Nightlines (12 page)

“Then apply them!” Nudger snapped.

Springer stared at him with a contempt usually reserved for murderers set free on technicalities. “Unfortunately, I can’t. Mrs. Boyington doesn’t want to bring charges against you. She’s too much of a lady. She only wants us to talk to you, so you’ll leave her alone and she can have some peace of mind. You’re here, being talked to. Leave this case alone. Leave her alone. If you bother Mrs. Boyington again, your investigator’s license will be up for review, and before you can say ‘Sam Spade,’ you’ll be toting a lunch bucket back and forth to work. If you can find work.”

“Nice of you to listen to my side,” Nudger said.

“You don’t have a side, Nudger. You’re just a guy in the way. Private investigators stir up the muck, is all. They create obstacles. Not that it isn’t personal too, Nudger. I don’t like you. You’re a smart-ass. You’ve got smart ways and a smart mouth.”

“You forgot smart dresser.”

“No, I didn’t. That jacket you’re wearing’s got so much synthetic fiber in it, the sun might melt it.”

“How do you afford such high wool content on a lieutenant’s salary, Springer?”

Springer’s face revealed nothing, but his lean dark fingers flexed around a wood pencil he probably didn’t even know he was holding, threatening to snap it. “I can possibly talk Mrs. Boyington into pressing charges,” he said. “She’s a woman who obviously has a deep respect for the law. She might go for the ‘your responsibility as a citizen’ approach.” His strained voice hissed like the sibilant opening note of a teakettle. He was coming to a boil.

“You could talk her into nothing,” Nudger told him, turning up the burner. “She only feeds when she’s hungry.”

Springer’s eyes were like black laser beams. Nudger was winning this joust. “Get out, Nudger! You and your class of cop oughta live under rocks!”

“Class isn’t sewn into your designer suits, Springer. I’m surprised someone wearing white gloves would even talk to you.”

Nudger knew an exit line when he’d uttered one. So much in life was timing. He neatly about-faced and made for the door, paying no attention to the wooden pencil that bounced off the wall in front of him. Mazzoli, who had been listening to the confrontation, turned away from Springer and winked at Nudger without moving any other part of his face.

Nudger’s stomach felt as if it were rolling in on itself, again and again, winching his body taut. He breathed deeply as he walked to his car, trying to exhale the tension he’d built up. He hated to get angry. And he knew that Agnes Boyington and not Springer was his real problem and the deep source of his rage. He would talk to Hammersmith about Springer, who was in Vice and had no business interfering with a homicide case.

By the time he drove from the parking lot, Nudger was calmer, but his metabolism still hadn’t returned to normal. He went to Swensen’s at Laclede’s Landing and treated himself to a thick vanilla malted milk, sitting in a booth where he could see out the window and watch the tourists wandering about, the ritual of teenagers cruising in their highly glossed cars, the pretty girls gingerly probing and picking their way across the rough cobblestone street in their slender high heels. It was relaxing to watch the rest of humanity through a sheet of glass, separated from it, ignoring the sounds of the ice cream parlor and its other customers. It lent a sense of perspective.

Nudger sat sipping the criminally rich malted milk for almost an hour before paying and walking back to his car. The clawed creature in his stomach had retreated to wait for another day.

He’d finally cooled down, and so had the evening. The breeze swirling in through the car’s open windows soothed him as he drove. He’d managed to put his conversation with Leo Springer in a time vault in his mind. He wouldn’t think about it again until tomorrow morning.

As he was driving west on Walnut he heard a loud roar. He was near Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals must be playing a home ball game. And playing it right, judging by crowd reaction. Nudger wondered if someone had hit a home run. He wished he could hit some kind of home run in this life, just once. He’d even settle for a long triple.

Not until he was home in bed, about to drift into one of his frequent dreams of the sea, did he realize the roar of the stadium crowd had a surflike roll and rush to it that he’d heard recently somewhere else.

He was sure it was the mysterious sound in Claudia’s phone.

XI
V

udger hadn’t slept well. He’d awakened twice during the night from dreams of walking on an empty beach, leaving a line of footprints just beyond the reach of crashing, hungry waves that were angrily devour
ing the wide slope of sand. There was no one in sight, not for miles up and down the coastline. A half-moon was so bright that it etched his black shadow in front of him, almost as if it were day rather than night. He was alone, never more alone, and gusting in from an indiscernible horizon were roiling dark clouds, dropping lower and lower, threatening to engulf and smother him when they reached the shore.

He tried not to think about last night’s dreams as he sat eating an omelet and dry toast, grateful for the morning light cascading through the kitchen window, even though its glare worsened his dull headache. He seemed to be haunted by the same sorts of dreams, if not the same dreams. He was either by the sea, which might be in any of its varying moods, or he dreamed of falling from great heights. Sometimes the sea dreams were pleasant and reas
suring. The dreams of falling always left him sweating and scared.

While he ate, he listened to an old Billie Holiday record from what was left of his jazz collection after last year’s poverty-induced sale. That made him feel better. If he was down, Billie was lower; but something in her dulcet voice affirmed that it was possible to get up.

He left his dirty dishes in the sink, telling himself he’d wash them that evening. Sure. After switching off the stereo and replacing the record in its jacket, he draped his sport coat over his arm and left the apartment.

As he got out of his car and crossed the street to his office he was almost struck by a van with a thousand win
dows. Traffic was heavy on Manchester for this time of day. He reached the haven of the opposite sidewalk and squinted to see up the street. Cars were backed up beyond the traffic light, waiting to turn into the K-mart underground parking lot. There must have been coupons in the paper.

He trudged upstairs to his office, unlocked the door, and went inside. The place was hot, but he wasn’t planning on being there long. There was no point in switching on the air conditioner. Listening to the traffic sounds from beyond the dirt-spotted window, he sat down behind his desk and punched buttons on the answering machine.

“This is Eileen,” said the machine. “Just a reminder—” Nudger pressed Fast Forward.

“Jeanette here, Mr. Nudger. Only one appointment today. At noon by the Twin Oaks Mall fountain. His name’s Jock. He’ll be wearing dark slacks and a beige sport jacket, no tie. Personnel Pool sent me out on a temporary secretarial job today, so phone me late this evening and report.”
Click
.

“Jack Hammersmith, Nudge. Call me at the Third when you get a chance. Some of us are pitching in for a birthday gift for Leo Springer. . . .” Hammersmith’s cigar-distorted chortle came through before Nudger could punch the red Off button.

He’d heard enough for now. In a way it was nice to know that the temporary office help firm that sent Jeanette out on jobs had tucked her safely away where she couldn’t bother him for a while.

Nudger stood up and walked over to where a
Globe-Democrat
lay folded on the cold radiator. When he examined the paper he was surprised to find that it was four days old and wouldn’t tell him what he needed to know. Dropping the paper into the wastebasket, he sat down again at the desk and dialed Hammersmith’s number at the Third District. Hammersmith knew about Agnes Boyington and should have no trouble getting Springer to back off.

“I’m busy, Nudge,” Hammersmith said into the phone. “Not much time for you. Ever seen a man actually foam at the mouth?”

“Only in bad movies. I think they do it with some kind of chemical.”

“Springer did it with only the forces of nature. He told me about his conversation with you. I set him straight. At least as straight as possible. He’ll leave you alone, but not for long. I would describe him as incensed.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Practically nothing. He doesn’t deserve to know anything at all.” Hammersmith was definitely annoyed. “There’s plenty to do in Vice. The bastard had no business meddling in Homicide. Unless of course he wants to become a victim.”

“I talked to Agnes Boyington at her house last night,” Nudger said. “She as much as told me she hired Hugo Rumbo to help persuade me to accept her offer of a payoff to bow out of the case without telling her daughter. I think she was expecting me. Rumbo was there in the background, to protect her and intimidate me.”

“I suppose when Hugo told her about yesterday’s fun in the Third District parking lot, she decided her best defense would be immediate offense. Gutsy lady.”

“She wears white gloves, even in this weather.”

“Springer told me. He was genuinely impressed. I know a massage parlor where all the girls wear white gloves.”

“Do you have anything yet that might tie in the Valpone murder with Jenine Boyington?”

“I was wondering when you’d ask,” Hammersmith said. “The search of the Valpone apartment didn’t turn up a six-six-six phone number, or anything else that proved useful. The autopsy report lists death by asphyxiation, from when her throat was slashed, but she was tortured before that. As badly as she was mutilated, she would have survived her injuries for at least an hour, though she wouldn’t have been able to climb out of the bathtub. Maybe she tried; maybe that’s why she had a leg draped over the side of the tub. Also, the lab report says there was no semen in her vagina, throat, or rectal tract, and no evidence of violent entry. So she wasn’t raped or sodomized. But, like Jenine Boyington’s murder, this is the worst kind of sex killing.”

Nudger knew what Hammersmith meant. This sort of murder was the giant, grisly step beyond rape. And it was a step that seldom allowed any backtracking. It was a step that led on, to more violent death. “But there’s no strong link between the two crimes,” Nudger said, disappointed.

“Nothing to rule it in, nothing to rule it out. But there is one other thing, Nudge. Turns out that Grace Valpone was

engaged to be married. The date was set for next month.”

“Have you questioned the intended?”

“Sure. Name’s Vincent Javers. President of his own small company out in Westport. Guess what? He was in Hawaii at the time of the murder, at a tire wholesalers’ convention.”

“Hawaii, huh. Wally Everest was in Cincinnati when Jenine Boyington was killed. They’re getting farther away.”

“The Valpone murder has a lot of the earmarks of the Boyington job, Nudge, but there are things about it that bother me. It doesn’t quite fit.”

“Doesn’t fit why?”

“Tell me, how likely is it that a woman engaged to be married would be setting up blind dates with who-knowswhat over the nightlines a month before her wedding?”

“Not as likely as death or taxes,” Nudger admitted.

“Maybe it was only a coincidence that Jenine Boyington talked on the nightlines and also got herself murdered. She and Grace Valpone could have been killed by the same perp, but the nightlines might have had nothing to do with it.”

“Which would leave me way out at sea in my investigation,” Nudger said.

“It’s a good thing you swim well. And it looks as if you’d better start stroking.” The tone of Hammersmith’s voice suddenly changed. “Duty calling, Nudge. It sounds remarkably like the Chief of Police.”

Nudger thanked Hammersmith and hung up.

He listened to the rest of his calls on the answering machine, hoping to hear Claudia’s voice. But she hadn’t phoned him. He got up from the desk and adjusted the Venetian blinds to a sharp downward angle to block the warming morning sunlight. His headache was gone. His stomach murmured something about being hungry. The omelet and dry toast hadn’t been enough to eat. Nudger figured he’d been burning up a lot of calories lately just by worrying.

He closed the office, then went downstairs for a doughnut and a bracing cup of vile black coffee at Danny’s.

Danny was alone except for an old woman hunched over a cup of coffee at the far end of the counter. She wore a faded dress with crescent stains of perspiration beneath the arms, and she was talking softly and earnestly to herself.

Nudger felt a current of pity for her as he sat as far away from her as possible, so as not to eavesdrop, and asked Danny for a small coffee and a Dunker Delite. Danny smiled and nervously wiped his hands on his gray towel as he headed for the coffee urn. He was glad not to be alone with the woman, who seemed harmless enough and more interested in staring at her coffee than in drinking it. Maybe it was the coffee that had caused her condition.