A Killer's Kiss (24 page)

“What are you going to do now?” I said, my jaw tight with dread. Whatever relief I felt at the vision of Julia disappearing from my future was suddenly overwhelmed by visions of prison bars taking her place.

“We’re going to book you for illegal possession of a firearm,” said Sims as he calmly straightened out the fabric on his pant leg. “And when the tests show conclusively that your gun killed Dr. Denniston, we’re going to book you and hold you without bail until a grand jury indicts you for murder.”

“I didn’t do it,” I said.

“Save it,” said Hanratty. “The judge might care, we don’t.”

“Hanratty,” said Sims, “why don’t you go down to the car and call in what we found. Maybe see if anything else has popped up that we should know about.”

“I could call from here,” said Hanratty.

“I know, but do it from the car. Leave me a few minutes alone with Victor.”

Hanratty stared at the back of Sims’s head for a moment, his stone features hardening, then put the gun in his pocket and stalked out the door. Sims and I sat there for a while in silence. Sims had something to say, but he wanted me to wait and stew a bit first. Except I had done enough stewing and waiting that night.

“The gun was planted,” I said.

“Probably,” said Sims.

“I know who killed him,” I said. “I can prove it.”

“You can prove it? Really? That’s so encouraging for you.”

“Don’t you want to know who killed the doctor?”

“Not really. I have you here, now, and that’s all I need. The young and pretty wife naked in your bed. You, as always, hoping for a big payday. The fingerprint. The letter you wrote as Miles Cave. The gun in your apartment. Open and shut, Victor. Open and shut. We’ll check Dr. Denniston off the board and move on. When the grand jury rubber-stamps the indictment, we’ll hold you for a year or two, depending on delays, until your trial. By then, with the help of a few cooperating witnesses from the prison, we’ll have more than enough evidence to throw at a jury. And won’t the prosecutor have fun waving the gun in his closing?”

I closed my eyes, imagined it all, felt the quease rise in me. “But I have a witness.”

“Good for you. And you can present him at the trial, if he doesn’t disappear before then. Like Mrs. Denniston’s alibi witness disappeared.”

I snapped my eyes open. “You chased him away on purpose.”

“Now, why would I do something like that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I suspect I’m about to find out.”

“I wanted to help you from the first, Victor, remember? But you were all about attitude and nothing about gratitude. I felt only a smart-alecky disdain from you. Quite insulting. But the worm turns, doesn’t it? And now all I see is your soft underbelly.
And so here we are. You with the murder weapon in your bedroom, me with a prime suspect. See how neatly it works? But I’m still willing to help.”

“What do you want?”

“To see justice done,” he said.

He stared at me briefly, and then he started laughing, and I couldn’t help but laugh, too. His laughter was full of merriment and mirth, mine was full of bitterness and dread, but there we were, laughing together at the idea that justice had any place in the discussion we then were having. And in that laughter I caught my first glimpse of a route out of the cage of guilt that had been hammered into place around me.

“Let me tell you what I’m willing to do for you first,” said Sims. “I can make this all go away. The gun was planted, of course it was. You are innocent, of course you are. You know who did it, of course you do. I’ll follow your lead, I’ll find the culprit, I’ll make him pay. You tell me who. Clarence Swift? Fine. Someone else? Great. Your mother? My mother? My wife? Please. I’m flexible, really. It will all take some doing, and I’ll suffer the heat from my superiors, but nothing I can’t handle in the end. And for you, life goes on. Your fine legal practice, your new flat-screen television, your pleather couch. And finally, Victor, you can consummate your renewed relationship with Mrs. Denniston. How sweet would that fruit taste? I grow weak myself, merely thinking about it.”

“I can tell by the slobber on your lip.”

“I’m just so excited for you, Victor.”

“And in exchange for all this happiness?”

“A little bit of truth. Do you think you can handle that? One honest word out of you. Do you think that can be arranged?”

“It depends.”

“Yes, I know it will be hard. But try. Try as if your life depends on it, which it does.”

“Go ahead.”

“Okay, here it is. I need the answer to one simple question: Where is the money?”

“The money?”

“The one point seven million dollars that the murdered man stole from that bearded pervert Gregor Trocek. It’s somewhere, I know that. The U.S. Trustee is looking for it. Gregor Trocek is looking for it. You, too, are looking for it, are you not? It is in play, and I want it.”

“You’ve been after it from the first.”

“Not from the first. At first I was looking for a killer. But then, after my meeting with Mr. Nettles at Inner Circle Investments and a careful look at the books, I had something loftier on my mind.”

“That’s why you chased Jamison away.”

“I thought Mrs. Denniston could lead me to it. I needed to keep the pressure on her.”

“And now you’re putting the pressure on me.”

“I didn’t plant the gun, Victor, but I know opportunity when it bitch-slaps me in the face.”

“And you think I know where the money is?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“How?”

“Because you’re clever and you’re inside, and because Gregor Trocek wouldn’t have sliced a ring in your chest if you didn’t know.”

“And if I tell you where it is, my problems disappear?”

“Absolutely. You’ll still have to go down to the Roundhouse with Hanratty and be booked—there’s no escaping that with the gun found in your bedroom. But as soon as the money is in my hands, I’ll pull the strings to have you released immediately and the charges dropped. You’ll be off scot-free.”

“And you’ll retire in style in Montana.”

“Yes, exactly. Or Saint-Tropez. I hear it’s quite nice.”

“They don’t fly-fish in Saint-Tropez.”

“With the money, Victor, I can buy my fish at a restaurant, which I suspect is far preferable.”

“What about Hanratty?”

“I’ll take care of Hanratty.”

“You’ll pay him off?”

“Hanratty can’t be paid off. But he can be led, like a dog can be led. It’s just a matter of burying the bones shallow enough. Don’t worry, Victor, I’ll hold up my end.”

And I was sure he would. I had been confused as to Sims’s motives during the whole of this case. He seemed a complex character. Was he out for justice, out for political gain, out to screw me for the sheer pleasure of it, or was he simply too lazy to run an investigation on the ups? All valid motives, and each I could appreciate, but which was it? I hadn’t known, but now I did, the son of a bitch. He only wanted what the rest of us wanted. It’s always a little disappointing, isn’t it?

So here I was, in a tough spot, with an easy way out. I was being framed for a murder. Framed by whom? By Clarence Swift and, sadly, by Julia. I had given her a chance to save us, she had taken the chance to bury me. How sweet, how so much like her. It’s why I’d felt relief the moment I saw the gun she planted; my future would be free of her. But now, as a result of their framing, this piece-of-crap corrupt cop was suddenly in a position to blackmail me into telling him about the money. And the thing was, he was right, I did know where the money was. But there was more here than an opportunity to get Sims rich and me off the hook. There was an opportunity to achieve the thing that had set us both to laughing just a few moments before, an opportunity for justice.

Justice, justice shall you pursue.
It’s right there in the Good Book, sitting like a road map for me to follow. Justice for everyone, justice for all. An appropriate justice for Clarence Swift and Terrence Tipton, for Gregor Trocek and Detective Sims, that crooked son of a bitch, justice for Julia Denniston who had
betrayed me once and again, and yes, justice of a sort for me, too. A laughable thing to find in this world, justice, but a beautiful thing as well, when meted out with just the right dose of bitter vengeance.

I sat across from him as I figured it out, all the while watching his face shine with an unwholesome eagerness. It would take a betrayal on my part, sure, but really now, what’s a little betrayal among old lovers?

“You want to find the money, Detective,” I said finally, after thinking it through, after seeing the parts all fit together.

“Yes, Victor,” he said, with as much sincerity as he could muster. “I truly do.”

“Then you just need to follow Mrs. Denniston. She’ll take you right to it.”

“And where would I find her at this time of night?”

“I don’t know where she is now, but I know where she’ll be.”

And then I gave him a Kensington address.

There wasn’t much time to change Hanratty’s mind.

The trip from my apartment to the Roundhouse, even in the middle of the day, was not a long one, and in the middle of the night, if you caught the lights right, it could be positively swift. Once we hit the Roundhouse, I’d be sent straightaway to processing, and then to arraignment court, and then to jail until a bail was set that I could pay, which, considering the charge of murder and the state of my bank account, seemed unlikely. My future freedom would then depend on Sims, who, with the money scent now in his nostril, was as dependable as a rabid dog. So I had to somehow alter Hanratty’s destination before we hit the Roundhouse. But it wasn’t just to keep my butt out of jail.

Like a demented chess player, unmindful of the consequences, I had set the pieces in motion. At some point, probably on the road out of town, the paths of Sims and Trocek and Clarence Swift would intersect and the bullets would fly. Just the thought
of it brought a little pitter-patter to my heart. But it wasn’t long after I sent Gregor to chase Clarence, and Sims to meet up with them, that I realized that when the bullets flew, Julia would be caught in the middle, and her predicament would be my responsibility. I had to do something about it, and I had to do it fast.

But I was now in the backseat of a cop car, with my hands cuffed behind my back and without an easy way out. And it didn’t help that the man in the driver’s seat had an emotional temperament and a skull both of which could only be described as igneous. Still, I had one card to play that might crack even his stone demeanor.

“Your partner is a crook,” I said to Detective Hanratty as he drove me east, toward police headquarters.

Sims had dashed off in his own car to chase after Julia, and so I was alone with Hanratty. He actually wasn’t playing it as hard I thought he would. He had let me bandage my chest, clean the blood from my ear, put on a new shirt and tie just like the old shirt and tie, let me grab my suit jacket before we left. He had cuffed me, sure—rules are rules—but he didn’t tell me to shut the hell up when I called his partner a crook, like I had expected. All he did was clench his jaw and set his features, just as he had when Sims had sent him from my apartment, which was a promising start.

“Sims isn’t trying to solve Wren Denniston’s murder,” I continued. “Instead he’s running after the one point seven million in cash that the good doctor embezzled from the Gregor Trocek who was in my apartment. That’s why Sims stuck you with the task of taking me to the Roundhouse, so he could chase the money.”

Hanratty gave me a quick and ugly glance in the rearview mirror as he kept driving. We were headed north now, toward Race Street, where we would turn east again. The Roundhouse was only a few minutes away.

“I know who killed the doctor. It was a drug-addicted Byron
wannabe by the name of Terry Tipton, who is an old boyfriend of Julia’s. The story is sad and sordid and Shakespearean in the literal sense, but he admitted it to me and to someone else and on tape.”

Hanratty cocked his granite face without saying anything.

“Ah, so you are listening. Good. No, I don’t have the tape. Julia Denniston has the tape, and she’ll do anything she can to protect this Tipton. But Sims doesn’t care about the tape, or this Terry Tipton, or anything other than the money.”

Hanratty’s jaw clenched the way it seemed to clench whenever I mentioned his partner. But he still was headed to the Roundhouse and my appointment in arraignment court.

“‘What about the gun?’ you might ask. It was planted in my apartment by Mrs. Denniston just before you showed up. She tried to convince me not to give you the tape. I tried to convince her to give up her old boyfriend. As always, neither of us convinced the other of anything. She took the tape and left the gun. Where’d you find it anyway?”

He glanced at me again.

“Let me guess,” I said. “In the desk drawer.”

His eyes blinked.

“That’s her place. She likes to hide things there. And it’s funny, isn’t it, how you missed the gun the first time you searched my apartment? But your slimy partner isn’t the only one chasing after the money. Gregor Trocek is after it, too. Nice guys, the two of them. It would be quite the show if ever they meet again. And it should happen soon, since I set the two of them on a collision course.”

The car swerved. We were on Race Street now, racing through Chinatown and toward the Roundhouse, and the car swerved, hard left, before straightening again to the bray of horns.

“I sent Gregor Trocek after Clarence Swift, who was Wren’s partner in the embezzlement. I sent Sims after Mrs. Denniston, who is the object of Clarence Swift’s affection and who will, this
very evening, I believe, meet with him on her way out of town. I expect it will end in extreme violence well away from here before it’s over. Which, except for Mrs. Denniston’s presence in the middle of it all, suits me just fine, because I think I know where the money is, and we can beat them both to it. And once the money is tucked safely away with the U.S. Trustee, we can deal with this whole situation like gentlemen.”

“You want to take me to the money?” said Hanratty, shock in his voice.

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t want to keep it for yourself?”

“If I thought I could get away with it, sure. But I can’t. There are too many people looking for it, too many willing to perpetrate anything to get their hands on it. Gregor Trocek thinks I’m hoping he ends up with it, because I negotiated a piece of what he recovers, but I know he’d kill me before I got a cent. And Sims thinks I want him to find it, because he promised he’ll keep me out of jail, but I trust him like I’d trust a ferret in my pants.”

“And what about me?”

“Sims says you’re a fool who’s too honest to deal with. McDeiss says I can trust that you’re after the right thing. Both pretty good recommendations in my book. So let’s you and me, Detective, go get the money and then solve the murder and then save Mrs. Denniston while we bag a couple of crooks.”

“Are you crapping in my hat?”

“Would I get away with it if I did?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

We were stopped at a red light at Eighth and Race. To our right, filthy with grime, was the ugly, circular skin of the Roundhouse. Straight ahead and to our left was the entrance to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, the blue paint of the bridge gaily striped with light.

“You could take a right here, send me to arraignment court,
and let everything play out for better or for worse without you. Or you could get into the left-hand lane and follow the signs for the Ben Franklin.”

“New Jersey.”

“That’s the place.”

“I think you’re full of it.”

“But you’re not sure,” I said. “You don’t like me much, do you?”

He glanced at me again in the rearview mirror. “Every time I see your face, I want to smash my fist into it, over and over, until the blood bubbles.”

“I tend to have that effect on people.”

Hanratty didn’t respond, he just stared forward, letting his jaw work as if he were cracking walnuts between his teeth.

The light turned green.

The car stayed still for a moment and then started forward, eased left, slid into the lane of traffic headed over the Delaware River and into New Jersey, where a cat, gray and fluffy, waited for us.

The cat sat in the window well of a little Cape Cod in Haddonfield, New Jersey. The house was white and freshly painted, the lawn cared for, the perennials beneath the dogwood neatly weeded. As I rubbed my wrists while we made our way up the walk, from behind the brightly lighted window the cat hissed. It remembered me. Of course it did, it was a cat. And maybe it had the same reaction as Hanratty every time it saw my face.

Then the cat reached out a foreleg and gently tapped the window with the pads on the underside of its paw, leaving a streak of red.