by Tim Cockey
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t me.”
“What did Libby have to say when she came over here?” I asked.
“She didn’t stay long.”
“What did she say?”
“Pretty much what you just did. About Lily. About Sugar. She came in here and she shrieked at me like I’ve never heard before. And then she slapped me.”
I got off the couch and stepped over to him. “I’m going to ask you one more time, Mr. Cutler. Did you kill Sophie Potts?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t. I swear to you.”
“Where’s Libby? Did she say where she was going?”
“No. She was furious. And she was crying. She slapped me and then she screamed, ‘I hate you. I hate you all.’ Then she took off.”
So did we.
Ten minutes later I skidded to a stop behind Mike Gellman’s car. Pete and I bounded up to the front door and pounded on it. We heard a noise from inside the house that sounded too damned much like a scream. Pete shoved the door open and we rushed into the house. We raced into the living room. It was the wrong thing to have done. We practically skidded to a stop. My heart came flying up into my throat.
“Oh shit.”
Crawford Larue was seated in a wooden rocking chair in slacks and an open-neck shirt, his chubby fingers laced across his belly. Libby was on the white couch to his right. A small scab of dried blood was on her face, beneath her nose. Some of the blood had gotten onto the couch. Her eyes were the size of half-dollars.
Standing behind the couch was Russell Jenks. Jenks had a handful of Libby’s hair in one hand and a small black thing in the other. It was a pistol. When Pete and I first burst into the room the barrel of the gun had been resting lightly against Libby’s crown. Now it was aiming at us.
“Stop right there,” Jenks said coolly.
It should be noted, I am in the death business. I have the greatest respect for things that have the potential to put me on the wrong side of the embalming table. Apparently Pete didn’t.
“Forget it, Jenks,” Pete said. “It’s over.”
I looked at him like he was crazy. Where in the world did he get off with a stock line like that when we had this guy waving a pistol at us? Jenks didn’t seem too impressed with Pete’s bluster. He jerked harder on Libby’s hair, forcing her head back. She let out a small cry and I started forward. Jenks took dead aim on me. His eyes behind his Buddy Holly glasses appeared almost lifeless.
“I wouldn’t.”
I didn’t. Libby’s hands were out to her sides, her fingers splayed against the cushions, gripping like a cat against a wall. She was bone white. She squeaked out a single syllable.
“Hitch.”
“Let her go, Jenks,” Pete said. His voice was steady, with the faint hint of a growl just below the surface.
Jenks didn’t seem inclined to obey. He waved the gun. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
For his part, Crawford Larue seemed oddly detached from the scene. He was pitched forward in his rocking chair as if he were watching something unfolding on television. Without his dapper cream suit he looked much more like what he really was . . . a dumpy little man who needed to lay off the fats and sugars.
My heart was slamming against my rib cage like a prisoner demanding to see the warden. Forcing a note of calm into my voice that had no right to be there, I said, “Look, Jenks, be reasonable. Just put the gun down. This can only make things worse. We know what happened.”
“What the hell do you know?” Jenks snapped.
“We know what she knows.” I indicated Libby. I threw her what I could in the way of a reassuring smile.
Jenks ran his tongue over his lips. Reptilian. With his gun hand he knocked his glasses back up on his nose. He waved the pistol again at Pete and me.
“Then maybe it’s going to be a real mess here, huh?”
“Be reasonable,” I said. “All you can do now is make things worse. Just put the gun down. Let her go.”
“Fuck you.”
I turned to Larue. As I did I spotted something outside the window just slightly behind and to the left of where Jenks was standing. It was in Jenks’s blind spot. If Larue had not that instant turned his head in my direction, he might have seen it also. But he didn’t. It was a face. It popped up into the window for just a fraction of a second and then was gone. With the glare on the glass I couldn’t be certain, but I was pretty sure I recognized it. I put my telepathy to work. The police . . . Call the police. Quick. Pronto. 911. Chop chop. Any second now we could be dying in here.
Pete gave me a very restrained look. A glance, really. Nearly imperceptible. But I knew what he was saying. Pete had seen it, too. Stall. Keep him talking.
“Tell him to let her go, Mr. Larue,” I said. “Come on. This is ridiculous.”
Larue’s chin was dipped down toward his chest. He cocked an eyebrow at me. “I am not convinced that that would necessarily be efficacious.”
Pete snapped, “Screw that!”
Libby pleaded again, “Hitch.” Tears had started running down her cheeks. Jenks tightened his grip on her hair. I implored Larue again.
“Tell him, damn it. Don’t be an idiot. The ARK is finished no matter what. You know that. You can’t keep a lid on this thing any longer. Cindy Lehigh is sitting safe and pretty with the police right now.” This was a bald-faced lie, of course, but it seemed like a particularly good time to toss in one of those.
“Or maybe you don’t even know who Cindy Lehigh is,” I went on. “Cindy is the person who was threatening to air your dirty laundry to the newspapers. It wasn’t Sophie.”
Jenks blurted, “You’re bluffing.”
“I’m not,” I said. “Cindy knows everything. She overheard Cutler and Mike Gellman talking the whole thing out this summer. It’s what she tried to sell to the papers after she quit working for Gellman. It’s what got Sophie killed.”
“Is that so?” Larue said calmly.
The man seemed outrageously bemused. It was no challenge to my imagination to imagine my shoe pressing ever so firmly against his face.
“It is. Cindy’s a little hustler. I have no doubt she’d have come to you directly and tried for a shakedown after The Cannon didn’t take her bait. Except before she could she heard about Sophie Potts being found dead in the water. She knew damn well what had happened. She knew it was the wrong nanny who had been killed.”
I turned back to Jenks. My ears were buzzing. No sirens. Not yet, anyway. I was sending out telepathic 911s to the face in the window.
“You killed the wrong nanny, Jenks. That’s what happened. Fallon told me it was you who he took his story to after he received his anonymous call. He told you he’d gotten a call from a woman who was going on about some sort of scandal involving the ARK and sex with minors and all the rest of it. You knew exactly what he was talking about. It was about Sugar Larue being pimped to Jack Barton when she was all of fifteen. The ARK would go down fast with a story like that coming out. If not the entire organization, sure as hell the both of you.”
“There is no ARK without me,” Larue declared coolly.
I ignored him. I was still locked on to Russell Jenks.
“When Fallon told you that he’d gotten an anonymous call from a woman claiming to have the goods on the ARK I’m sure you wondered just who the hell could know about all that. That must have driven you crazy. That is, until Mike Gellman’s nanny came walking in here not a week later and sat down for a little chat with Crawford. Crawford didn’t know at the time who she was. But Cutler did. He told you, didn’t he? He told you she was Mike Gellman’s nanny. That was a huge mistake on his part. It cost Sophie her life.”
Jenks was sweating profusely. His eyeglasses were sliding down on his moist nose and again he slammed them back into place. He was scared. But he had the gun. Libby was sobbing, but trying to choke back her tears. I took a step forward.
Jenks jerked back again on Libby’s hair.
“Don’t move!”
I stopped. Damn it. Where were the police? I raised my hands out in front of me as if I were popping my sleeves in slow motion. I attempted to find the most velvety tone possible, under the circumstances.
“I can see how you did it, how you made the mistake. Sugar’s baby is being raised by the Gellmans, and not a week after this anonymous threat, who comes in? None other than the Gellman nanny herself. You never even consulted with Larue on this, did you? Or if you did, he told you there was something fishy about the woman and the fellow she was with. Right? Crawford here wasn’t completely buying their story. He told me that himself. That’s why he wanted to meet with me. He thought I was Tom Cushman. In cahoots with Sophie. He thought Cushman might know what Sophie allegedly knew.
“So then you were the good soldier, weren’t you? You thought the Gellmans’ nanny was poised to bring everything down around your ears. If the word got out about what Crawford allowed to happen to his daughter, and that he put her through several abortions on top of it all, that would be it for the ARK. So you marched off, didn’t you, and saw to it that Sophie would never breathe a word.”
Jenks slapped his glasses again. Next to me, I sensed Pete loosening his shoulders. I remembered. Pete carried a pistol. He even carried a license to shoot the thing. I couldn’t imagine his being able to get to it without Jenks doing something terribly rash and terribly stupid and terribly fatal. It occurred to me that if I could get myself between Jenks and Pete . . . if I could block Jenks’s view of Munger for just a few seconds . . . My heart issued a swift no thanks as it also occurred to me just who would then be in the middle of two guys with guns.
Sweat had broken out on me as well. I could feel it traveling south along my spine like I was being washed down with a sponge.
“I handed Tom Cushman over to the two of you without even knowing it,” I continued. “I told Crawford and Crawford told you. You knew where to find him. You stole those plates, didn’t you? You stole those plates and ran him down, you son of a bitch. Then you—”
“Shut up!”
“You’re a coward, Jenks.”
“Shut up!” Jenks raised his arm and pointed the pistol directly at my head. “Just shut the hell up.”
I did. Locked my lips and threw away the key. There was something well worth hearing besides my own damn voice anyway. Even through the buzzing in my ears, I think I heard them first, before the others. Of course I had been straining the whole time to hear them. Sirens. The cavalry was on the way. An instant later it appeared that Russell Jenks heard them. Libby as well. At least that’s what I thought initially. Except that the look on Libby’s face was anything but relieved. Just the opposite, in fact. Her eyes opened wide with terror.
A split second later I heard a sound behind me. Simultaneously, Libby jerked free of Jenks and lunged forward. She was screaming. So was Jenks. I only had time to half turn before a terrific explosion sounded in the room. It seemed to come from directly behind my left ear. Behind the couch, Jenks lifted completely off the ground. Remarkable. He looked like a marionette being jerked suddenly by its manipulator. A starburst of red exploded on his chest and he flew backward a good six or seven feet, where he slammed violently into the wall. If the wall had not been there he certainly would have continued on twice as far, maybe even more. His head hit against a framed painting of a windmill. Jenks and the painting fell to the floor. I was suddenly aware of something grabbing hold of my feet. It was Libby. She had pitched off the couch and continued entirely across the floor on her hands and knees. She was wrapping her arms around my ankles.
My ear was ringing. I wondered for a moment if I had maybe mistaken the ringing for the sirens. But then I remembered that I had heard the sirens before the explosion. Next to me, Pete Munger muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
I turned around.
Standing several feet inside the living room entrance was Sugar Jenks. She was holding on to a shotgun that looked to be damn near as long as she was tall. She was expressionless, even though she had just blown her husband off his feet with a blast from the gun. I remembered the gun case in Crawford Larue’s study. Sugar snapped a look at me.
“Move.”
I obeyed. I jerked one foot free of Libby’s grip and I dragged her with me as I took an Igor-like step sideways, bumping into Pete. Pete’s pistol was out. Crawford Larue was now rising out of his rocking chair. My moving had given Sugar the shot she wanted. She said no more. Crawford did. He extended his hands, palms up, and with the most syrupy voice he could bring up, he said his daughter’s name.
“Sugar.”
His head was slightly cocked and he had a great big smile on his face when he said it. Sugar hefted the rifle up to her hip and fired. No hesitation. Another explosion. Crawford took a trip similar to his deputy’s, only in his case he ended up sprawled half on and half off the couch. The smile was gone. Half the face was gone. I looked over at Sugar Jenks. Like a conjurer’s trick, Crawford Larue’s smile was now on his daughter’s face. Not as seasoned. Not as large. Not as smarmy. But it was still the same smile. Her daddy’s smile.
At my feet, Libby let out a huge sob.
The sirens grew louder.
CHAPTER
28
I had two long talks the day before we buried Mike Gellman. The first was with Eva Potts.
She phoned me at home. She spent most of the conversation talking about her daughter, telling me random stories of Sophie’s twenty-three years. I listened. The undertaker’s ear is accustomed to this exercise; I’ve always considered it one of the more important parts of my job. Eva Potts thanked me for my part in helping flush out what had really happened to her daughter. It was painful to see Sophie’s name in all of the newspaper articles, but she was gratified that the truth—ugly as it was—had been uncovered.
The other talk was with Lee Cromwell. Lee drove over to Fell’s Point and I took her out for a snazzy breakfast at Jimmy’s. Pete was going back to Susan. He had decided the night before; he was giving his marriage another shot. Pete was still in the shower when I popped out to meet with Lee. Lee wanted to talk with Pete, but she wanted to talk with me first. Her eyes were dark, with a mood to match. She looked tired. Lee had performed two shows at the Wine Cellar the night before. By my calculations she was working on five hours’ sleep at best. Probably less. I had to be at the funeral home soon to get things rolling for Mike’s service. Lee was in jeans, cowboy boots and a loose-fitting pale green sweater. She took exactly two bites of her scrambled eggs and left the rest, pushing the plate to the side.
“Will they let me smoke in this damn place?” she asked me, her eyes casting about for an ashtray. The cigarette was already in her mouth. She sounded so much like Pete just then it broke my heart.
Our talk ended out on the pier, across the harbor from the ubiquitous Domino Sugar sign. Lee had her fingers jammed into her rear pockets and was gazing across the water.
“I was so miserable when I left Ben. I was drinking too much. Ben was two-timing me with a younger woman. I hated the corner I had gotten myself into. I hated Ben, too. Our love was gone. It was an autopilot marriage and even the autopilot was breaking down.”
She looked out over the water. “Peter doesn’t hate his wife,” she went on. “He’s very angry and a lot of it is aimed at her. Susan has been a convenient place for him to dump all the blame for his unhappiness. And he knows it. And he doesn’t like himself for it.”
“He’s not happy with Susan,” I said. “You make him happy.”
“I’m easy, Hitch. I’m a girl singing in a nightclub. I love my independence. I don’t make demands on Peter. He’s not responsible for me. A marriage is a lot harder.”
“I think he’s making a mistake. He adores you.”
“He told me that he loves me,” Lee said.
“He loves you but he is going back to his wife.
That is so Munger. He just wants to make everyone miserable.”
Lee tilted her chin as if she were sniffing a new scent in the air. An inquisitive look came onto her face.
“No. I think Peter wants to make everyone happy but he can’t do it. I think he’s overlooking the fact that unless he is happy it’s not going to work at all.”
“I guess,” I said. “And you make him happy.”
“So does being loyal to his marriage.”
“You don’t believe that,” I said.
The toe of one of Lee’s boots had found a large splinter chip on the pier and she looked down at it as she worked it loose. She kicked it into the water.
“I guess I don’t.” She looked over at me and gave a thin smile. “It’s all your fault, Hitch. You introduced us.”
“Pete said the same thing.”
She looked past me. I turned. Munger was standing at the bottom of the pier, next to the Oyster. He seemed uncommonly interested in his shoes. I looked back at Lee. I was struck with the urge to tell her what Pete had done the day before at Crawford Larue’s house. But I didn’t. Pete had sworn me to secrecy. He had acted incredibly swiftly. It couldn’t have been less than ten seconds before the police came bursting into the house and Pete had stepped over to where Crawford Larue lay sprawled half on and half off the couch. Pete was still holding his own pistol, and taking hold of Larue’s right hand he pressed the dead man’s hand around the grip. Then he let the pistol drop to the floor. He stepped back over to where he had been standing and addressed Sugar Jenks. “Your father relieved me of my gun. When you burst in here just now, he was holding my gun on Hitchcock and me. That’s why you shot him. That is the only story you know. That is what happened.” Sugar had looked perplexed and then Munger had given her one of his great big crooked smiles. “Thank you for saving our lives, ma’am. Hitchcock and I appreciate it.”
