Manslaughter (Stanley Hastings Mystery, #15)

by Parnell Hall

  “Why?”

  “Stanley, you’re not going to ogle these pictures if you know it’s wrong.”

  “Ogle?”

  “That’s not how you pronounce it?”

  “I don’t care how you pronounce it. I’m not pleased you think I’d do it.”

  “Give me a break. Any man would do it.”

  “Then why pick on me?”

  “I married you.”

  “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “Stanley, I don’t give a damn how other men behave. It’s your behavior that concerns me.”

  See, now that’s why arguing with Alice is a no-win situation. Alice does care what other men think. And if that were her point—the fact her sensitivities were outraged by the proclivities of the male gender in general— she could argue it equally well, and my protestations that I was an individual, a special case, and no less than her husband, would fall on deaf ears. I avoid arguments with Alice like the plague.

  I tried a simple deflection. “All right,” I said, “if Thurman didn’t find these photos, then what did he find?”

  “How about the money?” Alice said.

  “The two hundred and seventy thousand in cash?”

  “Yeah. What about that?”

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t work for me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Thurman’s too happy. That would compute if he kept the money, but Thurman’s straight. Not that he’s a saint, I think he’s just too dumb to steal. But he wouldn’t keep the money. So I don’t think he found it.”

  “Just finding it wouldn’t account for his mood?”

  “What he found clinches the case against the girl. The money wouldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “What connects it to her? If she was paying blackmail, some of that money might be hers. But if they can’t prove it in court, it doesn’t help.”

  “What if they could prove it in court?”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But say they could.”

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t do it for me.”

  “Why not?”

  “If the money was hers, she obviously didn’t pay him that night.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the money was in the secret compartment. He’s not going to put it in the secret compartment in front of her. And if he did, it wouldn’t be there, ’cause she’d take it out.”

  “What if she doesn’t care about the money? What if she kills him, panics, just wants to get the hell out of there?”

  “Not a prayer.”

  “How come?”

  “The money was under this file folder. She may not take the money, but she sure as hell is gonna take the blackmail evidence. I don’t care how panicked she is, she’s gonna stop for that.”

  “Yeah, but ...”

  “Yeah, but what?”

  “So what did Thurman find?”

  “We know he didn’t find this file, because I’ve got it. But if he found evidence that implicates the girl, it wasn’t in this file folder. So she’s not takin’ this file folder, ’cause it’s not the evidence she wants.”

  “But the evidence she wants she leaves behind?”

  I rubbed my head. Tried to follow. “Alice, wasn’t all this predicated on the assumption Sergeant Thurman found the money?”

  “Yes.” Alice cocked her head. “That would seem to be a pretty shaky premise.”

  My eyes widened. “Alice, it was your idea in the first place.”

  “Yes, of course. I had to propose it in order for you to work out how illogical it was. Which you did very nicely, I might add.”

  “I did?”

  “Absolutely. I think we can conclude Sergeant Thurman didn’t find the money.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Yes, and you were right. Tell me, did you discuss this with MacAullif?”

  “Of course not. He doesn’t know I found the money.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “I didn’t want to make him guilty of withholding evidence.”

  “It’s not really evidence.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure that would be a comfort to MacAullif when he’s suspended and sent to jail.”

  “There’s no need to be sarcastic,” Alice said. “Did you tell Richard?”

  “Christ, no.”

  “ Why not? He’s your attorney. It’s a privileged communication.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it. He’s your lawyer.”

  “It’s a fine line when you start confessing to crimes.”

  “Stanley, you think there’s any power on earth that could pry that information out of Richard?”

  “That’s not why I held out on him. Richard never met a buck he didn’t like. If I tell him there’s a small fortune in that apartment, his position is gonna be that’s our money.”

  “Our money?”

  “Not our money. His money. He’s representing the widow. He’ll take the position that she inherits as surviving spouse.”

  “What about the fact the money was illegally obtained?”

  “How is he supposed to know that? There’s no reason for him to make any such assumption. Grackle had money. Grackle’s dead. The money belongs to the widow. A third of it belongs to Richard. Case closed.”

  “All right,” Alice said. She turned her attention back to the file. “What else have we got?”

  “I haven’t looked.”

  Alice raised her eyebrows. “You looked only at the dirty pictures?”

  “Alice, I came straight home with this. I didn’t stop along the way. You tore it out of my hands the minute I got in the door.”

  “Tore it out of your hands?”

  “The point is, I didn’t have a chance to look at the other folders.”

  Alice reached for an envelope and dumped out Grackle’s Starling IDs.

  “See,” I said. “There’s proof the guy was Starling.”

  “I thought you didn’t look at any other folders.”

  “Just this one.”

  “You saw it before the photos?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So after you saw the pictures, you couldn’t look at anything else?”

  I ignored the comment, reached for another file. “What have we got here?”

  What we had there was a police report of a drug arrest for an Oscar K. Dowling III. I whistled, showed it to Alice.

  “Something tells me Oscar K. Dowling the Third’s parents don’t know about this,” Alice said.

  “Either that, or their high-society friends don’t.”

  “Really? I would have thought white-collar drug busts were almost fashionable.”

  “Maybe someone wasn’t too happy about this one.”

  “Well, the police should know about it,” Alice said. “How do you plan to go about telling them?”

  “Beats me.”

  I looked at some more files. A DWI arrest of a young Yale student. A statutory rape conviction of a young stockbroker. I continued flipping through files, all remarkably similar, and suddenly stopped dead.

  The name Joe Balfour leaped off the page.

  I pulled it out, examined it, and whistled.

  “What is it?”

  “An arrest record for Joe Balfour dating back to nineteen ninety.”

  “What’s the charge?”

  “Aggravated assault, and drunk and disorderly.”

  “Aggravated assault?”

  “That’s the charge. Let’s see what happened.” I flipped the page. “Here’s the court disposition. The aggravated assault was dismissed. The drunk and disorderly was reduced to a misdemeanor count of public intoxication, which was also dismissed.”

  Alice looked at me incredulously. “He was blackmailing him over that?”

  “Wait. There’s more.” I flipped another page. “Uh-oh.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a death certificate. For a C. Fletc
her Headly.” My eyes widened. “Oh, my god!”

  “What?”

  “That’s what the girl said. Just before she slapped me. She said, ‘Do you know Headly?’ When I gave her a deadpan, she let me have it.”

  “Gave her a deadpan? Stanley, you’re beginning to sound like some film noir PI.”

  “Skip it, Alice. This is the payoff.” I put up my hand. “And never mind the word payoff. The point is, Headly’s important.” I sucked in my breath. “And here’s why.”

  “What is it?”

  “The death certificate’s dated the day after Balfour’s arrest.”

  “The day after?”

  “Sure. Balfour beats the shit out of Headly in a barroom brawl. The cops come. Balfour’s arrested. Headly splits before they get there. Headly crawls off, collapses in an alley, and dies. Balfour’s arraigned before anyone finds the body. Later that day the police find a drunk dead in an alley. There’s no connection to the night before. It means nothing to anyone.

  “Except Grackle. Or Starling. Or whatever you want to call him.”

  “So Balfour really did commit manslaughter.”

  “Sure. Which stands to reason. Most people aren’t good at making up stories. They stick to the truth as much as possible. He committed the crime. But it wasn’t twenty-five years ago, it was only thirteen.”

  “Why would he lie about that?”

  “He didn’t want to admit he was wanted for manslaughter. So he said he’d served time, but his family didn’t know. He had to say it happened before he got married, because an astute wife would be apt to notice if her husband went away for three to five.”

  “You think I would?”

  “But he was never in jail. Because he was never convicted. Because nobody knew he’d done it except Grackle.”

  “How did he know?”

  “That was his business. Finding out things. He found this out. Instead of going to the police, he went to Balfour and turned the screws.”

  “Turned the screws?”

  “Alice.”

  “It’s not enough. That’s the problem. You have a death certificate and a dismissed drunk charge. That’s a far cry from a homicide. Why would Balfour pay?”

  I flipped the page. “Here’s why. Witness statement of Alan Rickstein, dated ... let’s see ... three days after the incident. ‘I was in Murphy’s bar on the night of June 15, 1990. I saw a fight between Joe Balfour and Fletcher Headly. The fight broke up when the police arrived. Balfour was arrested. Headly ran off.’”

  I flipped to the last page. “Here’s another. Witness statement of Craig Keyson, taken a week later. ‘I was in Murphy’s bar on the night of June 15. I saw Joe Balfour beat up Fletcher Headly. Balfour beat him pretty bad. Fletcher was helpless, but Joe just kept hitting him. He only stopped because the cops came. Otherwise I think he would have killed him.’”

  I looked up from the paper. “Well, that would seem to be enough.”

  “Yes, it would,” Alice said. “So if Balfour killed Grackle, that’s what he would have been looking for. And failed to find.”

  I frowned. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Grackle was pretty smart—aside from getting killed—I would imagine he took precautions in case anyone ever broke in.”

  “So?”

  “So what if he had a photocopy that was easier to find?”

  “That might do it,” Alice said. “Is that it?”

  “That’s it for this file. There’s more.”

  “Let’s check ’em out.”

  We ran through a number of files all remarkably similar.

  It was the next to last.

  I sucked in my breath.

  “What is it?” Alice asked.

  “Hospital admission form. For one Jennifer Balfour. Facial lacerations and bruises. Black eye. Broken arm. Sustained in a car accident. Admitted August third, discharged the next day.”

  “When was this?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “She’s healed rather nicely.”

  “Based on her picture in the paper?”

  “Based on your hopeless infatuation. And why is that grounds for blackmail?”

  “Let’s see.” I flipped to the next page. “Uh-oh.”

  “What is it?”

  “Death certificate for a John Doe.”

  “Oh?”

  “Dated the same day Jenny checked into the hospital.”

  Alice’s eyes widened. “Well, isn’t that interesting. What did he die of?”

  “Trauma to the head.”

  “That’s pretty wide open, isn’t it? He could have been mugged. He could have just fallen down. Or—correct me if I’m wrong—he could have been a passenger in a car driven by a drunken teenager.”

  “You mean...?”

  “There’s gotta be some reason those pages are paper-clipped together. Here, let me see that.”

  Alice snatched the file out of my hands, flipped back to the admission form. “Hmmm.”

  “What is it?”

  “The blank for ‘Ambulance’ is checked ‘No.’ There’s also no police report. Wouldn’t you expect one with an accident serious enough to put you in the hospital?”

  “I suppose.”

  “So Jenny Balfour wrecks her car. The guy she’s with is killed. It’s a lonely road, no one around. Jenny calls Daddy, who rushes to the scene and takes charge. He removes all identification from the body and dumps it where it will be found as a John Doe. He rushes his daughter to the hospital and sends a tow truck for her car. The police are never involved.” Alice shrugged. “Wouldn’t that be lovely grounds for blackmail?”

  “You’re making an awful lot of assumptions,” I said.

  “Well, what do you think those papers mean?”

  I had no idea. I just knew it wasn’t good.

  I was not a happy camper. Everything I’d found implicated the Balfours.

  I picked up the last folder. Okay, Grackle. I could use a little help here.

  I pulled the contents out of the folder.

  It was a police rap sheet for one Herman Bertoli. It included convictions for such assorted crimes as receiving stolen property, sale of narcotics, promoting prostitution, aggravated assault, and rape.

  The rap sheet was paper-clipped to a page from the newspaper. I removed the paper clip, unfolded the page.

  It took awhile to find.

  The page was from the New York Post, and it was actually a double page, which made four pages in all if you counted both sides. Two pages, the centerfold if you will, consisted entirely of celebrity photos, the kind of shots they love to get in the paper. Harrison Ford shopping in Barnes and Noble just like a real person. Jerry Orbach sitting on a park bench in between takes of Law and Order.

  One of the pictures was a real coup. It showed a New York Knicks star—if they can be considered stars these days, considering the funk the team’s in. The ballplayer was enjoying a laugh with a man identified as “Strip Club Owner Darien Mott.”

  As I say, I’m not good at faces, but I recognized Mr. Mott.

  He was Greaseball from Midnight Lace.

  38.

  DARIEN MOTT’S FACE FROZE the minute I walked in the door. He gestured to his bouncer, and the two of them headed me off.

  “Guys, guys,” I said. “Let’s not make a scene. My business is brief. Let me state it and I’ll get out of here.”

  “Who are you?” Mott demanded.

  I smiled. “Well, that’s just what I was gonna ask you. Would your name be Mott?”

  “What about it?”

  “Like the apple juice. Good name. Not too ethnic-sounding. Guy might change his name to Mott if he had a mind.”

  Mott looked at the bouncer. “Throw him out.”

  “Probably a bad move, Bertoli,” I said.

  Mott might have been playing poker. His face never changed. But he put up his hand. “Hold it, Bruno. What do you want?”

  “I’d like to talk.” I
jerked my thumb at the stage. “If we could go somewhere where there aren’t so many tits.”

  Mott considered. “Come on.”

  He led me around the bar into a small office with a file cabinet, a safe, and a desk. Mott didn’t sit, however. He stood there, glaring at me. “What do you want?”

  “How’d you know Grackle?”

  “Who says I did?”

  “That’s not important. I’d just like to get the sequence.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You knew Grackle. Jenny Balfour knew Grackle. That’s way too much coincidence. So did she meet him through you, or did you meet him through her?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “That’s less than helpful. Could we try again?”

  “No, I think you should leave.”

  “Then can we discuss your pseudonym?”

  “My what?”

  “Your alias, your nom de plume. The fact Grackle knew you were someone else. Do you think we could discuss that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Come on, give me a break. You’ve got a rap sheet as long as my arm. You think no one’s gonna recognize you?”

  “You think anyone’s gonna care?”

  “Just you. You’re the only one I can think of who might. So when I see Grackle holding on to your rap sheet, I have to ask myself why.”

  His eyes narrowed. “When you see Grackle holding my rap sheet?”

  “Oh, aren’t you up to date on the murder? Well, I was arrested in Grackle’s apartment. Apparently going through his files.”

  “And you found my rap sheet? Try again.”

  “Oh? Isn’t it there?”

  He smiled. “You run a good bluff, but that’s all it is, a bluff.”

  “How do you know?”

  Mott frowned. “I think we’re done talking.”

  “How do you know your rap sheet’s not in those files?”

  “Go on. Run along.”

  “If I didn’t find it, how do I know your name?”

  “I’m done talking.”

  Mott reached over and pushed a button on his desk. The Hulk appeared in the doorway. He said something between a grunt and a belch.

  “Show this gentleman the door,” Mott said.

  I didn’t particularly want that to happen. But I didn’t have another bluff, and I couldn’t think of one, anyway, with two tons of malevolent muscle heading my way. I stepped nimbly toward the door just to show Bruno that force wasn’t necessary. He must not have gotten the message, because in less time than it takes to tell, my right arm was rotated in its socket, jammed behind my back, and raised to within two inches of the ceiling.