Christ!
I broke into a hard run, off the sidewalk and through the wet weeds onto the drive. Then I could hear the steady throb of the engine inside the garage; the fog and wind kept the sound of it from carrying more than a few yards. Then, too, I could smell-faint out here but unmistakable-the acrid stench of exhaust fumes.
There was a handle on the weather-warped wood of the garage door, but nothing happened when I turned and then yanked on it. It must have had some kind of snap-lock inside: You could pull it down to engage the lock from out here but you couldn’t open it without a key. I ran around on the side nearest the house. An access door was set into the wall toward the back, the upper part of it glass. I caught the knob but it was locked too. Without thinking about it I turned sideways and drove my elbow against the glass; the wind took the sound of it shattering and broke that up into fragments too. Clouds of carbon monoxide came pouring out at me. I ducked my head away, reached through the jagged opening, managed to find the inside knob and free the push-button lock without cutting myself, and dragged the door open.
The interior was so thick with fumes I couldn’t see the car. I plunged in blindly, holding my breath, narrowing my eyes to slits; struck metal almost instantly, barking my knee, then clawed along the car’s side until I located the handle on the passenger door. It was unlocked. I got the door open, bent my body inside. Despite the dull furry glow from the dome light I could barely see; the monoxide burned my eyes, made them run with tears. I had to rely on my groping hand to determine that the driver’s seat was empty.
I fumbled for the ignition, twisted the key; the steady wheezing rhythm of the engine cut off. Smoke had filtered into my lungs by this time and it tore the air out of them in a series of explosive coughs. I levered up and over the seat back, just long enough to sweep one hand across a rear seat as empty as the front buckets; then I pulled back out of the car. By the time I staggered outside through the open doorway, my knees were rubbery and I was choking on the fumes.
Ten paces from the door, I braced myself against the garage wall. It took minutes for the icy night air to clear the poison out of my lungs so I could breathe normally again without hacking. My eyes quit shedding tears but the fire in them lessened only a little. The taste of sickness was on the back of my tongue.
Nobody came to help or hinder me, drawn by the escaping smoke or by the sounds I’d made. Both Rivera and 47th remained deserted. For the time being, this little drama was going to keep on being a one-man show.
I let another two or three minutes go by, to make sure that the monoxide had thinned enough so it wouldn’t do any more damage to my lungs. I no longer felt any sense of urgency. As dense as those trapped fumes were, the car’s engine had been running a long time-much too long for anybody in there to have survived.
When I finally did go back in I put my handkerchief over my mouth, something I should have thought to do the first time. A pace inside, I felt along the wall next to the door. An old-fashioned knob-style light switch was mounted there; when I twisted it, a low-wattage bulb came on above a workbench along the back wall. Dull saffron light glinted off the metal surfaces of the car.
It wasn’t Pendarves’s old Plymouth Fury. It was a newish — and unfamiliar-silver-gray BMW.
What the hell?
I made sure the dozen feet of rough-concrete floor between the BMW’s front end and the bench was empty, then went to the passenger door and leaned inside for a better look at the interior. Empty seats, empty floorboards in the rear. I backed out. There was still enough smoke to keep the fires burning in my eyes and chest; I found the latch on the garage door, released it, hoisted the door about halfway. Wind blew in, gusting, and dried the fresh layer of sweat on my face. I spent ten seconds sucking at the cold air. Then I moved over to where I could see along the driver’s side.
That was where he was, sprawled face downward in close to the front tire, arms and legs outflung. On the back of his head was a smear of blood, dark and coagulated but still wet enough to glisten in the shadow-edged light. But that wasn’t what caught and held my attention, what caused the top of my scalp to prickle and contract. It was the shape of him, and the clothes he was wearing.
On one knee beside him, I took hold of his limp shoulder and lifted him part way onto his side. Just enough so that I could look into the empty staring eyes, the lean face mottled a shiny cherry-red color.
Not Pendarves’s car, and not Pendarves.
The dead man was Thomas Lujack.
* * * *
Chapter 8
I knelt there for a time, stunned and confused, trying to come to grips with what I’d found. What in God’s name was Lujack doing here, dead, in Pendarves’s garage? The only thing I could think of was that he’d come to talk, even though he’d been warned to stay clear of Pendarves, the confrontation had turned ugly, and he had lost the punch-up. But why here in the garage? Why was he dead of carbon monoxide from the BMW he must have been driving? And where was Pendarves?
A car hissed by on Rivera without slowing; the sound of its passage brought me out of myself. I took a closer look at the blood smear on Thomas’s head. Under his thick mat of hair, just above the occipital bone, the skin was split and looked darkly bruised. But there was nothing distinctive about the wound; it could have been made by just about anything, including the concrete floor. I lifted and turned the body again. He was wearing the same Harris tweed jacket, mint-green shirt, and designer jeans, and they looked the same as they had in Glickman’s office: no tears or blood spatters or stains of any kind. I peered at his face, then paid some attention to his hands. No marks on his flesh, either. If he’d been in a fight, he had been struck only in the body and hadn’t landed any solid blows himself-which seemed unlikely. He could have been thrown down in a struggle and banged his head on the concrete, but it was a better bet that he’d been clubbed from behind. The closed garage, the running engine, the presence of both Thomas and his car ruled out freak accident and suicide. This was homicide, plain and simple. Coldblooded, premeditated murder.
Why?
Dammit, why would Pendarves kill him this way?
My stomach had begun to act up, as it always did when I was this close to violent death. I was not breathing well, either, but that was mostly the fault of the carbon monoxide. Quickly I patted Thomas’s coat and pants pockets: he wasn’t carrying a gun or any other kind of weapon. On my feet again, I went over by the door and sucked again at the night air until my stomach settled and I had better breath control. Then I was ready to get on with it.
Nothing on the floor near Thomas or anywhere else on that side of the BMW. I got down and looked under the car. Nothing there, either, as near as I could tell without a flashlight. I opened the driver’s door, being careful not to smudge any prints that might be there, and poked through the glove box and found the registration slip. The owner of the car was Thomas’s wife, Eileen. I sifted among the other items in the compartment. No gun, no other kind of weapon, and nothing that told me anything I didn’t already know. The rest of the car’s interior was just as barren.
I’d been in that damned garage long enough. I went back outside, shutting the light off on the way. Raining again; the wind had died down but the night seemed even colder. I looked up toward the house. The one light still burned, and it was still the only one on. He’s not there, I thought. No sign of his car, and I’ve been here long enough to attract his attention if he was hanging around waiting for the monoxide to do its work. But why would he go off and leave the BMW pumping away in the garage? Where’s the sense in that, in any of this?