Death Across the Lake

by Lyle Hightower

  “There were no saddles, Bailey.”

  “Are you sure? I think there were thirty. But maybe it was fifty. What’s the duty on that, let me see…”

  He slammed his fist on the counter. “Enough, Bailey. It’s bad enough you’re extorting me. Just don’t be such a wise-ass about it.”

  I nodded, as if I really understood his point of view.

  “Hoight’s. I saw him at Hoight’s, lunchtime, not more than an hour ago.”

  “See, you do want to be helpful,” I said, smiling, and I walked out of Quarterstaff Outfitters. Bernie sighed as the door closed behind me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I hurried down to Hoight’s, hoping the curly-haired stranger might still be around. He wasn’t. When I asked the bartender, he said he’d left not fifteen minutes before. I walked back outside. It was sunny, finally, a beautiful day, whereas in the morning it had been dreary and overcast.

  There was a man sitting on a piece of cardboard on the sidewalk across the street. He was reclining, and seemed to be admiring the look of the Adirondack Mountains across the lake. I walked over to him. I was about to ask him if he’d seen the man, but he started speaking first.

  “Makes you think, doesn’t it? They’re so beautiful, but house so much danger,” he said.

  “The mountains?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. We stayed there a moment, looking at the distant slate-blue mountains.

  “I was wondering if you’d seen a curly headed blond man, might’ve come out of Hoight’s, maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Yeah, I seen ‘im,” he said. “Walked over to the motel. Third door there.”

  “Thanks, you’ve been most helpful.”

  He looked over his shoulder at me. Straggly, greasy hair hung in his face. I saw now that he couldn’t have been less than seventy years old. “Well, I hope so,” was all he said.

  I walked over to the motel, and noted the number of the third door (it was number three, unsurprisingly), trying to look inconspicuous. It was one of those tumbledown places that mostly served as regular housing, though this one, down by the water as it was, probably had a number of nightly rentals for sailors from across the lake or from up the Champlain Canal, the Hudson, and even as far as New York City. Traffic had only increased in the last few years, which was a good sign, I suppose. There were airships crossing the Atlantic now too, huge city-sized floating structures built by the Europeans to carry goods to and from North America. It was a long trip, but it was weeks long, as opposed to months, which is how long it took to go by sail. No one traveling on the airships ever ended up in Burlington, mind you.

  I walked to the front office of the motel and let myself in. A small woman, maybe eighty years old, was sitting behind the counter, knitting, and staring out across the parking lot. I flashed my badge, and she looked at it and immediately looked back out the window and kept knitting.

  “The guy in three, when did he get here?”

  “Two days ago,” she said, without missing a beat, still not looking at me. She was chewing on something, though I couldn’t tell what.

  “He paying day by day?”

  “The week. Says to me late this morning he’s planning on staying through tomorrow. You wanna talk to him or what?”

  “No, that’s alright. I’d prefer it actually if you didn’t mention that I was here.”

  “Whatever you say,” she said.

  “Did he say what he was in town for?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Yup.”

  “You ever see him before?”

  “Nope.”

  I could tell I wasn’t going to get anything more out of her. She seemed somewhat committed to minding her own business, which is a commendable characteristic for someone who rents out rooms to sailors.

  I thought for a minute about whether or not it was smart to try to take this guy alone. I had my gun, and a set of cuffs. I could take him out if I needed to, but if he was with the Minutemen, it might be risky. Who knows what kind of firepower he had in his room. I could wait for him to leave, but I didn’t want anyone outside to see us tussle if it came to that, especially not any of his friends, if he had any.

  “Now I’m gonna have to ask you to open his door.”

  At this she sat up straight and looked at me as if I’d said something insane.

  “Now look here, mister…”

  “Just do it. The alternative is I get the whole of the B.P.D. down here and we break down his door. That work any better for you?”

  She looked at me like I’d cut her dog in half.

  “Fine, I’ll open the door for you.” She got up, grabbing the keys that hung from a nail on the wall behind her.

  “Thank you. Call out to him as you open the door. Tell him there’s a problem with the plumbing, and can you please come in to look at his toilet.” She nodded as I said this, taking it in. She doddered along the length of the building and I followed behind her.

  “Now this is important,” I said as we walked past the first two units. It was starting to rain again, and it ran off the awning, and standing as I was half under it and half not, my shoulder was getting increasingly wet. “Once you’ve unlocked the door, back away as quickly as you can, and take cover.”

  “”Hey, what is this,” she said. I cocked my sidearm, and shoved in in her ribs. “Do what I say and you won’t get hurt.” She looked genuinely alarmed, but she’d given me no reason to offer her any comfort. I needed her to do one thing, and do it without complaining.

  We came to the unit. Like most of these the windows were boarded up, long since broken and never replaced. There was a square hole in the plywood that presumably offered some natural light and fresh air. I stayed away from it.

  She knocked on the door, saying “mister, we need to check your plumbing, bit of an emergency out here,” and then she started to unlock it. Once it was unlocked she skittered away and I kicked the door open.

  “Burlington Police, put your hands up.”

  A single shot rang out from the dark. I saw a shape move, diving behind the bed, and I fired three shots.

  A cry came up. I had hit him.

  “Jesus Christ, I give up,” he said, and a gun flew out of the space between the wall and the bed and landed on the floor. Two hands came up slowly.

  “Alright, slowly now.”

  It occurred to me the room wasn’t secure, there could be others hiding in the bathroom. I glanced quickly over my shoulder, and not seeing any movement in the parking lot, I walked into the room, pulling out my cuffs.

  “Face down on the bed, hands behind your head.”

  The man complied, and I pulled his hands down and cuffed him, my back to the wall in case anyone came out of the bathroom.

  “There’s no one else here,” he said, as if reading my mind.

  I walked carefully around him and with my gun drawn I kicked open the bathroom door. No sounds came out. I tried the light switch but it didn’t work. I got out my flashlight, and shining it in the room it was clear there was no one in there.

  “Sorry,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to shoot. I mean, you identified yourself and I shot, but it wasn’t on purpose.”

  “That sounds like horseshit, but okay. You care to explain yourself?”

  “You’re Bailey, right?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I know you’re Bailey. You were described to me, and unless the B.P.D. has hired another detective I haven’t heard about, you must be him.”

  “Who are you?” I said, poking the gun into the back of his head.

  “I understand, this must be confusing.”

  “I’m not confused, I’m angry.”

  “Hey man, I’m the one who got shot.”

  This was true, there was blood staining his upper right arm, though by the look of it he’d only been graze
d.

  “I came here to meet Peck. We were prepared to help the Farmer’s Union with training and arms if he could get all of you to agree to a forward defence.”

  He clearly knew what he was talking about.

  “Who’s we?”

  “The Rangers. My name is Fitzroy, Hubert.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said, and flipped him over. He yelled and cursed at me. His arm must’ve hurt. “You guys disappear off the face of the planet, and then come back out of nowhere running operations in my town, without telling anyone?”

  “It was deemed too politically sensitive. But now, obviously, with Peck dead, things have changed somewhat.”

  “So what are you still doing here?”

  “I’m just waiting to make contact with my detachment. I have orders to stay, but it’s unclear what the next step is supposed to be.”

  “So had you made contact with Peck? When was the last time you saw him,” I asked.

  “Last night, about 1 a.m. Down on the beach, near the pier.”

  “And after that?”

  “He walked back up College Street.”

  “And then?”

  “Nothing, until I heard he died. I was at that bar up the way.”

  “Hoight’s?”

  “Yeah, that place. I was eating lunch when two guys start talking about it. I was shocked, I guess, but not so much surprised. We’ve been waiting for the Minutemen to make a move like this.”

  “So that’s who you think did it?”

  “You really think it could be anyone else? It’s either them, or someone affiliated. Agents from the Empire State Militia, maybe? It’s all the same. But how did you find me?”

  “Desk clerk at the Smith House Hotel. Which makes me want to know, why did you pay him to lie?”

  At this he looked genuinely confused.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You didn’t pay the night clerk at the hotel to lie about Peck’s comings and goings?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “To keep people off his trail, and yours.”

  “No, I didn’t do that.”

  “The clerk knew what you looked like. That’s how I found you.”

  He tried to sit up, but it was difficult for him, with his shoulder bleeding, not to mention his hands tied behind his back. He gave up, finally, and lay back down, breathing hard. I felt bad for him, but I wasn’t about to let him go, not until I was certain he was telling the truth.

  “My cover must be blown. Someone else got to the clerk, told him to lie, gave him my description. It’s this hair. It’s too damned distinctive,” he said. It was true. It was the color as much as anything else. It was straw-colored, almost unnaturally blond.

  “If that’s the case, then how was your cover blown,” I asked.

  “I could have been spotted talking to Irving last night.”

  “Did anyone else know you were here, that you were making contact?”

  “I don’t think anyone else knew. I mean, I don’t think he told anyone else. He seemed very suspicious.”

  “Of what?”

  “His entire organization. It was hard to gauge what was going on. I tried to sound him out when we had our meetings, see what his misgivings were. He trusted the members. But his executive. He worried about their loyalties…”

  I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to say more.

  “You gonna let me out of these things? I’m bleeding.”

  “It doesn’t look too bad.”

  He shot me a vicious look.

  “Listen, you gotta understand, I don’t know you from Adam. I’ll figure out a way to let your Ranger friends know you’re in a bit of a situation, but in the meantime, I’m going to have to walk out that door. No hard feelings, eh? Strictly business?”

  “Sure,” he said, a resigned look coming over his face as I walked out the room and gently closed the door.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When I got back to the office, there was a note left for me from McMurtry. The mayor wanted to see me. I walked across the street and into City Hall.

  The building itself is staffed by a dozen individuals, not counting the mayor’s two assistants. The more senior staffers have their own portfolios. Infrastructure, roads, farming, childcare, schools, health, garbage collection. There isn’t much money to go around, even in the biggest town in the state, but there’s a lot to do, and someone has to manage these things. Kids need to learn to read and write and repair an oven, or a solar array. The water works need to be kept running. The town’s doctors need to be paid. Taxes also need to be collected, and this was one reason the mayor needed to keep the Farmer’s Union, the Merchant’s Association, the various laborer’s groups happy; if they urged their membership towards tax revolt there’d be a big hole in the municipal budget. Things were cushy in this part of the state, relatively speaking, but it was a fine balance keeping it that way, and it was the mayor’s job to keep that balance. If that meant breathing down my neck because of an inconvenient dead body, well, it was gonna be a bad fifteen minutes, as Bernie Ouellette liked to say, whatever that means. There was a reason she’d been mayor for so long.

  “Give me the update Bailey. Try to keep the flowery language to a minimum. Just the facts.”

  “Nora Cartwright is in custody,” I said.

  “I know that, I granted her bail an hour ago, get to the important parts.”

  “I had her in the cell to keep her safe. Why did she leave?”

  “She said she was ready to face whatever happened. She said she wasn’t scared. I had no reason not to let her go. You think she didn’t do it?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said.

  “Go on…”

  “The scene screamed crime of passion, but it was a set up. He had been tied up, possibly beaten, before he was stabbed, the desk clerk lied about his whereabouts, then lied about why he lied, and put me on to a ranger who I almost killed, and who is now handcuffed in a motel room down by the docks.”

  “You’ve been busy, that’s good. Did the Rangers do this?”

  “I don’t think so. The Ranger in question thinks it was the Minutemen. I’m inclined to believe him.”

  The mayor shrugged and said, “we’d need evidence of that.”

  “Do we?” I asked.

  “We can act on this information, but it’s useless politically if it’s an accusation from a guerrilla fighter you found in a sailor’s motel down by the water.”

  She was right about that.

  “The ranger had been in touch with Peck. The Rangers were prepared to arm the Farmer’s Union, if Peck could negotiate for a forward position in the defence of the city. There’s also the fact that whoever did this might have had help on the inside,” I said. It could be that the desk clerk was approached by someone and acted alone. But it’s equally possible someone inside the Farmer’s Union had a hand in this.”

  “What makes you think that?” she asked.

  “The ranger said Peck was suspicious of his executive. Thought that there might have been infiltration.”

  She looked troubled. “That would be bad,” she said. “Would undermine everything. How do we find out?”

  “That’s what I’m working on, boss.”

  “Well alright. Keep me posted. You know how I feel about surprises.”

  “Sure do, boss.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  There was still the matter of the kid, the desk clerk. He’d lied, twice, and I needed to find out why. I walked back across the street and into the basement holding area. Nora’s cell was empty, and I walked past it to the back of the room, where we were holding the clerk. My heart jumped into my throat.

  He was still there, but he was hanging by his neck, his feet swinging in the draft. His hands fell stiffly by his side. He’d fashioned his shirt into a noose, and now he was hanging from it, his face blue.

  I ran back upstairs to the office. Molly was at her desk, making some notes. Velasquez was sitting
by the window, eating a sandwich, his eyes vacant.

  “The kid from the hotel. He’s dead. He hung himself.”

  Molly stood up, gasping. “Oh jeez. It was such a in and out rap, why would he do that?”

  Velasquez was standing now too, and from the looks of him, it didn’t look like he was going to be holding down his lunch. He ran to the bathroom. I wondered if he was cut out for this work.

  Molly and I went downstairs. He was still there, hanging from the makeshift noose, the stitching at the armpit of one of the shirtsleeves starting to come undone.

  “He’d have lived if he were a few pounds heavier,” Molly said.

  “Yeah, but look at his pants.”

  His pants were held up by a belt, but the stitching around the waist was coming undone, as if torn.

  “That’s weird,” Molly said, noticing the torn seams.

  “It’s as if his pants were pulled down. Or someone pulled down on them. The belt really dug into his skin. Someone weighted him down.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Molly said. “It would have had to be someone with keys.”

  “Only police have access to those keys.”

  “Who let Nora Cartwright out of her cell when she made bail?” I asked. “Were you here?”

  “Yes, it was me. Not more than an hour ago. I checked on him, he was fine.”

  “Can anyone corroborate your story? Sorry, I have to ask.” I trusted Molly, I wasn’t sure what made me ask her that.

  “Nora Cartwright, and her lawyer. They saw me talk to him, I spoke to him, asked if he needed anything.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he was fine.”

  Anyone on the force could have been responsible for this. Or anyone who had managed to steal someone’s keys.

  “I need you to process the scene, and get his body to the morgue, and make sure it’s in a locked drawer. Don’t let anyone else in here, and when you’re done, find chief and tell him I’m going back to his apartment.”