Oops! (Alo Nudger Book 10)

by John Lutz

  “You and your company might be next, right?”

  “It isn’t that, Nudger, it’s scruples. You might not understand it, but in this business we have scruples.”

  Nudger hung up the phone harder than was necessary.

  He picked up the receiver again and called Hammersmith at the Third.

  “I need some information on a traffic fatality,” he said, after working through the usual voice mail labyrinth and finally reaching Hammersmith.

  “City or county?”

  “County. Probably Highway Patrol.”

  Hammersmith sighed loudly into the receiver. “I know you’re a taxpayer, Nudge, but we’re not a research service here.”

  “I’m asking a personal favor,” Nudger said. “You have contacts who can give you the information.”

  “Why do you need this?”

  “Has to do with Brad Millman.”

  “The name rings a bell, but not very loud.”

  Nudger refreshed Hammersmith’s memory.

  “You back into that mess?”

  “I’m not sure. That’s part of what I want to find out. Millman was killed in a one-car accident a few days ago. I need to know the details.”

  “You suspect hanky-panky?”

  Nudger thought that was an odd way for a police lieutenant to describe possible homicide, but he was used to Hammersmith’s off-center humor and approach to crime. “It could have been some sort of mischief,” he said.

  “Along what line?”

  “Brake line, maybe.”

  Hammersmith was quiet for a while, no doubt thinking everything over, deciding if he shared Nudger’s suspicions.

  “Okay, I’ll check on it,” he said decisively.

  “Tha—” Nudger managed to get out, before Hammersmith had hung up in his characteristic abrupt fashion. Apparently Hammersmith didn’t require any thanks.

  Nudger dropped the receiver into its cradle and sat back in his squeaking swivel chair. The office was becoming warm. For a moment he considered switching on the old window air conditioner for the first time this year, but he knew it might not work after the hard winter, the way it had been squealing like an injured sparrow toward the end of summer. He didn’t want to cope with that possibility. He’d already spent a fortune for a new water pump for the Granada to stop it from squealing. He put the air conditioner out of his mind.

  He thought again about what Bostwick had said about how he, Nudger, might not understand scruples. It irritated him anew. He understood scruples, all right. They were what complicated his life and made him miserable. Scruples and his stomach.

  He realized he’d skipped breakfast this morning, and though he wasn’t hungry, he’d better eat something to provide fuel for the only body he had to get him through the day and then the rest of his life.

  Nudger decided to go downstairs to the doughnut shop and force down one of Danny’s free Dunker Delites. Whatever else could be said about them, they were economical and they were filling. Awfully filling.

  His stomach growled in protest at the mere thought of a Dunker Delite.

  He ignored it. It might not like what was coming its way, but it deserved it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hammersmith had talked with the Missouri Highway Patrol and had the information Nudger needed.

  In Hammersmith’s office, Nudger sat down in the uncomfortable wooden chair angled to face the desk. On the desk were half a dozen of Hammersmith’s horrible green cigars, still in cellophane but lined side by side and aimed at Nudger like a battery of Patriot missiles. Hammersmith peered over the cigars at Nudger as if gauging the range. Nudger knew this was going to be a brief visit.

  “The Highway Patrol investigated the Millman accident thoroughly,” Hammersmith said. “They always do in one-car crashes where there were no witnesses. There’s always the possibility of suicide.”

  “Or of someone else having been in the car,” Nudger said.

  Hammersmith gave him a look whose message was clear: Don’t complicate my day.

  “So what about the Millman accident?” Nudger asked, keeping the purpose of his visit in focus.

  “Millman’s death wasn’t a suicide—not unless he lost his nerve and changed his mind at the last moment. There were skid marks where the car went off the road. Then it skidded over the ground and slammed into a tree. The pavement was dry but the grass was wet from a recent rain, so the vehicle didn’t slow down much after it was off the road. Maybe even speeded up, like a baseball picks up speed skimming over artificial turf.”

  Nudger wasn’t sure that could happen.

  “Highway Patrol estimates the car was going about thirty miles an hour when it hit.”

  “That’s not very fast,” Nudger said.

  “Fast enough, obviously. A tree is, for all practical purposes, an immovable object. It stopped the car cold and caved in the front end, shoved the engine back and pinned Millman with the steering wheel. Crushed his chest. He might have survived the crash, my source tells me, but he hit the tree just right.”

  Or just wrong, Nudger thought. “What about the possibility of mechanical tampering?”

  “Investigators went over the car thoroughly after it was towed in. There was nothing wrong with it mechanically. The problem was that the brake pads were badly worn, and Millman had run the car through some oil or other slick substance that coated the brake disks and pads. The brakes slowed the car, but not enough to keep it from leaving the road.”

  “Oil on the brake pads,” Nudger said. “That could have been deliberate.”

  “Sure. Somebody dumped some oil in a puddle they knew Millman would run through. It’s a murder method old as time.”

  “What if the oil was put on the pads or brake disks while his car was parked?”

  “He would have noticed the car had reduced stopping power almost immediately and driven more carefully, or had the brakes looked at in a service station.”

  “Was the steering checked?” Nudger asked. “If the power steering had been tampered with so—” “

  “The Highway Patrol knows cars, Nudge. There was nothing wrong with Millman’s except it had plowed into a tree. His death was an accident. He was driving over the speed limit, missed a turn, and paid the price.”

  “I’m not so sure. My stomach says otherwise.”

  Hammersmith leaned back and lowered his head so that his jowls swelled, regarding Nudger the way a smooth, pink bullfrog might look at a fly. “You got a client?”

  “In a way. Dead client.”

  “But you feel obligated to see this thing through, despite this client’s obvious inability to pay any additional expenses you might incur. That’s what’s coming through to me here.”

  Nudger didn’t say anything, only met Hammersmith’s gaze over the row of noxious cigars.

  “Hmm. I don’t like you when you get stubborn, Nudge.”

  “It can be ugly,” Nudger admitted.

  “Just annoying, actually, and mostly ineffectual. You feeling stubborn?”

  “Yes,” Nudger said honestly.

  “Well, I don’t feel like being annoyed.”

  Hammersmith selected one of the green cigars and lifted it from the desk top.

  “Did the Highway Patrol confirm that Millman was wearing his seat belt?” Nudger persisted. He knew his remaining time in the office was limited.

  Hammersmith didn’t answer. He unwrapped the cigar, dropped the crinkly cellophane into his wastebasket, and reached into a desk drawer. He withdrew a book of matches.

  Oh-oh. This was not a drill. Nudger knew that one of the Patriot missiles was locked on to him. He felt like a doomed Scud.

  Hammersmith tore a match from the book, but Nudger was long gone before ignition.

  At his office, there was a message on Nudger’s machine to call Ollie Bostwick at First Security. It was definitely hot in the office, and the place still smelled strongly of doughnuts from the day’s baking downstairs. Before returning the call, Nudger took a cha
nce and switched on the air conditioner.

  It whined, pinged, gurgled, and began squealing in a manner that made the hair rise on the back of Nudger’s neck. But when he rushed to turn off the laboring old unit, it suddenly stopped all its unnatural noises and settled down to a smooth, throaty hum. Pleasantly cool air began wafting from its plastic grill.

  Nudger was pleased. Maybe his luck was changing. He sat down in his swivel chair, feeling the current of cool air on his back, and noticed the envelope from Eileen, still unopened, on the corner of the desk. Since his luck was running, he picked up the envelope and slit the flap with his letter opener, pulled the folded paper inside halfway out, and flipped it up so he could see the upper third:

  Nudger, you bastard ...

  He crumpled the letter and envelope together and dropped them into the wastebasket. Eileen wasn’t at all conciliatory. Most likely the letter had been written at the urging of loathsome Henry Mercato. Probably during pillow talk they’d decided it was time to try to wring more money out of Nudger with threats. Nudger saw no reason to read an unpleasant letter like that.

  He forgot about the letter and used the eraser end of a tooth-marked yellow pencil to punch out Bostwick’s phone number.

  “Anything yet on Millman?” he asked, when Bostwick had picked up.

  “What’s wrong? You sound irritated.”

  “Nothing to do with you,” Nudger said. “My ex-wife.”

  “Oh. In the course of my work I see a lot of ex-wives. Husbands leave and forget to change the beneficiary on their life insurance policies. Then they die and—”

  “I’m not insured!” Nudger snapped.

  “Okay, so calm down.”

  “Millman,” Nudger reminded him.

  “I made a few phone calls to some contacts,” Bostwick said. “They tell me Millman’s death was definitely an accident. He simply drove off the road and hit a tree. Not murder, fate.”

  “I know. The tree had been there for decades, waiting for him.”

  “Maybe that’s how it works,” Bostwick said seriously. “If you toil long enough in my business, you stop laughing at fate, karma, the role of genetics in human behavior.”

  “My contacts tell me there was an oily substance on the brake pads.” Nudger was determined to move the conversation from the abstract to the practical, to something that might be used to help build a murder case.

  “On the pads, disks, and to some degree on the tires,” Bostwick said, “indicating only that Millman had driven through some kind of minor oil slick recently It rained a few hours before the accident, and the highway was still puddled. Also, it hadn’t rained for a while before that day. When rain falls for the first time after a dry spell, some of the oil that’s soaked into the concrete rises and floats on top, and cars drive through it. The people who examined Millman’s car know their stuff, Nudger, and they say the oily substance was a contributing factor, but not nearly enough to cause the accident. Also, there were skid marks, beginning a few feet from where Millman’s car left the pavement, and continuing over the ground all the way to the tree. The grass was wet, so the brakes didn’t help him much during the final twenty feet before the crash.”

  “You sound convinced he died accidentally.”

  “As you should be.”

  “I can’t be convinced,” Nudger said, “no matter how hard I try.”

  “Your stomach telling you there’s something wrong?”

  “ ’Fraid so.”

  “Well, how’s this? The medical examiner said the collision wouldn’t have been violent enough to be fatal if the car hadn’t crumpled just so and forced the wheel back at an angle so its edge crushed Millman’s chest. In other words, it was something of a fluke that he was killed in the accident. Does that sound like a murder attempt to you?”

  Nudger decided not to answer.

  “Does it?” Bostwick asked again.

  “I thought the question was rhetorical. What about the computer check of any life insurance policies in Millman’s name?”

  “He didn’t have a personal life insurance policy, only a standard business policy with National Triad on his life or disability.”

  “Business policy?” Nudger asked.

  “Mermaid Pools is the beneficiary. A lot of businesses carry that kind of policy to protect them from loss if an executive’s services are suddenly lost.”

  “What will the policy pay?”

  “With the double-indemnity clause for accidental death, a million.”

  “Sounds like a lot.”

  “Most such policies are larger,” Bostwick said.

  “So Millman’s partner, Warren Tully, gets a million dollars?”

  “No. Mermaid Pools gets a million.”

  “But now Tully owns all of Mermaid Pools.”

  Bostwick laughed. “If you think that guy is a murder suspect, good luck. You can find hundreds like him around the country every year.”

  “I guess it is pretty thin,” Nudger admitted.

  “I wouldn’t skate on it,” Bostwick said. “And if Millman had any relatives, they’ll probably inherit his half of the business.”

  “There’s a sister,” Nudger said glumly.

  “So there you are,” Bostwick said. “You gonna give up on this now?”

  “Sure.”

  “That sounds like a lie.”

  “It was. I hope your little voice nags you tonight.”

  Nudger hung up.

  He sat in the cool flow of air, not noticing the scent of grease and burned sugar anymore from downstairs. He knew that was probably more because he’d gotten used to it than that the air conditioner had displaced it. He also knew he would probably smell like doughnuts the rest of the day.

  What he didn’t know was what to do next.

  His was a state of mind conducive to miscalculation and mistakes.

  He called Lacy Tumulty.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They agreed to meet again at Michael’s on Manchester, down the street from Nudger’s office. Nudger arrived early and managed to get a table. He sat sipping a Budweiser while he waited for Lacy.

  It was supper time, and the restaurant area of Michael’s was crowded with diners. The bar was crowded, too, mostly with people waiting to be seated. The TV in the bar was tuned to the Cardinals pregame show in Cincinnati. Standing near hitters warming up in the batting cage, an announcer was interviewing a young Cincinnati Reds player Nudger didn’t recognize. The announcer congratulated him on the game he’d played last night. The player said he’d been lucky and it was a team effort and the Reds could win it all this year if their pitching held up and being in the major leagues was a dream come true. Nudger wondered how many dreams came true.

  Lacy came in and looked around. Nudger raised an arm and she saw him and started across the restaurant toward him. She was walking somewhat jerkily with a cane, but her movements were strong and decisive. Her dark hair was still in its shaggy cut and needed a trim, but then it always looked as if it needed a trim. She’d lost weight but somehow gained curves, and though she wasn’t dressed suggestively—wearing a loose-fitting white blouse and jeans—the eyes of several male diners followed her as she made her way to the table. Even with the cane, every move she made, every look she gave, seemed to carry a good-natured sexual challenge.

  She sat down across from Nudger at the table, hooked her walnut cane over the back of an empty chair, and smiled with her wide, mobile mouth. She had on very red lipstick, and violet eye shadow that made her brown eyes appear blue at a glance. Her perfume or shampoo gave off a scented soap smell, as if she’d just stepped out of the shower.

  “How are the legs?” Nudger asked.

  “You’d love to have them wrapped around you, Nudger.”

  “My God, Lacy!”

  “I’ll be walking okay without the cane pretty soon,” she said in a softer tone, and three women seated at the next table turned their attention back to their food. “It takes a long time to come back from Achilles t
endon injuries. Till then, I manage to get by picking up stakeout work, research, that kind of thing, from other agencies. I’m learning to make maximum use of my computer.”

  A waitress came over and Lacy ordered a beer and a Greek salad. Nudger ordered the same.

  “Your hearing seems okay now,” he said when the waitress had left.

  Lacy nodded. “It’s back a hundred percent. I can hear that geek ballplayer being interviewed. He sounds like all the rest of them.”

  “They’re team players,” Nudger said. “Not like us. The day of the rugged individual and independent operator is fading. We’re dinosaurs.”

  “Speak for yourself, Nudger. When you’re extinct and in some tar pit, I’ll be in cyberspace.”

  He didn’t doubt it.

  When their drinks had arrived, Lacy said, “I don’t know why you’re still digging around in the Almer case. We got our money.”

  “For doing practically nothing.”

  “I don’t feel guilty about getting my half, so I don’t see why you should feel that way about yours.”

  “It isn’t guilt,” Nudger said, “it’s obligation.”

  “I think it’s stubbornness.”

  “That, too,” Nudger said. He was unlucky at love and cards, and demonstrably unskilled at business. What was he if not dogged? He took a sip of cold beer. “You still seeing the cop?”

  “cop?”

  “At the Third District. Hammersmith mentioned last year you were involved with one of the uniforms, a guy named Dan Kerner, exchanging presents and ... whatever.”

  “Oh, yeah, him. No, I got what I needed from him so I let him down easy and split.”

  Nudger decided not to pursue that subject. He wondered how it would be to have a daughter like Lacy, and decided it was a good thing he and Eileen had never had children. He probably wouldn’t have made a very good father. Anyway, if there had been children, they’d be living now with Eileen and Henry Mercato, maybe calling Mercato “Dad.” Nudger grimaced and took another pull of beer.