The Hearse You Came in On (18 page)

I had gone out to the pier in the hopes of sorting through the tangle of all the dead people who seemed to be piling up around Kate Zabriskie. The fictions chronicled in the newspaper clippings had actually revealed an awful lot, even as they obscured an awful lot. For one thing, Alan Stuart was a master manipulator, even by highly successful politician standards. The
puppeteering he had apparently performed around the death of Kate’s detective husband was no lightweight tug of the string. He did no less then reassign the responsibility for the death of Charley Russell from one person to another. I’m not privy to all that would be required to hush up the tragedy of one cop accidentally shooting another cop, but I have to imagine that Alan Stuart worked his strings pretty deftly and pretty damned swiftly to pull it off. Aside from the issue of the coroner’s report, which certainly would have distinguished the type of bullet that brought down Detective Russell, there was the business of the other cops on the scene. Surely they knew what went down. Their stories all had to be made to square with the brand-new truth. How had Alan Stuart managed to get all of these puppets so perfectly lined up?

A tugboat gave off three sharp blasts.

No. I was asking the wrong question. “How” is a matter of logistics. Gargantuan logistics in this case, but apparently doable. The newspaper fiction proved that much.

The real question was “Why?” Why would Alan Stuart clamber through these kinds of hoops? I made an invisible disk of the word “chivalry” and flung it out at the water. It sank immediately. No way. Kate Zabriskie was a beat cop. The commissioner of the city’s police force is not going to risk his entire career in order to buoy a beat cop, I don’t care how dishy her legs are.

That’s when I left the pier and got into my car and drove straight down to police headquarters.

Kate wasn’t in. But Detective John Kruk was. He
saw me standing at the front desk and he motioned for me to step into his office.

“Take a seat, Mr. Sewell.” I did. He got right to the point. “Mr. Sewell, would you mind telling me again where you were last Saturday night?”

“God, are we back to that?”

“You’re answering my question with a question. I don’t like that.”

“You don’t?” I couldn’t resist. The detective waited. His expression was telling me that he had all day to wait. I continued. “I just want to get this straight. I’m not considered a suspect in this murder, but you would like to hear my alibi anyway, is that it?”

“I would.”

“And if I don’t have one?”

“You’re asking questions again.”

I shook my fist melodramatically in the air. “Well I’m sorry, Detective. But I want some answers, damn it!”

Way back in the prehistoric past of the clan of Kruk, a tiny smile was perhaps once cracked. If so, the perpetrator was immediately bludgeoned to death and the errant gene forever snuffed out.

The detective leaned forward and laced his fingers together on top of his desk.

“I’m going to be straight with you, Mr. Sewell. The murder of a hothead tennis pro is not the sort of crime that keeps me awake at night. I didn’t know him, and from the sound of things, I wouldn’t have liked him. It’s a little like your job. You don’t have to care one way or the other about the people you’re putting into the ground, do you. You just do it. It’s what you’re trained to do, it’s what you’re paid to do.”

A fine little speech. But what the hell was he getting at?

“I’m sure you know, I’m not even working this case anymore,” Kruk continued. “It’s been handed to Detective Zabriskie.”

“She told me.”

Kruk unlaced his fingers and sat back in his chair. “I saw the two of you at the fund-raiser the other night. That’s not real professional of her, seeing you socially. Suspect or not. Not while this case is still open. Detective Zabriskie knows that.”

“Then shouldn’t you be having this little chat with Detective Zabriskie?”

“I should and I will. But she hasn’t reported in for work today. You wouldn’t by any chance have any idea why, would you?”

I pictured the pretty detective at home crying her eyes out into her pillow.
Pow.

“Nope.”

“Well, I happened to see you out there in the office wandering around looking kind of lost, so I thought I’d call you in for a little chat.”

“That was so kind of you,” I said, smiling broadly enough to show I didn’t mean it.

He spread his hands beatifically. “I’m a public servant, Mr. Sewell.”

“Look, Detective, am I at all out of line in asking you if my social life, or for that matter, Detective Zabriskie’s, is actually any of your business? I seem to be missing something here.”

“You’re not missing anything, Mr. Sewell. You’re right. It’s not technically any of my business. It’s not my case and I’m not Detective Zabriskie’s baby-sitter.”

“Nor mine.”

“Or yours. That’s right. Why don’t you just put it down as my good deed for the day, okay?” He paused. No public servant crap this time. Kruk drilled me with his small eyes. “Things are going to be getting a little messy around here, Mr. Sewell. I’m only trying to keep the bit players out of the picture. For their own sake as well as mine. Now why don’t you show me you know how to take a hint.”

I had a feeling that whatever “mess” he was referring to, he wasn’t going to share it with me. A hubbub sounded just then from the open area outside Kruk’s office. Kruk was looking past me to see what it was.

“Can I go now?” I asked.

He waved his hand in the air. “Go.”

I got out of the chair and stepped to the door. The hubbub was coming from across the main room. It looked to me like some sort of reunion. A stocky guy in civilian clothes was surrounded by cops, who were slapping his back and punching his arm and all that other sort of camaraderie pummeling that goes on. The guy didn’t look exactly comfortable with it all either. He had a hard smile tacked on his face. He was a beefy man. Square head. Small black eyes. Black hair in tight curls, receding to the top of his broad forehead. He looked like Tony Bennett, but Tony Bennett on mean pills.

It sounded like the cops were chanting “You! You! You!” But then I realized that they were chanting the guy’s name: “Lou! Lou! Lou!”

Kruk stepped up next to me and watched the little scene with fairly undisguised distaste.

“Who’s Mr. Popular?” I asked.

“Lou Bowman,” Kruk said, almost as if to himself. “What the hell do you know. Lottery goddamn Lou.”

“Lottery Lou? That wouldn’t by any chance be someone who hands out winning tickets, would it?” The way everyone was kissing up to the guy it certainly seemed like that was the case.

Kruk grunted. “Fat chance. Bowman used to work here. He was a detective. He played the lottery every week. Never missed a week.”

“So what happened? Did he hit the jackpot?”

Kruk crossed his arms on his chest, one hand sliding up to cup his chin. His eyes narrowed as he watched the activity across the room.

“Better. Go figure this. He never hits. Not even a four match. Then one day, a wealthy aunt dies. Leaves Lou the whole damn farm. Suddenly a cop’s salary is chump change.”

“He quit?”

Kruk was tugging on a nonexistent goatee. “Didn’t even give us time to kiss his lucky ass good-bye. Moved up to Maine.”

“What’s in Maine?” I asked.

Kruk let out a soft snort. “It’s not here.” He turned and went back into his office. Apparently Kruk wasn’t the backslapping type. I looked back over at the scene. Lottery Lou didn’t look like the type either. He looked like a bulldog that was being forced to stand there and be fussed over by a group of poodle lovers.

As I turned to leave I caught sight of someone else who was also observing the little reunion. He was
standing half hidden in the far doorway to my left, practically in the stairwell. He was unnoticed at first by the backslapping men across the room. I’m positive. Had they seen him, they would have reacted. Even at this distance, the cold anger in the man’s eyes was palpable. It was Police Commissioner Stuart. As I watched, though, I became aware that one of the men—Lou Bowman himself—had picked up on his former boss’s presence across the room. I saw the stocky ex-cop toss a very unloving glance of his own over toward the doorway. When I looked back, Stuart was gone. I caught just a glimpse of the shadow of his broad shoulders disappearing down the stairs.

Before I left the station I wrote a short note to Kate on the back of a Wanted poster that I found floating near the top of a trash can. I guess they got the guy. Or stopped caring. I folded up the note and begged an envelope off the front desk cop and wrote on it: “Kate Zabriskie/Personal.”

“Can you see that Detective Zabriskie gets this?” I asked the desk cop.

He looked at the envelope. “It’s personal?”

“So it says.”

“I’ll see that she gets it.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Too late for that.”

I left. I guess the note wasn’t really all that personal. It read: “Call me. H.”

There was a note on my windshield when I got to my car. Gosh, everyone was passing notes today. Mine was from the City of Baltimore. They didn’t like where
I had chosen to park my car. For eighty-five dollars, though, they’d be happy to forget all about it.

I got into my car and tried to peel out. Chevy Nothings don’t peel out. I ran two red lights and took a left turn from the right lane. Might as well get my money’s worth.

G
il Vance was insisting that I attend a rehearsal, so I did. My pith helmet and Teddy Roosevelt glasses were waiting for me, as was a wooden lectern that the prop mistress had dug up. Our gold-plated number at the funeral home had been deemed too ornate. Betty the prop mistress also handed me a large felt caterpillar.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“That’s your mustache.”

“I’m supposed to
wear
this?”

“Here’s your spirit gum,” Betty said, ignoring my objections. Prop mistresses have to do this. Three-quarters of their time is spent ignoring rude objections from thespian snobs.

“I can’t wear this. I’ll look ridiculous,” I sputtered. Betty gave me her “get real” look. I was already holding a pith helmet and a pair of Teddy Roosevelt eyeglasses. Heaven forbid I suddenly look ridiculous adding one more prop to the mix. I held the thing to my lip. It smelled like dust and it itched like crazy.

“Looks great,” Betty said, not even bothering to sound like she meant it. She moved off to disappoint someone else. I pinched a little spirit gum onto the
scratchy felt thing and attached it to the crotch of a plaster knock-off of the Venus de Milo that was on a nearby shelf. It looked better on her, I’m sure.

Gil had gotten a message from Chinese Sue that Julia wouldn’t be making the rehearsal, so there went my playmate for the evening. Gil said that he would read Julia’s lines. We were slotted to go over the soda fountain scene tonight. Michael Goldfarb and Gil Vance were going to sit at the sawhorse soda counter and make gaga eyes at each other while sipping from a large glass of fake malted milk. Libby Maslin had volunteered to stand in for the part of Emily, but Gil had nixed the idea. “You’re the boy’s mother. We can’t go mixing him up that way.” Oh, I see … not
that
way.

As the rehearsal got under way, Betty the prop mistress resurfaced. She was holding what looked like a licorice black shoelace in her hand. It was another mustache, a black waxed number. Snidely Whiplash. I liked it.

Gil wasn’t so sure. “It makes you look like a villain.”

“Gil, I think the folksy nice-guy Stage Manager thing has been done to death. There’s a darkness to this play. Can’t we think something along the lines of … say,
Cabaret?
‘Good evening madams and monsieurs.
Willkommen
to our town. Vatch your steps, pleeze.’ ”

Gil was fiddling absently with his malted-milk straw. He squinted into the footlights, attempting to conjure up the vision.

“
Willkommen
,” he said, tentatively first, and then a second time with zest.
“Willkommen!
I’m seeing it. Yes! We can try that out.” Then he frowned. “But what about the pith helmet? Are you still an anthropologist?”

God help me, I wasn’t about to lose my lectern.

“Absolutely. This is just a facet of the Stage Manager. The guy needs a facet, let’s face it.”

“So we keep the pith helmet and the wire-rimmed glasses and we add the diabolical mustache. Is that it?”

“You’ve got a hell of a show here, Gil,” I said, donning the helmet and giving it a jaunty tap on the top.

Gil turned to Michael. “What do you think, Michael?”

I thought the young man’s answer displayed an impressive sense of timing.

“Well… you know … I was going to talk to you about my yarmulke.”

Gil blinked. “What about it?”

“I want to wear it during the show.”

Gil was no dummy. He couldn’t very well give me the wax mustache and not let Michael Goldfarb have his yarmulke. “Of course. Of course you can wear it.” Libby Maslin had just stepped onto the stage. She planted her feet firmly and addressed Gil with uncommon passion.

“If he wears one, I wear one.”

“But… but, Libby, you’re not even Jewish,” Gil said weakly.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s my son. How would it look?”

How it would look is ridiculous. Women don’t even wear yarmulkes. Even I knew that. So did Michael Goldfarb, but he was keeping his mouth shut. Gil looked as if he was about to get sick. He shaded his eyes and called out into the dark, “Betty! Please locate two yarmulkes.”

“I have one,” Michael said dryly. “And I can get one for Miss Maslin.”

Libby Maslin looked as if she was about to take the boy into her spinster breast.

“Call me Libby.”

This damned rehearsal hadn’t even begun and the thing was slipping out of Gil’s trembling hands. I couldn’t wait to tell Julia. I wondered where she was.

The message on my phone machine said, “I’m here.” This was followed by a familiar set of sounds, voices, tinny music, some clicks and clacks, a familiar female laugh …