A Fatal Four-Pack

by P. B. Ryan

  Daniel Jemison, son of the last of the original partners, was about Richard’s age. Dressed in a drab gray suit, white shirt, and dark tie, the trim, sandy-haired lawyer didn’t impress me as a man with much imagination. Throughout Richard’s narration, Jemison’s face remained impassive; only a raised eyebrow now and then betrayed he was even listening. I sat hunched in my chair, massaging my forehead, wishing the steady thumping would stop.

  When Richard finished, Jemison swiveled his chair to gaze out the window, which overlooked the HSBC Arena, home of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team. We waited for long moments before he finally spoke.

  “My advice is to go home and devote yourself to TV reruns.”

  I glanced at Richard in the adjacent chair. He looked as baffled as I felt.

  “I beg your pardon,” Richard said.

  “Don’t do anything. Don’t even leave the house if you can manage it.”

  I leaned forward in my chair. “But I know—”

  “Whatever you ‘think’ you know is immaterial, Mr. Resnick. There are any number of possible litigants who could drag you into court. The woman you suspect. The police. Any of the people you’ve interviewed. It wouldn’t hurt for you both to leave town—lose yourself in a big metropolitan area: New York, L.A. Let this whole situation blow over.”

  The pain in my skull flared.

  Richard stood. “Thanks, Dan. And thanks for seeing us on such short notice.”

  Jemison rose. “Always a pleasure.” He shook hands with Richard, but I turned away before I’d have to.

  I shuffled out the door to the reception area.

  Brenda put down a magazine, rose from her seat, and joined me as I headed for the elevator. “You look awful.”

  “That’s just how I feel.”

  “Did it go badly?”

  “You’ll have to ask Rich. I just want to go home.”

  Richard had joined us by the time the elevator arrived. We rode down in silence with several others. The walk to the parking garage seemed like miles. Several times I almost stumbled on the sidewalk. It was only Brenda’s steadying grasp on my arm that kept me upright. I tried to catch a glimpse of Richard’s expression, but he kept a pace or two ahead of us until we got to the car. He opened the back door and helped me in. A minute later, he’d started the car and we headed home.

  I shut my eyes, concentrating all my energy on controlling my gag reflex. I was determined not to throw up on Richard’s beautiful leather upholstery. I heard them conversing quietly, but couldn’t spare the effort to listen.

  It seemed a long time before Richard pulled up the driveway and stopped the car by the back door. Brenda helped me into the house, and I waved her off as I staggered to my room. I pulled off my raincoat, the tie came next, then I blindly fumbled with the belt at my waist. I kicked off my shoes and walked out of my pants, all the while ripping open the Velcro fasteners on the brace, and dumped everything into an untidy pile on the floor. Then I crawled onto my bed, wrapped myself in the spread, and collapsed.

  My pulse pounded through my skull. Sound and light were my enemies as I huddled into a ball of misery, pain, and despair. I hadn’t felt this bad since I’d regained consciousness back in the hospital after the mugging.

  I heard a faint rustle and cracked an eye open far enough to see Brenda picking up my clothes, hanging them on hangers. “Hon, you really shouldn’t take off that brace.”

  “Not now,” I murmured.

  “Are you going to be sick?”

  “Maybe.”

  She bent low by my bedside. “If you can’t get to the john, the wastebasket’s here. Okay?”

  I tried to nod and ground my teeth against the nausea. Then she was gone.

  It’s scary that a headache can be so thoroughly incapacitating. This was worse than the worst hangover.

  I lay there, barely breathing, as even that sound jarred my brains. It seemed like hours before I dozed off. At some point I found myself in the tiny bathroom, worshiping the porcelain god with the dry heaves, but the next thing I knew, it was dark and Brenda was back in my room. The light from the hallway gouged my eyes like knife thrusts.

  “Jeffy? You want some dinner?” she asked, her voice gentle.

  I groaned. “No.”

  “How about soup?”

  It seemed like she’d asked me to explain a complicated math problem rather than answer with a simple yes or no.

  Then Richard crouched beside me, his face only inches from mine. “When was the last time you took your medication?”

  I had to think about it, and thinking was an effort. “Lunch time. I—I ran out.”

  “Jesus,” he swore, and then he went away, too.

  Sometime later, I came to again and found the bedside lamp blazing. I covered my eyes with my hand, surprised to find my face damp. Sweat? Tears? I wasn’t sure.

  I barely managed to raise myself from the oblivion of misery. Richard hovered somewhere above me. I heard him talking, but caught only fragments. “Ease the pain ... non-narcotic ... better by tomorrow ....”

  A needle pricked the inside of my right arm. He kept on talking, his voice a soothing croon, and I sank back into a fog bank of exquisite pain.

  Whatever that magic syringe contained must have done the trick, for although I tossed and turned all night, plagued by dreams of teenagers wielding baseball bats and clubbing me senseless, I did sleep. When I woke the next morning, the pain was bearable.

  At some time during the previous day, someone had taken off my dress shirt and the brace was back on my arm. They’d taken good care of me. Now I needed to find out if Richard intended to throw me out on my ass. I couldn’t blame him if he did.

  I stumbled from bed and found a navy velour robe draped across the top of my dresser. I put it on, awkwardly knotting the belt at my waist.

  I must have looked a sight when I staggered out into the kitchen and found Richard and Brenda seated at the table with the breakfast dishes still in front of them. “Any coffee left?” My voice sounded as husky as a chain-smoker’s.

  “Sit down. You really want coffee? How about some hot chocolate?” Brenda asked.

  I sat. “I’ll take the chocolate.” Settling my weight on my good arm, I closed my eyes, breathing shallowly.

  “You want something to eat?” Richard asked.

  “I’m not ready for food.”

  “Are you going to live?”

  I squinted up at him. “You tell me.”

  Instead he got up, grabbed a white paper bag off the counter, and took out a whole pharmacy of new and different drugs, setting them in front of me. His expression was stern, but his voice was gentle. “I’m telling you this as your concerned brother and as a licensed quack. Don’t fuck with your health.”

  I blinked, surprised at his choice of words.

  “Did you ever read the instructions that came with your prescription?”

  “Of course. Well, kind of. Only what was on the bottle.”

  “Do you know what happened yesterday? You overdosed. Every pill you took made the headache ten times worse. You can’t pop those things like candy. There’s a regimen involved when taking this stuff.”

  “Well, I didn’t know.” It sounded lame, even to me. The whole episode should have terrified me, but I’d instinctively known that Richard would be there for me, that he’d take care of me. Exactly what I hadn’t wanted only weeks before.

  “I can’t take care of you,” he continued, as though reading my mind. “I’m too emotionally involved. I’ve arranged for someone at the UB clinic to see you on Monday.” He took two of the pills from one of the bottles. “Take these now. We’ll go over the rest of the routine when you can think straight.”

  “Yes, sir,” I murmured with respect. He spoke to me like I was a five-year-old, but I was too tired to complain, and ready to do just about anything so not to endure a repeat of the previous day. Brenda put a small glass of water in front of me and I downed the pills.

  “Did anything break on t
he Sumner case yesterday?”

  “Jeff!”

  “Rich, I gotta know.”

  “No. Nothing happened. No one was arrested.”

  Brenda placed a steaming mug before me and took her seat.

  I took a sip of chocolate, avoiding both their gazes. “Sorry I crapped out on you yesterday. We should’ve talked about ....” I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence.

  “About Dan’s advice?” Richard said.

  I nodded. “I’m sorry I dragged you into all this, Rich. I—”

  He held up a hand to stop me. “I’ve had a day to think about it. If you want to continue looking into Sumner’s murder, I won’t stop you. Hell, how could I?”

  “But, Jemison said—”

  “I know this is important to you. I just want you to consider the consequences if you continue with your—” It cost him to say it. “—investigation.”

  I thought carefully before answering. “I keep asking myself, what’re the consequences if I don’t? I know what I know. I can’t explain to you why I feel obligated to keep looking for answers. I just have to do this.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, “Okay, then let’s talk about what you’re going to do today—which is nothing,” Richard said.

  “No argument there,” I said, glad he’d changed the subject. And I didn’t do anything else that day but rest. I managed to drink the whole mug of chocolate before crashing for a three-hour nap. For lunch, I kept down an entire bowl of soup. By Wednesday evening I began to feel almost human again and choked down at least half the dinner Brenda served me. I watched the evening news, glanced at the newspaper to look for anything new on the Sumner investigation, and was in bed and asleep by eight o’clock.

  Thursday morning, I was ready to go back to work.

  Chapter 18

  Brenda had scheduled another clinic visit, so the two of them were gone before ten o’clock. Meanwhile, I started the day by checking the newspaper to see if Sam Nielsen had made good his threat to write about me. He hadn’t. Yet.

  Next I got on the phone, checking with the library, the ever-handy City Directory, a patient library assistant, and the local phone book to find the Walker employee who’d been prosecuted for theft. I found four Theodore Schmidts. I narrowed the field to two. On the last call I hit pay dirt. The woman who answered said Schmidt was her boyfriend and I could find him at his job any time during the day.

  After that, I called Rob Sumner’s house. No answer. I’d have to try again later.

  I retrieved the piece of paper Charlie Nowak had given me days before, and dialed Big Jim Walker’s secretary’s home number. It rang several times before an older woman answered. “Lucy Kaminski?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name’s Jeffrey Resnick. I’m investigating Matt Sumner’s death. Charles Nowak gave me your name and thought you might be able to tell me—”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know the man.”

  “But you did work for Sharon Walker.”

  “Oh, yes. Sharon was engaged to Mr. Sumner’s son. But that was years ago.”

  “Could I come out and talk to you about—?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she interrupted once again.

  “Would you speak to me over the phone?”

  I pictured her pursing her lips, trying to decide if she should continue the conversation. “I really don’t like discussing such personal matters with strangers.”

  “Of course, you’re right,” I admitted, backpedaling. “Mr. Nowak said you worked for Jim Walker for over twenty years.”

  “Twenty-five years,” she said with pride.

  “Did you retire when the company went under?”

  “Yes. It was very sad,” she admitted, and launched into a detailed remembrance—just as I’d hoped she would. I made the appropriate oohs and ahs when necessary, and waited patiently until she was ready to talk about what I wanted to hear.

  “Everything must’ve changed when Mr. Walker died.”

  “Yes. The company went downhill fast. Sharon just didn’t have the feel for the business end of things.”

  “It must’ve been hard for her—caring for her son and all.”

  “I know I’m old-fashioned, but if she’d just left running the company to the men, we’d all still be employed. And that poor child. She left him with a babysitter from early morning until quite late in the evening. A mother really needs to be with her baby when he’s that small. Once or twice she brought him to the office when the babysitter was sick.”

  “Did she neglect the boy?”

  “Who am I to judge?”

  I took that as a definite yes. “Did she ever speak about his father?”

  “Never.” Her tone changed. “It was very strange. There were four women in the office. We wanted to give her a baby shower, but she refused. She got very angry about it. I think she was embarrassed because she wasn’t married. She knew Big Jim would’ve been disappointed.”

  “I take it they were very close.”

  “Yes.” She paused. “Oh, dear. I’ve said much more than I intended. And I don’t see what all this has to do with Mr. Sumner’s death.”

  “At this point, I’m just looking into his business affairs.”

  “I suppose he helped when the company went through bankruptcy, but that didn’t save our jobs.” I could certainly identify with that.

  I made a few sympathetic remarks and ended the conversation.

  My limousine picked me up at eleven-thirty and the three of us took a lunch break at a local family restaurant before Richard and I dropped off Brenda at home and started off again. Brenda had given me a point-by-point comparison of the clinics they’d already visited, but old Rich was quiet during her recitation. I could tell the clinic they’d visited that day had not met with his approval. Not that he talked about it to me.

  We found Ted Schmidt at Mount Olivet cemetery, behind the controls of a backhoe digging a grave. I watched his precision with the scoop as it gouged the partially-frozen earth, making a hole the exact size of a casket.

  It gave me the creeps.

  Schmidt was about my age, dressed in work clothes, a heavy jacket, and a yellow hardhat. I waited until he finished the grave before I approached him.

  “Ted Schmidt?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  I handed him one of my cards through the open window on the cab. “I was hoping you’d speak with me about Walker Construction.”

  His eyes flashed. “Hey, I did my time. I don’t need to be hassled about it any more.” He shoved the card back at me.

  “I’m not here to hassle you. I’m looking into a possible connection between Walker Construction and the murder of Matt Sumner of Bison Bank.”

  The anxiety in his face eased. “The guy they found gutted in his garage?”

  I nodded.

  “Cool,” he said with an eager smile. He turned off the big machine and jumped down from the cab. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything you can tell me.”

  He took off his work gloves. “I didn’t work in the office, but I heard what was going on. We all knew the company was going under. Management was hiding assets, so I figured I’d grab my share before there wasn’t anything left to get. Only I got caught.”

  “Did you know Sharon Walker?”

  “Everybody did. She could handle anything on the site. Run a backhoe, drive the trucks, dump a load of gravel as good as me. But she forgot all that when she went into the office.”

  “So she was kind of a tomboy growing up?”

  “She was the son old man Walker never had. He even called her Ronnie. First day of trout season, deer season, those two were gone.”

  I remembered the reference on Sumner’s calendar on the day of his death: Ron. And she was a born hunter, too.

  “Was she good to work with?”

  “Before she went in the office, yeah. Just like one of the guys. After her father died and she took over, she started wearing
high heels and suits with frilly shirts. She became one of those Feminazis. You know, bossing everybody around. Thinking she was hot shit.”

  “I take it she was the one who had you arrested.”

  His anger flared anew. “The lousy bitch.” He jabbed his finger in my face to emphasize his words. “Other people were doing the same as me—looking out for themselves—but who did they prosecute? Me!”

  Schmidt spewed venom against Sharon and Walker Construction for another ten minutes, giving me his personal opinion on each and every member of management, and the company’s personnel policies. Obviously time in jail had done nothing to cool his hatred toward the company. I was grateful to finally escape.

  “You okay?” Richard asked as I got in the car. His tone betrayed his amusement.

  “I don’t think I’ll need my ears cleaned for a long time. He reamed them out nicely.”

  “You should’ve seen yourself, Jeff. He was shouting in your face and you were bending back so far I thought you’d fall over.”

  “But would you have rescued me if he’d really gotten physical?”

  The lines around Richard’s eyes crinkled. “I’ve got the cell phone. The police are as near as 911.”

  “Thanks for your concern. Hey, can I use this thing to call Rob Sumner’s house?”

  “Sure.”

  I dialed. Still no answer.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “I haven’t talked with the guy Sumner fired. If we could stop over there, I could get that out of the way, too.” I took out my notebook and found the address. As it turned out, it was in the neighborhood and minutes later we pulled into the driveway. As usual, Richard had come prepared, and hauled out a bulky medical text to read while I worked.

  I rang the doorbell and waited. A rusting Reliant sedan sat in the driveway, so I figured someone had to be home. Finally the door opened. A harried-looking man of about forty stood before me. Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt with the tails untucked, his bare feet were stuffed into worn slippers. A wet dishtowel adorned his shoulder and a screaming baby straddled his left hip.