Текст книги "Hugger Mugger"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

FIFTY-THREE

I GOT TO Lamarr with the taste of lipstick from Susan's goodbye kiss no longer lingering, but its memory still insistent. Back in my old digs at the Holiday Inn Lamarr, I unpacked my toothbrush and bullets, slept the night, and at seven the next morning was in the hospital cafeteria with Larry Klein, M.D.

"How are things going?" Klein said as he organized a couple of sausage biscuits on his plate.

"Curiouser and curiouser," I said. "Do you know Sherry Lark?"

Klein smiled.

"Since she was Sherry Clive," he said.

"Have you seen her recently?"

Klein shrugged, and bit into a biscuit.

"You ask a noncommittal question," I said, "you get a noncommittal answer. When's the last time you saw Sherry?"

"Wow, that sounds a little coppish," Klein said. "I thought we were pals."

"I am a little coppish," I said. "And there's a point at which I'm nobody's pal."

"This the point?"

"It's past the point. When did you see her last?"

"May, I think. She came to my office."

"And got right in?" I said.

"We're old friends."

"Social visit?"

"She thought she had a cold. She didn't. She had a seasonal allergy. I gave her some antihistamine samples I had."

"You mention Walter Clive?"

Klein stared at me. I could feel him starting to close down.

"I don't remember. I might have. He's a friend, she's a friend, they used to be married."

I drank some more coffee.

"Here's the thing," I said. "I think Walter Clive was killed because of his DNA tests. I think someone knew he was having them and started the horse shooting as a cover-up pending the outcome of the tests."

"Jesus," Klein said.

"If the tests were negative, the horse shootings would stop and everything would go on as before. If he did have a son, he got shot and the cops think it's the horse shooter."

"For God's sake, Spenser, who would be so… so… Who would plan something like that out?"

"Clive was planning to rewrite his will in favor of male issue, if any."

Klein looked suddenly as if he had bitten into a toad.

"Only you, Clive, and Dolly knew about Clive's blood testing," I said. "Only you and Clive knew the results. He told Dolly. Who did you tell?"

Klein's face had reddened as I talked, and then as I waited for his answer it began to drain, until it was pale and he looked as if he might fall over. If he did, he was in the right place. There'd be a good response to Is there a doctor in the house? I waited.

"I… I've known Sherry half her life," Klein said.

I drank some of my coffee. It wasn't very good coffee. But it was hot and contained caffeine, so it was sufficient.

"I can't believe…" Klein looked at his partly eaten sausage biscuit for a moment and then pushed it away. Good idea.

I waited. His face began to redden again. Good sign. He probably wasn't going to fall over.

"You know," he said without looking at me, "that in every elevator, in the washrooms, and in the medical locker rooms, there are these signs that read, 'Respect Patient Confidentiality.' "

"I've seen them," I said.

Klein shook his head slowly. "Jesus Christ," he said.

"You told her," I said. "Didn't you?"

"Yes."

"You were pretty good friends, and after all it did involve her ex-husband and, indirectly, her daughters, and what harm would it do? For crissake, she lived way out in San Francisco."

"Something like that."

"When did she first know?" I said.

"A little while after Walter arranged for the tests. I was in San Francisco, at an internal medicine conference. We had dinner together, some wine, you know."

"Un-huh. And when did she learn the results?"

"She came to Lamarr that week," Klein said.

"Amazing how things fall into place, isn't it."

"She stopped by my office, like I said."

"And?" I said.

"We talked about this and that for a while… and I guess it came up… and I told her."

"When?"

Klein closed his eyes as if thinking back over the scene.

"Walter's folder was still on my desk. I remember her seeing it, and commenting. It's probably what gave rise to the question."

"Sure," I said.

"You think she came on purpose, to find out?"

"Yes. Why was the folder out?"

"I had called Walter with the results."

"So she knew the same day he did."

"Yes."

My coffee cup was empty. I went up to get some more, and when I came back Klein had his head in his hands.

"Does anyone have to know this?"

"Probably not," I said. "I won't mention it if I don't have to."

"I never thought… You think it led to the murder, don't you?"

"Yes."

"You think Sherry did it?"

"To protect her girls?" I said.

"Oh, I don't think so," Klein said. "She wasn't a dedicated mother."

"I gather. If so, then she had no motive."

"Hatred of Dolly?" Klein said.

I nodded slowly.

"That would be a motive," I said.

"Sherry is very odd," Klein said. "I…" He let it trail away.

I drank some more of the bad coffee.

"Tell me something," I said. "I don't mean to pry, but when you and she were having sex, did she whisper things like 'Right on' and 'Give peace a chance'?"

Klein's head jerked up and he stared at me with his mouth hanging open. He shut it and opened it again and said nothing and shut it.

"None of my business anyway," I said.

"How did you know we had sex?" Klein said hoarsely.

"I'm a detective," I said.

IWENT BACKto my motel, hoping that Dr. Klein didn't have a complicated diagnosis today. It was quarter to nine when I got there. I went to the dining room and had breakfast. In the middle of breakfast I had a thought. I was pleased to have it. I'd had so few recently.

Knowing that Walter was having paternity DNA testing was not enough information to get him killed. Someone would also have to know about the prospective change in his will. I finished breakfast and went to see Rudy Vallone.

"Dalton Becker says that Clive was planning to change his will," I said when I was in his office and seated in front of his desk.

"Always right to the point," Vallone said.

"Always," I said. "Somebody had to know that besides Clive."

"Why?"

"Trust me," I said. "Who could have known Clive's intention besides you?"

"It was merely inquiry, sir. It was not yet an intention."

"Who knew of his inquiry?"

"Whoever he may have told," Vallone said.

"You didn't tell anyone?"

"Of course not."

I had another thought, two in the same morning. And this one was inspired.

"You know Sherry Lark?" I said. "The former Mrs. Clive?"

"Of course," Vallone said.

"You tell her?"

I thought Vallone colored a little bit. That's probably as close as lawyers can get to blushing.

"Of course not," Vallone said. "Why on earth would I tell Sherry?"

"In a fit of passion," I said.

Vallone colored a little more.

"Excuse me?"

"Listen," I said. "I can find this out. It's just time and money and I've got some of both. But why drag it out? Sherry's a free spirit. She probably had reason to want to prove herself desirable, and to do so with her husband's associates. You bopped her, didn't you?"

Vallone struggled for a moment but his essential self won out. He bragged about it. "Her idea," he said. He leaned back in his chair and took out a cigar and began to trim the end with a small silver knife.

"Last time she was in town she came to see me. I knew her from the old days. We, ah, used to get together now and then, and when she came to see me this time, she said she was hoping we could sort of pick up where we left off so long ago."

He paused while he got his cigar burning. "You've seen her?"

I nodded.

"Sherry's still a fine-looking woman to my eye, and…" He shrugged.

I waited.

"Right there on that couch," he said.

"And in those scant moments when you weren't telling each other how it was just like it always was, she might have asked about Walter and you might have let slip that he was thinking of changing his will."

"You know how it is when you're in heat," Vallone said.

"I'm proud to say that I do."

***

AT TEN-THIRTY,WHICH would make it seven-thirty Pacific time, I called Sherry Lark. It was probably too early; my memory was that hippies slept late. But it was as long as I could stand to wait.

When she answered her voice told me I was right. She'd been asleep.

"Spenser," I said, "remember me? Square-jawed, clear-eyed, waffles at Sears?"

"Oh… yeah… sure. Why are you calling me?"

"For this case I'm working on," I said. "Did you tell all your daughters about Walter's DNA results, or just Penny?"

"Whaaat?"

"Come on, Sherry, I know you knew, and I know you told. I'm only asking which ones."

"I'm not about to betray my daughters…"

"I know a homicide cop out there named O'Gar," I said. "If I ask him to, he'll come and haul your flower child butt down to the Hall of Justice and question you in a back room under hot lights."

"I…"

"Who'd you tell, Sherry? It's either me, now, the easy way, or O'Gar, soon, the hard way."

"I only told Penny. She's the only one with the spunk to stand up to her father."

"And you told her he was planning to change his will."

"He was going to give their inheritance to that whore's bastard."

"And you couldn't tolerate her winning like that," I said.

"I'm looking out for my daughters," she said.

"Mother love," I said.

And hung up. I didn't think Sherry Lark had killed Walter Clive. But somebody had, and Penny kept looking better.

FIFTY-FOUR

I SAT WITH Tedy Sapp and the Clive outcasts around a big table eating pizza in the corner of the Bath House Bar and Grill. Sapp was drinking coffee. Everyone else had iced tea, except me. I didn't like iced tea. Sapp was beside me to my right. Cord Wyatt was on the other side. Beyond him was Stonie, then SueSue, then Pud. All of the Clive exiles were looking better than they had. Pud's eyes were clear and his face had lost a lot of the ruddy mottle that he used to sport. Cord seemed more at ease in these surroundings. The two women had brushed their short hair as best they could and put on makeup. They were dressed normally. Life had returned to their eyes. And their bearing was no longer feral.

Since she had once called me a hunk, I figured SueSue was the one I should talk to.

"Tell me what happened to you," I said.

Sitting beside SueSue, Pud put his open hand on her back and patted a little. SueSue looked at Stonie. She took a deep breath through her nose.

"After Daddy… died, Penny sat down with us. She said that it was terrible that Daddy had died. But that we shouldn't worry, that she could run things, in fact she had run things for a while, and Three Fillies would go on as if Daddy were alive."

She stopped and looked at Stonie again.

"Go ahead," Stonie said. "Tell everything. We've been pretending much too long. Let's get everything out."

SueSue took in more air.

"Okay. Penny also said that both Stonie and I had to make some changes. She said Pud was a drunk and was sucking money out of the business and bringing nothing back."

"She got that right," Pud said.

He still had his open hand resting on her back.

"She said Cord…"

SueSue looked at Cord.

"She said Cord was a queer," Cord finished for her.

Stonie and Cord didn't touch, but they seemed comfortable beside each other. SueSue nodded.

"And she said we had to get rid of them," SueSue said. "They had to be purged from our family the way stuff sometimes has to be purged from a body."

"Poisonous," Cord said.

"Then she said we had to purge ourselves. She said the family was disgraced by us, drunks and whores, she said. She said that we were required to stop smoking and drinking and whoring. She said no more makeup, no fancy clothes, nothing. She said until we were clean we would need to sequester ourselves, like nuns or something-she had a fancy phrase, but I can't remember it exactly. We were not to leave the house."

"Did you object?" I said, just to keep her going.

"Sure, but Jon Delroy was there and his men were all around. Daddy was dead. I was afraid of her, afraid of them."

"You too?" I said to Stonie.

"Cord and I had been unhappy for a very long time," Stonie said. "It deadens you."

Cord patted her hand. She smiled at him.

"Not much fun for you either, was it?" she said.

Cord shook his head.

"So," SueSue said, "she had our hair cut short, like you see, and she took our clothes and had the windows closed up and we had to take some pills."

"Sedatives?" I said.

"I guess so. Things are a little foggy."

"They were full of something when they came here," Sapp said. "Took some time to get them back."

"You do that?"

"I had some help."

"I owe you," I said.

"You bet you do," Sapp said.

SueSue was impatient. She had a story to tell, and everyone was listening. She liked having everyone listening.

"No television, no radio, nothing to read," she said. "Like we had to clear our minds."

"How do you get on with your mother?" I said.

SueSue and Stonie looked at each other.

"My mother?" SueSue said.

"Sherry Lark?" Stonie said. There was a lot of distaste in the way she said "Lark."

"My mother's a dipshit," SueSue said.

"How did she get along with Penny?"

"Penny hated her."

"How'd Penny get along with your father?"

"She loved Daddy," SueSue said.

"We all loved Daddy," Stonie said.

"Do you mean more than you're saying?"

"Well." Stonie had a lot less effect than SueSue. "We did love Daddy, all three of us. But maybe we didn't love him the right way, and maybe we'd have been better if we'd loved him some other way."

"What the hell does that mean?" SueSue said.

"I don't know exactly how to say what I'm trying to say. But we all loved Daddy, and look at us."

"It's not Daddy's fault," SueSue said.

"What do you think about Jason Hartman?" I said.

It diverted them.

"Jason?" SueSue said. "What about Jason?"

"My question exactly."

"He's cute," SueSue said.

Stonie nodded.

"He's sort of like a relative," she said. "Being Dolly's son and all."

"Know anything unusual about him?"

"No," Stonie said. "Except he doesn't seem to do much. Doesn't work. Lives with his mother."

"Maybe he's in your program, Cord," Pud said.

"He is very cute," Cord said.

Stonie patted Cord's hand.

"Shhh," she said.

They both smiled.

"Why do you ask?" SueSue said.

It would have been great theater to say, Because he's your brother, but it didn't seem to get me anywhere.

"Do you know the terms of your father's will?" I said.

"We inherit everything, the three of us," SueSue said.

"But Penny runs things," Stonie said. "Neither one of us knows anything about business."

"She sharing equally?" I said.

"The estate hasn't been settled yet, but Penny gives us both money."

"How are you feeling about Penny?"

"I don't know," SueSue said. "I mean, she's our sister and she's taking care of us."

"And she locked us up and broke up our marriages," Stonie said.

"Our marriages were already broken," SueSue said. "Penny's always been bossy."

Sapp looked at me. I nodded.

"Now I know why the caged bird sings," I said.

"What the hell does that mean?" SueSue said.

"I don't know," I said. "It's too hard for me."

FIFTY-FIVE

THE CALL WOKE me early in the morning, just after sunrise.

"You want to know who killed Walter Clive," somebody whispered, "get on Route 20. Drive twenty miles west from the Lamarr exit. Park on the shoulder. Get out of the car and wait."

"What time?" I said.

"Be there at midnight tonight. Alone. We'll be able to see you for miles."

"How nice for you," I said.

The whisperer hung up. I tried dialing*69, but it didn't work on the motel extension. I looked at my watch. Quarter to six. I got up, showered, and went to my car. When I got onto Route 20 I set the trip clock on my car, and in twenty miles, I stopped. It was open country with gentle hills and some tree cover. The whisperer was right; they could see me coming. I went on to the next exit, turned around, and headed back to town.

Tedy Sapp was out of bed when I got to the Bath House Bar and Grill, drinking coffee in the empty bar with a slender gray-haired man in a light tan summer suit and a blue oxford shirt. There was a box of cinnamon donuts open on the table.

"Once a cop, always a cop," I said, and took a donut.

"This is Benjamin Crane," Sapp said. "My main squeeze."

We shook hands. He grinned at Tedy.

"Gotta go," Crane said. "You have business, and I have to gaze into many eyes."

He left.

"Been together long?" I said to Sapp.

"Ten years."

"Love's a good thing," I said.

"Even the one that dare not speak its name?"

"Even that one."

Sapp poured me a cup of coffee. I drank it and ate my donut while I told him the deal.

"Called early," Sapp said, "so they'd be sure to get you."

"Yep."

"It's a setup," Sapp said. "And a stupid one. They gave you all day to figure it out."

"The price they paid for calling early," I said. "I figure it's Delroy."

"Good choice," Sapp said. "He's stupid enough. You're going to need help with this."

"I know," I said. "You got a rifle?"

"Yep."

I had a street map of Columbia County I had bought when I first arrived. Sapp and I studied it on the table.

"Here's about where they want you," Sapp said.

"I know," I said. "I've been out there."

"Of course you have," Sapp said. "It's not a bad spot for them. Used to hunt birds out there, once. But when the highway got built the birds left. Now nobody goes out there, it's just a piece of empty land the Interstate goes through."

"And I don't want to drive up at midnight and stand outside my car and get shot to pieces."

"No," Sapp said. "Here's where you want me to be."

With his pencil Sapp marked a blue road that wound more or less parallel to Route 20, a mile or so to the north.

"Piece of the old state road," Sapp said. "Was the main drag before the Interstate. I can park over here." He made a small circle. "And walk in behind them. About a mile maybe, mile and a half."

Sapp poured me some more coffee. I stirred in cream and sugar and I took another donut.

"When you have a couple donuts," Sapp said, "you know you've eaten something."

"Figured you for a dozen raw eggs a day," I said.

"And a good case of salmonella. I don't believe all that protein crap. You do the work, you get the muscle."

"Good," I said. "Gimme another one."

"I'll plan to get there early."

"Yes," I said. "Might be nice to walk the mile and a half in daylight."

"Yep. Country's not real rough, but there's trees and some ground cover. Easier in the light."

We drank coffee and cleaned up the last of the donuts. It was a little after eight-thirty in the morning.

"I got a vest," Sapp said. "Left over from my cop days."

"Thanks," I said. "I know this isn't your fight."

"I'm sure the bastards are homophobes," Sapp said.

"I'm sure they are," I said.

Sapp disappeared again and came back with a dark blue Kevlar vest.

"If Delroy's there," I said, "let's try not to kill him."

"Man," Sapp said, "you spoil everything."

"I know," I said. "But if he's alive I can turn him in and the thing is done."

"Business before pleasure," Sapp said. "What you should do is get something that's not obvious, and put it on the roadside at the twenty-mile spot, so I'll have a marker when I come in from the back."

I stood, and picked up the vest.

"I'll buy a cheap tire," I said, "and put it there. People see old tires on the highway all the time."

"I'll look for it," Sapp said. "You want a kiss goodbye?"

"From you?"

"Yes."

"I'd rather die," I said.

FIFTY-SIX

I WAS RESTLESS the rest of the day. I cleaned both my guns-the short-barreled.38 I usually carried, and the Browning nine-millimeter I had for high-volume backup. I reloaded both guns, and thumbed cartridges into an extra clip for the nine. I tried on the vest. Sapp and I were more or less the same size, so the vest fit. I did some push-ups. I stood in the motel doorway and looked up at the sky, which by midafternoon had begun to darken. I turned on the television set and found The Weather Channel. After about fifteen minutes of learning far more than I ever cared to know about a low-pressure area in the Texas panhandle, I heard them prophesying rain in Georgia. I did some more push-ups. I called Susan and, using a flawless southern accent, left a sexually explicit message on her answering machine. I took a walk. After the walk I went to the motel coffee shop and had a ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. It started to rain. I stood in the doorway of my room and watched it for a while. It was a nice rain, steady but not too aggressive. Falling straight. The weather cooled. I took a nap.

When I woke up the afternoon had begun to turn into evening and the rain was unyielding. I took a shower and put on clean clothes and checked both guns again. The meeting on Route 20 could be a feint, of course, and they in fact intended to buzz me as I walked to my car to drive out there. Probably not. It was probably too clever for Delroy. But probably is not the same as certainly. If they intended to do that, how soon would they show up? Probably about ten-thirty. I thought about another sandwich, but I wasn't hungry. I had coffee instead. I didn't want to be sleepy later on. Then I went back to my room and strapped on both guns. The Browning I wore behind my right hipbone. The.38 I wore butt forward in front of my left hipbone. I put the extra clip in my hip pocket and a handful of.38 special ammunition in my pants pocket. Then, carrying the vest over my arm, I walked to my car and got in and pulled out of the parking lot. Nobody followed me. It was about nine o'clock-too early.

I drove out Route 20 to the designated spot. Maybe a mile before I got there there was a rest stop where a few cars and a lot of trailer trucks were parked. If I had been planning this, I'd have had a car with a car phone waiting, and as I approached I would have had the tail car that had followed me from the motel call, and when I went by, the second would pull out and follow me, and when I stopped, the two cars would park in front and behind at an angle, blocking me. They'd have to be a lot more alert now, since I had left too early, and they had apparently not counted on that. Maybe it would throw them and they'd call it off. I didn't want that. At the next exit I turned around and headed back to Lamarr. I couldn't risk confusing them so much that they didn't make their try at me. They'd been stupid enough to announce this one. The next time they might not. I called Susan on my car phone.

When she answered I said, "Spenser, Mobil Unit South."

"Oh good," she said. "Someone claiming to be one of your body parts left me a disgusting message in a fake southern accent on my answering machine this afternoon, while I was healing people."

"Which body part?" I said.

"You know perfectly well which body part," she said.

"Did you hate the message?" I said.

"No."

We talked the rest of the way back to the motel. Pearl was fine. I thought I might come home soon. The weather was lovely in Boston. It was raining here. I missed her. She missed me. We loved each other. I said goodbye as I pulled back into the motel parking lot. After I hung up I felt completed, the way I always did after talking to her, like a plant that had been watered.

It was ten-thirty. There was a car in the lot that hadn't been there when I'd left. A maroon Dodge, with a spotlight on the driver's side. This meant nothing. Cars come and go all the time in a motel parking lot. Still, there it was. I stayed in my car with the motor running, and the wipers going so I could see. I parked away from other cars with my nose pointing at the highway so that I couldn't be boxed in and shot in my car. I decided it was better than driving aimlessly up and down Route 20. I took out the nine, racked the slide back and pumped a round into the chamber, let the hammer down gently, and laid it in my lap. Nothing happened. At eleven I thought maybe driving aimlessly up and down Route 20 was better. At eleven-thirty, I slipped into the vest, tightened the straps, shrugged into a light windbreaker, wheeled my car out of the parking lot in a leisurely manner, and drove toward the highway entrance with the nine still in my lap. As I went up the ramp, I saw the maroon Dodge come out of the lot and follow along in the same direction. The drive wasn't aimless anymore. We had begun.

The headlights made the wet highway shimmer. The moon was hidden. There were no streetlights. The weather was not a plus. A bright night would have been better. But it was a business in which you didn't always get to choose.

At seven minutes to midnight I pulled over onto the shoulder of the road near the designated spot. My tire, the marker for Tedy Sapp, was still where I'd thrown it, shiny in the rain. As I parked, a car passed me and pulled in at an angle in front of me. The maroon Dodge that had tailed me out pulled in behind. They were thinking right along with me. What little protection the car offered was outweighed by my immobility. I turned off the headlights and shut off the engine. I took the nine out of my lap and held it in my hand, close to my side. Then I got out, and closed the car door, and stood in the steady rain on the highway side of my car.

The headlights from the maroon Dodge brightened my part of the scene. The car ahead of me had shut off his lights. No one got out of either car. Except for the sound the rain made and the sound of the windshield wipers on the maroon Dodge, there was silence. Then there was some sound from the woods beyond the shoulder; then Jon Delroy and two other guys came out of the darkness and into enough of the headlight so I could see them. Delroy stayed where he was. The other two guys fanned out on either side of him. Both had shotguns. One wore a yellow rain jacket, the other was coatless, with an Atlanta Braves hat jammed down over his ears. There were no Security South uniforms visible.

"Spenser," Delroy said.

"Delroy."

As we spoke the driver of the Dodge got out to my right, and the driver of the car in front got out to my left. Observing peripherally, I was pleased that they didn't have shotguns.

"You wouldn't leave it alone," Delroy said.

"It's why I get the big bucks," I said.

"Was it you broke into the office in Atlanta?"

I smiled at him. I was trying for enigmatic, but it was raining hard and there were five guys with guns, so I may not have succeeded.

Delroy shrugged.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "Walk over here."

"So you can tell me who killed Walter Clive?"

"You know who killed Walter Clive," Delroy said. "Walk over here."

"Nope."

Delroy shrugged again. He seemed perfectly at ease. Every inch the commander.

"Die where you want to," Delroy said.

He pointed at the two men on my side of the car with the index finger of each hand and nodded once. Immediately there was a loud gunshot, but it came from the dark woods behind Delroy. The gunman to my right spun half around and his handgun clattered into the middle of the highway. I dropped to a squat against the side of my car and, leaning against it, shot the gunman to my left in the middle of the mass. He doubled up and fell on his side, crying in pain. I heard his gun skitter into the passing lane. I slid up the side of the car and brought my handgun down on top of the roof. The two men with shotguns were turning toward the gunshot when the gun fired from the woods again and one of them went down, staggered backwards against the Dodge by the force of the bullet. The other one, the guy in the Atlanta Braves hat, threw the shotgun away and started running west along the highway shoulder. Delroy seemed frozen. He hadn't even gotten his gun up. I went around the car and took it from his apparently paralyzed hand. He offered no resistance. Behind me the guy I'd shot kept crying in pain. I hated the sound. But there was nothing I could do about it, and it was better than me crying in pain. Tedy Sapp came out of the woods wearing a long black slicker and a black cowboy hat, and carrying an M1 rifle. I looked at the rifle.

"An oldie but goodie," I said.

"Like me," Sapp said.