Wisdom of the Bones

by Paul Christopher

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A list of people.’

  ‘I can see that, Detective.’

  ‘I’ve got reason to believe that one of those people was involved with Jennings Price, the murdered man found in the dump.’

  ‘And you think I know which one it is?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. Your name keeps on coming up, Mr Ruby. In some unlikely places with some unlikely people.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dick Schwager?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  From the street Ray could hear the sound of a powerful engine starting up. He looked up towards Ruby’s apartment. A staircase just like the one he’d used led down to ground level and the street. He wondered if Civello was beating feet.

  ‘Let’s do a little deal, Mr Ruby. You try and remember what you know about the people on that list and I’ll try to forget the people I saw in your living room just now.’

  Ruby hesitated for a long moment then nodded. He looked down at the notebook again and then back up at Ray. ‘Only name that rings a bell is Paul Futrelle.’ He smiled. ‘Hey, I’m a poet and didn’t know it.’

  ‘Paul Futrelle is married. He’s got kids. Try again, Mr Ruby.’

  ‘God’s truth, Detective. Lots of married gay guys around. It’s like camouflage. They lead double lives.’

  ‘He’s a school supervisor.’

  ‘So he is.’ Ruby handed back the notebook. His eyes flickered up to the second-floor door of his apartment, then down again.

  Ray studied the name in the notebook. He flipped back several pages. The inscription on the Jennings Price Omega Constellation read ’Tempus Fugit sed Amatus est Infinitus.’ ‘P. F. to J. P.’ The J. P. was Jennings Price, the P. F. was Paul Futrelle.

  ‘Aw shit.’ He should have seen it as soon as Valentine gave him the list. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to see it.

  ‘You want to know if he was fucking Price, well, he was. Too many people knew it.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m not saying nothing.’ Ruby shrugged. ‘But some people are gonna make some unavoidable conclusions. Like Paul Futrelle had a secret he’d do anything to keep and Jennings Price had a mouth on him like Howdy Doody.’ Ruby reached over and put a small pudgy hand on Ray’s knee. ‘Now Supervisor Futrelle may be gay but he’s got some powerful friends, Detective Duval. I’m not sure I’d like to be the cop who broke the news to Dallas about him.’

  ‘Sounds like a threat.’ He lifted Ruby’s hand away from his knee. The man’s skin felt a little oily, as though he’d rubbed his fingers through the Brylcreem he used to grease back the hair on the sides of his head. Ruby wasn’t offended by the gesture and pulled a package of Newports and a lighter out of his pocket. He offered the package to Ray, who shook his head. Ruby lit one for himself, then slipped the package and the lighter back into his pocket again.

  ‘No threat, just the straight goods, Detective. It’s just like what you might think you saw upstairs in my living room; a little bit too hot to handle for a small-time dick.’

  ‘I’m not interested in what I saw in your living room,’ Ray lied.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Not for the reasons you think, Jack. It’s just that I’ve got other things on my mind these days.’

  ‘Whatever way you want to play it, Detective.’

  ‘Maybe you should get back to your party.’

  ‘Maybe I should at that.’ Ruby flicked his cigarette into the air, a red arc that was snuffed out as it hit the pool. ‘Take care now.’ The pudgy little man with the thinning hair got up and went back to the stairs. He went up them two at a time, walked down to the door of 207 and went inside.

  Ray levered himself up and headed back to the car. He checked his watch. Five after nine. Ten minutes since he’d arrived. He started the car and headed north to Jefferson, his face and his hands green in the lights from the dashboard. He glanced at himself in the rear-view and for the first time a dead man stared back at him and for the first time the thought started rolling through his head that he was afraid of dying. He looked away from the mirror and concentrated on his driving, pulling to a stop as carefully as a little old lady when he reached the intersection at Jefferson. There were too many terrible thoughts in his head now, all fighting for dominance, this new fear of dying uppermost; but not far behind was the glimpse of the man he’d seen in Jack Ruby’s apartment.

  He waited for the traffic to clear, then swung the Chevy left, heading west down Jefferson to the Texaco at the corner of Cameron. There was a phone booth beside the toilets and he parked beside it. The telephone book in the booth was so much scrap paper so he dropped in a quarter, got his change and dialled information. Futrelle turned out to have an unlisted number so he put in a call to Betty Finch, his diminutive contact at the phone company. She got him the number in less time than it took to spell Futrelle’s name. According to Betty he lived in Kessler Park, a ten-minute drive north and west.

  ‘I owe you one,’ said Ray.

  ‘You owe me about a thousand by now,’ said a laughing Betty and then she clicked off the line.

  Ray scribbled the address and phone number down in his notebook then hung up. Getting his dime back he scooped it out of the change holder and put it back in the slot. He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes now since he’d been at Jack Ruby’s apartment. He dialled Ron Odum’s number from memory and let it ring ten times without an answer. There would have been barely enough time for R. T. to make it back to his place from Ruby’s if he’d been there at all. He banged the phone down, calling himself a dozen different names, and concentrated on the job at hand. This time he dialled Paul Futrelle’s number. Someone picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Futrelle residence.’ Sounded like a butler or something like it. The man was speaking through his nose.

  ‘I’d like to speak to Mr Futrelle, please.’

  ‘Mr Futrelle has retired for the evening, I’m afraid.’

  ‘This is important.’

  ‘Perhaps if I might enquire what this is about.’

  ‘Tell him it’s about a friend of his.’

  ‘And which friend would that be, sir?’

  ‘Mr Jennings Price.’

  ‘And your name, sir?’

  ‘My name doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Please hold the line.’

  There was a faint clunking sound as the person on the other end put the receiver down. A long, echoing minute passed and then a second voice came on to the phone, the voice hollow.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Mr Futrelle?’

  ‘Yes.’ The voice had the snap and impatience of authority but there was a trickle of fear running through it. The hollow sound was still there on the line.

  ‘You need your extension hung up.’

  ‘Andrews?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’ The butler’s voice.

  ‘Hang up.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ There was a click and the line cleared.

  ‘You always let your butler listen in on your telephone calls?’

  ‘Andrews isn’t my butler, he’s my personal assistant. He looks after my interests.’

  ‘Which sometimes involves eavesdropping?’

  ‘From time to time. Now who are you?’

  ‘My name is Duval, Mr Futrelle. Detective Ray Duval. Dallas PD.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Chief Curry and I are good friends.’

  ‘I’m sure. I was simply being discreet.’

  ‘In regards to what?’

  ‘Jennings Price.’

  ‘Mr Price is an antique dealer. He specialises in documents and rare books.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. It’s your relationship with him that interests me.’

  ‘I have no relationship with him other than the purchase of several volumes of Texas history.’

  ‘Purchase anything recently?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. Eugene Barker’s The Life of
Stephen F. Austin and Frederick Olmsted’s A Journey Through Texas, 1857. Mr Price was going to have the latter volume rebound for me.’

  ‘You’re aware of his murder?’

  The voice was stiff. ‘I have been advised of his demise, yes.’

  ‘You don’t sound very torn up about it, Mr Futrelle.’

  ‘Why should I be? He was a business acquaintance, barely that. In fact, I’m not entirely sure why I should be having this conversation, especially at this time of night.’

  ‘Because you bought Mr Price a wristwatch, Mr Futrelle. An Omega Constellation with the inscription Tempus Fugit sed Amatus est Infinitus. Time is fleeting but love is infinite. P. F. to J. P. The P. F. stands for Paul Futrelle, the J. P. for Jennings Price.’

  ‘That’s absurd. I barely knew the man, why would I buy him an expensive watch?’

  It was time to take the plunge. ‘Because you were homosexual lovers, Mr Futrelle.’

  There was an excruciatingly long pause. Futrelle finally spoke. When he did his voice was level and without inflection. ‘As I said, Detective, I’m good friends with Chief Curry. I’m not sure he’d appreciate his people going around slandering innocent citizens.’

  ‘It’s no slander, Mr Futrelle. I’ve had the information corroborated by more than one person.’ It wasn’t quite true but both Valentine and Schwager had hinted broadly enough at Jack Ruby. Ray decided to dig his own hole a little deeper. ‘I have other evidence as well.’

  There was another long pause. ‘Presumably this is some kind of shakedown, I think you call it.’

  ‘No, sir. I’m simply investigating Mr Price’s murder. Your name has come up in connection with that murder. I have no desire to defame or embarrass you.’

  ‘What do you propose, Detective?’

  ‘That we meet.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now, if possible. I’m running out of time.’

  ‘It’s almost ten o’clock at night. What am I supposed to tell my wife?’

  ‘An emergency meeting of some kind.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Drive down to the end of Kessler Lake Drive and walk into Kidd Springs Park. I’ll be on one of the benches.’

  ‘How will I recognise you?’

  ‘I look like a cop,’ said Ray. ‘A cop in a tweed sports coat and no Stetson.’

  ‘And what do you expect me to tell you?’

  ‘Whatever you can, Mr Futrelle.’ He hung up the telephone. He tried R. T.’s number again but there was still no answer. He hung the phone up a second time and went back to the car. He had the driver’s-side door open when a man in a brown Texaco uniform came around the corner and into the drift of reddish light thrown by the sign on the pole a few yards away.

  ‘You can’t just park here and not buy gas, you know,’ said the man.

  ‘I was using the telephone. Sorry.’

  ‘You come into a gas station, you’re supposed to buy gas.’

  ‘I’m a cop. It was an official call.’

  The man in the uniform stopped and stared at Ray. ‘This is about the jacket, I guess.’

  ‘What jacket?’

  ‘Oswald’s jacket.’ The man in the uniform pointed to an empty parking lot behind the gas station. ‘That’s where they found it.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Ray.

  The man in the uniform looked disappointed. ‘I thought it might be about the jacket.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you should have bought gas then.’

  ‘Next time,’ Ray answered. He climbed into the car, groaning with the effort as he pulled the door shut. He started the engine, pulled the light switch and drove out of the gas station.

  Chapter Twenty

  Kessler Park was the jewel of the Oak Cliff neighbourhoods, a mix of eccentric mansions built along Coombs Creek and south of Colorado Boulevard composed of well-maintained Tudor houses. Ignored by city planners until the twenties because of its densely forested, craggy terrain, it eventually became one of the city’s most sought after residential districts. Having found a secluded area of unique terrain, most residents never left, which explained its stability while other, older Dallas areas deteriorated. At the foot of the hilly neighbourhood, and protectively surrounded by it, was Kidd Springs Park, a large lagoon-like pond in its centre, the last spring-fed lake in the city.

  Ray came at the park from the east, parking at the end of 5th Street, then walking into the dark, moonlit park, skirting the edge of the lagoon, following the paths north to where he expected Futrelle to appear. It was quiet, any traffic sounds smothered by the trees that edged the pathways. The loudest sounds were the watery splashing of the swans and ducks swimming in the lagoon behind him and the faint chittering noises of a light breeze moving through the leaves.

  On the ground there was a faint, ghostly mist that wet Ray’s cheeks and hair with dew. If it wasn’t for his errand, Ray realised he might find the darkness and the quiet relaxing. He’d only visited the park once or twice, and that was years ago, which was ironic considering that his own house lay only a dozen blocks to the south in the old Dallas Land and Loan district on the other side of Davis Avenue. He found himself thinking about Rena and wondered if it would be a nice thing to bring her here, maybe on her day off. After his physical next week he’d be having quite a few of those himself.

  He slowly climbed up the path leading to the Kessler Lake Drive entrance to the park and spotted a dark form already occupying one of the green wooden benches. The man was elegantly dressed in a topcoat over a dark suit and tie. He was tall, well built and had little flares of grey at the temples of his otherwise dark, thick hair. As Ray approached the man stood up.

  ‘Detective Duval?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Paul Futrelle.’ Ray held out his hand for the man to shake but Futrelle ignored it.

  ‘You didn’t have to get dressed up,’ said Ray.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Futrelle answered. ‘I’m supposed to be attending an emergency meeting, remember?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re enjoying this, Detective. You think you’ve got some kind of tiger by the tail and you’re going to hold on hard and see what it gets you.’

  ‘I told you this wasn’t a shakedown, Mr Futrelle. I meant it.’

  ‘One way or another it’s a shakedown. You want something and you think I can give it to you and you’re dangling a secret over my head like some kind of sword of Damocles.’

  ‘I’m no Dionysus out to teach you a lesson, Mr Futrelle. I’m just a cop looking for information.’

  Futrelle sneered. ‘Astounding, a member of the Dallas Police Department who’s read Cicero.’

  ‘Actually, it was a kids’ book on Greek and Roman myths and legends I read while I was getting over the measles.’ Ray smiled. ‘Next best thing to a Classics Illustrated Comic.’

  Futrelle took Ray by the elbow and turned him back the way he’d come. ‘I’d feel better if we walked as we talked.’

  ‘Whatever you like.’ Ray shook off the hand on his elbow. They headed back down the web of pathways towards the lagoon.

  ‘What exactly do you wish to know? Presumably I’m not a suspect in Jennings’s murder?’

  ‘You were a lover scorned,’ said Ray. ‘One of the oldest motives around.’

  ‘I’d like to think that I’m above that sort of thing.’

  ‘Most people would, Mr Futrelle. Unfortunately that’s not the case.’

  ‘Do I need some sort of alibi?’

  ‘The time of death is too vague. From what the medical examiner tells me he died sometime earlier in the week. Monday or Tuesday.’

  ‘The last time I saw Jennings was on Monday afternoon.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘His place?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not yours.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘So where was it?’

  ‘I told you, I
’d rather not say. I have no right to involve other people in my affairs.’

  ‘You do if it involves murder.’

  ‘You’re telling me that I have to answer you.’

  ‘If you don’t I’ll have to formally charge you.’

  ‘Would you really dare to do that, Detective Duval?’ They had reached the lagoon and paused to watch the pale white forms of the swans gliding through the mist.

  Ray turned to the dapper man beside him. ‘Yes, Mr Futrelle. I’d formally charge you. I’ll be leaving the department in the near future so I’ve got little or nothing to lose and I’d like to wrap this up before I go.’

  ‘If I wanted to I could cause difficulties with your pension, Detective. You must know that.’

  ‘Now who’s dangling the sword?’ Ray asked.

  ‘You’re a stubborn man, Detective.’

  ‘I’m a dying man, Mr Futrelle, and I’m losing my patience. Time is something I have very little of left and you’re wasting it.’

  ‘I’m protecting my own interests.’

  ‘Leave that to me. Now where did you meet with Jennings Price?’

  ‘A mutual friend has a small apartment up above University Park.’

  ‘Who’s the mutual friend?’ Ray asked. ‘And don’t tell me you’d rather not say.’

  ‘Ricky Schwager.’

  ‘The rose fancier?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘We’ve met.’

  Futrelle looked shocked. ‘He told you about me?’

  ‘Never said a word. Neither did his friend Valentine.’

  ‘Then how did you know?’

  ‘I’m a detective, Mr Futrelle. I detect. I asked Valentine for a list of Price’s major clients. Your name was on it. I took it from there.’

  ‘So he did tell you.’

  ‘No. Like Schwager. Not a word.’

  ‘Nice to know there’s one or two people you can trust.’

  ‘Unlike Price?’

  ‘Jennings was Peter Pan and Tinker Bell all rolled into one. You could never tell what he was going to say, or to whom, or where he was going to land when he started flitting around town.’

  ‘What was the meeting about on Monday?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. I just wanted to see him.’

  ‘You have a key to this place?’