Peter Leonard - Back from the Dead

Harry aimed the big revolver at him. “The guy that’s going to blow your head off you don’t tell me what I want to know.” Gary Boone sat back against the seat. “Who you kidding? You’re not going to shoot me here. I know that.”

Harry pulled the hammer back with his thumb. “You sure about that?”

“Get the fuck out.”

Harry lowered the Colt, squeezed the trigger and put a round between Gary Boone’s feet that sounded like an explosion bouncing around the small confines of the interior, ears ringing from the noise.

“Jesus sucks Jew cock,” Gary Boone said. “What’re you, fucking crazy? You put a hole in my truck.”

“Next one’s going to find you,” Harry said. “Where’s Zeller?”

“Honest to God, I don’t know.”

Harry pulled the hammer back again.

“I can give you the number where he’s at, but that’s it. It’s in my wallet.”

Gary reached behind his back, pulled it out, opened it and handed Harry a scrap of paper that had a phone number on it. “Start the truck and pull out. We’re going to take a drive.”

“Where we going?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

Harry directed the redneck north to a secluded area, an empty desolate stretch of road covered with red and orange leaves somewhere just outside Walled Lake. “Pull over.”

“Pull over? We’re in the middle of Bumfuck, Egypt,” Gary said, glancing at the gun and slowing the truck, pulling over on the shoulder, putting the shifter in neutral. “Now what?”

“Get out.”

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Listen, I didn’t lay a hand on your lady. Was Squirrel done it. Man’s got the couth of an opossum.”

Harry pointed the Colt at his right foot. “Want to try this again?”

“Hey, what about my truck?”

“It’s mine now,” Harry said.

“What’re you doing? You can’t take a man’s truck.”

Gary Boone got out and started walking north. Harry slid over behind the wheel and drove back to the strip mall where his car was parked. Made a phone call from the drug store, tried the number Gary had given him. It rang several times before a woman’s voice said, “Your party is not available. Please press one to leave a message or press zero to speak to an operator.” It was a recording. Harry pressed 0 and a live woman’s voice said, “How may I direct your call?”

Harry said, “I’m trying to reach a friend, Albin Zeller.”

“Is he a guest at the hotel?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Where am I calling?”

“The Kingsley Inn, sir.”

Harry hung up and ran to his car. Drove to the hotel at Woodward Avenue and Long Lake. He parked, walked in, stopped at the front desk and asked for Zeller.

“I am sorry, sir,” the clerk said, “Mr. Zeller checked out.”

“When?”

“A few hours ago.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No sir, but maybe one of the bellmen knows something.” The clerk called the concierge and three young guys in green uniforms appeared in the lobby. “Any of you help Mr. Zeller with his luggage?”

“I did,” said a longhaired guy named Scott.

“He say where he was going?”

“Asked how long it would take to get to the airport.”

“Anything else?”

“He had a plane ticket in his shirt pocket but I couldn’t see where he was going.”

“You know what airline?”

Cuffee Johnson phoned the Palm Beach detective, Conlin, giving him the bad news. The man definitely had an attitude. Like it was beneath him to deal with Bahamian law enforcement. Cuffee told him the suspect had escaped, and had also murdered a nurse named Paulette, wife of a friend and mother of two little ones.

“I thought you were gonna have somebody there watching him around the clock,” Conlin said. “Did I tell you to put him in leg irons? That’s what we do with suspects we think are dangerous here in Palm Beach County, make sure they don’t kill people and get away.”

Hearing the man’s critical tone made his blood pressure rise. “A couple days ago this dangerous suspect, his nurse tells me, was too weak to stand on his own feet,” Cuffee said, giving it back to him. “Man can’t walk, didn’t seem to be a flight risk.”

“Well either he was playing you, or he made a miraculous recovery.”

“One or the other,” Cuffee said, “but listen, why are we wasting time talking about it? The question now, how we going to catch him?”

“You mean how am I going to catch him?”

This American detective was really full of himself. “What I want to know,” Cuffee said, “how’d this killer get away from you the first time, come to Freeport?”

That shut him up for a few seconds.

“Okay,” Conlin said. “Tell me what you know.”

“I know after sneaking out of the hospital the man broke into a store down the street, stole clothes and money. I know the next morning he took a cab to Lucaya, had breakfast at a restaurant at the marina. And I know he made friends with an American couple, hijacked their yacht and left them stranded on a little deserted island, lucky a fisherman come by when he did. They were thirty-six hours without food or water.”

“Let me guess,” Conlin said. “The yacht’s a fifty-one-foot Hatteras and the couple’s name was Brank. Know who he is? Makes pornographic movies.”

“That’s what I understand,” Cuffee said. “So you have the boat, uh?”

“Coast Guard towed it in last night. Nobody on it.”

Now it was clear. The man was back in Florida.

Conlin cleared his throat. “What did this guy Brank say about him?”

“He was a sleeper, you know? Cool, low-key, nothing suspicious about him. Man said his name was Emile Landau, a builder from Atlanta, and Brank believed him. They started talking about boats and Brank invited him aboard. The rest of the story, I think you know.”

“You met the suspect,” Conlin said. “What did you think?”

“I didn’t believe him. Man accused of murder but can’t remember anything. A little too convenient, don’t you think?”

“I felt the same way,” Conlin said, talking one cop to another now. “This guy Klaus was so relaxed when I questioned him, I thought he was falling asleep.”

“What I don’t understand,” Cuffee said, “this man come from Stuttgart, had a German passport, right? Went through customs in Detroit. But he don’t speak the language?”

“Said he couldn’t remember,” Conlin said.

Cuffee said. “Keep me posted, uh? I got a personal interest in this one.”

Conlin had been at the crime scene since the Costa Rican maid found Lynn Risdon and called the police. The room smelled of perfume and feces, like somebody took a dump and splashed it with Chanel No. 5. That was the only perfume name he could think of.

Lynn Risdon was on her back fully clothed, lying in her own waste. Face frozen. Eyes open. There was rope binding her wrists and ankles. According to the medical examiner the probable cause of death was asphyxiation. The phone line had been pulled out of the wall, but there was no sign of a struggle.

They found grey stubble on a razor in the bathroom, and grey hair webbed on a brush and on the bottom of the tub. Looked like whoever killed her had showered and shaved. May have had a snack too. There was an empty milk glass and two plates in the sink. Forensics had been able to lift a couple prints and were checking to see if they matched the prints Conlin had taken of Klaus in the Bahamian hospital.

The deceased was wearing a two-carat diamond ring and a Rolex. Her cash and credit cards were still in her wallet. So apparently robbery wasn’t a motive. Conlin dumped the contents of her purse on the kitchen table: brush, comb, makeup, condoms, lipstick and wallet. He opened the wallet, took out the driver’s license. Lynn Risdon was forty-one, five six, 130 pounds, dark hair parted down the middle. There was a registration for a 1969 Ford Mustang, but the car wasn’t on the property or out front on the street. Maybe she met the killer somewhere and he brought her here in his car. As he was putting her things back in the purse he noticed a receipt from a bar/restaurant on Gulfstream Road.