The Highly Effective Detective

by Richard Yancey

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Why are you so jumpy?”

  “It’s a personality trait. Can you call me whenever you get where you’re going?”

  “Okay.”

  “Where are you going, exactly?”

  “To my apartment. Why?”

  “Matt staying at home with your dad?”

  “Matt’s staying in our condo at Riversound. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Maybe later. I’ve got to…I’ve got some very keen thinking to do.”

  She laughed, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me again. I stood on the sidewalk and waved as she made a left onto Summit Hill before disappearing from view. I stood there another couple of minutes, then went back upstairs, took a shower, sat on my unmade bed afterward for about thirty minutes, and cried.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING WITH THE SUN SHINING IN my face. The last thing I remembered before falling asleep was the conviction I would never fall asleep. The phone was ringing.

  It was Gary Paul.

  “Hey, sleepyhead. It’s rounding ten o’clock. Rough night?”

  “It’s been a rough twenty-four hours, Gary.”

  “No doubt. But, you know, I’m not entirely to blame for that, Ted. I just got off the phone with Felicia. What a nice gal. Is she married?”

  I pressed the tips of my forefinger and thumb hard into the corners of my eyes. I had cotton mouth bad, but the phone wasn’t cordless and I was trapped in the bed.

  “She has a boyfriend, a firefighter boyfriend. Big guy, heavy into weight training and Krav Maja.”

  “What the hell is Krav Maja?”

  “It’s this hand-to-hand street fighting technique developed by the Israelis. Very deadly stuff.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh, I kid you not.”

  “Sometimes I get the impression you’re kind of putting me on.”

  “You wouldn’t be the only one. Anyway, I’ve never met him, but I hear he’s got a hair-trigger temper; you know, a real hothead.”

  “Hmmm. And he’s a firefighter, you said?”

  “Yeah. He’s a fire-fighting hothead.”

  He laughed. “Look, Ted, the reason for my call. Two reasons, really. First, I was curious after our little conversation yesterday to know how you’re gonna handle things from here.”

  “Well,” I said. “I have no tapes, no witness, no client, and no money. Like you said, even if I went to the task force, they wouldn’t believe me. I can’t see anyway to proceed except to shut my doors and try to get my old job back.”

  “Gee, that’s really good to hear, Ted. I know you loved being a private eye, but sometimes things don’t work out.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure how much I loved it. It certainly wasn’t what I expected, but how many things can you say turn out to be the way you expected? You should never really trust your expectations. For example, there’s about eighty percent of me that actually expects you to keep up your end of our bargain.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Gary, you’ve lied to me from the day we met.”

  “Okay, but why would I make the offer if I planned to kill you? That’s what you’re concerned about, right? That I plan to kill you?”

  “It’s crossed my mind.”

  “Believe me, Teddy, if that was the plan, you’d be dead already.”

  “That’s crossed my mind, too.”

  I washed up in the sink, brushed my teeth, and drove straight to the office without consuming so much as a slice of toast. It was a bright, sunny day with a forecasted high of eighty-seven degrees.

  Felicia was there, standing by the sill behind my desk, staring at the brick wall of the building through the window.

  She was wearing a clingy gray sleeveless dress with matching gray heels and no hosiery. Her legs were nicely tanned and I wondered if she used those tanning sprays or if that was what she’d been doing yesterday, maybe lying out by a pool.

  She barely glanced at me. “Where have you been?”

  “I overslept.” I sank into one of the visitor’s chairs. “Felicia, we have to talk.”

  She nodded and sank into my executive chair. She looked tired, the skin on her face not as tanned as her arms and legs. It had kind of a saggy, worn look to it, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

  I got up, poured myself a cup of coffee, and sat back down.

  “That cop friend of yours called,” she said. “He said he was off duty last night and didn’t know till he picked up the paper this morning.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Then he asked me for a date,” she said, and laughed.

  “What about Bob?”

  “I didn’t say yes, Ruzak. To tell you the truth, he kind of gives me the creeps.”

  “How come?”

  “He’s too . . .” She gave a little wave of her hand. She was wearing a charm bracelet and the charms tinkled against one another as she waved.

  “Nice?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.”

  “He has bad teeth.”

  She laughed. “And Paul Killibrew called.”

  “Who’s Paul Killibrew?”

  “The reporter from the Sentinel, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Jesus, Ruzak. Anyway, he wanted to talk to you about what happened yesterday.”

  “I don’t know anything about what happened yesterday.”

  “You called him after the first story ran, remember? After you saw HRT. He’s thinking of doing a story on it now.”

  “On what?”

  She sighed loudly. “On HRT seven one nine, the geese, and Lydia Marks. Whether there’s a connection.”

  “Boy, it would be a helluva coincidence if there wasn’t.”

  “What’s the matter with you? Why are you talking like this? Tell me what’s going on, Ruzak. You know something.”

  “Did you tell Paul about HRT seven one nine? I mean, did you give him that number?”

  “No—why would I do that?”

  I sipped my coffee. Felicia made it too weak for my taste. I figure if you’re going to drink coffee, you might as well go for the high octane. It’s like those people who smoke low-tar cigarettes. It kind of defeats the purpose of indulging in the vice in the first place.

  “The real question is,” I said, “Where do we go from here? My only client is dead.”

  “What about the reward?”

  “What reward?”

  “The reward for finding Lydia’s killer.”

  I almost laughed aloud.

  “I’m dropping it, Felicia.”

  “You’re dropping… what? What are you dropping?”

  “Everything. This.” I motioned to the room.

  “You’re not quitting, Ruzak.”

  “I don’t have a choice, Felicia.”

  She folded her bare brown arms across her chest, leaned back in my executive chair, and asked, “Because?”

  “Because? Because for one thing, I’m way over my head and, like a panicked swimmer, I just keep flailing around in the water, sinking deeper the harder I try to stay afloat. Let’s face it, I’m all wrong for this kind of work. I’m disorganized, I’m sloppy, I don’t have a logical mind, and I tend to get too personally involved with my clients.” My cheeks were hot. I was close to telling her about Susan Marks and our impromptu pizza party. I sipped some coffee to steady myself, but coffee isn’t known for its steadying influence. “Plus, most importantly of all, I’ve bottomed out. I’ve got no evidence, no witnesses, no leads, no case, no license, and no money. I’ve come up against it, Felicia. I’ve hit the wall pretty hard.”

  “What wall, Ruzak?”

  “You know, reality.”

  “So,” she said. Her lips had gone thin. “That’s it. You’re done.”

  “I think I’m done.”

  “You asshole. You come into my life…you make these wild promises…you drag me into this deal so you can
act out your childhood fantasies, and now when things get tough, you throw up your hands and say, ‘Oh, well, guess that didn’t work out. Good luck to you, Felicia.’”

  “Look, it’s not that bad….” I fumbled in my pocket for a handkerchief, then realized I didn’t even own a handkerchief, so I went into the bathroom and pulled off half a dozen squares of toilet paper and tried to hand them to her. She pushed my hand away.

  “I’m not dabbing my eyes with toilet paper!”

  “Right,” I said, and stuffed the wad into my pocket. “Anyway, it’s not that bad. I talked to Freddy, and he said—”

  “When did you talk to Freddy?”

  “Couple days ago.”

  “Why did you talk to Freddy?”

  “He came over to the table—”

  “You have no business talking to Freddy about me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you have no business in my business!”

  “And you have no business in mine!” I bit my lower lip hard, what I usually do when I’ve mouthed off and there’s no way to take it back, so I guess biting my lower lip is a form of self-punishment.

  “Well”—she leaned over the desk and hissed at me—”you wanna know something funny, Ruzak? I absolutely agree with you: You’re not cut out for this line of work. You’re probably the worst-qualified PI on the face of planet Earth, but that’s not the point anymore. Whether you like it or not, you’re in this thing, and now you’ve dragged me and …and my life into it with you, and throwing up your hands and walking away is not going to get either of us out of it. Before, maybe doing things half-assed was an option, but that option doesn’t exist anymore, Ruzak.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t say anything.

  “So which is it?” she asked softly. “What are you going to do?”

  I dropped my head. “I’m scared,” I said. I raised my head. “I’m afraid, Felicia.”

  She nodded. “And I’m unemployed. Thanks a lot, Ruzak.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  WE ARGUED FOR ANOTHER HALF HOUR WHILE I SLUGGED down three more cups of the weak coffee and she clicked around the hardwood floor in her heels, but I held firm to my “I’m just a big fat pussy” defense, which came off convincingly because it dovetailed so well into everything she knew about me. What about justice? she asked. What about my promises? she wondered. Promises I’d made to Parker and to Susan and to her especially? The whole thing was leading into “What is your measure as a man?” territory and that was a place I’d be lost even with a map. Finally, when she realized I wasn’t going to give in, she grabbed her matching snakeskin gray purse and pounded down the stairs to the street. I followed her outside, where I found her fumbling in her purse for a pair of sunglasses, which she jammed over her eyes with such force, I thought she must have bruised the bridge of her nose. I had drunk too much coffee, being fooled like those low-tar smokers who just smoke more, and, as usual when I drank too much coffee, I had the peculiar sensation of my legs being too long for my body; I seemed to lope.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “Who cares about your ‘sorry’?”

  She shouldered her purse and set out toward the Hilton. She parked there for seventy-five dollars a month, but that was paid for out of the company account. She could never say after that and all the paid time off and the free designer wardrobe that she didn’t have her share of perks.

  “I’m sorry, Felicia. I really am,” I said, loping after her. “I never thought taking on a wild-goose case would lead—”

  “Oh, save it, Ruzak. It’s over. Now you can crawl back to the security company and beg for your old job and I can go plant a big fat wet one on Freddy’s pimply ass. And whoever killed Lydia Marks will get away with murder.”

  I followed her into the garage, thinking you shouldn’t assume just because a guy is on the large side that his ass is pimply. She asked why the hell I was following her into the garage. I didn’t answer. When she slid into the car seat, that clingy gray number pulled up on her thigh and I saw a lot of bare tanned leg.

  “Get in the car, Ruzak.”

  Her tone brooked no argument, so I climbed into her Corolla without any argument. Too much had happened in the past twenty-four hours to absorb in its entirety. The danger of life in general is that you get so worn down, there’s not enough left of you to fight. You see this especially among the poor, but nobody’s immune, even nations and whole civilizations. Everybody’s gotten so tired, they get to the point where they just don’t give a damn anymore. I’m not a big believer in the spiritual side of things, but I suspected I had disturbed some balance in the cosmos by calling myself “the Hammer.” It flipped some kind of karmic switch.

  Felicia took the Henley Street Bridge over the river, and a couple of boats were out, with young women lounging on the bows in luminescent bikinis. We passed Baptist Hospital, where my mother died, on the opposite shore, then continued south, now on Chapman Highway, heading toward Seymour. She didn’t say anything and I didn’t say anything, even when we passed Baptist Hospital and I was overwhelmed with memories of chemotherapies and biopsies and radiation treatments, of long silk scarves wrapped around my mother’s bald head and how she seemed to shrink inside her gown as the cancer ate her from the inside. Sometimes it’s not enough for life to wear you down; sometimes life just eats you alive. It cleaves you in two. A lot of people spend the majority of their lives running from that fact, but in life, death has a way of bringing you up short, grabbing you by the nape of the neck, and slinging you around to face the Big Dark.

  Felicia made a left onto a little side road off the highway. We drove for about half a mile before she turned into the driveway of a small frame house, once white behind a white picket fence, but now both house and fence were badly in need of a paint job. She pulled in behind an older model Toyota truck parked beneath the corrugated overhang attached to the house and cut off the engine. Someone had removed the first two and last two letters of the make, leaving the letters YO on the tailgate. Felicia took a big breath and told me to come on, and so I followed her up the overgrown walkway to the door, and we went inside.

  The blinds were drawn. A television provided the only light in the small family room, so everything had that blue TV tint, making it hard for me to tell even what color the carpeting was. A large shape rose from the sofa, and instead of being Bob’s, like I expected, the shape was that of Lacey from the diner.

  She stood still for a second, absorbing my presence. Felicia said, “Lacey, you know Ruzak.”

  Felicia dropped her purse on a straight-backed chair set by the front door and asked, “Where is he?”

  “In his room,” Lacey said. “Why are you here?” she asked me, or more in the direction of me.

  “She drove me,” I said.

  She gave me a look that said she didn’t care for smart-asses. A door slammed somewhere in the back and a kid came barreling into the room wearing shorts and a yellow T-shirt with Spider-man’s red face on the front, and he flew into Felicia’s arms as she knelt to grab him. She picked him up and spun once around with him.

  “How’s my captain?” she asked. “How’s my little knight?” And he was all giggling and slobbering, and I guessed he was maybe four or five, but there was something wrong with this kid. His head looked too big for his body, and he was pretty hefty for a five year old, with small eyes and very short, fat fingers. He noticed me and the giggles stopped like a switch had been flipped. Felicia set him down and said, “Honey, this is the man Mommy works for. Or used to work for. Can you say hi to Mr. Ruzak?”

  He kind of lunged forward on those thick legs and grabbed my hand and pulled me so that I lost my balance and almost landed right on top of him. Then he wrapped his arms around my knees and twisted his body back and forth, wiping his mouth on the leg of my pants.

  “Okay, no wrestling holds on Ruzak,” Felicia scolded him, and behind me Lacey was laughing. I was
looking straight down at the top of the kid’s head, and his hair was very fine, like a baby’s hair, and I could see the irregular shape of his skull.

  “Ruzak, this is Thomas,” Felicia said.

  “My name is Thomas!” the boy said, tilting back his head and shouting up at me. “Thomas Kincaid! Who are you?”

  “I told you, honey. Mr. Ruzak,” Felicia said.

  “Ruzak!” the boy shouted. “Ruzak! Ruzak! Ruzak!” He let go of my knees and did a little dervish sort of dance in the space between Felicia and me. He was giggling again and a thick line of spit ran out of his mouth and trailed down his chin.

  “He likes your name,” Lacey said.

  “Ruzak! Ruzak! Ruzak!” Thomas Kincaid shouted.

  “Now you know why I dropped out of nursing school,” Felicia said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  FELICIA TOOK THOMAS BACK TO HIS ROOM AND AFTER A long time, maybe an hour, came back with red eyes, like she’d been crying, and told Lacey she’d be back after she ran me back to the office. While she was with Tommy, Lacey and I sat on the sofa with the volume on the TV turned low, and it was a long hour, because Lacey was the kind of woman who didn’t like men in general, or maybe just me in particular.

  “He’s not right, you know,” she had said after Felicia left the room. “He’s got ‘developmental issues.’ A preemie—four pounds, six ounces when he was born. Doctors think the cord got wrapped around his neck in the womb or something like that, cutting off the oxygen to his brain.”

  “Who’s the father?” I asked.

  “Somebody Felicia met at the diner while she was working through school. He took off.”

  “Does he know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Well, did he take off when she got pregnant or after the baby was born?”

  “What’s that matter?”

  “I guess it doesn’t.”

  “Freddy was real good about it,” Lacey said, implying I was not. “Real understanding. Course, we were always willing to cover for her when something was going on with Tommy. She’s all he’s got, Ruzak.”

  No wonder she got so upset. Now either way things went, I had toppled the applecart. You never fully appreciate your effect on others. I was like a malevolent Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, screwing up the lives of everyone in my path.