A Long Time Dead Page 18

  I said yes and Pat said no, but finally he came around, qualifying it, “No speculation on what this is or what might have happened here. Just the facts.”

  “Like Dragnet,” I said.

  “Used to watch that show on TVLand,” she said, “when I was a kid.”

  Ouch.

  So she interviewed us, and we kept it factual, and afterward the locals wanted to talk to Pat, and the brunette newscaster took me gently by the arm and walked me away a ways.

  “It’s just a coincidence,” she said, “Mike Hammer coming on to what might be a murder scene?”

  “Just a coincidence. Now, if I were coming on to you, that would be premeditated.”

  “Would you be surprised if I said I had a thing for older men?”

  “More like relieved. But, doll, I’m taken. Engaged.”

  “Long engagement?”

  “When were you born?”

  She told me.

  I said, “Before that.”

  That made her blink, then she smiled again. “I don’t want to date you, Mr. Hammer. Or if I do, I’ll respect your … long engagement. But I do want to know what you think happened here.”

  “Off the record?”

  “Off the record, if that’s all I can get.”

  “Honey, I don’t have a clue. Let the high-tech boys have a swing at that mess over there. They’ll come up with something.”

  “We don’t have oddities like this around here every day, Mr. Hammer.”

  “It’s Mike. No, I suppose you don’t. Which makes this a big story.”

  She shook her head and her slightly shellacked hair bounced a tad. “Last story anything like this was over a year ago. I doubt it got covered in the big city. We had a spate of grave robberies. Over a period of three years, maybe … two, three a year. Then they stopped.”

  “Random stuff? The graves, I mean. Just any old grave?”

  “New ones. Always the graves of women. Attractive women who’d died young, mostly in their twenties, none older than forty. I understand that … that thing over there is something quite apart, but it’s still an odd, grisly, horror-show kind of sight.”

  “That wasn’t a woman,” I said, with a nod toward the terrible corpse.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Well, that’s a man’s hand.”

  “I … I didn’t take as close a look as I probably should have. Mr. Hammer … Mike … when the police lab reports come in, and we know more, I may want to consult with you.”

  I got a card out and handed it to her. It had office and cell numbers on it. She tucked it in her purse, gave me hers with similar info. Then in a friendly but businesslike way, she gave me her hand and I took it.

  It was a lot more attractive than the dead guy’s.

  Velda, standing in the middle of the reception area of our two-room office, used a remote to turn up the sound on the oversized wall screen. She was my secretary, partner and fiancee all wrapped up in one beautiful raven-haired bundle. She looked like every older dame wished she did, and even past fifty she could make a white blouse and black skirt seem like something out of Victoria’s Secret.

  She listened to me being interviewed, commented that I’d been right—they pixelated that mess of a corpse before coming back to the jumpsuited gorgeous gal who wore a properly somber frown.

  Melodie Anderson was standing near the gruesome discovery, and Velda and I both caught the moment the newswoman took, during her wrap-up, where she half-turned so nobody would see her swallow deeply to keep from throwing up herself.

  Velda said, “Sensitive, isn’t she?”

  “They don’t get much of that upstate,” I said.

  “Where do they exactly? Let’s take a look at those shots you got.”

  She walked to her desk where she could click through the images on her computer screen. I had taken one close-up of the hand and she was focusing on that.

  I said, “Pat expects an ID tonight. If the prints are registered.”

  “You ever see a corpse in that condition?” she asked me.

  I leaned in to look over her shoulder at the screen. “I’ve been at a couple of plane crash sites. Saw my share of bodies all mashed together. Looked something like this, yeah. But then, at least, the pieces were fairly recognizable. This kill mixes chunks with coarse hamburger.”

  “Except for the hand,” Velda said softly.

  “Except for where it was cut off from the wrist. That was nice and neat.”

  “How neat?”

  “Like they used to say about Jack the Ripper—almost surgical.”

  The lovely dark eyes narrowed. “Are you sure that tendon was attached to the rest of the … pile?”

  I shook my head. “We didn’t disturb anything. Pat had to get back, so we gave the cops all that we could and left.”

  “And Pat will give them a full report, I suppose.”

  “You know Pat, kitten.”

  Velda backed away from the monitor, turned toward me as I leaned in. She ran her fingers down my cheek. “And I know you, lover.”

  “Think so?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Spell it out.”

  “This is one you haven’t had before. It’s squeezing you already, isn’t it? Mike Hammer can’t drop this like he should, and let the official world of policedom do its job, can he?”

  “Hey, I found the body, doll.”

  “If you call that a body.”

  “You want me to forget about it?” I asked her.

  Velda gave me that sly look I knew all too well. Her full-lipped mouth was wet and smiled up at me until I saw the edges of her teeth and the sudden flick of her tongue between them.

  “Never gave that a thought, big guy,” she said. “You can go play with that gory mess all you want. Get your name in the papers some more, like old times. I bet that brunette on the news already has a big crush on you. Daddy issues, maybe.”

  “Aw, Velda, cut me a break …”

  She tapped my nose with the tip of her forefinger. “Just let her know that I’m one of your retirement benefits.”

  My hands went around her waist and as I started to draw her near me, the phone rang.

  Pat said, “Mike … glad I caught you. Listen, those locals sent that mess our way, for processing. The lab has already come up with some interesting stuff.”

  “What have you got, buddy?”

  “Still waiting on a report. Look, have you eaten?”

  “No. Why, shall we grab some steak tartar?”

  “Very funny. Why don’t you and Velda meet me at the French House in a couple of hours.”

  It must not have been a question because Pat hung up.

  I filled Velda in about our new plans for the evening, and we both decided we’d take time to freshen up before going out, and were halfway out of the office when the phone rang again.

  “Let the machine get it,” I said, and I was just shutting the door when I recognized the voice coming in.

  “Mr. Hammer, it’s Melodie Anderson, Eye Witness News. Please call me at—”

  “Ms. Anderson,” I said, grabbing the phone off Velda’s desk. “I’m here.”

  Velda came strolling back in, then deposited herself a few feet from me in a Valkyrie-like stance with her arms folded and her smirk knowing.

  “Daddy,” she murmured.

  “Mr. Hammer,” the reporter said, “I was hoping to talk to you tonight. I think I may be on to something. Jason, that’s my cameraman, and I are still out chasing down some leads. But I could use your help.”

  “You want me to come to you?”

  “No, I can come into the city. We just have one more stop before calling it a night.”

  So I invited her to join us at the French House, giving her the address, and she said she might be a li
ttle late, but to wait for her.

  I hung up and grinned at Velda. “She’s joining us tonight. You can warn her off in person.”

  An eyebrow arched. “Yeah? Well, if you go playing daddy with that babe, buster, Mommy’s gonna spank.”

  “Promises promises,” I said, and we headed to her apartment to freshen up. I keep some clothes there. I said it was a long engagement.

  The French House had nothing to do with French cuisine. This was an out-of-the way place, strictly deli fare, in a rough patch not far from the Times Square theater district. Velda and I were already on one side of the booth when Pat showed up, a few minutes later, and slid in opposite.

  “That hand with the remains,” he said. “It didn’t belong there.”

  Velda said, “Well, hello to you, too, Pat. I’m fine thanks.”

  “Hi Velda,” he said, and smiled awkwardly. He still had a thing for her. Then he looked at me and there wasn’t any awkwardness in it at all. “Prints came in with an ID. It’s a missing person. A famous one.”

  “Yeah?” I said, chewing a corner of my corned beef-and-Swiss sandwich. “As famous as us, buddy?” “At least. Victor King, the Broadway producer.”

  Velda had no smart remarks to make now. She put her cheeseburger down and leaned forward. “What’s it been, a month? He went off for a meeting somewhere and never got there.”

  “And never came back,” Pat said. “Know where that meeting was?”

  “Upstate New York,” I said, through another bite.

  “You don’t impress easily. How about this? That hand was starting to decompose.”

  “Didn’t look like it,” I said, chewing.

  “The lab boys actually have some microscopes that can see things your ancient eyes can’t.”

  “These ancient eyes are twenty twenty, Pat. Spill it. The big surprise.”

  He seemed disappointed I sensed that something else was coming. But I knew him like he knew me.

  “That hand,” he said, “didn’t belong to that pile of fresh ground chuck … sorry, Velda.”

  She put down her cheeseburger again.

  “They can tell this,” I said, using a napkin, “because the pile wasn’t decomposing. It was fresh.”

  “That’s part of it,” Pat admitted. “But things have come a long way in the detection game since Sherlock Holmes used his first magnifying glass and you throttled your first suspect.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That pile of … stuff. That wasn’t Victor King.”

  “Blood type didn’t match?”

  “I’ll spare you the gory details, but let’s leave it at this: the hand belonged to a man. Everything else was female.”

  That had been Pat’s last big surprise, but the evening held one more: Melodie Anderson didn’t show. We waited till near eleven, with me on the cell phone trying the various numbers on the card she’d given me. Nothing. I finally tried her station and got through to the news desk, and she was out. I asked for her home number and was refused.

  “Listen,” I said to the young-sounding guy, “I got a bad feeling about this. Call her at home, check that she’s okay, and tell her Mike Hammer’s trying to get in touch with her.”

  “Okay, dude! Okay.”

  Dude.

  But he did call back, sounding mildly worried himself.

  “No answer,” he said. “I left a message. Sorry. I’ll leave a note for her to call you when she comes in tomorrow.”

  I thanked him.

  We were still in the booth, working on a third round of beers.

  “Don’t worry about the girl,” Pat said. “She probably had a big story come in and got caught up in it. You’ll hear from her.”

  I didn’t remind him that the small upstate burg where she lived and worked was damn short on big stories. A pile of human flesh on the roadside was about as big as it got.

  That, and grave-robbing.

  “Listen,” Pat said, pushing aside a mostly finished beer, “there’s an aspect of this I haven’t gone into. I hesitate to, because I shouldn’t be encouraging you.”

  “King’s wife is a suspect,” I said.

  “Damn you, anyway! How do you know that?”

  “Because the letch got married for the fourth time last year. He was fifty-nine and the blushing bride, what? Twenty-five? She probably signed a prenup, and the only way she inherits is if her husband kicks it.”

  Pat’s eyes were half-lidded. “Which makes her a suspect.”

  “Not if he just disappears. Unless she doesn’t mind a seven-year wait before King is declared legally dead.”

  “Only now he is dead. Now that that hand has turned up.”

  “That doesn’t make him dead.”

  Pat eyes weren’t half-lidded anymore. “That’s right. That pile of flesh wasn’t him. So what are you going to do, Mike? Wade into this?”

  I handed him the check. “What do you think I’m gonna do? Play the hand I got dealt.”

  The next morning, around ten, I was sitting in the lavish living room of Victor King’s penthouse apartment on upper Fifth Avenue, with a view on Central Park. The furnishings were vintage art deco and what wasn’t white was black, and what wasn’t blond wood was chrome, and everything had curves. Including Mrs. King, who was also blonde.

  As expected, she was a very lovely twenty-five or so, the stark red of her lounging pajamas matching her finger- and toenails, jumping out at me like the devil against the white of the couch, her legs crossed, a hand caressing a knee. Her mouth was similarly red, but her eyes were baby blue with blue eye shadow and a sleepy look, like a cheerleader on her third beer after the big game.

  I couldn’t imagine any man wanting to sleep with her, unless he was heterosexual and had a pulse.

  The funny thing was, she was wearing the same sexy red p.j.’s in an oversize elaborately framed photographic portrait of her husband and herself over a white marble fireplace. Victor King was in some kind of yachting outfit and had Ricardo Montalbán hair and the kind of tan the sun has nothing to do with. In the picture she was seated, with her chin up and smiling a little, knowing what she had, and he was standing next to her, with an arm around the top of the chair, not his wife, like he knew what he had, too.

  But the picture couldn’t capture her best feature—luminous, creamy skin that damn near glowed. I supposed someday nature or old age would catch up to her and draw some lines in. Right now it was smooth. So very smooth, drawn tight over apple cheeks in a way plastic surgeons could only envy.

  She must have caught me looking from her to the portrait behind her, and she grinned. Suddenly she looked like the kid she must have been before she realized she could parlay her looks into money, if not on the stage then from some sugar daddy.

  “Victor has three more of those,” she said, and her voice was breathy and childish, although unlike the outfit it was no act, “in storage somewhere. Wives numbers one, two and three.”

  “Were they wearing red jammies, too?”

  That stopped her for a second and then she laughed. She snorted when she laughed, which made her suddenly human.

  “I guess I was trying to make a point,” she said, and gestured to herself, her breasts making two points actually, under the satin. “Victor was happy with me, Mr. Hammer. He wasn’t running around on me. Would you?”

  “No,” I admitted, “but I don’t put on Broadway musicals with tons of cute kiddos in the chorus. That’s where he found you, right? And numbers one through three?”

  “Number one was his high school sweetheart, actually,” she said. “I’m going to smoke. Would you like to? I picture you smoking.”

  “Go ahead. But none for me, thanks. I gave up cigarettes a long, long time ago. Probably why I’m still on this side of the grass.”

  I bet myself she would use a cigarette holder and won. It made her
look even more like a kid playing dress-up.

  I waited for her to blow a smoke ring, then said, “I appreciate the phone call, Mrs. King, and the offer of employment. But I already have a case.”

  “Isn’t it the same case? The papers were having a lot of fun this morning with you discovering Victor’s body.”

  Had Pat or anyone official told her yet that the hand was her husband’s, but that grisly ball of kibbles and bits wasn’t?

  Should I?

  “Mr. Hammer, there’s been a lot of speculation that Victor was running around on me. I assure you he wasn’t.”

  “You seem confident.”

  “Victor was not a young man. I serviced him at least once a day.”

  “Service with a smile?”

  “Service with variety and imagination and if he had the energy and ability to seek more fun elsewhere, more power to him.”

  My chair probably won a prize at the New York World’s Fair in ’39, but I shifted in it, looking for a comfortable position, and wasn’t that good a detective.

  “Mrs. King, why would you tolerate your husband running around on you? Assuming he did find the energy and ability.”

  Her smile wouldn’t have been one were it any smaller. “Mr. Hammer, I am an adequate dancer in a town full of great ones, and my singing is only so so. As an actress, I’m pretty good, but no Streep. I could eke out an existence on Broadway in bit parts and chorus line gigs, for a while, but then it would be back to Minot, North Dakota, for me. And you know what, Mr. Hammer? Minot, North Dakota, is goddamn cold.”

  “I bet it is.”

  “I like my life with Victor. I wish I could have him back.”

  Maybe, but not to where there were any tears in those baby blues or any quaver in that breathy baby voice.

  “But if he’s dead,” she said, matter of fact, “I inherit everything. He, uh, never had any children …”

  Except the ones he married.

  “… and no close relatives. So it would be all mine.”

  “Which is a hell of a murder motive.”

  She nodded, struck a regal pose worthy of Jean Harlow. I wondered if she knew who Jean Harlow was.

  “But I didn’t kill him,” she said, “or have him killed, either. The police have been hounding me for this whole month that Victor’s been missing, and the papers just love the story.”