Open Season Read online

  Still, he looked shocked. “You can refuse, of course. This is a request only,” I added quickly.

  His voice was subdued. “No, I quite understand. Of course I’ll do it. It’s as if this whole nightmare was happening all over again, isn’t it? I’m beginning to feel her loss again, long after I thought I’d put it behind me. I feel like such an idiot.” He shoved his glasses up on his forehead and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips.

  “Why don’t you give me those time sheets and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “Of course, of course.” He shuffled off to the back of the store and returned with a shoe box. “Here they are. I put tabs on all the three-day weekends I gave her.”

  “Thank you. That was very thoughtful. I’ll send a man around later to drive you to the hospital for the blood test. What time do you close?”

  “Seven. But I can close earlier.”

  “Seven’s fine, and don’t worry—really.”

  I was almost out the door before he called me back, “I forgot to tell you: I remembered a friend she had when she was here. You had asked me earlier.”

  “Yes. Who was it?”

  “Her name was Susan Lucey. I hired her just for the Christmas season that year. She didn’t really work out and I never saw her again, but I remember that she and Kimberly used to leave together after closing quite often, as if they were going to do something together in the evening—a movie or something. She’s the only one I could remember. I put her address in the box too.”

  18

  SUSAN LUCY’S ADDRESS on Prospect Street was located on a plateau driven into the Y formed by Canal and Vernon Streets—right where John Woll had been mugged—and held tightly in position by St. Michael’s Cemetery, which cut, higher still, across its back. Previously the eighteenth-century neighborhood of a thriving middle class, it had been left behind at some point, high on its exclusive perch, to watch the rest of the city grow prosperous without it. Its homes—the multi-storied gingerbreads and Greek revivals so prevalent in New England—were now weather-beaten and worn, cut up into ramshackle apartments overlooking debris-strewn streets and scruffy yards. It was not a dangerous area, really—although it had its moments—but it was about as forlorn as Brattleboro could offer.

  Number 43B was on the second floor of a building half faded red, half bare and graying wood, with a set of stairs attached to its side by pragmatic afterthought. There was no particular reason why Susan Lucey should be home in the middle of the day, but after checking the phone book and finding the address was still hers, the omen was too good to pass up.

  I cautiously climbed the unshoveled, icy steps, the banister wobbling under my right hand. The wind whipped at my pant legs and froze my ears. I knocked on the door.

  I waited a minute in total silence and knocked again, just for the hell of it. I heard a bang from somewhere inside. Footsteps crossed the floor and the door opened a crack, revealing a young woman’s round, unhealthy-looking face framed by heavy, dull brown hair.

  “What do you want?” The voice was flat and hostile.

  “Miss Lucey?”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Gunther. I’m with the police.”

  “You got a warrant?”

  “Do I need one?”

  “Fuck you, Mac.”

  “No, wait.” I put my hand against the closing door. “I wouldn’t want a warrant. I just want to talk to you about Kimberly Harris.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Let me make you a deal. Whatever you’ve got in there, whether it’s dope or gambling or who knows what, I’m not interested, okay? I just want to talk.”

  “This is ancient history.”

  “I don’t think so—not any more.”

  She didn’t answer, but she didn’t close the door, either.

  “Did you read about the killing in the newspaper?”

  “Yeah. What’s Kimberly got to do with that?”

  “Maybe you can help me find out.”

  She sucked on her lower lip and thought a moment. The back of my neck was starting to freeze. “No bust for anything you find in here—right?”

  “Not unless it’s a dead body.”

  She snorted. “It might as well be. Come on in.” She opened the door and I stepped into a dark cave of hot, rancid, pungent air. She walked across the room and kicked the far door open, a solid naked leg protruding from her stained bathrobe. “Party’s over. It’s the cops.”

  There was a muttered oath from beyond and the sound of clothes being put on in a hurry. The outline of a man appeared in the doorway. He quickly turned his face away. “What is this?”

  “I just want to talk with the lady.”

  Lucey grabbed him by the arm. “That’s twenty bucks.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at me; I could hear his brain working. “Pay the lady, or I might ask for some ID.” He reached into his pocket. “Christ, it was hardly worth it.”

  “Mutual, I’m sure.” She plucked the twenty from his fingers and shoved it into her pocket.

  He walked sideways through the room, keeping his face away from me, tripping over a pile of dirty clothes on the floor as he went. I grabbed his elbow and steadied him. He jerked away and stormed out with a bang.

  “All these guys. Pretend they’re hotshots. Who cares what they look like?” She settled into a disemboweled armchair, tucking her legs under her. As an afterthought, having made sure I’d had a view, she tucked her robe around her more tightly. “Thanks for the support.”

  I moved a smeared paper plate from a wooden chair and sat.

  “Don’t mention it.” My eyes had become accustomed to the dark and I glanced around. The place looked like a cyclone had hit it; from the smell, it had been a long time ago.

  “So, how do you connect me to Kimberly?”

  “Charlie’s Pharmacy.”

  “Oh, that old fruit.”

  “How well did you know Kimberly?”

  She smiled her best Scarlett O’Hara, complete with tilted head. “Why do you ask?”

  I sighed. “How much time did that twenty buy?”

  “Usually, as long as it takes. That guy was into overtime. But this might be dangerous—isn’t that what you said?”

  “Not if we move quickly. If we can’t, everyone I come in contact with might be hurt.”

  She let her head fall back and stretched her neck. “Compromise time, huh? Okay, twenty’ll be fine.” She wiggled her fingers. I pulled out my wallet, got up, and laid the bills in her hand. At this rate, she was making a lot more than I did.

  “I knew her well enough. We did stuff together.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Dinner, movies… We did a few doubles.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She laughed. “Not double features. Boy, you haven’t been around much. Two on one—you know. Guys pay a lot for that; makes them feel masculine. The joke is, we do it mostly for us. Closet lesbians, I guess.” She laughed again. “I hadn’t thought of that before.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cellophane bag. She pushed some of its contents into a small pipe and lit up. “Want some?”

  “No. Thanks. Was she experienced at that kind of thing?”

  “Tricking? No, but she was good at it. That’s one of the reasons we broke up; she got too good. I mean, she really got into it. With me, it gets to be a job after a while, if I’m at it for too long. But with her, the more she did, the more she wanted, and she’d give it away too—to total strangers. I don’t suppose partnerships last too long in this business anyway. Ours was no different.”

  “How long did you work together?”

  “Not too long. A couple of months, maybe.”

  “Starting around Christmas?”

  “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  “Charlie again.”

  “Oh.” She took a deep drag and held her breath.

  “What was Kimberly like?”

  She paused be
fore letting the smoke out in a long hiss. “She was a hot little number. Touch her anywhere and she turned on. I got the feeling sex for her was like water for a man in the desert. And kinky, too. She didn’t care. I mean, there are things I won’t do, you know? But not her. She’d try anything.”

  “Did she talk about her past? Where she came from, things like that?”

  “Nope. Not a word. I asked her a couple of times. You know, like I once said she must have spent her life in a convent to come on the way she did, but she never picked up on it and I let it be. You learn not to ask too much.”

  “I bet. Still, there are usually slips of the tongue, references to the past. Everybody talks about themselves at least a little.”

  Lucey took another hit, and I waited for the process to be over.

  “Not Kimberly. She said she had nothing to look back on—everything good lay ahead.”

  “Unhappy childhood?”

  “Hey, I told you: I don’t know.”

  “So what prompted the comment about not looking back?”

  “Oh, that was weird. We’d taken on this real strange one—an older guy. He was real skinny, didn’t talk much, never smiled. We did a number on him, a pretty good one, too, because we were both feeling good, but he just lay there. I mean, he wasn’t limp—he worked okay—but he didn’t get involved. None of the usual routine, you know? No sweat and wrestle. I said to Kimberly afterwards that he could have gotten as big a kick from his hand, instead of paying for us. I think I called him a cold fish, and that’s when she said something like, ‘Just like my old man.’ And then a little later she said what I told you.”

  “Aside from her prowess in bed, what was she like? I mean her personality. Did she laugh a lot? Was she serious? Did she seem well educated?”

  Lucey drew on the pipe again and then stretched, bending as far backwards as she could. Her robe parted slightly, revealing a thin line of naked skin from her throat to her lap. She didn’t bother covering up. “She was a little schizo, if you ask me. She could be a lot of fun—a real turn-on—and then she could be real cold and calculating. She could work people, especially old men, or older men, at least. That’s what we did most of, in fact, when we doubled. She wasn’t interested in younger guys much, unless they were super young, like teenagers. It was like she had to have some power over them, you know? Men our age didn’t interest her much. I thought that was too bad. I like an occasional roll in the hay with someone who knows what he’s doing and won’t have a heart attack doing it. But Kimberly had some kind of thing going. I’d watch her sometimes when we were right in the middle of the action, and sometimes—not always—she’d be looking at the guy’s face with, I don’t know, a real calculating expression. And when he finally shot his wad, she always looked pleased with herself. And superior, too, as if somehow she’d put one over on the guy. Maybe that’s why we broke up. I never thought about it before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it was kind of unnatural, you know? I mean, God knows I don’t get turned on every time I get laid, but I enjoy it most of the time. If the guy’s not too weird, it feels good, right? But I don’t think what I thought felt good was what Kimberly thought felt good—she was into something else. It was like I couldn’t figure out what was turning her on, the sex or the power trip. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah. It must have been a little unsettling.”

  “That’s it. It was hot and cold mixed together. I mean, she was the best I’ve ever been with, but… unsettling—that’s the word.”

  She took a final drag from her pipe and then cleaned it out onto the floor.

  “You mentioned she said everything good lay ahead. What were her plans?”

  “Money. She wanted lots of money. Nothing new there, I suppose, except with her it wasn’t just wishful thinking. I mean, I want money too, but I know I’ll never get it—takes too much effort. But she was going for it.”

  “How?”

  She shrugged. “Sex, I guess. She didn’t have anything else that I could see.”

  “Prostitution ?”

  “In this town? Give me a break.” She opened her robe wide with a laugh. “I may not be much, but I’m about the best you’re going to get around here.”

  I smiled, embarrassed. “Was she zeroing in on anything specific that you know of?”

  She got up and crossed over to the kitchenette in the corner. “You want some coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She found a dirty cup in the sink, spooned in some instant coffee from an open jar on the counter, and filled it with hot water from the tap. I was glad I had passed. She returned to her chair. “Something was cooking. She had that look in her eye—you know, the calculating one I told you about—but she wasn’t about to tell me.”

  “Did you keep in touch after you split up?”

  “No. I saw her around some, but she wasn’t in the business anymore. She was looking good, though; nice clothes and all. I just figured she’d hit her target.”

  “What did you think when she was killed?”

  She shrugged. “What’s to think? It was too bad, but somehow it didn’t surprise me. I mean, I wasn’t looking for it to happen, but it didn’t surprise me when it did. She didn’t strike me as the safest driver on the road, if you get what I mean.”

  “Do you think the black guy did it?”

  “Hey, who knows? She was a secret. I figured her death was too.”

  “Going back a little, what was her relationship to Floyd Rubin?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “That was pathetic. She played him like a violin. I don’t know why she bothered—the little faggot—but she got him around her little finger. That’s what I mean, see? An old guy, right at death’s door, and she did a total power thing on him. Typical.”

  “Did she have sex with him?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t—that’s for sure. I wouldn’t have done him for a hundred bucks.”

  “Why not?”

  “Self-righteous little creep, that’s why. The day I set eyes on him, I knew he thought I was beneath him. The only reason he hired me was because Kimberly liked me—she had a quick eye. But as soon as the Christmas rush was over, he dropped me like a rock.”

  “But you don’t know if Kimberly and he had a thing going?” She shook her head. “It wouldn’t surprise me, except that he’s such a tight little asshole—he’d probably think it was immoral.”

  I looked at the dusty, debris-covered floor for a moment, trying to think of anything else I might ask. “Where do you think she was from?”

  “Not far from here. I mean, she didn’t have a weird accent or anything. I don’t think she was a Vermonter, though. She came across like a flatlander, but she seemed to know her way around.”

  “I don’t suppose she ever alluded to a home state or town or anything.”

  Susan Lucey shook her head.

  I got up and buttoned my coat. “Well, I guess that’s it. If you think of anything else, you know where to find me.”

  She hadn’t moved from her chair. “I do have something else.”

  My hand was already on the doorknob. “What?”

  “Did you get your twenty bucks worth?”

  “I did all right.”

  “Well, then I guess that’s it.”

  I sighed. This kind of money was hard to get back from petty cash. “How much is your tidbit worth?”

  “Why get complicated? Another twenty’ll do.”

  “You do all right for yourself, don’t you?”

  “Some days. I can throw in a little extra if you’d like. A goodwill gesture.” She passed one hand across her breast and down to her stomach. I had to admit she wasn’t bad looking, in a round, compact kind of way. It was her environment that gave me the willies. “I’ll settle for the information.” I fished out another couple of tens and handed them over. “Not that I’m not flattered.”

  She took the money and smiled. “Kimberly Harris wasn’t her real
name.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. She just told me once that she’d chosen Kimberly because it sounded classy—a name men would like.”

  “Was Harris invented too?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yup. That’s more than you knew before, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head in defeat. “You’re very good at this.” Again, I reached for the door.

  This time she rose and crossed over to me. “You said everyone you came in contact with could be hurt. Where’s that put me?”

  “I hope it doesn’t put you anywhere. As far as I know, I’m the only one who knows about you, except Rubin. But I may have been followed here.”

  “Now you tell me. Who’s out there?”

  “We don’t know, but if anyone else asks you about all this, don’t play games, okay? There’s no profit to be made from this man—or men.”

  “What am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wait until some creep kicks in my door?”

  “You could go somewhere else. Stay with a friend or relative for a while.”

  “What about police protection?”

  I shook my head. “That’s movie stuff. I can have a patrol car swing by every once in a while, or even have a cop check your door, but we don’t have the staff for full protection. I doubt you’ll need it anyway. Just be careful.”

  “That’s a real comfort. I should have hit you for ten times this, you asshole.” She held up the money I’d given her.

  I opened the door, and she gathered the robe around her throat against the gush of cold air. Her face was hard. “I better not get shafted for this. I played straight with you. Shit, I even offered you a freebie.”

  “I appreciate that. You’ll be all right.”

  “Says you.”

  As I inched my way down the rickety steps, her last words rattled around in my mind. I hadn’t overlooked the fact that Frank’s death was a direct result of my hanging on to this case. The addition of Susan Lucey to the list was not something I wanted to see.