“Oh, for Chrissake, Max! Give it a break. You come on to every upright male that shows up with a half a wit.” I turned my gaze on him. Alvin’s face took on a decidedly unhealthy color. He gulped down half his drink. For his gut’s sake, I hoped it wasn’t too strong.
“I appreciate the offer, Mrs. Pederson.” I said, mostly to bug Alvin. “You can show me the way to the second-floor rooms that look out on the lake.” I didn’t use my Bogart imitation.
“Oh, you want to see the bedrooms?” Her grin was predatory. Her husband shuddered, and Hillier seemed to stare impassively. Maxine missed their reactions as she spun on her heels and led me through the sliding patio door. Once out of sight of the two men on the patio, her attitude de-escalated and she stalked ahead of me to the stairs that led, I learned, first to a landing, then to the long second-floor hall that bisected the house. There were five rooms on the second floor, Maxine told me, four being used as bedrooms, but only two faced the lake. One was the master bedroom with a broad sliding glass wall that led to a narrow balcony directly over the patio. I could hear Pederson and Hillier in conversation. From her stance, I figured Maxine was straining to hear what they were saying.
The other bedroom had no balcony, was smaller, comfortable with a queen-sized bed and a highly polished armoire instead of a closet. The windows did look out on the lake. By twisting my head I could get a narrow look through the removable screen at the swim area, but it was an awkward position at best.
Maxine turned arch as we went back to the hall. “My room is over there,” she said, gesturing across my chest.
“Since you have no view of the lake, I won’t need to see it,” I said. “I take it you and your husband live here with the Bartelmes?”
Her hesitation was miniscule, but I caught it. “Oh, no, but we’re here for Josie and Tod during these troubles. You know.” Her voice trailed off as if she wasn’t sure how to respond. What was that all about? I filed her reaction in my mental tickler file, and we went back downstairs.
I had the names and addresses of two of the boys who had been at the Bartelmes’ beach when Calvin was injured. They were on a crumpled scrap of paper Josie had thrust at me at the hospital. I hoped to get an eyewitness account of the shooting. I walked down to the edge of the lake, alone. Maxine had declined to accompany me into the hot sun. I looked at the empty floating raft with its low diving platform. It was altogether a peaceful summer scene. I found it hard to believe what had happened.
Voices arose on my left from the adjoining property. A hedge separated the properties, but no fence. The location was one of the two I had for boys on the scene earlier that afternoon, so I pushed through the hedge and found myself on another beach with a short dock in the middle of the property.
Three boys about Calvin’s age sprawled on the beach in their swimsuits. A fourth thrashed through the water toward the beach, making a great laughing, sputtering production out of it. The other three were flicking sand and water droplets at each other. When I appeared, fully dressed, a stranger, they turned immediately serious. I walked forward holding their attention while the fourth boy struggled toward us out of the lake.
“My name’s Sean Sean,” I said. “I’m working for Tod and Josie Bartelme.”
“You’re the PI,” one of them said, “with the same first and last names. Cool.”
“How’s Cal doing?” another asked.
“He’s going to be fine,” I said. There was immediate reduction in the tension. The boys relaxed. “Now I need some help. Which one of you answers to the name of Jeff Brooks?”
Teenager automatic distrust of adults asserted itself. The boys glanced at each other, not saying anything. Except two of them looked at the same boy.
“This is no big deal. I just want to try to recreate the shooting. I know you and some of your friends were on Bartelmes’ beach when it went down.” I stared at Jeff Brooks. “You were the closest, according to what I’ve been told. I suppose these other fellows were there too, right? Now, the cops are gonna be here soon to get formal statements. Your parents are probably being notified and lawyers rounded up. There’ll be delays while routines are followed. I just want to find out what happened to your friend, whatever you saw, as near as possible before things get complicated.”
I spread my hands and looked at them. The boy I’d figured was Jeff stood up. “I’m Jeff Brooks,” he said. We shook hands.
“Let’s go next door,” I said, and we all trooped back through the hedge of lilacs. It turned out my instinct was right, all the boys were there when Calvin got shot. The one who they all agreed had been farthest from the action, Ted something, insisted he didn’t actually see anything, so I selected him to be Calvin for my deal. I had my new digital camera with me. The plan was to get a series of pictures of a body flying through the air in the same position as Calvin was. At first it didn’t work. For some reason Ted Something-or-other couldn’t get his arms and legs in the right position. The boys were serious and pointed out problems in jump after jump.
Finally the Brooks boy came out of the water saying, “Let me try it. I showed Calvin how I do a cannonball. It’s with a half twist, like this.”
He swam to the dock and did his cannonball with a twist. The other watching boys all enthusiastically agreed that was exactly how Calvin was positioned when he was shot. So I had him do it six more times and took lots of pictures. We all figured he got his arms and legs just right at least four times. That was easier than trying to calculate how high off the water Calvin had been when he was plugged.
It wasn’t perfect but I was happy. I thought I’d be able to get pretty close to the place the shooter had stood or laid to make his shot.
When I dismissed the boys with thanks and turned back to the house, I discovered an interested audience. Hillier and Al Pederson were standing, drinks in hand, watching from the lakeside veranda.
“What are you doing?” Pederson inquired.
Normally I wouldn’t say. Normally I wouldn’t give somebody like Alvin Pederson the time of day. I knew his type. He thought he was an insider and any bits of gossip he could scrape up gave him a supposed advantage over someone. Alvin Pederson was a bottom feeder.
The other reason I wouldn’t normally give him a passing glance was that we detectives liked to be a little mysterious from time to time. Other times we weren’t sure ourselves what we were doing or why; it’s just something that feels right at the time. In this case, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to explain and the telling might shake something loose, depending on who they talked to.
“I want to recreate the scene of the crime,” I said. “When I look at blowups of these pictures together with pictures of Calvin’s injuries, I’ll learn a few things.”
Both Hillier and Pederson nodded as if they understood exactly what I was saying. I wondered if I did as I left the premises and drove back to Roseville.
At home in my basement office I downloaded the digital pictures to my computer and made a series of quick prints on plain paper. I laid out the ones that showed Jeff Brooks in the closest position to Calvin’s body when he’d been shot. By superimposing a tracing of the wounds I made from memory, I was able to determine several things. Some of them I already knew.
The shot had been fired from outside the house. I thought it likely the cops would have a tough time recovering the slug. If my calculations were correct, after it passed through Calvin’s hand and along his ribs to exit at the top of his shoulder, it had probably tumbled to the ground somewhere in the vicinity of the bramble patch beside the lilacs that separated the Brooks’s place from the Bartelmes’.
I pulled a topographic map of that end of the lake from my file. Coincidence? Nah. Over the years I made it my business to collect such documents and even tried to keep them reasonably up to date. Useful tools of the trade.
After some peering and jockeying of the map and a
crude drawing I produced for myself, I was able to diagram an oval on the opposite shore of the bay that would have likely been where the shooter had stood. It was far from ideal, but it was a woodsy grove with thick underbrush below the pines and ash trees, so it did provide concealment for the presumed shooter. And the bay was pretty narrow at that point.
I called the hospital to check on Calvin’s progress. I got the runaround jabber about patient privacy and they couldn’t find either Tod or Josie. I left the house and journeyed back to White Bear along now crowded Highway 96. The afternoon had waned and home-bound traffic was jamming up the road, so it took me longer than usual to get to the place on the other side of the bay where I thought the shooter must have been located.
I pulled the car off onto the shoulder as far as the trees allowed. The left rear fender hung over the white stripe they paint at the outside edge of these roads, but I figured my car was pretty easily seen. I brought my small, efficient pair of binocs along. I walked to the edge of the property and stood on a large boulder and scanned the opposite side of the bay until I located the Brooks place and next to it, the raft and the Bartelme home. The shoreline was empty of people. The sun was still hot and low to the horizon. Behind me critters rustled and muttered in the grass and weeds. A lethargic sparrow hopped from tree branch to tree branch, keeping one eye on me and the other, presumably, alert for any edible tidbit that might turn up.
I walked slowly into the copse. A bramble immediately attacked my left pant leg. I pulled free and scanned the ground around me. It appeared to be an ordinary piece of ground with few tracks, certainly nothing that would indicate the presence of a large two-legged predator. It took several sweaty minutes with no relieving breeze to cover the patch of ground where I figured the shooter must have been. I found nothing on the ground to indicate anyone had been there that day or even in the recent past. No boot treads to plaster cast, no cigarette butts to bag for DNA analysis, no cartridge cases.
I raised my sights and began to peer more closely at the small branches and sapling trunks. And patience paid off. I was good at what I did and, therefore, often lucky.
About half a foot above my head on a small birch tree I spotted a mark. A rub mark. The kind of mark a rifle might make when pressed for stability against the bark and then fired at a bird, say, or perhaps at a young man jumping repeatedly off a low raft.
Now that I was reasonably sure where the shooter had stood I looked more carefully at the bushes to the right. Sure enough, wedged in the fork of a bush, hidden from view unless you were looking very closely and knew what you might find, was a shiny brass casing. The shot that wounded Calvin Pederson was a steel-jacketed Remington center-fire .22-caliber slug. It had been fired from a rifle probably used mostly for target practice and occasionally plinking at varmints. A good shot, but not requiring expert sniper talent.
I smiled to myself, bagged the casing and got out of there. The slug itself was probably unrecoverable, but the brass just might have a fingerprint or other clue. I retrieved my vehicle and drove around to the Bartelmes’ where I encountered Tod and Josie, who had just returned from the hospital and were being quizzed by a bevy of Ramsey County law officers. Calvin was awake but groggy, Josie reported, and every sign favored a full recovery.
I knew the sergeant in charge and was able to take him aside for a brief chat. I handed over the baggie with the cartridge, explained where I’d found it and departed with his thanks and a promise to stay in touch on the case. Things were definitely looking up.
In spite of a paucity of evidence, the discovery of the cartridge was going to provide me with a very large lever.
Chapter 10
I sprawled on my lady’s carpet, staring up at her petite slacks-clad knees on the couch next to my head. “So that’s the basic story. If it was just the Bartelmes’ difficulties I might dismiss the whole thing as ordinary break-ins and that kind of trouble.”
“Don’t you think it’s odd that lawyer tried to get you to quit the case?”
I smiled to myself, thinking, Exactly, babe. The more somebody tries to make me go away, the more likely I am to stick around.
“It’s not likely that lawyer acted on his own, is it?” she went on. Her fingers trailed over the edge of the couch cushion and I nibbled at them.
“Don’t think so, but the answer to that could depend on what kind of lawyer he is. I mean, is he just a functionary, doing whatever he’s told or does he actively look out for his clients’ interests? I don’t know the man. Yet.”
“I could perhaps help in that line of questions,” Catherine said, leaning forward and peering over the edge of the couch at me.
“You could?”
“Sure. I have a lawyer, you know. A whole firm, in fact. Lawyers know about other lawyers. I’ll ask. Discreetly, it goes without saying.”
“Ah, my resources are becoming infinite,” I said, raising a hand and caressing her nearest knee. “My reach is global. I am not to be denied.”
“Well, don’t go getting a big head over it,” she giggled, pushing my hand away and getting up from the couch. “I’m making tea. Want some?”
* * * *
The next morning things had changed dramatically, and not for the better. When I got to my office I had two calls on the answering device. I’d ignored them at the apartment because I didn’t like to bring my work home except, of course, when necessary. The earliest call came in late the previous afternoon from the lawyer, Gareth Anderson.”I haven’t had an answer, Mr. . . . Sean. My, ah, my client is anxious to know where we stand. I need to hear from you right away that you’ve declined to take Bartelmes’ case. Please get back to me.” Pushy, I thought. I wondered if Gareth was feeling a little pressure. If so, where from?
I needed to put him off for as long as possible. The longer he and his principal, whoever it was, weren’t certain of my role in this affair of the Yap, the longer I had an advantage, however slight. In my business, slight advantages were sometimes all it took. A razor-thin hesitation, like that over my double name, I could sometimes parlay into a solution. Or if not that, a little protection that could occasionally keep me alive.
The other call was from St. Louis. PI Max Wisnewsky. His report suggested there indeed had been some thievery at the deceased’s apartment, or condo, or house. I’d have to check on exactly what Mr. Lewis’s accommodation had been. I was of the opinion that the kind of living circumstances a person had were often a clue into where and how I might uncover important information. Even in remote St. Louis. I called him back.
“What’s the situation? What kind of a place did our Mr. Lewis have?”
Wisnewski hummed while he thought how to answer my question. “Small, one bedroom, no separate dining room. An apartment on the third floor. Elevator, nice middle-class building.”
“Tell me about the apartment itself,” I said, scribbling on a pad.
“Hard to tell now. The place was thoroughly trashed, as I mentioned.”
“Yeah,” I said, wishing I could see the place for myself. Maybe I’d see if the Bartelmes would pop for a quick trip to Saint Louie.
“The guy was a vet, heavily invested in world war memorabilia, and not just his own career. Pictures on the walls, lot of groups.”
“Framed pictures on the walls. Lots of them.” I squinted at the far wall of my office, visualizing Mr. Lewis’s apartment. “Tell me more detail.”
Wisnewsky sighed. “Mostly, as I said, there are group photos. You know, guys standing together under the wing of an airplane or sitting on a bunch of bombs. In fatigues, mostly. One or two with the billed dress cap, likely the pilots. Maybe a bombardier. Some of them have a legend printed on the photograph. You know the kind? Those are probably the official record pictures. They took a lot of those all over the world, you know?”
“Yes, I do know. They were all framed pictures on the walls, right
?”
“Right. Under glass.”
“All right.” I made a note and stared at my bare wall. I ought to get some art up there. Something evocative to put clients in the right frame of mind. Catherine would help me choose. “What else?”
“Neighbors said he always carried a big key ring. Nobody has seen it. And apparently the cops in . . . where is that? Wy-no-nah? What’s that, some kind of Scandinavian name?”
“Indian. Winona. Native American word,” I said. “No key ring in his effects up here.” I was thinking hard. “Listen, he had a box, a safe deposit box, right? It’s been opened, and there’s nothing much of significance, just personal papers, mementos, right?”
“Pretty much. Except for one thing.”
“One thing?”
“Yeah. They found a pebble in a tiny brown paper envelope. Actually, a rough diamond.”
“Really. A diamond. What’s the deal?”
“It’s not huge, maybe half a carat, maybe more. Local police are running it down. Not even a faint pencil mark on the envelope.”
“Okay. Stay with it. I’m not sure how my client feels, but I’d like to know whatever they can discover about that rock. And do something else for me. I’d like a decent copy of each of the pictures hanging on Stan Lewis’s wall.”
“Big job. That’ll take a while, but I can do it.”
“Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
It probably didn’t mean anything. On the other hand, Stan Lewis was an old vet, a man who had only a high school education who joined the Army right after graduation. Here was a guy who never distinguished himself at anything. His meteoric rise in the military got him two more pay grades in almost seven years and a posting to a ground crew for an undistinguished bomber group that did nearly all its time on New London in the Pacific. After being mustered out in 1948, I knew he went home and got a succession of jobs as a maintenance guy that kept him in a reasonable way. Then he retired, never married, no kids anyone knew of. A nice ordinary veteran who did his duty and lived out a quiet life. The American Dream.
The Case of the Yellow Diamond Page 6