Denton - 01 - Dead Folks' Blues Read online

  Having gone running, Rachel was a workout ahead of me for the day. I could tell from the stillness of her body and the deepness of her breath that she was nowhere near waking up. I eased out of bed and stood looking down at her. I’d loved this woman once. Could I love her again? A lot of time had gone by, a lot of living. I’d loved her as a young man. Did I have it in me to love her as a man standing on the precipice of middle age?

  She was still beautiful, full of life and energy and passion. When we were first lovers, in college, she’d taught me things I never knew. I’d never been with anyone like her. All she had to do was walk into a room and it would light up. Funny, I think about those days and all I can come up with to describe them are clichés. But that’s the way it was then: a wonderful, innocent time that lives in my memory now like my mother’s oatmeal and brown sugar on snowy days, or my father’s standing over the turkey with carving knife in hand on Thanksgiving Day.

  What I needed was another glass of Gatorade. All this passion had left me with a raging thirst.

  I slipped into my underwear and trousers as quietly as possible. I’d spent the afternoon relearning Rachel’s body, but for some reason I wasn’t comfortable strolling around naked in her house. I silently left the bedroom, leaving the door cracked open, and padded barefoot down the hardwood floors of the hail and down the steps to the first floor.

  In the kitchen, I rinsed out the glass I had used earlier and refilled it. I stood at the kitchen door, staring out over the deepening shadows that filled the backyard. It was so quiet, so idyllic. I wondered for a second if I’d wind up living here someday.

  I took my glass and walked into the living room. The huge window that overlooked the wide expanse of front lawn down to Golf Club Lane could have been a Frederick Church painting, with the glowing blues and reds of a luminist sunset. I stood there watching for a long time in the silence, feeling more peaceful than I’d felt in a long time.

  Then it came back to me: my first impressions of this room. For that matter, of this house. This was a house owned by a surgeon, a professor, an accomplished, privileged, educated man.

  And yet, there was no sign of him anywhere.

  Out of curiosity more than anything else, I began walking from room to room, being careful not to make any noise. I didn’t want to awaken Rachel.

  There were no pictures of Connie in the living room, nor any in the den. No framed diplomas, certificates, testimonials, the trinkets that men and women proud of their achievements show off for everybody else. Hell, three years ago I got a nomination for an award from the Middle Tennessee Press Association, a less than prestigious group if ever there was one. But that nomination letter—and I didn’t even win the award—sat framed above my desk until the day they canned me and threw me out the door.

  But nothing here. I went from room to room, thinking that somewhere in this house, Conrad must have had a study or an office. Maybe it was upstairs. Maybe I should ask Rachel, although I didn’t want to come off as nosy.

  I walked back into the kitchen, poured myself another glass, and sat down at the kitchen table. Rachel’s fanny pack was still on the table where she’d tossed it earlier. The zipper was halfway open, some of the contents hanging out. There was a bandanna, a ring of keys, a radio with wires leading to headphones, and, of all things, a beeper.

  A beeper, I thought, what in heaven’s name would Rachel be doing with a beeper!

  I looked closer. The overheads were off in the kitchen. The outside light was fading fast. It was difficult to see. I didn’t want to go messing around with her stuff, but there it was, the base of it visible just outside the bag: a small black plastic box a little smaller than a cigarette pack, with a belt clip on the flat side.

  “Mmm, how about that?” I said out loud.

  “How about what?” a voice said behind me.

  I jumped about a foot off the chair and spun around. “Don’t do that!” I yelped.

  Rachel smiled as she walked into the kitchen. She wore only a man’s white dress shirt, presumably one belonging to her dead husband. She walked past me, over to the sink, and grabbed a fresh glass out of the overhead cabinet. The tail of the shirt pulled up as she reached above her; she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Despite the exhausting afternoon we’d spent, I found myself wanting her all over again.

  “Been up long?” She opened the refrigerator door, light spilling over her.

  “Maybe twenty minutes,” I said. “I tried not to wake you.”

  She pulled a pitcher of orange juice out. “That’s sweet. I woke up a few minutes ago, and you weren’t next to me. I was afraid you’d left without saying goodbye.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” I stood up and walked around the kitchen island. She poured a glass of juice, and while she drank it, I ran my arms around her waist and nuzzled into the back of her neck.

  “You feel great,” I purred.

  “So do you,” she said, but her voice was distracted. “What were you doing down here?”

  I pulled my face out of her hair. “Nothing. Just hanging around. That okay?”

  She set the glass down and turned to face me, my arms still around her, her bare legs rubbing against me.

  “Harry,” she said, “it’s going to take me awhile to get used to this. I’ve been through a lot. I need to know you’re not going to hurt me. To tell you the honest truth, I’ve had enough of that.”

  “I know. And I agree with you, things are moving a little too fast. But we’ve got time, Rachel.”

  She came back into my arms, pressed her face into my bare chest. I could feel her breath on me, hot, short gulps of air as if she were in a panic. I brought my right hand up and ran it through her hair, rubbing her softly, feeling her next to me.

  “All the time in the world,” I whispered.

  I pulled out of Rachel’s driveway at 9:20 the next morning, wondering how I was going to get through the next sixty hours without seeing her. That was part of the deal: to give each other time and space, we weren’t going to meet again until dinner Sunday night. She wanted it that way, not me. She was the one who needed time to recover. I understood and went along without question.

  Neither of us mentioned again my searching for Conrad’s killer. I was in a fog as I pulled out of her neighborhood onto Hillsboro Road, drove toward town a couple of blocks, then got on the entrance ramp for I-440.

  I wasn’t even sure where I was going. Back to my apartment first, I supposed, for a shower and a change of clothes. Then I had to figure out what was next. Albert Zitin, maybe. If I could track him down, check out his story against Jane Collingswood’s, then maybe I’d have some idea if my suspicions were on target.

  Mrs. Hawkins was in her front yard weeding a flower bed when I coasted into the driveway. She was a sweet old lady, a tad on the dumpy side, with those rhinestone teardrop glasses that were popular thirty-five or forty years ago. She reminded me in a way of my grandmother, except that my grandmother had exceptional hearing until she died. Mrs. Hawkins, even with her hearing aids, was nearly as deaf as a box of rocks.

  After parking the car, I walked to the front yard just to be polite. “Hello, Mrs. Hawkins,” I yelled about five feet away from her.

  She looked up from her weeding. She was wearing a faded pair of stretch denims, a checked workshirt, and an old pair of work gloves.

  “Good morning, Harry,” she said, her voice high and loud. “I didn’t hear you leave this morning.”

  “You wouldn’t hear me leave if I’d shot my way out of the house,” I said in a normal voice.

  “What was that?”

  “I said I left really early this morning,” I yelled.

  “Hot case, I suppose. It’s so exciting having a private detective as a tenant.”

  “I’m flattered, Mrs. Hawkins. Listen, I’ve got to get back to my office. I just came by to grab a quick shower.”

  “Fine, Harry. By the way, do you think you could see to the lawn this weekend?”

  “Ju
st freaking great,” I muttered under my breath, then raising my voice back to noise pollution levels: “Sure, Mrs. Hawkins. I’ll take care of it this weekend.”

  “Thank you. You’re such a nice boy.”

  I laughed to myself. If Mrs. Hawkins knew how I spent last evening, she’d probably evict me.

  It took one last call posing as Dr. Evans of Neurosurgery for me to learn that Albert Zitin lived a block or two off West End. He rented one side of a duplex near St. Thomas Hospital. He was off rotation until ten o’clock tonight. I figured he’d be at home mustering his reserves.

  The brick house sat on a corner of a four-way stop intersection. The neighborhood was quiet, middle-class, a mix of rental property and owner occupied. A pair of fir trees maybe twenty feet high and badly in need of a trim grew on either side of the concrete front porch, nearly blocking the front door from view. I parked the Ford in front and killed the ignition. The engine chugged for a few seconds, then backfired and let loose a puff of smoke before finally sighing itself into silence.

  I shook my head, both embarrassed and disgusted. I walked up the long stretch of concrete to the front door. There was a picture window behind the overgrown shrubbery with no curtains. I peeked through a branch and saw Albert Zitin lying on the couch in a pair of jeans, no shirt, no shoes. A book was propped on his chest, but it was lying facedown where it had settled when he dropped off to sleep.

  I folded a branch of the fir out of the way and rapped on the glass storm door. There was no sound for perhaps thirty seconds, so I made a fist, knuckles out, and pounded on the glass a little harder. The echo reverberated in the space between the storm door and the front door.

  This time, I heard a shuffling and the thud of a book falling on the floor. A sleepy voice yelled, “Hold on a minute.” There was a fumbling with the lock, then a sleep-logged face surrounded by a mop of thinning, curly hair appeared at the door.

  “Sorry to wake you up,” I said.

  “Oh, hell. It’s you.”

  I smiled at him, trying friendly first to see how it worked.

  “Jane said you’d probably find me.”

  “Then you’ve been expecting me. Mind if I come in?”

  “Yes, I mind. I mind very much. But I’m afraid if I don’t let you, I’m never going to be rid of you.”

  “Yeah,” I said, drawing it out a little, “that’s probably right.”

  He fumbled with the latch on the door, then pushed it open.

  Albert Zitin’s house was more my style; under-socialized bachelors who live alone for extended periods share certain similarities. Plainness of surroundings, for example. Albert had nothing on his walls, no rugs on the scuffed hardwood floors. His couch was an expensive one, but it clearly had been bought to sit by itself in a living room as the sole piece of furniture.

  “At least let me make a cup of coffee first. You want one?”

  “Sure, if you got it.”

  He led the way to the kitchen, whose cabinets doubtless held an unmatched set of dishes missing odd and random pieces. His refrigerator, I guessed, would have a scattered collection of condiment jars and a carton of milk a week past the expiration date.

  “I think this is still drinkable,” he speculated, opening the refrigerator door and sniffing cautiously at the lid of a milk carton. “At least for coffee.”

  Can I call ’em or what?

  Albeit boiled water and pulled two mismatched mugs from a cabinet above the stove. He spooned instant coffee into each, then poured in boiling water and handed me a cup. The instant coffee clumped up like chunks of brown mud floating in the water. I took the carton when he handed it to me and poured in a dollop of milk, which immediately clotted into rancid-looking lumps.

  I stirred hard, hoping to make something drinkable out of it. Finally, the liquid inside resembled coffee, except for the truly sour lumps of milk that refused to dissolve no matter what. Think of it as yogurt, I told myself.

  “Sugar?”

  I took the lid off the sugar bowl; inside, clumps of brown mixed in with the white, the result of spooning sugar out with a wet coffee spoon. Yeah, Albert and I could have been roommates.

  He sipped the coffee as if it were actually something fit for human consumption. I lifted the cup to my lips and took a quick swallow, surprised that it wasn’t any worse than I feared.

  “So what do you want?” he asked, heading back into the living room. “Here, have a seat.”

  I sat on the far end of the couch and set my coffee cup on an upturned fruit crate that served as an end table. “Just wanted to talk to you.”

  “Jane says you think I killed Fletcher, and that she was in on it.”

  “I don’t know if that’s what I think or not. It could be that way. On the other hand, there were a lot of people who wanted to see Conrad Fletcher dead.”

  “You got that right, He was one slimy son of a bitch.”

  “And I thought doctors never spoke ill of each other.”

  “That’s one rule I’ll break in his case,” Zitin said, pulling his legs up on the couch under him. He sat cross-legged, the beginnings of a paunch settling over his belt. He was pale, pasty, not terribly attractive to women, I would think. But he was obviously intelligent and dedicated, as well as determined.

  “Tell me how you came to meet him. How’d you wind up here?”

  “Same as everybody else, I guess. I’m from up north, took my medical training at Albert Einstein. Came here to do a surgical residency under Fletcher. He’s one of the best, you know. Was one of the best, I mean. I’d heard he was a tough guy, real hard to get along with.”

  Zitin leaned over behind him, picked up the coffee cup. “That’s not news to you, though, is it? I just figured if you can survive med school, you can survive anything.”

  “I always heard that was true.”

  “Usually it is. But not in surgery. Surgeons are weird. They’re gearheads, really. Highly specialized, technically oriented, with a surprisingly limited knowledge of general medicine and no insight into what it means to be human. They’re not very pleasant to be around.”

  “And you want to be one.”

  He thought for a moment. “Yeah, I do. With all the drawbacks, there’s nothing like it. You cut into a human body, use your skill and your knowledge, and sometimes your balls, to make a human body determined to malfunction work properly again. My father was a surgeon. He was a lousy father, probably a lousy person. But he was a great surgeon, a real miracle worker. I’ve wanted it ever since I was a child.”

  “Means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”

  “Everything, almost.”

  “What was it like for you when Conrad Fletcher threatened to take it all away?”

  Albert Zitin reddened just a bit, the color rising quickly and then fading just as fast. “What are you asking me, Mr. Denton? Did I kill him, or did I want to kill him?”

  “Maybe both.”

  He looked down at his coffee cup, stirred the sludge with a bent spoon. “I’m in business to put people back together, not take them apart. I didn’t kill Fletcher. Then again, I might have one of these days, if someone hadn’t beaten me to it.”

  “Where were you the night he was killed?”

  “Right where you found me this afternoon. I’d come in off a seventy-two hour shift at six P.M. that evening. I ate dinner, went through some correspondence, and started watching a movie on television. Which I promptly fell asleep right in the middle of.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Absolutely. And unfortunately.”

  “No phone calls? Visitors?”

  “Nothing. There wasn’t even anything on the answering machine. I woke up in bed about four A.M. with the television still going and turned it off. It was midmorning before I woke up again.”

  I stared at him, figuring that he must know how weak an alibi that was. “What did the police say when you told them this?”

  “They gave me the same look you just did. Then they went next door and ta
lked to the couple who rent the other side of the duplex. They confirmed that my car was parked in the driveway exactly when I said I was home.”

  “But they didn’t see you.”

  “I don’t make much noise. Neither do they. We’ve met, pass pleasantries coming and going. That’s all.”

  “What about Jane?”

  “What about her?” he said, just a trace of defensiveness in his voice.

  “Tell me how you feel about her.”

  He laughed. “What are you, a therapist?”

  “Hey, confession’s good for the soul.”

  “It may be good for the soul, but it’s hell on your options.”

  “If what you say is true, that you and Jane didn’t have anything to do with Fletcher’s murder, then what have you got to lose?”

  He leaned back wearily in the chair. So fer, what I’d learned most about doctors in training is that they’re always exhausted. Zitin seemed to be thinking, perhaps choosing his words, maybe trying to figure out how he really felt.

  “Jane Collingswood is an unusual woman,” he said. “I know that no other woman’s ever had the effect on me that she has. Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Denton. I’m no virgin. On the other hand, my priorities have always been elsewhere. I always figured that sooner or later, I’d find somebody, but after the internship and residency were over.”

  “Then you met her.”

  “Yeah, then I met her. I can’t keep my mind on anything anymore. All I think about is her. I think this is what teenage boys feel when they get a first big crush on somebody. Only back when I was supposed to be taking care of all that, I was buried in a biology book.”

  “Hormones have a way of catching up with us all,” I said.

  “This is more than hormones. One of the few benefits of age is that you gain perspective on life, even if your experience in life’s a little limited. I’m very much in love with Jane Collingswood, and I haven’t the slightest idea why I’m telling you that. Maybe it’s because I know that nothing will ever come of it.”