Otto Penzler - Murder At the Foul Line

The hardest part, really, was getting the two bodies out of the house and into their car, which turned out to be the same Hyundai squareback that had picked him up at the airport. It was parked in the driveway, and the keys were in the Deere cap guy’s pocket.

He could see how it was all going to work out.

“Like we don’t have enough to contend with,” Dot said. “You do everything right and then you get killed by the client. This business isn’t the bed of roses people think it is.”

“Is that what people think?”

“Who knows what people think, Keller? I know what I think. I think you better come home.”

“Not just yet.”

“Oh?”

“One of the fellows gave me a name.”

“Probably his very last words.”

“Just about.”

“And you want to get together with this fellow?”

“I probably won’t be able to,” he said. “My guess is he’ll be overcome by fear or remorse.”

“And he’ll take his own life?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“And it wouldn’t start me crying, I have to tell you that. All right, sure, why not? We can’t let people get away with that crap. Do what you have to do and then come home. We got half in front, and I don’t suppose there’s any way to collect the back half, so-”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Keller said. “I’ve been thinking, and why don’t you see how this sounds to you?”

When Meredith Grondahl pulled into his driveway around five-thirty, Keller was parked halfway down the block at the curb. He got out of the car and stood where he could watch the Grondahl driveway, and after five minutes Grondahl emerged from the house. He’d changed from a suit and tie to sneakers and sweats, and he was dribbling a basketball. He took a shot, missed, took the ball as it came off the backboard, and drove for a layup.

Keller headed up the driveway. Grondahl turned, saw him, and tossed him the ball. Keller shot, missed.

They played for a few minutes, just taking turns trying shots, most of which failed to make it through the hoop. Then Keller sank a fade-away jump shot, surprising both of them, and Grondahl said, “Nice.”

“Luck,” Keller said. “Listen, we should talk.”

“Huh?”

“You had a couple of visitors earlier today. They got into an argument, and they bled all over your rug.”

“My rug.”

“That area rug with the geometric pattern, right when you come into the house.”

“ That’s what was different,” Grondahl said. “The rug wasn’t there. I knew there was something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

“Or your foot.”

“You said there was blood on it?”

“Their blood, and you don’t want that. Anyway, you get a lot of blood on a rug and it’s never the same. So the rug’s not there anymore.”

“And the two men?”

“They’re not there anymore, either.”

Grondahl had been holding the basketball, and now he turned and flipped it at the basket. It hit the rim and bounced away, and neither man made any move toward it.

Grondahl said, “These men. They came into my house?”

“Right through the door over there. They had a key-not the one you keep under the fake rock, either.”

“And then, inside my house, they got into an argument and… killed each other?”

“That’s close enough,” Keller said.

Grondahl thought about it. “I think I get the picture,” he said.

“You probably get as much of the picture as you need to get.”

“That’s what it sounds like. Why did they come here in the first place?”

“They were going to leave an envelope.”

“An envelope.”

“In a desk drawer.”

“And the envelope contained…”

“A motive for a murder.”

“My murder?”

Keller nodded.

“They were going to kill me?”

“Their employer,” Keller said, “had already hired someone else for that job.”

“Who?”

“Some stranger,” Keller said. “Some faceless assassin flown in from out of town.”

Grondahl looked thoughtfully at him, the way one might look at a putative faceless assassin. “But he’s not going to do it,” he said. “At least I don’t think he is.”

“He’s not.”

“Why?”

“Because he happened to learn that once his job was done, they were planning to kill him.”

“And pin everything on the Indy Fi management,” Grondahl said. “I was killed to keep me from giving testimony I never had any thought of giving in the first place. Jesus, it might have worked. I can imagine what must have been in the envelope. Is it still around? The envelope. Or did it disappear along with the two men?”

“The men will turn up eventually,” Keller said. “The envelope is gone forever.”

Grondahl nodded, retrieved the basketball, bounced it a few times. Keller could almost see the wheels turning in the man’s head. He was bright, Keller was pleased to note. You didn’t have to spell things out for him, you gave him the first paragraph and he got the rest of the page on his own.

“I owe you,” Grondahl said.

Keller shrugged.

“I mean it. You saved my life.”

“I was saving my own at the time,” Keller pointed out.

“When the two of them, uh, had their accident, I’ll concede that was in your own self-interest. But you could have just walked away. And you certainly didn’t have to show up here and fill me in. Which leads to a question.”

“Why am I here?”

“If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Well, actually,” Keller said, “I have a couple of questions of my own.”

“I think I get it,” Dot said. “This is a new thing for me, Keller. I wrote it down, and I’m going to read it back to you, to make sure I’ve got it all straight.”

She did, and he told her she had it right.

“That’s a miracle,” she said, “because it was a little like taking dictation in a foreign language. I’ll take care of it tomorrow. Can I do it all in a day?”

“Probably.”

“Then I will. And you’ll be…”

“Biding my time in Indianapolis. I switched motels, by the way.”

“Good.”

“And found the bug they put on my bumper, and switched it to the bumper of another Ford the same color as mine.”

“That should muddy the waters nicely.”

“I thought so. So I’ll do what I have to do, and then I’ll be a couple of days driving home.”

“Not to worry,” she said. “I’ll leave the porch light on for you.”

It was a full week later when Keller drove his rented Toyota through the Lincoln Tunnel and found his way to the National garage, where he turned it in. He went home, unpacked his bag, and spent two full hours working on his stamp collection before he picked up the phone and called White Plains.

“Come right on up,” Dot said, “so I can turn the light off. It’s attracting moths.”

In the kitchen of the house on Taunton Place, Dot poured him a big glass of iced tea and told him they’d done very well indeed. “I was wondering at first,” she said, “because I bought a big chunk of Indy Fi, and the first thing it did was go down a couple of points. But then it turned around and went back up again, and the last I checked it’s up better than ten points from when I bought it. I bought options, too, for increased leverage. I don’t understand how they work exactly, but I was able to buy them, and this morning I sold them, and do you want to know exactly how much we made on them?”

“It doesn’t have to be exact.”

She told him, down to the last decimal point, and it was a satisfying number.