Murder in the Hearse Degree

by Tim Cockey

  And there we were.

  I wish I had a picture of it.

  The untangling took some work.

  After her snarling “Let me down!” about a dozen times, I had finally lowered Cindy to the ground, maintaining a firm grip around her arm so that she didn’t dash off again. Now that I was up close and personal I could see a faraway look in Cindy’s eyes, or more specifically in her pupils. The whites of her eyes . . . well, they weren’t white, they were nearly as pink as her sweater. She was throwing defiant looks all over the backyard. Her aim seemed distinctly off. Her pretty brown hair smelled of tobacco and stale beer.

  The man in the bathrobe demanded to know what was going on.

  “He’s trying to kill me!” Cindy snapped.

  “Slow down,” I said. “I’m not trying to kill anybody.”

  The adrenaline was still running through Mr. Bathrobe. “Do you want me to call the police?”

  Cindy’s scowl did not seem a particularly fervent endorsement of the idea. The dog had stopped barking now and was standing with an expectant look on its face. Its owners hadn’t yet uttered a word.

  “It’s just a misunderstanding,” I said to the assemblage. “I just wanted to have a talk with Miss Lehigh here. I didn’t mean to scare her.”

  The woman finally spoke. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “He’s going to kill me,” Cindy said again, though with a lot less fervor than the first time.

  “Josh, go call the police,” the woman said to her son. But the boy had pretty much settled down to just staring at the girl in the leather pants. He didn’t budge.

  “There’s no real need for that,” I said. I released Cindy and took a step back from her. “But if you want to, go right ahead. I have no problem with the police.” I turned to Cindy. “I’m a friend of Libby Gellman’s. I’m trying to find out what happened to Sophie Potts. That’s all. If you want to bring the police in, just say it.”

  Cindy was studying my face. Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. . . .

  “Why were you sneaking up on me?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. You just didn’t hear me.”

  “You scared the hell out of me.”

  “And you beat the hell out of me.” I put my finger to my temple. A nice welt was on the rise.

  I could see Cindy’s gears cranking a few clicks. She muttered something under her breath then marched off toward the alley.

  “Rain check,” I said to the woman. Her son seemed disappointed to see Cindy leaving. Nothing like a spitfire in leather pants in the backyard to give your morning that extra little pop. I followed after Cindy. The guy in the bathrobe pulled up beside me as I reached the alley.

  “What am I missing here?” he asked.

  We followed some twenty feet behind Cindy as she marched back up the street. I don’t know precisely when it became fashionable for women to forgo shape of any kind, but I’m going on record right here to say that it can cease any old time now. Mr. Bathrobe and I were essentially following a leather-and-pink-clad pipe cleaner. Cindy didn’t even bother to acknowledge her hero as he veered off and returned to his house. She hesitated at the front steps as I came up the walk. Okay, I thought. We’ve been here before. I eyed the shoe in her hand.

  “What exactly do you want?” she asked.

  I reached deep into my very being to locate the most honest answer I could find.

  “Right now? Truthfully? Breakfast.”

  Cindy insisted on a public place. I assumed she didn’t mean the median strip on 695. We took two cars. I followed her, ready at an instant to go on a wild ride . . . but she played it straight. We went to the Bel-Loc Diner, which is a glass and aluminum place that looks like a Jetsons-era spaceship, perched at the point where Loch Raven Boulevard runs steeply downhill to the Beltway. We took a booth in the rear and our waitress took our order. She was a Baltimore classic. Beehive hairdo, gnomish grandmotherly face, as friendly as pie.

  Cindy Lehigh was not as friendly as pie.

  “You cleaned out Cap’n Henry’s till,” I said to her as soon as our waitress had gone off with our order.

  “You can’t prove that.”

  “That’s not my job to prove,” I said. “You also stole from the Gellmans.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Spare me, Cindy. You’re a little thief. I’d say that much is pretty well documented.”

  “Why’s any of this your business anyway?” she asked.

  I ignored the question. There was no question that Cindy’s was the voice on Nick Fallon’s tape.

  “Whose house is that where you’re staying?” I asked her. “I know you haven’t paid Paula rent for the last two months. I doubt very much that you’re ponying up for this place.”

  She flushed red. “Did Paula tell you how to find me?”

  “She didn’t. Don’t blame her. Blame me. I tricked her. So whose house is it?”

  “It’s not important,” she said.

  “In that case just tell me.”

  “James.”

  “And who is James?”

  “James is Paula’s brother.”

  “I see. Well . . . nice guy letting you stay at his place.”

  “He is a nice guy,” she said. “So what?”

  “So nothing,” I said.

  We sat in silence tossing hostile vibes across the table until our food arrived. I looked on my lumberjack breakfast and nearly wept. I was ravenous. So was Cindy. She had ordered the same thing. Yes, sir, just a couple of good old lumberjacks. We dug in. Cindy ate exactly twice as fast as I did. I don’t know where she put it. Jittery metabolism, I guess. By the time I was halfway done Cindy had vacuumed her plate clean.

  “Would you like a little sirloin steak to follow up?” I asked.

  “I was hungry. Jesus Christ. What’s your problem?”

  I skidded my plate to the side and put my elbows up on the table. My appetite would have to wait.

  “Why don’t you explain to me why you thought I was going to kill you back there,” I said.

  “I told you. You scared me.”

  “Not good enough, Cindy. Why should someone stroll up to you in the middle of Rogers Forge first thing in the morning and try to kill you? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

  “It can happen.”

  “Sure it can happen. But it’s not what usually happens. You were scared well before I showed up. What gives, Cindy? You dropped right off the screen a couple of weeks ago. Something tells me you’ve been looking over your shoulder ever since. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  “I don’t have to talk to you.”

  I picked up my coffee cup and took a bitter sip. “That’s a fact. We can go on down to Annapolis together and you can talk to the police if you’d like to do that. If you’d rather not, I can always just give them a call and put them onto you. It makes no real difference to me.”

  She sat back in the booth and roped her arms. She glared at me. Finally she said, “I’m sorry about your head.”

  Gingerly I touched the welt on my head. “I’m sorry about it, too.”

  Cindy had turned her head and was gazing out the window. Her tough act was pretty good, but I could see that it wasn’t all that securely in place. She squinted, looking out the window at absolutely nothing of consequence. Her lip was trembling.

  “Listen to me. I’m not looking to get you in trouble, Cindy. Believe me, that’s not my agenda here.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I’m going to ask you a question,” I said. “You can lie your little heart out if you want to. Whether or not I believe you is a whole different thing, but I’m going to ask it anyway.”

  “What?”

  “Did you have anything to do with the murder of Sophie Potts?”

  She continued staring out the window—unflinching—almost
as if she hadn’t heard me. I waited. Her lip was still trembling and her breath seemed a little short. The tough girl act was crumbling. She stared out at the gray parking lot as if she wanted to melt into it. She looked tired.

  I asked her again. Gently. “Come on, Cindy. Did you have anything to do with Sophie’s death?”

  She tried for one more blast of defiance, but she was out of fuel. Her answer came out in a harsh whisper.

  “I think so.”

  I used Paula’s cell phone to call Julia as I headed down to Fell’s Point. I was hoping to catch Fallon.

  “Is he there?” I asked when Julia picked up.

  “Well, it looks like him.”

  “Funny. Don’t let him leave.”

  Twenty minutes later I found a parking spot on Bond Street and came around the corner to Julia’s place. Fallon was looking downright sheepish and not a little pale. He was up in Julia’s studio, laid out on one of her butterfly chairs. I wasn’t sure he could move.

  “She’s lethal,” he murmured.

  From the back of the studio I could hear Julia humming happily in her shower.

  “Jack Barton,” I said. “What’s his story? What’s his connection with Crawford Larue? You told me once.”

  “They’re old cronies from their horse-breeding days. When Crawford got out of prison it was Jack Barton who got him set up in Washington. Barton had the strings to pull.”

  “Well, it looks like Big Jack exacted a pretty revolting price for his help.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Sugar Jenks. Sugar Larue, actually. Jack Barton’s been having his way with the girl since she was sixteen.”

  “What?” Fallon failed in his attempt to get out of the chair, but with a second effort he managed to sit up in it. “What in the world are you talking about? Jack Barton? Are you sure?”

  I pulled Nick’s cassette tape from my pocket. “That’s what your anonymous call was all about.”

  “You found the girl.”

  “Cindy. Yes, I did.”

  “And she told you this?”

  “It seems Big Jack had a thing for Crawford’s daughter. From the sound of it, Crawford conveniently looked the other way. He let his old crony have carte blanche with the girl.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Exactly. Not a terribly ARK way to behave.”

  “The hell with that,” Fallon said. “It’s not a terribly human way to behave.”

  I dropped the tape on his lap. “Those were the abortions.”

  “Sugar?”

  “Sugar.”

  “What about the sterilizations?” Fallon asked.

  “Just one. Sugar.”

  Fallon clambered out of the chair. The sound of the shower ceased. The metal rings of the shower curtain screeched. Fallon waved the tape at me.

  “Jesus Christ, Hitch, tell me you’re not kidding with this. This’ll definitely blow ’em out of the water.”

  “It’s what Cindy overheard.”

  Fallon frowned. “From who? Where did she get all this? It’s no good if it’s just gossip.”

  “How does Owen Cutler work for you?”

  “Cutler?”

  “The ARK’s very own personal lawyer and inside man. Does that work?”

  “Hell, that works just fine. But you’re not telling me that Cutler just sat down and told this girl all of this. I don’t care how cute she might be, Owen Cutler knows enough to keep a great big lid on something like this.”

  “No, he didn’t sit down and tell her. But she managed to overhear him talking about it.”

  “No shit?”

  “Shit none.”

  “With who?”

  Julia stepped into the room. She was in her silk robe. She was running a towel over her head.

  “I thought I heard voices. Good morning, Hitch.”

  “Hello, sugarbeet.”

  “What brings you here?”

  “Oh, just a sordid tale of sexual treachery.”

  Julia did her best demure. “Why, Nicky, I thought we weren’t going to tell.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  Life goes on. I had people to bury.

  I dashed home and took a shower. My form wasn’t great but I set a new speed record. I hopped into my somber suit and knotted my somber tie around my neck. Then I remembered today’s funeral and I switched to a snappier tie. Alcatraz was phoning the S.P.C.A. by the time I was ready to leave so I clipped on his leash and dragged him along with me. Halfway down the block I commanded, “Pee!” in my best Charlton Heston–as-God voice. Damned if the dog didn’t oblige. I got to the funeral home just as Sam was loading the casket into the hearse, with the help of Darryl Sandusky.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Darryl.

  “Helping out. Where have you been?”

  “Out game hunting little fellers like you,” I said.

  “And I guess you think that’s funny?”

  “In fact . . . not really.”

  We shoved the casket the rest of the way into the hearse and Sam set about securing it. I reached into my pocket and handed Darryl a twenty.

  “Here. Go buy some dope.”

  “You are so yesterday,” Darryl said, and we had to leave it there since Sam and I were about to be running late. Aunt Billie came down onto the front steps and called Alcatraz over to her. Darryl went over, too. Billie nudged Darryl to join her in waving at us as we pulled away. They looked like the closing credits of The Beverly Hillbillies, which happens to be Billie’s favorite television show in reruns.

  We arrived at the church just on time and got the casket inside, front and center. The eulogies were short and for the most part amusing. The dead man sounded like someone I might have enjoyed knowing. Sam and I stood in the rear of the church. I was feeling a little light-headed, the combination of having slept the night in my car, along with the full-body slam of information that Cindy had unloaded on me at the Bel-Loc. Sam asked me at one point if I was okay.

  “You look a little like shit,” he said, chuckling behind his hand.

  The service ended and we got our guest back into the hearse for his final road trip. On the drive to the cemetery Sam told me a long involved joke that hinged on the teller’s having a decent Scottish accent. His Scottish accent stank. He sounded more like he was speaking in tongues. The poor joke didn’t stand a chance.

  As promised, a boom box was produced at the grave site and after a few assertions by the priest that our guest of honor was truly heaven bound, the boom box was switched on and Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” kicked up. Give that song half a chance and you’ve just got to clap along. Our little crowd did, Sam included. It was the happiest funeral I’d been to all month. I’d have loved to attend the postfuneral party but I had places to go and people to see. Sam took a crack at singing “Spirit in the Sky” on the drive back. I wish he hadn’t.

  The reason that Cindy Lehigh had thought that I was going to kill her when I had approached her earlier that morning was that ever since hearing that Sophie Potts had been pulled from the Severn River, Cindy had been afraid for her own life. The day that the papers identified Sophie by name, mentioning that the young woman had been employed in the household of Michael Gellman of the Annapolis District Attorney’s office, was the day that Cindy grabbed her handful of cash from Henry Aranow’s cash register and performed her vanishing act. She told me that she had had no trouble convincing Paula’s brother to let her crash at his place. Without elaborating, Cindy told me that James had “been only too happy” to accommodate. I am assuming, of course, that this means Cindy had promised she would serve him some nice home-cooked meals for his troubles. What Cindy insisted to me was that she had never served Mike Gellman any home-cooked meals. I had asked her straight out.

  “Were you sleeping with Mike Gellman?”

 
She told me that she was not. She admitted to there having been a little mild flirting now and then, especially at the beginning.

  “That’s who he is. He’s always after the women. I never knew how his wife put up with it.”

  Whether I completely believed Cindy’s assessment that there had never been a successful pass completed between her and Mike wasn’t terribly relevant. More to the point was the fact that the person with whom Cindy had overheard Owen Cutler discussing the sordid facts of Sugar Jenks and Jack Barton was, in fact, Mike Gellman. The discussion had taken place out on Gellman’s deck. I knew the logistics. Mike had apparently thought that the coast was clear. Libby and the kids were gone, and a quick check of the house had told Mike that the nanny was also not at home. As it happened, Cindy had been in the basement folding laundry when Mike and Cutler had arrived and she had just stepped outside the basement door for a cigarette when Mike popped downstairs to see if anyone was there. She had still been outside when she heard her employer and Owen Cutler come out onto the deck a minute later. With the words “Okay, there’s no one here. We can talk,” Cindy had been all ears. By the end of the conversation Cindy had been wracked with fear that she would be found out a mere twenty feet below where the two men were sitting. She hadn’t dared budge, not even to scratch a persistent itch in the small of her back. It was a week later that Cindy had approached Mike while he was in his bedroom polishing his shoes and calmly told him that she wanted a thousand dollars from him or else she would tell everything that she had heard him discussing with Owen Cutler, first to Libby and then to whoever else was interested in listening.

  “He was real businesslike about it,” Cindy had told me at the Bel-Loc. “He gave me the money the very next day. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. He just handed it over to me. He even made me shake on it. But before he let go of my hand he said to me that if I ever told anyone, especially Libby, he’d kill me. But you know, I thought he was joking.”

  Libby answered the door. The expression on her face was oddly blank.

  “They indicted Mike,” she said. “He called. He’s going to be arrested.”