Money & Murder (8 page)

Clarice jerked her hand up to swipe at a running tear. Then let her hand freefall onto her lap. Her face looked whiter than I had ever seen it, probably due to the shower and no makeup. Still, the woman was lovely. The jailhouse orange jumpsuit brought the emerald out of her bluish-green eyes. Her naturally creamy skin made me wonder why she ever bothered with makeup. Even her lips had a natural hot-pink hue. Her tongue had to enjoy keeping them moist.

She brought the phone back up to her ear.

“Asta’s a strange name for a dog.” I said, hoping to pull her out of her funk.

Her unpainted lips thinned and trembled. “How is my baby? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. Slept on the foot of my bed just like you said she would. We’re getting along swell. I got the food and snacks you told me about. No problem. Where’d you come up with the name Asta?”

Clarice’s head and shoulders swiveled to her left as a heavyset Hispanic inmate moved toward her, then quickly spun to the right to confirm the big woman had continued on by. Caught up in her jailhouse vigilance, I also watched the large woman until she sat in a chair two cubicles beyond Clarice.

“Tally bought Asta for me,” Clarice said, returning from the distraction. “He named her after a dog owned by some guy named Nick Charles. I told him this Charles must be one of his friends I never met. Tally just smiled. He likes his private jokes. Then he said something about my being too young to understand.”

“I don’t think the police are going to be looking too hard for anyone else to pin this on.” It was a hard message, but one she needed to hear. She took it without reaction.

“After we met,” she said, as if she had not heard my harsh message, “I researched you in the online archives. You don’t know it, but I’m hot searching stuff on the Internet.” She moved the phone to her other hand, the aluminum wrapped cord draping across her mouth like surreal braces. “I read all I could find about your career as a cop.”

“Then you know I went to prison and why.”

“I know, and I agree with the majority of the people in the poll. I’m glad you shot the bastard. He deserved it.”

“I appreciate that. In any event, I doubt I would have lasted much longer as a cop.”

“Why?”

“The easy answer is the department thought I had too much Mike Hammer in me, while I thought the department had too much Casper Milquetoast. In my novels, I define and dole out justice the way it feels right to me. My readers must agree that justice isn’t always best found in a courtroom. They keep buying my books.”

“So your departmental papers show, terminated: too much Mike Hammer?”

“Well, they glossed it over as insubordination. I never have been any good at letting someone play smart when they’re talking stupid, just because they’re the boss.”

Clarice moved in her chair, my gaze moved with her. She said, “One of the articles mentioned you’re also a private detective.”

“True. After my pardon they couldn’t deny me a PI’s license. Investigative work was my profession, but the law wouldn’t allow me a permit to carry a weapon. I’m not sure why I got the private license. Maybe I thought it would add to my mystique as a crime novelist.”

“Maybe because it lets you feel in some way you’re still a detective.” She grinned for the first time since I arrived. “The job that made you happier than being a novelist.”

When they were being nice, the biddies in our building referred to Clarice as the airhead on the fourth floor, but my instincts told me Clarice was Phi Beta Kappa in street savvy.

“Me thinks the lady has brains as well as beauty.”

“My mother was a lady. I think of myself as a woman. There is a difference you know?”

“No. I didn’t know. As a writer, I’m naturally curious.”

“When a lady approaches a man who attracts her she thinks of herself as a flirt. When a woman does she thinks of herself as a prick teaser.”

“I like it. May I use it?”

“Of course, but it requires you recognize one from the other.”

“I’ll do my best. Now, our time is limited so let’s get back to your situation.”

“You said the cops won’t look much beyond me, so I need you to find out who killed Tally.”

“Except in the pages of my books, I haven’t worked a case in a lot a years. You don’t want me. At best, I’m a rusty ex-detective.”

“I’ve know a few smart men, Matt, even a couple of honest ones. But you’re both. That’s rare and it’s just what I need.”

“Don’t make me out to be holy, you know my record.”

“You plugging that guy showed you cared about the victim and about justice. That you’re passionate about what you believe in. I need you to believe in me.”

“I don’t know.” I kept shaking my head long after I finished saying it. “I just don’t think I’m the man for this job.”

“You are exactly the man for the job. You were with me. And you know I couldn’t kill Tally … You know that, don’t you Matt?”

Sam Spade would easily know whether or not Clarice was working me, but I couldn’t tell. In the end it mattered little, I had always had difficulty re-corking an opened curiosity.

“No promises,” I said. “I’ll think on it. But, as long as I’m here, I do have a question about last night.”

I saw that the always perfect polish on her fingernails was now chipped when she turned the back of her hand toward me and wiggled her fingers. “Bring it on.”

“When you got home from my place, did you look in on Garson?”

“No. His door was shut. He usually went to bed before me. He’d close his door when he turned off his TV. Unless he called out, I would never go in after he shut his door … Why do you ask?”

“It would have told us whether he had been killed while you were with me or not.” Her expression told me she understood.

“I expect,” she said, “the autopsy will show Tally died while I was with you.”

“That will show a range of time, a range that will likely cover part of the time you were with me and some time you weren’t. But we don’t have the autopsy yet.”

She didn’t say anything, just looked down and pursed her lips.

“You handling this place okay?”

She shrugged. “It’s nasty and that’s just the surface. Look at these outfits. How’s a girl gonna look good in this ugly thing?” She tugged hard enough to billow the loose-fitting orange material over her bust, then glanced toward the door and the guard.

“You’d look good in anything,” I said, meaning it, “but this is not a place for looking sensuous. Let your hair go. Don’t bathe unless they insist, but cooperate when they do.”

“No sweat, Matt. I hold a brown belt in karate. If any of the lesbos in this place put a hand on me, they’ll wish they hadn’t.”

“Also, this is not a place to get in a fight. Walk and talk with confidence, not cockiness. Stay to yourself, but don’t act like a victim or like you’re too good for the rest of ‘em.”

She smiled for the second time. “Seeing we’re talking outfits here, I see you wore your trench coat. That ought to help you get into your detective persona.”

The trench coat may have been a little over the top into my novelist side, but I wasn’t about to confess that to Clarice. “Morning fog,” I said. “Wet. Now, did you get an attorney?”

“I called Henry Blackton.” She stroked her fingers on the glass the way she might to tickle the open palm of my hand. “He was Tally’s lawyer for all his U.S. business deals.”

“You need a criminal mouthpiece, not a corporate attorney.”

“That’s what Blackton told me. He sent over Brad Fisher who went with me to the arraignment. I gave Fisher your name and told him you’d help. Was that okay? Do you know Fisher?”

“Only by reputation, which says he’s a topnotch criminal lawyer. No promises, but I’ll talk with him.”

Chapter 3

I had not been back to the Long Beach Police Department since the day I had been taken there as the accused in what the press at the time was calling, “Justice on the Courthouse Steps.”

On the way over from the jail, I had tried to sort out why I was ignoring my instincts that told me not to get involved. I hadn’t known Clarice was married to Garson Talmadge while we were bumping uglies. Still, under whatever conditions, when you’d done the joe buck with a man’s wife you owed him something.

I had another reason for taking the case. You’ll think me silly, but I’ll tell you anyway. I liked Clarice. Not just because she had a full load of the B’s: brains, beauty, and big boobs. I just liked her, as a person. She was plain spoken and, generally speaking, more candid than most people, male or female.

I parked around the corner from Broadway, walked back and pushed through the door. When I got close to the front desk, the uniformed officer looked up. “I’d like to see Sergeant Fidgery,” I said. “My name is Matthew Kile.”

“I’ll let him know, Mr. Kile. Top of the stairs, take a seat. He’ll meet you up there.”

While waiting for Fidge, I was shocked to see how little the place had changed since I left the force. The decor was still grays and light browns with old florescent light fixtures lined up a foot or so below a white acoustical tiled ceiling that wasn’t exactly white any longer. The air was the same too, a stale mixture of sneaked cigarettes smoked in out-of-sight places, further flavored by the unforgettable aromas of farts and barf that somehow leeched in from the locker room and the drunk tank.

“Hello, Matthew,” Fidge said, as soon as he stepped into sight carrying the coffee mug that he held more often than he wore pants, as least that would be my guess and I really didn’t want to find out. Fidge talked with his hands and the coffee mug did its part by not giving up its content. “Come on,” was all he said before turning and starting down the hall without looking back.

At six-three and two-twenty I was neither short nor thin, but Fidge was six-five and over two-sixty, maybe more for he looked a bit softer around the middle, but over the years which of us don’t? In the old days, the two of us had been known as the department’s thundering herd. Fidge and I were more than friends. Over time our minds had culled out our case failures and hard times, while retaining the shared laughs and accomplishments. We were tight.

I strode up beside Fidge just before we turned into his office. We used to share one. Now he had a single. “I didn’t get a chance to ask you at the scene, how’s your wife?”

“Just fine, Brenda keeps asking when you’re coming by. You know, she comes from a big family so when she cooks there’s always plenty.”

“Sure. New haunts. New habits. The kids?”

“Brock’s good. Betty, well, if you’ve never had the opportunity to listen to a fifteen-year-old practicing trumpet every night, you haven’t really lived.” We laughed.

“Hug them all for me, will you? Tell Brenda I’ll be there for Sunday breakfast. If that’s not okay, let me know.”

“Sunday it is, let’s say nine-thirty?” I nodded. “Coffee Matthew?” he asked while approaching the pot to refill his cup.

“No thanks.” Then I said, “Yeah, okay, I’ll take a cup, black.” Fidge smiled and brought it over to me.

We stood sipping around stern looks over the rims of our cups. I sat first. Fidge spoke first. “Have you been by lockup to see your neighbor?”

“I just left there. Grungy place.”

“It’s a jail, Matthew. You’ve been there plenty of times. But then, lately you’ve mostly been hanging out in bookstores and attending black-tie dinners.”

“Not to mention dining on cold leftovers alone at my computer.”

A picture of Brenda, Betty, and Brock, their eleven-year-old son, in his Little League uniform, sat on a gray soft-top table under the window. For me, the Fidgerys personified the modern Ozzie and Harriet Nelson family. I had told Fidge that once and he said the Adams Family seemed the better comparison.

“How’re your daughters?” he asked.

“The girls are doing great. Rose, the older one is getting married soon. You’ll get an invitation. Amy is trying to decide between an average-sized guy with a Bill Gates’ brain and a muscle-bound athlete with one earring and several tattoos, who rides a Harley.”

Fidge smiled and shook his head. “You’ve got to be shitting bricks. I know that craziness is ahead for me and Brenda. Betty is already eyeing the men folk in her world. Last Sunday I asked God why he let hormones grow up ahead of brains. How do we get these youngsters to understand the only really important thing about high school is graduating? That the rest that they think is so important won’t mean squat in the big picture of their lives?”

“One of life’s easy questions, with no easy answer, at least I don’t have one for you.”

“And Helen?”

“Ah, my ex. No easy answer there either. Last year she came close to remarrying, but didn’t. The girls are her life right now, along with keeping track of my doings. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the woman was listening to my life on the upstairs extension.”

“Sounds like she still cares.”

“If she did, she would have stood with me during my trial.”

“Your attorney should have gotten her there.”

“I told him to leave her alone, that coming or not was her decision.”

“She was hurt. Confused. Angry. For that matter, so was I, but I also understood why you sent that guy to hell; your ex didn’t. But she ended up writing while you were inside, didn’t she?”

“For the first couple years, she did. Then she stopped. I couldn’t figure her then. I still can’t. Hey, I feel silly sitting in your office while you stand.”

Fidge didn’t move. After taking another drink of his coffee, he said, “You know I can’t discuss this case with you.”

“I understand, Fidge. I just came by so we could sit and look at each other, but you aren’t even sitting. Listen, I don’t believe Clarice did it. I got nothing except instinct working here, but, like I said, unless he died of an overdose of bed banging, killing’s not her style.”

“Oh, you got firsthand knowledge about that, Matthew?” Fidge unhooked his top button to free his moose-sized neck from his deer-sized collar.

“You know what, Sergeant Fidgery, You’re a dirty old man.” We exchanged more grins. “I just can’t see her bumping off her old man,” I said, feeling myself slipping deeper into the brand of cop and street vernacular spoken in my modern-noir novels. “If she plugged ‘im, it woulda been in the heat of passion or anger, and she would’ve been looking him straight in the eyes. She’d have no interest in pillows to muffle the shot. She’d wanna hear it. She’d wanna smell the cordite. Even then, I can’t see her doing it.”