Midnight Man

by Loren D. Estleman

  “You kill her?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I broke her neck, dumped the body into the trunk of my own car and called you up just to confess. That’s how I hang on to my license, by always confessing my murders right away, thus saving the taxpayers a lot of money. I’m a conscientious child-killer. The TV news people keep asking me to appear as their Good Guy of the Week, but I keep turning them down on account of I’m self-effacing. I’m a self-effacing, conscientious child-killer. So it’s more realistic to leave the corpses where they fall and let you guys waste time chalking and dusting and photographing and analyzing; so call me sentimental. I’m a sentimental, self-effacing—”

  “Enough already!” He wasn’t bored now. “You drunk or what?”

  “I’m loony, but not from drinking. It isn’t every day I find a stiff where my jack should be.”

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Sergeant?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it all right if I don’t go anywhere meanwhile?”

  “Ten minutes, wiseass.” The line went dead.

  Hanging up, I felt better A couple of one-liners off a good straight man and Wiseass Walker was good as new, or at least new-used, never mind how bloody his trail. I smiled and thanked the counterman again, paused to turn the brilliants on a young black woman who had entered the store in time to hear the last part of my telephone conversation, and went out. I glimpsed my reflection in the glass door on my way through and realized then why they had backed away when I looked at them. I was grinning like a Death’s-head.

  Ten minutes came and went with no sign of cops, time enough to determine that the door to the old gymnasium was unlocked and wander through, eyes skinned for the odd button or sign of a struggle. There were plenty of both, but in that rat’s-nest to find neither would have been suspect. Laura Gaye’s cell in the locker room was the only neat comer in the place. Someone had even bothered to fold away her clothes. In the light of that discovery a pale blossom opened briefly in the detecting part of my brain, then closed.

  I was still prodding at the petals as I scaled the ladder to the loft in the main room, holding my side and pausing after every step to wait for my sore legs to stop trembling. There was no one up there either, just more partitioned-off cubicles full of dirty laundry and hate literature.

  When the first blue-and-white showed, I was standing on the shattered front stoop, fishing out the last of my Winstons that hadn’t got in the way of someone’s flying toe. They came Code 3, which made sense. Had the killer still been in the neighborhood, those red and blue lights and out-of-sync sirens would have put him in Trinidad before they braked to a stop. That’s why some uniforms stay uniforms; they can’t keep their mitts off those buttons and switches.

  The “keener” was still grinding down when the doors popped open simultaneously. The first cop out was the driver, a trim kid in crisp blue without a wrinkle, his big eyes browless under a shiny black visor adjusted with a carpenter’s level. His partner, red-haired and freckled, looked like a very young thirty but could pass for eighteen. As he came around the front of the unit his eyes swept the street from end to end and came to rest on me. In that brief moment he had counted every crack in the pavement, priced my new suit, and generally come to the same conclusions about me that I had about him. No slack. Their hands rested on their side arms.

  “ID,” said the older cop, stopping short of the stoop so he didn’t have to raise his head to look at me, which was the reason I’d waited for him there instead of stepping down. They like it best when they can stand over you and make you squirm while they fumble out their pocket pads. It’s all a game, like kids throwing each other down a hill to stand on top, or gunfighters maneuvering around to get the sun in their opponents’ eyes.

  I produced the photostat of my license. He inspected it and gave it back. “You been used some.” He was smiling the way cops smile at motorists they’re going to ticket.

  I didn’t say anything. The senior man, whose pocket tag identified him as R. L. Fearing, quit smiling. “We got to be careful these days. It’s no fun being a target for a nut.”

  “Someone pinch me,” I said. “I just heard a police officer explain himself.”

  “Yeah, the watch commander calls me down for that all the time. Where’s the dead one?”

  “Walk this way.” I stepped down and limped toward the Cutlass.

  “Funny guy,” he said, following.

  The stench seemed worse. Breathing through my mouth, I unlocked the trunk and flung it up. Fearing said, “Phew!” and moved back a step. His partner, slower to react, gaped, sucked in a lungful of tainted air, and left us. He trotted quickly across the street to a vacant lot overgrown with weeds. We heard him retching.

  “Rookie,” said Fearing. “You want to bring us up to date?”

  “I can’t see the percentage in it,” I replied. “In a little while you and the kid will be back out chasing speeders. Homicide’s for cops with pensions to risk, not their necks.”

  “Ain’t it the truth? If they turned over investigation to us uniforms, we could rename this town Fantasy Island inside of a year. Eight Mile Road would be jammed with crooks getting out of the city.”

  “Run for office. Make that your platform.”

  “Not in this town, brother. Not unless I threw in two welfare checks a week for every vote.”

  He dropped his voice on the last part. An all-black crowd had begun to gather, lured by the bubblegum machine still revolving atop the blue-and-white, but the smell was keeping them back. I lowered the trunk lid without locking it and lit up. The smoke tasted like decayed flesh. Things would for the next day or so.

  “You always have him drive?” I was watching the kid weaving back this way, wiping his mouth with a white handkerchief. His face was gray.

  Fearing nodded. “That’s where Maxson and Flynn went wrong. Smith and the others know it’s usually the experienced officer behind the wheel, so who gets it first? Maxson. Flynn was the rookie, slower on the uptake. The second bullet was meant for him but it missed. If the older one had been in that spot, he’d have nailed the shooter while the kid was still falling. But he wasn’t, so they’re both dead. That’s not going to happen with us.”

  “Makes it kind of rough on the kid.”

  “Rookies are like baby turtles,” he said. “As soon as they hatch out they make a run for the water. Them that make it without getting eaten by birds grow up to be big turtles. Them that don’t—don’t. An officer’s first responsibility is to stay alive.”

  Twenty-six minutes after I called headquarters an unmarked unit pulled up and Alderdyce piled out, followed closely by a fat plainclothes man whose maroon jacket and orange plaid pants made him look exactly like an insurance salesman. By this time two more scout cars had arrived. I had cops coming out of my pockets.

  John was all in brown today: brown suit, brown vest, brown shirt, brown tie darker than the shirt but not as dark as the suit or the shoes, gleaming like beer bottles on his narrow feet. His mood was even darker. I glanced past him at the insurance salesman.

  “Sergeant Wasp, I presume.”

  “Hornet, wiseass. So you’re the guy that called.” He’d had his high for the day and was bored again. He had a nice head of dusky blond hair combed in thick waves, and a heat rash on both cheeks that made him look jolly. It was an illusion.

  “Let’s see her,” rapped Alderdyce.

  He was looking anywhere but at me, a bad sign. I obliged. His sour expression didn’t change as his eyes flicked over the remains in the truck. Hornet whistled. I started to say something, but the lieutenant cut me off.

  “Shut up. Where can we talk?”

  There was a paradox there, but I didn’t comment on it. I nodded toward the gymnasium. He told Hornet to wait there for the lab crew and followed me into the building. I felt like I hadn’t since the last time my high school principal entertained me in his office.

  10

  INSIDE, ALDERDY
CE KICKED the door shut with a heel, snatched hold of my lapels, and rode me into the wall on the other side. I outweighed him by fifteen pounds, but he worked out every day and I was caught by surprise.

  “You son of a bitch, I’d yank your ticket and make you eat it if I thought you’d have teeth after I’m through with you.”

  He didn’t shout or scream. He seldom did. His hoarse whisper said it all. His eyes were bloodshot and he was breathing hard through his nose, like a boxer psyching himself up for a bout.

  “You’ve changed brands of mouthwash,” I said. “I think I liked the old one better.”

  He let go of one lapel and backhanded me across the mouth. I tasted blood. “Watch your lip or lose it! When I tell you to back away from something I’m not just testing my tonsils. How can I pound it into that thick peeper’s gourd of yours that Alonzo Smith is mine?”

  His last words banged around among the rafters and were swallowed up in the vastness of the room. I said nothing. We stared at each other for a space, and then he pushed me away and paced to the center of the room, where he turned and faced me again. I worked on the fresh wrinkles in my suit, which wasn’t looking so new anymore. By the time he spoke again he had himself in check.

  “Feed it to me.”

  I touched my handkerchief to my lip, but the blood was all inside. I used it instead on my forehead, neck, and the backs of my hands. It was close in the room. “I came here last night to see if I could get a line on Smith. A little girl stuck a baby shotgun in my face and I took it away from her. She was on something at the time; for all I know she never came off. We were talking when five or six of her friends showed up. We had words.”

  “Hard words, from the looks of you.”

  “I’m learning to adjust,” I said. “When I get so I look forward to getting the crap beat out of me, this job will be one long free ride. Anyway, I went away from here for a while, and when I came back I was stretched out in the alley next to the building with the rest of the refuse. A fellow named Bassett collected me and I spent the rest of the night and half of today in his trailer in Warren.”

  “Bassett?” John repeated. “Munnis Bassett? Bum?”

  “The world hardly seems big enough for two. He left to get a doctor and to follow some lead he had, and I caught a cab back here for my car. The keys must have dropped out of my pocket during last night’s dance, so I got out an extra set. That’s when I found the little shotgun rider in the trunk.”

  “Know who she is?”

  “She called herself Puddin’ ’n’ Tame, if that’s any help.” The reply came without hesitation. I’d been rehearsing it ever since I got off the telephone with Hornet.

  “Who’s your client?”

  “We’ve had this conversation before, John. Play back my answer from the last time.”

  He sucked in a long draft of stale air.

  “You’ve never been involved in a cop-killing. The rules aren’t the same. Do a fan dance with the facts and you’ll have so many badges up your ass you’ll clank when you sit down.”

  He didn’t sound as if he disapproved of the idea entirely.

  “It’s got nothing to do with the official investigation,” I said. “How long do you think I’d last in this business if I went around violating confidences? My whole reason for existing is an unusual ability to take my mouth out of gear when it counts.”

  “You could use practice.” His scowl lightened. “I won’t press it. I’ve got a pretty good idea who did the hiring, and shame on her. A police officer’s wife should know better. What’d the girl tell you before the lights went out?”

  Among cops there are two styles of interrogation. Some try to dazzle you with footwork and trip you up by rambling on about something innocuous like baseball or their sex lives, then firing hard questions out of nowhere. It’s pretty effective, especially when you’re tired, which you’ll be because there’s nothing in the police manual about giving a suspect breathing space. Others, like Alderdyce, just plod along, one question after another, slugging away until they find a soft spot. If they’re not satisfied with an answer they just go on to the next question and return to that one later to see if you’ve changed your mind. If you have, God help you, because they’ll grin and lick their lips and go back to the beginning and start all over again. The success level is about the same, unless you’re a cagey P.I. with something to hide.

  “Mostly she giggled,” I said. “She might as well have been in Cleveland for all the good she did me.”

  He studied me a long time before speaking. “I hope you’re not holding back. Your license won’t take the heat.”

  I let that one die on its own.

  The door opened and Hornet poked his head inside. “White coats here, John.”

  “Okay. Step in here a minute. Once again, Walker. For the sergeant.”

  Actually it was twice, once to determine if the details varied too much and again to see if they didn’t vary enough. Science really ought to study a policeman’s brain if they can ever get one untangled. I could hear cops yelling outside as I talked. The crowd was growing.

  “Busted neck was enough to kill her, the M.E. says,” put in the sergeant afterward. “From a blow to the face, if that makes any sense. Spun her head around farther than it’s supposed to go. I had to drag that much out of him. He won’t say for sure till the autopsy.”

  Alderdyce grunted. “The medical examiners’ lament. Time we had another conversation with Mr. Bassett.”

  “ ‘Another’?” I echoed.

  Hornet flashed capped teeth in a quick grin. “He stopped in at headquarters when he hit town. Just like the old bounty men used to do at the marshal’s office. Horsey as hell, ain’t he?”

  “You said Warren?” The lieutenant got his note pad from an inside pocket.

  I nodded. “At least, that’s where his trailer was earlier this afternoon. The K-Mart parking lot. I guess he likes to save his money for ammunition.”

  He wrote it down, tore out the page and gave it to the sergeant. “Get on the horn to the Warren Police and have them send a couple of men out there. I want that cowboy in my office today.” To me: “Stick close. I want you there, too, to look at pictures.”

  Hornet was first out the door. There was a lot of shouting going on now, only part of it by cops. The street looked like the overflow from Cobo Hall during an Aretha Franklin concert. Black faces everywhere. On his way through, Alderdyce half-turned and said, “About that cuffing. I was out of bounds. That doesn’t mean you didn’t have it coming.”

  I waited for the kicker. Some of the spectators had begun chanting civil rights slogans from the sixties.

  “You in a mood for advice?” He raised his voice above the din.

  “Everyone’s Judge Hardy today,” I said loudly. “Do I have a choice?”

  “No.”

  “Then I guess I’m in a mood to listen.”

  He scrutinized me, his eyes white slashes in his shiny black face. Then he nodded a nod that if I had blinked I would have missed completely. “I guess that’s as much as I’ll ever be able to expect from you. If I remember right you were raised Catholic.”

  “Episcopalian. Now I’m an agnostic. Atheists don’t ask questions I can’t answer and believers don’t answer questions I don’t ask. They both think there’s hope for me.”

  “Who cares? Just light a candle, if that’s what Episcopalians do, and pray that your playmates from last night chilled that girl. Because if they didn’t, guess who’s got the best motive in their eyes. There’s no appeal from the court of instant reprisal.”

  “Catchy,” I said. “Any line on Smith yet?”

  He said something unworthy of him and plunged into the sea of surging bodies.

  The boys from the Tactical Mobile Unit had drawn a broken line of sawhorses around the area where my car was parked and stationed officers in the spaces between. They were young, and held absolute faith in the varnished brown nightsticks in their hands. No one had told them during t
raining that more officers had been beaten with their own sticks than had beaten others, or that at the first sign of riot the experienced cop’s instinctive reaction was to hurl his stick as far away from him as he could. Alderdyce got out his folder and stuck it in his outer breast pocket with the badge showing. I had a badge too, from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, but it was honorary and wouldn’t have gotten me past the ticket window at a Don Knotts film festival. The lieutenant instructed the uniforms to let me through. The clamor of voices was terrific.

  A group of strangers in suits and sport jackets were gathered around the open trunk, badges twinkling in the slanted afternoon sunlight. One, a slim youth straight out of the 1955 high school yearbook—complete with crewcut hair and horn-rimmed glasses—was putting instruments away in a shiny black metal case balanced atop the Cutlass’s rear bumper. Medical examiners were getting younger too. The whole world was under thirty and I was Genghis Khan’s saddle.

  Another lad, black, with a modified afro and a leather case of different design under one arm, stepped forward to greet Alderdyce.

  “Two or three clear prints, Lieutenant. Looks like we got a match on the driver’s door handle and steering wheel. Want me to run ’em through the computer, or what?”

  “First check them against Walker, Amos,” John growled. “Way things have been going, you probably won’t have to do anything else. And dust the gym. That shapes up to be the murder scene.”

  The other’s grin was broad and blinding against his coffee-colored skin. “Got a suspect already, huh? Gee, that’s great work.”

  “Meet Walker, Amos.” The lieutenant jerked a thumb at me.

  The smile fell. Fingerprint experts aren’t used to dealing with suspects face to face. I picked up his grin and tried it on for size.

  “I don’t bite,” I told him. “Hard.”

  “Well—” he said, and stood there gazing at a point halfway between John and me. Then he turned and strode purposefully away. Alderdyce watched the retreat, shaking his head.