Cold In The Grave_A Kilroy Mystery

by Stephen Mertz

  The gutter in front of the building was muddy and cluttered with trash. The city only looked clean from a distance.

  Inside The Tattle Tail, ten or twelve people sat killing time nursing drinks in the dim, lazy atmosphere bars have between mid- and late afternoon. Too late for the lunch crowd, too early for the working stiffs stopping in for a quick one on their way home. A Doobie Brothers song was playing on the jukebox.

  There were no waitresses in sight. Cheryl's day off? In that case I would drive over to her place on Thirteenth and pick her up there. If she was on break here, I’d fade and commence shadowing her after she got off work.

  A Neanderthal man sat on a stool behind the far end of the bar, paging idly through a glossy magazine with two naked women on the cover. I mean he was one big dude. He did not know me, but I knew him, and it was not a pleasant surprise to find him here.

  The Neanderthal's name was Limp Gallagher. I had lined up evidence against him a year ago when he'd been part of an insurance scam to torch businesses for a guy who was going bankrupt. The guy and the insurance firm settled things out of court, so the evidence against Gallagher had never gone beyond their company files, which is why he didn't know me or about me but yeah, I knew all about him.

  The torch jobs had been typical for Limp. They used to call guys like him thugs. A walking slimebag who sold his muscle and lack of brains to anybody with green; sometimes the local Mafia Family, sometimes not. It was said that his nom-de-hood arose following a crap game scrap in the late sixties when an ex-wrestler named Tito Brunvig, who hasn't been heard from since, broke Gallagher's left leg in four places. The incident hadn't diminished Limp's capabilities; it just took him a little longer to get around. Nor had it done much to improve his disposition, which had never been rosy.

  I took a stool at the bar, ordered a draw and waited until he came back with my change.

  “Cheryl working?”

  Limp had started back toward his magazine but at my question he turned to face me again, a hulk of borderline humanity whose head resembled an over-used basketball.

  “Yeah, she’s on today.” Scar tissue around cold, dark eyes tightened into an appraising squint. “Let's hear you say some more.”

  There was an open archway to the left of the bar, leading to a hallway.

  Movement caught my eye.

  A slim brunette, pretty-ish but not too bright-looking, leaned in the archway, puffing on a cigarette, idly gazing around at the dead bar scene. She wore a skimpy something that ended at mid-thigh; unfashionable but not hard on the eyeballs. After a moment, she turned and disappeared back down the corridor beyond the archway. She was too young to be Cheryl Kaplin, but she'd made me realize that The Tattle Tail and The Adult Massage Guild were connected behind the back-bar wall.

  Gallagher had seen me see the girl, and was smirking, waiting.

  I brought out my wallet, set a fiver on the bar between us, and said what he expected me to say.

  “I won't need much of her time.”

  The five disappeared into Limp's ham-like fist.

  “Okay, sport. She can take you right away. Go down that hallway behind the bar and up the stairs. Second door on the left. Knock first.”

  Whereupon he lost all interest in me. He limped to the far end of the bar and got back to his magazine.

  I followed his directions. At the foot of the stairs in the hallway was a doorway leading to the massage joint. I glanced in.

  The young woman I had seen sat in a ratty overstuffed chair, bare legs crossed, the short thing she wore riding up over her bottom, but she didn't seem to mind. She glanced in my direction, saw I was already on my way upstairs, and she too lost interest, one foot tapping to tinny music sprouting from an unseen transistor radio. She looked bored as she could be.

  I went upstairs.

  Another corridor stretched out from the landing, running the full length of the building, barely illuminated by a sixty-watt bulb at the midway point. The air was stale, musty with age and something else. A cockroach scurried across the floor along with at least a half a dozen silverfish.

  The sounds of dueling bedsprings emanated from the door I walked past, then I was at the door Gallagher had given me directions to.

  I knocked.

  There was hardly a pause before the door was opened.

  The young woman who opened the door was about Robert’s age. She stood there for a moment with one hand on the doorknob, the other on the fame, to allow me a glimpse of the full effect of what she had, with a smile that almost reached her eyes. She was at that age when a lot of women have just embarked on their best years, but for this one the years had not been easy. They had been too hard. Her eyes were clear and sharp, brown with slivers of cold flame at the center, but lines were noticeable around the eyes and mouth that shouldn't have showed up for another few years. She was close to my height of 5'10” but slim and compact, wearing a cotton blouse ablaze with a loud print, buttoned down the front but reaching only the tops of thighs that were a warm tan. Another hooker getup like the other girl downstairs but also, like the other, not too hard on the optics. Her hair was a soft warm brown, worn long, falling carelessly onto her shoulders from a center part.

  “Cheryl?'

  “That's me. Come on in.”

  I stepped past her into a small, barely furnished room, of one thin-curtained window, a bed, a battered dresser and nothing else.

  She closed the door and we turned to face each other, those sharp brown eyes of hers sizing me up.

  “Well, a good-looking one for a change.” Her voice was husky, full of professional warmth. “How refreshing. Tell you what, guy. It's twenty dollars for fifteen minutes and for you I'll throw in the extras, free of charge. Man, I need a break from fat businessmen. A working girl's got to have some fun!”

  “You are Cheryl Kaplin?”

  Something in my voice made her wary, the flame in those brown eyes not so bright now.

  “I'm Cheryl. So, what?”

  “My name is Kilroy. I'm a private detective.”

  “Aw, shit. I knew you were too good to be true. So, what's a private dick want with me? Let me guess. Some trick's wife wants to know if the old goat's paying for it on the side and you're here to find out, right?”

  “Wrong. Someone is worried about you. They think you're in trouble. They hired me to see if I could help.”

  “Someone, huh?” Her eyes iced over and so did her voice. “Someone like Bob Pierpont, I'll bet.”

  “He prefers Robert. He thinks you're caught up in a web of sin and corruption not of your own doing. He loves you. He wants to help.”

  “So that's what happened to that note!”

  “You did a real number on that boy, sugar. He thinks you're a waitress downstairs.”

  “I know what he thinks. You've seen him. I couldn't tell him the truth. I don't know how.” She shook her head slowly. “He's so young, so . . . clean. I don't meet many guys like that. That's why I let it . . . happen between us. It was different. Nice.” Then, abruptly, she caught herself and made an irritable gesture. “The hell with it,” she snapped, and the ice came back. “I was wrong. It was a mistake and when I realized it, I cut the guy loose. I was letting my heart try to mess me up. Some bullshit maternal instinct. I always was a sucker for strays.”

  “Robert doesn't think it was maternal or bullshit.”

  “I know. That's the main reason I had to end it. Get too close to people and you just mess them up bad or end up getting messed up. I know, man. I've been there. So, you just go back to Robert and tell him I did the best thing for both of us, okay?”

  “You tell him,” I suggested. “At least call him. Be honest about breaking it off with him.”

  “Look, I don't owe that hick nothing. We never even slept together! Just spent some time goofing around. I can't help it if he thought it was something it wasn't. Tell him whatever you want. Tell him the truth. I don't care. Just tell him to leave me alone. I'm working on pulling a big chang
e in my life right now, and I don't need some spaced-out kid from Nebraska stumbling around messing things up for me. You tell him I said to get lost, understand?”

  “I understand, but I don't know if he will.”

  “Then the hell with him,” she rasped, “and the hell with you.” She stalked purposefully over to whip the door open and step into the hallway. “Limp!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Get up here!” There was a hard edge in her voice that hadn't been there before.

  A rumbling from below sounded like a stampeding herd of something big and frightening. Something to move out of the way of. A moment later, Limp Gallagher braked to a stop at her side, slightly winded from having run all the way upstairs on one good stem.

  Cheryl pointed at me.

  “Throw him out, Limp. He's trying to cause trouble.”

  Gallagher's expression warmed. This wasn't work for him. He'd do it for free just for the fun of bouncing someone around.

  He moved in, tossing a thumb over his Neanderthal shoulder. “You heard her, bud. Out. Now.” He grabbed at my arm and gave it a yank.

  I slid the arm free and when he started grinning and came at me again, I kicked him between the legs. His color turned a deep magenta and the air gushed out of his mouth in a bellowing oooooofffff! He doubled over, coughing like he'd swallowed an ice cube. I followed through with a fast chop that landed somewhere behind his left ear. His knees buckled, and he sagged into an unconscious pile at my feet, the sound of his ragged breathing filling the small room like an overworked pump.

  I don't get into too many scrapes these days. I'm in good shape, but I'm no brawler. I hadn't expected it to be that easy, but I tried not to let it show.

  Cheryl was pressed flush against the opposite wall of the corridor outside the room, watching me with wide, panicky eyes. She didn't like the look on my face. She cringed away when I stepped over Gallagher toward her.

  She said, “Now wait a second, guy! You better get out of here before he comes to. I don't want for Limp to hurt you!”

  Limp didn't look in any condition to hurt anybody.

  I said, “I'll see that Robert gets your message.”

  “J-just tell him to stay away,” she stammered softly. “Please, I had no business leading him on, messing up his life the way I did. I know that now. Tell him I'm sorry. And tell him that I really don't want to see him ever again.”

  I didn't have anything to say to that. I eased past her and down the stairs.

  3

  There was a drugstore a few doors down from The Tattle Tail. I used a pay phone to give Robert a call at the offices of Murdock, Morrow, and Watson. I'm not sure why, but when his earnest, youthful voice came on the line I told him I had visited The Tattle Tail but that this was Cheryl's day off. I told him not to worry, to stay away from her for the rest of the day, that I would continue working on it and get back to him.

  He made me feel like an even worse creep than I already did by smothering me with fervent thank-yous.

  I climbed into my Lancia and cruised the traffic a few blocks over to Cheesman Park, where I slipped on my jogging shoes and ran a medium-to-easy paced lap around the one-and-a-half-mile circumference. My eyes on the ground for the entire run despite the beautiful day. I was trying to sort things out in my mind and decide on a course of action.

  I didn't much like delivering Robert Pierpont nothing more for his hard-earned money than the painful truth about what his “lady” really was. It seemed that he deserved something more. But what? What could I give him? And where does a problem like his fit into what should be, after all, a dollars-and-cents business? This “case” of mine was one of naiveté` versus reality. Plain and simple in some ways but I felt that empty gnawing in my gut of something left undone.

  I drove from Cheesman Park to my apartment in one of those modern looking, cheaply constructed complexes on the west side of town, in Lakewood. I've lived there for three years now. Most of my neighbors are young marrieds who move in and out faster than I or the manager can keep track. The rent isn't much, which helps maintain that low overhead in the business, and my bedroom window looks out over the eastern foothills of the Rockies, which makes me feel like I'm communing with nature or something every morning when I wake up.

  By the time I'd showered, changed, and munched down a sandwich, I had pretty well decided on a few ideas concerning what I should do. I made up my mind to drive back down to The Tattle Tail and stake the place out. I had to play tag with the start of rush hour traffic on my way back downtown, but I made good time.

  I'd give the place a call, ask for Cheryl, and if whoever answered went to get Cheryl for the call, I would have all I needed to know: that Cheryl was still “on duty.” It would then be a matter of waiting until she came out, following her and seeing if there wasn't something, after all, that I could do to earn my pay despite what she was and the number she had pulled on my client.

  If she was no longer at the bar, I would proceed to her home, pick up her trail there and continue along the same lines.

  Either Cheryl was being blackmailed, or she was blackmailing somebody.

  I wanted to know which.

  It was five o'clock when I parked on York, with the intention of walking the rest of the short distance to a good lookout point. The sun had settled behind the mountains west of town, the city basked in the glow of another brilliant red Colorado sunset, but with the rapidly approaching darkness, the air began taking on a chill that was more in keeping with the month of February. The darkening sky was clear of cloud cover. The night would be a cold one.

  I forgot all about the weather as soon as I rounded the corner from York.

  There was a cluster of activity across Colfax and down a short way from The Tattle Tail: two police cruisers stationed with their lights flashing, blocking off the far lane for about a quarter block, cops standing and directing the flow of traffic. Rubber-neckers stood and gawked. An ambulance was parked with its rear doors yawning open.

  A premonition nipped me deep, confirmed when I spotted Detective Joe Gallegos standing at the center of things.

  Joe is a slim Hispanic, my age, possessed of that intense countenance many urban men of his race seem born with. We had associated on several cases during my time as a private investigator. Beyond Joe was a third cruiser. Two patrolmen stood next to it, questioning a civilian who appeared really shook up. Joe was watching two paramedics from the ambulance lift a sheet covered form onto a stretcher.

  He looked even more serious than usual when he saw me.

  “Kilroy, what the hell are you doing here?

  I tried at a friendly chuckle.

  “I was about to ask you the same question.”

  “Come here,” he said. “I want you to see something.”

  The medics were moving past us toward the ambulance, guiding their stretcher.

  Joe grabbed one of the medics by the arm, checking their progress. He caught a corner of the blanket with a thumb and index finger and flipped it away, watching me clearly the whole time.

  I stared into the dead face of Cheryl Kaplin.

  Sometimes death has a way of softening a person's looks, but it hadn't helped Cheryl any. She was still slightly pretty but in that tired, overused way; something the best mortician wouldn't be able to hide. A face to haunt dreams.

  When I didn't say anything, Joe said, “Pierpont went to see you.” He dropped the sheet over the dead face and let the medics continue. “You're here, so I guess you took the case.”

  Across the street at The Tattle Tail, they had switched on their neon to combat the encroaching night. No one was watching from the place Cheryl had worked. At The Tattle Tail it was business as usual.

  I looked back at Joe.

  “How did it happen?”

  “No, amigo. This could turn into a murder investigation. You tell me how you happened to show up here just now, then we'll see what I tell you. Did you investigate the Kaplin woman the way Pierpont wanted?”

  “
I came down this afternoon. She was a hooker.” I nodded toward the club across the street. “She was turning tricks upstairs.”

  This caught him by surprise.

  “Damn, I should've figured that out when I spoke with Pierpont. The Tattle Tail is one of Fallaci's dumps. Vice has known about it for months, but they let these joints run to keep the girls off the streets. Damn.”

  I indicated the stretcher being loaded into the ambulance.

  “So, what can you tell me?”

  “Vehicular manslaughter, far as we know. We've got statements from seven people who saw it happen. Looks legit. The driver made a legal turn from that parking lot up the block. Cheryl Kaplin was crossing the street against the light.”

  “And why are you here?”

  “There's too damn much coincidence, that's why. Pierpont coming to both of us, then the woman getting killed like this. And now you tell me she was a hooker, stringing a dumb kid along on the side. Lots of them do that. They need to have one relationship with a male that isn't like their job. A way to feel human, I guess. So, suddenly, she drops the guy without a word, he hires you to find out why, and she's dead before the day is over. Too much coincidence.”

  I looked over at the man being questioned by the patrolman next to the cruiser. The guy wore bellbottoms, a black T-shirt and matching corduroy sports jacket. I realized with a small jolt that I recognized him.

  Joe followed my gaze.

  “Is that the driver?”

  “That's him. Leon Somerset. Runs a body shop in Arvada.”

  “He was in the club this afternoon, Joe. He was coming in, took a stool at the bar just as I was leaving.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “Who knows? Did Pierpont tell you about the extortion note he found in Cheryl's apartment?”

  “He told me.”

  “She wouldn't be the first whore who decided to try her hand at blackmail.” I nodded at the man being interrogated. “Maybe he was the mark. Pierpont thought she was being blackmailed but I doubt that. Maybe she pushed this Leon Somerset too far this afternoon. He sat outside in his car and waited for his chance and it came when she got off work and crossed the street against the light on her way home.”