On the downside, it didn’t look as if the place had been painted in a dozen years. Mildew had turned the eaves nearly black, and elsewhere the sun, salt air, and rain had eaten at the paint in big bites. Some of the shingles had come away from the main roof near the widow’s walk, exposing the crumbling underlayment. A long tongue of tar paper had worked loose and lolled out over one gabled end, working in what breeze there was like a listless tongue. Still, the old character of the place shone through, and Deal found himself automatically running repair estimates through his head. Whatever it would take would be worth it.
“Looks like the servants took the week off, doesn’t it?” Driscoll said, grunting as the Ford bottomed out in a pothole.
“You’ve been here before?” Deal asked.
“A few times,” Driscoll said, guiding the Ford around a fallen limb that jutted into the roadway. “Fenderman used to throw a big bash once a year, big political fund-raiser.”
Deal gave him a look, trying to imagine Driscoll as a guest on the political fund-raising circuit.
Driscoll caught the expression on his face. “I worked off-duty security,” the ex-cop said.
Deal shrugged. “I was just wondering.”
“Yeah,” Driscoll said. He pulled the car to a stop in the weed-pocked parking area near a fountain, an impressive double-decked affair with carved figures scalloped at its edges and a leaping dolphin for a main font. Improbably, the thing was operational, a steady stream of water spurting up from the dolphin’s mouth.
As Deal got out, something hit the ground near his feet. He glanced down to find an emaciated cat crouched in the gravel, eyeing him intently. He sensed another movement and glanced up at the fountain, brim-full of greenish water. As his eyes adjusted to the glare, he realized that what he had taken for stone carvings were actually cats: maybe a dozen similarly marked creatures perched on the stone ledges in various poses.
When Driscoll’s door slammed, the cats sprang away, vanishing into the overgrown shrubbery like smoke.
“Fenderman knew how to throw a party,” Driscoll was saying, oblivious to the cats. “That whole yard’d be full of cars,” he said, sweeping his arm out over the untended grass. “We’d fill that up and have ’em up and down the street all the way out to Las Olas.”
Deal nodded. All the humps and swales in the vast yard, there could be whole cars still hidden under the grass. “So what happened?” he said, following Driscoll toward the front steps. A pair of stone lions guarded the entrance, more or less: one had shifted off its base and had slid snout-down into the gravel drive. The other had lost half its face to a blow of some sort: cement teeth in a snarl gave way to a tangle of rusted wire mesh waving in the air.
“I dunno.” Driscoll shrugged. He pushed at an unlighted doorbell, paused. He pushed again, then turned to Deal. “You hear anything?” he asked. Deal shook his head.
Driscoll studied the bell button, picked at it with one of his stubby fingers. Finally he gave up and hammered at the door with the side of his fist. The sounds echoed hollowly inside the place. Driscoll turned back to him, ready to fill him in.
“When Fenderman’s wife died—she came from money, by the way—that’s when he started to go weird. Not to say he wasn’t colorful before…Hey, what the shit!”
Driscoll cried out as a sudden flood of water cascaded down upon the stones of the entryway. Deal threw up his hands instinctively, dancing back down the crumbling steps. Another wave of water descended, breaking over Driscoll’s head, soaking him altogether. Deal backpedaled into the graveled parking area and stared up at the pristine skies, dumbfounded by what he saw.
A wild-eyed older man in shirtsleeves, bow tie, little wire-rimmed glasses, the picture of a dithery scientist, leaned from a second-story window of the Fenderman house, clutching a yellow plastic bucket in his hands. He glared at Deal, who must have seemed out of range, then turned his attention back to Driscoll, who stood gasping, water still pouring off him.
“Vernon…,” Deal shouted, but he was too late. The wild-eyed man, whom Deal had recognized by now as Fenderman, upended the yellow bucket. Driscoll glanced up in time to take the next wave squarely in the face. He staggered backward, under the cover of the door overhang, swiping wildly at his face.
“Get out,” Fenderman shouted. “Get off my property.” He glared at Deal, hand suddenly raised to hurl the bucket down. Deal sidestepped as the empty bucket caught a gust and sailed wide, bouncing harmlessly off the side of the fountain.
When he looked up again, he saw that Fenderman had ducked inside and was leaning well out of the window once more, a new bucket in his hands, green this time, little sloshes of water splatting to the steps below as he angled for another bombs-away on Driscoll.
“This could be boiling oil,” Fenderman shouted. “You think about that the next time.” He nearly lost his grip on the bucket and had to claw wildly to hold it. Deal thought for a moment that he was going to tumble out of the window, bucket and all.
Finally, Fenderman regained his balance, steadied himself against the frame. “Who do you work for?” he shouted at Deal, who was backing away, his palms upraised. “The mayor?”
Fenderman’s eyes blanked out as the sun reflected off his glasses. Now it was a mad prophet up there, a man with glowing silver disks where his eyes should have been, the bucket upraised like an idol about to be dashed to the ground.
“Did Mayor Bream send you over here?” Fenderman shouted again. He shaded his face with one hand, and his eyes turned abruptly into eyes again.
Deal shook his head, staring up warily. Even though the paint on the siding had faded into a dingy gray, the sun reflected off it brutally. It was hard to keep a fix for long.
“Are you from the papers, then?” Fenderman fairly shrieked. “Is that it? You want my side of the story?” He laughed, a short lunatic’s bark, then heaved the bucket Deal’s way. Deal danced back as the water thrummed across the hood of Driscoll’s Ford.
“Are you finished now, Irwin?” It was Driscoll. He’d emerged from the protection of the overhang and stood swiping at his face, calling up at Fenderman. “Is the show over?”
Fenderman hesitated, then glanced down at Driscoll. He leaned out further, squinting, grasping the window ledge with both hands. A smile broke across his features. “Is that Vernon? Vernon Driscoll?” His voice had changed quality entirely. The mad prophet had become an elderly schoolmaster, surprised by the visit of a favorite student.
“We going to cut the crap, Irwin? That’s all I want to know.” Driscoll stared up at him, soaked, water still dripping off his chin.
“Mayor Bream didn’t send you, did he?” Fenderman asked, still cautious.
“Irwin…,” Driscoll said in an aggrieved tone.
“Well, why didn’t you say it was you?” Fenderman said testily. “I’ll be right down,” he added, and ducked back inside the window.
***
“Interesting,” Fenderman said as he fanned through the photographs Driscoll had handed him. “Who handled the case, one of those dreadful sand jockeys they’ve been hiring?”
They were in Fenderman’s study now, a room jammed with mismatched furniture, unpacked boxes overflowing with books and printouts, and enough battered computer equipment to start up a secondhand store: a dozen or more processors were stacked precariously in a corner, some trailing plugs and ripped wires. There was a row of monitors lined haphazardly nearby, one with its screen shattered. In another corner was an enormous tangle of cable and wire, mysterious little boxes and switches dangling within the strands here and there as if the whole thing had been deposited by some huge technological spider.
The back wall was a bank of windows that overlooked the broad Intracoastal and the pristine lawns of the estates opposite Fenderman’s place. Fenderman had seated himself at a cluttered library table, where he’d cleared a swath among tumbled books and papers, some dirty dishes and pizza crusts. There was no air-conditioning,
no fan, no open window. The place smelled of mildew and damp clothing, of locker rooms that festered in school basements, of old books dissolving in soggy cartons, of rotting mushrooms and wet concrete. Deal knew it well—it was the scent burned into his memory from trekking through scores of ruined houses after the hurricane had pounded Miami.
But this place was well north of the damage zone. There’d been no shingles lost to storms here, no rain driven through the jalousies by freight-train winds. This rot came from the inside. A pigsty with a million-dollar view, Deal thought, his skin prickling.
Driscoll finally looked up at Fenderman from under the towel he was using to dry himself. Fenderman had taken it from a closet, delivered it without apology.
“The name was Mekhtar,” Driscoll said. “He’s a Pakistani.”
“What the hell’s the difference,” Fenderman snorted. He glanced at Deal. “You ever see what those people bring in for lunch?”
Deal stared back, beginning to have some sympathy for Mekhtar. He tried to imagine what it must have been like, working for Fenderman. Likely the whole office staff was still celebrating the man’s departure.
Fenderman turned his gaze to Driscoll. “I sense your partner finds my remarks offensive, Vernon.”
Driscoll shrugged, tossed the towel over the back of a wicker chair, startling a big gray cat who’d been sleeping there.
“Don’t worry about it, Fenderman. He votes in Dade County.”
“Well, in that case,” Fenderman said, giving Deal an ingratiating smile as he went back to the photographs, “he’s welcome to his opinion.”
He peeled one of the damp photos from the back of another, then took a closer look. “Mmmmm-mmmmmm,” he said, tapping it with the stem of an unlit pipe he’d come up with. He glanced up at Deal again. “Take a look at this, young man.”
Deal gave him a look, took a step closer. The photo Fenderman was holding was a close-up of the lower half of a face—Barbara’s face, he thought.
“You see these discolorations here,” Fenderman said, using the pipe stem as a pointer.
Deal willed himself to stare at the dark streaks that radiated outward on her flesh. Only the fact that he could not see her eyes allowed him to hold his gaze there.
“They’re what you would call powder burns,” Fenderman was saying, his voice as disinterested as a don’s. “From the muzzle flash. That’s one thing.”
He slipped the photo back and flipped rapidly through the packet. “Then there’s this,” he said, extracting another shot.
Deal took a quick glance, caught sight of Barbara’s sightless eyes, her matted hair, the dark fan of blood that spread out from her skull.
Fenderman was watching him, his jaundiced eyes glittering behind his glasses. “How long have you been a detective, if I might ask?” His voice was chiding, faintly amused.
Deal stared back. Gray stubble on Fenderman’s chin, stains on his outsized teeth, knots of untrimmed hair boiling out of his nostrils. The man looked like something that had crawled up out of a drain.
“Have you always been an asshole,” Deal said, “or did it just happen after you got old?”
Fenderman blinked a few times, his jaw working.
“He’s not with the department, Fenderman,” Driscoll said. “He’s a civilian. Leave it alone.”
Fenderman’s gaze switched from Deal to Driscoll, then back to Deal. It took a moment, then something seemed to register with him.
“Aha!” Fenderman said, triumphantly. “You knew her.” He actually smiled at Deal. “That’s why you’re here.” He touched his forehead with his fingertips and nodded. “My apologies, sir.”
“You were going to say something else,” Deal said, fighting back his anger. He gestured at the picture, but kept his gaze averted. Nothing could make him look at it. Ever again.
Fenderman had turned to Driscoll. “Not a good idea, Vernon,” he said. “Involving an injured party in an investigation. You should know better than that.”
Deal started forward, but Driscoll pulled him back. “I’m not on the force anymore, Fenderman. This is a private matter. You want to help us out, or you want to sit there and choke your chicken?”
Fenderman, apparently oblivious to Deal’s anger, seemed to think about it for a moment. Finally he shrugged. “Well,” he said primly. “Since you’ve gone to all this trouble.” He laid the photo he’d been holding on the table, then went searching through the pack again.
Deal exchanged looks with Driscoll, who made pacifying motions.
Fenderman found more photos that he was interested in and laid them on the table beside the first. He glanced up at Driscoll. “You say they found gunpowder residue on the woman’s hand and her fingerprints on the weapon itself?”
Driscoll nodded. Fenderman took it in, turned back to the photos, shaking his head as if something bothered him.
“You’ve seen enough shooters in your time, haven’t you, Driscoll?”
Deal watched Driscoll closely. The ex-cop nodded, his eyes opaque.
“So you know what happens when someone swallows a gun,” Fenderman continued.
Again Driscoll nodded, grudgingly. His face seemed to be aging as Deal watched.
A cat had leaped up onto the table to pick its way through the crusted plates. When it put a paw on one of the photographs, Fenderman scooped the animal up with one hand and tossed it casually aside. The cat bounced off a carton, landed on its feet, skittered away silently.
Fenderman turned his gaze on Deal then. It was a helpful expression, even solicitous. “We’re not talking about the effects of the bullet itself, you see. It’s the force of the explosion which propels it. Try to imagine these hot gases, caught in a small chamber, in this case the oral cavity, searing, raging, trying to expand at an incredible rate and searching for some outlet, any outlet, eye sockets, nasal passages…”
“You asshole,” Deal said. He was moving toward Fenderman when Driscoll caught him.
“Just hold your horses,” Driscoll said, wedging his body between the two of them. Deal wasn’t going to hold anything, except Fenderman’s neck, but banging into Driscoll was like colliding with a pillar of lead.
“It’s what he likes to do,” Driscoll said, his voice harsh in Deal’s ear as they struggled. “He likes to piss people off.”
“Well, he gets the blue ribbon from me,” Deal said, still trying to fight his way around the ex-cop.
“You need to calm down,” Driscoll said. “Now.”
Deal registered the tone of Driscoll’s voice and finally relented.
“You okay?”
Deal pulled himself back, straightened the front of his shirt. “Sure,” he said. “I’m fine.”
He shot a glance at Fenderman, who sat calmly at the table, pipe poised before him now, watching the two of them like a professor contemplating an interesting problem.
“There’s the possibility she didn’t do it, that’s what you’re saying,” Deal said to Fenderman after a moment.
Fenderman glanced at Driscoll before nodding. “As I was attempting to point out, if she were the one holding the gun in her mouth, the trauma would have been much worse, characteristically speaking.” He pointed at one of the photos with his pipe stem. “One could theorize that this woman was shot while she was trying to pull away from whomever held the weapon. If her mouth were open and she were trying to scream, let’s say, that would account for the facial burns you see there and the absence of secondary trauma elsewhere…”
“We get the picture,” Deal said, feeling his hands clench.
Driscoll gave him a last admonishing glance, then turned to gather up the photographs. He squared them on the table and replaced them in his jacket pocket, then turned back to Deal.
“How about the gunpowder on her hands, her fingerprints on the gun?” Deal said.
“What do you say, Fenderman?” Driscoll said.
Fenderman raised his pipe. “She could have been
forced to hold the weapon by someone much stronger.”
“Or the killer could have put the gun in her hand afterward, squeezed another round out the window,” Deal said. He yearned to be out of this awful room, to draw in a breath of decent air.
Fenderman shrugged his assent.
“The point is,” Deal continued, “there’s a chance that Barbara didn’t put that gun in her own mouth. There’s a chance that somebody else did it, somebody who wanted to make it look like suicide.”
Fenderman raised his hands as if to say it was a reasonable guess.
Deal nodded slowly, taking it in. Finally he turned to Driscoll. “The shame of it is, we had to come to this dickwad to hear it,” he said finally.
Fenderman’s mild expression did not change.
Driscoll turned his gaze to Fenderman. “Well,” he said, giving his customary shrug, “he’s a smart dickwad. Aren’t you, Fenderman?”
“None finer,” Fenderman said. He raised his pipe stem in acknowledgment, gave Driscoll a little bow.
He was still beaming at them from behind the filthy table as they made their way out.
***
Deal sat with his head back on the headrest, his eyes closed, trying to bring his breathing under control. Driscoll was behind the wheel, easing them down the potholed lane to the street, when there was a strange whining noise and a sudden slamming of the brakes.
“Jesus Christ!”
Deal opened his eyes to see Driscoll clawing at his shoulders, where one of the scrawny fountain cats had leaped from the backseat to attach itself.
“Fucking-A!” The ex-cop caught the whining cat by the scruff of its neck and flung it out the open window in one motion. He glanced at Deal, then turned awkwardly, trying to see over the seat. “Any more back there?” he grumbled.
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