Lucky Stiff Read online

  Chapter 23

  That night found me back at the Ritz having a room service dinner with Minerva. Dishes of seriously prepared food surrounded us. "You know, you could stay with me," I offered. "Save a lot of money. I could fix you a steak like this. Honest."

  "You're the dearest person," Minerva smiled. "I feel so secure when I'm with you."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. But I want to stay here at the hotel because of the space, and the staff. I've asked them to set me up a private fax line here in the room; I've already got two phone lines, and they're bringing me a PC tomorrow. They can simply produce whatever I need."

  "Wow."

  "You can get a lot done fast if you're willing to pay for it. And you know money isn't an issue for me."

  "Yeah."

  "Besides," she said, "I love room service, don't you?" We were sitting in springily upholstered chairs the waiter had pulled up to the dining cart. The suite, four rooms plus two baths, was larger than the one we enjoyed in Las Vegas. The furniture was a bit heavy, but there were some fantastic pictures on the walls, an assortment of vintage and contemporary art I admired and envied. They actually had a Lewis D. Lewis in that suite, a small exquisite landscape done in fine pencil. It made me feel good just to look at it.

  "Oh, yes," I agreed, inhaling the pleasant aromas. "This beef is awesome. And the side dishes. I've never seen such side dishes. Minerva, I—"

  "You make me smile, Lillian, you make me feel so good. Your energy. Your purposefulness. You make me feel whole."

  She was relaxed, and I saw that she was continuing her journey toward better and better health. This made me so happy. She was preparing to fling herself into work again. And this too should have made me happy.

  "Minerva, I've got something to bring up. And I'm just going to, uh…I'm kind of worried. Uh, OK. You know I want to find Bill Sechrist. You know I want you to help me find him. We've talked about that. You've got resources like I never could hope to have. I've blatantly and shamelessly asked for them. I've asked for your time and effort and however much money it takes."

  She listened with a bemused smile.

  I said, "But I'm not sure I want you to write about it afterward."

  "Well," she began carefully—

  "Wait. Please wait. We need to have an agreement before we go any further. Do you really want to help me?"

  "Yes, Lillian."

  "Will you help me even if I—" I stopped. "I just realized you have the right to write about any of this whether I want you to or not, with or without my permission, or even my cooperation."

  "Lillian."

  "I'm not saying you would. I'm just realizing you could."

  She swirled the wine in her glass. Her hand was graceful, holding that crystal bulb, her face thoughtful.

  "What," she said, "is your objection to my writing your story?"

  "I'm just not sure I want the world reading it. I don't want people to know…I mean, ideally I want Bill Sechrist brought to justice. Of course, I don't know whether that's possible. I want him to at least be brought to my justice. The justice of Lillian Byrd! You know I want to confront him. I feel if I can do that, I'll be able to put the whole horror behind me. I want to look into his eyes and see what's there. I don't feel the need for the world to know the whole goddamn story."

  I paused, and Minerva waited. "And I—I care for you, Minerva LeBlanc. You feel that I'm good for you. Well, you're good for me. You're good as hell for me, I'll tell you. But frankly, I'm so…well, so obsessed, I know I am, and I can feel it growing. It's like I want to work Sechrist out of my system, find my way to the end of this nightmare first. And then…there's you. I don't want my passion for resolving this thing to get mixed up with my passion for you. You're an amazing woman, but I don't know that I'm an equal for you."

  With a direct look, she said, "Are you trying to say you want to back off from having sex with me?"

  "I don't want that. But I feel it might be the right thing to do, temporarily. What do you think?"

  "I want you. And you want me. I delight in you. Why didn't you bring your mandolin tonight?"

  That took me aback. "Do you remember me playing for you that night?" I asked. The night she was attacked.

  "Yes, I do." Her face just opened up, right at that perfect moment. "I want to hear your music again."

  She circled the top of her wine glass with her middle finger. The gesture hypnotized me.

  "Lillian. Listen to me now." Her voice was low and steady. "You know I want to tell this story. I don't need money, but I need work. I need work to feel alive. This is the work I do, I write crime. I write the real thing. You just don't know, you don't understand how much I could do with this story." Plainly, her feeling for what she was saying was intense, yet I also thought she was making an effort not to frighten me with it.

  "Lillian, you would be a heroine in this book. You are a heroine. My God, you set out to solve a crime that's more than thirty years old. You were a kid growing up in a rundown bar—"

  "It wasn't rundown, it was blue-collar."

  "Well, in a blue-collar bar where there were probably rats, and you almost lose your life in a hellish conflagration, and you become an orphan, and you overcome that, and one day a chance encounter prompts you to relive the whole tragic thing, and you set out to solve this mystery you never even knew existed! You dig around, you get your face bashed in, you fly to Las Vegas, you impersonate a mob babe, you get involved in a high-speed auto chase, you rescue this drug-addicted hooker with your bare hands from a burning car, you uncover the kind of betrayals that would absolutely destroy a weaker person, you persist in the face of danger and hopelessness, and yet you sit there as if you're just some…average person, drifting through life!"

  She paused to catch her breath. I had to catch mine, too, after all that.

  I said, "How did you know about the rats?"

  "Damn it, Lillian, I wasn't trying to be funny! I was trying to make you understand!"

  "I'm sorry."

  "Don't apologize!" I thought she was going to throw something. But I waited, and she calmed down. She sighed, and flipping her hair out of her eyes, said, "Look, we don't have to decide anything right away. Anything about what I will or won't write."

  I said, "Do you think I'll owe something to you if you help me?"

  "Absolutely not."

  I could see pressing the issue would do no good. I still felt uncomfortable. "Minerva, I just don't know."

  Quietly, she said, "What's really bothering you about this?"

  I took a long breath and came out with it. "I don't want you exploiting my pain in a book."

  She was insulted into blankness. She opened her mouth but nothing came out.

  I said, "I—I'm sorry. That's just the way I feel. I'm glad we're having this conversation now."

  She composed herself with visible effort. "Lillian, we should give this issue a rest. Let me simply tell you two things. One, I promise that I'll give you all the help I can, all the resources I can muster, to help you find Sechrist. Ask anybody in law enforcement who knows me, and they'll tell you that's a lot. And two, I guarantee I won't let the issue of my writing come between us."

  "That relieves me," I said. "But how?"

  She smiled patiently. "You can't control everything, you know. Just leave this part to me. All right?"

  "Well…OK." I was baffled, but Minerva's smile was so kind and loving that my fears slipped away.

  "Now, my brave ideal, tell me what you're thinking regarding Sechrist. You said you organized some ideas. What do you say we start with those?"

  Instantly I warmed to our mission. "OK," I said, sitting forward. "We ought to start in Florida, in Miami. I figure public records would be one way to go. He doesn't have any need—that we know of—to use an alias, so the public records are a reasonable bet. Do you have any sources in the military bureaucracy? I mean, I guess some military records are public, but not all, right? Since Sechrist was in the Navy, if he got
an honorable discharge, he'd be eligible for certain veterans' benefits. Loans, maybe health care. And if he filed for something, if he filled out forms, those forms would have his address and maybe much more information, right?"

  "Right." Minerva just smiled away.

  "Then," I went on, "aside from the Navy, there's other public records. Like if he got arrested for something, even something minor, there'd be a record of that."

  "That's right."

  "I'm so glad you're on my side, because you've got access to—well, you're like a private investigator. You've got access to all these specialized, consolidated computer databases they have these days, don't you? Where you put in somebody's name and all kinds of shit comes up—real estate transactions, bankruptcies, that kind of stuff." I looked at her. "How'm I doing?"

  "Superbly."

  I really liked how her lips formed that word. "Well, you know, I've read all your books. Plus, I've read Calico Jones. I know what you think of those, but that author knows all about that stuff too—she endows Calico Jones with this supercomputer where she can find out all these incredibly arcane bits of information, with just the click of a mouse."

  "Relax, Lillian, I know better than to sneer at Calico Jones."

  Now she was making me laugh. "So, in the morning, you'll get going on all that? You've got investigators you can call on to do those database searches, right?"

  "I do and I will. But…"

  "Yeah?"

  She picked up a stalk of asparagus and paused with it. "I have a funny feeling about Bill Sechrist."

  "Yeah," I agreed. "Trix's recollection of him just disappearing into the night. That was somewhat disconcerting, wasn't it?"

  "Exactly."

  "Well, let's see what we can turn up." I began to feel like a real investigator. "Duane's not going to be of any help right now," I went on. I told her about his getting busted for trying to dig up his mother's corpse beneath Trix's grave marker. "I wouldn't have thought he had it in him."

  Minerva was impressed. She closed her eyes and nodded slightly, as if viewing a movie behind her lids.

  "Now," I went on, "that kind of crazed boldness is valuable to our cause. But I can't count on Duane's stability yet. Tomorrow, I'm going to see Uncle Guff. I called him today and set up a fishing date with him. I want to get him out on the river, where it's quiet and we can talk, and I'm going to tell him what I've found out so far. I owe him that much, anyway. Before, when I brought up the subject of the fire that night, he didn't want to talk about it. But he has no idea what really went on between the people who were involved, he has no idea about that deal between Bill Sechrist and my dad about the insurance money. He has no honest information as to what led to the events of that night. He has a right to know. I want him to know. I don't want to be the only one in the family with this knowledge."

  Minerva remarked, "It will be painful for him too."

  "Yeah, but he's a tough bird. I've never known anything to faze him. My goal is to get him to be our ally here. Once he sees how much I've found out, he'll be willing to…get on board with us. If your people pull up something on Sechrist, Uncle Guff could maybe help us get to him. Maybe set a trap for him. Or surveillance! Let's say we find out where Sechrist works or hangs out, we'll go down to Florida—Guff and Rosalie can drive their motor home and we can use that as headquarters." The possibilities excited me. "It'll be our clubhouse, and we'll get Aunt Rosalie to fix us hamburgers and these home fries she makes, they're really good."

  Minerva suppressed a smile at that, but I didn't hold it against her. I thought some more. "Sechrist was always hot for easy money, a big score," I went on. "Maybe we could approach him with some kind of moneymaking scheme. Something he'd lick his chops over and say Yeahhh."

  "Lillian."

  "Yes?"

  "Those are all really good ideas. OK?"

  I looked at her.

  She said, "But I think your mind is getting just a bit fevered here. Maybe we shouldn't jump so far ahead."

  I reined myself in. "OK."

  "How about first things first. Let me get the database searches going, let me look into the military records, let me talk to my South Florida sources."

  "Right."

  "Have you given any more thought to that bastard Robert Hawley? Because now that Trix's dead, he might—"

  "Oh, God." I'd already forgotten about Robert Hawley. Isn't that amazing? But once he was no longer an element in my quest, my mind just dropped him. I said, "As I believe a Las Vegas cop once put it, no can do."

  Her eyebrows quirked up.

  I told her about the radio report. "We can probably get a little more from the papers tomorrow. But it looks like that avenue is shut to us forever."

  Minerva just sat there, gazing off in astonishment. For a minute I thought she was having another seizure. But no. She was merely absorbing things, her mind churning. As I had when I first saw her, walking through the lobby of the Ritz those years ago, I watched her mind in motion: thinking, evaluating, categorizing. She was intensely happy. She appeared to be awed, gladly overwhelmed. She murmured something very softly.

  I leaned to her. "What was that?"

  She shook her head and smiled at me helplessly. "This is a hell of a story. Lillian, this is a world-class story. A staggering story. My God. What I could do with this story."

  "Minerva, now—"

  "There's got to be some way I can convince you to—"

  "No!"

  "All right, all right, let's not get—relax. Lillian, please don't worry. It's just that I get fired up. I understand you. Here. Come here. I want to kiss you."

  "Yeah, but I just want to make sure you—"

  She startled me by ripping open her blouse and presenting her breasts and belly to me. So smooth and creamy, what a sight. Oh, praise the creator. God the parfait maker. God the pastry chef. God, she looked luscious. I made an incredulous sound. Minerva smiled a smile of pure mischief. I was speechless. Speech, I realized in the next moment, was beside the point.

  Her lips widened and curled deliciously, the tips of her ears pinkened, and her eyes told me I would not get away from her that night. The sight of her set my body to throbbing, and I allowed myself to be drawn into her arms as a skier drops over a blind cornice and commits to the open space below, trusting that the powder on the downslope will be deep enough and forgiving enough to afford an unforgettable run.

  Chapter 24

  Uncle Guff throttled back the motor, then cut it. On one knee in the bow, I hefted the anchor and dropped it overboard. He had built the pancake-shaped anchor by melting scrap lead into a shallow mold and adding a steel bar with an eye for the line to go through. The braided line raced through my hands, following the anchor to the bottom. I fastened the line to a cleat on the gunwale.

  Then comes that distinctive moment when the current sets the boat against the resistance of the anchor, and you feel one tug through the skin of the boat as your momentum stops. Then come the tiny movements of the boat at anchor, if you care to notice them: up and down in response to the small wavelets driven by the breeze; side to side when the wake of another vessel, degrading on its way to you from the channel, reaches your boat and slips beneath.

  Late afternoon is never a great time for catching fish on the Detroit River, but if you're willing to stay as dusk comes on, you might have some luck.

  Uncle Guff had had to run errands in the morning, then there was Aunt Rosalie's hair appointment, so the sun was well on its way to the west when he and I shoved off from the marina. I'd brought some salami sandwiches I'd made, plus two Cokes apiece in my LunchMate cooler. We had plenty of worms, packed in a paper tub that I placed in the shade beneath my seat.

  The afternoon was clear and hot, so Uncle Guff wore his pith helmet—an old, old thing, God knew where he got it. It was a real one, carved from that corklike stuff and sewn over with white cloth. The leather chin strap was slung daringly behind the crown. Most people would look ridiculous in such a hat, but U
ncle Guff wore it with dignity. It served a precise purpose: to protect his bald spot from the sun. Beneath the thick brim his seamed face regarded the river attentively. His blue eyes behind their bifocals scanned the water, judging our position relative to the tip of Celeron Island, south of Grosse Ile. He seemed satisfied. It was a place we'd fished many times before.

  We rooted in our tackle boxes and set up our perch rigs. I passed the worm container to him, he helped himself, and passed it back. The nightcrawlers writhed healthily in their cushion of black dirt. We baited up and cast our lines to the lee side of the boat. I settled on my seat with my back to the dropping sun; I felt its warmth through my short-sleeved blouse. My Vietnam hat kept the worst of it off my head. As usual, there was a faint but steady breeze from the west. Gulls skirled overhead, checking us out for possible garbage.

  My uncle hadn't spoken since we left the dock except to say "Thank you" when I passed him the worms.

  There was something so meditative about him this day, and something so lulling about the water, lightly slapping the sides of our open boat, and something so simple about our lines angling from the tips of our rods down to the khaki-colored water that I almost hated to speak.

  But I did.

  "I've been kind of busy," I said. "I know you didn't want me to poke around. You told me there was no mystery to Daddy and Mom's deaths." I watched Uncle Guff swallow. "But it seems you were wrong on that. I've come across some pretty interesting evidence."

  At that word, evidence, he coughed ferociously, cupping his hand over his mouth. He adjusted the drag on his reel, pulling out some line to test it. Then he reeled up the slack. He placed his eyes on his rod tip and kept them there.

  I said, "Here goes, Uncle Guff. I met up with Trix. The barmaid. Remember I was telling you about my friend Duane Sechrist, and how Trix showed up as his new mom after the fire? She didn't die in the fire after all. I met her. I spoke with her. I got her to talk to me. The fire was an arson job. Bill Sechrist, Daddy's friend, was the reason it all happened. Daddy made a deal with him to let him burn the bar and give him, or lend him, the insurance money. Sechrist wanted to kill his wife and run off with Trix. Daddy didn't know that. He just knew that he owed a big favor to Sechrist for having saved his life in the war."