23
The problem with this whole mess was that every time I felt I was getting closer to Conrad Fletcher’s murderer, I ran into somebody else who got taken off the list. Pretty soon, I was going to get right next to a murderer who didn’t exist. And like dividing by zero, that’s impossible.
I drove out 21st to Hillsboro Village, then parked in front of the shop that sells relics from the Sixties, with tie-dyed clothing draped throughout the window. I crossed over to the Pancake Pantry.
The PP was another restaurant that had been around forever, while fancier places came and went weekly. I got a booth down near the kitchen, ordered a woodchopper’s breakfast, more coffee, and settled back with the newspaper.
The news of Mr. Kennedy’s death was page one on the local section, with a picture of the death car on Seventh Avenue and a reproduction of his Atlanta Falcons team picture off to the side. He had a wife and two boys. Seemed like a perfectly normal middle-class husband and father. Except that he worked for a guy who was the illegal gambling kingpin of the whole west side of town.
On the jump page, thankfully near the bottom, was a notation that I’d been questioned, but the young reporter fortunately didn’t do his homework well enough to catch the connection between Bubba, me, and Conrad Fletcher’s death. This younger generation! I don’t know what to think about them.
I ate like a condemned man, if that’s not too grim a simile under the circumstances. I deliberately tried not to think about the murder, hoping that like an artist looking for inspiration, something would burble up out of my subconscious.
Only it didn’t work that way. I sat there through a pot of coffee and a stack of pancakes that would have intimidated a St. Bernard and came up with nothing. I paid my check and walked out of the restaurant in a fog. It was close to mid-afternoon now, hot as blazes, post-lunch traffic nearing gridlock. I decided to get back to work and, as long as I was in this part of town, drive out and check on Rachel. I hadn’t seen her since the funeral.
The Ford was hard to start in the heat, probably some kind of vapor lock or something, and I had to sit there grinding the motor for about a minute before it finally caught. I heard a small pop in the back and looked in my rearview mirror just in time to see a puff of blue-black smoke spurting out behind me. That’s all I need, to have this piece of junk die on me. I wished I still had my good car, only by now Lonnie would have repossessed it.
The stick shift made a grinding noise and shook under my hand as the gears meshed and I pulled out into traffic. It was stop and go, start and stall, all the way out past I- 440 where the traffic thinned out enough to be manageable. I turned onto Golf Club Lane and followed the shaded tree-lined street up to Rachel’s house. The long driveway was empty. I drove up anyway and pulled in behind the house. Conrad’s Jaguar was in the garage, but there was no sign of Rachel’s car.
I walked around to the back door. There was no sign of movement inside. I figured if I tried the door, I’d set off an alarm. I started to get back in the car and roll off, but I suddenly noticed how quiet the place was, how well-ordered.
What I wondered more than anything else was how so much misery could exist in a place this beautiful. I leaned against the hood of the car and craned my neck upward. The house and the grounds were like a sanctuary. But they were also filled with tension and even violence.
I stood there for a couple of minutes, half thinking/half fretting over everything. Then I heard the sound of an approaching car. I walked around the corner of the house just in time to see Rachel turn into the driveway.
She pulled in just to the left of the Ford, behind the garaged Jag, and stepped out. Her blond hair was pulled back, a wet sweatband holding it off her forehead. Her skin was still flushed.
“Must have been some run,” I said as she got out.
She came around the back of the car, still panting. “There’s a track a couple of miles away. Some days I jog. Others I go down there and run the clock. How are you, Harry?” she said, throwing her arms around my neck and pecking me on the cheek.
“Fine, Rachel, how are you?”
“Hot. I haven’t had much chance to talk to you lately.”
“You were a little preoccupied at the funeral home,” I said, as she dropped her arms from my neck and led me over to the back door. She pulled a ring of keys from her fanny pack. A Chicago Ace lock in a brass plate controlled the burglar alarm; she pulled out the tubular key, worked it into the cylinder, and twisted it to the right. A tiny red light set in the plate went dark. Then she unlocked the deadbolt, stuck another key in the doorknob cylinder, and opened the door.
A blast of cold air greeted us as we walked into her kitchen. “Oh, that feels good,” she said, pulling the pack off and tossing it onto the kitchen table. “I could use something cold to drink. How about you?”
“Great,” I said, standing uncomfortably in the center of the kitchen. It was strange being alone with her.
“What can I get you? Gatorade?”
Truth was, I had a weakness for the stuff. “You got enough?”
“Of course. I go through several gallons a week.”
She poured the green liquid into two tall glasses filled with ice. My throat went numb as I poured it down like a shipwreck survivor.
“Rachel, how’re you doing?” I asked. There was a pair of tall stools next to the kitchen island. I pulled one up and sat on it.
She finished off her glass and poured another.
“Harry,” she said firmly, “I’m doing great. The last few days have been rough. And I’ll have some more rough ones. But I’m determined to get on with my life.”
“Good,” I said, meaning it. “Listen, I don’t mean to be too personal, but how did Connie leave … well, leave things? How’re you fixed up?”
“You mean can I make the house payment?”
“Yeah.”
“For the time being, I’m okay. Eventually, I’ll have to go back to work. But for now, I’m just going to take some time off. Recover, regroup.” She took another long swallow. “Get back into shape,” she added.
“You look like you’re in great shape,” I said, wishing I hadn’t said it as the words tumbled out of my mouth.
“Aren’t you sweet, Harry. I appreciate that, I really do.”
We looked into each other’s face for a moment, one of those awkward moments where both people are thinking to themselves: okay, what do we do next?
“I think I’d like to stay in touch with you when all this is over,” I said.
“I’d like that,” she said slowly. “What do you mean, when all this is over?”
I settled back in the chair. “That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to see how you were and all, but I also wanted you to know that I’m certain I’m getting close to finding out who killed Connie. Just a gut feeling.”
Her eyes went kind of dark for a second. “Harry, I don’t want you to do this. I don’t want to see you get hurt. You … well, you mean too much to me right now.”
“We’ve been through this, Rach. I’m going to watch myself.”
“Yeah,” she said, “you’ve done a splendid job so far. I’m not even going to ask who punched you in the schnoz.”
I instinctively reached up and cupped my hand over my nose. “You can still tell, huh?”
“I’m a nurse,” she said. “I can identify a swollen nose. Harry, I don’t know what you’re doing, and I’m not sure I want to know. But I want you to stop.”
“I can’t.”
“I won’t pay you any more after the money runs out. I can’t. I haven’t got it, and if I did, I wouldn’t spend it on that.”
“I don’t care about the money.”
