Death by the Book

by Lenny Bartulin

  ‘What did Kasprowicz do to Ziggy?’ said Jack. ‘Shaft him on a deal? Or just beat him on the richest one hundred list?’

  ‘You can ask Mr Brandt yourself, soon,’ said Peterson.

  ‘That was a handy little family feud, the two famous brothers hating each other. Was Kasprowicz really burning those books and sending them? Wonderful touch if he wasn’t. Adds a nice bit of psychological complexity.’

  Peterson smiled, flattered. ‘It was perfect. The sick bastard had been collecting the books for years. Who wouldn’t believe he’d put a match to them?’

  ‘What about my shop?’

  ‘Not quite pulled off.’

  Jack spoke almost to himself. ‘Kasprowicz didn’t want to kill his brother.’

  ‘Not in one go. Just wipe him off the face of the earth, slowly. Book by book. The prick.’ Peterson screwed up his mouth in distaste, as though trying an oyster for the first time in his life.

  ‘Just because Kass did his wife?’

  ‘More than that, Jackie boy. More than that.’ Whatever the more was, Peterson was not saying.

  Jack sorted events in his head. ‘Who came up with the idea of setting me up?’ He nodded at Durst. ‘Einstein over here? ’Cause it’s all a bit on the vague side, don’t you think? After what, twenty, thirty years, why would Kasprowicz suddenly decide to take his brother out by hiring me to do the job? The details seem a little rushed. Not thought out.’ Jack rubbed the side of his jaw. ‘And I can get character witnesses, you know. I’ve been a model citizen lately.’

  ‘It ain’t about details.’ Peterson’s voice was level, businesslike and cool. He knew what he was talking about. ‘It’s about confusion. Leaving a mess. Nobody likes cleaning up a mess.’

  ‘Except lawyers.’

  The detective managed a grin.

  Jack smiled up at Durst. ‘And you got all the dirty work. The most talented ex-gynaecologist in the universe with an IQ of three.’

  The punch was not as hard as it could have been. Durst’s fist slipped across Jack’s cheek. He should have stepped into it: instead he had to reach and over-balanced slightly. Jack put his free arm across his face, expecting more. He watched Durst’s nostrils flare as they juiced the stale air in the room for oxygen. It was another one of those times in Jack’s life when he should have kept his mouth shut. But his mouth never listened.

  ‘When you get done for all this,’ said Jack, ‘You can tell your daughter you’re going to be the new butt boy in section D.’

  Durst cocked his arm. Jack flinched, turned his head away. The punch did not come. He turned back to see Durst laughing, silently. Then he stopped laughing: his face snapped instantly into an angry, twisted mask. This time Durst stepped into the punch. Jack’s bottom lip swelled up like a rubber dinghy.

  ‘Enough of that shit.’ Peterson walked over and pulled Durst away by the arm. ‘You need to get out of here.’

  ‘Just one more time.’

  Jack swallowed a little blood. He ran his tongue over his teeth, checking for anything loose. They all appeared to be in place.

  ‘Make you feel like a man, Durst?’ he said. It hurt to talk.

  ‘Take his handcuffs off.’

  Peterson pushed Durst stiffly in the chest. ‘Settle down, you fucking idiot.’

  Jack said: ‘You think a couple of tapes are going to keep Annabelle quiet after she finds out you killed her father?’

  ‘What tapes?’ Durst looked over at Peterson, frowning. He turned to Jack again and then back to Peterson. ‘What tapes?’

  The detective stretched thin lips across his small, pointy, tightly packed teeth. ‘Annabelle isn’t going to say a fucking thing.’

  Durst ran a hand through his hair. Then he walked up close, bent down and put his face an inch from Jack’s. ‘Oh, I get it. Poor little boyfriend! Did the sexy lady tell him she loved him?’

  Jack stared at Durst. Noticed the blue of his eyes. The ironed-out wrinkles. Smelt the expensive aftershave. ‘Don’t you know about the tapes?’ said Jack.

  Durst grinned. ‘Sucker without a gun,’ he whispered.

  There was a noise in the kitchen, a rattling cutlery drawer. Peterson, Durst and Jack all looked up. Celia Mitten walked around the corner. Her hair was pinned back, her face grim and threatening even though her cheeks were flushed with morning cold. She wore a long, pale purple jumper over a long black skirt. The hem was wet in patches and smeared with mud. She was holding something behind her back.

  ‘You killed my father!’

  Durst looked alarmed. ‘I thought I told you to wait in the car.’

  ‘You bastard!’

  She ran at him. She was surprisingly quick. Her hand came out from behind her back. There was a steak knife in her fist.

  Durst leaned backwards, put his hands up as Celia lunged at him screaming. The knife stuck in his shoulder, in the soft flesh just below the collarbone. He groaned and then fell back onto Jack, still handcuffed in the chair. The white painted cane broke beneath them and they collapsed to the floor.

  Celia managed to keep hold of the knife. It came out of Durst’s shoulder, after she had twisted the steel in there for a bit. It had missed the padding of his thick black coat — blood was steadily staining the white shirt underneath. Celia writhed on top of him, trying to re-insert the serrated blade. Durst grabbed her throat.

  ‘Get her off me! Get her off me!’ His eyes were wide with shock.

  ‘Bastard!’ screamed Celia.

  Jack rolled clear. The handcuff on his right wrist was still attached to the armrest; he dragged a large piece of smashed chair with him as he moved. His eyes were fixed on the doorway leading out of the living area. He commando-crawled towards it as fast as he could.

  He was halfway across when the gun went off.

  22

  ‘FUCK, FUCK, FUCK,’ repeated Durst through rapid, shallow breaths. His face was tight with pain. He pulled himself clear of Celia Mitten’s body.

  Peterson still had his gun pointed at the dead woman. He held it in one hand, his stance comfortable, his arm straight but not rigid. He did not blink: his eyes had seen it all before.

  ‘Fuck! Get me something.’ Durst rolled onto his side, away from Celia, holding his shoulder. ‘I’m bleeding!’

  Peterson shifted his eyes to Durst. The gun followed his line of sight, his arm swung around slowly, precisely. He pulled the trigger, twice. The bullets thumped into Ian Durst’s body. One of them exited through his chest: thick, black heart blood spread quickly and smoothly and soaked his white shirt. His eyes were open, frozen. His last breath pushed a bubble of blood out over his lips: it grew for a moment and then popped, gone.

  In a low voice the detective said: ‘May as well be now.’

  Jack looked up towards the doorway. No chance. By the time he stood up to run for it, he would be down on the floor again, heavier by at least two regulation police bullets.

  Detective Geoff Peterson lowered his arm. ‘Up you get, Jackie boy,’ he said, as though nothing had happened. ‘Over here.’

  Jack pressed his forehead into the nylon-blend carpet. It was probably not even 10.00 a.m. yet.

  ‘Don’t make me shoot you.’

  With some effort, Jack stood up. A piece of cane chair dangled from the handcuffs. ‘Ziggy isn’t going to like blood all over his carpet,’ he said.

  ‘That’s his problem.’

  Jack turned to the bodies: a strange quiet was already emanating from them. A cold, subterranean quiet. He wanted out of there. ‘Glendenning isn’t going to be happy either.’

  Peterson pointed at the couch with his gun. ‘Sit.’

  Jack walked over to the couch.

  ‘Arms out.’

  With one hand, the detective snapped the loose handcuff over Jack’s other wrist. It hit the knuckle of the wrist bone, sending a dull vibration of pain up his arm. His whole body was becoming rigid, cold as steel; the pain echoed through his limbs, bounced back and forth, collected in his head. His jaw ached as t
hough a clamp was attached to it, slowly tightening.

  He glanced at Durst’s lifeless body again. ‘I thought you two were best friends.’

  Peterson frowned. He held the gun up in front of him, as though he did not know how it got there. He turned it to one side, then the other, admiringly. He continued looking at it as he slowly stretched his arm out and pointed the gun at Jack. He angled his head, closed one eye and aimed. Then he shouted: ‘Bang!’

  Jack closed his eyes. He waited for his heart to slip back down his throat and then opened them again.

  Peterson laughed. His eyes were wide. His forehead glistened with sweat. He had a sick grin on his face, like a clown who was starting to hate his job. Then in an instant it dropped away and his face tightened like a fist. He lowered the gun, held it against his leg. ‘No more chances, Jackie boy.’

  He turned and looked at Celia Mitten and Ian Durst, draining into the carpet behind him. ‘Stupid bitch.’

  ‘Lucky Ziggy’s got more than one construction site,’ said Jack. ‘But you’ll owe him. Big time.’

  Peterson said nothing, slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. He flipped it open, dialled, waited. ‘Yeah, it’s me. You on your way? … Ten minutes? Good … That’s right … No longer a problem … We’ll just have to skip a couple of steps.’ He hung up. He looked thoughtfully at Jack, his brain ticking over.

  ‘How come I never saw you with Ziggy before?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Nobody’s ever seen me with Ziggy.’

  ‘You sure? I bet he’s got a DVD somewhere.’

  Peterson stared hard at Jack — no more grinning. ‘Who says I don’t?’

  Now Jack gave a wry smile. ‘Who says it’d help you?’

  The detective thought about that. His face said that he did not like it.

  ‘Got yourself a bit of a situation.’

  ‘Not me, Jack. You.’ He snapped open the mobile again and dialled. ‘I want you to say hello to someone for me.’

  ‘You calling the police?’

  The detective ignored him. Somebody answered. ‘It’s Peterson. You can come down now … Yes, pronto … Hang on, there’s somebody here wants to say hello …’

  The detective held the phone to Jack’s ear.

  ‘Yes?’ asked the voice on the phone. It was an irritated voice. A woman’s irritated voice.

  ‘Hey Annabelle,’ said Jack. ‘It’s me.’ He felt surprisingly calm. Shock did that sometimes.

  Silence from the other end.

  ‘Don’t worry, everyone’s dead,’ he added. It was as though his mouth was on automatic pilot. ‘The money’s all yours. You can keep the poetry books as well.’

  There was a pause: Jack could hear her breathing. Was she about to say: I wanted to tell you?

  She hung up. Peterson pocketed the phone, a thin smile on his face. He patted Jack on the shoulder. ‘Love fucks you up, doesn’t it, diddums?’

  Jesus Christ. Jack had officially left the sane world. Everybody he knew was demented.

  ‘So the whole time, you and her,’ he said, his tone carrying a whiff of admiration. Then he sighed: it was involuntary. The new disappointment was getting heavier by the second.

  But knots were quickly undoing in his mind, too. He could see clearer now, the course of events, the steady clicking into place of all that had happened. Mainly he could see that he was an A-class fucking idiot. The first painful step of self-realisation on the road to Nirvana.

  The detective slipped his gun into the holster at the small of his back. He grabbed his elbow and eased it across his chest, stretching his gun arm like a discus thrower preparing for a heat.

  ‘Nice plan,’ said Jack. ‘Ziggy fixes you up for delivering Kasprowicz, you get rid of a few relatives and the last bitch standing inherits the whole wad.’ Jack remembered what Peterson had said when he shot Durst: May as well be now. How far back had their plan gone? ‘All you got to do now is marry her,’ he added.

  Peterson smiled broadly.

  ‘A lot of bodies round the place though, Detective. Must be worth it. What was Kasprowicz, ten million? Twenty million? Fifty? I suppose it doesn’t matter after five.’ Jack lifted his cuffed hands, scratched a cheek. ‘Is Ziggy paying extra or was the deal just you kill Kasprowicz for him and he gets rid of the body? The quick set-up of good ol’ Jack and then everybody catches up for a nice cold beer later? In Rio, maybe?’

  The detective was still airing his teeth. ‘Who said Kasprowicz was dead? That’s going to be your job.’

  Jack felt heat rise up his neck. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Waiting. Somewhere. For you.’

  There it was: the set-up. Nice and simple. We’d like you to hold this gun and shoot. Jack knew nobody was going to give a crap about motive when all the i’s were dotted by forensics. Not when they saw he had worked for Ziggy Brandt once upon a time. Looked like Jack was going to get his initiation after all.

  ‘Sure Annabelle won’t do a runner with the cash?’ Jack wanted to change the subject.

  ‘I got insurance.’ Peterson’s tone was casual, smug.

  Jack watched the detective light a cigarette. Thought some more. Then he grinned, nodded, understood. ‘The tapes,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the tapes of her in the sack.’ It was not Durst at all.

  Peterson blew smoke, returned the cigarette pack to his pocket.

  ‘I’m not sure about these modern, open relationships,’ said Jack. ‘They never last.’

  ‘You finished talking?’

  ‘Have I missed anything?’

  ‘You think I’d touch that fucking whore?’ Peterson tapped ash to the floor. ‘You ain’t as smart as you think, Susko. You missed everything.’

  Jack waited.

  The detective laughed, dragged on his cigarette. ‘I got the tapes all right, but she ain’t fucking nobody.’ He rolled his neck, a little to the left, a little to the right: a couple of bones clicked. ‘What I got is her asking me to kill her old man. And her uncle. And her husband, too.’ He smoked some more, shook his head. ‘You’d think she would have remembered I’m a cop. We’ve got technology. It’s in all the fucking TV shows.’

  ‘Is that where you got your plan from, too?’

  Peterson’s face darkened. ‘Just the bit about giving you the garrotte.’

  Jack hoped Peterson did not see the shiver go down his spine. He nodded at the bodies of Celia and Durst. ‘Maybe you could throw something over them.’ Thoughts were banging around in his head, ringing like bells in a fire station.

  There was the sound of a car below. As Peterson went over to the window to see, he said: ‘She didn’t do it just for the money.’

  ‘Maybe it was for a bit of fun?’ Jack’s tone was bitter. ‘The rich are easily bored.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time that was true, trust me.’ Peterson pushed the curtain aside with a finger. ‘But not Annabelle. She hated Kasprowicz’s guts.’

  ‘That’s nothing new. Why act on it now?’

  ‘New information,’ answered the cop blandly. ‘Opportunity. What else do you need?’

  ‘A dirty cop and a handcuffed sucker.’

  Peterson wagged a threatening finger at Jack. ‘Don’t make me,’ he said. He turned back to the window. ‘Mainly it was she found out Kasprowicz wasn’t her old man. Impotent fuck.’

  Jack absorbed the information slowly. The detective glanced at him over on the couch.

  ‘You ever meet that stupid bitch Sabine de Ruse?’ he asked. ‘She was married to Kasprowicz once. She found out he fired blanks. Squeezed money out of him ever since. Then after all these years she let it slip in front of Annabelle one night, pissed. All the botox must have got into her brain.’

  Jack remembered something: Kass had had an affair with Annabelle’s mother. He thought about that for a moment. Kass was Annabelle’s real father. That’s why Kasprowicz was putting together his little book collection. A revenge work-in-progress. And Jack had been his research assistant.

  Wh
at had MacAllister said? You don’t know who’s drinking and who’s paying. Jack was pretty sure he was going to be paying. He turned to Peterson, went to say something.

  The detective was holding the mobile to his ear and held up his hand. ‘It’s me,’ he said after a moment. ‘Park your car further up and wait till I call you. Annabelle’s on her way.’

  ‘That the girlfriend?’ asked Jack.

  Peterson put the phone back in his pocket. ‘Fiancée.’ He went out of the room and came back with a copper-coloured bedspread. He threw it over the bodies of Celia and Durst.

  ‘Almost there, Jack,’ he said, looking down at the bodies. ‘We’re almost there.’

  23

  DETECTIVE GEOFF PETERSON did not appear outwardly nervous but he paced the room, smoked, looked through the window a couple of times. He went into the kitchen and made himself a cup of instant coffee, found a tin full of biscuits. He grabbed one and dunked it into his cup, holding the buttery goodness close to his chin. It occurred to Jack that Peterson had been a kid — once.

  Think. Jack tried to wade through the swamp in his head. All he could focus on was how stupid he was. Was he any different from Durst? Suckered by a beautiful woman, completely out of his league. He was like a rabbit that had stumbled into an elephant shoot. And the whole slide into the mess had begun with a handful of goddamn poetry books.

  ‘So whose big idea was all this in the first place?’

  Peterson wiped crumbs from the corners of his mouth. ‘What’s the difference?’ He sipped his coffee, then smiled as he swallowed, nodding his head. ‘Oh, I get it. You’re hoping Annabelle had nothing to do with it. She was forced to join in, had no choice, blah blah blah, mitigating circumstances. Sorry, Jackie boy. She’s up to her tits in it, and she’s standing on a box.’ He put the coffee cup down on the kitchen bench and lit a cigarette. ‘I told you already. Love fucks you up.’

  Some time later, the sound of another car. ‘Here we go,’ said Peterson. He grinned and sat on the couch beside Jack. When they heard the knock on the door he called out: ‘Come in.’