Death by Jury (Alo Nudger Series Book 9)

by John Lutz

  Vella’s huge pet was right behind him.

  “Up the stairs.”

  Nudger obeyed, clutching his coat to him against the cold. It occurred to him that this was the closest Metrolink station to Roger Dupont’s apartment. Very convenient for Vella. The big man must have been following him around all day, and he’d chosen his moment with care.

  Halfway up the steps, the giant hand clamped around his bicep. It hurt considerably.

  “Wait a minute,” the giant growled.

  Nudger stopped and half-turned. With his free hand Vella’s boyfriend took a roll of tablets out of his pocket and thumbed one into his mouth. Nudger thought at first they were antacids. Did his assailant have a delicate stomach too? Would he share his tablets with Nudger?

  Then the man bit down, and a strong scent of mint escaped into the cold air.

  “Vella don’t like the smell of liquor.”

  “Oh,” said Nudger.

  “Move.”

  At the top of the steps a shining black Infinti sedan was waiting. Its engine thrummed softly. The big man opened the passenger-side door.

  “Hello, Nudger,” said the woman behind the wheel. “I’m Vella. Hop in.”

  Vella Kling was a petite, lovely young woman with coal-black hair and bright blue eyes. She was wearing blue jeans and a brown leather bomber jacket.

  Nudger got in. The big man shut the door behind him. It was very warm in the car, and there was a pleasant smell of perfume and expensive leather. The giant climbed in the back. The car’s springs settled under his weight.

  Vella shifted in her seat to face him. Her thick dark hair was cut off in a straight line at chin-level. It formed a curtain that swung with her every movement. Her eyes probed at him.

  “Don’t look so worried. We don’t mean you any harm.”

  “That’s nice to hear. Five minutes ago your boyfriend was talking about putting my head through a window.”

  Vella’s eyes got big and then she laughed. “You thought Rolf was my boyfriend? Well, I’m sorry, Nudger, but I’m not that kinky. One boyfriend at a time is usually enough for me.” She laughed again. “Rolf’s my big brother.”

  “Big is right,” Nudger said.

  Vella beamed a brilliant smile into the backseat. Nudger looked over his shoulder at Rolf. He smiled back at her, exhaling a rush of mint-scented breath.

  “That explains a lot,” Nudger said. “But not why he was going to put my head through the train window.”

  She stopped smiling. “I just don’t understand why you’re still going around asking questions and pestering people about Karen Dupont. The case is over. You and that funny little lawyer you work for, you won and you got paid. Now why can’t you leave well enough alone?”

  “Maybe because we don’t really feel it’s over. Maybe we think Roger used us. Got the better of us.”

  “Of course he did!” Vella laughed again. “Roger gets the better of everyone.”

  “Including you?”

  She shook her head, setting her curtains of hair to swaying. “No, I’m different. I’m not everyone. Roger and I are full partners, in love and in business. I’m going to handle the antiques and he’s going to handle the finances, and we’re going to make a fortune.” Her blue eyes glinted at him.

  “But I don’t see what you have to be upset about,” she went on. “So what if he used you? He didn’t do you any harm.”

  “Why did Roger lie to us about you, Vella?”

  She didn’t answer right away. She sighed and looked at her brother. “I can see I’m going to have to tell him everything, Rolf.”

  “No,” Rolf said.

  “But he’s so stubborn. He won’t stop if I don’t.”

  “Don’t worry about him, Vella. He ain’t worth spit. Let me take care of him.”

  The car shifted on its springs again. Rolf was leaning forward. Nudger’s stomach revolved. He was sure they were playing out this little scene in order to scare him. Thought he was sure, anyway. He was scared.

  “No, Rolf,” Vella said, “my mind’s made up. I don’t want anymore trouble.” She turned back to Nudger. “You’re right. Roger did lie. The truth is, he and I were what you might call an item well before Karen disappeared. And we kept our relationship secret for the obvious reason. Because it would have looked bad for Roger.”

  Nudger nodded.

  “And because we decided to keep it secret, Roger couldn’t tell all he knew about Karen’s disappearance.” Vella took a deep breath, then let it out with a little sigh. “The truth is, the real reason Karen left is that she found out about us.”

  Nudger nodded again. It seemed appropriate.

  She leaned back in her seat and smiled at him. “Now are you satisfied? Will you go back and tell that to Mr. Fleck, and will the two of you leave us alone?”

  He shook his head. “Roger had had affairs before, and Karen tolerated them. Why should it have been different this time?”

  Vella’s lips compressed. Her pretty blue eyes turned hard and cold.

  Like a good watchdog, Rolf responded instantly to his mistress’s change of mood. Nudger felt the car shift on its springs again but before he could react Rolf’s arm swung around and lodged beneath his chin, pinning him to the headrest. He could feel the pressure on his Adam’s apple. Rolf only had to squeeze to cut off his breathing.

  “Asshole. You fucking asshole! I’m trying to do you a favor, and you ask me a question like that.” Vella’s voice was entirely different now, harsh and angry. She was so mad she was trembling. As she glared at him Nudger’s stomach was doing somersaults. It was no act this time. She was about to give Rolf a nod, and that was all it would take.

  “You want me to convince Fleck, don’t you?” Nudger croaked. “So I have to ask.”

  Vella looked away. To have that angry glare removed from him was a relief in itself. It felt almost as if Rolf had let up on the pressure. She sank back in her seat, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

  Rolf and Nudger waited a long moment.

  When she opened her eyes, she was the other Vella, smiling.

  “I have a really terrible temper,” she told Nudger. “Rolf, let him go.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, the big man complied. Nudger took a breath and raised a hand to massage his Adam’s apple.

  “It’s true what you say,” Vella went on. “Roger’d always played around, Karen had always looked the other way. I guess she knew those other girls were no threat to her. But I was different. She knew it right away.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “She caught us together at the house one time. We weren’t in bed or anything. Just sitting in her living room talking and she walked in and ... well, she went ballistic.”

  Did she know already that you and Roger were . . .” Nudger’s voice trailed off. He felt the need to phrase questions delicately.

  “I don’t think so,” Vella said. “But as soon as she saw us she knew.” There was no sign of Vella’s violent temper now. She was leaning back against the door, with one elbow on the steering wheel and the other arm draped along the seatback. She was enjoying telling this story. “Roger and I have this aura when we’re together, this glow of sexuality. Everyone notices it. People turn and look at us in the street. When we go out with other couples, even old married couples, just being with us turns them on. They’re eager to get home and to bed.”

  “Uh-huh,” Nudger said, wondering if this could be true. “And how did Karen react?”

  “Went crazy, like I said. Screaming and yelling, pulling things down off the shelves and smashing them. She even tore down the drapes from one of the windows. She probably would have wrecked the place if Roger hadn’t grabbed her and held on. I don’t know how he calmed her down. We figured it would be better if I left.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “About a month before she disappeared. But she was never the same after that day, Roger told me. She was very cool and distant, he said. Avoided him in the hous
e. They hardly spoke, unless there were other people around and they had to keep up appearances. I tried to warn Roger.” Vella gave a slow smile and dropped her eyes. “I know about these things. I know how women react when I take away their men. Karen was getting ready. She had a plan.”

  Nudger remembered what Effie had said about the change that had come over Karen. “What was the plan?” he asked.

  “It was for revenge on us, of course.”

  “Revenge?”

  “That’s why she went off to Chicago without telling anyone. She knew exactly what would happen. That awful sister of hers, Joleen, would jump to the conclusion that Roger had murdered her.”

  Nudger was trying to absorb all this. “You’re saying it was Karen who planted the evidence of her own murder? To frame Roger?”

  Vella nodded.

  “What happened to Karen, then? How did she die?”

  “I know nothing about that, and neither does Roger. But it’s easy to get into all kinds of trouble in Chicago. I know. I’ve been in trouble there myself.”

  Vella laughed. Then she leaned forward, studying him intently. “Do you believe me?” she asked.

  The answer was no. But Nudger was not about to give it, not with Rolf sitting behind him. He swallowed hard and nodded his head.

  “Good!” said Vella delightedly. “And you’ll go back to Mr. Fleck and explain, won’t you?”

  “Sure,” Nudger said.

  “And that’ll be the end of it. You won’t go around asking questions anymore?”

  “No. There’ll be no reason for anymore questions.”

  “Well, then. Everything’s fine.” Vella straightened up in her seat and reached for the shoulder belt. “Good night, Nudger. There should be a train along any minute.”

  Rolf got out of the back seat and opened Nudger’s door. Nudger climbed out of the car and stood up. His eyes were on a level with Rolf’s shirt collar.

  “Don’t forget what you promised Vella,” Rolf said to him. “I’m gonna keep an eye on you, make sure you remember.”

  It was time for him to take another breath mint. The bourbon smell was coming through again.

  Rolf stepped past him and got in the car. It’s lights came on and it swung out onto DeBaliviere and turned left, heading for Forest Park and Roger Dupont’s apartment.

  Aside from a couple of people huddled in a nearby bus shelter, Nudger was alone. He turned and went down the steps to the station platform. He needed another ticket to get back to Union Station and his car.

  His hands were shaking and it took him a long time to fumble a dollar bill out of his wallet.

  Fear was such a motivator.

  And such a squelcher of motivation.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Next morning, Nudger was awakened by an acute attack of indigestion. It felt as if a small animal with sharp claws—a weasel, perhaps—was trying to dig its way out of his stomach.

  Clutching his gut, he staggered into the bathroom. The budget-size jar of antacids he’d bought on sale at Walgreen’s was sitting on top of the toilet tank because it was too big to fit in the medicine chest. Right now he felt like emptying the jar. Restraining himself, he popped two tablets into his mouth and trudged back into the bedroom. He sat on the bed and waited to feel better. He told himself that Claudia had used too much spicy Italian sausage in last night’s lasagna.

  It wasn’t lasagna, of course. It was fear.

  After a long ten minutes, he felt well enough to take a shower and get dressed. Then well enough to think about planning his day.

  One option was to go to Lawrence Fleck’s office and pass on what Vella Kling had told him. Fleck wanted to know how Roger Dupont had fooled them, and here was an answer. Not a true or complete answer, but one Fleck would have to be satisfied with, because Nudger was taking himself off the case. So Nudger could say.

  The other alternative was to continue going around and asking questions. Every second he would be looking over his shoulder for Rolf and fearing another beating. Or worse. He had no doubt that last night’s warning was the last he’d get.

  He was still undecided as he left the apartment. It was another cold day. He looked up at the gray sky. It wasn’t going to snow today, he judged. Wasn’t going to clear either. Something like his mood.

  He paused and looked around. From where the Granada was parked behind his building, unrelentingly charmless vistas opened out on every side: the backs of other apartment buildings, garbage Dumpsters, chain-link fences, telephone poles, patches of snow stained with car exhaust and dog urine. Then there was his Granada, mottled with gray salt-spray and almost audibly rusting.

  As he got into the car, he decided to try altering his mood.

  Gently urging the engine to life, he drove up to the St. Louis Bread Company on Delmar and got himself a breathtakingly expensive apple Danish and a cup of hazelnut coffee. There was a gas station with a car wash on the next corner, and on impulse he decided to give the Granada a treat, too. He topped off its tank and ran it through the car wash.

  He parked half a block from his office and slipped surreptitiously into the stairwell door. He didn’t want Danny to see him carrying the Bread Company bag.

  The pipes were clanking noisily. Nudger was arriving just as the heat was coming on. His mood improved even more. He hurried up the steps.

  Walter Blaumveldt was sitting in his client’s chair. As usual, he looked as if he’d just come from burying his dog. His suit was blue, his tie black, his expression saturnine. He had a plastic foam cup of Danny’s acidic black sludge in hand.

  “Bread Company, Nudger?” he said, as Nudger placed the bag on his desk. “Somebody must be paying you well.”

  Nudger took off his coat. Already the office was so warm that he could do that. “Know something, Walter? You ought to do something nice for yourself once in a while. Give yourself a treat.”

  One corner of Blaumveldt’s mouth twitched. “I’m just a working stiff with two daughters in college. I got no money for treats.”

  Had Blaumveldt come by to speak for Nudger’s Puritan conscience? Sitting down behind the desk, Nudger said, “What brings you here, Walter?”

  “I’m on my way to see Joleen Witt. I was hoping you’d drive me. If she sees my car Joleen won’t open her door. She’s not speaking to me these days.”

  Nudger hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to get back on the Dupont case. At least, not until he’d had his Danish.

  He opened the bag and carefully lifted it out. Rotated it until he found a place where he could get some of the apple filling on his first bite.

  He took a sip of hazelnut coffee and looked back at Blaumveldt. The dour insurance investigator couldn’t have looked more censorious if Nudger had been disporting himself with a naked harlot.

  “One thing, Walter. If we take my car, there’s a possibility we’ll be followed by someone you don’t want to meet.”

  Blaumveldt smiled thinly. “You and I are making a lot of friends, huh, Nudger? Who might this one be?”

  “Rolf.”

  “Who is?”

  “Vella Kling’s brother.”

  “Vella? Roger’s flame? You found her?”

  “She found me.”

  He went on to describe last night’s encounter, pausing frequently for bites of Danish and sips of coffee.

  Blaumveldt listened in attentive silence. When Nudger was finished, he said, “So what do you think?”

  “I think it’s a mixed bag, partly true and partly false.”

  Blaumveldt nodded. “How about the most important part? You think Karen contrived her disappearance so as to frame her husband for her murder?”

  “No.”

  Blaumveldt nodded again. “So what part do you think is true?”

  “That scene Vella described, when Karen found them together in the living room. I think that happened.”

  “It just sounded right to you?”

  “More than that. I was in the house last summer. The drap
es on one of the front windows had been pulled down, like Vella said.”

  “You were in the house, huh. The cops let you in?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Blaumveldt managed another faint smile.

  “Also, Effie Prang told me a change came over Karen shortly before she disappeared. She acted as if she had some kind of secret plan, Effie thought. I think the change came after she found out about Vella.”

  “You think she was planning to disappear?”

  Nudger took a sip of coffee. “I’m not sure.”

  “I am,” Blaumveldt said. “She didn’t disappear. You and I are divorced guys, Nudger. We know wives don’t disappear. They hire lawyers, and they make you pay for years. They do that even to guys like you and me, honest working stiffs. So just think what a wife would do to a two-timer like Roger.”

  Nudger didn’t want to give the Blaumveldt view of the world too much thought. He’d only get depressed again. He said, “You say Karen didn’t disappear. You mean, you think she was killed way back in May?”

  Blaumveldt nodded but said nothing.

  “What do you want to see Joleen Witt about?”

  “Come along and you’ll find out.” Walter being Walter, holding his cards close to his vest.

  Nudger took the last delicious bite of his Danish and washed it down with the last of his coffee. “All right, Walter,” he said. “I’ll drive if you’ll watch my back.”

  Nudger wasn’t kidding. All the way out to southwest county on Highway 44, he had Blaumveldt looking out the back window while he drove slowly in the right-hand lane. As they exited the highway, Blaumveldt turned around to face front.

  “I’ve never seen anybody so skittish. Nobody’s following us.”

  “You sure? This guy Rolf is good in addition to being mountainous. He was on me all day yesterday and I didn’t know it until it was too late.”

  “He’s not there now. Maybe he’s not worried about you anymore. Figures he scared you away last night.”

  “He wouldn’t be far wrong.”

  Nudger pulled into Cherokee Estates and bounced over the rutted road toward Joleen’s trailer. The well-kept lawn and garden he remembered from his summer visit were buried under dirty snow. The awning that had been above her door was gone. But she’d found time to put a fresh coat of blue paint on her old Pontiac. It looked almost as good as Nudger’s shining Granada.