Wolfman - Art Bourgeau (12 page)

"You may have seen some of the articles. We
cater to difficult needs in glasses . . . Are you the man who's
heading up the investigation into Stanley's death?"

"That’s right. I'll try not to take too much
of your time, but there are a few points I need to clear up." He
consulted his notebook. "Right now we’re trying to piece
together what happened the night he was killed. Do you have any idea
what he was doing that evening from, say, eight-thirty on?"

"Well, when he left here he was going home to
change, then he was going to have dinner at Lagniappe with John and
Elizabeth Cohen. They’re old friends who own Interiors, the
decorating place on Walnut near Le Bec Fin. We used to have dinner
with them at least once a week."

"You say we, were you there?"

She hesitated. "Usually the answer would be yes,
but that night he didn't invite me."

"Did he give you any reason?"

"
No, he just said he wanted to see them alone."

"
. . . And that was unusual?"

An angry look. "What are you driving at?"

"I’m just trying to figure out what happened.
Let's backtrack. I never met him. Tell me what he was like."

Her eyes began to tear. "I met him when I was in
optometry school, four years ago. I worked for him part-time then. He
was the nicest man I ever met. A caring man. My last year of school I
ran out of money and he paid for it. When I graduated I came into the
practice full time . . . he had terrific enthusiasm, it just bubbled
over. Everyone around him felt it. That's really the secret to the
practice . . . his enthusiasm. People were drawn to him. I can't
imagine what life’s going to be like without him."

"Now about that day, what was his mood like?"

She thought for a moment. "I guess if I had to
put it in a word I'd say preoccupied. He wasn’t himself. He seemed
very distant. I thought afterwards he even seemed sad."

"Was this a new side of him?"

Again she thought before she spoke. When she did she
chose her words carefully. "No, for the past three or four
months he'd had days like that. Several times I asked him about it,
but he would just shake his head. I didn’t press too hard. Stanley
was a private person. When he didn’t want to talk he wouldn't."

"What about dinner that night? Do you know if he
had any other plans?"

She shook her head. "I don’t know of any.
Stanley did like to party. Often when we went out we would close
things and even wind up at an after-hours place like the Black
Banana. In fact, the last few months it seemed like whenever we went
out we did that."

Her answer didn't surprise him. Not with all the
drugs he'd found.

"When you did stay out late was there anyone in
particular you ran into on a regular basis?"

"No, he knew lots of people. We’d run into one
and then another. Why do you ask that?"

Sex or drugs. Mercanto chose sex. "What I'm
getting at is his personal life. Aside from yourself, did he see
anyone else?"

"He didn't see me, either. Not the way you're
implying. Stanley didn't believe in getting involved with people he
worked with, but I'll tell you, all he had to do was say the word and
I would have. I don't know of any partners. Satisfied?"

"What about his ex-wife? Did you know her?"

"To know Dominique is to loath her. I knew her.
She was the most mercenary two-faced bitch I ever met. All she ever
cared about was what she could get out of him. She didn't care about
Stanley. Their divorce was the best thing that ever happened to him."

"When were they divorced?"

"Less than a year ago, and he had to force it
then. Otherwise she would have hung on to the bitter end."

"
Financially how were things for him?"

"The divorce cost a lot. She got plenty of cash.
He had to buy a condo, have it decorated, but he was still all right.
Like I said, the practice is lucrative. When you do the kind of
things we do, you can charge a lot for it."

"Still, there's no such thing as too much money,
is there?"

Mercanto said, thinking about the withdrawals from
Hightower's checkbook.

"No, I guess not."

"You mentioned that he helped you out with your
last year of school. Was he doing anything like that for someone
else?"

"Not that I know of."

Should he mention the drugs? If she was involved it
would tip his hand. He looked at her. The look of sadness on her face
was too real. She was genuinely upset or a hell of an actress. He
didn’t think she was involved but he didn’t want to take the
chance of ruling her out yet.

"Do you have any idea who could have done it?"

She shook her head. "No, not at all. Everyone
loved him."

""I guess that’s all I have, although I
might need to talk to you again." He reached for a pad on her
desk and wrote down his number. "If you think of anything give
me a call . . . Now, if you don’t mind, I'd like to spend a few
minutes with each of the staff, one at a time. I won't keep them
long, I promise."

"Will you tell me one thing . . . when will the
body be released?" She paused. "I want to make the funeral
arrangements. I know what he would want."

"
I can't answer that, except to say it will be
as soon as we've completed our investigation."

She stood up. "Thank you. Why don’t you use my
office. I'll send in the staff like you want."

Mercanto spent the rest of the day questioning the
other employees. They all said more or less the same things, but by
the end of the day one thing had clearly emerged . . . for the past
few months Stanley Hightower had shown a marked change in personality
from a bubbling, enthusiastic person to one who was distant,
preoccupied, some even said gloomy.

On the way home Mercanto again took dinner to Frank,
but this time he didn’t stay because all Frank wanted to talk about
were plans for his own funeral. He couldn’t sit there and listen to
that.

At his apartment on Catherine Street he changed
clothes and lit a fire in his small fireplace. While he was at
Frank's he had not eaten, and for a few minutes he toyed with the
idea of making dinner but settled for a Rolling Rock instead. In the
living room he put on a tape of Michael Feinstein at the Algonquin
and settled himself in front of the fire. As the music played he
tried to relax and not think about the case.

He had three more beers while the fire burned down,
using the case to keep his mind off Frank. About ten he went to bed
but could not sleep. His mind was in a jumble. Lying there he kept
wondering what had caused the personality change in Stanley
Hightower, and what the hell was he doing in the park at three in the
morning?

After an hour he gave up on sleep, dressed, slipped
on his shoulder holster, picked up his coat and left the apartment.
He drove across town, up the parkway and past the aft museum. Traffic
was light on Kelly Drive, the river shimmering darkly beside it.

As he turned into the parking lot near Forbidden
Drive he tried to imagine Stanley Hightower doing the same thing. Was
he alone when he came here?

There were two cars in the parking lot . . . an old
Ford station wagon and a Toyota sedan, parked near the steps leading
up to the Maison Catherine on the hill. He recognized them. The Ford
belonged to Catherine Poydras, the owner of the restaurant, and the
Toyota belonged to her chef, Wilson.

Still trying to picture Stanley Hightower he drove
slowly across the lot and parked in the place where he'd found the
black BMW.

"What were you doing here? What brought you here
at that time of night? You'd had dinner and you came out here to meet
someone . . . who?"

Wait a minute. Why was he thinking Hightower had come
here alone? What about Sloan's theory that he had picked up someone
and driven them here? Maybe, but sitting here now, the only way he
could imagine him was alone and waiting. That night came back to him
. . . the rain, the cold. He remembered getting out of the
blue-and-white and walking toward the BMW. There were stains on the
ground. Oil stains, he'd thought at the time . . . then he remembered
the sounds he'd heard by the garbage can and later in the woods. At
first he'd thought it was a dog. After finding the body he wasn't
sure . . . he still wasn't . . .

A knock at his window startled him. He turned and in
the darkness could just make out a teen-ager on a bicycle. He rolled
down the window. "Yeah."

"Mister, I thought you'd like to know your rear
tire is going flat."

Mercanto got out to look. There was nothing wrong
with the tire. When he turned back the teen-ager had a gun in his
hand.

"Hand over your wallet, motherfucker."

Anger boiled. At himself for being stupid enough to
get suckered this way. At the teen-ager for trying it.

"Look, why don’t you forget it and take off —
—"

The teen-ager cocked the pistol. Was this how it
happened to Hightower? he thought. He shook his head. It didn't feel
right, didn't answer the question what he was doing here at three
a.m.

The teen-ager took his words and the shake of his
head to be a refusal. "I'm going to count three and blow your
fucking head off if I don’t have that wallet."

Mercanto had seen street violence too often not to be
afraid. It was surely drug money the kid was after. A kid like that
would do anything. In the faint light his gun looked like an old
Western Colt .45, an unlikely gun for him to be carrying. It could be
a fake, one of those replicas. He hoped it was. If it wasn't . . . He
thought for a second about announcing he was a cop, decided against
it. Play for time.

"
Put the gun away, let's talk about this . . . I
think we can straighten everything out," he said, feeling like
an amateur snake-charmer with a cobra in front of him.

"
One."
 
Mercanto
wanted to reach for his own gun but pushed back the thought. It was
almost like one part of him had stepped out of his body and was
watching from the sidelines. The night of Rudy Gunther’s death
replayed itself. Stay cool. Be persuasive. His career couldn’t
stand another incident like that, especially not involving a
teen-ager.

"You’re making a mistake, son. I've only got
ten bucks on me. Why don't we forget about it? If l see you around
sometime I'll buy you a beer and we’l1 maybe laugh about it.
Believe me, I was your age once — —"

"Two."

Mercanto looked at him closely, trying to fix him in
his mind. About six feet, dark hair, no scars or marks. Clothing
dark, hair cut short, like a prep school kid from the West Mt. Airy
side of the park. Could this possibly be Hightower's killer? If he
was, he had to bring him in . . . hopefully alive.

"Tell me one thing, why are you doing this?"

"What's it to you?"

He wanted to shout out because I’m a cop. But
unless he had the drop on the kid, all an announcement like that
would do was scare him into the act, and Mercanto didn’t want to
feel a .45 slug tear into his body.
 
"I
just thought maybe I could help. Sometimes stuff gets out of hand,
it’s good to talk about it. We've got time," he said, knowing
it sounded foolish but not able to think of anything better. Step
back and contain, that's what he should have done they said after
Rudy Gunther. Easier said than done.

"Maybe you've got all night, I don't. Give me
that wallet."

Mercanto had to recognize the finality in the tone.
He'd heard the same thing on the street too many times before.

"All right, you win."

He moved his hand slowly inside his coat like he was
reaching for his wallet. His hand closed around the butt of his
revolver. God, please don't let this kid make me shoot him. He pulled
the gun free of the holster, letting a little of his breath out as he
dropped into a combat stance. "Get your hands up. I'm a police
officer."

The teen-ager fired. Mercanto felt the slug tear into
him, and he began to fall. His last thought was, it’s true . . .
you do feel it before you hear the sound.
 

CHAPTER 9

LORING SAT huddled on the rocks at Cape May, the aves
of the Atlantic crashing around him with the bubbling hawk-and-spit
of an old man expectorating. He'd been there alone on the beach all
night. The cold wind from the east had leeched its way inside his
parka hours ago, and he was chilled to the bone. With the dawn, sky
and sea separated until one was gray, the other oily black trimmed
with whitecaps. In his mind he heard the sounds of the Passion of St.
Matthew with its complimenting strength and delicacy matching the
growl of the sea.

The music had begun last evening after the call from
Wiladene Jenkins and had continued in his mind all night with
symphonic clarity. Unexplained as it was, he marveled at how it
seemed a part of him rather than a memory. At times through the night
its beauty had moved him close to tears. He pulled his knees tighter
to his chest and tried to focus on what she had said. That she wanted
him to ask Erin Fraser to the opening party for the exhibit at the
museum. He appreciated Erin's aloneness in her moment of triumph, but
he had still refused. There was only one woman in his life . . .
Margaret. But Wiladene was adamant. No one could say no to her, and
in the end he relented.