Ed Gorman - Voodoo Moon

I went over to the phone. Male voice. "Yes?"

"Would you connect me with the police station please?"

"Sure. Everything all right?"

"Everything's fine. I just need to contact the chief."

A minute lapsed. A voice identified the police station. "My name's Robert Payne. Susan Charles is expecting to see me in about twenty minutes. I wondered if you could give me her home number."

"I can't give out the number," the dispatcher said. "But I can call her at home and have her call you back."

"That'd be fine."

"She had some trouble last year. Somebody making obscene calls to her. Took six months to find the guy. So she's gone unlisted since then."

"Don't blame her." I gave him the phone number of the motel and my room number.

The phone rang a few minutes later. "Chickened out, huh?"

"There's a dead man in my room."

"God," she said, "I'm sorry. You know who he is?"

"No."

"Or how he got there?"

"No."

"Or who might have killed him?"

"No."

"You're just the kind of witness cops dream of."

"I don't know the drill out here, Susan. But we'll need the whole nine yards."

"The SBI, too?" Meaning the State Bureau of Investigation, which could get here from Cedar Rapids quickly, and which would have a van or two loaded with all the appropriate high tech crime tools.

"Absolutely."

"So much for bowling."

"I guess so."

"You didn't by any chance kill him yourself, did you?"

"No."

"Good," she said. Then, "See you in a few minutes."

I dressed quickly.

They came in groups. First the cops. Then the motel staff. Then the motel guests. Then the teenagers. Then the adults.

I've never resented crime scene crowds the way some law enforcement people do. A natural reaction, to be drawn to the scene of death. As the Irish say, when you go to a funeral you're preparing yourself for your own demise, too. Rehearsal, if you will.

This crowd was well-behaved. Nobody tried to push through the demarcation lines of yellow tape. Nobody bugged the two deputies or the ambulance attendants or the whiskery little man who turned out to be the coroner. They just stood and watched and talked among themselves on the pleasant autumn night, the rumble and roar of semis on the nearby interstate being the loudest sound. I kept looking for Tandy and Laura, or even Noah Chandler, but they were nowhere around.

I was the guest of honor.

Susan Charles, in crisp white blouse and jeans, led me to an empty motel room, sat me down in a chair, had one of the deputies get us both Diet Pepsis, and proceeded to question me. She wrote things down in a small black notebook.

"So you don't know who he is?"

"Right. And you don't either?"

"Whoever killed him took his wallet. No ID whatsoever."

"Damn."

"And you have no idea how he got in your room?"

"Right."

"And you never saw him before?"

"Wrong."

"You saw him before?"

"Once."

A knock. Our Diet Pepsis. It tasted ridiculously good.

I said, "This afternoon." I told her the circumstances. "Tell your people to start looking at the green Ford with Illinois plates in the parking lot. I noticed it when I pulled in earlier."

"You think he was following you?"

"Possibly."

"Why?"

"Why would he follow me, you mean?"

"Right."

"No idea."

"You have any idea where your friends are?"

"If you mean the West sisters, I was kind of looking around for them myself."

"Or Noah Chandler."

"He's probably with them. But I have no idea where."

"You came out here because of them. If the man in your room was following you, it probably had to do with them."

"That's sort of what I was thinking."

"So he has something to do with the Rick Hennessy case."

"Maybe," I said. "A celebrity like Tandy, there could be a lot of people after her for a lot of different reasons."

"You're probably right. We don't get many celebrities out here."

"Consider yourself lucky."

She sat on the edge of the double bed across from me. She looked beautiful and sweet in the light from the lamp. The soft light dulled the redness of her scar and made it less noticeable.

The phone rang. She picked it up, said hello, listened. Then held the phone out to me. "For you."

"Me?" I stood up to take the call.

She nodded. "The Chicago Police Department."

Brady. "What's going on? A cop answered your room phone."

"I'll explain later." I smiled at Susan. She didn't smile back.

"Turns out I had to check a license number myself. Some bastard sideswiped my daughter in a supermarket parking lot. Broad daylight. Guy's drunk out of his mind. Luckily, Cindy got his license number. So I checked out your guy while I was at it."

"And?"

"Private investigator name of DeWayne Kibbe."

"How was his record?"

"Was?"

"He's why a cop answered my room phone."

"He's dead?"

"Unless he's awful good at faking, he is."

"You have all the fun, Robert. His record was clean."

"He part of an agency?"

"Freelancer. But most of those boys hire out to the big agencies all the time. The agencies like the setup because they don't have to pay any bennies."

"You got a phone number for the guy?"

He dragged out his yellow pages. Gave me the phone number. "You have an address?"

"You don't want much, do you, Robert?"

"His address'll tell me something about how well his business was doing."

"You should be a detective. It's a lot of fun. We've got a secret handshake and everything."

He gave me the address. It wasn't exactly what you'd call tony.

"How about one more favor?"

"I won't mow your lawn."

"See if he's listed in the residences."

"You should be mowing my lawn." There was a pause while he looked it up. "Sorry this is taking so long."

Susan Charles said, "He was a private investigator?"

"Right."

"Here you go, Robert." He gave me the address and phone number. "I've got to haul ass out of here. I've got Cub Scouts with my youngest kid tonight."

After hanging up, I said, "He was a long way from Chicago."

"He certainly was."

This time, I didn't sit down. "I didn't kill him."

"You probably didn't."

"There's a ringing endorsement."

"I can't rule it out."

"No, I suppose you can't."

She stood up. "I'd better get back to your room and see what's going on. The SBI boys will be wondering where I am. They like to write nasty things about local police chiefs whenever possible."

"Sounds like a love affair."

"They're helpful but arrogant."

"That's what city cops used to say about the bureau."

She smiled. "And it was probably true."

"It probably was."

She walked to the window. Peeked out between the curtains.

"It's starting to look like the county fair out there." She turned back to me. "This is the second homicide since Rick Hennessy killed Sandy. Before that, we didn't have a homicide for six years."

"I suppose you'll want me to stick around for a day or two?"

She seemed surprised. "I thought you were working with your good friends the witches."

Her tone irritated me. "If you mean Tandy, she's a very serious person. She actually has psychic gifts. I can't explain them and she can't either. But I've seen them work so I believe in them."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you had a crush on her."

I thought of how infatuated I'd been with Susan this afternoon. There was a divide between us now, and it seemed to widen by the minute.

"No crush," I said. "I just wanted to keep the facts straight."

"I hope you'll defend me like that sometime. I like that kind of loyalty, Robert. I really do." Then, "Sorry if I was nasty."