Nine Man's Murder (2 page)

But not as troubling as the note Bennett had found in his mailbox yesterday morning. No address, no stamp. Hand delivered, not mailed. Which meant his location was not as secret as he had thought.

The note’s contents had been disturbing, as well. Had it been a warning, or a threat? Who was in a position to know about his connection to Capaldi, or to piece it together? Gideon, of course. And Reeve Argyle. Amanda Farrell, the snoop. Perhaps Damien Anderson, and if so, possibly his brother Carter. Bennett was fairly certain he had seen Bryan West in the area, as well as Jill Constable. And of course Hatter Cates had been nearby. Virtually everyone from the Anderson Detective Agency. That’s what the note was implying, wasn’t it? That they were all in a position to stage a repeat performance of what they had done to him fifteen years ago.

Exactly as the visitor had pointed out this morning, reminding Bennett of their little prank with that actress, Dolores, fifteen years back. How had he known about that?

They had all tormented him, as he had been tormented since childhood. First by his own parents: “Who put that idea in your head, Bennett? Eddie? Or was it Christopher this time?” Then his elementary school classmates, pursuing him with relentless glee: “Copycat! Copycat!”

And now his good-for-nothing detective school classmates were in a position to do so much more than humiliate him. They could sabotage everything, as they had fifteen years ago. For it was they who had known him as Bennett Nash, before that name was replaced with a string of aliases; and that knowledge could lead the police—or Capaldi—straight to his doorstep. How much, exactly, did his former classmates know? There was only one way to find out.

That was where Bennett had outdone himself, deciding to use the reunion to learn what they knew, what they had worked out. How providential that the visitor should arrive this morning.

Something about the visitor had seemed vaguely familiar. A strange man. Studying Bennett’s face, as if memorizing every line in it. Even going so far as to provide the clothes to be worn.

The stranger’s plan was intriguing, if a bit crazy. A mystery none of them could solve.

Bennett wondered if he would have the nerve to go through with it. It was not as if he would have to worry about saying the wrong thing, after all.

What had the stranger called it? “A weekend of surprises.”

And so it would be.

7

December 10

The Anderson Detective Agency cordially invites you to the fifteen-year reunion of your graduating class, which premieres at the train station in Owen’s Reef, California, at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, December 12. I hope you will join the celebration at Moon’s End, which will spotlight old friends, a few surprises, and perhaps even a little mystery to solve, if you still know how. No RSVP. —Damien Anderson

G
ideon put down
the typewritten invitation and picked up the envelope. Los Angeles postmark. Sent to the diocese. No return address.

Perhaps Providence had placed Gideon in this motel, where Reeve was unlikely to find him. God works in mysterious ways, and maybe the bishop’s wasting no time in evicting Gideon from diocese housing was one of them. Nothing is more embarrassing to the Church than a defrocked priest. Especially one defrocked for being a criminal.

He should have turned the rascal in. He probably would have, ultimately, if it hadn’t been for that promise. I’ll help you find the culprit.

A stream of images flowed through Gideon’s head. A dark night, lights from a building. A noise. Walking toward the source. And then suddenly the ground falling out from beneath his feet … intense, blinding pain …

He bore them no ill will. It had not been their doing. It was not their fault that they were free to move about as they pleased, while he was trapped in this wheelchair. But to relive the moment in which he had gone from whole to half, a reminder of how unfairly G … Fate had dealt with him …

Who had been responsible for his accident? He said he had evidence, in that uncanny voice he was using, and that he’d help me find who did it. That all would be revealed at the reunion. If I just stayed quiet.

Well, what did he have to lose? Gideon asked himself. Squealing to the police wouldn’t bring back his collar. Or his legs.

8

Transcript of a telephone conversation between

Antonio Capaldi and Jimmy the Switch

(FBI Wiretap)

December 2

Capaldi:

It looks like I have need of your services.

Jimmy:

Of course, Mr. Capaldi. What can I do for you this time?

Capaldi:

One of my men seems to have disappeared.

Jimmy:

With some of your money, I assume.

Capaldi:

No. It’s a more … delicate matter. One requiring a certain discretion.

Jimmy:

Of course.

Capaldi:

A little over a week ago there was an unfortunate incident. A warehouse of mine was burned to the ground …

Jimmy:

And you think this guy—

Capaldi:

No. He didn’t start the fire. However, an item was recovered from the fire … that shouldn’t have been there. And I need to know how it got there. I also want to know why I haven’t seen my bodyguard since the fire. Last time I saw him was the 24th—the day of the fire. That was over a week ago.

Jimmy:

And you’re thinking—?

Capaldi:

I’m thinking he disappeared at the same time that a key appeared in my burned-down warehouse. And I don’t like coincidences.

Jimmy:

And you want me to find him, right?

Capaldi:

His name is Reeve Argyle. I’ve sent over a photo and personal information. You should be receiving them within the hour.

Jimmy:

And when I find him, you want I should make your problem go away … permanently?

Capaldi:

No. Bring him back. I have some questions I want to ask him.

Jimmy:

About the fire?

Capaldi:

About the key.

December 10

R
eeve sat in
the car, chomping on a cheeseburger and sucking down a chocolate shake. No beer: He had to keep his mind clear. This was the second day he was staking out Capaldi’s mansion. So close to Capaldi, yet he was in no immediate danger. Capaldi would never suspect that Reeve would dare come this close.

Reeve never took his eyes off the mansion. And now his vigilance paid off, as he watched the figure disappear through Capaldi’s gate across the street. Skulking like a cat. Jimmy the Switch. One of Capaldi’s cleanup men.

So Reeve was right. Capaldi was after him. Reeve had known, when the hidden key disappeared—and then showed up after the fire—that he was in trouble. He was one of the few who knew where that key had been hidden; and if Capaldi blamed him for its disappearance, Reeve was a dead man. Especially now that the cops had Capaldi’s ledger.

How had the thief—whoever he was—known about that key, let alone where to find it? And why steal the key, but not go after the ledger? And what was the key doing at the warehouse? Capaldi himself had personally arranged that fire; the people he had used could not possibly have known about the key or the ledger.

Somehow Reeve had to find out what had really happened and clear his name, before Capaldi found him.

Thank God Reeve had taken out that “insurance policy.” He could not suppress a smile. Clever of him, and kind of ironic, too, when you thought about it: A church was the last place you’d expect to find Reeve Argyle.

Oh yes, he’d been clever. Like transferring all his mail to that post office box. He was expecting certain correspondence, to help him crack this thing, and he couldn’t risk picking it up at his apartment.

He glanced down at the pile of letters on the front seat beside him. He picked up the envelope with the invitation and studied the postmark: sent two days ago. Every year at this time, Damien vacationed at Moon’s End for two weeks. He had already been up there a week, if he hadn’t changed his habits.

This reunion would give Reeve a chance to disappear for a few days and plan his next move. No one would know where he was. For a while, he would be safe.

9

Eight Months Ago

I
nspector Bush examined
the bodies. Or at least the parts protruding from underneath the sofa. One male, one female. Both in their late teens. Crushed by the fall. Unfortunate, but not intentional.

So why had a homicide investigator been called to the scene of an accident?

“My men were hauling the sofa up to the eighth floor,” the foreman explained. “These two kids were crossing under the ladder when the rope snapped. They never knew what hit ’em.”

Bush frowned. “So why call Homicide? Looks like a cut-and-dried accident to me.”

“You see that?” The foreman showed Bush the block and tackle.

“This is where the rope broke?”

The foreman nodded. “Notice the break: a clean cut, not frayed or unraveled. As if it were sliced with a knife.”

Inspector Bush sighed. He would have to question all the curiosity-seekers, in case any were witnesses. How many were there? Eleven? Twelve?

Thirteen, counting the strange little man behind the crowd, in the gray homburg hat and green-and-gray tweed coat, taking notes on a notepad.

December 11

Excerpt from Herb Kolander’s review of

Beyond the Grave, by Hatter Cates

In Beyond the Grave, Hatter Cates gives us another competently written but formulaic supernatural thriller. The plot is a variation of the time-honored Catesian theme of supernatural vengeance. Once again, a series of “disbelievers” are punished for their disbelief by the very supernatural forces they doubted, with gruesome but fitting deaths.

On the plus side, Beyond the Grave, like Cates’ more recent offerings, benefits from a greater maturity of style. His early forays into the realm of the supernatural suffered from a lack of psychological realism. But over the last several years, we’ve seen a transformation in Cates’ novels. Reading his last few, one feels that Cates was actually present when the novels’ incidents occurred, recording everything: what it felt like, how people were affected, what they did and said.

Unfortunately, this is not enough to raise Beyond the Grave—or any of the recent Cates titles—from the grave of predictability. His latest offerings suffer from a typical Catesian lack of imagination. The deaths seem to be culled from newspaper headlines. In Beyond the Grave, a young couple, Erika and Felix, walk under a ladder and are crushed by a falling piano. Eight months ago a young couple strolling a downtown Los Angeles street were crushed by a falling sofa from a sabotaged rig. In Cates’ previous novel, Playing with Fire, a family is burned to death when their house catches fire, after their fourteen-year-old daughter breaks a mirror. Ten months prior to that novel’s release, the L.A. Times carried the story of a family that died in a house fire. Police found evidence of arson, along with a broken mirror. One is led to believe that Mr. Cates lacks the creativity to dream up his own violent deaths. Either that, or that he causes these real-life accidents himself, to obtain good plot lines.

T
he headache was
a solar flare incinerating the cold dark void bounded by his skull. It was a flash of ball lightning in a lifeless desert at midnight. A blast of summer from a charred brick oven in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant.

The study was dark, save for the glow of a Tiffany desk lamp beneath which lay the scattered headlines. Hatter, shrugging off his green-and-gray tweed coat, scanned the articles with a scowl. Nothing. Did anyone realize how difficult it is to dream up the accidents that peppered his novels? You can’t just open up a newspaper and find one.

It was one indignity after another. First Luca insists that Hatter make his novels more “realistic”; the editor wanted to feel like he was there at the accidents as they occurred. And then, when Hatter figures out how to pull that off, Luca demands greater “originality”: exotic deaths meted out in exotic locales, rather than the same recycled gimmicks. As if it were that easy.

As it happened, Hatter had already worked out the premise of his new novel: a gathering of people, destroyed one by one by the spirits of those in whose deaths they had played some part. But the plot details were stubbornly avoiding his mind’s grasp.

And then the invitation arrives, a timely gift of Fate. For hadn’t he intended to write about just such a gathering?

He would call it The Final Reckoning and use his former classmates as fodder. He savored with cruel anticipation all of the delicious mishaps that might transpire at the reunion.

For Hatter was certain that something was going to happen.

10

December 12

G
ideon wheeled himself
across the parking lot. Four of them were already gathered in front of the train station.