Read Online The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy by Jeremiah Healy - Free Book Online

door and pulled a
long-handled, wide-brushed push broom from the utility closet with
the broken lock. I went back outside and lifted the wood brush angle
to hook and pull down the last ladder flight of the fire escape. I
climbed it, carrying the broom.
    I reached my floor and thought about using the handle
end of the broom to poke around my window sill from a safe distance.
Instead I crawled to my window and looked inside. I couldn't see
much, but I watched long enough to be fairly certain no one was
waiting for me. I took out my penlight and shined it through the
glass toward the front entrance. I couldn't see any wires or trips
attached to the door.
    I didn't think Al's killer would really try anything
for two reasons. First, any attempt on my life, once the police knew
I was connected with Al, would put the lie to the cover-up he had
arranged. Second, he couldn't be sure that Al hadn't somehow
identified him to me, resulting in his being put under surveillance
by the police. While I believed that either or both of those reasons
relieved me of Al's killer, I didn't feel as comfortable about friend
Marco. Hence, my caution.
    I flicked off the light and was halfway back down the
escape when the cruiser came into the alley and stopped. Both
uniforms, a man and a woman, came out of their respective doors and
drew and pointed their revolvers at me, bracing their gun hands with
their free hands.
    "All right, leave the broom there and come down
real slow," said the woman, who had been driving.
    "Is it all right if I just drop the broom over
the side?" I said. "It'll save us having to stand on each
others shoulders to pull the flight down to climb back up after it."
    The male uniform muttered something to her.
    Neither took their eyes off me.
    She spoke. "Drop the broom. Then cut the shit.
Then come down."
    I dropped, cut, and came.
    They studied my investigator's identification and
compared it to the address information in my wallet several times
before grudgingly buying my explanation of Marco's dishonorable
intentions. It seemed that a woman sitting in her apartment across
the alley had spotted me climbing up the fire escape. As they got
back into their cruiser, I felt encouraged by neighborhood security
and embarrassed by personal ineptitude, with the edge to
embarrassment.
    I walked around to the front of the building. I keyed
open the door and approached my apartment more conventionally.
    Once inside I checked my telephone tape. There were
two hang-ups and two messages. The first message was:
    "John, it's Nancy Meagher returning your call at
three-forty P.M. I'll be in my office tomorrow between eight-thirty
and nine-thirty."
    The second message was a little redundant: "Hi,
John. How are you. Oh, you're fine. That's
nice."
    I rewound and then levered out the message cassette.
I replaced it with a spare and put the tape into a heavy manila
envelope. I checked my watch. Four-thirty. I called Nancy's office.
She was gone for the day and so was her secretary. I looked for her
home phone number in the book, but if I remembered her address
correctly, she was unlisted. I penned a quick explanatory note and
slipped it in next to the tape. I addressed the envelope to Nancy at
the DA's office, stamped it, and left it on a table near the door for
mailing.
    Then I called Lieutenant Murphy's office. I got
Daley, my companion at the morgue. He said Murphy was out of the
office, but that Murphy had told him to tell me that Traffic had
found Al's rental car on Myrtle Street on Beacon Hill and about five
blocks from where Al's body had been dumped. Elapsed mileage exceeded
by about fifty miles the business visits they could confirm Al
making. None of the business contacts knew where he was going that
evening. The final autopsy report confirmed death by smothering, no
further information. I thanked Daley and told him I would be in
Pittsburgh for a few days and would call in once in a while. I rang
off and walked into the front hall.
    I went to