The basement was as wrecked as the living room. Moving boxes and old pieces of luggage had been sliced open, their contents spread out on the concrete. But that wasn’t what drew our attention. Somebody—Kelsto, presumably—had turned a section of the room into an approximation of the stage at the Komedy Krush. That’s where we found his body, seated on a director’s chair in front of a fake-brick façade, a few feet from what seemed to be a real standing microphone and a real Minicam attached to a tall tripod. A bright baby spotlight, amateurishly affixed to the basement ceiling, gave us a too-clear picture of his condition.
He was naked except for his candy-cane-striped shorts. His head slumped forward, his dead, glazed, bulging eyes seemingly staring at his bare feet. From wrists to elbows, he was duct-taped to the arms of the chair. A grayish cloth was stuffed in his mouth. Someone had used his body as an ashtray. The burn marks were particularly livid against his pale, dead flesh.
They’d used cigars. The stale smoke smell was not quite overpowered by the combined stench of burned flesh and excrement. There were ashes on the cement floor but no cigar butts. I wondered if it was possible to find DNA on ash. Probably not.
“Gotta get out of here,” Carrie said, rushing for the stairs.
I was just as anxious to leave but paused to take a quick scan of the basement. More emptied boxes and tossed books.
And his cellphone. Resting near rumpled pants, shirt, and pink high-top canvas shoes.
Look at it or not?
Not, I decided. Leave it as is for the cops.
Carrie was standing at the top of the stairs, frozen. When she saw me, she put a finger to her lips.
I heard it, too.
Someone on the front porch was humming a tune that sounded like “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” There was the distinct click of a key going into the lock.
I pointed to the dining room, and we crept there and continued creeping through the kitchen and storeroom and out the rear door, which I eased shut.
Taking the lead, I moved slowly along the side path.
Whoever had been on the front porch was now inside the house. Judging by the sound of her voice, it was a woman. We were within a few feet of the front gate when she exclaimed, “Oh, my dear sweet Jesus!” which meant she’d just seen the mess the house was in.
Wait till she gets a load of Kelsto, I thought.
I stopped Carrie from opening the gate and causing a screeching noise loud enough to wake the … bad metaphor.
By lifting the gate on its hinge and moving it very carefully, I was able to open it enough for us to squeeze through.
We were all the way to Wells Street when I realized we’d have to go back.
“Go back? Are you crazy?”
“We … didn’t clean up,” I said. “We left fingerprints.”
“Forget it. I’m not going back.”
“You and I are on a murdered man’s—no, make that on two murdered men’s—blackmail lists. Maybe there’s no evidence of that lying around for the cops to find. And maybe they won’t find your prints on the sill of a half-open window. But that’s a bet with bad odds.”
“How does going back help?”
I explained my plan.
The woman who answered the doorbell at Kelsto’s was tall, fit, and in her fifties, skin the color of caramel, hair wiry and black with streaks of gray. She’d exercised caution, keeping the door locked until, peeking out through the tiny glass panes, she was able to verify that I was “the guy from the morning show.”
She opened the door.
“Hi,” I said. “We’re here to see Larry.”
“Uh … I don’t think … I clean for Mr. Kelsto and Mr. Parkins. They’re not home.”
“Well, I’m sure Larry’ll be here shortly,” I said, stepping into the hall. “He’s expecting us.”
“Thing is … something’s not right here,” she said, forehead wrinkled in concern. “I come in once a week to clean, and sometimes, if they have themselves a party, it’ll be a mess. But this is … Something’s not right.”
She gestured toward the entrance to the living room. Carrie and I looked in on the disorder that hadn’t changed in the last few minutes. “Holy mackerel,” I said, hoping it sounded more sincere to the housekeeper than it did to me.
“This is just terrible,” Carrie said with impressive conviction. But she was a professional liar. She bent down to fondle a few items. “It looks like there’s been a robbery.”
I touched some stuff, too, making sure the housekeeper noticed. “It does look like a robbery. Maybe the police should be notified.”
That panicked the housekeeper. “I don’t want any business with the po-leese. ’Sides, could be the boys did this.”
“Cut up their cushions and throw pillows? Pried the back off the TV?” Carrie asked.
The housekeeper was blinking now, edging toward the hall. Getting ready to scamper?
I quickly joined her, took her hand, and said, “Any robbers would be long gone by now. And we’re here to keep you company. You know my name. I’m Billy. That’s Carrie. And you’re …?”
“Josepha Davis. Josie.”
“Well, Josie, it might be a good idea if you did call the police.”
She shook her head and pulled back her hand. “No. No po-leese. I’ll just clean best I can, and the boys can do what they want about the po-leese when they get here.”
Carrie and I exchanged looks. My great plan wouldn’t work unless she called the cops.
“Maybe you should phone the boys, Josie,” Carrie said.
The housekeeper was amenable to that. “I’ll go get my phone,” she said, and left the room.
I nodded to Carrie, and we took off to the kitchen, where she began wiping the window and sill with a silk neckerchief. Using my handkerchief, I lowered the window and locked it. Then I ran to the back door and gave that a hearty wipe-down.
We returned to the living room to await the next event.
It came in the form of Kelsto’s laughter ringtone.
A few beats after it stopped, Josie joined us, saying, “I couldn’t get through to either of ’em. You say Mr. Kelsto’s supposed to be meeting you here?”
“That was the plan when we talked yesterday,” I said.
“Then he’ll know what to do when he gets here.”
Carrie was looking at me anxiously. “He’s not answering his phone, huh?” she said.
“No. He left it here,” the housekeeper said. “It’s got this sound of folks laughing. I could hear it after I dialed him.”
“I thought I heard laughter,” Carrie said. “But it sounded far off.”
“Basement, I think,” Josie said.
Carrie and I stared at each other. Josie seemed like a nice enough person. I didn’t feel right about setting her up for the shock of her life. But I supposed she’d eventually have gone down to the basement on her own. In any case, Carrie barely hesitated.
“The basement’s a funny place to leave your phone,” she said.
“Mr. Kelsto uses the basement to practice his comedy,” Josie said. “He probably jus’ put it down and forgot it.”
Carrie frowned. “I don’t know … The condition of this room … Robbers … Larry not being here for our meeting … His phone down in the basement …”
Josie was frowning, too. “I guess I better …” She gave me a pleading look.
“We’ll go down with you.”
That’s me, pillar of compassion.
I positioned myself to block most of Josie’s view, but she’d seen enough. “Oh. JesusMaryJoseph,” she mumbled. “He’s dead, idden he?”
I nodded, and she began to weep.
I helped her back upstairs, straightened a chair in the dining room, and sat her on it. Carrie brought her a glass of water from the kitchen and a towelette to dry her eyes.
She took a long drink of water, almost choked on it, then pushed the glass away. She started to rise. “I got to do … call somebody … an ambulance …”
I put my hand on her shoulder and kept her on the chair.
“You just sit here, Josie,” I said. “I’ll make the call.”