The Dirty Book Murder (21 page)

After parking in the basement garage area designated for federal law enforcement officers, Higgins slipped a card key into the slot of a nondescript door. We entered a brightly lit chamber inhabited by a bullnecked man wearing a Hawaiian-style short-sleeved shirt. The name tag said “Joseph Pieklekiewicz.” A globe-and-anchor and the letters USMC were tattooed on his right forearm just above the prosthetic hand that matched his other one.

“Howdy, Gunny,” Higgins said as he handed over his weapon for safekeeping.

“Evenin’, Lieutenant. Agents Clark and Walsh are waiting for you upstairs.”

Despite his prosthetic hands, he handled the gun expertly, checking that the chamber was empty before putting it in a box with Higgins’s card.

“Have they booked Ms. Trenche yet?”

“No sir, they’re waiting for you. She’s with a matron on the eighth floor getting cleaned up.”

“Did hazmat finish cleaning the Preston place?”

“They’re still working on it, but they got Kramm’s body out without anyone noticing. He’s in cold storage at our airport facility. Your friend here created quite a mess.”

“What about Preston?”

“Sleeping at the K.U. Med Center. Knecht and Jennings have babysitting duty.”

“Any squawks from the locals?”

“Not a word, sir. Your boys don’t know what happened. Walsh handled the noise complaints from the neighbors.”

Pieklekiewicz reminded us to sign in, and then we climbed into an elevator barely large enough for the two of us.

Higgins punched the button for the ninth floor.

“Why are the Feds involved?” I wanted to know.

“Because the DA’s as bent as a tin horseshoe and half the county dances to his
and the devil’s fiddle. Quist’s been pouring cash into Crowell’s personal and political bank accounts ever since his first campaign.”

“How long have you known about it?”

“A long time. Too long to not have done anything about it until now.”

Buford Higgins edged closer to me. I caught a whiff of cheap aftershave lotion.

“I mentioned my misgivings to Chief James last year. He listened for half a minute before reminding me that I was thirty-two months shy of qualifying for a full pension.”

The elevator door opened and he led me down a hallway bustling with federal marshals and FBI agents. Extremely fit and dressed in blue blazers and gray slacks, they looked identical, with each marshal sporting a mustache and a six-pointed star badge as if ready for duty at the O.K. Corral. I pondered how female members of the two agencies differed sartorially as Higgins ushered me into an overheated office containing a desk, a chair, and a couch scattered with magazines.

I shoved a
Sports Illustrated
out of the way and plopped down on the sofa. Higgins sat on the armrest opposite me and continued his tale.

“The situation was affecting morale big-time, but no one had the balls to step forward. Then came that series of missing coeds, when girls from nice families seemed to disappear into thin air. Although the newspapers were demanding action, District Attorney Crowell showed no sense of urgency.

“I’d gotten to know a federal agent based in this region during an arms qualification course at Quantico and he knew I was square. They’d had their own suspicions about Crowell’s ties to Quist. But they didn’t have enough evidence to risk taking on a senatorial candidate.”

“Until you offered to help,” I said. “So where does Josie Majansik fit in all this?”

“It was the fed’s idea to bring her from Ohio to work undercover. She’s the best they have for this kind of thing. They got the publisher of the
Gumbo
to give her cover as a freelance reporter. He was more than happy to help after Agent Daniels mentioned that the newspaper had some strange bookkeeping practices.”

“So much for journalist ethics.”

“Since when did publishers have ethics? Anyway, Quist and Crowell have maintained a cozy and profitable relationship over the years, but that association is beginning to wear thin now that the DA has national ambitions.”

“Exasperated, no doubt, by Quist’s getting cut off from the family largesse.”

“Yeah, the Feds think he’s down to his last million dollars.”

“And his only option is the blackmail game?”

“You got it. How well do you know Eddie Worth?”

“Enough to know he smokes Benson and Hedges and owns half of the Midwest. I hear he plays a good game of golf.”

“There’s more to our boy than that,” Higgins said, telling me what I already knew. “Edward Stuyvesant Worth IV is one of those Skull and Bones types who gets expelled from college for screwing the wife of the chancellor, then reforms to become governor or chairman of Goldman Sachs.”

“Any bad habits besides sex?”

“Not any more. He still enjoys wine and cigarettes, but not enough to spoil any rugs.”

“And Worth’s your bait to get Quist.”

“Yup. Majansik has played her part beautifully. It took a while, but Quist eventually trusted her to go after Worth and she used her charm to reel him in on her own. It wasn’t difficult to convince the young stallion to cooperate with us after learning he’d been targeted for blackmail.”

“Josie can be very persuasive,” I said.

“Yeah,” Higgins said with a sidelong glance. “She’s not afraid to use the gifts God gave her.”

We contemplated the floor for a few seconds, then the detective showed me an invitation card Josie had provided him. The gilt lettering embossed on heavy linen paper read:

After citing the time and address, it ended with a postscript:
Leave your inhibitions at home
.

“Rest here while I take care of some paperwork,” Higgins told me. “I need to see if Ms. Trenche has sobered up enough to request an attorney. I’ll be back to discuss our plans for Quist’s party.”

After he left, I stretched out on the couch and picked up
The Missouri Law Journal
, but my concern for Anne was such that even reading the footnotes failed to put me to sleep. I was thinking what damn fools we Bevans were and that there didn’t seem much I’d ever be able to do to change that.

It was after one in the morning when Higgins returned. He looked alert as he sat in a chair across from me.

“You awake?”

“Wouldn’t you be after reading that tort reform in Missouri lags behind Louisiana?”

“I asked you a question.”

I put the magazine down.

“I guess you know that your daughter and Langston have been playing house at Quist’s. Majansik and Edward Worth joined them right after she left you at her apartment. Since we haven’t had a chance to communicate with Josie, she won’t know you’ll be at the party. It might get complicated.”

I got the drift that “complicated” meant “seriously dangerous.”

“You still want to do this?” he asked.

“If that was your daughter in there, what would you do?”

“I don’t have any girls; just two boys who never grew up to my satisfaction.”

He stretched out his legs, scratched his belly, and leaned toward me.

“I hate like hell doin’ things this way, Bevan, but we got no options. It’s imperative that Majansik complete her mission. The agents and I aren’t going to rush in and arrest Quist and his thugs until Josie finds what she’s looking for.”

“And what exactly is that?”

Higgins got up from his chair. He stepped over to a window and looked at the lights of the entertainment district below.

“Quist isn’t just a blackmailer,” he said quietly. “We suspect he’s the reason those three young women went missing. I understand your concern for your daughter, but, for whatever their reasons, Anne and Langston chose to get involved with this monster. This is the first time one of our agents has been able to get close to his chamber of horrors. I can’t allow you to interfere with Majansik’s work. You go in on my terms or not at all.”

“What would you have me do?” I was shaken by this information, but had no trouble accepting his terms. Taking on Violet Trenche was one thing, but this was a whole different matter with a lot more at stake than a book and a key and the reputations of a few horny socialites.

“Keep it simple. Sneak in, convince your daughter to leave, and get her out as quietly as possible.”

“She won’t listen to me. Besides, she’ll be with Langston.”

Higgins moved from the window and squatted on his haunches in front of me. I noticed that he wore a hearing aid in his left ear and preferred Lavoris for mouthwash.

“We don’t know how much Langston is aware of Quist’s sadism. For all we know, he may be an enthusiastic participant. We can’t take the chance of trusting that
he’s on the side of the angels.”

“My daughter is extremely headstrong. It’s going to be difficult convincing her to quietly leave without much of an explanation.”

“You don’t have to go. In fact, the Feds would prefer that you not be involved.”

“Sure they would, but I’ve got to try.”

“Just worry about yourself and Anne. If you get caught, Quist has a platoon of bruisers even uglier than Kramm who’ll deal with you.”

He stood up. “Now get some shut-eye. You’ll want to look your best for the party.”

The U.S. marshal who drove me to where I had parked Pegeen’s Saab wore a blazer and a six-pointed star badge, but didn’t have a mustache. Her name was Tina, she was Italian-American, and she was married to the sous-chef at a French bistro. She had three adorable nieces, one not-so-adorable nephew, and she absolutely loved NASCAR racing. I learned all this and more in the course of a ten-minute drive to Violet’s street.

Before returning to my house, I stopped at the shop to place a note on the front window stating that Riverrun Books would be closed for a few days due to unforeseen circumstances. I figured that ought to keep the Irregulars in a fine frenzy.

Arriving home just after two
A.M.
, I found a photo album Carol had put together when we lived on the Navy base in Newport. I grabbed Feklar with my free hand and went into my daughter’s old bedroom. Curling up on the bed with the cat purring next to me, I stared at pictures that reflected a happier time. I dozed off at some point before daybreak and slept until noon.

Not wishing to be seen by questioning neighbors, let alone the local police, I drove Peg’s car twenty miles outside of town to Shawnee Mission Park where I jogged along the lake, consumed two baloney sandwiches and a bag of corn chips, and communed with nature, such as it is in northeast Kansas. I spotted two deer, an owl, and a very mangy raccoon that might have been frothing at the mouth.

On my return to civilization just after five
P.M.
, I took a detour into Mission Hills to survey the Quist mansion. The Roman-style palazzo sat atop a high bluff overlooking the Kansas City Country Club golf course. The only thing modest about the place was the creek that flowed at the base of the hill, and even it looked like a medieval moat. Surrounded by cultivated gardens and a forest of mature spruce, maple, and oak, all that was missing was Lake Como.

Caterers and florists were scurrying back and forth between the house and their vans when I pulled up behind a refrigeration truck parked near the front gate. A fog of icy mist streamed out of the open rear hatch where a grizzled hunchback, maybe five feet tall, not quite a hundred fifteen pounds, stood on a metal stool and used iron tongs to lug a three-hundred-pound block of ice onto a cart.

It landed hard.

He said, “Umphh.”

A thought occurred. I got out of the Saab to ask him how things were going.

“Just fuckin’ peachy,” he snarled. “The shit-for-brains ice ar-teest insisted on carving his Venus de Milo on-site with a chisel instead of in the studio with a chain saw. So I gotta haul this piece of crap up that mountain. His masterpiece is gonna be a melted adolescent by the time he finishes.”

“Need some help?”

“You offerin’?”

“Yeah. No charge.”

“Name’s Harvey.”

“Mine’s Toby Bing. Glad to meet you.”

Harvey’s extended hand was as overly large as his head compared to the rest of him. It was like shaking a paint mixer.

“I’ll pull, you push,” he said.

It took ten minutes in ninety-degree heat to get up the clunky stone path that ended at a large shed attached to the back of the house. I held onto the cart handle so it wouldn’t slip down the hill while Harvey tapped his tongs on the gnarled oak door. After a dozen more knocks, a young guy who looked like an assistant manager at Gold’s Gym let us in. He pointed toward a gleaming steel table in the center of the room. The surface was a few inches taller than the hunchback.

“Put it on that,” the kid said. “I’ll lock up after you.”

“That all you gonna help us with?” Harvey said.

Gold’s Gym looked at him like he’d said something funny. He left through a door opposite the one we came in. From the aromas and clattering noises coming from there, I gathered he’d sought sanctuary in the kitchen.

The oak door wasn’t wide enough for the cart so Harvey used his tongs to lower the ice and drag it along the concrete through the entrance.

I followed him inside. The only light came from the late afternoon sun rays filtering through the door and a pair of curtained windows two feet square. I could see from the cutting shears, steel rods, and shovels hanging neatly on iron hooks that somebody liked to garden; except there were no bags of fertilizer or soil. The shed seemed as clean as any hospital operating room. No paint cans. No lawn mowers. No clay pots. No dirt at all. Not even a container of Roundup. I touched the blade of a pruning knife. It was sharp as a scalpel.

Harvey had no trouble pulling the block of ice across the smooth floor to the
table. Once there, he spit on his hands, worked his giant head back and forth to loosen his neck muscles and with a grunt lifted one end of the block up so that it lay against the edge. He moved to the tail end of the block and shoved it onto the steel top.