Shedrow (14 page)

“I really think I do, and I understand what it will take to get there. Even this summer, Travers has to throw me out of here after ten hours, and I only get paid for eight, and paid peanuts at that. There’s a reason I’m one of the few grooms here with totally legal papers.”

Highet laughed. “I know, and that’s another long story.”

“What about that horse, Chiefly Endeavor?” Ryan asked.

“The Chief…sometimes we do all we can and they still die, Ryan.”

Ryan took a deep breath. “I think I know something about Chiefly Endeavor.”

They were done with rounds in Barn 5, and Highet clutched his instruments to his chest and looked directly at Ryan. “Like what?” he asked. He was already heading towards his truck as he spoke.

“Like Zoom, that weird guy at the dump,” Ryan said.

“What the hell would Zoom have to do with a million dollar stallion?”

“Well, Travers told me they found him outside the farm
gates the morning Chief died. And since I found that out, I’ve been snooping around a little on my own.”

“Look, Ryan. I’ve got a schedule to keep. You’re really good help, and I’m going to ask Travers to have you assist me whenever I’m here.”

“Great. Thanks, Doc.” He appreciated the vote of confidence for his horse handling, even though Highet had quickly dismissed his detective skills. But he would have other chances.

On Thursdays, Ryan Fischer was expected to make his run to the dump, bringing with him the bins of garbage from his assigned barns. It was close to noon when he drove into the landfill. Crow, Juicy and Zoom were nowhere to be seen.

He drove to the piles near the back and had nearly finished emptying the bins when Zoom emerged from the school bus.

“Hey, feller,” he said. “Hot one today, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, I’m dying in this heat.”

“Want a cool one?” Zoom asked. “A cool one?”

“Beer,” Zoom said. “Nice cool beer.”

Ryan knew that the last thing he should be doing is following Zoom into that decrepit bus to slug down a beer. Yet, he remained incredibly curious about the trio. He had to learn more about them and about the racing papers they kept neatly stacked behind the bus. He had seen Zoom mellow at the mention of Midway Farm and
wanted to know why. He also knew that Travers would expect him back before long, so there was little time.

“Got any soda?” Ryan asked.

“Soda? You pussy,” Zoom said.

“I don’t want to get fired.”

“All right boy. I’ll get you some soda. Move your truck over by the shack.”

Ryan drove the truck to the front of the bus and Zoom walked up behind him. Ryan had been working with his shirt off in the hot sun, and Zoom put his hand on Ryan’s well-muscled back. He rubbed it in a short circular motion near the nape of his neck.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll get you a nice cool one.”

Inside the school bus, an acrid smell burned Ryan’s nose. He resisted the instinct to cover his face and mouth. Crow and Juicy sat at a small round table. They were eating something out of a can. Ryan couldn’t discern what it was, but he couldn’t help noticing Crow’s long, curled dirty nails as they dug into the can and shoveled food into her wrinkled mouth.
Holy shit. Lunch time
.

Zoom bent over a carton and took out a can of grape soda. He handed it to Ryan and yelled over to the table, “We got any ice left in the box?”

Fearing it might be Crow who would retrieve it, Ryan said, “I’ll take it just like this. Thanks.” Wafts of foul air continued to drift his way.

Crow and Juicy looked up from the table and stared at Ryan.

“He ain’t no fucking ghost. Name’s Ryan. He works at Midway,” Zoom said.

Crow and Juicy continued to stare.

Ryan opened the can of soda and took a sip. It seemed like a long silence before he spoke again. “The other day when I was looking for the paper recyclables, I saw those two piles out back. I figured they couldn’t be the recyclables because there were only two types of papers and they seemed to be all organized. Do you keep those to read yourself?”

“Hell no. I barely read at all. And those dumb bastards over at the table, they can’t read shit.”

Crow glared back at Zoom and Juicy spoke for the first time. “Fuck you. I can read some.”

Zoom answered Ryan. “I save the papers for the hermit.”

“The hermit?”

“Yeah. Lives about thirty miles or so due east of here, towards Clay City. In the woods, middle of nowhere. Weird old goat. There’s a rumor he used to be some rich, famous guy. Taught at a college or something. Owned some horses too, I heard. Don’t know if it’s true, but he don’t look to me like he ever owned nothing but that hut he lives in. Like me I guess, not like any rich man far as I can tell.”

Ryan drank more of the soda.

“Anyway, pays me ten dollars to collect up the newspapers and magazines. Only wants those two kinds, though. He’ll come here once every couple weeks, sort through and decide what he wants. Stuffs them into these old backpacks, many as he can, then heads on home.”

Ryan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Any idea what he does with them?”

“Don’t know. Just loads them two backpacks and then rides his bike back home. It’s thirty miles at least, and the last few miles I
know he can’t ride that bike, because there’s too much woods. Only other time I know of when he comes out is to go to market outside of Lexington once or twice a month. Same thing, he comes in on the bike, packs up some canned stuff mostly, then he’s gone. Nobody knows much about the hermit. He won’t talk much.”

“What’s his name?” Ryan asked.

“Wayne. Don’t even know his last name, just Wayne.”

“You want some lunch with that soda?” Zoom asked.

“I really need to get going back to Midway.”

“Well, don’t work too hard. It’s going to be a really hot one, you know.” When he followed Ryan out of the bus, his face was close enough for Ryan to smell his sour breath, then Ryan felt a grimy hand rubbing his shirtless back as Zoom walked alongside him.

“Good morning, Detective Jones. My name is Henry Chang and I’m with the Englewood Police Department. I’d like to speak with you about Chester Pawlek.”

She shifted the phone to the opposite ear, “Yes?”

“I’m sure you know how complicated and wide-reaching this whole case has become.”

“The feds told me you were in charge of the investigation surrounding the disappearance of Pawlek,” she said. “I’ve been expecting your call.”

“It’s not just his disappearance,” Chang said. “I’m also in charge of the murder investigation. You are aware of the hanging?”

“Yes. Do they have a positive I.D.?”

“His name was Servino, Paulie Servino. He was a relatively low-level mafioso who apparently made the fatal mistake. He pissed off the boss.”

“You mean Chet?”

“Yeah. Their fights had become pretty public lately. It seems Paulie thought he should be getting a bigger piece of the action. He was a soldier long before Chet arrived on the scene.”

Jones opened the file cabinet beside her desk and retrieved a file. “Why would he go to all that extra effort? Why not just shoot the guy in the head?”

“This is the Mafia, Detective Jones. These guys will make that extra effort if it means something to them personally. They’ll take the time to chop a body into little pieces and pack the pieces neatly in a bunch of plastic bags. Sure, they’ll walk into a crowded barber shop and blow some bastard away in the middle of a haircut, but they can also make it look like a man decided to jump out of a hotel window and end his happy life without the slightest sign of struggle. They will take the extra step if it suits their vision of how the man should die.”

Chang continued, “In my years of investigating organized crime I’ve seen some very creative killing. I recall a case where all the hit man did was bump into his mark in a crowded bar, accidentally spilling his drink. Only the drink was actually cyanide. It seeped into the poor bastard’s skin, eventually killing him, and no one knew why he died until the hit man eventually confessed, years later. If they want it quicker, or more direct, then they dump the cyanide directly into the poor sap’s drink.”

Thumbing through the file she had retrieved, Jones paused to look at photographs of Chester Pawlek and Anthony Gianni. “So what did the tox screen reveal here?” she asked.

“Positive for insulin. The levels were sky high. Shades of Claus von Bulow.”

“And the cause of death?”

“Acute insulin toxicity.”

Jones leaned back in her chair. “So they injected him first, then somehow dragged the body up and hung it from the rafters. Then in the midst of all the confusion, Chet got some extra time to make his end run to wherever, plus he’s hung one of his enemies in his own attic as a little added bonus. Pretty damn circuitous, and the insulin part, does that really sound like a mob hit to you? Was this Servino a diabetic?”

“He wasn’t. Maybe Chet had some medical advice for that part. Maybe we need to talk with your surgeon friend.”

“Oh come on. What would Dr. Gianni stand to gain from killing some little known mobster?”

“Maybe he didn’t have a choice. Chet made him an offer.”

“Well, you can certainly talk to him, but I don’t think Anthony Gianni is one to be easily intimidated. He hated Pawlek. I’m afraid that’s where your theory breaks down, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Maybe, but my theory certainly doesn’t depend on Gianni being involved. The facts of the overdose and the hanging speak for themselves. I mean he hung the bastard in his own damn house. I just don’t want to exclude any parties to the crime, and I think we need to talk with the good doctor.”

“Do you think this has anything at all to do with the horse?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Chang said. “But I always say that the only way to arrive at clear answers is to ask clear questions. Will you help me question Dr. Gianni? I know from the feds that he was cooperative with respect to your investigation of the dead stallion, so I think it might be best if we question him together.”

“Fine, I’ll call him,” she said. “Now what’s the deal with the suicide note?”

“Chet left one on his kitchen table. It’s authentic according to his wife; although she’s not saying much of anything without her lawyer. That’s a question that I’m hoping your doctor friend can help us answer—where the hell Chester Pawlek is, and is he dead or alive?”

Anthony Gianni pulled into the gate of Midway Farm in the pre-dawn hour. There was a crisp chill in the air, a typical autumn morning in Kentucky. Dr. Steven Highet had already spoken to the gate attendant so that Gianni would be cleared for entry.

The jet black Porsche Carrera 4 was covered with road dust from the long drive down the various interstate highways from New York to Kentucky. It pulled up in front of Barn 5, where Highet stood alongside his truck, loading some instruments into the rear cargo area. He regarded the sleek lines of the Porsche and smiled at Gianni. “You always were a car nut, even in college. How long did the trip down take?”

“Around eight hours I guess. I left around 6 p.m. last night. Stopped at a little motel outside of Charleston, West Virginia, just before midnight. I slept for a few hours and left there around 4 a.m.”

“Eight hours from New York? Did you drive or fly?”

“A combination of the two, I guess. The roads are pretty empty
in the late evening and early morning hours, so with the radar detector on, I do move right along. I don’t get to drive this all that often. I still have an old Jeep for my daily driver.”

“So where are we headed first?” Highet asked.

“Clay City,” Gianni answered.

“You really want to go to that little hick town? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I am not. I want to try to locate that hermit, the one your student helper told you about. We can at least snoop around a little and see who might know something about him. If there is any chance of a link between him, the characters at the landfill, and Chiefly Endeavor, then I want to find him.”

“Anthony, listen. It’s little more than a hunch from a college kid. The police have totally discounted it.”

“Which is precisely why we can’t.”

“All right. Why don’t you let me drive though, we can take the truck. That hot rod of yours in Clay City will attract more attention than a priest in a whorehouse.”

“I’ll drive the 911. We’ll be fine.”

They simultaneously boarded and fastened their seat belts. The engine started with its characteristic guttural sound and Gianni drove slowly out of Midway Farm and onto Old Frankfort Pike. Once they were on Interstate 64, he picked the pace up to a steady 90 mph, only occasionally throttling back to 75 when the radar detector beeped.

“So you said you had actually heard of Clay City when we spoke last week,” Highet said. “How in the name of God could you know Clay City?”

“Believe it or not, Janice is a Kentucky native and she actually
grew up not too far from there, on a small farm near Winchester. Though to see her today, you’d sure as hell never guess it. Somewhere between Winchester, Kentucky, and Manhattan College, she started to morph into this Westchester wannabee. And today, well, let’s just say she was a lot more likable in those leaner days. The girl I married was a lot closer to a “have not” than to the entitled bitch that I live with today.”

Gianni glanced to his right and saw a sadness take over Highet’s face. “I’m sorry, Steven,” he said. “It’s insensitive of me to sit here and complain about my wife like that. How long has it been now?”

“She died five years ago, and I still miss her terribly. We had our share of disagreements too, mostly over my ridiculous work schedule, but I miss her more than you can imagine. I still spend some of my nights sifting through old letters and other memorabilia.”

“I’m sorry, Steven.”

“Forget it, really.”

There was hardly any traffic when they turned off I-64 and headed southeast on the Mountain Parkway, another divided highway, towards Clay City. It seemed deserted for a four lane, divided highway. Highet glanced over at the digital readout on the speedometer. “Is that ninety?” he asked.