The splinters were my find. When I was in the hospital, my young smug doctor mentioned that he’d tweezed a number of sharp metal filings from my face where my attacker’s boot had hit me. I’d had to pry identical splinters from the soles of my shoes after my visit to Collins Steelworks.
That made it a coin flip between Meredith and Randolph Collins, or the former working on instructions from the latter, or a third-party factory employee on instructions from someone. I’d told Lazenby about my deductions when he visited me in the hospital.
“That’s not a lot of evidence,” I noted. “And it’s all circumstantial.”
“True,” Lazenby said, a smile shaping under his beard. “Then I told him about our witness.”
“Witness?”
“The little old lady who was looking out her window just in time to see Meredith slip on the stocking mask. Sweet old bird. Everybody’s favorite grandma. Told him she’d be a wonder on the stand, nail the coffin down on attempted murder. He broke and said he found out about your…appointment…with Rebecca from her brother.”
“Did Randolph sic him on me?” I asked.
Lazenby shook his head. “Not according to Meredith. He says he did this on his own. Guess he has a thing for the girl.”
I thought about how Meredith had talked about Becca during our interview. I’d pegged him as having the hots for her. Seeing her stepping out with me must have sent him over the edge.
“Little old lady?” I asked. “Were you telling a fib?”
Lazenby shrugged and did his best at looking innocent. “I’ll talk to the DA. Make sure he pushes hard for attempted murder, then cut a deal for aggravated assault. Save the city the money of a trial.”
Between the lines: I wouldn’t have to parade my and Becca’s private life in front of a jury and roll the dice they didn’t vote not guilty by reason of I was asking for it.
We shared a look, and I nodded a thank-you.
I turned down the offer of a ride home, made my way out of the station, and began walking. Winter had arrived in force the last week, and the wind cut through my coat like a knife. At least it took my mind off my ribs and arms and face.
And everything else.
I took a meandering way home, stopping at my favorite corner diner for a hot turkey sandwich I barely touched and a bookstore where I wandered up and down the aisles for the better part of an hour.
I found myself going down the romance aisle for the fifth time and realized I was just putting off going back to the empty office. I didn’t want to face my uselessness and the waiting.
As soon as I recognized that, I high-stepped it out of the store, flagged down a cab, and was back at the office in fifteen minutes.
Mrs. Campbell came out of the kitchen, arms covered in flour up to the elbows.
“You were gone so long, I was worried.”
“I was with the police. How much trouble could I get into?”
She gave me a look that said “plenty.”
“I’m making raisin nut bread. I’ll be at it a while. There are sandwich fixings in the icebox if you’re hungry,” she said. “And a package was delivered for you. I put it on your desk.”
She returned to her kneading and I went to my desk to find a thick, flat envelope from Liberty Developing. Inside were two dozen snaps taken during the Collinses’ Halloween bash.
As promised, most were off-kilter, out of focus, or both. But there were a few good ones in the lot.
There was Wallace chatting it up with a flock of executives, all looking a little sloshed. Abigail Collins, in a white gown and mask, posed on the stairs, no clue she was living out her last hour. There was Dr. Waterhouse, looking uncomfortable and out of place. And there was Meredith, smiling, laughing at something.
Becca and Randolph were caught candidly in the study in the minutes prior to Belestrade’s show: Randolph in a tailored tux, Becca in a hip-hugging black number that was accented with elbow-length white gloves and a sequined cape. Both sported matching Harlequin masks.
Even half-masked and in celluloid, her face made my heart flutter. I thought about calling her. Then had second thoughts. And third and fourth and so on.
Eventually I shoved the photos back into their envelope and went to put them in a drawer of Ms. Pentecost’s desk. As I did, I noticed a yellow legal pad tucked inside. On it was an address scribbled in my boss’s chicken scratch.
Orly Crouch
#213 Rte 5 (Old Wallace Drive)
Cockerville, NY
That answered that. Mrs. Bettyanne Casey-Hutts had come through. Ms. Pentecost was out hunting down Abigail Collins, née Pratt, née Crouch’s past.
Why for? I didn’t know. But at least I had a sense of where she was. A weight lifted from my heart.
When she called that night, I answered the phone with “How’s Nowhere, New York? Did you find a place to stay in Cockerville or are you commuting from Albany?”
“I am staying at the Driftwood Inn, a small rooming house in Prattsville. Which as you know is not so far from Cockerville.”
“You’re doing a fine job of hiding your admiration for my detective skills, but I’m sure they’re present,” I quipped.
“I assume you found someone at the car service who could be bribed for information.”
I think I’ve mentioned how I sometimes can’t stand my boss.
“Have you talked to Orly Crouch yet?” I asked, changing the subject.
“He would not open his door. I will try again tomorrow.”
“Why?” I asked. “We have been discharged, remember? And as avenues of investigation go, this one seems the least scenic.”
“You said it yourself. I don’t like coincidences.”
That was all she’d expound on that.
I filled her in on Meredith’s arrest. She seemed pleased but not surprised.
“You noted in your report that you felt uneasy in his presence,” she said. “Your instincts, especially around people with the potential for violence, are not to be dismissed.”
I asked if she thought she’d be home tomorrow. She said she didn’t know. If she struck out with Orly Crouch, she’d probably be back in the office by early evening. I wished her luck, and reminded her to get some shuteye and eat her Wheaties.
“You do realize I survived for a number of years without your assistance,” she said.
“I know. It’s a miracle.”
I hung up before she could get in the last word.
CHAPTER 31
The Saturday morning paper delivered another bombshell.
MURDER SUSPECT HAS TUMOR, NOT EXPECTED TO LAST UNTIL TRIAL
Wallace had collapsed in his cell the day before. A specialist had been called in. The verdict was stomach cancer—something Wallace had apparently known for months. I’d noticed how ragged he’d looked but had chalked it up to stress.
A sidebar noted that the police had finally released Abigail Collins’s body and that the funeral would be held on Monday. Hiram would free up a slab, and the Collins family could start putting all this behind them.
Though I knew they wouldn’t. Not with dear Uncle Harry slowly dying in a cell.
I put the paper on my desk and looked outside to a world smothered in white. There were three inches on the ground and it was still coming down strong. On the radio, the announcer said we could expect as much as two feet by Sunday. I started lowering the odds of Ms. P getting home that night.
Our usual Saturday morning open house had been canceled and all the chores that needed doing had been done. I was left to sit in my chair and stare at the picture above Ms. Pentecost’s desk. For the thousandth time I wondered who the girl in the blue dress was. What was she doing beneath that lone yellow tree in the middle of nowhere?
When the phone rang, I nearly toppled out of my seat.
&nbs
p; “Pentecost Investigations, Will Parker speaking.”
“Ms. Pentecost. Please, I need Ms. Pentecost.” The accent sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it.
“I’m sorry, but Ms. Pentecost isn’t here at the moment. Can I take a message?”
“Please tell her I need her help. She has to tell him.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Who is this? Tell who what?”
“This is Anna. Anna Nowak.” The penny dropped. The hatchet-faced cook who’d given us the lowdown on Belestrade. I hadn’t recognized her voice, it was so distorted by panic.
“Ms. Nowak, it’s Will Parker. We met last Saturday.”
“Yes. Yes, I remember.”
“What’s the matter?”
“My husband. He comes back,” she said. “He finds out I go to Ms. Pentecost. He thinks she pay me. Give me reward for information. I tell him no, but he does not believe me.”
“Where is he now?”
“Outside. He will not leave. He will not let me leave. He…”
There was the sound of wood splintering. Anna cried out and the line went dead.
I fumbled through the notebooks on my desk until I found the one I’d been using when we interviewed Anna. Inside I found her address.
I picked up the phone and started dialing the number of the Brooklyn precinct, then froze. What were the chances they’d get there quicker than I would? Or even take it seriously enough to send a patrolman? I sure as hell knew there’d be no beat cops out in this weather. And definitely none in Anna Nowak’s neighborhood.
I put the phone back in its cradle. Then I stood there, unmoving.
Before the attack, before the hospital, I’d already have been out the door. Doing what my dime-store detective heroes would have done—handling the matter myself.
Now I was a quivering ball of hesitation.
Who was I to pretend I knew what I was doing? That I could make the right call?
Then I thought about the panic in Anna’s voice. How scared she’d sounded. And the call she’d made had been to us. Not the police. Us.
I might have been playing at being the hard-boiled hero, but that’s who she needed.
I grabbed my coat and hat and was halfway to the door when I had a second thought. I didn’t know what I was running into. Better to be a little delayed but prepared.
I ran upstairs to my room, opened my chest of drawers, and pulled out one of my knives from underneath a pile of underclothes. Then I had a third thought and decided to grab a couple other things as well.
One of those things I found in the same drawer. For the other, I ran into the kitchen. I found Mrs. Campbell hunched over the table culling old spices.
“What devil’s got ahold a ya?” she asked as I began rummaging through the dry goods cabinet.
“We’ve got a client in trouble.”
“Then call the police.”
“They won’t do any good. Not in the long run,” I said. “Maybe not the short run, either.”
I found what I was looking for, shoved it into my pocket, and ran for the door.
“You’re supposed to be resting!” she called after me. Or at least that’s what I assume she said. I was already down the steps and stumbling through the snow.
Ms. Pentecost had the sedan and the snow had thinned taxis out, so I ran for it. Nowak’s tenement building was a good twenty blocks away, but I slimmed that by cutting through a few alleys.
As I plowed through the snow, I tried not to think about how foolish this was. I tried to conjure up the voice of my father. He was a son of a bitch, but he was a son of a bitch who never questioned what he was doing. He just did it, for good or ill.
Twenty minutes after I hung up the phone, I was flying up the five flights to Anna’s apartment. It wasn’t hard to locate her place. It was the one open door on the entire floor. The frame around its lock was splintered.
Before I stepped in, I took two things out of my pocket. I slipped one into the other, then hid both up my coat sleeve.
Cautiously, I stepped inside. It was a tidy place—kitchen, dining, and living area squeezed into a single room.
Or at least it had been tidy.
The kitchen table had been overturned and shattered dishes littered the floor. What I assumed had been a potted plant was spilled all over the woven rug. A man was leaning against the door to the only other room. He wasn’t much taller than me but he was twice as wide. His once-white undershirt strained across an ample gut, and his dungarees had slipped halfway down the crack of his ass.
I stayed well away from him and called out, “Anna, are you in there?”
The man swung about, nearly losing his balance. His face was all red nose and pockmarks.
“Who are you?” he slurred. “Get out. Mind your business.”
No accent, unless you consider whiskey an accent. The stuff was coming off him so strong I could have gotten sloshed just standing there.
“I’m Will Parker, an associate of Lillian Pentecost. So I’m guessing this might be my business.”
His livery lips curled into a smile.
“You bring the bitch her money?”
“I don’t know any bitches, Mr. Nowak. And I don’t have any money.”
“You’re lying,” he said, letting out a boozy burp. “That why somebody went at your face? Teaching you not to lie?”
My hands and face went cold. That feeling you get when you know a fight’s coming and you can’t avoid it.
“You should really go,” I told him, making one last attempt to head off what was about to happen.
“My brother told me she went to that Pentecost bitch. Spilled her guts and they put that guy in jail. Don’t tell me there wasn’t a reward. Rich people die, there’s always rewards.”
He pointed a meaty fist at me, and I saw why his pants were at half-mast. A leather belt was wrapped around his fingers. The silver of the buckle was stained with blood.
“Sorry, Mr. Nowak. No reward for you,” I said, flashing him my very meanest smile. “But if you walk out right now, I might let you keep your front teeth.”
He let out a roar and charged blindly. It was exactly what I’d wanted.
I let the wool stocking drop out of my coat sleeve, the can of cranberry sauce inside pulling it tight at the toe. I swung the homemade sap straight up.
It hit Nowak right under the jaw. He kept stumbling forward, but I sidestepped like a matador and sent him crashing into the far wall. He bounced backward, and before he could gain his bearings I swung again. The can slammed into the side of his head with a loud crack.
Nowak went cartwheeling over a chair and landed hard on the floor.
His head was covered in red gore. Had I brained him that hard? Then I realized that both stocking and can had split open. It was cranberry sauce. Mostly.
He stumbled to his feet, wobbled, then spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Leave off if you know what’s good for you,” I said.
He rushed at me.
I went low, plowed my shoulder into his belly, and used his momentum to flip him over my back. He landed hard on the overturned kitchen table, splintering its legs.
He tried to get up, then collapsed with a snort.
I kept an eye on him as I walked over to the bedroom door and knocked.
“Anna? It’s Will Parker. You can come out now.”
I heard a rumbling as heavy furniture was pushed away. The door opened and Anna peeked out. Her hatchet of a nose was bloody, though it didn’t look broken, and she had the makings of a black eye.
I told her to pack some things, then waited while she threw some clothes into a battered suitcase. When she was finished, I led her into the hallway. As we passed her husband she paused long enough to ptooey into his half-conscious face.
Safe in the h
all, I asked her, “Is there someplace you can go?”
“I have friends from church. I can stay with them.”
“Good,” I told her. “I saw a pay phone outside. Go to that, and I’ll join you in a jiff.”
Once Anna started downstairs, I went back into the apartment. Her husband was where I’d left him but starting to stir. I pulled my Kalishenko knife from inside my coat, then dropped to my knees on Nowak’s heavy stomach.
He screamed as splintered table and broken crockery ground into his back, but he choked off his squeals when I pressed the blade against his throat.
“You know what this is?” I asked.
He tried to nod but came up against the knife’s edge. “Yeah,” he croaked.
“And you know who my boss is? The Pentecost bitch? You know all about her, right?”
“I know.”
“If I tell you something, are you sober enough to remember?”
He said something impolite and I pressed the blade harder. A line of blood formed under the edge.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll remember,” he said.
“Good,” I said. Then I asked him if he’d heard of a certain gentleman—the head of a particular fraternal organization who held a lot of sway in the neighborhood.
“I know him.”
“Ms. Pentecost and I did him a favor once. Helped solve the murder of a member of his family. He was very grateful. He said if we ever needed anything—anything at all—to let him know.”
I brought my mouth right up to his ear for this next part.
“You ever come near Anna again—you even get within shouting distance of her—I will call in that favor,” I whispered, pressing the knife good and hard against his neck. “I’ll ask him to take care of you. And I will ask him to do it slow.”
His eyes were quivering saucers. Sweat and blood were pouring off him.
“You understand?”
He mouthed a silent “Yes.”
I moved to get up but stopped.
“I almost forgot.”
I brought the heavy hilt of the blade down onto his mouth. His lip split open and his front teeth disappeared down his gullet.
Fortune Favors the Dead Page 23