John Lutz - Chill of Night

“Bev,” Mary Jean Maltz, assistant sales director at the Light and Shade Lamp Emporium, said to Beam and Nell. She was a stolid woman with dark bangs, a white blouse, brown slacks, and extremely wide thighs and hips. “Everyone called her Bev, not Beverly.” Mary Jean brushed a knuckle across a reddened eye; she’d obviously been crying. “She was a Bev.”

Beam was prepared to believe it. He looked around at the sea of lamps and shades and dangling chandeliers. Almost everything was lighted. For display purposes, or in honor of Bev Baker.

“Everyone loved her,” Mary Jane said.

Don Webb, an elderly, mustached man whose family had long ago founded the lamp emporium, and who was Bev Baker’s supervisor, finished the phone call he’d been making when Beam and Nell arrived, and walked over to join the conversation. His long, lined face wore a somber expression, but his blue eyes were dry behind thick rimless glasses.

“It’s a blow to all of us here,” he said, “what happened to Bev.” He fixed Beam with a steady, magnified gaze. “She was the best sales manager we ever had.”

“Do you mean that literally?” Beam asked. “Forget for a moment about speaking well of the dead. We’re here for the truth. We’re trying to find out who murdered Beverly Baker.”

“One of the best,” Webb amended.

“An absolute peach to work for,” Mary Jane added.

Webb looked at her. “Why don’t you check that floor lamp shipment that came in yesterday, make sure none of the shades are bent.”

She nodded, slightly embarrassed. With her hips cocked sideways so as not to bump anything, she hurried away in a little side shuffle through what seemed like acres of glowing table lamps, floor lamps, and light fixtures on chains. Beam thought the electric bill here must be phenomenal, but then, they were selling illumination.

Isn’t that what we came for-illumination?

“I had no complaints about Bev,” Webb said, when Mary Jane was out of earshot. “She really was damned likable, and she worked hard and got the job done. Sales increased every quarter in the four years she was sales manager.” He gave Beam the same sincere expression he’d worn earlier. “It didn’t hurt that she was attractive and knew how to treat customers, how to talk to them.”

“How to bullshit them?”

“How to sell.”

“Can you think of any enemies she might have had?”

“No. But then I wasn’t privy to her personal life.” Was there a note of regret in Don Webb’s voice?

“Might she have been in debt?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it. She was well paid and knew how to manage money. Smart woman. Take-charge type.”

The sort who’d volunteer to be jury foreperson.

“Any changes in her behavior over the last six months or so?” Beam asked.

Here Webb hesitated. “A few months ago she began taking longer lunches, coming in late sometimes in the morning. I never complained. I mean, if she came in late, she tended to stay late.”

“What were her reasons for being late?”

“Oh, one thing or another. Tell you the truth, I never asked her very often. I wasn’t kidding when I said she was a valuable employee. You don’t mess with people like that in this business or any other; you want to keep them.”

A flurry of motion made them look to the side. A gray-haired woman who was apparently Webb’s assistant stood just outside the door to his partitioned office, holding up a telephone receiver and motioning frantically to him with her free hand that he had a call.

“Must be important,” Webb said.

“Go ahead and take it,” Beam said. “Thanks for your help.”

Webb nodded gratefully and hurried away.

As Beam and Nell moved toward the exit, Mary Jane, who’d returned to the sales floor, tacked sideways through the sea of lamps toward them on a collision course. Beam liked that. She seemed to have more to say, and she hadn’t wanted to say it in front of Webb.

Mary Jane was smiling as she intercepted them near a bamboo and wicker floor lamp that was part of the tropical line. “Was Mr. Webb any help to you?”

“Maybe,” Nell said. “Time will tell.”

“He mentioned that Bev was coming into work late the past several months,” Beam said.

Nell decided to keep silent and let Beam handle this, watch him work and maybe learn something from the master.

Mary Jane didn’t look surprised. “He say why?”

Beam shook his head no. “Said he didn’t know why.”

Mary Jane suddenly seemed hesitant, now that it was time to release the words she’d stored up for them. Nell had seen it before when people with something to say to the police also had something to lose: Word jam.

Beam reached out and gently touched the tropical lamp’s glowing shade, as if caressing a work of art. “Beautiful piece of merchandise. Makes you think of the South Seas.”

Mary Jane definitely didn’t want to talk about lamps. “Did he mention Lenny Rodman?”

“No…” Beam seemed thoughtful. Nothing rough or threatening about him now; merely a benign if looming gentleman who happened to be a cop. He seemed just as interested in the lamp as in what Mary Jane had to say.

“Lenny’s why,” Mary Jane said in a near whisper.

“Who exactly is this Lenny?” Beam asked with a smile. Definitely on Mary Jane’s side. “Other than Bev’s reason for tardiness?”

“Fire extinguisher lamps.”

“Ah!” As if Beam understood.

“Lenny wholesaled us grosses of the damned things and they haven’t retailed for beans. Lamps made outta obsolete fire extinguishers. Can’t give the things away. Lenny sold himself to Bev, though. He fed her a line and she took the bait along with the hook. Smart as she was, she couldn’t control her heart, love being so blind. She thought she was using the guy, sneaking around with him, and he was using her.”

“An old story but sad one,” Beam said. Nell thought he might actually cluck his tongue. “Did her husband suspect?”

Mary Jane looked incredulous. “Are you kidding? That guy’s so wrapped up in fairways and doglegs it’s all he thinks about. He was ignoring Bev for a little white ball. That was part of the problem.”

“Really? Did she confide this to you?” Beam leaning closer, intent with interest, making Mary Jane his coconspirator.

“Some of it, but not all. Didn’t have to. Women can tell. You understand, I’m sure.”

Beam did. He also understood that Mary Jane didn’t like Lenny Rodman, or maybe liked him too much, or she wouldn’t have made it a point to mention him.

Now she wanted to do more than merely mention. She was ripe.

Time to dish.

He aimed his kindly smile at Nell like a flashlight, then at Mary Jane. “So tell us about Lenny.”

Beam and Nell were in Beam’s Lincoln, on their way to Lenny Rodman’s Brooklyn address, when Beam’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Taking a corner with one hand on the steering wheel, he yanked out the phone, flipped up its lid, and glanced at the Caller ID. Looper.

“Beam, Loop.”

They were breaking the law, using a hand-held phone in New York while driving, Nell thought. Felt good.

“I talked to Floyd Baker, then called two of his golf buddies,” said Looper’s voice on the phone, almost breaking up as the big Lincoln rounded the corner and rocked as it straightened out. Looks like his alibi is tight. In fact, he already seems to be getting over his grief at his wife’s death. Once it was obvious he wasn’t going to be a suspect, all he wanted to talk about was this eagle he made on the tenth hole. Popped the ball out of a sand trap, it bounced once and hit the pole, then dropped straight down into the cup. Says he shot two on a par four. You believe that?”