by Brad Latham
“Sounds rational. Everyone knows that Wade had Jones insured for 25 G’s. Jones blabbed it to everyone. But what about Mrs. Jones? Didn’t she carry insurance on her husband?”
Lockwood told her how much.
“Wow! $10,000! Not bad.”
“I’d put my chips on Wade,” Lockwood said. “He’s the kind would kill for money—but the other person with a motive then, is Mrs. Cynthia Jones.”
“Sure. But just because they could have done it, doesn’t mean they did it.”
“Did Jones have any enemies?” Lockwood asked.
Amanda suggested a few hundred: the other teams in the league, all the managers, owners, and players who expected to be wiped out by Lorenzo’s magic arm next season.
“But nobody special,” Lockwood said. “Did he gamble? Maybe he threw a game for the Mob, or refused to,” Lockwood suggested.
Amanda looked incredulous. “Good God, are baseball games fixed?”
“Anything that’s bet on can be fixed. As far as I know, baseball is a clean sport, but remember the World Series in 1919? It was fixed.”
“I’m shocked.”
He couldn’t take her blue eyes anymore. He leaned over and kissed her. The kissing led to more kissing, and then they did what they did best together.
CHAPTER
12
Lockwood figured the key to the whole mystery was in Doc’s hand. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to requestion Doc Carruthers. Doctors could easily get poisons or medications that were poisonous in high doses. He drove back to the cigar-box-sized office, to those ratty, half-dead palms, to that smell of ether. He was determined to pound the truth out of the alcoholic if he had to and get this case over with.
He knocked on the door. It wasn’t locked. It swung open on the first knock. He had spent the night at Amanda’s, and that might have been the wrong thing to do. At least, bad for the old Doc. Lockwood sensed what he would find.
He stepped in carefully, leaving the lights off. The blinds were drawn, but enough light trickled in from the bright morning sun to see. To see the same peeling musket-design colonial wallpaper, the same dead potted palms. Only this time the smell wasn’t coming from the palms.
There were papers scattered all over the place. The drawers had been turned over. Lockwood knew it was a phony robbery: robbers threw things about less. Hook knew what he would see in the next room, but he didn’t know how bad it would be. It was bad.
Tied hands-and-feet to a chair, Doc had a gag in his mouth.
He had no shoes on, and someone had burned his feet with a hot instrument. They were scarred and blackened.
Hook looked around. There it was in the corner. A woman’s permanent-wave curling iron, still plugged in. Torture? That didn’t make sense. If Doc’s killer was Wade, and Wade was afraid Doc would spill something, all he had to do was put a bullet in Doc’s head. Lockwood looked. There was a bullet in his head. Why the torture?
The killer had wanted some information from Doc. Maybe the same information Lockwood wanted. Which didn’t make sense if the killer was Wade.
Doc’s face was a medium blue. Even though his open eyes had glazed over, they spoke of terror and pain. Hook touched Doc’s face. Cold. Hard. Death had come a while ago.
Lockwood looked around. Doc’s watch was missing. Wait a second! Over in the corner—Robin’s pretty little blue-green turquoise ring. He picked it up. Yes, definitely Robin’s ring. But surely she hadn’t done this. But she could have been here with whoever did do it. Maybe Wade or Half-Pint’s crew, hired by Wade. But why all the goddamn torture?
Lockwood snapped his fingers. He had an idea.
He put Robin’s ring in his pocket. It could be a ploy like the “robbery.” The torture Lockwood understood. It wasn’t done to find out how much Doc knew; the killer knew that. It was to find out if Doc had told anyone the truth about Lorenzo’s arm.
The killer decided he hadn’t told anyone and then had shot Doc to remove the possibility of him squealing.
Hook took another quick look around, found nothing, and left everything exactly like it was except for the ring. He wiped the doorknob and the edge of the desk. He tiptoed out and shut the door. No one saw him leave. He didn’t want to be grilled by the cops over this. He had things to do. Mustn’t let Jimbo know I was the first here, or he might think I did it. And I have to make sure Robin is all right.
A quick trip to Robin’s flat only got Lockwood the aunt. Frowsy Mrs. Wenner opened the door.
Chain in place, she asked suspiciously, “What do you want? Robin is out, and it doesn’t do for a gentleman to come knocking before calling up a young lady. Why, she could have been in alone, and that would be improp—”
“Have you seen Robin? Is she all right?” Lockwood interrupted.
“Why wouldn’t she be all right? If it’s any of your business, I sent her to the store not a half hour ago to buy seltzer water and carrots.”
Lockwood sighed, tipped his hat, and left. He waited in his car across the street until he saw Robin carrying groceries back into the building. Good.
He took off to see the widow Jones, before she was killed, too. A lot of people might die soon. Anyone who knew anything at all about the death of Lorenzo Jones.
Mrs. Cynthia Jones lived in a dilapidated cottage in Flat-bush, not far from Coney Island Avenue, between a Mobil and an Esso station. Not very nice. The cottage’s front was peeling, the garden dried out, and the flowers wilted and dead.
Doesn’t anyone in this town have a watering can, Lockwood wondered, thinking of poor Doc’s diseased plants.
Lockwood parked in the driveway, which was empty. He knocked. Cynthia Jones came to the door, her eyes bleary, her makeup smeared all over her face, and drunk.
“What the hell do you want?”
Polite, Lockwood thought, but at least she’s still alive.
“Information.” He flashed his buzzer. She groaned, undid the chain, and let him in.
“You cops already have it all, and that’s nothing. Who I want to hear from now is that damn insurance company. They’re really dragging their feet. Their Mr. Gray told me he’d—”
Lockwood cut her off. “Were you out at the airfield when—”
“Good God, yes. I told you guys. I was there. Nothing was wrong. We were very happy, and then he died. Now, is that all?”
Lockwood sat down. “No, that’s not all.” He began prying her for information.
She didn’t sound like a relative of Miles Standish, more like a relative of Jack Dempsey. She looked like she had been attractive once a long time ago. Maybe not even that long—five years. Lockwood removed his hat and put the snap-brim on his knee, not anxious to have it stained by the spilled whiskey on the end table.
He asked a lot of questions and got a lot of run-around. She seemed to be looking at his crotch all the time, and it made him uncomfortable. He had the feeling she was horny as hell. Widows sometimes got that way once the sorrow passed—if there had ever been any sorrow.
Lockwood devised a strategy for getting answers from the middle-aged woman who sat there drinking in her loosely tied bathrobe.
He, took her bottle of whiskey away. That immediately started a scratching and kicking bout, which he managed to control by grabbing her wrists. Once she almost got to his eyes.
Her terrycloth robe came open, hiding nothing. She wasn’t bad-looking, but not too good either. Finally, she calmed down and retied the robe.
“Now, be good!” he said. “And you can have your drinks.”
“What’s good?” she snarled. Her lipstick had smeared onto her chin.
“Good is answering my questions.”
Lockwood withheld the bottle from her when she didn’t talk and poured short drinks for her when she did. He got answers.
“I want to know about a thermos. Did you fill a thermos with coffee for Lorenzo before he took off?”
“I think so. So what?”
“Did anyone else handle it?”
&nbs
p; “No—yes. I let Mr. Wade pour half a cup for himself.” She eyed the Seagram’s 7 Crown and licked her lips.
“So he had it away from you. For how long?”
“Not long. A few seconds. Half a minute. How about a shot?” She eyed the whiskey bottle.
“Anyone else?”
“N-no.”
He poured her a short one. She drank it with a snap of the wrist.
“Do you have any poison in the house?”
“What are you getting at?” She put the glass down.
“Whose thermos was it?”
“Lorenzo’s, I think. A red one … yes, he gave it to me to fill. No, wait a minute. Lorenzo gave it to Stinky, and Stinky handed it to me. He was checking out the plane, he said. As if a child could check out a plane. Pour!”
“But, you filled the thermos. From what?”
“Shit. Lorenzo kept a percolator in the shack for all the people at the field. What kind of a cop are you anyway? You’re a sadist, that’s what. A fancy-dressed sadist. Give me my bottle!”
Lockwood decided to tell her about himself. “I’m not a cop. Never said I was. That’s my insurance investigator’s badge. If you want Mr. Gray to pay you, you’d better come across with some straight answers.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Shit, I knew there was something phony about you. You’re one of Gray’s men, huh?”
“What of it?”
She collapsed back in her seat. “Damn it, can’t you see I need the insurance money? Look at this shithole. I need the money, and I need a drink, too.”
“In a minute. Look, tell me if anything struck you as suspicious at the airfield.”
“How the hell would I know?”
That figured. Still, he pressed on. “Drunk or not, did you notice anything that was suspicious? Answer or you’ll not get a dime out of Transatlantic.”
“Yeah, sure. No. I just don’t know.” She started crying, in huge heaves of her body. A move that made Lockwood loosen up and give her the damned bottle.
“Thanks,” she gasped and poured a water glass full and brought it to her lips. Then she asked, “Was my husband killed? Is that what you’re telling me or hinting at?”
Lockwood answered, “Call it foul play.”
“Good God.” She took another swig.
“Did you do it?” he asked.
“Do what? Kill him? Get out, get out,” she screamed.
He left. She slammed the door behind him. He wanted to see Stinky again. According to Cynthia Jones, even Stinky had handled the missing thermos.
He drove by the Catholic cemetery and into Flushing, to see the kid again.
Thermos, thermos, who had the thermos?
CHAPTER
13
The kid wasn’t easy to find. Lockwood tracked Stinky down to a malt shop a half mile from the field reading an Army Air Corps pilot’s manual and sipping a malt.
“Make mine chocolate,” Lockwood told the counterman and slipped into the booth across from Stinky.
“Hi.” The kid smiled. “How’s the case? Did you get the killer?”
Lockwood told the kid he was onto Lorenzo Jones’ murderer and that the kid had to help him.
Stinky went for it.
“Gosh, just like Dick Tracy. Or Terry and the Pirates.”
The kid was making disturbing noises in the bottom of the malt with his straw. Lockwood wondered if that semipermanent smear of grease on the kid’s nose was there as some sort of badge of aviation know-how.
First, Hook went over the design of the P-16 craft that Jones was flying when he went down. Stinky agreed that there was nothing wrong with the plane.
Then Lockwood dropped his bomb. “How come you didn’t tell me you had handled the thermos?”
A cloud passed over the speckled moon of the kid’s face. “I didn’t touch the thermos. Who told you that?”
“Cynthia Jones,” Lockwood said, staring him right in the eye.
“It’s a lie, Hook. I didn’t tell the FAA guys, but just before Lorenzo took off, Mrs. Jones told me to go buy some cigarettes. She gave me money. I shouldn’t have gone. But all those adults were saying good bye to Lorenzo, and they didn’t want me around. So I got on my bike and—I shouldn’t have left. Not for some lousy cigs.” A tear formed in his right eye. “When I heard the crash, I pedaled back as fast as I could. Now Mrs. Jones says I did it? She probably got rid of me so she could do it herself.” Both eyes filled with tears.
“You couldn’t have known, Stinky. Here’s my handkerchief.”
The kid wiped, blew hard, and handed back the results, as Lockwood cringed.
“Thanks,” said Stinky.
Lockwood gingerly repocketed the kid’s present and continued his questioning.
“Did anyone else try to get rid of you?”
“No.”
“Whatever made Jones crash, Stinky, happened in those few minutes you weren’t there. I don’t believe you had anything to do with it. I know you liked Lorenzo. You’re going to grow up and be an aviator like Lorenzo, I’ll bet.”
“I am grown up.”
“I mean, when you reach legal age. You could even join the Air Corps.”
“You bet, Hook.”
“He must have been a great man, a great pitcher, too. By the way, how was his arm? Did he talk to you about hurting it?”
“He kinda hurt it the last game of the season. He worried about it ‘cause it still hurt. But he told me the doctor told him not to worry.”
“Jones told you the doctor said that?”
“Yup!”
Jones seemed to have confided in Stinky, and the big guy probably wouldn’t have lied to his little companion.
Stinky then asked out of the blue, “You’re going with Amanda, aren’t you?”
That was a pretty adult question. “It seems that way,” Lockwood uneasily confessed. “Why?”
“It’s okay. Better than her going with that idiot mechanic.”
Lockwood was taken aback. “What idiot mechanic?”
“You know. Fat stupid Kepper.”
The revelation came as a blow. Amanda had been hanging around with that chain-smoking mechanic, Rodney Kepper! But the kid might not know the difference between a friendship and an affair. Lockwood didn’t like the feel of being in the same league with Rodney Kepper. He had to find out more.
“How cozy were Amanda and Rodney, Stinky? Tell me, man to man.”
“Gosh, you’re jealous. Don’t feel bad, Hook. She was always needing help on her engine. Dames aren’t too good at turning wrenches, like we are. Rodney thought he was getting someplace with her, but she was just friends because she needed help. One day he came right out and accused her of that. She said it was true. She only wanted him as a friend and to talk shop. Boy, did he get mad. He threw a wrench at Freddie Freestrut—that’s her plane, you know. Then he stalked off. They never talked again. But I heard him telling the other guys how she was real easy and all.”
“Lying?”
“Yeah, a dame like that, Hook. She’s a good pilot, so I respect her, right? She can have a good-looking guy like you. Why would she want fat ugly Rodney?”
“Sure!” Lockwood said. But he wasn’t so sure. Here was an angle he had never counted on. Rodney and Amanda. Until you knew for sure, it wasn’t wise to eliminate anybody as a suspect, even someone you were sleeping with. He wondered if it had been Amanda’s curling iron that had burned Doc’s feet.
Stinky filled him in on a few of the other people. Nothing new there. All bets were still on Wade or Cynthia. They had the motives.
Wade had the disposition of a sneaky killer, Cynthia Jones the disposition of an angry lush.
Yeah. But maybe Hook didn’t know much about the dame he was bedding down with either. Could Amanda have done it? She had had opportunity but no motive. Jesus, the kid could have done it. Naw, what the hell kind of cynic am I anyway? Hook felt ashamed for a moment. Stinky wouldn’t have done it, would he?
There had been a bit of mayhem i
n Stinky’s eyes a few times when they had been talking. Maybe his hero had crossed him.:..
Hook put on his hat, gave Stinky his number, and left.
Stinky said he would be on the case.
Maybe I’m blinded by my desire to pin the whole thing on Wade and Mrs. Jones, Hook thought. Maybe the thermos doesn’t mean anything.
He had a funny feeling in his gut as he drove to his next stop. As if he was slowly sinking in quicksand and there was no one around he could trust to pull him out.
CHAPTER
14
Doug Sheer and Lockwood poured over the data they had collected from the files and from Sheer’s private sources. Wade kept three mistresses in apartments on the East and West Side.
“And get this—Jones had once seen a doctor in Philadelphia,” Sheer said. “Maybe he saw him again. After he saw Doc Carruthers.”
Lockwood called the Philadelphia doctor Sheer mentioned for an appointment. The long-distance operator put the plug in the wrong circuit, and Hook couldn’t get through. Then, the Philadelphia circuits were all full. He tried again in ten minutes and had no trouble getting through. Except that there was such a buzz on the line he had to yell to be heard. The doctor was reticent about speaking over the phone, so Lockwood was on the road again.
Philadelphia was only ninety miles from the Holland Tunnel. And much of the ride was through pleasant fields and farms, once you got past the factories and dumps near the city. It was a sunny day, and Lockwood let down the top. There wasn’t much traffic, so he decided to let the Cord out a bit. He would have to pick up some speed if he was going to catch the Philadelphia doctor in his office.
Once he got past the gas stations and motels along Route 46, he eased up to 95. That wasn’t much for the Twin Packard engine, but the roads in Jersey were pitted. Although the shocks were special, he didn’t want to tear a Silvertown tire and spend half an hour changing a wheel.
For about ten miles a souped-up Studebaker gave him a pretty good run for his money, or so the teenage driver thought. Then Lockwood tired of teasing the youth and took off, as if the Studebaker was standing still.
Lockwood made it before the rush hour. He parked on Constitution near the Liberty Bell Monument and walked to 190 Dean Avenue, the address of Dr. Dallas, a three-story colonial style professional building. There was a three-foot-high cast-iron jockey statue next to the flagstone walk. Lockwood rubbed its head as he passed it. He could use some good luck on this case. The head was well worn. The black-faced jockey had probably been rubbed a few thousand times by anxious patients.