Death by Jury (Alo Nudger Series Book 9)

by John Lutz

  The doughnut shop was warm and smelled of fresh baked dough and warm sugar. Half the stools at Danny’s counter were filled. He nodded to Nudger and said, “You got somebody up there waiting for you. He just drove up in that.”

  Nudger turned and looked out the window. A big red Cadillac was parked at the curb, taking up two spaces. He didn’t get many clients in Caddies. Better not keep his caller waiting any longer.

  “Thanks, Danny. You still got those jumper cables?”

  “Don’t tell me the Granada wouldn’t start, Nudge.” His face fell. His shoulders sagged. Years ago he’d talked Nudger into buying the Granada, and now look what had happened. Guilt came so easily to Danny and departed not at all.

  “It’s basically a good car, Danny. Can we go over to my place in a couple of hours and start it?”

  “Sure, sure. Least I can do. How ’bout a cup of coffee?”

  Nudger accepted. When the shop was busy like this, the coffee didn’t sit in the steel urn long enough to cook down to acidic sludge. It wouldn’t do his tender stomach too much damage.

  “And a Dunker Delite?”

  Danny’s hand was already reaching into the display case where the Delites resided. He picked one up. It left a distinct oval of grease on the white doily where it had rested.

  Nudger backed toward the door.

  “Thanks, anyway, Danny, but it wouldn’t be polite to eat in front of the client.”

  “Then take two, Nudge.”

  But Nudger was already out the door. He let it close, pretending not to hear.

  The stairwell, as usual in winter, felt colder than outdoors. He climbed it quickly and entered his office, where Lawrence Fleck was waiting.

  Nudger hadn’t seen or heard of the pugnacious little attorney in six months. He was speechless. Fleck was not.

  “Jesus, Nudger, this an office or an igloo? It’s freezing in here!”

  That was true. But since Nudger’s landlord didn’t trust him with a thermostat, there was nothing he could do about it. “Heat’ll be along in a minute,” he said hopefully. For the present, though, he kept his London Fog on.

  Waving Fleck to the client’s chair, he sat down behind the desk. Eeeeek! went the chair. It always seemed to squeak louder in the winter. The cold got into its joints as it did into Nudger’s. He put the plastic foam cup of coffee aside. He’d enjoy it after he got rid of Fleck.

  Fleck remained standing. He made a show of surveying the office. “I see nothing’s changed in your life.”

  This was Nudger’s cue to admire Fleck’s suit. Just in case he’d missed the Caddy at the curb. And it was a nice suit, a dark, pinstriped, vested job, which made the most of what height Fleck had. It almost made him look like a lawyer.

  “I’m glad things are going well for you, Lawrence.”

  “Got an office in Clayton now. And a new secretary, prettier and permanent. May even have to hire a paralegal, just to keep up with the work. Know why I’m doing so well these days, Nudger?”

  Nudger sighed. He had a pretty good idea why Fleck had come to see him, and he wasn’t happy about it. “I expect a lot of clients have come your way since—”

  “That’s right, Nudger. Poor dumb innocents who’ve gotten in so deep, whose cases are so hopeless, they can see only one way out. Know what that way is?”

  “Call in the man who got Roger Dupont off,” said Nudger.

  Under his immobile toupee, Fleck’s forehead contracted and furrowed. He was trying to think of a reason to contradict Nudger’s statement. Nothing came to him. “You’re so smart, tell me why I’m here.”

  “You want to rehire me to investigate Dupont.”

  “Wrong!” brayed Fleck triumphantly.

  Nudger was genuinely surprised. “Wrong?”

  “How can I rehire you, when you never finished the job I hired you to do in the first place? Huh? Answer me that!”

  “I—”

  “You were supposed to find out the truth about Dupont, and you failed. I’m here to remind you that you’re still working for me.”

  “Lawrence, the trial is over—”

  “So what? You’ve still got to finish the job.”

  “The case is closed. You don’t have a client anymore. You’d have to pay me out of your own pocket.”

  Maybe Fleck hadn’t thought of that, or maybe he just hated the sound of it. He took a couple of turns about the little room in silence.

  A racket began, a banging and clattering as if a knight in armor were falling down the stairs. Fleck spun around in alarm. “What the hell’s that?”

  “Good news,” Nudger replied. “Heat’s coming on.”

  He jerked his thumb at the radiator, which stood on the floor just below the air conditioner he always forgot to take out of the window every autumn. It was clanking and hissing. Nudger shrugged out of his raincoat. In five minutes the office would be comfortable. In ten it would be a steam bath and he’d have to crack the window.

  Fleck came to sit in the chair across the desk from Nudger. He reached inside his jacket and brought out his checkbook. Nudger had never been so unhappy to see a checkbook.

  “Lawrence, the case is over, you won, you’ve done well out of it. You should be grateful to Roger Dupont.”

  Fleck raised his eyes from the check he was writing. “That smooth son of a bitch used me. Made a fool of me. I have to know how he did it.”

  “You think he killed Karen? You think you got a guilty man off?”

  “No. I’ve gotten plenty of guilty men off,” said Fleck proudly. “None of them acted the way Dupont did. Cool. Calm. Unworried. Let me tell you, Nudger, when a man’s guilty and I’m defending him, he’s plenty scared.”

  That would certainly be two strikes, Nudger thought. “So you think Dupont really is innocent?”

  “No! Wrong again! I think he’s not guilty of murdering Karen. That’s how the jury found him, and that’s as far as I’m willing to go. But he’s mixed up in this somehow. I want you to find out how.”

  “You don’t need me. Walter Blaumveldt is still investigating.”

  “He is? How do you know that?”

  Nudger sighed. He didn’t want to go into this. “It was Blaumveldt who told me the body’d been found. He took me along to see Dupont.”

  Fleck gave his sharklike grin. “See? You’re already on the case. You can’t resist. How come Blaumveldt took you along?”

  “He says I bug Dupont.”

  “I’ve seen that too. That’s why I want you on the case.” Fleck was nodding to himself. He stopped and looked at Nudger narrowly. “Not scared of him, are you?”

  Nudger decided to ignore the question. “Blaumveldt’s investigating. So are the police.”

  “The cops! They’ve already blown this case once.”

  Nudger had no answer to that. He loosened his necktie. The temperature in the office was climbing steadily. Beads of sweat were trickling out from under Fleck’s toupee.

  “Know what I think happened?” Fleck went on. “Karen never got anywhere near Chicago. She was killed in St. Louis, at the time she disappeared. Maybe you should investigate the sister—what’s her name? . . .”

  “Effie Prang?” Nudger thought of the sweet Ladue lady with the overbite. “Why do you suspect she did it?”

  “She put up her house to bail Roger out. That looks like a guilty conscience to me.”

  “Or it could be sisterly love.”

  “Maybe she loved him so much she killed Karen for him.”

  Nudger nodded slowly. It was an ingenious if sick theory, but there were big problems with it.

  “If she killed Karen, she did it so ineptly she almost got her brother convicted of the crime.”

  “Who said you have to be competent to be a murderer? There’s no qualification test. The bozos who come to me, you wouldn’t believe the stupid mistakes they’ve made. If they were competent, they wouldn’t need me. And they need me bad, lemme tell you. I’m their light at the end of the tunnel.”

/>   “Suppose she did kill Karen,” Nudger said, resisting mentioning an oncoming train. “Ineptly, as you theorize. And Roger got the blame. Wouldn’t she have come forward to save him?”

  “And put her own neck in the noose? Jesus, Nudger! Weren’t you listening? I said she was devoted, not suicidal.”

  “But if she loved him enough to—”

  “Love shmove! There you go again, about to ask me a question and I’m paying you for answers. So get on with it! Finish the job you started.” Fleck was tapping his checkbook on the desk impatiently. He said, “You are afraid of Dupont, aren’t you?”

  “I’m like you,” Nudger said. “I can’t figure him out.”

  “Know the reason I hired you last summer?” Fleck said. “First thing Gideon Schiller ever told me about you is you can’t quit. Can’t! You take a case, you see it through to the end.”

  Fleck held his eye for a moment, then looked down. He finished writing the check. Tore it off the pad and held it out to Nudger.

  “I’ve got to know the truth about Dupont, Nudger. And you’ve got to find it out. Our compulsions coincide. We want the same thing. Take the check.”

  Nudger did.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Nudger wondered if he was going to find Effie Prang at home. Walking up her front path, he was making the first footprints in the snow. That didn’t necessarily mean the house was unoccupied, though. In bad weather, people in Ladue didn’t use their front doors. They went to their attached garages, got in their cars, and drove wherever they were going.

  He rang the bell. While he waited his thoughts returned to the man who had been walking behind him, possibly following him, on Manchester that morning. He’d been thinking about this man a lot more than he wanted to. Was he Vella’s oversized and jealous boyfriend, bruiser of chests with a punch like a freight train? If so, why was he bothering Nudger? He should be bruising Roger Dupont.

  Nudger turned to look out at the street. The man hadn’t followed him out here, anyway. He could be certain of that. This was exclusive Ladue, and there were no cars parked along the curb, and no pedestrians anywhere. Hearing the door open, he turned back.

  He remembered Roger Dupont’s younger sister as sweet and vulnerable, from their meeting last summer at poolside. His first impression this time was very different. Now, of course, she was dry and fully clothed. And he was entertaining the possibility that she’d murdered her sister-in-law.

  At first glance she looked formidable. She had on an expensive steel-blue sweater—possibly cashmere—with a diamond-shaped monogram centered between her breasts, and tweed slacks. Her long hair was pulled back and knotted out of sight. The hairdo combined with her overbite emphasized her large eyes. She looked suspicious, if not downright hostile.

  “Mrs. Prang, I’m—”

  “Yes, I remember you, Mr. Nudger. And I have nothing to say to you. ”

  She didn’t shut the door, though, so Nudger said, “Your brother warned you not to speak to me?”

  “Warned?” Effie Prang smiled, showing her prominent teeth. “He just said not to bother with you.”

  But still she lingered at the half-open door. Nudger couldn’t see into the house, but a pleasant, citrus aroma wafted out to him, and he could hear soft music and the crackle of a fire. It was as if the house itself was welcoming him even if the owner wasn’t.

  “Maybe you should be the judge of that,” he ventured.

  “What?”

  “Whether I’m a bother to you or not. Let me in. If you don’t like my questions you can always throw me out.”

  She was still smiling. After a moment she stepped back, opening the door wide.

  She led him into the living room. It was an inviting place on this dark, cold day. A well-nourished fire was roaring lustily in a brick hearth. There were deep sofas before a “home entertainment center” contained in fine wood shelves and cabinets. A half-completed jigsaw puzzle was scattered on a table. In a corner was a chess table with large, elaborately sculpted pieces all lined up and ready for the game. One wall was all bookshelves, bearing new hardcovers. When he saw a copy of Architectural Digest sitting on the coffee table, Nudger realized what the room reminded him of: the magazine’s photo layouts in which the interiors always looked as if the happy, rich family and friends who usually filled the room had been shooed out for just a moment so the picture could be taken. It was odd to think Effie Prang lived here alone.

  Nudger settled into the comfortable sofa. Effie sat across from him and picked up the piece of knitting she must have been working on when he rang the bell.

  “You don’t mind if I go on with this? I have to keep my hands busy.”

  Nudger realized there was no smell of stale tobacco in the house. Only of the log fire and a bowl of potpourri. “You’ve quit smoking.”

  “Yes. Aren’t you the detective! Roger’s been after me for years and I finally did it. Cider, Mr. Nudger?”

  “No thanks. You’ve heard the news about Karen’s body being found, of course.”

  Effie nodded. She kept her eyes on her stitching.

  “What was your reaction?”

  “Relief, I suppose.”

  “Relief?”

  “That now she’s definitely out of my brother’s life for good. That she won’t cause him anymore trouble.”

  The coldness of the comment took Nudger’s breath away. After a moment he said, “You haven’t given any thought to what might have happened to her?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “She was your sister-in-law.”

  “Karen was always something of a mystery to me. I never met any of her people, except the sister, Joleen.” Effie gave the name a mocking, hillbilly pronunciation. “Karen went to a public high school. Didn’t go to college at all. She was living in a trailer park with her sister when Roger got involved with her.”

  Nudger had lived in a trailer park himself. His annoyance got the better of him. “So you’re saying Karen was beneath you?”

  Effie looked up from her knitting and shrugged. “No, just that I don’t know much about people like her, so there’s no point in asking me.”

  “I see. So your only feeling about Karen—ever—was that your brother would be better off without her.”

  Effie went back to her knitting. “Now you are starting to bother me, Mr. Nudger. Maybe you’d better leave.”

  There was nothing to lose, and Nudger might as well come out with it. “How badly did you want to get rid of your sister-in-law, Mrs. Prang?”

  Effie’s head jerked up. She stared at him, her eyes growing larger and larger. Then she got to her feet. The knitting, which she had dropped into her lap, now fell to the floor, but she was unaware of it. She backed up until she was behind the sofa. It was as if Nudger had placed a wild animal on the coffee table. Effie wanted to flee from it but was afraid to make any sudden moves.

  “You think I killed Karen?” Effie asked, in a hushed voice.

  Nudger said nothing.

  “Oh my God! Do the police think that too? Are they going to be out here questioning me? The City Police?”

  Effie, a Ladue-ite, was probably terrified of the city. There were people in Ladue who’d been to Bermuda more often than St. Louis. Nudger’s belief in the possibility that Effie could be a murderer was fading fast. He shouldn’t have let her snobbish comments about Karen mislead him. He’d known a lot of meek women who were ferocious snobs. It was as if they were so heavily put-upon by the people who were close to them that they couldn’t spare even a smidgen of goodwill for the rest of humanity.

  “Please sit down, Mrs. Prang,” he said, “I don’t really think you killed Karen.”

  She let out a long breath. She was relaxing slightly, but not enough to come out from behind the sofa. “Then that was a terrible thing to say. I really don’t understand. Why would I have wanted to murder Karen?”

  “When I was here before, you told me family was the most important thing for you. And Roger was all the fa
mily you had. You’d do anything for him. So I had to consider the possibility that you wanted to get him back from Karen.”

  Effie seemed to find his statement arresting. She stood still for a long moment, her gaze abstracted. Then tears began to track down her cheeks. She reached out to take a tissue from a box adorned with pink ceramic roses.

  “You’re right, Mr. Nudger. I guess I might as well admit that. I did hope to get Roger back. Not before Karen disappeared, though. After. It was during the investigation and trial that I was thinking he’d be acquitted and then he’d come live here with me.”

  She gave a sob as she dabbed at her eyes with the tissue.

  “I’m sorry,” Nudger said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It’s all right. You just reminded me of my hopes. My disappointed hopes.” Effie looked down at the tissue. It was now a wet ball. She absentmindedly stowed it in a pocket of the tweed slacks and reached for a fresh one.

  “It seemed so natural, so sensible,” she went on. “I mean, here’s this lovely house, with no one in it but me. Roger’s marriage had ended badly, just as mine had. Why shouldn’t we live together? At least for a time? But Roger chose an apartment instead.”

  “Chose Vella,” Nudger said.

  She gave him a look. “I’m not supposed to talk about Vella. To you or anyone.”

  He nodded. “Your brother’s orders?”

  Effie hesitated. Then she gave an odd, bitter smile. “Yes. He can treat me ... the way he’s treated me, and still he can be perfectly sure that I’ll do what he tells me.”

  “Why did you want him to live with you?”

  She seemed to think about that. Then she nodded to herself. “Yes. I suppose I have to explain it to you. You probably think I have a pretty nice life. And I do. No children to burden me. No need to work. Plenty of friends, including a nice widower who doesn’t want to disturb his estate plan by marrying me. I’m well-fixed. Life has left me high and dry. It’s just that sometimes I get restless. I wish I could have an argument with someone. Wish I could go to bed tired. This house could even do with a little mess.”

  Nudger nodded. “And your brother?”