When Old Men Die (23 page)

"I'm surprised to see you outside the house," I told Dino.
 
"Isn't it about time for Donahue?"

"I got an obligation to Macklin," Dino said.
 
"I had to be here."

"What obligation?" I asked.

Dino was about to answer, but Evelyn punched him in the arm and he hushed.
 
The minister was talking.
 
He had a soft voice, and we were standing far enough away that I couldn't quite make out all the words, not that the words mattered.
 
I'd heard them all before.
 
I listened to the cars passing on Broadway, the squeal of tires, the occasional horn honking.

The minister's words didn't take long.
 
The tomb doors were closed, and the hearse drove away.

"What obligation?" I asked again.

"Macklin worked for the family," Dino said.
 
"No matter what happened to him, he worked for the family.
 
I stick up for the family."

Friends and family.
 
Dino was big on things like that.
 
Somebody said that nobody noticed when old men died except other old men.
 
That wasn't true.
 
There was always someone to notice and to care, even if it was someone like Dino, who cared for reasons that the dead man might not even have understood.

I said good-bye to Dino and Evelyn and walked toward the tomb.
 
I was going to talk to Cathy again, but Barnes headed me off.
 
I said hello and started to step around him, but he put a hand on my arm.

"How's the investigation coming, Smith?" he asked.

"What investigation?" I asked.
 
I didn't want to talk to Barnes.

"Harry Mercer.
 
You said you were looking for him."

"I was.
 
I haven't found him."

"Yeah.
 
I bet.
 
And you don't have anything for me?"

I reached into the pocket of my jeans.
 
"As a matter of fact, I do."
 
I handed him the flattened piece of lead I'd picked up at the lab.

He rolled it between his fingers, hardly looking at it, and slipped it into his own pocket.

"Did you find any casings?"

"No.
 
Either the shooter was using a revolver or someone came back and picked them up."

I knew that the shooter had been using an automatic, and I suspected that I'd even seen the gun, in
Zintner's
desk drawer, though there hadn't been a silencer on it.
 
Homemade silencers don't last long.

Barnes didn't really care about the casings at the marine lab.
 
He had something else on his mind.

"I guess you wouldn't know a thing about Harry's friend Ro-Jo, either," he said.

"What about him?"

"Somebody killed him last night, in one of the old cotton warehouses."

I tried to look surprised.
 
"Was he shot?"

"That's a good question, Smith.
 
Let me put it this way:
 
we found a lot of shell casings around.
 
And because the place has a wooden floor, we found some slugs that are in a lot better shape than that piece of crap you just gave me."

I hadn't given any thought to the casings and slugs at the warehouse.
 
I wondered if Becker had found the time to go back and clean his up.
 
Probably not.

"We'll be sending them off for ballistics tests," Barnes said.
 
"Does that bother you?"

"Should it?"

"I guess that depends," he said.
 
"On whether some of them came from a certain Mauser that's been used around here before."

"You wouldn't be accusing me of anything, would you?"

"Not me.
 
I'm just a cop doing a job.
 
But if I find out that your gun was used in that warehouse, you're in big trouble, Smith."

"I didn't shoot Ro-Jo," I said.

"Hell, Smith, I know that.
 
But that doesn't mean you didn't kill him."

I shook my head.
 
"You're too slick for me, Barnes.
 
I don't know what you're getting at."

"Maybe not," he said, as if he didn't believe a word of it.
 
"But I wouldn't bet my house payment on it.
 
See you around, Smith."

He walked away through the headstones, and I turned to look for Cathy.
 
She was still standing at the tomb, but the
Lytles
were with her.
 
I didn't want to talk to Patrick, though it appeared that I wasn't going to be able to avoid it.

When Paul saw me walking in their direction, he bent down and said something to his grandfather, who said a few more words to Cathy and then nodded to Paul.
 
Paul turned the chair and pushed it toward me.

"Good morning, Mr. Smith," Patrick said in his wheezy voice.
 
"It's a wonderful day for a funeral."

"I'm not so sure any day is a good day for that," I said.

Lytle raised his arms as if to embrace the day.
 
His wide smile showed yellowing teeth.

"I haven't been outside in years," he said.
 
"But this" -- he looked toward the tomb -- "this makes me wonder what I've been missing."

"Life," I said.
 
"That's all."

"And death," Lytle said.
 
"You must know, Mr. Smith, that there's nothing quite so satisfying as the death of an old enemy.
 
I've waited years for this day."

"He's been dead for a while," I pointed out.

"Yes, but now he is finally and irrevocably entombed."
 
Lytle was positively beaming.
 
"I must say I find it quite gratifying."

"I'm glad you're so happy."

"Oh, I'm not happy about everything," he said.
 
"I'm actually very disappointed in you, for example.
 
I left you a number of messages."

"I got in late last night," I said.
 
"I was planning to give you a call today."

"I'm sure you were.
 
But what were you going to tell me?
 
Have you made any progress in finding Mr. Mercer?"

I wondered if Harry had ever been called Mr. Mercer in his life.
 
Most likely he hadn't, and certainly not by the likes of Patrick Lytle.

"I haven't found him," I said.

"Really, I'm most disappointed," Lytle said.
 
"I do want to help him, and I can't do that unless you bring him to me."

"I'll see what I can do," I told him.
 
"Now I have a question for you."

"I'll be glad to tell you anything that might help, but I'm afraid I know nothing.
 
I have very little contact with people on the Island, and I never leave my home."

"So you keep telling me.
 
What I'd like to know is how you found out I was looking for Harry."

Lytle's old eyes hooded themselves and he looked down at the blanket that covered his legs.
 
His liver-spotted hands lay in his lap, and he turned them over slowly.

"I don't believe that's any of your business," he said after a second or two.

"It is, though.
 
It might help me find him."

Lytle gave it some thought.
 
"Very well.
 
If you must know, it was your employer who told me.
 
Wally
Zintner
."

Now that was interesting.
 
If I could believe it.

"There," Lytle said.
 
"I've told you.
 
Is it going to help you?"

"I'll let you know," I said.

Lytle grunted.
 
"I hope that you will.
 
I dislike having to leave messages on those infernal machines."
 
He gave me a hard stare.
 
"Take me to the van, Paul."

Throughout my entire conversation with his grandfather, Paul Lytle had stood behind the chair, his hands resting calmly on the handles.
 
He had appeared to be completely uninterested in our conversation, hardly even glancing at me or his grandfather.
 
But he was listening, all right.
 
He tipped the chair backward, turned it, and wheeled Patrick Lytle toward a maroon Chevy
Astro
van parked a little way from the tomb.

I watched them go, hoping to see Cathy Macklin, but she was no longer there.

I
was feeling much better than I had after leaving the hospital.
 
My head wasn't throbbing, and my ear wasn't swollen.
 
I'd slept pretty well, too, and that had helped.
 
It was also, as Lytle had said, a wonderful day.
 
A front had passed through, and the humidity was probably somewhere around forty percent.
 
It doesn't get that low on the Island very often.

The only disturbing element of the day, with the exception of the fact that I hadn't found Harry yet, was that Barnes was going to know very soon that I'd been firing my pistol in the cotton warehouse where Ro-Jo's body had been found.
 
He already had the ballistics records from the time I'd looked for Dino's daughter; all he had to do was get a match with the slugs from the warehouse, which he certainly would.

I had two courses of action.
 
I could tell the truth, or I could lie.

Of the two, the latter was by far the most attractive.

I could claim that my pistol had been stolen in a break-in at the house where I was living.
 
Barnes would, of course, ask why the burglary hadn't been reported, and I would say that I hadn't wanted to bother the police, who, I was sure, had more pressing things to investigate.

I could almost hear his reaction to that now.
 
It wasn't going to be pleasant, and the lie probably wasn't going to keep me out of jail.

So in spite of my strong inclination to the contrary, it seemed that I was going to have to tell the truth.

How embarrassing.

There was another option, which involved finding Harry and solving Ro-Jo's murder, thereby giving Barnes the whole case wrapped up in a nice little package.

If I could do that, he might go easy on me about the pistol.
 
Besides, if he didn't find it in my possession, there was no way he could prove that I was the one who'd fired it.

The problem with that whole idea was that I didn't seem to be one step closer to finding Harry than I'd been the afternoon that Dino found me on the pier.

I told myself that if I'd been better at my job, Ro-Jo would still be alive.

Then I told myself to shut up.
 
I couldn't go on blaming myself for everything that happened, not even for what had happened to Jan.
 
Some things happened in spite of what I could do, not because of what I had done.
 
There was no way that Ro-Jo's death could have been my fault.

I was so convincing that I almost believed myself.

"F
lounder," Jody said when I walked in the bait shop.
 
"That's what you want to go for."
 
He was talking too fast.
 
"They be
hittin
' on a day like this, even if it is January.
 
You go
wadin
' --"

I held up a hand to stop him.
 
"I don't want to go fishing, Jody.
 
You know what happened to Ro-Jo?"

He looked around the dimly-lit shop.
 
There was no one there but me and him.
 
Outside the door, the sun fell warm and bright on the tiny parking lot.

"I heard 'bout it.
 
I wish I
hadn
', though.
 
I wish I
hadn
' called you, neither.
 
I be sure enough sorry 'bout
doin
' that."

"I didn't kill Ro-Jo," I said.
 
"You don't think I'd be here if I'd killed anyone, do you?"

"Hard to tell," Jody said.
 
"Maybe you here to kill me now."

"You know better than that.
 
What would I kill you with?"

"Folks say whoever killed Ro-Jo done it with his bare hands.
 
Maybe you do it that way."

"You're bigger than I am," I said.

"That don't mean
nothin
'.
 
Maybe you know that kung-fu kind of fightin'."