Here Comes the Corpse (7 page)
Read Here Comes the Corpse Online
Authors: Mark Richard Zubro
“He was going to rip us off,” Scott said.
“I believe that would be the medical diagnosis.”
“The little shit. You were right about him.”
When I finished my shower, I joined Scott in the kitchen. The recently referred to piece of excrement walked into the room. He glared at me, smiled at Scott. Donny was wearing faded jeans, white socks, and a wrinkled T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of the rock group Metallica. His hair was mussed. Bags under his eyes indicated insufficient amounts of sleep.
“You were ripping us off,” Scott said.
“No, I wasn’t.”
It was the blatant lie that did him in. Scott’s got a big heart, especially for kids, but he hates being lied to.
Scott said, “What the hell did you think you were going to be able to do with that stuff? You couldn’t possibly walk out the door with it.”
“I was just looking at them.”
I loved the thought of Donny confessing the truth and pleading for forgiveness. The stubborn pout on the kid’s face didn’t lend itself to the possibility of that fantasy being fulfilled. The ensuing moments of extended silence added nothing to the situation. As he had earlier this morning, the kid simply shut down. Finally, Scott said, “Donny, you look like you could use a shower. Under the sink in the bathroom connected to your room, you’ll find clean towels and washcloths.” The teenager looked from one to the other of us, shrugged, turned, and left.
I said, “Direct confrontations aren’t working.”
“We could try to borrow a tank and run him over repeatedly.”
“Much too tempting.”
“We could look through his backpack while he’s taking a shower. Maybe we’ll find some clue to what he’s really up to. Although maybe that would violate his rights. I’m not sure I care about his rights. The little creep lied.”
I said, “I like it when you do both sides of an argument.”
“Come on.”
We trooped down the hallway. Through the bedroom door we could hear the shower running. Scott tapped softly. There was no answer. We walked in. The jeans, socks, and T-shirt Donny had been wearing along with a red-and-graystriped pair of boxer shorts lay on the floor. I checked the pants pockets while Scott rummaged in the backpack. I found two quarters and a penny in one front pocket. I extracted a wallet from the left rear. I found three five-dollar bills and two ones, a learner’s permit from the state of Georgia, a picture of a pleasant-faced girl, a picture ID from General Gwinnet High School, and a condom.
Scott whispered, “I found something.” The shower water continued to run. I hurried over. Scott had scattered the contents of Donny’s backpack onto the bed. I saw a comb, a toothbrush but no toothpaste, deodorant, three more pairs of boxer shorts in muted reds and grays, two more T-shirts with rock-group logos, and two more pairs of white socks. Scott held out a pencil pouch, the kind they used to have when I was a kid, ten inches by three inches of vinyl that zipped on one side. In it Donny had stuffed a thick roll of bills including some hundreds and fifties, a credit card with his dad’s name on it, and the remnants of a plane ticket, one-way from Atlanta to Chicago.
“Why did he come here?” Scott asked. “What wild and romantic dreams were in his head?”
“Lot of money.”
The shower stopped. I scooped up everything except one pair of boxer shorts and stuffed it all into the backpack. We dropped his possessions in a hall closet. We sat in the kitchen to wait. The explosion wasn’t long in coming. He marched into the room, hair still wet, boxer shorts on, a towel in his left hand. He had small tufts of hair around each nipple. He was skinny to the point of emaciation, belying the amount of food he’d devoured last night. He had a tattoo of a scorpion around his navel.
“What the hell is going on!” he demanded.
“Precisely.” Scott’s quite cryptic when he’s pissed.
“Where’s my stuff?”
“Safe,” Scott said.
“You took my money.”
“Yes.”
“You guys are perverts. I’ll accuse you of trying to molest me.”
I remained impassive. Scott scowled. While the kid glared from one to the other of us, Scott let the silence build several more beats, then said, “Of all the places on the planet to choose from, you came here. Why?”
“Can I at least have my pants?”
“Why here?” Scott asked.
“I told you last night.”
“Why?” Scott reiterated.
“I want my pants.”
“Where’d you get all that money?”
“Savings. I want my pants.”
I got up, left the room, made sure I wasn’t followed, retrieved his pants, and brought them back. The kid was standing at the window looking out at the lake. I handed him his pants and sat back down next to Scott. The kid yanked his pants on and then glared at us.
“Silence is not going to work,” Scott said.
“You can’t keep me here,” Donny said.
“That presumes we want you to stay,” Scott said.
Donny looked a trifle disconcerted at that.
The intercom phone buzzed. I picked it up, listened, and hung up. I turned to Donny. “The police are here,” I announced.
“You can’t make me talk to them,” Donny said.
“What’s the big deal about giving them a statement?” Scott asked. “There was a murder at our wedding, and if they have a few questions, why would that cause you such anxiety? Unless you lied to us last night.”
“I didn’t lie.” Donny had added a bit of a snap to his usual snarl.
“Then I don’t see the problem,” Scott said.
“You can’t let them question me. You can’t tell them I was there.”
I left the room to let the cops in.
When I got back to them, I introduced Detectives Rohter and Hoge from the night before.
Hoge said, “We stopped by to check a few things.” The detectives sat three feet apart on our white couch. Scott and I sat opposite them with our knees touching. Donny sat to our left, their right.
Rohter said, “We’ve got thirty-seven people at the wedding who knew Mr. Gahain.”
I said, “That sounds right. There were a lot of folks there from the old neighborhood. My parents, old friends, people from high school.”
“And you guys,” Rohter said.
I said, “Scott had never met him until last night.”
Rohter added, “Except for his relatives and you, none claimed to have talked to him in the past five years.”
“I haven’t talked to him much recently.”
“Why is that?”
“We drifted apart as adults. He moved to St. Louis a couple years ago.”
Rohter said, “We haven’t been able to pin down his movements at the reception. No one admits to seeing him heading to that washroom. Mostly he’s reported to have been sitting by himself in a corner or at a table with no one on either side of him.”
“It was a big party,” I said. “No one was expecting to have to remember details as possible murder witnesses.”
Hoge said, “We were hoping we’d find someone.”
Scott pointed to Donny. “He heard the murder take place.”
The stoic gazes of the detectives rested on Donny. The teenager said, “Hey, what! I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything.”
The cops looked at Scott, me, and then the kid. Donny said, “You can’t question me without my parents here.”
Everybody’s a lawyer these days. Although, anyone with half a brain, as opposed to most suspects on television shows, would ask for a lawyer and shut up.
Then it hit me about why the kid made me uneasy. Here he was facing being questioned by the cops, and he didn’t look troubled or concerned. I saw petulance mixed with excitement. It was the same look as the night before when he’d first told us what he’d heard. For most of us there would have been some kind of strong reaction or worry or at least concern. He asked no questions about what had happened nor evinced the slightest bit of curiosity. Someone had been killed, and it didn’t seem to bother him. I didn’t detect any feeling from him that he should or could have done something to help. No residual realization that he had been in the presence of or in close proximity to a violent act that took a human life. He may not have completely understood what was happening at the time, but when he heard the news, it should have at least given him pause. Earlier this morning he’d been far too casual and composed for any fifteen-year-old.
Scott said, “He ran away from home. He came here. Maybe because much of his family is here for the wedding, or maybe he had nowhere to go nearer to home. His parents are on their way to pick him up.” Scott gave them the details of Donny’s arrival, then said, “Here’s what he told us about the murder.” Scott finished, “We didn’t call you then because it was the middle of the night. He hadn’t actually seen the killer.”
Rohter kept an impassive gaze on Donny as he said, “You’re not a suspect. You might be able to help us. Wouldn’t you want to help catch a killer?”
Donny seemed to contemplate this for a minute. Then he folded his arms over his chest and set his jaw. I noted the familial resemblance to Scott at that moment. Scott has that same look on his face on the mound when he’s facing a fearsome hitter or when he’s particularly irritated with me.
Donny said, “I ain’t saying nothin’ till my parents get here.”
I love teenage logic. First, he hates his parents, then he runs to them for protection. The dyad of bravado and ego chasing the triumvirate of angst and immaturity and fear.
I said, “I’m curious. How does this work? First you want to be free of your parents and be independent, but as soon as trouble rears its head, you run and try to hide behind them.”
“I’m not hiding behind my parents.”
“Sure you are,” I said.
The cop asked, “Is what Mr. Carpenter said accurate?”
“I guess, maybe.” Each word emerged at the speed of a molar being extracted.
“Why don’t you tell us the story?”
“You heard it from him.” If he snarled a bit more often in that tone, I might implicate him in the murder just for the hell of it.
“We’d rather hear it from you.”
“I’m waiting for my mom and dad, and I’m not hiding behind them.”
“Is there more you need to add?” Rohter asked.
Despite the detectives repeated proddings, Donny remained recalcitrant.
“They stole my clothes.”
Scott said, “We found electronic equipment piled on its way out the door. He’s run away from home at least once that we know of. We were afraid he’d try to bolt before his parents got here.”
“They can’t take my stuff,” Donny stated.
Rohter said, “Chain him up and dangle him off the side of the building for all I care.”
I said, “You must have teenagers of your own.”
“Got that right.”
Donny saw no sympathy coming from any quarter.
“When his parents get here,” Rohter announced, “we’ll want to see them and him. He doesn’t leave town. I don’t care how you keep him here.”
Scott got up, left the room, and came back with socks, shoes, and a T-shirt. He tossed them to the boy. The young man went to finish dressing.
Rohter said, “I don’t envy his mother and father.”
“They should be here soon,” Scott said.
“Call us.”
We agreed to do that.
I asked, “What else can you tell us about what happened?”
Rohter said, “We discovered that Mr. Gahain had been robbed. There was no money or credit cards in his wallet. You sure you didn’t see anyone else?”
“Absolutely. Could Donny have robbed him?”
Rohter said, “It wasn’t part of the story he told you. Did you find Mr. Gahain’s credit cards when you looked through Donny’s stuff?”
“No.”
“Did he have a lot of money?”
“We found a thick wad of cash in Donny’s backpack. No more than he could have stolen from his parents or taken out of his own savings account. How much money was Ethan supposed to have on him?”
“We don’t know. His mother says she saw a few bills when he put the parking-garage ticket in his wallet before the event.”
Scott said, “It would take somebody pretty cruel to rob a dying man and not help.”
“We see it more than you think,” Rohter said. “Traffic-accident victims lose their possessions all the time.”
“Do you have any other notions on who might have done it?” I asked. “Have you checked on the protesters? There were a lot of crazy homophobes out there.”
“And they did what?” Rohter asked. “Decided to murder one of the guests, snuck in, waited in an obscure bathroom, hoping someone would show up, and murdered him? To what benefit?”
I said, “To cause a sensation, besmirch the wedding. There’s always someone who wants to wreck things.”
Rohter said, “They could have called in a false fire alarm or bomb threat, done a whole lot less drastic and dramatic things than murdering a guest. Are you seriously suggesting someone would commit a capital felony simply to make you unhappy?”
“Not when you put it that way,” I said.
Scott said, “We ran into a private detective named Jack Miller. He said he tried to talk to you guys.”
“Trust me,” Rohter said. “We do not rush to our nearest private eye or amateur sleuth for assistance. We can handle this all on our own.”
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“We checked him out. He’s legitimate.” Rohter’s tone suggested being a legitimate private eye was tantamount to being a carrier of the black death.
“What happens next?” Scott asked.
“I have one or two things you might be able to help us with. When you got to the washroom, did you see signs of sexual activity?”
“No. Should I have?”
“We’ve got copious amounts of semen in his underwear and a bit more on his pants.”
“His or the killer’s?” I asked.
“We’re having it examined. Maybe both.”
Scott asked, “Are you saying he had an orgasm while he was being killed?”
Hoge said, “Maybe. More likely in the hour or so before he died. He could have been sitting at a table playing pocket pool and gotten out of control. He could have beat off in that john and used his shorts to wipe up, or he could have been having sex with another person and come before he could get his prick out because he was so turned on, or not taken his prick out because he got his jollies doing it in his pants whether alone or with someone else. I suppose there are a few other possible explanations of how they got stained that I haven’t thought of.”
I said, “I get the drift. I didn’t see any stain.”
“It was mixed with blood.”
Scott said, “Maybe he was waiting until the cum residue dried before coming out of the john. A big wet stain on the front of your pants could be embarrassing.”
Rohter asked, “Anybody at the party he might have had sex with?”
“I don’t know if he was dating anyone who was at the party or not. I don’t know if he picked someone up. He was unattached and not bad looking. He has four ex-wives, one in St. Louis and three here. I have no idea if they have a motive for killing him. Certainly they weren’t invited to the wedding.”
Hoge said, “We’ll be talking to the ex-wives. I doubt if we’re going to find they were all in town for a ‘how to murder your ex-husband’ convention. We definitely want to interrogate your nephew. Don’t let him out of your sight.”
Rohter and Hoge left.
We repaired to the kitchen. It was just after ten. Scott began frying bacon. I began chopping mushrooms, onions, sausage, and crumbling feta cheese for omelettes.
Scott said, “We could drive to St. Louis. It might be faster than flying.”
It was about a five-hour drive. Flying would take an hour’s trip to the airport, an hour’s wait at the airport—I’m a get-there-plenty-early kind of guy—an hour or so of flight, an hour or so to pick up the luggage, rent a car, and get to downtown St. Louis. That would be assuming no delays. I reminded Scott of all this, then added, “Let’s drive. I like to see the crops being harvested.”
Some people like vast mountain vistas, or cold, deepwater lakes on remote plateaus, or cityscapes of breathtaking beauty. I like those, too, but the best of all are the flat plains of Illinois. From the grays, blacks, and browns of winter, to the golden harvest of fall, to the hot green of summer, they are the way the world should look, beautifully plain, stark, simple.
I said, “If we play our cards right, we could have dinner at Tony’s.” If you get a chance while in St. Louis, go to Tony’s restaurant. It’s near the Arch and definitely very pricey. Trust me. Just go. Take out a bank loan if you have to. It’s worth every penny.
“I thought our goal was to look in Ethan’s house.”
“We have to eat,” I responded.
We called Todd Bristol, our lawyer, and he agreed to talk to the authorities. The mayor had been at the damn reception after all. They couldn’t very well tell everyone who had been there not to leave town. True, the mayor didn’t find the body, but still. We asked about Jack Miller, the private eye. He’d heard of him.
“Jack Miller has quite a reputation. He has a very select clientele, charges astronomical prices, gets results nobody else can, and is totally gorgeous. Stunningly butch and reputedly extremely dangerous. He’s got an international reputation. Sexual orientation unknown despite some of the best efforts of the most vicious old gossip queens in the city, myself included.”
“I’ll try not to be too impressed.”
Scott finished frying the bacon. Over the years, he’s gotten reasonably good at making omelettes. I figure my cooking is a success if I chop ingredients and don’t slice off any parts of my anatomy. I’m still trying to boil an egg to his liking. To my liking, it’s easy. Put the egg in water, turn the heat as high as it will go, wait twenty-two minutes, and the thing is edible. Add a little mustard, mayo, and pepper, and it’s fabulous. Just because he took a class, does that give him a right to be finicky?
The kid strolled in.
“What would you like in your omelette?” Scott asked him.
Donny said, “If you cook me something, does that obligate me to anything?”
“Yes,” I said. “If you don’t eat what we put in front of you, we take you down to the hidden caves far below the sewers of Chicago, where to loud disco music from the midseventies, we torture you mercilessly, eventually beating you senseless with large baseball bats satisfying the primitive urges of the parents of every teenager on the planet. If you do eat, the same things happen.”
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