Murder in the Hearse Degree (21 page)

“What happened to your arm?” Pete asked.

I had picked up the binoculars and was scanning the second-floor windows along the block. In the movies you can bet you’ll come across something nibbly in lingerie. The best I managed was a fat lady and her cat.

“Things turned a little interesting last night,” I said. “Why don’t I tell you later?”

“You’re assuming I’m giving you that much time to live.”

I lowered the binoculars. “Can I tell you something, Pete?”

He sighed heavily. “Can I stop you?”

“You think you’re angry with me. But the fact is you’re angry with yourself and you’re taking it out on me.”

He stared blindly at the windshield a moment before responding. He took a loud sip of his coffee.

“That’s bullshit,” he said.

I dropped the binoculars back onto the seat and took a doughnut from the box. Coconut. “Listen, I was planning to come right back to the table after the bathroom.” I took a bite of the doughnut. Coconut bits rained onto my lap. “I knew you were scared down to your toes to be alone with Lee, but see, I ran into this girl outside the bathroom.”

“You’re so predictable.”

“No. Just hold on. She’s the chef at the restaurant there. And she also happens to be one of the caterers who hired Sophie this summer. Her name is Faith.”

“Faith. Okay. I’m listening.”

“Faith’s the one who told me about Sophie calling up to track down Tom Cushman’s number. So what I—”

Pete interrupted me. “There he is.”

Down the street a man had emerged from the house. He was wearing a neck brace collar. Pete reached into the backseat and fetched a camera with a lens half the length of my arm. He winked at me.

“Size matters.”

Pete clicked off a series of shots then set the camera down and started up the car. The man in the neck brace had gotten into a maroon car and was pulling away from the curb.

“I tailed my first car last night,” I said to Pete as we pulled slowly down the street.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” As we followed the maroon car up onto the Kelly Avenue Bridge I described for Pete my going off to meet up with Tom Cushman and the blue car that thwarted my plans. When I described Tom flying through the plate-glass window of the ice cream parlor, Pete nodded his head sagely.

“Man is not designed to fly.”

“Not like that.”

“Sounds ugly,” Pete said.

“It doesn’t get much uglier. He’s dead.”

The maroon car had gone right on Northern Parkway and was remaining in the right lane. It appeared to be headed for the expressway. It was. It eased onto the ramp just as another car veered suddenly into the lane in front of us. The maroon car headed to the northbound ramp and we followed, slowed down by the pokey in front of us.

I started to continue my story but Pete held up his hand.

“Wait.”

At the bottom of the ramp the car finally sped up just as an SUV was coming up on the left lane, forcing Pete to remain where he was.

“Move,” he grumbled and he leaned on the horn. There was a woman behind the wheel of the SUV and to Pete’s and my surprise, she gave Pete the finger.

“What the . . . ?”

We were running out of lane, but the SUV was squarely in our way, keeping us from merging onto the highway.

“Fall back,” I said to Pete.

“My ass.”

Pete sped up. The guardrail was creeping closer to my side of the car.

“Uh . . . Pete?”

The SUV was speeding up as well. The two vehicles were in a little race. Except Pete and I were the ones about to run out of roadway. As the gravel of the shoulder was just beginning to slip under Pete’s right front fender, Pete hit the accelerator. The car surged forward. Pete whipped the wheel to the left, skidding his car in front of the SUV. I turned around to see that it was right on our tail. The woman gave
me
the finger.

“She’s a monster,” I said to Pete.

Pete reached for the light switch and pulled the knob. At the same time he stomped all the way down on the accelerator. I turned around again and saw the SUV swerving. It had dropped well back. Another car had to swerve to avoid hitting it. One—or maybe both—of the drivers was honking their horn.

I settled back in my seat. The maroon car was well ahead, but easily in view.

“What was that bit with the lights?” I asked.

“You put on the lights and it looks like your brake lights have gone on. They hit their brakes. Meanwhile you floor it.”

I finished off my doughnut. “Okay, just so that I know. When tailing a car that you don’t want the driver to know you’re tailing, you skid all over the road, honk your horn, flash your lights and almost cause an accident. Am I missing anything?”

Pete was glancing with some satisfaction in the rearview mirror. “No, that about covers it.”

“Good. I just want to make sure I’ve got it straight.”

“Did you do any of that when you tailed your car last night?” Munger asked.

“Nah. I just kept back a few hundred feet and kept quiet.”

Pete chuckled. “Amateurs.”

The maroon car headed past the Beltway exits and took the expressway to where it spills back onto the regular roads. We were in the country now. The car took a right onto Seminary Avenue. I had a feeling I knew where the car was headed and I was right. A few minutes after the turn onto Seminary we followed the car onto the grounds of the Baltimore Country Club. We parked in the lower lot, next to the woods. The maroon car parked up by the tennis courts. We waited until the man got out of his car and disappeared into the clubhouse, then we got out of Pete’s car and plunged into the woods. Pete had his camera with him, on a strap around his neck. The woods weren’t particularly thick. We made our way about fifty feet or so straight in, then Pete angled off to his right.

“Have you been here before?” I asked.

Pete was high-stepping over a tangle of dead branches. “I’ve been everywhere.”

Ten minutes later we were crouched behind a large rotting tree. Pete was squinting through the viewfinder of his camera, muttering.

“Yeah, baby. Do it. That’s right. Work it. Go for it, baby. . . .”

It was my simple assumption that he’d gone mad. So sad.

The home-heating-oil executive was on the first green of the golf course, visible through the woods. He was no longer wearing his neck brace. He was warming up for his tee off, taking huge slicing practice swings. I know as much about golf as I do the diet of a fifteenth-century Azerbaijani teenager. Still, it looked like a pretty good swing. Fluid. A nice corkscrew twist of the torso. Clean follow-through. The man finished with his practice swings and placed the ball on the tee. Pete was clicking away like crazy as the man set his feet, drew back the club and let her fly. The little ball rocketed out of sight.

“All done,” Pete said, getting stiffly to his feet. “Now comes the fun part.”

I followed as Pete stomped through the underbrush and emerged from the woods some thirty feet from where the man was standing admiring his shot.

“Nice shot,” Pete called out.

We approached. The man’s shoulders dropped as he spotted the camera with the huge lens dangling from Pete’s neck.

“What’s this about?” he snorted. “This is private property.”

“So is this,” Pete said, patting the camera, and then he mentioned the names of the home-heating-oil company and its insurance carrier. “It belongs to them. At least the film does.”

“What’s going on here?”

“Listen,” Pete said. “You might want to consider holding your backswing a fraction longer. I think the way you’re doing it gives your swing too much chop.”

The man obviously wasn’t listening to Pete. He put no pause whatsoever on his backswing, but brought the club around suddenly and caught the lens of Pete’s camera. He knocked it right off. Quite emasculating. The lens rolled to a stop on the grass, a noticeable dent along the rim.

“Assault,” Pete said calmly. “And the list keeps growing.”

The man swung again, but Pete was surprisingly quick. He ducked. The club sailed harmlessly over him, and from his crouched position Pete lunged forward, plowing his head into the man’s rib cage. Already off balance from the force of his swing, the guy flew backward, literally leaving his feet, and he landed hard against the front wheel of the golf cart, his head smacking against the hard rubber. His golf club clattered against the side of the cart. I watched as the two men simultaneously reached for their necks. Pete was slow to straighten back up. A baffled expression came to his face.

“Hurt yourself, Pete?” I asked.

“Damn. That’s not supposed to happen.” He held on to his neck and twisted his head gingerly left and right.

I stepped over to the golf cart. The man was making it to a sitting position. A wince of pain came to his face as he attempted to swivel his head.

“Ouchy?” I said. He responded with vituperative relish.

I nodded sagely. “I see. And touchy.”

He growled.

“And grouchy.” I turned. “Hey, Pete, this guy’s reminding me of you.”

 

Pete dropped me off at my car and suggested we stop for a beer. Rain clouds had rolled in as we were heading back in from the country. We went to the Mount Washington Tavern. The skies opened up while we were sitting in the bar. The bartender had a goatee and was wearing a Duke baseball cap. He wanted to be friendly, but Pete put the whammy on him.

“I need this kid to pretend he’s my chum?”

“God forbid, Pete.”

We got a couple of beers. Pete took up his bottle, sliding the empty mug down along the bar away from him. Pete’s gaze wandered about the bar. It had a high ceiling, an open area upstairs for eating, as well as a covered area outside. Blond wood. Behind the liquor were large plate-glass windows that reached all the way up to the ceiling.

“There used to be a place called Sparwasser’s here,” Pete told me. “Nice old place. Big horseshoe bar. Pool table. And the best French fries and gravy you’ve ever had. There used to be a school or something up the road. Maybe it’s still there. These kids with something wrong with their heads. They’d come streaming into Sparwasser’s and get Cokes. Whole bar full of these poor nutty kids. Add that to your standard daytime drunks. . . . Hell of a place.”

Pete’s neck was still sore. He was palming it every so often and testing its turning radius.

“Christ, I should have taken that guy’s neck brace.”

I picked up my story. I told Pete about the lovely Shannon and how she blamed me for Tom Cushman’s being run over and killed.

Pete asked, “This actor guy was screwing her, right?”

“Yes.”

“And he was chummy with the pregnant nanny?” I nodded. “Friendly guy,” Pete said.

“According to Tom he was just doing Sophie a favor.”

“Some favor.” Pete looked up at the long windows. The rain was slapping against them as if it wanted to be let inside. “Looks to me like your actor friend did Sophie a little favor he just didn’t want to tell you about.”

“You think he’s the father?”

“I sure as hell don’t buy that story of his. Just helping the girl out? Why would he bother?”

“He probably saw it as an acting challenge.”

Pete thought a minute. “From the sound of it his little actress girlfriend wasn’t too keen on the nanny either.”

“Well, then maybe Shannon killed Sophie,” I said.

Pete waved his hand. “Sure, sure. Why not?”

“I think Tom was telling the truth. He didn’t have to tell me about his and Sophie’s going down to see Larue. If he wanted to keep the whole thing under wraps, why tell me that story?”

Pete shrugged. “Well, we’ve got the age-old problem now. Thems that knows is thems that’s dead. That’s a tough one to get around.”

I went on and told Pete about the license tag number on the car that killed Tom Cushman and about my talk with Croydon Floyd.

“I’m positive about the license tag number. All I can figure is that somebody stole those tags so that their car couldn’t be identified and then returned them afterward so that the police would figure it for a routine hit-and-run. Which is exactly what they do think.”

“You’re not convinced, I take it.”

“It was no accident. That car had Tom in its sights.”

“And you didn’t get a look at the driver?”

“It all happened too quick. I was on the sidewalk before I knew it.”

“Well, what do you expect from the police? You gave them a tag number and they ran it down.”

“I can’t quite get a read on Floyd. That’s the cop I talked with on the phone this morning. I tried to press him on why they’re so ready to pass Sophie off as a suicide and he told me both Libby and Mike reported to the police that Sophie was kind of unstable. Libby mentioned to me that the girl was acting a little peculiar, but she definitely didn’t suggest the girl seemed like she was on the edge.”

“Maybe the cops just remember wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Libby. Maybe it was just Gellman who said it.”

“But based on what? The girl was quiet and she kept to herself. Do you see the bridges of America lined with introverts all waiting their turn to jump?” I picked up my beer. “What if you went down and talked to the police, Pete? You habla the language. Maybe you can get a better take on this than I can.”

Pete shrugged. “I’ll have to check my date book.”

We finished our beers and called for another round. The bartender ignored Pete’s grumpiness and was as chipper as he damn well wanted to be. He asked us if we had seen the Maryland game. Apparently Maryland had been awesome. I told him that we hadn’t seen the game.

“Awesome,” he said.

I gestured to his baseball cap and asked him if he went to Duke. He flipped his bar rag onto his shoulder. “Nah. That’s just my nickname. I went to Maryland.”