MICHAEL LISTER'S FIRST THREE SERIES NOVELS: POWER IN THE BLOOD, THE BIG GOODBYE, THUNDER BEACH

by Michael Lister

  I nodded. He was right. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go get my head examined.”

  “Long overdue,” Butch said with a mean smile.

  “Call me the moment you have anything,” I said to Pete.

  “Partner,” he said, his big blue eyes so innocent and boyish they were almost believable, “you know I will.”

  I didn’t know any such thing, but I needed them to leave so I could break into Everett’s house.

  “Thanks,” I said, nodding, and turned to walk away.

  “Peeper,” Butch called after me.

  I kept walking.

  “Don’t get any bright ideas,” he said. “I’m gonna have this house watched. Midge’s place too.”

  Rubbing the side of my head, attempting to conceal my disappointment, I said, “I think Midge’s husband has that covered.”

  Chapter 42

  Butch probably really would have someone watch Everett’s place—at least at first. Deciding to wait a while before I broke in, I drove back to the office to test a theory I had about what July might have been doing at the office so late the night she was murdered.

  When I pulled up in front of our building, I saw that someone, undoubtably Ray, had placed a wreath on the door. He was the grown-up of this outfit. It hadn’t even crossed my mind.

  I could tell from the moment I opened the door that the office was empty, and I wondered if it would always be this way. Ray and I were both avoiding it, and I couldn’t imagine that we would ever feel comfortable in it again. My guess was when this was all over we’d be looking for a new place.

  Walking up the stairs to her work area, a wave of sadness washed over me. She had made this job fun. Unlike Ray, she was easy to talk to and got most of my jokes and references. She was tough and smart—and probably on her way to making a good detective.

  As I reached her desk, I wondered again what she was doing here that night. Why come back so late? What couldn’t wait until the next morning?

  I thought I might just know a way to figure out the answers. Even if I did, it probably wouldn’t tell me who killed her, but it’d be a place to start.

  Earlier the cops had Ray and I look to see if anything was missing. We had not—at least I had not—looked for what she had been working on. I thought it was possible that whatever was under the files and papers the killer had strewn would tell me.

  I began with what was on her desk beneath the files.

  Before, we had merely done a cursory check to see if anything was missing, now, I returned everything to its file and stacked them to the side. It took a while, but when I reached the bottom I found what I was looking for—except I didn’t like what I had found because it pointed to me. July had come back here from the park to look at our agency's logs, the paperwork we all used to account for our time and to bill clients.

  Ray, the former Pinkerton, operated our agency as if we could be audited any minute. July’s primary job was to keep careful records of all our activities—including accounting for all the gas and food ration coupons we used on each case.

  The logs she had out started a little less than a year ago and went through the present. They showed, among other things, that following our breakup, I had followed Lauren—often on company time—and had falsified records to cover it. It showed Ray’s legitimate work for Harry Lewis in following his wife and the other small jobs we were handling at the time, and every hour we had logged on every job since that time.

  She also had the invoices out, and together they showed that I had done extensive surveillance work for an Erich Stevens, a client I had made up to cover the fact that I was following Lauren and had never billed. Detective that she was, July, watching Lauren run around the track in the dark, had deduced that I had followed her before. But why come here? Why did she think it was so urgent? Did she think I was following her again? Of course I was, but did she think that I was the one they couldn’t get close to or that I had hired Carl—was she that far ahead of us? Did she think Lauren was in danger? That I was going to eventually hurt her? I hope she hadn’t died thinking such things about me.

  More recently, her logs were incomplete. There were hours logged with no client, clients with no hours, and several hours unaccounted for. Maybe she had come in to catch up on her bookkeeping. She had to know that Ray would be unhappy if he saw the condition everything was in. He had never once been late turning in a report to her, and she was usually good about accounting for everything once she had it. Was she going through something we didn’t know about? Was she killed for something that had nothing to do with the Lewis case or anything to do with our agency? If so, why was she killed the same way the other victims were?

  On my way back to Ann Everett’s place, I stopped by Rainer’s sanatorium to check on Ray, but he wasn’t there. It was early evening, the end of day, and Clip was still sitting on the building.

  I parked next to him near the service station down from Rainer’s and got into the passenger side of his car.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.

  “I didn’t duck fast enough,” I said.

  “From what?”

  “An incoming ceramic canister.”

  “Shit, man,” he said, “side of your face is all . . .”

  “You should see the canister,” I said. “Where’s Ray?”

  “Haven’t seen him.”

  “What time was he supposed to be back?”

  “’Round noon,” he said.

  “Six hours ago?”

  He nodded.

  “And you haven’t heard from him?”

  “Nah,” he said.

  Something was wrong. Ray was never late, and had he been able, he would have gotten word to us. Had he met up with July’s killer? Had he been detained by Rainer? Was Butch behind his absence? Is that why he had been semi-helpful this afternoon?

  “Any sign of Lauren?” I said, nodding toward the sanatorium. “Or Rainer?”

  He shook his head. “Place dead.”

  “Up for a few more hours?”

  “Your dime,” he said. “Been overtime for four hours now.”

  “You’re worth it, aren’t you?”

  “Worth a hell of a lot more than that,” he said. “More’n your one-arm, broke ass can afford.”

  “Good thing I’m not too proud for charity.”

  Chapter 43

  If the cops were watching Everett’s house, they were doing a damn good job of it. I drove around a few times before I parked a couple of blocks down and walked into her backyard. If I had more time, I’d have been more careful, but I didn’t.

  The back door was unlocked. When I opened it and went in, no one with a badge and a gun jumped out.

  It was dark outside now, and there were no lights on inside. I pulled a small flashlight out of my left coat pocket, clicked it on, and had a look around—a little bit at a time.

  In contrast to the exterior, the inside of the house was neat and clean, everything in its place.

  The house was small, and it didn’t take me long to determine no one was home.

  It was furnished modestly, devoid of any of the modern conveniences Midge enjoyed, and I found it difficult to believe that Ann Everett had ever actually lived here. It was much more likely a hideout or the home of one of her cohorts. The fact that its address matched the phone number Midge had for her didn’t mean it was connected to her at all.

  There were men and women’s clothes hanging in the closet of the only bedroom. I tried to recall if I had seen Everett ever wear any of them, but couldn’t remember. The drawers were mostly empty. There was nothing between the box springs and mattress. The medicine cabinet had the barest of essentials. Nothing was hidden in the linen cabinet.

  The kitchen cabinets were nearly empty—just a bottle of Snider Catsup, a couple of cans of Heinz Home Style Soup, and a few boxes of GE lamps. It had been a long time since anyone had prepared a meal here. There was nothing in any of the appliances.

  There didn’t s
eem to be anything helpful anywhere, so I decided to go.

  As I was about to leave, I heard the chimes of the large clock in the living room. I turned to take a closer look at it, moving the beam of my flashlight up and down. Ornate and over six feet tall, the squarish frame had a swinging pendulum on a long chain between two columns in the center and a round clock face at eye level of a tall person.

  The base of the clock had a door with a handle. I opened it. There was nothing in it, but as I studied it, I could tell that the back wall was much more shallow than the depth of the clock. Thinking it might be a false wall with a hidden compartment, I tapped on it. It sounded hollow, but I couldn’t get it open, and I didn’t have time to figure it out. I stood and kicked it in. It shattered, some of the pieces falling into the cuffs of my trousers, and inside was the large envelope Freddy had given to Lauren on the beach behind the Barn Dance.

  My heart started racing as I opened it.

  Lauren’s medical records and detailed notes were inside.

  The first word the beam of my flashlight fell on was a dirty word, the kind that led to blackmail, ended political aspirations, and took lives. Few words were as powerful or as deadly.

  It explained Lauren’s behavior, even her episode at Wakulla Springs. It explained everything.

  Lauren had a disease with virtually no early sign of infection. She had a small, non-painful nodule or lesion, which she had ignored. It has gone away in just a few weeks. But untreated, her disease had progressed to the next stage.

  As her lesion was going away, she got a reddish-brown rash on the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. For a while, she had a fever, swollen glands, a sore throat, weight loss, headaches, and fatigue. Again, it was left untreated, and again, it progressed.

  As her rash began to disappear, the infection was still in her body, but there were very few symptoms and no outward signs of the disease, and all the while it was damaging her brain, heart, liver, eyes, bones, and joints.

  Lauren had put off going to the doctor for as long as she could—perhaps because of how busy she was with the campaign or maybe because she suspected what it was. When she couldn’t delay any longer, she trusted Ann Everett’s recommendation of Payton Rainer, who administered a blood test called the Wasserman. But instead of treating her with the arsenic preparation and sulfa-like drug known as Salvarsan 606, he began to blackmail her—not for money, but to remove her husband from the mayoral race.

  And Lauren couldn’t go anywhere else for treatment.

  She had syphilis. Margie had given it to me, and I had given it to her. According to the file, there was no other possible explanation. It had gone untreated, and soon her swollen aorta would rupture and she would collapse and die, which would mean I had killed her.

  Chapter 44

  I drove to the Lewis home in a heavy fog, sick inside, but trying not to think about what I had done. But it was no good. I had to think about it, take it in. I just couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I’d implode—from lack of sleep and fatigue, but most of all from guilt.

  Everything Lauren had done, she had done out of love. I thought of all the time I had wasted on petty jealousy, wounded pride, and erroneous assumptions about an innocent woman.

  Difficult as it was, I forced myself to think about all the hurtful and hateful things I had thought or said about Lauren. How could I have been so cruel? So stupid? So deceived?

  She had risked her own life so that Harry could have his dream, so that she could pay him back some small part of what she felt she owed him.

  Father Keller thought she was a saint, and maybe she was. I didn’t know about that stuff. What I did know about was human nature, what people were capable of. I had often seen the worst, but in Lauren I had been seeing the best—but, because my experience with it had been so limited, I didn’t recognize it when I saw it, when I held it, when it was offering the best of itself to me.

  As I knocked on the door of the Lewis house, heat lightening flashed out over the bay, flickering like the filament of an old electric bulb coming to life.

  Lewis was surprised to see me. “Mr. Riley. Do you have news of Lauren?”

  I shook my head.

  His face fell, then he turned and walked back into the house. I followed him.

  I felt such guilt at what I had done to Lauren, to them both, that I found it difficult to look at him directly.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  He nodded, and I was pretty sure he thought I was offering my condolences for her being missing or apologizing because I hadn’t found her yet.

  “Would you like a drink?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said. I needed one.

  He stepped behind a fully stocked bar and mixed up a couple of drinks without asking what I wanted. His bloodshot eyes and swollen red nose let me know he was way ahead of me. As he prepared the drinks, his hands shook, and I couldn’t be sure if it were from age, alcohol, or anxiety.

  Above the fireplace, a painting of Lauren in a formal gown hung in an ornate gold frame. The artist had painted her without her scars, and she looked like a model or a movie star, a woman so beautiful that the world must take notice.

  We sat on expensive and uncomfortable furniture surrounded by tables and mirrors and vases and lamps and paintings.

  Harry looked even older than the last time I had seen him, his blue eyes tired, rimmed with smudges of purplish bruises, and there seemed to be even more broken veins in his pale, puffy face.

  “How you holdin’ up?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Not well, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m sorry. I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to see if you had thought about anywhere Lauren might’ve gone.”

  He shook his head again. “I’ve thought and thought and just can’t come up with anything. I’m afraid we aren’t very close in that sense. We’ve lived separate lives. I’m sorry, but I just don’t . . .”

  “No obscure friend or relative?” I asked. “No vacation spot she’s fond of?”

  “None. No one.”

  He then withdrew a pack of cigarettes from an end table and offered me one.

  I declined.

  “What have you decided about the election?”

  With trembling hands, he placed a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He then took a long pull on it like someone unraveling, hoping to inhale some steadiness.

  “I’m holding a press conference tomorrow,” he said. “I’m dropping out of the race.”

  Without knocking, Walt walked through the front door and into the livingroom. He was still wearing his coat and hat.

  “Everything okay, Mr. Lewis?” he asked.

  Lewis nodded. “Fine, Walt. Just fine.”

  “How are you, Mr. Riley?”

  I nodded toward him, but didn’t say anything.

  “I found Mrs. Lewis’s car,” he said.

  “Where?” Lewis and I asked simultaneously.

  “Near St. Andrews,” he said. “Right off Eleventh Street. There’s a hospital or something nearby. We thought she might be there, but we searched it and she’s not.”

  I stood. “I’ll go see what I can find out about it.”

  Lewis stood with me and followed me to the door.

  “I’m gonna find her,” I said. “I did it before and I’ll do it again.”

  “Before?” Lewis asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He looked as if he had no idea what I was talking about.

  I glanced over at Walt. He had a wide-eyed look of concern on his face, but then he smiled and gave me an exaggerated wink.

  “Right,” I said. “Well, good night.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lewis was saying as I walked out.

  “I’ll explain everything to you, Mr. Lewis,” Walt said.

  I got in my car, cranked it up, drove off, and parked around the corner.

  I could tell by his reaction, Lewis had never hired me to find his wife. Walt had. Was he working for Rainer? Had
he killed Freddy, Margie, Cab, and July? When he left Lewises’ a few minutes later, I followed him to try to find out.

  Chapter 45

  Walt led me right to the person he was working for, but it wasn’t Rainer.

  He drove across town to another large home, this one on the water near the Hathaway Bridge—which, just a few months back, had been closed for several days because a barge had crashed into its turntable. The timing had been bad, too. During the commissioning of the navy base, those involved had to cross the bay by boat.

  The Spanish Colonial Revival house was white stucco with a red tile roof. Several of its windows were made of decorative turned wood and had balconies with wrought-iron railings. When the enormous, heavy carved wooden door of the house opened, Frank Howell, Harry’s opposition for mayor, was standing on the other side.

  After Howell closed the door, I made sure both my weapons were still secure, jumped out of the car, and ran toward the house.

  Like Walt, I rang the doorbell. I then stood to the side and waited.

  When Howell opened the door again, I pressed the barrel of my revolver into his forehead. Lifting his hands, he backed into the house very slowly. I followed. Even backing up under duress, Howell still shuffled his feet lightly like a dancer.

  Walt whipped a pistol out of a shoulder holster beneath his coat and pointed it at me.

  “Drop it,” I said. “Or there’ll be another candidate dropping out of the race—this one permanently.”

  He dropped his gun.

  “Now kick it over to me.”

  He did.

  “Now your other one.”

  He reached down into an ankle holster and withdrew a small .38 or .22.

  “Careful,” I said.

  He dropped it on the floor, too, and kicked it over toward me.

  Except for the room we were in, the house was dark. I knew Howell was a bachelor, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have guests or a staff.

  “Who else is here?”

  “It’s just us,” Howell said. “I swear.”

  “Get over there with him,” I said, pushing the elephantine man toward his gunsel.