Late Payments

by Michael Z. Lewin

  Carollee Fleetwood and Howard Haddix raised their heads. Noble Perkins seemed not to hear.

  “Did you now?” Powder asked. “Hey, who told you?”

  “It was all over the lunchroom. I heard it from a friend of mine who works in Hit and Run.” Swatts narrowed her eyes momentarily. “Is it really true?”

  “A rumor in a police department?” Powder asked. “Must be true.”

  “Gosh,” Sue Swatts said. “What you going to do with it? Retire to Florida or something?”

  “Gee, Sue,” Powder said. “I haven’t worked it all out yet, but what I am thinking of doing is going private.”

  “Private? Private what? I don’t understand.”

  “I mean a special private Missing Persons Department. One not connected with the Police Department, so I can work with people who keep their minds on their business and don’t waste all day every day with stupid rumors.”

  Detective Lieutenant Jerry Miller was filling in an application for promotion when Powder entered his office. Miller glanced up, dropped his eyes back to the form, and then glanced up again. “Powder,” he said somberly. He dropped his pen and sighed and leaned back in his chair.

  “I filled in one of those once,” Powder said. “Take a tip from me. Really sell yourself. Emphasize what you’ve done. I was too modest—that was my mistake. I ended up in charge of a bunch of kids who are so gullible they’d believe Al Capone if he said he didn’t mean to pull the trigger.”

  “What is it that you want?” Miller asked stonily.

  Powder said, “Rumor has it that you have some influence with the CCC cable TV station.”

  Miller considered before speaking. “I advise them on their police-related programming. I don’t get paid and it’s all been cleared by the department.”

  “Hey, Miller, no need to be defensive with me. I’m not the goddamned promotions board.”

  Miller waited.

  Powder said, “I want you to recommend a new program on missing persons to your people at CCC.”

  “What, like on how your department works?”

  “I mean a regular short program trying to locate missing people.”

  Miller said nothing.

  “Stories and pictures of the people we’re trying to find. Interviews with the family left behind. Celebrations when people come home. It’s a natural. It’ll do even better than pictures of missing kids on milk cartons.”

  Miller inhaled audibly, then exhaled. “OK,” he said. “I’ll try it on them. If there’s any interest, I’ll get back to you.”

  “Can’t ask for more than that,” Powder said, rising from the chair he’d dropped into. “So I’ll leave and let you get back to your daydreams.”

  When Powder reentered Missing Persons, Fleetwood was interviewing a distraught-looking couple in the booth for private conversations which was separated from the rest of the room by glass partitions.

  “What’s that?” he asked Haddix.

  “Thirteen-year-old girl,” Haddix said.

  “How long gone?”

  “Eight days,” Haddix said.

  Powder nodded. He went to his desk and sat down. As he did, the telephone rang. The caller was Tidmarsh and when Powder had taken the computer man’s short message and hung up, he looked at his watch and made a call of his own.

  After five rings the phone was answered and an eager voice said, “Hello? Dad?”

  “This is Lieutenant Powder of Missing Persons.”

  “Oh.”

  “No practice today?”

  “Didn’t go,” Robert Sweet said.

  “Oh,” Powder said. Then, “I take it you haven’t heard from your father.”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Did you get in touch with your mother’s sister?”

  “I called her last night after I got back from talking to you. She ain’t heard from him for a long time.”

  “Have you thought of anybody else he might have gone to see? Or any other relatives?”

  “Nope.”

  “Robert, was your father having trouble with anybody?”

  “About what?”

  “About anything.”

  “You mean, like, speeding tickets?”

  “What kind of trouble was he having about speeding tickets?”

  “Just some he didn’t pay the fine of once. But he sorted that out.”

  “I was thinking of other kinds of trouble, with people, or at work or something.”

  “I can’t think of nothing.”

  “Well, what I want you to do is to make a list of all the people you know of who know your father. Friends first. Then acquaintances. Everybody you know the name of and anything else you know about them.”

  “This going to find my dad?”

  “It might. Will you do that for me?”

  “I guess,” the boy said.

  “All right. Get to work on it, and don’t leave anybody out.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” the boy said suddenly.

  “If you know so much, I’ll stop looking for him. Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “Did you go to school today?” Powder asked.

  “No.”

  “What are you going to tell them when you go in tomorrow?”

  “I can’t go in tomorrow.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well I can’t get my dad to write me an excuse, can I?”

  “Look, kid, you can’t let the goddamned world come to an end because your father’s gone off somewhere for a few days.”

  “Easy for you,” Sweet snapped. “You didn’t just lose your father.”

  “I’ve lost a son in my time, kid. So don’t go all whiny to me.”

  At five-thirty Powder and Fleetwood were alone in the office. Powder suddenly leaned back in his chair. The movement attracted her attention and Powder said, “Before I forget, Tidmarsh wants to talk to your chum Mencelli.”

  “Hey, great,” she said. “When?”

  “Tomorrow at ten. Think he’ll be able to make it?”

  “I’ll find out.”

  Powder watched her for several seconds without speaking. Then he said, “You do that.”

  “Leroy?”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s this stuff about you inheriting money?”

  “Come out for a meal. I’ll let you count it.”

  Fleetwood thought for a moment, then said, “Yeah, all right. But I want to get back early.”

  “What I had in mind was three pizzas in a new place. That OK with you?”

  “It wasn’t a million dollars then?”

  “Wealth brings responsibility. You can’t go and spend it. That’s not what wealth is for.”

  * * * * *

  They used her car. Powder decided on a pizza take-away they had patronized before.

  “Don’t get out to open the door for me,” Powder said as he moved from the passenger seat. “I can manage.”

  He returned to the car with three pizza boxes and a large bottle of cola.

  Fleetwood stared at him as he settled next to her. “What’s that stuff for?” she asked, referring to the bottle. “I thought you hated it.”

  He directed her to an address on Bernard Avenue, a little more than a block from Crown Hill Cemetery.

  Fleetwood drove in silence.

  “That must be it,” Powder said as they cruised slowly, reading the numbers.

  She stopped in front of a small house, pebble-dashed with decorative shutters.

  “At least there are no stairs.”

  “Where are we, Powder?”

  “I said pizza and I said a new place. Not necessarily connected.” He got out of the car, helped her out and they approached the front door with the pizzas.

  Robert Sweet answered the doorbell quickly.

  “You eaten yet, kid?” Powder asked. But he didn’t wait for an answer as he pushed through the doorway. “Take these boxes while I help Carollee in.”

  Fleetwood dropped Powder
back at Police Headquarters at eight-thirty. As he was about to get out of her car, she said, “You didn’t tell me about your money.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Powder said. He took the brown envelope he had received from Jonathan Lindwall and passed it to her. “Have a look at that, will you? I haven’t had a chance.”

  Powder did not find the graffiti until after ten when he went to his garage behind the house.

  There, on the wall that abutted the path, pigs eat swill! was written in phosphorescent-pink spray paint. The light in the alley behind made the message show up dramatically.

  Powder studied the text for a full minute. He rubbed his face with both hands.

  He went into the garage, which had no room for vehicles. It was adapted for woodwork.

  Powder spent an hour on a table designed for a wheelchair user.

  Chapter Five

  When Fleetwood arrived in the morning she asked Powder if he would mind her spending a little time showing Jules Mencelli around the Police Department before his ten o’clock appointment with Tidmarsh.

  Powder blinked a couple of times and then said, distractedly, “I don’t mind. I’ll probably be out by then anyhow.”

  “Hey, he, we, appreciate you setting this up. And you know, if there is something to it . . .”

  “What? Oh, yeah. Keep me in touch.”

  Fleetwood studied him. “Is something wrong. Powder?”

  “No.”

  Fleetwood made her way to his desk. He watched as she approached.

  She threw the brown envelope he’d given her the night before toward him. He made no move to catch and it dropped on the desk surface. “That was still sealed when you gave it to me.”

  “I know. I hadn’t had time to open it.”

  “And you don’t know what it says?”

  “No.”

  “It says you’ve inherited a hundred and forty-six thousand dollars. And change.”

  Powder said nothing for a moment. Then, “How much change?”

  “Three hundred and eight dollars and seventy-seven cents. The lawyer can write you a check for it. He’s waiting for your instructions.”

  “Oh.”

  “Did you know this guy Samuel Yount?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you know your mother had a half-brother?”

  Powder wrinkled his face. “I don’t remember things like that anymore.”

  They looked at each other in silence for a long time.

  “Do you know the interest that kind of money could draw?”

  “Not offhand.”

  “With your pension, you could retire in luxury,” Fleetwood said.

  Powder studied the envelope. He look up at Fleetwood. “I get sunburn,” he said.

  Powder worked through the details of the day’s routine and then decided to talk to Howard Haddix at length. About how to locate the eighteen-years-missing father of the bride-to-be reported the previous day by the man in the green flannel shirt. Anyone who came in and said that Missing Persons was something for Indianapolis to be proud of had to be given a good try.

  “A result in this sort of thing is based on drudgery,” Powder lectured in summary. “Listing possible sources of information and going through them again and again and again as you broaden your geographical field of search.”

  Haddix nodded, then felt the back of his neck carefully, as if making sure nothing had gone wrong there in the course of his indication of agreement.

  “But, Howard,” Powder said, “you should also follow your impulses. Your feel. Read through the long form on the guy two, three times, every word. Think about what it says about him—like, here, eighteen years ago he was a machinist and he’d been at his job for seven years. Put yourself in his place. Think about what would have taken you away abruptly if you’d been him. Call up the people he left behind. Get them to talk to you about him. Get it all together. Then, if you have a feeling about him, a guess what he might have done, don’t ignore it. Act on your feeling as well as the drudgery.”

  “What kind of feeling. Lieutenant?” Haddix asked.

  Powder stared at the man.

  Then he pushed his swivel chair away from his desk and rose to leave the office.

  As Powder got up, Jules Mencelli guided his wheelchair through the department door. “Never fear,” he announced. “Your number one man. Ace, is here!”

  Fleetwood made her way to the public side of the counter and touched wheels and hands with Mencelli.

  “Hey, babe!” he said to her. “How you doing? God, you’re beautiful!”

  Powder followed through the opened flap in the counter. He said,“I’ve asked Sergeant Fleetwood to look after you, Mr. Mencelli. Show you around the place a bit until you go up to see Lieutenant Tidmarsh.” Powder looked at his watch. “That’s a little more than half an hour. You can manage the time, can’t you, Sergeant Fleetwood?”

  “Sure.”

  Ace was effusive. “Hey, that’s great! Thanks a ton, old fella.”

  Powder nodded and left the office.

  He walked to the stairs and descended to the ground floor, where he proceeded along the corridor to the police garage.

  At the door of a small, well-maintained ranch-style house on the near-Northeast, Powder showed his police ID to the woman who answered the bell. She glanced at it uninterestedly, as if she’d seen men with such things before. “So what you want?”

  “Are you Imelda Nason?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Formerly Imelda Stanton?”

  “So?”

  “I would like a few words with you and your husband, Mrs. Nason.”

  The woman, bulky and blond, frowned and hesitated before she said, “You got a warrant?”

  “I’m not here to search. I’m not here to arrest anybody. I’m not investigating a crime. I am from the Missing Persons Department and I’m trying to get information about your brother-in-law, Sidney Sweet, who is missing from his home.”

  “Oh, yeah. The kid, Bobby, he called me. Sorry, I don’t know nothing about Sid. I haven’t seen him for years.”

  “That’s what Robert told me you’d told him. But you and Mr. Nason are the only family Robert knows the whereabouts of. What I would like is a few minutes talking about what you do know of Sidney Sweet, over the years.”

  The woman frowned more deeply. “Wait a sec.” She closed the door firmly.

  Two minutes later the door opened again and Powder faced a short man, thickened by his muscles into the shape of a boulder. He wore a dark-brown suit but no tie. He stepped forward and extended a hand. “Earle Nason,” he said.

  Powder shook the hand and introduced himself.

  “I may have had my troubles with you fellas in the past,” Nason said, “ending in me serving seven years of a ten-year sentence for murder two, which ain’t no secret. But that was a long time ago and I’m a straight arrow now and I’m always glad to help our friends in blue.”

  They sat at the kitchen table and Mrs. Nason poured cups of coffee. “Unfortunately,” Earle Nason said, “I don’t know nothing much about Sid Sweet. I met him a few times when him and Mel’s sister Sunny was together, but hardly at all since.”

  “When did Mrs. Sweet leave?”

  “About . . .” Mrs. Nason thought. “It was a December, so that makes it about a year and a half ago.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  The couple looked at each other.

  Earle Nason said, “It ain’t no secret. She got a smooth Mex boyfriend and they took off, for sunnier parts. Sunnier parts, get it? Sunny?”

  “It hadn’t been going so good with Sid for a long time before that,” Mrs. Nason said. “Sid was real . . .” She squirmed in her chair for the right word, but didn’t find it. “Sunny never knew where he was or what he was doing.”

  “Was he in trouble with the law?” Powder asked.

  “No no,” Mrs. Nason said. “He was just, well, I don’t know. Always edgy, restless, but never doing anything.”

 
“I understand he had a job.”

  “Oh yeah. But he didn’t take his work serious.”

  “They always seemed to have enough money, though,” Earle Nason said.

  “True. Not a lot, but plenty, if you know what I mean.”

  “Do you know where I could get in touch with Mrs. Sweet?”

  Both Nasons shook their heads immediately. “We ain’t heard from her,” Imelda Nason said.

  “Before she left were you close to your sister?”

  “Not real close. She’d usually call every couple of weeks, but we didn’t see ourselves very often.”

  “She used to come around my place of work sometimes,” Earle Nason volunteered.

  “What kind of work is that?”

  “I am a bodyguard,” Nason said with some pride. “And nights I do some bouncing at one of my employer’s clubs.”

  “Who is your employer?”

  “Mister Jimmy Husk, what they call Mister Jimmy around town. He’s got three clubs and some properties and various other interests and he does everything real gentlemanly, you know? I feel real lucky I’ve got the good fortune to be working for him, considering my past, because it’s steady and it’s secure.”

  “There’s not many can say that nowadays,” Powder said.

  “That’s right,” Nason said with enthusiasm. “That’s what I tell the old lady, don’t I, Mel?”

  “That’s what he tells me,” Mrs. Nason said. She did not smile.

  “When did you last see Mrs. Sweet?”

  “Not since she left,” Mrs. Nason said.

  “And Mr. Sweet?”

  “Must of been more than a year,” Earle Nason said. “You remember I ran into him at Leonardo’s, Mel. I told you.”

  Mrs. Nason shrugged.

  “Do you have any idea where Mr. Sweet might have gone?”

  Nason looked at his wife and back to Powder. He shrugged. “No idea.” He turned to his wife.

  “I haven’t seen the little creep since I can’t remember when,” Mrs. Nason said.

  Sidney Sweet’s place of work was a small factory that bottled carbonated drinks. His job involved paper work and some supervision on the line. Although Sweet had worked there for fifteen years, the manager was not particularly interested in the disappearance. Sweet had not reported to work the day he had failed to leave a note for his son, nor had he been seen there since.

  Sweet’s timekeeping, the manager told Powder, was never good. He was sure Sweet would turn up. The apparent disappearance wasn’t important.