Blood Relative (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 4) Page 5

  “I’m okay.”

  “Well, I’m still shaking. If that guy had come along a minute earlier, he would’ve creamed me.”

  “You didn’t happen to get his license number, did you?”

  “No, I mean, it all happened so fast. First I saw you and I thought, Wow, what a coincidence, and then—”

  “It wasn’t a coincidence.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I followed you here.”

  “You what?” He grinned, waiting for the punch line.

  “I wanted to talk to you alone, but you drove off before I could stop you. It’s about the glass pipe I showed you in Kenneth Butler’s office.”

  His face slowly lost all expression. “What about it?”

  “You’ve seen it before, haven’t you? Or one like it.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Come on, Hartman, I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just looking for information. Tell me what the pipe’s for.”

  His eyes shifted to the side, as if he were thinking it over. He sipped his soda, then set down the glass. “It’s for smoking ice.”

  “Ice?”

  “A pure form of methamphetamine.”

  I’d read something about ice—a designer drug for the nineties, produced in a few Asian countries. It was already a big problem in Hawaii, more so, even, than crack.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’ve smoked it.” Then he added earnestly, “Look, I’m no drug addict. I hardly even drink.” He held up his glass to show me his soda. My glass was already empty. Hey, I’d been in an accident. “But I’ve tried this and that,” Hartman went on to say. “Lots of things. In my business, sometimes you have to smoke or snort or drink like the client to get on his good side. It’s just business.”

  “So Clare smoked ice.”

  “If she had a pipe like that, I’d say it’s a good bet.”

  “Did you ever smoke it with her?”

  “No, I told—”

  “Or know where she bought it?”

  Hartman gave me what passed for a hard look. “I told you, I’m not into that stuff. I’ve smoked ice once, period. And I knew very little about Clare Butler’s personal life, let alone her drug habits.”

  I guess I believed him. “What can you tell me about Clare.”

  “Not much,” he said. “I’ve only been a member of the family for eight months.”

  He’d met Nicole Butler last March at a tennis club. It had been love at first sight, and they’d wanted to get married right away. Her father objected. “He never liked me,” Hartman said, “probably never will.” However, Samuel Butler could see that Wes Hartman made his little girl happy, so he finally gave them his blessing. After the marriage, Butler offered Hartman a job with the company.

  “I knew sales, so that’s where I fit in,” he said.

  “What about Clare?”

  Hartman shrugged. “I’d see her at family dinners, once a month or so. Maybe half a dozen times altogether.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Sometimes at restaurants, sometimes at Sam’s house.” Hartman smiled. “He loves his kids, and he wants to preserve his big happy family.”

  I couldn’t tell whether Hartman’s smile was sincere or sardonic. With a salesman you can never be sure.

  I asked him, “Do you know if Clare was having an affair?”

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “No. But it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “She was young, and Samuel is old.”

  “Right. By the way, where were you when she was murdered?”

  He shrugged again. “Home with my wife.”

  A uniformed cop walked in, and the bartender pointed at me.

  “The one time you smoked ice,” I said to Hartman as the cop walked over, “where was it?”

  “Who was involved in the accident?”

  “California,” Hartman said.

  I nodded and stood. “I was.”

  The cop filled out his report, writing down my vague description of the mud-spattered truck. As far as law enforcement went, it was mostly a meaningless ritual.

  When we went outside, there was a tow truck waiting, leering over the Olds like a buzzard over a dead rabbit.

  I rode in the truck to the garage on west Thirty-eighth Avenue where I’d had the Olds put back together just a few months ago. It was run by a guy named Harvey, a small, bald man with Popeye’s forearms.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Harvey said when he saw the car.

  “Don’t worry, I wasn’t hurt.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  It was obvious where his sentiments lay. “How long will it take to fix?”

  He folded his oversized arms and shook his head at the Olds. “Holy fucking shit,” he said sadly.

  Harvey wouldn’t make any promises about cost or time. However, he did say I was in luck; his one loaner was available. Now normally I wouldn’t call a twelve-year-old faded brown Toyota Corolla with a cracked windshield, torn upholstery, and dents in every fender luck. But at least I wouldn’t have to put out cash for a rental.

  “She uses oil,” Harvey said. “Best to check it every few days.”

  I transferred a few things from the Olds’s glove compartment, then rattled away in a cloud of blue smoke.

  CHAPTER 8

  I DROVE HOME AND CALLED Westfall’s office to give him the names I’d found. No answer. My workday was done.

  I probably should’ve been out looking for the flower vendor. But I was beat. I’d done more driving today than I had in months. Plus my nervous system was jumping with aftershocks—I’d come that close to being crushed by that goddamn truck.

  I filled a glass with ice and Jack Daniel’s and thought about the truck.

  I’d had only the briefest view of the front end: mud-spattered grille partially hidden behind an oversized bumper. The bumper was black steel with twin vertical posts, like those on traffic-cop cars, for pushing stalled vehicles. There may have been a crossbar between the posts, too, but I was too busy getting out of the way to study it in detail.

  Nor did I see the driver’s face or even how many people were in the truck as it had crashed on by.

  But there was no denying that the truck looked like Elliot’s from Golden. Although that had to be a coincidence, because there was absolutely no reason for Elliot to want to kill me. At least none that I knew of.

  A knock on the door. It was Vaz.

  “Am I disturbing you, Jacob?”

  “Not at all. Come in.”

  Vaz wore a heavy wool cardigan over his plaid flannel shirt. When you reach your sixties, spring still feels like winter. He had thick arms, a barrel chest, and broad shoulders, plus an oversized head to go with them. His trouser-draped legs, though, were spindly things, products of a childhood disease, ill treated by the village doctor.

  “We haven’t seen much of you since your return from Mexico.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been meaning to stop by.”

  “Good. Because Sophia wants you to come down to dinner this evening. She is cooking a roast.”

  “Sounds great.”

  The Botvinnovs’ apartment was filled with the warm, heavy smell of a simmering roast. It was also filled with furniture, Sophia’s passion. She’d been raised in poverty in Soviet Georgia and now buried the memory with armchairs, ottomans, settees, and occasional tables.

  “Hello, Jacob,” Sophia called from the kitchen.

  I followed Vaz through the maze, past a dining-room table so hemmed in by couches and credenzas that to eat there we’d have to stand up. We entered the relative openness of the kitchen, where the table was set for dinner.

  Sophia gave me a brief but hefty hug, her huge bosom like sofa cushions against my abdomen. I kissed the top of her head.

  “Smells wonderful in here,” I said.

  She nodded and brushed a strand of gray hair from her shiny, f
lushed face. “How have you been, Jacob? We’ve missed you.”

  “Just fine. Sorry I’ve been such a stranger.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Tell me,” she said, attempting to sound offhanded, pulling open the oven door, “are you seeing anyone now?”

  I tried not to smile. Sophia never gave up.

  “Seeing? What do you mean?”

  “Jacob, now you know. Is there presently a young woman in your life?”

  “Sophia,” Vaz cautioned.

  “Vassily, make yourself useful and open the wine,” she snapped.

  He gave me a weak smile and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, Jacob?”

  There had been a woman before Mexico, but it ended almost before it got started. “No, not at present.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she said with meaning.

  And sure enough, during dinner, after I’d told them about Puerto Vallarta and they’d described their warm-weather winter in Phoenix, Sophia said, “By the way, Jacob, I met a very nice young lady the other day in my church group.”

  Vaz groaned.

  Sophia gave him a withering look, then turned a smile on me. “She’s not much older than you and recently divorced. Her husband was a scoundrel. Anyway, she makes wonderful clothes, and I understand that she can cook, too.”

  “Well, I…”

  “Perhaps some evening we will have you both here for dinner?”

  “Well…perhaps.”

  “There,” she said, looking at Vaz in triumph. He raised his brows, closed his eyes, made a face, and shook his head.

  After the meal, Vaz and I helped his wife with the dishes. Then we set up the chessboard and poured brandy, while Sophia retired to the other room to “make some phone calls.” I hoped one of them wasn’t to the church lady.

  “You are working on a case now?” Vaz asked, opening with pawn to queen four.

  “Yes.” I brought out my king’s knight, intending to play the Grunfeld Defense, in which White establishes a strong pawn center and Black hammers away at it. I felt optimistic, confident, possibly because Vaz had removed his queen’s rook from the board. Not that I could beat him with rook odds, but at least the game would last longer. “Possibly my last.”

  “Your last case?” His shaggy eyebrows jumped up like a pair of startled gerbils. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m thinking about a career change.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No.”

  “But why? I thought you enjoyed what you did.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe it’s time to move on to bigger and better things.”

  “Oh. Well, Jacob, change is often beneficial.” He began developing his queen’s side. “What are you going to do?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  He frowned at me. I fianchettoed my king’s bishop and castled.

  “Is there something troubling you, Jacob? Something you’d like to talk about?”

  “Not really.”

  “I see. Well, then, let us hear all about your final case.”

  I smiled at his sarcasm and told him about the murder of Clare Butler. He listened closely, nodding, castling, shoving his center pawns down my throat.

  “It sounds as if you believe Samuel Butler is innocent.”

  “I’m leaning that way,” I said. “Especially after having talked to Winks.”

  “Then who do you believe murdered his wife?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly her lover.”

  “If she had a lover.”

  “According to Butler, she did.”

  “Yes, according to him.”

  “Are you implying he’s lying?”

  “Jacob, I am only offering alternatives.”

  “Right, well, there were no signs of a break-in or struggle, so Clare knew her killer.”

  “A friend.”

  “According to Kenneth Butler, she had no friends.”

  “A relative, then.”

  “There’s a thought,” I said. “Let’s see, there are Samuel’s three children—Kenneth, Karen, and Nicole—plus Wes Hartman and Kenneth’s wife, Doreen.”

  “You include the women?” He invaded my camp with his knight. His queen and dark-squared bishop weren’t far behind.

  “Why not, while we’re speculating.”

  “But would a woman be capable of bashing in someone’s head with a wrench?”

  “If you mean physically, no problem.”

  “And psychologically?”

  “Whoever killed Clare was either crazed or filled with hate,” I said. “Sex wouldn’t matter in the least.”

  “I see. Check.”

  “Shit.”

  It wasn’t long before I resigned. We set up the pieces for another game. I must’ve winced, moving my arm, because Vaz asked me, “Are you in pain?”

  “Just a little sore.” I told him about my accident that afternoon.

  He was horrified. “My God, Jacob, you could have been killed.”

  “Occupational hazard.”

  “That is nothing to joke about.” Then he studied me from beneath heavy brows. “Is this why you want to quit your profession? The danger?”

  “No.”

  “What of this accident? Did it have anything to do with your case?”

  “It was completely unrelated.” I still could think of no reason for Elliot to follow me from Golden and try to run me down. Unless…What if Butler had had an ulterior motive for driving to Golden on the day of the murder? Something involving Elliot…

  “Jacob?”

  “What?”

  “It is your move.”

  CHAPTER 9

  THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up with a stiff back and a sore right arm, remnants from the accident. I loosened up with some stretching exercises and half an hour of sit-ups and push-ups. After a hot shower and a shave, I warmed four bagel halves in the toaster oven, then loaded them with cream cheese, chopped onion, sliced tomato, and smoked salmon.

  I carried my second cup of coffee onto the balcony.

  It was a bright, crisp morning, and the sun felt warm on my face. Two stories below me, in the backyard, old George was manually aerating the lawn. Each time he pushed the long-handled tool into the ground, up would pop two finger-sized plugs of dirt. Mrs. Finch stood nearby, giving him step-by-step instructions, fists on hips, head bobbing like a bird’s.

  I finished my coffee and phoned Oliver Westfall. He wasn’t in his office yet, but his secretary took the information: names and numbers for two of his three witnesses—Randy Stilwell and Russ “Winks” Armbruster.

  I spent the next hour on the phone trying to find out who sold curb-side flowers on South Colorado Boulevard. When I finally found the company—All-City Vendors—they’d cheerfully checked their files for the employee’s name who’d worked the Denny’s parking lot on the fateful afternoon of March sixteenth. Of course, I’d had to lie (by omission). I’d said I was (private) Detective Lomax working (for the accused) on a murder case. They gave me the guy’s address, too.

  The apartment house was just off Thirteenth Street in Capitol Hill.

  It’s a densely populated area, about equally black and white, all equally poor. It has one of the higher crime rates in the city—burglaries, rapes, and drugs. The decent people still outnumbered the scum, though, so most of the buildings were well-tended, with tiny little yards sloping down to the street.

  A lot of the buildings had names as well as numbers. The one I wanted was called Mar-Vista. An inspiration, considering the nearest ocean was two hours away by jet.

  I stood in the stale-smelling vestibule and read the pencilled-in paper tags that were Scotch-taped to the mail boxes. Number 211 listed “Colodny, C. & Marling, P.” I pushed the buzzer a few times, then held it down for a full minute. If no one was home, maybe I’d pop the locks and go up there anyway, just to see if I still had it in me. But then a man answered, his voice furry with sleep and tinny from the intercom.

  “Who is it?”

  “Are you Charle
s Colodny?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  I told him who I was and asked if he’d answer a few questions. “May I come up?”

  “Questions about what?”

  “You may have valuable information concerning a murder.”

  “Murder?” Some of the sleep had gone out of his voice. Not much, though—he still sounded groggy. “Who got murdered?”

  “A woman named Clare Butler.”

  “Clare who?”

  “May I come up, please.”

  A pause, and then he buzzed me in.

  I went up two half-flights of stairs and down a hallway. The carpeting was worn and stained and musty, and the walls needed paint. The door to 211 was already open when I got there.

  The guy standing in the doorway was around twenty, average height, and skinny. His T-shirt was baggy and so were his jeans, the belt-ends flopping unhooked. He was barefoot. His toes were gnarly. But then, whose weren’t?

  “Clare who?” he asked me again. His tone of voice was anxious, but his eyes were droopy, as if he were having trouble keeping them open.

  “Butler. Shall we go inside?”

  “Oh. Sure.”

  The living room and the kitchen were both small, separated by a countertop. The furniture was secondhand, but everything was as neat as if the cleaning lady had just left. Throw pillows were geometrically arranged on the couch, the glass ashtrays were wiped clean, and a few issues of Playboy and Cosmopolitan were squarely stacked on the coffee table. There wasn’t one dirty dish in the kitchen sink.

  “I’ve never heard of Clare Butler,” he said. His face stretched in a yawn; then he squinted and blinked his eyes a few times. He moved nervously from one foot to the other. Maybe they were cold. “Are you sure it’s not Patti you want to talk to?” He glanced nervously behind him. “She’s at work now.”

  “No, Charles, it’s you. You—”

  “Chuck.”

  “Chuck. You sell flowers for All-City Vendors, right? In the Denny’s parking lot on South Colorado Boulevard?”

  “Sure.” He kept glancing over his shoulder.

  “On Saturday, March sixteenth, do you remember a—”

  “Would, ah, would you excuse me a minute?”

  Before I could respond, he left the room, picking up something from the kitchen counter on his way out. He went down a short hall to the bedroom and closed the door behind him.