Fire Lake

by Jonathan Valin

  “Cal or Norvelle could have stolen the license from Lonnie on Friday night, when he visited their house,” she said, dropping the wet napkin on the table. “The bus ticket, too.”

  She was beginning to get the point, and, as I had expected, she didn’t like it.

  “Karen,” I said. “Lonnie was a liability to them. Once Norvelle and Cal decided to kill Claude, they couldn’t afford to have Lonnie running around loose—a three-time loser wanted by the police. Lonnie would have talked if he was busted. He would have given them up, and unlike LeRoi, the cops would have listened to his story. They had to get rid of him, leaving the cops looking for a guy who...wasn’t there anymore.”

  “They took him to a friend in the country,” Karen said flatly, as if she hadn’t heard a thing I’d said. Her square jaw was set, and her pale blue eyes looked harder than I’d ever seen them look, as if they were made of gemstone.

  “There was no ‘friend in the country,’” I said.

  “Leanne lives in the country!” Karen almost shouted. Her face turned red and she glanced quickly around the restaurant—to see if anyone had overheard her. “She has a farm,” she said in a lower but no less steely voice.

  “Why would they take him to Leanne’s farm?” I said.

  “Like I told you, she could have been the one who gave Lonnie the two grand. They took him to see her. That’s where he wanted to go.”

  What Thelma had said did tend to confirm Karen’s hunch. But if I was right, whether Leanne had given Lonnie the two grand or not was beside the point. Once Norvelle and Cal had decided to kill Claude Jenkins and to set Lonnie up for the murder, it made no difference where Lonnie had wanted to go on Friday night. They had another destination in mind. I said, “Karen, why would Norvelle and Cal have taken Lonnie anywhere? Why wouldn’t they have—”

  Karen held up her right hand. “I don’t want to hear it, Harry,” she said, shaking her head solemnly. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Not wanting to hear it isn’t going to change things,” I told her. “Without the crack, without Lonnie...we have no reason not to go to the cops.”

  “What about Jordan?” she said slyly.

  “I’m going to have to face him sooner or later. I think I can make enough of a case for myself with the DA to keep him at bay.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting about Norvelle?” she said.

  “When we were in the house, it was different. Jordan could have shot me on the spot and rigged it to look like I’d been involved in the drug deal. But in open court, I can beat him. Norvelle died of an overdose. There’s no way around that, even if Jordan wants to think differently.”

  “And LeRoi?”

  “We’ll turn him over to Al. That’ll help us, too, if we get indicted.”

  Karen stared at me for a long moment, biting her lower lip so hard that it turned white. “You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, Karen,” I said. “But staying out in the cold is going to get us killed. If we could find the crack or Lonnie...it would be different.”

  “I say no,” she said, still staring at me fixedly. “I say that we keep looking. At that farm.”

  “It’s a waste of time,” I said.

  Her pouty lip started to tremble. “We still don’t know for sure who fronted Lonnie the two thousand dollars,” she said in a desperate voice. “That would be useful information, wouldn’t it? I mean if we did go to the cops, eventually.”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “It could help.”

  “Well?”

  There was such a depth of despair in her eyes, such a deep-seated need to see it through to the finish, that I couldn’t turn her down, even though I knew that our search would only lead to the same dreadful conclusion—that Lonnie was dead, killed by his old friend Norvelle and Norvelle’s buddy Cal. But after twenty years of Lonnie, I figured that Karen was owed a sense of closure, of finale. She needed it, so she could tell herself she’d done all she could. Maybe I needed it too. And, after all, it only meant a few more hours of looking.

  “All right, Karen,” I said, giving her a worn-out smile. “Let’s find a ride out to Leanne’s farm.”

  40

  IT WAS Karen’s idea to call up Sy Levy. She considered the old man an ally. I considered him a possible suspect. But since I wanted to talk to him anyway, I had no objection to using him as a chauffeur.

  Karen walked out to a phone booth in front of the restaurant to make the call. When she came back, she was smiling hopefully. “He’s on his way. He even knows where Leanne’s farm is. He’s been there!”

  “You didn’t tell him why we needed the ride, did you?” She shook her head. “I told him your car broke down.”

  “And you didn’t tell him about Norvelle?”

  “What’s the point in hurting him?” she said sadly. “Norvelle was an old friend.” Karen dropped into the seat across from me. “Thanks, Harry, I need to do this.”

  “I know you do,” I said. “But if it doesn’t pan out...”

  “Then we’ll talk about going to your pal Al Foster,” she said.

  ******

  It took Sy Levy only twenty minutes to get from St. Bernard to East Walnut Hills. Karen and I were waiting for him in the lobby when he walked into the restaurant. He looked the same as he had in his studio—a cheerful, elfin-faced old man, wearing a black tarn, a tweed topcoat, and a muffler wrapped around his throat.

  “Well, children,” he said when he spotted us in the lobby. “Levy is here.”

  “Thanks for coming, Sy,” Karen said, running over to him and kissing him on the cheek.

  Levy blushed. “Can’t leave one of my kids out in the cold.” He held the restaurant door open for Karen and me, and we walked out into the glaring day. “I’m around the corner.”

  Levy led us to his car—a beat-up, fading yellow Studebaker. We all piled in the front. The leather seats were torn and leaking stuffing, and the floorboard on the driver’s side had worn through in one spot.

  “So you think Lonnie might be at Leanne’s farm?” he asked as he cranked up the Studebaker.

  Karen glanced at me. “We’re hoping he’s there.”

  He got a concerned look on his face. “Did he get his...problem settled?”

  Karen ducked her head. “We’ll tell you about it on the way.”

  Levy turned on the engine and a rush of warm fetid air came pouring out of the floor vents. “It ain’t gonna get real warm,” he said apologetically. “This damn hole.”

  He put his left foot over the hole in the floorboard and pulled out onto McMillan. Levy headed due east, toward Columbia Parkway.

  “Where is this farm?” I asked him.

  “Out past Milford, in Clermont County,” he said. “Jon picked it up at an auction. He already owned some property out that way, so...” He waved his hand, as if other people’s reasons for doing things eluded him. “Jon’s changed a lot over the years. I mean he still looks like a kid, with that red hair and that goofy grin of his. But inside...he ain’t a kid no more. He got old.” Levy made a tsking noise, as if getting old were a tragedy. “All he thinks about now is making money. He’s a regular real estate tycoon.”

  “Leanne looked fairly prosperous too,” Karen said with a touch of bitterness.

  Levy smiled. “You still mad at her, Karen?”

  Karen blushed.

  “You shouldn’t be. Leanne’s had a tough row to hoe, honey. Maybe not as tough as yours. But don’t let the office fool you. She’s not a happy lady.”

  We continued down McMillan, skirting Mt. Lookout and the beautiful colonial houses on the ridge above the river. Levy turned left on Columbia Parkway and headed out along the Ohio. It was the same route that led to the Encantada Motel—due east toward Milford.

  “You ain’t told me about Lonnie yet,” Levy said after a time.

  Karen sighed. “It’s such a long story.”

  “It’s a long drive.”

  “You a
lready know that he copped some crack and was taken off for it,” Karen said.

  Levy nodded.

  “It turned out that he was set up to be robbed by his friends.”

  “By Norvelle!” Levy said with horror.

  “And Cal, Norvelle’s roommate.”

  Levy slapped his forehead with his right palm. “Gott in Himmel! I’m the one who sent Lonnie to Norvelle in the first place.”

  “You didn’t know what would happen,” Karen said immediately. “Lonnie lied to you about why he wanted to find Norvelle.”

  “I should have known,” Levy said bitterly. “Lonnie wasn’t going to start no band again. Those days are gone.” His mouth trembled, as if the thought broke his heart. “Dope was the only reason he was looking for Norvelle. I should’ve seen that. That’s all Norvelle’s good for anyway—if you want to score smack or coke.”

  “Is that why Leanne hired him?” I asked.

  The question was blunt, and, coming from me, it made Levy angry. “I like that kid. What right you got to ask me that sort of thing?”

  “Sy, please,” Karen said. “It’s important.”

  He stared at her. “First you tell me why we’re going to see Leanne, Karen.”

  Karen gave him an embarrassed look. “Lonnie got two thousand dollars from somebody—money he used as a down payment for the crack. We think...it may have been from Leanne. He may have been copping for her.”

  Levy shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why?” Karen asked him.

  “She don’t get up, is why,” Levy said hesitantly. “She gets down.”

  “Junk?” Karen said with surprise. “How long’s that been going on?”

  Levy glanced at her, red-faced. “Since Lonnie, I think.”

  Karen dropped her head to her chest. “Lonnie,” she whispered.

  But Levy didn’t hear her. “Stoner guessed right. That’s why Leanne kept Norvelle around, so she could get a taste when she wanted one. That’s why she don’t get along with her father. He knows she’s a user. He still thinks it’s a ghetto vice, you know? And old man Gearheart, he don’t want to be associated with nothing from the ghetto. He’s threatened to call the police on Leanne a couple of times. His own daughter! Used to be Leanne would call me up on the phone and just cry about it.”

  “How does her husband feel about her habit?” I asked, thinking of the scene in Leanne’s office. If Lonnie had turned Leanne on to smack, it added a cruel meaning to the anger and despair Jon Silverstein had showed at the mention of Lonnie’s name.

  “You’d have to ask Jon,” Levy said coldly.

  “It’s got to be an expensive proposition,” I said, pressing him.

  Levy glared at me for a moment. He didn’t like my questions. He didn’t like me. I wasn’t part of his family, one of his kids, like Leanne, Lonnie, and Karen were.

  “Jon’s got plenty of money,” he finally said. “And Leanne ain’t always wasted. She does a spoon once in a while. That’s all. A spoon or two. Christ, she got married to please her dad. Had kids to please her mom. Now, her husband’s Mr. Babbitt. And she’s stuck in a life-style that other people have wished on her.” He stared hard at the road. “So, she does a few drugs. Who doesn’t?”

  “How about you, Sy?” I said. “You take a taste now and then?”

  “Harry!” Karen shouted.

  Levy laughed bitterly. “So you figure I’m in on this, too, Mr. Detective? Maybe it was me gave Lonnie the money to kill himself? Me and Leanne, who still worships the ground Lonnie walks on?”

  “Sy, he didn’t mean it,” Karen said soothingly. “He doesn’t know you.”

  “He don’t know dick about people,” Levy said angrily. “That’s what he don’t know.” He glanced over at me. “I don’t do drugs. And Leanne Silverstein ain’t in the dope-dealing business.”

  “I believe you,” I said.

  “I don’t give a damn what you believe,” Levy snapped, turning back to the wheel.

  I looked at Karen. “You heard the man. You still want to go through with this?”

  She couldn’t meet my gaze. “We haven’t talked to Leanne yet,” she said feebly. “Lonnie still might have called her. He might have run to her on Friday night. She could be hiding him out there.”

  “Okay,” I said with a sigh. “But we’re on a wild-goose chase, and you know it.”

  I settled back on the car seat and stared out the window. On our left we drove past the Encantada Motel. It looked even dingier in the bright sunlight than it had at night—its stucco walls running yellow with rust, half its windows boarded up.

  I closed my eyes. It was going to be a long, pointless trip. And the clock was still running for LeRoi and for Jordan. It had already stopped for Lonnie—I was sure of that.

  41

  ABOUT TEN miles outside of Milford, Levy turned off the highway onto a choppy access road that led up to a farmhouse sitting all by itself in the midst of a huge snowy field. As we neared the house I could see the duck pond that Leanne had mentioned, lying in a wooded hollow that ran below the front yard. A battered Jeep Cherokee was parked beside the house, in the shade of an enormous snow-covered oak.

  I leaned forward on the car seat and stared at the Jeep. There was no question that it was the same car I’d seen parked outside the Encantada bar on Thursday and Friday nights.

  “What?” Karen said when she noticed me staring through the windshield.

  “Maybe it’s a good idea we came out here, after all,” I said.

  “What is it, Harry?” she said excitedly.

  I nodded at the Jeep. “I saw that car parked at the motel on the night I picked Lonnie up and on the night that Jenkins was murdered.” I glanced over at Levy. “Who does it belong to?”

  “Leanne or Jon or Leanne’s folks, I guess,” he said, looking distressed.

  A second car, a sparkling new Buick Regal, was parked at a distance in front of the Jeep. A black man in a brown parka and khaki pants was leaning over its hood, polishing the chrome bumper with a rag.

  When we pulled into the yard, the black man stopped polishing the car and looked up at us balefully. He was a tall, spare, gray-haired man, with a proud, forbidding face, runneled and fleshless as nut meat. He watched us closely as we got out of the car.

  “What do you all want around here?” he roared in a booming bass.

  Sy Levy waved a hand at him from behind the Studebaker. “It’s Sy, Dr. Gearheart. Remember me? Sy Levy?”

  The black man’s look softened a bit. “Of course I remember you,” he said, as if he’d been accused of forgetting things before. “Leanne isn’t here. She won’t be here until after work.”

  Sy glanced at Karen and me. “What do I say?” he whispered.

  “Tell him Leanne invited us out here.”

  Levy picked up my cue.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Leanne’s father replied uncomfortably. “She didn’t say anything about it to me.”

  “She doesn’t have to tell you everything,” a woman called out from the front porch.

  The woman stepped off the porch into the yard, sighting over at us with a hand at her brow. She was a pretty, white-haired woman, with a tanned face and those same slanted, oriental eyes that I’d found so attractive in her daughter. She was wearing a heavy cloth coat over a blouse and slacks.

  “Hello, Sy,” Mrs. Gearheart said, dropping her hand and coming out into the yard. “Who are your friends?”

  “I’m Harry Stoner,” I said to the woman. “And this is Karen Jackowski.”

  “Karen Jackowski?” Mrs. Gearheart said, glancing at her husband. “I believe Leanne was talking about you last night at supper, honey. You came to see her at work, didn’t you?”

  Karen nodded. “We were looking for my ex-husband.”

  “Now I remember,” Mrs. Gearheart said, not looking entirely pleased by the memory. “Leanne used to...know your husband fairly well, didn’t she?”

  “They’re old friends.”


  “Friends,” Mrs. Gearheart said with an empty look.

  “I’m surprised you remembered Karen’s name,” I said, trying to smile at her winningly and to change the subject at the same time.

  “Oh, I have a good memory for names and faces,” Mrs. Gearheart said, pleased with the compliment. “Are you a friend of Leanne’s too?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Although not quite as old a friend as Karen or Sy.”

  “Leanne is always making friends,” Mrs. Gearheart said. “Well, come on in the house and I’ll get you something to drink. Maybe I should call Leanne too. She may have forgotten she invited you to visit. She’s forgetful sometimes.”

  We started across the yard, walking past Gearheart, who didn’t even look up from his polishing. When we got near the Jeep, I told the others to go on ahead. “I’d like to look around if that’s okay? Leanne told us so much about the place.”

  “You go ahead,” Mrs. Gearheart said sweetly. “But there’s not much to see in this weather. What with the duck pond frozen over, and the garden covered with snow.”

  She guided Sy and Karen into the house. Gearheart looked up at me suspiciously as I walked over to the Jeep.

  “I used to have one of these myself,” I said, throwing him a cheerful smile.

  “Piece of junk,” he said acidly. “Jon only uses it to tear around these fields. And to go into Milford. He doesn’t keep it up worth a damn. Hell, it hardly runs.”

  I opened the passenger door of the Jeep and glanced inside. “Looks the same as mine, except I had a three-speed.”

  “Don’t you go nosing around there,” Gearheart said, starting toward me. Before he could get to me, I flipped open the glove compartment and looked inside. Lonnie’s dog-eared photograph—the one of Karen and her kids in front of the Christmas tree—was sitting on top of an oily Jeep owner’s manual. Shocked, I pulled the picture out of the compartment and held it up in front of my eyes, squinting at it through the white glare of the winter sun.

  As I stood there, Gearheart came up beside me. “What’s that?” he said, pointing at the photo.