He glared like the reflection of noonday sun off hot chrome. Then, with some effort, his face relaxed. “I’m the competitive sort. That’s all. That’s what’s eating my liver.”
“No” — I shook my head — “I’m not playing. What I do is not a competitive sport. It’s a wild ride. Still, I think I know what you mean. I know more about the hanging murders than you do. I know more about Janey than you do. And I’ve been invited to stay in Dally’s living room, which you wouldn’t mind doing yourself, under the right circumstances. Have I about summed it all up?”
“More or less.” But he was not much more amiable than he had been.
“So why don’t you sit down, let me put my shoes on, and let’s have a nice, slow talk about what the hell is going on? I’m still willing to share information if you are.”
Still glaring: “You’re a very agreeable sort.”
“Yes, I am.”
I slipped my shoes on, sat down in the big overstuffed chair, let him take the sofa, and leaned over to tie my laces.
“Did I wake you up,” he asked me when he’d settled in, “just now?”
“No. I was really thinking, like I said.” No point in explaining the whole trick thing to the guy. He wouldn’t get it, that was my guess.
“About?”
“About what do you think? I now have some pretty strange ideas concerning the relationship between Janey and the hanging girls.” I wondered then about asking him if he’d ever had any thoughts about the relationship between certain items stolen from the CDC and the murders in question, just to see if he’d tell me or not.
He just nodded, staring me in the eye. “Information you gathered at Beth Dane’s apartment — illegally?”
“What makes you think I was in her apartment?” I stared right back.
“Your fingerprints, an eyewitness from downstairs, and Irgo Dane’s statement to that fact.”
“Yes.” I nodded, not looking away. “That does sound convincing. Why Dane would tell you that, I have no idea, but the eyewitness is a break for me, don’t you think? I mean, it lets you know that I came into the apartment after the murders.” I sat back. “I had been a little worried about that, to tell the truth.”
“Who’s to say you weren’t just coming back to remove something — like evidence?”
“Who’s to say I wasn’t there in my official capacity as an agent of the departed’s next of kin? I’m guessing that’s pretty much what Dane told you.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He waved his arm dismissively. “You broke and you entered — past police tape. That’s not good.”
“Still, I was there at the behest of the next of kin, as I was saying, and entered the place in his presence. He was there too.” Then, for some reason, I had to push it. “In fact, if your own boys had manifested a little gumption, they might have gotten into the place before me, instead of trying the door once and then lamely deciding it was too hard to get in and putting a little yellow tape across the door. It’s just lazy police work.”
I could see by his eyes that he was trying to decide whether to stay mad or to laugh.
And because the universe sometimes watches out for guys like me, he busted out laughing.
“You have got to be the most maddening person I’ve ever run into in any investigation.”
“Really?” I was genuinely surprised. “In my line of work I meet tons of people worse than me, or at least I think they’re worse.”
“Well” — he finally sat back, still a little on edge — “as it happens, I just finished chewing out the two officers who put the tape up for more or less the same reasons you’ve already outlined. It put me behind schedule in my own personal investigation, see?” He crossed his legs. “Now, about this relationship between Beth Dane and Janey you’ve just mentioned? I think that’s all in your head. It’s only natural that you’d think that, I suppose, because you’re working on the two cases at once, so you might imagine parallels. I don’t agree. Except that there was a fair physical resemblance between the two girls, there is no relationship.”
All I did was shrug. I had no reason to fill him with tales of my strange adventures in the netherworld. He was putting me off, and besides, that was something I needed to spill to Dally.
“But it may interest you to know” — he went on, still a little tightly — “about Mickey. He’s a wrong guy, and there’s no doubt about that, but I don’t believe he killed Janey. You got me to thinking about the MO, and I had to agree with you: Not his speed.” He smiled — cold. “So we let him go.”
“You let the Pineapple out?”
“We did. Since neither Ms. Oglethorpe nor you would press any other kind of charge, we apologized and drove him home.”
“Despite his fingerprints at the scene of a crime?”
He hesitated. Then: “Well, however you would know that information, if you’d think about it, wouldn’t you say that his fingerprints would be all over his girlfriend's house no matter what?”
“I guess.”
“Anyway, long story short: He’s out.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“We have a better suspect in jail now anyway.” He was trying for a matter-of-fact delivery.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me who that might be?”
“Your little rat pal,” he said with more meanness than was required, I thought. “Joepye Adder.”
21. Heinous Hanging Homicides
Now, despite the fact that Joepye had allegedly accused me of the heinous hanging homicides — pardon my alliteration, but it comes from the tabloids. As one might well imagine, the tabloids were having a field day with these particular murders, but I digress. I was still in no mood to have some eager police detective arrest Joe for murders he didn’t commit.
“That poor little guy,” I told Huyne in no uncertain terms, “can’t even organize his own pockets. How’s he going to get it together to combine all the talents it would take to pop these kids and then hoist their bodies up a lamppost?”
“He had help.”
Oh. “Help?”
“That’s right.” He eyed me in quite an offensive manner, and I could tell his blood was rising again. “And I haven’t ruled you out, by the way.”
“Oh, really? And what possible motive would a person such as myself have for these murders?”
He squinted. “I just said I hadn’t ruled you out. That’s all. But now that you’re reacting this way, it makes me more suspicious, I’d have to say.”
“Really. Well.” I leaned further forward. “I’d like to officially take back my offer of friendship, if you don’t mind.” I was talking faster than usual, and I could feel my face flush. “I thought we might share an interest in the grape, a few meaningless hours of discourse on Wallace Stevens, and some repartee vis-a-vis Ms. Oglethorpe. But you’ve put me right out of the mood. So from now on, you go your way and I’ll go mine. Which incidentally means I won’t be in the mood to tell you all I know about the tango, so go to Arthur Murray.”
I stood for emphasis.
He was staring up at me, momentarily at a loss for words, so I kept right on. “In fact I think I’ll be leaving now. And as you are more or less a stranger to me, I’ll have to ask you to leave my friend and business partner’s home, if you don’t mind. Call again someday when you can’t stay so long.” As they say.
He nodded, stood very slowly, adjusted his coat, folded his arms, and slapped me with a hell-policeman-it’s-only-a-matter-of-time stare. “If you withhold any sort of evidence in my investigation — even about the tango — I’ll see to it that you spend a whole lot of time in the jailhouse. In the second place, you don’t have any information worth sharing, I’ve decided, because it all comes from your little swami act. You don’t fool me for a second. You’re a second-rate grifter and a third-rate human being, and I have no idea what anybody sees in you. Now out of my way, sonny, before I pop you just for fun.”
“Uh-huh.” I stood my ground. “Let me explai
n to you something about the nature of the word threat. Since you’ve been in this house, you’ve threatened to rough me up once and pop me once — with no provocation on my part. None.” I raised my index finger. “So listen carefully: If you so much as accidentally nudge my jacket on your way out of this house, I’ll be on the phone to IAD before you’re off the porch. Have I mentioned my friend and ex-service buddy Detective Winston? He’d believe me if I told him you were no good; he already hates you.” I was just guessing, but it stood to reason. Winston hated everybody. “You’d be a private citizen by the end of the month. Then I’d come to your house and kick whatever’s left of your skinny ass all over your front yard so the neighbors could get a good look. And I’d do it without much malice. It’s just that I think it needs to be done.”
Pulling a wild card like Winston was admittedly a hotheaded measure. Winston was notorious. He’d busted more cops out of the force than any other ten Internal Affairs guys put together. He did it because he basically hated cops in general. He was an action junkie, the kind that came back from a lot of hardcore military service. You get your adrenaline and your fear juices up for so long that after a while you can’t be comfortable unless you feel that way all the time. Some men join the police force, some become what they call soldiers of fortune, and some become criminals. Winston had managed a little of all three as a top IAD operative. Most people on the Atlanta police force knew who he was, and as luck would have it, he and I were pals.
So, mad as he was, Huyne kept his mouth shut — with some difficulty. I could see him thinking. Then he moved slowly around the sofa to get to the door, avoiding me altogether. But when he got there, he turned around and stared in at me one last time. “You’ve made a mistake in messing with me.”
“Same here, pal.” I stared right back.
Big slam.
I looked around the room, my face still flushed. What exactly had I done?
I’d let the guy get to me. Maybe it was because he had interrupted my thing and it had been so hard to get to it that particular time. Or maybe it was some subterranean jealousy that I wasn’t willing to admit to myself. It could even have been that we were a little too much alike in some ways, Huyne and I. Those faults we find most distressing in others are often the ones we hate in ourselves.
Mostly I was disappointed in myself because I’d lost my temper. Ordinarily I would have let him rant and just ignored him. What the hell was the matter with me?
Luckily the phone rang before I could sink deeper into the pity festival.
I snatched it up. “Oglethorpe residence.”
“So?”
I was very glad to hear her voice.
“Well, Ms. Oglethorpe, how nice of you to call. Where are you?”
“At work, watching them install a new bathroom door. How many bartenders does it take to hang a wooden door?”
“I’m in no mood.”
“Three,” she told me definitively.
I waited. Then: “Three. Go on. What’s the punch?”
“No,” she was munching something loudly. “I’m saying three. I’m watching three burly men trying to put up one door — with, so far, scant success.”
“You’ve got to shim a door like that if you want it to balance and hang right.”
“Is that so?” She took the receiver away from her mouth. “Have you got it shimmed yet?”
Silence. Then: “What’s a shim?”
“Could I just tell you, before the home improvement seminar, that Detective Huyne was just here — and went away mad? And also that Mick is out of the jug, and Joepye is in in his place? And that I might be considered an accessory? And that in the heat of the moment I may have mentioned my old pal Winston to Detective Huyne?” I hesitated. “Oh, yeah, and that I also did my thing and got some good stuff before Huyne interrupted?”
She took a moment to absorb. “You’ve had a busy morning.”
“Yes, I have.”
“And you must have been pretty mad — or Huyne must have been leaning pretty hard — to make you bring up Winston.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly, “I kind of lost it there for a second. He interrupted my thing, see … and then he threatened to kick me all over your rug. And I know how you like to keep a tidy appearance —”
“Hold it. He threatened you?”
“I believe his exact words were: ‘If I kicked your ass right this minute, no one would think a thing about it.’”
“You explained to him otherwise.”
“I did.” I smiled into the phone. “I told him you’d care about it, for starters.”
“Right,” she shot back, “I hate a messy living room.”
“That’s what I told him.”
She took her time. “Well, now I’m mad, and I want to know why he’s being such a pistol. And I’m also confused.” She shifted the phone. “Joepye?”
“Yeah. How does that make any sense?”
“Well, he did accuse you, right?”
“But he probably doesn’t even remember that now.” I shrugged.
“And finally: You did your thing?”
“Oh” — I picked up a little — “yeah. It was great. I need to talk it out, of course, but I think I may have gotten something.”
“Like what?”
“Like why would Joepye be picking my pocket? And why would Dane be sawing his bass in half? His bass that’s shaped very much like a woman?”
“You, my friend” — her voice was amused — “are your own little Fellini film, aren’t you?”
“Also” — I went right on — “I got shot. Right in the heart. Only I just let the bullet stay there, and it didn’t seem to affect me in the slightest.”
“Oh.” That’s all. Just “oh.” But I could tell by the sound of her voice I had said something that apparently had a truckload of import, and I didn’t have a clue what that might be.
22. The Alliance
Now, ordinarily when I don’t understand something, I just ask. But when it involves Dalliance Oglethorpe and one of her ohs, I generally leave it alone. It’ll get back to me when it’s ready to be understood.
So I went the safe route. When all about you is chaos and you have no clear vision, the safe route is the one to stay with.
“Well, obviously I need to go over all that with you, right?” I tried to make it sound like just the next sentence in the conversation.
“Right.” But her response was, as they sometimes say, perfunctory.
“Can you get away now?” I thought it best to just forge ahead. “I’d really like to keep on the trail while it’s hot.”
She sighed. “Okay. I guess three burly men can do without my intervention — as long as they figure out what a shim is.”
“Words to live by,” I told her hastily, “so if you can just make it back to your pad within, say, half an hour, I’ll make a few important phone calls and I think I’ll have something in the way of an interesting tale to tell.”
Her voice warmed again. “I always like that.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Perfect.” And I hung up.
I didn’t want to think about the little glimpse of the big picture until I could talk it out loud with Dally, and I really didn’t want to consider what it was I’d said about it that had momentarily derailed her, so I just went right to the phone work.
There was a time when I kept a lot of numbers in my head. Then, a couple of years ago, I decided that it was getting to be pretty cluttered up there, so I got a notepad instead.
Which is what I pulled out and consulted as I dialed.
I didn’t wait long.
“Who is it?” The voice was impatient, but not as mean as it might have been.
“Hello, Mickey, it’s Flap Tucker.”
“Oh. Flap. Well.” He shifted the phone. “How did you know I was out of the can? How did you know I’d be home?”
“I just had something of an uncomfortable
visit from Detective Huyne. Among other things, he told me you were a wrong guy, but then he admitted you didn’t pop Janey.”
“Imagine my relief.”
“I will,” I agreed, “but first I’d like to try out a few hunches and run your well-known ways through their paces.”
“You want me to find out something.”
“In a word, yes.” I smiled into the phone, hoping he could hear it. “You’re being unusually terse today.”
“I have things on my mind.” His voice didn’t modulate one iota.
“Well, let’s try this on for size then. What do you know about Irgo Dane himself?”
“He plays a mean bass. He’s kind of stuck up. I hear he’s weird.”
“That’s what I mean.” I continued patiently. “Would you happen to know anything about his … extracurricular activities?”
“I see.” His voice finally demonstrated a little interest. “You want to know what strangeness he’s got in him, or perhaps some illicit leanings.”
“Exactly.”
“That would be an interesting line of inquiry” — he actually lightened up — “considering some of the things I’ve heard.”
“I thought so.”
“Because you think he might be connected to the murders of the hanging girls?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know.” That was honest. “I just had a momentary inkling. I told you, a hunch.”
“You did your famous act.” He lowered his voice. “You can tell me.”
“Well,” I said, “I got into it a little ways, and then the aforementioned Detective Huyne interrupted.”
“That snake.” But it was said without much malice.
“I used to like him better than I do today,” I said.
“I will look into this line of thinking and get back with you as soon as I can.” He paused. “By the way, I suppose you know that Joepye Adder has taken my place in the can.”
“I do know that, yes. Which lowers my estimation of Huyne even further. Like Joepye could manage anything like —”
Dancing Made Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 4) Page 12