by Ed Gorman
"What about Stokes, Mrs. Kubek?" I asked. "Did he say why he was here?"
"Not really. Just said he was working on a case and he thought maybe Kenneth could help him clear it up."
"He didn't have any idea where Kenneth was?"
She shrugged. "He said he'd never even met Kenneth. Just working on a case."
"He didn't say what case?"
"Uh-uh."
Stokes. The bastard was everywhere, seemed to know everything. I had no doubt that he knew why both Denny and Gettig had been killed. I was even sure-now that he'd been here-that he knew why Kenneth Martin had disappeared. I checked my watch. In less than two hours I would meet Stokes in his office. I didn't plan to leave without a lot of answers.
I stood up.
"I'm sorry if this has been painful for you, Mrs. Kubek." The tears were back. "I just wish they'd find him, is all."
"Maybe they will," I said.
With a deadness that startled me, she said, "That ain't how things turn out for me, mister."
TWENTY-TWO
On the way back downtown, Cindy said, "You're pretty quiet for a compulsive talker."
Under other circumstances, that line would have struck me as very funny. At the moment it did nothing for me at all. "I'm having one of my great moments of doubt. I can see the possibility that Kenneth Martin had something to do with the Amis robbery. But I don't know what that would have to do with the deaths of Denny and Gettig. And I sure can't figure out how your husband would come into possession of Martin's bag."
"Maybe when we talk to Stokes tonight-"
I looked at her. "We?"
"Sure. We. I mean, I hope you're not planning to dump me now. It's kind of late in the game." She was joking but there was an anxiety in her voice. "I mean, that's something Clay would do. Not take me along."
What could I say? That I was going to be just like the husband who'd mistreated her over the years?
***
We spent the hour and a half waiting to go to Stokes's in a tiny bar meant to be intimate but that succeeded only in being oppressive. Peanut shells crunched underfoot like broken glass and the jukebox threatened to deafen you. Photos of NFL players looked down at us with the reverence of saints.
"May I ask you a question?" Cindy said after our second drink.
"Sure."
"Maybe you won't want to answer it."
"That bad, huh?"
"It's about your first wife."
"Oh-oh."
"Why she left you, I mean."
I smiled. "It was probably for all the right reasons." I shrugged. "I'm not exactly a prize, you know."
"You're a prize to me."
"You don't know me well enough yet."
"What a great self-image."
"Just what I love. Pop-psychology jargon."
"Some of it's true."
"Some of it."
"How about one more question?"
"What?"
"When I asked you about wanting to get married again, were you serious?"
"Very."
She smiled again. "Good."
I glanced at my watch and thought of Hauser, my accountant. He had been supposed to call me back. Tough to do when I'd left the office early. I wondered if what he had to say would have any bearing on my meeting with Stokes.
I explained all this to Cindy, then got up and worked my way back to the phone. It would have helped if I'd been a lineman for the Packers.
Then it was a ten-minute wait while a slickie in a toupee pleaded with his secretary to let him come over to her apartment. He sounded horny and lonely and pathetic all at the same time. I had begun to feel sorry for him until-getting me off the hook-he glanced up at me in the middle of a plaintive sentence and winked at me. Mr. Sincerity.
Finally, he took his lies and his middle-aged lust and his toupee back to the bar.
My accountant, Hauser, did well enough to live in the second most prestigious section of the city. His wife had the right kind of voice for the address, too, a cultured tone with just a hint of proper sexuality.
Hauser, when he came on the phone, struggled to sound happy to hear from me. "Hey," he said, "good to hear from you."
"Hey, yourself," I said. "I wondered if you'd figured out anything yet."
"Matter of fact, I have."
He paused long enough for a drumroll. Finally, he said, "Your accountant, Wickes, and your partner, Harris, were defrauding you."
Though that's about what I'd expected to hear, I still felt shock and anger. There's a difference between suspecting your wife of being unfaithful and walking in on her.
"The Eagle Production angle," Hauser went on. "Clay Traynor was involved, too. Your company billed Traynor's company for very expensive commercials that never actually got shot, then when Traynor paid your company, I think there was a three-way split. Eagle was a dummy company that Harris and Wickes set up."
I swore.
"Unfortunately," he said, "that's not all."
"Great."
"I'm not quite sure how to tell you this."
"Flat out is the best way."
"Your company is about three weeks away from bankruptcy. "
This time I swore for a long time. Hauser had the good grace to let me go on.
"Harris and Wickes," he said, "they were embezzling the profits from the Eagle setup-and they were embezzling the regular company profits, too, and investing them in a variety of ways. Wickes is not what I'd consider an investment genius." Now it was his turn to swear. "Up until a few months ago, they managed to hide what they were doing. Then the losses got too great."
A guy had come up to stand outside the phone booth. He held a drink in his hand. A drink I needed much worse than he did. I opened the door a bit and pointed at his glass. "I'll give you ten dollars for your drink."
"You kidding, buddy?"
"I wish I were."
He studied me a moment. "That must be one helluva bad phone call."
I didn't have time to explain the real situation so I used shorthand, something simple and powerful. "How would you feel if your wife suddenly told you she was in love with another man?"
He handed me the drink and disappeared without asking for my ten-dollar bill.
On the other end of the phone Hauser was chuckling. "You advertising people are damned clever."
"Yeah," I said, "you can ask my dead partner just how clever." Then I had to ask. Had to. "Is there any way I can turn my financial position around?"
His pause said everything. "I don't think so, Michael. I really don't. Wickes has managed to stave off the worst of your creditors by giving them partial payments-but that's only going to last a few weeks longer."
"Let me ask you something and I'd appreciate a straight answer."
"Sure," he said, sounding a bit apprehensive.
"Denny Harris and Merle Wickes-given the situation they were in, do you think they'd be capable of pulling off a robbery?"
"Straight answer, right?"
"Right."
"I knew Denny for over ten years and he was a totally charming guy, lots of fun to be around. But he was also completely unscrupulous. I wouldn't put anything past him. And Merle-well, he's just this pathetic little guy who Denny pumped up into believing he was a big man. Merle would go along with anything that Denny wanted to do. And obviously he did. I doubt that Merle would have had courage enough to become an embezzler without Denny there to hold his hand."
"Yeah, I doubt it, too."
Hauser yawned.
"I'm sorry I called so late," I said.
"It's all right," he said. "Actually, I'm glad it's over with, giving you the bad news, I mean."
"Thanks," I said.
"You'll need to sit down with me and we'll have to figure out how you start a new agency."
"Yeah," I said. Numbness was starting to set in. All I could think of was Hauser's response to my question-that Denny was capable of anything.
I thought of the missing guard Kenneth Mar
tin-and of the robbery of hundreds of thousands of dollars in gems- and of two murders.
Then I thought of the private eye named Stokes, whom I'd be seeing in less than a half hour.
Many things were starting to come clear in my mind.
Too many things.
"Thanks, again," I said.
He sighed. "I'm sorry, Michael."
"Yeah," I said, and hung up.
TWENTY-THREE
On the way over to Stokes's I told Cindy everything I'd learned. Everything. Even about her husband.
"God," she said. Then she fell silent, watching the cold night shadows move across the moonlit snow and the tiny houses huddled against the universe.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have told you. A friend of mine told me once-beware people who are eager to give you bad news."
She sighed. "I suspected something, anyway. After you told me about the robbery I started thinking about certain signs over the last year-things started disappearing from our house, silver sets, jewelry, things like that. Clay has always lived beyond his means. I knew we'd have to pay for it someday." She shook her head obstinately, with a sadness as weary as the widow Kubek's had been.
"His cousin can help him out."
"I don't think so, Michael. He's not the type to help anybody out. I just want it over with," she said. "Everything. I want to know who murdered Denny and Gettig, and I want to know why. Then I want the police to do their job and take the killer away-and then I want…" She paused. "And then I want you and me to try and make sense of things with each other. Don't you?"
"You bet I do."
Then she turned back to the passing silence and her brooding again.
Half a block from Stokes's home I saw the running man. He came out of shadows so deep he was virtually one with them. At first my headlights caught only a glimpse of him. Then he ran into their ken, light and snow illuminating his bloody face and hands.
Even through the black overcoat, you could see blood seeping and soaking.
His glasses were on his eyes but they had been smashed. He was running blind, his arms flailing, his feet slipping on wet pavement.
He slammed into the car of his own volition then rolled away to the side.
Cindy screamed.
I braked, skidding, fighting the wheel for control. I slid into a curbing, then up over to icy grass. My car came to a halt a few feet from a big maple tree. Cindy's breath came in gasps.
I said nothing, just ripped the door open and worked my way out of the car, careful to put my feet down deliberately so I didn't slip.
A concussion wouldn't help me find out what was going on.
Moans came from somewhere down the street. I moved toward a black bulk on the edge of a street light's circle of illumination.
Stokes was there. Waiting. Dying.
He had started to vomit thick clots of blood. To stop himself from choking he'd rolled over on his side.
As I got near him, he reacted instinctively and began feeling inside his black overcoat for his pistol.
Whoever had shot him had taken it from him. Stokes was grasping for nothing.
He started to sit up, looking wildly as if he were going to run.
I knew I should have had more compassion-he was still a human being even if he was a damned mercenary version of one-but I couldn't help myself. I didn't want him to get up, I didn't want to have to chase him. He had only a few breaths left and I wanted him to spend them explaining to me what was going on.
I kicked him in the side. Not so hard that I broke anything. But not so gently that he'd think I was a good buddy, either.
Then I knelt down and grabbed his jaw so that he couldn't avoid my face.
"Who shot you, Stokes?" I said.
He couldn't see because of his smashed glasses. His hands flailed and groped in front of me. I twisted one of his wrists then slammed his arm to his chest.
"Who shot you, Stokes?" I repeated.
From behind me I heard a scream.
Cindy had come up, seen what I was doing.
"Please, Michael," she said, trying to calm me down. "Can't you see what condition he's in?"
I turned back to Stokes. "Now I know why you blackmailed Merle Wickes, why you said he had access to money. It was my company's money he had access to, wasn't it? You thought he'd pay you off to keep you from telling me about the embezzlement."
He had started choking on his own blood again.
Cindy grabbed me. "Is there anything we can do?" she cried.
I shook her away. "Then you came to me to tell me that Denny was having an affair with Cindy so I'd pay you to investigate him. Only then you stumbled on to something much bigger-the robbery that Denny and Merle and Gettig were in on together. Then you really had something to blackmail them with-but you didn't count on the killer. Something went wrong. A guard named Kenneth Martin disappeared and the people involved in the robbery started getting murdered. The killer even managed to get around to you, didn't he?"
I don't know when I realized it, but eventually I saw that my words were useless. Stokes was dead.
I looked down at him. Part of his face was dark red from blood. The other part was white from frost. His blind eyes stared up at me.
"You scared me, Michael, the way you looked and sounded-"
"I'm sorry," I said. Then I grabbed her and buried my face in her shoulder.
TWENTY-FOUR
The back seat of Bonnell's police vehicle was surprisingly warm. He'd even been thoughtful enough to bring along a thermos filled with coffee.
He sat in the front seat, only turned around so he could face both Cindy and me.
In the windshield behind him I could see the emergency lights from the ambulance and the police vehicles splashing bloody light over the sullen neighborhood.
"I don't expect there are going to be many people at Mr. Stokes's funeral," Detective Bonnell said. "Not unless they turn out to gloat."
"I need to talk to you," I said.
"I hope you're ready to tell me the truth," he said.
"I am."
I told him everything about the murders I'd learned to date. Everything-from the embezzlement to the robbery to the disappearance of the security guard named Kenneth Martin. Then I told him about lying for Clay to give him an alibi.
Bonnell stared at me. "Somehow you don't strike me as the type to lie."
"I thought of my father in the nursing home. He was an honest man. He would want his son to be. I just want the killer stopped."
Cindy took my hand, squeezed it.
Bonnell said, "I ran a check on Stokes. He was not a licensed investigator-he couldn't have been with his police record, which was long and formidable and included convictions for extortion, rape, and armed robbery."
Cindy leaned forward. "You don't still think my husband committed the murders, do you?" she asked.
He frowned, a curious expression filling his chunky face. He looked at me, then slowly-almost unwillingly-at Cindy.
"No, I don't think your husband is who we've been looking for, Mrs. Traynor." He glanced up at me, then back to Cindy. "Your husband's dead, Mrs. Traynor. Somebody murdered him earlier this evening."
Ten minutes later, the ambulance driver slid in the back seat where I'd been and handed Cindy a sedative.
She was not doing well. Her first reaction had been tears, but she'd slid immediately into a terrible frozen state that was frightening to watch. Shock, the ambulance driver said.
Bonnell and I stood outside the car, our breath pluming the night air, several Action News types looking longingly at us-as if our conversation would be the most interesting anywhere in the world if only they could eavesdrop.
"You got any ideas about what's going on?" I asked.
"Only one. The guard."
"Kenneth Martin?"
He nodded. "It's obvious Martin was involved in the robbery with them. But since we don't know what happened, I guess it's fair to do a little speculating. What if Martin were
paying each of them back?"
"For what?"
"For double-crossing him. From what you've told me about your partner, Harris, he certainly sounds capable of that. But what would happen if they cheated Martin out of his share of the robbery proceeds, maybe even tried to kill him, only somehow he managed to escape and has spent his time since then killing them one by one? There's no motive as powerful as vengeance."
"But why would he kill Stokes?"
Bonnell shrugged. "Simple enough. Stokes figured out who was doing it. Given Stokes's tendencies, he may even have tried to blackmail Martin. So Martin kills him."
He followed the line of my eyes. The last few minutes of the conversation I hadn't heard totally. I'd been watching Cindy deal with her grief over Clay.
"Nice lady," he said.
"Yeah."
"You should take care of her."
"I know," I said, turning back to him. I stared at him a moment. "It isn't over yet, is it?"
"No," he said flatly. "What happens now?"
"We put out an APB on Mr. Martin, and probably we have a long talk with Mr. Wickes."
"You think he can help?"
"Right now, he knows more about the robbery than anybody who's alive-except for Mr. Martin, of course. Even though he wasn't directly involved in it-which is why he's alive, apparently-he knows all the people and what happened to the gems."
"Yeah, I keep forgetting about the gems. I guess murder has a way of distracting my attention."
"Somewhere there's a lot of money in gems. Presumably Mr. Martin can tell us when we find him."
The ambulance driver got out of the back of Bonnell's car.
I started toward Cindy. I needed badly to see her, touch her, even if only to hold her hand.
Bonnell stopped me.
"There aren't any heroes in this," he said. "I know."
"But I'm glad you told me the truth."
"So am I."
He nodded to his car. "Go take Mrs. Traynor home. She should probably stay at your place tonight."
"Thanks."
"Good night, Mr. Ketchum."