by John Lutz
As court was adjourned, Nudger knew that in his crude way Fleck had managed to impugn Joleen’s testimony and impress the jury. And there might indeed be some truth to the picture of her that he’d painted. Nudger was beginning to understand that the little firebrand of a lawyer sometimes used his pugnaciousness and apparent ineptness as cover from which to ambush and make his point. Roger Dupont might have better and more knowledgeable representation than Nudger had first imagined.
But as Fleck’s eyes met Nudger’s they were puzzled and questioning.
And Nudger had no answers.
Chapter Seventeen
The only message on Nudger’s answering machine was from Hammersmith, telling Nudger to call him not at the Third District but at his home in Webster Groves. Hammersmith had lived in the leafy suburb for decades.
His son Zack answered the phone, and after much yelling and conversation in the background, Hammersmith came to the phone.
“Did I interrupt your dinner?” Nudger asked.
“Yeah,” Hammersmith said, “but it’s okay. We were having one of those family discussions that can lead to people being disinherited.”
“You’re lucky to have a family to gather around a table and discuss things,” Nudger said, feeling a pang of loneliness. He couldn’t imagine sitting down at a table with Eileen and not arguing over money. Even after the divorce they did that occasionally in attorneys’ offices.
“Lucky, all right,” Hammersmith said glumly. “My wife hit our garage door with our car and did a thousand dollars worth of damage, and when I got mad she accused me of sexual harassment because I implied she was a typical female driver. Implied, she said. Zack is determined to ask his high school algebra teacher to the prom. Our dog Bart died last night.”
“I’m sorry,” Nudger said, thinking being single maybe had its advantages after all. “About everything. Especially about Bart. He was a fine dog.” In truth Bart had been an ill-tempered bassett hound that Nudger was reluctant to pet for fear of being bitten. Still, Hammersmith had been fond of the animal.
Hammersmith grunted. “One thing that has gone right today is I got the info you wanted on the M-E-E-E-E vanity plate. It belongs to a white ’95 Mercedes convertible owned by a Vella Kling.” Hammersmith gave Nudger Vella Kling’s address on Osage Avenue in South St. Louis.
“That’s not the kind of neighborhood where you’d expect to see a Mercedes parked,” Nudger said.
“No doubt she’s got a garage, Nudge, or she wouldn’t still have the Mercedes.”
Nudger finished making a note of the address on the envelope of his past-due rent notice. “Thanks, Jack.”
“If you do stumble across anything pertinent,” Hammersmith said, “clue me in immediately. The Karen Dupont murder is still technically an open homicide case.”
“You’ll know anything important almost as soon as I do,” Nudger assured him.
“Humph. I understand you were in court today.”
“How’d you know that?”
Hammersmith chuckled. “I got my little birds that tell me things. How’s it looking for Roger Dupont?”
“Your little birds didn’t tell you that?”
“They did, but they’re biased in this case. They think Dupont should be found guilty then be executed.”
“They wouldn’t be biased if they told you that’s the way he seems headed. Even his lawyer thinks he’s guilty.”
“Does Fleck have any idea why Dupont won’t plea-bargain?”
“Not the slightest. Neither would you, if you sat in that courtroom for a while.”
Nudger heard argumentive voices raised in the background. One of them cried, “Jack!” Hammersmith’s wife Linda.
“I gotta go, Nudge,” Hammersmith said.
“Okay, Jack. Thanks again. And don’t worry, love always finds a way. ”
“It found a way to run into the garage door,” Hammersmith said.
“I was thinking of Zack and his algebra teacher.”
Grinning, Nudger tried to hang up before Hammersmith but failed.
Vella Kling’s address turned out to belong to a brick four-family flat near Carondolet Park. It was in a neighborhood that had gradually declined over the past several years. While it wasn’t a dangerous part of town yet, it was still not the place where one parked a Mercedes—or owned one—without expecting it to be vandalized or stolen. For spite if not for parts.
And Nudger didn’t see the white convertible with the vanity plates as he parked the Granada on the opposite side of Osage from the flat-roofed brick building. There was an alley behind the building, and it had a long, four-car clapboard garage, as did most of the similar buildings on the block. Nudger had driven down the alley, stopped the car, and gotten out briefly to peer in through the garage’s dirt-streaked windows set in the overhead doors. The garage wasn’t divided into stalls. It was empty except for what appeared to be a very old Buick sedan parked at the west end.
The address Hammersmith had given Nudger indicated that Vella Kling lived in the unit on the second floor, east. Nudger sat in the Granada, perspired freely, and listened to the ball game until it was almost dark. Then he climbed out, stretched his cramped muscles, and crossed the street to enter the building.
A narrow, cracked concrete walk bisected a parched lawn that was brown where it wasn’t bare earth. Near a dead yew on the right of the entrance lay a child’s rusty tricycle worthless enough not to be stolen. A sparrow set down on the lawn and began pecking at barren earth that had to be baked as hard as the concrete walk, as if it actually expected to find a worm. Nudger thought the heat had probably driven the bird insane.
The building had no intercom. A glance at the vestibule mailboxes confirmed the location of Vella’s unit. Nudger pressed the door buzzer button above her mailbox, then climbed the rubber-treaded wooden steps. Somebody was apparently cooking something containing cabbage in one of the units. Nudger had been in a lot of flats and apartment buildings, and someone always seemed to be cooking cabbage. Of course that was impossible; the smell of the stuff must permeate walls.
When he reached the closed door of Vella’s unit he knocked three times, then waited at least three minutes. Nudger’s three-minute rule.
After making sure the door was indeed locked, he removed his honed expired Visa card from his wallet and tried to use it to slip what looked like only a cheap door latch lock. There didn’t seem to be a dead bolt to contend with, though he knew there might be a chainlock or something of that nature.
The old six-panel door fit too tightly to admit even the thin plastic of his card.
Okay, he thought. Okay. He leaned his shoulder against the door, drew back about a foot, then threw his weight against it.
The door gave without a lot of noise, leaving the wooden doorjamb splintered near the knob and above, where a brass chainlock dangled. One of the screws Nudger had ripped from the wood fell and rattled on the bare floor.
He was about to enter, when he heard the door across the hall open.
His stomach and his heart struggled to occupy the same space at the same time. Nudger quietly pulled the door closed and knocked on it.
“Help you?” a woman’s voice said behind him.
He turned around as if he’d just realized he wasn’t alone. A woman stood holding her door half open, gazing out at him. She was in her seventies and looked unhealthy. Her face was gaunt and her complexion was pale. Her blue eyes had about them the startled look of the very old and infirm who were suddenly wondering how they’d arrived near the end of life so abruptly. Nudger, still in his forties, already feared seeing that look someday in the mirror.
He gave the woman the old sweet smile. She seemed unmoved.
“I’m looking for Vella,” he said, broadening the smile. “Vella Kling. She does live here, doesn’t she?”
“Sure does,” the woman said. Now she was smiling back.
He breathed easier. She was probably alone in the world, and lonely. Like Nudger. Only she
was older and eager for someone to talk to, to listen to her. “She’s not home, though. Left late this afternoon.”
“Oh. I hadn’t figured on that.” Nudger made his voice drip with disappointment. “We were supposed to meet today. Unless I have the wrong day.”
“Maybe you do,” the woman said. “Time, days, can get away from people.”
Years, Nudger thought sadly. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Not for about a month, is what she said. She left me her plants to water. I’ve got them in my dining room where they’ll get plenty of light. A ficus and some vinca vines in hanging pots.”
That one threw Nudger. “Oh, no,” he said. “It’s not possible she’s going to be gone that long.”
“That’s what she told me. She went skiing someplace out west.”
“Colorado, probably,” Nudger said. “She likes several places out there. Did she tell you how to get in touch with her?”
“No. She said she’d be moving around, so it wouldn’t do much good to leave a phone number. Anyway, there won’t be much need to talk about the plants. I can take care of them well enough. Do you like plants?”
“Yes, I’ve got a lot of them at home.” Nudger glanced at Vella’s closed door and shook his head. “That woman goes skiing more often than anyone I know.”
“First time I know of,” the woman said.
“Really?” Nudger pretended to be astounded.
“She travels a lot because of her job buying for antique shops, but I never knew her to ski or do much of anything else athletic or requiring physical exertion. Except—”
“Except what?” Nudger asked. Some double entendre here?
“Nothing,” the woman said, obviously feeling guilty for what she’d been thinking and almost said. “If she calls, do you want me to mention you were by?”
Nudger feigned deep concentration. “No, that’s not necessary. Since I know she went skiing, I should be able to get in touch with her without any trouble. She’s probably at one of the three resorts she always goes to.”
“Do you ski?”
“Sometimes,” Nudger lied. “That’s where I met Vella.”
“I thought you were more likely to be into antiques. I mean, you’re average size and all, but you don’t look particularly athletic.”
He smiled again. She had no way of knowing he’d played Little League baseball as a youth. He might have made the high school team if he’d had an arm, if he’d been able to hit. “Thanks for your help, Mrs? ....”
“Finnegan. Iris Finnegan.”
“Thanks-again-Finnegan,” Nudger said musically, a little joke to avert suspicion of misdeed.
Iris Finnegan smiled wanly and closed her door.
Nudger made some noise as if he were descending the stairs, then crossed the landing as quietly as possible and entered Vella Kling’s apartment.
Chapter Eighteen
There were miniblinds on the windows that admitted only narrow bars of faint light from outside. The air in the apartment was warm, thick, and still. That and the almost total silence reassured Nudger that Iris Finnegan was right about Vella being away. He was alone.
The faint rushing sound of a car passing outside wafted into the apartment then faded. Something, probably the refrigerator, abruptly began a soft, steady hum that seemed only to emphasize the silence.
As Nudger made his way across a wooden floor, then thin carpet, to the outline of a bulky lamp on a table, he caught a whiff of what smelled like lemon-scented furniture polish. He groped beneath the large lampshade, found the switch, and turned on the lamp.
In the flood of light he saw that it was a squat, beige ceramic lamp with colorful small shells and rocks imbedded in its base. He looked around and saw that he was in Vella Kling’s living room. It was sparsely but expensively furnished, with what had to be genuine brown leather matching chairs and a low-slung modern sofa. In front of the sofa was a long coffee table with a silk flower arrangement visible beneath its glass top. One wall was entirely shelves containing a sleek black stereo surrounded by a collection of small crystal animals, framed photographs of attractive people Nudger didn’t recognize, and leather-bound books that looked as if they’d never been opened but contrasted nicely with the earth tone decor. On the wall opposite the sofa was a large-screen TV that Nudger knew Ray would love using to watch Cubs games. Well, maybe with enough hours at Shag’s such a thing could come to pass.
The only jarring note in the room was a large, aluminum-framed poster of an inanely smiling Tom Cruise, mounted on the wall over the sofa.
Feeling the barely suppressed fear and delicious sense of secrecy he always experienced when he trespassed in people’s homes, Nudger moved through a dining room furnished with matching modern oak table, chairs and hutch, into the kitchen. He saw white cabinets with porcelain handles, a tall white side-by-side refrigerator, combination stove and microwave, Cuisinart food processor ... Vella was doing okay as a middlewoman in the antique business. He attempted to pluck a grape from a fruit bowl on the table, then realized the fruit was artificial and moved on.
The bedroom was outfitted with lacquered black chest and dresser, and a large round bed with a red quilted spread. There were two brass hooks screwed into the ceiling in front of the window, probably for the hanging potted plants now in the possession and care of Iris Finnegan across the hall. Nudger leaned over and pushed down with his hand on the bed, watching its water-filled mattress undulate. His imagination soared then returned to reality.
Wall shelves in the bedroom held a collection of Hummel figurines, except for the bottom shelf, where a stuffed bear with an exaggerated penis leaned its back against a stack of computer software manuals. On the wall nearest the bed was a large oil painting on velvet of a man and woman doing what looked to Nudger like a tango. On another wall was a print of a painting of a woeful, long-haired young woman in a white dress. It was signed by Whistler, and even Nudger knew it was of higher quality than the painting of the man dipping the woman in the tango against a background of blue velvet. Though that one was an original; he could even see the textured brush strokes and where the paint had glopped up.
The mirror-doored closet contained plenty of clothes. Some seemed cheap, and some boasted exclusive labels. There were several dresses anyone would regard as sexy, and a few conservative blazers with matching skirts. The jumble of shoeboxes on the closet shelf contained—shoes. In the dresser drawers, Nudger found folded T-shirts, sweat socks, panty hose, and silk lingerie. There was a jumble of those Wonderbras that were supposed to increase cleavage. Behind the Wonderbras was a small leather box that contained a sparkling collection of jewelry. Undoubtedly real and valuable. Vella should be more careful; if Nudger were a thief, he’d be making a nice haul.
He left the bedroom, wondering why there wasn’t a mirror on the ceiling above the round bed, then went into a second, smaller bedroom that contained only a bookshelf, desk, and chair. The bookshelf held only worn paperback romance novels and some of those limited-edition collectors’ plates propped in holders. There were buffalo on one plate, John Wayne on another, some flying geese in V-formation on a third. The desk, a small kneehole cherry wood affair, held the usual assortment of rubber bands, paperclips, and envelopes. Beneath a fancy glass paperweight was a stack of opened envelopes. Nudger examined them and found that they were all bills, many of them past due. There was also a letter from a bank informing Vella that she was two months behind on the payments for her Mercedes, on which she still owed over twenty thousand dollars.
Nudger replaced the envelopes and stood with his fists propped on his hips, disappointed. He’d found nothing in the apartment that in any way explained the relationship between Vella and Dupont, or even confirmed its existence.
He walked back into the living room, paused, and looked around. Like the rest of the apartment, it had about it the whiff of a professional decorator, but one whose taste and decor had been polluted by those of the occupant. He doubted that
it was the decorator who’d chosen the Tom Cruise poster, the well-endowed stuffed bear, or the tango painting. Not to mention the round water bed and various other signs of a non-decorator personality.
Nudger shrugged. Who was he to judge decor, with his mismatched furniture, his ancient portable TV on its listing stand, and his baseball signed by Stan Musial displayed in his living room? If he’d been able to afford a decorator a year ago, his apartment might very well look something like this one. Except for those collector plates and that bear. And ... No, he decided after all, nothing like this apartment.
He’d touched little after his first few minutes in the apartment, and had opened and closed drawers and worked wall switches with the back of his hand or his knuckles. After wiping his fingerprints from the lamp and doorknob, Nudger suddenly remembered the rubber grape he’d tried to pluck from its rubber vine. He returned to the kitchen and wiped the grape clean with a dishtowel.
Then he left the apartment quietly.
There was no sign of damage on the outside of the door. If Vella Kling really was off skiing as she’d told her neighbor, a month would pass before anyone would realize the apartment had been illegally entered.
He drove back to his own apartment on Sutton in Maplewood, thinking that while it was nothing like Vella Kling’s, it was more like home. There was something to be said for eclectic decor, even if it was prompted by near-poverty. On the other hand, a Norman Rockwell print in the living room would do no harm. Or perhaps one of those paintings of dogs playing poker. He thought he remembered seeing some at Kmart. In nice frames, too.
As soon as he opened the door to the apartment, he smelled liquor. Bourbon, he thought.
While he was thinking that, a deep male voice said, “Don’t turn on the light.”
A huge, hulking form emerged from the shadows and came toward him. In the dim light Nudger could see that the man was close to six and a half feet tall and had long, apelike arms with huge hands. Shoulders like the slopes of mountains. A narrow waist with baggy pants.