Hearse of a Different Color (Hitchcock Sewell Mysteries) (26 page)

“What a pleasant surprise,” Adams said—almost as if he meant it—as I reached his cubicle. I winced my fake smile.

“Yeah. How about that.”

Adams’s visitor was taking me in with a slow vertical scan, starting at my thighs, which were about eye-level. When she reached my face I had my hat-tipping smile ready.

“Hello, Constance.”

“Well, hello, Hitchcock. How are you doing these days?”

I turned to Adams. “Now
this
is a surprise.”

“A pleasant one, I hope,” the reporter said, his slender fingers lacing seamlessly.

I didn’t answer him, but turned back to the woman in the chair. Constance Bell. She was dressed in a stylish wool suit. Earth tones, blending perfectly with her copper-colored skin. Constance Bell always wore a lot of makeup and always wore it perfectly. Her ubiquitous silk scarf was in place around her neck (today, pale yellow) and the brass earrings dangling from her ears looked like a pair of miniature mobiles by Calder. Her hair was meticulously cornrowed and spun into an elaborate knot at the back of her slender neck. Constance has astonishing teeth—a dazzling white keyboard smile—but for some reason she has always been self-conscious about them and so she holds her lips sealed in a slight pucker, keeping her huge smile reigned in. The result is that the rest of her face positively ripples and glows. When her smile does manage to escape, when for example she bursts out laughing, it’s as if a gust of wind has kicked up. You expect loose papers to blow onto the floor.

Constance was keeping her smile reined in. But her large chestnut eyes pulsed with her delight in seeing me.

“How’s your aunt, Hitchcock?”

“Oh, Aunt Billie is as Aunt Billie as ever.”

“That’s good to hear. And Julia? Are you still in contact?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“She’s made quite a name for herself. I saw on the television the other day where she did something recently for the zoo?”

“I was out there for the unveiling. It’s very clever, really.”

“I don’t doubt that. How is she?”

“Near perfect. Still.”

Constance started to smile, but instead marshaled her features into a somber expression. She searched my face, one eye at a time.

“You two were the strangest divorce I ever handled.”

“Well, you handled it beautifully, Constance. We couldn’t be happier. And Mexico was a blast.” I turned to Adams, who was happily soaking all this in. “Constance handled my divorce.”

“I wasn’t aware that you had been married.”

I turned back to Constance. “And he calls himself a reporter.”

Constance turned to Adams. “So, you haven’t met Hitchcock’s ex-wife. Let me tell you, my boyfriend happened to be in my office once when Julia dropped by to sign some papers for the divorce. Lord, he was no good to me for about a week after that.”

Despite herself, Constance let fly with a smile. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I almost thought I saw the slight reporter at his desk take a tight grip of the arms of his chair. Constance shut down the smile as swiftly as she had launched it. The fact of the matter is, if Constance was even halfway telling the truth, her boyfriend was an idiot. Julia is Julia, sure. But the savvy lawyer sitting here did not exactly inspire yawns.

“I’m interrupting something,” I said. Belatedly.

“Actually, we were just wrapping up here,” Adams said. “Ms. Bell, I want to thank you for coming down here. If I think of any follow-up questions I’ll give you a call.”

Adams stood up and reached a tiny paw across the desk. Constance rose, accompanied by a whiff of something nutmeg, and shook the reporter’s hand.

“When do you expect the piece to appear?”

“I can’t say yet,” Adams answered. “I would hope within a few days.”

Constance released his fingers and turned to face me. She lay a hand on each of my arms.

“It was nice to see you again, Hitchcock. Call me sometime.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any divorces pending,” I said.

“That doesn’t matter. Besides, I don’t do divorces anymore. I’m with a new firm now. I catch all sorts of odd cases that the partners toss down. Here.”

She produced a business card from her snazzy brown purse and handed it to me. “A fellow like you surely can’t stay out of trouble forever.” She snapped her purse shut. “Tell Julia hello for me, when you see her again.”

I told her I would do that. As Constance headed for the elevator, I shifted my weight just slightly, enough to block Adams’s view of the departing counselor.

“What can I do for you?” Adams asked. The sugar had left his voice.

“What was Constance Bell doing here?” I asked, simply to irritate. “You’re not getting divorced from someone, are you?”

“Didn’t you hear? She doesn’t do divorces anymore. Ms. Bell worked with Michael Fenwick. Fenwick’s that fellow who got shot the other day, along with his wife.”

I glanced at the business card in my hand. “Stern and Fenwick. There goes the partnership. Now it’s just Stern and Nobody.”

“No. It’s his old man who is the partner. Michael Fenwick was the young turk. Up and coming. Until this, of course. I’m gathering some background for a profile piece. Ms. Bell was kind enough to drop in so that I could ask a few questions.”

So, Constance Bell had worked with the murdered lawyer. What a teeny-tiny world. That’s how Baltimore works. I asked Adams, “Did you ask her about poor old Popeye? Have you figured out the connection yet?”

“I ran the name by her. It didn’t appear to register.”

“You sound doubting.”

“In the absence of proof, I keep an open mind. Is that doubting?”

“Sounds like a good policy,” I answered.

“This is just between the two of us, of course, but I’ve been picking up some vibes that the late Mr. Fenwick might not have always played everything exactly by the book.”

“A crooked lawyer? They actually exist?”

“There goes your faith in all that’s good in the world, I know. I’m sorry to do that to you. And at Christmas no less.”

“I’ll survive,” I said. “So then this Fenwick was involved in something shady with the good Mr. Popeye?”

“That’s the logical starting point.” Adams sat back in his chair. “So, now what is it I can do for you, Hitch? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this isn’t just a social call.”

“I did just happen to be in the neighborhood,” I said. “But you’re right. I’m here to find out how much you really care about helping Bonnie and me on the Waggoner case, and how much is just hot air and bullshit.”

The reporter made a teepee of his fingers and placed the tip to his chin. “You know, I’m trying to figure out why it is you dislike me so much.”

“I never said I disliked you.”

“It must be your body language then.”

“Maybe you’re just paranoid.”

“You think I’m after Bonnie Nash, don’t you?”

“Aren’t you?”

“She’s an attractive woman.”

“That’s like saying the sun is a hot ball of gas.”

“All I’m saying is that it’s natural for someone like Bonnie Nash to attract attention.”

“You’re not saying anything. Half the horny male population of Baltimore slobbers over that woman at six and eleven. I’m asking about you in particular.”

“Let me see if I can get this right. No comment?”

What was especially irritating about the slender reporter was that he didn’t even allow his smugness to show on his face. He sat there at his desk looking perfectly pleasant. Despite myself, I had to admire that in the guy. Maybe he was just someone who enjoys busting other people’s chops. I decided to uncock my pistol and get down to the reason I had stopped in. Besides, the question wasn’t so much if he was chasing after Bonnie—the constitution allows that as well—but whether or not she was running away quite as fast as she could. And that was something for me to take up with Bonnie.

Or not.

“I’m trying to get a hold of a photograph of Terry Haden. I thought maybe the photo archives of the great and powerful Sunpapers might be able to cough one up for me.”

Adams accepted the blunt transition. He dropped the irritating teepee. “Why don’t you ask our friend, Kruk? I’m sure they’ve got a nice mug shot on file.”

“Detective Kruk would prefer that I keep my nose out of other people’s murders.”

“I see.”

“Bonnie thought maybe you would be able to help on this.” This was a stretch of the actual truth. But an acceptable one. “That is, with a photograph of Haden.”

“Why don’t you just track him down and take one yourself?”

“Last seen, Terry Haden was facedown on a bed in an Atlantic City motel room, passed out. I thought maybe this would be easier.”

“
Bonnie
thought so.”

“Yes,” I lied again. “Bonnie thought so.”

I watched as Adams considered whether or not to continue busting my chops. He must have concluded that he had more important matters to stir.

“Give me ten minutes.”

“Fifteen. What the hell.”

Twenty minutes later a runner appeared in the cubicle, carrying a brown interoffice envelope. Adams unwound the twine and pulled an eight-by-ten photograph from the envelope, looked at it and handed it to me.

“Will this do?”

The photograph was of three men, seated together at a table. Two of the men, dressed in business suits, were leaning in toward each other, conferring. The third man was Terry Haden. His attention was elsewhere. He looked bored.

“Who are these other guys?” I asked.

“His lawyers. This was taken at Haden’s arraignment a year and a half ago. For child pornography.”

“He doesn’t look terribly concerned.”

Adams shrugged. “Will that do?”

“It’s fine. Thanks.”

I probably should have shaken his hand as I got up to leave, but I didn’t. Luckily his phone rang just then. He picked it up. “Hold on,” he said, and he held the phone against his chest. I was just stepping from the cubicle when Adams said, “By the way, if you’re planning to take that picture out to the airport to see if that waitress, what’s her name? Gail? If Gail can identify Haden, I can save you the trouble. She can’t.”

The snake was smiling. I wasn’t. “You knew that’s why I wanted the picture.”

“Bonnie told me. About the waitress, I mean. And the argument she witnessed between Helen and someone. I went out there to Sinbad’s this morning.”

“Oh. And when did Bonnie tell you this?” I said evenly.

“Last night. I ran into her at Alonzo’s. After the late news. She wasn’t in a very good mood, I have to say. She appeared to be, well, a little pissed off about something.”

“You don’t say.”

“You could see it in her eyes.”

“So, you had that photograph all along?”

He nodded.

“Why’d you make me wait twenty minutes for it?”

Adams smiled. “You’re such wonderful company.”

A lesser man would have ripped the photograph in half and tossed the pieces onto his desk. I waited until I got outside. I dropped them into a trash can. Half a block away I thought better of it, and returned to fetch them. A bum was pawing through the can. I stood politely by and waited my turn.

P
ops and his crew were digging a grave for a man who had died with a snow shovel in his hands. I wouldn’t put it past the Supreme Ironical Being to consider toppling old Pops in the very midst of his shoveling the dead man’s grave. I decided to swing by the cemetery to check in on them. Outbreaks of irony come without warning.

Pops was fine. He was supervising. The young turks were carrying the load. All of their equipment seemed to be back in working order. The backhoe was belching oily blue smoke from its vertical exhaust pipe; it reminded me of Vickie’s car. An idea came to me as I watched the blue plume dissipate into the air. I tucked the idea into my pocket for later.

Since I was there, I decided to do a short walkabout and see if I could sort out either the tangle of Helen Waggoner’s murder, my own duplicitous dilemma in the romance and scurvy bastard department, or maybe touch lightly on the Meaning of Life and the question of what exists beyond the stars. I took the issues with me to the graves of my parents and my unborn little sister. They had no answers for me, but at least they served to distract me for a few minutes. Ugly Uncle Stu had seen to it that the three of them each received gravestones in relative height to one another, so that my father’s was the tallest of the three stones, followed by mama mia’s, and lastly the little aspirin tablet of my unborn sister. My parents had not prenamed the child that my mother had been carrying to the hospital that day. After allowing me to sit with the news of the accident for several hours, Aunt Billie had taken me for a long walk along the harbor, during which she had offered me the privilege of giving my unborn sister a name so that we could put it on the tiny headstone. She left me alone and I had wandered by myself out to the pier at the end of Thames Street. I sat there for hours as the sun fell gently below the horizon to my right and the soft blue dome of night began sliding into place overhead. The early summer stars appeared, led by a flickery blue chip of light low in the east sky, brighter than the rest. Jupiter. Or so my twelve-year-old brain decided. The planet Jupiter, flickering and pulsing with a look-at-me energy and urgency that none of the other stars in the sky were displaying. After a while longer I returned to the funeral home. A dozen or so neighbors and friends of my parents had already come together at the news of what had happened. They all fell silent as I came through the front door and stepped over to my aunt and uncle to announce that I had named my new and already lost sister. “Jupiter Sewell,” I said. It was when I added, “I would have called her Joop” that the tears finally came. Buckets of them.

After leaving my family’s gravesite I took my imponderables over the hill to the grave of Helen Waggoner. I crouched down, and since I was now in a maudlin mood, I rested my bare hand against the earth of her grave. I wasn’t really thinking about Helen though. I was thinking about her sister. I had rested my hand atop Vickie’s bare stomach much this same way the night before at my place, after our brief and surprising bout. I had kept it there until her breathing—erratic and catching—had returned to normal. Her skin was every bit as warm and moist as the earth under my hand now was brittle and frozen hard.