Chase: Roman

punch.’
        ‘I know,’ Chase said. ‘I've seen it all before.’ He put her in the car and went around, slid behind the wheel.
        This will interest you,’ she said, opening the newspaper she had got from the Karneses’ coffee table.
        ‘What was that all about, by the way?’
        She read the headline. ‘Tavern owner found shot.’
        ‘So?’
        ‘It's Eric Blentz,’ she said. ‘They've got his picture on the front page.’ She handed the paper to him.
        Chase took the paper and read it in the glow of the streetlamp.
        Tell me,’ she said.
        ‘He was shot five times. Twice in the head and three times in the chest, at close range.’
        ‘My God,’ she said. She was shivering, and she reached automatically for a cigarette, which she lighted but did not smoke.
        ‘He was found this afternoon at ten after twelve, by his sister.’
        That's the last evening edition, ‘Glenda said. ‘It just made print, and it must be a small piece.’
        ‘It is. Doesn't say much, except how he was found and where he lived - a town-house apartment on Galasio, out where the old golf course used to be.’
        ‘I know the place,’ she said. ‘Shared walls in the town houses. And no one heard anything at all?’
        ‘No.’
        ‘Leads?’
        ‘None here,’ he said.
        ‘What do you think, Ben?’
        ‘It was Judge,’ Chase said, convinced of it against his own will.
        ‘You can't be positive.’
        ‘But I am. When I left the tavern Saturday afternoon, I was fairly sure Blentz knew the man I'd described, but I couldn't see how to force it out of him. He must have tried to call Judge all Saturday evening while Judge was keeping a stakeout on your apartment. He wouldn't have got hold of him until Sunday afternoon at the earliest, perhaps late Sunday evening. He probably asked Judge to come see him at home this morning, and maybe he hinted about the reasons. He would have had time to realize who I was and to put the bits and pieces together. Maybe he wanted to blackmail Judge. He didn't look as if something like that would go against his grain.’
        She crushed the cigarette in the ashtray. ‘Can't even stand the smell of them burning any more.’
        Chase said, ‘I've been wondering why we haven't been followed or bothered all day. Now I think I know. If Blentz called him yesterday and asked to see him this morning, maybe hinted at the reason, Judge would have been pressed to stay up most of the night making plans. Perhaps the grenade was his last device before he heard from Blentz. Once he killed Blentz, he would have gone straight home to bed to catch up on his sleep. And I think I've read that psychotics sleep like dead dogs after a murder, exhausted by the emotional peak they've reached.’
        ‘If he has slept all day,’ Glenda said, ‘he'll be up and around soon.’
        ‘Yes,’ Chase said. ‘That's why we're going back to your place and locking up until morning. We can't get a list of physics tutors from the high school until nine o'clock or so. We might just as well shut down for the night.’
        ‘I'm for going home,’ she agreed. ‘Being out in the open gives me the chills.’
        ‘You're a nudist, remember? You're used to that sort of thing.’
        ‘Those aren't the kind of chills I mean. Please, Ben, no jokes right now. I want to be taken home and fed some whisky until I fall asleep.’
        ‘It's a deal,’ he said.
        No one followed them away from the house where Mike Karnes had once lived.
        

    Thirteen
        
        Tuesday morning after Glenda called in sick at work for the second day in a row, and after they had finished breakfast, Chase phoned the high school and represented himself as the father of a boy who needed a physics tutor to help sharpen him up for an advance placement test in college physics. The secretary he spoke with was pleasant and helpful. In ten minutes he had the names of four men who were interested in such moonlighting whenever it was available.
        ‘Two of these were on the other list,’ Glenda said. ‘That means it has to be either Monroe Cullins or Richard Linski.’
        ‘Not necessarily,’ Chase said. ‘These may not be the same men the high school was recommending a year ago.’
        ‘We'll know shortly, won't we?’
        He nodded and lifted the telephone again. He dialled Monroe Cullins’ number and