by Nero Blanc
“He has a wife, dear boy. What does she say about all this? No man is his own master, Rosco. You’re about to be married. You should know that by now.” Sara returned to Belle. “Now; dear heart, I’ll handle everything. Captain Lancia is desperately willing to help. He’s the Akbar’s new chief. Where my brother found him, I haven’t a clue. But from the man’s Mastroianni eyes and basso voice, I’d guess Naples. There’s such marvelous mystery to that port.… At any rate, he and I will organize all details for the cruise: which waters, and under which municipality’s jurisdiction, and all that other folderol—”
“But—” Belle began.
“And if need be, I’ll accompany you to City Hall myself and inform that little snip of a clerk exactly what happens to government employees who overreach themselves.”
“I don’t believe—” Rosco tried to interject, but Sara bulldozed past him.
“After all, my brother has been overspending taxpayers’ money for a good many years.…”
Belle sighed inwardly. How were these various folks going to coexist on her wedding day? A boisterous family of Greek-Americans, doughty Sara with her dated opinions about noblesse oblige, and Belle’s own father, who’d become markedly incommunicative when she’d written to inform him that she was engaged to a private detective, one who’d attended a state university, to boot.
“There was a homicide downtown this morning,” Rosco said in an attempt to curtail Sara’s monologue. “In Adams Alley. A homeless man.”
The old lady stopped in her tracks. “Why …? Why would someone do that? Isn’t it cruel enough that people are forced to live on the streets?” Sara paused for a moment, then seemed to take a greater interest. “And Adams Alley? Very interesting that it should happen right in the middle of our new empowerment zone.”
“Pardon me?”
“Please Rosco, don’t assume I’m a naive old bat. We all know what’s going on in that area of the city and who the power brokers are. Tax incentives to encourage neighborhood growth, my foot. The only growth I can see shows up in the landlords’ pocketbooks. And we all know who sits on the top of that heap.”
“I wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusion, Sara. This death may be as simple as a squabble over a liquor bottle.”
“If I’ve learned anything in my eighty-some years, it’s that life is not simple.”
“He had a dog,” Belle added, “a puppy—”
Beneath her powder and hint of rouge, the staunch old face blanched. “Don’t tell me the dog was killed, too!” A hint of tears appeared in Sara’s ice-blue eyes.
Rosco answered. He tried to sound reasonable and calming. “The puppy disappeared, Sara. Just probably ran off.”
“We’ll have to find it, then.”
Rosco affixed his professional smile. “At the moment, Belle and I have more pressing business. I’m sure the dog will turn up—”
Sara’s imperious voice cut in. “Your fiancée and I will attend to the details of your marriage license. You, Rosco, will find that poor, defenseless dog. It’s the least we can do.”
“I appreciate your concern, Sara, but let’s let Lever and his homicide boys have a—”
But Sara Crane Briephs refused to be superseded. “You misunderstand me, Rosco. I’m engaging you professionally. I want that dog found.”
CHAPTER 6
“Kit. That’s what Freddie Carson named her. You know, like Kit Carson, the scout in the Western territories …? Her fur was a little mangy like one of those coonskin caps you see in secondhand shops, and she didn’t have a tail, but she was a cute little pup.”
Rosco dragged a discarded plastic milk crate over to the man’s side and sat. In an almost Pavlovian response, he said, “What do you mean by was?”
“I dunno, I guess now that Freddie’s a was, I assume the dog’s a was too. A puppy doesn’t survive long on its own.… I had a dog once.… You don’t have any smokes on you, by any chance?”
Rosco shook his head and looked the man over a second time. Determining his age was almost impossible. He could have been thirty-six or sixty-three. He hadn’t shaved or bathed in a week, and he reeked of alcohol. Rosco had found him sitting at the end of the abandoned Seventh Street pier; feet dangling over the edge, an empty pint of cheap rosé winé lying beside him on the weatherbeaten wood planks. Rosco had discovered his name was Gus, and depending on whether he was on or off the wagon, his home was the Saint Augustine Mission or the streets of Newcastle or Boston. Presently, it was the streets of Newcastle.
“Did you know that Kit Carson was breveted a brigadier-general of volunteers after the Civil War?” Gus provided this curious bit of information as he spat into the water below. Evening had set in; the storm clouds had lifted, and the lights across the Newcastle River made the scene oddly romantic, considering the conversation and the principals involved.
“You got me there, Gus. I don’t know much about Kit Carson.”
“Christopher, his given name was. Breveted March of 1865. For gallantry in the Battle of Valverde,” Gus slurred. He raised a finger for emphasis. “It’s interesting, because the battle was actually in February of ’62. Things moved slower back then. Course Kit died three years later.… Too little, too late. That’s how I look at it. Just another case of the government makin’ someone’s life miserable. Custer, there’s another one who was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers. In 1863, two years after he graduated from West Point. His younger brother died with him at Little Big Horn. A lot of people aren’t aware of that. They don’t realize—”
Rosco interrupted the rambling tale. “How long did you know Freddie?”
“Say, you don’t have a couple of bucks you can spare, do you? I was thinking a taste of wine might be pleasant about now. Warm me up. This hasn’t been the mildest of Mays. You’re welcome to join me. A regular little cocktail party.” Gus chuckled to himself.
“I’m not going to lecture you, Gus. But what I will do is drive you to Father Tom’s mission. You need to get yourself cleaned up.”
“I’m not ready to see him or Heartbreak Hotel again. I don’t need that kind of pressure.”
“Your decision. The mission is a whole lot warmer and drier than the streets.” Rosco was silent a moment. He thought about Gus, and the murdered Freddie, Kit Carson, George Armstrong Custer, lives misspent and lives fulfilled. “Find the dog,” Sara had said. How could anyone search for a lost animal and ignore a human being? “When was the last time you saw Freddie?”
“You’re contendin’ you’re not a cop, right?”
“Does it make a difference?”
“Yeah, it makes a difference. I got no use for cops. I got no use for the government.”
“Right. Unless, of course, there’s some crazy out there who’s decided it’s time to start killing off street people. You’ll have plenty of use for cops then, I would imagine.”
Gus didn’t respond. Rosco let the prediction sink in before he spoke again. “As I said, a lady asked me to look for his dog. I didn’t really know Freddie—I bought him a cup of coffee once in a while—but that was my only contact. He seemed like a nice enough guy.… Did he have a regular place to hang out? Somewhere he might have deposited Kit? An abandoned building? One of the old train sheds?”
“You got me.”
Rosco paused, then tried another tack. “Okay, let’s return to this question: When was the last time you saw Freddie?”
“Alive?”
Rosco studied Gus for a moment. “You mean you saw him dead? You were in Adams Alley last night?”
“I don’t know. You got me confused. Maybe I walked down there last night. Maybe it was the night before … or a week ago. I don’t know. Maybe Freddie was sleepin’; maybe he was dead. I don’t know, pal. I been drinkin’ straight for seven days. I don’t remember anything.”
“So, when you saw Freddie … Kit wasn’t with him. Is that correct?”
Gus raised his voice to a shout. “I’m tellin’ ya I don’t know. Maybe the p
up was sleeping alongside him, maybe not. It’s dark in that alley.… Wait a minute. Are you sayin’ I killed Freddie? Is that it?”
“Relax, Gus.”
“Don’t ‘relax’ me, buster.”
“Look, Gus. I’m going to the mission to talk with Father Tom. Why don’t you come with me? I’ll give you a lift. Get yourself a meal and a bed … At least for tonight.”
“I don’t want to see Father Tom.”
Gus raised his wine bottle, held it to the light, and confirmed its empty status. He tossed it into the inky water. “Why don’t you leave me alone,” he grumbled. “I take back my offer to have you join me for a drink. I rescind the invitation.”
“Have it your own way.” Rosco stood and walked down the pier to his Jeep leaving Gus alone with his demons.
Father Thomas Witwicki looked more like a mobster than a man of the cloth. Midfifties, six feet five, and close to three hundred pounds, he had a nose that had been broken three times, short-cropped fiery red hair, and a limp that everyone assumed had come from a kneecapping in an earlier life. He’d founded the Saint Augustine Mission fifteen years prior with the sole resources of his own muscle and brawn and the sometimes capricious efforts of the very men he’d felt called to save.
Like the two nuns who supervised the nearby women’s shelter, the priest had done his share of cerebral and spiritual arm-twisting to inspire a local business consortium to provide two vacant commercial buildings, which had been transformed into second-floor dormitories and two street-level recreation areas and dining halls that fed any and all who were hungry, providing they were clean and sober. Although he seldom wore his clerical collar, he was such a presence in Newcastle, no one ever mistook him for anyone other than who he was: good old Father Tom.
When Rosco entered the Saint Augustine kitchen, he found the mission’s founder wearing a white apron and kneading bread dough. The priest looked up. Strangers wandering in and out of the premises didn’t perturb him in the least. “Wash your hands. There’s an apron in that closet.… You can give me a hand. There’s nothing better for your soul than making bread.”
“Actually, I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“That much is obvious. You’re either a reporter or a police officer, and you want answers about Freddie Carson. Well, you’re going to have to work for them. Grab an apron, or grab that doorknob and go back where you came from.”
Rosco did as he was told. With a white apron tied to his waist, he crossed to the stainless steel table where Father Tom was working.
“I have to be honest with you,” Rosco said. “I’m not much of a cook.”
“You don’t have to be. You just need a little forearm muscle, which you seem to have. Better roll your sleeves up another fold or two.… Wash your hands and dip ’em into the flour. Then grab a handful of dough about yea big, knead it like this for a minute or two, form it into a loaf shape, and place it in one of those pans.… Got it? A local supermarket used to supply our bread … stuff that had passed the expiration date. But the loaves began showing up moldy, so now we make our own. The same goes for the women’s shelter.”
“We? Where’s the we? I only see you.”
“The we in this case is you and me, young man.”
Rosco smiled, dipped his palms into the flour, and extended his right hand to Father Tom. “My name’s Polycrates. Rosco Polycrates.”
“Greek, are you?”
“Third generation.”
“Thomas Witwicki. Don’t ask me how it was spelled in Poland. The same as the poet, I would imagine.… Father Tom will do. So, what is it? Police or reporter?”
“I’m a private detective. I was with the Newcastle department at one time, but this visit’s nothing official. I’m trying to locate Freddie Carson’s dog, Kit.”
“Don’t yank at the dough. You’re not hauling in fishing nets, Rosco. Knead it firmly, but slowly and evenly. Otherwise it won’t rise.… I’m afraid I don’t have information on the dog. But it seems odd that you’d be more concerned about the whereabouts of an animal than the fact that a man has lost his life.”
“Maybe it’s the Saint Francis in me.…”
Father Tom didn’t crack even a tiny smile. “We take religion seriously here.”
“So do I.” Rosco’s expression had turned equally grave. He kneaded dough for a moment. “I have a hunch that finding Carson’s dog might possibly lead to the killer.”
“How is that?”
“The dog’s a missing piece of the picture.”
“The pup could have run off.”
“It could have.” Rosco paused. “I spoke with a fella named Gus half an hour ago. You know him?”
“Gus? Of course. Where’s he gotten to?”
“I found him sitting at the end of the old Seventh Street pier.”
“Sober?”
“Not by a long shot.”
Father Tom didn’t speak for a minute. “Gus is in and out of the mission on a regular basis. Clean and sober; that’s the rule. It’s playing hardball, I know, but it’s something these guys understand. Gus used to be a professor of American history. Did he tell you?”
“We didn’t get past the nineteenth century. The conversation fizzled after George Armstrong Custer.”
“Gus bounces back and forth between here and Boston. There are more shelters up there, and they aren’t as tyrannical about alcohol as I am. I think Gus sees this as a kind of drying-out clinic. AA doesn’t work for everyone.”
“Was the same scenario true for Freddie?” Rosco presented his kneaded dough to Father Tom. “Is this okay?”
“Fine. Just drop it into a loaf pan.… No, Freddie never drank. He’d been at Saint Augustine’s for almost three years. In fact, he was my main bread baker.”
“The police found an empty bottle next to his body.”
“I don’t know about that. But it couldn’t have been Freddie’s. It must have belonged to someone else.”
Rosco refloured his hands, formed another ball of dough, and began kneading it. “Then why was he sleeping on the streets? I mean, if he was clean and sober, he could’ve stayed here. Isn’t that right?”
Father Tom leaned his large frame on the countertop behind him, folded his beefy arms across his chest, and let out a weighty sigh. “It was my fault.… The darn dog … Freddie found her on the street, a scrawny little mutt. No tail. That was about two weeks ago. Maybe a little more. He brought her here.…” His voice trailed off. “I had to make a tough decision. What I mean is, we can’t permit animals to live on the property. We serve food. Freddie’s work was in the kitchen.… Anyway, I told him he’d have to take the dog to the pound.…”
“And he wouldn’t.”
“He was afraid they’d put her to sleep. Which, I suppose they would have.”
“I don’t know, Father. Sure, the pup was scruffy looking, but I think someone would have adopted her.”
“You saw Freddie’s dog?”
“I bought him a cup of coffee last week. A couple of times in fact.”
Silence lay between them. Rosco was the first to speak.
“So, your decision was that either the dog left, or Freddie would have to go.”
Father Tom grabbed another ball of dough and punched it down. “Don’t make it sound so black and white. We’re dealing with the Board of Health here. Besides, some of our residents are allergic to dogs; some are scared to death of them. Yes, the puppy had to go. Freddie understood that. We can’t bend the rules. It’s not good for the men.… Did you see that empty warehouse across the street?”
“No.”
“The building’s been sold. One of those high-end food markets. Imported cheeses, flavored olive oil, caviar, the works. Two doors away there are plans for an antique shop, and there’s talk of an art gallery in the old Tyler fish packing building.” Father Tom’s tone had turned unexpectedly steely. “The neighborhood’s changing. It’s becoming trendy to live in this part of the city, and the mission’s under a
good deal of pressure from real estate interests. If I harbored a dog, the Peterman brothers would make certain we were shut down quicker than you can say Jiminy Cricket.”
“How well do you know Gus?”
“Only what I shared with you. He wanders back and forth to Boston. Used to be a professor. Dartmouth, I believe.”
“Where’d you get that information?”
“Everything comes from the men themselves. They can lie to me, of course, but what’s the point? If they have veterans’ benefits, social security, disability, pension, et cetera, I try to contact the appropriate agency and help them get back on their feet. If the stories don’t wash, they’re only cheating themselves.”
Rosco finished sculpting another ball of dough; he wiped his hands on the front of his apron. “How many of these loaf pans do you need to fill tonight?”
“All of them.”
“How long will that take?”
“With you here, no more than an hour. Would you like a cup of coffee or tea while you work?”
Rosco shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, though.” He thought for a minute. “Do you know Gus’s last name?”
“Taylor. Why? Do you think he might have killed Freddie?”
“I’m only looking for a lost dog, remember?”
CHAPTER 7
Ten o’clock Saturday morning was an unlikely time for a jewelry heist. History had taught Rosco that the average crook liked to sleep well past noon on the weekends. So when the phenomenally shrill burglar alarm at Hudson’s Diamond Exchange sounded, he was as startled as the other customers and the several employees. Out of reflex, he reached for his pistol, a .32 caliber semiautomatic he seldom carried. The only thing he found under his jacket was a nicely tooled leather belt, a birthday gift from Belle.
At the sound of the siren’s blare, the sales manager scooped Rosco’s wedding bands from a gray velvet pad on the glass countertop, returned the rings to the showcase, locked it, and dropped the keys into a sealed steel box. The motion was so swift and agile Rosco believed he was watching a sleight-of-hand artist. The sales manager then addressed his attention to the front door and the individual who had instigated the disturbance.