Murder in Store (10 page)

11

 

I
DECIDED THAT
the snow was a lot more appealing when it was highlighting Elaine’s hair than when I was trying to drive in it. The roads were slick and we passed a couple fender-benders on the way to the apartment. Elaine was going to see about getting me my own parking space. In the meantime, her yellow Mustang remained warm and secure underneath the building. What could I do? Insist that she be the one to play musical cars with the auto population on the north side? I would never be able to look my mother squarely in the eyes again. I dropped Elaine at the entrance to our building and promised to call if I thought I wouldn’t make it back from finding a parking place before morning. She smiled and shook her head.

I weaved up and down side streets. It was worse than usual because of the weather and the streets that were snow routes were off limits for parking. I found myself musing over my new living arrangement. I knew it was too soon to get involved with anyone. It had only been a couple of days, although it seemed a whole lot longer, since Maggie had shown me the door. I was still seeing a lot of things in terms of Maggie, and here was Elaine. Without any obvious effort, she was slipping into my thoughts as surreptitiously as her hand had slid into mine. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about it. But then again, maybe I should. Maybe I was experiencing the rebound effect and Elaine was the unfortunate third party. Maybe Elaine was just being nice.

A very small parking space saved me from further self-analysis. I wedged my Honda in between a large Plymouth and an old Volkswagen and, because there was no traffic and the streets seemed better for traveling, started walking down the center of the street. It was to be a long four blocks.

I heard the car before I saw it. Its headlights were off and it seemed to come out of nowhere. While its origin might have been questionable, its destination wasn’t, and that destination was definitely me.

The car came from behind me, and the skidding noise it made in the snow before the tires caught caused me to jerk around. It was almost on top of me when I dove between two cars, into a space that I hoped was larger than it appeared. It wasn’t. A jolt of pain shot through my knee as I jammed between two bumpers. I tried to extricate myself. The killer car made a hurried three-point turn at the end of the block, then roared back toward me. This time its brights were on.

With a painful jerk, I yanked my leg from between the bumpers and propelled myself with my good leg toward the parkway. I landed face first with a mouthful of snow as the big car smashed into the two cars. The impact pushed one of them onto the parkway. It landed less than a foot away. Time to move. I heard, rather than saw, the car retreat as I pushed myself up off the ground.

For the first few steps, I wasn’t sure my knee was going to hold. It felt like an ice pick was digging around inside it. I hobbled down the sidewalk, keeping an eye out for the car and looking for an escape route. Maybe the driver had given up, figuring he had lost the advantage of surprise. No such luck.

I was near the end of the first block when the car came from around the corner, roared up over the curb, and slammed onto the sidewalk, its brights blinding me. Figuring

I’d be better off in whatever protection the buildings and yards offered, I hobbled as fast as my knee would allow into the narrow space between two four-story apartment buildings. The car screeched to a stop, and a door slammed.

I quickly inventoried my assets and wished I had been using my old army-issue blade for a letter opener instead of the bird knife. I had to assume that if this person or persons had set out to kill me, they brought the equipment necessary to accomplish the job. Strange. A few minutes ago my pursuer was a big malevolent piece of machinery with no human qualities, just a big, mean hunk of metal. Somehow, knowing there was a person trailing me was a lot scarier. I took the knife from my pocket and drew it from its sheath. The three-inch blade didn’t seem enough to make even a pigeon real edgy, but it was better than nothing.

There was an alley behind the apartment building but I rejected it as too well lit and too obvious a way for me to go. It was incredibly quiet and white behind these buildings and the snow was such a fine powder that I could move without a noise. Slinking through these yards, knife drawn, I felt like my presence desecrated the serenity.

Strange. Being stalked by some faceless enemy through the snow and alleys on the north side of Chicago wasn’t all that different from being stalked by some faceless enemy through a rain forest on the other side of the world. In Chicago, you could put a hand on a building or a car—some symbol of civilization—but it wasn’t there for you. The differences were only incidental. Bird and insect noises were replaced by the sound of distant cars with bad mufflers. You crept through the shadows of the buildings the same way you crept through the trees and tried to keep the whole thing impersonal.

I figured there was only one person. I heard only one car door shut.

I could probably make my way back to Elaine’s by cutting through backyards and parking lots and by praying when I crossed the streets, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. Some people wanted me dead and I was real curious about their identity. If my current pursuer had a gun, I wasn’t about to try to overpower him, but if I could get a glimpse of him, then that might be worth the effort. If he didn’t shoot me, that is. I crouched behind some bushes near the gate to the alley and waited. The snow was falling harder now, and I had to keep mopping my eyes and face with my jacket sleeve. I realized there was sweat mixed in with the snow.

He appeared between the two apartment buildings, not making much effort to move quietly. Apparently without checking for tracks in the snow, he turned and walked through the yard, keeping close to the back of the building. Then he kept on walking toward the next one. He wasn’t doing a very thorough job. Not that I was complaining, but I couldn’t help but wonder how bad he wanted to find me.

My crouching position was causing my knee to fire frequent pain messages to my brain. I tried to ease some of my weight off of it and when I did, my foot slipped and I fell back against the chain-link fence. It clinked and groaned, and I froze.

My stalker stopped moving and turned in my direction, his gun drawn. He began moving toward me and I prayed he was just following a noise and not a sighting. He approached the bushes from the side opposite my hiding place. As he neared, I was able to get an idea of his size. He was big, a large frame carrying a lot of weight. He stopped, and I thought for a moment that he had made me. Then he stepped a couple feet closer to the bushes and close enough to a light in the alley to come partially into its illumination. He had either blond or gray hair, worn long. I could barely make out a beard and a small, sharp nose.

I tried to make myself smaller and realized that wasn’t going to do me much good. In a few feet he would be standing right next to me. If he saw me, I would be the easiest game he ever bagged. Right now, I had a small advantage. I held my breath.

He hesitated again, listening and waiting. Then he glanced back at the space between the buildings. I hoped he wasn’t waiting for reinforcements. A couple more steps and he was no more than two feet from me. I put the knife between my teeth, and hoped that two things would not happen—I wouldn’t swallow the damned thing and I wouldn’t have to use it. Taking a deep breath, I lunged at him from my hiding place and my knee buckled under me, throwing me off balance. Unable to hit him head on, I grabbed for his legs and he went down with a surprised grunt.

I reached for his arm, trying to wrestle the gun from his hand before he got a good grip on it again. Apparently he never lost it, because he smacked me in the face with the barrel and let out a yelp as he sliced his hand across the blade I was still clenching. He dropped the gun and grabbed his hand. I moved back, crouching, and took the knife in one hand while I groped for the gun with the other. The side of my face felt numb.

He cursed and lunged at me, reaching for my throat. I flew backward into the snow and tried to block him with my left arm, but I couldn’t hold his weight. Instinctively, I brought my arms in to protect myself. He fell against me, impaling himself on the knife. His hands were at my throat. It was a long two seconds before his eyes flew open, registering surprise.

He pulled away from me, bellowing. Staggering backward, he groped at his chest with one hand, looking at the red expanding stain as if he couldn’t figure it out. Then he looked at me and, putting two and two together, charged.

This time I was better prepared. I brought my legs up, and as he came down on me, I pushed him away from me, acrobatic style. He flew back and landed hard on the ground. He didn’t move.

I went over to him, feeling the ground for his gun on my way. I didn’t find it. He seemed to be out cold and that didn’t make sense. There wasn’t enough time for that much blood loss. I felt for a pulse. It was there, but faint.

I didn’t know how deep a knife had to penetrate a large person before finding a crucial organ, and I didn’t know how long it would take a man his size to die from blood loss. All I knew was that I was kneeling there, wiping the blood from the knife, wondering if it would ever come off.

Then I saw the cinder block beneath the back of his head. The impact had knocked him cold.

I looked at the back of the apartment building and considered waking someone up and calling the police. There weren’t any lights on, but then this kind of scene is best viewed from a dark room.

I began to go through his pockets. Who was this guy? He looked vaguely familiar. Before I could find any identification, I heard a car coming down the alley and dropped any plans I had for sticking around. It might not be this guy’s friend, but then it might. I made my way into the next yard and waited to see what the car was going to do. It slowed, then stopped one building away from the yard I’d just left. A car door opened and closed. The motor was still running. I took this as my clue to leave and started back to Elaine’s place, staying clear of the alleys and the middle of the streets.

In spite of the cold, I was sweating, and I was starting to feel sick in the stomach, I put the knife back in its sheath. What an intimate weapon, the knife. But then, that’s what killing someone is—as the man says, up close and personal, not like dropping out of the sky to pick up wounded men.

Bullets from invisible snipers would ricochet off the side of the helicopter and you’d fire back at a battalion of trees. It was as if the trees were doing the shooting and you wondered what you had done to make them want to kill you. Tonight had been closer—and a lot more personal.

12

 

I
WAS GLAD
Elaine’s apartment building didn’t have a doorman. I’m sure he would have viewed me as a suspicious character. And I was exactly that in torn pants and bloody jacket.

I was relieved to arrive at Elaine’s door without running into anyone. I used the key she had given me, and the door opened onto a sight I wasn’t ready for.

I thought I was in the wrong apartment at first. There were no lights on, but the illumination that spilled in from the hall showed me cushions off the couch and piles of papers and books strewn over the living room. Part of the shelving unit had been overturned.

“Elaine.” I spoke in a normal voice at first, and when there was no response, I shouted. “Elaine!”

Then I saw a familiar-looking object next to the planter just inside the door. I bent down and picked up Elaine’s purse. Oh God, I thought. She walked in on this and they didn’t want any witnesses. Oh, God, please no.

I left the door partially open and moved into the kitchen, using what little light there was to make my way. Elaine kept her .38 in a kitchen drawer. Right now, a gun would be easier for me to use than a knife.

I removed the gun from the drawer. The apartment was so quiet, I thought I could hear the walls breathing. It felt empty. I thought of Elaine and where she might be and what might have happened to her and then I pushed any ideas I had from my mind. I didn’t need a muddled head.

An object blocked the light for a moment. I spun around, dropping into a crouch, arms extended and gun pointed at the figure that stood frozen in the living room, out of the light.

I swallowed hard. “Don’t move,” I said, feeling like I had just ordered the Statue of Liberty to stay put.

“Quint?” A very small voice sounded both scared and hopeful.

“Elaine?” My voice wasn’t much above a whisper.

“Yeah,” she said. Then, “What are you doing?”

“I’m protecting the castle.”

I got up and switched on the kitchen light.

Elaine stood in the middle of the mess in the living room, unharmed, hair tousled, hands in the pockets of her jacket, and all I wanted to do was hold her. So I did. Her head fit under my chin and I could smell the cold in her hair. She wrapped her arms around me, pulling me closer. I hadn’t thought that possible.

After a moment she said, “Are you still holding the gun?”

I placed the gun on the coffee table and touched her face with my hand, as if the feel of her skin would verify her existence for me.

I stepped back and looked at the room.

“What happened?” I asked.

She noticed my disheveled appearance and before she could speak I said, “You first.”

She took her jacket off, looked around for a place to put it, and dropped it on the floor. Then she replaced a cushion on the couch and sat down. “Well,” she began, “when I got up here, I noticed someone going through the stairway door. I thought that was strange. No one takes the stairs from the twelfth floor unless the elevator’s broken, and I had just used the elevator. I didn’t think much of it until I opened the door and saw this.” She gestured toward the

mess. “I was so mad I didn’t think twice before tearing down those steps.” She shrugged a little self-consciously. “I guess it wasn’t a real bright thing to do, but I don’t think he saw me. I didn’t get much of a look at him either. By the time I got outside the building, he was getting into a car. I got part of the plate number.
BRE
something. I couldn’t make it all out, but it was a dark car—dark and big.”

“A ‘76 Monte Carlo,” I said. “It now has a bashed-in grill.”

She gave me a quizzical look. “Friends of yours?” “We’ve gone a few rounds. You sure they didn’t see you?”

“Yeah. He was carrying something though. It looked like a briefcase.” “Did you get a look at him?”

“Just his back and then just for a second. Big. He was wearing a khaki fatigue-type jacket. Long hair. I think it was kind of blond.”

That clinched it. I didn’t want to think about what might have happened if Elaine had arrived a minute earlier. The driver of the car must have seen Elaine get out of the car and me drive off in search of a parking space. After the big guy got back to the car, he and his buddy decided it would be great sport to track me and see if they could eliminate me by making me another routine road kill. Or by more conventional methods.

One thing bothered me a lot. How did they know where I was living? It would have been easy enough to follow me here, but there are fifteen floors of apartments. They had to know which one to go to. They had to know Elaine’s name, and I didn’t like that notion a bit. Who knew I was living here? I had given Sergeant O’Henry the address, and Harry my phone number. Pam. Pam?

“Is something wrong?” Elaine interrupted my puzzling.

“No. I was just thinking.”

I checked and wasn’t surprised to find that my briefcase, containing the files of Hauser’s suspects, was missing.

“Can you tell if anything of yours was taken?”

Elaine tossed her hair back and laughed. “Not much to take. All my jewels are on loan to the Art Institute.”

We both laughed a little, which eased the tension that comes from expecting to walk into a familiar scene and not finding it.

Then I realized that something didn’t fit. I glanced at my watch. It was two-fifteen.

She caught the gesture. “In case you’re wondering how all of that could have taken an hour.” She walked over and picked her keys out of the planter that stood just inside the door. “Just where I left them before charging off after the bad guys. I’ve just spent forty-five minutes tracking down the maintenance man to let me back in.”

“Did you leave him in a good mood?”

“Never found him. I came back here, hoping you’d show up.”

She sat still for a minute, thinking. Then she started picking things up—a book here, a record album there. It was, at best, a half-hearted attempt. After a few minutes, she sank down on the floor, cross-legged. She sniffed and blinked her eyes rapidly.

“Bastards,” she said.

I sat on the floor next to her, keeping my sore leg straight. “It’s my fault.”

She nodded. “I know.” Then she looked at my torn pants. “I’m afraid to ask what happened to you.” She paused. “Tell me.”

“Well, that army-issue Wild Bill Hickok character and his chauffeur made a concerted effort to run me over. When that didn’t work, Mr. Hickok switched to a more conventional weapon—a .38. So there I was, behind a dark apartment building, making tracks in the snow that a pack

of cub scouts could follow, and all I had for a weapon was a knife I kept in my desk to open mail and butcher an occasional salami.” I stopped. I didn’t know how Elaine would react to the rest of the story. And that mattered a lot to me. I watched for some reaction from her as I continued, “I might have killed him, Elaine. He fell on the blade, but I was holding it and it was pointed in his direction.”

When I finished she didn’t say anything for a while and I couldn’t read her thoughts from her expression. Finally she spoke. “Are you sure he was dead?”

I shook my head and explained about the arrival of someone, presumably his accomplice, at the scene.

She watched me and her whole body seemed tense and rigid. It was like she was waiting for me to pin this whole thing on myself. And she wasn’t about to let me do that. “It was you or him. Would you rather it turned out the other way?” This woman could have a very good effect on a person’s life. “Did you even know that someone wanted to kill you?” she prodded.

I shook my head.

“Well then,” she said, as if that proved everything. I was inclined to let her convince me. She continued, “You must be getting somewhere on this. Someone thinks you’re a threat.”

“I wish I knew enough to be a threat.”

She looked at me and didn’t say anything. Her expression was impossible to read. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were bright. I held her gaze for too long and the moment passed. I turned away first.

“I’d better leave in the morning.” I paused and added, “If I were a real gentleman, I’d leave now before they send in the next assault.”

“But you’re not going to, are you?”

I shook my head and sighed. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”

“The police?” I nodded.

“Do you think they’ll believe you? I mean, that it was self-defense and all? Wasn’t that Sergeant what’s-his-name suspicious of you anyway?”

All those thoughts had already passed through my mind, but I knew it would be better in the long run if I came forward now, rather than waiting for them to find me. Then it
would
look like I had something to hide.

We had just about finished picking up the living room, righting the bookshelves and cleaning up spilled ashtrays, when Sergeant O’Henry arrived. It was after three a.m. He looked like a man who hadn’t been awake for very long.

“I had a feeling I’d run into you again real soon,” he said to me.

I introduced him to Elaine and he gave me a look that was a mixture of suspicion and admiration. “You got any orange juice?” he asked Elaine. “Pink grapefruit all right?”

“Great,” he said. “Didn’t have a chance to brush my teeth.”

I nodded in understanding and wished he’d get on with this. I’m sure that was the intended effect. Elaine brought him the glass and he drank half of it.

“Who are you?” he said to Elaine.

Elaine crossed her arms over her chest, raised her chin an inch or two, and said, “I live here,” like she was daring him to make something of it. I looked at her and smiled slightly. So Elaine was a closet rebel. I liked that.

O’Henry studied her for a moment, apparently deciding whether to pursue her statement. Then he turned back to me. “You
both
live here?”

“You can reach me here.”

He shook his head and sat down. “You wanna tell me what happened?”

Elaine and I sat down, and I narrated the entire incident. He didn’t interrupt me once and would occasionally jot something down in a small spiral notebook. When I got to the part about the knife, I placed it, still in its sheath, on the coffee table. O’Henry leaned over, squinting.

When I had finished, he said, “So you don’t know who this guy was?”

I shook my head. “Like I said, he looked familiar.”

O’Henry nodded, thinking. He was starting to annoy me. There’s a very thin line between being cryptic and being a jerk and he was getting close to crossing it.

“Okay, O’Henry. Who was he? Preston Hauser’s illegitimate son from a night of passion with an Amazon?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Before you called, no one had reported the incident or complained about a fight or a body in their backyard. I’m still waiting for a confirmation that you didn’t dream the whole thing.”

I rubbed my eyes and tried to think. Maybe the guy’s friend had taken him somewhere or maybe he’d left him there for the neighbors to discover over coffee in the morning.

The phone rang and the three of us looked at it like it was the jury marching in with the verdict. Elaine answered. “It’s for you.” She held the receiver out to O’Henry. He drained his juice glass and took the phone.

Elaine returned to the couch and sat next to me. We exchanged looks but I’m not sure if either of us had any idea what the other was thinking.

O’Henry didn’t give away much of the conversation. Every now and then he’d say, “Uh huh,” or, “Yeah,” and would occasionally jot something down. Once he said, “You don’t say.” Then he said, “Oh yeah,” with his inflection rising on the second word and he looked at me as he spoke into the phone. “You sure about that?” Then he chuckled and said, “Yeah, I guess that’s true. Anything

else?” He listened for a moment, then said, “Yeah, sure,” and hung up.

Flipping the pages of his notebook, he walked back to the chair. Elaine and I looked at each other and this time I was sure we were thinking the same thing—“Quit milking the audience, O’Henry,” or something to that effect.

“Well.” O’Henry finally looked up from his notes. “There’s a body all right, and it’s dead. Right where you left it. Does the name”—he glanced at his notes, affecting a dramatic pause—“Carl Bonkowsky mean anything to you?”

The name was, like his face, vaguely familiar. But I couldn’t connect the two. I told O’Henry that.

“Would it help if I told you he worked at Hauser’s?”

I leaned forward, elbows on knees, and stared at the floor. He worked at Hauser’s. I clicked off the departments. He wasn’t in security. He wasn’t a sales clerk, nor an administrative employee. Suddenly it clicked. I looked up at O’Henry and Elaine. “Shipping. He worked in shipping.”

“Bingo,” said O’Henry. Then he shook his head. “Seems like working at that place could be worse for your health than smoking.”

I recalled seeing him around the store, but he was someone I had never had any personal contact with. Until tonight that is.

“Tell me, McCauley,” O’Henry continued. “Did you leave anything out of your little story?”

“Like what?” I said sharply, wanting him to come out with it.

He cleared his throat and consulted his notebook again before saying, “Like the fact that before you left, you sliced him from ear to ear?”