Huckleberry Finished (16 page)

“I thought you were convinced the two murders are connected.”

“Maybe they are,” I said. “If that turns out to be the case, I reckon it'll all come out once the State Police start swarmin' over the boat, like Vince said. I'd rather see you solve the case, but the most important thing is findin' out the truth, right?”

“Right,” Mark said, nodding. “I think we need to sit down with Louise and find out everything we can about Hannah. There's something out there that holds the key to her murder, if we can just figure out what it is.” A grim look came over his face as he added, “I guess we'd better get Eddie in on this, too. It doesn't seem likely, but he might know something about Hannah that Louise doesn't.”

I knew he was right, but the thought of sitting down with Eddie Kramer and discussing his daughter's murder didn't appeal to me. I knew by the look on Mark's face that he didn't care much for the idea, either.

But if we were going to find out the truth, we couldn't afford to overlook any possibilities—even one as big and obnoxious as Eddie Kramer.

T
he dining room was full when we came out of the kitchen. It was lunchtime, I realized. With everything that had been going on, the morning had gotten away from me. The sight of all those people eating made my stomach growl quietly, reminding me that it had been a long time since that early breakfast.

“Why don't we get something to eat?” I suggested to Mark.

“I was about to say the same thing. Louise and Eddie are over there.”

He had spotted the Kramers before I did, but now I saw them sitting at one of the tables. There were a couple of empty chairs, so I thought maybe they wouldn't mind if we joined them. We wouldn't bring up Hannah just yet, though.

Talking about their daughter's murder wouldn't make for very good lunch conversation.

Louise looked up and smiled as we approached the table. “Eddie, look who's here,” she said.

Eddie grunted. He didn't seem too happy to see us.

“Hello, there,” I said as brightly as I could. “Would y'all mind if Mark and I joined you for lunch? It's sort of crowded in here.”

There were other empty seats, but they couldn't very well turn us down if they wanted to be gracious. I figured that wasn't really a consideration for Eddie, but Louise answered without hesitation, “Of course. That will be nice, won't it, Eddie?”

“Sure,” he said without any enthusiasm.

A waiter brought water as Mark and I sat down. Lunch was set up as a buffet, but he took our orders for iced tea to go with it. From the looks of the food on the plates in front of Eddie and Louise, they had just started eating and hadn't been here for long.

“You go ahead and get your food,” I told Mark. “I'll wait until you get back.”

He seemed to understand that I didn't want to give the Kramers a chance to slip away. He nodded and went to the buffet tables.

“Have you heard anything more about when we'll be able to leave?” Eddie asked.

I shook my head. “No. I know that Charles Gallister is on board and threatened Detective Travis with his lawyers, but that's the last I heard.”

“It can't be too soon to suit me. Somebody's gonna be hearing from
my
lawyer when we get back home, I can tell you that much.” He directed a meaningful glare at me.

Louise gave a nervous laugh and patted his shoulder. “Oh, now, Eddie, don't go getting carried away. So it takes us a little longer to get home than we thought it would. That's all right, isn't it?”

He looked down at his plate. “Man's got things he needs to do,” he muttered.

“Of course you do,” I said, “and I'm sorry for any inconvenience that this delay causes, Mr. Kramer. But sometimes things happen, and we just have to accept them.”

His head came up. He frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

The sharpness of his tone made me realize that I had pushed a little too hard, too soon. “Oh, nothing,” I said quickly. “That's just one of those things people say sometimes.”

Another grunt came from him. He went back to eating, his jaw moving slowly and purposefully as he chewed.

Mark came back to the table carrying a couple of plates, one with a salad on it, the other piled high with spaghetti and sauce. Authentic riverboat cuisine, I thought. I excused myself and went to fill my own plates. That continued the façade that we were just interested in lunch, and besides I was really hungry.

When I got back to the table, I was surprised to find that they were discussing Ben Webster's murder. Only in general terms, though. I could tell that Mark hadn't shared any of the information I had given him, such as the fact that Webster was really someone else.

“Whoever killed the guy must have really hated him, to break his neck like that,” Eddie was saying. “It's not easy to do. They taught us how when I was a Marine.” A harsh laugh came from him. “Hey, don't take that the wrong way. I'm not sayin' I broke Webster's neck. I didn't even know the kid.”

“Oh, Eddie,” Louise said, sounding nervous as usual when she was around him, like she was used to the fact that he might say or do just about anything. “You shouldn't go on so much.”

He spread his hands. Big, powerful hands, I noted. “Hey, I'm just sayin'. When you kill somebody with your bare hands, you've got to have a mighty good reason to do it, that's all.”

“There are only a few basic reasons for murder,” Mark said. “Lust, greed, revenge…”

“Self-preservation,” Eddie said.

“But that's self-defense, not murder,” Mark replied.

Eddie shrugged. “Killin' is killin', when you get right down to it.”

“I don't know that I'd agree with that,” Mark said.

“Let's change the subject,” Louise suggested.

Eddie wasn't ready to do that, though. He pointed across the table with his fork and went on, “People like to say that they don't know if they could ever take somebody else's life, but that's bull. Just about anybody will kill, if they've got a good enough reason. If somebody threatens you or your family…if somebody
hurts
your family…then they've got it comin' to 'em, I say.”

“I can't disagree with that,” Mark responded.

“And if they've got payback comin',” Eddie went on as his face reddened with anger, “if they hurt somebody you really love, then anybody with an ounce of humanity will try to settle the score with the lousy, no-good son of a—”

“Eddie, that's enough!” Louise said with an unaccustomed ferocity, and I couldn't help but recall how she had told me earlier that morning that she had come on the
Southern Belle
to kill somebody. She took a deep breath, calmed herself with a visible effort, and went on, “It doesn't do any good to get yourself all worked up like that.”

“Nothin' does any good,” Eddie said. He shoved his chair back and stood up. “Nothin' ever does any good.” He turned and stalked toward the exit.

Louise gave us a helpless look and appealed to her old friend. “Mark…”

“It's time to come clean with him, Louise,” he said. “You need to let him know who I really am. It might help.”

“But…but I'm afraid of what he might have…”

She couldn't finish, but I had a pretty good idea what she meant. She was starting to be afraid that Eddie had taken the law into his own hands, that he had found out something linking Hannah with Ben Webster and had used that Marine training of his to break Webster's neck.

“Asking you to help me was a big mistake!” she blurted out as she looked across the table at Mark, confirming what I had just thought.

“It's too late now,” Mark said as he stood up with a grim, determined look on his face. “I'm going to go talk to him.”

Louise came to her feet, too, and caught hold of his arm. “You can't!”

“You don't want to make a scene, Louise,” Mark said quietly.

She looked around her, saw that several people at nearby tables were watching with open curiosity, and with a sigh, she let go of Mark's arm.

I was standing by now, too, and I said, “Let's all go after Eddie and talk to him. I really think it'll be better to clear the air, Louise.”

“I don't guess I have any choice,” she murmured.

I glanced with regret at the food I was leaving behind. I hadn't gotten to eat much. But it was more important that we talk to Eddie Kramer, I told myself. The hard shell around him might be starting to crack, and who knew what we might find inside.

It might even be something we didn't want to find, like the fact that Eddie had killed Ben Webster.

When we came out on deck we looked both ways. “There he is,” Louise said, pointing to the stairs leading up to the second deck. We went after him, but by the time we climbed to the second deck, Eddie was on his way to the third. We saw him turn toward the observation area on the bow when he reached the top of the stairs. That was where I had sat and talked with Vince Mallory earlier, when I'd had no idea that he was really a cop, too.

Eddie stood with his hands on the railing, peering out over the slow, majestic flow of the Mississippi. He was the only one up here at the moment. He didn't look around, but he seemed to know we were there as we came up behind him. He nodded toward the river and said, “Out there somewhere. That's where it happened.”

Louise laid a hand on his arm and said, “Oh, Eddie…”

“In the dark,” Eddie said, his voice choked with emotion. “That's maybe the worst of it. She couldn't see what was happening, she didn't know what was going on…God, she had to have been so scared.”

Mark said, “She
didn't
know. She didn't feel anything after the first blow. It's not much, Eddie, but you can hang on to that much, anyway.”

That made Eddie turn sharply from the railing, his hands clenching into fists. “What do
you
know about it?” he demanded. “You're just a damn actor!”

Mark stood easy, ready to defend himself if Eddie took a swing at him. He shook his head and said, “No, Eddie, I'm not an actor. I'm a private detective. Louise hired me to find out what really happened to Hannah.”

Eddie's eyes widened. The struggle to accept what Mark was telling him was obvious to see on his face. After a moment he was able to say, “A detective?” He swung his gaze toward his wife. “You hired a detective?”

“You've heard me talk about Mark before,” she said. I could tell she was struggling to stay calm, too. “Since the police hadn't found out anything, I thought maybe he could. He's working on the boat undercover.”

Eddie's jaw clenched. A muscle jumped in it. “A detective,” he said again. “I never would have guessed.” He gave Mark a challenging look. “Well, what have you found out, shamus?”

“About Hannah's killer?” Mark shook his head. “I haven't figured out who it is yet. I'm not so sure about Ben Webster, though.”

“Mark, no!” Louise said. “Eddie was just talking. He…he didn't mean anything.”

Eddie let out a bark of laughter. “Is that what you're afraid of? That I killed that kid?”

Mark gave him a level stare. “You said it yourself, Eddie. If you found out that Ben Webster had something to do with Hannah's death, then he had it coming.”

“Yeah, he would have…if that was what happened.” Eddie made a slashing motion with his hand. “But as far as I know, the Webster kid didn't have anything to do with Hannah. He probably never even heard of her.”

“He wasn't the guy she was dating in St. Louis?” Mark asked.

Eddie frowned at Mark. “Just how much do you know about my daughter, anyway?”

Louise said, “I told him everything, Eddie. Everything I could think of.”

“That's why we came to talk to you,” Mark said. “We figured it was time to clear the air and find out if you know anything Louise doesn't.”

Eddie turned his head to look at me. “Let me guess,” he said with a half sneer. “You're a detective, too, Red.”

Somebody calling me “Red” is one of my pet peeves. I admit that. Right then, however, I suppressed the irritation I felt and tried not to show Eddie how annoyed I was.

“No, I'm a travel agent,” I told him. “I set up literary tours like this one. But I've got a stake in findin' out who killed Ben Webster. Havin' clients murdered while they're on one of my tours is bad for business.”

“Yeah, I imagine so. How does that lady cop feel about you two sticking your noses into her case?”

“I don't reckon she'd like it,” I said, “if she knew about it.”

Eddie glanced back and forth between Mark and me with that defiant look on his face again. “So what is it you want from me?” he asked.

“We'd like to talk to you about Hannah,” Mark said. His tone was quieter now, and not as confrontational. “Tell us everything you can about her life in St. Louis and her job here on the
Southern Belle
.”

“You said Louise already told you all about it.”

“You might remember something she doesn't. And in a murder investigation, you never know what might turn out to be important…like the fact that Hannah was pregnant when she was killed,” Mark said.

Louise paled, and Eddie's eyes narrowed dangerously. “Don't you even think about goin' around spreadin' dirt about my little girl,” he said.

“I'm not spreading dirt,” Mark said with a shake of his head. “We're the only ones up here. And the police already know about that, remember? It was in the autopsy report.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie muttered. “That still doesn't mean I like people talking about it.” He looked at Louise. “You told him?”

Her chin came up a little. “Of course I did. It might be important. And remember, Eddie, we lost a grandchild as well as a daughter. That's one more reason we need to find out who did that awful thing.”

After a moment, he sighed and nodded. “You're right. Of course you're right. You always are.”

Mark asked, “Do you have any idea who the baby's father was?”

“How would I know that if Louise didn't? Hannah talked to her a lot more than she ever talked to me.” Eddie's heavy shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “We never got along too good. Hannah had a mind of her own and didn't mind readin' somebody the riot act if she thought they were wrong, includin' her own dad.” A tiny shadow of a wistful smile appeared on his face for a second, then was gone. “Louise always said we didn't get along because we were too much alike.”

“The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree,” Louise quoted softly.

“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I can tell you what I
think
, even though I don't
know
. I think the baby's father was somebody at that fancy law firm.”

“What law firm?” Mark asked with a frown.