Oops! (Alo Nudger Book 10) Read online

  Books by John Lutz

  Lazarus Man

  Jericho Man

  The Shadow Man

  The Alo Nudger series

  Buyer Beware

  Nightlines

  The Right to Sing the Blues

  Ride the Lightning

  Dancer’s Debt

  Time Exposure

  Diamond Eyes

  Thicker Than Blood

  Death By Jury

  Oops!

  SPEAKING VOLUMES, LLC

  NAPLES, FLORIDA

  2016

  OOPS!

  Copyright © 1998 by John Lutz

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  9781628155389

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  FOR ELLIOTT

  Looking the right way while going the wrong way

  Chapter One

  What I want you to do,” she said, “is climb in through my bedroom window wearing dark clothes and a ski mask, like a real burglar, then I’ll seduce you and you’ll spend the night.”

  Nudger was astounded. “Uh, no, I think I’ll pass.” He took a long sip of iced tea. “Did I hear you right?”

  “Sure,” said Lacy Tumulty. She was an attractive, dark-haired woman in her early thirties. Her eyes were brown, her mouth wide and mobile, with large, perfect white teeth. Her petite yet muscular build, her shaggy hairdo, and the way she habitually cocked her head to the side when she talked reminded Nudger of wire-haired terriers he had known.

  “I’m not a burglar,” Nudger said, rather defensively. “Not even a pretend one.” He didn’t know quite what to say about the second part of her proposition.

  “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “What I have in mind is a fantasy thing. I’ll pretend to be asleep, but I’ll be watching you and—”

  “Wait! Stop!” Nudger held up both hands, palms out. “We’re not going to do this, Lacy.”

  She cocked her head to the side and stared at him in amiable confusion. “Why not?”

  “I don’t even want to discuss it. This is supposed to be a business meeting. Besides, I’m ... attached.”

  Lacy raised her eyebrows. “Married again? You?”

  “Not married. Attached.”

  Lacy sat back in her chair. They were in Tippin’s restaurant on Watson Road, a ten-minute drive from Nudger’s office. She was seated with her back to a wide window that looked out on a parking area and some sort of medical facility with elderly people coming and going. Nudger was only in his mid-forties, but sitting here with Lacy, he felt elderly himself.

  “I’m still involved with Claudia Bettencourt,” he said.

  “Ah, that one!” Lacy nodded vigorously. “Well, good for you. And for her. I remember meeting her a couple of times. I liked her. But you know, maybe she wouldn’t mind what she wouldn’t find out. I’ve always known you kind of like me in that way, Nudger.”

  “Not quite in that way,” Nudger said. “You’re not much older than some of my ties. You could be my daughter.”

  Lacy sipped her diet cola then shook her head. “DNA would prove otherwise, even if my mother had no alibi.” She grinned and shoved away her half-eaten chicken-salad sandwich. “You do realize all I’m suggesting here is a kind of harmless foreplay. You afraid I’m going to double-cross you for some reason and have you arrested for burglary and rape?”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “Then you really are one of those faithful guys?”

  “ ’Fraid so.” For an unguarded moment Nudger did speculate as he looked across the table at the young and burstingly healthy Lacy. He did like her, though not in that way. They were in the same line of work. Lacy had started with a downtown security firm, and last year had begun her own private investigation business. They had bumped into each other several times, and gone to lunch once when Lacy was working up her nerve to go into business on her own. Nudger hadn’t painted a very attractive picture of the self-employed private investigator. Lacy hadn’t been discouraged. In fact, she hadn’t seemed to be paying much attention to him. Hmm, maybe she’d been interested in him in a way he hadn’t suspected. Nudger couldn’t help feeling flattered. He took another sip of his tea, tilting back his head and causing ice cubes to shift in the glass and bump his nose. “You need to be careful about who you make those kinds of propositions to,” he said.

  “Oh, I am careful.”

  “Then you’ve changed. I’ve never known you to be careful about anything. Which means that one of these days you might trust some guy who really does steal from you and rape you. Or worse.”

  “I doubt that. I’m a shrewd judge of people.”

  “But anyone can be wrong about anyone else. That’s why we get clients. And you seem to be doing well, Lacy. That’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “Yes. When you’re doing well, that’s just when you’re strutting along, maybe even enjoying tempting fate, and then Oops!—you slip on a banana peel. Life works like that, with a wink and a bruise.”

  “You’re no banana peel, Nudger.”

  “Business,” he reminded her. “On the phone you said you had a business proposition for me. And since your fantasy is erotic burglary and not prostitution ...”

  “Maybe some other time, prostitution,” Lacy said thoughtfully. “Does Claudia know she’s a lucky woman?”

  Nudger sometimes wondered, but he said that yes, Claudia knew.

  Lacy sat up straighter, her wide mouth set in a serious arc. Obviously, small talk had ended. “So here’s the business deal, Nudger. A man named Loren Almer hired me last week to investigate his daughter’s allegedly accidental death.”

  “There’s that troublesome A word.”

  “Almer? Accidental?”

  “ ’Allegedly,’ ” Nudger said wearily.

  “Yep. Almer thinks she was murdered. He wants me to find proof.”

  Nudger was uneasy. He tried to stay away from murder cases. They made him afraid. They made his nervous stomach a fiery furnace. Murder was one of the most contagious of crimes and could become personal in a hurry. “Do the cops think the daughter was murdered? Are they investigating?”

  Lacy made a backhand motion of dismissal. “Screw the cops, Nudger. They say it was accidental death, and they’re investigating nothing.�
��

  “How’d it happen?”

  “Betty Almer—that’s the daughter—fell down the basement steps of her house and fractured her skull on the concrete floor.”

  “Who else was in the house?”

  “Nobody. And it was locked from the inside. It looks like Betty got out of bed in the middle of the night, probably to check on her furnace, and took a tumble.”

  “Why her furnace?”

  “It had been acting up. She’d mentioned that to her father and her fiance.”

  “Fiancé?”

  “Guy named Brad Millman. Part owner of a company that installs swimming pools. He and Betty Almer were going to be married in the spring.”

  “Were they living together?”

  “No, he’s got an apartment on a lease out near the airport. Betty lived alone and died alone. Supposedly.”

  “What, other than that she was locked inside the house, makes the police call her death an accident?” Nudger asked.

  Lacy cocked her head and stared at him as if he might be insane. Just like a terrier when Nudger had tossed a stick and actually expected a member of another species to run fetch it. Where was the logic in that? “Why, there’s no sign of foul play,” Lacy said.

  Nudger thought there must be something he was missing. “Then why does Almer think his daughter was murdered?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Didn’t you ask?”

  “Not specifically,” Lacy said. “I don’t care why. He hired me to prove it was murder, and I told him I’d look into the possibility. You know ... see if she had any enemies, owed anyone money. That kinda thing.”

  Now Nudger was catching on. “And you want to bring me in on the case.”

  “That’s the favor I want to do you,” Lacy said.

  Nudger stared out at the gray sky and the puddles from last night’s storm. Life could change people, make them cynical. Gray, like the weather. “Are you doing nothing but taking this man’s money, Lacy?”

  “Don’t think that, Nudger. The reason I want to split the fee with you is because I know you’ll do a thorough job.”

  “Even if you know it’ll lead nowhere. A woman in a locked house tripped and fell down the steps and died. That seems pretty straightforward. Had to be an accident.”

  “I figure her father’s got a right to have that confirmed. But I honestly don’t have time to do the legwork right now.”

  “And you didn’t want to turn down business.”

  “Right,” she said. “I thought of you right away.”

  Coming in your bedroom window, Nudger mused.

  “I appreciate you considering me,” he said, “but no thanks this time.”

  She gave him her wide, bright smile. He knew how she thought she could convince anyone of anything. She was 90 percent right. “C’mon, Nudger. I’d do it if I could, but I’ve got this divorce case that’s taking up all my hours. Just me sitting all alone on stakeout in my car with my Porta Potti. And the husband kind of likes me.”

  “You’re frightening, Lacy.”

  “Do it for me as a favor, please. I know you can use the money.”

  She was right about that. Bills were unpaid, and Nudger’s former wife Eileen was stalking him with her lawyer, the despicable Henry Mercato. They were haunting the periphery of his life, threatening to haul him back into court, squeeze him for more alimony. He could indeed use the money. And he certainly had the time. Too much time.

  He sighed. “Okay, send me the Almer file. I can give it a few days.”

  Lacy’s dark eyes glowed and her smile seemed about to fly from her face. “You’re a wonderful guy, Nudger!”

  “Sure. That’s why you chose me to be your burglar.”

  “Right on the mark,” she said, standing and drawing a yellow file folder from the briefcase she’d set on the floor by her chair. “I don’t have to send you the file. I brought it with me.”

  “You’re always sure of yourself,” Nudger said.

  “You should be sure of me, too.” She leaned over the table and kissed him on the cheek. “Give me a call when you find out anything,” she said as she walked away.

  “If I find out anything,” he called after her.

  He watched her walk from the restaurant, still worrying about her. She was smart and resourceful, and considering she only weighed about 110 pounds, she could take care of herself physically. But she was ungodly daring and overconfident, which could lead to catastrophe. To Lacy it was a given that she was a step ahead of the other guy, which wasn’t always true.

  The waitress approached the table and gave the check to Nudger.

  Chapter Two

  Nudger had phoned ahead, so when he walked through the Third District station house the next morning, the desk sergeant didn’t try to stop him but merely nodded hello.

  The station house on the corner of Tucker and Lynch was a low, brick building with a tiled floor, always full of echoes. Today the usual smell of sweat and desperation was disguised by the scent of what might be insecticide or a strong cleaning solvent. Whatever it was, it stung Nudger’s nose and made his stomach queasy. Someone back in the holdover cells was singing what sounded like a hymn with unintelligible words. Three plainclothes detectives at the door to the Squad Room were huddled with their heads close together, comparing notes. A phone was ringing over and over. Somewhere a police radio was transmitting a static-filled, metallic voice as cars were directed over the crime-plagued grid of city streets. Police world. Nudger didn’t miss it.

  St. Louis Police lieutenant Jack Hammersmith’s office door was open, so Nudger gave a perfunctory knock on the doorjamb and entered. He shut the door behind him, blocking most of the noise, most of the past.

  Hammersmith, an obese man with receding white hair, slate-gray eyes, and a pale, smooth complexion, was seated behind his desk, the phone pressed to his ear. His clean-shaven jowls spilled over his collar and jiggled as he talked. He smelled like too much Old Spice aftershave, which was better than the insecticide smell out in the hall.

  “Sure, sure,” he was saying into the phone, not breaking cadence with his conversation as he glanced at Nudger and nodded a greeting. “Sure, sure. I got yours, too.” He hung up abruptly. Just like Hammersmith to do that. He had a thing about always being the one to break off a phone conversation and hang up. Some kind of control fixation, Nudger figured. And it manifested itself sometimes in other ways.

  “Have a seat, Nudger,” Hammersmith said, gesturing with a flesh-padded hand toward the hard oak chair in front of his desk. Nudger knew the uncomfortable chair had been chosen for the office deliberately; Hammersmith had no time to waste and didn’t like visitors staying longer than was necessary.

  As Nudger sat, Hammersmith floated his fleshy hand up to the foul green cigars aligned in his shirt pocket like cellophane-wrapped missiles ready to be launched. He merely touched the tips of the cigars. He wasn’t going to light one now, but he might, if Nudger outstayed his welcome. He just might. They both knew what the noxious cigars could do to Nudger’s delicate stomach.

  “I got the information you asked about,” Hammersmith said, opening a file folder much like the one Lacy Tumulty had given Nudger yesterday in the restaurant. “A tumble down the steps and fatal bump on the head. I don’t see what’s to investigate here. “ho’s your client?”

  “The dead woman’s father.”

  “Father, huh? I suppose he has reason to suspect his daughter’s death wasn’t an accident.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “You sure it’s not just one of those deals where the family can’t cope with the death, can’t accept reality yet?”

  “I’m not sure of anything,” Nudger said.

  “Well, you never were, Nudge.” Hammersmith put on a dainty pair of rimless reading glasses and gazed down at the open folder on his desk. “Betty Almer, single white female, thirty-three years old, apparently got up in the middle of the night and tripped down the basement stairs, fractured he
r skull. Broke a wrist, too, on the way down, according to the autopsy.”

  “Why was there an autopsy?” Nudger asked.

  Hammersmith squinted at him from behind the rimless lenses. “The father—Loren Almer, it says here—requested it. But there was nothing suspicious, according to the ME.” Hammersmith flipped a page and continued to read. “House was locked from the inside. The father found the body himself. Betty Almer didn’t meet him for breakfast that morning at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House as planned, didn’t answer her phone, so he went to find out why. He let himself in with his key. Found out why. I love those German pancakes at Uncle Bill’s, but I’ve gotta watch my weight.”

  “Police question the father?”

  “Sure. Nothing suspicious about him, any more than there was about the daughter’s death. He was grief-stricken, according to the report. Need his address and phone number?”

  “I’ve already got them,” Nudger said.

  Hammersmith glanced at his wristwatch. It was silver and had military time marked in red beneath the numerals. “Pancakes for lunch, I don’t guess they’d be any worse than pasta.”

  “Calories are calories,” Nudger agreed.

  Hammersmith gazed at the folder’s contents again. “We talked to her fiance, too. Fella named Brad Millman. He didn’t seem to care about the autopsy one way or the other. Seemed as upset as you might imagine, but also seemed to accept Betty Almer’s death as a tragic accident. As a matter of routine, we questioned the dead woman’s friends and employer. There was no suggestion of odd behavior by her or anyone else during the days leading up to her death, no mention of any enemies. She was happy about her impending marriage, happy about life. No suicide here, no murder. An accident. We went over the house thoroughly, Nudge. Not only were the doors locked, but so were the windows.”

  “Deadbolt locks on the doors?”

  “On both the front and back doors. Also chain locks. Betty Almer took the precautions of a woman living alone. Nobody could have gotten in and then left the house and locked the doors behind them. Or the windows.”