Murder in Store (4 page)

“Pam said you were leaving the country for a while and were looking for someone to rent the place while you were gone.” A horrible thought smacked me upside the head. I laughed tentatively. “Either that or one of us has really irritated Pam and this is her idea of getting even.”

“What’s your name?”

“Quint McCauley.”

Her mouth dropped.
“You’re
Quint McCauley?” I nodded, not sure whether I should dig my toe into the carpet or tell her I had identified myself incorrectly. “You’re”—she searched for the right word—“scum.” That was what I was afraid of.

“You dumped Pammy for some twenty-year-old legal-eagle, pseudointellectual nymphomaniac.”

I didn’t want to respond to that. It was easier to call her bluff. “Look,” I said, dropping my hand to my side. “One of three things is going to happen now. A, you’re going to shoot me. B, I’m going to place your keys on this table, pick up my suitcase, and leave this apartment, never to return. Or C, one of us is going to call Pam and verify my story. It’s up to you. Personally, I would prefer ? or C. But, please. If you’re leaning toward A, I’d appreciate it if you would aim for a kneecap. I’d feel a lot better.”

She didn’t respond right away, just swayed back and forth. Her eyes were beginning to droop.

I smiled and played my trump card. “Your popcorn is burning.”

Her eyes flew open. “Oh, shit.”

She took the two steps to the stove and, without hesitating, put the gun on the stove and grabbed the smoking pot from the burner. The fact that the pot had a metal handle did not immediately register. When it did, she let out a yelp and dropped the pot, sending charred popcorn flying. She stood there, staring at her hand as if she were trying to figure out where it came from.

I put my groceries on the counter and, taking her by the arm, directed her to the sink. Her hand was already bright red when I pushed it under cold running water. She looked at me, nodded her thanks, and took a long drink from her glass.

5

 

A
SIDE FROM THE
scotch, Elaine didn’t stock much in the way of first-aid remedies. I found some petroleum jelly in the back corner of a shelf in her linen closet. I spread some of that on her hand, wrapped it in gauze, and sat her down on the couch in the living room. She kept muttering something about her life going from bad to worse and I decided the time was ripe for my exit. But she looked so lost and miserable that I wanted to do something for her. “I’ll make you some coffee before I go.”

She looked up at me, startled. “You’re going? Don’t go.”

I shrugged. “There obviously has been a major misunderstanding here. I think I’ve caused you enough grief for one night.”

“No.” She shook her head. Long wisps of hair, more red than brown, were escaping the elastic band that held them against the nape of her neck. “It’s not you.” She stood slowly as if balancing on a high wire. “You stay here tonight. We’ll talk in the morning.” Then she walked down the hallway, steadying herself against the wall with her good hand. When she reached the door at the end of the hall she said without turning toward me, “This may work out for both of us.”

I considered my options. I could take my suitcase and groceries, leave this warm, comfortable apartment, walk the four blocks to my car, and spend the night in another hotel. Or I could unpack my groceries, spend the night on a reasonably inviting couch, and leave in the morning before

Elaine regained consciousness.

Not one part of the first scenario appealed to me so I put the groceries away and poured myself some medicine. Then I made a sandwich and ate it in her dining room at a table that was old but probably not old enough to be an antique. It was dark wood with matching chairs. The seats of the chairs looked and felt like they were handsewn in a kind of crewel stitch. The background was lilac with large multicolored flowers at the center of each seat.

Compared to the dining room set, the living room was ultramodern. Teak and chrome dominated the large room, and the focal point was a large shelving unit along one wall. The titles on the shelves were as varied as her furniture. A set of
Encyclopaedia Britannica
looked like it had been given a lot of use. There was some popular fiction, self-help books, and business titles like
Marketing Strategies for the Executive
and
Dress for Success,
also several natural-science books with topics varying from animals to astronomy. I noted the telescope in front of the big picture window and wondered how much star gazing one can do from a high-rise in Chicago.

I wanted to look over the files Hauser had given me, but I decided to call Harry first. Carol answered and she reprimanded me for not doing a better job of keeping in touch. Then she invited me and Maggie over for dinner. I evaded a response by telling her I’d let her know. I was relieved when she finally put Harry on.

“Hey, Quint, how’s it going?”

“Couldn’t be better,” I said, not in the least convinced.

Apparently Harry wasn’t either. “Oh, yeah, you sound great. Everything okay?”

“Sure,” I said and hurried into the purpose of the call. “I’ve got some pictures I’d like you to go over with your fine-tooth comb.”

“Yeah. I saw your note, and I have to admit you’ve got my curiosity going.”

I smiled. Harry was like an old coonhound on a scent when it came to cryptic notes. “How about I bring what I’ve got by the lab in the morning.”

“I’ll be there at seven,” Harry said and added, “I hope you’re not getting yourself mixed up in anything that’s going to be trouble.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. Harry could play the mother role better than his wife sometimes. “Is Carl Maddox still with Chicago PD?”

“Yeah. The Twenty-first Precinct, last I heard. Why?”

“I’ll explain tomorrow. See you then.” I hung up.

I didn’t have a lot of contacts from the Chicago police department anymore and I had never known Maddox all that well. But, as I remembered, he was a decent guy and might not mind checking on Keller’s death for me. If the guy did step out of a bar with so much to drink that he walked straight into a car that didn’t bother to stop, that was one thing. But if it might have been more than an accident, I wanted to know. I understand what it’s like to leave a bar with too many under the belt. Whatever god it is that protects small children usually sees that drunks don’t go wading into oncoming traffic. Just a hunch.

I called the Twenty-first and lucked out Not only was Maddox still assigned there, he was in and he remembered me.

“How ya been, Quint?”

“Not bad,” I replied.

“How long is it since you left the force anyway?” “About three years,” I said. “What’s goin’ on?”

I told him where I was working and about the Keller hit-and-run incident. When he asked me why I wanted to know more, I gave him as few of the particulars as possible and, fortunately, he didn’t press. He promised to call back soon. He wasn’t kidding. He returned my call before I was able to finish my drink.

“It went down as a hit-and-run, all right. But you never know. I guess the guy could barely walk when he left the bar. There was one witness, if you want to call him that. He said he thought it was a pretty big car, either green or blue. Really narrows it down, huh? Didn’t see any of the license plate. And sobriety-wise the witness wasn’t in much better shape than the victim.”

“Not much to go on.”

“Yeah. They followed up a couple leads, but nothing came of it. So, officially it’s a hit-and-run. Unofficially, I’d be careful if I were you.”

“I will. And thanks a lot, Carl.”

As I freshened my drink, I couldn’t help but wonder if Hauser was really convinced that Keller’s death was an accident.

I grabbed Hauser’s collection of undesirables and, kicking my shoes off, stretched out on the couch to go through them. I soon came to admire Hauser’s or Keller’s information-gathering techniques. The men in the six files had committed or been accused of crimes ranging from assault and battery and statutory rape to running a dogfighting ring. Some had committed no crime per se but had been involved in relationships they wouldn’t be inclined to publicize.

Frank Griffin, Hauser’s purposeful store manager, had made the lineup. His file didn’t contain much except for a note of his periodic visits to an apartment building on Sheridan Road. Keller hadn’t been able to get a lead on whom Griffin was visiting, but it didn’t require a huge leap from credibility to picture Griffin with a mistress. Griffin was married, but he could very well be the sort of man who feels that limiting himself to one woman would place an undue hardship on the rest of the species.

I guess I don’t shock easily, because only one of the files caused a momentary jaw drop. Arthur Judson, Hauser’s

public relations manager, who was invariably turning up at the opening of a new night spot or art exhibit with at least one impossibly gorgeous woman draped over his arm, was in hock up to his bedroom eyes to loan sharks.

The information in the file surprised me for a couple reasons. For one, it meant that I’d misjudged the guy in the first place and that maybe I was getting a little naive about people. Judson seemed to have everything going for him. He wasn’t exceptionally bright, but he was pleasant enough. He had an easygoing charm that was as effective with beautiful women as it was with his professional contacts. So here was this guy whom I considered something more than an acquaintance but less than a close friend, and I guess I was both surprised and a little disappointed to learn that he owed upward of twenty grand to some very unsavory characters who didn’t care if he could charm birds out of trees in flocks.

But what surprised me even more was the existence of the file for Art Judson and the fact that, for some reason, Preston considered him a suspect at all. It was no secret that Art Judson was Preston’s golden boy. He’d hired Art out of college and treated him more like family than an employee. What had Art done to rate an investigation? Is that any way to treat a protégé? Maybe it had something to do with Art’s penchant for beautiful women and his habit of displaying them. Still, it didn’t make sense for Judson to send Hauser threatening letters unless he was planning to extort him later. If you were trying to come by a large amount of money illegally, there had to be easier ways to do it.

I wondered if Hauser might be blackmailing these people with this information. Then any one of them would logically want him dead, but blackmail wasn’t Hauser’s style. Even if it was, he sure as hell wasn’t stupid enough to dump the evidence in my lap.

I guess it was a combination of being tired from the

previous night and the scotch that went down with surprising ease. It wasn’t long before I found myself blinking my eyes to keep the pages in focus. I leaned back into the sofa cushions and let nature take its course.

When I woke up I felt that sudden grip of panic you get when the setting you are in doesn’t fit into the places-I-have-been part of your consciousness. There was a person squatting next to me at my eye level who did not immediately register in the known part of my mind either.

“Sorry I woke you,” she murmured. “I thought maybe I’d dreamed you.”

“That makes two of us,” I said. In the dim light from the hall I could barely make out Elaine’s shape. She switched on the lamp next to the sofa. It must have had an automatic timer because I didn’t remember turning it off.

I rubbed my eyes and ran my hands through my hair. “What time is it?” I yawned.

“Four a.m.”

She was studying me as if for the first time. I did the same. She wore a short robe, fastened at her waist. It was blue terry cloth and slightly worn. Her hair fell loose against her shoulders and her eyes were a serious shade of brown. They matched her expression.

“What did we decide last night?” She took a cigarette from the pack I had set on the coffee table and lit it with my lighter. Then she sat back on the floor, legs crossed in front of her.

“I believe we were going to discuss it in the morning. But I assumed it would be when it looked more like day than night.” I hesitated then continued, realizing, to my consternation, that there was an earnest quality about this woman that would not allow me to lie. “I was planning to be out of here before you got up.”

Her mouth, set in a firm straight line, didn’t give me a clue. She might have been relieved or disappointed. “I was

going to leave my groceries,” I added.

She smiled for the first time. It was unforced and warm, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile do so much for a person’s looks.

“I guess I can’t blame you.” She picked at the gauze on her burned hand. “You must have thought you’d stepped into another dimension.”

My mind replayed some of the highlights from last night. She must have been thinking the same thing because we both laughed a little. Then I decided it was time to get the whole mess straightened out. “Aren’t you supposed to be in a foreign country?”

“I was,” she said. “England.” She sat cross-legged and picked at the carpet, making a pile of tiny lint balls. Finally she continued. “I was riffed.”

“I’m sorry.” What could I say? “You were what?”

She looked up at me. “Reduction in force.” She pounded the pile of lint with her injured hand. “Damn.”

She was bitter, and as she explained I could understand that emotion. She’d been with the company for ten years, starting out in data entry and working her way up to manager of customer education. As she talked, her voice rose and she had trouble keeping it even. But she tried. The company had a couple bad years and started cutting staff. Her position was one of the first they eliminated.

Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “At least that’s what they told me.” She paused and sighed. “I think they just wanted to get rid of me.”

I couldn’t tell whether she wanted me to pursue that so I kept quiet.

Finally she said, “So what it boils down to is I need a roommate or I’m not going to be able to pay the mortgage on this place.”

“You seem pretty certain you aren’t going to get another job.”

“I don’t have any college, let alone an MBA. Nobody hires you for the kind of money I was making without an MBA.”

I wanted to tell her that employers look for more than a diploma. They look for character and assertiveness, and a little bulldog tenacity didn’t hurt either. She seemed to have more than her share of all that, but she wasn’t looking for a pep talk right now. She wanted to allow herself the luxury of wallowing in her own misery for a while first. I knew how she felt.

“So. You need a roommate.”

She nodded. “This is a one bedroom with a den. There’s a pull-out sofa in there. I can sleep on it.” I guess she interpreted my silence as reluctance. She was right. “You could leave whenever you wanted to. It would be cheaper than a hotel.”

As insane as the idea was, it was beginning to make sense, but there was one point I wanted to air out. “I thought I was scum.”

Elaine shrugged. “Actually, what Pam said was that you were a nice guy having a tough time handling the aging process.”

“The aging process? Pam never told me she was a certified psychologist.”

“She said you thought you could recapture your youth with a self-centered twenty-one-year-old.”

“Twenty-three-year-old,” I corrected her, then folded my arms across my chest. “She said that, did she?”

“Uh huh. She also said this woman was a ball-crusher.”

I shrugged. “I like that in a woman.”

She smiled. “You want to try this arrangement for a while?”

I’d like to think I did it for convenience’s sake—no apartment hunting, no hassling with landlords over security deposits—but I think deep down, while I knew that

there are a lot worse things than being alone, there are also a lot better things too. I figured I could invest a week or so in that possibility. Still, I didn’t answer immediately. There was something else to consider here. The woman needed me. More specifically she needed my money. My bargaining position would never be better. “Who gets the parking space?”