by Ed Gorman
He said, to himself, “She had a little girl. She showed me her picture once.”
“Larry, the night clerk, is probably going to implicate you in this. If I were the DA, I’d assume you killed her. I followed you from Hammond’s tonight, right to the motel. There wasn’t a ten-minute lapse from the time you left to the time the body was found. That would mean somebody had to have moved pretty fast. That kind of thing happens in movies, but almost never in real life.”
“What the hell were you following me for?”
My anger started to return as I had to explain myself. I took the photo of him with Jane from my pocket and flashed it at him.
“Recognize this?”
“Of course I do,” he snapped. “I’ve been paying for it for several months now.”
“Paying?”
“I assume you know how blackmail works.” His sarcasm conveyed his anger. “If I’d known that that bitch was—”
“I’m going to give you an opportunity to take that back. I happen to be very fond of this woman. Very fond.”
He sized me up, then decided to back off. At least a bit. “We had a little fun together. A little ‘casual nudity,’ as I call it. We didn’t even do anything. Just—” He shook his bald head. He was on the verge of becoming an old man. Tonight was hurrying the process along. “I guess I’d better tell you about my wife. She suffers from heart disease. Her doctors feel she could die at any time. They’ve warned me against stress or any kind of emotional upset where she’s concerned. She’s been in bed for the better part of the last six years. I know this may smack of rationalization, but I need a bit of life too. So I—play around—nothing very serious. The—woman—tonight—Jackie. We have our fun, but she’s actually a decent woman. Just happens to be a prostitute is all.”
He gripped the gun more firmly. It was once more pointing at my face.
“Anyway, I need some kind of life. One night after a party at Bryce’s, I met—Jane. We ended up at the Palms, rolling around on the bed. It was all pretty silly. As I said, nothing happened. Then the photographs started coming in the mail—you can imagine what they’d do to my wife.”
“How much did you have to pay?”
He became cognizant of the gun. He looked at it, at me, put it back in his pocket. Then he put his hands over his face and started shaking his head. Anybody else I would have suspected of crying quietly. But not him.
He looked up at me and shrugged. “When I was young I always thought that at sixty-five I’d lose interest in sex. But it’s just the opposite. Now it’s assumed a monumental importance in my life. I’ve retired from my aviation company except for the board work I do and— Sex is still very, very important. That’s why I liked Jackie so much. She was patient and kind and very good for me.”
“Yes.”
None of this made sense. Jane part of a blackmail ring?
“How much did you pay?” I asked again.
“Three thousand a month.”
I whistled.
“But you never found out who was sending them?”
“No,” he said, “and it’s a good thing I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I would have killed them.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t the money, it was the potential harm it could have done my wife if she’d ever opened the envelope by mistake.” He sighed. “And now—if I’m implicated in all this—”
He sounded very different from the man who’d earlier bragged about how important he was in this city.
The knock almost got lost in the wind. A tiny knock.
Davies swung his large head around and stood up instantly, putting a finger to his lips for silence.
He opened the door and a frail, once handsome woman came delicately inside.
He put an arm around her, and it was easy to see in this gesture how much he cared about her.
“I heard all the noise, honey,” she said, “the voices at the front door downstairs and—”
Then she saw me and I was afraid she was going to faint.
The angles of her face drew even tighter and she looked nervously to her husband for an explanation of my presence.
“This is an old friend of mine, darling,” he said. “His car happened to stall a few blocks from here and so he decided to walk over and phone a garage from here.”
His eyes begged me to leave.
I stood up, walked over, took the lady’s hand. “A little piece of bad luck. Sorry I had to disturb you.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’ve become an expert where bad luck’s concerned, I’m afraid.” She was so drawn and gaunt I didn’t mind her self-pity.
“Well,” I said, clapping Davies manfully on the shoulder, “the garage truck will probably be there by now. I’ll walk back.”
“Good luck,” he said.
I looked at his wife and then at him. Somehow I didn’t hate him the way I had when he’d only been a man in a picture with Jane.
“Good luck to you,” I said. I think I was being sincere.
Chapter 18
“I shouldn’t have done it,” I said.
“Sssh.”
“You don’t deserve me inflicting myself—”
“Please, Dwyer. Don’t talk, all right?”
We sat in Donna Harris’s living room and watched rain slide down the front window. A streetlight gave the sight a silver beauty.
I had come here after leaving Davies’s. After seeing the picture of Jane, after the death of the prostitute, I felt unclean in some way I didn’t know I’d ever recover from.
Like a homing pigeon, I had a sense that Donna could help me with her kind of neurotic strength.
I told her everything, and she listened patiently, and afterward she turned out the light and we sat on the sofa, where we were now, watching the rain.
“It’s all getting crazy,” I said. “None of it makes sense.”
“Sssh.”
She held me for a long time and after a while a kind of rocking motion set in between us and through the depression I felt myself responding to her again. This time she let me put my hands on her breasts and her tongue found mine.
When she stopped me I understood.
“We should wait for a better time.”
I couldn’t disagree.
In the silence, in the darkness, she lit two cigarettes and dispensed them.
“I found out one thing about the older woman,” she said.
“What?”
“She and the Baxter woman you told me about got into a violent argument in the Conquistador one night.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“From the parking-lot attendant. Apparently the older woman was waiting by Elliot’s car. The Baxter woman pulled in and they got into an argument.”
But right now that information didn’t interest me half as much as holding Donna did.
This time it was my turn to help her. She started to cry; I wasn’t sure why, though she talked about her husband a bit and how life seems to let you down sometimes, so I put her on my lap and she curled against my chest and finally went to sleep.
I got a blanket from the bedroom and put it over her there on the couch and left.
Chapter 19
I didn’t sleep until nearly dawn. Which was when the phone rang. I was groggy enough that the call could have been part of a dream.
But I took what the voice said seriously and got up and got dressed and headed for the hospital after shaving, brushing my teeth, and taking what my parents always called a “sponge bath.” Maybe I would have saved time showering.
Edelman, who had involved himself only to help me deal with the Branigans, waited for me in the lobby. We rode up silently to Jane’s floor and got off. In the dim light of the elevator I watched my old friend, good cop, good husband, good father, good man. He was getting older. It was like a flu—getting older seemed to be going around these days.
Malachie, the detective officially in charge and the man who’d directed the cleanup a
t Stephen Elliot’s house, stood above the Branigans, who sat on a couch in the waiting area.
Obviously he had just given them the news. The ballistics report was in on the gun I’d taken from Jane that day in the park.
Maybe it was the earliness of the hour, maybe it was because the past few days had drained them, maybe it was because they’d expected it—whatever, the Branigans had taken the news with a kind of bitter quiet. Their expressions were angry, but they said nothing, simply watched Malachie as if he were some kind of rodent.
Edelman touched my arm before we got over there. “I only called because they look like they could use a friend. I know her father’s a big-shot lawyer, but—” He shrugged. “I kinda feel sorry for them is all.”
“Yeah. I appreciate the call.”
We started across the room to them. On my way I saw a story in the morning paper that made me wonder if I wasn’t hallucinating. I reached for the paper tossed on the empty chair just as Mrs. Branigan began sobbing.
The sounds were horrible, animal noises and froze everybody in position.
Then Mr. Branigan took her and brought her into his arms, and Edelman and I finished our walk over to them.
“Please, would you mind leaving us alone?” Mr. Branigan said to the officers.
They nodded, proceeded to withdraw. I turned away too. Mr. Branigan said, “Would you mind staying?”
I wanted to see the paper, make sure that I hadn’t imagined what I’d seen. But I could hardly refuse him.
I watched as he sat his wife down and put her hands together and fluffed a pillow and put it behind her head for her to lean back against. Apparently the hospital put feather pillows out in case you had an overnight vigil.
Mrs. Branigan, now obviously in bad condition mentally, shut her eyes and began to weep silently and convulsively. Her whole body moved to some ancient rhythm. She was mourning a daughter who was, in many respects, already dead.
Mr. Branigan walked me several yards down the hall and around a corner.
“You know what the police just told us—that Jane is being formally charged with murder.” His Spencer Tracy stature, boozed out though it was, bore the dignity of righteousness just then. He was professionally angry. “They’re charging her with murder in the first degree, if you can believe that.”
I didn’t know what to say, do.
“I hope you’ve been looking into this,” he said.
“Yes. I have.”
“Have you learned anything?”
“Nothing I should talk about right now.”
He kept his eyes on me. “What do you think?”
He had confused me. “About what?”
“Now that my wife’s not here, be honest. Do you think Jane killed him?”
“No.”
“You don’t sound as sure as you once did.”
About that I couldn’t argue. The more confusing things got, the more anything seemed possible. Even Jane’s complicity in murder.
He said, “Do you need money?”
I didn’t want anything from him. I felt sorry for the Branigans, but we’d never been close, so why should we start now? I shook my head.
“I’m not impressed with either of those cops. Malachie or Edelman.” He smiled unpleasantly. “Lord spare me from Jewish policemen.” I’m sure the line would have gone over very well at his country club.
“Edelman’s a good man.”
“I’m sure he is, ‘good’ that is. I’m not so sure about his competence.”
I sighed. “Look, I realize she’s your daughter, but think of it from their point of view. She calls me hysterical, I meet her, she has the murder weapon in her hand, and then she slides into shock. That would seem to indicate guilt, or at least a very heavy involvement.”
He wanted to change the subject. “What do we really know about this Elliot? I met him once. He struck me as a little—faggy. I can’t quite explain it. But there was something about him—”
“That seems to be the consensus. Not gay—just strange in some way.” I nodded to an orderly who was walking by. “The other thing we seem to know is that nobody is sure about his background. I’ve asked Bryce Hammond for his résumé, which he’s supposed to get me. And one more thing—Elliot lived way beyond his means.”
“That was the impression I got when my wife and I visited them in his house. My God, I could hardly afford a place like that. I didn’t see how he could, no matter how ‘creative’ he was.”
“I’ll keep working.”
He offered me his hand. “You know, we were talking about you last night.”
I knew what he was going to say and I wished he wouldn’t.
A common goal was making us friends, and I always distrust friendships that aren’t more spontaneous in some way.
“We’ve decided,” he said, “that we were very wrong about you and we’re very sorry.”
“Well, thank you,” I said, “thank you very much.”
We walked back. A nurse was giving Mrs. Branigan a glass of water, helping her drink it.
Edelman came over. “The DA thinks he’s got this one wrapped good and tight,” he said after I’d waved good-bye to the Branigans and was walking to the elevator.
“He’s wrong.”
There was pity in his eyes. “Shit, man, you gotta be kidding. I know what she means to you, but—”
I got on board the elevator, tilted my head good-bye, watched as the doors closed.
Then I opened the newspaper I’d picked up.
MOTEL CLERK KILLS PROSTITUTE, SHOOTS SELF
Larry the clerk had been wrong about one thing. He said his life was just as screwed up as his old man’s had been. It sounded as if, right at the last, he’d managed to make his even worse.
Chapter 20
Do you ever drive around to think things through? There’s something about motion that inspires concentration, even if it doesn’t exactly make you into a wonderful driver.
God knew I had enough to think about. In my cop days I used to make a simple list of all the people involved in a homicide investigation. That was on the right margin. On the left I made another list, their possible reasons for wanting the victim dead. I could see it was time that I do that.
On top of Stephen Elliot’s murder—and now the deaths of the motel clerk and the prostitute, which had been disguised by somebody very clever as the murder-suicide the press was reporting—there was my growing confusion about Donna Harris. Last night had been a downer of sorts and I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t just because I’d dropped in unannounced and she’d been sleepy. I felt a sense of her holding back. Maybe it was simply because I was rushing things out of my own needs. Or maybe there was something going on….
When I got back to my apartment, the hour-long drive having made me think through things to the point of quiet madness, I found a message from Donna with my answering service.
“She left an address,” the operator said. “Would you like it?”
I wrote it down, a terrible feeling starting to form like a weight in my stomach. Maybe Donna was taking this detective thing seriously. Maybe she’d started to investigate on her own and gotten into some trouble.
“No phone number?” I asked.
“No, just the address.”
“Thanks.”
Fifteen minutes later, having violated more than a few traffic laws, I wheeled into the parking lot of 2605 Kelvin Avenue.
The large brick complex had originally been designed for swank office space. But the city built an expressway and bypassed the place, and now the offices were anything but swank. The owner spent minimal dollars on upkeep, and the space that had been designed for suites now housed a myriad of tiny, struggling businesses. Half the insurance agents in the state seemed to be here, along with a number of firms with totally baffling names such as “Omega Corp.” Maybe the obscurity was intended.
I took an elevator to Room 402, as Donna’s message had instructed, to find myself in a hallway with carpeting that
was shaggy from wear, not by design. Everything looked chipped and scratched and dented. It was unlikely the Getty family would consider leasing space.
There was a hand-stenciled sign on 402 that said AD WORLD. WALK IN.
Which was what I made the mistake of doing.
The first thing I noticed was the couple holding hands. Right then I didn’t know who the guy was, only that he had Donna’s hand cupped in his and was staring fondly into her eyes. He was a tribute to razor-cut hair and camel’s-hair topcoats and the kind of bearing meant to intimidate. His Gregory Peck head turned slowly and irritably to take note of me.
Donna flushed, pulling her hand from his more quickly than he probably liked.
“Gee, Dwyer, hi.”
She was redefining the word strained for our generation.
“Gee. Hi.” I wasn’t doing much better.
“This,” she said, “is Chad.”
Then she nervously jumped to her feet and came around the desk and sort of clapped me on the shoulder. “Chad. The former Mr. Harris.”
By now he had walked around the desk too. Unlike Donna and me, he seemed to be feeding off this moment of general embarrassment.
He put out a hard, dry hand politician-style and I shook it.
“So you’re Dwyer.” He shook his head. “Donna’s told me all about you. You sound like quite a character. Part-time actor, part-time private eye. Quite a character.”
Why did I feel that I was standing for inspection before Donna’s father instead of her ex-husband?
And he was making it clear that I had failed inspection. Quite a character is one of those phrases that could fit anybody from Howard Cosell to Jack the Ripper. He looked around the tiny office as if he were a land baron inspecting his domain. Everything seemed slightly humorous to him. Not because it was funny, but because it failed his standards in some way. His dark eyes danced with smugness.
“It’s nice you’re going to help her with her little magazine project,” Chad Harris went on. Little magazine project irritated me. I could see that he was good in court. The best lawyers have that ability to undercut and deflate with subtle language. The good ones rarely go for bombast. Chad here could castrate you with adjectives. Before I could respond, he tucked his thumbs in his vest and strolled around the room as if he were a tour guide in a museum. “She’s done a wonderful job, don’t you think?”
