by Tim Cockey
“Get a gun,” I said to Alcatraz. “Shoot me.”
Maryland license tag number PVA910 was registered to a Howard Small of Severna Park, which is just outside of Annapolis. Howard Small was six feet five and fifty-three years old and I have to figure that if he hasn’t heard every single riff on his name commensurate with his height then he simply isn’t listening. Mr. Small runs a pest-control business in the Annapolis area called BUG OFF! He employs three field-workers and a secretary named Florentine. When the police had arrived in mid-morning to question Mr. Small as to the whereabouts of his car the night before, the pest-control man pulled out a checkbook and said, “All right, I knew this was coming. Just give me a figure.” One of the two officers had exploded, “A check? You want to give us a damn check?” at which point Mr. Small had reached into a desk drawer and pulled a handful of cash from a metal box. The same officer spotted a pistol in the metal box. He immediately drew on the tall man and ordered him to raise his hands and to step away from the desk. When Florentine saw this, she went into a fit. Apparently Florentine could throw a world-class fit. Ten minutes later the police car pulled away from BUG OFF! with Howard Small and Florentine in the backseat. Small was bellowing for his lawyer and Florentine was simply bellowing. Matters got straightened out at the police station. It turned out that Howard Small had amassed unpaid traffic fines totaling three hundred and forty-five dollars and he had assumed when the police showed up that they had come to BUG OFF! to collect. The gun was found to be legally registered. Small was furious. Fortunately for the two police officers, Florentine turned out to be an acquaintance of one Croydon Floyd, and the officer had been able to talk Florentine into persuading her boss to let the matter drop. In return for the favor, Croydon Floyd had a date with Florentine for the following weekend.
My information came from Croydon Floyd himself. After I woke up a second time I phoned the Annapolis police station and asked to be put through to Floyd if he happened to be there. He was. I asked him if he remembered me and he said he sure did. He said he had noticed my name in connection with the hit-and-run last night. He sounded a lot friendlier on the phone than he had been in person the other day.
“That Florentine has got a mouth on her,” he said. “You’ve never heard a person screech so loud.”
“It sounds like you saved the day,” I said.
“Yeah, saved the day and messed up my Saturday night. Florentine wants me to take her dancing.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You’ve never seen Florentine dance. There’ll be about a dozen medical emergencies before the night’s over, I can tell you.”
I steered the officer back to the original issue.
“So what about the hit-and-run?” I asked. “What about Small’s car?”
“Describe the car again. The one that hit you.”
“It didn’t hit me.”
“Describe it.”
“Dark. I’m pretty sure it was blue. A midsize. Nondescript. Cars like that all look alike these days.”
“Honda? Toyota? Saturn? Saab?”
“Yes,” I said. “All of those. Any of them. I didn’t see the name of the car. I was focusing on the tag. PVA910. I’m sick of it. It’s like a bad song I can’t get out of my head.”
Floyd said, “Howard Small drives a Land Cruiser.”
“A Land Cruiser.”
“They’re pretty big,” Floyd said. “More like a truck. Definitely not a midsize.”
“I see.”
“His Land Cruiser is white.”
“White.”
“That’s right,” Floyd said. “And not on the dark side of white. Just regular old white. We’re running the other combinations. Maybe it was PUA. Or maybe you inverted the numbers. Maybe it was 019.”
“PVA910,” I said. “It’s tattooed on my brain. Maybe someone stole the plates.”
“Stole the plates? And then what? Returned them later?”
“Right.”
“Why would someone do that?” Floyd asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe that way, if anyone spots the tags, which they did, you trace them and they go nowhere. Which they haven’t. It’s a regular old hit-and-run.”
“Same question. Why would anyone do that?”
“Well, that’s my point. It’s not a regular old hit-and-run. The fellow who was killed last night? Tom Cushman? He knew Sophie Potts.” Floyd didn’t respond. “Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you.”
“Interesting, isn’t it? Girl dies under mysterious circumstances and a few days later an acquaintance of hers is mowed down by a car.”
Floyd cleared his throat. “I guess you could call that interesting.”
“Is there anything new on the Sophie Potts investigation?” I asked.
“We have no new information.”
“Except now. This is new information.”
“What is? The fact that an acquaintance of the deceased got hit by a car? People get hit by cars every day.”
“So you think this is just a coincidence?”
“I can’t say either way, can I? I appreciate you passing on the information.”
“Let me ask you something. Why is it that you’re so convinced that this girl killed herself?”
“I could ask you why you’re so sure she didn’t.”
“But I asked first.”
The officer was losing patience. “Look. We have the report from her employer that the deceased was behaving erratically prior to her disappearance. She was then—”
“Wait. What are you talking about? Mrs. Gellman mentioned to me that Sophie kept to herself. That’s hardly ‘erratic.’ ”
“I interviewed Mr. and Mrs. Gellman when I took the original missing persons report,” Floyd said flatly. “We followed up, of course, after the body was found.”
“Followed up with who?”
The officer paused. “Who do you think?”
“I don’t think anything. I’m asking.”
“We followed up with the Gellmans, of course.”
“Both of them?”
“I don’t really have the time for all of this. Yes. Both of them. Mr. and Mrs. Gellman. What do you think we are down here, the Hardy Boys? We know how to do our job.”
“And the Gellmans told you that Sophie Potts was . . . what did you say, unsteady? Erratic?”
“I assure you we are doing everything necessary to determine what happened.” He sounded as if he were reciting from a script.
“Don’t assure me, Officer. Assure the mother.”
“Are you through giving me orders?”
“That hit-and-run last night was no accident. That’s all I’m saying. I was there. That car veered right toward us.”
“Maybe you should consider yourself lucky then,” Floyd said. “Sounds like that could’ve been you in the morgue instead of the other guy.”
He hung up. I looked at the receiver as if maybe I expected it to sing “Swannee River.” It didn’t. I hung up and dialed Pete’s number. He answered on the third ring.
“Hi,” I said.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Mr. Lucky.”
There was a pause. “Not when I get through with you.”
Following Pete’s instructions, I parked my car on Sulgrave Avenue and walked around the corner to the next block and tried to look inconspicuous as I strolled down the street to near the middle of the block, where Pete’s white Impala was parked. I got in the passenger side.
“Afternoon, Chief,” I said.
“Don’t call me Chief.”
Pete was sitting behind the wheel with a cup of coffee in one hand and a glazed doughnut in the other. A box from Dunkin’ Donuts was on the seat next to him, along with a pack of cigarettes.
“You really do this by the book, don’t you?” I said. “I suppose you’ve got binoculars,
too.”
He shoved the box of doughnuts. Sure enough. A small pair of Minolta binoculars was on the seat.
Pete was on a stakeout. Even though he had disbanded his private detection company in the spring, Pete still needed to put the old flank steak on the table now and then, so until he discovered what he wanted to be when he got to the other side of his crisis, he accepted the odd snooping job. He was keeping an eye on a house near the far corner of the street. A mid-level executive for a local home-heating-oil firm was out on workman’s compensation for injuries allegedly suffered on the job. Pete didn’t know all the details. In addition to the compensation claim, the man had filed a lawsuit. The home-heating-oil company, along with the insurance carrier, smelled a rat. That’s where Pete came in.
“What happened to your arm?” Pete asked.
I had picked up the binoculars and was scanning the second-floor windows along the block. In the movies you can bet you’ll come across something nibbly in lingerie. The best I managed was a fat lady and her cat.
“Things turned a little interesting last night,” I said. “Why don’t I tell you later?”
“You’re assuming I’m giving you that much time to live.”
I lowered the binoculars. “Can I tell you something, Pete?”
He sighed heavily. “Can I stop you?”
“You think you’re angry with me. But the fact is you’re angry with yourself and you’re taking it out on me.”
He stared blindly at the windshield a moment before responding. He took a loud sip of his coffee.
“That’s bullshit,” he said.
I dropped the binoculars back onto the seat and took a doughnut from the box. Coconut. “Listen, I was planning to come right back to the table after the bathroom.” I took a bite of the doughnut. Coconut bits rained onto my lap. “I knew you were scared down to your toes to be alone with Lee, but see, I ran into this girl outside the bathroom.”
“You’re so predictable.”
“No. Just hold on. She’s the chef at the restaurant there. And she also happens to be one of the caterers who hired Sophie this summer. Her name is Faith.”
“Faith. Okay. I’m listening.”
“Faith’s the one who told me about Sophie calling up to track down Tom Cushman’s number. So what I—”
Pete interrupted me. “There he is.”
Down the street a man had emerged from the house. He was wearing a neck brace collar. Pete reached into the backseat and fetched a camera with a lens half the length of my arm. He winked at me.
“Size matters.”
Pete clicked off a series of shots then set the camera down and started up the car. The man in the neck brace had gotten into a maroon car and was pulling away from the curb.
“I tailed my first car last night,” I said to Pete as we pulled slowly down the street.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.” As we followed the maroon car up onto the Kelly Avenue Bridge I described for Pete my going off to meet up with Tom Cushman and the blue car that thwarted my plans. When I described Tom flying through the plate-glass window of the ice cream parlor, Pete nodded his head sagely.
“Man is not designed to fly.”
“Not like that.”
“Sounds ugly,” Pete said.
“It doesn’t get much uglier. He’s dead.”
The maroon car had gone right on Northern Parkway and was remaining in the right lane. It appeared to be headed for the expressway. It was. It eased onto the ramp just as another car veered suddenly into the lane in front of us. The maroon car headed to the northbound ramp and we followed, slowed down by the pokey in front of us.
I started to continue my story but Pete held up his hand.
“Wait.”
At the bottom of the ramp the car finally sped up just as an SUV was coming up on the left lane, forcing Pete to remain where he was.
“Move,” he grumbled and he leaned on the horn. There was a woman behind the wheel of the SUV and to Pete’s and my surprise, she gave Pete the finger.
“What the . . . ?”
We were running out of lane, but the SUV was squarely in our way, keeping us from merging onto the highway.
“Fall back,” I said to Pete.
“My ass.”
Pete sped up. The guardrail was creeping closer to my side of the car.
“Uh . . . Pete?”
The SUV was speeding up as well. The two vehicles were in a little race. Except Pete and I were the ones about to run out of roadway. As the gravel of the shoulder was just beginning to slip under Pete’s right front fender, Pete hit the accelerator. The car surged forward. Pete whipped the wheel to the left, skidding his car in front of the SUV. I turned around to see that it was right on our tail. The woman gave me the finger.
“She’s a monster,” I said to Pete.
Pete reached for the light switch and pulled the knob. At the same time he stomped all the way down on the accelerator. I turned around again and saw the SUV swerving. It had dropped well back. Another car had to swerve to avoid hitting it. One—or maybe both—of the drivers was honking their horn.
I settled back in my seat. The maroon car was well ahead, but easily in view.
“What was that bit with the lights?” I asked.
“You put on the lights and it looks like your brake lights have gone on. They hit their brakes. Meanwhile you floor it.”
I finished off my doughnut. “Okay, just so that I know. When tailing a car that you don’t want the driver to know you’re tailing, you skid all over the road, honk your horn, flash your lights and almost cause an accident. Am I missing anything?”
Pete was glancing with some satisfaction in the rearview mirror. “No, that about covers it.”
“Good. I just want to make sure I’ve got it straight.”
“Did you do any of that when you tailed your car last night?” Munger asked.
“Nah. I just kept back a few hundred feet and kept quiet.”
Pete chuckled. “Amateurs.”
The maroon car headed past the Beltway exits and took the expressway to where it spills back onto the regular roads. We were in the country now. The car took a right onto Seminary Avenue. I had a feeling I knew where the car was headed and I was right. A few minutes after the turn onto Seminary we followed the car onto the grounds of the Baltimore Country Club. We parked in the lower lot, next to the woods. The maroon car parked up by the tennis courts. We waited until the man got out of his car and disappeared into the clubhouse, then we got out of Pete’s car and plunged into the woods. Pete had his camera with him, on a strap around his neck. The woods weren’t particularly thick. We made our way about fifty feet or so straight in, then Pete angled off to his right.
“Have you been here before?” I asked.
Pete was high-stepping over a tangle of dead branches. “I’ve been everywhere.”
Ten minutes later we were crouched behind a large rotting tree. Pete was squinting through the viewfinder of his camera, muttering.
“Yeah, baby. Do it. That’s right. Work it. Go for it, baby. . . .”
It was my simple assumption that he’d gone mad. So sad.
The home-heating-oil executive was on the first green of the golf course, visible through the woods. He was no longer wearing his neck brace. He was warming up for his tee off, taking huge slicing practice swings. I know as much about golf as I do the diet of a fifteenth-century Azerbaijani teenager. Still, it looked like a pretty good swing. Fluid. A nice corkscrew twist of the torso. Clean follow-through. The man finished with his practice swings and placed the ball on the tee. Pete was clicking away like crazy as the man set his feet, drew back the club and let her fly. The little ball rocketed out of sight.
“All done,” Pete said, getting stiffly to his feet. “Now comes the fun part.”
I followed as Pete stomped through the underbrush and emerge
d from the woods some thirty feet from where the man was standing admiring his shot.
“Nice shot,” Pete called out.
We approached. The man’s shoulders dropped as he spotted the camera with the huge lens dangling from Pete’s neck.
“What’s this about?” he snorted. “This is private property.”
“So is this,” Pete said, patting the camera, and then he mentioned the names of the home-heating-oil company and its insurance carrier. “It belongs to them. At least the film does.”
“What’s going on here?”
“Listen,” Pete said. “You might want to consider holding your backswing a fraction longer. I think the way you’re doing it gives your swing too much chop.”
The man obviously wasn’t listening to Pete. He put no pause whatsoever on his backswing, but brought the club around suddenly and caught the lens of Pete’s camera. He knocked it right off. Quite emasculating. The lens rolled to a stop on the grass, a noticeable dent along the rim.
“Assault,” Pete said calmly. “And the list keeps growing.”
The man swung again, but Pete was surprisingly quick. He ducked. The club sailed harmlessly over him, and from his crouched position Pete lunged forward, plowing his head into the man’s rib cage. Already off balance from the force of his swing, the guy flew backward, literally leaving his feet, and he landed hard against the front wheel of the golf cart, his head smacking against the hard rubber. His golf club clattered against the side of the cart. I watched as the two men simultaneously reached for their necks. Pete was slow to straighten back up. A baffled expression came to his face.
“Hurt yourself, Pete?” I asked.
“Damn. That’s not supposed to happen.” He held on to his neck and twisted his head gingerly left and right.
I stepped over to the golf cart. The man was making it to a sitting position. A wince of pain came to his face as he attempted to swivel his head.
“Ouchy?” I said. He responded with vituperative relish.
