You Know Who Killed Me (21 page)

He looked at the clock, but the battery had died at some six-ten in the twentieth century. A smile crept across his open face. His light tan stopped where the cap had left off on his balding head. “That deliberate?”

“If you have to make an appointment to get drunk, nobody told me.”

“Join me? They say drinking alone's a bad sign. But poor old Rudy Johnson didn't care who was watching.”

I broke out the jug of Old Smuggler and filled two relatively clean glasses. “No ice. There's some snow on the windowsill, but I wouldn't recommend it in this town.”

“Neat's fine.” He picked one up and we clinked. The first sip of the morning tasted so good I let the rest of it sit. “Peggy told me you stopped by the office. I think I know why.”

“Give it a shot.”

He turned his glass around in the wet ring on the desk. “You figured out I made up that story about Don and Chuck being buddies.”

“You're lucky Chuck's name wasn't Pitney Bowes. I'd've jumped all over that.”

He went deeper into the Scotch, but he wasn't ready yet. “Figure out who killed Don?”

“You do it?”

“No. God, no! I was afraid you'd think that when you found out about the dumb thing I did.”

“Then no,” I lied.

He leaned forward, cupping his hands around the glass as if to warm them. “Gosh, am I stupid. I do a stupid thing and I think I learned from it and then I go and do something even more stupid.”

“So you're stupid. You can still run for mayor.”

“I panicked, brother. I was afraid if you found out about the stupid thing I did—the first time, I mean—you'd make me a suspect. Suspects in murder cases have a way of getting onto the news. A thing like that can play hell when you're in a position of trust.”

I decided to get mad.

“I'm sick of people with positions. Everybody's got one, sitting, standing, lying down. It's the people who keep talking about it I can't stomach. Spill, if that's what you came down here for. Otherwise, pick up your rod and reel and skedaddle.”

“Jesus. Who stepped on your tail?”

I let out my breath. I didn't know I'd been holding it. “Only everybody in the damn world since I opened for business. Go ahead; in your own time.” I sat back, squeaking the swivel.

“I made a play for Amelie.”

“I admire your taste.”

“It isn't what you think. Well, not everything you're probably thinking. My wife died. Thirty years old, in perfectly good health, everyone thought. Even her doctor gave her a clean bill of health during her last physical. We went to bed early one night. In the morning she was ice cold. Aneurysm, the coroner said. A bubble broke in her brain. She'd complained about a headache and then she was dead.

“Amelie was especially sweet. We didn't know each other very well; it was a surprise to everyone when she and Don married. She was just the nice girl whose father ran the hunting lodge where we went every elk season. But she came to the visitation—Don was working that night, some computer emergency downtown—and she saw I was in a bad way. She sat holding my hands an hour after we were alone with Elizabeth in the casket. I kissed her.”

“Not unusual.”

“On the mouth.”

“She's French.”

“I held it a little too long. She pushed me away. I tried to apologize, but she snatched up her purse and left. She and Don didn't come to the funeral next day.”

“Did she tell Don?”

“I don't know. Somehow, I don't think so. Maybe she made some excuse that kept them both away. But I've lived with this thing for two years. When you came around asking about Don and the rest of us in that camp, I sicced you on Chuck Swingline. I didn't think you'd ever be able to find him up there in Canada. He didn't think much of people. I don't know if it had to do with being an Indian or that was his excuse or he was just an antisocial son of a bitch, but I figured when you gave up looking for him I'd be in the clear. So that was the other stupid thing I did.”

“I've seen stupider.”

He started to lift the glass again, then set it back down and straightened in his chair. “It's important you don't think I'm that kind of a guy. My emotions were all snarled up. I joined a grief-counseling group the next day. I'm still going. They've helped a lot. In fact”—he smiled again, and this time it seemed genuine—“I met someone there. We're taking things slow, but I've made up my mind. I'm going to ask her as soon as I think she won't take it for a rescue operation.”

“Okay.”

“Okay what? That's a word that can mean a lot of things. If it's ‘okay,' okay. If it's ‘give me time to think before I turn you over to the law,' it's something else.”

“It's just ‘okay,' okay?”

His face shut down. “All right, brother. So you want me to twist in the wind. Maybe I deserve it. On the other hand, maybe you're just a callous son of a bitch who never did anything he was sorry for.”

“Where were you New Year's Eve?”

“Playing euchre with my in-laws, if you can still call them that. It's been a tradition since I was married; Elizabeth always said it was the most dangerous night to be on the roads. The party broke up after midnight. They'll tell you the same thing.”

“Where'd you play?”

“My place in Centerline.”

“Last I checked, the time of death hadn't been pinpointed an hour either side of midnight. You could still be on the hook.”

“What's my motive? There was no struggle, I heard on the news, so it wasn't like I killed an angry husband in self-defense.”

“And brought a gun just in case; no plea there. A desperate cop might say you took drastic measures to protect your reputation.” I turned my glass inside its own circle. The wood already looked like the Olympic flag. “You're wrong, Mr. Perlberg. At least about the part where I never did anything I was sorry for. I've had plenty of practice. You never killed anyone. As far as I'm concerned, you're not even guilty of an indiscretion. What you said stays here.” I got up and held out my hand.

He kept his seat a moment longer, then stood and took it. “Somehow I believe you. I—”

“Don't thank me. I'm saving being a callous son of a bitch for the one who killed Don Gates.”

 

THIRTY-ONE

After he left, I gave myself a sobriety test, pouring my Scotch back into the bottle. I didn't spill a drop. I looked at my watch, to no purpose, then picked up the phone, called the Iroquois Heights substation, and asked for Ray Henty's extension.

“Walker, Ray. Anything doing?”

“We're pulling in known area dealers in prescription drugs, with the stress on the ones that specialize in Ritalin and all its cousins. With the Ukrainians out of the picture, we're treating it like a routine drug killing. What about your end?”

“Christ Church dropped the reward offer.”

A lung emptied of breath. “Thank you, Jesus.”

“Anything new from the M.E. on time of death?”

“There's just one heat register in the basement, and it was shut, probably to conserve energy. You could hang meat down there. That alters the body temperature cooling rate, which for all these new whirligigs in criminal science is still the industry standard. The state police lab in Lansing played with it for six weeks and it came up inconclusive. Screws up the end date on Gates's obituary, even the year, it being New Year's. Why ask? The tips will slow to a trickle now. Thank you for your service to the county. We'll send you a check first of next month.”

“Thanks. I'm still on a mission from God.”

“Man, you're going to hell.”

“Seen it. I had an out-of-body experience once. It looked a lot like Iroquois Heights.” I worked the plunger and dialed another number.

“What?” said the voice on the other end.

“We need to meet.”

“About what?”

“Tell you when we meet.”

“Where?”

I said where.

“When?”

“Eight
P.M
.”

“Why not now?”

“I'm jammed. Christ Church and the sheriff's department aren't my only clients.”

“I thought those were the terms of your case.”

“Everybody moonlights. Ask any cop.”

“Eight it is.”

I'd lied. I didn't have any other clients. I wanted to meet after dark, to cut down on innocent bystanders.

*   *   *

I worked the plunger again, called Detroit Homicide. A tired-sounding voice said John Alderdyce was out and asked if it was urgent.

“It is.”

The phone rang while I was inspecting the Chief's Special for moths.

“It better be damn urgent,” Alderdyce said. “I'm up to my elbows in a drive-by.”

I gave him the particulars. In the pause that followed I heard a caster squeak and a door shut. Another squeak, then: “Awfully early to start drinking, isn't it?”

“John, I never felt like I needed one more. I gave you what I got. If it sums up any other way, I'll go on the wagon for good and glad to do it.”

“What do you need?”

I told him.

“Holy shit.”

“I couldn't agree more.”

“Well, hell. I'm past my thirty. The wife'll be tickled pink to see me take up flower arranging.”

*   *   *

After dark, Hart Civic Center was well-lit, a bright space in a helicopter shot that looked like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Lacy ice bordered the Detroit River, with the buildings of Windsor sparkling on the Canadian side. The stiff wind had blown all the potential pedestrians into their heated condos and cardboard packing cases. Choppy waves shaped like cake knives caught the light on their points.

I was dressed for the weather, in a quilted insulated coat, knitted watch cap pulled down over my ears, thermals under my slacks, felted boots on my feet; but I kept walking, stamping from time to time to wake up the vessels in my toes. When I turned into the wind, my own breath froze on my face. I circled the Noguchi fountain, which when it was in operation made a spectacular downward-gushing display, but since some scrap rat with testicles the size of melons had stripped it of copper plumbing—in a public place, shouting distance from Police Headquarters—it was just a stainless-steel ring that looked like the burner on a gas stove. Another Noguchi design, a twisted pylon l20 feet tall, towered at the foot of Woodward Avenue, and Joe Louis's muscular forearm shook its bronze fist at Ontario.

I walked back and forth past Joe Louis Arena, where the Red Wings played, at a little over forty years old crumbling worse than the Coliseum in Rome. The plaza was ten acres of concrete poured on top of a century of oil spills and car radiators, but sinking at the rate of inches annually. The hulk of Cobo Hall, home of the auto and boat shows and the occasional Kid Rock concert, had all the charm of a parking structure that night, and little more when it was in use. I don't know what's happened to local architecture since Albert Kahn hung up his drawing pencils, but if three decades of corruption and municipal bankruptcy didn't finish the place off, some MIT graduate with a compass and protractor would.

I heard a cry of animal pain; an urban coyote caught in a trap? No, just an air horn bent by the wind. An ore carrier or a garbage scow steamed toward Lake Erie, a black blot with running lights fore and aft and a dim glow in the pilothouse. I put the revolver back in my pocket and kneaded my bare hand with the other in a glove to stop it from shaking. I returned the hand to the pocket to keep it warm. A finger wrapped in even the thinnest material fitted clumsily into a trigger guard.

I was wired. Check that; I was scared as hell. It took all the adrenaline connected with the crux of a case to keep me from running back to my car. All that experience, all those instincts, and I hoped I was wrong.

John Alderdyce had in his thirty. I had that in and more, but arranging flowers held no interest, even if I'd put enough aside to buy a vase. The hours were long and the pay was small. The pension plan was worse.

Well, Walker, what did you expect, a banquet and a gold watch?

What I had was a pint of peppermint schnapps. In a warm house it rotted your fillings, but at thirty degrees a swig lit a hearth fire in the pit of your stomach that radiated out to all the extremities and set the tips of your ears ablaze. I took a swig and felt a little better.

“God, I hate this climate.”

The voice coming from my back should have made me jump, like the blast from the air horn; but that was before the schnapps. I turned around with my hands in my pockets and said, “Where do we live?”

Mary Ann Thaler was coming my way, hands in pockets also. She wore the same tan calf-length coat, floppy red hat, and ankle boots she'd had on in Yuri Yako's apartment. I had no reason to think the little bulge in the right pocket belonged to a pint of anything but Glock Nine.

“I was hoping to get an assignment in Central America,” she said, “holding the hand of a material witness in a car bombing. My section chief acted like he was doing me a favor by letting me stay in my hometown.” She stopped a few yards away. “You wouldn't have another drop in that flask, by any chance?”

I drew out the flat bottle and tossed it underhand. Her left hand, clad in a red mitten, swept out of its pocket and caught it. A crease broke the smooth white line of her brow when she read the label.

“Try to keep an open mind,” I said. “Even Walker Blue tastes like WD-forty at this temperature.”

She untwisted the cap, tipped up the bottle, shook herself; frowned, shrugged, took a healthy swig. She recapped it and tossed it back. I caught it in my left hand. Just a couple of southpaws that night. “You're right. Not bad.”

“I picked up the habit hunting deer. Every time I took a nip, I saw another twelve-pointer.” I pocketed it without helping myself a second time. A man needs what wits he has.