Past Due

Chapter 74

IT WAS MCDEISS who had tripped on the wire, who had banged his shin on the step, who had bellowed like a walrus and cursed like a sailor. And it was McDeiss who first limped into the room, his revolver drawn, followed by another detective, three uniforms, and an Assistant District Attorney, who seemed, for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, quite peeved at me.

“Where’s Beth?” I said as soon as McDeiss entered the room.

“She’s fine, she’s being looked after outside.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said, but before I could leave a uniform stood in the doorway, blocking my exit.

“No one, and I mean no one, leaves this room,” said McDeiss in a voice loud enough to shake the hull of that old boat. “No one leaves until we figure out exactly what happened here. And that means you.”

“Me,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” said Slocum.

So I stayed, and I gave my statement, and I answered questions, and all the while Slocum was staring at me with a visible malice in his eye.

“What’s your beef?” I said to him, finally.

“You said you wouldn’t do anything stupid,” said Slocum.

“I can’t help it, it’s in my nature.”

“I won’t disagree. You could be the poster child for adult stupidity. Do you know how much danger you were in?”

“I didn’t know you cared so deeply.”

“Something happened to you, Carl, it wouldn’t exactly ruin my day. But then you go dragging a Supreme Court justice into it and suddenly my day is looking decidedly worse.”

“He dragged himself, Larry.”

“Is that what he did?”

“After you told him where to find me.”

“I knew I made a mistake as soon as I hung up the phone.”

“But I have to admit, he did pretty well for himself,” I said, nodding to the justice, who was standing in the corner with his wife, giving his statement to a detective. With every word his future was disintegrating – even if he had done nothing wrong his nomination to the highest court would be too controversial now – but he didn’t seem to care. In fact, he seemed supremely happy, almost giddy, having come through an adventure with a sword in his hand, still in his incomprehensible marriage, but now, seemingly, relieved of the burdens of his ambition. He lifted his gaze and spotted me, gave me a smile, and I smiled back. I didn’t envy him, his life, that wife, but it was his and it seemed to be exactly what he wanted.

McDeiss, with his notebook out, limped over to Slocum and me.

“Can I go now?” I said.

“Not yet,” said McDeiss.

“I’d like to see my partner.”

“I told you she’s fine. But first we need to get some things clear.” He pointed over to Colfax, on the ground, scowling, his hands cuffed behind him. “So what exactly are the charges to be filed against this Colfax?” said McDeiss. “I want to make sure we don’t miss anything.”

“The murder of Bradley Babbage,” I said. “The murder of Lonnie Chambers. The kidnapping of Beth Derringer, along with various charges of arson and firearms violations.”

“Is that all?”

I put a hand up to my jaw, still aching, blood still oozing from my gums. “You can add battery.”

“What about the Parma murder?”

“He didn’t kill Joey,” I said. “Colfax pretty much admitted everything else he did, but he didn’t say a thing about Joey.”

“So who killed your boy?”

“Larry, did your man in Chinchilla ever track down that bogus bench warrant thing?”

“He traced it back to Justice Straczynski’s chambers,” said Slocum, “just like you suspected.”

“But I was wrong about it being the justice who was behind it. His file clerk is named Lobban, Curtis Lobban. He owns a Toyota. You might want to check if it has a gray interior and, if it does, whether there are any traces of blood in the interior.”

“A clerk?” said McDeiss.

“Not just a clerk. Lobban is connected to the justice’s wife. They had an affair years ago. Alura Straczynski was now helping take care of Lobban’s ill wife. It was almost like she had adopted the family. Joey was trying to blackmail the justice about something that happened twenty years ago at the waterfront. Lobban knew the justice would never submit to blackmail and would probably be forced to resign, so he made a call, arranged a meeting, picked Joey up, and slashed his throat. Then he dumped him right at the scene of the earlier crime. I don’t know if it was a financial thing or a just a brutal, misguided sense of loyalty, but it looks like he saw the threat to his boss and his former lover and eliminated it.”

“What was Parma blackmailing the justice about?”

“You’ll have to ask the justice. But whatever it was, it happened long ago and it is now well beyond the limitations period.”

“Lucky him,” said McDeiss.

“Not with that wife.” I kicked at the floor. “I want to thank you both. The way you charged up here with guns drawn, all just to save little old me, brought a tear to my eye.”

“It looks like you had things under control,” said McDeiss.

“Looks like I did,” I said, and then I gave one of Kimberly’s encouraging punches. “But you guys get an A for effort.”

It would have almost been a touching moment if they hadn’t both been shaking their heads with disgust.

Just then a dark-suited force burst through the doorway, flashing badges, flashlights, barking out orders, taking control of the room. In the middle of the dark suits was the small round figure of Jeffrey Telushkin.

“Where is he?” said Telushkin. “Where is Greeley?”

“Gone,” I said.

“What do you mean gone?”

“He left, escaped, he ran.”

“He was here, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So how did he get away?”

I glanced up at Kimberly, who, while making a statement of her own to one of the officers, obviously overheard our conversation because she was looking at me with a face full of concern.

“There was a gun,” I said to Telushkin, loud enough so that Kimberly could hear. “There was a sword fight, a scuffle, things happened. I don’t know, one minute he was here and then, poof.”

“Where the hell did he go?”

“Don’t know for sure,” I said, “though I heard something about the Cayman Islands.”

Telushkin spun around in frustration, then turned to one of the dark suits and mumbled something. The suit said, “Search the ship,” and then all the dark suits left the room and scattered.

Telushkin turned back to me, gestured toward the justice. “Was he involved?”

“He saved the day,” I said.

“Son of a bitch. You know, Carl, I won’t rest until I find him.”

“And if my guess is right,” I said, “that is going to leave you very very tired.”

After he stormed out I said, “Can I go now?”

“Not yet, Carl,” said McDeiss.

So I stepped over to the bar and sat on one of the remaining stools and watched the proceedings. Justice Straczynski with his arm around his wife, Alura Straczynski, still holding on to her precious notebooks, Colfax being jerked to standing, being led out, and Kimberly Blue, smiling hesitantly at me as she came my way.

“I guess I’m really in a poodle now,” she said. “Are they going to arrest me for letting him escape?”

“Only after they pin a medal on you for capturing, single-handedly, a vicious double murderer.”

“Did I do that?”

“Oh yes, yes you did.”

“Did I do the right thing, V?”

“Kimberly, you did your thing, and from where I’m standing, your thing is pretty damn terrific. When did you figure it out?”

“Just here, today. Ever since we talked that time, remember, I’ve been thinking about why he would hire me. And then when I read her journals and realized she was pregnant, and then when your friend Mr. Skink told me Mr. D was really Tommy, it all came clear.”

“How did it feel to realize he was your father?”

“He’s not my father. My father took care of me all his life, my father tucked me in at night and worked in his crummy little store to make sure I had a house and fabulous clothes. My father was the most brilliant man I ever knew. Mr. D was just a distant relative, but still, blood is blood.”

“What about her?” I said, gesturing to Alura.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t expect much.”

“I never do, V. But she’s my mother, isn’t she? That means something. There might be things I can learn from her.”

“God, I hope not. So now that you’ve quit your vice presidential position, what are you going to do with yourself? Merry Maids?”

She lifted her hands, showed off her nails, shrugged.

“Why don’t you think about becoming a lawyer? You would be a dynamite lawyer. What jury wouldn’t grant you your every wish? I could talk to someone at my old law school, give you a leg up on the application process.”

“Victor, that’s sweet of you and all, but really now. Take a look at me. Do you see me in a stuffy blue suit, black shoes, bowing and scraping to judges over every little piddling legal point? I don’t think so. Besides, from what I can tell about your finances, I wouldn’t earn enough to keep me in the lifestyle to which I intend to become accustomed. Actually, I sort of like the vice presidential thing.”

“Really?”

“I was thinking maybe business school or something? Maybe Wharton? Do you know anyone at Wharton?”

“No, but I bet he does,” I said, pointing to the justice.

“Do you think he’d help me get in? Do you?”

“For sure,” I said, though her brilliant smile told me she knew it already.

When McDeiss finally released us, with stern warnings about leaving the city or talking to reporters, I raced down those bare metal stairs, through the engine room, out the gangway, and onto the pier. It was crowded now with police and press and an ambulance, which scared the hell out of me. Bright lights, yellow tape, flashing reds and yellows. The perverse cheerfulness of a crime scene late at night. I ignored the shouts from the reporters, which was painful, believe me – free publicity being so… – and instead walked around like a fool, calling out for Beth. That’s what I was doing when I spotted Skink chatting up a nice-looking police officer.

“Victor, come over here, you oughts to meet someone. This is Madeline. She’s just out of the academy, full of vim and vinegar.”

“Where’s Beth?” I said.

“At the end of the dock,” he said. “I’ll take you in a moment.” He leaned back toward the officer. “Sos like I was saying, the thing about detecting is observation. You always gots to be looking out for the telling detail. You never know what it is that will-”

“Can we go now?”

“Wait a minute.”

“Phil.”

“All right. Here, sweetie, my card. Give me a call and we’ll have that coffee.”

“Sure thing, Phil.”

As we walked off to the end of the pier, Skink was rubbing his hands. “She’s got a sweet smile, she does.”

“You’re impossible,” I said.

“Just trying to be of assistance to the local constabulary, I am. You clear everything up in there?”

“It was Colfax.”

“Never did like him.”

“How’d it go out here?”

“Like pie. As soon as I ran into Kimberly and had a little heart to heart with her it wasn’t nothing finding our girl. She wasn’t even guarded, just tied up with rope and duct tape, and put belowdecks.”

“She was okay?”

“She’s tougher than both of us. How did our Kimberly do up there?”

“Amazing.”

“It was she who insisted on going up, delaying everything to give me time to find Beth and make the call. Quite a girl, that. See I told you, I had a feeling about her from the start.”

“Yes, you did.”

He led me around the long warehouse on the pier to the rear of the great rusting boat sitting in the harbor. At the end of the pier stood a shadow, staring out into the water. Beth.

“You did well, Phil.”

“I know it. Go on, now. She’s been asking for you.”

I gave him a glance and then walked slowly toward her. She didn’t turn around to look at me when she said, “It was here, the boat he put me on. It was right here.”

“I guess Eddie Dean sailed it away.”

“You let him go.”

“Kimberly let him go. But it was Colfax who took you on his own, without Dean knowing or approving. How are you?”

“Fine. Shaken but fine.”

She turned and gave me a hug, a strong hug, stronger I think than she had ever given me before.

“I knew you’d come for me,” she said.

“It wasn’t me. It was Phil.”

“I know.”

“And Kimberly told him enough so he could guess where you were.”

“I know, but it was you who came for me. When Colfax pointed that gun in my face and took me away I realized I wasn’t as scared as I should have been. And it was because I knew you’d come for me.”

“That’s what partners do.”

“I’m so glad you’re my partner. We’ll make it work, Victor.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t care about the money. We’ll sell cookies door to door if we have to.”

“Okay, but we won’t have to. Selling cookies, I mean. I took the last bit of money still left in Tommy Greeley’s suitcase. Thirty thousand dollars.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I thought you and I would pay a visit to Joey’s mom and give it to her. She won’t see a penny from the man who killed him, he’ll be judgment proof. But I’d still like to give her something.”

“Okay.”

“Excluding our one-third contingency, of course.”

Beth laughed. “Of course.”

“Should last a few months. And then something will come in, I know it. Before we go to Mrs. Parma’s, make sure you haven’t eaten for a few days. Her veal is amazing.”

“I won’t. So when?”

“Soon, but not tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” I said. “First I’m getting Rashard Porter out of jail. Then I’m saying good-bye to my dad.”