The Witchfinder (23 page)

EMPLOYMENT SPECIAL CONSULTANT WAYNE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS 1977–81 FIELD AGENT OAKLAND COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION 1981–83 MANAGER IROQUOIS HEIGHTS CITY PROSECUTORS OFFICE 1984 CURRENTLY ATTACHED CITY OF DETROIT NO TITLE OR OFFICE DUTIES UNSPECIFIED

An address was listed in Detroit. I asked Barry if that was still current.

“As of January when I updated the file. He doesn’t camp around as much as he used to. Why should he? He’s got a steady gig.”

POLICE RECORD NONE

“Not even a traffic ticket,” I said.

“Writing him up would be like asking for permanent assignment to the war zone.”

“So far he’s cleaner than me.”

“Dresses better, too. Would you like to see this month’s American Express bill?”

“Not unless he charges his ammunition.”

“This file’s just for the suckers. Buckle up.”

He entered a new code. The details of Royce Grayling’s exemplary public life dropped from the screen. The cursor darted to the upper left corner, gunned its motor twice, and towed out a new string of words.

GRAYLING ROYCE A/K/A SUICIDE SAM

I looked at Barry, who gave me his square grin.

“I did the scutwork on this,” he said. “There’s no program for it at Egghead Software.”

The cursor vamped. My pulse kept time with it, thumping in my stitches. After two seconds the file kicked in.

CLEMENTS E EDWARD WAYNE COUNTY TREASURERS OFFICE SHOT TO DEATH VACATION HOME FORD LAKE 11/18/78 WC SHERIFFS OFFICE RULED HUNTING RELATED NO SUSPECTS SEE FILE

INGRAM ADELAID NO MIDDLE COMPTROLLER GILLIAM CONSTRUCTION COMPANY WIXOM MI REPORTED MISSING 2/25/82 CASE OPEN SEE FILE

GALLOWAY IAN MICHAEL OAKLAND COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSIONER DECEASED FARMINGTON HILLS MI HOME 8/1/82 BROKEN VERTEBRAE SEVERED SPINAL CORD OC CORONER RULED DEATH BY MISADVENTURE SEE FILE

“Those stairs are murder,” I said.

“Split-level house,” said Barry. “Fell about six inches onto a carpet.”

BOGARDUS GORDON WALLACE IROQUOIS HEIGHTS MI CITY COUNCILMAN SHOT TO DEATH IROQUOIS HEIGHTS 7/12/84 TWO BULLETS UPPER LEFT THORAX NO WEAPON ON PREMISES IMPLICATED PHOENIX BUILDING & REALTY KICKBACK CONSPIRACY OC CORONER RULED SUICIDE SEE FILE

I said, “Somebody told me about that one.” Barry flicked another key, blanking out the screen. “It stank up the place even in the Heights, not the freshest-smelling six square miles this side of the sulphur works. That’s why Grayling left there after less than a year.”

“Anything else?”

“Not lately. He’s been on his Sunday behavior since coming to the big city.”

“Until now.”

“Assuming it’s not just coincidence that people in delicate positions tend to drop off like moths wherever he lands, the killing’s only part of it. The smallest part. Whether by threats or just his own not-inconsiderable presence, he gets things done without leaving a paper trail for the muckrakers to follow. In any democratic government there’s always a place for the Graylings.”

“What are you, a Communist?”

“I’m an alcoholic. The world’s second largest minority.”

“How did you pick up on him?”

“I said he never leaves a paper trail. The body count is something else. This is all speculation based on the law of averages. He could sue me out of my Dutch leg just for showing you this file.”

“What did he do in Nam besides get decorated?”

“Sniper. Westmoreland hung a bronze star on him for picking off a hundred and eighteen Cong and NVA regulars over a thirty-six-hour period.”

“What about the Purple Hearts?”

“The first was nothing, a piece of shrapnel in the web of his left hand from an NVA mine that blew his company commander into Reese’s Pieces on the road at Ben Suc. That’s a maybe; it was raining hard and nobody was around to report what happened but Specialist First Class Grayling. The second one was a bullet in the back.”

“Not unusual. I spent my whole tour looking for a skirmish line.”

“I Corps wasn’t so sure. There was some evidence that it was fired by one of his fellow Rangers; but they’ll still be sorting out the fragging incidents from legitimate combat casualties when the next war has come and gone, so the hell with that. Anyway the slug banked off a tree or something and went in all out of shape, plowing up muscle tissue and ligaments. He was laid up in Saigon for six months.”

“Any permanent damage?”

“He’ll be a little slow turning to his left.”

“Good to know.”

He killed the monitor.

“Don’t let him draw you into a firefight, Amos. He isn’t an ape with a shotgun and a comic accent. He’s a Washington-class closer. They never leave witnesses.”

“He can be taken,” I said. “Neglecting to drop the gun at the Bogardus kill was Mickey Mouse. Either he slipped up or he was hot-dogging, telling God and everyone he didn’t have to bother making it look like suicide to get a verdict. Either way it’s a flaw in the wall.”

“He’ll tip you over with one hand on his way to his next big hit.”

I met his flat sad journalist’s eyes. “Just in case you’re right, don’t buy it when you hear I clocked myself.”

“I’d never buy that. You hang on like a weed.” He sat back. “You’re right about one thing. Grayling was definitely thumbing his nose at the Iroquois Heights City Prosecutor’s office. Well, you’ve met Cecil Fish.”

“Fish is a cut-rate corrupter, strictly Kmart. Bribes in the Heights barely pass minimum wage. No wonder Grayling took a powder.”

“His pattern’s changing,” Barry said. “Not counting the Ingram woman, who disappeared somewhere between her house and the bus stop, all of the victims up through Bogardus died at home, in private. No eyewitnesses and very little chance of any. Okay, so maybe Allen Park’s another exception. Arsenault buys it at work, in a semiprivate garage where anyone might happen along. A little buzz now and then keeps you from going stale. But then Millender dies in an open craft on one of the busiest stretches of water in North America. If those are Grayling’s, he’s losing caution. Gone rogue.”

“I said it was a flaw.”

“That’s good for you if it means he’s forgotten how to cover his ass; bad for you if you’re counting on the standard inhibitions to protect you. He might shoot you at the airport or cut your heart out in Cadillac Square in the middle of the morning rush hour. Mad dogs don’t heel.”

“It’s a thought.”

“While you’re thinking it, here’s another one.”

I waited. He’d pulled over his artificial leg by its harness and was tugging up his trousers to strap it on.

“Right now, chances are he’s sitting in front of a computer somewhere reading about you.”

It’s bothersome not knowing when was the last time you ate.

I remembered vaguely eating a fried-egg sandwich on a bus stop bench, but that was as gone from my system as the precise details. Barry’s ham and cheese, which characteristically he had not offered to split with me, had reminded me how empty my stomach was; and with nothing there for my blood to work on it went straight to the gash in my temple. The hammering drowned out the big 455 under the Cutlass’s hood. I swung into the first driveway that promised food.

It belonged to a bar and grill, a squat building with an electric sign on the roof and gum wrappers and crumpled cigarette packages growing in a strip of earth with a painted rock border along the path to the front door. I must have driven past the place a hundred times and never noticed it. It had just opened for the day—the Sunday blue laws were in effect—but there were already a half-dozen cars parked in the lot.

Inside was a moist dark cave hollowed out of stucco. The atmosphere was a kind of mulch of sour mash, hot grease, and old nosebleeds. There were booths along the wall with napkin dispensers and laminated menus in clips, but no takers; the regulars, piles of collapsed protoplasm in clothes that made no statement, preferred the stools at the bar. I took one of the booths, inconveniencing the bartender, who made his way over finally to take my order. He was one of those numbers who took a size 6 hat, 32 long jacket, and fifty-inch trousers, shaped like a water balloon.

“Would you have any aspirins?” I asked.

“This ain’t no Rexall counter.”

“My mistake.”

I ate a burger with a thick slice of raw onion to kill the taste of last week’s lard, drank two Stroh’s to put the snap back into a plate of fries, and watched the lowlights of yesterday’s Tigers game on the TV mounted under the ceiling. A round table discussion followed onscreen, involving two ancient athletes, a sportscaster who combed his hair with Valvolene, and a print journalist with an advanced case of the rummy shakes. Ostensibly they were making predictions about the remainder of the season, but since the sound was off they might have been debating the works of Oscar Wilde. When at the end of ten minutes I found myself still watching their lips move, I laid down a couple of bills and headed for the door. One more case like this one and I’d have my own stool.

“Hey!”

I looked at the bartender. He threw me a small bottle.

It was glass with a metal screw-off cap. There were two senile-looking aspirins inside. It must have been twenty years old.

“Are they safe to take?”

The bartender grinned. He had a cleft lip. “What do you care?”

I went back to the table, placed another bill on top of the others, and left.

The aspirins tasted like corn plasters, but they did the trick. Maybe it was the food. The throbbing in my head dulled to a half-pleasant hum, I was ready for the next item on the agenda. I went home to snooze.

Head injuries are counterproductive to detective work. They take the edge off that tickle at the base of the brain that lets you know the sky’s about to cave in.

I felt it just as I entered the kitchen through the side door from the garage. My hand was still on the knob. I tore it back open. The hoarse shout came in the same instant.

“Freeze or die!”

I
FROZE
. As choices go it was a no-brainer.

Officer Redburn of the Allen Park Police Department looked like a lethal infant behind the oily blue barrel of his 9mm Glock. He was all round eyes and Dennis the Menace cowlick blocking the doorway to the living room. Everything about him said he was scared to his socks.

I couldn’t see any way to put a good spin on that combination.

“Cool your jets, Duane. Can’t you see the man isn’t carrying?”

I looked at Sergeant St. Thomas seated in the breakfast nook. He was wearing the same three-piece suit he’d had on at the scene of Lynn Arsenault’s murder. His silver-framed glasses glittered against his blue-black skin. A department-issue .38 Chief’s Special revolver lay on the table in front of him with the city seal on the grip. He wasn’t in any hurry to pick it up. He would go on not being in a hurry until I did something rash. Then I’d have a .38 slug in me before Redburn squeezed off his automatic. Some things you just know.

There was a moment when nothing moved. I could hear the air in the room. Then the Glock came down.

I relaxed my arms. “ ‘Freeze or die’?”

“Duane has every episode of
NYPD Blue
on tape. He looks a little like a young Dennis Franz, don’t you think?”

“That depends on whether he considers it a compliment.”

“With me it was Dragnet. The one in black-and-white, not the other. Hats and cigarettes. How about you?”

“M Squad.”

The sergeant’s forehead wrinkled. “The one with the hippies?”

“That was Mod Squad. This one had Lee Marvin.”

“He drove that big black Ford with tailfins. I remember. You’re older than you look.”

“Thanks. Did the deadbolt on the front door give you any trouble?”

“We came in through a window. It was too hot to wait outside.”

“I guess it would be stupid to ask if you’ve got paper.”

“The only stupid questions are the ones that don’t get asked. Like where all the judges go on Sunday.” He drew a thick No. 10 envelope from his inside breast pocket and flipped it onto the table.

I picked it up and slid out the search warrant. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” I said. “I’ve been fooled before by brochures from the Fruit of the Month Club.”

“I prefer mine canned.”

The Latin looked genuine. I stuck the document back in the envelope and returned it. He put it away, rolled over on one hip, and holstered the revolver. He had a nickel-plated automatic in a speed rig under his left arm for stopping heavy trucks.

“Nice neighborhood,” he said. “Those senior citizens take good care of their houses. I’ve got a sure-fire trick to take out that rackety bucket of bolts next door if you care to hear it.”

“I already thought of a candy bar.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a rag stuffed in the gas tank and a cigarette lighter. Your way’s probably quieter.”

“I wish you’d told me you were coming. I’d have made the bed.”

“We’d just have unmade it. You keep a neat place for a bachelor. Duane thought you were gay.”

“I bet that’s the word he used.”

“I told him he’s never been in the service. We just came from the Marriott,” he said.

“I was pretty sure you did. How’s Furlong?”

“A class act. He apologized for the runaround and offered to make a substantial contribution to the widows and orphans fund. Most people in his position would’ve just slipped us each a C-note.”

“That’s why he’s a legend.”

“You’re under arrest, Walker,” he said. “Material witness in a homicide.”

Redburn had put up his artillery and produced a pair of handcuffs. “Assume the position.”

“Duane, for Christ’s sake.” The sergeant sounded weary.

I turned around and leaned on my hands against the wall. “You don’t waste time. I didn’t expect you before tomorrow afternoon.”

“I was one of the first ten black patrolmen to break the color line downriver,” St. Thomas said. “All that infighting makes you suspicious of everyone. I check stories. Those L.A. cops don’t deserve all the bad press they’ve been getting.”

“Burn down one city and they never let you forget.”

Redburn finished patting me down, hooked a manacle around my right wrist, jerked it down behind my back, and cuffed the other while I was stumbling for balance. There wasn’t anything gentle about it, but the roughness wasn’t personal; when you’ve wrapped a thousand packages for shipping, the thousand and first doesn’t rate special handling. He read me my rights.