“The wonders of intellectual engagement,” he said and hung up. He looked at Ruth as innocently as he could. She returned his gaze, still tight lipped and annoyed.
“This is the real thing, Ruth, I promise.” She looked doubtful.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” he said. Omanaka’s lips thinned in disapproval at the word ladies. “I have an emergency concerning, I believe, your murder victim, Doctor Fisher. I have to leave. Oh, and I wonder if you could assist me. It seems there is a crisis of…ah—”
“Conscience. Of course, Sheriff, happy to be of assistance, Sorry, Doctor Harris, duty calls.”
Ruth looked from one to the other and at the shambles Ike had made of her intellectual soiree and shook her head. Finally she gave them a rueful smile and waved them out the door.
“Thank you for coming. We will try to carry on without you. You were saying, Doctor Farragut…?”
“The use of polemic never….”
Chapter Eighteen
When the two men reached the porch and fresh air, Fisher said, “Sheriff, I’ll try to see your mother tomorrow. That’s if that’s okay and your father doesn’t object.”
“He won’t. He understands and, more importantly, he loves her enough that he only wants what will make her happy.”
“Tomorrow then. I’ll call first.”
Ike reached the office ten minutes later. The doors were locked but he could see lights and hear the air conditioner’s hum coming from Sam’s area. He let himself in. Sam was seated in the same position as when he left hours before, bent over a series of papers on her desk. Her computer screens cast a blue-green glow in the room and the printer seemed to have gone berserk. Reams of papers spilled out and piled up in the finish tray. The air carried a hint of pizza.
“What have you got?” he said and pulled up a chair. Sam handed him a sheaf of glossy prints.
“Brace yourself,” she said. “This guy is not your average church organist—or maybe he is. I haven’t been to church in a long time and things may have changed since my confirmation.”
Ike looked at the pictures. They were not, strictly speaking, salacious. Candid shots and some that might have passed as either amateur attempts at studio art or gritty porn. Most seemed taken through windows of cars or houses, and all with a telescopic lens.
“Where—?”
“They were on Krueger’s hard drive. He’d deleted them, but you know deleting only means that the directory no longer lists them. They are not really deleted until the drive fills and they are overwritten by new material. He was careless.”
“Just as well. What do you suppose he was up to? I mean besides creating some awkward porn. And who are these other people?”
“No clue, but here is something else. It’s a blank legal document conveying part ownership of property to him. He had something in mind. The pictures might have been a means to force people to sign. There are pictures of property around the valley as well.”
Ike scanned the rest of the pictures. “Things are getting complicated. Why am I not surprised? We need to know more about Krueger and what he was up to first.”
“My guess,” Sam said, “is the deed transfers had something to do with Ibex and Crane’s development deal.”
“It would give him an ownership position in zoning meetings and a means of exerting a little more pressure on the developer, maybe extracting a little more money. But somebody wanted him dead. That doesn’t jibe with a real estate scam.”
“Blackmail does.”
“Yeah. We’ll have to wait and see about that. What did you find out about him on the Internet?”
“Well if it’s the same guy, he’s been missing for nearly eight months. The press alleges he had some kind of position with the San Francisco mob, and just as the FBI moved in to crack down on them, he faded. If I read this stuff right, the FBI is hot on his trail or something…a warrant outstanding for his arrest, maybe, and not for producing pictures of naked ladies, couples caught in the act, and middle-aged men standing in front of stretch limos. The warrant thing is a little vague.”
“Okay. Let’s see what the Bureau tells us, if and when Chief Bullock finally returns my call. Now, I want you to pack this in and go home. You have the early shift tomorrow. Check in with me about nine.”
Sam began backing out of the programs on her two machines. She set aside the material she had not yet explored. Ike turned to leave.
“Ike,” she said, “do you have a problem with my air conditioner?”
“No, why?”
“Jolly Solly says I have to get rid of it.”
“Tell him to talk to me.”
“Thanks.”
***
Ruth saw the last of her guests to the door and returned to the dining room.
The dinner had ended shortly after Ike and Fisher left. Barstow’s concept of an intellectual discourse among his peers had degenerated into a verbal free-for-all. Jack Farragut took the bit in his teeth and played havoc with Barstow’s carefully orchestrated evening. Omanaka, at one point, tried to throw crème brûlée on poor Franz Weimar. Well, she did not actually throw it. She got so excited at Baxter’s insistence on defining racism his way, she slapped the table. Her hand accidentally hit the end of her spoon and the offending bit of custard sailed across the table at Weimar. Ruth didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—at the way the evening had gone. Ike, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.
She left the caterers to clean up and retreated to her study. The phone beckoned. She dialed and caught Ike as he was leaving his office. So he really did go to work. Wonder of wonders.
“If you had been wearing your Boy Scout suit with your cop belt tonight, I would have pulled your gun and shot you, Sheriff.”
“Duty belt, not cop belt. Sometimes it’s called web gear but that’s mostly Army or personnel who have fabric gear attached to a web belt. So, I did what, exactly, to warrant a bullet?”
“Web gear? That sounds like something I need to surf the Internet. I’m sticking with cop belt and you know perfectly well what you did. You destroyed my dinner party.”
“Actually web gear is a term for Internet surfing. It’s duty belt, whether you like it or not. I thought the evening went very well. Excellent food, beautiful hostess…can I say hostess and not host person and stay in your good graces? We had a very stimulating debate over the great issues. New voices were heard and a good time was had by all.”
“Bullshit. Just host will do and the Speedo thing was good, I have to admit. What was Fisher’s crisis?”
“Dunnigan.”
“I thought so. He’s a pain in the…what do you call it?”
“Toukas. He can be. You still want Fisher on your faculty?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Because?”
“He’s more about religion than english lit. He’s the product of white privilege and a rich kid’s education, but that doesn’t qualify him to teach at a college level. And then there’s the church and state business—”
“You don’t mean you’re afraid someone will call in the ACLU on you.”
“No, but—well it’s just not worth the hassle, potential or real. I thought Jack Farragut did well.”
“He’s a stud.”
“Are you up to sneaking back here for a night cap?”
“A night cap?” Ike looked at his watch. “A little late for that.”
“An all night cap, then.”
“Can I wear my duty belt?”
“As long as you don’t get some kinky ideas about handcuffs.”
“Never crossed my mind.”
“Fifteen minutes, and no funny business. Oh, but if you want to wear your Speedo—”
Ike laughed. “Madam President, I will do nearly anything for you but I d
raw the line at Speedos.”
“Well, Sheriff, there is hope for us after all. At last we’ve found something we both agree on.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ruth rolled over, propped herself up on one elbow and nudged Ike.
“Ike, what’s happening to you?”
“What?”
“You are testy and short tempered and…I don’t know, but you’re not yourself lately.”
“Are you still angry at me about dinner?”
“No, I guess not. That was classic Schwartz. No, I mean other times. I know you have a temper. I ought to. You certainly gave me a dose of it when we first met, but except when people really push your buttons, you are a very nice man. But lately you’re snapping at people for trivial reasons.”
“It’s noticeable?”
“Not bad, Ike, I’m just worried it will get worse. I thought if I said something, you might try to figure out why.”
“I don’t know. I could call the shrink I saw at the Phipps Clinic after….” He let the sentence trail off.
“After your wife was killed. Is that what you can’t say?” He rolled on his back. He didn’t want to go where she seemed bound to take him. He inhaled her scent, a nice earthy female aroma mingled with rumpled sheets and the last of late-blooming roses wafting in through the open window.
“Ike?”
“Maybe,” he said and squeezed his eyes shut.
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you spent all those years after she died feeling guilty and angry. Then, when you found out there was nothing you could have done to prevent her death, you thought you were finished. But you’re not.”
“Why not? It’s over and that’s that.”
“You’ve never grieved for her, Ike, never really said goodbye. You were too busy trying to bury the whole thing. Your friend, Charlie, had to force the details out of you and you found out you had been betrayed. Now you need to finish the process.”
“Eloise is dead. You and I are alive. That’s enough.”
“No, it’s not enough. I’m not talking Kübler-Ross necessarily, but you need to do something. Have you shed a tear for her? Have you visited her grave? There are things you need to do. Until you face up to that loss…look, I am not jealous or clingy, but I am fond of you, Schwartz, more than fond, if you must know. I don’t want to wait around in second place while you carry her around forever.”
Ike touched her thigh. Not a request for anything, just for comfort, for making sure she was there. He sighed. She was right, of course. There would be no peace until he closed the books on that part of his life.
“Next week,” he said. “I will go to the cemetery next week sometime.” He paused. “Would you come with me?” She lay still. He listened to her breathe, watched the rise and fall of her breast.
“Maybe next Tuesday or Wednesday, Ike, and late afternoon. I have meetings and, you know, academic busywork to do. And I will have to deal with poor old Barstow’s ruffled feathers. Next week, yes.”
“Okay, Wednesday, say four, four-thirty?” It could be a start—a start that might lead somewhere else. He wondered if she realized where that might be and if, in the end, she would be willing to go.
“Four it is—and Ike?”
“Yeah?”
“Not to worry. I’m a grown-up woman. I know what might be. I’ll deal with that when I have to, if I have to.”
He smiled.
***
Tuesday morning started out with the threat of rain. It would be a relief from Indian summer. Blake had enough heat and humidity for one year. He ate, showered, dressed, and crossed the parking lot to the church. Millicent was already ensconced at her desk.
“Good morning,” she said. Her face looked like she had been sucking lemons. “I heard some talk about what you said in church Sunday, Mr. Fisher.”
“Did you? I am not surprised, so did I. Well, you know what they say about pleasing everybody…comes with the territory, I guess. Did you have a pleasant holiday?”
“Yes, very nice. How was your trip to Philadelphia?”
“I didn’t go. I spent the day at home reading and getting this ready.” The look on Millicent’s face was worth a month’s salary.
“But I thought—”
“Had dinner up at the college, too. Any news about poor Waldo—family, funeral?”
“No. You were at home? No one came to see you.”
“Now, that’s the funny thing. I could have sworn someone came to the door while I looked for Dr. Taliaferro’s old files upstairs. I thought I heard someone, but when I came down there was nobody there.”
“Dr. Taliaferro’s files?” Her eyes flickered momentarily.
“Yes. Philip asked me to look for them. By the way, I have a few things I would like for you to do for me this morning.” He waved the sheaf of papers in front of her. He handed her his outline and explained what he wanted her to do. She seemed considerably more docile than usual, and he guessed he had given her a scare, or maybe two. Why would his interest in Taliaferro’s files upset her?
“Fifteen copies, Millie. Oh, by the way, is there a key to my desk?”
“There is a box in the closet with keys in it. If there is a key to the desk, it’s in there.” She attacked her keyboard furiously.
Blake found the box. It looked like it once held recipes. Images of cakes and pies were silk screened on its top and sides. He took it into his office and dumped the keys on his desk. There were about forty of them. Most looked like door keys and were stamped with an M or a W, depending on which way he held the key. He sorted the keys into piles, ones that looked like candidates for the desk, the M/W keys, and all the others.
“Millie,” he called through the office door, “what are all these keys marked M or W?”
“M, for master. They are old church keys. We changed the locks fifteen years ago and those are the old keys.”
“These keys are anywhere between twenty and thirty years old? Why didn’t you just throw them away?”
“No one told me to.”
He took the pile of M keys and dropped them into his wastebasket with a clatter. He then worked his way through the pile of possible desk keys. None worked.
“How about the rest of these keys?” he asked.
“I don’t know exactly. They are just there.”
“Has anyone needed a key, or reported one missing, anything like that?”
“No.”
“Well, I guess I can dump them too.” He scooped up the keys and was about to drop them into the wastebasket with the others when she appeared in the door, her face now anxious.
“Don’t,” she almost shouted, “I…I think one of them locks my desk. I’d like to look for it.”
“Certainly, here.” He put the keys back in the box and handed it to her. What on earth had gotten into Millicent Bass, he wondered? He heard the sound of keys falling on her desk and then, one by one, into her wastepaper basket, then the rattle of the keyboard as she resumed her typing.
“You find it?” he asked.
“Yes, yes I did, thank you.”
Satisfied she would be occupied for the rest of the morning, he walked out, telling her he would be back in a half hour and that he had an errand he needed to run. The errand involved the hardware store and a deadbolt, but she did not need to know about that. She was still typing when he returned.
***
Millie left at noon. Blake sat quietly and closed his eyes. He realized that his prayer life had disappeared into a black hole. Except for the few supplications said in desperate moments, he was reduced to reciting a few careless prayers in the morning when he read his Daily Office and occasionally, when he wanted to talk to himself but felt more pious if he include
d God in the conversation, not as a participant, naturally, but as an observer.
“God,” he said, “I am in a mess here. I know I need to get myself straightened out and I know I need to include you in the process. The problem is—I don’t know how to do that. I have never needed your help before. When the business in Philadelphia happened, I thought you were playing a cruel joke on me and I got angry. I guess I’ve been that way ever since. Now, I am really in a spot and I need to….”
What did he need to do? He paused and tried hard to accept the thing he desperately did not want to face. He could work this all out. He had always come out on top. How was this any different? He felt afraid, but of what?
“What am I afraid of?” he said aloud.
Of change. You are afraid to change.
“I’m talking to myself, now. Okay, I need to change. Change what?” He sat in silence. Neither he, nor this other self, had anything more to add. He waited.
“Okay, God, I need to change. Show me how.”
Well, that’s a start, I suppose. What is your heart telling you?
Did he say that? Or did the words come from somewhere, or someone else? He shook his head and waited for more, but nothing came. He wanted more but at the same time feared he might get it. He did not relish the idea of words being put in his mouth, even by God.
However, he did feel a little better. He did not know why, but he did. And he felt very hungry. Lunch. He would come back to this later. He walked through Millie’s office and glanced at her desk. He paused and looked again. Her desk did not have a lock. He looked more closely and wondered if he had heard her correctly. No lock. He drove to the Pizza Hut.
Blake took a corner table and waited to be served. Millicent Bass, he noticed, sat in a booth with three other women. She, that is to say they, were so deep in conversation, they had not seen him come in. Grace Franks and Sylvia Parks were in a booth behind them. Millie and her cronies seemed unaware of their presence as well. He watched as Grace and Sylvia stood to leave. Grace looked stricken, as though her pasta had declared war on her digestive system. Sylvia patted Grace on the shoulder and sent a venomous look in Millie’s direction. They marched out without saying anything to Millie or the other women, who remained so wrapped up in chatter they did not even notice their departure.
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