Private Heat (5 page)

I took the lighter with my left and grabbed his hand for a shake with my right. “Congrats,” I said.

His face lit up and he found his grip. “It's just that it wasn't planned,” he said in a plume of exhaled smoke.

“How many of us were?” I said. “It works out.”

“Well, Jennie had planned to get her real estate license now that Nina's in school. Money's tight sometimes.”

I took the envelope with his check in it out of my coat pocket and handed it to him. “This won't make it all better,” I said, “but it's better than a sharp stick in the eye.”

He thumbed it open and peeked in. “Lots better,” he said. “I've got an appointment for a vasectomy.”

I took a long pull on my smoke, extracted it from my face, and looked out over the river. The water looked gray and cold, the current swift and relentless. I bent my head down and scratched my growing tonsure with my pinky finger while I drew a long fresh breath through my nose. Popsicle sticks weathered to gray and the silver pull tabs from beverage cans littered the ground. I exhaled the smoke off my palate with a low “ahh” and asked, “How about a little advice from an old reprobate?”

“Whatever.”

“Jennie isn't going to get pregnant again next month or the month after.”

“Nope,” he answered with one affirmative nod.

I clamped my cigar in my teeth and showed Ron my open palms. “Clipping you like a poodle ain't gonna guarantee that she's never going to be pregnant again.”

Ron's eyes narrowed and he squared his shoulders. “Just what do you mean by that?”

“You could get run over by a bus. Then what's she gonna do? Neuter half the male population to sort out a keeper?”

Ron wrinkled his nose. “Jennie would never screw around!”

“Maybe you'll be hard to replace,” I said with a shrug.

“Okay, Pops,” Ron said with a grin. “I'll think about it. So, how are Wendy and the boys?”

“Jim made me a grandfather again. Daniel is a senior this year, and Ben is fourteen and has decided that I ‘just don't get it.'” We both laughed and I flicked an inch of gray ash over the wall into the river. “I haven't called to let them know I'm working overnight yet. Wendy and I never settled on a definition of ‘quality time.' I figure you're having ‘quality' when the lights and the telephone both work at the same ‘time.'”

“Good luck,” he said.

“I think we're going to need some. Remember the payroll guy who turned up dead down at the airport?”

“Sure.”

“Well, two things are missing: the shooter and about eleven million bucks.”

“I thought this was a domestic.”

“It is. The embezzler's secretary is our charge.”

“Didn't they recover some of the money from her?”

“Four hundred and sixty-five thousand,” I said. “They're trying to get some Bahamian bank to freeze the funds.”

“Chump change.” Ron laughed.

“The IRS has also levied her house, automobile, and personal property.”

“No wonder her old man is in a state.”

“I don't know. I just read the county records, and she filed for divorce before the shit hit the fan. She didn't mention his fast hands and ugly attitude until he filed a countercomplaint and the feds had levied the old homestead.”

“Maybe he didn't get mean until then.”

“The divorce file listed a second mortgage,” I said. “I don't think the loss of a couple grand in home equity is going to start him foaming at the mouth. I mean, she was porking her boss and he didn't get snaky over that little misstep.”

“You think he whacked her playmate?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Her lawyer is talking to the U.S. attorney about the witness program. If her hubby's the doer, and he shows up at midnight wearing a goalie mask and carrying a chainsaw, and he gets waxed, she's out of trading material.”

“What if he isn't the doer, and she wants him whacked so she can say he was?” asked Ron.

“That's one of three possibilities I've considered, so I made a fourth plan.”

“What's that?”

“We hold up our end of the deal. We keep the little minx breathing for two days. We don't let ourselves get cornered into trading lead with anybody, then we cash out and go spy on some insurance claimants.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Good. Let's go eyeball the house and sniff out the stop signs.”

“There's another thing,” said Ron. “I just made a quarterly tax payment.”

“There's a lot of that going around; it's an epidemic.”

“Yeah, except it's too late to cash this check, and I'm just about out of gas.”

“Not to worry,” I said and took out the money I had just wrenched loose from my bank. “Take this off the back-end billing.” I peeled him off five twenties.

“That'll work,” he said, pocketing the cash. “I have to run by the house and drop off some milk. The differential is locked up in the old Dodge, and Jennie can't get out to shop.”

At Ron's apartment I waited in the truck. Ron said he would be right back, but I had time to light up another stogie before he reappeared. He had a little spring to his step. I guessed he was at least peeking out of the doghouse. I didn't ask.

The trip to the Union Street address took ten minutes. Karen's house, a ranch with an attached garage, seemed out of place among the older brick two-story Dutch colonials that neighbored it. The street was a boulevard. Half-century-old hardwoods and flower gardens planted and tended by the residents lined the center island. Fresh paint and manicured lawns were the order of the day. Only the occasional tricycle or scooter revealed the change of the guard in progress, with younger couples moving in to replace older residents who no longer had the endurance for the knee-deep misery of a west Michigan winter.

“You're the ace in the hole,” I told Ron. “The client has no knowledge that I'm using a backup, and we won't tell Officer Talon. I need you to watch the street and fill me in if we have a late-night prowler. Plan A is: If someone makes entry to the front of the residence, you dial 911 while the charge and I exit the rear of the residence. We'll make our way through the yards and you pick us up on Paris Avenue. Then we'll ride around the block and watch the fun.”

“Why don't we just take the broad and hide her out for a couple of days?”

“She's on a tether as part of her bail arrangement. I should have mentioned that earlier.”

“Slipped your mind?”

“A minor detail.”

“It all comes into focus. I take it that if the opposition comes in the back, you'll come out the front.”

“Sure.”

“What if there's a crew?” Ron asked. “They could make noise at the front and ace you both as you come out the back.”

I shot Ron a sidelong glance. “You think we're up against that kind of talent?”

“The accountant in the trunk at the airport parking lot was a pretty neat package.”

“I guess it really isn't the kind of plan that you'd expect an irate hubby to stumble into.”

“And cops tend toward the physical confrontation when it's a personal matter,” said Ron.

“I suppose with eleven million dollars there's plenty of room to write a little professional cleanup into the margin.”

“They didn't recover the piece with the body?”

“Nope,” I said. “Not exactly like a pro to walk away with evidence in his hand.” I ground out my smoke in the ashtray.

“So what's Plan B?”

“If I try to hang on to the defender's advantage, somebody gets a fanny wax for sure. I guess Plan B is that if any shots are fired, you lay back and leave me a clear field of fire until the police arrive.”

Ron nodded. “What's our subject driving?”

“Blue Monte T-top,” I said. “We didn't see it in the drive, so I guess he's busy serving and protecting.”

“When does he get the paper?”

“Client says he's supposed to be served at the Hall of Justice when he gets off shift. I'm going to give a copy of the service to the watch commander before I head back out here.”

“Good idea. That way they can club you into a puddle right there on Monroe Avenue.”

“You're watching too much California news film,” I said. “All that constant ground shaking out there makes everybody irritable.” But Ron was right. Policemen don't get paid to walk away from trouble or lose fights—a mindset that serves them better on their jobs than it does in their private lives.

Ron drove us back to the parking area at the fish ladder, and I gave him a vest and a radio from the trunk of my car.

“Do me a favor and wear this, will ya? For sure, after the sun goes down. People don't act right when it's dark outside.”

“Ahh … Those things are hot.”

“Not as hot as lead.”

“I'm the outside guy on this. Besides, if I take one in the head I'm dead anyway.”

“That's right. You're dead, and Jennie has your insurance and Social Security for the kids. Take one in the spine, and you spend the rest of your life sitting in a wheelchair, drooling in your lap. You won't need a vasectomy. You'll need someone to change your pants.”

“Uncle!” said Ron. “What's the call sign on the radio?”

“I'll be five-six,” I said. “You'll be five-seven. We're sharing the channel with a plumbing company and a car repo outfit. The repo chatter is pretty entertaining. One of their guys repopped a T-bird and discovered a boa constrictor in it while he was sailing through the S curve on Highway 131.”

“I'm sure the snake was disgusted with the company.”

“He didn't have it for long,” I said. “The guy bailed out on the shoulder, and a freightliner took the driver's door off.”

“What happened to the snake?”

“Don't know, the guy with the radio never looked back.” We laughed. “The plumbing outfit is pretty rude. They're working off forty-watt dash units and real gratuitous about stepping on other traffic.” I gave Ron a spare battery and the dash plug adapter. “I take it your cell phone is up and running?”

“Sure is.”

“I'll give you a radio check when I get into the neighborhood.”

Ron nodded in the affirmative and departed.

After normal business hours the doors to the Hall of Justice are locked. You have to announce yourself at an outside box. Telling them that my visit regarded a restraining order got me buzzed in quickly, but I suppose just about anything short of asking to use the bathroom would net the same result.

The fresh young face at the counter disappeared with a copy of the restraining order in her hand. Sergeant Franklin appeared shortly thereafter with the document in his hand and his mustache twitching.

“This is a police officer,” he said.

“Yes sir.”

“He's on duty,” said Franklin.

“I'm not here to serve him.”

The sergeant studied me silently with angry eyes. Finally, he asked, “Why are you here? What do you want?”

“I'm here because the plaintiff and her family are afraid of Officer Talon. I came to ask for a supervisor, or at least a patrol car, to be present when Officer Talon comes to get his personal effects.”

Franklin loosened his tight jaws to say, “You guys do anything for a buck, eh? This is a
police officer
. You come here and act like this?”

“Sergeant, you know how emotionally charged a thing like this can be.”

“Yeah, and we don't need people like you making trouble.”

“Maybe you should come out there just to make sure the plaintiff and I don't make up any lies about Officer Talon.”

On reflection, I'd say it was right then that Franklin decided that I'd failed the attitude test. He stuck out his left hand and said, “I want to see some ID. I want your driver's license, your private ticket, your permit, and the registration for that handgun you wag in and out of here.”