Body Slam (The Touchstone Agency Mysteries)

by Rex Burns

  “Yeah. I understand that. But it’ll be daylight. The gym’s closed for two, three days—you know, because of Joe. But there’s paperwork I got to keep up with, so I got to go down there.” He added, “Anyway, I hope we won’t be stuck here all that long.”

  “I hope not, too.” She paused a moment. “Mr. Hernandez, the manager of Columbine Arena, told me he wouldn’t rent to you because of insurance—that your insurance doesn’t cover actions by your performers that might contribute to harm for a member of the audience.”

  “It would, if I bought it. And I’d buy it if I had a venue. That’s just a cost of production.” He added, “Sometimes the lessee pays, sometimes the lessor—depends on the contract, that’s all.”

  “So Hernandez could have safely leased the arena to you?”

  “Sure! Chertok told him not to, that’s all. He’s the one behind all this.”

  “Mr. Brundidge at Market Centre said the same thing. Both men told me a woman called to say that your insurance was limited and the caller cited an exorbitant price for all-inclusive coverage.”

  A pause. Then, “Could be Chertok told his secretary to call and scare them off. Easy for him to do, right?”

  Julie made a note. “How’s your family handling the move?”

  “Joanna’s trying to treat it like a vacation—there’s a swimming pool and sauna and game room, that kind of stuff. But Patty’s upset; she don’t like missing school. All her friends, you know. John likes it—thinks he’s gonna get out of schoolwork.”

  Julie told the man that she or Raiford would be by later in the day, then she asked for Palombino’s address. “We’d like to interview the family. They might have noticed something.”

  If there was anything Julie hated worse than mean dogs, it was dealing with recently bereaved widows and orphans. But her father, not without some relief, reminded her that she had chosen “home” and he had “office”—and “home” included all the principals of a case. Besides, and she knew he was right on this, grieving widows often responded better when the questions came from another woman than from a man.

  “I would do it for you, Julie—really. I know you don’t like it. But you’ll get more out of her. She’ll talk to you easier than to me. Sisterhood, right?” He added kindly, “And you won’t have to break the news to her, so that’s something.”

  “Thanks. She’ll probably have a dog.”

  “Besides, I have to meet with Detective Wager. He wants that threatening letter Lidke got, and I want what he has on the arson and Palombino investigations.”

  “A big, mean dog.”

  “Think of it this way: Wager’s worse than any mean dog.”

  Julie steered to the curb in front of a split-level whose upper floor rested on a single-car garage. It was an anonymous house on an anonymous cul-de-sac where lawns and sidewalks held scattered tricycles and kids’ toys. On the worn grass in front of the Palombino house lay a tattered foam football. That, the silence of the house, and the sense of sadness that seemed to radiate through its curtained windows, weighed on Julie’s shoulders. If there was a dog, it was hidden in the house or backyard.

  She took a couple of deep breaths, then thumped the scratched brass knocker. A minute later a thin, worn-looking brunette answered.

  “Mrs. Palombino?”

  She was, and Julie explained who she was and showed her ID card. It looked very impressive in its leather folder with a photograph and ornate seal and even a registration number. But all it meant was that she had the $38.50 to pay for it. Colorado didn’t require private investigators to be licensed.

  And it didn’t impress the sharp-faced woman. “Yeah? Private investigator? I suppose you’re gonna tell me the bastard died owing somebody else money! Well, tough shit, lady. I don’t have a dime to give you.” She started to close the door.

  “Wait—no, ma’am! We’re working for Mr. Lidke. I’d just like any information you can give me that might help our investigation.”

  “Information? Here’s some information: if they shot Joe in the goddamn head, it wouldn’t have hurt him. He’s only a little bit dumber now he’s dead than when he was alive!”

  “May I ask just a few questions, Mrs. Palombino? I really need your help.”

  “Ah, crap—why not. I don’t know what I can tell you, but come in.”

  Julie followed the woman into the cramped living room made smaller by the drawn curtains. From somewhere down a short flight of stairs came the mechanical laughter of a television program. It was a mindless noise that tried to combat the silence of the rest of the house, but it was swallowed.

  “The kids are staying with friends. I just … .” A catch of breath ended in a pinched squeeze of Kleenex at her nose. “I just wanted to be by myself for a while. He was a dumb son of a bitch, but I’ll miss him.”

  “I can understand, Mrs. Palombino.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, understand this, too: there was plenty of times I wished that asshole dead!” She sighed. “Now I got my wish. What I should’ve wished for was a decent insurance policy, too. He left me with two kids and every goddamn penny we have tied up in that stupid gym. Him and Otto dumbshit. That’s who you say you work for, right? Otto dumbshit?”

  Julie nodded. “Perhaps what you tell me can at least help find Mr. Palombino’s killer.”

  “Right. That cop said the same thing. Fat chance.” She took another deep, shaky breath and gestured toward a large, worn easy chair. “Might as well sit. Get a goddamn crick in my neck looking up at you. You’re tall as those goddam wrestlers.” She glanced down. “Jesus, you wear heels, too.”

  Julie felt the cushions and springs give weakly beneath her and guessed it was Palombino’s favorite chair. Like his wife, it had suffered under the man’s weight for a long time. “Did you or your husband ever receive threats of any kind, Mrs. Palombino?”

  Her dark hair, resting on her shoulders and curling about her sharp face, shook to say no. “He told me about Otto getting a threat in the mail and about Otto’s car. That really got him upset: somebody torching Otto dumbshit’s car.”

  “Perhaps he received a threat and didn’t tell you? So you wouldn’t worry?”

  “You kidding? That’s how he made his living, worrying me. Joe told me everything. He had to—I did his thinking for him. The last time he tried to think for himself, he went in on that goddamn gym.”

  “Did anyone have a grudge against him?”

  “Besides me? Who knows? He was big and he looked mean, but he was like a overgrown, dumb dog, you know? All those muscles and somebody had to tell him all the time what to do with them. Then me and the kids go off to Sacramento to visit my mother, and when we get back, he’s quit his job and set up with Otto dumbshit. I walk in the house and see that look on his face and I know he’s done another stupid thing.”

  “What kind of job did he have?”

  “Truck driver for a meatpacking plant. Had a paycheck, medical plan. Money came in each week, regular. But it wasn’t good enough for him. No, he had to listen to the crap Otto and Rudy gave him about how rich they were all going to be. How great it was gonna be back in the wrestling game. With their own promotions. A goddamn gymnasium for wannabe wrestlers!”

  “He had the money to invest?”

  “No! We had almost fifteen thousand saved up for a rainy day. Joint account, stupid me. Man like that needs a twenty-four-hour keeper!” She looked disgusted. “My mother was sick, we went to visit her. When I come back …” Another sneer. “Rocky Ringside paid about half of what he was making as a truck driver. But Jesus, the big dreams! Big names, regional circuit, major venues, even national exposure and copyrighted action toys. Crap—all pure crap.” She looked up from her twisted fingers to the beige wall of the small living room. “Good goddamn thing I got a job, we’d be out on our asses right now, me and the kids. Ask that goddamn CPA that Otto Dumbshit hired—almo
st every penny!”

  “No hard feelings with his boss when he quit the trucking company?”

  “Nah—dumb shit even said he could come back. Any time.”

  “Did he ever mention a Sid Chertok or the Federated Wrestling Organization?”

  “The FWO? Sure. Otto dumbshit was always talking about them. How much money they made, how they got started from nothing, how they could maybe team up with them for local cards. Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of the FWO. This other guy, Sid whoever, no.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have done this, Mrs. Palombino?”

  “The cop said it looked like an attempted robbery. Some kid, I guess. Some damn kid with a gun, and Joe probably didn’t even understand what he wanted. Didn’t get his hands up because he was too goddamn dumb to know what the kid wanted.”

  Julie asked a few more questions and was allowed to look through the sketchy notes and papers that her husband had collected on Rocky Ringside Wrestling and kept in a shoebox. It was, as Mrs. Palombino said, evidence that her husband should never have thought of himself as a businessman. As Julie left, she promised that they would do their best to help find her husband’s killer. The woman only shook her head once more as she closed the door. “Man that dumb’s better off dead. And I’m better off without him.” Her voice faltered only a little. “I keep telling myself that, anyway.” The door shut firmly.

  Raiford paused by the large concrete fountain that some architect thought would mask the sterility of the Denver Police’s central administration building. But the entry with its windowless first floor was designed more for defense against the citizenry than for welcoming them. Though the fountain probably looked nice in the architectural drawings—graceful arcs of spray contrasting with the hard geometric concrete of the patio’s walls—it was another large barrier to anyone who might want a straight line of fire or a vehicular assault on the doorway. The afternoon sun cast long shadows from neighboring high-rises, and the breeze between the concrete tower of the admin building and the adjoining county sheriff’s tower stirred dust and litter and heat and carried the exhaust of downtown traffic. In the echoing lobby, a uniformed officer behind the duty desk ignored Raiford until he cleared his throat.

  The sergeant looked up from whatever was out of sight behind the chest-high service shelf. His dark eyes were flat with boredom, official power, and dislike of the civilians he was sworn to serve and protect. “Help you?”

  “Detective Wager’s expecting me.”

  The sergeant deliberately finished what he was writing, the pen scratching faintly. Then he picked up a phone. “Name?”

  Raiford told him.

  “Man down here waiting to see you, Detective. Name of Raiford.” The officer listened for a moment. “Right.” He handed Raiford a clip-on visitor pass. “Elevator to the third floor. Turn right down the hall to Crimes Against Persons.”

  A lock buzzed Raiford through the low wooden gate in the partition guarding the elevators, and he followed the desk sergeant’s directions. The third-floor hallway led to a glass-faced suite and another desk where a middle-aged woman with short hair surveyed visitors. “You’re here to see … ?”

  “Detective Wager.”

  “Have a seat. It’ll be just a moment.” She pushed a buzzer.

  In the movies, the private eye never had to wait. Raiford sat on one of the short wooden benches that flanked the doorway and hoped he’d put enough quarters in the parking meter. Movie PIs always found free parking, too. Behind the receptionist, gauzy curtains muted the outside glare of the hot September sun and helped the building’s air-conditioning. Down hallways to both sides, telephones rang and voices murmured steadily. After a few minutes, Wager appeared in the hall on the right.

  “Thanks for coming by.” The homicide detective was a little more relaxed this morning. Some time and distance away from a corpse seemed to do that for him. “Let’s go back to my desk.” Then again, it may have been because the detective felt more at home.

  Wager’s desk was in a large room at the end of the hallway. Half a dozen gray metal desks were generally empty of people and full of paper. An occasional muted transmission from a radio pack resting in its charger unit brought the life of the street into the room. The detective settled behind his desk and swung a chair from a neighboring desk around for Raiford. “That the note to Lidke?” He took the plastic baggie holding the news clipping and its threat. “No envelope?”

  “Lidke threw it away.”

  Wager grunted and studied the clipping. “Doesn’t look like a local story—no dateline.”

  “I think it’s from the New York Times. West Coast edition. It looks like their font.”

  Wager grunted again and made a note. “Lidke know anybody in New York?”

  “He told Julie that he hasn’t been there in years. The newspaper was probably bought here. The Times has vending boxes all over town.”

  “Yeah. But I wish we had that envelope. You look up what day the story ran?”

  “Haven’t yet.” He waited until Wager made yet another note, then tried calling in the debt. “Any prelims on Palombino?”

  “Death apparently by gunshot wound to the heart. Single entrance wound points to a medium-sized round, possibly a .38. No exit wound, so we’ll know for sure when we find the slug.” He shrugged. “Full autopsy’ll take another couple days, but I don’t think Baird’s going to give us much more.”

  “Any self-defense wounds?”

  “That’ll be in the path report.”

  True. But it was something Wager would have noticed when he and the coroner made the initial examination of the corpse. Something Wager could share with Raiford if he wanted to. “Any evidence from the crime scene?”

  The detective leaned back in his chair, increasing the distance between them. “Nothing worth telling you about.” He smiled. “The lab people were out there this morning, going over the scene in daylight. Maybe they’ll come up with that fatal clue, just like on television.”

  Raiford shook his head. “Usually they don’t. Then the private eye visits the scene, notices what they missed, and solves the case by himself.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Hey, Wager, I can’t help it if that’s the way it is. Usually the police are very cooperative with the private eye, too. They help him all they can.”

  “That’s because they don’t have to worry about compromising any evidence. And because they know the PI’s going to deliver the perp before the last commercial.”

  “My plan exactly! Have you talked with Chertok yet?”

  He winced. “No. I got an appointment with him in a couple hours.” Wager sucked at a coffee cup that said world’s greatest dick. Probably a gift from his associates. “You come up with anything more there?”

  “Just what I’ve already given you. How about you—any new leads?”

  “If I had any, I couldn’t tell you. But I don’t, so I guess I can tell you: no.” That was an exit line Raiford could recognize, and Wager stood to make it even clearer. “If you come up with anything, best let me know as soon as possible, OK?” He added, “You or your daughter. How’s she working out, by the way?”

  Raiford stood, too. “Fine. I’ll tell her you asked.” But he didn’t leave yet. “What about the report on the car fire? Was it arson?” Raiford did not want to leave empty-handed; an information exchange was supposed to go both ways. Which Wager might have considered, because after a moment he shrugged. “Yeah, it was. Accelerant used on the seats, front and back. Probably gasoline. But we haven’t found anybody in the neighborhood who saw or heard anything that night.” As he escorted Raiford down the hall to the elevator, he added, “That’s for your ears only. And don’t say I never did anything for you.”

  9

  Julie rode with the windows down. The late September sun was still hot, but the air was cool and blew away the lingering mood
of her interview with Mrs. Palombino. Either the woman had an airtight alibi, or in her anger it never crossed her mind that she might have to deny killing her husband. But despite the woman’s explosive tangle of emotions, Julie did not think she’d done it. She had seen the hurt that Mrs. Palombino tried to deny, and it wasn’t just Julie’s professional dedication that made her tell Mrs. P. that Touchstone would do its best to help nail her husband’s killer. Like the bumper stickers said, shit happened—but you didn’t have to eat it with a grin. Still, any attorney in town would have warned the woman against some of the statements she had blurted out.

  Julie glanced down at the names and addresses in the open notebook on the adjoining seat. It was a sketchy list of Rocky Ringside trainees from Palombino’s notes. Only one had an address. She and her father hadn’t talked about interviewing the stable of wrestlers, but it should be done and the address was nearby.

  She swung off elevated I-70 and coasted down the Swansea exit into the narrow streets of the old blue-collar neighborhood in north Denver. The main arteries had long ago been turned over to commerce in the city’s search for tax revenue. But residential blocks still managed to survive on a number of secondary streets. Small brick bungalows that had been built for the swarms of Bohemian smelter workers a century ago had been sold and resold to succeeding waves of immigrants. Now, signs and advertisements said the neighborhood was predominantly Spanish, and the crooked, heaving curbs were lined with cars that had no place else to park. They were mostly aging family sedans and pickup trucks; newer models and the occasional SUV were rare and tended to be parked in driveways close to the house for security. The address Julie looked for was on a corner. A small porch had stubby brick columns topped by square wooden uprights that braced its roof. The brick might have been red or dark brown originally. Now it was covered with a gritty black film that over the years had drifted down from the elevated freeways. Once white, the paint on the uprights had flaked away to show the sun rot of gray, cracked wood. A rusty mailbox was nailed beside the front door. It rattled emptily when Julie’s knuckles rapped the doorframe.