The Witchfinder (20 page)

“There’s always cremation.”

“Vernon Whiting was cremated. I’d have my ashes scattered, but I don’t know what they did with his. What if we were to get mixed up? So. Since I’m to be vacuum-sealed for all eternity, I might as well go the whole nine yards, or six feet, or whatever. I’ve little enough to do with the time left me, and all the buildings this world really needs have already been constructed. All we’ve done since Eisenhower is repeat ourselves. Why not a tomb? Let the world say Furlong was a narcissistic jerk on the grand scale. It will give it something to talk about besides the Super Bowl.”

He laid the board facedown beside him on the bed. The speech seemed to have consumed his latest spurt of energy. Beads of sweat glittered on his forehead like condensation on crackle wrap. “Did I hear you say you were almost booked on the same one-way trip?”

“They can burn me if they like. I’ve smoked since I was seventeen.” I shook out a Winston. “Does this suite come with aspirins?”

“Windy? And a glass of water.”

“Vodka,” I said. “They dissolve quicker in alcohol.”

“So does your liver.” But Lund was on his feet and lurching toward the bathroom.

The pills, or more likely it was the liquor, started working right away. I emptied the glass to make sure and set it on the floor. That simple movement brought the blood roaring to my head like the ocean in a conch shell. I lit up and poured smoke into it. “I was shot once before. I’m trying to keep it from becoming a habit.”

Furlong said, “I take it you know who did it.”

“If I knew for sure I’d have sicced the cops on him. Or maybe I wouldn’t. The odds say whoever dusted me is the same one who dropped the hammer on Lynn Arsenault. If so it ties the shooter in with the frame on Lily Talbot. Did she ever come around, by the way?”

The architect shook his head. “Did you really think she would?”

“I try not to think. I’m a man of action. That’s why I spent twenty-nine hours on my back at Detroit Receiving under the care of a woman who looks like Peter Sellers. Anyway, if I’m right and the gunny knows who ordered the frame, he’s no good to us in jail.”

“I think you’d better tell me everything. Stuart told me some of it, but I want to hear the works from the contractor on site.”

I excused myself and went out to refill my glass. The story took some telling and I was bound to be thirsty by the end.

P
LANES LANDED, PLANES TOOK OFF;
close enough sometimes to drag their shadows across the window, but eerily without noise. The walls were made of two layers of brick with asbestos and cork sandwiched between. It was like watching a war movie at the drive-in with the speaker turned off.

I went all the way back to what I had learned in Randy Quarrels’ studio and continued through Lily Talbot’s gallery, the body in the garage, the scene at the dock with Nate Millender and Royce Grayling, my adventures in Millender’s apartment, and the brains on the sail boom in his boat. Furlong showed no reaction when I mentioned the ten thousand dollars Arsenault had dropped into the Talbot till last year.

“Do you intend to confront this fellow Grayling?” he asked after a little silence.

I nodded and put out my cigarette. “With a tank if possible. Failing that, with information, when I have it. Starting with some clue as to why a trigger who hires himself out exclusively to local politicians should interest himself in the wedding plans of a famous architect.”

“I can’t help you there. He would have been in high school the last time I accepted any contract work in Michigan.”

“That saves my asking. Up to now Grayling’s job has been to prevent answers from reaching the people with the questions. He’s not going to open up himself without some kind of pry bar. Also you don’t go into lion country without learning everything you can about lions first.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Terrified.”

That surprised him. “Because of what happened to you?”

“No, killers scare me in general. When you’re used to playing by civilization’s rules, you work up strategies that don’t apply when you come up against someone who doesn’t. Touch football and tackle aren’t the same game.”

“So you’re backing out.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then I’ll say it for all of us.” Lund looked up from his sore foot. “Jay, I think you should drop this investigation.”

“Oh, you do.”

“I do. If anything happens to Walker, it’s something you don’t need on your conscience at this time.”

Furlong looked at me. “He makes sense.”

“Lawyers always do.”

“What do you suggest?”

I sat back with my drink. “I’m out of choices. I had one in Allen Park and I chose not to come clean with the officers investigating Arsenault’s murder. I had another one yesterday and I chose to stonewall my best pipeline into the Detroit Police Department in the Millender investigation. You don’t get three. If I go to the cops now I risk losing my license for withholding evidence in two homicides. Also my freedom. That would give Grayling an excellent reason to finish what he started the day before yesterday. So I might as well stay the course. All he can do is kill me.”

“You’re certain he’s the one who shot you?” There was color in the architect’s cheeks. He was enjoying a fresh spurt.

“I sure hope so. I can’t protect two fronts.”

“You’re outvoted, Windy.”

“That’s easy for both of you. I’ll be the one to take the heat when Walker’s estate sues Furlong’s.”

“I don’t have an estate,” I said. “Just a hospital bill.”

“Send it to Stuart,” said Furlong.

Lund twirled his cane between his fleshy palms. “I can’t imagine anyone in these times paying someone a lot of money to keep his homosexuality a secret. But you say this Millender person was blackmailing Arsenault over a photograph of the two of them in bed together.”

“I didn’t. But Millender had the picture hidden away with a passbook recording monthly deposits of five thousand dollars each for as long as he’d had the book. Good freelance photographers with reputations make money, but not usually so consistently, or in equal amounts. Extortion has its own pattern, like burn marks in arson.”

Furlong smiled at his attorney. “You’re forgetting you’re a liberated faggot, with a rich client who wouldn’t care if you made love to hedgehogs as long as you did your job well. Vernon Whiting was a bigot who only started hiring blacks and promoting women when the government threatened to cancel all its construction contracts with Imminent Visions. If he found out Arsenault was a homosexual, he’d have thrown him out the door so hard he’d still be bouncing.”

“That doesn’t explain why Arsenault would still be paying Millender so long after Whiting’s death,” I said. “But it explains why, when Millender doctored the picture to break up your engagement to Lily Talbot, Arsenault didn’t come forward and expose it as a phony. Whiting was still alive then. And it explains why he paid Millender later.”

“To keep him from exposing Arsenault’s role in inheritance fraud.” Lund frowned. “But he’d have exposed himself as well. And you say Arsenault posed with Millender willingly.”

“Exhibitionists come in all persuasions. The risk of getting caught is part of the thrill, but it doesn’t mean they want to. That’s what makes a mark a mark. As for getting caught himself, Millender had less to lose than Arsenault. He could turn state’s evidence.”

“So could Arsenault,” Lund said.

“Same thing. A freelancer can always find work, no matter how nasty his legal record. Arsenault had partners. Clients. Public con—”

I stopped. The two men’s heads came up. They watched me drink off the last of the vodka.

“Well, hell,” I said then. “That bullet did some brain damage after all.”

“Contracts,” Furlong finished. He had his hands on his upraised knees and he was leaning on them. He looked like a gargoyle. “Grayling.”

I played with the glass. “It explains plenty, if someone in government had a side deal going with Imminent Visions on a tax-funded project. You don’t want Arsenault in a situation where he had to bargain with the authorities. Enter Royce, shooting.”

“Kickbacks.” Lund chewed his moustache. “That tired old story.”

The architect picked up the drawing board and studied his sketch. Then he tore loose the sheet and crumpled it in one hand.

“Say that’s why he was killed,” he said, “and say Grayling killed Millender to shut him up. We still don’t know who hired Millender to fake the picture in the first place. Blank sheet.” He tossed the crumple into a corner.

“Not blank,” I said. “Smudged. Millender was cagey, or Grayling wouldn’t have spent all that time getting chummy with him in order to lure him out onto a big empty body of water where no one could see his death wasn’t an accident. So why didn’t he scrub that plan when I showed up? I could place him on the scene.”

“He shot you later, don’t forget,” Lund offered.

“I’ll try not to. He’s got brass or he wouldn’t have gone straight to Arsenault’s office after killing him, acting as if he’d just arrived for an appointment. That spells pull. If I threw him to the cops now they wouldn’t know whether to bust him or salute him. So for the time being I’ll keep Royce Grayling for my own.” I looked at Lund. “Are you hanging on to that room at the Westin like I said?”

“Yes. That man St. Thomas was most deferential, but I don’t think his partner believed a word I said. I had the impression they’ll come back.”

“Coming back is what cops are best at, after doughnuts. When the routine comes up snake eyes, St. Thomas will check with Los Angeles. When the LAPD drops by Mr. Furlong’s hospital room and finds nothing there but smog, he’ll be back, minus the deference. Say thirty-six hours. But keep checking for messages in case he jumps procedure. When you talk to him again you might consider telling him some truth.” I shrugged, and wished I hadn’t. The aspirins were wearing off. “That deathbed wheeze has had its day. It’s the will that’s bringing in the relatives.”

“I’ll be fortunate if I don’t end up disbarred.”

“You’re the one who wanted the wraps left on. But I wouldn’t sweat it. You’re a lawyer. Mr. Furlong’s a legend. Cops got enough to go up against when they go to court without that.”

Furlong said, “You’re neither of those things.”

I tapped the patch on my head. “If they jail me I can always rip out the stitches. The food’s better in the infirmary and they change the linen more often.”

“Are you as tough as you make out?” The architect was smiling.

“Are you?”

“After all these years I can’t say. When does the act become the reality?”

“I wrestle with that one all the time.”

“And?”

I spread my hands and stood. The second drink had been a mistake. I put my hand on the back of the chair while the vertigo ran its course. I couldn’t tell whether that was the act or the reality. “Thanks for the pills and the chaser. I’ll let myself out.”

“Where now?” Furlong had slumped back against the headboard.

“I thought I’d swing by the Westin and talk to your granddaughter and her husband.”

“I can’t believe it was either of them. She’s an ideological fool and he’s just an idiot. I’m leaving them a generous bequest, but only to keep them from getting their hands on the company.”

“You never can tell, as Nate Millender said. I’d hate to stop another bullet only to find out later they were the culprits all along. After that I thought I’d head downtown and soak up some culture.”

He opened his eyes. “Lily’s gallery?”

“That ten grand of Arsenault’s is worse than the headache. It keeps throbbing. Any message?”

“You already delivered it.”

“You could call her. She’s listed.”

“I could.”

His tone ended that line.

I didn’t trust my balance yet. “As long as I’m butting in,” I said.

“I’m listening.”

“I talked to Buster.”

“Buster?”

“Larry. Your brother.”

“I know Larry’s my brother. I haven’t heard that nickname since before you were born. How is he?”

“Still sore at you.”

“Buster never could let a grudge go.”

I was steady on my feet now. I found his number in my notebook and went over and wrote it on the pad by the telephone. “Just in case.”

His eyes followed my movements, like a dog’s. “Windy told me you were once married, Walker. Any children?”

“No.”

“Too bad. Mucking around in other people’s lives seems to come naturally to you.”

“It’s my aptitude.”

He said nothing. His eyes were closed and after a moment I realized he’d gone to sleep. I shook Stuart Lund’s hand and told him again not to bother getting up to see me out.

Walking out the front door into the heat I put on the brakes. A two-hundred-pounder in a buff-and-brown Wayne County sheriff’s uniform was standing by the Cutlass where I’d parked it against the curb.

“Sir, is this your car?”

I started to say no, but I had the key in my hand and he’d seen it. I turned it into a noncommittal grunt. I wondered who had put out the call, Thaler in Detroit or St. Thomas in Allen Park.

“This is a fifteen-minute zone,” he said. “Loading and unloading only. I was about to have you towed.”

I saw the airport division patch on his sleeve then. I thanked him for the warning and got in under the wheel. The keys were slippery in my palm.

T
HE TRIP TO THE
W
ESTIN
was an unnecessary deposit of carbon into the ozone.

The granddaughter, a second-generation peacenik from Central Casting with horn-rims, one of those all-cotton dresses from India that wrinkle when it rains in Romania, and enough cruelty-free Herbal Essence in her straight black hair to shampoo a woolly mammoth, only wanted her part of the inheritance to outfit an expedition to find a scandal-free Democratic candidate for president; failing that, to save the rainforest. Her husband, a doughy-faced gladhander in plaid slacks and a nylon shirt with crossed golf clubs over the pocket, sold bowling balls. Jay Bell Furlong’s towheaded great-grandson spent the whole time I was there shooting Martians on the TV screen. I welcomed them all to the city and left without asking a question.