There was a paved walking trail that snaked through the park about fifty feet from the water, past picnic pavilions and under mature oaks and maples; then it wrapped around a softball and soccer field before looping back to the parking lot. I walked the trail, practicing my powers of observation, wishing I had worn a hat, because the sun was high and hot. Looking to my right as I neared the softball field, I saw them cruising the little inlet about a hundred yards away, two geese with dark heads and white bands around their necks, and I wondered if these were the parents of the babies who had been slaughtered. It occurred to me that, in a way, these geese were my real clients and Parker Hudson was just an agent acting on their behalf.
I left the trail and walked down to the water’s edge and the geese checked me out in the way wild birds do when they’re used to the occasional handout of stale bread. You would think after several centuries of humans giving them the bum’s rush, wildlife would be more wary of us, but maybe there hasn’t been enough time for the information to be encoded in their genetic memory. I was a little fuzzy on evolution; it taxed my imagination, getting from some slimy vertebrate dragging itself onto a primordial shore to Teddy Ruzak standing on another, man-made shore in an NYPD T-shirt and Nike running shoes.
A couple of shirtless boys, neither one older than ten, I guessed, appeared beside me and immediately found a couple of rocks and hurled them toward the geese. Before I even stopped and thought about it, I told them to cut it out. They gave me that shocked look of kids called down by a total stranger and took off toward the trail. “It isn’t trivial!” I yelled after them. Life is not trivial, no matter whose life you’re talking about, although some people might ask what mosquitoes or those tsetse flies in Africa contribute. That was Parker Hunter’s whole point, why he got out his wallet, and the reason this case was important: You have to battle total disregard wherever you find it, in whatever form it takes.
The geese turned their backs on me and glided toward deeper water. To tell the truth, I have always been a little afraid of geese. They are the most aggressive of the freshwater North American fowl. I was charged by one more than once in my childhood, and I shrieked with terror and dashed behind my mother’s legs.
It was a time for a silent pledge to the bereft parents, if these two really were them, but I didn’t because I couldn’t promise I’d find the killer, only that I’d try, and that would be more poignant than reassuring, and besides, to promise more would not reflect well on my moral character.
I walked slowly back to my car. A couple of lovers were reclining under the shade of a willow tree by the shore. He was reading something to her from a book and she was staring at the water with a bored expression, but it was like something out of a movie or a painting, and for a second I was pretty lonely and feeling self-conscious and sorry for myself because I was the only person in the crowded park who was alone.
I figured it was a good time to cruise the neighborhoods around the lake, since it was Sunday and the odds were better the SUV would be at the perp’s house. If the perp lived in one of the neighborhoods around the lake, that is. If the perp had gone home after stalking me. If the car I saw even belonged to the perp. I drove slowly through Rocky Creek, Lakeview, and Water Sound, all newer developments with two-story brick or stucco houses, clean white driveways, and perfectly manicured lawns. I was thinking the whole time, This is it. This is the American dream, with bare-assed kids splashing in the plastic wading pools, big yellow fish painted on the sides, with the pretty teenage girls and shaggy-haired boys lounging on the patios beside blaring boom boxes, and the sometimes strained, disembodied laughter floating from unseen backyard cookouts, and the young trees, dogwoods and Bradford pears and oaks, their leaves still blushing the bright green of spring. Here there was no room for my sorrow over the goslings or my self-pity; here was bursting secondhand happiness and the riches of suburbia. No wonder people moved out here, a good twenty-five miles from the city. Twenty years ago, Farragut had been a sleepy little hamlet, a farming town named after the famous admiral who was born somewhere near here. The farms had been sold to developers, cut up into tracks, and the humans rushed in, pushing out the native deer and raccoon, rabbit and opossum. And the geese. I might have told Parker Hudson those babies were as much victims of urban sprawl as human viciousness and indifference, but we would both have known the truth.
I didn’t see the Expedition, so I drove home.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I WAS LATE GETTING TO THE OFFICE THE NEXT MORNING. I hadn’t been able to go to sleep Sunday night and kept getting up to stare out my window at the street outside until about 3:00 A.M., when it dawned on me that the goose killer was probably indifferent about my life, too. Then about three hours later, the sun itself dawned on me because I’d forgotten to close the blinds, so I crawled out of bed and closed them, then fell back asleep, not waking up until half past eight. For fourteen years, I was a night watchman, and that screws up your body’s inner clock; it was still hard for me to stay awake during the day and go to sleep at night, though human beings are programmed to be diurnal.
Felicia was already at her desk when I came through the door at a little after ten o’clock. She was wearing a red short-sleeve sweater-type top and a short red skirt, but I thought it lacked something, maybe a red carnation behind her ear or a rose, although maybe that was too far on the flamenco dancer side. A stack of Sunday Sentinels lay on the desk, along with a large frame with the backing removed. She was wielding a razor knife.
“I was about to call your apartment,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said, even as I wondered why I was apologizing to my secretary. “I overslept. You know, human beings are diurnal creatures and—”
She cut me off. I was disappointed. I wanted her to be impressed by the fact that I knew the word diurnal.
“Thought maybe you had a wild night.”
“I was reconnoitering the scene of the crime yesterday.” Again, a word worthy of any college professor, but she remained stubbornly unimpressed.
“Did you see it again?” she asked, meaning the SUV.
“No, but I saw the geese. At least I think it was them.”
“Hard to tell. They all look alike.”
“Unless you’re a goose.”
“Duck, duck.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you ever play that game when you were a kid? Duck Duck Goose?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Well.” The tip of her tongue came out of her mouth as she cut the newspaper with the razor knife. For some reason, this reminded me that I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I had a vivid image of a Krispy Kreme doughnut, then an even more vivid image of Felicia biting into one, the glaze glistening on her bottom lip, which was the same color as her sweater. Her tongue chewing also reminded me of my father, who’d had the same habit when he was concentrating on something. Thinking about my dad with one part of my brain and Felicia’s lips with the other made me feel weird.
“What are you doing?” I asked, to change both subjects, the outward subject of childhood games and the inward subject of the odd pairing of my old man fixing a lawn mower with my longing to watch Felicia eat a doughnut.
“I’m framing your article. I’m gonna hang it on that wall right there so when people come in, they’ll see it. They’ll think you’re a celebrity. People love celebrities, Ruzak.”
“About the only thing I watch on TV is old movies, so most of the celebrities I love are dead.”
“That’s kind of morbid. Anyway, you are one now and you’ve got to make the most of it.”
“Felicia, Ben Affleck is a celebrity. I’m an unlicensed detective with one case, which I can’t even solve.”
“That doesn’t matter. What has someone like Sarah Ferguson ever really accomplished, except marry into a famous family and use that to sell diet plans? You put too much stock in personal achievement. Most of the time, it’s just luck, being in the right place at the right time, or luck like Ben Affleck�
��s looks.”
“Well,” I said. “I was never too lucky with that.”
Though I kind of opened the door for her to argue with me, she didn’t.
“We’ve had six calls already this morning.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Three well-wishers, two potential clients, and a kid who wants you to find his lost hamster. He suspects his big brother’s taken it, maybe killed it, even, and buried the evidence in the backyard. He’s found a fresh hole.”
“That’s three potential clients.”
“No pro bono work, Ruzak, until your bank balance is triple your IQ.”
I was trying to figure out if she’d just insulted me as she went on. “Parker Hudson called, too; he wants you to call him back. I didn’t tell him about your sighting or whatever it was yesterday. He’s very excited, calling it a stroke of genius—the article, I mean.”
“Did you tell him it wasn’t my stroke?”
“Why would I tell him that? Anyway, nobody’s called yet to fess up, so the jury’s still out on whether it was marketing genius or detecting genius. Dear God, Ruzak, what are you wearing?”
I looked down at myself. My most comfortable pair of jeans, a white oxford that maybe was a little old and maybe one of the little collar buttons had popped off, but I thought I looked pretty good, in a casual kind of way.
“What’s the matter with it?” I asked.
“Your shirt’s so threadbare, I can see the moles on your stomach. Your jeans are about a half inch too short and your socks don’t match.”
“My jeans aren’t too short.”
“Then how else could I see your socks?” She proceeded to lecture me for about five minutes on the importance of image and how I had to project a certain kind. You’re judged by the way you look, and people in the public eye especially are judged, and not kindly. Dress like a bum and be treated like one. Dress like a million bucks and one day you’ll be worth it. The longer she lectured, the more maternal she became, and this didn’t sit well with me, mostly because of the sweater and short skirt.
“It’s like redecorating this dump. It’s the same principle. People walk in expecting a professional’s office to look a certain way. First impressions, Ruzak. Bad first impressions will kill you. Good ones will make you rich.”
I told her I didn’t have anything against getting rich, then went to my desk to call Parker Hudson.
“Hey, Teddy,” he said. It was the first time he’d called me by my first name. “Terrific article.”
I got right to business. I figured he’d appreciate it, because he was being billed for the call.
“Do the initials HRT mean anything to you?”
“HRT?”
“HRT.” I told him about the black Ford Expedition and the slow, spooky “chase” down Gay Street.
“Well, the car I saw was definitely black and it might have been a Ford—those Expeditions are quite large, aren’t they?”
“Huge.”
“But HRT…I wish I could remember. I was focused on the geese….”
“Sure. I saw them yesterday, by the way.”
“You were at the lake?”
“Drove through those developments out there, too, but I didn’t spot anything. Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, Mr. Hudson, but I’m thinking we might just have this thing cracked wide open by week’s end. I’ve already gotten six calls.”
“Tips?”
“Actually, no tips yet, but I’m thinking if our guy doesn’t turn himself in outright, somebody else will. Might call or write a letter to the paper, or even to me. Meanwhile, I’m gonna figure some way to turn up the heat a little.”
“How?”
“I’m working on that.”
“Well, I thought the newspaper article was a stroke of genius.”
Now was my opportunity to tell him it had been Felicia’s stroke. I had assured the state of Tennessee I was of good moral character, and this was an issue of moral character if ever there was one. Felicia had acted like telling him the truth was counterproductive to earning a buck. And anyway, she didn’t seem to mind giving me the credit, since she didn’t tell him when she had the chance. I was quiet while I wrestled with these pros and cons.
“Teddy?”
“Yeah?”
“I thought we were disconnected.”
“I am, usually. Mr. Hudson, you ought to know that article was my secretary’s idea.”
“It really doesn’t matter to me whose idea it was. I should have thought of it, saved myself some money.”
“Are you firing me?”
“Are you kidding, Teddy? You’re doing a bang-up job. Keep me informed on your progress.”
Felicia stepped into the room and said, “Why did you tell him?”
“Because the next one would be easier.”
“The next what?”
“My mother always said that once you’ve told the first lie, the next one comes easier and the one after that even easier and so on.”
She looked at me for a second. Her shoes, which I hadn’t noticed till now, were the same color as her skirt, had three-inch heels, and were very glossy.
“You miss your mom, don’t you?” she asked.
I nodded. “Is that a new outfit?”
“What’s it matter?”
“The shoes are very shiny.” I added quickly, “I’ve been practicing my powers of observation.”
“Observe this,” she said, and stuck her tongue out at me. She turned on her three-inch heel and disappeared behind the little wall.
“How about some Krispy Kremes?” I called after her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A COUPLE MORE CALLS CAME IN BEFORE NOON. ONE WAS from an old lady who wanted to tell me about all the skunks on the west side of town and how motorists kept smashing them in their haste to get to the mall or Wal-Mart or wherever their lives took them, then asked me if I thought anything could be done about it. The smell was awful, she said. I told her no, probably nothing could be done. The other call was from a potential witness.
“I know who hit those geese,” the caller said.
I picked up my mechanical pencil and readied myself to crack the case wide open.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“I’d rather not give you my name.”
“Sure, I understand. That’s perfectly reasonable. It’s a friend of yours?”
“A neighbor.”
“Man or woman?”
“Woman. She’s a nasty little woman, too, and I wouldn’t put something like that past her. I see her all the time on that road in the mornings, and do you know what she’s doing, Mr. Ruzak?”
“No. What?”
“Putting on her makeup! Can you believe it?”
“Once I was on Kingston Pike and I saw a woman strip off her work clothes and change into her aerobics gear.”
“While she was driving?”
“No, it was at a stoplight.”
“What in the world did you think?”
“I thought that life had gotten too hectic.” I also felt guilt— guilt that I watched her and guilt that I had completely abandoned any pretense of keeping an exercise regimen.
“So you didn’t actually see her hit the goslings,” I said.
“Oh, no, nothing like that. But she drives a big black SUV all right.”
“Ford?”
“No, it’s a GMC, I think.”
“You sure it’s not a Ford?”
“No. I’m pretty sure it’s a GMC.”
“What’s her tag number?”
“I have no idea.”
“Could you get one and call me back?”
“I’m not walking over there and writing down her tag number, Mr. Ruzak.”
“What’s her name?”
“You want her name?”
“Isn’t that why you called, to give me her name?”
“Why do you want her name?”
“Because the whole point of this case is finding out who kil
led those geese.”
“If I give you her name, she’ll know it was me.”
“How could she know that?”
“Oh, she’ll know. She’ll know. You don’t know her. She’s a nasty, nasty person.”
“Well, there’s not much I can do about that. Not much of anything I can do, really, if you won’t give me her name.”
We went around and around like this for another five minutes. It was like playing Twenty Questions. “Does she live in Knoxville? Does she live on the west side? Does she live right off the road by the lake?” I continued asking questions, with her getting more and more cagey, until finally I gave up.
“Well, thanks for your call,” I told her.
“No problem,” she said. “People should stand up for what’s right.”
After I hung up, Felicia came into the room, holding her purse.
“I’m going to lunch.”
“I didn’t even have breakfast.”
“I’m meeting Bob. Wanna join us?”
I thanked her but said I’d probably work through lunch. The thought of being their third wheel was mortifying. “How did you and Bob meet?”
“At his brother’s wedding. His brother is married to my cousin.”
“Doesn’t that make you sort of related?”
“How do you figure?”
“I don’t. Sorry. Is he nice to you?”
“You got a crush on me or something, Ruzak?”
“No, I just wanted to know if he’s nice to you.”
“He’s very nice. Don’t get a crush on me, Ruzak.”
“Okay.” I had never seen Bob, but I pictured him as tanned and buffed, like those models in the Calvin Klein fragrance ads, maybe mustachioed, possibly a black belt, and certainly possessing more than his fair share of machismo. In other words, the complete opposite of me.
The Highly Effective Detective Page 5