by B A Black
“Hey,” Sal says, as he parks the car. “Where’s the boat?”
Houston looks where Sal is indicating and sees that the hulking, white shape of the Norma Gaye is not at the end of her pier—though now the ice is starting to reach out from the shores almost far enough to threaten the end of the dock where she would be, overcoming the reserves of warmth from the depths of the lake.
“You think he took it and ran?” Houston asks.
“Ran where? It’s a lake—a half frozen one by now.”
“He could go to Canada, or over the state line into Michigan.”
“You think he did it?”
“I think he knows who did,” Houston says. “I think he knows why.”
Sal squares himself up, almost unrecognizable with so much of his face covered, but there’s no mistaking the set of his shoulders or the determination of his posture. “So let’s go knock.”
Houston ascends the stairs with more caution this time. The whole place has cleared out of party-goers, he thinks—at least their cars are gone. The screen door is closed, but the wooden door behind it is not. There is a thin accumulation of blown in snow that isn’t melting on the floor. It must be cold inside.
“Mr. Phillips?” Houston calls through the screen. He knocks, too, rattling the wooden frame in the door jam.
There’s no answer. Houston thinks again of the missing boat and wonders if they’re wasting their time.
“You think Eddie might have split right after we spoke?” he asks Sal.
“If he’s the killer, that’d be a good time to run, after throwing us off the trail.”
“Just, I’m surprised no one’s still here sleeping off a hangover. It’s only Sunday, and I doubt these fellas are the church-going sort.”
“Knock again,” Sal suggests. “The door’s open, and if he’s not in we can have a look around.”
Houston rattles the screen again, calling, “Mr. Phillips, it’s Detective Mars. Are you in need of assistance?”
A loud bang echoes out to them from somewhere deeper in the house. Sal launches off the porch and into the side yard before Houston recognizes that it’s not a gunshot but a door slamming. He pulls the screen open and charges inside, looking for the back door.
As he passes the sitting room, something pulls his attention around sharply, like the ring on a bull’s nose. Houston slides to a stop, trusting Sal to catch whoever ran out the back door.
From here, Houston can see the back of Edward Phillips’ head in the chair he occupied on Friday, with arms sprawled decadently to either side, and the trailing ends of his satin robe—jeez, did we interrupt him going at it?
“Mr. Phillips?” Houston says, to give him time to cover himself, giving any unseen company a chance to reach composure. The figure in the chair doesn’t move. Houston’s heart sinks. He steps into the room and a meaty-copper smell hits him—the back of the butcher’s on a cool day. The area rug is darkly wet.
Houston doesn’t call out a second time.
He steps carefully around the chair, hands in his pockets to keep his coat from touching the floor. He finds the master of the house laid out and arrayed in a lewd splay, robe laid open around him like the wings of a butterfly pinned to a board. Beneath the robe he is dressed only in a woman’s bra and underwear, the black lace kind that became popular a few years ago.
A gaping wound in the throat reveals a certain violence in his death, the blood dried down his chest a certain hatred. Beneath the lace underwear, a violent mutilation has occurred. Houston’s mind is a buzzing, white place awash with the instinct to run, to get out of the house and never come back.
When he turns toward the door again, the full and horrific scale of the crime becomes evident. HOMOSEXUAL is written in carnelian pink on the wall in a heavy hand and massive letters, over the frame of the door and over Edward Phillips’ sagging body as if to warn any angels away from taking him.
◆◆◆
When Sal makes it back with his struggling captive, Houston finds himself sitting in the hall with no clear memory of getting there. The floor is steady and reassuring and the corner at his back lends him a sense of safety.
“I didn’t do it,” a man is yelling, voice high and tight with panic. “You have to let me go, I didn’t do it!”
Sal marches him in anyway, looking toussled from the chase. He’s lost his scarf somewhere. “Jeez, Mars, did you only get this far and give up?”
“Don’t go into there,” Houston warns, when Sal starts to head for the sitting room. “Take him into the kitchen.”
Something in Houston’s tone causes Sal to pause.
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you in the kitchen,” Houston promises. “We should all be sitting down.”
Sal pushes his struggling captive to the end of the hall and into the kitchen. Houston gathers himself with a few deep breaths, then gets his feet under himself.
He knows what’s waiting in the other room this time. He passes with his eyes forward.
In the kitchen, Sal’s captive is slumped in a chair at the small round table, hunched in on himself and miserable. He’s a kid, 18 or 19 perhaps, with curly, unkempt hair and the early and fuzzy stages of a moustache on his upper lip. There’s no sign of blood on him.
His clothes—now somewhat worse for what Houston assumes was the scuffle outside—are nice. He has a highbrow, highly born look to him, though the anger and fear turn these features almost rabbitish.
“What are you doing here, kid?” Houston asks, keeping his tone firm.
“Tell your goon I didn’t do it, and I didn’t see anything.”
“My goon?” Houston asks, trading looks with Sal.
“Guido, over there,” the kid says, jerking his chin at Sal. “That’s what you are, aren’t you? Mafia guys coming to make sure the job is done?”
Sal gives him a bland expression of displeasure. “You accuse all Italians of being in the mob?”
“Only the ones that tackle me,” the kid says, giving Sal a poisonous look.
“Well, kid, you ain’t got a career in football ahead of you,” Sal says, rolling his eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Houston asks again, drawing the kid’s frightened gaze away from his partner.
“I didn’t do it.”
“What are you, a broken record?” Sal says, leaning in to loom over the kid in a threat that Houston knows is a bluff. “That’s not the question my partner asked you.”
The kid squirms in his chair and gives Houston a reluctant, squeamish look. He wonders how many blue-blood fathers would be ashamed of what their sons get up to on weekends.
“Kid, we’re not trying to pin this on you,” Houston assures him. “But being uncooperative doesn’t do much to reassure us that you have a reason to be here. Were you robbing the place?”
“No!” the kid protests. “God, no. I didn’t do anything wrong. Well…”
He doesn’t finish right away, looking down at his hands gripped on the side of the wooden chair.
“I came for the party,” the kid admits. “Last night. I heard, you know, they’re wild. That nobody up here cares what you do, they all just turn a blind eye.”
“Alright,” Houston says, thinking what an alluring lie that must have been. “But it looks like all the other party-goers are long gone.”
“Yeah, my jerk friends ditched me,” he says with a betrayed pout. “I had a lot to drink and I somehow wound up in the attic. I was covered in dust and old furniture pads and sore as hell when I woke up. I don’t think anyone knew I was still here.”
Now the story’s flowing, Houston doesn’t interrupt. Hoping the kid had seen something.
“I got up and I thought the house was empty,” the kid says, looking at Houston like he’s desperate for him to believe it.
“Sure,” Houston says. “Everything was quiet, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What time was that?”
“I think about a half hour ago. A litt
le after one.”
“What’ve you been doing since then?” Sal asks.”It was probably two when we got here.”
“Well,” the kid says, “I was sick. I threw up some, drank some water at the tap in the bathroom. I swear I didn’t know what was in that room, fellas. I was just making up my mind to take a blanket and try for the store when someone knocked on the door. I came down the hall to see if my friends had come back to get me and that’s when—”
“Back up,” Houston says. “When did you come down the hall?”
“When you guys knocked, I guess. Around two like you said. I hoped it was my ride. I didn't want to walk all the way to the store and then have to wait there in the cold.”
“Alright,” Houston says. “You came up the hall...”
“I thought I saw Mr. Phillips in his chair, you know—he always sits in that chair. All weekend, almost. So I was going to tell him to answer the door and apologize for staying so long but...” The kid breaks off, shifting on the hard kitchen chair, eyes dropping to the floor.
“Was he dead already?” Houston asks.
“You musta been in there right after me,” the kid says. “He looked dead.”
Houston nods.
“Can I go, please?”
“What's the hurry?” Sal asks.
“Fellas, when you came in I thought for sure I was going to take the frame,” the kid says. “Now who knows when the police will be here? Who knows how they'll see it? Maybe they just send us all up and figure they've done a good job of it.”
It's not as unlikely a situation as it sounds, Houston knows.
“Just a couple more questions,” Houston says. “You're sure you didn't see or hear anything this morning?”
“I wasn't awake this morning. Then, I saw what you saw. I think that's enough.”
“Alright,” Houston says. “What about last night? Anything unusual at the party?”
The kid seems to think about it, putting a real effort into it as if he senses that this pair won't let him go if he blows them off. At last, he admits, “Fellas, I honestly don't remember a lot about last night, I was pretty scuppered.”
“Doesn't anything stand out in your mind?” Sal asks.
He thinks again. “Yeah, I suppose so. As we pulled up, a couple of big, older guys were arguing with Eddie. They got in their car and drove it down to the dock to look at the boat, I guess. I don't think Eddie was gonna let them in? I don't think they were “the sort”, you know? Company men?”
“Did you see them again after that?” Sal asks.
“No,” the kid says, “but Eddie had a real sour look on his face for most of the night after that.”
“What kind of car did they drive?” Houston asks.
“The black kind,” the kid says. “I don't know cars too well.”
“Gee, a red-blooded kid like you?” Sal asks.
The kid shakes his head. “My dad's big into race horses. He doesn't like cars so much. It was a newer one.”
“Alright, kid,” Houston says. “I want to get out of here, too. Let's give you a ride back to town.”
“Nuh-uh, no way. If it's all the same to you, I'll go down to the grocery and call somebody. I know what it means to “take a ride” with somebody. They’ll never see me again.” The kid says, springing up out of his chair. Sal makes no move to restrain him, wisely avoiding sending the kid into a panic.
“You watch too many movies, kid,” Sal says.
“I'd like to believe you guys,” the kid says. “But you ain't even called the cops.”
“There's no phone in the house,” Houston says.
They let the kid go out the back door again, and Sal considers the disarray that the kitchen's in for a long moment. “What's it like in there?”
“Bad.”
“I suppose the kid is right,” Sal says. “We should get out of here before the cops come.”
“Yes,” Houston wants to be out of the house more than ever. “I'm gonna go have a look at the dock. If the guys the kid saw were who I think...”
“Alright, Mars. Mind the ice. You don't want to swim in that lake today.”
Sal goes to have a look at the scene in the study, where his more clinical view will serve them well. Houston lets himself out the back, down into the snow. The cold outside is bracing, reaching through the shock and down to Houston's rattled resolve, firming it. Edward Phillips was not the killer, though Houston believes he has something to do with Charlie’s death.
What’s the line that connects it all together? Is it the missing yacht? Houston's boots make a dull sound on the wood planking—the pier extends far out into the water, where the depth of the yacht would have been accommodated. The ice reaches three quarters of the way beneath it, causing a hollow echo from Houston's steps.
As he approaches the end of the pier, these sounds fade like the cessation of an expected heartbeat. It leaves Houston anxious, anticipating something but uncertain as to what.
What could come up from those dark depths?
At the end of the pier, there is only black, cold water. No white faces peer up, no more bodies are there waiting. How deep the water must be, Houston isn't sure. He can't see the bottom, but at the very end of the pier, there are strange shapes beneath the snow. Houston nudges out with his foot cautiously, metal rattles over wood, and a shape beneath the snow sharpens and clarifies into an object. A long hook on a pole—the kind they use to pull boats in to dock. Beside that is a frozen blanket, or perhaps a canvas sail. A big section of it.
On instinct, Houston picks up the long pole, and standing at the edge of the dock, uses it to reach down into the water. At first, he feels only the resistance of the water itself. He reaches down further, moving the end of the pole back and forth until he encounters something solid and ringing. He pulls up, carefully.
Houston cannot pull it all the way out of the water, not even with his full strength and both feet planted firmly, but he gets it close enough to the surface for a look at it.
He has hooked through part of a chain, attached to something heavy and immovable in the depths.
◆◆◆
It doesn't seem as cold in the car on the way back, though they aren't going as far. Sal takes them first to the grocery store, giving Houston a chance to relax again, for the tension of the discovery to go out of him. He has two calls to make.
He dials Mrs. Winsome first. With two bodies in less than four days on the case, she needs to know. She may be in danger herself. The line rings twice before a butler answers and Houston asks for the lady of the house.
“Mr. Mars,” she says, sounding genuinely concerned. “I hear my brothers-in-law had words with you after I left. I hope you're not hurt.”
“Nothing I can't handle, Mrs. Winsome.”
“Then, I hope they haven't changed your mind?”
“No ma'am, but I have some bad news I think you should know.”
She hesitates. Houston thinks she's probably had enough bad news for the day. He's begun to feel like a storm cloud—a bad omen.
“I'm afraid Edward Phillips is dead,” Houston says. “Looks like murder.”
“What? When?”
“Today sometime. I think it's part of the coverup.”
“I'm not surprised,” she says, sounding exhausted. “Do you think he was involved?”
“Looks that way,” Houston admits. “Mrs. Winsome, I think it'd be a good idea if my partner and I came up to your place to keep an eye out tonight. I don't think they'd go after you, but I'd be kicking myself if anything happened.”
“Alright, detective,” she says. “I'd like that, thank you.”
“Just be careful, Mrs. Winsome. I'll tell you more when I get there.”
The call terminates with all the finality of the reaper's scythe and Houston hesitates on the point of his next call. He looks around, hoping to see a line of waiting people impatient for the phone.
The store is empty except for Sal, leaning against the red Coke cooler and staring
off to the end of time as he waits for Houston and drinks a soda pop. The store clerk is mopping down the sales counter. Houston glances at his watch. Nearly 5pm on a Sunday. Closing time.
Houston calls the police precinct. When the operator picks up, he asks for Exeter. He's in luck—Ex is on the overnight shift and has just come in. His voice has a full-mouth quality when he answers the phone by stating his rank and his own name. Then, tellingly, Houston hears him muffle a yawn.
“Long night, Ex?” Houston asks.
“What the hell are you calling for, Mars? I hear you dodged questioning and went to the morgue. Your case is closed,” he says, agitated but level. “So I'd appreciate if you didn't call me. I got work to do.”
“I have work for you,” Houston says.
“Stuff it sideways, Mars.”
“I got another body,” Houston says to keep Exeter from hanging up the phone. “Mr. Winsome's close friend. He owns a boat. No chance this guy froze to death.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” Exeter demands, keeping his tone low, if tight. “I'm not your cleanup crew.”
“You're a cop aren't you? I'm reporting a dead body. Come down and investigate how it got that way.”
“Why me, Mars?”
“You'll see.”
“Baloney. You called my desk, special. Any detective in Homicide can go look at a murder. Why me?”
“Because I'm asking you to,” Houston says.
“It's not like that other case, is it?”
“I think it's the same case.”
“But is this a company man?” Exeter says, with a familiar inflection, a specific implication.
“Yes.”
“Then what are you asking me for, Mars?” Exeter hisses, keeping his tone low. “I don't want anywhere near that.”
“Because you can look at it with sympathetic eyes, Ex. I've seen one dead man written off today. I'd like to see some justice done for the second. Or do you only pretend you're out for that, too?”
“Are you gonna shut up about this? Or are you gonna hold it over my head every time you need a favor?”