A Body To Dye For (Stan Kraychik Book 1)

by Grant Michaels

  We got to the Choate Group offices and found the outside wooden gate closed and locked. Consequently, the overture to the main event was to scale an eight-foot fence. Wacky-Jacky crouched, then jumped up and grabbed on to the top. He scooted up the fence like a huge bug. That technique certainly wasn’t going to work for me, not with my shoulders moaning in pain under my jacket. Instead, I stepped way back for a good running start. Then I imagined Donald O’Connor dancing up the walls in Singin’ in the Rain. If he could defy gravity, so could I. I dashed toward the fence and used my strong legs to propel me up in a wide arc onto the planks. At the apex of my mad scramble along vertical fence, I grabbed for the top. The upward thrust of my whole body lessened the strain on my arms and shoulders, but they still hurt like hell. It was only the beginning.

  On the other side of the fence was the Choate Group lawn, which thankfully was dense and soft even in early November. I jumped down from the fence and landed on my legs in the plush grass. I got up and stood next to Wacky-Jacky. The air jittered with tension. It must have been the two of us so excited by the main event—Breaking and Entering.

  “This climb’ll be a piece of cake,’’ he said confidently. Cake, I thought, made with bran flakes and soy oil.

  The only light was from the moon and the streetlights on the other side of the fence, but still I could see the three-story building looming high against the dark sky.

  “Maybe it’s too dark,’’ I said.

  “Nah. Full moon’s easy to climb on. Not workin’ by the rules tonight anyway.”

  “I’d say not, considering what we’re up to.”

  “Meant good climbin’ rules.” He unfastened a hank of nylon rope from his belt and attached a large three-pronged metal hook to one end. Then he stepped back from the building and flung the rope high up into the air. The large hook caught on a pipe protruding from the roof. I was impressed that he succeeded on the first try.

  Wacky-Jacky said, “Just wanna get up there, get in, and get out, right?”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “So ain’t no time for ethics and honest technique. That’s why I brung these.” He thrust some metal contraptions at me. “Over your shoes. Clamp on to the rope. Just like climbin’ a ladder.” He quickly put the clamps over his shoes and climbed up the rope. He was up on the rooftop in less than a minute.

  Oh, that it had been that easy for me! Once I finally got the clamps on, I couldn’t get them to work right. On one foot, the clamp wouldn’t release the rope to let me slide that foot up, while the other clamp was supposed to be holding tight. Eventually I got them to release at the right time, but then they wouldn’t grip the rope tightly enough, so when I raised one foot, the other one would slip downward. It was that sensation of moving your legs frantically and getting nowhere—like treading water, or a nightmare.

  “Easy, there!” Jack hissed down at me through the darkness. “Wear yaself out.”

  I ended up hauling myself mostly with my arms. I was soaked in sweat when I got past the first-floor windows, more from the agonizing pain in my shoulders than sheer exertion. Then, mercifully, the clamps decided to cooperate for the rest of the climb. At the top of the rope, Wacky-Jacky pulled me up onto the roof.

  “Uhhhnnn.” I groaned in pain.

  The roof was steeply raked. Wacky-Jacky said, “Now it’s just like them rocks we climbed. Keep ya hands and feet flat and follow me.” Our goal was one of the skylights. Wacky-Jacky studied them carefully before choosing the one we would crawl toward. When we got there, he began dismantling the metal molding around the skylight. It all seemed so easy that I wondered how many times he’d done this kind of work. Probably I didn’t want to know. All I wanted was to see the files in that building and find out what Roger had been trying to do before he was killed.

  I helped Wacky-Jacky lift the skylight panel and place it behind the framework that jutted up above the roofing. (We didn’t want the glass panel sliding off while we were inside.) I looked down through the opening in the roof into the building. It was a big dark hole. I thought it strange that the place had no night lights. “How are we going to get down?” I asked. Already I was anticipating more pain in my shoulders.

  “Watch.” Wacky-Jacky produced a rope with numerous loops of nylon webbing attached. “Ya’ll like this. S’French.”

  “What is it?”

  “Rope ladder, called a ay-tree-AY. Pretty neat, huh?” He secured one end of the étrier to the skylight frame and dropped the other end into the black hole below. “You first.”

  I shook my head. “It’s better if I watch and copy you, like Simon Says.”

  “Nah. This ain’t like climbin’. I gotta hold it for ya. Sometimes they slip, and ya don’t wanna be on it when it does.”

  That’s all I needed to hear. I hauled myself through the skylight and gripped the loops of the étrier tensely in my hands. Jack grumbled, “Ya feet, stupid! Put ya feet in, not ya hands!”

  “Hey, pal, I’m using whatever works here.” I lowered myself, but the pain searing my shoulders was too much. I just slid down until I reached the end of the rope. Now besides a battered body, I had rope burns on my hands.

  I had no idea how far down the floor was. That is scary, jumping into total blackness. Before I let go, I reminded myself to breathe deeply and cushion the fall with a dancer’s plié: one, two, three, release.

  My legs caught the impact, and I rolled softly on the carpeted floor to absorb the rest of the force. Even at that, my aching body wailed, but I didn’t care. I was in!

  Wacky-Jacky descended the étrier quickly and landed softly near me. He spoke loudly into the darkness. “We’re here!”

  “Sssh! Why are you talking so loud?” I whispered.

  “No one here to hear us, is there?” he asked, without lowering his voice.

  “I guess not.”

  “So now what?”

  I knew the one and only place I’d find the stuff I wanted. “Give me the flashlight, Jack. I know the way.”

  The door to Roy Brickley’s office was locked, but Jack turned out to be adept at lock picking as well. He got it open easily, too easily.

  Inside Brickley’s dark office the air held the scent of bergamot from his expensive cologne. I went to his desk and pulled at one of the drawers. It opened, much to my surprise. In fact, all the drawers were unlocked. I quickly rummaged through the contents.

  Jack said, “Find what ya need?”

  “I don’t know.” I opened a folder that contained what looked like a formal statement by Roy Brickley. It told of Jennifer Dough-ton’s mental instability and her recent confession to Roy Brickley that people like Calvin Redding didn’t deserve to live. The document had been notarized by Roy Brickley’s attorney, J. T. Wrorom. It took only a moment’s scan of my mental trash can to recall that Calvin’s attorney had been the same person. Curious, I thought.

  “Whatcha find?” Jack asked.

  “I’m not sure.” I also thought it peculiar that such a document hadn’t been more carefully guarded and locked up, or that it had even been written in the first place. I shined the flashlight around the office and stopped the beam on a huge rosewood breakfront. That’s probably where he keeps the important stuff, I thought. When I found every door and drawer on that massive cabinet locked, I knew I’d hit pay dirt. With the flashlight, I got a close look at all the holding latches. If I had the right tool, I could probably jimmy them open. What I needed was a flat, narrow, flexible piece of metal, a piece of metal much like the triple-cut nail file I always carry in my back pocket, even tonight.

  I worked the file into the space between one drawer and the cabinet frame. A few minutes of expert jiggling and I was in.

  “That’s it?” asked Wacky-Jacky nervously.

  “I don’t know!” God, the guy was insistent! Maybe he was more nervous than I thought. The drawer turned out to be empty, so I tried the other two. The first of those contained flat blueprints. I shined the light onto the top of the pile. The drawin
g looked like the aerial view of a sprawling resort. The title patch in one lower corner of the blueprint gave me a chill:

  YOSEMITE VALLEY

  LUXURY CONDOMINIUMS

  The remaining blueprints all had the same title but were for different “modules.”

  Wacky-Jacky said, “Find it?”

  “Found somethin’.” I answered with a hint of Wacky-Jacky’s own inflection. I was going to have a good time telling Branco about those blueprints.

  In the third drawer of the breakfront I found piles of correspondence between Roy Brickley and a Leonard Smuckbaum, whose address was a post-office box in Yosemite Village. With a name like that, I thought, it was no wonder he went by Mr. Leonard.

  I’d just started reading the first letter when the office lights suddenly came on. I squinted through the glare and made out the unmistakable faces of Roy Brickley and Mr. Leonard.

  Wacky-Jacky grinned broadly and said to Brickley, “Got him here just like I promised, didn’t I?”

  Brickley said, “Yes. You’ve done well. Now be quiet.” He stared at me with contempt. “I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here, Mr. Kraychik, yet I am impressed with your endurance.”

  “I recover pretty fast for a punching bag, Mr. Brickley.”

  “I regretted having to do that, but I didn’t know how else to stop you.”

  “I can understand that. After all, when the phone call and the letter and the car business didn’t work, and breaking into my apartment didn’t get you anywhere, you had no choice but to resort to good old-fashioned bullying.”

  Roy Brickley’s face twitched. “Mr. Kraychik, I have never met such a stubborn, persistent person as you. You have caused me great distress, but I’m sure that’s all behind us.” He leered contentedly. “We can talk openly now, face-to-face.”

  Wacky-Jacky said, “What about my money? You owe me money!” He started toward Brickley, but Brickley now had a small dark metal object in his hand. Yes, he had a gun. Wacky-Jacky stepped back.

  Brickley looked at me and said, “You see the effect you have? People become unreasonable. In the past short week, with all your meanderings over the death of a National Park ranger, you caused more trouble to my partner Leonard here and myself than any obstacle we’d encountered in the past two years. You were, believe me, the last person I thought I’d have to contend with.”

  “I always do my best. Who killed Roger?” I asked.

  “Is that all you can think of at a time like this?”

  “You killed him!”

  “Nonsense!” snapped Brickley. “Calvin Redding did. Isn’t that what you’ve adamantly believed all along?” He sneered. “Then it must be true, correct? Those young bucks were playing some obscene game and they had an accident. Simple.”

  “No, Mr. Brickley. Calvin didn’t kill Roger. You knew that. You even hired your own Brahmin lawyer to represent him and get the charges dropped. I wonder how much that cost you?”

  “That may have been a mistake.”

  “Not as big a mistake as killing Calvin.”

  “Nonsense! Aaron Harvey did that. Jealousy.” Brickley shook his head and clicked his tongue twice, as if to say naughty-naughty.

  “You’re lying.”

  “That’s your opinion, Mr. Kraychik. But rather than engage in this idle morbid speculation, I’d like to get down to business.”

  I glared at him. “I have no business with you.” The gun that was pointing my way, however, changed that notion.

  Mr. Leonard said, “If I were you, I’d listen to what he has to say.

  Brickley said, “Thank you, Leonard.” He softened his manner somewhat and continued speaking to me. “I am about to propose an offer that will change your life, and the investment on your part is quite small.”

  “I have no money.”

  Brickley laughed. “It’s not money we want! At least, not from you. It’s much simpler than that.” He smiled like a benign schoolmaster, but it was an act. “It’s your cooperation,” he said. “You must simply stop meddling in this whole matter of the ranger’s death.”

  Those were familiar orders, first from Branco, now from Brickley. How was anything going to get solved if the good guys and the bad guys were telling me the same thing?

  “What if I don’t agree?” I asked.

  Mr. Leonard said, “When you hear his offer, you will. You’re just one more in a long line of people who eventually said yes.”

  “Sounds like an exclusive club,” I said.

  “You could say that.” Brickley and Mr. Leonard smiled familiarly at each other. Brickley said to me, “You see, you are inadvertently upsetting a plan that has taken years to design.”

  “I don’t do anything inadvertently.”

  Brickley’s face twitched again before he went on. “That plan will make every party involved extremely wealthy. I am willing to offer you a percentage share of the proceeds of our project.” His voice had an impatient edge to it now. “You will be rich and secure for the rest of your life. I can’t imagine what else someone like you could want.”

  “Where’s Jennifer Doughton?” I demanded.

  Brickley looked annoyed. “She has intelligently agreed to the same terms I’m now offering you.”

  “I thought she resigned.”

  “She left of her own will, after finally listening to reason.”

  “That’s a lie!” screeched Wacky-Jacky, still armed with Dutch courage.

  “Shut up!” yelled Brickley, and he turned the gun on him.

  In spite of the gun facing him, Wacky-Jacky stepped toward Roy Brickley. “Pay me, I’ll shut up!” Then Wacky-Jacky turned to me and said, “Don’t believe him.”

  I said to Brickley, “Is this all related to your wife’s land in Yosemite being surveyed? For the condominiums?”

  Brickley frowned. “Oh, dear. You know more than I thought. That spoils everything. That’s too bad.” He looked really sorry about something, and I had the feeling it was me. “How did you find out about that?” he asked.

  “Grim determination,” I said.

  Brickley looked unsure. “I hadn’t planned on this.”

  Just then we all heard a sound from the lobby of the building. Brickley turned his head but kept the gun pointed at me. Suddenly, from within the building’s cavernous atrium, we heard someone calling.

  “Raymond? Raymond, are you here?” It was Vivian Brickley.

  Mr. Leonard said nervously to Roy Brickley, “What is she doing here? I thought we were going to finish this business without her.” Brickley nodded and answered quickly, “Quiet! She may not have heard us. But I’m prepared, Leonard. If she comes up here, I’ll take care of it. She’ll listen to me.” But Roy Brickley looked worried.

  Again Vivian Brickley called, this time even louder. “Raymond! I know you’re here. I can see the lights in your office and your car is in the lot.”

  Brickley frowned, then called back to her. “I’m upstairs, Vivian, in my office!” He muttered something angrily to himself, then turned back to me. “It’s really too bad you know about the land, Mr. Kraychik. It puts us back to where all this trouble started. You see, you know exactly what Roger Fayerbrock knew when he first came to Boston to try to stop me.”

  We could hear the hydraulic lift open at the end of the walkway. Vivian Brickley spoke loudly and urgently as she approached the office. “Raymond! The police were just at the house, and I thought you’d want to know they—” She stopped short in the doorway to Brickley’s office. She was flushed with excitement. She looked around at the group of us in there. “What is going on here? And what is my hairdresser doing here?”

  Mr. Leonard gawked at me. “You’re a hairdresser?”

  I nodded, and noticed that Vivian Brickley’s hair still looked damn good. But now she’d switched back to her other, more familiar state—the bewildered matron. I honestly couldn’t tell whether she knew what was going on in that office or not.

  She said, “Raymond, why are all these people here?
You said you’d be finished with work hours ago.”

  Brickley answered her, “It’s all under control, Vivian. You needn’t have come.”

  “But why … ? Raymond! Is that a gun?”

  Brickley said, “Yes, Vivian. I’ve had to take this precaution now.”

  “Raymond, why are the police looking for you?”

  “That’s enough now, Vivian. I’ll explain later. What’s more important is that your hairdresser seems to know about your land in Yosemite. You didn’t tell him about the land, did you? I’ve heard that women often tell their hairdressers everything.”

  Vivian Brickley’s eyes burned through me. I suddenly sensed more power in her gaze than the doddering librarian she so expertly portrayed. Her eyes flashed repeatedly between me and her husband. Finally she spoke. “No, Raymond. I’ve never discussed the land with him.”

  Praise the gods, I thought. At least the confidence between hairdresser and client was still sacrosanct.

  Suddenly Wacky-Jacky blurted, “Ya gonna give me my money or am I gonna tell him everythin?”

  “Keep quiet!” Brickley ordered, aiming the gun at him again.

  But Wacky-Jacky persisted. “He’s lyin’!” He looked at me. “He wanted me to kill the little Filipino!” He pointed a shaking finger at Brickley. “He wanted me to, but I didn’t, even though I hate the little faggot.”

  “He’s Balinese!” I said.

  Brickley screamed, “Shut your mouth!”

  “Fat girl’s not dead either, the way he wanted. Got her gagged away, too.” Then Wacky-Jacky spit on Brickley’s calfskin shoes. “Don’t wanna hear no more? Pay me now!”

  Roy Brickley suddenly broke into raucous laughter that lasted uncomfortably long. “Why should I pay anyone now? Who knows we’re here at all, but us?”

  Mr. Leonard shuffled his feet nervously, “Now, Roy, keep calm. I’m sure there’s a solution that doesn’t require any more violence.”