the last few years things had been getting out of hand. And I didn’t like the fact he was bitching to Rude about me.
Of course I had never promised to make him my partner. I might have joked about it once over a bottle of scotch, but he knew I wasn’t serious. I thought some more about Max and the aggravation he was causing me. After a while, I made a decision. From now on he was only going to get exactly what I owed him.
Nothing.
Chapter 8
In Colorado a few years ago a car flew sixty feet through the air, crashed into a house and killed a woman sitting all alone by her sewing machine. It wasn’t the first car that had hit that particular house, but it was the first car that was airborne at the time.
The way the house was situated was partly to blame, being at the base of a steep hill, right where the road took a sharp ninety-degree turn. So it wasn’t that unusual for cars traveling down the hill to lose their brakes and go skidding into the front of the house. It happened about once a month and after a while the husband got sick of it and put some boulders out to protect his home and family.
What happened next, though, wasn’t what you would have expected. Sure enough, a car lost its brakes and skidded into those boulders. But instead of the boulders stopping the car, they acted as kind of a springboard, sending the car flying. You already know what happened next.
Now you may think it was just plain tragic, and it was, at least for the wife. And you probably would have thought so for the husband also. At least no one would have had any reason to think otherwise if he hadn’t bought an insurance policy on his wife three months earlier. A two and a half million dollar accidental death policy. You couldn’t blame his insurance company for being suspicious, and you sure as hell couldn’t blame them for hiring me to look into it.
I poked around for two weeks and came up with a hundred reasons that proved it wasn’t any accident. Number one: the husband was a mechanical engineer, and you would think he’d know how a car would act when it hit those boulders.
Number two were the boulders themselves. They were shaped like ramps, and were placed so that the lower edges faced the road. If you stood behind them you could see how a car would take off when it hit them.
Number three, he’d had a girlfriend for over a year before the accident. Reasons four through one hundred came from conversations with neighbors, relatives, and whoever else would talk with me. Before his wife’s death, he became obsessed that she use her sewing machine. There were fights about it, intimidation, and at times, he even locked her in the room. From what I was able to piece together, his obsession came about around the same time the boulders were put down. All those reasons, along with the insurance policy, were enough to know he had premeditated her death, but none of them were enough to do anything about it.
I ran out of ideas. I didn’t know what else to do but try putting a scare in him, letting him know I was onto him and that I was going to see him take the fall for his wife’s murder. When I confronted him, he admitted what he’d done, but he made it a big joke, gloating about it and leaving me with nothing. So there I was, knowing he killed his wife, and what was worse, he had me beat.
He was lucky his wife happened to be sitting where she was when the car went through the wall. Even though he had the game rigged, he couldn’t have known that for sure, but it was still a safe bet. If a car never hit the house, well, that was that. And if a car happened to go through the room and somehow left his wife alive, his home insurance would have paid for the damages. As it turned out, he rolled the dice and they came up sevens and there wasn’t a damned thing anyone could do about it.
The night I gave up on the case, I was consoling myself with a few drinks when I ran into Eddie Braggs. Eddie was (and still is) the managing editor of the Examiner. We started exchanging war stories and when I told him about this guy getting away with murder, Eddie just about exploded.
Eddie got him on the phone and before long he was shouting and cursing like a crazy man. I had never seen him get mad before, and to be honest, I didn’t think it was possible. The twinkle or sparkle or whatever that was always in his eyes was gone. And that look of his, as if he was just busting a gut to tell you a hot one, was replaced by a cold dead whiteness.
Eddie fed this guy a fairy tale about how his paper had evidence proving the accident had been planned, and that he was going to keep the story on the front page until the bastard was cold and stiff with a rope burn around his neck.
He kept at it for almost an hour, his face growing beet red. It was all pretty laughable but the way Eddie was saying it you didn’t want to laugh. The guy should have called Eddie’s bluff and hung up on him, but listening to Eddie you could understand why he didn’t. He ended up letting Eddie get under his skin. He panicked and offered a bribe. The next day the Examiner ran the headline: WIFE MURDERER OFFERS EXAMINER’S EDITOR 50 GRAND TO WITHHOLD EVIDENCE.
That was it as far as the husband’s neck was concerned.
The thing with Eddie was that the Examiner had run several stories sympathetic to this guy. So when Eddie heard it was a scam, he took it personally. The Examiner (which to Eddie, was the same as himself) had been played for a jerk.
That’s just the way Eddie was. On meeting him you would think he was just this fat jolly guy looking to clown around and give you a little ribbing. And most of the time you would be right. But if you crossed him, or if he somehow got it in his head that you did, you’d better not blink. He’d go right for your jugular. And if he got a good enough grip, he’d end up shaking you until something broke.
I guess all this helps explain why I got so rattled when I found out about the anonymous letters. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
* * * * *
I spent most of the day debating whether or not to write about Debra Singer for my column. My deadline had arrived and I had nothing else. There wasn’t much Craig Singer could do except make some noise, and no matter how much he made he wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that he had sexually abused his daughter for years. If he sued me or filed charges for assault he’d have to explain why he waited until my column came out. Still, the way I was feeling, I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle even a little noise from him. I also didn’t want to risk making things tougher for Debra.
At four I headed over to the Examiner’s offices to ask Eddie to reprint one of my old columns. I made my usual walk around the city desk, meeting with folks and swapping stories. I had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong. In the past when I’d made my rounds, folks gathered around to shoot the breeze. This time people were avoiding me and I couldn’t figure out why.
I knocked on Eddie Braggs’ door and walked in. He was on the phone, and with his free hand signaled for me to sit down. He was only five foot four but must have weighed close to two hundred and fifty pounds. With his bald head and beard and the way he always seemed to be ready to bust out chuckling, he reminded me (at least when he wasn’t steamed and looking for blood) of one of Santa’s fatter and jollier helpers.
He got off the phone and reached out to shake hands. “You have a new ‘Fast Lane’ for me?”
“That’s why I came down here,” I told him. “It’s been a slow month and I’ve come up empty. I need to ask a favor and have you reprint one of my old stories.”
He leaned back and pursed his lips. “That’s not good, Johnny, really not good at all. That’s the fourth time this year. And the timing couldn’t be worse.”
“Why’s that?”
“There have been some discussions recently,” he said. “We’ve been trying to decide whether to drop your feature. I’ll tell you, I’m one of the few supporters you have left.”
I had to swallow with the way my throat was drying up on me. “What’s going on?”
“Probably no more than you expect,” he shrugged. “People are feeling you’ve been taking us for granted. That the last few years you haven’t been putting as much into your column as you should. And your popularity with our readers has been dropping.”
“I’ve got to disagree. Plenty of folks stop me to shake my hand.”
