Corpus de Crossword (15 page)

Rosco shook his head no.

Gordon chuckled again. “Well, you've got a real treat in store for you. Bazinne and his buddies … they're, what do you call them …? throwbacks … Neanderthals … misfits. And they're none too happy losing out on their slice of the pie … My advice to you, Polycrates, is to start with Bazinne … I say that body was dumped there ages ago. By some local Tontos.” The CEO pressed a button on his intercom. “I apologize, but I've got a meeting with the foreman at noon-thirty. My secretary will show you out.”

Rosco placed a business card on the desk. “I can find my own way, Mr. Gordon—”

“You talk to Bazinne and his crowd if you want a true picture of Taneysville. And forget the enemy bit, Polycrates. I'm a good guy. A guy with friends. A lot of friends. Powerful friends.”

As Rosco started his Jeep, Boston's all-news radio station chimed in with the weather report and traffic update. Interstate 93 was a logjam, so he decided to head south on Blue Hill Avenue. After a dozen blocks the radio announcer came on with the hour's top story:

“… Boston police detectives have identified the body of this morning's presumed suicide. The man was apparently a local private detective by the name of Mike Petri. When asked if the police were still ruling it a suicide, Lieutenant Sid Tanner commented, ‘We're still looking into it.' But speculation is, this latest development has given the police reason to re-examine their original assumption that Petri had jumped from the fifteen-story building …”

CHAPTER 19

Rosco was glad Belle hadn't been riding with him when he made the abrupt U-turn on Blue Hill Avenue and headed north, back toward Boston. He was certain he would never have heard the end of it—but he could easily imagine her response. “I can't believe you just pulled a stunt like that!” she would have gasped. “And you
never
get caught! That's what drives me nuts! If I did something like that, I'd be in jail right now.”

He smiled at the picture but winced slightly, remembering her warning to drive carefully. He shrugged it off and returned to the business at hand: picking up the car phone in his right hand, dialing it with his left, and steering the Jeep with his thigh. His first call went out to Al Lever at NPD. As expected, Al had the number for Sid Tanner's direct line at the Boston Police Department. However, in typical Lever fashion, the number was only dispensed after two minutes of need-to-know, and what's-this-all-about questioning. Finally, Lever rang off with, “Keep me posted … and, dammit, I mean that, Poly—crates.” The name was given Al's habitual three-syllable, mangled makeover—an old joke he never tired of.

“You'll be the first to know, Al.”

A sigh, followed by a click ended the conversation.

Rosco then punched in the number to Tanner's private line. It was answered with a clipped, “Tanner.”

“Lieutenant, my name is Rosco Polycrates, and—”

“Right, Polycrates,” Tanner interrupted, “thanks for getting back to me so quickly.”

“Huh?” was all Rosco could seem to come up with.

“You feel like taking a ride up to Boston? I work better face-to-face.”

“Wait. You want to see me? You called me?”

“Yeah. Check your answering machine … Look, we had a suicide up here last night. A jumper. Did a swan dive off the fifteenth floor. Found by a jogger this morning. No note. All I got is a Newcastle Yellow Pages with the PI section dogeared. Your name's underlined in red. Ever hear of a guy named Mike Petri?”

“Yeah … Yeah, I have,” was Rosco's startled answer. He didn't elaborate. “Where are you, Lieutenant?”

“Sixth District. South Boston. You know it?”

Rosco glanced at his watch. “Yes. I'm in town. I'll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Rosco hadn't been in Boston's Sixth District Headquarters in nearly eight years, but it hadn't changed much. The same chaotic whirlwind of activity was omnipresent—so much so, that he almost suspected these were the exact same perpetrators, going through the exact same arguments with identical pushing and shoving matches, duplicate cries of “False arrest!” and “Police brutality!”: all directed at the same roster of officers they'd wrangled with eight years before. Rosco was tempted to say, “Are you guys making a movie here, or what?” but he didn't. Instead, he strolled up to the duty sergeant, presented his I.D., and said, “I've got an appointment with Lieutenant Tanner.”

“PI, huh?” the sergeant said as he looked Rosco over with a fair amount of disdain. “How'd you get through the metal detector, wise guy?”

Rosco lifted his sports jacket above his waist, revealing his belt and shirt. “No piece,” was all he said.

“Huh.” The cop pointed. “Tanner's down the hallway. Third door on the right.”

“Thanks.” Rosco retrieved his I.D. and followed the hall until he reached Tanner's glass-paneled door. He could see the detective on the other side, sitting on his desk with his back to Rosco, telephone in hand, apparently leveling an angry tirade at the person on the other end. Rosco tapped lightly three times on the glass. Tanner turned, motioned for him to enter, and slammed the receiver back into its cradle.

“Problems?” Rosco said as he closed the door.

Tanner rolled his eyes, walked toward Rosco, and offered his hand. He was a big man; probably six feet eight inches tall, and built like a weight lifter who spent a good deal of time at the gym. His head was shaved, which made it impossible to determine his age. He could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty.

“Problems?” Tanner repeated, moving his head from side to side slowly. “You don't know from problems … Listen to this: The captain gives me two tickets to tomorrow's Pats game, right? I put them in my jacket for safekeeping. And then last night? After work? I take the jacket to the cleaners. Now, I
know
those tickets were in that jacket. I'd bet a month's salary on it. But do you think these clowns down at C.J.'s Laundry know anything about those tickets? … Hell, no.” Tanner groaned and then put on a voice that was intended to sound like an insincere dry-cleaning employee as he moved back behind his desk and sat. “‘Oh, no, Mr. Tanner, we didn't find any tickets … For this Sunday's football game, you say? Maybe you left them in your car?' … In my car? My car? Why the hell would anyone in their right mind leave football tickets in their car?”

“Rhetorical question?”

Tanner smiled at Rosco. “Right. You must be Polycrates. Lever told me you were a smart-ass. Have a seat.”

Rosco sat. “Al called you?”

“Don't worry, he put in a good word for you … said you and he were once partners … Actually, I was the first cop on the scene when your father-in-law croaked … ah, passed away, remember? That's when I got to know Lever. Anyway, he said you were on the level. Not like the rest of the sleazy PIs we have roaming around this town.”

Rosco recalled the situation Tanner was referring to, but he also remembered that Boston had made an inaccurate assumption when Belle's father had died—misinformation that had cost time and energy and maybe another life, so Rosco balked when it came to bending over backward to thank him for his previous assistance. Instead Rosco returned to the case at hand. “Are we putting Mike Petri in the sleazy PI category?”

Tanner laughed. “The sleaziest. Never pegged him for suicide, though. Anyway, like I said, no note … unless we consider your phone number scratched on a pad by the phone a note. It was also underlined in the Yellow Pages. I checked with the phone company. He talked with you for less than a minute. But hey, you know that. More importantly, I'd like to know what he had to say to you.”

Rosco shrugged. “He got my answering machine. Didn't even bother to leave his number. So I couldn't call him back.”

“Do you still have the tape?”

“Nope. Someone recorded over it this morning.”

“What did he say exactly?”

“It was short. Something like, ‘My name's Mike Petri. I need to talk to you. It's important. I'll call back tomorrow.' And that was it.”

“‘Important,' huh?”

“That's what he said.” Tanner was quiet, so Rosco pushed on. “Although I have to tell you, it doesn't sound to me like a guy planning to kill himself would leave that kind of message … unless saying that he'd call back was some kind of a joke—or a decoy. But what's the point in that if no one knows what the game is?”

At the word “game,” Tanner's face tightened. “Right,” he said. “Game … Look, Polycrates, Mike Petri was a drunk, a flat-out, on-your-face-in-the-street boozer. We had more complaints on him than Tetley has tea leaves. As of yesterday he had three clients suing him for
theft of services
. He was this close”—Tanner raised his hand and held his thumb and index finger a quarter inch apart—“this close to having his license yanked,
along
with his pistol permit. The guy was a class-A loser. It was all over for him and he knew it.” Tanner shrugged. “What more can I say? His blood-alcohol level was close to two-point-oh when we scraped him off the sidewalk.”

“I don't know …” Rosco answered slowly, “but experience tells me that if a person has a handgun in the house, it's the weapon of choice when it comes to suicide … Have you placed a time of death?”

“Four-eighteen in the morning.”

“Impressive accuracy.”

“Ahhh, his watch was as smashed as his skull. MEs love it when things work out like that. The jogger didn't find him until around six, though.”

“Was he wearing his piece? Fully clothed?”

“His gun was on the nightstand. In plain view. And he was dressed. Do you have any idea why he called you?”

“Can't tell you.”

“Can't or won't? What are you working on?”

“Lieutenant, my current case is an open book. My client is Milt Hoffmeyer, and there's no major confidentiality involved. What he wants is to find out how the skeletal remains of an unidentified female ended up in his hometown of Taneysville. In fact, he'd love people to know he's looking for some answers … Crime busting in your backyard; the little guy fighting for a peaceful community—that kind of thing.”

“Tell him he'd have my vote if he was in this district. Things need to be shaken up down in D.C.” Tanner took a stick of gum from his desk drawer, unwrapped it, and shoved it into his mouth. None was offered to Rosco. “What brought you up to Boston today?”

“I was talking to a guy by the name of Gordon—the ‘magnet magnate' …?” Rosco paused for a beat, but the name seemed to mean nothing to Tanner. “He owns the property in Taneysville where they found the remains … But I'm not seeing any connection between Hoffmeyer and Petri—or Gordon.” Rosco lowered his head and flicked a piece of lint off his trousers. “I'd love to know what Petri had in mind when he phoned me, too. Was there any sign of a struggle in his apartment?”

Tanner shook his head. “The place was a mess. But not from any struggle that I could see. Empty vodka bottles all over—the cheap stuff, too. Dirty laundry, pizza boxes; the junk in the kitchen sink looked like it'd been there for weeks. The bathroom was filthy, trash all over the place. And you know something? Just like you, this guy used to be a cop. It makes you sick, how low some guys can fall.”

“As it were,” Rosco interjected, but the comment seemed to go over Tanner's head. “So, Petri was a cop here in Boston?”

“Yeah. Before my time, though … I came here from LAPD ten years ago and Petri was already sliding … and fast …

Had a rep for being a sleazeball even then. People warned me about him, first day on the job.”

“How old was he?”

“Sixty-three.”

Rosco shifted in his chair. “I'd sure like to know why he contacted me … Where do you go from here, Lieutenant?”

Tanner raised a hand and then dropped it on his desk. The gesture was one of total indifference. “It's a suicide with no next of kin, and
you
obviously can't provide answers … Where do you
think
I go from here?”

“Obviously not the
Pats
game.”

Tanner scowled at Rosco. “Very funny … I
will
get those tickets back, you can bet your sweet butt on that—even if I have to burn that damn cleaners to the ground.”

“Can I get a look at Petri's police record? Going back to when he was on the force? And anything he might have been picked up for since? … I assume he had some kind of sheet … because I'll tell you, I'm not buying suicide … Sorry, but drunks like him are already killing themselves. They're just not in as much of a rush as some other people.”

Tanner gave Rosco a don't-waste-my-time stare. “So? The guy got hammered and
fell
off the terrace. It's too bad he didn't get to blab his heart out to you, but he didn't. And from where I sit, the case has dropped to ‘no priority.' You want a sheet on the guy? Here's how it ends: Cause of death: trauma resulting from a fifteen-story fall and a very abrupt stop—which sounds to me like a pretty obvious and natural consequence of a dumb-ass act.”

Rosco resisted the temptation to say, “‘Natural causes' was your opinion when Belle's father died, too.” Instead he opted for: “I still want to get a better idea of who Petri was.”

Tanner groaned. “I gotta clear this with the captain. And you know what he's going to make me do? He's going to make me go through the whole damn file, piece by piece, before he lets you take a peek at it, just to make sure nobody's gonna get
embarrassed
. Or caught with their pants down.”

“Nothing worse than a cop with his pants down, that's what I always say … How long's that going to take?”

“Don't call me, Polycrates. I'll call you.”

CHAPTER 20