Murder in the Hearse Degree (34 page)

She was quick. Quicker than I.

“Shit!”

Cindy swung at me and a stiletto heel caught me directly in the temple. I saw yellow. And damn her little hide, before I could react she cracked me a second time. Harder. Then, with a nifty balance of power (in my automatic reflex I had leaned away from the flailing shoes), she shoved me in the chest and I fell backward off the step and into a perfectly squared off shrubbery. The bush seemed to open up and take me in like a hungry animal. For an instant all I saw were my own shoes and a pink shred of cloud in a pale blue sky. I batted with my arms but got no immediate purchase; in fact I only seemed to sink that much lower into the bush. Failing in my second attempt to lift myself up, I instead rolled sideways and spilled out onto the grass.

Cindy was halfway down the block, kicking as high as her skintight leather pants would allow. I scrambled to my feet and gave chase. After a night camping out in the car my muscles weren’t ready to fire on all burners. Lighter, more lithe, and fueled by adrenaline, Cindy was beating me in the sprint. At the corner she left the sidewalk and cut across somebody’s yard onto the next street. I called out.

It had no effect. Why should it? I followed her course across the yard, and as I did I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. Glancing quickly over my shoulder I saw that it was Mr. Bathrobe. His arms were moving like pistons and he was coming up fast.
My
adrenaline kicked in and I galloped to the sidewalk. Cindy was some twenty or thirty feet in front of me. Her hair was flying all over the place. She turned and saw that I was gaining on her. I could hear the huff and puff of the guy behind me and I knew that
he
was gaining.

Cindy suddenly veered right and bolted down an alley. I romped after her. She cut to her left, next to a garage, and slammed her hands against a metal gate. It was a gamble. And it paid off, for the gate flew open and she dashed into a backyard. The gate swung back and smacked my knees but it didn’t slow me down. I threw an arm, hoping I could catch the gate and swing it closed behind me, but I missed it altogether. Cindy veered onto the grass then hesitated for just a fraction as she scanned for the way out to the front. She cut back toward the garage and that’s when I leapt. My leap was compromised by a metal swing set that Cindy’s cutback had placed between us. But once I was airborne there was nothing I could do about it. I rattled the chains as I went, but stupid luck was with me. I cleared the swing set and got my arms around Cindy’s waist—such as it was—just as I was returning to earth. She came down with me, the both of us
oomph
ing as we hit. A second later Mr. Bathrobe piled on.

“Wait!” I cried out. Cindy was trying to squirm free but I had a good hold on her and I wasn’t about to let go. Mr. Bathrobe grunted as he clawed at my arms. “Wait!” I cried again.

Cindy snarled, “Let . . . me . . . fucking . . .
go
!”

Mr. Bathrobe seconded her. “Let her go!”

“Let
me
go!” With the strength of ten Hitchcocks I somehow managed to shrug the man off of me and at the same time clamber to my feet, taking Cindy with me. I still had her around the waist. She was completely off the ground and kicking her legs like a classic damsel in distress. I pivoted so that as the guy in the bathrobe got up off the ground I could use Cindy’s flailing legs to keep him at bay. A door opened in the house and a black dog bounded into the yard and ran up to us barking its fool head off. The dog was followed by a teenage boy and his mother, who came out onto the grass and stood with their mouths hanging open. The resemblance between the two was striking.

And there we were.

I wish I had a picture of it.

The untangling took some work.

After her snarling
“Let me down!”
about a dozen times, I had finally lowered Cindy to the ground, maintaining a firm grip around her arm so that she didn’t dash off again. Now that I was up close and personal I could see a faraway look in Cindy’s eyes, or more specifically in her pupils. The whites of her eyes . . . well, they weren’t white, they were nearly as pink as her sweater. She was throwing defiant looks all over the backyard. Her aim seemed distinctly off. Her pretty brown hair smelled of tobacco and stale beer.

The man in the bathrobe demanded to know what was going on.

“He’s trying to kill me!” Cindy snapped.

“Slow down,” I said. “I’m not trying to kill anybody.”

The adrenaline was still running through Mr. Bathrobe. “Do you want me to call the police?”

Cindy’s scowl did not seem a particularly fervent endorsement of the idea. The dog had stopped barking now and was standing with an expectant look on its face. Its owners hadn’t yet uttered a word.

“It’s just a misunderstanding,” I said to the assemblage. “I just wanted to have a talk with Miss Lehigh here. I didn’t mean to scare her.”

The woman finally spoke. “Are you okay, honey?”

“He’s going to kill me,” Cindy said again, though with a lot less fervor than the first time.

“Josh, go call the police,” the woman said to her son. But the boy had pretty much settled down to just staring at the girl in the leather pants. He didn’t budge.

“There’s no real need for that,” I said. I released Cindy and took a step back from her. “But if you want to, go right ahead. I have no problem with the police.” I turned to Cindy. “I’m a friend of Libby Gellman’s. I’m trying to find out what happened to Sophie Potts. That’s all. If you want to bring the police in, just say it.”

Cindy was studying my face. Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. . . .

“Why were you sneaking up on me?”

“I wasn’t sneaking. You just didn’t hear me.”

“You scared the hell out of me.”

“And you
beat
the hell out of me.” I put my finger to my temple. A nice welt was on the rise.

I could see Cindy’s gears cranking a few clicks. She muttered something under her breath then marched off toward the alley.

“Rain check,” I said to the woman. Her son seemed disappointed to see Cindy leaving. Nothing like a spitfire in leather pants in the backyard to give your morning that extra little pop. I followed after Cindy. The guy in the bathrobe pulled up beside me as I reached the alley.

“What am I missing here?” he asked.

We followed some twenty feet behind Cindy as she marched back up the street. I don’t know precisely when it became fashionable for women to forgo shape of any kind, but I’m going on record right here to say that it can cease any old time now. Mr. Bathrobe and I were essentially following a leather-and-pink-clad pipe cleaner. Cindy didn’t even bother to acknowledge her hero as he veered off and returned to his house. She hesitated at the front steps as I came up the walk. Okay, I thought. We’ve been here before. I eyed the shoe in her hand.

“What exactly do you want?” she asked.

I reached deep into my very being to locate the most honest answer I could find.

“Right now? Truthfully? Breakfast.”

Cindy insisted on a public place. I assumed she didn’t mean the median strip on 695. We took two cars. I followed her, ready at an instant to go on a wild ride . . . but she played it straight. We went to the Bel-Loc Diner, which is a glass and aluminum place that looks like a Jetsons-era spaceship, perched at the point where Loch Raven Boulevard runs steeply downhill to the Beltway. We took a booth in the rear and our waitress took our order. She was a Baltimore classic. Beehive hairdo, gnomish grandmotherly face, as friendly as pie.

Cindy Lehigh was not as friendly as pie.

“You cleaned out Cap’n Henry’s till,” I said to her as soon as our waitress had gone off with our order.

“You can’t prove that.”

“That’s not my job to prove,” I said. “You also stole from the Gellmans.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Spare me, Cindy. You’re a little thief. I’d say that much is pretty well documented.”

“Why’s any of this your business anyway?” she asked.

I ignored the question. There was no question that Cindy’s was the voice on Nick Fallon’s tape.

“Whose house is that where you’re staying?” I asked her. “I know you haven’t paid Paula rent for the last two months. I doubt very much that you’re ponying up for this place.”

She flushed red. “Did Paula tell you how to find me?”

“She didn’t. Don’t blame her. Blame me. I tricked her. So whose house is it?”

“It’s not important,” she said.

“In that case just tell me.”

“James.”

“And who is James?”

“James is Paula’s brother.”

“I see. Well . . . nice guy letting you stay at his place.”

“He
is
a nice guy,” she said. “So what?”

“So nothing,” I said.

We sat in silence tossing hostile vibes across the table until our food arrived. I looked on my lumberjack breakfast and nearly wept. I was ravenous. So was Cindy. She had ordered the same thing. Yes, sir, just a couple of good old lumberjacks. We dug in. Cindy ate exactly twice as fast as I did. I don’t know where she put it. Jittery metabolism, I guess. By the time I was halfway done Cindy had vacuumed her plate clean.

“Would you like a little sirloin steak to follow up?” I asked.

“I was hungry. Jesus Christ. What’s your problem?”

I skidded my plate to the side and put my elbows up on the table. My appetite would have to wait.

“Why don’t you explain to me why you thought I was going to kill you back there,” I said.

“I told you. You scared me.”

“Not good enough, Cindy. Why should someone stroll up to you in the middle of Rogers Forge first thing in the morning and try to kill you? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

“It can happen.”

“Sure it can happen. But it’s not what usually happens. You were scared well before I showed up. What gives, Cindy? You dropped right off the screen a couple of weeks ago. Something tells me you’ve been looking over your shoulder ever since. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t have to talk to you.”

I picked up my coffee cup and took a bitter sip. “That’s a fact. We can go on down to Annapolis together and you can talk to the police if you’d like to do that. If you’d rather not, I can always just give them a call and put them onto you. It makes no real difference to me.”

She sat back in the booth and roped her arms. She glared at me. Finally she said, “I’m sorry about your head.”

Gingerly I touched the welt on my head. “I’m sorry about it, too.”

Cindy had turned her head and was gazing out the window. Her tough act was pretty good, but I could see that it wasn’t all that securely in place. She squinted, looking out the window at absolutely nothing of consequence. Her lip was trembling.

“Listen to me. I’m not looking to get you in trouble, Cindy. Believe me, that’s not my agenda here.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m going to ask you a question,” I said. “You can lie your little heart out if you want to. Whether or not I believe you is a whole different thing, but I’m going to ask it anyway.”

“What?”

“Did you have anything to do with the murder of Sophie Potts?”

She continued staring out the window—unflinching—almost as if she hadn’t heard me. I waited. Her lip was still trembling and her breath seemed a little short. The tough girl act was crumbling. She stared out at the gray parking lot as if she wanted to melt into it. She looked tired.

I asked her again. Gently. “Come on, Cindy. Did you have anything to do with Sophie’s death?”

She tried for one more blast of defiance, but she was out of fuel. Her answer came out in a harsh whisper.

“I think so.”

 

I used Paula’s cell phone to call Julia as I headed down to Fell’s Point. I was hoping to catch Fallon.

“Is he there?” I asked when Julia picked up.

“Well, it
looks
like him.”

“Funny. Don’t let him leave.”

Twenty minutes later I found a parking spot on Bond Street and came around the corner to Julia’s place. Fallon was looking downright sheepish and not a little pale. He was up in Julia’s studio, laid out on one of her butterfly chairs. I wasn’t sure he could move.

“She’s lethal,” he murmured.

From the back of the studio I could hear Julia humming happily in her shower.

“Jack Barton,” I said. “What’s his story? What’s his connection with Crawford Larue? You told me once.”

“They’re old cronies from their horse-breeding days. When Crawford got out of prison it was Jack Barton who got him set up in Washington. Barton had the strings to pull.”

“Well, it looks like Big Jack exacted a pretty revolting price for his help.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Sugar Jenks. Sugar Larue, actually. Jack Barton’s been having his way with the girl since she was sixteen.”

“What?”
Fallon failed in his attempt to get out of the chair, but with a second effort he managed to sit up in it. “What in the world are you talking about? Jack Barton? Are you sure?”

I pulled Nick’s cassette tape from my pocket. “That’s what your anonymous call was all about.”

“You found the girl.”

“Cindy. Yes, I did.”

“And she told you this?”

“It seems Big Jack had a thing for Crawford’s daughter. From the sound of it, Crawford conveniently looked the other way. He let his old crony have carte blanche with the girl.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Exactly. Not a terribly ARK way to behave.”

“The hell with that,” Fallon said. “It’s not a terribly human way to behave.”