Fleetwood hesitated. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” she said.
Sitting on her couch. Powder asked, “What do you feel is the story on Mencelli?”
“I can’t help it. I just don’t think he would have disappeared voluntarily without saying anything.”
“Because of the way he feels about you?”
“Because of the work,” she snapped. “He’s got so much invested in it. It’s the only thing that’s important to him.”
“And the only thing that’s been making him important,” Powder said thoughtfully.
“Yes.”
“So therefore he’s either driven somewhere and then has been held against his will or someone came to his house and took him and his car from there.”
“It sounds farfetched, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Powder said. But he shrugged, to say “So what else is new?” “Have you found anybody who saw him today?”
“No. Nor anyone who remembers his car outside this morning. But, I have to say, no one seems very interested.”
Powder frowned. “And still nothing on the car?”
“Nothing. I also checked the hospitals, the usual Missing Persons channels.”
Powder nodded.
Fleetwood was silent.
“I trust your instincts, Carollee.”
“Thank you.”
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“I want the description put out. I want more people talked to. Somebody must have seen him leave.”
“I thought you drew a blank on that.”
“Not everybody who might have seen him was around this afternoon.”
“Prints?”
“I don’t know,” Fleetwood said. “There’s no sign of disturbance at his place. I don’t think prints will get us much.”
Powder nodded again, without speaking.
“You think I should go back tonight?” Fleetwood asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Put the description out as a general call. No one will ask questions at this point. If it’s not sorted out soon, we’ll go to our detective friends.”
“All right,” she said.
“You want help?”
She thought. “I think I’ll do it myself,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. But I mind if you put in a night’s work without a meal. You’re not going until you’ve eaten. What you got in the fridge?”
“Your mother would be proud of you,” Fleetwood said.
Powder blinked momentarily; the thought of his mother and then of the money from her half-brother passed through his mind. “It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full,” he said.
“Sure you don’t want any? It’s good.”
“It’s not the same when you cook it yourself. You eat. I’ll talk.”
“All right.”
He told her about the recent vandalisms.
She said nothing.
“I worried that it was Ricky,” he said. “But Johnson says it was a woman. He doesn’t have a name for her, but she was blond and dressed kind of like a hippy.”
“Every neighborhood should have an Agile Johnson.”
“She lives on Biddle Street.”
“Where’s that?”
“Off Pine. Maybe half a mile from my place.”
Fleetwood was silent for a moment. “Do you have any idea who she is, or what she might have against you?”
“Herself? No.”
“But you must be a little bit relieved that it isn’t Ricky.”
Powder thought. “Not yet,” he said finally.
He talked to her about Ricky, and the threat to revoke his parole.
There was not much she could say to make him feel better about his son. Not even that she would necessarily have done what he had: initiate the steps that led to his conviction.
“One does what one thinks best,” Powder said. “What other standard can you go by?”
She said nothing.
“So maybe I was wrong. Maybe if I had bowed and scraped and said, ‘Poor boy, let me wipe your nose for you; let me hold your hand,’ maybe then it would have come out better.”
He washed the dishes and she dried. He said, “You up to a couple of hypothetical questions?”
She shrugged a nod.
“I’ve been trying to put myself in the place of a guy who spends his spare time killing cripples.”
She looked at him.
“And nuts and dummies and seniles. What gets me is how he manages the mechanics of bumping off so many.”
“That’s what gets you, is it?”
“We’re talking hundreds a year. How the hell would you go about killing more than three hundred people this year? And not just any three hundred. You have to stick to your specific categories. And,” he said slowly, “without drawing police attention to it. That’s the real ball breaker.”
Fleetwood waited.
“You can’t just go out and shoot them.They can’t be recognizable as murders, because murders go on the statewide computer and before long, guys investigating one murder would come up with the information on the others. So you are talking three hundred contrived car accidents, or three hundred unexpected heart attacks, or three hundred bolts of lightning. You can’t even go out and kidnap them, because they would show up missing.” He spread his hands wide, the scope of the problem.
Fleetwood said nothing.
“Of course you don’t have to knock them off one at a time. But if you do too many in groups, again you’ve got attention. It’s a hell of a problem for someone setting about doing it.”
“I suppose it is.”
“I mean, first off, how do you find all these people? It’s a lot of people to identify, year after year. What do you do? Stand outside physio units and follow them home? Or go for mailing lists from crutch companies? It’s a real logistical problem. So, my first question: Hypothesize that Mencelli is right after all and you were him. What would be your next question on the computer?”
“You tell me. Powder.”
“All right. If I’m him, I’m not worried about better statistical comparisons with other states. What I want is more detail from inside Indiana.”
Powder stood back decisively.
He continued, “I want to know where in the state these people have been dying. All in Indianapolis? That would make hiding the numbers harder, but it would simplify the technical problem of actually doing it for the killer.”
“So you think there is a killer?” Fleetwood asked.
“How the hell do I know?” Powder boomed. “You and Mencelli seem to think there is. Tidmarsh did for a while. All I’m saying is there is one, you got to look at what he’s facing. Think about how he goes about it.”
Reflecting on Powder’s ambivalence, Fleetwood said nothing.
“Three hundred people, remember. One a day, with Sundays off, all year long. Over seven years. Presidents’ birthdays you can have off too.” He glared at her. “How do you kill somebody every day, so nobody suspects? Answer? With difficulty—that’s the answer. The goddamn thing is full of internal contradictions, am I right?”
Fleetwood looked at him.
“To keep from being noticed, the victims have to be spread all over the state, have to be unrelated, have not to be known to the killer. So look at it. Not only are you killing specific kinds of people every day, you’re killing strangers, but in such a way that nobody suspects foul play. No forced entries to houses, for instance. I mean, Christ! Carollee, the thing is just impossible! It obviously isn’t happening. Too fantastical to contemplate. So my last question that I’m asking you: How the hell can you contemplate it?”
“I don’t know,” Fleetwood said.
Powder pointed a finger. “I’ll tell you how,” he said. “By having a lot more than one person doing the killing. That’s how.”
Chapter Nineteen
Fleetwood left to question Mencelli’s neighbors. Powder drove around for a while.
&nb
sp; He stopped first outside Robert Sweet’s house but quickly contented himself that the darkness of the windows visible from the front was a good sign.
Then he drove to Martha Miles’s house and spent a longer time sitting outside, studying the front, nearly three-quarters of an hour. But here also he saw nothing that stimulated him to action or fed suspicion. He used the time to mull over what he thought about Martha Miles.
What he decided was that he didn’t know.
In the course of his musings he remembered he hadn’t told Fleetwood about his attempt to develop a career in television for her. An attempt which had, seemingly, foundered on his neglecting to realize the minimal nature of CCC’s current-affairs broadcasting.
“We changed format over a year ago, Lieutenant,” Wendy Winslow had told him.
Powder had been furious with Miller, but Miller had shrugged it off. “You specifically asked me to put the idea to them. I did what you asked.”
“It’s still a good idea,” Winslow had said. “I’ll think about it and if we can’t do anything with it, maybe I’ll have a word with one or two people I know.”
Powder had made quite a fool of himself.
From Miles’s house he went to Biddle Street. Here too he sat, watching windows, lights. This time there was movement. Not the signs of a party, exactly, but the street seemed more alive at eleven on a Friday night than either of the others. In the twenty minutes he spent outside, one man came out of the address Powder had been given and three others went in.
In the twentieth minute Powder rubbed his face and drove away.
At Leonardo’s he sat at the bar. He ordered scotch and a chaser. He leaned on his elbows for a time, and then turned to look at the other patrons in the club.The room was quietly full.A chanteuse sat at a piano, her lips caressing a microphone. From where he was, Powder couldn’t make out the words she was singing. She was backed by a bass player who was pretty too.
Powder turned to the bar. He banged his shot glass.
“Again?” asked the bartender, in his fifties and wearing a red jacket.
“Shall I tell you what I want?” Powder asked.
The man smiled. “You can probably get it here,” he said helpfully.
“What I want is one of these guys.” Powder took the pictures of Sidney Sweet and “Smith” from his jacket pocket and placed them side by side on the bar.
The man stiffened visibly and looked at Powder, not the pictures. “Never seen them,” he said.
“In that case you better get me a drink,” Powder said.
The barman returned with another scotch.
Powder took his ID wallet out and spread it, shield up, next to his drink. From a pocket he drew five dollars and gave it to the man. When the change came back, the wallet was gone.
“You want to look at the pictures again or do you want to send for Husk?”
Without speaking, the bartender pivoted and went to the cash register. Beneath it he pressed something.
Through the music Powder heard a bell ring faintly.
A few seconds later Earle Nason was standing by his right shoulder.
“Well, well, well,” Powder said. “Long time no see.”
“What’s the beef, Alan?” Nason asked the barman.
“Guy has a badge and some pictures and he mentioned Mister Jimmy.”
“Let’s see the pictures,” Nason said.
Powder made no move. Nason took them from the bar. He studied them for a moment, then shook his head. “Sorry, don’t know them.”
“Lead me to Husk,” Powder said.
“Is Mister Jimmy expecting you?”
“Probably, but I don’t have an appointment.”
“Only I’m not sure he’s on the premises at the moment.”
“The alternative is that I take you downtown for an hour or two, Earle.”
“What for?”
“Why don’t you ask Husk whether he is on the premises or not, eh?”
“OK.” Nason said. “But if it’s a payoff you’re after, we only take care of the names on the list.”
Nason left.
Powder turned immediately to the bar and winked at the barman.
Alan shook his head slowly.
“What’s your problem?” Powder asked.
“Usually I can spot a cop right off,” the man said. “But you looked normal to me. Maybe I’m losing my touch.”
“I’m a terrific guy,” Powder said. “Great company. An ice bucket of laughs. But normal?” He shook his head slowly and shared the bartender’s wonderment.
The man turned away.
Mister Jimmy Husk had an office suite above the club. The decor reflected a struggle between obvious wealth and sheer ostentation, with ostentation winning on points and showing itself particularly in surpluses of gold glittery trinkets and paintings caked with palette knife-loads of genuine bloodred oil paint.
Husk himself was a pale man with long arms, blue eyes, and thinning black hair combed straight back. He moved easily in his tuxedo and he sported nearly as much shiny trim as a car. The knack was walking without clanking.
He greeted Powder politely. They sat deep in a pair of fur-upholstered chairs made by sewing skins to a collection of gilded metal tubes.
“Would you like Earle to stay. Lieutenant?” Husk asked. “Or would you rather him to leave?”
“Oh stay, stay,” Powder said.
“They say you was asking my bartender if he recognized—” Husk stopped abruptly. “Excuse manners,” he said. “You care for a drink?”
“Thank you,” Powder said. “A little malt whiskey.”
Husk rose easily and moved to a leather-topped cabinet. He drew out a bottle. “Anything in it?”
“No.”
He passed Powder the drink, and poured a little tomato juice for himself. “I got some troubles,” he said vaguely. Then he carried his glass back to his chair. He gestured to Nason to sit down too.
“Let’s see these snaps,” Husk said.
Powder passed him the pictures.
Mister Jimmy squinted over the likenesses. He spent longer over Sidney Sweet. “This guy looks a little familiar to me,” he said. “I don’t got a name for him. Maybe like I’ve seen him a few times in the club, something like that. I don’t recall the other man at all.”
He handed them back. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“You can tell me why Earle here looked at the pictures and said he didn’t know either of the men.”
“That so, Earle?”
Nason shrugged. “I was trying to help Alan.The guy was making a nuisance of himself”
“How a nuisance?” Powder asked. “By buying drinks, paying in cash, and asking civil questions?”
“Temper, temper, fellas,” Mister Jimmy said, smiling. “You know, my analyst says that half the battle of beating hostility is in spotting situations ahead of time. Take a breath. Cool down. It’ll be a lot better that way for us all.”
“Far be it for me to feel that our friend Earle was being hostile,” Powder said with heavy sarcasm. “But considering that one of these men is Earle’s brother-in-law and the other one was at the wedding with Earle, I found his attitude less than completely helpful.”
“Who are the guys?” Husk asked Nason.
“The younger one married my wife’s sister. I don’t know the other guy. Some friend that come to the wedding. Look, Mister Jimmy, I goddamn gave this guy the pictures in the first place. You try to be helpful and all you get is hassle.”
Husk looked at Powder and said, “If you know who the guys are, what’s all the unnecessary aggro? It’s not good for your health, aggro. It really isn’t.”
Powder startled the two men by rising from his chair. “When I want parboiled psychology, I can get it from a better source than a gangster.” He waved a finger. “I’m looking for both the men in the pictures. So I’m asking around. But the extra aggro is necessary because it stinks for Earle to be working for you when he killed you
r brother.”
Nason rose to face Powder, but Husk shrugged, trying to look relaxed. “A friend of a friend asked me to help Earle out. My analyst said that it would be good for me, so I give Earle a chance. Earle turns out to be a good and faithful employee. Forgive and forget.”
“Forgive and forget is not how guys like you operate,” Powder said. “More like never forget and make sure to hit them when they’re down.”
“I like to think I’ve come a long way past that kind of immature attitude,” Mister Jimmy said airily.
“How long after Earle came out of the joint did he start for you?”
“Pretty soon after, I think it was. I don’t remember exactly.”
“It’s a nice house Earle and his wife have,” Powder said. “Have you ever been there?”
Husk paused before he said, “I don’t think so.”
“Cost a pretty penny,” Powder said. “You must pay your people pretty well.”
Husk said nothing.
“I wonder what the date Earle bought the house might be. I wonder if it was before or after he came out of prison. And I wonder how his wife managed while he was away. I’d bet she was petty comfortable during that time. But it should be easy enough to check out.”
Mister Jimmy ran a finger along the side of his nose and then drank some tomato juice. Quietly he said, “The theory you put to Earle this morning is that I got him to kill Arnie so I could take over the business operation.”
“Yes.”
Mister Jimmy set his glass aside and kept his eyes down as he rose. Slowly he lifted his gaze to Powder. “My brother,” he said slowly, with feeling. “You’re standing in my own office, on my own carpet, with my own malt whiskey in your belly, saying that I hired some plug to kill my own brother.” Husk took a pair of deep breaths. “It’s a good thing I ain’t the hothead I once was, Mr. Lieutenant Shithead Cop. Because in those days I would have had your arms and legs pulled off, slow. You hear me?”
“I hear enough to send me back to the files to see if we got any unsolved armless and legless murders.”
Continuing his fight for self-control. Mister Jimmy flexed his shoulder muscles and took deeper breaths. “I never understand cops,” he said. “You got no sense of family, you people? Don’t you have mothers and brothers and sisters?”
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