Dead Man Talking

by Casey Daniels

  He turned on his right side and propped his head on one hand. “Sure, right after you explain what’s so special about Bad Dog Raphael. And while you’re at it, you might want to tell me how you know he’s an ex-con.”

  Just in case Quinn was good at reading through lies—and since it was what he did for a living, I would bet on it—I flopped back against my pillow again. “I’m not interested. Not in Bad Dog.”

  “Then you must be buying a car.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And buying a car is more important than—”

  “Of course not!” I gave my pillow a punch to emphasize my point. “I just thought if I was looking for information . . . about cars . . . you know . . . that somebody like Bad Dog might be able to help me, and—”

  “No way. You’re not going anywhere near that guy.”

  Quinn isn’t the caveman type, so I wasn’t prepared for what sounded too much like an ultimatum. “Why not?” I asked, meeting challenge for challenge. “Bad Dog says he’s got reliable transportation and good cars for good prices. He must know what he’s talking about. He’s got all those commercials.”

  “And as you’ve already pointed out, he’s got a record.”

  “Which doesn’t automatically make him a bad guy. There are some people who believe that criminals can be rehabilitated, you know. Even ones who’ve been in prison.”

  Quinn’s laugh fell right in the middle of the I-can’t-believe-how-stupid-you-are meter. “You’re naive.”

  “You’re judgmental.”

  He sat up and shoved a curl of inky hair off his forehead. “So now we’re going to fight about some scumbag of an ex-con? That’s just crazy.”

  “For one thing, we’re not fighting. For another, what’s

  “A guy like that can’t tell you anything about anything, and if you were as smart as you pretend to be, you wouldn’t even think he could.”

  “So now you’re saying I’m not smart.” That was enough to give me all the excuse I needed to slide out of bed. It was a hot, sticky night, but my emerald green satin wrap was nearby, and I slipped it on. “Maybe Mack Raphael is a bad guy. Guess what? I don’t care. Not really. But I don’t have to sit here and listen to you tell me who I can and can’t talk to. And I don’t have to put up with you telling me I’m stupid, either.”

  “Raphael is a bad guy. Don’t you get it?” I noticed that Quinn concentrated on that part of our discussion and completely ignored the part about how smart I was—or wasn’t. “We’re certain he’s dealing drugs out of that car dealership of his, but nobody can prove it, and we can’t pin anything on him, and it’s driving everybody on the force nuts because if we could, we might be able to get the shit he sells off the street.”

  It was as impassioned as I’d ever seen Quinn (well, as impassioned as I’d ever seen him about his job), and in spite of my anger, I felt a stab of admiration. Did I regret bringing up Raphael’s name? Not a chance! In fact, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to ease back into the subject.

  One leg tucked under me, I sat back down on the bed. “I didn’t know that,” I admitted. “He sounds pretty bad. Like the kind of guy who might murder somebody.”

  Quinn sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, reached for his boxers, and tugged them on. “It’s obvious you’ve got other things on your mind. Other than me, I mean. Maybe we’ll just chalk this one up to a night that wasn’t meant to be.”

  What was more important to me, the sex or the information?

  At that point, I wasn’t sure, I only knew I saw the chance for both slipping away. I rounded the bed so I could stand closer to Quinn. “You’re jumping to conclusions,” I said, then scrambled to make that sound a little less argumentative because, of course, he was jumping to conclusions, and he didn’t look happy when I pointed it out. “I’m just expressing ordinary curiosity, that’s all. I just wondered if a guy who’s as scummy as Bad Dog might be the kind of guy who would kill somebody, and then, you know, then maybe he’d pin the murder on someone else.”

  Quinn’s gaze snapped to my dresser where I’d left the thick file that contained the original notes regarding the Jefferson Lamar case. He’d given it to me at dinner that night, and I hadn’t had time to look through it yet. Apparently, though, Quinn had.

  “Raphael had nothing to do with what happened to Jefferson Lamar,” he said. “I don’t know why you’d even think that. Raphael’s name isn’t even mentioned in the file.”

  “Which doesn’t mean—”

  “It means plenty.” When he’d taken his pants off, he’d draped them over a chair, and he put them back on and zipped them, then did up his belt. “Jefferson Lamar was convicted back in 1985. Raphael was no more than a punk kid then.”

  “Punk kids have been known to kill people.”

  “All too true.” Quinn slipped into his shirt. “But I just happened to be talking to one of my buddies from the Narcotic’s Unit today. He mentioned Raphael. We talked about the guy and what’s going on at that used-car lot of his. I’m familiar with his background, Pepper. If Raphael killed Vera Blaine, he would have had to be a Houdini. He was locked up at Central State at the time. Satisfied now?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the Lamar case or the fact that now that he was dressed, it was obvious our night was going to end early, and not on the note either of us had expected. When Quinn walked out of my bedroom, I followed him. As long as I’d already killed the mood, I might as well go for broke.

  “Raphael could have arranged for someone else to kill Vera Blaine for him,” I told Quinn once we were out in the living room. “You know, a hit. Or a contract killing. Or whatever it is they call it on TV. And you did say Central State, right? That’s the prison where Jefferson Lamar was the warden.”

  He was just about to grab his shoulder holster and sling it on when he stopped cold. “Are you even listening to yourself?” he asked, and the look he gave me was so steely, I nearly backed down. Nearly. “You can’t get mixed up with a guy like Mack Raphael just because you’re trying to get information for some silly TV contest. If you think you can, you’re crazy.”

  “I’m not getting mixed up with him. I’m not getting mixed up with anybody. I’m just looking for information, and if Raphael can give it to me—”

  “Even if Mack Raphael could give you every bit of information you’ve ever wanted and if he served it up on a silver platter, I’d still say the same thing. Don’t talk to him. In fact, while I’m trying to talk some sense into

  “Why, because he’s a good-looking guy?”

  Quinn’s jaw tensed. “How about because he’s a hardened criminal?”

  “But if he knows something about how Vera Blaine died—”

  “If he does or if he doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. Number one, because it’s none of your business. And number two, because you’re never going to find out, anyway.”

  “Because you think I’m not smart enough.”

  “Because I know people who cross Mack Raphael tend to end up dead.”

  “Oh.” Reality check. I chewed on my bottom lip, wondering how I could find out more and not set Quinn off again. He didn’t give me a chance. Instead, he walked to the door and pulled it open.

  Before he stepped out into the hallway, he turned to me. “Mind your own business,” he said.

  “This is my business. Sort of.”

  His hand still on the doorknob, he gave me one last chance to come clean. “Level with me.”

  Only I couldn’t, could I?

  I was still trying to find the words to explain when Quinn walked away.

  9

  My love life was a mess, but when it came to my professional life—and by this, I don’t mean my work in the cemetery—I was in luck. The detective who headed the original murder investigation was a stickler for detail and incredibly organized. The file Quinn gave me before he stomped out of my apartment (OK, he didn’t exactly stomp, but it wasn’t exactly pretty, either) contained not only his origi
nal notes about the case, but interviews with witnesses and suspects, crime scene photos, the autopsy report, and what must have been every newspaper article ever written about Jefferson Lamar and Vera Blaine.

  I took the file marked BLAINE, VERA—CLOSED to the cemetery with me the next day. Surprise, surprise . . . I don’t know how he managed, but Absalom had somehow a) intimidated, b) coerced, c) outright threatened, or d) all of the above, everyone on the team to actually

  “Body of Woman Found in Local Motel”

  “Prison Warden Questioned in Slaying of Young Secretary”

  “Surprising Arrest in Vera Blaine Case”

  “A Business Relationship Turned Tragic?”

  “Warden’s Testimony Shaky, Evidence Solid”

  The headlines screamed at me from article after article, bolder and more sensational as the trial went on.

  “Guilty!” the headline on one of the last articles in the pile shouted. “Love Nest Turned Murder Scene” said another, right above a photo of the Lake View Motel, a not-so-charming-looking place with a half-burned-out neon sign and a blacktop parking lot.

  “I didn’t stand a chance.”

  For the record, I did not squeal when I realized Jefferson Lamar was standing right in back of me, reading over my shoulder. I did, however, flinch. Like anyone could blame me?

  I turned and gave him a glare. “Maybe they wouldn’t have been so quick to convict you if you weren’t so sneaky.”

  He didn’t get it.

  It wasn’t worth trying to explain.

  Instead, I fanned out the newspaper articles. “There’s an awful lot here that sounds damning,” I said.

  “Obviously. They convicted me.”

  “Maybe they had good reason?” It wasn’t the first time I’d given him the opportunity to tell the whole truth and nothing but. This time, like the last, he stood firm.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said, each of his words precise and clipped so I couldn’t help but understand.

  “Your testimony was shaky.” Just in case he’d forgotten, I waved the newspaper article with the headline that said the same thing. “You didn’t have much of an alibi.”

  “I was in Cleveland, I’ll admit that much. I was visiting my folks. Helen went out that evening. By the time I got home, she was in bed, asleep.”

  “You changed your story a couple times when they questioned you about Vera. First you said you’d cut your finger the morning she died. In your office. You said she helped you bandage it. Then when the prosecutor questioned you . . .” I consulted the article again, just to make sure I had my facts lined up right. “You said it was in the afternoon, after lunch.”

  “Morning? Lunchtime? What difference did something as stupid as a cut on my hand make in light of what happened to Vera? I got mixed up. I was nervous.”

  “Just like you were nervous when they asked about those motel receipts?” That was in another article. I read it over again. “It says here the police found four receipts from the Lake View Motel in your office. All from dates when you happened to be conveniently out of the office at Central State.”

  “And none of them had my name on them.” Lamar gave me the kind of tight-jawed, unblinking glare I imagined he’d aimed at the prosecutor when he asked the same sorts of questions. “If they were mine, why would I be stupid enough to keep them? In my office, no less. Obviously, somebody planted them.”

  “But you could never prove that. Just like you couldn’t prove that you didn’t kill Vera.”

  “Somebody else did and pinned it on me.”

  Which reminded me of the talk I’d had with Darcy Coleman a couple days earlier. “Could it have been Mack Raphael?” I asked.

  “You found out about him, huh?” Lamar looked me over and nodded, obviously impressed with my detective skills. It was about damn time. “I wondered how long it would take you to dig up that little piece of information. So, you talked to somebody about the case and that somebody . . . does that somebody think Bad Dog is the one who framed me?”

  “That somebody is your old secretary, Darcy Coleman,” I informed him. “And she didn’t come right out and say it, but yeah, I think she’d like nothing better than to find out that Bad Dog is the one who engineered the whole thing. Bad Dog or somebody else. Anybody else, in fact. When you were convicted, she felt betrayed.”

  His expression softened. “She was a good kid. Smart, too. I mean, obviously, you saw that. She must be smart if she realized I didn’t do it.”

  Was that a dig because I wasn’t willing to take him at his word? Just in case, I figured I’d better point out that he wasn’t the only one with issues about how the case was being handled. “You could have saved me a lot of time if you’d just told me about Bad Dog yourself.” I didn’t bother to add that he also would have saved me the psychological damage of seeing Darcy and her cronies (get it?) in their birthday suits. “You never mentioned Reno Bob, either.”

  “You needed independent verification. If I gave you the names of the most obvious suspects, there was no reason for you to listen. I’m biased, after all. This way,

  Since it happened after Lamar was already dead, I filled him in on Rodney’s conversion and subsequent confession. “You want to help me out here and tell me if there’s anybody else we’re missing?”

  “Hundreds of people, I suppose. Aren’t the suspect interviews in the file?”

  They were, and together, Lamar and I read them over. Quinn was right, Mack Raphael had never even been mentioned. Neither had Reno Bob Oates.

  “They were both incarcerated at the time,” Lamar said. “Of course the police didn’t suspect them.”

  “And you did?” I shook my head in wonder. “Call me a little crazy, but it’s hard to figure out how a guy in prison could kill anybody.”

  “You’ve never been in a prison.” He turned that eagle-eye stare on me one more time before we got back to reading.

  The rest of the interview file wasn’t all that helpful. The cops had talked to a few other people in connection with the case. For one reason or another, they were all eliminated as suspects.

  With a sigh of frustration, I shoved the interview pages back in the file and pulled out the crime scene photos.

  Sure, I’m a private investigator. And sure, I’ve solved a bunch of murders in the time since I’d been bonked on the head and received what my ghostly clients like to call my Gift. But here’s the thing: when I meet my clients, they’re already dead, and because they’re ghosts, they look just like they looked when they were alive. They’re the age they were when they died, and they’re wearing the kinds of clothes they wore when they were alive. Even my

  Thank goodness.

  That was all good news because I tend to get queasy at the sight of blood and gore. I’m not a big fan of violence, either. I mean, I’d been shot, right? So I had every right to be skittish when it came to that sort of thing. I’d also been almost pitched off a bridge, too, and I’d been dumped in the lake, and—

  Well, let’s just leave it at that, a reminder that a private detective’s life is not an easy one.

  Let’s also say that I’m not used to this sort of up-close-and-personal look at the aftermath of a crime.

  There were maybe a dozen or so crime scene photos, eight-by-tens, all black and white. For a couple minutes, I shuffled through them, briefly glancing at the one on the top of the pile before I put it on the bottom and moved on to the next. At that point, I wasn’t looking at details. In fact, I was hardly looking at all. I was just trying to get an overall impression, a sense of the time and the place. While I was at it, I hoped maybe I’d get desensitized to the horror of it all, too.

  The pictures, see, made my blood run cold.

  I got back to the first photo and started through again, forcing myself to slow down and take a longer look. The first picture was an overall shot of the motel, similar to the photo I’d seen in the newspaper article. The next one was a close-up of the door to room 12. The next picture took my b
reath away. Not because it showed Vera’s body. In fact, I had to search to even find it, crumpled where it was on the floor between the dresser and the bed.

  No, that wasn’t what caught my attention.

  Neither was the fact that the Lake View looked like a

  What caught my attention and made my stomach flip was the obvious ferocity of what had happened in that room.

  One of the lamps was smashed to smithereens, shards of it sparkling from the threadbare carpet and its shade crushed and lying on the bed. The dresser was bumped away from its normal spot against the wall, at least three feet from where it should have been. I could tell because the fine folks at the Lake View hadn’t moved the furniture the last time the room was painted. The wall behind where the dresser normally stood was a couple shades darker than the rest of the wall around it. The mirror that should have hung over the dresser was shattered in a million spiderweb pieces. The sheets on the bed were thrown back and twisted, and I’d bet any money that if I was looking at a color photo, that splatter of polka dots across them would have been bloodred.

  “Wow.” I blinked away the tears that sprang to my eyes and tried not to think about the horror of what must have happened in that room. “The place is a wreck. There must have been an awful lot of noise. You’d think someone would have called the cops.”

  “They probably did after they heard the shots,” Lamar said. “Before that . . . that’s the kind of place where everyone minds their own business. You know, a sleazy sort of place with pink flamingoes on the bathroom wallpaper.” He leaned closer for a better look, and I leaned back to be certain to stay out of the freeze zone. “I saw the pictures only briefly when the police interrogated me and then again at the trial. Poor kid.” His finger hovered over the image of Vera. “It must have been terrible for her.”

  I needed a break from the photographs, so I consulted the autopsy report. “It says here she was beaten before she was shot. I guess that would explain the condition of the room.” The list of contusions, abrasions, and broken bones was staggering (not to mention stomach churning), so I let my gaze drift to the last line of the report. “She was finally killed with a .38 Smith & Wesson Special.”