“Because he wants me to stay away from my friend Charles Soames.”
“Yes, but why?”
“Because—”
“Because he’s crazy,” I said. “What difference does it make? I’m the one he shot at.”
Healey looked at me. “And he’s the same man you allegedly saw the night of Zack Meacham’s murder?”
“There’s no allegedly about it.”
Healey nodded sadly. “Are you certain his name is Rueben Archuleta?”
“I’m certain,” I said. Ninety-nine percent.
“Do you know where he lives?”
“I wish I did.”
Healey said he’d check it out and call us if anything turned up. By the time Helen and I got back to the hotel, it was after noon. I suggested lunch, but she had no appetite.
“I just want to take a Valium and lie down,” she said.
We rode the elevator up to her room. She disappeared into the bathroom, and I heard water running. When she came out, she looked a bit more relaxed. And older, I thought—she’d washed off her lipstick and mascara. She sat with me on the couch.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Okay, I guess. Considering.” From a pack on the end table she shook loose a cigarette and lit it with a silver lighter.
“I don’t want to upset you further, but we need to talk about something.”
“Oh?” She arched one eyebrow.
“Abner Greenspan told me Dalrymple said you signed another statement implicating me in Meacham’s death.”
She blew smoke and shook her head and gave me a wry smile.
“That is complete and utter nonsense.”
“You’re saying Dalrymple’s lying.”
“Of course he’s lying. Jacob, I would have told you this sooner, but I didn’t have the chance: Lieutenant Dalrymple brought me into his office yesterday and accused me of helping you murder Meacham. He said if I confessed, I could avoid prosecution as a state’s witness. A witness against you. He already had a statement typed and ready for me to sign. I tore it up and walked out.”
I said nothing.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” she asked.
“I believe you. It’s just that …”
She started to get up and I grabbed her arm.
“I feel like Dalrymple’s got a noose around my neck.”
She tried to pull away.
“He’s fabricating evidence against me and I don’t know how far he’ll take it.”
“You’re hurting my arm.”
I let her go. She didn’t get up, only turned away from me to tap ashes from her cigarette.
“Was there anyone else in Dalrymple’s office when you talked to him?” I asked.
“No. And what difference does that make?”
“Look, Helen, Dalrymple can be a very dangerous man. We’ve got to be careful about all this and we’ve got to stick together, because judges and juries tend to believe homicide lieutenants, not accused murderers and their character witnesses.”
“Are you saying he could bring us both to trial?”
“He could. But don’t worry too much. It’s me he’s after.”
“Of course I’m worried,” she said and put her hand on mine. “I would be in any case, but especially so because I …”
“You what?”
She let go of my hand and put out her cigarette in the ashtray, slowly, carefully tapping and turning the butt until the fire was dead. She brushed invisible ashes from her fingertips.
“I almost said, ‘because I think I’m in love with you.’“
“Are you?”
“There’s no need to get angry about it,” she said softly, a smile touching her lips.
“Well?”
“Maybe I am. And why are you getting so upset?”
Because of what had happened to the last woman I loved, I thought. I knew that those things would never happen again, not in my life. I knew it. Logically. But I didn’t feel it. Because those things had happened, and part of me saw them occurring in orderly progression: love, then marriage, then … death. A horrible, violent death.
“I need you with me Thursday at the preliminary hearing.”
“What is it, Jacob?” she asked. “Are you afraid to love me back? Is that it? Or are you simply afraid of love? Some men are, you know.”
“And you should stay away from Soames.”
She leaned forward and kissed me, and I kissed her back.
“At least while Archuleta is still around,” I said.
“Anything you want, Jacob.”
Later, when I went down to the lobby, Helen was asleep in her bed, I suppose from the Valium.
I phoned my friend Monroe at the motor vehicle department. I’d caught a piece of Archuleta’s license number and I’d forgotten to give it to Detective Healey. I think I’d forgotten. Or maybe I was simply maintaining that time-honored ritual known as taking the law into your own hands.
“Jacob, my man.”
“I’ve got a partial license I’d like you to run down, if you would, please.”
“What’s this ‘please’ shit?”
“It’s G-H-something something-nine-two.”
“Those somethin’s you mentioned comprise ’bout two hundred and sixty vehicles.”
“The plate was on a new Chrysler New Yorker.”
“Wait a sec.” I heard clickety-click and pictured his brown fingers doing a dance on his keyboard. “Got two New Yorkers, one black, one maroon. I want the black one.”
“It was maroon.”
“Rental car, Jacob. Avis.” He gave me the entire license number.
“Who rented it?” I asked.
“Hey, man, this ain’t goddamn Star Trek. My computer got limitations.”
“Sorry. Which rental office?”
“Don’t say. Just give the main address downtown.”
“Thanks, buddy. I owe you.”
“What’s this ‘owe’ shit?”
Mr. Fyfe was the assistant manager at the Avis office. He wore a friendly smile and a cheap toupee. My card turned over and over in his pudgy pink hands.
“A private detective. My, my. It must be an exciting profession.”
“It has its moments.”
“I’ll bet it does,” he said with a sigh and pictured himself tracking down public enemy number one and solving the crime of the century. Fyfe, PI. It had a nice ring to it.
“About the car,” I said.
“What? The car, of course.” He picked up the phone. “Dolores, would you print out the current status of a Chrysler New Yorker, this year’s model.” He gave her the license number. A few minutes later, Dolores wiggled in and dropped a sheet of paper on Fyfe’s desk. She smiled at me and snapped her gum.
“The car was rented on June fifteenth to a Mr. Anthony Villanueva,” Fyfe said. “It was done through our office in Vail.”
“Does Villanueva still have the car?” I asked.
“According to our records, yes.”
“What’s his address?”
“He had a California driver’s license.”
“I mean, where’s he staying locally?”
“Oh. He has a condo in Vail.” Fyfe gave me the address and unit number. “Will this help us track him down?”
Us. Fyfe and Lomax always get their man.
“It might,” I said. Unless we get our ass shot off first.
I steered the Olds onto I-70 heading west and hoped the old girl wouldn’t fall down and break a hip on Vail Pass. By four o’clock I was cruising past Idaho Springs, and an hour later I was in Vail, an Old World village built in the 1960s by a few folks who thought skiing was fun. Apparently others agreed. This time of year, though, the ski runs were just ugly gashes in the mountainsides. However, the aspens were putting on quite a show, boasting brief golden leaves against a dark background of firs. Also appearing briefly were the fair-weather tourists, hitting the shops and exposing roll after roll of Kodachrome, while the locals and t
he evergreens waited patiently for snow.
I stopped at a gas station for directions to the Sky View Condominiums, and fifteen minutes later I was parked in the lot. The maroon Chrysler was not in sight.
The building was three stories high with balconies all around. Number thirty-seven, Fyfe had said. I went up the stairs to the third floor, drew out the magnum, and listened at the door. Faint radio music—country. I knocked, but I stayed to the side, out of range of the peephole. This time I’d make certain it was Archuleta/Villanueva before I smacked him in the face with the gun.
The door opened and there was no one there.
“Hi.”
“Huh?” I looked down. A little girl, about five.
“Is that a real gun?”
I held it behind me. “Is your daddy home?”
“I betcha it ain’t real,” she said.
A woman appeared behind the girl. She had a bobbed nose, designer jeans, and hair sprayed rigidly in place. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Villanueva?”
“Why, no, it’s not,” she said with a soft Texas drawl. “Ah mean, ah’m not.”
“Is Anthony here?”
“He’s got a gun, Momma, but it ain’t real.”
“Hush, hon. Ah’m afraid you have the wrong apartment.”
“Who is it, Martha?” a man asked.
He stood in the middle of the room behind her. He was a skinny character with short hair and long sideburns. “Sorry to trouble you,” I said.
“Ask him if it’s a real gun, Momma.”
“Kids,” I said.
22
I MADE THE LONG drive back to Denver.
Archuleta, alias Villanueva, had given Mr. Fyfe a phony address in Vail. I wondered, though, if there were some reason why he’d picked Vail. Of course, it could have been the same reason he’d picked “Villanueva”—no reason at all. And his California driver’s license might or might not mean he’d been living out there. One fine deduction after another.
When I got home, it was well after dark, and I felt tired and ready for bed, and then irritated when I remembered I didn’t have one. But I woke up in a hurry when I saw my apartment door standing wide open. I moved toward it, gun in hand, hoping whoever had trashed my place four nights ago was in there now having some more fun.
Then I relaxed. From inside I could hear Mrs. Finch, my batty old landlady.
“I told you he wasn’t here,” she squawked from the center of my furnitureless living room. “If you want to wait for him, you can do it outside. Now, git. I won’t have strangers loitering in my house.”
Her powdered cheeks were flushed and her tiny fists were on her hips. She glared up at Detectives Healey and O’Roarke. The men looked besieged.
“You heard her,” I said. “No loitering.”
“And as for you”—she aimed a gnarled finger at my nose—“I haven’t decided whether you can stay in this house or not. You’re on probation, mister, remember that.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I’d only lived there for three years.
She bustled out, ruffled but righteous. The detectives seemed relieved.
“Dalrymple wants to see you,” Healey said.
“Tell him I’m busy.”
“Now,” the Asian O’Roarke said.
“Am I under arrest?” I was in no mood to trade quips with cops, particularly Dalrymple.
“Not unless you won’t come with us,” Healey said. “And we’ll take the piece.”
They stood there, unmoving as only cops can, as if getting their way was a foregone conclusion. I gave Healey the magnum.
“Careful,” I said, “it’s loaded.”
We drove downtown. Lieutenant Dalrymple was waiting, heavy and solid, behind his desk. His mouth was pressed in a tight line and his eyes were cold and without emotion. Shark’s eyes. He told me to sit. Healey and O’Roarke stayed in the background.
Dalrymple held up a piece of paper. “I’ve got a complaint here signed by a Cosmo Runderman, night manager of the Frontier Hotel, and a—”
“His name is Cosmo? You’re kidding, right?”
“—and a Winetta Essex, one of the residents. They both state that you impersonated a police officer and harassed them.”
“I did neither.”
“You passed yourself off as a cop, Lomax. That’s against the law.”
“I never said I was a cop and I never showed them any stinking badges. Can I go now?”
“Also, you’ve been carrying a gun without a permit.”
Healey stepped up and put my magnum on the desk, grip toward Dalrymple, muzzle toward me.
“I’ve got a permit for that,” I said.
“It was revoked when you were charged with Zack Meacham’s murder.”
“No one told me.”
“Doesn’t matter. Carrying a concealed weapon is a felony. It wouldn’t look too good if you were busted a few days before your preliminary hearing.”
“Then arrest me, and see how it looks when my attorney charges some fat pig cop with harassment.”
Dalrymple’s expression turned ugly and for a moment I thought he was going to climb right over his desk to get me.
“Wait outside,” he ordered Healey and O’Roarke.
They closed the door on their way out. Dalrymple picked up my gun, thumbed back the hammer until it clicked, then pointed it at my sternum.
“Watch it, that’s about a four-ounce pull,” I told him.
“I could say you attacked me.”
“With what, my shoe?”
“You went berserk. I didn’t want to shoot you, but I had no choice.”
“Fuck you, Lieutenant. If you’ve got something to say, say it. Otherwise, I’m out of here.”
He raised the gun and looked down the barrel at my eye. “Bang,” he said, then put it down. I relaxed. Not that I’d thought he’d shoot. Not much.
“How are you and the Ester woman getting along these days?” he said pleasantly.
“Why?”
“Just curious. I read that little story you two cooked up about Meacham’s phantom killer attacking you in the parking garage.”
“You think we made that up?”
Dalrymple lifted one corner of his mouth in what passed for a grin.
“All we have is your word that it happened,” he said. “The mystery Volkswagen took all the phantom’s slugs and disappeared into thin air.”
“The owner of that bus is going to notice those bullet holes sooner or later, if he hasn’t already, and call the cops, if he hasn’t already. You can match those slugs with the ones taken from Meacham’s body.”
Dalrymple was smiling and shaking his head and tapping his thick fingers on the desk.
“Why would we invent something like that?” I said.
“You, to convince people, especially me, that this guy exists.”
“He does exist.”
“Her, I don’t know. Maybe she’s changed her mind and wants you between her legs instead of behind bars.”
I let that pass. “You’re working extra hard to pin Meacham’s murder on me, Lieutenant, and we both know why.”
“Because you’re guilty.”
“Because you hate my guts.”
He waved his hand. “That’s beside the point. You killed Meacham, and Helen Ester is prepared to testify against you.”
“You’re wrong on both counts.”
“I’ve got two statements signed by her, Lomax.”
“You’re a fucking liar.”
Dalrymple’s face went hard.
“Be careful,” he said, his voice low.
“Careful, my ass. You’ve been manufacturing evidence against me. And—”
“What?” he roared, not quite restraining his anger.
“—and at the preliminary hearing it’s all going to blow up in your ugly face.”
He forced himself to stay in his seat. His pale eyebrows went up and his big face slowly rearranged itself into a smile. It looked like a painful process.
“It’s easy to see your faults in other people,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Dalrymple gave me a sour look before going on.
“So on that fateful night, you go up there with blood in your eye. Maybe she paid you to kill him, maybe not. She probably wouldn’t have had to, though, not after telling you the naughty things he’d just done to her.”
“That’s all a load of bullshit.”
“So now you’re steamed, the old rage is burning. Maybe you’re remembering how you quit the force after your wife’s murder, how you didn’t have the stomach to be a cop anymore because her killers got away, and how they left her, cut up and raped and—”
I came out of the chair. “You’re just about to cross the line, Dalrymple.”
“Sit down, Lomax, you’re proving my point. Maybe you weren’t thinking about that, it doesn’t matter. I said sit down. In any case, you went up there pissed off and—goddammit, sit down!” He yelled so loud that papers rustled on his desk.
“Don’t ever talk to me about my wife’s death.”
“Yeah, all right, forget I said it. The point is I think Helen Ester sent you up there to kill Meacham, and you did it. Out of anger. But she planned it in cold blood.”
“You’re too obvious, Dalrymple. You’re not going to scare either one of us into confessing.”
“Believe it or not,” he said, “I’m trying to help you.”
“Help me into prison.”
“Wake up, Lomax. I want the main person responsible for Meacham’s death, not just the dummy who pulled the trigger. If you testify against her, I can get you off easy.”
“That’s the same line you used on her.”
“I’m giving you one last chance.”
I said nothing.
“Okay, smart guy,” She said, “have it your way. This discussion is over. Get out of my sight.”
Blood Stone (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 2) Page 13