Murder by Candlelight (23 page)

Alone?

"Well ... you know. What men sometimes
do when they're alone," Susan finished plaintively.

"Yeah," Z said, grateful
to whatever-might-be-out-there-in-the-universe that Susan
wasn't
as good a
detective as she thought!

He'd been lucky so far ... not to say
the situation couldn't turn against him any time Jamie decided to
pull another fast one. Unless ... Z could defuse whatever that
out-of-control lady might try.

"Something else," Z said, knowing that
what he'd say next could mess everything up. Depending on Susan's
reaction.

"What?"

"Jamie Stewart?"

"What about her?"

"I wasn't sure before when you told me
her name, but I think I've met her."

"What?"

"I think I mentioned her to you. We
worked different sides of the same case."

"She didn't seem to
know
you
."

"No. We barely met.
Even
I
wasn't
sure it was the same person. But I think it was." Better to admit a
little, than have to confess a lot. "Even after I saw her at your
place, I wasn't that sure. But it fits. The lady I met does occult
work for the city. This one did the seance. Has to be the same
one."

"Could be."

And that was that, as
in
take that
,
Jamie Stewart! No way now that little Jamie could raise suspicion
by just sort of "letting it slip" to Susan that Jamie had known Z
before.

Off the phone at last, Z was unable to
remember what else Susan had gone on about, except that they should
both reserve the weekend for each other.

Getting up, needing fresh air as much
as anything, Z decided to take a little stroll; to go up the walk
to the front of the house; suck in a couple of calming breaths
while seeing if one of the daily "shoppers" someone kept throwing
might still be in the yard. It always calmed Z to read a newspaper,
no matter how inconsequential.

Which is what Z did, or at
least,
started
to
do, until -- approaching the front of the house -- Z saw something
that locked in his theory about Captain Scherer having it in for
him. For there, across the street and down the block, was
what
had
to be
one of the police department's unmarked cars.

Brown.

Old.

A stakeout -- Z now alert enough to
make out the driver, hunched down as far as his stork-like body
would let him. None other than one of Gladstone's finest --
Detective Paul Bayliss.

The Scherer counterattack had begun in
earnest!

* * * * *

Chapter 13

It was a day later that Z was dragged
out of the abyss of dreams that had dark creatures clawing at
him.

The sheets were wet and
twisted.

So, what else was new.

He heard a banging on the front
door.

Groggy from poor quality sleep, Z
couldn't make out the dial of his watch.

Holding it at any distance.

Morning, he thought, the angle of
light through his single bedroom window backing that
idea.

Again, banging.

Fumbling up the aspirin bottle from
the night stand, pouring himself a generous handful, Z palmed then
into his mouth and crunched them up, the acidic taste generating
the necessary saliva for him to swallow.

Giving his throat a moment to stop
burning, Z sat up.

Swiveling to the side, he put his foot
on the linoleum and tested his trick knee.

Standing, Z reached inside his open
closet, getting his old terrycloth robe off the hook to the right.
Throwing on the robe, belting it, not bothering to find his bedroom
slippers, he shuffled out of the room, down the short hall, and
left past the sofa to the front door.

Clicking back the deadbolt, Z opened
the door, squinting into the daylight to see a tall shadow, the
figure gradually coming into fuzzy focus.

A figure with a ... hat. Black snap
brim. Black hair and eyes. Light shirt. Dark pants.

Tall enough to be ....

Bayliss.

"Yeah?" Z asked, his mind not yet
ready to crank up anything but questions.

"Captain wants to see you."

"Captain ....?"

"Captain Scherer."

It was gradually beginning to come
back to Z. In reverse order.

Mary's letter.

The IRS.

The radio show.

"I'll be at my office in an hour. Have
him call."

"
See
," Bayliss corrected. "Wants
to
see
you." Like
Z, Paul Bayliss was a man of few words. Unlike Z, Bayliss had
missed his calling as a funeral director; not a completely accurate
thing to say. What Z meant was that Bayliss
looked
like a mortician. Tall.
Gaunt. Solemn. Lincolnesque.

"
His
office?"

Bayliss nodded.

"What's up?"

"Think he'd tell
me
?"

Four words, but enough to show that
Bayliss didn't like Scherer any better than Z, plus indicating the
captain didn't trust his own men enough to take them into his
confidence.

Z liked sepulchral Paul. Thought he
was the best man on the force.

"Can I get dressed before you cuff
me?"

Bayliss cracked a grin. Meaning, yes.
Also showing he had no intention of putting handcuffs on
Z.

What this summons to Scherer's office
boiled down to, then ... was nothing much. If the captain had
anything important on Z, Scherer would have had Z brought in "in
irons."

Z invited Bayliss inside.

Then visited the bathroom, after that,
dressing in an almost presentable white shirt and dark
slacks.

Returning to the living room, he and
Bayliss went out the door, the August heat smacking Z in the
face!

Shading his eyes, Z locked up, then
followed Bayliss to a white city car out front.

The short drive took them down 72nd
toward Oak, then left on Howell toward the brick and glass front of
the Gladstone "Public Safety" building. Going past the city's flag,
hanging limply from its tall silver pole; past the cement ramp that
allowed the "physically challenged" to roll up to the front door;
past the rest of the less than impressive, but newly painted
building, Bayliss hung a right, then another to turn into the back
lot of the Gladstone Government Building/Police Station.

One, deliberately dirty,
surveillance car was pulled just off the asphalt, under a shade
tree. Two white-with-blue-striped Public Safety (police) cars were
parked at going-too-fast angles. Cops loved to hell about in their
cars at public expense, demonstrating the point that cops and
crazies had a lot in common. Z had long thought that courses
designed to make you a cop should be taught to men in prison,
criminals already
having
the
skills
to join the force: the ability to drive at
citizen-endangering speeds, practice at breaking and entering, and
strong arm tactics. All that your average jailbird needed to be
rehabilitated into law enforcement was the motivation to change
sides. .... (And, of course, a seminar on how to survive on an
honest cop's pay.)

Up the back steps they
went, Z following Paul (who politely took off his hat,) the two of
them going inside past a short line of mostly young men, paying
parking and speeding tickets. (People with money and/or
connections,
never
got caught speeding. For a price, their lawyers got
"speeding" changed to "equipment failure." Looked better on the
offender's record. Saved a little something in insurance
costs.)

Back, and to the left of the
ticket-processing police person -- hidden from public view -- were
Gladstone's holding cells.

Skirting the bulletproof glass cage
that protected the uniformed collector from self-righteous
lawbreakers, Z and Bayliss veered right to take a cinder block hall
past wood-framed photos of Gladstone's former mayors.

Passing Teddy's narrow office further
on, a glance through the tiny window showed Z what he'd always
suspected about Ted's "work ethic," Teddy "resting his eyes," chair
tilted back, highly polished shoes on top his desk.

They went past Ed Tabor's office. ...
Empty.

Tabor was new. Short. Fat.

Tabor and Bayliss were the Mutt and
Jeff of the Gladstone Detective squad, Mutt and Jeff the kind of
'ol-timey remembrances that dated someone wishing to be ...
younger.

Thinking about the "olden" days, Z
missed the regulation size requirements for cops -- like some New
Yorkers pined for the "days of yore" when most cops were
Irish.

At the end of the hall was
a large, open workroom, Bayliss threading Z though desks of female
clerks -- sewage, water, recreation, city taxes, licensing -- to a
wider front hall and another open space, Scherer's larger, but
windowless office on the left. Bold black letters on the door
said
Captain Scherer
, Scherer's office adjacent to the mayor's suite, Z couldn't
help but notice.

Birds of a feather flock
together.

Modified for the occasion:

Politicians of the party, grouped to
poop.

Bayliss pointed at a maple chair
opposite Scherer's door, close to the captain's
secretary.

Taking the hint, Z sat.

To the captain's "desk person,"
Bayliss said: "Zapolska," Bayliss then "wading" off like a
predatory stork with larger fish to catch.

The secretary -- older, weathered
handsome -- almost smiled at Z, before remembering she was
Scherer's flunky. Instead, pointed at her phone to indicate Scherer
was on the line inside his office.

So, Z waited -- part of the cop game,
keeping suspects waiting.

Around him, Z watched the pleasant
buzz of city government, women at desks or rummaging through files,
phones ringing, citizens wandering in to ask directions to this or
that agency.

Though fairly new, the building
smelled of ... upkeep.

Z's general impression was that, while
not much was going on in Gladstone, what business there was, was
being done efficiently.

Glancing occasionally at her phone,
the secretary finally looked up to give Z the high-sign. Scherer
was off the phone; time for Z to put in an appearance.

Z stood. Crossed the vinyl floor.
Rapped on Scherer's door.

"Enter," said the inside
voice.

Z pushed open the door and stepped
inside, the door closing automatically behind him.

Scherer sat behind a small cherry desk
at the room's far end, not a big room, but richly appointed
compared to what Z had seen so far, the rest of the place furnished
with government-issue schlock. The office floor was covered with
light blue carpeting, the windows, draped with cream-colored
cloth.

The visitor's chair had arms. Was done
in brown leather. Looked comfortable.

Far from where suspects where forged
into felons, this place was where a politician-on-the-rise could
glad-hand party hacks.

"Be comfortable," Scherer said in his
falsetto voice, indicating the chair.

Z sat. Found the chair to be as easy
to sit in as it looked.

Across from him in the room's soft
light, Scherer looked the same. (The paths of Scherer (social
climber) and Z (just hanging on) rarely met ... except that time in
court during the Betterton case.)

Dressed crisply in a suit of midnight
blue, the captain looked a little older than Z remembered him,
grayer around the edges of his razor-cut. But in general, was the
same ferret-faced bastard he'd always been!

"I suppose," Scherer piped, a smile
etching his narrow lips, "you feel you are here because of
something you said on the radio."

"Taken out of context," Z said. He'd
seen enough TV to know how the game was played.

"I'm ... sure," Scherer
squeaked. "But let me just say this about that. When you're in the
public eye, as I am, you're used to being a target. I've been
unfairly criticized by better men that you, my friend. People
jealous of my success. Fearful I may take advantage of my position
to move up politically, thereby taking employment away from them or
from their friends. It goes with the territory. One does not
appreciate
the libels
told about one ..." Scherer's red rat eyes shot sparks, "... but
understands the inevitability of it. That's politics."

And
that's
what was wrong with Scherer,
Z was thinking. Seeing his job, not as law enforcement, but as a
stepping stone to Clay County stardom.