A Body To Dye For (Stan Kraychik Book 1)

by Grant Michaels

  IT WAS SOMETHING I’D NEVER DONE before, though I’d imagined it often enough. Such behavior was commonplace, even encouraged, among some members of my old-fashioned Czech family. Still, as I began the deed, my stomach churned in disgust, and I actively tried to convince myself that what I was doing had to be done.

  I opened the latches on Yudi’s suitcase.

  The fresh scent of clean clothes rose up from the open case, and I took that as a sign of forgiveness for trespassing on his privacy. I’d finally stooped to the same tactics as my Aunt Letta, a nosy landlady whose specialty was the discreet perusal of her tenants’ mail and other belongings. She could teach a French concierge a thing or two.

  Everything in the suitcase was packed neatly, almost compulsively so, rolled or folded into packets of related articles. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I knew it wasn’t clothing. I went through his toilet kit. Nothing unusual there. No hidden compartments, no drugs. When I got to the bottom of the suitcase, I was about to give up. That’s when I noticed a small patch of the lining, wrinkled and lightly loose in one corner. As I pushed it back into place, something resisted underneath it, almost like a thin padding. But as I felt around the lining with my clever fingers, I could tell that something had been slipped in between it and the frame of the suitcase. I pulled at the lining fabric carefully until it separated from the bottom of the case. Hidden in there was a large flat mailing envelope of lightweight onionskin paper. I opened it and pulled out photocopies of two letters.

  One had been written by Roger Fayerbrock to a California State Assemblyman in Sacramento. In it, Roger was expressing his outrage over a team of surveyors that was plotting the land around Washington Column in the Yosemite Valley. Apparently, no matter whom Roger had confronted, an air of secrecy prevailed about the work. As a dedicated conservationist, Roger wanted the Assemblyman to find the name of the company that had hired the surveyors.

  The second letter was the Assemblyman’s reply, and one sentence connected directly to my solar plexus:

  … The surveying company in question is under contract by the Choate Group, an architectural consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on behalf of their client, Vivian Brickley, who has in-holdings in the Yosemite Valley….

  There it was in black and white, the reason Roger had come to Boston. It was clear where my next stop would be. Propriety would have dictated that I call Mrs. Brickley before going to see her, but this was not the time for etiquette. I wanted to catch her off guard.

  I looked up Roy Brickley in the phone book, but there was no address listing for his name. It was time to ask a favor from a special friend, my personal version of Paul Drake, private agent. I picked up the phone and dialed the operator.

  I said, “I need operator two one seven.”

  The operator brusquely told me to wait. I did, and then I heard a familiar male voice say, “Operator two one seven.”

  “Darrell, it’s me, Stan.”

  “Stan!” His business attitude vanished for a moment. “How are you?”

  “I’d love to chat, doll, but I’m in a bind. I need an address.” He immediately regained his business composure to avoid any suspicion on his end of the line. “Go ahead, please.”

  “I need the address for a Roy or Vivian Brickley in Cambridge.”

  “One moment, please.” There was a pause, then he said, “Would that be the party at One Eighty Lakeshore Drive?”

  “Thanks,” I said, and wrote the address down. “I owe you.”

  “There is no charge for that service, sir.”

  “Come in anytime, Darrell. Whatever you want, its on the house.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I detected a quiet kiss over the phone line.

  I put the photocopied letters back into their envelope and took them with me. I ran down the stairs two at a time and jogged to the car. Damn! I’d gotten a ticket for double-parking. I figured I’d give it to Branco to fix later. I got it while working for him, after all. Back to Cambridge I went, driving like the autumn wind.

  The Brickleys lived on a wide neatly paved avenue that ran directly off Brattle Street. (Brattle Street was called Tory Row before the Revolution, so you can imagine the neighborhood.) Even the way the trees had changed color on their street indicated wealth. The colors seemed cleaner and richer. Their house was a sprawling white three-story colonial, arrayed with numerous gables and dormers and bay windows. It was set back from the street on a vast rise of lush green lawn. For grass to be that green in October in Boston meant the Brickleys had a private gardener and an astronomical water bill.

  I parked on the street, even though the signs said permit parking only. I walked purposefully to the front door and rang the bell. Soon a young man with smooth olive skin and dark curly hair came to the door. He could have been Branco’s baby brother. He wore a white chefs apron over his starched white shirt.

  I said, “I’d like to see Mrs. Brickley.”

  He replied with a heavy accent, “She not home.”

  “When will she return?”

  “Eh?”

  “When? Home?” I tapped the face of my watch.

  He nodded energetically and smiled with big white teeth. “Ah, si! One-oh-clock,” he said, proud of his mastery of English.

  I looked at my watch. It was half-past twelve.

  “Thanks. I’ll be back.”

  “You name?”

  I waved my hand and shook my head no. “It’s a surprise.”

  He looked confused.

  I repeated, “Surprise,” and put my finger up against my lips to signal him not to say anything.

  “Ah, si,” he said. “Soorpreeze!”

  “Right.” I went back to the car and turned on the radio while I waited for Mrs. Brickley to return.

  Less than half an hour passed when a sleek blue Lincoln sedan glided down the street and turned into the Brickley s driveway. The paint job glistened like a polished sapphire. I recognized Mrs. Brickley by the silhouette of her hair. I jumped out of my car and greeted her in the driveway.

  “Hello, Mrs. Brickley!”

  She was startled for a moment. “Who’s that?”

  “It’s me, Vannos, from the hair salon.”

  “Oh,” she said with a polite smile. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to check on your hair. Your husband said you felt something wasn’t quite right with your hairstyle.”

  “Who said that?” She seemed nervous and confused, and I wondered now if Vivian Brickley’s behavior was just an act, as Nicole had insisted.

  “Your husband told me, Mrs. Brickley. He said you had called the salon about it.”

  “Did he?” She chuckled nervously. “Young man, I’m delighted with your work. If I’d called at all, it would only be to thank you again.”

  Saying the next words caused a twinge of guilt, but after pawing through Yudi’s things, I’d been primed for deceit. (Aunt Letta would be proud.) “Mrs. Brickley, I want to express my sympathy over Calvin’s accident. It must have been a horrible blow to you.”

  She turned her head sharply toward me and spoke with a hardened voice. “Surely it was no accident. I’m certain that dancer friend of his was involved in some way. I hope he’s caught and has to pay. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get Dario to help me with these things.”

  I stepped right up to the car and reached inside for the bundles. “Let me help you carry them in,” I said, grabbing them all up in my arms.

  “It’s all right,” she said brusquely, and tried to pull the bags from me. “Dario will get them.”

  “It’s no problem, Mrs. Brickley. I can do it.” I held firmly on to the bags. We were about to engage in a tug-of-war with her groceries.

  Her eyes flickered nervously and her lips tightened. “Oh, all right!” she said curtly. “If you insist!” And she let the bags go.

  She rang the bell, and Dario opened the door and let us in. He nodded amiably at me as I walked by. He greeted Mrs. Brickley brightly in Itali
an. “Ciao, Zia!”

  “Ciao, caro,” she sang back.

  Then she said to me, “You certainly surprised me there in my driveway.”

  “I’m sorry if I alarmed you. I was in Cambridge already, talking with your husband. When he mentioned your hair, I thought I’d come by and see you directly, rather than over the phone. I hope I haven’t intruded.”

  “Not at all,” she said coolly. “If I seem bothered, it’s only because we’ve had trouble recently with strange men in the neighborhood. Their favorite prey are older women entering or leaving their cars, so I’m afraid you really caught me at the worst moment.”

  I wondered if I had more criminal blood in me than I realized.

  Mrs. Brickley then took a deep breath and let it all out in a big huff, as though trying to relieve her nervous tension. “Now,” she said, “I’m about to have my lunch, so if you’ll excuse me …” She turned to Dario and helped him unpack the bags. Then her face tightened with annoyance again, perhaps with me, perhaps with herself. She turned back to me. “I’m afraid I’m being rude,” she said. “Here I am talking about lunch and I didn’t think to invite you. I’m sure Dario has made enough.” It was a statement of fact, not a heartfelt invitation.

  “Thanks, but I’m due back at the salon.” Was that a flicker of relief I saw in her eyes? “But could you tell me one thing before I go?”

  “What is it?” she asked as she returned to the bags.

  “Why were you having your land in Yosemite surveyed?”

  “Oh!” shrieked Vivian Brickley, and she dropped a jar of imported capers. It fell to the kitchen floor and bounced off the industrial rubber floor covering.

  “Capperi!” yelped Dario as he scurried to pick up the jar. He grinned happily at the undamaged jar. “Non si preoccupi, Zia.”

  Mrs. Brickley took a deep breath and said to me, “Well, young man, I didn’t realize how tired I’d become from shopping. I suppose I should have let Dario go out to buy these few things after all. Please forgive me, but I must go lie down now.”

  “Certainly. Sorry to have intruded like this.”

  “Not at all.” Her words were polite, but her tone was now truly irritated. Her last words sounded as gruff as an order: “Dario, accompagnarlo alla porta!”

  Dario stood beside me and said, “Please, come.” He smiled but firmly pressed me toward the door. I turned back to say good-bye, but Vivian Brickley had already disappeared somewhere within the immense house.

  I got into the car and started it. I sat for a moment with the radio turned up loud, deciding what to do next. The question was whether to go confront Roy Brickley about the surveyors or to get Branco to help me. My intuition said to call Branco on the phone and then corner Brickley in person, but instead I went to see Branco at the station. That was another mistake.

  I burst into Branco’s office exclaiming, “I know why Roger came to Boston!” He was seated with his back to me, looking out the window. He didn’t respond, so I asked, “Did you hear me, Lieutenant?”

  He answered, “Fine, see you in court tomorrow then.”

  I gulped. Now what was he nailing me for? But when he swiveled in his chair to face me, I saw that he was talking on the telephone. He hung up and said, “What’s all the noise about?”

  “Read these!” I thrust the envelope containing the photocopied letters across his desk.

  He opened the envelope and pulled out the letters. I sat down. Branco read the letter Roger had sent with a kind of weary detachment, but when he read the Assemblyman’s response, his mouth actively tightened into a frown. “Where’d you get these?”

  “They were in Yudi’s luggage.”

  “They weren’t there when I looked.”

  “You didn’t look hard enough.”

  Branco narrowed his eyes. “Has he shown up yet?”

  “No.”

  I could tell he didn’t believe me.

  “Stan, if he had these letters with him, it was for a reason. He may have killed Redding in retaliation for Fayerbrock’s death.”

  “Lieutenant, it’s not Yudi.”

  Branco exhaled heavily. He seemed tired of me.

  I went on. “I just saw Mrs. Brickley at her place in Cambridge, and when I asked her about the surveyors, she almost collapsed.”

  “So?”

  “So, I think you should confiscate the files at the Choate Group offices.”

  “What! Stan, you’re off on another tangent!” He shook his head. “We can’t take their files.”

  “Why not?”

  “We can’t go in and seize private property just because their name happens to appear in a letter.”

  “I’m telling you, the answer to Roger’s death—and probably even Calvin’s—is at the Choate Group! They hired the surveyors, and Mrs. Brickley owns land out there.”

  “And I’m telling you, damn it, that you need more evidence than two photocopied letters to take that kind of action. Do you realize the kind of lawsuit that place could throw at us if we’re wrong?”

  “I don’t care. You sat on your butt for lack of evidence, and the main suspect turned up dead.”

  “He wasn’t our main suspect,” he said angrily. “There’s no way I’m going to seize those files.”

  “Can’t you at least look at them?”

  “Not without a search warrant.”

  “Then get a warrant.”

  His eyes were cold and unyielding. He said nothing.

  I asked, “Have you found Aaron Harvey yet?”

  “No.”

  “Cripes, you’ve had two days! Have you checked out the jazz studios?”

  Branco scowled. “Why would we do that?”

  “Because Aaron Harvey teaches jazz dance, that’s why. And maybe one of the studios has a cozy little room for him to hole up in. That’s why!”

  Branco picked up the phone, punched some numbers, and said, “Branco here. On the APB for Aaron Harvey. Make sure to check all the jazz dance schools around the city. Right. Apparently the suspect frequents those places.” He hung up the phone. “Thanks for that lead, Stan.”

  “You can return the favor and fix this.” I handed him the ticket I’d got for double-parking earlier.

  “I don’t do that kind of thing.”

  “C’mon, Lieutenant. I got it working on the case for you. I thought we had an agreement.”

  “You know there’s nothing official between us.”

  “I know, but I thought it was I help you, you help me.”

  “I told you, I don’t fix tickets!” He was obviously annoyed. Maybe it was the idea of fixing a ticket, or maybe it was his own guilt for not holding to his end of the bargain. I wondered, Which is worse, Mr. Vito Branco? Bending the law? Or breaking a gentleman’s agreement?

  “What a little pal you are,” I said, like Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant. “If you won’t fix the ticket, then will you at least get those files from the Choate Group?”

  Branco banged the desk and stood up. “I can see I’m wasting my breath on you today.” He leaned toward me and put his face inches from mine. “The matter is closed!”

  “Closed for you, maybe.” I stood up and went toward the door, then looked back at him. “You know, Lieutenant, in the beginning I hoped you’d be different. But now I see why we don’t get along. You’re just another tight-assed cop.”

  “And you’re just a goddamn hairdresser! Go back where you belong!”

  I left the station stomping my feet and slamming every door I went through. I wanted a drink badly, and I knew a place near the station, a chic club called Denial, right on Berkeley Street. At this hour, it was almost empty. I sat at the bar and ordered a double Beefeater up with a twist. The handsome bartender brought my drink and I quickly took a big gulp.

  “Looks like you needed that,” he said.

  I nodded. “That’s not all I need.” The bartender winked as though sympathetic to my plight. I wished I smoked. It was another one of those perfect moments for a cigarette.


  A few minutes and a few gulps later, the gin was kicking in. That’s exactly when a stranger appeared in the doorway to the bar. He peered into the darkness of the room, squinting his eyes and trying to focus. “Hey, Boshton!” he yelled.

  The bartender and I looked at each other. He winked knowingly, then said in a low voice just for me, “South End drunk.” The stranger slouched against the door frame and yelled again. “Boshton! That you?” He staggered into the bar and came toward me. Damn luck! “Never geshed you for a daytime boozer, Boshton.” His voice was disturbingly familiar, and disturbingly slurred, but I recognized the abbreviated sentence structure. As he approached me, I saw that I’d guessed right: Wacky-Jacky.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Bizznish.”

  “In Boston?”

  “What? Can’t do bizznish in Boshton? There a law?”

  “No,” I said. “But you’ve got the school back West, and the rocks back West. What kind of business would bring you all the way cross-country to Boston?”

  “Lotsa things,” he said, and settled himself on the bar stool next to me.

  I signaled the bartender and ordered a beer for Jack and another drink for myself. He brought them quickly.

  “Thanks,” Wacky-Jacky said to me.

  “My pleasure, Jack.”

  He drank almost half the bottle in one long slug, then let out a resonant belch. I said, “I heard you were in town.”

  “Who toldja?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Yaaah, that damn little faggot! I saw him on the plane.”

  The bartender heard the word and looked toward us, ready for trouble. I waved to him and smiled as if to say, Everything’s fine here.

  Jack said, “So, he toldja, huh?”

  I nodded. “He did, and the police did.”

  Even in his alcoholic daze, Jack understood what police meant, and that I probably knew about his sullied past. “Hey, no problem, Boshton. No trouble. Honesht.”

  “How’d you find me here?”

  “Aaawwww … I been hangin’ round the station. Knew ya’d talk to the police sooner or later.”