Rubout (19 page)

It took me a long time to fall asleep, and I woke up with less than twenty minutes to make it to Monahan’s funeral Mass. I threw on something dark and slipped into a back pew. St. Philomena’s was dim and cool and beautiful, with an ornate altar gilded in the old German style. There was that special smell you get only in older churches: a lingering odor of beeswax candles, hothouse flowers, furniture polish, incense, and dust. The stained-glass windows glowed in the morning sun. A shaft of sunlight spotlighted the bronze casket in the center aisle. Monahan would have loved that touch, even if it was a little corny. Speaking of shaft, there was no one from the
Gazette
at the funeral. Except—wait. In the last pew across the aisle, I caught a glimpse of a boxy gray suit, a black silk blouse, and a yellow head. It was Georgia, bless her. After Mass, I stopped her in the parking lot.

“Georgia, am I glad to see you here,” I said.

“Ain’t this a load?” Georgia said, cleaning up her mouth for the occasion. “Poor old Monahan. I didn’t find out until I got home last night. I was out of town at a Better Newspaper Conference.”

“Did you find out what would make better newspapers?”

“Yeah. Quit having useless conferences with consultants telling us that papers need more local stories.
I can’t believe anyone can make money spouting that tired message. If local news really brought readers, our circulation would be up five hundred percent. We even had to find a local angle to write about the Gulf War. Instead, our numbers are dropping faster than Charlie drops his drawers. Oh, shit, I shouldn’t be talking shop at Monahan’s funeral. He was a real newspaper person. There aren’t many left. I’m going to miss him.”

“Me, too. I hope Cruella fries in hell. As far as I’m concerned she killed a good man.”

Georgia shrugged. “He stayed because he wanted to. He died on the job and I think he wanted that, too. I couldn’t imagine Monahan ever retiring.”

“He sure didn’t get a chance to try, did he?” I said bitterly. The parking lot was emptying out. Some cars were lining up for the funeral procession. But neither one of us went to the burial. We both had to get back to the office. I wondered who—or what—would be replacing Louise. I could hear the mystery replacement before I ever got to our department. She had a wild high-pitched giggle. I also heard our phones ring wildly and then the department answering machine picking them up. Whatever the mystery woman was doing, she wasn’t working. Once I got a look at her, it was no mystery why she got this job and Louise was forced out. The mystery replacement was giggling with Charlie and looking at him as if he contained all the world’s wisdom. He was staring down the front of her blouse as if it contained global knowledge. Charlie never wasted time talking to Louise, except to issue orders. Of course, Louise looked at Charlie like he was something she’d
scraped off her shoe. Also, Louise would never wear tight black jeans, stiletto heels, or a slick shiny blouse cut to show Dolly Parton promontories. And Louise didn’t have dyed black country singer hair. Why did Charlie think this big-haired woman would be able to speak to a younger readership? She probably thought Smashing Pumpkins was something you did on Saturday night after the Dairy Queen closed. Wait a minute. She was wearing eggplant lipstick and brownish fingernail polish, so her nails looked like a handful of cockroaches. Country grunge.

“Oh, Francesca,” she said, and the giggle immediately dried up. When she talked to me, she changed her tone. Her voice had an insinuating, superior edge that I don’t think the infatuated Charlie heard. “I been lookin’ all over for you,” she said accusingly, as if I’d been AWOL for weeks. “You should learn to leave a note lettin’ me know where you are.”

“I did,” I said. “I called it Friday. You should learn to answer the department phones. You might find it.”

“Francesca, you’re supposed to welcome Scarlette and make her job easier,” Charlie said sternly.

“Why, Charlie, it looks like you’ve already done everything you can,” I said sweetly. “And I think Scarlette is smart enough she already knows about easy.” Hey, she started it. And I liked watching Charlie’s face get red. Scarlette knew I’d said something unflattering, but she wasn’t sure what it was. She just stood there, her hands on her hips, while Charlie delivered a lecture to her breasts about how difficult I was.

Before I sat down at my desk, I went back to the morgue to say hi to Louise and see how she was settling
in at her new assignment. She was sitting at the last desk, in front of one of the ancient putty-colored machines. Morris, the nerdy head of the department, was yelling at her: “No, no, no. Hit Shift F-two. Can’t you get anything right?” Cool, competent Louise, who could handle six phone calls, two crazed staffers, and the FedEx delivery all at once, looked utterly lost. Her hand hovered uncertainly over the keyboard. I left, before she saw me observing her distress. I hated to see a loyal employee treated so badly, while a worthless piece of trash like Scarlette queened it at Louise’s rightful place.

I guess Scarlette and Louise on top of Monahan’s funeral were what set me off. That and seeing Peggy joking with Wendy, the world’s most worthless editor, and the docile, cowlike creature that Peggy wanted to take Monahan’s place on the desk. Peggy didn’t waste any time. Monahan wasn’t even cold in the ground, and she had his replacement sitting at his desk—a meek little woman who would never argue with her, especially not to save a writer’s copy. I stalked over to the copy desk, where Peggy sat, wearing a too-tight black dress to match her long black hair.

“Congratulations, Peggy,” I said. “How’s it feel to murder a man?” The color drained out of her face, leaving only a bloody slash of lipstick. She burst into tears. I thought it was interesting that Peggy never asked what I was talking about. She knew what she did to Monahan.

Wendy rushed to her defense. “I heard that, Francesca,” she snapped. “I won’t have you verbally attacking
my staff. You’ve reduced our copy desk chief to tears. You will be disciplined for this.”

“You let Peggy harass poor Monahan into his grave. Wendy, and never said a word. You let her sit there and knife the writers every day and you never stopped her. Now this cowardly killer leaks a few tears and I’m in trouble.”

“That’s enough, Francesca,” Wendy said. “I’m making an official note in your file. You’re insubordinate.”

“Wrong, Wendy. I’m in contempt.”

I walked out. I’d always wanted to do that. God, what an exit line. I knew that scene would get me a lecture about team spirit and a written reprimand in my file, but it was worth it. Even Georgia wasn’t too mad at me when she found out. I felt like celebrating. I took myself out to a good dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant. I didn’t get a chance to sit down and read the morning paper until about ten that night.

So it was a real shock when I opened the
Gazette
and saw that Sydney’s boyfriend Jack had been killed in a motorcycle accident. The story said he lost control of his Harley on a deserted road near Elsah, Illinois. The accident occurred sometime around midnight Saturday. The police were investigating the death as “suspicious in origin.”

J
ack was dead. He’d died trying to make money off his lover’s murder. The man was a lowlife, but he wasn’t a liar. At least, he was telling the truth about those papers he wanted to sell. He really was meeting someone at midnight, someone he thought would give him twenty-five thousand dollars. Who killed Jack? What was in those papers? And what did the papers have to do with Sydney? I was sure these two deaths were connected. Jack’s killer had to be the same person who killed Sydney.

If Jack thought this person had twenty-five thousand dollars, then the buyer wasn’t any of Sonny’s biker friends. They weren’t Cell’s Angels—doctors, lawyers, and accountants riding their Harleys on weekends, with their cell phones on their belts. Sonny’s biker friends were people who’d have to work a long time to get twenty-five thousand dollars. Except maybe Gilly, and he was such a small-time crook, he’d never have that much money in his whole
life. As far as I was concerned, that meant Sydney was killed by either her husband or her son, and I’d put my money on the husband, He was mean enough to kill for money, and the Vander Venters had plenty of it.

But how do you kill someone on a motorcycle? Run a trip wire across the road? Drive straight at them in a car until the cycle swerved and lost control? How did you know for sure the rider would die in the accident? Most riders, even experienced ones, wiped out from time to time. They might lose some skin or break some bones, but they survived. That’s why they wore protection: leather jackets, chaps, boots, and helmets. Especially helmets. But Jack hated helmets. And he died in Illinois, a state that didn’t require motorcyclists to wear them. Did the killer plan that, too?

I wasn’t getting anywhere with this speculation. I needed some facts. I needed to talk to Detective Mark Mayhew. I was sure he’d look into Jack’s death. He’d be very interested in the sudden, suspicious death of a suspect. I knew where to find him: Uncle Bob’s. He was usually there at eight every morning, if he wasn’t working on a murder.

I timed it just right. I arrived about eight-fifteen, when he’d finished his waffle and was working on a second cup of coffee.

“Hi, Mark,” I said. “Can I talk with you a minute?”

“Sure,” he said, smiling. “Pull up a booth.”

God, he looked good in the morning. Freshly shaved face. Tiny bit of shaving soap near one ear. Dark hair perfectly combed. I liked the way his pearly gray tie went with his crisp gray-blue shirt
and his gray worsted wool jacket. Marlene interrupted these pleasant thoughts with one of her sarcastic comments.

“Should I change your order to over-easy?” she said. That was her cute way of reminding me that Mark was married.

“No, I’ll have my usual, while Mark and I talk business,” I said, heavy on that last word.

“Of course,” Marlene said, letting me know she wasn’t buying it. Mark sipped his coffee as if this interchange was over his head. Maybe it was. After Marlene poured me some decaf and plunked down my scrambled egg and toast, I got to the subject. “I saw in the
Gazette
that Jack was killed Saturday night,” I began.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Mark said, lazily pouring more half and half in his coffee.

“Real interesting,” I replied. “Especially after what he told me Thursday night about Sydney’s killer.”

Suddenly Mark was not lounging back in his booth. He sat straight up, eyes alert and slightly narrowed. He sounded impatient, even angry. “You know something about this, Francesca? Jack has been dead since Saturday night. You should have beeped me right away. This isn’t a joke. This is a murder investigation, and two people are dead, one of them a nice lady who never hurt anyone.”

Why did everyone have this urge to lecture me? Marlene, Georgia, Lyle, and now Mark. “Hold it, Mark. I
am
trying to tell you. I just found out late last night that Jack was killed. I came here first thing this morning so I could tell you. So cut the lecture. You’re awfully
snarly. Is the mayor’s office putting pressure on you to solve the Vander Venter murder?”

It was just a guess, but it was a good one. Mark looked embarrassed. He really was a nice guy. Barking at people wasn’t his style. “Yeah, they’re driving us crazy. And the downtown business types are driving the mayor’s office crazy, saying the city isn’t fit for decent people, meaning rich white people.”

“I saw in the
Gazette
that a special information hot line had been established. Haven’t you been getting any calls?”

“Oh, we got calls,” Mark said. “Lots of calls. The night of the murder no one saw anything, except one drunk looking out the bathroom window, and all he saw was an old lady. Now people are calling in saying they saw armed killers everywhere. We have tips that there were gangs of black males with AK-47s roaming Cherokee Street, lone white men lurking in the alley with shotguns, and suspicious characters with Glocks walking on all the side streets around the Casa Loma. One caller even claimed the killer was on the roof of the Casa Loma. I’m surprised Mrs. Vander Venter managed to get herself murdered. The area was so crowded with suspicious persons, I don’t know how the killer ever got her alone.”

“So all these tips are worthless.”

“Probably. But we’ll have to check them out anyway. And it will set us back even further. Meanwhile, the real killer is getting away with murder. I hate that. I hate what murder does to the family. At least when the killer gets caught the family gets . . . well, maybe not justice, but closure.”

I’d heard Mark talk about this before. The agony of
the bereaved families ate at him. Murder had an ugly domino effect on everyone it touched. Afterward, family members’ marriages often failed, and so did their health. They were driven half mad by the knowledge that someone they loved died brutally. They pleaded with Mark for assurances that the victim didn’t suffer—assurances he couldn’t always give. I didn’t think Sydney’s murder bothered her husband much. But I remembered her son, with the lost look and the dark circles under his eyes. Were those the marks of grief? Or guilt? Anyway, I told Mark about my phone call from Jack. He listened carefully, then asked a lot of questions, beginning with “Why didn’t you call me when he called you?”