Deal to Die For (15 page)

“This could be boiling oil,” Fenderman shouted. “You think about that the next time.” He nearly lost his grip on the bucket and had to claw wildly to hold it. Deal thought for a moment that he was going to tumble out of the window, bucket and all.

Finally, Fenderman regained his balance, steadied himself against the frame. “Who do you work for?” he shouted at Deal, who was backing away, his palms upraised. “The mayor?”

Fenderman’s eyes blanked out as the sun reflected off his glasses. Now it was a mad prophet up there, a man with glowing silver disks where his eyes should have been, the bucket upraised like an idol about to be dashed to the ground.

“Did Mayor Bream send you over here?” Fenderman shouted again. He shaded his face with one hand, and his eyes turned abruptly into eyes again.

Deal shook his head, staring up warily. Even though the paint on the siding had faded into a dingy gray, the sun reflected off it brutally. It was hard to keep a fix for long.

“Are you from the papers, then?” Fenderman fairly shrieked. “Is that it? You want
my
side of the story?” He laughed, a short lunatic’s bark, then heaved the bucket Deal’s way. Deal danced back as the water thrummed across the hood of Driscoll’s Ford.

“Are you finished now, Irwin?” It was Driscoll. He’d emerged from the protection of the overhang and stood swiping at his face, calling up at Fenderman. “Is the show over?”

Fenderman hesitated, then glanced down at Driscoll. He leaned out further, squinting, grasping the window ledge with both hands. A smile broke across his features. “Is that Vernon? Vernon Driscoll?” His voice had changed quality entirely. The mad prophet had become an elderly schoolmaster, surprised by the visit of a favorite student.

“We going to cut the crap, Irwin? That’s all I want to know.” Driscoll stared up at him, soaked, water still dripping off his chin.

“Mayor Bream didn’t send you, did he?” Fenderman asked, still cautious.

“Irwin…,” Driscoll said in an aggrieved tone.

“Well, why didn’t you
say
it was you?” Fenderman said testily. “I’ll be right down,” he added, and ducked back inside the window.

***

“Interesting,” Fenderman said as he fanned through the photographs Driscoll had handed him. “Who handled the case, one of those dreadful sand jockeys they’ve been hiring?”

They were in Fenderman’s study now, a room jammed with mismatched furniture, unpacked boxes overflowing with books and printouts, and enough battered computer equipment to start up a secondhand store: a dozen or more processors were stacked precariously in a corner, some trailing plugs and ripped wires. There was a row of monitors lined haphazardly nearby, one with its screen shattered. In another corner was an enormous tangle of cable and wire, mysterious little boxes and switches dangling within the strands here and there as if the whole thing had been deposited by some huge technological spider.

The back wall was a bank of windows that overlooked the broad Intracoastal and the pristine lawns of the estates opposite Fenderman’s place. Fenderman had seated himself at a cluttered library table, where he’d cleared a swath among tumbled books and papers, some dirty dishes and pizza crusts. There was no air-conditioning, no fan, no open window. The place smelled of mildew and damp clothing, of locker rooms that festered in school basements, of old books dissolving in soggy cartons, of rotting mushrooms and wet concrete. Deal knew it well—it was the scent burned into his memory from trekking through scores of ruined houses after the hurricane had pounded Miami.

But this place was well north of the damage zone. There’d been no shingles lost to storms here, no rain driven through the jalousies by freight-train winds. This rot came from the inside. A pigsty with a million-dollar view, Deal thought, his skin prickling.

Driscoll finally looked up at Fenderman from under the towel he was using to dry himself. Fenderman had taken it from a closet, delivered it without apology.

“The name was Mekhtar,” Driscoll said. “He’s a Pakistani.”

“What the hell’s the difference,” Fenderman snorted. He glanced at Deal. “You ever see what those people bring in for lunch?”

Deal stared back, beginning to have some sympathy for Mekhtar. He tried to imagine what it must have been like, working for Fenderman. Likely the whole office staff was still celebrating the man’s departure.

Fenderman turned his gaze to Driscoll. “I sense your partner finds my remarks offensive, Vernon.”

Driscoll shrugged, tossed the towel over the back of a wicker chair, startling a big gray cat who’d been sleeping there.

“Don’t worry about it, Fenderman. He votes in Dade County.”

“Well, in
that
case,” Fenderman said, giving Deal an ingratiating smile as he went back to the photographs, “he’s welcome to his opinion.”

He peeled one of the damp photos from the back of another, then took a closer look. “Mmmmm-mmmmmm,” he said, tapping it with the stem of an unlit pipe he’d come up with. He glanced up at Deal again. “Take a look at this, young man.”

Deal gave him a look, took a step closer. The photo Fenderman was holding was a close-up of the lower half of a face—
Barbara’s
face, he thought.

“You see these discolorations here,” Fenderman said, using the pipe stem as a pointer.

Deal willed himself to stare at the dark streaks that radiated outward on her flesh. Only the fact that he could not see her eyes allowed him to hold his gaze there.

“They’re what you would call powder burns,” Fenderman was saying, his voice as disinterested as a don’s. “From the muzzle flash. That’s
one
thing.”

He slipped the photo back and flipped rapidly through the packet. “Then there’s
this
,” he said, extracting another shot.

Deal took a quick glance, caught sight of Barbara’s sightless eyes, her matted hair, the dark fan of blood that spread out from her skull.

Fenderman was watching him, his jaundiced eyes glittering behind his glasses. “How long have you been a detective, if I might ask?” His voice was chiding, faintly amused.

Deal stared back. Gray stubble on Fenderman’s chin, stains on his outsized teeth, knots of untrimmed hair boiling out of his nostrils. The man looked like something that had crawled up out of a drain.

“Have you always been an asshole,” Deal said, “or did it just happen after you got old?”

Fenderman blinked a few times, his jaw working.

“He’s not with the department, Fenderman,” Driscoll said. “He’s a civilian. Leave it alone.”

Fenderman’s gaze switched from Deal to Driscoll, then back to Deal. It took a moment, then something seemed to register with him.

“Aha!” Fenderman said, triumphantly. “You
knew
her.” He actually smiled at Deal. “
That’s
why you’re here.” He touched his forehead with his fingertips and nodded. “My apologies, sir.”

“You were going to say something else,” Deal said, fighting back his anger. He gestured at the picture, but kept his gaze averted. Nothing could make him look at it. Ever again.

Fenderman had turned to Driscoll. “Not a good idea, Vernon,” he said. “Involving an injured party in an investigation. You should know better than that.”

Deal started forward, but Driscoll pulled him back. “I’m not on the force anymore, Fenderman. This is a private matter. You want to help us out, or you want to sit there and choke your chicken?”

Fenderman, apparently oblivious to Deal’s anger, seemed to think about it for a moment. Finally he shrugged. “Well,” he said primly. “Since you’ve gone to all this trouble.” He laid the photo he’d been holding on the table, then went searching through the pack again.

Deal exchanged looks with Driscoll, who made pacifying motions.

Fenderman found more photos that he was interested in and laid them on the table beside the first. He glanced up at Driscoll. “You say they found gunpowder residue on the woman’s hand and her fingerprints on the weapon itself?”

Driscoll nodded. Fenderman took it in, turned back to the photos, shaking his head as if something bothered him.

“You’ve seen enough shooters in your time, haven’t you, Driscoll?”

Deal watched Driscoll closely. The ex-cop nodded, his eyes opaque.

“So you know what happens when someone swallows a gun,” Fenderman continued.

Again Driscoll nodded, grudgingly. His face seemed to be aging as Deal watched.

A cat had leaped up onto the table to pick its way through the crusted plates. When it put a paw on one of the photographs, Fenderman scooped the animal up with one hand and tossed it casually aside. The cat bounced off a carton, landed on its feet, skittered away silently.

Fenderman turned his gaze on Deal then. It was a helpful expression, even solicitous. “We’re not talking about the effects of the bullet itself, you see. It’s the force of the explosion which propels it. Try to imagine these hot gases, caught in a small chamber, in this case the oral cavity, searing, raging, trying to expand at an incredible rate and searching for some outlet, any outlet, eye sockets, nasal passages…”

“You asshole,” Deal said. He was moving toward Fenderman when Driscoll caught him.

“Just hold your horses,” Driscoll said, wedging his body between the two of them. Deal wasn’t going to hold anything, except Fenderman’s neck, but banging into Driscoll was like colliding with a pillar of lead.

“It’s what he likes to do,” Driscoll said, his voice harsh in Deal’s ear as they struggled. “He likes to piss people off.”

“Well, he gets the blue ribbon from me,” Deal said, still trying to fight his way around the ex-cop.

“You need to calm down,” Driscoll said. “Now.”

Deal registered the tone of Driscoll’s voice and finally relented.

“You okay?”

Deal pulled himself back, straightened the front of his shirt. “Sure,” he said. “I’m fine.”

He shot a glance at Fenderman, who sat calmly at the table, pipe poised before him now, watching the two of them like a professor contemplating an interesting problem.

“There’s the possibility she didn’t do it, that’s what you’re saying,” Deal said to Fenderman after a moment.

Fenderman glanced at Driscoll before nodding. “As I was attempting to point out, if
she
were the one holding the gun in her mouth, the trauma would have been much worse, characteristically speaking.” He pointed at one of the photos with his pipe stem. “One could theorize that this woman was shot while she was trying to pull away from whomever held the weapon. If her mouth were open and she were trying to scream, let’s say, that would account for the facial burns you see there and the absence of secondary trauma elsewhere…”

“We get the picture,” Deal said, feeling his hands clench.

Driscoll gave him a last admonishing glance, then turned to gather up the photographs. He squared them on the table and replaced them in his jacket pocket, then turned back to Deal.

“How about the gunpowder on her hands, her fingerprints on the gun?” Deal said.

“What do you say, Fenderman?” Driscoll said.

Fenderman raised his pipe. “She could have been forced to hold the weapon by someone much stronger.”

“Or the killer could have put the gun in her hand afterward, squeezed another round out the window,” Deal said. He yearned to be out of this awful room, to draw in a breath of decent air.

Fenderman shrugged his assent.

“The point is,” Deal continued, “there’s a chance that Barbara didn’t put that gun in her own mouth. There’s a chance that somebody else did it, somebody who wanted to make it look like suicide.”

Fenderman raised his hands as if to say it was a reasonable guess.

Deal nodded slowly, taking it in. Finally he turned to Driscoll. “The shame of it is, we had to come to this dickwad to hear it,” he said finally.

Fenderman’s mild expression did not change.

Driscoll turned his gaze to Fenderman. “Well,” he said, giving his customary shrug, “he’s a smart dickwad. Aren’t you, Fenderman?”

“None finer,” Fenderman said. He raised his pipe stem in acknowledgment, gave Driscoll a little bow.

He was still beaming at them from behind the filthy table as they made their way out.

***

Deal sat with his head back on the headrest, his eyes closed, trying to bring his breathing under control. Driscoll was behind the wheel, easing them down the potholed lane to the street, when there was a strange whining noise and a sudden slamming of the brakes.

“Jesus Christ!”

Deal opened his eyes to see Driscoll clawing at his shoulders, where one of the scrawny fountain cats had leaped from the backseat to attach itself.

“Fucking-A!” The ex-cop caught the whining cat by the scruff of its neck and flung it out the open window in one motion. He glanced at Deal, then turned awkwardly, trying to see over the seat. “Any more back there?” he grumbled.

Deal looked, too, saw nothing but a couple of beer cans and a wadded-up sack from a fast-food restaurant on the dusty carpet. Part of the corner of the sack had been torn away, probably what had drawn the cat into the car in the first place. He looked up at Driscoll, who stared back with something approaching apology in his expression.

“I’m sorry about Fenderman…,” he said, letting his voice trail off.

Deal waited a moment before he spoke. “You already suspected something funny, didn’t you?”

Driscoll’s mouth twitched, a little tug at one corner of his lips that was a tiny reflection of his typical shrug.

“Why didn’t you say something back at the ME’s office?” Deal persisted.

Driscoll stared at him. “What I
thought
is one thing,” he said. “And what good do you think it would do to get into a debate with a guy like Mekhtar? He saw the same photos I did. Hell, he was on the
scene
. Guy like him, he’s just concerned about saving face. Once he’s made up his mind, it’s all over.” He nodded back in the direction of the house. “So we came out to see Fenderman and now we have some corroboration.”

There was a silence as Deal considered Driscoll’s words. That was one of the differences between them, he supposed. Deal the hothead, an all-or-nothing kind of a guy, one moment everything is copacetic, the next he hears something and he’s ready to take off some heads. Then there was Driscoll, the methodical one. He might have a hunch, but he’d check it three ways from Sunday before he acted upon it.