The Sartorial Senator (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 3)

by Frank W. Butterfield

  "He seemed upset that you two had skipped town without saying goodbye." He was grinning when he said this.

  "Anything else?" I asked.

  "He asked for your address."

  "Come on Runson. Spill it." This was Carter.

  Runson laughed. "OK. He asked for your address and I gave it to him."

  "How did you have it?" I asked.

  Andy looked offended at this. He said, "Dawson is a great cop, Nick. He does his research." They looked at each other. It was definitely love.

  After a long moment, Runson asked me, "Have you heard from Tom or the senator?"

  I shook my head. "Nope."

  "Seems a bit ungrateful."

  Carter said, "Maybe they just called us in to cover their tracks. Maybe they thought if we got involved then the story would stop being about the murder." He paused and stared at me. "Maybe they thought the story would become all about Nick Williams, homosexual private investigator."

  "Could be." I cocked my head at him and asked, "You think they're in this together?" Both Runson and Andy turned to Carter with curious smiles.

  The tall man's face turned red. Talking to Runson, he said, "You didn't see the way the senator put his hand on Tom's shoulder when we were there. And how he kept it there."

  I nodded. "Yes, but I still say that was fatherly concern. I don't think the senator is more than a Kinsey 2, at most."

  Carter pressed the point. "It's like you said Runson, you only have an open skylight and some pebbles. We still have three suspects. And no hard evidence."

  I took a sip of my whiskey and studied Carter for a moment. He was smart. No doubt about it. But I had been wondering if he liked this kind of case. He was a great arson investigator which meant a lot of attention to detail. There wasn't a lot of detail here to look through. That was the problem.

  Andy piped up. "What I want to know is where was Michael going?"

  I said, "That's a great question. Was he running away?"

  Carter added, "If he was, then who was he running away from? His daddy? His lover?"

  Dawson grinned and looked around at each of us. "Boy, I never had any fun on a case until this one."

  I laughed and said, "Let's talk about your plan. It might spring tonight. I'm kinda surprised it's taken this long."

  Dawson nodded, looked around, and asked, "What about the ladies?"

  Carter said, "Taken care of."

  Dawson looked at Andy. "Tell 'em what you came up with."

  We all listened as Andy detailed his ideas. I watched Carter as he resigned himself to his role. He didn't like it and neither did I but, if we were right, there wasn't any other way to get what Dawson needed.

  We were still talking it through when I heard Mrs. Wilson say, "Dinner, boys," as she and Marnie walked in from the kitchen with platters of food and put them on the table. We were eating in the dining room, for a change.

  . . .

  As we ate, I asked Runson about his history and where he was from.

  "I'm a tidewater rat."

  Carter asked, "What's that?"

  "I grew up down near Norfolk, Virginia. We call that area the tidewater. We had a house in a little town called Pungo. My dad was a fisherman. I practically grew up on the water."

  Mrs. Wilson asked, "Where's your accent?"

  Runson smiled. "Thanks to Dr. Marvel's 30-day Diction Course, I lost it."

  We all laughed.

  Andy asked, "When did you decide you wanted to be a cop?"

  Runson looked around the table and said, "That's a conversation for another time."

  Marnie said, "Oh, don't mind mother and me. We don't talk blue but there ain't nothin' we ain't heard."

  "It's pretty gruesome stuff."

  Mrs. Wilson stood up and started clearing plates. "In that case, don't start until I've brought out the dessert."

  . . .

  Once we were settled with coffee and slices of a cake from that same bakery that sold the lace cookies I'd scarfed over at Mrs. Benedetto's, Runson told us his story.

  "When I was about twelve, there was a n--"

  Carter said, "We don't... No."

  Runson nodded. "Sorry. When I start talking about my family..."

  Andy said, "Same thing happens to me."

  Runson smiled. "So, there was a colored man who worked for my dad during the winters when there wasn't any farming to be done. He was a nice guy. Tried to teach me how to play the banjo, but it never took. Name was George Reynolds. He was married and they had a mess of kids. We all played together in the summers. They lived in a shack down the road from us. It wasn't much but he owned the land and he didn't sharecrop. He also made a point to never borrow money from the bank or from any of his neighbors.

  "So, one day he had to go into Norfolk for some supplies. He had just sold his crop and, considering it was 1931, he did pretty well. He never banked his money. No one down there did in those days. No one trusted the banks.

  "Anyway, he had all this cash and was getting something for the farm. He was walking into the supply store when a white man mugged him in broad daylight and took his money. Couple of other white men saw it happen and just laughed it off. To cover their tracks, they had George arrested for loitering and vagrancy and he was thrown in jail overnight until my dad could get to Norfolk and tell the judge that George was a landowner back in Pungo. He was released on my father's bond and the charges were dropped. But that changed something in George. The church took up a collection for them. My parents gave what they could. Some of the other fishermen did, too. But he was never the same. Took the life out of him, I guess you could say."

  Marnie asked, "Did they ever catch the man who mugged him?"

  Runson smiled grimly. "That's the thing. Everyone knew who did it. But no one would testify. Said it didn't matter if it happened to a n--." He stopped. "To a colored man. That's just the way it is down there."

  Andy asked, "Why did that make you want to become a cop?"

  "I wanted to be the kind that would stick up for everyone. I didn't think it was fair, still don't, that there's different kinds of justice for different kinds of people."

  We were all quiet for a moment until Carter asked Andy, "Why'd you go into the Bureau?"

  Andy looked at me. I said, "I didn't tell him. That's your story to tell."

  As Andy was about to speak, there was a loud banging on the front door. Runson looked over at me and said, "I think the trap has finally sprung."

  Mrs. Wilson and Marnie very quietly went out the back door and walked over to Pam and Diane's garden gate to go stay over there for the evening. We had arranged this with them on Saturday.

  Andy and Runson went into the kitchen and took their places at the top of the basement steps. The steps opened into the kitchen looking towards the back door. They were perfectly hidden there.

  Carter moved into the kitchen and began to wash dishes.

  I walked calmly to the front door and opened it. I was pretty sure I knew who was going to be there but, then again, I wasn't positive.

  Chapter 29

  137 Hartford Street

  Monday, June 7, 1953

  Later that evening

  Montgomery stood there, looking cool and confident. He was wearing a perfectly pressed three-piece dark navy suit with a dark purple tie and a brilliantly white shirt. He stared at me with disdain for a moment. Then, without invitation, he walked past me into the house.

  He put his hat on the rack. "Scotch. Neat."

  I walked over to the bar and poured him two fingers of Johnny Walker Black in a glass. When I handed it to him, he asked, "Is he here?"

  I nodded. We had decided that my main job was to be compliant. That was the lure.

  Montgomery took a sip and looked around. "You don't know anything about money, do you?"

  I just looked down. He laughed. "If I had your money, well..." He took another sip. "I wouldn't be living in a dump like this."

  Carter walked into the sitting room. "I knew it w
as you," he said in a very thick drawl. He stood behind me, putting a possessive hand on my shoulder.

  Montgomery tried to maintain his bravado. "Why are you in there washing the dishes? Shouldn't you make your boy do that work?"

  Carter said, "I do what I want to do. And I don't take questions like that from someone like you." The voice was getting deeper and the drawl was getting thicker.

  Montgomery drained his glass in one gulp.

  Carter reached for the glass and, in one swift move, pulled it out of Montgomery's hand and threw it against the fireplace. It hit right on the grate and shattered with a big shot of a noise.

  "And you ask me for my whiskey before you take any."

  I looked up at Montgomery. His face was pious and quiet, like before. Carter backhanded the man, doing so much harder than he had hit me on the previous Tuesday night. He had both thrown the glass and hit Montgomery without ever removing the hand on my shoulder. It reminded me of the senator with Tom. Quiet control. I was impressed.

  Montgomery took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. A small trickle of blood appeared in the right corner of his mouth. He wiped that away, pocketed the handkerchief, and looked off in the distance.

  Carter squeezed my shoulder and said, "Go get the toys."

  I nodded and walked into the kitchen. The bag that Andy had brought with the wine also contained a pair of handcuffs and two lengths of rope.

  When I walked back into the sitting room, I found Carter leaning over Montgomery, who was seated in one of the two straight back chairs we kept against the wall by the dining room. Carter had pulled it into the middle of the sitting room floor. Montgomery's coat was pulled down, constraining his arms, which were pulled over the back of the chair.

  I handed the cuffs and the rope to Carter who dropped them on the floor. "Did I ask you to give them to me?"

  I shook my head.

  "Pick 'em up and put 'em on the table."

  I nodded.

  I did as I was told, watching Montgomery out of the corner of my eye. He was definitely excited.

  Carter walked over to the table where I was standing. He ran his hand along my cheek and then picked up the cuffs. He looked at them for a moment and walked back over to Montgomery. Leaning against the man, he reached around and slowly cuffed both wrists.

  He stood up and looked down at Montgomery. He said to me, "Take off his tie. I don't like the sound of his voice."

  I walked over, without looking Montgomery in the eye, and pulled his tie out from under his vest. I then slowly unknotted it and pulled it from around his neck. Carter, meanwhile, stood close enough to Montgomery to be a menacing presence. As I held the tie in my hand, Carter rubbed the top of my head and said, "Good boy." Montgomery moaned when he heard that. This was working very well.

  Carter took the tie from my hand and fastened it tightly around Montgomery's head so that a length of it was stuck in the man's mouth and effectively kept him from talking.

  Carter then walked over to the table and took one length of rope. For the next few minutes, he bound Montgomery to the chair tightly. He used one length for the torso and one length for the legs. As he was doing this, Montgomery was watching Carter intently, obviously enjoying the experience.

  Carter stood up and inspected his handiwork, "I like that. Now, go get the camera."

  Montgomery began to try to talk and struggle when he heard those words. I went into the kitchen and grabbed a big camera we'd bought on Saturday for just this purpose. I grabbed the extra bulbs for the flash and then tapped against the wall that ran next to the basement stairs. That was Runson's cue to start getting ready to come into the sitting room. I waited until he leaned around and gave me the thumb's up.

  I walked back into the sitting room and stood next to Montgomery, with my head down, waiting for instruction.

  Carter asked, "Is it ready?" I nodded.

  "Start shooting our star. These outta look real nice."

  I held up the viewfinder to my eye, focused, and depressed the shutter. The bulb exploded in Montgomery's eyes. He began to really struggle, but Carter had him tied up tight.

  I popped the bulb and put a new one in. I took a second picture. Montgomery kept his eyes closed this time.

  "That's enough," said Carter. I put the camera on the table. Right then Runson walked in, an unlit cigarette hanging in his mouth. He had taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves to reveal his thick, hairy, muscled forearms.

  Because he was still officially a cop, we'd decided he wouldn't touch Montgomery.

  He walked around behind me and stood next to Carter. He looked bemused. "Good work, Carter. I like it when they're nice and tight like that."

  Carter nodded. He leaned down and talked directly to Montgomery. "You remember my friend here, Mr. Barker? Curious thing both of you coming to San Francisco at the same time." He leered at Montgomery and stood up.

  Runson looked over at Montgomery and said, "All tied up and nowhere to go."

  The next part we hadn't rehearsed. We'd just talked about it. Carter pulled a pocketknife out of his back pocket and folded it open, revealing the largest blade.

  When he showed it to Montgomery, the man's eyes got very wide and he started to visibly sweat. Carter had no intention of threatening the man with the knife. He just wanted to show it off.

  He looked down at the knife and then, very suddenly, lifted his right leg, the good one, and put the toe of his shoe right on the edge of the chair Montgomery was strapped to. Carter leaned in and asked, very quietly, "Why did you kill Michael?"

  Montgomery looked terrified. He was shaking his head and trying to talk. Carter looked at his knife. Still leaning in front of the man, he pretended to remove some dirt from under his left thumbnail with the knife. Montgomery was thrashing.

  Runson said, "He was a sweet little piece of ass and you should have known better than to mess with someone else's property."

  Montgomery now looked both terrified and confused. His eyes darted wildly between the two men who were standing over him. I saw a drop of sweat fall from the man's chin and splash on the clean white shirt he was wearing under his vest.

  Carter said, "The way I heard it is that Michael spurned you and you shot him."

  Montgomery was furiously shaking his head now.

  Dawson said, "And that Michael was trying to get away from you."

  Montgomery was trying to say one single word. I was pretty sure it was, "No."

  Carter said, "Take off his tie." That was directed at me, of course. I walked around behind the chair and untied the knot. Montgomery was shaking his head so much that it was hard to do. The tie fell onto the floor before I could remove it.

  "No! I didn't kill him. It was all a game! He wanted to play Russian Roulette. You know that. You killed him!"

  I remembered that Carter had, out of the blue, mentioned playing with revolvers when we were at Montgomery's house.

  Carter shook his head, "No. I wasn't there. Must have been you."

  "No! He wanted me to help him escape!"

  Runson leaned in. "Escape from what?"

  "From Tom Jefferson! The man's a monster. Michael told me he was going to make the house look like it had been broken into. And then he was going to disappear. He would ask his father for ransom money. And that's what he was going to live on. What we did, the fun we had, that was all a game. All of this is just a game."

  Carter turned his head ever so slightly. "Do you think this is a game, Mr. Montgomery?"

  The man swallowed and looked between Carter and Runson. He glanced at me briefly.

  "I don't know what to think. You... you... scare me."

  "Don't I excite you, Mr. Montgomery?" Carter leaned in just a bit more. I was watching his left leg. It was beginning to twitch. I tried to think of something to do to get Carter moving around.

  "But..." I just said that one word and Carter stood straight up. He turned around, squeezed his face in apology, and very lightly backhanded me. I grabbed the
side of my face and bent over, pretending to be in pain.

  "That's what you get for talking out of turn."

  I stayed where I was. Carter walked past me and into the kitchen. I heard him walking around to loosen up his left knee.

  "What's he doing in there?"

  Runson growled. "Did anyone say you could speak?"

  Montgomery said nothing. Runson walked up to me, put his hand on my back, and pushed me forward. "Untie his legs."

  I nodded, got down on my knees in front of Montgomery, and began to untie the ropes. It was slow going since Carter had pulled them very tight. As I was gathering up the rope, Montgomery suddenly kicked me. I yelped. His shoe made contact with the top of my thigh and it hurt like hell.

  I backed away and then stood up. I put the rope on the table. Right then Carter walked in. "What's going on in here?"

  Runson grinned. "Seems like your harem is getting into a cat fight."

  Carter shoved me very slightly. I exaggerated a stumble. "What did you do to him? Do you want him to take your place? It could happen if you're not careful."

  Carter turned around, knelt down on his good knee in front of the chair, and said to Montgomery, "Did he hurt you?" He put his right hand against the man's face. He rubbed his thumb against Montgomery's cheek. The man closed his eyes in ecstasy. This wasn't in the script, but it was damn effective.

  I said, "But..."

  "Basement!" barked Carter.

  "But..."

  "Now!"

  "I'd do it buddy, if I was you," said Runson who, as I had noticed before, was having a little too much fun in all this.

  I stomped off, making a dramatic exit into the kitchen. I clopped down the stairs past a grinning Andy. When I got to the bottom, I turned around and quietly walked back up.

  "Barker, you know how I feel about lying don't you?" That was Carter.

  "I do. I seen you take that out of your little shit's hide."

  "Yeah."

  "I didn't kill him. Honest. I was his friend." That was Montgomery. I wasn't buying this for a minute.

  "Well, if I didn't kill Michael and you didn't kill Michael, then who did?" Carter was talking smooth and slow.

  "It had to be Tom. Tom's crazy."