Kindness Goes Unpunished wl-3

by Craig Johnson

  I wasn’t going to last long like this, so I raised the butt of the Colt and swung it down on one of the back windows; the glass spider-webbed out to the framework. I could feel the luggage rack starting to go as he hit the brakes at Race and made a right onto Logan Circle. A Japanese compact barely missed us as we made the turn and cut across four lanes.

  I brought the butt of the. 45 down on the window again, and this time the glass blew into the interior along with my arm, and I was able to leverage myself up to the armpit into the vehicle.

  I pressed my face against the cold metal of the window divider and could feel the glass cutting along my jaw line. “Peace officer! Stop this vehicle now!”

  I could see him sawing at the wheel and could feel the pressure of my grip starting to slide me toward the edge of the bumper as he continued to veer around Logan Circle and the Swan Memorial Fountain.

  He swerved back toward the outside, deciding to test the waters on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, but a utility company van cut him off. I took advantage of the slowing velocity to reestablish my grip on the doorway just as the luggage rack pulled completely off the vehicle.

  My feet slid on the bumper as I slipped sideways, and I felt my boot hit the surface of the road and pogo with a large hop as I threw my other arm into the back window and scrambled for a grip.

  I was to the point of dropping the. 45 when my other hand grabbed hold of some small leverage, and it was only when the door I was hanging from made a small jump with a chunklike sound that I realized that it was the interior door handle.

  The door swung wide with the momentum of the vehicle, and I was no longer attached. I rolled my back, my head cracked against the concrete sidewalk, and my legs went over my shoulders. I tucked my arms into my chest along with the semiautomatic and hoped that wherever I was rolling nobody would run over me.

  I didn’t move at first, just watched the black Expedition continue the wrong way down 18th and disappear as I listened to sirens approach like hounds to the hunt.

  I tried to focus, but my vision was blurred. My head hurt, and I closed my eyes. I could hear people, so that was a good sign. I opened my eyes and looked up at a gigantic individual with a tricornered hat looking down on me. It was only when I saw it was a statue and that the title on the base had way too many consonants that I collapsed against the cement and tried to breathe.

  “Sir?” I felt somebody gently pull at my right shoulder in an attempt to turn me over. “Sir, are you alive?”

  I rolled onto my back and watched as whomever it was backed away when they saw the big Colt in my hand. “It’s all right…” I coughed and cleared my throat, my voice sounding like somebody else’s. “I’m a peace officer.” The face returned, and I looked at his uniform. “You a cop?”

  He shook his head. “I’m the bellman. I been here since the hotel opened, and that was the most dramatic entrance to the Four Seasons I ever seen.” I laughed weakly and felt a pull at my abdomen, curled in a little, and returned to my side where it felt better. He kept his hand on my shoulder and talked to me in a soft voice. “Don’t you worry, there’s help comin’, you jus’ lie there.”

  I stared at the traffic and took shallow breaths, absorbing some of the cool from the sidewalk. I felt a little dizzy for a moment, but it passed with the adrenaline discharge, and I stared past the traffic at the fountain at the center of Logan Circle with the swans blowing jets of water thirty feet into the air.

  And there it was, the Indian I was meant to go back to.

  11

  “So, you got the license plate number of the truck that hit you?” She sat on the back of the chair with her feet on the seat, the kind of posture that made teachers yell.

  It was a cop convention at HUP. They had tried to take me to Hahneman, which was only four blocks from the Four Seasons, but I had told them I’d throw myself from the ambulance if they didn’t take me to the same hospital as Cady. After careful consideration and in light of recent events, they took me at my word.

  “Like I told the fuzz, city plates, 90375.” The stitches at my jawline pulled when I talked. Dr. Rissman was looking at my ear, but he didn’t say anything so he must have figured that was old news. I guessed he had come down to take a look at me out of curiosity and that you could pretty much jump in anytime if you were a neurosurgeon.

  Vic turned to look at the two detectives as Katz flipped his small notebook closed. “Stolen from the city lot two nights ago.”

  Gowder looked at Vic, she looked at Katz, and I could tell that they had all three known each other for quite some time. Michael was leaning against a wall, and they had posted a patrolman outside the curtain.

  Gowder stepped forward and held up a standard wants-and-warrants vita with a two-by-two photo of William White Eyes. He was slightly heavier, wore no glasses, and the hair was loose. “That’s him.”

  Katz walked over beside Vic and adjusted his glasses, the red dots jockeying for a good seat on his nose. He was a handsome devil, and I could see Lena making the reach. “Released a week ago. After you mentioned him last night, we did a quick look-see. Any idea why he was following you?”

  “We cowboys have that problem with Indians, even white ones.” Katz gave me a look. “Any word on Shankar DuVall?”

  The two detectives turned and looked at Michael, who grinned. “Looks like he was the one that you ran into the other night. Turns out Fraser and the others couldn’t retrieve the gun, and he wasn’t carrying, so they had to let him go.”

  “What about his connections with Toy Diaz?”

  “We got a hit on an abandoned car in Atlantic City, but no Diaz.”

  “I think I may have met Toy Diaz last night.” They all looked at me as Gowder continued to wait on the phone for the current address of one William White Eyes.

  Katz cleared his throat. “Where?”

  “At the shooting range; he was with Osgood. At least I think it was him, short guy, Latino, very precise, eyes like a snake?”

  The detective nodded his head slowly. “That sounds like him.”

  Gowder flipped his cell phone closed. “We’ve got an address.”

  Vic sipped her coffee. “Asa, why would William White Eyes want to hurt Walt? If he’s the one that knocked on the Franklin Institute door, sent Devon to flight school, and wrote the note? We should focus on Toy Diaz.”

  “Believe me, we are, but maybe the sheriff here was getting too close for comfort.”

  “He could have run over him twice…” I shook my head and raised a single sprained finger. “Excuse me, once.”

  Katz glanced back at me. “I think White Eyes did a pretty good job on him.”

  “But he didn’t kill him.” She hadn’t said anything about the note I’d given her, and I thought maybe I wouldn’t say anything about it just yet. I reached for the fresh shirt that Vic had brought me from Cady’s. She said that she had met her mother there and that Lena was taking care of Dog.

  Gowder was watching me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “With you.”

  He shook his head. “Oh no, you’re under house arrest until we get William White Eyes.”

  I looked at the two of them. “So, the partnership is over?”

  Gowder smiled as they left. “Looks that way.”

  I waited till they were past the curtain. “What if I told you I got another note?” Vic took a sip of her coffee and snorted.

  They stopped without turning, stood there for a moment, and then Gowder looked back at Vic, to Katz, and then to me. “Bullshit.”

  “Vic?”

  She took her time taking another sip. “Off the bridge at the crime scene.” She pulled the envelope from her pocket and held it up between her index and middle fingers.

  I went ahead with putting on my shirt. “I also know where the next one is.”

  Katz took the envelope, opened it, and read the card. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you two to have this dusted?”

  “Were there any finger
prints on the other one? Any DNA sample from the envelope?” He didn’t answer, and I had mine.

  Katz passed the note to Gowder and looked up at me. “Where?”

  Vic climbed off her chair and stretched. “Does this mean the partnership’s back on?” She stepped over and helped me from the gurney. “So, did my little brother start his crush before or after your daughter was in a coma?”

  Bodine Street was in an industrial complex five blocks north of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. I mentioned to Vic that it was convenient, since she was the only one in the car speaking to me. John Meifert, White Eyes’s parole officer, was going to meet us there, which was good, because without the tan sedan parked at the corner we might’ve never found the place.

  He was heavyset with sandy hair and was waiting for us on the sidewalk. He made for the door next to a truck dock. I looked around, but I didn’t see anything that would have led me to believe the address was a residence. Meifert shrugged and pushed open a steel door that had a wire-mesh grate over the glass. There was an unused, beat-up counter in an entryway with a scratched Plexiglas divider that led to a freight elevator. We all stepped over the opening between the floors, and Meifert clanged the heavy metal sliding gate that closed from the top and bottom, dropped another safety grating from above, and hit the button to his left.

  The whine of the counterweight system and the condition of the cables inspired little confidence, but the battered elevator rose to the sixth, where Meifert aligned the black spraypainted arrows on the gate with the ones on the adjacent bricks. He lifted the safety gate, and we walked out into a large, industrial loft that was surrounded by eighteen-foot glass-paned walls. The floors were hardwood, and there was nothing in the 5,000 square feet except a painted teepee. It was in the center of the space, and its sixteen hand-peeled poles extended upward and into a ventilation cupola.

  Everyone, including Meifert, looked surprised. “I take it this is new?”

  Nobody said anything but turned and walked toward the structure that would have looked much more at home…well, back home. I watched as Gowder unsnapped the holster where his. 40 Glock rested.

  It was a family-sized teepee with rows of ledger paintings traversing the heavy canvas. It sat there, a domestic island at the center of industrial isolation. As we got closer, I could see that the stake loops were tied off to Velcro straps that had been attached to the wooden floor and that there were buffalo rugs and blankets spilling from the opening even though the flap was secured and tied shut. There was a totem with a mule-deer skull that was painted and wrapped in trade cloth and beads in the Crow style. There were feathers and a fringe of leather draped from the upright pole, which stood in a slot that had been cut in the floor. The place was clean, the floors swept, and the hundreds of windowpanes had been washed and reflected the structure in the middle of the room.

  Gowder was in the lead and turned to look back, the empty eye sockets of the antlered skull looking at me over his shoulder. He pointed at the head. “What in the hell is this?”

  “A teepee marker.” They all looked at me blankly. “It’s kind of a combination welcome sign and mailbox.”

  Everyone else stopped, but I continued to the right, reading the story of the drawings that circled the teepee. The centerline had caught my attention. There were horses with men on them, shooting at each other, not something totally unique to the form, but the details were different than those I was used to seeing. The men on horseback were not red but were white and black. They were not shooting arrows or Sharps but were firing modern weapons; one even wore a 76ers jersey. The uniforms of the white riders and their hats indicated that they were policeman, and the large man falling comically from the back of a horse wore a star on his chest. The centerline had not been finished.

  There was a set of paints on the floor, a Dixie cup full of thinner, and a couple of brushes, one of which had paint on it. I stooped and touched the brush, and the bright red pigment was still wet. I looked around and spotted an open window hinged at the top at the back of the loft. “Is that a fire escape?” They all looked at me as I held up a fingertip daubed red. “He was just here.”

  Gowder was the first to move, quietly slipping the Glock from his holster and heading for the fire escape while gesturing for Katz to take the stairwell. Asa’s sidearm appeared in his hand, and they fanned out. Meifert turned and looked at me. “I don’t carry.”

  I caught Vic’s attention as she came around the other side and tossed her the. 45 from my pancake holster; I wished I were feeling better. I watched as she took the route I would have, the one toward the fire escape. She looked odd with my large-frame Colt in her small hands, but she held it with a confidence born of five years’ street duty, all in these very streets.

  I watched them, sighed, and continued with my bruised ribs and aluminum-shrouded finger around the teepee. There were more ledger drawings on the backside-one with a man in a suit and tie pushing a red-haired woman from a cliff and then another of the same man falling from what looked like a burial platform: the Devon Conliffe story.

  Vic returned with Gowder from the fire escape. He looked at the paints on the floor, kneeled, and tested the brush. Evidently, he didn’t trust my analysis. “Careful, or you’ll get it on your suit.”

  He nodded and wiped his fingers on a stained towel that lay on the floor. “Nothing on the roof.”

  I looked back at Meifert. “If you don’t mind my asking, how does a guy like William White Eyes have a place like this?”

  “His uncle owned the building and left it to him in a trust.”

  I straightened up and breathed for a minute. “I take it William comes from money?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. The kid had it all, address in Gladwyne, Ivy League advanced degree in chemistry, even a shot at the Olympics in dressage.”

  Interesting. I turned back to the front and looked at the closed flap. “I assume we are ignoring the fact that we might need a warrant.”

  Meifert cocked his head. “It’s a tent.”

  We stared at each other for a second, then I glanced over at Vic, tugged at the strips of canvas, and watched as the flaps opened. I looked into the relative darkness of the teepee. “I don’t suppose anyone has a flashlight?” They all shook their heads, so I kneeled for a better view. The top flaps were closed, so only a little light made it to the floor. There was stuff in there and the only way I was going to find out what it was was to go in, so I did, warrant be damned.

  I was able to keep the finger guard from bumping into anything as I slid into the teepee with my legs trailing behind me. It had occurred to me that William White Eyes might be inside, but I couldn’t hear any breathing and made the assumption I was alone.

  All I could see were the folds of more buffalo skins and a few Navajo blankets piled in one corner. There was nothing more in there; evidently, William White Eyes was living somewhere else. This place must be a work in progress or just for show, at least for now. I sat there in the muffled silence; I could barely hear the conversation among the three policemen outside. It felt like home, and I closed my eyes for just a moment to block out the talk, the traffic from the streets below, and the thunder of jets overhead.

  I thought of the old medicine man that I had seen in my dreams and heard the words that had lifted the two of us above the canyon on the wind that had cleansed and combed the high plains. “How can you know the earth if you do not see her?”

  Under the buffalo robes, where the earth would have been if the teepee had been in Wyoming, was a parfleche satchel painted with bright geometric shapes and decorated with horsehair and the tiny cone bells that the Cheyenne call axaxevo. I moved back toward the opening so I could see, untied the strips of leather that held the satchel closed, and pulled out two actual ledgers. I opened the top one, and it was a full accounting of some kind of business dealing and was written entirely in a language I recognized but could not read.

  I looked up to see Vic’s outline in the opening. “No sign
of him.”

  I nodded and took as big a breath as my ribs would allow. “I’ve got something here.” I closed the book and placed it carefully on top of the portfolio. “But I’m not sure exactly what it is.”

  Once I’d wriggled my way outside, I set the book on my lap and opened it to a random page. Everyone looked, and Vic kneeled in front of me, but Gowder was the first to speak. “What language is that?”

  “It’s Cheyenne. The teepee design is Assiniboine, that marker is Crow…It seems to me that William White Eyes is having trouble deciding what tribe he wants to be when he grows up.” I turned a few pages. “He strikes me as a very bright guy.”

  “First in his class at University of Pennsylvania, majored in mathematics.”

  Vic was quick with the response. “So, he’s a fucking Fortune 500 drug dealer?”

  Meifert ignored her. “His father is an investment broker who is listed in Who’s Who, but his mother died when he was a child-abducted and murdered, strangled up near East Falls in the mideighties. The case wasn’t ever solved, probably drugs involved.”

  “What was the mother’s name?”

  “Candace Carlisle. She…”

  I interrupted with a question. “Did you just say that his mother’s name was Carlisle?” Meifert nodded. I turned to look up at Gowder, who suddenly found the windows of interest. “So, his surname is Carlisle?”

  Meifert nodded. “Yeah.”

  “William Carlisle is Billy Carlisle, who was arrested with Shankar DuVall for trying to sell steamer trunks full of Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act out of the back of an ice cream truck?” I carefully stood, walked over to Gowder, and stepped between him and the windows. “Billy Carlisle, who was in business with Shankar DuVall and Toy Diaz, whose brother was shot by Assistant District Attorney Vince ‘Oz’ Osgood in the presence of the recently deceased Devon Conliffe?” Gowder still wasn’t looking at me. “The same Billy Carlisle who was represented in his pro bono appeals case by my daughter?” I turned, and my voice echoed. “Billy Carlisle is William White Eyes?”