“And we like to solve crimes,” Detective Grant said.
I squinted at them until their cat-like grins withered. “You bastards,” I said.
I got off the elevator and went straight for the ladies room. Not to pee. To seethe. That hadn’t been Shakespeare up there. That had been a goddamned puppet show. And I’d been the puppet. Detective Grant wanted Gordon’s murderer. Tinker and Mr. Averill wanted a good story. They knew I just might deliver both. I sized myself up in the mirror, my silly hair and my wrinkled face, my gravity-ravaged boobs and shoulders. I took a deep breath and stood as tall as I could. “We’ll just see who’s gonna pull whose strings,” I said.
I went back to my desk. I got my tea mug and headed for the cafeteria. It was empty, except for one rumpled man slumped over a bottle of tomato juice. Detective Grant.
I filled my mug with hot water and dunked my teabag. I walked toward him, not like the frightened puppy I’d been upstairs. Like a full-grown Doberman pinscher. “If you’re staking out the cafeteria to see who’s been stealing the cheese and crackers from the vending machine, I confess. A totally justifiable act of mercy.”
He gave me a culpable smile. “Sorry about that little kabuki dance in Averill’s office.”
I sat across from him. “Did they call you or did you call them?”
He toasted my pugnacity. Took a painful sip of tomato juice. “If I hadn’t called them, I’m sure they would have called me.”
“I’m sure they would have, too.”
He turned sideways, propped his feet on the chair next to him. Started retying his shoes. “You promised me you weren’t going to get involved, you know.”
“I guess I just couldn’t stop myself.”
“And I guess I’m glad you couldn’t.”
“So we’re even-steven then?”
“Oh no, Mrs. Sprowls. We are not even-steven. I’m still the big bad police detective and you are still the private citizen who’s going to mind her p’s and q’s.”
“And it will forever be thus?” I asked
“Sayeth the Lord,” he said.
Our verbal duel was put on hold for a few minutes, while Dusty Eiffel, The Herald-Union’ s talented young political cartoonist, shaking a double handful of quarters like a rattlesnake’s tail, planted himself in front of the candy machine. He bought a bag of M amp;Ms, a Baby Ruth, a Butterfinger, and a package of Strawberry Twizzlers. He grinned at us. “Drawing funny pictures is hell,” he said.
After Dusty went off for his afternoon sugar buzz, Detective Grant got serious. “The fact is, Mrs. Sprowls, I’m running in place with this investigation. In a big pair of muddy clown shoes. As far as physical evidence is concerned, I’ve got zilch. No fingerprints, no footprints, no tire tracks, no nothing. As far as-”
I stopped him. “What about Andrew Holloway’s vomit?”
His Golden Arches eyebrows shot up. “Oh, I’ve got a whole bag of that. But no proof he didn’t throw up when he said he did.”
“So his alibi is pretty tight?”
“That’s my other problem,” he said. “Nobody’s alibi is tight. I’ve talked to everybody you have, and obviously a few more. None of them can prove where they were or weren’t that Thursday. Not Andrew Holloway, not Professor Glass, not Fredricka Fredmansky, not the Moffitt-Stumpfs, not the infamous nephew.”
Now I looked at him with surprise. “Infamous? What makes Gordon’s nephew infamous?”
“A nickel bag of drug convictions for one thing. Possession. Cultivating. Dealing. Selling pipes and bongs out of the trunk of his car. Thirty-seven months of accumulated prison time. The sheriff down there has good reason to believe he’s still active in that area, growing marijuana up in the mountains.”
I’d found Mickey Gitlin a little spooky, too. Still I felt he deserved the benefit of the doubt. “He wouldn’t exactly be the only person in West Virginia doing that, would he?”
“True enough. It’s the new moonshine. But his dealing-past and maybe present-does suggest a predilection for making money in less than legal ways.”
“It’s a big leap from marijuana to murder,” I said.
“A leap occasionally made. You are aware of the big monthly nut he has on his kayak business?”
I nodded. “He did say he was having money trouble. And he’s sure eager to sell Gordon’s house and belongings.”
Detective Grant ran his pinky around the inside rim of his empty bottle, collecting the last stubborn drops of tomato juice. He thoughtfully licked his finger like it was a miniature Popsicle. “Eager or desperate?”
I suppose that would have been a good time for me to tell Detective Grant about all those cocoa cans I bought from Mickey. But for some reason he was taking me seriously and I wanted to keep it that way. “Is it really that suspicious?” I asked. I presented him with a plausible scenario: “He hardly knew his uncle. He finds out he’s his heir. He quietly goes about his business collecting what’s legally his.”
“I can buy all that,” said Grant. “I can also buy it the other way.” He gave me his scenario: “He doesn’t know his uncle very well, just as you say. But somehow he does know that he’s his heir. Maybe his uncle actually told him. ‘Don’t worry Mickey, I’ve taken care of you.’ Maybe he snooped around and saw a copy of the will. And maybe he’s a greedy, cold-hearted bastard. The world’s full of them. And he says, ‘Hey, man, I need that inheritance now.’”
“If you can buy my theory, I guess I can buy yours,” I said. “But Gordon was hardly a rich man. He taught at a tiny college. He lived in a tiny house full of junk. I’m sure he must have had some insurance and some savings maybe, but heavens to Betsy, I bet I’m worth more than he was. I doubt any of my relatives are plotting to kill me.”
Detective Grant folded his arms. Puckered his lips. Let his eyes smile. “Well, I can’t offer an opinion on that. I don’t know your family. But I would guess you’ve probably inherited a few bucks here and there yourself, haven’t you?”
Boy, did that infuriate me. “You mean an old bag like me must have a lot of dead relatives?” Then I realized what he was saying. “Oh, I see-maybe Gordon had inherited some money himself?”
“More than maybe,” he said. “Two years ago Gordon and his sister inherited three hundred thousand each from their well-heeled, 92-year-old father.”
“So Mickey would know his uncle at least had that much,” I said.
“You’ve got to figure he did,” he said. “Add that three hundred grand to the value of the house and other assets, and I’d say Mountain Man Mickey will soon be worth a half-million more than he was before dear Uncle Gordon was murdered.”
“Oh my.”
He reached across the table and tapped my knuckles. “That’s why I want you to steer clear of him, Mrs. Sprowls. More than likely he’s just a lucky sonofabitch. But there’s also a chance he’s the kind of lucky sonofabitch who makes his own luck. Which brings us to Kenneth Kingzette.”
“You want me to steer clear of him, too, I gather?”
Detective Grant’s eyes narrowed, darted uneasily. “Don’t you think that theory of yours about the missing toluene is a little-how can I put this without you clunking my noggin with that tea cup of yours-far-fetched?”
I raised my mug playfully. He flinched playfully. I rattled off a string of questions: “Those eighteen drums of toluene are still missing, aren’t they? And the Wooster Pike landfill was one of the sites they checked, wasn’t it? And Gordon was on the EPA team, wasn’t he?”
“All true,” he said. “But there are things about that case you don’t know.”
I bristled. “I know that the president of Madrid Chemical is still missing.”
“Which is a good reason for you to stay away from Kingzette-yes?”
“But not the real reason?”
He smiled wearily. “Just do us both a favor, Mrs. Sprowls. Scratch Mr. Kingzette off your list of human curiosities.”
“Along with Mickey Gitlin?”