Scent of Evil (33 page)

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m a policeman. My name’s Gunther.”

The shadow didn’t respond.

“I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.”

“Got a warrant?”

I couldn’t make up my mind on the sex of my quarry, since her, or his, voice hovered somewhere between both possibilities, as did the size of the shadow. “I’m just after some information, about someone you might know. Could I come up?”

“No.”

That stalled me for a moment, until I realized he or she wasn’t moving away from the window. The implication held some hope: I could still hold an interview of sorts, from the street. I glanced around. The street looked deserted.

I gave a mental shrug and cleared my throat. “I’m looking for Toby.”

“Don’t know him.”

Ah, I thought, I hadn’t followed the proper protocol. “Mother Gert sent me. Said he used to live here. You Melanie Durocher?”

There was a pause. “Yeah.”

“Seen Toby lately?”

“Not since he moved out.”

“When was that?”

“Soon as the weather got warmer.”

I smiled at that. “Do you know where he might be now?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Lived in a Dumpster once. Could be anywhere.”

The Dumpster had obviously made history in certain circles. Unfortunately, Melanie Durocher was right: Toby could be living anywhere, including, as Gert had suggested, out of town.

“Said he once had a room with a view.”

“What?” The comment had come after a moment’s contemplation and jarred oddly with my images of dumpsters and bridges. “Where?”

“Don’t know. Said it was real small, had a window on each wall, like a lighthouse.”

“He didn’t identify the building itself?”

“Nope. All he said was that it was hot shit when a storm came in.”

“But in Bratt, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Do you know how long ago this was?”

“Nope. I gotta go, okay?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but the shadow had already left. I stood there for a few seconds, enveloped by the gloom, hearing the town’s nocturnal hum all around me. I half wondered if I’d made the entire conversation up. I scratched my head and walked back to my car, hoping to find out what Sammie had dug up with her calls.

As I drove back toward the Municipal Building, I turned Melanie Durocher’s last words around in my mind, trying to match Toby’s cryptic description of his “room with a view” to some recognizable piece of architecture in town. Simple logic dictated certain givens: It was high up, for upcoming storms to be impressive; it was small; it had windows on all four walls.

I had stopped at the red light on the corner of High and Main streets, feeling like the one idiot in a game of charades, when I suddenly stuck my head out the car window, and looked straight up at the one place in town that fit Toby’s lair like a glove.

I pulled over in front of the Paramount and radioed Dispatch.

“What’s up?” Sammie asked, once she’d been brought to the radio.

“You had any luck?”

“Negative. You?”

“Maybe. Can you meet me at the Brooks House Main Street entrance right away?”

“Sure.”

I parked my car in a legal spot and got out, eyeing what I was increasingly sure was my goal. The Brooks House, built as an upscale red-brick hotel in 1871, as announced by a large bas-relief plaque on its wall, filled the southwest corner of the intersection like the bow of a masonry ocean liner. Its first floor was entirely made up of retail businesses, and the three floors above were residential, unremarkable in both price and appearance. But at the corner, on top of the illusory prow of the building, was a single, squatty, fifth-floor Victorian tower room.

Sammie Martens parked her car in front of Brown and Roberts Hardware and crossed the street to join me. “What are we looking at?”

“I hope it’s a lead.” I led the way to the entrance hall, checked out the names over the mailboxes, and pushed the button for the elevator. The manager’s apartment was on the third floor.

“You found Toby?”

“No, but I think I may have found one of his hideaways.”

We wandered down the dark hallway in search of the proper door. The Brooks was a high cut above where Milo had been festering, but it was still no home for the fainthearted. As with most American cities, large or small, the downtown dwellings, despite their convenience, didn’t cater to a high-class crowd.

I pounded on the door. There was a brief silence, followed by some shuffling footsteps and the turn of a lock. A young man, thin, narrow-chested, and sallow-faced, wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and a sour expression, pulled open the door.

“What?” It was less an inquiry than a challenge, making me aware not only that it was getting late for house calls, but that managers of low-rent buildings seemed, for the most part, to carry their burdens with remarkably little grace.

“Are you the manager?”

“Who wants to know?”

I pulled out my badge and made the introductions.

It had a remarkable effect. The young man’s face turned fuchsia. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. What is it with you people? The guy was a guest, all right? As far as I know, it is not against the law to have a guest in your house. He’s just a poor son of a bitch who wants to be left alone. Like I do.”

Sammie and I looked at one another and then back at the manager. I spoke first. “I think we’re missing something here. We just dropped by because we’re looking for someone.”

“Who?” The voice was no less hostile.

“His name’s Toby.”

Again he exploded. “Who the hell you think I been talking about? What did he do, anyway, rob a bank? I know nothing about it, all right? So get off my back.”

He began to close the door. I stuck my foot out and stopped it.

“Watch it, man. I don’t have to talk to you.”

I held up both my hands in surrender. “That’s true. But we’re investigating a murder, and we would appreciate any help you could give us.”

He looked at me in astonishment. “You’re shitting me. Toby was tied in to those murders?”

I remembered the name from the mailboxes downstairs. “Look, let’s back up a bit. Are you Mr. Weller?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re looking for Toby because we think he may be in danger. All we want to do is talk to him. We have no hassles with you at all; in fact, we’d appreciate your help.”

I left it at that. He looked at both of us, finally shrugged and let the door swing back. “All right; come on in.”

It was a small apartment, in which he apparently lived alone, accompanied by the bedlam and odor of smelly socks and stale food that most young bachelors seem to find inescapable. The one detail of interest to me, however, was the sight of a narrow, metal circular staircase leading up.

Weller headed off into a living room, swept some clothes off the bedraggled couch, killed the television, and sat in a straight-backed chair. Sammie and I remained standing.

“So what do you want to know?” Weller said, looking up at us uncomfortably.

“When did you last see Toby?”

“A couple of months ago. But I heard him yesterday.”

I could hardly believe our luck. “Why the distinction?”

“He lives upstairs, in the tower. He comes and goes through the back window, over the roof—uses the fire escape.”

“He’s living here now?”

“He was. I went up there this morning and found he’d cleared out. He does that, though; comes and goes. Usually he stays longer.”

“How long had he been here this time?”

“I’m not really sure, but it couldn’t have been more’n a couple of days.”

“How do you know him?” Sammie suddenly asked.

Weller actually smiled. “I’m a writer, or I’d like to be. I started putting this idea together, a biography of the homeless. I’d interview as many of them as I could, get them to tell me their stories, a Studs Terkel kind of thing. I met Toby way early on. He was a real tough nut to crack, but he interested me, you know? I was finding out that a lot of the people I was talking to really didn’t have anything to say, or they couldn’t say it ’cause they were too tanked, or screwed up, or whatever. But Toby wasn’t your average drunk bum; he doesn’t drink, as far as I know, is pretty well educated, and is tidy, given the people he hangs out with.”

“Could we see where he lived?” I interrupted.

“Huh? Oh, sure.” Weller walked over to the circular staircase, at last the affable host. “Watch your step on this thing. I don’t think it was designed for adults.”

We followed him up gingerly, arriving at a room fitted with only a table, a chair, and a bookcase.

“That’s where I do my writing.” Weller didn’t break stride but continued up the stairs.

“Here we are,” he announced at the top, with a one-handed flourish, purposely leaving the lights off.

The room matched his own recent change of attitude. Its dim interior wasn’t much: low, stained ceiling; walls seriously in need of paint; and a floor covered with trash and a bare mattress. But the impression it made was magical. More than a room with a view, as Toby had described it, it gave the impression of being a crow’s nest above Brattleboro. Each window dominated the wall it inhabited, exhibiting at this time of night a sparkling urban vista of lamp-lit streets, buildings, and roofs. I felt utterly on top of the town.

Weller understood our silence. “Pretty neat, huh? I tried putting my office up here at first, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the view. Had to give it up.”

“How did Toby come to live here?” I asked.

“It was kind of an exchange. At first, he wouldn’t talk to me—real reserved, almost hostile. He was that way with everybody. But then, I don’t remember how, the tower room came up, and he saw it might be to his advantage to have a cubbyhole available when he needed it. I promised to leave him alone, let him come and go as he pleased. As payment, he agreed to talk to me and introduce me to a few people. It was a pretty fair exchange; I learned a lot.”

I located the light switch near the stairs and turned it on, flooding the room with a garish brightness that both diminished the view and revealed the starkness around us. There wasn’t much to look at. Other than the mattress, there was no furniture, and the floor was littered with food wrappers, old newspapers, and a couple of rags. I stepped carefully over to a tin ashtray that was parked under one of the windows.

Squatting down, I pulled a pen from my pocket and picked a balled-up candy wrapper out of the ashtray. Underneath, instead of cigarette butts, there were several enormous wads of chewing gum. “Likes his gum, huh?”

Weller laughed. “Oh, yeah. Chewed that stuff like other people chew tobacco. Used to put three sticks in his mouth at once. Made him look like a cow.”

I looked back at the wads of gum, perfect matches for the ones Klesczewski had found under the Elm Street bridge. Weller shook his head, his face growing serious. “Is he really in trouble?”

“I think so. If you see him, you better tell him to get hold of us. I’m afraid someone else is looking for him.” I straightened up. “We’ll want to put some coverage on this place, just in case he does come back. Is that a problem with you?”

“No, not at all. What’s this other person look like, the one looking for Toby?”

His tone of voice sent a chill down my back. “We don’t know. Why?”

“That’s why I bit your head off earlier; you’re the second guy today asking about him.”

I felt Sammie become very still next to me. “Who was it?”

“I don’t remember his name. He pounded on the door late this afternoon, saying he was the building inspector or something; said he’d heard I was running a hotel for bums up here, letting them run up and down the fire escapes and over the roofs. He was real obnoxious about it. I denied it, of course, which didn’t make things any better. Real asshole. I thought he’d sent you guys.”

I turned the light back off and found myself staring down Main Street, five flights below, thinking about a question Brandt had asked me on Milly Crawford’s roof the day he was killed.

“His name wasn’t Fred McDermott, was it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“‘What did McDermott tell you?’ Brandt had asked. DeFlorio mentioned he was here when the shooting started.”

I’d forgotten all about McDermott. A cold ball began to form in my stomach. It had been an unforgivable oversight.

Sammie caught my change of mood. She touched my elbow. “Are you okay?”

I stared at the street in silence, wondering where Toby had gone. “No, I don’t think I am.”

IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT
. I hit the off button on the small dictaphone I’d been using to record my daily report. I popped out the microcassette and chucked it into the wooden out-tray. Harriet Fritter would retrieve it in the morning and have it transcribed and circulated within an hour. A frighteningly efficient woman, I thought. A hell of a lot more efficient than I was.

I sat back in my office chair, the dictaphone still in my hands, and stared at the fan shaking its head sadly on the corner of my desk, as if in sympathy with my own self-assessment.

The odd thing was that Fred’s name surfacing in the context of Milly’s murder was not as earth-shattering to me as the fact that I’d initially overlooked it. The priority of both revelations had been switched by my wounded ego.

I am not by nature a vain or self-glorifying man. I’ve met too many people whose minds are far superior to mine to have an overly inflated view of myself. But I have my pride. I have taken the time on occasion to glance back and consider my progress through life, if only to ascertain that my own standards, however modest, were not being reduced through laziness or self-contentment.

In general, that kind of cursory introspection has yielded acceptable results. I’ve made retrievable errors now and then, stepped on people’s toes unnecessarily once in a while, but overall, I could live with that. If nothing else, I could at least look at myself and see a certain predictable steadiness.

But not this time.

We all overlook things, sometimes important things. I knew that, and indeed I’d done it before. Gail would have claimed that I’d done it quite recently by not warning her of an approaching political hurricane. Still, whatever pain and confusion those occasions caused were nothing to what I was feeling now.