Suzy brought me an ale in a tall, thick glass and I took a sip and had to agree. McCane just pointed at his glass and she topped him off.
"So what's with the new name, bud? We got ourselves another dead ol' lady?"
"Old man," I said and his eyebrows raised. "The woman lives six blocks north of the last one. She survived but the way it went down, I think the killer thought he'd finished her."
"Dead guy came in and saved her?"
"No. Looks like he was already there, sleeping with her."
McCane just snorted and shook his head.
"Breaks the pattern," he said. "But not a bad way to go."
I took a longer drink of the ale and in the ornate mirror I saw a wide-shouldered, rangy-looking man with a tanned and weathered face. His hair looked bleached from the sun and his forearms were lined with cabled muscle as he held the tall glass to his face. I did not have a mirror in my shack. The eyes I saw staring back at me over the rim of my glass looked somehow changed to me.
"So the old lady got a look at this suspect?" McCane said.
"No. Her face was covered with a pillow he was using to smother her. So we got nothing. Might not even be connected," I said. "But it feels right."
McCane seemed truly disappointed, and took another drink.
"All right, bud. But we got bigger fish to fry now."
He filled me in on his middleman theory. He and Billy might not be able to look each other objectively in the face, but their paper chase had become an effective partnership.
Billy had run down the legal work on several of the insurance policies. In the ways of lawyers and accountants, there had been a meticulous recording of money expended in obtaining the discounted policies.
One of the line items was the payment of a finder's fee. Billy had come up with a Dr. Harold Marshack, psychologist, address in Florida.
"Guy lives in a condo by the beach," said McCane. "Gives the same address for his office. Manchester ran him through some Internet link he's got with the state department of transportation and gave me his plate and car description and I tailed him."
McCane finished off his shot. The small glass looked ridiculous pinched between his thick fingers. There was no alcoholic glow in his eyes. Just the enjoyment of letting his tale leak out slowly to me.
"I followed him to the grocery for milk and donuts. To the Office Depot for paper and stuff. To the bank. Then he takes me on a squirrelly ride to the west side. At first I thought he'd made me. But he was just being careful."
McCane took another drink of his beer chaser.
"He makes one stop at some shabby liquor store on the edge of blacktown over on West Sunrise."
No one at the bar acknowledged the slur, if they even heard it. The bartender kept washing glasses. The two guys watching ESPN never flinched. Bonnie Raitt kept singing about shattered love on the jukebox. I'd been wrong about the lack of effect the alcohol was having on McCane as he continued.
"He goes into the store empty-handed. Comes out with a bottle in a bag, gives a handout to some panhandler and goes straight back home."
"You get anything from the store clerk?"
McCane pointed again at his empty glasses. I waved Suzy off.
"I came back. Old Tom in the store pretends like I'm not even there. Then when I started asking him about Marshack, he gives me some shit about 'White cop askin' bout some white guy in here? That's a new one.' And then he goes on about how Marshack comes in maybe once every couple months. He buys a bottle of Hennessy Cognac. Doesn't use the phone or meet anyone. Just buys his booze and leaves. Only weird thing I could get out of the old coot was that the good doctor always pays with a hundred-dollar bill. No doubt an oddity in that place."
McCane waited a moment to let the information settle and then asked, "That ring any bells for you?" He was looking intently into my face for an answer.
I was trying to grind out the scene in my head, working the possibilities. There was a new rock in there but with only the slightest edge to it, and I couldn't get a hold of it.
"You on him again last night?" I finally said.
"I found a nice comfortable spot across the road from his place. Watched the Caprice for hours. Never moved."
"What time did you leave?"
"I woke up at 5:00 A.M. You know how surveillance goes. But the Caprice was still there. I even moseyed on over and felt the hood. Stone cold."
McCane was a bigot. Might be an alcoholic. But he hadn't lost all of his cop instincts.
"He ain't your doer, Freeman," he said. "Not the kind who creeps into houses and smothers old ladies. I seen him up close. He ain't got the hands for it. But if you get your detective friend to get a warrant and toss his place we might find something."
I stopped and let McCane's words settle in my head for a few seconds.
"Which detective is that?" I asked, knowing Billy would not have brought Richards's name into a conversation with McCane.
"Guy like you gotta have a local on the pad, Freeman. No P.I. I know gets along without one."
He held my eyes with his and didn't allow them to slide away. I didn't respond.
"You track the Thompson policy if there is one. We'll wait and see what we come up with," I said, pushing back the stool and taking one last appreciative look at the bar back.
"Follow the money, bud," McCane said, tossing back another shot. "Just follow the money."
17
Eddie went home when he got confused. And now he was home. He'd come in at night, through the back using his old key, and sat down in the middle of the living room floor and listened.
It wasn't the old man suddenly coming out of the bathroom that confused him. It was bothersome. Bothersome that someone else was with Ms. Thompson and he hadn't known. But the old man's neck was weak and Eddie could feel the rickety bones inside and it really hadn't taken much effort. Afterwards he'd been careful to lay the old fella out and slipped out quiet. He'd even remembered the chain before he put each glass pane back in its place.
No. That part had gone all right. But then he'd waited, just like he always had before, at the post box on Seventh Avenue and Mr. Harold never came by and now he was confused.
Mr. Harold always brought the rest of the money after it was done, an envelope with cash and a date written on one of the bills so Eddie would know when to meet him again at the liquor store. But Eddie waited at the mail drop box at the far end of the parking lot and Mr. Harold never showed. The old Caprice never pulled up and he never dropped the envelope in Eddie's hand instead of in the box. Eddie waited until the security guard finally came out and told him to get the hell off the property, it was federal land and what the hell was he doin' there anyway. And Eddie answered, "I do not know."
That's what had confused him. What had he done to make Mr. Harold not come? What had he done wrong? Ms. Thompson was gone like she was supposed to be. The old man was just extra. Eddie had tried to figure it out by going down to the Brown Man's and buying another bundle. He'd gone over to Riverside Park and done the heroin until dark. But he ended up here, back at his mother's house.
He sat listening for her now, facing the kitchen. He had stuffed the towels from the bathroom under her door. He'd used the gray duct tape ("best damn thing ever made for fixin' ") and sealed all the cracks. He'd done the same on her closet and inside all the windows in her room. He'd done a good job and he didn't want to see it again. So he sat with his back to her door and listened. Momma had never stopped tellin' him what to do. Now the least she could do was help him figure out what to do next.
I drove back north on I-95, heading to Billy's apartment, where he said he'd been working on another case but couldn't keep his head out of the insurance and murders he was convinced were connected. On the main interstate through South Florida you are best off being a lemming. You fit yourself into one of the middle lanes and then stay in time with those in front of you. If they do seventy, that's what you do. If they crawl at thirty-five, you join them. There will always be someone faster, more impatient, more aggressive than you. Let them, I reminded myself.