Murder in the Hearse Degree

by Tim Cockey

  “Not to mention that Gellman’s climbing into hot tubs with Larue’s wife,” Pete added.

  “Not to mention.”

  “So we’ve got Sophie caught up in the middle of something she probably knew nothing about.”

  I agreed, “That’s what it looks like.”

  “So who killed her?” Faith asked.

  Pete and I swapped a look. “Who do you think can answer that question?” I asked.

  “I think we both have the same man in mind,” Pete said. He set his coffee mug down on the table. “Uncle Owen. Let’s go.”

  I used Faith’s phone to call D.C. information and tracked down an address for Owen Cutler. At the door Munger made some very gracious thank-yous to Faith before we left. Faith and I played a pretty serious eye game (to a draw), then I headed out to the car.

  “She’s a good kid,” Pete said to me as I slid in behind the wheel.

  “You said that already.”

  “I’m just trying to drum it into your head.”

  “Are you starting to become a meddler, Pete?” I asked.

  I turned the ignition and vroom-vroomed my V-8. Faith, who was still standing in the door, put her hands to her cheeks and made a face like Edvard Munch’s Scream.

  Pete turned from the window and pulled out a cigarette.

  “She’s young enough to be my daughter. You know how old that makes me feel?”

  “Around fifty?”

  Munger interrupted the lighting of his cigarette to give me the finger.

  I told Pete I wanted to swing by Libby and Mike’s house before we headed over to D.C. I tried using Paula’s cell phone to call Libby’s house but the batteries had finally died. Pete told me he thought I was nuts for leaving Libby off at her home in the first place. He was right. I really hadn’t been thinking. I cut a few corners getting over to the house and when I pulled into the driveway I could see that Mike’s car was no longer there.

  “Mike’s car was here before,” I said to Pete.

  I parked next to the garage and we got out. Pete rapped on the front door and we waited. Nothing. He rapped again.

  “There’s a doorbell,” I pointed out. He looked over at me and then very deliberately rapped his knuckles against the door a third time.

  “Nobody’s home,” I said.

  Pete corrected. “Nobody’s answering.”

  He tried the doorknob and it turned in his hand. I nodded to him and we opened the door. We stepped into the mezzanine entrance.

  I called out, “Libby? Libby, it’s Hitch!”

  “Call the other one,” Pete said. “Gellman.”

  I called out, “Mike? Hey, Mike. Is anyone here?”

  We stood a few more seconds, then Pete said, “Looks like we can raid the fridge. Come on, let’s take a look around.” He started down the steps to the living room.

  “What are we looking for?” I asked, following after him.

  Pete didn’t answer. He stepped across the living room, glancing to his left and his right. He stopped at the sliding glass doors to the deck and first looked up at the trees. Then I saw his gaze settle back down to the deck.

  “We’re looking for this,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  Munger held his arm out as I approached and put his hand on my chest, stopping me. Then he let his arm drop.

  “Oh. That’s right,” he said. “You’re used to seeing dead people.”

  CHAPTER

  27

  Using his shirttail, Pete slid the glass door open and we stepped out onto the deck. An unseen crow welcomed us outside. The only other sounds were a low humming of the hot-tub generator along with the blurp, blurp, blurp, blurp of air bubbles erupting on the surface of the water. The body in the tub wasn’t making a peep and damn sure never would again. The left arm was swung back at an almost unnatural angle and fell straight down; it looked almost as if the hand was stretching to pick something up off the deck. The head was rolled partially onto the left shoulder and pitched back, the remaining eye wide open as if mesmerized by something high up in the trees. In the name of accuracy I suppose I need to amend this. Most of the head was rolled partially onto the left shoulder and pitched back. There was a piece about the size of a cookie that Pete and I stepped past as we approached the hot tub. Pete was the one who pointed it out to me.

  “Skull.”

  The burbling water was pink. At very first glance I was helpless against the notion that the tub looked like a vat of cosmopolitans. The notion passed quickly as I saw the trail of blood that was running down the meaty gash at the side of the head, along the neck and into the water. Without thinking—which is to say, my automatic reflex—I caught myself making a mental note: closed casket.

  The water abruptly stopped churning. The suddenness surprised me. My heart did a little jump.

  “Timer,” Pete muttered. He had moved to the opposite side of the tub from where I had stopped. “There it is.”

  There it was indeed. The surface foam had sizzled away and we could see clearly into the tub. In the pink water’s distortion it looked like any number of things. But credit the human brain for putting the old two and two together. It was a pistol resting on the bottom of the tub.

  The crow cawed again. I finally spoke.

  “What do you think, Doc?”

  Pete stepped closer to the body; he leaned down and put his face almost as if he was trying to sight through the wound, as if looking for daylight out the other side. After a few seconds he straightened.

  “It’s going to take more than two aspirin.”

  We left Mike Gellman in the tub. We left the little piece of his skull on the deck where it had skittered. We moved in reverse, closing the sliding door behind us, Pete again using his shirttail.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Pete said. He headed for the front door.

  I said, “I want to look around.”

  “You don’t want to do that. You want to leave.”

  “I’m going to look.”

  I moved quickly, heeding Pete’s warning not to touch anything. His warning was probably unnecessary on several counts. For one thing, I had been in the house before; I could easily explain the presence of my fingerprints if it were ever to come to that. But more to the point, what difference would it make that it could be proved that I had been inside the house. Was anyone going to forward the argument that Mike Gellman had been carried or cajoled fully dressed into his hot tub and then made to remain still while someone put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger? Aunt Billie has a saying: It doesn’t take a nuclear physicist to recognize a mushroom cloud. This was no murder scene. The man had stepped fully clothed into his hot tub and blown away his command central. Period. This was not a what question. It was a why question.

  Period.

  I moved swiftly through the house. I wasn’t really expecting to find anything . . . or more to the point, anyone. But I needed to be sure. Mike’s car was gone. In all likelihood, Libby was in it.

  Pete was standing outside when I came out of the house.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  Pete tuned the radio to a classical station as I pulled out onto the main road. He kept his head inclined toward the radio and stared right through my dashboard for about ten seconds, listening.

  “Bach,” he said, straightening. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it and tossed the match out the window. “Susan says Bach is the perfect music for a Sunday.”

  “I want to find Libby,” I said.

  Pete nodded. “Sounds fair. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking a million things at once.” The delayed reaction from having come across a dead man in a hot tub was beginning to kick in. My skin felt clammy; my palms were wet on the steering wheel. Even with the passenger-side window open, Pete’s smoke was making me a little queasy.

  “Do you suppose Libby found h
im like that when I dropped her off?” I asked. “Or do you figure he did that after she left?”

  “That’s a good question.”

  “I guess we should have called the police?”

  Pete shrugged. “Do we really want to be hanging around talking to the police?”

  “Technically, I mean. We should.”

  “If Libby did stumble onto the same scene then it’s obvious she didn’t call them.”

  “So maybe he did it after she left.”

  “Or maybe she just didn’t call.”

  “We’re sounding pretty ignorant, Pete. We don’t know a damn thing.”

  “Not completely. I know that the guy was ripped.”

  “How do you know that?” I had pulled onto 50/301. Pete had to fiddle with my radio to keep his station in tune.

  “Along with a few other unpleasant smells, it was all over him like a distillery.”

  “You smelled booze?”

  “There was also a bottle of Johnnie Walker on the kitchen counter. Cap was off. Looked like there was about an inch left.”

  “I didn’t see that.”

  “You’re young and excitable and you don’t know what the hell you’re doing half the time.” Pete grinned. “I’m old and seasoned.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re feeling better about yourself.”

  Pete flicked his cigarette out the window.

  “Yeah, I’m still all fucked up though.”

  “Sounds fair.”

  We continued on into D.C. I hoped we would find Libby at Owen Cutler’s.

  We didn’t.

  A pleasant-faced, somewhat doughy woman of around sixty answered our knock.

  “Mrs. Cutler?”

  The woman looked back and forth between Pete and me as if we were here to snatch her up by the elbows and whisk her off to the grave.

  “Mrs. Cutler?” I repeated. She nodded. “Is your husband in, Mrs. Cutler? We need to speak with him.”

  “I would like to know what is going on,” the woman said. She looked nervously at Pete. “What is this all about?”

  “We need to see your husband, Mrs. Cutler.”

  “Owen is in the den. He’s watching the Redskins game.”

  “Then he won’t mind if we pull him away,” Pete said.

  Mrs. Cutler gave us a dubious look then asked us to wait at the door while she went to fetch her husband. A minute later Owen Cutler appeared. He was wearing a green cardigan, a simple white shirt and a pair of khakis.

  “What can I do for you?” Cutler said. His wife was lingering behind him, standing near the stairs.

  “We’re looking for Libby Gellman,” I said. “We were wondering if you’d seen her.”

  Cutler’s wife let out a small gasp. “Owen?”

  Cutler turned his head. “Ronnie. Please.”

  “We were just at the Gellmans’ house, Mr. Cutler,” Pete said. “I don’t know if you’re aware of what’s happened over there.”

  Cutler opened the door wider. “Come in.”

  We came through the door and followed him down the hallway and into the den, a small cozy room that looked out onto a fenced-in backyard. Cutler’s wife trailed after us. On the television, one of the Redskins was being chewed out by a coach.

  Cutler turned to me. “We’ve met.”

  “Yes, we have.” I gave him my name. For good measure I tossed in Pete’s name as well. “We met in Annapolis,” I reminded him. “Last week. The Naval Academy Bridge, to be precise.”

  “Libby,” he said.

  Ronnie Cutler reacted. “Owen, I demand to know what is going on with Libby. I wish you’d just tell me why she—”

  “Ronnie.” This time the man put a little heft into his voice. “I need to speak with these men, Ronnie.” He stepped over to the door and shooed his wife out of the room, then gently closed the door.

  “Drinks?” We refused. “Then you won’t mind if I refresh mine.” Cutler picked up a drink glass from a table in front of the television and took it over to the stationary butler. He tossed a couple cubes of ice into the glass and poured himself an inch and a half of Maker’s. He gestured us to have a seat on the couch and he returned to his armchair. He picked up the remote and killed the picture.

  “How are they doing?” Pete asked.

  Cutler answered, “The game? I haven’t the foggiest. I’m not watching it.”

  “You’re just sitting in your den with a glass of whiskey and the game on but you’re not watching it.”

  He ignored the question. “So what’s this about?”

  “We told you. We’re looking for Libby.”

  Cutler looked at me a few seconds before he responded. He was definitely a handsome man. Robust. The platinum hair looked like it had been customized expressly for him.

  “She was just here. I suspect you’ve already guessed that.”

  Pete gestured toward the glass. “Did she stop and have a drink with you or did you pour that after she left?”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “Did Libby say anything about her husband while she was here?” I asked.

  “About Mike? In fact she did. She said quite a lot. And not too much of it was kind.”

  “He’s dead,” Pete said. “Did she happen to mention that?”

  Cutler showed no reaction for several seconds. He could have been a man of wax. I realized that the color had gone out of his face. Wax was exactly what he looked like.

  “My God.” Cutler lowered his head. A minor tremble set up in his hand. The ice chattered in his glass. “My God,” he said again.

  “We know all about Sugar Larue,” Pete said. “We know that you arranged for the Gellmans to adopt her child. We know who the father is and how all that came about. That’s what Libby came over to talk about, isn’t it?”

  Cutler was still staring at the floor. I couldn’t be sure he was even listening.

  Pete went on. “You knew what was going on over there between Jack Barton and Sugar Larue. Hell, it sounds like everyone knew what was going on. You’ve got the look of a gentleman, Mr. Cutler. Aren’t gentlemen supposed to intervene when a young girl is getting mistreated like that?”

  Cutler looked up. “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” Pete snapped. “I really don’t want to hear any crap from you. You passed that baby along to the Gellmans four years ago and now you’re at it again. You arranged for the Gellmans’ nanny to meet with Larue. You’re an awfully goddamn helpful man, Mr. Cutler.”

  Cutler sat up straight in his chair. He allowed himself a long look at the both of us, slowly twirling his drink glass. Some of the color had returned to his face. “Crawford enlisted my assistance,” Cutler said.

  “And something went wrong,” I said. “What was it? Why did you kill Sophie Potts?”

  Cutler’s glass froze halfway to his lips. Slowly he set the glass down on the table next to him.

  “I didn’t kill Miss Potts.”

  “I think you did,” Pete said.

  “So do I.” I leaned forward in the couch. “Maybe you hired someone to actually get their hands dirty, I don’t know. But it keeps coming back to you. Somewhere along the line here something broke and you came in to fix it. That’s what you do, isn’t it? But it really hasn’t worked. You can’t just sweep what Jack Barton did to that girl under the carpet. Or what Crawford Larue did, for that matter. Looking the other way. I can’t even imagine how Mike Gellman has been able to live with himself all these years. Every time he looked at his daughter . . . It’s vile.”

  “I didn’t kill that young woman,” Cutler said again.

  “Then who did?” I asked. “There’s no way in hell you can convince me that you don’t know.”

  “You’re wasting your time, Hitch,” Pete said. “It’s this guy.”

  Cutler rose abruptly and stepped over to the s
liding glass door that looked out onto the backyard. There was a pole planted in the ground with a metal bird feeder affixed to the top. Several small birds were flittering around the feeder. As Cutler watched, a blue jay that had been on the grass flew to the feeder and scattered the other birds. Cutler laced his fingers behind his back and looked out beyond the glass. Pete caught my attention and gave me a knowing wink. When Cutler turned back to us, his face was again set with a morose gravity.

  “Mike,” he said softly.

  I echoed. “Mike?”

  “It was Mike.” Cutler looked down at tasseled Weejuns.

  “Mike Gellman killed Sophie Potts?”

  “Yes.”

  Pete let out a harsh laugh. “Nice try.”

  Cutler looked up sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means nice try. It means how convenient to lay it on the guy who can’t defend himself.” Pete reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  “I’d prefer if you didn’t smoke in here,” Cutler said.

  Pete produced a pack of matches and he lit up a cigarette. “I’d prefer you stop feeding us a load of crap.” He put the spent match into the cigarette pack and put the pack back into his pocket.

  “Mike had an alibi,” I said to Cutler. “It’s not one he would have been happy trotting out for all to see, but it’s one he has already given the Annapolis police.”

  Pete got slowly to his feet. “Why would Mike Gellman kill his nanny, Mr. Cutler? Could you explain that to me?”

  Cutler stammered, “I-I don’t know.”

  Pete stepped toward him. “You don’t know? But suddenly you’re very willing to tell us that he’s the one who killed her? No good. You want my opinion? I still like you for it. You’re the man in the middle.”