The Hearse You Came in On (Hitchcock Sewell Mysteries)

by Tim Cockey

  She caught her breath. The tugboat sounded again.

  “I think he did, Hitch. I really think he did.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Kate stayed with me that night. We didn’t make love; she said she felt too much like a worn-out old rug.”

  You’re a very pretty old rug,” I told her.

  “Do I have to thank you for that?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  Kate was happy to make the acquaintance of Alcatraz. The woman had a pulse, so Alcatraz was happy to meet her as well.

  “He’s friendly.”

  “He’s a whore.”

  “He’s beautiful.”

  “He is. And he’s loyal. And he keeps the floor from floating off. And he’s as dumb as a box of rocks. Watch this.” I clapped my hands together. “Alcatraz! Sit! Lie down! Roll over! Speak! Give me your paw!” I turned to Kate. “See? The five basic instructions, and nothing.”

  “I think he’s adorable.”

  “Oh, he’s adorable all right. He’s just not fulfilling my master-slave needs. He’s more decorative than I’d hoped for when I got him. Maybe a big jade plant would have been better.”

  Alcatraz raised his big old square head and let off a chesty woof!

  “What do you think he said?” I asked.

  “I think he said, ‘Fuck you for the jade plant dig.’ ”

  I sought out Alcatraz’s big wet nose. “Is that what you said, big boy? Huh? Is the lady right?” He woofed again.

  Kate was chuckling now. “That’s a yes.”

  Kate and I got into bed and she slithered her way into my arms.

  “What’s it like to bury people for a living?” she asked after we had smooched for a few minutes.

  “God, Kate, you’d better bone up on your pillow talk.”

  “I’m serious. How can it not get depressing? All those sad people. Who does the embalming?”

  “My aunt and I trade off.”

  She shuddered. “Do you think you would have still been an undertaker if your parents hadn’t been killed? If you hadn’t gone off to live with your aunt and uncle?”

  “I don’t think so. I was sort of gunning for international spy when I was a kid. Though my mother said I was too good-looking to become a spy. She said all the other spies would be jealous.”

  “That’s such a mother thing to say.”

  Kate nestled her head closer into my chest. After a few moments, she sighed. “God… I’ve got a lot of baggage.”

  I gave her forehead a kiss. “I’ve always felt that if a person doesn’t have any baggage, it means they haven’t really been anywhere. Stop beating yourself up.”

  We fell silent for a few minutes. I thought maybe she had fallen asleep in my arms. Then her lips moved against my chest.

  “Alan Stuart nearly destroyed me.”

  “I know he did,” I said softly. “But you toughed it out.”

  “I’m a tough girl,” she said.

  I shifted around and found a spot on her that wasn’t so tough.

  “No.” Her voice was surprisingly frail. “Please.”

  I woke sometime in the middle of the night. A movement across the room caught my eyes. Kate was nicely silhouetted in the window, framed by the pale blue moonlight. I scooted up on my pillow.

  “Are you all right?”

  Kate didn’t answer right away. When she did, I realized that she had been crying.

  “I’ve never told anyone before … about what happened. I thought… I guess I thought I was going to feel better, getting it off my chest. But…”

  She leaned sideways, resting her head against the window. She placed a hand on the glass, and after a few seconds, she tapped her fingers lightly.

  “I’m ashamed of myself, Hitch.”

  “Shhhh. You’re only human. Come on back to bed.”

  “No. I’m not talking about what I did with Alan. I’m ashamed how quickly I buried my husband.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  I could see her turn in my direction, though I’m sure all she could see of me was darkness.

  “I’ve never tried to find out what was going on with Charley’s investigation. The reason he was in the warehouse that night. We had our agreement not to talk about what he was up to. But after I… when Alan called me in and told me that Charley had compromised himself, I just shoved it aside. On top of everything else it was just too much. I guess… in a way it made it a little easier. The idea of Charley as a crooked cop is … it makes him abstract. Like it wasn’t really my Charley who I shot, but just a replica of him. The good Charley is still out there somewhere.”

  “So you think Stuart was lying?”

  “No. I don’t… I really don’t know. The point is … I never checked. Alan fed me that story and I accepted it, because it did make it a little easier. Not until I repeated it to you tonight and I heard it out loud did it suddenly not feel right. I mean, maybe it’s all true, I don’t know. I’ve lost my perspective on everything. But what isn’t right is the fact that I haven’t checked up on it. What kind of wife is that?”

  I didn’t offer an answer. Kate’s silhouette blurred in the window and vanished. Seconds later she was back under the sheets.

  “I’m going to pull the file on Charley’s investigation,” she said. “I’m going to find out what my husband was up to before I killed him.” She drew a sharp breath. “That’s the least I can do.”

  CHAPTER 22

  In the morning I burned a set of warm-up waffles and fed them to Alcatraz, then cranked out a bunch of perfect golden brown squares for Kate and me and stacked them on a plate. My cof-feemaker sputtered and wheezed like a Model T, but finally trickled its kick-a-poo into the pot. Kate made no mention of her decision to look into her husband’s last case. Nor did I. Instead I had a few questions that I had refrained from asking her the night before. They concerned the Guy Fellows murder.

  “I’m curious about something. You’ve been assigned to the Guy Fellows case, right?” I skidded a few waffles onto a plate and set it in front of her.

  “That’s right.”

  “But only after the sleek and beautiful Detective Kruk had gotten it first.”

  “John Kruk is a solid detective,” Kate said. A little defensively.

  “I don’t doubt that he is. I guess that’s partly why I’m curious. Why would Kruk be pulled off the case? Office politics is what both you and he told me, but I still don’t get it.”

  Kate had been indulging Alcatraz about the head and neck. She stopped immediately.

  “He told you? When did he tell you that? When did you talk to Kruk?”

  I gave Kate a rundown of my run-in with the detective the previous day. I told her about Kruk’s warning to me that Kate and I shouldn’t be seeing each other. Kate was especially interested in the part where Kruk warned me that “things were going to get a little messy around here.”

  “Did he explain what he meant by that?” Kate asked.

  “No. What do you make of it? Do you think he’s onto Alan Stuart?”

  Kate was pouring syrup onto her waffles. She seemed to be concentrating a lot harder than the simple task required. “I don’t know. Kruk keeps his cards close to the vest.”

  “Does he know about the videotape?”

  “God no, are you kidding? Hitch, I haven’t shared that with anyone. Except you. Which I really shouldn’t have done. I’m withholding evidence, you know. I could really get screwed for this.” She set down the syrup. “Of course, if Alan turns out not to be involved in the Guy Fellows murder and I’ve turned the tape over anyway, I’m also screwed.”

  I got up from the kitchen table and fetched a dog biscuit from the biscuit jar and threw it at Alcatraz. He snorted and it disappeared. I leaned back against the counter.

  “Can’t you just ask Kruk what’s the ‘mess’ he’s referring to?” I asked. “He was your partner, after all. I’ve seen cop shows. Aren’t you two supposed to be soul mates?”

  Kat
e wrapped her hands around her coffee mug and stared down at it.

  “Kruk was my senior partner. We didn’t work together very long. His promotion to detective had already been approved, he was just waiting for the reassignment. Kruk was never thrilled about being partnered with a woman in the first place. He’s always had trouble with the idea of a woman in a uniform.” She looked up at me. “It’s not what you think. He’s not a chauvinist pig. He’s … well, he’s a chivalrous pig in fact. Partners always watch each other’s backs. I mean, that’s obvious. But Kruk’s complaint was that his natural concern for his partner’s safety doubled if the partner was a woman. You watch each other’s backs, of course. But you can’t obsess. You’ve got to trust that your partner can take care of himself. Or herself. Kruk just couldn’t take that for granted with me. He tried, I give him that. But he really couldn’t.”

  “You’re saying the crusty little guy is a softy?”

  Kate had found a chip in her mug and she was picking away at it with a fingernail.

  “Kruk was devastated with what went down in that warehouse the night I shot Charley. He feels that he let up and that he never should have let me go into that warehouse. That I should have been the one to stay outside and tend to Connolly.”

  I returned to the table and sat down opposite her. “Second-guessing, Kate. It’s a useless exercise. But look, what does this have to do with your not simply asking him what’s this ‘mess’ he’s talking about?”

  Kate took a few seconds to form her answer. “Kruk and I aren’t, uh, communicating very well these days. My promotion to detective … Like I said, it came pretty fast. No one ever said anything openly to me about my affair with Alan, but come on, these are detectives, for Christ’s sake. You think they don’t know? I’m afraid I’m tainted goods around the old precinct.”

  “Why were you put on the Fellows case?”

  Kate smirked. “That’s a good question.”

  “Stuart can’t possibly want you to dig anything up. I mean, not if he’s involved in the murder. Though of course you already have.”

  “The video.”

  “How did you get ahold of that nifty little memento, anyway?”

  “From Carolyn’s apartment. It’s a copy.”

  “So do you think Stuart has the original?”

  Kate shrugged. “He’s sure as hell not going to tell me if he does. I have to guess that whoever killed Guy has got the tape. I mean, that only makes sense.”

  “And we’re guessing that’s Stuart. Or at least someone with Stuart’s interests in mind.”

  “Joel Hutchinson?”

  “I don’t know. He certainly has the ability to, uh, overrespond. Anything’s possible.” The image of a blindfolded Alfred Smollett floated into view. “But wait. Here’s the question. Does your boss know that you have that tape?”

  Kate finally took a bite of her now-cold waffle. As she chewed it she was shaking her head no.

  “No way. Remember? I never gave up Carolyn to him. That’s what’s got Alan ballistic. He still thinks that the partner is out there.”

  “So then… what kind of murder investigation is this? If Alan Stuart is somehow involved in Guy Fel-lows’s murder, then who are you supposed to be looking for?”

  “My original assignment for Alan … my ‘favor,’ if you remember, was to locate Guy Fellows’s partner. To locate Insurance, as your college chum kept saying.”

  “Which you did.”

  “Which I did. I smoked out Carolyn pretty easily. But like I said, there was no way I was going to take that poor girl out of the jaws of Guy Fellows and stick her into the jaws of Alan. I know a victim when I see one. As it is, I lost her anyway. But at least I tried. I didn’t throw her to the wolves.”

  Something was still not lining up for me.

  “But they must have known. They must have figured it out. Like you said, they wouldn’t dare go after Fellows if his ‘Insurance’ was still out there. But the moment Carolyn James kills herself … bye-bye, Guy. The Insurance plan had lapsed.”

  “Well that’s the strange part, Hitch,” Kate said. “Someone must have panicked. Because I never identified Carolyn to them as Guy’s partner.”

  “Well then they figured it out for themselves. How hard could that be? They must have learned that Guy Fellows had made arrangements—cheap as they were—for somebody’s funeral. That wouldn’t have been impossible to discover. They must have figured Carolyn James for the cameraperson, been all pleased that she had so conveniently killed herself, and so then they went after Fellows. Case closed. Why do you say someone panicked? It sounds ruthless to me, but not panicky.”

  “I can’t say, Hitch. Maybe you’re right. Maybe they didn’t panic at the time.” She had stabbed another forkful of waffle. She brought the fork up next to her face, using it to emphasize her point. “But they’re panicking now.” She popped the waffle into her mouth and leaned back in her chair.

  “Miss Zabriskie, do you have something you would like to share with our audience?”

  “Alan is still being blackmailed,” Kate said flatly. “Another package of pictures has showed up. No note. No demands for money. This was just a few days ago. Alan called me into his office. Joel Hutchinson was there. Alan wanted to know if I had any leads about Fellows’s partner.”

  “Your lead is in the cold cold ground.”

  “I failed to mention that to him. Then he showed me a whole new batch of pictures he’d just gotten. He was furious. Alan does not like being toyed with. Not one bit.”

  “Who the hell could have sent the pictures?”

  “The way Alan and Joel reconstructed it, there must have been some sort of argument over at Guy’s place between Guy and his partner, probably over money or over what to do next with the photographs. They had some sort of argument, it got heated, and the partner grabbed the kitchen knife and ended the argument that way.”

  “That’s insane. There was no partner by then. Carolyn James was already dead. They were making that all up. Why? Are they trying to throw you off the scent?”

  “There’s another option. It’s possible that Joel Hutchinson and Alan don’t really share everything. One of them could be trying to throw the other off the scent.”

  “You mean for example, Amanda Stuart killed Fellows, and hubby is pointing people in another direction?”

  “Could be. Or as you keep wondering, maybe Joel got a little overzealous and now he wants to keep up the pretense of this murderous mystery partner.”

  “This is ridiculous,” I said. “Someone is bluffing. This so-called new blackmail letter is pure bullshit.”

  “You’re right. It is bullshit. No question about it. But I can tell you this, both of those guys want me to dig like crazy for this partner. That’s why I was put onto the case and Kruk was pulled off. Nobody said this out loud to me of course. But if Alan is involved, he can’t afford for Kruk to bring in a collar who’s going to start shooting his mouth off. It’s up to me to locate this partner of Guy’s. And I’m guessing I’ll be under orders to use all due force when I do.”

  “But the partner is already dead.”

  “Hitch … I know that. And you know that. But Alan doesn’t. Don’t you see? Within a week of Guy’s murder Alan gets a fresh shipment of dirty pictures of his wife. And these were dropped off at the front desk. Not mailed. So it certainly wasn’t Guy from the grave. And not Carolyn. You should have seen those two squirming. Alan is running scared. This would bury him.”

  “So either Stuart or Hutch is pulling a stunt,” I said. “Or Fellows actually had another partner all along. Besides Carolyn James. Is that it?”

  Kate was shaking her head no.

  “Then who the hell dropped off the pictures?”

  Kate pointed her fork at me.

  “That bastard owes me.”

  She speared another forkful of cold waffle and put it in her mouth. Angrily. Triumphantly. Before I could even ask her, she was bobbing her head up and down.

  T
hat would be a yes.

  CHAPTER 23

  Because of the arrangement with the fireman’s pole running down from Julia’s studio it’s possible to literally “drop in” to the gallery, if you’re already upstairs. I wasn’t. I used the door.

  Chinese Sue was behind the register, reading a copy of The Village Voice. She lowered the paper to just under her nose and said, “Not here.”

  In the several years that Chinese Sue has been holding down the fort at Julia’s gallery, I have never once heard her utter a single polysyllabic word. I used to try to bait her, ask her leading questions. But Chinese Sue knows her game. I’ve long since given up.

  “Any idea where she is?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Or what time you expect her back?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Or how long she’s been gone?”

  “No.”

  I wandered around the gallery for a few minutes looking at Julia’s stuff. Julia once told me that she usually didn’t know what she was painting when she started a canvas, and about half the time she didn’t know what she had painted even when she was finished. These were the paintings to which she gave titles chosen totally at random. Mr. Green Eats His Bicycle or Tunisian Pancake, Part Two. Julia knows her colors and she knows her shapes and strokes and I think some of her best works are these impenetrable ones with the ridiculous names. (There is a collector out there who is still scouring the city for Tunisian Pancake, Part One, which Julia neglected to inform him doesn’t exist.) It is Julia’s other paintings, though, that seem to sell better. A lot of these are what you would call juxtapostional musings: a man with a hen for an ear; a waterfall cascading from the top of an office building; a family of cigars enjoying a day at the beach.

  I asked Chinese Sue what she was reading. Again the paper lowered to her nose. “Shit,” she said. Back up went the paper. Back out the door went Hitch.

  Aunt Billie had asked me to help out with her wake that afternoon. It was one of those ugly situations, where the death—in this case of an elderly woman—forces the two feuding factions of a family to lay down their arms and try to get along under the same roof—ours—for an hour or so. You’d be surprised, we get this a lot. My task at these affairs is usually less the conventional one of facilitating grief than it is running interference. What I’ve learned is that you’re likely to get your most volatile exchange somewhere in the vicinity of the coffin itself. That’s to say, this is where your actual yelling—sometimes even hitting—is most likely to take place. The poor dead thing in the box just has to lie there and take it. Billie and I double up sometimes on these feud jobs, and we can run ourselves ragged, slicing every which way across the room in an attempt to insert ourselves between the antagonists.