The Blackmail Club (3 page)

“The janitor service did come Friday night,” Suggs said. “We checked. That supports him being killed sometime between late Friday and now. My nose votes for Friday.” He gestured toward the victim’s legs. “That smaller torn bag is home garbage, some cheap bastard dumping where he works to save a nickel.”

The putrefied food stuffs inside the dumpster had attracted a regiment of busy ants which ignored the crime scene tape to trail over the lip of the dumpster.

“The body likely stayed the way it went down until the refuse workers threw back the lid and found him a little more than an hour ago,” Suggs reasoned.

“Looks as if he climbed into the dumpster before being shot,” Jack said. “You agree?”

“Yah, you betcha. The first shot got ‘im in the ticker,” Suggs said poking Jack in the chest, with a finger crowned with a chewed nail.

“That was the kill shot, all right,” Jack said. “Then after he dropped below the top of the dumpster, the shooter added the head shot to clinch it.”

A middle-aged woman walked purposely toward the dumpster. Jack recognized her from the news: Mildred Rutledge, doctor of Forensic Pathology and DC’s medical examiner. She was not attractive enough to intimidate other women, yet shapely enough to draw a man’s eyes.

Jack watched her small, deft hand gestures as she spoke. “I’m going in for a closer look. I don’t want the body moved until I’ve made a preliminary check for lividity and rigor.” She moved away from the ants, slipped on an impervious coverall, gloves and boots that fit over her shoes, then leaned on a co-worker while tugging her shoe covers tight. The co-worker also helped her into the dumpster.

After climbing out, she talked with Suggs. He jerked his head toward Jack. She looked over, nodded, and brushed back her windblown brown hair. When she came over, she grasped Max’s forearms and they shared the look of old friends not expecting to see each other.

She moved her pink tongue over her red upper lip. “Mr. McCall, you understand my comments will be preliminary.” She leaned on Max to pull off the boots covering her shoes. “There are procedures we will not be able to perform until the body is out of that box.”

Her manner didn’t acknowledge the pungent fumes that continued to attack Jack’s nose and eyes, but she did take one of Max’s lozenges. Jack took a second one. The three of them moved to the upwind end of the dumpster.

“The belly is already distended,” she began. “This bloated condition normally follows both the earlier rigor mortis and the later flaccidity. There are blisters on the skin and the lips are puffed. Fluid is leaking from his ears, and there are fly larvae in his mouth.” Dr. Rutledge pushed down on the top of her small flashlight and pointed the beam. “You can see that maggots have been eating the skin, and look, look at his neck. Spiders have already arrived to feast on the maggots. All this suggests the victim has been dead more than two days. Naturally, all this can be altered by stuff like the weather and the bacteria and bugs indigenous to a dumpster in an alley.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Any release of information will come from your office or the police department, not McCall Investigations.”

She reached inside her blouse to reposition a bra strap that had slipped toward the crown of her shoulder. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

Jack walked up to Paul Suggs. “May I see the matchbook?”

Suggs led Jack to the closed trunk of one of the squad cars and handed him a clear evidence bag. The opened matchbook was trapped inside with Jack’s name and address hand-printed in block letters. He turned over the evidence bag. The back of the bright red matchbook cover was embossed with gold foil in the outline of a woman’s legs sitting crossed over the name Donny’s Gentlemen’s Club.

Jack wondered if this reference to Donny Andujar meant anything more than the victim frequented his club, but he said nothing. Then Jack glanced at Suggs. “Anything else?”

“He had a ballpoint pen clipped in the neck of his t-shirt. The ink appears to match the writing of your name. We’ll confirm that later. Did you have a Friday afternoon appointment, a no show?”

Jack shook his head. “No appointments, Sergeant. I told you. We do not know this guy.”

Suggs shrugged. “If this was a heist, the robber could’ve made him get in the dumpster to intimidate him. But robbers rarely shoot unless the person resists, which wasn’t likely once the vic got into the dumpster.”

“Could the victim have been shot and then put in the dumpster?” Jack asked.

“Could, but if you’re the shooter, why shoot and lift?”

“Maybe he was shot somewhere else and dumped here?”

They both looked up when the evidence team turned on their Klieg lights to brighten the crime scene as twilight matured toward darkness.

“Maybe,” Suggs allowed, “but that don’t explain the shell casings next to the dumpster. Of course, if the casings don’t match up with the slugs or we don’t find the slugs in the vic or the dumpster, then your ‘maybe’ gets stronger.”

Max, who had lingered near the dumpster, came over to join them. “My two cents,” he said, “this here’s a killing. Not a robbery.”

Suggs’s pudgy face wobbled slightly while he nodded, listening to Max.

“It’s time for us to get out of your hair, Sergeant,” Jack said. “Please give my appreciation to Chief Mandrake, and I’d like to be kept informed, including the victim’s identity.”

“I’ll pass on your request to the chief. But don’t forget,” Suggs said, flipping his wrist back and forth between them, “communication is a two-way street. If you find out who this guy is or why he was heading your way, let me know. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Listen, McCall, Max says you’re okay, but I don’t like nobody using politics to nose into my cases.”

“Which part of Minnesota do you come from, Sergeant?”

“Little town, north of the Twin Cities, you never heard of it. Been here most of my life. You could still tell, huh?”

“Yah, you betcha.”

Suggs’s face took on an unpracticed smile. “The Norwegian farm still slips out.”

“Listen, Sergeant, I don’t blame you for getting pissed when people play politics in police matters. I imagine it happens a lot in this town. I didn’t know anything about this until you called me, so you know there were no politics played from my end.”

“Let’s leave it at that.” Suggs said, before following Jack under the yellow tape and outside the crime scene. Then the detective touched Max on his arm. “When we were doing this together, you were pretty good at reading the scene. What did you see?”

While Suggs wedged an unlit half-smoked cigar into the corner of his mouth, Max glanced at Jack who nodded his approval.

“The victim was left-handed,” Max answered. “My guess is he was a night janitor, maybe with this building’s janitorial service. Then again, if he was heading for McCall’s office he likely worked for a different service.”

“I picked up on the left-handed part,” Suggs said. “His skin appeared lighter on top of his right wrist, which also had less hair. Most people wear their watch on their weaker arm. And the cigarette pack was rolled up in his right t-shirt sleeve. But how did you get ‘works nights as a janitor’?”

“His head hair is all matted and gnarled from wearing the stocking cap that’s half-stuffed in his back pocket. Despite the death pale of his skin, it looked to me like he had a tan when he died. That suggests he’s outside a lot during the day, so he either had a day job outside or worked nights. A day job outside is likely inconsistent with the stocking cap. A day job inside isn’t a great fit with his tan.”

Jack grinned.

“The soles of his shoes,” Max continued with a twinkle in his eye, “went to the soul of the matter. They support the idea he did janitor work and confirm he was left-handed, and that all jibes with his cap and tan.”

“Oh!” Suggs said as his eyes reshaped into saucers.

“When you go back, look at his left shoe. The sole is worn thin at and just above the toe. That won’t happen from walking. The top of his shoe above the worn area is heavily discolored. The top of the right shoe has a similar discoloration, but much less than his left. Your lab experts will likely find the discoloration is floor-cleaning solution. When janitors run their big machines on a hard-surface floor, they often keep a scouring pad with them. They use it under their toe to scrub off the stubborn black marks caused by the heels on some shoes.” Max demonstrated. “The old-timers call it Fred-Astaireing the floor. Most janitors do it with their stronger and better coordinated leg. In this case the victim’s left.”

Sergeant Suggs continued chewing his cold cigar while listening.

Jack could see that Max was enjoying demonstrating he still had the eye for the details of a crime scene and a feel for how it all fit together. He was clearly showing off, probably mostly for him, but Suggs had asked.

Max shrugged. “Take care, Pauli.”

Suggs nodded while pointing his cold soggy cigar toward Max. “You can still kick ass, Maxman.”

The wind slapped at Jack and Max when they turned the corner of the building. Ugly clouds were crowding the sky and the air smelled damp. Max flipped up the collar on his jacket.

“I thought this was spring,” Jack said, watching a little whirlwind lift leaves and odd pieces of paper from the sidewalk.

“The season’s in the seam. The weather’s a coin flip every day.”

Jack leaned against the wall in the elevator. “Now tell me what else you saw.”

The elevator stopped at the floor below MI. Two people got in. Instead of answering Jack’s question, Max told him the story behind the word
blarney
: “It began when the Irish Lord of Blarney Castle would dazzle the Queen of England with colorful double-talk rather than obey her royal edicts. The queen came to refer to the lord’s reports as blarney.”

Back in Jack’s office Max took the last swig from the water bottle he’d left on the desk before answering. “The vic wore silk socks and had gold-capped teeth. Not what you’d expect for a janitor, unless he owned the business and it was successful. Then again, maybe he had another source of income, maybe criminal, could be that’s what brought him to an early end.”

Jack pinched his nose and blew out trying to dispel the memory of the stench he’d brought back from the crime scene. “The victim had been under heavy stress for some weeks prior to his death.”

“Cause?” Max asked.

“The creases in his belt showed he had it cinched two notches tighter than normal, so he had recently changed his eating habits.”

“You got a wee touch of the observer in ya too.”

“You saw more than I did. Great work, Max.”

“Thanks, Jack. It’s parta convincin’ ya to take me on.”

“When we get something requiring more manpower, I just hope you’re still available.”

Jack walked Max to the door, and then told Nora about the corpse in the dumpster. They decided that whoever the dead guy was it looked like he planned to contact MI, but the killer got to him before he could. They would remember the matchbook, but, at least for now, had no reason to connect Donny Andujar to this killing.

Chapter 4

Nora Burke’s shadow twisting and ducking against her window shade grew faint in the rising sun. Then her shadow left and did not return.

It was Tuesday morning, and the blackmailer had learned that Nora’s landlord, who lived next door in the corner house, was away on a spring cruise. Nora had the property all to herself. The house on the other side was thirty yards away with the space divided by a dense, shoulder-high hedge.

The clank of her garage door startled him. He eased down his binoculars and watched her raising the top on her Mustang convertible, and then backing out of the driveway. Her brake lights winked as she stopped before accelerating down the street.

Jack went out to pick up his morning paper, and saw Roy, a ten-year-old boy who lived next door with his divorced mother. Roy came over to say Hi.

“You're big, Mr. McCall.”

Jack mussed Roy’s straight-cut blonde bangs. “I never planned to be. It just happened. I haven’t seen you for a while. How are you? And how’s your mom?”

“I’m fine, so’s my mom. She always is, ‘cept when she hollers at me.”

Jack had met Roy and his mother, Janet Parker, the morning they moved in. Roy had kept throwing his foam football into Jack’s backyard until Janet came out and told her son to stop. She had worn one of those loose-fitting house dresses that would drape the same on a telephone pole or an exotic dancer. A gust of wind had blown the fabric tight against her, revealing she definitely was not any kind of pole. She had a nice smile and lively eyes.

During the year before his marriage to Rachel, Jack had spent many evenings with Roy and Janet, barbequing and watching family movies. He was very fond of Roy. When the boy spent weekends with his mother’s parents or had a sleepover at a friend’s house, Jack and Janet would have their own sleepover.

“How big are you, Mr. McCall?”

“I’m six-foot-two and I weigh two-hundred-ten pounds.”

“Gee, I hope I’m big when I grow up.”

“Is your dad tall?”

“Don’t got a dad. Got a grandpa though,” Roy said with one eye squinted because of the morning sun.

“Is he big?”

“Grandpa’s way shorter’n you. He’s my mom’s daddy,” Roy said. “Seems like I oughta have my own dad though, don’t you think, Mr. McCall?”

“Some youngsters do. Some don’t. You see a lot of your grandpa?”

“Yeah. Grandpa was a policeman in Baltimore ‘til he got too old. His name’s Elroy, Grandpa Elroy, so’s mine. Only mine’s just Elroy. But I go by Roy. You like Roy better than Elroy, Mr. McCall?”

Jack had seen Grandpa Elroy. The man wasn’t tall, but he was built like a garage beer fridge. Jack settled his hand on the curve between the boy’s neck and his shoulder. “I like you and Roy’s a fine name.”

The boy held up his metal dump truck and asked Jack if later on he wanted to go across the street and haul some dirt.

“I can’t today, Roy.”

The boy hung his head, the hand holding the dump truck dangling at his side. “Gee whiz. It’s no fun alone.”