Stuart Kaminsky - He Done Her Wrong

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” I said.

“For they shall inherit the pieces,” he replied. “Go on in. Wait. This is a dumb question but I’ll ask it for the record. Did you kill that Grayson in Plaza Del Lago?”

“No,” I said, plunging my hands in my pockets and dancing out of the way of Veldu and the Mexican kid, who was waltzing toward the private interrogation room in the far corner.

Seidman went back to reading his file, and I knocked on Phil’s office door.

“Come in,” he said. In I went.

Phil was seated at his desk. His back was turned, and he was scratching his steely-haired head as he had done for the past thirty years. I closed the door and eased into one of the two chairs on the other side of the desk. His office was no bigger than mine back at the Farraday. His window had an even worse view. He admired the brick wall across the way for a few more seconds, scratched his head once more, and turned to me, folding his hands in front of him on the desk. His eyes were red, and gray stubble covered his face. He’d look better in a beard, but cops couldn’t have beards.

“O.K., what have you got for me?” he said.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the bronze Alcatraz, and placed it on the desk in front of him. He looked down at it without unfolding his hands. I looked at it too.

“This is-” he started.

“Alcatraz,” I finished. “A present, a paperweight. I used to have it in my office. Got it from an ex-con named Maloney who did time on the Rock. Thought it would look better in here. Maybe you could refer to it when you wanted to sweat a grumpy killer.”

Phil’s right eye closed slightly trying to assess the joke. He was capable of heaving the thing at me or picking it up, leaping over the desk, and beating me with it.

“Thanks,” he said.

It wasn’t going to be easy to get a rise out of my brother this day.

“How are Ruth and the kids?” I tried. That usually bothered him.

“Fine. We were supposed to have a picnic today.” He looked out the window. Thunder crackled up the coast. “Sunday. What the hell. Did you kill Grayson?”

“No.”

Phil scratched his head again and opened the file in front of him. It was my thick file, already fingerprint-stained and frayed at the corners. The basics were there. I’d been in and out of trouble for a dozen years, though no more than other private eyes.

Phil looked up from the file and glanced at our father’s watch on my wrist. It said four o’clock. It was getting better all the time, no more than seven hours off.

“O.K.,” Phil sighed. “Woman named Delores Grayson says you drove out to Plaza Del Lago yesterday looking for her father. She tried to keep you from seeing him, but you got away from her in her kitchen and went looking for him. She was scared but followed up a few seconds later. She found you in the old man’s bedroom. The guy was dead and you were ready to clobber her with a radio. You forced her into the living room, made her sit, and you ran for the door and beat it. How does that sound to you?”

“Like Hansel and Gretel,” I said. “Her name isn’t Grayson. It’s Ressner. I was looking for her father, her real father, Jeffrey Ressner, the guy I think tried to put the hand on our friend Mae West. He was in the house. She tried to keep me from seeing him. When I got to the bedroom, Grayson was already skewered. I told Delores to call the cops, and I went for Ressner, who pulled out in a Packard, California 1942 license plate thirty-four fifty-seven. I went after him till my car died. Hell, it committed suicide. Delores Ressner is trying to protect her nut father.”

“You didn’t see Ressner kill Grayson?” Phil said, reaching up to his neck to loosen his tie, but it was already loose and hanging around his shoulders.

“I didn’t even see Ressner clearly when he took off in the Packard,” I said.

“The Packard belongs to the Graysons,” he said. “It’s missing. I’ll get the state police to talk to Delores. This isn’t my case, Toby. It’s the state police. I’ll put them off a day or two if they can’t break Delores, but then you’ll have to talk to them. You think he’ll go for Mae?”

“He’s a wacko, Phil. I don’t know what he’ll do, but I’ll get on it. Can you put anyone on her to be sure?”

“Out of my district if she stays at the ranch. And I just don’t have the reasons.”

“Maybe I can get Jeremy to be a houseguest at the ranch till I track Ressner down,” I said.

Phil looked down and nodded.

“Hell, Phil, this is damned depressing. It’s like Thanksgiving when we were kids and you and I would declare a truce long enough to go for the turkey wishbone. I’d wish for a Tris Speaker glove or a million bucks.”

“And I’d wish to be a cop,” he said.

We sat silently in the room for about two minutes listening to the chicken yard outside the thin wooden partition. I was trying to think of an insult to get Phil going again when Seidman pushed open the door without knocking.

“Veldu’s prisoner just had an accident,” he said evenly. “Fell down in the interrogation room. He’s out. Doesn’t look so good.”

“Coming,” said Phil, pushing back from the desk. “Call the hospital. Have them send an ambulance just in case.”

“Already did,” Seidman said, closing the door.

Phil eased his cop’s gut around the desk and took one lumbering step to the door. I got up behind him.

“Phil,” I whispered. “Face it. You’re getting too old for this stuff.”

His elbow shot back and caught me in the stomach, taking my wind with a gasp. He grabbed me by the neck before I sunk to the floor and pulled our faces even closer together than Veldu and the kid had been.

“Listen, brother of mine,” he hissed. I could smell the morning coffee on his breath, see life coming to his eyes. “There’s a line you don’t go over. Never. You just put your foot on it. Now back away.” He shook me a little and stood me up. “You’ve got two days. That’s all I can hold the state cops for. Then they get your hind end.”

He let me go and I took one step backward, pulling in air and holding the wall to keep from falling. Seidman stepped back in and looked at me.

“You all right?” he said.

“Couldn’t be better,” I gasped.

“You woke him up,” Seidman said, nodding his head toward where my brother had departed.

“It’s surprising what you can accomplish with a little brotherly love and battery acid on your tongue,” I sputtered, holding my stomach.

Seidman hurried off, and I staggered to the door and out. The walk through the squad room was long. I didn’t want to hold my stomach, and I didn’t feel like getting into a conversation about sugar rationing.

I put one hand on a desk to steady myself before making the last half-dozen steps to the door. It turned out to be Cawelti’s always neat and polished desk, and his thin voice whispered in my ear, “Get your fingers off my desk or you’re going to be a one-handed typist.”

I got my fingers off, looked at him, crossed my eyes, and gave him a Harpo Marx gookie face. Cawelti’s face turned bright red, the red in a ripe sugar beet or a Walt Disney cartoon. His holster bounced with the rapid beating of his heart as he stood up.

The two women, one with the black eye and the other with the ear bandage, paused with the wino to look at us. I turned my back and walked to the door, expecting a bullet, another dent in my skull, or teeth in my neck.

“It’s coming to you soon, Peters,” Cawelti said.

“I understand your draft notice is in the mail, John,” I said, opening the door. “We’ll all miss you.” And out I went.

It had, so far, been one beautiful morning and the day had just begun. When I got down to the desk, Coronet was talking to the sailor, who was now awake.