Murder by Candlelight

by John Stockmyer

  "I wouldn't say ..."

  "But isn't there the possibility of that?"

  "Yeah. Maybe."

  "And now he blames you for his own carelessness?"

  "You bet."

  "If he's so bad, how does he keep his job?"

  "Criminals are generally dumber than cops. That's how they get caught. Anyway, there's not much real crime in Gladstone. If there was, Scherer couldn't locate it. Judging by the Betterton bust, Scherer couldn't find rotten meat with a bloodhound."

  "That's good! Anything else?"

  Because of the buzzing in his ears, Z couldn't think of much of anything except how good it felt to stick it to that prick Scherer. "No."

  "That'll do it, then. I think I've got what I was looking for." Jewell stood up.

  Z stood up also, felt dizzy. Rallied. The trouble with being a near teetotaler was when you did take a drink, it got to you. Z was OK, though. Some sleep and a lot of aspirin would put him right.

  At the door, Z turned. Tried to recall just what he had talked about in the interview; remembered he'd said some nasty things about that rat-faced Scherer. "You said, no quotes."

  "That's right. I won't quote you."

  "OK." And that was it.

  As Z lumbered down the path toward his car, he was thinking that, though he'd been leery of the interview, it hadn't been a bad experience.

  It hadn't taken long, either.

  Maybe Susan was right. That he should talk more. He'd certainly gotten some things off his chest about Scherer that he'd been carrying around for a long time.

  All in all, Z was feeling ... fine.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 8

  Life was a football, Z often thought. (No doubt one of the lesser observations from someone who used to play the game.) And like a football, took crazy bounces. Though things hadn't been going Z's way, by Monday, the "ball" had bounced right into his hands.

  Just another thought that had gone through Z's mind as he sat in the Cavalier, in the Monday midnight dark, parked in the shabby blackness of Jarbo. There was nothing to do but think as the Cavalier's hot engine ticked its response to the old street's chittering insects, Z smelling the unmistakable odor of late night: dew, the leather leaves of aged trees, dust, unmowed lawns. ... And poverty.

  For starters that morning, Z had gotten a call from Harry Grimes, Kansas City's most respected private investigator, Grimes making his mark in law enforcement as head of security for Sunflower Ordinance during World War II. After that, he'd gone into the P.I. business where he'd developed the reputation as the best skip-tracer in the Midwest. Launching his business -- Deerstalker Detectives -- he'd taken on three partners in the 60's, in the 70's, adding two more. (Z wondered how many people, hearing the word Deerstalker, thought Harry ran a hunting club. Z knew better, of course, Z a fan of Sherlock Holmes.) Harry was now in his 80's (if not 90's) the old man in semi-retirement but still acting as Deerstalker's "rainmaker." Too old to do sleuthing himself, Harry spent his time making himself visible to the business community; had a membership at Wedgewood, Kansas City's premiere golf club, as well as playing at several other links. You wanted a detective agency who could work at the highest levels? You talked to Harry on this or that club's 18th green or in some posh clubhouse after a quick nine.

  First based in Lenexa, Deerstalker was now headquartered at Corporate Woods in Johnson County, Kansas -- just a skip and a jump from Kansas City proper, positioned in that new, and quite exclusive, "executive park" to garner business from the younger generation of K.C.'s corporate leaders.

  Z had met Harry a few times before Harry "retired," just brushed past him, really, Harry going this way, Z that. Enough contact, though, that Harry started throwing a little business Z's way from time to time. Always part of a larger case -- sometimes an executive kind of deal Z didn't fully understand. Like Harry trusted Z, Z trusted Harry, everyone calling Harry the Silver Fox (Fox, indicating clever rather than tricky.)

  This time, Harry had called to say he wanted personal information about a man who'd moved to the Northland. Z's territory.

  Z liked working for Harry Grimes. Made Z feel like he was going up in the world. (Also, Harry paid well. And paid in advance.) Harry hadn't discussed the case, just asked if Z was busy, getting the expected denial. Harry said he'd send Z a check, sort of put Z on retainer, like someone with potential legal problems would put a hot-shot lawyer on retainer.

  Yes. It always made Z feel classy to be associated with Harry Grimes.

  The second thing that had gone right this morning was Z's decision to ring up Jamie Stewart at her apartment (it still being summer) rather than at the Catholic girls school in Kansas City, Kansas, where she taught in winter.

  In addition to teaching, Jamie "moonlighted" in Kansas City, Missouri, as the K.C. cops' "occult expert," which meant they used her to expose "supernatural" fraud of one kind or the other: palm readers fleecing gullible old ladies; people pretending to be ghosts to scare off unwanted neighbors. (Recalling Dan Jewell's mention of Klan callers, Z had read that was how the Ku Klux Klan got its start. Dressing up in sheets. Pretending to be ghosts.)

  What amazed Z was that there were people who still thought there were ghosts, even Susan believing that kind of nonsense, Susan seeming to think there was such a thing as poltergeists -- whatever they were.

  On the case where Z had met hot little Jamie Stewart, she'd been hired to hunt down "ghost sounds" and a "ghost light" in an abandoned house, Z paid to protect Jamie ... from whatever. (If anyone could fend for herself, Z had discovered, it was wise-in-the-ways-of-the-world Jamie Stewart, Z now doing his damndest to protect himself from her!)

  Getting Jamie at her home, he'd told her about this house he had to investigate. (No sense getting too specific about Z being there before, or about the house where a man was killed. To say nothing of mentioning that Z might have had something to do with the man's demise.)

  Jamie had seemed flattered when he'd asked for her help, even though he'd made it clear there was no money in it. (He'd have paid her something if she'd balked. But she didn't, so he didn't have to.) He'd given her Kunkle's address on Jarbo; told her he'd meet her a block to the south at midnight.

  She'd asked if she should bring her equipment -- photoelectric cameras, luminous powder -- ghost-hunting stuff like that. He'd said no.

  And that was that.

  Z, of course, had arrived at the Kunkle house a half hour ago, at 11:30. Had spent some time driving up and down the street looking for a police stakeout; as he'd expected, found the house was clear. Gladstone cops had better things to do than shadow the shacks of unimportant dead men: like give teenagers speeding tickets, hassle whores, and nap at their desks.

  Z had parked where he and Jamie were supposed to meet, a block south of Kunkle's place.

  Numerous stakeouts in the dead of night making Z a good judge of the passage of time, it had to be nearing the witching hour, Z waiting for "witchy" Jamie Stewart.

  The night was not as dark as Z could have wished, though half a moon was better than a full one, the clear sky with its usual, diamond dust of stars.

  The street was quiet, not a house light showing that Z could see.

  How many of the shanties in this unfortunate part of town were abandoned and how many housed old folks who went to bed with the chickens, Z didn't know. And didn't much care.

  Z was dressed in his black "night fighter" clothes -- minus his jacket-of-many-pockets. Too damned hot for that. He had on his "gum" shoes, and more for good luck than because there was a prayer of needing it, he'd stuffed his leather-and-lead blackjack in his right back pocket.

  As Z waited for Jamie, his only regret was forgetting to tell her to wear dark clothing, Jamie maybe showing up in fluorescent white, anything to be expected from a girl who liked colored condoms -- but that was another story.

  Above the light murmur of wind and scrape of insects, Z heard what someone else might take to be an outboard motor; Z knowing it as the
sound of Jamie's foreign truck. Its banging even worse than the last time Z heard it. Fortunately, the truck's worn-out muffler was attached to an engine so small it wouldn't wake the "dead" ... in a manner of speaking.

  Z could now see headlights, the little carry-all slowing as it came, Jamie no doubt trying to see an address, probably also looking for Z's car.

  To help her, Z flashed his lights; saw the truck straighten and speed up.

  Passing him, Jamie made a U-turn at the next intersection, drifting up slowly to park behind him.

  As Jamie killed her lights and her engine, Z opened the car door, levering himself out on the narrow, mostly dirt and gravel street, mindful of his trick knee, though the knee had been functioning better lately.

  Jamie's dome light came on as she opened her door, Jamie getting out, the girl trying to be quiet as she shut her door.

  Z waited, Jamie walking up.

  Thankfully, she was dressed in dark clothing, slacks, shirt -- though he could see the outline of her perky face and the "moonshine" of short blond hair in the midnight shadow of hovering trees.

  Seeing her brought back memories of the nights they'd spent together. Hot, sticky memories.

  "Hi, Mister," Jamie said softly in her deliberately sexy voice. "If I go all the way with you, will you respect me in the morning?"

  Z didn't know what to say.

  "Don't worry. Your virginity's safe with me. At least for tonight. I'm having the curse. Of course, some men really get off on .... Now, don't look like that. Can't you tell when I'm kidding?"

  "No." Which was the simple truth.

  In spite of the quiet cool at that time of night, Z could feel moisture collect at his hairline. For being such a "cool customer," Jamie could make a man feel hot, in more ways than one.

  "Well, come on," she prodded. "If we're going on a mission, let's get to it."

  "OK."

  Motioning Jamie to follow, Z crossed the street and stepped over the curbing, the two of them padding silently down the broken sidewalk, Z turning into Kunkle's cracked drive, Kunkle's "misused" car still parked there.

  Passing the car, Z led Jamie into the deeper shadow of the stoop -- where the situation was as he'd expected. No yellow plastic police tape.

  The cops had unsealed the Kunkle house. Case unsolved, but closed.

  Using his plastic card to "key" them inside the sad little house, Z and Jamie crept in, Z closing the door.

  Only then did Z take out his new-battery penlight and flick it on, the narrow beam punching holes in the blackness, the living room -- minus Kunkle -- seeming just the same ... but stuffy.

  Stuffy, because the house had been closed up since the murder investigation.

  With less of a dusty odor. ......... Because the police had vacuumed the place in the vain hope of sucking up a small, but useful, clue.

  "What are we looking for?" Jamie whispered, keeping her voice down even though Z had assured her the house would be unoccupied. "You weren't very clear on the phone."

  Z hadn't been "very clear" because he'd failed to think up a story about why he needed to break into someone's house in the dead of night. He wasn't too certain of what to say, now.

  "Drugs."

  The catchall. The single word that justified illegal law enforcement.

  "We're looking for, what? Cocaine?"

  "Anything ... unusual."

  "Where do you want to begin?"

  Jamie was being unusually cooperative. Even submissive. Z wondered how long that would last.

  To make a start, Z "beamed" Jamie to the add-on bathroom. Found it looking much the same, except that someone had mercifully flushed the stool. No medicine, except that Z did find a bottle of aspirin this time, tucked in behind some wash cloths on the shelf.

  No change in the bedroom -- no asthma medicine on the stand by the bed, or any other medication in the room. Ditto for the bedroom closet -- minus the neck brace Z had used on Kunkle.

  The kitchen was also no surprise, the box of candles missing from the drawer, of course.

  Back to the living room.

  By this time, Jamie had switched on her own penlight, the two of them cutting at the dark like light sabers slashing up Star Wars movies. Jamie was still following Z around, but was also taking side trips of her own to look at whatever caught her eye.

  They were both careful to keep from shining their small lights at windows. Above all, didn't want to alarm a neighborhood insomniac. It wouldn't do to have cop cars sirening down the street.

  Though the police had taken down what was left of Z's innovative candle arrangement in the center of the living room, Z noticed a couple of wax spots on the floor where he'd put Kunkle-and-chair; a sad reminder of a scare-off job gone wrong.

  Z still couldn't believe his candle wax approach had killed little Howie. ...

  Denial.

  Z had seen enough talk shows on TV to know that "denial" was what a psychologist would call Z's refusal to believe he'd been the instrument of the little man's death. Maybe Z would talk to Calder about this sometime. Would definitely do that ... if only the Bateman psychologist was a priest.

  Shaking off this unprofitable line of thought, it was time to impress little Jamie.

  Z walked over to the desk.

  While he'd left open the secret drawer, someone, as he'd hoped, had closed it again; probably the same "someone" who'd shut down the roll top.

  Z tried the top.

  Found it locked.

  Good!

  "A locked desk," Z said, pointing it out to Jamie, the girl stopping whatever she'd been doing with a rickety magazine rack to come over.

  "Hmm," she said.

  "Locked for some people."

  With that, Z got down on the floor, scooted himself through the knee hole, and under the desk. Reaching up, he tripped the locking mechanism again, the drawers clicking open as before.

  "Clever," Jamie admitted as Z backed himself out, Jamie giving him a thumbs-up.

  Facing the desk, Z rolled the top up and back, the two of them pointing their lights inside.

  Nothing in the little drawers.

  Nothing in the pigeon holes at the back.

  Next, Z pulled out the large lower drawers, in turn.

  Empty.

  After that, making something of show of it, Z began to examine the secret drawer -- did the measuring bit again to demonstrate his wily discovery of the drawer's false bottom.

  Pulling out the drawer to its full extent, reaching under it, he tripped the latch, the spring-loaded bottom popping up, revealing the compartment below.

  Hearing Jamie's intake of breath, he knew he'd amazed her -- a difficult thing to do to worldly-wise Jamie Stewart.

  Both of them pointing their little lights inside the drawer, the drawer "swallowing" the light to make the rest of the living room even darker than before, the first thing they saw was the same greasy deck of cards, scattered about.

  The leather notebook with names and phone numbers ... wasn't inside. The police would have taken that.

  Nor was the money anywhere to be seen, the odds saying that the first cop to inspect the drawer had pocketed the cash. With the owner of the desk safely dead, who was to say what the desk contained? Anyway, policemen were underpaid. Underappreciated. Their children undernourished ..... And a lot of that.

  Gallantly, Z stepped back to let Jamie have "first crack" at the drawer's ... stuff.

  As Z had done the first time, Jamie began by taking out the items, examining each in turn before putting it on the desktop.

  First, she corralled the scattered cards, making a pack out of them, stacking that old deck on the desktop.

  She took out the new unopened decks.

  She retrieved the cellophane card wrappers that Howie seemed to have steamed off some of the decks.

  The little mirror.

  The instant glue.

  The sunglasses -- though they were hardly sunglasses in the usual sense, since they had such lightly colored lenses
they could pass for regular glasses.

  And finally, the small bottle of alcohol.

  Looking at each item again, Jamie turned to look up at Z.

  "What do you make of it?" Z would like to have added, "Smarty Pants" -- but restrained himself. In addition to her tongue, the girl's ego needed trimming as much as anyone he knew.

  "Whoever put these here is a gambler."

  Good.

  That was very good.

  John Dosso had told Z that. On the other hand, from just a few decks of cards, how could Jamie have deduced that Kunkle gambled? He could have been a bridge player. Or played pitch, or hearts, for that matter. While he might have bet on the outcome of those games ....?

  "Gambler?"

  "Sure."

  The famous "shoe" was now on the notorious other "foot." Jamie was so confident she was right -- and Z knew she was -- that she was not even bothering to offer her evidence for pronouncing Kunkle a ... wagerer ... "wagerer" the recent and more respectable sounding term for those who lost their shirt by "wagering" at rigged-against-you (but state-approved) casinos. The state makes money on gambling -- good. The state doesn't make money on gambling -- bad.

  Figured.

  Back to Ms. Stewart. If Z wanted to know her reasons for pronouncing Kunkle a gambler, he'd have to ask her -- something he didn't want to do, unless .... Ah!

  "You're right, of course. And the tipoff?" Put like that, Z would seem to have already figured out any small thing Jamie had noticed that he hadn't.

  "The glim, all by itself, is a dead giveaway."

  Glim?

  What was this glim?

  This was going differently than he'd planned.

  "And of course, you noticed the glasses."

  "Umm. Yes."

  Jamie reached down, picked up the glasses and put them on -- the frames too big for her, the girl having to hold them on with one hand to her temple.

  With her free hand, she picked up the old deck.

  Thumbed out several cards, looking at each.

  "Not very sophisticated," she sniffed.

  Satisfied with whatever she'd discovered, she passed the glasses to Z, who put them on.