Speak for the Dead (8 page)

Thanks heaps to you, too. Wager felt a sour grin in the back of his mind: a bad word always comes back. He drained his almost cold coffee and scraped the papers and envelopes into the manila cover of the Jane Doe file. Maybe Ross and Devereaux were right; maybe it was better just to let the case wait and start working it when the identification came in. If it came in. Maybe. But Wager knew that he had something more than air in his hands. He couldn’t yet call it a profile of the killer, but he did sense something about the suspect’s mind.

He slammed shut the file drawer and was pulling on his jacket when the telephone called him back to his desk. It was Baird.

“The dental records just came through—we got an identification!”

“Let’s have it.”

“Rebecca Jean Crowell. She had a lot of orthodontist work done in … let’s see, 1973 to 1974. The dentist is a local one … Albert Miller. His office is down near the Cherry Creek shopping center, 105 Milwaukee Street.”

“Any address for the victim?”

“As of May, 1974, she listed 2418 Tremont, Apartment 3. No—wait—that was the last office call. Let’s see … she made the last payment by mail in November, 1974, apparently from the same address. She had a follow-up visit in June, 1975, but there’s no indication of another address. She apparently paid cash for that instead of being billed.”

Wager carefully scratched out the “Jane Doe” on the file’s lip and penned in “
CROWELL, REBECCA JEAN.”
“Any other Crowells in the dentist’s records?”

“We didn’t ask. That’s your job. This just came through in the evening mail.”

“It’s enough to move on. Thanks a lot, Fred.”

The Tremont address was less than a mile from the homicide office; Wager had just pulled in to a cross town street empty of everything except blinking traffic lights when his radio called for “any homicide detective.”

This shift had only one. “X-eighty-five. Go ahead.”

“We have a discharged-weapon report to be filed. Corner of Quitman and Seventh.”

One of the phony things about TV detectives was that they were given all the time they needed to work a single case. The television cops never juggled two or three new cases and as many old ones; they never came off the night shift with an hour to shave, shower, and shit before sitting through a long morning and even into the afternoon trying to stay awake to testify in court; they never reported two hours early to do the paperwork to meet a court deadline, or sat on their own time through the weekly closed-channel telecast that covered the latest court rulings which brought changes to police procedure. And they never got turned around when they were headed for a victim’s residence. “I’m on my way,” Wager said.

The shooting was at the west edge of Denver near the city-county line and in an area he wasn’t completely familiar with. He crossed above the street on the Sixth Avenue Freeway and saw the red flashers of the blue-and-white unit two or three blocks distant. But it took another five minutes to thread his way off the freeway and in and out of dead-end streets to the scene.

“You Detective Wager?” The officer sitting in the yellow glow of the roof-mounted flashlight peered out of the squad car at him.

“Yes. What’s the story?”

The officer turned off the whipping glare of the red flashers to leave the street dark except for the living-room lights of a small house with a deep porch. “We had a ten-sixteen at this address—husband drunk and wife not drunk enough, you know the kind.”

“I know.” Domestic-disturbance calls were always bad news.

“Well, she phoned in the request, and when we come around that corner there, our headlights picked him up chasing her down the street with a pistol in his hand.”

“You saw the weapon?”

“Son of a bitch, we did. As soon as he saw us, he opened up.”

“How many shots?”

“Two or three. My partner heard three. I was on the radio and heard only two.”

“Where’s your partner?”

“Inside, still talking to the broad.”

“The husband?”

The officer’s teeth flashed. “We fired back and the fucker took off into Martinez Park. Right down there.” He pointed to the dark end of the short street. “It’s blacker’n shit in there—he ran smack into a tree and knocked himself silly.”

“Injuries?”

“None. The fucker missed and so did we.”

“How many rounds did you fire?”

“My partner fired one. I fired two.” He added modestly, “He was driving—I got out of the car faster.”

Wager glanced over the shooting report filled with the officer’s square printing. “This looks pretty routine.” The word was becoming more and more accurate to describe an officer’s getting shot at; but a report like this would usually be filed at the end of the shift. “What do you want with me?”

“The wife is screaming police brutality.”

“What?”

“She thinks we shouldn’t have fired at hubby just because he was trying to blow our fucking heads off. She says it was our fault he ran into that tree.”

“After he chased her ass down the street with a pistol?”

“Yeah. She says he does it all the time and never fired a round before tonight. She’s right—we’ve had three or four domestic calls at this address in the last couple years. But she lays it on us that the dumb son of a bitch cold-cocked himself.”

Jesus. And for that two cops stuck their necks out. Wager began taking notes on a clean page of his little green book. A policeman really had to like the job for itself; it was harder than hell to like the people involved. “All right, let’s start with the names and addresses.” The patrolman was right to call for an investigator as soon as possible. Weaker charges than this had been known to stick like shit on a shoe, and it didn’t take more than one or two such incidents to make a man a target inside as well as outside the department. In fact, right now Wager could think of one detective who was suspected of being an animal.

T
HE SHOOTING BEGAN
a busy night. Following that came a burglary in progress, a disturbance call in the Curtis Park area, a request from a patrolman for procedural help in questioning a minor, and a known-dead report that turned out to be natural causes but still required paperwork to clear it from the division’s statistics. By the time Wager filed his end-of-tour reports, the Wednesday sun lay two hours high and heavy crosstown traffic choked the one-way streets that sliced up the old neighborhood surrounding the Crowell address. The apartment was in one of the last private homes on the block, the rest replaced either by rambling three-story apartments built in the 1930s for lung patients and later converted to general use, or by the newer concrete apartment towers that dwarfed the few trees left along the red stone curbs with their rusted iron rings for tying horses.

As Wager crossed the creaking boards of the front porch, he met the tang of bacon and coffee and his stomach reminded him that he had again forgotten to eat during the eight-hour tour. In a rusty row beside the front door were tacked three old-fashioned mailboxes. Two of the slips of paper wedged in the boxes’ gritty slots were new; the other was yellow and brittle and bore, in faded purple ink, “Dove, G. N.” The Crowell name was not posted. Wager tried the curtained front door; it opened into a paneled box that had doors on each side and a dark flight of carpeted stairs leading up to a third door. The Dove apartment was number 1.

He knocked for five minutes, shifting from one foot to another, smelling the indefinable odors that seeped from the oak panels. The old home was well built and very quiet except for occasional squeaks in the ceiling as someone above moved back and forth in a morning ritual. At last the spring lock clicked and a second bolt slid back; the door opened a crack to show two noses: one white and fleshy, at eye level; one dark and wet and growling, at knee level.

“Who is it?”

“Detective Wager, Denver Police. Are you the landlady here, ma’am?”

“I might be. What is it you want?”

“I’d like to ask some questions about a tenant of yours.”

“Them Willcoxes? Is it them Willcoxes again? I told them last time I didn’t have to put up with them bringing the police in here. If that’s the kind of people they are, they can just move across the street. They don’t care who they rent to over there!”

“It’s about Rebecca Jean Crowell, ma’am.”

“Crowell? Crowell? She don’t live here no more.”

“Can you tell me when she did live here?”

“Maybe. Why you want to know? What’s she gone and done?”

“She may be the victim of a homicide, lady. I want to find out.”

The eye bulged to show a pale blue iris in a yellow and bloodshot ball. “Victim? Does that mean dead?”

“Yes.” Wager clenched the corners of his mouth up into what he hoped was a friendly smile. He was tired, he was hungry, he did not want to waste time getting a duces tecum warrant that would give him the legal right to search the landlady’s records. “I want you to help us out. I want to know how long she lived here and where she might have moved.”

“What you want and what you get’s two different things. What’s your name?”

“Wager.”

“You just wait a minute, Wager. I’m calling the police to see if you’re telling true.”

“That’s a smart thing to do, lady.”

“You think I don’t know that?” The door shut, the wet black nose at Wager’s knee giving a snort of quick pain.

Two or three minutes later it cracked open again, the white nose poking out further than the black nose this time. “She lived here from May of 1974 to November of 1975.”

“Do you know where she moved to?”

“No. They come and go. It ain’t my business as long as they pay their rent and have decent ways.”

“Did you forward any mail to her?”

“Not that I recollect. She didn’t get much, anyway.”

“Did she have many visitors?”

“Not that I know of. And that means none. I keep an eye on what goes on in my house, mister, and I don’t let rooms to hussies.”

“Yes, ma’am. Do you know where she worked?”

“I know she paid her rent in advance each and every month. That’s all. I ain’t nosy like you are, young man.”

Wager forced another smile, hoping it didn’t look the way it felt. “Can’t you tell me anything about her?”

“Like what?”

“Where she came from. If she had next of kin in town. What she did on weekends—her hobbies—that kind of thing.”

“She worked days. She said she went to some kind of school or other at night. She stayed pretty much to herself and she stayed quiet. The way I like them. Like I said, I ain’t nosy. You got all you want?”

No, but that was all she was going to give him. He finished writing. “Thank you, ma’am.”

The door thumped shut.

Wager pulled in to the already crowded lot of a Cowboy Bob’s Chuckwagon, finally able to have breakfast—or supper—a little after nine. At ten, he used the pay telephone in a leatherette corner of the diner to call the office of Crowell’s dentist. They were open; he could come over any time before five. He hung up and turned to the Crowell listings in the telephone book’s white pages. No “Rebecca,” no “R. J.” If she had an unlisted number, it would take half a day’s paperwork to run it down.

The dentist’s receptionist, wearing a crisp white uniform whose tidiness flattened breast and hip, said “Good morning” as he entered a softly lit room. A large fish tank filled one wall, and small tables beside thick chairs held National Geographic, U.S. News World Report, Jack and Jill; from somewhere came the kind of music that was full of violins and half-familiar melody. It was a hell of a lot richer dentist’s office than any he had ever gone to.

“I’m Detective Wager. I called a few minutes ago.”

“You got here fast!” Her dark ponytail swung as she pressed a button on a white intercom. “I’ll tell Dr. Miller you’re here.”

Wager looked at the pictures in half of a National Geographic before the dentist came out wiping his hands. He was as short as Wager and his lank gray hair was brushed straight back from his forehead. “You’re from the police?”

He showed his badge. “Yes, sir.”

Dr. Miller glanced at it and nodded briskly. “All right, Marie. He can see the records.” He was gone again.

At the bottom of the small stack of papers inside Rebecca Crowell’s folder lay an application for credit dated September, 1974. Wager began copying the personal information from the little blocks filled in by precise, erect letters in dark blue ink. It was not the kind of handwriting which indicated the applicant imagined that within two years a cop would be reading it, that the cop would be trying to find out who she was and who killed her. Hell, how many of us knew where we’d be two years from now?

The listed residence was the Tremont address, and, as Baird said, it was not updated. But she did state her place of work and her bank—Dr. Miller didn’t give easy credit without hard questions: Rocky Mountain Tax & Title Service, Petroleum Building, Room 785. Job title: typist. Bank account in Central of Denver, also located downtown. Income: $425 per month, no major outstanding debts. She owned a car—a 1970 Mustang, no license listed. And, Wager knew, she had not applied for a Colorado driver’s license—which was not unusual if she was new to the state. A lot of newcomers forgot about getting a new license until the old one expired. The block for parent or guardian was blank, but an emergency address listed a Mr. and Mrs. F. G. Crowell, 810 Kiowa Avenue, Kansas City, Kansas. Wager copied it and put off thinking of that for a while. Total cost of the dental work contracted for: $1,800. Payments were arranged at $500 for the first payment, $35 a month thereafter. It surprised him that no interest was charged. Little check marks showed that during the first year of treatment, she paid the stipulated amount; then she began paying $50 a month for eight months. The last payment, three months after her final checkup, was a lump sum of $580—which was pretty good on a typist’s salary. “Miller doesn’t charge interest on his credit deals?”

The receptionist smiled to show a thin silver wire across teeth that were, to Wager’s eyes, perfectly straight. “Most orthodontists don’t—it would put the price too high for many clients.”