A Vicious Balance: A Mystery Thriller

by Jolyon Hallows

  “A competitor?”

  “That would be my guess.” Travathan mused. “Our problem is that we don’t know what the supplier supplied, we don’t know who the customers were, and we don’t know who the third drop was, if, indeed, there was one. I’d say we’ve just stuck our toes in the water, and there’s a lot of work left.”

  Janner objected. “What work? Have you forgotten our job here is to find out who killed Sherry Galina? Not to crack some dope dealers or whatever. The only real question is Galina’s role in all of this. Was she one of the drops?”

  “No. She lived at the initial drop address. Having one drop overlap another violates all the rules. I’d guess she just got in the way.”

  “How? Winters would deliver the mail, enjoy a roll in the sack, and leave. He said he’d already pocketed the letter by the time he reached her house, so unless he slipped up—. That’s it. He must have overlooked one of the letters and delivered it. You said there was no return address, so she would have opened it, and when she saw what it was, she decided to call the police. She must have told Winters, who either killed her on the spot or arranged to have her killed before she could report it. That hangs together.”

  Kagan nodded. “Not bad. So the supplier had her killed before she could compromise his operation. Makes sense.”

  Travathan snorted. “Only if you put your brain in neutral. What do you think these letters are? Purchase orders? Please deliver ten kilos of cocaine, five boxes of hand grenades. Taxes and shipping included, terms net 30. Is that what you think these are? These letters are just letters. Chatty and full of details about Aunt Martha and Uncle Fred and their large extended family. Only the customer and the supplier have the key that translates gossip into an order.”

  Her voice sharp, Janner said, “Even if you’re right, surely the authorities have code experts who could crack this.”

  “Probably, but first they’d have to get their hands on it. Why would Galina hand the letter over to them?”

  “Maybe she tried to crack it herself and recognized it was beyond her.”

  “Of course it was beyond her, but use your head. For her to take any action, she’d have to recognize it was a code instead of a family homily. No, if she opened the letter, she’d either throw it away, or she’d try to track down the recipient in the phone book, depending on how helpful she was feeling.”

  Kagan came to Janner’s defense. “Maybe she showed it to Winters. You know, you post office guys screwed up again. He could have panicked and notified his contact, and that’s when she got whacked.”

  Travathan shook his head. “The last thing anybody wants—the customer, the supplier, the drops—is any kind of police investigation. If she did show it to him, he would most likely have just taken it with some comment about checking up on it. No way would anyone have killed her just for opening the letter.”

  Janner sat back, her arms crossed. “Okay. Then why was she killed?”

  “I don’t know, but I suspect the secret is in this supplier organization. That’s why we need to do more digging. And I have two obvious questions.”

  “Obvious?”

  “Obvious. Look, there are three men in all of this, the letter carrier, the beggar, and the kid. Two of them, the mailman and the beggar, were involved in the drop. Two of them, the mailman and the kid, were boinking Sherry Galina. What do you think are the obvious questions?”

  Janner scowled at him and said, “Was the kid also one of the drops, and was the beggar also having sex with Galina?”

  “Keep this up and you might actually become an investigator. Max—”

  Janner interrupted. “You can’t believe that a woman like Galina would actually have sex with someone like a beggar?”

  “Like a beggar?”

  “You know what I mean. Whatever you may think of Galina, she could have slept with any man she wanted. Why would she pick someone as repulsive as a beggar?”

  “Repulsive? I’ve met a few beggars to whom begging is a job and rags are a uniform. At the end of the day, they go home, eat dinner, and watch TV. Also, I got the report from Detective MacIlhenny, remember. The beggar was in great physical condition. I don’t have a problem believing Galina was hot for him. Max, I need to speak to Jake Handley again. Can you set up another interview?”

  “I’ll go call the prison now. I’ll let you know when I have a time set up.”

  “So what do we do now?” Janner, still angry, had waited until Kagan left.

  “We start with the beggar.”

  “We don’t know anything about him.”

  “That’s because,” Travathan frowned at her, “we haven’t begun investigating.”

  She crossed her arms. “I’m listening.”

  “Well, as I said, the beggar was in good physical shape. But he sat on his haunches all day begging, so I’m guessing he worked out at a gym. That’s where we start.”

  Travathan had Doris MacIlhenny send him a photo of the beggar lying in the morgue. Photos of dead bodies weren’t flattering, but it would have to do.

  They got a hit on their third gym. Unlike those that dotted suburbia, this one was in the basement of a strip mall dominated by a boxing ring, surrounded by punching bags and a jumble of free weights. The room reeked of sweat, exuded testosterone. Todd Cornwall, the owner, examined the picture and nodded. “Yeah, that’s Ollie. I haven’t seen him in a few years. What happened to him?”

  Travathan pocketed the picture. “Was he a regular here?”

  Cornwall nodded. “Came in four or five times a week. Stuck to the free weights. That and the skip rope. He had good muscles, and I tried to get him to take up bodybuilding, but he said all he wanted was to stay in shape. He looks like he’s dead. Did someone kill him?”

  “Do you know anyone who’d want to?”

  Cornwall shook his head. “Naw. At least not here. He stuck to himself. Came in, did his routine, and left.”

  “What was his name?”

  “I just knew him as Ollie.”

  “Can I see his registration card?”

  Cornwall snorted. “Registration card? Does this look like the community center? People come in, exercise, and leave. Long as they pay, I don’t keep track of them.”

  “Was anyone else here close to him?”

  “You hard of hearing? Like I said, he stuck to himself.”

  Travathan sighed. Another dead end. Janner, who had seemed edgy from the time they entered this shrine to violence, asked, “Was there anything peculiar about him? Any unusual habits or physical markings?”

  Cornwall started to shake his head. “I can’t think of— oh yeah. The books.”

  “Books?”

  “Yeah. He always had one or two books with him. Took real good care of them, like they were valuable. I guess they were.”

  “Valuable? How?”

  “Well, not collector’s items or anything like that. They were library books, and I can tell you how nasty the library gets if you lose one.”

  Travathan, suppressing his thought that Cornwall and books were probably alien to one another, said, “How did you know they were library books?”

  “They had that stamp on the edge of the pages.”

  A small branch library sat across the street from the Roseway Circle Shopping Center, its shelves stocked with novels that occupied best-seller lists and what Travathan dismissed as celebrity non-fiction. A middle-aged woman asked how she could help, her expression slipping into a frown when Travathan showed her the photo.

  “Do you recognize this man?”

  “He looks as if he’s dead. Is he dead?”

  Travathan nodded. “Do you know him?”

  She looked again at the picture. “He does look familiar. What happened to him?”

  “Do you have any idea who he is?”

  She scowled at Travathan and, her voice firm with the authority of someone who is used to being in charge, said, “I’m not about to give you any information until I know what’s going on. What happened
to this man, and why are you asking me these questions?”

  Travathan winced. He could stand up to drug dealers, hit men, and con artists, but for reasons that he preferred not to examine, librarians and school teachers intimidated him. “He was murdered by a lethal injection of a street drug. We don’t know who he was or why he was killed. I’m a private investigator. My partner here works in a law office, and we’re trying to connect the dots. We’ve been led to believe he was a library patron, and since this is the only library in the neighborhood, that’s why we’re here.” He stopped, having blurted out more than he normally would and waited while she digested what he had said.

  “Well,” she replied, hesitation in her voice, “he was definitely a patron. He used to request unusual books, the kind a branch library like ours rarely carries.”

  “What kinds of books?”

  “Philosophy, economics, psychology. Once he asked for the complete works of Alfred Adler. Nobody asks for Adler any more. At least not here. We were usually able to find the books he wanted, but it was often a challenge.” Her tone of voice betrayed that she missed rising to those challenges.

  “Do you have a name for him?”

  She shook her head. “Not without a library card.”

  “Ma’am, he’s dead. I doubt he’d mind.”

  “Oh, no. It’s not a privacy issue. It’s just that without a library card, I don’t know who he is. We get so many people in here. There must have been a library card with his possessions.”

  Travathan slumped. “We don’t know where his possessions are. Look, we think his name was Ollie or Oliver, something like that. Could you look up that name on your records?”

  She scowled. “The library, of which this is just one small branch, has over three hundred thousand patrons. I’d guess there would be several thousand Olivers. I’m sorry, but without a library card, I really can’t help you.”

  “Okay. Did he have any outstanding books? If he had a book out when he was killed, it wouldn’t have been returned.”

  “Maybe so, but without a library card, I couldn’t tell what books he might have had out.”

  “But do you have a list of long overdue books? This happened about three years ago, in May 2008. Can your system tell you if any of your books disappeared back then?”

  She frowned, but she turned to her computer and typed in a few commands. “Well, there are two books that were taken out around that time and never returned. Groupthink by Janis and Innumeracy by Paulos. We had to get Groupthink from the university library. It cost us when he didn’t return it.”

  She started to make some notes about the missing books when Travathan interrupted her. “Who took them out?”

  “Oh. Yes. Pardon me.” She typed on her terminal and said, “Here it is. Oliver Raynor. Yes, these were the last books he took out. I’ll get you his address.” She scribbled on a sheet of paper and handed it to him. “I hope this helps, and if you find those books, please drop them off. We’d waive the fine just to get them back.”

  Travathan glanced at Janner. She had the same reaction.

  17

  They found a deli, sat on the patio in the shade of an umbrella that advertised some brand of Italian beer, and munched on sandwiches made from thick bread and roasted vegetables. Ruth Janner had finished hers and was sipping on a glass of mineral water, her eyes resting on the mid-day throng of passersby when she said, almost to herself, “This is why I decided to work in law.”

  He didn’t look up, but said, “Why?”

  She sighed. “To help people who got screwed by the justice system. By lazy lawyers, bored judges, and crooked cops.”

  Now he looked up. There was heat in her voice he hadn’t heard before. “Can I assume you or someone close to you was one of those who got screwed?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Tell me, Ms. Janner. Why did you decide on a law office? For that matter, why not become a lawyer?”

  “Money and family background. My father was a fork lift operator in a warehouse. My mother was a clerk in a women’s wear store. I couldn’t afford to go to university, so I had to settle for a community college.”

  “So why the interest in law?”

  She scowled. “Why your sudden interest in my background?”

  “Just making conversation. Ignore me.” He took a swig of his beer.

  “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.” Her face darkened. “When I was sixteen, my older brother, Richard, got into trouble. He was eighteen and hanging out with some friends in a mall parking lot. You know, whistling at girls, planning the next weekend, talking about sports. Nothing serious or improper. A bunch of goons approached them and said they were on gang turf and to take off. They started to leave, but one of them swore at the gang leader who pulled out a knife and came at them. Richard grabbed the knife, and in the scuffle, the leader was killed.”

  “Let me guess. Your brother was charged with his murder.”

  She nodded. “It was self-defense, so we were sure he’d get off, but he began to get a lot of pressure from his lawyer to accept a plea bargain for manslaughter. The lawyer told him he’d get four or five years, but if he went to trial and was found guilty, he could get life.”

  She took a deep breath. Travathan could see she was struggling. “Take your time.”

  “I could see Richard starting to break, and I became determined to help him. I got this notion that, like Perry Mason, I could find some legal point and charge to my brother’s rescue. I went to the school library and asked for law books, but they didn’t have any. The teacher told me that if I was serious, I needed the law library at the university.”

  “You were in high school? That’s a stretch.”

  “It was. I was amazed. I’d never conceived of an entire library devoted to just one subject, like law. Of course, it was futile. I had no idea where to start. I broke down in tears. A librarian asked me what was wrong, and when I told her, she pulled out the directory of the law society and helped me look up Richard’s lawyer. The directory said he had handled over twenty criminal cases as a defense attorney and had no jury convictions against him. That seemed impressive, but the directory also said he had no acquittals. I asked the librarian how this could be. She said some lawyers pressured their clients to accept a plea bargain so they wouldn’t have to go to trial. I could tell from her expression that she didn’t approve.”

  “I’ve met a few lawyers like that. They give the profession a bad name.”

  “She helped me dig into the directory where I found another lawyer with a great track record of acquittals. He agreed to take on Richard’s case. We fired his first lawyer and went to court. We won.” For the first time, she looked at Travathan. “That’s what I meant by lazy lawyers. One of them almost got my brother a criminal record. I decided on the spot that I wanted to help people who got trapped by the inertia of the system. When I got my job in the law office, my parents were so proud, and Richard was so grateful to me.” Her eyes were turned toward the street, but her focus seemed to be on her brother and the second chance she had been able to give him. “That alone was worth the effort.”

  ————

  The address the librarian had given for Oliver Raynor was an apartment building, three stories high, extending half the block. Paint was peeling from balconies crowded with plastic chairs, laundry racks, and here and there, masses of flowers in pots stacked on stands nailed together from scraps of plywood. Travathan pushed the button for the manager. When a voice said, “We don’t have any vacancies,” he replied, “We’re not looking for an apartment, we’re conducting a criminal investigation, and we need to talk to you.” A brief hesitation. The door buzzed.

  The carpet in the lobby was worn, but clean, as was the man who met them at the door of the manager’s apartment.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “We’re inquiring about an Oliver Raynor who used to live in apartment 204.”

  “Raynor? That was
a long time ago.”

  “What can you tell us about him?”

  The manager beckoned them into the office and crossed over to a filing cabinet. He muttered “204” and rummaged through file folders. “Here we are. Oliver Raynor.” He frowned. “Yeah, your man ducked out on us just over three years ago. He still owes us some back rent.”

  “Is there any contact information?”

  The manager shook his head. “Self-employed, no next of kin, no references. Nothing.”

  “Where did he work?”

  “The file just says self-employed. It seems to me he worked somewhere at the mall. I used to see him coming and going there, but I don’t know what he did.”

  “What happened to his furniture, his clothes,” asked Janner.

  “We sold his furniture at auction. There wasn’t much there, but it covered the rent for one of the months. We gave away his clothes to the Salvation Army and threw his old mail and papers into the garbage. That’s it. Oh, except I remember he was a bit of a bookworm. There were a couple of library books I returned.”

  “Library books? The library books weren’t returned. That’s how we were able to track him here.”

  The manager looked confused. “Oh, yeah, I remember. I was going to take them back, but Helen told me she would. I guess she forgot.”

  “Who’s Helen?”

  “Helen Digby. One of our tenants. She’s a little slow, but I remember she had some kind of crush on Raynor. I think it was because he was a reader. Always with a book.”

  “Is she still here?” Travathan steeled himself for another dead end.

  “Yeah. She’s in 206. Right beside where Raynor lived.”

  The second floor hallway creaked underfoot, carpet worn through to the underlay, the air pungent with the stench of years of cooking. The woman who answered Travathan’s knock had the hair and skin tone of someone in her fifties, but her face carried an openness that time hadn’t pounded into mistrust. She seemed delighted to have visitors, even if they were strangers. Or maybe she just didn’t see any difference between strangers and friends. “Hi,” she said, smiling.