Not Long for This World (7 page)

“Tell me about your husband, Mrs. Lovejoy,” the detective finally said.

Lovejoy looked up from her food sculpting, her gaze cool and impassive, and said, “What would you like to know?”

“I’d like to know if his friends can be believed when they say what a fine man he was, for one thing. Call me a skeptic, but I can’t help but wonder if anybody could have been as squeaky clean and wholesome as your husband was reputed to be.”

“If you’re asking me whether or not Darrel was perfect, Mr. Gunner, the answer is no. Of course he wasn’t. He was, however, scrupled. Which is more than I can say for you.”

“Me?”

“That’s right. You. I know who you work for, Mr. Gunner. Remember? If you were a man of high principles, you wouldn’t be here.”

“My principles have nothing to do with this, Mrs. Lovejoy.”

“No. Of course not.”

Gunner eyed her coldly. “It should be obvious to you by now that I’m a man with some modicum of principles,” he said. “Because you’ve been treating me like shit since our first hello, and I’ve yet to voice any serious objections. How much more ‘scrupled’ can one get than that?”

Lovejoy blushed, and for a moment Gunner wondered if he had pushed her too far. “If I’ve been rude to you, Mr. Gunner, I apologize,” she said. “But surely my poor behavior needs no great explanation. I’ve only been a widow for three weeks now. It takes time to adjust.”

Gunner nodded his head, conceding the point. She was a woman someone had only recently crushed underfoot, and as such her cheerless disposition should not have been unexpected.

“Look. This is just awkward for me, that’s all,” she went on. “You’re working to get Toby Mills off the hook for Darreil’s murder, and by my very presence here, I’m helping you, even though I share none of your reservations regarding Mills’s guilt.”

“So I’ve noticed. What makes you so certain Mills is guilty?”

“I read the newspapers, like everyone else. I know what kind of evidence the police have turned up against him. The gun alone should be proof enough of his involvement for anyone.”

“Then your judgment isn’t based on any personal insight or knowledge of Toby Mills.”

“No.”

“Ever see or hear of Mills before your husband’s death? Did Darrel ever mention him by name, that you can recall?”

“No.”

“How about Rookie Davidson?”

“No. Darrel rarely discussed gangbangers with me. He didn’t like to bring his work home, and that, as you might imagine, was fine with me.”

“Then you can’t say for sure that Darrel even knew Mills or Davidson.”

Claudia Love joy dropped the fork in her hand as if it had offended her in some way; the racket it made on her plate was enough to stop conversation three tables away. “Look,” she said, “why is it so hard for some people to accept the obvious? Darrel made enemies of little hoods like Mills and Davidson every day of his life. He was playing with fire, trying to turn these kids around, and it finally caught up with him. It’s as simple as that. It’s how I knew things would end for him—for us—all along.”

To Gunner’s complete surprise, she was suddenly fighting back tears, anger and pain welling up in her eyes all at once, and the momentary lapse in her iron-woman performance only enraged her all the more. Refusing to draw any further attention to her plight by dabbing at her eyes, she said, “It may sound trite to you, Mr. Gunner, but I loved my husband very much. And while I wish I could speculate on the hows and whys of his death in a less emotional manner, I’m afraid I lack that kind of self-control just yet.”

Gunner nodded his head and said nothing, watching her struggle to repair her misplaced cool. Her beauty, already overwhelming, had taken on a new brilliance now that her facade of hostile indifference was lifted, and its effect on him was as profound as it was unexpected.

All the questions he wanted to ask her now had nothing to do with her husband or the Imperial Blues.

“Maybe we should talk about something else for a while,” he said.

“Such as?”

“Such as yourself. Tell me who you are. What you are.”

“That sounds like small talk to me.”

Gunner grinned. “I suppose it is. Anything wrong with that?”

She thought about it for a moment. When she decided there wasn’t, she said, “Who I am is no great mystery. The news media have seen to that. I’m the bereaved widow of the late Darrel Lovejoy. The woman in black. As for
what
I am, I can’t say. I used to be a wife and aspiring mother, but I’m neither of those things now.”

“You could always be again.”

“Yes. I could.” She smiled thinly. “But in the meantime, I’m lost. I could go back to Minnesota to be with my family for a while, but I know that wouldn’t last. I’ve been away too long to ever return there for good. When you’ve gone two years without shoveling snow, you’re cured of the jones forever.”

“Darrel left no family here?”

“No. No one. And that fact always surprised people, because they liked to think his motivation for the things he did came from somewhere outside of himself, when that wasn’t the case at all. What Darrel did, he did on his own, by his own volition. He
was
the ‘wonderful human being’ everybody thought he was. No matter how bogus he must have seemed to some, he was a man who cared about people the way most of us only care about ourselves, and he loved me like no man I have ever known. So, if you came here hoping I’d tell you he was a wife-beater and an adulterer, a drunkard and a drug-abuser, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you.”

“Then there’s no reason to believe someone other than a gangbanger may have killed him.”

“None. None whatsoever.”

Gunner downed the last of a by-now-cold cup of coffee and said, “All right. Assuming that’s true, we’re only rounding the possible suspects down to every kid in every gang he ever dealt with.”

“I’m afraid that’s about the size of it, yes. Darrel had been shot three times previously, Mr. Gunner. He was a constant target of theirs. If it wasn’t the Blues who killed him, it was the S.S. or the Little Tees. Cuzzes or Hoods from one set or another, I’m absolutely convinced of that.”

“How is it they knew where to find him?”

“You mean at the minimarket?”

“Yes.”

“Darrel was a creature of habit. He made that walk regularly, and I expect they knew that. I had wondered why they chose that location, too. I had always thought—I had always
feared
—that if something like that ever happened to Darrel, it would happen in front of our own home. But the police explained that it probably happened where it did because they wanted it to get a lot of attention. They wanted it
seen
.”

“Then the attempt on Darrel’s life did come as a complete surprise to him, you think.”

“Of course.”

“He wasn’t particularly moody or on edge at the time of his death?”

“No. No, he wasn’t.” She thought about it. “He was a little more quiet than usual, but nothing more than that. Why?”

“Because warnings don’t usually precede your run-of-the-mill gangbanger drive-by. They’re too spur of the moment to allow time for all that. If Mills and Davidson rolled on your husband like everybody says they did, he shouldn’t have been acting as if he knew what was coming.”

Lovejoy nodded her head slowly, following his logic. Then her eyes lost focus, the way eyes always did when the person behind them had checked out of the present to revisit the past.

“You just remember something?” Gunner asked her.

She blinked twice, coming out of it, and shook her head. “No. It’s nothing. He was just quiet that week, that’s all. I thought …” She paused, then shook her head again. “Never mind. Really.”

Gunner looked at her. He didn’t like leaving such loose ends dangling, but she seemed determined to deny him the chance to pursue it. It was an odd way to act about “nothing,” but the issue was only worth pressing if what she was trying to hide was something relevant to Gunner’s case, and not something that was merely none of his business.

“What about parents?” Gunner asked eventually. “If Darrel was making enemies of gangbangers, he had to be bending a few of their parents out of shape in the process. Moms or Dads who didn’t appreciate what they saw as his Patrol’s constant harassment of their children.”

“There were a few of those, of course. How could there not be? The parents of most gangbangers are masters of denial; they don’t like it when strangers confront them with the truth about their babies. But these people aren’t killers, Mr. Gunner. They’re just weak. Ignorant.”

“Many murderers are,” Gunner said.

“Well, maybe so. In any case, as I’ve already told you, Darrel kept me pretty much in the dark where the Patrol was concerned, so I really can’t say for sure whether or not he ever had a serious run-in with somebody’s parent. If you want my opinion, though, I’d rule the ‘angry parent’ theory out.”

Gunner did a little heavy thinking, then asked whether Darrel Lovejoy had ever locked horns with anyone, past or present, in the Peace Patrol family.

Lovejoy shook her head. “Darrel did too good a job of recruiting for that. The people he brought aboard were always people he could get along with and trust implicitly. He realized from day one that many of the people who would be attracted to the Patrol were going to be fanatics on the fringe, men or women with chips on their shoulders looking for an excuse to bust some heads, so he was always careful to weed those types out.”

Absently, she started to nibble on a piece of ham, finally making some legitimate use of her utensils. “I suppose someone like that may have wanted Darrel dead, now that I think about it. You know what I mean? Someone with a grudge to bear because Darrel rejected them for the Patrol.”

Gunner nodded. “Anybody specific come to mind?”

Lovejoy began eating in earnest now, fueling her sudden inspiration with food. She raised her empty coffee cup at a passing waiter, successfully getting his attention, and said, “As a matter of fact, yes. Somebody does. Only I never knew this person’s name. Darrel never told me his name.”

“It was a man?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I know because he called the house. Three times over a two-week period, if I remember correctly, and I answered the phone each time. All he’d ever do is quote Scripture and hang up.”

“Quote Scripture?”

Lovejoy nodded. “Fire and brimstone, vengeance is mine, that sort of thing. A different passage every time, but always something dark and threatening. He once used a reading from the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter Nineteen, verses eighteen and nineteen, I believe.”

“Which says?”

“You want me to recite it? Well, let’s see. ‘And if the witness hath testified falsely against his brother, then shall ye do unto him as he had thought to do unto his brother,’ or words to that effect. I wasn’t familiar with the passage at the time, but I came across it afterward in my daily readings, and I wrote it down. Apparently, this man who was calling felt Darrel had falsely accused him of something.”

“And Darrel knew who he was?”

“He seemed to. He told me it was just some crazy who had a problem with the Patrol, a neighborhood nut he’d had some words with. I just assumed it was over a job or something. Darrel said he’d take care of it, that he’d put a stop to the calls, and I guess he did, because there were no more after that.”

“How long ago was this?”

Lovejoy thought about it. “A year, maybe. Possibly longer. I’m not sure.”

Their waiter appeared with coffeepot in hand and slowly proceeded to refill their cups, drawing the exercise out in order to prolong the look of definite disapproval he was casting Gunner’s way. Lovejoy’s earlier moment of distress had apparently not escaped his keen young eyes, and thinking Gunner was the cad responsible, he was boldly letting the detective know that he didn’t care to see the lady in tears again, no matter what kind of weight Gunner pulled in the place.

Gunner removed a small notebook and a mechanical pencil from a coat pocket and allowed the reckless romantic his minute of chivalry without comment. Eventually, having poured all the coffee he could pour, the waiter wandered off toward the kitchen, freeing Gunner to ask Lovejoy to repeat the source of the Scripture passage she had accused the stranger on the phone of reciting.

“Deuteronomy, Chapter Nineteen, verses eighteen and nineteen,” Lovejoy said, watching as Gunner wrote this down. “But I’m afraid that’s the only passage I’ve ever been able to place. I’m sorry.”

Gunner shrugged as if he wasn’t disappointed. “Providing the others seemed to follow a similar theme, this might be enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Enough for somebody with a better handle on the Old and New Testaments than I have to explain it. Perhaps find any hidden meanings a heathen like myself might overlook.”

“And what will that get you?”

Gunner shrugged again. “Beats me. But this is what being a detective is all about. Sweating the details. Leaving no stone unturned. Taking wild shots in the dark.”

He smiled at her, and Lovejoy surprised him by smiling back.

“However, there are less iffy ways of playing detective than counting on long shots like this to pay off,” Gunner said, putting the notebook away. “If you could give me something more substantial to go on, I’d be a lot better off, believe me.”

“Something more substantial? Like what?”

“Like a lead on some of the other people who may have gotten along less than famously with your husband. For all his aforementioned fine qualities, one disgruntled job applicant could not have been his only enemy in the world.”

“There were people he had trouble getting along with at times, certainly,” Lovejoy said, getting testy again, “but I would hesitate to call any one of them an enemy of Darrel’s. Reverend Raines, for example.”

Gunner raised an eyebrow.

“He and Darrel disagreed about a great many things, on a great many occasions, but they were not what I would consider enemies.”

“By disagreements, I take it you mean spats. Minor squabbles.”

The assumption brought another smile to Lovejoy’s face, and it looked very comfortable there. “No. That’s not what I mean. Darrel and I had spats. He and the Reverend had fights. Arguments akin to war, without the bloodshed. They were two very headstrong men, with opposite opinions on almost every subject, and working together on a daily basis toward a common goal … an exchange of words was a weekly inevitability. But that isn’t to say there was any bad blood between them. They never let it go that far.”