The Skelly Man

by David Daniel

  “An investigation brought me,” I said.

  His brow rose. “You’ve got a client?”

  “It’s not that unusual.”

  “Who?”

  “This person isn’t involved in whatever happened here.”

  The outer doors squeaked open and footsteps approached. Gus Deemys materialized. His silk suit glistened. He caught a glimpse of himself in a wall mirror and paused to look. The top portion of the glass was fogged. He bent his knees and touched his Windsor knot. Spotting us, he turned.

  “What?” St. Onge said.

  Deemys came over. I didn’t exist for him. The blood was bad between Deemys and me; in fact, between me and most of the city heat. “We got the area taped off,” Deemys said. “‘Attempted’ is what it looks like. I got people checking for witnesses.”

  I said, “Did you speak with the young woman who found her?”

  Deemys looked caught. St. Onge said, “The campus cop says you found her.”

  “Before me. She’s the one who screamed. Reddish hair, nice-looking. Late twenties, maybe, jeans and glasses. Probably a grad student.”

  “Check it,” St. Onge said. Deemys grunted and left.

  St. Onge went into the shower stall and shut off the taps. “Okay, you did your civic duty,” he said more equably. “The victim’s on her way to Lowell General. And you’ve got a case that has nothing to do with any of this. So how about you make like the rest of the general public and disperse.”

  4

  I GOT OUT of the steam bath with my pantcuffs still down around my shoes where they belonged. I looked for the young woman who had screamed, but the only people still around were St. Onge’s crew hunting for clues. I fetched my car and headed downtown to the Riverfront Plaza Hotel. This time Chelsea Nash was in; but when Miguel called her room with my name, he listened a moment, then put his hand over the mouthpiece.

  “She say she’s busy and what you should do, you should make an appointment for tomorrow.” He listened again and looked at me. “She say, how’s ten A.M. in the morning?”

  “Redundant, Miguel. Let me speak with her.”

  He handed me the phone.

  “This is Rasmussen. You’re Mr. Corbin’s rep, are you not?” I said into the silence. “Shall I call him and say you aren’t cooperating?”

  “Are you always this surly?” a woman’s voice shot back.

  “I try, though occasionally I’m late.”

  The silence stretched a moment, then became a sigh. “Six-eleven. But don’t plan to get comfortable. I’ve got a long to-do list, and you’re pretty far down it.”

  Miguel grinned when I handed back the phone. “Smooth,” he said.

  I rode the elevator up to where the suites were. The corridor was thick-carpeted, hushed except for a room-service waiter clinking by, delivering late lunch or an early dinner. It was nearly 2:00, and I hadn’t had either. I was in the wrong line of work.

  The door marked 611 opened to the width of a safety bolt, and a vertical slice of face peered out at me. “It’s you,” said a voice trying to hide surprise.

  As the bolt was unhooked and the door opened, I saw the face went with auburn hair and green eyes peering at me through tortoiseshell glasses. “And you’re not really Jane Doe or Sally Citizen,” I said.

  Holding herself as if she were suddenly cold or nervous, the young woman from the campus stepped back to permit me to enter. “I don’t have your contract, if that’s what you’re here for. It’s being faxed today.”

  Room 611, I saw, was a large space with deep-pile carpet, white furniture, and vases that looked like amphoras, full of dried lotus pods and bare, twisted sticks that might have been wormwood. Short hallways spoked off to other rooms. I’d bet the pastel prints weren’t screwed into the walls. I followed Chelsea Nash over to a sitting area formed by a couch and several big, soft chairs in nubby white fabric. Without sitting, she turned and folded her arms. “Okay, what did you want?”

  Miguel’s taste was as good as his hospitality. He’d go far. Minus the distractions of crisis, I saw how slender the woman was; fine-boned and medium height, but so well-proportioned that she looked tall. My age guess went up to early thirties. There was a slight outward cast to her right eye, barely noticeable except when she looked right at me, which was why I hadn’t seen it before.

  “Quite a coincidence,” I said. It was either that or “Small world,” and I’m nothing if not original.

  “That was terrifying today,” she said. “How is that woman?”

  “Alive. Probably thanks to you. She’s at Lowell General Hospital.”

  She nodded.

  “What happened?”

  “I only know what I told you.”

  I laid my hat on an end table and chose one of the white chairs. It billowed and sighed around me. When it stopped, I said, “Did you talk to Detective St. Onge?”

  “The other one. Detective Deemys.”

  “How’d you happen to be there?”

  “I was looking for a women’s room. A student directed me.”

  “No bathrooms here?”

  “You know, you can get annoying with these questions. The police interviewed me already. You’re not a cop. You work for Mr. Corbin.”

  It didn’t stop my curiosity, but she had a point. “So, let’s talk about your boss and mine,” I said.

  She seemed willing, though I got the feeling she wished she’d been firmer on the phone. She didn’t take a seat, which left me perched there on the puffy white chair, watching her. In my brown suit, I felt like a Fluffernutter.

  “Mr. Corbin will arrive tomorrow evening,” Chelsea Nash said. “I’ve spoken with the mayor and the city manager, and we’re going to keep the arrival low-key. Rehearsals will start Wednesday morning. Friday evening Mr. Corbin will be honored by the city and receive an honorary degree, followed by a dinner. The new show will premiere live on Saturday night.”

  “Whew!” I said.

  “It’s a busy week. But Mr. Corbin is a pro. He and the crew have already been in rehearsal in Los Angeles for several weeks. We’ve sent out invitations to two hundred special guests. The rest will be first come, first served. Mr. Corbin wants the audience to be regular people.” She was on her own turf now, enthusiastic. “That’s Halloween night, which is perfect. It’s going to be a costume party, with celebrity panelists. Seats will be a hundred dollars apiece, the money to go to local charities.”

  “And you want regular people?”

  Daggers came from behind the schoolgirl glasses. In a gentler voice, I said, “You think the show will work?”

  “Mr. Corbin has had some ups and downs this past year, but he’s still got his finger on the American pulse. He’s a great entertainer. Wait and see.”

  I was impressed with these people. Justin Ross called himself the person who got things done, but our Miss Nash wasn’t letting the leaves go brown underfoot.

  “Meanwhile, Mr. Rasmussen”—she moved a few steps toward the door—“I apologize for before. I was shaken by what happened. I hope that woman will be all right. But I wasn’t joking about my to-do list. There are a thousand details to take care of, including your signed contract, which I’ll have delivered to your office as soon as it arrives. So for now, if there’s nothing else…”

  I didn’t rise. “Tell me about the note that Mr. Corbin received the other day.”

  That nicked a little cleft in her smooth forehead. “What about it?”

  “Start with everything.”

  She went through it, making no apology for having tossed the envelope, though admitting that she wished she hadn’t. In the staff meeting that followed receipt of the note, she said, she was the lone voice in favor of postponing the tour. Jerry Corbin had cracked jokes.

  “Does Corbin have people out to get him?” I asked.

  “Mister Corbin is loved by millions of people.”

  “A person needs only one good enemy.”

  She came nearer. “What do you intend to do?” H
er eyes were wide and bright. The slight outward cast wasn’t a flaw at all.

  “I’d like to involve the police.”

  “I thought Jason was clear on that.”

  “Yeah. The note stays quiet until Mr. Corbin decides otherwise.”

  “That’s his wish. He knows that if he goes to the police, it’s certain to become news. That’s why it’s up to him to decide. He’s been burned too many times by the media.”

  “There are worse ways to get burned.”

  It seemed to take something out of her. She sat on the edge of the couch. I said, “The point is, if I’m going to do what I’ve been hired to do, I have to have you people cooperating with me. Otherwise, you’re wasting your money. Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Like what?”

  It wasn’t much of an answer, but I accepted it for now. “Okay, if the cops are out, I suggest that you have Mr. Corbin get a bodyguard. Someone to be with him at all times. If I’m investigating this, I can’t be in two places at once. You can arrange for someone, or I can—whichever you prefer.”

  She jotted a note. “I’ll talk to Mr. Corbin.”

  “If you do it, get someone visible. The bigger and tougher the better.”

  “As big and tough as you?” she said.

  “There isn’t time for a nationwide search.” I fought my way out of the chair and picked up my hat. At the door, I said, “One other thing—do you think what happened this morning has any connection to Mr. Corbin?”

  “At the university? No. Why should it?”

  There she went again: asking me to answer my own questions. I’d have to get a new approach. I hoped she was telling the truth, though; the thought of walking a thin edge with Ed St. Onge didn’t cheer me.

  * * *

  Back at my office, I phoned Lowell General and asked about the condition of the woman who had been brought in—I still didn’t know her name—but the person I spoke to didn’t know what I was talking about. I let it go. I got out the press kit and spent some time going through that. By all accounts, Jerry Corbin was a world-class mensch. Show-business interviews invariably did that, imbuing their subjects with qualities that we lesser mortals seemed to have been born without. Even three of his four ex-wives said he was terrific, one big sweetie, though it’s possible they had him confused with his alimony. No one had interviewed his mother. I noted that none of the press clippings was newer than a year old; most went back far longer. So what had been going on in Corbin’s career in the past year? I had no answer and put the question on my to-ask list.

  What I’d learned so far you could store under your thumbnail. I came back to the Corbin camp’s insistence that the weird note not be reported to the police until Corbin chose to. Granting Chelsea Nash’s concern that telling the cops would be tantamount to going public, she nevertheless had made it sound as though timing were important. Now, as I mulled it, I had the thought that what if, despite all protestations to the contrary, the note was a ploy? As publicity fodder, death threats to a star were as old as topless wannabes in the surf at Cannes—and with a new, unproven show about to open … I chided myself for my distrust.

  I locked up and walked down three flights. As workouts go, it wasn’t much—a little something for the quadriceps—but you took it where you could. Like work. Jerry Corbin’s petty-cash check was in my bank account, drawing other money to itself like a dark suit drew lint. I brushed my lapels before hitting the street.

  5

  TUESDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 27, the sun still shone with unseasonal warmth. Fat pigeons cooed on the brownstone ledge outside the windows of my office. I sat at my desk with a second cup of coffee, reading the Old Farmer’s Almanac. It had predicted the freezing rain we’d had earlier in the month and was calling for a bleak November, but for now Indian summer prevailed.

  I wanted to call Ed St. Onge to ask about the police investigation of the attack at the university, but I couldn’t figure a way. The Sun had carried an account and identified the victim as a Mrs. Florence Murphy, a university employee. Contrary to what St. Onge had told me, she had been taken to All Saints hospital, which was why I had drawn a blank at Lowell General. Now I wondered if it had been a deliberate misdirection on St. Onge’s part. In another circumstance I might have just moseyed down to police headquarters, but I wasn’t a welcome sight. As it did every time I thought about having lost my shield, the reason gnawed at me. Violation of Massachusetts General Laws chapter 268-A, section seventeen is what the court papers had called it. Taking a bribe is what it was. The thing was that had been the plan. A city councilman named Cavanaugh had been shaking down local developers who were looking to get a piece of the city’s redevelopment action. People knew it, but there was no evidence to make a case. Working with my supervisor and a statie named Rydell, we set up a sting. Rydell put on a wire; I was to take the cash; when we’d got the deal on tape, we’d flash our brass. From the start, we should have smelled a rat. By the time the thing ended, Rydell had been shot in the face, the out-of-town gunman who’d shot him was dead, and I was standing there with a bag full of money. Funny thing: no recorder was found on Rydell. In time, he got his health back, but not his memory. There was a probable-cause hearing, with my supervisor and me crying setup. In the end there was no finding; but dirt sticks, and the department cut its losses. St. Onge’s boss, Lieutenant Francis X. Droney—a/k/a the Ogre—headed the action, and I was history. To his credit, St. Onge had disobeyed the Ogre and had vouched for me when I applied to the state for an investigator’s license.

  Sounds came from my waiting room. Beyond the frosted glass, a figure appeared, followed by a knock.

  “It’s unlocked,” I called.

  The door opened to a woman wearing a long leather coat and carrying a black fabric attaché case. She stepped in briskly. “Hello, Mr. Rasmussen.”

  I rose. It took me a second to recognize Chelsea Nash. Her hair was pulled back in a French braid, and she had makeup on, but there was something else, too. “No glasses,” I said.

  “I’m wearing contacts. Now—”

  “They mute the green,” I said. “I like the green. Let me take your coat.”

  “Not necessary. I’ll be brief. First—Mr. Corbin is scheduled to arrive this evening. Will you be available to come to the hotel at eight o’clock? Actually, that’s Los Angeles time.”

  “Eleven P.M.,” I said. “I know how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, too.”

  “If it isn’t asking too much, he wants to see you.” Her tone made it clear she did not share the wish.

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Fine. Second, we’ve hired a bodyguard. As per your suggestion. He’ll be arriving with the group tonight. Do you have any questions?”

  “Want to quiz me on metric to decimal?” I said.

  “And third, I have your contract.” But she didn’t hand it over. She was a cool customer. Since arriving, she had been checking out the worn carpet, the gray metal desk and file cabinet, blinking as though what she saw were painful. Her eyes did look red. She nodded at the coat-closet door. “What’s through there?”

  “The secretarial pool and computer center, plus the lab where we test electronic snooping gear.”

  Her glance said some angry words. “Did Justin Ross come up here?”

  “He hired me in a barroom. Would you care to inspect it?”

  She frowned. “It’s just that in Los Angeles the private agencies tend to be big gleaming affairs.”

  “In high-rise office towers. Sure, and you’re buying Bauhaus rather than service, and Kookie parks the cars. They pass on the cost to the customer and pay criminal-justice grads from a junior college to do the footwork.”

  “Uh-oh,” she said, “I think I hit a sore spot. I guess some private eyes are just unhappy, maladjusted men who use rudeness and crudity as armor to protect fragile egos.”

  “Damn right,” I said. “You speak from experience?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Did it
bring results?”

  Her eyes flashed, but I saw faint color rise in her cheeks. Her hands got busy opening the attaché case. “None of this has anything to do with why I’m here. Here’s your contract.” She dropped a sealed envelope on the desk. “I also brought … this.”

  It was a fax. The cover sheet was from Justin Ross and explained that the attached had arrived at Jer-Cor’s California office that morning. I flipped to the second page and recognized what it was at once. The words said:

  Your jokes grow whisper thin.

  Gong time draws nigh.

  I stared at them a moment, then looked at Chelsea Nash and gestured to a chair. She took it. I sat too.

  “How’d you get this?”

  “I’ve got a machine at the hotel.”

  “The police in on this one?”

  “No. For reasons we’ve already discussed.”

  “So you’re going to trust a malcontent with this?”

  “I guess I have to. You’ve already been paid.”

  I read the note again. Even from the fax copy, it was clear that the format was the same as the note Justin Ross had given me: paper toweling with cut-out words. “Okay, Mr. Corbin’s afraid the network brass will cancel his show if this leaks. That might’ve worked the first time, figure maybe it was a crank. Twice is twice.”

  “I spoke with Justin about it on the phone, and Mr. Corbin is firm.”

  “Have you got some pull with him?”

  “I guess so, some.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Chelsea exhaled softly and widened her eyes. The right eye had that slight outward cant to it, and they both looked redder than before. “That note’s got a very freaky tone. It frightens me.”

  Freaky? All right, though I hadn’t given up entirely on the idea that this was a publicity stunt. “Why don’t you call Corbin right now? Let’s make him change his mind.”