Sugartown by Loren D. Estleman Read Free Book Online Page B

tube out of an inside pocket and broke out a greenish cigar without a band, went through the ritual of passing it under his nose and licking the seam and never did light the thing.
    “Stash is a remarkable man,” he said in a low voice. “He fought the Bolsheviks, you know. There’s Cossack in him and the Lord God knows what else. He speaks six languages and could have been a fine writer in any of them if he didn’t insist on translating the work of men of lesser talent. He worked until he was past eighty. Lately, though, his mind—” He waved the cigar. “He has no family. When he says he’ll be here to greet the wreckers he means it. There are some good nursing homes up north; as the one closest to him I can go to court and sign the papers. He’ll have clean quarters and round-the-clock care and even a counterfeit of love, plastic smiles and girls one-fourth his age who will call him by his first name in tones the rest of us reserve for dogs and children.” He smiled in his beard with his sad eyes on the expensive unlit cigar. “I’ll miss our talks.”
    “Where do you preach?” Mayk asked.
    “Immaculate Conception.”
    “Oh.”
    “Yes.” The sad smile was unchanged. “Some of the parishioners feel we will save it yet. I admire their faith. At election time the politicians all have their pictures taken going to church. I haven’t seen them since the condemnation papers came. I regard this as a sign.”
    “I was asking Mr. Leposava about the Evancek shooting across the street,” I said.
    He nodded, licked the cigar. “Yes, there was some gossip about it when I came here from Our Lady in Boston. It was before my assignment.”
    I asked him about the Nortons. He didn’t know anyone by that name. We thanked him for coming.
    “Thank you for calling me. Though I would rather it were anyone else.”
    Mayk and I got out of there. On the porch, the ex-dick filled his lungs with a long draught. “Next time you be bad cop.”
    “What do you think of Leposava’s story?” I asked.
    “I think he’s an old guy that once he gets his choppers into something won’t let go if you hit him in the head with a trombone.”
    “What was the sequence of those shots?”
    He shook his head. “We never got two people to agree on that.”
    “You nearly had me,” I said. “It was a sweet act.”
    “I just sort of slipped into it.”
    We started down the walk.
    “Witnesses can be wrong,” I said. “Even six of them.”
    “Don’t I know it. My last year with the department we trashed a guy on an attempted six-two-seven. Eight people who were in the bar when this steelworker bought a thirty-eight slug in the neck ID’d our man from the book and nailed him in the lineup. Then the steelworker came out of his coma and took one look at the mug and said, hell no, that ain’t him. Detroit snagged the right fish for CCW a week later and he spilled his guts under questioning. But that was different.”
    “Yeah, the victim was still breathing.”
    He stopped walking and turned toward me. The Stanislauses’ porch light was off now and we were beyond reach of the glow through Leposava’s window. But I felt Mayk’s cop’s-eyes on me in the shadows.
    “It isn’t like that,” he said. “We don’t tie up a case the soft way just because there’s nobody left to raise a squawk. Once you get enough dots strung together to see the trunk you don’t need to connect the rest to know it’s a picture of an elephant. The only mystery in these domestic beefs is who gets stuck with the report.”
    We didn’t say anything in the Bronco during the demolition drive back to his place. There was a light on in the house when we swung into the driveway and stopped behind a battered blue Pinto with panic stripes on the rear panel.
    “My wife.” He killed his headlamps. “Uses a fork to fish a piece of toast out of a live toaster and she’s scared a truck will rear-end her and flame her out on the E-way.”
    “You’ve got to