Jimmy Fox - Nick Herald 02 - Lineages and Lies (22 page)

The cabin was now burning furiously. How long would it be before the smoke attracted attention?

Nowell backed away. His beautiful boat, the rich teak he’d hand rubbed all these years! He didn’t have much time, he knew, before the extra plastic bottles of denatured alcohol used as cooking fuel exploded; eventually the diesel for the engine would go, too.

All in all, perhaps this was the best outcome.

He grabbed a small fire extinguisher mounted just inside the cabin and made a few perfunctory sweeps. Then he pulled two life jackets from a cockpit storage bin under the cushions, threw one into the cabin, and put the other one on.

Even as he thought it, he realized what a silly notion it was: pity about the dinner.

He jumped overboard.

CHAPTER 19

“Y
o, Nick! Yo, you got another parking ticket.”

Johnny Doe knocked on the office door as he opened it and entered Hawty’s anteroom. Seeing she wasn’t there, he walked around the corner into the larger book-lined room where Nick’s desk was.

“Oh, ’scuse me, man,” Johnny said. “Didn’t know you had company.” A short grubby cigarette bobbed in his mouth with each word. He gave a deep, rattling cough and started to back away from Nick and his visitor.

“That’s all right, Johnny,” said Nick. “Just give the ticket to him.”

“Him? Well, okay, whatever you say, man.”

Johnny walked over to Detective Dave Bartly, who was sitting in a chair in front of Nick’s desk. Johnny handed the ticket to him.

“He’s a cop,” Nick said.

Johnny jumped back, as if Bartly had sprouted fangs.

“Yo, I’m clean, man.”

“Indeed you are. You’ve just had a shave, Johnny, haven’t you?” Bartly said, having fun playing Sherlock Holmes at the paranoid man’s expense. “At a barbershop, I bet you.”

He had sniffed Johnny’s paradox: a weathered, lantern-jawed face that was oddly smooth and tonsorially fragrant, atop a body that was pure hobo. The man was somewhere in his fifties; his stoop made him appear shorter than he was. He was slight of shoulder, but carried the oversize belly of the gorger and the alcoholic. Probably, he suffered from various common diseases that had not been seen to in his younger years. Johnny favored scrounged clothing of the paramilitary kind. He had no sideburns, but it was impossible to tell much else about the state of his hair because he constantly wore a grungy New Orleans Saints football cap. Nick had always assumed his head was shaved regularly, as well.

“In my job, looks is important,” Johnny replied, proudly displaying his smooth chin, which jutted out because of lack of teeth.

“What job is that?”

“Well, I’m a P.I.—private investigator. That’s what that means, you know. Just ask Nick, there. He’ll tell you.”

“That true?” Bartly asked Nick, toying with Johnny.

“Yeah, you could say that. I count on Johnny to do a certain specialized type of snooping. He digs through dumpsters all over town. Be surprised what important genealogical information people throw out as garbage.”

“You tell him, Nick!” Johnny laughed-coughed-laughed-coughed. “Part”—cough—“ners!”

“You need a license to be a P.I., Johnny. I’m sure you got one of those, right? You could land in a lot of trouble impersonating a P.I.”

“Oh, no, sir. No ’personatin’ here. I got my license … now where did I put that thing.” With the shifty sincerity of a man who’s been hassled countless times by police, Johnny vigorously patted the dozen or so pouch pockets in his voluminous Army-green parka, which seemed to hold all of his possessions. “It’s in here somewhere. Just got it renewed.”

“Here, Johnny.” Nick handed him a few bills. “Go get a pedicure and a new cigarette. And watch my car. It’s a vital piece of automotive history.”

Johnny left in a crescendo of coughing.

“Valet parking. This
is
a nice place,” Bartly cracked.

“I liked it better when it was a dump, before Hawty domesticated me and it.”

“We could use her at the department.”

“Forget it. She’s mine.”

“I’m sure she’d let you have it if she heard you say that.”

“You’re a shrewd judge of character, detective.”

“Johnny Doe?” Bartly asked. “Yeah, I bet. I’m glad to finally meet a live one. Every John Doe I’ve ever encountered was on a drawer in the morgue, right next to his wife, Jane.”

“Or sister. He came with the office. Lives out there, somewhere,” Nick said, pointing beyond the windows, to a sickly stand of azaleas in a triangular traffic island. “From bits and pieces he lets slip, I’m guessing he was in Vietnam. Went through some hellish experience. Came back, everything seemed
changed; or maybe he realized
he
wasn’t the same. So he took off, no inner compass anymore. A lot of people couldn’t handle that. They become haters or murderers. But Johnny, or whoever he is, took a gentler course. He went a little cuckoo. Sometimes I think he’s saner than I am.”

Nick had been to the edge of that cliff himself. He knew Johnny was a part of him, as much a part as the English professor with three degrees and a genealogical certification. In a way, there is a Johnny Doe in all of us, he believed—running from the past, fearing that the demons there will catch up and control our future.

“Murderers,” Bartly said. “Now you’re talking my language. I’m getting ragged all the way up the line on these cases. I even got called in to see the superintendent. The
superintendent
. Jeez!” He let out a harassed sigh. “We’re talking serious shit when the big guy calls you in. Since that bomb went off, the FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, even Postal Inspectors are trying to get in on the act. And another death yesterday! I can’t even go out of town with the wife, without you genealogists producing another body. You say you talked to this Freret architecture professor, Nelson Plumlaw, Wednesday of last week?”

“Right. I knew him from my university days.”

“You discuss the details of the cases? You’re not supposed to do that. You gave me a consultant’s pledge of confidentiality, you know.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve been a good little Scout. I didn’t want him involved any more than you did. I merely put a hypothetical scenario to him, to learn more about his specialty, which was colonial migration.”

“And that line of inquiry was supposed to get us somewhere, huh?” Bartly didn’t seem too high on Nick’s brand of speculative investigation. “Well, at least you helped me eliminate a suspect. Carolyn Bullenger came in, and we had a nice chat. She’s pretty much in the clear. Said to call her in Salt Lake City if I need to ask anything else. So, we’re back to Nowell.”

“He seems to be the key, the common element in all of these deaths.”

“You say he fences,” Bartly said. “That’s real interesting. Therman was stabbed with some badass toothpick. I’ll pass that by the forensic guys. But I don’t have any idea
why
Nowell might have killed the four men. Seems to me he had reasons
not
to. He’d just hired Bluemantle, his prize catch. The Therman thing had been going on for a year—old news. The only connection with Montenay is that they were both in charge of the Society, years apart. I’m not even sure they knew each other personally. Ms. Vair didn’t give us much to go on. Too upset. And Plumlaw was supposed to be Nowell’s longtime friend, probably his former lover.”

“I put that together from the newspaper article, which was careful to dance around the issue,” Nick said. “I knew about Nelson’s, er, preference, but Nowell? … that was a shocker.”

Bartly rubbed the back of his neck in disappointment. “I actually thought I got the jump on you with that. I interviewed some of Plumlaw’s relatives and friends. See, I have been earning my detective’s pay.”

“Maybe there’s more that Nowell is keeping in the closet, so to speak,” Nick suggested.

“Could be,” Bartly said. “And what secrets are
you
keeping from me. For instance, what’s the story with Ms. Vair now working at the Society? I get the feeling you and she are running your own detective agency, with old Johnny Doe doing the dirty work.”

Nick ignored the question and asked one of his own: “Does Nowell have alibis?”

“Well, for the first two murders, he was at the Society library; the employees confirm that; and there’s a computer system that tracks personnel and indicates he was there when he says he was. The employees could be lying, and the computer could have been tampered with, but it’s enough. For Montenay’s murder, he wouldn’t have to be there. Can he put together a bomb?”

“He was in the military, that’s all I know,” Nick said. “You’d have to check his service record. But he screwed up with the boat, huh? Can’t you nail him on that?”

Bartly stared out the windows. He shook his head; his glasses picked up the daylight, blanking his eyes out momentarily. Nick had a fleeting image of Orphan Annie.

“It might have happened the way he tells it. A tragic accident, the loss of a close friend,” Bartly said. “He claims something caught on fire in the kitchen—the galley, that is. The Plumlaw guy panicked, refused to jump, and ended up trapped in the cabin. Nowell tried to get to him, but the fire was already too bad. Then there were some explosions. The boat turned over and sank partially. Plumlaw’s lungs were full of water, so he was definitely alive when the boat went under. He also had massive trauma to his head.”

“Anybody around when it happened.”

“We have witnesses in other boats who heard the explosions, saw the smoke, but they were maybe a couple of miles or more away. The boat that finally picked up Nowell ran into the submerged sailboat—which may account for Plumlaw’s head trauma. It was getting dark, and the asshole driving it was all excited to be making a rescue. Came in too fast, damaged his own boat pretty bad. The thing is, with water, it contaminates the scene. Not to mention nothing stays where it ought to. So I really don’t have a damn thing on Nowell. Oh, yeah: he’s got some powerful allies, I’m finding out all of a sudden. They don’t like the idea of us questioning him twice before and then putting him through the wringer again yesterday.”

Nick walked around the desk. “Well, I do have something that may help us connect Montenay to the others. I was going to wait until I put it all together to tell you … but things have greater urgency than before. I got this from Mr. Montenay. Thursday afternoon, at the nursing home. Jillian and I went to visit him.”

Bartly took the note Mr. Montenay had written and slipped to Nick at LifePath Estates. “The same,” he said, after examining it closely. “Matches the note the heckler had, I’d say. Now we know where that came from. Hmm: the old man, even from a nursing home, continued to have a strong interest in the Society. He was trying to tell you something, trying to tell anybody who would listen.” He paused a moment. “Montenay was killed Saturday.”

They looked at each other, the unspoken question between them: if Nick had delivered the note sooner to Bartly or another detective, might Mr. Montenay still be alive?

“Montenay, as you said, was once head of the Society, and Plumlaw was a very good amateur genealogist and historian. These two, like Bluemantle and the heckler—”

“Wayne Therman,” Bartly interjected, holding on to the few facts they had. “Who worked out there at the nursing home.”

“Yeah. I believe that Montenay and Plumlaw, like Bluemantle and Therman, discovered something that Nowell would kill to suppress.”

“I can see you know more than you’re telling me,” Bartly said. “Let me have it. All of it. Come on.”

Nick explained what he’d learned about the ill-fated voyage of the
True Faith
.

Bartly stared at nothing for a moment. “But I thought the Society ship’s name was
Allégorie
. What’s this other one got to with it, besides being in those two notes?”

“I’m not sure yet. But I have no doubt that Nowell is trying to protect the Society from information the dead men uncovered—or were in the process of uncovering. Family and group honor is a big motive, but there’s a lot of money involved, too.”

“Honor and money: that’s a deadly combination,” Bartly said.

“What I’ve told you is only half the story.” Nick saw Bartly’s face go skeptical. “really, I’m leveling with you, here, Dave. But I think I know where to look for the other half … at least, that’s my working theory.”

“The DA doesn’t like theory,” Bartly said. “He likes incriminating evidence. And so far, we can’t provide any.”

“Maybe the coroner will come up with something else on Plumlaw,” Nick suggested.

“Let’s hope so,” said the detective. “He was still working on him this morning. With Bluemantle, my partner and I figure an argument turned nasty. After the assailant realized the old guy was dead, he used the straight razor to cut off the finger, maybe to get at that ring. We never found the finger or the ring, and the razor was wiped clean of blood and prints with a towel. Never found that either. Whoever’s doing this—if it’s one person—is smart, a planner, but a damn good improviser, too. And it looks like he’s starting to enjoy it. That’s the scary part.”

“Give me a little longer,” Nick said. “Stall, lie, cry your eyes out, solve some other murders. Whatever it takes to buy me some time. A day or two. I’ll get your proof. I may have to break a few minor rules. Anybody going to get upset about that?”

Bartly held up the parking ticket. “Depends on what you mean by minor. My influence only goes so far. Try not to kill anybody, okay. Or get killed.”

CHAPTER 20

“K
ick! Kick! Come on, put some effort into it! We’re having fun, aren’t we?”

The physical therapist walked along Freret University’s indoor Olympic-size pool. She blew her shrill whistle to start or end the ten-minute periods of splashing by the eight floating participants. Four other therapists in the water offered encouragement.

Nick sat on a bench of the wooden bleachers, watching. The splashing, the whistles, and shouts of frustration and triumph echoed through the chlorine-pungent natatorium. Hawty swam or treaded water with the aid of foam donuts on her arms and a buoyancy belt. She hadn’t seen him. She was enjoying herself. Nick could distinguish her robust laughter in the tumult as she splashed the other swimmers, some of whom were more severely handicapped than she. During the workout periods, Nick saw that she concentrated on the serious business of strengthening her legs, hips, and back. Even after all these years, she hadn’t given up hope of walking again.