Archer Mayor - Scent of Evil

I turned to Sammie. “The silencer is ours, since it’s illegal in this state, but we’re going to have to get a judge in on the rest of it. See if you can round one up, will you?”

“Roger,” she said, and headed out to the hall to find a phone.

Borrowing a pair of gloves from J.P., I carefully began sifting through the rest of the documents, feeling as I did that I was being slowly sucked under by the intrigue and anguish that Buddy Schultz had set in motion. What he’d secreted in the desk was more than just the ammunition we’d seen him use, like the bank account and the blackmail of Jackson. There were other items, little gems whose potential spoke for themselves, like the copy of a receipt for the watch Rose had bought Charlie. It hadn’t been used-the planting of the watch among John’s socks had done the trick-but obviously Buddy was a man who liked more than one option at his disposal.

The material concerning Jackson was less blatant. I had to make assumptions in order to piece it all together, and then I knew I’d have to talk to Jackson to have it all make total sense.

I stuck my head out into the hallway again. “George?”

George Capullo, the senior shift man here, appeared from around a corner. “What’s up?”

“Pick up Luman Jackson at his home and bring him here, would you?”

“Just like that? What makes you think he’s not going to piss on my boot?”

“Tell him I’ve got the paperwork that’s been costing him so much. And do it code-three. I want him here now.”

“You got it.”

Sammie gestured to me from the kitchen. She was holding the receiver of a wall phone in one hand. “I’ve got Harrowsmith,” she mouthed soundlessly.

I took the phone and began talking. Harrowsmith, for all his intimidating ways, was a cop’s judge. His demeanor, helped by the enormous hawk nose and bushy eyebrows, imparted a fierceness he was well capable of demonstrating, but it was only provoked by sloppiness. It was his desire to see the bad guys in jail that stimulated him to be tough on us, for he knew that if the case was lost in court, or never got there to begin with, it was usually because we’d screwed up our homework.

Twenty minutes later I’d made my case and had received his official sanction. He’d made it clear, however, that to really make him happy, we should make every effort to locate the only item that did appear in the written warrant: the ever-elusive curare.

I saw flashing lights draw up to the house through the open front door. As I walked through the house to greet my reluctant visitor, Tyler’s voice drifted up the basement stairs. “We’re off the hook; I just found a couple of the bottles, plus I’m pretty sure the dirt down here will match the samples I got off Jardine’s shoes.”

I poked my head through the door. “Great; what was the vet’s count on the total missing?”

“Four.”

“Okay, assuming one was used on Jardine, that leaves one more to find.”

Tyler, the wind strong in his sails, sounded optimistic. “We got a couple of rooms left to go.”

My own good mood was further enhanced as I stepped outside. The air was cooling down rapidly, bringing with it the return of the grouchy, brittle, northern weather we knew so well. I took the first deep breath I’d allowed myself in over a week.

Capullo nodded to me as I approached the car. “I told him to sit tight; figured you two would enjoy the privacy.”

“Thanks.”

Luman Jackson was sitting bolt upright in the rear of the patrol car. He glared at me as I entered and settled down next to him. “What the hell do you mean by rousting me in the middle of the night and having me dragged over here with some nonsensical threat note?”

“If it was nonsensical you wouldn’t be here,” I said flatly. “You came of your own free will. Look, we have two ways of doing this: We can either chat here and now, and get everything out in the open so we can do our best to save your butt on the murder charge, or you can pretend to be outraged and above it all and watch James Dunn turn you into a roman candle, with Stanley Katz lighting the fuse.”

“You are threatening me,” he said in a shocked voice.

I remembered the name I’d read in Buddy’s private document collection. “Who was Cheryl Jacobson?”

He didn’t actually stiffen, but I felt as if he’d suddenly turned to cement.

I waited and finally put my hand on the door handle.

“She was a student of mine.” His voice was a monotone.

I arrested my faked exit. “When?”

“Many years ago.”

I remembered the scuttlebutt I’d heard from Ron at our meeting at the Quality Inn. “You got her in trouble?”

He nodded.

“And you were being blackmailed.”

Again, he nodded.

“You know by who?”

He sighed. “I thought I did.”

My mind flashed back to last night, his pistol instinctively aimed at Pierre Lavoie’s chest. “Fred McDermott?” I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

“Yes.”

“Why him?”

“Recently, we talked a couple of times on the phone. He disguised his voice, but there were certain mannerisms, turns of phrase I’d heard before. It didn’t click until I heard you were sniffing around McDermott, that he’d been at the murder scene on Horton Place. Then I knew who it was…”

“How long ago did this start?”

“Over a year.”

“You said you spoke on the phone recently. How were communications handled before?”

“By letter, always.”

Of course, I thought. Buddy held off implicating Fred until he was good and ready. “And last night at the high school? Were you gunning for Fred?”

He moved for the first time since we began talking, twisting his body around to face me. “I didn’t go there to kill him. I only wanted to talk.”

Presumably, Buddy had needed Jackson’s money both to finance his criminal ambitions-buying listening devices, for instance-and to implicate Fred McDermott, whom he resented for busting up his parents’ marriage. That done, what better conclusion than to have Jackson shoot McDermott? Jackson would be ruined, and McDermott’s slush fund would surface to sully his good name. A nice double play and a monument to Buddy’s late mother.

Jackson let out a deep sigh and looked out the side window at the darkness, not realizing how lucky he was. Still, I felt most of the bluster had gone out of him. “Come on, Jackson, don’t make me pull it out of you word by word. Let’s have it all. Now.”

He rubbed his forehead. “All right.” But he remained silent.

Exasperated, I hit the door handle and swung half out of the car, stopped only by his anguished cry. “I’m trying, all right? It’s hard. I’ve carried this son of a bitch around inside me for decades.”

I relented, moved by the unprecedented intensity of his emotion. I had no problem imagining how the burden of his secret had worn him down over the years. Nevertheless, I left the car door open as a warning.

The fresh air seemed to wash the rest of his reserve away. “She died trying to self-abort. She literally used a coat hanger, like in some bad melodrama. She left a note, naming me, blaming me even, for what she’d done to herself. I couldn’t believe it. Her mother was a conniving old bitch; got hold of the school, put on the pressure. I had to settle with her just to keep my job.”

“They didn’t fire you?” I asked.

“They had no grounds. She backed off after I paid her; told them it was a mistake, that her daughter had been a hysteric with a long history of blaming her problems on people she didn’t like. I’ll give the bitch that much: She was convincing. Still, I was under a microscope for quite some time. It was hell, and it became hell again.”