Too Old a Cat (Trace 6) (19 page)

“You know what they say, kid,” said Razoni. “Never trust anybody over thirty.”

“That’th not what I thay,” Abigail said.

“No? What do you say?”

“I thay fuck all pigth.”

“You keep that up and I’m going to tell your daddykins on you,” Razoni said.

Chico found Trace sitting at the bar in Bogie’s and slumped onto a stool next to him.

“Look at you,” he said. “I thought you’d come bellying up to the bar, order a double Scotch on the rocks, and threaten to blow away the bartender if he didn’t step on it. You look like something the cat dragged in.”

“You never told me this was such shitful work,” Chico said.

“Tough day, huh?”

“Whoever said economics was the dismal science wasn’t ever an investigator,” Chico said. “An awful day.”

“Well, let me get a drink to put myself in the right frame of mind, and then tell me all about it,” Trace said.

“What gets me is I did everything right,” Chico said as Trace signaled the bartender to refill his glass. “I went to the funeral home, I went to the neighbors, I talked to the cops, I even talked to bartenders. Christ, what sleazeballs. They’re always hitting on you. And I still come up empty.”

“How so?” Trace said.

“Trace, that woman’s death was an accident.” She grabbed his arms and turned him on his stool so she could stare into his face. “A freaking accident,” she said.

“That’s why you’re so depressed?” he asked.

“Well, wouldn’t you be? I wanted to show off for Garrison Fidelity. I wanted to save them a hundred thou on a double-indemnity payoff. I wanted this to be a murder and I wanted to solve it. Dammit, I hate druggists. Druggists are never murderers,” Chico said.

“Hey, Babe, that’s the way it goes sometimes,” Trace said. “Most of the time those accidents that you read about, they’re really accidents. If they weren’t, insurance companies would never pay off and they’d own the whole world instead of the half of it they have now.”

“It’s still depressing,” Chico said.

“Now you know why I drink,” Trace said.

“Oh, hogwash. You drank like a fish before you ever investigated a case. Don’t try that on me,” she said.

“Well, I thought it was worth a shot,” Trace said. “So what happened today? Lady drove off a road, just like the report said?”

“Sort of. There was a little more to it than that,” Chico said. “This Debbie Doblemeyer, that’s the dead woman, she and her husband were childless. Then finally, age forty, she got pregnant. It was a tough pregnancy and I guess that’s why the husband insured her in the first place. Well, she lost the baby, and that was her last chance at having one. Make a long story short, she started to drink, all the time, in the house, out of the house. She closed this cocktail lounge the night she died, drove home and got killed.”

“You think she wanted it to happen?” Trace asked.

Chico shrugged. “Maybe. The bartender remembered that she made a big point out of saying good-bye to everybody at the bar, all the regulars.”

“There,” Trace said. “You have it. You can make a case for suicide. Garrison Fidelity won’t pay on a suicide.”

Chico looked at him with total surprise on her face. “I wouldn’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “Poor woman had a miscarriage and was unhappy and maybe she did try to drink to get herself killed. I don’t know, but I’m not going to be the one to tag her with the suicide label.”

“I thought you wanted to make a big splash for Groucho,” Trace said.

“Not by jumping feet first into liquid excrement,” Chico said.

“You don’t have the heart to work for an insurance company,” Trace said.

“I’ve got a big heart,” she said.

“Exactly,” Trace said.

When Razoni and Jackson reentered Theodore Long-worth’s study, four more men were there, all in business suits with vests and regimental striped ties.

“Look at those clothes,” Razoni mumbled to Jackson. “Are they awful or what?”

“That’s so nobody will recognize them,” Jackson said.

The two detectives led Abigail between them. She had stopped struggling.

Longworth saw his daughter, dropped his drink, and ran toward her. She broke loose from the detectives and ran to him. They embraced in the center of the room.

“Oh, baby,” said Longworth.

“Oh, Daddy,” said Abigail.

“Disgusting,” said Razoni.

The four FBI agents were very brisk. They demanded to know if there had been a kidnapping.

“No,” Razoni said.

“We’ll still have to make a report on this,” said one agent, apparently the leader because his suit almost fit.

“Why?” said the police commissioner, stepping forward, Captain Mannion at his side.

“Because it is a violation to make a false report to federal authorities.”

“I think you might reconsider,” said the commissioner smoothly. “If you recall, we asked you here in an advisory capacity. No one made any formal report of a kidnapping. We just wanted you to be aware of the incident, in the unlikely event it turned out to be a criminal act.”

“Well…” began the agent.

“It’ll be much easier this way,” said the commissioner. “Just a family matter, and we do appreciate your taking the trouble to come here, even though no action was warranted. I plan to call your director tomorrow just to thank him personally for your thoughtfulness.”

The FBI man knew a threat when he heard one, but glad to be taken off the hook so smoothly, he nodded agreement.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll let it go at that. Men,” he called to his assistants. As one they rose from their chairs. The agent in charge nodded to Longworth, who broke the embrace with his daughter and stepped forward to shake his hand warmly.

“I want to thank you,” he said.

“There’s no indication here of any violation of federal law,” said the agent. “We’ll be leaving.”

“Thanks again.”

The four agents were at the door to the study when Abigail pointed a finger at Razoni and Jackson across the room. “Brutality,” she shouted. “Violation of my righth.”

“Oh, shit,” said Razoni aloud.

This apparently was the incorrect thing to say under Longworth’s roof because he wheeled on Razoni. “What did you say?” he demanded, glancing back over his shoulder as if wondering if his daughter had heard the terrible epithet.

“I said, ‘Oh, shit,’” said Razoni. “I said it before too when Abigail said, ‘Fuck all pigth.’”

Longworth shrank back as if struck. The FBI agent in charge paused in the doorway. “Police brutality is a federal violation,” he announced solemnly.

“They abuthed me,” Abigail Longworth shouted. “They mithtreated me. They lied to me.”

Razoni nodded his head in disgust. “Tell them how you tried to kill us, Abigail. Tell them about the shot you took at us.”

The commissioner stepped forward quickly and put his arm around the FBI agent in charge. “We’ll take care of this, Fred. Sounds like a personality conflict to me.”

“It might be serious, Commissioner.”

The commissioner chuckled and said softly, “Just temper, I think. We’ll handle it.”

The agent looked at him, then at Razoni as if filing his face in memory for the next time a brutality complaint was lodged and he lacked a suspect. Razoni stuck his tongue out. Although the agent was startled, he allowed himself to be steered from the room by the commissioner. Mannion pulled the two detectives off into a corner of the room.

“Okay. Good work. You found her, now calm down.”

“Tough wants to ask you something,” Razoni said. “He wants to know did you tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

“One, that his daughter’s a freaking fag. Two, that she probably killed the lizard. Three, that she’s been hiding out of her own free will, and four, the kidnapping tape was a fake, and that’s a crime. And five…No, you couldn’t tell him five because you didn’t know about it, but when we went to get her, she tried to kill us. She fired a shot at us. From a big old gun. A big gun. Bang. Right over our heads. If I hadn’t moved fast, she might have plugged Tough. Fortunately, I was there to protect him. And I would have shot her right between her freaking lesbian eyes if that goddamn monkey hadn’t jumped in my hair.”

“Monkey, Razoni?”

“Yeah. That monkey that rides the trapeze. It got on my arm and I couldn’t shoot her the way I should have.”

“Jackson, have you two been drinking?”

“No, Captain. Ed’s telling you the absolute truth. Almost.”

“Captain, did you tell him?” demanded Razoni.

“No. But I told the commissioner.” Mannion seemed apologetic.

“And
he
told Longworth, right?”

“Well, not exactly,” Mannion said.

The commissioner reentered the room. He raised a cautionary finger toward the two detectives, then stepped forward to speak to Longworth, who was still consoling his daughter in the middle of the room. He talked to him in tones so low the detectives could not hear. They saw Longworth nod, then put his arm around Abigail and walk with her toward the door.

“Daddy,” she said, “I want to file chargeth againtht thothe two.”

“Not now, honeybunch. Plenty of time for that.” He kept steering her toward the door.

“That makes us even,” Razoni growled. “Murder, filing false kidnap reports, firing a gun within city limits, being a dirty fag within city limits, spattering a policeman’s --face.”

The door closed behind Longworth and his daughter and the commissioner said, “Marvin, Jackson, Razoni. Come on over and sit down.”

“Who’s Marvin?” Razoni whispered to Jackson.

“The captain.”

“His name’s Marvin?”

Jackson nodded.

“Nobody’s named Marvin.”

The commissioner waved all three to spots on the couch and walked to the liquor cabinet. “Anybody want a drink? I know I can use one.”

“No,” said Mannion.

“No, thank you,” said Jackson.

“What kind of bourbon’s he got?” asked Razoni.

The commissioner looked surprised. “I don’t know. Let’s see. Jack Daniels.”

“Okay,” said Razoni. “Just as long as it’s not some cheap shit. I’ll have a double bourbon on the rocks with a splash of soda. Not too much soda.”

“Do you have any favorite kind of glass?” the commissioner asked puckishly.

“Yeah. A clean one,” Razoni said. He wondered why Jackson was looking at him strangely and Mannion appeared to be going into cardiac arrest.

Dutifully the commissioner made the drink, then poured himself a small neat Scotch. He handed the drink to Razoni, then sat in a wing-back chair, facing all three.

“I think we’ll agree that we have a problem,” he said soothingly. Razoni stopped drinking and was about to say something when the commissioner quickly went on. “It’s obvious that Miss Longworth is somewhat upset. I gather you two men are somewhat upset also.”

Razoni nodded. He looked off toward the bar, wondering if Longworth had any peanuts.

“Now, let’s see if I understand this. You two men were assigned by Marvin here”—Razoni snickered—“to investigate the murder of Swami Salamanda and then you became involved also in Miss Longworth’s disappearance. I take it now that you have found that Miss Longworth and a friend, Miss Marichal, picked up at the florist the roses that were later used to poison Salamanda. You also have found that Miss Marichal lied to you about not knowing Miss Longworth’s whereabouts and you picked up Miss Marichal largely to force Miss Longworth to reveal her whereabouts. Is that correct?”

Mannion and Jackson nodded. Razoni said, “No.”

“No?” said the commissioner.

“No,” said Razoni. “It leaves out the fact that the poisoned roses the guru ate were handed to him by old Spitmouth there. It leaves out the fact that she turned in a false kidnapping report to try to get her fag friend out of jail, and it leaves out the fact that she tried to kill my partner and only my fast action saved his life.”

“Are you saying Miss Longworth murdered Swami Salamanda?”

Razoni shrugged and sipped his drink. “She’s the best suspect we’ve got. She gives him flowers, he keels over, and she runs away. We’ve booked people for less.”

“Maybe in the old days, Detective. Not now. You don’t have enough to book her for murder.”

“We’ve got enough to detain her for questioning.”

“Man, you can’t just go detaining Ted Longworth’s daughter for questioning.”

“How about attempted murder for trying to shoot my partner?” Razoni said.

“What is it about you, Razoni, that you’re trying to put that girl in jail?” the commissioner asked. His face was starting to flush.

“Because I don’t know whether or not she killed the lizard, but if she did, she’s going to skip as soon as everybody turns their backs and maybe this time, Tough and I won’t be able to find her so easily. She’ll wind up hiding out in that goddamn City of Love with all the other dykes.”

The commissioner turned from Razoni and spoke formally. “Captain Mannion, the investigation into Salamanda’s death is to continue. Miss Longworth is not, repeat not, to be bothered. Unless a formal charge can be filed immediately against Miss Marichal, she is to be released. No mention of any possible involvement by Miss Longworth will be made at all and she will not be questioned, nor will this matter be brought to Mr. Longworth’s attention until your unit has a great deal more evidence and many fewer wild suspicions. Do I make myself clear?”

Mannion nodded.

“I also recommend that you assign new men to the death of Swami Salamanda—to get a fresh viewpoint, as it were. Use the entire resources of the department if necessary. Again, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mannion.

“Razoni, Jackson, I want to commend you both for your quick, efficient work in bringing Miss Longworth safely home. I know that Mr. Longworth is probably a little hot now, but when tempers cool, I’m sure he will share my view and I’m also sure that he will let you know personally how he feels. Are there any questions?”

“Yes, sir,” said Razoni.

Mannion’s face grew red. Jackson stifled a groan.

“Yes, Razoni,” the commissioner said with a sigh.

“Does Longworth have any peanuts?”