Deadly Beloved hcc-38

by Max Allan Collins

Chic dipped his spoon into the crème brûlée. “So this is on our plate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why is that exactly?”

  “Maybe because we owe it to somebody.”

  Chic swallowed his bite of the dessert and his expression darkened. “Your husband?”

  “Your partner.”

  “Same guy.”

  “Same guy.”

  When the dessert was finished, I pushed the dish aside, leaning forward to take Chic’s hand. “Dan did a quick check, and the woman I’m seeking seems to’ve changed her name.”

  “And why would she do that?”

  “Maybe she’s on the run from social services.”

  His smirk had a hint of disgust in it, or anyway irritation. “And you think the police should do your P.I. work for you? You think that’s fair to the other taxpayers?”

  My smile was angelic. I even batted my eyelashes a few times. “I’m not asking you to protect. Just to serve.”

  Then I sat up a little in the booth so I could lean even closer and give him a nice little kiss on the mouth, sweet as the crème brûlée we’d just shared.

  Settling back in my seat, I noticed he had his familiar half-smile going as he dabbed his face with his napkin. “You ask me, you’re the ‘Planner’ around here....Anyway, you sure know how to pull my strings.”

  “First thing tomorrow?”

  He tossed the wadded napkin on the table like he was throwing in the towel. “Yes, yes. I’ll look into it, and call you first thing tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.” I was getting my credit card out of my purse; it was my turn. “Care to come over for a nightcap?”

  “What, as my reward?”

  I gave him a look that pretended to be annoyed. “Why, are you above such things, Captain?”

  “You trying to bribe me, lady?”

  “Think of it as a perk.”

  He pretended to think it over. Then he grinned and said, “Okay.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not following you, Ms. Tree,” the doctor said. “What woman? And what does this have to do with—”

  “Hey, I’m not free-associating, Doc,” I said. “This really does connect up. Problem is, the Marcy Addwatter case was also the Mike Tree murder, and at least seven other ‘events’ Rafe’s Planner might’ve set in motion....”

  Midmorning the next day—sunny and cold in a brittle way that needed no help from the wind but got it anyway—I stood with my trenchcoat collar up and my gloves on as I knocked at the door of a house trailer. Which was the address that Chic Steele had been good enough to track down for me, on the city’s time.

  Some stacked cement blocks provided two steps up to the door, but I didn’t want to stand on them, because they would put me too close to the entry—I preferred some wiggle room. So to knock, I had to reach up, and even then was hitting on the lower portion of the door.

  I was, believe it or not, in the Ripley Trailer Court in Calumet Park, on the far southeast side, not far from the garbage dumps. Where the yard ended and a garbage dump began, however, was a mystery better solved by a more skilled detective—the junky dirt-and-cinder area around the trailer was strewn with trash, broken toys and bricks, overseen by a 55-gallon drum that served, half-heartedly, as a waste can.

  My knock had brought no response, so I tried again, harder this time, insistent.

  Finally the door above me opened halfway to reveal a blonde in her twenties with very dark roots and a filthy baby, perhaps nine months old, in her arms. The mother was not slovenly, however, and under better circumstances would have been attractive, her narrow, dark-eyed face blessed with nice features; but one glance said she was living a harder life than yours.

  “Mrs. Hazen,” I began, “I’m Michael Tree, and—”

  “I know who the hell you are.”

  She wore low-rider jeans that revealed gothic biker wings tattooed on either side of her navel, and a red half t-shirt with a NASCAR logo. The baby wore a pungently filled diaper and its own little red NASCAR t-shirt and a bib with almost as much baby food on it as on the child’s face.

  “Mrs. Hazen—”

  “You’re the bitch that killed my Randy!” Shaking, but probably not with fear, she hugged her baby to her protectively. “Stick it, lady. Stick it in high, and break it off hard!”

  Indignant, she retreated, and slammed the door.

  Well, that had gone well.

  I regrouped for a moment, and knocked again.

  I was in the middle of my third try when the door whipped open, almost hitting me, and the doorway was filled not by Mrs. Hazen, but a bruiser about thirty whose impressive muscles were obvious thanks to his wife-beater t-shirt and low-slung cruddy jeans. His greasy brown hair was ponytailed back, and he had at least six days growth of beard going, whether fashion statement or sheer laziness, I wouldn’t hazard a guess.

  Looming over me, his expression said: Is that a skunk I smell?

  “I was hoping,” I said, slowly, politely, “to talk to Mrs. Hazen.”

  He grunted a laugh. “I was hopin’ for a ten-inch dick.”

  I smiled pleasantly. “Aren’t we all? You’re...?”

  “Brother-in-law,” he growled.

  That confused me. “You’re not...Matt...?”

  “Naw,” he said, grinning greenly. “Matty’s still on Death friggin’ Row, where your old man put his innocent ass. I’m his little brother—Clint.”

  And he stuck out his paw.

  What the hell. I was a guest here. I accepted the “little” brother’s gesture.

  But when Clint took my hand, he gripped it at the wrist and, with his other hand, which was a fist now, smacked me in the side of the face.

  I didn’t go down, if for no other reason than he had hold of me, and then suddenly he let go and shoved me backward with one hard hand, with some real force, and I went stumbling backward, windmilling, my purse on its strap flying off my shoulder.

  Then the bastard took advantage of his higher perch to dive right down at me.

  I managed to roll to one side, and Clint belly-flopped on the ground, like a slab of meat hitting a packing plant floor, and I was getting to my feet but he’d already gotten to his, when he buried a fist in my stomach.

  That doubled me over, every ounce of breath whooshing out of me, and I was bowing toward him humbly as he grinned and strutted with both fists extended, like a fighter waiting to see if the ref would count his opponent out.

  Still hunkered over, side of my face bleeding, I stumbled tentatively toward him, doing my best to display my utter defeat.

  “Okay, okay,” I uttered, pitifully. “You...you made your point. Come on—take it...take it easy...I’m just a girl....”

  I was approaching him now, straightening up, patting the air with my palms in a peacemaking gesture.

  He lowered his fists a little and stood in one place. His upper lip curled. “Then just get the fuck outa—”

  I interrupted these instructions by thrusting a forearm into his throat, bone meeting Adam’s apple with a satisfyingly sickening crunch.

  Clint grabbed his neck, gurgling, and I latched onto him by the back of his wife-beater with one hand, and his belt with the other, and hurled him dwarf-tossing style into the side of the drum waste can, where his head made a dinner-bell clang.

  Then he dropped to his knees, like the garbage drum was an altar.

  But I had to hand it to him. He didn’t stay down long, got right back up on his feet, straightened himself, and staggered back a few paces, badly dazed but maintaining his balance, barely.

  I was watching this as I made the trip over to where my purse had landed. I picked it up, got a gloved hand into it.

  Meanwhile, Clint was looking around at the buffet of potential weapons that was the trailer’s yard, and before long he found just the right brick, hefted it, and then came at me, surprisingly fast, the brick clutched in a death grip and raised high with smashing in my head its obvious intended use....

  The nine
millimeter came out of my purse as if of its own volition, but it was me who fired off the round that cracked the air and caught him in the left kneecap.

  Clint yowled, tossed the brick limply, harmlessly, to the ground, and did a brief, horrible (but I must say fairly comic) one-legged jig before going down on his remaining good knee, clutching the bloody mess that used to facilitate walking.

  “Freeze,” I said. From my purse, I got my cell out and muttered to myself, “Always get that wrong...‘freeze,’ then shoot....Gotta work on that.” Chicago cops have had that problem for years.

  The police dispatcher came on the line.

  “Man’s been shot,” I said.

  I answered several questions, one of which was, “Who shot him?”

  “Well, I did,” I said. I thought that had been obvious, but maybe I could have been more clear.

  Mrs. Hazen was in the doorway of the trailer now, baby no longer in her arms, but I could hear it crying, from within its mobile-home womb.

  The woman seemed stunned, her flesh suddenly ghostly pale, except for the tattooed part. “What... what have you done to Clint?”

  She jumped down and rushed over and took her whimpering, fallen brother-in-law into her arms. She cradled this other child as he groaned and moaned and cried. And gripped his bloody shot-up knee, of course, red oozing between his fingers.

  “You...you’re a monster,” she said.

  Apparently meaning me, not Clint.

  I motioned at her with gun-in-hand, somewhat irritably I’m afraid, because I was still dealing with the dispatcher on the cell.

  “You bitch!”

  “Quiet,” I commanded. “Can’t you see I’m on the phone?...Yeah, Ripley Trailer Park, Lot 16.”

  The dispatcher asked me the nature of the wound, and I said, “His knee. So far.”

  Then the dispatcher asked me what I meant by that, and I said, “Well, you’re not here to judge the situation, are you?”

  And I shut off the cell.

  I went over and leaned down next to Mrs. Hazen and the brother-in-law she was comforting. To me it seemed clear that the two of them were extra-special close, for in-laws.

  I said calmly, “I need to know everything your husband did, and said, in the days right after he got out of stir...before he killed my husband.”

  She screwed up her features and all but spat, “Why the hell should I tell you, you lousy fucking bitch?”

  “Because,” I said, “we both lost men we loved.”

  She snorted. “Tell it to Oprah.”

  I raised an eyebrow, nodded to Clint. “Okay, then, Mrs. Hazen. Care to lose another man you love?”

  And I placed the snout of the nine mil against the temple of moaning crybaby Clint.

  Mrs. Hazen’s chin lifted defiantly. “You don’t scare me.”

  But Clint’s eyes were as huge as a cartoon rabbit’s. “Tell her, Rhonda! For Chrissakes, she’s crazy! Crazy cunt is capable of God knows what!”

  I thought that was uncalled for, the “c” word. Kind of brave of him, though, with my nine mil’s nose puckering his flesh.

  He was raving, “Rhonda, please, God, tell her anything she goddamn wants to know!”

  Mrs. Hazen was looking at me carefully now, her expression having shifted to one of horror.

  I guess I looked a sight, with blood all over my face from Clint hitting me.

  But I swear my expression was bland as toast when I said to her, “Yeah, Rhonda. Help me.”

  In about half an hour, a pair of EMTs—one of whom had been nice enough to take time out to clean up my face and provide a bandage for where Clint’s fist had cut me near my right eye—loaded a still uncomfortable Clint Hazen on a gurney into their ambulance.

  Mrs. Hazen, baby in her arms again, was watching, distressed, standing near her trailer, joined by a couple of female neighbors in her general age range and apparently frequenting the same tattoo parlor. One woman was smoking, the other had a can of beer, possibly wanting to have it ready should Rhonda or maybe her baby need a sedative.

  Two uniformed police officers, a Hispanic woman and a white male, both of whom I’d already spoken to at more length than seemed to me necessary, were on the periphery. So was I, but on a different patch of it.

  I’d been asked to wait, and I wasn’t sure why. Then I understood, when an unmarked car, a black Crown Victoria, pulled in next to where the local police car was angled in and parked.

  Lt. Rafe Valer stepped from the Ford, shut the car door hard, like he was trying to make a point, and strode toward me. His tan double-breasted trenchcoat made him look every bit the detective he was.

  I met him halfway.

  “Since when,” I said, “does Chicago Homicide check out shot-off kneecaps in Calumet City?”

  He smiled warily, shook his head, his hands on his hips. “Your name on a police call’s always a red flag, Michael. Emphasis on the red.”

  I cocked my head. “Just my name caught your eye, Lieutenant? Not ‘Hazen’?”

  Suddenly his eyes were awkwardly searching the cinder-strewn ground. “Well...of course, I know she’s the wife of the, uh...”

  I got right in his face, my nose maybe an inch from his. “Wife of the bastard who killed Mike?”

  “Michael....”

  I backed away some, but still stayed right on top of him. “Just what the hell kind of investigation did you boys in blue do for your fallen brother, Lt. Valer?”

  Rafe sighed. His eyes didn’t meet mine as he admitted, “Not much.”

  His frankness shook me, my indignation freezing......then melting.

  Now his eyes came to mine, their dark brown bottomless with regret and, yes, sorrow.

  He said, “Michael, I had no inkling of this ‘Event Planner’ at the time of Mike’s murder, and, goddamn it, that’s the genius of this son of a bitch—leaving us nothing to investigate.”

  “Really?” I jerked a thumb toward Mrs. Hazen and her friends. “You coulda talked to Miss Trailer Park of 1994 over there.”

  His eyes tightened. “You’ve already talked to her...?”

  My arms were folded and my expression was smug. “She was real forthcoming, after we got down to, you know, just talking...one widow to another.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Oh, for starters, all about the phone calls that her jailbird soulmate got, right after he got out—phone calls that got him all riled up—seems the caller had some very exact information.”

  Rafe’s eyes widened, then narrowed.

  “Such as one anonymous call that provided the name and address of the honeymoon motel where we’d be starting out our marriage, Mike and me. And, thanks to the caller, ending it.”

  Then the lieutenant of Homicide was rushing past me, to talk to Mrs. Hazen his own self.

  I let him, and just slipped away.

  Figured my work here was done.

  NINE

  In the conference area in my office, next morning, I sat in the leather chair, every bit the boss in a burgundy Ann Taylor pantsuit, while Dan Green, perched on the edge of the couch, reported. He wore a taupe corduroy sportcoat with a lavender shirt and gray/cream striped tie with blue jeans—typical Dan, casual but professional.

  “The condo above Addwatter’s,” he said, demonstrating with open palms, “is empty. Has been for months. Tenants away in Europe.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really empty?”

  “Officially empty.”

  “So there are signs of life up there?”

  He nodded. “Looked very much lived in—food in the fridge, wastebaskets with trash, recent magazines, newspapers....”

  “Not a sublet?”

  Dan shook his head. “Squatters.”

  “Any sign of surveillance?”

  “No electronic trail, not that I could find, anyway.” He made a face. “Might wanna bring a tech in.”

  “No, I’m sold. Good job.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anyway, I’m going to whisp
er in Rafe Valer’s ear about this.”

  Dan’s eyes narrowed. “He may already know about it.”

  “I don’t think so, or he’d have shared it. On this case, where we’re concerned, this is one time he’s not playing ’em close to his vest. Not now, anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  “And he can put his people on that condo building. That’s not the type of place where just anybody can roll into an empty apartment and make themselves at home.”

  “Yeah. Palms got greased. Hey, it’s Chicago.”

  “Right. And we’ll let Rafe work on which Chicago palms got greased. Speaking of Rafe, have you had a chance to look at his Event Planner files?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Till my head swims. That guy is thorough. Look up ‘anal retentive’ in Webster’s and you’ll see Lt. Valer’s picture. Ms. Tree, are we really gonna re-open eight cold cases?”

  “They’re worse than cold—they’re solved. Written off.”

  He just sat there giving me a look.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What is it with you and lost causes? This agency is supposed to be a going concern.”

  I locked eyes with him. “This lost cause is our lost cause, Dan—if Rafe is right, his Event Planner set up both Mike’s murder and the murders our client looks responsible for.”

  He held up a hand. “You’re right. I’m wrong. I apologize.”

  Now I gave him a look. A suspicious one.

  “And?” I prompted.

  He sat forward, urgency tightening that handsome baby face of his, wispy mustache bristling. “Will you please listen and bring Roger back into the fold? With his contacts, and knowledge about Mike’s old cases, we can really use him.”

  I shifted in my chair. “Oh, did I mention I’ve got Bea out working on Holly Jackson’s background? There’s a temp coming in, a little blonde named Effie Something, to handle reception and secretarial. Make her feel at home, would you?...but not too at home.”

  “Holly Jackson?”

  “She’s the other murder victim, remember? The hooker in the motel room.”

  Dan grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, well, don’t I feel right on top of this case about now.”

  I waved it off. “It’s all right. We each need to focus on a specific area, and Bea’s been begging to get out into the field.”