The Last Man to Die (The Micah Dunn Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  Carol came to the phone then.

  “Has anybody checked on Sam?”

  I repeated the question.

  “I called a half-hour ago,” Mancuso said. “He’s still there but he ain’t happy. I sent a man around yesterday to tell him you were being kept safe, out of town, until this blows over. I’ve also got a man on his door. But now he’s saying he ought to be in the protected witness program, set up with a new name and job, and probably a new woman. What a shithead.”

  “Sam’s all right,” I told Carol.

  When I hung up she shook her head.

  “He’s being an asshole again, isn’t he? I can always tell.”

  I didn’t tell her about the protected-witness request.

  “He’s being an asshole,” I said.

  It was almost four when Sandy got back and told us she had found Idola Marsh.

  CHAPTER 18

  “The library?” I asked.

  “The Milton Latter Library on St. Charles.” She smirked, pouring herself a martini from the pitcher in the refrigerator. “I tried a bunch of others first, but no go. Finally I tried there, and they knew her.”

  “She has a library card,” I said.

  “That’s right. I figured one thing an elderly woman might do is read books. I was right.”

  “You’re a genius. But how did you get them to give you the address?”

  “I said I was her maid and she sent me to pay library fines. The librarian knew her right off. She said, ‘Miss Marsh doesn’t owe any library fines. She brings the books back on time every Thursday.’ I asked her if this was the Miss Marsh who lived on Napoleon, because sometimes she got mail for somebody else with that name. She said it was the Miss Marsh who lived in the Montefiori Apartments on St. Charles, two blocks from here, and read romance novels. So I thanked her and went over there.”

  “You sure have to lie a lot in this business,” Carol observed, sitting cross-legged on the sofa.

  Sandy shot her a look from the corner of her eye.

  “Go on,” I said. “Did you meet her?”

  “I met her.” Sandy grimaced. “Nice old lady, but it was like going into a museum. She still lives back then, Micah. She hasn’t left it. She lives back there with Max and Herb and Chep Morrison and all those cats who were young men when the war ended. She doesn’t even have a television. She’s got one of those old cathedral radios. There are even doilies on the chairs. It gives me the willies.”

  “Creepy,” Carol said. “I had a great-aunt like that.”

  Finally I had to ask the question: “Was she willing to talk?”

  Sandy sighed. “It was touch and go. She wanted to know where I was from, and why I was asking all this about Max and Herbie. You’d have thought they were her sons. When I showed her my P.I. card she wanted to know why I was interested.”

  “And?”

  “I just said some things had come up in connection with another investigation. I didn’t know whether to tell her about Max being found or not. I don’t think the woman’s playing with a full deck. She kept saying ‘Max is …’ and ‘Max says …’ like she doesn’t realize he’s dead.”

  “Did you try the names on her?”

  “Didn’t get to. Wrong color.” She tapped her cheek. “She couldn’t believe I wasn’t working for some white guy. So I told her the truth: I was.”

  I felt a pang. It was true, and Sandy had never complained, but the very fact that people made the assumption made me quietly angry at the system and the way of life that perpetuated it.

  “She wanted to talk to me,” I said quietly.

  “You got it.”

  I bit my lip.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I couldn’t tell her you were dead, could I? I said I’d talk to my massa and get back to her.”

  “Shit,” I said. “Well, being dead didn’t last long.”

  “I could always try to bring her somewhere and the two of you could sit down.”

  “I doubt she’d go,” I said. “I’ll just have to go there after dark. I doubt anybody else has located her and if she doesn’t even have a TV, she won’t know who I am and that I’m supposed to be dead.”

  “I guess.” Sandy shrugged. “Anyway, I know better than to try to stop you.”

  I waited until dark and then took Sandy’s car to the Montefiori Apartments. They’d been built in the last century for an expatriate Italian count, who brought over his own marble and workmen. They had languished in the twenties, been almost demolished in the thirties, and then risen again after the war when an enterprising heir had subdivided them. It wasn’t cheap to live there, but there was security and even a measure of elegance. I wondered, off the top of my head, what kind of money Miss Idola Marsh had.

  I parked on the boulevard, across from the streetcar line, and walked up the door, where a bored guard watched me with folded arms. I’d thought about calling first, but it didn’t seem like the best idea, in case there was some kind of leak in security. And I figured an older woman without a car would probably be at home.

  Keeping my left side turned away, I gave the watchman one of my insurance cards and told him I needed to see Miss Marsh. He buzzed her and waited. When she spoke through the intercom I heard a tremulous voice that seemed to carry a note of alarm.

  “A Mr. who?”

  “Tell her she spoke to my associate earlier—Miss Gibson.”

  He repeated the message.

  “I don’t know any Miss Gibson,” the voice said.

  The guard shrugged.

  “Tell her, the black woman who was here to see her.”

  The guard spoke into the mouthpiece.

  “Oh, the colored girl. Yes.”

  There was a silence. Then: “Well, you can let him in.”

  The watchman shook his head and pointed to his temple.

  “Bats,” he said.

  I passed through the big glass door and into a marble lobby decorated with potted rubber trees.

  “Number 225,” the watchman called after me. “Good luck.”

  I stepped into an ancient elevator that smelled vaguely of cigars.

  Idola Marsh, what did you inherit that you can live here?

  I got out on the second floor. From somewhere down the hall I could hear a television playing, and someone laughed gently. I made my way past two doors and came to number 225.

  For a long time I stood there, trying to get my thoughts in order. If the old lady was on the fringe, then it would be touch and go and I had to play it right. In such cases, though, I knew that all the planning in the world couldn’t substitute for instinct. I pressed the buzzer and waited.

  There was movement behind the door and I knew I was being observed through the peephole. I made sure to look down, which is the least threatening gesture you can make. The chain rattled and then I heard the lock turn.

  The door opened slowly; through the crack I glimpsed a pair of gray eyes.

  “Yes?” The voice was brittle, and I caught sight of a thin, clawlike hand on the doorframe.

  “Miss Marsh, you spoke to Miss Gibson earlier today, about Max Chantry.”

  The door swung wider. “Max? Yes. I remember. Have you seen him?”

  I evaded the question: “I was hoping you could help me with that,” I told her.

  “Well, he went out. I don’t know when he’ll be back. Maybe you’d like to talk to Mr. Levinthal?”

  The name caught me by surprise, and then I realized she was talking about Herb Senior.

  “Is he in?”

  She looked momentarily confused. “Well, no, he’s not here, either. Maybe I can help you.”

  “I’d like that. May I come in?”

  “Yes. Of course.” The door swung open the rest of the way and I stepped into the living room. It was as Sandy had described, a set piece from forty years ago, with furniture that had not been new then.

  “Won’t you sit down?” she asked. “I was making some tea.”

  “Thank you.”r />
  I relaxed on the sofa while she disappeared into the back. There was a print of a Bavarian castle on one wall, and on another the photograph of a building in downtown New Orleans. When I looked closely I realized it was the structure at the corner of Natchez and Camp where the law office had been, but the photo had been taken when the law office was there. I made a quick inventory of the room while she was gone: a collection of romances and a Bible on a shelf against one wall, a set of small ceramic animals on another shelf across the room, a framed certificate that turned out to be a notary’s commission from 1950. And on one shelf, carefully sandwiched between some magazines and a selection of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, were some scrapbooks.

  I was still staring at them when she returned with a tray and two cups.

  “It’s so nice to have a visitor,” she said. “The boys leave me alone so often. Did you need something notarized or was this business with one of them?”

  “Actually, I’m doing a story,” I lied. “I thought maybe you could give me some background information.”

  “Of course. Would you like a praline? I make my own, you know.”

  I took one of the cups. “No, thank you. The tea will be fine.”

  “Can I give you some sugar? Is your arm hurt?”

  “It’s a problem I have,” I said, resting the cup on the floor and then taking a small packet of sugar. I split the edge of the envelope with my right thumb and dumped the white powder into the hot liquid. Then, as she watched, I dropped the crumpled envelope on the tray, took one of the spoons and stirred.

  “I wonder what you can tell me about Mr. Chantry.”

  “Mr. Chantry?” She smiled. “Well, there’s no doubt he’ll be our next district attorney. He’s that kind of person. Determined. His family was very poor, you know, but he worked his way through law school and he was a wounded war hero.”

  “I understand an attempt was made on his life.”

  Her hand twisted a paper napkin. “Yes. That was unfortunate.” Her face brightened again. “But it didn’t stop him. He just kept on. Nothing can stop Max.”

  “You must be very important to him.”

  “I do my part. There are others, too. Herbert, and the members of the committee. And there’s been support from Mr. Morrison. There are honest people in this city. And they’ll have their day.”

  “Does he get support from his family, too? Lydia?”

  She stared at me, her smile going slightly wooden.

  “He has a beautiful wife. But she’s not political.”

  I got up and walked toward the shelf with the scrapbooks.

  “Are these yours?”

  “Yes.” She managed a laugh. “Everything in this apartment is mine.”

  “May I?” I lifted out one of the scrapbooks.

  “What are you doing?”

  The cover said “1945–1946.” She put down her teacup and made her way over to where I stood.

  “Does this have Max in it?” I asked.

  “Max? Why, yes.” She helped me open it and leafed through pages filled with faces I didn’t recognize.

  “Here.”

  I stared down at a trio of army officers, posing in front of a jumble of rubble, their arms around one another’s shoulders.

  “That’s Max, in the middle, with his friends, right after they crossed into Germany. It was right before Max was wounded. It was the last week of the war, you know.”

  For a long time I stared at the face of the dead man. There was something that wasn’t right, I told myself, and then I saw what it was. The eyes didn’t go with the smile. The smile was too lopsided, like something he had put on, a mask.

  I thought about ’Nam and the pictures people had taken of me and I wondered about my own smile. Sometimes, after hell, it takes a while to get it all back. And sometimes you never do.

  I leafed through to the next page and saw a frowning man with rimless glasses seated behind a desk. The man looked familiar but I couldn’t place him.

  “That’s Herb, Max’s partner,” she said, smiling. I looked back down at the photo and realized I was seeing the younger Levinthal. She flipped the page.

  “Here are Max and his wife.”

  She was leaning against him, smiling, her neck draped with cheap beads, and there were crowd faces in the background, mingling with devils and clowns. Herb Levinthal was on the other side of Lydia Chantry, wrapped in a long coat, a grin on his face. I looked at Max’s face but it was too far away for me to say anything about the eyes this time.

  The scribbled caption read “Mardi Gras 1946.” I wondered if Herb’s wife had taken the picture.

  Then I opened a page and some clippings fell out. I held one up to the light.

  MAN INNOCENT IN KILLING, the headline said.

  It was Max’s first case, the one that had set him against the machine.

  “May I borrow these?” I asked.

  “If you bring them back. I meant to put them into the book. I wonder why I didn’t? Oh, well …”

  I flipped through the rest but there was nothing of interest: mostly postcards of other cities from what I took to be friends and family members; a card with the picture of a motor court and the caption “Where Max and Lydia stayed on their honeymoon,” and, finally, a short clipping about Idola’s being elected to some position in a group for legal secretaries.

  I replaced the book on the shelf.

  “Are the rest of these the same sort of thing?” I asked.

  “Yes. Just old photographs, clippings. Would you like some more tea? You’ve hardly touched yours.”

  I reached for the volume that said “1948.”

  “Really, there’s nothing there,” she said, reaching, but I already had the book open.

  There were some clippings about the reform movement Max led.

  “I’ll bet you know a lot of people,” I said, as her eyes went back and forth from me to the book and back to me. “Do you know Francis LaMatta, with the clerk of court’s office?”

  “No.”

  “How about a man named Fortier—a deputy assessor?”

  “No. I don’t know him.”

  I named the other names and each time got a tight little shake of the head.

  “Max never mentioned them to you?”

  “I don’t pry into my employer’s affairs. I’m really not feeling very well, Mr.…“

  I turned more of the pages.

  “There was a bomb explosion. Do you remember it?”

  “No. I’m really quite ill.” There was a note of hysteria in her voice.

  I came to the same news photograph I had seen before: the burned-out car.

  “Herb Levinthal was killed,” I said. “What did Max say about that afterward? Who did he say did it?”

  “No. Herb isn’t dead. You have it all wrong. You really have to leave.…”

  The rest of the pages of the album were blank and I reached for the next book, the one from 1949, the year of Max’s death.

  “Max disappeared,” I said. “He left the office one evening and never got home. Someone called his wife, somebody with an Italian accent.”

  “No. That simply isn’t true.…”

  “What can you remember about that day?” I took a step toward her, suddenly unable to control myself. “You have to tell me what you know.”

  “I don’t know anything. You have to leave or I’ll call the police. I told her everything I know.”

  “You didn’t tell Sandy anything. You promised to tell me. So tell me about what’s in this book.”

  I flipped open the album to a random page. It was a news clipping of Max on the way to some hearing, flanked by a couple of police guards. My eyes went to his right leg. Was he leaning slightly, favoring his right side?.

  “Was this while he was running for D.A.?” I asked. “Tell me, did he ever have a chance? Did Herb think he could win?”

  “Yes. No. Leave me alone!” Her voice was a near-screech now, and I realized I’d gotten all I was going to
get. Suddenly I felt very weary.

  “All right. I’m sorry I bothered you.” I closed the book and replaced it on the shelf.

  “I really am sorry,” I said.

  She frowned, then took a step toward me. I realized she was headed for the phone on the little table. I pulled open the front door. The last thing I needed was a charge of bothering an old lady.

  I was halfway out when her voice stopped me.

  “Wait!”

  I turned to face her. She was staring at my chest, where my coat flapped open.

  “Max, don’t leave. You don’t know what may happen. Max …”

  The plea hit me like both barrels of a shotgun. I stood, rooted, and then I saw the confusion in her face again.

  “You’re not Max. What are you doing here? Why did you tell me you were Max?”

  I gently pulled the big door closed and left.

  A thick depression settled over me during the ride back.

  I don’t like browbeating old ladies. But I wasn’t sure that was all that was bothering me. There was something about the photograph of Max in the last scrapbook.

  I didn’t want to feel sorry for him. No, it was something else.

  There was a Burger King on the corner ahead and I slowed and pulled into the lot. I went in and ordered a cup of coffee, then went to a booth and pulled out the clippings I had borrowed from Idola Marsh.

  Maybe there was an answer in Max Chantry’s first case.

  CHAPTER 19

  When I had arranged the clippings in order I began to read. It didn’t take long and when I was finished the story was clear enough:

  An Italian grocer named Carmelo Fallaci who owned a store in the Irish Channel had been arrested by the police for selling contaminated olive oil. Three people had died and several others had gotten sick. Fallaci, declaring his innocence, had gone to Max Chantry for help.

  It was probably, I told myself, because they were both from the Channel: Max was taking up for a neighbor, another underdog like himself.

  As a defense, Fallaci had impugned his supplier, claimed that he and others had been forced to buy from one distributor, Napoli Foods. Those who didn’t had bad things happen.

  On the stand, the owner of Napoli Foods, Alfonso Silvano, had sworn ignorance of the whole business and claimed his products were pure. Some retailers, he had heard, cut their oil with water and other substances, but that wasn’t his fault. As for extortion, he had no idea what Fallaci meant.