The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy (6 page)

"I know that."

"Listen," I said, "Cross is on kind of
a probationary period. I'm supposed to find out if she asked you
certain questions. It's like a check-up on her detecting ability. I
didn't want to disturb you at home, so I thought I'd drop by here
when I figured you wouldn't be too busy."

"Well," he said, buying it, "she asked
me a hell of a lot of questions. I sure wouldn't remember all of
them."

"Did she ask you how long you were working last
night?"

"Yeah."

"And what was your answer?"

"Same as I always work. It's a school-year job.
I work four P.M. to twelve, Monday through Thursday."

"Did she ask you if anyone else asked for Mr.
Sachs or his room number?"

"Yeah."

"And what was your answer?"

"I told her no." He cocked his head at me.
"How come you need my answers, anyways?"

Sharp kid, Bell. "Well, unless I know what
answer you gave to Question A, I won't know whether her Question B
was a good one."

"You sound like one of my professors." He
smiled. "Except you make more sense."

I laughed at his joke. "Thanks."

We continued through everything else I could think
of, including whether any maintenance work had been done recently on
Room 304 (no) and whether anything else odd had happened that night
(no, again).

"Last1y," I said, "did she ask who
followed you at midnight?”

"No, she already knew that."

I called back the other name Cross had mentioned
yesterday.

"Teevens? Douglas Teevens?"

"Yeah. He'll be in tonight."

"Good," I said. I nodded to the bar. "Let
me know when he comes in."

He nodded and said, "Well?"

I looked at him. "Well, what?"

"Well, did she pass?"

"Pass? Oh, Cross, yeah, she did just fine."

"I'm glad," said the kid. "She was
angry about something when she talked to me, but I got the
impression it wasn't me she was angry at."

"Yeah," I said,
and hoped Cross never found out about her probationary check-up.

* * *

Bell looked in the cocktail lounge and gestured that
Teevens was here. My watch said 12:05 A.M., and I had nursed three
screwdrivers for the past three hours. The place had been quiet, the
salesmen from Wichita apparently taking their revue on the road.
Teevens was a carbon copy of Bell, though Teevens' jacket fit a
little better. Bell was already gone, so I used the same ploy to warm
up his successor. It worked again, Teevens allowing me to take him
through Cross' interrogation of him.

"Now, did she ask you if anything unusual
happened during your shift?"

Teevens frowned a minute. "No, I don't think so.
I think she just asked me if anybody asked for Mr. Sachs or Room
304."

I paused. Maybe Cross should still be on probation.

"Well," I said, "did anything unusual
happen?"

"No . . . unless . . ."

"Yes?"

"Well . . . it wasn't really unusual."

"Why don't you explain it to me."

"O.K. You see, the lounge closes at two, and so
around two-thirty, Milt, he's the bartender, usually calls me in to
check his dollar count against his cash register tape. It's kind of
unnecessary, you know, since the tape is always checked against his
cash pouch anyways. But it's a hotel rule, so we do it. It was maybe
two-fifteen when a guy comes into the lobby.

He smiles at me and goes into the lounge, then comes
out again and says the bartender wants to see me. I figured the guy
had wanted a drink and saw the lounge was closed. Also, it was an
awfully slow night, so I figured that maybe Milt had his count done
and wanted to leave early. So I thanked the guy and walked into the
bar. I didn't see Milt right away because he was squatting down
counting liquor bottles or something. He said he hadn't asked any guy
to get me. In fact, he hadn't even seen anybody. I walked back out
and the guy was gone. That's it."

I had a sinking feeling but quelled it. "Can you
describe this guy?"

He closed his eyes and opened them again. "I
didn't pay too much attention, you know. I mean it isn't so unusual
for Milt to ask somebody to get me or tell me something. The guy was
short, maybe five-six or five-seven, with a hat, glasses, I think."

"Color hair?"

"Don't know with the hat and all."

"And all?".

"Well, he had on a raincoat with the collar up.
You really couldn't see much of him."

"Color raincoat?"

"Trenchcoat type, you know."

"Color eyes?"

"Didn't notice."

"Mustache, beard?"

"Don't remember one, but he could have. Honest,
I really didn't pay much attention."

I nodded. He continued, "Is this gonna get the
woman detective in trouble?"

"N0, no," I said, "I doubt if it's
related at all to what she was doing." I resurrected my
unsettling thought. "One thing, though."

"Yeah?"

"Would this guy have had time, while you were in
the bar, to go through anything at the desk here?"

"Actually, I thought of that and checked around.
Everything was still here."

"Yes," I said patiently, "but would he
have had time to look at the register, that sort of thing?"

"Well, we don't have a register exactly, we use
cards and put them in this View-dex thing. But, yeah, he would have
had ten or twenty seconds to look at something before I got back.
Course he would have had to use some of that to take off."

"Right," I said and thanked him. As I
walked out to my car, I kept glancing around. If I had killed the man
in 304 earlier that evening, I would have had his hotel key, and I
damn well would have wanted to check his room for any trace that
could lead the cops to me. I also would have wanted to read the pink
message slip in his mail box. You know, the slip with the name "J.
F. Cuddy" on it. The slip implying that the man who had to be
killed for some reason had spoken with Cuddy earlier that day. Shit
and double shit.
 
 

SIX
-•-

I GOT HOME FROM MIDTOWN ABOUT 1:15 A.M. I played back
the telephone tape machine in case anything had happened in
Pittsburgh. Dale Pa1mer's voice read the name and address of a
no-rip-off, nondenominational funeral home to me and then said Carol
would be with Martha all night. Next came George's voice, asking me
to call him at home or at work for the details on transporting Al's
body. Last came Jesse Cooper, asking me to call. I checked my watch.
If I called Jesse and Emily at 1:27 A.M. , I would scare them more
than Marco had. I set my alarm for 7:00 A.M. and fell into bed.

The next morning, I got up with the alarm. Don Kent
on WBZ radio said it was 28 degrees. I laced up my running shoes, did
ten minutes of warm-ups, and then pulled on a sweater, sweatshirt,
and sweatpants. I tugged a black watchcap over my ears and had my
hand on the door when I remembered my talk with the second desk clerk
the night before. I pulled the left leg of the elastic-ankled
sweatpants up over my knee and jerry-rigged a calf-holster for my .38
Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special. The butt of the small revolver
hung down about ten inches above my ankle.

I pulled the sweatpants leg back down, stood
straight, and experimented with drawing the gun past the elastic.
After about three minutes, I could execute a reasonably good draw,
assuming any potential assailant allowed me time to stoop to tie my
shoelaces.

I left the apartment and began running slowly toward
the river two blocks away. I got barely across the footbridge
spanning the multilane highway called Storrow Drive when the pain of
the gun butt bonking against my shin got so intense I had to stop. I
looked around and saw no one. I bent and drew the weapon, stufling it
in the front double pocket of my sweatshirt. I then did a mile and a
half up the river and back, with my hands in my front pocket
stabilizing the revolver. I must have looked like a potbellied clown.

I stopped running on the river side of the
footbridge. I walked over it and up Cambridge Street a block to
disperse the lactic acid that otherwise stiffens the joints. I also
bought a paper and six donuts as a reward for running three miles.
Home, I stripped, warmed down, showered, and drank a glass of ice
water to rehydrate. I then sipped a quart of orange juice with the
donuts over the Globe.

By 9 A.M. , I was ready to face my problems. I called
George and gave him the name of the Pittsburgh funeral home. He
explained the details of the transport via Delta Airlines. I thanked
him and rang off.

I called Delta to arrange my ticket, then called Dale
Palmer's number and got Larry. He apologized for being bitchy the
night before. I said not to worry about it and asked about Martha. He
said he hadn't seen her since just after he spoke to me. I gave him
my flight number. Larry said he or Dale would meet the plane and gave
me a detailed description of both. I reciprocated and we hung up
friendly if not friends. Lastly, I called Jesse and Emily. He
answered with a tentative hello.

"Hi, Jesse."

"Who is this'?" he demanded.

"John Cuddy, Jesse. You called me. Last night
sometime."

"Oh, John, please excuse me. I . . . that is,
we've been a little upset."

I felt my stomach turn maybe 15 degrees.

"What's happened?" I asked.

"Well, yesterday the phone rang and Emily
answered. Hold on, John, she's right here, let me put her on so she
can tell you."

"John? Hello?" She sounded shaken.

"I'm here, Emily. What's the trouble?"

"Well, yesterday about noontime, the phone rang.
I picked it up and said 'Hello' and a man's voice said 'Hi, Emily.
How are you?' I said, 'I'm fine.' Before I could ask who it was, the
voice said, real smooth and creamy, 'That's good.' Then he hung up."

"Was it Marco's voice?"

Jesse came back on. "We couldn't tell, it was so
soft. The man, that is, spoke so softly."

"Did you hear him too, Jesse?"

I heard Jesse cough. "Well, not that time, no,
but he's called four times since, and each time he asks me—I won't
let Emily answer anymore—he asks me how Emily is and then says
'That's good' or 'That's nice.' Then hangs up. In fact," said
Jesse haltingly, "we get so few calls, I figured your call was
him calling again."

"Any sign of Marco?"

"We haven't been out of the house since the
first call. I looked up and down the street but I can't tell from the
window whether he's out there."

"All right," I said. "Here's what I
want you to do. Don't answer the telephone unless it rings twice,
stops, and rings immediately again. That'l1 be me. I'm going to call
some people. Then I'm going to drive over to you and check out the
streets around you. O.K.?"

I heard both of them speak. "Right, 0.K., thank
you, John."

I hung up. I thumbed through the blue pages of the
phone book for the police district station closest to the Coopers. I
reached for a pen and realized that I hadn't played back my telephone
tape after my run. I rewound it, heard a message in reverse
Donald-Duck talk, and replayed it. A short message.

"Hi, John, how are you? Oh, you're fine. That's
nice."

Click.

I looked up the Suffolk DA's number.

The secretary who answered Nancy Meagher's phone said
Nancy was on pretrials all morning. I thanked her and left a message
that I'd appreciate a return call when she was available.

I drummed my lingers on the desk, then called
directory assistance for three area codes before I got the number for
the Pentagon main switchboard, the last duty station I remembered J
.T. having. I went through ten or twelve holds and transfers before I
got "Colonel Kivens' office."

"May I speak with him?"

"I'm sorry, but the Colonel is not availab1e."
Her voice sounded as though she was reading instructions, a Stepford
secretary.

"Do you know when he'll be back?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to say."

"Is the next line in the script 'I'll be happy
to take your name and number and ask him to call you'?"

"What?"

At least an honest response. I couldn't very well
leave a "your friend is dead" message, though. "Just
tell him John Cuddy called and will call again tomorrow."

"Would you kindly spell that last name, please?"

I did. And got a direct dial number back to him. I
hung up, donned my coat, and headed outside. I walked to Park Square
and rented a car to drive incognito to Jesse and Emily's
neighborhood. Their part of Dorchester had a simple, gridlike street
pattern, with cars parked on both sides of each road. I edged the
rent-a-car through the neighborhood in ever-decreasing concentric
squares. Marco might have been there somewhere, but I couldn't spot
him.