The Devil You Know (24 page)

“Of course.” He made an expansive wave toward the house as though he owned the place and smiled down at Izzy.

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * *

I stepped over the body lying on the mudroom threshold and gave the kitchen a look-see. They’d left a closet door wide open, and that’s where I found the fuse box. I threw four switches and the lights came on.

It made things easier. When I approached the parlor and called inside, they could see I was alone.

Brogan didn’t trust that the place had been cleared of trouble any more than I had. He emerged with caution; and wanted to know how I’d gotten out and what I’d done.

There was no satisfactory answer to either question. “Later. Cover me, would you?”

Not that I needed his help as I went through the other rooms along the central hall, but it kept him busy.

Bad guys had holed up in a billiard room; the one who’d made a run for it had been wise. Brass casings littered the floor, evidence that they’d been shooting at
something
, i.e. Barrett. Bullet holes dotted the walls, high up; even the ceiling was freckled. He must have been flying around, partially visible, scaring the hell out of them.

An immobile man lay on the table, his face mostly in one of the corner pockets. I thought he might have been the one I’d seen yanked back in. The rest were less alarmingly sprawled where they’d fallen among the casings. I wasted no sympathy on them; no one likes a turn coat.

The relative quiet lured Clapsaddle from the parlor. He spotted the bloody man in the middle of the hall, then turned. “Give us a few minutes, Naomi, it’s rather a mess out here.” He shut the door and put his back to it.

Brogan made his own quick circuit. “Where’s Swann?”

“Out back,” I said, hooking a thumb in the right direction. “Under Kaiser. Barrett’s keeping an eye on them.”

He scowled and bulled past to see for himself.

Out of consideration for Mrs. Endicott, I dragged the man in the hall into the billiard room with the rest. He bled heavily from a scalp wound. The business end of that poker had gashed him wide open. He was safe from me; I’d lost my appetite.

Clapsaddle, still outside the parlor door, lighted a cigarette with a steady hand, giving me the eye. He was back to being a reporter. “How the hell did you do it?”

I shrugged. “This is Barrett’s work. He said he got mad.”

“He got shot, you mean,” said Clapsaddle. “I heard him take it and fall. And then—”

“It couldn’t be. He’s fine. Noise must have woke him out of his daze.” A change of subject was in order. “We found Izzy.”

“Is she—”

“She’s fine, I promise, just cold. Barrett’s keeping an eye on her, too.”

“Thank God for that. I’ll go fetch her.”

“Hold on, you need to know—”

“Know what?”

“She thinks you’ve been taking money from Brogan to keep quiet all these years.”

He took a long draw on the cigarette. “Well-well, who gave her that idea?”

“You did. I only said you were here. She’s a smart cookie and figured things for herself. Not her fault she’s drawn the wrong conclusion.”

“Hell.”

He left the word hanging in the hall with his exhale of smoke. His shoulders slumped. Clapsaddle had a hide like a rhinoceros, but clearly Izzy’s good opinion mattered to him.

“Clapsaddle . . . she doesn’t want to believe it. Trust her. Tell her what happened.”

“She doesn’t need to know such things.”

“Nobody does, but she’s going to ask questions. If she doesn’t know the truth, it will eat her up inside. You don’t want her to turn out like—” I bit that off a lot too late.

“Like me?” He seemed unoffended. “Oh, don’t go shamefaced at this juncture, my lad. I know what I am and how I look to people, especially to Isabelle. I’m a dreadful drunken genius. The one thing that’s kept her from falling into wholehearted pity for my tragic downhill slide has been my integrity and the ability to turn a phrase when need demands. But without the former, the latter is worthless.”

“Trust her.”

“I do. I have. With my life. But she has no reason to believe me.”

“The hell with that. Don’t underestimate her.”

He started to respond, then changed his mind. I hoped that meant something had sunk in.

Voices from the distant kitchen: Barrett and Izzy had just come inside. Clapsaddle couldn’t hear them, but in the silent house I might as well have been in the same room.

“—freezing!” she said.

“Let’s get the stove going and thaw you out,” he suggested. “Perhaps a hot cup of tea. . .?”

“Yes, please. I’ve never been so—”

Gunshot
.

“Jeepers!” she yelped. “Are there
more
?”

“Stay down,” Barrett ordered.

She didn’t argue with him. How the hell did he do that?

“Jonathan?”

“It’s all right. That fellow—Mr. Brogan I think—flushed a rabbit. Startled them both. His pistol accidentally went off. Nothing to worry about.”

Damn, he was smooth.

Substitute
Swann
for
rabbit
, and it would have been the truth. Barrett made it sound all right, though, distracting Izzy with an invitation to help him find tea things.

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * *

Brogan returned, and if his decisive
re-establishment of himself as boss had shaken him up, he didn’t show it. He was as tense as before, but quieter, his whole focus on me. “How the hell did you do it?” he demanded, unknowingly echoing Clapsaddle.

Who looked on, interested.

I shrugged.

Brogan pointed at the parlor. Considering the situation, he was being remarkably patient. “You were in there right next to me. How’d you get out?”

About now I would have whammied them both into forgetting certain uncomfortable details, but that card was no longer in my deck, and I didn’t want to be dependent on Barrett to put in the fix. I’d known that sooner or later I’d have to learn how to get along without the evil eye. Might as well start now.

“Mr. Brogan?”

“Yeah?” What a lot of hostility he could pack into a single word.

“Mr. Brogan . . . I have absolutely no explanation for you.”

He started toward me, but Clapsaddle interposed. “Fleish, never mind. Naomi’s safe, that’s all that really matters. Let the lad have his trade secrets.”

Brogan grumbled, looking at the parlor doors, then nodded.

Reluctantly. With much suspicion.

I was never going to be the guest of honor at any of his parties, but we could both live with it.

“Now what
, sir?” I asked. This was a good time to be humble and helpful. I was learning all kinds of new skills tonight.

“Now you and your pal and that little pippin in the undertaker’s coat pretend none of this ever happened. If you don’t, you wind up like Endicott.”

That Barrett and I had already wound up exactly like Endicott was information he did not need.

“Clear?”

“Yes, sir, like glass. He’s still out there, you know.”

“I know, and you’re going to help me take care of him.”

I am?

“Clappie’s going to drive Mrs. Endicott into town with your friends. She’s going to relax at a good hotel for a few days while I arrange to clean up this mess.”

He didn’t wait for a reply and went to the parlor, opening both doors wide.

Naomi stood by one of the couches, waiting. She must have read something on his face, because she broke into a relieved smile and rushed to him. He caught her up in a fierce hug.

“It’s over, baby. You’re all right,” he whispered.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured back.

I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I just happened to hear is all. Clapsaddle thoughtfully closed the doors on them.

“There’s little enough happiness running loose,” he said. “Let them have a moment.”

“Why don’t they get married?”

“I’m sure they will. It’s coming up seven years since her husband officially went missing. She can petition to have him declared dead and finally be free.”

“And every day Brogan risks her finding out.”

“I think not. Once you’re back in Chicago, and I return to my usual round of parties and hangovers, the risk diminishes to nothing.”

“She’s got no problems with his business?”

“Of course she does. He’s aware of them. The last few years have improved him. He’s made an effort to legitimize himself. The nightclub’s completely legal, that’s something.”

“I saw plenty of shifty types there.”

“Yes, and you were one of them. I’m sure you’ve no control over who buys drinks at your place, either.”

How’d he know about my club? I buttoned my lip, though. If I asked, it might start a conversation I couldn’t finish.

Clapsaddle worried me. He hadn’t actually seen me vanish or witnessed Barrett’s supernatural rampage, but he wasn’t the type to let a mystery float past unsolved. He’d probably give Izzy the third degree later, but she wouldn’t be much help. I’d go back to Chicago and let time have its way at eroding his memory. Fine points would fade, logic would fill in the gaps, booze would blur details. He’d eventually let it go.

Unless he was like Escott and read too much.

Maybe I’d have a word with Barrett after all.

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * *

A phone would have been helpful
,
but Brogan made do with what he had, which turned out to be me for the next hour.

Once again, I made an unpleasant re-acquaintance with the noisome remains of Griffin Endicott. I wouldn’t have liked him when he’d been alive, and had come to loathe him in death. Disrespectful, I know, but showing consideration for those who have passed is easier when they’re sealed up in a box with six feet of earth shoveled in between.

I helped carry the tarp-wrapped Endicott and load him into the back of the big truck that was still parked by the hedge.

Thorp and Remke were gone.

I found where Thorp had fallen and bled; there was a blood trail leading toward the break in the hedge, two sets of tracks in the snow, and blood on the truck.

“Why didn’t they take it?” I asked.

“They tried,” said Brogan. He lifted the hood, flicked on a pocket-sized flashlight, and reconnected the battery terminals. “I had one of the boys fix things when no one was looking.” He slammed the hood, got in the cab, and finished the hotwiring job Remke had probably started.

“What’ll you do wi—never mind.” I boosted onto the passenger side. I didn’t need details on what would happen when Brogan caught up with them.

“You know how it has to go,” he said, answering anyway.

“Yeah,
I
learned from Gordy.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Better.”

“Glad to hear it. You give him my regards.”

I promised to do so. Gordy would want to know all about this night.

Brogan drove down a long lane, went left on a more traveled road for few hundred yards, then left again up the long paved drive to the Endicott house. He parked in the back, and I again helped load in a corpse.

Swann’s, of course.

He looked asleep . . . except for the bloody entry wound an inch above his right eyebrow. He and Endicott had something else in common besides being dead, having both been killed in the same manner by the same man. The exit wound I took care not to look at, but there was a hellish amount of blood on the snow under his head when we lifted him.