Shadow Roll (21 page)

Goose had been there and now he wasn’t.  But he didn’t go peaceably.  I’d bet he didn’t go in one piece either.  His room told a story even Lino could read.  No blood, so no knife.  No bullet hole in a wall, no hole through the window pane, so no gun.  But the guy I was hunting didn’t use knives or guns.  Except on dogs.  He didn’t make noise and he didn’t make messes.  Except for dogs.  Unless the mess was staged to look accidental.  No time to stage whatever he’d done to Carroll.  There’d been a struggle, the couch pushed across the room, a lamp overturned, the contents of Carroll’s hastily packed suitcase strewn over the thin carpet.

If the big man was strong enough to shove a ham sandwich down Babe Duffy’s throat and hold it there, he was strong enough to strangle a struggling Carroll Goose.  Goose wasn’t a big guy.  He just had a big round face under not much hair.

So where would the killer stash the body?

He didn’t have time to get too elaborate.  He didn’t have a whole lot of privacy.  It was late.  Pretty much all of the other roomers were asleep.  Tomorrow—or today; it was well past midnight—was Travers Day, everyone had to be up early and working.  Carroll had only the one room.  He shared the bathroom.  I knew the joys of that.  There was a small closet and a smaller bureau.  Most of what was once in Carroll’s cheap bureau and small closet were thrown into the cardboard suitcase.  Most of that was now all over the floor.  The only thing still in the closet was the wonderful green suit he was wearing the day I fed him Old Crow for breakfast.

I wouldn’t of taken it either.

What was I looking at here?  The killer took the risk of taking the body somewhere else.  Why?  So the murder wouldn’t be discovered for some time.  How long?  My best guess: for as long as it took him to leave town.

With so little time to figure and to work, where do you stash an entire human body?

Standing in the middle of a room that could of been back in sunny Stapleton except for the pale green walls and the great view, I gave it what I called serious “thought.”  In other words, I imagined myself the killer with a fresh dead body at my feet.  I put myself into the mind of the man who did whatever he did to Goose.

OK, so now I’m the killer.

As the killer, I knew what I knew because I’d hidden here and there, leaping about in the shadows.  From the shadows, I’d watched my whole horse race go down, legs and tails and jockeys flying every which way.  How did I feel when I saw the botch Carroll’d made of my simple plan?  I felt I should of risked it myself.  It couldn’t have gone worse.  I wished I’d killed him
before
I’d hired him.  I had to know him before.  To hire Carroll, I must of known Carroll.  What I knew now was Goose was not only a failure, he was a live failure.  Alive he’d squeal first chance he got.  So he couldn’t be alive.  I could fix that.  If I moved fast, I’d get where Goose lived before he did.  But I’d heard what that creep Russo’d said to the Willingford dame.  He’d be going there too.  So I had to clean up.  I couldn’t let a peeper hand the police real evidence like a real body.  So I had to hide it.  But where?  This was the backstretch of a racetrack.  What did it offer?  Grain bins were tempting, but everyone would be scooping out grain real soon.  Garbage bins were also tempting, but they were too far away.

Hah!  Sam Russo, killer, got it.  Flo always called me a “cunning little squat”—truth was, she was right.  The cunning little squat suddenly knew where he’d stash Carroll Goose in a hurry.  I’d put him to bed where he could slumber for ages—or long enough for me to make myself scarce.  How long before someone noticed?

Not in his bed.  Goose was supposed to be alive and working for his pay.  His boss would come looking.  In some other bed, of course, one in some other room for seasonal workers.

The building had three floors.  There were maybe six rooms per floor.  The place wasn’t full.  Anyone working the backstretch knew that.  So that’s where he was.  There was nowhere else to put the poor egg.

Me as me, I was out Carroll’s door and checking the other doors.

First door to the right, locked.  First door to the left, locked.  Second door to the right, unlocked.  I opened it slowly.  Could be somebody left in the world trusting enough to keep his door unlocked.  Or he forgot.  Not likely either way.  I thumbed a match.  Got enough light to see the place was exactly the same place as Carroll’s was, except the single bed was on the opposite side of the room.  There was someone in the bed.

Brother, was he in for a surprise if he was alive.  If he wasn’t, well, bingo.

Bingo.

Poor old Carroll Goose.  Covered up so nobody’d think to bother if they did happen to look in.  Just another rummy sleeping off another rummy night.  Shades down on the one window.  I would of locked the door, and so would the big guy, but there was no key.  Management probably kept the key, only gave it out with the room.

Match burned down to nothing, I thumbed another.

Looking down at his poor kewpie doll head on its poor black and purple neck, I thought: well, two good things, no more spending his life having to write Goose on checks and registers and no poor dame ever having to call herself Mrs. Goose.

But the first thing I thought was shame on Goosie for trying to fix a race.  And then I remembered Carroll Goose couldn’t tell the rear end of a horse from his own.  It meant nothing to him.  And now nothing meant much to him and never would again.  That’s what taking a life means.  I saw it over and over on Luzon.  Men with dreams and feelings and sweethearts and even a couple with a talent or two, and then there was nothing.  All of it gone forever.  Who had the right to take all that away—even from a schnook like Goose?

If the big guy was strong enough to stuff a ham sandwich down Babe Duffy’s throat and hold it there long enough for Duffy to die, meanwhile dealing with Jane, and he was strong enough to get Walker to a lake and keep him under while he drowned, and he was strong enough to hold up McBartle, walking him doped and legless out the door of the Grand Union Hotel, then he was more than strong enough to strangle Carroll Goose.  No muss, no fuss, no noise.

I covered the poor sap up again, patted his still warm shoulder.

“You just rest there for awhile, fella.  I’ll be back to get you when the race is run.”

Chapter 40

You’d think it was time to go to the police.  I had an almost doped horse worth a whole lot of money now being guarded round-the-clock, I had a sapped groom in the hospital, I had a dead body left tucked up nicely in bed.

I wasn’t going to the police.

I knew what would happen if I went to the police.  The cases of the three dead jockeys were officially closed.  They’d been closed before I ever got off the ferry from Staten Island much less off the train from Manhattan.  The local flatfoots just hadn’t gotten round to admitting it yet.

What would happen was the corpse of Carroll Goose would get hauled off to the morgue, get charged postmortem with fixing a race, and I’d get drilled for hours about how come I knew he was going to do it and why didn’t I report the body, not to mention how did I know where to find it in the first place?  Mrs. Willingford was too important, too connected and too rich to drill.  So I’d get a double dose.  Did I kill him?  Somebody did.  Witness the obvious prints on his neck.  Did I expect them to believe Carroll Goose, security guard, tossed his own room, then went off to find a neater one so he could strangle himself in nicer surroundings?

I wouldn’t get charged with his murder, not with Mrs. Willingford coming to bat for me (she would, right?) but they’d run me out of town on the proverbial rail.

So, no—no calling the police.  Not even Lino for advice.  I already knew what Lino’s advice would be. 
Amscray the hell outta that town right this minute, Russo, and get your tail back here where you belong, solving my cases.

All I could do and do fast was search Carroll’s room for evidence.  Anything would do since so far, aside from Jane, my guy hadn’t left any evidence.

Sure enough, I couldn’t find a thing in the room Goose died in that pointed at anything except Goose trying to pack in a hurry.  No blood, no bullet casings, no piece of the killer’s shirt or pants or hanky caught on something sharp.  Nothing sharp to get caught on.  No butts or spent matches.  No matchbook with the name of a place the killer hung out.  If there was hair or spit or sweat, what would I do with it?

There had to be fingerprints, but I didn’t have the equipment for that kind of thing.  All I could do in the fingerprint department was make sure I hadn’t left any of my own.

I wasn’t looking for who did it.  I
knew
who did it.  Hell, Mrs. Willingford said
she
knew who did it, and I was willing to believe she did.  She sure knew Ace Admiral was going to be drugged and when.  She said she also knew why, and I believed that too.  Mrs. Willingford was a complex piece of goods; it was all I could do to keep up with her.  I wasn’t calling her Lois though.  Besides being Superman’s girl when he was wearing skintight everything, plus cape—and what
was
the cape for; never could figure that one out—Lois was the name of one of my worst tormentors back at the Home.  Three years older than my “crowd” and mean as a baboon.  The party we had the day old Lois got old enough to get the boot was two days long.  No, I was looking for anything I could find to take to the police—
if
I ever found myself going to the police—to prove who killed Carroll Goose.  Which didn’t prove he’d killed anyone else but Goose, but hey, it was a start.

I had to hand it to myself.  I’d had work before, small time stuff, the “pro bono” tag alongs with Lino, but when Sam Russo takes on his first solo murder case, right out of the gate, it’s a doozy.

I’d left Carroll Goose to his “big sleep,” and was back under the Saratoga stars.  I wasn’t getting any sleep tonight.  But what to do now?

If I faced down the guy who would kill three jockeys in what’s called “cold blood”—one in broad daylight—knife a dog, dope a horse, and then strangle the schmuck he’d hired to do the doping, I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t wind up getting dead too.

He could also laugh in my face.  Where was my proof?

I knew where my proof was.  She was sleeping in Hank Hanson’s bedroom not more than a hundred yards from where I was standing.

That’s what I was doing next.  I was going to Hank’s.

My luck was in.  After three in the morning, and Hank was still awake.  So was his assistant Maisie.  They had to be with a horse suffering from Rotation.  Rotation is the separation at the toe of the hoofwall from the bone and is a sure sign of laminitis.  Because it was serious, or could wind up serious, this was one of the first things I ever learned around horses.

I stood quietly and watched.

Hank and Maisie were in the process of stabilizing the ailing horse, a nice little bay gelding who was trembling with fear and pain.  Whatever they called him on the racetrack, Hank called him Max.

“S’okay, Max.  You’ll be fine.  You’ll be swell.  You’ll be knee deep in high green grass before you know it.  That’s right, boy, keep still, keep really still so Maisie and I can tighten this strap.  Good boy, such a good boy.”

I’d never witnessed a more gentle caring touch than Hank’s, unless it was the night he saved Jane.  But with Jane, he was working fast and he was working without hope.  With Max, he had time and I could tell he had hope.

Max calmed before my eyes.  His ears straightened, his eyes grew brighter, he even reached forward to nibble Hank’s hand.  I hadn’t noticed before, but Hank’s wrist was bandaged.  Came with the job, naturally.  Not all his patients were Max.

It took some time, waiting for Hank to hear me, but when the time came—Maisie was outside for a minute, getting rid of the mess of trimming a horse’s hoof; Hank was washing his hands—I said, “Hank?  Can I just have a peek at her?”

He glanced up and smiled.

“Sure.  She’s still doped, but her signs are all good.  Door to my bedroom is that one.”

He was pointing at the only door in or out of the room that wasn’t white.  It was a light brown natural wood door with a crystal doorknob.

Hank’s private room surprised me.  The walls were covered in framed photos but not the same photos that cluttered the walls of the Saratoga Jockey Club where Harold George Whitman held forth.  These were photos of the horses Hank’d saved.  On the surface of his bureau and desk were more, framed and displayed like they’d be on the top of a great big grand piano in some famous person’s great big famous house, all studio shots of their famous friends.

These were of more horses, a dog or two, a cat, a parrot.  Gifts from grateful owners and trainers, most of ‘em.  There were halters with brass nameplates, horseshoes, winner’s cups, crops, saddle blankets.

I wondered where Jane’s photo would go.

I paused for a minute before walking slowly over to Hank’s bed.  It was a big bed, nicely made, its white tufted bedspread matching the white tufted pillowcases.  And in the middle, still wrapped in a woolen car blanket, lay a smallish dog.

Jane looked like a mummy.

I slowly walked to the edge of the bed.  Being quiet was easy.  Hank had a figured carpet in his private room deep enough for a turf race.

All I did then was stare down at her.  I thought about life, about how precious it was, about how whoever you were or whatever you were, you’d fight for it.  I couldn’t think of a life that had fought harder than Jane.  For love, she fought for Babe’s.  To live, she fought for her own.  Jane didn’t love much, but what she loved, she’d die for.

I never thought I could care for a dog, but I was falling for this one.  The idea that she could die shook me right down to the bone.

“One tough cookie, eh Sam?”

Hank was standing in his own doorway looking at me looking at Jane.

“None tougher, Hank.”

“I can’t bear to see ‘em suffer.  I can’t bear what men do to animals.”

“S’why you’re a vet.”

“No.  Not really.  Not at first.  I became a vet because first I wanted to be in medicine.  But I didn’t have whatever it took to be a doc.”  His glasses had slipped to the end of his nose.  The only thing that kept them from falling off was a quick reflex and wide nostrils.  “That was money and time, but it was also maybe not enough brains.”