Dreams of Jeannie and Other Stories Part 8

Maybe they didn't want to touch each other, but they were both willing to touch me. A moist, heavy hand fell on my right shoulder, a dry one on my left.

"Let's not be too hasty," Lowry said. "After all, we have our clients to consider."

"And if that dead body is Jimmy Dahl, our clients are suspects," Crane added. "All three of our clients. Which means giving information about them to the police."

"Information they paid us-and were willing to concede to extortion demands from Jimmy Dahl-to keep secret," Lowry finished.

"Yeah, but then it wasn't murder," I said, brushing both hands away.

"Think for a moment, lit-O'Neal," Lowry said, tipping his hand to his hat again. "Our clients will be ruined. And at least two of them unnecessarily. Maybe all three are innocent. Who knows how many poor wretches were victimized by that Jimmy Dahl?"

"I want to see the corpse," Crane said. "After that, we talk. I don't think we want to rush our clients into the hands of the police."

I wasn't happy about this. Nevertheless, I led the way back to number three.

Jimmy Dahl's body was still on the bed, slowly cooling to ivory. A jagged wound on his chest looked as if someone had stuck a knife right below the breastbone and twisted. From the condition of the sheets and walls, the blood had spurted and pumped before he died. His face had the glazed, gaping expression of a small rabbit caught on the highway. He had seen the weapon and known it was the end.

There wasn't room for all three of us in the doorway. I walked around to the other side of the bed, where all I could see was an ear and the back of his head. He'd had dark hair, already thinning.

"My guy didn't do this," Crane said. "Hasn't the guts."

"I'd say my client is off the hook for the same reason," Lowry said, apparently happy to go along.

They had each taken a position at maximum distance from each other and the bed. In the tiny s.p.a.ce available, they could still have held hands.

"Bulls.h.i.t. Everybody's a suspect until we start establishing alibis."

"Then you agree?" Lowry asked. "No police?"

"I don't agree. But I'll go this far-we take the photos we came for, and we ask whoever shows from the police if we can report to our clients tonight and go in for a formal statement in the morning. I think we can get away with that much, and it gives us each a little time to check out our own clients. Maybe we can protect a couple of innocent people that way."

"Way to go," Lowry said.

"Where'd you find the photos?" I asked.

"What?" Crane turned sharply, and for a minute I thought he was going to grab Lowry's neck. He pulled a handkerchief from his jacket and wiped his forehead.

"In the dresser," Lowry said. "Second drawer."

A dresser with a Scotch tape dispenser, a stapler, some pens, and a few scattered window envelopes on top-the kind that hold bills-was at the foot of the bed. The angled mirror reflected Dahl from the torn chest down. I had to turn away.

Lowry had either been lucky with his first try or he had tossed the place carefully. Not that there were many places to look. For all the personal effects showing, Dahl could have been packed and out of there in ten minutes. Aside from the shirt, jeans, and jockey shorts lying on a chair, and a coffee mug on the small table, everything but the bed itself was as void of character as a motel room. A second coffee mug was in the drainer next to the sink.

"Did you leave prints?" I asked.

"Not a chance." As I started for the dresser, Lowry added, "I didn't leave any photos, either."

Crane hitched his shoulders. "Let's have 'em."

"Easy, now," Lowry said. He placed the briefcase on the carpet, held out his hands in a gesture of surrender, then knelt down and flipped the catch to reveal a stack of tan envelopes. "Four-count 'em-four. One marked Lowry, one marked O'Neal, one marked Crane, and one marked Dennis."

"Why do you have them? Who the h.e.l.l is Dennis?" Crane asked.

"Why the h.e.l.l didn't you tell me you had mine?"

"I have them because I wanted to get them out of the apartment. I wouldn't have let you get away without your envelopes. I was just playing it out." Lowry's geniality seemed to be wearing thin as he handed a fat nine-by-twelve to me and another to Crane. "As for Dennis-if he doesn't show up, I say let's open his."

"I'm Dennis. Open what?"

A slender young man with streaked blond hair curling around his chin stood in the doorway. When Crane turned to look at him, he cleared a line of sight to the body on the bed.

"Oh, my G.o.d." The young man blanched so quickly that I thought we might have a second corpse on our hands. He caught himself against the wall. "What happened?"

"Somebody decided murder was cheaper than blackmail," I said. "Did you know the deceased or were you hired?"

"Know Jimmy? Of course I knew Jimmy. Who are you? Where are the police?" He glanced from face to face, shock turning to terror.

"I'm calling them right now," I said.

Before anyone could protest, I picked up the phone on the dresser-using fingertips and hoping I wouldn't smudge anything-and punched out the direct dial to Detectives.

I was lucky enough to catch Matthews. He didn't think it was so lucky. But he said he'd be right over.

"What happened?" Dennis asked again. While I was on the phone, he had moved over to the bed. He had taken the envelope Lowry held out, automatically, without looking. It dangled at his side.

"We've each been hired to make an exchange-money for photographs. This is what we found," I said. "And you?"

"I thought I could talk him out of doing this. Oh, Jimmy." Dennis began to slump, and I grabbed his arm to keep him from the b.l.o.o.d.y sheets.

Crane and Lowry both backed toward the door. They stopped when they reached it at the same time.

"Waiting outside is a good idea," I said. "We'll all wait outside."

Crane let Lowry go first.

"I'd rather wait here," Dennis said.

His eyes were filling, and I wished I could let him mourn in peace.

"Sorry. We're messing up a crime scene."

"A crime scene. But that man had the envelopes. Doesn't a crime scene mean we have to give the envelopes to the police?"

"It means we're working in a gray area here." My nose should have grown longer on that one. I turned him toward the door. "If the photos are evidence-if they provide a motive for murder-we'll have to turn them over. Do you have a way to carry your envelope?"

"I don't understand."

"Well, if you wave it in Detective Matthews' face, he'll have to ask you what's in it." I pulled the corner of the envelope containing what I hoped were photos and negatives of Lane Josten out of the leather folder.

Dennis seemed puzzled for a moment. Then he handed his envelope to me.

"How do I get it back?"

"We'll leave separately, and I'll meet you."

"Tom Thumb's," he said, "I need a drink."

Not the place I would have chosen, but I didn't want to argue.

I hadn't realized how cool the apartment was until we were back on the sidewalk. The sun was heavy on my cotton shirt, and I envied Lowry his hat.

The four of us waited quietly for Matthews. No envelopes in sight.

A black-and-white arrived first. Two unmarked cars rolled up right behind.

If Matthews had been unhappy when I called, that was nothing to his reaction when he was faced with three private investigators who didn't want to divulge their clients' names plus one private citizen who admitted to being a friend of the deceased but was otherwise unwilling to volunteer anything. He finally agreed to let Crane, Lowry, and me come in for formal statements the next morning, making dire threats about what would happen to our licenses if we failed to show. He was still talking to Dennis, who gave his last name as Stiers and his occupation as accountant, when we left.

I swung by my office to drop off Lane's envelope. I didn't want to carry it with me to the bar. I thought about calling him, but it was after five-thirty, and telling him Dahl had been murdered ten minutes before he went on camera didn't seem the thing to do. If I caught him at seven, he'd have four hours to compose himself before the late news. The risk was that the police beat reporter would tell him first. I decided to chance it.

I got back in the Jeep, took a couple of quick corners, and headed south on Virginia Street.

Tom Thumb's was a squat, brown rectangle in the middle of a parking lot. The neon sign above the door was small and pale. This wasn't a place anyone would drop into, not without knowing what it was.

I had thought Dennis Stiers might beat me there, but none of the startled male faces that caught my entrance belonged to that particular young man. I had my own moment of surprise, though. Barry Crane was seated at the bar. He wiped his forehead when he saw me heading toward him.

"This isn't what you're thinking, O'Neal," he said, as I settled onto the next stool.

"Okay. I'm not thinking. But I'm listening."

"Buy you a drink?"

"Beer's fine. Whatever's on tap."

The bartender had been busy with a blender concoction for a couple at the far end of the counter. Crane caught his eye, held up his own gla.s.s, and two fingers.

Crane didn't say anything until the gla.s.ses were in front of us.

"Freddie O'Neal, I want you to meet Barry Crane, Jr. My son."

"Pleased to meet you," the bartender said. "Although I'm sorry about the circ.u.mstances."

"Same here."

"I haven't told the other customers about Jimmy. I'd rather they found out from someone else. I wasn't fond of him, but other people thought he was attractive. That's how all this happened."

I hadn't noticed the resemblance until the bartender started talking. Barry Junior was younger and thinner and had more hair, but the timbre in his voice was similar. When his father frowned at him, he excused himself to wash gla.s.ses out of earshot.

"I'm still listening," I said.

"Dahl was threatening to out a local attorney. Barry asked me to intercede. I don't even know the attorney's name-that's why I'm here."

"It may be time to open the envelope," I said.

Crane thought for a moment, then pulled the envelope out of his jacket. He must have had a pocket in the lining. I caught a glimpse of his shoulder holster as he shifted. I had been right-he was carrying.

"I'll let him do it." Crane gave the envelope a shove down the counter. It stopped near his son.

Barry Junior dried his hands and picked it up. He moved back to us.

"My friend wouldn't have killed Jimmy," he said. "He was just going to pay. He didn't even want to hire help."

"We want you to make sure those are your friend's pictures," I prompted.

The envelope had been sealed with Scotch tape. Barry Junior picked up a knife and slit the top. He fumbled with the contents.

"The pictures are here. The negatives aren't."

"Warned you," Crane said.

"h.e.l.l." I wanted to say something more profound. But I had warned Lane, too.

"I guess you didn't get there in time."

I thought Barry Junior was saying that to me, and I was about to bristle and tell him I was early, when I realized that Dennis was standing next to me. I hadn't heard him come in.

"No, I didn't."

"What time were you supposed to be there?" I asked.

"No special time," Dennis answered. "Jimmy said he was setting up appointments at four, four-thirty, and five. I didn't know they were with private investigators. I thought he was dealing directly with friends."

"Former friends," I said.

Dennis nodded. He took a sip of the beer that Barry Junior placed in front of him.

"There was an envelope for you-but you didn't have an appointment?"

"No. I had told him I wouldn't pay. I was ready to leave the closet anyway. There was nothing he could do to me. Jimmy said in that case, he'd let me have the pictures. He planned to leave town once he got the money, so he didn't have any use for them."

"He had use for something," Crane grumbled. "Why else would he keep the negatives?"

"Keep the negatives? He wasn't going to keep the negatives."

I handed Dennis his envelope. He ripped it apart and spread the photographs on the bar. I caught a glimpse of two naked male bodies in awkward positions and looked away. Crane almost fell off the stool turning his back.

"You're right," Dennis said. "The negatives are missing."

"What time was your appointment?" I asked Crane.