The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man (36 page)

“I'm just offering you the food from my fridge, Ruddy,” she replied, her voice faintly mocking.

“I can't.”

She looked away from me. “Suit yourself.”

I watched her walk out that night, in heels no other woman ever tried to wear in the Black Bear, and not for the first time felt slightly regretful over my decisions surrounding Janelle. But you can't have everything, and with Katie I was trying to direct all my efforts into having
something
.

*   *   *

The next day was Saturday and Katie and I had planned a picnic on Lake Michigan. Since I was going to be in East Jordan I decided to take care of a little errand and drove over to Einstein Croft's place. I pulled a thin envelope out of my folder and walked up the steep driveway, which had been completely cleared of any fence. Doris was picking at the ground and pointedly ignored me as I mounted the stone steps and knocked on Einstein's door.

Einstein looked and smelled like the inside of his house, stale booze coming off his breath. He smiled a little when he saw me, and for an uneasy moment I wondered if he had a pistol stuffed in his belt.

“I don't like this,”
Alan muttered.
“He looks too happy to see us.”

“Mr. Croft?”

He stepped outside. “C'mere a second.”

“Sorry?”

He pushed past me and clumped down the steps. “Got something I want to show you.”

“I wouldn't go with him,”
Alan stated nervously.

“I'm just here to give you something,” I said.

“And I've got something for
you,
” Einstein replied. He kept walking.

Curious, I followed.

“Ruddy…,”
Alan pressed anxiously.

Einstein strode toward the back of his property line, not looking back. Glancing over, I noticed the rifle was still lying in the mud where I'd thrown it. My father would have killed me for treating a weapon like that.

“Here ya go, Repo Man. She's all yours.” Einstein grinned at me and gestured expansively to what was left of his truck. He'd burned it in the center of a patch of concrete that looked like it had once been the floor of a garage. The tires had melted off the rims, the interior had turned to ash, and everything made of aluminum or plastic had run off onto the ground.

“That's insurance fraud,”
stated Alan the amateur lawyer.

“You can't file an insurance claim on a fire you set yourself, Mr. Croft. That would be fraud,” I advised him.

He threw back his head and laughed. “In-surance! I don't got any in-surance. I'm telling ya you can have it. Sorry it got a little burnt.” He laughed at my expression, loving the moment.

Sighing, I handed him the envelope. He took it from me suspiciously. “What's this?”

“It's a free-and-clear title, Mr. Croft.”

He blinked at me in noncomprehension.

“The cosigner had a life insurance policy on the loan. Your dad. When he died, it paid off in full. The truck's all yours, free and clear.”

Einstein stared at me.

“Have a nice day, Mr. Croft.”

I resisted the temptation to glance back, but I sensed that Einstein Croft was still standing there, frozen in place, as I came out of the trees and walked down his driveway. “Nice meeting you, Doris,” I called to the goose, who raised her head and watched me go with a disapproving expression.

I was just driving past the PlasMerc factory when a patrol car lit up its emergency lights behind me. “Every time I go to East Jordan,” I muttered, pulling over.

It turned out to be the same deputy with the same message as the night Drake was killed: The sheriff wanted to talk to me.

“Can you follow me to his office, please, sir?” the deputy requested.

“To the … to the jail?” I repeated.

“Just to the sheriff's office, sir.”

“Couldn't we do this on the cell phone?”

Apparently not.
“What do you suppose Strickland wants?”
Alan wanted to know as we followed the deputy.

“Well, let's see, Alan. He's had two murder victims turn up this year, both having something to do with me. I'm surprised he hasn't decided to make me a permanent guest of the county by now.”

Strickland was standing at his window when the deputy led me in, and lowered himself into his chair with a weary sigh. He pulled out a file. “All right, then. Tell me why you thought the ballistics from the rifle that killed Drake would match the one from Lottner.”

“Did they?” I blurted.

Strickland gave me a stony glare. “Tell me why you thought the ballistics from the rifle that killed Drake would match the one from Lottner.”

“Because Franklin Wexler and Nathan Burby killed Alan Lottner, and I think they blew up the nursing home, and I think they shot Drake in my living room, believing it was me.”

There was a long silence, during which Strickland just stared at me.

“Oh, Ruddy,”
Alan said sadly.

 

 

27

A Meeting with Sheriff Strickland

 

Strickland was quiet for so long I was afraid he was thinking of just pulling his weapon and shooting me. Finally he cleared his throat and spoke very quietly. “Why do you think these two men committed those crimes?”

“Because that's what I dreamed. I mean, I didn't dream about the nursing home or about Drake, but in my dream, that's who killed Alan.”

“Why would they do something like that?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. Maybe Marget Lottner was seeing Nathan Burby and he decided to get rid of the competition.”

“So Mrs. Lottner is involved, too,” Strickland speculated neutrally.

“No!”
Alan shouted.

I cocked my head, considering. “Well, maybe, but I don't think so.”

“Ruddy, you know that's not right,”
Alan lectured me.

“I mean, I
don't
know that's not right, but it could be,” I said, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice.

Strickland was pondering something. “I've read the file on the nursing home explosion probably one hundred times. Did you know a woman named Elizabeth Wexler was killed in the bombing?”

“Liddy Wexler, yes I did.”

“Everyone with a relative at the home was looked at. Franklin Wexler was in Las Vegas that night. I remember that because in the file there's a picture of him shaking hands with Wayne Newton.”

I shook my head in frustration. “Well, okay, look. I can't explain it. But, Sheriff, what if when we die, there's a … a remnant of us, something of us that stays around sometimes after we're gone. Something no one can explain or prove, but that can get a message to the living.”

“You're saying what, that Alan Lottner is communicating with you from beyond the grave?”

“Please don't tell him, Ruddy,”
Alan begged.

“No, just that I think the dream came from him. Sheriff, if you search Burby and Wexler's houses, I know you'll find the rifle that killed Alan and Drake.”

He shook his head. “No, I won't.”

“How can you say that?” I asked in frustration.

“Because it wasn't the same gun. You were wrong about that.”

“Oh.”

“I don't have probable cause to search anything except
your
home—there was a dead body in the living room, last time I was there.”

“Yes, because Burby and Wexler thought it was me.”

“Nathan Burby is out of town, according to Deputy Timms,” Strickland observed.

“Oh, yeah. Right, I knew that. So it must have been Wexler.”

He sighed.

“If you pull in Wexler for questioning…”

Strickland raised his cold eyes to mine.

“Oh-oh,”
Alan murmured.
“He looks angry.”

But when Strickland spoke again, it was without heat. “When I was a cop in Muskegon, twenty years ago, one of my first calls was on a woman, shot to death in her bedroom. We were out canvassing the area, checking garages and backyards to see if maybe the perp was hiding in the area. I rang the doorbell of a neighbor and when the guy opened the door, I knew he was the one. I don't know how I knew it, I just had it, that feeling in my gut, that I was looking at the guy who shot the victim.

“I was just a beat cop then, but when I told the homicide detective about the feeling I had, he followed up on it, and they nailed the guy on forensics.”

Strickland stood up and stared out his window, his hands in his pockets. Then he shook his head. “I am not going to pull in anyone for questioning based on a dream, McCann. You say you have a, a remnant of some kind, but that doesn't do me any good. I can't take it to the D.A. and I certainly can't as a police officer act on it. A man was killed in your living room the other night and you're an ex-con—those are things I can act on.”

“He's going to arrest you!”
Alan squeaked.

I swallowed. Absurdly, the only thought I had was that if I were taken into custody I would miss my date with Katie to see the sunset.

Strickland wasn't arresting me, he was dismissing me. “My gut's been telling me all along that you're clean on this, that you didn't kill Alan Lottner. I think you made a mistake you're going to have to live with the rest of your life, but you're not the same kind of criminal that lived next door to the murder victim in Muskegon. And I understand that there are some things we can't explain, like how I knew I was looking at the perpetrator twenty years ago when he opened the door. But what was true then is true now—it takes police work to solve a crime.” He turned away from the window, giving me a sober appraisal. “It's best you go home now, Ruddy.”

I left the station feeling as if I'd just somehow been found not guilty—but only by reasonable doubt.

Katie and I watched the sun expand into a huge orange ball and drop into Lake Michigan with our arms around each other, and then decided nothing would be more fun for her than to watch me help Becky tend bar.

We drove to Kalkaska, but as we drew close to the Black Bear, traffic—and there never really is such a thing in Kalkaska that time of year—was at a standstill. The congestion seemed at its worst right in front of the bar.

“Why all the cars?” Katie asked curiously.

I looked at her. “I don't know. Something's going on.”

We parked at my house and made our way back to the Bear on foot. The place was packed to the walls; I had to shove my way in.

“I had no idea this place was so popular!” Katie shouted to me over the crowd noise.

I shook my head. “It isn't!”

We fought our way to the bar and found out why there was such a mob: Becky was pouring everyone free champagne. “Ruddy!” she shrieked when she saw me, giving me a huge hug and a kiss.

I reminded Becky that she had already met Katie, and Becky gave her an ebullient hug, too. “I take it that we're drinking what we're not giving away?” I asked.

Becky tugged on me and I nodded at Katie to give me a minute. In the back room, things were more quiet.

“This is the best day of my life, Ruddy,” Becky told me. “You know what we got in the mail today?”

“The new Home Depot catalogue?”

“No!” Becky shook her head wildly. She was, I decided, drunk, a state in which I'd never seen her before. “The money.”

“The money?” I repeated stupidly.

“The sex line sent us the money back. Everything we sent to them, they sent back. We can cover everything and have some left over!”

“You're kidding.”

“They must have interpreted the death of their business manager as a sign of the way you work,”
Alan speculated.
“They decided to send you the money before you came down to collect it in person.”

“Kermit says that twenty percent of the charges are ultimately good, so we'll wind up making a profit!” Becky proclaimed.

“That's great, Becky. It means the Bear is no longer an endangered species?”

“Yes!”

“Okay. But free champagne for the entire town? Isn't that a little excessive?”

“Oh, Ruddy, it gets even better.” She held up her fist and I looked at it.

“The ring,”
Alan suggested. I stared at the diamond on her finger, and then up into her radiantly happy eyes.

“I'm engaged, Ruddy! I'm going to be married!”

I opened my mouth.

“Don't say it,”
Alan warned.
“Don't say anything except ‘congratulations,' Ruddy. Please.”

“Congratulations, Becky.” I grated.

She threw her arms around me and hugged me fiercely. “Oh, Ruddy, I've never been so happy.”

“Okay, good. Good, Becky,” I told her, patting her back. “But enough with the free booze, okay? Go tell everyone that we're back to being a pay-as-you-drink enterprise.”

She nodded joyously and all but skipped out of the room.

“You see anything coincidental about the fact that we get this money and all of a sudden Kermit wants to marry my sister?” I demanded.

“Easy, Ruddy.”

“Isn't he supposed to ask my permission so I can say no?”

“Who are you, the Godfather? Why should he ask you—seems to me asking Becky would be sufficient.”

“I'm not going to talk to you if you're going to be like this.”

“I thought you were going to give Kermit a break because he makes your sister happy.”

“Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want to be related to him!”

Trying to spend time with my date proved to be impossible: even with the free alcohol spigot shut off we were crammed with people, and I worked the bar without pause, darn near pouring myself into carpal tunnel syndrome. Katie ran into some girlfriends who ultimately gave her a ride home, laughing off my apology with a quick kiss on the cheek.