Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  “Jesus, no!” Paulette pulled away from Shipley. “I thought you were his friend. How can you ask that?”

  But Shipley caught her arm. “Paulie, settle down. It makes an odd kind of sense, you know? The relationship never was healthy.”

  She glared at him. “No,” she said. “No. It wasn’t Truman. He worshipped her. That was part of the problem. He treated her like she was going to break. He wasn’t going to do something like that to her. He wouldn’t.”

  “I was just wondering,” I said, “because in that case, the abortion might have angered him—it being their child—and then her rejection of him might have pushed him over some edge.”

  “Which made him trash the house and run out to get murdered?” Paulette raised her voice.

  “I think that’s unrelated,” I asked, “although maybe not to the abortion.”

  “What?” Shipley said.

  “I’m getting ahead of myself. Paulette, I’m sorry to ask these kinds of questions, but—”

  “It wasn’t Truman,” she said, whirling on me. Her face had gone gray, and now I was getting worried about her. Shipley reached for her and she moved away. “I know it wasn’t Truman. It was some creep who started following her after Nefertiti’s Ball. An ugly, creepy man who she made the mistake of dancing with once and he wouldn’t leave her alone after that. He’s the one, about a month later. And she couldn’t get him to go away.”

  “Paulette, sit down, honey, you’re not looking good,” Shipley said.

  “I’m not feeling good,” she said. “My cousin was murdered today, and then we learn that someone’s trying to make him out to be a bad cop, and now this so-called friend of his just accused him of rape.”

  “I had to ask,” I said.

  “Well, it doesn’t make any sense. Why would he plant this stuff? Why would he trash his own house? And why would he go to Woodlawn if he was that kind of crazy?”

  “I thought maybe he was tracking down the abortionist,” I said. “I was trying to find one in that area just the other day. Maybe the gangs recognized him as a cop and—”

  “They’d shoot him?” She put a hand on her own belly. The movement seemed to be subconscious. “He didn’t go to Woodlawn for that.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Because the guy she went to lives in Hyde Park,” Paulette said. “And he’s white.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “HOW DO YOU know this?” Shipley asked.

  “Val told me.” Paulette brought a hand to her face. “I need to sit down.”

  Both Shipley and I went to her side, easing her toward the bed. She lay on the bare mattress, her stomach looking larger in repose than it had when she stood.

  “Why would she tell you and not Marvella?” Shipley asked. “I thought Marvella was her best friend.”

  “Because Marvella butts in where she’s not wanted,” Paulette said, her eyes closed. “She was afraid Marvella would go to Truman, and Truman would go after the guy who raped her.”

  “He should have,” Shipley said.

  Paulette shook her head. “Val didn’t want him to. She didn’t want him anywhere near that guy.”

  “What was the guy’s name?” I asked. This was all tied together, but I wasn’t sure how yet.

  “The creep?” Paulette sighed. “I don’t know. Something foreign.”

  “Would you remember it if you heard it again?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “I only heard it the once, in December. He asked me to dance, too, and I said no. Then he tried to talk to me, and he sounded—I don’t know—coarse, which didn’t suit his name. That’s all I remember. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. I was wishing that Mike had come along.”

  “I wish I had, too,” Shipley said. “Now.”

  “Told you you should’ve learned to dance.” She said that with affection, then reached out with one manicured hand and clutched his.

  “You okay, baby?” he asked. “Do I need to take you somewhere?”

  “Long day,” she said. “I just got dizzy. I think I got so mad I forgot to breathe.”

  Her hand clutched his hard. I felt guilty for bringing her here. I hadn’t known about her condition. I probably shouldn’t have pushed her, either.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Those weren’t fair questions about Truman.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “They weren’t.”

  Then she opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow. With her other hand, she still held Shipley’s.

  “Truman would never have trashed this place. He loved it too much. And he wouldn’t have destroyed Val’s pictures, no matter what she did.”

  “Who did then?” I asked. “Have any ideas?”

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” Shipley said to me. “Maybe this wasn’t done after he died. Maybe it was done before.”

  “By someone who knew him,” Paulette said. “Someone who knew this would make him so mad that he would have to respond.”

  I looked at the mess, straightened by Paulette and Shipley but not fixed. It spoke of rage to me, particularly the kitchen, but not uncontrolled rage. If the rage had been completely out of control, no one would have left the heroin behind.

  Or ripped up the pictures that methodically.

  I frowned. “You said there were individual pictures of Valentina in here?”

  Shipley nodded. “A couple of studio portraits, really lovely.”

  “She wanted them back, but Truman wouldn’t give them to her,” Paulette said. “They’re missing, too.”

  “I don’t see studio-sized frames,” I said.

  Shipley prowled the edge of the destruction. “They’re not here.”

  “Could someone have taken Valentina’s pictures—not destroyed them, but taken them for some reason?”

  Paulette’s lips thinned. She had both hands on her stomach again. “Val wouldn’t have taken them.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that,” I said, wondering how I could regain their trust, particularly Paulette’s. I had crossed a line, questioning her that way about Johnson. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been warned. I had. Shipley had made it clear downstairs that Paulette didn’t care for someone speaking ill of her cousin.

  She had her eyes closed again.

  “Do we need to take you somewhere?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. “It’s just been a hell of a day. I keep thinking if I hadn’t let Truman convince me to talk to him, everything would have been all right.”

  “Talk to him about what?” I asked.

  “He found Val’s withdrawal slip.” Her voice was tired.

  My heart lurched. I reached into my back pocket, removed my wallet, and pulled out the slip. “This one?”

  Shipley rejoined us. He sat on the edge of the bed, and took the slip out of my hand.

  “Hey,” he said. “What the hell is this?”

  Paulette opened her eyes and watched him. Then she pushed herself upright, as if she wasn’t comfortable having this conversation lying down. “I wasn’t going to say anything, because she was going to pay us back on Friday. You wouldn’t have even noticed.”

  “That’s your withdrawal slip?” I asked.

  Paulette nodded. She did look tired. There were shadows under her eyes that I hadn’t noticed before. “Yeah,” she said. “I loaned Val the money.”

  Shipley crumpled the slip in his right hand. “You paid for that butchery?”

  “How was I to know?” Paulette asked. “Val was in trouble. She came to me, and I could help.”

  “You should have told her to go to Marvella. You know better then that.” His cheeks were red, and he spoke with great precision. “Marvella would never have allowed this.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Paulette said. “Val had it all worked out. She didn’t want to see Marvella. She didn’t want Truman involved. She knew this guy—”

  “The guy who did the abortion?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Paulette spit the word at Shiple
y, even though she was answering my question. “She went to school with him. She even dated him a few times.”

  “That white asshole?” Shipley asked. “The guy whose Daddy greased some palms so they’d look the other way to get him into fuckin’ med school? That guy?”

  Paulette set her jaw. “He’s an intern now, and he knows what he’s doing. At least, that was what Val said to me. She was sure it was going to be all right. She said he did it all the time.”

  “If he did that all the time,” I said, “then he’s killed a lot of women.”

  Paulette glared at me. “All I know,” she said with great precision, “is that he went to med school and Val trusted him. Hell, half the guys on Marvella’s list have never been to school in their lives.”

  “Did Truman know who this white doctor was?” I asked.

  “He found the slip,” Paulette said. “He came to me, and I told him what I told you. I can’t even remember the boy’s name. Greg something.”

  “Nikolau,” Shipley said.

  “Would Truman know that?” I asked.

  “He made it a point to know everyone Val dated, before and after the marriage,” Shipley said.

  “You don’t think this has something to do with that, do you?” Paulette asked.

  “I don’t know right now,” I said. “Truman asked me to help him find out who hurt Val. I refused, even though I was already looking for Marvella. I—we, actually—were worried about how Truman would react when he found the guy.”

  “Smart,” Shipley said.

  “It seemed smart at the time,” I said. “I have no idea now. If I had helped him, maybe he’d still be alive.”

  “Or maybe the gang stuff is completely unrelated.” Shipley put a hand on top of Paulette’s. “I keep telling Paulie that.”

  Her gaze met mine. She looked as convinced as I felt.

  “Do you mind if I check out the office up here?” I asked, feeling like my privileges had fled with my rude questions.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m just going to rest here for a few minutes.”

  “I won’t be long.” I directed this to Shipley. “Then you can take her home.”

  He gave me a rueful nod. Something in his expression told me he understood that nothing would be the same for this family again.

  I went into the office and studied the mounds of paper. Someone had worked very hard at trashing this house, and searching for anything felt like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

  I approached the desk and started looking through the papers. Lists in Johnson’s neat handwriting, many of them with names I didn’t recognize, names crossed out. Many of the crossed-out names I did recognize. They had been on Marvella’s good list. Apparently Johnson had been investigating, after all.

  I didn’t see any Greg Nikolau on the lists that I found, though, and no notes to help me. Nikolau hadn’t been on Marvella’s lists, either, or on Laura’s. I would have remembered the name.

  I pushed aside sheet after sheet—some of which had to do with our investigations last December, some with older cases. None of them seemed, to my superficial glance, to be gang-related.

  Then I went to the safe. It was closed and locked. I tried to right it. It was very heavy. The door had a built-in combination lock which, even though I turned it, didn’t magically spring open the way that safes did in the movies.

  I moved aside a few more files, and saw nothing in them that looked related. I couldn’t be certain, however, without more research. Besides, the gang angle felt wrong to me, although I couldn’t quite say why. Perhaps because of my own guilt and Johnson’s intensity when we had been talking in the hospital cafeteria.

  Underneath the files, I found a phone book. I thumbed through it, located an address for Greg Nikolau. The address was in Hyde Park, just like Paulette had said.

  Johnson had made his lists, but he hadn’t found Nikolau that way. He had found the withdrawal slip and gone to Paulette. And nothing in this haystack was going to help me more than she would, at least tonight. I stood and walked back to the bedroom.

  Paulette and Shipley were lying side by side. He had his arm around her waist, and his head on her shoulder. Her cheeks were covered with fresh tears.

  I cleared my throat as I stepped inside the room. They looked at me, but didn’t move apart.

  “I think I’ve done all I can tonight,” I said. “I want to thank you both for allowing me to come in here.”

  “Did you find anything?” Shipley asked.

  “Nothing useful,” I said, and then thought of the heroin. “Look, before you notify anyone about this mess, I’d make sure there’s nothing more here.”

  “We plan to,” Shipley said.

  “And I’d clean all of this up yourself. Don’t let anyone outside of the family in. Especially before you clean up that mess in the kitchen. God knows if someone deliberately spilled another bag of heroin under all that flour.”

  “What do we do with it?” Paulette asked.

  “You,” I said, “let other people deal with it. You shouldn’t touch the stuff in your condition.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but Shipley nodded.

  “The rest of you make certain you dump that flour somewhere far from here, and make sure it can’t be traced to you or this house. Make sure you scrub the floors, and clean your clothing. Don’t track anything into the living room.”

  “Gotcha,” Shipley said.

  “Paulette,” I said, “I have one more question for you.”

  She wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand. “If it’s about Truman’s character—”

  “It’s not,” I said. “I was just wondering how he got your withdrawal slip.”

  She nodded. She looked exhausted. “I’ve been thinking about that. There are only two ways he got that withdrawal slip. He either took it from Val’s purse—”

  “I’m the one who brought her to the hospital,” I said, “and she didn’t have a purse with her.”

  “Then he got it from her apartment.” Paulette sounded tired. “Stupid idiot. He knew he wasn’t supposed to go inside.”

  “Did he have a key?” I asked.

  Paulette shook her head.

  “I don’t get it,” Shipley said. “How did he go from searching for stuff about Val to gangs?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I mean to find out.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I DIDN’T ASK the Shipleys if they had Valentina Wilson’s key. I knew what their answer would be—the same as mine would have been in that circumstance: Wait until she wakes up.

  I might have been able to convince them to come with me while I searched, but I didn’t like how tired Paulette looked. The last thing that family needed was another tragedy.

  So, that meant my next stop was Greg Nikolau. I wasn’t sure what I would find.

  I had a hunch that he was my link. A man who was willing to perform abortions for five hundred dollars an operation might also have been willing to break other laws. I would find out when I saw him—if Johnson hadn’t gotten to him first.

  Nikolau might also have had the connections to get Johnson killed. The heroin still didn’t quite fit in, but I was certain now that I would find the answers I wanted.

  I left Johnson’s house before the Shipleys did. Paulette didn’t want to go yet, and Shipley was inclined to let her rest. I agreed with him. Her exhaustion and sadness showed. I hoped that she—and the baby—would make it through what promised to be a long and difficult week.

  I went out the way I came in, deciding to avoid the front door and the prying neighborhood’s eyes. As I left, I picked up the grocery bag.

  Just holding it made me nervous, and I wished I could ask Shipley to take care of this. But all I knew about the man was his relationship to Marvella, Paulette, and Johnson. I had no idea what Shipley did for a living and how really trustworthy he was.

  Better that I took care this, so that I would know that it got done.

  After a mo
ment’s deliberation, I decided to put the bag under the driver’s seat. First, I took off my gloves, turned them inside out, and stuck them in the bag. Then I got into the car first, closed the door, and slid the bag under my seat.

  I disabled the interior light, taking out the tiny bulb and putting it in the glove box. My hand lingered over my gun, but I didn’t take it out. If I did get caught, it would be better to have the gun concealed and hope that no one found it.

  Every once in a while, I had to rely on sheer good luck, and I hated it. I knew that one day, my luck would run out.

  I drove north to downtown, sticking to main streets. My car was rusty and filthy, and I was a black man, wearing black, with a gun in his glove box, and thousands of dollars in heroin under the driver’s seat. I was every white policeman’s cliché.

  Hell, I was every white policeman’s nightmare.

  I drove as carefully as I could, even though I wanted to go as fast as possible. Skill had to augment luck; speeding would only guarantee that I got caught.

  I was heading to the Chicago River. I was going to stop on one of the bridges right over the river, and dump this stuff into it. I didn’t dare walk down to the river, for risk of having the package float, and I didn’t want to stop on Michigan or State, with all the lights and the nearby city buildings.

  So like a fool I went a little west, where the city and state office buildings were. But they were dark as I passed, and I didn’t see a single police car.

  My memories from Sunday night were accurate: this part of the Loop was a wasteland after ten P.M.

  The bridges over the river here were short, only about a block long, but I figured that would do. I chose LaSalle, not because I had planned to, but because it was nearby.

  Before I got to the bridge, I shut off my headlights and waited a few minutes, wondering if anyone had seen me. It didn’t appear that they had.

  The Sherman House was lit up, but there were no taxis parked outside. Some of the streetlights were out, and I blessed the city’s disorganization.