Murder in Store

by DC Brod

  I nodded. “Who’s going to run the store?”

  She smiled. “Mr. Griffin fancies he is. I have news for him. I may not have the Hauser name anymore, but I have the Hauser blood.” Her tone became more serious. “I know you have been fired by Griffin. I don’t feel that move was deserved. Given a little time, I may be able to reinstate you as security chief.”

  “It’s not that important,” I said.

  “What is important?” she asked.

  “Finishing a job.”

  Grace nodded. The car pulled over and stopped in almost the same spot where I’d been picked up. “Thank you, Quint.”

  I smiled. “For what?”

  “For listening to an old woman. And for easing my mind. You’re competent. But you probably aren’t adept at this sort of thing yet so promise me you will be cautious.”

  These Hausers had more in common than their posture. Like Preston, Grace had the ability to deliver a compliment

  and slam dunk you at the same time.

  She continued. “I also feel I can trust you. There aren’t many people I can say that about anymore.”

  She tapped on the window and the door opened. I glanced up at the chauffeur and said to Grace, “He’s good. Don’t let him go.”

  I stepped out onto Michigan Avenue, mug and baseball in hand, and watched as the limousine, carrying its anonymous occupant, slid into traffic.

  10

  ELAINE WAS PLANTED on the sofa. She had on argyle socks and the blue, ratty-looking robe. The room was hazy with smoke, and cigarette butts erupted from the blue ceramic ashtray on the coffee table. Elaine was leaning over it, squinting one eye to keep out the stream of smoke she was exhaling. She held the cigarette poised, trying to find a space large enough to extinguish it in.

  “Allow me,” I said, taking the ashtray with one hand and her cigarette with the other. I doused the butt under the faucet and, after checking to make sure nothing was smouldering, emptied the ashtray. I replaced it on the table.

  “Thank you,” she said, dropping in the match she had just used to light another cigarette. She coughed and waved the smoke out of her face. Then she offered me one from the pack.

  “No thanks. I’ll just stand here and breathe for a while.”

  She nodded and turned back to the game show in progress on television.

  “Mind if I open a window?”

  “Good luck,” she said.

  I walked over to one of the windows and immediately sized up the problem. “These windows don’t open.” “I know.”

  I examined the window that did not open. “We’re on the twelfth floor, aren’t we?” “Uh huh.”

  “Then why is there a dead fly on the windowsill?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, tearing her attention from the TV and giving my question serious consideration. “I think it adds character to the room. A little mystery.” She gave it another moment. “Sort of like the leopard they found dead way up on Kilimanjaro. What was it doing all the way up there?” Her voice drifted off, then came back. “Stiff as a carp.”

  I nodded. “Just the metaphor that came to my mind too. So,” I turned to her. “Have a good day?”

  “Yeah. Great. I love relaxing.” Then, as almost an afterthought, “How about you?”

  “Oh, not too eventful.” I sat in one of the utilitarian chairs. It was surprisingly comfortable. “My boss dropped dead while I was talking to him. Probably poisoned. His wife laughed when I told her, then insisted that she didn’t do it. The police detective assigned to the case probably suspects that the widow and I are having a torrid affair. Then the general manager decided that if the head of security allowed the owner of the store to be murdered in his presence, there was no telling what else he might do. So he fired me.”

  At first, Elaine didn’t respond. She just stared at me for several moments, analyzing the veracity of my statement. Apparently satisfied, she dropped back to her reclining position and stared at the ceiling. Finally she said, “Are you?”

  Somewhere along the way I had lost the thread. “Am I what?”

  “Having an affair with the widow? She sounds like your type.”

  When I didn’t answer, she sat up, pulled her legs up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. “Were you really fired?”

  “Yep,” I said, nodding.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and I could tell she meant it. Then she seemed to consider what I had just told her. “Who was killed?”

  “Preston Hauser.”

  She let that sink in. Then she said, “Wow,” without much enthusiasm.

  I nodded. I was going to tell her not to worry about my keeping up on the rent, at least for a while, but she didn’t seem to be thinking about money. We both sat there, in a comfortable silence, for several minutes.

  Then I said, “Unemployment makes me hungry.”

  “I know what you mean.” She dismally surveyed the crumpled potato chip bag and empty candy wrappers strewn around the couch.

  “Do you like Guinness stout?”

  “Never had it.”

  “Why don’t you get some pub-crawling clothes on. I’ll treat you to the taste sensation of your life.”

  While she changed, I called Harry.

  “Damn, Quint. What did you get yourself mixed up in this time? I thought you had a sedentary desk job.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They fired me.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s the breaks. Anyway,” I continued, trying to get Harry back on the track, “did you find out anything about those letters.”

  “Some. But not a lot. A few sets of prints. Yours and Hauser’s are probably on there. I’ll need sets of anyone who touched these letters.”

  “Make sure you get a set of Diana Hauser’s.”

  “Well, your policeman friend, Sergeant O’Henry, is tending to those tasks.”

  “Did he give you the fourth letter?”

  “Yes. I’m still working on that one. It’s great to be doing freelance work for the police department. I’m going to enjoy sending them the bill.”

  I laughed. Harry had considered himself underpaid when he was with the department.

  “What about the blood?”

  “Ah, now that’s interesting. It’s really going to narrow down your list of suspects.” Harry was enjoying himself now.

  “Okay, Harry. Spit it out.” “The cat did it.” “The cat?”

  “Yes. The cat. Smeared across Preston Hauser’s person is cat blood.”

  Harry’s use of the word “person” was like a finger jabbing me in the side. Sometimes you forget that an investigation is more than a puzzle.

  “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Not yet,” he said, catching my mood. “Quint, are you going to tell me where you’re living these days?”

  “If you need to get hold of me, the number is 555-4897.”

  “I’ve got time if you want to talk,” he said.

  I looked up as Elaine walked into the living room from the hall. She wore faded jeans, western-style boots, and a bulky sweater. Her legs were long and slender and she wore the jeans like they were a second skin. Her hair was thick and had a lot of curl in it so it fanned out against her shoulders.

  “I can’t talk now, Harry. I’ll stop by your lab tomorrow.”

  The White Hart looked and felt like an English pub. From the shingle above the door bearing the sign of the buck’s head, to the dart boards on the walls, it did justice to that fine tradition, as a great place to go for a little friendly conversation or for solitude. You could get both here. In

  addition to Guinness, served at basement temperature, you could get several brands of British ale. You could also order hot sandwiches and sometimes they even served meat pies and bridies.

  Elaine was about to experience her first Guinness. I told her it took a discriminating individual to appreciate the taste. She assured me that she wa
s every bit as discriminating as I was and took a sip.

  “This tastes like motor oil,” she grimaced, then quickly added, “but good,” and had another swallow.

  By the time she finished the half pint, she decided it was growing on her. I ordered two more when our sandwiches came.

  “Can you do anything besides be a security guard?” she asked, biting into her corned-beef sandwich. “Let’s hope so.” “Do you have a degree?”

  I shook my head and swallowed a bite of beef. “I went to Northern for two years. English major.” I shrugged. “Never knew what I’d do with it, but I liked studying literature. Then I drew a low lottery number. Got drafted.”

  I told her about Vietnam and my stint with the First Cavalry. She kept firing questions and I kept revealing more about my past—flying helicopters, the police force, taking time off to bum around.

  Finally I interrupted her barrage. “What is this, Elaine, twenty questions?”

  She nodded, nibbling on a piece of corned beef that had fallen out of her sandwich. “I’ve still got about fifteen more. Was there ever a Mrs. McCauley?”

  “Yes. In fact there still is.” Elaine stopped chewing and I went on before she could interject. “She’s a lovely lady. Lives in Downers Grove with my father.”

  Elaine rolled her eyes and called me a smart ass. She smiled when she said it though.

  “Actually, there was another one, for about four years.” “What happened?”

  “I had her bumped off. She asked too many questions.” Elaine took one of my cigarettes. “Where is she now?” “California last I heard. Isn’t that where people go to start over?”

  She lit the cigarette and drew in the smoke. Rubbing her finger over a pair of carved initials in the table, she said, “Yeah, but it doesn’t always take.”

  “So I hear.”

  “What did you do after Vietnam and before the police force?”

  It had taken Maggie a month to find out what Elaine had learned in two minutes. “I pitched in the minors.”

  Her eyebrows shot up and she abruptly swallowed. “Really? Where?”

  I named a town outside Kenosha, Wisconsin.

  “What was it? Double, triple A?”

  “Double.”

  “Tell me about it. What was it like? Why did you quit?”

  I leaned back in the chair and pushed my hands in my pockets. I hadn’t thought about the minors for a long time. She had hit on a few of my very best years. The early ones were especially good, when I moved steadily up to a double-A team and thought I wouldn’t stop until I hit the majors. I was a little surprised that it felt so good to remember those times, and she seemed to be listening.

  So when she said, “What was your ERA?” I was off.

  “Around three.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I was consistent.” I nodded to myself. “On rare occasions, dazzling.”

  She leaned forward. “Did you ever pitch a no-hitter?”

  I felt like she had read a copy of my life. “Where did you get these questions?”

  “Did you?”

  I recited it to her as I recalled it. “It was top of the ninth, two out. The crowd was on its feet. You could hear the wind in the flags. I was one batter away from a no-hitter. And I felt good. Really good. I knew I could get this guy out. It was my last season. I knew I didn’t have whatever it took to make the majors, but I figured if I could get this one guy out, I’d have one really fine memory to take with me, one I could keep tucked away and pull out when I needed a shot.”

  She nodded slowly. “What happened?”

  My memory traveled a little farther and the spell broke. I shrugged and drained the mug of stout. “He hit the ball out of the park and they gave it to me as a souvenir.” Now I remembered why I hadn’t thought about this for so long. “I clutched.”

  After studying me for a moment, Elaine said, “Sometimes failure is easier to handle than success.”

  I didn’t want to think about the depth of that statement. Not now anyway. “Yeah, well, in the grand scheme of my life I guess it didn’t make much difference.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  I settled up our tab and we walked out into the bitter January night. It had been snowing pretty hard and a couple inches had accumulated already. The snow muffled the city noises, leaving the night bright, calm, and silent. I felt good. Considering the events of the day, I hadn’t thought that possible.

  Somewhere on the way to the car, Elaine’s mittened hand found its way into mine. That felt good too.

  11

  I DECIDED THAT the snow was a lot more appealing when it was highlighting Elaine’s hair than when I was trying to drive in it. The roads were slick and we passed a couple fender-benders on the way to the apartment. Elaine was going to see about getting me my own parking space. In the meantime, her yellow Mustang remained warm and secure underneath the building. What could I do? Insist that she be the one to play musical cars with the auto population on the north side? I would never be able to look my mother squarely in the eyes again. I dropped Elaine at the entrance to our building and promised to call if I thought I wouldn’t make it back from finding a parking place before morning. She smiled and shook her head.

  I weaved up and down side streets. It was worse than usual because of the weather and the streets that were snow routes were off limits for parking. I found myself musing over my new living arrangement. I knew it was too soon to get involved with anyone. It had only been a couple of days, although it seemed a whole lot longer, since Maggie had shown me the door. I was still seeing a lot of things in terms of Maggie, and here was Elaine. Without any obvious effort, she was slipping into my thoughts as surreptitiously as her hand had slid into mine. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about it. But then again, maybe I should. Maybe I was experiencing the rebound effect and Elaine was the unfortunate third party. Maybe Elaine was just being nice.

  A very small parking space saved me from further self-analysis. I wedged my Honda in between a large Plymouth and an old Volkswagen and, because there was no traffic and the streets seemed better for traveling, started walking down the center of the street. It was to be a long four blocks.

  I heard the car before I saw it. Its headlights were off and it seemed to come out of nowhere. While its origin might have been questionable, its destination wasn’t, and that destination was definitely me.

  The car came from behind me, and the skidding noise it made in the snow before the tires caught caused me to jerk around. It was almost on top of me when I dove between two cars, into a space that I hoped was larger than it appeared. It wasn’t. A jolt of pain shot through my knee as I jammed between two bumpers. I tried to extricate myself. The killer car made a hurried three-point turn at the end of the block, then roared back toward me. This time its brights were on.

  With a painful jerk, I yanked my leg from between the bumpers and propelled myself with my good leg toward the parkway. I landed face first with a mouthful of snow as the big car smashed into the two cars. The impact pushed one of them onto the parkway. It landed less than a foot away. Time to move. I heard, rather than saw, the car retreat as I pushed myself up off the ground.

  For the first few steps, I wasn’t sure my knee was going to hold. It felt like an ice pick was digging around inside it. I hobbled down the sidewalk, keeping an eye out for the car and looking for an escape route. Maybe the driver had given up, figuring he had lost the advantage of surprise. No such luck.

  I was near the end of the first block when the car came from around the corner, roared up over the curb, and slammed onto the sidewalk, its brights blinding me. Figuring

  I’d be better off in whatever protection the buildings and yards offered, I hobbled as fast as my knee would allow into the narrow space between two four-story apartment buildings. The car screeched to a stop, and a door slammed.

  I quickly inventoried my assets and wished I had been using my old army-issue blade for a letter opener instead of the bird kn
ife. I had to assume that if this person or persons had set out to kill me, they brought the equipment necessary to accomplish the job. Strange. A few minutes ago my pursuer was a big malevolent piece of machinery with no human qualities, just a big, mean hunk of metal. Somehow, knowing there was a person trailing me was a lot scarier. I took the knife from my pocket and drew it from its sheath. The three-inch blade didn’t seem enough to make even a pigeon real edgy, but it was better than nothing.

  There was an alley behind the apartment building but I rejected it as too well lit and too obvious a way for me to go. It was incredibly quiet and white behind these buildings and the snow was such a fine powder that I could move without a noise. Slinking through these yards, knife drawn, I felt like my presence desecrated the serenity.

  Strange. Being stalked by some faceless enemy through the snow and alleys on the north side of Chicago wasn’t all that different from being stalked by some faceless enemy through a rain forest on the other side of the world. In Chicago, you could put a hand on a building or a car—some symbol of civilization—but it wasn’t there for you. The differences were only incidental. Bird and insect noises were replaced by the sound of distant cars with bad mufflers. You crept through the shadows of the buildings the same way you crept through the trees and tried to keep the whole thing impersonal.

  I figured there was only one person. I heard only one car door shut.

  I could probably make my way back to Elaine’s by cutting through backyards and parking lots and by praying when I crossed the streets, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. Some people wanted me dead and I was real curious about their identity. If my current pursuer had a gun, I wasn’t about to try to overpower him, but if I could get a glimpse of him, then that might be worth the effort. If he didn’t shoot me, that is. I crouched behind some bushes near the gate to the alley and waited. The snow was falling harder now, and I had to keep mopping my eyes and face with my jacket sleeve. I realized there was sweat mixed in with the snow.