by Linda Barnes
“Was Sally black?” I asked.
“Yeah. Cal white?”
I nodded, wondering about Leon and Chaney again, wondering how their apparently different circles meshed. I kept recalling Chaney’s comment about how difficult it was for him to trust a white person. My Jewish grandmother, my mother’s mother, never trusted a non-Jew. Goyim were okay, she would allow when pressed, and she never offered any explanation for her mistrust except that they were goyim, other, separate and apart. I glanced around the crowded, noisy room, at tables filled with flirting couples, rowdy students, multigenerational families, all colors, Korean, Chinese, African-American.
From a small table near the rest room, a woman glared back with hostile eyes. She was middle-aged and pudgy; her husband was husky and had a buzz cut. Both were white. I didn’t know them. I wondered if she glared because I was half of a multiracial couple. That way, paranoia, I thought. Maybe she simply despised women with red hair.
My cell phone didn’t sound during the meal. I checked it and the batteries were fine, no messages. I didn’t want to go to a movie, where I’d need to shut it off. Leon liked the idea of a club, but I didn’t want to go anyplace noisy enough that I was likely to miss Chaney’s call.
We rented a pile of old movies, enough for a popcorn marathon, and went back to my place, where we couldn’t agree on which one to watch first. I suggested we put on some music instead, hoping to listen to a new Chris Smither album. Leon like the idea of music; he wanted to dance. He found an oldies station that specialized in Motown, tried to teach me old Detroit dances I’d forgotten, the Stroll and the Grapevine. One thing led to another, it got late, and we wound up in bed.
I was drifting off, my head on his shoulder, my right arm draped across his chest, which he didn’t seem to mind, when the bell rang. Not my cell phone, which I’d thought might ring and which I’d carefully cradled upstairs. The doorbell.
Leon tried to sit up. “Wha— That your sister?”
“She wouldn’t ring. She’s got a key.”
“I might have slipped the chain on by mistake. You want me to—”
“Go back to sleep.” The clock said 3:08. If it was Paolina, we were going to have words. I slipped on my robe, fastening the sash as I hurried downstairs. My bizarre tenant, Roz, has awakened me late at night, but my thoughts were of Paolina. Paolina hurt, Paolina injured, Paolina in trouble. Even so, I put the chain on the door. I was half-asleep and worried, but habits hold fast.
Chaney tried to push his way past the chain, his bloodshot eyes wide, his hair wild. He brought his face close to the crack in the door and spoke in a voice choked with anger.
“How much do you want?”
My “What?” was simply a reflex, a protest at the fury in his glare and his voice.
“What the hell were you— How could you have—”
“Be quiet. Keep it down!” Pretty soon, porch lamps would flare the length of the block. If he’d been drunk, I’d have smelled it on his breath at such close range. Drugs were harder to rule out. He didn’t have a hand in his pocket or a suspicious weapon-shaped bulge in his clothes. He was fully dressed, but he’d done it in a hurry. One of his shirt buttons was undone, his right shoe untied.
I closed the door and removed the chain to the beat of insistent knocking. When I reopened, his charging entry took him clear across the foyer.
“Are you high or what?” I shut the door and turned on him angrily. A bigger man, a less well-educated man, I’d have been more careful.
“Are you crazy?” he responded. “Don’t think I don’t know. The cops—the police. I must have been crazy to—”
“Are you going to calm down, or am I going to kick you out? For a man who doesn’t want anybody to know he’s seeing a PI, you’re pretty damned loud in the middle of the night.”
He shot a quick glance at the staircase. “Are you alone here?”
“Chaney, what the hell is going on?”
“I can’t believe this. My God, now I am totally fucked.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
He grabbed me by the shoulders, this intellectual, inoffensive man, grabbed me and tried to shake me like an angry parent might shake a child. “They won’t believe me. You’ll tell them I hired you. I’ll never make them believe me. I could—I ought to kill you for what you’ve done.”
“Let go of me.” My voice cut like ice. Before I needed to follow up on it with my fists, he released me and turned away.
I took the single step down to the living room and my desk, lifted the receiver. “Nine one one right now, Chaney, unless you start talking sense. They’ll trace the call, even if I hang up.”
“Yeah, well, I know you’re bluffing.”
I made it to the second digit before he yelled at me to stop. For a moment, he looked hesitant, as though his intellect was warring with his fury. I took advantage of the pause.
“Sit down. Tell me what you think I’ve done before you go off like a bomb.” I didn’t swear; I didn’t shove him into a chair, or whack him with a length of lead pipe. I made my voice deliberately gentle. Meet belligerence with belligerence, you just get more of the same.
To my surprise, he sat, almost toppling into the old butterfly chair that faced my desk. “The police came to my house.” He seemed to think that was sufficient explanation but I sure as hell didn’t.
“Do they know about the blackmail?”
“They haven’t made any connection between me and the dead man, except for the car. But if they do, when they do—”
“The dead man.” It came out too loud, an explosion of its own.
“Yes,” he said, packing venom into the single word.
“Who?”
“Benjamin Dowling.”
Benjy Dowling. Shit. I tried to pretend I’d heard other syllables, other words, but the name Benjamin Dowling echoed and rechoed till I couldn’t stop myself from asking how Dowling had died.
“Like you don’t know,” Chaney said. “Tell it to the marines.”
“And what about you? How do you even know his name?”
“Denali mentioned him. It wasn’t important, just conversation, you know. I barely listened. She said something about rowing, a guy she met. But when I heard his name again, a man who knew Denali, when the cops told me about the hit-and-run, with my car, I thought—and then I knew. When did you take my car?”
“Back up. What exactly do you think—”
He looked around my living room, registering his surroundings for the first time since he’d entered. “This is quite a place. You know, I thought that before. … This house in this neighborhood. How does she afford a place like that? You blackmail your other clients to pay for it? You think I’m your meal ticket, but you’re wrong. My wife has money; I don’t have money. She won’t help me. She’ll let me sink. I wish I’d told you all this before—before it was too late—but it didn’t seem any of your goddamned business. I might have money, money of my own, if I keep my job, if this drug trial goes through. But with the FDA, at this stage, it’s hard to say, and Harvard will get the lion’s share of the money.”
“You think I killed Dowling.”
He nodded slowly, as if it were the most logical thing in the world. “You used my car. My car. I didn’t even know the damn thing was gone until the cops came. I guess you figured they’d believe me when I said it must have been stolen. As long as there’s no connection between me and … and the dead man, why shouldn’t they believe me? You’re the only one who can make the connection, so instead of paying Dowling one thousand or five thousand, now I pay you. God, I ought to call the police and tell them and the the hell with it. I can’t believe you’d do this. I can’t believe I’d do this. Cover up a murder to shield myself.” He planted elbows on knees and lowered his head to his hands. I could hear his shuddering breath. “How much do you want?”
“What did you do today?” I demanded.
“What?”
“I want every minute of your da
y, Chaney.”
“Why?”
“Do it!”
“After I called you, I went to the lab. I was in meetings all day.”
“With?”
“Two different sets of drug company representatives. It was exhausting.”
“When did you get out?”
“The afternoon session lasted past six. I had dinner at the Faculty Club. I went home.”
There must have been gaps. Time when he could have tailed me, realized who the blackmailer was, put his own plan into motion. We eyed each other with growing distrust.
I said, “When did this happen? When did Dowling die?”
He seemed to sink farther into the chair. “The police came after two. Woke me up. They frightened my wife. They asked if I knew where my car was.”
“Did they ask where you were at any specific time?”
“Twelve-thirty to one.”
“And you were asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Your wife will back you up?”
He pulled a face and glanced away. “I’m not sure.”
“Were you asleep?”
“I didn’t kill that man.”
“Neither did I.”
“If neither of us did it, do you suppose it was an accident? Could it have been an accident? Could—”
“A hit-and-run. With your car? An accident? I hope to hell you don’t teach probability in your classes.”
He wiped his hands on his knees, then rubbed them together rapidly as though trying to warm them, as though he’d taken a sudden chill. “Dowling was the one then. The blackmailer.”
“Yes,”
“What about my letters? Did you find them? Do you have them?”
I must have nodded.
He couldn’t keep his hands still. “Thank God. Thank God. Imagine what would have happened if the police had found them. Give them to me.”
I was motionless. “I don’t think so.”
“What about the money? Will the police find it? If—”
“I didn’t find any money.”
He looked at me as if he was sure I was lying.
“Go home,” I said.
“But the letters. … Are you still working for me?”
“Now you want a murderer on your payroll?”
“I may have spoken too quickly, made assumptions.”
“Go home.”
“But I need to—I need to order my life. I need to have a plan.”
“You want a plan? Hire a lawyer.”
“I”—he swallowed—“I have a lawyer.”
“A criminal lawyer?”
“Will I need one?” His words were barely audible.
“You might.”
“Burn the letters,” he said. “Please. If you won’t give them back to me, burn them.”
“Go home.”
“I should never have come.” His words were bitter and tinged with regret, for this meeting, for our first meeting, for having sought my help in the first place. He got to his feet like a man who’d aged twenty years in as many minutes and walked slowly to the door.
CHAPTER 14
When a blackmailer dies under mysterious circumstances, you look closely at the person he was blackmailing. That’s basic. I reconstructed my earlier phone conversation with Chaney. I hadn’t mentioned Benjy Dowling by name; I was certain of that. But Chaney might have known it all along.
I went into the kitchen, yanked the refrigerator door, and inventoried the sparse contents. Three cans of Rolling Rock on the lower shelf were unappealing, cold when I craved warmth. I opened the high cupboard where Roz hides her scotch, found a clean glass, and poured myself a healthy slug.
Shit. Chaney could have followed me after the drop, or this morning in the exterminator’s truck. Could have used me to locate his target. Maybe his original approach, that half-assed tail job through Harvard Square, had been a matter of design, a blind to keep me from the thoughts I was currently entertaining. Maybe Chaney had been deliberately awkward and noticeable. Maybe he was actually a skilled stalker.
I know a PI who was hired to find a missing sister, hired by the nicest, most concerned brother, only he wasn’t the brother after all. Turned out to be an abusive ex-lover. When the PI told him where the little sister lived, he beat her so badly, she never regained consciousness before she died. I remembered vowing that that would never happen to me. I’m damn careful when I locate women for men.
I’d been less careful with Benjy Dowling. Because he was a con and a blackmailer. I finished the scotch without tasting it, felt sudden heat in my gut, and poured more.
“Hey, you comin’ back to bed tonight?”
Leon stood in the kitchen doorway, eyes narrow in the light, wearing boxers and a frown. I had trouble focusing on his face. He seemed to exist in some other universe, the world of before.
“Wilson having wife trouble again?”
“You listened?” When I set my glass on the table, it made a louder noise than I’d anticipated. “Let me get this straight. You eavesdropped?” My voice was louder, too. Maybe it was the scotch. Maybe it was the memory of my friend’s guilty conscience or the churning anger I felt when I considered whether I might have misjudged Chaney, misread him completely.
“Hell no. Calm down. I just saw him out the window. Man, twenty years ago, folks in the neighborhood would’ve thought you were hosting an NAACP meeting. I don’t know what they’re thinking now.”
“You saw him?” It was pitch-black outside.
“Yeah, I love this house. Lookit what I found on the windowsill upstairs. You some kind of pervert?” He brandished my night-vision scope. “Where’s a civilian get shit like this?”
“Put it down,” I snapped. “Leave it alone.”
“Hey, no harm intended.”
“Leon, think of this as my office. I’m working.”
“This is your kitchen, babe. This is the middle of the fucking night.”
“Go back to bed, okay? I need some time to think.”
“You let all your clients come busting in anytime? Don’t they realize you have a personal life?”
If it had been some other time or place, I might have calmly discussed the nature of emergencies. Now, in the middle of the damn thing, I had no patience. It seemed to me that Leon was turning into all the men I’d ever known who’d chided me for not being at their beck and call, not paying more attention to them, not understanding that their work was more important than mine, starting with my father and moving down a long, long line. Or maybe he just reminded me of Chaney, standing there. I hadn’t yelled at my client, but I’d wanted to.
“Leon, I need to think.” I rested my head in my hand. For a moment, I thought he’d gone away, but he didn’t take the hint.
He said, “If that’s how you think, with a glass of scotch, can I join you? Hey, maybe I can even help. Trained and at your service.”
When I was a cop, I worked with a cop named Mooney. He was special, unusual; I could have talked this mess over with him. I trusted his instincts, trusted him. Leon was FBI, and until we’d met, I’d never had a good feeling about anybody attached to the feds. I’d worked with him on a single case, a case that had nothing in common with this one. I had knowledge of a crime, two crimes if you counted the blackmail, and I had no intention of speaking my mind to a federal agent, not about Chaney’s predicament or my own.
“Please, just go to bed.” I tried to keep my voice low, but, like the glass smacking the tabletop, it echoed.
He started to reply, stopped, then muttered something under his breath that I didn’t catch. As he turned and stomped upstairs, I considered hurling my empty glass at the wall, then changed my mind and refilled it instead. Maybe I wouldn’t drink it, just stare that amber liquid down.
How long before bright-eyed rookie Danny Burkett or desk-bound Kevin Shea made the connection? How long before one or the other decided he ought to question the private eye who’d inquired about a man who turned up dead? How long before D
owling’s apartment manager thought she ought to mention the odd salt-and-pepper duo who’d come unexpectedly to exterminate?
Heavy footsteps descended the stairs, hesitated near the bottom, then crossed the foyer. The lock clicked and the door squeaked. I pushed back my chair and walked toward the noise.
“Leon?”
“What?” He turned with the door half-closed behind him. The breeze caught my robe and the sash fluttered.
“Look, you don’t have to go. I’m sorry.”
“But you don’t wanna talk about it?”
“Can’t.”
“Sorry about that, too.” He plucked his jacket off the coat tree in the hall. He was going to leave and I wasn’t going to stop him.
“You didn’t see Wilson Chaney here,” I said.
“I did, but don’t worry. I’ll keep my mouth shut about it.”
I stood on the front porch, watching his retreating form disappear into darkness, ignoring the night chill till it brought prickles to my arms. If the officers who’d gone to Chaney’s house had followed him here, if they were out in the dark watching my door, they were getting their money’s worth. Maybe they’d figure one lover, Chaney, had found me in the arms of another, Wells. That’s the way cops’ minds work.
No one seemed to be parked in the tow zones or blocking the fireplugs. The usual cars huddled quietly under the streetlamps. I sucked down a breath of cool night air.
Kevin and the rookie might not make the connection. The building manager, that vague and harried chef, might never mention the exterminator. I went back inside, sat behind my desk, and tugged at my hair, twirling a heavy coil round and round my forefinger.
I’m not a believer in coincidence. I didn’t intend to calculate the odds of a blackmailer falling under a hit-and-run driver’s wheels the day after hitting up his victim for more money. The cops might not be thinking deliberate homicide, but I was. Would the cops consider Chaney a suspect? Anyone might be upset to learn his car had been stolen and involved in a fatal accident. It would depend on how he’d handled his face when they’d mentioned Dowling’s name.