No Man's Dog: A Detective Sergeant Mulheisen Mystery (Detective Sergeant Mulheisen Mysteries)

by Jon Jackson

  Smokey slouched in his regular place down at the end of the bar, which was presided over by the usual young, handsome muscle guy. The regulars were hunched over their shots and beers, mostly watching a sports news broadcast on TV. Smokey, a man past seventy, watched Joe approach. He had a long, sad face with baby blue irises painted onto hardboiled eyeballs hooded by heavy dark lids. He smoked a corncob pipe. He smiled at Joe’s approach.

  “So, I drug you out of the woods,” Smokey said. “Ain’t seen much of you since last fall. How you gettin’ along out there?”

  Joe assured him everything was fine. Life was good. The weather was a little dry. Fish were biting—mostly at pale morning duns and #12 hoppers.

  “Jeez, I didn’t know you was a fisherman,” Smokey said.

  “I had to take it up,” Joe said. “It comes with the territory—you live out here, you have to fish. Otherwise, what can you talk about?”

  They moved to a table and Joe accepted a cold draft beer. “So tell me about this guy,” Joe said.

  “Jeez, Joe, I’m gettin’ to be your social seckaterry,” Smokey said. “Well, he didn’t give a name, except Sidney. I don’t know if that’s a last or first name.” To Joe’s further questions he described a small, rather dark man, middle-aged, maybe forty. Smokey thought he was Italian. “Not long outside,” he threw in.

  “Hunh,” Joe grunted. “This guy connected?”

  “Seemed likely,” Smokey said. “He’d been away for a while. Not quite comfortable in his new clothes. Stands to one side, looking at things without looking, you know?”

  Joe knew. But the name Sidney didn’t mean anything to him and he wondered if it should.

  “He dropped the name kind of odd, mumbled or something,” Smokey said. “I didn’t quite catch it. Ray!” He called to the young bartender and beckoned. When the man came over he asked, “That guy who was in here? Aksed about Joe, here.” Smokey nodded toward Joe. “Did he say his name was Sidney? Or what was that?”

  Ray nodded to Joe. “I thought he asked about Sidney. You know, first about Mr. Service. I said I never heard of him. Then he said something about Sidney someone. I thought he meant another guy. I said I never heard of Sidney.” Ray shot his eyebrows upward in an expression of incomprehension. “Of course, he could of been asking about Sid Kiprovica, but I didn’t think of that. I doubt he was asking about him. Sid never comes in here anymore, not since you eighty-sixed him last winter.”

  They chatted about Kiprovica for a minute or two. Joe didn’t know him, had never known him. A man of no consequence, it seemed. Nobody was interested in Kip, a shiftless drunk on disability from the mines.

  The trouble with this was that the only Sid that Joe could think of was Helen’s late father, whom Joe had met a couple of times but could hardly claim as an acquaintance, even if by now he knew rather more about the man than he wanted to. In some way, Big Sid Sedlacek had been a key figure in Joe’s history, since it was Carmine’s ill-advised hit on him that had led to Joe’s involvement with Helen, and, subsequently, his difficulties with his old employers, the mob. Those issues were long resolved, Joe felt. But . . . he had to face it, with the mob some things are never over until they’re over. Still, damn, that was years ago. He’d known that, once Humphrey died, he’d never be employed by the mob again. So he’d let that phase of his life expire, without much thought about it. It was over. On to whatever was next.

  What was next was now so different. He was finding it difficult to get his mind back into the old track, the Life. He was no longer involved in the Life, the Inside. He felt an unfamiliar pang, and realized for the first time how completely he’d left that old life behind. He wondered if he could ever find his way back, if he wanted to. He didn’t miss it, but he had to admit that he felt disconnected.

  This must be one of those watershed moments, he thought. His life had changed and he hadn’t even noticed how much, until now.

  He assured Smokey that it was of no consequence. Unless, of course, the guy reappeared, asking more questions. They passed on to other chitchat. They even discussed fishing. Smokey was a devotee of the Big Hole, a good fishing river south of Butte. They discussed the salmonfly hatch, always a topic of conversation for fly-fishing enthusiasts. The hatch had been good, but it was history. Smokey didn’t get out much anymore, but he’d be glad to take Joe fishing on the Big Hole. He had a good boat. The Big Hole could only really be fished by drift boat.

  Then Smokey made a mistake. He seemed eager to be friendly, but he started talking about the explosion and fire that had wrecked Joe’s old place, down in the Ruby Valley. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that, you know, Joe,” he said.

  “It’s all right, Smoke,” Joe said, for what he thought must be the tenth time. “Forget it.”

  But Smokey wouldn’t let it drop. “It was The Fat Man,” he said, meaning Humphrey. “He borrowed a couple of my guys to go down there. What could I do? One of ‘em was killed, you know. I had to take care of his wife, his kids . . .”

  This was too much, Joe thought. The notion flashed through his head how it was often like this: a guy does you an injury, first he wants forgiveness and absolution, and before you know it he ends with demanding that you apologize to him! Now it looked like he wanted compensation!

  Joe leaned a little closer and said, quietly but with an edge to his voice, “If I hear one more word about this, Smoke, I won’t like it.”

  Smokey was instantly contrite. “Sure, Joe.” He held his hands up, palms out. “I was just say—”

  “One word,” Joe said.

  Smokey dropped it. “Hey, we’re pals . . . right?”

  Joe didn’t even nod. He pushed his beer away and got up.

  Smokey called after him, “What should I say if the guy comes back?”

  “Tell him to call me. You know the number,” Joe said over his shoulder.

  Before he picked up Helen, Joe did something he hadn’t planned to do. He called the Colonel. He’d hoped never to talk to the Colonel again, but the stranger had made it necessary.

  Lieutenant Colonel Tucker wasn’t in, according to his assistant, Edna. But she was sure that he’d want to talk to Joe. He’d call him back. Was there something she could help with? Joe said, No, it was nothing. He just wondered if the Colonel had sent somebody around. Some guy had been asking, in Butte. He gave the particulars, as he’d gotten them from Smokey. But Edna hadn’t heard anything. The Colonel would call him.

  Joe didn’t mention any of this to Helen. The more he thought of it the less it seemed that it concerned her. The guy asking questions didn’t sound like someone involved with the Lucani, the Colonel’s little group of disaffected agents. Joe trusted Smokey’s instincts: the guy was a mob guy. But Joe couldn’t believe that anyone from the mob was still pursuing the issue of Carmine’s death. It made no sense. And, after all, Joe had no direct connection to Big Sid—well, he did, through Helen, but Joe was determined to believe that it was a dead issue with the mob. And, finally, he didn’t want to think about all this stuff. He had other things on his mind, like electrical wiring, insulation, whether to build a little cabin up in the woods, a place to retire to when he needed to think, or putter with his stuff—guns and the new fishing rods he’d bought. It was an attractive notion, a kind of retreat from Helen.

  He discovered in himself, just thinking about it as they drove back from Butte, a kind of disloyalty toward Helen. They were inseparable. But was that the way it would always be? Shouldn’t a man and a woman have some relief from each other’s company? Did Helen ever feel that? He glanced at her. She was gazing out at the countryside, the beautiful mountains.

  “What?” she said, catching his look.

  “Nothing,” Joe said. “I was just wondering . . .?”

  “What?”

  “Are you . . . happy?”

  “Am I happy? Sure. I’m happy. You mean, this?” She gestured at the mountains. They were descending from the pass, spinning along a grand highway that swept arou
nd curves, along a wooded canyon, past rugged cliffs.

  Joe nodded. “You miss Detroit?”

  “Well, I’d like to see Mama,” she said. “She’s getting old, you know. I suppose she’s happy. She has her old ladies, of course. Lunch, and dinner after church. She’d never appreciate this, I think, but maybe we could have her out for a week . . . once we get the house done.”

  “Oh sure,” Joe said. “We’ll have her out. We could take her up to the lake, near Helena. Rent a boat. She’d like that.”

  Helen had purchased a ton of food, including an enormous bag of dog food. They were now in the habit of feeding Anders Ericsson’s dog as well as their own. Their dog was a small, white bundle of energy that had been foisted on them by their neighbor Franko. It had belonged to Franko’s late uncle and aunt, a couple who had been murdered by a madman named Bazok, who had also terrorized Franko and Joe and Helen. This little dog got along famously with Anders’s Skippy, which the carpenter was delighted to see.

  “Skip,” he told them, “likes nobody, including other dogs. You really ought to keep him. My wife hates him. To tell you the truth, I don’t think he likes me. But he seems to like you, Joe. And Homes.” That was the name they had given the orphaned dog, shortened from “Home, boy!,” which is what they had found themselves yelling at the little dog every time they tried to leave. He would follow them halfway to the gate, which was more than a mile from the house. They didn’t know the dog’s original name, so they decided on Homeboy, which soon became just Homes.

  The idea of owning a dog was repellent to Joe. Just another attachment, another bother when you had to go somewhere. Owning a dog was so . . . so “straight.” It was yet another indication of the couple’s growing ordinariness. Franko owned dogs. They were handsome rottweilers and invaluable to him, as he never tired of pointing out. They had ultimately defended Franko and the Humanns against the madman Bazok. The obvious point of their usefulness could not be denied. People who lived as they did needed all the warning devices they could muster, it seemed, and dogs were invaluable. Joe was surprised that the dogs took to him so readily, especially Anders’s cranky Skippy. But he found himself oddly attached to Homes.

  When they entered the gate, where was Homes? Usually, he’d be leaping with ecstasy, in company with Skippy. But no Homes or Skippy today. The couple soon found out why. He had besieged a strange car, parked in the driveway of Franko’s house. Skippy lounged nearby, in the shade, watching with interest. Franko’s wife, a slender Kosovar woman named Fedima, came out to explain.

  “He will not let this man leave his car,” she said. “I am sorry, Joe, but I didn’t know what to do. Franko is fishing. The man wishes to speak with you.”

  “That’s all right, Fedima,” Joe said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Joe called the dog to him and put him in the truck, where he continued to yap. The stranger got out of the car, warily. This, Joe instantly realized, was the man who had been asking about him in Butte. He also recognized him. Caspar Darnay.

  The two men greeted each other effusively. Joe had known Darnay since childhood, in Philadelphia. He hadn’t seen him in years. But he was the same old Caspar. He was a short man, not much taller than Joe, with the same old quiet, watchful look, doubtless reinforced by several years in the penitentiary. Joe was glad to see him, sort of. He represented the past, which was past.

  Joe and Helen were living in their new house, even though it wasn’t finished yet—and it was uncertain when it would be. They called it camping out, but in fact it was merely an inconvenience, what with having to periodically empty a room to put down a floor, which they would soon have to do in the kitchen, with the hardwood Joe had just picked up. They had lots of room. Joe insisted on putting up Caspar.

  While Helen started dinner, Joe went for a walk with Caspar . . . and Homes, of course, who was now docilely accepting of the newcomer, with Skippy trailing along as usual. They walked down from the house toward the river. They stood on a bluff and watched as, in the distance, they could see Franko casting to a pool where the stream ran along a cliff.

  “Man, it’s beautiful,” Caspar said, fervently. “I can’t get used to all this open space. You’ve got a fabulous house, Joe, and your wife is gorgeous. You got it made, man.”

  Joe accepted these praises without a remark, merely smiling. He understood that it was heartfelt, and that the enthusiasm was due in part to the man’s long incarceration. But it was beautiful. Very quiet. Deer were visible picking their way along the banks of the stream, among some aspen. A hawk was circling in the sky. The mountains seemed to guard their privacy.

  They talked a bit about the expanse, the relative privacy—the only neighbors being the Oberaviches. It was a paradise, clearly, the ideal hole-in-the-wall.

  Joe asked how Caspar had found him. It was fairly simple. Caspar had continued to ask around, after being rebuffed by Smokey. “I could tell he knew you,” Caspar said, “he just wasn’t saying. Which is all right.” He shrugged, to indicate he understood the circumstance. “But I kept looking, and finally I found this real estate babe, Carmen or something. She gave me a lead. So I came out here.”

  Joe could see it. It made him a little anxious to realize that he was so locatable. He didn’t much like that. But he let it pass.

  “So what brings you out this way?” he asked, finally.

  “I finished up my time at Deer Lodge,” Caspar said. “They transferred me, sixteen months ago. I had a little difficulty in Illinoise. I had to testify against some guys. The deal was, I got a few months knocked off and they moved me.” He shrugged. It wasn’t an issue for discussion, obviously.

  “Anyways,” he went on, “I always knew you was out this way. I’d heard from some guys who knew you. But when I went to the place they said, it was burned down, no one around.”

  That was another story, Joe’s story, also not worth discussing. Joe didn’t offer any explanation, except, “I moved up here about a year ago.”

  “I just wanted to come by and tell you thanks, for Charles,” Caspar said.

  “Ah, yes. Charles.” That was Caspar’s kid brother, dead in a shoot-out with cops, in Detroit. Joe had been very close to Charles, more than with Caspar. They had both gone to work for the mob, back in Philadelphia, and before that had been pals on the street. Joe had claimed Charles’s body and sent it home. This was Caspar’s big deal: making a trek to thank Joe.

  “I know Ma really appreciated what you done,” Caspar said. “And paying for the funeral, too. I wanted to repay you for that. But I’m not exactly flush, you understand.”

  “Oh, jeez, Caz, don’t even think about it. You would have done it, but you weren’t there.” Caspar had been in prison, of course. “Anyone would have done it,” Joe said.

  “Sure,” Caspar said, “but it wasn’t . . . there wasn’t anyone there to do it, but you. They’d a buried him in the potter’s field. We’d a never known what happened.”

  “I just happened to be there, in Detroit, at the time,” Joe said. “I mean, I wasn’t into anything with Charles, you know. I wouldn’t have known about it, but I happened to be in town and I realized who the papers were talking about. That’s all. I can’t tell you much about what happened to him. It didn’t have anything to do with me, see?”

  “Oh, I know that, I know that,” Caspar reassured him. “I didn’t mean anything. I guess he just . . . well, I guess he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Something like that,” Joe said. “I don’t even remember what the situation was, you know? I just read about it, heard about it from some other guys. So I thought, well, this is an old pal, I thought I could take the time to see that he got home. How is your Ma?”

  “Oh, she’s fine, fine. She’s getting on. Anyways, thanks for doing that, for Charles. And Ma.”

  They stood there, not looking at each other, just taking in the view. “Man, this is really something,” Caspar said. “I got to hand it to you, Joe. You done good. You doin’
all right?” He glanced at Joe, a little concerned. “I mean . . . I can see you’re doin’ all right . . . but everything going okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m retired now, you know.”

  “Ah. That’s good. Me, I got to be looking for work. You get out, after all this time. . . . I tell you, Joe, the world is so different now. Everything is changed. I guess I’ll look up some guys, but . . . hell, I’m not even sure where to start.”

  “Hey, what am I thinking?” Joe said. “Look, I got plenty. You need something to tide you over? No, really, I mean it. I got too much. I can help you out. You’ll pay me back later. When you get back on your feet.”

  Caspar looked almost embarrassed, but he didn’t show much emotion. “Thanks, I appreciate that,” he said. “I’ll pay you back. You know that.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Joe said. “Would a couple grand do you? You think so? I could spring for more, if you need it.”

  “No. A couple grand is terrific, Joe. I’d appreciate it. Everything’s so much more expensive now. But, listen,” he turned away from the river and leaned a bit closer, as if to avoid being overheard, although only the dogs could have heard him, and the wind rippling across the grass. “I don’t want you to think I just come by to borrow money, Joe. I wanted to thank you for Charles, and I done that. And I’ll pay you back for that . . . and the two grand. You know that.”

  “I know that,” Joe said. “What is it?” He could tell that something was bothering Caspar, something else. “Tell me.”