Dying Embers

by Robert E. Bailey

  “Bart, Bart, wake up, Bart.” I started him rolling toward me. He came awake with a five shot Smith hammerless ace-bandaged to his right hand. I grabbed the weapon by the frame and cylinder and managed to save the cup of coffee from the swipe of Bart’s left paw. “Stop it,” I told him, trying for a calm voice. “It’s me, Art—Art Hardin.”

  “Are you fucking nuts?” he said and blinked his eyelids over bloodshot pools that looked like X-rays of chicken embryos. “I could have killed you. How the hell did you get in?”

  “I used the key you leave over the door for the housekeeper. I thought you’d like to talk to a man who witnessed the Frampton killing.”

  I left Bart the coffee and went down to the car to call Lorna Kemp. The line clicked two or three times as the call was forwarded. Lorna had it before the third ring. In the background I could hear Leonard Jones ask in a sleepy voice, “Did you get it?”

  She told me that Brian Hemmings was a registered nurse and had been fired from the state hospital where Sheldon Frampton had been committed. No one was volunteering explanations for the firing.

  “Leonard Jones’s attorney wasn’t able to get the restraining order,” said Lorna. “They’re probably going to auction The Dutchman this morning.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’m bringing Detective Shephart. There’s a good chance that a man who witnessed Anne’s murder will be there. I need you to meet me at the auction.”

  “What time?” she yawned.

  “Auction starts at ten,” I said. “Why don’t you stop and see if Leonard Jones can give us a hand?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  After forty minutes Shephart came down, having performed a minor miracle. He’d found a clean shirt, a gray suit, and a red tie. Of the two of us, he looked the less rumpled.

  “I’m not an alcoholic,” he said to break the silence after an hour on the road.

  “Hair of the dog is all,” I said. “Anything ever come of the knife I gave you in my office?”

  “Came back from the lab a zero—fish guts and smoked ham. Where in the hell are we going?”

  “South Haven,” I said. “To an art auction at the Frampton estate.”

  Detective Shephart nodded off, then growled and gnashed his teeth for the rest of the ride. We found the iron gates swept open. Clouds gathering in the west over the lake promised rain later in the day. A yellow canvas tent big enough for a revival meeting had been set up on the lawn in front of the main house. News vans with tall satellite antenna booms crowded the inside of the fence line.

  Cars lined both sides of the highway, including several ominously plain sedans. Parking inside the gate cost half a yard. If I hadn’t been on Lambert’s nickel, I’d have been some of the riffraff that turned away. Brian Hemmings collected the money and issued me a snotty face. I parked the Jag on a tennis court among a flock of high dollar sedans and liveried chauffeurs polishing limousines.

  Detective Shephart hit the porta-potty and I picked up a white numbered paddle to bid. The catalog was eighteen pages and printed in color on slick paper. The Dutchman was item twenty-two. We had ten minutes.

  “All right,” said Shephart, buttoning his suit coat. “Where is this guy? I’m on my own time and I haven’t had much of that lately.”

  “See, there’s the thing,” I said. “He’s on the FBI’s short list of things to do. So it’s not like he is going to be anxious to talk to us.”

  “He might not be here,” said Shephart, making an accusing face.

  “He’s here. The FBI rolled up his crew this morning.”

  “We should be looking for him at the airport.”

  “If he can get away with some artwork sold here today, he wins.” I showed Shephart the picture of The Dutchman. “If he doesn’t, he has nowhere to go.”

  “He could have sent someone else.”

  “Possible,” I said. “I hope not.”

  Leonard Jones and Lorna Kemp walked up trying to look all business, despite that certain glow which hung over them. Leonard wore a tan herringbone sport coat over khaki pants and blue shirt open at the collar. Lorna was clad in a black shell over white denim slacks, with a dash of very red lipstick and her blond hair tied at the back of her head with a black velvet ribbon.

  Shephart exchanged a handshake with Leonard. Lorna folded her arms against a cool breeze off the lake.

  “Warmer inside the tent,” I said.

  “As long as those dogs aren’t loose in there,” she said. “Who are we looking for?”

  “Remember the day I left for Brandonport?”

  Lorna nodded once.

  “The guy who said he had a package for me.”

  “Blond guy with the brown delivery jacket and lump under his left arm. The one that opened the door with his hanky.”

  “That’s the one,” I said. “He bragged to one of his associates that he’d seen the murder. Said the doer was a woman.”

  Lorna shifted her eyes to look at the house.

  “Only maybe,” I said, “I brought the booking photo you submitted with your report.”

  Leonard said, “You mean—”

  “We don’t know that,” I said, “And—”

  “He shouldn’t be here,” said Shephart.

  Shephart and Jones shared a glower.

  “He’s a beard for Lorna,” I said. “She’s seen the man we’re looking for and can probably get close without spooking him. If he does spook, Leonard has the beef to hold him.”

  “Civilians,” said Shephart.

  “The street is full of plain wrappers which means the tent’s full of feds. For now they’ve agreed to let us make the apprehension, but I think that’s only because we can finger him.”

  “Just so you know,” said Shephart, “I’m on a ‘frolic of my own.’ If this goes to hell, nobody sues the city.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. I looked at Leonard and Lorna. They nodded in agreement. We split up and headed for the tent.

  We found standing room only, with a beef trust of brown shoes loitering near the doors and trying to look like art connoisseurs. Ladies in designer suits wearing the remnants of small furry animals filled most of the chairs. Here and there portly middle-aged men sat testing the tensile limits of expensive suits and studying the catalog. The air hung sweet with cologne, albeit tempered with a dash of moth crystals.

  In the center aisle near the podium someone had parked a wheelchair with a lump of old codger in it. An oxygen bottle fixed to the chair snaked a clear plastic tube to a face lost under a winter hat pulled down to cover the ears and all but a shag of gray hair at the collar. A brown knit shawl—folded to a triangle—rolled languidly off both sides of a humped back, but failed to hang low enough to conceal a urine collection bag hung from the armrest.

  Leonard and Lorna took the far side. Shephart and I took the near. Lorna looked over to me when she made it to the rear corner on her side and gave one negative twist of her head. I hadn’t seen our man either. Matty sat in the first row and had abandoned her FBI windbreaker for a cable-knit yellow cardigan with a rolled collar. My nameless benefactor from Washington had coiled up on the last chair on the left side of the center aisle, a bidder’s paddle hovering over his fist like the hood of a cobra.

  Klieg lights illuminated the stage. Sheldon Frampton stepped up to the podium—provincial in old tweed with patches at the elbow and cradling a meerschaum pipe—with his hair silver gray, parted high on the left, and brushed straight back from his face. He had affected bushy eyebrows and a grizzled guardsman’s moustache.

  Sheldon patted the microphone with his fingers and looked pleased at the noise it made. He settled the pipe into his pocket and produced his voice synthesizer.

  “I-can-not-tell-you. How-pleased-I-am. That-you-have-come. To-day. Anne-so-loved-her-work. She-lives-on. In-each-piece. You-may-take-home.”

  After a titter of polite applause Sheldon took a seat at the edge of the stage, the man with the gavel stepped up, and several cell phones leapt to ea
rs from purses and pockets.

  The sheer volume of money in the world often astounds me. I can remember a trip up the intracoastal in Miami. For a long stretch the yachts never shrunk to less than a hundred feet. The same sense of awe fell upon me as the items succumbed to the gavel. Casual waves of paddles and languid nods of the head signaled bids called at hundred-thousand dollar intervals.

  The auctioneer—all nostrils, a pinky finger, and an affected highbrow accent—said, “Item twenty-two. An early work of Ms. Frampton’s. Quite frankly a decorator piece with a rather amusing photo-active aspect. I would like to start the bidding at fifty thousand dollars.”

  No one stirred. I searched the crowd like a shipwrecked sailor looking for a raft. Nothing. My friend from Washington made an evil face at me. The auctioneer stepped away from the mike and bent close to Frampton for a whispered conference. When he returned to the microphone he said, “Very well, twenty-five thousand.”

  After a pregnant silence the man from Washington flashed his paddle.

  “Twenty-five, may I have thirty?”

  I showed my paddle.

  “Thirty, yes—now thirty-five.”

  Matty bid.

  “Thirty-five, thirty-five. Last call at thirty-five.” The auctioneer picked up his gavel, which was really a fat walnut wedge that lacked a handle.

  Matty looked like she was going to poop in her chair.

  “Forty,” said a woman in a green suit with gold buttons and some kind of red fur for a collar—her face hidden under the brim of a white felt hat.

  “Forty-five.”

  Being my caliber, I bid.

  “Forty-five, forty-five, now at fifty.”

  The codger in the wheelchair flashed a paddle.

  “Fifty.”

  An attendant in a white uniform shirt and pants stood up from beside the old man. He wore a freshly cut flattop and a walrus moustache, both nut brown. He pushed the paddle down and shook his head at the auctioneer.

  “Just keep that in your lap, Mr. Farragutt,” he whispered. “Miss Molly only left it for you to hold, while she went to the dunny.”

  The man with the gavel pointed at the old man in the chair. “Fifty-thousand.”

  The attendant showed the auctioneer a shrug and his open palms.

  “Fifty-thousand—once. Fifty-thou …”

  “Fifty-five.” The man from Washington.

  “Sixty.” The woman in the green suit.

  I said, “Sixty-five.” And showed my paddle.

  Shephart whispered toward my ear, “Are you nuts?”

  “I like it,” I said.

  Matty bid seventy.

  The old man started to raise the paddle from his lap. The attendant thrust it down with both hands. The crowd made a nervous titter.

  “One hundred thousand dollars,” said a clear strong male voice halfway up on the right. The paddle appeared over the right shoulder of a man whose blond hair formed a wreath around a bare flesh yarmulke.

  Why hadn’t I seen him? For that matter, why hadn’t I seen the attendant in the ice cream suit? I side-stepped along the back row of chairs and had to nudge Shephart with my shoulder to get him started.

  “The Dutchman, I have one hundred-thousand dollars. One hundred and ten?”

  The man from Washington held up his paddle.

  “One hundred and ten thousand,” said the gavel master, his face astonished. “Can I have one-twenty.”

  Shephart nodded for me to go up the middle while he went for the side aisle. The man from Washington got to his feet and the brown shoes slouching at the doors came to attention.

  “One hundred and ten thousand. The Dutchman. Can I have one hundred and fifteen?” He pointed the gavel at the woman in green. She shook her head. “One hundred ten thousand dollars once.”

  The old man’s paddle launched from his lap. He laughed, “Heach, heach.” Sounded like a child drawing carpenter’s twine through a hole in a shirt cardboard.

  The gavelist stared at the attendant. “One hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. Can I have one-twenty?”

  I closed in on my quarry. As I drew even with his row of chairs he looked at me—a glass eye and a bulbous red nose. Definitely not my man Andy. He held up his paddle.

  “The Dutchman. One hundred twenty-thousand dollars.”

  I stood three feet from the attendant. He should have looked relieved. He didn’t. He looked pissed and that is when I knew. Andy had dyed and cut his hair. I shook my head at Shephart.

  The auctioneer said, “Excuse me, gentlemen.”

  I looked up to the stage and said, “I am so sorry. My dog has wandered off.” I looked around the crowd. “A little Pomeranian, if you’ve seen him. He’s such a scamp. Ko-ko, Ko-ko, Ko-ko.” I whistled twice.

  “If you please, sir.”

  I smiled. “Sorry. I’ll… just be in the back here.”

  The gavelmeister cleared his throat. Andy turned to look at him. I laid a half nelson on Deliveryman/Andy and dragged him around the wheelchair, toward the stage. People exploded from their chairs and flew sideways like snow as the brown shoes plowed toward me and Andy.

  I tilted my head to the side to defend my nose. I told him, “For God’s sake man, don’t fight, don’t go for a weapon. They’re here from Washington and looking to send you back as luggage.”

  “Get stuffed,” he said.

  The world suddenly consisted of hands and guns. I heard a thunder of retreating feet and screaming women. About a thousand angry men yelled, “You’re under arrest,” and added a variety of obscenities concerning heritage, body parts, and at least one mention of sheep. We careened toward the stage and fell into a pile.

  Someone pulled me to my feet. Turned out to be Bart Shephart. The gaggle of agents unpiled, jerking and dragging Deliveryman/Andy toward the door. Sheldon Frampton sat bemused in his chair at the edge of the stage. The auctioneer had fled and taken The Dutchman with him.

  “Wait,” said the man from Washington.

  The agents stopped like a power failure. They shoved their prize into a sitting position on the edge of the stage. Handguns on the ends of arms stuck in his face like a hound with a muzzle full of porcupine quills.

  “Ask him,” said my nameless benefactor.

  I moved my head until I could make eye contact through the crowd. “You saw the murder of Anne Frampton?”

  “Right enough. Didn’t do the job myself, mind you, but I did plant the tuft of hair in her hand.”

  I pointed at Sheldon Frampton, “Was it him?”

  Andy passed Sheldon a casual glance. “Nope, it was a woman. Kind of an older nag.”

  I fished the photocopied booking picture of Shelly Frampton out of my breast pocket and passed it between the growls and grumbles from the agents I had to nudge aside. Deliveryman/Andy took it and turned it to the light, pushing the paper out to arm’s length and squinting his eyes.

  “Not a good picture,” he said, “But ‘at’s her, right enough.”

  “Sure?”

  “Never forget. One stroke—real talent, she had. Women pushing men out of all the trades these days. Still jealous of the old bat’s style, I am. The Frampton woman read her out, in right short fashion.” He folded the paper and chopped it at me. “She didn’t say a word. Just set to her work like Old Saint Nick and was off. Didn’t stop to look. Didn’t need to.”

  Deliveryman/Andy moved to hand the paper back but thought better of it and lay it on the stage. He said, “About time isn’t it, Andy?”

  I heard the sound behind me. Poowing. The sweet metallic chime of the safety handle disengaging from a hand grenade. The veterans in the crowd were already a blur, the old man was out of the chair—no longer old and no longer a man, but a lithe twenty-something brunette with dark eyes and an Uzi.

  I had already taken two steps and dove into the chairs when I heard the grenade hit the stage. It didn’t have time to bounce. I’d wrapped my arms around my head for protection and they muffled the sound and concussion of th
e detonation. Suddenly dark, klieg lights rained onto the stage. The podium somersaulted down the center aisle.

  Outside, short rips from the Uzi punctuated the sounds of running feet, cursing, screaming, and intermittent handgun fire. I looked at my hands, rubbed my arms, and pushed the padded folding metal chairs off of me as I sat up.

  Detective Shephart lay with his face in the turf at the base of the stage. Sheldon Frampton’s feet stuck in the air on the far side of the stage, pant legs wrinkled to the knees exposing hairless legs, wool socks and oxfords. Leonard and Lorna rose from the ground at the rear of the tent, and two last agents scampered from among the chairs and out the door.

  I knelt next to Shephart and touched his neck with two fingers, looking for a pulse. He batted my hand away.

  “Goddam it, Hardin,” he said without looking up. “This was my day off.”

  “Are you all right?”

  Shephart pushed himself up to his knees, sat on the stage, and brushed the turf off his suit. “Blast went over me, but some goddam moose stepped on me. Where’s Frampton?”

  “On the other side of the stage. Looks like he just sat there and watched it happen.”

  “Or didn’t know what was happening,” said Shephart.

  Leonard and Lorna, hand-in-hand, walked toward us—Leonard nonplussed, but calm in contrast to Lorna’s wide eyes and unsteady gait.

  “Hardin, you’re as good as your word,” said Leonard. “You got ’em, but I didn’t expect justice to be this quick.”

  One of Sheldon’s legs kicked and slid along the edge of the stage until it fell out of sight. I scooted around to the back of the stage. Sheldon’s face and hands were peppered with measle spots. His hand worried a thin footlong shard of wood—a piece of the podium—protruding from his chest, which rose and fell with his labored breath. I pulled his hand away from the shard.

  “Leave it be, for now,” I told him, holding his hand as it shook. “If you pull it out, your lung could collapse or you could bleed to death.”