The Dirt Peddler (19 page)

But…
my mind said.

Sigh.

A Renault's a pretty small car. I hadn't been able to make out either the color or what kind of car Tunderew's was from the brief shot I'd seen of it on TV, upside down in the creek, but it looked like at least a full-sized sedan. I'd imagine Tunderew would favor something that came close to reflecting his ego, even though they really don't make cars that big. The accident took place on a straightaway; the skid marks—there was only one set—clearly indicated Tunderew's car was the one that had done the hitting. A big car hitting a smaller car from behind? Chances are it would have been the smaller car that would have gone out of control. And the bumper's inverted V-shaped dent suggested it had been hit at an angle rather than straight on. It's possible Tunderew might have tried to swerve at the last minute, but to be at the angle indicated was a little hard to picture. And how could he have not seen a small car directly ahead of him? Not to mention what would Catherine Tunderew have been doing on that stretch of road at that specific time? Coincidence? Uh…I don't think so.

She admitted she'd been to the cabin, but would she have risked going up there if she thought Tunderew might be there? She could have been on her way up there at the time of the accident. But again, I didn't think so. Catherine Tunderew was a complex lady, but to have been the cause of a fatal accident, then just keep right on driving…? Anything's possible, but not everything's likely.

I went into the fast-food place, ordered a Coke to go, then returned to my car for a pen I kept clipped to the sun visor. Going back to the fence, I wrote the license numbers of both the Jag and the Renault on the napkin I'd grabbed with my Coke. I'd check 'em out.

*

All the way back to my office, I couldn't get my mind off Catherine Tunderew and her late husband's new book.

No Door to Heaven
, eh? Well, if I hadn't already been pretty sure who the subject of the book was, that title all but telegraphed it. Interesting enough in its own right, but add to that Catherine's casual observation…what was it?…ah, yes:
There was something there, though, in one paragraph, about a murder.
A murder? God, I wanted to get my hands on that manuscript! But Catherine Tunderew had admitted she had the manuscript safely under lock and key somewhere.

A murder! Where? Here? Or at one of the other New Eden locations? When? Who? Why? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? How high is up?

Jeezus!

I had the distinct impression that I was standing at the end of a hallway that stretched away nearly to infinity, lined with doors on both sides, and that I had to open every single one of them to find what I was looking for.

*

I had a message from Tim waiting on the machine when I returned to the office. He'd made arrangements with his contact at the crematory. Randy would be cremated at the end of the week, and Tim left a number to call to make the arrangements to pick up the ashes. I jotted it down, but thought I'd let Jonathan do the calling. I felt he'd want to.

Next, I checked my calendar to see if I had anything scheduled for the next day (surprise—I didn't). I wanted to spend as much of the day as possible at the public library to find out everything I possibly could about the Dinsmores and their various enterprises. I wasn't even sure how many New Edens there were. I remembered having read the
Time
article on the Dinsmores when they'd made the cover, but I hadn't paid all that much attention to it.

I realized, too, that if I set off at a full gallop in pursuit of a possible/probable Dinsmore connection, I would also have to try to juggle the involvement of the other possible suspects on my list. For some reason, Larry Fletcher came back into my head. What if he
was
stalking Tunderew as Tunderew had claimed? What if he had somehow seen Tunderew pick up Randy at the bus station? Guys in their forties do not commonly pick up guys in their twenties at the bus station unless they're a relative in from out of town. Jealousy and betrayal are nasty emotions individually. In combination, they can be deadly. Take it from a Scorpio.

So I decided to keep Larry on the list.

Just above Larry Fletcher, I'd put the Bernadines…most especially Peter Bernadine, who stood to either inherit the family business or watch it go down the tubes. From all I could gather, Bernadine Press had been hanging on by its fingernails, and
Dirty Little Minds
had all but kept the company from bankruptcy. It needed another blockbuster to put it back on solid footing. I hadn't thought much about it at the time, but the elder Bernadine had mentioned something about being in negotiations with their bank—which meant they'd applied for a loan. And I'd bet that they were using the fact of having a solid contract for Tunderew's second book as a form of implied collateral. They'd given Tunderew his big break and had every right to expect something in return. Tunderew, being the jerk that he was, of course had neither a sense of loyalty nor any discernible scruples about biting the hand that had fed him. No second blockbuster, perhaps no loan. Murder is admittedly a pretty drastic solution to any problem, but the very existence of Bernadine Press was at stake.

And then we come to Catherine Tunderew who, despite her feigned indifference to her ex-husband, had everything to gain and nothing to lose by his death. Hell hath no fury, etc. (Wasn't someone just talking about there being truth within clichés? Oh, yeah, me.)

I certainly wouldn't have to worry about running out of clues to follow up on. Now, if somebody were just paying me for all this….

*

Over the years, I'd managed to cultivate a number of friends and acquaintances in various governmental offices who were able to provide me with information I might otherwise have found it difficult to come by. There was our good friend Tim Jackson at the coroner's office, Mark Richman and Marty Gresham at the police department, Mollie Marino at the City Clerk's office, and Bil (that's the way he spelled it, for some reason) Dunham at the D.M.V. I called on them as infrequently as possible so as not to make a pest of myself, but it was nice to know they were there when I needed them. Some, like Mollie Marino, had been satisfied clients who helped me out of gratitude. And while it might sound a little calculated on my part, I have to admit I wasn't above going out of my way for a client in one way or another specifically because I knew I might be able to use their services in the future. Bil Dunham at the D.M.V. was one of the latter. I'd handled a fairly simple case for him some time before and because he'd been pretty financially strapped, I'd made a direct deal with him—I'd cut my rate in half if he'd do some occasional license information checking for me. He agreed, and it worked out well for both of us.

I picked up the phone, called Bil to give him the plate numbers I'd copied from the body shop lot, and asked him to check them for me. The next part was a little more tricky. I wanted to call Marty Gresham, my latest “close” contact at the police department. I'd first come into contact with Marty when he was a rookie working in Missing Persons Records. He'd been really helpful to me on the case I was working on at the time, and partly because of it, he'd caught the eye of Lieutenant Richman and some of the other higher-ranking officers on the force. He was quite obviously being fast-tracked toward his goal of becoming a detective, and he somehow gave me undue credit for helping him along. After his stint in Missing Persons, he'd done a short tour as a patrol officer and was currently, from what I'd heard, assigned to Administration under Lieutenant Richman's watchful eye. Marty had also just gotten married, so I didn't know how much of his off-hours free time he might be able to devote to helping me on this matter.

I'd made it a definite rule not to ask favors of the police unless it was really necessary, and never in any case that they might not eventually become involved in at some point down the line. And while the police didn't have any solid evidence upon which to base an investigation into Tunderew's death, a lack of solid evidence never stood in my way. I was positive that Tunderew had been murdered, and once I could prove it, the police could step in and take it from there. I rationalized my asking for a couple of favors on the basis that I was in effect once again doing part of their job for them.

There were two things I wanted from Marty: the color of Tunderew's car, and a quick check for any problems New Eden, the Dinsmores, or the Eternal Light Foundation might have gotten themselves into locally.

Even so, I didn't want to bring him into it without asking Richman's okay first (plus the fact that I didn't know exactly how to reach Marty directly). I placed another phone call.

“Lieutenant Richman.”

“Lieutenant, Dick. Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if I could ask Marty Gresham to check on a couple little details for me? I understand he's been assigned to Administration. So if you could spare a few minutes of his time…”

“You're still on the Tunderew thing, obviously.”

“Yeah. And I'm more convinced than ever that it was no accident.”

“Anything specific?”

“Not yet, but I feel I'm getting there.”

I was rather expecting a pause while he thought it over, but there was none. “Okay. I'll ask Officer Gresham to call you.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant.”

We hung up shortly after my usual promise to keep him posted if I found anything the police might need to know.

It was getting pretty late in the day, and it was unlikely that Marty'd be calling. I'd not heard from Bil at the D.M.V. either, so I decided to wrap it up. I'd stop by the office in the morning to check for messages before going to the library.

*

I arrived home to find an excited Jonathan waiting for me in the kitchen. He usually got home shortly before I did, but since I'd left work a few minutes early, I was rather surprised to see him there already. I assumed he'd gotten a ride home from one of his coworkers.

“Dick,” he called as soon as I opened the door, “Come look! Luke and John had babies!”

I went into the kitchen to join him. After our usual greeting-hug, he turned quickly back to the fish tank and pointed to the clump of artificial grass in one corner. “Look!” he said. “See them?”

It took me a moment before I could see, moving in and out among the leaves, several very tiny black fish. Since Jonathan had two of each kind of three varieties and only two (Luke and John) were black, the process of elimination fairly well established parenthood.

“They weren't there this morning. Isn't it great? I'll call Tim and Phil as soon as they get home to find out if baby fish need anything special.”

“Like formula?” I asked, as usual, tickled by his enthusiasm.

He looked at me quickly before realizing I was teasing him.

“Yeah. And whether we should burp them when they get done eating.”

“Well, you get to change the diapers. Don't expect me to get up at three in the morning to do it.”

We exchanged grins, and he put his arm around my waist.

“You know,” he said, “if Luke and John can make babies, I can't see any reason why we can't, too. Ya wanna go try?”

“Oh, yeah!”

I took him by the hand and headed toward the bedroom.

*

We'd just come out of the bedroom when the phone rang.

“You want to get that?” Jonathan said. “I'll go get your Manhattan and think about starting dinner.”

I moved to the phone as he headed for the kitchen.

“Hello?” I had made a concerted effort, after umpteen years of answering the phone with “Dick Hardesty” to try to fit in with the rest of the world. It still seemed odd, but I did it.

“Dick? It's Marty. Lieutenant Richman told me you'd called. What can I do for you?”

Considering that he'd just gotten married, I was a little surprised that he'd take time away from his new wife to call me. But what did I know?

“Thanks for calling, Marty. And congratulations on your marriage. How do you like it so far?”

He laughed. “Great! Cindy's at a baby shower for her sister, so I thought I'd call.”

I quickly filled him in on what I needed, and told him that I might well have a couple of other things for him to check after I'd done the library research.

“No problem. I should be able to get the info on the car first thing in the morning. Checking on the other stuff might take a little bit longer, but I can hopefully have it all for you by tomorrow afternoon.”

“I really appreciate it, Marty.”

“I owe you.”

We small-talked for a minute or so more, then hung up just as Jonathan came back into the living room with my Manhattan and his Coke. I joined him on the sofa. He looked puzzled.

“Odd. I checked on the babies, and there aren't as many of them as I thought there were.”

I knew why, but didn't want to alarm him. I was sure he'd figure it out for himself, or Tim and Phil—from whom he'd gotten his first two fish, which he of course named “Tim” and “Phil,” in their honor—would clue him in. I could have told him, of course, but really didn't want us to be as overrun with fish as we were with plants.

In an effort to take his mind off the missing babies, I told him what I'd learned from Tim about Randy's ashes, and how much it would cost. Again, I did not offer to pay part of it. I knew this was something he wanted and needed to do by himself. I knew, too, it would take a very large chunk out of his savings, but held out hope that the money in Randy's bank account could somehow be used to reimburse him.

After we'd finished our drinks, Jonathan went into the kitchen to check on dinner. A moment later, I heard a very loud
“Damn it!”
I got up quickly and went in to see what was wrong.