by John Lutz
Nudger sat and sipped his soda, hoping Millman wouldn’t break and cry. Hoping he wouldn’t follow suit himself if that happened. What would the girls in the plaid skirts make of that?
There was a shrill beeeeep!
Millman’s hand went to his belt immediately in a smooth, practiced move, like a gunslinger reaching for his shooting iron. Only he didn’t draw, and the beeper was silenced. He peered at it, then looked up at Nudger. His eyes were moist, but he seemed to be in control.
“I better get back to the job site,” he said. “I got a feeling we hit roots.”
“Roots?”
“From the neighbor’s big maple tree. I told the driver to call me if the backhoe hit roots. Gotta dig up those roots carefully and make sure we don’t kill that tree, or there won’t be a dime of profit in this job.” He hastily rewrapped his half-eaten Big Mac and stood up. Then he drew his wallet from his jeans and pulled out a business card. “Phone me here if you want anything else. Or at home.” He unclipped a ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket and scribbled his home number on the back of the card, then laid it on the table next to Nudger’s hamburger. “Call me anytime, day or night, if you really do come across something that might mean Betty’s death wasn’t an accident.”
Nudger said that he would, and slipped the card into his shirt pocket.
“Good luck with the roots,” Nudger said, as Millman hurried away, carrying his lunch to eat during the drive back to where the pool was being installed.
Nudger watched him through the window as he climbed up into his pickup truck. Millman chomped into his hamburger, then started the engine and drove out of sight. An ambitious, hardworking guy leading a hectic life. And apparently a happy one, until fate played the death card.
Roots, Nudger thought. That’s what I’m trying to dig up, too. He wished there were some sort of backhoe that could accomplish that.
Then he realized he was supposed to be the backhoe and took a big bite out of his hamburger.
Chapter Seven
After leaving McDonald’s, Nudger drove to Critendon Savings and Loan, where Betty Almer had worked as a loan officer. It was a ground-hugging, beige brick building on Telegraph Road and had the look of a military bunker, as if there might be some future need to beat back attackers if a run on the banks should occur. The grounds around the building were impeccably kept, with squarely trimmed yews growing around a perimeter bordered by black rubber edging. Narrow horizontal windows looked like positions from which gunfire could be directed to mow down any robbers who dared to approach the beige bunker. Your savings were safe with Critendon.
The inside of Critendon Savings and Loan was cooler than outside, carpeted in the same beige color as the bricks, with dark wood furniture. The tables, where wooden dispensers of deposit and withdrawal slips sat next to interest rate charts, had imitation slate tops. There were half a dozen pens on each table, tethered by thin silver chains to glued-down plastic holders. To Nudger’s left, two tellers were stationed behind a waist-high wooden counter. To his right were several desks arranged in a row as precisely as if they were boxcars on rails. A man and woman sat behind two of the desks in back, and a young woman with piles of blonde hair sat at the front desk. The plaque before her said INFORMATION and sure enough she smiled knowingly as Nudger’s eyes met hers.
“If you’re in the information business,” he said, standing before the desk, “I’d like some about Betty Almer.”
The smile faded from her pale face. She was attractive in her wan way, but with too much makeup and dark false eyelashes that gave her the look of the geisha girl. “I’m afraid she’s—”
“I know,” Nudger interrupted. “I’m making some inquiries about her death.”
“Maybe you oughta talk to Mrs. Crowther, our branch manager.”
“Maybe,” Nudger agreed.
She managed another smile, now that she was off the hook when it came to answering questions about Betty Almer; they were in familiar, routine-business territory now and she could handle it. “I’ll see if Mrs. Crowther’s busy, if you care to wait.”
“Please,” Nudger said, but he didn’t sit down in one of the nearby Danish armchairs.
She spoke for a minute into the phone, then directed Nudger to a cubicle with a door in it along the back wall.
As Nudger walked over the spongy beige carpet toward the door, it opened and a tall, gray-haired woman wearing a dark business suit stood waiting for him. The estimable Mrs. Crowther.
When he got near enough, she extended a hand and introduced herself. They shook, and she invited Nudger into her office. He sat down in one of two black-upholstered small chairs facing the desk. Mrs. Crowther sat down behind her desk. She was in her fifties and had old acne scars and sad brown eyes. Her earrings looked like little gold quarter-moons and gathered and gave back cold sunlight at different angles as she moved.
As soon as she’d sat down, she folded her hands together on her desk and sat waiting for Nudger to speak. He felt as if he were applying for a loan, and that it would turn out the way it always did.
He cleared his throat, then explained who he was and asked her what she could tell him about Betty Almer.
“Betty was a pleasant young woman and a good worker,” Mrs. Crowther said. Though her expression remained neutral, her Adam’s apple bobbed as she swallowed. Possibly that was all the show of emotion permissible at the Critendon compound. “We were all terribly sorry about what happened. I know that’s what you’d expect to hear under the circumstances, but in this case it happens to be true. There weren’t very many dry eyes around here for days after Betty’s death.”
“Did she have any close personal friends among the employees?”
“We were all her friends, but we don’t allow a lot of socializing on the job here. One of the tellers, Lucy Bain, was probably closest to her. I think they worked out together at some gym now and then after work.”
“How did Betty behave during the days leading up to her death?”
“Normally. That is to say, she was happy, as she’d been for weeks. She was going to be married, you know.”
“Yes. Did you ever meet her fiancé?”
“Only briefly. He came in a few times to pick her up after work. Brad, I believe was his name.” Mrs. Crowther’s somber brown eyes became sadder. “We met again—the young man and I—at Betty’s funeral.”
“Do you recall Betty having any trouble with anyone? Not necessarily a fellow employee. Maybe a disgruntled customer who argued with her.”
“No, nothing like that. Betty was an ordinary, sweet kid, Mr. Nudger. She had a good life ahead of her, then she lost it all in a fall down the stairs. It was unexpected and tragic, and there’s really not much else I can tell you.”
Nudger stood up, thanked her for her time, and asked if he could talk for a few minutes with Lucy Bain. Mrs. Crowther said a few minutes wouldn’t matter if there were no customers waiting, and as she showed Nudger from her office she pointed to a short, very young brunette behind the tellers’ counter, waiting on an elderly man with a cane who was the only customer. She was talking and pointing to a piece of paper on the counter, and the man was nodding at whatever it was she was saying.
When the man had finished his transaction and left, Nudger walked over and introduced himself
Lucy Bain had the looks of a pretty teenager who hadn’t lost her baby fat. Her green eyes were guileless and her bright red lips smiled above a double chin. She had a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and a complexion that suggested she was a redhead who’d dyed her hair brown. In a high, almost childish voice, she told him pretty much what Mrs. Crowther had said about Betty Almer.
“Betty loved Brad,” she added with the certainty of youth. “She really did.”
“Did she say so?” Nudger asked.
“More than once. And I met him a few times. He seemed like a real nice guy. Anyone could tell in a minute they were hung up on each other. I told that other man the s
ame thing.”
“Other man? The fella with the cane?”
“No. A different man. He came in here this morning and asked me about Betty.”
“A cop maybe, investigating the accident?”
“He didn’t say he was a policeman. Didn’t say who or what he was, really. He just struck up a conversation about Betty’s death while he was getting a hundred-dollar bill broke down to twenties, like he was an account holder who knew her, and started pumping me for information. When he saw I didn’t like it, he left.”
“Leave a name?”
“No. He was an older man, about your age, average size, with buzz-cut gray hair and a droopy brown mustache.”
“Mid-forties, graying hair, brown mustache,” Nudger reiterated. “Anything else about him?”
“No. And I don’t know about mid-forties.... He could have been older.”
Stung, Nudger changed the subject.
“I understand you and Betty worked out together.”
“That’s right. Three times a week after we got off work, right down the street at Tabitha’s Gym. Betty was in great shape, and really agile. It’s hard to imagine her tripping and falling down some steps.”
“Don’t you think that’s what happened?” Nudger asked.
Her wide green eyes stared at him in wonderment. “Sure that’s what happened. That’s what everybody said, the police and all. That has to be what happened. Doesn’t it?”
“Looks that way,” Nudger said.
A woman who’d been standing at one of the tables making out a deposit slip had walked over and was waiting for Nudger to finish at the tellers’ counter. Possibly the alert and efficient Mrs. Crowther was observing them.
“Time for me to make my withdrawal,” Nudger said to Lucy with a smile.
She was still staring at him, obviously puzzled, as he moved away from the counter. The woman clutching her check and deposit slip quickly stepped up and took his place.
Tabitha’s Gym was in a small strip shopping center three blocks east of Critendon Savings and Loan, on the opposite side of Telegraph Road. Nudger parked his car in the closest available slot and walked toward it.
As he approached its entrance, he caught a glimpse through the tinted window of rows of leotard-clad women of various shapes and sizes doing some sort of exercise that caused them to jump from side to side in unison with their hands clasped behind their necks.
As he pushed open the door, loud music assailed him and he saw that the women were moving to the beat of drums. Facing them and leading their motions was a lean woman in her twenties, with short dark hair and amazingly muscular legs. She was wearing a black leotard and fancy workout shoes with white ankle socks, and though she was doing the same exercise as the rows of women, she seemed to be doing it faster and with a smooth and practiced elegance. She glanced over at Nudger, then ignored him.
The music stopped suddenly.
“Squats!” the woman shouted. “Squats!”
Immediately the women placed their hands on their hips and lowered their bodies into squatting positions, their thighs spread wide, then rose and repeated the process. Nudger looked away.
“Cool down! Cool down!” the leader of the pack shouted after a few minutes. She and the other women, standing straight now but still with hands on hips, tilted back their heads as if to howl like wolves, then began breathing deeply and rotating their torsos in slow circles.
“Keep it up! Keep it up!” the leader shouted, but she herself stopped the strange cooling down exercise and walked over to Nudger.
“Help you?” she asked.
Nudger found himself waiting for her to ask again. She’d seemed to say everything twice.
Then he told her who he was, and that he was investigating Betty Almer’s death.
She stood for a moment looking down at her incredibly colored and complicated exercise shoes, as if debating whether to talk to him. Then she looked up. “Take ten, Ladies! Take ten!”
The women collapsed onto the padded floor and reclined in various poses of exhaustion.
“I’m Nancy Gritter,” she said, shaking his hand. Hurting it a bit. “I own Tabitha’s and knew Betty slightly. She used to be part of our evening group.”
Nudger followed her into a small office with a desk and two chairs and all kinds of before-and-after photographs of overweight women who’d been transformed into fashion models. Behind the desk was a large framed photograph of Nancy Gritter in an unflattering weightlifter’s outfit, holding an impossibly huge barbell high above her head and making a face that suggested she’d just accidentally tasted eggplant.
Nancy Gritter sat down behind the desk. Nudger remained standing. He couldn’t help noticing that she had no breasts. He’d heard that happened to women who exercised excessively, but he didn’t know if that was true. He had no intimate knowledge of it.
“Betty was serious about exercise,” she said. “She made great improvements here and was in excellent physical condition.”
“What do you think about her accident?”
“I think you must not be sure it was an accident, or you wouldn’t be here. Is there reasonable doubt?”
“Doubt,” Nudger said, “but I wouldn’t say reasonable. Still, it should be probed.”
“I don’t see why.”
Nudger didn’t either, really, but he simply sat and said nothing.
“Freak things happen,” Nancy Gritter said, “even to the least likely people.”
“Was she among the least likely?”
“Definitely. Betty wasn’t just strong, she was quick and agile.”
“Did you know she was about to be married?”
“Yeah. I met the guy a few times when he came in here to pick her up after classes. Kind of a jerk.”
Nudger was surprised. “Why do you say that?”
“He couldn’t help ogling the women. Like you. I was watching you in the mirror.”
“Well, you know ... a natural reaction, I guess.”
“Not necessarily.”
Nudger didn’t know what to say to that. And he was pretty sure he hadn’t ogled, but there was no point in arguing.
“Was he the only one who met Betty here?”
“Sure. Other than Lucy Bain, a woman who used to come in with her. They took the evening aerobics classes together, but I haven’t seen Lucy for a while. I think they worked together at a bank in the neighborhood.”
Nudger asked a few more perfunctory questions, then thanked Nancy Gritter for her time.
As he stood up he paused, curious, and said, “This is Tabitha’s Gym. Is there a Tabitha?”
“My cat.”
“Ah, I should have known.”
“Remember,” she said as he was leaving her office, “Betty was among the least likely to have that kind of accident.”
He nodded and went out the door. The women lounging on the floor looked crestfallen as soon as he stepped from the office, then stared at him with obvious relief when they saw he wasn’t Nancy Gritter. Their ten-minute break wasn’t over.
The Granada acted up in the parking lot. Its starter ground but the engine refused to kick over. Sweating hard beneath his light jacket, Nudger got the screwdriver from the glove compartment and raised the hood. He unscrewed and removed the air filter from the top of the carburetor, careful to get a minimum of oil on his hands, then inserted the long screwdriver down the carburetor’s throat so it jammed the butterfly valve open.
When he got back into the car and turned the ignition key, the motor started immediately and roared at full throttle. He leaped out of the car and banged his head on the hood as he hurriedly removed the screwdriver before the engine could shake itself to death.
The roar fell to a smooth if clattering idle. Nudger looked with dismay at the grease on his hands, then rubbed them together and brushed some of the looser oily particles off of them. He did notice that the squealing he’d heard earlier coming from the car had ceased, but he knew that might only be because he h
ad the hood up and was staring at the engine and might be able to locate the source. Mechanical things taunted him that way.
As he climbed into the car and drove away, he noticed a man sitting in a late-model green Buick watching him. His hair was cut so short it was gray stubble that reflected sunlight, and he had a drooping brown mustache.
After turning onto Telegraph Road and merging with eastbound traffic, Nudger checked periodically in his rearview mirror to make sure he wasn’t being followed.
But that kind of stuff was for detectives in books and movies. He knew there was no way to be sure.
Chapter Eight
Around five that evening, Nudger phoned Lacy from his office to see how she was feeling after the operation on her damaged tendons.
“Everything went okay,” she said, “but I feel worse. I’m stretched out here in this hospital bed getting madder and madder.”
He filled her in on what he’d learned.
“None of that makes me feel much better,” she said glumly when he was finished. “Except for the two thousand we’re going to split.”
Nudger hadn’t thought about how the advance was to be divided, but he didn’t argue. If he’d had a good head for money, he wouldn’t be one of the few males left in the civilized world paying alimony. He wouldn’t have minded child support, if he and Eileen had parented any children—in fact, he would have been proud to pay it and make sure it actually went to benefit the kids. (He thought he might as well have more than one child, since this was all hypothetical.) As it was, he was helping to support Eileen and the odious Henry Mercato.
“Are you sure the man who beat you wasn’t about my age, but with bristly gray hair and a large, droopy brown mustache?”
“I told you, Nudger, the goon who knocked me around was a giant with a head of dark hair that grew so it made his head look like it came to a point, and his ears stuck out like open car doors.” She sounded annoyed. Then her tone changed. “But, I’ll tell you ...”