Killing Floor

Judy nodded. Looked pretty blank.

“How long did you know Sherman?” Roscoe asked.

“About four years, I guess,” Judy said. “Met him in Florida, where I lived. Came up here to be with him four years ago. Lived up here ever since.”

“What was Sherman’s job?” Roscoe asked.

Judy shrugged miserably.

“He was a truck driver,” she said. “He got some kind of a big driving contract up here. Supposed to be long-term, you know? So we bought a little place. His folks moved in too. Lived with us for a while. Then we moved out here. Left his folks in the old house. He made good money for three years. Busy all the time. Then it stopped, a year ago. He hardly worked at all since. Just an odd day, now and then.”

“You own both the houses?” Roscoe said.

“I don’t own a damn thing,” Judy said. “Sherman owned the houses. Yes, both of them.”

“So he was doing well for the first three years?” Roscoe asked her.

Judy gave her a look.

“Doing well?” she said. “Grow up, for God’s sake. He was a thief. He was ripping somebody off.”

“You sure?” I said.

Judy swung her gaze my way. Like an artillery piece traversing.

“It don’t need much brains to figure it out,” she said. “In three years he paid cash for two houses, two lots of furniture, cars, God knows what. And this place wasn’t cheap, either. We got lawyers and doctors and all sorts living here. And he had enough saved so he didn’t have to work at all since last September. If he did all that on the level, then I’m the First Lady, right?”

She was giving us a defiant stare. She’d known about it all along. She’d known what would happen when he was found out. She was challenging us to deny her the right to blame him.

“Who was his big contract with?” Roscoe asked her.

“Some outfit called Island Air-conditioning,” she said. “He spent three years hauling air conditioners. Taking them down to Florida. Maybe they went on to the islands, I don’t know. He used to steal them. There’s two old boxes in the garage right now. Want to see?”

She didn’t wait for a reply. Just jumped up and stalked out. We followed. We all went down some back stairs and through a basement door. Into a garage. It was empty except for a couple of old cartons dumped against a wall. Cardboard cartons, could have been a year or two old. Marked with a manufacturer’s logo. Island Air-conditioning, Inc. This End Up. The sealing tape was torn and hanging off. Each box had a long serial number written on by hand. Each box must have held a single unit. The sort you jam in your window frame, makes a hell of a noise. Judy glared at the boxes and glared at us. It was a glare which said: I gave him a gold watch and he gave me a shitload of worry.

I walked over and looked at the cartons. They were empty. I smelled a faint, sour odor in them. Then we went back upstairs. Judy got an album out of a cupboard. Sat and looked at a photograph of Sherman.

“What happened to him?” she asked.

It was a simple question. Deserved a simple answer.

“He was shot in the head,” I lied. “Died instantly.”

Judy nodded. Like she wasn’t surprised.

“When?” she asked.

“On Thursday night,” Roscoe told her. “At midnight. Did he say where he was going on Thursday night?”

Judy shook her head.

“He never told me much,” she said.

“Did he ever mention meeting an investigator?” Roscoe asked.

Judy shook her head again.

“What about Pluribus?” I asked her. “Did he ever use that word?”

She looked blank.

“Is that a disease?” she said. “Lungs or something?”

“What about Sunday?” I said. “This Sunday coming? Did he ever say anything about that?”

“No,” Judy said. “He never said much about anything.”

She sat and stared at the photographs in the album. The room was quiet.

“Did he know any lawyers in Florida?” Roscoe asked her.

“Lawyers?” Judy said. “In Florida? Why should he?”

“He was arrested in Jacksonville,” Roscoe said. “Two years ago. It was a traffic violation in his truck. A lawyer came to help him out.”

Judy shrugged, like two years ago was ancient history to her.

“There are lawyers sniffing everywhere, right?” she said. “No big deal.”

“This guy wasn’t an ambulance-chaser,” Roscoe said. “He was a partner in a big firm down there. Any idea how Sherman could have gotten hold of him?”

Judy shrugged again.

“Maybe his employer did it,” she said. “Island Air-conditioning. They gave us good medical insurance. Sherman let me go to the doctor, any old time I needed to.”

We all went quiet. Nothing more to say. Judy sat and gazed at the photographs in the album.

“Want to see his picture?” she said.

I walked around behind her chair and bent to look at the photograph. It showed a sandy, rat-faced man. Small, slight, with a grin. He was standing in front of a yellow panel van. Gri

“That’s the truck he drove,” Judy said.

But I wasn’t looking at the truck or Sherman Stoller’s poignant grin. I was looking at a figure in the background of the picture. It was out of focus and turned half away from the camera, but I could make out who it was. It was Paul Hubble.

I waved Roscoe over and she bent beside me and looked at the photograph. I saw a wave of surprise pass over her face as she recognized Hubble. Then she bent closer. Looked harder. I saw a second wave of surprise. She had recognized something else.

“When was this picture taken?” she asked.

Judy shrugged.

“Summer last year, I guess,” she said.

Roscoe touched the blurred image of Hubble with her fingernail.

“Did Sherman say who this guy was?”

“The new boss,” Judy said. “He was there six months, then he fired Sherman’s ass.”

“Island Air-conditioning’s new boss?” Roscoe said. “Was there a reason he laid Sherman off?”

“Sherman said they didn’t need him no more,” Judy said. “He never said much.”

“Is this where Island Air-conditioning is based?” Roscoe asked. “Where this picture was taken?”

Judy shrugged and nodded her head, tentatively.

“I guess so,” she said. “Sherman never told me much about it.”

“We need to keep this photograph,” Roscoe told her. “We’ll let you have it back later.”

Judy fished it out of the plastic. Handed it to her.

“Keep it,” she said. “I don’t want it.”

Roscoe took the picture and put it in her inside jacket pocket. She and I moved back to the middle of the room and stood there.

“Shot in the head,” Judy said. “That’s what happens when you mess around. I told him they’d catch up with him, sooner or later.”

Roscoe nodded sympathetically.

“We’ll keep in touch,” she said to her. “You know, the funeral arrangements, and we might want a statement.”

Judy glared at us again.

“Don’t bother,” she said. “I’m not going to his funeral. I wasn’t his wife, so I’m not his widow. I’m going to forget I ever knew him. That man was trouble from begi

She stood there glaring at us. We shuffled out, down the hall, out through the door. Across the awkward path. We held hands as we walked back to the car.

“What?” I asked her. “What’s in the photograph?”

She was walking fast.

“Wait,” she said. “I’ll show you in the car.”