Private Heat (38 page)

“You got Social Security numbers?”

“Just run the names.”

“You're looking to spend a yard and a half here.”

“Dazzle me,” I said. “When can you get back to me?”

“Hold on,” he said. I heard him click the mouse around the pad and then he mumbled the letters of the names as he pecked them out one at a time.

“Jesus, there's a ton of Timmers,” he said.

“Read 'em off,” I said. The third was the charm. Carolyn Timmer married Philip Emmery at a Dutch Christian Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan. The Clemments woman was a dry hole.

Birth records in Kent County revealed that Carolyn Timmer was the daughter of Van Pelham's law partner. That little tidbit ran the tab up to two yards. It took twenty minutes.

“Bernie, you may be a genius. Give me an invoice number and I'll have Marg cut you a check.”

“You want hard copy?”

“Can you do that?”

“Sure,” said Bernie. “The computer can't talk yet, but it writes good.”

“Fax me, I'll put the check in the mail.”

“My man,” he said and hung up.

I'd oiled my sidearm and finished my expense report by the time Ron wondered in and Marg's fax machine spit out the “hard copy.” I folded it and put it in my pocket.

“What's the matter, Art?” Ron said.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just when I think things can't get any stranger, I find out I'm wrong.”

“So, where's the money?”

“Not here.” I got up and went to the closet and got us each a vest and a radio. “Know what happens when you hunt the bear?”

He pulled off his coat and started on his tie. “The bear hunts back,” he said.

When we had the vests snugged up and our clothes arranged, I scraped the pictures together and we left. Marg took the expense ledger and smiled.
She had the deposit and a check for me ready to go. I gave her Bernie's invoice and expected her to complain about having to cut a check immediately on a thirty-pay invoice. She surprised me. All she said was “Be careful.”

On the way to the bank I told Ron, “Matty Svenson stopped by. She wouldn't talk in the office. She said Ralph Sehenlink sent Neil Carter on a permanent vacation and her pet racketeering case got shut down.”

“I wonder if anybody thought to shut down Rosenko and Solutzkof?” We pulled into the bank lot and parked.

“I don't have any faith in that idea.” I took the pictures out of my pocket, handed them to Ron, and strolled into the bank.

When I got back, Ron handed me his cell phone. “Marg called,” he said. “She wants you to call back.”

I did. Sergeant Franklin called right after Ron and I walked out; he left a message for me to meet him at The Chance around eight. She said that he was pleasant enough about it and hadn't been really insistent. That part of the story made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“Talon was killed on the boat,” said Ron. “There's a bloodstain on the transom.”

“It ran down in rivulets,” I said. “Paulie said that he caught Randy trying to double-cross them.”

“Where was this picture taken?” he asked.

“City impound yard. Kind of an interesting place these days. They have that red Ford Escort down there under a tarp, except it's burned to a crisp, the VIN tag is gone, and the fire department found a roast in the oven.”

“Chucky-wucky?”

“That's my guess, but the body was mutilated and burned so bad they have to hope for a DNA match.”

“Dental records?”

“The head is one of the parts they don't have.”

“I can't believe they're going to leave the boat outside,” said Ron. “It's the piece of evidence that Cox and Shephart had to be cribbing. I mean, there wasn't a word about the boat in the press.”

I gave Ron the paperwork that I got from Bernie. He scanned it and his face went pale. “Small town,” he said. “I guess we watch the boat.”

“I have to pick up a rental car,” I said. “Franklin wants me to meet him at The Chance around eight and that means you're on the boat alone until I get back.”

Ron dropped me at the car rental agency and headed over to the impound yard. I had to haggle and pay extra to get a car larger than a coffin. I told them that I wanted one big enough to have a spare tire in the trunk instead of a body bag. They didn't see the humor. They gave me a black Mustang convertible.

When I got to the impound yard, I found the boat and trailer parked inside the fence behind the building and Ron set up in the Grand Rapids Area Transit Authority employee parking lot. He had a good angle for film. I set up across the street and east of the impound office so I could watch the gate.

At ten after five, a red Jeep Cherokee showed up with Fay's wife at the wheel. Good old Arnie climbed out of the passenger door. He walked around to the driver's window. They made a little kissy-face and she left. Fay went inside.

At a quarter after, Fay was back outside with the guard. The guard opened the gate. Fay located and fired up his Suburban and backed it up to the boat. The guard helped him line it up. A van marked “K9-Corps Security, Inc.,” arrived at the gate.

“Five-six, Five-seven, over,” I said into the radio.

“Seven, go,” answered Ron.

“I'm going to take the lead. Fay might make the van, over.”

“That's a four,” said Ron. “I won't move until you're out of sight. Seven, out.”

“Six, out.”

Fay pulled out past the gate, and the guard handed him a clipboard through the driver's window. The security van backed in and unleashed the soup-hounds into the fenced yard. Fay handed back the clipboard and pulled out.

He couldn't scoot in a truck pulling a boat trailer like he did in his Corvette, so I laid back. He wasn't hard to follow and he didn't lead me far.

Fay went north up to Fulton, hung a left, and towed the boat into a coin-operated car wash. He pulled the truck through so that the boat was in one of the bays that featured a high-pressure water hose with a three-foot metal nozzle. When he got out of the truck his head was all swivels. He stood in front of the bay and lit up a cigar while he dog-eyed the street.

“Seven, hold up where you're at. We're at the Power Wash on Fulton, and Fay is looking hard.”

“I'm in the alley behind the fruit market across the street. Let me know when to come out.”

“Try to set up a block north,” I said. “Maybe you can get an angle between some houses and crank on a little lens, over.”

“You got it. Seven, out.”

I parked at a meter in front of a pawn shop, across the street and past the car wash. I got out and kept my back to Fay, then plugged the meter and went into the pawn shop.

“How can I be helping you?” asked the man behind the counter. He had a dark complexion and very sharp features. He stood behind a thick Plexiglas partition.

I held up my radio and my folded ID case. “You want to buy a badge and a radio?”

“We are running an honest business here.”

“Of course. Do you mind if I stand here and look out your window for a while?”

“Certainly, not at all.”

I took that to mean yes. Fay finally stuck his hand in his pants pocket and walked over to the change machine. He fed it several bills and beat on it with his fist. He must have got his change because he went back to the bay and went to work.

I keyed the radio and said, “Seven, go. Six, out.”

“Excuse me very much, sir.”

“Yes, what?”

“If there is being trouble you may be counting on me for very much help to you.”

I turned around and found him displaying an auto-loading magnum, just a hair smaller than a crew-served weapon. “Right,” I said, “but everything's under control.”

When I turned back, Fay stood inside the boat hosing down the seating area. He ran out of whoosh and had to climb down to pump more quarters into the machine. Ron called and in half a dozen words said that he was in and had a good angle.

“Excuse me very much, sir.”

“Yes?”

“Is there going to be robbery?”

“Not here.”

The clerk smiled large. Fay kept it up until I began to wonder if the stolen money was going to float over the gunwales. After an hour and another trip to the coin changer, the sun was low and Fay was satisfied. He
pulled out. I thanked the clerk for his community spirit. A couple of customers had walked in, saw me, and departed. The clerk never complained, which is a lot to ask from a man who runs an honest business.

Fay went west on Fulton. He crossed some railroad tracks, and just past a taco stand, turned north. Half a block up, he swung wide to the left, turned right, and stopped, blocking both lanes in our direction and one of the oncoming lanes.

I pulled down the sun visor, pulled up close, and laid on the horn. Fay was nosed into the drive of a two-story, turn-of-the-century brick-and-cement-slab warehouse. A roll-up door wound its way slowly open in front of him.

Fay laid a small black box on the dash and flashed me the bird. I kept most of my face behind the visor. The opening door revealed a ramp that angled up to the second floor. When he had clearance, he drove in. The door rolled down behind him.

I couldn't make out an address on the building, but there was a large “
FOR SALE
” sign nailed to a boarded-up second-floor window. I wrote the information down and scouted the area.

A neighborhood of two-story clapboard houses and narrow streets spread out behind the warehouse. Two blocks east, the streets crossed the rail line. Where the rail lines bisected the streets, there were warning lights but no control arms. A half-block past the rail grades, the residential streets emptied onto a north-south street that served as a truck access to an unbroken row of furniture factory buildings. Four blocks north, the neighborhood ended at a viaduct that allowed the expressway to pass over the rail lines.

The warehouse had no rear exit. A six-stall truck dock faced the street at the south end of the building. Fay would have to drive out the door that he went in or walk out over the truck dock to leave the building.

Ron parked north of the warehouse. I took the south side. I could see through the windows that the second-floor lights had been turned on. Fay did not leave and no other visitors arrived. At a quarter after eight I left Ron on the job alone and departed for my meeting with Sergeant Franklin.

The Chance is one of those bars that prominently features a green neon shamrock on the sign. It fills up at the end of each patrol shift with police groupies and off-duty cops trying to drown adrenaline in beer.

It's a peaceful place. Most everyone is armed. Absolutely everyone is polite. If good-natured jibes get out of hand, the patrons take the trouble
elsewhere, or at least into the bathroom or out the back door. No one goes to watch or remembers hearing anything.

The inner door banged shut behind me and gaveled the crowd to silence. Shephart sat perched on a stool about halfway up the bar. He was the only one not looking at me. An empty shot glass and a brown longneck beer bottle were removed from his spot on the bar and replaced with fresh ones. Sergeant Franklin, in civilian attire, sat alone in a booth in the dim corner past the pool table.

“Hardin,” said Franklin. He beckoned me over. “Glad you could make it. You're a half-hour late.”

The low din of chatter returned to the establishment. I stopped at the jukebox and pecked out a couple dollars' worth of tunes, including “One Shot of Happy and Two Shots of Sad.” A shame Sinatra hadn't ever recorded it.

I walked over and joined Franklin. “What are you having?” he asked. He had a fresh but untouched beer in front of him.

“Nothing, I'm working,” I said. I slid in opposite him.

Franklin waved at the barmaid. “Coffee,” he said. “Cream and sugar on the side.”

“So? You called the meet,” I said.

“So why didn't you clue me in on Furbie and Milton?”

“I did.”

“Not by name,” said Franklin. “And not like they were in shit up to their eyeballs.”

“How many guys picked up a gun at the scene? What do you want from me?”

“I want to know who else.”

The coffee arrived. “Cream and sugar on the side” turned out to be a shot of cognac. I poured it in and stirred. Franklin smiled. I waited for the barmaid to leave.

“What makes you think that there's someone else?”

Franklin's mustache drooped. I picked up my coffee cup and held it out for a salute.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I gotta let it warm up a little.” He rubbed his jaw with the palm of his hand. “Fresh filling—still a little sensitive.”

I put my coffee down. “Too hot,” I said. “Wanna trade?”

“I want to know who else, because right after I pushed Cox and Shephart to check the hot tub, Randy Talon's house burned down. And somebody
has to be hiding Furbie or at least keeping him one step ahead of the department.”

“Furbie's dead,” I told him and watched his face. He didn't know.

“You'd better be lying,” he said and grabbed my coat by the lapel.

I stared at his hand until he let go. The crowd should have been staring at us. They weren't. Franklin raised his beer, but then set it back down without taking a drink. I tapped my index finger on my ear.

Franklin shrugged.

I took out my notepad, found a blank page, and wrote, “YOU'RE WIRED.”

Franklin took my pen and wrote, “BULLSHIT.”

“Suit yourself,” I said. I stood up, fished out a five, and dropped it on the table.

Franklin backhanded the five off the table and beckoned, waggling his fingers at me. I handed him the pad and pen. He wrote, “Step into my office.”

It was my turn to shrug. Franklin handed me back the pad and pen, got up from the table, and headed for the men's room. I picked the five back up, put it on the table, and followed him.