The Witchfinder

by Loren D. Estleman

  Furlong said, “I take it you know who did it.”

  “If I knew for sure I’d have sicced the cops on him. Or maybe I wouldn’t. The odds say whoever dusted me is the same one who dropped the hammer on Lynn Arsenault. If so it ties the shooter in with the frame on Lily Talbot. Did she ever come around, by the way?”

  The architect shook his head. “Did you really think she would?”

  “I try not to think. I’m a man of action. That’s why I spent twenty-nine hours on my back at Detroit Receiving under the care of a woman who looks like Peter Sellers. Anyway, if I’m right and the gunny knows who ordered the frame, he’s no good to us in jail.”

  “I think you’d better tell me everything. Stuart told me some of it, but I want to hear the works from the contractor on site.”

  I excused myself and went out to refill my glass. The story took some telling and I was bound to be thirsty by the end.

  Twenty-one

  PLANES LANDED, PLANES TOOK OFF; close enough sometimes to drag their shadows across the window, but eerily without noise. The walls were made of two layers of brick with asbestos and cork sandwiched between. It was like watching a war movie at the drive-in with the speaker turned off.

  I went all the way back to what I had learned in Randy Quarrels’ studio and continued through Lily Talbot’s gallery, the body in the garage, the scene at the dock with Nate Millender and Royce Grayling, my adventures in Millender’s apartment, and the brains on the sail boom in his boat. Furlong showed no reaction when I mentioned the ten thousand dollars Arsenault had dropped into the Talbot till last year.

  “Do you intend to confront this fellow Grayling?” he asked after a little silence.

  I nodded and put out my cigarette. “With a tank if possible. Failing that, with information, when I have it. Starting with some clue as to why a trigger who hires himself out exclusively to local politicians should interest himself in the wedding plans of a famous architect.”

  “I can’t help you there. He would have been in high school the last time I accepted any contract work in Michigan.”

  “That saves my asking. Up to now Grayling’s job has been to prevent answers from reaching the people with the questions. He’s not going to open up himself without some kind of pry bar. Also you don’t go into lion country without learning everything you can about lions first.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Terrified.”

  That surprised him. “Because of what happened to you?”

  “No, killers scare me in general. When you’re used to playing by civilization’s rules, you work up strategies that don’t apply when you come up against someone who doesn’t. Touch football and tackle aren’t the same game.”

  “So you’re backing out.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then I’ll say it for all of us.” Lund looked up from his sore foot. “Jay, I think you should drop this investigation.”

  “Oh, you do.”

  “I do. If anything happens to Walker, it’s something you don’t need on your conscience at this time.”

  Furlong looked at me. “He makes sense.”

  “Lawyers always do.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  I sat back with my drink. “I’m out of choices. I had one in Allen Park and I chose not to come clean with the officers investigating Arsenault’s murder. I had another one yesterday and I chose to stonewall my best pipeline into the Detroit Police Department in the Millender investigation. You don’t get three. If I go to the cops now I risk losing my license for withholding evidence in two homicides. Also my freedom. That would give Grayling an excellent reason to finish what he started the day before yesterday. So I might as well stay the course. All he can do is kill me.”

  “You’re certain he’s the one who shot you?” There was color in the architect’s cheeks. He was enjoying a fresh spurt.

  “I sure hope so. I can’t protect two fronts.”

  “You’re outvoted, Windy.”

  “That’s easy for both of you. I’ll be the one to take the heat when Walker’s estate sues Furlong’s.”

  “I don’t have an estate,” I said. “Just a hospital bill.”

  “Send it to Stuart,” said Furlong.

  Lund twirled his cane between his fleshy palms. “I can’t imagine anyone in these times paying someone a lot of money to keep his homosexuality a secret. But you say this Millender person was blackmailing Arsenault over a photograph of the two of them in bed together.”

  “I didn’t. But Millender had the picture hidden away with a passbook recording monthly deposits of five thousand dollars each for as long as he’d had the book. Good freelance photographers with reputations make money, but not usually so consistently, or in equal amounts. Extortion has its own pattern, like burn marks in arson.”

  Furlong smiled at his attorney. “You’re forgetting you’re a liberated faggot, with a rich client who wouldn’t care if you made love to hedgehogs as long as you did your job well. Vernon Whiting was a bigot who only started hiring blacks and promoting women when the government threatened to cancel all its construction contracts with Imminent Visions. If he found out Arsenault was a homosexual, he’d have thrown him out the door so hard he’d still be bouncing.”

  “That doesn’t explain why Arsenault would still be paying Millender so long after Whiting’s death,” I said. “But it explains why, when Millender doctored the picture to break up your engagement to Lily Talbot, Arsenault didn’t come forward and expose it as a phony. Whiting was still alive then. And it explains why he paid Millender later.”

  “To keep him from exposing Arsenault’s role in inheritance fraud.” Lund frowned. “But he’d have exposed himself as well. And you say Arsenault posed with Millender willingly.”

  “Exhibitionists come in all persuasions. The risk of getting caught is part of the thrill, but it doesn’t mean they want to. That’s what makes a mark a mark. As for getting caught himself, Millender had less to lose than Arsenault. He could turn state’s evidence.”

  “So could Arsenault,” Lund said.

  “Same thing. A freelancer can always find work, no matter how nasty his legal record. Arsenault had partners. Clients. Public con—”

  I stopped. The two men’s heads came up. They watched me drink off the last of the vodka.

  “Well, hell,” I said then. “That bullet did some brain damage after all.”

  “Contracts,” Furlong finished. He had his hands on his upraised knees and he was leaning on them. He looked like a gargoyle. “Grayling.”

  I played with the glass. “It explains plenty, if someone in government had a side deal going with Imminent Visions on a tax-funded project. You don’t want Arsenault in a situation where he had to bargain with the authorities. Enter Royce, shooting.”

  “Kickbacks.” Lund chewed his moustache. “That tired old story.”

  The architect picked up the drawing board and studied his sketch. Then he tore loose the sheet and crumpled it in one hand.

  “Say that’s why he was killed,” he said, “and say Grayling killed Millender to shut him up. We still don’t know who hired Millender to fake the picture in the first place. Blank sheet.” He tossed the crumple into a corner.

  “Not blank,” I said. “Smudged. Millender was cagey, or Grayling wouldn’t have spent all that time getting chummy with him in order to lure him out onto a big empty body of water where no one could see his death wasn’t an accident. So why didn’t he scrub that plan when I showed up? I could place him on the scene.”

  “He shot you later, don’t forget,” Lund offered.

  “I’ll try not to. He’s got brass or he wouldn’t have gone straight to Arsenault’s office after killing him, acting as if he’d just arrived for an appointment. That spells pull. If I threw him to the cops now they wouldn’t know whether to bust him or salute him. So for the time being I’ll keep Royce Grayling for my own.” I looked at Lund. “Are you hanging on to that room at the We
stin like I said?”

  “Yes. That man St. Thomas was most deferential, but I don’t think his partner believed a word I said. I had the impression they’ll come back.”

  “Coming back is what cops are best at, after doughnuts. When the routine comes up snake eyes, St. Thomas will check with Los Angeles. When the LAPD drops by Mr. Furlong’s hospital room and finds nothing there but smog, he’ll be back, minus the deference. Say thirty-six hours. But keep checking for messages in case he jumps procedure. When you talk to him again you might consider telling him some truth.” I shrugged, and wished I hadn’t. The aspirins were wearing off. “That deathbed wheeze has had its day. It’s the will that’s bringing in the relatives.”

  “I’ll be fortunate if I don’t end up disbarred.”

  “You’re the one who wanted the wraps left on. But I wouldn’t sweat it. You’re a lawyer. Mr. Furlong’s a legend. Cops got enough to go up against when they go to court without that.”

  Furlong said, “You’re neither of those things.”

  I tapped the patch on my head. “If they jail me I can always rip out the stitches. The food’s better in the infirmary and they change the linen more often.”

  “Are you as tough as you make out?” The architect was smiling.

  “Are you?”

  “After all these years I can’t say. When does the act become the reality?”

  “I wrestle with that one all the time.”

  “And?”

  I spread my hands and stood. The second drink had been a mistake. I put my hand on the back of the chair while the vertigo ran its course. I couldn’t tell whether that was the act or the reality. “Thanks for the pills and the chaser. I’ll let myself out.”

  “Where now?” Furlong had slumped back against the headboard.

  “I thought I’d swing by the Westin and talk to your granddaughter and her husband.”

  “I can’t believe it was either of them. She’s an ideological fool and he’s just an idiot. I’m leaving them a generous bequest, but only to keep them from getting their hands on the company.”

  “You never can tell, as Nate Millender said. I’d hate to stop another bullet only to find out later they were the culprits all along. After that I thought I’d head downtown and soak up some culture.”

  He opened his eyes. “Lily’s gallery?”

  “That ten grand of Arsenault’s is worse than the headache. It keeps throbbing. Any message?”

  “You already delivered it.”

  “You could call her. She’s listed.”

  “I could.”

  His tone ended that line.

  I didn’t trust my balance yet. “As long as I’m butting in,” I said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I talked to Buster.”

  “Buster?”

  “Larry. Your brother.”

  “I know Larry’s my brother. I haven’t heard that nickname since before you were born. How is he?”

  “Still sore at you.”

  “Buster never could let a grudge go.”

  I was steady on my feet now. I found his number in my notebook and went over and wrote it on the pad by the telephone. “Just in case.”

  His eyes followed my movements, like a dog’s. “Windy told me you were once married, Walker. Any children?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad. Mucking around in other people’s lives seems to come naturally to you.”

  “It’s my aptitude.”

  He said nothing. His eyes were closed and after a moment I realized he’d gone to sleep. I shook Stuart Lund’s hand and told him again not to bother getting up to see me out.

  Walking out the front door into the heat I put on the brakes. A two-hundred-pounder in a buff-and-brown Wayne County sheriff’s uniform was standing by the Cutlass where I’d parked it against the curb.

  “Sir, is this your car?”

  I started to say no, but I had the key in my hand and he’d seen it. I turned it into a noncommittal grunt. I wondered who had put out the call, Thaler in Detroit or St. Thomas in Allen Park.

  “This is a fifteen-minute zone,” he said. “Loading and unloading only. I was about to have you towed.”

  I saw the airport division patch on his sleeve then. I thanked him for the warning and got in under the wheel. The keys were slippery in my palm.

  Twenty-two

  THE TRIP TO THE WESTIN was an unnecessary deposit of carbon into the ozone.

  The granddaughter, a second-generation peacenik from Central Casting with horn-rims, one of those all-cotton dresses from India that wrinkle when it rains in Romania, and enough cruelty-free Herbal Essence in her straight black hair to shampoo a woolly mammoth, only wanted her part of the inheritance to outfit an expedition to find a scandal-free Democratic candidate for president; failing that, to save the rainforest. Her husband, a doughy-faced gladhander in plaid slacks and a nylon shirt with crossed golf clubs over the pocket, sold bowling balls. Jay Bell Furlong’s towheaded great-grandson spent the whole time I was there shooting Martians on the TV screen. I welcomed them all to the city and left without asking a question.

  The door to the Talbot Gallery was locked. A sign on the glass said it was closed Sundays. Leaning against the glass with my hands cupped around my eyes I saw a shadow moving around inside. I rapped and went on rapping until the shadow came my way.

  When Jean Sternhagen saw me she flashed her too-wide smile, pointed at the sign, and mouthed, “We’re closed.” She looked genuinely apologetic.

  I mouthed something elaborate and unintelligible back. She shook her head, puzzle lines on her brow. I recited part of “Jabberwocky” and most of “Louie Louie” while she strained to read my lips. Finally she snapped back the lock and opened the door.

  Works every time.

  “I just need to talk to Miss Talbot,” I said. “Is she around?”

  The smile that had started to come back faltered and fell off her face. When that happened the lower half of her beveled countenance collapsed. She was dressed for grunt work in faded jeans worn almost through at one knee and a man’s gray shirt with the tail out and the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. “She’s at home today. What happened to your head?”

  “I was shot.”

  She took in her breath. “Are you all right?”

  “You believe I was shot?”

  “Of course. Why would you make up a story like that?”

  “Are you married?”

  The smile flickered, then stayed on, supporting everything above it. Her mouth made sense then. It was the foundation of her face. “I’m living with someone.”

  “How big is he?”

  “I didn’t say it was a he.”

  “Ah.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. I’m staying with Miz Talbot until I find a place near work. The commute from Ann Arbor was killing me, especially in winter.”

  “You must be pretty good friends.”

  “Not really. I think she just takes in strays.” She reached up and patted her hair in back. She had it tied into a bun, but the corkscrew tendrils still framed her face. “Do you like Southern girls?”

  “I was in love with Vivien Leigh.”

  “She was English.”

  “No kidding?”

  She nodded, wrinkling her nose. “It’s still a scandal back home, them Hollywood fellers picking a foreigner over the flowers of the Confederacy. You have the brownest eyes.”

  “Bambi’s were browner. Are you in charge of the gallery’s files?”

  She stopped fiddling with her hair. “That’s a curious question.”

  “They get curiouser. I wonder if I could get a look at the record of the Arsenault sale.”

  “Oh! Did you hear? It was the weirdest coincidence, just after you asked about him—Oh,” she said again. Her face collapsed. “I forgot you’re a detective. Are you investigating the murder?”

  I stroked the door frame. “Can we go inside? I feel like a Jehovah’s Witness.”

&nb
sp; “I can’t show anyone the files without Miz Talbot’s permission.”

  “Let’s go inside. You can call her.”

  “Why don’t you come back tomorrow and ask her yourself?”

  I leaned against the frame and looked pale. It wasn’t hard.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” That antebellum accent came on like Pickett’s Charge when she forgot herself.

  “I just need a glass of water. Let’s go inside.”

  “There’s a counter down the street.”

  Pickett was back in the barn. I straightened. “I always heard you people were known for your hospitality.”

  “Yes, and what did it get us? Atlanta burned to the ground and a Pizza Hut in Richmond.”

  “Tomorrow’s too late. I have an impatient client. Can you give me Miss Talbot’s address?”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t want me to do that.” She tapped her fingers on the edge of the door. “She lives in Bloomfield Hills. Forty-four-fifty Bonnymeadow Drive.”

  “Sounds cushy.”

  “Better than what I had in Ann Arbor.”

  “When are you there?”

  She’d started to close the door. “Why? I don’t have any files you’d be interested in.”

  “I don’t wear a shoulder holster all the time.”

  She got another smile going on the other side of the plate glass.

  Detroit keeps stacking rich suburbs on top of rich suburbs. A long time ago, before the Japanese stopped playing with plastic hula girls and started putting wheels on axles, there was just Grosse Pointe: built slab by marble slab out of materials imported from the same Old World that had spawned the Lelands, Fords, Chryslers, Dodges, and Durants who commissioned the work. When that gate slammed shut, the postwar money built Birmingham: low sprawling brick ranches on green felt lawns, less than five minutes by Mercedes from the nearest beauty parlor and power mower outlet. When the riots came along to drive the third generation farther north and west, Bloomfield Hills sprang up just like its name: bursts of aluminum-sided colonials and four-star restaurants and wallet-size shopping centers, spraying the rolling green country in tints of mauve, pink, ecru, and taupe, the anemic smothered spectrum of the landed gentry. Each new community is more understated than the one that preceded it, the materials and workmanship costlier but less elaborate. The next suburb to follow will be twice as wealthy and damn near invisible.