“Right. Where do they live?”
He gave me directions and went on to say that Josie worked over at the bank, and their oldest boy, Jack, had just finished his freshman year at CSU (football scholarship, running back), and their other two kids were both in high school (the youngest one, Betty Anne, was smart as a whip—now that Henry, the middle child, was dumb, but he was more like his daddy, good with his hands), and they hadn’t got another dog since their last one got hit by a hay truck, and he probably would have told me where they bought their shoes if I’d asked him.
“Tell Earl I said howdy.”
“Sure thing.”
Earl Wilson’s neighborhood was quiet and shaded. The house was a two-story brick with a peaked roof, a covered front porch, and white-painted trim. A massive elm stood to one side, draping its shade across the tidy front lawn. As I went up the walk I could see thunderheads just starting to climb over the nearby hills to the west.
The man who answered the door was around sixty, wearing baggy blue slacks and a brown-and-white checkered short-sleeved shirt stretched tight across his pot belly. His nose was roughly the color of an eggplant, so I figured he was fond of a drink now and then. His glasses had clear plastic frames, and they slightly magnified his eyes. He gave me a suspicious look.
“Are you Earl Wilson?”
“That’s right. Who’re you?”
I could hear a ball game in the background. Not the Rockies—they played tonight. Here they were, past the All Star break and still looking for their thirty-fifth win. Hey, so what, they’re only three years old.
I told him who I was. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“About what?” More suspicious than ever.
“Martin Blyleven.”
A change came over him—brief, but it was there. Fear. He swallowed once and regained most of his composure. “What about him?”
“It’s an insurance matter. Just a few details to clean up. Do you mind if I come in? Otherwise, you know, the neighbors …”
Wilson shot a glance past me. No one was out there, but he could imagine Old Mrs. Whosis wandering into her yard next door, turning an ear the size of a satellite dish this way.
“All right,” he said hesitantly. “But just for a few minutes.”
The living room had a fireplace in one wall that was ignored by the furniture—two blue wing chairs and an overstuffed sofa. They all had their attention directed toward the giant TV set in the corner. It was tuned to either TBS or WGN, because the Braves were playing the Cubs. Wilson picked up the tuner and killed the sound. The picture remained—a Cubbie taking a called third strike.
We sat in the wing chairs. Wilson crossed his legs and tried to look at ease. But he gripped the arms of the chair as if he were on a roller coaster.
“My granddaughter will be home soon,” he said. “And when she gets here, you’re leaving.”
“No problem.” I heard a sound like a furnace kicking on. Distant thunder.
“Besides,” Wilson said, “I already told everything I know to the federal authorities back when it happened.”
“Sure. How long did you work as a night watchman at Centennial Airport?”
“I was a security officer, not a fucking watchman.”
“My error.”
“Two and a half years.”
“I’m just curious, what did you do before?”
“Don’t give me ‘just curious,’ pal. I read you plain enough. If you want to know, I was a cop. Twenty-four years with the Englewood Police Department, before they forced me to retire.”
“Forced you?”
He gave me a thin grin, released his grip on the chair, and turned his palms up. “I used to drink.”
“I see. So then you went to work at Centennial?”
“That’s right.”
“And then you retired.”
“Let’s say they asked me to. Like I said, I used to drink. Used to. I haven’t touched a drop in three years.”
“Were you drinking the night before Blyleven’s plane crashed?”
“I drank every night,” he said, as if he were proud of it. Then he uncrossed his legs, leaned forward, and pointed a crooked finger at me. “But let me tell you something. Nothing got by me when I was on duty. Nothing went on out there unless I knew about it.”
“Are you saying something went on out there that you knew about?”
He drew back. There was a loud roll of thunder. After it died away, he said, “I’m not saying anything like that.”
“Of course not. How well did you know Martin Blyleven?”
He cleared his throat. “I knew who he was, that’s all.”
“Did you ever see him or talk to him away from the airport?”
“No,” he said firmly.
“Tell me about that night before the crash.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I came on at eight that night and went off at eight the next morning. I checked the hangars and the office buildings like always.”
“Did you enter any of the buildings?”
“No. Just checked outside doors and windows.”
“Were you the only guard on duty?”
“The only one in that area, yeah.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“Well, hell, yes. The airport is operational twenty-four hours, so there are always people around. Not many, though. And no one came anywhere near the hangar with Blyleven’s plane,” he said with emphasis.
“What kind of a person was Blyleven?”
He hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, in general. How would you describe him?”
He shrugged his shoulders, his hands gripping the chair’s arms. “Just an average guy. Nothing special about him.”
I felt he was holding back. I wished I had something to slap him with, knock him out of his defensive pose. Well, there was one thing.
“Can you keep a secret?”
He gave me an odd look. “What?”
“What if I told you that Martin Blyleven might not be dead.”
“Wha—?”
His mouth dropped open and the color drained from his face.
“What would you think about that?”
“Impossible.” His voice was a harsh whisper.
“Anything’s possible,” I told him.
“Are you saying he’s alive?”
“I said ‘what if.’”
Just then the front door burst open.
“Hi, Grandpa. I… Oh, sorry.”
She was a pretty teenager in a brown-and-yellow fast food uniform and a matching cap. Her dark hair hung behind her in a long, single braid.
“That’s all right, honey,” Wilson said, rising. “This man was just leaving.”
I stood and said, “We may need to talk again.”
Wilson wanted to shout at me to get the hell out. But his granddaughter was watching. So he just ushered me to the door and held it open.
I nodded hello and good-bye to the young lady and walked out.
It was noticeably cooler outside than when I’d arrived. Black thunderheads now covered half the sky, obscuring the sun. I could feel Wilson’s cold stare on my back as I went down the walk to my car. I stepped around to the driver’s side and faced the house.
Wilson was still standing there, watching me. For a moment, I thought he might wave me back inside.
He shut the door.
5
I BEAT THE RAIN out of town. As I sped north on the interstate I could see the sky behind me in my mirrors, black and roiling. It matched my thoughts about Earl Wilson.
He seemed ready to accept the possibility that Blyleven was alive. And that possibility scared the hell out of him. Why, I wondered. Obviously, he knew something he wasn’t telling—about either Blyleven or the crash. And whatever it was, he hadn’t told the federal authorities, I was certain of that.
I had a feeling that if I pushed the right buttons, Wilson would open up. What I needed was more informat
ion.
I found a pay phone outside a gas station at the southern end of the city and looked up the number for the Adobe Bar. The cool, stormy skies were far behind me now. The sun-cooked telephone was hot to the touch. The guy who answered told me that Chris Esteves wouldn’t be there until six tonight.
That left me with most of the afternoon to kill.
Might as well go to church.
First, though, I needed to change my shirt. It was as limp as a tissue and semipitted out from my driving around all morning in the hot Olds. The old girl doesn’t have air-conditioning—nor, for that matter, a telephone, a CD player, a wet bar, or a Jacuzzi—nor is she likely to in the near future. She’s a 1956 aqua-and-white beauty, faithfully restored, and I intend to keep her that way. Respect for the elderly.
Although, a few months ago she got pretty well smashed up, and the guy who works on her suggested I sell her for parts and buy a new car. One with factory air. I considered it, but have you priced new cars lately? Forget about it. So I paid the repair bill and continued to sweat in the summer.
Back in the city I steered north on Lincoln Street, then east on Seventh Avenue to my apartment building—another gracefully aging lady.
A moving van was parked in front. Two burly young guys came down the ramp carrying a white leather love seat. I followed them up the walk.
“Be careful!” Mrs. Finch squawked at them from the front stoop. “I don’t want you banging into my door frame!”
They mumbled and gave her nervous looks, a pair of draft horses being snapped at by a terrier.
And believe me, her bite matched her bark. We tenants walked carefully around her, knowing that eviction could be just a notion away in that batty brain of hers. I’m sure if she could afford to, she would live alone in the grand old house. After all, she’d been born here when it was a mansion, not an apartment building. Those were the days. Her father was a wealthy Denver merchant, and she and her mother and her sisters were all pretty and dressed in the height of fashion. I’d seen the yellowed, silver-framed photographs on her writing desk.
But now she was the last Finch, for she had never married. We tenants were necessary occupants—although not necessarily welcome. Sort of like stepchildren. And by God, we had better behave.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Finch.”
“Hmph, we’ll see about that.” She was intent on the men as they carried the love seat into the apartment across the hall from hers.
I’d been in the building something over three years, and during that time there had been a continuous stream of tenants through that particular apartment. Mrs. Finch lived right across the hall. She watched all of us closely, but she scrutinized the poor, unsuspecting souls who occupied “her” floor.
“I hope this one works out for you,” I told her.
She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, which added a few hundred more wrinkles to her face. Her head barely reached the middle of my chest, but she had the uncanny ability to look down on me from there.
“Just what is that supposed to mean, mister?”
“Ah… nothing.”
“And what are you doing home in the middle of the day?”
“I needed to change my—”
“You should be out looking for a job.”
“I have a job, remember?”
She snorted. “I mean decent work. Not peeking through keyholes and nosing about in people’s garbage.”
She still lived in a time when keyholes were large enough to peek through. Although she wasn’t far off about the garbage.
“Maybe something else will turn up,” I said.
She gave me an impatient wave of the hand, then screeched at the two men, “Don’t slide it, you fools, you’ll scratch the floor!”
I climbed the stairs to the third story. There are two apartments on each floor—eight in all, counting the basement pair—and none of them are laid out the same way. You enter mine directly into the living room. Kitchen to the left, bedroom and bath straight on back.
I untied my tie, then peeled off my shirt and tossed it under the bathroom sink. My hamper. It was getting jammed up under there. Pretty soon I’d have to do my least favorite thing—sort the dry cleaning from the laundry and wash dirty clothes.
When I’d been married, Katherine and I divided the household chores. She took care of the laundry. It had been five years since she’d been murdered, and I still wasn’t used to it.
Washing clothes, I mean.
I reapplied some twelve-hour underarm protection, then buttoned up a clean shirt (my next to last one), and walked through the living room and kitchen to the best part of the apartment—the balcony.
It faced east and so caught the afternoon shade. And it was high enough for a view over most of the nearby buildings and trees. On a clear day you could lean out and see Pike’s Peak, seventy miles to the south. Of course, there was a much more alluring view closer at hand. Right across the alley, in fact. The upscale apartment over there had the only swimming pool in the neighborhood. And, as usual, several of the female tenants—flight attendants and those with night jobs—were working on their tans. To great effect, I might add.
I admired them for a while. Not that I’m a voyeur or a chauvinist pig. I can’t even remember why I started leaving my binoculars out here.
When my arms got tired of holding them up, I tied my tie and turned my thoughts to holier ground.
6
THE CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE was conveniently located near the Denver Country Club and the mansions that house much of the city’s old money. Franklin Reed was nobody’s fool. If you’re going to gather a flock, the sheep might as well be financially sound. Reed’s collection plate runneth over.
In fact, about twenty years ago it had run over a bit too much, causing something of a scandal. He had been indicted and found guilty of numerous counts of fraud—something to do with selling worthless penny stocks to the faithful members of his congregation. The court fined him heavily, forcing him to render unto Caesar. This he began doing the very next Sunday, tears in his eyes, begging forgiveness, pleading with his congregation to kick in a little extra to cover his fine. They did so with fervor—the very people he had fleeced in the first place.
Amen, brother.
The church itself looked like the prow of a mighty ship built of colored glass, shimmering in the hot sun. The roofline angled steeply upward and forward, peaking at the front corner of the edifice, a good four stories overhead. Nearby, there was parking for a thousand.
I turned off University Boulevard and guided the Olds a block or so along the sprawling, empty parking areas, then swung in behind the church. It wasn’t quite as impressive from the rear—a long, single-story stretch of offices and classrooms. There were little brass plates set into the brick beside a half-dozen or so blond-wood doors. I found one marked simply, Pastor Franklin Reed.
I wondered if pastors were like barbers and took Mondays off. I folded my sunglasses into my jacket pocket and went inside.
The office was cool and softly lit. On the wall to my left was a painting of Jesus, praying, sad face lifted toward heaven. As if to remind Him of what lay ahead, the opposing wall was adorned with a large brass machine-tooled cross.
“May I help you, sir?”
“I’d like to speak to Pastor Reed.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
She was a stern-looking, middle-aged woman wearing a suit coat over a blouse with a Puritan collar. The pastor’s first line of defense. Behind her, a computer screen winked knowingly. Was I the only person who didn’t own one of those damn things?
“No, I don’t have an appointment, but—”
“Pastor Reed is extremely busy,” she said, as if only an idiot or an atheist wouldn’t know that. “Perhaps I can help you.”
“Perhaps you can. I’m here about a dead man.”
That got her attention. I showed her some identification and told her I was investigating the death of Martin Blyleven.
<
br /> She hesitated, then picked up the phone, keeping her eyes on mine. She punched a button and said, “There’s a private detective here asking for Pastor Reed… No, sir, it has to do with Martin Blyleven… Yes, sir.” She hung up. “If you’ll just have a seat.”
I sat under the portrait of Jesus, which left me staring at the cross on the opposite wall. At least it wasn’t a crucifix. I’d seen plenty of those in my parochial-school days. Catholics weren’t content with metaphor. They wanted to see the Actual Guy up there, nailed in place, blood dripping from wounds, the more detail, the better. And he was always sculpted with the body of a long-distance runner, long and lean with well-defined muscles, wearing a diaper, on display for everyone to see. You always felt a little uncomfortable looking at him. Maybe that was the idea.
A man came through an adjoining door and glanced at the receptionist, who glanced at me. He wasn’t Reed, whom I had seen on TV. But he was wearing an expensive suit, so maybe I was getting closer.
“I’m Matthew Styles,” he said, without offering to shake hands. “May I help you?”
He was about ten years my senior, forty-five to fifty, and roughly my size—six feet or a little more, about one ninety. He had a broad forehead and a lot of hair, carefully moussed into place. He wore designer eyeglasses that probably turned dark when he went outside. There was a wedding band on his ring finger and a heavy gold watch on his wrist. He smiled, but it was empty. A con man.
I introduced myself and gave him my own con job, the Canadian insurance company and so forth. I saw the wheels turning in his head: Do I shut the door in this clown’s face and maybe have to deal with him later, or do I get it over with now?
He made up his mind and said, “I’m afraid Pastor Reed is unavailable. But I’d be happy to answer your questions. This way, please.”
Styles led me out of the reception area and down a hallway past several closed doors. His was the next to the last.
“Please sit down,” he said, putting his desk between us. There were a few papers on the blotter, which he immediately removed and shoved in a drawer. On one end of the desk sat—what else?— a computer. The walls were unadorned, except for a simple wooden cross and a framed certificate with a gold seal.
Grave Doubt (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 5) Page 3