Murder by Candlelight (13 page)

"Also protection."

"Being a bodyguard?"

"Yeah. And divorce work."

"I think we've see enough of that on
TV to be familiar with the divorce aspect of your job. Unless you
have something to add that will flesh out the popular perception of
the P.I. breaking through the bedroom door, camera at the
ready."

"It's not all taking dirty pictures.
It's running down child support delinquents."

"Do much of that?"

"Not me."

"Why?"

"Costs to travel."

"I see. And what else?"

"There's warranty work."

"Yeah?"

"Had a case where a contractor
provided poor service. Refused to honor his guarantee."

"So where did you come in?"

"I was hired to reason with the
contractor."

"Threaten him?"

That was exactly what Z had to do,
though Z didn't think it wise to admit it.

Z felt ... light-headed. Maybe it was
the liquor. He'd have to be careful what he said.

"Just pointed out the problem. He made
it good."

"I'm sure."

Was Jewell being sarcastic? It was
hard for Z to tell, Z also having a little trouble seeing, at the
moment. The whiteness of the place was beginning to get to
him.

"Is it always private citizens who
hire your services?"

"Mostly."

"Ever work with the
police?"

"More
beside
the police."

"Could you give an
example?"

"Parents of a missing girl. The cops
couldn't find her. I did." Unfortunately, Z had found the girl's
decomposed body in a Johnson County field.

"I guess what I meant was, do the
police ever ask for your services? Like, for instance, police
departments have been known to call in a psychic now and then, to
help them locate a missing person."

"Not
locally
!"

"Ah! Have I struck a little gold here?
If I'm not mistaken, you just said, not only 'no', but 'hell no.'
Does this mean that law enforcement doesn't exactly appreciate your
services?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"Which law enforcement."

"Go on."

"I get along with K.C. cops OK. Did
some cooperative work with Kansas City."

"But ...?"

"Don't see eye-to-eye with
Gladstone."

"Let's see." From his shirt pocket,
the D.J. took out a piece of paper. Unfolded it. Scanned the
contents. "The Gladstone force would be lead by ... a Captain named
...."

"Scherer."

"I gather that you and the captain
don't get along?" the D.J. said softly, tucking his law enforcement
checklist back in his shirt pocket.

"Right."

"Why?"

Z wanted to say because
Scherer was an asshole. But didn't. Z wanted to say a
lot
of things about
Scherer. Instead, kept it low key. "I messed him up,
once."

"Got in the way of one of his
cases?"

"You could put it that
way."

"Tell me about it."

"It was Scherer's Betterton bust.
Scherer thought he had Mrs. Betterton for narcotics. Found a lot of
weed in a van she was supposed to have been driving. Arrested her.
That was to be his ticket to big-time politics in Clay County. Mr.
Drug Crusader. Only I proved Mrs. Betterton was somewhere else at
the time. Took the wind out of Scherer's sails."

"You say the captain's arrest was
politically motivated?"

"It was to be his big claim to fame as
a drug fighter. Except he didn't do his job."

"How's that?"

"If
I
could find out the whereabouts of
Mrs. Betterton, he could have, too."

"What you're saying is that Captain
Scherer is incompetent."

"I wouldn't say ..."

"But isn't there the possibility of
that?"

"Yeah. Maybe."

"And now he blames you for his own
carelessness?"

"You bet."

"If he's so bad, how does he keep his
job?"

"Criminals are generally dumber than
cops. That's how they get caught. Anyway, there's not much real
crime in Gladstone. If there was, Scherer couldn't locate it.
Judging by the Betterton bust, Scherer couldn't find rotten meat
with a bloodhound."

"That's good! Anything
else?"

Because of the buzzing in his ears, Z
couldn't think of much of anything except how good it felt to stick
it to that prick Scherer. "No."

"That'll do it, then. I think I've got
what I was looking for." Jewell stood up.

Z stood up also, felt
dizzy. Rallied. The trouble with being a near teetotaler was when
you
did
take a
drink, it got to you. Z was OK, though. Some sleep and a lot of
aspirin would put him right.

At the door, Z turned.
Tried to recall just what he
had
talked about in the interview; remembered he'd
said some nasty things about that rat-faced Scherer. "You said, no
quotes."

"That's right. I won't quote
you."

"OK." And that was it.

As Z lumbered down the path toward his
car, he was thinking that, though he'd been leery of the interview,
it hadn't been a bad experience.

It hadn't taken long,
either.

Maybe Susan was right. That he should
talk more. He'd certainly gotten some things off his chest about
Scherer that he'd been carrying around for a long time.

All in all, Z was feeling ...
fine.

* * * * *

Chapter 8

Life was a football, Z
often thought. (No doubt one of the lesser observations from
someone who used to play the game.) And like a football, took crazy
bounces. Though things
hadn't
been going Z's way, by Monday, the "ball" had
bounced right into his hands.

Just another thought that
had gone through Z's mind as he sat in the Cavalier, in the Monday
midnight dark, parked in the shabby blackness of Jarbo. There was
nothing to do
but
think as the Cavalier's hot engine ticked its response to the
old street's chittering insects, Z smelling the unmistakable odor
of late night: dew, the leather leaves of aged trees, dust, unmowed
lawns. ... And poverty.

For starters that morning, Z had
gotten a call from Harry Grimes, Kansas City's most respected
private investigator, Grimes making his mark in law enforcement as
head of security for Sunflower Ordinance during World War II. After
that, he'd gone into the P.I. business where he'd developed the
reputation as the best skip-tracer in the Midwest. Launching his
business -- Deerstalker Detectives -- he'd taken on three partners
in the 60's, in the 70's, adding two more. (Z wondered how many
people, hearing the word Deerstalker, thought Harry ran a hunting
club. Z knew better, of course, Z a fan of Sherlock Holmes.) Harry
was now in his 80's (if not 90's) the old man in semi-retirement
but still acting as Deerstalker's "rainmaker." Too old to do
sleuthing himself, Harry spent his time making himself visible to
the business community; had a membership at Wedgewood, Kansas
City's premiere golf club, as well as playing at several other
links. You wanted a detective agency who could work at the highest
levels? You talked to Harry on this or that club's 18th green or in
some posh clubhouse after a quick nine.

First based in Lenexa, Deerstalker was
now headquartered at Corporate Woods in Johnson County, Kansas --
just a skip and a jump from Kansas City proper, positioned in that
new, and quite exclusive, "executive park" to garner business from
the younger generation of K.C.'s corporate leaders.

Z had met Harry a few
times before Harry "retired," just brushed past him, really, Harry
going this way, Z that. Enough contact, though, that Harry started
throwing a little business Z's way from time to time. Always part
of a larger case -- sometimes an executive kind of deal Z didn't
fully understand. Like Harry trusted Z, Z trusted Harry, everyone
calling Harry the Silver Fox (Fox, indicating
clever
rather than
tricky
.)

This time, Harry had called to say he
wanted personal information about a man who'd moved to the
Northland. Z's territory.

Z liked working for Harry Grimes. Made
Z feel like he was going up in the world. (Also, Harry paid well.
And paid in advance.) Harry hadn't discussed the case, just asked
if Z was busy, getting the expected denial. Harry said he'd send Z
a check, sort of put Z on retainer, like someone with potential
legal problems would put a hot-shot lawyer on retainer.

Yes. It always made Z feel classy to
be associated with Harry Grimes.

The second thing that had gone right
this morning was Z's decision to ring up Jamie Stewart at her
apartment (it still being summer) rather than at the Catholic girls
school in Kansas City, Kansas, where she taught in
winter.

In addition to teaching, Jamie
"moonlighted" in Kansas City, Missouri, as the K.C. cops' "occult
expert," which meant they used her to expose "supernatural" fraud
of one kind or the other: palm readers fleecing gullible old
ladies; people pretending to be ghosts to scare off unwanted
neighbors. (Recalling Dan Jewell's mention of Klan callers, Z had
read that was how the Ku Klux Klan got its start. Dressing up in
sheets. Pretending to be ghosts.)

What amazed Z was that
there were people who still thought there
were
ghosts, even Susan believing
that kind of nonsense, Susan seeming to think there was such a
thing as poltergeists -- whatever
they
were.

On the case where Z had
met hot little Jamie Stewart, she'd been hired to hunt down "ghost
sounds" and a "ghost light" in an abandoned house, Z paid to
protect Jamie ... from whatever. (If anyone could fend for herself,
Z had discovered, it was wise-in-the-ways-of-the-world Jamie
Stewart, Z now doing his damndest to protect himself from
her
!)

Getting Jamie at her home,
he'd told her about this house he had to investigate. (No sense
getting too specific about Z being there before, or about the house
where a man was killed. To say nothing of mentioning that Z
might
have had something
to do with the man's demise.)

Jamie had seemed flattered when he'd
asked for her help, even though he'd made it clear there was no
money in it. (He'd have paid her something if she'd balked. But she
didn't, so he didn't have to.) He'd given her Kunkle's address on
Jarbo; told her he'd meet her a block to the south at
midnight.

She'd asked if she should bring her
equipment -- photoelectric cameras, luminous powder --
ghost-hunting stuff like that. He'd said no.

And that was that.

Z, of course, had arrived at the
Kunkle house a half hour ago, at 11:30. Had spent some time driving
up and down the street looking for a police stakeout; as he'd
expected, found the house was clear. Gladstone cops had better
things to do than shadow the shacks of unimportant dead men: like
give teenagers speeding tickets, hassle whores, and nap at their
desks.

Z had parked where he and Jamie were
supposed to meet, a block south of Kunkle's place.

Numerous stakeouts in the dead of
night making Z a good judge of the passage of time, it had to be
nearing the witching hour, Z waiting for "witchy" Jamie
Stewart.

The night was not as dark as Z could
have wished, though half a moon was better than a full one, the
clear sky with its usual, diamond dust of stars.

The street was quiet, not a house
light showing that Z could see.

How many of the shanties in this
unfortunate part of town were abandoned and how many housed old
folks who went to bed with the chickens, Z didn't know. And didn't
much care.

Z was dressed in his black "night
fighter" clothes -- minus his jacket-of-many-pockets. Too damned
hot for that. He had on his "gum" shoes, and more for good luck
than because there was a prayer of needing it, he'd stuffed his
leather-and-lead blackjack in his right back pocket.

As Z waited for Jamie, his
only regret was forgetting to tell her to wear dark clothing, Jamie
maybe showing up in fluorescent white,
anything
to be expected from a girl
who liked colored condoms -- but that was
another
story.

Above the light murmur of wind and
scrape of insects, Z heard what someone else might take to be an
outboard motor; Z knowing it as the sound of Jamie's foreign truck.
Its banging even worse than the last time Z heard it. Fortunately,
the truck's worn-out muffler was attached to an engine so small it
wouldn't wake the "dead" ... in a manner of speaking.