Barry Friedman - Dead End (18 page)

As the two walked along the corridor toward the
doctors’ office, Vandergrift said, “I appreciate your coming down so late. As I
explained to Dr. Lathrop, we’re investigating a homicide, so this is urgent.”

“Who was killed?”

“Well, I can’t go into that right now, but we’re
trying to locate Ephraim Rankins. Dr. Marino operated on him about three years
ago. We thought the doctor might have been following him, you know, for
check-ups and there might be a current address in his file.”

She thumbed through the folders on one of the
shelves. “No Rankins here. Let me try the inactive file.” She moved to another
stack of shelves, picked out a manila folder. “Yes, here it is. Dr. Lathrop
said the medical information on the chart was confidential. I can give you the
last address we have.”

“That will be fine.”

She leafed through the chart. “The last address
we have is the Akron YMCA.”

“When was that?”

“Dr. Marino saw him last about three years ago.”

“Nothing since?”

“No.”

Vandergrift’s lips compressed. A YMCA address was
not likely to be permanent. Still, there might be a forwarding address. She
thanked the secretary and headed for home.

She unbuckled her holster, kicked off her shoes
and took a beer out of the refrigerator. She sprawled on an easy chair in her
living room, reviewed notes she had scribbled in her spiral notebook during the
day. She would type up her report when she returned to the office day after
tomorrow.

With the cold beer in one hand and the phone in
the other, she got the number of the Akron Y and placed the call. The desk
clerk said Rankins was not registered.

She said, “Could you look up your records and see
if he was registered three years ago. If he was, I’d like to know when he
checked out and if he left a forwarding address.”

“Three years ago? Wow!”

“This is a homicide investigation.”

“I’ll try. See what I can find.”

She had just finished eating a hamburger she had
broiled, when the YMCA desk clerk called back.

“You’re lucky. We put our records on computer
just a little more than three years ago. I found Rankins’ registration.”

Her pulse leaped.

“He was here for a month. Left no forwarding
address.”

A shower of red and white and blue sparks filled
the sky. It was followed by another and another.

“Wow, that’s beau-u-u-tiful.” Annie’s mouth gaped
open as she stared up at the fireworks display. Gradually, the flashing sparks
faded as they fell in slow motion toward the ground. A few echoing booms
remained as the bright flashes of exploding rockets in the shy were replaced by
blackness.

“I guess that’s the finale,” Maharos said.

They got up from the Boardman High School stadium
bleacher seats and shuffled slowly, following the crowd out of the stands
toward the parking lot. Vandergrift, dressed for the warm night in blue batik
shorts and a white halter, led the way. Annie held a tight grip on her father’s
hand. She spoke softly. “She’s nice, Daddy. I like her.” Maharos squeezed her
hand in reply.

They had picked up Annie at ten that morning.
Marcie hadn’t come to the door and Annie was ready. Maharos was relieved. He
would rather not have the two women look each other over appraisingly.

They picnicked on fried chicken and sliced ham,
potato salad and cole slaw. They ate on a blanket spread on the grass at
Firestone Park. Around them, hundreds of other families celebrated the Fourth
in much the same way. They swam and sunned. And they talked. Vandergrift found
Annie easy to talk with. Maharos listened, watched and smiled a lot.
Vandergrift looked good in a one-piece bathing suit, lavender with a large
white floral pattern. Cut low over her chest, high over the hips and buttocks.
Very slight bulge at the belly. Small breasts with nipples pointing through the
material. Even with her short-cut, wet hair hugging her head like a helmet, she
looked good.

Late in the afternoon, they folded the blankets
and dressed in the locker rooms. They stopped at the Hungry Bear, a franchised
fast food restaurant for a light supper of salads. It was dusk when they got to
the Boardman High School stadium for the fireworks display.

Although he avoided talking to Vandergrift about
the hunt for Rankins in Annie’s presence, half a dozen times during the day
Maharos’ mind wandered to it. Early that morning, he had spoken to Frank Fiala
who was on duty, briefed him on the state of the investigation, and had given
him instructions on following up with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles trace. In
addition, Fiala was to run Rankins name through the files of the Ohio Bureau of
Criminal Investigation, headquartered in London, Ohio, and the FBI’s National
Center for Criminal Information. Several times he was tempted to call
headquarters and find out what Fiala had learned. He resisted the temptation.
If Fiala had something urgent to report, he could rouse him on his beeper.
Meantime, he would enjoy his day with Annie and Karen.

As he walked out of the stadium, the acrid odor
of cordite, from the exploding fireworks, hung in the air. He stopped, sniffed.
Stared at the ground, thinking. The association of odors plucked a cord in his
memory bank.

Vandergrift looked back. Maharos and Annie had
stopped. She walked back to them. Her expression questioned him. He looked up
smiling and shook his head. “Nothing.”

They drove Annie home three abreast in the front
seat. At the car door she reached up hugged him tightly around the neck. Then
she leaned back into the car and kissed Vandergrift. Self-conscious, she
quickly turned and ran up the front steps of the house. Over her shoulder, she
called, “Thanks. ‘Night.” Maharos stood at the car door watching while his
daughter disappeared inside the house. His chest was bursting with pride and
with joy.

They rode in silence for two minutes before
Vandergrift said, “That was me, twenty years ago.”

“Annie?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Like her?”

She faced the windshield and nodded. Maharos
noticed the glistening in her eyes. “She likes you, too.”

She thought, that could be the daughter I will
never have. It had been years since she had given it much thought. Before the
divorce, like any wife, she had expected that one day she’d be a mother. That
would wait until Tom’s law practice had become established. They had never
gotten around to it before the marriage ended. Afterward, she was gun-shy,
wanted no repeats. She avoided permanent attachments. Before she knew it, she
was thirty, thirty-five, now thirty-six, pushing forty. She didn’t think she’d
want to be tied to an infant—squalling, bawling, at this stage in her life. Yet
it would be nice to have a daughter. An Annie. This Annie?

At Maharos’ apartment, where she had left her car
earlier that day, they went upstairs together. There was no preliminary small
talk as they pressed their lips and bodies together, barely inside the door.
His hand slipped to the small of her back. She pressed herself against him
while they moved, like ballroom dancers, toward the bedroom. He unfastened her
halter while she unbuttoned his shirt, lightly ran her tongue over his nipples.
Her hands stroked him below. He unfastened his trousers and burst out.

Afterward, her head on his chest, she murmured,
“Talk about fireworks!”

Maharos said, “Can you stay?”

She shook her head. “Got to get back for early
report.”

He watched, lying on his side on the bed. Head
propped on an elbow, while she dressed.

She stood before the mirror, plumped her hair.
Took a small vial of perfume from her purse and placed a dab behind each ear.
Smiling, she bent to kiss him. He started to get up. Gently, she pushed him
down. “Don’t get up. I’ll find my way out.”

The fresh perfume aroma lingered after he heard
the front door close. Again, as when he walked from the stadium, his memory was
jogged by association of odors. He stared at the cracks in the ceiling without
finding the answer.

*
  
*
  
*

He awoke to the sound of church bells. Remembered
it was Sunday. He reached over to the phone and placed it on his chest while he
placed a call. Fiala answered with a voice that was still hoarse with sleep.
Maharos said, “Sorry to call you so early. Wanted to get you before you left
for church.”

“You could have waited. I’m sleeping in. Henny
and the kids have already left for Mass. You want a report, right?”

“Got anything?”

He waited while Fiala got his notes.

“Okay, here it is. BMV has a registration of a
motorcycle owned by Ephraim Rankins. A Yamaha.”

“Address?”

“New Philly. Last registration was three years
ago. No re-registration since then.”

“Did he sell the cycle?”

“They don’t have any record of a sale. Maybe it
was scrapped.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. He hasn’t renewed his driver’s license for
three years either. Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation has him listed for
incarceration at Lima State. Served nine years. He was released to a halfway
house in Akron. Saw a parole officer for two years. Last contact was when he
moved to New Philly. Everything seems to stop at New Philly.”

Maharos said, “Well, not everything. He hurt his
back there and went to St Agnes Hospital in Canton for a back operation. After
he left the hospital he apparently moved to the Akron YMCA. That’s where we lose
him.”

Fiala went on, reading from his notes. “NCIC has
nothing on him after Lima State. I called Lima State. Incidentally, they don’t
call it Lima State anymore. It’s Oakwood Forensic Center.”

Maharos said, “You’ve really been on the stick.
What did you find out?”

“They dragged out his file. Was arrested on
suspicion of aggravated assault, homicide. His landlady. Never came to trial, a
M’Naughton ruling. While he was in the joint, he was a good boy. Took some
medicine that straightened out his head so they had no reason to keep him. The
D.A. didn’t think he could get a conviction, so the homicide charge was never
pressed after he got out. Don’t forget, this was nine years later. Go try to
find witnesses.”

Maharos was curious about the murder pattern. “Was
the landlady murdered with the two-shot technique we’re seeing now?”

Fiala said, “We’ll never know. They never found
the body.”

“So what’s the evidence?”

“For one thing, she was a sixty-year-old widow
who’d lived in the same house for thirty years. Steady as a rock. He was her
only roomer and they found a meat cleaver with traces of human blood on it in
his closet.”

Maharos said, “What was he doing with a meat
cleaver?”

“He was working trimming and dressing carcasses
in a wholesale butcher factory. For all anybody knows the landlady might have
ended up on the shelf in the pet foods section of a supermarket.”

“Nice thought.”

“Anyway, his friend in Lima State was a guy named
Willie Jackson. They were a husband-wife team. Jackson’s still there.”

Maharos said, “Does he know where Rankins is?”

“I’m coming to that. The assistant warden I
talked to was real helpful. After I told him what we were after, he called
Jackson in and called me back on a conference line.”

“You had a chance to question Jackson?”

“Yeah. I gave him some shit about me being a
lawyer who was trying to find Rankins because someone had left him some dough.”

“Think he bought it?”

“Who knows? Anyway, he says he hasn’t heard from
him since he left the joint. Says if I send him the money, he’ll try to find
him and give it to him. I guess he ain’t so crazy even if he is in a nuthouse.”

“Did you ask him how he was going to find him?
Maybe he’s got a contact on the outside.”

“Yeah, I asked. He says once in a while he has
spiritual contact with him.”

“Uh-huh.”

Fiala said, “Jackson’s keeper says they checked
the log book for visitors and the mails. There was no record of Rankins having
any contact with Jackson after he left. I don’t think they got around to
checking for spiritual visitations.”

“You’ve been a busy little boy, Frankie. Think
it’s worthwhile taking a trip out to Lima Sta—Oakwood?”

“I doubt it. Lemme see if there’s anything more
in my notes. Oh yeah, when Rankins was there, he worked in the prison lab, his
job was listed as ‘Pathology Assistant.’ I think that’s a fancy title for a guy
who sweeps the place out. I guess that’s all I have for you.”

“Yeah. You can go back to sleep. You did a good
job, Frank.”

Maharos swung his legs out of bed. It was seven
o’clock, July 5th. Two more days until the seventh. He had a lot to do in two
days.

He finished shaving and splashed Canoe on his
cheeks. He inhaled the fragrance. The odor was not sweet. Musty? Lemony? His
nostrils tingled. He would later recall that there seemed to be an audible
click as his brain synapses made contact.

“Holy Mother of God!”

The sound of his own voice startled him for a
second. He threw his clothes on, slammed the door shut and leaped down the
stairs, three at a time. His garage was one of a row behind the apartment
building. He cursed as he fumbled with the lock on the garage door, threw the
door opened and backed out. The tires screeched as he sped out of the driveway
and headed downtown.