The Killing Kind (18 page)

It felt good to be here with them. Angel and Louis were just about the closest friends I had. They had stood by me as the confrontation with the Traveling Man drew closer, and had faced down the guns of a Boston scumbag named Tony Celli in order to save the life of a girl they had never met. Their gray morality, tempered by expediency, was closer to goodness than most people's virtue.

“How's life in the sticks?” asked Angel. “Still living in the rural slum?”

“My house is not a slum.”

“It don't even have carpets.”

“It's got timber floors.”

“It's got timbers. Just 'cause they fell on the ground don't make them a floor.”

He paused to sip his beer, allowing me to change the subject.

“Anything new in the city?” I asked.

“Mel Valentine died,” said Angel.

“Psycho Mel?” Psycho Mel Valentine had been working his way through the A-to-Z of crime: arson, burglary, counterfeiting, drugs . . . If he hadn't died, then pretty soon the Bronx Zoo would have been mounting a guard on its zebras.

Angel nodded. “Always thought the ‘Psycho Mel’ thing was unfair. Maybe he'd have been psychotic if they quietened him down some, but ‘Psycho’ seemed like kind of an underestimation of his abilities.”

“How'd he die?”

“Gardening accident in Buffalo. He was trying to break into a house when the owner killed him with a rake.”

He raised his glass to the memory of Psycho Mel Valentine, gardening victim.

Rachel appeared a few minutes later, much earlier than expected, wearing a yellow coat that hung to her ankles. Her long red hair was tied up at the back of her head and held in place by a pair of wooden skewers.

“Nice hair,” said Angel. “You pick up all the channels with those things, or just local?”

“Tuning must be off,” she replied. “I can still hear you.”

She pulled the sticks from her hair and let it hang loose on her shoulders. It brushed my face as she kissed me gently before ordering a mimosa and taking a seat beside me. I hadn't seen her in almost two weeks and I felt a pang of desire for her as she folded one stockinged leg over the other, her short black skirt rising above midthigh level. She wore a man's shirt, white and with only one button undone. She always wore her shirts that way: if any more buttons were opened, the scars left by the Traveling Man on her chest became visible. As she sat, she placed a large Neiman Marcus bag by her feet. Inside was something red and expensive.

“Needless Markup,” whistled Louis. “You givin' away money, can I have some?”

“Style costs,” she replied.

“That's the truth,” he said. “Try telling it to the other fifty percent of the group.”

The 25 percent that was Angel searched through the big NM bag until he found the receipt, then dropped it quickly and rubbed his fingers like they'd just been burned.

“What she buy?” asked Louis.

“A house,” he said. “Maybe two.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“You're early,” I said.

“You sound disappointed. I disturb a conversation on football or monster trucks?”

“Stereotyping,” I replied. “And you a psychologist.”

We talked for a time, then crossed the street to Anago at the Lenox and spoke about nothing and everything for a couple of hours over venison and beef and oven roast salmon. Then, when the coffee arrived and while the other three sipped Armagnacs, I told them about Grace Peltier, Jack Mercier, and the death of Yossi Epstein.

“And you think these old guys are right, that Grace Peltier didn't kill herself?” asked Angel when I had finished.

“Things just don't fit. Mercier could probably put pressure on the investigation through Augusta, but that would draw attention to himself and he doesn't want that.”

“Which is why he hired you,” said Angel. “To stir things up.”

“Maybe,” I replied, but I felt that there was more to it than that, although I couldn't say what.

“So what do you think happened to Grace?” asked Rachel.

“Speculating, I'd say that Marcy Becker might have been the other person in the car with Grace for most of her trip north. But Marcy Becker is missing, and she left in enough of a hurry to forget a pack of cigarettes that was probably sitting on the dashboard in front of her.”

“And maybe left her bag of coke as well,” said Angel.

“That's possible, but I don't think so. The coke looks like a plant, a way of making Grace appear a little less clean than she was. Drugs, pressure of study, takes her own life with a gun that seems to have popped up out of nowhere.”

“What was the piece?” he asked.

“Smith & Wesson Saturday night special.”

Angel shrugged. “Not hard to lay your hands on one of those, you know who to ask.”

“But I don't think Grace Peltier would have known who to ask. According to her father, she didn't even like guns.”

“Do you think Marcy Becker could have killed her?” asked Rachel.

I toyed with my water glass. “Again, it's possible, but they were friends and it hardly seems likely that this girl could frame a pretty good imitation of a suicide. If I had to guess—and Lord knows, I've done enough of that already—I'd say that Marcy Becker might have seen something, possibly whoever killed her friend, while she was away from the car for some reason. And if I can figure out that Grace wasn't alone in the car for most of her journey, then someone else can figure it out too.”

“Which means you got to find Marcy Becker,” said Louis.

“And talk to Carter Paragon, whose secretary says that Grace never showed for their meeting.”

“And how does Epstein's death fit into all this?”

“I don't know, except that he and Mercier shared legal advisers and Mercier obviously knew Epstein well enough to bring him out to his house and hang a picture of him on his wall.”

Finally, I told them about Al Z and Harvey Ragle, and Mr. Pudd and the woman who had accompanied him to my house.

“You telling us he poisoned you with his business card?” said Angel incredulously.

Even I was embarrassed by the possibility, but I nodded. “I got the sense that he had come to see me because that was what was expected of him, not because he thought that I'd actually back off,” I explained. “The card was part of that, a means of goading me to take action, just like letting me see that I was being watched.”

Louis looked at me from over the top of his glass. “Man wanted to take a look at you,” he said quietly. “See what he was up against.”

“I waved my gun at him,” I replied. “He went away.”

Louis's eyebrow rose a notch. “Told you you'd be glad of that gun someday.”

But he didn't smile when he said it, and I didn't smile either.

Rachel and I walked back to her apartment after dinner, holding hands but not speaking, content simply to be close to each other. We talked no further of Grace Peltier or the case. When we were inside her bedroom I slipped off my shoes and lay on her bed, watching her move through the soft yellow glow of her nightlight. Then she stood before me and removed a small wrapped package from the larger Neiman Marcus bag.

“Is that for me?” I asked.

“Kind of,” she replied.

She tore open the package to reveal a tiny white lace bra and panties, an even more delicate suspender belt, and a pair of sheer silk stockings.

“I don't think they'll fit me,” I said. “In fact, I'm not even sure that they'll fit you.”

Rachel pouted, unzipped her skirt, and let it fall to the ground, then slowly began to unbutton her shirt. “Don't you even want me to try?” she whispered.

Call me weak, but stronger men than I would have buckled under that kind of pressure.

“Okay,” I said hoarsely as the blood left my head and headed south for the winter.

Later that night I lay beside her in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the city beyond the window. I thought she was asleep, but after a time she brushed her head against my chest and I felt her eyes upon me.

“Penny for them,” she said.

“I'm holding out for more.”

“Penny and a kiss.” She placed her lips softly against mine. “It's Grace Peltier, isn't it?”

“Her, the Fellowship, Pudd,” I replied. “It's everything.”

I turned to her and found the whites of her eyes.

“I think I'm afraid, Rachel.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of what I might do, of what I might have to do.”

Her hand reached out to me, a white ghost moving through the void of the night. It traced the sockets of my eyes, the bones at my cheeks, following the lineaments of the skull beneath the skin.

“Afraid of what I've done in the past,” I concluded.

“You are a good man, Charlie Parker,” she whispered. “I wouldn't be with you if I didn't believe that.”

“I've done bad things. I don't want to do them any longer.”

“You did what you had to do.”

I gripped her hand tightly and felt her palm rest itself against my temple, the fingers lightly brushing my hair.

“I did more than that,” I answered.

It seemed that I was floating in a black place, with endless night above and below me, and only her hand was stopping me from falling. She understood, for her body moved closer against me and her legs wrapped around mine as if to tell me that if I was to fall, then we would fall together. Her chin burrowed into my neck and she was quiet for a time. In the silence, I could feel the weight of her thoughts.

“You don't know that the Fellowship was responsible for her death, or for anyone else's,” she said at last.

“No, I don't,” I admitted. “But I sense that Mr. Pudd is a violent man, and maybe something worse. I could feel it when he was close, when he touched me.”

“And violence begets violence,” whispered Rachel.

nodded. “I haven't fired a gun in almost a year, Rachel, not even on a range. I hadn't even held one in my hand until yesterday. But I have a sense that, if I involve myself further in this, I may be forced to use it.”

“Then walk away. Give Jack Mercier his money back and let someone else deal with it.” But even as she said it, I knew that she didn't mean it; that in a way, I was testing myself through her and she understood that.

“You know I can't do that. Marcy Becker could be in trouble, and I think someone murdered Grace Peltier and tried to cover it up. I can't let that slide.”

She moved in even closer to me, and her hand moved across the cheek and my lips. “I know you'll do what's right, and I think you'll try to avoid violence if you can.”

“And if I can't?”

But she didn't respond. After all, there was only one answer.

Outside, the traffic hummed and people slept and a sliver of moon hung in the sky like a knife slash in the heavens. And while I lay awake in the bed of the woman I loved, old Curtis Peltier sat in his kitchen, drinking hot milk in an effort to help himself sleep. He wore blue pajamas and bedroom slippers, with his tattered red robe hanging open above them. He sipped his milk, then left the glass on the table and rose to return to his bed.

I can only guess at what happened next, but in my head I can hear the back door opening, can see the shadows lengthen and move toward him. A gloved hand clasps itself over the old man's mouth while the other twists his arm up behind his back with such force that the shoulder immediately dislocates and the old man briefly loses consciousness. A second pair of hands grab his feet and they carry him up the stairs to the bathroom. There comes the sound of water gurgling and bubbling into the bath as, slowly, it fills. Curtis Peltier regains consciousness to find himself kneeling on the floor, his face against the tub. He watches the water rise and knows he is about to die.

“Where is it, Mr. Peltier?” says a detached male voice beside his ear. He cannot see the face, nor can he see the second person who stands farther back, although their shadows shift on the tiles before him.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he replies, scared now.

“Yes, you do, Mr. Peltier. I know you do.”

“Please,” he says, just before his head is plunged into the water. He has no time to take a breath and the water enters his mouth and nostrils instantly. He struggles, but his shoulder is convulsed with pain and he can only beat futilely at the water with his left hand. They pull his head up and he gasps and splutters, coughing bathwater onto the floor.

“I'll ask you one more time, Mr. Peltier. Where is it?”

And the old man finds that he is crying now, crying with fear and pain and regret for his lost daughter, for she cannot protect him just as he could not protect her. He feels a force at his shoulder, fingers digging into the injured joint, and he loses consciousness again. When he awakens, he is in the bath, naked, and a redheaded man is hovering over him. There is a sharp pain in his arms, gradually growing dimmer and dimmer. He feels sleepy and struggles to keep his eyes open.

He looks down. There are long slashes from his wrists to his elbows and the bathwater has turned to blood. The shadows watch over him as slowly, slowly the light dies, as his life seeps away and he feels his daughter embrace him at last, carrying him away with her into the darkness.

10

IN EVERY CASE, according to Plato, the principle is to know what the investigation is about. Jack Mercier had hired me to find out the truth about Grace Peltier's death. While out at his house, I had seen Yossi Epstein, who appeared to be involved in moves against the Fellowship that were sponsored by Mercier. Yossi Epstein was now dead, and his offices had been burned to the ground. Grace Peltier had been studying the history of the Aroostook Baptists, who had since emerged from beneath a cloak of mud by the shores of St. Froid Lake. She had, for some reason, found it necessary to try to contact Carter Paragon in the course of her research, once again raising the specter of the Fellowship. Lutz, the detective who was investigating the Peltier case, was close enough to the Fellowship to haul his ass out to Waterville and warn me against irritating Paragon. If I were to connect these occurrences together and add in the figure of Mr. Pudd, the investigation now appeared to be about the Fellowship.

Rachel left early on Saturday morning to attend the continuation of her college meeting. She brought with her a small plastic bag containing Mr. Pudd's business card, which someone had promised to examine before lunch. I showered, made a pot of coffee, and then, wearing only a towel, began to work the phone. I called Walter Cole, my former partner in Homicide while I was with the NYPD, and he made some calls. From him I got the name of one of the detectives involved with the Major Case Squad investigating Epstein's death and the arson attack on his office. The detective's name was Lubitsch.