Hearse of a Different Color (Hitchcock Sewell Mysteries) (18 page)

“So he’s guilty.”

“Of something, I’m sure. The guy is a sleaze. But did he kill Helen Waggoner?”

Bonnie steered her car through the gates of the Mount Washington Apartments. She cleared the gate on my side by an inch. “Well, from what you’ve said, Terry Haden tops my list. I don’t know about you.”

“I don’t know. What about Helen’s mysterious boyfriend? This guy with the deep pockets that Tracy was telling me about.”

“What about him?”

“Well, you see the word ‘mysterious’ that’s attached to him? Call me nuts, lady, but that provokes my interest.”

Bonnie pulled into the slot in front of her building. “So, you need to figure out who he is.” She turned off the car.

“I know. But the first thing now is to locate Haden.”

“Why? He’s my number one, not yours. You think it’s somebody else.”

“Still. He’s got Vickie and the kid.”

“Hitch, can I remind you of something? It’s his kid. He’s the father.”

“I know that. But look. From what I can tell of the guy, he had nothing to do with that kid since the moment the boy was conceived. And now suddenly, what? He’s back on the scene and he wants to play poppa? I don’t buy it.”

“Well, what if he did kill Helen? Maybe he at least feels guilty enough to want to take responsibility for the child of the mother he murdered.”

“This guy didn’t by any chance win a Heisman Trophy in college then go on to star in car rental commercials, did he?”

“You’re funny,” Bonnie said. “And I’m freezing.” She pointed at the building in front of the car. “You’re free to join me.”

We quit the car and went inside. Bonnie’s place is new and modern and clean. Hit one wall switch and the whole place lights up. Wall-to-wall carpet. Open kitchen with a large green counter. Matching navy sofa and armchair and a large pinewood wall unit that includes books, CDs, TV and VCR and numerous framed photographs of Bonnie through the ages: Bonnie on a tricycle; Bonnie on a diving board; Bonnie in braids posing with her father in front of a weather map; Bonnie in long straight hair, perched atop the shoulders of a lacrosse team. …

For the record, there were no photographs of me to be found in Bonnie’s apartment. I hadn’t expected any. Believe it or not though, Bonnie and I had actually discussed marriage the very first time we met. I was fifty-five sheets to the wind and had proposed to her nonstop for a solid hour. In several languages. Some of which I don’t even speak. We were at John Stevens Pub. She was trying to play pool, and I was trying to get her to marry me. Bonnie politely refused me throughout the hour. But she must have seen something in this tall, dark and winsome drunk, for she eventually offered up a consolation prize for all my efforts. In the morning she had asked me if the marriage proposals still stood, but I told her no, they were like eclipses and the time had passed. “Why?” I wanted to know. “Have you reconsidered?” She told me that a guy like me could grow on a girl like her and I told her that she made me sound like a fungus and she told me that I was an awfully sexy fungus. People do talk funny right after sex, don’t they? At breakfast we had discussed whether this was to be a one-night stand or if we were going to attempt to see if the two of us—as a unit—might have legs. I warned her that I was divorced, though not damaged by it, but that my inclinations were to let considerably more water pass under the bridge before I decided whether or not I wanted to jump back in. “What if the water simply rises up and comes over the bridge?” Bonnie had wanted to know. She looked so damn luscious with her perfect hair mussed up and her large blue eyes racooned with makeup. I told her that I’d wash off that bridge when I came to it, and that had pretty much concluded our serious conversation. We retired to the bedroom to strike up a silly one instead.

Bonnie threw down her purse, shrugged out of her coat and inched her new silk scarf from her cleavage with the moves of a stripper. I was powerless against the name
Ruth Waggoner
as it invaded my brain. Bonnie backed me up against the wall. We moved like a pair of Siamese twins into the bedroom, plucked away at our garments and then plucked away at each other atop Bonnie’s goose down comforter. At one point Bonnie whispered huskily, “My makeup,” but her cheek was tracking across my stomach at the time, so I paid no attention. Sometime later I came to rest with my face against her thigh. Her fingers were strolling through my hair. The comforter was bunched at the headboard and halfway off the bed. Somebody was purring. I think it was me.

“Shit!” My head jerked suddenly from Bonnie’s drumstick.

“What?”

“What
is
Terry Haden doing back on the scene?”

Bonnie frowned down at me. “I love it when you talk sexy to me.” She scooted up, dragging a portion of the comforter over her alabaster charms. “What do you mean?”

“Haden. Why didn’t I think of it? He and Helen split up after she got pregnant. Right? Now, three, four years later, she’s pregnant again, and look who’s hanging around.”

“Your point?”

“The point is, Haden is back on the scene.”

Bonnie slid off the bed and stepped into the bathroom. She called out, “You’re just repeating what we already know.”

“No. Look at it.” I swung my feet to the floor. My toes sunk into the plush. “Our suspect list has just been reduced by one. According to Tracy Atkins, some man shows up in Helen Waggoner’s life, right? What. Four or five months ago. He gets her pregnant. Well, presumably it’s him. He’s throwing money around. Helen’s buying things. She’s talking about a new apartment. About quitting work. All this stuff.”

Bonnie chimed in, “This is the mystery boyfriend we’re talking about now, right?”

“Right. Except, when has this happened before? When did Helen Waggoner last get pregnant and quit what she was doing for a living? Who was the man in her life then?”

Bonnie popped her head out of the bathroom. She had a shower cap on. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ve got to get back to the station.”

“Come on. Who was her guy?”

“Terry Haden. So?”

“Right! And now? Round two. Pregnant. Again. Quitting her job.
Again
. It’s him again. Terry’s back. I’m being stupid. There
is
no so-called mystery man. It’s Terry Haden again! They were getting back together. Or trying to. It’s so simple it’s boring.”

“I thought you said the new guy in her life was loaded. I didn’t get the impression that Mr. Haden was exactly Rockefeller material.”

“Who knows about that? He’s a hustler. Up one day, down the next. He probably had a big wad of money from somewhere, and he schmoozed his old gal with it. Promised her the world. And won her back. At least for awhile. This guy is a play-fast, lose-fast kind of guy. For all we know the two of them burned right through whatever money Haden had and ended up right back where they started. I can see Haden waking up one morning and realizing that the party’s over. Again. Helen’s pregnant again, and she’s counting on him to deliver the goods this time, like he’s been promising. I sure as hell wouldn’t put it past someone like Terry Haden to start looking for a way out.”

“Isn’t murder a little extreme?”

“Of course it’s extreme. But people still do it. I’m telling you, it’s him. Forget this psycho customer business or this moneybags mystery man. It’s Gentleman Terry, I’m telling you. And this afternoon he gets a whiff that the police are swinging by Vickie’s place … and he flies like the wind.”

“Shower,” Bonnie repeated. A moment later the water started running. I went into the kitchen, to the refrigerator, and drank directly from the orange juice carton. I kept the carton in my hand as I paced back and forth over the carpet trying to slot the pieces together. I realized that I had too few details to paint a complete picture. But the outline remained clear and, for the most part, made sense. Haden was the one. For reasons that I could only guess at, he had weaseled his way back into Helen’s life. Maybe he had been working toward pulling her back into the smut business. Maybe he knew that whatever cash he had wasn’t going to last, and he wanted to reprise his golden goose days with Helen. Then suddenly she’s pregnant again, and the guy just can’t believe his rotten luck. Maybe Helen had told him that very day that she was pregnant. And in a snit, he grabbed a car, drove out to the place where she worked, told her to get the hell in and shot her.

And now Haden was on the run. He had taken his son along, as well as the boy’s aunt. But why? Why drag Vickie along? If Haden was running from the law, he could run a lot faster without a third person along. Especially a person who presumably didn’t want to be there in the first place.

Presumably.

Bonnie found me naked, standing at the sliding glass door to her deck, holding the orange juice carton and staring out into the early twilight. Headlights from the Jones Falls Expressway blinkered through the trees.

“This is how I want to remember you,” she said. When I turned around and held out the juice carton to her, a large smile grew on her face. “No. Like
this
.”

T
erry Haden wasn’t listed in the phone book. I checked, first thing the following morning. Even if he were, I doubted he was sitting at home watching game shows with Vickie and Bo, waiting for visitors. But I had to start somewhere. I had no doubt now but that Terry Haden’s loose cannon had gone off the week before, aimed at his former-and-possibly-once-again lover, and that now he was on the run. I had to find him. Bonnie had tried to convince me before heading back to the station the night before that this was a job for Superman, or at least the Baltimore City Police, but I refused to be swayed. I gave her a full-frontal view of the legendary Sewell stubborn streak.

“I thought you were all hot to catch a killer. Why the cold feet now?”

“I still am,” Bonnie said. “What I’m not so hot for is seeing him kill you.”

“Why would you think he’d do a thing like that?”

“Let’s see. Desperation? Fear? Nothing to lose? Anger? Shall I continue?”

“The man is out there with two hostages—”

“Oh, Hitch, you just don’t know that.”

“I’m taking an educated guess. Look, if I’m wrong, if Vickie and Bo went along with Haden simply to bask in his uncommonly charming glow, then the worst I do is embarrass myself for getting all worked up. If they’re safe, I’m safe.”

“But if they’re not. … ”

We argued a while longer. In a sense, of course, Bonnie was right. This really wasn’t my business. I had phoned the police, and that should really have been the end of it. Even if I did manage to locate him, what next? Would I stand there with my hand out and tell the killer to hand over his weapon and come quietly? Presuming that Haden really did kill Helen, who he ostensibly cared about, how much leeway could I expect him to give me? Someone for whom he assuredly
didn’t
have a soft spot? I might have been taller than the guy and have a longer reach … but a pistol can be a great equalizer. I certainly didn’t relish the idea of being shipped off to my own aunt for her professional bon voyage treatment. The truth was, I had no idea whatsoever how I would proceed if I were to locate Haden. I’ve always had fairly decent improvisational skills. I just hoped like hell they would show up when I needed them.

After checking with Billie to see if anyone had died lately who needed burying—and being told no—I headed over to Baltimore Street. On the way there I passed by the Flag House, where Mary Pickersgill sewed the mammoth American flag back during the War of 1812. That’s the flag that was hoisted over Fort McHenry during the British bombardment of Baltimore, inspiring Francis Scott Key to scribble down the words of what was to become our notoriously ungainly National Anthem. The Flag House also happens to be my own personal ground zero. That’s where I was conceived many moons ago. After-hours. It’s not a long story. Obviously, it’s personal.

I continued on past the Flag House and parked my car near City Hall Plaza. I walked a block over to Baltimore Street. The defanging of The Block shows in especially stark relief in the daylight, where the neon signs of its few remaining dens of sin blink anemically onto the indifferent sidewalk. The few people passing along the frigid street were clearly not in search of The Block’s cheap thrills; they were simply on their way to someplace else. It was too cold—as well as too early—for the hawkers to be seated on their stools outside the strip joints trying to draw in customers with their oily “Check it out, check it out, live girls, check it out. … ”

Baltimore Street runs west to east. On Commerce Street, one of the smaller streets feeding into it, about halfway down the block, was a blacked out window in which hung a large pair of red neon eyes, vaguely catlike. Every ten seconds or so the neon in one of the eyes flickered with what was evidently supposed to simulate the action of the eye winking. I ask, who could resist? I crossed the street and ducked into The Kitten Club.

At least the place was warm. Very warm. I stepped through the black velvet curtain just inside the front door and was confronted by a small bar, exactly four customers and a naked woman standing on a small runway-style stage that ran along the back wall of the bar. The woman was plugging quarters into a wall-mounted jukebox as I came inside. Actually, she wasn’t completely naked: She was wearing high heels and a string of glass beads around her hips, attached to which was a piece of shiny green material about the size and shape of a shirt pocket … something to keep her privates private. The rear wall was actually a mirror. Attached to it—not in neon, but in hard red plastic—was the same large pair of cat eyes as the ones outside the club. In addition, there were plastic whiskers, four on each side, which looked as much like overlong swizzle sticks as anything else.

The room was dark, black with an amber hue, with a cloud of smoke hanging at about knee level with the dancer. A four-foot strip of red tinsel along the bar pretty much topped off the holiday decorating. The frozen water main break outside the Oyster was more festive than this place. As I slid onto the nearest barstool, Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” started up and the dancer began to sway side-to-side in a slow, bored fashion, lifting and landing a high heel every once and again as if she were going through the motions of stomping listlessly on a bug. Her arms made a halfhearted effort to sway with the music, but basically they just lifted and fell against her hips. The effect was far from stimulating. The woman had a decent enough figure, though in the piss-poor lighting of the place it was a little difficult to judge. She looked bored, only vaguely caught up in Jimmy Page’s rambling, and completely oblivious to the throng of four—now five—who sat at the bar at about ankle-level, looking up at her.