Читать книгу The Emerald Cat Killer - Richard A. Lupoff - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

One year later…

“Lindsey?”

It only took one word to make the old synapses kick back in. If he’d been a retired soldier he’d have wanted to jump out of bed and stand at attention. If he’d been a retired fire horse he’d have snorted once, shaken himself, and been ready to pull the wagon to the conflagration.

Hobart Lindsey grunted, “Yes, Mr. Richelieu.”

He pressed the phone to his ear, swung himself around and planted his feet in his fleece slippers. How long had he been retired, himself? He’d had enough of International Surety to qualify for his pension. He wasn’t eligible for Social Security yet and the monthly checks from I.S. weren’t exactly lavish, but he’d been able to keep the little house in Walnut Creek after his mother remarried and moved to a gated retirement community in Carlsbad.

He waited to hear what Desmond Richelieu, his old chief at International Surety, top executive at Special Projects Unit / Detached Service, would be calling him about at this hour of the morning. In fact.… Lindsey frowned, peered at the glowing readout on his bedside clock, and waited for Richelieu to say what he had to say.

“Lindsey, I need you back on board.”

“I’m retired, Mr. Richelieu.” He couldn’t bring himself to call his old chief Ducky, the name that everyone used when Richelieu was out of earshot.

“I know that. You get a fat check every month for not working.”

“Mr. Richelieu, I earned it.”

“All right, look—wait a minute, where the hell are you, Lindsey?”

“Don’t you know? You called me. I’m at home.”

“Yeah, yeah, vegetating. I’m still working, why aren’t you?”

Lindsey didn’t even try to answer that. “Look, Chief, I’m sure you called me for a reason. You realize it’s an hour earlier here in California than it is there in Denver. Did you just want to wake me up, or is there some ulterior motive?”

“You’re getting feisty in your old age, Lindsey.”

“Yep.” He stretched, stood up, started toward the kitchen. Thanks be given for cordless telephones!

“You were always the go-to guy on wacko cases. I’ve got your file right here on my monitor. Comic books, that Duesenberg with the solid platinum engine, Julius Caesar’s toy chariot. You were always the oddball. Maybe that’s why you were so good at the loony cases.”

“Thanks, Chief. You should have said that at my retirement banquet when I got the gold wristwatch and the fond farewell. Oh, wait a minute, I didn’t have a retirement banquet, gold wristwatch, or fond farewell. I got a fond Don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out. Look, I am longing for a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs, and since there’s nobody here to make them, I need to get off the phone and do it myself. Unless there’s something you want.”

“You know about the consulting fee account.”

“Right.”

“I can offer you some nice bucks for a few hours of easy work.”

“Right. And there’s a really nice bridge you’d like to sell me.”

“No, I mean it.”

“Okay, hold on.” He laid the phone on the counter, turned on the coffee maker, got a couple of eggs out of the fridge and set them where he could keep a watchful eye on them, and plopped himself in a chromium-rimmed kitchen chair.

Desmond Richelieu’s voice came squirming out of the telephone. “Are you there? Are you there, damn you, Lindsey, where the hell did you go?”

Lindsey picked up the phone. “Sorry ’bout that, Chief. Now, what was it?”

“You ever hear of Gordon Simmons, Lindsey?”

Lindsey frowned. “I don’t think so.” The coffee maker was grunting and chugging like a happy little steam locomotive.

“You don’t keep up with things, do you?”

“Chief, please. He’s not related to Flash Gordon on the Planet Mongo, is he? I’ve always had a fondness for old Buster Crabbe.”

“Don’t joke, you—listen, don’t take it for granted that your pension is guaranteed, Lindsey. Don’t get me peeved.”

“Chief, it is guaranteed. Who is Gordon Simmons?”

“Not is. Was. He died a year ago. Murdered.”

“Sorry, Chief. Deponent knoweth not. You want to tell me more, or let me scramble my eggs. I’m hungry this morning.” He looked out the kitchen window. Beyond gauzy, pale blue curtains the sky was a vivid shade, almost cobalt, and the sun was bright. “Did we cover the decedent? Is there a problem with the claim? Why is this a case for SPUDS? I’m sorry Mr. Simmons was murdered but why are you calling me about it? Especially a year after his death.”

“It’s not about the death claim. We paid that off. No problem.”

Lindsey sighed. “Can I call you back after I’ve had my scrambled eggs? I think I’m going to have an English muffin and orange marmalade with them.”

“No, damn it, no! I don’t give a damn about your breakfast. Now listen. The guy lived in Berkeley. Simmons. He had a policy with us. Beneficiary was his wife. Walnut Creek office handled the claim. They paid the claim and we closed the case. This is a new case.”

“You’ll have to enlighten me, Chief.” Lindsey clutched the telephone between his jawbone and his shoulder, broke a muffin in half and dropped the pieces into the chrome-plated retro toaster on the counter. Except that the toaster wasn’t retro. It was original stock. It had stood on that counter for as long as Hobart Lindsey could remember.

“We’ve got a lawsuit pending. Mrs. Simmons is suing a publisher called Gordian House. It’s a plagiarism suit. She has a co-plaintiff, a publisher called Marston and Morse. Gordian House has kicked it over to us. If they lose the suit we have to pony up. And the Widder Simmons and M-and-M want big bucks. Big bucks, Lindsey.”

The toaster popped. Lindsey clutched the phone again between jawbone and shoulder. He spread some marmalade on one half of the English, butter on the other half, and closed it up. He opened the fridge and put away the eggs.

“Lindsey, here’s what I want you to do. The case file is on the SPUDS server. Get into the Walnut Creek office and read through it. Nobody there has enough brains to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions on the heel. Just read the file and call me back and tell me you’ll handle this one.”

Lindsey poured himself a cup of coffee, added some half-and-half, took a generous bite of English and washed it down with coffee. He didn’t say anything.

There was a lengthy silence.

Then Desmond Richelieu said, “Please.”

It was the first time Lindsey had ever heard him say that word. True, Lindsey could tell, even from the distance of a thousand miles, that Richelieu said it through clenched teeth and very nearly with tears in his eyes. Still, he said it. “Please.”

To Lindsey, that constituted an offer he couldn’t refuse.

* * * *

The Walnut Creek office of International Surety occupied a suite in a modern high rise building across North Main Street from City Hall. Lindsey left his Dodge Avenger in the parking garage beneath the office building. He liked everything about the car, especially its safety features, except for the name. Why name a car after a World War Two torpedo bomber?

He rode up in an elevator full of hard-strivers half his age.

The receptionist at International Surety looked up from her monitor screen and stared at him as if she feared that he would die on the spot of superannuation. He said, “I’m from SPUDS. Need to talk with the branch manager about the Simmons case.”

The woman hit a buzzer on her desk and Elmer Mueller emerged from somewhere. He’d added weight and lost hair since Lindsey had seen him last. And how long had that been? Lindsey wondered.

Elmer Mueller offered a reluctant handshake and ushered Lindsey into his private office. Behind Mueller’s desk and across North Main, City Hall gleamed in the March sunlight. Elmer Mueller gestured Lindsey to a chair.

The décor was modern. Elmer Mueller’s desktop was clear except for a keyboard and monitor. That seemed to be the standard of the day. But the portraits on Elmer Mueller’s wall were of President Richard Nixon and Governor Pat Brown. Lindsey wondered if Mueller’s intention was ironic.

“Richelieu emailed me about you, Lindsey.” Elmer Mueller leaned back in an overstuffed leather chair. He swiveled, nodded permission to City Hall to stay where it was, then swung back toward Lindsey. “We’ve had to cut back, I can’t spare people to hold your hand, and I don’t like SPUDS poking its nose into my business.”

“Your business?” Lindsey raised his eyebrows.

“Running this branch. If Ducky has any complaints about the way I run this office he can call in Corporate.” He dropped a fist onto the sheet of gray-tinted glass that topped his desk. “How long since you worked out of this office, Lindsey?”

Lindsey smiled. “Twenty two years, Elmer.”

“Didn’t I see your name in the retirement column of IntSurNews a few years ago?”

“Ducky asked me to come back on special assignment.”

Mueller pursed his lips like an exasperated school teacher and swung his head slowly from side to side. “I suppose I might as well set you up. There’s an empty office in the suite. Remember Mrs. Blomquist?”

Lindsey said that he did.

“Dropped dead. Had her retirement papers in, bought a condo down in La Jolla, had her furniture shipped ahead. Moved into a motel for her last few days in Walnut Creek. Came in to clean out her desk and say good-bye and dropped dead. You can use her computer.”

Lindsey thanked him. The receptionist who’d greeted him showed him to the vacant office and handed him a printout of file access codes. She closed the door behind her. Lindsey got to work.

The computer files on the Simmons case were sparse. Policy date and number, premium payment records, date of death, cause of death, coroner’s and police reports, claim forms and record of payment to beneficiary. Everything looked normal. Lindsey felt sorry for Simmons’s widow, Angela. He wondered if there were any children. If so, they weren’t listed on the policy. But it had been in effect for a long time. Maybe Simmons took it when the couple were newlyweds and never added bennies when the tykes came along. Bad work by the agent, if that was so.

He printed out what he needed, checked the bennie’s phone number and placed a call to Mrs. Simmons. A neutral voice answered, “Rockridge Savings and Loan. If you know your party’s extension enter it now. Otherwise, please speak the name of your party and stay on the line for assistance. This call may be monitored for quality control.”

“Mrs. Simmons, please.”

She had a pleasant enough voice. She didn’t sound particularly grief-stricken and obviously she’d returned to work. But then it had been a year since Gordon Simmons’s death. Lindsey explained that he was investigating Simmons’s death in connection with a lawsuit. Mrs. Simmons said that she got off work at four o’clock and Lindsey arranged to come to her home.

Before he took his leave of the branch office, he returned Richelieu’s earlier call.

“Okay, got it, Mr. Richelieu.” Oh, how he longed to call him Ducky to his face—or to his telephone. Maybe someday. Maybe not. “Okay, you know that our client is looking at a nasty copyright infringement suit. We already paid a death claim related to this case, and now we’re on the other side of the fence.”

“For heaven’s sake, Lindsey, don’t babble back what I told you. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Who’s our lawyer? Shouldn’t that information be in the file?”

“Isn’t it there? You’ll be happy about that one, at least. You remember your old buddy Eric Coffman?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well he didn’t put in his retirement papers and go home to sit on his hindquarters and collect pay for no work. He’s still at work. And he’s our sheriff on this one if we can’t head the rustlers off at the pass.”

“He doesn’t work for I.S., does he?”

“He’s on retainer.”

“Okay, at least that’s good. I think I’ll round up a posse and get a feel for what’s going on before I call Eric. But if you feel like it, Mr. Richelieu, you send him a smoke signal to let him know I’m on the trail.”

And where the hell did all the cowboy talk come from?

* * * *

The Simmons home was a comfortable-looking craftsman bungalow on Eton Avenue, a short side street not far from Rockridge Savings and Loan. A ten-year-old gray Chevy stood in the driveway. A shoulder-high brick pillar set off concrete steps leading to a heavy wooden front door. The house looked like Depression-era construction, well kept, with a tidy front lawn and a small, carefully tended flower bed.

Lindsey had parked at the curb. He rang the doorbell and was greeted by a yipping dog.

Mrs. Simmons opened the door a crack and said, “Mr. Lindsey?”

Lindsey passed a business card through the opening. It read, International Surety / Special Projects Unit—Detached Service. There was a cartoon image of a potato, the visual pun for SPUDS, and Lindsey’s name.

“I hope you don’t mind Millicent.” Mrs. Simmons pushed the dog aside and admitted Lindsey. Millicent sniffed his trousers, decided he was not a burglar, and backed away.

Moments later, seated in the living room, Lindsey said, “Mrs. Simmons, I understand that you are suing Gordian House.”

“Angela Simmons, please. Marston and Morse and I.”

Lindsey found himself liking her. She was casually but neatly dressed, her medium brown hair done in a soft style, her manner relaxed. This was a woman who knew who she was, who lived comfortably, if modestly, who accepted herself on her own terms and the world on its.

He said, “Yes.”

“Gordon’s publishers.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t recognize his byline. I’m afraid I don’t read as much as I ought to.”

“That’s all right, he didn’t use his real name. I’ve saved copies of his books. He was careless about them but I was proud of him, I saved all his editions.”

She crossed the room to a bookcase and returned carrying half a dozen paperbacks. She spread them on the coffee table. The covers featured colorful paintings and splashy lettering. The titles followed a pattern: The Blue Gazelle, The Pink Elephant, The Yellow Thrush, The White Bat, The Purple Cow.

Lindsey couldn’t keep from starting, “I’ve never seen a purple cow.…”

Angela put up her hand like a traffic cop stopping the flow of cars. “We laughed about that a lot. Nobody younger than forty seemed to get the joke.”

Lindsey scanned the book covers. The artwork wasn’t really too bad. His own father had been a cartoonist and Lindsey had an eye for skillful rendering. The subject matter on these was fairly lurid. The byline was Wallace Thompson. Lindsey looked a question at Angela Simmons.

“Gordon had a civil service job. There were government regulations about publishing outside work. I don’t know what they were afraid of. Maybe somebody would give away secrets of the Social Security system. Or maybe someone would write dirty books on the side and some politician would kick up a fuss. But it wasn’t a bad thing. Gordon liked to keep his day job and his writing separate anyway. No one at the office knew about Wallace Thompson.”

Lindsey reached inside his jacket for a notebook and a silver International Surety pen. He hadn’t got a gold watch but at least he’d got a silver pen and pencil when he said good-bye. “You don’t mind if I take some notes?”

She didn’t mind. In fact she offered to get them coffee, and Lindsey accepted with gratitude.

“Mr. Lindsey—”

“Hobart.”

“I don’t understand why International Surety has got involved. There’s no problem with Gordon’s life insurance, is there? You can’t take the money back. It’s all gone. I used it to pay off the mortgage on this house.”

Lindsey shook his head. “Nothing like that. You see, International Surety isn’t just a life insurance company. We sell many kinds of insurance. Including business and indemnity policies.”

She waited for him to continue.

“We have an indemnity policy with Gordian House. If your suit against them—yours and Marston and Morse—is successful, we will have to reimburse Gordian House for their damages. The damages they will have paid. Do you see?”

“Then you’re—” Angela Simmons lowered her coffee cup onto its saucer with a clatter. “Are you here—you’re on their side? On Gordian’s side? Mr. Lindsey, I probably shouldn’t be talking to you. At least not without my lawyer present. I think maybe you’d better leave. Right now.”

Lindsey slid his pen back into his pocket and closed his notebook. “I’m not on anybody’s side, Mrs. Simmons.” So much for Angela and Hobart. “I’m just trying to understand the case.”

Mrs. Simmons stood, called Millicent, clicked a leash onto her collar, and walked to the door with Lindsey.

“Millicent needs to go out.”

At the bottom of the steps she stopped to let the dog sniff a bush. Apparently someone else had been there and left a message. Angela Simmons laid her free hand on top of the brick pillar.

“It was right there,” she said.

Lindsey said, “What do you mean?”

“Where Gordon hit his head.”

Lindsey waited.

“It was raining. We were in bed. Millicent started howling and woke us up.”

Apparently she had changed her mind about talking to Lindsey. A minute ago she’d regarded him as the enemy. Now she was telling him the story of her husband’s death.

“Gordon always locked the car. Not just at night. Even during the day, any time he wasn’t driving, he always locked the car.”

She let out a deep breath.

“But he’d been working late at the library. He’d just finished a book. He hadn’t even turned it in to his editor at Marston and Morse. He was starting research on the next book, that was why he had the laptop at the library. He came home with an armload of books and it was dark out and it was raining hard and he couldn’t handle everything at once. He brought the books into the house. He was so tired. He’d worked all day shuffling papers for the government and spent hours doing research at the library. He stayed until they closed. Once he was in the house he forgot all about his laptop. I made him a hot bowl of soup and a slice of toast. He was too tired to eat anything else. And then we went to bed.”

Millicent was tugging at her leash but Angela Simmons was reliving a night a year in the past.

“When Millicent heard something—she must have heard something—she woke us and I said, ‘Gordon, it’s a burglar.’ He put on his slippers and went downstairs but there was nobody there. I kept Millicent with me, I was afraid, I was holding her in bed. I heard the door, Gordon went outside. Then I heard his voice but I couldn’t make out what he said. Then I heard the car door open and Gordon’s voice again and then the car door slammed shut and I put Millicent’s leash on her and we ran downstairs and ran outside. Gordon was lying on the ground.”

She gestured to the sharply pointed corner of the brick pillar. “That was where it happened. I ran back in the house and called nine-one-one and the police came and an ambulance came. Gordon’s nose was broken and it was bleeding and there was blood on the bricks here, too. I thought it was just his face, I thought he would recover, but they said that he’d smashed the back of his head on the corner of the bricks. He had bone splinters in his brain.”

She stopped. She was out of breath. Millicent had got tired of waiting for her walk and done her business on the lawn.

Lindsey said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Simmons.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“They took him to the hospital, they tried to save him, but it was no use. He had splinters in his brain.”

She blinked as if she’d fallen into the past for a moment, and then bounced back to the present.

“It must have been some homeless person. Probably some homeless man, maybe a woman, you can never tell nowadays.” Angela Simmons reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic bag and a couple of paper towels. She cleaned up after Millicent, walked to a gray trash container and dropped the bag inside. She came back and resumed. She’d caught her breath.

“It must have been some homeless person,” she repeated. “It was raining and he must have been trying every car door he came to, looking for a place to sleep. At least that’s what the police thought. That’s what they told me. Gordon always locked the car but it was cold and raining and he was so tired, he forgot. Just that once, he forgot. The homeless man saw Gordon’s laptop and he thought he could steal it and maybe sell it the next day. But Millicent heard him and Gordon went to investigate.”

Lindsey stood, listening. He could make his notes later. When an interviewee gets on a roll you just listened and remembered.

“The police thought that Gordon pulled open the car door to send the man away, and he smacked him in the face with the laptop. It must have been a man, a woman wouldn’t do that, do you think? I think it must have been a man. He smashed him in the face with the laptop and knocked him back against the pillar. That’s why his nose was broken and why he had bone splinters in his brain. That’s why he’s dead.”

“The killer was never found?” Lindsey asked. “I would think—well, weren’t there fingerprints in the car that could lead to the killer?”

Angela Simmons shook her head. No.

“But if the person was in the car—did he wipe off his fingerprints?”

“The police don’t think so. They checked out the car. They found plenty of prints. Gordon’s, mine, some friends that we gave a ride to the airport a week or so before. Everything was normal. But nothing that helped very much. I mean—nothing that helped at all, in fact. Nothing that helped at all.”

Lindsey started to take his leave but she put her fingers on his wrist and detained him for another minute.

“They found an organ donor card in his wallet. I never knew about that. He wanted to donate his organs, and they took them at the hospital. Harvested them. That’s what they call it, you know. They harvested his organs, and his heart is beating in another person’s chest right this very minute. And somebody has his liver. And his spleen, and his pancreas. Even his eyeballs. They weren’t damaged when he was hit. They use everything today, nothing goes to waste.”

Lindsey said, “Like the Shmoo.”

Mrs. Simmons tilted her head and gave him a curious look. “Like the what?”

Lindsey said, “Nothing. Nobody remembers the Shmoo.”