Earlier in the evening, I had been impressed by Mia’s ability to levitate from sitting to standing faster than a speeding bullet. I was left breathless by the activities of my first night in bed with her. Never before had I considered making love an Olympic contact sport. We located a Howard Johnson’s Motel with a brightly illuminated parking lot just off the Interstate 275 within about ten minutes of leaving her dilapidated apartment building. We checked in, paying cash, as Mr. T. and Mrs. J. Smith (Tarzan and Jane). Not too original but then no one really cared anyway. The third floor non-smoking room was the standard variety that you expect with the motels designed for the economy minded. But it served its purpose well—very well. Nine point five for artistic merit! A perfect ten for enthusiasm!
“Do you think we have time for another little adventure?” Mia asked as she emerged from the steamy bathroom looking totally refreshed after a long hot shower. She was wearing only a small white towel, wrapped around her head, a kind of weird turban.
“Nooo,” I groaned from beneath the single wrinkled sheet I had pulled from the stained carpeted floor in an attempt to maintain some semblance of personal dignity. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was truly amazing. Just looking at her standing there was enough to jump start my depleted hormones back to life. I was feeling painfully aware of our age and fitness difference. Until that night, I had thought that I was in pretty good shape and not half bad in the sack.
She just laughed and hit a provocative pose. The sight of her standing there naked made me think maybe another “adventure” might just be possible. I seemed to be rising to the occasion, before I remembered that we were supposed to be at Crabby Bill’s in forty minutes.
“I’ll just take a quick shower and a total transfusion of all my bodily fluids, and we’ll be on our way,” I said. “But I’d really like a rain-check on that little adventure idea.”
“You got it Joey—how about if I just come in and help you wash your back?”
We were quite late getting to Crabby Bill’s. My shower lasted longer than I thought it would. I was a little worried that Langdon would have given up on us and taken off. I dropped Mia as close to the restaurant as possible and went off to park. By the time I was led to a small booth in the back corner of the second floor, Mia was busily talking to the ex-cop. He looked pretty much like a worn out old man. In some ways, he reminded me of Papa and Kickstart with a little bit more money. She was nervously sipping cold lemonade through a bent white plastic straw. A Diet Pepsi, ice and lime, sat waiting for me in front of the vacant seat beside Mia.
The ex-cop, Stuart Langdon, sitting across from my co-adventurer, wasn’t exactly what I thought he would be like. But he was close, very close. Before I was within ten feet of the table, I could tell that the guy was a lifetime smoker and boozer. Only God knew what else he was. His nose would have put Rudolph the Reindeer’s to shame. If my glass count was accurate, he had already finished three beers while he had been waiting for us, and he was smacking his lips in anticipation of his fifth. His loose gray skin sagged. His complexion was sallow. That’s a neat trick in Florida. What little hair he had left was unkempt and had been badly dyed an orange flavour. I figured the guys he had put on death row would look better than he did—even the ones already executed. Langdon was wearing the standard detective attire of a decade earlier. I guess what they say is true—bad habits are hard to break. Today’s offering included an off the rack lightweight charcoal gray suit, white button downed collar shirt and loosely knotted black and gray striped tie. Although I couldn’t see his shoes beneath the tabletop, my bet would have been on the classic thick-soled black wingtips of the variety all the old detectives and military guys liked.
Langdon didn’t offer to shake hands, but he tracked me with watery blue eyes like maybe I was a rip off artist about to swipe his life savings. I moved along behind Mia and sat down. Langdon’s lack of a sunshine greeting was reciprocated. As I glanced over at Mia to acknowledge what she had been saying, it was evident that she was anxious about the receptiveness of the ex-cop. Her left leg was pumping. I turned my attention squarely back onto Langdon. His eyes were red rimmed and deep set. He looked like he regularly wore glasses for reading. I also caught a quick glimpse of a cunning intelligence there as he completed his quick appraisal of me. Maybe this hadn’t been a total waste of our time.
“So you’re the disabled cop from Canada Mia has been telling me about. Sorry about your wife. Nice to meet you,” he said in a cheerfully mocking tone. His voice confirmed the heavy smoker assessment—low and raspy. His eyes locked on mine to evaluate my response to his opening shot. He had revealed a lot about his investigative skills. The death of my wife wasn’t exactly a secret but it might require some ability to connect dots. I did a quick check of Mia. I hadn’t told her anything other than Annie and I had separated. I would have some ‘splainin’ to do later Lucy.
Obviously, Mia must have told the old guy a bit about me while they waited for me to park the car. His gruff tone and off-hand comment didn’t come as a total surprise to me. That he knew about my wife did. And he knew he had got to me a bit with that shot. It’s an old cop trick. Gain the upper hand while making the other guy feel like a schmuck. I’d have to be a bit more careful in moving ahead. Langdon was old school. I’ve been told that the younger cops today go in for a more confidential ‘we’re just the best of buddies shooting the breeze’ technique. As my grandmother used to say—it takes all kinds.
Mia hung her head and muttered to me, “Sorry.”
“And you’re the cop who couldn’t find out who killed Mia’s sister,’ I replied looking back at the old guy and flashing a wide smart assed smile. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
Langdon just sat there with a kind of fixed glare and a false smile. Beyond that, he didn’t respond at all. He said nothing. The next few seconds would tell me how we were going to do here. Finally, Langdon’s weak smile slid from his wrinkled pale face, and he seemed to go somewhere deep inside himself. I’d seen this act a few times before too. McGregor had been pretty good with it. Sometimes it wasn’t an act.
Finally, he looked up at me. He still did not reply. He slowly extended his thick coarse hand across the table. I grasped it and nodded. He tried, unsuccessfully, to break every bone in my right hand. Then, it was my turn. Even after the physical demands of the night with Mia, I could still punch this old guy’s ticket.
“Frig,” he said as I released my grip. “There was a time when you could never have done that to me.”
“I believe it,” I said—not believing it for a second. “Have we finished with the two bulls in the same pasture stuff yet?”
“Yeah,” he said and made a hacking phlegm filled rumble that was his version of a laugh, “so what do ya’ want to know Junior?”
“Everything,” Mia bubbled.
Langdon gave her a quick glance and rolled his eyes like he couldn’t believe it. Then he focused his gaze back onto me.
“There are a few things that we could use some answers for,” I stated simply. I wasn’t certain just yet how reliable what the old cop would give us might be. Maybe he would just shine us on for a while and then, tonight or some time later on, have a few laughs at our expense with his pals at the legion or local cop bar. “Like which side of the road the body was found on—stuff like that that the newspapers didn’t get.”
“She was found off the left hand side of the road as you drive out of the field. I gather that you have seen the place.”
Pretty good so far.
“Not during the daylight hours. In fact, it was pretty late and very dark last night when we were there.”
“There’s a small woods that starts about twenty feet back from the road. We figured the guy was trying to get the girl’s body in there. If he got lucky, no one would find it for months, maybe years. But we figured something spooked him. He dropped the kid and just got took off. Or he was in bad shape or hurt and couldn’t drag her any further. You get the idea. A lot of guesses—nothing
for certain.”
At that moment, a thirty something dark haired waitress in navy blue shorts and a white sleeveless blouse sporting the Crabby Bill logo arrived to take our orders. I hadn’t even picked up my menu.
“Chowder, big steak medium rare, fries, rings and two more beers,” Langdon said quickly. “The treat is on the little lady here—right?”
Mia nodded and smiled at Langdon and then gave the waitress her order—fish and chips.
“The same for me,” I said.
After the waitress had verified the order and flashed a parting smile, I picked up on what Langdon had been saying. “So did you figure that the killer dropped the body off on the way into the lover’s lane area?”
“No,” Langdon said as he picked up his almost empty glass of beer. He seemed to be inspecting something in the bottom of it. “This is almost empty. Why do you say that the guy was coming into that sex pit?”
“Did you go in there at night?” I asked trying to seem reasonable while knowing that Mia wanted to show off. She wanted to tell Langdon about what I had shown her the night before. I took her hand beneath the table hoping she would get the message.
“Didn’t have to,” Langdon replied grouchily. “Forensics got us all we needed, and we knew she wasn’t killed where her body was found. She was brought there and dumped. We figured she got in with the wrong guy or guys went parking up there and managed to get herself killed. The guy—whoever he was—and believe me we looked at a lot of guys in her part of town—just disappeared from the face of the earth.”
Mia started to say, “But there’s a …”
“Just a second,” I said quickly cutting her off and gently squeezing her hand again, “was there any evidence that indicated how much earlier she had been raped? She had been raped, yeah?”
Langdon hesitated. His sharp eyes flashed to Mia and then back to me. He may have suspected that I had deliberately cut Mia off, but he said nothing. The waitress arrived with Langdon’s clam chowder and beers. I thanked her. Langdon switched his interest to the server briefly, nodded and offered a small grunt—a true gentleman. The waitress nodded at me and quickly moved away.
“Well?” I asked, as the cop prepared and then tasted his chowder. Mia was quiet—my message—like a swift kick in the shins—had been received. She was perceptive enough to know that we could not let Langdon in on that particular loop just yet; maybe ever.
Langdon’s Condition