Читать книгу Campbell Young Mysteries 3-Book Bundle - J.D. Carpenter - Страница 11

The stomach ache was still there when Young woke up, and he had to bring new supplies of PeptoBismol and Tums to work with him. At 3:00 p.m., when he assembled the members of his team in the conference room, the pain had changed from sharp, irregular jabs to a deep and constant ache.

When everyone had poured themselves coffees and the donuts had been passed around, Young asked everyone to sit down. He began by introducing Priam Harvey. Harvey was already known to the others as a local character, someone Young often referred to with great respect as a horse-player, writer, drinker, and all-around intellect, but this was the first time they’d had anything to do with him. “Mr. Harvey has offered to help us out with his specialized knowledge as regards the racetrack,” Young explained, “so make him feel welcome.”

Next, Young reviewed the information that everyone was so far privy to: Delbert Chester “Shorty” Rogers, fifty-two, had been found dead in a stall at Caledonia Downs Racetrack early on the morning of Thursday, June 1. It was subsequently determined that Rogers had been fatally struck by a weapon—perhaps a baseball bat—with a horseshoe attached to it. Horsehairs had been placed on the wound to make it appear that Rogers had been kicked to death by a horse. But tests showed that the hairs were not from the thor-oughbred Bing Crosby, whose stall Rogers was found in.

“Okay, you first,” Young said to Tony Barkas. He checked the list in front of him. “Summer Caldwell.”

Barkas, who was stocky, intense, and olive-complected, said, “Okay. Summer Caldwell’s been married three times—her first husband died in a plane crash, the second of cancer—she does a lot of charity work, she’s a member of the King City in-crowd and attends all the parties of the rich and famous, and she’s a fanatic about flowers and gardens. I think it’s pretty much unlikely that Mrs. Caldwell was involved in the murder of Shorty Rogers: she has no criminal record; she and her present husband, who’s a land speculator, own a million-dollar property on the third hole of the golf course, and they’ve got homes in Nassau and Costa del Sol; and her pretty much regular placing behind Morley Rogers in the King County Beautiful Garden Competition does not, in my opinion, make her a priority suspect in the murder of her main competition’s down-on-his-luck nephew. I’ll conclude by saying that Summer Caldwell is a regular churchgoer and doer of good deeds, including volunteer work with handicapped and underprivileged children.”

Young said, “Okay, good.” He turned to Big Urmson. “Your turn. What’ve you got on the birdwatcher?”

Pink-cheeked and overweight, Big Urmson roused himself to a more erect posture in his chair, wiped the icing sugar off his fingers with a paper napkin, and began to read from his notes. “Stirling Smith-Gower is fifty-six years old. He’s married and has a grown-up daughter. He writes a column on birdwatching for the King City Chronicle. He used to be president of the Save the Birds campaign and is worried about the vanishing wetlands and what’s happening to certain kinds of birds, such as the King Rail, the Least ... Bittern, I think it is, some kind of ... shrike, I think it is, and a whole bunch of different kinds of warblers. Mr. Smith-Gower is six feet tall, skinny, is messy in his personal appearance, smokes a pipe almost all the time, has a habit of latching onto complete strangers and trying to get them to sign up for his Save the Birds campaign, and smells bad.”

Young cocked his head. “He smells bad?”

“That’s right. Body odour. I didn’t get to talk to him personally because his secretary told me he just left yesterday for South America, but I did talk to a few of the Save the Birds people, and they all mentioned it. Apparently he stinks big time.”

“What’s he doing in South America?”

“Apparently he’s looking for some rare kind of bird.”

Young said, “Okay, good work.”

“Sarge,” Big Urmson said, “don’t forget we got a game tonight.” Big Urmson played second base for the precinct softball team.

Young, who was the catcher and team captain, said, “I won’t forget. Just don’t you forget that when the batter hits the ball in your direction, the idea is you’re supposed to catch it, not let it roll between your fat legs into right field.” He turned to Wheeler. “What’ve you got on Richard Ludlow?”

Wheeler cleared her throat. “Married for thirty years to the same woman, but by all reports a bit of a Casanova. Two sons working in the same business—real estate. He was the underbidder on the purchase of Cedar Creek Stud Farm by your man, Sarge, Mahmoud Khan. Still resentful about it, from what I can gather, even though he made a pile of money brokering the housing development that’s going in. Because he’s a high mucky-muck at the golf and country club, he wanted to push through a proposal that Mr. Rogers’ land be turned into a housing development beside the fourteenth tee. Grew up with money. Attended Ridley College and the University of Western Ontario. No criminal record. Squeaky clean except for the womanizing.”

“How do you know about the womanizing?”

“Miss Sweet mentioned it when I interviewed her.”

“Miss Sweet?”

Wheeler nodded. “She admits it’s just hearsay, but there’s an authoritative tone to anything she says.”

“What about Miss Sweet herself? Anything new on her?”

“Not at the moment. I’ve left messages indicating that we still want to talk to Mr. Rogers, but either she’s been out a lot or she’s ignoring me. She’s number one on my list as soon as we’re done here.”

“Good.” Young turned to Priam Harvey. “What have you got on Percy Ball?”

Harvey lowered his eyes. “Nothing, actually. I’ve been so busy with my magazine assignments that I haven’t been able to get to it yet. I didn’t realize you were all such keeners here.”

There was a pause while Young narrowed his eyes at Harvey.

Barkas said, “Chief, maybe this is a good time for me to ask a question. Is this a good time?”

Young slowly shifted his gaze. “Go ahead.”

“Well, these horsehairs that aren’t Bing Crosby’s, who do they belong to? By that, I mean which horse did they come off of?”

Wheeler said, “To figure that out, we’d have to take hairs from other horses and compare them.”

“Which horses?” asked Big Urmson.

“Mahmoud Khan’s,” Young said.

“Why his?” asked Barkas.

“I’ve been sniffing around a bit with regards to Mr. Khan. Everything about him looks copacetic, except I’ve got this nagging suspicion that the horse that died a couple of months ago is a tie-in. What was its name?”

Wheeler said, “Download.”

“Download. Mahmoud Khan owned Download. My guess is that Download’s death might not have been natural. One minute he’s young and healthy, but he’s a complete failure as a racehorse. Next minute he’s dead in his stall. There’s something not right.”

Barkas said, “You think somebody killed the horse on purpose?”

“What kind of an animal would kill a horse?” Big Urmson said.

“There was a guy in the States not too long ago,” Young said. “The Sandman. Real name Tommy Burns. Fat cats in the hunter-jumper set would hire him to murder horses that were no longer wanted or, for whatever reason, had outlived their usefulness.”

“But why?” said Wheeler.

“For the insurance.” Young turned to Harvey. “You know more about it than I do, Mr. Harvey.”

Harvey leaned forward in his chair. “The horses the nouveaux riches buy for their princess daughters often cost over a hundred thousand dollars. Some of these people, they’ll import these magnificent Dutch Warmbloods that Olympic riders would kill to have and give them to their daughters who, more often than not, aren’t skilled enough to ride them, let alone jump them, let alone show them, then they lose interest in them, preferring fast cars and fast boys, and the horses end up languishing in their stalls.”

“But why not just sell the horses and get their money back?” Barkas asked.

Harvey shrugged. “I’m sure a lot of them do, but in certain cases—not very many—the princess will lapse into a crying jag if Daddy tries to sell her precious pet, or maybe the horse is chronically lame or has suffered an injury that ruins its value, so Daddy has it killed.”

“And that’s where The Sandman comes in?” Wheeler asked.

“Right. He’d sneak into the horse’s stall in the middle of the night and kill it.”

“How?”

“All sorts of methods have been used to kill horses and make it look natural, from an injection of insulin to ping pong balls jammed up the nostrils, but from what I understand The Sandman used an extension cord and alligator clips. Basically, he electrocuted the horse, and it looked like a heart attack or colic killed it. The insurance company had no choice but to pay up.”

Wheeler said, “But those were jumpers. Download was a racehorse.”

“A very expensive racehorse,” Young said. “Khan paid a quarter-million for him, and it turned out he couldn’t run a lick. But you can bet he was insured.”

“If you’re right,” Wheeler continued, “who killed him? Not Mr. Khan.”

“No, somebody he hired. Somebody on the inside. Somebody who’s used to being around horses, who isn’t afraid to get in a stall with a twelve-hundred-pound thoroughbred.”

Barkas said, “Maybe someone was about to kill Bing Crosby, and Shorty stumbled upon the situation, tried to be a hero and save the horse, and got killed for his efforts.”

“Maybe it was Shorty himself,” Big Urmson said. “Wasn’t it strange for him to be in that horse’s stall at midnight? Maybe he was going to kill the horse for the insurance, but someone killed him instead.”

Young shook his head. “No, Bing Crosby’s just an old claimer. He’s not worth anything. Besides, he does-n’t belong to Khan. The old lady owns him. He’ll wind up a pensioner on somebody’s hobby farm. He’s probably not even insured.”

“So who else might have done it?” asked Wheeler.

“Well,” said Young, “it could have been just about anybody in the backstretch who wasn’t above making a quick buck.”

“What about The Sandman himself?”

Harvey shook his head. “Last I heard, Tommy Burns was a guest of the state of Illinois.”

“So what’s next?” said Barkas.

Young said, “I’m going to pay a visit to Dot Com Acres. Have a look at Mr. Khan’s horses. See if he’s got any the same colour as Bing Crosby.”

“What colour’s Bing Crosby?” Barkas asked.

Big Urmson said, “White, right?”

“He’s a bay, which means his body’s brown, and he’s got a black mane and tail. Unfortunately, most thor-oughbreds are bay.”

“About seventy percent,” said Harvey.

“Oh,” said Big Urmson, “that Bing Crosby.”

“What are you going to do,” Barkas asked, “pull a hair out of each horse’s tail?”

“I’m not sure how to handle it yet,” Young admitted. “But the hairs found on Shorty’s wound weren’t from the tail or mane. They were from the hide on the lower leg, and they were white.”

“But I thought you said he was brown,” said Barkas.

Young nodded. “He is, but he’s got stockings on both back legs.”

“Stockings?” Big Urmson laughed. “What the hell?”

Harvey said, “It’s a natural marking. Some horses have stars or blazes on their faces. Some have stockings on their legs. The lower part of one or more of their legs is white.”

“That’s right,” said Young. “And whoever killed Shorty lured him into Bing Crosby’s stall, and Bing Crosby has rear stockings. The killer knew that before he murdered Shorty.”

“And brought some white hairs with him,” said Harvey.

“But wait a minute,” Wheeler said. “Debi says Bing Crosby is a real teddy bear, he wouldn’t hurt a flea. Why wouldn’t the killer commit the murder in the stall of a more dangerous horse to make it more believable?”

Young considered. “Maybe the killer was afraid of what the horse would do while a murder was going on in its stall. Or, if Mahmoud Khan was involved, maybe he didn’t want the murder to take place in one of his stalls.”

“Or maybe,” said Wheeler, “the killer didn’t know that Bing Crosby was harmless.”

“But he knew enough to bring the white hairs with him.”

“Maybe he was instructed to bring them,” Harvey said.

Wheeler said, “Do we even know that the murder took place in the stall? Maybe Shorty’s body was moved to the stall after he was killed.”

“That would make sense,” Young said, “except there’s no evidence of that, no drag marks or anything.”

“And why wouldn’t the killer use Bing Crosby’s own hair? If he was such a calm horse, it would have been easy to clip hairs off of him.”

Young scratched his chin. “That’s assuming the killer was somebody local. But maybe you’re right, maybe he came from outside and didn’t know one horse from another. Anyway, the point is that if Mahmoud Khan was behind Download’s death, he may be behind Shorty’s, too. That’s why I’m going out to Dot Com Acres and see what I can see.” Young lifted himself from his chair, placed his hands on the table, and leaned forward. “Good work, everybody, but we’re far from done. Wheeler, I want you to find out what you can about Morley Rogers’ bodyguards. What are their names again?”

“Eric and Kevin Favors.”

“Right. If you need to talk to them up close and personal, I want Barkas to go with you. And I want more on Myrtle Sweet. She’s a little too involved with the old man for my liking. She’s got her finger in the pie somewhere. Urmson, I don’t need you for anything right now, so see if Staff Inspector Bateman has anything. As for you, Mr. Harvey, if you wouldn’t mind hanging back a minute.”

When it was just the two of them, Young stretched his neck up out of his collar and looked down at Harvey. “How come you came up empty on Percy Ball. What’s the problem?”

Harvey laughed lightly. “No particular reason.” His face was sallow. “I’ll have something for you tomorrow.”

“I’m counting on you to help me out on this,” Young said, standing up. “I’ll meet you at McCully’s at noon tomorrow. You can show me what you’ve got then.”

In that evening’s slo-pitch game against Narcotics, Homicide took an early 12-5 lead, due in large part to a pair of three-run homers by Big Urmson. However, with the bases loaded, none out in the bottom of the fourth, and Homicide’s infield playing in, Big Urmson stopped a line drive with his forehead. The ball fell at his feet, but Big Urmson was unable to play it because he was lying on his back staring first at the crazy flight of cartoon stars above him and then, a few seconds later, at a circle of concerned faces.

When Big Urmson was able to stand up, two things became clear: one, the stitch marks of the softball were imprinted on his forehead in the shape of the ) ( symbol used on road maps to indicate bridges, and two, not only had all three of the Narcotics base runners scored on the play—merrily rounding the bases while Young and Barkas and Wheeler and Staff Inspector Bateman and Desk Sergeant Gallagher and fingerprinting expert Wicary and the rest of the team except team manager Trick, whose wheelchair had stalled in the sand at third base, hurried to the assistance of the downed man—but the batter, too, had sprinted around the bases. While Young and his teammates slowly returned to their positions—all of them glaring into the opposition dugout—the batter, who wore number 99, was high-fiving his bench and acting as if he’d hit a moonshot so far out of the yard that street kids in Chicago were scrambling after it.

The fourth inning ended with the score 12-9.

The sixth ended with Homicide still in front 15-14. Young led off the top of the seventh, the final inning, with a double. As he lumbered into second, he saw number 99 on the back of the shortstop, who was awaiting the throw from the left field corner. Using a blocking technique he’d learned as an offensive lineman in college, Young lifted the shortstop from behind and proelled him ten feet into left field, where he landed on his face. Leaning on his knees to recover his breath, Young could hear his bench cheering. The shortstop got to his feet, dusted himself off, turned and stared at Young, pointed an imaginary gun at him, and pulled the trigger.

Two minutes later Young scored on a triple by Barkas. Barkas then scored on a Lynn Wheeler single. Much high-fiving ensued.

Narcotics managed one run in their last ups. Final score: Homicide 17, Narcotics 15.

After the game, both teams retired to McCully’s. Dexter and Jessy were working, as usual, as well as a new girl—an attractive blonde. For a while members of both teams shouted epithets at each other. The new girl helped Jessy serve, and after many pitchers of beer and half a dozen baskets of chicken wings, the mood of hostility was replaced by camaraderie. Later in the evening, a disk jockey named DJ Dan set up his equipment on the little karaoke stage. It was the night of the monthly Twist Contest at McCully’s, and DJ Dan asked Jessy and Young if they would help him decide the winners. Big Urmson—the stitch marks on his forehead now accentuated by pink dabs from a fluorescent bingo dotter belonging to a blowsy woman who had attached herself to the group but whose name no one knew—and Mona Higgins-Hubbard, right fielder for Narcotics, were declared Twist King and Twist Queen. Big Urmson was a horrible dancer: he flung his limbs every which way; he looked like a man being struck by lightning. Ms. Higgins-Hubbard wasn’t much better. Nevertheless, Jessy adjudged them the winners on the basis of their enthusiasm, and Young did likewise on the basis of Big Urmson’s heroic performance during the slo-pitch game. Trick and Wheeler finished second—Trick twisting drunkenly, rhythmically, in his wheelchair. Desk Sergeant Gallagher and the blowsy woman with the bingo dotter finished third.

An hour later, after most of the ballplayers had left, Trick and Young were themselves preparing to leave.

Trick called to Jessy at the bar and asked for the bill, and the new waitress brought it to their table. On the back she had written, “Thank you! Freedom!”

“Is that your name,” Trick asked, looking up at her, “or your philosophy?”

She smiled. “Both.”

“Well, it’s a beautiful name and a beautiful philosophy.”

“Thank you,” she beamed. Despite a lazy left eye, she was the picture of health, tan and fair.

Young said, “To give you a name like that, your parents, were they like hippies or something?”

She turned to him and her brows furrowed. “No, my parents named me Cheryl.”

“So how come you’re Freedom now?”

“If you really want to know, I’ve been travelling for the past four years, and towards the end of my travels I spent some time meditating on Mount Shasta. In California? And that’s where my transformation took place.”

Young was puzzled. “That’s where you got your new name?”

She frowned. “No, you don’t understand. I didn’t get it. The mountain gave it to me.”

As she walked away from their table, Young started chuckling, and Trick said, “Nice going, partner. I finally engage a woman in conversation, and you drive her away.”

Young stood up. “The mountain gave it to her.” He shook his head.

Trick said, “Fine, forget it. You ready to go?”

“In a minute. I got to take a leak so bad I can taste it. Be right back.” Young headed off to the men’s room. As he walked up to the urinals, a man came out of one of the cubicles. It was number 99, the Narcotics shortstop. He could barely walk. Young nodded to him and said, “You all right? Where’s all your buddies, they run off and leave you?”

“Fuck off,” the shortstop said. He staggered towards the exit, then turned abruptly and vomited into one of the wash basins.

“Nice,” Young said. He regarded the man. “When I saw you come out of that cubicle I said to myself, ‘Well, if it ain’t our old friend the super star, the Wayne Gretzky of slo-pitch, the man who likes to take his home run trot while the other team’s guy is rolling around in pain.’ Then I saw how you were walking, and I said to myself, ‘Poor boy, is he having trouble walking because he’s drunk or because of that hit I laid on him out at second base?’”

“Fuck you,” the man said, spitting into the basin.

Young laughed. “You shouldn’t talk like that while you’re puking. You look like a fool.”

He waited to see if the man had more to say, but he didn’t, so Young, zipping up, said “Next time on the diamond, fuckhead,” and left the men’s room.

When he returned to their table, he wanted to tell Trick about the shortstop, but Trick was slumped in his wheelchair, his chin down against his throat.

“What’s the matter with you?” Young asked as he sat down.

Trick wouldn’t answer.

“Trick,” Young said, “what’s the matter?”

Trick said nothing.

“Trick, for fucksake—”

“That new waitress.”

“What about her?”

“She won’t dance with me.”

“She won’t dance with you?”

“No. I thought she liked me.” Trick looked at Young. “While you were in the john I asked her to dance. Hell, I won the Twist Contest, didn’t I?”

“No, I believe you finished second to Big Urmson and that big-assed girl from Narcotics. Anyway, it’s probably because she’s working she won’t dance with you.” Young consulted the Blue Light clock above the bar. “It’s almost one. We’ll stay for last call. Maybe she’ll dance with you when her shift’s over.”

“No, she won’t.”

“How do you know? What did she say when you asked her?”

Trick was silent for a moment, nodding. Then he said, “I asked the bitch to dance, and she smiled so sweet and said, ‘No, thank you, I don’t dance with niggers.’”

Young sat forward in his chair. “Get the fuck out of here, she didn’t say that.”

“She might as well have. Bitch named Freedom. Ironic, ain’t it?”

“Her not dancing with you has nothing to do with you being black.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, brother.”

“No, you’re wrong. I told you, it’s because she’s on duty. She’s serving.”

“No, it’s because I’m a nigger.”

“Fine, fuck it, I’m not going to listen to this.” Young stood up to leave.

“Nigger in a wheelchair.”