A Killer's Kiss

by William Lashner

  “The money?”

  “The one point seven million dollars that the murdered man stole from that bearded pervert Gregor Trocek. It’s somewhere, I know that. The U.S. Trustee is looking for it. Gregor Trocek is looking for it. You, too, are looking for it, are you not? It is in play, and I want it.”

  “You’ve been after it from the first.”

  “Not from the first. At first I was looking for a killer. But then, after my meeting with Mr. Nettles at Inner Circle Investments and a careful look at the books, I had something loftier on my mind.”

  “That’s why you chased Jamison away.”

  “I thought Mrs. Denniston could lead me to it. I needed to keep the pressure on her.”

  “And now you’re putting the pressure on me.”

  “I didn’t plant the gun, Victor, but I know opportunity when it bitch-slaps me in the face.”

  “And you think I know where the money is?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “How?”

  “Because you’re clever and you’re inside, and because Gregor Trocek wouldn’t have sliced a ring in your chest if you didn’t know.”

  “And if I tell you where it is, my problems disappear?”

  “Absolutely. You’ll still have to go down to the Roundhouse with Hanratty and be booked—there’s no escaping that with the gun found in your bedroom. But as soon as the money is in my hands, I’ll pull the strings to have you released immediately and the charges dropped. You’ll be off scot-free.”

  “And you’ll retire in style in Montana.”

  “Yes, exactly. Or Saint-Tropez. I hear it’s quite nice.”

  “They don’t fly-fish in Saint-Tropez.”

  “With the money, Victor, I can buy my fish at a restaurant, which I suspect is far preferable.”

  “What about Hanratty?”

  “I’ll take care of Hanratty.”

  “You’ll pay him off?”

  “Hanratty can’t be paid off. But he can be led, like a dog can be led. It’s just a matter of burying the bones shallow enough. Don’t worry, Victor, I’ll hold up my end.”

  And I was sure he would. I had been confused as to Sims’s motives during the whole of this case. He seemed a complex character. Was he out for justice, out for political gain, out to screw me for the sheer pleasure of it, or was he simply too lazy to run an investigation on the ups? All valid motives, and each I could appreciate, but which was it? I hadn’t known, but now I did, the son of a bitch. He only wanted what the rest of us wanted. It’s always a little disappointing, isn’t it?

  So here I was, in a tough spot, with an easy way out. I was being framed for a murder. Framed by whom? By Clarence Swift and, sadly, by Julia. I had given her a chance to save us, she had taken the chance to bury me. How sweet, how so much like her. It’s why I’d felt relief the moment I saw the gun she planted; my future would be free of her. But now, as a result of their framing, this piece-of-crap corrupt cop was suddenly in a position to blackmail me into telling him about the money. And the thing was, he was right, I did know where the money was. But there was more here than an opportunity to get Sims rich and me off the hook. There was an opportunity to achieve the thing that had set us both to laughing just a few moments before, an opportunity for justice.

  Justice, justice shall you pursue. It’s right there in the Good Book, sitting like a road map for me to follow. Justice for everyone, justice for all. An appropriate justice for Clarence Swift and Terrence Tipton, for Gregor Trocek and Detective Sims, that crooked son of a bitch, justice for Julia Denniston who had betrayed me once and again, and yes, justice of a sort for me, too. A laughable thing to find in this world, justice, but a beautiful thing as well, when meted out with just the right dose of bitter vengeance.

  I sat across from him as I figured it out, all the while watching his face shine with an unwholesome eagerness. It would take a betrayal on my part, sure, but really now, what’s a little betrayal among old lovers?

  “You want to find the money, Detective,” I said finally, after thinking it through, after seeing the parts all fit together.

  “Yes, Victor,” he said, with as much sincerity as he could muster. “I truly do.”

  “Then you just need to follow Mrs. Denniston. She’ll take you right to it.”

  “And where would I find her at this time of night?”

  “I don’t know where she is now, but I know where she’ll be.”

  And then I gave him a Kensington address.

  41

  There wasn’t much time to change Hanratty’s mind.

  The trip from my apartment to the Roundhouse, even in the middle of the day, was not a long one, and in the middle of the night, if you caught the lights right, it could be positively swift. Once we hit the Roundhouse, I’d be sent straightaway to processing, and then to arraignment court, and then to jail until a bail was set that I could pay, which, considering the charge of murder and the state of my bank account, seemed unlikely. My future freedom would then depend on Sims, who, with the money scent now in his nostril, was as dependable as a rabid dog. So I had to somehow alter Hanratty’s destination before we hit the Roundhouse. But it wasn’t just to keep my butt out of jail.

  Like a demented chess player, unmindful of the consequences, I had set the pieces in motion. At some point, probably on the road out of town, the paths of Sims and Trocek and Clarence Swift would intersect and the bullets would fly. Just the thought of it brought a little pitter-patter to my heart. But it wasn’t long after I sent Gregor to chase Clarence, and Sims to meet up with them, that I realized that when the bullets flew, Julia would be caught in the middle, and her predicament would be my responsibility. I had to do something about it, and I had to do it fast.

  But I was now in the backseat of a cop car, with my hands cuffed behind my back and without an easy way out. And it didn’t help that the man in the driver’s seat had an emotional temperament and a skull both of which could only be described as igneous. Still, I had one card to play that might crack even his stone demeanor.

  “Your partner is a crook,” I said to Detective Hanratty as he drove me east, toward police headquarters.

  Sims had dashed off in his own car to chase after Julia, and so I was alone with Hanratty. He actually wasn’t playing it as hard I thought he would. He had let me bandage my chest, clean the blood from my ear, put on a new shirt and tie just like the old shirt and tie, let me grab my suit jacket before we left. He had cuffed me, sure—rules are rules—but he didn’t tell me to shut the hell up when I called his partner a crook, like I had expected. All he did was clench his jaw and set his features, just as he had when Sims had sent him from my apartment, which was a promising start.

  “Sims isn’t trying to solve Wren Denniston’s murder,” I continued. “Instead he’s running after the one point seven million in cash that the good doctor embezzled from the Gregor Trocek who was in my apartment. That’s why Sims stuck you with the task of taking me to the Roundhouse, so he could chase the money.”

  Hanratty gave me a quick and ugly glance in the rearview mirror as he kept driving. We were headed north now, toward Race Street, where we would turn east again. The Roundhouse was only a few minutes away.

  “I know who killed the doctor. It was a drug-addicted Byron wannabe by the name of Terry Tipton, who is an old boyfriend of Julia’s. The story is sad and sordid and Shakespearean in the literal sense, but he admitted it to me and to someone else and on tape.”

  Hanratty cocked his granite face without saying anything.

  “Ah, so you are listening. Good. No, I don’t have the tape. Julia Denniston has the tape, and she’ll do anything she can to protect this Tipton. But Sims doesn’t care about the tape, or this Terry Tipton, or anything other than the money.”

  Hanratty’s jaw clenched the way it seemed to clench whenever I mentioned his partner. But he still was headed to the Roundhouse and my appointment in arraignment court.

  “‘What about the gun?’ you might
ask. It was planted in my apartment by Mrs. Denniston just before you showed up. She tried to convince me not to give you the tape. I tried to convince her to give up her old boyfriend. As always, neither of us convinced the other of anything. She took the tape and left the gun. Where’d you find it anyway?”

  He glanced at me again.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “In the desk drawer.”

  His eyes blinked.

  “That’s her place. She likes to hide things there. And it’s funny, isn’t it, how you missed the gun the first time you searched my apartment? But your slimy partner isn’t the only one chasing after the money. Gregor Trocek is after it, too. Nice guys, the two of them. It would be quite the show if ever they meet again. And it should happen soon, since I set the two of them on a collision course.”

  The car swerved. We were on Race Street now, racing through Chinatown and toward the Roundhouse, and the car swerved, hard left, before straightening again to the bray of horns.

  “I sent Gregor Trocek after Clarence Swift, who was Wren’s partner in the embezzlement. I sent Sims after Mrs. Denniston, who is the object of Clarence Swift’s affection and who will, this very evening, I believe, meet with him on her way out of town. I expect it will end in extreme violence well away from here before it’s over. Which, except for Mrs. Denniston’s presence in the middle of it all, suits me just fine, because I think I know where the money is, and we can beat them both to it. And once the money is tucked safely away with the U.S. Trustee, we can deal with this whole situation like gentlemen.”

  “You want to take me to the money?” said Hanratty, shock in his voice.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You don’t want to keep it for yourself?”

  “If I thought I could get away with it, sure. But I can’t. There are too many people looking for it, too many willing to perpetrate anything to get their hands on it. Gregor Trocek thinks I’m hoping he ends up with it, because I negotiated a piece of what he recovers, but I know he’d kill me before I got a cent. And Sims thinks I want him to find it, because he promised he’ll keep me out of jail, but I trust him like I’d trust a ferret in my pants.”

  “And what about me?”

  “Sims says you’re a fool who’s too honest to deal with. McDeiss says I can trust that you’re after the right thing. Both pretty good recommendations in my book. So let’s you and me, Detective, go get the money and then solve the murder and then save Mrs. Denniston while we bag a couple of crooks.”

  “Are you crapping in my hat?”

  “Would I get away with it if I did?”

  “No.”

  “There you go.”

  We were stopped at a red light at Eighth and Race. To our right, filthy with grime, was the ugly, circular skin of the Roundhouse. Straight ahead and to our left was the entrance to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, the blue paint of the bridge gaily striped with light.

  “You could take a right here, send me to arraignment court, and let everything play out for better or for worse without you. Or you could get into the left-hand lane and follow the signs for the Ben Franklin.”

  “New Jersey.”

  “That’s the place.”

  “I think you’re full of it.”

  “But you’re not sure,” I said. “You don’t like me much, do you?”

  He glanced at me again in the rearview mirror. “Every time I see your face, I want to smash my fist into it, over and over, until the blood bubbles.”

  “I tend to have that effect on people.”

  Hanratty didn’t respond, he just stared forward, letting his jaw work as if he were cracking walnuts between his teeth.

  The light turned green.

  The car stayed still for a moment and then started forward, eased left, slid into the lane of traffic headed over the Delaware River and into New Jersey, where a cat, gray and fluffy, waited for us.

  The cat sat in the window well of a little Cape Cod in Haddonfield, New Jersey. The house was white and freshly painted, the lawn cared for, the perennials beneath the dogwood neatly weeded. As I rubbed my wrists while we made our way up the walk, from behind the brightly lighted window the cat hissed. It remembered me. Of course it did, it was a cat. And maybe it had the same reaction as Hanratty every time it saw my face.

  Then the cat reached out a foreleg and gently tapped the window with the pads on the underside of its paw, leaving a streak of red.

  42

  Hanratty was on the phone to 911 even as he slammed his shoulder into the door, once, twice, and then thrice, shattering it to bits. He climbed over the splintered wood into the living room, one hand on the phone, the other gripping his drawn revolver.

  “That’s right,” he barked. “Blood on the window.” He looked around. “Blood on the floor. I’m inside now. Get an ambulance here and a bunch of black-and-whites. And tell your guys not to come in shooting. I’m going to find the victim, see if there’s anything I can do.”

  Following behind the rampaging detective, surveying the scene for myself, I doubted there would be.

  The tracks led through the undisturbed living room, into the dining area, and then into the kitchen, where they were most vivid on the white linoleum. Cat tracks, leading backward to the scene of the crime, as if gray and fluffy itself had done the vile deed.

  “She’ll be in the basement,” I said.

  “Where’s the door?” said Hanratty.

  “Through the kitchen.”

  With his gun leading the way, Hanratty stepped carefully around the cat tracks into the kitchen and then halted at an open door that led to a set of rough wooden stairs descending into darkness.

  “Hello,” he called down. “This is the police. Is anyone there?”

  No answer.

  He looked around, found the switch, flicked it. A dim light flowed up the stairs and out the doorway. Hanratty carefully stepped toward it, and then, moving sideways with the gun held in both hands and pointed forward, he slowly climbed down. I followed.

  The basement was unfinished, old, about twenty by ten, with the ceiling beams bare, the concrete floor cracked, the uneven plaster on the walls flaking off. There was a concrete sink, there was an old washer and dryer, there was a small tool bench and a sump pump in the corner.

  And there was the freezer.

  It was a chest model, white, about five feet long, with its lock clasp broken and blood smeared about its sides. Tossed haphazardly around it were frozen steaks, still in their tight plastic wrapping. A dark red puddle, just to the right of the chest, was the apparent source of the cat’s prints, with paw marks circling back and around in a sad record of feline agitation. Beside the puddle was a red plumber’s wrench.

  The freezer’s lid was propped open, just a few inches, and, other than our breaths, the sound of its compressor was the only noise in the room, a hopeless churning, grinding.

  And out of the top of the chest, like a thawing piece of mutton, stuck a leg, large and round and meaty, a human leg, with a sturdy pump still firmly on the well-pointed foot.

  43

  SATURDAY

  By the time we got to Front Royal…

  It sounds like a bad country-western song, doesn’t it, chock-full of star-crossed lovers and dead bodies and too many miles of open road?

  By the time we got to Front Royal, it was nigh on noon. But it’s not so easy to slip out of Haddonfield, New Jersey, when there’s a dead body in the freezer. The cops seem to have all these annoying questions, like who, when, where, and what the hell is going on. My tendency as a defense lawyer is always to button my lip and get out of there saying as little as possible, but Hanratty was made of different, perhaps more reliable, cloth. So, with the police lights spinning outside and the television crews filing their live reports, we sat in the kitchen with the New Jersey detectives and tried to make sense of what had happened in that house.

  “There was hidden money?” said the lead Haddonfield detective, young and blond, scratching the stubble on his jaw.
>
  “I think so,” I said.

  “How much?”

  “Over a million in cash.”

  “From where?”

  “It was illegal money brought here to be laundered by an international crook named Gregor Trocek, but that was stolen from him instead in a complex swindle. The trustee in Philadelphia, a fellow named Nettles, has all the details.”

  “And how did it get here?”

  “Hidden here by a dead doctor in Philadelphia and a little weasel named Clarence Swift,” I said.

  “Hidden where?”

  “Same place as the body.”

  It was the freezer that had sent me back to Haddonfield, this time with Detective Hanratty. The way Margaret bit her lip when first she mentioned it, as if a blunder had been made, and then got snippy when I brought it up again, was what got me to thinking. They had a sadly uneven relationship, did Margaret and Clarence Swift. She was in love with him, he was in love with her boss’s wife. Whatever romance he had once felt for Margaret, if any, had been bled pale by time. Her plain living room made it clear that he was not one to smother her in tender little gifts. And yet he had bought her a freezer. To hold the meat. For their romantic dinners.

  It was a strange gift, unless you figured it wasn’t for storing the meat after all. And the timing seemed right, too. As soon as Gregor shows up with his briefcase full of cash for Youngblood Investments, LP, a freezer arrives at Margaret’s place. It wasn’t there to store the Omaha Steaks, it was there to stash cold cash. And the lock on the freezer seemed to prove the point, unless there’d been a rash of sirloin thefts in Haddonfield, New Jersey. But the lock was now broken and the money was now gone.

  Someone had come for it. Margaret had objected. Her objection had been overruled with the plumber’s wrench. Smack dead, as simple as that. The lock was snapped, the steaks on top were scattered, the money absconded with, the dead body stuffed in the freezer to keep the smell at bay.

  “So who did it?” said the detective. “This Gregor Trocek character?”