Long Way Down (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  In a low voice, speaking to the right and left, I said, “Don’t shoot. Stay back. Cover me.”

  We met face to face on the sidewalk. Carrying the rifle easily at his side, Zeda looked like the Devil, off on a hunt through hell. Behind him, the leaping flames completed the macabre illusion.

  With my revolver trained on his chest, I slowly extended my free hand. “Give me the gun, Zeda. Keep the muzzle down.”

  As he passed over the rifle, his satanic beard framed a derisive smile. His eyes mocked me as he said, “Muzzle down. Of course.”

  I passed the rifle to the man on the right and heard the bolt click open. Speaking very softly, I said, “You killed him. He’s dead.”

  “I was helping, Lieutenant. Helping you. Leonard must’ve gone mad.” He raised his shoulders in a languid, eloquent shrug.

  I stepped close to him. My voice was hoarse with suppressed fury as I said, “You could have killed her, you degenerate son of a bitch. There was a woman in that car. My woman.”

  He faltered, falling back involuntarily. He moved his head from side to side, as if to seek help. Then his widening eyes fixed themselves on the muzzle of my revolver and I saw fear in his sorcerer’s stare.

  I placed my thumb on the revolver’s hammer, deliberately drawing it through two deadly clicks. Again I closed the space between us. In the same hoarse voice I said, “You made Leonard kill King. You planned it—set it up. You and the woman. Didn’t you?” As I said it, I jammed the gun into his stomach, hard.

  He began to shake his head with a sudden wall-eyed palsy.

  “You had Leonard steal Clark’s knife. Then you dressed him in blackface, and had him kill King—for money. The insurance. And now you killed Leonard, to shut him up. Didn’t you?”

  As I jabbed him again, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I heard Friedman’s voice. I was stepping back, shaking my head—dazed. A stream of water shot by me, then another. Beneath the foaming arch of the second stream, I saw the porpoise shape of Canelli, lying on a stretcher as he smiled at me sheepishly. He held the big Magnum across his chest. As Friedman’s grip tightened on my shoulder, I stepped back from Zeda, and lowered my gun, eased off the hammer, and slipped the gun into its holster.

  Friedman ordered Zeda searched, cuffed, and taken away. Then, standing before me and speaking very deliberately, Friedman said, “As senior homicide lieutenant, Lieutenant, I am ordering you to turn around and walk over to your goddamn car. You are to get inside. You are then to take Ann home. You are to take care of yourself. You are also to take care of Ann. You might also like to change your clothes. Clear?”

  I could only shake my head, allowing my eyes to close. I felt my body sagging helplessly. My knees were trembling.

  “You look like hell,” Friedman was saying, “and you smell worse than that. You’re a mess. I don’t want to see you until Monday. Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll tell you how it all turns out. But I’ll call you. Don’t call me. Clear?”

  I turned wordlessly away, walking toward my car.

  Twenty-three

  I SAID GOODBYE, ROLLED on my stomach, and replaced the bedside phone in its cradle. From the kitchen came the smell of frying bacon. I threw back the covers, got out of bed, and took my robe from a chair. Ann’s clothing was draped neatly on a companion chair.

  “I’m putting the eggs on, Frank,” Ann called. “How many do you want?”

  “Three.”

  I found my slippers, sketchily combed my hair, and shuffled into the kitchen. I felt curiously disembodied, as if I were recovering from an illness. I knew that feeling of disconnected reality; I recognized it as my body’s reaction to tension and fear. And I realized that each year my body needed a longer time in which to restore itself. And my spirit, too. Especially my spirit. We’d come to my apartment last night, both of us exhausted, not speaking. I’d been obsessed with a shower—a long, hot shower. I’d stripped down, put my scorched, reeking clothes into a plastic refuse bag, and tied it tight. While I’d showered, Ann had taken the plastic bag into the garage, depositing it beside the garbage pails. Emerging from the shower, I’d found her in the bathrobe she kept in my closet. We’d gone immediately to bed, walking hand in hand into the bedroom—gravely, silently.

  “Who was on the phone?” She gestured me to a seat at the table.

  “Pete.”

  Her lips curved in a small, private smile. “Sometimes the two of you remind me of little boys playing cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, or something.”

  I snorted, sampling the coffee.

  “You do,” she insisted, sitting across the table and reaching for her napkin. “Really. You have all kinds of little games going, the two of you. And you don’t even realize it.”

  “Games like let’s fry Frank in burning oil, you mean.”

  Her gamin’s smile persisted, even though her eyes momentarily darkened, shadowed by last night’s terror. “That’s exactly what I mean,” she said. “The way you said that, I mean. So—so laconically. It’s your role. And you play it beautifully, darling. You’re the ever-so-serious hero in the white Stetson. And Pete is the—” She hesitated, frowning as she sipped her juice. “He’s the dusty, lovable old saddle bum, I guess. And of course he gets all the good lines—and the laughs, too. And there are the villains, of course. The bad guys. And you all plan out how the game’s going to go, just the way little boys do. You even squabble over who’s going to get to be the hero this time, and who’s not. Which confirms my opinion that—” She paused, eyes drifting away. I knew that mannerism. She was pursuing some new, wayward thought, hers alone.

  “Which confirms my opinion,” she repeated, “that a big reason for war is simply the fact that men are really just grown-up little boys playing with real bullets instead of toy caps. They—you—just can’t leave guns alone. If little boys don’t have guns, they use sticks and pretend.”

  As I salted and peppered my eggs, I thought about it. Before I could reply, she said in a low voice, “What I’m really doing, you know, is playing games myself—trying to be cheerful and gay, when actually”—she bit her lip—“actually, I—I can still see that—that leather mask, and that sword.” She shuddered, then sharply shook her head, impatient with herself. For a moment we ate in silence, letting the shadow settle. Finally she asked, “What did Pete want?”

  “Oh”—I sipped my coffee—“he just wanted to tell me how it all turned out, last night.” I began to butter a slice of rye toast.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  Now it was my turn. “Let’s change the subject. The less you talk about it, the sooner you get ov—”

  “Listen, Lieutenant. I’ll—I’ll do something drastic to you the next time you try to seduce me.”

  I began nibbling the second piece of toast. “I don’t really believe in seduction. At age forty-three, I’ve finally figured out that women are just smarter than men. Cooler. They—”

  “Frank—” She sat with both hands flat on the table, glaring at me with dangerous eyes.

  I sipped a little coffee, then said, “There really isn’t much to tell. Pete—the boy homicide lieutenant—simply picked up Mrs. King and put her in one room and Zeda in another, and proceeded to tell each one that the other was blaming him for the two murders.” I airily waved the toast. “It’s really quite simple. Especially if you’ve done it for fifteen or twenty years.”

  “Did they confess?”

  I shrugged. “Not really. And, anyhow, they’ll both probably get off. But we have a pretty good idea what happened.”

  “Well?”

  I smiled covertly. “Well, it seems that, in order to support Arnold Clark—the black guy—in a suitable style, Mrs. King started embezzling from her company. But a few months ago the company was almost sold. The deal didn’t go through, but she got scared. Because if it had been sold, there’d’ve been an audit. And she felt that once the owners started thinking about selling, they’d stay with the idea. So she started to think about how nice it would be if h
er husband died—and she got the insurance. She apparently mentioned it to Zeda—although she of course says that Zeda mentioned it to her. Anyhow—” I drained the last of the coffee, and looked expectantly at the coffeepot on the stove.

  “Keep talking.” She picked up my cup.

  “Anyhow, both Zeda and Marjorie King needed money, badly. Desperately. So Zeda agreed to ‘do something’ about Thomas King, in exchange for half the insurance money. He began following Thomas King, studying his habits. He also studied Mrs. King’s habits. And then Zeda made a mistake. He decided to frame Arnold Clark for the King murder. He programmed Leonard—your friend the headsman—to steal Clark’s knife, smear it with King’s blood, and leave the knife at the scene of the crime. Which Leonard did, very effectively. He even dressed up in blackface.”

  “Excuse me, but do you mean that Zeda actually controlled Leonard? Like Svengali?”

  “Back east, Leonard caused a girl’s death. Zeda found out and held it over Leonard’s head. For now, that’s all we know. Anyhow, Leonard simply followed Thomas King around until he found the right opportunity, and he did the job. He carried a gun and his own knife, apparently. He knocked King out and stabbed him with the knife he carried. Then he carefully planted Clark’s knife at the scene. Pete thinks Zeda drove the car and pulled the strings—and he’s probably right. Then the next day Zeda called to tip us off—before someone disturbed the evidence.”

  “What about that hippie? The murdered boy?”

  “Winship. He apparently stumbled on the scene, and got himself killed.” I sugared my second cup of coffee.

  “Did Zeda actually admit all this? Everything?”

  “No. Most of what I’ve said is pure speculation. Most of it, in fact, comes from Mrs. King, who is still ticked off at Zeda for trying to frame Clark. Zeda, meanwhile, pretends to think that Leonard managed the murder, with Mrs. King’s help. Which is easy to pretend, since Leonard’s dead.” I paused, then added, “Zeda’s a hell of a rifle shot. I’ve got to give him that. It turns out he was a sniper in the Marines.”

  In a small, wan voice she said, “He might have saved my life.”

  I shrugged.

  “It’s incredible,” she was saying. “Unbelievable. It’s so—so bizarre.”

  “Yes.”

  She pressed the point. “To think that two people could plot a murder in cold blood. And then one of them gets a—a sorcerer’s apprentice to do the killing. Not just one killing, but two—the same night. And then the sorcerer kills his apprentice.” She shuddered. “All last night, I saw that sword slicing through the window of the car.” Then, waywardly, her lips curved in a familiar pixy smile. “What are you going to tell your insurance company?”

  My smile answered hers. “Cops have their own insurance set up. No ordinary insurance company will handle us.”

  “I can believe it,” she answered. Then: “Why do you think they’ll both get off?”

  I shrugged. “This case is a potential gold mine of publicity. Even if they can’t afford it, they’ll have the very best lawyers. Wait and see.”

  We ate in silence for a moment. Then she asked, “How did you find out about Zeda?”

  “We were suspicious of Mrs. King and had her followed. When she realized that Zeda had framed her boyfriend, she blew her cool and drove over to Zeda’s house. That was Zeda’s mistake—he didn’t really think it would bother her that Clark had been framed. It probably never occurred to Zeda.”

  “The fatal flaw,” she mused.

  “What?”

  “Zeda lacks the capacity for love. So he couldn’t imagine her really loving Arnold Clark. It was a fatal flaw.”

  I snorted. “That depends on your definition of love. Personally, I’d call Mrs. King’s feeling for Clark an obsession.”

  She stood up, rounded the table, and stood close beside me. I felt her fingers in my hair; I felt the warmth of her flank against my shoulder. She bent down to whisper in my ear, “What’s wrong with being obsessed, Lieutenant?”

  “Nothing, I guess. Not if you’ve got the weekend off.” Still seated, I turned to her. As she arched her body, kissing the top of my head, I circled her hips with both arms, drawing her close.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Lt. Hastings Mysteries

  One

  FOR THE PAST SEVERAL blocks, sensing that the silence suited our mood, we’d made no effort to make conversation. The time was late, almost an hour after midnight, on a Tuesday night. Tomorrow morning we’d both be up early, preparing for our separate day’s work. A little wryly, I realized that neither of us had even hinted at the possibility of “my place.” I’d known Ann for less than four months. Was complacency already working against us? Or were we just tired after a party that neither of us had enjoyed?

  The party had been given by a hip-talking radiologist, recently divorced. Repeatedly, the host had loudly proclaimed himself an ex-friend of Ann’s ex-husband. Therefore—now—he was an admirer of Ann’s. But Ann’s ex-husband had also been a doctor: a sadistic, supercilious society psychiatrist. She didn’t like doctors.

  Discovering that I was a policeman, the host had immediately become patronizing. All evening he’d quipped about “the police mentality,” and “I-can-get-it-for-you-wholesale law.” When he also discovered that I’d once played professional football, mostly as a second-stringer, I’d gotten our coats.

  “There.” Ann pointed to a space between a driveway and a four-door Buick. “Can’t you get in there?”

  “Maybe.” I pulled up, put the car in reverse, and backed until my bumper made gentle contact with the Buick. Moving a few inches forward, I realized that my front bumper overhung the driveway by at least a foot. Shrugging, I switched off the lights and the engine. I wouldn’t be long.

  She turned toward me, smiling. “I never realized that policemen break so many laws.”

  “That’s because you’ve never known any policemen.” I slipped my right arm around her shoulders. “Have you?”

  “You know I haven’t.” Her clothing rustled as she moved closer. “But I never asked you—how many school teachers have you known?”

  “Hmm—” I pretended to think about it, at the same time lightly caressing her hair. The ash-blond hair was soft and fine, exciting to touch. Moving my hand, I traced a slow, sensual line down the curve of her neck, seeking the hollow of her throat. At the touch, she drew a long, lingering breath.

  “No fair, Lieutenant Hastings,” she whispered. “I’ve got my children. You’ve got your career. And it’s one o’clock in the morning.”

  “Hmm—” Moving my hand beneath her chin, I tilted her mouth up to mine. As she kissed me, I felt the lift of her breasts against my chest. Aroused, she was breathing quickly. But finally she drew back, murmuring, “Don’t, Frank. We’re just making it more difficult.”

  “It’s only five minutes to my place.”

  “I wouldn’t get home until three in the morning. I wouldn’t be able to function tomorrow.” She wedged a small, determined elbow against my chest and levered us apart. “Teaching fourth grade is nothing like running a squad of homicide detectives, you know. If I’m off my game, they make it miserable for me.”

  “What about my game?”

  She smiled. “Which game is that?”

  “The game of love. What else?”

  “You’re very poetic. But you’ve never faced a classroom of fourth graders.”

  “True. But I’ve—”

  “Besides, I have a proposition for you.”

  “Let’s take one proposition at a time. We can—”

  “Victor is taking the boys to Palm Springs for the weekend. They’re leaving Friday afternoon. Did I tell you?”

  “You said he might be taking them.”

  “Well, it’s definite. And I was thinking—” She hesitated. “I mean, I was talking to Marcie Williamson. And she’s going to Portland this weekend. Her mother’s sick. So she asked me if I’d like to use her cabin at Stinson Beach.”r />
  “And you’re asking me.”

  “Can you get away?”

  “Definitely.”

  With her elbow still firmly wedged, she skeptically smiled. “You’ve said that before.”

  “And I always mean it.” Making a game of it, I began to draw her toward me, testing her strength.

  “I’ve handled bullies before,” she whispered, squirming. “All it takes is a little—”

  Suddenly I felt her stiffen. As she’d glanced over my shoulder, her eyes had involuntarily widened.

  “What’s wrong?” Twisting in the seat, I followed her stare.

  “I—” She blinked, then sharply shook her head. “It’s nothing, I guess.” But still she stared. Across the street the skeletal girders of a large, half-finished townhouse rose two stories high against the sky.

  “Did you see something?”

  First she sharply shook her head. Then, plainly impatient with herself, she nodded.

  “Where?”

  “Over there.” She pointed to the construction site.

  Taking my arm away, I turned to examine the area. Nothing stirred. I turned back to her. My voice dropped to a note of unconscious authority as I said, “What’s it all about, Ann?”

  “I—I thought I saw someone there—a shadow. Just a shadow.”

  “Why’re you so worried, though?”

  “Well, I—” Eyes still straying over my shoulder, she bit her lip. Finally facing me fully, she admitted, “I didn’t mention it to you, but lately I—I’ve had the feeling that someone’s been watching me. I’ve seen—”

  “Wait here.” I reached across to lock her door, then took my flashlight from its clip beneath the dash.

  “Frank. Don’t—”

  “Just stay put. I’ll take a look. Keep the doors locked.” Without waiting for a reply, I got out of the car, locked my own door and stood for a moment beside the car, looking and listening. The street was quiet. It was a good, semi-affluent neighborhood. But the ghetto was less than ten blocks away. Street crime was common here.