Several Deaths Later t-2

by Ed Gorman

  "Who had a meeting?"

  "The regulars on 'Celebrity Circle.'"

  "Oh?"

  "Yes, and Todd said that you think one of us is the killer. Is that right?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know who else it could be."

  Her beautiful mouth became ironic. "Does that include me?"

  "Well…"

  "You're cute when you're trying to be evasive." She put out a hand to be helped up. He thought of holding this same hand last night. The darkness seemed impossible now that yellow day burned the deck.

  As she stood up, she grabbed a black leather Gucci casual bag and a tiny framed black-and-white photograph of a little girl. He was about to ask her about the girl when Jere Farris strolled by and said, "Coming to the costume party tonight?" and then went on without waiting for an answer.

  "Well," Susan Richards said, "are you?"

  "I suppose."

  "You sound delighted."

  "It's the idea of dressing up in funny clothes, I guess.

  I've never been able to figure out why adults like to do that."

  She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, and he thought of last night again, now so idyllic in memory, and she laughed like wind chimes and said, "Who said we're adults, Tobin?"

  24

  6:13 P.M.

  "Sanderson was a private detective."

  "From an agency?"

  "Agency?"

  "Yes," Tobin said, "a detective agency. Like Pinker-ton's."

  The captain shook his head. "Not from the looks of this brochure. I'd say he was strictly free-lance and not exactly running an empire, either."

  He handed Tobin a two-color trifold brochure. The paper was rough to the touch and you could see where the ink had smudged in the printing. The outer panel said, CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS OUR SPECIALTY.

  "Pretty much what you'd expect," Captain Hackett said as Tobin opened up the flap and looked inside.

  There were several photographs of Everett Sanderson, all of them taken when he was much younger. In one photo he wore navy whites; in another, a dark police uniform; in a third (and the most recent) he appeared as he had aboard this cruise ship, a chunky, sixtyish man in a conservative western suit with a white Stetson, string tie, and bulldoglike jowls. The copy beneath these photos referred to the fact that Everett Sanderson had served first his country, then his city, and now, on a for-hire basis, he was serving the public.

  "Simpson, Kentucky," Captain Hackett said.

  They sat in his office. Sunlight streamed through their whiskey glasses, giving the liquid a golden gleam, as the ceiling fan chopped briskly at stale air. The captain explained that the Coast Guard would be sending investigators within thirty-six hours.

  "That mean anything to you?" Tobin said.

  "No. I was hoping it meant something to you."

  Tobin smiled. "Afraid not. But there is something that would mean something to me."

  "What's that?"

  "What you and the doctor checked Cindy McBain for the other morning."

  "I guess you're on our side now."

  "Is that an answer?"

  The captain sighed. "We found blood." The captain paused. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "We weren't quite sure you could keep a secret." He frowned. "I'm sorry, Tobin."

  "Tell me about the blood."

  "There was plenty of it. He'd been stabbed."

  "A second blood type on the rug. We think that the killer must have cut him or herself while stabbing Ken Norris. So we were checking Miss McBain's hands and arms for any cut marks."

  "You didn't find any."

  "Correct." He hesitated. Cleared his throat softly. "But we did find somebody with exactly the sort of cut marks we would have expected."

  "You did?"

  "Yes. Miss Graves."

  "The dead woman?"

  "Right. And, in her belongings, we also found a notebook-a sort of journal, actually. She wrote about going into Miss McBain's room-after following Ken Norris all night. But she didn't cut herself on the knife. She cut herself on a piece of a lamp that had been knocked over and shattered. That's what she said in her journal and that squares with what we found at the scene." Now it was his turn to smile. "She was also the mysterious figure in the trenchcoat and snap-brim hat your friend McBain kept going on about."

  "Why the hell was she following Norris?"

  "Story, presumably." He leaned leftward, opened a drawer, and withdrew the small brown leather notebook Alicia Farris and Iris Graves had been struggling over the day of Iris's death. "She has a lot of rambling notes in here. I spent most of last night sipping sherry and looking through them. Care to take the notebook and see what you can come up with?"

  "Sure."

  The captain said, "They're hiding something."

  "Who?"

  "The 'Celebrity Circle' bunch. You'll see that very clearly when you start reading the notebook there. Something binds them together-but I'm not sure what."

  "You heard about Cassie McDowell slapping Todd Ames last night?"

  "Yes."

  "Whatever binds them together seems to be coming apart."

  "That's my impression too." He glanced out the porthole. "Some days I wish I would have been a Greyhound driver." He poured some brandy from his cut-glass snifter. "My daughter from Oak Park was supposed to bring her children on this cruise. Thank Christ one of my granddaughters came down with the measles." He turned back to Tobin. "I don't have any idea what Sanderson was doing on this trip but I suspect he was working with her."

  "With Iris Graves?"

  "Isn't it likely?"

  Tobin considered. Then, "She worked for Snoop. It's a publication that probably hires dozens of private investigators. I suppose they could have been working on a story together."

  "I keep thinking back to when they were all in the party room-when I told them about Norris's death."

  "Their reaction, you mean?"

  "They reminded me of wartime. I was in Korea. I got that way-about death, I mean." He glanced out the porthole again. A tattered golden cloud dragged by. "The first death I ever saw-well, it was a corporal and of course I couldn't let the other fellows see me cry. But that night in my tent…" His jaw locked as he returned his gaze to Tobin. "I guess I can understand servicemen getting that callous about death-but why would celebrities?"

  Tobin sighed. "To be fair to them, they're fighting their own war; against age and the loss of their looks, against constant competition, and against just sheer luck. There are so many people who want to make it in Hollywood. An environment like that doesn't exactly spawn wonderful people."

  "You don't seem like that."

  Tobin laughed. "But I am. Deep down. When my partner was murdered I didn't think of anything except clearing my name. It was six months before it hit me. I was walking past a theater where we used to go when we were young and poor and where they always played black-and-whites from the forties. And then I realized that the only thing that was keeping my partner alive was my memory of him-and what we'd looked like then, and what we'd wanted to be, and how we'd tried to be cool and impress girls-and here were all these memories and I had to keep them alive because that was the only way to keep him alive. That corner had been there nearly a hundred years and hundreds of thousands of people had passed by and fashions had changed and wars had come and gone and everything that had seemed so important had vanished utterly, without a trace, but in my brain I had a memory of two young men and what that corner had been like in the summer of 1964 when Barry Gold-water was running for president and when the Beatles were popular and when the girl I was dating would cry every time we made love because she was convinced it was 'wrong.' All those things had happened and when I die nobody will know about those things anymore, at least not in the way I knew about them, the way we each know things differently, and so all I can do for my partner is remember him. You understand?"

  "Of course."

  "But I don't feel that when most people die. Not the
older I get, anyway. Most deaths just make me worry about my own mortality-I'm just selfish." He held up his glass and said, "So thanks for the compliment, Captain, but I'm afraid it's undeserved. I didn't give a damn when Norris died, either."

  "But you weren't supposed to be his friend. They were." He nodded to the notebook. "She's got several references in there to each of them but they don't make any sense-they're just like the rest of the notebook."

  "Newspaper people develop their own kind of shorthand the way court stenographers sometimes do. Maybe that's all it is."

  "Maybe." Then he reached behind him and hefted a cardboard box. "Here are Sanderson's things. Want a look at them? My security people have been through them, cataloged everything for when we turn it all over to the Coast Guard."

  "I caught him eavesdropping on the party room that night. Did I tell you that?"

  "No."

  Tobin nodded. "He probably knew who killed Norris and why and so did Iris Graves."

  Captain Hackett laughed. "Well, if they left any clues for us, I hope you have better luck finding them than I did." Then he glanced at his watch. "Afraid I've got a meeting, Tobin." He pushed the cardboard box across the desk. "Appreciate the help.”

  25

  6:48 P.M.

  "Did you ever sleep with somebody and regret it?”

  Nothing.

  "Did you ever sleep with somebody when it was really somebody else you really wanted to sleep with?”

  Nada.

  "Did you ever sleep with somebody and all the time pretend it was really somebody else you were sleeping with?"

  Tobin said to Cindy McBain, "Why don't you just shut up?"

  "It was only because I was drunk."

  "Right."

  She thought a moment. "And, well, I guess because of Aberdeen."

  What could he say?

  "Well, aren't you going to ask why it was because of Aberdeen?"

  "No."

  "C'mon, Tobin. Just ask me."

  "I said no."

  "Then I'll tell you."

  He did something with his fingers then.

  "Boy, I wish you could see how childish you look. You really do. Your fingers in your ears."

  Then she reached up and took one finger out of his ear and then she whispered something incredible in it and then she took the other finger out of the other ear and whispered something equally incredible into that one. She smelled of perfume and soft sweet female flesh and real blond hair.

  Then she put her mouth on his and pushed him gently back onto the bed in his cabin.

  Things happened quickly after that.

  "It was a good lesson for me."

  "Right."

  "Well, it was. God, Tobin, I'm glad I'm not as cynical as you."

  "If it was such a good lesson, what did you learn?"

  "Well…"

  There was silence.

  Tobin said, "So what did you learn?"

  "I learned about sincerity."

  "You sound like a contestant on Miss America."

  "That was a cheap remark."

  "Yes, it was and I apologize."

  "You're still jealous and you're still angry."

  "Yes, I am." Then, "So you learned about sincerity and what else?"

  "I learned I shouldn't do things just to impress other people."

  "So you're never going to tell anybody that you slept with Kevin Anderson, famous TV star?"

  "Well…"

  "Well, what?"

  "Well, only certain people."

  "Such as Aberdeen."

  "Yes, such as Aberdeen. If she wasn't so fat and she didn't have that mustache, then she wouldn't have to live-what's that word?"

  "Vicariously."

  "Right. She wouldn't have to live vicariously through me."

  "So in a very real sense, the only reason you slept with him was for her sake."

  "It does make for a more interesting letter."

  "Am I going to be in your letter?"

  "Do you want to be in my letter?"

  "Only if it's in the most flattering terms."

  She giggled. "Do you want me to lie?"

  When she giggled, he started liking her again, and when he started liking her again he started getting mad at Kevin Anderson for what he'd done to her.

  Because sitting there, luxuriant of flesh and wonderful of face, Cindy McBain, Kansas City secretary and purveyor of second-hand thrills to the mountainous Aberdeen, sported a black eye courtesy of Kevin Anderson's fist.

  "So tell me again why he hit you?"

  "Because the envelope fell out of my purse."

  "And it was a Xerox of a small child's picture?"

  "Huh-uh. And when he saw it he just went crazy. He really did. He started accusing me of meddling in his affairs and he said I hadn't had any right to open the envelope and he said if I didn't watch what I was doing I was going to wind up dead like those three other people-and then he just hit me." She paused. "Jim-the-Cowboy hit me once. He said in Montana women are hit all the time."

  "Jim-the-Cowboy?"

  "I went to a rodeo once and… Well, I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea."

  "God forbid."

  "You think it had anything to do with the killings? The envelope, I mean?"

  "I'm wondering."

  Tobin eyed the cardboard box and the brown leather notebook. He'd been back in his room only five minutes when the shamed Cindy McBain had applied supplicant knuckles to his door. He hadn't had a chance to examine any of the things Captain Hackett had given to him and now, in light of Cindy's information about the envelope slid under Kevin Anderson's door, he was very curious.

  "Why don't you take a nap?"

  "I was hoping you'd say that. Scooch over."

  "No," Tobin said. "I mean, in your room. Then I'll pick you up for dinner and the costume party. Around eight or so-all right?"

  "You want to get rid of me, don't you?"

  He kissed her softly on the mouth-liking her more and more, her odd mix of innocence and corruption- and said, "Exactly.”

  26

  7:23 P.M.

  Iris Graves must have been lauded by all her grade school teachers for her penmanship. She'd written in a clear, painstaking hand that was nearly beautiful to look at. Toward the front of the book were other stories she was working on, including a rock star who was apparently contemplating a sex change operation or who was, in fact, the gender opposite of the one fans assumed-Iris's ambiguity was at its height here- and then a tale about a senator seeing a starlet and various other juicy but ultimately banal bits. Unfortunately, the words referring to the "Celebrity Circle" group were the most obscure of all.

  Oh, there were plenty of teasers scattered throughout the section headed "Celebrity Circle."

  Jere Farris end/Cassie McDowell up/Ken Norris rich (see banker Beverly Hills)/Susan Richards "belle"

  Obviously, the key words were "end" and "up" and "banker Beverly Hills" and "belle" but what the hell could they possibly mean to anybody but Iris Graves?

  He paused for a time, rubbing his eyes, cat-lazy, and viewed a few frames of New York Ripper, about which nothing further needed to be said. It was one of those flicks where the title pretty much wrote your review for you, especially after you saw the first thirty seconds in which a gigantic knife appeared to plunge downward into a gigantic breast.

  Yessir.

  So he went back to his reading, forming a picture of beautiful, red-haired Iris as his eyes scanned the pages. She'd been a regal one, Iris had, and he'd wondered how she'd ever wound up working for a cheesy rag like Snoop.

  Then near the end of the journal he found it-a single word. "Payday."

  Actually, it was contained in a sentence that went: "Wonder how Ken Norris' loyal fans will appreciate his payday? Ask BV banker how long been going on."

  BV presumably meant Beverly Hills again.

  But what the hell was "payday" all about?

  By the time he got to unloading the cardboard box
of items belonging to Everett Sanderson, Tobin had begun to feel something like a grave robber. He recalled moving into an apartment near Central Park where the previous occupant, a painter, had died of a heart attack on the living room floor. One day, tucked in the back of a closet, Tobin had found a packet of letters from the painter to his daughter, and much as he'd been moved by what he read, Tobin had always felt obscene about it, as if he'd window-peeked or something.

  He had something of the same feeling as he lifted things from the box. There was a Louis L'Amour paperback western, a package of Chesterfield cigarettes unopened, a Sony cartridge tape recorder, a few dozen of the brochures Captain Hackett had shown him, a. 38 Smith and Wesson, a wallet filled with pictures of Sanderson's grandchildren and a very faded photo of Sanderson standing in front of a trailer with another man who was holding an infant lovingly in his arms; beside him was the body of a woman. Sanderson, or somebody, had taken a Magic Marker and obliterated her face. The violence of this intrigued Tobin. He slipped the photo from its cellophane and then clipped on his bed lamp and looked at it more carefully. He could see nothing of her face beyond the Magic Marker. She wore a tie-dyed shirt and he could see a peace symbol painted on the shabby house trailer behind them so he assumed the photograph dated back to the mid-to-late sixties. Sanderson, standing on the far right of the photograph, looked somber.

  Tobin took the photograph to the bathroom. He wet Kleenex, then gently daubed the soaked paper over the Magic Marker. But the black ink was indelible. He could not see the face of the woman.

  After a quick glance at the TV-"the New York Ripper" was slashing his sixteenth or seventeenth victim- Tobin picked up the wallet and started going through the money compartment. There was $400 in various denominations and then three folded-up, yellowed newspaper clippings.

  The first clipping made him smile. "Sanderson Bowls Perfect Game," and then a brief account of how a Louisville, Kentucky, policeman had rolled 300 in a policeman's league bowling tournament. The story brought the man alive to Tobin and for the first time he found himself wondering about Sanderson as a human being-the way, he supposed, archaeologists wondered about Egyptians on the site of digs. What had made Sanderson happy or sad? What had he liked to watch on TV? What failures had he endured and triumphs enjoyed (aside from that one perfect bowling game)?