The Case of the Yellow Diamond (12 page)

 

Chapter 22

I
t was getting late and even though there was still sunlight in the western sky, traffic was light, so I had time to think. I had the windows open because it was a nice evening. Interesting how the odors change as one drives through a city. Apart from the stink of diesel and gasoline exhausts, I felt and noticed the smell of the river as I crossed the Mississippi. The damp gave way to curry and then barbeque with a whiff of mesquite. The corner that held an Arby's gave me a shot of hot frying oil. Trees and green and damp arrived as I rolled into Kenwood and slid the car into my spot in the underground parking garage.

Upstairs, the apartment felt empty. It was. Catherine had left for her business trip. The fact I knew she was out of town somehow made the empty apartment feel different than if she was just out somewhere in the city. I should have stayed at home in Roseville. But I built a drink of scotch and a little ice, then settled down for more noodling about my clients and their troubles.

Josie's college buddies had joined the effort to find the downed plane wherever it lay under the Pacific Ocean. I didn't quite get it. Family support I could understand. The loss of a brother or uncle in a war with the resulting empty grave made for unhappiness. Families often wanted their military dead in a military cemetery, like the local one at Fort Snelling, so their support was logical. But why these two women, neither of whom seemed to have a lot of money to throw around, contributed several times to Josie's campaign wasn't so clear. Maybe it was just the romance of the idea. Maybe there was something else there, something under the surface. Maybe I'd better find out.

I went to the third and smallest bedroom, where Catherine had her office and the computer setup. Not long after we'd become a couple, after it had become clear we were going to be involved with each other, maybe for life, Catherine had set up her computer so I had access to most programs. I didn't use modern technology much, prefering an eyeball-to-eyeball, hands on approach. Blackberries were for eating, preferably with thick cream and sugar. Dessert. Cell phones were mostly, in my view, a way to avoid human interaction. Nobody I had ever encountered in this life needed to be connected twenty-four seven. Gives one an inflated and erroneous sense of self.

But there were times when the Internet could be helpful. For most stuff, I had my connection with the Revulons. Here in Kenwood, Catherine occasionally helped or, as now, I helped myself. I held subscriptions to a couple of professional data search operations.

I booted up, logged on and found my notepad and pen. First up, Julie Alcott. A stay-at-home mom, she'd told me. Two youngsters, one of each, in the local public schools. Married, Julie's husband worked in Stillwater for a realtor. Not a licensed salesman or broker, he was in the back office. More treading tappity-tap over the keyboard. Waiting.
Ah, here we are
. The screen filled. The Alcotts owned their own home and had for several years, had registered a boat, and appeared to have never been in trouble with the law. There was a reference to some sort of college dustup in the nineties. But they had no outstanding warrants in the state of Minnesota, no court judgments, no recorded driving violations.

For an additional fee, a deeper search. No thanks. I entered Jennifer Martin's name. Her husband, Terrance, I learned earlier, was the owner of a chain of dry cleaning stores in the northern and western suburbs of Minneapolis. The Better Business Bureau informed me there had been the occasional complaints, all handled with dispatch. Their rating was satisfactory, and they were regular contributors to a variety of civic and other causes, including the Republican party of Minnesota. Then I found a birth certificate for an Enid Marie Martin. The record indicated the girl was born to Jennifer and Terrance at the address in White Bear.

I checked my notes and couldn't find any reference to children. I searched further and discovered a death certificate for a girl child of three years with the same name and address. Cause of death was not indicated. That was unusual, but clerical errors did happen, and it didn't seem to be relevant. Again, a message appeared suggesting more information was available if only I'd pony up some more money. Again, I declined.

I traveled elsewhere along the humming wires and silicone and satellite connections until I discovered Terrance Martin had borrowed heavily to finance the establishment of his cleaning chain. What's more, the loans had been privately placed, meaning no bank was involved. That was a wall that could be breached, but did I need to make the effort?

I decided to leave that for another time. It was getting late. I had a small nightcap of some mighty fine Cointreau and went to bed.

* * * *

In the morning I called Mrs. Pryor to thank her for her help and briefly explained I had been successful in covering up the true source of the money. I don't usually keep clients up to the minute on my investigations, but this was a special sort of situation. Besides, she wasn't really a client, although I assured her I'd tell her the outcome whenever the case was finally resolved.

Catherine would be back this evening, I was happy to remind myself. When the phone rang, I answered it instead of letting it roll over to the answering machine. It was the Winona cop who had the Stan Lewis homicide.

“I just thought you'd want to know, the ME has wrapped up his examination, and we're gonna bury Mr. Lewis this afternoon in the local cemetery.”

He's a vet, right?” I said.

“Yeah, and his remains will be moved to a federal site after they get through with the paperwork.”

“I'll drive down,” I said. He gave me the time of the ceremony and directions to the city cemetery.

Several hours later, I stood beside a large man in the dress uniform of a captain in the Winona Police Department on a still, sun-swept slope in one corner of a Winona cemetery. Across the freshly dug grave at rigid attention ranged a four-person honor guard of veterans. They stood holding flags that drooped in the heat and absence of moving air. I was sweating, even though I wasn't exerting myself in the slightest. A minister of some denomination in a black suit with a high white collar stood at one end of the casket. There was no one else there to see this veteran of that enormous conflict called World War Two placed in a temporary grave. Stan Lewis, Air Force gunner, late of St. Louis, Missouri, served his country honorably and then lived an apparently quiet life thereafter for more than sixty years. He died violently in a town he probably had never heard of, on a train beside the water of a river that flowed all the way to his hometown.

I decided that, even though I didn't know the man, he ought to have some justice in this world, and it looked like it was up to me to find it for him. He probably wouldn't thank me for the trouble I'd take, but there you go. We do or don't do things for many different reasons, some of which make little or no sense to others. I didn't care.

I was going to find whoever it was who fired the bullet into Stan Lewis and then dumped his body on the train tracks in Winona.

* * * *

It was late when I got home, after stopping at my office to check the mail and messages. That didn't take long. There was only one recorded message and the mail was all crap. I thought about the message—from a lawyer I knew only slightly. I might not even recognize him if we chanced to meet on the street. He was a junior associate in a very large law firm for which I did some work a few years ago. He'd been designated as my contact at the firm. I had led him to believe he could be helpful in future work if he kept in touch.

So, he started calling me occasionally. Meaning maybe every couple of months. I had originally expected I'd have more frequent additional assignments from the firm, but it hadn't worked out, so there was not much he could provide. But he called anyway. And now this.

I almost didn't recognize his voice on the tape. He didn't leave his name but did leave enough information so I figured it out. What he told me was that word was going around I was becoming unreliable as an investigator. He didn't tell me the source, but I figured it out for myself. Attorney at Law Gareth Anderson was starting to turn the thumbscrews. He wanted me gone from the Bartelmes' problem in the worst way, and he wasn't above trying to mess with my rep and thus my business.

Pissing me off could be a dangerous pastime. For one thing, I was good at what I did and most attorneys in the Cities who knew about me were aware of my record. So his effort to dirty me probably wouldn't do much damage unless I let it go on for a while. Second, Lawyer Anderson's efforts made me wonder about him. Maybe he had something to hide. I would make it my business to find that out.

 

Chapter 23

F
inding some dirt about Attorney Anderson took less time and effort than I expected. For one thing, I was good at my job. Did I mention that? Being good at my job meant I had a steady traffic in cases of various kinds and so had a number of contacts in multiple levels of society. Some were not individuals you'd want to meet in a dark alley off Hennepin Avenue, even if the city has reconstituted a formerly seedy block.

First I made a few calls to learn a little more about Lawyer Anderson and his friends. I found out where he lived—in a nice medium-sized mansion just off Lake of the Isles. Actually, it wasn't far from Catherine's and my place. Then I sent one of my construction pals around. He backed his big dump truck up over the curb onto the Anderson's soft boulevard lawn, making a few ruts in the lawn. When he went to the door he sort of leaned on Mrs. Anderson, not physically, you understand, but pushing the misunderstanding. Turned out to be the wrong address. I was never sure whether she had the presence of mind to take the truck's license number, but it wouldn't have mattered. The truck was being moved to Wisconsin, and the license plate was seriously covered with muddy tape. The truck left the scene, but the ruts remained.

The next morning, Anderson's secretary reported she'd received a vaguely menacing phone call before he got to the office. That same morning, somebody had banged a vehicle into their trash receptacle before the company truck had arrived. The Andersons' front lawn was quite a mess.

Later in the day, Anderson himself got a call at his office and heard only some heavy breathing. It went on long enough Anderson got rattled and hung up the phone with a bang in my ear. When he left the office that day, he was probably startled, driving out of the underground parking ramp, to encounter me just standing there beside the ramp entrance, looking at him. At least, that's the way it seemed. But I didn't even turn my head as he went by although I made sure to make eye contact. No smiles, no little head nods or a tip of the old fedora. He drove away. I didn't look after him. Why would I? That way he'd be sure I was there. Or maybe not. He'd think about me. And wonder why I was standing there outside his building ramp just at that time. Then he'd think about the ruts on his pristine lawn, the call to his secretary, the heavy breather.

I'd wait just a day to see if he got the message. This all might seem petty, even juvenile, but it was relatively harmless. I could engage a more formal legal process, amass sufficient information to sue the bastard, but that would take time and money. The time lost could be dangerous to my clients.

While the pranksters were at large, I was learning more about the Bartelmes and about Josie's father, Preston Pederson.

I decided I should go back to the East Side retirement home to talk with Abe and Tommy some more about their ex-boss and those good ol' times. I called the home and talked with Abe, who said he'd round up Tommy and be ready when I got there. An hour later I pulled into the driveway of the place to find Abe sitting alone on a bench outside the main door. He looked even gloomier than his sagging jowls usually indicated.

“What's up, Abe? Where's your buddy?

Abe shook his head. “Tommy ain't here. He had a heart attack, I guess, or mebby a stroke. Ambulance just left.”

I touched the old man's shoulder. “Gee, Abe, I'm sorry to hear that. Do you want to go to the hospital? Where'd they take him?”

“Regions. I sure would like to go. Tommy's the only family we got left. Each other, y' know? But we ain't kin, so they wouldn't let me see him.”

“You let me worry about that. C'mon. I'll drive you there and see you get back here okay.”

I helped him into the front seat and we sped off to Regions Hospital. It wasn't far. While Tommy settled in a chair in the Emergency waiting area, I went looking for a friend of a friend, a nursing supervisor in another part of the hospital. Like all these places, she knew people and about half an hour later, a nurse I didn't know came to where we were sitting.

“Are you Sean Sean?”

I allowed I was that person.

“Your friend is in the ICU. You can go up to the floor and ask for Ms. Jordan. Use my name if you need to.”

“Thank you,” I said.

We elevatored up and entered the hushed environment of the ICU. Ms. Jordan had been clued in and escorted us to a closed room. “You can go in, but I'm afraid your friend's been medicated, so he's not likely to be awake.”

I gestured Abe through the door and watched. Abe approached the bed slowly and gazed down at his friend. He reached out a gnarled hand and gently slid his palm under Tommy's where it lay on the sheet. I went to find myself a cup of coffee. When I returned, I found Abe just leaving Tommy's room, and a doctor and nurse standing by the bed.

“They wanted me to leave while they examine him.”

“How is Tommy doing?”

Abe shrugged. “He's got tubes and things in him and he's just lyin' there, like he's asleep. An' I guess he is.”

We sat together in a small lounge. Abe slumped forward, legs spread and hands clasped between his knees.

“We knew our times would come, but it's hard. We're all the family we got, you know? Outlived 'em all. I hoped I'd be the one to go first.” He glanced over at me. “Selfish, huh?”

I shrugged. “You feel up to talking to me about Pederson's old man?”

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

“Tell you the truth, I'm not sure.”

“Just fishing, huh?”

“Something like that,” I said. “Tell me more about when you first went to work for Pederson's father.”

Abe nodded and rubbed his forehead. “I can't remember exactly when I started. Tommy was already there. It must have been around 1950, probably a year or so earlier. We were just kids. Missed the draft 'cause the war ended. Big Jack had a project. He was building near the old Payne Reliever, that strip joint? Anyway, I was looking for work that summer so I just went on down, and there was Tommy. I remembered he'd told me he had landed a job there. Tom sort of talked Big Jack into hiring me part time. That's the summer I met Kid Cann.” Abe glanced sideways at me as if to see my reaction.

“Kid Cann?”

“You don't know who he is, do you?

“I guess not,” I said.

“That wasn't his real name. People said he was a gangster, a mob guy.”

I raised that practiced eyebrow. It was supposed to take the place of asking a question. Sometimes it worked.

“His name was Isidor something. He was a tough kid who grew up on the North Side of Minneapolis. A lotta Jews lived up there in those years.”

“A ghetto?”

Abe just looked at me like he didn't know what the word meant. Maybe he didn't.

“Anyway, he got into a lotta stuff and some people said he'd killed a couple of guys back in the thirties or something like that.”

“Did he get arrested?” If he'd been in a courtroom there'd be a record somewhere. Did I care?

“I guess. I heard he went to jail eventually, then moved to Florida. He's dead now.”

“Abe,” I said, “what does this have to do with the price of anything?”

“Here's the thing. After that first time when Kid Cann came to the construction site, he never came back but another guy did. Every week or so. Some guy who looked like a crook. He was a big guy who didn't look comfortable in a suit, you know what I mean? He'd show up and him and the old man, Pederson, would go into the construction shack for few minutes. Then the guy would walk out and leave. He never said nothin' to any of the rest of us. I remember he always had a shiny new car. One time it was a Studebaker. Did you ever see one? One year they looked the same, front and back. My dad said you never knew if it was comin' or goin'.” He grinned.

We talked some more and it became clear to me Preston's father was making regular payments to somebody for something. I couldn't think of another reason for the guy in the suit showing up so routinely. I had no proof, of course. Of anything. It could have been protection, or it could have been to pay a loan, or it could have been blackmail. All it did was make me realize Pop Pederson wasn't a stranger to the seamier side of life in the big city. So it wouldn't surprise me if Josie's dad was somehow involved in whatever this was.

The problem I had was that Josie's dad was in no way estranged from his daughter. In my observations of the two of them as well as in conversations with others, it was clear they had affection and love for each other. The entire family was pretty close, even if Dad was getting a little tired of supporting his daughter's efforts to locate their long-lost relative. Love or not, though, I expected Dad wasn't about to let his daughter expose some illegal past activities that could get Dad sent off to prison. Maybe he'd decided to torpedo the effort and things had gotten out of hand?

More questions. Not many answers. I could see Abe was focusing more on his buddy Tommy, so I wound it down. I made him take some money for a cab home when he was done at the hospital. I left Abe waiting for Tommy to regain consciousness and drove home. I wanted to reexamine the cast of characters and see if I couldn't whittle it down to manageable size before someone else got killed or maimed.