The Staked Goat Page 4

  Murphy swung onto Boylston Street, bobbing his head. “Agreed. So what’s your view of it?”

  “I think he was tortured, the rest was red herring.”

  Murphy shot me a glance and nearly creamed a kid on a moped. “Goddamned things shouldn’t be allowed in the city!” He snorted once. “You got any idea why a salesman for some outta-town steel outfit would be tortured?”

  “None,” I said, omitting Al’s gambling remark.

  We circumnavigated the Public Garden as we talked about notifying Al’s wife. Murphy gladly let me take that.

  The lieutenant turned down Charles Street to drop me off at my apartment. As we were pulling to a stop, he said, “Could it have anything to do with his left pinkie being broken?”

  “His pinkie?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said, giving a false, conspiratorial smile, “you know. The hand you were trying to look at when you bumped me with your indignation routine.”

  “I don’t know.”

  The smile faded. “You just told me a lie, mister. One more lie in a murder investigation, and your license is just a memory. Dig?”

  “Yes, sir. Thanks for letting me ride along.”

  “Be seeing you,” said Murphy as I closed his door.

  My primary goal had been to confirm for myself that Al’s death was not what it seemed. The pinkie and the carefully tossed room did that. My secondary goal had been to give Murphy enough doubts to make him accept my eventual explanation. It was important for him to have only a little doubt now because I didn’t want him investigating too deeply. Somehow I didn’t think Murphy’s and my view of squaring things would be equally extreme.

  As I watched him pull away, however, I wondered if he wasn’t a step ahead of me in the doubt department.

  Five

  THE TELEPHONE RANG AT the other end of the line. I glanced down at my watch. 4:35 p.m. A time of traffic tie-ups, Sesame Street, and kids’ afternoon snacks. A mundane time of day to tell someone she’s a widow.

  The fourth ring was interrupted by an adult female voice. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Martha?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  There was a faint scratchiness on the line.

  “Martha, it’s John Cuddy, Al’s friend from the Army. Boston?”

  “Oh, yes, John, so good to finally talk with you. Al said he was going to be seeing you. Is he with you now?”

  “No, he’s not.” I took a chance. “Al told me you had a very close friend in your neighborhood,” I lied, “but I forget her name.”

  “Oh, you mean Carol. Carol Emmer. I mean, Krause. Emmer was her married name.” I could sense her thinking. She gave a little laugh. “John, are we setting up some sort of long-distance blind date?”

  I clamped down hard on my jaw to retard the gagging reflex. “I’m afraid not. Are you alone right now?”

  Her pause on the other end told me she thought it was an odd question. “Yes, except for Al, Junior, of course. He’s napping. I was afraid the phone might have woken him up, but I don’t hear him.” A darkening. “John, what’s the matter?”

  “Martha, when I’m finished talking with you, I want you to call Carol right away, and ask her to come stay with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Martha, Al is dead. Somebody killed him, here in Boston. I was with the police.…” But I was talking into a dead line. I hung up and dialed again. Busy. Twice. I called long-distance information.

  Pittsburgh directory assistance had eight “C. Krauses” and three “C. Emmers.” I explained the situation to the directory assistance operator, who said she could not help, but would switch me to a supervisor. As I waited for the connection, I cursed myself for not pursuing the blind date opening and getting Carol’s number from Martha.

  “Hello, Supervisor Seven speaking, may I help you?”

  I re-explained the situation to Supervisor Seven. “I’m sorry,” she replied, “but I cannot provide any information beyond that listed in the directory.”

  When you face that kind of answer, your options are several but limited. You can blow up and slam down the receiver. You can ask to go above that person’s head, with the person usually poisoning his or her superior against you before you get to speak to the superior. Or you can try a different tack.

  I decided to tack. “Look,” I said, “my best friend from the service was killed here. I’m really concerned for his wife—widow—but I’m not about to send a police car to her home. Can you do this? Can you cross-check the addresses of the “C. Krauses” and “C. Emmers” against the address of “A. Sachs” and tell me which Krause or Emmer lives closest?”

  I heard the supervisor speak to someone off the phone. The supervisor came back on. “If this is a test by Internal Operations, I will personally rip your dialing finger off.”

  I gave a little laugh. I had discovered a human being. “It isn’t, and I really appreciate your help.”

  Twenty seconds or so passed before the supervisor came back on. “We show a C. Krause on the same street as A. Sachs, probably just a few houses away. Here’s the number.”

  I took it down and thanked her again. I called the number and got a pick-up on the fifth ring.

  “Hullo.” The voice of a small boy.

  “Can I speak to your mom?”

  “She’s at work.”

  “It’s very important that I reach her. Can you give me her telephone number there?”

  “No. Mom said never to give out that information.” Click.

  This time I chose option number one. I slammed down the receiver.

  I kept trying Martha’s line every fifteen minutes or so. Busy for two and a half hours. I finally got a ring through about eight o’clock.

  “Sachs residence.” It was a lilting male voice.

  “May I speak with Martha Sachs, please?”

  “I’m so sorry, but she can’t come to the phone just now. Who is this, please?”

  “John Cuddy. If you’re there, I take it you know about Al.”

  “Yes.” There was a catch in his voice. “You’re the bastard from Boston who gave her the news sledgehammer style.”

  Before I could respond, I heard a brief muttered argument and another male voice came on. “Hello, Mr. Cuddy?”

  I sighed. “Yes, who is this?”

  “Dale Palmer. Please excuse Larry, we were all close friends and neighbors of Al, and …”

  “That’s all right. Forget it. Is Martha in shape to talk?”

  “Ah, yes.” He lowered his voice and said, “But I don’t … When Carol—do you know Carol?”

  “Only by name.”

  “Well, when Carol called from the lounge, she got me. Naturally, I rushed over, leaving a note for Larry. I’ve been with her, Martha that is, since five, and she hasn’t shed a tear. She just keeps writing on a list.”

  “A list?”

  “Yes. A list of things to do. About Al.” He stifled a sob. “I tell you, it’s like she was morosely planning a vacation. It’s breaking my heart.”

  He sounded sincere, and I found myself clamping my jaw again. “Listen, Dale, I’ll take care of claiming the body and transporting it to Pittsburgh. Is there a funeral home there Martha would want to use?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”

  “Good. How can I reach you?”

  “Well, one of us, Larry or I, will be here until Carol, who’s really Martha’s best friend, gets off work. I’ll give you our home number and Carol’s, since I’ll be either here, at Carol’s watching her son, Kenny, or at home.”

  Dale sounded like he had an orderly mind and reeled off the numbers, one of which I already had.

  “I’ll call you when I have more information,” I said.

  “Thanks, Mr. Cuddy.”

  “John.”

  “John, thanks for your help and …”

  “Forget it. He was my friend before he was yours.”

  “Good-bye.”

  I felt like having a good dr
ink and a good cry. But I had a lot yet to do. I called a college classmate named George who had gone into the funeral business with his father. George said he would take care of the arrangements and call me with the details.

  I then bundled up and headed back to the Midtown.

  The same kid was behind the desk. Same blazer, same tie, too. I gave him the benefit of the doubt on shirt and underwear. He saw me coming and frowned.

  “I wasn’t quite straight with you last night, Mr. Bell,” I said, using the first name Cross had mentioned. “I’m a detective. I was here this morning with Lieutenant Murphy and Detective Cross.” Never tell a direct lie when a misleading truth carries you as far. “I assume she spoke with you today at home?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “My landlord didn’t appreciate cops coming looking for me.”

  “I’m sorry, but we are talking murder here.”

  “I know that.”

  “Listen,” I said, “Cross is on kind of a probationary period. I’m supposed to find out if she asked you certain questions. It’s like a check-up on her detecting ability. I didn’t want to disturb you at home, so I thought I’d drop by here when I figured you wouldn’t be too busy.”

  “Well,” he said, buying it, “she asked me a hell of a lot of questions. I sure wouldn’t remember all of them.”

  “Did she ask you how long you were working last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what was your answer?”

  “Same as I always work. It’s a school-year job. I work four p.m. to twelve, Monday through Thursday.”

  “Did she ask you if anyone else asked for Mr. Sachs or his room number?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what was your answer?”

  “I told her no.” He cocked his head at me. “How come you need my answers, anyways?”

  Sharp kid, Bell. “Well, unless I know what answer you gave to Question A, I won’t know whether her Question B was a good one.”

  “You sound like one of my professors.” He smiled. “Except you make more sense.”

  I laughed at his joke. “Thanks.”

  We continued through everything else I could think of, including whether any maintenance work had been done recently on Room 304 (no) and whether anything else odd had happened that night (no, again).

  “Lastly,” I said, “did she ask who followed you at midnight?”

  “No, she already knew that.”

  I called back the other name Cross had mentioned yesterday.

  “Teevens? Douglas Teevens?”

  “Yeah. He’ll be in tonight.”

  “Good,” I said. I nodded to the bar. “Let me know when he comes in.”

  He nodded and said, “Well?”

  I looked at him. “Well, what?”

  “Well, did she pass?”

  “Pass? Oh, Cross, yeah, she did just fine.”

  “I’m glad,” said the kid. “She was angry about something when she talked to me, but I got the impression it wasn’t me she was angry at.”

  “Yeah,” I said, and hoped Cross never found out about her probationary check-up.

  Bell looked in the cocktail lounge and gestured that Teevens was here. My watch said 12:05 a.m., and I had nursed three screwdrivers for the past three hours. The place had been quiet, the salesmen from Wichita apparently taking their revue on the road.

  Teevens was a carbon copy of Bell, though Teevens’ jacket fit a little better. Bell was already gone, so I used the same ploy to warm up his successor. It worked again, Teevens allowing me to take him through Cross’ interrogation of him.

  “Now, did she ask you if anything unusual happened during your shift?”

  Teevens frowned a minute. “No, I don’t think so. I think she just asked me if anybody asked for Mr. Sachs or Room 304.”

  I paused. Maybe Cross should still be on probation. “Well,” I said, “did anything unusual happen?”

  “No … unless …”

  “Yes?”

  “Well … it wasn’t really unusual.”

  “Why don’t you explain it to me.”

  “O.K. You see, the lounge closes at two, and so around two-thirty, Milt, he’s the bartender, usually calls me in to check his dollar count against his cash register tape. It’s kind of unnecessary, you know, since the tape is always checked against his cash pouch anyways. But it’s a hotel rule, so we do it. It was maybe two-fifteen when a guy comes into the lobby. He smiles at me and goes into the lounge, then comes out again and says the bartender wants to see me. I figured the guy had wanted a drink and saw the lounge was closed. Also, it was an awfully slow night, so I figured that maybe Milt had his count done and wanted to leave early. So I thanked the guy and walked into the bar. I didn’t see Milt right away because he was squatting down counting liquor bottles or something. He said he hadn’t asked any guy to get me. In fact, he hadn’t even seen anybody. I walked back out and the guy was gone. That’s it.”

  I had a sinking feeling but quelled it. “Can you describe this guy?”

  He closed his eyes and opened them again. “I didn’t pay too much attention, you know. I mean it isn’t so unusual for Milt to ask somebody to get me or tell me something. The guy was short, maybe five-six or five-seven, with a hat, glasses, I think.”

  “Color hair?”

  “Don’t know with the hat and all.”

  “And all?”

  “Well, he had on a raincoat with the collar up. You really couldn’t see much of him.”

  “Color raincoat?”

  “Trenchcoat type, you know.”

  “Color eyes?”

  “Didn’t notice.”

  “Mustache, beard?”

  “Don’t remember one, but he could have. Honest, I really didn’t pay much attention.”

  I nodded.

  He continued, “Is this gonna get the woman detective in trouble?”

  “No, no,” I said, “I doubt if it’s related at all to what she was doing.” I resurrected my unsettling thought. “One thing, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Would this guy have had time, while you were in the bar, to go through anything at the desk here?”

  “Actually, I thought of that and checked around. Everything was still here.”

  “Yes,” I said patiently, “but would he have had time to look at the register, that sort of thing?”

  “Well, we don’t have a register exactly, we use cards and put them in this View-dex thing. But, yeah, he would have had ten or twenty seconds to look at something before I got back. Course he would’ve had to use some of that to take off.”

  “Right,” I said and thanked him. As I walked out to my car, I kept glancing around. If I had killed the man in 304 earlier that evening, I would have had his hotel key, and I damn well would have wanted to check his room for any trace that could lead the cops to me. I also would have wanted to read the pink message slip in his mail box. You know, the slip with the name “J.F. Cuddy” on it. The slip implying that the man who had to be killed for some reason had spoken with Cuddy earlier that day.

  Shit and double shit.

  Six

  I GOT HOME FROM the Midtown about 1:15 a.m. I played back the telephone tape machine in case anything had happened in Pittsburgh. Dale Palmer’s voice read the name and address of a no-rip-off, nondenominational funeral home to me and then said Carol would be with Martha all night. Next came George’s voice, asking me to call him at home or at work for the details on transporting Al’s body. Last came Jesse Cooper, asking me to call. I checked my watch. If I called Jesse and Emily at 1:27 a.m., I would scare them more than Marco had. I set my alarm for 7:00 a.m. and fell into bed.

  The next morning, I got up with the alarm. Don Kent on WBZ radio said it was 28 degrees. I laced up my running shoes, did ten minutes of warm-ups, and then pulled on a sweater, sweatshirt, and sweatpants. I tugged a black watchcap over my ears and had my hand on the door when I remembered my talk with the second desk clerk the night before. I pulled the lef
t leg of the elastic-ankled sweatpants up over my knee and jerry-rigged a calf-holster for my .38 Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special. The butt of the small revolver hung down about ten inches above my ankle. I pulled the sweatpants leg back down, stood straight, and experimented with drawing the gun past the elastic. After about three minutes, I could execute a reasonably good draw, assuming any potential assailant allowed me time to stoop to tie my shoelaces.

  I left the apartment and began running slowly toward the river two blocks away. I got barely across the footbridge spanning the multi-lane highway called Storrow Drive when the pain of the gun butt bonking against my shin got so intense I had to stop. I looked around and saw no one. I bent and drew the weapon, stuffing it in the front double pocket of my sweatshirt. I then did a mile and a half up the river and back, with my hands in my front pocket stabilizing the revolver. I must have looked like a potbellied clown.

  I stopped running on the river side of the footbridge. I walked over it and up Cambridge Street a block to disperse the lactic acid that otherwise stiffens the joints. I also bought a paper and six donuts as a reward for running three miles. Home, I stripped, warmed down, showered, and drank a glass of ice water to rehydrate. I then sipped a quart of orange juice with the donuts over the Globe.

  By 9 a.m., I was ready to face my problems. I called George and gave him the name of the Pittsburgh funeral home. He explained the details of the transport via Delta Airlines. I thanked him and rang off.

  I called Delta to arrange my ticket, then called Dale Palmer’s number and got Larry. He apologized for being bitchy the night before. I said not to worry about it and asked about Martha. He said he hadn’t seen her since just after he spoke to me. I gave him my flight number. Larry said he or Dale would meet the plane and gave me a detailed description of both. I reciprocated and we hung up friendly if not friends.

  Lastly, I called Jesse and Emily. He answered with a tentative hello.

  “Hi, Jesse.”

  “Who is this?” he demanded.