by David Martin
“I’ll make some coffee.”
Watching his wife work at the counter Gray felt a strangely powerful impulse to pull out his 9mm and shoot her in the back of the head … then kill himself. Allowing this apocalyptic fantasy to run a course Gray suddenly realized why so many men end everything with a murder-suicide … killing someone, especially someone you love, requires you to take your own life, it’s what a man does when he can’t summon the courage to commit suicide, he forces his own hand. That’s what Paul Milton had been toying with, threatening to shoot his wife and Camel so that, seeing what he’d done, he would have no choice but to kill himself. Except Milton finally found the balls to do it on his own, without the motivation of murdering someone else first. Gray experienced a mixture of relief and regret when he finally put it out of his mind, the idea of shooting Linda in the back of the head.
He’d known all along of course that Milton’s death was a suicide, Gray had to charge Camel to keep him bottled up until McCleany could finish what they’d started at Cul-De-Sac seven years ago. Goddamn McCleany anyway … and goddamn me.
“Take just a minute to drip through,” Linda said as she sat again at the table. “You feel like talking about this now?”
No he would never feel like talking about it.
“Park?”
“What?”
“Is it something else, I mean beside the suspension?” She was thinking, he’s having an affair.
While her husband was thinking, the only way out of this if I don’t want more people to die … I’m going to have to kill myself and then go to hell.
30
“References to an elephant kept popping up,” Camel told Elizabeth Rockwell. “I questioned people but no one tipped to it. Not knowing what it was or what it referred to was starting to get under my skin. Now I know, that’s why I smiled.”
“You do have a passion for secrets, don’t you?”
He squinted another smile. “Tell me another one.”
“As I said, the East India white knight is a solid-gold elephant … approximately eight inches long and eight inches tall, trunk and right foot raised in triumph, the entire piece heavily decorated with various precious gems, diamonds and rubies and emeralds. I saw it many times in J.L.’s collection and could never decide whether it was beautiful or garish. But its monetary value was never in dispute.”
“Three million bucks.”
“That’s the value we settled on for insurance purposes. What it would be worth on the open market I don’t know … probably more.”
“Where is it?”
“The elephant was stolen.”
“By—”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you—”
“After Hope was murdered, J.L. never looked at his collection of chess sets again, I guess they reminded him too much of her. I was executrix of his will which was tied up in probate for a long time, all his possessions held by a security company. When we finally got around to doing a complete appraisal we discovered that the elephant, the real East India Chess Set white knight, had been replaced by a copy cast from brass, studded with false gems made of colored and cut glass. A pretty good copy if you didn’t examine it too closely.”
“Who pulled the switch?”
“Pulled the switch.” The phrase amused her. “We assumed someone connected with the security company, in fact we made a claim against that company’s insurance. J.L. left most of his estate to charity, there weren’t any greedy heirs to pursue the matter.”
“Growler stole the elephant before he went to prison.”
“So it seems. No one suspected Donald because the switch wasn’t discovered until last year, after he’d been in prison for six years. But when he was here last night he was very intent on finding that elephant.”
“Who’s got it?”
“I don’t know. Apparently Donald hid the real knight somewhere in Cul-De-Sac but while he was away someone found it and that has made Donald very, very angry. You see … is this starting to bore you?”
Camel assured her he remained fascinated with everything she was telling him.
Elizabeth smiled and touched her hair. “Obviously I’ve been giving this some thought since Donald’s visit. His best friend, his former best friend, is an artist … maybe Kenneth is a sculptor also.”
“Kenneth Norton?”
“Yes. If Donald and Kenneth, they were always up to something, if Kenneth sculpted a copy of the East India elephant … well don’t you see, Donald lived at Cul-De-Sac and had access to J.L.’s collection and could’ve easily made, pulled the switch. Maybe Donald and Kenneth were planning to leave the country, the white knight financing their life in Europe, Donald was always talking about living in Europe.”
“And the murder, its connection to—”
“Maybe Hope found out about the plot and threatened to tell J.L., although I think it’s vastly more likely that she was in on the scheme from the very beginning.”
“You didn’t like her.”
“I hated her.”
“But not enough to kill her?”
Murray didn’t warn Camel to watch his mouth because Murray had become bored with the conversation, was looking out a window, and failed to catch Camel’s implied accusation.
Elizabeth didn’t take offense either, it was too ludicrous. “No I didn’t kill Hope.”
Camel believed she was telling the truth.
“Until last night I was absolutely convinced Donald had killed her.”
“Until last night?”
“He was enraged. Prison has changed him from a weird and rather delicate young man with a taste for the macabre … he kept severed animal heads in his room … to a well-muscled violent psychopath who’s on a mission.”
“A mission?”
“Revenge upon everyone who helped send him to prison. He was most vociferous in proclaiming his innocence. Of course at the trial he claimed he was innocent too but last night for some strange reason I believed him.”
“Then who do you think killed Hope … J. L. Penner? You were saying before that he benefited by inheriting the girl’s share of Cul-De-Sac.”
“I could see J.L. arranging to frame Donald for the murder but no, J.L. didn’t kill her, he was in love with Hope. Donald was too. In fact I don’t think I can recall one man who was immune to Little Miss Hope Penner.”
“She had a lot of lovers?”
Elizabeth laughed. “A lot? She had legions. A ludicrous number of lovers for a girl so young Mr. Camel. She was … well I can’t think how to describe it forcefully enough without being crude. She was sexually active, promiscuous, perverted—”
“Perverted?”
“Do you know about the photographs?”
Camel knew only that Parker Gray had asked if photographs were found at Cul-De-Sac.
“Mr. Camel?”
“No I don’t know about the photographs.”
“We’d better have more coffee … Murray how’s your Ovaltine?”
“I’m bored.”
“I know you are darling, why don’t you go upstairs and—”
“How long you going to be?”
“Mr. Camel and I are going to drink one more cup of coffee each, then we’ll be done with our chat.”
“Caffeine’ll kill you.”
“I know dear, but so very many things will.”
“I’ll wait for you upstairs … you okay here with him?”
“Yes darling, Mr. Camel means me no harm.”
“Better not,” Murray warned before bear-walking from the kitchen.
She watched his departure with obvious fondness, telling Camel, “He’s such a dear … fun to be with, loyal, totally faithful—”
“Yeah I had a dog like that once.”
Elizabeth started to protest the remark but laughed instead, laughed hard enough to wet her eyes … then looked at Camel and said, “Oddly enough I actually enjoy your company.”
“You’re okay too Beth.”
She considered him for a moment then poured the coffee. “As with everything else Hope did, she was an accomplished photographer … won several awards, displayed in local galleries, I mean the girl really was too good to be true. Built her own darkroom, did her own developing. After her death it was discovered Hope had set up a secret camera in a room where she entertained her many lovers … the room where she was killed. Hope hid the camera up on the ceiling, pointed down at a mattress on the floor, rigged to snap pictures at certain intervals. Mr. Camel you can’t imagine what a collection of photographs she must’ve had … riding instructors, soldiers, policemen, actually anyone in uniform, UPS men I’m sure, various samplings of Cul-De-Sac’s political VIPs … J.L. was active in the Republican party … oh, Hope’s list of conquests goes on and on, local boys, gardeners, visiting TV repairmen, a cousin, maybe an uncle, men she met in bars and dragged back to Cul-De-Sac.”
“Did you see the photographs?”
“No.”
“Then how do you—”
“I’m speculating. The apparatus for taking those photographs was discovered during the murder investigation but the police never found any pictures. At his trial Donald was adamant that the photographs would establish his innocence.”
“Because—”
“I suppose he thought one of her lovers killed her or maybe he was hoping the murder itself had been caught on film.”
“Elizabeth … do you know where the pictures are?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “Just before J.L. died he mentioned Hope’s photographs. Maybe he had them from the very beginning, keeping them hidden to ensure Donald would go to prison and then holding on to them over the years because some very prominent men must’ve been caught on film with that seventeen-year-old girl and J.L. liked having leverage over people, especially people with influence.”
“And one of those influential men killed Hope.”
“Entirely possible.”
Camel finished the coffee, told Elizabeth he was grateful for the information.
“I’m just happy someone is investigating this, I find it incredible that Parker Gray—”
“Parker Gray?”
“Yes, he’s an associate superintendent with the state police.”
“I know but—”
“I find it incredible Parker hasn’t sent a detective to talk with me as he promised when I called him last night, God knows what Donald will do to Kenneth Norton or the Raineys … in fact he might have already done something, he made a veiled reference to having harmed them, you should go over and make sure they’re okay.”
“They’re next on my list to visit but why—”
“Good.”
“Why did you call Parker Gray—”
“The obvious person to call since Gerald McCleany is retired.”
“I still don’t—”
“Mr. Camel you should’ve come to me straight off, I could’ve put all your ducks in a neat little row.”
“You’re right, I wish I had talked to you—”
“Gerald McCleany was the state police detective in charge of investigating Hope’s death.”
“Okay, that I knew.”
“And young Parker Gray was his junior partner.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“I certainly hope not, Teddy.”
31
Donald Growler was naked, up on tiptoes, proudly displaying a massive dark blue tattoo spreading from his abdomen down to his groin and across both upper thighs. This tattoo, the horned grinning visage of Satan, was positioned such that the devil’s reptilian eyes were below Growler’s navel, the hooked nose above his pubic hair, that huge mouth stretching across Growler’s genitals and onto his thighs in a way that put Growler’s dick at the very center of Satan’s fat open lips.
Annie had been startled by Growler sneaking up behind her, now she was afraid of what he intended to do, rape her, but she also couldn’t stop looking at the tattoo … fascinated that someone would mutilate himself like that. She didn’t notice the other tattoos, the little broken heart on his right bicep or the Tasmanian Devil on his left shoulder.
“Old Scratch wants a kiss.”
Annie looked up from the tattoo to Growler’s own leering expression, dark eyes wide enough to show white all around, hair wet-sleek, big buck teeth in full grin … Growler’s face as terrible as the one below. Someone had bitten him on the right cheek.
“Should warn you though, he’s got a hell of a French kiss.”
Annie was still on her knees as Growler’s eyes switched back and forth from watching her to glancing down and admiring the tattoo himself.
“It must’ve hurt,” she finally said.
The comment bewildered him … and when he replied his voice had softened. “Hurt like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Why did you do it?”
He shrugged, the wildness in his face gone. “I thought it would ward off attention, some of them are incredibly superstitious … but it worked about as well as these stupid teeth I had put in.” When Growler came down off his toes he had assumed an air of vulnerability, you could hear the little boy in his voice. “Should’ve had Old Scratch tattooed on my ass is where I should’ve had him tattooed.”
“Prison must’ve been horrible for you.”
He nodded … then his posture stiffened and he got that hard look in his eyes again. “What do you know about me being in prison?”
“I just assumed it was a prison tattoo.”
Suspicious now, Growler circled Annie and saw what she had taken from the chest, had unwrapped from the sheepskin. “You bitch I knew you had my elephant!” But he was more thrilled than angry, bending down to take the gold-and-jeweled elephant in his hands, turning it around and around as a mother might examine and admire her newborn child. Annie noticed he’d lost his erection.
“I found it in the chimney,” she explained.
“That’s why your face is so dirty,” Growler said absently, his attention riveted to the elephant. “I’m as happy as …” But he was unable to think of equivalents for happy, all of his experience these past seven years had been in the opposite direction.
Meanwhile Annie was looking at her hands black with soot, trying to imagine what her face was like.
When Growler finally stopped admiring the elephant he told her, “I knew St. Paul stole this but give the bastard credit, he held out on me no matter what I did to him … and I did everything.”
“He’s dead.”
“Paul?”
“My husband is dead, yes.”
Growler laughed. “You greedy bitch, you killed St. Paulie for this elephant, Jesus what a pair you two turned out to be.”
“No he shot himself.”
“Why?”
Because he caught me with Teddy, Annie thought … but she told Growler it was because of him. “Paul went crazy from being here with you, from whatever it was you did to him.”
Growler laughed again. “Good. He was supposed to be my partner, I’d already agreed to give him a cut of whatever the elephant brought, but your husband turned out to be greedy like you. I had this elephant hid in an old dumbwaiter shaft that was sealed up, St. Paulie must’ve got in from the basement, climbed the shaft like the rat he was. Did all this before I arrived here from prison, then when we opened the shaft on the second floor, where I stashed the elephant originally, it was gone and St. Paul was all innocent-like, actually had the balls to accuse me of lying, he said I made up the elephant story just so he’d get me out of prison. ‘No, no,’ I told him, ‘there really is an elephant, someone stole it while I was in prison.’ I promised him I’d find out who but of course it was St. Paul all along, he lied to me and I believed him like he was a man of God. Have to admire the bastard … I wish I’d killed him when I had the chance.”
“Paul was a good—”
“Your husband was a rat bastard, supposed to be religious, turned out to be a lying thief instead … hiding my elephant in the chim
ney so you could come here and—”
“I didn’t know anything about this!”
He kicked her shoulder with a bare foot. “How can you people lie the way you do, I catch you with the elephant and you still lie—”
“No!” Annie was desperate to explain. “Before Paul shot himself he said something about the chimney in this room but he didn’t specifically tell me what was hidden there, never told me about his partnership with you … he denied you even existed.”
Growler cursed her, again calling Annie a liar … when she started to stand he told her to stay on her knees. “Just the position I want you in.” He returned to admiring the elephant. “Solid gold, baby. And some of these diamonds are worth a hundred thousand dollars just on their own. I got a buyer lined up in England, three million, no questions asked.”
Annie looked again at the elephant … three million dollars, she had held three million dollars in her hands? Even with the danger she faced, Annie felt a sudden and powerful sense of possessiveness toward the golden sculpture. Paul had died to get it for her. It should be mine, she thought … it should be mine.
“Part of a set from India,” Growler was saying. “I don’t know if anyone ever played chess with it, obviously meant for display, everything oversized … all the white pieces were solid gold, this elephant is one of the knights.”
“How did you and Paul get connected?”
“Through Our Brothers’ Keepers. I couldn’t get anybody to sponsor me for parole until I told Paul what was hidden here in Cul-De-Sac. This elephant came from my uncle’s collection, a friend of mine cast a brass replica and I switched them, hid the real one … but then Hope was killed and I got framed—” Growler suddenly glowered at Annie. “Why you stringing me along, St. Paul must’ve told you all this.”
“No I swear—”
“Doesn’t matter, I got it, I got it now! And I’ve taken care of everybody but Elizabeth … and you.”
“I won’t say anything to anyone.”
He carried the elephant over to the tool shelves and carefully placed it between a circular saw and an electric sander, then returned to Annie and told her, “I drove your husband in-fucking-sane.” Laughing at a memory he began stroking himself. “I was in the tub when St. Paul walks into the bathroom, he hadn’t seen my tattoo yet. St. Paulie’s eyes got big as saucers when he spotted Old Scratch here floating just below the surface … freaked him out of his fucking gourd. I went with it, told him I was Satan, said I’d been imprisoned by the forces of good but his own greed for gold had freed me to roam the world once again, doing evil. I spread it on so thick I had a tough time keeping a straight face. But St. Paulie lapped it up. I think he was a little wobbly to start with don’t you?”
