by Ted Wood
I wanted to tip them but Cathy waved me off. “No thanks, Reid. I could see you were having a bad time. You’re welcome.”
I thanked them again and shook hands. Cathy gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and Carol, who couldn’t reach over the bar, squeezed my hand fondly. It made me feel good.
We said goodbye and I turned to leave. I was halfway to the door when a man came in. It was the same guy I’d seen with Manatelli that morning. He didn’t recognize me without my parka and toque on. He checked all around, then crossed the room and headed for Huckmeyer’s table.
SIXTEEN
I had no choice but to leave. I stayed only long enough to see Huckmeyer stand up at once, nodding almost imperceptibly toward the back. The guy took the hint and moved that way while Huckmeyer walked apart from him toward the office door. The other man took off his hat and shrugged out of his coat as he walked. Before he followed Huckmeyer into the office he checked and looked around. As soon as I saw that I ducked out.
Schmidt had backed his car to the door and they were waiting for me, ready to make the obvious cracks. “Hell,” Schmidt said. “You sure took your time. We figured you wore just going to kiss’em goodbye. What happened? They lay you?”
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” I said easily and he guffawed and turned right around from the wheel to look into my face. “For a goddamn Eskimo, you’re okay, Reid.”
“Thanks, Cap’n. You’re okay yourself, well scrubbed.”
It was the kind of teenage joshing that goes on when guys drink. Not clever but it does cut the tension and that’s what Schmidt had been aiming to do. He drove, not well. He’d had about ten ounces of booze and he pushed too fast and slid wide on turns but at least he stopped for the red lights in town and got us back safely to my car.
Saying goodbye took another minute or so and then Schmidt had to make like the commander and tell Doug to take the rest of the week off to get back with his family. But eventually it was over and Doug and I got into my car. He immediately loosened his tie and sat back. “Thank God that’s over,” he said.
I didn’t waste time. “Huckmeyer did have a date. But not with a girl. Manatelli’s bodyguard came to see him. Huckmeyer didn’t speak to him. Gave him the eyes and went into the back office. The guy followed him.”
Doug whistled softly, a long, surprised note. “Now that’s interesting. Makes all this look like a plan.”
“Could be. Or maybe the guy has something on Huckmeyer. Like knowing that he did it.”
“Either way it don’t fit with the nice neat ending the chief figures he’s got,” Doug said.
“What do we do? Wanna go back out there?”
“And what? Grab the guy when he comes out, talk to him?”
“We could do that.”
Doug thought about it. “You could. I couldn’t. Not now I’m back on the department. If he squawked, I’d be in a whole mess of trouble.” He looked at me anxiously. “Hell, they’ve already stretched their goodwill far as it’ll go. If I start making waves they’ll come down on me, both feet.’
“The only other thing is to go back and follow the guy. See where he goes.”
“Wouldn’t hurt, I guess,” Doug said doubtfully.
I turned the car around. “He has to be there for a reason. Let’s go see. It’s better than doing nothing.”
Doug didn’t answer but I saw him snug up his tie again, the sign that he was back at work.
We got back to Brewskis and parked in the first row of cars, up at the far end, where we could see the door. People came and went and we waited, wishing we’d taken the time to use the men’s room. Then, around eleven o’clock, the guy came out, unmistakable in his city clothes.
He walked between the parked cars in front of the door and back into the lot. Doug got out, shutting the door so his silhouette wouldn’t show, and stood watching the man. Then he slipped back into his seat. “He’s in a car, going around the other end of the line, out toward the road.”
“Okay.” I started after him, leaving my lights off. “Keep your eyes on him. I’ll have to concentrate on keeping out of the ditch.”
It wasn’t too bad at first, with nothing coming the other way. Then a high truck came up very fast and I had to slow down and work hard to stay out of the snowbank beside the road. The truck driver flashed his lights at me and leaned on the horn as he went by but I hung on, leaving my lights out as Doug followed the taillights ahead of us.
The car ahead picked up speed toward town and I thought I was going to lose him. But then I saw him turn, not signaling, and pull into a driveway. I kept on past the drive, glancing up it.
“That’s Kelly’s place,” Doug said. “He must be staying there.”
I drove on another hundred yards and stopped. We both got out and spent a grateful minute against the snowbank at roadside before getting back in to consider our options.
“What now?” I asked.
“Goddamned if I know,” Doug said. “I mean, we got nothing to go on. This guy was with Manatelli. He should’ve stopped him from getting killed. Failing that, you’d have expected him to hightail it outa here when his boss died. Instead of that, he goes to see Huckmeyer. I got no idea why.”
We looked at one another in the dark, helplessly. “We need help,” I said. “There’s two guys we could talk to. Pat Hinton is one. He could fill us in on the details of what happened today.”
“He may not know much more’n us,” Doug said. “If this case was wrapped up by Schmidt an’ Cassidy, they’d’ve kept it tight. Pat likely hasn’t seen the note.”
“Okay. Then the other possibility is Maloney.”
“The lawyer? What can he do?”
“He wants to be the next judge around here. He’s up to speed on what’s been happening. He knows everybody and everything about the town. And he’s got a good mind. He’ll look at it from the legal point of view.”
Doug was doubtful but after a while we compromised. We would wait where we were for half an hour, to see if the man was going to stay at Kelly’s place. Then we would head into town and talk to Maloney. “It’s late,” Doug said. “I don’t think he’s gonna welcome us with open arms.”
In fact it didn’t take us half an hour. In twenty minutes the lights went out in Kelly’s shack. We hung on for a few minutes more but the man didn’t leave and we drove into town.
I rang Maloney from a pay phone. He answered on the second ring, sounding wide awake. “Mr. Maloney. It’s Reid Bennett. Sorry to call you so late but there’s a lot going on and I wondered if I could come and see you. I’ve got Doug Ford with me.”
“Of course. Come on over. I’ll be waiting.”
I thanked him and hung up and drove to his house. The porch light was on and he came to the door as soon as we drove up. He was wearing a dressing gown over pajamas. “Come on in,” he said.
We went in. His radio was playing some piano piece and there was an open book facedown on the table beside his favorite chair. He sat down and waved us to the couch. “What’s happening?”
Doug filled him in and he sat and listened carefully. When Doug finished he said, “I see what you mean. The death of this man Manatelli raises a lot of questions.”
I’d been listening to Doug just as carefully and one question had occurred to me. I laid it out. “This is so obvious that I guess it’s been taken care of. But it’s nagging at me.”
“Shoot,” Doug said. He seemed a little more relaxed now, slipping back into his role as cop.
“Let me guess, Reid,” Maloney said softly. “Because I’ve got a question as well.” I waited for him and he went on. “You’re wondering whether anyone has identified the body found in the car.”
I looked at him with new respect. “Exactly. The only people in town who know what the guy looks like are myself and Doug and maybe Walter Huckmeyer. Captain Schmidt had never met him or he’d have said so.”
Doug looked from one to the other of us. “Jesus H. suffering. You think this
is a plant?”
“We can’t be sure until one of us has seen the body,” I said.
“They must have compared his face with an FBI photograph,” Doug said. “Must’ve done.”
“When did Captain Schmidt come to see you?” Maloney asked.
“Six o’clock, just about on the nail,” Doug said. “We were watching the six o’clock news.”
“And the body had not been found until four, you said.” Maloney would be a good judge, I thought. He was calm and thorough.
“You’re right.” Doug pinched his lips together and shook his head. “They wouldn’t have got a picture faxed back from the FBI in that time. They must have been going on the ID they found on the body.”
“We can’t check until the morning. Cassidy and Schmidt have gone home by now,” Doug said.
“The question is...” Maloney raised one finger, a courtroom trick, but it worked. We listened and he said, “Why, if this isn’t Manatelli’s body, would he want people to think it is?”
“He’s ducking out on his boss,” Doug suggested. “I figure he was skimming Mucci’s operation. You can’t get away with that. I figured he’s skipped, planted some other poor bastard.”
“Maybe.” I was thinking along a different track, prodded down it by Maloney’s attitude. “Maybe it was more than that. Maybe he’s moving his money out of the bank. He wanted to close things down here, tidy them up first. So he planted the body.”
“Like I said, he’s skipping,” Doug insisted.
“What Reid says makes sense, when you remember his conversation with Manatelli. The man promised to clear you, today. He must have been planning the death of this impostor, plus planting the suicide note.”
Doug stood up. He was always restless. Even when we were in the boonies, worn out by humping eighty-pound packs through the monsoon all day, he could never sit still. “It don’t make sense. What’s it to him whether I do ten to life in the pen?”
“It was the price Reid demanded for leaving things alone,” Maloney said. “I think we have a number of things to do.”
“What?” Doug sat, but nervously, on the edge of the couch like a girl on a bad date.
“First.” Maloney gripped his left index finger with his right hand. “Get a positive identification of the body. If it’s Manatelli, then perhaps everything is kosher, although the note sounds improbable. But if it’s not Manatelli who was killed, we move to phase two.” He wrapped the next finger. “We check with the bank—I’d better do it—and see if Manatelli withdrew a large sum of money today.”
“What about the bodyguard?” I asked.
“The police should talk to him. Perhaps Detective Hinton would be the best man to do it,” Maloney said. “Can you talk to him in the morning, Doug?”
“He’s gonna be gun-shy,” Doug said. “Schmidt has wrapped the case up. He won’t want to see it coming unraveled on Pat’s say-so.”
“Then perhaps I should talk to the chief,” Maloney said. “I know him.” He paused and added apologetically, “Through the lodge.”
Doug grinned for the first time since we got there. “Then you’re the right kind of brother to do the talkin’.”
“Exactly.” Maloney smiled. “I’ll call him first thing. He says he’s up at six. I’ll call at seven.”
“He won’t be happy,” Doug warned. “He’ll be fine with you, but he’s gonna hate my black ass for stirring this up.”
“Then I’ll tell him Reid told me,” Maloney said. “So don’t worry, and don’t worry about the bank. I have a similar connection there.”
Doug blew out a little puff of relief. “Well, thank you, sir. It’s gonna be a lot easier if you take charge.”
Maloney stood up. “Well, tomorrow is going to be busy, so let’s call it a night. Thank you for coming to me with this.”
We left him then and went back to Doug’s house. I took Sam out for a walk around the block and came back to find Doug working in the basement, changed into blue jeans, sanding down the bookcase as if it needed the work. “I can’t sleep yet,” he said apologetically. “You hit the sack. I’ll be a while here.”
I could see he needed space so I said, “Okay, Doug. See you in the morning,” and headed up to bed.
The drinks, plus the light sleep from the night before, had left me more tired than I figured and I was asleep in minutes with Sam curled on the rug beside the bed. I didn’t hear Doug come up and was woken up only by the telephone.
It was still dark outside. I heard Doug answering but not the words. From his tone I could tell that it wasn’t Melody on the other end. He was brisk and formal and didn’t laugh the way he used to do when I last saw the pair of them together.
I swung out of bed and started dressing. It sounded like that kind of call. By the time I had my pants on he was at the bedroom door. “That was the chief. Wants me to go in and look at the body in the morgue, right away. He don’t sound happy.”
“Should I come?”
“Yeah,” Doug said. “You saw Manatelli yesterday. I haven’t seen him in a couple months.”
I washed up and shaved, wishing there were time for a proper shower, and then dressed while Doug went through the same routine. We stopped briefly at a diner to pick up some coffee and arrived at the morgue at seven-thirty.
“The chief’s here,” Doug said and flipped his thumb at a parked car. “Let’s get at it.”
We went in. The chief was in the lobby with a uniformed officer. Doug spoke first. “Morning, Chief, Roger.”
“Good morning,” the chief said and the patrolman nodded. “Mr. Maloney phoned me this morning. Said he’d been wondering about this man Manatelli. Said that this all sounded a little too pat and asked if anyone who knew Manatelli had identified the body.”
“Who found him?” Doug asked.
“I did, Detective,” the uniformed man said. “Mount Reach is the limit of area three. I pulled in at the lookout to make my book up before going off duty.” And to have a quiet smoke, I thought. The man went on. “There was a car parked there, a Lincoln. I saw what looked like blood on the window of the driver’s side so I checked an’ found him.”
“Good thinking,” Doug said. “Shall we take a look?”
The chief was looking at me. “Do we need to take up Mr. Bennett’s time?” he asked stiffly.
“I spoke to Manatelli yesterday,” I explained. “Doug thought my identification would be the most up to date.”
“Very well then.” The chief opened the door to the inner office where an orderly in a fawn dustcoat sat sipping coffee. He set down his cup. “Ready now, Chief?”
“Please.” The chief was tense as we followed the man through into the big cold room with the stainless steel cabinets down one wall.
“He’s in here,” the attendant said, indicating a drawer at waist level. “Between the guy an’ the girl he killed. Justice, huh?”
“Open it,” the chief snapped. The man looked at him, hurt that his comment had been ignored.
The body was covered with a sheet and the attendant flicked it back from the face. Doug and I looked at it, then at one another. “That’s not him, sir,” Doug said. “I’m sorry, but somebody’s pulled a stunt on us. That ain’t Manatelli.”
SEVENTEEN
I glanced at the chief first. His jaw was set and I knew he was working out a plan for damage control. The uniformed man took his cue from his boss, showing no emotion. The only one shocked was the attendant. He stood there with his mouth open. You could see he was thinking, just wait until the guys at the pool hall hear about this. Maybe he could even call the local radio station, win twenty-five bucks for the news tip of the week.
The chief nipped all those plans in the bud. He stuck his finger about an inch from the guy’s nose. “Listen up. This is a police investigation. We already knew what this detective has confirmed. We’re doing what we’re doing to put the man Manatelli off guard. He thinks he’s fooled us and that’s what we want, while we keep on looking for him.”
He paused, then demanded, “Do you understand me?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Good,” the chief said. “Now pay attention to me, because if you don’t, you’ll be looking for a new job.”
That point was loud and clear. The man cleared his throat and asked, “What d’ya want me to do, Chief?”
“You say nothing. If any word of this gets out it will hamper our investigation and you are out of this job or any other city job as long as you live.”
“I know about being confidential.” The man’s face was red. “I can see what’s happenin’, Chief. I won’t say nothing to anybody.”
“Not even Dr. Weichel,” the chief warned. “He already knows. But that’s all. We don’t want anyone else to know. Not your wife. Not your neighbors. Not even your goddamn dog.”
“I gotcha.” The guy was hoarse now.
“Right. Close this up.” The chief turned and swept out. We followed him. He stopped in the lobby and said, “My office. Follow me down there.”
“Right,” Doug said and we went out and got into the car.
Doug didn’t speak until the chief’s car had started away and we followed. Then he said, “He’s gotta feel like a goddamn moron.”
“The question is, where does this leave you?”
Doug picked up the pace, following the chief’s driver who was breaking the speed limit back to the station. “If it falls apart, I’m back inside and all bets are off. But he won’t want that to happen. He’d look too stupid.” Doug grinned without amusement. “After those swell speeches yesterday about what a righteous boy I am, if he has to send me back inside he’s got egg all over him.”
“That’s the good news. The bad news is that Manatelli’s had almost a day to do what he planned.”
“Outside of business hours,” Doug said as we pulled into the parking lot behind the police building. “If he was planning something at the bank, it ain’t done yet.”