Little Black Dress (Peter Macklin Novels)

by Loren D. Estleman

  After letting him in, Wild Bill sat on the bed, picked up an antique revolver Grinnell hadn’t seen before from the nightstand, and twirled it forward and backward on his trigger finger like a character in an old western. The weapon looked rusty and nonfunctional. Grinnell supposed it was a good-luck piece.

  “What’s this Randle look like?” Wild Bill asked.

  “I’ve never seen him. I got the information secondhand.”

  The long-haired man grinned. “I had a secondhand boat once. Set me back a season’s pay. First time I took it out on Flathead Lake, it sprung a leak. I had to swim for my life and pay two hundred bucks to the sheriff to get it off the bottom.”

  “My source can be trusted.”

  “Mine, too. She works the cash register in the bookstore.”

  Grinnell said nothing.

  The black man named Mark Twain clicked his tongue. “I think you stuck him, bro. Man’s paler than usual.”

  “We went out for sinkers and coffee,” Wild Bill said. “Town’s growing; they got a Krispy Kreme out by the expressway. The manager don’t tell the help shit, but my little redhead saw someone pick her up at the curb a couple of times. Man drives a Lexus and don’t exactly look like someone who couldn’t be you.” He stopped twirling with the muzzle pointed at Grinnell’s midsection. “You should’ve told me before you had it on with the boss lady. I’d’ve understood why you wanted to bug out.”

  “That’s the other thing I was going to tell you,” Grinnell said. “I’ll be there today.”

  “Was you going to tell me before I told you about the little redhead?”

  “Hey, it’s Lord Butthole. I thought you upped and quit.”

  Grinnell looked briefly at the Hispanic named Carlos, who’d come in from the hall holding a half-eaten candy bar with the wrapper skinned down like the peel on a banana. The fourth man, the quiet one who drove, hadn’t looked up from the map in front of him since Grinnell had entered.

  To Wild Bill, Grinnell said, “As a matter of fact, I was. I couldn’t risk surprising you.”

  “What about the guy your girlfriend’s daughter’s hooked up with? He be there too?”

  Grinnell didn’t hesitate. He’d assumed the man had found out most of the superficial details. “He’s invited. His name’s Macklin. I don’t know him very well.”

  “He a cop?”

  “He was in the camera business. He’s retired.”

  Wild Bill resumed twirling, forward, then backward; smacking the butt into his palm between revolutions.

  “That straight?”

  “It’s what he told Pamela.”

  “You believe him?”

  “I said I don’t know him very well.”

  “I guess you ain’t such of a much of a judge of character.”

  “It must be the company I’ve been keeping.”

  “We need this guy?” Carlos asked.

  Wild Bill ignored him. “I hope this isn’t another secondhand boat. If it is, your girlfriend’s coming out of there with a face full of double-O.”

  “You don’t have that option after Hilliard.”

  “I got five options in the magazine and one in the barrel.”

  Grinnell said, “You’ve also got the State Police Task Force on one side and Tommy Vulpo on the other. This isn’t a western.”

  “What’d I just say?”

  Carlos popped the rest of the candy bar into his mouth and crumpled the wrapper. “Why not do him right here? One less place to look when we hit the store.”

  Wild Bill stopped twirling. His moustache lifted away from his teeth. “I can’t see any holes in it. How about you?”

  Grinnell watched him.

  “Didn’t think so.” Wild Bill pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped on an empty chamber.

  Maybe a broken firing pin. Grinnell relaxed his arm. He’d jerked it behind his back when the hammer fell.

  Mark Twain laughed. Grinnell had never heard him do that. He wondered if he was on drugs.

  Grinnell left. In the Taurus, he checked inside the duffel, then took the Browning BDA out from under his belt and put it inside with the cash. It was an uncomfortable thing to haul around until you needed it.

  Carlos said, “You should of popped him.”

  “Man was carrying, couldn’t you tell?” Wild Bill said. “He had more’n a stick up his ass this time.”

  “You had the drop. That cowboy piece of shit even work?”

  Wild Bill stood, stuck Uncle Jakey’s fake Colt inside his waistband, and dropped the tail of his sport shirt over it. He always felt indestructible when he had it on him; he was sure it would prove to be his bluff card in the hole someday. “Speaking of shit,” he said. “We ain’t stopping this time.”

  Carlos went into the bathroom and shut the door. His stomach always got bad on a working day. It was probably the fucking Baby Ruths.

  Wild Bill waved Mark over and murmured in his ear. He didn’t like to distract Donny with details from inside.

  Mark nodded. “How you want to divvy ’em up?”

  “I better get Grinnell and this Macklin. It’s a shotgun job. You take the bodyguard and the boss lady. Bodyguard first.”

  “Well, sure.” Then Mark tipped his head toward the bathroom, lifting his eyebrows.

  The toilet flushed. Wild Bill picked up a pillow. When Carlos came out, buckling his belt, Wild Bill scooped up Carlos’s Sig Sauer from the bed and shot him twice through the pillow. Bits of foam rubber sprayed out.

  Donny jerked his head up in time to see Carlos slide down the doorjamb into a sitting position on the floor. He looked from Carlos to Wild Bill.

  “Didn’t wash his hands.” Wild Bill wiped the pistol on the pillow, dropped them on the bed, and went over to get his shotgun while Mark came forward to fold Donny’s map. The room smelled like burning tires.

  TWENTY-THREE

  During the press conference in the show office, the guardians of the Fourth Estate learned that Lieutenant McCormick had programmed his cell phone to play the theme to Felix the Cat when a call came in.

  “Thought I had it on vibrate,” he muttered, and went through the door to the working office in back to take it.

  The laughter turned nervous and smoldered out, extinguished by the heavy theme of justice in the room.

  “Lew.” Prine pointed at Lewis Wagner.

  The statehouse reporter from the Columbus Dispatch had a high, professorial forehead and the mean little eyes of a street swindler. It was rumored he’d turned down promotion to managing editor twice because he preferred to see his name on the front page rather than buried in the flag inside. Prine suspected he’d started the rumor himself. He knew for a fact Wagner was the governor’s choice for press secretary in the event of his reelection. In the event he lost, the corporate chain that owned the paper wouldn’t risk alienating his successor by moving Wagner to management.

  “When are you going to give us the name of this suspect you keep hinting about? Is it Yehudi?” The reporter had a yappy little tenor with a crack in it.

  “No, Lew, and you’re dating yourself. For the record, we never said he was a suspect. At this point he’s a possible witness, and he’s not in custody. The young man in back.” He pointed again.

  “Philip Case, Toledo Blade.” The speaker wore his brown hair in a neat ponytail and round spectacles tinted pink. He read from a steno pad in one hand. “Has there been any progress in the investigation into the possible connection between the Color Guard and Al-Qaeda operatives working in the U.S.?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Would you care to explain why?”

  “Certainly. No such connection is suspected or ever was. Your editor made it up to sell papers.”

  “Confidential sources—”

  “Confidence men,” Prine interrupted. “Or women. I don’t like to slight either sex.”

  There was some grumbling in response to this. Not much; Wagner was scarcely more popular among his colleagues than he was with the
Armed Robbery Task Force.

  “Hello, Ken,” Prine said, indicating Ken Abelard with his chin.

  Abelard, weekend anchorman and full-time stand-up for WTOL-TV in Toledo, showed his caps and dropped his voice a full octave from its normal speaking range for the benefit of his sound man.

  “No one’s heard from the Color Guard in weeks,” he said. “This is the longest interval between robberies since the spree began. Is it possible, because of the shooting in Hilliard, that the gang has broken up or moved on, and if so, what impact will that have on the success of your investigation?” He got it all out in one breath.

  “Anything’s possible, Ken. We’re working on a more definite solution.”

  “What steps are you taking to secure it?”

  “Well, I can’t be specific without giving these creeps an early Christmas present. I will say we aren’t just sitting around waiting for them to retire or get up the gumption to rob another video store. Our forensics team is still analyzing evidence from Hilliard and the previous robberies and our investigators are still interviewing witnesses. What you’re seeing is just the tip of the iceberg, and this crew is the Titanic.”

  Abelard looked smug. He had his sound bite, and so had Prine.

  The captain hurried the other journalists along. He’d peaked early, and after fielding some softball questions from the more sympathetic reporters in the room he was about to wrap up the conference when McCormick came back in and whispered in his ear.

  Prine’s expression didn’t change. He nodded to one of the thick-shouldered plainclothesmen, who placed a hand on the shoulder nearest him and steered the owner gently toward the door to reception. The other plainclothesmen followed suit. Wagner tried to yap one more question, but Prine thanked the reporters loudly and preceded McCormick into the workroom.

  He shut the door and glowered at his lieutenant. “Give me it again.”

  “That was Barlow on the phone. He and young Freeland lost Grinnell four hours ago. He switched vehicles in a car wash in Mason. They were following the wrong man in the right car until a little while ago.”

  “Arrest him?”

  “Guy named Pollard, owns the car wash. City cops busted him year before last for running a book in the back. Did six months in County and paid a fine. He has connections to Joe Vulpo. Think he’s talking?”

  “What about the condo?”

  “I just got off the phone with the detail. They haven’t seen Grinnell since he went out early this morning. Barlow and Freeland followed him from there. He made a stop at his bank before he left town. There’s more.” He handed Prine a fax sheet.

  The captain read it swiftly, then again more slowly. It had been sent to his office by a civilian clerical worker assigned to monitor police reports wired from throughout the state and forward items of specific interest. It was a transcript of radio communications with Harbor View Police dispatch involving a fatal shooting at a Ramada Inn there. The dead man was a Hispanic dressed in sneakers, jeans, and a red shirt. The weapon found at the scene was a Sig Sauer 9mm semiautomatic pistol, fired recently, with two cartridges missing from the magazine.

  “So it’s red this time,” Prine said.

  “Could be unrelated. Plenty of Sigs floating around out there.”

  “Who’s on Macklin?” The Michigan Secretary of State’s office had identified the owner of the license plate Barlow had photographed at the Alehouse a week before, and Prine had ordered surveillance based on Macklin’s police and FBI files.

  “Crosley.”

  “Call him.”

  McCormick got the number from his cellular index and punched it in. He spoke, listened for twenty seconds, then flipped the telephone shut. “He’s at the bookstore in Myrtle. Reception for a visiting author.”

  “They changed their MO.”

  “If they didn’t, we’ve got a good chance of looking like idiots.”

  “Radio the Toledo post, tell them we’re coming. Call up every man. Hard hats and vests.” Prine’s smile was bolted down tight. “We might as well dress the part.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Laurie had never seen so many boring people gathered in one place.

  They weren’t even the honest bores of her youth: farmers with sixth-grade educations and no conversation that didn’t involve crops and equipment, country wives who cooked all day at the grange hall and never quite got rid of the smell of hot grease, townsmen in loud sport coats who chewed toothpicks and referred to the two hardware stores they owned as a “chain.” Those were bores by circumstances, who could not be held responsible for how they turned out. These were self-made.

  She couldn’t remember if the man who was talking to her belonged to the school board or the county planning commission. He’d been holding forth about temporary classrooms and housing for ten minutes, oblivious to the fact that she hadn’t opened her mouth once to encourage him. His black double-breasted suit, blue pinstripe shirt with white collar, and yellow tie all screamed 1985 and appeared to be wearing him rather than the other way around; he had a small, egg-shaped head balanced on a tubular neck and there was space between it and his collar.

  It had been this way at every cocktail party she’d ever attended. She supposed it was her fault for looking the way she did. Her blonde hair, good skin, and narrow waist in the simple black dress always drew these types away from their wives with their raccoon eyes and globs of jewelry, and she had never been the kind of woman who could tell a wolf on the make to get lost. Not even the kind of wolf with a line more polished than the statistics on local population growth. She drew a deep breath, let it out, pasted the smile back on her face, and looked to see where Peter had landed.

  She found him standing on the edge of the crowd around the guest of honor, holding a flute in which the champagne level hadn’t changed since he’d accepted it. Her own was empty, and she wished he’d look over and notice and offer to refill it. He had on the charcoal suit she’d picked out for him, with the almost nonexistent violet stripe that made him look younger, less stodgy than the solid colors he preferred. His wardrobe was the only thing about him she would ever be able to change.

  Spain said something that made the group chuckle. Peter flashed his teeth accommodatingly, but his eyes were moving, and she knew from experience that although he’d heard every word and could repeat it back if asked, it had no meaning for him.

  Meeting Spain would have been a disappointment if Laurie hadn’t already made up her mind about him based on his writing. It was a novelty to shake hands with a man who didn’t react to her looks. He’d barely made eye contact, muttered some sort of greeting in the tone teenagers used when they said, “Whatever,” and looked right past her toward the next hand to shake, leaving his publicist to introduce herself. To Peter he’d said nothing, but then Peter hadn’t offered his hand, had just said, “How do you do?” when Pamela presented him. Spain would always be the center of his own orbit. Laurie had taken herself off to meet some other bore.

  Her mother was deeper in the crowd, separated from Spain only by the publicist, who was Laurie’s only serious competition in the room, although her business attire gave Laurie the edge. Pamela, in pale green chiffon with a frothy collar that hid the lines in her neck, laughed longer than everyone else at whatever the writer had said and raised a hand often to smooth back her hair, which was too short to need smoothing. It wasn’t the first time Laurie had been embarrassed for her mother. She was born to rotate around people like Francis Spain.

  Benjamin stood near the door, looking almost distinguished in a midnight blue suit, but otherwise as much a part of the furniture as the full-size cutout of Spain that stood behind a dump rack filled with copies of Serpent in Eden in cardboard pockets. The picture had been blown up from the photo on the back of the jacket and had come special delivery from the publisher in New York. Benjamin was holding a glass and listening to a fat woman in purple organdy who had introduced herself to Laurie as the president of the Friends of the Myrtle District Libra
ry. Everything about her clashed with the man she was talking to, from her dress to her tinkly little-girl laugh—it should have sounded like an air horn coming from that bosom—to the half-eaten doughnut in the paper napkin in her right hand, covered with pink and white sprinkles. Laurie wondered, if she were to tell the woman who and what she was talking to, whether she’d go on eating the doughnut.

  Directly across from Benjamin—employees had removed several book racks and tables to make room for the paying customers to line up later, and Laurie could have stretched a measuring tape in a diagonal between them—stood Kevin, the security man, with his hands at his sides and not even a token glass in either of them. The attitude discouraged attempts to approach him or begin a conversation. Most of his weight seemed to be on his right leg, and Laurie guessed he was left-handed. At Toledo Medical she’d treated police officers whose partners stood outside the examining room favoring the leg opposite the hip their sidearms were on, an old habit and probably one they were no longer aware of. She supposed it gave them leverage to draw, if “draw” was the word they used. She’d have to ask Peter about that.

  She looked back at Peter then, and it occurred to her that she could have stretched the same measuring tape from him to the guard and gotten the same straight line. The three men occupied points of a triangle, with most of the bookstore inside it and equally unobstructed views of both doors that led in from outside. She looked again at Benjamin, and back at Peter, and had to juggle her glass to keep from dropping it. Each of them was leaning on one leg, and had been for as long as she’d been watching them.

  “What do you think’s the capacity in a store that size?” McCormick asked. “Wonder if they’re in violation.”

  “That’s the fire marshal’s worry. He’s probably inside. The police chief’s the only official that isn’t.” Prine glowered at the mass of bodies stirring on the other side of the display windows. They were sitting in his unmarked car, parked next to the space where a sign belonging to the nearby pharmacy asked patrons to leave their carts. There were two carts inside it, and half a dozen more spotted around the lot, one blocking a handicapped space.