The Maya Stone Murders

by Malcolm Shuman

  “Better,” I said. “At least I think so. How did you get me upstairs?”

  “I wrestled you. You woke up—halfway.” She put the sack on the table. “I was down to see Gregory this morning. He’s in a bad way. This business about his wife has almost killed him. He wants to confess to keep his wife clear, but I talked him out of it, with the help of Mr. O’Rourke. We told him that if you hadn’t killed this man, and he couldn’t have, because he was in jail, then it was pretty clear the real murderer had done it.” She turned and faced me squarely. “Micah, we’ve got to clear you so you can find out who really did it.”

  “So Gregory can get loose.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll do my very best. Right now, though, I’d give a lot for a bath and some clean clothes.”

  “No problem. The bathroom is upstairs and there are some towels on the rack. I’ve put some of Scott’s old clothes at the foot of the bed. You’re about the same size.”

  I thanked her and went up to get clean. It was afternoon, I was rested, and I had found a safe house, not a bad accomplishment with the police forces of half the state looking for me. But I still could not come up with any course of action. I could try to confront Ordaz, but he was too well guarded, and I still might not get anywhere. I couldn’t go anywhere near Thorpe’s wife yet.

  That left only Cobbett. It was time to apply the pressure.

  But Cobbett would be out of town until tomorrow, and there had to be something I could do today. I had the feeling that the girl, Astrid Bancroft, knew more than she was telling, even if she didn’t realize it, but under the protective eye of her boyfriend she was as hard to get to as Ordaz. And I had no illusions about either of them not tipping the police if I showed up.

  Leeds. I had to find his girlfriend, if he had one. I had to find whomever he had trusted, whoever might know about the jade.

  All I could think to do was go back to his apartment. There must be something I had overlooked, something that would give me a name, an address, a photograph.

  Of course I would have to wait until dark.

  Katherine threw on some steaks for supper, explaining that she could do better but I needed a solid meal. She opened a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and told me I could have two glasses, no more, because I would need to keep my wits about me. Then she defrosted a frozen cheesecake in the microwave and gave me a piece, for the sugar content, she said.

  “What will you look for?” she asked.

  “I honestly don’t know. But I think it was Leeds who was planting the artifacts and I think there’s a good chance he told somebody about it. He must have had somebody.”

  She nodded. “One would think so. He was a very handsome young man.”

  Suddenly I remembered the bottle in his cupboard, with the card reading “from K.” I gave Katherine a sideways glance. Was it possible?

  “But you never saw him with anybody.”

  “Not that I recall, unless it was with people working on the project. I often wondered why he and Astrid didn’t strike up a match. You know, things like that happen in the field all the time: man and woman, isolated, natural urges. But she seems to have been in her own little world until Gladney came along. He certainly found her love spot.”

  We both broke out laughing at her sudden bawdiness and I thought it was a pity she had decided to waste her life on the likes of Gregory Thorpe.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a banging on the door. I jumped to my feet but Katherine put a hand on my arm. “That’s Scott. He never uses the bell and he’s always losing his key. Go upstairs and wait. I’ll see what he wants, though I suspect I know. The automatic-teller card is the worst invention since Saturday-morning cartoons.”

  I went up the steps and heard the door open below me. Katherine’s voice said something I couldn’t understand and then I heard Scott’s bass, but the words were inaudible. They moved out of the living room and I guessed he was going to raid the refrigerator. I turned toward the window, then saw the framed photo on the bedside table. As I picked it up, I suddenly knew why the man in uniform looked familiar. Though thirty years younger than Gregory Thorpe, his face nevertheless bore a strong likeness to the scholar’s. The man in the photograph was Katherine’s husband. She had lost him and then ended up working with a man who resembled him.

  It was a cruel trick for fate to play, I thought, setting down the photo and turning back to the doorway.

  The voices from downstairs were louder now. They seemed to be having an argument. I caught a few curse words from Scott and fought the urge to go down and slap him for his insolence. Then, as I watched, he strode out of the kitchen and through the living room to the front door. Its slam shook the house and a few seconds later Katherine came out of the kitchen, her face pale and her hands clenched in front of her.

  I came out onto the landing. “What is it?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No … nothing. Just the usual give-and-take between stodgy old mother and sage twenty-year-old.”

  I went down the steps and took her arm, guiding her to the couch. “It was more than that, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded. “He was harping on the business with Gregory again. He’s convinced I’ve been having an affair with him.” She smiled wistfully. “I have to admit I would’ve if Gregory had ever looked at me as a woman. Anyway, Scott wants me to drop Gregory. He says he’s an Ivy League nerd who’s never done any work in his life.” She shook her head. “Ever since last summer, when Scott went down to work offshore, he’s been the world-weary workingman.” She shook her head quickly, as if she wanted to rid herself of a bad memory. “Well, that’s my problem. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.” I watched as she underwent the transformation from vulnerable mother to capable, determined defender of the man she loved. She went to the desk in the corner and took out a flashlight. “You’ll need this,” she said, handing it to me. “And if you’re caught, the secretary will disavow all knowledge.”

  I smiled and she dangled her car keys in front of me. “Here. What does an old fogy like me want with these on a Saturday night?”

  I reached for them and then my hand closed over hers. We looked into each other’s eyes and then she dropped her gaze and I released her hand.

  “Good luck,” she told me.

  It was just dark enough to blur faces. I wedged myself behind the wheel of the Toyota and reminded myself I’d have to shift as well as steer with my good hand, hardly an ideal situation. I edged out into the street and flicked on the lights. Then I headed across St. Charles to Leeds’s place.

  It hadn’t changed. The key was still in the mailbox and there was the same incense smell when I went in. I flicked on the flashlight and started with the living room, taking every book down from the shelf, examining the inside cover for a name or an inscription, and then shaking it out for notes.

  Halfway through I stopped. Some sixth sense warned me to check the street, so I slipped over to one of the windows and looked out.

  All was quiet, except that someone had parked in the empty space a car length behind the Toyota. Probably a neighbor, I told myself. But the sixth sense kept yelling danger.

  It had saved me a few times in Nam and I knew better than to disobey it, even if it meant blowing the whole job. I tiptoed to the kitchen, opened the back door, and stepped out into the patio. A smell of barbecue came from nearby, spicing the muggy air with mesquite smoke and cooking beef. I closed the door softly behind me and walked around to the side of the house. The barbecue smell was coming from over the wooden fence closing off this backyard from the one behind. But the yard of the house next door was separated from this by nothing more than a waist-high cyclone fence. I went to it quickly, hoping there would not be a dog. Using the limb of a camphor tree, I pulled myself up and then jumped down into the neighboring patio.

  I walked alongside this house, stopping at a window. A television was going and somebody inside laughed loudly. I ducked under the window and made it to the front.


  I waited, and as I watched, a car passed slowly down the street, its headlights lancing the line of vehicles parked at the curb. For a bare instant the lights stabbed through the glass of the car parked behind mine and I realized my sixth sense had been right: There was somebody inside.

  While I was trying to decide my next move, another car approached down the narrow one-way street. Even in the darkness I could see that it was white, with the blue crescent device on the door that advertised New Orleans’ finest. It swung in at the curb, the lights went out, and two figures got out. They opened the trunk and took out shotguns and then started for the front of the house.

  I bent over and, using some azalea bushes to hide me, made my way to the sidewalk and then darted to the cover of a camphor tree. I heard pounding on the door and knew it would only be a few seconds before half the neighborhood was standing on their front porches. As if in confirmation, the porch lights of the house I had just left glared on and I heard the door opening. I took a deep breath and walked quickly across the street, hoping I would remain unseen in the commotion.

  I had a choice to make: Walk away or attack.

  A brief image of the Captain flashed through my mind. He was standing on the bridge of his destroyer, the shells whining past overhead and the spray stinging his face, and he was telling them to launch the torpedoes.

  I decided to attack.

  13

  It was a calculated risk, but no worse than the other option. I slipped alongside the parked cars, coming up on the driver’s side of the vehicle with the watcher. It was an older model, and when I glimpsed the plates I had to stifle my surprise. Perhaps, though, I should have known.

  The driver was too intent on the drama across the street to notice me until I had jerked open the front door. When he turned to confront me I had my hand in my pocket, my finger aimed at his midsection.

  “Move over,” I whispered. “Make a sound and I’ll blow you in two.”

  The surprise caught him off guard and he slid over docilely.

  The police were both on the front porch now and another car had pulled up behind the first one. The second one began to play its spotlight on the parked vehicles and I forced my captive down in the seat as the glare played over us. It hovered for what seemed eternity and I pushed farther down into the seat, and then the light moved on to the next car. Doors slammed and I heard a disgruntled exclamation. The first car started away and the man beside me stirred, but I reached out with my hand and grabbed him by his hair, forcing him down into the seat. He gave a little yelp but the second police car was moving away now. I let go and moved back to an upright position.

  “All right, Scott, now maybe you’ll tell me why you followed me from your mother’s house,” I said. “And why you called the police to tell them I was here.”

  It was a rugged face that turned toward me, with fashionably long brown hair. He had the square jaw that gave an appearance of determination but I could see in the eyes that he had lost some nerve by being caught off guard.

  “You’re an escaped killer,” he said sarcastically. “That ought to be enough.”

  “And you’re just doing your duty, right? How did you know I was with her? The dishes on the table?”

  He nodded. “I knew somebody was there, so I decided to wait outside. When I saw you leave I recognized you because of the …”

  “Because of my arm. It’s okay, I’m used to it.”

  He relaxed fractionally. “I figured you were hitting on her. I figured you were trying to step in now that Indiana Jones’s in jail.”

  “Indiana Jones? Is that what they call him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, your mother is an extremely attractive woman. She deserves a life of her own. But my relationship with her is strictly professional. For better or worse, she’s still pretty hung up on Thorpe. Though I believe her when she says he’s never responded.”

  Scott made a noise of disbelief. Then he turned to face me. “Man, you don’t have a gun, do you? You never had one.”

  “No,” I said. “I never did.”

  “You can’t make me stay here.”

  “Not for long. Though a one-armed man learns a few tricks to defend himself. Want to see one?”

  The flicker of indecision in his eyes told the story. “Naw,” he said. “So what did you want over here at Leeds’s house?”

  “I was hoping I could find something to tell me who he hung out with, might have confided in. A girlfriend, for instance.”

  Scott grunted. “Man, that’s a snort.”

  “Oh?”

  “A girlfriend? Sweet Gordie?”

  A big piece of reality shifted, took on a different shape. “Gordon Leeds was homosexual?”

  “That’s the word. He kept it quiet. Discreet is the word. But I went with some friends to a gay place down in the Quarter last year. Curiosity, you know? And there he was, hanging all over some leather-jacket type. He didn’t see me and we left. It isn’t my scene.”

  “You didn’t tell anybody?”

  “No, why should I? If that’s how he gets off, let him. Seemed to fit right in with the rest of the crew: Thorpe; that dingy girl, Astrid; and gold teeth, the Mayan.”

  “You never saw the man he was with in the Quarter that day?”

  “No, man. I just wanted to get out before I barfed on somebody.”

  I reflected. Suddenly it all made sense. “Tell me, you ever hear of Claude St. Romaine?”

  “You mean the dude they say you offed?” He shrugged. “He was a big frat rat a couple of years ago. Sigma Chi. Look, man, everybody on campus knew he was pumping Thorpe’s old lady. It used to be the talk of the Greeks. Everybody thought it was a blast, you know?”

  I thought for a moment, then came to a decision. “I’m going to have to try to find out who killed him,” I said. “It’s the only way to clear myself. And there’s the little matter of who killed Leeds, too. I’m betting they’re one and the same. I’m going to leave you here and you can call the law again, if you want. But I’d rather you didn’t.”

  He blinked and then nodded very slowly. “Okay, man. I may be crazy, but I trust you.”

  I reached out my hand and he took it. We shook and then I left him.

  I remembered some of the names in the funeral register. Thomas Fedders. Karl Hahn. Fred Gladney. And there were a few others that I would have to dredge up from my memory if I didn’t hit on the first three.

  Somehow, I didn’t see Gladney in the role. That left Fedders and Hahn.

  Was it just a coincidence that one of the names began with a K?

  I stopped at a phone booth and called Directory Assistance. Karl Hahn lived on Dauphine, a stone’s throw from my own apartment. It could hardly be a coincidence. But it would be a risk going there, because I was known in the neighborhood and the cops would all have my description.

  I didn’t have any choice.

  Fortunately, there was a lot of Saturday-night traffic. I found a place down on Esplanade and slipped into the shadows, on the part of the sidewalk nearest the buildings. A little knot of people was gathered in front of the saloon at the corner of Chartres and Esplanade, but they seemed uninterested in just another passerby. I went two more blocks, was propositioned by a hooker, and told her some other time. I sensed her eyes on me as I walked away, wondering if she noticed the arm; whether she listened to police bulletins; whether she needed money or a favor bad enough to hail the next cop car.

  I turned at the corner, walked southwest, toward Canal, and then turned right again onto Barracks, the street named for the barracks John Law built for the provincial troops. Right now I was more worried about troops of another sort. I came to Dauphine and stopped. The place where Karl Hahn lived would be in this block. I went left, counting the house numbers.

  It was a narrow, brick-faced apartment with grilles on the windows and a step up to an iron-bar door. The downstairs was dark, but overhead, behind the balcony, I could see lights in the windows. I wen
t into the entranceway and squinted at the names on the mailboxes. His name was on the one for the upstairs apartment. I pushed the buzzer.

  There was a long interval of silence and then a voice croaked against a background of static.

  “Who is it?”

  I mumbled a reply that I knew would be inaudible and rang again.

  “Who is it?” the voice demanded again.

  I mumbled again and there was more silence.

  Something moved in the corner of my eye and I shifted my head slightly: A pair of figures emerged from the corner of Gov. Nicholls Street and turned up Dauphine, toward me. A passing car caught them in its lights and I saw the uniforms.

  I jabbed the button again.

  “Who is it?” the voice cried and even through the static I recognized an edge of panic.

  The policemen had crossed over to my side of the street, were a mere half block away.

  “Leeds,” I said, hoping the shock would work.

  The uniforms were only yards away now.

  “What?” The voice in the static was choked.

  “Leeds,” I said. “Gordon Leeds.”

  They were almost on me and the one on the inside was looking over at me with awakening curiosity. I pressed myself further into the shadows.

  I jabbed the button again as the policemen drew abreast.

  The lock clicked as the electronic signal from inside released it and I shoved the grille open, plunging into the merciful blackness. The gate clanged shut behind me like a prison door and I realized my escape could be only temporary. But there was no going back now.

  On the right a stairway gaped like an open mouth, blacker even than the darkness around it, like a vortex to annihilation. I took a deep breath and started upward, conscious of the gun-shot creaking of my feet on the boards. The stairwell smelled of dust and I had the suffocating sensation that the walls were about to close around me.