Ed Gorman - Night Kills

Foster found a phone booth. He went inside and closed the door. Then, as an afterthought, he opened the door again and checked out the booths on either side of him.

Back in his own booth again, the door closed, he deposited thirty-five cents, looked up the number of the downtown police department, and placed his call.

When the receptionist answered, Foster asked for Homicide. "Anybody in particular?"

"No, sir." Foster had a handkerchief over the receiver. An old trick, to be sure, but an effective one.

"Then you can talk to me. I'm Sergeant Inspector Nordengren."

"All right" He paused.

"What is it you'd like to tell me, sir?"

"About a murder."

"About a murder?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, what about a murder?"

"There's a dead woman in the freezer."

"I see. And where would this be?"

Foster gave the man Brolan's address.

"And would you know how she got there?" the detective asked.

"I think so."

"And how would that be?"

"He put her there."

"He?"

"The man who lives there."

"Ah. And would he possibly also be the man who murdered her?"

"I don't want to say any more. I've said enough already."

"But-"

"I've been a good citizen. Now I just want to forget about it." And with that he hung up.

He imagined Inspector Sergeant Nordengren was going to be quite busy the rest of that evening.

Around six o'clock, just as dusk was becoming black night, and snow flurries began to increase, and the winds from the north-west cranked up several miles per hour, Brolan pulled up in front of Greg Wagner's duplex. He had spent two dollars in change trying to locate Stu Foster by phone, trying the office again, Foster's home, and several downtown bars where Foster liked to go. Nothing.

Denise answered the door. She wore a bulky blue pullover sweater that he suspected belonged to Greg. The jeans he recognized from the previous night. She had her blonde hair tied in a ponytail with a red Christmas ribbon. She looked younger and even prettier than she had before.

"You look like a guy who could use a straight shot of hot chocolate," Wagner said. Behind him the TV was rolling into the six o'clock news. It was the usual team of hair-sprayed and lacquered TV news people.

"Yeah, I could," Brolan said, sitting down on the edge of the couch, pawing at his face with a big hand. He frowned at Wagner. "I figured out who killed Emma."

"What?" Wagner, whose attention had been drifting to the news, snapped his head back in Brolan's direction.

Brolan nodded. "My partner. Foster."

"Then the envelopes make sense."

"What envelopes?" Brolan said.

First Wagner told him about the videotape showing various men in the same hotel room at different times with different women (including Emma), and then he told him about the envelopes Emma had received each month from Foster. Just as he was finishing his explanation, Denise said, "Look, Frank." Brolan switched his attention to the screen. A reporter in a trench coat stood screen left with a microphone, while in the background there was a night shot of Brolan's house. Red emergency lights flashed blood-red in the gloom. Bundled-up neighbours stood watching fascinated as a large, boxy ambulance backed up to the side door.

The reporter said: "… At which time, about an hour ago, police were notified by an anonymous caller that a body could be found in the freezer downstairs. Police, who've been in the house, have now confirmed that this is indeed the case. Repeating: A body has been recovered from a chest-type freezer in the basement of a suburban Minneapolis home. Police also confirm that the body is that of a young woman. So far there has been no identification."

"I'm dead," Brolan said. "He's set it up perfectly."

Wagner snapped off the TV set. "Why would Foster do this to you?"

"I'm not sure exactly, but I think I know somebody who might be able to tell me." He took the hot chocolate Denise carried over to him. "Charles Lane. Somehow he ties in to all this." Brolan felt his stomach knot, felt acid sear his stomach lining and oesophagus. His mind kept returning to the screen-the reporter grim, the emergency lights flashing off the otherwise unremarkable white house. There was no way the police would believe his story of merely storing the body in the basement until he could find out who had killed her…

Wagner said, "If I say something, will you promise not to get mad? I'm just trying to help."

Denise stood next to Wagner's wheelchair, her arm hanging loosely around his shoulder.

"I'll be happy to listen," Brolan said, trying to keep his eyes from the TV screen.

"How about calling that detective and telling him the truth?" Wagner said.

"An hour ago that might have worked," Brolan said. "But now that they've found the body-" He sighed, dropped his head into his hands. Then, abruptly, angry at Foster for having set him up so elaborately, he raised his head and said, "I'm going to see Charles Lane."

Wagner nodded to the TV. "The police will be looking for you now."

"I know." Brolan stood up. "But right now I don't have any choice but to risk it."

Wagner said, "Somehow you've got to get Foster to confess."

"Maybe I could just write a confession for him, and he'd sign it?" Brolan was immediately sorry for the undue sarcasm of his tone. "Sorry, Greg."

"If we could just figure out some way to smoke him out." Brolan smiled bitterly. "Well, if you come up with any brainstorms, let me know." He glanced around the duplex. The place looked comfortable. He'd planned to stay here a while, relax, figure out what to do next. The live TV report changed all that, of course.

Denise said, "Maybe I've got a brainstorm."

"What's that?" Wagner said.

"What if I call Foster and tell him I'm the girl he tried to kill Wednesday night, and that I want him to bring me some money tonight, or I go to the police?"

Brolan shook his head. "If you saw what he did to Emma, you wouldn't want to get anywhere near him. You're lucky to be alive as it is." He nodded to Wagner. "I don't want to have to worry about her," Brolan said. "Just make sure she doesn't do anything stupid. All right?"

Wagner patted Denise's hand on his shoulder. "She'll be fine." Brolan said, "I appreciate your trying to help me, Denise." She sounded young and defensive and hurt. "I was just trying to-"

Brolan leaned over and kissed her on the forehead and gave her a hug. "I know what you were trying to do, Denise. And I appreciate it, I really do. But I'm going to have to handle things this way. All right?"

She sighed and returned his hug. "Good luck, Frank." Then he was gone, back into the cold, dark night.

The motel didn't have much style, but its three sections stood angled against the night, offering, at the very least, comfort from the screaming wind and the biting snow. Snow was starting to pile up on the slanting red roofs and in the parking lot. Already several cars looked as if they would be buried till a snowplough came and started earnest work. People bent their heads into the whipping wind and ran from their cars to their respective sections and rooms.

Brolan stood in the blast of snow, finishing his cigarette and staring in the motel's front-office window. He was freezing, but somehow the cold only made him all the more resolute about dealing with Charles Lane and then with his partner, Stu Foster. He flipped his cigarette into the wind, which promptly slammed it, tossing and turning, against the rear end of a canary-yellow Buick with a JESUS LIVES! sticker on its bumper.

In the office Brolan went up to the counter. A man in a blue cardigan and a blue button-down shirt and a red-and-blue holiday bow tie stood watching him. The man was white-haired and wore rimless glasses. He was probably sixty. He was applying chapstick to his somewhat prim mouth. There was something obscene about this to Brolan, as if it were a dirty secret the man should not be so willing to share with others.