“You have?” I was tapping my fingers on the mess on Paul’s desk. “How many?”
“Counting the one you made me go see?” she asked. “One. And that’s aplenty. I did like Reese, though. He was cool.”
“As a cucumber.”
“And he told me what all you did for him.” Her voice was getting warmer. “You’re really kind of a Lone Ranger type, right?”
“Lone Ranger actually had a sidekick,” I answered her, “I work totally alone.”
“Is that right?”
“I don’t know whether it’s right or not” — I sighed — “but it’s what I usually do. So you don’t think Ronnard Raay’s the guy?”
“If that’s the name of the meat I ogled, no.”
“Damn.”
“Why?”
“Well,” I said, “you kind of like to have all your rotten eggs in one basket, in a way — no matter how too-much-of-a-coincidence it would be.”
“Jeez, Flap.” She laughed into the phone. “You need some sleep or something. I have no idea what you’re saying. That’s nut-talk.”
“What I need,” I began, “is to find out who it was that bothered you …”
But I didn’t finish the sentence. Paul’s face stopped me. He was looming in the doorway of his own office wearing a mask of Munch-like disbelief.
“Flap?” he said.
“Look, kiddo,” I murmured into the phone, “could I call you back?”
“Sure.” She seemed confused. “You okay?”
“We’ll talk.” I hung up. Then I looked at Paul. “What?”
“Before I go any further with this,” he said shakily, “you have to tell me why somebody’s blood is on the pointy end of this thing …” He paused and looked at the letter opener in his hand. “… and Dally’s fingerprints are on the other end.”
47. Why
“It doesn’t mean anything, Paul,” I told him steadily, even though my own impulses were on fire. “And how did you figure all that out in such a short time?”
“You bring this thing to me in a rush.” He leaned against the doorframe. “You hold it like it’s a bottle full of disease. You act all mysterious, even for you. And you look worried. I put two and two together.”
I let that sentence pass unheralded. “And you came up with?”
“This thing is a murder weapon. So I check. Bingo: blood. Then I look for prints. There are three sets clear and several other partials.” He paused, then went on softer — and a little redder of face. “I recognized Dally’s prints. I’ve studied them.”
He was obviously in some biologist/voyeur realm that I didn’t even want to know about, so I let that sentence go by too.
He let out a breath and relaxed a little. “So tell me.”
“Nothing to tell,” I said. “Somebody lifted that from Dally’s office, so natch it’s got her prints. Check the others. I suggest you just tell me all you can about them, and then forget I brought it to you.”
“Brought what to me?” He smiled gamely.
“Good. Now go. I have a few more calls to make.”
“All the other prints are from men I think.”
My hand hovered over the phone. “You can tell that?”
“Sort of. Plus, I have an intuition.”
“Go.”
He went. I dialed.
“And?” The terse voice was tighter than usual.
“Danny? Your voice sounds funny.”
He made no answer.
I got it. “You’re not alone?”
“Why, no I’m not. Thanks for asking.”
“Can you tell me who’s there?”
“Remember the Bobbsey Twins?”
“Those goofs who came to beat you up?” I couldn’t believe it. “The ones I had to pop?”
“Right. So I’m kind of busy.”
“Are you okay?”
“As well as can be expected,” he said slowly, “under the circumstances.”
“Are they standing right there?”
“Yup.”
“Want me to come over?”
“Not necessary. Talking is more the order of the day at this juncture.”
“Nobody’s trying to rearrange your biological order. They don’t want to beat you up anymore.”
“That’s right,” he told me. “I’m just trying to figure out exactly why, is all.”
“Okay, so here’s why I called,” I said as if there were nothing else in the world going on. “One: When you called me to the Clairmont, you said the phrase ‘we were wrong’ and I wanted to know what you meant, because the odds of our both being wrong are pretty significant. And two: What was all that bizarre behavior between you and Mug Lewis — we both know that’s who that was.”
“Yes.” His voice betrayed amusement. Dan always enjoyed my oblique attempts at apology. “But your questions are pertinent. Alas, they will have to wait.”
“I get it. You sure you don’t need help?”
He moved his mouth away from the speaker. “Boys? This is Flap Tucker on the other end. You want him to come over? He misses you.”
I didn’t hear what the response was.
“They said they’d just as soon conclude their business with me and let you get on with your business with you.”
“To coin a phrase.” I grinned. “But, Dan? Three? What exactly do you think those goons want with you at this point?”
“There,” he said a little louder, “is where I believe we come to the crux of the biscuit, as it were. Give me a half an hour. Where are you?”
“At Tech.”
“With that guy Paul.” He was wise to my patterns. “Wait there. His office is still in the same building?”
“Right. See you in a nonce.”
He hung up. I kept the phone in my hand. I thought for a second it might be better if I didn’t call Huyne, but eventually the vision of dead Jersey trying to write in the dirt got the better of me, and I wanted to have all the information I could have. I was hoping I could get some more from him about where he was with Jersey’s demise, and what he was thinking about Ronnard Raay’s. So I dialed the police station.
“Huyne.” He answered in a hurry.
“Yes,” I said slowly, “it’s Flap Tucker. Do you have a second?”
“Not really. And not necessary. I think we’ve just about got things wrapped up around here where you’re concerned. You and Ms. Oglethorpe.”
“What?” I leaned forward. “Wrapped up good or wrapped up bad?”
“I suppose that depends on your point of view.” He was still in a rush. “But the fact is, we’re prepared to dismiss the charges against Ms. Oglethorpe. We have no need of you. And everything’s about to be put to rest.”
Stop the presses.
“You’re letting Dally go?”
“That’s what we sometimes do with innocent parties.” He rustled some papers on his desk. “Look, I really don’t have the time …”
“… what’s the deal, Huyne?” I tried out the overwhelming voice of strength. It was pretty impressive. “This is all happening too fast. Why are you letting her go?”
“Christ,” he said, “calm down, Tucker. We’re letting her go because the coroner’s opinion confirms the note we found in the room of the deceased. Higgins was a suicide.”
48. Kamikaze Drug Lords Of The Sunbelt
“I see.” I brought my voice back to a calmer condition. “Suicide. Well. That explains it. What about Jersey Jakes? Who killed him, or was he a do-it-yourselfer too?”
“We believe he was murdered by an accomplice of Ronnard Raay Higgins because Higgins found out that Jakes was tailing him.” Huyne’s voice had taken on an edge of irony. “You notice how free I am with the information.”
“I figure that’s because it’ll be in the papers tomorrow anyway,” I opined, “but thanks for the early edition. Go on.”
“Oh” — his voice got even edgier — “you want more? Okay. How about this: Higgins was the next best thing to a big crime boss
in the southeastern drug world. He was a clearinghouse. Only he was in big trouble with his higher-ups …”
“… whoever they would be …”
“… and he needed a big bunch of cash. You don’t remember a guy around town a year or so back called Mug Lewis, do you?”
Well. There was a question. I had to be very careful with my honesty around the answer.
“Yes,” I said plainly, “I remember Mug Lewis.”
“I thought you might.” His voice was in overdrive, heavy with strange overtones. “Anyway, he was into Higgins for, like, over seven hundred thousand. So Higgins had him killed.”
“Higgins had Mug killed?”
“Correct.” Huyne got quiet. “In fact, I believe you were at Mug Lewis’s funeral, weren’t you?”
“How you would know a thing like that only frightens me more about the whole concept of Big Brother,” I said, “but yes, I was at the funeral.”
“Uh-huh.” Anger was creeping into the mix, though I wasn’t certain why. Maybe he was just impatient with me. “So, to conclude our little info-fest, here, Higgins needed the dough because of Lewis. Higgins killed Lewis but never got the money. That’s why Higgins came to Atlanta, to get cash from his wife. His wife Dalliance Oglethorpe.”
“I knew which wife you meant.” I tried to sound amused. “So when Dally wouldn’t give him the money, he was so despondent that he killed himself?”
“Ms. Oglethorpe doesn’t have that kind of money. And the drug lords were closing in. Higgins, as you may have determined from your own investigation, had a reputation for being something of a badass when he was in the right mood, what with cutting off of people’s hands, and chunking people in the head with tire irons. He was afraid he’d get a little of his own medicine. So he took some of his own medicine — in fact, an entire gram of coke — and then he stabbed himself hard in the heart. Case closed.”
Not hardly, as we used to say in my hometown.
“Pretty neat.” That’s all I said to Huyne. “So who brought Mr. Higgins over to Easy all wrapped up?”
“Yeah,” he allowed, “that’s a good one. Maybe it’s your turn to share.”
“I don’t have any idea.” But that was a lie. I had lots of ideas. “And what about the suicide weapon?”
“Okay” — Huyne sighed heavily — “you got me. Maybe the case isn’t entirely closed. I’d like to know who carried the body to Ms. Oglethorpe. And why. Maybe it was the accomplice I mentioned. You’re telling me you don’t have any ideas about that at all? No mystic vision?”
“Nice tone of mockery,” I told him. I didn’t think I should bother him with the details of my little thing. “But not much in the vision department here.”
“Not much.” Sounded like he leaned back in his chair. “Not much. Well, see, knowing that you’re Mr. Understatement, I have to ask myself why you don’t seem to want to tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Look.” My voice rose. “You can’t make fun of my little thing and then, at the same time, demand to know what’s going on with it.”
“Demand?” His voice matched my tone. “All I said was …”
“… look, Huyne.” I took a breath. “Detective Huyne, that is: I don’t have anything definitive to say in the matter. I did my little thing, it was a scene from Midsummer Night's Dream. Happy?”
“By Shakespeare?” His voice was high. “That play by Shakespeare? You are one messed-up ball of confusion.”
“My point exactly,” I said, “so lay off. If you don’t want to hear what goes on in the troubled coffin of my brain, then don’t ask.”
“Troubled coffin?”
“Are you going to repeat everything I say?”
“Tucker, you can be just as weird as you want to be. That’s fine by me. But don’t pretend it has anything to do with finding out the truth about anything. If you want to answer a question, all you have to do is work: Think it out; put all the facts together. Period.”
“I see,” I brushed him off. “Well, thanks for the tip. I see how your line of inquiry has always worked out well for you in your little cubicle there at the station house, but as soon as you jam a crowbar into your belief system and let even one little sliver of light in, you’ll see that there’s a whole other world out there. It’s a place where you can put all the facts together that you want to, and you still won’t have squat in the way of answers because you discover that you’re asking all the wrong questions. And that’s the end of my short but brief tirade concerning my Taoist approach to things.”
“What questions should I be asking, then?” he shot back. “Mr. Tucker.”
“If you peel away the mask that you wear most of the time in this life,” I said carefully, “then what does your face look like?”
“Yeah.” He managed a laugh. “And what’s the sound of one hand clapping. I’ve heard all that before …”
“… you don’t follow me at all,” I interrupted, even softer. “I’m saying: What do you see when you see past most of what you thought there was to see?”
“Okay” — he sighed — “that’s enough of that.”
“You don’t realize it,” I said, “but I’m actually answering your question. I’m actually trying to help.”
“You need to help yourself to a hot shower and a nap,” he told me. “That’s my advice to you.”
“Actually,” I nodded slowly, “that’s right. You’re exactly correct. A little sleep is just what I need.”
“You’ll see things in a different light.” His voice was calmer too.
“I’m sure I will.” But I knew that all the sleep in the world wouldn’t smack me into his little cubicle, a place where evil drug lords from south Georgia scared Ronnard Raay Higgins so bad that he shoved a letter opener into his sternum. I knew that a hot shower wouldn’t wash away the blood on one end of that murder weapon, or the fingerprints on the other.
49. Sleep
Shakespeare said that sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care. But he didn’t have my problems. And he hadn’t ever fallen asleep on Paul’s desk.
When I woke up from a nap that could only be described as fitful, there was a purple-lettered mimeographed sheet of something or other stuck to the side of my face. I peeled it off. It was all about chemical compounds, and must have been thirty years old. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen a mimeographed anything.
I had been startled from my slumber by Paul’s dramatic entrance:
“Flap! Wake up! Jesus!”
All exclamations.
I removed the sheet of paper from my face, knowing it had left purple stigmata on my cheek, and folded my hands in front of me.
“Yes, Paul?”
He sat in the chair across from the desk. “You’re not going to believe it. Dalliance is married! Was married.”
I tapped my thumbs together. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, I wanted to see if I could find out whose blood was … I ran a computer thing … Flap, he’s got a police record.” He lowered his voice to barely audible. “So does she.”
“What are you telling me, Paul?” I didn’t even want to get into a dialogue about the age of modern computer miracles.
He straightened up. “The blood belongs to some guy named Higgins that is married to Dalliance, or was. He’s dead. I assume from getting stuck by this thing.” He held it up in his surgeon-gloved hand. “And the only perfectly clear prints on it are hers. Dally’s.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Paul.” I said, a study of calm. “Like I said, the thing’s been on her desk for years. Anybody could have seen it, copped it, worn gloves just like the ones you’re wearing now, and jabbed it into Higgins.”
“Anyone?”
“Well,” I allowed, “anyone who was really mad at him.”
“Yeah.” He looked up from the letter opener. “What does this really mean, Flap? Christ. Dally’s married.”
“Was.” I leaned forward. “And it doesn’t mean anything. Did I
ever tell you my interpretation of basic phenomenology?”
“Please don’t.”
“Any action or situation is nothing more than a phenomenon,” I said, ignoring his halfhearted plea. “That phenomenon, that occurrence, is devoid of any valuation, any meaning, until you impart meaning to it.”
“A fact doesn’t mean anything” — he nodded — “until it’s interpreted and applied. I see that.”
“Right. We quote old Joe Campbell: ‘What’s the meaning of a flower?’ It just is.”
“Joe Campbell? That guy who used to be at West Georgia College and was a stringer for Time or Newsweek?”
“No,” I corrected, “that’s Joe Cumming — although, now that you mention it, they do look sort of alike …”
“… what are we talking about?”
“I’m talking about perception.” I sat back. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about a murder weapon with Dally’s fingerprints on it. You obviously stole it from some crime scene, meaning that all three of us could go to prison.” He sniffed. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
“What letter opener — remember?”
“Okay.” He put it down carefully on the desk between us. “Then get the hell out of here and take this with you.”
I stared down at it. I tried to make it be just a letter opener, devoid of any valuation or meaning. I didn’t succeed. That’s the problem with a high-flung philosophy: You can’t always make it work for you — and often when you need it to work the most, it fails.
So I played the glad game instead. I'm glad, I said to myself, that Ronnard Raay wasn't killed by a stiletto — despite my image of a stiletto-heeled shoe stuck into Jersey's heart. I'm glad the kid, Lucy, is innocent. Kids — everybody, in fact — ought to try to keep innocence around them as long as they can, even under the duress of experience. I'm glad, I concluded my little internal monologue, that Lucy didn't kill anyone, and that the person who bothered her won't be doing it again.
“Flap?”
I roused. “Sorry, Paul. I can tell you’re nervous about this, and I don’t blame you. I’ll be going now. Danny Frank will be here in a while. Would you mind telling him I’ve gone over to Easy? I can’t call him at the moment, he’s busy. And you don’t want me to wait.”
Dead Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 5) Page 19