‘Yes.’
‘Did Price?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ricky sounds like a generous fellow.’
‘I’m not sure but I think Jennings was paying the rent. He’d let Ricky know he was using the apartment and he’d stay away. Ricky only really used it on weekends anyway, Thursday to Sunday usually.’
‘What did Price use the place for, other than the obvious? Or was it just a love nest?’
‘He sometimes took potential buyers there. He had it decorated with some very nice pieces.’
‘What kind of buyers?’
‘The less-respectable sort, I suppose you’d call them.’
‘People who didn’t particularly care where the goods came from?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sellers too?’
‘Presumably.’
‘You ever meet any of them?’
‘No.’ Futrelle let out a long breath, the air fogging in front of him. ‘I only knew of them through Jennings.’
‘What time did Price leave the apartment on Monday?’
‘Just after six.’
‘Any idea where he was going?’
‘No.’
‘Did he have anything with him?’
‘Several books.’
‘The ones you mentioned to me?’
‘No. They were older. The bindings were cracked and one of them had a broken spine.’
‘Were they valuable?’
‘Perhaps, but they were in very bad condition.’
‘Nothing else with him?’
‘A manila envelope.’
‘Know what was in it?’
‘No.’
‘Was he sending it or getting it?’
‘Getting it. The flap had been torn open.’
‘Do you know where it was from?’
‘I could see the seal.’
‘And?’
‘It was from the U.S. Army Records Center in St Louis.’
‘No idea what it was about?’
‘No.’
‘Price didn’t tell you?’
‘No.’
‘The key to this place. You have it with you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The key. To the love nest.’
‘Yes.’
‘Give it to me.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I want to go there, look around.’
‘Now?’
‘Now,’ said Ray. ‘Why? You want to come with me?’
‘Good Christ, no.’ He paused. ‘Don’t you need a warrant?’
‘Not if you give me permission. And the key.’
Futrelle reached into his topcoat and took out a ring of keys on a leather holder. The enamelled crest on the holder said CADILLAC. The school supervisor slid the keys around on the ring to a pair of brass Yales on a separate, short piece of wire. As he slipped the keys off the ring Ray noticed that the man’s hand was shaking. Futrelle handed over the keys.
‘One key’s for the main door, the other’s for the apartment. It’s the Willowbrook complex on East University Boulevard. Building two, apartment 211.’
‘Just off 75.’
‘That’s it.’ Futrelle nodded. Ray dropped the key into the pocket of his jacket. That close to the interstate it would be a snap for Schwager to get down for weekends. ‘Ricky might be there, you know,’ Futrelle added.
‘I doubt it,’ Ray answered. ‘I think he’s in mourning.’
There was a pause. Futrelle jammed his hands into the pockets of his topcoat. ‘Is that it? Are you finished with me, Detective?’
‘Unless I find out you really are a suspect in this thing, yeah, I’m finished with you, Mr Futrelle.’
‘I can be assured of your discretion?’
‘As much as you can be assured of anything in this world.’
‘Thank you.’
This time it was Futrelle who held out his hand and this time it was Ray who ignored it. ‘Goodbye, Mr Futrelle.’ Ray turned and followed the path back towards his car. He turned once to look back and Futrelle was still standing there, staring out over the lagoon, watching the pale shapes of the swans glide back and forth across the dark water.
Ray picked up the car and found his way up through Kessler Park and Regent Park, its not-so-opulent neighbour, eventually finding an on-ramp for Interstate 30, which in turn took him back across the greenbelt and up onto Highway 75. From there it was only ten minutes up to Schwager’s love nest on University Boulevard.
The buildings in the Willowbrook complex were low, modern structures, flat-roofed, with modern, angular bay windows. In many ways they were a newer, updated and considerably better maintained version of Ruby’s building. Ray parked the car in front of Schwager’s place, used one of the brass keys to let himself in through the glass-and-aluminium front door then took the small elevator up to the second floor. The carpet in the corridors smelled of artificial pine scent heavy enough to make Ray sneeze. He reached 211 and let himself in without knocking. All the lights were off and there was no sign of Schwager or anyone else.
Ray switched on the lights and took a tour of the apartment. It quickly became clear that this was not the place Jennings Price had been murdered and dismembered in. The apartment was immaculate – one bedroom, floors done in glowing cherry and carpeted with antique Persian rugs. The walls were white except for the living room, which was done in robin’s-egg blue. It had recently been painted, judging from the faint smell that wafted through the air. It was this room that had the large, jutting bay window. In the window, arranged on several small tables, were bouquets of multi-coloured roses in bloom. Touching them Ray discovered that they were artificial – silk that needed dusting rather than watering.
Half the wall space in the living room was arranged with vitrines – Victorian glass-fronted cabinets for showing off small pieces of bric-a-brac, a collection of hand-blown glass paperweights and several very expensive-looking gold and ivory reliquaries studded with small gems or pieces of coloured glass.
There were two floor-to-ceiling cherry wood bookcases on the opposite wall bracketing a large oil painting of an old man in a straw hat framed in ornate gilt. A small brass plaque on the frame identified the painting as PORTRAIT OF PATIENCE ESCALIER BY VINCENT VAN GOGH – 1883. Ray didn’t have the faintest idea who Patience Escalier was but he knew the name van Gogh and was astounded to find a painting by him hanging in an anonymous one-bedroom apartment in north Dallas, three blocks off the freeway.
The wall facing the window was covered in smaller framed items and taking a closer look Ray saw that they were mostly autographs and letters. Oliver Wendell Holmes to a woman named Eliza Leslie, dated December 25, 1839; a much-scratched-out letter from Thomas Jefferson recommending his friend James Monroe, dated October 5, 1781; and a long frame with three cut-out mattes holding what was identified as a complete letter on vellum from Davy Crockett to a man named John O. Cannon, dated January 20, 1834. It was all fascinating but it wasn’t what he was there for.
Ray turned back to the bookcases. Almost all the books were bound in either brown or black leather, their spines and titles engraved and decorated with gold leaf. Almost all of them were titles having to do with witchcraft or the occult, like the majority of the volumes in Price’s collection. It suddenly occurred to Ray that he might have missed a lead; could the murders have something to do with the occult, some kind of voodoo/witchcraft thing? Ray took down a book called Influenza del Magnetismo Sulla Vitae Animale.
The leather cover, clearly not the original, was buttery smooth and soft, the title elegantly engraved in flowing script in rich gold. He ran his hand over the cover again, enjoying the warm, smooth feel of the leather, then slid it carefully back into its place on the shelf. There might be a lot of the devil’s work going on in Dallas but the thought of witches’ covens and human sacrifices going back twenty-five years was a little hard to swallow.
On the other hand, a richly laid out little apartment like Schw
ager’s, underwritten by someone like Jennings Price, could have a variety of uses; not only was it convenient for bringing ‘unsavoury’ buyers and sellers of high-end antiquities of less-than-stellar provenance but the antiquities and art on display – like the gem-studded gold and ivory reliquaries, the van Gogh and all the rest – might be just the thing for impressing potential young conquests.
Ray went into the bedroom. It was small, with several nondescript landscapes on the walls, a chest of drawers, a bed, a reading chair and a mirror-doored cupboard that faced the bed. Opening the sliding doors he found two dozen open-necked silk shirts of every stripe and colour, half a dozen pairs of neatly hung expensive knit trousers and four identical chalk-stripe suits. The floor of the cupboard was filled with a line of shoes, most of them black and some of them almost feminine-looking.
Going through the chest of drawers Ray found a jewellery box full of gold chains, intricately worked gold bracelets and several gold rings, one set with diamonds, the other two with tiger eye. There were three watches, an 18 carat Rolex Datejust, an oversized Lange German officer’s watch and another Omega Constellation, this one on 18 carat solid-gold Grand Luxe, one model above the one worn by Jennings Price. Out of curiosity Ray checked the back of the watch and found no inscription.
Ray went back into the living room and went to the bay window. Looking out he could see a line of fast-food restaurants and bars running down a mile-long strip of Greenville Avenue, parallel to the freeway. Schwager wouldn’t have had to go far for food or liquor and god knows what else.
He turned and went back to the middle of the room. In all probability this was the last place Jennings Price had been before he went off to meet his death and, unhappily, Paul Futrelle was probably the last person to see him alive.
It was easy enough to cast Futrelle as the jilted lover, as good a motive for murder as any, and it was equally easy to cast Valentine as either another jilted lover or someone bilked out of money with a forgery. Jealousy from Futrelle, revenge from Valentine, or maybe even a mob killing; Jack Ruby seemed to have threaded his way through almost every step of Ray’s investigation so maybe the seedy-looking club owner had ordered a hit for some past slight to the local bosses, like Civello and his friends. Dope maybe or gambling debts? Who knew? All of it fit but at the same time none of it fit at all because none of his suspects, if that’s what they really were, had anything to do with the killings from a quarter century ago or the most recent murder of Mar’Ellen Caddo and the disappearance of little Zinnia Brant.
He suddenly decided he’d had enough for one night and headed for the front door of the apartment. He stopped at the telephone table. There was a small notepad and pencil beside the phone but the pad was blank and there wasn’t the slightest impression on the top page. He opened the drawer. Inside was a Dallas/Fort Worth phonebook. He pulled it out of the drawer, prepared to flip through it for numbers scrawled in the margins, when he saw an address book underneath it. The book had a leatherette cover with the word Address stamped on it in gold ink and a tab index on the side. He flipped through it and saw that every page and line was filled with names, addresses and numbers. Some light reading over breakfast maybe. He half folded the address book and stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket and let himself out of the apartment, no farther ahead than he’d been before he dragged Paul Futrelle out of his happily married home.
He drove back the way he’d come, following Highway 75 back into the city through almost non-existent traffic. As he got closer to the city he saw that most of the bright lights were dark, including the spotlights on the forty-foot revolving Pegasus on top of the Magnolia Building. The city was in mourning for a dead president or maybe ashamed of his murder and hiding from his ghost.
Ray had so little energy left his eyes were drooping as he drove but he knew he had one last errand to run before he found his rest. He took the Webb Street exit and made his way across to Vickery Boulevard and R. T.’s place. He pulled up across the street and checked his watch. Just past eleven. He got out of the car, crossed the street and looked in through the gate. R. T.’s Corvette was parked in front of the main door. Ray found the intercom button for the gate and pressed it, repeating R. T.’s initials in Morse code. A long minute later the gates swung open. Ray walked up the walk and casually put his hand on the Corvette’s hood as he went by. Not hot but definitely warm. He eased himself up the steps, using the handrail to keep his woody legs from betraying him. By the time he reached the door R. T. had it open. He was wearing slippers, a dark red silk dressing gown, smoking a cigarette and had a bottle of Jax in his hand.
‘That for me?’ Ray asked.
‘My nightcap. Helps me to sleep.’
‘Since when did you need booze to help you get to sleep?’ Ray smiled as sincerely as he could. ‘What’s the matter, guilty conscience or something?’
‘The only thing I feel guilty about is using beer to help me get to sleep. This is the sixties. I should be using that Valium stuff Time magazine had that article on a while back.’ He stepped away from the door. ‘Come on in.’
‘No, thanks. Just came by to make sure you were all right.’
‘Why wouldn’t I be all right, Ray?’
‘I called. There was no answer.’
‘A guy can’t go out on the town without his friends worrying?’
‘Is that where you were, out on the town?’
‘As a matter of fact, no, Ray, I was right here, drinking beer, reading a new book.’
‘What book was that, R. T.?’
‘It’s called One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by a guy named Alexander Solzhenitsyn.’
‘Russian?’
‘That’s right, Ray, I’m a secret commie.’ He took a drag on his cigarette. ‘What’s with the interrogation?’
‘I told you, I was worried.’
‘Well, I’m fine. You can go to bed knowing that your friend spent a quiet evening with a book, not getting himself into trouble, which is probably more than I can say for you, since you look like complete shit.’
‘Just a little tired.’
His friend spoke gently. ‘Then go to bed, Ray, or come in and have a couple of beers and sleep it off in the guest room.’
‘Maybe I’ll drop by tomorrow, we can have a proper visit.’
‘Won’t be here tomorrow.’
‘Where you going?’
‘Piney woods, the bottoms. Crack of dawn. Just like I said you and I should do. Taking my own good advice.’
‘How long you be gone?’
‘As long as it takes, Ray.’ He smiled. ‘Now go to bed.’
‘All right,’ said Ray. ‘Good night, R. T.’
‘’Night, Ray.’
Odum closed the door and Ray went back down the steps to the gate. He went through, then crossed the street to his car. His friend had lied to him about going out and that probably meant it was him that Ray had seen at Ruby’s but for the life of him Ray couldn’t see why. He slid in behind the wheel of the Chevy and started the engine. It was late, his brain was turning to porridge and it felt as though he didn’t know about anything any more. He swung the car into a U-turn, heading back to the freeway and home.
She was asleep in his bed when he got there.
‘How did you get in?’
‘Some detective. You told me where the key was, remember?’
He didn’t but it didn’t matter. It only mattered that she was there.
‘I’ve just got to go to the bathroom,’ he said.
She smiled up at him and put her hands behind her head. ‘That’s okay, I’m not going anywhere.’
He smiled back, took off his jacket and hung it over the chair and then went into the bathroom. He tried not to look at himself in the mirror, bending over the sink and splashing cold water on his face. He brushed his teeth and then unbuttoned his shirt. He opened the medicine chest and took out a can of Redi-Spray but then he remembered that it stung his armpits so he splashed on some bay rum instead. He
ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it back, then rubbed a palm across his cheek and chin. Bristled, but not too badly; another side effect of the disease that was killing him – his beard grew at half the speed it had before.
He went back into the bedroom, hung his shoulder rig over the chair, then took off his shirt and trousers, sitting on the edge of the bed. He stripped off his socks and dropped back onto the bed beside her.
She put a hand on his chest. ‘Hello my hairy teddy bear.’
‘I didn’t expect to see you.’
‘I knew I’d see you eventually if I played Goldilocks and climbed into your bed.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
‘Long day?’
‘Confusing day.’
‘Nobody’s talking about anything else except Kennedy,’ said Rena. ‘It’s spooky. You walk down the street and pick up these little bits of conversation and it’s always about Kennedy or Jackie or Oswald. It’s like it’s not over. It’s like it’s never going to be over.’
‘A curse on Dallas.’
‘Something like that.’
There was a small silence and then Ray spoke tightly. ‘I feel like I’m in the middle of something I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Rena answered. She let her fingers trail down the thick line of hair on Ray’s belly to the elastic waistband of his Jockeys.
‘I’m sick. I’m dying, remember I told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I haven’t said anything about this to anyone.’
‘You don’t have to say anything to me if you don’t want to. You hardly know me.’
‘No,’ said Ray. ‘I want to tell you.’
‘So tell.’
‘I’m dying and it’s like I see things very clearly – the individual parts, the colours, the shapes – but it’s like I’m not seeing the whole thing. I can’t put it together.’
‘You mean this case you were telling me about, the little girls?’
‘That’s part of it but it’s my whole life, everything. I keep on trying to figure out how I fit into it all and I can’t quite see.’ He was talking quickly now and he couldn’t stop himself. ‘It’s like I knew all of this was going to happen, I even knew the Kennedy thing was going to happen, but I didn’t believe it because I couldn’t do anything about it and I can’t do anything about those little girls either. I thought I was afraid of dying but it’s not that; it’s that I’m afraid I’m going to die and when I do, if I haven’t figured it all out, all those souls are going to die with me. As though they’re all my responsibility. It’s as if I can see it all but it’s all too late. Like second sight that serves no purpose.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not the superstitious type but lately it’s the way I’ve been feeling, way deep under things. I guess it sounds stupid to you.’
Wisdom of the Bones Page 26
