Primed for Murder

by Jack Ewing

• A folded sheet of old but unused 3¢ postage stamps, vintage 1960, all stuck together

  • A gold-plated pocket watch, nonworking

  • Seven tintypes of angry-looking people stiffly posed in uncomfortable clothes

  • Assorted cards with duplicate photographed nineteenth century street scenes that would appear three-dimensional when viewed through a device, which she no longer had.

  Then the bag was limp, empty. Mrs. Cratty claimed the lot would more than cover what she owed. She fetched him a paper shopping sack to carry everything. “If you want any of this stuff back, I’ll be happy to trade it for cash.” Toby eased towards the door with his treasure before she could give him another sob story.

  She smiled and wrinkles radiated across her face. “I won’t want it back. It was just gathering dust.”

  As he lugged the heavy load back to his truck, Toby figured he’d be lucky to get five hundred for the junk collection. Screwed again, this time by an old lady.

  Twenty minutes later and a quarter-hour early, Toby parked in front of the Colangelo residence. He started to unload painting gear, when something caught his attention: the headlights of a dark-green car halfway down the street flashing on and off. A man inside the car—Toby couldn’t see who it was because of sun glare—stuck an arm out and beckoned.

  Toby moved closer, using his truck, a bush, a tree for cover, in case it was someone who wanted to sling lead at him. He found an angle where he could safely spot the driver: Detective French, in a light-gray blazer today. What was he doing here?

  French motioned for Toby to get in on the passenger’s side. “I’ve been waiting two hours for you to show,” he said, as Toby sat and closed the door. He sniffed once, quickly. “I called the number you left, but no answer.”

  “That’s because I’m here. Why’d you want to see me?”

  “To bring you up to date on the case.”

  “Can’t it wait? I’ve got a job to get to.”

  “You’re a witness to a crime. We need to talk.”

  “So talk. Where’s your partner, by the way?” It bothered Toby that Dixon, who’d acted as a buffer for French’s aggressiveness and cynicism, was missing.

  A frown rumpled the smooth skin between French’s pale eyebrows. “On another assignment.” His glance met Toby’s, darted away. “Your guess about the dead man being Mex was on the dime.”

  “You find out who he is? Was?”

  “Yeah. Some unknown person helped us by conveniently crashing the dead man’s car, a rental from Texas, into the Puterbaugh’s garage. You wouldn’t anything know about that, would you, Mr. Rew?”

  “Who, me?” Sensing that a truly innocent man would object more strenuously, Toby added a phrase he’d heard on a television show: “I resent the implication.”

  “The car was—surprise—full of stuff.” French ticked off items on his fingers. “Suitcase, complete with clothes and a pack of photos showing the Puterbaugh family frolicking in Mexico. Passport. Wallet contained about a thousand dollars, half in Mexican pesos, and a loaded .38 revolver, too. The first item was in the trunk and other stuff was stashed in a door panel. Together, they helped us identify the renter as one Hernan Jose Revuelto.” He gave the last name letter-by-letter.

  “The car had been sloppily wiped and we found fingerprints in the car that matched the dead man’s. Curious thing, though.” Toby felt French’s eyes boring. “He misspelled his own name on some of his possessions.”

  Toby was sweating, but he had to suck spit to moisten his mouth enough to reply. How was he supposed to know how to spell a foreign name? “Who was he?”

  “An important Mexican government official, in charge of protecting Mayan artifacts. Seems he had a reputation as a hotshot lone-wolf detective.” French’s tone was scornful, as if the dead man didn’t deserve his rank. “Over the years, he’d been instrumental in the recovery of many valuable missing items. According to authorities south of the border, Revuelto was on the trail of an important new discovery.”

  The detective was watching him, looking for a reaction, but Toby continued to stare through the tinted windshield. “A thousand-year-old book,” French said, “called a codex, was stolen and allegedly smuggled into the U.S. by an American citizen.”

  Despite himself, Toby flinched. What line from his rehearsed script should he read now? “Revuelto followed the old book all the way to Syracuse?”

  French shrugged. “The trail ends here with his corpse.”

  “Did the Mexican tell anyone who he’d been following?”

  “Nope. Revuelto was acting on second-hand information provided by an anonymous snitch.” French shifted sideways in his seat so he could use both hands to talk without the steering wheel getting in the way. “Informing is apparently a cottage industry down there. You sell some stupid gringo drugs or jewels or stolen art objects, then report him to the police so he can be picked up at the border. Everybody but the buyer wins: the seller keeps the money, the goods are recovered, the cops look like heroes, and another poor schnook gets to sample the hospitality of a Mexican prison.”

  “How’d the book slip through?”

  “Guess those dope-sniffing border dogs they tout aren’t fine-tuned enough to smell out thousand-year-old paper.” French’s snort could have been that of a bloodhound on the trail of contraband. “Seems Revuelto didn’t want to cause an international incident and blemish his spotless reputation by accusing the wrong person. So he kept the name he picked up from the snitch to himself, and decided to follow up the lead on his own until he was sure. Bad mistake.”

  French stopped talking to watch Mrs. Colangelo, slender in abbreviated shorts and sleeveless blouse, come out of the house down the street. Today, her long black hair was coiled atop her head. She saw the pickup and turned left and right, looking for Toby. When she didn’t spot him in the detective’s nondescript car, she clipped a bouquet of blossoms from the flowerbeds and went out of sight.

  “Revuelto last called from the border to report,” French said. “He still had no proof he was following the right party, because the smuggler seemed above suspicion. But the book was too important to take a chance it might slip away, so thanks to his successful track record Revuelto received permission to follow his hunch. He stuck like glue to his man. Looks like the info he got was dead-on.” French sniffled once, pensively. “As you can imagine, the Mexicans are mighty pissed about Revuelto’s murder and want something done about it, pronto. They’d also like their old book back, naturally.”

  “Where’s the book now?”

  “Not a clue. It wasn’t on Revuelto’s body or in his car, so we can assume whoever killed him still has it.”

  “You think the smuggler and the killer are the same person?”

  “Could be. Or could be the smuggler brought the book back for somebody else, who did the deed.” French narrowed his eyes. “Who do we know that recently returned from Mexico after a first-class vacation he freely admitted he couldn’t really afford?”

  Toby gulped but didn’t say anything.

  “Who just happens to teach Mex history at a local university and is interested in all things Mayan, especially their books?”

  Toby still didn’t speak.

  “Whose house was a recent murder scene, according to you, our only eyewitness?”

  Toby kept quiet.

  “Whose wife is pals with the daughter of a big-shot mobster, who’s also the wife of a hit man?” French paused for an answer.

  The silence stretched out so long Toby felt compelled to answer. “Puterbaugh?” His dry voice cracked

  “Puterbaugh.” French nodded.

  “Why don’t you arrest him?”

  “I’ve got the same problem Revuelto had: no proof, just heavy suspicions. And even if I had proof, I don’t have any Puterbaughs to arrest. The neighbors haven’t seen the parents for two solid days.”

  They were still missing? That was a bad sign. “What about the kids?”

  “Nobody’s seen th
em either.” French frowned. “Whole damn family skipped.”

  Toby thought of mentioning he’d overheard Mrs. Puterbaugh say the children were with friends in Mattydale, but the moment passed. “What will you do now?”

  “I’m glad you asked.” French hesitated, as if uncertain how to proceed. “Look, Mr. Rew, we need your help.”

  “Me?” Toby’s heart leaped. “How?”

  “You’ve got an in.” French pointed down the street. “You’ll be working inside that house, though I don’t understand why you’d go there willingly.”

  “I agreed to take the job before I knew what I was getting into.”

  “Nobody would blame you for backing out now.”

  “I was taught to keep a promise, no matter what.” Randy Rew had written a pamphlet on the subject entitled “The Price of Honor” that he’d practically made his son memorize. “I’ve also spent some of the money I was given in advance, replacing stuff I lost in the fire, so I couldn’t refuse to do the work now even if I wanted to.”

  “That works out great for everybody then. Now, as you know, Artie Colangelo’s got a direct tie to Roberto Giambi.”

  “So?” Toby looked at the detective, suspicions aroused.

  French locked Toby’s gaze. “So, say Puterbaugh brought the Mexican book back for Giambi—”

  “Why would he do that?”

  French looked annoyed to be sidetracked. “Giambi’s got enough wealth to start his own country and the Puterbaughs are money-hungry—you heard their ambitions. The department knows from long-time observation that Giambi invests in artworks and real estate legitimately. Maybe he buys other expensive things under the counter.”

  “Sounds iffy.”

  “Bear with me.” Today, French sounded capable and confident, a contrast to the officious, belligerent jerk he’d been the first couple times Toby had dealt with him. The detective took a deep breath. “Here’s what I think happened. Giambi somehow learned about the rare book and hired Puterbaugh to pick it up—the family visited Mexico three years in a row and chances are they’ve brought back other stuff for Giambi without getting caught. This time Puterbaugh picked up a tail and led Revuelto back here. The Mexican broke into their house, looking for the book. There, he ran into somebody who, by your description, could be Artie Colangelo.”

  French’s scenario duplicated Toby’s own version of events. “The killer could be anybody,” he protested, downplaying his involvement. “I didn’t see his face.”

  “Wait, it gets better.” French’s eyes looked feverish. His nose, quiet for some time, started its rhythmic snuffle. “If it was Artie who killed Revuelto, then Giambi’s tied in good and tight. If we get the old man for smuggling, murder, conspiracy, anything like that, we could put him away, maybe smash his mob for good.”

  “Ifs, maybes,” Toby said. “Where do I come in? You want me to tell you what I see and hear while I’m painting the place?”

  “I’m after something better than hearsay testimony.” French reached into a side pocket of his coat, withdrew a dark object shaped like an ear swab, but only half the size. “I’d like you to wear this.”

  “What is it?”

  “A wireless transmitter.” He handed it over for inspection.

  Toby fingered the tiny device. Would a man who knew about innocuous-looking gizmos like this, he wondered, also have access to voice-altering equipment?

  “The latest high-tech gadget in the war on crime,” French was saying. “Got it from a civilian friend of mine in electronics. Weighs nothing. Can’t even feel it, once it’s stuck to your skin or tucked in a shirt pocket.” Maybe not, Toby thought, but he’d be aware of it every second. “It’s sensitive enough to pick up a whisper. Uses a miniature battery good for two weeks. Has a range of about a mile.”

  “No, thanks.” Toby gave the device back. “If they found me with that in there, I’d be a dead man.”

  “You could have been dead once already if you’d been home when your apartment went up. You might still be whacked. This little doodad could be a life insurance policy.”

  “Or a death sentence.”

  French held out the transmitter. “Fifty-fifty. Take a chance, Rew?”

  Things were getting out of hand. It was time to entrust somebody in authority with what he knew and let chips fall where they may.

  Toby sighed. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll tell you the truth.”

  Chapter 19

  It took a while to tell the story, even in a highly condensed, greatly expurgated version. French, scribbling furiously in his notebook, kept interrupting to ask questions.

  “What happened to the papers you found in the den?”

  “I took them. I’d tracked paint and knew you’d suspect me of the murder.”

  “Maybe we still do.”

  “Get serious! Why would I kill somebody I’d never met?”

  French shrugged. “Happens every day. What did you do with the papers?”

  “I wanted to burn them. Turned out the papers weren’t really blank.”

  French listened raptly as Toby told what he’d discovered, smiling as the link between the Puterbaughs and the Mayan book was firmly established. He asked, “Where are the papers now?”

  “In my truck. Want me to get them?”

  French scratched his chin. “Later. Go on.”

  When Toby told about finding Revuelto’s body in his truck, French stopped him again, poking his shoulder with a blunt finger. “Why didn’t you call us then?”

  “I figured you wouldn’t believe me. You didn’t before.”

  French frowned. “Get over it. I’m listening now, aren’t I? So you dumped the body in the cemetery. When?”

  “The next night.”

  French sat alert as a hungry hawk on the lookout for pigeon, as Toby confessed to eavesdropping on the chat between the Puterbaughs and Leo and Artie. “Leo?” French said. “Thin, gray-haired guy about fifty? Face like a hatchet blade?”

  “I never got a look at him. Who do you think he is?”

  “Leo ‘Tombs’ Tomba. Giambi’s right-hand man.”

  When Toby detailed following the car to Cazenovia and the Giambi estate, the detective whooped. “Bingo! There’s the connection I want.” He closed a hand as though crushing an egg. “Gotcha, old man!” In good humor French punched Toby lightly on the arm. “You may have helped put a mobster away for good.”

  “Alleged mobster,” Toby squeaked.

  French ignored the amendment. He again ticked off points on his fingers. “We’ve got smuggling, murder and kidnapping for starters, possibly arson and attempted murder. Those charges ought to be good for years in the slammer.”

  “Wonderful,” Toby said with no expression. He didn’t feel as sanguine as the detective about the chance of putting the mob boss out of business. By all accounts, the old man was a slick customer, surrounded by ruthless, loyal goons. Even if the law managed to make something stick to Giambi, remaining mobsters might seek revenge on those—like Toby—responsible for causing the organization trouble.

  French bade him continue. Toby skipped over his visit to Mac and Marta, since there was no point involving them and they were well out of the picture now anyway. He confessed to putting Revuelto’s car where it could be found.

  “How’d you know it was his car?” French asked when Toby paused.

  “Texas plates. Rental-car look. Parking tickets because it hadn’t been moved.” He looked at the detective: French wore a poker face. “The car was unlocked. I didn’t break in.” Toby finished with the threatening phone call that morning.

  “Could have been anybody,” French said. “Twenty bucks buys a voice-changing thingamajig at Radio Shack. You didn’t recognize the voice at all?”

  “It was real distorted. But there was something familiar about it I can’t quite put my finger on.” Toby glanced at his watch. “Can I go now? I’ll be late for work.”

  “In a minute.” French studied him. “You’ve been straight with me,
Rew, so I’ll be straight with you.” He paused as if deciding how much to tell. “You know that rug you left with the corpse at the cemetery?”

  “Of course. It’s from the Puterbaugh’s—”

  “I know.” French sniffed twice. “You remember me scraping my shoe along the floor of their den? I collected a sample of floor wax, gave it to the crime lab. No blood on the wood—it didn’t seep all the way through because the rug was thick and close-grained. But there were traces of the identical wax on the underside of the rug.”

  “So now you believe me? That the Puterbaughs are tied in?”

  “Definitely. There were two different types of blood on the rug. One sample matched the dead man’s.” French’s gaze could bore holes. “You told me you overheard a guy named Artie say he’d been cut at the murder scene. If it’s Artie Colangelo, and if DNA tests match his blood with what’s on the rug, we’ve made our case.”

  Did French want him to prick Artie’s finger? Toby wondered. “Well, good luck with that.” He reached for the door handle.

  “Not so fast.” French hooked his fingers over Toby’s shoulder.

  Toby had an inkling of what was coming. “Now what?”

  “You’ve admitted, without coercion, to committing some fairly serious crimes, Mr. Rew: destroying, removing or tampering with evidence, perjury and leaving the scene of an accident, among others. We should discuss what to do about all that.”

  “You didn’t read me my rights,” Toby whined. That’s what the accused always claimed in TV dramas.

  French waggled a hand. “Your word against mine. Guess whose testimony counts for more in court?”

  Toby sighed. “How can I make the charges go away?”

  French held out the miniature transmitter on his palm. Toby shook his head. “Think of something else. I told you, I’m not carrying that thing.”

  The detective closed fingers around the device and tapped Toby on the thigh with his knuckles. “I understand. Can’t say I blame you.” French stuffed the fist in one coat pocket, reached into another, producing a number of things that looked like black collar buttons. “Okay, we’ll go with these.” He funneled a half-dozen of the objects into Toby’s palm.