All Chickens Must Die: A Benjamin Wade Mystery (6 page)

I
spent the lunch hour downing iced tea
and a hot dog from a street vendor. I tried to reconstruct my confidence after
Teague’s seemingly fearless face in front of my fists. The longer I sat, the
more I realized there was still one other option to follow: Danielle Bowie.

Killing the afternoon in my office by reviewing all the resumes
for the women who wanted to be my secretary, I drove back to the health
inspector’s office a half hour before closing time.

The more I thought about it, the more something nagged at me. I
couldn’t help wondering about Danielle and the stranger who had come to
Teague’s office to threaten Teague. He had thought Clara was Danielle. Why? And
why did that make a difference?

Positioned across the street behind a tall tree, I stood and
smoked and waited for five o’clock. When it rolled over, I stubbed out the butt
and kept my eyes peeled not only for Danielle Bowie but Amos Peete as well.

Clara emerged first. She took a right and walked down the street.
She hopped a bus and was gone. Thankfully, I didn’t see anyone following her.
I’d certainly check up on her later.

Danielle emerged about five minutes later. She walked the
opposite direction and stood at a bus stop with some other patrons. I debated
whether to try my luck at getting on the same bus, but decided for the more
subtle tactic of following in my car.

Ten minutes later, the bus arrived and Danielle got on. In the
bus’s exhaust, I trotted across the street and got into my car. I pulled into
evening traffic and kept the bus in sight. It wasn’t too difficult.

The bus’s route took it south and into the West University area.
Named pretty obviously for the region just to the west of Rice Institute, West
University had a distinct collegiate feel in the middle of the big city.
Danielle emerged from the bus and walked up Rice Boulevard. I parked along Kirby
and got out. Keeping a discreet distance, I followed her.

She seemed to know exactly where she was going. She moved with a
purposeful stride, almost as if she were hurrying. I had to keep moving in
order to maintain line of sight.

Arriving at an outdoor restaurant, Danielle talked with the head
waiter who then showed her a seat. Less than five minutes later, a man in a
nicely pressed suit and tie arrived, fedora cantered at a rakish angle. I
thought nothing of him until he sat at the same table as Danielle.

Now I was in a quandary. She had seen me once before and I
figured she could make me without any problem. And it was entirely possible he
was just a suitor, but I didn’t want to take the chance. Something on the man’s
face teased a memory. Clara had said the man who visited Teague the other night
wore a thin mustache, and damn if this guy didn’t have a nice, pencil-thin
mustache.

This had to be the guy who threatened Teague.

They were going to eat so I figured I might as well, too. I
slipped into a deli and bought a corned beef sandwich and a Dr. Pepper. I stood
just inside the deli’s window eying Danielle and her mystery man. They sat,
ate, and talked. I stood, ate, and stayed quiet. When both of them put their
napkins on the table, the man pulled a white piece of paper or envelope out of
his coat pocket. Laying it flat on the table, he slid it over to her. She
deftly put it in her purse and the man called for the check.

I threw away my trash and walked outside. I positioned myself
behind a parked car and waited for the pair to leave.

“There’s a law against loitering,” a voice said from behind me.

I turned and saw the man from the deli standing just inside his
door. His apron was mottled with the stains of handling food and having it all
splash on him throughout the day. You could almost make out what sandwiches he
had made just by looking at that culinary kaleidoscope.

“I’m not loitering.” I gave him a warm smile. “I’m just letting
the food digest.”

“No, you’re loitering. I have a mind to call the cops.”

I smirked at that. Depending on who he might call, I could get
lucky and score a beat cop I knew. On the other hand, I might get one of
Burman’s goons.

I pulled out my wallet. I started to pull out a few bills.

“Look, I don’t take no bribes,” the man said. “I just follow the
law.”

Giving him a conspiratorial smile, I said, “Why don’t we just
keep this little transaction between you and me? We don’t have to tell the
boss, huh? What do you say?”

“I
am
the boss,” he said with a certain amount of
indignation. “But I’m not above taking your cash. And I’m savvy enough to know
you ought to get inside or they’ll see you.”

I whirled around and saw that Danielle and the mystery man had
separated. Danielle was walking west, the mystery man hailed a cab. The cabbie
dutifully stopped and the mystery man was gone.

Replacing my wallet in my pocket, I moved out to follow Danielle.
I didn’t give the deli owner a second thought.

Danielle moved with an assurance that all but made me have to
trot to keep up. You know how hard it is to do that and still be inconspicuous?
Damn near impossible. The patrons walking along the sidewalks would likely
remember the strange man moving against the grain of pedestrian traffic with
his eyes focused on something across the street.

Danielle moved with speed down the block to the fourth store. She
stopped and went in. I angled for a better look and read the name on the sign:
Holcombe Jewelry. I pulled out my notebook and jotted down the name. I wasn’t
familiar with it, but that didn’t mean anything. One of the benefits of not
having a steady gal on my arm was that it eliminated the need to frequent
jewelry stores.

Leaning up next to the wall, I pulled out a cheap pair of
binoculars and peered through the window. Danielle was the only patron in the
store. The jangling bell had alerted the jeweler and he looked up. A smile
creased his face. The smile faltered a bit when she handed him the envelope.
The smile died on his face. He went pale when he opened it and read the
contents. The jeweler looked up at Danielle and shook his head. She nodded her
head. Then she pointed her finger at him and must have said some pretty awful
words because he shrank back, then nodded meekly.

Danielle turned. I quickly stowed the field glasses inside my
coat and turned to admire women’s clothes in the store front. In the
reflection, I watched Danielle once more move down the block in her brisk pace.
Instead of the bus this time, she hailed a cab. She was gone.

I didn’t have long to wait. The jeweler stuck his head out the
front door and looked down the street in the direction Danielle had gone.
Seeing that she was gone, he turned his sign from “Open” to “Closed” and locked
the door. He adjusted his hat lower on his head and made his way to a Chevrolet
town sedan parked two slots from the front door. Again, looking both ways, he
got into his car and pulled out into the street. Whatever had spooked him was
something big. I aimed to find out what it was.

I ran back to my car and climbed behind the wheel. If he got on
Kirby, I’d lose him.

Throwing the car into gear, I raced off after him.

Cyrus
Holcombe drove purposefully, taking
some turns tight and others more leisurely. His commute took us both back to
downtown. The sun was setting and, one by one, the lights were coming on.
Houston at night is a beautiful sight. There were days when I just looked at
the buildings, felt pride in my hometown. I didn’t have that luxury tonight. I
had a quarry to pursue.

Holcombe drove north through downtown and into the area known as
the Heights. Along Heights Boulevard, he finally slowed as he neared a rather
large Victorian mansion. I matched his slow-down speed and parallel parked
behind a large delivery truck. I slipped out of the car and watched as Holcombe
got out of his car, did another spot check of his surroundings, and headed up
the stairs to a house. Waiting a few more moments, I sneaked up closer to the
house.

Three short raps on the door, followed a few seconds later with
four more must have been the passcode. The door opened. In the dim twilight,
the yellow porch bulb splashed outside and onto the well-manicured lawn. The
man who opened the door was backlit so I didn’t get a good look at him.

Giving the open area in the front yard a quick once-over, I
tiptoed across it and flattened myself against the side of the house. I looked
across the street and prayed no nosy neighbor decided to look outside.

The mansion was two stories tall with a raised porch. The house
itself had a crawl space under it to allow the air to cool the building from
below. A white picket fence bordered the front yard. Once past the main
sidewalk view, the white fence stopped and a standard chain-link fence started.
I made my way toward that part of the fence line.

The sun had gone down but the day’s heat was only slowly ebbing
away. Despite that, two of the windows in the first floor were partial open.
From inside what appeared to be some sort of sitting room or parlor, I heard
voices. Not surprisingly, I didn’t recognize any of them.

I crouched low in the shrubs, making sure I didn’t step on any
dry twigs. I kept my ears open to listen to sounds from the street but also to
what the voices were saying.

“I swear I thought she was working for you,” a small frail voice
said. It was squeaky, made all the more so by the fear in it. I made a leap and
tagged that voice as Holcombe’s. “With her previous actions for our group, I
assumed she was still with the society. How was I to know she had quit and
struck out on her own?”

I pulled out my notebook and pencil. The streetlamps and the
yellow glow from inside the mansion gave me more than enough light by which to
see. I wrote “society” with a question mark.

“Mr. Holcombe.” That voice was deeper than Holcombe’s, with a
sonorous tone that would have been great on the radio. “No need to panic yet.
What did she give you?”

“This,” Holcombe said. Despite the crickets, I heard the sound of
the envelope opening and a paper unfolding.

“Son of a bitch,” Deep Voice said.

Another voice in the room asked, “What is it, Mr. Kruger?”

“Marlowe’s asking our jeweler friend here to make him a fake
diamond.” That was Deep Voice. By association, Deep Voice was Kruger. By the
sound of it, he led this little soiree.

Had I heard right? Diamond. In my notebook, I wrote that word,
circling the word “diamond” three times just to make sure I knew it was
important. As if a diamond were anything other than important.

 There was movement in the room and a man suddenly appeared
in the window. He was backlit from the lights in the room and the streetlamps
didn’t cast a strong enough glow for me to get a good look at him.

“All I know is,” Kruger said, staring out the window, “Marlowe
better damn well not be trying to pass the fake to me.” He turned back to face
the people in the room. “Any ideas on why he’s making such a request?”

“Certainly,” said another voice. This guy had a gravelly voice,
like sandpaper on rough wood. “He lost it at the farm when he ran from
Aldridge’s place.”

“Why do you think that?” said Kruger.

“Because of the slaughter order,” said Gravelly Voice. “And
that’s the reason that nosy PI is involved.”

“Remind me why that’s my problem.”

More footsteps sounded on the wooden floor. Another figure
appeared in the window frame, but this time, the lights helped out. I got a
good look at him.

Amos Peete.

My jaw ached in sympathy.

Peete stood at the window, nonchalantly holding a cigarette
between his fingers and letting the smoke waft into the air. “The farmer and
his lawyer hired the dick to try to find out why the health department has
condemned all the chickens for slaughter.” Turned out, he was the one with the
gravelly voice. “They were the ones who got the injunction against the killings
until Monday.”

How had they figured that out? Was my agency an open book?

“How’s that going?” Kruger said.

“As well as can be expected,” Peete said. “The lawyer can’t get a
new injunction so we just have to wait.”

“So why the fake?”

“Marlowe needs to deliver something to you by tomorrow,” Peete
said.  “The injunction put him behind schedule, so now he’s desperate. My
guess is he was trying to get Holcombe here to make a fake and pass it off to
you.”

“Dammit,” Kruger said.

“And that’s not all,” Peete continued. “The only true reason he’s
ordering the slaughter is obvious: he hopes to find the real diamond. Now, what
he plans to do with it is anyone’s guess, but if he’s passed off the fake to
you, he might just try and scoot out of town with the real one.”

“Peete,” Kruger said, “I think you know what needs to be done.”

Various images filled my imagination in the pregnant silence that
followed. It was in that silence that I heard the soft sound of shoes on grass.

I
whirled my head around and saw the legs
of a man moving slowly to my position from the rear of the house. Had he seen
me or was he just making a security sweep? When the legs slowed even more and
his pants indicated the man was kneeling down, I knew my answer.

I bolted upright from my hiding place in the bushes and ran.
Unfortunately, the direction best for me to escape was away from my car. The
pace of the footsteps trailing me told me I’d never have a chance to get in my
car and start it even if I were going in that direction. The only thing that
mattered now was speed.

Gathering momentum, I put shoe leather on the pavement and
sprinted away. I heard the footsteps of the man closing in on me, so near I
could hear his breathing. It was getting ragged so I poured on my speed.
Grinning, I heard him falling away.

But then I heard the sound of an automobile starting up. Then
two. I slowed long enough to give a glance over my shoulder. The man who had
given chase stood in the middle of the street, his hands on his knees,
breathing hard. From behind him, two cars, their headlights knifing through the
night, raced up the street.

That was enough for me.

I immediately cut into the nearest yard, my progress shadowed by
tall oak trees. I hoofed it past the house and the car parked in the driveway
and vaulted the chain-link fence. Naturally, there was a dog there. His howls
pierced the stillness, giving my pursuers a clear idea of my location.

There wasn’t anything I could do about the dog, but my hopes of
leaving him behind were dashed when other hounds took up the call. It was
almost as if they were working against me.

I jumped over another chain-link fence and found myself on the
next street over. With the dogs baying, the homeowners now started to stir and
look out windows. If I wasn’t careful, I’d have a whole street full of
witnesses who could nail me with a jury. “Yeah, I saw a strange man, Officer.
He ran right through my gardenias.”

My only consolation was that the cars still had to go half a
block to get to an intersection before they could reach me. Said consolation
was dashed when I heard the sounds of men on foot making their way through the
yards I had just crossed.

“Damn.” I let my mind race for any advantage. The only thing I
had was distance and my own unpredictability.

I realized that my flight was now taking me back in the direction
of my car, albeit on the parallel street. I had no way of knowing which house
on this street corresponded to the house in front of which I had parked my car.
I had just settled on picking any house when, through the trees, I saw the rear
second story of the house Holcombe had entered. Aha! I wondered if they’d think
I’d double back.

Not wanting to take too many chances, I got off the sidewalk and
kept running on the grass. The grass dampened my footfalls, but a pursuer with
keen ears would hear my steps on the driveways when I passed them.

No matter now. I counted five houses more and turned. It was
close enough. Stealthily, I slowed and crept past the windows of the house. Not
wanting to alert my pursuers to my climbing the fence, I opened the gate and
prayed for a cat. Or, at least, no dog.

Thankfully, there wasn’t a dog. There was only a woman enjoying a
cigarette. She took one look at me, her eyes bulging from her head. I held a
finger to my mouth hoping there might be a shred of discretion in her soul.

Her piercing screech proved me wrong.

The scream was like a carrion call. I knew the men after me would
waste no time in zeroing in on me. No more pretense of quiet now. I jumped over
the chain-link fence and landed perfectly, still running. I stopped at the edge
of the house long enough to gauge where my car was. I had guessed right. It was
one address to the east.

Throwing all caution to the wind, I broke away from the house,
exposing myself to the streetlamp’s faint glow. Shouts of my pursuers could be
heard along with the dogs and the screecher woman. It was a cacophony.

Running full tilt, I plunged my hand into my pocket and found my
keys. I held them at the ready and thanked myself that I never locked my door.

Reaching my car, I threw open the door and lunged behind the steering
wheel. I banged my foot on the clutch and turned the key.

Now, I pride myself on keeping my car in good working order and
the old girl didn’t fail me then. She started right up. I threw the car into
gear and engineered a U-turn and sped out of the neighborhood as fast as the
car could take me. The men in the two chase cars, stuck on the other street,
wouldn’t be able to overtake me in time.

I cut left, then right, then found my way to Highway 90. I turned
into town and put the pedal to the metal. I checked my rearview mirror, but saw
no sign of the two cars.

I had made it.