Requiem for Moses (32 page)

They walked together to her car. It was a ’90 Mercury Grand Marquis, a big, heavy sucker. She was right about one thing: It had a leak.

The garage had three bays. Two of them had hoists; both held cars that needed repair. Both cars had come in before Stan’s regular shift ended. He had put them on the hoists so he could work on them first thing tomorrow.

So he didn’t have an empty hoist. No problem; he’d use the hydraulic floor jack.

“Maybe you can plug the leak?” she said hopefully.

“Yeah,” he said, “stick a cork in it.”

“Yeah.” She was agreeable.

“You’ll have to pull it in there,” he said, gesturing toward the empty bay.

“Okay.” She got into the car and drove forward slowly, as he stood at the far wall, motioning her on in. Finally, he signaled for her to stop. She got out of the car and stood to one side as he grabbed the jack, placed it carefully under the car’s front end, adjusted it, and pumped the car well off the floor.

She watched as he kicked the creeper from its place against the wall. He lay on his back on the creeper and kicked his way under the car from the front. He located the leak immediately, just as she grasped the handle in the base of the jack and turned it counterclockwise. The jack collapsed along with the full weight of the huge car.

Stan made no sound. He was dead.

She took a small jar of oil from her jacket pocket. She poured the oil onto the base of the jack handle. Then she checked to make sure the car was free of the jack. It was—barely.

She got in the car, started the engine and put it in reverse. But Stan’s body on the creeper was wedged against the underside. She gunned the engine, and in a moment the car almost exploded out of the bay, leaving what was left of Stan Lacki in a mangled heap. She drove two blocks away, where she was picked up. The Mercury was left abandoned, slowly dripping oil.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The phone sounded. She picked it up on the second ring. “Yes?”

“Miss Lennon?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Claire … Claire McNern.”

Lennon squinted at the clock on her nightstand. Five
A
.
M
. “It’s five in the morning, Claire.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. I just got a call from the station manager. Something’s happened to Stan.”

Lennon tried to shake off her drowsiness.
Okay, something’s happened to Stan Lacki.
At this predawn hour, she barely remembered Claire McNern and Stan Lacki. She had interviewed both of them for the Moses Green story. So if something had happened to Stan, why didn’t Claire go there, wherever that was? Why call me?

“Stan towed my car to the station to fix it. So I haven’t got wheels. I know you’re wondering why I don’t call a cab … why I’m calling you. It’s because you’re the first—the only one—I could think of. I don’t know what’s happened to Stan. They wouldn’t tell me. You were so nice when you interviewed us, I thought … maybe …”

Her mind now clear, Lennon sensed the panic in Claire’s voice. She was fearful of what she’d find at the station. And she wanted a friendly shoulder with her. A shoulder she was not likely to find in either a cabbie or the police. “I’ll be right over.”

There was little or no traffic at that hour; they made it from Claire’s apartment to the service station in record time.

It was a familiar scene to Lennon, something out of the movies for Claire. Most striking were the flashing lights atop police vehicles and rescue wagons. From the sheer number of vehicles on the scene, Lennon feared the worst. “Claire, wait in the car. I’ll go see what’s—”

But Claire was already out of the car and running to the spot where everyone had gathered. She saw the body bag, and instantly she knew.

Impulsively she moved toward the bag. The station manager caught her in his arms before she could reach it. “Claire, you don’t want to see that!”

There could be no doubt: Stan was in the bag. The blood seemed to drain from her head as she collapsed. The manager held her and yelled for help. Instantly, two EMS people were at her side. They put her on a gurney and began to minister to her.

Having assured herself that Claire was being cared for, Lennon’s reportorial instincts took over. The ranking officer on the scene was Sergeant Mangiapane, the lone representative from Homicide. “Hi, Phil. What’s going on here?”

“Oh, hi, Pat.” She had startled him; his attention had been focused on the fainting woman. “It looks like an accident. Let me get the boss over here.” Mangiapane beckoned to the manager.

The manager clearly was shaken. “Check me now,” Mangiapane said. “Lacki was alone at the station. Right?”

The manager nodded. He was thinking of many things, not the least of which was what to do about Stan’s fiancée.

“And your rule is that a lone man on duty doesn’t leave the booth for any reason. Right? But you said …”

“Stan didn’t pull this duty very often,” the manager explained. “One of the reasons I don’t tap him much is he’s too valuable on days. Hell of a mechanic. The other reason is because he’s too softhearted. Of all the guys who work here, Stan’d be most likely to leave the booth and help somebody. That’s what must’ve happened ….”

“It’s pretty clear what happened, Pat,” Mangiapane said. “Somebody must’ve talked him into leaving the booth to look at a car … like he just said.

“Well, the two hoists are occupied, as you can see. So he used the creeper—uh, that’s the metal slide over there. He must’ve lifted the car and slid under it and the damn jack broke. When the jack fell, so did the car. It crushed just about everything. Lacki was a big guy. Big in the chest. The medics say it probably crushed the aorta, maybe the heart too.”

“When did it happen?”

“We don’t know yet. We’re checking that out. The M.E. will rule on that eventually. God knows how many people came in here for gas. Some of them might’ve seen Lacki. After all, the car that was on the jack is gone.”

“So what happened to it?”

“Dunno. Maybe the guy panicked and drove away. Maybe he’ll come forward when he finds out we don’t want to arrest him … at least not on what we got now.”

“What makes you think the jack failed?”

“See,” the manager volunteered, “that oil leak at the base of the pipe—the handle? The handle—that’s what failed. Stan got the car off the ground with the hydraulic floor jack. Then he shoulda put a stand or two under the frame. But that’s Stan—no goddam jack was gonna fail on him. Well,” he shook his head, “this one did!”

“Like I said,” Mangiapane repeated, “it looks like an accident.”

“Yeah …” Lennon said meditatively. “There’s one thing more. I just interviewed him about the Green case. Kind of a coincidence, don’t you think? Kind of spooky.”

Mangiapane’s face lit up. “Hey, so did I. Is that weird, or what?”

“That’s weird.” On impulse, Lennon took down the license numbers of the two cars on the hoists. Then she looked back. Claire was sitting up on the gurney. Everyone was giving reasons why it would be better if she didn’t look at Stan just now. It would be better after the undertaker fixed things up.…

“I want to give her a lift home,” Lennon said to the manager. “She told me Stan was fixing her car.”

“Yeah, it’s finished.”

“So could you get it to her later today?”

“Be glad to. Anything else I can do?”

“Be there if she needs you.”

“Sure thing.”

By the time Lennon reached the gurney, Claire was standing, somewhat shakily. Lennon held her for an extended time. Tremors passed through Claire’s body.

“It was fast,” Lennon whispered in Claire’s ear. “Instantaneous. He never knew.”

Lennon wondered whether supportive statements like these did any good at a time of great grief. Probably nothing would suffice. But holding and trying to reassure Claire was all Pat could do. That and drive her home.

Little was said during that trip. At first, Pat thought Claire was mumbling, rambling. Then she realized what Claire seemed to be repeating was, “Not machinery. Not tools. They couldn’t hurt Stan. Nothing like that could hurt Stan.”

It was so pitiful.

“Would you like me to stay with you for a while?” Pat asked, as they pulled up in front of Claire’s apartment.

“I’ve taken enough of your time. It was awfully nice of you to drive me.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got some time. Maybe I could stay with you until someone else comes ….”

“No, thanks a lot. But, no. I’d rather be alone. To be honest, I think I’m gonna break down. I’d rather do it alone.”

Lennon was hesitant. “If you’re sure …”

“I’m sure,” she said more firmly. “And, thanks. It was really kind of you. I couldn’t think of anyone else. Thanks.”

Pat waited till Claire was inside the building, then she drove off.

Claire entered her apartment and let her handbag fall to the floor. She looked about her. Nothing looked familiar. She wondered if her entire life would now be transformed so that nothing would be the same.

She slumped onto the couch and buried her face in her hands. The world had stopped. Her life had ended. Her sobs evolved into unrestrained keening.

At this moment, a figure stepped out from behind a door.

Carefully and quietly he approached her from the rear. He needn’t have been so cautious. Her cries more than covered his footsteps. Even had she been aware of the man’s presence, she would have reacted only instinctively. Given a moment’s thought, she might have willed to join Stan.

He swung the blackjack against the base of her skull. She pitched forward onto the floor, tears covering her face.

Good,
he thought.
Tears are appropriate in this kind of suicide.
He pulled her up to a sitting position on the couch. He wrapped her fingers around a gun. With his hand over hers, he positioned the barrel just behind her ear. His index finger over hers, he pulled the trigger and let her fall sideways on the couch.

The sound was enough to attract the attention of the couple who lived in the apartment below.

After making certain her hand cradled the weapon, he climbed out the window and dropped to the ground, rolling expertly as he touched down to avoid injury.

Claire had joined Stan.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Good work, Manj,” Tully said. “Damn good work!”

Mangiapane smiled broadly. Due mainly to his following his instincts at the service station, his squad—Lieutenant Tully’s squad—had been given the green light to proceed full force on investigating what was now termed the murder of Stan Lacki.

After Pat Lennon had taken Claire McNern away, Mangiapane’s suspicions were aroused. The more he heard about Lacki’s expertise in things mechanical, the more Mangiapane wondered about this “accident.”

For Lacki to have gotten under that car without safety precautions, he would’ve had to have empirical confidence in that hydraulic floor jack. Lacki would have been willing to bet his last dollar on the reliability of that jack. Lacki was a confident mechanic. But he was not foolhardy.

What had happened to that jack?

Mangiapane ordered the jack dusted for prints.

Then he had the manager examine the tool. There was nothing wrong with it. The oil they had found at the base of the handle had not come from the jack. How did that oil get on the jack? Why?

There was fresh oil on the garage floor as well as on Lacki’s uniform. So the missing car probably had been leaking. Could it have been driven far from the station?

Mangiapane established a priority on the prints. He rounded up as many officers as possible to canvas the surrounding neighborhoods for a suspicious or abandoned car.

Now the division was reaping the benefit of Mangiapane’s careful work.

On the jack handle were prints that partially covered Lacki’s. He had not been the last to touch the jack. Additionally, the handle had been turned as far as it would go to the left. The counterclockwise turn had released the jack.

The scenario now played out that someone had lured Lacki from the safety of the enclosure. Lacki had jacked the car up from the floor and slid under it. Then someone had given the handle a turn, and the car had crashed down on Lacki, killing him.

Then the killer drove away. Not because he or she was afraid to stay and explain an accident to the police, but because the murder was done and the killer needed to get away.

A street-to-street check in the vicinity turned up an abandoned Mercury Grand Marquis two blocks from the station. It had a punctured oil pan. Fingerprints on the wheel and the rear view mirror matched those taken from the jack’s handle. On the underside of the car was blood matching Stan Lacki’s, and fibers matching his clothes.

The case had moved from a tragic accident to first-degree murder. Still to be determined were the motive and an identity to go with the fingerprints.

Nonetheless, Mangiapane was enjoying his current fifteen minutes.

“Zoo,” one of Tully’s officers said over the din, “line two for you? Lennon from the
News.
”

“Pat,” Tully greeted her.

“Zoo, I’m calling about that service station death—Stan Lacki.”

“Yeah, we’re on it.”

Lennon hadn’t expected that. She was unaware of the measures Mangiapane had taken after she left to take Claire home. “Have you done anything about the two extra cars in the garage—the ones that occupied the two hoists?”

“No. Is there something?”

“Yeah, I think so. It just seemed too coincidental that the hoists would be occupied so that Lacki had to use a jack that failed. I’ve got a bunch of bad vibes about this death.”

Without hesitation, Tully brought her up to speed on the investigation. “Now, you were saying something about the cars that were on the hoists? They were there to be worked on first thing, no?”

“Yeah, that was the stated purpose. But I thought it was a little convenient. So I took the license numbers. They’re both leased by a GOB Company. You familiar with it?”

Tully smiled. “Yeah. An acronym for Good Old Boys, Inc. A shadow corporation headed by Billy Bob Higbie. Hey, that’s interesting: Billy Bob might not be adverse to accepting a contract on somebody. Vice has dealt with the GOBs before—everything from protection rackets to prostitution to drugs. If I remember correctly, Billy Bob’s underlings take the fall if they’re caught. We’ve never nailed Billy Bob himself—and we’ve never gone after him for a contract killing.”