The Bessie Blue Killer. Richard A. Lupoff

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СКАЧАТЬ a smaller metal door, the size of a normal house door, stood open. A uniformed Oakland policeman stood outside the door. His features looked Chinese. He was big enough to play a bad guy in the World Wrestling Federation. He stopped Lindsey. “Can’t go in, sir. Crime scene.”

      Lindsey tried to talk his way past the cop. He flashed his International Surety ID. Insurance credentials usually got him past cops. This one chose to be difficult.

      Twenty feet away a figure in a brown tweed jacket and slacks was paced back and forth. His face was directed down as if he was studying the hangar floor. His hair was thick, dark, curly, unkempt.

      Lindsey kept trying to talk his way past the cop. The cop raised his voice.

      The rumpled man turned, startled. He recognized Lindsey at the same time that Lindsey recognized him. He headed for the doorway, put his hand on the officer’s arm, said, “Let him in, Walter. This is Mr. Lindsey. He helps us out sometimes.”

      Walter touched one finger to the bill of his uniform cap and let Lindsey pass.

      “Walter Chen,” the smaller man said. “Good young officer. Bright future. How are you, Lindsey? You don’t mind if I call you that? I feel as if we’re friends, after that Duesenberg case. I remember we put you through a lot on that one. But it all came out in the end, didn’t it? It always does. Well, not always but usually. You’re here because of Mr. McKinney?”

      “I don’t know. I—It’s nice to see you again, Lieutenant High.”

      “Doc. I’ll just call you Lindsey—you like that better than Hobart, I recall. You call me Doc, right?” The two men had shaken hands, then Doc High patted the pockets of his tweed jacket, looking for his forbidden pipe and tobacco pouch.

      Lindsey smiled.

      “Caught me, eh?” High grinned sheepishly. He was several inches shorter than Lindsey and a few years older. Compared to the blue-uniformed Walter Chen he had looked tiny.

      Lindsey said, “Is Mr. McKinney the, uh, victim?”

      “Looks like it. Name on his coveralls, ID tag with a photo and his name. Leroy McKinney. Resident of Richmond. Come on, you want a look, you’d better look now. Coroner’s here, crime scene technicians are almost finished, Mr. McKinney will be leaving in a few minutes.”

      He took Lindsey by the elbow and steered him across the oil-stained cement floor. The hangar was cavernous and had the feeling of age. North Field was the older part of Oakland International, dating from the daredevil era when Earhart and Hegenberger flew out of Oakland to make their Pacific hops, back in the days when airplanes were exotic machines and aviation had the charisma of professional sports or MTV stardom.

      The body lay face-up, presumably where it had fallen. The forehead was caved in and brains and blood had filled the unnatural cavity, forming a horrifying triangle with the staring eyes. The brains and blood looked like scrambled eggs in dark ketchup. Lindsey’s stomach lurched and he turned away.

      “You all right, Lindsey?”

      Lindsey pulled a folded handkerchief from his trousers and mopped his brow. He felt uncomfortably chilly, despite his sudden outburst of cold sweat. He shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket. “I’m okay. It was just—”

      “Understand. You’ll start taking it in stride after you’ve seen your first few hundred.”

      “I don’t want to see that many. I’ve seen enough.”

      “You don’t want to look at Mr. McKinney? Up to you, but you never know what you’ll notice. Sometimes.…” He gestured vaguely.

      Lindsey turned back and looked at the body. The technicians had marked its position with white tape. The man was black and elderly. His short hair was mostly gray. His head was tilted slightly and one hand rested against his cheek. Lindsey could imagine this old man as a sleeping child long years ago, lying with his cheek nestled against his hand. There was a startled expression on his face. His other arm lay outstretched, the elbow bent so the hand lay palm-up, even with the face. The fingers were horribly deformed, clawlike.

      Lindsey felt a chill. The hangar was chilly. An old-fashioned woodstove did little to dispel the cold and damp of the previous night. North Field was built on marshy flatlands and men had died in the cold that crept in from the Oakland Estuary and San Francisco Bay.

      “You have to pay a claim on this fellow?” High cocked his eyebrow at Lindsey like Groucho on You Bet Your Life.

      “I don’t know. That, uh, that would go through Walnut Creek. I don’t know if we carry a policy on him.”

      High said, “I meant to ask you about that. Thought you ran your company’s office out there. What’s this fellow Mueller doing in your job?” He jerked a thumb toward an overdressed individual who had seated himself at a makeshift desk near one wall. A mug of something steamed invitingly in front of him. He was filling out papers attached to a clipboard.

      Behind Mueller a metal door led to another, smaller room. It was an old-style office complete with filing cabinets, girlie calendars and a hot-plate. A black man in civilian clothes and a gray-haired woman were hunched over a metal desk with a uniformed sergeant. Lindsey could see only the woman’s back. She wore a heavily quilted vest over a plaid shirt. The male civilian was talking and the sergeant was writing, nodding, looking up from time to time, obviously to ask a question, then bending once more to write when the man answered.

      Lindsey said, “I guess I should talk to Elmer. He’s got my old job, Lieutenant—Doc. I’ve been sort of kicked upstairs. Working out of Denver now.”

      “Just like Perry Mason!”

      Lindsey smiled. He handed High one of his new business cards. It was the first one he’d ever used.

      “Special Projects Unit,” High read. He looked up at Lindsey. “Very impressive. Congratulations. They paying you a lot to do this?”

      Lindsey shook his head.

      Elmer Mueller looked up from his clipboard. He didn’t seem surprised to see Lindsey at the murder scene. Their eyes caught and held briefly. Lindsey nodded. Mueller returned to his papers.

      High steered Lindsey away from Leroy McKinney’s cadaver. “Can’t say I like your Mr. Mueller too much, Lindsey. He used to run an insurance agency in Oakland.”

      “I know.”

      “Never quite got in trouble with the law. Certainly never got into my bailiwick—Homicide. But a lot of the boys at Broadway and Sixth know him. Boys and girls, excuse me. Men and women. Martians. Too many times over the years, we’d get involved in something messy and shake hands with Elmer.”

      Lindsey grunted. He didn’t like Mueller either but he didn’t want to run down another International Surety man.

      “Well, before we get back to the case at hand,” High said, “if Elmer is your company’s man on the spot, what can I do for you, Lindsey? You’re not here just out of curiosity, are you?”

      “Hardly. As a matter of fact, I just started this new job and I’m afraid I’m in trouble already. I was supposed to prevent losses on this project. Bessie Blue. You know about Bessie Blue, Doc?”

      “Just СКАЧАТЬ