Extreme Unction: A Lupa Schwartz Mystery Read online

  “How’d you enjoy your afternoon with the living legend?” Mia asked as soon as we’d all exhaled our first sighs.

  “He was okay,” I said. “Except…” I allowed my thought to trail cryptically, although it wasn’t cryptic enough for Mia.

  “Except you kind of feel like you’re being roped into joining an elite squad of crime fighting femmes fetale. It’s okay. I felt that way for a while myself. He hired me a few years ago to replace another female mechanic who’d quit to have babies. At first, I insisted on maintaining my own apartment, off campus as it were. But he never makes it sexual. He just prefers the company of women. He’s not Hugh Hefner. There’s no grotto here.”

  “So you don’t feel like he’s treating you differently than he would a male mechanic?” I said.

  “Oh, sure he is,” Mia said. “but I’m a chick who works on cars. I look at it pragmatically. If I was working out in the real world, I wouldn’t be getting near the freedom to experiment I get here, and I’d be working with a bunch of real sexists. Men in my profession treat strippers with more respect than a female coworker. Plus, I’d have to deal with a thousand ogling clients a day instead of just the one, and his ogling I can stand. It’s innocent.”

  “What about you, Bev?” I said.

  “He doesn’t ogle me,” Bev said.

  “No, I meant, you’re not in a traditional man’s profession. Do you have the same reasons for working for Schwartz as Mia?”

  “No,” Bev said. “I’m a cook and a housekeeper. My other options are restaurants, hotels or private residence with some family. How are any of those options better than this?” She raised her piña colada, and the three of us laughed together. Then as things grew quiet, Bev asked, “What about you? Why are you here?”

  I looked to Mia for rescue, but she was waiting for my answer as well. “My magazine,” I muttered. “They assigned me to do a story on Schwartz and his relation to...”

  Bev didn’t seem to be buying it. “And whose idea was the story? Who suggested it first? ‘Pitched’ I think it’s called. Who pitched the idea at the story conference?”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess that was me.”

  Mia laughed. “I’m glad I didn’t take that bet,” she said.

  I saw that Bev was still waiting for me to continue. “I suppose you’re expecting me to say that I was hoping to get answers about my parents’ deaths. That I somehow blame Schwartz for what happened to them, or that I think he can tell me specifically who pulled the trigger, but I don’t. Or maybe you think that I want to explain to him that I don’t hold him responsible for his mother’s manipulations or something, but that’s not it either. I guess what-it-is is that his adopted grandfather — or rather — his mother’s adopted father and my father had a specific professional and personal relationship. Now he’s here reliving half of that relationship, and if I can somehow live the other half…” I let another thought trail off; although I knew that there was nothing at all cryptic about this thought. It was as transparent as the tears which had begun pooling on my upper lip.

  Chapter 5

  Mia knocked softly at my bedroom door the morning following our ladies’ night. Seeing her, I was glad that I’d chosen to drink only milk. “Come on,” she murmured hoarsely, “Bev has breakfast ready for us in the dining room.”

  Schwartz began all of his mornings with a group breakfast, and he ended each evening with a group supper. Lunch was discretionary for everybody except Beverly who always ate her midday meal at 11:00; just prior to Schwartz so she’d be free to serve him his. We gathered around the table for coffee, bakery fresh pastries, warm toast with an assortment of jams, a large plate of scrambled eggs and crisp bacon. Schwartz announced that at the conclusion of breakfast, he and Mia would retire to the garage for his morning’s hour-and-a-half tinkering, then he and I would meet at ten to discuss the case. How I handled my time between half-past-eight and ten was my business.

  How I handled my business was that I called my friend Jana at the magazine to discuss the strange twist my story had taken. She was tickled that the ploy to get me in had worked, but she was even more titillated by the degree to which I’d “infiltrated Schwartz’s inner sanctum.” I told her about the conversation I’d had with Lester, the skinny kid at the playground, though I judiciously omitted the part where I was snubbed by the arrogant dimple bearer. Toward the end of the conversation, I asked if she could check the morgues at the local papers to see if anybody could find the playground/arsenic stories for me to use as background should it become significant.

  I had full run of the house since Bev was out in the garden transplanting ivy; so after I got off the phone with Jana, I popped a Video tape into the VCR in Schwartz’s study and settled back to watch an old Martin Scorsese movie starring Griffin Dunne called After Hours. The movie turned out to be surprisingly good for a comedy from the guy who’d brought us The Last Temptation of Christ, and before I realized, it was time for Schwartz to return from the garage for our meeting. He must have stood outside the door and listened to me laughing, because he entered with the words, “I knew you had to have a sense of humor.”

  I had been slouched on the couch, and I bolted to a more dignified upright position. “I never said I didn’t,” I said. “This was an interesting little picture,” I added. “The filmmaker seems to have a firm grasp of the surreal, and I especially like the way he positions the camera to establish mood.” Schwartz just stared at me as though waiting for the punch-line. I obliged. “And it’s pretty damn funny, too.” I said.

  “Griffin Dunne is one of the most underrated comedians of our age,” Schwartz said. “He made one unfortunate career choice when he made that stinker with Madonna; otherwise, he’d be the modern Buster Keaton.”

  I nodded my ascent, which seemed prudent since I had no idea who or what he was talking about, and I said, “His father is a journalist. Did you know that?” To which Schwartz dryly responded, “Yes, but he’s not funny.” I changed the subject.

  “Are we going to interview the other suspects today?”

  “What other suspects?” He caught me short with that one. It sounded as though he was saying that Coneely was the only suspect, but I decided that it was owing to his Balkan upbringing. Perhaps he didn’t understand the subtle differences between certain prepositions. “Don’t you mean ‘Which other suspects?’” I said.

  He had crossed to his home position behind his desk, and as he sat he said, “I learned English at my father’s knee at the same time I learned Serbo-Croation. I’ve been speaking the Queen’s tongue fluently and with an American accent for as long as I can remember; which — as you once pointed out — is longer than you’ve been alive. I knew what I was saying, and I meant it. There are no other suspects. There are, however, other witnesses; one of which may have been the actual killer. However, the police have not named any of them as suspects, so neither shall we. It would not make them amenable to interrogation if they thought that we were looking to accuse one of them of Mr. Hanson’s — their father’s — murder.”

  I slumped for a moment while he spoke, but when he’d finished, I rose to defend myself. “When I said ‘suspects’ it didn’t mean that I actually suspected all of them of the murder. It’s just a word used to convey the reality that there are others with motive, means and opportunity.”

  “To your knowledge — have any of them done anything suspicious?” Schwartz asked.

  “To my knowledge? No. That’s why we need to interview them.”

  “…To catch them in a suspicious lie? To trick them into revealing their implicitness? To agitate one of them into a confession?”

  “No,” I said. “Well … maybe. It could happen. But I just meant that we might find out something that could lead to something bigger.”

  Schwartz was having his morning fun. “So you think that by talking with — say — one of the sisters, she might reveal that one of the brothers keeps a large bottle of Chlordane in the pantry next to his supply
of camel hair brushes? Is that it?”

  I’d grown weary of playing. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, that’s exactly it. Are we going to talk with the witnesses today, or aren’t we?” I hissed the word “witnesses” like a cat staring down a cat-sized rat.

  “Yes,” Schwartz said. “We are. We’ll have lunch while we’re out, but we have to be back by two.”

  I smiled knowingly. “So you can tinker in the garage with Mia?” I said playfully.

  “Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “Also so that you can have time to learn The Act of Contrition before tonight’s confessions.”

  ***

  We walked out to the awaiting Lamborghini Muira that Mia had been working on the day before. Soon we were on the highway sitting still in traffic in a car that seemed to be speeding even as it idled stationary. My cell phone chirped, and when I answered, Jana told me that one of the two local papers was willing to fax me the copy I wanted in exchange for a mention in the article I would eventually write. Realistically, I could have refused by claiming journalistic ethic. After all, I now knew that the stories were available, and the libraries would have them; but I conceded and asked Schwartz if he’d mind if I had something faxed to me at his house.

  “I don’t have a fax machine,” he said, so I told Jana to have it faxed to my email account and that I’d retrieve it later.

  Schwartz drove in silence the remainder of the trip. When we arrived at the Hanson home it was nearly 11:30. Assuming traffic home would be as bad, we would have to leave in an hour and forgo lunch if Schwartz was to keep his schedule. That didn’t leave much time for dawdling, so I was surprised when the first thing Schwartz wanted to do was borrow my cell. “May I use your phone, please. I’d like to make a call. I’ll repay you for the use.”

  I feigned disgust. “This is the second time you’ve asked to use my phone. Why don’t you get your own?”

  “They say it causes brain tumors,” he said in apparent earnest.

  “That refers to using them; not owning them. My phone is no less likely to cause a tumor than your own would be. And while we’re on the topic of technology — what kind of P.I. doesn’t own a fax machine in this day and age?” Even as I cajoled him, I handed over my phone.

  “I don’t need a fax machine,” he said climbing out of the car. “I get my faxes over my email too. It saves paper.” I waited at the car while he crossed the street to a convenience store parking lot. As he crossed the street, he dialed. He could have been dialing dial-a-joke, or he could have been charging a 976 number to my account for all I knew. It didn’t matter though, because he had promised to pay; and when I got the bill, I’d find out who he’d called.

  Then, as he spoke into the phone, he stopped at a fast looking car parked in a “handicapped only” parking space. He reached into his pocket and came out with a small black device. He squatted at the sports car and used the tool to release the air from both tires on the side of the car visible to me. He passed to the other side, and I could see the car slowly level out as the air was released from the tires on that side as well.

  Before Schwartz returned to my side of the road, he wrote something on a paper-board panel about the size of a playing card, and he placed it on the windshield of the tire-flattened car. We now had only about three quarters of an hour to meet with the Hansons. He didn’t waste one second in explanation of his odd behavior. “Are you as good at memorizing conversations as your father claimed to be?” Schwartz asked.

  All I could say was, “Huh?”

  “Your father, didn’t he claim to be able to remember what had been said around him verbatim and then repeat the conversations to his employer?”

  “I thought we weren’t discussing them,” I said.

  “We’re not. We’re discussing your father and your ability to remember conversations as well as he could. Can you do it?”

  “Yes, I think I can. I often do when I have to report an interview that flies faster than my shorthand.”

  “Good,” Schwartz said, “because we’re going to conduct separate interviews and compare notes later.”

  ***

  As we exited the Hanson home, I noticed the car that Schwartz had tampered with was still parked over in the reserved parking space. The driver was sitting on his hood discussing his court appearance for illegal parking with the cop — who I figured Schwartz had called with my phone. As they spoke, a tow truck was maneuvering to couple with the disabled vehicle. The car’s owner did not look any too pleased.

  It was roughly forty-five minutes since we’d arrived at the Hansons’, and we were on the road back to Schwartz’s house for his rendezvous with his cars. As we pulled away from the Hanson residence, Schwartz told me to open the basket at my feet. It turns out that while I was watching a movie; Bev had come in from the garden and packed us a picnic lunch. She had brought in homegrown tomatoes and garden fresh basil and made salad of the chicken from the previous night’s dinner. She had also made a paté of the bird’s livers and some of the morning’s leftover bacon. As we traveled, we enjoyed our sandwiches and crackers as well as individually canned fruit juice for a beverage.

  My curiosity was killing me, so I asked Schwartz what the device he’d pulled from his pocket had been. He placed his sandwich on his dash and produced a small, black, rubber and brass tool. “This,” he said, “is a valve core remover. It’s one of the most common tools in any garage. It’s used to remove the core from a tire’s valve. I use it to immobilize traffic offenders.” He handed me the tool and reached into his pocket to remove a card which he also handed to me. He resumed his lunching and spoke between nibbles. “This is the card that I place on the windshields.”

  It read:

  “The crime of _____ is a crime of arrogance. The police have been called. There’s nowhere for you to hide. Perhaps you’ll learn something from this.”

  Schwartz continued, “I fill in the blank space with the particular offense. This last read, ‘The crime of usurping a reserved space is a crime of arrogance.’ Etceteras.”

  “So,” I said, “you appoint yourself judge and jury and vandalize other people’s property?”

  “It’s a citizen’s arrest of sorts. No harm comes to the tires neither to the cars if proper precautions are taken. Usually, I also leave a can of fix-a-flat, or I leave one tire unmolested. If the car’s owner puts his spare on the opposite hub, he can be safely towed anywhere. Then it’s a simple matter of replacing the valve cores and re-inflating the tires.”

  “You didn’t leave this guy any canned air,” I pointed out.

  “’This guy,’ as you call him, was parked at a convenience store. They sell it there. Besides, parking in a space reserved for the handicapped is particularly heinous.”

  “Well,” I said, “one of these days one of your victims is going to catch you in the act. Then you’ll be in for it.”

  “I’ve been caught before,” he admitted. “I don’t do it as if it were a game of catch-me-if-you-can. I do it because they upset my sense of what’s right. Once in a department store parking lot, I stumbled on a car with a sleeping child strapped in a car seat. The mother had apparently run into the store assuming the child would be safe while she conducted her business. I considered flattening her tires and leaving the note, but it would mean committing the same crime as she myself. Instead, I stopped a boy and paid him to call the police for me. I then waited for the mother to return. Several minutes later, she warily approached the car and asked just what I thought I was doing. I told her that I had seen somebody trying to harm her child, and that I thought she should know. I told her that I had summoned the police, and offered to wait with her until they arrived.”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said. “When the cops showed up you described the mother as the person who had tried to harm the child.”

  “More or less,” Schwartz said. “You see, it’s not about punishing them. It’s about teaching them that what they are doing cannot be tolerated. It’s about showing them that not ev
erybody is willing to simply look the other way. Now, tell me what happened with the Hansons that I gave you to interview.”

  Chapter 6

  I told Schwartz what had occurred from the point where he had left me alone with three of the six Hansons and two of their spouses. For your benefit, I’ll now start with what happened between the time Schwartz returned from his vigilantism to the time we left the Hansons’ house.

  Schwartz rang the bell, and Peg Hanson, a tall blonde with broad shoulders and narrow eyes, greeted us; if you could call it a greeting. “You’re Schwartz, right? Yeah, Johns told us you’d be around sometime. Listen can we keep this short? We’re all a little tired, and we have to be at the funeral home tonight. They finally released Dad’s body today.”

  From behind her, a small voice chided, “You’re the one who wanted the autopsy, Peg.” The voice belonged to Marjorie Hanson-Melhorne, the younger of the two sisters. She was even taller than her sister, but it was obvious that she was not the more dominant. She was being supported by the arm of her husband, Melvin Melhorne, an engineer at a local glass making company. He was looking curiously at Schwartz and me over his sister-in-law’s broad shoulder.

  Peg answered her without even turning her head. She kept a steady bead on Schwartz as she said, “…And it’s a good thing I did too, or else that killer priest would have gotten away with murder. Who’s the skirt?”

  “This,” Schwartz said gesturing to me, “is Cattleya Hoskin. She’s a reporter for Gamut Magazine, and she is doing a story on me for her publication. Don’t worry, however, as she is not here to join in my interrogations. She understands that at this time, my dealings with your family are privileged.” He had begun to walk into the entry-way as he spoke. Peg had stepped aside for him, and I could see that the four Hanson brothers and one of the two Hanson wives were all present as well.