The Perfect Crime (20 page)

They’d turned the VCR off, and Kincaid was speaking to
St. Ives. He was explaining what was going to happen, what St. Ives was going to have to do.

“Remember what you saw in that little movie, pal. You fuck up, that’s you.”

He shook Whitney gently awake, putting his hand over her mouth in case she awoke disoriented and make an outcry. Her eyes instantly signaled her alertness and he put a finger to his mouth and leaned over and kissed her.

“Hungry, sweetheart?” he asked. She was.

“I’ll get us something,” she said, getting up and tiptoeing into the kitchen.

She came back and handed Grady a piece of the chicken he’d bought and a napkin and leaned over to kiss his forehead. He looked up, mouthed the word “thanks” and she sat down a little ways from him and began eating.

Grady concentrated on what was happening beneath them, munched on chicken, and occasionally made notes on the little pad he always kept. He already had a long list of names. He heard Eddie return and the snap of beer cans being opened. He heard them take St. Ives to another room, probably a bedroom, and pretty soon they came out and began going over the plan, the voice he knew belonged to Reader, going over, point by point--times, places, everything. This Eddie must be a real dunce, Grady thought, from the way Reader explains things to him. He was glad. He listened for a long time, only occasionally taking a break to go to the bathroom or get a drink. The guy was sharp, no doubt about it.

Sweat was pouring from both their bodies as the room became even warmer, although he was not about to turn on the air-conditioning for fear they’d hear the noise downstairs. And there was an odor, slight at first, but growing stronger as the hours went by. He’d smelled it before. Rotting flesh. Must be a dead rat someplace, he thought, his stomach beginning to roil. I hate that smell, he thought, holding the tail of his shirt over his mouth and nose. It helped some.

“What is that?” Whitney asked, making a face.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Probably a dead mouse or something in one of the vents.”

“It’s making me sick,” she said. She looked as if she were about to throw up. He told her to go into the bathroom and get a wet washcloth and hold it over her mouth and nose. She brought him one back and it helped.

Around midnight, things quieted down downstairs. They must have gone to bed, Grady figured. Sure enough, he heard Eddie in a barely audible voice say, “Goodnight, partner.”

“They’re going to sleep,” he told Whitney. “We ought to do the same.” She nodded and curled up beside him. Grady took his shirt off, scrunching it into a ball for a makeshift pillow for them to shar. Whitney was soon dozing, but sleep for Grady wasn’t available that easily. What he’d learned kept going through his mind. By now, he’d heard enough to have a pretty distinct idea of most of the elements. There were a few things that weren’t altogether clear, but he was pretty sure he knew who Castro was now and how he fit into the equation. The banker must be laundering drug money. Grady got that from some of the remarks overheard and from the fact that it was the only thing that made sense. One piece of the puzzle that wasn’t clear was the frequent mention of a girl--they talked as if she was in the room with them--and that part he wasn’t able to figure out at all. Eddie kept saying St. Ives would have to sleep with her. Every time he said that he’d laugh like it was the funniest thing he’d ever said. That was a puzzle, because not once was the voice of a woman audible.

Around two in the morning, the time on stakeouts that the mind begins wandering, all kinds of weird thoughts began to enter Grady’s mind. He found himself wishing for a million dollars. Money would solve a whole lot of problems. New problems that had arisen with the girl sleeping beside him.

He lay beside her, thinking about life and the pitfalls it held for a man and an idea slowly evolved. It was like he was privy to another person’s thoughts. He lay staring at the ceiling and watched a whole scenario come together. At first, it was daydreaming. Wishful thinking. It began to dawn on him that it would take very little to make the daydream real. He wondered what his old buddies on the force back in Dayton would say if they knew what was going on in the old brain pan. They’d laugh, he decided. They’d think it was pretty slick. They’d never believe it of him. Not Grady Fogarty. He didn’t wonder what his father would say if he were still alive. He knew what he’d say.

He wondered if Kincaid would think it was slick. He might, if it wasn’t Kincaid’s score he was thinking about taking.

He shook Whitney gently awake and told her to get her stuff together.

“I’m going to take you home,” he said. “This is no place to spend the night. Besides being dangerous, you’re going to end up in traction in the morning.” She didn’t argue with him. Just another thing that made her perfect, he thought.

He got up and got his own gear together all except for the listening device. He left that in place. He might be back and he might not, but might as well leave it in case he returned. He’d heard enough to figure out most of the scam. Kincaid laid out the whole operation--details, times, names. Listening once more, he couldn’t detect any sound from below. Good.

Twenty minutes later after he’d kissed Whitney goodbye on the front step of her bungalow, he was pulling up to the house Eddie’d gone to. The one in Algiers. The lock was easy. When he slipped inside, he didn’t see a sign of life around except a sleeping wino across and down the street. Most of the houses along the block were dark.

The place was tiny. Two rooms, three counting the bathroom. A small bedroom and a smaller kitchen area. As he began searching through the rooms and the only closet, two things became evident to Grady. This was Reader’s place all right. A stack of bills was on the kitchen table, all addressed to Charles Kincaid at this address. He didn’t see any personal letters. Bills and some junk mail addressed to Occupant. It was evident Reader didn’t plan to return. The place was essentially bare. No luggage and no toilet articles. Oh, there were sheets on the bed and a few clothes hanging in the closet, but it looked to Grady like a house essentially abandoned. Eddie must have been cleaning it out for him the day before. Getting all his personal shit. What convinced him of that was when he was goihrough a small desk in the bedroom. The side drawers were clean as a whistle, but in the main drawer were scraps of paper that didn’t tell him too much. Things you mean to throw away and don’t get around to it, the stuff you clean out of your pockets at the end of the day. One of the items was significant. It was a receipt from a photography studio and the notation said the twenty-dollar charge was for a passport photo. Only there wasn’t any passport in the drawer. Or anywhere else in the house.

That’s what he sent Eddie for, he bet. To pick up his passport and other papers. It made sense. Whatever he was planning, Reader wasn’t going to return to his apartment.

It was time for a little old-fashioned detective work, Grady decided. The kind you do in a newspaper morgue and a library. He needed to find out some things fast.

CHAPTER 25

“GRADY! DIDN’T I JUST see you about an hour ago?”

He grinned and stepped in as Whitney opened the door wider for him.

“Yeah. I need your help. Are you up to a little reading?”

On the way downtown, he got Sally on the phone.

“I need a favor,” he said. “Can you get me into the
Time-Picayune’s
morgue?”

He could and he would. “They’ll be expecting you,” he said. “Soon as I hang up, I’ll call them.”

“You can’t just go in and look at them?” Whitney asked. “Isn’t that open to the public?”

Grady explained that no, usually it was difficult for just anybody to gain access to a newspaper’s files. They had to have a compelling reason and normally go through all kinds of red tape. Cops were different. Cops were usually allowed access normal citizens weren’t.

“But you’re not a cop anymore,” she said. “And your friend Sally’s retired too, isn’t he?”

He was, he agreed. “But Sally has more contacts than an octopus in love,” he explained. “I knew if anybody could get me in in short notice, that guy could.”

Sure enough, five minutes after they entered the lobby of the newspaper and explained their business, a security guard came out and escorted them to the basement.

“What are we looking for?” Whitney asked, after Grady showed her how to use the files and the microfiche machine.

“Here,” he said. “Make a copy of this and look up every name on it. Get everything you can get on each name.”

It was his list of names scrawled on a sheet of notepaper. He pointed to the copy machine in the corner and handed her a handful of change.

“What are these names?” was her first question when she returned with her copy. She handed the original back to Grady.

“It’s the name of every single person I know about that’s come up in this case. Most of them I got from Sally. Some I copied down last night, listening to the boys downstairs.”

“Oh,” she said. “Is this a
case
?”

He smiled. “Well, not officially. Not down here it isn’t. But it is. In my mind, it sure is.”

She nodded. “Will this do any good?”

“Maybe. Who knows? It’s the only way I know how to solve a case, though.”

She began flipping through the files. “So this is police work!”

“Yeah,” intoned Grady, busy looking through his own fis. “Pretty boring, isn’t it? Even more than stakeouts.”

They worked almost in total silence for the next hour. Once in a while Whitney would spot something in an article about one of the names on the list and ask Grady if it was important. Each time it wasn’t.

Finally, he finished the part of the list he was working on. He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair.

“How you coming?” he said. “‘Bout done?”

Whitney nodded. “Just finishing up this guy. Only a couple more things on him. Man! He’s got more on him than everyone else combined. This guy really likes being in the paper.”

Grady looked over to see the name she was working on.

“Shit,” he said, in a soft whisper.

“What?”

“Well...” He got up and did a deep knee bend to loosen the knots in his calves. He straightened back up. “I was hoping to find something...but this guy...he’s the least likely of all. I don’t even know why I put him on the list. It was just a guy Sally said something about. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

“No,” she said. “I started this and I’m going to finish it.” She continued rolling the microfiche.

“Let me see,” he said, leaning over her shoulder. “Christ! You’re thirty years back!”

“Is that bad?” she said, craning to look at his eyes.

“No,” he said, wearily, passing his hand over his eyes. “It’s just pretty unlikely you’re going to find anything useful that far back. Especially with him. I don’t think he fits in anywhere.”

“I don’t care,” she said, stubbornly, bending to watch the screen. “I don’t like to stop something until I’m done.”

“Whatever,” Grady said, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. “You’re not only beautiful, you’re even more tenacious than I am. You’d make a good cop.”

She smiled. “Well, I’d have to join the canine corps. The only branch for this woman!” He thrilled at her smile. He wasn’t used to paying compliments to women, at least compliments he was sincere about, but they seemed to come natural when directed at Whitney. A talent that obviously depends on your feelings, he guessed.

“Here,” he said. “Let me finish up. Why don’t you go see if you can scarf a cup of coffee for us. These newspaper guys all have coffee. See if somebody will get up off some for us.”

“Okay,” she said, pushing back her chair. “You’re probably right. I need a break, anyway.”

While she was gone, Grady idly forwarded the machine, scarcely watching the print as it scrolled by. An item rolled by, so small he almost missed it. In fact, he did miss it, the first time. Just for the heck of it, he rolled it back.

At first, it looked like all the other articles. Just another notice, one of those little things that almost qualify as a filler for a newspaper. Like the police blotter. The only folks interested in such things were the relatives. He was just skimming along, when all of a sudden, a word struck his eye. A name. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

Quickly, he scrolled the article back down. The first few sentences had already disappeared into the edge. He read the whole piece. Then again.

Whitney came walking in with two white Styrofoam cups.

“Hey,” she said. “You were right. They all drink coffee. I got yours black. I hope that’s...” She stopped, mid-sentence, at the look on Grady’s face.

“You found something, didn’t you.”

He nodded.

“Look at this.” He watched as she read the article.

“My God,” was all she said when she finished. She looked up at him, her eyes perfect moons. “Titus Derbigny!”

“Exactly,” was his own response.

***

They were walking out of the
Times-Picayune
building, when Grady said, “This proves one thing.”

Whitney looked at him, questioningly.

“Always follow the money. It’s a good precept.”

She shook her head in agreement. “There’s another precept my mother always used to say that applies here.”

“What’s that,” he said, holding the car door open for her.

“Shake a closet hard enough and skeletons fall out.”

He cocked his finger like a gun at her and they both laughed. There wasn’t much mirth in their laughter, however.

In the car Grady told her what he was thinking. It made sense to her.

“It isn’t really about the money at all,” he said.

“Revenge?” she said, more a statement than a question.

“Yes. Look. Can you do something for me? Find out where this guy lives, get me a map?”

She could do that.

They drove in silence for a few more blocks. They were stopped at a light when Grady said, “Do you think my plan is wrong?”

Her eyes were serious and thoughtful. “Technically, maybe.”

Grady frowned.

“But there’s a word that describes it perfectly,” she added.

“What’s that?” The light changed and he put his foot on the gas.

“
Just
.”

She smiled and with her smile he knew he had made the right decision.

“It’s eminently just. In fact, it’s so just, it’s perfect.”

His own smile turned into a huge grin.