Dead Seed (7 page)

“I’ll bet I am.”

“You are. He also told me we could take all the time we want on this case.”

“We—?”

“He said, ‘you,’ but we’re a team, aren’t we? Come on! Let’s hit the road. Let’s go find that crooked Irish bastard.”

It didn’t take long. We found him on the driveway of the first place we visited, his home. He was washing his pickup truck. He was a big man, well over two hundred pounds of beef, topped with flaming red hair.

He turned off the hose and grinned at us. “Bernie, baby! Did you make captain, finally?”

“Watch it, Dwight,” Vogel said harshly. “I’m here on official business.”

“I see. And who’s your friend?”

“I’m his muscle,” I said. “Want to go a couple of quick rounds with me, lard ass?”

Kelly studied me, head to toes. Bernie said, “Stay out of this, Brock.”

“Brock?” Kelly said. “Brock Callahan? Aren’t you the guy who was harassing Mrs. Lacrosse?”

I shook my head. “Not me. I was trying to make time with her. I didn’t know she was your woman.”

Bernie said, “I told you to stay out of this, Brock. I’m here, Dwight, to check out that incident at the cult last night. My information is that Mrs. Lacrosse was using your truck.”

“So? Her clunker was in the shop. She asked if she could borrow the truck. How was I to know she was going up there?”

“Is she here now?”

“No. Her cousin came to town. They found another place.”

“Do you have the address?”

Kelly shook his head. “But I’ll get it for you if she contacts me again. Bernie, that woman wasn’t threatening anybody up there. She told me she was pleading with the guard to let her see her boy.”

“I’ll buy that for now,” Bernie said. “What did Morgenstern want with you?”

Kelly frowned. “Morgenstern? That guy who was mugged on the beach? I never met him.”

“He phoned your house.”

“Well, he didn’t talk to me. Jesus, Bernie, I maybe shaded a corner or two when I was with you boys. But you can’t think I’m a mugger.” He paused. “And a murderer? You can’t hate me that much!”

“I’m trying not to. Mrs. Lacrosse isn’t going to use you to get her boy back?”

“That’s the way it’s shaping up. She told me he’s a bright kid. She thinks he’ll see through all that gobbledegook that Sarkissian feeds them. She doesn’t need to pay me, she figures. The kid will leave soon enough and she’ll be in town waiting for him. You could check her new address with the kid, if that purple foot will let you talk with him.”

“Purple foot?” Bernie asked.

“That’s what bigots call Armenians,” I explained.

Kelly smiled. Bernie said, “I guess that’s all. Be sure to keep your nose clean, Dwight.”

“Hell, yes.” He looked at me. “Nice meeting you, Callahan. I hope we’ll meet again.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I told him.

B
ERNIE SAT IN THE CAR
and stared moodily through the windshield. “So much for that. What a liar that son of a bitch is!”

I agreed. The guy was good at it, knowing what to admit and when to lie—when his lies couldn’t be checked out.

“Now where?” Bernie asked. “We can’t go prowling around town looking for a van with Arizona plates.”

“Maybe it really is in the shop, as Kelly said. We could try a couple of garages. They might have her address.”

He nodded. “Good thinking.” He started the engine. “Maybe the Volkswagen dealer? If she’s new in town that could be her first choice.”

It was a lucky guess. The van was there. The service manager told Bernie that Mrs. Lacrosse had phoned them this morning and given them her new address.

“The way that heap looks to me,” Bernie said, “it could cost her plenty.”

“Not much,” the manager said. “Points and new plugs and a general tune-up. It runs better than it looks. We’re going to get our money out of her, aren’t we?”

“Why shouldn’t you?”

The man smiled. “Lieutenant, when you have to come in here to get the address of a driver with Arizona plates, how else can I read it? For all I know, it could be a hot car.”

“Wise guy,” Bernie muttered as we walked out.

I didn’t comment. I thought the guy was pretty sharp.

The address he had given us was in a marginal section of town, a small frame house sadly in need of paint.

“I wonder where she got that kind of dough?” Bernie said as we pulled up in front.

“Dough? For that dump?”

“In this crazy town today? A tent goes for six hundred a month. My daughter is renting an eight-hundred-square-foot cement block house for eight hundred and fifty.”

There was some sag in the front-porch floor as we walked to the door. There was no bell button, only a crank in the middle of the door.

Bernie cranked it and the bell jangled inside. The door opened.

The man standing there was not tall, but very bulky. He was dressed in a T-shirt and dirty jeans. He was barefoot.

“Well?” he asked.

Bernie displayed his shield. “Is Mrs. Lacrosse home?”

The man shook his head.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

The same silent answer.

Bernie took out a notebook from his jacket pocket and flipped a few pages. Then, “Are you Alvin Chitty, Mrs. Lacrosse’s cousin?”

“So what if I am?”

“If you are, I’d like to ask you about that fuss you had at the gate of The New Awareness Saturday night.”

“There was no fuss! My cousin asked if she could talk with her boy. Through the gate, you know—just talk? He’s her only kid! So the guard gives us a lot of static and we gave him some back and then the law arrived and we left.”

“You know why the law arrived, don’t you? Because Kelly is a kidnapper and the officer thought Kelly was driving the truck.”

“That’s
your
story,” Alvin said.

Vogel nodded. “That’s mine. And what’s yours?”

“The word I get is that Sarkissian is paying off half the cops in town. A kidnapper? You call a man that brings kids home to their parents a kidnapper? Jesus—cops—!”

They stared at each other for seconds. Then Vogel said curtly, “Have Mrs. Lacrosse phone the station when she gets back. Tell her to ask for Lieutenant Vogel.”

“If I remember,” Alvin said, and slammed the door.

There was no place to go from there. We went back to the station. The desk sergeant told Vogel he’d had a phone call and the man wanted him to call back. He handed him a slip.

Bernie called from his office, identified himself, and listened for about a minute. Then he said, “Thank you very much. I wish we had more citizens like you in this town.” He hung up and looked at me.

“A break?” I asked.

“It was the service manager we talked with. Mrs. Lacrosse stopped in to tell him not to work on the van.”

“Did she give a reason?”

“Mmm-hmm. She’s trading it in on a new one?”

“How can she? It’s registered in Carl’s name.”

“That can be worked out. Maybe he signed the title over to her and she never had it reregistered. But what I’m thinking—where in hell did she get the money?”

Where else
? I thought. I said nothing. We sat in silence.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “The same as I am. Grange, right?”

“No. I doubt if he has it.”

“Miss Medford?”

“Maybe.”

“And why?”

“Who knows? Why did they park outside her house? Why did Miss Medford run to Solvang? You’ll have to ask her that.”

“Oh, sure! Through the filter of about half a dozen of the most expensive lawyers in town. But
you
know her.”

“The district attorney could ask her,” I pointed out. “There’s enough circumstantial evidence to make it a logical inquiry.”

“He could ask her attorneys. If he had their kind of clout, do you think he would settle for being a DA? Hell, I’ve had him go after Kelly time after time. Nothing!”

Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. The man was an obsession with Bernie.

“I’ll try,” I said. “It will take some tact.”

He nodded. “And that sure isn’t one of your strong points. But who else do we have?”

I stood up. “Thanks a lot.”

He smiled. “I apologize. You have tact when you need it. Luck, buddy.”

There were so many questions. But who had the answers? It was possible that Sidney Morgenstern had, but he was dead. Carl Lacrosse had the same information, but where was he? The lovers had some of the answers, but they weren’t talking. Kelly and Mrs. Lacrosse? That would be getting blood out of a stone. Our last best hope seemed to be Joel Lacrosse. I hoped Corey would get to him.

Mrs. Casey made me an omelet for lunch. I phoned the Medford house after lunch. Charles told me they still were not accepting calls. Not even from their friends and neighbors; the runners had turned into hiders.

I put on my own running clothes and went out for a slow six miles. I came home and showered and sat out in back with a magazine where I could watch the Medford sanctuary.

No soothing music came from the house, no clack of croquet balls from the lawn. I built another scenario in my mind:

The opening scene was a suite at the Biltmore; the characters were an aging but still handsome movie star and his distinguished and still honest agent. They were arguing. The agent had brought some news that would get his client out of trouble if the client was willing to stand up and fight. The actor said he was tired of fighting.

There were some angry words between them. The agent accused the actor of being a papier-mâché hero, an imitation macho man. The actor claimed that the macho-man image had not been his choice; he could have gone on to more serious parts if he’d had an agent who refused to let him be typed.

The actor storms out of the suite and the scene changes. The agent is walking on the beach at night, a contemplative man. (Now we go into voice-over.) He wonders if he had really done right by his client. Had it been his fault that the actor spent so much money so fast that they couldn’t wait for the serious parts? And how many really serious films had the studios made in those days? He knew what actors thought of agents. One of his more cynical clients had explained it to him—changing agents was like changing deck chairs on the
Titanic.

Then, from the shadows of a shack near the beach, a shrouded and ominous figure picks up a large rock and—

And Jan asked, “What are you dreaming about? You were mumbling.”

I looked up to see her smiling down at me. “I was dreaming about my youth,” I told her. “You sound happy.”

“With reason. I finally found a client with impeccable taste.”

Impeccable taste meant Jan’s taste. I didn’t put the thought into words, getting some practice on my tact. “Is it time for a drink?”

“I’ll make them,” she said. “I’m not tired today. I didn’t have to spend my time dickering with impossible people.”

We sat in our deck chairs, sipping martinis, within view of the quiet house next door. “And your day?” she asked.

“Fruitless.”

“You didn’t learn
anything
?
”

“I learned what I already knew, that people lie. I guess that’s what tact is, isn’t it—learning to lie gracefully?”

“You’ve lost me again,” she said. “Just the facts, peeper.”

I gave her the sordid details of my depressing day.

“And now,” she guessed, “you’re wondering where the money came from.”

“Not really. Maybe a little.”

She nodded toward the Medford home. “There?”

“Probably.”

“Why don’t you phone them?”

“I did. They’re not accepting calls.”

“To hell with both of them,” she said. “Mrs. Casey is making Irish stew for dinner. That should cheer you up. And remember, there’s always tomorrow, lover.”

The Irish stew helped. I was almost back to my natural ebullience when Corey phoned.

“Learn anything?” I asked him.

“I sure did. I talked with Joel. He works in the kitchen, too. That’s part of his incubation period. You know—honest toil?”

“What did he tell you?”

“He told me he hates his mother. It really floored me. I mean, he seems like such a nice, gentle guy. And I talked with Penelope.”

“Who is Penelope?”

“You know! That girl who works up here, the secretary, the girl I went to high school with.” A pause. “We’ve got a date tonight.”

“Doesn’t she live up there?”

“Of course not! She’s like me, an employee. She’s no weirdo.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Stay away from weirdos, Corey.”

“I plan to. What I wondered—you see, after the movie I figured we could grab a sandwich or something. But I’m a little short of cash right now. I put in eight hours today. That would be sixteen bucks.”

“You’re good at figures. Isn’t Mrs. Lacrosse paying you, or Kelly?”

“Do you think I would work for them after what you told me? Do you think I’m unethical?”

“Don’t con me, Corey,” I said sternly. “They dumped you.”

Silence on the line.

I said, “All right. Drop in at the house before you go to the movie. I’ll give you your pay for today.”

When he rang our bell, around eight o’clock, I gave him his sixteen dollars and asked him, “Would you like a beer?”

“Penelope is waiting in the car,” he said.

“Doesn’t she like beer? Bring her in.”

He stood there, looking doubtful.

I said the magic word.
“Einlicher,”
I told him.

“I’ll get her,” he said.

The girl with the flaxen hair was not wearing charcoal denim tonight. She was wearing blue linen. But it was as unadorned as the charcoal denim had been. Her face was devoid of makeup, her long hair free of frizz. This was the genuine article.

She stood in the center of our living room and said, “What a lovely room!”

“It’s my wife’s taste, not mine,” I explained.

“I know,” she said.

That could be read several ways, one of which was not complimentary. I decided not to ask for her reading of the remark, still getting in more practice on my tact.

She smiled at me. “That was dumb, wasn’t it? What I meant to say was that I knew Mrs. Callahan worked for Kay Décor. Corey told me.”

“I assumed that’s what you meant,” I said. “Did he also tell you never to mention my name to your boss?”