The Dirt Peddler

by Dorien Grey

  I wasn’t quite sure what to say, so he broke the silence. “So let me ask you—do you have any reason to suspect that the accident might not have been an accident? Exactly who is—or rather, was—Randall Jacobs, and what was his relationship to Tunderew?”

  Now it was my turn to take the last bite of my BLT, chew, and swallow before answering.

  “Okay, it’s like this…”

  I told him everything I knew—about Tunderew being blackmailed and the alleged reason for it, about my having contacted the prime suspects in the blackmail, about Randy being a hustler—which gave a solid basis for the blackmail, and how Randy ended up in the car with Tunderew. There was a link between Tunderew and me, Randy and me (well, Jonathan), and obviously between Randy and Tunderew. But they weren’t the same links. That it had been Randy in the car rather than some other hustler or one of Tunderew’s woman conquests—assuming his ex-wife was not totally wrong about his sexual preferences, and I had no reason to believe she was—was purely one of those unfortunate coincidences that seem to crop up far too often in life.

  “Well,” Richman said when I’d finished, “the blackmail angle is an interesting one. But blackmail is one thing, murder something quite different. And why would a blackmailer commit murder if the blackmail was working? Who did you decide—if you did—was doing the blackmailing?”

  I sighed. “Well, I wasn’t really on the case long enough to be sure. My bet at the moment would be leaning heavily towards Bernadine Press. They were suing him for breach of contract because he was trying to back out of his deal to give them the rights to publish his second book. They stood to lose a lot of money if the contract were broken—blackmail would be a way to get at least some of it back. With Tunderew dead, and not around to fight the lawsuit, they might have a better chance of keeping the contract in force. But that’d be only if he’d finished it, yet, and I have no idea as to whether he did or not. If he hadn’t…I can well understand their wishing he was dead—I get the feeling that a lot of people felt that way about him, but to actually do it, I don’t know.”

  The waiter came by with refills for our coffee, and as usual Richman waited until he was gone before saying, “We’re putting the cart way ahead of the horse here in assuming the accident was anything but an accident. But if it turns out it wasn’t, how about the subject of the second book? If it hadn’t been finished yet, somebody might have a pretty good motive to make sure it never was.”

  I nodded. “I agree. But I have no idea who the new book was supposed to be about. And from what I know of Tunderew’s devious methods of getting information, it’s quite likely the subject might not even know about it.”

  Richman finished his coffee and looked at his watch.

  “I’d better be heading back.”

  “So where does that leave us? Are the police going to hold a full investigation?”

  He shrugged, and motioned to the waiter to bring the check. “That’ll depend a lot on what the final report on the accident shows. The preliminary autopsy results should be on my desk when I get back to the office, and if they don’t show anything unusual like a gunshot wound, and if there’s no further indication of another car being involved, there’s not too much to go on. Do you know if he’d paid the blackmailer anything?”

  I shook my head. “I doubt it. The payment was to be made by the fifteenth of this month.”

  Richman pursed his lips and knit his brow.

  “Hmm. I was going to say that we could look into the blackmail angle, since blackmailing is a criminal activity. But with no money having been paid, and Tunderew dead, I’m not sure what pursuing it would get us.” I reached for the check, but he got to it first. “My turn,” he said, hoisting his rear end off the seat to reach into his back pocket for his wallet.

  “As to where we go from here on this whole Tunderew thing, let’s wait until we see what develops first, okay?”

  *

  No message from O’Banyon when I returned to the office, but I knew he was probably in court all day. There was one from Tim, though. He said he had some information and would call me back on his afternoon coffee break.

  Information? Damn! What kind of information? About what? Well, the deaths, obviously. But…

  They say patience is a virtue, but you certainly couldn’t prove it by me, I’ve never had so much as an atom of it. So waiting for Tim’s call was about thirty seconds longer than eternity.

  Finally, at two thirty, the phone rang.

  “Hardesty Investigations.”

  “Hi, handsome,” Tim said. From the sounds of traffic in the background, I gathered he was using one of the pay phones in front of the building.

  “What’s the ‘information’?” I asked, a little abruptly. (Hey, a lot of impatience can build up in an eternity and thirty seconds.)

  “Both Tunderew and Randy died from massive trauma suffered in the crash itself. No evidence whatever of any foul play. But the interesting thing is that Tunderew must have been high as a kite when the car went through the railing.”

  ??? I thought.

  “Drunk?”

  “Cocaine. High levels. It’s a wonder he could even drive.”

  Well, well.

  “And Randy?”

  I was almost certain Randy had been clean when we dropped him off at the bus station. Jonathan had never indicated anything about Randy being a user.

  “No drugs.”

  He said that Catherine Tunderew had claimed her ex-husband’s body; no one had claimed Randy, and the thought that perhaps no one would made me incredibly sad. I wanted to ask about what might happen to Randy if no one did claim him, but Tim had to get back to work, so we hung up with the promise to talk after I got home.

  So Tunderew was coked up, eh? That made a pretty strong case for the strictly-an-accident theory. But…my mind went back to the TV report I’d first seen on the accident…the reporter standing in the rain, the camera panning past him, down from the broken guardrail to the bottom of the ravine. There was something…what?…something that caught my attention in that scene. What in hell was it? I only saw the report once, and I certainly do not have what I’d consider a photographic memory. But I do have a knack for knowing when something isn’t right.

  I looked at my watch and saw it was only two forty-five. The reporter standing in the road in the rain. What was I getting at?

  Come on, Hardesty! Stop playing these stupid games with yourself!

  I tried to ignore it and do some paperwork I’d been putting off far too long, but I couldn’t get my mind off that image of the reporter…and the road. It had something to do with the road.

  As Oscar Wilde said, “I can resist anything but temptation.” I’d gotten myself going on this accident scene thing, and I knew I wouldn’t let it go until I did something about it. With a deep Weltschmerz sigh, I got up and left the office.

  *

  It was a nice day for a drive, and it was good just to get out and do something a little different. It would have helped had I not had to be thinking every second about Tunderew, Randy, the accident that killed them, and what had led them to that particular spot at that particular time.

  I took the Neeleyville turnoff toward the range of hills that made a sweeping semi-circle north of the city. I wasn’t sure exactly where the accident had taken place, but didn’t think it would be hard to find. The road crossed a small stream and began its winding climb up the first of several hills, each one steeper and taller than the one before. The slope of the hill between the stream and the car became steeper until the stream was lost from sight. The edge of a ravine appeared about a block to the left of the car, then slowly edged ever closer, as if hoping no one would notice, until it paralleled the road with only a guardrail between the pavement and a sharp drop-off.

  Luckily there was little traffic, and most of what there was was headed toward the city. I was able to keep a watch on the guardrail ahead. And then I saw it…a twenty-foot section of obviously new rail, about a hundred
feet before a curve to the right, which took the road out of the line of sight past the steep upward slope of the hill. Making sure there was no one coming up behind me, I pulled as far off the road as I could get—the shoulder was just wide enough to allow cars to pass from behind without having to swerve over into the other lane.

  I got out of the car and walked over to the rail, looking down, as the camera had done, to the stream at the bottom of the ravine, probably ninety feet below. The car had been removed, of course, and I could see broken small trees and shrubs where it had either been hauled up, or damaged on the way down. It was an odd feeling to realize that two people I had known, even slightly, had died right here. I backed away from the edge, and looked up the road toward the curve.

  And it hit me! What my mind had seen and I had not. There was a good hundred feet of straight, relatively level road leading to the curve! Why would the accident have happened here, and not closer to the curve? Well, sure, if Tunderew were stoned, it could have happened anywhere…but he hit something before he went over! If some idiot had come speeding around the curve and into the uphill lane, Tunderew might have suddenly swerved to avoid it. A head-on collision would have been catastrophic for both cars; if they’d missed each other, where had the broken glass come from?

  I looked carefully at the road. There were maybe six feet of skid marks, swerving from the right lane—my lane—sharply over the center line. Then there was a faint, broken circle of smudges as if the car had spun around in a circle heading for the guard rail, but obviously from only one set of tires. Why would there be skid marks if he hadn’t thought he was going to hit something? A deer? The upward slope of the hill to the right was pretty steep—hard to imagine what a deer would be doing on the road in the first place or how, if one was there and been hit with enough force to break a light and make a car lose control, would it have been able to run up that steep an incline and disappear.

  What the hell had happened? I didn’t know. But my instinct was telling me that Tunderew’s being high or not, it was no accident.

  I got back in the car, drove about a mile farther up the road until I could find a safe place to turn around, and headed back to the city.

  *

  I made it back with enough time to swing by and pick up Jonathan from work so he wouldn’t have to take the bus home. He’d been saving every penny he could so that he could buy a car of his own. We’d talked about my getting a new car myself—a “family” car, if you would—and letting him have this one for back and forth to work and school, but he insisted on buying it from me, and at the Blue Book value.

  He was uncharacteristically quiet on the ride home, looking out the window. I knew he was thinking of Randy, and so was I. I was also increasingly aware of the fact that since Randy had most likely died only because he was with someone a lot of people had reason to want dead, that meant that I was probably going to find myself trying to find out who had killed Tony T. Tunderew. To be brutally honest, I didn’t really care who had killed Tunderew, but I owed it to Randy as a human being to find out what had happened to him.

  My thoughts were interrupted when Jonathan, still looking out the window, asked, “What happens if nobody claims Randy? He doesn’t have any family.”

  “I’m going to call Tim when we get home to ask him.”

  Jonathan just nodded and lapsed again into silence. I didn’t even bring up the subject of drugs. Randy had been clean; there wasn’t any point.

  *

  After a quiet—in more ways than one—dinner, I helped Jonathan with the dishes and then went into the living room to call Tim. Jonathan got out his textbook and sat down on the floor in his customary cross-legged pose, the book open on the carpet between his knees.

  “Tell Tim ‘hi,’” he said without looking up.

  It was Phil who answered the phone, and we talked for a few minutes, mostly about Sunday’s brunch and Jared’s friend Jake, who had made quite an impression on us all.

  “It’d be nice if Jared finally settled down,” he said, and I laughed, then felt a little guilty for Jonathan’s sake.

  “Yeah, it would. But don’t count on it. Jared’s not the settling down kind.”

  “Well, stranger things have happened. How’s Jonathan doing?”

  I glanced down at him as he turned a page in his textbook, apparently fully absorbed in it.

  “He’ll be fine. Oh, and is Tim around?”

  “Sure. Just a sec.”

  When Tim came on, I asked him what the procedures were for dealing with someone like Randy, who apparently had no family at all.

  Tim sighed. “I was afraid that might be the case. When no one steps in to claim a body, tracking down relatives is usually up to the police. I’m sure they’ll do everything they can to find somebody. He had some sort of I.D. card from New Eden, so they’ll start there. And he had a bank book with his name on it, I understand. When no one can be found to claim a body, we keep it for ten days, and if no one has claimed it by then, it’s cremated at the county’s expense and buried in Rosevine Cemetery. That’s where the county has its Potter’s Field.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I never knew the kid, but I’d sure feel bad to think that he’d end up there.”

  I couldn’t agree more. But I’d found the reference to the bank book both surprising and interesting.

  “Did you see the bankbook?”

  “No, but it was in the bag with his personal effects. I just noticed it listed on the inventory form they keep with the bag.”

  “Is there some way you could get a look at it?”

  Not many hustlers have bankbooks, and I remembered Randy’s boasts about some expected windfall.

  “I suppose I could. Totally against policy, of course, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, Tim. Jonathan sends you both his best. Talk with you later.”

  When we hung up, I told Jonathan what Tim had said.

  “I’ll bury him,” Jonathan said softly, outwardly concentrating on his textbook.

  “Uh…” I said, watching him closely, “that’s really sweet of you, but…”

  “I’ll use my car money. I’m not going to have Randy buried in some Potter’s Field like some throwaway nobody cared about.”

  I was really touched by his naturally generous nature, but hardly surprised.

  “Well, let’s wait and see what happens first, okay? They might be able to find a relative somewhere.”

  “Okay.”

  *

  And just how do you ever expect to make a living if you spend all your time working on cases you’re not being paid to solve? one of my mind-voices—the one responsible for my finances, and which I’d always pictured decked out in a green eyeshade and a celluloid collar—demanded huffily.

  It was right, of course, but I just couldn’t turn my back on Randy and finding out why he’d died—which, in order to do, I had to find out why, specifically, Tunderew had died.

  I was sitting at my desk, drinking my umpteenth cup of coffee, lost in my thoughts, when the phone rang.

  “Hardesty Investigations.”

  “Dick, it’s Glen. Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday. I was out of town until this morning. Quite a surprise about Tunderew, eh?”

  “I don’t know if ‘surprise’ is quite the right word. I’m sorry you lost a client, though.”

  “Not to worry. I’ve got a couple others to keep me busy. But do I detect a note of skepticism in that reference to a surprise?”

  Sharp guy, O’Banyon, I thought. But of course he was sharp or he wouldn’t be one of the richest lawyers in the city.

  “If you mean do I suspect the accident may not have been an accident, the answer’s yes. It’s not absolutely certain, but my money’s on murder.”

  “Well, that is interesting, especially in light of…” he trailed off.

  I waited all of three seconds for him to continue, and when he didn’t, I prompted, “In light of…?”

  “In addition to representing h
im in this breach of contract matter, I was also drawing up a new will for him. He was supposed to be in tomorrow to sign it.”

  “Can I assume somebody was being cut out of the old will?”

  “You can assume it, if you wish, but I can’t give you any details, of course.”

  “Catherine Tunderew?”

  I took the pointed silence that followed as confirmation.

  “Well, as you said, ‘interesting!’”

  “You’re not thinking of getting involved in all this, are you? As I recall, you weren’t planning on starting a Tony T. Tunderew fan club.”

  “I don’t give a shit about Tunderew, but I knew the kid who was in the car with him.”

  “Ah?” he said, obviously curious.

  “Randy Jacobs, a friend of Jonathan’s. A hustler, by the way, which brings us back to the blackmail issue that got me into this whole thing. I owe it to Randy and Jonathan to find out who was responsible, and I can’t do that without finding out who killed Tunderew. If it wasn’t an accident,” I hastened to add.

  There was another moment of silence, then O’Banyon’s voice, “Well, keep me posted, will you? And if there’s anything you need from me…”

  “I’ll let you know for sure. Thanks, Glen. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  We hung up and I heard myself sigh.

  How do you manage to get yourself into these things? one of my mind-voices asked innocently.

  It’s a gift, another replied, with just the slightest hint of sarcasm.

  I ignored them both and got to work.

  Chapter 7

  Okay. Catherine Tunderew. Did she know she was being cut out of her ex-husband’s will? Did she even know she’d ever been in it? If the answer to both those questions was “yes,” that would move her ahead of the Bernadines on the suspects list. I’d call her.