by Rex Burns
Bernie Riester once told Julie that she kept her office open around the clock because she sought information from all over the world; if it was midnight in Denver it was noon in Mumbai. Julie punched the speed dial for Bernie Riester’s twenty-four-hour line.
“That maiden name you wanted, Miss Campbell—the one in Los Angeles?” Bernie’s assistant sounded happy to provide the information. “Joanna Louise Gerwig was married in Los Angeles County to Otto Lidke. Both residents of Long Beach, California.”
“Can you send documentation?”
“It was too late in the day when the information came through. I’ll fax it to you as soon as we receive it tomorrow.”
“Great!”
“We’ll include our bill with it.”
Not so great, but she lied and said she would be happy to get it. Then she called Detective Wager’s cell-phone number. He seemed to work twenty-four hours a day, too. He asked where she was, said he would call back on a secure landline, and a few seconds later her telephone rang.
“Yeah. The same gun killed Palombino and Huggins. You tell me what made you suspect that. You tell me what names you have. You tell me all the information you have.”
“Otto Lidke. I think he killed his other partner, too: Rudy Towers.”
“Whoa—who’s that? Spell that name.”
She did and told Wager about Towers’s alleged suicide and gave him the Central City Police case number. “It’s the only thing that fits, Gabe.” She explained about the FWO contract with American West. “Lidke saw a lot of money coming. I guess you could say he wanted to make a killing.”
Wager did not laugh. “Why kill Huggins?”
“Huggins knew that the principal in American West was Lidke’s wife. My belief is that after I interviewed him, he figured out that Lidke had gotten rid of his partners so his wife would be sole owner of American West.” She went on, “Blackmail—Huggins tried to cut himself in.”
“Evidence?”
“His secretary—Huggins hinted to her that he might be a sports manager soon and make a lot of money. According to her, the only sports business he was handling was American West. My guess is Lidke wasn’t going to be blackmailed.”
“And used the same weapon on Huggins that he used on Palombino. Frugal bastard.” Wager asked for the name of Huggins’s secretary.
Julie told him. “Have you found the gun yet?”
“No. But my confidential informant just gave me probable cause for a home-and-office search warrant.” He paused. “This means Chertok’s clean. Chertok and the Honorable Roger A. Morrow.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, “I am. A little relieved and a lot disappointed.”
“But something’s going on there, Gabe.”
“If it ain’t homicide, it ain’t mine.” He paused. “What’s going on?”
“Some kind of arrangement between Morrow and Chertok and a casino.” She added, “Gargan, the Post reporter, is looking at it.”
“Gargan!” Wager made the name sound like a wad of spit. “Well, even pond scum can have some use—good luck to him. Any idea where Lidke is now?”
“At a gym, but not his old one. I don’t know the address but I can page my dad—he’s there with him.” She added, “I interviewed Lidke’s wife tonight.”
“You what?”
“She’s the public owner of American West. She’s also her husband’s bookkeeper. And I knew Lidke wouldn’t be home. She acted very, very nervous talking about the business.”
“She’s going to be nervouser.” Finally, he said, “You didn’t do too bad—for a civilian. But it’s time for you to back off, Julie. You and your old man. Don’t do anything a defense attorney might call witness tampering.”
“I hear you, Gabe. Good luck.” Julie did not bother to mention that the detective now owed Touchstone. They would both remember that when the time came.
She dialed Caitlin Morgan’s number, but the ring went unanswered. This late, both the woman and her children should be at home, but the rupture in Caitlin’s life must have caused a rupture in her routine. She would try again later. There was no answer from Julie’s dad’s cell phone, either, nor from his pager. She gave it fifteen minutes and tried both again. No answer. Perhaps he was prancing around the ring in his wrestling tights—a scene she would have to see one of these days. Another quarter hour, no response other than the message center, and an increasing uneasiness. Julie swirled her wine and, draining the glass, punched in another number. Mrs. Lidke would know the name or address of the new gym. But it wasn’t the woman who answered. Instead, a gentle male voice said pleasantly, “Hello?”
“Mrs. Lidke, please.”
“She’s busy right now. Can I say who’s calling?”
It hadn’t taken Wager long. “Are you with the Denver Police?”
The voice lost its welcoming note. “Who are you and what do you want with Mrs. Lidke?”
Julie identified herself. “Is Detective Wager there, please?”
Finally, a hurried Wager came on. “What?”
“The address of the gym where Lidke is. Do you have it?”
“Why?”
“I can’t reach my dad. Not on the cell phone or the pager. It’s not like him.”
There was a silence. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what, Gabe?”
“The people I sent to pick up Lidke said the guy had gone completely nuts. Beat your father up with a metal chair and disappeared. Happened too fast for anybody to stop it. He’s in the emergency room at Denver Health.”
He had been moved to the ICU by the time Julie arrived. His left arm was bound tightly across his chest as if he were trying to scratch his right shoulder. His head was held rigid by a neck brace so that his closed eyes faced the ceiling. The nurse Julie questioned told her that her father had a dislocated shoulder, concussion, and possible neck injury. They were waiting for the radiologist to finish reading the CAT scan and X-rays.
“Can he talk?”
The nurse’s dry-looking face said she didn’t like the idea. “He’s under sedation.”
“The person who attacked him is wanted for murder.”
“Please keep it brief.”
She bent over her father’s chest that rose and fell in long, regular breaths. Despite his size, he looked fragile, and for the first time in years, she realized that he was not the man who often seemed like an older brother. He was her father and he would be fifty in another five years, and the face she thought of as ageless was now gray and lined and showed every one of his past years. A tangled surge of feelings clutched in her breast and made her eyes wet. “Dad? Dad! It’s Julie—can you hear me?”
A hazy moan answered.
“I’m here, Dad. It’s Julie. I’m here.”
This time the moan was clearer.
“You’re going to be all right, Dad. It’s Julie—you’re going to be all right.”
“Suckered me… .” The dry rasp was hard to understand, but that’s what it sounded like: “Suckered me.”
“Dad, do you know where Lidke went? Where did Lidke go, Dad?”
The bandaged head moved slightly, followed by a grunt of pain. His eyes opened enough to show the lower part of their irises in his effort to speak. “Don’t know … sucker …”
“You’ll be fine, Dad. Go back to sleep—I’ll be back soon. You’re going to be fine.” Julie kissed his clammy forehead and prayed that her words were more fact than hope. He settled back into steady, long breaths as the intensive care nurse returned to gesture her away.
“Can you tell me who his physician is?”
“Doctor Davidson. If you will go to the waiting room, I’ll tell him you’re here.”
“Thanks.” The waiting room was around a corner of the corridor. Three or four others sat in the p
added chairs and watched the silent television or read magazines or slouched wearily with their eyes shut. Julie waited and glanced at the slowly moving clock hands. After many long minutes, she felt the electric buzz of her cell phone. Its dimly lit window illuminated Caitlin Morgan’s number. She went into the hallway to answer the call.
“Miss Campbell?”
“Yes, Caitlin. I heard from Mr. Chertok what happened. I’m very sorry.”
“Yes.”
Pushing aside thoughts of her father, Julie tried to focus on Caitlin’s situation. “Don’t let it get you down—there are plenty of jobs waiting for a good executive secretary.”
“Miss Campbell—” The voice hesitated. “Can you come over?”
Julie hesitated. She was doing no good merely sitting in the hospital waiting room, but it felt right to stay close to her father.
Caitlin’s voice, taut and nervous, broke the silence, “I really need to speak with you. I wouldn’t ask but it’s extremely important.”
She knew what her father would say: Sitting and worrying is a waste of time, Julie. Get busy and do something useful for our client. Her dad would say that. The case comes first, he would say, and no one could tell her how much longer the doctor would be busy. “All right. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She left her cell-phone number at the nurses’ station and hurried to the parking lot.
Julie parked in front of the condo. The lights over the recreation area on the other side of the commons showed a few ardent tennis players. They wore shorts but were bundled in sweatshirts against the evening’s high-altitude chill. The thock of their rackets sounded faintly as Julie knocked and waited. Caitlin opened the door a few cautious inches to see who it was.
Julie studied the woman’s wide eyes and pale, almost bloodless face. “What did Chertok say to you, Caitlin?”
Silently, she stepped back to let Julie in.
“Chertok belongs under a rock, but he’s not as dangerous as he thinks he is.” Julie started to add something when a wide shape stepped from the dining area and she understood the woman’s terror. The revolver dwarfed in Lidke’s fist looked tiny, almost toylike. But it wasn’t a toy. Julie recognized it as a Colt Agent, an efficient .38 with a two-inch barrel. And she would bet it had been used before.
“Shut the door, Miss Julie. Both of you, sit over there.”
Unconsciously, she pressed Caitlin behind her for shelter. “What do you want here, Mr. Lidke? There’s nothing here for you.”
“Move!” The pistol jerked, and the man waited until they slowly seated themselves on the sofa. “You’re here, that’s one thing. The cunt who just couldn’t let well enough alone. Just couldn’t quit poking your fucking nose into things, could you?”
“All right—you have me. You don’t need Ms. Morgan anymore. Let her go.”
The man’s grin squeezed his eyes into narrow slits. “I need her. I got plans for her, Miss Julie. But you know who I don’t need? You’re the one I don’t need.” The grin went away. “Goddamn I don’t need you! A sweet deal: for once I could’ve had it all. One fucking time in my life, I could’ve made it! And this time it’s not Raiford who fucks me out of it but his goddamn daughter!” The hiccough of a giggle, oddly thin and high for such heavy flesh. “I should have known, right? I should’ve known a Raiford would screw things up again, right?”
“You hired us as cover for you, is that it?”
“Smarter than your old man, but you still screwed things up.” The rage came back into his voice. “And now I got nothing—nothing!”
“What do you mean you have plans for Ms. Morgan, Otto?”
He blinked, coming back from his vision of lost opportunity. “Cops got my wife, right?”
“I don’t know.”
The pistol jerked up. “You know! Goddamn you, you know—you went over there—talked to her. You sent them after her—you know!”
“All right, I know. I know they were going to search your home. I don’t know if they arrested her.”
Outside, a few blocks away, a siren wailed and they listened intently. It came closer, punctuated by a flat honking as an emergency vehicle warned an intersection. Keeping the pistol pointed at Julie, Otto went to the window. His large body moved swiftly, its muscle-heavy awkwardness gone. He peered out through the curtains.
Caitlin, pale and tense, held herself tightly calm. “I’m sorry I called you—he said he would shoot …”
Julie waved away the obvious. “Where are the girls?” she whispered.
The woman’s shoulders relaxed a fraction as she whispered back, “With the sitter, thank God. When I came home, I was so upset… . I asked Beth to take them out… .” The tension returned in full. “They’ll be home soon… . Bedtime… .”
“Shut up!” Otto listened to the urgent, pulsing wail die away in the distance, then he stepped away from the window curtain. “They got Joanna. And they’re going to offer her a deal to testify against me, you can bet on that.” The pistol wagged back and forth slightly as if Lidke were trying to make up his mind.
“They can’t make her testify against you.”
“Goddamn it, I didn’t say they’d make her. I said they’d offer her a deal!”
“Why do you want Ms. Morgan, Otto?”
“Trade. Her for Joanna. And a trip out of here.”
“They won’t go for it, Otto. Best if you give yourself up. Best for you and for Joanna, both.”
“Bullshit! Don’t try to tell me what to do, goddamn you!” After a rigid moment, the broad face relaxed. “I followed you over here a couple of times.”
“You tried to shoot me. In the alley, you shot at me.”
“I don’t know how I missed. But you bet your ass I won’t miss again.”
There wasn’t much else left Julie had to bet with. “Let her go, Otto. I’m as good a hostage as she is.”
“No. You ain’t. Cops’ll worry more about a woman with kids. Besides, if I need to show them I’m not bullshitting, I’ll send you out first. Feet first. And love it!”
“I know the cop in charge of the investigation. He’ll listen to me. I can get through to tell him what you want. I can convince him you’re serious.” Julie saw the man’s slight frown. “Think about it, Otto. What are you going to do, call up the nearest police station? Call up the DPD administration building this time of night? Ask to speak to the chief? He’s gone home by now. Are we even in the city and county of Denver? You’re going to waste a lot of time, Otto. Think: when you finally do get through to somebody who knows what you’re talking about, they’ll have a signed confession out of Joanna. You know she can’t take pressure, Otto—she couldn’t take pressure from you, she can’t take it from them. You know that. Think!”
“Shut up!”
“Think, Otto. Her confession signed, witnessed, notarized—then it won’t make any difference whether she’s in custody or not. You know she can’t stand up to—”
“Shut up, damn you!” Lidke took an angry step toward the sofa. Beside her, Julie felt Caitlin press back against the cushions. “Just keep quiet!” With his free hand, Lidke tugged at his lower lip, eyes on Julie’s face but not seeing her. “What’s the cop’s name—the one you claim to know?”
“Let Ms. Morgan go.”
“I’ll blow her fucking head off if you don’t tell me. I mean it!”
“Wager. Detective Wager.”
The pistol sank back. “All right. Here’s what we do. You call him. Tell him I got you and her. Tell him I want my wife and anything she’s signed and I want them now. Then say you’ll call back and hang up. Do it fast—I don’t want no traces on the line. You got that? You don’t talk no more than one minute, you got that?”
The home had two telephones that Julie could see. One, behind Lidke, was on the kitchen wall near the stove; the other was on an end table near the tiny brick fireplace. Julie wen
t to that one. Lidke watched while she dialed, the stubby pistol barrel moving with the man’s gaze. Caitlin, still seated on the couch, clasped her hands over her arms as if she were icy cold.
The duty clerk answered and Julie asked for Detective Wager.
“He’s unavailable right now. Can I take a message?”
“This is Julie Campbell. It is an emergency. Tell him Otto Lidke has me and—”
Lidke said, “Hang up now!”
She did. “Otto, it takes as least five minutes to trace a call. You have to give me time to get the message to Wager.” Julie didn’t know how long it took for a trace, but she hoped the duty clerk’s telephone had a caller ID.
“We’ll wait five minutes and call back. Sit down.”
Julie and Caitlin sat in silence. Otto, standing, kept glancing at his watch.
“All right.”
She dialed Wager’s number again. This time he answered and spoke quickly before Julie could. “Julie, if that’s you, don’t say anything. If you’re in trouble, pretend the phone’s still ringing.”
Julie looked at Lidke. “It’s still ringing.”
Wager spoke rapidly. “Is Lidke armed?”
“Yes,” she said. “We’re waiting for Detective Wager.”
“ ‘We’? Is that more than you and Lidke?”
“That’s right. Detective Wager, please.”
Otto shifted restlessly and looked at his watch.
“Can you say where you are?”
“No. I have to talk with him personally. Yes, it is an emergency. No, I can’t give you my number.” She shrugged at Lidke as if to say what can you do with dumb bureaucrats?
“Hang up,” said Lidke.
Julie did. “He still wasn’t in. But they expect him right away.”
“Another five minutes.”
They waited. Julie didn’t sit this time. Instead, she drummed her fingers on the telephone and stepped nervously back and forth.
“What’s the matter, bladder troubles?”
“You should just give yourself up, Otto.”
“Shut up.”