Heir Apparent

by James, Terry

  “Eddie King is the name of his detective,” I said.

  “Who is this?”

  “Eddie King.”

  “Yeah, what is it, King?”

  “Morris wrote crime novels.”

  “Come again?”

  “Walter Morris, a.k.a. Baxter Conway, wrote detective novels. Eddie King was the name of his detective.”

  I could almost hear the rusty gears of his mind starting to turn.

  “Is that right?” he said with feigned nonchalance a few seconds later.

  “He shares an office with me,” I said. “Drives my car, even lives in my apartment.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, King?”

  “You remember the Griswold case?”

  “The party magician?”

  “Yeah. Well, I’ve got a novel in my hand by Walter Morris, a.k.a. Baxter Conway, about a guy named Lester Griswold who kills his brother and tries to frame it on his wife. The name of the detective is Eddie King. You’re in it too.”

  That perked him up.

  “What do you mean I’m in it?”

  “Read the novel,” I said. “Guttersnipe. You’ll have to find your own copy. They’re all out at the library.”

  “Hold on. What do you mean I’m in it?”

  “You and Stiles are the hardboiled homicide detectives always on King’s ass. That part’s pretty amusing, I must say.”

  The line went silent for a good ten seconds.

  “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me this guy wrote books based on your cases or something?”

  “One at least,” I said. “One too many. It’s called the Eddie King series. Thirteen books. I don’t know about the rest.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “How?”

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

  “What’s it say about me?”

  “I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.”

  “I’ve got a full-time job, King. A wife. Kids. A mortgage. I don’t have time for books.”

  “He’s got you on the Griswold shootout,” I said.

  “That’s ancient history,” he said, not very convincingly.

  “Just read the book.”

  “Where am I supposed to get this damn thing?”

  “Try a bookstore. It’s a place where books are sold.”

  “Wise ass. Give me that other name again.”

  “What other name?”

  “You said he had some other name.”

  “His pseudonym. Baxter Conway. That’s the name he published under.”

  He asked me to spell it. I did, in NATO phonetic. I heard his pencil scratching a pad. Again there was a long silence. Then he said:

  “What the hell is going on, King?”

  “Could you be a little more specific?”

  “What kind of game are you playing? What’s with all these coincidences?”

  “What coincidences?”

  “Some guy dressed like you shows up at his house three weeks ago flashing his iron. Then this letter in Morris’s lap with your name on it. Now it turns out he’s written books about you, using your cases.”

  “I think you got the order wrong there.”

  “You’re a bourbon drinker, aren’t you?” An image of Hicks staring down at the empty bottle beside the seat cushion flashed across my mind’s eye. “According to the coroner’s report, Walter Morris was soused on bourbon. There was enough booze in his bladder to pickle a baboon.”

  “You don’t have to be sober to put a gun to your head and pull the trigger.”

  “The empty bottle in his drawer was Old Grand-Dad,” he said, as if making a profound revelation.

  “So the man had good taste in bourbon.”

  “Just another coincidence, eh?”

  “Call it what you like,” I said. “It’s hardly evidence that I had anything to do with his death. If I were you I’d be looking for the guy in the black suit and fedora.”

  “What do you think we’re doing? You’re the first one on our list.”

  “Who else is on it?”

  “No one.”

  I set the novel down and shifted the receiver to my other ear.

  “Something smells rotten on this one, King,” Hicks said, “and you’re downwind of it.”

  “That’s a relief. You and Stiles keep to the upwind trail. What’s the address of the Morris place?” I asked.

  “I’d stay away from this one if I were you. You’ll only dig yourself in deeper.”

  “Just give me the address.”

  Inexplicably, he did.

  6

  ACCORDING TO THE map, Lord Curzon Way was out on the northeastern edge of the county, in a subdevelopment called Sunset Acres. In an attempt to lend dignity and class to an otherwise soulless suburb, the planners had named all the streets after famous British military figures and explorers. I was soon lost in a maze of cul-de-sacs which even the likes of Shackleton, Cook, and Livingstone couldn’t help me out of.

  After an hour of nauseating U-turns, I finally happened upon the convergence of Oliver Cromwell Court, Horatio Nelson Lane, and Lord Curzon Way. I turned onto Lord Curzon to see the twin gables of a shingled mansard roof towering above the other houses in the distance, a strange architectural anachronism in that realm of beige stucco bungalows, xeroscaped lawns, and kidney-shaped swimming pools. The house numbers here were in the ten thousands. I was looking for humble 231. I pulled over and took another look at the map, scanning it for one of those prodigal blocks far removed from its lineage by some geological or political obstruction. As far as I could tell this was the only Lord Curzon Way in Sunset Acres.

  I drove down to the cul-de-sac where the old house stood alone. Owing to what must have been a remarkable concurrence of preternatural longevity and unaccountable blindness on the part of Sunset Acres’s developers, the house appeared to have been plucked straight from the Victorian era and replanted smack dab in a future of affordable housing for the commuting masses. It was a two-and-a-half-story tinderbox, grayish blue with white trim, the tall, dry grasses and weeds of the front yard patiently awaiting a carelessly stubbed cigarette butt. A raised, screened-in porch, relic of a swampier era, girded the front of the house. Peering with a mixture of perplexity and enchantment into that deep shade, I spied three patinaed copper numerals above the door. I cut the engine and sat for a while before getting out, pondering various scenarios to explain the anomalous address.

  A powerful throb of déjà vu rolled through me as I stood before the house. I had been here before, standing on this very sidewalk, gazing at this very house. Everything was the same: the angle of the shadows of the porch posts against the horizontal slats of the front cladding, the ticking of the car engine as I dropped the keys into my front pocket, the wingbeats of a formation of Canada geese passing overhead. A thousand simultaneous impressions. It felt as if a warm wave were breaking over me, as if I were made of some porous substance and the energy of the wave was rolling through me, firing every synapse before returning to the sea of memory. All in the space of a second or two, leaving me with a wonderful feeling of levitation, as if I were full of fireflies, my soul buoyed on their silent wings.

  The uncanny sense of familiarity didn’t entirely leave me as I walked around the right side of the yard, mounted the porch by two creaking steps, and approached the front door. I pulled open the rotting screen and rapped twice. I waited. After a while something moved behind the gauzy curtain of one of the tall, arched windows to my right. I lowered my head self-consciously.

  Footsteps approached the door.

  “Who is it?” She didn’t sound hospitable.

  “My name is Eddie King. I’m a private detective.”

  And there we stood, for a good thirty seconds or more, in perfect silence, until at last a bolt clicked. The door opened about six inches to partially reveal a woman in a full-length black dress, collar and cuffs tightly buttoned. My indignation at being so ill-used by her late husband softened at the
sight of her face. She was in her mid-fifties, maybe early sixties, with features that I am inclined to say were of Irish origin. Whether or not that was on account of the forward perk of her ears, the pallor of her skin, or rather of some gamesome glint in her slate-blue eyes that I, rightly or wrongly, associate with that long-suffering race, I cannot say. Despite her evident annoyance at being summoned to the door by a stranger, it was a pleasant face to behold, the sort of face one feels fortunate to take a scolding from.

  “Mrs. Morris?”

  “Who are you?”

  I smiled reflexively and removed my wallet from my inner jacket pocket and opened it to my detective’s license, holding it up to the gap in the door, through which I could feel the chilly interior air against my fingertips.

  “As I said, my name is Eddie King. I’m a private detective. Which is what I’d like to have a few words with you about, if I may be so bold to trouble you in your time of bereavement,” this antiquated claptrap, no doubt inspired by the strange decorum of both herself and her house, issuing unbidden from my mouth.

  Her cursory glance at my license didn’t betray the surprise it merited. Not a single crease across her smooth, pale brow.

  “I have nothing to say to you, whoever you are,” she said. “Go away.”

  “I’m sorry about your husband,” I replied, returning my wallet to my pocket. “I’m not here about his death. That’s a police matter. I’m more interested in his books. If you could just spare five minutes of your time it would mean a great deal to me.”

  She stared at me, squinting against the glare of the naked world beyond. Then, inexplicably, she opened the door fully and said, apparently mocking me: “Get in here. You’ll catch your death of cold.” The fact that even in the shade of her porch the sweat was condensing on my upper lip underscored the absurdity of her injunction. I smiled, keen to show that I could roll with her punches. But as she stood aside, waiting for me to enter, it became apparent that she was in earnest. Sensing my hesitation, she grabbed my wrist and tugged me into the house. I acquiesced, not quite sure what to make of her ludicrous remark, so sharp on the heels of her obstinacy.

  Releasing my wrist beyond the threshold, she bade me follow her into the gloom. I removed my hat. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust, my momentary blindness only magnifying the sudden chill, which the crackling flames of a good-sized fire in the hearth off to the right seemed to be doing little to alleviate. The dank, musty smell took me back to the basement library of my grade school and the mythical mouse whose droppings at the foot of the shelves seemed as magical to me as Jack’s beanstalk seeds. Apart from the fire, which radiated as little light as it did warmth, the only source of illumination in the room was the sunlight seeping through the front windows, which, owing to the tempering effect of both the broad porch and the gauze curtains, seemed rather to deepen the shadows than brighten the objects that cast them.

  Gradually these objects acquired sufficient solidity for me to identify them: an assemblage of musty sofas, chairs, settees, and ottomans befitting the age of the house; various end and side and parlor tables in dark wood; a massive, tripartite china cabinet, its stowed wares dully flickering behind the panes; a Victrola with a blackened bronze horn; and a collection of lamps, vases, pots, figurines, bottles, lustres, clocks, mirrors, and other assorted bric-a-brac lorded over by a revolting glass chandelier hanging lifelessly from a vaguely apprehensible ceiling.

  She gestured towards a high-backed sofa in the middle of the room, taking for herself the colorless velvet wingback chair opposite and facing the hearth. Even amidst all that antiquated clutter, the sofa stood out as a genuine eccentricity. Framed in ornate walnut, the three soaring arcs of the back were nearly as tall as me, making me feel like a child lost in Wonderland as I sank into the threadbare cushions of yellowish green velvet. I set my hat beside me. When we were both seated she folded her hands in her lap and, prefacing her question with a placatory smile, said:

  “So, Mr. King, if that indeed is your real name.”

  “I’m sure you must think I’m some deranged fan of your husband’s novels, but I assure you that isn’t the case.”

  We stared at each other for a while.

  “What, pray tell,” she said, “is the case?”

  “How familiar are you with the content of your husband’s novels, Mrs. Morris?”

  “I can’t say I …” She stopped mid-sentence and stared blankly into the fire. I waited for her to continue. Her neck throbbed with a hard swallow. She sighed deeply and shut her eyes. When she opened them a few moments later they were shiny with restrained tears. I looked away. We sat that way for another minute or so, unable to look each other in the eye, enveloped in perfect silence save the periodic twitches and crackles of the fire. At last she inhaled sharply and, forcing a smile of politeness, said:

  “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, please.” I don’t, as a habit, drink tea.

  She excused herself and left the room through a swinging door far away in the shadowy distance. While she was absent, I got up and walked over to the fireplace and took a look at the framed photographs standing on the mantle. By all appearances they were original daguerreotypes. A man with a handlebar moustache. A woman in a tight collar with pinned-up hair. To modern eyes all men and women in such prehistoric portraits look the same—wax figures of themselves, the highlights and shadows of personality reduced to their essence: Father, Mother. Another picture showed the same man and woman together with a blurry boy in a sailor’s suit. I don’t know if it was the influence of the widow’s surge of grief or something intrinsic to the tone and texture of that old photographic technique, but the picture of the child moved me nearly to tears.

  In time she returned carrying an enameled tin tea tray bearing a complete tea service in blue and white china. She set it gently on the coffee table.

  “Walter’s great great grandparents,” she said, noticing me turning away from the photographs. “They were from Poland.”

  “Who’s the boy?” I asked.

  “Walter’s grandfather.”

  I took a closer look, but the child had not been able to hold still for the photographer, and his face was nothing but a ghostly blur.

  I returned to the sofa. She finished pouring the tea and settled with her cup and saucer back into her chair. I took a lump of sugar from the bowl and, dropping it into my cup, gave it a stir with the tiny silver spoon, which chimed enchantingly against the wafer-thin bone.

  “You have a lovely home,” I remarked.

  “It was Walter’s family’s home,” she said. “His great great grandfather built it. There was nothing here in those days but fields and trees. It’s remarkable that it survived.”

  “And the developers?”

  “They’re waiting for me to croak.” She managed a little self-deprecatory smile.

  We sat for a while sipping our tea in strangely agreeable silence. When I sensed an opportune moment I asked her again:

  “How familiar are you with the stories of your husband’s novels?”

  “Quite,” she said with evident pride.

  After her earlier prevarication, the succinctness of her reply surprised me.

  “Do you mind my asking where he got his ideas from?”

  She sighed, as if it were the millionth time she had been asked this question. “Where does any writer get his ideas? From his life, imagination, newspapers, books. Everything.” She stared into the fire and said, dreamily, “He was the farthest thing from a tough guy you could imagine. Couldn’t kill a fly. I mean that. He’d waste an afternoon trying to get a fly out of the kitchen.”

  I cleared my throat.

  “Mrs. Morris, twelve years ago a man named Max Griswold, a party magician who called himself Titus Andronicus, was killed in a car accident. No other cars were involved. It appeared to be a clear-cut case of drunk driving, but his brother Lester suspected foul play. Getting nowhere with the police, Lester hired me to follow up
on a hunch of his that Max’s wife was having an affair with an airline pilot, and that either she, acting independently, or both of them had conspired to have Max murdered. Over the course of my investigation, I discovered that Tiffany Griswold was indeed having an affair with the pilot. I also discovered that previous to this affair she had had an affair with Lester, the brother. In the end, it turned out that Lester was the one who had orchestrated his brother’s death and tried to frame it on his sister-in-law. His motive for killing his brother was lifelong hatred and envy, and for framing his sister-in-law, seething jealousy over her dumping him for the pilot. All in all they were an unwholesome lot. Lester Griswold met his death in a gun battle with the police. Does any of that sound familiar, Mrs. Morris?”

  She studied me warily, as if not quite sure I was mentally stable, then, to my astonishment, she burst into a cackle, after which she said: “You can’t be serious!”

  “I’m dead serious.”

  She laughed again, lightly patting her knees with the palms of her hands as she rocked a little forwards and back.

  “It’s the plot of Guttersnipe,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, still laughing, “it is.”

  When at last she stopped laughing, she leveled her gaze at me and said:

  “I must say, you are amusing, if nothing else. Even if what you say is true, that your name is Eddie King, that you’re a private detective, and that somehow my husband based the novel on this case that you worked on …”

  “You have to agree it’s pretty suspicious.”

  “Are you suggesting that my husband stole his ideas from you?”

  “Steal is perhaps too strong a word,” I said, “but you have to agree that this isn’t just a coincidence. Everyone in that book is a real person. Hicks and Stiles, the police detectives handling your case, they’re in the novel too. If you’re as familiar with his books as you say you are, then that couldn’t have escaped your notice.”

  “I’m afraid I must now kindly ask you to leave.”

  I reached for my hat and placed it on my head. I stood up. “Thank you for the tea.”

  She followed me to the door. Before stepping out, I turned and said: