Croaker: Chalk Whispers (A Detective Fey Croaker LAPD Novel Book 4)

by Paul Bishop

  For a second nothing happened. Then there was a cracking and scraping noise, and a large chunk of the rock slipped away and crashed to the floor. In its passing, it left a smooth, yet undefined curve.

  Kavanaugh was suddenly a man possessed. With incredible speed, he wielded the mallet and chisel to par away more stone. Two more huge chunks dropped away, diminishing the rock in size, but enlarging it in grandeur. Other smaller bits were splintered and knocked away in the cloud of stone dust raised by Kavanaugh's activity.

  When he finally stepped back from the stone with a sigh, there was still no immediately identifiable shape to the stone, but there was something there, something emerging from the rock womb.

  “Ah, well,” Kavanaugh said, his voice even raspier than before, dry and filled with satisfaction and granite dust. “There's a start for you. The first cut is always the hardest. Once it's struck it defines the entire piece. Hit it wrong and you can lose the whole rock.”

  Fey had been awed by the performance. She scrambled for something, anything, to say. “Do you lose many rocks?”

  Kavanaugh turned toward her and shrugged. He resurrected his piratical grin. “One or two. Can't afford to do it often.”

  Fey stared at Brink, trying to see the thin, anemic looking man she remembered as Jack Kavanaugh in the giant of a man who was the son. It was difficult, if not impossible.

  “Amazing,” she said eventually. “The first time I've ever seen anything like it.”

  “The first time I saw somebody strike a stone I was dumbfounded,” Kavanaugh said. “It was my father. He worked on a much smaller scale as a hobby, but he was very good. He made me a stone frog. Not detailed, you understand, more of an impressionist version of a frog. He took a stone the size of two fists, and with his tools, he cut away everything not a frog. What was left was still a rock, but it was also a frog. I too was amazed and enthralled. I loved that stone frog more than any stuffed toy. Since then, I've wanted to do nothing else.”

  Fey stared at the rock. “You do this for a living?” For some reason she felt as if she had observed a once in a lifetime experience.

  Kavanaugh's laugh was rich and fruity, echoing in the warehouse. “Every day. No different than a carpenter or a brick layer.”

  “Jeeez.” The inarticulate comment seem inadequate, but Fey didn't know what to say to capture her feelings. “What is it going to be?”

  Kavanaugh ran a hand over an emerging curve in the rock. “What does it look like?”

  His question was casual, but Fey sensed she was being tested.

  She reflected, taking a few steps to view the rock from another angle.

  “Don't think about it,” Kavanaugh said abruptly. “Tell me what it makes you feel.”

  “Confused,” Fey replied instantly. Then, “Three figures! I see three figures.” The shapes had suddenly coalesced in her mind's eye.

  “Good,” Kavanaugh said.

  “I'm right?” Fey smiled, delighted.

  “No.” Kavanaugh laughed as Fey's expression fell. “But it doesn't matter. The rock reaches everyone differently. If you were a sculptor, you would sing differently to the stone.”

  Fey looked back at the rock. “Are you sure there aren't three figures?”

  Kavanaugh shook his head. “Only two. Lovers. One is leaving the other. This is their final embrace.”

  Fey scowled. “How do you know?”

  “I feel it here,” Kavanaugh said, pointing to the middle of his chest. “And I know it here.” He pointed to his head.

  They both stared at the rock in silence.

  Finally, Kavanaugh asked Fey why she was there. The question caught her off guard. Kavanaugh's initial off-the-wall reaction to her, the emotions stirred in her while watching him work the rock, and talking about the transforming stone had made her forget her purpose.

  “My name is Fey Croaker. I'm a Lieutenant with the LAPD.” She wasn't comfortable yet with the rank. “My father, Garth Croaker, used to be your father's partner.”

  Kavanaugh's face clouded over. “My father is dead.”

  Fey shook her head. “I know,” she said. “I'm sorry. I don't know what to expect, but if you give me a chance, I'll try to explain.”

  Kavanaugh appeared to accept her rambling and put a smile back on his face. “Come upstairs,” he said. “Let me shower this dust off. You can think about what you want, and then we can have a real drink.”

  “Deal,” Fey said. She followed Kavanaugh toward a wooden stairway to the second floor. She swallowed. The strong scent of the man was deep in her nostrils. What she had really wanted to say was, “To hell with showering off the dust! Take me right here, right now, and take me hard.”

  ***

  “I was never close to my father,” Kavanaugh said, rubbing his hair dry with a fluffy white towel. He had given Fey coffee laced with a dollop of Irish whiskey to occupy her while he showered. Now, wearing a pressed white tee-shirt and old jeans resting loosely on his hips, he tossed the towel over the back of a chair, and used the leather thong to tie his hair back again.

  “He was always a secretive person,” Kavanaugh continued. “In the past year, he'd become worse. I only saw him twice in the last couple of months. Both times he needed money. It was clear he was slipping into dementia.”

  Fey let Kavanaugh fill her coffee cup again. “Nothing you could do for him?”

  Kavanaugh shook his head and grimaced. “Not for my father. Don't think I didn't try. But he wouldn't have any of it.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She's in a retirement home. Still has most of her marbles, thankfully, but she needs someone to look after her. I'm afraid I'm not the responsible type, never grew up.” He gestured vaguely to his hair and to his surroundings.

  Fey smiled. “Men will be boys?”

  “At least I admit it. Forty-five going on twenty-five. Younger women, older whiskey, faster cars.”

  Fey laughed this time. “Sure,” she said.

  Kavanaugh mugged with his eyebrows. “I can dream.”

  “Are those what you really want?”

  Kavanaugh appeared to think. “Older whiskey and faster cars maybe, but I like being able to talk to a woman after making love, something the young ones don't know anything about.”

  I do! I do! Fey wanted to shout, her hormones raging. Instead she said, “Were your parents still married?”

  Kavanaugh refreshed Fey's Irish coffee again and cracked an icy beer open for himself. “Good grief, no. Mother divorced him when I was thirteen. Jenna, my sister, was eight. Mother couldn't take the police work any longer. My father was obsessed with it, like your father.”

  “You remember my father?”

  “Sure. When he was partners with dad, he'd pick him up every day. He'd play with me and Jenna, nothing much, toss a ball around, roughhouse wrestling. He was an okay guy. He treated mom okay. Looking back, I get the feeling he was maybe treating her a little too nice, but I was a kid and didn't know any better.”

  Fey tried to swallow the lump blocking her throat. Her father had never played with her or her brother, Tommy. The thought he played with somebody else's kids while beating the crap out of his own made her feel dizzy. What had she and Tommy ever done to him to make him hate them so much?

  Watching Fey's eyes, Kavanaugh saw his statements were having an unexpected impact. He sought firmer ground. “Why do you want to know about my father?”

  The second floor of the warehouse comprised Kavanaugh's living quarters. There was a small bathroom and a kitchen area big enough for one person to turn around. The main part of the floor, except for the hole above the rock protected by a four foot high barrier of railroad ties, was a large open space containing two comfortable chairs and a sofa around an entertainment center. A double bed was pushed into one corner. A scarred and marred heavy oak table was used for all purposes, and a scattered collection of abstract sculptures highlighted the remaining space.

  Each of the sculptures were made from
a different type of rock. All were waist height. In their scattered, arbitrary placing, they looked like a ragged line of misshapen chess pawns. The effect was not unsettling as they gave off a feeling of powerful solidity. But, it did occur to Fey getting to the bathroom in the dark was probably hazardous.

  “Were you aware your father left me something in his will?”

  “I knew there was an odd codicil to be carried out by another law firm. But my father had nothing of value. And even if he did, I didn't want it. Did the codicil pertain to you?”

  “He left me something he'd lodged with the other law firm thirty years ago.”

  Kavanaugh shrugged. “What was it, and why do you feel guilty about it?”

  Fey flushed at Kavanaugh's obvious reading of her feelings.

  “It was two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollars.”

  Kavanaugh looked shocked. “My father never had money. He was always pushing to make ends meet.”

  “Then there had to be a powerful reason why he never touched this money in all those years. I hoped you'd know.”

  Kavanaugh shrugged. “Beats me. But I'd never contest the codicil, if that's what you're worried about. I don't want the money or need it.”

  “Must be nice. But it's not what I was worried about. You’re sure you have no idea where the money came from, or why your father would leave it to me?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Drinking her coffee while Kavanaugh drained his first beer and started a second, Fey tried changing her approach. “Who did you think I was when you answered the door?”

  Kavanaugh gave her a funny look. “I’m sorry if I was rude. I really did think you were someone else.”

  “Who?”

  As serendipity would have it, there was the sound of the metal door downstairs opening. A woman's voice called out, “Hey, Brink.”

  “Upstairs,” Kavanaugh called out. “Come on up.” His eyes stayed on Fey's face making her uncomfortable.

  “The rock looks marvelous,” the woman said, coming up the stairs.

  As the physical presence materialized, Fey saw why Kavanaugh had thought she was someone else. Though the woman was a few years younger, her hair and facial structure were close to Fey's in appearance.

  “Oh,” the woman said spotting Fey.

  Kavanaugh had his piratical grin in place. “My sister, Jenna,” he said.

  SIXTEEN

  Willetta grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels, but Hammer made her wait for the twenty dollar bill until she showed them where she'd found the staple gun. It was a dumpster three blocks away from the crime scene warehouse. Flies buzzed over it, and putrid odors reeked from its crowded innards. It hadn't been emptied in several weeks.

  Hammer made a face. “You wouldn't be messing with us would you, Willetta? Are you sure this is the place?” He couldn't imagine even a desperate homeless person, picking through the dumpster's contents.

  “This is the one,” Willetta said. She'd been chain smoking cigarettes since Hammer bought them for her. Ash was scattered heavily across her clothing. “I check it every day. It's good for food.”

  Hammer stared at her in disbelief.

  “Fish,” Willetta said when she saw Hammer's look. She pointed down the street.

  Several doors away, Hammer could see a Capn' Bob's fish restaurant, a low-rent, fast-food franchise, ptomaine catfish a specialty.

  “They dump the overflow here. Stops their store smellin' when trash ain't been picked up and the fish rots. If you get it as soon as it's dumped, it ain't too bad. Found the nail gun in a bag on top.”

  Hammer looked at Nails and then back at the dumpster.

  “In a bag? Are you sure?” he asked again.

  “I'll bite,” Willetta said aggressively.

  Hammer held up his hands. “I believe you.”

  “How do you want to play this?” Nails asked.

  “Only one way,” Hammer told her, already feeling green. “We're going to have to go dumpster diving.”

  ***

  Both in smell and texture, the viscous contents of the dumpster was a match for the viscera left over after an autopsy. Even protected by disposable nylon coveralls, complete with face mask, booties, and shower cap, Hammer felt he was being contaminated beyond redemption.

  The protective clothing had come from the crime scene kit in the back of Hammer's van. When blood was present at a murder location, the suits were worn against the threat of AIDS and other diseases. They were standard equipment in the modern age.

  Wearing a similar rig, Rhonda stood outside the dumpster. She was using a long stick to stir through the contents Hammer tossed or poured over the side.

  Several Hollywood Area uniformed patrol officers had closed off the area and were keeping the looky-loos away. Uniforms usually felt they got stuck with the dirty jobs while detectives got the glory. However, none of them wanted any part of the glory of this investigation.

  Perched on a wooden crate near the dumpster, Willetta alternately smoked, drank from the whiskey bottle, and looked like a self-satisfied queen. This was the best entertainment she'd had in ages.

  “I'm going to reek of fish forever,” Hammer said with disgust. He dumped a plastic bucked of rotting fillets over the side of the dumpster. “Every stray cat in town is going to think I'm its new best friend.”

  “Quit whining,” Rhonda told him as she stirred through the muck. “You're worse than an old woman.”

  “I suppose eau de cod is your favorite perfume.”

  “It kinda turns me on,” Rhonda said.

  “You're sick.” Hammer dumped another bucket over the side.

  “I thought you liked the smell of anchovies?”

  Hammer straightened up. “How come you can make sexist jokes, but I can't?”

  “Because mine are funny.”

  “Do you want to climb in here and finish the job?”

  “No way,” Rhonda said. “One of us has to hold the baby when we get home.”

  Hammer grunted and returned to his labors.

  The wet cardboard boxes, which had contained frozen fish fillets, rotting zucchini, and French fries, had been easy enough, if messy, to remove from the dumpster. So, too, the collection of other rubbish, broken plywood, various chunks of cement, black plastic bags of refuge from the fish shop and several other surrounding stores. Even two kitchen chairs and a smashed VCR. What remained was a three-foot deep, glutinous mess of stinking, wet, almost unidentifiable debris. A mish-mash of rotting food, disintegrating papers, and other putrefying garbage.

  Hammer poured another bucket over the side. Rhonda stirred it around.

  “This is a waste of time,” Hammer said. “I think Willetta is putting us on, or maybe there's nothing else to find.”

  “Hold on,” Rhonda said. She pulled something toward her with her stick. Using a gloved hand, she reached into the sludge and picked up a fine-tooth hand saw. “Bingo,” she said.

  Hammer was watching her over the rim of the dumpster, excitement rising inside him. Then he spotted something else. “What's that?”

  “Where?”

  He pointed “Near your foot. The bag with the red markings.”

  Rhonda bent down and rescued an opaque plastic bag from the muck. She held it at arm's length. “This?”

  “Yep.” Hammer hoisted himself over the side of the dumpster. He took the bag from Rhonda, shook it then smoothed it flat against the side of a wall. He pointed to the logo.

  “Dollar Hardware Emporium,” Rhonda read aloud.

  “Get your dollars’ worth,” Hammer said, reciting the well-known commercial jingle. Humming the annoying jingle tune, he opened the bag and rummaged inside.

  He pulled out a small, rectangular piece of paper. “My bingo trumps your bingo.”

  Rhonda snatched the paper from him and looked at it. It was a computerized receipt for the cash purchase of a hand saw, a vice, and a staple gun. It was dated the day of the murder.

  ***

  The nearest Dollar H
ardware Emporium was ten blocks away. The manager, whose name tag read Mr. Taylor, confirmed the receipt was from his store.

  Dollar Hardware Emporiums were the latest entry in the DIY superstore sweepstakes. The cavernous interior of the business was filled with everything a general contractor or a weekend handyman might need. All of it was bargained priced to put traditional mom-and-pop hardware stores out of existence.

  “Can you tell from the receipt what register the items were purchased through?”

  Taylor nodded. “I can even tell you the clerk who handled the transaction.”

  Customers walking past the two detectives at the front of the store sniffed and looked around. Hammer and Nails tried to look innocent, but Taylor was blowing their cover by standing a pace or two back from them as if they might be contagious. He was trying to be polite, but he didn't even want to touch the receipt Hammer was proffering.

  The duo had ditched the coveralls, throwing them away as being beyond reclamation. They had washed at a nearby service station, but the smell of rotting fish persisted.

  Taylor adjusted a pair of thick glasses and took a step closer to look at the receipt. Hammer saw he was holding his breath.

  “You'd never be able to handle a week-old stinker on the hottest day of the summer,” Hammer said.

  “What?” Taylor looked confused.

  “Nothing. What about the clerk?”

  Taylor squinted at the receipt before turning to punch numbers into a computer on the customer service counter. A readout of the transaction, identified by the receipt number, jumped onto the screen.

  Taylor put a finger on the screen and ran it across. He picked out an employee ID number. He cleared the screen, brought up another format, and entered the new information. The screen flashed, producing further data.

  “Chandra Wellington handled the transaction.”

  “Is she here today?” Rhonda asked.

  “She's on register three.”

  “Can we talk to her?”

  Taylor sent another clerk to relieve Chandra who came over wearing a big, natural smile until she ran into the smell of rotting fish.

  She made a face and waved a hand in front of her face. “What's that smell?”