Murder in the Hearse Degree (14 page)

She pushed herself out of her chair and went over to her desk, where she stirred through loose papers, muttering and humming to herself. On the television, Ryan O’Neal was making mincemeat of his lower lip as his eyes welled up with tears. Such a baby.

Billie stepped back over and handed me a Polaroid snapshot. A silver-haired gentleman lying in a casket. Large ears. Downturned mouth. Snappy green tie. Very dead.

“I thought I’d keep it in my purse. See if I don’t run across it when I’m out shopping.”

“You’re going to go around town flashing this picture?”

Billie took the photograph back from me and gazed at it. “It’s a lovely tie.”

Alcatraz curled up at Billie’s feet and set his muzzle on the floor. I stayed another few minutes but I couldn’t take any more of Ali MacGraw’s trash talking, so I went downstairs to my office. I picked up the phone and started to dial Libby’s number in Bolton Hill, then I hung the phone back up. I really had no reason to speak with her. Instead I phoned Jay Adams, a fellow I knew at the Sunpapers. Jay and I had fought over the same woman the winter previous. Eventually we both lost her. No stronger form of male bonding if you ask me. I got Jay on the line and asked him if he had the time to be nosy for me. I wasn’t asking for any heavy lifting. I gave him a name. It was the name Tom Cushman had given me the night before.

“I’m trying to get the story on a guy named Crawford Larue,” I told him.

“Crawford Larue? You mean as in the ARK?”

“That’s the one.”

“Interesting fellow, Larue,” Jay said. “What’s your interest?”

“I’m not exactly sure. A friend of a friend apparently met with him a few weeks ago.”

“Please, Hitch, I hate it when you bury me with specifics.”

“Sorry.”

“Why don’t you just ask your friend’s friend?”

“She’s dead,” I said.

“Ah . . . now you’re setting the hook. What gives?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “I want to give this Larue character a call. I thought a little background first would be good. Can you just get me a general sketch?”

“I can tell you that he’s an ex-con.”

“That’s a good start. What was he in for?”

“We have a thing in this country called taxes?”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“And that would be why Mr. Larue went to jail and you didn’t.”

“He didn’t pay them?”

“In his own way.”

“I see.”

“And before that he was the governor of Kentucky.”

“Is that a joke?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t to the citizens of Kentucky.”

“Mr. Larue sounds like a well-rounded character.”

“You could say that.”

“What brings him to our neck of the woods?”

“Power. Prestige. Influence.”

“Oh. That stuff.”

“Listen. How about I call you back in fifteen?” Jay said. “I can dig up specific dates and all that kind of sexy stuff.”

“Sounds good.”

While I waited for Jay to call me back, I leafed through casket brochures. Talk about sexy stuff. I picked up the phone and dialed Munger’s number. Pete wasn’t there. Susan answered. I didn’t think I should give Susan a message for Pete about Lee Cromwell’s having said hi. The two had never met, but conceptually at least, Susan knew that Lee was out there somewhere. I told her to tell Pete I’d called. I half suspected she’d pocket the message. Susan Munger and I are never going to be old drinking buddies.

Jay called back. I took a few notes as he gave me the lowdown and I thanked him for his time.

“Is this an interesting corpse?” Jay wanted to know. “This friend of a friend?”

“It’s getting more so.”

“What does Crawford Larue have to do with it?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “That’s what I’m going to try to find out.”

“He’s a well-connected guy, Hitch. You want to keep your eye out.”

“It’s out,” I said. “Thanks.”

We hung up. I called Washington information and got a number. I called it. A woman with a southern accent answered the phone.

“Welcome to the ARK. How may I direct your call?”

I told her that I wanted to speak with Crawford Larue. She asked me my name and then put me on hold. I nearly hung up on an all-strings version of “Up, Up and Away,” but I dug in and toughed it out. The receptionist came back on to say that Mr. Larue was unavailable. I asked her if she would please pass along the name Sophie Potts. I was put back on hold and a few minutes later a man came on the phone. He had a thick accent. Kentucky, I knew, checking my notes.

“This is Crawford Larue.”

“Howdy. Hitchcock Sewell here.”

“I understand you would like to speak with me.”

“Yes, sir. It’s about Sophie Potts.”

“Miss Potts.” He pronounced the name with an air of resignation. “Yes. Miss Potts. Enterprising young lady, Mr. Sewell. It
is
Mr. Sewell? That’s your name?”

“My . . . Well, yes. Sewell. Two
l
s, two
e
s.”

“Mr. Sewell, this is a delicate matter, as you know. You should hardly expect me to conduct this sort of business over the phone. Believe me, I would like to expedite this matter. But face-to-face, Mr. Sewell. And without games this time?”

“Games?”

“We need to talk.”

“Fine,” I said. I was now as intrigued as I was confused. “No time like the present. What say I pop on down?”

There was a brief coughing fit. When Larue came back on his syrupy voice had darkened a grade or two.

“That would be awkward. My wife and I are hosting a rather large party at the house this afternoon. Perhaps this evening. We can arrange a neutral location.”

“Neutral location?”

“Yes.”

“How about I think about this and get back to you?” I said.

“No.” He fairly barked into the phone. “Please. Mr. Sewell. We have to talk. Don’t hang up.”

First rule of negotiation: Show ’em who’s boss.

I hung up.

A minute later I picked up the phone and dialed an old familiar number. An old familiar number answered.

“Julia,” I said. “I just heard the word ‘party’ and who do you think I thought of?”

Bells of delight chimed in her voice. “Me.”

 

 

Julia had her bare
feet up on the dashboard. She was painting her toenails in an elaborate rainbow motif. My music of choice—
The Art of the Bawdy Song
by the Baltimore Consort—was no longer playing. Julia had ejected the tape and tossed it into the backseat. She had a tape of her own. Rosie Flores. “Rosie kicks buttskies,” Julia announced. And so it was; Rosie was kicking buttskies as we tooled down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

Julia was dressed like a genie. Her near-transparent harem pants flapped in the wind, and I wasn’t quite sure what it was holding her tiny silk vest together over her breasts . . . unless it was simply the breasts themselves. She was wearing a bright red scarf around her head, tiny gold bells on her ears and too much makeup. She flipped down the visor to admire herself.

“We’re not going to visit a sultan,” I said.

“Haven’t you ever just woken up in a Turkish state of mind?”

We zipped past the exit for Greenbelt. NASA has a place there. Somewhere beyond the trees lurked hundreds and hundreds of real-life rocket scientists.

“So who did you say is this big daddy we’re going off to see?” Julia asked.

“His name is Crawford Larue. He used to be a horse breeder in Kentucky.”

“I flew over Kentucky once.”

“After that he was elected governor, though the governor thing didn’t last long. He got caught up in a tax scandal before the end of his first year and got sent to the pokey.”

“Can’t govern from the pokey,” Julia said. “Even I know that.”

A rusted van with its rear bumper being held on by wire was in the slow lane. I drifted left to pass it. The driver looked like a member of ZZ Top. As we passed, Julia looked over at him and wiggled her fingers in a hello. The guy’s jaw dropped so far I thought his beard might get tangled in the pedals.

“According to Jay Adams, the guvnah found the Lord while he was in stir.”

“Is that where he’s been hiding?”

“Larue got out after nine months of a two-year term. No doubt some strings were pulled. He came to Washington after that and landed the top spot at the ARK.”

“That’s the Association of Righteous Kooks?”

I glanced over at her. “We’re just full of beans today, aren’t we?”

The Turkish gumdrop was quite happy with herself. “We are.”

“The Alliance for Reason and Kindness,” I said.

“I see. And what do they do exactly?”

I shrugged. “Pretty much what you’d think. Preach the gospel of squeaky-clean living and family picnics. They support people who believe the way they do and spend money to squash the ones that don’t. They take senators to lunch. That kind of thing. Jay says they’re a pretty staunch crowd.”

“Staunch?”

“Rigid. Righteous. I’m sure you’re going to fit right in.”

“And we give a hoot and a half about all this because
why
?”

“I told you. The nanny. Tom Cushman accompanied Sophie down here a few weeks ago to meet with Crawford Larue. It had to do with her baby. According to Tom, Larue and his wife are looking to adopt.”

“Bully for them.”

“When I dropped Sophie’s name to Larue on the phone this morning, he didn’t sound so bully. He sounded tense.”

“Is that why we’re going down there, Hitch? So that you can ease his mind?”

“It’s awfully good of me, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes. You’re an awfully good man.”

Julia moved her right foot up into the open window. Her harem pants ballooned like a sausage. She entangled a loose curl of hair on her finger and twisted it mercilessly. Her little ear bells tinkled in the wind.

 

Crawford Larue lived in a stately Georgian mansion smack in the middle of Georgetown. It’s an area generally chockablock with elegant little Federal-style houses squeezed so close together you can borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor by reaching out of your kitchen window and directly into theirs. Not so Larue’s. Crawford Larue’s house sat atop a small hill. A low stone wall surrounding the property reminded me of a moat. There was a circular driveway that encompassed a small stone fountain in which there was a sculpture of a pudgy little cherub having sex with a couple of swans. At least that’s how it looked to me. Maybe it was simply a complex game of Twister.

An expressionless black man in a green jumpsuit and matching cap slid behind the wheel as I got out of my car. God knows where in the car-clogged streets of Georgetown the cars were being parked. You always hear stories in Washington about secret underground tunnels and bunkers where the top bananas would ride out the obliteration of the world should the global situation ever deteriorate to such an unsavory point. Maybe Larue had cadged one of these for his party. I watched the valet’s expression as he searched for the transmission.

“Push-button,” I told him, pointing out the buttons to the left side of the steering wheel. He hit the D button like he expected the car to explode.

Not too many of the women of D.C. were running around in harem pants and bejeweled peek-a-boo vests; Julia pretty much had that look all to herself. She was a regular eye magnet as we made our way through the crowd over to the makeshift bar. Several women gave me a sideways glance as well and I very politely returned them all. I recognized a drunk senator as well as a sober one and I pointed them out to Julia; also a steel-haired congresswoman most famous for having a voice that sounds exactly like Walter Cronkite. Most avuncular. I won’t say the scene was outright dull, but I didn’t see anyone swinging on the chandeliers. I did see chandeliers.

Julia and I had come unbidden through the open door. I cadged a couple of drinks for Miss Finney and myself and we stood scanning the crowd.

“Which one is our felonious host?” Julia asked.

“Can’t rightly say. Though I’ll recognize the voice when I hear it.”

As we stood sipping our corn a man surfaced in front of us. He seemed familiar, but I couldn’t immediately place him. He was wearing a brown sports coat and a faded jean shirt with a tie pulled loose. Tousled blond hair, a two-day stubble on his jaw and something mischievous in his blue eyes. He looked like a Hollywood bad boy, except that he was nearing forty. He had a cigarette tucked behind his ear and a martini glass in his hand. He took a few unapologetic seconds to track Miss Julia stem to stern. Julia went ahead and did the same to him, which seemed to amuse him to no end. He raised his glass in a small salute.

“You must be the Ostrows,” he said. He had a down-under accent.

I saluted back. “No, we mustn’t.”

He frowned. “You didn’t produce
The Bells of Titan
?”

I looked at Julia. “Did you produce
The Bells of Titan
?”

“I’ve never heard of
The Bells of Titan
.”

“Then you’re the only ones in this room who haven’t,” the man said. “Where’ve you been, under a rock?”

Julia batted her lashes. “We’re from Baltimore.”

The man pointed at her with his glass. “Don’t you go picking on Baltimore. My second wife came from Baltimore. We had some wild times there.”

“I know you,” I said. “You’re a reporter. I was having drinks with Mike Gellman in Annapolis yesterday when you tried to sandbag him.”

“Man of few words, our Gellman. Yes, I’m Nick Fallon.
Daily Cannon
.”