Free The Witchfinder by Loren D. Estleman Page A

the building and the construction crew was packing up, leaving the excavation open and the underground telephone cable exposed. I only noted it because it’s a detective’s job to observe and remember.

Eight
    “H I, THIS IS N ATE M ILLENDER. If it’s paying work, leave a message. If it’s going to cost me, keep trying, you never can tell. Well, you know this shit.’’
    I waited for the beep, introduced myself, and said, “Randy Quarrels says you’re the best man in town for the job I’ve got in mind.” I added that I was on an expense account and left my number at the office.
    A kid in clown pants and a ball cap back to front, with an electronic beeper clipped to his belt, saw me break the connection and loped toward the telephone. I held up an index finger and dialed the number of the other name I’d gotten from Quarrels. He held up another finger, but hung back. We were standing inside the entrance of a Perry Drugs in downtown Allen Park.
    “Well, spit it out.”
    Here was a voice squeezed from the lungs of someone who went around all hunched over by the chains he had forged in life. Either that or he smoked too much. I put away the Winston I’d been about to light and asked the voice if it belonged to Ulysses Worth.
    “Eulisy.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    He gave me the letters. “My mother couldn’t spell. That’s the closest she got when it came time to fill out the birth certificate. You the guy with the twins?”
    “Not so far as I know.”
    “I’m expecting a guy with twins. He wants their picture taken in matching Red Wings jerseys.”
    “I’m not the guy. Randy Quarrels says you’re the best in the business for what I want.”
    “What do you want?”
    “If I could discuss it over the telephone, we aren’t talking about the same business.”
    “Hey, man, if this is a sting I ain’t worth the cost of the wire. You don’t get any lower in the food chain than Eulisy Worth.”
    “I’m strictly private sector. Not a cop. Not a Fed. I’m not with the Klan or Citizens for a Porn-Free America or Sprint. All I want is your time and I’ll pay for that.”
    “This cash? I mean cash . Nobody signs nothing.”
    I still had my half-empty cigarette pack in my hand. I dumped out the butts and crackled it in front of the mouthpiece. “Nothing else quite sounds like C-notes,” I said. “When can I come out?”
    “Anytime you want, if you don’t mind me working while we talk.”
    “I’m on my way.”
    The kid with the pager looked up from a display of condoms, but I worked the riser and called my service. “Anything yet from a Nate Millender?”
    “No, no messages, Mr. Walker.” The girl sounded genuinely apologetic. She was my favorite that week. I thanked her and hung up.
    The kid watched me slide the cigarettes back into the pack, then swooped in. He was punching buttons as the door wheezed shut behind me. I figured I’d slowed down the city’s drug traffic ten minutes.
    Eulisy Worth lived and worked in one of those small white frame houses with a shared driveway and a screened-in front porch, the kind you see on the news whenever a drive-by shooting takes place or an unemployed auto worker barricades himself in with his family and a gun. They are part of the landscape in a city that at one time boasted the highest percentage of private homeowners of any urban center in the United States, and so common they’re invisible. This one was on Benson, in case it matters. All the lawns were the color of burned rice. A Dodge minivan with a square of cellophane taped over one window was parked in the driveway.
    The screen door was latched. I rapped and waited. After thirty seconds or so I rapped again and pressed my folded handkerchief against the back of my neck. There was evidence the neighborhood had had trees and shade before the city widened the street to drop in a new sewer. Some of the saplings it had planted as an afterthought were still standing. One or two had leaves. Harsh summers and