The Baby Blue Rip-Off (A Mallory Mystery) Page 5

  “Or,” Brennan said, “could be they heard about Mrs. Jonsen’s supposed money and figured one old woman wouldn’t be any sweat.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “She wasn’t, was she?”

  “No. She sure wasn’t.”

  We sat and looked at each other for a minute or so.

  Then I got up, and Brennan stood.

  “Thanks for talking, sheriff.”

  “It’s okay. Thanks for letting me bounce some ideas off your head.”

  “Any time.”

  “Just one thing, Mallory... don’t let it go any further than just me and you chatting, okay? You can come around and trade theories all you want, but don’t go nosing around.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Mallory....”

  “I said I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Hey, and we been so cordial up to now.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” he said, trying to get gruff again and not quite pulling it off.

  I headed for the door, and he stopped me.

  “Say, Mallory?”

  “Yeah, Brennan?”

  He glanced at John’s picture in the gold frame.

  Then he said, “Never mind. See you around.”

  “See you around.”

  10

  A big expensive Buick, last year’s model, was parked in front of my place when I got back. The Buick was dark green and smaller than a yacht, but not much. A fat man’s car. Appropriately enough, Edward Jonsen was in it. The car’s engine was running, the windows up, air conditioning going. Even so, Jonsen was hot. Psychologically, if not physically. He was making an effort to contain his anger, but like a lid on a boiling pot of water, the attempt was not entirely successful; his lower lip took on a petulant jut and gave him the look of some talking animal in a cartoon, a pouting porker in a two-hundred-buck blue suit.

  Jonsen was parked in my spot, so I left my van across the street, in front of the home of one of my friendlier neighbors. I crossed to the Buick and rapped on the window. Jonsen flashed a mean irritated look and pushed something, and the window on my side went down a third of the way.

  “You’re Mallory.”

  It wasn’t exactly a statement; it wasn’t exactly a question. I answered him anyway. I said I was Mallory.

  “I have to talk to you. Get in.”

  He made no try at clouding the edge of hostility in his voice. I didn’t know what to make of him.

  I said, “We could go inside my trailer there and talk, if you’d like.”

  “The car will do fine, thank you.”

  He said thank you like screw you.

  I hesitated.

  “Will you get in?”

  I nodded yes, and the window slid back up.

  And so I got in. It was more than just cool in there; it was cold, uncomfortably so. In the backseat of the Buick were stacks of brochures put out by the feed company Jonsen worked for. After his flop at running his own service station, his mother had told me, Edward Jonsen had taken a job as a salesman for a big local feed company, and had evidently done fairly well, probably due to his farm background, which must’ve made it easy for him to relate to rural feed dealers.

  Even now, you could see he’d been raised on a farm. His hands, which gripped the steering wheel as if he were driving and not sitting still, were hard, rough, callused, powerful. Hands that had worked. Hands that could do you damage. And yet the overall impression he gave was one of softness; the strength that obviously resided in his massively framed body was layered with the tissue of obesity.

  “I’d like to express my sympathy for your loss,” I said. “Your mother was a fine woman. I was happy to know her, even if it was only for a short time.”

  “Spare me your hypocrisy.”

  His jowls quivered as he spoke, the doughy, paste-white skin and the Zero Mostel hair making him an all-around unpleasant-looking human being. I wondered how the hell he could make a living as a salesman.

  “I don’t follow you,” I said. “What do you mean, hypocrisy?”

  “My mother’s death is a great loss to me. But I was brought up to accept reality and the defeat it occasionally brings, so if you are attempting to mislead me by your pretended ignorance, or are simply hoping to needle me, I suggest you give it up.” There was a firmness in his words and expression that belied the soft, almost feminine tone of his voice.

  “I want to know what you mean by hypocrisy, Mr. Jonsen.”

  “Please. Although I have been able to accept my mother’s death, the burden is still heavy, and I would as soon dispense with pretense and the sarcasm I detect in your tone. Coming to you like this is not easy for me. The whole idea of having to meet with you is distasteful, disgusting to me.”

  “What are you talking about?” There were goose pimples forming on my arms—whether from the air conditioner blasting at me or the chilliness of the conversation, I couldn’t tell you.

  “Let’s not play games. Please! If you will return what was stolen, it can end there. I will even offer a cash settlement, though I’m sure it won’t be as generous as some, well, fence, or whoever it is you usually deal with....”

  “Wait a minute. What do you mean, ‘return what was stolen’? I don’t like your implication, Mr. Jonsen.”

  “Implication? Are you going to make me go through the chain of thought that led me to you? Please. Do you really think I’m naive enough to believe that a person of your... type... would participate in a program for aiding the elderly out of, what? Civic duty? Please. You used it as a method to get close to my mother, to get inside the house and see just exactly what it was she had in there. You were good, I’ll admit that. When my mother spoke of you to me so highly, it didn’t at the time occur to me that your motives were selfish. But now, with mother dead and everything stolen, it’s easy enough to see. No, I don’t believe your ‘innocent bystander’ story, and perhaps if, when I next speak with Sheriff Brennan, I explain my line of reasoning to him, he will see through your silly story as well. So why don’t we drop the game-playing and talk seriously.”

  “You are incredible.”

  “The sum I have in mind is five thousand dollars. Hardly spectacular, I grant you, but if we were to agree to have the stolen property ‘discovered,’ then some of the intensity of the investigation might die down, which you will agree is to your advantage—”

  “Can I get in a word?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I just want to point out a couple of things. Okay? Jonsen, don’t assume that, just because you are petty, everyone else in the world is petty, too. And don’t assume that, just because you are self-centered, everyone else in the world shares your warped point of view. Don’t assume that, just because you have greed where other people have a vestige or two of compassion, the whole world is full of fat, greedy assholes.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. Get your fat ass, your fat car, and your skinny character the hell out of here, and don’t come around bothering me again.”

  With remarkable speed, he reached down to the side of his seat, by the driver’s door, and came up with a revolver. It was a tiny gun, a .22, and looked like a child’s toy in the middle of his big hand. If I were James Bond, I would’ve laughed at it. I didn’t laugh.

  “Did you expect me to come unprepared?” he asked. “I realize who I’m dealing with. A murderer. A thief. I realize what you did to my mother, and I’m prepared to overlook that if we can make some kind of business arrangement, but don’t underestimate me. I’m prepared to deal with you on your own low level.”

  “I’m sure you are,” I said.

  “Are you ready to talk seriously?”

  “Sure.”

  He loosened his grip on the gun, lowered it, and I reached over and plucked it out of his hands. A tiny gasp escaped his lips: a child’s gasp to go along with the toylike gun. His eyes were round white marbles as he looked at me po
inting the little revolver back at him.

  I let him sweat for a while; he could stand to lose some weight.

  Then I tossed the gun in his lap.

  “You didn’t deserve her,” I said.

  He didn’t know what I was talking about. He said so.

  “Your mother,” I explained. “And come to think of it, she didn’t deserve you, either. Good-bye, Jonsen.”

  I got out, slammed the door, and the Buick roared off. I stood watching the empty street for a good minute, watching his exhaust fumes dissipate, then headed back inside my trailer and popped the top of a Pabst to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.

  I sat on the couch.

  Kicking me isn’t enough, I thought. Now people got to come ’round and point guns at me.

  Damn!

  This really wasn’t my idea of a good time, not to mention that I’d cut my lit class at the college this morning to talk to Brennan, and I had a mystery novel to write, and besides, it was time I got out and started looking for somebody to bandage my various wounds. Somebody soft who smelled better than me.

  But damn!

  Somebody had to care about Mrs. Jonsen’s murder, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be her fat, spoiled son. Somebody had to care about her death. Not her damn possessions: her death.

  Somebody had to (damnit) get involved.

  Maybe it had to be me.

  I finished the beer and started another.

  11

  Knocking.

  There was a knocking at the door. I opened my eyes, slowly, tentatively, like a guy peeking into an envelope that just might contain his pink slip.

  Beer cans.

  I saw beer cans on the coffee table. I was on the couch, where I’d fallen asleep after consuming five beers while trying to think, an impossible task.

  “Just a second,” I told the knocking, or tried to. My voice was a fog of phlegm. I cleared my throat, tried again, and did better.

  I got up and my legs seemed to work, so I answered the door. It was Lou Brown, dressed in civvies: gray tee-shirt and blue jeans. The light from outside did a number on my eyes, which I covered, reacting much as Count Dracula might.

  “Did I disturb you?” Lou wanted to know.

  “No,” I said, without conviction. “Come on in.”

  “I should’ve called first.”

  “Hell with that. Hell with formalities.”

  “Are you awake?”

  “Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope crap in the woods?”

  Lou laughed and said, “I’ll come back some other time.”

  I laughed and said, “The hell you will. Come on in and talk to me. We’ll have some beer, if I didn’t drink it all. What time is it?”

  “About four,” he said, following me inside the trailer and closing the door behind him.

  “Sit down. Be with you in a second; my bladder’s killing me.”

  “Justifiable homicide,” Lou said, noting the table of beer cans.

  When I came back from the john, I got a couple Pabsts out of the fridge, popped the tops, joined Lou on the couch, gave him his beer, and started mine.

  “What d’you do, Mal? Sleep all afternoon, or drink all afternoon?”

  “First drink,” I explained, “then sleep.”

  “That how you while away the hours? Drinking yourself unconscious?”

  “It is till I figure out a way to drink and sleep at the same time.”

  “Can I ask you something personal? We aren’t exactly close friends but is that all right, if I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead, Lou. Maybe if I answer a personal question, we’ll become close friends. Or maybe I’ll toss your butt out of here. Who knows?”

  He grinned at that and shot his best shot: “Are you able to support yourself writing? You go out to the college, too, I know. But you don’t have a job.”

  “This may come as a shock to some people, but writing’s a job. Not a living, maybe, but a job.”

  “Then how...?”

  “When my folks died a few years back, they left me some cash. Not much... but I got some left. Enough to try to get a writing career off the ground. And the government pays my tuition. I’m an ex-GI, you know.”

  “Aren’t we all? Your folks were in farming, weren’t they?”

  “Yeah. My father had a farm. There was some money there.”

  “I don’t mean to be nosy.”

  “No, that’s okay. I understand what it is you’re doing, and it doesn’t bother me.”

  “Oh? What is it I’m doing, then?”

  “You’re fishing around to see if maybe I might be part of that looting crew myself.”

  “Come on, Mal....”

  “No, it’s okay. Really. Doesn’t bother me. I’m a natural suspect.” Just ask Edward Jonsen.

  “Listen, Mal, I won’t deny it. It was just something I felt I had to touch on. For my own peace of mind.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Good,” he sighed, relieved. “I’m glad you’re not pissed. Because, actually, I was hoping to escape my folks for the rest of the afternoon, and hoped you wouldn’t mind my hanging around awhile.”

  “Not at all. Glad for the company. Any time. But can I ask something in return?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I give you refuge from your parents; you keep me filled in on Brennan’s handling of the Jonsen case.”

  “What do you want to know? I thought you were going around to see Brennan this morning.”

  “I did, and I got some information, but I didn’t want to press him. If he knows I’m planning to look into this, he’ll clam up on me, and turn hard-ass.”

  “Then you are going to do some nosing around on your own?”

  “Well, I don’t know, exactly. We’ll see.”

  “That sounds like yes to me.”

  “I don’t know. People keep telling me I shouldn’t get into this, so naturally I’m inclined to. You hear what happened last night?”

  “Something else happen last night?”

  “Yeah, I told Brennan this morning, but then, this being your day off, you wouldn’t’ve heard about it.”

  “So what happened?”

  I gave him a brief account of my visit from the Kick-Mallory-in-the-Ribs Club, and he shook his head, saying, “Those guys got balls, coming around here. The morons.”

  “Easy,” I said. “That’s what I said that got ’em started kicking again.”

  “How the hell are your ribs anyway?”

  I lifted my shirt like a sailor showing off his new tattoo and let Lou see my girdled, trussed-up rib cage.

  “Is that uncomfortable?”

  “No,” I said. “No worse than swimming in an iron lung.”

  “And you’re still interested in playing detective? You got balls yourself, Mallory.”

  “Don’t mention balls either,” I said. “That’s the other place those boys like to kick. Hey, I’m in swell shape. If I got invited to an orgy tonight, I’d have to man the punch bowl, I’m telling you.”

  “Listen, before I go into what I know about the Jonsen case, and the other break-ins, maybe you better fill me in on what Brennan told you so far.”

  I did, and then Lou went on to tell me some things Brennan had left out.

  “Brennan’s trying real hard on this one,” he said. “He knows reelection’s coming up, and he’s been sheriff for a long time and knows people are in a house-cleaning mood around here, ever since the county treasurer absconded with God-knows-how-much.”

  “So Brennan’s trying hard. So what?”

  “Well, if he wasn’t trying to make it a one-man show, he could call in the boys from the Iowa Criminal Bureau of Investigation, and that would probably result in a faster and more efficient clearing up of the case, but he’s not going to, he says, unless he gets convinced he can’t handle it himself.”

  “Great. And everybody knows how up-to-date Brennan is on police techniques.”

  “Don’t underestimate him. He
goes to Omaha to a three-week catch-up school for sheriffs every summer, and he says he picks up a lot there.”

  “He probably means women.”

  “That isn’t what he means—”

  “I’m just kidding, Lou. Go on, will you?”

  “Okay. You get surly when you’re drunk, don’t you?”

  “I’m not drunk, and I’m not surly, smart-ass. You want another beer?”

  “Okay.”

  I got some more beers, and Lou went on. “Something else about the break-ins you might like to think about.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “All of ’em took place beyond the city limits. Annexation got defeated at the polls last fall, remember? There’s plenty of houses that extend past the actual limits, and all the break-ins have been among those.”

  “Yeah? Damn, I should’ve noticed that. Has Brennan?”

  “I mentioned it to him, and he shrugged it off. Said it was just that those houses are mostly spread far apart from other houses and are easier to pull a van up to without rousing suspicion of neighbors.”

  “He’s right,” I said. “Those houses are on highways, too, mostly, where cars are going by too fast to take time to notice anything.”

  Lou nodded and said, “He’s right, yeah, but I see more of a tie-in than just that. Outside the city limits means the sheriff’s department handles it; inside means the local cops. Or some in town, some out means a combined investigation. I think staying outside town proper has to do with these people being afraid of what our police chief might do if he got into the fray.”

  “Oh, Lou, are you kidding? That fat nincompoop wouldn’t do a damn thing.”

  “That’s just it. The chief wouldn’t do a damn thing himself, but he would call in the Criminal Bureau of Investigation. He always does in a murder case. He did about those rapes last year, remember?”

  “And Brennan’s not much for calling in the CBI.”

  “No. Like I said, he likes to fool around with a case himself, especially in an election year.”

  “And you think these B-and-E artists are sophisticated enough to consider that angle?”