Inherit the Dead

20 LAWRENCE BLOCK

Angel and her father had close to an hour’s lead, but it didn’t matter. Perry knew where they were going. He just had to get there before they had time to bury any evidence. Before they had time to plan. Before they had time to disappear.

But they wouldn’t disappear. Not yet. Not until Angel’s birthday, which was still a few days away. No one runs away before she inherits a fortune.

Traffic had ended, night had descended, and the LIE was moving. Perry’s foot was heavy on the gas pedal, and he was weaving in and out of traffic. He checked the rearview mirror. No tail this time, at least none he was aware of.

But why stop tailing him now?

Because whoever had followed him was after Angel and she had been found. But was she still in danger? Or was she the biggest danger of all?

He pictured the black car racing down Washington Avenue directly at Angel. Then he pictured Angel in a car, sitting beside her father.

Her father. If there was anyone Perry did not trust, it was Norman Loki.

Loki, the one who had written the terms of the inheritance and had lied about it.

He checked his mirrors again. Still no tail he could see. But maybe he’d been wrong, maybe the tail was just a diversion, and Julia Drusilla had been the target all along. But Julia’s whereabouts were no secret, never had been.

And leaping to her death?

Not a chance. Not the steely woman who told him she never went out on her terrace.

I’m not a fan of heights.

People with a fear of water did not drown themselves. People with a fear of heights did not jump from penthouse terraces.

Then someone had pushed her. But who?

They were all in his mind now, everyone he’d met in connection to Angel.

Lilith Bates, who had lied about knowing Randy Hyde then followed him to make sure her dirty little secret stayed buried. But was it more than that? Could she possibly have been in cahoots with the mechanic to get rid of Angel? But what would she get out of Angel’s demise? Randy. Maybe. But did she really want him that bad, a sex machine who she was ashamed to be seen with?

And what about Randy? With sex and money to offer, Angel could probably get that oversexed grease monkey to do anything, even kill her mother for her. But the guy didn’t seem smart enough to pull it off, to sneak in and out of Julia’s penthouse unseen. Though Angel was smart enough to do anything. What had her nanny said about her?

She’s never been just a kid. But she’s smart — smartest child I ever took care of — because she had to be.

Yeah, Angel was smart all right. But even the smart ones messed up; Perry knew that. And there it was again, lurking at the fringe of his subconscious, something Angel had said, something simple and innocuous, which had made him know she was a liar. But what was it?

Perry rolled down his window for a blast of cold air, something to clear his head.

And what about that shady politician, Tweed? Now there was a man with plenty to lose. Had Angel been pressuring him to leave his wife? Or was he worried she’d expose their affair and he wanted her out of the picture? He could have been the one to send a killer after Angel, thought Perry. But why would he send someone to kill her mother? Nothing to be gained in that.

And it was about gain, wasn’t it?

Didn’t it always come down to that, to money?

And Angel had the most to gain. And maybe her father.

The two of them conspiring to get the money. All of the money. It was the only thing that made sense.

Unless Perry was wrong. Unless his instinct had failed him.

The lights of Forest Hills high-rise apartments slid by like a million tiny comets. Then the Unisphere, that odd 1960s remnant of the World’s Fair. It looked to him like a prop from some low-budget sci-fi movie. He drove past Kissena Boulevard and Utopia Parkway until Queens was an afterthought and he was driving through Nassau County, where the lights grew dimmer and traffic thinned.

Perry pictured Angel the last time he’d seen her, hair pulled back, pearls around her neck, already looking like the wealthy matron she was about to become. He saw the dark glasses and then the tears in her eyes, and he wanted to believe her but he didn’t.

He stared through the windshield, the voice of his old friend in his head: So if you want to lose the only friend you’ve got around here, go right ahead and continue doing what you’re doing. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

He thought: I have to prove to Henry Watson that I’m still a good detective.

Then he thought: This isn’t about proving anything to Henry. It’s about proving it to myself.

No way he could fuck up again. No way he would be the fool, the dupe, the guy who walked away with his tail between his legs.

Window up, down, cold air, then heat, he couldn’t get it right. Couldn’t get any of it right, all the conflicting thoughts of this case buzzing in his brain.

Did Angel need more than a couple of hundred million on top of whatever money she was already getting?

Did Norman Loki?

Julia had said her ex-husband was well taken care of, and it looked it. But who knew what sort of debt the man might have. He was a liar and a chameleon, a weed-smoking, aging hippie one minute, a vicious drunk the next.

Perry tried to picture him pushing his ex-wife off the terrace, but the man didn’t seem brave enough.

And what about Angel? Would her nanny really lie for her?

Perry could see Athena Williams defending her charge to the death, but covering up a murder? Not that.

So what was he missing?

Window down again, another blast of night air needed to jog his addled sleep-deprived mind.

He drove through Hauppauge, Patchogue, Nesconset — towns with Native American names that hadn’t seen an Indian for hundreds of years.

He pictured the gold-framed photograph at the nanny’s home — the teenage girl with feet planted firmly on the floor, her cool blue eyes and defiant chin. A tough little girl. Not the trembling siren he’d held in his arms, the gorgeous creature who made it impossible for him, for any man, to think straight.

Perry stared into the dark road ahead. What was it she’d said that had lodged in his brain, something that had caught in the lower register of his psyche, something that had made him think she was lying? Know she was lying. What the hell was it?

He tried to get at it, but all he could see was Julia Drusilla splayed on the sidewalk like a broken marionette and his last friend in the police department accusing him of reckless behavior.

But it was there somewhere, a word or two buzzing in the back of his brain like a gnat.

Perry turned off at the Manorville exit that would lead to the smaller roads connecting to the Hamptons. The moon was out, almost full, its silvery light illuminating the edges of the huge Stargazer sculpture on the deserted field by the side of the road. He knew it was supposed to be an abstract deer, but tonight it looked like something ferocious.

It brought him back to another night in the Hamptons, a night with no moon, no stars. Just a madman he had tracked and almost killed. A madman who had almost killed him. Another missing-persons case, another young woman. One he had not been able to save.

Like a phantom limb his side began to throb where the bullet had gone through flesh and muscle and the face of Derace McDonald was in his mind, a specter that never truly left him.

He saw other faces, too — the girl’s parents, who had hired him to find their child when the police and FBI had failed. McDonald was locked away now, a mad lab rat for psychiatrists to study. But the girl Perry had been hired to find was dead. And despite the fact that the cards had been stacked against him, that the police and the FBI had not found the girl, it didn’t matter because she had died. In the end, he had failed and had almost died himself.

The reason, Perry knew, that he had taken this case: to get it right this time. To save a girl. To save Angel. And he’d found her and she wasn’t dead. But still, his client had died, even though there was no madman like Derace McDonald coming after his client or after him.

Or was there?

Perry thumped his palm against the steering wheel, his adrenaline pumping, nerve ends tingling.

Was it possible her father had set it all up, that right now he was arranging for Angel’s death so that he would inherit all of the money? No one had asked where the money went if both Angel and Julia were dead, and Norman Loki was the logical benefactor.

Perry put more weight on the gas pedal, broke the speed limit on the quiet two-lane road through Water Mill, then Bridgehampton, then East Hampton.

He pictured Norman at the station house, a protective arm around his daughter; then he pictured him so drunk he’d barely made sense. He saw Angel, too, tears in her eyes asking how her mother had died but not acting shocked when she’d gotten the answer.

He drove through Amagansett, trying to remember the exact words that had made him doubt her, and for a split second he could hear her voice and what she said before it disappeared into a tangle of ganglia.

Had he imagined it?

Maybe he was wrong about Angel. Maybe she was a victim — or about to be.

The road to Montauk was dark, just a few lights flickering in houses on the dunes but almost no cars. Perry gripped the steering wheel. Another mile flew by, then another, until he saw it: the turnoff to Norman Loki’s house.

Perry switched off his headlights and headed slowly down the private lane. He cut the engine halfway to the house and took the rest on foot.

An icy chill blew across the dunes and bluff, and he shivered as he walked, head down, collar up, not sure what he was going to do when he got there.

And that’s when it came to him: what Angel had said.

Up ahead he could see the house, the cars; he could just make out Norman Loki’s Jeep and Mercedes in the moonlight.

The downstairs windows were lit up and smoke billowed from the chimney. It looks like it’s out of a storybook, he thought, cozy and tranquil. But he knew better.

Nicky’s striped scarf whipped around his face as he got closer, then he spotted the car on the side of the road under a thicket of gingko trees, a black Toyota, moonlight playing off the dented back fender.

The car.

His stalker.

Here.

Perry laid a hand on the hood. Still warm.

He got out his cell and made a call. “Get here soon as you can — and keep the phone on.” He gave the address then pressed the Mute button.

Dirt and pebbles crunched under his shoes; ocean waves broke in the distance and the wind howled.

Crouching now, light from the large bay window falling across him as he moved to the side and caught a glimpse of them, Angel and Norman, being ushered to the sofa by the dark silhouette of a man.

Perry leaned closer, could hear muffled voices though not what was being said. A few steps along the side of the house, past another window, and this time he saw him: a man with dark hair, holding a gun. And he recognized him.

Perry moved faster now, making his way around the house until he found the back door, closed but unlocked. He tried to picture the interior as he turned the doorknob and then he was in, spinning through the door into a small mudroom off the kitchen. He could hear voices as he slowly made his way across the room and into a dark hallway that separated the kitchen and living room, the cell phone still in his hand, the whole time holding his breath.

Halfway down the hall he stopped. He heard them before he saw them.

“You’re crazy!” Angel’s voice rang out, a mix of arrogance and fear.

“You dare call me crazy!” It was the dark-haired man. “You, of all people. You have no idea, no fucking idea what I’ve been through!”

Perry dared a few steps closer. Back flattened against the wall, he could see them.

Angel and Norman were side by side on the couch. The man faced them, his back to Perry.

“Just take it easy,” Norman said.

Perry let out the breath he’d been holding, unsure of his next move. No quick moves, no leaps into the room until he was absolutely certain.

“Let’s talk it over,” Norman said. “I’m sure—”

“Sure of what?” There was a high-pitched edge of hysteria in the man’s voice.

“I’m sure we can work this out,” said Norman. “Whatever it is.”

“Oh, so you don’t know me?”

“Should I?”

“Why would you recognize something thrown away, cast off, a piece of your wife’s garbage.”

Angel turned to her father. “Daddy, do you have any idea who this—”

“If it’s money you want,” said Norman, “I can—”

“Oh, it’s money all right. Why she sent me. To collect what’s rightfully mine.”

“Who?” Angel look back and forth between her father and the dark-haired man.

“Tell her,” the man said. “You know, don’t you?”

Norman Loki shook his head, but even from a distance Perry could see he was lying.

“We made a deal. Me and Julia. I’d take care of Angel; then we’d split the money fifty-fifty.”

“Take care of me?” Angel was up now, arms at her sides, hands in fists. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Sit down. Or I’ll shoot you.” The man aimed his gun at Angel.

Perry stiffened, tried to gauge an attack. He could lunge, but what if he miscalculated, was a second too late, and the man fired his gun?

“Angel—” Norman reached out a hand to his daughter. “Please. Sit down.”

“Explain it to her,” the man said.

Angel sat, and Perry watched the scene like a play. He could see the man in profile, the tightness of his jaw, hand gripping the gun. Flames danced in the fireplace, casting eerie shadows around the room.

“He’s Julia’s son,” Norman said to Angel, almost in a whisper.

“See?” the man said. “It didn’t take you long to figure that out.”

Perry was putting the pieces together: The late-night visitor to Julia’s apartment, the masseur. And the man sitting beside him at the bar of the Memory Motel. My mother says I’m too dramatic.

“What?” Angel’s voice, strident.

The man took a step closer to Angel, and Perry got ready, every muscle in his body poised for attack.

“You didn’t know you had a big brother, did you? I’m your mother’s secret, her bastard, the baby she gave away when she was fifteen, the orphan passed from one foster home to another, while you, her dear little angel, got everything.”

“Oh, please.” Angel folded her arms across her chest, her face a mask of incredulity and disdain.

The man waved the gun at Norman. “Tell her. She needs to know the truth before she dies.”

“There’s n-no reason to hurt anyone,” said Norman. “Please.”

“No? She got everything — private school, tennis lessons, clothes — while I got a pittance, an anonymous allowance, just enough to keep me off the street, paid off in dribs and drabs. But that’s how I—”

“If you only knew,” said Angel, voice dripping with irony, “what my life has been like.”

“You? You had a home—two homes! You know what it’s like to have nothing? No family, no one who cares about you.” His voice was quavering. “That lousy allowance was all I had. Julia tried to make it anonymous, but—” He turned to Norman. “You arranged that pathetic stream of guilt money. That’s how I found it, by tracing it to your defunct law practice. It took a long time, but I finally figured it out. At first Julia wanted nothing to do with me, but then she admitted it — because then, she wanted something from me.”

“This is absurd,” said Angel. “Tell him, Daddy.”

Perry saw the look of horror and dread bouncing around Norman Loki’s face. “I… she… we… didn’t want you to know, Angel. There was no reason—”

“But it’s true!” the man shouted. “You don’t want to know it, but it’s the truth! You hear what your father is saying, Angel? Now listen.” He took a step forward, and Perry readied himself again. But the man was still talking, wanting to, needing to.

“Your mother had me follow the detective, told me it was the perfect opportunity, that you were already missing, so when I found you and killed you, no one would be surprised. You see, she hired the detective as a guide for me, and to make it look like she cared about you.”

Perry flinched at the thought of being used.

“Julia did her homework. She chose him, see? Because he was kicked off the force, she figured that no one would believe him when it was all over.”

Perry flinched again, then took a deep breath, tried to calculate out how he could tackle the guy before he fired a shot.

“Your mother—our mother — said to make it look like an accident, like you were drunk or taking drugs. She said no one would be surprised — that you’re a tramp, that they’d blame one of your boyfriends or think you OD’d or—”

Angel shouted, “Shut up!”

“She said once you were dead, she’d get all the money and split it with me. But now, I’ll get it all.”

“You’re insane,” Angel said. “My mother — I’m not surprised by anything she’d do — but she would never have given you anything, not a dime.”

“It doesn’t matter now. After you and your father are dead, I’ll inherit it all. You see, I’ll be the only heir.” He aimed his gun.

Perry got ready to pounce, but Norman Loki put up his hands.

“Wait. Listen. Angel is right. Julia used you. She lied. She always lied. You have no idea what she was like. She orchestrated her own parents’ deaths. Had them run off the road. You can’t imagine how furious she was to discover that her father had locked away the bulk of his estate for his grandchild until her twenty-first birthday and that she couldn’t get at it.” Norman shook his head. “As if she didn’t have enough.”

“Nothing was ever enough for her,” said Angel. “You think I had it good with a mother like that! A monster without a heart?” She barked a laugh. “You were the lucky one! Getting away from her. From all of this.”

“So that’s why you killed her?” the man asked. “Because you hated her? Or was it just for the money?”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

Perry could see Angel shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, dear sister,” the man said.

“You’re crazy.”

“Am I? After you two are dead — a family feud the way I see it, your father shot you then himself, or maybe the other way around. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, the two of you will be dead and then, a few weeks from now I’ll announce my existence and I’ll get all the—”

“Um, no.” Norman cut in. “No.”

“No, what?”

“Angel’s right. You will not get any money, not a cent.”

“Of course I will! I’m Julia’s flesh and blood. Her heir. The only one. Everything will come to me.”

“I’m… I’m afraid not. You see, I wrote the trust papers, and they do not allow for any half siblings. Other than Angel, no one can get his or her hands on that money.”

“You’re lying!” The man took a step toward Norman. “And now you’re a dead man.”

Perry slipped his cell phone into the pocket of his trench coat. Then he charged.

So did Angel. Lunging at her half brother, the two of them struggling over the gun as Perry sprinted and the gun went off and then Norman Loki was on the floor, blood leaking from his head. Perry knocked the man to the floor, and the gun flew from his hand.

“Oh my God — my God — Daddy, no!” Angel was shrieking, but she had gotten the gun and was aiming it at her half brother.

“It’s okay,” Perry said to Angel. “Take it easy.”

The man was struggling, but Perry had him in a headlock, under control when Angel fired the gun and he sagged in Perry’s arms, a hole in his shirt, a red stain spreading.

Angel dropped the gun, and Perry kicked it away.

“Why?” Perry asked. “I had him. You saw that.”

“He killed my father, and he was going to kill me.” Angel stared at Perry. Her face looked like stone. “I had no choice. Anyone could see that,” she said, her voice calm.

A hand gripped Perry’s arm, the man coughing up blood, fighting to speak. “It was… her. After I left you on the bridge I–I turned around because it, it was my chance… she was alone and you didn’t matter anymore. But when I got there she was creeping out from the back of that house on Washington Avenue, and I, I followed her… from Brooklyn to Park Avenue… waited across the street to, to see what she was up to and—”

“Shut up!” Angel screamed. “You’re crazy!”

She went for the gun again, but Perry got it first.

“Go on,” he said, and pressed a hand into the man’s wound to staunch the bleeding.

“I, I was outside when… when Julia came flying off the terrace. Five minutes later I saw her, Angel, slip out of the building and… and lose herself in the crowd.”

“Liar!” Angel screamed. “You crazy, fucking liar!”

“It was”—his breathing was labored, blood bubbling at his lips—“her.” Then his eyelids fluttered, his grip loosened on Perry’s arm, and he slid to the floor.

“Hang on, damn it, hang on!” Perry glared at Angel.

“You don’t believe him, do you?” Angel’s blue eyes were wide, filled with her unique brand of manufactured innocence. “He’s insane. God knows if anything he’s told us about his life is true. I think he made it all up. This pathetic story about being Julia’s son and, and—” She sniffed, holding back sudden tears. “Oh, it’s all so, so awful. My father, my mother — That crazy murderer, that liar!”

Perry stood up, took a few steps toward her, spoke softly but firmly. “I think it’s you who is lying, Angel.”

“How dare you? After all I’ve—”

“After all you’ve done to make sure you get all the money? That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it, Angel? Money.”

She swiped her tears away, and Perry saw the tough little girl in the nanny’s photo, jaw set, the look of determination in her eyes.

“You’ll never prove that.”

“No?” Perry had them now, the words she’d uttered, what he had been trying to recall. “The Pollock,” he said.

“The… what?”

“The Jackson Pollock painting in your mother’s apartment.”

“What about it?”

All she cares about is stuff — her jewelry, her houses, her great big Jackson Pollock painting.

“You mentioned it, just before, at the precinct.”

“So?”

“It’s new. Your mother just bought it.”

“So what?”

“So it means you were in your mother’s apartment. Recently. Very recently.”

“No.” Angel shook her head, ran a hand through her blond hair. “I haven’t been there but, but… My mother told me about it.”

“But you said you hadn’t spoken to your mother for a year, and she said the same thing.”

“Then I, I must have read about her buying it. That’s it.”

“Where?”

“The Times, I think. I can’t remember.” Angel waved a hand. “What does it matter?”

“The buyer’s name was withheld, Angel.”

“So?” Her face softened, and she took a step closer to him, her voice that seductive purr Perry remembered when he’d held her trembling body against his in front of her nanny’s home. “It’s just a painting, Perry. Not important. What’s important is us.”

“Us?” Perry looked into those wide blue eyes, no tears now, just a deep void.

“You and me,” said Angel. “Why not? There’s plenty of money — or there will be. You don’t want to scratch out a pathetic living as a private eye for the rest of your life, do you, Perry?” She eased the back of her hand across his cheek, fingernails flicking against his skin, and he felt a chill. “We can go anywhere. We can—”

Perry grabbed her hand. “We are not going anywhere, Angel. And neither are you. I think the police will be interested to know that you were in your mother’s apartment.”

Angel tugged her hand away, her face going hard. “Try to prove it,” she said, her purr now a rasp. “Oh, I can just see it. A disgraced cop trying to hang a murder on the casual mention of a painting.” She laughed. “That’s rich.”

Perry knew she was right. It wasn’t enough.

Angel’s lips curled into a smile. “And gee, all the witnesses are dead, aren’t they?” She looked down at her half brother and her father and shrugged. “You know, Perry, I don’t think you’re going to say anything.”

There were sirens in the distance.

Perry returned her cold stare. “You made a mistake, Angel, and my guess, you’ve made others. I’m going to start by having your mother’s building canvassed, every apartment, every doorman, every maid, and every maintenance man. Someone will have seen you come in or out or passed you in the stairwell. We’ll get you, Angel.”

“The cops will never do that, Perry. They won’t listen to you. Why should they?”

“Who said anything about the cops? I’ll do the canvass myself.”

“And I’ll be long gone.”

The sirens were louder now, just outside.

Angel mussed her hair and rubbed at her eyes, looked at Perry briefly, then dropped to her knees beside her father, turned on the tears, and cried, “Daddy, Daddy,” as the front door opened and East Hampton’s Sergeant Gawain burst in, two deputies beside him, a half-dozen uniforms and a couple of medics just behind.

“Jesus Christ,” said Gawain, taking in the scene.

“Yeah,” said Perry.

“You okay?” Gawain asked.

Perry nodded.

Gawain looked at Angel, cradling her father’s head and rocking slightly. “She okay?”

“Angel? Oh, she’s just fine.”

Angel looked up, her eyes locked on Perry’s, a smile behind the tears just for him.

“This the half brother?” Gawain asked.

“He’s not my brother,” Angel said. “He made it all up. He’s just some lunatic.”

“She shot him,” Perry said.

“I had to! He shot my father and probably killed my mother!”

A medic tore open the man’s shirt, stethoscope to his chest. “There’s a pulse, weak, but it’s there.” He nodded to the EMTs who strapped an oxygen mask over the guy’s face and got him onto a gurney.

Angel watched, that secret smile of hers gone.

“I hope he makes it,” said Gawain.

“It’s a shoulder wound, mostly blood loss,” said Perry. “I think he’ll be talking.”

The medic was leaning over Norman Loki now. “He’s gone,” he said.

Perry took the cell phone from his pocket and handed it to Gawain. “You heard most of what went down here, didn’t you?”

“Enough,” said Gawain. “But a lot was garbled.”

“I’ll help you ungarble it,” Perry said. “And there are computer programs that will help, too.” He looked at Angel kneeling beside the medics who were strapping her father’s body onto a stretcher. She was crying, her hands fluttering around her beautiful face, but her brows were knit as she strained to hear what Perry was saying.

“I’d better cuff her before she runs away again,” said Gawain.

“You do that,” said Perry.

It was cold out on the dunes, but after Gawain had handcuffed Angel and the police and EMTs had all driven away, Perry lingered a while, looking up at the stars and moon. He thought about Derace McDonald and the girl he had found but could not save, and he thought about Angel, the girl he’d found who didn’t need saving.

The police sirens had long faded, replaced by the sound of the ocean and the howl of the wind, and Perry wondered who was going to inherit all that money. Then he decided he didn’t care.

He wound Nicky’s scarf around his neck and turned away from the ocean, thinking about his daughter and how he would call her in the morning.