Gardened of the Damned

by Blake Banner

  She pulled out some photographs of the crime scene and spread them on the desk. They showed a small, seedy apartment with an unmade bed, a table with three chairs around it, and a small, open-plan kitchen. Near the table, Stephen Springfellow was sprawled over the fourth chair. His ankles were tied to the chair legs, and his hands were tied behind the backrest. His face was badly bruised and swollen, and the front of his shirt was drenched and clotted with blood that was beginning to dry. You could see the dark circle of the entry wound to the right—his left—of his sternum.

  I sat, pulled one of the pictures over to me, and started to examine it. Dehan was leafing through the file.

  “He had previous. He was a small-time crook. Burglary, petty theft, brawls, but nothing major. Spent a couple of years in San Francisco, came back east 2014.”

  “Maybe he was trying for the next level, wanted to play with the big boys.” I said it absently because something in the picture had caught my eye.

  Dehan grunted. “Maybe. He obviously got the wrong people pissed. One slug was recovered. It was a .38.”

  “What does it say about the blood on the floor?”

  She looked at the photograph and frowned. “Huh!” She read for a bit, then said, “Blood on the floor, about two feet in front of the victim, possibly consistent with a second victim, though no other victim was found at the apartment or in the vicinity. So they looked.”

  I stared at her. “Possibly consistent with another victim? That’s what it says?”

  “Yup.” She tossed the file across to me and started examining the photographs.

  I read again. “Nobody heard anything, except the neighbor who called it in. Saw some Sureños… then heard two shots close together…” I looked up at her. “Two shots.”

  She sat back. “Okay. So he decides he wants to move into the big leagues. He partners up with some tough guy, does a job that steps on the Sureños’ toes. They get pissed, pay him a visit, and ice him…”

  “Ice him? You been reading Mickey Spillane?”

  “Of course. Questions: Who is this tough guy? Why did they leave Stephen but take away the second victim? Where is the second victim now?”

  I leaned back. “Speculation: did the second victim come up with the information that they were trying to beat out of Stephen?”

  “So Stephen was no longer of any use. They iced him and took away victim two.”

  I nodded. “It’s possible.”

  I picked up the phone and dialed. It rang twice and a voice on the other end said, “Baxter, private investigator. How may I help you?”

  “Mr. Baxter, this is Detective Stone of the NYPD. You wanted to have sight of one of our files.”

  “Ah, Detective Stone, yes indeed. Good of you to call back. The Stephen Springfellow case.”

  “We would like to talk to you about that. Are you available this afternoon?”

  There was a smile in his voice. “I rather imagined you would, Detective. Yes, come right on over. Six-eighty Melrose Avenue, over the African hair-braiding salon.”

  “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  TWO

  Outside, a harsh glare was added to the relentless, humid heat. The streets were practically empty, and the plane trees across the road looked depressed. My Jag, a burgundy 1964 Mark II, was like an oven. The steering wheel was almost too hot to hold. I smiled—at least we had working air-conditioning.

  As we accelerated down the Bruckner Expressway, luxuriating in the cold air from the dash, I said, “The other question, Dehan, is what is the connection between Baxter’s client and the victim or victims?”

  “Yeah, I was making a mental list.” She held up her thumb. “Client is seeking revenge. Could be a husband, wife, son, daughter, sister, brother. So we should have a look at Stephen’s close relationships.”

  She held up her index finger. I glanced at it and was struck by the fact that it was long and slender, like a pianist’s finger. “Or it could be another kind of revenge…”

  “Professional, as of a gang, a mob… something of that sort.”

  “Yeah, or three—” She held up thumb, index, and middle finger. “—Baxter’s client is looking for whatever Stephen’s killers were looking for. Whether that is information or an actual, physical object, we don’t know. And of course, all of this applies to Stephen’s co-victim. It’s possible Baxter’s client has no interest whatsoever in Stephen.”

  “Mm-hm.” I nodded. “The fact that the second victim was removed from the apartment suggests that he, or she, was of interest to the killers. How do we feel about the Sureños?”

  She shrugged. “They were probably there, but then, they are everywhere. It’s a bit early to say.”

  I had pulled off onto East 163rd and was headed west toward Morrisiana.

  “He won’t want to tell us who his client is, and he doesn’t have to. But he’s ready to trade something, or he wouldn’t have invited us to go see him.”

  Ten minutes later, I pulled up across the road from the African hair stylist. The hot air as we climbed out of the Jag was like a furnace blast. We dodged through the traffic and buzzed at the door. The door opened and we stepped into the relative cool of the lobby. An old-fashioned elevator with concertina doors carried us to the fourth floor. Baxter’s was the second door down. It had a frosted glass pane with his name on it in gold letters, like in the movies. We knocked and went in. There was no gorgeous secretary, but I guess you can’t have everything.

  He stood as we came in and approached us smiling, with his hand stuck out.

  “Karl Baxter. Thanks so much for taking the trouble to come and see me.”

  We shook and showed him our badges. He glanced at them as he ushered us toward two chairs across from his desk. He was no Philip Marlow or Sam Spade, more the Continental Op. He was short, maybe five five, with balding, black hair and horn-rimmed glasses. He was perspiring, his belly was becoming a paunch, and he hadn’t shaved that morning. He was nervous, too; of a nervous disposition.

  We sat and declined coffee. There was a fan in the corner blowing warm air around the room and occasionally ruffling the papers on his desk. When he’d finally sat down, I smiled at him and asked, “Mr. Baxter, what is your interest in the Stephen Springfellow case?”

  He hesitated a moment, like he had several lies lined up and hadn’t decided which one to use yet. In the end, he plumbed for, “As a matter of fact, I am writing a book on cold cases.”

  Dehan raised an eyebrow. “You reckon you can get a whole paragraph out of that case?”

  His cheeks colored. “It has some interesting features.”

  “Like?”

  He smiled nervously. He was obviously wishing he’d gone with one of his other lies. I offered him a tolerant smile.

  “How about we start again, and this time you tell us the truth? I am not opposed in principle to letting you see the file, Mr. Baxter, but please, don’t insult our intelligence.” I shrugged. “And play ball with us; we’ll play back.”

  He looked embarrassed. “I apologize. My client insists on the utmost discretion…”

  “I understand. Can you tell us who your client is?”

  “Out of the question.”

  “What can you tell us?”

  He sighed deeply and made a big show of looking reluctant. “You may not be aware of this, Detectives, but besides Springfellow and his killer, or killers, there was somebody else in the apartment.”

  I looked skeptical and glanced at Dehan. She made a ‘yeah, right’ face. “What makes you say so?”

  “If you examine the photographs—refer to the ones that were published in the press—you’ll see there is a patch of blood that does not belong to Springfellow.”

  I shrugged. “So Springfellow cut one of his attackers before they subdued him and tied him to the chair.”

  He smiled and blinked a few times. “No, Detective, there was somebody else in the room.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I am not
at liberty to tell you that.”

  Dehan sighed loudly and looked as though she was about to stand and leave. “You’re blowing smoke, Baxter. We’ve gone to the trouble of coming here, and we are willing to cooperate with you. But you’ve got to do better than, ‘there was somebody else in the room.’ That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  I gave him a bland smile and said, “I might express myself differently, Baxter, but my sentiments are the same. You are wasting our time and your own.”

  I made to stand.

  “Wait.”

  I paused and looked at him.

  “I can tell you who was there.”

  I sat. “You mean you know who the killer was?”

  “No. I don’t. I mean I can tell you who else was there.”

  “The other victim?”

  “The other person who was present, besides Stephen Springfellow and his killers, was a woman. Her name was Tamara Gunthersen—Tammy. She disappeared and has never been seen or heard of again.”

  “And this is who your client is looking for?”

  “I am not at liberty to tell you that, Detective.” He shrugged and smiled. “But if you draw that conclusion, I can’t stop you. Now… do I get to look at the file?”

  I’d brought it with me, and it was sitting on my lap. I dropped it on the desk in front of him. “I made a copy for you. There isn’t a lot in it. You understand that any information you uncover that is, or could be, relevant to a criminal investigation, you are obliged to share with us.”

  “I am aware of that, Detective.”

  Dehan said, “In that case, Baxter, can you tell us what Tammy was doing at Stephen’s house, and what interest his killers could have had in her? Why would they remove her body, or indeed kill her, in the first place?”

  He spread his hands. “I don’t know. That is what I have been hired to find out. That really is all I know.” He gestured with both hands at the file. “Why else would I be asking you for this file?”

  I nodded. He had a point. “What else can you tell me about Tamara Gunthersen? You must know something about her.”

  “I can tell you she was born in San Francisco on January 5, 1993. And that really is all I can tell you for now. You have my word that as soon as I unearth any more information, you will be the first—” He gave an ingratiating smile. “—perhaps the second, to know.”

  “We appreciate it, Baxter.”

  Back down in the searing glare of the afternoon sun, I climbed in behind the wheel, and Dehan put the air-con on. I fired up the engine, and we started back toward the 43rd.

  “I don’t know about you, Dehan, but I am having trouble visualizing this whole situation.”

  She nodded. “Yup, me too.”

  “Talk me through it.”

  “Okay, here is Steve the yegg…”

  “Yegg?” I laughed. “You have been reading Mickey Spillane.”

  “I love Mickey Spillane. So here is Steve, a small-time yegg. He’s in his apartment. Maybe Tammy is there with him, over from Frisco for some reason.” I smiled at her, but she ignored me. “There is a hammering at the door, and one of them opens it. Maybe Tammy. And the boys come in. Let’s say for now it’s the Sureños. Maybe he burgled some place for them, or he stole something that belongs to them. Whatever the case, they either want it or they want to know where it is. Okay so far?”

  “Keep shingin’, shweetheart, you’re doing fine.”

  “So they slap him around a bit. They tie him to the chair, and they lay into him. What’s she doing meantime? She’s crying, ‘don’t hurt him, don’t kill him,’ yadda yadda. Then what? She’s getting on the Sureños’ nerves and they shoot her? They threaten him, if he doesn’t talk they shoot her? Maybe she tried to protect him. Point is, for some reason they shoot her…” She sighed and shook her head. “But it doesn’t make any sense. The report says the two shots were close together. So, what, they shot her and then shot him? Why, if they were after information that one of them had? Why kill both? Maybe they got the information and decided to kill them both, but then why take her away with them and leave him?” She stared at me through her aviators. “Shooting her doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s the bit I’m having trouble visualizing.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “We need more background. We need to carry out research.”

  “What kind of research?”

  I looked out at the oppressive, sweltering city outside. I turned to her and grinned. “You know? San Francisco rarely rises above sixty-eight Fahrenheit, even at the height of summer.”

  THREE

  Back at the station, the air-con still wasn’t fixed. Dehan grabbed a bottle of cold water from the dispenser and set herself to doing a background check on Tamara Gunthersen. I went to have a chat with the captain.

  He scowled out of the open window from his desk, and the ventilator moved his hair on its steady sweep across the room. He had his jacket slung on the back of his chair, and I could see the damp patches on his shirt under his arms.

  “San Francisco, huh? How long for?”

  “I wouldn’t think more than a day or two at most.”

  He turned a smile on me that was less a smile than a malevolent leer. “This wouldn’t be just an excuse, would it, John? I wouldn’t mind a couple of days in the Bay myself—get away from this infernal heat!”

  “No, sir, but I do think it is important to get the background on Tamara Gunthersen. At the moment, the whole case seems to revolve around her. It seems Baxter’s client is trying to find out what happened to her. Her past may hold the key to what she was doing here, and why they were both killed.”

  “Hmm… well, if you think it’s essential. But just a couple of days, John, and try to keep your expenses down, will you?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  I skipped down the stairs feeling somewhat buoyed and found Dehan at her desk, on the phone. She hung up as I sat down.

  “Tamara Gunthersen has no police record. Information available on her—” She tapped at her computer and brought up the research she’d done while I was talking to the captain. “She was a homeowner; property is a house on Brooks Street, San Mateo. There is no foreclosure notice on it, so I’m guessing the mortgage was all paid up. She had a credit card, and she is listed as having defaulted on payments for the last two years. She has a bank account with First Republic that is in credit. That’s what I have been able to find out so far.”

  “Good work.”

  “I also called the lab and asked them if they had taken samples of the blood on the floor. He wasn’t sure, so I asked him to find out. I also asked him, if they had, to please analyze it and compare it with Stephen’s. And if it wasn’t his, to run it through the system.”

  “Great. Good work.” I gazed out the window. The long dusk was settling outside, preparatory to a muggy, sultry evening. “We’ll need to look inside her house. I’ll get the captain to clear it with the San Mateo PD.” I turned to face her. “Book us on the first flight out of here, Dehan. Then let’s go pack.”

  We touched down at San Francisco International Airport at eleven a.m. the following morning. The sun was bright, but the temperature was an agreeable sixty-eight degrees. I had rented a Mustang V8 convertible, because I like to have a good car, and we turned left out of the airport along the Bayshore Freeway, with the wind in our hair, and headed for San Mateo.

  Dehan had booked us a couple of rooms at the Hillsdale Inn, which was about a mile and a half from Brooks Street, where Tamara had her house. The hotel was remarkable for being completely unremarkable, and also for having a parking lot the size of an international airport. We checked into our rooms, which were functional, and Dehan called Hank, our liaison officer at the San Mateo Police Department, which was two hundred yards away, across East Hillsdale Boulevard.

  We met him in the lobby fifteen minutes later. He was big and friendly and looked as though he’d put on his even bigger brother’s clothes by mistake that m
orning. He walked toward us with big strides and shook hands with us like he was really genuinely pleased to meet us. He shoveled his floppy blond hair out of his face and pulled an envelope from a small folder he was carrying.

  “I talked to the judge yesterday evening, Dehan, and explained the situation—you were coming from New York, grounds for suspecting homicide, blah blah—and got you a search warrant for the premises. Do you need me to come along?” I drew breath to answer, but he didn’t let me. “Strictly, I should, but I am happy to let you go on your own if that works for you. Obviously, if you need to damage the property in any way, dig, knock down walls, blah blah, you should call me. Or if you find anything of importance like a meth lab or a body. But if you are just going to look around…” He made a face and spread his hands—hands I figured were pretty full and could do without babysitting visitors from the Big Apple.

  “We’re fine. We’ll call you if anything major shows up.”

  He handed me a card. “I’ve arranged for a locksmith to meet you there in…” He glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes. You’ll report back to me when you’re done?”

  We told him we would and made our way to the car as he strode back to his, shoveling his hair out of his face once more.

  It was a short drive down East Hillside Boulevard and left onto South Norfolk. Brooks Street was in a quiet, residential area that couldn’t have been further from the Bronx. She had a cute, two-story house beyond what had probably been a nice front garden two years ago, with a crazy paved path winding through flower beds to a friendly red door by a big bow window. Today it was overgrown and running to seed.

  The locksmith was there, waiting in his van. He unlocked the door for us, made us sign a piece of paper, and went on his way. We stepped inside.