It was raining.
In this town, it’s par for the course. Somewhere along the line I think we must have offended the gods, and now they were trying to wash us all away. What a joke. You couldn’t wash these people clean. Their sins go straight to the bone. For that matter, so do mine.
How long has it been? A month? Three weeks? It feels a hell of a lot longer. Then again, sometimes it feels like it’s only been an hour. Sometimes I wake up and I can still smell her on me; cherry and almonds, with something bitter lurking in the background.
It was Thursday. And like I said, it was raining. I’d come into the office late that morning, keen on taking a good, long look at my expenses from the past few months. It was one of those things I was always meaning to do. And just like with all those things, I lost interest about as soon as I sat down. At about noon I dug out the office bottle. Figured I could at least get an early start on my drinking. Things were quiet. I’d turned on the radio when I came in, and now it was playing something slow and sad. A lament for a wasted life, maybe; I don’t know.
By one in the afternoon I was sitting with my back to the door, looking out the dusty window at the raid as it lashed at the city in a futile attempt to make things clean. I was feeling maudlin just then, and thought I’d take a spin around the old place and try to remember why it was I stayed in the business. It’s not much of a setup, I’ll be the first to admit, but through the bottom of a glass it doesn’t look half bad. The outer office is pretty sparse – just a few ratty old chairs inherited from the previous tenants, a coat rack, and a table buried under a mountain of reading material. A girl used to come in now and then to straighten the place up, but I haven’t seen her in a while. Can’t say as I blame her, really.
Two doors lead from there to the inner offices, mine on the left and Carlisle’s on the right. Neither of us see much business anymore, though at least he has a good excuse. Carlisle was my partner. At least, that’s how I always thought of it. Truth be told, we never had that conversation. He was a good one – loyal, always paid his half of the rent on time. It was a shame to see him go. Kidnapping case, I think it was – the kind of thing where they tell you not to go to the police. They went to Carlisle instead, and he went out on the prowl. The thing that did it was he knocked too hard on the wrong door, caught a hot one in a blind alley in part of town where people are deaf to gunshots. It rained on the day of his funeral, I remember. Not that it matters.
Five years later, his name was still on the door. It just didn’t feel right paying someone to scrape it off. And after a while I got used to answering to his name and mine. Our rates had been the same, and for fifty dollars a day plus expenses I figured I’d let clients call me whatever the hell they wanted.
I was back in my office, elbows on the blotter, when I heard someone come in. The door to the outer office squeaked a little on its hinges and a few soft, tentative footsteps followed. I was pouring over a 1928 edition of the Saturday Evening Post at the time, and so was disinclined to investigate. The footsteps helped me out. They seemed to glide across the empty outer office in a series of precise, heel-to-toe snaps that conjured up all sorts of pretty pictures. Then they stopped on the far side of the wall that I’ll admit I was staring at, near Carlisle’s door, and were replaced with a series of soft taps – a gloved hand on glass. That was my cue.
I got to my feet as steadily as I could manage, crossed to the door in two or three steps, and pulled it open in one smooth motion. I’m sure I didn’t make much noise, but the girl on the other side was already looking in my direction.
She was tall, with broad, athletic shoulders that tapered to a slender waist. Her auburn hair was dark, and she wore it long in a series of waves and curls that cascaded over the side of her face. Her features were angular, almost severe – pointed chin and patrician cheekbones framing cool grey eyes and delicately arched brows. On this particular day she was wearing a houndstooth jacket that was fitted at the waist, a knee-length black skirt that hugged her thighs, and dark, sheer stockings that made her toned calves shimmer. In spite of the downpour, she wasn’t the least bit wet.
“I’m sorry,” she said. A faint smile played across her crimson lips. “Mr. Carlisle doesn’t appear to be in. Are you Mr. Parker?” Her voice was like a piece of smoked glass, dark and hard and sharp.
I considered her for a beat before answering. She was just about the nicest looking human being I’d laid eyes on that wasn’t being projected on a canvas screen. “Stands to reason,” I said eventually. “What seems to be the trouble?” I gestured her into my office. Soon enough we’d both taken out seats.
With the languid grace of a screen idol she retrieved a cigarette from a small silver case, lit it, took a long, slow drag, and gave the office an appraising look. I don’t think she was impressed. Then she let out a small breath and turned, at last, to me.
“You’ll forgive me for not being more forthcoming, Mr. Parker” she said. “But I do abhor a cliché.”
I’d been examining the cracks in the ceiling plaster while I waited for her to get situated. “You do,” responded, my eyes still skyward.
“Quite,” she said. One eyebrow formed a sharper arch than the other. “I’m sure I’m not the first woman to make a plea for your services.”
For a second I thought of some of my other clients. “Most of them just asked,” I said, and shrugged.
Her mouth hardened into a tight little smile. “It concerns my husband,” she said.
“Doesn’t it always?” I said. It was the whiskey talking – mostly.
“He’s dead,” she said flatly.
For a while after that neither of us said anything at all. It felt like she was daring me to make another joke. A couple good ones came to mind, too, but I decided against it. Truth is, I needed the money.
“Maybe,” I said in my professional voice, “you should start from the beginning.”
She took another drag on her cigarette and exhaled in a long, thin stream. Between inhales she steadied her elbow with the palm of her other hand, the gasper poised between slender fingers tipped by silver nails.
“My name is Deirdre Lance,” she said. “My husband was a detective with the city PD. Walter. He worked vice for ten years. About a month ago he was found in the trunk of a car that was fished out of the water off the South Street pier.” Her expression hadn’t changed any – still the arched eyebrow and the cool glare.
“I’m sorry” I murmured. It seemed like the thing to say.
“You’d be the only one,” she said. “Walter was on the take, or so they tell me. The department made a point of expressing their displeasure. No pension, no funeral. Some of them are sorry enough in private – his friends, mostly, and there aren’t many of those. But on the record, he’s a stain on their sterling history of public service.”
I was starting to abhor clichés myself. “Do you think that Walter was taking the fall for someone else in the department?” I said.
She smirked again, cool as ever. You’d think it was someone else’s husband she was talking about. “No, Mr. Parker,” she said. “While I don’t doubt the guilt of his fellow officers, my husband was hardly above reproach. I have no trouble believing that Walter was involved in certain unsavory activities, and that his death was a direct result.”
We’d been talking for almost ten minutes and I still didn’t know what she wanted from me. Throw in an overpriced gimlet and you could almost call it a date.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Lance,” I said, “But I’m beginning to wonder where I come into the picture. For the sound of things, you’ve got it pretty well figured.”
Her brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “I want you to find out who killed him,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Oh,” I said. “Is that all?”
Her painted lips twisted into a superior smirk. She’d surprised the flatfoot. “That is what you do, isn’t it?” she said.
I shrugged. “Sometimes I go fishing,” I said.
I don’t think she caught the joke. Instead of laughing she just sat there and stared. It was too bad, really. She looked like she could have used a chuckle, and I wouldn’t have minded hearing it.
“Didn’t the department conduct an investigation?” I asked eventually.
She shrugged delicately and took another drag on her cigarette. “They claimed it would have been a waste of resources,” she said. “Personally, I think they preferred not to risk exposing their own indiscretions.” She exhaled through her nose this time, the smoke rising to the ceiling in two twisting coils like grey-blue snakes.
I nodded slowly. “You think they know who had your husband killed?” I said.
She shrugged again. On her, it was a sight to see. “I think they know more about it than I do,” she said.
“You think I should ask them?”
“I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to do your job, Mr. Parker,” she said. As she spoke, she nimbly flicked her ash into the glass tray on my desk and crossed one shimmering leg over the other. It was a hell of a show, and for a second or two I forgot what it was we were talking about.
When my sense returned to me I said, “Not yet,” and then, “Do you have any idea what kind of people your husband was associated with?”
Her nose wrinkled a little, like she’d just smelled something rotten. “Walter didn’t like to bring his work home with him,” she said, “although, I do recall hearing the names ‘Cato’ and ‘Fitzroy’ being spoken over the phone. From the tone of his voice, they sounded important.”
I’d heard the names before. Usually they were accompanied by the word “racket” and the phrase “don’t cross.” I made a show of writing them down along with her contact information, in case I turned anything up. Then, just as we were getting to the matter of my fee, I caught myself staring at her with what I guess was a sort of puzzled expression.
She caught me, too. “Is there something on your mind, Mr. Parker?” she said.
I thought about waving it off, changing the subject, and then showing her out, but something stopped me. I’m still not sure what it was.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Lance,” I said after a pause, “But you don’t make a convincing widow. What’s this really about?”
It was a stupid question. Again, I blame the whiskey.
To her credit, she played it off beautifully. She didn’t gasp, didn’t blush, and didn’t go into hysterics. She just regarded me coldly through narrowed eyes and said, “I should slap your face.”
I rocked in my chair a little, feeling more pleased than I had any right to. “I thought you hated clichés,” I said.
Her eyes stayed narrow, more out of annoyance than anger, I think. “Maybe Walter and I didn’t always get along,” she said. “Maybe we’re all better off without him. But he was my husband, and I was raised to believe that counts for something.”
She had the gravitas of a tragic heroine, and it was all I could do to hold back the tears. Still, her money was as green as anyone’s.
“Fair enough, Mrs. Lance,” I said, trying to sound apologetic. “I’ll see what can be done.”
She didn’t nod so much as nod her head in my direction. “Good afternoon, Mr. Parker,” she said, and glided out the door. Her heels clicked smartly across the hardwood, the latch clicked shut behind her, and I sat there in the musty silence, considering the facts.
She was something else, though at the time I wasn’t sure quite what. The way she moved, her body language, was all so deliberate – practiced, even. It was like every motion had been choreographed and rehearsed. There were times it was downright mesmerizing to watch. It was also almost certainly a cover for something else. She didn’t buy the noble widow bit any more than I did. But she played the part well, with the sort of patrician disdain for the rest of the world that you didn’t see so much this side of the Rocky Mountains. Must have been an expensive finishing school her parents sent her to.
What else could it have been? She didn’t look like a policeman’s wife because she wasn’t one – not really. She was old money, to the bone. The way she carried herself – no shame at all, and pride so effortless it was second nature. So why come to me, then? She could presumably do a whole lot better.
I figured then that it had to do with the husband. Maybe she wasn’t sorry to see him go, but I didn’t guess that was always the case. In my head, it played a little something like bad theatre. A society heiress weds a hero cop with a heart of gold. Bet the folks weren’t too pleased about that. Bet that was the point. And even though prince charming turned out to be as much of rat as the rest of us, she couldn’t slink back to mom and pop and admit that they’d been right all along. So she hires me, because I’m cheaper than some and better than most, and I help turn her boy into a hero again. Some racket I’m in.
But I didn’t say no. The money was part of it. Times are lean, and a man needs to keep himself lubricated or he’s no good to anyone. But there was something else, if I’m being honest. There was her.
She was a bad risk. She was danger and excitement, and everything going up in flames. She was a good death, if such a thing exists. I figured it later that talking to her was like looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. Maybe it gave you a charge, but that was only because you secretly hoped it would go off. I guess you’ve got to be pretty sick to think like that. I guess I know what that makes me. And I bet old Walter knew, before they dropped the curtain on him.
But now I’m getting ahead of myself.
Then and there – sitting in my crappy little office as a wasted afternoon started its costume change into wasted evening – I hadn’t figured out exactly what it was I’d just gotten myself into. And I wouldn’t yet, until the lady and I had spoken a few times more. I was bitten, see, but the poison hadn’t started to spread.
I sat at the window for a good while after she left, staring out at the rain. The storm was only just getting started.