The Blackmail Club (22 page)

Drummy had already packed his equipment; they eased out into the hall and relocked the door.

“Maybe,” Drummy reasoned, “this is a fresh set-up. Your blackmailer is still soliciting new customers.” He paused. “Then again, if the blackmailer used Clark’s supervisor, Bennie Haviland, to get in, maybe events dictated that he kill Haviland before he could get this equipment out. Maybe Haviland was coming to see you? No, no, that can’t be. The equipment would have been here long enough to fill the tape, and very little of it has been used. This set up’s pretty new. And you know what really seems screwy?”

“What?” asked Jack.

“From what you’ve told me your blackmailer is smarter than the average bear, so why is he using this old stuff? I mean he’s got no capacity for remote viewing or retrieval?”

“I’ve got no answer. Not yet,” Jack replied, “any other observations?”

“Sloppy workmanship.” Drummy shook his head. “Whoever installed this junk knew how. It’s just sloppy—except for wiping everything down so he’d leave no fingerprints.”

“If he’s removing his prints, what makes it sloppy?”

“He left wire cuttings, just like at the first two offices. A careful technician would’ve removed everything.” He patted Jack twice on the shoulder. “We’d better get downstairs.”

Clark was waiting with his nose nearly against the elevator doors. “Tell me you’re done. That we can get out of here.”

“We can leave. But I want you to remember our talk about keeping quiet about tonight’s activities.” Clark again ran his hanky over his brow. He and his wife had a lifetime of keeping their own secret, so Jack figured they’d keep this one too.

On the way to Drummy’s house, Jack said, “Are you available tomorrow?”

“I can be.”

“Come by MI in the morning. Let’s find out if our blackmailer has somehow bugged our office. The building doesn’t use Clark’s janitorial, but the blackmailer may have leverage with more than one janitor service. I also want you to check my house and Nora’s apartment.”

Chapter 33

Jack nearly ran the red light at Pennsylvania Avenue when he heard the radio newsflash:

Shots fired at the residence of a Miss Phoebe Ziegler. An unidentified woman is dead. Police are at the scene. More at eleven
.

Jack had already dropped Drummy off at his home. He spun a U-turn and headed for Phoebe’s apartment about a dozen blocks to the north. While he drove, he dialed.

“Harkin? Jack McCall. I came by your place earlier. Where were you?” Jack hadn’t stopped to see Harkin, but he wanted to read Harkin’s reaction.

“You must have gone to the wrong house. I’ve been right here since I got home from work. Ask Ms. Burke. She’s called twice to check on my progress on the list of copyists. It’s finished. What’s this about, Mr. McCall?”

“You haven’t had the news on? Have you been alone?”

“Yes, alone. No, I have not watched the news. I’ve been working on this list and digging up addresses. What’s going on?”

“Jena has been murdered. I don’t know anything more than that.”

“Oh, my God.” Harkin audibly sucked back a sob. “Poor Jena.”

The tires on Jack’s Concorde screeched as he dropped from fifty miles an hour to a dead stop along the curb a few houses from the small cluster of units where Phoebe lived, had lived. The area in front of her place was bedlam. Cop cars were scattered like an impromptu meeting of drunks.

“Stay put, Harkin. Talk to no one. Our deal remains the same.”

“I can’t keep up this charade now.” He was crying openly.

“Her real name was Phoebe Ziegler. Did you murder Phoebe?”

“What! Of course not. I couldn’t hurt—”

“Then our focus remains on the portraits. You took your pleasure. Now you suck it up and carry your load.”

Jack approached the property while uniformed officers dispersed the neighborhood crowd. A bullet-riddled body lay along the curb, a dead hand snagged on the foot peddle of a black and chrome Harley Davidson, Road King. One of the uniformed officers put up his hand when Jack walked toward the house. He stopped. “Who’s in charge?”

“Sergeant Paul Suggs, Major Case Squad.”

“Sergeant Suggs.” Jack hollered toward the house. “Yo. Sergeant Suggs.”

Two uniform officers were off to the side talking with two detectives. Like all modern cities, DC investigated every officer shooting. The two uniforms were likely the shooters, the suits tonight’s edition of the department’s shooting team. Right then, two other guys with cameras wandered out onto the porch.

“She could’ve danced on my lap anytime,” one of them said.

“Your lap and my face.” The other replied. They both laughed.

“Shut your mouths, you sons-a-bitches,” Jack screamed over the uniform’s shoulder. “Or come over here and I’ll shut ‘em for you.”

“Now hold on buddy,” the uniform blocking Jack’s forward motion said. “If you knew Ms. Ziegler, the sergeant will want to talk with you.”

“Yeah. I knew her.” Jack said to answer the officer. Then he called out again. “Suggs. Sergeant Suggs. It’s Jack McCall.”

Suggs came out the front door and down the sidewalk toward him. When he got close, Jack could hear his left shoe squeak with each stride.

“Good evening, Mr. McCall,” Suggs said. Then he turned toward the porch. “You two mugs are here to shoot pictures, not to shit out of your damn face holes.”

Suggs took Jack’s arm and led him away. “You knew this woman?”

“Nora and I met Ms. Ziegler through her employer, Sara Andujar’s son, Donny Andujar.” Jack started around Suggs, toward the apartment. “How did she die?”

The sergeant slid over to stay in front of Jack and then loosened his tie. “Jack. I can’t let you on this scene. Forensics just arrived and the M.E.’s not here yet. At the Haviland scene, Chief Mandrake invited you in. I can’t take on that decision, not at a homicide scene. The dead guy hanging on the bike was put down by the cops first on the scene. The shooting team is over there interviewing the shooters.” He motioned with his head. “We haven’t identified the dead guy.”

Jack stepped back and took a deep breath. “I believe you’ll find that crud is George Rockton, a bouncer at Donny’s Club where Ms. Ziegler danced under the name, Jena Moves. Now you give. How was she killed?”

“Looks like strangulation. We found her naked. I’m guessing the dead guy’s the killer, but that isn’t established. The station got a call from a neighbor who heard fighting and screaming. We had a car in the area. They got here in minutes. Rockton, if that’s his name, fired on them and made a break for his motorcycle. The officers put him down. Were these two lovers?”

“I don’t know. I just know they both worked at Donny’s club. I don’t think they were an item. The other girls at Donny’s would know.”

“Tell me about her,” Suggs asked, “other than where she worked?”

“She still seemed like a good kid, not all hard yet. She came to DC to study sculpting. She was saving her money to go to school. She invited Nora and me over to see one of her pieces.”

“You seem … upset by her death.”

“Nora and I tried to talk her into leaving Donny’s and returning to school right away. I should’ve … I don’t know, convinced her somehow. Tried harder.”

“Don’t put this in your pocket, Jack. It doesn’t fit. She was a big girl—well, big enough to make her own decisions. She made them and they went bad.”

“Thanks, Paul. She didn’t have enough to be a burglary target. What does it look like? A rape and murder? Torture for information? What’s your gut on this?”

“We can’t rule out a botched burglary, but I doubt it, there just ain’t much he could haul away on his motorcycle. It appears they had sex. From what I saw before you called me out, it wasn’t consensual. I’m expecting the M.E. to get here any minute. We’ll know more after she’s done.”

Suggs took Jack by the arm and got him walking toward his car. “From the multiple marks on her neck, the rash like spots on her skin, and the hemorrhages in her eyes, the perp repeated near-strangulations. Or, maybe she’s one of them sicko gaspers. Or maybe he got off that way. He was a mean prick though, I can tell you that.” Suggs paused a moment, then went melancholy. “Things have certainly changed over my years on the force. Whatever happened to the days when if you wanted someone dead, you just pumped ‘em full of lead? Brutality has become a growth industry. Maybe I’ve just gotten too old for this job.”

Jack couldn’t tell Suggs about Phoebe’s relationship with Harkin. The slim chance that he could find the presidential portraits would drop to zero if that story broke.

“What was used to strangle her?”

“It looks like a dirty robe tie. I was about to look for a matching robe when you started hollering.”

“Was it pink terrycloth?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s her robe all right. You should find it inside. If she’s like most people, it’s probably on a hook behind the bathroom door.”

“Gee thanks, Sherlock.” Suggs rolled his eyes. “You must be a topnotch PI.”

“Listen, Suggs, I don’t need your attitude. I was just trying to help.” Then Jack tried again to move around the sergeant.

Suggs moved over again, keeping Jack from reaching the porch. “Okay, Jack. I didn’t realize you knew her all that well.”

“I didn’t. I already told you. I only saw her that once. She struck me as a sweet kid. Nora felt the girl had real sculpting talent. If you haven’t found her work yet, you will. Please take in any of her sculpted pieces. I’m going to hire an attorney to pursue getting them released to Ms. Ziegler mother. Would you do that, Paul?”

“Sure.”

The story Jack had told Suggs danced around the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but he needed to stop the questions about how and why he got to know the victim.

Jack thought as Suggs continued to walk with him toward his car.
The blackmailer might have killed Phoebe as part of sweeping his trail clean, if he figured I didn’t know about Randolph Harkin. Still, he had to know that killing Phoebe would lead the cops to Donny’s club where they would learn that for over a year she had a once-a-month date with a guy named Harkin. No. It made no sense for the blackmailer to kick up that dust. He’d let it lay. If, on the other hand, he knew I talked to Phoebe, he’d figure I knew about Harkin and that I’d be able to squeeze that soft little man to find out about the swapping of the portraits. Either way, killing Phoebe would only turn up the heat on him. Given this bastard’s penchant for caution, if he hasn’t already sold the real paintings, he’ll squirrel them away while things cool.

Suggs opened Jack’s car door. “Get out of here, Jack. Go home. Nothing else you can do here. I’m sorry about all this.”

“Hey, Paul, you’re finally calling me Jack.”

“Fuck you, McCall, and the horse you rode in on.”

Chapter 34

Jack met Drummy at seven in the morning. By eight the security expert had found no evidence of surveillance equipment in MI, and had left Jack’s office to sweep his home and Nora’s apartment. After he left, Jack and Nora went into their case room to discuss the death of Phoebe Ziegler, but Paul Suggs had summarized it best: “The choices had been Phoebe’s. She made ‘em. They went bad.”

Nora looked up from the papers in front of her. “I stopped at the National Portrait Gallery. Harkin’s there. He’s wrung out but holding up. Here’s his list of copyists.”

Jack slid the chair between them back toward the wall and rolled close enough to see the list. Nora’s perfume was soft and attracting. “How many are there?”

“Eleven in the U.S.,” she said. “I think we’re on solid ground assuming the copyist is in the U.S. That would avoid the problems associated with getting the phony paintings in through customs and the real ones out. Diplomatic immunity might be the weak link in that assumption but we’ve had no reason to think in that direction.”

“What’s the geographic distribution?”

“Three in the D.C./Virginia/Maryland area and three in New York City, the other five are in the Midwest and far west.”

An hour later they had identified three trails they needed to get on fast: finding the forger, baiting the blackmailer through the surveillance equipment in the office of Dr. John Karros, and getting in Art Tyson’s face. They had nothing that fit tight on Tyson, but his car matched with the car they saw outside Sarah Andujar’s house. Chris Andujar’s receptionist was his girlfriend. He had owned a silent piece of Luke Tittle’s Place and the accounting records missing from Luke’s could explain Allison Trowbridge being blackmailed. Yeah. They had a fourth trail: finding out if Allison had been blackmailed and over what.

Nora would contact each of the artists by phone. She would also finagle an appointment as a new patient with Dr. Karros. For that she’d need to develop a story ripe enough to give the listening blackmailer a reason to shake her down.

Jack spotted the name on a half-opened second floor window overlooking Eighteenth Street:
A. Tyson, Private Investigator
. The building was across from Joey’s, a neighborhood watering hole in the Adams Morgan district in northwest DC.

Jack stepped inside the one-room office to see Tyson sitting behind a desk butted up against the side wall, a cold, mostly-smoked cigar wedged between his fat fingers. His thin plastered down hair could have been mistaken for a grease smudge if not for the gray streaking through the smear. A waste basket sat in the corner on the dirty green vinyl floor, the area around it littered with spent wooden matches, snapped in two.

So it was Tyson parked outside Sarah Andujar’s home
.

Tyson looked up, a crooked grin on his face pushing his hammered-in nose off center. He held a phone in one hand, and brought the hand surrounding the blunt cigar to his face, a keep-quiet finger touching his lips.

Jack leaned against the wall and imagined how Dashiell Hammett, the creator of Sam Spade, might have written the description of Tyson’s office: In the dark, quiet gut of the night the room was cast in pink light from the pulsing energy of the neon sign over Joey’s Bar. The cold room lacked a family portrait or even one of those free cheesecake shots that come inside when you buy a cheap frame. Tyson’s desk was home to a phone, a lamp with a green plastic shade, and the rest of the mess that wasn’t balanced on top the file cabinet or stacked on the dirty beige visitor’s chair. Spade couldn’t tell if the tarnished spittoon next to the desk was a functional accessory, or merely a period piece for ambience. On the floor—