The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy (31 page)

I thought of the broken pinkie and 13 Rue Madeleine.
"Oh, he was that smart. He was scared shitless of you, and I can
see why. But he was that smart. Now take the package and go, or don't
and go. Either way."

“
Open it," he said in the authoritative voice.

"Open what?" I said.

"The glove compartment! The goddamned glove
compartment! Open it!"

I shrugged and leaned over. He put the barrel of the
Walther in my right ear. He smelled acrid, worried. He was breathing
shallowly. He started to say, "If anything, if anything at all—"

I popped open the box, Crowley tensing as the lid
bounced a few times. He relaxed, and I straightened back up.

"When I felt the barrel of that Walther, I
nearly got a cramp in my left foot."

His breathing edged toward normal. He glanced into
the box.

"The envelope," I said.

He frowned at me, then peered down into the box and
reached with his left hand.

I relaxed my left foot and sensed the switch come up.
The car quaked as Crowley caught the full blast of the 12-gauge
squarely in the face. His Walther went off, the slug whacking me in
the fleshy part of my right upper arm, wrecking some tricep.

I yelled once in pain. My arm burned like hell, but
there was no more noise or sensation except for the urinating sound
of Crowley's blood as it drummed onto the vinyl upholstery. I looked
over at him and tried not to think of how Marco must have felt as he
watched the Coopers' house burn.
 

TWENTY-FOUR
-•-

I GOT OUT OF THE CAR AND LISTENED. NO VOICES, NO
sirens, nothing. The Walther bullet had torn up some of the driver's
seat behind me. I ignored the upholstery and packed some snow up
under my sleeve as best I could to retard the bleeding. I reached
back into the car and pulled Crowley's case toward me. With some
effort, I latched it back down. Then I sprang the hood of the Pontiac
and, with a lot more effort from one and a half arms, tried to free
the backward-facing shotgun from its braces in the engine
compartment. I finally yanked it clear, parallel to the course the
pellets had taken as they traveled through the barrel, past the hole
and cloth in the engine side of the glove compartment, and into
Crowley's face and chest.

I set the shotgun down and opened the passenger's
door. With my left hand, I grasped Crowley's coat at the neck and
dragged him out of the car onto the snow. I examined his face and
mouth for as long as I needed to. The features were a pulpy mess, the
teeth too shattered for a dental chart comparison. I stripped him of
all other ID, taking the cash from his wallet and using a pen-knife
on his clothes labels. When I was finished, I left him on the ground.

I closed down the hood of the Pontiac and carried the
shotgun to the back of the car. I opened the trunk and fished out the
blanket for the shotgun. Then I tossed Crowley's handgun and wallet
in the trunk. For the tenth time I thought of tossing Crowley's body
into the trunk, too. After all, Eddie was going to crush the car; the
corpse could be crushed just as easily. The problem was that I had
already involved Eddie more deeply than I cared to, and I was not
about to make him that active an accessory.

I walked back to the driver's door and retrieved the
attaché case. I brought it back and opened it at the trunk. I
divided the cash stacks into four piles of roughly equal weight. I
then put the piles inside the book mailers and sealed them. They were
addressed to J. T. Davis' box at the Newton Post Office.
 
I closed down the trunk of the Pontiac and walked
out from behind the building, cradling the wrapped shotgun in my bad
arm and carrying the mailers under my good arm. I stood in the shadow
of the side of the building and listened. It was only 5 P.M. , but
the street was cathedral quiet. I carried my bundles down to the
rental car. I opened the front door and tossed the mailers in on the
floor of the passenger's side. I unwrapped and laid the shotgun
gently on top, spreading the blanket over everything. I locked the
door and returned up the driveway and around to the Pontiac. My arm
was beginning to throb. I'd been wounded more seriously in the past,
and I was pretty sure I wasn't losing enough blood to cause shock.

I started the Pontiac and moved it back and forth a
few times to ball up whatever tire tracks might be in the snow. Then
I drove down the driveway and over to Eddie Shuba's place. Very light
traffic. I pulled into his driveway and opened the gate lock with the
key he had given me. I drove the Pontiac around behind some
compressed wrecks and in front of some likely candidates. As I got
out, I patted the steering wheel twice. I'm not sure I believe in
animism, but the car had come through like an old, loyal farm dog.
Fearing powder burns from the Walther and blood stains from Crowley,
I stripped off Arnie's old jacket and tossed it into the trunk. As I
trudged back toward Eddie's gate, I looked behind me. No way anybody
would spot the car from the street. I stopped at Eddie's shack and
slipped the keys to the car and the gate through the slit in the
lockbox on the shack wall. I edged through the gate, squeezing home
the clasp of the lock from the outside.

I looked around as casually as I could manage. I saw
no one. I started hiking the half mile or so back to the auto shop
and the rental. I stumbled two or three times, but I made it.

I unlocked and turned the key in the rental. It
coughed and grumbled twice, but it started on the third try. I
mouthed a silent thank you and drove off slowly, stopping at four
different mailboxes over a seven-mile, patternless stretch, dropping
one book-mailer in each. Then I drove back to the auto body street.

I got out of the car,
carrying the shotgun. I walked behind the auto shop, ejected the
first, spent shell, and fired twice more, one into the snow near
Crowley's body, a second up at the concrete and wood wall. Then I
braced myself, tore up the area of my wound a bit and dropped down,
rolling around in the snow. I staggered, part for show and part for
real, back to the rental. I drove, as erratically as possible, into
the center of the town where I carefully selected a parked municipal
vehicle, plowing into same at about twenty miles per hour. At impact,
I struck my forehead on the steering wheel a bit more forcefully than
the laws of physics required and slumped sideways into the suicide
seat. I heard some yelling and footsteps. I tried to nap while I
awaited the arrival of the police and ambulance.

* * *

I gave the impression of fading in and out for as
many hours as I thought I could get away with it. It was probably 4
A.M. when I finally decided to awaken and a bleary-eyed cop named
Wasser was called by the nurse to my side.

While I had no mirror, I was willing to bet I looked
better than Wasser. He wore a patched and taped Baxter State parka
whose red-plaid lining clashed with the purple dot matrix plaid of
his double knit sports jacket. He had battled a shaver at some point
in the last thirty-six hours, but the skirmish hadn't reached the
right side of his chin. He carried the remains of a vile-smelling sub
sandwich in off-white butcher paper in his left hand and a pad and
pencil in his right. He was overweight, probably thirty-two though he
looked nearer fifty. I was willing to bet this was his first
shooting. He pulled out a filthy card that looked as though it had
figured prominently in the making of his sandwich. He began to read
from the card.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything—"

"Cut the rights recital, will you. Is he dead?"

Wasser blinked at me. This was not a member of the
Boston Police Homicide Squad. This was a member of a small-town,
selectman's nephew, incompetent detective squad. I had picked the
site carefully.

"Is who . . ." he started to say, then
shook himself and ran through the rights as though there were no
spaces between the words.

I acknowledged I understood them and asked if there
was anything he'd like me to sign. He turned the card over and back
`a few times.

"Not on the card," I said, "there's a
separate form."

He blinked some more.

"If I were you," I said, "I'd call for
reinforcements."

He stopped blinking and took a bite of his sandwich.
Then he hurried out of the room, and I dozed off for real.

"Are you awake?" said a voice with some
juice behind it.

I looked up into the eyes of a hard-chiseled face.
Short black hair, not much gray. Wasser stood behind him, chewing.

"My name is Lieutenant Parras." He spelled
it for me. "I understand Detective Wasser read you your rights
and while you understand them, you want to speak to us anyway. Is
that correct?"

"Yes."

Parras said, "We didn't find any identification
on you. What's your name?"

"John Francis Cuddy."

"Address?"

"It's not there anymore."

His eyebrows knitted. "What?" he said.

"It's gone, my apartment house. Somebody blew it
up."

Parras smiled condescendingly. "Is that how you
got hurt, Mr. Cuddy?"

I looked down at my right arm. The bandages showed,
bulged even under the loose-fitting hospital johnny.

"I wouldn't expect Deli-Master over there to
recognize it, but surely the doctor who treated me told you that I'd
been shot."

Wasser, incredibly, was still chewing on something.

"Mr. Cuddy-" Parras started.

"Your questions also mean you haven't been down
behind the auto shop yet either, have you?"

Parras' eyebrows knitted a few more stitches. "What
auto shop?"

I sighed. "Where am I?" I asked.

"St. Jude's. The hospital, I mean."

"You have a street named Breston in this town?"

"Yeah, about . . . Why?"

"On Breston Street, in a warehouse district,
there's a deserted auto shop. Fender and body work."

"Maybe. Why?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake." I said. "I'm
a private investigator. I turned an old Pontiac that was following me
and trailed it there. I got suckered into leaving my car and walked
behind the place. I got ambushed. I got one of them, right at the car
as he was getting out of it. The other guy drove off."

"What the—"

"I got back to my car and made it to some kind
of shopping area when I blacked out."

"Do you mean that you . . . That there's a body
. . ."

I put my good hand up to my face and did a slow burn
which shut him up. "Lieutenant Parras, I'm not sure who or what
is where, but I've got a pretty good idea you ought to start at that
auto shop." I shifted and grimaced. "I'm sure as hell not
going anywhere for a while."

"You, you mean—" Parras broke off. Not as
much juice as I thought. "Wasser, better call the Chief."

Wasser checked his watch. "It's four-forty-five
A.M., Lieutenant. Maybe you better call him."

I closed my eyes and
smiled on the inside. Perhaps I had underestimated Wasser.

* * *

Chief Kyle was stocky and bald, and bore a striking
resemblance to Edward Asner, the actor. He arrived just before 6 A.M.
I elaborated for him the story I had summarized for Parras, who stood
where Wasser had, Wasser having disappeared. Kyle did not much like
my story and said so.

I shrugged, then clenched my teeth from the resultant
pain in my arm. "Sorry, Chief, it's the only story I've got."

Kyle looked like he wanted to spit but was barely
civilized enough to refrain. His next remark was cut short by a knock
at the door and the head of Wasser around it.

"Chief?" said Wasser.

"Yeah?" said Kyle.

"He's here."

Kyle nodded, gave me a disgusted look, and said to
Parras, "Stay here but don't talk to him." Kyle didn't wait
for an acknowledgment. He just banged open the door and left.

I made faces at Parras for about ten minutes before
the door banged open again. Kyle came back in with one Lieutenant
Murphy, Boston P.D. Wasser shuffled in behind them, dragging a couple
of hard plastic chairs but carrying no obvious forms of nourishment.

"Cuddy."

"Lieutenant."

Murphy and Kyle sat in Wasser's chairs. Parras and
Wasser stayed standing. Murphy looked to Kyle, who motioned him to go
ahead. Murphy said thank you and turned to me.

"Why don't you tell me what you say happened,
Cuddy?"

I did.

Murphy leaned forward a bit, resting his chin on his
uptumed palm, elbow on his knee. The Thinker.

"You turn the tail and follow him to the auto
shop. You didn't make the plates?"

"Like I said, no front plate and no light on the
back. "

"And you're not sure which model or year
either?"

"It was a big, old Pontiac. It was dark, and I
didn't want to get too close."

"How long were you in claims investigating?"