Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 09/01/12 (15 page)

Gus dug a slip of paper from his pocket. “I measured the front and rear track
widths best I could. Front track is wide, close to sixty inches. Rear track is a
lot narrower, more like fifty, fifty-one. That mean anything to you?”

Eddie screwed up his lips as he replied. “Now I can’t say certain, but the Cord
was a pretty big car. That rear track seems way too narrow for a Cord. Hell, a
Ford Fairlane has a wider rear track than that.”

“Yeah,” Gus said. “And a Chevy Bel Air, too.”

The phone rang. It was Chief Carters calling for Gus.

“That’s a fire-break lane, Gus, for the South Haven Fire District. It runs
parallel to Heston Road for a ways, eventually meets up with the Sunrise Highway
on the north, County Road Eighty on the south. It just serves as access in case
a wildfire breaks out. It doesn’t actually
go
anywhere.”

“County Road Eighty goes somewhere,” Gus said, more to himself than to Carters.
“Goes straight to the Poospatuck Indian Reservation where the body was found.”
After a slight pause he asked, “Where exactly does it hit Eighty, Bill?”

There was a pause as Carters rustled with maps, looking. “Quarter-mile east of
the Strandvold farm near Clifford Road.”

Gus nodded. “Okay, thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

He turned back to Eddie. “You seen any Cords around lately? Any Citroëns?”

“Hell, no, Gus. You lookin’ for a Cord, you better start in the museums or the
junkyards. And Citroën? Nobody around here is fool enough to buy a foreign-built
car, ’specially one looks like a torpedo comin’ at you backwards.”

“Any other front-wheel drivers you know of?”

“I never hearda none, but I can’t say sure. Now that I’m thinking about it,
Citroën mighta invented front drive. Back before Cord, even.”

“Thanks, Eddie. You’ve been a big help.”

“My pleasure. And just so’s you know, it’s been awhile since your last tune-up
and oil change. You better take care of that Edsel of yours, Gus. Keep it
runnin’ till you get your money’s worth out of it. You’ll never be able to sell
it to anyone else, that’s for sure.”

 
On Monday morning, Gus Oliver waited as the head librarian of the
Lake Ronkonkoma library unlocked its front door. He gave her a few minutes to
get settled, then made his inquiry.

Two hours later, surrounded by piles of back issues of
Hemmings Motor
News,
Gus had the information he sought.

The last Cord automobile had been built in 1937, some twenty-three years ago.
Because of Lily O’Rourke’s speakeasy background, Gus had reasoned that, despite
Eddie Jacobs’ “museum” remark, there could very well be a fancy old car involved
here somehow.

But further investigation had shown that, as Eddie had suspected, the Cord would
not have left such a narrow rear track.

Instead, certain Citroëns available in the U.S. bore a front track width of 59.1
inches and a rear track of 51.7, nearly identical to the approximate dimensions
Gus had taken behind the McAdams house.

And the Citroën was very expensive, priced higher than a top-of-the-line Lincoln
or Cadillac.

Combining its foreign nature, unique front-wheel-drive configuration, and modest
styling with its steep purchase price, United States Citroën sales figures had
been very low. In fact, without available automatic transmission or power
steering, it was unlikely that upscale Americans would purchase such a vehicle
in any meaningful quantities, even despite the fact that both Frank Sinatra and
Lucille Ball had recently done so.

If the vehicle that had lurked behind the McAdams place had indeed
transported the murderer, it was very possible that Gus could eventually
identify that murderer by first identifying the vehicle itself.

 
Later, at the law offices of Andrew Saks, Gus gathered the notes he
had compiled from working the telephone and entered Saks’s private office. He
took a seat opposite the lawyer at the wide, polished desk.

“There are only two Citroën dealers in the whole country. One is out in Los
Angeles. The other is at 300 Park Avenue, New York City. According to the sales
manager at the New York office, since the cars were introduced in the U.S.,
they’ve only sold a couple hundred of ’em. A lot of those were shipped to buyers
in the snow-belt areas. Apparently this here front-wheel-drive thing gives a
vehicle much better traction in the snow. Second-largest sales volume is in
L.A., thanks to a few celebrities settin’ a trend. For models matching the track
widths we have here, only twenty-two have been sold in the New York metropolitan
area.”

Saks nodded. “Did you arrange for a list of buyers to be sent to us?”

“The guy wouldn’t go for it. Said he’d have to check with his legal department
first. He did tell me one thing, though: Nobody from Long Island has ever bought
one from him.”

“And you really feel this can be important, Gus?” Saks asked.

“I do. It’s a long shot, sure, but to tell you the truth, it seemed a long shot
Lily was innocent in this to start with. The way I see it now, this was a pretty
sloppy job if she
did
do it. Hell, the police went straight to her. But
if she
didn’t
do it, then what have we got? A clean shooting, no
forensic evidence, no known motive or suspect, nothing. Now if McAdams was a
crooked cop, like it seems, maybe a pro killed him. Somebody tied to that New
York mob stuff. They probably don’t know or care that Lily lives out here.
Somebody tracked McAdams down specifically to kill
him.”

“That’s highly speculative, Gus.”

Gus nodded. “Okay. Then plead her guilty and try to cut a deal to keep her out of
the gas chamber. I’ve got nothin’ else.”

Saks pondered it. “What do you need me to do?”

“Get me that list of buyers from the Citroën dealer in the city. Get a court
order from Judge Maull if you have to. We go over the list, show it to Lily and
the New York police, see if a name jumps out at anybody. At the least, this buys
us some time. Maybe Maull will agree to a continuance on jury selection. Push
the trial back some. Then, if this hunch of mine turns out wrong, we’ll still
have time to look for another angle.”

Andrew Saks smiled. “Gus, maybe it’s you who should have been an attorney instead
of your son. I like the way you think.”

He reached for his intercom button.

“Agnes,” he said to his secretary. “Please get me Judge Robert Basil Maull on the
phone. It’s quite urgent.”

 
“So,” Gus said to Lily O’Rourke. “What I’m thinkin’ is, some pro
comes out from the city. He drives around, cases the area. Probably at night and
while it’s raining. Not many people notice that car he’s drivin’. He finds the
fire lane running behind the McAdams place, sees it leads out to Route Eighty
and that nice, quiet deserted area around the Indian reservation. So he goes
back to McAdams’ place, parks on the side of the dirt lane next to that footpath
through the woods. He knows no one has reason to be on that rutted lane at
night, especially with all the rain. See, people drivin’ rear-wheel-drive cars
more’n likely would be afraid of gettin’ stuck in the mud. But the killer—he’s
got front drive, he’s not worried ’bout any mud. So he somehow gets into the
house, maybe just knocks on the door and McAdams opens up. The killer shoves a
gun in his face, walks him out to the Citroën, and shoots him. Then he drives to
the Poospatuck Reservation. Once he gets there, he can’t afford to leave any
tire tracks near the body, so he parks his car on the gravel roadway and drags
McAdams’ body into the woods. The only tire tracks that
are
found are
the unrelated ones in the dirt near the woods, and they just happen to match
your Chevy. Along with a coupla million other cars.”

Lily smiled. “So you
do
believe me, eh, Gus?” Her grey eyes twinkled in
the harsh lighting of the jail’s interview room.

Gus hesitated before responding. “Let’s call it givin’ you the benefit of
reasonable doubt.
Believe
is kind of a strong word.”

“Well, hell, Gus, at my age, with these damn crow’s feet, I’ll take whatever I
can get from a man, I guess.” She let the easiness of her tone fade when next
she spoke. “So after he dumps the body, he disappears. Just a big coincidence
that I get my tail caught up in it.”

“Yeah,” Gus said. “Maybe. But it seems to line up pretty good. The killer dumps
the body, retraces his route back down that fire lane, a pitch-dark, deserted,
muddy road through the woods, nice and private. He follows it out to the Sunrise
Highway and drives right back to the city.”

“Okay,” Lily said. “What do you need me to look at?”

Gus opened the manila envelope he had placed on the table and extracted the
single sheet of paper it held. He turned it to face her and slid it across the
table.

“That’s a list of Citroën buyers in New York. Take a look at it. Tell me if a
name strikes you.”

It only took a few seconds before Lily looked up, smiling, the twinkle back in
her eye. She suddenly looked far younger than her fifty-nine years, Gus thought.
Hell, she looked younger than
him.

“Well, well,” she said happily. “If it isn’t Liam Behan. A brogue-prattling
Irishman ex-cop drivin’ a sissy-ass French car. Imagine that?”

 
Gus Oliver raised his glass of Pabst Blue Ribbon in toast to Andrew
Saks.

“Here’s to the system, Counselor,” he said. “It may not be perfect, but it’s the
best one anybody’s come up with so far.”

Saks raised his own glass, smiling. “Yes, it is. And to Gus Oliver. Nice piece of
work, Gus. Very nice.”

They sat in silence as Mabel Taylor placed The Green Lantern Tavern’s blue-plate
dinner special before them: roast pork loin, gravy, mashed potatoes, and
spinach. When she left, Gus spoke up.

“We got lucky.” He turned to the third man at the table, Central Islin Police
Chief Bill Carters.

“See, Bill,” Gus said, “that guy Liam Behan. He was a partner of McAdams when
they were both cops. Went way back to the twenties together. Matter of fact, the
night McAdams shot that bouncer in The Alimony Prison, Behan was second in
charge of the raiding party. Once the Suffolk PD investigators checked Behan
out, they learned he and McAdams were suspected of working dozens of shady deals
together. They poked around deeper and learned that when McAdams retired and
left the city, rumor was he disappeared with money that was half Behan’s,
proceeds from their illicit schemes. Judge Maull issued a search warrant, and
the NYPD turned up blood traces in the trunk of Behan’s Citroën. Not much, but
enough to get a type match to McAdams.”

Carters cut into his pork. “So Lily’s off the hook?”

Saks answered. “Well, the judge is weighing my motion to dismiss. First he has to
decide if he’ll release her from jail pending a full review. We’ll see. But it
looks very promising. And there’s more. You see, two handguns were registered to
Behan, both thirty-eights. One was a service revolver from his days on the
force. He claims to have sold it when he retired and misplaced the buyer’s
information. But he didn’t figure on something. He used that same gun in a fatal
police shooting in nineteen fifty. He killed a known gambler, allegedly in
self-defense at the time. Internal Affairs had some suspicion it was actually a
contract killing for the mob. As a result, they preserved all the evidence.
Ballistics on Behan’s bullet was still on file. They matched it to the two slugs
taken from McAdams’ body. Case closed.”

Carters shook his head, chewing slowly. “Well, if Judge Maull is satisfied Lily
wasn’t in on it, he
can
dismiss the charges.”

Gus sipped his beer. “Actually, the county prosecutor has some say too. But I’d
say, yeah. She’s in the clear. She walks.”

He ate some spinach, then sipped more Pabst. Reaching for a freshly baked
biscuit, he smiled across to Saks.

“Still, after meeting Lily . . . well, a man’s gotta wonder some. Know what I
mean, Counselor?”

Copyright © 2012 by Lou Manfredo

 
Brynn Bonner is the pseudonym of a North Carolina writer who
debuted in
EQMM’s
Department of First Stories in 1998 with the Robert
L. Fish Award-winning story “Clarity.” She has since been a regular contributor
to
EQMM.
This new story brings back the protagonist of 2007’s “Jangle,”
vinyl record shop owner Sessions Seabolt. “Jangle” is now available on audio (http://www.sniplits.com/mystery_stories.jsp). The author’s debut novel,
Lies and Embellishments,
is due out
soon.
 

 
It’s ridiculous the lengths I’ll go to when stalking a rare vinyl
record. It’s the thrill of the hunt. Some quest for shipwrecks, gold, the
Fountain of Youth, but for this woman, the treasure is rare vintage vinyl
records. And I’d be willing to stand up in a room full of people seated on
rickety folding chairs drinking rank coffee and confess out loud, “My name is
Session Seabolt and I am a vinyl addict.”

On this Monday morning I’d left my record shop in Raleigh, North Carolina before
daylight and headed west. Two hours into the drive I hit a torrential rainstorm
that seemed to be stalking me. I had a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel
as I leaned toward the windshield, squinting to negotiate the hairpin
switchbacks up into the Great Smoky Mountains to the cabin of a fellow vinyl
junkie, Darby Brenner. He called last night and rattled off a list of fifteen
albums he’d decided he could let go from his collection—at a bargain price—among
them the Yardbirds’ 1965
For Your Love,
near mint.

As it happened, I’d had a call just last week from a collector in Philly. He’s a
dead-serious Eric Clapton completist intent on owning every recording Clapton
even plucked a string on. The Yardbirds, Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the
Dominos. Sideman stuff with John Mayhall’s Bluesbreakers, Delaney and Bonnie,
Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band—everything. He’d asked me to keep a lookout for this
exact Yardbirds album and hinted he might be persuaded to pay premium for
it.

But I’d have made the trip anyhow. Darby Brenner and I have been friends since
childhood. We’re both rock-band spawn. My dad is Sonny Seabolt, one of the
founding members of Copper Hill, a Southern-rock band with many things in common
with the Allman Brothers. Unfortunately tax bracket isn’t one of them. They did
okay, enough for the guys to live comfortably now that they’re getting to be
golden oldies. But Darby’s mother, Sarah, a. k. a. SuzyQ, was one of the two
female members of the quartet Squares in Pairs. They made a mint. Though the
band’s schtick was dressing like nerds, complete with horn-rimmed glasses and
pocket protectors, Sarah didn’t carry the part over into her real life. She was
a wild woman. As far as I know, Darby’s father’s identity remains a mystery even
to Sarah.

My mother ran off when I was a toddler, so I was raised by a rock band—yet I
survived. Darby was raised mostly by a housekeeper named Nadine Blackwell, but
he survived too—and so did Nadine. In fact, she’s still looking after him. We
were lucky to each have a parent who cared about us, even if their parenting
skills were marginal. But we’d both had chaotic childhoods and now, pushing
thirty, we’re like old combat veterans still sharing foxhole stories.

The seal on our bond is that we’re both hooked on vinyl. A couple of years back I
gave up my career as a CPA for my dream of opening a vinyl-record store. I’m
struggling financially, but so happy I fear any day I might break into a Marie
Osmond medley right there in the middle of the store and embarrass myself. As
for Darby, SuzyQ apparently felt some guilt over her substandard mothering and
assuaged it by giving him an early inheritance. Upon his twenty-first birthday
he became, if not filthy rich, at least somewhat soiled. And to everyone’s
surprise, including Darby’s, he has a flair for business and quickly turned a
small fortune into a bountiful one.

I laughed as I rounded a bend and Darby’s abode came into view. He still insists
on calling it a cabin even though the original 700-square-foot structure he
bought six years ago—along with half the mountain—has been swallowed up in the
3,000 square feet he’s added since. Now another wing was sprouting from the
south side of the residence, excavation was under way for a pool, and the
skeleton of a pool house was silhouetted against the brooding gray
cloudbank.

By the time I pulled up in Darby’s driveway the rain had lost ambition and
dissolved into a mist so fine it seemed suspended in the air. Before I’d even
put the car in park, Darby was out the door from the central atrium he added
last year and bounding out to shelter me with an umbrella. He crooked an arm
around my neck by way of greeting and we headed for the atrium in lockstep.
Darby only tops my five-seven by an inch or so and with his blond hair in a
Beatlesque moptop and my own blondish pixie cut, we must have looked like
grown-up Bobbsey twins.

“Glad you made it out,” he said, “sorry I didn’t arrange better weather.”

As I crossed the threshold, I marveled anew at the atrium. It was built in a
lodge style with exposed beams and a river-rock fireplace that spanned an entire
wall and tapered to the two-story ceiling. All very rustic, but this was Darby’s
listening room and I knew he’d brought in an acoustic engineer to design the
space. Just behind it was his private record library, a climate-controlled maze
of shelves and bins filled with LPs, 78s, and 45s, the inventory catalogued only
in Darby’s head.

“Hope you can stay and hang out,” he said.

“Awhile, but I want to get back at a decent hour tonight. Where’s Beth?”

“Oh, she’s around here somewhere,” he said, looking around as if he’d misplaced
his wife.

“She’s right here,” came a voice from behind me. She was decked out in her usual
hippie gear, a long-tiered skirt of many colors and a torso-hugging T-shirt, but
bowing to the chilly weather she’d foregone the requisite Birkenstocks for
boots. With her honey-blond hair caught up in a ponytail she looked even younger
than she had on their wedding day a little over a year ago. Darby may not have
felony-robbed the cradle, but he’d pickpocketed it.

“Hey, Session,” Beth said.

As usual, I couldn’t read her. Was she happy to see me, irritated I was there, or
simply didn’t care either way? I hey-ed her back.

“Want me to bring you two in some lunch?” she asked Darby. “Cook has made up a
pot of mushroom soup that smells fantastic.”

“Yeah, that’d be good,” Darby said, without looking up from where he was sorting
through a stack of LPs. “Bring us a couple of bowls and crackers and stuff.”

As Beth turned to go Darby added, “And Beth, don’t call her Cook. She hates that.
Her name is Nadine. Call her by her name.”

Beth opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it and
went on her way.

“Want to listen to some tunes?” Darby asked, holding up a beautiful copy of Nick
Drake’s
Fruit Tree,
a 1986 release on the Hannibal label.

“Not if that’s the copy you’re selling me,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to risk
scratching it.” I could see the vinyl was shiny and the jacket was in pristine
condition, no fading or scrub marks. I’d get $200 for this album alone.

“Naw, this is my play copy,” he said, “it’s a first pressing, you’re not gonna
believe the sound.”

He settled the record onto a turntable I was pretty sure cost more than my car,
lifted the stylus, and pointed me toward an armless lounge chair while he rested
the needle into the lead-in groove. As “Pink Moon” filled the atrium it was like
being bathed in sound. I closed my eyes and listened, trying to ignore the fact
that I’d recently heard this song on a car commercial—pure blasphemy!

“Oh, I love this song.” I heard a familiar voice and opened my eyes to see
Nadine, Darby’s longtime housekeeper and second mama, bustling into the room
with a tray laden with steaming soup bowls and all manner of accoutrement.

“You love practically
every
song, Nadine,” I said, standing to get a
hug.

“Guilty as charged,” she laughed. “How are you, Session? Haven’t seen you in a
blue moon, nor a pink one either for that matter.”

Just then the outside door to the atrium burst open. We all whirled to see a
hulking figure framed in the doorway. I didn’t recognize him at first. The rain
had picked up again and he was dripping wet and his face was doing a good
imitation of the thundercloud outside. Noland Nicholson was a record hound I’d
met through Darby. They were good buddies—or at least I’d thought so up until
this moment.

“So, it’s true!” he shouted, taking long strides toward Darby. “You’re selling
off? And you’re selling to
her?
He turned in my direction and seemed to
notice his own accusatory finger poking the air. “Hey, Session, no offense, how
ya doin’?” he said offhandedly, then turned back to Darby with full ire. “You
told me you’d give me first crack. You said if I pushed this job to the front of
the line,” he motioned toward the outside construction, “you’d sell to me! We
had a deal!”

“That was before the place didn’t pass inspection, Noland,” Darby said. “You’re
the owner of the company; take some pride, man. Like I’ve been telling you, you
do shoddy work, there’s consequences. The deal’s off!”

Nadine and I must have looked like spectators at a tennis match as we followed
volleys of accusation and insult until I feared they’d come to blows.

“Darby!” came a small but commanding voice as Beth ran into the room. “For pity’s
sake! Calm down! This is ridiculous.” She waded in between the two men, putting
stiff arms out to referee. “You should both be ashamed. You’ve been friends
forever and you’re going to act like this over a pile of cardboard and
plastic?”

“Vinyl!” we all corrected in unison.

“Vinyl,” she repeated, rolling her eyes. As she continued to dress them down like
a mommy scolding misbehaving children, both Darby and Noland began to study
their shoes and I got a vision of my sweet deal circling the drain. I was
bummed, but not upset enough to get in the middle of whatever this mess was to
try to save it.

Noland had left the door to the atrium standing open and now two more men
appeared, dressed in yellow slickers. They stood, solemnly appraising the
situation.

“Have we come at a bad time?” the shorter man finally asked.

Noland glared at the man as Darby motioned them inside. Nadine went to close the
door. I noticed she threw the latch this time to shut out any more troubles. She
stared at the unfolding scene, her lips set in a hard line.

“Hello, Ted,” Noland said, spitting each word as if it were a foul taste.

“Noland,” the man nodded by way of greeting. “You’ll be happy to hear everything
passed. You’re clear to start the electrical.”

“Shoulda been clear the first time around,” Noland tossed back.

“Look, Noland,” the man said, “this isn’t high school, I’m doing my job. It’s
like I told your man John here,” he jerked his thumb at the tall man standing
behind him, “it wasn’t his fault. I say John Daws is one of the best
construction foremen I know. They changed the code last year and anybody could
have missed this.”

“Well, if it’s not my foreman’s fault, and it’s not your fault, whose fault is
it?” Noland persisted, but it was clear he was having to strain to keep up the
bluster.

“Nobody’s, Noland. It was just one of those things,” replied the man named Ted,
who I’d now surmised was a building inspector. “You’re all set now and there’s
no reason for anybody to be ticked off about it anymore.”

Noland’s foreman, John Daws, stood silent and expressionless through the whole
exchange. He stared straight ahead as they discussed him as if he weren’t there.
He was a large man with features that hinted at a Cherokee heritage and was
clearly no stranger to manual labor.

Noland started to argue, but Darby cut in. “Ted’s right, Noland. Beth too. This
has gone on long enough. I’ve been an ass. I don’t know what got into me.”

He turned his big brown eyes on me in silent supplication. I flapped a hand even
as I mentally added up gas money and time lost on this useless excursion.

“I’ll make it up to you, Session,” he said, “I promise.”

Beth rubbed his shoulder. “That’s good. Now, can I get anybody anything?”

I saw a sour look come over Nadine’s face as she caught a few loose strands of
salt-and-pepper hair, capturing it with the clasp at the nape of her neck. She
didn’t exactly
harrumph—
not out loud, anyway—but it was clear she
didn’t think Beth capable of functioning as hostess.

Lurking in the doorway that led off to the kitchen I saw a boy who looked to be
in his teens. Beth followed my eyes and waved him in. “Everyone, this is my
little brother, Kyle. Kyle, say hello.”

Kyle shuffled into the room but didn’t seem inclined to say hello, or anything
else. He stared ahead; his eyes—or at least the one I could see—were dark and
brooding. His hair, blue-black as a raven’s wing, was shaved close on the sides
and back but long on top, one clump falling to his nose.

When the silence stretched beyond good manners, Beth blushed and herded him out
of the room.

Darby looked after them and sighed before turning back to us. “Take a load off,
Noland,” he said, “we’ll work this all out. How ’bout you, Ted? Lousy day out,
we’ve got hot soup and we’re listening to some good tunes. Can you stay a
bit?”

Ted let himself be convinced and the foreman, John Daws, headed for the door,
never having uttered a word. No one seemed to note his leaving except Nadine,
who intercepted him and unlatched the door to let him out. I saw a look pass
between them, but couldn’t begin to guess what it might mean.

I glanced at my watch, calculating how long I’d need to stay to be polite now
that my business here was a bust, and decided a couple of hours would do. After
all, it was Darby who needed to stay in my good graces since he’d reneged on our
deal.