Last Dark Place

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “They’re going to hurt someone else,” O’Neil said. “They killed. Next time they’ll probably kill again. Maybe a girl like you. Maybe even someone you know. When you find out about it, you can remind yourself that two cops came by and asked you for help, that you could have saved her.”

  “Never saw them before,” she said. “God’s truth. Well, maybe one of them. Looked sort of like a guy works at this burger place on Irving Park. The one that has the sign in the window says, THE MOTHER OF ALL BURGERS. You know the one? Might be him, might not. Don’t go asking me to identify him or anything.”

  “What’s he look like, this guy?”

  “I dunno,” she said, squirming slightly. “Just a guy, maybe twenty, maybe not. Got one of those little tiny beards under his lip. Right here.”

  She pointed to the spot.

  “It’s called a goatee,” Hanrahan said.

  “Whatever,” she said nervously.

  “Where on Irving Park?” Hanrahan went on.

  “Berg’s,” she said. “Right near Crawford. Jew place. You find him, you won’t tell him I said?”

  “No,” said Hanrahan, getting up.

  “Can I please go back to math now?”

  “Sure,” Hanrahan said.

  She got out of the chair and hurried out of the office leaving the door open.

  “Feel like a burger?” said Hanrahan.

  “Maybe the mother of all burgers with cheese,” answered O’Neil.

  The list of people who might have wanted Connie Gower dead was long, and that was just the people Lieberman knew about, people for whom Connie had committed murder.

  Lieberman pushed the white button next to the door of 3432 Indian Burial Ground Road. The neighborhood was filled with tiny adobe houses on small lots. The houses had once been coral, pink, and yellow, but time and neglect had left only the hint of original color. The small front yard to the right of where he stood was neatly kept and covered with cracking stone or concrete. The house on the left was strewn with shirtless, laughing children and two torn aluminum and plastic lawn chairs.

  The building in front of which Lieberman stood pressing the white button was out of place, a three-story wooden box recently painted blood red.

  The sun was just going down.

  After seeing Billy Johnstone, Lieberman had gone to the downtown Yuma police station, where he found Martin Parsons at a desk in the corner of a room. There were three other desks, all empty.

  Parsons had raised his eyes from the computer screen, fingers lightly touching the keys.

  “How’s he look?” Parsons had asked.

  “Skinny, weak,” said Lieberman, taking a seat next to the desk.

  “Just checked with the hospital. Touch and go. But it looks like he’ll make it.”

  “You all right?” asked Lieberman.

  “Never shot anyone before. Doesn’t feel real. I had to shoot him didn’t I? I mean, it was righteous, right?”

  “Absolutely,” said Lieberman. “Probably saved my life, maybe yours too.”

  “You in trouble?” asked Parsons. “I mean back in Chicago.”

  “I lost a prisoner,” said Lieberman. “My boss isn’t happy, but I explained.”

  “He a hard-ass?”

  “Can be,” said Abe. “Not usually. What do you have on Johnstone?”

  Parsons picked up a spiral-topped notebook, flipped it open and scanned his penciled notes.

  “No record. Worked at the airport for the last sixteen years plus. Wife died eight years ago. Active member of the Liberty Baptist Church of Arizona. Lives alone on Indian Burial Ground Road. Apartment.”

  Parsons wrote the address on a sheet of paper and handed it to Lieberman, who tucked it in his pocket and asked, “You coming?”

  Parsons shook his head “no.”

  “Want to finish this report,” he said, pointing to the computer screen. “You ever shot anyone?”

  “A few,” said Lieberman.

  Parsons looked as if he were going to say something, changed his mind and shook it off.

  Before leaving the station Lieberman had called home. His ten-year-old granddaughter Melissa had answered.

  “Grandma’s out,” the girl said. “Went to the grocery. She’s picking up a cooked chicken and mint-chocolate ice cream and a salad.”

  “And two hard-boiled eggs,” Lieberman added.

  “Marx Brothers,” she said with a giggle.

  “Make that three hard-boiled eggs.”

  “Grandpa,” Melissa pleaded. “Be serious.”

  “I’m always serious. Make that four hard-boiled eggs. Where’s Barry?”

  “Dining room, going over his speech again. If you ask me, I’d say he knows it too well. It won’t make any sense to him. He’ll know it so well, he’ll just forget it when he’s up there on the bimah.”

  “You tell him that?”

  “No, never.”

  “Good. Tell your grandma I’ll call later tonight or in the morning.”

  “You’re in Arizona?”

  “Yuma.”

  “Is it hot?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Gotta go.”

  She hung up.

  Abe pushed the button by the door of the red building again. Hard, long. He thought he heard someone inside.

  The door opened. A lean, very dark, pretty black woman with her hair pulled back tightly looked at him while she adjusted an earring in her right ear. She was wearing a dark, snug-fitting dress and a pearl necklace. Door open she looked at him.

  “You a cop?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Want to see my shield?”

  “I’ve seen plenty,” she said. “You look kind of old to be a cop.”

  “I’m a Chicago cop. We grow old on the job. What made you think I was a cop?”

  The children next door whooped and screamed. The woman in front of him stood on the threshold adjusting the earring.

  “News, television. Billy Johnstone’s on every channel.”

  “You’ve got nice earlobes,” he said.

  “Earlobes?”

  “My daughter has nice earlobes and a bad disposition,” he said.

  “Sounds like me.”

  “You the owner?”

  “Of this mansion?” she asked, looking around with a smile. “Yes, I’m the owner.”

  “I like the color,” Abe said.

  “Stands out, doesn’t it?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “I’m in a hurry,” she said. “Got a date with a real estate man.”

  “I’m happy to hear it. We can talk here.”

  “About Billy?”

  “Unless you have something else you want to talk about.”

  She shrugged, checked her watch, and folded her arms impatiently.

  “Miss …?”

  “Mrs. Alvarado, Jean Alvarado.”

  “Bueno,” said Lieberman. “Habla español? Si usted se habla, tengo mucho gusto a hacerle.”

  “I speak a hell of a lot better Spanish than you do,” she said. “But why the hell would I want to? Senor Alvarado, the bruised banana from Nicaragua, left here four years ago and took all my need for Spanish with him. So stick with English. Can we …?”

  “Billy Johnstone. He have any friends?”

  “Some, nobody close. Grandkids come and visit him now and again.”

  “What does he do with his time?”

  “Stays in his apartment. Watches television, sometimes too loud. Turns it down when reminded. Has his meals at the airport or in his apartment. One or two nights a week he spends a few hours over at the Cantina Azul Pub. You come from downtown?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you must have passed it. Anything else?”

  She checked her watch again.

  “Two questions. First, what do you think of Billy Johnstone?”

  “Think about him? Lord God and Jesus save me, I hardly think about him at all. He never causes trouble. Minds his business. Pays his rent on time. Damn. Didn’t
think of that. I guess he won’t be coming back here. I’ll have to put up the sign. You said you had two questions.”

  “Right,” said Lieberman. “Can I take a look at Mr. Johnstone’s apartment? It won’t take me long.”

  “Damn right it won’t take long. We’re only talking about one room and what is optimistically called a kitchenette. Sure, but make it quick. I gotta go.”

  She stepped back to let Abe in.

  “I owe you one, Mrs. A.,” he said.

  “Hell, you owe me two. Car parked across the street,” she said without looking in that direction. “Been watching us. Backup in case I come out with guns in both hands blazing away?”

  “No.”

  “Then someone’s watching your very vulnerable skinny white behind.”

  Lieberman did not look back. He stepped further into the small seven-by-seven lobby of the building as she closed the door. Then he turned and went to the curtained window to the left of the door. He pulled the curtain back slightly and looked across the street at the tan Mazda. The person behind the wheel was a man wearing dark glasses and a cap. He was looking at the apartment door.

  “Use your phone?”

  “Local call?”

  “Local call.”

  She led him through an open door and pointed to a phone on a table across the small living room. The deco room looked as if it came out of an Astaire-Rogers movie. Lieberman checked his notebook and called Parsons.

  “That address you gave me. I’m inside the building. There’s a tan Mazda across the street watching. Can you pick him up?”

  “I’ll have a car there in about ten minutes.”

  “It’ll take that long to check out Johnstone’s apartment.”

  Abe hung up and found himself facing the woman.

  “I shouldn’t have told you about that car. Now I’ve got to wait till the troops arrive.”

  “No, just let me into the apartment and make your date. I promise I won’t steal anything.”

  “You know how many promises I’ve heard from men in my life both as an adult and a child?”

  “Four hundred and six,” said Lieberman.

  “Forget it. Come on.”

  She led the way to the narrow steps in the little lobby and started up.

  After she opened the door to the studio apartment, she stood back and said, “I’m late. You’re on your own. From now on you’ll have to make it through life without me.”

  “John Huston said that in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” Abe said, looking around the room.

  “I know,” she said, looking at her watch. “I watch a lot of late-night TV.”

  “Me, too. Insomnia.”

  “I don’t even have that excuse,” she said. “Close the door when you leave.”

  She left and as Lieberman heard her going down the stairs, he closed the door and moved to the window. He could see the Mazda parked across the street, a figure inside it.

  The room had a dark wooden floor with a faded throw rug that might or might not be Indian, American Indian. The faded gray wall on the left was covered with photographs of smiling, eyes-alive black children, a boy and a girl. From left to right along the wall the children grew older, lost and gained teeth and glasses, and a knowing depth to their smiles.

  There was also a framed sheet from a ballpark souvenir book. It was a color photo of fifteen baseball players in blue uniforms. An infinitely younger and happier-looking Billy Johnstone knelt on one end of the first row.

  On the wall facing this one was a gallery of black-and-white photographs, about thirty of them. All were neatly and simply framed. About half were of people, all kinds of people, all ages, colors, sizes, and locations. The other half were brooding objects, rocks, trees, storefronts, a fire hydrant with its paint cracking.

  There wasn’t much to search. One bleached-out yellow flowered sofa with nothing under or behind the pillows; one rocking chair, three kitchenette cabinets; an old humming refrigerator; a small chest of drawers with socks and underwear neatly laid out; and a closet as neat as the drawers with five shirts, a few pair of slacks, and a surprise on the shelf. The surprise was in a cardboard box with a red rubber band around it. Johnstone had made no attempt to hide it.

  Lieberman opened the box and found more family photographs, some old letters paper-clipped together, and a full-color photograph of a white man’s hand. The cuff of a shirt buttoned at the wrist was nothing special, but the man’s hand was. The thumbnail was black, not the flat black of a recent hammer, but a rough gnarled ridge.

  He pocketed the photograph and put the box back on the shelf. Back at the window he looked out to see a marked squad car parked behind the Mazda. Two uniformed officers were standing next to a man who was fishing something, probably his driver’s license, from his wallet.

  The man was tall, white-haired, ponytail, not much of a chin. He was wearing jeans and a purple T-shirt. He glanced up at the window, saw Lieberman, smiled and gave a little flip-off wave before returning his attention to the cops.

  Lieberman was feeling hungry. The white-haired man would have to wait.

  He was heading for the door when the phone rang. Lieberman saw the phone on the wall in the kitchen area. He moved to it, picked it up and said, “Yeah.”

  “Detective Lieberman, do you know where you are?”

  “Generally? Specifically?”

  “You are out of your element, out of your city, out of your jurisdiction, and you know where I am?”

  “Out of your mind,” Lieberman said dryly.

  The man laughed.

  “Heard about your sense of humor.”

  “Maybe I should be a stand-up comic.”

  “Pay’s bad, hours are bad, and audiences are brutal,” said the man.

  “Thanks,” said Abe. “We just going to keep chatting or do you have something to say?”

  “Go home,” the man said. “You’ve got a lovely wife, a troubled daughter, two terrific grandchildren. Go home.”

  “Those things I know,” said Lieberman. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “You’re wasting your time. Johnstone’s not going to talk to you. And what do you really, down deep, care if Connie Gower is dead?”

  Lieberman tucked the phone under his chin and reached over to pull one of the two white kitchen chairs in the tiny alcove. He sat as he spoke.

  “He was my responsibility. And I take umbrage at someone shooting people I’m handcuffed to.”

  “It’s been nice talking to you,” the man said. “No, really it’s been nice.”

  “Thanks. I’ve been told I’m a sardonic conversationalist.”

  “That you are,” said the man. “Go home.”

  “Soon,” Lieberman said.

  “Keep your Jew nose out of this,” the man said.

  “And you keep your thumb in your mouth.”

  The man hung up.

  Conclusion, thought Lieberman. There’s something to learn in Yuma.

  O’Neil took a bite of his Big Berg Burger and scooted back to keep mustard from dripping on his shoes. He was standing next to Hanrahan at a little round wood-colored plastic table. Hanrahan had taken a bite of the hot dog in front of him. The table was dappled with poppy seeds from the bun.

  Two men in their thirties with grease on their hands, faces, and Tshirts were carrying on a mouthful conversation about the Bears’ chances at a play-off spot next season.

  There were two people with white aprons behind the counter. One was a heavy man about forty-five with a head of dark hair. He kept wiping his hands on the stained apron. The other person behind the counter was a skinny woman wearing too much makeup. Both cops sized her up as being somewhere between sixty-five and eternity.

  “Stuff’s good,” said O’Neil. “Never been in here before.”

  “Come and go,” said Hanrahan.

  “Huh?”

  “Places around here come and go.”

  Hanrahan took out his wallet, nodded at the heavy guy in the apro
n who was looking at them, and showed his shield. He nodded for the man to come over.

  The heavy guy nodded, glanced at the door, said something to the old woman, wiped his hands, and disappeared to his right. He came out through a door near the restroom looking uncomfortable.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “You Berg?” asked O’Neil.

  “Yes,” he said. “Bert Berg.”

  “Good burger.”

  “Top ground round,” said Berg. “What can I do for you?”

  “Kid around eighteen or nineteen. Goatee,” said Hanrahan, pointing to his own face to indicate where the goatee would be. “Drives a dark car with a monkey on the dash.”

  “Yeah?” the man said, wiping his hands again.

  “Know him?” asked O’Neil, taking another bite.

  “Don’t think so.”

  Berg glanced quickly at the woman on the other side of the counter, who was straining to hear what was being said.

  “Think harder,” O’Neil said, chancing a large bite of his sandwich.

  “I don’t know,” Berg said with a shrug. “I mean we’ve got people in and out, regulars, not regulars. Doesn’t ring a bell. What did he do?”

  “Something bad,” said O’Neil.

  “Like …?”

  “Something bad,” O’Neil repeated. “Who works behind the counter?”

  “Me, my mother.”

  “No one else?” asked Hanrahan.

  “My son sometimes.”

  “Where is he?” asked O’Neil.

  Berg looked at his mother and then back at the policemen.

  “Out. He doesn’t work today. Why?”

  “We want to talk to him,” said O’Neil.

  Hanrahan fished into his pocket and came up with a card slightly bent at the corner. He handed it to Berg, who wiped his hands again before taking it with a nod.

  O’Neil had finished his burger and was cleaning his fingers with a napkin. Hanrahan picked up his half-eaten hot dog.

  “We’ll be back,” said O’Neil, dropping his crumpled napkin on the table.

  “But …,” Berg began.

  “Good burgers,” O’Neil explained.

  The arguing men at the other table paused in their conversation. One of them stepped in front of the two detectives, who were heading for the door.

  “You’re what’s-his-name,” said the young man pointing a grimy finger at Hanrahan. “Played on the line back with McMahon. Seventies. Right?”