Read Online The Hearse You Came in On by Tim Cockey - Free Book Online Page B

“Voilà.”
    “Not here. I would prefer that we take our conversation out of this building. Can you meet me …” She consulted a desk calendar. “Tomorrow night? Say, six?”
    “Six.”
    “How about we meet at the Museum of Art? Behind Hopkins. They stay open late on Mondays.”
    “This is to be a cultural date?”
    She looked at me coolly. “This is not to be any sort of a date, Mr. Sewell. You’re insisting on an explanation. That’s what you’ll get. Do you know the Cone Collection?”
    I nodded.
    “Why don’t you meet me there. By the big Matisse. The big blue one.”
    “The big blue Matisse. Six o’clock.”
    As I got up from my chair a thought occurred to me. “Does Detective Kruk know about your coming to the funeral home?”
    Her face was expressionless. “Let’s talk about this later.”
    I headed for the door. She stopped me with a question.
    “Did you tell him?”
    I stopped and turned back around. “I didn’t know it was you. Remember?”
    She had once more made a tent of her fingers. “But did you mention anything about a woman posing as Carolyn James?”
    I pulled open the door.
    “Let’s talk about this later.”
    “Hitch!”
    I hadn’t even reached the sidewalk. I turned at the sound of my name. A man in a snappy trench coat, open and flapping, was bounding down the steps toward me. Big smile on his face. It was Joel Hutchinson.
    We pounded each other’s shoulders and swapped a hearty handshake, then each took a step back to assess the ravages of the years.
    “You look like hell!”
    “You look worse!”
    We pounded each other’s shoulders again.
    “What brings you here,” Hutch asked. “Are you finally fessing up to the bull in the bowling alley?”
    “Hey, that was you. I only helped you squeeze him into the service elevator, if you recall. Thank you, Mr. Broken Toe.”
    “I deny everything!”
    “Christ, Hutch, you never denied
anything.”
    “Well I’ve changed all that, buddy boy. Now I deny everything. I’m in politics.”
    I gave him another punch on the shoulder. We men love this sort of pummeling. “Aw, that’s a tough break, Hutch. Is there anything I can do to help you out?”
    “Very funny, Sewell. Very funny. So how the hell are you doing? I hear you’re burying dead people now?”
    “They’re the best kind, ha-ha.”
    “And you got married, right? An artist or some such?”
    “Extended road test,” I said. “We called it quits aftera year. How about you? Does the woman exist who can break the back of the mighty Joel Hutchinson?”
    “You’ll never guess, but she does.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Nope. Her name is Christy. She’s got me beaten down, Hitch, and I love it. A mortgage, a couple of cars, two point five children and a golden retriever named Max. It’s Have a Nice Day Sweetie and Honey I’m Home. Leave it to goddamn Beaver.”
    “We’re living in an age of miracles, Hutch. That’s what I’ve been hearing.”
    He laughed. “It must be.”
    We continued sparring in this fashion awhile longer. I knew Joel Hutchinson from college, Frostburg State, a small gray institution of higher education and advanced beer swilling tucked away in the mountains of western Maryland. Every college has its wild man and Hutch had been ours. Hutch was always up for anything. And he was also brilliant, so his escapades rarely hurt his academic standing. Hutch was one of those guys that you figured would end up either dead, in prison, or conducting the business of his vast empire from a beach somewhere on his very own island. I was a little disappointed to hear that he was now a political flack.
    Hutch told me that he was the campaign manager for Alan Stuart, who was Baltimore’s police commissioner. The current governor of Maryland was fading into the political sunset, and I had heard rumors that the city’s top cop had been considering a run. Hutch confirmed it.
    “Alan’s announcing tomorrow for the governor’s race.”
    Alan Stuart was a