“I almost hope they don’t.” He took the gun by the handkerchief end.
“Robinette didn’t kill Elwood; Webb did. But then Robinette beat to death a P.I. in Iroquois Heights named Musuraca, and you may not be able to make that one stick.”
“Any murder will do. I hear you found out they sprang Ted Silvera from Jackson. I tried to call.”
“You should have left a message.”
“That’d make one more you owed me. This brings us almost even for the Luger. If you’d told me Saturday what you called and told me today, you’d be a little ahead.”
“I needed you to catch him in possession of the gun. He didn’t have it with him last night or I’d have called you then. I was pretty sure he’d have it today. Nobody resents being taken more than a taker.”
“I’m not sure we can hold the woman. Anything she told you in here is inadmissable.”
“Try this,” I said. “Gay Catalin was too smart to risk taking her husband’s body very far from their house. The gun’s enough to shake loose a warrant to search the house and grounds. Don’t forget the berry thicket at the end of the cul-de-sac. She’d be just cute enough to bury him there on city property.”
“West Bloomfield won’t even need a warrant for that.”
“Thanks, John.”
He looked around, at the marble and velvet and stained glass and gold leaf and painted plaster. “Big place, huh? My old man would say a person could store a mess of cotton in here.”
“Not really. It’s already full.”
Forty
AUTUMN BEGAN BANG on schedule, with starchy winds and needles of rain and the first chill of death from Alberta. The leaves on the trees planted in boxes along Woodward turned brazen and bloody—in River Rouge they remained black as the coke in the ovens in the foundry—and the Tigers fell out of the run for the pennant at the point where they usually fell out when they had any shot at all. In September, officers from Detroit and West Bloomfield working jointly turned up Neil Catalin’s decomposing remains in the soft soil under the untended brush at the end of the street in front of his house. His widow, Gay Catalin, was arrested, arraigned in Detroit Recorder’s Court on a charge of open murder, and scheduled for trial in October.
The circumstances of the crime were bizarre enough to inspire a theme show on one of the afternoon TV talkfests—“Men Who Obsess and the Women Who Love Them”—and to interest a national cable network, which covered the trial, borrowing personnel and equipment from Gilda Productions, currently in receivership with Judy Yin acting as general manager. A well-known feminist attorney took charge of the defense pro bono, arguing for acquittal on the grounds of temporary insanity brought on by the victim’s infidelity and virtual desertion. The trial lasted two weeks. The jury deliberated for five days, then reported itself deadlocked, seven to five in favor of conviction. A mistrial was declared.
Orvis Robinette was recovering under police guard in a room at Detroit General Hospital. He awaited arraignment for felony homicide in the death of Leo Webb during the commission of a burglary.
The night of the day the jury hung in the Catalin case, Vesta and I had dinner at the Downtown London Chop House, caught a concert at the Ford Auditorium, and afterward walked along the riverfront, which was well lighted and filled with strollers dragging the last good out of the season before the long gray coma of winter. We were comfortable in our light cotton jackets, but there was a coppery smell of change in the air. The weather reader on Channel 4 was predicting snow for Halloween.
“Do you think they’ll try her again?” Vesta asked.
We had stopped to watch an ore carrier steaming under the Ambassador Bridge, its coal-shovel prow gleaming greasily in the lights strung along the cables between the spans.
“Maybe not,” I said. “Prosecutors are always running for something and want that feminist vote. Apparently the right to murder your husband is in jeopardy. If they do go again it won’t make television. The networks already have reruns to spare.”
“I didn’t even watch myself when they repeated my testimony on the late news. It’s the first time I ever played myself on camera. I’m pretty sure I was wrong for the part.”
“The D.A. loved you. If I were you I wouldn’t read any notices from the defense.”
“I walked out during a taping of Hard Copy last week. The interviewer kept referring to me as the ‘Delilah from Detroit.’ I signed a release, so they’re threatening to sue.”
“I wouldn’t sweat it. Next week some high school algebra teacher in Delaware will seduce a student into murdering her husband and they’ll forget all about you. Warhol was right.”
“Maybe not.”
We resumed walking. She had on cream-colored pleated slacks with a top and jacket to match. It looked yellow under the lamps. Her long black hair was gathered into a loose ponytail and she wore no jewelry and little makeup. She might have been a mature senior in high school. She was quieter than usual.
I said, “Something happened.”
“Something.” She nodded.
I lit a cigarette without offering her one and tossed the match toward the river. It made a short orange arc and spat when it struck the surface.
“A producer called,” she said then. “He saw me on Court TV. He wants me to fly to L.A. and audition for a part on Days of Our Lives.”
“Did he call you Chickie and talk with a lisp?”
“He wasn’t one of those. I called SAG. He checks out as far back as Playhouse Ninety. It’s a genuine offer. He sent me a plane ticket and everything.”
“What’s the part?”
“A homewrecker.”
I said nothing.
She moved a shoulder. “So I’m typecast. Neil used to say that’s what makes a star shine.”
“I hope he was right. You’ve earned it.”
We passed an old man in a light blue suit, narrow-brimmed hat, and black-and-brown wingtips, holding hands with a white-haired woman who walked with an aluminum cane.
Vesta said, “You could go with me.”
“To the audition?”
“To L.A. I mean, if it works out. To live.”
I shook my head. “Southern California’s crawling with P.I.’s. Here I’m a small frog in a small pond. Out there I’d just drown.”
“There’s loads of security work. Every ten-year-old who shoots a cereal commercial thinks he needs a bodyguard.”
“That’s appealing. A babysitter with a Motorola.”
She stopped and hugged herself. There was no wind and the air was mild. “Work with me here. I’m trying to find out if we have anything worth hanging on to.”
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’m relieved. For a minute there I was worried you weren’t giving me much notice.”
“You could come out later.”
“I’d have to work up contacts, memorize a whole new set of streets. My Spanish isn’t that good.”
“I probably won’t get the part anyway.”
“You probably will.”
A breeze came up then, moist from the water and edged with sulphur from the smelters downriver. A radio was playing on the Canadian side. The notes Dopplered over in a warped glissando: a slide trombone with tonsils. Sarah Vaughan. Vesta reached up and pulled a stray lock of hair away from her face. “Tell me where I screwed up so I’ll know what to avoid next time.”
“You didn’t. I’m as bad as Neil in my way. You’d spend most of your nights watching television alone or reading a book, not knowing if I picked up a tail job that took me all the way to Seattle or if I was floating facedown in La Brea. Maybe it’s not worth killing over, but nobody should have to put up with it either.”
“There are other jobs. You’ve got a college education.”
“You could model.”
She made a face. Then she smiled. Then she looked away. The slight bump on her nose gave her the profile of an Indian princess. “If this is right, how come I feel so
crummy?”
“That’s how you tell.”
Next day I drove her to the airport. She kissed me at the curb, tipped a skycap to carry her bags inside, and followed him through the automatic doors without looking back. I went to see a movie.
A Biography of Loren D. Estleman
Loren D. Estleman (b. 1952) is the award-winning author of over sixty-five novels, including mysteries and westerns.
Raised in a Michigan farmhouse constructed in 1867, Estleman submitted his first story for publication at the age of fifteen and accumulated 160 rejection letters over the next eight years. Once The Oklahoma Punk was published in 1976, success came quickly, allowing him to quit his day job in 1980 and become a fulltime writer.
Estleman’s most enduring character, Amos Walker, made his first appearance in 1980’s Motor City Blue, and the hardboiled Detroit private eye has been featured in twenty novels since. The fifth Amos Walker novel, Sugartown, won the Private Eye Writers of America’s Shamus Award for best hardcover novel of 1985. Estleman’s most recent Walker novel is Infernal Angels.
Estleman has also won praise for his adventure novels set in the Old West. In 1980, The High Rocks was nominated for a National Book Award, and since then Estleman has featured its hero, Deputy U.S. Marshal Page Murdock, in seven more novels, most recently 2010’s The Book of Murdock. Estleman has received awards for many of his standalone westerns, receiving recognition for both his attention to historical detail and the elements of suspense that follow from his background as a mystery author. Journey of the Dead, a story of the man who murdered Billy the Kid, won a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and a Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.
In 1993 Estleman married Deborah Morgan, a fellow mystery author. He lives and works in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Loren D. Estleman in a Davy Crockett ensemble at age three aboard the Straits of Mackinac ferry with his brother, Charles, and father, Leauvett.
Estleman at age five in his kindergarten photograph. He grew up in Dexter, Michigan.
Estleman in his study in Whitmore Lake, Michigan, in the 1980s. The author wrote more than forty books on the manual typewriter he is working on in this image.
Estleman and his family. From left to right: older brother, Charles; mother, Louise; father, Leauvett; and Loren.
Estleman and Deborah Morgan at their wedding in Springdale, Arkansas, on June 19, 1993.
Estleman with actor Barry Corbin at the Western Heritage Awards in Oklahoma City in 1998. The author won Outstanding Western Novel for his book Journey of the Dead.
Loren signing books at Eyecon in St. Louis in 1999. He was the guest of honor.
Estleman and his fellow panelists at Bouchercon in 2000. From left to right: Harper Barnes, John Lutz, Loren D. Estleman, Max Allan Collins, and Stuart M. Kaminsky.
Estleman and his wife, Deborah, signing together while on a tour through Colorado in 2003.
Estleman with his grandson, Dylan Ray Brown, shown here writing an original story on “Papa’s” typewriter at Christmastime in 2005 in Springfield, Missouri.
Estleman with his granddaughter, Lydia Morgan Hopper, as he reads her a bedtime story on New Year’s Eve 2008. Books are among Lydia’s favorite things—and “Papa” is quick to encourage this.
Estleman and his wife, Deborah, with the late Elmer Kelton and his wife, Anne Kelton, in 2008. Estleman is holding his Elmer Kelton Award from the German Association for the Study of the Western.
Estleman in front of the Gas City water tower, which he passed by on many a road trip. After titling one of his novels after the town, Estleman was invited for a visit by the mayor, and in February 2008 he was presented the key to the city.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1997 by Loren D. Estleman
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
978-1-4532-2058-0
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
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