On the Street Where You Die (Stanley Bentworth mysteries Book 1)

by Al Stevens

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Right. Keep thinking that thought.”

  I hung up, and Rodney was at my car with the ball bat right away. I took it, and he went back into the house. I lit a cigarette. This would be my last one. Or my last pack. They were expensive. I’d have to finish the pack. Can’t let them go to waste.

  Waiting and watching from my car reminded me of countless stakeouts, except that tonight I didn’t have coffee and doughnuts. Buford’s booze had worn off. I had a pint of Old Forester in the glove compartment for emergencies in case of snake bite, so I took it out, looked around for a snake, didn’t see one, and took a swig. No more than one, though, I told myself. I needed my wits about me. So I took another swig. I’m weak. So sue me.

  At about seven, a silver BMW pulled up in front of Amanda’s house. A fellow fitting Jeremy’s description got out, went to the door, and rang the doorbell.

  My cell phone buzzed. This time I found it right away on top of the trash that decorated my front seat. I picked it up.

  “He’s here, Uncle Stanley.”

  “Okay. You know what to do.”

  Rodney opened the door and said. “What do you want?”

  I could hear the exchange on my cell phone.

  “I want to talk to your mother.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  “Get out of the way, kid.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or maybe I move you out of the way.”

  With that I was out of my car and headed for the front door carrying the ball bat.

  The Captain raised his voice. “Amanda! Get out here. We need to talk.”

  Amanda’s voice came from inside the house. “Go away, Jeremy. I don’t want to see you.”

  I was just behind Jeremy when he started to shove Rodney aside and push his way into the house. He didn’t see me coming. I swung the bat with all my might, hitting him across both calves. He yelled and went down sideways off the stoop into the bushes beside the door.

  “What the fuck—” he said.

  “Stay down,” I said. “Stay where you are.”

  He sized me up from his position on the ground.

  “Says who?” he said.

  “Captain, you’re pretty good at pushing women and helpless teenaged boys around. How are you when you’re up against a man?”

  He started to get up to show me, but I hit him in the ribs with the bat. Hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to break anything. He fell back, holding his side, then rose again and braced himself to spring. I let my jacket fall open so that the holstered pistol and shield were in clear view. He stopped and sank back down.

  “So she called the cops,” he said.

  “No, asshole, she called her big brother. You see, I take a dim view of people pushing my sister around. A very dim view. You ever lay another hand on her, and you’ll be taking a dim view too. The dimmest. From inside a shallow grave.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Gee,” I said to Rodney. “I must not have done it right. Here he is, on the ground, hugging his rib cage, big assed bruises on his legs, maybe a cracked rib, me standing over him with a baseball bat, and him asking if I’m threatening him.” I turned to Jeremy. “Goddamn right I’m threatening you, asshole! Come around here again, and you get more of the same. Is there any part of that that isn’t clear?”

  This was a little more direct than the approach I’d taken with Vitole. I liked it better this way.

  Amanda called from inside the house, “Stanley, make him go away.”

  Terrific. Now he has my name.

  As I said earlier, I’m not a tough guy, but I do have balls. Comes from years working homicide and robbery. You always had backup. A murder cop was seldom in real danger. All the action had already happened. They called us in to clean it up. I was out on my own now, no help, no backup, but the balls were still in place and working. It felt good. But if he’d tried to jump me, I would have had to shoot him. Then there’d be paperwork.

  “Stay on the ground,” I said, hoping he’d agree.

  I looked fondly at the Louisville Slugger in my grip. Rodney and I used to play flies and grounders with it on the vacant lot behind the house when he was younger. And when I was younger too. Now the old Slugger was being put to professional use, and I was about to improve my batting average.

  I walked over to the silver Beamer and broke one headlight. Then I broke the passenger’s side of the windshield. Then a taillight. For the final out I banged a good-sized dent in the passenger’s side door. Then I walked back to the house and handed the bat to Rodney. The Captain was still on the ground staring first at me then at his car.

  “I left you enough to see your way home,” I told the Captain. “Make sure you never see your way back. I find you here again, it’s your head, legs, ribs, anything I can reach, instead of that pussy Beamer. And no more mister nice guy. Next time I break something. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  He pulled himself to his feet, limped over to his car, hugging his ribs and glaring at me all the way, and got in. He rolled the passenger window down half way, which got caught up in the damage I’d done, and called out, “You haven’t heard the last of this.” Then he drove away.

  Probably true. I went inside.

  “If you hear from him again, Amanda, call me. Keep your door locked and don’t let him in.”

  “I will. Thanks, Stanley.” She gave me a hug, which made it all worth while.

  “What’s his job with the Army?” I asked.

  “Something to do with intelligence,” she said.

  Oh, great. Now I’m certain to hear from him again.

  “Hey, Uncle Stanley,” Rodney said, “I ain’t no helpless teenage boy. I could have taken him myself.”

  “When you tell this story at school, you can tell it that way.”

  “I don’t go to school.”

  “You should.”

  The booze was wearing off. I went home and went straight to bed.

  Chapter 9

  The alarm clock woke me at seven thirty. No hangover. That was pleasant. I could get used to that. With a shower and shave, dressed and out the door, I was on my way to work.

  An olive drab Chevy with official white markings fell in behind me. I couldn’t make out the lettering, but I could guess. Captain Pugh had sent some payback. I’m not sure where he got my home address. I could see two large men in Army uniforms in the front seat of the car. The driver was young, big, and had a serious look about him. The other one was in the shadows.

  I drove north under the Interstate and to the police station and pulled into a parking space marked “Official Police Vehicles Only.” The olive drab Chevy sped away.

  I didn’t get out. I backed out of the parking space just as a uniform was walking over to tell me I couldn’t park there. I smiled and waved at him and drove to my office.

  Willa wasn’t in yet. She must’ve stopped at the bank to deposit our windfall. I was right. I settled in at my desk, and she came in, smiling.

  “Good morning, boss man,” she said, taking off her coat and tossing a deposit slip on her desk. “The Bentworth Detective Agency is in the black for the first time I can remember. All caught up on our bills, and my back salary is paid in full at last.”

  “Anything left?”

  “Some.”

  “How much?”

  “I’m not going to tell you. You’d just spend it.”

  “That I would.”

  “Your paycheck is in your desk drawer. Spend that.”

  I opened the drawer and looked at the check.

  “What? I get a pay cut?”

  “Times are tough, boss man. There’s a recession on. Got to tighten our belts. We all have to pitch in and do our part.”

  You’d have thought she was selling war bonds.

  I left the office and went to Ray’s. Bunny was there with a disappointed look on her face.

  “Where were you last night?” she sa
id.

  “Sleeping off a fight.”

  “A fight?”

  “Yeah. A guy’s been pestering Amanda. Now he’s not.”

  “You look better than yesterday. Fighting must be better for you than drinking. I’ll get your breakfast.”

  She went into the kitchen and returned with the usual bacon, eggs, and all that.

  “You’re perfect, Bunny. I need a cholesterol fix.”

  “Thanks, Stan. You’re looking better too. So, what do you think? Want to get back together?”

  “Still thinking about it.”

  “I won’t mention it again,” she said. “I’m not used to rejection.”

  “It gets harder to take and more frequent as you get older,” I said before I could stop myself.

  She turned with a flip and left to take care of other customers. I ate alone, glad for the solitude. I had several things on my mind. What was I to do about Jeremy and the Gestapo twins? Would Vitole lay off Buford? Would Rodney’s illegal money transfer come back to haunt me? And, of course, there was Bunny. What was I going to do about Bunny?

  This pile of complications made looking for bail jumpers and cheating husbands feel like the good old days.

  I finished breakfast and went back to the office. I went into the inner office, sat in my chair, and dozed off.

  After a while Willa came to the door, “Somebody’s here to see you.”

  I came awake and sat forward. “Who?”

  “Bill Penrod.”

  I stood up and rubbed my eyes as Penrod came in.

  “Hello, Stan.”

  “Come in, Bill,” I said. “Sit down. Good to see you. What does Delbert Falls’s finest need this morning?”

  He looked at his watch. “It’s afternoon.”

  Bill had been my shift supervisor when I was in homicide. We were close friends and had worked well together, partnering on many cases. Sometimes he was primary, sometimes I was. We had a good closure rate, an unbeatable team. I was good at finding witnesses and suspects, and Bill was the interrogator. He could’ve wrangled a confession out of O.J. We were both good at finding clues and gathering information. Breaking up our team was the Lieutenant’s biggest mistake, although he would never admit it.

  He plopped in the chair in front of the desk. His bulk filled it up. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. Bill would have perspired at the North Pole.

  “Smoke in here?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can’t smoke in the squad room,” he said. “Have to go to a designated area outside. They should know what that costs the city in lost manpower. At any given time, half the shift’s out there.”

  “Shift happens.” I pushed the ash tray across to him. He lit a cigarette with the old Ronson lighter that I’d always coveted, snapped it shut, and took a drag.

  I said for the thousandth time, “If you ever quit smoking, I want that lighter.”

  He grunted and looked like he was enjoying the smoke. I wished I wasn’t trying to quit. I still had a couple in my pack. I lit one up. Just to be sociable.

  “We got a guy in custody says he talks only to you, Stan, He already lawyered up.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Buford Overbee.”

  Things just got more complicated. It looked like I might just earn out that ten grand retainer.

  “What did he do?”

  “We like him for a murder this morning. A retired fed named Mario Vitole. What can you tell us?”

  My mind was spinning at ten thousand revs per minute. What had gone wrong? Did Vitole fail to understand my warning? Did he really think we didn’t know he had been the blackmailer?

  “Not much. I did some work for Overbee not long ago.”

  “I know. I sent him to you. Some kind of vague missing person situation.”

  “Same guy.”

  “What was the case?”

  “I’m still on retainer with Overbee, Bill. I’ll have to talk to him before I can talk to you about that. But I don’t think my case is related to this.” A little white lie. They were related.

  “Stan, you know the drill. It’s murder. P.I. to client privilege doesn’t work here.”

  “I know,” I said. Bill didn’t need to tell me how it works. It hadn’t been that long ago that I was on his side of the table.

  “You know something, you got to tell me,” he said. “I don’t want to have to file an obstruction charge against you.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  “Some judge will put your sorry ass in the clink with a contempt violation if you dummy up. And I’m the only one on my side who’ll give a shit what happens to you.”

  “Understood. I’ll spill. But can you cut me a little slack until I talk to Overbee? He isn’t going anywhere, and the vic won’t get any deader.”

  “I guess I can do that since it’s you. But don’t tell the Lieutenant. He doesn’t love you like I do.”

  “Thanks. What can you tell me about the case?”

  “A neighbor found the body late this morning in the street a couple doors from his house. He had a bullet in his brain. Small caliber, from the front between his eyes, no GSR, no exit wound. His nose had been recently rearranged.”

  “Which way from his house?” I was thinking about Marsha Sproles and a jealous husband.

  “North.”

  Bingo! He had gotten bumped in front of his girl friend’s house. I figured I’d hang onto that piece of knowledge until it could help.

  “Who was the neighbor who found him?”

  He looked at his notepad. “Marsha Sproles.”

  The girlfriend found the body. I wondered whether there was any significance to that.

  “Did the vic have any connection with the mob?”

  “He worked witness protection before he retired.”

  “Well, that’s sure a connection. You need to look into all his cases from before he retired.”

  “I got somebody on that. The feds are cooperating. Up to a point. For once, they don’t want jurisdiction. But they’re not willing to open their books.”

  “Not even for one of their own?”

  “Retired. Second-class citizen. It’s our case.”

  “Interesting. Anyway, what makes you like a renowned financier more than the mob?”

  “The vic’s wife. One night when Overbee was mentioned on the news, Vitole told her they were about to score big on him, something about a better retirement plan.”

  “Score how?”

  “She didn’t know.”

  “That’s not much for an arrest warrant.”

  “The judge saw it our way. Overbee can’t account for his whereabouts, so no alibi; a witness saw his car at the vic’s house early this morning; he has a wall full of guns hanging in his study; and he owns a private jet, making him a flight risk.”

  “Still sounds circumstantial to me. Weak. How’d the witness know it was Overbee’s car?”

  “She didn’t. We made the connection.”

  “How?”

  “Christ, Stan. It’s a fucking white Rolls Royce. How many of them you see around here?”

  “Point taken. Still not on solid ground, though.”

  Penrod nodded. The case was shaky and he knew it. “The M.E. will get the bullet out of the vic’s noggin, and the lab can see if it matches one of Overbee’s guns. We confiscated all the small caliber pieces. I’m betting we get a match.”

  “I’m betting you don’t.” Buford was too smart to use a personal gun and then keep it. If he shot Vitole, the gun was at the bottom of the river.

  “That, and a confession ought to close it,” Penrod said.

  “Good luck on that,” I said.

  “Well, I’m pretty good in the room.”

  He was. The “room” was what we called homicide’s interrogation room. Many cases were closed in the room.

  “But you don’t know Overbee,” I said. “Hard case. If he did it, he won’t give it up. Did you meet his wife?”

  “Yes.
Wow.” He whistled a quiet low tone.

  “Uh huh. And his daughter?”

  “Didn’t know he had one. What’s she like?”

  “Not wow. But devoted to Daddy.”

  “The wife didn’t mention her.”

  I gave an all-knowing shrug. Bill responded in kind.

  “From what I’ve seen,” I said, “they’re not on the best of terms.”

  “The daughter live there?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll question her too. When can you talk to Overbee?”

  I wanted that talk more than Bill did. I wanted to find out what happened and maybe even keep the meter running a ways past his ten grand retainer.

  “Any time. Let me know.”

  “I’ll call his lawyer. He wants to be there. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Call me when you know.”

  “I will.” Penrod looked me square in the eye. “Then I expect full disclosure.”

  “I know.” I also knew that Bill Penrod wouldn’t let up on me. I’d have to spill most of it.

  Penrod started to get up to leave. Then I said, “Does the press have the story yet?”

  He sat back down.

  “Not yet.”

  “You got mug shots?”

  “Of course.” His tone said that I shouldn’t have had to ask.

  “Get yourself copies,” I told him. “You can sell them to one of the tabloids before the other news hawks get them. They’d all kill to get a photo of the elusive Buford Overbee.”

  Penrod laughed. “Might just do that, Stan. Then I can retire. Need a partner?”

  I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. The idea of partnering with Bill Penrod again was beyond my wildest hopes. If only the business would support it.

  “I wish,” was all I could say. “Seriously, about the mug shots. The mob’s been looking for him for years. He pled out a murder rap with a deal that let him walk in exchange for testifying. They don’t know his name or where he is. You let his picture get out, and his life isn’t worth a rusty Al Gore campaign button.”

  “I’ll pass it on,” Penrod said.

  Chapter 10

  The next morning I stopped at McDonald’s and got coffee and a sausage biscuit. Then I went directly to the police station. My army pals were on my tail again. They knew where I lived. I hoped they’d think I was a cop. So far, both times they’d tailed me, I’d gone to the police station. When I pulled into the parking lot this morning they sped off just as they’d done the previous time.