. Sands?”
“Just when I feel like blending in,” she said.
“Might take a little more than that,” Ruello said.
Josie began to tell Bollinger about “poor Mr. Kelsto,” but he interrupted her. “We’re anxious to get your statement, ma’am, all of your statements, but you’ll have to give us a few minutes to look around first.
“Please confine your activity to this room until the technicians from the medical examiner’s office get their work done. And I’d appreciate it if you hold all your observations, thoughts, and questions until I get back.”
He walked to Officer Boyle, who was standing at the entrance to the room, and whispered something in his ear. Then, slipping on blue shoe covers and white latex gloves, he and Ruello went down to the basement to eyeball the corpse.
When they returned, Bollinger asked, “All three of you saw the victim downstairs?”
Carrie and I nodded. Josie made a little moan.
Bollinger asked her if she needed anything. She shook her head from side to side.
He took a breath, then said to Josie, “The technicians are through in the dining room. Officer Boyle’s gonna find you a comfortable chair in there and take down your statement. Okay?”
That accomplished, he sent Carrie away with Ruello and then sat down on one of the sliced chairs, facing me. He removed his minirecorder from his coat pocket and clicked it on. He spoke directly into it, mentioning the date, the time, the address, and his own name. He referenced a case number and followed that with a general description of the semi-destroyed house and the brutalized and tortured corpse of one of its occupants in the basement.
“At the scene are housekeeper Josepha Davis, actress Carrie Sands, and television, ah, performer Billy Blessing, whose statement is as follows:
“Mr. Blessing, would you begin by giving me your full name, your address, and phone number?”
“Local address or home?”
“Both. Also, length of time you’ve been here in Chicago.”
“I already …,” I began, and stopped when I saw him frown.
I repeated the information I’d given him yesterday morning.
That done, he asked, “Can you tell me when you arrived at this address today and why?”
It was clear he wanted everything nailed down tight. I provided the scenario that Carrie and I had concocted before returning to the house. Since it was possible for the police to locate the cabdriver who’d dropped me off an hour before I’d phoned in the murder, I told him that Carrie and I had arrived at pretty much the same time a few hours ago and discovered that nobody was home.
“We figured Larry had gotten delayed, and so we decided to take a walk around and see a little of the neighborhood. We came back. He still wasn’t here. We drove around a little in her car—it’s the violet BMW parked down the street. We came back. This time, the housekeeper answered the bell.”
From there, it was simply a matter of describing exactly what had happened, minus our rubbing away our fingerprints.
Of course, Bollinger had a few more questions.
“Why did Mr. Kelsto say he wanted to meet with you?”
“He wasn’t specific. He said he had an idea he wanted to bounce off me.”
“Couldn’t do that on the phone?”
“I suggested that, but he said he’d rather meet.”
“You and he were … friends?”
“No. I barely knew him. We met a few days ago, backstage at the Gemma Bright show.”
“That would be the same show at which you and murder victim Edward Patton met?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve just come from a screening of that show. You and retired officer Patton and the actress accompanying you today, Carrie Sands. Four guests. Two of ’em tortured and killed. The surviving two are right here at the latest crime scene. That’s turning into one helluva show. Guess I’m gonna have to give it another look.”
It wasn’t a question, and I definitely didn’t have a response.
“Anything odd happen on that show, something that the cameras didn’t catch?”
“Odd? You mean something that would result in two violent deaths? No, nothing that odd. But there was the discussion of the other murder.”
“What other murder?”
“The headless corpse found on—”
“That’s no longer classified as a homicide,” he said flatly.
“I don’t under—”
“It is what it is,” Bollinger said. “Let’s stick to what we’ve got here. Kelsto didn’t appear on the talk show. Any idea why?”
My mind was still on the headless corpse that was no longer considered a homicide. Bollinger had to repeat the question.
“He … lost out to the clock,” I said. “Happens all the time. I think Patton was a last-minute addition. Gemma wanted his take on the truncated body.”
“His take, yeah.” Bollinger’s grin was not at all pleasant. “You and Kelsto meet before the show or after?”
“During,” I said. “We were both waiting to go on.”
“And Patton was waiting with you?”
“No. He must have gone directly to the set.”
“What about after the show?” he asked. “You notice any contact between Kelsto and Patton?”
“No. I think Larry probably left when he knew they weren’t going to use him.”
Bollinger t
hought about that for a few seconds, then asked, “While you and Kelsto were waiting to appear, he say anything about Patton?”
“He didn’t seem to be a fan. I think he may have used the word ‘asshole.’ ”
“Not a surprise. But to get back to the here and now, you sure you don’t have any idea why Kelsto wanted to see you?”
“I figured it probably had something to do with Wake Up, America!
“That how it usually works? Somebody has an idea for your show, you go halfway across town to see them?”
“No. But I’m a visitor here, with the afternoon off. Larry seemed like a nice enough guy. I figured I’d listen to his pitch.”
“What about Ms. Sands?”
“I’d be even more inclined to listen to her pitch,” I said.
“I mean, how did she fit into it? Why was she here?”
“She said she’d got a phone call, too.”
“She tell you this when you and she were driving around in her car?”
I nodded.
“Please answer the questions. This machine doesn’t pick up head movement.”
“She mentioned the phone call while we were driving around,” I said.
“Were you expecting to meet her here?” he asked.
“No.”
He stared at me for a few beats, then asked, “What was Mr. Kelsto’s mood when you talked with him?”
“Mood? I don’t know. Normal, I guess.”
“Would you happen to be acquainted with Mr. Kelsto’s roommate, Mr. Parkins?”
“I don’t believe I am.”
“Wouldn’t know where we might find him?”
“No.”
“Do you have knowledge of any reason why someone would want to torture and murder Mr. Kelsto?”
“No,” I lied.
He made a thing about turning off his machine and putting it into his pocket. “Just between us, brother,” he said, “what do you suppose went down here?”
“A break-in. Robbery. Murder. You’re the homicide expert.”
“Ruello, a fan of yours, says you’re something of an expert, too. Been involved in a couple of homicides.”
“No expert. Just unlucky enough to have been in the wrong places at the wrong times.”
“And now here you are. Third time’s a charm, huh?”
“Like you said.”
He brought up his arm, dipped his long brown fingers into his inside coat pocket, and withdrew a glossy photograph. “You ever see this man before?”
The unsmiling black face that stared back at me was a familiar one.
“Yeah. He was at the show, too,” I said. “Pat Patton’s driver.”
“He’s also Kelsto’s missing roommate, life partner, whatever, Nat Parkins.”
Perfect.
Chapter
EIGHTEEN
The detectives were finished with us at a little before five.
By then, the media crowd had gathered just outside the Kelsto-Parkins property line. While Bollinger and several uniformed officers escorted Josie to his vehicle, his elegantly dressed partner, Ruello (who, it turned out, hoped to one day open his own restaurant in Chicago), led Carrie and me out through the rear.
Continuing to pepper me with questions about food and drink, he took us across the backyard, past the unfinished sculpture. As we approached a fence exit, I said, “Detective Bollinger mentioned the headless corpse is no longer considered a homicide.”
“No. Autopsy said the guy had a bad ticker. Fatal heart attack.”
“My God. Then who … did that to him?” Carrie asked.
“Happily, that’s no longer the problem of the homicide department,” he said, rather cheerily. “But corpse mutilation is no little deal. It carries a ten-year felony ticket.”
“Corpse mutilation,” Carrie repeated, wincing.
The fence exit took us to an alley that led to a street identified as North Sedgwick. There, Carrie and I bid Detective Ruello adieu and made our way to her BMW parked on West Eugenie.
“What kind of world is this?” Carrie asked. “People being tortured. Corpses being mutilated.” She adjusted her rearview mirror and added, “Just look at that crowd.”
I turned in my bucket seat and observed the media mass nearly a block away. There were several vans almost blocking the street. I supposed one of them might be from our local affiliate, WWBC.
“What do they want?” she asked. “Isn’t there enough bad news in the world?”
“Apparently not.”
“I guess we should consider ourselves lucky,” she said, starting up the BMW and moving it away from the curb. “Maybe they won’t even find out we were in the house.”
So young. So beautiful. So naïve.
“Maybe,” I said, not wishing to dampen her spirits.
As soon as I arrived at the hotel and saw the usually sleepy eyes of the doorman widen on my approach, I realized that once again I’d taken a seat on the murder merry-go-round. In my suite, I discovered that the seat was as hot as a griddle.
The blinking red button on the phone was my first clue. My second was Kiki, in the sitting room, half risen from her chair, looking as though she was about to take flight.
She relaxed at the sight of me and plopped down again, taking a gulp from a water glass containing something that looked like water but probably wasn’t.
“You wouldn’t happen to have another one of those handy?” I asked.
“Glass?”
“The stuff that’s in it.”
“Spirits, then.” She took a second gulp, winced and coughed, not in a ladylike way.
She weaved a little, moving to the minibar, got out a mini bottle of vodka, cracked the cap, and poured its contents into another water tumbler. Handing it to me, she said, “Another murder, Billy? Really?”
“It’s on the news?”
“It’s been quite a day for news. First it was the story about that headless corpse being a heart attack victim. Now it’s all about you and Carrie Sands discovering the body of the comedian in his basement. On TV. On the Web. On the FM. On that room phone that keeps ringing but that I have stopped answering. And especially on this,” she said, picking my smartphone up from the table. I’d left it recharging in the bathroom. That’s the problem with allowing your assistant to use your hotel room for business. Nothing, least of all your bathroom, is sacred.
I waited for the harsh liquor to clear my tonsils before asking, “What exactly are they saying?”
“Just what I said. You and the actress found the body of that creepy Larry Kelsto.”
“You should speak more kindly of the dead, especially since Larry seemed quite taken with you, as I recall.”
That earned me an eye roll.
“How … ugly was it?” she asked.
“On a scale of one to ten, about twenty-five. He’d been tortured.”
She mock shivered. Or maybe it was genuine. “Why am I not surprised? The other bloke was tortured, too. Patton. Which of us is next? Bad odds, Billy. I told you not to go on that show.”
“I don’t think people are being murdered because of a TV show. And I certainly don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“Coo! I’m so relieved,” she said sarcastically. She reached out to hand me the smartphone. “Best ring up Gretchen and Trina. They’ve been pestering me every twenty minutes for the past two hours.”
I pushed away the straight vodka and asked if she might find something equally lethal that didn’t feel like razor blades sliding down my throat.
“I know how you feel about premixed martinis,” she said.
“Beggars can’t have standards,” I said, rousing my phone from its energy-saving stupor.
Kiki stood, weaving slightly. “Your wish is my command, sire.” She staggered to the minibar and pried loose a couple of tiny bottles of premixed martinis. “We who are about to die … shall join you in a tot of the juniper.”
I watched her unscrew the bottle tops. “If you are about to d
ie, it’ll probably be from alcohol poisoning,” I said.
“Oh, piffle.”
“I’ve never realized before how British you get when you’re shitfaced.”
“Shitfaced. Lovely, Billy. So much more colorful than ‘pissed.’ ”
“I’m guessing the reason you’re booze-soaked is something more than the fear of being murdered. Romance hit the rocks?”
“Fuck off, Billy,” she said haughtily, heading for the loo.
Sounds so much classier when said with a British accent.
I sighed, refocused on the phone, and speed-dialed Gretchen Di Voss, the head of the WBC network. Our arrangement was definitely boss-employee, in spite of a romance that ended a few years ago. Or maybe because of it.
She was still at work in her multi-windowed office overlooking the concrete-and-steel towers of Manhattan. Judging by the chilliness in her voice, she was also mad as hell. “What precisely is your involvement in this club comedian’s murder?”
“Yes, I’m fine, Gretch, thanks for asking. And you?”
She did not reply. When I tired of the metallic, echolike broadcasting-from-your-bathroom sound that rushes into your cellphone when no one is talking, I said, “I happened to be in his home when his body was discovered.”
“Do you need a lawyer?”
“No. At least not yet.”
“According to reports, the man was tortured. I assume the police are linking his death to that of our almost-hired Edward Patton?”
“The lead detective, Bollinger, mentioned something about that,” I said.
“Please don’t tell me that the comedian is in any way connected to WBC.”
I looked at Kiki, who was back, staring at me, fully attentive. Ignoring her drink.
“The comedian—his name was Larry Kelsto, by the way—had been scheduled to appear on the same Gemma Bright show as Patton and me and Carrie Sands. But he was bumped.”
“So this Detective Bollinger’s assumption is what? That something occurred on Gemma’s show that led to murder? That a lunatic is killing everyone who was on the show, and you, the Sands woman, and Gemma are in danger? That either you or Sands is the killer?”
Kiki was frowning at me.
