by John Lutz
Nudger sat quietly in the chair and listened to distant sirens that seemed to be getting closer, as if the police had called for help.
He was relieved when the piercing yodel of the sirens stopped about a block away.
“It might be worth considering,” Hammersmith said, then hung up abruptly without saying good-bye. He loved to cut off the other party at the end of phone conversations; Nudger, who had been the recipient of such treatment many times, thought it was some sort of control complex. Hammersmith looked at Nudger and folded his pink, well-manicured hands on the desk.
“The gnu thing?” Nudger asked, motioning with his head toward the phone.
“What new thing?” Hammersmith asked, obviously puzzled.
“What you were talking about on the phone, I suppose,” Nudger said.
“Nothing new about a restaurant trying to serve protected species to its special customers,” Hammersmith said. “People will eat anything, buffalo, snake, eggplant. There was this gourmet club in West County about five years ago—”
“Never mind,” Nudger interrupted. “I think we’re talking about two different things.”
“Could be, Nudge.” Hammersmith stared down at the clutter of papers on his desk as if searching for something. “You called and asked for info on the Dupont homicide. The perp’s about to come to trial.”
“Before we get into that,” Nudger said, “do you know a criminal lawyer named Lawrence Fleck?”
“Of course,” Hammersmith said. “Irritating little twit. He could get Mother Teresa convicted if she was his client.”
“He’s Roger Dupont’s attorney.”
“Good. Dupont’s a killer. He deserves Fleck. He deserves to be found guilty.”
“You think he will be?”
“Gotta be,” Hammersmith said. “The evidence is all against him.” He slid a file folder out from beneath the papers on his desk and opened it, but he didn’t look at it.
“What do you know about the case?” Nudger asked.
“Lots. I was part of the Major Case Squad that investigated it. Dupont’s a Vice President at Merchant Federal Bank, where his abilities are highly valued. Belongs to the St. Louis Country Club, and spends a lot of time there. Terrific golfer and tennis player. Also good at bridge and chess. He and his wife, Karen, had been married four years, no kids. Lived out in University City on Devlon, nice house with a pool and a tennis court. Kept the pool clean and the grass mowed. Neighbors said he was pleasant and quiet. All what you’d expect to hear about a forty-year-old veep at a conservative bank.”
“But . . .” Nudger prodded.
Hammersmith leaned back in his swivel chair. It didn’t squeak the way Nudger’s did. Odd. Hammersmith was much heavier than Nudger. “I’ve talked to Dupont, and under the good manners and the self-assurance, the guy’s an asshole.”
Nudger raised his eyebrows. Hammersmith was using the word in the special cop sense: An asshole had no decency and no feelings. An asshole was capable of anything.
“That’s just instinct. I got nothing specific to back it up,” Hammersmith went on. “Except for this. We talked to all these business associates, club members, and neighbors, and we didn’t find anybody who was a friend of Dupont. I don’t think the guy cares about people. He just plays games with them.”
“You mean, golf and bridge?”
“Other games too.”
“You’re saying he had affairs?”
Hammersmith shrugged. “Nobody could give us anything specific. They just said he seemed like the type of guy who’d fool around. Unusual for a banker.”
Nudger wasn’t so sure about that. He’d known a banker once who was a member of a wife-swapping club. But that probably wasn’t typical. There were loans and then there were loans.
“So who reported the murder?” he asked.
“The victim’s sister, Joleen Witt. The wife, Karen, had been gone from home for over a week, just up and went. Roger Dupont’s story was that she’d suddenly decided to leave him and seek a new life in Chicago. She told him that, packed and left. He said he was dumbfounded. Couldn’t believe it. Well, after a while, neither could the sister. So the University City police sent a man over and got Dupont’s story, asked him if Karen had left a note, contacted him since she’d left, blah, blah, blah. Dupont said no, no, no, and stuck to his simple story.”
“He wouldn’t be the first man surprised like that by his wife,” Nudger said.
“Wouldn’t be the first to kill his wife, either.”
Impeccable logic, Nudger thought.
“Then things began to crop up,” Hammersmith said. “A neighbor told the police she’d heard screams the night Karen was supposed to have left. Dupont said the screams came from the TV. Turns out Dupont took out a half-million-dollar life insurance policy on Karen six months ago. When that was pointed out to him, he said, in effect, so what? A few of Karen’s clothes seemed to be missing, but not enough to fill the large suitcase Dupont said she took with her. We asked for an explanation. She was in a hurry, Dupont said.”
“Doesn’t sound too bad for Dupont so far,” Nudger said.
“Partially burned panties, along with a half-melted pair of Karen’s earrings, were found in the furnace.”
“Oh-oh,” Nudger said.
“Yeah. In St. Louis in the summer, Nudge. Dupont claimed to know nothing about the panties or earrings. He said Karen used the furnace for an incinerator sometimes and might have stuck them in there with some other stuff she wanted to get rid of.”
“Unlikely.”
“It gets more so. In the trunk of Dupont’s car we found a shovel with clumps of earth on its blade.”
“Dupont said?”
“That he always carried the shovel, and he’d used it when his car got stuck in the mud the week before.”
“Barely possible,” Nudger said.
“Embedded in the mud on the shovel was a human hair the lab tests confirm matched one of Karen’s that we took from her comb.”
“Hmm.”
Hammersmith shrugged his fleshy shoulders. “It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out, Nudge.”
“Even Watson could do it,” Nudger said.
“What we’d like is for Dupont to get up off the body in exchange for a deal with the prosecution.”
Nudger blinked. He remembered what this macabre cop expression meant, and he was surprised. Guilty men usually played the one high card they held. “He won’t tell you where he buried Karen’s remains?”
Hammersmith slowly wagged his massive head. His jowls sloshed over his collar.
“Incredible,” Nudger said. “Of course you’ve offered to reduce the charges in exchange for his cooperation. Second-degree? Voluntary manslaughter?”
“That’s up to the prosecutor,” Hammersmith replied. “We’re not worried. Don’t tell me you’re one of those misinformed types who think you need a body to get a murder conviction.”
“You don’t need one,” Nudger said, “but it sure makes it easier.”
“Not in this case, with all the evidence. Dupont won’t say where he buried his wife, and so far we haven’t found her. It’s simple as that. We might never find her, if he’s got her corpse well hidden. But that little matter won’t thwart justice. There are plenty of murder victims out there who’ve never been found or identified. That doesn’t keep their killers from being arrested and convicted.”
“Sometimes,” Nudger said.
“Well, Roger Dupont is one of those times. This guy’s as good as strapped to the gurney with the needle in his arm.” Hammersmith paused, and gave Nudger a meaningful look. “Might be in his interest to plea-bargain.”
Nudger smiled. “Come on, Jack. Level with me. The prosecutor’s very worried about not having a body, isn’t he? He’d love to make a deal with Dupont.”
Hammersmith smiled back. “You’re right, Nudge. But you didn’t get it from me.”
“Well, you didn’t get this from me, but Fleck wants to
plea-bargain. Dupont won’t go along with him.”
Hammersmith’s eyes opened wide with surprise. “You’re kidding! I thought the problem was Fleck’s delusions of grandeur. This Dupont guy must be crazy. He could cop to a lesser, get out in fifteen years maybe. Instead he’s going to trial and risking a death sentence.”
“Maybe he’s innocent.”
“Then why’d he confess?”
Nudger sat back in his chair so hard that the wood groaned. Just like Hammersmith to withhold that kind of information then spring it on him. Nudger merely glared at him.
Hammersmith smiled. “We picked him up at his home and booked him out in U. City. He acted remorseful, and he just kept saying over and over that he’d killed his wife. Wouldn’t say anything else, in fact. Like he was in some kind of trance. Then, in the morning, he rescinded the confession on the grounds he’d been coerced.”
“Fleck’s advice, you think?”
“No, this was before he’d hired Fleck. He looked in the phone book later that morning and made his call. Came up with Fleck. Some catch.”
Did you coerce him?”
“C’mon, Nudge, we don’t do that anymore. Not to bankers, anyway. Question is, did somebody coerce a guy like Dupont to hire a loose bolt like Fleck?”
“It’s a good question,” Nudger admitted. “I don’t have a good answer.”
Hammersmith handed Nudger a folded sheet of typing paper. “These are the names and addresses of people you might want to talk to, even though you’re wasting your time. Only reason I’m helping you here is that you’re also wasting Fleck’s money. This Dupont is on his way, Nudge, believe me.”
Nudger tucked the folded paper into his shirt pocket. “You’re probably right, but business is slow.”
“Your business is always slow. You’re curious about Dupont. Or else you need the money to pay Eileen some back alimony.”
“I always need money to pay Eileen,” Nudger said. “She’s insatiable.” Eileen was Nudger’s former wife, who with her devious lawyer had stripped the cooperative and unsuspecting Nudger of almost everything he owned during divorce proceedings, then continued to pursue him for more. Nudger was the only childless man he knew who paid alimony. Child support he would have been proud to pay, but alimony was absurd. Especially considering that Eileen was at the apex of a sales pyramid in one of those home product scams. She had dozens of “agents” working for her and was richer than most people, and certainly richer than hand-to-mouth Nudger. Lately she’d been sleeping with her lawyer, Henry Mercato. Nudger sometimes lay in bed late at night and imagined that their pillow talk was about him, about how they could make him miserable or pry more money out of him. Eileen made no secret that she wanted him to continue to suffer. She was a vindictive and unscrupulous person and a terrific seller of home products and had found her soul mate in the despicable Mercato. They deserved each other, those two. They deserved—
“Nudge?”
“Sorry, Jack. My mind wandered.”
“I’ll bet I know where.” Hammersmith made a show of closing the file folder, a signal that the conversation was ended and he had crime to fight. He touched a cellophane-wrapped cigar in his shirt pocket. “Do yourself a favor, Nudge, and ditch this case. You can’t stay too far away from a guy like Roger Dupont. Fleck’s money’s like bait with a hook in it.”
Nudger stood up. The office was cool enough, but his pants legs were sticking to the backs of his thighs. Polyester did that sometimes if you sat for a long time in a hard chair. What seemed like a long time, anyway.
“I think I’ll look into things for a while, anyway,” he said. He used his thumb and forefinger to pluck the material away from his thighs, then moved toward the door. “I’ll be careful of the hook hiding in the money. Thanks for your help, Jack.”
“ ’S okay.” Hammersmith was already occupied with something on his desk. “Someday you’re gonna grow gills,” he muttered to or about Nudger, without looking up.
Nudger swam away without answering.
Chapter Three
Nudger parked the Granada at the curb near Fleck’s office and stuffed a quarter into a meter. As he was walking away, the car’s overheated engine turned over once on its own then made a feeble coughing sound and died. Nudger hoped for reincarnation when he came back and twisted the ignition key.
Clayton was the rich near-suburb where many of the best and most expensive lawyers had their offices. Fleck’s office was just beyond the Clayton line, in University City where the neighborhood started to go downhill. It was on the ground floor of a converted four-family flat, across the hall from a door lettered DUST-GONE WONDER VAC, INC.
Nudger let himself in through the door with Fleck’s name on it and found himself in a small anteroom with a few chairs, some prints of English fox-hunting scenes, and a small window with a round hole in it. The window framed a pretty blonde girl who had wispy bangs and a blue dress with a white collar and puffy sleeves and looked about twelve.
Nudger was the only one in the anteroom. He approached the window and the blonde girl looked up from some papers she was laboring over with a pencil and smiled.
“Mr. Nudger to see Lawrence Fleck,” Nudger said, as if Fleck had several partners in the firm and there might be some confusion.
“Do you have an appointment?” the blonde girl asked.
“No. Why? Is he busy?”
“Mr. Fleck’s occupied at the moment, in an important meeting. But if you’ll sit down I’ll tell him—”
A door near the little window opened and Fleck poked his head out, then stepped into the anteroom.
“Nudger,” he said. “What do you want?”
“I thought you were in an important meeting.”
“Naw. Girl’s got instructions to say that to the poor innocent saps when they wander in here trying to get out of trouble.” He glanced at the confused blonde and waved a hand in dismissal. “She’s just a temp. Gonna be gone tomorrow.” The temp looked as if she might be about to cry. Fleck didn’t seem to notice. “So c’mon into my office, tell me what’s your problem and I can help.”
Nudger had to resist patting the back of the temp’s hand as they walked past her.
“Hold all calls,” Fleck barked at her, as he opened the office door for Nudger.
The office was small, but the desktop was vast as an airport and made of bleached pine. Nudger saw that it was actually a finished door laid over two double-drawer filing cabinets. Behind it was a high-backed chair thickly upholstered in black vinyl. Two smaller chairs, also black vinyl but with wooden arms, sat in front of the desk. The carpet was a putrid shade of pink. Floor-length drapes on the single window were green with a pink check. On the back edge of the desk, near the center, was a brass lamp with a green shade. Nudger suspected its base covered the hole in the desk top that was meant to accommodate a doorknob. Various framed diplomas were scattered about the walls. Nudger didn’t recognize any of the institutions that had conferred them. In a corner sat a tall wooden easel with a large sketch pad on it. The exposed sheet of paper on the pad was covered with scrawled numbers and complex mathematical symbols. Arrows had been drawn with bright red marker to point to this or that. Nudger could make nothing of what he saw on the paper.
Fleck told Nudger to sit down in one of the small chairs, then strutted behind his makeshift desk and sat in the high-backed chair. It made him look even shorter than he was. His suit was gray with a muted check today, but he still had on the giant brown wing tip shoes. His impossibly black wig was slightly askew.
“What do all those numbers mean?” Nudger asked, pointing to the easel.
“Nothing,” Fleck said, “and something. I use that as a confidence builder. The poor marks that come in here needing my services have gotta know right off that I can help them. They see all that mumbo jumbo math like I’m Einstein or something. Know what that means?”
Nudger sighed. “What?”
“Means that right away they know I’m the guy can get
them outa whatever mess they’re in. You know why?”
“Because you must be smarter than they are?” Nudger ventured.
“Hey! You’re a good pupil, Nudger! That’s right. Makes no sense coming for help to a guy knows less than you, does it now?”
“No,” Nudger said. “Which brings me to why I came here. You hired me to help you, and you know more about Roger Dupont than I do.”
“It’s my job to know,” Fleck said. The phone rang. Seven times. Fleck sat waiting for the temp to answer it, but it stopped ringing and nothing else happened. Apparently she hadn’t picked up. Fleck glanced at the intercom on his desk. It remained silent. “Gotta get little Della Street out there on the ball,” he said with a smile.
“I thought you said this was her last day.”
“Hey, who knows about tomorrow? Do you know, Nudger?”
“No,” Nudger had to admit.
“Nobody can tell about tomorrow. Some say they can, but it’s a lie. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, a lie,” Nudger said.
Fleck rotated his wrist and glanced at what was probably an imitation Rolex watch. “Well, get to it, Nudger. I got appointments. You understand about appointments, don’t you?”
“Sure. What I want is to talk to Roger Dupont.”
Fleck appeared startled. “Are you crazy? Are you, Nudger?”
“I don’t think so. We can go to the County Jail—”
“County Jail? He’s my client, Nudger. Know what that means? Do you?”
“Listen, Fleck—”
“Larry! Call me Larry! Means he’s not in jail. Means he’s out on bail. Know why?”
“He’s your client?”
“No! Because I’m his lawyer!”
Nudger tried to see the distinction but couldn’t.
“He’s out on bail because I know all the bondsmen in the city and county. Some other attorney asks the judge to let his client post bail, the judge says take a walk. The judges don’t talk to me that way, know I don’t stand for it. I ask that bail be set for my client, judge allows bail, says to the prosecutor, ‘Hey, screw you!’ Not in so many words, you understand.”