Yesterday's News - Jeremiah Healy Read online

  Bingo. "What's the rest of the deal?"

  "This here pint be enough for me tonight. I ain't no fuckin drunk like some peoples I could mention."

  "And?"

  "And I calls you tomorrow."

  "You're gonna call me tomorrow."

  "Yeah. You know, like on the telephone?"

  "Why can't you just tell me now?"

  "'Cause I tells you now, you pays me now. Then I ain't gots nothing by tomorrow 'cause the scum I gots to live with here rip me off."

  "What makes you think I'll pay you tomorrow?"

  "Watched you with them fuckin white boys up the alley. You the kind comes through. You learns that on the bum, you know?"

  I took out the Crestview card I had and wrote my name on it. I put it in Vip's shirt pocket.

  "Tomorrow's a long day. When are you going to call me?"

  "Don't gots no watch, man. Wanna leave me yours?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Then be sometime after sun-up. I don't lays around all day like some peoples I could mention."

  I rose.

  Vip said, "And bring cash money when you comes. You overpaying for this cheap shit I gots to drink."

  11

  Thursday morning broke bright and clear. I opened the window, drawing in deep breaths of ocean air, the seagulls shrieking. I hit the bathroom, then pulled on running shorts, shoes, and a tee shirt Nancy had given me with the legend PUSHINC FORTY IS EXERCISE ENOUGH.

  Walking by the motel office, I spotted Jones bustling behind the desk. I opened the door and said, "Emil. You're up pretty early. "

  He looked annoyed. "Goddam receipts."

  "What's the matter?"

  "I can't find them. I'm the only goddam employee of this chickenshit outfit, and I can't Find the goddam receipts book that I musta laid some goddam place." He leaned over the counter.

  "The hell is that getup?"

  "I'm going running. Any jogging trails you can recommend?"

  "Jogging trails? You've gotta be shitting me."

  "How about just a nice road, reasonably flat, that I can go out about two miles and then come back. "

  Jones pointed. "You drive west of here yet?"

  "No."

  "Well, head west along Crestview. The road'll drop toward sea level pretty quick, then she's flat and steady along the water for a while. Take her acrost the river bridge. Other side of the bridge oughta be about two miles."

  "Thanks, Emil."

  I told him a guy who sounded down and out might telephone for me. Jones groused about it, but finally agreed to take any message.

  As I left the office, I heard him mutter, "Jogging trails."

  * * *

  Crestview descended fifty feet, my hamstrings bunching as I thumped downhill. The harbor smell was pungent, probably from the natural human pollution of too many shacks, with too little plumbing, lying in an uneven string along the water to my left. The houses on the other side of the street were bigger though apparently no younger, with the mismatched proportions of the homemade. I counted a trailer about every fourth lot. There wasn't much vehicular traffic. A cadaverous guy in a baseball cap driving an old yellow pickup waved to me as he headed east. A newsboy with no front teeth on a heavy-frame Schwinn almost collided with me at a hedged driveway. An asthmatic Buick with two primer-painted fenders and a mud-splattered rear end chugged up behind me, passed, and continued around the bend, spewing a noxious combination of oil and smoke out its rope-rigged tail pipe.

  You can learn more about an area walking or jogging than driving. I think it's because you have the freedom to appreciate something three or four times from slightly different aspects. A wooden lobster boat, sloughed in a side yard, being cannibalized fore and aft to supply its successor. A dozen lobster pots, the old kind with slat-and-wire construction, rising in alternating tiers on a sagging front porch. Engine parts, heaped in uneven piles outside a double garage with only one door still hinged. A cardboard FOR SALE BY OWNER sign tacked optimistically to a stake in the seared lawn of a plywood cottage with a tin roof.

  Halfway through the bend in the road I could see the bridge looming a mile away. A refugee from an erector set, its head and shoulders were covered by a mist the low-angle sun hadn't yet burned off. Picking up the pace a mite, I heard a car with a powerful engine start somewhere behind me. The driver throttled down and seemed to approach, the sound diminishing again. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the front of a Camaro, its amber parking lights watching me from the mouth of the bend. After a minute, I looked again. The car hadn't moved.

  I tried to think of what the driver could be doing other than following me. I couldn't come up with anything. On the other hand, he was keeping his distance. Only a quarter mile now

  from the bridge, I told myself was imagining things.

  I went by a few more houses and a shanty "Open for Breakfast" but hosting only two cars outside it. One was the beat-up Buick that had lapped me earlier. Facing out, its lavish grille gave me a sharklike smile as I went by. The imagination is a bad creature to unleash.

  The bridge itself was two lanes, all I-beams and bolts, rusted here and reinforced there. It looked about a hundred yards long, spanning the shallow river maybe a hundred feet below. There was a steel vertical barrier on the outside walkway of each lane to keep vehicles from sliding off into space. No traffic in sight front or back. I decided to lope along the pedestrian curb anyway.

  I was maybe twenty strides onto the bridge when I heard the Buick's engine cough and catch, the driver gunning it to life. I didn't remember hearing the car door open or close, though the morning air was still enough that I should have.

  I broke into a sprint for the other side of the river.

  The Buick roared up behind me, spitting and choking. I risked a glance. The sun was behind the ear, silhouetting the driver as he or she wrenched the wheel to the right, climbing the curb. I was like a bug in a rifle barrel, with the Buick as bullet coming up after me.

  Looking forward again, I had at least another fifty yards to the land on the other side of the bridge. Six to seven seconds minimum at the maximum spurt I could manage.

  I heard the Buick sand some paint off the side of the bridge. Real close.

  Using the barrier part of the bridge as a gymnast's horse, I vaulted up and over. There was six inches of I-beam extruding from the outboard side. My right foot landed and held. The Buick struck the barrier just as my left foot hit, causing me to slide off. The beam barked the skin off my left shin and knee. Falling, I grabbed for a cross-rung abutment of some kind with my right hand. I couldn't hold on, but it slowed me enough to let me grab and hold the next. Some rarely used muscles popped in my upper arm, but I was able to swing, chimplike, onto another crosspiece with my left hand, getting a purchase with both feet a second later.

  The Buick sounded as though it kept going, the wheezing of its engine replaced by the gutty rasp of the other car I'd seen, charging hard, horn blaring. The Camaro came to a screeching halt something short of where I was.

  After a car door opened, I heard running steps. Leaning out, I saw a familiar face peering moonlike over the top edge of the barrier.

  Duckie Teevens said, "Shit, Cuddy, you look just like Spiderman there."

  * * *

  "You make the driver?"

  Duckie shook his head. "I saw the car start up just after you left the motel, but I didn't pay him any attention till I saw him jump the fuckin curb on the bridge." Duckie swiveled toward me and smiled. "I figured he had you sure."

  "It was a man, then?"

  "Huh?"

  "You keep saying 'him' and 'he.' Could you tell it was a man behind the wheel?"

  "No way. I think whoever it was had one of those commando hats on, you know?"

  "Commando hat. You mean a watch cap?"

  "Yeah, those little black things like the kids wear in the snow. Probably was a guy, though."

  "Why?"

  "Can't see no broad cold-blooded enough to g
o after you with a car like that."

  "Why didn't you chase after him, then?"

  Teevens laughed. "I thought you were feeding the minnows. The boss told me, keep an eye on you. Can't keep no eye on you if you're in the water and I'm going after some hit-and-runner, making some kind of citizen's arrest for crissake."

  "You peg the Buick as a hit-and-run?"

  Duckie slowed for a car turning left, then went around it slowly, using his signal both swerving right and coming back left. He waved to a police car parked in the shadow of a variety store just past the intersection.

  "I knew the fucker was there! Thursday morning, he's always there by now. Thinks he was gonna get me, hot car like this. I tell you, I drive them nuts, I do. I got this jet engine under me, I drive like a fuckin grandma. Never got a ticket for nothing, moving violation, equipment, nothing. Fuckers."

  "Duckie, you peg the Buick as a hit-and-run?"

  He looked over at me. "No. I don't see it that way."

  "How do you see it?"

  "Seems kinda strange, him lying for you like that, then setting himself up so he could get you on the bridge. Takes a lot of thought, seems to me. Cold mother."

  "Also seems kind of strange that Coyne gets himself stabbed, Jane Rust takes an overdose, and the Buick sets up to nail me like that, and they're not connected."

  "You're the detective, pal"

  "So you still buy your boss's view of somebody acing Coyne as an informant?"

  "I can see it."

  "If it was your brother Coyne had dropped?"

  Teevens got exasperated. "Look, Cuddy, you watch much TV when you were a kid?"

  "Some."

  "You shoulda paid more attention. That kinda thing happens all the time. Sometimes, a guy turns another guy for money, the first guy don't get to count the money, let alone spend any of it."

  "And somebody who killed Coyne that way gets Rust to take mashed-up sleeping pills and then tries to spread me over that barrier back there? It doesn't make sense."

  "Like I said, you're the detective." He glanced down at my leg. "Looks pretty bad there. You want a doctor?"

  "No, thanks. Drugstore'll do it."

  Duckie stopped outside a CVS. I went in and bought some antiseptic, bandages, and adhesive tape. Back in the Camaro, there was no talking until we pulled into the motel parking lot. As I was getting out of the car, he twisted his torso to face me.

  "Cuddy?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Something like this happens again, don't bet the mortgage on me being around, okay?"

  I looked at him. He said, "I tell the boss about this here, and he's probably gonna tell me to give up tailing you."

  I hopped on my right foot and swung the bad leg out of the car. Closing the door, I said, "Thanks for everything so far. "

  Teevens said, "I mean it," and drove away.

  * * *

  "Christ on a crutch, what happened to you?"

  Jones hung back in the doorway to my unit, as I washed away the blood in the tub and swabbed antiseptic on the abraded skin.

  "Seems jogging's a contact sport down here, Emil."

  "Get you anything?"

  I motioned toward the items on top of the toilet tank. "I'll be fine with the gauze and all."

  "Lemme bring you some breakfast, anyway. Muffins and eggs okay?"

  "Great. Thanks."

  "Be a few minutes. After all this, gotta check on something first."

  "What do you have to check on?"

  "Whether you're paid up in advance or not." He turned to go.

  "Finally found the goddam receipt book."

  12

  I finished licking my wounds and ate the breakfast Jones brought me. Getting into a pair of slacks and a sports shirt, I walked stiffly to the car. By setting the seat back farther than usual, I could work the clutch while still being able to control the gas and brake with my right foot.

  On the way into town, I stopped and again dialed the office of Richard Dykestra. The receptionist again told me the developer was unavailable. I thanked her and hung up.

  Back in the car, I drove until I saw a stationery store on Main Street. I bought a small book mailer and a fancy label. On the label, I wrote Dykestra's name and address. In the upper left corner of the mailer, I printed the name and address of the fictitious Boston law firm of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe.

  Then I parked at a meter near the police building. Approaching the front doors, I saw Captain Hogueira in a large, black Oldsmobile, Manos at the wheel. I limped over.

  "Mr. Cuddy, you are hurt? We are just returning, but perhaps we could provide you with a ride. This car is one of the few privileges of my rank."

  "I'll be alright, thank you. I would like to talk though. Before I see your esteemed colleague Captain Hagan."

  * * *

  In his office, Hogueira said, "How may I be of service?"

  "Fair to say the uniformed branch here investigates traffic incidents?"

  "With diligence."

  "Somebody almost ran me down this morning."

  "When?"

  "About six-thirty."

  "Where?"

  "The car followed me from the motel west along Crestview, then tried to resurface the river bridge with me. "

  "Most unfortunate. Witnesses?"

  "One."

  Hogueira regarded me for a moment. "Before I inquire of the name of the witness, may I ask why you waited these several hours to report the accident?"

  "No accident. The driver was trying to kill me."

  "You saw the driver?"

  "No. And I didn't get a plate number, either. "

  Hogueira shrugged. "Of little importance. Almost certainly stolen." His eyes refocused on me. "Again, however, why did you wait so long to contact us?"

  "I thought I should bandage myself up first."

  "You are injured badly?"

  "More in pride than body. I should have seen it coming."

  "You should have realized someone would try to kill you with a car?"

  "I should have realized that if someone was willing to kill Charlie Coyne and Jane Rust, I probably weighed in as an afterthought."

  "Oh, Mr. Cuddy, you should not sell yourself so short. Your presence in our city seems alone to be reordering all kinds of priorities. And speaking of priorities, can you tell me now why you waited so long to report the occurrence of early this morning to the police?"

  The Little Prince, who once having asked a question .... "I wanted to be sure I'd be reporting it to the right side of the department."

  Hogueira breathed laboriously. Not aggravated, just considering things. "Perhaps I should inquire now of the name of your witness?"

  "Duckie Teevens. An employee of Bunny Gotbaum."

  "Ah, yes. Well, it seems your first impression of the right side of the department is incorrect. This incident certainly seems within Captain Hagan's domain. There is a bench just outside his office where you can await him in relative comfort."

  * * *

  Hagan stumped past me, favoring his right leg. "I can give you five minutes, Cuddy."

  I stood awkwardly from the bench, thinking that I hadn't seen him walking the day before. "Old Buick with primered fenders, right?"

  He stared at me, his hand on the doorknob to his office.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Your leg. You got chased by an old Buick this morning, too?"

  "Football from high school. Acts up once in a while. You want to see me or not?"

  I followed him into the office. We sat down, and I explained what happened to me, including Duckie as witness.

  Hagan said, "Sounds to me like your witness is part of your problem."

  "More like I'm part of somebody else's problem."

  Hagan reclined in the chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. "Guy could have been coming off a bad night. Boss lays him off, he gets soused, maybe mistakes you for the boss."

  "Captain, when I was in the MP's, we had a kind of principle we live
d by. Know what it was?"

  "Can't wait to hear."

  "We used to say that nothing happens by coincidence. Everything that seems related is related. Cause and effect, disease and symptom."

  "What is this, Philosophy 101?"

  "No, it's murder. Two completed, one attempted. No avenging clock-puncher this morning, either. Thoughtful, professional, and damned near successful."

  "So you say. And so Duckie boy says. Talk to the sergeant downstairs. He can write up an incident report. That it?"

  "Yeah, that's it. Except for one thing."

  "Which is?"

  "How come you didn't tell me the autopsy report showed Jane Rust was pregnant?"

  "I told you that I couldn't see dredging up her problems once she'd decided to end them." Hagan reached for a file on his desk. "Have a nice day, now."

  * * *

  HARBORSIDE CONDOMINIUMS, LTD.

  EXPERIENCE A WORLD OF WONDER LIVING BY THE SEA.

  RICHARD DYKESTRA, DEVELOPER

  That's what the big sign said. The little sign hanging from the chain link fence was a bit more realistic: THIS IS A HARD-HAT JOB. I pulled the Prelude past the gate and parked behind a Ford Bronco with jumbo tires and a raised suspension. There were plenty of empty spaces around it. I took another look at my book mailer. The hand-printed return address wouldn't fool even a slow secretary, but I figured it could get me onto the job site. Walking back, I noticed the padlock on the gate was open. I pushed it in.

  The site was a countinghouse on an old wharf. The wharf itself, rotting timber pilings and some huge old boulders, didn't seem the most stable foundation for a condo complex. It appeared that Dykestra was going to build his wonderland within the shell of the old countinghouse, since half the exterior filling of the structure had been demolished, leaving only the skeleton of beams and joists that one day would be polished ribs in stylish, fireplaced living rooms. If Harborside were ever finished and successfully sold.

  There was very little activity on the site. No crane and wrecking ball to punch out the unwanted parts. I could count only three guys in a far corner, one measuring, two others standing by, leaning on sledgehammers. Day labor is one thing you can't get on credit. Nobody who needs a pay envelope every Thursday's going to stay on the job if wages aren't kept current.