Deadfall

Chapter Fifteen

The telephone was ringing when I let myself into my flat. I thought it might be Kerry, even though she had a dinner date tonight with one of her lady friends, so I made a run for the bedroom and hauled up the receiver in the middle of another ring.

But it wasn’t Kerry; surprisingly enough, the caller was Alicia Purcell. “I hope you don’t mind my calling you at home,” she said. “But I tried your office and I don’t particularly like talking to answering machines.”

“Quite all right. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about this morning… the way our interview ended. I’ve decided I behaved rather badly.”

“Maybe we both did,” I said.

“Yes, maybe. But I don’t want you to have the wrong impression of me. If there’s any chance at all of a connection between Leonard’s murder and Kenneth’s death I really would like to help.”

“I appreciate that, Mrs. Purcell.”

“Won’t you call me Alicia? I don’t care for formality.”

“If you like.”

“I thought… well, I plan to be home this evening and I thought that if you have any more questions, and if you’re not busy, you might like to come by for another talk. I promise to be much more cooperative this time.”

Uh-huh, I thought cynically, I’ll just bet. She might be sincere, of course, but more likely she was after something-and my flabby middle-aged body wasn’t it. Probably looking to find out what I’d found out so far, for whatever reason, and going about it in the way she knew best. What was it her stepdaughter had called her? A collector of men? Not this man, lady. Even if I was the type to play games, which I wasn’t, I was too old and too jungle-wise to become another hide in a female hunter’s trophy case. I also didn’t happen to believe in sex on the barter system-the old you-pump-me-for-information-and-then-I-pump-you tradeoff. And if all of that wasn’t enough, the woman did nothing whatsoever for me physically. The thought of spending an intimate evening with her, of her maybe biting my neck with that bloody red mouth of hers, gave me a case of the shudders.

I said, “Thanks for the offer, Mrs. Purcell, but I’ve made other plans for the evening.”

“Alicia,” she said. “You’re sure you couldn’t break them?”

“Positive. My fiancee wouldn’t like it.”

“Oh, I see. Perhaps another time, then.”

“If it becomes necessary. I do have a few questions I could ask you now, though, since you’re eager to help.”

There was a pause. I imagined her gritting her teeth, holding herself in check-a nice little fantasy image, true or not. But she had left herself wide open for this and there wasn’t any way for her to refuse me without making herself look bad.

When she came to the same conclusion she said, “Go right ahead.”

“Do you know a man named Danny Martinez?”

“Who?”

“Danny Martinez. A former deliveryman for Cabrillo Market.”

“Hardly. Lina takes care of deliveries. Why are you asking me about a deliveryman?”

“He was at your house the night of the party. He made a delivery at about the time your husband disappeared.”

“Yes?”

“He’s the man who contacted Leonard two weeks ago. The man who claimed your husband was murdered.”

“I see. Have you talked to him, then?”

“Not yet. He disappeared a couple of weeks ago.”

“Disappeared?”

“Packed up his belongings and left the area-probably for Mexico. The authorities are looking for him now.”

“You’ve told the police about him?”

“Any reason I shouldn’t have?”

“No, of course not. Have you uncovered any other proof Kenneth was murdered?”

“I’m working on it,” I said.

“I still find the idea incredible. If it’s true, I can’t imagine who could have done it.”

“I’m working on that, too.”

“Do you suspect someone?”

“No one specifically. Not just yet.”

“Do you think the same person murdered Leonard?”

“That’s the way it looks.”

“Will you let me know if you find out anything else? I’m very concerned about this, naturally.”

“Naturally. You’ll be one of the first to know.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Good night.”

“Good night, Mrs. Purcell.”

I put the handset down, thinking, Brrr! Hot stuff, hell; underneath that sexy exterior she’s a chilly piece of goods. Going to bed with her would be like going to bed with a block of ice. You’d wake up in the morning with some of your parts frozen solid.

I took off my suit and put on my old chenille bathrobe, the one Kerry hated and was always threatening to throw out-grounds for break-up of our relationship if she did. A Bud Light and a 1937 issue of Strange Detective Mysteries helped me unwind. Paul Ernst’s “Madame Murder-and the Corpse Brigade” made me hungry, for some reason; at least my stomach was growling when I finished it. There was some chicken left over from last night. Most of it, in fact, since Kerry had refused to eat more than one wing, saying, “I hate burnt chicken.” Well, it wasn’t burnt, not too badly anyhow. All you had to do was scrape off the black crap here and there and the rest of it went down just fine. I gobbled four pieces and some cold zucchini-with-parmesan, opened another beer, and returned to the living room and Strange Detective Mysteries.

The damn telephone rang again just as I was entering the bang-up finale of “Idiot’s Coffin Keepsake” by Norbert Davis.

Grumbling, I put the magazine down and went to answer it. And this time it wasn’t anybody I wanted to talk to-the last person I wanted to talk to, as a matter of fact. It was the Reverend Raymond P. Dunston, and the first thing he said was, “I would like to speak to my wife. Please put her on the line.”

I swallowed the first two words that came to me and held my tongue and my temper for a good ten seconds. When I felt I could speak in a rational and reasonable tone I said, “In the first place, Dunston, you don’t have a wife; you have an ex-wife. And in the second place, she isn’t here.”

“I called her apartment,” he said. “She isn’t there. She isn’t working late at her office, either.”

“She’s gone out to dinner with a friend.”

“What friend?”

“A lady friend.”

“What is the friend’s name?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Is she coming there afterward?”

She wasn’t, but I said, “Well? What if she is?”

“ ‘Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?’ ” he said. “ ‘Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his neighbor’s wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.’ Proverbs, six: twenty-seven through twenty-nine.”

“Now listen, Dunston-”

“It is you who should listen,” he said. “Not to me but to the word of God. Kerry Anne is my wife. She is my wife. ‘Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’ Genesis, two: twenty-three and twenty-four.”

“Quote the Bible all you want,” I said, “it doesn’t make any difference. Kerry isn’t your wife, she doesn’t want to be your wife, she’ll never be your wife again. That’s the way it is, so you might as well face-”

He hung up on me.

I strangled the receiver for a time and then slammed it down. But my aim wasn’t very good: it hit the base unit glancingly and knocked the thing off the nightstand, and when it fell it landed on my right instep. I hopped around on the other foot, cussing, and tripped on a corner of the bedspread and sprawled sideways across the bottom of the bed and cracked my funny bone on the frame. When I recoiled from that I slid off onto the floor and banged down on both knees. I heaved myself up raging, feeling like a fool, and the phone was lying there in two parts and a beeping noise was coming out of it. I wanted to kick it to shut it up, but I had enough sense to know that if I did I would probably break a toe or my whole damn foot. I sat on the bed-let the thing beep, the hell with it-and alternately rubbed my elbow and my instep, the two places that hurt the most, while I thought dark thoughts.

Dunston, I thought, this is not going to go on much longer. It is going to be resolved, Dunston, one way or another, even if I have to put in a long-distance call to God myself.

After a while the dark thoughts went away, leaving the feeling of foolishness behind. I sighed, got up, made the phone whole again, and limped into the living room. And crawled back into “Idiot’s Coffin Keepsake,” which was right where I belonged.