A Killer's Kiss (25 page)

Hanratty was on the phone to 911 even as he slammed his shoulder into the door, once, twice, and then thrice, shattering it to bits. He climbed over the splintered wood into the living room, one hand on the phone, the other gripping his drawn revolver.

“That’s right,” he barked. “Blood on the window.” He looked around. “Blood on the floor. I’m inside now. Get an ambulance here and a bunch of black-and-whites. And tell your guys not to come in shooting. I’m going to find the victim, see if there’s anything I can do.”

Following behind the rampaging detective, surveying the scene for myself, I doubted there would be.

The tracks led through the undisturbed living room, into the dining area, and then into the kitchen, where they were most vivid on the white linoleum. Cat tracks, leading backward to the scene of the crime, as if gray and fluffy itself had done the vile deed.

“She’ll be in the basement,” I said.

“Where’s the door?” said Hanratty.

“Through the kitchen.”

With his gun leading the way, Hanratty stepped carefully around the cat tracks into the kitchen and then halted at an open door that led to a set of rough wooden stairs descending into darkness.

“Hello,” he called down. “This is the police. Is anyone there?”

No answer.

He looked around, found the switch, flicked it. A dim light flowed up the stairs and out the doorway. Hanratty carefully stepped toward it, and then, moving sideways with the gun held in both hands and pointed forward, he slowly climbed down. I followed.

The basement was unfinished, old, about twenty by ten, with the ceiling beams bare, the concrete floor cracked, the uneven plaster on the walls flaking off. There was a concrete sink, there was an old washer and dryer, there was a small tool bench and a sump pump in the corner.

And there was the freezer.

It was a chest model, white, about five feet long, with its lock clasp broken and blood smeared about its sides. Tossed haphazardly around it were frozen steaks, still in their tight plastic wrapping. A dark red puddle, just to the right of the chest, was the apparent source of the cat’s prints, with paw marks circling back and around in a sad record of feline agitation. Beside the puddle was a red plumber’s wrench.

The freezer’s lid was propped open, just a few inches, and, other than our breaths, the sound of its compressor was the only noise in the room, a hopeless churning, grinding.

And out of the top of the chest, like a thawing piece of mutton, stuck a leg, large and round and meaty, a human leg, with a sturdy pump still firmly on the well-pointed foot.

SATURDAY

By the time we got to Front Royal…

It sounds like a bad country-western song, doesn’t it, chock-full of star-crossed lovers and dead bodies and too many miles of open road?

By the time we got to Front Royal, it was nigh on noon. But it’s not so easy to slip out of Haddonfield, New Jersey, when there’s a dead body in the freezer. The cops seem to have all these annoying questions, like who, when, where, and what the hell is going on. My tendency as a defense lawyer is always to button my lip and get out of there saying as little as possible, but Hanratty was made of different, perhaps more reliable, cloth. So, with the police lights spinning outside and the television crews filing their live reports, we sat in the kitchen with the New Jersey detectives and tried to make sense of what had happened in that house.

“There was hidden money?” said the lead Haddonfield detective, young and blond, scratching the stubble on his jaw.

“I think so,” I said.

“How much?”

“Over a million in cash.”

“From where?”

“It was illegal money brought here to be laundered by an international crook named Gregor Trocek, but that was stolen from him instead in a complex swindle. The trustee in Philadelphia, a fellow named Nettles, has all the details.”

“And how did it get here?”

“Hidden here by a dead doctor in Philadelphia and a little weasel named Clarence Swift,” I said.

“Hidden where?”

“Same place as the body.”

It was the freezer that had sent me back to Haddonfield, this time with Detective Hanratty. The way Margaret bit her lip when first she mentioned it, as if a blunder had been made, and then got snippy when I brought it up again, was what got me to thinking. They had a sadly uneven relationship, did Margaret and Clarence Swift. She was in love with him, he was in love with her boss’s wife. Whatever romance he had once felt for Margaret, if any, had been bled pale by time. Her plain living room made it clear that he was not one to smother her in tender little gifts. And yet he had bought her a freezer. To hold the meat. For their romantic dinners.

It was a strange gift, unless you figured it wasn’t for storing the meat after all. And the timing seemed right, too. As soon as Gregor shows up with his briefcase full of cash for Youngblood Investments, LP, a freezer arrives at Margaret’s place. It wasn’t there to store the Omaha Steaks, it was there to stash cold cash. And the lock on the freezer seemed to prove the point, unless there’d been a rash of sirloin thefts in Haddonfield, New Jersey. But the lock was now broken and the money was now gone.

Someone had come for it. Margaret had objected. Her objection had been overruled with the plumber’s wrench. Smack dead, as simple as that. The lock was snapped, the steaks on top were scattered, the money absconded with, the dead body stuffed in the freezer to keep the smell at bay.

“So who did it?” said the detective. “This Gregor Trocek character?”

“Maybe,” I said, feeling the guilt that had been weighing me down as soon as I saw the bloody paw print now rise up to throttle me. I had cleverly sicced Gregor onto Clarence; if he had followed him here and then made his move, I was in large part responsible for the murder. I hadn’t much cared what happened to Clarence, but the vision of Margaret in that freezer choked my throat. Except something didn’t seem right.

“It was his money,” I continued, “and he’s looking hard for it. But he has a Cadizian henchman named Sandro who favors a knife over a wrench. The whole scene down there doesn’t seem like Sandro’s handiwork. And there were no trophies taken.”

“Trophies?”

“Sandro collects body parts,” I said. “Smokes them over mesquite.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I shit you not.”

“Then who else could have done it?” said the detective.

Who else indeed?

When the grilling was over, but before we were permitted to leave the crime scene, both Hanratty and I got on our phones. There were six voice mails and fifteen missed calls on my cell, all from the same number. He had been pining for me.

“Where you been, bo?” said Derek. “I been trying to call you for like hours. You’re killing me.”

“You wouldn’t be the first of the night.”

“What? You sound tired for some reason. Get yourself some
Starbucks. What I been trying to tell you all this time is that your lady friend, she didn’t go to the Roundhouse.”

“I figured that out already. Did you stay with her?”

“You told me to, right. And at fifty dollars an hour, I been doing just what you said.”

“I thought it was forty.”

“This is above and beyond, bo. Overtime and on the road. Time and a half would be sixty, so I’m giving you a break.”

“And it feels like it, too.”

“And I got to charge you for the gas and the mileage I put on the car.”

“Mileage?”

“Sure.”

“But it’s my car.”

“Expenses, bo. I’m just following procedure.”

“Who’s killing whom now?”

“It’s all business, baby.”

“So what happened?”

“She didn’t go to the Roundhouse. Went instead to some big mansion in Chestnut Hill.”

“Her house.”

“That’s a smacking crib there. I see why you trying to hook up with her.”

“She still there.”

“Hell, no. She picked up a suitcase and a friend, an old withered lady with a hat.”

“That would be Gwen. I’m surprised she’s allowing herself to get mixed up in this, too.”

“Picked her up and headed guess where.”

“Kensington,” I said.

“There you go. Went inside, found that skinny addict with the bum foot, brought him and his bag into the car, and then was off again, into the night.”

“Where?”

“South.”

“Where?”

“You ever hear,” he said, “of a place called Front Royal?”

“Yeah, I heard of it. Virginia, right?”

“That’s it. They all ended up at a low little joint called the Mountain Drive Motel.”

“Did a weasel with a bow tie and a black Volvo show up, too?”

“Not that I saw. Maybe I missed him.”

“Keep your eyes open,” I said. “He’ll be coming. Okay, stay with it, but don’t get too close. Things are going to come to a head, and you don’t want to get caught in the cross fire. We’ll be down soon as we can.”

“On the main road, there’s a diner with a fox on the sign. It’s got a view of the motel. I’ll just be sitting there drinking coffee and peeing. Drinking coffee and peeing.”

“You going to charge me for that, too?”

“By the pee.”

“Not a surprise,” I said. “Give us a couple of hours.”

When I hung up, Hanratty was waiting on me.

“Sims check in?” I said.

“He called in sick,” said Hanratty. “Said he’d be out a few days.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. And I know just where we’ll find him.”

When finally the young detective released us from the crime scene, dawn was just breaking. Still, we had no choice but to walk hurriedly through the pack of photographers flashing their flashes at us and reporters shouting their questions.

“No comment,” said Hanratty tersely as he barreled his way past.

I stopped to chat with a television lady, lovely blond hair cemented in place. She had nice teeth, and she patted my forearm suggestively as she positioned me in front of the camera for the
interview, but before I could even make sure she had my name spelled correctly, Hanratty grabbed hold of my arm and yanked me the hell out of there.

“Hey,” I said in a high-pitched whine as he dragged me to his car. “She was cute. And you know what they say about free publicity.”

Funny how Hanratty didn’t seem to care.

And just that fast we were on our way out of Haddonfield, over the Commodore Barry Bridge, onto I-95 south, and headed toward Front Royal, Virginia, gateway to the Skyline Drive, located in Julia Denniston and Terry Tipton’s own home state. I suppose they were like the noble salmon, who, at the end of their run, have the instinctual urge to swim back to the very stream of their birth.

Where they are promptly eaten by a fat brown bear.

By the time we got to Front Royal, it was nigh on noon.

“When did the Volvo get in?” I said to Derek as we sat together in a small booth in the Fox Diner, a tiny stainless-steel and glass box with a turquoise counter and a view of the Mountain Drive Motel across the street. The motel was a two-story pile of brick and rust and chipped tile, shaped like a V with its point facing the road.

“About an hour after you called,” he said. “A little fellow with a bow tie was driving. I tried to call back but was sent right to voice mail.”

“The battery died on me.”

“You don’t carry a spare?”

“No, actually. Do you?”

“Sure I do. In this business you got to think ahead.”

“In this business, huh? What business is that?”

“Don’t be a fool. The detecting business, I mean.”

“You been in it long?”

“Long enough to get fifty an hour. The secret’s in the preparation. Like, even though I was in your jalopy, I filled up with gas before we started so I wouldn’t have to stop along the way. And I brought an empty water jug.”

“What was that for?”

“You know.”

“Ah, yes.”

“More coffee?” said the waitress with a pot in her hand.

“Thank you, Lois,” he said. “And I think my friend will want coffee, too. And the other guy who’s in the head.”

“I’ll come back with menus,” she said as she filled his cup.

“Thank you, sweetie pie,” said Derek with a wide smile.

“Sweetie pie?” I said.

“That Lois is a doll. We got a thing going. She wants a little Derek for herself.”

“Sure she does, or why else would she be plying you with coffee?”

The motel was at the mouth of the Skyline Drive, which runs through the Shenandoah National Park. There was a McDonald’s on its right flank, a gas station on its left. The motel’s sign showed a picture of a snowcapped rocky peak, which didn’t quite fit, and had the word pool in big white letters. Weeds sprouted tall through the cracks of the two desolate parking lots in front. In one of the lots, there was a battered brown van, a big black pickup, and a Corvair; in the other lot was Julia’s large blue BMW and Clarence Swift’s Volvo, parked side by side. And in the small circular drive at the motel’s entrance, a big white Buick sat, its engine running.

“What’s with the car in front?” I said.

“Pulled in about fifteen minutes ago. There’s an old man in the driver’s seat, just waiting there.”

“Anyone get out of the car to check into the motel?”

“Nope.”

“Any idea why it’s sitting there?”

“Maybe he likes the view. What happened to your eye?”

“The two guys you saw coming into my apartment.”

“I bet you just let them in.”

“You win.”

“I warned you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you warned me. Was anyone following the Volvo?”

“Not that I saw.”

“How about Julia and her Beemer?”

“Not sure. Was a boxy brown car that passed by a couple times, but it hasn’t come back lately.”

I scoured the street looking for something brown parked somewhere. Not at the McDonald’s, not at the gas station. Maybe it was just someone passing by. Sure, and maybe we all were there to see the splendiferous Shenandoah.

“You check the place out?”

“Not a high-class accommodation, I’ll tell you that. It smells inside, like that Maurice from the neighborhood.”

“Maurice?”

“You don’t want to know. There’s a door in front that goes past the desk, a door in the back that goes to the little pool in the rear. Two emergency exits on the side with signs what say they ring the alarm.”

“Do they?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“You could try one.”

“But the alarm would ring.”

“That’s the point. It’s called scoping the scene.”

“It’s called setting off the alarm, is what it’s called. Derek isn’t a fool. Derek doesn’t set off alarms on purpose. Get a grip, bo.”

Just then Hanratty came back from the bathroom. He sat down across from us, grunted twice, squinted at the motel.

“What color car was Sims driving?” I said to Hanratty.

“He had an official car,” said Hanratty. “Brown. Listen. I got a call from a detective in robbery. There was a break-in and a beating. An older lady in Center City. She’s still in a coma. The detective, knowing about the details of the Denniston murder case, thought I might be interested. Her name is Swift, Edna Swift.”

“Crap,” I said, a ripple of relief sliding up my spine even as I imagined Edna on a respirator in the hospital. “When?”

“It happened about three hours ago.”

“Then we don’t have much time,” I said.

“You think it was Trocek?”

“Of course it was Trocek. He’s looking for the money, he thinks Clarence has it, he went after the mother to find him. If she knew anything, he’s on his way here.”

“So Trocek didn’t kill that woman.”

“Guess not.”

“Then who did?”

“What was the guy with the bow tie carrying, Derek?”

“One of those huge black briefcase things lawyers are always bringing to the courthouse.”

“Clarence has it.”

“I guess that’s it, then. I’ll call in the local police and the FBI.”

“But before you do that,” I said, “I have to go over there.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Hanratty. “From here on in, this is a police matter, and you will stay the hell out of it.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Coffee?” said Lois, bringing over the pot, two cups, and menus.

“Not for me,” I said. “I have to be going.”

“I’ll cuff you to this table if I have to,” said Hanratty.

“I’ll yank it out of the wall and take it with me.”

“I’ll have the coffee,” said Hanratty, staring at me all the
while, “and a couple of eggs over, home fries, bacon, and some thick sausage links well grilled, rye toast.”

“Sure thing, hon.”

When Lois had gone, I leaned forward over the table. “Don’t you see what’s going to happen? She’s in the middle of a bad scene that’s going to turn worse because of me. I can’t just leave her there.”

He dumped in two creams and stirred his coffee, unconcerned. “You’ll only muck it up.”

“I’ve already done that. I’m going.”

“You’ll tip her off and send her running, and we’ll be doing this two states over.”

“She’s not going anywhere. Same time I go over there, Derek is going to take my car and park it right behind the Beemer and the Volvo so they can’t get out.”

“I am?” said Derek.

“Yes, you are, and then you’re hightailing it right back to this booth. No one’s running anywhere. I just need to get her out of there.”

“No.”

“Think about it, think about who she’s with. Terry Tipton is a murderer. Clarence Swift is probably a murderer. Your partner is after her, and he’s a crooked bastard, too. And then there’s Gregor Trocek and his pal Sandro, who are speeding toward her as we speak. When the police and FBI close in, it’s going to explode.”

“She’s made her bed.”

“I think the bed made her, Detective.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I have no idea. But I loved her once, and that means something, at least to me. I want nothing more to do with her, but I loved her once, and I’m going to do what I can to get her out of there before it all starts to burning.”

Hanratty looked at me for a long moment. I could see the
calculation going on in his stolid face. On one hand I was a creep, and every time he saw me, he wanted to smash my face. On the other hand, for the whole of that night I’d been nothing but truthful with him, and he was only there because of me. But then again I was a creep, and every time he saw me, he wanted to smash my face. It was almost fun watching him try to figure it out. Then he snorted.

“Get the hell out of here,” he said, disgusted.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I’m going to drink my coffee and finish my eggs before I make a call. That’s all the time you have.”

“You know, Detective, you’re proving to be almost human. Let’s go, Derek.”

And then we were off, out of the diner, Derek to the car and me to face my old flame one time more.